Vault Dweller

by Bromad

Rating: mature
Tags: Other, Changelings, Original Character, Science Fiction, Profanity, Windigos, Adventure, Violence, Crossover, Death, Fallout, Human, Narcotics, Twilight Sparkle, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark
Length: 584283

Nate, Nora, and Shaun take Meathead, a changeling disguised as their dog, to shelter in Vault 111.

Thinking about going above ground? Why bother with irradiated wastelands and roving bands of raiders, when you can have all the comforts and safety of home right beneath your feet? Brought to you by Vault Tec. Industries! We'll Be There!

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A changeling, Meathead, disguises himself as Nate and Nora's dog before the Great War, knowing that his host family will be sojourning to Vault 111 when the bombs eventually fall.

Spoilers in the Comments
(Still working on it)
Woo! Featured 11/7, 21,29, 12/5, 18, 25, 1/26, and Beyond! Every time now I post it makes at least 2nd from the bottom up Featured spot!

Published 2018-10-12 00:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2024-09-16 16:32:31 UTC

Ch. 2 Sanctuary Hills

\111/
October 23, 2287
Sanctuary Hills

Walking into Sanctuary Hills was like a hungover stumble home, neither of them wanted to see or look at what happened to the green trees and painted houses. They needed to pass by the gate checkpoint now covered with a litany of skeletons, one family's fingers curled tightly around the chain-link fence. A wind passed by, nudging the fence and whistling through the mesh.

Nate could hear their pounding fists and confusion, moving past it quickly as Meathead stayed close. The clanging of flesh against metal chain link fences as their voices went hoarse from screaming.

Head darting back and forth, nose to the ground, then the air, short little whines, and nervous yips, before flicking his tail and doing hot laps around Nate. Looking over the bodies, he bounced back to Nate with the holster taken from the Vault-Tec. Security guard gripping in his teeth and Nate needed to look at his dog.

"Meathead, why did you bring me this?"

The dog bobbed his head and stared up at him, breathing through his nose, and then panting out his mouth. The dog only held eye contact for a few seconds and then looked to his left and right. Sensing Nate's eyes still on him, he shook his head and looked back and the confusion was plain on Nate's face. The silence and lack of response turned their moment on the hillside next to the Vault into a despondent moot point as Meathead kept on panting and breathing.

"Just keep talking to the dog, Nate." He said while Meathead wagged his tail. Feeding the belt through the metal tang, he fastened the holster to his waist and slid the ten-millimeter pistol into place.

Meathead ruffed and then barked, turning around and bounding down the trail into Sanctuary Hills. "Meaty, stay close!"

Nate walked much more slowly, remembering how it felt like less than two hours ago, he was running up past the trees. Coming back through them was disorienting, nothing looked the same, and all the bare bones of the decaying trees clung to their few remaining leaves like they were their last hope.

Stepping around a mother and two children's bones, their suitcase laying a few feet away, open with the remains scattered and lost.

He inhaled deeply and whistled for Meathead, the dog running back to him barking the whole way, meeting him on the pavement leading down the culdesac.

"Stay close."

Inhaling, the air smelled different. It was missing the buzz of activity that always permeated a suburban neighborhood. No one was mowing their dead light brown grass. The first house they passed after exiting the trail was completely collapsed, it supports giving out after decades of nature exposure. Cars littered the street, along with litter and junk that's been beaten down and eroded and blown into the streets from houses with doors left open by their previous residents as they tried to flee.

Nate saw his house, staying on the sidewalk he rounded the path to the front door and flinched. His home was different, the panels and siding were still there, the glass was still there for the bay window overlooking the front yard and it was clean. The car in the driveway was rusted and tires flat. He noticed that someone spent the time to wipe it down so it wasn't covered with moss and pollen buildup. The hedges were red and brown and cut into ball shapes. The grass lawn showed divots and holes where weeds were dug out below the roots, making it a patchwork, but weed free lawn. While to his left, the Parker residence was completely collapsed, support beams jutting out through a fallen down roof, no structural integrity left in that building except for the concrete it was built on.

A figure passed the living room window and Nate pulled one arm back on his gun, one foot already ready to bolt. Meathead picked up on Nate instantly and growled, head level as he charged into the front door, only to bolt out a few seconds later and stop right at Nate's side. A large grey floating robot appeared in the door.

\111/

"Master Nate! Oh how I live and breath, it's so wonderful to see you again!" Codsworth floated out into the front yard, two conical eyes tracking, and the third hung loosely, aimed at the ground. "Is it really you?" Codsworth shrugged, hoisting up the third eye for a moment before it flopped back down into place.

"Cosworth? It's you...you survived... you're still here and alive. Everything else is..." Nate reached out, wrapping one arm around Meathead's neck and head, bringing him in closer while petting his fur back.

"Where is Mistress Nora and Master Shaun? They don't appear to be with you and your voice indicates high levels of stress."

Nate's chest tightened, "Cut right through, Codsworth. While we were in the Vault, someone shot Nora. And they kidnapped Shaun." Nate's eye's watered, and he blinked through it.

"Oh dear heaven's, I'll notify the local authorities immediately! No signal detected...Retrying...retrying...No signal detected. Master Nate! I'm afraid the local authorities are indisposed with other matters or our distress signal is not being received at the local Concord station."

Nate's shoulders shuddered, "'Course not." he said to himself "I'm going to find Shaun and I'm taking Meathead."

"Ah, the trusty companion, Meathead. How are you, pooch?" The German Shepard yawned and rolled to his side, laying out in the dirt and grass. Nate smiled as the robot butler lead the way down the sidewalk. "How long has it been since I last saw you, Codsworth?"

"Oh, it's been a full minute, I'd say two hundred, nine years and nine months. Give or take a few dings to my ole chronometer. Obtrusive wasp nests in my chassis that took a year to flush out notwithstanding." Nate's legs wrapped tightly around each other to try and preserve body heat.

" Are you...okay?" How he wished someone would ask that of him. Codsworth's metal frame groaned, unloading a backlog of built up grievances.

"Master Nate! It's been horrible! Two centuries with no one to serve! No one to talk to! For the first ten years, I tried busying myself with trying to keep the floors waxed! But it was such a fruitless effort because nothing removes nuclear fallout from the vinyl wood or upholstery, Nothing! I tried keeping the car fixed, but the wheels rotted away and the exterior rusted! You can't polish rust! Don't get me even started on the dusting! Do you know how hard it is to dust a shuddered house?"

"Codsworth, the house looks great even though we were gone for g..tch..." He exhaled. "Two hundred and ten years. Thank you. I wasn't expecting to see anyone, let alone you. I thought my house was going to look like every other one on the block." Nate said, sweeping his arm around. "What do you know?"

"Oh, sir! I...I don't know if you meant the entirety of my existence from when you and Nora purchased me at General Atomics Galleria, my entire production line material spec data, or from the moment your family left."

"What happened after the bombs fell?"

"I don't know, I was temporarily put into safety mode by a distress signal sent from General Atomics Headquarters, and then when I awoke, everyone was gone. I was alone. I thought for certain you and your family were dead. I puttered around for a few years, I found this holotape from the missus. I believe it was to be a surprise for you after your return home after being discharged. But, ah...everything happened so quickly."

"What's on it?"

"I believe it was a private message between the Missus and you, and my etiquette protocols would never allow me to play that for myself."

Codsworth extended his arm and claw with the holotape grasped lightly on the orange and white holotape.

"Thank you, Codsworth." Nate said, holding the holotape in his right hand. Curling his fingers around it, he held it at his side.

"Just about any tape player should be able to suit your needs for listening to that holotape..." Codsworth's low hanging third eye rolled upwards at an angle that strained the hydraulics for a moment. "Like that Pip-boy on your arm there! Good old Rob-Co & Affiliates!" Nate's Pip-boy buzzed, blinking green lights and checklists scrolled upwards. Taking a moment to glance down at the screen, different lines lit up and went dim. "Talk to Codsworth... Search Neighborhood with Codsworth...Does this thing do this automatically?"

"Standard Personal Information Processor model 3000 mark IV, synchs with your nervous system and cardiovascular system and monitors the tiny electric impulses a human might have to take a note, and follows the nerves to the corresponding actions a human would have to take to write the note to find out which letters the human would want to construct into a sentence, then copies that electric data and runs it through an algorithm generator to best match words and sentence structure, and finally the end product is turned into a readable format on your Pip-boy screen."

"So yes. Automatic thoughts to text." Nate said, trying to simplify things for himself.

"Well, enough feeling sorry for this bucket of useless information, shall we go explore the neighborhood? Shaun and his kidnappers may turn up?" He proposed.

"Have any people come through recently?"

"No, individual people come through here on an average of one every thirteen years, groups of two or more come through here on an average of sixty-six point seven years. No group stays longer than two days. The local mosquito and dog population has remained in small flux but is gradually increasing."

"How many?" Nate asked, casting a sidelong glance down the culdesac, he couldn't hear any dogs or see any signs of them.

"Well, the mosquito's bred like mutated rabbits before the bombs fell, now they just breed like rabbits in terms of number and physical size. The metaphor, not the actual mutated rabbit."

Nate's toes and knees clenched up, "Mosquito's the size of rabbits? Oh God Damn." His teeth chattered, "I couldn't stand them before. Is my bat still in the laundry room?"

\111/

One step inside their house and Nate stopped the moment he crossed the threshold.

He was only here less than two hours ago, and everything looked like it was sunbleached and put through the washer five thousand times.

"Oh." He said, feeling his head sway from the distortion. His Grognak the Barbarian Comic still sat on the counter, and his coffee cup where he set it, only there was a dried up brown ring coating the inside. Nora's coffee mug as well as on the coffee table next to the couch. He took one step in and felt his head swell to the size of a watermelon before he even realized he was standing in the hallway leading to bedrooms. One look into Shaun's room, and then his own and he was laying flat on the floor of the hallway.

Paralyzed. His face was locked in a scream, but no sound was coming out. Nate thought he was screaming so loud, that the walls would shake and collapse the house around him, but he was gagging and choking on the shock. His arms felt like he'd shoved them into a bucket full of sea urchins, lances of hollow point needles burrowing into his flesh. When the sound finally came, it was loud. Intensely loud. He was laying there in the hallway, screaming at his entire world that was melting away from around him.

Nothing. He thought. It was all gone.

Meathead bounded up to him and licked his face, pawing at his chest, he didn't move for ten minutes.

Then he reached out and stroked the dog's brown and black fur and Meathead curled up against him, whimpering softly for his master.

\111/

They moved as a trio into the neighbor's faded greenhouse and Nate's heart pounded, he didn't even look in his own and his neighbor's house was missing most of the glass windows, dozens of boards fallen and rotten off the house making it easy to look through.

Meathead growled and Nate flicked out his pistol as crunching noises filled the hallway. Two large lumps bore upwards through the carpeting. Two football sized irradiated cockroaches tunneled out of the floor and jumped at the group.

Nate's head pounded, feeling his hand move slower than his eyes, weighing out the statistical probabilities to hitting each body part on the cockroach and mentally counting off the number of rounds he would fire. Meathead jumped on the first one, jaws bared and head snapping back and forth, Meathead bit into the shell. Green inky ichor spilled from the dog's jaws spilling to the ground as three bullets rang out, hitting the roach one in the head, and twice in the shell. The second one twitched and chittered and jumped up onto the ceiling and landed on the ground with a thump. Nate kicked it into the wall with a smack as Codsworth descended down onto the bug with a buzzing rotor saw. The lens were blasted with a coating of sticky green radroach meat, he shook the eye cones and flung away the bits.

\111/

In the driveway of Nate's house, he stood on a small stepladder, Codsworth resting on his metallic arms below him on the ground. Meathead was resting on his haunches, head out and aimed towards the street. A panel was popped open, and a few screwdrivers and wrenches were laid out beside them.

On a blanket was everything Nate picked up along the way, from Henderson’s yellow house next door, he picked the lock to their gun safe and found three handmade pipe pistols, a welded strip of metal curled in a loop for the grip, a .38 revolver cylinder chamber, and around steel pipe bored and screwed into place. It was a garage gun, technically legal, but darn it if it didn’t look like it was about to blow up in someone’s face. He unscrewed and jammed a steel wool q-tip down each barrel and chamber, cleaning out any rust or gunpowder residue. This little neighborhood was packing plenty of ammo and drugs. Two little eightballs of a greyed-power didn’t know the neighbors were keyed so high, with Jet written on it. A needle filled with steroids, marked by the label and remaining letters from Hallicingen Corp., in black sharpie the word ‘Psgcho’.

Refilling his pantry shelves with cans of Cram, Sugar Bombs, Powdered Milk, and cans of purified water, he wasn’t hungry.

"Once I get your eyes back into place, I'll take Meathead and check out the town of Concord. If there's more people or someone who can fill us in on what's happened, then we'll see about 'Ping'..."

Nate jerked his arm out of Codsworth's metal dome and looked at the Pip-Boy on his arm.

"'Check out township of Concord' it wrote down the...the task I thought of. Any way Concord, people, food, water, bed. It's a long day and I feel like it's only going to get longer. Right, Meathead?" The dog thumped his tail against the ground, acknowledging the call out while panting lightly in the morning sun.

"If I may suggest sir, to continue my necessary maintenance, that Master takes a short trip to General Atomics Galleria? There should be the required parts and materials to fix all of me entirely." Codsworth working lens rolled up to Nate.

"Yeah, I'll ah...I'll run out there when I get the chance. Codsworth set wander limit to the entire neighborhood of Sanctuary Hills."

"Acknowledged. Thank you, sir."

Nate fit a wrench around a bolt inside, and heaved backward "Come on 'ou son of a bitch!" The bolt gave away and Nate fell backward off the stepstool and onto the lawn. Codsworth rightmost eye clunked to the ground with three long wires connecting the visual and electronics.

"All right." He said, picking up the eyepiece, still tracking him with small clicks. "Two pieces and you'll be good as new."

Nate picked up a small metal rod attached with a hook and fitted it inside, threading it out to connect with the metal plates keeping the eye cone in place and screwed it onto the bars. Tightening the rod, Codsworth eye returned to its original place, a few degrees lower than his others but it was a fitting replacement that could hardly be noticed with the robot constantly hovering up and down while in action.

"All right Codsworth, that's it. I want you to go through the neighborhood. As of now, everyone in Sanctuary Hills relinquished their property two hundred nine years ago. Anything still salvageable, useful, or that can be considered of value to be scavenged and brought back to the house across the street and separated into different piles. Food, clothing, medical supplies, tools and hardware, books, miscellaneous junk that can be broken down for scrap, weapons, ammo, and lastly trash. Can you do that for me?" Placing two loaded pipe pistols in his back belt waistband, he took thirty rounds and half a box of six shotgun shells.

"Yes, sir."

"Good, If you can, find a broom. Sweep out the leaves and get rid of any ceiling tiles that have fallen down. I expect to come back to a clean house, Codsworth. Can you do that for me?"

"It will be done, sir."

"All right then, we’ll be back soon. Meathead. We're moving out."

Author's Note

Everyone always has Diamond City Radio going on in the background to detract from the abstract horrors of the Commonwealth, right?

Ch. 3 Red Rocket

Author's Note

“Travis Lonely Miles, and this is the great green jewel... Diamond City Radio. It’s the lunch hour, I’ll be taking a short break and letting the music roll for a while. Here’s The Shells with Baby Oh Baby...The Dubs With Could this Be Love...and Earth Angel by The Penguins. Alright, I don’t know much about the rest of the people in the wasteland, but I’m hungry. Donde est la comida? Eh?”

Ch. 3 Red Rocket

\111/

Crossing a wooden plank bridge with two steel barriers on each side over the river that broke and went around Sanctuary Hills, creating a moat. He turned over his shoulder and saw the corner of the billboard above vault 111 advertising registry.

There were two dead bodies on the road, one only the legs remained, and a portion of the left lane crossing the bridge into Concord was missing. Black scorch marks and a body off the bridge surrounded by two dead dogs. One was impaled through the stomach with a tire iron. A bloody trail leading away from the leg showed a creature dragged the leg away and chewed on the gristle and bones. The man was badly mauled, maimed, face muscles ripped away from the cheek, nose, mouth, and lower neck. The dogs legs and skulls were broken by a bloody and broken tree branch thrown a short distance away. Two thick green fragmentation grenades were attached to his belt, Nate pulled it off him and put them on himself.

The dogs were scarred and burnt from he tip to their snout, to their tails. Like someone pressed white hot iron to every square inch of their bodies. Fur scorched away and jaws elongated for devouring and tearing through tough meat.

Two hundred nine years nine months of radiation. The plants, animals, and humans carried on somehow. Even if it wasn't what he thought dogs should looks like, they needed to survive through endurance, strength, larger jaws, longer teeth, looser shoulder blades and more tendon, and luck. The lucky ones survived through necessity.

\111/

His ears rung from the silence and blood rushing through them. Boots crunching any loose gravel on the faded sun bleached blacktop. Meathead growled and hung his head low, trotting forward and leaning side to side with every step. The faded orange and red fueling station hung long pour spouts from the roof overhang. A square building with a garage on the north side, and a storefront on the east. The overhang covered two rows and two cars one red and yellow, a large skeleton collapsed by the right passenger door, two more skeletons in the backseat of the first.
A pollen coated and peeling rocket twenty feet tall was on the roof, and trees grew out of vending machines on the ground below.

The Red Rocket fueling station was a former relic of itself, on the inside was the station attendant, collapsed over his knees and arms wrapped around him. The jumpsuit he wore was sky blue and red with dual RR, above the right breast pocket. The first R was flipped backwards with a thin red rocket running up between the two.

Meathead barked twice as rat creature half the size of the dog ran in from the back office of the fueling station door and jumped. It bit down onto Meathead, he barked and flung the mole rat away as a second and third rat came from the garage. Meathead snarled and pinned the mole to the ground, biting down on to the front right leg, pulling and tearing he head upwards. He bit down again into the shoulder, snapping his head back, shaking his head back and forth. Iron and wet palpable blood coursed through his teeth, lunging at the shrieking mouth, his forward molars sink into the jawbone of the rat, cracking.

Ripping, Tearing, bone, blood and muscle were flung away to the left as the profusely bleeding mole rat thrashed in its painful death throw. Clamping down onto the neck, Meathead clenched through the bones and blood and moving muscle in his teeth until the neck joint snapped from force.

Nate's heart pounded, time slowing to a crawl as he raised his ten millimeter handgun and counted the odds of hitting the ugly little bastards right in their little heads. He gave it a 95% chance.

The bullets clanged out three times, one bullet drilling a hole straight through the mole rat's skull and two bloody gashes made the second mole rat fall over dead.

Patches of broken pavement shifted, getting flicked upwards into the air. Like a air pocket reaching the surface, three more mole rats dug their way up, he fired five times, Meathead tackled one hurt one, diving at their legs and snapping one joint from the impact alone. Scooping up the rat in his jaws, he shook and tore the creature back and forth trying to break its neck bones.

With the bat in his right hand, he swung down, smashing the mole rats as they jumped and dove at him. Cracking one in the side of the body, it landed a few feet away, breathing but unmoving. Meathead went to it, grabbing the molerat in his jaws, picking it up into the air, and then slamming the rat back down, using its body weight to end its life.

The garage shop was stocked with an empty yellow frame of steel and chains waiting for a suit of power armor to hang up, or alternatively, hoist an engine block out of a car. A workbench covered with a mess of tools and the ceiling was coated in a fine layer of spiderwebs around every corner of the garage.

Their bodies were easier to see than their legs, the storefront was picked over, but there was also plenty to scavenge. Car parts, bolts, oil, power steering fluid, screwdrivers, Nate picked up a tipped over magazine rack and pushed it against the counter and stepped over the rubble and dirt on the floor. Glass shards crunched against the linoleum floors, Nate held his pistol ready, moving into the back office, a small desk with a blinking monitor and a bedroll was laid out on the floor. On the wall was Benjamin Franklin’s Join or Die what was considered eight state sections of the original thirteen American colonies of a much larger snake.

And there Nate stood, lowering his pistol to gaze at the poster.
NE
NY
NJ
P
M
V
NC
NS

Lingering on the M, he snorted, sniffing his nose to clear his nostrils.
Meathead approached his side, quietly looking at whatever his master was looking at.

“Once up a time it meant to untie people against the Natives, then it was for the colonies to fight the British...Meathead.

Imagine if some outfitted ship came sailing up the river, looking at us now. They’d sa’, what the fuck, uncultured heathens. Killing each other like some animals throwing nukes around like that.”

“Columbus said 'Look at how peaceful they are...it'll be easy to enslave them.” Nate said, looking directly at Meathead taking a short double barreled shotgun sitting upright in the chair.

Going outside, he walked a complete loop around the building, passing the picnic area, dumpsters, and the rims of a tire turned into a cooking spot by someone decades ago and left to rust and gathering algae and water. Back inside the garage, Meathead came bounding around the corner after him, Nate scratched his ears and set his left hand on the workbench, Wiping away the centimeter of dust gathered on the red paint, he blew the rest on top away. He took off his Pip Boy for a moment, and set the shotgun on the bench, wiping out the barrel and loading two fresh shells into the gun and wrapped the stock in ducktape, tying a sling from the tip of he barrel to the hilt, he pulled it over his shoulder and shortened the strap so it didn’t bang against his side with every step. In the garage, mounted over the garage door with only six inches of clearance between the door and the ceiling was a painted wooden plank reading 'Have a Grateful Day'.

Carrying two three gallon containers of Mr. Handy fuel to the curb, he set them at out for his return trip later. Letting the metal canisters rest on the ground, he whistled for Meathead and took a right out of the parking lot, passing the rusted out, overgrown sign advertising fuel prices, and a billboard selling Nuka-Cola with Nuka-Cola's last advertising run, Nuka-Girl holding up a crisp, fizzy soda-pop, with a Nuke-Blaster squirt gun in the other.

He found several bottles of Nuka-Cola while doing through the Red Rocket filling station and looked at the grimey bottle. Unlike fine wines stored on their side to keep the cork wet, newer bottle caps had a bit of plastic on the bottom, so when they're punched out and fitted onto the soda bottle, an airtight seal is formed.

All the sugars started to coalesce and sit on the bottom of the drink. Holding it upside down until the sediment reached the bottle cap, then flipping it right side up, Nate watched as everything inside the bottle was reincorporated. Licking his lips, he felt all the dry bumps on his tongue. Salivating, he held one bottle to the counter, and pried the bottlecap off the top using downward force. The cap flew into the air and clattered against the ground.

There was a small fizz, he tasted it, shivering at the experience. It tasted like room temperature sugar water with vanilla and oak wood chips. He stuck his tongue out and gagged once. Shivering as the liquid wormed its way down into his stomach, he spat to try and get the taste out of his mouth.

It tasted okay, more or less, Nate thought. His mind couldn't get past the idea that it was centuries old.

\111/

Ch. 4 The Freedoms we Gained

“I’m Travis Lonely Miles...Keep an eye out for the Rust Devils, a new gang making noise around Fort Hagen. They’ve been reported using repurposed robots...so keep your...eyes...open.” Sigh. The exhale was perfectly audible across the airwaves.
"Coming up next, the Nutmegs and their Untold Story. Diamond City Radio. Always on the Air...for you."

\111/

"Everything looks surreal, Meathead." His shotgun barrel pointing the way, "Which park do you think Nora wanted us to go to?" He closed his eyes for an extra second walking forward, trying to imagine what things used to look like. The jogs and swimming the wind blowing through the buildings and the roar of the cars from the overpass. "Going for a cruise..stroll around the Commons...Fuck Meathead." He shook his head softly.

The sounds were gone. He listened to Meathead following at his side, the soft panting, and birds...they walked past three gray crows that only looked at them as they passed by, twisting their heads and cawing. Chirps. Then quiet, every sound was slowly becoming white noise except for his own footsteps. Buildings rose up around them, quickly surrounding them as they

Ping. Concord.

Entered the township of Concord. The road curving around to the right with nearly every home and business store front was busted in and broken. He felt unbalanced, looking at the number of bullet holes in a brick building, trying to remember how it looked like yesterday was more of a distant jarring memory. Bodies, long dead from the nuclear blasts and fresher as civilization reemerged to fight and die in the streets of Concord. Block after block of seeing double vision, with one eye in the present, the other forcing him to see the wrecked buildings and how they looked in the past.

The eruption of gunfire and electrical discharges filed the air, Nate led Meathead to the sides of the street, taking to the sidewalk and staying low.

Kertch-BLAM BLAM. Two shotguns blasts followed by clacks, like rocks banging around inside of a soda can.

Nate clenched his knees together and squatted down low. Looking for the source, the Museum of Freedom dominated the skyline, four stories tall, taller than the church steeple next door.

Meathead ran ahead and dropped his ears low. “Meathead! Meat!”

Two cars and seven heads, he couldn’t even see what they were fighting as Meathead turned tail and sprinted back up the street. One the main street, a flaming, smoking, smoldering wreck of a sentry bot, a three legged, rolling tank with most of its armor missing but its arms were still working as barrages and hailstorms of five millimeter bullets chewed up everything directly infront of the barrel. The bright red glaring, eyes made the sentry bot look like a train engine moving directly at you, about to explode. It’s chasis was glowing white hot, buckling outwards from within.

The sounds of a robot's electic siren, a self warning for the robot and people around it to be aware, were deep bass and distorted, like strumming an electric guitar, and bending the strings until the musical note was broken, booming out as loud as possible through old speakers.

Snaps and cracks of electrical fire scorched walls and bodies. Screams, men, women, more women than men, as the closer someone was to death, the more indistinct their shouts were. Nate peeked his head up, shotgun and pistol ready.

Four women and three men, scattered across the main intersection of Concord, directly infront of the museum of freedom were steps away from reaching the inside doors, but the endless typewriter chatter of gunfire and a rocket sailing from the sentry bot’s arm to a rusted orange car. The engine explode into a massive fireball, killing both a man and woman when two eye bots, hovering floating orbs larger than a human head, carrying broadcasting equipment for acting as a combat ready radio and welded with a proton laser and two distinct red and green wires jammed into the bot powered the weapon. These bots floated in behind the sentry bot, blasting off red bolts of energy, they were recoiled backwards with every shot. In the rear, two slow, lumbering securitrons, human size and excessively clunky with a overall bowling pin shape design. The robot was designed to have easily replaceable parts and able to take large amounts of damage while on the job. These standard models were blue, no special finishing underneath, but unlike everything else in the wasteland, these bots were clean. Other people might of noticed the bot’s cleanliness, and Nate saw the ‘fresh off the line’ paint job from twenty meters away. One laser bolt roasted a woman’s face, a second and third bore burning holes into her chest, cooking and searing the organs instantly. Her white shirt stained brown, and brown pants stained black were covered in dirt, yellow sweat stains, and grease and oil, soaked in red blood as she fell to the ground dead.

Firing both barrels, Nate shot down the first eye bot. With only enough time to reload once, attention swung his way as he fired again, this time aiming at the protectrons.

The bullet spread slammed into them, knocking them side ways, but only managing to knock metal and glass around rather than do any real damage. Pulling both pipe pistols from his rear belt, he fired both of them out infront, watching both protectrons fall forward onto their chests as he aimed for the leg joints. A spinning barrel from underneath the sentry bot spun up, firing off three hundred rounds, his arm swung across the street. Everything was torn up, more bullet holes for the wall, two more people dead, only two women were left.

Squatting down, he faced north west, looking up the street as he tried to come up with a solution to their sentry bot problem. Rifles littered the ground, and the two women retreated, moving east as the sentry bot rolled right past them and slammed into the side of a bus. The bot back up, forward into the bus again, and then back, spinning around and immediatly firing off another missile. The rocket sailed down the street and passed

Nate’s feet pounded against the pavement, leaning down, he swiped a pipe rifle off the ground and fired the last of his 10 mm clip at the eye bot, hitting it in the core parts, the metal splintered and the bot fell to the ground. The two women ran for the doors of the museum, Nate fired down the street at the sentry bot, gaining its full attention. He ducked behind cover as the minigun bullet burst tore into the shelves, and store around him. A bench cracked and splintered, glass, already broken, breaking some more. Dust and wood chips filled the air, raining down on his hair and shoulders.

A steam kettle...Nate thought. The hot compressed air rushing through the cracks in the sentry bot’s hull made it sound like a whistling tea kettle. Glancing down at his Pipboy, his arms and legs were shaking. He turned the pipe rifle over in his hands, seeing the nail working as the makeshift bolt arm. He pulled it back and checked the barrel and clip. Thirteen rounds. Listening, his head was just barely out of cover when he raised the rifle and stopped.

The setry bot was slumped over, its fusion cores exposed as steam and fans blew off the overheated frame to cool it.

“Oh my god.” Nate jumped the cover and sprinted around the backside, one grenade in hand, he held it against the fusion core and waited as the core became cooler and cooler. Then he pulled the pin as the metal door slid back down, and pressed it against the inside chamber. Bolting, Nate dropped his rifle, his guns, everything but the 10mm tucked into his holster so he could run faster. Counting the seconds inbetween his feet hitting the ground, the barrel to the sentry bot’s minigun spun up and he could hear the wheels and gears shifting and spinning in place to face him. The bot’s arm rose and the entire frame exploded once, then the cracked fusion cores made it explode again, and a third time as motionless rockets buckled and warmed from the heat, detonating in place as molten hot shrapnel went every direction. A crater two feet deep where the robot once was showed very little traces of it ever existing in the first place. A rotor was impaled in the side of a building three blocks away, it’s head clanging back down onto the ground after being thrown high up into the air. It’s arms were blown into a yellowed city bus.

“It’s dead!” the voice echoed up the street.

“It’s dead!”

“Kill the scrapper!”

\111/

Meathead ran across the floor to a savings and loans, the blue faded carpet was worn down and engrained with dirt, following the footsteps to the back and tracing a scent upstairs, Meathead didn’t growl. Leaping at the first attacker, he went straight for the throat. Sinking his jaws into the man, he scramed and yelled, pushing himself off with his paws, he dropped to the ground and rolled, popping back up on his feet as the man slapped his hand around his neck and shouted. “DOGS!” Meathead growled and jumped the man again, biting his arm and letting all his weight hang down to rip and tear. Screaming the man punched Meathead in the face and jaw and then jammed his thumb with the force of his fist behind it into Meathead’s windpipe. Letting go, he coughed once and dodged a kick aimed for his right shoulder, as he bit the man’s leg and pulled back. Falling onto the ground, Meathead chewed and bit as a second man came in and tackled him off. The second man grabbed Meathead’s legs and flung him at a table, but held onto his paws, jerking him so he slammed down onto the wood, then was hurled through a broken window back into the street.

His body hit the bare cement, sucking a lungful of air out of his chest. Winded, he rolled up and winced as his legs felt overextended, and it hurt to walk.

Growling, he rolled over and ran back in with a limp.

Nate ran up into the bus, and saw the opposite side was missing a large chunk, as if something picked up the side of the bus and took a bite out of the entire thing. Gunshots made his ears ring and his blood felt hot coursing through his veins but his arms felt so damn cold it hurt. He shivered, hauling the sentry bot arm up to his chest level and setting it against the busted window frame of the bus. His hand was burnt by the scalding metal, but he knew exactly what to look for and braved the pain for a second.

Gunfire tattered the bus, and Nate pulled the firing mechanism for the sentry bot's missile launcher and screamed as his right hand was burnt by exhaust flames, but the rocket raced out through the main street of Concord and into the second story window of Beaumont's Antiques, and the back wall of the store was blown out, causing the roof and rest of the building to crumble and fall backwards.

"MEAT! COME BACK!" Nate yelled, blinking through the pain as he uncapped a stimpak and hopped out of the blown out bus, moving towards the Museum of Freedom. Jamming it into his blackened hand, he moaned and stumbled. The skin peeled rapidly, exposing fresh raw skin that was hot to the touch. Meathead dashed down the street as unseen shooters tried taking single shots at the dog, carrying a man's arm in his mouth with the fingers still wrapped around a Glock-17 , bouncing against the sidewalk.

Stopping to rip the fabric off of a green flower dress from a skeleton on the stairs, he wrapped the strip around his hand.

"Hey You! Last man standing! VAULTER!" Nate jumped for cover and waited for the barrage of bullets to rain down, but they didn't come. "I need your help! Grab that laser musket on the steps! Raiders incoming! TOP FLOOR! MOVE IT!"
Crawling into the building, he picked up the laser musket and a two handfuls of energy cells, twice the size of D batteries. Propping the door open with the barrel of his rifle, he reloaded and cycled a charge into the musket, aiming into the street as Meathead chased after Nate into the building. He fired and the laser musket glowed brightly and warm for a moment, and he wasn't even sure if a shot was fired off until he looked down the scope and saw a man on a balcony two blocks away. He was on his knees, curled over screaming in pain after the laser blast burnt a hole in his stomach. Slamming the door shut, he wrapped his arms around Meathead and pulled him to the side as more bullets tore into the door, splintering wood onto the floor.

\111/

Kicking away from the door, he rested his back against the wall, hands slowly regaining some of their warmth, he reloaded the pipe pistols, grateful that despite their 2x4 technology look, they didn't explode in his hands.

Taking the man's arm from Meathead, he pulled back with his legs down low to the ground, shaking his head up and down. "Meathead. Drop."

"Let go."

"Drop it." Meathead unclenched his teeth and sneezed, doing a small circle in place he sniffed in every direction, panting and whining quietly. "Gross."

Taking the gun, he was satisfied with the 15 bullet count still in the clip, and reloaded the rest of his guns. Two shotgun shells to his name, he swung it around to his back and resorted to the pistols. "Meathead, you know how to reload a gun?" He asked, the dog turning to face Nate. Shaking his head, the dog's ears rose up and his head dropped down.

Baring his teeth, he locked eyes with Nate then motioned with his head towards the ceiling and upper floors.

The Museum of Freedom was built reminiscent of other colonial era buildings. Tall white pillars, plenty of red brick, bay windows, cozy feel, homey, to keep the warmth in during the winter months. Vaulted ceilings, tapestries and banners hung down from the ceiling, each twenty feet long and waving in the breeze coming through any of the holes in the skylight of the main room, or somewhere else in the building.

'Bzzat! Bzzat!' Glowing red hot bolts seared chunks of flesh through to the bone and muscle and skin. People wearing brown shirts and work slacks were instantly pined down on both sides as Nate came from behind and shot them dead. moving upwards, they needed to skirt the edge of the ground floor, as the rest collapsed into the basement, leading up towards the grand staircase at the back of the main hall, and downwards to a generator room still humming along undisturbed.

Pulling a fire axe out of its case, Nate hefted it in his hands. Crouch walking along the ground, he saw the next person focused solely on the door infront of him, pipe rifle aimed directly at the frame, he was waiting for any part of a shooter's body to appear. Sneaking up behind the man, he brought the axe up over the man's head, then wrapped the metal stock of the axe to his neck and fell backwards, choking him.

"Quit it! STOP! Stop! Stop!" Nate said, easing off the pressure, but still holding him close to get the man to stop struggling. "You want to survive? Then stay quiet." The man shrugged a knife from his pocket, the hilt wrapped in brown dirty rags and stabbed it wildly. Nicking Nate, he jerked the axe side to side.

"STOP FUCKING FIGHTING AND LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPON!" Pulling tighter, Meathead bit down on the mans arm, forcing him to drop the knife. Wrestling on the ground, the dog barked and he continued to struggle. Nate threw him off, jumping to his feet, he spun the axe around and slammed the head down onto the man's ankle. It snapped easily enough, and the scream exploded through the museum. Stripping the man's shirt, he forced it into his mouth and dragged him underneath the shoulders.

"Stop complaining, I could've brained you in the back of the head with the axe. Good thing I didn't!"

"You get three choices, one. you try to do the stupid thing and fight me, and I kill you immediately. Two. You limp out of here with a broken ankle. Or three you get a stimpak, heal your ankle, and then you get the fuck out of here without looking back. Hear that?"
Struggling to drag him into a side gallery room, Nate propped him against the display case, and held an axe to his neck.
"So what's it going to be?"

"You fucking joking cocksucker. I'll fucking kill you once this is over. HE'S IN H

The blood filling his throat and gaping wound in his neck stopped him from speaking. Gasping sucking blood down into his lungs he choked and garbled and gagged and thrashed on the ground and Nate brought down the axe blade to the back of his skull.

"Fuck, Meathead, I need to work on my people skills."

Returning to the main atrium, the air was quiet, but he saw plenty of movement, five people plus the two women who ran in earlier all making their way to the top floor.

Nate held the axe in a particular way, arms up over behind his head, axe head tilted back down towards his rear, he was ready to throw it. Bzzat! Bzzat! From a hole made in the walls of the top floor, leaning over drywall and wooden beams, a man fired down back at the intruders and gave Nate an indication of where the people were as the blasts lit up dark areas for brief seconds.

Hurling the axe, it caught a woman in the back, the blade taking hold in the left shoulder blade and cleaving through her armpit as well as she fell to the ground.

Fighting upwards to the offices on the third floor, he tried to reason again, but was unsuccessful. When he finally reached the supposed door, he nodded his head. Inhaling, exhaling, he raised his fist, and knocked on the door like a gentleman. A series of short raps against the old wood door,

"Vault Tec. Calling." Nate said, Meathead swept his tail back and forth as the footsteps moving across the wood floor creaked with every step.

The door opened slightly, "I don't know who you are..." the door swung open completely, "But you're timing couldn't be better. Preston Garvey, Commonwealth Minutemen." His black hair, was cut short, the brim of his Minutemen hat was ringed with sweat. His colonial duster looked like it was pulled off one of the mannequins from a themed set piece. His brown eyes were searching Nate and Meathead, guessing how much trust he could put into the vault dweller.

"Nate, United States Army. Combat Mechanic. Meathead, German Shepard."

Meathead "Boofed" and raised his paw twice, trying to hand shake.

"You've got a raider problem."

"They've been hammering us since Lexington, and before that, Ghouls. I've been with this group since Quincey, but I'm he last Minutemen standing. Over there on the computer is Sturges, on the couch is Mama Murphy, hiding in the back is Marcy and Jun Long."

"How big was your team?"

"Last week. Twenty. yesterday, eight. Today. Five, counting myself."

"Know where they're coming from?"

"Corvega Plant, south of here."

"I know it. Any reason why they're after you in particular?"

"Not in particular. Our local fortune teller says it's an old grudge match between her and the leader of their gang. James. She said he called him a punk turning into a monster when he was younger, and that he's coming to hunt her down."

"Alright, so you're fucked and have an endless amount of raiders coming for this place. Whether or not you're alive isn't their problem, but I can make it their problem. Tell me about the ghouls. What are they?"

"They are swarming Lexington in droves-" He started, noticing Nate's expression change. "Wait. You...don't know what ghouls are?" Preston asked.

"Just stepped out of the Vault about three hours ago for the first time in two hundred ten years, so aside from people still killing each other, tell me what ghouls are." Preston looked at the blue vault suit, the yellow leather numbers stitched into the right breast and yellow strip running down his chest.

"You don't know...they're people who've lived a long time...They look all sorts of messed up, but they're still people. They've been irradiated to shit and never died from radiation poisoning."

"Hooray for the unshakable human will?" Nate posed, Preston shook his head.

"They got the regular ones, but there's feral ones too. These ones are old, irradiated, and trying to eat your face off. the only difference is that the sentient ones will tit-for-tat if you mess with them. They both have to suffer through the pain of radiation poisoning for a few weeks before it...changes them. their brains are rotted away, along with parts of their flesh. They swarm. They stick together, and they have terrible senses, but if they get even a whiff, it's on. We thought Concord after Lexington would be a safer choice, but the raiders proved us wrong. But we might have a solution."

It was at this point in the conversation, Sturges stood up from the computer and adjusted his jean overalls and flannel button up. Around his neck was a welding mask connected by elastic bands, and black thick gloves stuffed into his pockets.

"We got a crashed vertibird up on the roof and a cherry of a goodie left behind. Some prewar tech, a suit of military issued T-45 Power Armor. Might'a seen the bird coming in."

"I missed it with the sentry bot going through town, and then the relentless barrage we've been going through for the last fifteen minutes since this started is catching up to me." Flexing his fist, the skin cracked and peeled again, making him wince. His ears rung, and was freely bleeding from unattended cuts on his arms.

"Nate...you've got a knife in your ribs." Preston said, noticing the blood patch forming under his left arm, the broken tip of a knife was stuck in his side. Nate kept eye contact with Preston and Sturges.

"I'll get to it. Now about the power armor. Does it work?" Taking one side long step to lean against the wooden support beams, he wobbled and plucked out the tip with a lightning quick strike. He swung his head around the room, and limped to a desk with his hand pressed to his side.

"Yes sir, only it's out of juice. It's probably been sitting there for a hundred years."

"We need a standard F.C. battery, a fusion core nuclear battery. Compact and long lasting, we know where one is, but we can't get to it." Nate opened the top drawer, and shut it. Opening the second drawer, he pulled out a stapler, and opened it briefly to look at the stainless steel staples without any signs of rust on them. Flipping the stapler open, he slapped the stapler over the knife wound, binding the meat and flesh together to save his last two stimpaks for something worse than a knife stab wound.

"Oh yeah? Where is it?"

"Down in the basement. It's locked behind a security door and computer. I've been trying to see if I can connect to the one downstairs from this computer and get access, but I'm an engineer. I fix stuff and tinker with things, trying to break into computers and things just ain't what I do."

The gash was still bleeding, so he needed to staple his skin back together two more times, plus two additional times to be sure. Swinging his arms, he brought himself up to his feet and leaned down to pet Meathead.

"So what are you going to do after I get that door open?"

"Heh, there's a minigun mounted to the Vertibird. You get the suit, you get to rip out the minigun. Do that, and those Raiders would be sent on a one way ticket to Tartarus. You dig?"

One hand supporting his weight on the desk, Nate nodded, "Yep. But I could use a shot." He said, opening the first drawer on the left side. Plain and clear as day was a half full 20 oz bottle of light orange, single barrel, black label, seven year American whiskey.

"Well now. Ask and ye shall receive." He said, uncapping the bottle, crusted sugars around the lid made it hard to twist open, but he unscrewed it and poured a five count 1 1/2 oz. shot over the knife wound and drank the rest. Exhaling quickly, he ran his tongue on the roof of his mouth to get the flavor and he brought up his laser musket to rest on his shoulder.

"Come on, Meathead. Let's go."

\111/

Author's Note

October 23.
This is still Day 1. He's going to have a very long day.

-RE- Ch. 5 Re ck t

Author's Note

“This is Travis Lonely Miles...And this is DIAMOND city radio! We’ve got..t’a...Barbara Lynn coming up next. It’s been a long day...I’ve got a message here. Fallons Department Store. Come on down."

“That’s not right -Kef-" He coughed into the microphone.

"Fall down for Fallon’s savings on clothes.” He said with enthusiam

“Barbara Lynn everybody.”

Leaning back, his eyes were locked on the Triangle shaped play button, and the two parallel bars next to it, and how the play button was much more worn and so used, there was a grimy oil coating it. It was from all the extended use over the decades.

-RE- Ch. 5 Re ck t

[A/N: I changed around the structure and flow of this chapter. I realized after reading a few comments that there were some time skips and location jumps that weren't made clear enough, which was leading to some confusion. Since then, I've addressed them, and condensed a few other paragraphs to make for an easier read.]

October 23rd, 2287
Two hours till sundown,
Concord, Boston.

\111/

The crash landed vertibird on the roof of the Museum of Freedom looked like it was the object of interest for many people over the years. Piles of tools, piles of rusted and replaced plates all sitting around, someone spent the time to fix and repair parts of the vertibird, the suit of power armor, and maintain the minigun still attached to its holder, but those people were long gone. In their place, they left tools behind, ammo, and a Ripper, a small handheld chainsaw he could affix to his thigh. Nate held the power core in his left hand, it was like a lightbulb, but as heavy as a brick.

He slid it into place and screwed it to his right. The power armor hissed and the hydraulic catch mechanism released. The T-45 model was the Iron Maiden of protective suits. To get in, a rear entry design allowed for the seams along the spine, back of the legs and arms to part. Rather than the T-51s and higher were the entire backside swung upwards, this secured you snugly within the suit.

There was more strain on the user to physically move, but the features were it could stop sniper rifle rounds from almost point blank range. All his guns were laid out, the ten millimeter, laser musket, double barrel shotgun, twin pipe pistols, and one grenade. Leaning against sunlights or on the ground.

Nate put his helmet on and immediately felt his ears start to itch. Flexing his hands, the suit followed his body, and he wrapped one hand around the grip of the mounted minigun and pulled it out of the holder. Setting the weapon onto the ground he looked over the ammo count which was well into the thousands, and fed the bullet chain into the barrel and spun the eight cyclinders for a minute, counting the rotation off in his head and listening for any signs of distress. Leaning back, Nate passed Meathead sitting by the door of the vertibird,

"Stay here, Meathead...be a good boy." Meathead wagged his tail once, looking from Nate to the Minigun then northeast towards main street. His exhale was small, pressing all the air out, then even more until his lungs felt crushed like soda cans.

The smoldering buildings, the dead bodies lying in the street, craters pocketing the ground, the crippled protectrons and smoldering eyebots, and then the raiders crouched over those dead bodies, scavenging whatever they could find from their fallen.

"The people change, the guns get a little dirt in them, knives got a tinge of rust to them, tactics and weapons, Meathead. How we kill them... War never changes Meathead. Sometimes you forget the reason for why you fight, but you always seem to remember that." Swinging the minigun around there was moderate weight to it when it was fully loaded, capable of firing 400,000 rounds per minute.

He inhaled and his breath staggered slowly outwards, like a sob. Walking to the edge of the roof, they were unaware of death about to rain down. "Somebody stop me." He said, revving up the barrel, he stepped onto the ledge and the bricks cracked under his weight. Walking off, gravity pulled him down and then he landed on his feet, slamming into the ground, shock absorbers distributed the force to make him not even feel the impact.

Nate couldn't focus on the noise of the bullet cases clanging onto the ground like thousands of tiny hammers, banging against the ground. He couldn't see himself as the type of person to stand infront of another man and shoot at him, watching his arm get chewed up and being splattered several miles behind him, then his head and face were gone. The Chest was there, then bored into by hundreds of high speeding drills. Blood was a constant, and as men and women shot back at him, the bullets pinged off the shell, or made decent dents in the outer layers, but Nate could only really hear one thing in his mind right now. He couldn't think of the name, so much as the importance of the song was a distraction from the war he waged on the Concord raiders.

From behind, Preston rested the front of his laser musket's barrel on the white bannister railing of the third floor balcony, stock resting against his right shoulder, he looked down the barrel through the scope and scowled as he saw the Vault Dweller obliterate an entire car in ten seconds, the entire thing exploded, and two raiders using for cover were flayed with shrapnel and fire as their bodies were blown back and their limbs parted. Priming the electric cell with a crank, he inhaled, then exhaled and pulled the trigger. A woman spun on her heels and fell over, clutching her head and screaming.

Preston pulled down on the crank and fired again. Energy shell spent, he scoped out the street with his eyes as his hands replaced the cell as the empty one clattered to the ground, and rolled off the roof.

Nate spread his legs wide to keep from falling over as a round of buckshot slammed into his chest cavity, then turned with the minigun still spinning and unloaded ninety-seven rounds in that general direction. He aiming down the street, he walked forward and mouthed the words 'Die, motherfucker, die.' Whoever told him the time it took to say those words was the length of time a person wielding a fully automatic weapon should spend shooting was right, it helped control bursts while firing and conserve ammo.

Each person meeting their end by minigun, filled the air around them like a messy pencil eraser smudge that only became worse the more he tried to erase it for a few seconds before the rest of their body and entrails rained down.

The ten thousand tiny hammers banging against the ground in rapid succession, the warmth of the suit and the coldness in his limbs, he marched forward into battle. Nate was yelling, shouting, fucking cursing the skies and the gods above for what happened. He was enraged, beyond rage, unholy rage. The more he moved, the less heavy the weapon in his hands felt, the more his head pounded from carnal yelling, the less his power armor felt ensnaring around him. He cursed uncle Sam and uncle Tom, he rebelled against the bombs, he cast off Vault Tec., and screamed inside his metal iron maiden. He refused to accept this is what the United States of America came to be, this was not America, so why believe anything from the old life was left?

Snow fell from the clear, sunny sky and turned to steam once it came in contact with the metal plates, wind rushing through the town battered and the two American flags were straight out, fibers freezing over and stiffening up from ice. Still moving in the gale, the ropes holding the flags banged against the poles as his footsteps crunched down into the freshly fallen snow.

Metal grates on the ground buckled and warped, punched upwards and a hand with five foot long claws, a six foot arm, and then the devil's face filled with spike horns crawled out of the sewers and twenty feet tall. Spikes stronger than bone jutted from his spine. Black, all encompassing eyes with the weight of annoyance someone would have for a single ant crawling across their pillow gnashed its jaws, showing the row of teeth like knives, it howled and charged.

It's first victim was a raider caught between bullets and the Deathclaw as it swiped one arm down and cleaved the body in two from neck to stomach. Then, it gripped the other half and flung it at another human, killing him as the projectile crushed his ribs inward and broke his shoulders. This thing roared and Nate wanted to kill it more than anything else he'd felt anger for in a long time. He wanted it badly.

Focusing directly on the monster, time slowed down to a crawl and he lined up his hail of bullets to tear apart the leg, and he fired, and saw the same destructive power of a minigun against a human on this new monster, but it didn't slow down. The body torn apart, the muscles pounded into a bloody paste and this thing sprinted across the ground and was on him and ripped the mini gun from his hands and rammed him down onto the ground. Picking Nate up, he was slammed onto the ground and then the Deathclaw worked a single claw between his helmet and suit, and pried like a crowbar. Nate wrestled an arm free and the ripper from his arm and stabbed the massive sinewy wrist over and over and over again. THe hand held chainsaw revved and roared. His helmet popped off like a champagne cork and the snow was gone. He was burning up from the inside as he met the inferno gaze. Sawing at the wrist with the ripper, the hand was shorn free, but this creature didn't even acknowledge the pain when Nate dropped to the ground. His one weapon he could carry with him while both hands carried the mini-gun was the shotgun and ducktape brandolier still around his neck. Pulling the shotgun to his front, he pinned by his stomach to the ground and he pressed the shotgun barrel right against the Deathclaw's left black moist eye and fired.

This only made the Deathclaw madder as it roared and flailed its bleeding stump at Nate as he jumped to his feet and was knocked in the side by the bloodied limb. Fear in his chest, he ran for the closest building window and threw his body through it. Glass shards rained down over him and he crawled up to his feet and then ran to the back as the Deathclaw thrust its hand in and flailed, reaching for him, trying to ensare his legs. Back against the wall, he was in a small convenience store with three aisles and a cash register in the back. The two rows were knocked over and shoved to the side as he reached for Nate, smashing anything in its way with it's massive claw. Raking against the tile, long gashes torn out of the wall and floor, his back was against the wall, far enough to reload his gun, but too close to see how much the Deathclaw wanted him as well.

The snow came back full force and swept through the streets, an instant white out that landed and made their breath's turn to steam. Colder and colder, the temperature gauges dropped and the snow was white and heavy. Two shotguns shells were replaced with fresh ones and he fired at the kneecaps. The Deathclaw shrieked and withdrew its hand. Smashing it's shoulder into the right corner of the building, the entire structure shook. One more hard blow, and the corner of the building collapsed, forcing Nate to move as the store front was brought down in an attempt to drive him out. Firing both barrels at once, a finger flew off from the claw. Concussive force and deafening blast carried noise in the small shop. Distracted with pain and acid in its limbs, Nate ran to the window and saw the minigun sitting on the sidewalk across the road.

Running for it, he knocked out more glass and charged. Diving for the mini-gun, he was already revving the barrel as his body hit the ground and he rolled over, unleashing an endless stream of 'Diemotherfuckerdie...diee...die

This thing raised it's arms, swinging and batting Nate into the side of a building, slamming through the brickwork and through the wooden support beams. He couldn't breathe and wood chips and brick dust rained down when a bloody massive claw reached in and wrapped around the suit of power armor. A bolt of laser fire blasted into the Deathclaw's hide, but the massive beast shrugged it off like a minor burn. The beast tried to do something with it's other hand, but only then did it seem to realize it was missing.

A loud feral roar silenced the air and a second Deathclaw appeared. This one didn't have a scratch on it.

The Deathclaw roared, throwing Nate down onto the ground and jamming one claw into the frame, it punctured a hole and rended the claw down and cut through the power armor suit and frame like a jagged can opener knife. He could feel air on his skin, and the claw shore down his legs, getting deeper and slashing the entire length of his right leg. Shouting in pain, another laser blast struck the Deathclaw, and then the claw worked under his body and ripped him free of the suit.

He was exposed. The second Deathclaw sprinted and cleared the distance from Main street to seventh street in ten seconds with both arms up, it jumped and bore its claws out.

Nate was dropped and he pushed himself backwards to the wall of the building, looking for someplace to hide or something to use as the second and first Deathclaw wrested. The first biting and thrashing its head on the shoulder of the second as it pressed a claw to its chest and thrust a pointed claw into its chest then ripped out an entire rib bone with a horrifying snap and screech.

The second Deathclaw thrust one of its massive dagger claws into the mouth of the first and pressed it to the side and cut the jaw line back to the jaw bone and wrapped its hand around and ripped at the lower jaw as it bit down and crushed the claws bit the fingers off. The second Deathclaw screeched and pushed the first back then dove on it. Tackling it to the ground the first struggled but the second bit down onto the face and jerked its head back, rending muscle and bone and blood rupturing as its teeth ground and sawed through flesh and clenching its trophy in its jaws was the first Deathclaw's jawbone.

It spat the jawbone and ran its thick grey tongue over its teeth and turned its head and roared.

A laser blast hit the arm and it roared again, casting a glance up at Preston in the third floor balcony, but it inhaled and smelled fresher human blood and a bloody trail leading directly to Nate.

The adrenalin and fear of death made him run, hobble, down an alley and he made it to a chain link fence at the end and threw himself up over the edge as the Deathclaw barreled down the alley and knocked down the entire fence as Nate fell down onto the other side.

\111/

Preston peered through his scope and watched as the twenty foot tall Deathclaw carried away Nate. Leaping over cars, moving as faster than a human ever could. Long gnarled tight and dense leg muscles, spikes jutting from the spine, a crown of demonic horns, black crow eyes the size of your fist, a gaping jagged teeth maw lined lined with piercing canines meant to rend and rip apart. As the Deathclaw carrying Nate grew smaller and smaller in his crosshairs, Preston felt a breath of cold air chill his lungs. Cranking the laser musket, he fired at the Deathclaw, missing by a meter. He cycled it laser musket twice and fired again. The rifle hummed and glowed bright red as a bolt of energy burnt a black mark into the pavement behind the Deathclaw's heels.

The Deathclaw ran with Nate wrapped in his claw, after the first one nearly killed him, the second pick him up and run from the battlefield like a morsel dropped on the ground, Nate coughed, he struggled against the grip and his legs bled long tears on scarlet red. His chest hurt and shoulders were sore from being tossed around and now crushed.

Cracking it twice again, Preston's fingers shook. The Deathclaw was far away, seventeen blocks. He fired again and missed. He knew he missed because the Deathclaw didn't slow its pace for even a second. Ejecting the spent cartridge, Preston replaced the battery cells and pulled the locking spring into place, cranked the musket and brought it up to his shoulder again, peering down the scope, he exhaled and his chest jerked forward.

They were gone.

"Hey...! Hey! Hey! It's gone!"

The voice echoed down the street, through the blown out storefronts, across the ruined cars and into borded up houses and businesses.

"The DEATHCLAW is GONE!"

"No, no no no no no..."

Underneath a car with very low clearance to the ground, a hand emerged, then the arms as a woman threw out her rifle into the street infront of her as she crawled on her stomach. "It's gone! It's GONE! Let's move! TO THE MUSEUM!"

A faded white and peeling door opened up, a man poked his head out from behind a brick storefront window. Two more women emerged from a side alley, a second man raised a pipe rifle screwed together with steel bolts towards Preston's perch and fired. A twenty gauge rifle round hole was blown into the Museum of Freedom window, forcing Preston to duck and relocate. Popping his head up, they stuck to the sides of the road where there was the most cover and peppered the sharpshooter nest. He fired once and a man choked on his burnt lungs and blood and fell to the ground.

Suddenly a white hot burning made Preston fall backwards away from the window, his temple and cheek were bleeding from rubble shrapnel as the concrete was shot to pieces.

He rolled to his knees and stood up to his feet, a few feet distance away from the window, moving to a second location, there were only two raiders in the street now and they disappeared into the museum behind the other four.

"Oh no."

\111/

Running at full speed, the streets of Concord and failed suburbs passed by, showing how much remained, and how little was actually left. Wooden boards and panels were hanging loosely from the sidings of most buildings. One small feather touch, and whole sections of wall might collapse.

"A day." Nate said, "Not even a day." Reaching for the Pip Boy, the deathclaw grunted, snorting. Running faster, one stride was tall enough to jump over small sedans.

The sky overhead turned grey and clouds built themselves up tall and the deathclaw didn't stop moving until they passed a faded Nuka-World Billboard sign advertising Nuka-Cherry soda and a Nuka-Blaster water gun with Nuka-Girl sitting in a white skin-tight astronaut suit, her helmet in hand and a bottle of soda in the other, blonde hair, a bright white smile attracting people to buy their product.

Then it was gone, the Pipboy landed on the ground and Nate’s hands were white knuckled with the pressure. His eyes closed, he found himself waiting.

Waiting for what? His body was jerked as every step was at the mercy of the Deathclaw's grasp. Legs hanging limply, pain shooting through his brain every jarring step. Nate felt the tips of the claws and the pressure behind them, they were like drill bits digging up through his suit.

Nate was sure that whatever this thing was, it was going to kill him and eat him.

He was going to end it before then.

Nate pulled the pin with his ring finger and let go of the lever. He could hear the tick tick ticking of the firing pin tapping against the detonator.

A moment of hatred, deep welling and endless brought from centuries of living in the darkness, the primal part of the brain conscious through the endless waiting, trapped. Unable to move, frozen. It lashed out like hatred condensed into lightning.

It struck the Deathclaw and the Deathclaw dropped Nate.

The grenade glowed green and flew from Nate’s hands. He landed on the wooden planks suspended over the river to Sanctuary Hills and the grenade exploded.

The Deathclaw roared, screaming, Nate crawled to the edge and flung himself over the edge.

He fell for less than a second, then plunged into the cold black water.

\111/

January 23rd, 2075
Izembek Lagoon, Alaska

Cold Bay to False Pass Alaska was about 30 miles as the eagles fly, but with five feet of snow and a cramped base of operations, their first order after being there for less than an hour was to march 50 miles through snow blinds and no road to secure False Pass. Loaded with one hundred pounds of gear, and fifty additional pounds of building supplies loaded onto the frame of power armor.

All in all, his own weight on top of the suit was seven hundred pounds, and each step was a fight to drudge his legs out of the snow.

The only way to get from Cold Bay to False Pass was to walk along the beach, cut inland, pass by the shadows of mountains and through forests. They were barely more than fifteen miles into the march, everyone's breaths visible and turning to steam.

Nate considered himself lucky enough to be in the suit of power armor, it protected him from the cold. Their guide was the only one not wearing all white snow camo, and he was wearing a green beanie and a parka with a fur hood.

Their pilot and local native, "Ah! Don't you guysh worry! I can already hear wife playing music! We got it turned up nicsh and loud! Helpsh me find my way home!" Chip said, laughing. Everyone strained their ears to hear a noise aside from the soft wind blowing walls of snow at them.

"Got it shuuped like a shnow shack on the mountain! You know on the ski mountain where they got the BoOM BOOM BOOM and the terrain park? Music blashtin all day long? We'll be there in a few hours. Shpeakers, weed, Crown, Goldshlager. Hey! You Guys want an Oil Shlicker when we get there!?" He turned around and kept walking backwards, "Half and half Goldshlager, then take a spoon and pour Jager over the backside and it looks like an oil shpill! It tastes terrible but'll warm you guysh up in no time!" His slow pace was matched by the ten soldiers in cold weather gear, faces turned down and away from the wind pressing into their face.

Their squad leader shook his head and replied no, speaking for the rest of his men and women in the team.

Nate was in the middle, trudging through the snow and sinking a foot down deeper than the rest of the soldiers in front of him.

"Oy. Look there. We got some brothers." Chip pointed out to sea, three massive destroyers cut through the water heading North to Wales, Alaska, the second closest gap between Russia and the United States, not counting the Aleutian Chain.

Two men put their gloves to their ears, "Planes..." after each man stopped, and another moment passed, the sky was looked like a checkerboard of black dots moving in formation. Cupping their ears, "...Not ours."

The destroyers in the water swung massive artillery turrets around, aiming upwards as their sirens wailed across the water.

"Dumb fucks! Can't see through the fog! It stopped the Chinese flyin over Kodiak in '44 and the Alaskan fog will stop them now! We just cut up through that pass right there!" Chip pointed up towards a valley between two snow and tree covered mountains, "And then we'll be in Walrus' town. After that, it's just a skip across the Pass, and we should got boats waiting for you guysh."

They walked on, but when the snow was becoming less compact and they were walking through snowdrifts, Nate's suit sunk more and more into the snow.

Nate crawled out of every hole and kept marching, but the next step he took sunk him down over his head until his feet hit solid ground.

Unable to move, the rest of his team stopped to dig him out. They dug a pit around him, and Chip pulled an entire bottle of Red Devil from his coat pocket and poured half of it over Nate's suit. The snow melted on contact while the sugars froze, but it cleared Nate's helmet away first.

Nate couldn't move his arms, and he felt his toes get a little cold, but then he heard a sound. A whistling sound, something sailing through the air and then an echoing sound, like a golf ball bouncing off concrete, a ponging noise then again, and again, and again until finally it settled.

The Chinese air fleet split into two groups, the thum of their engines growing louder and accelerating as they dove half breaking off for the three US ships in the water. Diving below the clouds, sixty planes were visible and the attack commenced.

The USS Astoria, Homer, and Olympia turned 25 mm cannons and pelted the sky from 1000 meters away, the Chinese airships were flying directly over the soldiers marching along the tidelands, the explosions thundered across the sky. The 75mm cannons clanged out shells, ripping across the sky and tearing holes in fuselages. The shots arced through the snow, blowing flakes out of the way and creating trails a person could follow with their eye.

\111/

The entire sheet of ice they were standing on, digging Nate out broke and collapsed. All eleven of them were dragged into freezing cold water. Nate sunk down into the black water like an anchor. He hit the bottom and could only see hazy blue light coming from the surface in a world of darkness around him.

When a light shines in the darkness, the darkness comprehend it not.

He heard the thrashing, the the gurgling of lungs being filled with water and the gags and coughs and choking on the lagoon salt water. The pounding of fists against the underside of the ice as snow poured down and buried the outer edges of the hole. Muddled thumps of gunfire and some men tried to shoot through the ice upwards and beak through. His feet sunk down, this time into mud. Taking one step, his back leg was stuck and he couldn't move.

Then he started to panic. Shedding off the weight, he managed to lift up one leg, only for his front leg to sink down into the mud. Water in every direction, and he couldn't move. He couldn't walk underwater for long before the air intake became flooded with water and the personal oxygen tanks were emptied. Suddenly, he was faced with having to make a very difficult choice.

Stay here, hope that the rest of his team could climb out, and send down a rope and drag him out? Or leave the suit, swim to the surface, carve a hole through the ice, then climb out without any cold weather gear?

Nate didn't have anyone to talk to, no one to say what was write or what was wrong, no one to tell him he needed to make the choice of running out of oxygen underwater, drown if he couldn't punch through the ice, or if he was lucky, freeze to death after he climbed out.

Never had such a fear been instilled in his heart, multiple phobias and fears suddenly compounded onto each other. Fear of the dark, fear of drowning, fear of death, fear of the cold.

It sent shivers through his heart and he waited for it to pass before making an irrational decision.

The headlamp on the suit of power armor illuminated the darkness one meter in front of him.

He waited fifteen minutes and inhaled. He was going to die.

Accepting that statement was the most difficult. His mind rejected it, his baser instincts told him to ignore it, his memories told him that he had a wife and kid to return to, while his logic told him to calm down and start breathing heavily. Two lines of thought, one was he was going to die here in Alaska, underneath the frozen ice. The other was telling him he's going to make it. That everything will be all right.

In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. IN...OUTI Arms over his head, testosterone levels rising, sweat starting to build, he kept deep breathing and his lungs expanded, growing hotter and more uncomfortable as his ribcage pressed against the padding of the suit.

Ripper chainsaw in hand, he flicked it on and listened to the hand-held buzzsaw roar to life underwater. Gulping down air, and oxygenating his blood so much that he started to feel dizzy.

Then Nate opened his suit and was exposed to the coldest damned water of his life.

The saltiest, nastiest, seaweed strewn muck that sapped his warmth and made Nate cringe as he floated his way up to the surface. His arms were stiff, but he pressed the running Ripper to the sheet of ice above his head and made a small circle, then a large X figure, then punched out the ice.

\111/

As he climbed out of the ice water, the breath was frozen in his throat, he couldn't wheeze or even feel numb as the cold sapped the strength from his legs, but he couldn't believe what he saw.

All three battleships were inside giant bubbles, floating ninety feet up into the air. He could even see the water filling the lower half of the spheres and a green glowing orb around each one. The planes, some burning, some mid-explosion, weren't moving. It's as if someone took a snapshot of war and froze the battlefield in place.

The gravity defying ships suddenly disappeared, the USS Astoria, USS Homer, and USS Olympia all winked out of existence and the water dropped back down into the ocean. One after another, the Chinese air ships moved, some finished exploding, and the sky was filled with chaos as hundreds of small black drones appeared from above the cloud cover and latched onto each plane, ripping out engines like gremlins, and forcing the planes into an uncontrollable descent.

From left to right, Nate watched in abject horror as the planes dove, almost lifeless. This lead to a hailstorm of fighter planes crashing into the ocean, the beach, and the shore. Depending on their angle before Nate saw the rules of reality break around him, some slammed into the ground and exploded immediately, others kept flying, while dozens more skipped off the ground and broke into pieces.

Fireballs consumed some, but Nate ran two hundred meters to a plane strewn across the frozen tundra and looked and scavenged for a blackened locker filled with a Chinese pilot's uniform and black shined boots two sizes too small, but he crammed his feet in and stuffed himself into the uniform, noting that there wasn't a single body on board.

The shores were now a graveyard of downed planes, with the same story replaying each time, no bodies, and plenty of guns and layers of clothes to bundle up and keep warm. Then he heard a buzzing noise, looking up, it sounded like a beetle's wings, not like a mosquito's high pitched annoying zzzeeet.

Then shouting, "Heeyzio! Whoaya! Ish-tumo!" Followed by three blasts from a 9mm QSZ sidearm. Nate sprinted towards the noise, taking a salvaged handgun and watching as one man was being lifted into the air by a giant black Changeling, a second man on the ground fired seven more times, shooting the bug out of the sky, forcing the soldier to be dropped back down onto the snow.

A second one jumped, but the Changeling was frozen in mid-air. A blue glow surrounded the changeling and there was more shouting. Nate saw a four legged pony, it's white coat and yellow mane, and blue glowing unicorn horn on its head. Teeth bared, panting angrily, eyes beating down on the changeling's will. The second Chinese soldier limped over to the man and the pony, and they rose a pistol to the changeling.

Nate fired fifteen times, gunning down the pony and the two soldiers. The spent ammo shells burned and turned the snow to water as they hit the ground. They saw the uniform before his face and then died with looks of confusion on their face as the changeling was freed from the pony's telekinetic grip.

"Whose side are you on?"

The insect pony's wings buzzed once and retracted, its head dipped, wincing. "" Rotating its head up, it took in the fact that Nate was wearing a Chinese soldier's uniform, and chose to meet Nate's eyes.

Nate raised the handgun and the Changeling took a step back, "" He stated.

"" The changeling was wrapped in a dome of green as its horn glowed brightly and a circle of fire rose up around it.

Nate pulled on the trigger and it clicked empty.

Standing in front of him was an exact duplicate of himself. ""

Nate stepped back, shaking his head in disbelief at what he saw. His voice hitched, "What -Kah!- are you?"

"<A soldier. I know what you want, your chest beats for the love of your wife and child...here we are...deciding who goes home to see their wife and child...war never changes...does it?" The replica gestured down to his right, the three bodies pooling blood and growing cold in the snow. Raising one finger to Nate, he walked to the closest soldier, and couched down.

Searching through the pockets, and feeling his chest, the changeling pulled out a notebook pad of paper. Flipping through it, "Ah-ha" the changeling examined a small photograph of a woman in a two tone pink dress, small pearl necklace, and a small boy in his blue and grey school uniform, and the now deceased soldier in his military uniform standing attentive, upright, a small smile gracing his lips.

He held it out to Nate, and he took it.

"War never changes, does it?"

\111/

October 23rd 2287.
Concord Suburb, Massachusetts.

The Deathclaw broke the surface and thrashed in the water, clawing through the water towards Nate as fast as it could.
Renewed with energy and fear, he broke into a dead run, pain was nothing. There was no more pain. He ran down the hill as the water fell off the deathblow monstrosity and splashed onto the ground.

The splash pushed him closer to shore, where he wheezed and limped forward up the sloping banks to the road. No guns, no ammo, just the indominatable will to live balanced out with the hatred of the enemy.

The Deathclaw broke the surface and thrashed in the water, clawing through the water towards Nate as fast as it could. Renewed with energy and fear, he broke into a dead run, pain was nothing.

He ran down the hill as the water fell off the deathblow monstrosity and splashed onto the ground.

Reaching the Red Rocket filling station parking lot, gave him hope and Nate teared up. Right into the garage, he jumped up with both hands out and sunk all his body weight into closing the door as he looked straight at the Deathclaw, arms out infront.

"Seconds. I need seconds." Nate shook as he limped to the door marked 'private: employees only' door leading to the shop interior and froze.

He was cold. Colder than cold. Ice water filled his veins and he felt like he would never be warm again. Snow pelted his face and body, fingers turning blue, and purple, then black, he shivered and exhaled and could see his breath in the cool air. The frostbite crawled up his arms all the way to the elbow joint when the Deathblow banged against the garage door.

Pounding it's massive fists, scraping its nails against the garage door, he could see the scratch marks rip through the sheet metal.

"Soo....." Teeth chattering, his legs gave out and he fell backwards, landing with his head in the garage, feet in the store.
"Cold."

He would've done anything to die warm.

Heart slowing down, the banging and pounding continued. He tried flexing, but none of his limbs would respond.

"How long has he been coming?" Nora's words echoed in his head.

""

Twisting his head to the garage door, he saw the sign and one massive claw worked under the seem and raise it. Less than five feet away, but the Deathclaw was standing here, head ducked underneath the garage door frame.

Staring at him.

He could hear the monster breathing heavily through its nose. It's fists slowly uncurling, letting the long claws drape down and scratch the concrete pavement.

It's hand's flexed, fingers going straight then relaxed. Nate shivered, trying not to break eye contact. The left claw reached up to the top of the garage door and rested it on the side.

\111/

A ring of green fire rose from the ground around the Deathclaw, rising up fifteen feet like a portal to hell summoned on the spot, burning away the lizard demon and revealing a meter and a half tall quadruped. It's dark black skin shone in the garage's dust covered florescent bulbs like a beetle's shell under an old museum display case.

The insect wide intense luminescent blue eyes looked over every square inch of Nate, without moving from their sockets. A black curved horn and jaw mandibles of a crab were part of its face. It's front leg was bleeding from where the first deathclaw bit down onto the fingers. The legs were sparse with tiny divots and holes like driftwood eaten by seaworms.

Nate's knees knocked together and he called out "So you've been watching us?" The creature moved its first foreleg one step into the garage, its chest visibly expanding and shuddering.

" Nate still held the torch grip upright, ready to swing it like a club. The muscles in his neck buldged as he waited for the changeling to continue.

The image was very present in his mind, he was hunting two months ago and he missed by almost a third of a meter.

""

Nate exhaled slowly, his chest was rising as falling as he struggled to contain his breath.

"." Meathead nodded ""

Nate was rocking forward and backward, the strength sapped from his legs. "Yhewm...my...Yhew my dog?" His head shaking in a fit, blinking the burn from his eyes. The black creature nodded.

""

"Why?"

"" The changeling looked up at Nate, really directing attention to his eyes at him. He was vexed, the emotions were rolling off him as his breath reminded him he was still there.

This was the first time Nate and Meathead ever truly looked into each other's eyes. "Its...just...you're my dog..." Nate's legs froze, knees tightening up at the joint.

"Do...I keep treating you like a dog? Or smarter?" Nate asked, looking down at the quadruped.

""

"Who am I talking to? Who are you?"

"I am a Changeling. Before the nuclear war, countries on my home planet picked sides to lend their support to during the War for Alaska. Changelings chose America, our enemies, sided with China. One thing all changelings have the capability to do is transform themselves into any creature, or object to blend in with their surroundings, hide in crowds, and take on the form of their prey to integrate themselves within a group, only because when changelings are born, they are born to gather information.>" Nate took a moment to nod, but he didn't interrupt.

"<We are born to serve a queen, and information always flows more freely when people are happy. Therefore, it is always in a changeling's best interest to keep others around them happy either indirectly, or directly." His jaw mandibles parted as he spoke, and Nate watched Meathead's jaw mandibles and how each word was articulated when the changeling spoke.

"So what do you want from me?"

"" Meathead's back leg twitched and he was forced to shudder in front of Nate. His wings flared out for a moment before he settled them.

"" He swallowed, ""

"So what are you proposing?" Nate asked, discarding the torch head on the workbench with a bang.

""

"Why?"

"

"No one would ever think twice to suspect a dog as an alien?"

""

"Is that why Changelings chose America to support?"

""

"Bottom of what?"

""

"So where are you on that pyramid?"

"" Meathead looks down and away, a worn out expression on his face. "<And the Chinese were digging up a lot of dirt. Figuratively. But, on a literal note, they built a 20-story tall earth mover. That thing will mine a mountain into a deep pit in less than a week.."

Nate's chest was rising and falling as he tried to process all his former dog pet was telling him.

Nuclear warfare, aliens, fifteen foot monsters, everybody he's known frozen or dead, and his dog isn't a dog. it's a shape shifting Changeling. His feet shifted out beneath him, his legs tensed and buzzed with pent up energy.

" "

"" The horn on Meathead's forhead glowed in a layer of green light, and on the weapon's workbench, a dusty stimpak was illuminated, floating up in the same green glow, and moved closer to them.

The stimpak floated towards Nate, and he reached out and grabbed the offered stimpak.

Pressing the tip to his needle insert implanted in his chest, he pressed the stimpak plunger down and planted the drugs directly into his bloodstream.

"Does your enemy believe their leaders Gods for saying that they control the sun and moon?" Nate asked. "And is that how you've been able to look like a dog for so long? Because of magic?" Nate was incredulous to believe things, but he listened to a creature that has never shown any desire to hurt him or Nora, or Shaun. Not once ever, he was an amazing dog, and now.

He was having to disavow every thing he ever preconceived against an actual sentient being outside of Earth.

""

"But what about the changelings? Why were you fighting?"

""

Nate's head rolled back around to Meathead. "You want to be a dog, because of the little pets we give you?"

Meathead's head nodded, closing his eyes and crossing his legs in front of him, he kneeled down. Then dropped his head.

""

The circlet of green fire briefly flashed and he was back to his German Shepard form. He was looking up at Nate with big puppy dog eyes. "" He pleaded.

Nate looked his dog in the eyes, his own eyes trailing down to the cracked concrete pavement beneath their feet. Meathead's paws, his own boots. Everything laid at his feet. His head swam, and the vault-suit felt incredibly warm all the way to the tips of his toes.

"Meathead. I was never going to send you away as a dog...I love you too much. You...are...still that....and if you don't want that to change...I don't want to lose someone I can talk to."

Meathead's head rose up, tail wagging.

"Come here."

He opened his arms, down on one knee ready to take Meathead up in his arms and they shook.

"As you are."

Meathead slowly crossed the garage, limping one step at a time. He let the disguise slip away, a bloody hoofprint trailing behind him, once he was close enough, Nate snatched him, feeling the rough hide and hugged him to his chest. Leaning over him, Nate shook and cried.

It wasn't the room Nora and himself wished to decompress in, but at least he had his dog.

Ch. 6 The Freedoms we give up willingly

October 24th, 2287
Red Rocket Fueling Station

After Meathead woke from the concrete ground, head on his forelegs, laying on his stomach, he shook his head and blinked. Tensing, he was undisguised and the garage door was open. Less than ten feet away was Nate, sitting by a small fire pit made from pebbles, rocks, and it was no larger than two feet wide. Small burning sticks and twigs, Nate sat crosslegged, facing the road with his back to the Red Rocket station. The blue jumpsuit and yellow leather number '111' stitched onto his back faced Meathead. In his hands was a sewing needle and black thread. stitching the leather and synthetic liner back together.

Hooves scraping against the ground as he pushed himself up, Meathead took one deliberately slow step after another, trying to approach Nate as quietly as possible. The only noises they could hear that morning was the faint push of wind across the road, and the flapping of birds wings.

"" Meathead said softly, not wanting to disturb Nate.

"Fine. Better. Stimpaks kinda undercut the scars and how we got them, when all it takes is one and the bones pop back into place, and then you're walking ten seconds after that." He was frustrated, the changeling could easily tell. His hands made quick jerks with the thread and needle, and there was a frown on his chin.

""

Nate nodded, and then he shook his head, "Just...why...us?"

His eyes went out to the fusion coolant price sign. In his childhood, the last of gasoline was finally getting phased out in America, but still used in other countries.

The price of coolant had gone up from $110, to $119.00. No wonder the economy broke.

"There were...one hundred people in that vault...sixteen staffers...one doctor...one overseer... did anyone else have kids?" Nate asked, turning his head to face Meathead. He took a spot on the ground next to Nate's right and sat down.

"We survived, Meathead...why didn't everyone else too? Why only Nora's and mine?"

Meathead's head dropped, lip out.

"Those men were scientists...whoever took Shaun was a scientist... Not a mercenary...not a raider...not a cannibal...I hope...and God damn them if a cult took him. Brain washing psychopa-"

"" Meathead said, trying to instill a sense of self-preservation into Nate.

Nate nodded and inhaled, cutting himself off and shaking his thoughts away. "Meathead...what are you?"

""

"No, now I want to know what you are." He said looking back at the changeling with a smile that stretched up high to his cheekbones.

"That's what I just sa-" Meathead stopped, catching Nate's grin and huff of air through his nose. "We're emotivores.

"Symbiotic parasites. We detect emotions and live off positive energy like love and happiness and...>" rolling his head down, the forewings on Meathead's elytron lifted up as his hind wings buzzed for a moment before settling back down over his shell, becoming seamless.

""

"Meathead, I'm just trying to cope...and thinking about dirty jokes is the only way I know how." Nate nodded and blinked, looking over to his right to the dead mole rats still lying on the ground where they died by the entrance to the Red Rocket the day before. His voice dropped a tad, "And violence." Nate added.

Meathead rubbed his eyes with the back of his leg, ""

"What type of person am I?"

"Hopeful, carefree, laid-back." Meathead blinked again and leaned in to meet Nate's eyes. "When we were standing on the elevator going down...You were this giant beacon of positivity...The bombs were going off. The skyline was brighter than the sun! And there you were, hugging his wife, biggest damn shit-eating grin that I couldn't believe, thinking 'Everything is going to be all right!'" Meathead circled around to stare Nate directly in the eyes.

"" Meathead swallowed, waiting for Nate's answer.

Nate looked away from Meathead down to the small fire. "I knew we were going to make it...and that we were going to be alright." He said, eyes scanning the tree line.

Meathead shook his head, ""

"Then I believed in my own words." Nate rubbed the side of his face, "I lied to myself and Nora...you...and there were plenty of other people looking at us. I said what needed to be said to keep everyone else from panicking."

Raising a hoof to scratch the back of his head, ""

Nate shrugged and then coughed once. "I closed my eyes after I saw the bomb go off...Grabbed her and Shaun, wrapped a hand under your neck and just kept on thinking, 'Everything is going to be all right'."

Meathead's head swung around, attracting Nate's attention. "But how can you think like that? How did you get to be so...positive? How were you smiling when the bombs fell?"

"I lived in a well off house, growing up. We were never that family whose car broke down in the middle of a roadtrip, we were the kids who tried to stop bullies at school."

"My father going off to war just after I was born was a family calling."

"To go out into the world, meet the natives and kill them....And then there was Alaska. That was different. That was fighting on the home turf. Other then that, we were always ready. Always prepared. I never really worried about any of those things because no matter what, even if it was something short and stupid like... like getting the wrong seat on a plane. We were the ones who always got through. The ones who if we were inconvenienced...I don't know, the world gave back."

Nate tisked, and tilted his head. "I knew everything was going to be alright because I knew that we were seconds...fucking seconds," His fingers flexed straight out, "Away from getting into the Vault. We were going to get in right under the wire and we we're going to make it..." Nate unfolded his legs, extending them to the right, away from the fire. "I was never in the Scouts, but we were always prepared."

"My dad made it back. My grand dad made it back, his dad made it back, even brothers and cousins...we were the well adjusted ones whenever something bad happened."

""

"Yeah...can't turn it off..." He bounced his head back and forth, "...Always not quite good enough, could look a little better... attention for detail and high standards."

""

Meathead looked up at Nate, Nate frowned and pushed off his hands and stood up. "I don't know, Meathead! Is that your name? Do you go back to being my dog? Do you run off? Do I treat you like a human being? DO you want to be treated like a human being? What do you want? Tell me what you want and I will get it, Meathead. I don't know what the fuck I'm supposed to do. I don't want to see you run off because you were my dog! Are my dog. Fuck! I don't know!" Pressing his palms to his face, covering both eyes and exhaling loudly, "I just..." His hands dropped to his side.

"I wanted to protect the things I love. So I joined the military. I wanted someone to love, and Nora and I found each other. We wanted a house. Okay? I got a house. I wanted a wife. I found Nora. I wanted to protect them, I knew I couldn't protect them while I was away, so I got you! Dog-you! I wanted all those things because they last, Meathead! How long have you been my dog?"

His voice shook, standing tall and
chest out, his hands were shaking.

"" Meathead rose to all four legs, standing at a meter and a half tall, he came up to Nate's pectorals. A spiral of green flames rose up from around Meathead, and when it vanished, the German Shepard was there, but now much shorter.

""

"

Nate nodded and wiped his own eyes, and nodded. "Yeah. Yep." He rubbed his leg, sporting a sewn seam down to his ankle.

"

Nate shook his head. "Talking it over a drink sounds better."

""

"Are you going to keep talking? Or only talk to me?"

" Meathead looked away and down to his left. ""

"What changed?"

Meathead looked up, then sweeping his head from the right up the road, leading towards Sanctuary Hills, past Nate to the left towards Concord, "" Meathead's shoulders dropped, "<...I know as much as you do about the world now...Everyone we know is on ice, dead or...kidnapped.>"

"Tough times we're living in." Nate said, using one boot to kick out the flame and scatter the rocks and ashes.

Meathead barked and wagged his tail. taking a few steps ahead of Nate, he turned right out of the parking lot towards Concord, then noticed his owner was walking the other direction.

""

"I need new pants! Also, to get drunk before having to face another one of those deathclaws. Whatever it was. It was smart. It tried prying off the helmet first thing when it got a hold of me. Definitely fuck that thing and whatever backwards ass creature it crawled out of! Whoever took Shaun, took them decades ago. We were frozen; again after they took him."

Meathead's jaw dropped a little, "" He said, turning to chase after Nate up the dry cracked pavement road.

"Remember all the spiderwebs and the dust in the Vault? No one's been inside that place for a long, long...long time. He's probably an old man by now. I been around the world enough, and I've seen buildings that were bombed out from the inside, while the outside was still standing. Those old buildings that haven't had a soul in them for a hundred years get a stagnant air to them. No one's been inside the Vault at least fifty years." Nate's eyes teared up, the bitter taste of unsweetened, burnt black coffee filled his mouth.

Meathead flexed his paws out, feeling the emotional shift in Nate change from wanderlust, to solemn kinship like one might
have for an ill-relative ready to pass.

"

"I feel like I lost everything, Meathead...and yeah. I did lose my dog. and I now I have you... I just want to see if anything else from my old life is still standing. Thank you for being by my side in this. If you want to be my friend, then come on and let's go." Nate sounded like he was repeating something someone told him. That the only words he could say, were one's he heard before.

Ch. 7 Drumlin Diner

Nate and Meathead walked through the streets of Concord once again, this time with their eyes set on the ground. Picking up every gun, bullet, and item worth of value. Moving from body to body, Nate patted down pockets and Meathead whisked each item away.

From the bodies that were still intact, it was considerably easier. Down the road, two blocks away towards the Museum of Freedom, a wild pack of dogs chewed and ripped apart the remains of half of a man torn in two by Nate's minigun barrage, their barks and growls were audible from a distance, and they occasionally brought their eyes up to look at them, but for now, they kept their distance.

"Where does everything go?" Nate asked, holding out a handful of ammo for Meathead to take, in the span of time less than a blink of the eye, the rounds vanished and the weight in Nate's hands lessened.

""

"Okay, I get that...but where? Where does it go?" He said gesturing with his right hand up to the air, then waving it in circles. Squatting over the next body, he turned the pockets inside out one by one, patting them down, finding dozens of bottlecaps in between the five dead bodies they've scavenged from.

""

Nate nodded, "Okay, but where does it go?" He asked again.

Meathead frowned, ears dropping and a half-mildly un-amused look on his face. "

"Fine, Meatball. What else do I need to know?" Nate said in passing, pinching the bridge of his nose.

""

"Greaaaaat. Metaphors." Nate rolled his eyes, taking a few steps to his right, he dropped down to another body and dug into the pockets.

"How many bottlecaps have we found? At least every single raider has been carrying some."

"."

"And this guy..." Nate trailed off, digging his ring finger into the dead man's pockets and pulling out one key on a key ring "Has keys..." A plastic disk connected to it was the Corvega logo, red font with the top of the V flaring out over the rest of the letters. On the back of the key was the word "Storage."

"Check this out." He said tossing the key to Meathead, they froze mid-air, two feet away from his head, surrounded by a soft green glow.

""

"Maybe. How's your voice impersonations for dead people?"

Meathead looked down at the dead body, ""

Nate nodded, "That's what I'm thinking."

Stepping backward, the ring of green fire rose from around his legs and spread upwards like a quick splash of gasoline on a bonfire. Instantly, the changeling took the raider's steel colored mohawk, tanned skin, green eyes, and brown and green clothes."

"

How's this?" He repeated to himself, a constant low growl in his voice, constant emphasis on the 'h' consonant. Like he was trying to clear his throat or was a heavy smoker.

"How's your improv?"

"Decent enough to get me by?"

"Okay...let's test it out...Grumble...you look like a Grumble...Grumble! Where the fuck have you been!? What the fuck happened!? I thought you were dead!"

"We got fucking sacked in Concord, the settlers we were going after pulled out a set of power armor and a fucking minigun! It was tearing our people to fucking shreds! And that's not even half of it! Two deathclaws showed up outta nowhere and started-" He wiped his face of sweat, "Fucking laying waste and killing everything in sight!"

"Oh yeah!? And what about you!? How the hell did you make it?! I got three guys who said you were dead! Saw you gunned down!"

"Where are those motherfuckers?! I was fucking bleeding out in the damn street and couldn't feel my legs! I had to crawl a damn block and a half into the hotel on main and found some meds for my legs. Shit was real fucking slow until I could move!"

"What happened to the guy in the power armor?"

"Fuck if I know, I was out cold and didn't wake up until it was dark, really dark."

"And what happened to the deathclaws? What happened to them?"

"One's dead, laying in the middle of the street, the other was gone when I woke up."

"Are you lying to me? Are you fucking lying to me!?"

"No! The hell would I? I had to walk all the fuck way back here, by myself! Fucking ghouls are still being fucking ghouls over by the super duper mart."

"You take care of them?"

"No, I didn't take care of them! There's a hundred ghouls from here to Concord, and I wasn't fighting shit! I just wanted to get back..." Rubbing his forehead, "Get this over with, get some rest. FUCK! I haven't slept since I woke up...what happened to the rest of the crew?"

Nate brought his head up and nodded, "Not the best performance, but you look the part."

"Well, I always try to have A for Effort," Meathead replied.

Nate turned his head down the main street towards the Museum of Freedom, tilting his head once in that direction while looking Meathead in the eye. Meathead closed his mouth and nodded, swinging a pipe rifle around to rest on his shoulder.

\111/

"Vault-Tec. Calling!" Nate shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth after walking through the front door to the Museum of Freedom. Only silence was their answer.

Meathead shed his disguise in favor for another, smaller, furrier mask as Nate's German Shepard.

Following the roundabout way upstairs to the third floor, Nate saw the office door was kicked in, the lock and screws ripped through the wooden beams as the door hung open.

"Vault-Tec. Calling?" He asked, walking into the office. He took a magazine labeled 'Robco Fun' from the desk, with a little orange and white holotape cartridge attached to it by cardboard and serine wrap, and rolled it up and stuffed it into his pocket.

Taking the nearly empty bottle of whiskey still present from before, Nate finished it off and set the bottle back down on the desk. "Well..." He said, moving past the second desk, he stopped dead when he noticed the Vault-Boy bobblehead.

Reaching out to grab it, he picked it up and read the inscription in white cursive letters on the bottom. "Only through observation will you perceive weakness." Nate swallowed, showing the bobblehead to Meathead.

"...They forced their way up, through the door..." Nate looked at the ground, scanning his head side to side. Turning towards the exit door sign, they followed it back up onto the roof.

"," Meathead asked.

"Bloodstains."

Meathead's eyes widened a bit, nostrils flaring, sniffing for fresh blood.

Back onto the roof, Nate walked up into the crashed Vertibird in the roof and then crouched and duck walked to the edge.

"Knew it." He said, looking across the alley to the church roof eight feet away and ten feet down.

"" Meathead clambered up to Nate's side, he pointed at the roof shingles, specifically the ones directly across from them, there was a patch in the roof missing. Nate's arm stayed straight as he pointed downwards, and Meathead craned his neck out and down to the ground, thirty-five feet below them laying there was the body of a man, Jun Long.

\111/

The neon open sign was rained down in the dust. The red and white checkerboard design on the side of the Drumlin diner extended down onto the sidewalk, to round seats in front of the grill station. Now reinforced with wooden planks with bullet holes in them. A rusted metal rail guard wrapped around the edge of the parking lot, with two paths to drive in and out. Wrapped in metal sheets and giant spikes with gun barrels pointing out through the breaks, a loud woman's voice yelled at two men pointing pipe rifles back at the diner.

"Now you get the fuck out of here right now. I don't owe you shit!"

"You're son owes us a lot of caps." The man standing outside the diner yelled in.

"Get the fuck out of here fucking pushers! You know what the hell that poison has done to my boy?!" She narrowed her eyes and tensed her arms. Her itchy trigger fingers were wrapped very tightly around the trigger, so much so, the hammer was starting to move

"I'll make it easy for you." The first man rose his rifle.

"I'll skin your ass, hole to hip!" She screeched, in her hands were two very short double barrel shotguns. Stained black fingers wrapped around the triggers, arms shaking, waiting for someone in front of her sight to make the wrong move.

"Jeezus lady! Just give us the caps!"

"All right, let's go," Nate said, walking up with a smile. "Oy! Is this something I need to concern myself with?"

The two men turned with scowls and pipe rifles pointed in their direction. Nate shrugged and kept his shotgun pointed down at the ground. The pipe rifles looked to be the same condition of his own pipe pistols, cobbled together with wood, metal pieces, screws and the grip of a screwdriver for the first dealer's bolt, and the second man used a twelve-millimeter screw head.

"From personal experience, when a woman's voice reaches that low of a baritone and is screeching about eviscerating your butthole, it's time you take a step back and think, is it worth it?"

"Easy Vaultboy. This ain't got nothing to do with you."

"Who the fuck is he?" The female raider asked, she had short, tight curly hair, and wore similar brown and green clothes as the other male. Both of them looked greasy, days of not bathing and coated in dried sweat.

"Who the fuck is that?" The woman yelled out from behind the diner's waist-high walls, through a window.

"I'm Nate, that's Meathead. What's the problem?"

"Her son owes us caps. He said he was good and is late on the payments."

Nate disregarded the comment with a "Chee-ah. That's like asking to borrow a french fry. How the heck does a guy borrow a damn french fry?"

The first man shared a glance with the second, and she shook her head with her eyes locked on Nate. "You think you can talk her down?

"I'll give you a hun'nerd caps to blow Wolfgang's head off!" The woman yelled.

"Do that, Trudy, and I'll blow your head off!" The female raider yelled back.

"Bring it on, Simone! I've got four shells! One fo' each of you and two to spare! Your choice!"

"I hate to be the new guy in town, but what the heck are caps?" Nate stood off to the side, perpendicular to the two groups, out of the line of fire.

All three of them paused for a moment, then lowered their rifles and shotguns.

"Let's take it easy. This is a prime opportunity here." Wolfgang spoke first.

Nate as unamused by the comment, and looked past Simone and Wolfgang to Trudy.

"You get her to pay for the Jet her son used up, we leave."

"Jet? How much?" Nate asked, looking down to Meathead. He reached behind his back and motioned 'Give it here' by bringing his fingertips to his palm quickly.

"Ten Doses."

Nate pretended to mess around in his pockets, feeling the plastic container appear in his hand after Meathead pulled the drugs from his pocket dimension.

"I've got five. You take this, get out of here, stop pushing drugs on her son, and thank the almighty that you actually managed to accomplish a little something today, rather than getting pumped full of buckshot by Trudy over yonder."

Simone and Wolfgang shared a few head nods and tilts between each other, curling their lips in confusion and bobbing their heads.

"We'll take it," Wolfgang said, reaching for the bag.

Nate held up his left-hand pointer finger. "Abt! Don't be raiding shit or demanding payment for protection or none of that bullshit either. Cause...point in case, keep your eyes on me and slowly look over to Trudy and see that she still has both sawed offs pointed right at your dick. Trust me. A woman knows how to hurt a man where it matters."

"I better not see you selling to my son again!" Trudy yelled, sensing a shift in body language.

"Your son is BROKE as SHIT, lady! He ain't worth it!" Simone shouted at her.

Wolfgang nodded and swallowed, accepting the bag of Jet. Letting his rifle hang low, Simone did the same. "See you around, Vault Boy."

\111/

"Well, Crisis averted. You're a smooth-talking man to get those two out of my hair. Do you need anything? I barter." Trudy went on to make the off-handed compliment as Nate and Meathead walked through the door into the diner.

"Food and anything safe to drink. For me and the dog." Nate said, Meathead wagged his tail and entered the diner behind them.

The inside of the diner was wasted, skeletons still sitting in booths, and two bed-rolls on the ground with a young man curled up in the fetal position, shaking and shuddering. "So...cold..." He whispered.

"Don't mind him, he's just got the shakes from withdrawals. Dumbass." She said spitefully towards her son.

Hanging invasive plants were growing from the light fixtures, molding and completely rotten ceiling tiles showed where water leaked through the roof and eroded away the ceiling. Skeletons were still sitting in the booths, and piles of uprooted tiles were shoved into corners. Thick dust covered cobwebs ringed the interior of the diner, even now, Nate could see a few dozen daddy long legs keeping still on the ceiling. To him, one was unsettling, two were a nuisance, ten was worth getting a broom and sweeping them off the ceiling, but to see more spiders than he could count in a single glance was enough to put him on edge, even if they were daddy long legs.

"Well, I can get you food, and we've got a few boxes of dirty water, not the best but it'll keep you hydrated if you can stand the taste of mud...and you don't know what caps are...Damnit. Do you have any bottlecaps on you?"

Nate looked down at Meathead, then to Trudy. "Nooo...but, how's this? I work for you for a few hours, pick up the place, clear the skeletons out, get some wood shutters for this place and make it shine with the type of cleaning that only a person from a Vault can provide?"

Trudy set both shotguns down on the counter, then moved one underneath. "You don't need to do that." She said, looking around her hole.

"Nonsense. If it's not done now, it'll never get done. How about this. I do what I say I'd do, and if you're making food, I'd be more than grateful to partake in it with some water to wash it down."

Trudy nodded. "Son of a gun, you are from a Vault, aren’t you? I've never heard a person offer their services like that."

"Yep...Vault 111," Nate twitched, "There was a raid, I'm the only one who walked out without a scratch."

"When'd that happen? I haven't seen many groups move through here except to go up to Concord."

"Not sure, knocked out and tossed into a freezer; just broke out. They were wearing white and orange hazmat suits and were scientists, have you heard of a man wearing a green trenchcoat? Scar over his eye? Carrying a .44 magnum?"

"Was that their leader? Nah. Doesn't sound familiar. Hazmat groups are definitely rolling in the dough, and I have heard of a few high-end outfits like that, but it's not any group I know that would come around here. Check around Goodneighbor. They've got all sorts of people. If someone has heard of that group or him, it'll be the old timers hanging around there. Until then, I'll start up some grub."

"Where's Goodneighbor?" Nate asked, glancing down at his Pip-Boy. There was a GPS map that had a few locations marked, and he could set up markers to important landmarks.

"Scolly Square. Drifters degenerates, and good drinks, decent people with nothing left. They're set up out of the Old State House."

Nate nodded, "Okay. What groups were you talking about?"

"Huh?"

"The groups, the names of the groups that are high rollers. Who are they? What are their names?"

"The first one I can think of is the Gunners, usually wearing grey and green, or green bandannas, biggest raider gang in the Commonwealth. Second, and hope to God it isn't, is the Institute."

"Anything you know about them?"

"Nothing that someone else hasn't already told me, robotic Synth boogiemen. Drop down out of nowhere and drags you off into the middle of the night and replaces you or your loved ones with a robot lookalike with all their memories. They rip your brain out and stuff it into a cold, emotionless machine, while they pretend to get to know you, they just sit back and observe...then one night, they'll flip the switch and make whomever they took to go on a killing spree while wearing your face!"

Nate sighed and looked down at Meathead. "That's them."

"Well shit, son. Hope I didn't put a damper in your revenge murder spree you were looking to go on." Trudy shrugged and offered a weak smile."

"EHhh. A little." Nate rubbed his forehead, "Thank you, Trudy. Come on Meathead, we've got some work to do."

\111/

Broom in hand, Nate swept dust covered, baby spider infested cobwebs from the ceilings and ventilation ducts. Hauling the two skeletons which haven't moved in two centuries except for wind moving through their bones into a burn pile out in the parking lot. He pulled down the roots of a plant growing upside down from a light fixture on the ceiling and cleared it away. Sweeping the sides of the walls, dislodging more spiders and dirt from the walls, he swept up piles, moving the bedrolls as Trudy's son, Patrick moved large shelve racks holding a good portion of her inventory outside. The grinding of metal legs on linoleum made the few people inside the diner grit their teeth at the grating noise, but they bared through the sound.

Nate grabbed a rag and wiped down all the windows, stepping outside, Meathead laid out planks of wood in rough square patterns, while Nate kept Trudy and Patrick's attention away from the changeling as he cheated in their assembly to quickly assemble them with magic.

Four feet tall, supported by three five-foot long stretches of wood bolted through the pieces in a rectangular grid. Securing a rope around the first one, he took an O-ring screw and twisted it up into the Diner's chipped and fading beams, then looped the rope down and back inside so that it could swing upwards, or drop down.

Then he wiped off the neon 'Open' sign, it glowed three times as bright, a completely different blue and red color now that sit wasn't coated with dust.

In the two hours Nate spent building more shutters for the Diner, Pete followed Nate's example of sweeping, and cleaned the outdoor dining area with four round tables and umbrellas sticking out from the center.

Nate half finished the fourth one when Trudy called him over, setting down a plate and a bowl on the outdoor table.

"I'd join you, but I need to speak with my son." She said, leaving them with their plate of boiled potatoes and smashed tomatoes. The small bites of protein were jerky, from which animal, Nate didn't know.

Meathead took one whiff and blanched, ""

Bearing his teeth, he smelled it again and eyed the bowl. "Looks like a rabbit."

His mouth watered, filled with the type of saliva that is soon followed by vomit. Spooning a bite of food, he closed his eyes..."There was a Swiss chef who told me... cat and rabbit without their skin on look exactly the same..." The color left his face, but his cheeks still felt warm and ate a bite. Then another. He exhaled and tried to not think about the taste, quickly pushing off the meat to the side. Washing it down with water, the grittiness and alkali taste reminded him of water taken straight off the cement ground.

Meathead put his head down and chomped down on his bowl of food, lapping up water and licking his lips.

" He said, taking another bite.

Nate ate some of the potatoes and tomatoes, "Yeah." Nodding his head. "So...the Institute sounds like the other side of the coin for changelings."

Meathead clenched his teeth together and bared his fangs. ""

Nate was quiet, nodding to himself. "What...what do you do when you replace someone?" Meatheads paws scratched against the pavement, toes curling up and then relaxing.

""

Nate remained quiet, hoping for Meathead to break the silence first, he did with. ""

Nate hmmed, growling low in his throat. "That's bad...but..." He held his spoon up, "You didn't kill them...? I assume?"

Meathead rolled his head. ""

"So what happened to them when they were captured?"

"<Look, I really don't want to get into this...now. Not with-" Meathead waved a paw towards the diner, "Them so close."

"All right. But, I would still like to know the finer points of what happens."

""

"Because. When someone compares you to the Institute, what do you expect will happen?"

Meathead squinted his eyes, breathing hard through his nose, and sucking his stomach in, he prepared a comeback.

"Are you going to get angry, proving them right, or are you going to take the higher ground and explain that you're the better...changeling...bug...pony."

""

"Just think about it, prepare for when that day comes, Meathead. Someone else might ask that question, and it might not be me." Nate's head rose up to meet the horizon, dominating the southern skyline was the Corvega car plant.

"I want you to do what you do best and impersonate the grifter. Can you get me a head count of the number of raiders from around the factory?"

"I infiltrate, it's what I do." He said in the dead raider's voice.

"Good," Nate said, plucking out the Corvega plant keyring from his pocket. "What's your exit strategy?"

<Find anything worth of value and take it while no one is looking and teleport out." Meathead exclaimed, trying to think about what was coming.

Nate looked at Meathead with a soured expression, "Meathead, when I asked if there was anything else I should know...I was referring to this. You can teleport?" Pressing both hands into his eyes and rubbing them, he blinked twice and saw his dog still sitting there.

"" He failed to start, " Swallowing, he cleared his throat to try a third time.

"I'm not angry, just...still in shock that my dog is an alien," Nate responded.

"" Meathead said, the muscles in Nate's neck tensed. "" Nate put his face into his hands and propped his elbows on the table.

"Thank you..." He said dryly.

""

Nate's entire body felt cold, down to his toes which he curled up to keep the chills away. Shivering, Meathead moved over and plopped down beside him.

"I..." His arms shook, hair standing up on his arms and the back of his legs. "I," he wiped his nose. "I never wanted to see fighting on my own home...territory...I saw plenty of videos of Iran, Syria, Iraq, being bombed to hell, entire...places and people tore down. I never wanted that to come here."

"Alaska." He inhaled and sighed. Inwards, he shivered and teeth started chattering. Meathead leaned into Nate and waited for it to pass.

"You know how people were saying Texas is pretty much its own country? Heh...Alaska may be part of the U.S. but it was a whole different world up there. Nothing like you've ever seen. It was beautiful." he sniffed, "...and we tore it apart. Every single EPA act given the finger, every single treaty ripped up, everything was just constant raids and constant feeding to the higher-ups...we weren't fighting to keep the Chinese out, we were fighting for the right to raid Alaska for every single tree, fleck of gold, bite of fish, and drop of oil until it was sucked dry. And then we did it. We took everything out from under them...THAT'S when there was nothing left. THAT'S when there weren't any more options. THAT'S when China launched the nukes first after the rest of us drove them out of Anchorage while we were trying to cut them off at The Pass. We knew they would retreat. You~tactically~can not hold any location in Alaska without local resources, or having them shipped in. Too many people and the resources get drained...we weren't going to let them retreat like the Russians did with Napoleon or Hitler, and fall back into Moscow. We were going to take the Pass first. False Pass was our Moscow..."

Nate sighed heavily... "And there were hundreds of thousands of Chinese on the retreat from Anchorage, driven out by the machines, moving across the peninsula...all heading for the pass." he shook his head... "And when that happened... it wasn't a fighting war. It was the war of attrition," he said to Meathead, pulling up his shoulders and letting them go. He raised his hands with his palms facing his dog and waggled all ten fingers.

"It was a long...cold winter for them...The resources went quickly for a million strong fighting force. Can't feed that many people for long when they're all carrying only two weeks worth of MRE's."

"It was a lot of hate...I didn't have to be one of you Changeling's to feel it."

Author's Note

"Hey, everybody. This is Travis Lonely Miles...on this show, we don't really make any caps...it's all donations...and sponsors."

"~Huh hm..Cough~ 'Scuse me. Anyway, One of our sponsors, the Colonial Taphouse! If you got the caps, don't think you're getting in that easy. We don't want you coming in. Seriously. Shove off."

"That's not me, that just what's written down. It's not my fault someone thought it would make a good pitch. Not the most uplifting advertisement, in fact...why doesn't some one bring me a little happiness? Rosie and Ron coming up next..."

Travis said, sliding one holotape off the table and holding it up to the light.

"Yeah," he said with a smile. "Some good ole' R&R is exactly what people need around here." Travis opened the six port holotape player and pushed the tape in, then closed the plastic cover, and pressed play.

Ch. 8 Corvega

Author's Note

"This is Diamond City Radio, and...let's face it people, no one likes getting double crossed, or screwed over. It just makes you want to go...GRRR! Rarh! Heh....I need to keep working on ways to introduce songs.

Anyway... I remember having a chat with a raider a while ago, pleasant gal...not too long ago, I'm sure she's still alive. Maybe, but I asked her, why does she raid?

Sure, far left field question, but from her to me, she said "Just Because."

"I thought real long and hard about that...Just Because? Maybe our friend Llyod Price can help us out, because I still can't wrap my head around that one...Diamond City Radio, Folks. Just because....why?"

Travis took off his headphones and leaning back away from the mic as he flipped the power to it off. The music played, and he nodded slowly in time with the music.

Ch. 8 Corvega

June 19th, 2047.

"Ice COLD LEMONADE! One dollar!"

They were eight years old when they were crying this out loud, both partially protected by a large sun umbrella as they walked up and down Nordhagen Beach pier, trying to interest all the locals or tourists walking around with a refreshing beverage.

Nate and Josh smiled idyllically, writing out everything they would need to make the sweetened juice from scratch.
Lemons, honey, water, ice, a big pitcher, a bunch of paper cups, table, and a sign.

They both licked their lips, trying not to dip into their sweet juice too much, and instead drank from their own water bottles. It was a hot June day for the normally temperate state. Sweat was accumulating, but with it, so did money. The sun beating down onto them and the throng of people coming to relax by the beach. Everything felt sticky, like the tar oils in the black pavement were starting to ooze from their pores, and cling to the sandals and flip-flops of any beach goer.

It was plenty busy, at least thirty people would walk by in ten minutes, and most of them didn't mind shelling out a dollar, even when there were stores all around selling the same thing. It was fresh, local, and the two kids made a great sales team.
Every once and a long while, the two friends would look behind them to the palm palapa on the beach.

The top of Nate's mother and father's heads were visible, otherwise blocked by the padded lounge chairs. They were both stretched out, enjoying the warm air, napping, or reading. Nate's mother was definitely reading, every minute or so, she would move her right arm across her body, turning the page to her book.

Next to her was Nate's father, and between them was the sandals they've taken off, a bottle of sunblock, and a metal pail full of six beer bottles and ice, all but two of them were empty.

Nate remembered the sound of ice churning, moving as either his mother or father reached down into the ice pail and grabbed themselves an Atlantico beer.

\111/

October 24th, 2287.

"Hello, Mama," Jared said. White stripes of paint were painted across his black face from right to left. His leather jacket and bandoleer was empty, all the contents set off to the side. On the top of his head was a black tight, shortcut mohawk.

Mama Murphy sneered, holding her face features steady. "Not much changed."

"We both know that isn't true. You don't even realize what type of opportunities you passed up disowning me."

"There was no one to take care of you, and I certainly didn't want your ball of hatred

"I will break you old woman." He responded immediately.

"I already need a chair, you're gonna need a lot more to break me more than my arthritis already has." Full of spite, she wasn't giving any edge to the twenty-year grudge match.

"Why do you hate me, woman?"

Mama Murphy wouldn't budge, holding an unblinking gaze for more than a minute.

"Fucking Twenty Years, Woman! I've had one truth denied to me in Twenty Years! Tell me, why did you Hate me?"

Mama Murphy inhaled and exhaled, humming, looking up, she held her arms out to the side.

Jared drew closer to the old woman, and without opening her eyes she spat a loogey of spit into Jared's face, "Haters gonna hate."

Jared balled his fist up and slammed it into the side of her forehead, knocking her and the chair over onto the ground.

Queezy, her head was shaking, "Hhah. Ghha ha hia ha ha ha...Your buddy is back from his little raid...heh. Thought he was dead..." She coughed, easing herself onto her elbows, she looked up. "...Here you go wanting to predict the future, hows that coming along? Got any chems around here? I'm getting the chills."

Jared looked down at her, nose flaring, and eyes squinting, focusing solely on her. Stomping out of the overseer's office of the Corvega assembly plant, he threw the doors open with both hands and shouted, "GO Check the Front!" The thirty raiders within shouting distance all head his demand and three of them immediately moved for the entrance to the plant, passing others and forming an armed squad as they moved to the showcase room at the front door.

"As for you, Yes...yes I do...One little kick and you're never coming down." Jared turned his back to her and went to a desk covered with the dirtiest, blackest, foulest looking glass equipment and butane burners.

Turning them up high, he yanked open a drawer and pulled out syringes filled with psycho and squirted their entire contents into a flask. Crossing the office, he went to another drawer and grabbed three syringes of Med-X, then returned to the flask and squirted everything in.

Mentants, crushed into a fine powder and scraped in.

Jet containers; emptied and broken into the drugged soup. Turned onto high heat, it was brought to a simmer and reduced down to a sickly brackish brown liquid and sucked up into a spent hypodermic needle syringe all the way to the top.

Holding it out in front of Mama Murphey, she didn't even blink.

"Last chance old woman."

"You only wish you didn't turn into a monster."

Jared forced her back into a chair and slammed the needle down into her left leg. Pushing half the liquid into her and then pulling it out, Her leg kicked out and then she groaned.

Licking her lips once, "Now that's some good shit. I'm gonna enjoy this, and there's nothing you can do about it."

\111/

Out onto the street, seven more raiders all with hunting rifles, and automatic pipe rifles were aiming down the street, when the message came back through the line.

"Gristle made it."

"He made it."

"Gristle's back."

"He's not dead."

"Gristle made it back."

"Where is he?"

"There, he's down the block."

"What's that behind him?"

"Oh shit! He better run! GRISTLE! RUN! Run your skinny ass! Run!"

The whole team of raiders was all shouting for him to run, and he picked up his limping pace into a staggering run.

Gristle was limping up the main road right to the Corvega plant, hips back, duck walking by swinging his left leg far out and bringing it down in front of him. A hobbling fast pace, swinging his arms wide, the pain on his face was excruciating. He was panting, chest heaving, head up he saw the line of raiders in front of him with their guns out and a few kneeling down to get a more stable firing position to gun down the ten ghouls behind him.

These feral ghouls were humans at one point in their long lives, their clothes were more colorful and identifiable to their gender, their faces and cheeks more pronounced, and their muscles were more toned and defined. Now all that remained of these humans turned feral ghouls through excessive amounts of radiation was atrophied limbs and the tatters of brown clothes stained heavily by dirt and grime.

Their snarling mouths and festering faces were worn down with rot and exposure.

There was no way of telling how old these ghouls were, some might be from two hundred years ago, others one hundred years ago, maybe even decades, but now their faces were lacking noses, their eyes were black or milky white. No conception of who they were or what they look like, only by the stringiness of the few strands of hair still clinging to their heads was any indication of either male or female. Radiation melted their faces, some skin bubbled out like blisters or so fallen away from the bone it was loose flaps of skin that was dried as hard leather.

"SHOOT!" Gristle yelled, veering to the right side of the road. Taking cover for only a second in a brick alcove entryway as the snarls and howls of ghouls were cut off by the chatter of gunfire. Gristle saw two with legs blown off as he vaulted himself onto the hood of a car.
Trash and blocks of building debris were piled up around the base of the car when one ghoul tried to swing at him.

Meathead ducked backward, only to realize that the ghoul didn't have any arms, only bleeding stumps at the shoulder blades. Meathead kicked the ghoul in the chest and sent it sprawling onto the street, and he was unable to get back up.
While he was busy dealing with the one, four more were groaning and snarling, making noise and attracting other still ghouls roaming the buildings of Lexington to take notice and be drawn to the noise.

Two growled, jumping at him with their arms outstretched, diving at him, and trying to tackle him to the ground. He rolled over the hood to the other side and put both feet underneath him and hastened his pace as more bullets raced overhead when suddenly a whistling noise filled the air.
Three raiders were waving their arms wildly and Meathead felt the alarm of fear hit him like a brick. He dove onto his belly, knocking the wind out of himself when,

In a hail of white light and hot flames and the stinging burn of radiation to everyone looking at the mini-nuke explosion.
A massive crater was all that was left of the street, taking out three cars, concrete on the sidewalk, and knocking over a lamp post along with some old telephone wires, but the ghouls were gone. Incinerated into ash.

"Fuck!" Gristle yelled, holding his hands to his ears, the ringing was loud and high pitched.

He made it to the front entrance with thirteen raiders all looking his beaten form over as he wobbled into the light of spotlights and trash can fires. He stumbled into one and pushed himself away.

Swaying upright, barely standing still on his own two feet, he shook his head and looked at the people talking to him. "I gan ear you." He pointed to his ears and shook his head.

Opening and closing his jaw, all the raiders turned their heads toward the double doors while a few clapped him on the back.

"Where've you been?"

Gristle turned his head quickly to the raider who spoke and his ears perked up,

"What?!" Meathead shouted, pressing one finger in his ear.

"How did you make it back?"

"What took so long?"

He moved forward, trying to wave people off and went straight for a first air kit bolted onto the wall. Flipping open the latch, the case swung down and he grabbed a stimpak out and pressed it to his neck.

"Gahhhhhh...ahhh...Mama. Ma. Ma." He shuddered, swinging back around to the group. "Do re mi fa so. Fa So. Okay...okay...I made it..." He exhaled heavily.

Digging one finger into his ear, trying to release the pressure and let go of the pain, his hearing came back slowly as the Stimpak worked throughout his body.

"So what the hell happened to you?" a woman asked.

"I got shot! Four times! twice in the chest, two in the leg. I went down like a brick and couldn't fucking breathe."

"We thought you were dead."

"I believe you. I was bleeding out, that's what I was fucking doing! When I came to, everyone was either dead or gone, and I was fucking sore! I dragged myself into the little hotel right there at the end of the block... found a stimpak laying under the front desk and pumped that into me real quick. Fucking felt cold as hell with all the blood I lost. I need to know, what the hell happened after I was out?"

"Few others and I stormed into the Museum to push the Minuteman and the other people in their group out onto the roof. They ran, but we got the fortune teller and their last guy. He's down below, while she's up with Jared. The other two got away. The guy in power armor was taken out by two Deathclaws."

"It took two Deathclaws to kill that guy!? What the fuck was that guy made of?" Gristle put the question out, sounding incredulous that the man who killed him, took so much effort to kill in return.

"All right." He said, shaking his head back and forth. "Where's the boss?" Pressing his hands into his eyes. " And, which guy did we grab? Which guy?"

"The Tinkerer."

\111/

Soliciting his way past the raiders around the exterior, people on the inside saw Gristle as he walked past like a ghost come back to life. Whether the Corvega plant raiders wanted to look at him or not, they cast side glances and peeked up from what they were doing to awe at or say unfavorable things about, the survivor.

Meathead was aware of everyone in the plant. He could feel the energies of people and living beings over long distances, and all of them were mirroring each other. This gave Meathead an average of what the overall mood of the Corvega plant raiders was, and how to act and walk, how to respond with

The interior of the plant entrance was furnished with a semi-circle desk, a low barricade, with all the people in here right now, one of them surely must be on guard. On the wall was the Corvega brand, in blue letters. Off to the right, at a passing glance were bathrooms. To the left was a rectangular desk, and along the back wall was a set of double doors.

Disguised as the dead raider, he spread his arms out, giving his fingers a wave to the outside, and a few raiders stepped back to clear a path for him. Taking in as many details as he could, almost all the raiders, both female and male wore small welding tanks strapped to their back, just above the waist. Less than a third of them carried coils of hose wrapped around their shoulder with a torch clipped onto the end.

Through the doors and passing old blue offices, the main hallway was blocked with a pile of cabinets, desks, and doors ripped from their hinges and all thrown down to keep potential enemies from punching their way straight through.

Being partially led, it was difficult to show that Meathead was still one of them, without admitting he didn't know his way around the car factory, so he walked slow. The layout was a tad confusing too, after going through a literal hole in the wall, flanked with broken boards and drywall peeling off in flakes, the slowly dispersing group of raiders moved into a grey concrete hallway, moving down steps into an employee's locker room. Most of the doors to lockers were ripped off, save a few that were beaten and smashed and warped to prevent them from closing properly.

The only way he could lead, without knowing the way was to gauge the emotional responses every second like a compass, if some dipped into confusion, he would change direction, keeping the thoughts in the back of his mind that the group behind him was mostly content and extremely high based off their relaxed shoulders, chin up, and squinted eyes.

To his left was an elevator, with a blinking yellow light and a Nuka-Cola vending machine, a large standing red box with the glass reach-in door busted in and devoid of all drinks. On the walls were Halloween decorations, and considering the date, it was October 24th, 2287, and the bombs fell October 23, 2077. Two hundred and ten years to the date and old Halloween decorations were still there. Only now, they were more plastered onto the wall and likely wouldn't come off.
That bummed him out, Meathead chewed on the inside of his cheek.

No Halloween this year.

That sent a chill down his hole spin, he stood up straighter and walked taller as the same realizations Nate experienced after walking through the door to his own home in Sanctuary Hills.

There was going to be no Halloween. Ever again. There would be no Thanksgiving. Ever. There would be no more Christmas or Hanukkah (Meihiam!), or even Ramadan for that matter.

There wouldn't be a New Years or even a passing mention of anything special happening on January 15th. No more valentines day, and there won't even be a Super Bowl! No Chinese New Year, and all of March, from Lent to Easter was now just a memory in the two survivor's brains. Goodbye St. Patrick's Day, Grateful Dead Day in April, Or Cinco de Mayo (Fifth of May). And heck, they wouldn't ever go on another camping trip during Memorial Day weekend, or invite over all the family for a barbeque on Veterans Day. It silenced him. It made him think about all the good times he had, and then the memory of the year Nate and Nora missed Christmas came to mind.

The missed Christmas was something that only happened once, but Nate and Nora were both traveling, working, and had a little time off to celebrate, but their working lives demanded that they forego spending time at home, or their church meetup, or out with their families, and instead spend it working. Even though the firm Nora worked with wasn't technically open, there was a massive backlog of paperwork that she couldn't scan and fax back to the office, so she took everything home, do it there, and then drop it back off in the afternoon. Nora was working all of November and December, from November 21st, days before Thanksgiving, all the way to January 13th, with no days off.

Not a single day off, and the best she could do was take the morning of December 25th off but needed to work by 11:30.

That was four years ago, a terribly conservative Christmas where Nate sat on the couch, drinking a fifth of whiskey, face souring after every sip, from a British made China-teapot. He would put the teapot in the freezer, pull it out, fill up the teapot, and pour from it into a rocks glass with a big ball of ice. He sat there, watching Christmas TV specials, and then muted it. Leaning over the edge of the couch, from where he was sitting, Nate turned on the holotape player and looked at Meathead the rest of the night.

Meathead remembered the way Nate felt that night. Brooding. He was unsatisfied, and in retrospect, that was the closest Nate ever came to stumbling across this line of thinking.

'The dog knows.' the inebriated thought came to him. Nate took the realization like a sledgehammer to the chest. It took his own mind a few moments to roll the idea around in his head, but the way his dog looked at him and acted, it's like the dog always knew when they were happy, sad, angry, alone, overworked, stressed, or in need of some company.

Whenever Nate or Nora was alone and feeling stressed, Meathead would do the most dogged thing he could think of, and stand right next to them.

If they were sitting down, Meathead would brush up against their legs, and get them to realize that they weren't alone.
The touch of another being is the most sacred of things in different religions and cultures, that is why the handshake isn't a wildly accepted form of introduction, except in predominantly Caucasian countries.

Meathead would brush up against them, wag his tail, sit down on his read and look his eyes up while pointing his snout down, giving him the illusion of having much larger eyes.

Then, he waited, it was a moment of sheer joy and happiness when whatever project Nate and Nora were hunched over, consumed with, eventually, they would notice. The synapses would fire after the nerve endings sent back the message that the furry companion was touching their leg.

Meathead would lean into them, he used to get away with being held for a while disguised as an infantile puppy, but the German Shepard Nate ordered was two months old in the description, so when Meathead was deployed to the United States, he took the form of a small dog.

Meathead was used to looking forward to holidays, as a changeling disguised as a dog, these were the moments that would make everyone in the entire city happier. For a brief week, people weren't starving for what they really wanted or needed.

What did the people of 2287 have to celebrate? Everything was set in place and left as it was from centuries ago, and they were locked in the week before Halloween.

How many hundreds of millions of dollars worth of old decorations are still up?

In the time it took to take two steps, Meathead sighed, realizing how much the bombs dropping on October 23rd meant for the rest of civilization.

Whenever humans or any sentient race finds ruins of the pre-existing civilization, they look over everything. The ruins, the carvings, the things that were in place, and then the discoveries are absorbed into the present day society.

Meathead's mind lingered on the thought of how the humans of today wouldn't realize that the Halloween decorations were meant to come down. That there was supposed to be an ushering of winter months and traditions, and they wouldn't know.

Maybe some did, maybe some old Christmas stories or legends were passed down, maybe some symbols of a holiday both Nate and Meathead looked forward to still existed.

Up another set of stairs, the group of now five raiders were in the assembly area of the plant. Directly to the front, and left of him were catwalks, ramps, and stairs leading higher up into the plant, while on the ground floor was heaps of machinery. A few females wore welding masks and were tearing the old metal apart with small welders, cutting out square plates.

Surrounding them were large metal shelves with moldy boxes filled with car parts and tools. Headlights, gauges, tires, seats, and shoved against the walls were seven yellow car diagnostic tool stations. Stripped for parts and anything useful, he saw most tools were carried on belts by the raiders, their rusted and chiseled tips were flaking, but the ends were shaped into fine points for stabbing, or in the case of wrenches, tacked on metal gears to make it heavier.

Everywhere Meathead went disguised as Gristle, he felt barely contained hostile emotions. Everyone was on the verge of going ballistic, it was only through a very slim, mutual distrust of others that the raiders inside the Corvega plant found common ground.

Better to be the one making demands, than on the receiving end of a raid.

"Gristle! LONNIE! GET THE FUCK UP HERE NOW!" Jared's voice roared throughout the Corvega plant.

Meathead picked up his pace and eyed a few signs pointing up the catwalks that read 'Administration <---'

"So what the fuck happened to you?" A woman bumped into him, keeping pace as they walked upwards to the main office where the supposed Jared was. Slowing down a fraction of a degree, the woman took the lead while Meathead followed.

"While we were attacking the Museum, a band of haywire robots rolls through town, a sentry bot at the head of the pack, with some protectrons and eyebots following." Gristle scratches the top of his head and recalls the memory. "The sentry bot spits bullets and rockets up and down the streets, so we take cover. That's when some guy in a blue vault suit walks right into town. He comes down, and a few of our men shoot at him, but he makes it past us, putting himself between the sentry bot, and us. The Minuteman is using the sentry bot as fire cover, he's shooting down at us from the balcony. The vault dweller blows up the sentry bot and runs in. We move closer, regroup, and are about to push into the Museum when at that point, one of their guys gets a suit of power armor working and a minigun. It's all downhill from there.

I get shot four times. It hurt and it sucked. I found a stimpak to keep me from bleeding out, and some drugs to get me on my feet, but I said fuck everything else, and came back here."

"Hrmph" She hummed through her nose. "You missed the big welcome back party for the others,"

"Oh? A party, lad dee dah, that almost makes me wish I wasn't shot by some asshole toting a minigun and wearing power armor." Gristle complained.

"Who was the guy wearing the power armor?" She asked, turning her head over her shoulder to look at Gristle's eyes.

"I heard it was the vault dweller."

"What makes you say that?" Lonnie asked, the catwalks took them to the second floor, forty feet above the main floor, where the assembly line with cars in different states of completion sat. Yellow mechanical arms were locked into place, still trying to complete their task.

"Because someone just told me a Deathclaw carried off a guy after it ripped him out of the power armor."

"Hrm...Interesting." She hummed again. "Well, you made it. Are you going out again soon?"

"After I catch my breath and see what Jared's yelling about, I'm taking off as soon as I am able. I...I..." Meathead grunted, clearing his throat. "I need some time to think about some things after a day like that, it was intense."

"He keeps pushing buffout and psycho onto me..." She said, flexing her wrist and rolling them.

Meathead kept silent, her emotions shifted to a sense of longing and unfulfilled needs. She looked up to her right, and then down at him.

"Know anyone else who would want to go on a little outdoor trip with you?" She shook her head, right arm trembling. Meathead wasn't given a chance to respond. "It makes me so fucking angry that everyone here is so fucking hooked on Jared's stash! He keeps making chems and everyone is getting so fucking lazy! GOD DAMNIT!" She lashed out, punching a steel girder. Her fist thunked against the steel and it rang for a few seconds.

"MOTHER!!! MOTHER, I HEAR YOU!!! MOTHER!"

Lonnie and Gristle looked up to the highest office with bars over the windows, and missing glass, to where the old woman's wails were originating from and then they picked up their pace.

"MA, MA, MA, MA, MA, MA, MA, MA, MA, MA, OHM MA NI!"
\111/

The old woman was locked on the ground with her hands over her ears, prostrated against the ground, bending backward and thrashing against the ground. Her mouth was open and agape, her eyes staring up at the ceiling, while Jared stood over her and watched.

"So Mama, what else do you have to say for me?"

Breathing through her teeth and sputtering spit through her lips, she gasped and hyperventilated. Her turban was untangled, letting down her short messy grey and white hair. She would slam her fist on the ground, trying to stay in this reality as the drug cocktail ran its course.

"!" Her eyes tried focusing on Jared, but her mouth gaped like a fish out of water, trying to remember how to breathe.

Her body went rigid and she dug her fingernails into the ground, lifting her back off the ground, while her shoulders were still pinned down to the ground by her own will.

" TARTARUS!" She panted, breathing heavily, in and out, in and out. Her chest rising and falling, heart hammering

"ICE....Y" Her left arm went over her chest and she shivered.

"FANGS!" Mama Murphy snarled. "!" Rolling her ankles, and rocking over to her side she exhaled through her mouth and nose, burning up. "MaaacnamaraAAA! MA! The killer!" She yelled, flinging a hand and pointed a gnarled finger towards the door at the door where Gristle and Lonnie stood, watching with trepidation on their faces.

"Who is the killer?" Jared tilted his head up and to the ceiling, trying to ascertain the meaning of the words coming from her mouth.

"What did you do to her?" Lonnie asked, moving forward as Mama Murphey continued to yell and shout incoherently.

"A little prick, just enough to get her premonition services going. But, she's no longer a problem, what I need to know, is who, who is the killer?" Jared asked them, Meathead disguised as Gristle stood at the door frame with locked knees.

"What killer?"

The air in the room was foul, not hot, nor cold, nor reeking of burnt chems, which it was, but tainted. The type of air that leads you to believe a murder happened in this room, such foul air tinged with emotions of hate that stained the walls and imprinted on others who entered this room.

Meathead treads lightly as he took a few steps in, eyes on Jared, Lonnie, and the prone form of Mama Murphy.

"MA KILLER!" Head twitching and shaking like an overused muscle, she drew in a long raspy breath and wheezed. She put her hand against her right eye, and traced a line with her pointer finger down the outside of her eye, to the lips.

"MA IN THE SQUARE.... IN SQUARE." She moaned, hammering the word 'In'. She rose her hand and dropped it when she specifically said that word.

"Jared, you got something for us, or do I need to keep listening to this old lady scream and bitch and moan?" Gristle asked, arms folded across his chest.

Jared walked across the room, eyes locked with him, tapping Lonnie on the shoulder, as he stepped out onto the catwalk and shut the door behind them. The noise wasn't hampered with the shot out windows.

"How did you get back? I spoke with three people who said they saw you die."

"I was shot! Of course, they thought I was dead!" Gristle said, pulling up his shirt.

"One here, two here, and one more here!" He said, pointing to his chest and leg. "I went out like a bitch! Wham! Woke up hours later, crawled half a block to a rinky-dink hotel and found some stims, thank FUCK! And that's it! Everything else was me getting back here!"

"What took you so long?"

"It wasn't easy getting back, alone. I took the long way around avoiding anything and everything, because walking back alone is a lot harder without a big group. With all the noise we were making the other day, ghouls were coming out of everywhere. I came across packs of two and three ghouls, after the third one I said fuck that and went through the fields. Then, when I was coming back in, there's even more of those fuckers by the Supermart. Even after I got past them, ten more showed up right outside the front door to this place!" Meathead came off strong.

"And what are your plans now?"

"My plans now? Get some food! Get some chems, take a shit, and then figure out where the all the caravans are running off
to!"

"Tell me about the attack on Concord. What really happened?"

Meathead inhaled, expecting this from the top-dog boss."We were moving on the Museum of Freedom, and a group of roaming robots is moving through town, fighting and blasting everything in sight. We lose five or so men trying to kill the sentry bot."

"That was the shitter."

"It's got the minigun going, it's got the missiles launching off, and it's just blasting holes in everything. Can't poke your head up for more than a second before the giant thing just comes bulldozing down the road, coming straight for you. To top it off, the black guy is taking shots from a laser musket off a balcony on the top floor." Meathead took it slow, thinking about the words he spoke, and making sure that the details were factual but broad.

"Not only did they have the high ground, but they also had the low ground, and the robots weren't interested in going inside."

"We unload into the sentry bot and it's turning white scalding hot. Everywhere we moved, the Minuteman is just waiting for us to step out into the open."

Meathead shook his head at Jared and looked down at the ground for a moment. "Then... Some guy and his dog show up and starts taking shots at us too! No fucking clue where the hell he came from, but he gets past us and blows up the sentry bot with a grenade." Meathead gestured with both hands up towards the ceiling.

Still shaking his head, trying to express his disbelief at how quickly Nate arrived on the scene, "He runs in, and we're running in after him. That was where things got even tenser because we don't know where the heck this guy was hiding inside! Less than ten minutes later, boom, there he is in Power Armor with a minigun."

"The Fucking fuck was armed with a mini-gun and things were just FUCKED." He said, crossing his arms and waving them outwards.

Gristle exhaled loudly, "It turns from a shit storm to a full-blown hurricane of shit in every direction when a deathclaw pops out of the sewers. Damn Deathclaws."

"FuuUUCK!" Meathead's voice rose in pitch while saying the word, his entire body shivered. Meathead was focusing all his attention on reading Jared's emotions, becoming the actor who wants to show the director what it was like to take the role of a second in command raider, who was shot dead and lost most of his men. Jared was finally feeling convinced, he even saw it too as his shoulder's relaxed almost an inch.

The guy in power armor shoots me, and," turning his right hand up and spreading his fingers out, "then...I don't know. Pain. Lot's of intense pain."

Jared's jaw went back and forth against his teeth, grinding them and chewing on the story Meathead told.

"I heard he was wearing a blue vault suit," Jared said.

Gristle nodded. "The only Vault I know of is the one to the south of here where they still wear those things."

Jared and Lonnie nodded, "Vault 81." Lonnie said, "They stick inside, and I ain't hear of any of them ever going out."

"Doesn't matter if you heard of a Vault-boy leaving the vault if they are sending people out, it means they need scrap or ammo...or meds. Whatever doesn't matter. Should we go be real neighborly and see if we can find out if it was one of them?"

"No, we'll deal with them soon enough. That vault is fortress compared to this concrete box if we want it, we'll need more numbers again."

"How many people are we down to?" Gristle asked.

"Forty. With another thirty out roaming around Lexington and over towards Malden." Jared turned around and opened the doors, Mama Murphey was still on the floor, eyes rolled back into her head, and chest rising and falling very quickly. Jaw moving, she shouted herself unconscious.

Jared went to his desk, and Meathead saw a Grognak the Barbarian comic on the desk too, Jared yanked open a drawer with only an old plastic pen rolling around with some lint and dust balls and then slammed it shut. Crossing the room, he went to an ammo box and reached in, grabbing a whole handful of Mentats and Jet and then putting it into Gristle's hands.

"Go. Find more men, offer them drugs, send them back here. Mama Murphy isn't broken yet. Lonnie, stay for a minute if you would." The veins on Lonnie's arms shifted, and Meathead could feel the fear radiating off her.

"I'm gonna need her for a recruiting drive-" Meathead tried to get the other raider out of what would amount to be a free-ride, with some hefty after effects.

"I'll have her find you when we're done." Jared's eyes went from Gristle to the door. Gristle turned around and passed Lonnie looking at him with the muscles in her neck tensing.

She was angry that Jared was keeping her here, she was scared and fearful for what going to happen, disgruntled that Gristle couldn't do more to get her out of it, and bitter that she chose to stay here.

Meathead could feel every emotion, Jared's dark pleasure, the scattered emotions of Mama Murphy, and the fear from Lonnie. It made him sick.

It made Meathead so sick, from trying to mentally phase out the sea of negative emotions Corvega was in. It was like entering a room with extensive mold. He could breathe, shallowly. He could stand the stench of hot spores, but his head was swimming in a growing migraine. Wishing for a buffer, Meathead stood still and leaned one hand out against an iron girder stretching far up into the ceiling, with plenty of catwalks and structures all connected to this one support.

He needed a gas mask, a buffer, something to keep him from sucking in all the things that tried to eat and fester inside the changeling. Meathead thought, he needed Nate.

\111/

Meathead found Sturges, the two raiders loosely guarding him exhibited an air of superiority over him, while the man himself didn't exude any emotions whatsoever. This soured Meathead's expression, the man sitting in a makeshift cell of an office was emotionally dead as cold metal, but the expression on his face was resentment.

"Beat it, I need to grill him for info." He commanded, the two raiders looked up and across at him, and rolled their eyes, standing up and moving off.

Swinging a folding chair around, and pulling it up to the half broken door, he peered over the chipped and broken edge to the man inside.

"Sturges."

He sat against the wall, stripped of his top shirt with his head in between his hands.

"Do you know how an interrogation works?"

Sturges didn't move.

"How is it that a man can express emotion, but for the life of me, I can't feel or sense a single thing coming off of you? You look beaten as hell, but where's the hot face? Where's the anger in your eyes? Where's the methodical planning happening just below the surface? You said you were a mechanic, but I want to know...what in this cold world makes a man look like a man, talk like a man, walk like a man, think like a man, make friends like a man, but is not a man?"

Gristle leaned back, waiting and watching as Sturges leaned in. "I ain't-a synth."

He tisked, the man sitting in front of him was emotionally dead as the metal he was made from. "Never said that you were, heck, you said it yourself. Your actions speak louder than words, you stayed with the old lady. So what do you think happened to your friend, Preston?"

"Like I would even know. They all jumped from the Museum to the church and took off running. That was the last I saw of them."

"And they didn't shout where they were going? No, 'If we get separated, let's meet here?'"

Meathead cringed internally. He felt like he was talking to a literal brick wall. He couldn't 'see' Sturges the same way he saw humans. Sturges wasn't taking any emotions in, nor releasing them, so Meathead couldn't tell what type of emotions he was displaying.

It made for a surreal experience, a pounding realization in his skull that this is what it must be like to be truly human. He relied on his thousand pupils to take in every small detail of Sturges' face and neck. Hoping the man would give away any sort of tell, a sign he was lying.

It was the old-fashioned way, Meathead tittered to himself. Sturges' throat seized up, and Meathead noticed.

"Let's see, you came from Quincey...that must mean you're headed North..." All eyes were on Sturges as he silently sat there, telling Meathead everything he needed to know from a small twitch of the cheek.

"Camped out in the Super Duper Mart, I just came from there, not the smartest idea. And Then you go to Concord...my oh my...I may not be the sharpest knife on the rack, but I sure know how to cut through all the bullshit and see a pattern happening." Meathead boasted.

"North and West." Stuges squinted at him.

"Anywhere but here. Keep running until we look behind us and don't see any of you for a dozen miles." Sturges leaned back, crossing his arms.

"Now come on now, that sounds like you had a nice spot all picked out, a little sanctuary, a little slice of heaven all lined up."

Sturges' lips curled, and Gristle nodded.

"Sanctuary." He repeated, watching Sturges' right eyelash flick. "That's all I need to know. Don't worry about your friends, we'll get you out of here, sooner or later, and see about this whole synth thing."

Meathead stood up and scooted away from the cell, turning around and walked off. Meathead expected that Sturges would think he's just blowing smoke at him, saying things just to get a reaction, which he was.

\111/

Doing a mental count of the people at the Corvega plant, the number given to him was fairly accurate, twenty-eight people wandering around inside the factory, with half a dozen outside in the shipping yard, and a dozen in ramparts above the factory. Meathead walked up the ramparts to the highest point in the factory and looked out over Lexington and Concord, looking southeast towards Cambridge and then the skyline of Boston, how the giant red Massachusetts Energy skyscraper was still visible from such a long distance.

Exterior lights light up the other smokestacks, with a giant red neon sign reading CORVEGA on the side that would blink in succession of the letters being spelled out, then the whole word would blink twice before staying on for a few seconds.

C
O
R
V
E
G
A

CORVEGA, the sign lit up and blinked twice before going dark out, and Meathead stood at the top, looking down and watching the other humans patrol the car factory.

"" He said to himself, trying to pin all the unexplained emotions and thoughts running through his head onto one single reason.

Cold droplets of water touched his arm, and he shook, the unexpected drop in temperature made him look up to the skies briefly before looking back down at the ground, and then after the wind picked up, he noticed movement so small, it was like the twitch of a finger. On the flat railing, knocking its head forward and backward was a small bobblehead, different than the one Nate picked up, and he remembered the sense of clarity that came to him after reading the inscription and likewise did the same.

"Why go down with the ship when you can fix it?"

""

Meathead looked around at the gantry, furrowing his brow upwards and then back down to the factory beneath him.

"," He said, rolling his eyes back and stretching his arms out wide. Basking in the rain for a moment, he shoved the bobblehead into his pocket and stood on the second landing leading back down into the factory, ears tensing with the patter of every raindrop falling onto his coat.

"" He sung to his lonesome self, it was loud enough outside from the blowing wind, and the patter of rain that made him difficult to hear.

\111/

Moving back down inside, he sniffed the air and relished the breeze being brought in behind him. He grabbed the closest thing he could use for a bag and found a burlap potato bag, with a few small worn holes in it, and the thread coming undone, it was a temporary necessity for what Meathead planned to do next.

The skeletons, Meathead realized, trying to mentally block them out wherever he saw them. He didn't grow up in an environment where skeletons were part of a changeling's daily life.

Corpses, occasionally, from the average Changeling from simply dying, or wasting away from starvation, but those were always removed to be recycled. Their bodies would undergo a complete atomic structure breakdown after death. Their bodies would dry out, essentially, and the organs and the limbs would rot and fester away until the chitin skeleton was soft enough to really deteriorate.

Deep below the ground, attempts at changeling farming were very practical, and the dead bodies of other changelings Meathead saw were either buried, and turned over later like compost, or burned and their ashes scattered among the fungal forest.

The idea was that when changelings are born, they are given a little bit of energy and in the end, they must give it all back.
Seeing the bodies rot in here, with only the metal pipes beneath them for their bodies to dissolve into, made a sour note in Meathead's mind.

\111/

All the raiders in the Corvega factory were gearing down or lighting up. The emotions that rolled through the building were cooled or being shouted at him at from a group that was too drugged up and high. The emotions coming from the raiders after they were high were like sound waves, some at a higher frequency, some at a lower frequency, some baritone, and other's a belch of all emotions at once. The latter was what it was like to someone who could physically sense emotional energy, and feel it from a man or woman who was high.

They were happy, sad, remorseful, humble, angry, and it threw Meathead through a loop as to what the predominant emotion was, all flowing out at him at the same time. The only raiders still awake at this time of the night, especially after the rains started, were the ones standing guard outside, Mama Murphy, she was channeling otherworldly emotions, from different planes of existence, and Meathead didn't want to feel any part of that. Along with six other raiders, he could practically pick them all out. The rest were asleep, and it was nearly impossible to get the jump on Meathead. Feeling emotions from other beings were like having eyes pointed in every direction, all he needed to do was focus.

Being able to sense with such efficiency, Meathead wandered the factory freely, stepping over the bodies of sleeping raiders, he grabbed everything he thought would be of some worth, and stuffed it inside the potato sack, and kept moving.

These were the same group of people who tried killing them yesterday, and Meathead felt no reserves about grabbing stacks of Mentats, or vials of Jet off tables, or Buffout tablets, or even cooked up syringes of Psycho.

Meathead licked his lips and shivered when he found an untouched needle that read 'Med-X. Morphine Substitute.' in black, blocky letters. 'Comm. by UNITED STATES GOVT. 1 DOSE. WARNING: MAY BE ADDICTIVE.' It was still wrapped in shrink-wrap plastic inside of a clear plastic case, Meathead put that one into his coat pocket and kept moving on.

Forming a mental map was difficult, with how the building was separated into two different parts, connected by a choke point on the third floor, only accessible from the catwalks. The assembly area, where most raiders were carrying around welding tanks, were now piled against two large tanks, ready to be refilled.
The parts manufacturing looked more untouched than the other portion of the building as if the raiders were going around looking for good locations to set up in, and they saw the Corvega plant as a model home for an entire suburb-furniture and furnishings, and said 'this is the one'.

But, untouched didn't mean that there weren't plenty of things there. There were random piles of junk, and it took Meathead a few moments to realize that none of it was from the actual factory.

All of it looked scavenged, or...ripped from someone's dead hands. The phrase 'over my dead body', came to mind, and it looked like the raiders were more than kindly enough to oblige people on that phrase, and loot their corpse.

Everything that looked important for construction was tossed into a yellow crate, from power tools to limbs of construction Securitrons.

The bundles of clothes were what tipped Meathead off to him realizing that this was the dumping ground for all their raids.
Stacks of worn shoes, bundles of clothes, even half a dozen vault suits all cinched down tight with two leather belts, crossing each other to form a plus sign and keep the old rags contained.

Meathead felt the clothes, rubbing them between his fingers, feeling the fabric and the blood and sweat that went into it by the people who wore it. There was the stench of a working man in these clothes, the smell of people who are busy and awake for three days straight, and the rest. There was a slight mildew, and sour smell, along with the negative energy about it. Meathead imagined the last thought anybody had while wearing these clothes were about how they were going to die.

Meathead left the clothes behind and wandered over to a bin full of shiny integrated circuit boards, motherboards, bundles of rusted wire, capacitors, diodes, and gold circuits. He felt that there was value to them, but didn't know what they were for. A few he recognized as Mr. Handy hardware chips, from when Nate and Nora first assembled Codsworth. From there, Meathead pawed through them, seeing if he could make out any of the labels that separated the Mr. Handy's from the Mr. Gutsy's, the Securitrons from the Assualtrons, and the eye bots from the sentry bots. The rest were all beyond him, and after two minutes, Meathead realized he still didn't know what he was really looking at and grabbed one of each.
The gold caught his eye, and it reflected the light in the darkness with a small glint of brightness.

Taking the sack full of goodies picked up from around the Corvega plant, he avoided completely or walked by less sentient raiders too busy inebriating themselves on Whisky to care.

Departing the parts assembly area, Meathead wandered into a deserted office space that didn't have any raiders sleeping on the available bedroll, laid out next to a working computer monitor.
Sitting down in the rolling office chair, it squeaked loudly as he leaned back and looked down at the small script in the top left corner of the computer screen.

"If you ain't Gristle. Don't go fucking touch my stuff." It read poetically.

Standing up, everything around him in this room once belonged to Gristle, and now he has free reign to take every can of beer, every bottle of liquor, and the entire storage closet set aside with a personal stash of ammo, handguns, and dried beans and legumes.

Putting one hand to his stomach, 'Soon'. He said, taking the dried food with him. The last thing Meathead noticed was the wall calendar from 2077, the Boston Red Sox spring and summer schedule was posted within, along with pictures of the All-Star players from the team line up, and great action shots. The calendar was still set to September 2077. Written in black felt pen on September 30th was "D.C. or Bust!" and the Boston Red Sox were playing against the Washington Nationals.

Then it went into postseason games.

Meathead reached out, flipping the calendar up, and sure enough, there were notes and annotations on the month of October.
October 18th, D. B-day.
October 21st. Dinner w/Mike and Vanessa.

October 24th World Series Game One.
October 25th World Series Game Two
October 26th World Series Game Three
October 27th World Series Game Four
October 28th World Series Game Five
October 29th World Series Game Six
October 30th World Series Final Game
October 31st, Halloween Party Boston Ravens Vs. Cincinnati Bengals

Meathead flipped it to the next page.
"November 24th, Thanksgiving."
and then the last page after that.
"December 21st. Family Dinner
December 24th, Christmas Eve Mass
December 25th, X-mas."

The bare mention of a holiday made Meathead smile at the small paper calendar.

\111/

Covering his face with his right hand for a moment, he took longer to wipe his face off and rub his eyes. Marching down the gallantry way, rounding the corners of the building, until he was standing at the yellow framed door with two blue double doors leading in.

Walking straight to Jared's office, the man in question wasn't there, and Mama Murphey was lying propped up against the wall, mumbling through her lips, and a dazed, drained, empty look in her face and body. Dragging her to a bed, and then covering her entirely with a tarp, he made sure she was covered for what he planned to do next.

Taking two aluminium soda cans, and a bottle of antifreeze from off the floor, he went to the chemistry station, a pile of glass beakers bearing shows of heavy use and abuse, gnarled black and chunky from previous residues, Meathead blanched and held back vomit in his throat from the smell of things, and mashed some of the flowers he'd picked off of dead raiders into a bowl with the anti-freeze and some dirty water before putting it into the can.

The next part, Meathead had to constrict his neck and wait as a lump traveled up his throat, from his stomach, and into his mouth. Gagging a bit, he regurgitated what appeared to be a large blood-red egg yolk, and spit it into the can.

Sealing it with glue adhesive, and then shaking it as his life depended on it. The sides of the can express and bulged. Setting the can next to the door, he pulled out his handgun and went to one knee, laying the barrel of his gun on his arm, and bringing the glow sights in line with the bulging can, he waited.

\111/

Two hours passed and Meathead never took his eye off the door for even a second, head tucked real low, he did close his eyes and wait for the thumping of stairs on the metal catwalks when his eyes opened, and he needed to pinch himself to make sure he wasn't imagining the noise. His pistol was already ready, just one more moment, and Jared walked in with two other raiders behind him when he fired.

Two hours spent with your eyes locked onto a target, and the barrel aiming straight down the sights, Meathead didn't miss.

The gas-filled half of the room and spilled out into the hallway, dousing the three men in a fine red mist. Jared searched for the gunshot and other raiders from the production line floor also heard the noise and were coming to investigate. Rubbing his eyes, he bent over and yelled. Then the other two raiders arms shook as if they were carrying something immensely heavy, heavy enough to make their arms give out and knees collapse.

One raider collapsed to the floor, the other leaned against the door frame and heaved, panting to try and clear the thick mucus build up. Jared planted both feet wide and inhaled and exhaled, each breath growing faster and faster as his back straightened out and hands balled into fists.

Shaking, Jared's eyes opened wide as the pupils expanded, then shrunk down into small pricks, gasping for air, he pivoted on his left foot and charged the closest raider, still leaning against the door. Howling, Jared attacked him with fists and kicks, when the others arrived to investigate the noise, and the man on the ground leaped up and charged them.

Jared pulled out a knife and stabbed the blindsided man in the throat, chest, stomach, and then chest again as the others shouted, trying to get anyone's attention to come to save him. Dealing with the third man by giving him a hard shove, sending him tripping over his own heels and tumbling down onto the ground, only for him to get up, gnash his teeth, shout and charge again.

Jared slashed the man's neck, and gripped his body with both arms and raised the raider above his head, then heaved him through the already broken window.

The remains of the glass shards broke free from the lower part of the frame, but by now, the noise had awoken enough raiders for them to come and witness their boss losing it.

Lonnie unclipped her pistol, the black box raising up to the frenzied man's chest and fired as he swung his fists wide, thrashing and only wanting to inflict pain on others.

The catwalk was cramped as Jared turned towards the knife, pulling out the bloody knife from the second man's chest, and then turned to the group of seven that came to investigate. More people were looking up from the ground floor, also wondering what was happening. Then Jared leaned his weight onto his heels and charge the seven with a knife pointed straight at them.

Several pops of gunfire erupted from the group, and the blood splattered outwards behind him, blasting the catwalk and walls with droplets of blood.

Jared shrieked and swiped once at the closest person when the entire group fired again, the second volley of gunfire ripping the former gang leader apart. A few kept firing even after Jared was dead on the ground. He didn't even have time to contemplate why he felt so much unholy fury and rage, right before dying, like he was cheated.

\111/

Huffing and panting, Meathead teleported in a flash of green fire, arriving in a small cramped corridor with a hole in the wall, leading to an alternate route out of the plant. Teleporting exhausted him as much as running the same distance almost instantaneously.

This whole in the wall leads to a room filled with pipes larger than he was tall, and one of them was broken in and shattered. A machine gun turret was pivoting back and forth, and with some effort, he picked it up, heaving at its weight and carried it in front of him as two ghouls trudged through the pipe and snarled. The machine gun turret picked up their movements and fired, cutting them down in short controlled bursts, and after sensing no more life in the area, he abandoned the turret, facing away from him, back down the pipe, and fled the Corvega plant.

The path was lined with feral ghouls, lost in the pipes that were awakened by the noise and clatter. They tried lunging for Meathead as he ran by, coming within centimeters of the changeling fleeing in the absolute darkness. He flew and stopped when the pipe chase came to a cross-section, and a two dead Deathclaws were laying on their sides, and worse, they were crawling with maggots.
Meathead was repulsed at the sight more than the smell, it didn't bother him, but the maggots were the size of baseballs and reminded him of an equally terrifying fear.

That they looked like tiny Changeling grubs mutated by war and radiation. The idea made Meathead shout out in disgust.

Panting, he looked at the growing infestation and willed energy into his obsidian-colored horn. The air in the sewer tunnels grew brighter, and their dead skin grew warmer. Smoking, Meathead shouted as both Deathclaws caught fire. The flames spread slowly across their entire body. Hovering through use of his wings, Meathead flew away from the burning Deathclaws.

Meathead followed the main line out of the plant. His sense of direction told him he was somewhere under the streets by now, and then the obvious hole where the Deathclaws first came was like a skylight. He paused before poking his head up, focusing, feeling out who was around him, and only felt the echoes of emotions trapped inside ghouls, blocks away and of no threat to him. Into the streets where he continued running, it was nearly five in the morning, and after making it two blocks, he flew above the tops of houses and saw the world from a perspective only so few creatures get to experience. The world was chaotic, twisted, mashed up, bleeding out, and being sucked dry.

'How the hell can you fix all this?' Meathead thought. 'This ship has sunk.'

Chatters of gunfire filled the air from the Corvega plant behind him, as the raiders pinned the blame on others for what happened, and the quickly escalating fight to become Corvega's new leader.

Ch. 9 Starlight Drive In

Author's Note

Travis 'Lonely' Miles looked at the script he wrote for himself, smiling a goofy grin and checking out the clock. Waiting for the second hand to come back around to the 12, he had his right hand on the switch. Mentally counting down.

Clearing his throat, he threw the switch,
"What's up Diamond City? I was just at the Dugout Inn, having a drink, and then I couldn't help but look into my glass and start thinking about this song. It made me laugh. I felt embarrassed that I was laughing so much in the bar, most of the bar was looking at me. But I couldn't stop laughing!

I had to slam my beer- choking on it a few times. Coughing real loud, way to go Travis.
Anyway, And Travis Said, Let there be lips." He licked his lips and straightened up.

"Crazy He Calls Me, by Billie Holiday.
Coming up next.
Brought to you by Diamond City Radio."

Ch. 9 Starlight Drive In

October 25th, 2287

5:35 A.M. Sunrise in twenty minutes.

The rusted chain link fence was bent, warped, and wrapped around most of the Starlight Drive-In movie theater. The massive fifty-foot tall screen was three times as wide and could fit to show the lot of two hundred fifty cars a movie at any time after sundown. The parking lot was a field of weeds, poking out through the concrete with a sinkhole of dirty, radioactive water in the center. The drain field collapsed after the lack of maintenance and pooling stagnant water over the years, aided along with radioactive barrels that were illegally dumped and buried right under the center of the lot

The snack bar was at the back end of the lot, an oval circuit shaped building with a concrete patio and eroded red and white tiles on the inside. Layers of dirty footprints and a makeshift cooking spit out, along with a shopping cart ripped apart, and the grates used as a grill over a car rim campfire. It made it clear that at some point during Nate and Meathead's two hundred ten year tenure, the place was used.

Empty popcorn machines, with paper bags coming in four sizes from small personal bags to family size. An untouched hot dog warmer and a rack for pretzels stood side by side, some untouched and stale. With bags of corn tortilla chips and jars of salsa, there was a liquid cheese dispenser next to that. Two soda fountains were untouched and covered with dust, displaying Vim and Nuka-Cola, Nuka-Cola Cherry, Grapefruit, Lemon-Lime, Orange, Root Beer, and Lemonade, and the last slot was marked with bold black letters, Water.

Next to the machines were stacks of paper cups coated with wax to prevent moisture from turning the drink cups into pulp after being filled were upside down and layered with dust.

Two drip coffee machines and a metal hotel pan filled with grayed coffee cups and spiderwebs on top of them. Packages of ground coffee sat piled up in the box next to the coffee maker, along with filters.

The snack bar also served as a ticket counter for people arriving, with a projected roof over the ticket window. On the other side of the building, the same projected roof was collapsed, turning it into a ramp. This second roof had the markings of exit for cars leaving. Built into the building was a projection booth that was built forty-five feet up into the air with a staircase going up the inside.

There were wooden plank tables held together with large steel bolts, and skeletons sitting at them with their hands wrapped around bottles of Nuka-Cola or coffee mugs.

The marquee was used to display showtimes for two movies that were playing in the year 2077. The first was Captain Cosmos and the second, The Silver Shroud. Spots of mold and algae buildup bloomed against the whitewashed and sun-bleached plastic.

A pile of dead mole rat carcasses and bloodstains from where they were killed, to where they were dragged to, displayed the recent activity at the old drive-in movie theater.

\111/

Nate was already set up for the morning, the remains of his fire from last night were rekindled into a decent small sized fire inside the car rim firepit. He took a small scavenged saucepan filled with water and was boiling it on the makeshift stove.
Shaking out oversized coffee filters, banging out the dust. Underneath the counter inside the snack bar, Nate found a sealed plastic bag filled with rags, and he used one to wipe out two coffee cups.

With water simmering, he took a paper cup and poked holes in the bottom of it to make a strainer to for the filters to rest in. Opening the packet of coffee, he put it to his nose and sniffed it.

The same dark roasted, almost chocolate smell, with toasted oak and dry dirt smell came up to meet his senses. He inhaled and sighed, relaxing his shoulders. Scooping two big spoonfuls into the filter

From half a mile away, he heard barking.

Nate turned his head up and looked all around him in every direction for the source of the noise. He put both pointer fingers into his mouth, curling his tongue back and then blowing out an ear-splitting whistle.

It was another five minutes before Meathead could be seen picking his way through the tall grass and weeds. Going around cars, the dog kept on moving straight for Nate.

He poured the boiling water into the drip cups and watched Meathead cross the drive-in movie theater lot, to him at the snack bar. By the time Meathead reached Nate, there were two cups of coffee ready, with steam coming off the top.

"What did you learn?" He said, offering the cup of coffee to Meathead. The uncertainty was plain to see on his mouth.

""

Nate didn't respond immediately, taking a quick sip of his coffee, he set it down onto the table and then looked at Meathead's ears. They were raised, interested in what he had to say.

"We're advantageous, that's what we are, Meathead."

Nate picked up both cups and carried them inside the snack bar. Waiting for Meathead to enter behind him, he turned around and nudged the door closed with the tip of his boot.

Meathead was wrapped in a flash of green fire and re-emerged in his changeling form. Now able to see over the countertops, and level with Nate's sternum, it was easier for the changeling to look Nate in the eyes with his own blue, dichoptic eyes, layered with over 1000 lens.

"Would you like any coffee, Meathead?" The bug shook his head. "What do you want to know?"

""

Nate nodded. "Can you tell? We're two people who just don't want to die yet. You don't want to die, I don't want to die, so let's try not to die, together." He added on, trying to look at the changeling differently.

Meathead shook his head. "<It's troubling, knowing what the past was like, how...structured and organized things were. Trust was more freely given...sparingly, but it was there. Not like this, not like Corvega."

"Then, for your sake, we are a man and his dog, going to find his lost son. If you want to tell me more about who or what you are, I'd love to learn. I don't know what to tell you, that you wouldn't already know from living with us for the last three years. I see you...and I still see my dog. This...real you...I don't know of any animal on Earth that looks like you do. I don't know of any animal that can talk like you do. So you must not be an animal, but something more."

"I don't know what we are, any more than...." Nate exhaled through his nostrils. "People who've finally decided to talk to each other."

"When you ask me, what are we, it took the world a couple hundred years for the communication barrier to break down and two hours for you to admit that you weren't a dog and something more. Meathead, what we are is the last of a dying breed. I'd rather face oblivion, eternity, or whatever is on the other side of the Wall of Death always coming for us, with some company, telling stories about all the good old times we had and bullshitting about the things we wish we could change." Nate exhaled again, chest shaking and eyes burning.

"But you know? You Changelings helped the Americans in Alaska. You let us stand on your back, raising up the humans to see what was on the other side of that wall, Meathead. And then, I understand. You say I might not understand everything, that's true. I know nothing. But, what I can observe is that everyone you've ever known aside from me is most likely dead.

And that's made you scared, Meathead. You had a whole bunch of baggage and projects on the side that you always wanted to finish, but that time has passed, and now it's time to face the much harsher reality." Taking a sip of his coffee, he cringed at the black, unsweetened, bitter drink, and relished at how powerful it tasted after all this time.

"You don't want to die, Meathead. Neither do I. Like every single person who has ever lived, you are afraid of dying before leaving your mark on the world. You want to be remembered, Meathead. You want others to remember you, and that's not a bad thing to want. Not as my dog, but as a changeling. Unlike the monkeys, or the dogs, or the cats, birds, bees, you have a chance to share your history. You have a chance to share and pass on your entire changeling history and traditions, and customs, because we can't go back home. But, the only one whom you feel like you can tell is me. I don't know where your home is, so I don't know what's stopping you from going home and leaving me here."

Meathead's head tilted straight up and his eyes went upwards for only a second, a physical response to the one thing on his mind.

Nate nodded.

"Meathead. Do you know what happened to China in the 1950s?"

He shook his head, no.

"The Communist Uprising. Do you know what happened to all the Buddhists, monks, gurus, priests, and holy men in China and Tibet during that time?" Nate asked, Meathead only gave an impartial shake of his head.

"They left. They needed to get the fuck out of China or be executed. That's why the Dhali Llama, the spiritual leader of the Buddhist religion fled in exile through the Himalayas to India. He was labeled a terrorist by the Chinese government and is leading in exile ever since. All his followers who didn't want to die packed up everything and left. They left their homes, their belongings, neighborhood, neighbors, friends, family, fields, their jobs, their temples and their shrines, and towns because they knew that the Chinese were coming for them like a wall of death.

When they got to India, and beyond, they realized one thing. WE CAN NEVER GO BACK, Meathead. We can't go back. As much as I screamed and yelled, and fucking cursed the sun and everything under it, I'm not any closer to giving my speech that night in the year 2077. So, when all these monks and holy men realized that, they looked for any way to pass along everything they knew to someone who could pass it on. The only way I know this is because I met fifteen years ago when I was fresh out of high school and my friend Bobby was a Jew who got me interested. He said he was going to Mexico to see this man, and I told him he had me at Mexico."

"The man came to back to America and wanted to teach people what was truly happening over in Asia to the Buddhists. He was a white guy in his twenties in India while the Communist Uprising was happening."

"He was there, in that part of the world learning about all the Hindu Gods and all their beliefs, doing the scholarly thing, when BOOM! A flood of immigrants came in and took one look at this white man and said, 'Hey! We can pass everything we know to him! We can teach him everything! He can take in all our traditions, all our culture, and make sure it stays alive. We can use him to make sure that this knowledge that's been passed down for the last three to five thousand years still exists after we die, Meathead. He had a lot to say about the world's religions, and what I got from him is that governments are temporary. Religion is forever. How do you think the Jews keep getting back up after all the crap they've gone through because of my religion? "

"So. I don't know why you decided what you did, but I think I understand what was happening at the time to make you reach out to me and talk." Nate said, the long analogy was long, but he hoped Meathead saw the connection.

Meathead swallowed, his jaw mandibles moving like he was biting the inside of his lip. Ticking back and forth like metronome out of sync with the timing.

"How you decide to deal with that is up to you. I'll always remember you like my dog, and if you want to go back to a time where there was abundant love all over the place, where we fed you every day, and scratched your neck, took you on walks, and gave you baths, and let you lick our faces, then fine. I would be more than happy to always have that." Nate was leaning against the counter, "But..." Nate swept his hands towards the windows and around the old snack bar.

"I want to go back to that old life as much as you do, only you can still be a dog if you wanted to. I have to be a human on Earth, you can be anything here. And if you really want to go back, we need to keep moving forward. Eventually, things will come full circle."

""

"Okay. What happened?"

"."

"."

"What kind of energy?" Nate asked, interested.

"."

"What happened to her?"

"

"I'll be sure to remember."

"

Nate waggled his head, jutting his head forward a few inches and squinting. "Can you feel that it's actual magic?"

"Can I feel magic? Yes. It's like hearing a microwave running. Some decide to toss in aluminum to make sparks or a book of matches to make fire. But the noises that were coming from Mama Murphy's head, it's like someone threw in a baked potato, wrapped in aluminum foil, and cranked the machine on to 'nuclear'. I could practically see the smoke coming out of her ears, and the light coming from her eyes.

"What did she have to say?"

""

"Killer in the square in square...square in the square..." Nate turned around, walking towards the snack bar. Piled up on the counter were a few things Nate scavenged from around Concord and Lexington, mostly ammo, plenty of colas, and a couple guns including a snub nose .44 and a laser pistol, boxes of preserved food, and shoving everything to the side, was some magazines.

"While I was out, I overheard a group of raiders talking about a man named Boomer carrying around a Fat Man..."

Hot Rodder, the cover showing a custom kit car with a flame paint job, Taboo Tattoos, showing a naval Sailor clenching his jaw and flexing his arm as an ink needle designed an anchor tattoo on his right bicep. Finally, The Wasteland Survival Guides issues 5 and 8.

"North of..."

The latter books were bound together with braided cord and showed crude pen drawings. The paper was soft and worn and covered in stains. Issue #8, Self Defense Secrets showed a man mid-jump-kick, with an explosive corona around his outstretched fist and him yelling a battle cry.

"The Galleria." Nate finished, moving the book aside and finding the one he was looking for. Holding it up for Meathead to see, he offered it to the dog and felt

Issue #5, the Road to Diamond City, showed a man in patched pants, walking an S-curve road surrounded by gravestones reading 'RIP' and at the end, was Diamond city, a giant wall with a white on a black square diamond in the center.

"Killer in the Square in Square." He said, holding out the tattered magazine for Meathead to see. There was a black diamond square, with a white one in front of it on the gate to Diamond City.

" Meathead read the title out loud. ""

"Best routes and roads from all directions getting into Boston, and to Fenway Park. From the North, It says there are bridges all along the Charles, which I know about. Two by Beantown Brewery, one of those is a railroad Three from Cambridge to Boston, one from the Barrens to Downtown. Then it says coming in from the Northeast is the safest path, then making our way through the Fens. But, I found this in the hands of raiders, so I don't know how reliable this information is."

""

"Not even a little," Nate replied Meathead's head jerked back a bit. "If the man's alive. He's ninety, maybe even one hundred years old. I can't accept that Shaun is still a baby. Not when I know in my heart that there's been a change from when Shaun was taken, so when we got out. What else do you know?"

"<...They've got the mechanic. I couldn't break cover and ask Sturges about what happened to Preston. I learned some new lingo today and something about him.>"

"Yeah?"

""

"A Synth?"

"A synthetic human life, a copycat, looks like a human, but I can do one better. These machines don't have any emotion, and I can feel that there's nothing coming from them."

"But they think they're human?"

""

"Hold up, I've been listening to the guy on the radio, Travis; Diamond City Radio. He talked about the Institute and the synths." Nate waggled his head.

""

"The guy said we were a spare, so..." Rocking his head back and forth, "DNA. Something... not found anywhere else in Boston or the world for that matter. Something that can't be replicated..." Nate opened his mouth as if he was about to pose a serious question and Meathead shot him a very pointed look.

""

"Are changelings an asexual species?"

Meathead narrowed his eyes at Nate and slowly rolled his eyes up to the right to consider the question.

"<No. We have a Queen. Think of an Ant Queen."

"That's interesting. What's her name?"

Meathead drew in a short breath and mouthed her name first. "<.>"

"<Queen Geneva in your language. In mine, Queen Gynae. That is what it translates to."

"How long do Queens usually live?"

""

"How did you kill their leader? How did you get out?"

"I left a..." Meathead's throat seized up. He tried swallowing, looking up at Nate from where he was by his legs. The words he wanted to say were something he never considered telling another living soul. What he did was imprint negative vibrating harmonics into the polymorphic liquid in his stomach, and then use the negative energy- all the hatred, all the anger, as much as he could soak up in a single breath, and condense it down, then discharge it out his mouth.

A little ball of hate, he called them.

"Bomb. I made a bomb and left it for when their leader, Jared, walked through the door, I shot the bomb."

"How did you make it? String some grenades together? Bleach and Lye?"

"" Meathead replied, his chest getting lighter as he breathed deeply. He'd let go of a breath he was holding and realized how out of sync he was. ." "You teleported?" Nate interrupted.

Meathead's body froze, Nate's curiosity was pouring out of him, like a cat who found a massive fish sitting out on the counter, and he was wondering if it belonged to anyone.

"" Meathead said, then he went on to say. "But I realize your definition of digging and my definition of digging are different. Changelings can condense the mass in front of them and have it expand behind them so we can move quickly through the dirt.

Nate frowned, as he'd just heard someone cut a loud fart. "Are you saying you can warp relative space?"

""

Nate put one hand to his face, touching his cheek. The room seemed to get lighter as his eyes adjusted even more to the darker interior.

"What?" Nate asked, utter disbelief.

"You would think we would've been unstoppable in Equestria, but... we couldn't even feed ourselves. To live, to feed, we rely on the good-natured will and loving care of others. Heh.

Meathead cried out. "" He said, shaking his head. Nate was worried about his dog and the spontaneous breakdown of laughter. Meathead was still chuckling when he asked, ""

A big burlap sack appeared from no space and thunked down onto the countertop. Nate's eyes widened and he opened the sack, perusing the contents.

"I went back North, did a big loop towards Walden pond, checked out a cabin where I heard the raiders talking about Boomer, moved east to Thicket Excavations, and..."Nate swallowed. "There's less order here than I realized. Those raiders are all over the place, I saw them walking underneath the old power lines, following tracks towards Sanctuary. There's bloodbug mosquitos...big red honking mosquitos the size of small children, and flies the sizes of basketballs..."

Nate trailed off and the tone of his voice went flat.

"Some bears roaming around...cleared out the mole rats around here. A few packs of dogs... and a lot of skeletons...All over the place." Nate ran his tongue over his teeth and glanced down at his pip-boy.

"A lot of radiation too." His voice picked up again, "This thing on my wrist has been ticking just barely ticking ever since we left the vault. What I want to do is to get a better lay of the land before heading straight there. This book suggests the best roads to Diamond City from every direction. From where we are, the fastest route would be to follow the train tracks and cut west after we cross the river, but, I'm looking for signs of life that are still standing from before the war and, any signs that life is rebuilding beyond little holes in the ground." Nate held up the 'Road to Diamond City', then laid it on the picnic table for Meathead to read and see.

"Meathead, here are the routes I'm planning." Nate said, unclipping his Pip-Boy and bringing up the map feature.

"We either go South, through Lexington, past the Corvega plant, through Cambridge and find a bridge to cross and make our way into the Fens.

"Or we head east." Nate let Meathead look at the map on his Pip-boy, tracing a line east.

"If we head that way, I want to check a site for weapons a bit north of here. I overheard raiders by Walden Pond talk about a group with a Fat-Man launcher with them. If there's nothing there, we go south and swing by the General Atomics Galleria, and see if it's still standing. If there's an update for Codsworth lying around, or saved to a computer, I'll download it to the Pip-Boy. After that, south. When we parted, I went east towards the lake, and there's a cement-walled village on the far side. There's a guard on the outside. I want to see if they're friendly or not. From there, if we can find a place to rest with walls around us, and maybe a roof over us, it'd be a good start to knowing society is rebuilding. After that, we'll head south, crossing at Tucker, into Cambridge and make our way into the Fens from there."

"And what if Cambridge is infested with deathclaws? or ghouls? Or run by another raider gang?"

"Then we go around, survey the land, and keep quiet. First priority is food water, then shelter. Detoxifying every few days with rad-away, and keeping our health up."

""

"We'd be easy targets for crossing any bridge, we'd avoid Cambridge and be able to walk right into the Fens, but I know that road leading right into the city is wide. Really wide. It's all two-story houses, then goes right to six and nine-story buildings. Anyone with a rifle could be waiting to pick us off.

There's one place I have in mind I want to check out if we go east. The BADTFL."

""

"The Bureau of Alcohol, Drugs, Tobacco, Firearms, and Lasers. If there's any place that we could scrounge up something to take on a Deathclaw, that would be the place."

"" Meathead found himself agreeing to Nate's logic.

"Eastward?"

Meathead nodded. ""

Ch. 10 Paying Respects

Author's Note

He's a Demon, He's a Devil, He's a Doll. Make up your mind, Betty! It's all or nothing out there in the Commonwealth. Not that I would know too much, you might get lucky I've walked around the block occassionally, but I've got what most people would call...brown pants syndrome....I don't go outside of Diamond City unless I wear brown pants...mainly because of the terriffying things that would turn clean white pants...into stained, smelly, brown pants. So, woe is me for not having to deal with the hell going on outside, I've got a pretty good set-up in here and I enjoy it. Mainly the big reason is "OH MY GOD WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" Running through my mind every time I walk past the wall.

Betty Hutton, everyone.

Make up your mind, either listen to Diamond City Radio, or don't. You're choice. I'd love to hear what else is playing on the air..."

Ch. 10 Paying Respects

October 25th, 2278
6:03 A.M.

The path east from Starlight Drive-In followed a road north, until Nate looked right and cut off the road, passing through sloping hills down to the east, and straight to Bedford Station. Nate picked large buildings and went straight for them, silently lost in thought and making his way forward, putting one foot in front of the other and thinking about what there was to do in this new world.

Meathead plodded alongside him, panting like the dog he was pretending to be, and faithfully following along.

Meathead didn't speak much, but the nearer they got to the Bedford Station, and Nate instinctively followed the train tracks to the station master hut, he barked.

""

He shook his head and looked down. "Huh?" Go ahead, he implied.

""

Nate nodded, he saw them chase Meathead to the Corvega plant, the long-dead humans still shuffling around thanks to the metric ton of radiation exposure coursing through their bodies.

"How many?" Nate asked apologetically.

""

"For what?"

""

Nate carried a hunting rifle on his back, a 10 mm pistol in his holster, and a pipe pistol shoved into his waistband and a snub-nose .44 pistol. Readying his hunting rifle, he made sure it was loaded and ready to fire.

"I haven't fought them before, I want to see just what it takes to kill one of these things," Nate said, Meathead nodded and tread lightly behind him.

\111/

They saw the feral ghouls long before the ghouls even noticed Nate or Meathead. Inching closer, the duo made it forty-five feet from the closest ghoul, it was wandering back and forth between an upright train car, and one knocked over onto its side. Circling around to the north, they climbed up the steps to the station master's hub, and Nate got a good count of where every one of them was. Closing the door, Nate picked up the desk with both hands, and set it down in front of the door, bracing it. Sitting in the chair, he stuck the barrel of his hunting rifle out the window, letting it rest on the frame so he could line up his shot. Pushing a few strands of hair out of his face, he yawned and inhaled.

Bang. The first shot struck the feral ghoul, unaware and Nate flinched as he saw the muscle mass weakened by centuries of erosion splatter and rip the ghoul's head and neck clean off with a single bullet.

Pulling back on the bolt, the spent cartridge flew out and clattered to the floor as the other six ghouls woke up from their stasis. Howling, they looked in all directions, and Nate fired again.

He struck the second ghoul in the chest, sending it spinning backward, and it tripped over its own feet, falling to the ground.

Nate quickly rubbed his eye, pulled back on the bolt, and fired at the third ghoul, hitting him in the arm.

At least, Nate thought it was a 'him', he couldn't tell. The other four ghouls were running at the station tower, frantically dashing up the stairs as Nate fired again and again. Their fists pounded against the door. Nate kicked out the wooden panel of the wall above their heads, and he was looking down at the small group. Unholstering his pistol, he fired twelve times, killing two of them, and wounding the other two. Moving to his .44 revolver, he stuck his arm out through the wood, and fired three times, killing the two remaining ghouls.

Meathead sat on top of the desk, watching as Nate dispatched them with tact and ease. He reloaded his weapons and then moved towards the door. Meathead hopped down off the desk and Nate shoved it out of the way.

Inhaling and exhaling, Nate was breathing heavily. Taking long steps over the feral ghoul bodies on the stairs, they walked down and scouted the weigh station, finding litters of ammo and a box of crackers Nate munched on before continuing their path east.

\111/

"" Meathead said, looking down at the feral ghouls in the graveyard.

"<...And there are people to the north, up, over on that overpass there. They're bored, screwing around and uninterested in anything.>" Meathead and Nate were both eyeing the glowing feral ghoul in the middle of the cluster. It was like looking at a human X-ray, the bones were visible through the skin, and the eyes and mouth were pockets of glowing green.

Contempt. Aggression. Nate felt threatened by the glowing ghoul stalking through Wild Wood Cemetery, and Meathead could pick up on Nate's emotions.

"...And that's why we here at Vault Tec...have provided you with the Vault Assisted Tageting System..." Nate mumbled, looking over the hunting rifle in his hands.

"One. Two. Three. Four. Five." He counted off, picking which ones to shoot first before needing to reload.

"One. Two. Three. Four. Five." He made the motion of pulling the bolt back and counting off in his head.

"One. Two. Three. Four. Five." Drop the spent magazine, reload a fresh clip. "One. Two. Three. Four. Five." Patting his handgun and pistol, his pointer finger went from ghoul to ghoul. "One. Two. Three. Four. Five." Inhaling, he raised both arms above his head and felt his heart rate rise.

"Okay," Nate said, moving forward. Nate approached a bent cast iron gate, and kicked one leg high over the fence, and then the other. Meathead followed around through a gap in the fence, ten paces farther down.

The circular design of Wild Wood Cemetary was like a giant clock, with Nate and Meathead approaching from the 10' o'clock direction. In the very center was a large Cedar tree, now bent and gnarled from time where the ghouls were looping around in mindless circles. The cemetery was in three tiers, with ramps starting at the 6 o'clock position, and going to the left and right, with a third pass at the 12 o'clock position. Around the second and third tiers of the cemetery were small family tombs, made from white marble and costing upwards of two million dollars to build and house the long-dead relatives into the afterlife.

Nate propped up his rifle on the backside of the gravestone belonging to Matteo Gervias, and aimed down the sights to the Glowing One, and set up the perfect shot with VATS.

He fired three times, all striking the Glowing One's skull. The ghoul's green blood blew out the backside of the skull, and the ghoul faltered but stayed standing.

Nate grit his teeth and swore to himself, ducking down. Eight more ghouls on top of the Glowing One were aware of his presence and turned to him like he was shining a spotlight on him. Sprinting while keeping his body low, the ghouls were scrambling up the steep rocky hill, falling over themselves and crawling over headstones to reach the spot where Nate was, and then one of the nine pairs of eyes spotted Nate and charged after him, redirecting the herd of un-sapient growling humans after him.

Meathead changed from German Shepard to Changeling, casting off his disguise, his crooked horn burned green. Charging up a spell, he took to the air with his blue translucent wings, hovering above the crowd. A bolt of energy flew from his horn, colliding with one of the rotten ghouls. The concussive shot blew the arms off one ghoul, barely hanging on with limited muscle tendons.

The ghoul fell back as Nate ran, firing behind him as the ghouls stretched out their arms, trying to tackle him like rabid dogs.

Circling around the cedar tree, Nate fired the last round in the hunting rifle and switched to his .44 snub nose and 10mm. Vaulting over tombstones, the ghouls lacked the depth perception to avoid most of them or bump into the waist-high cover. Meathead dove, plucking one ghoul off the ground as it thrashed in his forehooves. Flying forty feet up into the sky, he let the ghoul go, letting it plummet into the ground and shatter its leg bones.

The Glowing One snarled, raising its hands up to the sky, its chest grew brighter and brighter until a burst of radioactive dust blew out from its body. The ghouls crippled and laying broken on the ground forced themselves back up, the radiation forcing an accelerated healing to the ghoul's life force-the radioactive blood coursing through each of their veins.

By increasing the amount of radiation within their bodies, but lacking blood pouring out of them, the Glowing One restored some of the other ghouls' life force, much to Nate and Meathead's horror.

Any part of Nate's body that was facing the Glowing One felt cooked and sunburnt. His muscles ached and moving made him wince.

Nate sprinted away, reloading his hunting rifle and clicking a new clip into place. Turning on his heel, he almost fell over, lining up another VATS three round burst directly into the Glowing One's chest. All the bullets collided and burst through the ghoul's rib cage.

The exposed lungs and beating heart poured out of its chest, falling out and dangling in the open air. Meathead tackled the Glowing One and ripped his heart out with his fangs. Flying up, the organ was torn out of his chest and the Glowing One reached out, staggering, barely registering the conscious feeling of coldness before falling over and bleeding out to death.

Nate fired three more times, killing one ghoul and overwhelmed by the horde. He threw his right elbow into the temple of one ghoul and was chomped on the left arm by another. The swarm bashed at him, and Nate fired off another shot at point blank range into a ghoul's skull. Bitten down on the shoulder by the neck, Nate screamed as Meathead tackled a ghoul into the dirt, sending the living dead back beneath the ground where it belonged.
Reaching back, he dropped the snub nose to the ground, whipping the 10mm around like a brick, smashing it into the face of a ghoul in his face. He grabbed the ghoul biting into his shoulder meat and heaved the body over him, into another ghoul, and they both fell backward. Nate lunged forward, sinking bullets into their skulls and killing them.

Meathead landed and tackled another changeling, green blood dripping from his jaws as he leaned down and bit into the neck of one ghoul as Nate shoved another clip into the 10 mm pistol and firing all the rounds in rapid succession.

"Die...motherfucker...Die..." Nate chanted, bleeding from the shoulder, arm, chest, nose, and hands. His right arm was shaking, and ears were ringing. The last ghouls were dead, and Meathead hacked and coughed, spitting the blood from his mouth.

"Jeeezus," Nate said, head spinning.

Falling to his knees, he wrapped his arms around his head and tried forcing more air into his lungs. He hurt all over, but he was alive. His left leg muscles cramped at the sudden adrenaline rush and Meathead came up to his side. Nate reached down and unzipped the brown leather pouch strapped to his leg, and pulled out a stimpak, then pressed it to his shoulder.

"" Nate shook his head, passing by the gravestones, he was looking for one in particular.

"You?"

Meathead nodded.

Moving through the rows, Nate found the one he came here for and collapsed onto the stone bench next to the two flat grave markers on the ground.

"Hi." He said to the grave markers. Exhaling his grief, he laid on the bench with his back to the ground and looked up at the sky.

Holding his Pip-boy up, he looked at the radiation gauge and balked. 300 rads per b/u3.

His chest fell, and he turned his head right to Meathead. "How about you? How are you feeling? I'm cooking over here." Nate closed his eyes and let his arms drop.

"" Meathead said, seeing Nate's dazed expression on his face. He was laying on his back, face to the sky, eyes unfocused, and deep shallow breathing.

Meathead's ears perked up, and he felt the killing intention hiding behind a high powered pipe rifle, with a long barrel, stabilizer stock, and a full magazine of .45 caliber round bullets, aimed right at Nate.

Meathead plucked Nate up in green magic and whipped him behind tombstones, he jerked awake immediately and shouted: "What the fuck?!" As the first long-range barrage began.

\111/

The overpass looking down on Wildwood Cemetery was partially collapsed, it was a two-tiered highway with two windmills built and sustained by the Gunners, the paramilitary mercenary organization and are the largest single unaligned faction in the Commonwealth, acting independently of any government or settlement.

They attached lifts to the highway, and with a fallen section ramping up to the 100-meter long section where they outfitted an automatic turret to gun down anyone coming up the ramp. They boxed themselves in, and from their vantage point could look out in every direction. Their fort built on the first level of the ramp had three shacks, while on the second level only accessible by a second lift was where they cooked, gathered power from the windmills, and watched for any people passing by.

Armed with laser rifles, and long range scopes, they carried more heavy arms than a typical raider. Their insignia on every piece of military grade armor, every robot under their command, every defense point and banner was a skull with a stitched mouth, and a large X carved into the middle of the forehead.

The second Gunner fired at Nate with a modified pipe rifle, built to fire .45 rounds, and capable of hitting a target at 400 meters. It's accuracy fell off after 100 meters, but the first Gunner standing next to the second held binoculars to her face and told the shooter how many degrees to adjust her aim and hit the target.

Nate crawled on his belly through the tombstones, keeping his head low, and body lower. "Women Jiang renshou!" Nate shouted to Meathead.

"" Meathead shouted back, not understanding what he said.

Nate was shaking, he blew out his nose and kept crawling with his hunting rifle out in front of him, he looked back and saw Meathead taking cover behind a tombstone, and they both saw the wild crazed look in each other's eye. They weren't expecting another fight so quickly.

Every ten seconds, another bullet would race overhead and smash into the ground, the rock, dirt, or a grave site. He knew where the bullets were coming from, and he crawled in a perpendicular line away from the sniper.

Breathing heavily, they both skirted for cover. When they put the cover of the natural steel hill between them and the line of sight of the overpass, Nate pushed himself onto his knees and waved Meathead over. Nate's eyes burned as Meathead came up to him, and the bullets echoed out over the graveyard.

Exhaling, ""

Nate nodded, turning the hunting rifle over in his hand. With a range of 700 meters, accurate shots were difficult after 100 meters, it would take stillness, focus, and a good angle to shoot back at a sniper behind cover. Feasibly, the only part of the body Nate would be able to see was the barrel of the gun or the top of the shooter's head.

""

"We wait." The shots rang out for another ten minutes, striking at random spots around the graveyard. Nate would hear the bullet impact and Meathead laid his ears flat, trying to crawl up the steep hill and peer over for a vantage point.

"" Meathead came back down until he was touching Nate's side.

Laying there patiently, Nate waited for Meathead to make a signal.

""

"Kill them."

Crouch walked to the road, they stayed out of sight from the overpass and crept closer. Going intentionally slow, and picking up speed, Meathead clicked his tongue if he wanted to get Nate's attention. He would drop down to the ground, lay flat, and then listen for Meathead.

They could make out the figures of a few Gunners from a long ways away. Meathead said there were four, two of them were walking around on guard.

Across the street, over embankments and guard rails, they followed a ditch close to the tail end of the highway overpass and were able to sneak all the way to the underside of the fallen overpass without raising alarm.

Nate cupped his ears, listening to a ratcheting noise, something swinging back and forth. "There's a turret." It sounded like a lawnmower engine, pivoting the automatic turret back and forth.

""

"North?" Nate squatted low. "How many?"

Meathead shook his head, closing his eyes. Mouthing the numbers, he counted upwards. "Arrogance, self-assured victory, they're approaching with an intent to win, determination...>" Meathead opened his eyes. ""

"Does this second group know we're here?"

"No."

Nate heard a metal clang.

His calves pinched together and knees buckled, the metal clang was like one hollow steel pipe swung like a baseball bat against a big cast iron bell, making the noise ring out. Fear rolled off Nate's shoulders as they both heard the whistling through the air.

Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings. Nate thought.

" Meathead's ears picked up Nate's fear. On the whistling noise that grew louder and louder, and Meathead didn't have a chance to hear it before at Corvega when his ears were ringing from the gunfire.

Nate grabbed his dog and hugged Meathead to his chest and fell to the ground. The whistling increased and then the left-hand support structure of the highway was obliterated in a white light and roaring explosion as a group of raiders surrounding a central raider wearing power armor and carrying at Fat Man launched mini-nukes at the Gunner base on the overpass.

\111/

Boomer despised the Gunners, he saw it fit to walk south from Outpost Zimonja, with a few of the best men in his crew to show these mercenaries who was running the show around here in this part of the Commonwealth.

These assholes, as he put it, were digging in with their windmills, fortifying their position, and making themselves harder and harder to assault every day. His limited supply of Mini-Nukes wouldn't last forever, but he knew to strike hard, fast, and scare the living daylights out of any wannabe merc in his territory.

Boomer sent four raiders to charge up the collapsed overpass ramping up to the road.

His men were aware of the turret, and pleasantly surprised when the darn thing fell over backward and aimed upwards. This cleared the right-hand side of the highway, giving the men ample cover with concrete barriers protecting them from being shot at from a crossfire from a guard stand on the left-hand side.

Boomer aimed at the second tier of the highway, launching a second Mini-nuke, and blowing three cars off the top, while destroying their northern facing windmill. The chaos was a beautiful sight to his men, inspiring them to run up the ramp and assault the Gunners in full force with better numbers.

Two men were killed trying to make it up the ramp, and Boomer launched a third mini-nuke at the overpass, looking for flying body parts or people running for their lives. The two men who stayed with Boomer were on the semi-equal ground with the first level of the overpass and were scanning the rail for anyone trying to poke their head up and shoot down at them. They fired suppressing rounds, splitting the attention of the Gunners to the north, and to the men charging up the ramp.
One raider killed both gunners on the first level of the overpass, but not before a third raider was killed.

The four raiders left, including Boomer went up the ramp, dragged their bodies out to the front of their blockades, and cut their heads off, one by one, and kicked their bodies down the concrete path, leaving long bloody smears.

They left the Gunner's heads on display, and Boomer carved the letter 'B' in the forehead of the first skull, then 'O' in the second, 'O', and 'M'.

BOOM.

Leaving the grizzly sight on display, they didn't take their weapons or even stay long afterward. Nate and Meathead were huddled underneath the ramp, keeping absolutely quiet until they were gone.

After Meathead gave Nate the all-clear, they both ran up to the Gunners camp, picking over a small collection of weapons, and taking the scope from the Gunner's sniper rifle, finding some much-needed ammo, a laser pistol which Nate then handed the pipe pistol to Meathead. The dog took the weapon, and it disappeared before both their eyes, but as Meathead put it, it was in between space.

After finding another three stimpaks on the Gunner's bodies, but no Radaway, they looked north and saw the small band of raiders were still visible.

"Let's get after them." Nate said, "We need that launcher."

\111/

October 25th
7:13 A.M.

Following an East by north East direction, they passed under the interstate leading north and South, coming to a ridge where they heard the echoing concussive bang of Mini-Nukes exploding.

The light generated from one of the mushrooming explosion was enough to make the rest of the noonday around them seem dark. Nate dropped low to the ground, covering his ears and waiting for any more to be fired off.

""

Nate nodded, moving along the ridge even more north, checking around the edge of a moss-covered boulder for a count of how many raiders.

Peeking one eye around the bend, Outpost Zimonja came into view. It was an antenna station for radios, a small brick shed with a maintenance shed next to it with a few additions to make it into a camp. From their vantage point, he saw a little spigot for water, and the remains of solar panels attached to the antenna, providing electricity for a string of lights running between the two buildings. A rusted chain-link fence surrounded the outpost, making it a decent camp. There were seven raiders, and one of them was balancing a Fat Man mini-nuke launcher between his legs. Wearing power armor that seemed cobbled together, he was sitting in a steel chair that could support the weight of both him, the suit, and the Fat Man.

Nate cleared his throat and crouched down.

"A Fat Man. They have a Fat Man."

It was the Mark 30 Fat Man, a catapult launcher using Hydraulic pistons capable of a range of 1000 meters. They were two-handed artillery cannons. They could launch nearly 2000 meters with a decent enough height advantage, and maybe if the wind was blowing about 100 miles per hour.

All these distinct features were considered when launching a mini-nuke across the 1700 meter wide channel separating False Pass from the encamped Chinese forces on the other side.

When Uncle Sam dropped two shipping containers of Fat Man's down onto the soldiers in False Pass, they took them high up onto the mountainsides next to the town. A striking feature about most of the Alaskan Islands are the steep mountains that drop right down into the water, with maybe a ten-foot stretch of beach that would disappear at high-tide. With no place for a boat to tie up to, there were very few safe havens that non-locals would be able to find shelter.

Nate remembered carrying the weapons high up onto the mountainside, and how heavy they used to be. After carrying them for weeks, tripods were brought in to help stabilize the Fat-Mans for artillery use.

Following footpaths that were worn out over time from natives and fishermen wandering the island, with BMXs and ATVs, they set up artillery stations and aimed across the channel. There were bueys placed in the channel to show the changing of the tide, and the current speed. A taller buey with a wind flag showed how much it was blowing at ground level.

A major factor to consider about a trajectory when it came to wind in False Pass was the mountainlike narrow valley, it could bowl you over at two-thirds the speed of a hurricane.

They took the weapons and aimed higher, then pulled the triggers.

They were nearly knocked off their feet the first time, realizing it was supposed to be held by a person in power armor. The recoil was like taking a torque gun and letting it piston against your shoulder. The mini-nukes, each weighing about 1 kilogram, sailed through the air with a long whistling sound.

"WWWWWWWwwwwwwwwwhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhooooooooooooooooBASH!"
The wind carried the shells even farther across the pass, having them explode, wiping out 15 meter wide swaths of land that were charred black and rendered radioactive for the next five hours.

The Americans had time to avert their eyes before the blinding light damaged their corneas. In the back of their minds, all their mothers were telling them to not look directly at the bright light.

What most American's didn't know about America, is that during World War Two, the Japanese invaded the Aleutian Islands, and were island hopping their way all the way to the mainland.

They were stopped at Dutch Harbor, Unalaska. This island was the next main island after False Pass, about a day's journey west by boat at 10 knots. The five thousand Americans were airdropped resources and supplies or boated in from the mainland to fight the Japanese.

War remained the same, but they were both waiting for the thousands of soldiers to freeze to death or starve when it came to winter. When no planes could fly, or small boats could safely run. The only boats that went out were industrial fishing vessels, the Navy, Coast Guard, and each fishing fleet of ten or more boats was watched by no less than seven Navy vessels.

Even in winter, people needed to eat.

But, getting food in took crazy people, and by God, these people were the craziest.

One captain of an 80-foot boat painted half his boat completely black, so from the shore, you couldn't even tell a boat was going by in the pitch black. You might hear the engines, but no one could see the F/V Aleutian Hunter pull through False Pass in the dead of night. No running lights, going at a trolling speed. Dangerous as hell, especially when you could be picked out by radar from the other side.

But, it didn't stop people from trying, so when the ships slid in, and tied off, with black rope and black rain gear, and all the cigarette smokers were forced to stand on the Island facing side, as to not show the boat's position from the glow of a cigarette or the flare of a lighter.

Yes, a sniper can see the glow of a cigarette, that's why whoever lights up, lights one for his buddy, while a third person stands guard with a rifle to make sure if the first two are shot while smoking, that he sees where the muzzle flash is, and to shoot back.

In this instance of war, the objective was to hold the line and wait for the other side to deplete themselves. If the enemy surrendered, they would be given food, and be treated fairly as prisoners of war. Their rights would be limited, but not completely revoked. They would live, but be seen as an enemy.

It was rooted so deeply in the enemy's mind that they were to under any circumstance, surrender. There was a fear of unknown from the Chinese forces, the fear of being an American Prisoner of War, either voluntarily or under fire, their future's were painted black by their commanders.

Needless to say, on every commercial fishing vessel was a sign that said five things.

Absolutely no Firearms.

What a load of bullshit. Alaska has more guns per gun-owner and owners per capita than Texas.

TEXAS! Shoot!

\111/

Nate blinked the time spent at False Pass away and raised his rifle. Aiming at the raider in power armor, carrying the Fat Man, he shot three times and struck Boomer in the skull three times.

There was a moment of panic and a mad dash for the Fat Man from two other raiders close by. They picked it up and swung it around to where Nate and Meathead were only moments ago. They fired, but the duo was gone.

Both raiders holding up the Fat Man took a step back as the pads slammed into them sending the projectile up into the rocky outcropping around the station. Boulder-sized chunks of rock and small flakes rolled down the hill, and the echoing blast rang out for miles.

Meathead ran in, tackling a raider to the ground and ripping at his arm. Making him drop the weapon, he tried punching the dog in the face, but Meathead let go and bit down again directly on the man's enclosed fist, then slamming his weight down, he broke the bones and chewed through the hand as the man screamed. He growled and let go, pouncing back them rearing back down onto the man's head to kill him.

Nate fired at raiders trying to take cover, killing three of them while the remaining four saw Nate's muzzle flash, and their group members are gunned down.

Nate moved, Meathead moved, the raiders threw a grenade, listening to the metal shell bounce off the rock and explode at Nate's last known position.

Nate pressed his machete through the backside of a raider and out his chest, and kicked him off his blade, drawing the long knife out of the bleeding man's chest. He fired seven rounds at a raider who was aiming at Meathead. The dog changed directions and bit the next man on the shoulder. He cried out, remained standing as he swung his body weight around, trying to throw Meathead off. Meathead let all his body weight sink into his jaws, into the man's flesh as he tore it off.

Letting go, he was thrown back, and landed on his paws, running up and getting kicked in the side of the skull. Nate fired ten rounds at the second to last raider, ripping holes out of his shoulder, chest, and head.

The last raider fired at Nate, unloading his entire clip. The man and his dog heard the empty casing fall to the ground as he struggled to reload and pull the nail back to slide the next bullet into the barrel. Nate charged the man and slammed his boot into the man's knees, making him buckle with a wheeze.

He tried to swing his pipe-rifle up and shoot Nate, but Nate grabbed the top of it and yanked it free from his grip. Pointing both rifles at him, Nate said, "Stop."

And the raider stopped. Laying his arms out beside him, he slowly pushed himself to an upright sitting position.

"Hands up."

"What's your name?" Nate said, coughing twice and taking deep breaths.

"Crag Lock."

Nate passively blinked and looked Crag Lock in the eye. "Live or die, come after me, and you'll die. Try to shoot me when my back is turned, you'll die. Leave here and stop with the petty bullshit raiding, and you just might live to see tomorrow. What is your choice?"

"Live." He said sternly.

"Meathead, bark if he moves."

""

Nate went to the workbench, looking around the outpost build up around a radio antenna. There were wooden additions to the brick foundation sticking out of the ground. Sticking out of the bricks was a little water faucet with buckets gathered around it. Aside from a metal shed from the pre-war, and a small garden plot with three plants in it, there was nothing else of interest.

Nate grabbed the Fat Man, hefting it up onto his shoulders, then he spotted three ammo rounds on the workbench below.

Next to the Mini-nukes was a comic book, still in almost good condition. Keeping one eye on Crag Lock, and the other on the frail comic book, Astoundingly Awesome Tales, issue #7, he peeked at it for a moment then placed it in his pack.

"Did your parents name you Crag Lock, or was it a nickname?"

Nate asked, the raider looked up from the ground in front of him, which had been his interest for the last five minutes after watching all his comrades were killed.

"Heuh?"

"Your name. Was that your given name?"

"Yeah. What do you have against my name? You got something against my parents too?"

"Nope. I feel like its an odd sounding name." Nate said, Meathead barked once, and he dropped the Fat Man, immediately pulling up Justice and aiming it at Crag Lock.

"Just fucking shoot me."

"Stop, or I will."

"Fuck you. Fuck every last little inch of your body. Fuck you." Crag Lock said taking one bold decisive step forward. Nate fired, aiming directly at the chest. The bullets ripped into his ribcage and killed him instantly. His body took one step backward, knees caving in as he fell.

His blood poured onto the soil, same as the other six bodies now lying dead around the camp.

Then Nate and Meathead were ten minutes outside of the camp, carrying a loaded Fat-Man with spare mini-nukes.

Ch. 11 Galleria

Author's Note

"Word in that Gunner gangs are spotted moving across the city to the east, and Super Mutants to the south, traffic on the 405 is gonna be terrible today folks. Keep clear of those highways."

"Up next. Strange Feeling, like the one you get when you think someone loves you, but you're not sure."

"Diamond City Radio, I'm your host, Travis 'Lonely' Miles. Take it away, Billie."

Ch. 11 Galleria

October 25th 9:07 A.M.
Seeing the lights around the massive thirty foot tall Mr. Handy statue, despite panels missing, Nate's pace picked up, Meathead needed to trot, then sprint to keep up with him.

A hundred yards out, and an over whelming urge to reach a familiar place drove him to run faster down the hill from Zimonja Outpost, and rushing past cracked open semi-truck trailers, long abandoned defensive positions. Sandbags piled up around wooden planks made into makeshift ramps, yellowed mannequins missing limbs, and supported upright by black metal pole running up through their rear were set up around on top of two trailers connected with more planks, dressed up and wooden sticks wedged into their hands, making them look like rifles from a distance.

"" The tone of his voice silenced Nate's breathing and made him come to a complete stop.

A cold chill ran from his arm to his leg and he brought the recently pillaged Fat Man up to his shoulder and dropped to a knee.

"Where?"

Meathead's knees locked up, " His voice was quieter with every word.

"" Nate's fingers curled around the trigger, feeling the twenty pound weight and five pound miniature nuke resting in the launch bay. Pneumatic pistons were ready to launch this bomb two hundred feet per second, with more destructive power than three missile launchers.

Nate corrected himself and aimed towards the back left corner of the semi truck, waiting for any sign of the enemies to round the corner.

"" Nate double checked to make sure the safety was off and nodded. Exhaling, Meathead slowly stepped forward, body close to the container and frame of the semi-truck.

Peeking around the corner, Meathead recoiled and nodded frantically at Nate.

"

"Something there?" The voice was deep, growling. Teeth clenched together and only parted by the "Ah"and "Ee" sounds. Lips curled back, two hands on a hunting rifle, an A-Bolt Browning rifle, .223 Remington rounds, four in the cartridge, one hand went back to a brown satchel and rested the barrel of the rifle under one arm, pulling back the slide and loading a fifth bullet directly into the chamber.

Rounding the corner, Meathead peeked around the corner one more time , head disappearing as he took a look and immediately turned and bolted back towards Nate, two seconds later, Nate saw a green leg, rippling with muscle, covered in scrap metal pieces ripped off from whatever was available at the time and then hammered and welded together to make armor. The leg was much longer than a human leg, and stood two feet taller than Nate. The three similarly taller green men also standing two feet higher than Nate's head broke around the corner, also carrying hunting rifles.

Nate's leg spasmed and went immediately went numb, but he fired the Fat Man, and the back end of the semi-trailer was obliterated, and three of the super mutants were incinerated in the blast. The last one's torsoe was ripped from the waist, blown thirty feet up into the air, beyond the top branches of a tree five feet off the side of the road, scattering gore in a mist of red and black, cooked blood.

The breath was sucked from Nate's lungs and the burning white light ten times brighter than the sun blinded him, and the noise deafened him, he dropped the Fat Man launcher and fell to his side; choking.

\111/

A female's voice screamed, neighing and whinneying.

Yellow paint, faded and peeling in some areas, and a dirty brown mane warped from the heat, and blue lenses to make the blue eyes, now cracked and busted.

Over her back were makeshift saddle bags made from repurposed shopping carts, cut and welded back into shape, these saddlebags carried raw meat and hunted game. After the mini nuke went off, her entire right half of her body was scorched black, and the rest scattered twenty feet behind her body, both front and back right legs blown off from the force.

Her neck was bent ninety degrees and the plates on her back were buckled from the heat, showing the metal frame, wiring, and ruptured hoses.

Then the Giddyup Buttercup's damaged capacitors ran out of energy. Her head fell down and she stopped moving.

She was dead.

Meathead and Nate walked by it, looking down at the dead Giddyup Buttercup robot pony and kept on moving for the General Atomics Galleria, with their eyes lingering on the shopping cart saddle bags for only a moment before moving away.

\111/

"All communists will be SHOT ON SITE!" Reported a Mr. Gutsy, the combat variant of the Mr. Handy robot, over a loud speaker system set up throughout the galleria.

Nate and Meathead went right under the arch and saw a dozen Mr. Handy robots hovering, some stationed to posts, while more were roaming around with a broom and dustpan, keeping the streets clear. The only mess and trash Nate observed that hadn't been picked up yet were the skeletons littered about, an entire snapshot of a working mini-mall, and all the patrons are dead. Their bones lost their red color, and sunbleached their way to an all white, frailness.
A Mr. Handy approached them and greeted them, "Hello! Welcome to the General Atomics Galleria, you must be our new supervisor."

Nate cast a sidelong glance down at Meathead, lips coming together then turning back to the Mr. Handy greeter, he replied, "Yes! Yes I am."

"You've been expected for many many many years."

"Total nuclear annihilation made traffic a nightmare to get through."

"Ah, yes, traffic during rush hour is always a bore. Please, once you get settled in, in your office, please speak with the director. He can be located in the main statue in the center of the plaza. The galleria is currently closed to the public, but staff and employees are permitted. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask."

"Where is my office?"

"It is currently located in the Back Alley Bowling Alley, marked employee area only, on the lefthand side adjacent to the staircase leading to the second floor pool hall."

"SHOPLIFTERS WILL BE TREATED AS COMMUNISTS!"

Nate and Meathead swallowed, looking up to the thirty foot Mr. Handy statue, "Why is the galleria closed? It was open three weeks...and two hundred ten years ago."

"Due to pending litigation, I am unable to comment, please refer all questions of that nature to General Atomics Legal Affairs in East Boston." The Mr. Handy said, pre-programmed to start gently moving away when people started asking those types of questions.

"Thank you."

"Of Course! And Welcome to the General Atomics Galleria!" The Mr. Handy Greeter called back

\111/

Inside the Galleria was a roundabout with shops all around the Mr. Handy statue in the center. Starting on the right was a boxing gym and weights room. Operated by three Mr. Handys, one of them was a boxer meant to stand in for sparring when there was no one else around. Then next to that building, moving clockwise was the General Atomics Galleria showroom, where all the current models of 2077 were on display. The only thing that changed were the robot models were either inoperative, or gone. Left through smashed and blown out windows, the only thing left was a Mr. Handy robot waiting to show off empty shelves for store that didn't have anything in it. All this Mr. Handy had left to trade were some bottlecaps. It astounded the Mr. Handy to no end, meaning at some point their entire inventory was taken, which means all he had left to sell were bottlecaps. And who would want bottlecaps when the American dollar is at such a good value?

Moving on was the diner, populated by a handful of patrons who are still waiting for their bill, and for the Mr. Handy's to accept their payment. Every so often, one of the waiters would stop bye, ask if they would care for anything to drink or eat, then assume they were still looking at the menu and move on with their routine.

Beyond the diner was Back Alley Bowling, a two lane bowling alley with an upstairs pool hall, and bar. The bold curling letters with red starbursts around the lettering were faded, and missing sections. Connected to the Bowling Alley, but a completely different building was Fallon's Department store, one of the many chains stores running across Massachusetts and the North East all the way from Nova Scotia to Washington D.C. They offered working class lounge wear to many people in Boston. They even offered a more rugged flanel shirt and jeans selection for outdoor work.
Last in the lineup of buildings was a coffee shop, and a bakery. Both Mr. Handy's were waiting for their inventory to sell out before baking more pastries. Their coffee supply was virtually untouched. SInce the Great War, they've only made five cups of coffee.

\111/

"Fifty Thousand Dollars for a game. Are you kidding me?" Nate asked the Mr. Handy manning the cash register at Back Alley Bowling. The first lane had part of the ceiling caved in on the bowling pins, and ball return. The twelve to eighteen pound balls were scattered across the floor from the shelves giving out. Half of them were still sitting untouched, gathering dust.

At the far end of the second lane, the ten pins were standing upright, Nate smiled and huffed through his nose.
'It may be the last game of bowling I'll ever get to play.' He thought to himself.

"I'm the new Manager here, I'm going to my office. Also, do a routine check on lane one, there's debris on the wood floor."

The Mr. Handy's eye cones lifted upwards and carried the command. "Yes sir."

"I'll be doing a personal visual performance inspection of lane two." Nate rattled off, moving down the stairs and grabbing a dusty bowling ball off the rack.

"Yes sir." The Mr. Handy replied, hoving past Nate and down the far right side of the alley lanes, it disappeared into the employee's only section.

Nate lined up his feet, "" Meathead asked out loud, making sure his voice echoed.

Nate let the bowling ball hang by his side. "Meathead, this might be the last game anyone will ever get to play, anywhere. So yes, I intend to bowl this last game."

Nate lined up his feet again, swinging the bowling ball back behind his right leg and hip, letting it go, it carried a meter out oer the lane and slammed down. Rolling and wobbling down the warped wooden lane, it looked dangerously close to falling into the gutter, when at the last two feel, the bowling ball veered off the left and struck the 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 9 pins.
The clack of pins striking pins echoed through the bowling alley, the Mr. Handy attendants spun towards the noise and focused their three eye cones towards Nate and Meathead.

Four pins stood standing, and the bowling ball slammed into the bumper in the back.

There were no belts funneling the bowling pins away, no rack returning the ball up the lane, or pins being reset. The number four pin was spinning lazily on the lane floor, then came to a stop.
The bowling ball rolled off to the side and came to a stop with a thunk.

Meathead called out to Nate from behind him. ""

Nate looked down the lane, at the pins that were still standing, then to his dog.

"I needed that..." Nate's eyes trailed up the stairs, off behind Meathead to the pool tables and bar on the second floor.

"I feel safe. Meathead. I feel...safe. I've felt sick ever since we met, Meathead. That the outside wasn't safe. I've been skirting Boston because I'm off imagining the worst scenario, and who might be coming around the next bend, or what might be making some noise, or if a trap was set in the last day, or the last two hundred years, I don't know. But, here, behind all the Mr. Handy's, doing something that's familiar...and fun when I can bowl one hand without worrying about dying. We can die at any moment, Meathead. Any moment, the ceiling could come crashing down on us. Any moment, the robots could turn, or now we have to worry about mutants. I try not to worry by preparing, and staying rested, and taking a shower, having a morning routine... If I don't get that morning routine, Meathead, I can't prepare for my day. I don't get that moment to think about who I'll be talking to in the morning, where I'm going, what I'll be wearing, what I'll be eating...

My morning started with taking a shower, and by the time I'm taking my first sip of coffee, the bombs are dropping. This just feels like a really, really long day. If bowling is a part of this really long day, then I will go to sleep knowing that I was alive, and I got to go bowling.

Now, go grab a ball. I'll re-rack the pins." Nate said, turning around and walking down the gutter of the lane.
""

"I need to know what I'm working with! I need to know just how screwed my hometown is! Is it worth repairing anything? Is everything a battlefield?! No, Meathead! It's not! This here, the Galleria proves that there is somethings that can be worth repairing. Probably after gutting the building, but I'm thinking about after we get Shaun back. Suppose I'm wrong. Suppose it's only been a day since the Institute took Shaun.

"If he's still a baby, how long would an infant survive out here?" Nate shook his head.

"This place is a start, but still a far cry from what I'd still call, completely safe. If I can't keep myself safe, then I can't keep Shaun safe either after I find him. I can't keep you safe either, but I do my hardest at protecting the ones I care about. Every time I have to fire my gun here in Boston is another reminder to what's actually happening out there."

"In here,even if they mean nothing. Even if one of those Deathclaws comes bashing in the walls two seconds from now, I can remember what I'm fighting for. Good times. I'm fighting for every time someone has a conversation here about work, a past game they've bowled, people coming into their lives, people leaving, you can talk about those things here, Meathead. There was a bowling alley and a swimming pool in Dutch Harbor, did you know that? False Pass to Dutch Harbor on a boat took a day, and we were given a week off from war in the middle of winter!"

"We were given a week off from war, and got to go swimming, drink at the bar, go bowling, and eat fresh fish, in the middle of war it's mind boggling, but when you're in here, getting warm, the Chinese were out there freezing to death! That's how we won the war in Alaska, we got around the burning oil barrel and sang 'White Christmas', while the fucking winds howled and blew."

"Mother Nature did our job for us, and I can't thank her enough. Otherwise, I would've been the one out in a little pillbox, hands glued to my rifle. If any of us took our boots off, we would never get them back on because our feet would swell. It was too cold, and they were running cigarettes, ammo, water, gas, fuel, food, up and down, up and down, going from hole to hole. My hands are turning cold just thinking about it, Meathead.

You could look up at the mountains and volcanoes punching straight up out of the water, and look straight up into a clear bit of sky, surrounded by darkness and see a stillness in the storm. Then the snow and rain would pick up and form long tall towers of water and snow, falling down and blanketing everything. You could look right up to the top of those mountains and feel the crazy, wild energies charging around like five bulls in a pen above our heads. Stomping around and sending out blasts of thunder, or the roars of airplanes from the best pilots in the world taking off in the shittiest of weather and flying a escort mission for two cargo planes. There was a force up in the air, Meathead. and just by going to a place where we could relax for a week from war, we were protected from the built up hateful energy."

"" Meathead commented,

"You should know more than anyone, that when we were looking across the water, and seeing half a million faces of people who want to kill us, and don't want to surrender and be fed because, we would've taken care of them. It was a big mental fucking. A big mental, 'we're coming. We're coming for your head.' And it was a very real threat.

The only fear like that I could relate it to was after I talked with a guy Harmen from India, we were halfway up the side of Roundtop Volcano, posted there, waiting for anything to happen when he leaned over and said the half million Chinese across the pass was like Kali, and that she's always coming for us. I turned my head and said 'what?' Didn't have a fuckign clue what he was talking about. I thought that was worse, but he went on to say that Kali wields the Sword of Truth, and that when she swings it, and picks up your head, and shows it to you, it's suppose to be a reflection of who you are. Seeing the Chinese camped across from us was like that.

I didn't get it. I was too close to the action. I still didn't get it on my way back home. I didn't get it on the plane, I didn't get it when I saw Nora again at the airport with you and Shaun, and I didn't get it when we moved in.

But.

I got it when Codsworth shouted to us from the living room...and right when the newscaster looked off to the right and said, 'We lost contact with everyone...'

"It's that I'm coming for you... so you can't scare me, Meathead. You don't look at me like a person who wants to kill me...I've seen that in a person's eyes. You don't have it."

Nate walked to the end of the lane and reset the pins. "I'm checking out the back." He called over his shoulder, moving to the employees only area.

Moving past the Mr. Handy's charging station, there were two robots coated with dust, and untouched. Still sitting in their charging cods. The Mr. Handy labeled Kingpin bobbed between the workbench and a pile of rusted machinery that was a former Mr. Handy.

Circling around the back, he came upon the supervisors office, a role meant to be taken by someone centuries ago, but the honor was now Nate's.

Pushing open the door, it was a desk with a computer terminal on it, then a wall of memory banks for the Mr. Handy's.
Along with a few filing cabinets, Nate looked to the note taped to the side of the computer.

Seth Longran. O/p Mng. Sp.
07/13/77
Manual Override Password: S5749PK

Nate sat down in the manager's chair, rolling backwards, he exhaled and closed his eyes. His eyes went to the busted clock on the wall for a minute, and it took him a moment to realize it was broken. Calming his breathing, he thought. 'Only for ten minutes'

\111/

Jolted awake by a sense of urgency, he felt he had overslept. Ten minutes turned into half an hour. Nate stood up quickly and swung his head around. Ripping the note off the computer, he shoved it into his pocket.

"Meathead?"

Walking across the linoleum floor, his boots made muffled thumps as the tiles crackeled beneath his feet.

"Meathead?" He called out, walking to the front lobby past the stairs.

"" Nate followed the banister up and around to the second floor, and he was dazed for a moment. The upstairs pool and bar lounge was blown free of dust, all the chairs pushed in and pool table swept clean. All fifteen balls were racked up and in the triangle. The Mr. Handy, Strike, manning the bar waited patiently behind the polished brass beer taps, waiting to tell them that until the Galleria was re-opened, he was not currently allowed to sell anything.

Meathead was on his rear legs, standing over the back end of the pool table. "You picked up."

""

All the bowling balls on the ground floor was back on their racks, and the first lane was now clear of debris. The wooden surface for lane one was torn up and chipped, but now it looked like someone swept everything out and then blew the dust out with an air blower. The first lane was flat, level, and unwaxed, but it was clear.

Nate placed the three fingers together, and walked up to Meathead. He was in his changeling form and Nate finally got to really look at his former dog.

There were two pool cues, with a hunk of blue chalk on the table, with both tips freshly dusted in blue chalk.

"" Meathead asked. Nate nodded, taking the closest pool stick.

The second one started glowing green, and Meathead dropped down off the table. The triangle and pool stick both flew into the air, but moved around with control. The triangle moved off to the side, while the pool cue came closer to Meathead's side. His horn was glowing green as well, and Nate was struggling to come up with the next proper thing to say.

"Yes. Do you want to break? You cleaned."

"" Meathead said, nodding. Nate nodded back.

The pool stick floated to one end of the table where the cue ball sat in the center of the table. Drawing back, the pool cue thrust forward and the tip collided with the cue ball, sending it rolling across the table at the other fifteen pool balls.

The balls clacked against each other and were sent sprawling across the table, bouncing off the bumpers on the side, and balancing closely to the edge of one of the six holes around the pool table, but none went in.

Nate picked up his pool cue and aimed it at the two ball, grabbing the back end in one hand and guiding the tip with his right hand, the cue ball rolled across the table, bounced against the two ball, and missed the hole. Instead, the two ball collided with the nine ball, and the nine ball rolled a few inches closer to the eleven ball, and it rolled in.

"Stripes."

""

Nate looked at Meathead, trying to be more open to seeing another talking creature around him.

Meathead moved around the table, letting the pool stick follow him in the air, covered in the green glow, same as Meathead's horn as he looked at the table, and shot the next billiard ball down into the hole.

Meathead tried to angle his shot right, but instead missed and the balls rebounded and hugged the edge of the table.

Shooting back and forth, Nate took his turn, Meathead took his turn, and they were totally engrossed with playing pool that some small talk happened, and then when the last ball, the black eight ball. Meathead still had two solid balls, the four and the six ball, on the table, when Nate sunk the eight ball.

Nate exhaled and stepped back away from the table.

"Good game, Meathead. Good game."

"< You did Great.>" Nate clenched his mouth shut, smiling around the edges and nodded his head.

"Yep."

""

"<Yeah. Let's go see what..." Nate flicked two fingers towards the Mr. Handy statue out front. "The Director wants."

\111/

On the backside of the Mr. Handy statue was a small grey box with a red call button that brought a lift from the center of the Mr. Handy rear panel, down to the ground.

The small elevator buzzed down to the ground, engine whining all the way back up. A panel lifted upwards, showing the small area containing the Mr. Gutsy, combant variant robot in charge of running the General Atomics Galleria.

"Alright, Maggot. Step Forward. Slowly." The Mr. Gutsy was surrounded in a semi-circle bank of computer memory terminals, all recorded subsystem operations that made all the Mr. Handy's in the Galleria to work properly. Most of them weren't moving, making any noise, or on by any glowing light.

Nate and Meathead took a step forward and the Director barked, "I've been monitoring your approach! Impressive. Very Impressive...for a low life Criminal!" Painted onto the side of the Mr. Gutsy was a white star, for the American Army, now showing signs of rust from water eroding the paint.

"Sir, Reporting for Duty, Sir!" Nate shouted back at the Director.

"That's what a lowlife commie would say! Are you a commie!?"

"Sir, No, Sir!" Nate yelled, "Sir, I am to report to you as the new supervisor of General Atomics Galleria effective 0800 hours as of this morning, Sir! It is time to reopen the Galleria!"

"The Grand Reopening? Are you supervisor 18 Alpha? You're Late!"

"Nuclear Warfare made traffic terrible, Sir!" Nate punctuated.

"Unacceptable, Manual Activation of the Grand Reopening requires authorization. I'm going to need to see your I.D. sir."

Nate went over the Director's words once in his mind, thinking to trouble shoot any phrases. "Director, when was the automatic activation of the Grand Reopening Scheduled?"

The Mr. Gutsy's three eye cones blinked, and dipped for a moment. "Automatic activation was scheduled for January 1st. 2078. Wait...Accessing protocols...Analyzing...Corrupt task detected."

If the robot's could swallow nervously, this one would've done it as it realized that a task was left unattended to for the last two hundred years.

"Task Scheduling repaired. Now running previously scheduled task." One of his arms reached down and pressed a buton, turning on the microphones around the Galleria. "Prepare for the Grand Reopening of the Galleria!" His voice box boomed.
"Processing firmware updates. Firmware update's now available at General Atomics Galleria. Done. Activating combat inhibitors, done. Establishing new Facility supervisor. Done.

A pre-recorded message of the Director's voice played, "The General Atomics Galleria is now open for business!"

The real Director reached out one hand and got Nate's attention before he left.

"As the Grand Reopening Supervisor, there is a customer appreciation raffle tonight that you will be conducting. Here is the grand prize."

The Director dispensed a small block of money, $200,000 dollars, enough for four games at Back Alley Bowling, for a family of four.

Nate looked at the pieces of paper, with very little value, and took them.

Leaving the Mr. Handy statue, he rode the elevator back down to Meathead and nodded. Looking around , the lights kicked back on, and the Mr. Handy's starting moving in a new routine.

The first thing Nate convinced the Mr. Handy's to do was to remove the dead skeletons, take them out back into the parking lot and pile them up. They were there until just after one, Nate and Meathead digging through the bakery for some perfectly preserved granola bars when a Mr. Handy reported that all the skeletons in the entire Galleria were cleared out and put into a pile in the back parking lot.

Nate nodded, grabbing a square metal aluminum container with a twist off lid on the cap, labeled 'Mr. Handy Stainless Steel Cleaner & Polish. Warning; Extremely Flammable.'

Meathead followed quietly behind Nate as they walked across the quad grounds, looking at the trails the Mr. Handy's made dragging the bodies across the dirt and dead grass.

In a pile behind the bowling alley was thirty five skeletons, thirty five people who died while trying to enjoy their last morning in Boston before the bombs fell. Nate surmised, dousing the skeletons with the flammable polish.

The gas fumes were visible as Nate drenched the skeletons in the still cleaner. Wetting the bones, Nate reached for a flip lighter, and held it up to an old t-shirt, then pushed it into the pile of bones, watching as the fire caught and spread. The bones snapped and crackled, releasing their old protein bonds and turning hot, and then into ash.

Nate and Meathead were mostly quiet during the burning of the bodies. Nate used a long stick to keep the fire contained in the center, that meant pushing rib cages, skulls, and pelvises back into the fire so they would burn down.

For about two hours they burned everything down, and before they made to leave, Nate came down next to the pile of ashes, and placed his hands on the hot ground.

"Meathead, come here." He said clearly. The dog came up next to him and tensed on the hot ground, feeling the energy from Nate.

Nate put his ring finger into the edge of the hot ash, and dipped it in. Pulling it out, he took some, and rubbed a bit of the ash between the brow line of his eyes, on his forehead above the nose.

Nate pet Meathead with his clean hand, scratching behind the ears. "Do you want this?" Nate asked, Meathead nodded slowly.

Reaching out again, Nate put his right finger into the ash, pulled some out, and then wiped it against Meathead's forehead, where his third eye would be.

"Well Meathead, we could be them. We could be ash. But we're not. Let's keep preparing for the day we are." Nate said, arms open towards the flames.

Ch. 12 Covenant

Author's Note

"Here's a song that I don't get to play often...eh who am I kidding, I play it all the time. I just don't get to play it for you. Stay shiny and beautiful, Diamond City. Stay Shiny and Beautiful.

" It's The Sapphires, Who do you love? On Diamond City Radio."

Ch. 12 Covenant

October 26th, 2287
10:10 A.M.

The tall concrete walls looked recently poured, cinder blocks with smooth walls and a clean finish looked expertly laid. Over the front entrance was the word 'Covenant' in white painted letters. Puttering machine gun turrets lined the walls at corners, or predominantly near the main entrance. Their barrels swung back and forth, a dull yellow light indicating it hadn't found any hostile target. Aside to the main entrance was a guard, sitting back and leaning against the wall, legs crossed. To his left was a small tin unit shack with three walls and a desk inside.

Light reflected and bounced off the lake, a small wind creating ripples on the surface.

In the three days they've spent wandering the wasteland, this was the first structure built by human hands and had the finesse of construction architectural design.

"Are you looking to visit Covenant, friend, or are you just passing by?" The guard outside the door gates asked.

Nate inhaled through his nose and nodded, taking stock of the high concrete walls and machine guns turrets tracking his movements. "Trying to get a feel for the Commonwealth, but sure, if the door's open, I might as well go in."

Meathead's eyes flicked about, sitting down in front of the guard and sweeping his tail back and forth.

"Yep, we're a real up and comer as a pit stop for traders and groups moving through." Swanson replied, eyes flicking up to the sun, he covered his brow and watched for any movement coming down the road.

"What's a...what's a...the closest trading settlement north of here?" Nate picked up on the man's sojourn guard attitude.

"You'd be a little hard pressed to find too many settled areas north, mostly going East, over to Salem, or down south towards Diamond City." The guard's eyebrows rose after his little tangent, remembering why he's here. "Are you still interested in getting in?" He said, rocking back and forth in his chair, he rose to his feet. "We got a doc to patch you up, some drink called lemonade that an old Mr. Handy Deezer makes. It's not like anything else you'll find in the wasteland."

"So what's the magic words to getting the door open? Open sesame, por favor?" Swanson gave a confused smile, but grinned after he realized Nate was joking.

The guard shook his head "No, there's a little entrance test people take. We call it the SAFE test, everyone's gotta take it."

"What's it trying to measure?"

Swanson's neck muscles brought his head up, "Huh?"

"Well, I mean all tests are suppose to measure something, right? Is it like a way to root out certain people around here?"

Swanson tilted his head back and forth, "I shouldn't really be telling you, but we only want good, honest people coming though here and getting into Covenant. No undesirables, no body who's not what they seem, you know?"

"That's a bit of an understatement...but I'm thinking of something else, what do you mean by undesirables?"

"You don't know? Are you really that new to the Commonwealth?" Swanson looked off to his right, unsure of what to do.
"Look, There's people around here that aren't what they seem...Synths. That's all I'm going to say about that."

"Oh! Synths. Why didn't you say so? I thought you were talking about...you know, all the goddamn raiders walking around..." Nate said, scratching the back of his head.

Swanson sat up straighter and wore a brighter grin. Jerked his head to the shack with three walls, and ads desk with a chair on both sides. The lean-to had a corrugated tin metal roof, made from multiple pieces bolted together.

"Take a seat and we'll begin."

\111/

Swanson compared the notes to the answers Nate gave, "I've...I'm...Hmmm...I'm gonna say that you seem like a good guy..." He said, eyes darting back and forth between the answer key and his notes.

"Yeah...definitely human." Unsure of what to make of Nate's 'outdated' answers. "Understatement..." Swanson muttered.

Nate grinned and looked down to his at Meathead who was also smiling and pretending to be a dog.

Swanson scratched his head and scooted back from the desk,.

"Well, there's some local trading that always goes on if you need supplies. Welcome to Covenant."

"It's nice to see people who aren't raiding for the hell of it." Nate commented, looking around at the pristine pre-war buildings. It's like they weren't even touched.

"Yeah, and also, mind the old robot, he's been here for a while so expect some old phrases to come out of his voice box."

"Will do," Nate waved Swanson off as he walked inside.

The colonial houses were still very much intact, built sturdily and kept maintained, these decorative houses had gardens growing food in the front with half a dozen people moving about, keeping this small patch of the wasteland secure and out of the hands of raiders and synths. A few people focused up on Nate but, there was one black lamb in this settlement, facing off with a settler sitting in the dirt, politely shaking his head and shrugging.

"I'm sorry, I can't help you. I have no idea what you're talking about." Walt Penbrose said, playing the I-no-nothing routine Sargent Shultz played on the TV show, Hogan's Hero's.

Even though neither Honest Dan nor Walt Penbrose knew of these tv shows, they were both in a similar situation. Sargent Shultz knew that a new prisoner was being held in a cell block nearby, and wouldn't tell the gang which one the prisoner was being held in because Colonel Klink ordered him not to tell.

"Hey! You from around here?" The man glanced to his left and stepped away from the man on the ground, raising a finger and pointing it at Nate, he shook his head. His hair was brown, shoulder length straight hair and blue eyes with sideburns that stretched down beneath his chin and wrapped around his lips into a mustache too. Wearing brown leather shoulder pads and grey black under armor, he carried a sheath for a long barreled automatic shotgun on his back. Here was the Hogan of this story, Honest Dan.

"No, first time I've been here...what's up?"

"You heard of Stockton's caravan that came through here? Group of five? Specifically, his daughter, Amelia Stockton leading the caravan?"

"Sorry. I don't know anything about it."

The man bit his top lip and chewed on it, "The caravan was hit just outside of this rinky-dink town, and I know it came through Covenant first, but nobody I've talked to here says they ever even saw the caravan come through here, which I KNOW they did!" he accused, looking over his right shoulder.

"Where were they headed?" Meathead whined and panted quickly, laying down on his belly and quickly sweeping his tail back and forth, putting one paw up on Nate's leg, he gave it a light scratch.

"I'll be right there Meathead, hold on. Sorry, where were they headed?" Nate called out to him.

"Back to Bunker Hill. They came down north from Manchester, and I got word from my employer that they made it over the state line a week ago. I was hired by Old Man Stockton to locate the Caravan and find his daughter, and I know this was their last stop, now I find it blown to bits just a stone's throw from the front door to this sham house, and nobody's seen anything. They just keep giving me the run around." Honest Dan called out loudly. they gathered the attention of seven people in Covenant, banking on Honest Dan's words.

"Okay," Nate nodded as the man explained.

"I'll offer you a proposal, help me track down what happened to the Caravan, and I'll split the reward. At least one person walked out of that massacre, and I know it's Stockton's daughter."

"Alright, sound's like we have something to do, Meathead." Nate said , head turned towards the door.

"I'm staying here, gonna keep grilling these folks until someone starts to say something besides, hear no evil, see no, speak no evil. Stockton's offering a heap of caps as a reward, I didn't find her body, so there's hope. I don't have proof yet, but I know Covenant's involved. Let me know if you find anything." Honest Dan turned around and swung his head around, scanning the buildings and meeting the eyes of Covenant's settlers. They were quick to look away, and anger him.

"Will do."

Meathead barked loudly twice, then at the man sitting in the dirt. Growling high then low, Nate and the man looked at the third,

"What's your name, by the way?"

"Honest Dan, I play straight, and I expect the same in return."

"Nate, and that's Meathead, and I've got a pretty good ear for when Meathead barks at people like that,." Nate said, looking at the man in the dirt as his eyes widened. "Keep asking questions."

"Come on boy, let's go get some lemonade and poke around a bit." Meathead barked once and wagged his tail.

\111/

"Alright boy, what'ch you got?" Nate said, taking a sip of his cup of powdered lemonade, rehydrated with a bit of water and stirred up to break down the chunks.

"" He said quietly.

"Think we should go take a peek at that Caravan, Meathead? How's that sound boy? Wanna go on a walk?" Nate said loudly, petting the top of his head. Meathead responded by barking twice and running down the grass hill for a dozen feet before stopping and whining for Nate to join him.

"Alright, slow down, Meathead. I'm coming."

Nate went straight for the door, Meathead pawed and scratched at the metal door and pushed his head against it. Swanson was sitting in his patio chair, waving them off.

"Leaving already?"

"Just going to check out a building or two, scrap or no scrap, I gotta make a living somehow. Do you lock the doors at night?"

"Not unless we have an emergency. We always have someone on watch. I'll let my relief know you're getting back late, if at all. Come back real soon."

"Thanks, Swanson."

\111/

Moving a good distance away, Meathead and Nate let go of the breath they'd been holding for far too long and Meathead was the first to speak.

""

"Let's look at the caravan first, get some real dirt on them, find then burn the bridge after we cross it."

Meathead nodded, ""

"He said, pretty darn close..."

This part of the Commonwealth, the roads were hardly there any more. Fields of tall weeds grew upwards through buckled and ruptured pavement, hardly any road existed except for downtrodden paths over the compact chunks of gravel. The only real signs of a road were the cars left on the road, moss covered and sunken into the ground. Trees littered the round, making them have to take large steps over.

They were walking for fifteen minutes, when the road started curving back around to the north, or south across the Tucker Memorial Bridge which pinged into the Pip-Boy when they got too close.

"

"I see landmines." Nate said, gesturing with the tip of his hunting rifle.

""

Tucker Memorial bridge was doused and covered in the arctic rainbow colors that came with fuel spilled onto the concrete ground. Cars lined stratgeically, with traffic cones tilted at odd angles, with sensory land mines just waiting to go off. He could see the telltale glint of tripwires ready to spark the whole powder keg.

""

"Means they can't actively watch this bridge, but are ready to blow it, rifle scope please." Nate offered out his hand and the detatched rifle scope appeared in his hand.

"What are you looking for?"

"Crows nests, anything that someone could use as a potential watchtower to keep an eye on the bridge."

Unsatisfied after three minutes, they turned around. "Two large figures, roughly nine o'clock. Ground level on the other bridge."

Meathead stood on his hind paws and peered across the water. "//"

"Good weird, or the kind of people who would rig a bridge to blow weird?"

""

" I don't get it."

"<Who ever those two things are over there, they've got the emotional capacity of a sentient rock."
"Oh."

""

"You're pretty good at it. You're an expert at being a dog and I can pretty much figure out all the little tell signs you've been giving me."

Meathead nodded, softly wagging his tail.

Doubling back, they went the northernly route, passing more rusted cars and dilapidated trucks alongside the river, when Nate noticed something on far side of the river.

"Meathead...do you see that?" A little 'bloop' noise came from his pip-boy. Meathead reared up on his back paws to get a higher vantage point then immediately dropped down onto his belly.

"Oh geeze, yeah. I see them."

West Everette Estates, it was still a grey outline in his Pip-boy, but he remembered the old neighborhood. Half of it was still under developement, and it was one of the first areas a real estate agent showed Nora and Nate to buy their house.

They had the original test model on site long before the rest of the houses went in, two years ago, by Nate's standards, it was patches of overturned dirt with only a road leading to an empty culdesac, and that was the last they'd ever really gave that area much thought. Now, there were bags of body parts hanging on metal chains attatched to the water tower, ten foot tall chain link fences surrounded a guard dog den with three green mutated hound dogs roaming inside.

"That looks like the bad side of town."

"That looks like something we should avoid for now." Nate placed a special pin in his Pip-Boy, marked M. for Mutant.

They kept a constant watch to the left of them as they continued walking north, past a boathouse filled with Bloodbug mosquitos they dispatched with baseball bats and Nate bashing the bugs away before they got too close. Meathead tried biting at one of them, then wrapped three Bloodbugs wing's in his magic, and ripped them off. Nate stomped on them, crushing them and making the ichor sacs burst and soak him in bug blood.

After the short confrontation, they were prompted them to veer right back towards Covenant.

\111/

The four bodies on the ground, and desecrated brahmin corpse, shown to be dug into by roving wild animals, the stench of the dead bodies was unbearable and sickening. Meathead took the lead, trotting through them and gagging every once and a while.

Nate wandering in a large circle around them, trying to recapture the ambush. Seeing where there would be the best spots to stage an ambush, and which direction they would be moving afterwards.

Up along the side of a hill was a semi-trailer, and his attention immediately went to the latch and the stainless steel key hole. Marks and bits of rust were scraped off in a similar fashion to which a person trying to fit a key into a lock, but missed. The key hole looked clean, and used, while the rest of the back sliding door remained covered in dust and mold.

Fitting his own lockpick and screwdriver into the hole, he eased it gently to the right, pressing all tumblers up and lifted the door up with the tip of his foot.

The door rolled up, and the inside was completely empty, except for some wooden crates at the far back end, with the floor covered in muddy footprints.

Sliding it shut, Nate turned around back down the hill to Meathead.

"Well, they came from the trailer of the truck, and they aren't here now. They would've needed to know this group was coming through here."

"" It was a can of Deezer's Lemonade, floated over to Nate, he took it.

"So that proves they were in Covenant, but until someone says something, they're all committed to this lie."

""

"I'll off load some gear with their merchant, make it seem that we were actually out scavenging, while I'm doing that, you take a look around at our new neighbors." Meathead nodded in understanding.

\111/

With an hour of daylight left, a few torches were being light around the small village of Covenant. Nate made his way to the shopkeeper,

"Hey there, Penny is it?" Nate asked, stepping through the doorway to the first house on the right, a wide counter with plenty of shelves loaded with stacked goods were all on display.

"Yes, sir! How are you this evening? Are you looking to trade?" She asked brightly in return.

"Yes, I've got a few things to offload...How much for the shotgun you've got on the wall mount back there?"

"Oh!" Penny perked up immensely, "That's Justice, all her life she's fired 10 gauge rounds, and has known to blow a hole or stagger just about anything she bucks into...She's a bit of a character, and isn't going cheap, unfortunately. It's got sentimental value, so on another kick, I'm dissuading people with 1,800 caps for it."

"Will you take 1,500 for it?"

Penny shook her head. "Nope, the number is set in stone, right here." She pointed to her head.

"Well it looks...nice...Mind if I see it for a second?" Nate asked.

Penny pulled it off the wall mount, and Nate turned the shotgun over in his hands. The model and numbers were worn down, but he recognized the first and last four numbers in sequence. "Son of a bitch, it's mine." Nate said quietly.

"What was that?" She tilted her head up.

"It's mine, long story short, I was frozen in a Vault before the war, this gun was mine. How much for it back?"

"It's been with my family for three generations, and you said you were frozen? What do you mean by that?"

"It's the other half of that long story, now, what will you take for this shotgun?"

"Well, I'll take just about anything, I see value in everything, it's just down to the principal of me actually wanting to sell it. It doesn't do me any good to by junk, only for it to sit around for weeks on end."

Nate inhaled and sighed, "All right, but I'm buying this."

Reaching into his knapsack, he started pulling out gun after gun, pipe pistols, laser pistols, two hunting rifles, a box of 500 rounds from the mini-gun, and a small mountain of pre-war money.

"You hear anything about the caravan that guy Honest Dan has been going on about to everybody?" Nate ventured, throwing another person's name out.

"So he's talked with you too? Seems to me like he's just stirring the pot." She replied, writing little tags on all of Nate's items, a numerical value in caps and writing out a small list.

"Well, it's a small town. Not much to talk about except who's coming and who's going. What do you mean by that?" Nate asked, looking at the total, and reaching in for another gun to sell.

"Well, some people are just jealous when they see other's living a good life, and they'd like nothing better to do than drag everyone down to their level."

Nate looked off to the right, opening his right hand and giving it a wave, and Penny kept on speaking before Nate could redirect her back to his question. "And a person like Dan wouldn't know the first thing about making the Commonwealth a safer better place."

Nate slowly rolled his head, speaking slowly. "He should be...grateful...you let him in." he said, looking out the window.

Penny was quick to jump on the short amount of praise. "And here he goes tromping around, interrogating everybody!"

Nate drew a breath in as Penny spoke over him. "If the Compound did do something with Dan's precious caravan, they had a reason for it, better reasons than a man like him."

Nate blinked slowly and frowned for a moment, then he fixed it with a smile. "Where's the Compound?"

"Oh, I was just shooting my mouth off there, please forget about that."

Not so easily deterred, "Did this compound group attack their caravan? Penny, whatever things you believe, know that this group, the ones who attacked the caravan, murdered four innocent humans, and possibly abducted the fifth. This is a serious investigation. Read my lips, Any help you can provide would be good for helping the situation be resolved. That man out there, Honest Dan, he doesn't sound like the type of guy who wants to drag everyone down. He's just a guy, hired to find some answers about what happened to the people working for his boss.

Like if one of your own people working for you went out one day, but never came back. You'd want to know what happened to them, right? You sent someone after them to go check, you'd want some answers of where they went, right? Same situation here...only he's getting the run around. If you do know what's going on, you should tell him."

Nate made sure to keep his eyes on Penny, hoping for reaction. "That'll still be 47 caps for the shotgun." She said, then swallowing.

"Penny?"

"Take your shotgun, and leave." She said, moving off the all the weapons to her side of the counter.

Her ears were perked up, and red. Nate put one hand on his reclaimed shot gun and dragged it off the counter. Resting the barrel against his shoulder, he offered her one last chance to say something, but she waved him off.

Walking out into the center of the culdesac, standing in front of a large dead tree. As Nate came from the right end of Covenant, Meathead appeared from the left. Nate leaned down to scratch at his ears and ask, "What'cha got for me boy?"

"" Meathead growled, a small slip of paper winked into existence on the ground between the two of them.

Nate picked it up and walked towards Honest Dan, reading the piece of paper along the way. There was indeed a Compound and fishermen had set up shop right above the entrance.

Ironic.

"What did you learn?"

"". Meathead wagged his tail and barked happily.

"The shopkeep over yonder just dropped a name. A Compound. Or rather, just Compound. It sounds like they're set up inside the sewer tunnels by the lake here, and some fishermen set up shop right above them on the brickwork."

"." Meathead barked, he turned his head, pretending to bite at the fur on his right side, and in his jaws was another piece of paper.

"I found the results for their test too, a 28 % failure rate. That's a big margin of error for letting non-safe people in."

"So what's this all pointing to? I'm seeing a big unknown group here, working with Covenant, but I don't see this big unknown." Honest Dan replied. "And what for?"

"Synths. They're trying to keep synths out." Nate repeated. "It's a passive security system they have in place. Whether or not you passed or failed the SAFE test, they let people in. Then, while you're here, maybe here for a bed, eating food, or enjoying a can of Deezeer's lemonade, which we found at the caravan site, they send a message over to the Compound and tell the people at the other end, who is who."

"It's not until you leave that they move in. Imagine robbing a store, but no body's doing anything to stop you, but then once you leave, there's a whole army outside waiting for you and the door's locked behind you."

"So where's this army?" Honest Dan asked.

Meathead , and turned his head towards the mayor of the little community of Covenant walking out and standing by the gate, glaring at them, expectantly.

"Jacob would know. You ready for a fight? Cause I feel like we've overstayed our welcome and we're about to have a fight." Nate nodded his head towards the mayor, and Jacob and Meathead turned their heads to the politician in his three piece suit. Yellow rose in his lapel, giving off a slightly obnoxious pear odor.

Jacob Obsen wore the universal symbol for friendship was unfortunately lost along with the definition to most people on Earth, save a man and his dog frozen in time, and now took on a new definition by the man who wore it so proudly. Like being part of an all-boys club, modest fees, no one telling you how to run things, and you get to say whatever you want about the people you don't like.

"Well stranger, it's no lie that you've been poking around, asking about Stockton's people. That's not very neighborly, friend. I know you think you're making the right decision. Just don't make any rash decisions you'll regret." Jacob Orden was planning on gutting this newcomer like every other human who got to personal with the questions. After jabbing Nate's stomach and intestines a few times with his knife, he would saw away until the guts spilled out onto the ground.

"So. If I decided to go fishing over by that pipe chase across the way...there." Nate gestured with a sweeping motion towards the lake. "Do you think I'll regret it if I were to find something that you could explain here and now?" Nate laid out the obvious bait.

"We only make the best decisions, we wouldn't do anything without good reason." Jacob said with a soft smile, then cracking a grin, "Tell you what, just stop this investigation and I'll give you a gift. 100 Caps." Nate didn't smile, and he didn't frown either.

"I just paid eighteen hundred caps for this here loaded shotgun aimed at your cock and balls." Nate said, true, the barrel was aimed towards Jacob's crotch, only now the Mayor looked down and was brought to his attention.

"You'll be welcome back as a mutual friend any time."

"And care to explain a can of Deezer's lemonade found with the Caravan if you said there never was one coming through here? Care to justify murder, or will I leave knowing, hoping that a group of compound soldiers aren't waiting right outside those doors, or worse, you turn the turrets on me while I'm in range. No."

"All I'm asking is a little faith in us."

Honest Dan was scowling fiercely, almost as much as Meathead. Except the dog could make a scary growling sound deep in his throat at Jacob while Nate thought of a response.

"How about you stop fucking lowballing me, because I can literally smell the shit coming out of your mouth and it stinks to high fucking hell. I need to know more about what it is you think you're doing. I get Stockton's caravan, we fuck off and leave your little Covenant safe and sound. It would be a shame if one of those turrets malfunctioned and started giving off sparks. Just a few hot sparks next to these matchstick trees and your whole place goes up in flames."

As Jacob sighed through his nose, his arms relaxed. "That's a tall order, a deal like that is above me." He said disdainfully.
"Tell you what, I tell the Compound you're coming, and you can make your case to them. Good luck." The only thing he would do is tell them it's not personal and to kill them after they arrived and could be ambushed.

\111/

Nate, Honest Dan, and Meathead passed through the doors back into the Commonwealth, "So we swimming or walking?"

"Walking."

"Good, I didn't feel like getting wet."

Nate let the gated door swing shut behind them. Glancing over to Swanson, he was looking up to Nate with a scowl.

"You feeling SAFE yet?" Nate asked, crossing the road and dismissing whatever rude gesture Swason gave them after their backs were turned.

\111/

"I say we load up, guns topped off, barrels loaded, one in the chamber, we're either fighting out way in, or out depending on how far my people skills have come. Either way, expect them to turn on us at any moment until we're standing right back here in this exact spot."

Honest Dan nodded. "That's what I'd expect from a group like this." Pulling his own shotgun out and refilling his ammo bandoleer.

"When I first came here, I saw a crashed vertibird in the North end of the lake, right in the shallows, no more than ten feet deep. I've got a quick question, how long can you hold your breath?"

"What's at the Vertibird?"

"I saw the glint of power armor, just sitting there underneath the water. Back to my earlier question, how long can you hold your breath?"

Honest Dan grinned, "You want me to grab some power armor that's been rusting underwater? Do you even have a fusion core or is it all shot to shit?"

"Right here," Nate said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a fully charged fusion core. "Trust me when I say, those things work underwater."

"I don't want to go diving for some armor, but that would be some good hardware to muscle our way through that compound of theirs."

"That's what I'm thinking too, I just really don't want to dive down and get it."

"Why? What's your excuse?"

"Bad experience the last time I was in a suit of power armor."

"Great, go get it." Honest Dan said, "Face your fear. Have a little puff of this first." Dan reached into a small pocket and pulled out some Jet, offering it to Nate.

"Let's get to the damn power armor first before I touch that shit. I'd need something to slow my heartrate down, not speed it up."

"Oh trust me man, this'll keep things going nice and slow..."

\111/

Meathead barked and whined from the shore as Honest Dan watched Nate breach the surface after a second attempt.

"Fusion core's in and it's open!" He yelled, climbing up the wreckage of the vertibird tail sticking out of the water. Breathing deeply, he clenched the inhaler full of jet and felt his cold hands and cold suit sticking to him. "God, I need your help walking out of dark cloudy water." He said, putting it to his lips and sucking in the fumes.

His entire body shook and he dove off the tail end of the veritibird with his arms overhead and kicking down to the lake bed. The bottom was all stones, concrete thick with a carpet of algae and the old suit of T-45 power armor, minus the helmet, waiting for someone to step in and walk it out of the water. Settling in, the motors sprung into action and secured him in place, holding his breath he took one slow step forward, and then another. His feet weren't sinking into the mud, only hard compact rocks. The surface of the water glimmered in the moonlight and Nate felt his lungs bursting and his mind racing. He felt like he was flying, he was going to do this. He was filled with confidence, and the overwhelming optimism he was going to do alright, and that everything was going to be okay.

It didn't help that it took two minutes to walk up and out. Jumping upwards, his head cleared the surface for half of a second and he tried to breath in air and only sucked down water. Gargling, choking as he sunk back down, he put in more effort and will to move faster, walking up the slope as the water around him became lighter, then he jumped up again, this time coming out of the water all the way to his neck. "GHAhuh! Hau!" He sputtered, finally walking out onto the lake shores to where Honest Dan and Meathead waited. "Hahg..." He said, sinking down onto his knees.

The back of the suit popped open and Nate threw himself backwards. Out onto the ground.

"Take it... I sure as hell don't want it." Nate laid there with his back on the ground, looking up at the stars and the moon overhead.

"You sure? You went through some hell just now to get it."

"Let me just...lemmejust...heh...hngh..." Upchucking lake water, he rolled to his side and shuddered. "When we're in there, I want you to take a rear position right behind me, and if they say anything like 'It's only business, or it's not personal. Shoot them immediately."

"You're just saying that cause you nearly died. You fished it out, keep the suit." Honest Dan said.

\111/

Into the pitch black sewer pipe, the red light behind them rapidly faded as they walked forward and into the pipe chase. Everything was dark, pitch black. Nate pressed his hands against the steel around him and walked forward, gun ready in his hand with machete and two Molotov Cocktails strapped to his hip.

There was a cracked open portion of pipe with light coming through, and the small putter of a turret swinging back and forth.

"People ahead."

Nate nodded, stepping out they were in the substation of a sewer landing with catwalks and pipes running through the ground and walls. Three men in tan armor and half dome sentry helmets.

The man in the middle, lights blaring on both sides behind him, made a shadow line down the center of his face.

"Just because Jacob vouched for you, doesn't mean you can enter, why should I let you in?" The man said, arms out, hands wrapped around the rail of the catwalk he was leaning down watching their reactions.

"I'm here for Amelia Stockton, the Synth. I'm coming in and finding her whether you mean to interrupt me or not."

"You've seen too much, and know enough. This isn't per"

A bullet punched through Manny's neck, a round blood soaked hole and he flailed like a fish out of water in the throws of death. In the small brick space, the bullet rang out and was ringing in everybody's ears.

Nate grit his teeth and pulled up Justice, firing seven rounds in succession, feeling the recoil of each trigger pull slam into the metal suit of power armor.

Holes were blown into the brickwork, into the shop lights making the tunnel chase brighter, sending this room into darkness. The puttering turret was knocked over and sideways as it started spitting out bullets at a frantic pace ricocheting into bricks or off the manhole sized blue and orange pipes running along the outside of the room.

The end of a sewer pipe and discharge station wasn't the most glamorous of locations to take cover, but Nate and Meathead could see why, highly fortifiable, and the corridors would force shooters to come at them single file. That's if the Compound guards knew to use that advantage, stupidly, they were charging right into Nate and Honest Dan's onslaught of their men as they made their way from the lower section, to the station above the sewer pip hub, where rain water met grey water.

Here were ten men, all armored up, with loaded weapons, hidden in a hole underneath the streets, but not an ounce of tactical defense strategy in between them to stop two people and a dog.

The whole path was chokepoint after chokepoint, but if they were only using it for cover fire before poking their heads up to see, Nate saw more than once, the Covenant guards were shot by friendly crossfire from their own men.

The T-45 Power Armor was much more effective at deflecting bullets than dealing with a fully grown Deathclaw. Nate kept a steady walking pace, moving forward with Justice aimed out in front of him. The 10 gauge shotgun rounds definitely packed a punch. Less spread, wider shells, more pellets, the body armor the Compound guards wore was shredded like tissue paper after only one round straight to the chest. The shot would break bones from impact if they wore protection, or rip off limbs and carve out cavities in their sides, or legs. Spatters of blood sprayed across the sewer tunnels, and was deafening to the group who never once fought down here ever.

Not once have they ever needed to put their defenses to the test, so now, they were failing horrifically and pathetically to Nate, Honest Dan, and Meathead.

\111/

Built into the walls were metal bars with giant electrodes facing down into each prison cell. The five cell doors were all locked on a second level above the main floor. An elderly woman was standing hunched over a bank of TV monitors showing most corridors from the Compound and three from Covenant.

"So here you are." She said to the monitors, not yet addressing Nate and Honest Dan yet. "Do you realize what you've done? You are well aware that in all likelihood, Stockton's supposed daughter is a synth?"

"I've done more than you could ever imagine. Hand her over." Nate said coldly, staring her down.

"What would you do if you were a child, and saw your parents gunned down by Synths? Would you not get revenge on them?"

"That's what I would call a loaded question, lady. I'm sure you have an amazing sob story about how that child was you, about how your parents were actually gunned down by a vicious, cold blooded killing machine that in the end...was a synth." Nate paused pregnantly, baiting the old doctor.

The look of anger and confusion contorted her face into a twisted scowl. "You are disrespecting my parents memories."

"My wife said the same thing to me whenever I farted near a cemetery.

Now, Synth.
Stockton's daughter.
Don't care.
Now."

"The Institute ordered that robot to lay in wait, and spring out into action, killing my parents and six other innocent lives! Do you not see why they should be eliminated? I've spent years developing the SAFE test! There's no way to physically discern a synth from humans! But psychologically, there is a way!"

Nate inhaled and sighed, not wanting to argue with someone who only sees one path of logic.

"A 72% chance. I saw the statistics. I think your math is off. A 28 Percent chance of success out of 100 percent is still a failure."

"And extensive testing is only going to make that margin smaller! We are in the early stages of developing a test that will surely expose synths for the twisted heartless beings they are! Allow us to have Stockton's daughter, and I'll pay you 100 caps, and leave. We can still remain good friends with Covenant."

Nate snuffed the offer with a quick exhale through his nose, Honest Dan spoke first.

"That's the same Jacob offered, we already got the lowball offer, and that was before we killed all your men."

"Fortunately, I wasn't talking to you." She replied, lips twisting into a thin line, as if she had won some flawless victory over Honest Dan.

"Nate, is this lady serious?" Honest Dan threatened, Nate turned around, looking Honest Dan dead in the eye and tried showing him a smile that spoke 'Are you kidding me? Of course I'm not listening to this bag of crazy. Let's get her.'

The side of Dan's mouth raised a fraction of an inch in confirmation. A quick smirk.

"Doctor." Nate said cheerily, "You ever hear of the Salem witch trials?" He lunged at her, wrapping one hand around her neck. Lifting her up, strangling her, she kicked and batted at his hands, but her legs only came in contact with hard metal.

"Dan, get the door, unlock first and second cell."

He nodded, moving across the room to a monitor on top of a cart with car batteries wired to the terminal, providing a mobile power source.

"I have a 100% way of physically checking to see if someone is a synth or not." Nate said, throwing the doctor to the ground and then wrangling one hand out, he pulled out his knife and dragged her to a flat surface and set her hand down. Forcing her to uncurl the pinkie, she yelled and screamed, then Nate slapped down the machete an inch from her hand, embedding the machete knife into the table.

"I call it the Pinkie Test." Wrenching the knife out of the stainless steel desk like a stubborn axe head caught in wood, then he raised the knife up and brought it down, and cut her finger off.

Dan pressed the enter key twice and then the down arrows, instantly the cell doors to Amelia Stockton's cage opened up, along with the cell door next to it.

The daughter, wrapped in rags and clothes that look like they haven't been washed in weeks stuck to her battered and thin body. She was about to say something, when she looked down and was cut off by the piercing scream of Dr. Chamber's getting her pinkie finger removed.

Nate picked up the finger and showed the end to Meathead. "Must be a human."

"AGH! You'p Moav'a FUCKERS! YOU FUCKERS! YOU INGRATES! YOU FIENDS! YOU ANIMALS!" Nate took the back end of his shotgun and swung it like a ram, smashing Dr. Chambers down onto the ground, and then grabbing her collar, dragging her back up and towards the stairs.

"Dan, you were smoking a cigarette earlier, right? Can I borrow your lighter?" Nate said, holding the doctor off the ground above his head, he walked across the sewer tunnels and up the metal stairs, each step the power armor bent the metal down, groaning under the weight.

Amelia Stockton rushed out, her clothes were tattered rags, her brown hair and brown eyes were and Meathead barked three times. "I know, Meathead... I know...but that's not the issue. The point is, that this woman doesn't know anything about the Salem witch trials, and history repeated itself once again."

"Who are you? Thank you for rescuing me." Amelia said, unsure of who to trust at the current moment.

"Your father sent us, Amelia. I'm here to take you home." Dan said, accepting a quick hug from Amelia as being her savior.

"Would the two of you both like a quick history lesson in the Salem witch trials?" Nate shouted from up above. Heaving Dr. Chambers into a cell, she screamed as her ribs were cracked after slamming into the concrete walls. Her bloody hand made marks against the walls and she curled her fist in, trying to staunch the flow of blood.

"I promise it'll be educational." Amelia moaned lightly, feet and head towards the door, but she knew instinctively, that she would also vicariously live out the fantasy of killing the mad woman who kept her locked up in a cell for weeks.

"I could always stand to learn a little something." Dan said, watching as Nate pulled a Molotov cocktail off his bandoleer.

"Good...good...Dan, your lighter?" Nate asked, forcing the cell door shut, warping and bending the hinges. Honest Dan pulled out his gold plated flip lighter and underhand tossed it up to the second level. Nate caught it with one hand.

"Please..." She sucked in a breath, the bones in the back of her ribs were rupturing her lungs. It was extremely painful for her to breathe.

"Ahem...if I remember my local history, which I do, the Salem witch trials were conducted after the town of Salem, along with a few other towns in Massachusetts. You see, the men and women of 1692 were coming off of a civil war, and many of the men died during these battles, leaving the women as sole property owners of these estates. Now...when a family dies, their property was turned over to the government, or at the time, the church." Nate pontificated, trying to set the scene quickly and get the facts down as Dr. Chambers crawled up the brickwork, using the jagged edges as a handhold to climb the walls.

"At this time, a female owning property was unheard of, inconceivable at the time for the male-dominated society. When the trials came to pass, the minister...who at that time had exceptional clout within the community, the Puritan minister Mather wrote, "It is better that Ten witches escape, than one put to death, who is not a witch."

Dr. Chambers coughed blood, and shook as she tried groping the walls for a hand hold. "Fuuuuck...you..." She breathed, pulling herself onto one knee.

"Amelia is a Synth. One hundred percent replaced by the Institute."

"-What...what are you doing?" Dr. Chambers called out weakly.

Honest Dan quietly pulled back on the hammer of his shotgun, cocking it into place. "What are you getting at?"

"Getting at? I'm Getting at Amelia Stockton, your employer's daughter, was replaced by the Institute, and her memories 'Control C and then Control V'ed into a robotic look alike. I can prove it four different ways...one which you'll be immediately opposed to, the other...you'll think is crazy...beyond the typical normal, everyday crazy. Like...aliens from another planet type of crazy."

"And the other two?"

"An X-ray scan, but I don't have access to one right now, and the other is in the Institute itself, and the same goes for us walking up to the C.I.T. and knocking on their front door and asking if Amelia is a synth, which she is."

"I don't like you making accusations of my employers daughter being a synth, Nate." Honest Dan's eyes narrowed, Nate held up the palms of his hands to him.

"You're right, I completely understand, I just wanted to preface the different ways I could prove she's a synth."

"So what are the first two then?" Honest Dan wondered out loud.

Nate held up his hand, showing Dr. Chamber's severed pinkie, the blood, cartilage, bone dripping and coating Nate's fingers. "The Pinkie Test."

"No."

"You don't even know what I'm about to ask."

"Cut it off."

"Then you do know, it is the least insane out of the other three."

"What's the last option?" Honest Dan asked.

"The crazy one. Meathead, could you come here?"

The dog hesitantly climbed up the steps while Nate wrapped up the history lesson.

"The version I remember was that it was based off a very old book. You see, that minister was inspired to use the quote about fractions from the book of Genesis. Chapter 18, verses 23...to...30 or so. Short verses.

A man named Abraham is talking with God. God tells him he is going to destroy the town of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham asks, "What if there are righteous people in that town? What if there are fifty? What if there are ten?" And God Replied, "I will not destroy it for ten's sake."

Nate scratched the lighter, and Meathead stood next to him.

"But she's just one! ONE SYNTH!" Dr. Chambers screamed from inside her cell.

"And there are only nine people in Covenant, including yourself. So if I've got my math right..." Nate said to Dr. Chambers.

"Verse 27-29; Abraham stood at the spot where he spoke with God the day before, and saw the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah with smoke rising from them like a furnace. However, God remembered Abraham, and spared Lot's family, where he lived at the time, and spared his family." Nate said, finally catching the rag to the Molotov on fire.

"No...NoNoNNONONO!" She backed against the wall, away from the flames coming out of the bottle.

"You see...history repeats itself. At the end of the witch trials, a few of the women were hanged, drowned, or burned at the stake." Nate made to heave the burning bottle, and she screamed, but he held his hand at the last second.

""

"Yep. Show them, Meathead."

Meathead stood infront of the bars and a swath of green fire rose up around him, and standing in his place was an exact duplicate of Dr. Chambers.

"NOOOO!" She screamed, an ear pitched wail that echoed throughout the entire Compound, her screams were sent ever higher as Nate threw the bottle at the wall over her. Fire caught onto the motor oil and sugar, raining down on her and sticking to her skin. Flesh charred off and incinerating her, she continued to scream and scream, inhale and suck down flames, cooking her lungs and burning her tongue black, and then screaming until her vocal chords were burnt away.

Then she writhed in agony, eyes still locked onto the duplicate of herself until her eyes were seared and cooked out of her sockets.

Nate turned away, looking down at Honest Dan and Amelia, holding him tightly in a scared embrace.

Rubbing his eyes once to clear the ash and smoke, "Honest Dan, Amelia, this is my dog, Meathead."

"There wont need to be any discussions about what occurred here, will there?" Meathead asked.

Honest Dan regarded Nate in a different light, the light of an underground sewer pipe chase tunnel system. Poorly and dimly lit.

"Nope, just one question...what is that thing?"

"" Meathead said, shifting into the form of Nate. ""

Amelia was shaking in Honest Dan's arms.

"

Blood rose to Amelia's face, cheeks and nose turning red.

"What do I do? How do I go back?" Nate gripped the catwalk safety bar, from the way Meathead's ears flicked back towards him, and the look of contempt in Honest Dan's face, every male in the room didn't want to deny her hope, but they didn't want to tell her that right now.

"Amelia. As of right now, the Institute may already have a way to swap bodies around like this. In that case, it's a greater matter of getting into the Institute. You mean, back to being human? Amelia, the Institute is the only one who can answer that question. We can hint at it, and promise that we'll never stop searching for a way, but it may not be us to be the ones who help you solve...your...problem." Nate realized his roundabout explanation was losing steam, but wording it right seemed to keep Amelia's shock in place, and from letting her blast all the fearful energy around the sanitary room.

""

"So where does that put me?" Amelia asked,

"" Meathead said. ""

"

"That still leaves Covenant."

"I'll handle it." Nate said, exiting his power armor. "Amelia, take this power armor. It'll protect you."

"You're giving her a suit of power armor?" Honest Dan asked,

"It'll make your job easier too, there should be enough juice to make it all the way to Bunker Hill."

"What do you mean when you're going to handle it?"

"I say what I mean, and I mean what I say. I'll handle it. Now both of you, get going. As a courtesy to the two of us, don't go spreading this type of information around, the Institute is watching and we'd like it if the Institute never knew about the one thing that can separate humans from Synths."

"I won't."

"It'll be a long time before I even mention this place, let alone what happened at it." Honest Dan said, looking over his shoulder.

"Then safe travels." Nate said, coming down the steps. He stepped out of the power armor and let Amelia take over. Honest Dan didn't say anything else, only looking at Nate and Meathead, chewing on his bottom lip all the while.

""

"I'll take the other twenty Molotovs we've picked up along the way so far." Nate said, holding out an open hand.

\111/

October 26th, 2287

3:00 A.M.

Swanson held his head down, right hand across his chest, on his sword, with his left hand slipped under neath his right arm, holding a .38 revolver. Pointed forward, he propped his legs up on a small wooden box and leaned back in his chair against the wall, pretending to be asleep. Eyes squinted low and scanning,

He was suppose to be on watch, waiting for normal passers and foot traffic to come by Covenant, but they were still so tense on waiting for the man with the dog to return.

He was so concerned about looking like he was asleep, he didn't hear Nate and Meathead get close to him. Swanson was so caught up in making his outward appearance look like someone who was asleep, that he was all caught up in his head. Nate reached right up to Swanson's hip and was pulling out the chinese officer's sword when tension pulled on his belt and his eyes flew open.

Gasping, his hands went for the sword and he immediately cut his palms on the blade, shoving his hands into the sharp part, he tried to wrestle it away from Nate by swinging his hips to the right and rolling out of the chair.

Nate pulled the sword free and stabbed straight through Swanson's ribcage, and he cried out "ARAgh!" Like he was so sure he could pull it out like a sliver and put some pressure on it, then he would be okay. He only needed a stimpak, then he would be okay. Only he died thinking he would be okay as Nate lifted the sword up, out of his chest, then stabbed it back down in. This time making sure he was dead.

Barricading the swinging doors to Covenant, they couldn't be opened from the inside, and there was only one way in or out of Covenant.

Nate took a small wooden crate, one that used to carry bottles of Nuka-Cola, filled it with Molotovs, and lit them one after the other.

Walking clockwise around Covenant, he started at the lakeside door, going north and east, tossing Molotov cocktails over the wall and having the sugar and used diesel oil burst against the wooden houses inside.

The bottles smashed on the dried grass, or in the trees, one after the other, the flames quickly caught hold, and it wasn't until the fourth cocktail Nate tossed did he finally hear the voices shout in response.

It was a shouting at first, 'what was that shattering noise?'

"What was that!?"

But the following three glass bottles breaking made everyone inside Covenant stop. By the time Nate tossed the sixth Molotov, Brian Fitzgerald was the first to see the flames, then immediately be covered in the sticky oily pitch as Nate tossed a seventh flaming cocktail over the wall. His screams alerted everyone else to the carnage taking place. Nate walked around the walls, tossing more and more bottles. One bottle burst right over Brian's head, and his screams were elevated.

The men tried tackling Brian Fitzgerald, smothering him with dirt and clothes, but the backside of the first settler house and backyard were completely engulfed in flames, and spreading to the roof. The second settler house and living quarters were also starting to catch hold of the fire. Wind fanned it greatly, spreading it to the dried trees and bushes around the ground.
The fire didn't stop as Nate's eleventh and twelfth Molotov cocktails crashed into the yellow building they were using as a city hall and jailhouse.

Penny Fitzgerald was not around to see her husband be consumed in flames, she only saw the fires rising up behind the houses across the dirt street from her, and she ran towards the front door of Covenant.

Ramming the door, she expected the lock to hitch open, and they'd be safely making their way down the road away from the fire. But it was locked.

"Help." She said to the door. "Help! The door is locked!"

Jacob Orden was the second person to reach the door, attention pulled away from the door as more bottles rained down into Covenant, setting the general store and doctor's office on fire.

"Jacob! The town is on fire!"

"We need to get out! SWANSON!" He screamed. Pounding his fist on the door. Kicking it, shoving it, trying the door handle again, it turned, but they couldn't get the doors to open and part.

"SWANSON!

"SWANSON!"

"SWANSON!"

Nate stood in front of the doors with an empty soda crate. listening to the pounding fists and hearing the aggrivated thumps turn to desperation as the fire spread down the hill, and towards the nine settlers in Covenant.

Their shouts were short yips, then yaps as the fire and smoke became unbearable, turning everything white hot. Even the door was getting too hot to touch, and people standing too close screamed and flinched away. Trying to turn their backs to the fire was impossible, the flames went from ten feet tall to fifty feet tall as the houses caught fire and sending billowing black smoke clouds into the sky.

They punched the door, kicked it, and eventually ran from it because, the fire was coming around their feet.

Cornered, the grass fire crept along until the settlers clothes started smoking, and their skin was melting. Their faces and hands burnt off, as the screams lodged in their throat from the fire and smoke made it impossible to scream any longer.

Nate turned his back from Covenant, beckoning Meathead to follow with a wave of his hand, and the dog followed right along side him.

Ch. 13 Tucker Memorial Bridge

October 26th, 2287
5:40 A.M.

The first time Nate and Meathead tried crossing the Charles River, they were nearly blown to pieces.

The signs of danger were present long before they even got close. Nate moved through the city slowly, his heart telling him to treat the city he once could safely walk through, as a war zone.

But, the Tucker Memorial Bridge was covered with petrol and vasoline. Landmines dotted the bridge, along with fishing poles with line rigged as tripwire detonators.

Nate's grin soured as he peered through the binoculars.

"I can't fucking see 'em." He sneered. "I know you fuckers are out there, though. Show your stupid heads." He grits his teeth, like a hunter waiting for a deer to move beyond a tree.

"" Meathead said, head aimed across the river towards the next bridge a half a mile away.

Nate scanned back and forth, going slowly. Eyes crawling over every tree, every building, looking for anything not from nature.

From the Art of War, by Sun Tzu, you'll hear that elements to consider while ruling is Heaven and Earth, the moral law, the commander, Method, and Discipline. Nate considered Earth. He heavily considered Earth before crossing the bridge into Cambridge because the stretch of earth spanning between here and there was too far not to consider hazardous.

"There's a building on the other side of this bridge here, Wattz Electronics. It was always open from 8:00 Am. to 10:00 Pm. Monday through Saturday. That means it was open when the bombs fell. I went in there one time and got to know one of the mechanics, and we started talking about robots and how they're armed, and he mentions the ammo on the third floor that they keep for the securitrons." Nate reasoned, recalling all the home-field advantages. "Plenty of cover, place to duck into, one door in the front, loading bay in the back. That's if you can bore through the garage doors, I assume they're blocked. Manager's office upstairs they could use as a nest for anyone coming in through the front door.

"There." He said.

""

"That's right. I see you, you green motherfucker." He said through his binoculars. "You have no idea I'm even here. Meathead, can you use your magic to throw a grenade right to them?

""

Nate's eyes went up to the sky, and he pulled his binoculars down, leaving two big O rings around his eyes.

"Teleport." He wanted to pose as a question but instead repeated that word. Nate wanted to know more.

The changeling dog nodded, ""

"It's about a half mile from here to the next bridge, I'd say close to half a mile. You can do that?" Nate asked, hands by his sides.
.
" Nate pulled one from his bandolier of grenades and held it out for Meathead to take.

"Send them a Hail Mary, Meathead."

The fragmentation grenade was wrapped an in a green ball of light, pulling downwards into Nate's hand, it disappeared in a flash of green fire, appearing fifteen feet over the super mutant's heads, half a mile away. They heard a 'pop-fizz' like someone opened a can of soda with a pull tab very quickly.

The grenade dropped, bouncing once and exploding by their heads, ripping away the ear closest to the blast. One mutant's face was half gone, blown into the concrete pillar supports to the bridge, killed instantly.

The other mutant yelled and fired over the water, blindly.

All the living creatures with working ears in a mile radius heard the blast and shots.

It was a semi-automatic pipe rifle. The way the sound echoed across the river and through the streets of Cambridge and Boston put people on the alert.

Nate and dropped to the pavement, and stayed low behind concrete cover as Meathead ducked his head behind the barrier and plodded along behind Nate.

Grabbing his binoculars, he observed the windows. Tiny glints of reflecting light told him there were people watching.

Looking to see what was going on in the neighborhood, like neighbors that don't want to be too nosy, and peek through the window curtain.

Nate made Meathead wait silently for an hour, they both laid there, waiting for any noise or signal that it was clear before they moved again.

Nate was very tense from the neck down, but his eyes were always looking for that sniper.

Not that he didn't know if there was one, waiting to pick him off, but darn it, the Chinese were taking pot shots at False Pass side all day and night long. At least, until the front lines started running out of ammo.

Then they tried catapulting rocks and grenades across the pass.

Then people.

Either break an arm or their neck on landing and then try to swim to Unimak Island without getting shot by the 108th Battalion.

Not very effective, but they were trying everything.

So when crossing a bridge, one of the most important points in warfare, especially one that is rigged to blow up trespassers, make sure no one knows you're doing it.

\111/

There would be Chinese scouts across from False Pass that would try to walk far north, or far south and swim across.
If the hypothermia didn't kill them, and they weren't exhausted from carrying potentially a weapon that weighed them down, ammo, food ration, a radio to communicate American activities. Not everyone was equipped equally. Some men went in their uniforms with their boots tied together and slung around their shoulders.

Death also was in front of him, the Chinese soldiers who attempted swimming across usually did so in the night.

Every once and a while, a small 160-foot boat or barge would spot the Chinese trying to swim at them. They killed the crews, and tried boating around to the backside of Morzhovoi, and picking up people, and then go around to the next island.

Only, the artillery cannons mounted atop the peaks all along the Inside Passage and Aleutian islands were very accurate.

They wouldn't let the enemy get halfway before enough artillery came slamming down on their heads to level a city block.

\111/

Crawling to the first landmine, Nate held out his combat knife and a stick. Lifting up the side delicately, he flicked the fuse off.

"You can look like me, right?"

Then Meathead took the explosive and whisked it away to the pocket dimension.

"," Meathead replied, Nate kept crawling forward, keeping his head below the cement barriers, and the car window line.

"But no one would be able to tell the difference between us? Have you ever looked like me before?"

""

"When? Why?" Nate asked.

"Because, when Nora put me in the backyard, leave Codsworth on a automatic timer to putter around every few hours, then leave to go to work for six hours, eight hours, I'd get bored. But, you aren't special, I'd transform into anyone or anything while out and about. It was usually easier if I went out as Nora than you, because you've got an intimidating face.>"

"Really? How so?" Nate asked, calling back.

""

Up onto his feet, there was a section of bridge that was completely exposed on the sides, and they needed to quickly get across it without being spotted.

"Feel anyone?"

""

"But they don't know where we are?"

""

They crouched walked along the edge of the bridge, avoiding craters and missing patches. At one point, all there was of the bridge was two steel beams with car doors laying down across it. Quickly moving across the narrow stretch, Nate froze when he heard the scream of a rocket followed by a flare of yellow light and a contrail of smoke.

The rocket arced and crashed onto the bridge. Nate jumped as Meathead transformed and spread his wings, racing after Nate. The gas cans above ignited. The fireballs swelling up from the bridge threw long black smoke clouds into the air, followed by deafening bangs as the explosives went off. This added to the plume of smoke and fire.
Catching him as his legs hit the water, Meathead dragged him up and then was knocked back down by dregs of concrete and rubble crashing down. They slammed into the water.

Semi-automatic fire ripped into the dark green water. Nate's Pip-boy ticked away in the radioactive river, reminding them to get out sooner than later.

Wrapping his arm under Meathead's forelegs, he kicked away from the bridge as long as he could and then broke the surface and tried not to gasp for air.

"Meathead?"

"" He said in a high tone, but calm. The pain was excruciating, but he tried to not let the suffering get to him as Nate laid back in the water and dug out a stimpak.

Pressing the needle to his neck and applying pressure, the stimpak hissed.

A flood of relief washed through Meathead, relaxing in Nate's arms as he kicked back through the water, Pip-Boy ticking all the while.

\111/

Stepping up the side of the river bank, they crawled onto the high ground by a large building built into the water, Poseidon Energy.

The large building with two large dome-shaped tanks in the Charles River was an energy turbine plant, the water passing through the tanks would turn massive paddles, connected to rotors which would spin around magnets to create an electric field and create energy. The machines capable of producing energy were sitting five feet under stagnant water. These buildings were designed with the precaution of temporary flooding and could be drained completely with the re-activation of the city's main power, that, unfortunately, sat undisturbed at Massachusetts Energy Building, the main reactor offline.
Secondary generators were running but dispersed through a fractured power grid, most appliances worked, it was the infrastructure that was like damaged circuits, electrical lines providing energy to the house were ripped up from the concrete, or torn out of the houses, or rusting away in the open air.

Nate cradled Meathead in his arms as he trudged up the embankment and into the building. He laid Meathead down and sniffed his nose.

Shaking, there was a small infestation of radioactive bugs, the size of small cats, and they flew at him. Nate grabbed a close bye fire extinguisher and was swinging it around the entrance office space like a club. Smashing the bugs into gore pastes, Nate sighed, letting go of the fire extinguisher with a loud thud.

The vault suit kept his body dry except for his hands and face, but a slight shiver went through his spine. Gripping and wringing his hands out slowly, Nate made sure there weren't any more bugs the size of small rabbits roaming around the lobby.

"Meathead. How are you feeling."

""

"Is there anyone around us that wants to hurt us?" Nate asked, wiping the dripping hair out of his face,

""

"Well, we rest up. I'm going to scope out the building, then see about crossing the bridge into Cambridge. We should be close to where the two mutants were watching us the day before. I'll check for their bodies too. We're a block closer to Wattz Electronics, and a block closer to BADTFL. both of them would be good candidates for taking a break, and we know from Honest Dan and Amelia that there are people at Bunker Hill."

""

"Six in the morning. I'm going to see just what I can find here, then be ready to leave. I want to get a head start on this next day, and find a real place to sleep tonight." Nate directed, nodding. He wanted a warm bed and a hot shower, and he was willing to walk all the way back to Vault 111 if he had to.

" Meathead said quietly.

Nate had his back to Meathead, and he turned around. "Yeah, go ahead. Are you sneaking up there like a dog, do you want me to come along? Or are you going in a different way?" Nate inquired a slew of questions.

""

\111/

Meathead poked his head up and over the ridgeline, passing a crowd of construction vehicles all parked on empty lots with foundations laid, or waiting to be laid, leading up the line of houses with wooden walls, insulation, windows, plumbing, and finally the painted houses showcasing the development site of West Everette Estates. Meathead smelled the air, and the pungent burnt ash of oils turning into carcinogens from being too hot in the fire.

When imagining the enemy, your enemy, the mutants did not bath as regularly as a human would, even in the post-war world. Water always being on everyone's mind, the mutants didn't need to worry about the radioactive qualities to it.

So the smell was definitely telling of their features. In the middle of West Everette Estates was a small playground, now converted into a cooking station for the twelve super mutants. Meathead saw three dogs...hounds...
They looked like dogs but were more ferocious. These mutant hounds looked like dogs who needed extra teeth to take on the Deathclaws, and weren't afraid to bark and howl their heads off at a whole plethora of Mirelurk Queens.

West Everett Estates was a super mutant den, with semi-trailers dragged to block off roads, and the massive piles of junk piled on top of it to keep people from coming in easily. The only ways to assault this place were from long distance, where Nate and Meathead stood across the river the day before, coming up off the river shore, or down the main roads. A path ran through the suburb, running south to north, leading off towards Malden.

Meathead growled and turned away. He couldn't hope to take all these super mutants on as he was right now.

From the ridge he was on, with his eyes he could follow the road into Cambridge across the bridge, and even see Wattz Consumer Electronics, and a small community basketball court next to the BADTFL building. The peak of the Bunker Hill Memorial stood upright, peaking out over the buildings. He could see lights coming from off in the distance, and for a moment his head dropped and his senses went out into the city.

He could feel life. The forces of energy conspiring to change the world and shape it, or preserve it, or control it. All these energies were conflicting, but only one of them was content like a tree in bloom, urging life to grow and rebuild out of this new world. It was Nate.

Author's Note

Ac-cent-uate the positive, folks.
How 'bout it?

Ch. 14 The BADTFL Beantown Brewery Bandits

Author's Note

"Two people working together can accomplish a lot, people. Don & Juan...That's Don and Juan...Two guy's singing together."

"To make a song."

"What's your name? I'm not actually asking...that's just the name of the song that these guys made. -Hru Hum-" He coughed, and swallowed his dry throat. "It's a pretty good one. A short one." Straining to swallow his parched throat, he winced. Summoning up spit and saliva into his mouth, he swallowed again and shuddered and licked his dried chapped lips.

"Why drink dirty irradiated water when you can have it bottled? Sheng Coaliski Watering...plant. He's got water. " He snorted,

"Diamond City Radio." He wheezed, looking around for a container of water.

Leaning back away from the microphone, "Tastes like death." He said, wiping his eyes and then plugging his nose with his left hand while the right brought a bottle of brown glass water to his lips and he swallowed.

Ch. 14 The BADTFL Beantown Brewery Bandits

October 26th, 2287
7:00 A.M.

Skeletons wasting away were always such a common sight, it sickened Nate and made him want to burn them to finally clear the streets of his former home city.

They crossed the bridge with the sounds of birds encouraging them to cross unscathed and unhindered. They cast their ears out, listening for any signs of life, and there was only quiet.

Meathead said, 'It's like people are trapped in boxes. They don't know how to get out.' Nate tried asking for clarification, but Meathead didn't know the words. He said people are so worried in this new world, that you don't know if the footsteps outside the window are from a super mutant, a deathclaw, a caravan, traders, mercenaries, raiders, that it's safer for the people to stay inside their box and not call out.

Nate contemplated Wattz Consumer Electronics, expecting to run in there with the devil on his heels, but with no one chasing them, he didn't give it a second thought and they kept walking to the BADTFL, less than two blocks away.

In front of the blue striped and concrete building of the Bureau of Alcohol, Drugs, Tobacco, Firearms, and Lasers, there was a recent gunfight, and the bodies were still quite fresh.

Nate paused for a moment at the threshold of the door, a cold grip making him clench his fist.
"Meathead?" He asked, the changeling stuck his head up and sensed the energy coming from within the building.

""

"Well, let's see if we can do the neighborly thing and help out."

\111/

Inside, the floor layout was of glassed in desks on the left, now shattered and blown through, while all the terminals were smashed and dented. Files littered the ground, and each floorboard was dark brown with dirt and mold.

From the next room over, they could hear "Beeeert!" It was two small motors re-configuring their target parameters. Followed by the discharge of a automatic machine gun turret firing off three rounds before correcting itself.

"How long are we gonna sit here~?!" One voice shouted, Nate swung his rifle around and crouched down, walking towards the noise, intersperced with "Beert!" and three more rounds of fire.

"Until the others figure-" BEERT BANG BANG BANG "-out how to shut the- "BEERT BANG BANG BANG "-damn turret off!"

"This better be worth it!- BEERT BANG BANG BANG -How do we know- BEERT BANG BANG BANG -that its not a - BEERT BANG BANG BANG - broom closet!"

"It's the Bureau of Alcohol, Drugs! -BEERT BANG BANG BANG- Tobacco! Firearms- BEERT BANG BANG BANG- and Lasers!- BEERT BANG BANG BANG -BEERT BANG BANG BANG- One of those has- BEERT BANG BANG BANG- got to be in there! WHY NOT PUT A TURRET OVER IT?" The raider yelled over the gunfire.

Moving into the next room, the two men speaking were sitting behind overturned desks and filing cabinets stacked on top of each other. A large shop light standing at five feet tall behind them with two white LED lights attached to it illuminated the entire hallway. There were two doors, one directly behind the two men sitting down from Nate's perspective as he walked in, and one set of double doors to his left. The room was chipped and blasted and torn apart by the machine gun turret that didn't know when to quit.

Nate took two steps back into the main entrance and tipped over a desk and stood it up on the long end and drug it back into the hallway. "OY!" He said, catching their attention. Holding aim at them with both shotguns out to them, the two men glared at him with their guns drawn.

"Let's kill him!" Beert! BANG BANG BANG

"OY! NO! Hands off your guns! Do you want in to the lock up!?" Nate shouted, Beert! BANG BANG BANG"

"No! HOW ABOUT WE KILL YOU!?" Beert! BANGBANGBANG

"DUMBASS! DO YOU WANT TO GET SHOT BY THAT THING?!" Nate pointed off to his right, up to the turret mounted into the ceiling. Shaking his head, he got the other raiders to mirror and shake their heads too. There was a hallway filled with bodies of people who tried attempting it before, and resulted in constant failure.

"I get in there, and your boss owes me some favors!" Nate yelled back across the hallway.

"FINE! HOW THE HELL ARE YOU GONNA GET IN THERE!?

"Government desks!" He said, slapping the metallic desk and moving it out into the line of fine. Beert! BANGBANGBANG

The bullets thunked into the top, and Nate strong armed the desk as a makeshift barricade and shoved it forward down the hall, not stopping as the turret kicked into fully automatic to chase the moving target.

The hallway was filled with decomposing skeletons and bodies that all tried to get into the evidence lock up through two hundred years. Some, as old as Nate, he surmised that after the bombs fell, survivors would be looking for weapons to defend themselves.

Then, over time, more and more search parties all found their way into this hallway, and all found similar fates. But not Nate and Meathead, they waited inbetween bursts of gunfire before lifting the desk and moving it forward. down the hall until he was almost directly underneath it, then grabbed the edge and let the desk fall over him and Meathead. The turret was shooting directly down on top of the desk, and he kept shoving it forward until finally he was clear and there was a Beert! BANG BANG BANG as the motor angled the gun back at the two raiders.

"What the fuck... how'd he know to do that?"

The evidence lockup was untouched, a small desk and monitor out in front of it, acting as inventory station. While solid steel bars and a cell door prevented anyone from getting in.

Picking the lock was easy, moving a screwdriver and a bent bobby pin into place. Lifting up each tumbler, he felt a small click as the key hole turned all the way sideways and the cell door opened.

"OY!" Nate shouted, pulling the cell door open and holding his thumbs up to the two raiders. Smiling at them, he quickly realized that only one was still there, while the double doors at the far end of the hallway were open.

"Alright Meathead, let's get in there, and strip the place before these guys get smart and try to do the same thing." Meathead nodded.

"Hello." Nate said to the loaded Fat Man launcher, sitting out with a small faded and moldy evidence tag wrapped around the trigger. There were dozens of guns lining the walls, all with illegible evidence tags, but a few out of the large collection could still be read. 'Winter.'

"Sweet baby," He said, pulling down boxes of bourbon bottles, on the outside with a scrawled label of 'MOONSHINE' on the side, all the bottles were full.

"Oh man. He said, grabbing an entire crate and ripping the lid off, inside were hundreds of cigarette cartons and to his left, an entire wall devoted to drugs. Buffout, Mentats, Psycho, a five boxes marked 'Qty. 300' and on the inside were inhalers used to make Jet. Then, Nate held up a fifty pound box of Marijuana seeds.

"Meathead, this and half of everything else, as much as you can carry. I'll hold the Fat Man, that's our way out if things don't go our way." Meathead nodded, whisking half of everything they saw into his pocket dimension.

"Jesus Christ. This is a lot." He swallowed, spotting one thing amiss out of everything here. A small orange and white holotape labeled 'We are done.' Stuffing it into his pocket.

"Finish up, I'm going to take care of the turret."

Beert! BANG BANG BANG!

It was still firing down the hallway, and Nate quickly poked his head, in and out, real quick like, to look up at the turret. Pulling out his pipe rifle, he positioned it underneath the turret with the butt on the ground, and then pulled the trigger. Firing upwards, the turret barrel was mangled and ripped apart by Nate's gunfire, and it kicked into overdrive for a moment before a loud bang, unlike the other types of noisy bangs, filled the air and the turret stopped firing.

"We're through!" Nate shouted, hoisting up the Fat Man to his shoulder. "I'm coming out! And we're going to talk!" Shadows moved infront of the shop light, "Hold up!"

What greeted Nate now was nine raiders, all pointing their rifles at him, but holding their trigger fingers at bay with the sight of the Fat Man Mini Nuke launcher aimed at the whole group.

It was hard to make out their faces with the shop light directly behind them casting shadows on their fronts.

"You wanted into the evidence lockup, and in exchange, three favors."

"Shut up, before we kill you." The female leader stepped forward, rifle raised up towards the ceiling.

She wore a swath of red paint running from the top of her forehead and red haired mohawk, down her nose and across both eyelids, her nose and cheeks, chin, down her neck and disappearing into her bust line and white tank top stained yellow and brown.

"Give up your weapons, and we wont kill you."

Meathead was hiding behind the desk, shaking his head slowly.

"You and everyone in your gang is about to have one of their largest scores in their entire lives. All you need to do is accept three things."

"Put down the Fat Man."

"It's loaded and you've made your point that I'm outnumbered, but not outgunned, so not yet. Your men over there, those two, agreed to three favors from you, nothing too demanding, nothing that will undermine your power, nothing you wont miss." Nate said, holding up two boxes of .44 ammo. clapsed in his left hand while the Fat Man rested on his shoulder.

"It belongs to me."

"And I understand that, and that's true, it's yours. I couldn't even make it very far with this heavy thing. Everything in this room is yours and all those raiders behind you would follow any order you give, including the one to shoot me down, but there's also a very inherent risk of me pulling the trigger on this Fat Man and the potential that this entire building comes down. The first favor I ask is to take this ammo, and a bottle of booze. Behind me are enough Buffout, Mentats, Psycho, Med-X, tobacco, guns, ammo, and alcohol to get high, drunk, mind flipped for weeks straight, but there's something else too."

"What else?"

Meathead nodded slowly and Nate saw the conversation progessing more smoothly.

"Empty Jet inhalers. Let me give you a total. Fifteen hundred. One thousand, five hundred empty Jet containers. You could have chefs filling those for months and turning profits for years. A single inhaler of Jet goes for ten to fifteen bottle caps, that's fifteen thousand caps at the lowest value. But, if you want to make real money, you subtract all the expenses after you and your men are paid and use whatever is left over to keep buying more product to continue making drugs. It wouldn't have to end there, in a year, I could show you how to take the fifteen thousand caps, after everyone's been paid, after ammo's bought, chems are cooked, and everyone's nice and high, and turn it into one hundred thousand bottle caps. You wouldn't even be dealing in caps anymore, you'd be so wealthy, you wouldn't even know what to do with that type of money. You could fill this entire room with bottlecaps, if you keep listening to me." Raising her rifle higher to rest on her shoulder, her eyes flicked to the Fat Man, then back to Nate.

"So what's it going to be? Get out of the raiding business, into the drugs for a long life and two more favors, or an inherent risk right now?"

Nate watched as her tracheae retracted and she swallowed. She was considering it. Her right pectoral twitched as her gun arm wavered.

"I get that Fat Man in the end." She commanded.

"Of course! Of course. It's yours, everything in that room behind me is yours. I don't want a Fat Man, it's too heavy for me. You and your people are about to be one of the most well armed groups in the Commonwealth and be a force to be reckoned with. I'll leave the Fat Man outside on the patio you can pick it up after I leave."

"What are the other two favors?"

"Don't gun me down after I leave. And third, when I come back through this neighborhood, I'd rather come back knowing there's allies here in Cambridge and Bunker Hill, rather than enemies. Limitless potential is sitting in crates directly behind me, you know you can get drunk and high right now for a few days, and then the supply runs out, or be drunk and high every day for the next fifty years."

"You show us how to turn profits."

"I will, but I can't right now, I'm on a mission to Diamond City. Once I take care of business, I'll return here. Depending on the outcome of my business, and there's no foreseeable hazards preventing me from coming back. Like Mutants, ghouls, Gunners, mirelurks, deathclaws, roving bands of murderous robots, or any other thing that will delay me."

She looked down and to the right, Nate started nodding and she semi-consciously repeated his actions. Nate smiled, and kept nodding, her cheeks twitched the more she considered it. Then the air in the room finally was less heated as she lowered her rifle in one motion and spun around.

"Drunk, high, and rolling in the caps for the next fifty years sounds pretty damn good to me, boys!" She yelled, raising her rifle in one hand over her head by the stock. The eight other raiders behind her cheered, and Nate stepped to the right hand side of the room with his back pressed against the wall.

"What's your name?" He asked, pointing the Fat Man down at the ground.

"Sparta. When do I get my Fat Man?"

"Very soon. Tell me, what's the biggest threat in the Bunker Hill Neighborhood right now?"

She frowned and looked to the door. "Mutants. Block away, holed up in a half-built skyscraper. Synths and ghouls by the university, but they're easier to avoid than mutants."

Nate raised his eyebrows and smiled. "How about I show you how to take out a dozen super mutants in one shot?" Nate slapped the side of the Fat Man twice. "There's plenty more mini-nukes in there, and consider it a sign of cooperation on both ends towards a better goal. You see me work, an enemy is eliminated, you get the Fat Man, and everyone gets to travel through here knowing it's safer with you in charge of the whole district."

She turned her head and nodded once. Almost trying to shake her head, no, but agreeing hesitantly.

"They'll crawl out of the rubble if they survive." She responded back.

"Then go into the cage, and arm yourselves. I will scout and come back to you with positions that you and your men can take up to fire down on any surviving super mutants. It'll be like shooting fish in a barrel."

"What's that suppose to mean?" She asked, Nate shook his head.

"It's a metaphore for how easy it'll be...to kill any surviving Super Mutants. Once I scout, I'll return here, and show you the exact spot where you can launch a mini-nuke to destroy their entire base, with one shot. After the building crumbles and any survivors are disoriented, your men from the rooftops can gun them down as they crawl out from the rubble. I'll even let you launch the Mini-Nuke, and from then on, the Fat Man is yours."

"" Meathead said, well away from the blue striped and cement building.

"It got us out of there, and laid some foundation for future endeavors." Behind a section of collapsed overpass to the south, was the plainly visible half built skyscraper and the construction site around it. From a distance, he could see seven trails of smoke coming from oil barrel fires, illuminating the ten visible super mutants.

Three were directly facing Meathead and Nate, squinting back at them.

Walking around the bent rebar and steel jutting out of the concrete and pavement, Nate cast his eyes up to the closest large building.

""

"Better than raiding."

""

"Meathead...the basis of civilization was based around the fact that humankind was able to make alcohol...it was a drink that didn't make them sick, and the water wouldn't go bad in a two month period. Beer stays good for ninety days before going flat. That's without the preservatives we had before the 2030's...then beer stayed good for...a long time after that and didn't go straight to skunky. Wine...if stored correctly can stay good for decades. When the water is terrible, you drink water with alcohol in it."

""

"Alcohol is a drug, and it's a commodity that can be traded. Raiding and looting isn't something that can be traded, that's extortion and pillaging. Hopefully they'll be better at keeping things in line better than Preston's pissass country club."

""

"Not when the only one left was hopelessly idealistic...Still wonder what happened to that guy. I tried looking for him for a while while you were off scouting Corvega, but...couldn't find anything. Either way, him reaching out to us was like being made the captain of a sinking ship on fire. It's a nice gesture, but ain't worth the effort to dive below deck and yank open the ballast pumps. Which also...takes about five minutes of swimming through blackness and a shot of adrenalin. Only with Preston's Minutemen, it'd take months. Better to start from scratch on this one."

""

"Society had it's chance to rebuild, and I'm not really impressed by what I've seen so far. Whatever's going on in Boston, it's because someone is deliberately fucking and double crossing other people. And if there's one thing I can't stand, is getting stabbed in the back. Literally. Getting stabbed in the back hurts and unless your triceps are really flexible, pulling the knife out is gonna take a few minutes of agony. Which is why I can now do this." Nate finished by taking off his back pack and stretching both arms behind his back. The left arm went above his head and bent at the elbow reaching down, while the right arm twisted around and bent at the elbow reaching upwards until he could clasp both hands together near the center of his back.

Stretching his arms and puffing his chest out, he stood up straighter and pulled his head upwards.

"Great for posture."

""

"Right, so if the Minutemen collapsed, then like a sunken ship, the only thing you could do is rip out the flooded engine, and rebuild it from the hull up. But, the Minutemen are a collective, an idea, not a physical boat. So, if it's destroyed in people's minds, then it's much easier for something new to come along and replace it, than something old that's tried to come back into being popular."

Nate looked up at the tall grey colorless cement walls to Mass. Chemical. The Massachusettes Chemical Disposal Facility located less than one hundred meters away from the BADTFL.

Nate heard the ticking on his wrist and glanced down at it, "One...two...three, four, five, sixseveneightnineten" He said quickly at the end. "That's about...meh...It's irradiated, let's go in."

""

"Yeah. I've got Rad away in my back pocket. Enough for both of us."

""

Nate twisted and tilted his head down to look at Meathead meeting his gaze. Letting his eyelids drift close, "You're not effected by radiation?" He asked, yawning. "Hungh...neat."

""

"So what changed?"

""

"And another little call sign." Nate pointed forward. Past a semi-truck carrying barrels of toxic waste, medical biohazard materials, and a few rusted barrels drained out and melting the back end carriage, was a brick wall.

The six pointed star, with lines going out from the center surrounded a white chalk X.

" Meathead leaned his head to the right, looking behind the truck to the construction site behind it. ""

"Not really, but I'm gonna say an X is either not worth it, or already been done. I'm thinking the Super mutants make things in Bunker Hill not worth a lot of things."

Passing three black empty barrels and pressing the latch to the blue double doors, it opened to a massive three story piece of yellow industrial machinery, now decorated with bags of barbed wire and bags of meat.

\111/

"" Meathead sniffed the air, wincing and whining. ""

"An industry chemical washing machine. This place probably sucked up water treating chemicals, rinsing them, sending it through dozens of filters in this giant beast here before the waste was safe enough to handle or be consolidated to a dump site. Super useful if it can be restored. But that's not what were here for." Nate said, observing the giant mammoth tanks and the dust accumulated over everything. The interior was also a storage area for a few super mutant's meat bags however, adding a unpleasant stench of rotting death to the irradiated chemical building.

Wind blew through blown out windows and he could see the shadow of the construction site looming over them through the broken glass.

Nate looked to his right, seeing a shopping cart full of bloody skeletons and human remains, and to his right, a computer connected to a protectron pod. walking to the computer, he quickly tapped the enter button three times and the monitor booted up. His Pip-Boy was still talking to him, telling him that he was standing in irradiated space, but he calmly ignored it for now.

Running a security protocol program, and attempting to unlock the computer on the second try, he was successful as the terminal made two tones. "Be-doop." and he smiled as the protectron pod containing a construction unit was deployed.

The Utility protectron surged forward, stepping outwards as the rest of its components surged to life.

"[Warning: Union Violation protected. Last break was nine thousand, nine hundred, ninety nine hours ago.]" The unit walked forward to the door opposite of them and pushed out.

""

"A little distraction, the U.P.s are meant to take damage, and it'll give me a better chance to see the mutant's response if and when they decide to attack it."

Hanging a left around the massive chemical washer, they followed a catwalk ramp leading to the second floor, past a disabused chemistry station,

""

Nate lookd up and unhooked a grenade. "Can you float this up?"

Meathead nodded, the grenade was wrapped in a green glow and hovered out of Nate's hands and twenty feet up to the ceiling.

Meathead maneuvered the lever and pulled the pin, holding it an inch away from the roof and directly under the unsuspecting super mutant.

Taking steps back, the explosion blew open a hole in the roof and the super mutant fell through. Nate fired seven times into the chest and back area before it could even hope to recollect its surroundings, and left it to die.

Right beside the exit door to the roof was a scoped hunting rifle resting upright against the wall. Nate picked it up, checked the magazine, and pulled back the bolt. A round was loaded into the barrel with a satisfying click.

Lowering himself down onto one knee, Nate peered through the scope towards the large seven story building, on the west facing side was a set of stairs leading up from a basement, and surrounding this building were deep trenches. Next to the building Nate and Meathead were standing on was a gate facing west towards Monsignor Plaza, a shopping center that they went to occasionally before the war for holiday gifts, or something special.

Semi trucks and cargo containers, heavy industrial equipment, and a road piled high with sharpened steel girders and trash on the far eastern side made the super mutant base very inaccessible except for a few choke points around the building.

One of the ways in was through Mass. Chemical, up the main road through the front door which is exactly what the Utility Protectron was doing just now. The orange spinning hazard light on top flashed brightly and attracted all sorts of attention from the super mutants. The ones on the higher floors pointed and shouted, they were more protected and wore metal armor made from scraped car parts, and Nate even saw one wearing a sewer plate over its chest, held in place by chains.

There was a loud trumpet blare, and then two mutant hounds ran full sprint towards the Utility protectron. All protectrons were built with combat capabilities, under strict program lock to prevent it from attacking non-combatants, but as the first of the two mutant hounds howled it's mangled trumpet like howl and charged, the protectron fought back.

The Utility protectron was painted yellow, white, and black, its arms were two massive clamps, capable of lifting up to one thousand pounds and also applying six hundred pounds of pressure per square inch when fully closed.

The super mutant hounds bit into and scratched their teeth on the metallic frame, trying to find a hold to dig in and rip off the metal plating. The Utility protectron reached one arm up, and clamped around the dog's head. With hydraulic pressure, the clamps crushed the first dog's jaw and cheek bones as it scratched its legs against the machine, when then second tackled it to the ground. Both dogs and the robot fell to the ground, the first dog was still locked in position by the metal claw. With a echoing crunch, the first dog's head exploded into a gush of blood and bone as the clamp came to a fully closed position. The Utility protectron swung its other arm and thwacked the second dog in the neck.

A super mutant carrying a plank of wood stormed out of the front door to the building, heading straight for the protectron and hound. The mutant hound jumped and locked its jaws around one arm, thrashing its head back and forth. The super mutant bashed the protectron on the head with the board of wood, denting and banging the metal.

The Protectron swung the dog into the super mutant, making it whine in pain, but its jaws were still locked in tightly to the arm, so it held on.

A second super mutant charged out of the building, armed with a sledgehammer and heaved all its weight into one powerful swing crushing the spinning light on top and forcing the protectron to emit a siren. The head piece was smashed in, crushed, and broken. The one arm the hound had bitten into was finally torn free, and hydraulic fluid gushed over the dog and onto the ground.

The two super mutants kept bashing and smashing the protectron until it was knocked over and couldn't fight back any more.

Nate was watching from the front as Meathead buzzed around the building, going unnoticed by the watch guards as their attention was directed to the Utility Protectron being destroyed below.

Landing next to Nate, Meathead licked his lips and transformed back into a dog.

""

"Tricky shot. Can you sneak or warp in to make sure those doors are unlocked?"

""

"Then the best way to get her in with the Fat Man is to move through the gate here, around the backside of the piles of piping and construction equipment, and that leaves only a ten foot window of exposure to the staircase leading down." Nate pointed with two fingers, waving them over the site and forming a plan of attack.

"Men there, on the rooftops, to the east, here, and atop that shed there. Meathead, can you get a reading on how many mutants are in that shed?"

""

"That's good...That's good. Alright. Let's go get Sparta and her men."

\111/

October 27th, 2287
5:24 P.M.

The sun was already low in the sky, and the city was cooling down rapidly.

Three men and four women all led by Sparta and Nate were sent to gunning positions around the block, waiting for two signals, the first, a grenade explosion on the west side of the building, while Nate and Sparta stealthily moved towards the building from the east. Poking their heads out of cover, Nate told Sparta to signal her men.

She leaned out of cover and waved twice with her pointer and middle fingers, the raiders on the rooftops on the far west side started shooting at the building, drawing attention away from the east as the Super Mutants fought back against the skirmish.

Moving across the dirt lot and down the concrete base stairs, Nate eased open the door and pointed to the main support columns for the building.

The raiders on watch raised one arm and waved it towards the building, seeing both of them make it to the building undetected. The closest raider on the west side of the building lot pulled out a grenade and heaved it into the building.

The metal grenade pinged against the ground, bounding twice and exploding after three seconds.

No damage was done, but the noise brought every super mutant on guard to the lower levels, they all probed and searched for the perpetrator. The mutant hounds howled and sniffed the ground, the super mutants roamed back and forth, staying inside the building and looking outwards for the sign of an attacker.

She hefted the Fat Man launcher up to her shoulder, peering through the sights to align her shot, and went to one knee in the water up to her shin. Pulling the trigger, she was pushed backwards from the force of the launch and immediately got to her feet and ran up the stairs alongside Nate as the explosion shattered the main foundation of the building and the entire center began to collapse from within.

The building shook and swayed, every mutant and creature on the first floor was killed instantly as the second floors cascaded down, then the third and the fourth, all the way to the top where everything flattened like an accordion without air. Concrete, mortar, and steel were thrown from the building and the raiders opened fire on anything that looked distinctly green.

Chatter of gunfire echoed through the neighbor hood, across the buildings and through the streets as the building tumbled down and turned to rubble.

Nate was then alone with Sparta, and there was a wild look in her eyes, a wicked grin on her face, and the heavy rising and falling of her chest from adrenaline coursing through her.

She threw her head back and howled, cheering and yelling. "Goddamned Vault Boy! You've got yourself a deal! Come to Beantown after you're done. My boys will be running back and forth between there and BAD-fuck office building. Come by after you're done in Diamond City."

"Oh, so there ARE people in the Brewery...good thing we didn't go that way."

"I'll mention that you're coming."

"Thank you. As a suggestion, never get high off your own supply, it's wasteful and leads to overindulgence."

"I'll consider it Vault-Boy. Now. Go finish your business. I want that room full of caps by the end of the year." She said, throwing the Fat Man back up onto her shoulder, she turned away and marched through the street triumphantly.

Ch. 15 Bunker Hill

Author's Note

"Geeze it sounds like the neighbors were moving furniture this morning. It woke me up. Well, I don't normally make requests, but we here at Diamond City sure would like to know what's going on out there. That's why we have Publick Occurences! Run by one Miss Piper and her sister, Nat. The city's intrepid reporter is always hunting down the latest scoop! So, Piper, if you're out there, stay safe and bring back a news story that'll fly off the presses. We're rooting for you. Well...I am anyway. You know Mc-who is still a little P'O'ed."

"Grab your copy of Publick Occurences today!

Now the real reason you listen to Diamond City Radio, enough of listening to me ramble, onwards to the music!

Good Rocking Tonight, by Roy Brown. But! Guess who decided to make a cover of the same song on Sun Records seven years after Roy? The King. Coming up next."

Merry Christmas 2018

Ch. 15 Bunker Hill

October 26th, 2287.
6:30 P.M.

Everyone in Bunker Hill knew who Nate was, and how he played a part in the rescue of Stockton's daughter, Amelia, a day before he even walked through the gate.

He was described as a man wearing a blue Vault-Tec. suit roaming around with a dog. Therefore, in the eyes and ears of the unknowing, Nate must be a vault dweller.

Which One?

One One One. It said so with the big yellow numbers his back.

A vault dweller who helped Stockton's man, Honest Dan find out what happened to the missing caravan sent north weeks ago.

Honest Dan came back with the story and told it to the few people who asked. In a small community with nothing to talk about who was coming and who was going, word of Nate making his way here after he dealt personally with the raider's from Covenant was on everybody's lips.

Honest Dan told everyone that the people in Covenant werewolves in sheep's clothing. Raiders who figured out that it doesn't pay to go out and raid, when it's easier to let unsuspecting traders and merchants come through, trade, eat some food, and stay the night. Then, once they've gone half a mile, they signal the second group of raiders that were in hiding the entire time to come gun down the unsuspecting crew.

Those were the series of events that were laid out before him while he was in Covenant.

He asked everyone he could, from the so-called Mayor with a flower in his coat pocket to the shopkeep, and everyone in between, but they all lied to his face about Stockton's caravan moving through Covenant.

Honest Dan told everyone there was a hideout, set up in a sewer chase not far from Covenant, and that they could watch people along the whole lakefront without ever being noticed. Amelia was taken because they thought she was a synth, and that they were experimenting on her to try and get her to crack.

Within an hour, the story was repeated fifty times, and the words 'working for the Institute' was thrown in there. That was the only reason, they assumed, as to why they would kidnap Amelia if they thought she was a synth. They were going to sell her back to the Institute and were trying to find out ways to tell the difference between humans and synths.

So, by the time Nate approached Bunker Hill, they'd heard the explosions and gunfire at the construction site. They'd seen the giant plume of ash and dust rise high into the air as it collapsed. Mayor Kessler of Bunker Hill sent a runner to check out the destruction and see what happened. They saw a man in a blue Vault-Tec. suit with a dog talking with the Beantown Brewery Raiders.

This was an interesting note for Mayor Kessler, as ever since the decline of the Minutemen in 2240, and after the death of General Becker in 2282, Bunker Hill has been defenseless against raiders.

Their only way to survive without being raided is to pay everyone off, bribe the raiders senseless, and get them to back off from attacking caravans.

Mayor Kessler knew that Sparta was in the Charleston neighborhood. Again, in a small town with nothing to talk about who's coming, and who's going, word spread quickly that she and her men were inside of the BADTFL regional office.
Tower Tom, Sparta's boss ran the Beantown Brewery Raiders, and for the last six months, was chasing away messengers or outright killing anyone who comes their way. They've been pushing east, and now operate on half the south side waterfront of the Charles River. Their territory stretches all the way to the wreck of the USS Riptide barge crashed right into the bridge connecting the Fens neighborhood and the west section of Cambridge. Three bridges under their control meant everyone who crossed into their turf or passed through, were seen by the Beantown Brewery Raiders and Tower Tom.

With East and South East Boston still heavily contested, the raider gangs there deal with Super Mutants on a daily basis, and there is no bartering with them. The pockets of Super Mutants all over the Commonwealth worried her since they were known to attack randomly and without provocation at any time of the day or night. However, they were only one of the threats. The feral ghouls could be locked out and avoided drawing attention from the city so long as everyone stayed quiet.

Deathclaws didn't come this far into the city, usually, and it was typically easy to rally the traders or merchants if mirelurks came close, because that meant more meat for the grill that night.

Super mutants held a special place in Mayor Kessler's head, next to the things that need to be killed on sight, and things to avoid.

Any raider gang that isn't allied to one of the four gangs that pick through the Boston ruins is on their own. Collections of people anywhere from half a dozen, to no limit on how big these gangs could get, would claim a decent building with enough supplies and scavenge what they could from the ruins.

To hear that a person actually managed to talk to an underboss of the Fens Raiders, she wanted to talk to the man in the vault suit, and hear how he was able to get his foot in the door with this violent group.

This same conversation between Nate and Sparta was also watched by the Charleston Raiders based out of Monsignor Plaza, a block away from Mass Chemical building, who had a second-row view to the building being demolished. The power gap that Nate created needed to be filled was capitalized on the death of a dozen super mutants and their base. They prepared to fight, knowing that more super mutants might counter-attack, and took to the streets.

The two unrelated gangs were watching the destruction of the construction site with bated breath. With one problem gone, they were empowered to move quickly throughout the neighborhood within the hour and drive out all super mutants, and keep the rhythm going by killing every ghoul, synth, or monster that tried walking the streets of their neighborhood.

This gave the settlement of Bunker Hill a new problem, the mutants were gone, and now they wouldn't be hunted for sport or food, now they had to deal with raiders. In most people's books, they'd rather deal with a sentient human who could be reasoned with, rather than a super mutant. Most were still cautious, wary that the raiders were trying to trick them, but it gave people hope that they could go farther throughout the streets of Charleston and Cambridge without worrying about trouble.

Amelia told her own version to her father, saying how the Doctor holding her captive got what she deserved, and that Nate was the type of person who wouldn't stand for injustice. He argued that he didn't care if she was a synth or not, he got her out of there.

Yunassis 'Old Man' Stockton took all this in from his daughter with the palms of his hands pressed together in prayer, thanking the Lord she was safe, and to bless the man who helped act out His divine will against those who sought to harm others.

Whatever happened to Covenant, the den of thieves deserved whatever justice Nate delivered.

Word of the construction site being destroyed spread like wildfire. From the people on their way out of Bunker Hill, headed north towards the small settlements of Country Crossing, Finch Farm, and the Slog, they told them how a guy and his dog lead a team of raiders against the super mutants and managed to destroy the building with very little effort. The reason everyone knew, was because of how loud it was. People miles away could hear the foundations crumble and feel the ground shake for a moment.

Raiders from Monsignor Plaza ran a group of three raiders west with a crate loaded with Jet, all the way to the heart of their territory to the Kendall Hospital in central Cambridge. Their main rivals were now learning of a change in position from the Monsignor raiders who were fighting with both the Fens raiders, primarily located out of Beantown Brewery.

Spreading the word that there was a new guy in town and that he was a genius, he and Sparta collapsed a seven-story building filled with a dozen super mutants, with one mini-nuke.

A few raiders asked 'Well what the hell does this chump look like?'

"Wears a Vault Suit. One one one. And he's got a dog."

This news went east, towards James Wire, operating out of Libertalia, a raider stronghold locking down the roads to Nahant and Nordhagen settlements, and Zeller with his Army in the East Boston Preparatory School.

The only raider gang not aware of the construction site destruction were the Corvega Raiders, they were locked in a three-way standoff deciding who would take over the gang after Jared's death.

So when Nate finally passed into the awareness of the guards stationed at lookout points around Bunker Hill, he was carrying quite the reputation of being efficient, tactical, and a smooth enough talker to outpace a gang of hostile raiders from killing him on site.

In the new world, those were very valuable traits.

The perimeter of Bunker Hill is surrounded by a large wall, only allowing access through the main gate on the south side and a small door on the east side.

Merchants were set up in the former museum hall and gift shop, expanding outwards with a few shacks and pens inside the walled area for brahmin. The two-headed mutant cows still only carried the combined brainpower of a single cow.

Nate saw a woman standing guard idle next to a barrel fire, rifle across her chest, resting in both arms. They spotted each other from a long ways away, and when Nate finally reached the memorial steps, she called out.

"Caravan or Raider?"

"On my own."

"Fine. Freelance, eh? All right, come on in. No gunfire. Are you the same person who took down that building earlier?"

Nate nodded.

"Are you going to be here long? I want to talk to you about the woman you spoke with. The market's open. You can do as much bartering and trading as you like. Come find me when you're done with your business. I'll be here on the watch for another hour."

"I'm actually trying to find the safest route to Fenway Park," Nate said, she turned her head to the left and raised her eyebrows in confusion. She was about to ask for clarification when Nate added, "Diamond City."

"Talk to Old Man Stockton, he'll point you down the right streets. I'm sure he'll be more than willing to talk to you after everyone heard from Honest Dan about what you did to help him save Amelia."

"They made it back okay?"

"Yes, and they're already gone. Honest Dan is following a caravan west, and Amelia took off north this morning."

"I'll save the reunion for later," Nate said, knowing that they may never meet again. "What raider gangs do you know about?"

"I got a list on a portable terminal in my house, but of the people smart enough to actually get these idiots to listen to them, there's Zeller, James Wire, Jared, and the one I really want to talk to you about, Tower Tom. One of our runners spotted you speaking to one of his lieutenants, Sparta, earlier today. He's killed, my men and messengers."

"I'm expected at their base, Beantown Brewery after I track someone down."

"Who?"

"Don't know his name, Bald man, a scar running from eye to chin on his right side, carried a .44 magnum bull barreled revolver with a custom grip. Wore a long green trenchcoat. His beard was just starting to look scruffy. He shot my wife and kidnapped my infant son. Seen anyone who looks like that?"

"Fraid not. How long ago did this happen?"

Nate sighed. "Anywhere from three days to fifty years ago."

"Excuse me, what?"

"Long story, short. You heard of cryogenic grenades? Well, Vault 111 had enough liquid nitrogen to keep us on ice for centuries. Baldy comes along, pops open the freezer, grabs my boy, and locks us in. I have no idea when it happened."

"I'm afraid I can't help you there. Come back in a little bit and I'll talk more. I'm still on watch." Kessler said.

"All right."

\111/

""

"Be sure to tell me if anyone here wants to be more than buddy buddies if you know what I mean," Nate said, not making eye contact with Meathead. He spoke softly and didn't move his lips much.

Meathead barked twice and nodded, running off away from Nate, and barking at the brahmin cows.

"Meathead! Quit barking at the cows!" He hollered, Nate saw caravan workers tying satchels of food and water to the brahmin's packs, loading them up. His eyes were on Meathead, and scanning everyone else. Nate figured the ones working with the brahmin were traders, merchants about to head out into the Commonwealth. He picked out two people Meathead might have alluded to as being interested in him.

They were judging him giving him a once over and sizing him up, Nate smiled and called Meathead back. He watched how they slowly rolled their heads, tracking him as he crossed the lawn around the Bunker Hill Memorial after his dog.

Meathead stopped by the cow pen, leaning forward and peeing, "Good boy, Meathead."

"Come on! Meathead! I'm about ready to pass out if I don't get some food!"

Nate stooped down as Meathead came up to him, whispering,

\111/

In the northwest corner of Bunker Hill were shacks built on top of each other, a walk up bar elevated by wooden panels and a few bar stools bolted into the wooden planks were on the first floor. On the side of the shack was a staircase leading up to small cabins with a railing on the second floor with a few doors with numbers painted on them. The owners, a father, Joe Savoldi, and his son Tony Savoldi go back and forth talking about the Institute and the Railroad.

"...And what, you think that's noble or some bullshit? They're a bunch of fucking idiots!" Joe called his son out. "You ain't throwin' no life away to go join no Railroad! You. What'sa matter?" Joe looked at Nate as he took a stool. Behind them were electrical ovens with their insides ripped out, and fires built inside. Smoke went up and out pipes in the back, as cast iron disks sat on top of the burners, trapping the heat in. Pans were on the stove, cooking food.

"Food and booze," Nate said, licking his lips.

"Tony, make the customer some food! He's Stavin'!" Joe shouted.

"All right! What, I can't see him? You don't see me looking at him looking at us?"

Tony rebuffed. "What? I see you standing there staring at him, staring at you with your thumb up your ass!"

"Whatever your making and whatever's hot. I ain't picky unless it rhymes with cat, bat, or rat."

"How 'bout dog? I got fresh dog." Tony said, looking down at Meathead. Meathead swallowed and whined.

"I actually like my dog, thank you very much. I'll pass."

"Then what the fuck do you want?"

"Fucking food without Fido's head looking back at me on my plate!" Nate said. This was the first Bostononian he's heard all week, and it was somewhat refreshing. "And booze! You got booze or do I gotta go squeeze your momma's tits for a drink?" Nate charged back.

"Fucking hell. All I do around here is help crusty old caravan workers, no offense, go blind off rotgut." Tony complained, "At least the Railroad is fighting the Institute, so why not save synths?"

"Might as well go join the Deathclaw Preservation Society, and the Save the Mirelurks! Dumbass!"

"Sounds like you've had a little too much of the good stuff, and haven't had a gun shoved in your face recently and told to give up everything you have," Nate said.

Joe reached under the bar counter and put a bottle of Stolichnaya Vodka on the counter and said, "Damn Right! Here."

Two coffee cups, with a few splashes of Vodka, "Cheers to that, Vaulty. You had your chops busted recently?"

"On my way here, I poke my head into the BADTFL office, and there's a whole heap of raiders, lead by some flaming chick named Sparta. She says drop your pants and run, I say, I can get her into a locked room they've been banging their heads against the door for the last day, trying to get the thing open! Behind it was everything under the sun, drugs, money, booze, ammo, liquor, and the only thing standing in the way between them and all that was me and a door that only I could open, so naturally they wanted to kill me and be done with it."

"So how'd you get out?"

"I got into the room and laying right there on the table was a Fat Man. A loaded Fat Man! And it was a small room too, there was nine of 'em. They all knew that if they so much as twitched, they and the rest of the building would come down on their head."

"That's good advice, always carry around a big fucking gun that could kill everything in the room," Joe said, nodding.

"I talked my way out of it. Hard thing to do, but remember, they're raiders. They don't just want to be high today, they want to be high every day. I told them I could clear out their super mutant problem."

"So that big bang was you! You're the reason Mayor Kessler nearly shit a brick after hearing the building come down."

Nate raised his coffee mug. "Cheers."

"Cheers." Nate and Joe both shot back the vodka, and he poured two more rounds.

"So what'd the Institute do to you? They grabbed my son and I'm looking to hang the bastard from the highest skyscraper in the city with the longest rope I can find."

"Those Fuckers!" Joe said, taking another shot of vodka.

"They got Gary's wife. He works for Cricket, and while he was out on the road, she went missing." Tony said, gritting his teeth.

"It's not like stopping the Institute is a bad thing, but, dealing with the Institute, or the Railroad, it's not your job to save the wor'ed. Might as well put a bullet in your skull! It'll save you the time!"

"Leave that to people like me. Tony, be thankful, be grateful, get down on your knees and put your head to the ground and be humbled, that you know you're safe and don't have to go out there every day to find your family, or to make a living the hard way. Be lucky you have a dad who cares about you so much, he's willing to smack you in the back of the head when it sounds like you're about to do something stupid."

Joe squinted at Nate, almost scowling and wrinkling up his nose. "I like you. You need a room?"

"I need some food is what I need. You got some kinda motel here?"

"Tony! I told you to get this man some fucking food!"

"He didn't fucking tell me what he wanted dad! Vaulty, What do you want?"

"What do you got?"

"I got noodles."

"Then I guess I'm getting noodles!" Nate said back.

Nate watched Tony Savoldi grind up Razorgrain wheat in a small hand mill until it was light fluffy flour. He ground out all the large pieces, sifted out the flour, reground the large pieces into medium-sized pieces, ground it some more, filtered it, and kept the light flour off to the side.

"How many caravans come through here?" Nate asked Joe, he slid down the counter with Vodka in hand and mug in the other. Pouring more into both their cups he said, "All of em. Bunker Hill makes the world go round."

Tony kept milling and milling it until it was all almost the same consistency. He retained the semolina, the hard grains that were left after the rest of the wheat was ground up.

"We got a raider problem, we pay 'em off. We got a supply problem, we buy more, and charge extra. You talk to Stockton yet? Now I know for a fact that he was all for what you did in getting Amelia back."

"You heard about that?"

"Fucking everyone heard about that. Fuck those Covenant motherfuckers. Honest Dan told us what you did, and that you were gonna take care of the town afterward. So. How'd you do it?"

Tony took one cup of razor grain flour, one cup of semolina, a chicken egg, salt, pepper, and mixed it together. After the ingredients were mixed, he cracked one egg into the mixture and turned the flour into a dough.

"Fire. Is that how you deal with problems around here? Pay the raiders off?"

"Protection, more like it. Doesn't mean a Bunker Hill Boy can't sling a pistol with the rest of 'em, but bullets are expensive. Talk is cheap." Joe said. "We're always one broken deal away from this place going to shit, but I guess we got some old spirits hanging around, keeping us safe."

Rolling all the dough out flat through a press, the thin sheets were cut into long strips and then tossed into a pot of boiling water.

Three minutes of watching the noodles boil, Tony took a small wild onion and chopped it up, and scraped them into the pan along with thin slices of carrot. He took the noodles and poured them into a plastic bowl and picked it up. Setting it in front of Nate, there was plenty of steam coming off the top and he could feel his stomach calling out for food.

"So were you the one who started this bar?"

"Yep. Before we sold rotgut, we came from a line of Minutemen, my Grandpa, Brent Savoldi, was the last one."

The fork Tony gave Nate was a flat steel fork, punched out of a large steel plate that was part of a mass production line of cheap forks that could be easily sold to the lowest common denominator.

"I met a guy in Concord who said he was from the Minutemen, well, Minuteman. He said he was the last one. And he's probably dead by now."

"Was he a black?"

"Yes, he was black. Preston Garvey."

"Fucking kid. I told him and I'll tell you, he was pisssin on a dumpster fire. Those pieces of shit took what was good and paraded around until the whole thing came crumbling down. My Grandpa died fighting raiders outside of Malden, and fuck anyone who says they didn't end right there. The spirit got sucked right out of the Commonwealth after they fucked up here twenty years ago and couldn't hold the Castle." Joe pointed straight down. "But hey, if you're ever up in Malden, and you see some old white bones in the Northeast part of town, that's where they found the rest of his squad. If you're ever up there and find anything of his. I'll fucking build you a room right here in Bunker Hill."

The offer went in through one ear, and out the other, but fortunately, the Pip-Boy made a little note for him, filing it away as Nate's thoughts wandered to bizarre places. He was sitting at home at the dining table, the silverware back in their home in Sanctuary Hills was Italian made, the design was curved, and guests and family coming over never knew how to hold the utensils properly. They were so accustomed to having to fight against their silverware because of how difficult it is to hold flat silverware, that when they picked up the wide curving fork and knife, they didn't realize it was supposed to rest in their hands. Nora mentioned it would be good for their hands fifty years down the line when they were turning old and grey.

"All right, I will. I'm not heading that direction any time soon, but if I get the chance, I'll go over the place with a fine tooth comb."

"Thank you," Joe said. "The Minutemen used to hold their own against the Institute, Battle of Jamaica Plain was a thing. The whole Commonwealth knew about that one.

Well...they used to know. I do. It went from the Castle, all the way to Lake Cochiba-"

"Lake Cochituate." Tony interrupted.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, TONY! I'm telling a story to the customer! All the way to Natick. That was a fucking long day."

"Sounds like it, what happened?"

"Synths were crawling all over the place, the Gen ones. They were showing up like no tomorrow, and nobody knew where the fuck they were coming from. It was turning your back around and boom, there was another dozen of them."

"They fought at the Castle. They fought at the University. They fought at Jamaica Plain, They fought at Shaw, it was a straight line all the way to the river, where there used to be a bridge, but that got jacked up a long time ago. Then things went to shit after the super mutants kept coming a few weeks later, but fuck if we weren't all fucked from then on. You been south of Boston yet, Vaulty? It's a fucking crapshoot. I'll tell you right now, that from the Castle to Natick, it's all fucked with super mutants and synths. Damn Institute, if it weren't for them, or the other, then we'd still be trading easy with Quincy and all the way to Providence!" Joe sighed, exhaling.

"Even the raiders started being too much for them after that." He swallowed, looking at the nearly empty bottle of Vodka on the table. "Now the Minutemen are a punchline to a bad joke. Fuck em."

Nate picked up the fork, stirred his noodles, and raised it up out of the light broth and blew on it. Chewing it, it was hot and nearly burnt his tongue, but he was so grateful to have food in front of him. Even if it was only water, noodles, onions, and carrots. Hardly a meal, but so satisfying and hot, that it filled him.

\111/

As Nate ate his bowl of noodles, the only other traders in this pit-stop on the way to something greater were smoking old cigarettes and talking about the newcomer.

Old Man Stockton was leaning over his counter, surrounded by shelves filled with everything salvaged from the Commonwealth, and still usable. Within arms reach was two ledger notebooks filled with transactions, one for small day-to-day transactions, the other was caravan orders to settlements out in the Commonwealth. The greater Boston area may have been a wasteland, there were still people living in it, and they needed food and water, just like everyone else.

Both hands on the counter, he stared at the three yellow numbers on Nate's back and chewed on the inside of his lips and cheek while he thought things over. His dog noticed him and was staring at the trader. Meathead nipped at Nate, making quiet little yips or growls that made him look down and smile.

"What is it bud?"

The dog glanced over at Old Man Stockton and he turned around in his chair, elbows resting back against the counter as his eyes swept across the hall and their gazes met. Nate grinned and crossed the hall, "Great to see you. You must be Amelia Stockton's father? Honest Dan and Amelia got back safely, I hope?"

Old Man Stockton looked down at his ledger, then back up, wearing a thin smile that didn't stretch too far.

"Oh yes...yes she did. Gave me quite the scare, but I suppose I'd rather be terrified and know that my daughter is safe, rather than be sad that she's dead. You have my thanks, my man and Amelia both told me about the dark business happening with Covenant." Stockton turned his head to the right a few degrees, "They mentioned you would handle them, but failed to mention any details."

"The wolves in sheep's clothing didn't want to lose their hunting grounds, especially when a shepherd tries to protect his sheep. They would rather give the shepherd the meat from the sheep, and take the wool, the bones, and the first born until all the flock is dispersed or dead. If you have nothing in your animal pen but hungry wolves, who only want you to give them more lamb, when you need the flock to grow so you may shear them and collect the wool, you lock the wolves in and douse their fur with oil. Then you light a match and turn your back away from the wolves as they run around the pen, howling and screaming, running into each other, catching each other on fire."

Old Man Stockton's lips came close together, and he nodded slowly. "Fuck 'em. There's too little in this world for there to be a place like Covenant to exist."

Nate exhaled audibly through his nose and swallowed.

"I believe I owe you my thanks for rescuing my daughter and insisting that she be protected with the suit of power armor you provided to her."

"Is she faring better, now that she's back?"

"Yes, thank you for your concern. Tell me, shepherd, what's your name?"

"Nate, this is my dog, Meathead."

"Tell me, did you happen to bring a Geiger counter with you?"

Nate held up the Pip-Boy for Old Man Stockton to see, shaking it twice, he heard something rattling around inside which prompted him to say,

"Nah. Mine's in the shop." He chuckled.

Meathead laid down by Nate's side, looking up at him with wide eyes and placing a paw on his boot.

Old Man Stockton's face ticked like he was finally finished chewing on the inside of his mouth.

"What type of person are you, who appears out of nowhere and assists a stranger who asks for help?"

"I'm a bit of an old-fashioned American patriot, I guess. I love my country," Nate looked up at the ceiling caving in, towards the red, white, and blue banners and stood up taller. "And I can't stand people who try to subvert progress towards a better future. I remember a time where I could go from here to Fenway Park in ten minutes. Now...well...I suppose I should be asking you about the safest routes to Diamond City."

"What's in Diamond City, for you?"

"Answers to questions I have, mostly. I'm tracking a man. At least, trying to. What's the best way to get from here to there?"

"From here, you'll want to cross the bridge and go past the North End Graveyard, then stick to the main streets along the north end of Boston. The buildings are tighter together, but if you stay quiet and move fast, you can be there in an hour. Raiders control sections of the North, but things are always changing. Super Mutants took hold of Faneuil Hall, and the only thing that came back was the brahmin. The safest place to duck your head into is Goodneighbor. You know where that is?"

Nate shook his head once. "Old State House, Scolly Square." Nate nodded. "From there, just follow the road west all the way past the Boston Common. Once you reach the Boston Common, however. Just run. You're deep in the shit and there are vultures all around you when you get to the Boston Common. Go at night too, far less chance of running into someone. You might get spotted, but if you just keep running and don't look back, you'll make it." Stockton yawned,

"The Boston Common has too many roads leading to it, but sometimes I've walked right through the middle of the park without hearing a single peep from any direction. Well, stranger, I'd say go now, but I need your help. Care to help me with a small matter?"

"What do you need?"

"I'm sitting on some product that's been on the shelf too long, and I need to move it tonight. I fear that although the death of the super mutants not far from here was good for the neighborhood, there's always more coming. I want to use this time in the calm of the storm to move my shipment and be back here before first light."

"Where is it going?"

Old Man Stockton held out his pointer finger and stuck it in his ear. "I'll tell you not here. If you can be at the Cambridge Church, I know you must have passed it coming here, the broken highway is collapsed and is resting on the roof. If you can be there at midnight, or even before then, I'll be along shortly with the package."

"What's the going rate for something like this?"

"Two hundred caps, plus, you'll undoubtedly make contact with a few of my trading partners. They're good people and can set you up right. I was expecting someone a little more armed when I heard the man who took down the super mutants and rescued my daughter were one and the same."

"Looks can be deceiving."

"Don't I know?" Stockton replied, "Maintaining security here and preventing any delays is crucial."

"I don't think any of us really do," Nate said. "And no one likes delays. Is there anything of interest around here? Anything worth mentioning to avoid or at the very least, a spot where I won't get shot at if I try to stand still?"

"Plenty of places like that, I suppose, if you haven't seen the boat, yet. That's about it."

"What boat?"

Stockton exhaled through his nose in a haughty laugh. "Go up the inside of the memorial." He said spiraling his hand up. "If you don't see what I'm talking about, then you must not be very observant. They got bots on that boat and by extension, keep the road up to Revere and Nahant clear." He pointed straight at Nate, "You can see the sentry bot on the deck from the top of the memorial. But don't think you can just waltz right onto the ship. They're programmed to kill anyone who ge's near it. Go. I need to ready the shipment." Stockton said, dismissing him.

\111/

Nate and Meathead walked up the spiral staircase leading up inside the interior of the obelisk in the center of Bunker Hill. Brick windows or erosion gave light to all directions looking outwards, and when they were both a significant way up, Nate asked Meathead, "So what did you get from everyone?"

"."

"Well, the closer we west we can dip into Boston, the less chance we deal with everything else," Nate said, looking out over a small section of the town. From high up, he could see north and west, and make out the thin smoke from the still burning embers of Covenant. There was the BADTFL building, along with the Greentech Genetics building, the neon lime green building was easily the tallest building in Cambridge. There was the Commonwealth Institute of Technology, and the large rotunda still standing above it. Nate gripped his hands and kept moving up the stairs, looking out every window. Looking south, they saw the road and bridge leading from Charleston, into the North End of Boston. Above everything was a collapsing superhighway, the metal girders sagging from neglect, and entire sections missing, broken off and fallen to the ground.

Nate hummed and Meathead asked, ""

"TD Garden's collapsed. No more Boston Bruin's games." He said, "Maybe I can still dig out a jersey." Pointing over into the city, Meathead couldn't tell one collapsed building from the other, but Nate was sure of it. They climbed a few more steps, looking outwards when Nate stopped at the window facing east. "Oh wow. That boat."

No more than five blocks away, resting in the cradle of the Weatherby Savings and Loans bank, was the USS Constitution.

Nate looked at the ship longer than Meathead did, his first thought was 'How the hell did the ship get there?'

And along the back hull of the ship were two massive rocket thrusters, with two auxiliary bow thrusters in the front. He blinked twice, looking at the metal jutting out the back and the wiring. Shaking his head, he couldn't believe the old three-masted war frigate built in the late 1790s, served in the war of 1812 against the British, and then dry docked and put on display at the Boston Naval Shipyard still existed.

Nate never thought he would ever think about that ship again, especially since the last time he saw it was during a walking tour with Nora when they were taking the day to do all the touristy things around Boston that they never did on their lonesome, and wanted to bring someone with them so they weren't doing it alone.

He remembered the military discount he received because all the crew was designed to act as a Naval Crew, capable of putting the USS Constitution at sea and sailing her anywhere. The memory came flooding back to the summer of 2047 when hundreds of thousands of people lined the shores of Boston on the 4th of July to watch the oak sailing ship make it's two hundred and fiftieth-anniversary voyage around the Charles Bay. They loaded confetti into the cannons and blasted all forty-four cannons in rapid succession as the noise of the Navy's brass band played send-off music. He was still only a kid, and that memory stuck with him all his life and resurfaced when he saw the modified hull and robots still roaming around deck.

Nate didn't know the words to express what he was feeling, and that was okay by Meathead since he already knew what Nate was feeling without anything needing to be said. It brought back a moment of joy and wonderment, a time when the concept of war wasn't even a thing to young Nate. When he stood along the shore, looking over the railing hung with miles and miles of red, white, and blue banners. He gripped a small flag in his hand he could wave, it was the size of a wallet, with a thin black piece of plastic holding it out. He waved that little pint-sized flag all day and even took it home with him where it sat in his room for a few years until he forgot about it, and his mother cleaned his room out and took the flag away.

Nate bit his lip and swallowed. "In Seattle, before we were shipped out, Boeing and the government contracted out some hands to work on rocket boosters for their new planes...I spent three months building rockets and taking them apart...checking, double checking, triple checking, signing off on inspections and then inspecting others while others inspected my work before they ever turned it on...and then when we were in False Pass...we were building them for fun because we didn't have much else to do except wait the Chinese out. The native guys who were showing us how to survive showed us this big cannery, all broke down, but it was absolutely loaded with shit. There are enough scrap parts in there to build a battleship because...at least thirty boats were all broken down and scrapped, with everything being stored there inside the building because there was nowhere else to put them. Otherwise, it was just a long maze through the scrapyard to get to the refinery from all the junk piled around it. It wasn't even hard to assemble them, it was just looking at the blueprints, then going back and forth making sure every single piece fit."

"" Meathead asked, Nate was still looking at the ship and he nodded. ""

Nate looked down at Meathead. "Know any other way?" He asked sarcastically. Meathead nodded, shedding his disguise to reveal his changeling form. He sucked in a large breath and exhaled slowly as his horn grew bright green. In a pop and flash of green fire, Meathead teleported three steps up the staircase ahead of Nate. Meathead exhaled and panted. ""

"Keep practicing, you'll get better," Nate said, now standing below him, he could look Meathead directly in the eye.

\111/

Kessler finished her shift and was waiting for Nate to come back down from the top of the memorial. She drummed her fingers against the side of her hunting rifle. Feeling the weapon in her arms, it was effective, but couldn't take down a super mutant in one shot.

She tried remembering how many people this gun has killed, and how many times she's missed. For a long time, she used to shoot just to get them to go away, then after the raiders kept firing back, after the super mutants kept firing back, after people she knew and trusted tried selling out Bunker Hill to raiders and fought with them in her own house when there was no other place to hide and she was looking them straight in the eye and she saw that they wanted to kill her and wouldn't give a flying fuck how many times she told them to go away, they were going to kill her and desecrate her body in the streets; she needed to aim lower.

She's gotten in tug-of-war matches with people trying to rip the gun from her hands and steal it from her so they could use her own gun to kill her. The thought made her insane with rage, the words she used after seeing that they wanted to kill her was 'from my cold. Dead. Hands.'

Mayor Kessler was small, weak compared to a raider who was starving and desperate, weak against a super mutant who could be shot fifteen times with the same rifle she held in her hands, and still not die. This gun was her only saving grace and defense against people who wanted to do her harm and take everything she's ever worked for. So she repeated the mantra, 'From my cold, dead, hands.'

"So, Mr. Vault Dweller. How exactly did you get the Fen's raider to talk to you, without your head getting blown off?" Mayor Kessler asked.

"I was holding a loaded Fat Man," Nate replied, Mayor Kessler was slightly disappointed that he didn't have the gun with him, she knew how destructive those things could be. "They thought twice about shooting me. Overwhelming force. Sure there were nine of them, but, if I had done that, everyone here would be talking about a different building being blown up today instead of the construction site. We were in a standoff, I offered Sparta a deal that she couldn't refuse. I added in that I didn't want to be shot in the back the moment I turned around, and she would get the Fat Man. After that, I showed her how to use it effectively."

"Are you telling me that you gave these raiders a Fat Man?"

"It's not like I could take it with me, those things weigh thirty pounds, and they would've shot me dead for sure and taken it anyway. This way, I can talk to them, and you want me to deliver a message to them, don't you?" Kessler's teeth were clenched together, slowly grinding away at the enamel.

"I understand, but you've made it even more difficult for me to do business with them now that I have to fear death from a mile away now."

"Tough times we're living in," Nate said, letting the comment wash off his shoulder. "I heard you trade protection money with the raider gangs around here."

"Yes. I do. What of it?"

"Why?"

"You mentioned the name, Jared. I heard a raider boss operating out of the Corvega plant in Lexington is also named Jared, are they one and the same. Is this the group you mentioned you pay tribute to?"

"Yes. Why?"

Nate smiled, "You might be glad to know he's dead. They raiders there are in the middle of a standoff, trying to fight their way to the top and decide who runs the show now that he's gone."

"What?" She said, standing up straighter. "How?"

"I'dunno. He's dead and that's all that really matters for you. I expect that when they finally sort themselves out and pull their heads out of their collective asses, they'll come looking for handouts."

"That's news to me."

" Either way, it'll give you time to renegotiate terms now if you decide to pay tribute to whoever's coming next. What about the other gangs? Where do they operate out of?"

She rolled her eyes and recited the raider bosses name from memory.

"Zeller with his army operate out of the East Boston Preparatory School, they hold the routes to Malden and Revere. Well, that or the Gunners. The Gunners are the worst thing to happen to the Commonwealth since the collapse of the Minutemen. I know that a third of the Gunners were former Minutemen after everything that happened. They just decided to say fuck it and leave. They're sick in the head, but it's easier to pay the Gunners off than try and deal with not paying them off. Zeller's Army, even though they're based out of a school, they're still dumb enough to attack every person who comes through there who isn't part of a caravan. They will try to recruit you though, they torture new recruits into joining and kill you if you don't join. It took thirteen men to find out that bit of information, so I hope you know that I don't like them. The only way I found out was when a caravan worker, Liam, I thought was dead for three years runs up and starts babbling his head off. It was the first chance of freedom he'd gotten and come running right here. He was so scared that he didn't even stop, he just kept running and went west. I never saw him again after that." Mayor Kessler spoke until she was out of breath, she didn't know what this man wanted, or why he wanted this information, but she intrinsically knew he needed this information. That may be, he was going to try and make her life a little easier.

"James Wire, he's stationed out in Libertalia, the floating boat graveyard of ships east of here. They control Nahant and everything north of there along the coast. Kill James for me, would you? He's a former Minuteman."

"I'll see what I can do. What about super mutants? I never heard of them a week ago, been on ice inside a vault most my time."

"They're always on the move, but..." She nodded, "Faneuil Hall." She counted on her pinkie finger, "Revere Satellite Station." On her ring finger "West Everett Estates," on her middle finger. "Malden." On her pointer finger, "And Trinity Plaza." On her thumb.

"They've got the Boston Public Library, Trinity Tower, and the church, all decorated with bloody totems and fucking bags of meat swinging in the breeze. Avoid those places like the plague, they make it difficult to reach Diamond City otherwise..."

Nate scowled, "Oh, I will." he said, looking down at his Pip-boy, the map pinged a few locations into the area, and he tried to visualize the routes they would take to and from these locations.

"And, try not to get yourself killed. I want you to tell Tower Tom, when you see him, to stop shooting my caravans. He has to tell me exactly what he wants, otherwise, well, I can't do a damn thing about getting to west past Diamond City and the Fens."

"I'll see about working out some sort of arrangement."

"Where are you off to now?"

"The boat. Meathead and I want to go check it out."

"Good luck getting on board, those robots killed everyone that's ever gotten close. What do you expect to do walk right-"

\111/

Readying themselves as Mr. Handy sporting a pirate's hat rounded the corner of a car sunken down towards the pavement after the loss of its wheels, and it's plasma laser glowing green and pointing directly at them, Nate and Meathead both tensed and he pointed his rifle at the robot.

It stopped ten feet away from them.

"Scanning. Scanning. Accessing Pre-War Records." The Mr. Gutsy Lookout robot shouted out as Nate and Meathead got closer to the USS Constitution. They walked along the water's edge where over the years, the tide has come way up and left debris all along the storefronts and road. There was garbage and debris, junk that needed to be crawled over or walked around, and when they got into the peripheral of the Lookout, the robot came to inspect the newcomer.

"Record Found. 108th Infantry Division. Second Battalion. Ahoy there! 'Tis Providence a member of the Congressional Army is delivered to us in our hour of need."

"What are your orders?" Nate replied.

"Standing Orders: Proclamation 3: All members of the US Army are Hereby members of the Congressional Army. The captain requests your presence on the bridge. At the double quick, sir."

"So I can just walk right up?"

"Sir, yes, sir."

Ch. 16 The USS Constitution

Author's Note

"Hey, It's Diamond City Radio, and I'm your host, Travis. Here's a short one for you, Sixty Minute Man. Heh, not even three minutes long, but here's an hour worth of music..."
Travis trailed off, looking down at the microphone in front of him.

"We just set up a Patreon page for the first time, since we don't really make any caps on this show, please give what you feel is right. If you feel like supporting us, we here at DCR would really appreciate it."

Being the only person inside the trailer, he cleared his throat and looked around for some sort of assurance. "Here it is. Sixty Minute Man."

Ch. 16 The USS Constitution

October 26th, 2287.
7:30 P.M.

Captain Ironsides, named after the nickname given to the USS Constitution after a sailor in the war of 1812 saw a British ship fire a cannonball at the oak hull and bounce off, was a sentry bot. The large tank on three rolling legs was linked directly into the ships speakers and the orders could be heard from anywhere in the ship.

"Disable the defenses, power down the turrets, deactivate the protectrons, we have an allied soldier coming aboard." The voice bared down on Meathead and Nate as they ascended to the deck of the ship.

"Midshipmen, stand down, Stand Down I say! This soldier is a guest on our vessel."

"Hey Meathead," Nate called back to him.

""

"God bless the U.S. Government. Sometimes they went overboard on getting us supplies in Alaska."

""

"The brand name on the rockets, Rocketdyne. There was a whole fleet of those bastards in Cold Bay. They asked us how we could use them for war, and the government bought a couple dozen of them, then turned to us and said, Here! Figure out what we can use these for. We took them during the fall and rigged them together to make a massive chain of rocket boosters and floated them out into the middle of the pass and sunk them down. This was when I was on Unimak. We strung them together and then put them down in the water. Then, about two months later, the Pass started freezing over. It was an unbearably cold winter that year, the pass hardly ever freezes because of how much water is rushing through there all the time. But, we knew that just in case, we would need to thaw out the ice and keep the pass from forming a natural ice bridge across the water.

I remember seeing the Chinese camp on the ice, three thousand feet away, and the sick fucking twisted smiles they had. It's like they kept thinking to themselves 'Boy oh boy, we're going to get across the pass soon. We're coming for you.' That's an expression you'll never forget. They were getting closer every hour, but all we could do is smile back.

So, on the days when it got exceptionally cold, Chinese soldiers tried rushing across the ice and usually broke through, a couple made it to the halfway point, but the middle of the channel hadn't completely frozen yet, so they fell through. It wasn't until the third week of December that the Pass completely froze over and the Chinese soldiers could just walk right across without falling through the ice.

That was when we turned on the rockets, burned big holes in the ice, and broke everything up. These rockets burned and burned and melted the pass and we made at least fifty thousand soldiers freeze to death in the water that first day, or be crushed in between the ice, or trapped underneath.

That was only on the first day. We kept it up for a week, and every day they'd try to run out and cross. It wasn't until the third day a few of them actually got close enough, but we laid out explosives and artillery shot them to hell. Not a single fucking Chinese soldier made it across to our shore that entire winter."

""

"But, that doesn't mean we didn't try to go over to their side. We did. We lost a few guys. We saw what was happening to the losing side."

Nate shook his head, realizing how lost in his memories he was. "If these rockets are broken, I could fix them in a heartbeat with my eyes closed."

"" Meathead said, feeling a dark weight on Nate's shoulders, an emotional trigger that was firing off.

""

"They were eating each other."

Meathead nearly choked trying to swallow the dry lump in his throat.

"They ate the ponies first, cause, you know. Fuck 'em if they weren't human, I guess? Fucking bastards. It was worse than anything I've seen here in New Boston, not even the dead bodies here were..." Nate ran his tongue over his teeth, Meathead sat their patiently, waiting for Nate to get this off his chest.

This was a goal Meathead strived for every day, a heart-to-heart connection where he could be the role of silent companion and soak in all the suffering, take it into his heart, then let it flow out of him as bliss for others to enjoy. To improve other's lives, and make them happier it creates an environment where Changelings can thrive in a symbiotic partnership with other species.

Nate was pouring his heart out, something that felt so natural to do when staring at his dog, Meathead.

"All the bones had teeth marks, and they fucking hated us for coming over to their camp, killing their leaders. They shouted at us like they asked for the gates of hell to spill open, then demons to wash over everything, even them, just so they could kill us for what we did."

""

"We knew that the power armors could operate underwater, I was a testament to that, only the mud and weight was an easy workaround issue once we came up with a distribution method. Adding ballast like a submarine, removing a few components, heavier parts, swap out heavier armor for lighter armor, reducing protection from higher caliber rounds and longer durations in battle..." Nate held his hands up, fanning them out. "But ideally, these were used for underwater operations, so the decision was made. Submersible power armor, lightweight, and meant to be a survival suit for extreme hostile weather environments. We made ten of them during the winter, because information came to us before the siege that a robot professional, a Colonel in the Chinese Army, Doctor Xian Quin created a device that could hack into American war bots from a distance. Already, a few of our bots were malfunctioning, safety protocols being disabled, they'd randomly crash, but it was after a sentry bot shouted in Chinese that it was going to murder us all, that we knew that they'd hacked us regardless if this device existed or not."

Nate took the time to sigh, it was a memory that felt so fresh in his mind he could still feel where bullets hit his helmet. He could still feel the heat from the fires that he helped cause.

"We swam under the ice, but brought long gasoline hoses that were all connected. Yeah, the EPA would've loved hearing about this one. We used these gas hoses from all the ships and tenders that were either pulled out, or disabled. Then we walked out onto the shore on the other side."

"One team went up the hill with the hose, we went for the doctor. We had to make sure he wasn't able to hack us, or if it was all bullshit, track down the real source. It wasn't though. After the first team started pumping the gas down the hill, they lit it on fire to create a distraction. We went in and found Xian Quin, and a device hooked up to three different computers, and an Assaultron's head. He took one look at us, then muttered something and pointed at us, but we shot him. It could've been a fancy piece to a coffee table, but it looked liked a metal vase with a glass lamp shade over it, with cables plugged into it. We took it and were retreating, that's when most plans go south, and that's where's ours did too. We lost two men from out team, and team one was completely wiped out."

""

"It wasn't that...Meathead...they were screaming at us for days afterward. The type of screaming where you're sure that they're frothing at the mouth in rage. They fucking hated us for what we did. But, the water carried the sound, and I thought for sure they went from humans to something monstrous."

""

"I thought about it...the cannibals, the hatred, the fucking cold winter, all of them starving up the the god-damned frozen North. It's like a plague of zombies, they feed on someone else, and then they become one too. I thought with all the rage they had, they were turning into Wendigos."

\111/

On the top deck, Nate and Meathead saw Captain Ironsides sporting an 18th-century captain's hat, and the large imposing tank bot rolled right up to them.

"Ah...Our soldier has arrived. It's been too long since we've seen the Congressional Army."

Nate looked down to Meathead, then back up to Captain Ironsides. "Captain. What can I do for you, Captain?"

Nate tried not to look at the armed missile pointing out of Captain Ironside's left arm, nor the chain ammo leading into the mini-gun mounted onto his right.

"You visit the vessel in dire straights. Becalmed by these long years on her airy perch. DAMN YOU TO HELL WEATHERBY SAVING'S AND LOANS! I SPIT AT YOU!" The sudden outburst made the duo both tense up and freeze to the spot, not expecting the rise in volume so quickly.

Nate curled his lips in, nodded once to Meathead and then back to Ironsides, "Sir, a sad state of affairs for such a historic ship. I remember the day the USS Constitution sailed on her 250th-anniversary voyage, it was a momentous occasion that...filled my heart with.... the...ah...utmost patriotism." Nate trailed off and rolled his eyes realizing he'd talked himself into a corner, running out of eloquent words to say, however, the Captain was immune to sarcasm.

"On that, we are in agreement. What vexes me most is my inability to assist in the war effort. My gun decks have naught but mole rats and Ne'er-do-Wells as targets. Now enough pleasantries, the Constitution has systems that need repairs to carry out its mission."

"What war effort are you speaking of?" Nate inquired.

"Against Communist China, of course! But if any Red Coats or Canadians sail nearby, I will give them a good thrashing, to be sure. To avenge the burning of our Nation's capital would be an utterly sweet victory, indeed." All around them, the robots moved and took positions on the starboard side of the Constitution as a bullet suddenly clanged into Captain Ironside's plate armor.

Nate dropped to the deck and crouched low as a volley of laser gunfire came from the streets of Charlestown below.

"Consult with the Bosun and Mr. Navigator for relayed instructions. Dismissed." The Mr. Handies, Gutsys, and protectrons all lined up and fired back at a group of scavengers who watched Nate and Meathead get onboard the Constitution.

"Soldier! Throw the switch! Fire the Cannons! Send those bilge rats scurrying away." Machine gun chatter filled the air as Nate got to his feet, crouching low and duck walking to a spinning yellow light with a circuit breaker switch labeled 'Starboard Cannons.'

A sense of awe went through Nate as he stood up and threw the switch. The entire ship rocked as twenty cannons fired west into the ruins around Charlestown and tore up the streets and demolished brick buildings in one massive volley of cannonball fire. Down onto his knees for stability, Meathead ran up to the railing and took cover behind it.

"What the hell prompted these assholes?!" Nate shouted, ears ringing slightly from the cannon blasts. Readying the scoped hunting rifle, he moved to the side of the railing as well and raised his scope to look between the hole where the mooring cables would be fed through and tied off.

This protected his head so he wasn't firing over the railing, but through it, making him a very hard target to see with all the other robots on deck and Captain Ironsides unleashing a hail of missiles and mini-gun fire all across the street leading up to the USS Constitution.

""

"And what feeling is that?" Nate shouted out.

"" Meathead responded.

Nate called out, "Meathead, laser rifle." The changeling pulled the Institute designed laser rifle from condensed space and it clattered onto deck beside the two of them, Nate took it and passed it to Meathead. "Here."

The dog looked at it for a second, Nate nodded, and the laser rifle was wrapped in a green glow. Floating up above the railing, Meathead manipulated the rifle and fired it using only his telekinesis. They were wild shots, not the most accurate way to hold a rifle, but with no recoil, the blue laser bolts went straight to where ever Meathead pointed the gun.

Nate picked his next target, a scavenger with wraparound goggles and a stop sign chained around his chest as some sort of makeshift armor. Crouched behind a desk on the second story building with the entire eastern facing wall blown off, he almost laughed at the man's attempt to protect himself. Firing four times from one hundred fifty feet away, three shots missed, the last one struck the man in the arm.

He was unsure of how many people there were, to begin with, and after the man screamed, a torrent of laser fire from the protectrons was aimed at him, followed by Captain Ironsides firing a missile straight into the building, collapsing the second floor onto the first and killing him, along with anyone on the first floor.

"If these scurvy-ridden dogs keep seeking folly and destruction, I WILL reluctantly OBLIGE!"

The robot crew was reloading the cannons, clearing out the residue, packing new rounds of cannonballs in with gunpowder and blast caps. All the cannons were ignited by electronic sparks wired into the cast iron cannons themselves. The design was supposed to be used for launching confetti and blanks for re-enactments using the USS Constitution, or concrete rounds for target practice. The robot's defense mechanisms installed overruled the safety features and drove them to reload the explosive powder packed black cannonballs quickly on the top deck and below deck.

When two minutes roll by and the gunfire is still going on, "Fire when ready, soldier!" Captain Ironsides calls out again. Nate looked over to Meathead, easing a spent energy cell out of the laser rifle and watching it clatter to the deck. Meathead sensed Nate's change in emotions and looked at him, and how he jerked his head and eyes up towards the switch. Nodding, the switch was wrapped in a green glow and pulled downwards.

The entire ship bucked against the brick bank it was nestled in and the streets of Charlestown was lit up with smoke and cannon fire. Nate saw a man or a woman dragging a bleeding comrade along the sidewalk, when the Lookout Mr. Handy chased them down and hacked the standing person to pieces with a buzz saw, and then turned the blade on the man on the ground, killing both of them.

The fight carried on for another minute, and Meathead reloaded his laser rifle while Nate moved on, picking off targets as they tried retreating. The farther they went, the less accurate he was. The best shot he got was when VATS helped him shoot a scavenger in the leg from four hundred feet.

The Lookout Mr. Handy hovered towards them, and Nate could hear the buzzsaw spinning from over a football field's length away, and the sound it made when it came into contact with flesh, and the noise the scavenger made as he too was cut into pieces.

That was the last bullet he fired off as the rest of the robots disengaged around him.

Nate exhaled, he needed to breathe, and the tension in his back slowly released.

Not a single scavenger made it even halfway to the ship.

Nate stood up and leaned over the rail and shouted "COA NI MA! TA MA DE! CHI SHI! COA NI ZU ZONG SHI BA DAI!" Meathead didn't understand the words, from the way Nate's eyes were burning holes, he figured they were all insults of the worst kind.

He grabbed Meathead and hugged him to his chest, frantically petting his worries out and putting his face into the dog's fur and groaning. The changeling in disguise could only awkwardly accept the hug and wait as Nate groaned and scratched Meathead's ears and underneath his chin.

""

Nate held Meathead in silence, processing and dealing with all the resurfacing memories one at a time.

"" Nate inhaled and glanced down at his Pip-Boy.

"?" He said to himself, "It's only 7:47. This day has barely gotten started." He said, shaking his head. One of the Mr. Handy's floated up to him, jet propulsion stabilizer keeping him in place as he approached Nate and Meathead.

Nate was shaking his head as the Mr. Navigator Mr. Handy charismatically saluted with one claw and said, "Ahoy, Soldier!" His eyes twitched, and his arms were still tense from the gunfight. Two of the eye cones were directed towards Nate, while the third was pointed out west over Charlestown.

"Scavenger threat eliminated, Damage assessment will commence after this unit has completed its duties."

"Why did they attack the ship?" Nate asked, both to Meathead and Mr. Navigator.

"Scavengers attacked the ship 17 times. Destroyed 13% of the ship's systems. Stole 5% of the ships store. Logic error." His voice box was heavily used, coming out scratchy and hard to understand on top of the 18th century American Colonial accent the robots were programmed with. "Captain will not commence retaliation and commences attacks only to preserve the ship. This unit suggests Captain's core processes in need of extensive maintenance."

Nate pressed a balled fist to his forehead, "Which systems are non-operational?"

"Guidance system offline, multiple errors detected. First error: Guidance chip stolen. this unit requires its return."

"Meathead, where are these scavengers?"

""

"Did the scavengers steal your chip?"

"Correct! Guidance Chip is one entry on the list of stolen items. Reclaim chip at scavenger's forward operating station. Captain has approved bounty for its return."

Nate inhaled a staggered breath readying himself for a long night ahead of him, taking a few steps towards the stairs leading below deck, "The Bosun is below deck, correct?"

"Aye, sir."

Clomping down the stairs one at a time, Nate ran into one of the more broken down robots in the crew. A Mr. handy without any arms, and looked like a floating led balloon.

"Aye there soldier, your presence humbles us. My programming would find it amiss if I did not also interject. Long live the Captain!" The lead balloon tried rotating one of its three missing arms in a salute, but Nate and Meathead could only stare.

"our most recent marine expedition was successful at retrieving copper lined power cables. Alas, with the lack of appendages, I find myself unequal to the task of repairing them myself."

Nate closed his eyes and said, "I'll get right on it."

"Once you resolved the matter, I beseech you to return to me and accept my undying gratitude," Bosun said, his rotor joints moved where his arms once were, and Nate could only guess what he was trying to do.

"How long do you expect it will take for me to replace all of them?"

"No more than fifteen minutes, all in all, sir. There's a circuit breaker on this deck, plus two more below us. The wires that need to be replaced are over there." The rotor joints spun again, but there was no indication to where the Bosun was pointing. Nate spotted a few chests and lockers and pointed at them. "Over here?"

"Aye, sir." Nate went to the first one, peeking inside, then closing it. Ammo for the Captain.

"Here?" Nate asked, opening a storage locker, it was filled with a library of different ammo, from the small .32 to the 5.66 NATO round, eight cases of .308, .38, 10 gauge rounds, 12 gauge rounds, 20 gauge rounds, eight gauge rounds, ten boxes of .50 caliber ammo, and a whole plethora of laser cells. They were stacked in square bundles, placed there by the U.S.S. Constitution's Mr. Handy scouts.

"Over there, sir." The rotor joints spun wildly, but Nate frowned at the robot. "Just tell me."

"Over there, sir!" Eye cones swiveling in three directions, Nate glared at the Bosun robot.

"Here?" After a third locker, this one with wire strippers, wire caps, electric tape, power grinder fittings, and screwdrivers, Nate grabbed the wire strippers and kept looking for the replacement cables.

"Here?"

"No, sir."

"Damnit! Where the hell are the breaker lids?"

"Exactly three steps aft, on the starboard side." Nate spun around and shot the Bosun a dirty look, turning away from the containers, he clicked the wire strippers together a few times in the grip of his hand like a pair of tongs.

""

"Rigging it."

"Do you know how to jury rig?"

"I've saved more rocket ignition systems on broke down Mr. Handy's than I have nig-rigged car stereo speaker systems, A wire cap here, reconnect a few wires there, install a big ass fuse, and it'll work," Nate said, spotting the first wire hookup, he flipped open the lid and frowned.

""

"Nonsense. Half the stuff in here is redundant anyway. Like this cable...what the heck do you do...with a drunken sailor...
what do you do with a drunken sailor...?" He spoke to himself while he worked, trying to ilk out the sea chanty tune to 'What do you do with a drunken sailor early in the morning?'

""

"No, Meathead. I feel like I got a headache." Nate ripped out a yellow wire, stripped both ends, put them back into the motherboard.

""

It took Nate a long time to respond, he took a green wire with seven inches of extra length, trimmed it, and stripped one end, shortening it, and stretching it back across while using the excess to replace a rusted out wire.

"What?"

Nate wasn't aware of the offer given to him, his eyes were burning, head pounding, and he hadn't slept a full night of sleep in four days.

He yawned, trying to piece together Meathead's offer. "Why?"

"Nate, go lay down."

Nate let his arms hang down by his sides, turning around to face Meathead. He shifted back into his changeling form.

""

Leaning back and resting against the wall, a protectron passed by, doing his routine round through the ship. Sinking down onto the ground, he let his head rest against the hull.

"<Nate, I know you want to pick up the pieces of this world and put everything back into place, but it would take an army to do what you wanted to do. I get it. I understand. You are in a brand new world with only a handful of things from your past you recognize, and there's such a big gap between the year 2077 and 2287, that it's overwhelming. Start small, Nate. It's not a world that I want to live in either, but I'll tell you one thing. Thank your God that you lived through the nuclear war because now you can do exactly what every person from Vault 111 should've done together, and rebuild. I'll help you rebuild, I want to help you rebuild, that's the entire reason Vault-Tec. did what it did. To preserve a little humanity, and experiment to find the best way to govern a new nation so that in times like this, now, after the radiation has finally receded, to rebuild your great nation. Remember the commercial?" Meathead asked, his jaw mandibles ticked together and he made a noise, like music. A jaunty-jazzy intro to the Vault-Tec. commercials they watched on TV. It was punctuated with a bang.

"Following Total Nuclear Annihilation, the rebuilding of this great nation of ours, may fall to you."

"That's why we at Vault-Tec. have prepared these educational materials for you to better understand the seven defining attributes that make you, S.P.E.C.I.A.L. "

"Today we will focus on Strength. In the Wasteland, essential supplies will be scarce. When an item of value is found, keep it close and away from bullies. Be sure to know your limits, otherwise, you may find it difficult to escape from hazardous scenarios, no matter how strong you are."

Meathead recreated the noises of a symphony playing in the background as he spoke, and Nate realized that the way Meathead's mouth moved, he was capable of recording every sound he heard, and then playing it back. Meathead licked his lips, and Nate inhaled, standing up and chest filling outwards.

"You're right," Nate said. His mind was fixated on the end of the Great Depression.

Nate's ancestor would fall asleep at night, absolutely starving. With only a slice of bread dipped in bacon fat for the whole meal for the entire day, and maybe, tomorrow, they wouldn't get anything at all.

Nate's eight-year-old third-great grandmother would cry herself to sleep at night, wasting away in the year 1921.

Her most favorite memory, the one that brought the moments of sheer joy to her childhood. The best Christmas of her entire life was during the middle of the Great Depression, and the Judge went around town giving food to the poor and starving children. He brought five flats of eggs, one hundred twenty-five eggs, as the only gift her entire family received that year because they couldn't afford anything else.

Certainly not a tree. Or wrapping paper, or a holiday dinner. Nate was lucky he could even say he had a Christmas.

Her mother, Nate's fourth-great-grandmother, boiled them, pickled them, preserved them, and cooked them for her seven children so they could have one egg a day until spring came, and the fields were in bloom and all the children could go out and pick berries.

They would be paid five cents for a flat of strawberries, ten cents for an entire flat of blackberries, and then give it to their mother so she could use it to spend on groceries or pay the tax man.

His ancestors survived the Great Depression, and while their mother took care of the children at home, their father went to go work on building the infrastructure to America. Paving roads, building dams, building bridges, and sending home a little money once a month and writing letters saying 'Love you, make it last. Sincerely."

It took a crumbling America to realize the only way to keep from shriveling up and dying from starvation in their beds was to jar and can food to make it last. That way they could save money, and instead of walking seven miles to cross a bridge, then walk another five miles to the nearest store, the Engineering core built roads and a bridge closer to home, so now it was only a two-mile walk for Nate's grandparents. The government was paying people very little money, and supplementing it with food, water, and a place to sleep for the working people who were away from their homes for years. There was no direct train line they could hop onto and ride home, this was before buses were widely available for public transportation.

There were no highways, no direct freeways, this wouldn't come until after World War Two and the FDR administration looked to Germany with its Autobahn. They would be amazed at how quickly resources could get from one side of the country to the other and wanted to bring that back to America.

The greatest undertaking, however, was that Germany was a few ten thousand square miles smaller than the state of Montana.

The FDR administration wanted to put highways across all lower 48 states. It was a massive project, the biggest the country has ever collectively put all it's effort into that literally bridged the east coast to the west.

There were no planes, except in the military, and some kids have never ridden in a car before, wow-ee, if you knew someone who owned a car, they must've been rich. Especially if they could afford to maintain it and spend money on gasoline.

In the Roaring 1920's it was the age of consumerism. The fanciest of cars, the most expensive of wines, the classiest shows and most elegant dresses ever were designed. Then it broke and gave way to the era of self-sufficiency where every home had a garden, and they were taught an invaluable fear that they would never know where their next meal came from. It took them a long time for America to pull itself out of the Depression, this time around it was taking much, much longer. Nate intended to find out why.

"What do you want me to do, Meathead?" Nate asked.

""

Resting his head back against the hull, Nate was plenty comfy sleeping sitting upright with his legs out in front of him.

\111/

Ch. 17 The Midnight Run

Author's Note

"Mike and the Censations. Spelled with a C everybody." Travis lulled, feet up on his desk, leaning back in his chair that creaked noisily as his eyes rolled back, wiping his face off with one hand moving from his forehead to his chin.

Then he yawned and said "Diamond City Radio, I've been your host. Travis Lonely Miles. I'l letting the music run for a bit, so come give a knock on my door in a few hours if anyone hears the song repeat for the fifth time. I gotta sleep too, Diamond City, there's nothing I can do about that..."

Ch. 17 The Midnight Run

October 27th, 2287
5:59 A.M.

""

His eyes were open in an instant. Nate leaned forward and recoiled from seeing himself offering a hand up. Falling back against the oak hull, he put one hand out and pushed himself up.

"Meathead, what are you doing? Why are you me? What time is it?" He asked, looking down at his Pip-Boy. It was 6:00 in the morning. "We were suppose to meet Stockton at the Church!" He said urgently, trying to push past himself.

"Relax! I handled it. I got the parts for the ship too!" Meathead put both hands out, palms facing him.

Meathead's form was an exact duplicate of Nate himself, black hair, green eyes, prominent chin, wearing a blue vault suit and empty holster.

Nate shook his head and rubbed his eyes to adjust to the low-light below deck.

The as his senses came to him, he made to swallow, but his throat was dry.

"What? What did you do?" Nate asked.

""

"Yeah. I thought he was joking cause I showed him the pip-boy on my arm."

""

Nate's head tilted forward, looking the duplicate of himself in the eye. Tittered left and right, "What?" He asked, standing up.

"Tell me what happened." Confusion plain on Nate's face, Meathead inhaled to ready himself.

""

Nate's eyes narrowed, and the apprehension was still there, he looked at his own hand being offered. The mirror reflection of himself was spot on, here was a second Nate talking to the first. He was looking at himself, basically a duplicate. A willing pet who wanted to do something for his owner.

Nate didn't know what to expect.

A shock, a jolt of electricity, a joy buzzer type of gag where his hand shook and jerked, but there wasn't.
He was expecting some sort of hell to go through to get what he wanted, and there was no suffering.

He blinked twice, and then the memories came to him as an afterthought.

His heart beat heavily in his chest, thumping louder and louder until Nate realized he needed to breathe or asphyxiate there on the spot. The only problem was sorting through all the new information.

Pulling in a deep ragged breath after nearly two minutes, Nate was swaying on his feet.

"Did that really happen?" Nate asked.

\111/

October 27th, 2287.
11:07 P.M.

Seven Hours Ago.

The Cambridge church stood with a lean to the left, its roof falling in, and the pews partially buried in debris. The front door was wide open, and Old Man Stockton was waving his right hand towards H2-22.

H2-22 looked like any other human, hair that came to his eyes, it was matted with sweat, and appeared greasy from not showering recently. He wore a white shirt, a green and white cross stitch button up, and then a blue denim jacket over it with a blue bandanna tied around his neck.

Only, Meathead knew there was no emotion coming from the synth disguised as a man, while as Old Man Stockton was a bundle of paranoia, relief, stress, fear, and joy that another night would soon be behind him.

Nate tried to listen to the sound of H2-22's voice to see if he could tell the difference between a human and a synth's voice, but there was no way to be sure.

H2-22 said the words, "Wow, another human who's happy to meet me."

Nate's brain picked apart the words, and it was apparent that for a synth who didn't even have a cover name yet, that the accent and vocabulary gave H2-22 away.

"Remember what I told you, H2. I'll fire up the signal." Stockton warned, he was cautious, on edge. Tense and nervous that at any moment the world would end for him.

Outside the church, from a distance they could hear a gunfight, the pop, pop, pop of a pistol going off, and then the automatic fire of a gun along side it. Nate's neck was tense, and his nerves felt pinched.

"Keep H2 safe, someone will be here shortly." Stockton left after lighting the lantern, and then a black man wearing a white shirt, leather jacket and jeans arrived three minutes later.

"Who are you?" the man asked, looking Nate up and down. "I don't know you."

"Did you bring a Geiger counter?" Nate asked.

The man snapped his fingers and pointed his pointer finger at him and cracked a smile. "Good call. Mine's in the shop. What's your name?" He realized that it was a call sign. A coded message that spies and agents used to identify other members of the same faction.

Nate found it out by accident when Old Man Stockton asked him the marketplace, and they didn't realize it until then.

Stockton, H2-22, and the newcomer all thought Nate was with them.

Disguised as Nate, Meathead kept his mouth shut like he should've in that situation and nodded his head.

"The Handler." Nate replied.

"High Rise. Did you just join?" He asked, Nate dodged the question by pointing at H2-22, and turning his head to him.

"Life story later, what are we doing with him?" Nate asked.

High Rise followed Nate's direction and focused on H2-22. "Hey, you. Are you alright?"

H2-22 spoke in a soft voice, like he lost his voice and it was difficult for him to talk loud. "A little rattled, but I've never been better. The other man said I shouldn't talk to much."

High Rise stood up straighter, "He told you right, H2. We'll get you a new name, a new face, but we'll get to that." Turning back to Nate, and eyeing Justice the 10 gauge shotgun in his hands, he said, "Listen, there's more than a few raiders behind me. Can I count on you for some help?"

Nate nodded once, but he wanted to say something else. The whole memory sharing process was disjointed, he remembered the experience, but didn't remember hearing the words come out of his own mouth.

High Rise followed up with, "We need to get H2 to Ticonderoga Plaza. My home. A lot of synths fresh off the boat crash there until we can smuggle them out of the Commonwealth."

It took all of Nate's mental capacity to realize that he wasn't the one who acted this way, it was Meathead. He was only remembering a memory.

High Rise was genuine, human, the emotions coming off of him were reserved towards Nate, but gradually more accepting for how curt and down to business he was being towards the situation.

Nate's hand shot out and grabbed High Rise by the collar. "Are you insane? Do you know what you just said out loud!? Do you know how many people could've heard?! Lead on, if the Institute doesn't already have an army of synths camped right outside the door, listening to our every word! Next time, use code words!" Nate shouted hoarsely, trying to keep his voice from rising, but quiet at the same time.

\111/

October 27th 2287
12:15 A.M.

High Rise lead the way to Ticonderoga Plaza, leading south through Cambridge past Monsignor Plaza, where raiders were ready to shoot at High Rise, but then they jerked their guns upwards when they saw Nate walking behind him, brandishing a shotgun that gleamed in the moonlight.

"Hold up." High Rise said slowing down, fearful of the raiders that spotted them. "Nope. Keep moving." Nate pressed the barrel of the shotgun into the small of High Rise's back and forced him to keep walking "They'll shoot you if you stop." Nate ordered. "Shut up and keep moving." Nate said loudly, readying a .44 magnum revolver with his other left hand. An aura of authority rolled off Nate, High Rise was filled with fear from how deadly Nate sounded, and it was present in his face. The raiders saw this fear, not because of them, but from the man behind him.

These raiders knew who Nate was, he was the crazy vault dweller who took out a whole squad of super mutants and collapsed a seven story building down on top of them. Their fingers were nowhere near the trigger, resting on the guard instead. They didn't want that type of attention.

The cold round bit of metal pressing into High Rise's back made him stand up straight and quickly walk faster to get away from the gun barrel.

They walked past Monsignor Plaza while the raiders inside looking out called to each other. "Do we risk it?" Plenty of them shook their heads no. Whatever the Vault Dweller was doing, let him go, it wasn't worth it.

The road Monsignor Plaza went south, where there was a raised drawbridge leading south into Boston, where they took a right heading west, crossing another bridge past apartment buildings and restaurants to Ticonderoga Plaza.

"Damn...We're here. You scared the shit out of me. I never seen raiders not try to shoot at me. Who are you again?"

"The Handler. As in, I'll handle it."

"Shit. We'll if you ever need bullets, grub, a power nap, take the elevator up to the top of Ticon. The house is yours. Right now, I need to take care of H2." The man who had been quiet the entire time, bringing up the rear looked up at the building, and then inside to the lantern left burning on the receptionist desk.

"High Rise. Next time your out in the field, don't open your mouth. Loose lips sink ships, and you said plenty at the church. You're lucky I'm on your side, because you didn't even start with the call sign either." Nate warned, "It's a good way to get yourself shot, or worse, everyone here exposed." Nate left without hearing High Rise's reply, only him ushering H2-22 into the safehouse.

\111/

"How are you doing this? What am I seeing?" Nate asked Meathead, pointing to his left temple.

"Changelings have a complicated system of predator-prey relationship. We keep our prey alive for months, drawing off emotional energy from them, we encase them in cocoons and bluntly, we draw life energy from them."

Meathead waited for Nate to interject or comment, but when he didn't, Meathead continued talking.

""

""

"

"What sort of life forms are on your planet, or where ever you come from?" Nate asked.

""

"The perfect race? Isn't that a little..."

""

"Nothing."

""

"So what changed? How did changeling's evolve?"

""

Meathead cast off the visage of Nate, back into his black chitin equine form. Long forelegs that looked like they were driftwood being eaten by seaworms, his black jaw mandibles clicking together. Meathead opened his mouth wider, and Nate saw the two sets of jaws, the exterior set, and then an interior set, which partially shocked Nate because this was the first time he saw the inside of Meathead's mouth. He saw Meathead's green tongue and how this other changeling upset things.

""

Meathead slammed his hoof down onto the ground, ""

""

"

Nate shook his head, "It all sounds like it was a damn mess before you came to Earth, but was deciding to be with me any easier?" Meathead's back legs shook and he growled. Nodding with his teeth clenched together in anger.

"

"Meat, it's Boston...and it was nuked out! What do you expect? New Jersey? Come on."

""

"Then why tell me?" Nate asked.

"" Meathead was anxious, he twisted his neck and until his joints popped, rolling his back legs until those joints popped too. Nate swallowed what Meathead offered him, seeing more and more how they were alike.

"" Meathead looked up, "" He declared.

\111/

6:47 A.M.

"So this guy High Rise thinks I said all this? He believes it was me who put a shotgun to his back? I would've told him to keep moving, and yeah, told him to shut up about blabbing that type of information. But...who the heck are these guys, anyway?"

"The only other names I've heard, same as you, since coming out of the Vault are the Minutemen, Institute, and the Railroad. The group Tony and Joe were talking about at the bar in Bunker Hill."

"That's a lot to process."

"It's heavy."

Nate nodded, rubbing the side of his head and thinking everything over.

"What happened to the King?"

Meathead turned, his chest rising and falling quickly. ""

\111/

Ch. 19 Meeting the Neighbors

October 27th, 2287.

2:45 P.M.

"Brick," Nate said, waving for Meathead to bring him something heavy.

Nate leaned over the railing of the USS Constitution and released a cinderblock down at the Super Mutants milling outside Faneuil Hall. Falling like a meteorite, the concrete brick smashed into the plaza, missing a super mutant by fifteen feet, but barely triggering a response out of anyone far down below the ship.

"'Nother brick." Nate kept his eyes locked on the green body builder type figures, mutated with their faces flattened and senses dulled. Their reflexes were as sharp as the debris and bricks Nate was heaving at them.

Dropping a cannonball, the iron weight fell forty-five stories, enough to reach maximum velocity, and crash through support pilings and scaffolding.

"Your turn," Nate said, passing the second cannonball back to Meathead. The changeling looked at the gift like it was a stick of dynamite, and he was the one with matches.

Meathead floated the cannonball out and over the railing, let it hang for a moment, and then plummet.

They both watched the projectile pick up speed and crash down onto a mutant dog's back. Impacting a crater and crushing the dog's neck and spine, "Nice shot."

The mutant dogs were like the Bull Dog's you've only ever feared about. Green skinned like their masters, and treated brutally, they were infected with the Forced Evolutionary Virus that accelerated their enduring capabilities and adaptability to the environment around them, at the cost of severely stunted intelligence growth and lack of social cognition. Empathy was nearly non-existent, it was a sign of weakness. Super Mutants were literally forced into a dead world with no schools, no parents they could call their own, no friends, and most importantly, ready to kill every living thing that wasn't a super mutant.

Living their whole lives they're told, from the moment they are created, to hunt down and kill other living things. They're told by other mutants that humans are weak, spineless, worthless, good for meat or for sports hunting. They live dumb, dull lives uneducated. Given a gun, and told to go find a bigger gun or go find someplace that looks like a good strong fort, they take that lesson with them their whole lives.

It's only after decades that Super Mutants, through a hierarchy based on age, experience, and loot, that they learn to defend themselves and how to be a better hunter, how to rally other Super Mutants behind them, how to track and kill humans when they least expect it. Some mutants bring back their catch because they've learned that the things around them are broken, and they sit and watch in hiding a human who can fix things. They target that human and smile, that's the one they'll let live for a while. The humans aren't as strong as super mutants, but there aren't that many humans who train every day, fighting creatures bigger than them, who are well fed enough to maintain the body mass of a body builder. This says something about the super mutant metabolism, it digests very slowly to retain what is in the system, even when their hunger is overwhelming and drives them to the point beyond insanity where they eat anything, metal, flesh, hard, soft, it doesn't matter. They only know the stabbing hunger in their gut and will eat other super mutants if they find them annoying or bored.

\111/

To get down from the USS Constitution, there was a ramp of rubble coming down to the deck from the Weatherby Investments building, leading up to an elevator shaft. This elevator and staircase leading down to a second lobby for the executive suites, which were mostly caved in from the floors above crashing down when the ship struck the building. Then a second elevator ride down to the ground floor put them right at the north side of the building, where the duo needed to walk through a Slocum's Joe coffee parlor and through a blown out bus crashed into the doorway of the lobby to reach the outside.

Climbing over heaps of rubble and debris, they came around the corner and saw the plaza in front of Faneuil Hall. The large three story brick building had a statue of Samuel Adams, partially dissolved in acid rain, and surrounded by a fire of burning chairs in the planter around it. There was a white tower spire on the west side of the building, and scaffolding to the left which lead up to the roof. Three super mutants were on patrol outside, on both sides of the building. With six super mutants, minus one of their mutant hounds, there was still one more sniffing around, unaware of Nate armed with a combat rifle, and Meathead floating a grenade directly over their heads with the use of his telekinesis.

The targets were two super mutants on the lookout on the scaffolding, one carrying a missile launcher, and the other, a long pipe rifle.

Nate carried the Broadsider, intending to drop it immediately after firing, because of its heavy weight. Meathead watched with straining eyes as the grenade tipped against the metal pole of the scaffolding, making a small 'tink' noise which made Meathead's nerves stand up on end.

Lowering it oh so carefully behind the super mutant's head, it was barely touching the spine and shoulders where they connected to the neck, Meathead used his magic to pull the pin on the grenade.

"Huh? What's that noise?" the mutant said, looking to the left, and then to the right. The ticking of an armed grenade was right behind his head.

Like a small clap of thunder, the backside of the mutant's skull was blown out the front, the dead mutant fell forwards over the railing, and collided with the ground. The mutant standing next to him was hit with the force and concussive blast, also at head level, killing him as well.

The mutant's turned their back from the street to investigate the noise coming from behind them, and Nate and Meathead lobbed another grenade each. The grenades bounced down the alley and exploded. The mutants were firing wildly before they even knew where the shooter was. The mutant hound picked up on the new scent of an intruder to their domain and charged down the alley, howling, straight to Nate and Meathead.

Nate launched the first cannonball, striking the mutant hound in the jaw, blowing off half of it's face and snapping its neck in a bloody pulp. The four remaining super mutants all charged towards the noise as Nate weighed his options and took the time to reload a second cannonball they'd carried down from the USS Constitution, and aimed it at the group.

The swivel cannon boomed as the one pound weight flew through the air and smashed into the chest of the first super mutant, crushing his lungs and ribcage, forcing the broken bones into his internal organs. He screamed and clenched his chest, but didn't die quickly.

Nate dropped the cannon and switched to his semi-automatic 5.56 combat rifle. The bullets spat out at breakneck speeds, hitting the super mutant behind the first twelve times before he started to stumble and fall over dead. The mutants covered half the distance to Nate as he lined up VATS shots, aiming for the third mutant's head. The first three missed, and the other five crippled and blinded the third mutant, but he still ran straight as possible but slowed way down, allowing for the fourth super mutant behind him to come around the side.

Nate swung Justice around and aimed for the legs, nearly on top of him now, Nate fired three times, blowing off the mutant's bicep, into the stomach, and once in the kneecap. Meathead snarled and dove at the super mutant's bleeding arm. Biting down at thrashing at the torn muscle, the mutant yelled and shook, trying to throw Meathead off. Nate ran up and knocked the mutant down with the butt of his shotgun. The mutant was thrown backward, flailing his limbs as Meathead let go. He tried to get back up on his feet when Nate fired twice into the mutant's head, then three times at the blinded super mutant.

The last gunshot echoed through Boston, and Nate retreated, finding cover and keeping low, he reloaded each weapon and listened for more noise.

"" Nate drew in a sharp breath through his nose and exhaled.

"How many more inside?"

""

"And they're not coming out?"

""

Nate swallowed. Good, that meant they were shell shocked.

""

"If I ever need to come back to the ship, I don't want to deal with super mutants," Nate said. Standing upright, he walked over to the Broadsider by the side corner of the Weatherby Investment building and picked it up. Hauling it over to the first dead super mutant hound they managed to drop a cannon ball on from the top of the building and kill it, Nate brushed off the cannonball and loaded it into the Broadsider.

"Alright. Let's go say hello to our new neighbors."

\111/

Into the lobby of the Faneuil Hall marketplace, the old building was repurposed every fifty years or so until the Great War. The bottom floor now housed a mini chain of Fallon's Department store, with select brands of T-shirts, business apparel, watches, and ties. A deli, a bakery, and a pharmacy were on the walls of the bottom floor of Faneuil Hall, with a ring of cash registers in the center, surrounded by counters. They were looted and gutted, hardly anything worth picking over other than the glassware and silverware laying out, or the large containers behind the pharmacy counter containing raw chemical compounds for making medicine.

Closest to the door was a security terminal and recharging pod for security protectrons that Nate was aware of the moment he walked through the door. Leaving the Broadsider by the steps going down to the market on the bottom floor, he went up to the monitor and tapped the enter key a few times to get the computer to boot up and see if it had any power.

"Getting Hungry." a mutant said. "Gotta feed."

Nate froze and Meathead kept his senses drawn out, ready to alert Nate at a moment's notice. Nodding at Nate, he turned back to the security monitor and tried logging in through the maintenance fail-safe.

"Okay, Meathead, we're about to get some help." Designating himself as the commanding officer, Nate activated the three security protectrons and they all stepped out of their pods around the bottom floor of Faneuil Hall.

They all announced themselves with the words, "Protect and Serve" in unison.

In an instant, three laser wielding protectrons lumbered out of their pods and started shooting the perceived threats. Meathead followed Nate down the stairs as he fired the last cannonball round at a super mutant, crushing the chest and breaking the arm, killing the first mutant Nate saw instantly in a deafening boom.

Leaving the cannon at the foot of the stairs, Nate marched forward and took cover behind a deli counter and fired four times at the next super mutant preoccupied with laser blasts to the head and chest.

Gunfire raced back and forth, a second and third super mutant fell dead as a fourth charged a security protectron and tried ripping its arms off as it bashed the mutant in the chest and head. The protective glass dome on the robot's head cracked and broke, and the mutant howled, "You are gonna die!"

As Nate was shooting at a mutant wearing a pipe valve and anchor on its head for protection, and the metal plates from power armor units strapped onto its body, another mutant targeted the weakened protectron with a laser rifle, blasting it relentlessly, even hitting his own kind until the damage was too much for the robot and it ceased to function.

Meathead bit down onto the hose of a fire extinguisher, they whipped his head and flung the weight like a shot put, right at the super mutant's head. Dazing him for a moment, the protectrons and Nate all fired, bullet wounds and laser burns peppering the mutant's chest until the mutant couldn't breathe.

Meathead ran past the row of cash registers, snagging the last super mutant's arm and wrestling it away from the gun it was holding. The mutant smacked Meathead with the butt of his gun, twice, a third time as Nate and the protectrons lined up their sights and shot the mutant dead. A thin line of blood was coming from Meathead's forehead, but other than a bruise to the skull, both Nate and Meathead were okay.

Picking up the mutant's laser rifle, he checked the energy cell and replaced it with a fresh one. With one long rifle in both hands, the combat rifle and shotgun were slung over his back.
\111/

The intense scent of repulsive, rotting meat hit Nate and Meathead almost immediately after finishing sweeping the bottom ground floor. It was rank, repugnant smell that made Nate gag, he could hear the tiny flies, and see clouds of new born flies coming down from the first floor. They were tiny, and Nate turned his head away from the doors leading up to the main hall with disgust. The only source for these tiny newborn flies smaller than the head of a pin could be maggots. The only reason maggots would be this prevalent was the countless meat bags chained up around the foyer, and the Main Hall.

They had to fight the stench of the super mutants, and the smell of meat rotting which could only be described as one of the worst smells because of how it wanted to oppressively invade your tongue and sinuses, and refused to dislodge itself even if they covered their mouths and nose.

Opening the doors to the stairwell, there were three mutants on different levels, firing down at Nate and Meathead, while the protectrons were incapable of firing straight up out of their peripheral.

Drawing his shotgun, Nate unloaded round after round, each 10 gauge round bucking back into his shoulder, and flaying the targets in front of him.

Meathead pounced on the closest super mutant, teeth aimed at the weak flesh below the chin, trying to rip out the throat with his jaws. Punched backward, the mutant threw himself up onto both feet and roared "WHY. STUPID. HUMANS. FIGHT. BACK?!" Nate fired three more shotgun rounds, blowing a hole in the mutant's face, making it look like someone took a rock, and flung it directly into a stone bust, with the rest of the face cracking and splitting around the damage.

Up the stairwell into the first floor and the bottom of the Great Hall, Nate inhaled when he stepped into the room.

The smell was the most intense, but Nate picked out the old building's smell of hardwood floors, the rotten wood, the dust that comes with a four hundred-year-old building. Along the back wall were paintings of the Founding Fathers and a row of American flags. The balcony directly above their heads to the two-story open room was broken off and missing a collapsed section. While all around the upper level, meat bags were hung like gore filled Christmas ornaments and was the source of the rotten meat smell and the millions of insect larvae, maggots, and bugs.

Bugs were landing in Nate's hair and on his face, but his attention and focus were on the four super mutants in the room, two on the bottom floor, kicking over chairs to use support columns for the second floor as cover. Then there were two more, one on each side of the second floor. Nate took cover behind the collapsed balcony section, and vomited, the smell was too much. Meathead bounded across the floor, tackling the first super mutant as Nate recovered and fired ten times.

"Die, mother fucker, die." The rounds impacted the second super mutant on the lower level and bullets raced back to hit him from two different

Leaning around cover, wood chips splintered and flew into his eyes, stinging him. Nate fired back with the laser rifle, the straight long burning shots bore holes straight through the super mutant's chest and head, killing one on the second floor on the right side.

An uninterrupted burst of machine gun fire made Nate duck and count, waiting for it to stop as Meathead ripped his target's arm off, gnawing at the shoulder joint until the limb came and all that was left was a bloody stump.

Grabbing his .44 magnum off his belt, he raised it and fired all six shots, killing the mutant after four. The mutant from up above on the left side held a Molotov cocktail rag to an open burning torch fire and heaved it down at Nate behind cover. The bottle was caught in a green glow and was sent sailing back up, smashing into the super mutant, and exploding in flames.

The sound of a super mutant screaming thundered through the entire building as his skin was cooked, and his eyes melted out of his skull, and flesh fell from the bone.

Nate sprinted across the Grand Hall, hacking and spitting and waving teensy flies away and out of his mouth. Blinking the bugs out of his eyes, he and Meathead ran up the stairs on the left back side of the hall and went up the steps three at a time. Next to the smell, Nate didn't care about seeing the corpses, it was the bugs in his eyes he felt were the worst part about the entire day.

The smell was intensified by the sight of maggots literally falling off the fifteen meat bags hung around the second floor of the Grand Hall, liberal pools of blood underneath each one. They were made of chain link fence wrapped around and strung together by chains and steel cable like a bouquet garni of spices. Filled with limbs of multiple different animals, and Nate saw, humans, his stomach shouted no, no, no, and he hacked and vomited again. Running back towards the entrance on the second level.

"" Stepping past overturned wooden chairs, the same ones used for kindling in the fire at the base of the Samuel Adams statue outside, they went to the doors in the back. ""

Nate pulled out his shotgun, aiming it at the wall and firing into the wood and plaster. The super mutant waiting, hiding on the other side yelled and charged through the door, instantly heaving a massive butcher's knife the size of Nate's head directly at him. Nate narrowly ducked under the flying metal and was grabbed by the collar by the super mutant. Meathead bit down on the super mutant's leg, but the mutant picked Nate up off the ground and ran with him, smashing Nate through the door frame, wall, wood, and into the main stairwell again. Lifting his battered body, the mutant held Nate over his head and then heaved him down two stories.

Nate felt something in his legs, and head, and chest, and spine, and shoulders, and everything felt broken and screamed in pain as he reached one arm blindly for a stimpak. His fingers in his left hand were numb and blood filled his eyes. He pawed at the leather case with the stimpak needles but couldn't work the zipper.

Meathead shifted into his true Changeling form, charging at the super mutant butcher and goring him in the back with his crooked horn. An instant later, the super mutant was blown off Meathead's horn with a bang of green magic, the mutant's guts errupting out the front side of his abdomen as he collided with the far wall, then fell the two stories beside Nate.

"GIVE'M HELLLLLLL!!!" Nate shouted, coughing and ripping the satchel of stimpaks off his leg and then biting down on the zipper and using his mouth to open it.

Meathead shifted again, this time to the human form of Nate, picking up his dropped shotgun and a second Molotov cocktail off the ground.

His senses told him there were two more mutants, both hiding, both aware of their presence, but unaware of their position. Meathead felt the emotions rolling off of them, arrogance, anger, rage, and disgust that a human could be doing so much to them.

On both sides of the stairwell were offices for the building, two desks and an elevator inside the office with two doors. One leading in, the other leading out. Meathead glanced down at Nate, jabbing himself with three stimpaks and moaning curse words at how terrible he felt.

Crouch walking around to one doorframe, Meathead duck walked in and held the shotgun to the backside of the first super mutant's knee. The mutant was aiming his hunting rifle at the door across from them, waiting for the human to walk through the door when Meathead pulled the trigger. Blowing a ten gauge round hole through the backside of the kneecap, the mutant screamed as his leg below the knee was blown off. Holding the shotgun at the mutant's chest, Meathead fired two more times.

Then there was one super mutant left, shouting out, "This is the age of the Super Mutants! We will kill all humans and crush you!"

Meathead walked across the floor, footsteps creaking on the wooden floor, when a thought inspired by Nate invaded his mind.

Grinning, Meathead shouted, "" making it obvious to where he was. Holding the shotgun level with the wall, he could feel the super mutant was directly behind the wall, switching his gaze back and forth between doors. Reattempting what Nate tried to do only minutes before, Meathead held the shotgun higher and fired six times in the span of two seconds through the old wood and plaster at the mutant on the other side.

"" Meathead shouted back down to him on the ground floor. Nate pulled himself up and was sitting with his back against the wall, legs in front of him as he tried catching his breath.

" 'Ja get the dogs!?" Nate shouted, shaking.

Meathead's eyes rolled up to the third floor, behind the last door leading up to the rooftop. There was a grenade bouquet strung with a trip wire on one of the stair cases leading down, plucking them free, Meathead walked up the steps, and stopped at the door.

There was barking coming from the other side. They were scratching at the door, their big paws thudding against the door and scraping bits of wood off the white painted door. Pulling the pin to one grenade, Meathead opened the door a crack, tossed the live grenade in, shut the door and then ran. He moved fifteen feet down and away from the grenade on the opposite side of the door when it blew the door off it's hinges, and killed both the super mutant hounds on the top floor.

Meathead's chest was pounding, and his breath was heavy, his tongue was hanging out of his mouth because he was so used to cooling off and panting like a dog.

He suddenly felt a chill. So much death and the smell was making him nauseous so he changed back into his true form and then descended the stairwell to Nate.

\111/

Nate was shivering, laying back against the wall with his joints and bones popping back into place, and a rifle in each hand. He dropped them once he saw Meathead and exhaled.

"Are we clear? Are we clear?" Nate asked, chest still pounding away from all the adrenaline rushing through him. It was quickly dying off, and his eyes felt heavy and he wanted to sleep.

"" Meathead came to Nate's side and looked over Nate's injuries, ""

"Good God. Good." Nate swallowed. "Can you fetch me a cigarette? From that machine over there? I ja-just...I just..." Wiping his lips, he licked them.

""

"I just need a minute to catch my breath. I need to get the taste of five-month-old rotting flesh, vomit, and flies out of my mouth." Meathead grimaced and nodded, turning to find Nate a cigarette. He spat, a glob of mucus and he blew out his nose, wiping his hand on the ground. Clearing his throat, he dug through his pockets for a flip lighter.

Head pounding, Meathead returned with a packet of cigarettes and Nate took one and lit the tip. Inhaling slowly, he coughed and his lungs seized up and they felt tight. Pushing himself up off the ground, he spat out the flem that instantly formed in his throat. "Meathead. Can you open all the windows to this building?" Nate asked, Meathead nodded, horn already glowing.

"Help me rip these bags outta here. It's fucking disgusting." Nate said, smoking his cigarette.

"What'er we doing with them?"

"Throw 'em in the fire out front. We're gonna burn em. Bodies too. It's fucking disgusting."

\111/

The windows of Faneuil Hall were thrown open, Meathead helped Nate move every meat bag outside onto the burn pile and let the maggots and festering meat roast over the chair fire.

It took two hours, hauling bodies and bags, Nate's hands were covered in grime and slime, but he remained quiet throughout the whole process, only calling on Meathead for a few minor things like help him get the bodies outside.

When they were done, Nate was sitting in a wooden chair, watching the burn pile disintegrate everything into ash or hot metal. To keep the fire burning hot, Nate went around the outside of the building, and drained the cars of their old used oil.
Dumping cannisters of used oil on the fire, Nate flicked away another cigarette and spat.

Smiling at the black smoke and bonfire he was hosting in front of the Hall, Nate leaned back in the wooden chair and smiled. "That'll keep 'er going. Nothin' like a lil' Oy'il for the fire. Pull out the hotdogs."

Choking up, Nate turned his head and sneezed away from the fire, coughing after he did so.

Meathead stayed in his form as a German Shepard when they were outside the building, looking out across the street to the parking garage, and to the shuttered courthouse right next door to the South.

There were steps leading up and over the parking garage as part of the side walk with a red tile line put into the ground before the war, stopping right in front of the statue of Samuel Adams, and leading off down a side alley.

The parking garage across the street connected to Haymarket Hall, a large shopping mall in uptown Boston, while the red line lead towards Boston Common.

"Fucking cancer sticks. I already know I got it coming to me." Nate said the first meaningful thing to Meathead in the last two hours.

""

"No shit. We both probably already are on the road to cancer. A big ol' nuclear blast will do that."

"" Meathead licked the inside of his mouth, ""

Nate shook his head looking into the fire and listening to small pops and hisses. "I have no fucking clue, Meathead. Not a damn clue."

Inhaling, drawing in big gulps of air, he felt like he could breathe again.

""

"Huh."

""

"How long they been watching us?"

""

"Oh yeah? And what do they want? Where are they?"

""

"We're gonna sit right here and you're not to move a fucking muscle while I blow smoke from this here cigarette in their faces." Nate was coated in blood, some of it his, some from the mutants, plenty from moving the meat bags with his own hands. His arms were covered in blood up to his biceps, plenty on his torsoe and abdomen. Nate swung around a second wooden chair and kicked his legs up, and rested his shotgun pointing out across the street. Swallowing once, twice, he spat and waited and watched.

""

"I know what they want. They want to take a little looksie. Now. Be patient. Stay quiet, and let's say hello to our new neighbors." Nate responded. Leaning forward into the fire, he held out a cigarette and put it to his lips, but didn't suck on the filter.

It was another minute before the first raider poked his head around the column inside the parking garage.

Then, like a small grazing herd of cows, the one raider was followed by eleven more raiders as they cautiously crossed the street, and a few pointed their rifles, handguns, and weapons at Nate.

Nate left the super mutant bodies all laid out in a row, those with arms crossed over their chests and eyes shut. They would be put on the fire soon, but not until after someone else saw. That was the kicker to reputation, it was better if someone else said so.

The leader of the bunch raised his chin, looking down at Nate as he stepped up onto the sidewalk and came up to him. Within thirty seconds he was surrounded by guns on all sides, but Nate kept on staring into the fire. Nate sucked in a lungful of cigarette smoke, opened the side of his mouth and blew it into all of their faces.

The leader waited for Nate to make a noise, take the first initiative, be scared of the weapons pointed in his face. Nate looked up into the eyes of the boss and blinked, looking down at Meathead and then scratching him behind the ears.

"Good afternoon to yea'. It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood isn't it?" Nate said, gesturing with his right hand holding the cigarette between two fingers at the bodies laid out.

"You do this?" He asked, looking at the mangled mutants, then to the blood covering most of Nate's torsoe, legs, and arms.

Nate took another drag and pulled the cigarette out of his mouth with two fingers.

Looking the speaker of the group directly in the eye, he nodded once.

"You're a pretty sick psycho, going in by yourself. Nothing but a dog."

Nate raised one eyebrow and tilted his chin up. Placing one hand to the side of his mouth, he showed interest in what he had to say.

"We've lost plenty of people to these mutants, we tried rallying other gangs to help us drive out the gangs, but we've only been slaughtered. and you show up out of the middle of nowhere and kill all of them."

Nate raised his right hand, holding the packet of cigarettes with the lid open out to the speaker. He was wearing a brown jacket, no shirt, mangy black pants, and held a Browning pistol in his right hand. The raider took a cigarette out of the packet and Nate lowered his hand.

Nate flicked open his lighter and lit the leader's cigarette, then pointed directly up with his pointer finger to the U.S.S. Constitution.

"Why did you go to the other gangs? Why not come to me first?" Nate asked.

The speaker's head dipped forward, then he up-righted himself. "Who the fuck are you? We don't know who the fuck you are."

Nate waved his hand around the plaza in front of Faneuil Hall.

"I am an American citizen. If you want justice, you come to me. What is it that you want?"

"The hall. We want Faneuil Hall."

"That I cannot do."

The speaker leaned his head in and the raiders raised their guns in anticipation.

"What's stopping us from killing you right now?" The speaker threw away his cigarette.

Nate scratched Meathead on the back of the head, "You've lived and operated out of Haymarket Hall for many years now...yet this is the first time you've crossed the street without worrying about super mutants, haven't you?"

That got the speaker to swallow and stand up straighter.

"You've spent your entire life with raider gangs, protected by numbers and guns, and you've made a living doing what you do. You've got the entire building to yourself and you've never needed a friend like me. You've never once thought you would be standing here in front of the Cradle of Liberty, in front of the one of the birthplaces of this great nation, and you disrespect me after I did all your dirty work for you." Gesturing to his own bloody clothes, Nate went back and petted Meathead a few more times.

"We want Faneuil Hall."

"That is not the justice you were asking for."

"So what do you want? Caps? Food? A bullet to the head?" The speaker pulled back the hammer to his Browning pistol with a click. Nate stopped petting Meathead, groaning once and rolling his eyes, he stood up and all the guns were pointed at him.

"Dios mio. Do you really think I can hold a place like that myself? Hell no, I've got way too much on my plate right now to worry about an old historical building. But, here you are with a contingent of men and women ready to fight for their lives over downtown real estate."

Nate stood a few inches taller than the speaker, chest out, looking down at him with a calm gaze.

The speaker broke eye contact and looked at everyone's faces.

They were terrified by the sight of Nate drenched in the blood of his enemies, their enemies.

The speaker tried mouthing a few words at first, looking left and right at Nate through each eye, trying to find the right words to say that sounded right coming from his mouth.

"Do you know what the phrase, 'talk is cheap' means?" A few raiders were shaking their head, feeling that Nate was addressing them as well, others remained motionless, eyes on their leader.

"What?"

"It implies there's no value behind words, but on the opposite end of the spectrum, we all know a bullet costs money. Guns cost money, food and water costs money, raising a child to an adult, and training them how to fight costs money. If you can resolve a problem without violence, then everyone saves money. The phrase is always true. Talk is cheap, but violence is expensive. If a soldier dies in war, then all that money put into a single life is wasted. That is why I'm talking to you now, and that is why you are listening, because you and your people are weighing the costs in your mind. Adding and subtracting, gambling on facts known only to you, can we remove this man before us? Of course, but at what cost? I'll tell you the cost. It will cost you nothing, only if we keep communicating, and keep the dialogue open. When no body is talking, then it might cost someone their life." Nate's eyes fell to the physically weaker looking members of the raiders.

Nate knew that just because a person looked weak, didn't mean they were any less dangerous, if anything, they were like baby scorpions or poison dart frogs, small but deadly.

"What are you willing to give up for Faneuil Hall? When the answer is nothing, then words are all that is left."

What Does it Mean to be an American?

Author's Note

Nate beats around the bush to get a favor from some raiders.
Extra chapter.

What Does it Mean to be an American?

"Being an American means knowing the history of the ground you're standing on, all this happened beneath your feet. Five Hundred and eleven years ago, The year is 1776, America declares Independence from British Colonialism which leads to retaliation from England. American forces win by making the cost of war too great for the British to send ships, troops, supplies, and weaponry across the Atlantic in similar types of ships, one which you can see above your head right now."

Half the group gawked their heads up to look at the U.S.S. Constitution, but Nate's brief history of America wasn't over.

"In 1787 Congress bans Slavery, but not the importation of slaves from Africa until 1808. During that time, the cotton gin is invented, which seperates cotton fibers from seeds, increasing the demand for free slave labor more than ever. When in...the 1850's the Dred Scott Decision from the Supreme Court holds that Congress doesn't have the right to ban slavery in states, and that slaves are not citizens. The Supreme Court interprets the written laws enacted before them to uphold decisions ratified by Congress, or imposed by the President of the United States in the form of Executive Orders, which the Supreme Court and Congress can both overturn. But, this was a racist time in America where men, women, and children of color, meaning not white, held little to no rights as a human being whatsoever. Not even the freed slaves had the same freedom as a white man in this century. Anti-Slavery sentiments start to rise, especially after the Fugitive Slave Law Act, and the Compromise of 1850. Eleven years later, the country of America is divided in two. The Southern half of the United States at the time were the majority of slave owners, and seceded from the Union to create the Confederate. Civil war breaks out and hundreds of thousands of Americans on both sides die in battle. It wasn't until President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclemation stating that all held slaves are to be freed. Two more years of fighting and war, and The Confederacy is defeated, but Lincoln's assasinated. Everything that followed after that was over 250,000 slaves across all of America are freed, but they were not American. The powers that stood ensured racism, prejudice, discrimination, and segregation made it impossible for a colored person to live peacefully, equally, work at a high paying job, or able to pursue their own goals of happiness. Their plight would go ignored for the next hundred years, but the resentments only built as the world finally started to connect and learn about each other's existence in the new age of electricty. Are you still with me so far?" Nate asked, knowing that this was a good point for people's minds to catch up before launching into the World Wars, then civil rights afterwards.

"How is this supposed to connect with what it means to be an American?" A female raider asked, Nate gestured to her and replied.

"That's an excellent question, what's your name?"

"Griena"

"Griena, when you know the history of the founding of nations, the rise and fall of slavery, wars, economic collapses, you can piece together how it happened in the first place, then the people can prevent the same types of tragedies from happening over and over again. If people aren't educated, simple problems like finding food, water, and shelter turns into a daily struggle like it is for most people I've met since coming out of the Vault. I promise you, when you listen to me, you're opening yourself up to the possibility of new ideas which could propel you and..." Nate addressed the leader, "Your gang, forward to be better than all the other gangs, groups, and people you've ever come across."

"I sense that right now in America, we've detracted to a state of feudalism, and it was Vault-Tec's intention that any survivors from their experiments were to emerge and rebuild America to be better than before." The cigarette Nate was holding was finally down to the filter, placing the burning end to the tip of the next cigarette, he puffed on it a few times to get it started, then kept on holding it. He hated smoking cigarettes, but in his mind, they were only a time, a clock that people could watch, and these dried cigarettes from 200 years ago burnt fairly slow with all the congealed tar separating from the tobacco leaf.

"America went through a phase of the industrial revolution, and economic growth now that the war was over. Money that was being spent on guns, ammo, cannons, soldiers, could now be put towards building infrastructure and expanding across America to the Pacific Ocean. While America was rebuilding the East Coast after the Civil War, over across the Atlantic, Napoleon is defeated at the battle of Waterloo, leaving the French Empire to collapse, leaving European nations to sign treaties with one another in order to prevent conquesting invaders from taking over their country."

"In Europe, The country of Germany signs treaties with Austria-Hungary, and Italy as part of the Triple Alliance with each other while Russia, France, and Britian allies themselves as part of the Triple Entente."

"Mankind tries to establish a time of peace, but because of the laws that were drafted, when a man from Serbia , travels to Austria-Hungary, he assassinates the Arch-Duke of the country, Franz Ferdinand. He was heir to the Austrian throne. Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, and then all the countries they've made alliances with, along with all the territories and colonies in India, Africa, and Australia are all dragged into a fight that they don't even know how it started, they're only told to fight for their government. America only joined the war three years into the conflict after 128 Americans and almost one thousand Brits were killed after a German Submarine sunk a passenger ship."

"Now, here's where it's important to realize why countries fight one another. It was a big gamble by Germany to make money by taking control of Britain, so it would have control of all of Britains colonies that it had spent the last 800 years trading gold and spices with."

"The British Navy was the largest in the world, and Germany wanted to destroy it so they could step in and control the wealth that was being floated around the world. Gold and Spices. One gram of gold or a spice cost as much as...85 to 100 bottle caps, but they weren't using bottle caps back then. They had entire economies backed the Gold, because it never diminished in value. It only went up, and up, and up."

"Maybe now you're starting to get an idea of why these countries fought one another in the first place. There were people at the top, overwhelmed with greed. The Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente fought and fought, France, the UK, were winning the battles, but losing the war. It was because Germany ran out of money to pay its seamen, that the second largest Navy at the time all refused to fight. Now that is a glorious way for a war to end, considering money is the root of all evil. With no more money being given to them, they were expected to fight without pay, for honor, for duty, for patriotism in one's own country. Same with the United Kingdom in the Revolutionary war, it had become too expensive for them to continue to fight. The war started in 1914, but the American's didn't join until 1917, three years into the war. By then, the hundreds of thousands of American soldiers that volunteered to fight against Germany. With the Navy on strike, and the UK and French forces rallying, the war ended on November the 11th, 11:11 A.M. 1918."

All the raiders, who had been standing contently blinked at that.

"Tell me, what's your name?" Nate asked the leader.

"Rathen."

"Rathen, when Germany was defeated, the world leaders put punitive conditions on them. Do you know what that means?"

The leader shook his head. "Imagine fighting another gang, or even the super mutants, but instead of a quick intense fight to take control of a soda-bottling plant, they push back, and force you to surrender. Instead of killing anyone, they instead take all your guns, ammo, and bottlecaps. They demand that you repay for all the damages you caused to their building, and for the lives lost. They take everything from all of you, to the point where you're humiliated in front of every single gang in the entire Commonwealth. But, at the same time, there's hundreds of thousands of bottle caps being punched out every second, that's the only thing you can trade, but now those bottlecaps are worthless! These punitive conditions made all the people living in Germany at the time furious, because now they couldn't afford anything. Bread cost 100,000 bottlecaps, 12 eggs cost as much as 75,000 Francs, Potatoes, vegetables, fruits, protein, everything people needed to survive, now cost so much, it was called hyper inflation. Imagine going into a market, where instead of paying a cap for a bullet one minute, then you turn around, and the market is charging 1000 caps for the same bullet."

That declaration made all the raider's reach for their guns.

"While northern countries on the continent of Africa tried to take over the cities Egypt, and Jerusalem in what was still Palestine at the time, the fighting turned away from a global scale, back to old rivalries that had been around for centuries. People thought there was no way a war of such a scale could ever happen again, at least, not in their lifetime. While countries around the world were enjoying prosperity, and a time of infrastructure building, roads, sewers, schools, hospitals, electric lines, and hydro electric dams to provide power for hundreds of millions, but Germany went beyond bankrupt. Their solution was to print more money, but that only made the entire economy even worse! They were using bricks of money, wheelbarrows full of a useless piece of paper that no one in the world wanted to use, and turned to a black market state. The only way people were able to survive then was to trade liquor and other goods that wouldn't lose its value, gold, guns, you name it. About that time, my great, great, great grandmother was a six year old girl in the year 1929, when there was a drought that leads to the formation of the dust bowls. It wiped out millions of dollars in agriculture, but many of these farmers owed money to banks. The U.S. government racked up a large debt going into World War One, borrowing from the treasury, backed by the gold standard which in part was protected by privately owned banks. When the banks tried to collect, and the farmers couldn't pay because of their land drying up, they foreclosed on everyone, drove people out of their homes. Now, since the farming industry wasn't producing, all the people out of work flooded the job market. This created an excess of labor who were willing to work at a lower wage. Slave wages, essentially. Thousands of people starved, simply because there was no more food for the poorest people in America. The Germans, however spent their time after the First World War, clawing their way out of debt and were making a complete turnaround with the rise of a new political party called the Nationalist Socialist party. The Nazis. In 1933, the leader of the Nazi's is appointed Supreme Chancellor of Germany. That man was Adolf Hitler, but he was the most evil man in the entire world, and it took the invention of the nuclear bomb, as well as the deaths of 80 million people on both sides of the war-"

"Bullshit! There's no way there could've been 80 million people! You're making that up! There wouldn't of been anyone left!"

Nate was cut off by a male raider who had remained mostly silent up until that point, "What's not to understand? The number, or the amount of people? In the year 1945 there were around two billion, three hundred million people in the world. "

"There's no way there could've been that many, you probably can't even count that high." Nate sighed through his nose.

"Hold up both hands, we're going to do a little exercise to help you count. Hold up your thumb." Nate repeated the same action. "That is one. One two three four five six seven eight nine ten. Ten digits. Ten is a one with one zero behind it, so it has two figures. Multiply ten by ten, and you get one hundred." Nate said, holding up his thumb and ring finger. "Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, one hundred. Ones, tens, the next is hundreds." Holding up his thumb, ring, and middle. "Then comes thousands, now it just repeats. Ten thousands, hundred thousands, one million, ten million, one hundred million, and then, one billion, ten times one hundred million equals one billion. Half of one billion is five hundred million. One tenth of that is 50 million... That was close to the number of purely civilian deaths, non-combatants, innocent people who were persecuted and nearly genocided, while the number of soldiers dead from the war was 30 million. It took a long time to find all the dead bodies and count them all, but the world banded together after the war, and they did.

In 1944, World War Two ends, The Axis Powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan are defeated. The United Nations is formed from all participating countries at the time to prevent wars of conquest to the ends which the German National Socialist party just attempted to do so. At the same time delegates from the United States, along with all Allied Nations come together in New Hampshire, about a...week's worth of walking north to get there from here, to attend a meeting that would later be known as the Bretton Woods Conference. Their goal was to keep the Great Depression from ever happening again, while the United Nations was formed to keep a government from ever conquesting like that again." Nate looked down, he'd been talking for over half an hour with barely any interruption from people who would've killed him two hours ago, now enraptured in the world history, and what it means to be an American.

"We went straight from a hot war, to a cold war with Russia, once our ally, who we distrusted because of the spread of Communism. It was a ideology for governing, but ultimately ineffective because the people in control of the government were rampant with power, the people of a Communist country couldn't challenge a government, it cost too much. Communism waged war against the people, taking many liberties and freedoms that cost too much to maintain. It was a long, slow descent, but it took almost forty years for Communism to fail."

"Things change, politics change, world leaders change, ideas and philosophies change, and then the Civil Rights movement occurs. Before this time in history, races were not treated equal, people of color were segregated all across the country, North and South. It was by far the most mankind had progressed on treating all people, men, women, black men, white men, Catholics and Protestants, Hindu's and Muslims, Jews and Christians, Gays and Transgenders, there was treating all people equally for over two thousand years. But, it was the people at the top of governments that said we needed to fight, that we shouldn't treat each other equally, that we should be underhanded, treat them with disrepect, and destroy all honors and traditions that were upheld for generations."

Nate swept his right arm over the small crowd, "The people were making money, but the governments were losing money rapidly because for fifty years, no one bothered to account for the budget. What happened was we were $35 trillion, trillion with a 'tea', that's one hundred billion, times ten, which equals one trillion. Times that amount by 35, and that's how much money we were in debt."

"The Breton Woods agreement was largely forgotten, Banks sold the right to collect debts from Americans to the Chinese, to pay off debts to the American Treasury which collected from the people. So instead of Americans paying taxes to the United States Government, the Chinese were collecting the money. We get enbroiled with a resource war with China, declaring war through territories, on other territories belonging to Communist China, while supporting neighboring countries around them, which funneled in weapons and supplies, in a roundabout way to keep from breaking our own laws. When the oil ran out, the hunt for uranium, plutonium, and anything unstable on the periodic table of elements were sought after. Then America to broke away from the United Nations, so they could annex Canada for resources, which after rampant overpopulation, consumerism, and consumption of hard to obtain drugs and pharmaceuticals, rare earth elements, and minerals. Once my grandfather and father's generation was finished stripping Canada, the world turned its eyes to the one reserve of untapped natural resources left in the world." Nate's eye twitched, "Alaska."

"This war was unlike ones before, because both sides knew what it meant if either lost. For China, they were already telling their people Americans started the war, that we attacked them first, flat out lies. The Japanese government did the exact same thing after World War 2, they told their people we attacked them first, and don't mention their attack on the American base in Pearl Harbor in their version of world history. They didn't even tell their people they lost the fucking war after we nuked them twice! They say that the conflict ended and that Japan won! They leave it out and lie to their people to cover up a disgraceful decision made by their ancestors to participate in genocide. To tell your kids, to tell the person who will come after you the truth, is what it means to be an American. You can build up their knowledge of the world and make them smarter, you can plan now for the next ten, twenty, fifty years of your life, but what you do know determines the course of history, either to destroy, or to create, they are both equally powerful decisions that need to be made. That's it, there's only one thing left for you to understand what it means to be American."

Nate took his feet off the second chair, standing up, the raiders backed away, Nate threw the cigarette into the fire and exhaled.

"If you want in to Faneuil Hall, shake my hand." Nate extended his right arm, thumb up, with fingers pointing straight.

"Show some respect, the guy just wasted a dozen mutants." One raider spoke up, everyone turned to look except for Nate, keeping his head and eyes locked with Rathen.

Rathen hesitated, leaned forward, smirking awkwardly as if he wasn't expecting to actually go through with it, but Rathen's eyes went from the palm of Nate's hand, up his arm, to his chin, and past Nate's beaming smile, and into his eyes.

"Good," Nate said, wrapping one arm around his shoulders and walked him to the front door of Faneuil Hall. Rathen jerked, not expecting the embrace, but it was well-intended. Nate shook hands with the rest of the raiders, one by one.

All the other raiders were looking at each other, waiting for some sort of signal or sign. "One day, I may call on all of you to help me, as I've helped you. I may die before then, and that day may never come but, until then, accept justice for the death of your companions who've fought against these Super Mutants and died in battle as a gift on the day we defended the Cradle of America's birthplace." Nate opened the door to Faneuil Hall with his right hand and showed the raiders inside.

"Mind the smell."

\111/

Ch. 20 It's a Wonderful Day in the Neighborhood

October 27th, 2287
5:55 P.M.

Nate and Meathead spoke very little, keeping the air of mystic and authority around them while warding off any side conversation. Placating the raiders with a tour of Faneuil Hall, they needed to suppress the urge to vomit in the upper floors, as the lingering smell was far from dissipated. He gave them the packs of cigarettes, which even despite their pungent odor, was more preferable than the rot.

Eight raiders stayed behind, throwing up barricades however they could, expecting a mutant retaliation in the near future. Nate was guided by Rathen and the rest of his crew back towards Haymarket Mall.

Lead back through the parking garage into Haymarket Mall, they walked through the building and were almost immediately offered drugs, which Nate accepted, but he only stowed them away.

The interior was nearly dark, with only a few ambient light sources. Dirt, mud, and fallen bits of ceiling, along with debris caked the floors. Every step was walking over piles of built up trash and refuse that needed to be swept out.

The storefronts were all repurposed, a home outdoor and recreation store that once sold grills, lawnmowers, and patio furniture was their kitchen, with the light sources being barrel fires. A clothing store was their bunk house, mats and beds lined out on the floor. A second clothing store on the lower floor was their dumping grounds for all the loot they brought in, and guns, food, and alcohol, while also serving as their first line of defense. The second clothing storefront was adjacent to the main street entrance, if someone came in through the front, past their gates outside, there wouldn't be any cover for anyone advancing in.

Down through the two story mall, Nate looked up and to the walls where turrets were mounted high up in the corners.

"Rathen." Nate stopped and pointed one finger lazily up to the turrets on the wall.

"What?"

"Rathen, do those turrets work?"

"No. They've never worked, we know they have power, but we don't have anyone who can turn them on."

"Well, how's this? I turn the turrets on, and then we talk about maybe doing some trading in the future? Is there a terminal somewhere in the building? A security office where these turrets might be connected to a computer?"

"Yes, but we don't have the password. No one to get into the thing."

"Show me, and as an act of friendship, I will turn them on for you."

The group of raiders inside Haymarket were lit with activity, their spirits high at the deaths of all the neighboring super mutants. More were sent over to Faneuil Hall to quickly loot the guns of the mutants, and bring back any worthwhile supplies.

Others were sticking close behind Rathan, Nate, and Meathead. Nate's declaration that he could turn on the electronics sparked interest in all of them. "Downstairs. Off to the right here."

Lead into a utility tunnel, through a door marked 'Security', there were two more protectrons in their pods, one a medic for shoppers who might've suffered a collapse, choking, heart attack, or stroke within Haymarket Mall when it was still a place for customers to come through unabated, while the other was a police protectron to discourage shoplifters.

Nate was shown the computer, and the raiders poked their heads into the utility tunnel, or crowded around the desk. Nate booted the computer up and ran the maintenance protocol, and quickly found a backdoor into the user access. In less than a minute, Nate gained access to the computer. "Do you want those two protectrons on patrol?"

"You can get those too?" Rathen asked, the other raiders cast their attention towards the protectron pods, there were crowbar marks around the seal, chips in the glass where people tried to force the pods open to no success.

"Yes."

"Turn them on."

"Alright, now whatever anyone does, just do not shoot at them, otherwise they get...well, you know. They'll try to kill you."

Nate turned on the Haymarket Mall's defenses, around the lobby and exterior of the building, the laser turrets sprung to life for the first time in over two hundred ten years, and the pods opened, revealing two pristine protectrons. The raiders were in awe and shock at something they've never seen before in all their years of staying within the Mall for shelter.

"[Powering up! Protectrons on duty!]" They both said in unison, stepping out of their pods.

"Now I'm saying it again, I strongly suggest that you do not shoot them, nor the turrets, because otherwise they will kill you. got me? Got it? Got it?" The raiders gave quick little nods in return. Nate swept his eyes across the room as the raiders made room for the protectrons to pass by on their patrol routes. "Got it? Got it?"

"What's your name? I never got your name." Rathen asked.

"Nate. That's Meathead."

Rathen snapped his fingers, "Oy, you two, show him the way; but before you go, Nate, could turn on two more computers? There's one in the offices above us, and then one in the parking garage."

"On the promise that I just want to be able to walk around without being shot at, sound good?" Nate was planning on coming through here again, with the U.S.S. Constitution so close, with robots up above, and raiders down on the street, his desire for a safe walk to and from places formulated the basis for plans with the raiders.

"Yeah, we just want to bulk up our defenses. This'll be good. We've never had these things turned on." Rathen nodded, the other raiders stepped up with their confidences bolstered, knowing they have a new ally.

"I'm Jata-" A woman approached him wearing a blue beanie, white shirt, grey pants, and boots laced all the way up to her shin, with patches of armor strapped to both arms and carried two pipe pistols on both sides of her hip. The man behind her wore a green shirt and shorts, with grey slip on sandals and a short pipe rifle.

"Polo." He introduced himself as, Nate looked at them and waved his hand for them to lead the way. Minding the protectrons walking down the utility corridor, they lead him around Haymarket Mall once more, turning on old security systems and showing Nate the ins and outs of the old building.

"They can show you the computers, I need to go see what's happening with the Hall. Nate, when you're done, where are you going?"

"Goodneighbor."

"They can show you our route we use to get there," Rathen said, "I'll let my people know you're one of us."

Nate smiled at that, looking down at Meathead who remained quiet the entire time. Petting him, he passed on a bit of love, and then was guided around the Mall to the other computers. Running the maintenance program, and using administrator access, there was one more protectron that booted to life, and wandered around in a circuit through the parking garage.

Up in the offices above the mall, the interior was even more dark, thrashed, dilapidated, and the site of many shootouts. Out of all the entrances to the Mall, this was the only one that could be accessed through a maze of apartments, torn down walls, and an elevator that gave access to a garden terrace, which lead down into a neighboring apartment building. The roundabout path was rigged with explosives, but mutants and other raider gangs braved the path because it offered the most firing cover if they were chased back. From the time Nate and Meathead first entered the Mall, to when they left with Jata and Polo escorting them, only thirty minutes passed.

\111/

"That's the bookstore, Goodneighbor is on the other side of the rubble mound." Polo pointed out. The entire street was blocked by a semi truck and trailer, with a small mountain of rubble large enough to cover the truck all the way up so only the roof of the cab and trailer were visible.

"We usually go around the backside of the big red building." Jata commented.

"Mass Fusion?" Nate inquired.

"Gunner territory. They're camped out inside." Jata said.

"Gotcha."

"Any chance we can convince you to go after them like you did with the super mutants?" Polo asked.

"Get a few beers in me, and then I'll think about it. I haven't been inside there for a long time." Nate said, rolling his eyes up to the sky. Poking above the tallest buildings on Nate's right side was the looming Mass Fusion tower. Easily one of the tallest buildings in all of Boston.

"There's two bars in Goodneighbor, one the Third Rail, the other is in the hotel across the street." Jata said.

"The only reason I'd want to go up there is to throw a person I have in mind off the top." Nate said, pointing to the ledge dozens of stories above their heads.

"Huh? Who?"

"I want to hang the man who kidnapped my son." Nate said.

"Oh. Bummer." Jata said. "What's he look like?"

"Wore a black leather jacket, green pants, bald, scar on the left side of his face from where his hairline would've been, to of his cheekbone. Carried a .44 magnum." Nate traced the imaginary scar on his face, but both raiders shook their heads.

"No dice." Polo said. Jata shrugged, not knowing who this person could be.

They walked through the alleys behind the super structure and pointed to the backside of the Old State House. "There she is, Goodneighbor."

"Thank you for your guidance."

"Thank you for being a bad ass. Holy shit. You knocked out a whole shitload of super mutants and didn't even flinch when Rathen walked up to you. I thought for sure he was gonna cap you right off the bat, but you were just sitting there like you owned the place."

"I suggested to Rathen to prepare for a counter attack from super mutants. I don't know how Mutants operate yet, and I'll give you the same advice I gave to him. Be alert. You'll never know when some one mutant or a dozen may come along and walk through the door, unaware of what's happened, only to find a whole bunch of people sleeping in their beds."

"Good point." Polo said,

"Before I leave, do you know how many gangs are between here and Diamond City?"

"Too many. At least ten. They're all over the place, main roads are neutral ground through, no one can claim them, but the buildings surrounding them are good vantage points. Otherwise, avoid the swan."

"The swan?"

"Big fucking mutant. Lives in the pond in the park. Stay the fuck away. He'll ruin your day and squish you flat." Jata said.

"How big?"

"Twenty Feet tall. I've seen him take a missile to the chest and shrug it off like it was nothing." Polo described.

Nate nodded, looking down at Meathead.

"Thank you, Jata. Polo. I suggest you return to Rathen and stay safe."

\111/

The backside of the Old State House was boarded up and gated all they way across the street, blocking off everything and funneling foot traffic down to a door marked by a neon arrow that read 'Goodneighbor'.

There was no guard, and through the gate, the area opened up. A low brick wall running along side the street, with the aesthetics of old gas street lanterns that were changed to electric centuries ago, but then changed back again in the present time. The Old State House and plaza around it was well lit up. To the right, the gate extended and then made a ninety degree turn after ten meters.

Directly in front of the gate were two stores, one neon sign of a pistol with a yellow and black sign behind it reading 'Guns, Guns, Guns.' A third sign sticking out of the corner read 'Kill or Be Killed'.

Next to that was a Nuka-Cola sign followed by 'Daisy's Discounts', where the wall connected to the outside of the building, blocking the rest of the road off.

They were barely both through the small unguarded door when they were held up by a bald man wearing a leather jacket and jeans, but no scar.

"Hey. This is your first time to Goodneighbor, you can't go walking around with a little insurance." The man said.

Nate narrowed his eyes, glancing down to Meathead, the dog started growling and Nate went up and looked the man in the eye.

"Insurance was, and always will be, a scam. Back off. Not interested." Nate said, brushing him off and walking past. The man held out a hand to Nate's chest, stopping him. Meathead growled louder, saliva dripping off his bared teeth.

"I don't think you realize your not safe walking around the streets of Goodneighbor, friend." Nate's hand went to his holster, ready to draw when a voice to their left called out to them. A man that was leaning in the doorway of the Old State House pried himself off and walked towards the duo.

"Hey! Whoa, whoa, whoa. A man walks through the gate for his first time, he's a guest. You lay off that extortion crap"

Wearing a red leather frock coat that came down to the man's shins, adorned with faded frills, large archaic buttons, and wearing a black leather tricorn hat, Nate saw the mans face and was instantly aware that this wasn't an ordinary man. Black eyes, without any whiteness to them, sunken heavily into the skull. The skin was so dark and dried that it looked like tanned jerky. Without a nose, the man was actually a sentient ghoul.

He walked down the steps with both arms out to the side, "What'd you care? He ain't one of us."

"No love for your mayor, Finn? I said let 'em go."

"You're soft, Hancock. You keep letting outsiders walk all over us, one day there'll be a new mayor." Finn threatened.

Nate readied his .44, spinning the ammo chamber so that it clicked loudly and brought Finn's attention back to his gun. Hancock held up his palm to Nate and he lowered it.

"Come on Finn, this is me we're talking about." Hancock walked within arms reach of Finn and placed his left hand on his right shoulder. "Let me tell you something."

Reaching back with his right hand behind his waist and pulled out a long sharp six inch knife and plunged it straight into Finn's throat and chest. Finn put his hands to his throat to staunch the flow of blood out of his body, but his lungs were filling with blood as one collapsed. He fell to the ground, dying and choking on his own blood.

"Now why did you have to go and say that?" Hancock said, talking to the dying man. Looking up to Nate, "Now I know you had ole' Finn handled there, but a mayor's gotta make a point sometimes. You all right?" Nate nodded.

"I'm good, thank you for taking care of him. Can't say the same for the mutants at Faneuil Hall, but, I'm good."

"Good. Now don't let this incident taint your view of our little community." Hancock shrugged his shoulder's back and opened both hands wide open to him. "Goodneighbor's of the people, for the people, you feel me? Everybody's welcome."

Finn finally uttered his last gutteral dying breath and Nate looked down.

"Nothing a few drinks wouldn't help me forget. I feel you. Now, where's the bar I've heard so much about?"

"Good, so long as you remember who's in charge." Jerking his thumb over his shoulder down the alley leading to Scolley Square, the path wrapped around to the front side of the Old State House. "That a-way."

"Come on, Meathead. I'm thirsty as a mother fucker and I intend to get drunk." Nate said, "Man it's been a long fucking day."

Mayor Hancock turned around, walking back for the door leading into the Old State House. Nate took one look up at the two stores in Goodneighbor and kept on walking. He was stopped by a red-head's comment with the hair shaved off the left side of her head, and combed over to the right.

"A new player in Goodneighbor, welcome to our fun and games, Pawn." She smiled deviously and walked up the door into the State House behind Hancock.

"People are just get fucking weirder and weirder, Meathead. This day and age...must be something in the water." Nate said, writing off the murder that happened in front of him.

The short walk around the corner was watched by the Neighborhood Watch, a group of button up suit and overcoat wearing men and ghouls carrying submachine guns, and looking they walked right out of a gangster movie. The ghouls shared Hancock's sunken in, dried skin look, and didn't mind commenting on the new arrival.

"Vault suit? Classy."

"The blood washes right off. It's pretty good." Nate said in passing. Standing directly below the sign that read 'The Third Rail', there was a balcony above them, and Nate could see Hancock looking down.

The way Hancock regarded him, made Nate feel he was bound to speak with him again.

\111/

Ch. 21 The Third Rail October 27th

Author's Note

"Diamond City Radio! Folks! The great green jewel of the Commonwealth. Travis Lonely Miles always playing music in time to keep...shit I messed up.

Always playing music to keep the good times rolling..." He gulped, looking at his door to the trailer and expecting someone to bust it down.

"You may be young, but if you have enough sense...you'll rethink firing a gun around here...Here's Pete Wingfield with '18 with a Bullet'.

Pressing the play button to the broadcasting equipment, he quickly shut off his microphone and brought the palm of his hand to his face. "Gah..." He sighed, peeking through his fingers to the piece of paper written on his desk with the same words he spoke, written down in proper order.

"It was right Freiking there! All I had to do was say it right! Darnit! Darnit! Darnit!" Sinking down into his chair, he rolled his eyes around his studio and living space, looking for another tape to play after the song was over.

Ch. 21 The Third Rail October 27th

October 27th, 2287.

6:23 P.M.

"How cold is the beer?" Nate asked, walking straight up to the bar and taking a stool.

The Third Rail was a subway station directly underneath the Old State House, the tunnels out of the station were collapsed, in their place was furniture, and a stage on the left hand side of the bar area coming down, with a VIP section off to the right, where at one point would've been the maintenance and utilities area. There were bullet holes all around the bar, with a few plaster marks to cover some of them. The lighting was bright for an underground bar but dim by the counter.

The Mr. Handy robot behind the bar wafted over, his jets underneath aimed towards him and claw arm spinning around his frame to be the centermost position. He wore a bowler hat and on his shell behind was the British flag. Speaking in a proper English accent, the bartender said, "Our current temperature for carbonated alcoholic beverages is 37.7 degrees Fahrenheit."

Nate swallowed, licking his bottom lip, swinging his head down to Meathead, "Meat, I'm so God damn thirsty right now..." He said, shaking his head. He swallowed again, trying to clear a dry lump from his throat.

"What...it's been at four days since I've had an ice cold one?" He nodded, and Meathead returned the motion.

Meathead hopped up and sat on his rear, front legs still straight and back legs bent down, his tail dropping down over the stool behind him. All paws on the stool, Meathead wagged his tail.

"Meathead, you want a beer?"

"" A few people in the seating area got a quick chuckle at Nate's expense for ordering a drink for his dog.

"I'll take twenty beers. Make it twenty-one. Fifteen for me, six for the lightweight here," A few more soft laughs, overhearing the large order. "I'll take them one after the other...but first I need three shots of whiskey."

"Scotch, Irish, or American?"

"American, The Bean."

"Excellent choice, sir. I'll have your drinks ready shortly."'

Meathead snuffed through his nose, grabbing Nate's attention.

"What?"

"" he breathed through his nose, eyes darting towards the bartender.

"Yeah. It's a bar, Meathead. You order drinks, besides, if the water is no good. Drink beer."

His throat felt dry and scratchy, tongue rough and the taste of dried blood needed to be rinsed from his mouth.

The Mr. Handy bartender pried off the tops of the caps and set them on the counter along with three shots of Jim Bean, then placed the beers in front of Nate and Meathead.

"Thank you for everything that's happened, everything that will happen, and everything that's happening right now," Nate said, lifting the shot glass up and quickly downing it.

Nate tensed with excitement after hearing the small hiss from the bottle cap being removed and the gasses escaping, feeling the cold glass in his fingers and then bringing it up to his bottom lip, he slowly tilted it back. The first taste wet his tongue, and he broke out in goose pimples. The hair on his arms stood up and he looked over to Meathead and nodded.

The dog put his entire mouth over the lip of the bottle, "You're going to create an air pocket if you do it like that." Nate passed the comment along.

"If you're going to chug a beer, you can't put your top lip on the bottle, it cuts off the air flow and makes air bubbles." He said, tilting his own beer back. The Gwinnett Pale Ales were lightly golden in color, crisp acidic with a lingering hoppy aftertaste. Nate poured the beer down his gullet in one uninterrupted stream and exhaled. Panting, breathing heavily. He looked around the bar and his shoulders relaxed.

"Watch, Meaty." Stepping off his barstool, he crouched down so he his head was level with the counter. "I learned this in Mexico. Start in three...two...one..."

Nate picked up the beer, and tilted it up, then higher, then almost straight up, giving the bottle a swirl, and then straight up creating a whirlpool effect that sent the beer straight down without it bubbling up. He drank the 12 ounces of beer in two seconds.

"Ghuh...Fhew...Heah..." Meathead looked up to Nate,

"" His mouth barely parted, lips breaking open but no one could've heard or seen his mouth move. He spoke very softly and lapped at his lips.

"Yeah, I'm good, I just... it's been a long week."

Last month we went shopping at the Galleria with Nora and Shaun to pick up Codsworth. Last Thursday Nora and I went to dinner at the Shipwreck Grill, and Friday we went to the movies in Lexington. Then in the last five days...the bombs dropped, Nora was shot, Shaun kidnapped, everyone but us died in the Vault. There were the Concord Raiders and that fucking deathclaw, then...." Nate waved over the bartender, and he set another beer down in front of Nate. He grabbed it with his right hand while scratching Meathead behind the ears with his left. "Then you showed up, and we skirted east, and dealt with the group in...the compound. After that, it was Bunker Hill, the ship, set sail, and...it's been a long week." He took a long swig of his second beer.

"Everything I've ever seen or known is blasted, and you're one of the only things from the past that I can still look at without frieking out Meathead. I love you, buddy." Nate scratched Meathead's back harder, taking another drink.

Meathead sat up straighter, ears up, enjoying the back scratch and making a few "Graw..raw..rwoar" noises. Finishing his second beer, Nate set it on the counter and waited for the bartender, Whitechapel Charlie to bring him another.

Tilting his head and leaning into Nate's hand, he slowly reached his head down and wrapped the bottle around his lips, then throwing his head up, the dog took a sip and set the bottle back down onto the counter.

"Goo'boy."

\111/

"

"Meathead, only bitches count." He said, licking his lips. Drinking out of another bottle, he turned down to his dog, "This is number 13 by the way."

Whitechapel Charlie hovered back with another round, "Now that you're good and liquored up, I got a proposition for you. Blood on the pavement. Bodies in the ground. That kind of thing. You interested?"

"Who and what are the details, Charlie?"

"I got an anonymous client who's paying top dollar for a cleanup job. Three locations. Everyone inside. No witnesses. Only catch, it's all in town, in the old warehouses, so I can't use my regulars. Too noticeable. That's where you come in. The job pays 200 caps. Payment after it's done...and don't worry. I'll know when it is."

Nate rubbed his chin, looking down at Meathead. "How many caps did we bring?" Meathead shook his head. "Let me guess, it's the guy who owns the place who's putting you up to this?"

"Eh. Not like it's hard to figure out who's running the show here. Mayor Hancock's frontin' the caps. Internal political struggle. You know how it is."

"You hold on to my tab for ten minutes and I'll get this right taken care of quick, ey Charlie? But...fuck 200. I can't do squat with 200. I think I just drank two hundred in beer."

"ninety-one in beer, plus 30 for the shots. That's one 21 you owe. But, all right, three hundred."

"Ch-Ah. I had a long day Charlie. Otherwise, I wouldn't be down here drinking your delicious crisp ice-cold beer. I'm gonna need a little more caps to pay back the bar tab I'm gonna have by the end of the night."

"You cheeky bugger. Giving me a right kick in the Alberts. All right. Four hundred, but that's as high as I'm going."

"There we go. Meathead, pay attention. Let's go. , Charlie, I'll get it done. Be back in fifteen."

"Go bust some heads," Charlie said, waving him off.

\111/

Nate walked out of the Third Rail and heard Hancock calling out to the people below from the balcony directly above the door to the Third Rail.

"All right everyone, gather around. Now. I know you all are doing your own thing. But, I don't want anyone to here to forget what matters..." Nate walked out from under the shadow and turned around, looking up and joining a small crowd of maybe ten people. The railing was strung up with an old red, white, and blue banner of the American flag colors. Nate stood up straight, feeling the joints in his back pop, and he decided to stay and listen.

As Hancock addressed the crowd, Nate could hear Meathead buzzing like a fly in his ear, whispering.

""

Hancock picked out a face in the troupe. "Daisy! Good to see your face. Glad you could make it. Didn't I see you with Markowski the other day?"

Daisy, another ghoul, and operator of Daisy's Discounts cupped her hands and shouted back. "He wishes!"

"All right. All right. We're getting off track." Hancock said, looking around. A few more members of the Neighborhood watch gathered along with some drifters and settlers from the small community collected underneath the balcony at the Old State House. "What was I saying? Oh! That's right. What matters..."

"We freaks gotta stick together! And the best way to stick together is to keep an eye out for what drives us apart! You feel me?" The crowd nodded and shouted yes in response.

"Tell it like it is, Hancock!"

"Now! What out there, in our big, friendly Commonwealth would want to drive us apart? What kind of twisted, un-neighborly boogeyman would want to hurt our peaceful community?"

"The Institute and their synths!" the man shouted.

"" He whispered.

"Who said that?! You! Come on up for some Jet, later. The Institute! They're the real enemy! Not the raiders! Not the super mutants! Not even those tools over in Diamond City!"

"Screw Diamond City, I wanna punch that McDonough right square in the balls if I had the chance! Right square in the balls!"

"Hey! We all know I got beef with shit-for-brains, but stay focused!" Hancock cut any idle chatter by placing both hands down on the railing and leaning over.

"Now, I want everyone to keep the Institute in mind. When someone starts acting funny. When people are doing things they don't normally do. When family starts pushing you away for no reason. We all know who's behind that kind of shit!" Hancock's fists were balled up, and his voice grew louder. "And the only way to stop it is by sticking together! They can't control us if we're not afraid!"

There were a few shouts of 'Yeah!' from the crowd.

"Now who's scared of the Institute?"

"Not us!" Came the overwhelming reply.

"And which town in the Commonwealth should the Institute NOT FUCK WITH?"

"Goodneighbor!" The crowd shouted back.

"And who's in charge of Goodneighbor?!"

"Hancock! Hancock! Hancock!"

Everyone around Nate shouted along with Hancock as he said the words, "Of the people! For the people!"

""

"Meathead. Is that guy still watching me?"

The dog nodded.

"Watch this."

Hancock turned around and went back inside the Old State House, Nate held his right hand in the shape of a gun, pinkie and ring finger in, he was still wearing his gold wedding ring. Middle and pointer finger out with thumb sticking up, he turned around and looked the man in the eye. He was wearing glasses and a suit like most people in Goodneighbor, and tried to look like he wasn't just staring at Nate.

Holding his right hand close to his chest, and pointing his finger at the man, he said, "Bang." and cocked his hand up like he fired a shot.

The man looked like he was struck by lightning at that moment, and sneered. "Not funny, jag off."

The man walked away, "." Meathead whispered.

"If he wants to talk to me, he'll talk to me. If he doesn't, he can fuck off."

\111/

Fifteen .45 caliber submachine guns and an armful of 10 mm pistols covered in fresh blood would've drawn more attention to them than they wanted.

Meathead was there to whisk every single gun and bullet away into a neat and tidy warp space and walk through the streets, without looking any worse for wear. They were both back inside the Third Rail fifteen minutes later as Nate said.

Nate sat down in his same barstool, Meathead taking a seat next to him, Whitechapel Charlie placed a fresh beer down in front of Nate and he said, "Cheers."

"Indeed mate, the boss is mighty pleased you took care of his rat problem."

"What's it take to get a meeting with the Mayor around here?"

Charlie scoffed, "Door's open. But, word on the street is that he likes Mentats." Nate nodded, tipping his drink back.

"I always liked the grape flavored ones. Meathead, another beer?"

\111/

"OH! Show me the way to go home!
I'm tired and I want to go to bed!
I had a little drinkie 'bout an hour ago.
An it went straight to my head!"

Where'ver I roam, Land or sea or foam,
you can always hear me singing this song!
Show me the way to go Home, Home, Home!" Nate wiped his face and stared up at the ceiling. Sitting in the barstool, he tapped his heels together three times and shook his head.

OH! Show me the way to go home! " Stomping his foot down, the force was enough to be felt by Meathead next to him.
I'm tired and I want to go to bed! [Stomp!]
I had a drink a bout an hour ago! [Clap]
And it went strit' to my head! [Stomp!]

"Leave the singin' to the lady!" Someone called to him, Nate sung louder.

SHOW ME THE WAY TO GO HOME!
Buying drinks, swell kinks!
Gathering in a... bar like today!
A Scotsman who had a few was feel'n rather gay!
He kept drink'n with each guy, as the hours fled!
When it came his time to buy, he stood up and said!

OH! SHOW ME THE WAY TAGGER HOME!
I'M TIR'D and Wanna GO TA BED.
I had a wee drappie about an HOUR A GO
AND IT WENT STRAIGHT TO MEY HEAD!"

Meathead howled along.
""

Oh show me the way to go home!
I'm tired and I wanna go to bed!
I drank about an hour ago,
and it's going to straight to my head!"

Nate grabbed his fifteenth beer and downed it, slamming it onto the table with a mighty belch. Staggering up away from his bar stool, he looked at the bartender.

"Where's the head!?" Nate shouted, Ping. His bladder was full and needed to make room for more beer. He glanced at his Pip-boy, the green Vault-Lad was sporting a half-lidded smile and giving him the Fonz thumbs up and pointer fingers out.

"Eyyy." He said to his Pip-Boy.

"Stay here, Meathead." Meathead set his head on the counter and wagged his tail. Quietly growling "Ruff."

Nate shook, walking back through the dirt covered tiles, "It's called a broom, people." He said to himself. The concrete ceiling carried a fair share of bullet holes from various gunfights in the bar over the years, along with larger divots and holes from cracking rock and pressure.

\111/

"Don't tell me you're getting rusty." He heard, ignoring the stares of the other people as he walked behind them, over to a corner where a small dead plant showing only the bare twigs and branches and he pulled down the zipper.

"It ain't like that. Just here to deliver a message."

"In case you forgot, I left the Gunners for good!" Nate's head jerked up as he worked up the flow and started peeing into the planter.

"Yeah. I heard-!" Came the reply.

"I heard too! Now everyone shut up, I'm taking a piss over here!" Nate shouted over his left shoulder.

Winlock and Barnes turned to scowl at Nate pissing in the planter, he propped his hand against the wall and was really hosing down the bush with some of the last eighteen drinks.

"Take your business elsewhere!" Winlock shouted, "You fucking drunk! This ain't the bathroom! Take it somewhere else."

"Can't! If I stop now, it stings!" Nate said to the wall, hosing down the plant liberally with piss.

"Speaking of which," Winlock grit his teeth, trying to remain focused. "You've been taking jobs in the Commonwealth, that ain't gonna work for us."

"It's 'it is not going to!' 'Ain't' is not a word!" Nate said, loud enough for the three men in the VIP lounge to hear.

"I'm gonna stab that bitch when he's done," Barnes said. MacCready broke out with a wide grin and stood up. "Heh."

Nate snorted, head bobbing up and down. "You'll find no Elbow Room in Dutch Harbor." Nate said to himself quietly.

"I don't take orders from you anymore. Why don't you take your girlfriend, and walk out of here while you still can." MacCready threatened.

"Winlock, tell me I don't have to listen to this shit," Barnes asked.

"OOoooh! Sounds like FIGHTIN words!" Nate said, his pee flow slowing down.

Barnes bit his lip, shaking his head, waiting for the moment to turn around, he already rested his hand on a knife sticking out of his belt.

"MacCready, the only reason you're not pumped full a bullets is because we don't want to start a war in Goodneighbor...you can play tough guy all you want, but if we hear you're operating in Gunner territory again, all bets are off."

"You finished?" MacCready asked Winlock and Barnes.

"~Almost!" Nate said, not realizing he wasn't part of the conversation. Giving it two shakes, he shuddered.

Barnes bit his lip and shook his head at Nate.

"Yeah...We're finished."

"HOLD IT!" Nate said, zipping up his fly and turning around. "You bitches are with the Gunners? The motherfucking skulls with X's on them painted around?" Nate asked.

"Yeah, we're with the Gunners, what the fuck do you want, drunkie?"

Nate smirked, "Sober enough to kick your ass!" Stagger sprinting across the room he jumped at Winlock fist outstretched and tackled him to the ground, rearing back his fist he saddled Winlock across the chest and threw haymaker punches into Winlock's temple.

Barnes kicked Nate in the head, throwing Nate off Winlock as MacCready shoved Barnes towards the door. Nate was on Winlock again, gripping his throat, he slammed his knee into the back of Winlock's leg and punched him right in the Adam's apple. On the ground, choking and dead-legged, Winlock struggled to get up. Barnes rushed Nate and pinned him to the wall, Nate slammed his knee up into Barnes' balls and he dropped to his knees, winded.

Nate punched Barnes left temple with his right fist and he fell sideways, slamming into the ground.

"Like he said! You had your chance to walk out of here." Nate said, rolling Winlock over, he straightened out the leg and foot, then jumped and slammed all his bodyweight down onto the left ankle joint. It broke with a crack and Winlock screamed, Barnes tried fighting off Nate as he stood up and looked down at Barnes.

"You said you were gonna stab me? Bitch?" Nate spat. Still nursing a swollen crotch, Nate kicked him in the balls again, stomping on the groin and shoving Barnes against the wall.

He pulled his right leg out and stomped down on his knee. "ARHGGRGHHE!!! FUCKING EX MOTHER FUCKERING GOSHAHD!!"

Nate stomped harder, cracking the leg and breaking the knee.

Meathead appeared at the threshold of the hallway and grimaced as Barnes howled, drawing more attention from people in the bar as they turned their heads to the VIP room.

"Shit! You are so fucking dead!" Winlock choked out, reaching into his pocket he pulled out a Stimpak and his hand was caught by Nate, crushing the stimpak between Winlock's hands, the glass shards and needle broke into his hand, bloodying the fist.

Winlock screamed as MacCready sat back down, his eyes going up to the former Gunner with a look of spite and indignity.

"Oh no, you don't."

Nate yanked him up onto his feet and threw him over his right shoulder, then picked up Barnes and flung him over his left.

Marching out, hustling down the hallway past Meathead and up the stairs, he huffed and panted, kicking the door open with his leg, he took two steps out into the street and flung them down onto the pavement.

"You come around here again, and I will fucking curb stomp your teeth in! I fucking dare you to use a stimpak after that!" He shouted in front of the bewildered Goodneighbor guards, pointing at the two Gunners trying to crawl up to their knees.

Nate grabbed the doorknob to the Third Rail, slamming the door to the Gunners outside.

Walking downstairs, the rest of the patrons were staring at him as he returned to the bar, but he was drunk enough to be oblivious to them. Meathead and MacCready were there at the bar, waiting on him to return.

"Sooo...can I pay for your drink?" MacCready asked.

Nate turned his head and looked at MacCready, "Shiiiit. You wanna pay for my last drink, that'd be great."

MacCready held back a laugh, then exhaled, and then laughed. A few other bar customers were smiling as well and shared in with the laughter.

"You realize who those guys are, right?" MacCready asked.

"Course I do! They said they were Gunners."

"You do realize that there's Gunners holed up in the Mass Fusion tower literally right next door? And that's is most definitely the first place they'll crawl to?"

"Really? They're that close? Good, means they won't have to go too far to reach their mother's asshole where they crawled out of." Nate said, looking up at the Mr. Handy bartender.

"Your next round? Sir?" Nate glanced down at Meathead, then to MacCready.

"Nah, the beer here is warm. I'm good."

"Jog on..." The bartender said, hovering away.

"So what's your beef with the Gunners?"

Nate had to focus, turning his head to MacCready again.

"Here I was...tryna be friendly...tryna be a good neighbor...and they shot at me."

"Who? And Where?"

Nate closed his eyes and belched, "Overpass near...Wildwood Cemetery. Bitches. I was about to fire back when Boomer comes along, and cut's their heads off and carved the letters to spell out BOOM into their skulls and lined them all up."

"What happened? They take something from you?"

"Nope... But...It makes you think. Who goes around shooting at every person they see?"

MacCready nodded and smiled, "They try to screw you over like everyone else?"

"Nope. They pointed a gun at me, intent to kill, so I don't trust them."

MacCready's hands were open on the bar, thumbs up and palms open. "That's it?" He probed.

"That's it." Nate nodded.

"You fucked up two Gunners because some other chumps at an overpass shot at you one time?"

"Well, it wasn't really one time, it was more like a lot of machine gun fire...and then I decided. IF THEY DON'T want to play nice, they can all go fuck themselves. Then I remembered a guy in Concord told me the Gunners massacred a whole bunch of people at..." Nate swallowed.

MacCready was on the edge of his seat, grabbing Nate's attention. "...At?"

"Quincy. The Gunners. The Minutemen had a coup. Half of 'em said fuck the town and its people, it doesn't pay enough. And that's what get's me riled up. It makes me want to kill every single one of those motherfuckers for abandoning their post for money. Then they went in to massacre almost everyone there except for the group that I met." Nate said, looking down at the bar top.

MacCready's shoulders tensed up. "Quincy's down? What happened to the other people from Quincy?" His cheeks were tight, and he squinted a little in confusion.

"Yep. Last sign I saw of anyone was right before raiders from the Corvega plant in Lexington came in and separated us near the Museum of Freedom in Concord. That...and a Deathclaw showed up...two of em. Fuckers tore the Corvega raiders apart and fucked up a suit of power armor I was wearing too...the second one dragged me away and I blew it's head off with a grenade I shoved down its throat."

"Jesus..what happened next?"

"I..." Nate burped a long slow, "Urrrrrp. Started picking over bodies, looking for ammo and guns. Those deathclaws sure like to soak up the bullets." He said nodding.

"The Gang from QUINCY." MacCready insisted. "What happened to them?"

"Probably all dead. More than most likely all dead." MacCready rubbed his eyes, swearing to himself.

"Well, if you need an extra gun, I'm willing to give you a discount after dealing with Winlock and Barnes for me."

"They'll be back...not for a while after what I did to them, but they'll come back like cockroaches after their heads are popped off...crawling around disgusting little cocksuckers... What's your name? You said they were posted up right next door?"

Nate asked, pointing a finger into MacCready's chest and leaning into him, slowly blinking and squinting at him, wondering if he's seen him before.

"MacCready."

"MacCready...I'm N-" Yawning, he accidentally cut himself off and kept talking. "Those Gunners seem like the type of assholes who'le come back and stab you in the middle of the ~urp~ night..." Nate closed his eyes. "When you're passed out drunk in your bed. Fucking Nazz'yghouls." Nate poked MacCready hard in the heart with his pointer finger.

"Yeah. They're fucking nasty ghouls. And they would too. How about this...For two hundred caps, I'll make sure they don't get anywhere near you and be your bodyguard."

Nate exhaled loudly through his nose and smiled. "How about a trip to the top of Mass Fusion? I wanna check out the view."

Nate waited for MacCready to respond...

"What??" MacCready asked, Nate's head was swaying, eyes squinting and face flush red.

"What do you want from me, MacCready?"

"Money, for one, but I like finding another person who hates the Gunners as much as I do. The only problem is that your suicidal going up inside the Mass tower."

"Peshaw! I don't hate the Gunners, I hate that they think they can make more money by killing people! Those dumb motherfuckers! If I were leading the show...hehe. You don't make money by killing people...or raiding caravans... I want to go to the top of Mass Fusion."

The dog inhaled sharply and brought his neck up straighter, growling low in his throat.

"You want to go to the top of the building? There are at least fifteen Gunners inside. The Lobby has-"

"SHHHHhhhhhh...I know. I been in there before. Security on the left, security on the right, little stairs leading down, and a wall of elevators on the back right with two sets of staircases leading up that circle around up into the building, with a nuclear reactor housing one of the two most rarest pieces of machinery in the fucking world is less than a thousand feet away from us... Whole bunch of expensive shit in there, I bet. I know there's the Byzantinium somethinginator built by the boys at Mass Fusion. I bet people would pay a mint for that."

"Huh? A what?"

Nate shook his head and his hands.

"WHAT do YOU know about giant fuckin' robots..." Nate leaned his head way back, imagining how tall the mechanical marvel was. "One hundred feet tall and shouts GOD BLESS AMERICA FUCKING KILL ALL THE COMMIES!?"

MacCready turned in his barstool to look at Nate completely.

"Liberty Prime? You know about that?" Meathead growled louder, and Nate shushed him.

"LIBERTY PRIME! That's what it was! GOD if that thing hadn't a shown up at False pass...I'd still be there! It comes stomping over the hills and FUCK! It was fucking huge! There we were on Unimak and see the biggest robot boner coming to fuck all these Chinese commies."

Nate looked around the bar, at the three other patrons still here after so long into the night.

"How are you with animals?"

"What? Good- what did you mean by Liberty Prime? What are you talking about? Where the heck is Alaska?"

"WHERE THE HECK IS ALASKA?! It's so far north, and west, that it's east too! The Allee-oops go so far west it goes across the international border, that it's the most northern, western, and eastern state!

"Liberty Prime. What are you talking about? The only Liberty Prime was the one in the Capital Wasteland. It was destroyed ten years ago! Is there a second one in Alaska?" MacCready was leaning out of his seat, grabbing Nate's shoulder to focus him.

Nate inhaled and blew out his next breath. "Liberty Prime was a beast. She got the rest of 'em that didn't freeze. Cleaned the Chinese up. The winter...FUCK it was cold that winter! The only thing...keeping Liberty Prime...from getting close to False Pass was Doctor Xian. Ex eye aye en...and he...wasn't happy when we found his 'anator."

"Guy, What the fuck are you talking about?!"

"The Blyzantinium amprifier!" Nate slurred. "Now...I gotta go take another leak, and this one is gonna be off the top of Mass Fusion. You coming or not?"

"That is a bad idea. You're shitfaced drunk, and can barely stand."

"Oh, don't worry about that. Bartender! Lime juice! And Salt! And a shot of Tequila! Curteshy of this guy!" Nate jabbed a thumb towards MacCready.

"I don't think more drinking will help you."

"I don't give a shit what you think! Come on!" Nate waited for the bartender to pour the lime juice into a small shot glass, along with a second shot glass of Tequila, and place a salt shaker on the counter.

"Salt. Shot. Then the lime." Nate unscrewed the cap of the salt shaker, and let the granules sprinkle onto the counter. MacCready watched the new patron pour a small pile of salt onto the soft spot between his thumb and pointer finger on the back of his hand.

Licking the salt off, Nate drank the shot of alcohol and kept it in his mouth while he tilted his head back and dumped the lime juice into each eye. MacCready and Meathead both widened their eyes as Nate shook and swallowed he Tequila and shouted. "ARGHHA!"

MacCready's mouth hung open, "I...don't think that's how that works."

More awake and sober than he was ten minutes ago, Nate looked MacCready in the eye with tears pouring down his face and eyes burning red. "Let's go."

Nate said, standing up swaying, he kicked over his stool and knocked over three empty beer bottles. One broke against the floor, Meathead barked, trying to get Nate's attention, but Nate was charging up the steps, three at a time.

"Wait! Wait you drunk fucker! You're gonna get yourself killed! And you didn't pay me!"

Whitechapel Charlie poured MacCready a shot, "You know this is going on your tab. Hint. Hint."

"I know, I know. Be back in a bit." MacCready tasted the salt, slammed the shot, then sucked on the lime. Scooting back from the bar counter, he chased after Nate.

Meathead chased after Nate, up onto the street. Nate sprinted down the sidewalk and stepped on Winlock and Barnes backs, stooping down to pick a combat knife and sheath off Barnes, and kept running for the Goodneighbor gate.

\111/

Nate stumbled and slurred through the front doors of Mass Fusion with a combat rifle and a combat knife in his left hand, "I think you're all special just the way you are! Won't you be my neighbor?" Tripping over his feet, he fell face first onto the ground and started snoring loudly.

The closest Gunner, a woman with blue eyes, brown hair buzzed into a short mohawk, and a AAR 5.56 mm rifle aimed right at Nate actually paused, walking up to him and poking Nate in the back with the barrel of her rifle.

"Sho'we just toss the drunk out? Or just kill him?" She asked, facing the Gunners.

Nate was already on his feet, yanking the gun out of the woman's hands and swinging the combat knife in a wide arc right into her neck. Twisting her around, he leveled her combat rifle on her shoulder, using the left hand to keep her upright as she grasped at her neck, trying to breathe as Nate used her as a human shield and lined up VATS shots.

\111/

Ch. 22 Build Mass with Sass

Author's Note

There's plenty of lessons we need to take to heart. People are always telling me, hey, Travis, do this that way, or something...The best lessons we learn are from dear old Mom and Dad. If it's watch out for the belt, or making sure we keep our nose clean, this song is for Momma.

Momma didn't lie, Jan Bradley.

Coming up next on Diamond. City. Radio."

Ch. 22 Build Mass with Sass

October 27th, 2287
10:25 P.M.

The automatic security system for Mass Fusion was trapped in lockdown.

Forced into a permanent state of alarm from the Great War, the building shook from the force of the atomic bombs, and all the elevators locked down.

All the doors that could be locked, were locked. All the emergency lights burned and burned, until the wiring producing the light finally burnt itself out. In the center of the lobby was an atomic particle sculpture in the middle of a fountain, the swirling electrons and neutrons around it, making it look like a perfectly balanced kinetiscope.

Mass Fusion was home to a massive nuclear power plant in the basement, and scores of scientific geniuses all gathering in one place in the name of science. These scientific havens were the beginnings of utopias, that were idealistic and tangible, but the means to fund such an operation was not.

These scientists wanted to get away from the war, and not take sides, they believed science could not pick sides or be biased.
The immutable fact was true, science could not be biased.

However, humans conducting science can be biased.

They can pick sides, they can test and test and test, and find enough one in one hundred scenarios and present the results in such a way, that it must be true. Perspective wise, the scientists didn't know the founder of Mass Fusion, Karl Oslow, was signing their research away on fusion energy in a lucrative contract to the United States Government. The scientists didn't know that despite all the nuclear waste being created, that it wasn't being treated or being disposed of properly. They lived their lives like any other well off American at the time, clocking into work, and ascending one of the seven elevators up five stories, then to another elevator which could take them as high as eighty five stories into the air where they would conduct their research, toss trash into the waste bins, and have the janitor come by and take it away to dispose of it.

Same with all the barrels that were being shipped to the basement of Mass Fusion tower, where each one was loaded with nuclear waste produced by the reactor powering hundreds of thousands of homes all around Boston and the tri-city area. From Concord to Quincy, and formerly Roxbury where the Glowing Sea was now the main source of all the radioactive dust and storms plaguing the Commonwealth, Mass Fusion provided energy for everyone.

The interior of the massive building was hollow, offices ringing around the square interior accessible by elevator or stairs. The only exception were the labs from the seventy first to eighty fourth floors. Where the Fire and Safety Commission were swayed by the installation of emergency elevators that were guaranteed to work in any situation, even with fire, terrorist bombing, earthquake, flooding, power outage, and pressure from the U.S. military and Mass Fusion that these floors contained research too valuable to be reached any other way.

Same with the reactor room in the basement, the only way down was by elevator. If, by some act of God, the containment field of the reactor broke, or an atomic bomb fell, then everyone was doomed either way.

But, during the time of design, there was no chance an act of God or nuclear bomb would fall.

Then times, unfortunately, changed.

The researchers, assistants, scientists, anyone unfortunate to be caught on the tallest floors of the Mass Fusion building were instantly trapped as the elevators were locked down, and left to starve or take the fast way down to the first floor, just mind the step.

\111/

The Gunners taking residence in the lower levels of the Mass Fusion tower were not able to activate the central lift elevator that would've taken them straight to the top, a key-card activated lift that was only given to certain employees before the war, and were stuck using torn down pieces of ceiling that gave away, and collapsed to the floor below them, where they could either push office desks and filing cabinets to use as ladders to reach higher floors.

There was a second lobby on the sixth floor, the floors below being administration, accounting, company records, and human resources. Everything above the sixth floor to the roof was considered a high value company asset that they didn't want just anyone being able to waltz in off the street.

Given time, the Gunners would've brought in specialists who can work on computers, disengage the security system, and activate the building's defenses on their own. But, faced with a guy who waltzed in off the street, drunk, holding a combat rifle and a grenade, they didn't have much time at all.

Nate killed the first three Gunners on the ground floor before they were fully aware of the situation. They were on alert, but the bullets ringing out silenced their thoughts.

Nate sweeped his gaze across the ground floor, looking into a security queue to his right side where two Gunners were staring out, readying their own weapons, when Nate fired six times and heaved the grenade into the booth.

MacCready and Meathead both came in after the grenade went off, seeing Nate slip into a corridor leading off to the left, where more monitoring stations were, along with the actual terminals to activate the protectrons from the first, to sixth floors, along with the installed machine gun turrets located on the roof of a walkway crossing the fourth floor.

Before the other Gunners could even fire back, they saw who was down at the bottom of the building and saw MacCready rushing towards Nate.

"HEY! It's MAC CREADY!"

"MacCready?!" The name echoed through the building, "MacCready! Kill him!"

MacCready shut his eyes for a moment and cursed to himself. "Damnit."

MacCready ran into the office, slamming the door shut and walking up to Nate hunched over the security terminal, dazing with his head dipping down. "Hey! Wake up! GOD DAMN DRUNK!"

"WHAT!?" Nate jerked his head up, realizing his fingers were resting on the keyboard, and the screen was filled with,

[kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk].

His eyes went around the room twice, trying to remember what he was here for when it hit him. Bullets crashed through the window looking out into the lobby. "Fuck!" Drunk Nate was less prone to stressful situations, but his awareness also handicapped as well. Trying to remember which stage he was in hacking the terminal required a sober thought to fight its way through drunk Nate's brain cells.

"They're coming!" MacCready shouted, taking post behind the wall, peering out, he raised his rifle to his shoulder and fired a volley back up at a Gunner at the third floor.

Ctrl. A + Delete, Nate tapped away at the keyboard, running the maintenance program. Gaining access to a highly advanced security system while very drunk and his adrenaline was coming and going like the crashing and receding of waves against the beach shore.

"And done." Nate said, picking up his combat rifle and Justice leaning against the wall. Two protectrons powered up, waddling out of their pods, and all around the building, the Gunners now dealt with turrets firing down on them from above, killing seven Gunners before they could fire back in response and blow up both of them.

Using the protectrons as cover, they followed the robots up the stairs behind the receptionist desk to the second and third floors. Nate held both guns out, resting them on his hips as he dual fired his rifle and shotgun at anyone who ducked into an office to avoid the now destroyed turrets.

The protectrons took up the entire hallway, a walking wall of death coming for all perceived threats. Firing around them, Nate and MacCready both progressed forward, even allowing for Meathead to run through a side door leading into an office, and rip the gun out of one of the Gunner's hands, and run it back for Nate and MacCready to use.

"Neat Trick!" MacCready shouted.

When one protectron went down, Nate fired a full clip of ammo from the taken assault rife directly back at the muzzle flash coming from an office on the other side of the building. Up and up, they reached the fifth floor, killing seven more gunners along the way.

The majority of the damage to the building was from collapsed ceiling panels, and floor boards that cant take the immense weight of the building above it, everything was slowly getting squished and had a slight lean to it.

When Nate and MacCready abandoned the protectron, the robot couldn't register following up a collapsed roof leading up to the fifth floor lobby. Separating the eighth floor and the roof of the seventh floor was a glass ceiling that was now covered with dust, dirt, and two skeletons along with small fracture marks where they impacted the glass after their fall from the higher stories.

They'd heard the stomping, heavy loud metallic stomping, and the hiss of hydraulic steam.

"MacCready! Show your damn face!"

"Lonnegran! It that you? Same old fucker?!" MacCready shouted back, a hail of bullets flew in their direction as their position was given away. Bullets tore through the side paneling and office space, sending bits of wall, papers, and metal everywhere.

Nate waved his hand down, slicing once across the neck, Meathead stuck close to Nate.

"I've already sent a man out, MacCready! Everyone will know it was you! You kill me, you're still DEAD! I'll just KILL YOU NOW!"

"Lonnegran, you couldn't scare a child with those threats!"

More rapid gunfire aimed at MacCready's voice chewed up the office building. "And you're a terrible shot!" The response was more bullets aimed at their driection, with the splintering of plaster and wood raining down on top of them.

Nate and Meathead moved up onto the fifth floor lobby, taking cover behind couches and a dried out planter in need of some water. Nate rose up and fired ten bullets at the power armor wearing Lonnegran. The shots impacted the T-51 armor, denting and riveting the armor, but doing no damage. Reaching for his laser pistol as Lonnegran turned and fired at Nate, MacCready pelted the Gunner Commander from behind, catching the man in a crossfire. When Lonnegran tossed a grenade, Meathead caught it before it even left his hand, waiting the grenade out as it blew up less than a foot away from the commander's hands, obliterating the right hand down to a bloody stump. The rest of the armor on the right side was impacted and warped inwards, driving metal and shrapnel into Lonnegran's body.

"Hah! Talk about a dud!" MacCready shouted, Lonnegran was screaming in pain and shock at the loss of his hand.

Neither were able to comprehend the green glow around the grenade that appeared for only a brief moment, but the explosion brought the fight to a booming halt.

Clapping his left hand over the right arm, the armor was flayed and warped from the force all along the right arm. He fell over onto his knees, then dropped onto his side. Screaming and yelling, he couldn't fathom how much pain he was in.

Nate rose over the couch, and aimed down at the Gunner Commander writhing in pain. Shooting him with the laser blast, the red bolt launched out and melted divots in the power armor. Melting through the outer layer, Lonnegran was trying not to scream, to feign confidence long enough to die with dignity, but the pain was too intense.

After Nate's laser rifle ran out of ammo, and the Captain of the Gunners was still alive, a dark simple thought entered Nate's head.

"Ohyah...Mac! Go get that firehose." Nate was swaying on his feet, so drunk he could barely stand as the alcohol was rushing through his system, but the exceptional core strength made him counterbalance every step, he aimed one hand at a fire hose box built into the wall of the upper lobby.

MacCready ran over, and heaved the hose out, dragging it over to the screaming Captain and Nate. He quickly took the hose, and then tied a noose around Lonnegran's neck, then tightened it up.

"Your gonna hang him?" MacCready asked, Nate's response was a grunt as he flipped the man over, and removed the fusion core, powering down the suit.

"Help me with this." Nate said, reaching both arms under the Lonnegran, the suit and human combined weighed nearly 250 lbs, but Nate grit his teeth and MacCready picked up the legs and they both carried him to the ledge.

Meathead was the only one who noticed the dilemma they were about to face, and tied off the other end of the fire hose to a couch bolted into the ground.

"Fuck you, Lonnegran." MacCready said, pushing him over the edge.

Nate let out a long groan that morphed into a yawn.

"Shoooot." He said, stretching his arms up and out.

"Alright, you had your fun. Now, there's still the matter of you not actually paying me yet, but now I'm going straight to the top of the Gunner's shit-list."

Nate walked across the lobby and sat on the couch directly across from the receptionist desk. "You were fucked the moment those guys started hassling you." He said, putting his feet up. Digging through his pockets, Nate pulled out the caps Whitechaple Charlie paid him and Meathead for taking care of Mayor Hancock's 'Rat' problem.

"Well, MacCready. You have two choices. Stay with me, and I'll set you up right, and we go straight to the top. Or Two, you take your caps and leave right now, but I only have a hundred. I'd say that's a good profit for an hour of your time. I wont hold it against ya."

"I honestly think your a little too extreme, charging into a Gunner's den like this. Your efficient, ruthless, a good shot, and tech smart, but after this...I gotta lay low for a bit. There will be more Gunners coming here, and when they find all the bodies, they'll just be twice as pissed off and want my head even more."

"Good. An angry enemy will lead them to do something stupid, it'll unbalance them. You can either keep going the way your going, or find a new path. You ever want work, come find me." Nate offered.

"I think I'll take my caps and go." MacCready said, Nate pulled out his stash of bottle caps, four stacks of twenty five caps tightly wrapped together in electrical tape. Nate laid his head back and looked up at the ceiling after putting them out onto the coffee table in front of him.

"One last thing... You ever hear about a Byrillium Agitator?"

"Nope. Can't say I have."

"Popular Mechanics Magazine." Nate said, pointing to the receptionist desk, there was a small news stand rack with magazines stuffed into the dispenser. It was the last words he said before finally passing out for the night.

MacCready looked at Nate, drunk asleep on the couch, and then to the rack of magazines. Advertised and distributed in their own building, Popular Mechanics was a magazine from before the Great War, and on the front cover was the Mass Fusion edition of Popular Mechanics, inside was articles about projects Mass Fusion was willing to publicly announce and provide more inside information on.

The main article, past ads looking for interns, new lines of cars, at home appliances available for purchase, was the Byrillium Agitator, the main reactor component to start the nuclear power plant in the basement of Mass Fusion, as well as the key to starting Liberty Prime. There were only two in the world, and one was located one hundred feet below them.

The other was destroyed outside of Washington D.C., MacCready knew this, but he never saw this magazine before. The article said that there was only one Liberty Prime in the world, but that didn't mean some pre-war government officials secretly ordered the construction of a second one. That sounds like something some shady person from the past would've done.

MacCready finished glossing over the article, then looked to the unconscious form of Nate, juggling the caps in his left hand. Shaking his head, it wasn't worth his time. There were still plenty of questions, but all of them came with the big grain of salt that Nate was black house drunk when he said everything. He couldn't even pronounce half the things he was saying.

Turning around, MacCready left.

Ch. 23 Sunrise over Boston October 28th

Author's Note

How about..." Travis held a stack of holotapes in his hand, cycling them through as he read the names off the top. "Eh..." The plastic on plastic tapping could be heard over the airwaves as he passed on such titles and songs like Ritchie Valens singing 'Donna', 'Magic Mountain' sung by Vernon Green & the Medallions, 'Hypnotized' by Linda Jones, and Brenda Jones and the Tabulations singing 'The Touch of You', finally settling on, "Okay, how about...some...of The Vanguards? Somebody Please."

"Somebody please."

Ch. 23 Sunrise over Boston October 28th

October 28th, 2287

5:35 A.M.

Nate managed to wake up before Meathead the next morning, walking all the way back down to the ground floor lobby he stopped to heave every single Gunner's body and skeleton down over the ledge he found along the way. Dragging them into a pile outside, he doused them with industrial grade solvent and lit them on fire.

It wasn't until almost an hour later, Meathead woke up and flew down to find Nate working on the elevator control panel on the bottom floor, listening to Diamond City Radio on his Pip-Boy.

Nate found a screwdriver and a rubber mallet and pried off the security card I.D. reader for the central shaft elevator that leads all the way up to the executive offices at the top. Around him was magnetic strips, his credit card, and wire strippers, a small red toolbox along with the security panels.

"" Meathead pleaded any small metallic pinging noise was like a hammer against his skull.

"Meathead, I'm still drunk...and...if I timed it right, I should be able to make it back to the bar before the hangover starts kicking in to ween myself off this drunk...and keep a whole..." Nate's eyes glazed over as he nearly fell asleep talking to Meathead, but his head bobbed up again. Drawing in a large breath that expanded his lungs, Nate finished with. "Keep an all day buzz...that way I won't get a hangover."

Meathead sat there, flabbergast by Nate's drinking and how he figured out this in his head. " Meathead asked Nate, nodded.

"Yep. Then, afterward, we tell Hancock, or second bet, the raiders at the Mall to get their asses over here and set up shop."

""

"I'm not being picky, Meathead, and we can't afford to pick and choose our enemies. If they're not shooting at us, I really don't care who they are. Things on my list of preferences also include, not fucking us over, but we'll have to see how that plays out."

""

"Yeah, well, Meathead, a few buildings are going to have to come down during that whole rebuilding process. Including this one. Sure it can withstand the force of a nuclear blast, but eventually, even this giant place is going to rust itself inside out." Nate explained.

Nate picked up his credit card, and the magnetic strips and swiped them through the I.D. reader. The green and red lights flashed and then stayed solid red.

Meathead looked up to the ceiling, then back down to Nate.

"," Meathead said, making Nate turn around to see the little present. "" The little Vault-Tec. Bobblehead had both arms raised and elbows bent up, with the biceps bulging and flexing. It represented strength.

Nate looked at the bobblehead and set it down, smirking once and then setting it down next to the rest of the tools.

"Yep..."

Nate set his tools down. "Meathead. The last time I went to the bank, we had $339,700 in our bank accounts. That was two hundred ten years ago. I can't remember if it's closer to seven hundred or eight hundred, but, I'll just say seven hundred."

"."

"And the interest rate was 2.25%. Not the best, but we would've needed to spend a lot more every year to get the flat 3% interest."

"," Meathead said, following along.

"Three hundred, thirty-nine thousand, seven hundred dollars, multiplied by 1.0225, raised to the power of 210 years...I needed to use a calculator to figure that one out."

"."

"How does 36 million, 340 thousand, 546 dollars sound?"

Meathead exhaled and smiled, "" He said, nodding his head.

"Yep. Now only if we could find an ATM. We'd have all the worthless paper we could ever want." Nate laughed a shallow laugh, swiping his credit card through the I.D. reader again, he jury-rigged the wires to send an electrical pulse through the lines regardless of what card was being sent through. The green and red lights flashed, then stayed solid green and the lift kicked into action.

"All right. Now, do you want to see the sunrise from the tallest building in Boston?" Nate asked.

\111/

They rode the elevator all the way to the top floor and were assaulted by howling wind rushing through the top floor and roof. The executive offices housed a mini-reactor inside a two-story area, with two sets of staircases. One was partially demolished, having collapsed onto the floor with only the supports where the stairs sat remained. The other was in front of a giant gaping hole in the side of the building, along with another hole in the north face of the building on the second floor.

Walking outside, the wind was doing the most damage, plenty of panels were ripped off and blown away over time, but Nate walked out onto the balcony overlooking all of Boston and sighed.

The sky was brightening by the moment, already blue, and the sun was casting an early morning glow from the east across the ocean.

He first looked to the Southwest and felt melancholy. He was looking directly at the sight of ground zero. Meathead came to his side, putting his hooves on the railing and looking over. There were dark grey storm clouds crackling with lightning blowing up from the south, spreading radiation and acid rain across the Commonwealth. The large broadcasting tower far to the south, past Shaw High School and the Milton General Hospital, was barely visible against the grey clouds rolling in from the south.

The Boston Common was down below them, Park Street station, and all the main roads leading west through Boston. Down below them was the golden dome of the Massachusetts State House, as opposed to the Old Statehouse to the south of the Mass Fusion building.

He took another look at the waterfront along the Charles River, looking at the bridges from a new angle, and seeing all of Cambridge. Of course, he looked past the CIT building and farther, past the ruins of Harvard to the northwest, where Concord was. He could see the tiny buildings and the white rocks of Dunwich Borer's rock mine.

There was a lot of smoke or steam coming out of the bowl of Fenway Park, along with the outfield. Nate's heart went out to the old baseball stadium, he'd seen a few posters around Boston that read 'Baseball, the Religion of Boston for 176 Years'.

"Damn," Meathead picked up on how Nate said the word. It wasn't out of anger, it was like he just realized he'd forgotten something. "Wish I'd brought a parachute." He added.

""

"Perfect spot for it. Heck, we could charge people, Meathead. Just aim for the Boston Common and remember to pull the ripcord." Nate said, waving his hand down towards the park in the middle of Boston.

""

"Well. It's not there now." Nate said, peering down at the walking paths leading around the veranda and pond.

""

"From here? It could reach the Common easily. We'd have at least a mile range, even with the drop-off."

Nate wandered to the north side. "That's Ticonderoga square right?" Pointing to the second tallest building in Cambridge, seven blocks to the right of the Greentech Genetics building, to the north of them, Meathead nodded.

""

They circled the balcony, looking down on the USS Constitution to the east of them, and then Nate went south one more time. "What do you see?"

"" Meathead shuddered. ""

"A rock in a microwave?" Nate asked.

""

"Why? I thought Obsidian was bad."

""

"So what's the problem with a crystal in the microwave?"

"Have you ever touched something that's been in a microwave for 15 minutes straight? I get a migraine just thinking about it. There's a whole world I need to tell you about, but you need to understand how a lot more things on Earth work before you start taking on->" Meathead pointed at Trinity Tower with his hoof, "<-Crap like that. So when I say Trinity Tower is like a piece of obsidian that's been sitting in a microwave for two hundred ten years, imagine a piece of steak that's been cooking and cooking and cooking for two centuries straight. The smell, that burning scent...you're imagining it right now. That burnt, charred out smell, like burning chemical fumes...It'll rot your brain.>"

"But the tower?" Nate asked.

""

Nate coughed, clearing his throat,

."

"Aw..." Nate pandered, "Don't I feel special? Hey, Meathead...what did we do after leaving the bar?"

The sun was up over the eastern horizon, making Nate squint in the early morning rays being cast down on them.

""

"Talking with him in the bar...singing...what the hell was I trying to say to him?"

""

"Right...Right...That was something...False Pass turned into a cluster fuck during winter...We were camped out on the island, deep in our little hidey-hole, smoking weed, a few bumps to keep us alert, Jet, psycho, Buffout, whatever to keep us awake. We were bored out of our skulls, and then...on Christmas Day...everyone was just wishing that it would be all peaceful, but we knew they would strike either way. We knew they were going to do some bullshit. We could feel it in the air. We knew they were going to attack on the holiday, so we spent Christmas aiming our rifles out of the gun ports and singing 'White Christmas', 'Wish you a Merry Little Christmas', 'It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas', David Copernate sung 'Dreidel' and fucking everyone busted up laughing. Then Roger Ghallen sang 'Jingle Bells', and I started up 'Baby, it's cold outside.'
And...ah...I remember looking out at the clouds and the fog that was rolling through the pass."

The morning wind was blowing strong against the tall tower, and Nate took a fresh breath of air.

"The wind was whipping through there so fast, it looked like the clouds were moving and alive. The wind was pelting the eastern shore. Freezing wind. Screaming through the pass cause it was moving so fast. That wind would've given you frostbite in a minute if you weren't prepared for that kind of weather...and..." Lost in the moment, Nate's eyes went out to the horizon.

"...And these Chinese soldiers were not prepared to camp on the beach for months, throwing themselves at Unimak, trying to get across."

Nate's teeth chattered just thinking about it. "They weren't singing Christmas songs over there..." Chattering harder, it was difficult for him to control his shaking jaw.

"You ever hear a man scream because he's so cold? That he's freezing to death and got black numb hands and frostbite up to his elbows?"

Meathead shook his head.

"Multiply that by half a million, and that was Christmas Day. 2076. It's like the sound got caught in the air, and the air froze, keeping that noise trapped there. You could feel the hatred in the air."

""

"We did more than that, Meathead. You ever hear of the myth of Wendigos? Cannibal spirits that are eternally hungry and freezing... Do you want to get off the top of this tower? It's freezing up here."

""

"Oh right, after Liberty Prime was done in Anchorage, the U.S. Army did a victory lap around Alaska with Liberty Prime, and we could hear that thing for miles. We were told by intelligence that a Chinese operative was building a device that could hack Liberty Prime, and turn it against us. So we went in and raided the Eastern Shore, decimating a path to make it to their base where the weapon was held, and we took it. Heh...he hahaha. We took the damn thing and they fucking wanted to eat our guts out for that. Then here comes Liberty Prime, and-" Shaking his head and grinning, "Sa...He just kills them all. A few weeks later, I'm on a plane bound for Boston, then here we are."

""

"I'll tell you the whole story someday, but right now, I think I need either a Bloody Mary or go someplace where it's dark cause I feel a hangover coming on."

""

\111/

Going back down into Goodneighbor, Nate carried an excess of submachine guns from the dead Triggermen, selling those at Kill or Be Killed to an Assaultron droid named K-l-e-o. Kleo. The sleeker, more agile, more well-equipped design of the protectron could run and sprint after its enemies, using tasers contained within its claw-like hands, and was given a much better A.I. than the protections. Selling the guns and buying ammo, he went next door and finally met the store owner,

Daisy, of Daisy's Discounts. She was a ghoul, baked skin, and lacking a nose, her brown hair with the back half pulled into a bun seemed still attached to her head and not thinning. She wore a grey pants suit and a blue button-up, white shirt, a faded red tie, and was smiling as Nate walked through her door.

"Howdy there, stranger. A new face walks through my door and you're not even screaming yet. Very polite, let me know if anything catches your fancy."

"Nope...no screaming. Is that a normal occurrence around here?"

"That's right." She replied. "Some people never seen a ghoul before, can't handle a friendly face, I say."

"I noticed a few people walking around, some of the guards, Hancock, and I didn't want to be the obvious tourist pointing out everything he sees. Kinda figured that out. But. What exactly are ghouls?"

"Well, you're looking at one, sweetheart. Didn't have any shelter when the bombs fell. Radiation is the ultimate makeover." She leaned forward, tilting her head back while grinning, "It's done wonders for my skin. I look pretty good for 220 years old. Now, you buying anything?"

Nate looked around her shop,

"Well, Daisy, you hardly look a day over one-fifty." She smiled brightly, teeth still staying rooted in.

"It's more like 270." She said.

Daisy's Discounts was filled with a lot more various items scavengers would bring in from the ruins, she had plenty of guns, and a whole rack of liquids, from water to beer, liquor, and then a few stacks of Mentats. There were a few baskets of produce that still seemed good enough to eat, and then behind her was more ammo. To the side of her shop was bags of cement and fertilizer stacked up, next to clothes rack with hangers holding up shirts, pants, and a few bits of sturdy armor.

Nate grabbed two Mentats, and a box of water, and looked at the selection of meat wrapped up in butcher's parchment paper, and smelled them. Taking a few, he set them on the counter in front of Daisy and asked "Are you really 270 years old? That would've made you...sixty at the time the bombs fell?"

"Don't go blabbing that around to everyone, being a ghoul means you live for a long time. You stop counting birthdays."

She put her weight on her hands resting on the counter and leaned forward. "Do you know what it's like being this old?"

"Actually. I do. I just passed the two-fifty mark not too long ago. I spent my last real birthday at Fenway Park, watching the Red Sox play against the Chicago Cubs and they won 7-1." Daisy looked crossly at Nate, to see if he was bluffing. "My wife and I went to Agatha's kitchen for dinner, and then we went to the drive-in movies after that. We went and saw some action movie that was playing at the Starlight Drive-in, and would've probably stayed for the double feature, but we were tired and stuffed."

"Well, now you're just making fun of me. If you were as old as I was, you would've been around before the War."

"It's true, I was. Beautiful house in the suburbs bought a Mr. Handy unit to help with the yard and housework, white picket fence around the backyard, and we would drive up to Bar Harbor for Memorial Day and have a big family camping trip. Cousins, aunts, uncles, we'd all show up and unload our trailers and have three days of barbeque, go hiking, fishing, ride bikes around the trails, then head to the farmer's market-" "On Thursdays." They both said in unison. "It was peaceful." Nate found his eyes wet.

Daisy mirrored his expression, the memories of better days coming back to her as well. "It was...wasn't it?" She sniffed, inhaling, trying to recall the scent of green living trees, or fresh cut grass, the sound of robins in spring and the days she could walk down Park Avenue without carrying a gun and worrying about being taken out by a sniper round from an apartment building five blocks away.

"Sorry, the last thing you want to see is an old lady tearing up. Well, you're either the most well-preserved ghoul or the second-best bullshitter in Goodneighbor."

"Hey, if you are happy, or nostalgic, then let it shine. Too often we tell ourselves we don't deserve to be happy, or that we don't feel like we worked for it when in reality, we should feel happy all the time. Don't let others tell you what you can and can't feel. To err is to human, and to..." Nate trailed off, looking down at Meathead, wagging his tail slowly and begging Nate with big wide puppy dog eyes to go on. Meathead knew he caught Nate in a small dilemma, "...Feeling emotion is not alien. It's true though, what do you remember about the past? Or I should ask, what was it like living the last two hundred and ten years?"

Daisy snorted and laughed, "Ha! Sweetie, I was an angry young woman, who thought the world could go to hell many times over because I felt like I wasn't getting my due. Well...be careful what you wish for. The moment you say anything, it starts to manifest in ways you wouldn't believe."

Nate was nodding his head up and down, "Trust me, I believe you."

"When it all ended..." She looked off to the right and grimaced, a small tick in her face. "Well, I ended in a way. Becoming a Ghoul...Maybe when you get to be my age, everything starts looking like fate. Anyway, I like your story better, whether or not it's true. Will that be all for you?"

"Yep. That'll be it" Nate said, paying Daisy with handfuls of bottle caps.

"You know, if you haven't already, you should go check out the Hotel Rexford. There's another Pre-war ghoul hanging around there."

"All right, I'll poke my head in there sometime," Nate said, nodding his head. "Hey, you walk the routes to Fenway Park recently? Which route would you say? Storrow Drive, Commonwealth Avenue, Boylston?"

Daisy grinned out of the side of her mouth, "Right down Commonwealth. Straight shot and not too many people bug you on the way there. Still, take a rifle, especially going past Trinity Plaza."

"Will do. Anything else I should know about?"

"Well, if you're headed that way, I got a job for you if you're interested."

"Shoot."

"I gotta book back here from the Boston Public Library. I've got a lot of fond memories of that place when I was a girl...and human. Except, now," Daisy raised her hands up and balled her fingers closer together, but not completely shut and tensed her arms like she wanted to choke someone. "...Damned Super Mutants took the place over! I'll throw 300 caps your way, cause I like you if you drive 'em out."

"I have been meaning to ask someone about super mutants. Where the hell, and what the hell are they coming from?"

"They're big, green, and destroy anything they come across... except other super mutants. I don't know where they're coming from, but I do know they're only second to the Institute as neighbors." Nate raised his eyebrow and glanced down at Meathead. The dog gave a slight nod back. "Hope you take the job, you may not believe this, but I was a shy child. Books were my best friends growing up, to think that there are dumb brutes using them as kindling just makes me want to eat my heart out." Nate and Meathead both exhaled quickly through their nose.

"That reminds me, what the hell is up with the Glowing Ones?"

"OOOoohh...you seen those? Yeah. They don't give other ghouls like us too much trouble, but they are nasty sons and daughters to kill who've just been dancing in the radioactive rain for far too long."

Nate nodded. "Yeah. I hear that. Did you mean, like, they don't bother you?"

Daisy raised her hands and shrugged, "I get a free pass and walk right past 'em. Let me grab that book, I've got it in the back here." She turned around and went to the back end of her store, where there weren't any lights on. "For the Feral Ghouls, it's like we can turn them around and give them a shove and they'll keep on walking!" Scanning the shelf, she picked it out off the top rows of junk and came back with it in both hands. Hamlet.

"Don't ask how long it's been overdue, and if there are any old robots at the front desk asking about late fees, just slip it into the drop off box. I'm sure they won't mind."

"All right, Daisy, thank you. Have a wonderful day."

"Ha! You might just actually get my heart to start beating again if you keep it up. What's your name?"

"Nate, then my dog, Meathead."

"Have a great day, Nate. You too pooch."

Meathead barked, walking around the counter and licking Daisy on the hands. "Good boy." She said, combing Meathead's hair back with her hands, and wiping off some of the salivae on the top of his head. She gave it a scratch and smiled.

"All right, Meathead, let's go. No matter how much her hands may or may not taste like jerky." Nate teased Meathead.

Daisy snorted and her stomach shook with laughter. "Heh, heh...that's a good one. Have a great day."

\111/
The metal plate slid across the framed eye slot, and a pair of black ghoul's eyes met Nate's.

"Hey you, looking for work?" Bobbi No-Nose asked.

"Yes. What kind?" Nate replied.

"The good kind where if you don't mind a little manual labor, and don't ask too many questions, you're in."

"What kind of manual labor? The kind where I need to arm up? Or get down and dirty?"

"It's a project I've been working on, the big one. The kind of project where I could be in a lot of trouble if the wrong person found out."

"Well, it can't be too many people around here," Nate commented, thinking of the few power figures in the Commonwealth.

"A little discretion is called for here, I got a delicate house of cards here. Ya know?" Bobbi inquired.

"I'm in."

The bolt slid back apart from the door, and the metal hinges swung out.

"Good, come inside and I'll give you the lowdown." Seeing Bobbi No-Nose in the light, she was a ghoul with a brown bob hair-cut and yellowed eyes with still strong blue color to the iris. Her skin was red and blackened in some areas, but the long sleeve white shirt and black vest covered the rest of her body.

They walked down a flight of stairs into the basement of a Boston city building, where all the walls were lined with brick and light with floodlights.

"You are going to be doing some digging."

"What are we digging for?" Nate asked, eyes looking up towards the ceiling before settling on Bobbi.

"Just making a few holes in some walls, expanding the basement, so to speak. But seriously, lay off the questions."

"Just one."

"You've had two too many. Now get down there and to give the other two men a hand, would ya?"

\111/

Descending a second floor, they came to a concrete wall with a blue metal door, on the other side was a dirt tunnel leading further down into the sewers.
Finally, through a lit path of lights, Nate could hear the two tunnel workers talking.

"Hey!"

"What?"

"I'm the new guy, here to give you a hand!" Following the pipes down, Nate saw the two men holding explosive charges and pickaxes in their hands. They were wearing brown pants and button up shirts, but their faces were wet with sweat.

"We got the wall wired, 'bout to give it a blow and punch through. How 'bout you stand back and we'll light it off."

Retreating back down the passageway, Nate covered his ears, as the two workers detonated the one charge, and blew a six-foot hole into the next area over.

"All right, new guy! Help us clear the rubble." They told Nate, with heavily padded gloves, they picked up the larger chunks of rubble and heaved them out of the way. Smaller dirt they shoveled out, but they quickly cleared a stable hole in the wall.

The next area over was partial rock, with pipes cut straight through, leading further down to a brick and mortar section of old Boston sewers. Taking the rocks and heaving them off to the side, one worker stopped and pointed down. "Mirelurks!"

Unarmed, the two workers fled, leaving Nate with his rifle. Firing six times into the first mirelurk, Nate dug through his pockets for more bullets. Jamming them in one by one, a bullet nearly slipped through his fingers, but he pinched it by the back end. Firing in the small chamber, his ears ringing, but it was more deafening to the mirelurks. The second mirelurk stormed up on Nate, but being so close, the rifle round hitting the crab-mutant at such a short distance pierced right through the shell.

His ears rung, and teeth ached as the vibrations rattled his head.

Reaching for his pistol, Nate fired twelve times into the last mirelurk. There were blasts of gore flaking off the creature each time. Bits of organs, guts, bone, brains, everything was getting shot out. The creature shriveled up, tensing, then thrashing around on the ground, dying but, not yet dead. Its claws clipped at the air like fingers reaching out for a hand to hold onto as it faced their final breath.

But Nate was shaking, the veins on his forehead were bulging from the deafening noise of the gunfire, and the hammering of his heart.

His ears were still ringing when he walked back to talk to Bobbi. She was smoking a cigarette and frowning at the stirred up dust coming from the sewer.

"So, what the fuck was that? What is going on in my tunnel?" She asked.

"Mirelurks, there were mirelurks in the room they just opened up."

"Well. Lad dee da, at least you put up a better fight than those good for nothings, they ran off. Said fuck this job and bolted for the door."

"So, I get their share when this is over, sound fair?" Nate bartered.

"Sorry, I need the right kind of guy to speed things along now, and he'll want a fair cut." Bobbi pressed back, shaking the tip of her cigarette over an ashtray.

"Who are we looking for?" Nate asked, coughing out dust and cigarette smoke.

"A man in Diamond City, we'll leave this for now until we can find him. It's better if I just show you what you're dealing with."

"So you want me to go all the way to Diamond City and back for your guy?" Nate asked.

"Yes, but not so fast. I'll be in Diamond City here in a few days myself, and I'll be on the lookout for you there. We need to do a job here, but once we're done, Diamond City will be the next target. All this takes a little time and coordination. Any other questions?"

"Nope."

\111/

Nate and Meathead walked into the Old State House, it was right outside, hundreds of years ago, the Boston Massacre happened. Five colonists shot by the British troops sparked more outrage against the old owners of the United States.

It bugged Nate that he couldn't remember how or why the Boston Massacre took place. He knew it involved the British and colonists, but the facts eluded him.

Through the front door, there was an impressive spiral staircase leading up to the second floor and also going down to the ground floor below. Two Goodneighbor guards stood idly by, carrying submachine Thomson guns and giving the pair nary an eye.

Nate pointed up with his right hand and looked up at the floor above, and the guard nodded.

On the second floor, there was the scent of meat being grilled, all the windows were open in Hancock's office, along the back wall was a counter with food, and the Mayor ghoul was grilling steak, and cooking eggs.

In the center of the room were two couches facing each other, and a coffee table in the middle loaded with a whole galaxy of drugs piled on this table. Jet, seven bottles of alcohol, an ashtray filled with pre-rolls, and an overloaded ashtray next to that filled with ashes. The table was sticky and coated with nugs, lint, spilled alcohol, small bits of dust, and caked with dirt. There were small plastic baggies that smelled like ass, and half a dozen needles, there was a burning candle in the center of everything, with wax coming down the outside of the holder. There were two bags of grass, orange pellets, blue pellets, blue and white pills, pills with the letter K on them, pills with numbers on them, a notebook's worth of sheets with smiley faces on every single 1x1 cm square, a case of beer cans sitting on the floor, and a pint of raw ether with an American flag stuffed into the bottleneck to keep the fumes from escaping.

The floor creaking as Nate and Meathead entered the room was enough to let the mayor and his guard aware they entered the room. Meathead's paws and toenails clicking against the hardwood floor and panting only added onto the noise.

"What can I do for the newcomer?" Mayor Hancock asked, looking over his shoulder. Closing the lid to the grill, he turned around.

"Well, Mayor, it's not what you can do for me, it's what I can do for Goodneighbor."

Meathead's ears perked, and he sniffed at the air, looking back through the doors they entered, he slipped away without anyone giving the German Shepard a second glance as he left the room.

"How's that?"

"Have you ever seen a proper salute?" Nate asked Hancock, shook his head.

Nate locked his feet and toes together, standing upright, shoulders back, head up, chin down, spine straight, and eyes looking forward. Holding his shotgun by the barrel, he set in on the floor by his right pinkie toe, the butt of the gun on the ground, standing at attention.

"Port, arms," Nate said curtly, bringing the shotgun up and across his chest, grabbing the gun at the foreguard before the receiver of the barrel with his left, and switching his right hand from where it was flared up to grab the small of the stock, behind the trigger. It covered his left eye, and Mayor Hancock's expression showed he didn't know what to make of the display.

"Right, shoulder." Nate moved his right hand to grab the butt of the stock, then twist the gun so the top was facing Hancock, then he leaned the gun back with his left hand and kept his right arm tucked in, relaxing it upwards.

"Port, arms." Bringing his rifle back to the center of his chest, he flared his right hand down, then back up to grab the small of the stock.

"Left shoulder," He raised his left elbow up, moving his right hand up from the small of the stock to the receiver, and switched his left hand down to wrap underneath the stock of the gun. After that, he cut his right hand down so it was stiff by his side.

"Port, arms." Bringing the rifle back to center, Nate changed his hand positions again, then said, "present arms."

Twisting the gun so the bottom and sling was facing Hancock, his thumb was tucked in behind the shotgun's bolt "Order, arms." Grabbing the gun higher with his right hand, and guiding his gun down to the right with his left hand, he angled the barrel towards Hancock, with the trigger next to his kneecap. Finally, he flared his left hand back to his side as the butt striking the ground.

Hancock rubbed his chin, and Fahrenheit brought her right pointer finger to rub the right side of her face by the eyes.

"Interesting, never seen that one before."

Meathead barked three times and bounded back into the room, whining and whimpering, wagging his tail and bringing it to wrap around his rear.

"Shush, Meathead. Just a minute." Nate said to his dog. "Hancock, What's your plan for Goodneighbor in a year from now?"

"Same as always, keep the people safe and keep driving out the Institute."

"Do you really want to be dealing with the Institute for another year, or another five years?"

"Hell no, but we don't know where they're coming from. If I could, I'd blow a big fucking hole right in the middle of their operation, but the biggest question in the Commonwealth is where the hell these Institute fucks are coming from."

"Well, would you like to know?"

Hancock turned around, opened up the grill, sending a big plume of smoke into the air. He flipped the steaks and shut it again.

"Grab a seat, still making breakfast." He said.

Nate sat down, and Meathead sat directly in front of Nate, begging for his attention. Wide eyes and panting loudly, Nate couldn't tell if he was excited or worried...

"So, where they at?"

"I can't just say it, but, here." Nate took off his Pip-Boy, unfastening the latch. "I've got a map on here, and I can point out a few spots that I've narrowed down the location of the Institute to, and I'll point them out for you."

Nate turned the dials to show a GPS map on the Pip-Boy, Hancock looked at the little device with wonder, never using one before in his life. Nate pointed to a few little green markers on the map, "Here's Goodneighbor, Bunker Hill, Diamond City. I think they're here, here, here, or here. But my money is on this one here." Hancock nodded.

"Where can I get one of these?"

"There should be a whole stack of them back in my Vault if you're up for a trip."

"Where'd you come from? Vault 111? Never heard of it before."

"It's in Sanctuary Hills, a suburb north of Concord. If you don't mind me telling you a little bit about myself, the Institute raided Vault 111, kidnapped my son, and shot my wife, so I've got it in my mind to do something absolutely terrible to them in the whole 'treat people like you want to be treated'. Now I personally hate living by that rule, because it implies if some fuckwad, the Institute, does something to you, I'm supposed to just give them a hug in return. Fuck no. I'm no Machiavelli, but even he realized that treating everyone nice leads to the greater unseen evil coming around and dominating them. It's going to start with me finding the guy who showed his face to me. Taunted me. I'm going to kill him and make sure the Institute feels the strain of losing resources left and right. I will make sure they spend more money and people until the cost of war is too high. That's how I intend to win."

"You seem pretty convinced." Hancock said, "But, they're making synths every day, and-" Hancock snapped his fingers, "They appear just like that. I'm convinced the only reason Goodneighbor hasn't been under attack by synths in a long time is that there's nothing for them here they want. Of course, they'll want to try and get rid of me, but ain't no one in the Institute can make a prettier face than mine, especially not the smell! Fahrenheit! If I ever come back one day, smelling clean and with fresh minty breath, shoot me!" Fahrenheit nodded.

"So what's the story of Goodneighbor, Hancock? You seem like you got a great thing going here."

"So, big story. I came here about a decade ago. Had a set of smooth skin back then." Turning back to the grill, he took a cast iron skillet absolutely thick with grease, opened the lid to the grill and set it directly onto the grill racks and shut it again.

"While I was making myself a pillar of this community, I would go on these...wild tears...while I was young..." Hancock smiled, showing his top row of teeth and tilting his head back. "Any chems I could find, the more exotic, the better. Finally found this experimental radiation drug. Only one of its kind, and only one hit left. The high..." Hancock's head tilted forward and it all came rushing back to him, shaking his head as he brought his head upright. It was like some part of that drug crystalized in his system and finally dislodged, dissolving itself and releasing the endorphins.

"Worth it. Yeah, I'm living with the side effects, but hey, what's not to love about immortality?"

"The crushing loneliness of seeing everyone you know and love grow old and die around you?"

"Bummer," Fahrenheit commented.

"Nah, ghouls don't live forever. We just age really, really, slow. Must be something to do with rads, maybe? Who knows. Now, before my meat burns, got anything else for me?"

Hancock opened the lid, and grabbed four eggs off the counter, cracking them into the cast iron skillet and stirring them around with a metal spatula.

"Not to be the guy who goes around giving his life story to everyone, but the ship that crashed into the skyscraper was because of us."

"That was you? I always thought I hallucinated seeing that ship in the bank back there. Crazy fucking thing. How'd you get on board?"

"The robots on board scanned my face, and pulled up an old picture in their data banks that said 'Ping! United States Army. I walked right on board. Captain Ironsides, made me part of the Congressional Army. The sentry bot on top of the deck had us scrounge for some spare parts, and we got that thing flying in a heartbeat."

"Well shit. That was some noise you made. Thought the bombs were dropping again. Made every ghoul from here to the Glowing Sea roll over. So what, you want a gold star?"

"Sorry 'bout that. If you ever want on board, I'll give you the grand tour. I'm moving into the neighborhood and wanted to stop by and say hello. If you've got any work lined up though, I'm all ears."

"Oh, really?" He said, flipping the grill up one last time, he stabbed the steaks with a fork, and set them on plates, stirring the eggs around again, he picked up the pan with a rag and scrapped three portions out onto the plates. "So, you come here to say hello?" he said, giving one plate to Fahrenheit and sitting down next to her across from Nate. The last plate of eggs was left on the counter.

"Just trying to be neighborly. The first thing we did was clear out Faneuil Hall of the Super Mutants."

Hancock was slicing into his steak and looked up. "Okay. Just trying to be neighborly. Now that is something I like hearing, an end to the fucking super mutants."

"And last night, I vaguely remember doing something about the Gunners with MacCready in the Mass Fusion tower next door."

"And my guy said you took care of my rat problem too," Hancock said, cutting off a large piece of steak and chewing on it. "I like it when I don't have rats. Do you feel me? I like it when I ask for something, and it gets done." He swallowed the piece of steak, licking his lips and clearing his throat. "The people know what's up. It's all about the people, understand? They're freaks, misfits, and trouble makers, and that's why I love them. Everyone lives their own life, their own way. No judgments."

"I like people too, and I want to hear what you have to say about sending people to places I clear out and defending them. I know not every place is viable, not every place can be easily defended, and it seems like there's always another person out there who wants what we have."

Hancock slowly nodded his head and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "I say, fuck the Gunners, and fuck a lot of groups around the Commonwealth, but they say, fuck Goodneighbor right back. We don't got the guys to keep an operation like what you have in mind going. At best, less than a handful of guys to places you scrape clean of all the shit, but they'd be on their own if another group came through and wiped them all out. I like your plan, it's a good plan, but Goodneighbor isn't overloaded with neighborly people like yourself. We got men, and we gotta stronghold on this little slice of Boston Cream Pie, but if we start sending men out, that leaves the home turf up for grabs." Nate was nodding halfway through, expecting this sort of answer.

"I understand. Thank you, Hancock. How's your relationship with the raiders at Haymarket Mall?"

"What, did you kill all those guys out too?"

"Nope, just did the obvious thing when they put twelve guns to my head and didn't move a muscle. I got a pass for killing the super mutants in Faneuil Hall."

"Well now, that's a load off. You know more will come, right? I'd give it a week before they realize their buddies are all dead and try to reclaim it."

"Then that's all I need to know about super mutants. But, back to the raiders, hard no, or soft no on working alongside them?"

"I'd rather have my own men there, but I realize what you're doing. If the raiders at Haymarket want to try and hold Faneuil Hall, let them. But, I want some sort of confirmation that they won't try to take Goodneighbor. This ain't a raider hangout, but we get plenty of them coming through here drinking our beer and sleeping in our beds when they're down and out. Goodneighbor is neutral ground."

"I'll make sure the message gets out that this isn't some place for rats to live."

"I'm glad you understand. But, you said you were looking for work, there are two things burning on my mind...Oh wait, I left the grill on."

Fahrenheit jumped up and shut it off, "Thanks girl, anyway. Two things burning on my mind. One way is easier than the other. The first, we get a lot of weird talk coming in about a place called Pickman Galley, in the North End. It's all raider territory, but they've been quiet, and knowing that the Haymarket Heads are busy with Faneuil is just another thing we've got to consider. But, snoop it out, and give me the word. The second-dot dot dot- is Dah da dah!" Hancock rambled, trying to think of the words. "The Boston Common. Swan living in the pond is the biggest standing threat anyone trying to go from anywhere across Boston has to deal with."

"I heard a little chatter about Swan from the folks at Bunker Hill, I was looking for him while I was on top of the Mass Fusion tower this morning, but didn't see any giant lumbering around."

"He's in the pond. Check the pond, that's where we've seen him pop out of. But I ain't asking you to go clear him out, cause it's a death sentence and very suicidal to try and take on a super mutant behemoth. He's like a big guillotine hanging over everybody's heads for whoever passes the park. Especially on a noisy day. ESPECIALLY on a noisy day like yesterday. Holy Shit. Next time that thing flies, give us a warning."

"Will do. Say, Hancock, you ever seen the view from the top of the Mass Fusion tower?"

He shook his head.

"You ever launch a Fat Man from the top of Mass Fusion tower?" A grin broke out of the ghoul's face, lips stretched back and teeth clenched.

"Is that an invitation?"

Nate smiled, opening his hands upwards and shrugging sarcastically. "I've got a Fat Man at the top, and I'll meet you up there after you're finished with breakfast. Just take the central round elevator and it'll take you all the way up."

"Now that sound's like something I want to see. All right, hey- I never got your name."

"Nate. That's Meathead. Meathead, no begging." Meathead moved closer to Hancock, staring at the fat and gristle left on the plate and licking his lips.

"See you at the top, Nate. Heh," He laughed, picking up a piece of fat and tossing it to Meathead. "We all know the real reason why he came along." Hancock said, "Looks like he just wants some scraps."

Meathead chewed on the fat and wagged his tail, sniffing Hancock for more. "All right, come on Meathead, no more begging."

\111/

Ch. 24 Hubris

Author's Note

"Coming to you from ah...the Jewel Green--Erh! I mean...ah...Er! Green...no...The Great Green Jewel of the Commonwealth! Here's Sunny & the Sunliners with Talk to Me." Travis put a hand to his face and thumped his his against his forhead.

"I'll get it right one of these days.

Ch. 24 Hubris

9:00

Nate's Pip-boy were playing different broadcasts, up high above the city he was receiving perfect signals from all over the Commonwealth. One was the Nuka-Cola Family Radio, and the jingle it played, attracting customers to the theme park, Nuka-World.

'What if there was a place with all the zip of Nuka-Cola?
Quench your thirst for adventure at Nu! Ka! WORLD!

The dopey sound of the mascot 'Bottle', from the duo of Cappy and Bottle, advertised the end of season for October, and the words were like an ear worm.

The end of October.

Either the broadcast was still playing on abandoned radio equipment for the last two centuries and ten years, or there were people living at Nuka-World, south of the Northpoint Reservoir.

Nate was in his junior year of high school when he went to Nuka-World for the last time. Carried there on school buses as part of a class-trip. As part of a massive group discount for inviting all the schools in Massachusetts to rotate through on different days, it was a day many students looked forward to. In exchange for a short lesson about one of the newest successful companies of the 2050s, they would be able to spend the day at the park exploring and having fun.

Their parents helped pay their way to Nuka-World, permission slips were signed, and buses left the school as early as 6:30 in the morning to take the kids to the park. Nuka-World USA and the parks around it, Kiddie Kingdom, the World of Refreshment, and Safari Adventure were open for the public. Dry-Rock Gulch was still under construction, and the latest addition to Nuka-World, Galactic Zone, was still in its early concept phase when Nate was only a teenager.

Nuka-Town USA was an homage to all things soda and advertising. The company made it easy for anyone to find a bottle of pop or soda within arms reach no matter where you were in the park.

Now, Nate's mind went to the World of Refreshment, and the bottling plant, how it produced hundreds of thousands of gallons of nuka-cola daily, all processed there inside the factory. The facility was equipped with a water purifier to clean water coming in through the Northpoint reservoir, and then mixed with chemicals to make the soda. Capable of bottling thousands of nuka-colas per hour, Nate licked his lips at the thought of the plant being able to bottle water.

Nate tuned to the next channel on his pip-boy, a frequency labeled MFAF95. "This is Scribe Haylen of Reconnaissance Squad Gladius to any unit in transmission range. Authorization Arx. Ferrum. Nine. Five. Our unit has sustained casualties and we're running low on supplies. We're requesting support or evac from our position at Cambridge Police Station."
The message repeated, but Nate tuned to the only music playing radio station available in the area, Diamond City Radio.

While the music was playing, Nate was writing on a piece of paper, the equation for predicting an object's trajectory written as such /\Dx=VxVy.

Plus he needed to factor in height changes which was a whole other equation Nate was only partially sure of. On the mounted Fat Man was a swivel with angles marked into the side, with a piece of metal Nate screwed in to check the current angle. Armed with a slide rule, and a calculator, Nate found the angle that would hit Swan's pond at 400 meters away from a height of seventy stories. On the ground next to him were two more mini-nukes, and two pairs of binoculars.

Looking towards Cambridge from his viewpoint on the top of the Mass Fusion tower, he guessed the general area of the police station and sighed. Even with an emotional sensing creature, it was difficult to get an actual feel for the Commonwealth. He didn't understand how the world was working around him, and there were plenty of things that appeared broken, every one of them he could restore to pre-war glory.

\111/

When Hancock, Fahrenheit, and three Goodneighbor guards stepped out onto the observation deck of the Mass Fusion tower, they were blown away by the scene of Boston around them. Hancock whistled, a low whistle to show he was impressed with the view. "Hell of a spot to see! Smokes, So glad I got baked before coming up here! It's fucking beautiful!"

"Mentat?" Nate offered, he was already sucking on a few of the candy coated tablets himself to figure out the rest of the equation.

"Hell yeah!" Hancock said, taking two and grabbing Nate by the shoulder, he brought him in close for a side hug. "Wow. Can't believe you got up here! This is it? Damn. You can see everything from up here!"

"Look all you want, this tower used to be off limits even back before the bombs fell. Most people couldn't get past the lobby, and you needed to know someone who worked here to get up to the roof. Nora knew a friend of an intern who worked here, but we never got to come up here before the War."

"You keep talking about, before the war, what's up with that, man?"

"I was part of an experiment that Vault-Tec. conducted. We were all cryogenically frozen and preserved in liquid nitrogen that kept us in suspended animation for 210 years."

"Whoa. That's like some shit out of a comic book I read one time. Slept for a 1000 years and woke up in the year 3000. I dig it." Nate gestured towards the Fat Man and Hancock was wowed. "These things are like unicorns, Kleo's got a Fat Man in his store, but wont fucking budge on the price for one of these. I keep trying to figure out how to hack him so I can take it without him going ballistic on me, but it's hard to sneak up on a robot that never sleeps, only waits."

Nate nodded his head. " Well, go ahead. I've got all the angles right, and it should hit right about near the pond."

"Fucking A!" Hancock said, stepping up the mounted Fat Man. Nate passed a pair of binoculars to Fahrenheit and kept one for himself.

"Fire when ready."

Hancock wrapped his hand around the trigger and fired. The mini nuke was launched out of the cradle and sailed up, then peaked over Park Street Station before the velocity changed and gravity pulled the mini nuke back down towards the ground.

Nate and Fahrenheit were both looking over the rails with their binoculars, watching the mini nuke strike the ground close to the pond, exploding in a great mushroom cloud of fire and heat.

The super mutant behemoth known as Swan erupted from the pond, roaring and shouting, but was completely unintelligible from where they were up high.

"And he takes it like a champ." Nate said, looking through the binoculars. "Load another, quick."

Fahrenheit and Nate loaded a second round in and Hancock fired, the warhead sailed high up out over Boston again, this time striking the pond, and exploding behind Swan. The behemoth screamed and looked for where the explosives were coming from, but couldn't tell. Through the sets of binoculars, they could see the mutant's left arm and leg were lame, struggling to pull them along.

Nate angled the Fat Man down a few degrees, while Hancock loaded the last mini-nuke in. "All yours."

Nate fired and they all waited for the last mini-nuke to come crashing down, encapsulating Swan in a plume of fire and ash, when the dust and haze cleared, the mutant was laying on the ground.

"Shit, we killed him."

"Maybe. Now I'm going down there and taking the fucker's head off to make sure he's dead." Nate said, Hancock was surprised at Nate's forward aggression.

"Swing by Goodneighbor anytime you need to duck your head in, my door will be open. If you need any chems, let me know, we'll get you hooked up. We'll spread the word that you are one mother fucker who shouldn't be messed with, because fuck, the behemoth never saw it coming. What's your plan, Nate? We're heading back, now that the show's over."

"I've got a few things on my plate. I can't be sure." Picking up the Fat Man from the tripod, Nate shouldered the massive gun and walked back for the elevator. "Would you mind holding on to this for me while I'm gone? I can't go lugging this heavy thing all around Boston, and I'm out of ammo."

"Hells yeah!" Hancock said, taking the 30 pound mini nuke catapult. Passing it off, Hancock stood up straighter and smiled. "Always wanted one of these, I think I got one or two mini nukes laying around. Where'd you get this thing, anyway? I didn't see you carrying it around Goodneighbor."

"I stashed it. I didn't want to walk around town with half a dozen guns I've picked up on the road anyway."

They all stepped onto the elevator and rode it back down to the lobby, exiting quietly and waving good bye for now after leaving the Mass Fusion building. Nate strolled down the road, past one of the North End graveyards were a few of the Founding Fathers were buried. He glanced at the plaque drilled into the cement and kept walking, past the Park Street Station into the Boston Common.

The grass was yellowed, dry like hay, and the trees were vacant of leaves, but remembering that in this time of the year, fall, he smiled, looking around. Following the concrete path through the Boston Common, there were heavy footprints and gashes in the ground, but nothing that couldn't be smoothed over and redone. Waiting at the fountain at the south side of the Boston Common, was Nate with blood covering a Ripper, a handheld chainsaw, with his attention on a sign sitting in the basin of the dried out fountain.

"So the giant's dead?" Nate asked.

"" Nate replied, setting the Ripper down onto the edge of the fountain. The first Nate from Mass Fusion came around looked down at the sign. Off to their right, a pod containing a protectron tour bot reopened for the second time that day as Nate came around to see what his double was reading.

"At Journey's end, Follow Freedom's Lantern." The first Nate said, "I remember when we all walked this."

""

"Where to next?"

""

Nate nodded, like the idea just occurred to him. "." A flash of green fire circled him, and was back to being a German Shepard.

"Keep going if you want. I don't mind."

Meathead looked up at Nate, feeling his sincerity. Bunching up his shoulders, he was unsure, and the fire wrapped around Meathead again, this time revealing his changeling form.

"I bet you don't get a lot of opportunities to be yourself."

Meathead shook his head, "."

"Would it be to blase if I asked if you wanted to fetch?" Shaking his head again, he adjusted his feet, ready to transform again when Nate asked. "What do you do for fun?"

""

"So you can be a dog, you can be me, a deathclaw, I'm assuming Super Mutants, ghouls, anything you can't be?"

""

"When did you transform into a radio? And...an...d and why?" Nate asked excitedly.

""

Meathead demonstrated by tilting his head up, and the sound of birds chirping came from his mouth, people walking by, cars running all at the same time, all the nuances of a busy Boston downtown street. Fire trucks racing by with police sirens following right behind. He changed it to a forest with wind blowing through, the sound of running water, a small bush plane flying overhead, dirt and rocks being crunched underfoot.

Nate's head spun, all around him was the sound of silence, but Nate heard every thing around him being projected out of Meathead's mouth.

His smile changed from unsure to comedic, "So, Elvis impersonators can eat their heart out."

"."

"What? Are you kidding me? Okay, first stop is a music store. You should've heard the speaker system we set up in False Pass. We aimed it at the Chinese and blasted music all day. The guys in Dutch Harbor about a day away by boat said they could hear us inbetween all the bombing runs."

"Nate, how long were you up in False Pass?"

"I was away for two years. Not all of it was spent at False Pass. I spent a month in Seattle, Washington, waiting to be deployed. We were working Mr. Gutsys, sentry bots, and building power armor. I didn't know where I was half the time in Alaska. I know I was in Homer for a few days, but all the fighting was happening in Anchorage, and the Chinese really wanted Dutch Harbor."

"What's so special about Dutch Harbor?"

"Next to New York City, Dutch Harbor on Unalaska island has the second most exports in terms of weight. Tenders and fishing boats from all over Alaska would deliver their catch to Dutch Harbor, and then boats from all around the world would come pick up their loads. Just because a war was going on, didn't mean that business stopped. Oh no. Asia was the largest purchaser of seafood, hands down. Before the war, America was selling lower quality fish back to the lower 48, while selling it's highest quality fish and seafood over to Asia, because they were paying three times as much for the same fish. Fish and shellfish needed to go farther, and cost more fuel and manpower to get it that far, so they paid more. Once the Communists invaded, we cut them off like a wrist slit vertically. " Nate waved Meathead towards him, and they started walking along the concrete path leading west through the Boston Common.

",Nora said that fish was the cheapest it had ever been. Ever.>"

"That's because Alaska provides more fish to the lower 48 than most people realized, since one market of the fishing industry tanked, now it needed to offload a lot of their product. We were starving Asia out. As bad as the cattle industry and food shortages were in Denver, they Commies were feeling the sting, Meathead. They were feeling the gnawing hunger in their stomach. They were hungry, it made them desperate. Like every industry that's about to go under, the government subsidized the fishing industry."

""

"My last days before coming home. Three days by boat, if you're going slow. There were enough guns on Unalaska, the sky would turn black with the amount of bullets being fired upwards. It was a sight to see, Meathead. The Chinese flew cargo planes full of men, and tried airdropping troops in. They got a couple, but only because they sent teams of airplanes to do bombing raids right before. They didn't attack the docks, only the ships in the water. They needed to have the infrastructure to support themselves and send back fish to Asia and then the rest of their troops, but they couldn't do it without a processing facility."

"Where they cut up and froze the fish?"

"Yep. I heard about one of the boats that came down from Siberia was a processing tender, it belonged to the Commies. It was a seven hundred foot ship called the Black Bear. A whole fleet of small fishing boats were right behind this processor, and they were fishing in the northern Bering Sea, fishing in the north end of a war zone. They gave the fish to the Black Bear, and landed planes right on the deck. Then those planes went straight back to China."

""

"I didn't know most of the time. There were no maps, nothing like the Pip-boy. A lot of the fighting occured trying to get into the Susitna river, west of Anchorage. The highway, highway 3 ran all the way from Homer, to Fairbanks. They wanted the Alaskan Pipeline, which is why they staged simutaneous attacks on Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Prudhoe Bay, and Prince William Sound. Each on was different, but all of them had air support. From Prince William Sound, they used oil tankers and cargo ships to carry men and soldiers on board, then ferried them into Valdez. Fairbanks was taken by semi-trucks loaded with containers, filled with soldiers in the back, and with Anchorage they threw everything at it, land, sea, and air. Prudhoe Bay they took by boat."

""

"They weren't interested in Juneau, not right away at first. If you look on a map, there's pumping stations near Fairbanks, and at Valdez was where big container ships pulled up, got their oil, and carried it anywhere in the world, so there were battles happening all over the place. We fought battles at Port Heiden, which was on the north side, Nelson Lagoon, they tried taking Cold Bay because that's where we had all our planes. The only way to get around Alaska quickly was by plane or boat, we walked most of the way. They were long walks. One day we were sent to King Cove, south east of Cold Bay, and a whole battalion of starving Chinese soldiers were running for us. They hadn't eaten in weeks, we tried to get them to surrender, but they didn't want to. They just wanted to kill us and eat everything left."

"They thought they could take Alaska by controlling the major ports and centers of commerce, so we sent all the boats away, and they were sitting on a whole bunch of frozen product they couldn't send back to their mainland. The Navy was busy blowing boats out of the water left and right in the North Pacific. I heard the Asians tried taking Hawaii. Guess how far that got them?"

"."

Nate sighed, "Yeah. Pretty damn pissed." It was an understatement. "Let's get going."

The pair walked away from the fountain, through the Boston Common, and Nate paused for a moment to examine the corpse of the giant super mutant behemoth. Grimacing at the size and smell.

"No country could just take a small bit of land without expecting serious resistance from the mainland force. There would be no disputed territory. It was all, or nothing with America. With one of the largest fleets sailing north from Hawaii, it was a week long journey when the fleet sailed at full power. Small tenders, anything under 200 ft would take up to nine days to go from Seattle to Dutch Harbor. Those carriers could seriously move in the water, plowing through the worst of weather and fifty foot waves, and still get there a day early. Most of the resupplies came from Hawaii after leaving the west coast of America. Their goal was to avoid the gulf of Alaska. It was an obvious target to use as a refueling station, and to a keep the fighting on the Mainland."

"The Battle of Delta Point was a big one, I heard. That was east of Fairbanks. Once we got a foothold back in Alaska, we shut down the pumping stations and bled them dry. No fuel for their generators, so they didn't have any power. Without power, their food expired. I think we were still at war, trying to take back Prudhoe Bay when they dropped the bombs. That's at the very tippy north end of Alaska. Beyond the Northern Lights."

""

"Nope, wrong time of the year, wrong part of the state."

"" Meathead asked.

"Commonwealth Avenue. But I want to duck my head in to a club here for food."

"<I'm detecting a few ghouls off to north end of the park,...mutants from the Court House."

"Screw them, we've got plenty worse to deal with." Nate said, picking up his pace. "I heard they got a pool table in here, Meathead. Hardest table to get to in all of Boston."

Nate gestured up to the building with the silver plated sign outside the rock arch leading through a short walkway of livery that read 'Boylston Club'.

\111/

Holding his rifle close to his chest, pressing the door open with one hand, and sight aimed down the hallway towards the elevator in the back, Meathead announced ."

Nate's shoulder's dropped. "Oh." There was a small podium where a long time ago, someone stood, checking membership status, which they walked right by.

The elegant elevator doors were custom made, art-deco fluer-de-lis expanding outwards, stacked on top of each other in white, brown, gold, and black metal coloring. Nate tapped the button, and the doors slid back slowly.

"I remember someone telling me it took $250,000 dollars up front for membership, plus an additional $50,000 every year in membership fees." He said, walking in. Meathead trotted into the elevator next to him and the doors closed.

Ascending, the doors opened on the backside of the elevator and opened up to a room that hadn't been touched since the day the bombs fell.

It was a lounge with a bar, a pool table to the right, places to sit in front of a bureau filled with cigars, and a fireplace two steps down from the rest of the floor level. There was a wall of books on the back wall, with the bar counter to the left. Almost all the chairs and comforters were filled with skeletons. Every single body was a person who died where they sat.

These were some of the richest people in all of Massachusetts, and maybe a few from the surrounding states as well, but by every one of them was a wine glass, and a empty bottle of wine.

There were a few filled bottles on a small table, where wine keys were set down and corks jammed into the top of opened bottles. Small glass vials with screw lids sat next to them, partially filled with a white powder.

"The hell?" Nate asked, seeing how every skeleton around him died with a wine glass near them. Three bodies were still holding their wine glass.

Nate went to the table, looking at the labels of the wine and on the vial.

Unscrewing the cap, he smelled it, but nothing came off the top scent.

"." Meathead said.

"How can you tell?"

""

Nate swallowed, looking around the room again.

"At least they didn't waste it on good wine. This was a 2075, and there's gotta be some fancy wine tucked away somewhere in here. Let's...get rid of the bodies. They make the room depressing."

""

"Yep. Same as the others. Get rid of all the wine bottles you see out too, I'll get started on some meat and beans for brunch."

Out went the bodies, and Nate went to a stove top in the small kitchen, in the back of the club. There was no gas, so he took a newspaper from the Boston Bugle, and small bits of tinder wood and started a fire in the burner. Minutes after he had a sustainable fire going, he placed a frying pan over on top and checked the water pressure in the pipes. There was some coming out in a slow stream. Slightly radioactive, he thought about all the ways to purify water, and how boiling it was the best course of action for now.

All the skeletons were lifted from their chairs, carried down the hallway, down outside and onto the street where they were burned in mass. Sparking a fire with his magic, the site was clear of any lingering spirits. Their bodies turning to ash, and then into dust.

Dust was shaken from the rafters, and the air was refreshed as Meathead blew all the stale canned air up the flume and out the chimney. Half an hour later, Nate brought out seasoned sauteed deer steaks, deglazed in the pan with red wine, and a big portion of beans on fine-china plates made in England.

"Do you eat meat as a changeling, Meathead?" Nate asked, carrying both plates of food to the lounge chairs, big enough for the changeling to sit in. Meathead hopped up and nodded.

"."

"Like what?"

"."

Nate fake gagged, "Eww. Right when I'm eating too."

It took a while for the image to be driven out of his mind before he could eat any of his brunch. "Crystal glasses, fine wine, fancy china, and silver silverware. Can't get much fancier than this, Meathead."

After a few bite from their own plates, Meathead chipped in, "."

"Want to go shoot a round?"

Meathead nodded, and stepped down from his chair with Nate following him to the pool table. There was a wine stain from where one of the deceased patrons spilled the poisoned cup, but it was long dried and didn't hurt the table any way.

"How long were the Changelings here before the war?" Nate asked.

" "

"You're only sixteen?" Nate asked.

Meathead nodded, racking the pool balls, Meathead broke with the pool stick levitating in a green field of magic and they took turns shooting pool.

"What was the conflict between you and the ponies?" Nate asked.

"There was in-fighting in the Changelings, we-meaning myself with the black shells- were what you could call seperatists. Our Queen fled from Equestria as King Thorax rose to power. He looked like a fucking faggot with big red antlers, and a green shell. This was the dumbass who divulged thousands of Changeling secrets to the ponies, all under the guise of building friendship, while actively trying to convert as many seperatist Changelings to their side.>"

"How'd you go from Equestria to Honduras...and Honduras to here?" Nate asked, expecting two parts to the answer.

"We were running out of places to hide on Equestria, but our Queen held a Meeting of the Minds with other Queens, and they let their senses wander far out into the galaxy. It was because of this meeting, that they detected Earth. They gathered all their resources, all their magic, and performed mass teleportations across the galaxy. The first of us weren't the luckiest, and landed in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Honduras. The Queen who came was drained, magically depleted, and needed to recover, but we took over a cargo container and sailed straight for land. From there, it was all about building up numbers and integrating ourselves into human society.>

Meathead shot the cue ball at the next billiard ball, forming the second part to his response. "

"So what happened between 2046 and 2077?"

""

"So what happened?"

""

"What about these Queens, Queen Geneva and Chrysalis?"

"" Meathead rolled his eyes up, thinking of the distant planet Equestria and how it was millions and millions of miles away.

Shooting pool until all the balls were sunk, they went back to their food, finishing the scraps, and washing them off in the sink.

"Water?" Nate asked, offering a box of water to Meathead. The changeling accepted it and raised the water to his lips, drinking it. Nate drank his own box, and then they flattened them, putting them back into Nate's bag. He checked over his rifle, his shotgun, handguns, and laser pistol. They had ten grenades between them, and by Meathead's count, five molotov cocktails.

Returning to the elevator, they went down, refreshed and filled with food and water back into Boston. Before Meathead passed through the door leading outside, Nate holding the door open for him, he changed back into a German Shepard.

""

\111/

Wait, Meathead. Look. It's still here.
Meathead wagged his tail, Nate pointed up at the sign that read "Comics!" and he already turned towards the front door.

"Goin' in."

""

"Are they doing anything?"

""

"Great. Goin' in." Nate took one step forward and down the cracked and crumbling concrete steps and gently used the rusting, chipped and flecked paint covered handrail leading down to the door.

"" Nate turned around on the descending steps, eye level with Meathead now.

"Comics, Meathead, I'm not passing by the last comic book store in all of Boston, maybe the world, and I'm not letting some reading material go to waste. It's what my dad and me did on the weekends, sometimes." His eyes flicked up and off to the left for a moment as the memory flashed back into his mind. Meathead slowly wagged his tail, apprehensive about the amount of ghouls he could feel through the walls, oblivious to the time that's passed, trapped inbetween moments of fear of dying and death.

"That and I want to see if they have any CGC graded comics, those should still be perfectly preserved and be in the same condition the way they were when they were graded. Every comic store always has them on the back wall behind the cashier, or in the glass case below the counter." Squatting beside the door, he set his rifle by the door, and tested the door handle, the latch clicked open.

""

"That's where they're always kept. That or upstairs, I remember my dad taking me here one time, and he was up at the counter, talking with the clerk for half an hour. Then they told me to wait downstairs and check out some comics, while they went up stairs for fifteen minutes."

Nate cracked open the door wide enough to stick his hand through the gap in the door, and reached up to the top right corner, and grabbed the small door chime, a bell that would ring loudly anytime someone passed through the door. Gripping it tightly in his hand, Nate shimmied sideways slowly, poking his head in to get a good view of the comic book store interior.

\111/

"Fuck!" Nate mouthed, realizing that it wasn't just adult ghouls in the store, teenage and kid sized ghouls were swaying on their feet, or some laying on the ground.

The ghouls were standing there, moaning through their vocal cords in an attempt at sleep or rest. Two piles of rubble, and two equally large holes above the piles on the ceiling leading to the floor above were right in the center of the walkway, while the other one came down on display racks of molded and faded comics.

On the bottom floor of Hubris comics were feral ghouls, their sizes ranged from the height of a five year old who is finally able to read the small words and look at the colorful pictures in a book, to pre-teens, to teenagers, to the young adult collector, and finally the parents responsible for bringing them to Hubris comics on October 23rd. 2077.

\111/

"Stay here, Meathead." Nate said. Closing the door behind him. Meathead was slightly shocked as the door clicked shut.

He was nervously waiting outside the store for a minute before any noise could be heard. On the first floor there was the bang of Nate's shotgun, four distinct 'phump!' followed by the muffled shouts of ghouls. There was a grenade that went off, and Meathead poked his head in, observing the door chime and making sure it didn't ring.

"Nate?"

He wasn't on the first floor, it looked like. There was suddenly two long bursts of semi-automatic rifle fire from upstairs that made Meathead turn his head up. Stepping back, he looked down both sides of the street, and saw a pack of five super mutants with two mutant hounds to the east of Hubris Comics, the way they wanted to go, cross the street moving south, towards Trinity Plaza. They were carrying 2x4 boards, clubs, car doors and a sledgehammer, a few pipe rifles between them, and the second Mutant from the rear carried a laser rifle.

There was more gunshots from the third floor, and Meathead swore he saw the muzzle flash. Nate was thumping around, running back and forth on the third floor, making all sorts of noise. This only alerted the ghouls from the fourth floor and a whole flood of ghouls came running down.

Suddenly there was a smash of glass as one ghoul was thrown out of a third story window, arms flailing as it fell with the glass, impaling itself on a wrought iron fence barb.

\111/

The special thing about Hubris comics was that there was a film studio on the fourth floor. Actors, writers, the director, stage hands, prop makers, costume designers, camera men, set designers, and even a lunch caterer were all ready to film the latest episode of 'The Unstoppables' where the Silver Shroud is pinned down in the streets of Boston in broad daylight after two of Marconi's men tail the Silver Shroud from his latest vigilante killing.

The Silver Shroud was tracking one of Marconi's enforcers, a brutal man by the name of 'the Boston Bulldog', after three episodes of introduction and buildup, the Silver Shroud was able to gun down the Bulldog and leave his calling card, but Marconi knew that Bulldog was on the Shroud's list. So, he waited for the Silver Shroud to act on the Bulldog, and sent men to watch him from a distance.

The murder took place early that morning, just minutes before the street lights were shut off when Marconi's men saw their man be gunned down. The Shroud walked up to him, the barrel of his Tommy Thompson still smoking slightly. He reached into his coat pocket and flicked a small business card, dipped in silver, and left it beside the corpse.

Now the Shroud was being tailed through the streets of Boston by two of Marconi's men, and he was none the wiser.

"Make it big, make it public. Pump him full of holes and if you get the chance, piss on his warm blood. Make sure the public and the police know that the Shroud had it a long time coming."

Marconi wanted it to be right early in the morning, where the Shroud couldn't slink off into the shadows and hide. He wanted the Silver Shroud to be executed in public. Nice and messy. They saw him take off his mask, and his long trench coat hid his Tommy gun, but the hat brim pulled down low was replaced with large dark glasses that covered most of his face. Up came a bandana, and the men tailing the Silver Shroud still couldn't get a visual on the face. In that moment, the Silver Shroud was just another Dick going to work.

The last episode ended with the two men drawing their Uzi's on the Shroud, in front of a busy office building plaza with plenty of innocent people coming to work.

But, the bombs fell on the day of the shoot. Now the fans of the Silver Shroud were left waiting for another thrilling conclusion of 'The Unstoppables'

\111/

Meathead turned his head up to the broken window, listening for gunshots and movement. Nate was grunting, swinging something around when he shouted out.

Meathead felt like he needed to pee, but he held his bladder and listened to the silence.

Almost two minutes later, he felt Nate make his way back downstairs from the fourth floor to the first. The door chime over head clinged loudly and he shut the door behind him.

Nate was bleeding out through his right shoulder and right arm, both were bitten and flesh torn from his body. Meathead was ready with a stimpak and Nate slowly accepted it.

"" Meathead asked, it wasn't the matter of if Nate was physically okay, but Meathead felt from beyond the door of Nate's confliction and sudden welling sadness.

Tucked under his arm were three Comic Book Grading Commission inspected comics, preserved behind plastic cases. It was Manta Man #3, first appearance of Tijax and Tijax, the twins from South America, Swordfish and Toucan, who became regular recurring bad guys for Manta Man. Rated at a 9.6, printed on off-yellow pages, the only thing degrading its value were rough corners, and the staples were slightly off center alignment.

Then there was The Silver Shroud, issue 37, first appearance of the 'Miss Magenta, the on and off again love interest for the Silver Shroud. Who works both with him, and against him in different issues. She's out for herself, and the only reason she hasn't been gunned down by the Silver Shroud is because Miss Magenta is the daughter of the Chief of Police.
Rated at a 9.2, it was going to be a very valuable comic in the year 2079 when Miss Magenta released her own spin-off movie. Like most things, the chance slipped away when the bombs fell.

And Lastly, Guns and Bullets #1. 6.5. An all American magazine showing how to make guns and ammo with no background experience. How to bore a chamber, how to craft cartridge rounds, how to repair and maintain. There was an order catalog in the back for people to cut out and send in a selection of guns or ammo, no limit, to Pittsburg Steel Mfg.

It was this magazine which started the great upstart and creation of Pipe Rifles known and available throughout the Commonwealth.

""

"I've got Grognak the Barbarian number one graded at a 9.4 back home in the safe."

""

"Alright. Sounds like we're not going anywhere near that place without some power armor..." Nate's jaw hung loose for a moment, "And I know where we can find some."

\111/

Trinity Square Plaza was home to one of the oldest Churches in Boston, founded in 1733, the structure looked immensely intact, with only moss and greenery growing on the outside, with the brickwork color faded and awash with dust and built up dirt.

Directly across the courtyard from Trinity Church was the Boston Public Library, reminiscent of Notre Dame and the Courthouse across from it in Paris, France. The facade on the outside of both buildings was decorated with Super Mutant totems, girders and rebar bent and sharpened, dug into the ground and pointing outwards. There were bodies impaled everywhere, leaving the whole area for blocks around to smell like rotting corpses and dead animals that were left in the sun for months and months and months. Some blackened, festering corpses that were so rotted away were lacking any semblance of a skull, organs, or shape.

A decapitated body with one arm and one leg, with flies and crows digging at the putrid remains, that was one of dozens, strung from lamp posts, street signs, out of windows, or left in the street.

Nate and Meathead treaded with caution, but Meathead commented how it was too quiet, and that the Super Mutants were busy inside.

With what, they weren't prepared to poke their heads in through the doors to find out, but as long as they could keep walking the next five blocks without a bullet shot at them or a Super Mutant chasing them down, Nate was thankful for the small blessings.

It irked him that Trinity Church was being treated in such a way, the disrespect and loss of knowledge was blatent. Smoke was coming from the interior of the Boston Public Library, and the scent on the air was that of mildew and rotted paper being burnt in the fire.

The Mutants were burning books, burning cabinets, shelves, and chairs for warmth. They came and saw all this, occupied by humans at one point, and killed them while chasing others out. Then they claimed it was all theirs and free to use however they wanted, so they burned the books and ended up burning a hole in the second floor because they didn't use a firepit, trashcan, or oil barrel. They only piled them up, and set the tinder ablaze.

The fire burnt through the floor and when they started a second one, they tore out sections of wall, punching holes and ripping wood and plaster out of the wall, then restarted a second fire on the second floor, learning absolutely nothing except that when this entire building was gone, they would move into the next building beside them, because it was free and no one was going to stop them.

The arrogance of their stupidity was almost enough to make Nate charge into the library and strangle the Mutants with his bare hands, but he was still sore from the attack on Faneuil Hall, then there was the number of Super Mutants in the area to consider.

\111/

Trinity Tower, a chill went down Nate and Meathead's spine just being near it.

Meathead tried to describe the hatred oozing from Trinity Tower, the cosmic horror of an obsidian rock meant to ward off evil spirits and protect people, inverted and corrupted like a diamond ring put in a microwave for two hours, with the setting turned to nuclear.

It was a damn American phrase 'to nuke it in the oven', meaning, to warm something up in the microwave. But, would you feel rich and powerful wearing a diamond gold ring that was placed in a microwave for two hours? Or would you feel disgusted, inbalanced, hot and bothered by the microwave energy absorbed by the ring?

That was a small sense of the dread feeling Nate and Meathead felt while they were near Trinity Tower. Meathead assured Nate, there were over one hundred and fifty Super Mutants throughout Trinity Tower.

A dozen Super Mutants with the element of surprise on their side was hardly manageable, but over one hundred was a staggering challenge Nate didn't want to think about.

His sores and bruises still made him stagger and walk with a wince, even though they were mostly healed, but the mental pain and trauma was still there.

With the Tower so close to Fenway Park, Nate told Meathead that they needed to do something about the tower, and the mutants, but if they were lucky, the whole thing would rust from the inside out, and then collapse.

Nate and Meathead both knew how to blow up a tower that size, but it next to Mass Fusion, it was one of the tallest buildings in Boston, and the mess wouldn't be worth the hassle.

From Commonwealth Avenue, they walked north, stepping onto Berkley street.

"Creepy fucking crows, Meathead." Nate looked up at the tall trees in the center of the green way running all thew way down the road. To their right was old buildings from the late 1970s that lined the waterfront, to their left were old shops.
Nate saw a landmark, the Holy Mission Congregation and then turned their direction south on, walking half a block and then turning right on Newbury street. The first thing they both saw was the northeast corner of Fenway Park.

Beneath the faded green paint was the dark red brick. There were ramps along the higher outside levels. The 'Second Base' entrance was blocked off, filled with rubble and concrete chunks. White arrows with the diamond within a diamond symbol pointing towards the front entrance at home base.

Nate pointed straight up, "I used to know a guy who knew how to get to the top of the roof here, and then he had another guy who would lay down a big piece of wooden bridge that would extend up, and then fall over to Fenway. We used to sneak into games. I only did it twice though. He would pull up the drawbridge and let it fall backwards onto the building so they wouldn't get caught."

\111/

"Bark in the Park." Nate said, seeing the blockaded first base entrance. Arrows and signs were pointing off to the right towards the home base entrance.

"" Meathead asked, ears perking up a bit.

"Bark in the Park, remember that? You, Nora, Shaun, me...Boston Red Socks versus the Phillies. Seven to six."

Meathead slowly resumed his pace at Nate's side as the memory came to him. "Yeah...Yeah! Bunch a dogs everywhere. There was...well...I don't remember all that much about it. But I do remember going. It was nice. Lots of dogs, everyone was happy." Nate looked up to his left, the old brickwork, placing his hand against the wall and letting it feel the coarse erosion for a few steps as he walked forward before taking it off.

The bricks used to be polished and smooth, like running your hand over a piece of glass, but time and bullets chipped away at the bricks, leaving them porous and hungry.

Fenway Park, or as the new signs leading up to it now read, Diamond City, Nate and Meathead's return to the old baseball stadium was surreal. The closer they were to the stadium, the more they followed invisible long forgotten social barriers by sticking to the sidewalk.

The buildings around Fenway Park were almost always apartments on top of businesses, restaurants, bars, and convenience stores.

Nate was irritated as the first four music notes coming through the radio speaker on his Pip-boy. He recognized the song in the first two notes, and quickly tried to shut off the music. It went from very-high, to medium, high, then low.

"I'm as Corny as Kansas in Aug-" Nate turned to the menu and shut off the signal. Sighing in relief he didn't have to listen to the song 'Wonderful Guy' by Tex Beneke for the fifth time in two days.

Meathead picked up on Nate's emotions and asked him a simple question that turned everything 180 degrees in an instant.

""

"Really?" Nate asked, drawing it out.

""

"" Meathead asked, it was as if a light bulb went off in Nate's head. The biggest, widest smile Nate bore since before coming from the Vault spread across his face and was incredibly infectious as he instantly bellowed out from the pit of his stomach, making sure he was heard for blocks around in every direction.

"M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!"

"WE WORK FAIR AND WE WORK HARD AND WE'RE IN HARMONY!"

"M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!"

"Mickey Mouse!"

""

"MICKEY MOUSE!"

""

"Forever we'll let us hold our banner HIGH, HIGH , High! "

Meathead was soaking in the good natured humor of Nate's sudden upswing in emotion and trying not to get bowled over. He was giddy, trying not to laugh. ""

Wink. Nate marched through the Police Precinct 8 Station, and nodded at the Police Power Armor standing unfazed by tampering or prospectors trying to take it. Rounding around the First base corner. The large green garage shutter door was pulled down and locked, barricaded. To their left was the parking lot next to the baseball stadium.

The feral dogs living in the rusted out hulks heard. They rose up and chased the alpha through the parking lot, running away from the noise, barking all along the way. Through tall weeds, past piles of garbage dumped by the citizens of Diamond City, and straight south and west.

Nate sung louder. His cheeks were flush with a burning red glow and his chest swelling with unshakable pride and joy at knowing the lyrics. Nate couldn't of cared less who heard him, in fact, he wanted to let the song to be heard through the entire city, and he wanted everyone listening to know that he was singing it. Marching straight past a Diamond City guard who stepped out of Nate and Meathead's way as he strode confidently down the street. The guard's perplexed expression was unsure of the man singing as loud as he could, while still carrying a note.

"Boys and girls from far and near are welcome as can be. M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!
Who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me? M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!"

The pair passed rotating turrets, and a souvenir stand converted into a guard's barrack where mats were rolled out on the ground, and signs that read 'Protected by the Wall'.

"Who's marching coast to coast and far across the sea? M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!"

"Donald Duck!"

"And Donald Duck!"

"

Nate's mind settled on the night Nora and he were both in the bedroom after returning from Alaska. Deep erotic fantasies were flashing through his mind the entire plane ride home, and he was barely able to contain himself in the car as he was so glad to be alive and safe in that moment. He remembered the stupid erection he had while in the car ride back from the airport and how he kept trying to get Nora to take notice. His mind played out their naked and deep impassioned lovemaking in the dark. Replaying the moments over and over again from the kissing, to the intense fuck fest that they engaged in for hours after arriving at home.

By the time Nate walked from the street to the sidewalk, he was laughing and crying tears at the thought of his dog was aware of how animalistic Nora and he became behind a closed door. Crying that it was only Meathead and himself, he felt sad and barely able to put into words what he felt, but the Changeling could tell.

"Forever let us hold our banner High! High! High! "

'"Come along and sing the song and join our family! M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!"

They looked up and saw the copper turned green statue of a baseball player mid swing out front. Their walking path lead right to the stadium as if the rusted cars, giant barricades, blown out store fronts, and guards appearing at checkpoints as if they weren't even there. Nate nodded to a security guard wearing weathered catchers pads with a wired baseball helmet dinged with a few dozen scratches and dents from two hundred years of use and abuse. The plastics were cracked, and the face underneath shone brightly in the noon-day sun.

They both heard the voice of an argument taking place long before they finally came around the final corner of Fenway park to the Home Plate entrance, and a woman with shoulder length black hair, wearing a news cap, a long red leather jacket, tall boots laced up to her knee, and beige pants turned to look over her shoulder for a quick moment to see a man and his dog walking straight for the green gate and directly towards her. Singing, she was as confused as the rest of the guards Nate and Meathead passed, so she turned back towards the intercom box she was speaking into and kept talking.

"You can't do this to me! I live here!" Piper shouted into the intercom.

\111/

Ch. 25 Piper

"What do you mean you can't open the gate? Stop messing around, Danny. I'm standing out here in the open for crying out loud!"

"I got orders not to let you in, Ms. Piper. I'm sorry, I'm just doing my job."

"Just doing your job? Protecting Diamond City means keeping me out, is that it? Oh look, it's the big scary reporter, Boo!"

Her charming appeal was being beaten by metal screens, wiring, and an apathetic security guard. As long as Piper's conversation with a metal intercom box continued, she knew she could only get so far.

Having learned long ago it was nearly impossible to lie to Meathead, and that he was reading emotions on a biologically comparable scale, Nate didn't even have to say anything when he rolled his eyes up to him. "" Nate said, wagering the madam being left to fend for herself annoyed someone on the inside.

"That must be a recurring problem for her."

""

"She said so herself, she's a reporter."

\111/

Danny on the other end of the intercom, leaned on the microphone button, sighing deeply. By holding down the mic on his end, Piper couldn't interfere. She was forced to listen to Danny's drawn-out sigh, making her hear the off-put resignation in his voice. This was one conversation he didn't feel like having today, but if he took his finger off the button, Piper would talk and talk and talk.

"You said the Mayor was a synth Piper, and guess what, in this tiny little town of one hundred people with nothing to read except hundred-year-old books, they took it seriously and McDonough took it personally! Did you maybe think that a story saying you can't trust anyone would make the world a bright and happy place?"

"I was only describing the observations of how the Mayor was acting. It's reporting, and no my articles weren't going to make the world a bright and shiny place, we've got nukes for that! My articles are about the shreds of truth and stories that could build interest when everyone already knows each other on a first-name basis, and traders coming into Diamond City can know what's being talked about in our community." Piper said, trying to explain it reasonably.

"Piper, the only reason people are talking about it, is because you were one of two people who was talking about it... And then you told more people, and then some details got lost along the way as a big old game of he-said, she-said went from you to your sister, to everyone in the school, to every parent, and then it wasn't until Travis said something over the radio." Danny took his mouth away from the microphone for a moment to catch his breath.

"There were more people than just the mayor who were mad when they found out about two brothers who were found dead in the Dugout Inn, after trying to carve each other's skin off, trying to see if they were synths underneath! Go. Away. Piper." The fight just wasn't in Danny's voice, but it was surely rising in Piper's.

"Ergh! You can't just lock me out, I live here!"

Nate glanced at Meathead, away from Piper, "She sounds like a fantastic listener." Meathead nodded.

"Piper, Fuck off till we feel like opening the gates."

She wasn't deterred in the slightest, with one arm still propped against the intercom, she turned up and around to face Nate and Meathead.

"You two. You want to get into Diamond City?" She scanned both of them top to bottom in a blink of an eye.

"Do you think they're going to listen to you so quickly after he told you to take a hike?"

A look of concern flashed in her face, then changed to a stern smile. "Just stay quiet, Oh, what's that?" She spoke louder into the microphone. "You're traders up from Quincy? You have enough supplies to stock a general store for a whole month? Huh. You hear that Danny?" Piper said, really leaning into the intercom box. "You going to let us in, or are you going to be the one talking to crazy Myrna about losing all this supply?"

\111/

"Geeze! Alright, Piper! Just give me a minute." Danny said, leaning back from the microphone. He put his feet up on the counter and frowned at the small switch that raised and lowered the gate. Shaking his head he reached out for it, then pulled his hand back. His hand hovered over the gate switch.

'She's testing me. I know it. I know she knows I know it. Don't do it. She's bluffing. It's painfully obvious that it's a bluff.'

"Oy! Reporter." Nate said, pulling Piper away, the indignant scowl she wore was directed at the small intercom.

"What?"

"When was the last time you heard about anything coming up from Quincy?" Nate asked,

Piper squinted her eyes and shook her head, "Two weeks ago?" Nate responded by widening his eyes and shaking his head.

"You didn't hear about the raid?"

Piper bit her tongue and faced her body towards Nate. "What happened to Quincy?"

"Four days...five days? Four days ago, I met a man...shoot I forgot about him...anyway, I met this man named Preston Garvey, of the-"

"Of the Minutemen! Yeah! Why? What happened?"

Nate's eyebrows rose and fell and he looked forlorn by shaking his head. "Listen up. He told me the Minutemen fell apart. Half of them joined the Gunners, turned raider, and wiped out Quincy. By the time I found him, they went from twenty Minutemen and a bunch of civilians to him and four civilians. Preston was the last Minuteman and that was right before even more raiders from the Corvega plant in Lexington came and separated us in Concord. I don't know if he survived or not. I only know he didn't die in Concord because I checked all over for his body. But, of the four people who were with him, two of them were captured, one died, and the other is missing, probably with Preston if they're still alive."

"Whoa. That's a lot to take in," Piper's eyes flashed to the gate, wondering what was taking so long.

"There's a lot more to this, but right now, this isn't helping us get inside. There was also a fire at Covenant, major shit show, and I know how U.S.S. Consitution set sail. And...how is it that you're a reporter and not heard about any of this!?" Nate asked, looking at the blindsided reporter.

"I was downtown! I only just got back from checking some leads out about a potential story about a giant mutated monster in the harbor when the ship crashed into the skyscraper. I tried checking it out, but robots were crawling all over the building and they wouldn't allow me on board." Nate spared a glance towards Meathead, he shook his head no.

"WILL YOU SHUT UP?" A voice called down from above, twenty feet above them was a security guard leaning over the rail, "I can hear every little thing you're saying!"

"Oy! Was I talking to you? Shut up! I'm trying to conduct business down here!" Nate shouted back.

"Take a hike!"

"Get Buggered!" Nate shouted back.

"That doesn't even mean anything!"

"Says you! You buggerer! You need a good bollocksing! Make sure your partner washes his junk first! You look like a guy who likes it dirty!"

"Fuck you!"

"Fuck you!"

"Fuck off!"

"Come down here and make me!" Nate said, arms out.

The guard rose his rifle and Nate just shook his head and laughed, the pipe rifle had a slightly bent barrel that looked rusted out. "Nice gun! Your mom polish it for you?"

The guard pulled back on the bolt, loading a round into it.

"What are you gonna do with that piece of shit in your hands? That gun's gonna fall apart or blow up in your hands!" Nate jeered, putting his hands onto his hips.

"I don't want to shoot you, but I will!"

"You couldn't hit even hit the ground if you fell off that wall!" Nate shouted up.

"Stop yelling at the guards! You're not helping!" Piper shouted at Nate.

"This guy couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat!"

Crack! The rifle went off and the round embedded into the brickwork five feet away from Nate.

His response was to laugh, "Oh my gosh! Ha! Hahaha! Your aim sucks, jackass!"

"That was just a warning shot!"

Meathead shook his head. The guard was worried, embarrassed, and backpedaling, trying to explain it.

Nate snorted with laughter, "Is this how it is then? Oppression of the masses through force? Help! I'm being oppressed!"

"Shut up!" Both the guard and Piper yelled.

"Open the gate, and I'll stop fucking shouting!"

"You heard me, Piss off!"

"Make me!"

Crack!

"FUCK!" Piper's arm was thrown backward and a stream of fresh red blood flowed from her arm. She collapsed onto the ground, "Shit! Thomas! You fucking ASSHOLE! You fucking shot me! YOUR AIM IS TERRIBLE, you asshole!" She gripped her arm and shook in throws of pain.

Nate glared at Thomas and he was scared. Laying his rifle by the rail, The security guard quickly backed away out of sight.

Nate went to the intercom. "Hey, Danny boy, Thomas just shot Piper, let us in. Also, he needs to calibrate the sight on his rifle and learn to aim properly. He's gonna shoot someone's eye out at this rate, starting with himself."

Danny's response was a long drawn out sigh. Longer than before. Inside the walls, he was shaking his head and looking at the door control. Clenching his eyes shut he rested his hand on the button to make the metal wall rise.

"Yeah, yeah, I heard that shouting from here. Piper, I swear you make the days here in Diamond City go by a little slower. Just, for this month, could you drop the damn Institute talk? It's killing us."

"Just let me in you assholes!" Gripping her hand over the bullet wound in her arm to staunch the flow of blood.

Nate went to Piper's side and held up a Stimpak to her. "Yes or no?"

"Yes! Definitely yes!" Nate jabbed her in the arm and her entire left arm relaxed and went limp for a moment. Piper rolled her head back and moaned. "Ohhhhh...that sucked. I hate getting shot." The bleeding stopped, and a little lead round was forced back out of the bullet hole. The wound pussed and blood hardened, quickly turning into a loose scab.

The entire wall shook as metal pylons contracted, pulling up a large section of yellow steel reddened by ages of rust and pocketed with bullet marks. Deeper dents were from long ago when people could still ram their cars into it, trying to knock it down. Now it was adorned with a white diamond and bordered with a white line. Burn marks scorned the edges as if someone or a group of people tried burning the stadium to the ground from the outside.

Nate waved his hand and offered Piper to go first. "Ladies first." He said, allowing Piper to be the first thing the expecting faces of Diamond City Security saw.

"I wouldn't have it any other way," Piper responded, wincing once as she moved her arm in a little circle before dropping it.

Meathead looked up at Nate, 'Really? his expression meant to ask. Piper skipped ahead, grinning madly to have security let her in again.

Nate glanced at Meathead for silent input, the dog scrunched up his face and turned away from a foul stench.

"I know bud, she's full of it...how much do you want to bet she's cried wolf at least once?" Meathead stuck out his tongue and shook his head.

""

"Who let this rabble-rouser back into my city?" There were only a few people who could shout the possessive of 'my city', and Nate guessed it was either McDonough, who Piper and Danny mentioned, or a chief of security only now aware of Piper's return.

"Well, that was fast." Nate turned to the entrance and walked in, hearing the gate squeak and slid shut behind them.

"It's not your city, McDonough!" The shouting started almost as quickly as Piper entered the baseball stadium. Her voice was proud and determined, as well as arrogant and a bit overdone as if she was trying to bury the lede.

"With the right motivation, maybe..." Nate said to himself. "Wanna go play charming neighbor?" Meathead shrugged his shoulders and wagged his tail.

"-You believe in freedom of the press, don't you?" Piper asked, bringing Nate's thoughts back into the conversation.

"I believe in free speech, along with the rest of the bill of rights and every amendment to the constitution that followed after that," Nate said. "But when you ask me, do people have the right to know? Yes, of course, they do, everyone always does. But it's not their duty to do your job for you, it's your job, to do your job for yourself, which in turn you feel it benefits society. Hi, I'm Nate, that's Meathead, m' dog. I heard you were the Mayor? It's an honor to meet you." Nate said, extending a hand out to shake McDonough's. Meathead snuffed outwards through his nose twice and barked loudly, Nate held his hand out for a moment as McDonough stared and then shook it as well.

"Yer Got...clean hands there..." McDonough shook his head, looking at Nate's hands. The difference was extremely apparent in skin tone, color, roughness, and texture. McDonnough's hands were dry and rough, the backside of Nate's hands was still soft and smooth from the pre-war condition. "Anyway, you seem like a decent enough city type, what can I or Diamond City Security assist with you today? Business? Food and Water? A place to settle down? Diamond City is a safe happy city, don't let this muckraker here tell you otherwise." The mayor shot Piper a look that said 'what are you still doing here?

"I'm looking for a bald kidnapper, might've come through here with either an infant or a young boy. That boy is my son. He's either passing him off as his son or hiding him. Last I saw of this kidnapper, he has a scar above his right eye and a beard, wore a black leather jacket and carried a .44 magnum if that matches anyone's description." Nate looked at McDonough's face for any recognition, there were a few traces of memory popping up, but nothing to tell him that McDonough saw the kidnapper.

"Oh? Your son is missing? What's Diamond City Security going to do to help this man, huh? This isn't the first missing person report to come through here, and now we've got an infant who's been taken."

"Thank you for the support, Piper. We'll handle it from here." Nate interjected, turning his attention to the mayor.

"I haven't personally come in contact with such an individual...I stand corrected. As the mayor, I have, but no person with your son. Scars on people's faces are a common sight in the Commonwealth, and the clothes could easily be changed or swapped out. People carry all sorts of weapons, so when I say I have seen a person like that, I've seen and met hundreds of people whom you describe. Diamond City Security doesn't have the capacity to handle all missing people's reports. But, Diamond City has every service available known to man, so I'm sure one of our residents can assist you."

"Great! Hey, since you're the man in charge around here, you seem to know what's going on in these parts. Do you have any suggestions on who I could ask for help?"

"Oh...ah, well...There is a private citizen I could recommend the services of... a Detective Nick Valentine, he specializes in tracking people down for debts and that sort of thing." Mayor McDonough said with a nod of his head towards Nate's rifle.

"Now, I have to get going! Diamond City security doesn't have time to help, but I'm sure Mr. Valentine charges a reasonable fee."

"Do I need to check this?" Nate turned to Danny, the closest security guard, and he raised his head.

"Nah, carry it around if you want, just no pointing it at people," Danny replied.

Piper caught Mayor McDonough one last time, trying to get the last word in.

"This is ridiculous, McDonough! Diamond City can't provide one officer to help with missing persons? I want the truth."

"Piper! I've had enough of this! From now on, consider you and that little sister of yours on notice." Turning to Nate, "I must return to my office, you seem like Diamond City Material. Should you feel like purchasing a residence in Diamond City, please speak with my assistant Geneva. Until we met again, have a pleasant stay in Diamond City." Mayor McDonough turned on his heel and went for an elevator marked 'Club Level Elevators' and waited for a security guard to tap the button before the doors slid closed. The quiet dinging of the bell counting off floors as it rose.

"Wow, I'm impressed. not often anyone can get anything out of McDonnough's tight-fisted hands." She walked halfway around Nate, sizing him up, looking him from toe to head. "Hmm, why don't you stop by my office after you see Valentine? I think I just found my next story." Nate raised his eyes in surprise. Looking down to Meathead, then back to Piper.

"Piper, does the phrase it's easier to attract flies with honey, rather than vinegar, mean anything to you?"

"Yes, why?"

"Shouting at the person who you're trying to get information from doesn't always work, a little tact goes a long way when talking to people like Mayor McDonough. My knowledge is free, but teaching it to others is expensive. As for now, I need to speak to a man about a kidnapper."

\111/

Author's Note

"Diamond City Radio!" Travis looked up at the posters around his studio, "Yeah. Diamond City Radio, broadcasting all day, every day and then some."

"Brenton Wood must've pretty choosy with the gals he was after, but he sure saw one that caught it eye. Baby You've Got It, only at the Great Green Commonwealth Jewel."

Pressing play on the holotape machine, and switching over the microphone, it took Travis Lonely Miles a moment to realize he goofed on saying, 'The Great Green Jewel of the Commonwealth.'

"Darnit!"

Ch. 26 Diamond City

The outer ring of Fenway Park funneled traffic through the mezzanine by security blocked off paths leading to other food stands and stalls around the baseball stadium. Boarded up, and locked down, the only way to go was straight through. Up and over a rap that exited out down through home plate, the rails were scrapped and moved to the side. The stairs leading all the way down to the baseball field was a catwalk ramp that was ripped out of somewhere else in Fenway Park and laid down on top of the original stairs.

The stands and bleachers were filled with junk and trash discarded by the people of Diamond city. Through seats with little metal number plates screwed onto them were sprouted bushes, now dying off in the cooling late fall months. Dominating the center of the pitcher's mound was a three-story pipe stack with steam coming out of the top. At the bottom of this stack was a neon sign reading 'Power Noodles', with a counter and chairs shoved up to it. All along the ground was a wooden boardwalk and dirt paths. Palates or wooden signs large enough for people to walk on lined the ground. Beyond the Diamond City Market was Diamond City Radio, in his single trailer, broadcasting all hours of the day.

In the Left Outfield was a small park shared with farms and animals, tended to residents of Diamond City, the Center and Right outfield was dominated by a large pit used for gathering water, and a purifier shack built in the center of the pond with docks leading out to it.

At the bottom of the stairs, directly to the left was Publick Occurrences, Piper and Nat's newspaper stand which both of them operated and lived out of. Across from them, was 'All Faiths Chapel', a building the size of a double-wide trailer.
next to a chapel was a 'Choice Chops' with different cuts of meat outlined on the pig-shaped sign.

At the bottom of the stairs to the immediate right was a ramp with the sign 'Mayor' and two arrows from street signs leading back up towards first base, where the path forked to the left and right. On the right was a lift was built to carry people high up to the Club Level of the baseball stadium. This is where the announcers and sportscasters would sit, looking out over the field and watch the game. This was the way to the Mayor's office of Diamond City, as the speakers and instruments to operate the mechanics around Fenway Park hadn't operated in the last two hundred years.

The Colonial Taphouse in the upper seat section was still serving drinks, a deck with chairs and sun umbrellas were set out on the patio in front of the door. Above the bar were more houses, built out and over the stands and supported by giant girders.

All throughout the baseball diamond was Diamond City Market, stands surrounding the pitcher's mound selling everything, just as Mayor McDonough said. There was a spinning sign that read 'Mega Surgery'. With a blue cross on top, the building to its right was 'Chem-I-Care' advertising to everyone to have their prescription filled with any type of drug they wanted.

Where the Boston Red Socks dugout used to be, was now the Dugout Inn, with a patio of dining tables out front, but the piles of garbage out front attracted smaller vermin and rats to the area.

Behind Publick Occurrences was 'Cathy and John's Super Salon'. A walk up stand with a spinning wooden chair, and a faded red couch pushed up against the back wall. There was a brightly lite sink with white towels and a bureau with bottles of shampoo lined up.

To the left of the Super Salon was a two-story building with a large red 'Fallon's Basement' sign, the same font as the one in the General Atomics Galleria. It was a showcase western-style font that was chosen to get people to impulse buy. With a staircase dug down directly into the dirt field, leading to the basement two mannequins dressed in fresh clean clothes stood outside.

Across the boardwalk was Moe's Swatters, on the top of the building was a giant metal bat with nails driven into the head, this building was nearly outdone by the large rocket sponsoring Commonwealth Weaponry. Painted onto the yellow sign were two ARR rifles and a smaller slogan that said: "In God We Trust, everyone else pays CAPS."

The last shop in the marketplace was Diamond City Surplus, a large junk stall with everything scavenged from the ruins of Boston. There were plenty of plates and sections of power armor lining one wall, along with two power armor frames stripped down to the bones.

Above nearly every shop was a trailer with a hitch, wheels propped up on cinder blocks, or in one instance, a school bus all with little chimneys poking out of the top.

\111/

Nate nearly tripped over home plate, the pentagon-shaped bag was cemented into the ground. Piper's younger sister Nat was welcoming her sibling back, gladly jumping down from an overturned plastic milk crate and running up to her.

"Hey! You're back!"

Piper bent over and smiled, putting her hands on her knees, "Hey Kiddo, How's the paper sales?"

"Well, the presses are getting overloaded. That motor is going to go soon if we don't replace it." She said looking off to her right inside the store.

"Ah, you've been saying that for weeks, but the old girl keeps on cranking. Stop worrying so much, I gotta head into the office and unload. You start whistling if you see any angry politicians coming our way." Piper gave Nat a quick hug and then went to a red door that swung outwards, showing the staircase leading up to the second floor.

"Why is something wrong?" Nat asked, turning to follow her sister.

Piper didn't respond, not even a wink, nod, or shake of the head. "Piper?" Nat sighed.

"Ey. Don't worry. There's always something wrong. If it's not one thing, it's something else." Nate said to Nat. She looked up at him, and then to Meathead standing by his side, panting and sniffing at her.

She looked back to the store, to where an old hand operated printing press was sitting,

"Do you want a free copy of last week's paper, mister?" She asked, there was a short stack of extra newspapers. "Free papers to newcomers. If the Institute grabs you in the night, at least we warned you."

"Where can I find Nick Valentine?" Nate asked, tucking the newspaper under his armpit.

"On the left, take the road to third base, then make a right, and after that, you'll see the sign for his house." She said.

"Thank you."

\111/

Nate glanced at the paper, walking down the road while reading. The caption, 'The Synthetic Truth'.

"Sixty years ago, a man shoots the bar owner of Power Noodles." Nate read to Meathead, "The shooter kills a few more people, then the guards shot him dead and they found out he was a synth. Doesn't say how they found out he was a synth, just says he does. His cheek twitched, and then he went wild."

Meathead growled outwards keeping his tone level.

"Listen to this Meathead, Mayor McDonough sat at Power Noodles, chewing and eating the same spot that Mr. Carter the synth went haywire, and mercilessly killed several people - after spending hours sharing an experience the people of Diamond City assumed was reserved for members of the human race. They were wrong. Are we?"

"The hell is this crap? Meathead. Damnit. We wound up in the age of the witch hunts. We need to end this shit. We know better than that, don't we Meathead? Huh, boy? Who's a good boy?" Nate said, folding the paper back up.

Nate scratched Meathead's head, behind the ears.

Walking a lap around Diamond City Market, they came upon Cathy and Johnny trimming a woman's hair, having a disparaging conversation.

"If anyone is one of those things...it is her secretary of his. Her and her perfect hair." Cathy said, in her right hand was a lit cigarette she daintily took puffs from. Every movement of her hand was punctuated with a jab at Johnny with the cigarette hand.

"The mayor's secretary? Come on, ma, I cut her hair myself, and I know human hair." His hands were on the woman's skull, fingers pinching together lines of hair while using a pair of scissors to even it out.

"That's just it Johnny, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. If you nicked McDonough with a razor, he'd bleed, don't mean nothing."

Nate was dragged into the conversation as he caught Cathy's eye, and she pointed her right pointer finger at him.

"You there. Talk some sense into my nitwit son. McDonough's secretary, is she a synth?"

Nate scowled. "Where's your proof, lady?"

"I think the Institute made Geneva-"

Nate cut in, "OH! So do you THINK or do you KNOW? Which is it? Do you know for sure, or are you just saying whatever's coming to your mind, because you were thinking about it?"

"Ain't no woman look like she does." Cathy's eyes narrowed, "A little too...perky. She's a synth, right? She has to be."

"Lady, by that logic, I could call your son a synth, and you wouldn't be able to stop me from screaming it as loud as I want."

"Hey, you can't do that!"

"I'm not a synth!"

"She just said, she thought Geneva was a synth because she looked too perfect. If your entire argument is based off looks, who says that the Institute doesn't make ugly looking synths. Now if that were the case, I wouldn't be the one to talk, just by looking at you. Come on, lady, either you have proof, or you keep your thoughts to yourself because no one is interested in what you think. I don't care what you think either. Do you want to know what I think?" Nate detested the idea of people not having absolute proof or guarantees behind their arguments.

"Yeah! Tell me what you think." She demanded, she then took a long drag off her cigarette and walked to Nate, exhaling it. Waving his hand in front of his face, and wafting away the smoke, he coughed.

"Too bad. You shouldn't care what other people think. Meathead, pee right there." He said, pointing to the post supporting the outside wall of her shop. Meathead padded over, leaning forward, and peed right in front of her shop.

The woman was absolutely mortified that she was refused and now a dog was peeing right in front of her. She coughed on cigarette smoke and gagged. This made her cough even harder as she doubled over in a bow to stay standing.

"Careful now, those cigarettes will give you cancer."

Cathy tried to raise a fist and respond, but after one lungful of air, she was back doubled forward in a massive heavy cough that shook her down to her toes. She was still coughing as Nate and Meathead walked away.

\111/

They followed the path to Nick Valentine's detective agency and knocked on the door while opening it.

"Hello? Hello?" He asked, across the bottom floor of office space with two desks and ringed with file cabinets, a woman with a bobbed haircut curled inwards and wearing a brown vest, white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her bicep, with a pink dress. She was going through a box of papers when she heard Nate and turned around.

"Afraid you're too late. The office is closed."

Nate tossed his hands up then clasped them together, "Sorry, wait. Who are you? I'm looking for the detective."

"I'm Nick's secretary, I handle the appointments, his papers, that sort of thing." She stopped to rub her temples with one hand, "At least that's what I used to do until Nick up and disappeared. Can't run a detective agency without a detective, you know?"

"Any idea where he went?" Nate asked.

"He disappeared working a case on Skinny Malone's gang. They kidnapped a young woman, and he tracked them down to their hideout in Park Street Station.

Nate clenched his jaw and nodded, exhaling loudly through his nose. "I just walked by there this morning."

"There's an old Vault they used down there as a base. I told Nick he was walking into a trap, but he smiled and walked out the door like he always does." Nate saw her bite her upper lip, she was nervous.

"What's the skinny on Skinny?" Nate asked.

"Local mob boss, he's from Goodneighbor and runs a group called the Triggermen. They're all wearing well-pressed suits and tote Tommy guns." Nate rolled his head slowly to Meathead, glancing down at his dog.

"Well. I guess I'm headed back that way, I'll help find him."

"Nick should be easy to spot, he's always wearing that old hat and trench coat getup. Like the detectives from the old days."

"Thank you, I never got your name. I'm Nate." He said, offering a handshake. Meathead raised his head up and squinted his eyes at the ceiling. . He barked, then headbutted Nate in the leg, urging him on.

"Ellie Perkins, and please, hurry."

"Will do. Thank you, Ellie. Come on, Meathead."

\111/

“” Meathead said, rolling his eyes up to Nate.

"If he does, he's dug himself into a pretty deep hole and will be looking at a mountain of shit. If he doesn't, good for him."

"" Meathead trailed off, jerking his head up. "" two people turning the corner around the far end of the alley spotted Nate and Meathead. Nate scratched Meathead's neck and back, and the people walked by, sparing the dog and owner a glance.

"We'll stop by the market, and head out afterward, Meathead. How's that sound?"

Meathead shook his head, ' Growling high in his throat, he looked up, twitching his head back and forth. He saw the people disappear out of sight, then stood up on his hind legs and put his front paws on Nate's chest.

""

"Good or bad?"

"" Meathead shook his head after realizing how insane that sounded coming out of his mouth. "”

Nate went to the market, buying ammo and reloading his weapon along with supplies. Passing Moe Cronin's Swatter stand,
he casually glanced in Moe’s direction, Nate studied the man’s hands as he balled them into fists.

The man was starting to sweat, shaking, leaning from one foot to the other. Rubbing his eyes and trying to shake it off, Moe clenched his eyes down hard.

“Hey, Moe! Are you going to be alright? It looks like you’re about to pass out.” Nate called out.

The baseball bat seller looked down at his hands first, they instantly stopped shaking as he looked up and saw Nate’s concern.

“Yeah, doin’ much bettar. I was standing too long with my legs locked,” His eyes flicked to a stall at the opposite side of the marketplace, over Nick’s shoulder. “Might grab a little poor man’s five-minute trip to the moon, if you know what I mean.” Moe gestured with two fingers towards Solomon’s Chem-I-Care stall. Nate looks over his shoulder and saw Solomon in a leaning back in a chair, eye’s closed, and but fingers pressed together.

“Are you gonna make it? Go get some water, or beer, whichever is safer to drink, sheesh.” Moe nodded, reaching up with one hand, he pulled shutters to his shop down and retreated inside. They could hear a few loud coughs, and followed by a “Hwuuh!”

"Check out the doctor, don't go dying on us, Moe," Nate called out after the baseball bat seller.

Meathead was on top of Arturo's Commonwealth weaponry, barking down at Nate. The rest of the evening market visitors turned to watch, and Arturo stuck his head out, looking up at Meathead barking at Nate.

"What's your dog doing on top of my shop?" Arturo demanded to know.

"Barking, what's it look like? Meathead! Get down from there!"

Meathead barked and retreated from the ledge, "Get your dog off the top of my shop!"

"Alright, alright. Give me a sec." Nate said, reaching up he pulled himself onto the roof and quickly went to Meathead who lead him farther away.

"Come on Meathead. Come here." Nate looked to his left and slowly walked out of view of the people watching from the market.

Meathead was looking up and to the east, barking every so often and wagging his tail. spreading his front paws, and raising his rear, he wagged his tail.

"What are you looking at?"

""

Beyond the water pond with docks and pilings sunk into the ground to support shacks, there were the outfield stands, then above those were the burning bright floodlights that illuminated Diamond City and made it seem so bright down below on the field.

Nate squinted, there were birds around him, cawing softly and jerking their heads to observe the one man and his dog.

""

It looked like a large bird was perched above the top row of floodlights, giving the figure a silhouette of a hunched over bird with its head tucked into its wings. Then it spread its wings and dove off. Meathead and Nate both saw the flash of cover as it passed the lights, the bamboo yellow colored wings, and body, the two tones of pale orange and sandy yellow in the pegasus' mane.

" Meathead whined, except he said it so high and whimpered and growled all at the same time, Nate opened his eyes wide and looked down at the overexcited changeling-dog. "" Bolting over the rooftops of shacks, Meathead jumped from one roof to the next, barking and howling.

The Pegasus did a slow circle high over Diamond City, then flew up and over the southwest corner of Diamond City, over home plate and over the top.

" Meathead barked and howled, howling all the way, jumping ten feet down over the roof of Commonwealth Weaponry and into Diamond City Market. Raising everybody's alarm, Meathead barked loud and everybody heard, turning their attention to the whining cries of the German Shepard.

"Meathead! Meathead ge' back here!" Nate shouted, jumping down off the roof, he landed on his heels, rolled once and then was up on his feet, sprinting after his dog.

There were twenty people in the market place, and they all turned their heads and avoided the vault dweller stomping after him. "Meathead!" Nate shouted. The dog was running up the staircase leading towards the exit, and towards the gate.

"Hey, mister! Your dog went that way!" Nat said, pointing up the stairs.

\111/

Piper was watching the door, listening to the dog barking getting louder, then Meathead raced past. Followed after were Nate's shouts to try and get his dog to come back to him, and then the vault dweller ran after his dog.

Piper stood up, grabbing her bag and slinging it over her back, "Watch the shop." She said to Nat, bolting out after him.

"Wait, where you going?!" Nat yelled after Piper, "When are you gonna be back?!"

"I don't know, and soon!" Piper shouts back to her sister, readjusting her bag while bolting after Nate and Meathead.

They were only stopped by the city gate for only a minute, ducking underneath the door when it wasn't even half way up. Piper shouted out after them

"Hey, Blue man! Wait up!"

"Not now, Piper!" Nate yelled back.

Hanging a left out of Diamond City gates, the wind was whistling through the outer ring as they ran past the guards and into the night. Sticking to the wall, the could see the Pegasus flying towards two skyscrapers, one collapsed and leaning into the other. Meathead and Nate sprinted through the parking lot, moving between vehicles, tall ten-foot weeds, and towards Trinity Plaza.

Thundering across the street up worn down concrete stairs past a boarded up pharmacy, the sounds of laser rifle fire and gunshots filled the air. Shouts from a group of raiders fighting growling feral ghouls were in the middle of the first skyscraper foyer. Surrounded by ghouls and blasting their way out, the noise drew sullen ghouls attention. Then to their right, the entrance to a bank collapsed, and the second floor dropped outwards and jutted into the street as seven more ghouls rolled upwards and shook off the dust.

“” Meathead said, skirting the edge of the building to avoid detection. His eyes were still pointed up at the air. Running past buildings, Nate's pip boy pinged another location into his map. “Layton Towers.”

That was all the warning they had before the sound of a reciprocating shotgun filled the air.

Six shotgun blasts aimed at the Pegasus hit their mark as a plume of feathers were shorn off the Pegasus’s side and she started falling, falling, down and landing right on top of Wilson Atomatoy’s Headquarters. The darkness of the night was cut by two bright searchlights flipping on, blinding Nate for a moment as he threw up his hands and turned back the other way.

The Wilson Atomatoy's HQ building was half buried in rubble, with blue walls and bright red lettering. Iron girders the length of semi-truck trailers stuck out of the rubble like porcupine barbs. Splashed red with impaled bodies dried and left to rot or ripped off in chunks from scavenging animals. Trashcan barrels burned brightly and a horn like a howl was followed with two massive green mutant dogs running at them.

Sprinting down the road, putting concrete barriers, cars, and lamp posts behind him to block the clattering of pipe rifles barking down the street.

They both darted into the doorway of a boarded-up building, and crouched down low, waiting on Meathead's signal for it to be clear.

“The Mutants are coming!” They heard one raider yell, only to be followed with more gunfire. The bang and pop of guns going off, the constant barrage of bullets flying through the air, it made Nate clench his teeth and try and keep them from chattering for how cold he felt. Despite the burning in his head and his shallow breath, he readied his rifle and rubbed his fingers together for warmth.

No bullets were coming in their direction, giving them enough breathing room to observe the turf war break out in front of them.

One raider foolishly ran out to meet a super mutant armed with a tire iron, he got one hit in that was about as effective as a foam mallet bouncing off the super mutant’s thick muscles before the mutant threw one punch that snapped the man’s neck backward.

“STUPID WEAK HUMANS! MUTANTS WILL RULE EVERYTHING!”

Nate swallowed, and Meathead felt Nate’s fear. That sort of declaration was one that didn’t offer much grey area.
"Okay, new plan," Nate said, turning on his heels and trying to drag Meathead with him. Getting off the street and into the cove between two ATMs.

"Someone is watching the sky and shot your bird. I'm going back for the power armor in the police station. Meathead, I need you to circle the building, I need to know the number of exits because we're going in and I want to be able to have alternate fallback points. Go far out, at least a block and then come back in. Stay quiet, stay hidden, no flying. I haven't heard any more shotgun blasts since then. That was an automatic combat shotgun...bad range, but it's night so I wouldn't be surprised if they have night vision or heat sensing. Be back here in fifteen, take this. " Nate said, popping his Pip-Boy off.

Meathead stared at the pro-offered device, and exhaled softly, holding out his left arm, Nate strapped it on and spun the dial to the utility screen and selected timer, then fifteen minutes.

\111/

Following every shot of a laser weapon, there was always the sound of something burning. This was the target of whatever the laser touched, how it was being scorched and singed black. When a laser is fired, it's not like a traditional bullet firing from a cartridge with the gunpowder cap being hit by a hammer, forcing the bullet to fly out the barrel.

A laser is a contained beam of energy powered by energy cells. Inside the containment unit, the particles are bouncing around at high velocity, creating intense heat. Then, to get the laser to leave, it needs to have an opening. A small magnetic cap connected to the trigger opens and closes, faster than the blink of an eye on a camera. The beam is focused or broadened through a crystal lens, and then strikes whatever it is pointed at.

Every bullet coming from a gun made a different bark, as the saying goes, the bark is worse than the bite. Not always the case, but it does help identify what caliber of bullet is being shot at you.

Caught between raiders and ghouls by the Dartmouth Professional building, she tried staying out of the raider's sights, but they were well aware of the laser shots directed at ghouls. One raider saw her and made her way towards Piper.

As Piper changed the energy cell to her pistol, three ghouls charged at her. The unfortunate thing about killing something that is considerably already dead is that it doesn't know when to die. The shriveled away limbs and dead nerve endings prevent feral ghouls from feeling pain, there's no brain matter connected their nervous system, to their synapses. As she fired six times, the magnet retracting in her pistol clicked like a loud camera.

Charging towards the first one, she put up her elbow and smashed it against the ghoul's chest. The ghoul latched onto her, dragging her down as she tensed up and tried shoving it away. With her right hand, she passed it to her left and fired directly into the ghoul's skull as the other two ghouls tackled her on the ground. Their bony hands were like mallets, she kept on firing as one bashed a fist into her face. Blinded in one eye by the strike, she rolled back to her heels and shot at the knee of the second and third ghoul. The leg of one was melted off, causing the ghoul to fall over. She reached down, grabbing the dismembered ghoul leg and whipping it around like a club against the third ghoul's head. Giving herself enough firing room, she shot the last ghoul seven more times until the entire body suddenly disintegrated into a plume of red glowing ash.

Dropping the boney leg, There were still five ghouls, but between the raiders and herself, she took off running, only to be kicked in the knee by the female raider chasing her. She shouted in pain and collapsed, right knee swelling as the raider bashed her in the head with the butt of her Sten gun. Blindly firing, she struck the raider once in the stomach and she screamed as well, clutching her front as flesh and internal organs were seared.

Piper carried a small hatchet, metal all the way from the blade to the grip, it was one solid piece of metal. Looped through her belt loop, she tore it up and out, swinging it into the raider's foreleg. Cutting right into the meat and bone of her leg, she screamed again, louder and fell to the ground while her hand was clenched on the trigger, firing a dozen 9mm rounds wildly.

Falling on top of Piper, they both wrestled for the Sten gun, a small machine gun with the ammo clip on the top left side of the barrel, rather than underneath it like most rifles. Piper gripped the smg with her left hand, by the tip of the barrel, making sure it would never be pointed at her while maneuvering her laser pistol up and firing four more times into the raider's chest and stomach. The woman shouted and Piper threw her off, rolling over on top of her, she ripped the gun out of her dying hands and pulled the trigger. Firing up through her chin, the woman fell back dead.

Grabbing the Sten gun, and patting down the dead woman for more ammo, she pulled a single spare clip from the woman's front pant's pocket while rubbing her eyes to clear them. With more raiders going to be on her in seconds, she fired five rounds into the air and fled, chasing after Nate and Meathead.

She looked to her left down an alley and saw Nate run by at the far end, back towards Diamond City.

"Hey, Blue! Wait up!"

Running down the alley, only a little bit disoriented but shaking herself more awake with every step, she went after Nate.

\111/

Nate ran inside the Police Precinct 8 building, and Piper was right behind him twenty seconds later, "Blue! Blue!" She said with her voice rising.

"What?" Nate called back, demanding to know who they were and why they followed him.

"It's Piper! Don't shoot!"

Nate went back to what he was doing, connecting hydraulic hose lines to their fittings and clamping the hoses down. He scrambled through the garage, tearing open cabinets and cupboards and grabbing handfuls of bottles filled with hydraulic fluid, and going back to the power armor frame. Piper poked her head into the garage, "Blue?"

"Kinda busy, Piper." Nate opened the hydraulic tank to the power armor and squeezed the first bottle in. He clenched the bottle tight and collapsing it as it emptied.

Nate dug his fingernails into the back panel protecting the fusion core. Police T-51 models were outfitted to prevent tampering or theft. Four deadbolts screwed into place were left to rust, Nate wedged a crowbar into a small slip between the panel. Placing his left foot against the power armor, and then his right, he was hanging all his weight to pry the plate off.

The bolts were stripped and forced to bend outwards as the plate curved upwards. Jerking his head back and forth, he tried snapping it off by rocking up and down.

"Whatever you're doing, I can help."

Nate jerked his head to her, opening another bottle of hydraulic fluid, then slammed it down onto the counter. Taking off all his guns and laying them on the counter. He emptied his pockets and set everything down.

"Make sure those are loaded. Make sure your own weapon is loaded."

"What are you up to?"

"I need power armor. Mutants at the toy factory."

Nate struggled with the power armor, trying to get all the pieces on and fitted, making sure that it wouldn't stall on him while roaming around in the suit, and making sure the lines were free and clear of any built-up blockages.

It took Nate longer than he expected, but while Piper was there, waiting for more instructions, a memory came to Nate as he was working to get the protective panel over the fusion core off.

"I went to Mexico for a few days with five other guys in my unit. The first police officers I saw were in a massive 4x4 truck, with the man in the back, may have been a woman, and their hands on a mounted fifty caliber. Everyone was wearing full body armor and helmets, and the big white lettering on their front and back that said 'Policia'. They were cruising around, lights flashing, so I turned to my buddy and said 'Damn! Those guys are on patrol!"

Heaving and straining his triceps, he finally managed to move the plate a few centimeters before falling and crashing onto the yellow support frame holding the power armor upright.

He gripped his head and he cursed, then went for the metal block hammer and went back behind the suit of power armor.

"Alright, you little bastard. Time to come off." Beating on the plate for three solid minutes, it clanged and rang out until he finally managed to warp and bend the piece so he could pull out the dead fusion core. Nate shoved in a fusion core to the police power armor, and twisted it to the right, securing it in. He tossed the old fusion core into the wastebasket like a basketball, arcing it through the air and listening to the glass shatter in the bottom of the can.

The power armor frame lit up, and Nate reached his hand in, dumping another bottle of fluid into the tank while priming it, making sure fluid went everywhere through the system. Pulling the plug to the oil, he let it spill onto the ground, running and grabbing a carton of oil, he poured it in until the oil at the bottom was coming out red, and then he closed it.

Prying off plates from the second frame, he snapped them into place on the first T-51 power armor and then opened up the back.

"I'm taking on the mutants at the toy factory, you know how to use a sniper rifle?"

Piper nodded, "Yeah, I'm a pre-"

"Good." Nate shoved a scoped hunting rifle into her hands and stomped out the door. "Keep quiet, or I will force you to go where it's safe while I keep going. I need a gunner watching my back, and keeping an eye on the perimeter. Can you do that?"

"Yes."

"Then follow me. I'm on a rescue mission."

"To save who?"

"Someone...who was shot." Piper took note of Nate's hesitation, and unsure response. He didn't know who he was rescuing, only that there was someone who needed help.

The hideaway headlamps on the shoulders popped up and started flashing red and blue as Nate ran east back towards Wilson Atomatoys HQ with Piper right behind him.

\111/

Author's Note

This was one of the first scene's I imagined when it came to writing 'Vault Dweller'

Meathead and Nate at Diamond City, first night, flood lights shining down on Diamond City Market, but then Meathead feels a disturbance in the force.

He looks up towards the floodlights to see the silhouette of a Pegasus, moments before she takes flight, doing a lap over Diamond City before flying off into the Commonwealth.

Her flight is cut short when she's struck down by a shotgun blast, and lands on the roof of Atomatoys HQ, a super mutant base.

Ch. 27 Wilson Atomatoys HQ

Author's Note

"Here's a slip of paper...for an advertisement. Moe's Swatters! Can't get ahead of the game without a Swatter! Come pick one up today in Diamond City Market."

Travis looked to the baseball bat sitting in the umbrella stand by his trailer door.

"Hehe, I actually bought one of those. It's made from Mahogany...mahogany..." He licked his lips. "Ma-hog-any."

"I confess, when the music starts rolling, and I'm in here with a two hundred year old cigarette, listening to music made one-hundred and twenty years before that, it's like a time machine."

"I sing along. I can't help it, my mind goes back to the days these were recorded, and it's like a high you don't need chems for. It's a high that I get to ride every song, and I love it. Baby, Oh Baby, by the Shells... Coming up next on the bright...the shining...the one... and only Diamond City Radio."

Ch. 27 Wilson Atomatoys HQ

A large glass showcase window with the words “Wilson Atomatoys Corporate HQ" was emblazoned in cherry red lettering across the side of the building. Although faded from exposure and covered in built-up moss, the words were still plainly visible. A winding staircase leading to the backside of the building to the main parking lot from the front entrance was decorated with shopping carts filled with bloody human guts and bones.

The front entrance to the building was physically blocked off with rubble and iron girders and rebar sticking out of the ground.

Nate tensed, everywhere he looked, there were more signs of death. In the parking lot, bodies were chopped up and strung from lamp posts with rusted metal chain, skulls decorating pikes, and several rotten bodies were impaled with meat hooks, dangling against the side of the building. Bodies swinging in the soft wind, the gagging stench of death filled the air. The pavement was slick with built up blood and gore that was never washed away properly, making it sticky and attract even more scavengers.

\111/

Seven super mutants wandered the perimeter, and Meathead guided Nate and Piper to reach a fifth-story window of a skyscraper next to the building to act as a sniper's nest.

"I'll have you watch the perimeter as we clear the inside. Do not shoot anything that doesn't look like a super mutant. We are going to the roof of the factory, we'll signal you from there."

Dragging a desk to the blown-out window, there was still three feet from the window sill, giving them enough room to hide the muzzle flash.

"First one, Rooftop. Two of them. One and Two o clock." Nate directed Piper to set up the twenty-two-inch barrel of the Mossberg .308 rifle with the head of the first super mutant. He was holding a pipe pistol in his hands, while two of the super mutants on the veranda below connecting the blocked front door entrance, to the parking lot in the rear, carried wooden planks ripped off from buildings with nails sticking out of them.

"First target is on the upper terrace of the rooftop." Nate spotted as Piper lined up her initial shot.

"I see him."

Aiming for the head, she inhaled and exhaled on the pull of the trigger. The butt of the rifle kicked into her shoulder and she winced.

"Hit. But not dead. He's searching, turning this way. Readjust, right five degrees, down two. He's moving. Towards the edge of the building."

The super mutant with half of his skull intact, missing most of his lower jaw and bleeding out his eyes sputtered with each breath. The second super mutant on the roof spun in circles with his pipe rifle against his shoulder, combing the windows for the shooter.

Pulling back on the bolt, she loaded another round in, ejecting the spent cartridge and listening to it clatter onto the office floor.

"Wait for the second mutant on the roof to turn around again...now." The hammer slammed into the blasting cap and fired a second bullet forty meters across the road and struck the first mutant again, blowing his skull completely open, and his massive body slumped over onto the ground as the splatter rained down on his partner.

"Confirmed, target one down. Bottom targets aren't aware. Top hasn't raised alarm."

"Second Target? On the roof?" Piper asked. Pulling back on the bolt with a clack, the bullet casing flew out and she replaced it.

"The mutant on the ground level, chains around his torso, underneath the lamp post. Do you see him?" Nate asked, pointing down to the ground. "Peek-a-boo, He's carrying a mini-nuke."

"You want me to shoot him?" Piper asked,

"Try not to hit the nuke."

Firing the next shot. It was like a clap of thunder happened in the perch overlooking Wilson Atomatoys HQ, the shot bore through the super mutant's chest, piercing the heart. The super mutant clutching the mini-nuke dropped it, grabbed its chest like it was suffering bad heartburn, then fell over dead mid-stride.

"Like I was going to say, Blue. I'm a pretty good shot." Piper said, raising up the rifle away from the nest.

\111/

The mutant hounds howled and went straight for the police power armor flashing red and blue lights. They growled and jumped for Nate's arms, biting down onto the casing. Nate gripped one dog's neck and slammed the dog down onto the ground, bringing it up and down, breaking its shoulder bones and thrashing its neck bones.

Nate jumped, falling down and slamming all his weight down onto the mutant dog's head and neck.

Meathead attacked the second hound as Piper fired at the super mutants on the top. Kicking the mutant hounds in the head, Nate stomped on them until they were both dead.

Going through the back door, through the employee entrance, they were inside the building. The concrete loading bay was covered with rubble, and the ceiling was caving in from upper floors that collapsed. Nate charged the first Super Mutant he saw. His surroundings of a power room in the basement blurred past as he threw up his left arm to connect with the mutant’s throat, as his right arm thrust a piece of rebar up through the mutants skull. The mutant was dead, falling backward with an enraged expression stuck on his face.

Breathing heavily, Nate listened for any signs of contact. His arms were tense, but after a few seconds of silence, he could hear footsteps moving around, nothing frantic or panicked. Meaning they likely hadn’t heard the stomping around downstairs. Exhaling, Nate saw a light over a humming generator.

“Oh, a fusion core,” Nate said, knowing that without this, the whole building would be plunged into darkness. It would put everything on high alert, but it would create a big distraction.

“Mine.” He said, tapping the eject button on the console and yanking the fusion core out. The working lights in the building blinked out, and there were suddenly a few high pitched, distinctly female screams.

“QUIET ROBOT PONIES! I WILL FIX LIGHT! NOW BE QUIET!” Meathead and Nate looked at each other, mouthing the word ‘robot pony?’ as a question. But Meathead couldn't see through the helmet. Footsteps were moving downstairs and Nate realized he wouldn’t have much time.

Laying down two land mines, he stepped back into a hiding corner and held his breath.

Like a lumbering giant, the footsteps could be heard thumping down the hallway, plodding along down the steps in the dark. There were fires happening out of oil barrels and metal trashcans, giving a bit of cast light to the room, but Nate was waiting on bated breath. The footsteps reached the bottom of the stairs and continued down a second hallway, he could hear them moving on the other side of the wall, pausing to open a door, and follow that hallway around to the first-“

BOOM. The room shook and dozens of footsteps pounded their way down the same hallway and staircase. Nate readied his rifle, BOOM.

Caught twice in the same trap, “REAHEAAAAAA!” The pained shrieks were coming from the room ahead of him. Firing three round bursts, Nate moved forward as bullets raced back towards him, smacking into the walls, desks, and support beams around him. Nate fired at the muzzle flash, more yells and cries of pain came back.

“WHY STUPID HUMAN NOT DIE!?” The super mutant yelled, after hearing them less than a handful of times, Nate wondered about their intelligence and tactics.

“We’re harder to kill than cockroaches,” Nate said to himself. “we endure.” Changing magazines, he moved forward, throwing a grenade into the room, he counted to three and waited for the explosion. Firing off ten rounds, running in immediately after. Four super mutants were lying dead in the hallway, with one facing him directly.

Firing off more rounds, Nate moved forward and aimed for the head and arms of the Super Mutant. His metal plate armor made from scrap didn’t need to look cosmetically appealing or it to work. Bullets tore into it but managed to stop a few before boring through to the flesh.

“Die Motherfucker, Die,” Nate said to himself, pulling on the trigger then releasing it.

“Die Mothefucker, die.” It was a counting mechanism to help their controlled bursts of gunfire needed to be. Any longer, and the recoil was taking you too much off target, any shorter, and you weren’t firing enough. It takes little longer than a second to say, but the main purpose is to keep soldiers from hosing down enemies with endless fire.

It was an effective tool to remember, and it was always proving to be useful. Some people he knew could say it three times a second. Nate used VATS to look for the golden moment of opportunity, lining up his sights to shoot straight at the yellows of the Super Mutant’s eyes, he pulled the trigger.

“Die, Motherfucker, die.”

A two by four plank of wood crashed down onto Nate’s back, snapping the board as Nate fell to the floor, offset by the shift in weight. A Super Mutant dove onto him, and Meathead jumped onto the mutant’s back and clamped down his jaws on the back of the neck. Ripping and snarling, Meathead jumped off to avoid blows, which allowed Nate more time to throw off the Mutant and pin him down with the weight of the power armor frame.

Nate reached for his handgun taped to his side and fired six rounds into the Super Mutant’s skull. Standing up, he exhaled.

Progressing down the hallways the mutants came from, Nate and Meathead entered a storage room, and for a moment went through a time warp. Twelve Giddyup Buttercups in a storage room, all in various states of wear and tear, some broken down to the metal frame and disassembled. “Oh…well this is fun,” Nate said, looking to his left, on this side of the room was a caved-in ceiling, with the floor and ceiling making a ramp up to the second floor.

“YOU NOT GONNA MAKE IT THROUGH THIS HUMAN! YOU GONNA DIE!”

“YOU GONNA LEARN SOME PROPER ENGRISH?” Nate mockingly shouted a roar came back in response. Nate waved Meathead forward, “COVERING FIRE!” Unleashing a torrent of high placed bullets aimed at the sides of doors, splinters rained down the hall as Meathead moved up and took cover behind an exit to the hallway.

Two seconds later, a rapid thumping ran down the hall, past Meathead, and towards Nate. Meathead jumped, diving at the super mutant’s right leg and biting into the thick muscle. Nate pushed the metal tab on the underside of his rifle, dropping a clip of ammo down onto the floor, while he reloaded a new one, Nate pulled back on the bolt and continued firing.

The largely armored mutant wearing plates of metal strung together with wire kicked Meathead away and fired back. Every bullet colliding or veering off the power armor plates shook the entire suit. Two dents buckled along the biceps, bullet impact holes. Stepping back for a moment, Nate saw Meathead jump for the super mutant's arm. Snarling, ripping off its hand. The mutant kicked Meathead harder and aimed its gun hand at Meathead, about to fire when Nate turned on the lights and let loose the entire clip on full automatic.

"DIE YOU MOTHERFUCKER, DIE!" Charging, bringing himself closer with every step. The bullets impacted and scraped away flesh and muscle from bone and bone from the body. Mutant's head was bored by six bullets, and his neck by two, and his legs and knees were shattered.

Nate tried wiping the sweat away from the inside of his suit, but all the armor made it impossible "Meathead! Meathead! Are you okay?"

The dog limped up to him, "" In a flash of green fire circling upwards, the changeling with blue eyes looked up to Nate. Blinking twice, he cast his head up. "There's...seven more of them...one of them is bleeding out on the roof...make that two. No...No the second source bleeding out on the roof is our pegasus."

"How can you tell that?"

""

"Huh?" His head tilted to the right, and Nate reloaded his rifle.

""

"What did you feel from Nora?"

" His eyes rolled up to recall the memory. "

"Is that how you see the world?"

""

"Starting to sound like me."

""

Meathead and Nate kept moving forward, through a bathroom with a hole knocked through a wall into the opposite gender bathroom, into a small foyer with a caved-in floor and four meat bags hanging from chains.

Each bag was filled with body parts from many different humans and animals, wrapped in chain link fence nets, and left to drip blood and sway in a nonexistent breeze. The stink made Meathead's stomach acid rise, and he tried to remember a little motto.

""

Shuddering, Nate saw one door ahead of him slam shut as it slid into place. "" His front leg twitched.

"I can smell that, it smells disgusting, but I chose to ignore it."

Taking post on the right side of the door, Nate flicked the door latch with the barrel of his rifle and jumped back as a barrage of bullets tore through the opening.

“Die, motherfucker, die.” He said to himself, priming a grenade and rolling it into the room.

It exploded and one mutant shouted, “AH! HE’S WOUNDED! YOU’LL DIE HUMAN!”

"Not quite," Nate let loose half of a clip of ammo into the talking mutant, not at all affected by the grenade. Blind to the first few bullets that tore apart his flesh, the mutants jaw was gone, along with most of its hand as it tried to make sense of its’ death before slumping to the floor, defeated.

Moving through the offices, he found the main hallway leading to different sections of the building, only the elevators and the shafts were ripped open, the gaping hole in the floor meant he had to skirt around the edge of the room, standing on a ledge barely able to support the weight of him and the suit of police power armor.

“They’re coming!” a woman’s voice cried out, Nate tried to see who it was, but a large overgrown shadow filled the doorway as a super mutant wearing a scowl and moving slowly peered around the corner.

Nate let the Vault Assisted Targeting System to help his senses line up the perfect shot, one right down the mutant’s own gun barrel, and the other right in the kisser.

Two shots, one blowing the super mutant’s rifle right out of his hands, making him shout in surprise, as the second bullet raced right between the mutant’s teeth, right into the soft bottom of the skull. There were two more screams and the sound of hooves clopping along the floor, Meathead heard the noise too.

“Robot ponies,” Nate said, his voice sounding distorted through the helmet’s air filter. “I think we’re a flea trying to see how big the dog is on this one.”

Meathead scrunched up his face, “<“Do you remember right before the bombs fell, there was all those ads on TV for these things?>"

"Yes."

""

Meathead took a few steps away from Nate, the circle of green fire appeared around Meathead, rising up and enveloping him in a quick flash. Standing in his place was a yellow Giddyup Buttercup, only it was completely pony in appearance. The big eyes, wide blue iris, and pupils that took up most of the eye. The sclera white part of the eye was only a thin strip around the edge. A brown mane, and yellow fur, the pony stood up to Nate's ribcage, the same height as Meathead as a changeling.

"" as Giddyup Buttercup, his voice changed dramatically from male to female.

"Yes. But I've never seen a pony with that large of eyes before." Nate replied, looking over Meathead's new form.

""

"Or. They had a good imagination."

""

"What makes you say this?"

""

"What leader?" Nate asked.

""

"Do you know when the ponies were here?"

""

"Changlings and Ponies were on Earth for 30 years? You're sixteen?"

""

"What the hell happened during all that time?" Nate asked.

""

"Revolutions hardly ever work, when they do, now you're trying to accomplish the same things the previous government did, with fewer people and less differing opinions."

""

"Peace sells, but who's buying?" Nate asked, "Megadeth. They wrote a song about it in 1986."

""

Ducking his head into an empty office room, there were four desks lined up in the small room, with two offices with doors to them. The label on the door read “Director of Operations” with the computer monitor still glowing. There was a protectron painted light sky blue and red, with the Atomatoys logo, and Nate went to turn the security robot on.

"I'm gonna see if we can get those to turn on."

Nate read the script prompts and gained access to it quickly by navigating the commands.

"It looks like they were planning a product drop before the holidays."

“Wilson Atomatoys CorpNet
Nathaniel Hawke, Director of Operations
SCYTHE Status report 10/15

The first phase of the SCYTHE project is a week ahead of schedule. Two of the five assembly lines have been converted over to SCYTHE production; the third should be converted by Wednesday.
An Operations staff meeting has been scheduled for 10/18. All line workers will be trained on their new tasks as we conduct tests of the new equipment over the next two weeks. Barring unforeseen difficulties, production should begin on 11/1.
Pegasus Production updated design temporarily put on hold on 10/22 with the removal of Arlen Glass.
Unicorn Production moved to Quincy location for limited production.
Premium software design built, in transit,
-update arrived in Quincy
Premium Frame hardware, Polymer epoxy strengthened.
-Update received email from Cambridge Polymer Labs, sent Shipping to retrieve 10/23 9:00 A.M.

“”

“It’s a code name for companies to use when they’re referring to a new project, but don’t want corporate espionage to find out what they’re up to. But, since that doesn’t mean anything to anyone anymore...”

Nate tapped the keys to activate the two Atomatoys Protectrons, the first one popped out of its charging pods, while as the second took one step them fell over, all signs of power blinking out.

\111/

Finally finding the stairway leading to the second floor, Nate and Meathead were taken back by the colonial style chariot in the front entrance foyer with four Giddyup Buttercups hitched up to the front. The large wooden wheels supported by metal trim frames, painted the same bright red as the Wilson Atomatoy's logo, and yellowed-white from decades of gathering dust and mellowed with the sun. Nate could hear the footsteps of more super mutants upstairs, but he could hear breathing as well. Panting, frantic, nervous breathing. Swinging his head around the foyer, he waited for any signs of movement, before running upstairs.

\111/

The office was locked, but Nate was ready with a bobby pin and a screwdriver to jimmy the lock open. Inside was the cleanest office Nate had seen in the Commonwealth, ever. This room was untouched by time and had toys lining three wall to wall shelves on the right side when you walked in. A desk lamp was still on, illuminating a glowing monitor, on the opposite side of the room was a wall with a large glass window, showing more Giddyup Buttercup’s in a workshop that were broken down methodically, carefully deconstructed with tiny drawers and cabinets pressed against the walls, with incomprehensibly tiny tools and a large curved magnifying glass.

Nate locked the door and set Meathead to listen for mutants coming as he ran to the computer, double tapping the enter key to get the computer to boot up.

Arlen Glass-Head of Product Development
|__*
*/ Product Brainstorming

Collectible Variants: Body/hair color variants. Identifying Marks (?) E/N “*Cute.”
-Mythic Product line: Pegasus Conf. Unicorn. Conf.
Alternative Markets:
-Boys: Cowboys and Indian’s (Insensitive?)
-Boys: Ride’em Bucking Bronco
-Boys: Buffalo (as opposed to Indian?)
-Premium: **Princess line with features of both Pegasus and Unicorn. Crystal, white body, gold trim, tri-coloration for hair Sunburst Cutie Mark).

Promotional tie ins
-Hurbis Comics: Mechanist metal horse?
-Nuka Cola: Limited Edition Red Horse?
-Vault Tec: *Blue and *Yellow with Vault number(s) on flank.

*Request from Hawke, New Years Eve Night (Darker color tone theme blue, black, white. Crescent Moon Cutie Mark) of princess model.
**Valentine’s day princess model? (Pink Yellow Red. Food for thought if the plant can finish work on Unicorns. Could carry us through to St. Paddy’s and so on. Holiday cycle.)
*find out their specific blue and yellow serial #, call Regional Office. Send over two models for them to ‘play’ with.

“Meathead,” Nate said, calling over the dog. “What were the rulers of the ponies like?”

“Princesses yeah. There was Princess Celestia, ruler of the sun. Princess Luna, ruler of the moon, Princess Cadence, ruler of love. And then Princess Twilight, ruler of friendship.”

“Well, they described three for four of your princesses here in this file right here. White coat, gold trim? The sun ruler, Celestia. Right here, New Years Eve Variant. After that, it talks about a Valentine’s Day model. You said ponies had cutie marks too? They mention that in the first line. You're right, they ran out of time and the bombs fell.”

“”

“There’s a pony right above us who could make it all the more plausible.”

""

"Don't be a buzzkill on your own rescue mission, Meathead. You pulled the trigger on this one. -urp- 'Scuse me. The Hero doesn't get to turn back after this far."

""

"Oh. Well. If...Consider this. If we save her, and she doesn't know anything about Equestria, then what is the good?"

Meathead raised his hoof and rotated the ankle to the left and right, wavering it. ""

Nate chuckled and returned the gesture. "Eh...keep thinking positive. What else?"

\111/

Moving through the workshop, Nate sat down and looked at each one labeled in Arlen Glass’s shorthand ‘S 1, S 15/16, S 7/8, S 13/16, S ¾, S 11/16, S 5/8, S 9/16…tiny screws and bolts, and nuts, all labeled and organized that went down to 1/64th, and 1/128th. Holding one in his hand, it was thick as two strands of hair. On the workshop, the desk was a soldering iron, while on the wall was blueprints to Pegasus wings. Four pairs were hanging around the workshop, two on the wall, while the others sat in their holders. Snatching the blueprints, the notes, and the wings off the wall. Nate stopped at the safe, reaching down he gripped the wheel and yanked off the front door, not wanting to spend any more time wasting it on picking a lock. Inside the safe was the most peculiar glass jar specimen. A white bone that spiraled into a tip, Nate’s legs seized up together.

“” Meathead said, putting one paw on the jaw. “"

“Do we take it?”

"WE SHOULD MOVE SOUTH! GO HUNTING FOR FOOD. OR SPORT." A voice yelled from outside the door, both Nate and Meathead froze, dropping their voices down low.

Nate jerked his head back, not sure if he heard them right.

"Or Both?" Came a second voice.

"Haha. Yes, brother. Both."

“” Meathead whispered.

“We take it.” Nate said.

Nate held up the Unicorn Horn and watched as his hands felt weightless and the jar disappeared into Meathead's pocket dimension along with the pairs of Pegasus wings.

Moving outside the office, Nate glanced down at the carriage on the main floor, two of the Giddyup Buttercups were missing and the sounds of the super mutants taunts weren’t getting any quieter.

Forcing their way through to the president's office, Nick decided a little bullet hosing was necessary when the super mutant stood in a combat pose, shrugging off bullets as bolts of laser fire came back. “You’re going to die a painful death, human!”

“He’s intelligent! Kill him!” Nate said without a second thought. Not hearing his own words as the gunfire suddenly stopped when the super mutant sagged to the ground.

He paused for two seconds at the Presidents terminal, scanning the files in half the time it took in between blinks. There was a holotape tossed into an empty trash bin, Nate saw the name Arlen and stuffed it into his breast pocket for later.

Drawers were chocked full of empty Mentat containers, but he grinned as he pulled two full containers from the pile with their shrink wrap still on.

There were dozens of empty Mentats containers all over the place, he'd been crushing empty pill boxes beneath his feet or kicking them out of the way as if they were toys left out ever since reaching the first floor.

“Colonel Nelson. I know that name, I heard about him before...Colonel Nelson. Wilson Toys put up a bid…landmines…at their Quincy factory as part of a covert operation to arm and prepare the U.S. as part of a program called SCYTHE…and they were finished by March?”

Meathead chuckled, the joke fell flat on Nate when he looked away from Meathead and saw the disincorporated dead bodies butchered like animals and hung to bleed out by the Super Mutants.

“GOOD ROBOT PONY! CARRY MEAT FOR CHUNKY! HERE CHUNKY! HERE BOY! GOOD DOG! GOOD CHUNKY”

The super mutant butcher was chopping large limbs of a creature without skin on it, reaching down into a shopping cart without any sort of care or worry to exactly what type of meat it was, and then slamming a large butcher knife through the tendon joints. Two large green mutant hounds were waggling their tails and panting heavily, eyes fixated on the bloody chops their master was preparing for them. On the side of each Giddyup Buttercup was a repurposed metal basket cage rusted and coated with gobs of sticky red, brown and black pieces of flesh.

“Will you keep us safe?” The woman’s voice asked Nate and Meathead both saw the source. Two panicking, yellow ponies with wide blue pupils and equally large black iris for eyes, long brown hair, and tails that were tucked under their rears like a scared dog.

“MUTANTS KEEP ROBOTS SAFE! PONY NOT WEAK LIKE HUMAN! PONY NOT DIE WHEN SHOT ITS SKULL AND HEAD DOESN’T GO BLAM IN MILLION LITTLE TINY PIECES! HAHA!” The mutant bellowed, laughing a deep bass laugh. Slapping his hand on their yellow painted shells, making thunking noises as they shook from the force and remained standing.

“Oh, I think I might feel bad about this for a few seconds.” Nate talked to his gun, bringing up a sniper rifle scope to his eye. Going for his own dead-eye shot, lining up the reticle, and exhaling on the pull of the trigger to increase his odds of hitting the butcher’s eye.

Firing six times, the first two missed, the third, fourth, fifth, all struck the mutant’s skull, causing it to fracture and explode before the hounds and pony’s eyes. As the sixth bullet was aimed lower at one of the mutant hounds, it struck the green dog in the shoulder, embedding it deep in the muscle to the pained howl.

Both robot ponies screamed, looking down the hallway where the bullets came from, they turned and bolted through side doors as the mutant hounds tore down the hallway towards Meathead and Nate.

Nate grabbed his readied sledgehammer and swung it at the first dog, immediately discarding it as the dog was flung to the side with a sickening head jarring crunch.

Meathead ran in and jumped on the second mutant hound, biting down on the injured leg and thrashing with all his strength. The hound wailed as Meathead tore the tendons and muscle, forcing a scream from the mutant hound dog before it died when the limb came free in his jaws. Spitting the clump out, Meathead licked his lips and coughed.

"Well, let's go get some new toys to play with, Meathead."

\111/

Before exiting to the rooftop, Nate paused a foot away from the latch. “Do you have doors on Equestria?”

“”

"A society without doors-"

"" Meathead wheezed. Raising one hoof, he pushed on the emergency door to the roof.

"Oh! Right! Have a Stimpak." He said, reaching one out of his kit for Meathead.

""

Pushing out, the rusty door hinges squeaked the entire time. Nate took one step through the door and saw the two mutants from before, still lying dead on the ground, blood pooled around their bodies.

Two sets of hoof marks leading onto pipes and ventilation shafts upwards to the second level of the roof told them where they needed to go. Exiting the suit of power armor, Nate and Meathead climbed the vents, hopping up to an area that wasn’t intended to be accessed, and then saw the three forms in the center of the roof.

“Stay away!” The first pony shouted, “Go Away!” Nate put up his palms to them, sinking down onto one knee.

Two Giddyup Buttercup ponies.

“Easy. I’m here to help the Pegasus on the ground.”

“No! Stay away from our Pega-sister!” The first Giddyup Buttercup shouted.

Nate turned his head away, "...And here are those two seconds where I feel bad because the way you said Pega-sister sounded really cute.”

“You killed… You killed our protectors!” Their wide stance and low to the ground position reared for a charge.

""

Jerking his head to the right, tearing his attention away from Giddyup-Buttercups numbers one and two.

""

"Rustlers?" Nate said the word in his mouth. "Pony rustlers."

Holding both hands up above his head towards the Giddyups, he said, "Now hold on now, you see, those green men aren't your protectors, they're pony rustlers! They stole you away so long ago, you were...all just..."

Meathead tossed out the word for Nate to use.

"Fillies at the time."

"Why, you were all cute...little darlings and it..." Nate shook his head. "Broke my heart to know that you were taken, but now we're here for you! But first, we need to help the Pegasus, she's hurt real bad, and we would...be ever so grateful if you let us help heal her."

The Giddyup Buttercups looked at each other.

"I don't know, what do you think, Giddy? Should we trust him?"

The second Giddyup cast a glance down to the Pegasus and frowned. Eyes widening, she tore herself away from her back towards Nate and Meathead.

"All right, Fine! But if you hurt her, I will buck you back to Saratoga Springs, partner!

"I don’t know if there's a god or a devil but, if there are, and they have all the time in the world to do things, I say, NOT TODAY SATAN!" Nate sucked in a deep breath, bellowing out the word "LIIIIIIIIIIVE!" At the top of his lungs, Nate shouted, plunging four Stim-paks down into the pegasus’ body. Her neck jerked up like she was zapped with electricity.

High-Voltage.

Screaming, her limbs flailed around, punching Nate and Meathead as she writhed on the ground. Her useless wings flapped and jerked, but the duo was quick to pin her limbs down and wait for the Stim-paks to do their thing.

A second scream from the Pegasus’ throat, tapering off into a painful yell as her eyes became lidded.

Falling backward, She turned her head away.

The pegasus went silent, Nate was finally able to see the Pegasus with chains around her hooves and a red collar reading 'NUKA-WORLD'. Her tawny oak brown feathers were dusty and caked with dirt. Black sticky hair clung to her face. On top of everything was the damage done to her wings.

Splotches of blood stained her wing, and the stim-paks showed their usefulness as the Pegasus's wing relaxed and entire body settled. Slumping over and curling inwards like a newborn that wants warmth, Nate stood and turned on the two Buttercups.

"You two." Their legs locked up and shook as they tried to emulate nervousness, "Do you want to save her?"

They tilted their heads to get a look around Nate, the cold pegasus shivering and twitching in the night.

"Is that carriage in the lobby for show or does it move?" Nate asked the sisters.

"It's real all right, mister. But it takes four ponies to move! Us two won't be able to move it by ourselves!"

Nate bit and chewed his top lip. "I can't believe that's even a function. Nevermind. I am going to put the Pegasus in the carriage downstairs, and I'll need you two to pull it. Do you have any more sisters that the rustlers took?" Nate asked.

"Yes! We can't leave our sisters!" The first Giddyup Buttercup said. Nate looked up to his right and smiled, nodding his head.

"How many sisters do you have?"

"Sixty-five thousand, seven hundred and fifty!" They both said in unison. Nate was always curious to see what information two hundred-year-old robots could call upon like not a single day passed by.

"How many are here with you and are activated? Total?"

"Six!"

"Six and a half." The second one said, covering her mouth with her forehoof. Giddyup turned to stare at her sister, almost scowling.

"She can't remember things past fifty years." The first mock-whispered, raising a hoof to cover the right side of her mouth.

"." Meathead whispered to Nate.

"Psychological debate LATER, let's get her..." Nate said, turning towards the skyscraper where Piper was stationed in. Waving, and flashing the red and blue lights off and on, he saw the faint outline of a shadow moving through the office space.

"...Anyway...I'm going to put the Pegasus in the chariot, and I want to use you to pull the chariot with your new sisters."

"."

"Yes, but not in front of them."

"Buttercups, can I hire the seven of you to be my stagecoach team?"

"Uhm...okay? Why not take her to a veterinary clinic?" The Giddyup Buttercup asked.

"Everything was destroyed by nuclear bombs, all public, private, and civil services have been discontinued as of October 23, 2077. Any service provided is offered by a non-regulatory sole proprietorship."

Both ponies frowned. "Does that mean we can't go hiking?" Their wide open, hurt puppy dog look and trembling chins made them look as if they were about to cry.

"Hiking?" Nate asked, but unsure of why the Giddyup Buttercups would even mention hiking at a time like this. "The trails still exist, but I'm not heading towards any national park anytime soon."

"That's okay! We're going to go tell our sisters about our new sister and get ready! Please be careful with her." They broke away and went around Nate and Meathead, hopping and climbing down the vents.

""

"I don't know...I think they programmed the ponies to say that to get people and kids outside."

""

"The Constitution."

""

"First off. Mc Donough. Second. Piper. Three." Holding up his wrist to hear the low volume radio playing, "Diamond City Radio. Too many people talking, too many people wanting to know about what we have...and what we have is a Nuka-World dog collar around her neck and plenty of scars..."

""

One arm cradling the neck and head, the other under the legs and wings, the two went back downstairs to the main foyer.

"Plus, we don't want to immediately barge into Fenway Park with a bleeding mythological animal...people will probably just wonder what she tastes like."

""

\111/

Nate picked up three mini-nukes around the Wilson Atomatoys building, two from dead super mutants carrying them around in their hands, while one was laying on a desk upstairs. When Piper came into the lobby, she was wearing a scarf tied over her face.

"Man, it stinks in here!" She said, looking at the impaled bodies swinging on makeshift hooks and chains suspended down from the ceiling. "What's with all the robot ponies?"

"They're Giddyup Buttercups, and they're going to be the team who drives this carriage."

"Sound a bit ambitious, how do you expect to get it out of here when the doors are blocked?"

Nate held up a mini-nuke, "With this. Help me push it back away from the wall." Nate braced himself against the carriage and Piper pulled on the wheel well, budging the Wilson Atomatoys carriage off the podium and to get it rolling to the back wall.

"Where's your friend you came here for? Is that why you want the carriage?" Piper flashed a cheesy big-grin, showing her teeth, and bringing her chin down. Raising her eyebrows, she tilted her head and nodded. "Where are they?"

Nate looked at the Giddyup Buttercups and then at Piper. "She's a pony. A dying pony. She is the exact same shape as the Giddyups, but she's been shot and badly hurt. Big eyes, very expressive face, I feel that she was treated very badly by the last humans to come in contact with her." The Giddyup Buttercups nodded.

"She looked really hurt." One Giddyup Buttercup said.

"She was bleeding." Said the second

"She still looked pretty!" The third complimented.

"And she's inside, wrapped in cloth right now." The fourth Giddyup Buttercup added.

"Can I see her?" Piper asked.

"Not yet, Piper. I don't know how she'll react to anyone, and she's not awake yet. I want to take her to a safe house, someplace where she can recover and heal without anyone disturbing her."

"Your Vault?"

"No, that's too far, and it's not in good state right now."

"What happened at your vault, Blue?"

"Piper, not right now. Ask me when we're not in a super mutant base."

"Right. Got it. Mutants from around the way always know when to spring up when they're not wanted." Piper responded. "It's been a while since I've seen a live pony though. Last one I saw was working for a caravan company, moving things East."

Meathead turned his head to look at Piper, and Nate caught Meathead's reaction. "When was that?"

"About a year ago. I'll never forget the words he said to me," Piper started.

Nate asked the follow-up question of "What did he say?"

"Get your fucking hands off me, you dirty stinking human!" Laughing it off, Piper's eyes were replaying the exact memory in front of her, before she blinked it away and looked back at Nate with half of a smile.

"That's the day I learned about Nuka-World."

Nate's mind raced with the logistics of blowing a hole in the Atomatoy's building, then getting the carriage and the ponies all the way to the U.S.S. Constitution.

" I'm going to let you wear the suit, I need to be more mobile for the next hour."

"So where is this old bird flying to?"

'We're going a few blocks past Goodneighbor, and I want you to stand on the back, so hold on."

Exiting the police power armor, Piper looked at it and then stepped in.

"Have you ever operated power armor before?"

"Twice actually. They're pretty fun, but they weren't in the best of conditions."

"Neither is this one, so hold tight."

"Why all the secrecy, Blue? What's going on?"

"Piper, I know that as a reporter, you're inquisitive and you believe people have the right to know the truth. But the truth is that there's a mythical creature in the back seat of the carriage and she's hurt. If you tell anyone about this, then I will have half the wasteland chasing me down, wondering if I've cooked and eaten her yet, the other will want her for themselves. Now, help me push cause we need to get moving."

\111/

They pushed the chariot far back away from the front windows as possible and hooked up the seven Giddyup Buttercups, plus Meathead disguised as the lead pony. Piper set the one mini-nuke down on the ground by the windows.

Standing on the second level of the lobby, Nate asked: "Clear?"

"Clear," Piper replied from below.

Nate fired, blowing out a massive hole in the side of the Wilson Atomatoys building. The Giddyup Buttercups were frightened into action, and Meathead guided their frantic energy into pulling the chariot forward, out from underneath the balcony.

Nate jumped down onto the roof of the carriage and took up the reins, pushing the team forward through the hole, and into the streets of Boston.

"Hei-ya!" Nate shouted, spurring them on. The pegasus was securely inside the carriage, while Nate sat on top, with most of his arsenal laying next to him in the driver's box on top. Piper was holding tightly onto a metal bar on the back, armed with her Sten gun and two clips of ammo.

Taking a right down Oak Street, the went east towards the theater district, squeezing past a pile of building rubble, a rusted car and truck with all the tires pulled off and stacked haphazardly into a pile.

Fifty feet before the intersection of Tremont Street and Oak, there were two four-story walls made of corrugated tin and lumber, spaced close enough together, Meathead needed to get far over to the right, and then turn hard to the left, then hard right again over another stack of tires, this one more orderly and used to funnel people down into a choke point. The carriage scraped against the sides of the choke point, but Nate didn't particularly care.

Nate looked over his shoulder at Piper, then to Meathead. She was busy looking backward back at Atomatoys HQ, with the massive hole blown out the front entrance, Nate nodded once to Meathead.

Meathead ripped a pile of tires out of his path with a jolt of telekinesis. It was at the intersection of Oak and Tremont street where a Boston School Bus was blocking the way south, and another forty-foot tin and lumber wall with tires funneling people into another chokepoint blocked the way east.

The road north through the Theater District ran all the way to the Boston Common, straight to Goodneighbor. A block before the Old State House was an overpass, an on off-ramp that leads straight to the Boston courthouse, right next to Faneuil Hall.

Taking a ninety degree turn with a eight-pony drawn carriage took some time and careful maneuvering, but the raiders from the D.B. Technical High school on the south side of the school bus could only watch with their fingers on their trigger, as Nate stood tall with the guns aimed right at them, and Piper wearing power armor holding her SMG at port arms. Nate shook his head and frowned, and the raiders observed the Giddyup Buttercups.

"OY!" Nate shouted at the first raider he saw, it was a black woman wearing a white tank top, brown pants, harness, carrying a short combat rifle and biker goggles.

"Oy!" She shouted back, leering at him.

Nate jerked his thumb towards Wilson Atomatoys Headquarters. "Toy factory," Nate said, offering up the building for them to scavenge.

The raiders felt at odds with letting Nate and Piper roll on bye, but they also saw the weapons they were carrying and the police power armor and held off.

The ponies made it around the corner and started trotting faster. Down the street, bumping over every brick, misshapen piece of cracked concrete, rock, and a dent in the ground. Nate held the reins in one hand, and rifle in the other.

Picking up speed, Nate spurned Meathead into moving as fast as he could. Warren theater passed by on his left, and then he was sure that the Orpheum Theatre was if it was still standing.

As they ran past the front entrance to the Orpheum theater, the largest group of people outside of Fenway Park were all gathered outside the doors, smoking, chatting, eating, drinking, talking, and they all saw the pony-drawn carriage with Nate driving by with Piper on the back.

There was a moment where none of the raiders outside knew what to do, or were unsure of what they were seeing.

But all of them intrinsically agreed, they wanted Nate and Piper's stuff.

"HEI-YA! YA! YA!" Nate mushed, the ponies and Meathead leading them took off even faster as the first bullets rung out to kill Nate.

Nate dropped down in front of the carriage, as he heard all the raiders run out and chase him through the Boston Common. Pulling his head up he blind fired backward to get the humans to stop chasing him. The bullets went high over their heads, and they continued to run, but plenty of them ducked their heads. Piper fired thirty rounds, the bullet casings clattering onto the street behind them as she gunned down the group of raiders chasing them.

Of the thirty bullets in the 9mm ammo clip, only ten bullets hit, and of those, only three were fatal. Reloading with one hand, she was the target of most gunfire and nearly dropped her second clip.

They were at the corner of Tremont and Boston Street when a missile whizzed right past Nate and kept on flying. One of the raiders had a missile launcher and if they were twenty feet back, the explosive would've hit the carriage.

The missile kept flying, over the Boston Common and into the Massachusetts State House. Meathead and Nate passed the start to the Freedom Trail walking tour when Super Mutants flooded out of the State House, pointing and screaming and shouting down the street towards them.

Nate reached into the locker on top of the carriage and grabbed both rifles. Firing at the group of Super Mutants, the sky was filled with bullets coming from every direction, and it made Nate worry that he was sitting at the highest point.

Using VATS to assist him with lining up the perfect shots, he unloaded seventy-two rounds into the five mutants, but only killed one and wounded another. The mutants fired at the driver on top, ignoring the Giddyup Buttercups and focusing all their rage on Nate.

Nate reached for landmines, heaving them like discus onto Park Street Station Road behind him. The old explosives didn't like being tossed so carelessly and exploded on impact, and Nate looked behind him where he saw twenty raiders with the courage to chase him, about to collide with the seven super mutants who wanted to kill everything non-mutant in sight.

Raiders shouted and hollered, like a band of Native Americans all decorated with war paint and scavenged armor.

The corner of Park Street and Tremont Street turned into an instant war zone that spread into the Boston Common. The two sides met and a third of the raiders broke off to keep chasing Nate, while two mutants kept running after him as well. They took to opposite sides of the street, running and gunning at each other, while also trying to keep up with the carriage.

Piper fired and fired, switching sides of the carriage and aiming at the super mutants next. As she leaned over beyond the edge of the carriage, she felt the bar she was holding onto suddenly give.

The weight of the power armor was too much for the decorative support beam on the frame and broke off. The weight threw her forward, and she landed on her stomach inside the power armor.

They all felt the drop in weight and Nate crawled up on top of the carriage and shouted back "GO TO GOODNEIGHBOR!"

Nate's heart pounded, the on-off ramp was a one-lane road blocked by three cars, and at the end of the ramp was the passage that leads right past Faneuil Hall, blocked by a downed billboard and a bus chopped in half by a concrete support pillar.

The ponies ground to a halt as they turned up the ramp, "Can you clear the cars!?" Nate shouted.

The changeling nodded, "" The rusted heap of scrap metal budged slowly, grinding all the wheel wells against the concrete as the first raider turned the corner up the on-ramp. Nate laid down flat on top of the carriage, setting two more clips beside him.

Piper was on her feet, trying to make her way back to Nate as bullets pinged and dented the backside of the suit, which she knew was the more sensitive area.

Walking backward with the Sten gun hitting her side, and laser pistol out, there were plenty of targets for her to shoot at, but too many of them were aiming at her.

She retreated backward, and raiders were running up to her. They were on her in seconds, while Nate was already stopped at the first car up the ramp where the road leveled out.

Swinging her hatchet around, she was wild with the strikes but made it difficult for any raider to attack her with any sort of melee weapon. When they tried to take a shot at her with their own cobbled together weapons, she shot at them with her laser pistol. Driven backward, raiders were running past her, up the ramp and at Nate.

Firing five times, three bullets went wild, and two struck in the chest and hip. The one raider was replaced by three more coming around the bend. Firing seven more times, Nate saw the skull cap of one Raider shatter as the blood sprayed against his companions. He kept the barrage of bullets up as the second raider died and five more came running up the ramp. Nate didn't stop firing, the bang of the hammer clanging against his ears made them ring.

His throat was tight, and when he was reloading, they fired back.

A .38 bullet slammed into his shoulder, the most painful intense burning lancing agony coursed through his arm. From the angle he was at, laying flat, the bullet went from the top of his shoulder down. "AHHHG!" He screamed, clapping one hand over the wound. He fired his entire next clip and gunned down four more raiders.

The super mutants came in with sledgehammers and laser rifles, an odd but deadly combination. The raiders were now pinned between Nate and the Super Mutants and retreated up the ramp as the fighting spilled into the Boston Common and Park Street Station.

\111/

Ten feet below the street level, inside Park Street Station proper, there was a group of fifty-three men and women belonging to one of the most well-established gangs in the Commonwealth. At the moment, they were all looking up at the ceiling, wondering 'what in God's name is it this time?'

All that separated them from participating in an all-out turf war over the Boston Common was a pair of wooden doors leading up to the surface. The first raider that came running down the stairs into the Boston Metro station was hunted by two super mutants.

The super mutant reached out and throttled the raider by the neck, trying to snap the pathetic human's bones when the first Triggerman by the door strode up and put a .38 pistol to the mutant's temple and pulled the trigger four times.

Another Triggerman behind him aimed a hunting rifle at the mutant's chest, firing once and then pulling back on the bolt, he fired again.

The Triggermen wore black or brown slacks, leather shoes that needed to be polished and soles replaced every three months, button-up shirts, ties or bowties, and the optional fedora and suspenders. The Triggerman reached down and pulled the rider up off the ground. Flicking open the ammo chamber, he held his thumb over the two good bullets and dumped out the rest. The empty casings clattered to the concrete ground and he quickly shoved more bullets into the gun.

Pulling a second handgun from the back waistband, he shoved the gun into the raider's hands and nodded.

"I don't know who you are, but fuck those mutants."

\111/

The Triggermen marched out of Park Street Station in three tight rows of six. Carrying assault rifles, hunting rifles, shotguns, and handguns were drawn. When they aimed at something, all barrels swung in one direction and fired. The resulting hail of bullets chewed up everything in their path, along with the rest of the area surrounding whatever they were shooting at.

The tight formation was an overwhelming force, and able to focus their might on a single enemy with deadly efficiency. The mutants were cut off from retreating back to the State House and were instead pushed towards Good Neighbor and the waiting Neighborhood Watch.

They'd been watching Nate come up the street for three minutes, a man on duty spotted him turning up Tremont Street, charging all the way down with the raiders in tow. They alerted Hancock immediately, and he was already out the front door of the Old State House by the time his guards finished the sentence.

Beckoning all the Neighborhood Watchmen he saw as he walked to the front gate of Goodneighbor, he saw the street war play out in front of him.

"WHOEVER THE FUCK IS MAKING ALL THE DAMN FUCKING NOISE, BETTER FUCK OFF WITH THE FUCKING GUNS!" Hancock shouted, looking from the raiders charging up the ramp, to the mutants who were turning the gunfight into a close brawl in the street.

Their limitless strength and endurance made them hard to take on in a fist fight. Shaking his head at the scene of chaos, he turned and shouted, "All right! Line up! Take firing positions!" The Triggermen trying to separate the raiders back away from the mutants without being drawn in so they could take their shots were hampered by Nate shooting everyone and anything that got remotely close to the on-ramp.

Hancock raised a revolutionary era sword, pulled out his own handgun and shouted, "Kill 'em all! FIRE!"

\111/

Meathead moved the second car out of the way, and Nate rolled off the top of the carriage, landing on his stomach and bleeding out of his shoulder. He groaned and saw the lights in the air whizz bye. Yellow and black spots that turned pink and grey filled his vision as he struggled to comprehend the pain and he jabbed himself with a needle full of psycho and another stim-pak.

Overhead, snow broke down on Boston for the first time that winter. The air temperature was dropping by the second and everyone felt the coldness of the chill in the air. Everyone was subtly more tense, wishing for a warm inside and a fire to stand around. Rising above the gunfire of the Neighborhood Watch, and the yells and shouts of the super mutants, and the bangs of noise from the Triggermen, or the relentless fight of Nate firing off round after round of .38 ammo from his automatic pipe rifle at the raiders storming up the ramp or caught in the middle of a turf war, there was a growing noise that took precedence over all of them.

Groaning. Growling. The ragged breath of nearly dead humans irradiated to high hell and barely conscious.

The thrall of ghouls descending on the Boston Common came from all directions.

It was a handful at first, crawling up from the sewers or bashing their way through the glass, cutting themselves, but completely oblivious to the act.

Then as the second volley of gunfire from the Neighborhood Watch drew the attention of dozens more.

They came in packs, all herded together and moving like flocks of birds drawn to noise.

"Jesus." Hancock was the first to see at the North end, thirty ghouls were shuffling along, only to break out into a run and charge down State House Ave. They came in behind the super mutants and swarmed through the park. The gunfire only picked up, as bullets were flying all over the place, which gathered the attention of even more ghouls. The cries of two hundred voices all strangled by rotting vocal cords.

Hancock threw a glance over his shoulder and shouted, "Men! Fall Back! Ghouls on the north side!" A swarm of ghouls stretching from one side of the road, from building to building, to the other was coming for them from the direction of the Mass Fusion tower. It would overwhelm them in seconds.

While not a hazard for the ghouls in the group, there was a mix of humans within the Neighborhood watch who would be torn apart by the limb and then eaten by the defunct feral ghouls

Beating a hasty retreat from the battlefield, the ghouls were like a tidal wave of locusts, crashing against everything they saw. Devouring everything they could get their hands on, others died, crushed beneath the feet of others as the torrent of ghouls moving through the streets broke in all directions, and the turf war was suddenly out to the side as all their attention was forced on the new enemy.

Ghouls followed raiders up the ramp, Nate shouted at the team of horses to stop moving and freeze. Meathead froze along with the rest of the Giddyup Buttercups. Crawling under the carriage, handfuls of raiders who were running up the ramp were pushed past and forced to keep moving. Some were tackled to the ground, and the ghouls tore into the raiders like rabid dogs.

Nate could only shudder and try to keep his blood inside of him. Putting the pressure on his shoulder, he could only wait and feel terrified at the sights of men and women being ripped apart limb from limb and partially devoured.

The feral ghouls didn't need to eat, they'd forget to swallow as they'd put the meat into their mouth, chew, but the ones without tongues couldn't push food back farther to the top of the throat, and it would fall back out of their mouth onto the ground.

"Christ," Nate said, laying on his back and staring up at the underside of the metal carriage.

He laid there in silence, afraid that a single noise except the sound of his breath would attract attention.

Ghouls ran past, bumping into the carriage, knocking over one of the ponies.

Nate inhaled and held his breath, then he exhaled.

Raiders and Triggermen huddled together, guns aimed at the door, fists banging from the other side.

Everyone huddled quietly in the dark, waiting for the ghouls to forget and wander off. In the back, a few men whispered the lyrics to 'Accent-u-ate the Positive' By Bing Cosby.

Snow melted on contact, and all Nate could think about in the silence were a few music lyrics to pass the time.

"I have a mansion but forget the price
Ain't never been there, they tell me it's nice
I live in hotels, tear out the walls
I have accountants, pay for it all.

Everybody says yeah I'm cool, he's cool.

They say I'm crazy but I have a have a good time
I'm just looking for clues at the scene of the crime
Life's been good to me so far"

Nate let his head rest against the concrete road and closed his eyes. Gritting his teeth, he pressed one hand to his shoulder and winced. He could feel the bullet right in the shoulder blade. His hands came away red and he hissed through his teeth. He patted his pockets and tried to find something thin and small, only coming up with a plastic pen.

The feet of feral ghouls walked by, trudging along but steadily slowing down in the amount of volume.

Sighing, he licked the nib clean and put the pen tip to his shoulder wound and rooted around in his shoulder muscle to dig out the bullet.

\111/

Travis Lonely Miles held a cigarette that was burnt down past the filter, and burning his fingertips. He was determined in that moment to let his fingers snuff out the excess flames, but it grew too hot and he flicked it out the window instead as he listened to the song playing through the speakers.

"Ha heh ha ha!
It's all right, I've been hurt before
It's all right, you don't love me anymore
Maybe some day, I'll find a way without you. He heh ha ha!
Who am I kidding? It's Okay.
Baby, I can see, It's okay.
But will it make you happy?
Some Day, and it Wont Be Long,
You're gonna find yourself all alone."

"Oh Babe!" Travis hollered from inside his recording studio trailer at Diamond City. By far, this was the loudest his voice ever was all day, a few people could hear from outside, but the voice was muffled. Travis never realized he was shrieking the lyrics to the second verse horrifically off key, but caught up in the song, and seeing the faces of everyone in the recording studio that day as Mr. Joe Bravo sung the song much better than Travis' karaoke version, Travis felt the warm energy from the ghosts of the past fill that room and expand outwards. "Baby, I can see it's okay!"

"All right!"

"I've Been hurt before. It's all right!"

For a few notes, Travis and Joe Bravo's voice shared the same tone and pitch, to where it didn't sound like vultures squawking, and actual harmony.

Turning on the microphone and going live again, "I read a note the other day and it read, 'It's Time I Got Back to the Good Life,' and...it's like the man who wrote it...he understood..." Shaking his head, "He took the words right out of my mouth and put it to paper. Travis Lonely Miles, walking his own path for a few more miles. Here on Diamond City Radio."

Ch. 28 Thunderstruck October 29th

""

"" Meathead called out again, sensing no other living creatures nearby.

Silence reigned, and Nate scraped his way back out from underneath the carriage. The torn up pavement beneath him shifted and he dragged rubble on his back. He rolled over and crawled up onto his knees, then stood up.

Inhaling, he called out to the team of ponies.

"All right! Let's get moving again." The seven Giddyup Buttercups plus Meathead disguised as one all moved again, relaxing their stiff poses and coming back to life.

""

"Just around the block," Nate replied, tugging on the reins.

Nate looked at the road ahead of them, the last two cars were moved discreetly while ghouls and the remnants of raiders were and the only barriers to the road were a semi-truck trailer that made them take a sharp turn coming down the off ramp, going up onto the sidewalk, to go around it. Then taking a left turn towards the North End, they were at the corner of the Boston Courthouse, right next door to Faneuil Hall, and on the same block as Weatherby Investments.

In front of the Courthouse was a blown out bus, with a collapsed piece of overpass blocking the road.

Nate reached into the strong box and pulled out a mini-nuke. Priming it manually, the mini-nuke started beeping, and Nate weighted the one pound mini-nuke in his hand.

"Cover your ears," Nate said. Raising his elbow, he heaved the Mini-nuke like a football at the blown out bus and a collapsed section of the overpass and blew a gaping hole in the entire street. Windows blew out in a bright flash of light, and the bus was immolated, being crushed under the weight of the concrete above.

"Let's get a move on, I don't know how many ghouls heard that," Nate said, Meathead urged the team on.

Now the road was clear and bathed in a rapidly dissipating dose of radiation. Nate urged the team to move again, and they rode right past the Haymarket Mall raider lookouts on the upper floor of the parking garage to their left.

The one raider didn't raise any alarm, knowing that the man on top holding the reigns to the carriage was Nate. His blue vault suit was stained with his own blood, but being this close to safety lead his mind to not fixate on the wound on his shoulder.

Circling around to the right, Nate urged the team to pull the carriage underneath a billboard leaning against the Weatherby Investments building. Like a small garage, it was partially hidden from view.

Meathead unhitched the team, and they all followed their new leader into the building as Nate brought the wounded Pegasus up inside the tower.

Passing through the threshold, into the interior, Nate felt like he walked a thousand miles, but now he could finally take a breath of relaxation.

On the bottom floor was a Slocum's Joe cafe, and mini-market that fledged the elevators leading up to the second lobby for all the private suites.

Nate asked that the Giddyup Buttercups wait there until they came back down for them, right now they needed to go to the U.S. Constitution sitting on top of the building.

""

"Has it?" Nate replied arms weighted down with the pegasus bundled up.

""The changeling yawned, yowling and placing a paw to cover his mouth. "" He said, looking to the wrapped bundle of cloth in Nate's arms.

"Well, it's your rescue mission, what do you want to do with her after we get her cleaned up?"

Meathead shrugged, bunching up his shoulder blades and then relaxing them. ""

Meathead offered, causing Nate to look down at the changeling.

"A what now?"

""

"What happens to the people inside a cocoon?" Nate asked.

"Rapid cell shedding, humans lose about 50 million cells every day, but while encased, the regeneration and loss are five times that or more depending on how much emotion the cocoon is sustained on. It's a lot of effort on really both the pony and the changeling, because emotions are what's sustaining their life force while inside the cocoon.>"

"So if we leave her here, could she get out on her own? She wouldn't suffocate would she?"

"

"Let's see you do it then." Nate said Meathead broke eye contact with him, "I want to see it."

Meathead grimaced, "."

"Still, if you're going to be putting one up, let's see it."

\111/

"Captain Ironsides! I'll be having guests conscripted into my service coming aboard the ship! They joining me under the intention of wiping out the Communist threat and are to be treated as non-hostiles, and I ask that you and your men stand down when I bring such individuals aboard the ship!"

The massive sentry bot rolled across the deck and saluted by raising his rocket launching arm up to his head. "Understood, Lieutenant, All Hands, stand down. What is that you've got there, Lieutenant?"

"A messenger pigeon! A big one! One that will aid us tremendously with the war effort against the red commies." Nate pulled off the sheet and let Captain Ironsides scan her briefly.

"Excellent, Lieutenant, excellent indeed!" His canny voice called back, spinning around to patrol the forward part of the deck.

Nate took her down below deck, into the captain's room and laid her in the wrap on the bed. "Meathead, we need to get her cleaned up and get all this gunk and blood off her. Cut these cuffs off her. It looks like there's some dried paint or some shit in her fur. There's blood from where she was shot in the wing and front right armpit. She might have infected wounds too, but those are from small cuts around her body. Her fur looks like hell too. Get a metal tub and some water going, then we'll see about the damage on her wing."

\111/

Nate returned five minutes later with a hacksaw and gave it to Meathead.

"Chains," Nate said, handing the hacksaw off to his dog.

While Meathead was busy cutting through the shackles around each hoof, neither could protest as Nate boiled pans of water and poured each of them through a strainer. Pouring warm water into the bin, and letting her fur soak, the water turned inky black as the bamboo yellow, stained and dirty coat was sanitized for the first time in her entire life.

"That's paint...see how it gunks up and comes off?" Nate observed, rubbing the tacky bits sticking between his fingers to show Meathead "Who the hell painted her coat?"

Halfway through her bath, Nate put more water on to lightly boil and then asked Meathead for help.

"Meathead, can you realign her feathers? What is that called for Equestrians? Grooming?"

"" Meathead held a hoof to his face. "<...Grey Snow. It's called preening. I almost forgot the term there for a moment.>"

"I've got more warm water," running his hands through her fur, he shook and scrubbed the oil and blood loose. Feeling the bumps and cuts and scars on her skin, she suffered plenty of whipping scars around the flank and tail. The skin around the base of her wings was rubbed raw, and he was careful to gently press a warm rag on those areas while cleaning.

Her mane was a rats nest that was never combed, but Nate did his best to shake out the tangles and knots with his hands, then finding a fancy comb, he brushed her mane. Brushing out clumps and dipping it into the water every so often, he fought to make her mane clean and straight while Meathead maneuvered and tapped every feather back into position while carefully pinching out the busted feathers.

"What's she feeling, Meathead?"

""

"Can you tell what she fears?" Nate inferred.

""

"I'll bet you twenty bucks it's humans." Nate wagered.

""

"Because who else would do something this terrible to a cute pony, and get away with it? When she wakes up, you should be the first one she sees. I don't think she would be willing to trust a human right away."

""

Taking scissors, he cut the Nuka-World dog collar off her neck. The red material with golden cursive lettering was smudged and dirty. Smudged in a way two hundred years of dirt and dust working their way into the fibers, worn by a pony before her. The inside was soft and worn while the outside was still firm. Tossing it onto the table beside him, he cradled the wet pegasus, feeling her exposed ribs and tight stomach as Meathead dumped the water and he replaced it with new warm water.

Her original color began showing beneath the muck as even more grime came out. A burnt-yellow bamboo fur with patches of raw untreated skin, and two-tone golden aspen and light brown streaks in her mane.

Scrubbing, washing, and rinsing her tail, flank, and back legs, Meathead stepped away and came back with two towels as Nate combed out her tail.

Dumping the dirty water over the side of the ship, they patted the mare dry and carried her into the captain's bedroom, and laid her down.

"Watch her, make sure she stays safe. Talk to her if she wakes up, ask what she eats. What do ponies eat? I'll be heading to Goodneighbor for food and find Piper. I'll pick up something for her there."

""

Nate nodded.

"

Nate considered his options, "Do it. What do you think about showing Piper?" He asked.

""

"Same here. Telling the town crier about a pegasus isn't the best way to keep things a secret. I'll go talk to Piper. Keep an eye on her, and I'll be back in an hour, two hours. If she's still not up when I get back, I'm going to look for Nick at the Park Street Station afterward. You can build your...cocoon."

""

\111/

Nate went down below to the lowest deck, grabbing armfuls of junk and weapons worth selling, and loaded them into his bag. Riding the elevators back down, his eyes went around the executive lobby for a moment, seeing what changes could be made.

All seven Giddyup Buttercups were in a wander mode, two of them resting curled up on couches, three in a group talking with each other, one was looking over tattered economic magazines while the last one was on the second floor, looking out the windows.

As Nate came down, they grew quiet, but one Giddyup stepped forward. "Is our sister going to be okay?"

"Yes. She's going to be okay. But, she's unconscious. She was hurt badly from a gunshot wound, but her body wasn't prepared for the shock and is recuperating. Until then, she's resting in the ship on top of the building in the captain's quarters."

"Can we see her?"

"Yes, but there's not enough space in the room for everyone to go all at once. Most likely, she won't be awake either, but you can visit. She'll love having your support and you being there for her." Nate said, smiling out at the small crowd of gathered ponies. They were raising their heads up higher, now that they knew their friend was safe, he could even see their chest's move and flex with each breath, making them seem all that much more life-like. They weren't stressed out for their friend, and it reflected in their movements.

The Giddyup Buttercups started as an overpriced toy that couldn't even walk in the early stages, it was a rocking horse. But, as the demand for a toy that could move its arms and legs grew, the design evolved. In the time of Arlen Glass, the Giddyups were on par with companion bots, helping little girls discover a passion for the outdoors, but on another note, guiding elderly and carrying their things for them in saddlebags. Not just for little girls anymore, that was always the unintended market that developed around something childlike in nature.

It appealed to someone else for a different reason entirely, but none-the-less sound in reasoning. Arlen Glass saw the balloon shape features of the Miss Nanny Robco robots and saw the lack of emotion in their design. He created the Giddyup Buttercups with an expressive face, modeled after Equestrians and given soft features to create a sense of empathy in the people around them. It wasn't his fault the senior population latched onto these, they would wake them up just like a Nanny bot, and perform the same tasks as a companion animal, but with the option to converse with them as well. The population at large didn't know about Equestrians, nor the changelings, but Nate and hundreds of other people all knew of their existence. Seeing the side by side comparison of Giddyup and the Pegasus, it was hard not to see the similar anatomy and make the assumption.

Walks were spent their elder companion and the Giddyup Buttercup hugging their forehead for support, feeling the strain in their legs as they know they can't make it back to their own room that night. Instead, they would just keep leaning onto the Giddyup Buttercup for support until they couldn't walk anymore, then the pony would help take them home at a nice cantering walk, conversing all the while. With each Giddyup knowing how to properly adjust a person back into the saddle, or one laying across their back to prevent them from falling off, it was a less common, but equally rare sight to see an elderly senior draped over the back of a Giddyup Buttercup. Riding them was a workout in of itself from the constant motion, but not good for people with bad hips.

With the Giddyup Buttercups so animated and involved in a person's day, they wanted to see each person be their best.

"What's your name, partner?" Giddyup asked.

"Nate. What are all yours?"

"I'm Giddyup Buttercup,"

"My name is Giddy,"

"I'm Gigi,"

"Buttercup,"

"Trotsiana,"

"Stampede,"

"And I'm Sugar Cube. Thanks for saving us from those rustlers, I guess. What do we do now?"

"It's nice to meet everyone, but unfortunately, I need to travel and can't take you all with me."

"That's all right, we know you'll come back," Giddy said, the other Giddyups agreed.

"Is there anything we can do for you while you're away?" Gigi asked. "The place looks like it could use some spring cleaning...or a few hundred years worth of spring cleanings..." She said, rolling her eyes to the cracks in the ceiling.

"Yes. Feel free to stay. As for everypony else, watch out for any ghouls while exploring, I don't have anything else for you, but you're welcome to make this your new home just as we have."

"It's got an amazing view!" Trotsiana said, sending a small wave of approval through the other Giddyup Buttercups.

"We could clear out the cafe, and play store, while we wait for you to come back," Trotsiana suggested.

They all nodded, "It'll attract attention, but the raiders in the immediate area know not to mess with me or anything associated with me. After the Slocum Joe's is cleared out, I'll have three of you go next door to Faneuil Hall, and do the same." Nate said.

"But first I need to take care of your...pega-sister," Nate says, but the Giddyups all flock around him.

"I hope she feels better!"

"Tell her we love her and that we want her to get well soon!"

"Send her our love!"

"Hug's and kisses!"

"What's her name?" Stampede asks.

"Her name?" Nate inquires, thinking to the first time they saw her, then the emotion Meathead showed for her. When no name came to mind, music-filled his thoughts instead.

The moment her form was lite-up against the black sky by a lightning bolt in the distance above the streets of Boston, right before she was shot was an incredible moment. But the moment she woke up from the shock of being healed by four stimpaks at once was when they both really saw her.

He replied, "Thunderstruck."

Author's Note

"Love is a fickle thing, it goes back and forth. I don't know if it's just me, but that red-head raider I was talking to sure waited a long time to mention she had a boyfriend. I think she took some of my tapes too...Damnit! This one is for you, you know where I am, I want my tapes back! Here in Diamond City, Diamond City Radio!

Ch. 29 Trigger Finger

Author's Note

Heya...Diamond City.

"You're looking pretty this morning, fog rolling in, but that should clear out before the afternoon."

"Just look at those birds chirpin', away outside the studio window,' Travis commented, looking through a small square 1x2 ft window on the trailer door. Three birds were spaced apart, clinging to the awning across the dirt alley from him.

Travis couldn't hear their caws through the insulation and walls to make up the sound booth in his trailer, but he saw their jaws working, and by watching them, the chirping and cawing noises appeared in his head.

Ch. 29 Trigger Finger

Returning to Goodneighbor meant passing around the backside of Mass Fusion again, and skirting past pockets of ghouls that gathered and were left to roam the plazas and courtyards between skyscrapers in Downtown Boston. The noises that echoed between buildings often confused feral ghouls, misleading them into different directions than the original noise was coming from. Since the silence carried on for over two hours now, and into the mid-morning, they became stagnant, only responding to louder caws of birds, fierce gusts of wind, or the tell-tale sound of a gunshot.

Their sunken eyes rolling up to the heights of the tall buildings, or even further into the backs of their skulls, there were twenty feral ghouls between the U.S.S. Consitution and Goodneighbor. A dozen were underneath the overpass that Meathead lead the carriage team up and over, while two groups of four were clustered in the plazas near Mass Fusion and the backroad leading to Goodneighbor.

Seeing his chance, Nate sprinted to the Goodneighbor door and flung the gate's junk door behind him. Panting calmly, he made it without attracting attention. There were still plenty gathered in the streets from the Combat Zone to the Boston Common, feeding on the downed remains of super mutants and raiders alike.

The police power armor was standing unoccupied inside the gated community, outside the waist-high brick wall by Daisy's Discounts, but lacking a fusion core.

Piper was sitting on an old metal bench, waiting for Nate to arrive. She looked tired, up all night and not getting any meaningful restful sleep, a smile found its way to her face and she asked, "So, are we gonna talk about what all the commotion is about, or do I need to beg a little?" Calling out to him as he approached her. Crows were cawing in the morning air that rushed through the buildings, somewhere a cracked pane of glass finally lost it's battle with gravity, falling out and smashing into the ground. She stretched, then stood up, wiping the sleep from her eyes.

"I want to thank you for the support last night, without an extra person, this would've been much more difficult. As for the rescue, she's unconscious from the fall and shotgun wound."

Turning side to side, she took the compliment. "Awh, well, I hope she gets better. But, hey! Maybe you can repay the favor by letting me ask you a few questions?" She asked, cheeks rosy from the cool air, the kind words, and the cusp of a new story waiting to unfold in front of her.

"Sure."

"Actually, before I dive too deep, quick recap, what happened to all the Giddyup Buttercupspulling the carriage?"

"They're over at the Weatherby Investments Tower, the one with the Constitution crashed into it. They're tucked in there playing store, keeping an eye out for rustlers." Nate said.

"Nate, they're here," Piper said, pointing past Nate to two ponies that pressed against the front door gate into Goodneighbor and cantered right in.

One jabbed the other in the side, pointing her head towards Nate. The sound of their hooves clopping against the cobblestone street was followed up with two excited voices.

"Hi Nate, Hi Piper! It's us, Giddy and Gigi." Newer models might've been more difficult to tell the difference from one another, but the rust and sun-bleached paint, along with minor denting around the edges, made telling them apart that much easier. But, what set these ponies apart from others were the laser rifles slung over their back.

"Giddy, Gigi, good morning, what are you doing here?"

"We wanted to go exploring and see if there were any kids running around to play with...!" Gigi said, eyes quickly scanning the Old State House, "Did you know that this used to be the original state capitol building?" She said Piper rolled her eyes.

"Wonderful, more history buffs," Piper said.

"Yes, we do, actually," Nate said.

"Well, you might be hard outta luck, Buttercups. Goodneighbor isn't exactly a kid-friendly place." She said, sitting down on one knee. "Squolly Square." She whispered. "How's that for your memory banks, eh?" Piper asked.

Giddy and Gigi looked at each other, confirming what they already knew. Frowning in dissatisfaction, they 'hmmed' and then said, "You're right, come on, Gigi, we won't find any kids around here."

"Be sure to stay near the tower, and if anything tries to hurt or chase you, run up into the U.S.S. Constitution, and the robots will protect you."

"Are you just going to let them wander around?" Piper asked.

"I don't have much of any other plans for seven Giddyup Buttercups except try to keep them from breaking. Someone may want one, and I knew from the past they were pretty good companion bots. There was a place a little bit north of here...old folks home that Atomatoys needed to offload a whole bunch of money into to use as a tax write-off and promote it as philanthropy, while at the same time testing out a product that they could get feedback from the residents. Three years after they started it, there was a whole little wild-west themed senior-living community."

"And is that why you want to keep things from breaking?" Piper asked.

"No, I'll tell you why. I heard a noise like the sound of thunder, and I saw the sky break open, and the clouds part in a ring...and then a white light....then the sounds of ten million souls screaming out from the darkness. "

Piper jerked her head back, "Damn. Easy there, Teenage Angst. Save some poetry for open mic night."

Nate shook his head, trying to clear the image of the atomic bomb going off. "It's a small comfort knowing something from the past survived, even when what's left is buried deep under all this rubble. If it's Giddyup Buttercups, then I'll take 'em. To you, how big is the Commonwealth? How far does it stretch? From what I've heard, Salem is the farthest settlement in the North, Quincy to the South, Boston too...." Nate circled his left hand counterclockwise, and Piper jumped in.

"Fort Hagen, the military base to the west. No one is really out there except for raider gangs, but even they start to realize eventually when no caravans pass bye anymore. From Fort Hagen west...lot more countryside. It's different fighting out there than it is around cities. No cover out there, even with the trees, there's no place you can really retreat to. Out there it's like...a numbers game. If the other gang has more people than you do, chances are they're going to win. That's about how far the Commonwealth goes in your little box. "

Nate smiled, trying to infect Piper with an unshakeable, knowing, optimism. "Sounds like Mancala, the Chinese board game. It also sounds like things are a bit more feudal out there than it is in here."

"Piper." He said, grinning madly. "Do you really want some perspective?"

"Yes. I know you're a Vault Dweller, but I need more than that to know what your take is on the issues or major differences and changes that you see outside of the Vault. Diamond City is in desperate need of new insight from the outside. Can you describe your time on the inside?"

"Is that it?"

"Yep!"

"Piper, before we even talk about me, want to talk to you about your last issue, the synthetic truth."

"Yeah? What about it?"

"What prompted you to say Mc Donough is a synth?"

"The way he acted, he's been pushing for harsher and harsher restrictions on who's being allowed within Diamond City, and making sure that the lower level citizens never get a chance to purchase houses on the upper tiers."

"So what's he done that makes you think he was with the Institute?"

"He's been after me for years, always trying to shut me down. He's always trying to send the dumbest of guards to try and hassle me, or pay me off so I'll write something that puts him in a better light. It used to be bribes, but I kept saying no. Of course, I recorded it and put it out on paper he was trying to bribe me, but since it was never him personally, McDonough always denied it. They've smashed up my shop a few times, tossed furniture around, burnt my stacks of paper, one time I came home and found my computer completely wiped clean, and I lost everything except for a holotape of a few guards threatening to smash up my shop if I didn't stop writing about the synths or McDonough. I can't convince the public he's in on it without him saying he has no idea his men were in on it. He's distanced himself from the action which is making it a lot harder for me to pin him down."

"Okay, well, it sounds like he's a crook with legmen paid to keep the peace. Have you ever heard that phrase? Keep the peace?"

"Yeah. It's usually followed up with, by any means necessary."

"But nothing in the article actually said, 'This is why he's a synth. You only prose the two similar situations together, sure he may have looked like a cow with nothing on his mind, but people look all sorts of sloppy when they're eating."

"So you don't believe me either? You don't think he's a synth."

"I never said that Piper, I wanted to know what evidence you have on him."

"Any evidence I had, was destroyed by Diamond City Guards. I had a holo-tape of him talking to some people in code, about things moving places. I think he was talking about some people who ended up being kidnapped a few days later."

Nate nodded, his head bouncing back and forth. "Piper, how far would you go to learn the truth?"

"I'm willing to hit the road, and be by your side if that's what it takes to get the story." She said, slowly shaking her head, casting away any doubts in her own mind to commit.

"Well, our first stop is going to be the Boston Common Metro. We're looking for Nick Valentine right now, I talked with Ellie Perkins for just a minute, but she said he disappeared going after a woman kidnapped by Sonny Malone."

"Ellie's a good acquaintance of mine, she'll feed me little tidbits of information every once and a while. As for Sonny, he's boss of the Triggermen. Why do you need Nick Valentine?"

"I'm going to ask him to help track down the man who kidnapped my son. I need to get into Park Street Station, I know. Only, I don't want to go in there without a front man."

"A what man?"

"A front man, someone who can vouch for me so they don't immediately toss me out, or shoot me."

"So what's your plan for that?"

"Talk to Hancock. I earned a little bit of his respect for clearing out Swan from the Boston Common. Hopefully, that's enough to at least get there." Piper's head jerked back, standing up taller and leaning in towards Nate.

"That was you?" She asked, her hands darted inside her faded and ripped leather jacket, pulling out a pencil and a pad of yellowed notebook paper that used to be white. "This I gotta hear. What happened?"

"Nothing interesting. I took a Fat Man off a raider named Boomer outside of Boston and found mini-nukes along the way. We set up the Fat Man on top of the Mass Fusion tower and angled it just right so we could fire down onto the park. Three shots and he was done."

"That's insane. People have been trying to kill Swan for years."

"What were they doing? Throwing pillows at him?" Nate asked sarcastically.

"He's killed quite a few people over the years, at least two people every month for longer than I've been alive. I'm amazed you went after a Super Mutant Behemoth. I know a couple of merc parties tried going after him a few months ago, but...well...they didn't...do so well."

"Ask Hancock or his guard Fahrenheit, he'll vouch for me and say I was there. He was the one who actually pulled the trigger, I just provided the gun. Speak of the Devil." Nate pointed his left hand off towards the Old State House, Hancock was stepping out, adjusting his overcoat and taking a turn to his left. He paused for a moment, spotting Nate in his blue Vault suit. He raised his right pointer finger, pausing Fahrenheit and the other Goodneighbor guard behind him.

"Nate! What are you doing back here so soon?" He asked. Piper flicked her eyes over to Nate as they both walked towards each other and shook hands. "And look at those! Ponies! Haven't seen those things in at least a year." Hancock pointed towards the Giddyup Buttercups examining the broken down Police Power Armor, they heard the buzz word 'Pony' and turned to smile and wave.

"Business, I was just coming to see you. I'm looking for Nick Valentine, the last anyone I've talked to was that he's dealing with an issue with the Triggermen in Park Street Station. Do you have any way for me to meet with them?"

"They're all closed up after a group of their-" Hancock's left eye squinted, almost winking, but not quite, at Nate. Hancock noticed Piper, "-guy's up and vanished. They've been losing men, and now they're on the defense. Even their cronies hanging around the State House were called back. Guess they're not in the mood to talk right now."

"Well, I might as well ask, do you know if I'm going to get shot on site if I try going down there and asking about Nick myself?"

"You can ask, but they'll still probably shoot you just for asking. Sonny Malone has labs down in that Vault of his, and he's cooking up a storm of drugs. I'll tell you what. You kill him, and everything he has will be up for grabs. That is, for Goodneighbor anyway. I always try resolving any issues I have with the Triggermen, but they're going after my people."

Hancock's chin dropped down, so he was looking up at Nate. "Last night my men found three residents of Goodneighbor stabbed to death, twenty-one pricks apiece."

"What! Hancock, that's terrible, how are you going to respond?" Piper asked Hancock dropped his head over towards Piper.

He put one hand on Nate's shoulder and looked back to him. "Take care of this, will you?" Hancock asked. "Fucking Rats."

"Get me a gun that can get rid of them, and I'll handle it."

"Are you really going to go kill these men, Nate?" Piper asked, the first time calling him by his name.

"I'm okay with it, they charge too much for shitty drugs, and I know it's shitty because I'm the one who smokes most of it. Then they have the fucking audacity to kill innocent people already living at the bottom of the barrel, just cause a few of theirs up and died? No, that's bullshit, Piper. Nate, you take care of this, and I'll see what I can do about getting more men for you." Hancock said.

"What? What are you talking about?" Piper asked, looking from Nate to Hancock.

"Something we talked about earlier when this is all done and over with, I'll sit down with you and give you the whole story, Piper, but right now, I need the power armor."

"Well, shoot, I'm coming with." She said. "And the ghouls kinda tore out something important that makes the siren go off constantly when there's power connected to it, so I took the fusion core out."

Nate glanced over to the police power armor and scowled. "Kleo sells some armor that I can cover the expenses for you, I'll throw in some spare caps for whatever ammo or junk you need," Hancock said. Holding his right hand up, and waving two fingers towards him, Fahrenheit and a Goodneighbor guard approached them.

"Bud, go grab some caps, three hundred, these two are going a...errand for me and Piper, you're right, killing sounds like such a terrible word when you say it out loud." Hancock said, "Nate. Go un-alive them for me, would you? Also, Bud, go grab him the Colt."

\111/

The Colt wasn't a pony, it was the Colt LE901. Chambered to fire .308 rounds, it was suited for frontline infantry and close quarter battles. At just a hair over one meter long, and 9.5 pounds fully loaded with a 30 round magazine, the rifle was exceptionally powerful for taking down medium to large game.

Piper and Nate walked carefully down the steps to the Park Street metro station. The immobile escalator steps listed with each step and Nate wore straps of leather beneath his boots to muffle the noise.

"I'll tell you what, joining sonny's gang was the best thing I ever did." They both overheard. At the bottom of the steps was a door, when suddenly a man walked past holding a submachine gun, smoking a cigarette.

"I say Malone is weak. We catch the detective and what's he do with him? Lock 'em up! Like he ain't got the balls to do kill him." Nate looked to his left at Piper, sharing a knowing glance.

"Don't let the new girl hear that. She'll start swinging that bat of hers at your face until there ain't no face left."

Nate readied his combat knife, reaching the bottom of the stairs. Piper was ready with her laser pistol, there were two men beside the ticket kiosk, and a third man inside, with the fourth man who was smoking the cigarette walking towards the bathroom on the far left side of the station.

Nate direct Piper to the fourth man, while he hugged the wall to the right, picking up a brick on the floor.

Easing the door to the ticket kiosk open, the man inside turned and saw the door slowly swing open. He turned to check and see when Piper tailed the cigarette smoker into the bathroom. Firing twice from her laser pistol into the back of the man's head, he fell down dead.

Nate reached up and thrust the combat knife into the man's throat. Three stabs to the jugular, and the man was breathless.

Heaving a brick at one of the two men facing each other, Nate drew his snub nose and sprinted across the office, jumping over the counter, tackling the man still standing with his gun hand. Stabbing the man in the neck and main aorta, chest, and side of the head, the dazed man was swearing and getting back onto his feet, away from Nate when Piper fired over Nate's head at the Triggerman.

He shouted out, and Nate was on him instantly. Pointing the barrel into the soft goo of the man's eye, he pulled the trigger, blowing a hole right into the man's head.

The body dropped down onto the floor, and Piper crossed the station to Nate.

"What was that noise?" Came a shout from below.

"Nothin'! Just shootin' at a roach! Little cocksucker!" Nate shouted back.

There was silence for a moment, then they both heard. "Khay," In response.

\111/

Down two flights of stairs, they came to the tracks. Overturned vending machines with glass bashed in, pillars crumbling, and all the tiles on the wall were coming off the wall from the cracked plaster and moisture seeping in over the years. Nate counted men, and Nate pulled Piper in. "I'll toss three grenades, then we pick our shots."

Nate pulled three grenades off his bandoleer and poked his head up again, seeing a group of three people close together, and then two more people standing side by side. With his Colt LE901 at his side, Nate pulled the pin, let go of the clasp, counted to one, and then threw the first grenade at the group of three. Then the second grenade, and then the third.

Firing at the Triggermen before the first grenade even went off, they all turned their attention to him and were blind to the grenades as they went off at people's feet. In an explosive instant, four men were killed and they were all firing at Nate and Piper. Firing back, Piper with her Sten submachine gun and Nate with his Colt, the bullets raced across the station platforms. One man Nate saw he shot lost his hat, a second man shot by Piper took four steps, then fell over dead. Nate pulled off another grenade and heaved it at a third man on the next platform over. Piper was ready and gunned the man down as he tried to find new cover, and was shot in the legs, and the waist. Nate fired at the downed Triggerman, and he was dead.

The last two men were firing side by side, unrelenting with swapping out magazines while the other fired. This forced Nate and Piper to take cover. "Cover me." Piper raised her rifle above her head and fired blindly from cover, the bullets stopped and Nate ran low to the ground, throwing his back against a support column where he could look out and see the two men at the far end of the first platform.

Raising his rifle, he fired nine times into the first man, leaving only one Triggerman left.

The last man picked up his fallen comrades gun and hunkered down, reloading.

"You think you can fucking take us!? You fucking pieces of shit!? I'm gonna fucking kill you!"

Rising up, he was holding both submachine guns, one in each hand and firing from the hip. The torrent of bullets chewed apart the station and left bullet marks in everything. When both guns ran dry, he was forced back into cover as Nate fired back, the rifle making extremely loud bangs with every bullet fired in the metro station.

Piper dug through an empty vending machine and pulled out a glass bottle if her ears were ringing half as much as the last man shooting, she figured, then he might barely hear this.

Heaving the glass bottle down the platform, it shattered on to the right of the man. He stood up and fired, giving both Piper and Nate the opportunity to gun the last man down in a haze of bullets.

Piper dug her finger into her ear. "Your ears ringing, Blue?"

Nate replied, "Yeah."

"Stimpak?"

"Yeah."

\111/

The only way forward was down the metro tunnel. They could see men trying to find cover behind construction equipment, but their hats gave them away.

They were waiting anxiously, wondering when the gunfight would reach them. It was silent for ten minutes before one of them poked their heads up, "I'm gonna go check it out." The whisper echoed through the entire tunnel.

The first Triggerman crouched low, walking up the tunnel. Piper fired at him when he was free from cover, striking the man in the torso six times. More gunfire and bullets raced through the construction site, and Nate was moving into position with his shotgun Justice. Firing seven times, both men were shot dead underneath the streets of Boston. With the last three men outside the Vault 114 door, Piper and Nate both shared a moment to speak.

"Are all of the Vault doors this big and imposing?"

"You have seen one vault door, you have seen them all, I guess."

"Know how to get in? I doubt they'll just let us in, they probably won't even open the door if they know there's been any sort of firefight out here."

"But they don't, and I've got the key right here," Nate said, holding up his Pip-Boy for Piper to see. Walking up the metal stairs to the control panel, he pulled out the extension cord from his Pip-Boy and plugged it into the Pip-Boy remote link. The clear plastic cover over the Coupler Ignition popped open, and Nate's Pip-Boy gave him the all clear signal.

Lightly pounding his fist into the red button, the alarms for the vault door blared as reddish orange lights spun.

"Ready for round two?" Nate asked.

Piper nodded.

\111/

'Why the hell does that thing gotta be so loud?' The two Triggermen standing ready inside the vault looked at each other, one holding a baseball bat and wearing enough padding to stop a small missile, and the other, wearing grey slacks, belt, and button up with a brown fedora let his rifle hang loosely in his arms. They shared a look of confusion, wondering who it was opening the Vault door.

The large door mechanism swung down, drilling itself into the door, and pulled it backward. Rolling off to the side, the door was barely open a crack when a bullet raced in and struck the baseball bat carrying Triggerman in the chest.

The breath was ripped from his chest and he was knocked backward. Falling onto his knees, he scrambled for cover as Nate's Colt fired seven more times. The gun carrying Triggerman tried stopping the door opening process, but Piper fired a barrage of 9mm bullets from her Sten gun as Nate slipped in and took cover. Firing at their feet, Nate shot and crippled the first Triggerman and then was almost pummeled in the head by the second.

The bullets slammed into the second Triggerman, breaking bones and bruising everything that was covered from the force of each bullet, while stray shots that shot at the hand made the appendage completely useless and bloody.

After firing nine more .308 rounds from the Colt, the second Triggerman was dead.

Piper came in behind Nate, and the walkway extended from the inside of the vault over their heads to connect with the staircase outside of it.

"Where's the rest of them?" Piper asked Nate was silent, listening for any running footsteps, or any signs of people coming towards them.

"They must not be able to hear through the vault doors," Nate replied. "These hydraulic doors are thick, they're supposed to block out the radiation and contain fires or gasses. If you're standing on the other side of one of these doors, it probably sounds like someone's thumping around."

"Well, let's keep quiet. I like not having every single goon with a gun running at us all at once." Piper said, reloading her rifle.

Nate nodded, they switched open a door off to their right and followed along winding staircase down three floors, opening another, and hearing a set of voices talk from the next room over.

"So I don't get it...Why would they build a Vault inside of a subway station? Isn't that the opposite of airtight?" The first voice asked Nate and Piper took positions on both sides of the door, peering around.

The second man was a ghoul, his voice was much rougher. "Because they weren't planning on using it, you moron. We used to pull this same exact type of con all the time before the war."

Nate counted two men, and holding up two fingers, he crouched low and walked down the hallway loaded with crates marked Vault-Tec, along with other treasures pulled down from the surface above.

"Get a bunch of union boys to work some construction job that would go nowhere. Keep everybody on the payroll."

It was a long red hallway lined with pipes all along the walls, a causeway with a door at the far end. Nate pointed at himself, then to the man on the left, then to her, and finally the man on the right.

Counting down, three, two, one. They both fired at the same time, catching them both unaware. They both collapsed dead, un-moving onto the ground.

The next room they came into was a large cavern with excavators and catwalks leading in a big circle back down to a lower level of the vault. Nate readied Justice and spotted three more Triggermen by a panel ripped up from the floor with ladders leading down.

They killed the men, and Piper grabbed their 10mm pistols from them, taking the ammo for herself. A voice shouted up from down below.

"Come on and GET SOME you pieces of garbage! Come down here so we can waste yea!"

Nate raised his eyes towards Piper, pulling a grenade off his belt and flicking off the pin, he held it for a second, then let it drop down. It exploded before the grenade hit the ground, killing everything in a meter and a half radius instantly, and sending fragments of metal into everything else in the room below.

Climbing down, they entered lower levels of the vault. Of the two Vaults, Nate's been in, this one was much more poorly made and more heavily used. Panels were falling off the walls and missing from the floor. There was a sheen of rust coming down from every bolt hole, and everything looked shoddily maintained.

They came to the main atrium, a four-story open space was at the very top was a round window, the Overseers office with a Triggerman at the far end, talking through to the man on the other side.

\111/

"How's it going in there, Valentine? Are you getting hungry? You need a snack?" Dino asked he knew it was a joke, of course, the synth robot imprisoned inside the overseer's office didn't need to eat or sleep.

"It'll give you more time for Skinny to bump you off, Dino."

"Don't give me that crap, Valentine. You ain't got nothing, you know nothing, so you can't convince me with nothing."

"Really?" Nick Valentine shouted, "I seen him writing your name down in that black book of his."

Dino turned his head and peered at Valentine through the glass. "Lousy! Cheating Cardshark were the exact words of his. He drew three lines under your name."

"Three strikes? That's..."

Nate pressed the barrel of his ten gauge shotgun against Dino's forehead and pulled back the bolt. The loud clacking noise made Dino freeze up.

"Don't move a muscle," Nate ordered. Nick Valentine tried getting a better angle, looking through the window, but he couldn't see anything more than the stock of the Colt against Dino's skull.

"Now, have two options, die now, or die later. Open the door."

"Who the fuck are you?" Dino asked quietly.

"Vault-Tec. Calling." Nate said, Dino raised his hands and slowly turned his head and looked at Nate wearing his blue vault tech suit. Muttering 'what the fuck?' as he took a step back.

Walking to a small terminal by the office door, Dino punched in the password, looking over his shoulder he saw Piper aiming her Sten gun and a pistol at his backside.

"Hey there, Nick."

"Well, if it isn't my knights in shining armor."

The door opened, Nate directed Dino inside with the barrel of the Colt, and he obliged.

"So, why come all this way, risking life and limb for an old private-eye?" Nick asked Piper.

She pointed two fingers towards Nate, "He's the one with the questions, Nick, and your answers. But, he's a wily one. I keep trying to get some interview questions out of him and he's pretty tight-lipped." She teased.

Nick turned his attention to Nate, and they both looked at each other. Nate was cocking his head back like a rooster that realized something wasn't right. Deja-vu or an old memory coming back to the surface, Nate asked, "Nick Valentine?"

The detective wore his beige trench coat and floppy weathered fedora over his plastic head. Like a doll that's been dropped, shot at and beaten up, Nick's face showed how much he was a synth underneath the outside, as much as the metal jaw and skull showed he was inhuman on the inside. His glowing yellow eyes and black sclera showed to Nate that he wasn't human at all, but a synth. It looked like Nick was set on fire a few occasions, and the plastic was buckled and warped, but the voice made Nate stare like he's heard it before a dozen times.

"You're Nick," Nate said, Nick Valentine nodded, but didn't understand Nate's intention.

"No, you're Nick Valentine, from..." Scratching gunk out of his eye, the memory came to him. "You're Nick Valentine from the BADTFL. You were going after Eddie Winter."

The old detective didn't mean to scowl, but the words 'Eddie' and 'Winter' made Nick's face twist up in old rage. Like a band-aid that never got ripped off properly, and was still holding on like a stubborn painful hangnail.

"Yeah, that's me all right. God knows how you know that though. Never seen you before in my life."

"I looted the BADTFL evidence lockup and found a tape addressed to you... Old you...I'm assuming. I'll play it for you in a bit, but anyway, I'm looking for a kidnapper. He shot my wife and took my son, but this isn't the place to do it." Nate spoke to Nick, but the iron sights never leaving Dino.

"All right, behind the desk, and take a seat." Dino walked around the backside of the desk and sat on the ground. Nate looked at the little bobblehead on the desk and shoved it into his pocket.

"So you need a little angel of vengeance? Eh? Well, I don't usually go after blood money...but I guess it's been a while. I've been cooped up here for weeks. Turns out the runaway daughter I was after I came here to find wasn't kidnapped. She's Skinny's new flame, and she's got a mean streak from here to Diamond City."

"Is that what his name is? I've been calling him Sonny for the last day and a half or so." Nate replied.

"Sonny aka Skinny Malone. You're not wrong, bud. Anyway, you got troubles, and I'm glad to help. Let's blow this joint and then we'll talk."

"Do you have any reservations about your pal, Dino here?" Nate said, offering Nick a handgun.

"Nope."

"Good, cause I don't want this guy coming back to bite me in the ass." Nate fired, blowing Dino's head off. The blood splattered along the backside of the blank control monitors. "And I'm getting paid to clear out the Triggermen."

The rest of his body slunk downwards in the chair, and then the muscles locked up in rigormortis.

\111/

"Skinny's gang used to be small time until they moved into the Vault here. An empty Vault. Perfect hideout."

"I know what you mean, Nick," Nate replied. "I've got a spare one of those."

"Oh yeah? Where at?"

"Wouldn't be much of a secret if I went around telling everyone. Plus, I got some stuff buried in there I'd rather leave alone." Nate said.

"My detective sense is tingling, anything we should know about?" Nick asked.

"It's a graveyard, let's leave it at that."

Nick Valentine lead the way, leading them down the flights of stairs on a winding path to the bottom floor of the atrium, then they froze, hiding behind vending machines as two Triggermen came from where they needed to go, shouting for Dino.

"Dino! Stop Razzing the detective and let's go!"

"[How do you want to play this?]"

Nate leveled his combat rifle at their knees, firing at them after they walked by. Taking their ammo and pocketing their six-shooters, moved on through a section of lavatories and ascended more stairs leading into the vault dorms.

They moved quickly and quietly, coming up to the next Triggerman, they almost bumped right into him. Nate fired a shotgun round right into his stomach and then another one into his chest, then shoved him to the ground.

"Skinny and his gang are waiting for us somewhere...The name's ironic by the way. Don't let it fool you though, he's still dangerous. This next bit here looks familiar...it's where they strip the bodies and organize things they bring down." Nick pointed to the shelves around the next room they entered. Large metal racks and shelves were lined with stacks of clothes and shoes from dead bodies the Triggermen killed and looted. There were two shelves devoted to shoes, and even one with old Vault suits for 114 all folded neatly. Taking one for himself and shoving it into his bag, There was a rack of guns and baseball bats for the taking, Nate was only interested in the ammo though.

"All right, I think this is the way out. If they haven't already, they're posted up on the other side of this door." Nick said.

They took the time to reload, Nate shoving bullets into the clip to reload the Colt and Justice, Piper filled up on bullets, grateful for the large stash as well.

Nick Valentine grabbed a submachine gun and drum magazine, loading it in and pulling back the bolt, loading in the first round.

Holding it with his right hand, he looked back to Nate and Piper, "Let's go." he said, reaching for the door switch with his left hand. The hydraulic door slid up, and they were faced with two Triggermen, Darla, the missing daughter, and the last man's face was shrouded in a veil of freshly blown cigar smoke so thick, it took a moment to disperse away from the black fedora hat with white stitched lining, away from his round face, square jaw, and high cheekbones.

"You fuckin' punk."

\111/

Ch. 30 Offer's on the Table

\111/

"Nicky! Who the fuck do you think you are, you fuckin' hump? Coming into my house, shooting up my guys, and trying to walk out of here?" Skinny Malone demanded. He was halfway finished smoking a cigar, with bits of ash on the ground. The air was thick with smoke, and smelled of cherry wood. In his left hand was an assault rifle, a gas operated rifle with a telescoping bump stock. This heavy 13 pound rifle carried a forty five round magazine, and rested the barrel against the ground. He wore a black business suit, white button up t-shirt, and a black tie, with matching fedora.

Darla wearing a grey-blue sequin dress and black and white styletto heels,

"Try telling Darla to write home more often, and you wouldn't be having this type of problem. At least tell people you're heading out Darla, you were causing quite the panic at the homefront."

"I'll just run back home to Daddy, is that it, Valentine? Ashamed you got beat to shit by a girl?" Darla said, Nick was immune to sarcasm and tried to respond, but Skinny cut him off.

"This ain't the old neighborrhood, Nicky. In this Vault, I'm the king of the castle, you hear me? I ain't letting no private dick and his crew shut us down now that we finally got a good thing going!"

Darla reached out and put a hand to Skinny's cheek. "I told you, you should've just killed him when you first saw him. But then you had to get all sentimental with that crap!" Her voice rose, almost screeching.

"I wouldn't even be here if it weren't for your two-timing dame, Skinny." Nick said.

"Darla, I'm handling this. I've always got things under control." Skinny said, dragging on his cigar and then hoisting up the rifle so he could hold it with both hands.

"Oh yeah? Then what's the suit doing here, huh? Someone came looking for Valentine and they got all the way in and out!" Darla yelled. "The station above is a mess, Skinny! You think just one guy and that bitch over there could take all your guys out?"

"You're going to be plenty unhappy with all the bodies you'll find behind us." Nate said.

"It's true. We got ourselves a crypt behind us, boys." Piper added, "Make a choice."

Darla's eyes slowly went from Nate, Nick, and Piper to her baseball bat, then swinging it at Skinny Malone, she slammed it against the side of his skull.

"Sorry Skinny, but it's the end of this little sharade you call a gang."

Blood poured out of Skinny's ears, "You ttttwo timing Mul-mul-mmoolll! Teach me to fall for a set a legs!"

Malone aimed for Darla's legs, firing off twenty rounds in an instant. Her heels and ankles were shattered as she cracked Sonny over the head again with her baseball bat, and the other two Triggermen fired on the group. Expecting the fight, Nate and Piper aimed at the gunmen.

Firing, the whole fight was over in less than ten seconds. Quick barrages of gunfire from both sides, and the only people left standing were Skinny leaning against a support beam, Nate, Piper, and Nick.

"You...You get the fuck out of here." He said, wiping his face down. He'd lost his cigar and tried reaching down for it on the ground. It was still burning.

"Sorry old friend, but this isn't the old days. Time to say good night." Nick said.

"Say goodnight to the bad guy." Skinny replied.

Firing the entire clip of ammo until the well ran dry, Nick Valentine shot down Skinny Malone in his own base of operations. Letting the machine gun fall to the ground, Nick was done with it.

"Well, I wonder if Malone is lighter or heavier with all the bullet holes in him." Nick said, walking past his body.

"...probably heavier with all the bullets in him. There should be a service ladder that will take us straight to the surface. Let's get out of here." Nick answered his own question and was urging them on. "I kinda wish it didn't have to come to this, but, Darla was asking for trouble when she went off on her little spree. Now I know it wouldn't of been a good thing to trust her either. She turned on him at the slightest mention of running away from the thought of death, now she's dead."

\111/

After climbing up and out, Nick was the first to comment on the eighth moon and the dark sky filled with bright burning stars.

"Ah, look at that Commonwealth sky. Never thought something so naturally ominous could look so inviting..." The synth turned his attention to Nate and Piper.

"Thanks for getting me out of there, how did you know where to find me, anyway? Not many people knew where I went..."

"Your secretary was worried about you. She told me." Nate replied.

"She was?" Nick asked.

"She did?" Piper asked.

"I should give her a raise," Nick nodded into his hand, rubbing his chin. "Anyway, you said you were tracking down a murderer and finding your son, I want you to come to my office in Diamond City. Give me all the details there. Besides, I think you've earned a chance to sit down and clear your head."

"I'll meet you there...I've got a drawing of the man who did it. I just need to go get it, and I'll see you in Diamond City."

"Great, even just a sketch will help with identifying the man who did this to you."

"Do you really have a picture of him?" Piper asked.

"Something close." Nate said, "Not an exact picture, but still really close."

\111/

Traveling back past the Massachusetts State house, Nate glanced at the ground where the Freedom trail marker was placed into the ground, and stopped only for a second to look at the marker by the Old Granary Burial Ground, and lastly Goodneighbor.

"So where's this photo picture of yours?" Piper asked.

"It's on the U.S.S. Constitution. I didn't want to lose it."

"Are we heading back to D.C. after this?"

"Yes. First I want to buy some food for the ship, after that, we'll head back to Fenway Park."

They entered through the gates of Goodneighbor, and were welcomed by the Goodneighbor watch. Even at three in the morning, Daisy's Discounts was still open, and the ghoul was reclined with an old magazine.

"Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?" Daisy asked. Nate reached into his pocket, pulling out the bobblehead of Vault-boy at a podium, the white letters read 'Speech, Let Words be Your Weapon'.

"Just a souvenir from the past."

"I remember those, what are you here for? You ever get around to the library yet?"

"Not yet, Ms. Daisy. But I'll be sure to poke my head in there soon. I'm here for some food, and I'm surprised your open this late. Do you happen to have an old polaroid camera with film laying around here?" Daisy leaned forward, looking across her shop to a Instant-Flash camera, that developed photos just moments after you took one.

"I doubt that thing has moved once in the last two hundred years. Take it. I honestly haven't felt tired in a long time...you get a little sleepy, but it seems more like an inconvenience. I'll be looking forward to the day where I can just sleep."

Nate bought whatever vegetables he could find, along with some questionable smelling fish and before he left Daisy chimed, "Have a great day."

"Will do."

They were both out the door of Goodneighbor in no time at all, and standing at the foot of Weatherby Investment tower, underneath the shadow of the U.S.S. Constitution.

\111/

"So...any chance I'll get to go up and explore the ship?" Piper asked.

"Everywhere but the captain's cabin. I need to feed my dog, Meathead, and then I'll find a spot for you to sleep. There's robots patrolling constantly, so it's plenty safe. After that, I'm going to bed. I've got things I need to think about and sort out for after I'm done with Nick."

"Yeah? Like what?"

"There's a generator back in Vault 111. It was damaged a long time ago...I need to fix it if I ever want to get the vault up and running again."

"So you've got some ambition in you, can you tell me about Vault 111? Was it anything like Vault 114?"

"Yes and no. Vault 111 was all one story, more spread out. Vault 114 was probably build around and avoiding sewer tunnels and the metro tunnels. But, it's got a lot of work that needs to be done."

"Anything else?"

"Vault 111 is like the old saying...Science doesn't have a prejudice. It doesn't take sides...but...the people who conduct science do."

"Do you want to elaborate on that?"

"It'll be better if I just show you Vault 111, because there's more to that place than just a messed up science experiment."

\111/

Ch. 32 Fort Hagen

The German Shepherd lead the group on a path that went Southwest out of Fenway Park and out of Boston altogether. Into the surrounding suburbs and through parks, Nick Valentine, Nate, Piper, and Meathead all sought a fast path that avoided detection from any wandering monsters or raiders.

The path Meathead followed, tasting that burnt but stale tobacco leaf air lingering lead to finding cigar butts along the way.

"Smokes like a chimney, this guy." Nick commented.

There was a row of of two story buildings with a T-cross road two hundred feet away. Most of the bottom stories of these buildings were storefronts, with apartments, offices, or other small businesses above, but many of these buildings were collapsing one rotted support beam at a time.

At the intersection, there was a staircase behind a door leading to the second floor with access to a moderately safe room. A lounge chair was in the center of the room with a couch by the side. There were dry, crusty old towels hung on the walls to dampen the noise from the outside world.

There were spent rifle casings by the windows that could look all the way down the road. Next to the lounge chair in the center of the room was an arm stand, and a glass ashtray a pile of three cigar butts all mashed down to rubbed out nubs.

\111/

They followed railroad tracks west for two hours, then back north down a ramp near the Mass Pike Tunnel West, a tunnel that lead underneath downtown Boston.

Off to the east, they saw raiders milling about at the base of the tunnel, and below them was the site of a recent gunfight if the bodies and blood splatters had anything to say about it.

The end result was Meathead sniffing the ground, determining which scent was the right one from all the blood stains. The scent of a rotting corpse was hard to ignore, and a blown out turret with small groupings of shell casings on the ground indicated the shooter used .44 magnum rounds.

The path lead back up onto higher ground, and they followed the path that curved up towards the north. Nate was moving faster now, and when the only signs of life they'd seen in another hour was a bear, Nate ejected the 10 gauge rounds, and loaded slug rounds. These were a giant ball bearing the size of the barrel and could put a hole in just about anything. He fed the ammo in and gunned the bear down when it started running at them.

The trail eventually lead them to a small shelter underneath a train depot, and when Nate saw the stiff legs laying down on a bedroll behind cover, he didn't know what to think except to move slowly and quietly. He approached carefully and saw a landmine waiting to be tripped staring at him. He took out his knife, using a stick to pry it up, and then flick it back off into the disarmed position.

"He knows." Nate said. It was the first thing he said since leaving the stadium. "He knows he's being tracked through smell. He knows we're using a dog to track him." Nate licked his lips and shook his head. "More beer bottles, more cigars. He knows we're coming after him... and I don't fucking like it. It means we're walking into a trap. One that he's set up, just for me. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!" Nate shouted, his voice rising in anger.

"Easy there, Blue. Now that we know it's a trap, we'll just have to be more careful when we do find him." Piper said, trying to calm Nate.

"That just means he's all the more dangerous and we need to consider everything he might try." Nick said.

\111/

The roads west were overgrown with small brush and bushes, and they followed Meathead across a bridge to the town of Forest Grove.

They passed semi-trucks, and billboards, one read for an ad by Hubris Comics, the Unstoppables.

"Why are you so bent on specifically, seeing Kellogg hang? Why not put two rounds of buckshot in him and put him in the ground like everyone else around here?" Nick asked. "Got a date with the hangman?"

"Matter of principal, Nick. Sure I hate Kellogg with every living fiber of my soul, but he doesn't deserve two to the head. Like when you shot Sonny with a full clip."

"So it's personal, but once you've got him, why drag him to Goodneighbor? There's not much in the way of jails, police, or courts around here." Nick argued.

"That's just it though, after I drag him to Goodneighbor and get a ruling on him, it'll validate some claims to power around here. I know for a fact Hancock would be absolutely livid to throw the book at him because Kellogg works for the Institute."

"Geeze. I'm afraid to ask what you'll do to the people in charge of the Institute when you get your hands on them." Piper commented.

"Give them a trial, and put the fear of God into them."

"Wait. You'd be willing to give those people a trial?" Piper chimed in.

"It's what they deserve. If the courts are open, that is, and if they don't try and shoot me first." Nate teased, knowing full well that the Institute's bullets and lasers would be flying at his head in less than eight weeks from now.

"From what I've gathered, the Commonwealth lacks a system of laws, a system of governance that protects people from attacking other people. What's stopping people from calling another person a synth, shooting them dead, and then finding out they were proven wrong? What happens to the executioner? Does he get to go Scott-Free?"

"I don't like it either, but that's they way things are right now." Nick said. "There was a movement a while ago, but the Institute shut that down before it ever got started."

"Well, it's gotta be someone who whips this place back into shape. I'd rather be part of it. Last time around, I played the role of an A-1 citizen, minded my manners, and went to war just like every other good little boy on the block. When I came back, I wasn't interested in politics, we were too busy calling bullshit on the leaders."

"War? What war?"

"The War for Alaska. The Sino-American War. I'm over two hundred years old, Piper. Get with the program. Vault-Tec threw me in a cryogenic freezer and called it an experiment."

Both Nick and Piper were unaware of that little detail, it never came up during Nate's interview. Piper was asking for details about it before hand, but that detail never seemed to come up.

"Are you saying that you've seen this world before the bombs fell, Nate?"

"Yep. Meathead and me are both made from Pre-war grit. We don't get smoothed down as easily as anything else we've seen so far. That's what most people refer to it as, right? The big war? The great war?"

"How has this not come up, Nate? I've been following you for three days now and I haven't gotten a straight answer out of you." Piper said.

"That's because it's a long story, and I haven't even begun telling you how it started. Let me put Kellogg on the path to the afterlife, and then I'll tell you the whole thing leading up to the big sha-bang."

\111/

They followed the cracked and buckling road up to the west, where Meathead howled and there were three busted robots laying on the road.

A dead protectron, a shot up eyebot, and an assaultron with it's head ripped off muttering "Danger. Danger. Danger."

As Nate, Meathead, Nick, and Piper approached the assaultron, the robot spoke. "Warning. Assailant...lower your weapon."

"So what the heck do we have here?" Nate asked, looking down at the assaultron's head.

"[Error. System Corrupt. Loss of motor control in legs.]"

"What happened here?" Nate asked.

"[Error. Operator deceased. Threat Level Omega. He killed us.]"

Meathead ran to Nate's side and quietly whined, paw raised and pointing up the road where tall half-dead trees encroached over the cracked and busted road, casting darker shadows on the giant figure moving through the trees and towards them.

They looked up and to the west and Nate scowled...A deathclaw was walking across the road a hundred meters out.

"Jeeeeezus Aheych Christ. Look at that fucking thing." Nate said, head nodding forward..

A hand grabbed his arm and tugged on him. "I'm looking at it, Nate, and we gotta fucking go! We are not prepared to take on that thing." Nick said, worried about the massive creature ahead.

It stomped back and forth across the road, breathing heavily. They could hear it from where they stood underneath the super highway overpass.

"Wait. Wait. It sees us." Nate said, "Go."

Nate turned and gave Nick and Piper a shove and they took off running towards Forest Grove Marsh.

Meatead was about to run, but Nate stayed the course and marched straight at the deathclaw.

He bellows the first chorus of "GLORY, GLORY HALLELUJAH!" His face was beet red, the blood coursing through his veins.

The singing made Nick and Piper stop and look back when they heard it, "NATE! You're gonna Fucking DIE! LET'S GO!"

Nate only decided to sing louder.

"No, Piper! Come on! We need to move to higher ground and cover him. That thing's gonna be on us next, and he's got it in his mind to take on the world right now."

"Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His TRUTH IS MARCHING ON!"

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming Lord!
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;
HIS TRUTH IS MARCHING ON!"

Nate screamed, shouting the charging deathclaw down to a fast paced trek. Twenty meters out, the deathclaw dragged his claws along the ground, digging up the road on both sides of the medium.

"Gory Gory What a Hell of a Way to Die!!!" Nate shouted. Nick and Piper retreated to the top of a semi-truck cab, laying flat with their own guns out.

The deathclaw slowed to a crawl, roaring in return.

"Gory! Gory! What a Hell of a Way to Die! Gory! Gory! What a Hell of a Way to Die. He ain't gonna jump no more!" The deathclaw slowed, and then passed Nate by.

Nate still faced west, and continued to sing.

"I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps
His day is marching on..."

Hmmn hmm hmm hm hmn hm hmmmn hummm..

Humming the rest of the chorus, Nate didn't turn away or flinch. He refused to let himself move until the deathclaw was long gone.

"-Nick!-" Piper whispered loudly, the deathclaw walked past the front of the cab, passing the rest of the trailer, and then moving down through the flooded streets of Forest Grove Marsh to the north.

"-What the hell was that!?-"

"I don't know, but do we really want to find out?" Nick replied.

They crawled down off the top of the semi-truck trailer, and to Nate. His arms were spread out wide by his side, the sun was coming down on him, and they tried calling out to him. They approached him, calling out to him again but he was frozen to the spot.

"Nate?"

"Blue?" Piper tried again.

They came around to his frontside and saw the flood of tears running down his face and dripping onto his Vault suit. His eyes were closed and his face was stained wet with tears.

Meathead came up to him and leaned against his legs, Piper reached out and touched his shoulder. "Nate?"

He let his arms slowly let go by his side, dropping them down.

"It's gone?"

"Yeah, Blue. It's gone..." Piper waited a moment before asked her next question. "How'd you do that?" She shook her head, " I saw it, and I still don't believe it."

Nate cracked a wide smile. "Suppose they recognize music, pitch and tone, I didn't present myself as a threat, and he didn't attack."

\111/

"You talk about saving lives, Nate. But if you want to save some real lives, you teach people how to do what you did with that deathclaw, and people will be through the roof." Nick said.

Piper tried to piece the analogy together in her head, "What?"

"I...uh...I'm gonna have a hard time convincing people back home what I saw. I can already imagine the people's remarks. 'Nick, must be having a glitch', check your eye socket's Nick, must need a software update, Nick. "

"That reminds me..." Nate started, looking down at his Pip-Boy.

Meathead barked, he had crawled up the side of the road, and was looking down on them. The way Kellogg went right right up a hill, through groves of fallen trees with orange fungus growing out of the stumps.

"Oh, no." Nate said,knowing exactly where they were. Dead ahead was a rusty chain link fence, broken and missing sections, but tied to a pole was a bloody bandage. Knotted and gently blowing in the wind, it was Kellogg's way of saying 'Come and get me.'

"What? What is it?" Nick asked.

"He's expecting us." Nate replied.

"Well, how do you suppose we get the jump on him?"

"We do the unexpected, that's how."

"And what would that be?" Piper asked.

"I'll figure that out when we find him, but...If he's bold enough to leave a clue out like this for us to find, then he's gotta be close, and I know what's beyond this fence."

"Yeah? We're pretty close to Fort Hagen, I think."

Coming to the top of the hill, that is exactly where they were. There was the Greater Massachusetts Blood Clinic, and the next building after that was Fort Hagen. There were fallen trees on the road, creeping clusters of vines that were dying off in the cold end of October Weather, and finally the massive building lined with patriotic red, white, and blue flag banners with a whole cluster of turrets on top.

Meathead sat down outside the front doors to the building and howled.

"Damnit." Nate said, "Well I guess the trail stops here, folks. He's inside, right Meathead?"

Meathead barked, growling loudly at the building.

"I knew the good old boy would sniff him out, let's take it from here and give our four legged friend a break."

"What's the plan, Nate? How are we gonna smoke him out?" Nick asked.

"All you, Blue." Piper said, trying to be his cheerleader.

Nate inhaled and exhaled, breathing in and out. Staring up at the building, Nate grabbed the mini-nukes off his back and set them down on the ground.

"First, we blow him out. But..."Nate trailed off, thinking about how to attack Kellogg, how to minimalize the damage, how to keep Kellogg from dying here, and getting him all the way to Downtown Boston.

"Alright. I got it." Nate said.

"Let's hear it." Piper said.

"I'll be back in an hour."

"What? Where are you going? We found where the guy's hiding, didn't we? Where are you going?"

"I'm going back for something that'll help with getting him out of there, that wont kill him. I need to go get it. It might be the only way to keep him alive while I take him downtown to hang."

"I'm with Nick on this one, sounds like a lot of effort to try and drag him around the Commonwealth." Piper said.

"Then wait here and watch the building. I'm going to go grab something from Vault 111. I'll be back and I'll be running the whole way." Nate unclipped his ammo belt, dropped his guns, his holsters, his pads of leather armor, and his backpack so he was carrying only a .44 snubnose with six rounds, and a box of water.

"What's in Vault 111? Where is it?" Piper asked. Nate pointed to some power lines miles away,

"See those powerlines? There's a suburb called Sanctuary Hills over that way. It's north of there."

Pointing to her right, "There's a trailer park east of here. Go check it out. Some soldiers from the base lived there, go there. Go find some ammo, guns, whatever you can find. There's also a big maintenance shed and vehicle bay south of here, where they would work on all the power armors, cars, trucks, maybe a tank. Go there too. Now, I'm going to run. I promise I'll be back soon."

"Got it. We'll check those places out. Meet back here?"

"Yep."

Nate took off sprinting, trying to achieve a five minute mile, Meathead bounded off after him.

Piper and Nick looked at each other and then to Fort Hagen, it was a large three story building, built down into the ground with a parking garage inside. The turrets weren't pointing outwards, they were all aimed inwards. It was a detail Nick didn't notice before until Nate left.

\111/

"I want to check out the building here, see what's up with those turrets and see if we can find a way in. If you want, you can either go check the places Nate mentioned, or follow me."

"I'll go check the shed, see if I can find some power armor. That would be pretty nice to have some of that again."

There was a loud POP and flash of green light off in the direction Nate ran off to, but they missed the flare of light.

"What was that?" Nick asked.

"Whatever it is, Nate and Meathead can handle it. They're smart, they took down Swan, if you didn't hear."

"They took down Swan? Geeze, now I'm sorry for whatever thing tries to get in their way."

\111/

Piper followed the road south, coming to two large three story sheds made from corrugated tin, and a big sign that said 'Fort Hagen Depot.'

It was just south of the Greater Mass Blood Clinic, which she avoided when she saw the nesting bloodbugs, and didn't want to disturb them. The first one was filled with empty shelves and at one point someone in the past used it as a shelter.

The second shed was filled with radroaches, which once they saw her, they flew down off the walls and attacked her. She immediately shot at the first dozen, and then swung her chained swatter at every last bug, making sure they were bashed into the ground and fully dead. Great green globs of blood splattered as their exoskeletons were crushed, and she hit them in the head and brought the heavy bat right down on their backs.

Her displeasure of dealing with a small swarm of radroaches was worth it, hanging up in the shed was a frame of power armor and a stack of fusion cores.

\111/

Nick circled Fort Hagen, looking up at the turrets pointed on the roof, there was scaffolding leading up to the roof, and every way was pointing up towards them. Suddenly, the turrets sprang to life and targeted Nick. He fired up at the turrets as chirps of machine gun fire was sent at him.

Taking cover behind trees, he shot at the first one until it exploded. His aim with a pipe revolver pistol was impeccable. Using Nate's Colt LE901 rifle, he shot at the remaining turrets from afar, and dismantled all seven turrets on the roof.

Then it was only a matter of finding a way into the building. The way onto the roof was rigged with landmines, but, down through the parking garage, Nick found the entrance into the building through a door hidden by a car, and piles of junk leaning up against it from the outside. Poking his head inside. the building was absolutely quiet, but it felt alive.

Returning to the front entrance, he waited for Piper or Nate to return, and was pleasantly surprised when she returned wearing a suit of power armor. Stomping up the road, it wasn't hard to not hear her coming.

"The blue-grey armor looks good on you, Piper."

"Thanks, did you find a way in?"

"Yep. Down through the parking garage. I think Kellogg was planning on leading us up onto the roof, and have us go in that way, but I found a door he tried to hide down below in the parking garage. Up on the roof are landmines and I'm sure Kellogg's rigged the whole building from top to bottom to keep us from getting in and finding him. He was probably going to use the side door as a means of quick escape if things started turning south for him."

"Well, I got what I need, I'll stand watch here. You go check out the trailer park Nate mentioned." Piper said.

\111/

Walking down the road, Nick carried Nate's rifle with care, knowing he'd have to give it back eventually. It rained, but Nick was oblivious to the cold water.

The Fiddler's Green Trailer Estates was light up with a neon sign, where the power was coming from, Nick could only guess.
It was a small little community, the streamliner trailers all parked with big trucks next to them. Almost every single trailer had a truck next to it, and Nick figured they had more power and made it easier to tow. That is, if the wheels hadn't rotted away, or the trucks could operate after all this time.

The circular park had only one road going in that split off into a loop with spaces along both sides. At the entrance was the office building, and behind it was a swimming pool, now only green with algae. The residents of Fiddler's Green were still there, crawling up out of their centuries long slumber as feral ghouls. Nick shot at them, clubbing them in the head if they got too close and tried tearing pieces off of him. There were at least twenty, and each of them only took a shot or two with the .308 rounds from Nate's Colt to be put back into the ground for good.

Poking his head inside each trailer, his mechanical heart was warmed and saddened at the same time when he found a skeleton inside one of the bathrooms with an M1 Garand rifle pointed up inside the mouth, with a piece of the back skull blown outwards. Taking the rifle, the finger bones didn't want to unfurl.

"Darnit, I know it's yours, but time to let go!" Nick pried the fingers off, and took the rifle, and kept moving around the trailer park. He almost jumped when he saw something the size of a super mutant standing inside of one of the next trailers. He peered in, and then saw light catching the metallic sheen of a partially assembled set of T60 power armor inside.

Picking the lock, the sliding door to the trailer opened roughly, and needed to be shoved the last bit to open completely. There sitting in the trailer was another skeleton on the one couch, with a box of tools next to him, and a frame of power armor.

\111/

SNAP

Nick and Piper were both waiting with their recently acquired suits of power armor when Nate and Meathead came running back. They were wet, breathless, and sweating, but in Nate's arms was a gun of which neither Piper or Nick never saw before.

"What is that?" Piper asked,

"Well, don't you two look all fancy." Nate commented, "This is the cryolator...and these..." Nate held up two grenades with blue stripes around them. "Are cryogenic grenades. The overseer to Vault 111 saw to it that he wanted to freeze and preserve specimens for study. But, he didn't have enough grenades and knew the concussive force could kill them eventually after multiple blasts...This, however," Nate raised the cryolator, "I'm going to use to freeze Kellogg, drag his frozen body all the way, where ever I want, and then let him suffer the consequences."

They were both quite surprised at the statement and the tools Nate was going to use to achieve it. "Are you serious?"

"Very. Now, was there any movement? Anything at all from inside the building?"

"There's synths inside. We'll have to go through either the roof, which Nick found out it was rigged, or the smart option, through the parking garage." Nate shook his head.

"I planned on going through the front door."

They both looked at Nate like he was crazy, "Nate, the front door is barricaded. It would take hours to clear all that junk out."

"Just...Take cover. Please?" Nate said, stooping down to grab his bandolier of mini-nukes. He reached into his pockets and dug out balls of cotton, shoving them into his ears.

"Oh, ghee, take cover." Nick said, moving for the crumbling bar across the street from Fort Hagen.

Nate reached inside the mini-nuke, twisting the ignition primer so it started to beep. Following Nick and Piper into the bar, he went upstairs to the blown out second floor, exposed to the street and brought his arm up and back, and then heaved the mini-nuke like a football. It spiraled through the air, hardly any wobble to it, it was one of the better throw's of Nate's career as it struck the front door barricades and erupted in a massive firey explosion. The front half of the building was bucked upwards and into the air, then collapsed down. The second floor of Fort Hagen was exposed, and Synths were running up from the first floor, out the second.

"FUCK YOU, KELLOGG!" Nate yelled, heaving a second mini-nuke at the fort.

He shouted again, heaving a third at a cluster of synths all pouring out of the second floor of the building.

"Nate! How the heck are you gonna find him, if you're gonna kill him with nukes?!" Piper shouted.

"I know buildings like that inside and out, and I were him, he's all snug in the command center underneath the building! He ain't going fucking NOWHERE!" Flinging the third and fourth mini-nukes like shot-puts, the parking garage collapsed in on itself, and the front terrace was blown to smithereens. Nate flung the last mini-nuke, really putting his arm into it and it blew up the administrative offices. Only a handful of synths were barely operational, the back west end where the elevators leading down to the command center were untouched, which is exactly what Nate was aiming to avoid. The walls were plastered with dirt, dust, and rubble. Parts of the wall were fractured, crumbling and missing large sections.

The air was saturated with radiation, and would stay in the area until it dissipated. Nate was furious, and it was being wrought through nuclear force and cooled by the freezing rain in the air. It was turning to sleet by the time they walked across the street, and stayed that way until Nate and company found the elevator in the west ends of the building leading down to the command center.

"How'd you know the way down was over here, and that you wouldn't accidentally collapse him in?" Nick asked.

"Cause I've been here before." Nate tapped the elevator buttons down, and let them slide open. "This building is meant to keep running even after the world turns to shit."

The sleet turned to snow, and when they stepped into the elevator and turned around, they saw the flakes falling down through the building.

The elevator doors closed and they descended.

\111/

Ch. 33 Kellogg

Author's Note

Beyond Kelloggs words echoing through the intercom speakers was a faint broadcast being played through a radio in a dark side room. Classical Music Broadcast.

Ch. 33 Kellogg

The walls of the desolate and eroding elevator were illuminated by the green glow of Nate's Pip-boy, but the only thing Nick Valentine took notice of was the puffs of breath coming from their mouth's, turning to steam in the cold air as they descended further and further into the Command Center of Fort Hagen.

Nate was breathing slowly, Piper's intake and outtake of air lasted anywhere from five to six seconds, while Meathead was panting away, in-out-in-out-in-out-in, but Nick Valentine felt like a vampire, not even able to breath a shred of warm air.

A speaker in the elevator crackled, "Hmph. Never figured you to come knocking on my door-"

Nate raised his head, tilting his neck back so he was looking straight up, then exhaled a long breath loudly from his chest through his nose. His eyes wandered to across the ceiling tiles, then finally resting on the speaker embedded into the wall.

"[Gave you fifty/fifty odds of making it to Diamond City. After that, I figured the Commonwealth would chew you up like jerky. Sorry you're house has been a wreck for two hundred years, but I don't need a roommate, leave.]" Kellogg couldn't hear Nate, nor tell where he was in the command center, but he could speak over the intercom system, antagonizing Nate along the way.

The doors opened and the intercom speakers lining the basement carried over his voice, and echoed, but as they moved forward, the voice behind them grew more faint while the next speaker in front of them became louder. "I understand, you're pissed off, but whatever you hope to accomplish here, it's not going to work-" There was a large amount of static and feedback coming through the speakers, and it made everyone clench their teeth tightly.

Meathead whined at the hatred rolling off Nate, how he was able to contain himself, he couldn't be sure.

When they stepped out of the tight fitting elevator with two occupants wearing power armor, they faced down a long hallway glowing with red lights. Nate held up his hands, and pointed to a piece of metal on the wall. Firing at it, the electric coil sparked wildly and bolts of electricity blew out in all directions. When the batteries died, the electrical light show stopped.

"How'd you know what that was?" Piper asked.

"I didn't. It looked man made, and like it was recently put up. It's like finding a wooden sign in the middle of the forest, it may be wood, but it's not a tree."

A generation two synth was at the far end, baiting Nate, Meathead, Piper, and Nick forward. Nate squatted down to one knee, Piper and Nick fired over Nate and they all slayed the synth at the far end. A small turret was puttering back and forth, which they also destroyed after shooting it with a volley of gunfire.

Following stairs down to the lower basement, stopping at a security gate with metal grills covering the top part. Nate paused before opening the door, looking up at the other side, he saw it was rigged.

"It's got another electrical coil trap attached to it. Stand back. Nate eased open the door, the killswitch resting tenderly against the doorframe. Nate yanked on the wire, pulling it off the battery source, disabling the trap.

"[Look, I get it, you're angry. But whatever you came here to do, it's not going to work out the way you think it will.]"

"Oh, I don't care if it works or not, you're still going to hate your life when I'm done." Nate said, picking up the Institute laser rifle out of the synth's hands.

Pushing on through another security gate, they heard more static, and were then inside a room with broken monitoring equipment, pieces of machinery that regulated electricity within the building. There were old terminals with memory banks, all defunct and worthless now.`

Heading deeper into the command center, they came upon a hallway painted red, and on the left side was all security gated doors, that lead to a black room. The ceiling of the hallway was crumbling in, no thanks to the barrage of mini-nukes from above.

Meathead whined and barked, jumping up onto Nate. ""

Synths ran up the hallway and everyone fired. "Go ahead to the end of the hallway. I need to give Meathead some instructions."

They both looked at him curiously, then continued on, "What is it, boy? What's up?" He said loudly, then dropping his voice to a whisper.

"" Meathead growled.

"You sure?" Nate asked, Meathead nodded.

""

"Alright, Meathead. Stay here, unless I'm not 100% positive this hallway loops back around into this black room, I want you to be ready to yank us out, can you do that? Moment of truth. Watch us. Make sure he doesn't pull a fast one on us, when he does. If he tries pulling a gun on himself, rip it out of his hands. I don't know what to do about the pony, make sure it won't be a problem for us."

""

Meathead nodded again, sitting there, his heart went out to Nate.

\111/

The group of three passed a small dorm area, a med center, and a mess hall, then a kitchen with a tiny little Vault-Tec Bobblehead just sitting there of Vault-Boy holding a plasma caster gun with the inscription reading 'Always Support Your Conversations with Superior Firepower'.

Laser turret defense systems tried holding them back, but the basement was getting so cold, that the electric conductors were starting to freeze over, and one turret simply stopped firing while they were reloading. At first they thought it was a trap, but both Nate and Piper were starting to feel the cold damp on the walls turning to ice.

Synths tried charging at them with rifles, shock batons, but the barrage of bullets destroyed their limb actuators, and broke the robots like smashed chinaware.

"[You got guts and determination, that's admirable. But you're in way over your head.]"

"NO FUCKING SHIT, SHERLOCK! NOW, SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Nate fired at a speaker, blowing it out.

They came to a long curving hallway, and Nate pulled out the cryolator, aiming it at the synths, balls of condensed liquid nitrogen were shot out, and crashed into the synths, bursting like water balloons that instantly froze limbs over. Nate rushed one, throwing it against the wall and watching the metal shatter like glass.

"[It's not too late. Stop. Turn around and leave. You have that option. Not a lot of people can say that.]" The next few speakers echoed.

"Oh, we are way past the point of no return..." Nate said, leading the charge forward. His shoulder was sore from where he slammed into the synth, and his fingertips were freezing from holding the cryolator. The air in the basement was rapidly dropping, and he could feel the chill where his vault suit met his neck. His breath was becoming more and more visible in the cool air, and Piper felt it as well through the gaps in her power armor.

"Blue, something ain't right here. This is feeling more and more like a trap every second."

"Of course it's a trap, Piper. He's rigged traps all along the way. You need to shake that fear, or otherwise it'll grab hold of you. He's scared. Piper. Otherwise he wouldn't be asking us to leave. We're coming for him, and he knows it."

"I'm talking about how cold it's getting! And, it's not just the cryolator in your hands!"

"Piper, I have a plan, and I need you to keep trusting me." Nate said.

The last rooms they passed were the base commander's quarters. The final area was a broadcasting room with television cameras and broadcasting equipment shoved off to the side. Nate looked all over for any sort of trap, and noticed the beds, and the smell.

"What is this room?" Piper asked.

"An emergency broadcast shelter. In emergencies, you could've sent a broadcast all across the nation to any working television. I think I blew up the tower above." Nate said.

"That you did." Nick said.

"[Alright. You made it. My synths are standing down. I'm just up ahead. Let's talk.]"

"Fuck that. Reload your weapons. Make sure you're ready for a fight." Nate ordered. They all silently agreed and made sure they were ready to fire.

The security door at the opposite end of the room opened up and they could hear classical music playing.

The hallway was lined with red flood lights, and through a final security door, they were inside the darkened room.

The overhead shop lights were switched on and Kellogg stepped out of cover with his hands up along with two synths and a pony in a white and grey Institute jump suit to the side. It was a unicorn.

"And there he is, the most resilient man in the Commonwealth. Funny, I thought I had that honor."

"How do I get to my son?"

"He's safe...let's talk."

"You know...do you know about Emperors in China? Do you know what China is?"

"I'm aware they existed."

"Then this might make sense to you... There was an emperor who was traveling through the countryside, and saw a farmer working on the side of the road. The Emperor stopped and asked the farmer, do you know that I am Emperor? But the farmer replied, 'What's an Emperor? Who are you?' and the Emperor was happy. Do you want to know why?" Nate asked, Kellogg's lips smirked, like it was the funniest thing in the world, but he didn't want to let Nate in on the joke.

"Why?"

"Because, it meant that all was well in the kingdom."

"So what? I'm the farmer?"

"Something like that. Or it could mean you're too uneducated living the simple life toiling away for your master to know anything else."

Kellogg bared his teeth, smiling, but shaking his head. "Your son, Shaun. Great kid. A little older than you expected, but I'm guessing you figured that out by now. But if you're hoping for a happy reunion-" Kellogg tisked, and glanced off to his left to the synth holding a laser rifle and the unicorn standing silently, watching them with knowing eyes.

"-Ain't gonna happen, pal. Your son's not here."

"Now. How do I get to him?" Kellogg's eyes flashed towards the unicorn for only a brief glance. "What, you think a magic little unicorn is going to help you get out of this one?" Kellogg's right side of his lip rose up almost in a sneer.

"What's the cliche? 'So close, yet so far away'? That's Shaun.' But don't worry. You'll die knowing-" Nate pointed at the unicorn with his ring finger so Meathead could see, and the unicorn's horn glowed a soft neon grey. He chose that moment to fire first, shooting blasts of cold condensed liquid nitrogen at Kellogg. It struck him directly in the chest and his entire body convulsed at the freezing burn.

Piper and Nick were standing directly behind Nate to the left and right of him respectively and picked their synths to target.

Nate fired off ten blasts of cryogenic rounds in two seconds before the gun was ripped out of his hands by telekinetic force. Kellogg's hands were resting on his .44 magnum pistol, now they were frozen to the gun and he could only move his trigger finger. Raising his gun, he fired directly at Nate, and Nate took two rounds directly to the chest protected by a bullet proof vest, but each one making his ribs feel like they were bucked by a draft horse.

Meathead used his own skills to warp the unicorn back into the hallway in a flash of green fire as both Piper and Nick shouted for Nate to survive.

He raised the unicorn in his telekinetic field and slammed him against everything, the ceiling, the walls, the floor, the ceiling again, and then flinging the unicorn down the hallway. Dragging him back closer, he slammed the unicorn into submission and consciousness. But then, he felt Nate's fury descending down on the entire fort. Shuddering, his teeth were chattering as the air dropped another ten degrees. Frost was appearing on the walls and glass, it was hard to breathe as the air became colder and colder. Meathead rose his eyes to the ceiling, seeing through the layers of rubble and feeling an intense malicious, haughty aloofness that enjoyed the fighting and chaos below.

"" ''

Nate rolled up, charged Kellogg, bashing him to the floor and blasting him with the cryolater. Watching Kellogg's limbs be covered with ice as bullets and laser blasts raced around him.

"Monster...in...the...closet." Kellogg's breath came out as fog. "It finds you." He finished, the rest of his body and head encased with ice. Every second it grew thicker and thicker until Kellogg couldn't resist anymore.

"Nate!"

"Nate!" Piper and Nick shouted. They both destroyed the two synths serving Kellogg and watched with morbid expressions of fascination of how or why Nate was doing what he was doing. The ice grew thicker, and the room reached its coldest point where no organic life couldn't stop from shivering.

"NATE!" Piper screamed.

Meathead howled, Nate set Kellogg down on the floor, and turned around. The frost in the air was visible, and the lights flickered, but they both saw the whites Nate's eyes, and the burning green irises.

"Nate!? What the fuck is going on?!" Piper demanded to know. Meathead was barking from the hallway, when far above their heads, they heard a distinct noise.

\111/

It was a whinny of a horse, long and ragged.

\111/

"Nate, I think we should go." Piper said, feeling the situation in the command center change.

"Piper, Nick, since you're both wearing power armor, would you be so kind and help carry Kellogg? As Jerry Reed once said, 'We're Eastbound and down, loaded up and truckin'. We're going to do what they say can't be done. We've got a long way to go, and a short time to get there."

The lyrical reference was unfortunately lost on Piper, and Nick Valentine was only half familiar with the reference, coming from Chicago as a former BADTFL agent. The memory sparked in his memory banks, and he remembered the letters plastered in white across a bullet proof vest as they were stopping a boat loaded with illegal contraband being smuggled into the United States from Canada.

"So, you're gonna hang him?" Nick asked, "What happened to the pony that was here only a moment ago? What did it do? Vanish?"

"It's a unicorn, Nick. "

Nate pointed off to the left, beyond the security gate wall, to the unconscious and battered form of the unicorn laying on the ground with Meathead sitting right beside it. Nick and Piper looked at Nate as if he was slightly crazy, "Nate, are you sure about that one?"

"Piper, you know the Giddyup Buttercups that were there at the bottom of the tower?"

"Yes, I asked you at least twice about them, and all you gave me was that they were toys on factory settings."

"Well, go take a look at the dimensions of the pony over yonder, and see if you can see any resemblance whatsoever. Look at it's eyes. Trust me, it can talk. I know it can because I've seen them do it."

"Alright, It's going to be a long interview after you're done with all this, hope you realize that." Piper opened the doors, and Nate stooped down, taking Kellogg's pistol off the ground.

"I know, Piper. I know, and I'll answer every question you have, but my answer will be another question, what do you know about the Broken Window Theory?" He went around, looking at the command center, seeing what there was to be found that the mercenary was waiting to use against him.

There was a terminal, the only new thing brought into this place since the end of the Great War, and clean tables that didn't have the same sort of yellowing a two hundred ten year old table would have.

Nate sorted through the files, "'Boy delivered to Institute. New orders to track down renegade. Gathered reinforcements. Moving out soon." He read aloud, "These were Kellogg's notes."

There was a command prompt to open the security doors, and after clicking the button, the doors swung open on the backside of the room.

Piper looked over the ragged and bleeding unicorn beaten into submission, but nothing she was seeing made sense, these weren't bite marks, these were blunt attacks. "No, what's the Broken Window Theory?" She called out, turning around towards Nate.

"I know this one Nate," Nick Valentine offered, "Back in the 1980 and 1990's, there was violent crime in the subway metros..."

"Close, but not the entire theory. In New York, the metros were how most of New Yorkers got around the city, but there was graffiti everywhere, the tunnels reeked of shit and piss, homeless people were living down there, people were getting robbed and mugged, the whole environment perpetuated stronger negative social ques." Nate swept his hands over the desks, seeing if there were any other scraps of information Kellogg left behind.

"Let's get him out of here. He has a sentencing to attend. Nick, who's the highest law of the land around here? Who's the local judge?"

"Well, It'd have to be mayor McDonough, I guess."

"And who hate's the Institute more, McDonough, or Hancock?"

"They both hate the Institute, but the one you'll get fired up more easily about them would definitely be Hancock." Nick said.

"Then we're headed to Goodneighbor. Piper, in New York, the tipping point for all this to change was when a white man was approached by four black men, and they asked him for his money. He was carrying a gun, and used it to shoot all four of them. He claimed it was self-defense, but the trial isn't the issue. He killed two of them, crippled one, and severely injured the other. The media ran the news across the nation, and people were outraged. A new plan needed to be engaged for dealing with the rampant crime across the city. Instead of hiring more police, cracking down on violent offenders, they cleaned up the metros, got rid of the graffiti, and arrested turn-style jumpers, because here's the thing. When one person who normally paid the fee to ride the metro every day, suddenly sees someone ignore the law and jump the turn-style, it sends out social ques to everyone who saw him commit the act, signalling to them that they could get away with it as well." Satisfied there was nothing left, Nate turned around and let his mind come up with a plan on how to deal with Kellogg.

"So now, someone who was normally a law-abiding citizen would think, If they got away with it, then why should I have to pay, and jump the turn-style as well. This creates a culture of people who think it's okay to ignore the inconsequential laws. One issue was that law-enforcement wasn't always available on the metro, so the police started arresting people who jumped the turn-style. They would cuff them, and force them to put their hands against the wall, waiting for other people to jump over, and arrest them as well. They wouldn't move until there were ten people all lined up against the wall. This sent out the message that it was no longer something they could do, that this wasn't something that could happen anymore. The police needed to and then went on to streamline the whole process of being arresting so that the person could be arrested, jailed, then processed in an hour. One out of seven people arrested who hopped over the turn-style was carrying a weapon with them, while one out of twelve people arrested had outstanding warrants."

Nick was the only one impressed, but Piper was still looking at Nate in confusion, trying to see the bigger picture.

"In two years, the amount of crime, that included murder, theft, rape, all the way down to petty thievery like jumping the turn-style dropped by sixty percent. You see most buildings in Boston now have broken windows or bullet holes in them, but by creating a culture where the petty laws are enforced, then it ques people in that this type of behavior isn't acceptable. People paid their fees to ride the metro, people weren't carrying guns or knives with them when they went traveling because they felt safe. The man who shot four other people? He felt like he was in a poorly lit, piss-and-shit infested rat-hole, but when you put people in a situation where they feel like trapped rats, then what do you expect people to do?

"McDonough wants everyone to pretend shit like that does't exist." Piper said, shaking her head. "That there's no such thing as kidnappings happening in the Commonwealth."

"Then, we take him to Goodneighbor. He's the one I would rather support in all of this. Piper..." He called out to her.

"Yes?" She replied.

"I changed my mind, I'm going to need your power armor. I'll truss up the pony and carry him, then while we're getting Kellogg to Goodneighbor, you run ahead and spread the word. New headline for you. INSTITUTE SPY CAUGHT. Get going. The sentencing will be at Goodneighbor. So tell everyone. Tell that guy on the radio, Travis. Make sure everyone hears about it and knows. Everyone is going to know, and they need to know he's going straight to the gallows."

"Why not Diamond City?" Nick asked.

"Too big of a venue, too many chances that an Institute ally is hiding in Diamond City. He could be shot before he hangs."

"But Nate, why does he have to be hung? Why go through the trouble of dragging him around?"

"If you were to walk a mile in my shoes before the bombs fell, you'd understand. I would walk from Concord to Goodneighbor and back without a gun, because I felt safe. There was graffiti in a few places, but that didn't mean there was crime. But now, if we enforced a little law, cleaned the streets, repaired the broken windows, knocked down the leaning towers of rust, buried of burnt the rest of the skeletons and bodies laying in the streets, then you too would know what it's like to be free of the rats."

"Okay, but what about the whinney we heard?" Piper said, directing everyone's gaze to the ceiling.

"I'll handle it."

\111/

Piper left through the security doors, stopping to look at Meathead sitting proudly by the unicorn pony before darting down the hall back towards the exit.

Nate got up from the computer, "Who do you think he meant by renegade?" He asked Nick.

"Renegade?"

"It says here, 'New orders to track down renegade.'"

"It can't be you, can it? No..." Nick said, trying to reason it out. "Maybe there's some in-fighting happening at the Institute we don't know about?"

"Well, lucky for us, I know how to tell if he's lying. Before he hangs, I'm going to interrogate the living shit out of him."

"Oh yeah? How's that?"

"Oh come on now, Nick. What kind of magician would I be if I revealed all my tricks?"

"A terrible one that get's boring real quick. You gonna tell me or not?"

Nate put his palms up to Nick before going out the command center to Meathead. "Not yet. I gotta be sure of a few more things, make sure that this place isn't being monitored."

Yanking wiring and cables out of the broken light fixtures hanging from the ceiling, Nate used it to truss up the unconscious unicorn. "Who knows, there might be tiny microscopic bugs and cameras all over the place, watching us."

"Nate, you're more paranoid than the people living in Fenway Park."

"It's kept me alive most of the time. Paranoia isn't a bad thing. It may be bad, but we can never be completely 'good' in the sense of the word. It would be like taking a stick, and on the right end, there's all the good, and on the left, there's all the bad. If you tried breaking off the left end of the stick, all you'd have at the end of it is a shorter stick. You could shorten that stick all the way down to a coin, thinner than human hair, and you'd still have two sides. Life is about balancing both out."

"That sounds profoundly deep coming from someone who is so intent on hanging Kellogg here, you've gotta hate someone a whole lot to put in the extra effort of hanging him."

"I hate him as much as I pity him. I pity the fact that out of all the people in the Commonwealth, he was just another person who got paid to do a job, so I can relate...and yeah, I hate him for what Kellogg separated my family from me, but he wasn't the one who tricked us into cryogenic pods, he wasn't the one who dropped the bombs, he wasn't the one who decided I should go to war and fight for my country, and possibly die. He was just another person, looking to get paid, end of story."

Hard Boiled Egg Pt. 1

\111/

Nick gave a partial laugh as they carried Kellogg out through the front of Fort Hagen,

"New sheriff in town, that's one I haven't heard of for a while. What brought that on?" Nick said, going over the dialogue between himself and Nate.

"The Commonwealth is going to remain lawless so long as there isn't anyone willing to enforce the laws in place. It needs a system of justice, Nick."

"Yes. I'm all for you so long as we keep putting the grind to the Institute. The Commonwealth is lawless enough as it is without the Institute mucking about."

"Good to have you on board."

"Say, why are you being so cagey about your past, Nate? I know it's a lot to digest, and you've been focused on other things, but why the runaround with Piper?"

"It's a long story, and I don't have all the answers. Mainly speculation and guesswork."

"Well, what's the first question that's been burning in your mind that you don't have the answer to? Maybe just by talking about it we can figure it out, or maybe some new perspective might shed some light on the situation." Nick offered.

Following the same path they took, they were passing Forest Grove Marsh, and crossing the bridge to the outer Fens.

"I already know the answer, Nick, I just haven't had the time to figure it out before now."

"Well, What is it?"

"A time line, Nick."

"A time line?"

"I'm actually surprised you didn't bring it up at your office."

"Okay, right. Of course, how could I have forgotten? So..when did this happen? When did Kellogg here shoot your wife and kidnap Shaun?"

"That's it, Nick. I don't know. But I can find out. I was going to take Piper and show her Vault 111. I've been putting it off, and I was going to take her after I finished talking with you in Fenway park. I didn't expect you to know who Kellogg was, or that he was living in the stadium. Everything took off in high gear after we got back to Diamond City. You knew exactly who he was, and where he lived, so we've been going hard ever since."

"What's in Vault 111 that can tell you what you need to know?"

"A computer log. Time and date stamps for when the Vault door opened and closed, times and dates for when the cryogenic pods were opened and closed."

"And that will give you a timeline?" Nick asked.

"Yes. Kellogg was reluctant to tell me if it's been ten hours since I got out, a few weeks, a decade, or an ungodly amount of time. Either way, I need to prepare myself for the eventuality that when I find Shaun, he might be older than me. I didn't check when I ran back for the cryolater, but once Kellogg's hung, and dead, I'll have all the time in the world." They got onto the main highway leading to Mass Pike Tunnel West, and got off the road leading to Fenway Park, now marked Diamond City leading towards uptown.

"That's a hard pill to swallow." Nick said.

"If you think that's crazy, how would you like to hear a message meant for you?"

"A message? What do you mean? What?" Nick asked, motioning to let Kellogg down.

"Listen to this." Nate said, tapping onto the files in his Pip-Boy, then going to recordings, down at the bottom of the alphabetical recordings was a file labeled 'We're done.'

Nate tapped the play button and Captain Widmark spoke to Detective Nick Valentine, two hundred and ten years in the past.

"Detective Valentine. Nick. Listen...I'm sorry."

"What the heck is this? Is that...?" Nick asked Nate.

"Keep listening."

"You've got every right to by angry, but you need to believe me when I tell you I had no idea. Operation Winter's End was my Baby. I believed in it, I still believe in it. They kept us all in the dark, me included. I got briefed this afternoon, and they laid it all out."

Nate fired another round from the cryolator at Kellogg, making sure the ice stayed thick around him.

"The whole thing. Winter's deal with the DA. His agreement to take down the other families. It was his idea to use the holotapes to set up the other families, along with them needing a legitimate op, a real task force, to make it look like Winter was the focus."

"Eddie Winter." Nick Valentine relented to Nate, it was filled with loathing.

"It was the plan all along, Nick. There's nothing we can do, Winter was a stoolie for the feds, he reported directly to the BADTFL. All on the books. For his cooperation, Winter was granted total immunity. It's over."

Nick scowled, the memory coming back in full force. "Effective immediately, Operations Winter's End is to cease all investigations and operations. The task force is hereby disbanded."

"Disbanded." Nick repeated, putting his metal hand to his forehead. Looking to South Boston, gazing out over the city towards the coast, he was struck silent.

"We played out part pal, not the part we thought, but hey, it happens. Now we're just another box in the file room." Captain Widmark's voice said. Nick was shaking his head.

"Shit happens!" Nick said loudly.

"Shit happens! That's what!" Nate said, agreeing with him.

"Nick, listen to me, Everything's that happened...Everything with Winter...Everything with Jenny... It's more than anything one man should have to handle. You need help."

Nick frowned. "I don't remember what happened to me or how I became a synth." Nick said.

Nate paused the tape. "It took me a while. but I know exactly where the Institute is located. You said in your office you were thrown out?"

"Yeah. I woke up in a dumpster and wandered the wasteland for weeks, thinking I was still human."

"Listen to the rest. This tape proves it. I know exactly where the Institute is located now." Nick's eyebrows rose, could Nate piece together where the Institute was?

Nate played the rest of the tape. "Boston PD has been working with the eggheads at C.I.T. Some new program they have to deal with trauma, scanning brainwaves or some such. You're going. That's an order."

Nick stared at Nate longingly, wanting to hear more, but they both pieced the rest of the story together.

"Cambridge." Nick said, putting a hand to the side of his face and touching his cheek.

Nick Valentine went to the Commonwealth Institute of Technology, two blocks away from Diamond City, directly across the Charles River. Nick swallowed, then sunk to his knees.

It was hard to do in power armor, restricting some of his movement. He ended up throwing a hand out for support. Laying on his right side, his hand left tensed and twitched. For a moment, Nick swore he could feel the touch of his own flesh between his metallic fingers.

"Damn, I've been out here for seventy years...trying to figure out what happened to me, and everyone was going off their rocker trying to find the Institute. Here you are, and you put everything into perspective in less than a week." Nick said.

Nate helped Nick back up to his feet.

"It's been a long time coming."

\111/

Author's Note

"Nat!" Piper yelled as she ran down the stairs to home plate. She was out of breath and sweating across her brow. "Nat!" She yelled again, alerting her sister.

"Get your shit packed! We're leaving in five for Goodneighbor! Bring the tape-recorder!"

Ch. 35 The Hanging of Conrad Kellogg October 31st

Author's Note

"TRAVIS!" Piper banged and knocked on the door, opening it, she allowed herself in.

"TRAVIS!" She yelled, he looked up from his recording and broadcasting equipment and was shocked by her sudden entry. She spun around and locked the door. He took off his headphones and put a hand over the microphone.

"Piper, I'm in the middle of -"

"Travis! Just-Listen! We've got one. We caught an Institute spy!"

The look on Travis' face slowly twisted into confusion, "What?"

"Just-Move! She said, gently shoving Travis out of the way.

"Piper, Mayor McDonough doesn't want you on the radio again-" Travis tried to protest.

"I don't care what he wants! If Mayor McDonough of Diamond City wants to bend over and suck his own tiny penis, I don't care! Now go live!"

"I really shouldn't Piper,"

"Shouldn't, couldn't, wouldn't, Travis. They're all past tenses. Don't be afraid of the things you did. Now, I need to tell everyone out there in the Commonwealth that we've caught one of the Institute's field agents, and we're gonna kill him! Now, do I need to figure out this on my own and start turning random dials and messing with your settings, or are you going to show me?"

"No! No! Anything but that! Don't mess with my settings!

Travis stood there for a moment with his mouth open like a gaping fish.

"Well?"

Travis put one hand up to her, and pressed her out of the way. "You really caught an Institute spy?"

"Yes! It was Conrad Kellogg, the guy with the kid living in the west stands! That kid was Nate's son! The vault dweller named Nate from Vault 111!"

Flicking three switches, a little red light appeared over the top of the equipment.

"Remember to speak clearly, and directly into the microphone. Keep your mouth at least six inches from the microphone and remember to avoid hard 'P's. Take a deep breath. You're on in three. Two." Piper swallowed. "One."

"To everyone out there listening to Diamond City Radio, there is breaking news. Earlier today, Nate, a Dweller from Vault 111 hunted down and caught his son's kidnapper, Conrad Kellogg. Conrad Kellogg is a Institute spy, and he was living here in Diamond City. He's being taken to Goodneighbor for sentencing. The Institute spy is being taken to Goodneighbor for sentencing by Mayor John Hancock. Law is coming to the Commonwealth, and it starts with the death of the unlawful Conrad Kellogg. If you want to witness this-" There was suddenly more banging on Travis' studio door.

"Go to Goodneighbor! We've caught an Institute spy and he's going to hang!"

"PIPER! Get off the fucking radio!" A guard from outside shouted.

"It's time to put the boogeyman to rest, Commonwealth! You hear us, Institute? This time, we're coming for YOU! WE'RE COMING FOR YOU!"

The door was kicked open and three Diamond City Guards burst in. "Piper get away from the microphone."

"THIS IS DIAMOND CITY RADIO!" She shouted into the mic, "!" Piper stood up as Travis flicked the tape recorder off and threw a heavy brace against the door. The log jam prevented the door from being opened, but the guard's demands were getting louder and louder.

"Sorry Piper, but you need to leave now." Travis pointed up to the skylight in the ceiling. "You can climb out through there."

Popping the lid off to the soup-can sized trailer, Piper stood on Travis' roof and addressed the guards.

"You boys sure work fast, thank goodness I can trust the Diamond City guards to be there whenever there's right's that need to be infracted upon. Ever hear about the freedom of speech?"

"The mayor would like to talk to you."

"Now is that, with me; like a reasonable adult conversation? Or to me, like a child? Because there's a big difference."

Ch. 35 The Hanging of Conrad Kellogg October 31st

"So, if you knew...and pieced it all together. Why didn't you go straight to the CIT?" Nick asked Nate outside of Shenly's Oyster Bar, carrying Kellogg between them and the unicorn pony on Nate's shoulders. The sun was getting low beyond the horizon, and the sky was turning dark blue in the east, while the west still had dark orange shades of color peaking over the mountains.

"You said it yourself. I'm paranoid. I feel like I'm being lead into a trap. That someone definitely is watching us and reporting directly to the Institute, how else would Kellogg know that we would use Meathead to track him down using his scent, unless he was informed by someone else? How do I know that you're not broadcasting everything you see, directly onto a monitor inside the Institute right now?"

Nick nodded, "None of the synths anywhere, even generation three synths, have that sort of technology crammed into their brains. We've all got a component in the back of our skulls that receives signals, but wont send anything. It keeps the Institute from being traced. I would know, people have tried cracking open my skull before and digging around to see what makes me tick. I'll say that it doesn't make for a fun afternoon."

\111/

The people of Goodneighbor went to Hancock, the people of Bunker Hill went to Kessler, and the people of Diamond City went to McDonough.

"Hancock, are you hearing this?"

Smoking a cigarette laced with liquid jet, Mayor Hancock's high was coming down when he heard his name on the radio.

"Must be. Shit. I knew that the guy was looking for the low baller who did this to his wife and kid, but he sure don't mess around." Hancock said, sitting up slowly. "Wait. They're coming here?" Hancock scratched the top of his head. "Oh Shit. What do they expect me to do? If I were him, I would'a just shot him. Why the fuck are they coming to me?"

One of the Neighborhood Watch guards was peering outside through one of the wooden boards nailed over the windows."I don't know, but there's a lot of people showing up outside."

Fahrenheit and Hancock both got up from their chairs, and went to the boarded up windows, they peered through and saw dozens of people all gathered around the Old State house. "Holy Shit! When did this happen?"

"The last half hour. People just started showin' up!"

"Why didn't anybody fuckin' tell me? That's a lot of people out there! Get out there and tell the boys no funny business! Best behavior! No pickpockets, no making trouble! You got me?! Geeze! Motherfuckers making shit my problem! Dammnit! Now I gotta think of something to say and I'm all fucking high!"

Hancock looked to the gates guarding Goodneighbor, the doors were open and people were coming in a steady stream.

"All this for a Institute spy?"

"They want to hear you tear apart the Institute, same as always."

"Well where the hell is the guy?" Hancock asked.

\111/

Mayor McDonough looked out over Fenway Park from the news stands, his own personal residence reserved for the mayor was situated close to his office, but tonight he didn't sleep. There were over forty requests from residents this evening, all traveling in a massive foot caravan, leaving Diamond City to go see the sentencing of an Institute Spy in Goodneighbor. He couldn't bar them from leaving, but he did try saying everything he could to deter them, that it was unsafe. That there were high probabilities that raiders might attack, that super mutants would close in on them, but it was the damnable Piper that encouraged them there was safety in numbers. So long as they were in a large group, stayed quiet, and moved quickly, they would all be in Goodneighbor within an hour. No way would a group that big be taken on without the support of everyone around them fighting back.

Then they all left. There were still plenty of people in Diamond City this evening, but he noticed so many chimneys didn't have smoke coming out of them, so many broken windows with boards or metal nailed over them were dark, so quiet.

The silence was unnerving.

\111/

"Is this true? Did they really catch an Institute spy?" Hancock was asked, he was standing on the balcony overlooking the crowd with both hands out on the railing to support him when the question was shouted to him. He stayed still like a stone, nodding once.

Raiders were coming in, but they all stowed their weapons and wanted to know for themselves what was going to happen to the spy.

"They're coming! There they are!" A guard from the Goodneighbor watch shouted. Lead by Nate and Nick carrying Kellogg and the pony, with Meathead trotting along side them, were Piper and the forty residents from Diamond City arriving in the dead of night along with the extra hundred of people from around Boston that all came to check out Goodneighbor after hearing the broadcast from Diamond City Radio.

Travis took to playing Piper's message on repeat, and broadcast it every ten minutes in between songs.

They all joined in the march, tagging along with the giant group of people from Diamond City, and now they were leading a crowd of ninety, mostly raiders along the way that saw the largest group of people moving through Boston in a long time, and didn't risk shooting at them.

Hancock started clapping, and the effect took hold. Soon everyone was clapping and cheering as Nick and Nate crossed the threshold into Goodneighbor and the streets were packed with people.

They'd run out of liquid nitrogen, and Kellogg was wearing a bag over his head, with hands cuffed behind his back. He was being escorted along by Nate and Nick, with Piper holding both her Sten gun and 10 mm pistol to the crowd, keeping people away from jeering Kellogg.

A guard ran to Nate, "Get him inside, now."

They parted the path towards the door to the Old State House and went inside.

Hancock was there at the front door, only a step above everyone else, so he raised his hands and shouted, "Everyone!"

The crowd needed to quiet down, and they waited for him to speak so they could all hear. "Yes! It's true! The Institute Spy has been caught! After we're finished speaking about how to proceed, you all know what's coming next for the Institute bastard! Until then, look around you? Have you ever felt safer? Have you ever seen a group of people this big? Everyone here is united against a common enemy, the Institute! They are the real enemy! Not the super mutants, not the feral ghouls, not the creatures, or raiders, or even the synths. It is the Institute who divide us, now it will us who unites against them!" Cheers went up from the crowd and he raised his hands again to silence them.

"Tonight we send a message to the Institute, that they can't fuck with us, even when they want to, because WE ARE NOT AFRAID!"

Hancock let the cheers rise up and continue as he went inside and closed the door to the Old State House. Turning around he went to Nate, "Alright, Motherfucker, you better explain what the fuck you have in mind, and why the fuck you roped me into this, making all these God-damn people show up in Goodneighbor in the middle of the God-Damn night, so it better be a good explanation."

"Let's get him to a quiet room, and then we'll talk." Nate insisted for Kellogg. Forced downstairs, there was a cell door with a chair on the inside.

"Nick, Piper, would you mind watching Kellogg while I explain the situation to Hancock?"

"Sure thing."

"What if he needs to go to the bathroom?" Piper asked.

"Tell him he can shit his pants, he's not going to need a bathroom where he's going." Nate said, dropping the pony down off his shoulders, it glared and looked up at him defiantly.

"Okay, so what's with the pony?" Hancock asked.

"He was with Kellogg when I tracked him down, and he knows that I know he can talk."

"Is that some kinda Institute experiment? Making him talk?"

"Nope, completely natural. He's staying quiet because right now, he's trying to figure out how he was slammed into submission and lost. He's just a little angry that he doesn't understand how his magic is being blocked, or what's around his horn."

"They're magic? What is that green stuff anyway? Looks like dried caulk."

"It's deathclaw shit. It'll keep him from trying to do anything smart."

"Like what kinda smart?"

"Magic type of smart. Like teleportation, telepathy, bolts of plasma, lasers, anything he might use to try and escape. Magic knows no bounds. Let's move onto Kellogg before the crowd outside starts getting restless. Is there any place away from here we can put him so there's no chance he can reach Kellogg?"

Hancock nodded, "I've got a place in mind." Hancock turned to face the closest Goodneighbor guard, "Jerkovic, take this pony to the warehouse." The guard nodded, stepping forward and leading the pony out through the door back onto the street where the people were gathered around the darkened door, trying to see in.

"Now, about Kellogg, why the hell did you bring him here?"

"I need you to sentence him, publicly."

"Just shoot the bastard and be done with it!" Hancock replied.

"Listen, truly I tell you it will make yourself look ten times as more powerful if you sentence this guy to hang, rather than me gunning him down in hot blood."

"What is this? Some sort of power play to you?"

"Yes. Hancock, that is exactly what it is, but this power needs to go somewhere, and I don't have shit for a reputation yet, but you do. Fahrenheit mentioned were all pieces on a board game, well, this will show everyone out there that not only is the Institute going to pay for their sins, but that Goodneighbor is strong. That despite the anarchy that we all enjoy, there's still repercussions for murder, kidnapping, and spying for the enemy. If you sentence him to hang, it'll make you look even more official in the eyes of the people. You already run Goodneighbor, and you do a fantastic job at it. You've already got everyone convinced that the Institute can't mess with Goodneighbor if we all stick together and show no fear..." Nate was nodding, trying to get Hancock to nod along with him.

"NOW, now people will see, holy smokes, Mayor Hancock isn't bluffing. Someone, went out and dragged this Institute spy all the way across the God-Damn Commonwealth just to prove a point. They must be serious. That is the idea we can get across to everyone outside. They're serious when people talk about fighting the Institute, but it's almost always exclusively been about synths. Now, now is the day where the buck stops. Kellogg's cost people their lives, their property, their happiness, their families, and now it's all come crashing down, Hancock. This is how we drain the Institute." Hancock tilted his head, not understanding how. "This is how we fuck with the Institute in so many ways, that even when they come up from their little hole, we'll have a better thing going on up here, than they will down there."

"If they're actively waging war, then it's costing them resources and manpower, this is going to be subtle at first, but the amount of respect to be gained for doing this will be something that will be written down in the new history books. You know about this, building, Hancock. History is literally written here. This will be one of those moments that people look back and say, 'at the old state house, John Hancock the Second brought liberty to Goodneighbor'. He helped all the people. He was a man of the people. He loved his people and what they represented."

"Fuck John Hancock the II sounds damn awesome shit I said that out loud."

"Alright, so, I already know you get the honors, but, what do you want me to do?"

"Help me clean out the Institute."

\111/

Hancock went out onto the balcony at the plaza side, over the top of the Third Rail. People shifted and moved towards the courtyard and he signaled for the street lights around Goodneighbor to dim while the lights around the balcony and himself grew brighter.

After most of the people stopped moving, and all eyes were on Hancock, he spoke.

"In the early years of colonial America, Back before the Great War, Back before the World Wars, Back before the civil war, and Back before the revolutionary war that made America independent, six hundred sixty four years ago in the year 1623, the first man who was sentenced to die was a man by the name of George Kendall in Jamestown, Virginia. George Kendall was a man convicted of spying for Britian's enemy at the time, the Spanish, so he was shot."

"The second man ordered to be executed in the Colonial States of America was a man named John Billington in 1630, he was hung for murder."

"Now it is apparent that history repeated itself. That is why after too long, Conrad Kellogg is being sentenced to death by hanging for the KIDNAPPING of Nate's son Shaun, the SHOOTING of Nate's wife, Nora, and countless other acts of violence verified by Nick Valentine's Detective Agency including SPYING FOR A KNOWN ENEMY OF THE Commonwealth, THE INSTITUTE! CONRAD KELLOGG, is hereby sentenced to hang as granted by the power to me by the people of the Commonwealth, until you are no longer breathing and dead!" Shouts of approval rose up from the crowd, all eager to witness Kellogg's death.

"Nate tracked down his enemy, and instead of shooting him on the spot, like any one of us would of done, he dragged him all the way from Fort Hagen, through the Commonwealth, Boston, and all the way here to put the fear of God into the Institute, showing our enemies that we are may be lawless, but there are still consequences! That if you murder, kidnap, or collude with the enemy, you will find yourself at the end of the hangman's noose."

"Super Mutants who see us as stupid prey, or there's the desparados of society who would take a fistful of caps over a friend's life!" Mayor Hancock shouted to the gathered crowd of two hundred people filling the plaza beneath the Old State House.

"I know that there isn't a single ghoul or synth living in Diamond city that doesn't have it's residents constantly remind them to their face of who or what they are."

"There aren't any ghouls living in Diamond City. That's how McDonough was elected, by rallying people around the idea that sentient ghouls couldn't be trusted. That they might turn feral overnight and go on a killing spree."

"But that's all the more interesting. I was taught a long time ago, it doesn't matter what people look like, so long as they act like outstanding members of their community, and know how to be civilized, they're welcome anywhere. But-"

"-When there's a group in the Commonwealth that's devoted to preventing the wasteland from recovering, that is using the lawless nature of the land for their own personal benefit at the cost of happiness and the well being of others, while they reap in the benefits while people are starving, that is not what we stand together for! We are not the Gunners who people go to just because they decide they're not getting paid enough to guard duty to Quincy, and decide to gun down all their friends and comrades. We are not the Super mutants who try to come and take us in the middle of the night! We are not the Institute who tries to undermine everything we've worked to achieve by creating paranoia and mistrust among our people! We are Goodneighbor! We are 'Of the People, For the People!'" Hancock shouted down from the Old State House, people of all races and age were rallying behind Hancock's words.

"Goodneighbor is a home to anyone, ghoul or human, synth or super mutant, even I'd even let deathclaws in if they can play nice. We are not a town that discriminates against what you look like, or where you're from in this wild green world! But, if you murder, if you kidnap, if you rape, if you spy for the enemy, then expect someone to come after you! The Institute will learn the hard way, that they can't fuck with us if we're not afraid! Haven't I already said this a dozen times? Now! Now is the time to put meaning to those words!"

"Now I know you're expecting me to march out with Kellogg, but our man Nate has the honors of putting him to death. He's got it in his mind to hang Kellogg from one of the tallest buildings in the Commonwealth, with the longest rope we can find! Luckily, we can oblige!"

Down at Kellogg's feet, two helpers dragged out a large coil of rope and set it by his feet. From the angle people were looking up at the balcony, they couldn't see them. Hancock stooped down and held the rope high over his head, and the crowd clapped and cheered. "Six hundred feet of rope and fifty feet of bungie chords and rope, people! They are taking Kellogg and the rest of this rope to the top of Mass Fusion Tower as we speak!"

"Are they ready?" Hancock shouted out, looking for cue signs from his guards. They gave a closed fist as a sign back.

"Alright! They're ready!

"Let's go! To the foot of Mass Fusion!" Hancock shouted.

A posse of over two hundred people with Hancock leading the way, they were told to wait for first light so they could see the body drop, and barred from entering the Mass Fusion building.

Hancock entered the building, and found MacCready sitting in the lobby with five more of the Goodneighbor Guards on the ground floor.

"Where are they?"

"They're a few floors up. There's a second lobby above this one, Piper and Nick Valentine are up there. They're interrogating Kellogg right now. Take the elevator."

\111/

"I'm taking Kellogg to the observation deck and interrogating him, watch the doors." Nate said.

"I want a full front page about the details when you're done with all this." Piper said to Nate. Meathead followed Nate out the doors and onto the observation deck.

Kellogg was forced into the chair. Clipping his hands to the chair's arms, Nate dragged Kellogg to the edge, and made sure he could see the ground floor far below.

"Kellogg, is the Institute located underneath the Commonwealth Institute of Technology?"

"I'm not telling you anything." He replied. Nate looked past Kellogg to Meathead, getting a perfect read on Kellogg's emotions, he didn't need to say anything at all. Nate jostled the chair, leaning Kellogg over the edge.

"How do you get inside the Institute? Are there stairs? A hidden latch? A bunker? What about a backdoor? Do they get in through the sewers? Is there a pipe or escape tunnel leading into the Charles river?"

Kellogg shook his head, but Meathead nodded or shook his head after every one of Nate's questions. The threat of death elevated Kellogg's emotions to an unstable degree, making it easier to tell if he was lying.

"Where is it, Kellogg? Where's the backdoor? The CIT is right by the Charles River, Kellogg, so there's gotta be some sort of escape hatch, right? An escape tunnel if the Institute were ever invaded? If my great grandparents never went to Vietnam, they wouldn't of known about watersheds, where Vietmin would dive down into the water, and come up into a room that was above the water line...is that it? Kellogg? A little rat hole? That can't be the only way in, though. There's gotta be a way to get all those synths out of Cambridge without no one ever seeing a thing. So, how'd you do it? Magic? Teleportation?" Nate asked, even Kellogg couldn't refrain from showing a tell that gave away that Nate guessed it.

"There we go. Teleportation. Figures. The U.S. army was working on plenty of attempts to teleport things around. Should'a figured someone would figure out how to do it eventually. You know...I was there in False Pass when I saw three battle ships rise up out of the water, and vanish in a flash of light. Still wonder about what happened to them until today, Kellogg. Hell of a thing to see, to see something teleport in and out of existence like that. Now...Now that we've got that little mystery taken care of, who's the renegade?"

"You weren't right about the teleporting, and you're not getting anything out of me about the renegade." Meathead shook his head, Kellogg was lying again, but from where he was facing, he couldn't see Meathead.

"All I have to do is stand here and watch you squirm, Let's see. Was the renegade an Institute scientist?" You may not say anything, but the hairs on the back of your neck start rising up every time I guess right." Nate lied, but it was partially true the hairs on the back of Kellogg's neck were rising.

Kellogg remained silent with a stone face.

"Where did they go? He...or she...? He? He. Definitely a he. Where did he go? Did they go to Diamond City...? Did they go to the North? Did they go to the south? South East towards the coast? Or South west towards......west roxbury..." Nate remembered the Glowing Sea, the expanse of ground zero where the nuke fell.

"West Roxbury...of course. The glowing sea."

Kellogg swallowed.

"That makes all the more sense, you what...use some sort of tracking, targeting system, and you can't get a fix on the glowing sea because of all the radiation? Isn't it? That's where this renegade scientist is hiding? Isn't he? That's what you meant when you said you had all your supplies gathered, didn't you? Your new orders were to track down the renegade scientist to the glowing sea! God I love twenty questions!"

"You don't know anything! I haven't said a damn thing!" Kellogg shouted back.

"Oh, but I can read you like an open book, Kellogg. You're poker face is shit. Now...last question. How long has it been since you went in and kidnapped Shaun from Vault 111. One year? Five years? Ten years? Twenty years? Thirty years...forty years...fifty...sixty...seventy...." Nate stood up straight.

"Seventy years." He repeated. "How is that even possible?"

"You'll never know, and I'll die before I tell you anything. Go back to your conspiracy theories and die."

"You first, I insist." Nate bundled up a rag and stuffed it into Kellogg's mouth, then tied a gag over the rag to keep him from spitting it out.

Nate reached down and petted Meathead, holding him close, whispering into his ear while hugging him, "Good boy, Meathead. I love you."

\111/

As Hancock stepped out onto the second lobby, Nate was leading Kellogg through the observation deck doors back from the outside with Meathead by his side.

"Did you get everything you needed to out of him?"

"Yep. Cracked him open like an egg."

Kellogg was forced to walk ,with hands cuffed behind his back into the lobby of the building, to the central elevator, and up to the roof. Seventy floors up, the roof was already outfitted with guards from Goodneighbor and a long piece of rope intertwined and braided with bungee cables were coiled up with a hangman's knot and noose around the end.

It was fitted around Kellogg's neck, and he jerked, refusing the tightness around his neck.

"Take a last good look at the world, Kellogg, it'll be the last one you ever see." Hancock said.

"Any last words, Kellogg?"

"You'll all die."

"We all will Kellogg. That's an eventuality that we must all face one day, but for the rest of us, that is not today. Now, go." Nate said, taking the bag and putting it back on his head. Pushing Kellogg forward with the barrel of his rifle he moved unwillingly at first, leaning forward until Nate pressed harder into his back.

Kellogg took step after step forward, he didn't know where the edge was until he felt the wind blowing fiercely in his face, he was forced off the edge of the building and fell.

Falling sixty five stories before the line was taught, the chords stretched and bounced, dislodging his neck and suffocating him, Kellogg thrashed painfully at the end of the rope until he died.

Five stories below, the large crowd of two hundred people all watched and were in shock and morbid awe that someone went through all the trouble of bringing a man to justice. When they started dispersing after Kellogg stopped moving, they were filled with a healthy dose of fear, and elation of someone evil enough to work with the Institute, a group that was so detrimental to the progress of humanity, was now hanging at the end of a rope.

Nate let his rifle slowly drop down, laying it on the ground. He found the energy in his body was depleted, and the last week was finally catching up with him in full force.

\111/

Sitting cross legged on the ground, Meathead was by his side, and Nate latched onto his dog.

Crying, he could finally move on to the next stage in his life. It was apparent to Hancock overseeing everything, Piper recording everything, that this took a lot of of energy out of Nate.

He laid down on the roof, looking up at the sky. Meathead laid down next to him, and no one disturbed them. Laying there for fifteen minutes, they understood he needed some time to himself.

Finally as Nate sat up, salt trails staining his face from tears drying on his cheeks, both Piper and Hancock were there to offer him a hand up as everyone else had left.

"You going to be okay?"

Nate nodded. "Yes. I'm going to go lie down for a bit. Get some sleep. Hancock, thank you for officiating this. Piper, I'll find you where ever you are and give you that interview you wanted. I just...need to go home."

"No problem, that was heck of turnout to watch someone die." Mayor Hancock stated. Already he could see the line of people walking back towards Diamond City.

"Yeah...take your time. See you in Diamond City, Blue?" Piper asked Nate, he nodded.

"I'll find you."

"I'll be waiting."

"You're not going to believe what I have to tell you, Piper. I wouldn't of gotten this far without you, Hancock, Nick, and finally, my dog, Meathead." Nate crouched down on one knee and beckoned Meathead to come closer to him. He walked into Nate's outstretched arms and gave the dog a hug. "Thank you."

\111/

Hard Boiled Egg Pt. 2

October 31st, 2287.

Nick wandered up to Nate and Meathead, leaning on the rail looking over Boston.

"Hey, Nate, Mind if I ask you a question?"

"Ask away."

"With everything that's happened with you and your family, I wanted to know how you were holding up? It took me a long time to transition to this new world, and it took me even longer to get a feel for this place. Thank goodness I found Diamond City. It's got its flaws, sure, but it beats the hell out of anywhere else in the Commonwealth. Course, I took up a place back when people were just as scared of the Institute as they are now. Maybe even more."

"It's been difficult, but I've been finding safe havens along the route to remind myself there's still a little bit of Boston underneath all the rubble."

"That's good to hear...good to hear. The massacre of the CPG, Commonwealth Provisional Government, was still pretty fresh in people's minds seventy years ago...at that point, folks were still losing sleep over the Broken Mask incident Piper brought up in her paper. Plenty of people thought I was a saboteur, moving into meltdown the reactor or poison the drinking water."

"What happened with the CPG?"

"Years back, a group of settlers tried to get together and form a coalition. Every settlement with even a hint of clout sent representatives to try and hash out an agreement. Only, the Institute sent a representative of their own, a synth. The man killed every rep at the talks. Thus ended the Commonwealth Provisional Government, dead before it even got off the ground."

"So how'd they come to let you into Diamond City, when all that happened? I'm surprised you weren't drawn and quartered."

"Who says I wasn't? People have tried a lot to kill me over the years, even inside Diamond City. Stabbing me, beating me with a hammer, that's how I lost a chest plate a while back. One idiot even tried to hang me, so I pretended to play dead just to get on with my day. But I never gave up, same as you. I'd rescued the mayor's daughter, I showed up at the gate with her and the mayor, Henry Roberts, after she decided to run off with some caravan hand she'd gotten to know for an evening."

Nick dug through his pockets and found a packet of Grey Tortoise cigarettes, and offered one to Nate, but he shook his head.

"Turns out they were a group of kidnappers, and I didn't even know who she was until I stumbled across her screaming her head off and four tough guys looking to take advantage of her. I took her home and the mayor dubbed me a hero. He offered me a place in town, even though plenty of folks protested. Everyone said I was a spy back then, but he wouldn't have any of it."

"Sound's like you were head nig at a Klan rally," Nate said.

"I was," Nick said, dropping his tone flat. "But, I never hid who I was and people seemed to warm to that. I started off doing the jobs no one else wanted. I got more banged up being Diamond City's handyman than I ever did out in the ruins. People never forgot I rescued the mayor's daughter though, so they started coming to me when people went missing. Wife ran off? Talk to the Synth. Upset Father moves his kids to Goodneighbor in the middle of the night? Talk to the Synth. After a while, the jobs got so backed up, they didn't even ask me to do handyman stuff anymore. Hell, I was so happy to do it, it was months before I started charging anyone. I never stopped being Nick the Synth, but I'm glad it was Nick the Detective people came to see me as...it was around then...things started feeling normal...It took me a long time to realize, that home is where you make it. With some time and effort, this place can be your home, too."

Nate nodded, drawing in a deep breath and exhaling. "I appreciate that, Nick. I see this place like home, but not my home, you know? For me, home is where the family is. I get what you're trying to say though, so thanks."

"Long story, but I hope it helps. You got anything else planned for today?"

"Well, it depends. Meathead. Any news? Bark once for yes, twice for no."

Meathead barked twice.

"Guess not. I know one of those things will be sleep because I feel like I haven't slept right in a week."

"Well, far from it for me to keep you from a good night's sleep, but the Institute isn't the only underworld of crime in Boston."

"Does it have a name?"

"Yeah, its name is Eddie Winter. For a long time, I've been getting flashes of old Nick's memories."

"What kind of memories?"

"Everything. From old cases, old loves, before you showed up I even found myself running background on cases, only to realize everyone's been dead for two hundred years. Don't get me wrong, I know I'm in Nick's debt, these memories are what's kept me alive. Nick was hell of a cop, with good instincts and a big heart." Nick tried following Nate's eyes and saw them leading off towards the Glowing Sea.

"Ever since you played that tape, I haven't been able to get Eddie Winter's name out of my mind. There's a part of Nick Valentine's memories that I've been wanting to put a bow and ribbon on for a while now. I could use a hand if you're willing to hear me out."

"What's the story?"

"Once upon a time, dot, dot, dot, there lived a king of organized crime named Eddie Winter. He was a bad man who did a lot of bad things. He ordered a hit on Nick's wife, and you already know the story. Nick went to C.I.T. after the investigation was shut down, and Nick was going through tough times. Those memories were scanned, stored, and later dumped into me a hundred and forty years later after the old Nick died. Or at least, I haven't found any trace of my doppelganger."

"But old Eddie Winter sealed himself inside a personal shelter, underneath the sub shop he used as his headquarters in South Boston."

"I heard he was acquitted."

"Bull shit he was. Once it was out, half the Boston P.D. wanted to kill him, the other half wanted to turn on the ones who were after Winter. The arrogant bastard wanted to cheat death, so he invested everything he could into a crazy radiation experiment. It was all to come out of his shelter one day and into this brave new world...sound familiar?"

Nate nodded along, looking down towards the ground.

"Eddie Winter went and turned himself into a ghoul, two hundred years before it was fashionable. Heck, he was probably the first ghoul out there. I'm convinced he's still locked inside that shelter, safe and sound. He's just waiting to start up all his crime all over again. I'm going to find him, and kill him, you in? Second Verse, Same as the first? A little louder, and a little bit worse?"

"You point him out, we'll shoot him. Question, do ghouls need to eat?"

"Nope, they get awfully skinny if they don't though, that's why all the feral ghouls we see running around are nothing but skin and bones, they forget to feed themselves and just start losing energy and become less aware of things. Now, I know where Eddie's bunker is, I've even touched the door. But, he's got a code to get in. Winter was arrogant, or at least, trying to make everyone believe he was. He recorded ten holotapes, the ones Nick's Captain mentioned, and on each one, was a number. We find the holotapes, we get the code, then we get Winter. I was working on this case for a while now, and I managed to snag a pair of holotapes from the Cambridge police station, where they were set up before the war. Feral ghouls swarmed the station before I could find the rest of them in evidence."

"Funny, I was headed that way tomorrow."

"I need to pop into my office, and then I'm coming right back here to Goodneighbor, so I'll be busy for a few days. I may have Nick's memories, but I'm not Nick. It's a case that's been waiting two hundred years to close, so it can wait."

"Well, you're able to see the world for what it is, no one would fault you for being Nick Valentine, and no one would fault you for being a detective here in the year 2287. It's your choice. I'll check out the police station on my way back."

"Where you headed now?"

"Home."

\111/

Author's Note

Fin Act I

Ch. 36 The Interview

Author's Note

"Well that was certainly an interesting night, it got everyone talking, and all of Diamond City is buzzing with the news after what happened last night. Conrad Kellogg, a murderer, kidnapper, and a Institute agent, was hung early this morning from Mass Fusion Tower. I'm told that his body is still hanging there as a warning to all others who think that type of behavior is acceptable."

"If there's anything else to say, I would ask our resident news outlet Publick Occurrences for the latest details, that is, when Piper's around. Other than that here's Talk To Me by Sunny and the Sunglows...kindof redundant, but that's just me.

Oh, before I forget, "Solomon cares about what type of Chem's you take, so come to Chem-I-Care. Cleanest Chems, Cleanest highs. Chem-I-Care."

Ch. 36 The Interview

They reached Diamond City later that afternoon on the same day Kellogg hung after sleeping through the early morning.

"Well, well, well, look who finally decides to swing by." Piper said to Nate, flashing a wide smile. "So, are you two finally going to let me in on the story? I've spread the word, rallied people of Diamond City, and gone all over the Commonwealth with you, but this story seems to stretch beyond time and space and have half a dozen names and places involved. So. What's the story, what did Kellogg say? What was with the frieking pony?"

Meathead inhaled, drawing in a large breath. ""

"I've got all week, I'm ready for your story, from the beginning, wherever that is, to the end, wherever that may be." Piper sat with her legs crossed, and a holotape recorder, and even a note pad with a pen ready to take notes. "So, what did you learn?" All the while, Piper didn't realize she was talking to Meathead, disguised as Nate.

""

"Road? Where are we going?"

""

"And what exactly is it that you learned from the Institute spy?"

""

"Wait. Seventy years? But he looked like he was in his fifties."

""

"How did you and Nick come across the location of the Institute? How did you manage to piece it together with him when we were in Vault 114 together?"

""

"Why was Old Nick's captain telling him to go to the CIT?" Piper asked.

""

"Why would people even need something like that?" Piper asked.

"<....The world was safe enough to care about people's feelings, Piper. Other people's feelings and their emotions. God, I wish you could've seen the tech we had back then, the MRIs, the X-rays, the ultrasounds...that's barely scratching the surface. What the Institute was doing...did. The pre-war Institute was recording people's memories, and scanning brainwaves, storing the information for archival data, and for study and application later on. We all know the story of Nick Valentine of 2287, he remembers waking up in a trash pile in the streets of Boston, over one hundred years after the bombs fell, thinking he's a human, when his memories are now piloting a synthetic body.>"

"Uh, huh. So how did this tape lead you to know about the location of the Institute?"

""

"Christ, the Institute. I've been investigating them for over a year now, and you go and rattle the closet holding the Commonwealth's boogeyman. So how and where are they? How do they get in?"

"" She straightened up and cracked a wide smile.

"Ohh..Goody. A field trip, can't wait."

""

"Go right ahead."

"" Meathead circled his left hand counterclockwise, and Piper jumped in.

"Fort Hagen, the military bases to the west. No one is really out there except for raider gangs and of course, Kellogg, but that's no longer the case. Even they eventually realize they've got to use all those caps they've scavenged off corpses and buy something with it when no caravans pass bye anymore. That's about how far the Commonwealth goes in your little box."

Meathead smiled, trying to infect Piper with an unshakeable, knowing, optimism.

"" He said, grinning madly. "" Smiling wider, happy, his teeth were showing. "" Meathead asked.

"Yes. I know you're a Vault Dweller, but I need to know what your take is on the issues or major differences and changes that you see outside of the Vault. Diamond City is in desperate need of new insight from the outside."

""

"People freak out over the tiniest things nowadays, just because someone gets a new haircut or tries a different dish, it's like any thing new or out of turn from routine is cause enough for alarm." Piper said.

"" Meathead said.

" Can you describe your time on the inside?"

"" Meathead replied. ""

"I'm willing to hit the road, and be by your side if that's what it takes to get the story.>" She said, slowly shaking her head, casting away any doubts in her own mind to commit.

""

"What do you have to say, Blue?"

""

"What do you mean?"

""

She shook her head, "No, unless you're talking about when Dr. Carrington took the little rubber hammer and tapped it against the soft spot of my knee."

""

"I'm not following you."

""

"I think I heard that somewhere."

""

"Through the blood?" Piper ventured a guess.

""

"Have you ever been sat down for too long then stood up and felt your legs go numb? She was nodding the entire time.

""

"That sounds too bizarre to be a real thing. Where did you learn of this?"

""

"You've been to Seattle? When did that happen? Where all did you go getting back? We're you walking the whole way? Did you get a ride on a caravan? What took you to Seattle? How long did it take?"

"" The laugh escaped Meathead's throat as if it were a massive understatement. ""

"Okay, Mr. Blue, what do I do?"

"" Piper obliged, raising it up. ""

She picked off her cap with her right arm and put it under her armpit.

"" Meathead said, standing up.

Placing both hands on the sides of Piper's skull, he held them there.

"What'ch y'a doin' there, Blue?"

"" Meathead said, taking his right hand, he held it above Piper's. "" Meathead said, swiping his left hand twice across the left top side of Piper's skull and pressing down on her arm at the same time. Her arm wavered a bit, and he repeated it again. This time completely solid.

Repeating it a third time, this time swiping against the right top side of her skull, near the soft spot. She held her arm firm.

"" Meathead waved his ring finger against the right side of her forehead, just below the hairline and tested her response.

""

Meathead tested once, running his hand down the full length of her leg. Her eyes went wide and her knee joints audibly popped.

He smiled, and tested her again. Her arm was rock solid.

"Whoa there, Nate. What're you up to?"

"" Meathead tested Piper's reaction and her arm lost all strength, Piper recoiled and wanted to shake the feeling of rigormortis in her arm.

She paled. "What did you do to me?!" Trying to shove Meathead away and stand up backing away from him.

""

She sucked in a deep lung of air and then eyed the laser pistol sitting on her desk, taking one side step towards it.

Meathead raised both palms of his hands to be facing Piper, ""

Her eyes betrayed her, she thought of the computer upstairs. Piper couldn't stop from gulping and tensing up.

"Stop." She said, Meathead smiled and stayed rooted to the spot.

""

"I'm not answering that." She said, leaning over and grabbing the pistol off her desk, she raised it at Meathead. "What are you, Institute? Come here to finally replace me? Buy your way in with a fake story? What is it, you piece of shit? Were you sent after Kellogg to tie up loose ends? Is that it?" Piper's gun arm was shaking, Meathead continued to smile.

"" She had to brace herself as her grip faltered and reposition her feet for a better stance.

""

Meathead watched as her trigger finger squeeze tighter, "" She pulled back on the trigger. From less than five feet away, he accepted that he was going to be shot at and didn't move a muscle. He didn't even blink as the jet of deadly energy intending to kill him struck the ground at his feet.

""

Meathead was holding both arms out, chest bore towards her, "Whatever you're doing to me, stop." Her gun arm was shaking, and she wanted to be angry, but she couldn't stop from looking down at her hand. It felt stiff, like she hadn't eaten or drank anything in days, an all too familiar feeling. She cringed, reminded of the cramps that came with not taking in enough salt in her diet.

Her hand felt so cramped holding the gun, she wanted to get rid of it by heaving it as hard as she could, just so she could massage her hand.

""

Piper grimaced, her hand was in agony and she couldn't fire another shot. She grit her teeth, baring them to Nate. She wanted to rip his throat out.

"You're a monster. What did you do to me?" The gun fell from her grip, and her fingers were locked.

""

She was silent, and stared at Meathead with the same burning intensity of a guard dog wanting nothing more than to rip the intruder from limb to limb.

""

"You're a smooth-talking politician, is what you are! A con-man who fucking did something to my body, and now it wont work!" She sank down onto her knees and tried to pick the gun up fumbling it around in her hands like she's never held one before.

""

Pinching the laser pistol between her palms, she was about to aim again, when Nate was there.

Pressing his thumb directly into her temple, and flat palm against her main aorta on her chest.

"" Meathead said, Piper fell backwards onto the ground.

In the span of two seconds, all Piper felt all these things:

She didn't know what emotion she was feeling. All the nerves, all the goose pimples on her entire body prickled, from the tip of her toes, shooting up her calves, rocking the knees, through her thighs and up into her pelvis and hips, up through her intestines and spine. Her stomach dropped, and the breath she took made it feel like her lungs were like a balloon that could never stop expanding. So deep, she never knew her lungs could feel so open. For a moment, she didn't know whether or not her limbs were still attached, as her hands stopped shaking and they didn't cramp.

It felt like Meathead punched through her rib cage and forced her heart out the backside from how heavily her heart was slamming against the inside of her chest. Her throat felt tight and then clear as all the nerves in her entire body responded at the same time, and all the information flooded into her brain.

Her lower back hurt from sleeping on the concrete floor of the Diamond City Holding Cell. Her lungs were still holding onto bits of black tar that accumulated from years of smoking cigarettes.

As the messages were being communicated to Piper's brain, her head was the last to finally process all the information. Her lips felt tight from where she'd bit them, or the inside of her cheeks from when she was nervous and needed something to chew on. She felt extremely high.

Her tongue was raw and scratchy, and teeth all rooting themselves deeper and tighter into the gums. Her ears were warm and perked up high like a fox's.

Her nose felt stuffed, but she could smell the scent of her hair and the smell of Power Noodles Ramen coming from in off the street. She heard the crows gathered on the electrical wires running over Diamond City, she could feel the generators humming, vibrating through the ground. There were people in the marketplace, walking everywhere, she could see their faces and feel the warm breath exhaled as their chest rose up and down.

Her eyes were watering, but she couldn't feel the tears running down her face. Her forehead was tight, then smooth.

The kicker was a fully body popping of joints as she felt thirty of her joints settle back into place all at the same time. It made her snap her head back, like on the verge of an orgasm.

All this, she felt in the matter of two seconds.

It was a lot for anyone to process.

She laid on the floor and moaned softly "Ahhhhhhhg...you..." Her head fell back and she was unconscious for three seconds and righted her head up. Successfully rebooted.

"What the fuck did you do to me, Nate? I can't walk." She could walk, her legs were moving, it was her brain now realizing there was a nerve connection in her brain recently reawakened and formed. Now her brain could send signals even faster. Rerouting the relays for how information traveled through Piper's brain, it was acting more efficient.

""

Piper couldn't stop herself from readjusting her legs and rolled to her left side. Slowly propped one arm under her, then the next. She laid on her side like Cleopatra, staring up at Meathead, catching her breath.

""

Her entire spine twitched, trying to drag her back down to lay on the floor. She tried to resist for a moment, but she dropped back down and stared up at the ceiling, breathing heavily.

"I feel like I took a big hit of Jet and weed, and then a handful of pain pills, then topped it off with three stimpaks."

""

"I have questions for you." 'Why do I feel so good?' She didn't want to feel this good, she told herself. She didn't deserve it.

""

'Can you read my mind?'

""

Her toes straightened up towards the ceiling, and Meathead began to sing as she lifted her arm up.

"There is there something on your mind,
By the way you look at me?
Is there something on your mind, honey,
By the way you look at me?
Can what you're thinking bring happiness?
Or will it bring mis-er-y?

Bum bah-dah de da daht de da. Bumb dah-dat de dah dat de dah."

As he sung, Meathead checked the sides of her head, behind both ears, and asking Piper to place her hand on her pubic bone at various times, or even stick her finger in her ear canal.

"That's Big Jay McNeely." She said.

"" He replied, cradling the backside of her skull and touching the top of the spinal column where it connects to the brain stem. He closed his eyes, trying to remember the protocol. "" He repeated to himself, now sure of what to do.

"No! No, don't try to tell me!
I think I understand.
If you ever think about me,
If I ever cross your mind.
No! Noh! You don't have to tell me, pretty lady.
I think I understand.
You want me to forget you!
But I'll do the best I can."

He ran his ring finger down the center of Piper's nose, from the bridge to the tip and pressed down on her arm, and she waved a bit. Repeating it again, her arm was stiff and solid.

"" She was compelled to roll over, hands out in front of her as she rose to her hands and knees, crawling up the side of the couch and desk for support.

Piper turned her head and met Meathead's eyes, "Where' your dog?" She finally realized Meathead was absent from Nate's side.

Meathead smiled, ""

\111/

Piper stood up and exhaled heavily. "Feeeeeewh." A couple deep breaths, she saw her pack of cigarettes and lighter on the table, along with the laser pistol still on the ground. She stuffed the packet and lighter in her pocket and snagged the laser pistol off the ground and walked slowly out the door. The muscles in her legs felt like she just finished running a marathon. Stepping outside, she walked out from under the eve and into the sunlight and then it hit her.

She stood, almost in a daze for a moment when she stood up straighter. Chest out, shoulders back, chin down, back straight, a few more joints in her neck and spine popped and she stared at the seats in the outfield, then to the Power Noodle stand. Blinking twice, things were coming in and out of her depth perception and everything came into focus.

"Holy Shit!" She said too loudly, drawing the attention of her sister, Nat, and a handful of other people in hearing distance from Piper for a short two-second glance, along with Pastor Clements from the All Faiths church right across the street from her. He was sitting on the bench , reading, aware that Piper was outside of her business, staring up off into the distance when she said that.

His lips were pulled off to the side and the expression on his face said, 'Really? I'm right here.'

It took her a moment to realize exactly how loud she said the words, and stepped backwards. Looking at the Pastor, she apologized sheepishly. "Sorry, Pastor. I just..ah...realized something."

"The grace of God?" He inquired, cracking a smile.

"No...well. Yes, but I was looking at the seats in the outfield, and for a moment...I swore I could make out the numbers etched into the metal tags in the seat."

The Pastor nodded, hand stuck in between the pages of the Quran, next to him were a short of books. He looked to the stands in outer west field. He sat with the Bible on top of the stack, filled with his handwritten notes and annotations of his interpretation of the text. He nodded again and returned to his reading.

"Good eyes." He said.

"Yeah." She replied, wandering towards the Marketplace. She looked around at everything and it felt like her eyes were really open wide. Remembering to press her pinkie, middle, and thumb together as she walked around, she searched for Nate or his dog. Scanning everywhere, a she met a few people directly in the eye and they cocked their head's back, instantly realizing there was a change in her that they couldn't place. Not a negative one, but the way her smile creeped up her face, she couldn't stop from smiling. It was a little off-putting to a few people, but they couldn't help but wonder what story or rumor she just heard to be put in such a good mood.

The thought of 'she's a synth' seemed like a possibility, but the way her lips came together, trying not to show her teeth and the way her dimples showed, and cheeks rose up like she'd just heard something amazing quelled those thoughts, and made others think that there must be something else aside from such a simple answer as, 'she's a synth'.

Even the Diamond City security was quick to notice the change in how Piper walked, almost like person who was high. And when they saw her face, she looked at them differently than how she did before.

It was only an hour ago, the last time they really took notice of Piper, she used to wear critical, narrowed eyes, looking at their whole body for some sort of tell. Any sort of sign making it look like they had something to say. Now she was looking at them as if she was seeing them for the first time in a long time. Like old friends that were away from each other for years, and were now meeting again.

She was walking differently too, head up high and confident. They tried to pin down what could make a person act marginally different, was it a good shot of rum? A little snort of nose candy? A hit off the one-hitter? A good story for her newspaper? A fresh-lay? Was she replaced by a synth when they weren't looking? Or was it a combination of little bits of everything? It made the Diamond City security guards swallow nervously and smile unsure back at her when she looked them in the eye.

\111/

"I never got my interview questions, and now that I did your healing session, I think it's high time I get some answers." Piper followed Nate to Diamond City Surplus where he was buying tools and scrap metal.

"Can you describe your time inside the Vault?" She asked, she heard herself and realized she slurred the words. Licking her gums and teeth, she smiled and stretched her jaw out.

"My time in the vault wasn't a typical time in the vault like you might expect...How many Vaults actually have people around Boston? How many are functional?"

"The only one that's still True Blue is Vault 81. They're a stones throw away from the Fens. There's Vault 114, but that's been said and done with over in North Boston. I did some digging a while ago, there's one up in Malden, Vault 75, but that was taken over by the Gunners Gang. I think there's a Vault 88 somewhere near Quincy , but I don't know of anyone who's ever even seen the front door. But, back to my question, can you describe your time inside the vault?

"In one word, short. For me, time means nothing to me. For others, it's everything. My time in the Vault was short because on the morning of October 23rd. 2077, I was standing in my newborn son Shaun's bedroom in Sanctuary Hills with my wife Nora, when our Mr. Handy, Codsworth, called out to us from the living room. We both ran from my son's room to him, and watched the broadcast from our Radiation King television come in. I can't remember the exact words he said, but the news reporter listed off the cities that were confirmed nuclear strikes. Philladelphia, Washington D.C., and then the look on his face when he looked at the teleprompter, and then off screen for a moment and said the words, "All of them?" They'd just lost communication with all other stations across the country."

"Wait, they boxed you up in a fridge? The whole time? Are you saying you were alive before the Great War? You breezed past this the first time you mentioned it to me, and I want to be clear on this."

Nate nodded, continuing on with his story, "We were next. The sound of the siren alarms flipped on and shook us to our core. WE were next. They were coming for us. The bombs of the Great War were coming for us. We didn't know how long we had to get to a Vault, but we knew it would only be minutes." Nate finished his transaction and bought the tools, gears, bolts, screws, and scrap metal.

"Nora grabbed Shaun, I clipped a leash onto Meathead and then we bolted for Vault 111." Nate swallowed and cleared his throat and eyes, looking again at Piper.

"I remember standing on top of the elevator platform that would carry us down to the inside of the cavern Vault-Tec. dug out for the vault. It started to move, when we all saw the atomic bomb detonate south of Boston. That was West Roxbury, and I know why they tried to hit there too, there's...there was an army base...A nuclear deterrent system."

"A what?" She asked.

"It was something you could see from the highway. A big black pyramid. It was filled with surface-to-air missiles, so that is my best guess as to why the Chinese struck south of Boston, and not the heart."

"I'll tell you right now, Piper. There's a legend about a Hindu god, Kali. Destroyer of Worlds. She wears a belt of human skulls, drinks from a human skull cup, and wields a weapon called the sword of truth, for when she comes, she will cut off your head and shows it to you. She shows you everything you've become and who you are. It's all a metaphor, but you'll look into her eyes and see your reflection in them. She can't be stopped, and she was coming for us right then and there in the form of a massive nuclear blast."

"I was holding onto my wife, one arm around her while she held onto Shaun, another around my dog as I closed my eyes and held her there. I knew we were going to be alright."

"How?"

"Because...we weren't lucky, we were blessed. We descended into the Vault, and under the pretense of decontamination..." Nate looked down at Meathead, remembering the intense fear he felt coming from his dog. The memory didn't resurface until now, but he realized that Meathead must've known something was inherently wrong. That they were being lied to.

"They lied to us. They were cryogenic pods. We were frozen. We were frozen and they lied to us. I don't know how much time passed, but at the time, we were woken up by people who weren't Vault -Tec."

"They came in, opened my wife's pod right across from me, took Shaun. And then the bald bastard shot her with a .44 bull barreled magnum right in the chest." Nate pressed his fingertips together, his anger was overflowing at the memory.

"Cold blooded murder." Piper said, she wanted to say it with an inflection at the end that would've turned it into a question, but let it go after she realized the play on words was too on-the-nose.

"He came right up to me, and I was looking the motherfucking bastard right in the eyes, trying to bash my way out through hard steel and said the words 'At least we've got a backup.'"

"Backup? For what?" Nate shook his head.

"If you can tell me why a strike team wearing full body biohazard suits would invade Vault 111, and kidnap only an infant, then you will have your answer."

"We were frozen again." Nate recalled the haze he felt after falling out of the pod onto the cold cement floor, "...and time passed." Nate realized. "When we were finally set free, all the pods were covered in dust, the cobwebs hung from the ceiling to the floor, and there was no one else left alive in the entire vault. The pods malfunctioned. One by one. The only ones that still had power were mine and Nora's. Everyone else was dead. Her body was still frozen. She was frozen right after she was shot." Nate bit his lip a few times during his retelling, and tried moving past the difficult moment.

"Meathead, was the only other living thing besides myself. We wandered through the vault and left. So yes, Piper. If you want to know my perspective, you must realize two hundred and ten years passed in what felt like the span of an hour to me."

She'd stopped writing and was engrossed in the story. She put the point of her pen to the paper and was scratching short hand as fast as she could, it looked like she was writing scribbles and swirled loops that didn't make any discernible words, but she was hooked.

"You've seen the Commonwealth. Diamond City. How does it compare to your old life?"

"Diamond City is like a shanty town. It might be extremely presumptuous for me to say that, but you would need to know about my past to know why I say this."

"What about your past makes you say Diamond City is a shanty town? I live in it after all." Piper said, trying to defend her home.

"I was a soldier with the United States Army. Second Battalion, 108th regiment. I fought in Alaska before the Great War, and was stationed on Unimak Island, the first island in the Aleutian chain of islands. Three thousand feet of water that separated 5,000 American troops from 500,000 Chinese troops at the closest point. The farthest point from False Pass to the mainland was a little over a mile. They were on the mainland, trying to set up a supply chain so they could ferry troops out of Alaska because they were on the retreat. Chinese Communist forces were being routed out of Anchorage, and the fighting was still going on, but Piper, I've fought in battles and wars with more men and women than you've ever imagined. I've personally fired enough rounds to where the ground was two inches deep with spent bullet casings. We won False Pass because it was winter, and there wasn't enough food. The ponies were the first to go. That Institute pony that Hancock has? There were more in Alaska, caught up in the fight on the wrong side, and when the food ran out, we couldn't go over and save just them, we could only not shoot at them if they tried to swim across. I don't talk about my past, because what I saw I don't know for certain myself, but there were probably hundreds on the mainland side. All in all, maybe three got away. The rest, the Chinese just butchered and ate." Nate swallowed, trying to get the terrible taste of war from his mouth.

"Just three ponies? So you've had experience with them before?"

"If you mean by seeing them breifly for all of two seconds back then before they were taken away, and taking an unconscious one from the toy factory to the USS Constitution, then yes. I've had experience."

"We let every single one of them starve to death, and then executed the cannibals that were still left or didn't freeze to the spot...They were wendigos, Piper. Native American folklore says they come around in times of famine, cold, starvation, and that they're greedy hungry spirits that are never full..." Meathead barked loudly three times, and Nate looked down at Meathead, his tail was wrapped around his feet.

"There's more to say about False Pass than one back-and-forth interview will take. About the Institute pony we handed over to Hancock, that is how I know they can talk. And the thing we heard when we were in Fort Hagen? That is the sound of a Windigo."

Piper's legs shook, "That's...insane. What brought it there?"

Nate sighed. "That was probably my own fault...I got a little pissed at Kellogg."

"" Piper jerked her head to Meathead, swearing she heard the dog say something.

"Shush. Yeah. The Windigos are drawn to negative emotion, but killing Kellogg put me in a good mood afterwards, so it went away."

"Do you know where they come from? These Windigos?"

"Well, humanity at war is a perfect breeding ground for them, but I can only guess they followed the ponies from their planet. There's more ponies too, that pony we rescued from Atomatoys? She's a pegasus, and is resting in the U.S.S. Constitution. Whenever we get back, she should still be there," Nate and Meathead knew Thunderstruck wouldn't be going anywhere for a while.

"Or she might of flown off. But, the pegasus are damn pretty to see flying around, I thought to myself that they could do a lot for the Commonwealth."

"Like what?" Piper asked.

"Let's save that for when I introduce you to her, but back to your question, sorry, my view of the Commonwealth is that it too is like an island in the middle of the sea. Everyone living on the island know's the mainland is closeby, but no one wants to build the bridges to get across the water. No one wants to build the boats to sail across, for fear of the unknown. The Commonwealth is at war. The world is not meant to be like this. It's too chaotic. If a nuclear bomb were to drop right now, would anyone notice? Would anyone care? Same for the exact opposite. If everything...and I mean everything that's keeping civilization from climbing up out of the essential shit hole that it's blown itself into, would people notice? If all the radiation were to vanish overnight, and the bullets ran out, and the raiders all started shaking hands and singing kum-bay-ha, and the deathclaws and the other creatures...and the mutants and the synths, if they all decided to stop fighting today...It wouldn't even be a pale comparison as to the life of relative ease I lived out during my time before and after the War for Alaska. Life treated me good. Life was fantastic. Life was easy, it was boring, but that only gave us the inspiration to go do something that was fun. Things we took for granted back then, are luxuries today. I apologize, but it's true. Fishing, hiking, going to the market, drinking fresh clean tap water, coming here to Fenway Park and watching baseball games, going to Nuka-world when we were teenagers. Everything we did because our ancestors fought in wars that we only got glimpses of. We stopped doing things for ourselves and wanted to do these for others because it created great memories. The only thing I'm actually sad about is the fact that I wont be able to share that feeling with others. At least, not until society pulls itself out of this radioactive pit it dug for itself."

"That's really touching. Was the past really that care-free?"

"We created our own stresses and worries. Like taxes, but everything else was worth it. I could go from my house, to the Boston airport, and within 24 hours maximum, I could have circumnavigated the entire world Piper. The entire world. I could have breakfast in my home, lunch over the Atlantic ocean, dinner in France, libations in Prauge, and a midnight snack in Thailand, and then be back home to watch the sun set for the second time that same day. I never did it, but the opportunity was always there. Now, it feels like an opportunity missed, like I could've done something great with the time I had, with other people, but now it's gone."

"What do you think of the Commonwealth in general?"

"When you say view of the commonwealth, I think of a tiny, corner of the world where I grew up in, because there is so much out there Piper, you'd be offended if I went on to tell you that I could walk from Fenway Park, that's what it was called before the war, and I'm calling it that now. I could walk from Fenway park and not immediately worry about getting shot at by super mutants the moment I'm outside the gate. I NEVER had to worry about raiders coming for me in the night, because in the time and space I lived in, there were no raiders." Nate bellowed and laughed at the absurdity. "We didn't even have a word for them because they never existed, at least not here! A time where Deathclaws didn't exist, and the Institute was an actual institution where thousands of leading scientists and students of the day flocked to, and Super Mutants were only things of fantasy and science-fiction. The palest comparison to raiders in our time only existed in lawless lands so far away we never had to worry or care about them in two hundred years. Neighbors held backyard barbeques, block parties, and the entirety of my life of it is a fucking joke compared to the harsh reality you've had to live through. I've been outside the Vault for...seven days. You've been living in this world for over twenty fucking years!"

"You want perspective, Piper, there ye go! I tell myself I'm prepared and that I've seen worse, but war is war...and war never changes. No matter how you look at it, someone always get's the upper hand in the end. I'm just lying to myself to keep the encroaching thoughts of darkness and my own mortality at bay!" Nate rolled his head back, trying to force a laugh up from his stomach.

"Only...it seems like it's taken humanity a lot longer this time around to build itself back up. But it will. Humanity will eventually do something worthwhile. Someone will build something, or create something, or the hand of God will come down and give people the power to clean this place up, and then people will realize there's something of value to be had in the ground we're standing on. It'll take a while...I'd do it myself but we're at war, Piper. Until people realize that, and take a step back, and look at the whole big picture from a different perspective, not just my own, there will never be a moment of peace in Fenway Park."

"And what makes you say that? What is Diamond City to you?"

"A refugee camp. Barely contained and highly targeted by the surrounding factions. Only they're too close to the battle. Their too close to the front lines, they're so far deep in the valley, that they can't see the top of the mountain...I could...After taking one lap around the inside of the baseball park, and outside, I can tell you from a military background, the Wall that people rely so heavily on, is only a challenge for people who look at it from the outside. Trust me, however tall you build a wall, there's always someone who will come along with a ladder that is one foot taller."

"That's a lot to consider, Blue. Why do you think it's only a matter of time before someone like that comes along?"

"I have a new understanding of time and how it works. I can condense years into minutes. Hours into seconds, and then flip it on its head and extrapolate the whole thing out. I can make a minute last a lifetimes." Nate's chest was shaking. "I have all the time in the world, Piper. Believe it. When I say it's only a matter of time, imagine me frozen inside of a pod, waiting to be thawed out. Only it wasn't Vault-Tec thawing me out, it was the Institute."

"You were pretty focused on hanging Kellogg for the kidnapping of your son, and shooting of your wife, why is that?"

"Kidnapping could happen to anyone, it's not just limited to the Institute. Just ask Old Man Stockton next time you're in Bunker Hill, his daughter was kidnapped right outside the town of Covenant and then found being held hostage by the locals who were torturing her to the point of near death, all because they thought she was a synth. There's a lack of moral laws in the Commonwealth, Piper, it's lacking so much, that sometimes, all I feel is pity because people don't know that things could be ten thousand times better than the way things are right now. "

"As for you, Piper, You need to be especially careful when you mention the Institute, Piper. Just the other day, the first time I'm walking through Diamond City Market, I overhear two people saying how one of the residents in Diamond City must absolutely be a synth because they look too perfect. That the person absolutely must be a synth. She asked me, do I think the person is a synth, and I asked her back, where's your evidence? She said she didn't have any proof, but 'deep down in her heart' she knew. So, I told her her heart was full of shit, called her a synth, and everyone around her a synth, and let her chew on the fact that unless you don't have definitive proof, everyone is going on a witch hunt. With all the paranoia going around, people will need to be content with their suspicions and opinions until they actually have any sort of proof."

Piper silently mouthed the word 'okay' and looked away from Nate for a moment, digesting all of Nate's defense.

"And people wonder why I can't look the other way." Piper said, looking down at her notepad. "Not even an infant is safe. For the last part of the interview, I'd like to do something different. I want you to make a statement to Diamond City directly. The threat of kidnapping is all but ignored in the Commonwealth. Everyone wants to pretend it doesn't happen. What would you say to someone who's lost a loved one, but might be too scared or too numb to the world, to look for them?"

Nate sighed, looking down at the ground. Shaking his head he said, "No matter how much you want to give up, don't. You'll always have hope, don't let anyone tell you otherwise and try to take that away. Endure. That's what the human race has done for the last twelve thousand years and continues to do so every single second of everyone's lives. Have hope that you'll see them again, or at the very least, that you'll know the truth."

"That's a strong note to end on, Blue. Thanks."

"You know, there was an article from a magazine talking about fossils, and in it, they discovered the oldest neanderthal in the world. All they found of this neanderthal was the toe bone of an infant inside the stomach of a predatory bird from the year 100,000 B.C. That was 102,277 years ago. Humanity has been trying to figure out the world for a long time."

"Wow, that's...amazing humans have been around that long, it makes you wonder what they were like?"

"They might've traveled more, but interacted with less people, with no unified language, or possibly even an understanding of linguistics. But, that does make me think about who is in charge of the Institute."

"Oh yeah? Why?"

"Who ever is in control of the Institute must be extremely controlling. What is the profile of the leaders or leader of the Institute? Who would think and act in such a way that would allow them to operate in such a way? They can send Synths up onto the surface, and never need to leave their bunker, unless it's to take people or property. From everything I've ever learned about the Institute in six days is that -" Nate cut himself off. Blinking twice, his neck twitched and Piper was waiting on baited breath.

"I nearly forgot I wasn't at war. Piper. Loose lips sink ships, and all that. I'll tell you when I know the Institute can't listen. Isn't that why you ran the article about the Mayor? Something to whip up the populace? I know you weren't able to learn about Journalism like the people of the past, but let me teach you something about the word Prose."

"I know the definition of prose, what's it mean to you?"

"You walked out of here like you just made a million caps earlier today. You were the happiest you'd ever been in one of the most miserably depressing holes in all of Boston, and let me tell you one more thing. A stranger came to town today, he's never been in Diamond City before, ever. He went in to see Piper, a woman who'se been hounding other residents for questions about their lives for weeks, months, and her attitude's been progressively changed to reflect a dejected person who can't get the time of day from most people."

"Then in the matter of ten minutes, the stranger leaves, and Piper walks out, happy as a clam!"

"You son of a BITCH!" Piper shouted, instantly catching on.

"BINGO!" Nate said, standing up and applauding. Pointing directly at her, "Like I said, I even prefaced you! I told you what I had to say would probably make you angry. Sucks doesn't it? How does it feel standing in Mayor McDonnough's shoes now."

She squinted her eyes, "What?"

"Piper, I read your article about the Broken Mask Massacre, twice. Front to back, back to front. I want to know one thing. Do you realize, what you did!?" Nate shouted.

"I had my reasons!"

"No! You didn't realize anything! I'll tell you why! There's not a single damning shred of proof against McDonnough fucking anywhere in the entire article, but if you put two radically different concepts side by side, people make the connection regardless."

"So what! So now people are going to think I'm a synth now too?"

"I never said that. I only implied it by putting two different ideas side by side, and let you make the connection yourself. See how prose works now?"

She was baring her teeth at the pre-war soldier. "There were better ways to get your message across. Nate. Now I have to deal with the entire city thinking I'm a synth."

"You do realize the hypocrisy, Piper? I'm not trying to defend the mayor, because he's without a doubt, a synth."

"If you believe me and you say that he's a synth, then why did you do what you did!? What's your reason for thinking he's a synth?"

"Now you have to prove with hard evidence, a way to discern Human from Synth! If you can't within twenty four hours then the rumors will get out of control. If you can't, you need to go up to the Mayor and apologize. "

"What! WHY? WHY THE HELL would I ever apologize? I didn't do anything wrong!"

Nate smiled, "It's better to keep your friends close, and enemies closer. Go apologize to him and the rumors will stop before they even begin."

Piper bit the inside of her cheek and considered what to say, how was it that one person could make her feel educated and livid at the same time?

"Now what are you going to say to the mayor?"

"Mayor Mc-"

\111/

"-Donough isn't accepting any appointments from you, Piper. Get lost." Geneva said to Piper, Nate leaned against the girder post, one arm above his head resting against the pole. Smiling wide, he made sure the secretary saw his shining white teeth.

Piper's fingers were trying to clench themselves into a fist, she felt like she was biting into a hard rubber sole of a shoe and eating her own words.

"Then tell him, that I apologize for depicting him as a synth!" She said forcefully, trying to keep her breath under control.

The twisting emotions on Piper's face went from overbearing, to angry, to remorseful, to antipathetic with every next word.

To Geneva, it was almost humorous to watch Piper apologize. She looked past her to Nate and saw his wide open mouth and how he was stifling laughter. It spread to the assistant and she bore a sly grin on her face.

"And...?" Geneva asked.

"AND? McDonnough locks me out of Diamond City constantly! He kicked out all the ghouls! He's... He's!" Piper raised her hands and clenched her fists, then brought them down to her side, realizing her apology was about to turn into a bitch-out of Mayor McDonnough.

Remember why you're here, Piper. She told herself.

"He's a what?" Geneva inquired, leaning in with both hands on her desk.

"He's not a synth." Piper said through grit teeth, her mouth pulled in so that the red of her lips weren't showing. Her entire body was shaking, absolutely livid for putting herself through that experience.

Spinning on her heel she walked out and saw Nate's stoic calm face, completely serene, and not laughing at Piper behind her back.

His face was quite red though, but Piper didn't notice. Her own face was bright red too, from containing the more choice words and saying something she knew she would later regret.

Piper lead the way to the lift, Nate saluted Geneva with two fingers and followed behind her. The assistant was smiling and shaking her head.

Piper smashed the red lift button, then gripped the rails and shook it.

"Giiiiiirrrr!" She growled, looking Nate in the eye for any sign of fowl play.

"So how do you feel?" Nate asked, the edges of his smile slipping.

"That is a good question! I don't know! I wish I knew or I wish I knew someone or something that could tell me what I was feeling, because I sure don't! Do you know anything like that? Anything in the past that could do something like that?"

Nate inhaled and raised a finger to make a point, "Well..." Looking to Meathead.

"I feel insane!" Piper ranted, stepping onto the lift, Nate walked on behind her.

"Good. You're learning to identify your feelings."

"You're not helping!" Piper said, thumbing the down button on the lift repeatedly and causing the lift to jerk into motion. They descended back down to Diamond City Market and kept walking and talking.

"You never said you wanted my help, you said you wanted my perspective."

"Stop nitpicking!"

"Piper, I was born in a time where contract wording was so important, it costed corporations billions of dollars daily." He waved his hand flat. "There was more money being thrown around...if all the buildings in Fenway Park were gone, and it was a big empty bowl, the amount of money being moved in a single day would overflow out the top stands and spill out over the walls onto the streets. Can you imagine that?"

Piper shook her head. "So you've seen the Commonwealth, Diamond City, the up and down...how does it compare to your old life?"

"After I left the vault, it took me...fifteen minutes for me to realize that all of my old life was completely gone. Utterly destroyed. There was nothing. I'd lost everything. It takes the end of the world for me to realize what's worthless, and what's valuable. It is a lesson I will never forget, and I will not die without passing that lesson on."

"Is there any reason you were trying to pass it off onto me, Blue?"

"You asked to come along, my price is learning a few lessons." Nate replied.

"I...suppose...I did. Do you have any destination in mind? Where exactly is Vault 111?" She said exasperated, rolling her eyes and placing a hand to her face.

"What about your sister?" Nate ignored the question.

"She's been on her own before, and I haven't been outside of uptown and downtown Boston in weeks. It's been running at or from raiders, and trying to get them to talk to me."

"Really? Me too. How's that working out?"

"Not well. I got shot."

"Did you learn anything?"

"Getting shot hurts and sucks?"

"Exactly, but still, Nat's okay on her own?" Nate reaffirmed.

"Yes. She'll be alright. Safe in Diamond City."

"Back to where we're going, you said Vault 81 is up and running?"

Piper brightened up, standing taller, "Ye-Yes! Vault 81, I've been there twice and if there's ever a place you want to call a vacation, and lay your head down, that is the place. It's got good people and I've never been to a more safer place excluding Diamond City. Diamond City is alright, it's got everything you need, but Vault 81...it's...weird. Seeing all these people who don't fear the Institute the same way everyone above ground does."

"Then that's where we're going first?"

"First?"

"I need to go home." Nate said. His head fell and the last seven days weighed down on him in those words. He felt like he aged two hundred ten years and a day after saying that.

"Oy...geeze...I've seen milk curdle with more grace. You feeling okay, Blue?"

"I've seen the future...and as much as I want to say everything's terrible, life's been pretty good to me so far."

"How can you say that?"

Nate looked down, and then gave Piper a smile that screamed 'Why?'

She recoiled, horrified by Nate's positive smile and eyes shining bright. She thought she saw blood pouring out of his mouth through his teeth, him dressed in Army fatigues, eyes looking at the five hundred thousand Chinese soldiers all shouting 'We're coming for you!' and Nate saying 'Bring it on'. Punch Drunk. Like a boxer who was barely holding on, ready to go ten more rounds in the ring. In the depth of Nate's eyes was the skyline of Boston being illuminated by the atomic blast and unrelenting hope that he would survive was shining into Piper's eyes.

But it went deeper, his expression was blissful, even through all the pain and horror being projected, it was a person who accepted death and wanted others to prepare for the eventual end because he knew sooner or later, the end of Nate's life would catch up.

He wanted to help the people of the Commonwealth, he understood that people wanted change, but didn't want to do anything about it, so he wasn't asking for their permission.

Piper needed to break away, she turned away and felt words rattling around her noggin.

"What was that?"

"But it's still not as bad as this...is it?" Nate said with a smile, one that didn't terrify Piper. It was genuine. "Everything I've had to deal with, is nothing compared to a person being drawn and quartered by super mutants, or making too much noise and attracting a horde of feral ghouls, or taking an unsuspecting bullet to the chest from raiders...My life is fantastic compared to the suffering of everyone around me today." Nate's chest was shaking, whether he knew it or not. Piper swore she could hear his heart beating in her ears.

It sounded like a Dynamo engine running at full speed.

"How could you say that?" Piper asked. Her cheeks felt pinched and she narrowed her eyes at Nate. "Do you really mean that?"

Nate swallowed, "All I need to do is look around to know I'm blessed." Gesturing to the Diamond City Market inside the baseball diamond of Fenway Park. "This is all everyone has ever known, and I've experienced more than most people will ever in their entire life. It would probably take another thirty years for this little part of the world to be set on the right path towards stability, and another hundred after that before we're close to the era of luxury I lived in...But I don't want to create an era of luxury. It comes at too great of a cost."

Piper slowly clapped her hands three times, "You sir, are truly something else. Do you really think it would take that long?"

Nate shook his head, "I could do it in five. A few years to get mills up and running, quarries dredged and dug out for stone and ore, get modes of transportation up and running, clear the trade routes, defend them, demolish old rotting and collapsed houses, scrap and recycle, farms expanded, and put a universal calendar system into place. That's after Boston is rallied together under one banner and not petty raiding tribes. I could do it with an army of devoted people who shared my vision, but that would require every man, woman, and child working. I don't see rich or poor people, I just see people. Every person living in the upper stands thinks they're wealthy, or rich..." Nate shook his head.

"They don't know the meaning of the word. They're poor sons of bitches...they're the ones who face this depression without starving in their beds at night. They're the ones who have never gone months away from home, sending back bits of money to the homestead to a spouse and praying that when they got home, the kids were alive and house still standing and not repossessed by the bank. First thing I'd do is get a postal system back into place...because rain or shine or wind or snow or radioactive wasteland or monster or synth, the mail must get through. As much as I want to go right into Capitalism...I think America needs to go through the age of Imperialism or...whatever the hell it's called... Feudalism, then a New Industrial Age, before it's ready for the new-new age of Capitalism."

Piper raised her hands and needed to turn away for a moment. "That's it. I'm done. You are like a dog that just keeps on wagging his tail and smiling...I don't think I can take it. That's just...too happy."

"What, and miss out on all the fun?" Piper's toes curled inwards. "Come with me, and there will be plenty of work and fun, and I'll even let you play with my dog, Meathead. Let me ask you a question, Piper. If you think the boogeyman of the Commonwealth is the Institute, what is the boogeyman most afraid of? Do you know how to beat a boogeyman? Piper? I do. I know how to kill the boogeyman hiding in your closet."

Sighing through her nose she turned around, "How?"

"You turn on your flashlight, and charge right into the den. You might scream, you might be terrified, but once you look right into where the boogeyman hides, you'll see that they don't exist. That is what a boogeyman fears most, Piper, being found out. So long as you fear the boogeyman, he's always going to be around. The moment you face your fear and realize what you've been scared of the entire time is just shadows, you start to realize what you really need to be afraid of Piper."

"Alright. So what are you afraid of then?"

"I was terrified of losing everything I've worked to achieve in this life, Piper, but that already happened when the bombs fell. So I've got nothing left to be afraid of. You'll look around, and realize I can't believe I wasted so much time afraid of that one thing in your life...and then it will feel like your soul is trying to pop out of the soft spot on the top of your skull and you won't believe how much better you feel." Nate grit his teeth, yawing his jaw back and forth and biting the inside of his cheek. "The old you will die, and the new you will be present in your body like never before." Nate said. His mind settled on the moment he was laying facedown on the carpet of his house after coming back to Sanctuary Hills, arms wrapped around Meathead, and feeling like he was hovering above his body, looking down and out at the rest of the world.

"Well, that's about everything I can think of. It'll take a while to put this all together, but your story is going to give the people of Diamond City plenty to talk about. Anyway, I want to know where this story goes next. To Vault 81, Blue?"

"Vault 81. Lead the way."

\111/

Ch. 37 Vault 81

\111/
Leaving Diamond City, they made it past Hangman's alley when they turned the corner and at the end of the block were two super mutants, one carrying an active mini-nuke in his hands, and the other was a brute carrying a laser rifle. By their side was a mutant hound.

The mutant fired before Nate could even relay anything to Piper. Meathead charged forward at the hound, wrestling with it in the middle of the road as the first four blasts hit Nate in the chest, leg, and arm.

"OW, ow, Fuck! OW!" Nate yelled firing back with Kellogg's pistol. Two black welts appeared on his chest, bleeding through the burnt cracks in his skin.

Piper shot the super mutant suicider, dashing at them when the mini-nuke exploded a few steps away from the brute. Everyone was suddenly blinded and their ears were ringing. Nate fired twice into the hound's side, killing it while the brute fired six more times, missing four of them while one hit Piper, and the other hit Nate again.

With the dogs and the suicider dead, they all combined their forces to shoot the brute mercilessly until it was dead.

Nate offered stimpaks to Meathead and Piper, she took it gracefully and said, "The Vault is just on the other side of the suburb.

Breathing hard, the burn wounds on Nate slowly healed and scabbed over as the stimpaks took effect. "Good. That's good."

The suburb was quiet, and the birds weren't chirping, only watching them walk down the sidewalk, onto the road. The houses were missing walls, roofs, or windows. Trees and vines were growing out of living rooms, and up the storm windows. They came to the shore of chestnut Hillock Reservoir, and Piper pointed west.

"Right up the hill."

Steam wafted off the reservoir pond, the stagnant stench of trapped water and algae was repugnant. Nate stopped at the waters edge, pulling off the dip-stick from his Pip-boy, crouching down, and placing it into the water. His Pip-Boy ticked away, and he pulled it out, wiping it off on his leg and sticking it back.

"What's that?" Piper asked.

"It identifies just how bad the water is."

"How bad is it?"

"Well...you could drink about a gallon before the water cooks your insides. So...Not good. Meathead, note to self. We need to pick up a water filter."

The group climbed the hill and came upon an abandoned construction site, with parked cars around the edge.

"A Vault Tec Van, yellow and rusty construction equipment, giant piles of dirt, another Vault Tec van, a parking lot filled with rusty cars, scaffolding, skeletons caught dead running towards a rock wall, and a massive gaping hole in the rock wall, and thing on my wrist says it's Vault 81." Nate listed off the things he saw, keeping his head pointed towards the cave, and sharing a cross glance with Meathead. He nodded, and the dog nodded back.

"I could've told you that." Piper said, leading the way.

The cave was lined with metal catwalks, clipped together like giant puzzle pieces with large steel beems bolted into the ceiling to support the weight. Like Vault 111, there was a yellow dust covered console with only a few buttons devoid of dirt standing illuminated by a shop light. Off too the side was a red toolbox, and beyond them, down a ramp was the massive tonnage door to Vault 81. The stamped numbers were in the center, embedded with the rest of the metal.

"They might ask for something. They're scrimping by on supplies last time I was here." Piper said.

Nate went to the console, pulling out the extension cord attached to his Pip-boy and plugging it into the terminal to power it up. A few lines of text scrolled across his Pip-boy and he waited as he was given the OKAY to open the door.

Flipping open a clear plastic box, he tapped the square plastic button marked Ignition. Smiling as the yellow and orange spinning lights activated and the alarm blared in bursts of three, the vault door was about to open. Smiling wider, Meathead also wagged his tail as they could hear the giant drill on the other side moving into position. The drill inserted itself into place, winching in and making plenty of noise as the door shifted a centimeter.

Then all the lights cut out and things went black.

Nate frowned, "Oy! What gives!? Hunk'a junk!?"

A little speaker on the console responded, slightly marred with background static.

"Hold it. Vault 81 security. I don't know how you got a working Pip-Boy, but you better start talking."

Nate licked his lips and leaned down to speak into the microphone. Pressing the recall button, he said, "Vault Tec. Calling. I got the Pip-Boy up in Vault 111."

"Also," Piper interjected, "It's Piper, the reporter? I've got a guest with me."

The guard spoke away from the microphone, but was still audible, "'Vault 111? Where the heck is Vault 111?" "Vault 111, huh? Never heard of that one...what type of business are you looking to accomplish here in Vault 81?"

"A few things, you got a bed and a hot shower in there? I got some salvage to trade. Also, if it's convenient, I'd like to set up an appointment with your Overseer if they're available."

There was a brief silence, and a woman's voice came over the speaker, "This is the Overseer of Vault 81. I'm sure you understand our need for caution, for newcomers, we like to operate on exchange. You help us, we help you."

"What do you need? I'll handle it."

"Fusion cores. Three to be exact." Meathead nodded and warped three fusion cores from his pocket dimension into the Nate's backpack. "You find the fusion cores, we grant you access."

Nate beamed, "Alright, well, let's get this show on the road! Open 'er up! I got 'em right now!"

Her surprise was audible from her reaction over the speaker, "Oh. Really? Well then, I should say, Welcome to Vault 81. I'll be down to meet you in person."

The vault door sprung into action again and the spinning lights glowed again.

As the door lurched from it's holding place, Nate grit his teeth and Meathead bowed his head as the grinding screeching groaning metal on metal echoed and compounded in the small cave. Curling his fists inward, he shook his head and tried to bear it as the grinding stopped, and they both exhaled.

"God, that thing needs some oil around the edges...Huh Meathead?" Grabbing the fusion cores out of his bag, Piper took her hands off her ears.

""

Going down the ramp and up a set of stairs, a catwalk extended from the other side. The lights in the room were both in front of the dwellers on the other side, and behind them, all aimed towards the door, creating shadows on everyone's faces.

One person stood out in the middle, leaning on her left leg with her hand on her hip. A man's jaw was moving, speaking to her, and she was nodding. Walking past the first row of lights, everything was well lit, and the half dozen people in the room were all actively busy except for the two security guards and the man who finished speaking and turned away.

Nate held the fusion cores in his hand, and the Overseer's eyes went immediately to it. Eyeing the stuffed bag and the straps around Nate's shoulders, she raised her chin up a bit and smiled.

"Greetings, I am Overseer Gwen McNamara. You soon see we're undergoing plenty of maintenance projects around the Vault, apologies in advance. We pride ourselves on maintaining a sucessful Vault for the past two hundred years. We like to be completely self sufficient, but there are resources we can't provide ourselves." She looked down to Nate's hand again, "If you're ready, I can take those from you now." She said, a security officer stepped forward and gestured with open hands, Nate passed them off and stepped back and was rewarded with five stacks of twenty bottle caps.

"Everyone here must be pretty capable to keep your Vault self sufficient."

"Yes, everyone here does their part, and the Vault stays active and alive. If there's anything more you need, I'll be in my office, I've got work to do. But, before I go, I'm going to ask you, why Vault Tec. Calling? What's it mean?"

"Oh, it's something salesmen would do before the big war. It was a means of advertising, much like billboards, posters, commercials on the radio, there used to be telephones and local call centers where people would call each person's house and try to get them to buy things over the phone. Vault Tec Calling was more personal way for sellers to get in touch with the consumers, and Vault Tec. would send out hired representatives to go door to door, selling spots in the Vault. I used it as moniker to show that I'm not a raider, or your average trader."

"Interesting. My great grandparents told me stories of how their grandparents were sold locations in the vault. I just didn't think it was so...common for Vault Tec."

"If you have a moment, there's something I need to discuss with you, something you should consider, a forewarning."

Her feet were pointed down the hallway, but she turned her heel back towards Nate. "A warning about what?" The security guards both leaned in.

"Are you aware of the Corvega raiders north of here?"

"Mildly. I know they exist, and that's the extent."

"They're planning on raiding Vault 81. Here. Within the next month or two, depending on how quickly they reclaim their numbers."

"What? Why? How did you come across this information?" The two guards behind her sneered, baring their teeth.

"I was in Concord and killed a good number of their men, one of their leaders unwittingly said they would move on Vault 81, after the man in charge, Jared, thinks they have enough men to hold Corvega in Lexington and lead a charge against Vault 81 at the same time."

"Why 81?"

"Vaults are a fortress, impenetrable. You close your doors, and they would be left waiting for years. But, you would lose all your trade runs with the outside world.

"That's not possible. And if that were the case, we keep the door shut no matter what."

"And lose your distribution system? You might go a month without traders, but then with Raiders sitting right outside that door, waiting and sitting, around you then have to contend with not getting fusion cores, or scrap metal, or tools, or seeds from the outside world. It might last one year, it might last ten, but sooner or later something will run out.

"If it comes to negotiations, they'll want everything you have. "

"What do you suggest?"

"Arm me, and I'll go after their leader, otherwise, protect your traders by setting up a defensive perimeter on the surface."

"We'll take it into consideration. Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do. If you need anything, I'll be in my office."

\111/

Austin Engill was in need of a bigger world. He was eight years old, and his entire world was 100 people. Painted to the left of the elevator doors to the surface, he knew that there was a larger room above him, and in that room was a giant, massive door leading to the outside world. The adults around him, and the other children in Vault 81 tell him that this outside world goes on forever. There's more to the outside world than the elevator to the vault's welcome room, and a main foyer.

The metal stairways were blue and yellow, same with most everything in the Vault. On the second floor was two long hallways, both wider than three people, with long orange pipes bearing warning signs meant that he couldn't play or stay in this hallway for long, especially with everyone working.

Everyone was fixing things, many panels along the walls and floor were pried up, those of the vault who were old enough, and were taught how to repair things, were able to take on projects like reinstalling supports, wiring, and electrical work. Things were going slow however, the tools they needed to do much larger projects were on the surface world.

Every adult told the children of the vault that things took much longer to find up there than down here.

It made Austin wonder, how big could this outside world actually be?

Inside the main foyer was a staircase leading directly down from the elevator. To the right was his Aunt's hydroponic farm. It was a 12X16 meter room, Capable of growing food for up to 96 people, rationing would be in effect, but the people would survive.

Across the downstairs area was also a dining floor and kitchen, where all the grown food could be prepared. Next to them was a barber shop and salon, it at one point was nothing more than a storage space until all the supplies were used up and the shelves inside were re-purposed. Now it was run by a man named Horatio. A man of true mixed races, he showed heritage of his Latino and African families.

Finally there was a shop, a requisition store inside the vault ran by the Combes Family, Alexis and Holt, with their daughter, Erin. With so this many people in the Vault, it was expected of the children to get along with others, and be their friends.

One small benefit to being friends in Vault 81 was being able to know all their secrets.

Up stairs, on the second level was a balcony that wrapped all the way around three-quarters of the foyer, with a hallway in the center of each wall leading to different parts of the vault. Overlooking everything was a large round glass window, reinforced with large steel bolts and frame. This was the Overseer's office on the fourth wall, on the third floor.

Through this large hallway was the living area running perpendicular to this hallway. Twenty five rooms, including a class room large enough to seat sixteen students and taught by Katy Pinn.
On the floor below was a two room hospital, with practicing doctors Penske, Rachel, and Forsythe.

Through a large hydraulic door made of lead in the living area, marked by a bright sign that read "REACTOR" was of course, the reactor room.

This was maintained by Tina, Robert 'Bobby' De Luca, and Old Rusty, the Mr. Handy.

The robot is able to instruct others how to repair and maintain systems of the vault's reactor and generators.

Austin wasn't allowed to go in there, but he knew how to sneak in there without anyone knowing all the time. It was a big two story room, with a staircase leading down to the terminals and control panels for giant generators on the dirt floor in the middle of the room. The rocky interior of this room was because of time constraints. Now the machines that could carve out hard rock were rusting on the surface.

Below the staircase was a small storage closet Austin could sneak into if he wanted. He could watch the people and a few other adults he knew come down and take turns learning to fix and maintain the giant energy producing machines.

There wasn't much in this room except for a small computer sitting on the floor, plugged into the wall and a box, but from this hiding spot, he saw Bobby open a secret door he didn't know existed to a whole new part of the vault. Some thing that would make his world bigger than all the rooms he's ever been in his entire twelve year life.

\111/

Bobby De Luca was in need of a fix.

To those of you who do not know what a fix is, it's a call to arms, a call to clarity.
Focus, attention, a moment of inner clarity at a desperate time, and then a jarring return to reality coupled with a longing to return to the drug high.

Here was a man who knew of a much larger world, and imagined larger ones while under the influence of jet. While working, or being in such an important position, it was frowned upon to be under the influence. Being watched by his sister, who doubled as his bag man, to keep you from taking too much Jet at once meant that he couldn't really get to that peak high as often anymore. He wanted just a tiny bit more, something to really help him focus. That meant he couldn't go to his sister, but he knew someplace to hide the extra stuff in a place no one knew about except him. Pressing his hand to a wall panel, in view of the supply closet, the panel clicked in, and the wall broke apart down the seam, rolling backwards like elevator doors, revealing a white vault tec door, and on the other side, a dark hallway.

Reaching down, he grabbed a container of Jet and quickly closed the doors.

\111/

Austin was long gone by the time Bobby de Luca got his high. He was back in the main foyer, after hearing a new person was coming from the surface. The long elevator cables were bouncing through the shaft as the car clanged every ten feet of descent. It was a long elevator ride down, and Piper popped the question "You try to be on your best behavior, don't you?"

"I try my best."

"Seems like you do better than 'trying'. I appreciate it, to few people don't even try at all, even though your sense of humor is a bit outdated."

"Is that an age joke?" Nate asked, smiling back at her.

"Maybe, old timer."

As the doors parted, Austin Engill saw something he'd only read about. A dog.

The owner was wearing a blue vault suit, and next to him was a woman in a red leather jacket he'd seen before, but only once.

"Wow! A dog!" Nate smiled and Meathead wagged his tail as they stepped out of the elevator.

"Hi, Austin." Piper said, Meathead went up and put his paws on Austin, licking him on the face.

"Meathead, down."

Meathead sat down and lapped up the good will of emotions radiating off Austin, bobbing his head from Piper, to Nate, to Austin.

"Hi Piper. Hey mister, are you really from another Vault?"

"Yes, yes I am. But yours is a lot better than mine."

"Really?! What's it like at yours?"

"Yeah, Nate? What is you Vault like?" Piper asked.

"It's a bit run down, that's why I have all these tools with me, I intend to fix the generator. We had some problems a long time ago, and don't have an Overseer anymore."

"No Overseer? How'd that happen?"

"He tried hoarding food after they decided gardens inside the vault weren't viable."

"Well that's not smart. Hey! I can show you around the vault if you want. My gran grows all the crops for us. She's not really my gran though. She grows carrots, tatos, lettuce, cabbage, The tour will cost you five caps!"

"Do it." Piper encouraged Nate. Nate reached into his pocket and gave the kid five bottle caps.

"Yes! I gotta show you to Erin, she's gonna flip! We'll start over here." Austin led them to the left of the elevator, to the quartermaster station.

"This is the depot, it's run by the Combes family. Erin and I are best friends. Her Mom and Dad fight alot, so I don't like to go in there when they're around. But if you need something, they're the ones who have it."

"Good to know, Austin. Where to next?"

"The Overseer."

"Huh, was a lot less informative last time I was through here." Piper said.

"I bet you've killed a lot of strange things!" Austin said happily, Nate didn't know if it was a question or a compliment, so he played along.

"Yes-"

"Like what? Have you killed a deathclaw? I heard those things are ferocious!"

"I have, Austin, but-"

"That's so COOL! How big are they? How'd you do it?"

"Hey Austin, you know... I saw for myself Nate here stopped a deathclaw by singing. It came charging up to him, and then walked right past him. The deathclaw didn't even swing at him."

Austin's jaw dropped. "Whaaaaat?! No way! You sung a deathclaw down?! How did you do THAT?!"

"Confidence, Austin. I recommend you don't try it yourself."

"Yeah, Nate. How did you do that?"

"I sung with the confidence, knowing I couldn't run faster than something over twice my size, and would definitely kill me when I showed fear. I've fought only one deathclaw otherwise, but it did not die easily."

"That's beyond cool." Austin said, leading them to the Overseer's office, it was a short hallway that made a 90 degree turn and lead up stairs to the third floor. "This is the Overseer's office, they're busy up there and don't like to be bothered. She makes rules, but she's nice. I like her."

"Does she enforce the rules?" Nate asked.

"The security officers deal with people who breaks the rules, but she's in charge of all the security officers. It doesn't happen
very often though. Next stop, the diner."

Taking Nate, Meathead, and Piper downstairs, Austin chattered away. "Everybody eats there, sometimes it gets really crowded. The Summersets are nice though, you'll like them."

There was a display of fresh fruit and vegetables on buffet carts, and Nate's mouth watered for the healthy looking greens.

"Hello there, Austin. I see your showing our guest from the Commonwealth around."

"Yes Ma'am. This is the Sunshine Diner. Gran says they take all her hard work and turn it into slop." Maria Summerset frowned, not wanting to shoot the messenger, but kids were like drunkards sometimes. They didn't know what was offensive yet.

"Next stop, Horatio. He does everybody's hair. I don't like to comb my hair though, Gran makes me do it though."

They poked their heads into the former storage room, it was tiled with pink and green tiles that were faded and worn, some things just couldn't last two hundred years without losing their color. At the edges of the room, the tiles were red and dark green.

"If the reviews are good, I might pop in for a shave some day." Nate said, scratching his chin. Since the last time he shaved seven days ago, a decent amount of hair stubble regrew.

"Next stop is Gran. Let's go see her. I live with her. My parents died when I was little and she took me in. She's not really my grandmother though."

Nate frowned and nodded, trying to keep his thoughts to himself. "That's very unfortunate, Austin."

Directly across the bottom floor of the foyer was the hydroponics lab, inside it smelled like compost and fresh green growing vegetables. Nate took in a deep breath of the pleasant scent and exhaled happily.

"Austin, what are you doing here? Are you bothering these nice strangers from the Commonwealth?"

"That's gran, you can call her Dr. Penske. I'm not bothering them, gran. I'm helping them."

She cross examined Austin and looked at Nate and Piper.

"Do you have any tips for setting up a successful grow operation like this?"

"How big is your room you're looking to grow in?"

"About six times the size of this room."

"Spacing the plants apart appropriately and making sure the soil is deep enough for roots to expand downwards. Healthy roots and enough overhead space means the plant can expand in all directions."

"Thank you."

"Gran grows all our food, she pretends to be grumpy, but she's not."

"Says you." She replied.

"So you don't have anything coming in from the Commonwealth?"

"Nope. She's really smart."

"Dr. Penske. Is there any chance in the future I could hire you to build a setup in Vault 111? I need to dismantle a few things in Vault 111, first, but even design plans or a critical eye of someone who knew what they were doing for consulting while we get things into place would be extremely beneficial."

Dr. Penske rose her eyes, questioning and curious. "Take it up with the Overseer, but I'd need some exact measurements first. I don't know about actually going to your Vault, but I can come up with some blueprints for you to follow."

"Excellent, thank you. I'll have the room measured and be back here in...a few days or so? A list of whatever I would need to make it successful, and how to set it up properly coming from a professional like you would be more beneficial in experience than anything I've been able to make recently."

"Nice to hear some fancy words. Now, go get your measurements."

"Next stop, Miss Katy. We have to go to the other side of the Vault. I'll show you where I go to school." Austin lead them through the long red hallway, to the school by the residential rooms on the far end of the vault.

"I bet you didn't have to go to school," Austin said.

"Actually,I was in school for sixteen years. My wife was in school for nineteen years."

"Whoa. I bet she's really smart."

"Yes. She was a lawyer, but needed to slow down after Shaun was born."

"What's a lawyer?"

"She helps people understand laws and represents people who aren't familiar with legal proceedings."

"Huh?"

"So imagine you broke a rule, and the security guards said you broke this rule, but you didn't know it was a rule in the first place, a lawyer would help you get out of trouble by explaining to the guards and alleviate the amount of trouble you would be in."

"Dang. I need a lawyer." Austin said.

"Why, you getting into trouble?"

"Not recently."

"Better keep it that way."

\111/

Through an open hydraulic door, they came to a room marked classroom, with the teacher, Miss Katy sitting at the front of the room. It held twelve desks, and a large one off to the front right. "Miss Katy runs the school. It's boring most of the time, but Gran says I need to go anyway."

"You're Gran is a smart woman, Austin." She said, getting up and crossing the room to the tour group. She looked Nate up and down. "Good to see you again, Piper."

"Likewise."

"Any new news from the Commonwealth?"

"Plenty. More stuff happened in the last week that this man here is responsible for than I know what to do with all of it. We caught an Institute spy, and Nate here was the man who caught him."

"That's very interesting. What did you do with the man?" Miss Katy asked.

"Capitol punishment." Nate replied.

"Oh. Well, from the rumors about the topside, I should've guessed."

"You shot him, didn't you?" Austin asked, perking up. He wanted to hear about violence.

"No. No. He was sentenced for his crimes, and was hung. He was a very bad man, Austin."

"Do you have any other stories about the Commonwealth?" Katy asked, her tone indicating she wanted to change the topic of the conversation.

"Yes. Every day is a new chapter of life."

"Well, I'm sure my students would like to hear about them, do you have any other stories that might be age appropriate for eight to twelve year olds?" She prefaced the question, trying to vet out Nate possibly talking about capitol punishment and the death of Kellogg.

"I'm sure they'd love to hear the story of the U.S.S. Constitution and how I managed to get it flying."

"Well, that would be wonderful. Could you stop in tomorrow..." She looked into Nate's eyes. "Or the day after tomorrow? Nothing too violent though, I'm sure they'll have lots of questions. Austin, are you all ready for tomorrow's test?"

"Yeeesss." Austin deadpanned.

"Then I expect some good results tomorrow."

"Okay, bye, Miss Katy." Austin said, grabbing Nate's hand and dragging him and then snagging Piper's hand and taking them both out.

"Well, I guess the tour is still on. I'll see you soon." Nate said.

"One of the final stops our the illustrious tour of vault 81 is the clinic, Doctor Forsythe and Rachel are okay I guess. I don't go there unless I have to, or unless Gran makes me."

"What type of doctors are they?"

"They know everything." Austin said, leading them downstairs. "They know medicine. They know how to cut people open and stitch them up too. This is our medical clinic." he said, pointing to a clear window that let people look inside the rooms.

"If you get hurt or sick, you come down here. Doc Forsythe said I can't bother him or Rachel while they're working down here." Austin droned the last bit, like he was told not to bother them more than once.

Nate was about to go inside when Austin told them, "Alright, now let's go see Erin. She's my best friend."

"Are there a lot of children here in the Vault?"

"No, the Overseer says we're under population control, whatever that means." Pointing every direction there was a lot the tour of Vault 81 left to be desired, but for the 12 year old Austin, this was one of the best tours he's ever given.

Austin lead them back upstairs and down the long hallway to a dorm room at the end. Austin knocked twice and walked in, opening the door and announcing to the Combes family, "Hey Erin, Look who I found! The stranger from the Commonwealth."

"Sorry to disturb your lunch." Nate said, seeing the parents sitting down and eating. They were surprised at the appearance of the newcomer, and looked to them for an explanation.

"Wow, are you really from another Vault?" She asked, looking at Nate's 111 on his chest.

"Yes. Are you Austin's best friend?" Nate noticed the motionless Giddyup Buttercup on the side of the room. There was a child's bed, and then a larger bed for the adults to share. Pointing to the Giddyup Buttercup, he proclaimed, "Does the Giddyup pony work?"

The parents and Erin shook her head. "We're best friends, there aren't many kids in the vault. And that's Daisy. She doesn't move much."

"You know, I can get her working, if that's alright with your parents."

"Really? You can get her working? That would be amazing!"

Nate bared his palms to her parents. "It would only take a minute." Nate said.

The parents shared a look, then nodded. "How long do you plan on sticking around, Mr. One-Eleven?"

"Not too long. The afternoon. Then we'll be off again."

"Good." Holt Combes said, "Vault 81 can take care of itself and doesn't need every stray traveler coming in through here."

"Hey, I'm only offering to fix your kid's pony because I'm trying to be nice. Have you ever seen one working?"

"No."

"No."

"Well, you're going to have a new playmate real soon, Erin. I've got seven more running a store over in the North End of Boston for me and they're all super nice."

"Seven more?" Piper asked. "How did I not see this?"

"You were at Goodneighbor when the ghouls hit. They were pulling the carriage and afterwards were asking for something to do. I'll show you the Constitution after we're done with Vault 111."

Nate pried off the side barrel piece, looking over the over the internal components. The first and foremost was the missing power supply, powered by a fusion core. "We had to use the Power Core for something better." Alexis Combes said.

"Well, lucky for you, I've got a few spares." Nate took off his bag, and dug through it again, setting his tools down and reaching deep into the bottom of the bag where Meathead placed another power core.

Placing it inside, he saw that most of the actual frame work wasn't very secure, everything needed to be tightened down. Taking out a socket wrench, he equipped a phillips head to the wrench and started tightening everything. Power was resupplied to Daisy halfway through, and she blinked twice then her eyes focused.

She smiled brightly and Erin gasped. "Hello!" Daisy said, looking around the room.

"H...Hi.."

"Daisy, this is Erin, she's been waiting a long time to play with you." Nate explained. "I just need to put your armor back on, and we'll get you situated so you can start playing together."

"That is going to be amazing!" Daisy said, shaking with excitement.

"Try not to move too much, I'll just be another minute."

Nate fitted the side panel to her again, and then he stood up. "Okay, Daisy. Erin, she's all ready."

"Whoaw! I never seen a live pony before!"

"I'm a robot, silly!" She beemed, "I don't need to eat, or drink water. I just need to make sure my joints are all limbered up every once and a while, and everything will be hunky-dory!"

Holt and Alexis Combes were surprised and on edge at Erin's toy come to life. "Would you like a ride, Erin?"

"That would be amazing! Can I ride her, Mom?"

"Of course...just don't crash into anyone." Erin was twelve years old, same age as Austin who migrated to the back end of the room, watching Nate fix Daisy.

"No worries, I'm great at making sure I don't run into anyone or anypony else! It's all part of my programming." Daisy said.

"Her cable connections were loose too, so no power was getting to her core. Just make sure Daisy get's a little oil every once and a while, and she'll explain the rest. Giddyup Buttercups were made to be pretty self sufficient with maintenance, and help owners step by step in taking care of her. Treat her nice, and Erin will have Daisy for a very long time."

Nate finished, leaving the room, and passing Austin. Erin got onto Daisy's back, and she trotted outside, then bolted down the hallway, her hooves clopping against the metal floor. Swerving and avoiding people transfixed by the sight of Erin riding a pony and the sounds of her gleeful laughter echoing throughout the vault. She cheered and giggled, her laughter echoing down the hallways as she held onto Daisy's neck, burying her face into the pony's mane.

"Best toy ever!" She shouted.

"I haven't heard laughter like that in ages." Piper said, Alexis approached them and agreed with her.

"I don't think I've ever heard Erin that excited since we actually got Daisy for her. Thank you."

"You're welcome. Now, Austin, why don't you see if you can catch up with Erin and Daisy? See what type of new games you can come up with. I'm going to look around the Vault a bit."

\111/

Nate went to the Clinic, knocking on the door and entering.

"Hello."

Doctor Forsythe turned around his his wheeling chair and stood up. "Hello, good to see a new face from the frontier. I hope I'm not being presumptuous, but I'd like to ask you a favor."

"Only if you can answer a few questions for me. What do you need?"

"Of course. I need medical samples, even just a blood sample for my research."

"What are you studying?"

"The people of Vault 81 have been genetically isolated from the Commonwealth for a many generations. I'm trying to determine what the genetic variation is between the two populations."

"You might get a misnomer with my blood, Doctor. I've only been out in the Commonwealth for a week. I've been cryogenically frozen since the Great War."

"Well, that makes the pool all the more bigger. Are you truly someone from the pre-war times?"

Nate nodded. "I've been on ice."

"If anything, that gives us a baseline control sample to compare to. What's your name?"

"Nate. Hook me up." Nate said, Doctor Forsythe directed Nate to a chair, where the doctor brought over a needle and vial he could take a blood sample with. Piper stood in the doorway and merely observed.

"What type of questions did you have for me?"

"What's your experience with surgery?"

"That would be Rachel's department, I'm primary microbiology and pharmaceuticals. Rachel?" Dr. Forsythe wrapped a plastic tube around Nate's arm. Rachel heard her name called and came from the patient's room.

"What's the damage?" Rachel asked.

"Just a few questions from a fellow vault dweller, he wants to know your experience with surgery."

"What would you like to know?"

"What's the most intense surgery you've had to perform?" Nate asked.

"Could you please make a fist?" Dr. Forsythe asked. Nate clenched his hand a few times, and a vein was more accessible to Forsythe's needle. Pricking Nate's arm, he drew in two liquid ounces of blood, then pulled out the needle and dabbed it with cotton.

"The most difficult procedure I've had to deal with is a punctured lung. It was a very long surgery, and was the result of a steam valve rupturing. Along with third degree burns, Paul Crowlink was hurt badly and it took him many weeks of intense physical therapy to recover.

"If I described a situation to you, would you be able to repair it, along with the aid of stimpaks, and unlimited time?"

Rachel and Dr. Forsythe looked at each other, Piper and Meathead were both waiting at the door to the clinic when they heard Nate describe what happened to Nora. "A patient shot through the Main Aortic vein with a .44 caliber bullet, from this gun-" Nate set Kellogg's pistol onto the table next to them. "Possibly suffering from fractured ribs, internal bleeding, and shock."

"A person like that, shot through the main aorta would die in minutes."

Dr. Forsythe untied the rubber tube and Nate reiterated his question. "I don't think you understand. My wife was shot through the main aorta, and is now trapped inbetween life and death inside a cryogenic freezer. I have enough liquid nitrogen to freeze her until civilization rises and falls again to keep her that way until I find someone experienced and willing to dawn cold weather gear and operate on her. Now. Given those constraints, if you had all the time in the world, can you repair her main aorta and close it? Can you do that along with reset the shattered bone fragments?" Nate asked, staring intently at the doctors.

"That is...unheard of. We've never been given a situation like that. We don't know."

"Well, come to terms that my wife is minutes from dying, and I'm going to make every second count. I can keep her body cold and her heart from pumping too much. All you have to do is say you're willing to do it."

"We'd need to see the patient first. X-rays. Full extent of the damage before we went in. This is something outside of our current experience, but we aren't saying that it isn't impossible to repair an aorta...just that it would be very difficult to do so. Your wife...obviously you can't move her. We would need a sanitary room, cold as you mentioned, to keep her heart rate from rising. The problem wouldn't be repairing the aorta, hypothetically, it's the amount of pressure the aorta exerts with each pump. You see, even though we could stitch it, and seal it, the seal might break around her wounds, causing internal bleeding in the chest. She would need to recover at a very, very slow rate for the damage to be healed naturally."

"You've got nothing to worry about then. Tell me what you need." Nate said seriously.

Dr. Forsythe and Rachel both looked at Nate as if he were mad, "You can't seriously have all this equipment."

"Doc." Nate said, tilting his head forward and to the side. "Do you know how to do the fucking operation or not?"

"Someone capable of performing the surgery...Nate, I can set broken bones, but this is far outside of my league. I can shove a balloon inside of a punctured lung and hook him up to life support, but I've never had to deal with a gunshot wound directly to the chest. There could be damage to the heart, and the patient would most likely go into shock."

Piper and Meathead both withdrew into themselves, very present in the moment when they heard Nate talking about Nora.
After he finished giving blood, he thanked them for their time, got up, and left.

"Hey, did I hear you talking about looking for a surgeon? Did you try the guys in Diamond City?"

Nate grit his teeth and walked past her. "Yes. Dr. Sun and Dr. Carrington. Dr. Sun works with plasticity, and says Dr. Carrinton's work is shoddy, that and I got a bad vibe from Carrington. Sun said he doesn't do those type of surgeries, and isn't willing to make a house call."

"Ouch...Well. There's still a few doctors out there who might have the experience you're looking for. Let me spread the word, get it out there. I thought your wife was murdered."

"Shot once, square in the chest, and frozen immediately afterwards. Her brain is still active, she's just dying. She's got four minutes of brain activity left, at the most, before her brain dies, or she bleeds out before then." Nate said coldly, there was plenty to consider around Nora, Nate didn't want to take the chance. Meathead bowed his head and looked up at Nate with big sad eyes, whining so softly, that Nate didn't even hear it at first.

"Is there anything I can do to help, Nate?"

He shook his head. "No...there's a few more people I want to talk to before we leave, then we'll go."

"Who?"

Nate put his hand on the rail and walked up the stairs, "They've got a reactor. I want some tips on repairing the thing before I go in and try it my self on the one at Vault 111."

"Hey, Blue." Piper reached out and caught his sleeve. "Listen, I know you're dead set on avoiding Diamond City, it's a place of real danger that I've been trying to warn people about, but every issue I publish, I hear 'Why can't I write anything happy? Why can't I write anything nice for a change?' It's dealing with a lot of rejection some days, and there's been times where I just want to hang up my hat."

"I'm not giving up hope, Piper. I can't. Not for Nora."

"I understand that. Sure it can be scary, knowing what's really out there. A night doesn't go by I'm not afraid some Institute drone decides today's the day to come after Nat and myself...But everything is worth it. I know the truth about Diamond City, and that's what protects us. I know what could happen, and a lot of people just don't want to admit it. It scares me."

"Why?" Nate asked her.

"Because, I don't know how they operate. Some guy comes along, hunting down what is apparantly the Institute's number one spy, and interrogates the living shit out of him, but then doesn't tell anyone a word of what happened! I've been scared of the Institute for as long as I can remember, and he doesn't even get a wink of sleep over what's happened, he just takes off and goes. Honestly, I'm more scared for my sister. I don't know what I would do if something happened to her. People deserve to know what's out there, good or bad."

"Good or bad, Piper? You really want to know what I believe the Institute is like?"

"Yes."

"Holt Combes over there is a pretty good example as to what the mentality of the Institute might be like right now. Imagine every person here screaming 'Fuck you, surface dweller. You deserve to be compost for our plants.' That we're the barbarians, savages, mindless animals, and need to be wiped out. Piper...do you get that mentality?" Piper was squinting her eyes at Nate, shaking her head. Not understanding it at all.

"Another person like Holt Combes expressing his fear over people who came into his vault, could be even worse for the Institute. He wants to kill you, grind you up into mulch, and fertilize his plants with your bones and blood because he thinks you don't deserve to exist, and the only worth you have is to exist as a slave for them, catering to their will, or die and be useful...so they can consume your body. So they can consume your energy, and take from you what they couldn't in life. Have you ever faced a person or a group like that, Piper? I have."

"That's terrible."

"No, Piper. It's not terrible. It's the way they were raised, in the place they were raised. In a vault. In a bunker. Underground. No contact from the outside world, unless it was from a few people they only dealt with because they absolutely needed to. There's two ways to combat this. Kill them with Kindness-" Nate said, quieting down and putting his hand to his ear so he could listen to the sound of Austin chasing Erin and Daisy around. "Or. Starve them out. How can you protect you and yours if you don't know what your facing?"

"Most folks though, they'd prefer to live a comforting lie. Not me. Not my sister. We grew up in a tiny settlement way out in the Commonwealth. It's not there any more. Our dad was part of the local militia, the Minutemen. 'Keeping Raiders off our backs, and Mirelurks out of our latrines'. He'd say. Well, one day my dad turns up dead. His captain, Mayburn, claims that Raiders got him on watch. I didn't buy it though, Nate. I talked to everyone in our little town and asked questions. Turns out the captain sold out. He thought he wasn't getting paid enough to babysit the town. So...So when you tell me I didn't hear about the Quincy massacre, that some asshole sold out, and that the fucker was a Minuteman who did the exact same thing, and how history repeated itself in the worst fucking way possible, it fucking tears me up inside, Nate!" Piper was on the verge of tears, and her eyes were wet.

"Mayburn was going to leave the gates open one night, let raiders sack the town, and take a cut of their profits. My dad found out and was going to turn Mayburn in, but he got to him first. I wasn't going to let that motherfucker get away with it. I tried talking to our Mayor, but he wouldn't listen to a word I said. So I papered the entire fucking town, posters everywhere that read 'Wanted for Gross Dereliction of Duty. Captain Mayburn.'" She raised her hand, showcasing the title with three bolt movements. "Yeah, I got my ass chewed out, people sure wanted to talk about it then, but, it got Mayburn thrown out, and we were dug-in when a group of surprised raiders finally showed up."

"So what happened?"

"It was just Nat and myself after that. Mom was out of the picture, so...we scraped by and saved up for passage on a caravan. We booked a trip to the big city and called it home ever since."

"So, was it you who saved those people? Or was it you saving them from themselves?"

"They saved themselves because, they knew the truth." Piper replied.

"Let me tell you, Piper. Knowledge is power. It's not a weapon. It's what you do with knowledge that protects you.. Can we both agree the Overseer was nothing but kind and accomodating after we were allowed in?"

Piper nodded. "Yeah, sorry. Sometimes I just get fired up."

"That's perfectly normal for anyone to feel that way, Piper. Going on, we've got to consider who the Institute is, and how they're not just some boogeyman, Piper. They're someone you can touch, who you can feel, someone who you'll be able to wrap your hands around their throat and choke them out."

She nodded, "But your son might be one of them. It's nice to talk to someone who actually seems to get it, you know?"

"What would you call a person who's lived past their father and mother?"

"I don't know, Nate. What?"

"Their own man." Nate put a hand to his face and rubbed both eyes. He was feeling very down trodden, and Meathead was there to put a paw on his leg, and ask him for a scratch on the back of the neck. Meathead sneezed, and licked his lips, silently looking up at Nate and Piper, asking for them to be happy.

\111/

When they knocked on the door to the reactor and went in, the loud thrumming of the machine made it clear that they weren't heard. There was a distinct stink of skunky smoke in the air.

"Jesus, Bobby, can you not do that here?"

"I' been working." Bobby replied, Nate and Piper walked down the stairs to the bottom floor, watching a Mr. Handy perform maintenance on the vault's reactor.

"Oh yeah, bossing old Rusty around, hard at work."

The Mr. Handy added, "You've no idea, Miss DeLuca."

"Hey, will you both just get lost? You're killing my buzz here." Nate was frowning more and more by the second.

"Fine. Get Caught. You won't have to make the choice to leave, because the Overseer will do it for you." Tina DeLuca replied.

"Get caught with what?" Nate asked, catching both Tina and Bobby unaware, scaring the hell out of both of them as they jumped and realized they were both unable to explain themselves.

"Fucking Ass!" Tina shouted out of surprise, she quickly tried recovering the words by apologizing, but Nate smiled deviously.

"Really?" Nate drawled, insinuating incestuous behavior between the twin siblings.

"Listen, outsider. Do me a favor. If my good for nothing brother asks you for Jet, tell him to buzz off." She raised a hand and looked over towards her twin to present Bobby. Both with black hair, their facial structures were the same, blue eyes, and more of an oval shaped head. Bobby gripped one elbow and gave a small wave.

"Look, my brother's a junkie, and he's getting careless. If he get's caught, we're both in trouble. As much as I want to leave this paradise in a can, it's not the way I want to go." Tina explained.

"You want to leave?"

"More than you know, you're from the outside, from another vault, so you gotta know there's more to life than just a few rooms all clipped together. But if I leave, I want it to be on my own terms, not because Bobby screwed up."

"You know, I'm looking for people to get Vault 111 up and running again, it suffered damage to it's main reactor, one of them blew out, or was shot a long time ago, it's sending out electrical discharges."

"Jesus! That's...you gotta shut that thing down! It sound's like the electricity is jumping the circuits and circumnavigating the capacitors, causing those flares! You gotta shut that thing down, asap."

"I've got a few cases of Addictol, Bobby. I found them while scavenging around. It takes the edge off addiction withdrawls while your on the road to getting clean."

"Now, I admit, I've got my own share of the blame here. Bobby get's his chems from me, and I keep him on a short leash."

"Why give in to his habit?"

"I'm cutting his ass off." Tina said, flashing Bobby a hard look. "But, Bobby, go do something useful. Check the electric grid or something." Forcing Bobby away from the conversation, Tina said. "He's my brother, and he's overworked. I give him a little Jet, and he perks right up. He seems happy, his work doesn't . Done. He just can't manage it right. Now that it's getting out of control, it's another story. If he wants me to put me at risk, he gets cut off."

"Meathead, do you remember where we put those Addictols? Did we put those in the boat, or do we have a few?" Nate said, taking off his backpack and digging through the pockets.

""

"The roof? Are you sure?" Nate asked.

""

"Okay, alright, here's one...and two. There's sixteen tablets in each of them, read the instructions, and slow his consumption way down. Ween him off. I've got jobs out there for both of you doing exactly this. if you want to explore the Commonwealth, and call someplace else your home."

"Thank you. This means a lot." Tina said, taking the cardboard containers. "I think he's got his own stash of Jet hidden somewhere, though."

"Trust me, he does. If he didn't, he wouldn't be asking it from you." Nate replied. "Before I go, any tips on maintaining one of these giant things?"

"They're built on a two power backup system relay. So if one fails, which it definitely sounds like one of yours does, the other one will handle most of the workload. Disconnect the main power from either a terminal or a breaker board. There should be two big panels with all the circuit breakers with everything written on them. Turn the non-essential ones off before disconnect the power, and make sure you don't disconnect the doors, otherwise you'll be locked in with a door sealing itself off with two thousand pounds of pressure. After one generator is off, the other one will take over. You do your repairs, and then flick everything back on. Simple right? The worst thing you could possibly do, and I know because we did it, is to overload the first generator and make it blow out. It sucks. It causes a blackout and makes all the systems restart, so make sure you shut down as many non-important systems as possible on for the first working generator before turning the broken generator off completely."

"Got it. Thank you. What was your name?"

"Tina."

\111/

As Nate, Piper, and Meathead were leaving the Vault, a security guard flagged them down.

"The Overseer wanted me to give you this." He said, offering a slip of notepaper to them. "It's the Vault 81 emergency broadcast signal. We use it to signal traders for what we need, or any resources that we're actively looking for. Overseer Macnamara wanted me to tell you she greatly appreciates you bringing in the Fusion Cores. For Pip-Boys, it'll make the device go 'ping' whenever we send out a new message, usually once a week or so. We operate that from the security station over here."

Nate took the note and held it up, "Thank you." He said. As they left the vault, Nate punched in the frequency to pick up on the Vault 81 broadcast.

Halloween Alien Hoopajoop (Non-Canonical to story)

{A/N: I will NOT be bringing this chapter up again, nor referring to it anytime afterwards, unlike chapters 'Hard Boiled Egg pt. 1&2'. I wrote this early on, thinking I would be able to incorporate it some way, but decided to remove it. However, I'll still put it out there for everyone to read.}

{Once again, this is not part of the main story.}

\111/

"Where to next?" Piper asked after they left the vault. The sun was setting earlier and earlier every day, and it was dark by the time they left Vault 81.

"North, about time we got a beer, don't you think?"

"Huh?"

"Beantown brewery. It's north of here. It's run by some raiders, but I've got an in."

"An in? How'd you get an in with Tower Tom?"

"You know him?"

"I know of him."

"Yeah, and a lot of other people too. Kessler from Bunker Hill wanted me to drop off a message for Tater Tot and tell him to stop shooting at all the caravans passing through.

"That'll go over well, what do you have to offer him?"

"Whisky and Vodka." Nate said, patting his backpack.

"How much stuff do you have packed in there?" Piper asked curiously.

"A lot. A lot of a lot."

"What's Vodka taste like?"

"You might like it, it's not really suppose to have a taste, but this one was made with lemons." Nate reached up behind his shoulders and pulled out the bottle without looking. Twisting off the large cap, it was large enough for a five count shot glass pour.

"Here." Nate said, pouring Piper a little. "You can either slam it, or sip it."

Piper went for the medium between, letting the alcohol rest in her mouth and it immediately made her eyes water. She spat it out and coughed. "Eugh! That's! That burns! That's disgusting!"

"Yeah. This is the cheaper end of vodka, not the one I personally like, but it'll get you drunk. Good with cranberry juice."

"I don't drink much."

"I can tell."

Piper coughed louder, and Nate took the bottle, and felled a stream of vodka into his mouth without putting his lips on the bottle. She grimaced as Nate drank.

"What about you, lightweight? You want a sip?"

"You give that stuff to your dog!?" She asked.

"" Meathead wagged his tail and sat down.

"Yeah. If the water's bad, drink booze." Nate said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Do you know what the price of water is these days? Ten caps for a quart. This here is forty ounces of vodka, and I got it for seven caps. Can you believe that? Seven caps. I don't even want to say how much this stuff is worth, because I don't know the dollar value of a bottle cap. All I do know is, is that booze is fucking cheap in the future."

Pouring Meathead a shot, he placed it on the ground, and Meathead wrapped his mouth around it, then lifted his head and shot it back, "Good Boy! Gu' boy!" Nate said, patting Meathead and scratching his ears.

"You want one more?"

""

"Alright, one more." Piper scratched at her right eye, feeling it twitch and tick. She couldn't unsee what she was seeing. Nate poured Meathead another shot and then he wiped off the cap and but the bottle back into his bag.

"Alright. Feeling good. Let's go."

They walked north, going directly over the hills, and crossing a road that went from east to west. Nate noticed the burning trees to the north east, and immediately pointed it out to Piper.

"What the fuck is this?"

A whole line of trees, with a big scar cut into the earth was there. The trees were plowed out of the way and knocked aside, on fire and burning on Halloween night.

"What in the fuck is this?" Nate asked again, following the trail of destruction all the way to the source.

"What the fuck is that?" Nate said, Piper was there and Meathead barked and whined, growling and barking at the alien saucer crash landed in the woods.

"What the fuck is that?" Piper repeated.

"Fucking Aliens, Piper! Holy Shit! We got ourselves an alien saucer, Piper!"

Piper swore to herself. "Fuck, I already had a hard enough time convincing people about synths, they'll never believe me about this one. Aliens? Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure! Piper, I was in the army. I saw a shit-ton of aircraft in my day. A lot of aircraft. So many planes, and jets, and helicopters and vertibirds of all different shapes and sizes, you would have a fit. This right here, crash landed in our own backyard, is an alien hoopajoop! If I knew smarter words, I'd be using those, but none of them really sum up how I feel about finding this fucking thing."

Meathead bounced down the path, growling and barking at the spacecraft.

"Where's the pilot, huh?" Nate asked Meathead. "I'll tell you right now aliens exist, I knew that long before the bombs fell." But holy shit, this looks fresh. This does not look like blood though...it's green..." Nate's eyes followed a bloody trail, from the cockpit partially buried in the ground, to the scar cut out of the earth, down the hill and away from the crash site.

"Piper. You want to see a dead body?" Nate said, cackling deviously.

"No!"

"Come on! It's Halloween. It'll be fun."

"No! I have a very good feeling, that it will not be fun! I'm staying here!"

"Fine! Just give us five minutes, and if we find it, I'll tell you all about it."

Meathead lead the charge, following the glowing green blood. "So, what's up, Meathead. What the hell is this shit? Is this changeling? What is this?"

""

"Should I be worried?"

""

"Okay." Nate nodded. "Is it alive?"

""

They tracked the trail of blood to a cave, and it was filled with glowing green fungus, along the backside of the wall was the semi-conscious alien, leaning against the back wall.

"" Meathead transformed into the alien species with a flash of green fire, the light made the alien sit upright, and crawl to both legs. It was a short alien, a large green skull, black eyes, and wore a red and white space suit.

Meathead spoke to the alien, and the alien chirped and chattered back.

Nate watched from a distance, and tired to ascertain what they were talking about, when Meathead turned to Nate and shouted. "Shoot him!"

"What?!"

"Shoot him! Shoot him! Shoot him!" Nate pulled out his revolver as the alien bulled out a ray gun blaster twice as half the size of his head and fired at Meathead. Meathead was hit in the back, and he changed back into a German Shepard.

Firing once, the deafening noise of the gunshot echoed ten fold throughout the cave. Piper came running down the hill and looked over Nate's shoulder. "Holy shit!" She cried, "Little green man!"

The alien fired bolts from his ray gun blaster at Nate, and Nate fired once more, hitting the alien directly in the skull, and killing him.

"Jesus Christ. Aliens. Oh my God. Aliens exist." Piper said.

"Well, it's definitely going to soften the blow for what I was going to tell you about the pony aliens."

"What? What could possibly be more insane than seeing aliens exist?"

"Well, for starters, alien ponies are peaceful. For the most part. They've been on earth for over two hundred years, so who's to say how they've integrated. I was going to tell you about the thing Meathead and I picked up from on top of the Wilson Atomatoys building.

"It was a pony, you told me. And then you told me they can talk. So...what's..." Piper was shaking, having her world grow exponentially in a very small amount of time. "...more crazy than a walking, talking pony? Or a unicorn that can do magic? Apparently." She finished the afterthought. Her mind was moving faster than her mouth.

"They can fly. The one up inside the U.S.S. Constitution is a Pegasus."

Piper growled. "Grrrr! Fuck you, Nate. Fuck you and the past!"

"Hey. Don't blame me, blame society. I'm not the one who tried to broker a peace deal between the chinese and my nation. The ponies were the victims in all this, they got eaten! I have no idea who or what the hell this alien is."

Storming out of the cave, Nate shrugged, walking over and picking up the alien's blaster and ammo for his gun.

"So, what'd he say, Meathead?"

""

"Did he say why?"

"<No. But, we should probably not tell Piper or anyone else. They can barely handle conspiracy theories as it is. Throwing doomsday into the mix just sounds like a complete clusterfuck and confuse way too many people."

"Well, Let's hide the body, and bury the ship. No sense in leaving this for people to find. Yet."

""

\111/

"Hey, Piper, you doing okay?"

"No, I'm kind of having my mind blown, and I don't want to think about what I just saw."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I got his gun. Do you want it?"

She looked down at the ray-blaster, then her own laser pistol. Nodding slowly, "Yeah..." she said.

"Well then, it's yours. I think for both our sakes, we should agree not to tell anyone, you're right about it being hard to convince people about this one...Let's get a few other things taken care of first, then deal with the aliens. Okay? Let's just forget about this for a while. If we ever wanted to tell anyone without sounding crazy, it would be ten thousand times easier to just dig it up, and drag the freaking thing all the way to Diamond City than just telling people about it because they would never believe us."

"You're right....you're right...that just...freaks me out though. I never even thought I wanted to know...and now..."

Nate signaled to Meathead a pair of scissors, Meathead nodded and Piper's head was wrapped in a glow of green light from his magic. "And sleep." Nate said, catching Piper as she fell unconscious for a moment.

She was awake an instant later, "Whoa! What happened?"

"You tripped on a root, it's dark as shit out here. I got you though, your head looks fine. It's might have a bruise later on though."

" Really? I don't feel anything." She said, rubbing her forehead. "You got a light on that Pip-Boy? I can hardly see anything."

\111/

Author's Note

Not part of the story.

Happy (Belated) Halloween everybody!

Ch. 39 Bean Town Brewery Bandits

"Where to next?" Piper asked after they left the vault. The sun was setting earlier and earlier every day, and it was dark by the time they left Vault 81.

"North, about time we got a beer, don't you think?"

"Huh?"

"Beantown brewery. It's north of here. It's run by some raiders, but I've got an in."

"An in? How'd you get an in with Tower Tom?"

"You know him?"

"I know of him."

"Yeah, and a lot of other people too. Kessler from Bunker Hill wanted me to drop off a message for Tater Tot and tell him to stop shooting at all the caravans passing through."

"That'll go over well, what do you have to offer him?"

"Vodka and Scotch." Nate said, patting his backpack.

"How much stuff do you have packed in there?" Piper asked curiously.

"A lot. A lot of a lot."

"What kind of Vodka do you have?"

"You might like it, it's not really suppose to have a taste, but this one was made with lemons." Nate reached up behind his shoulders and pulled out the bottle without looking. Twisting off the large cap, it was large enough for a five count shot glass pour.

"Here." Nate said, pouring Piper a little. "You can either slam it, or sip it."

Piper went for the medium between, letting the alcohol rest in her mouth and it immediately made her eyes water. She spat it out and coughed. "Eugh! That's! That burns! That's disgusting!"

"Yeah. This is the cheaper end of vodka, not the one I personally like, but it'll get you drunk. Good with cranberry juice."

"I don't drink much anymore."

"I can tell."

Piper coughed louder, and Nate took the bottle, and felled a stream of vodka into his mouth without putting his lips on the bottle. She grimaced as Nate drank.

"What about you, lightweight? You want a sip?"

"You give that stuff to your dog!?" She asked.

"" Meathead wagged his tail and sat down.

"Yeah. If the water's bad, drink booze." Nate said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Do you know what the price of water is these days? Ten caps for a quart. This here is forty ounces of vodka, and I got it for seven caps. Can you believe that? Seven caps. I don't even want to say how much this stuff is worth, because I don't know the dollar value of a bottle cap. All I do know is, is that booze is fucking cheap in the future."

Pouring Meathead a shot, he placed it on the ground, and Meathead wrapped his mouth around it, then lifted his head and shot it back, "Good Boy! Gu' boy!" Nate said, patting Meathead and scratching his ears.

"You want one more?"

""

"Alright, one more." Piper scratched at her right eye, feeling it twitch and tick. She couldn't unsee what she was seeing. Nate poured Meathead another shot and then he wiped off the cap and but the bottle back into his bag.

"Alright. Feeling fine. Let's go."

\111/

Walking north, they passed Oberland station, and circled around to the North where they walked right up to the Brewery and knocked twice, then entered.

"Hello?"

"Who's there?"

The candle lit interior of the brewery was a tap house in the front, with an old bar setup and brewery in the rear. The tables were all shoved to the side, and in the bar were beds laid down on the floor. "It's Nate. I'm looking for Sparta."

"Who the hell are you?"

"I'm the guy who gave Sparta a Fat Man."

"You gave a raider a Fat Man?!" Piper shouted, slugging Nate in the shoulder.

"It was a good trade, my life and- "Turning towards the three raiders aiming guns at them, "In exchange, they wouldn't shoot us."

"Go get Tom." one of the raiders said, it was too dark to see their faces, but one tapped the other on the arm, and took off running into the brewery.

Three minutes passed, and Nate leaned against the counter, looking around while Piper was eyeing Nate. "What? I had to give it to her, not like I could lug around a thirty pound Fat Man in downtown Boston, those things are heavy! Each mini-nuke weighs a pound! That's a lot of luggage to be dragging around, especially if-"

"Stop talking." One raider commanded.

"I'm talking about helping one of your bosses, Sparta. Has she been back yet within the last week?"

They gave Nate the silent treatment, and after four minutes from when the raider left, he returned with four more raiders and a man wearing cage armor.

"Who are you, and why are you here?"

"Sparta sent me." Nate started with. "That, and Mayor Kessler from Bunker Hill wants you to stop shooting at her Caravans, but first, Sparta."

"She was here. She's gone. She told us about a vaulter. What are you doing here?"

"Keeping the peace. What did Sparta say to you about me? Did she mention anything about the deal we made?"

"You fill a room with caps, and we don't kill you."

"Anything about all the drugs? Anything about that?"

"Nate what are you talking about?"

"Badtfl building, lots of drugs, guns, and booze, I had to make a deal or get shot."

"So, where's my caps?" Tower Tom asked.

Nate laughed, "You don't understand. My deal, was to fill the cell in the BADTFL building full of caps, in a year. It's been less than a week, you're jumping the gun, here."

"No, you're the one jumping the gun." Tower Tom said, pulling out his pipe revolver pistol.

Nate was silent. "If you shoot me, you'll never get your caps, your drugs, or your food. You know what would be better than pointing guns at each other? Drinking! You thirsty? I got vodka and scotch. Let's pour some drinks, and talk about what you need, and how we can go about getting it. Sparta said you sent her out for food? I can get you food, all you have to do is consider a few good options. Make some good choices, and food will come rolling through the door."

Tower Tom lowered his pistol, "Follow." He commanded. Intrinsically, he knew that every single person here was starving, on the edge of up and running out on the gang. They were already going to the edge of the field where grass grew, and ripping out plants by the roots and eating them.

"Guns." He said, asking for them. Nate and Piper relinquished their rifles and guns. They were dropped by the door leading into the brewery. "Bag." Nate took off his pack, taking the bottles out backpack, and then Tower Tom shook the backpack loose. The zipped pockets and tied down straps kept everything else in, so Tower Tom threw it against the wall.

Lead through the brewery, they were shown into the office and Tower Tom snapped his fingers, pointing to a desk. "Sit." He told Nate. "You. There." He told Piper. Meathead came in quietly, and crawled under the desk, gaining as little attention as possible. They sat on the opposite side of the desk, with their backs to the corner.

"Talk."

Laying his pistol on the desk, his hand was still wrapped tightly around the handle.

"What do you need most?"

"I need food. You said to Sparta you were going to fill a room with caps, and they bring back crates of drugs. Tell me how do you plan on doing that?"

"Sell the drugs, make caps, use it to buy supplies, this creates a cycle of an economy based off drugs that is very profitable. The food situation however, is going to require a ceasefire."

"I should go out and raid the farms near here, and take the food. You'd be powerless to stop me."

"You're right. But, think about this decision a month from now, say the farmers don't have any food now, or any caps because you took them all, so they needed to leave. So now, a month later, those farmers are gone, along with the crops because a month ago, you already took them. Now the farm is deserted and empty, and you can't go back and raid the same farm again, because there's nothing there. The farmers took all their food and left, but where does that leave you?" Nate asked.

"It leads you to situations where you need to send your people out, like Sparta, far out, away from your main base, your main hub here, in order to get more food. How long does it take for people to go from Charlestown to here? Half a day, loaded down with all the supplies they find, maybe a day or two?"

Tower Tom nodded.

"So, you send groups like Sparta out, but she decides to raid a few settlements around her as well, and leave them with only a little bit of food. That group, that was ten people you sent with her, that's a big group. Ten people all eating and needing food." Nate poured a glass of Vodka for Tower Tom, and one for himself, and a cup for Piper.

"Cheers. So they all drink and eat food. Let's say they get a months worth of food while they're gone. Say they're gone for two weeks, and by the time they get back, they only have half that amount of food left to distribute among everyone here. How many people are there here in your brewery?"

Tower Tom looked off to his right, and a raider responded for him. "Twenty."

"Twenty raiders. That's double the amount of the group you sent out. Now what happens is that two weeks worth of food goes three times as fast with everyone here, so you immediately send everyone out again, but they needed to take supplies with them, which leaves you with a weeks worth of food for twenty people. That means if the one weeks worth of food feeds ten people every day, it will feed twenty people for three and a half days. What turned into a month's worth of food is now gone in a week." Nate reasoned, trying to get him to believe in the paradox.

It was the age old logic of the Tortoise versus Achilles, where the Tortoise argued that he could win against Achilles if he had a head start in a hundred foot long race. By the time Achilles started, the tortoise would be halfway. By the time Achilles reached the halfway point, the tortoise argued he would be at least three quarters of the way to the finish line. The argument continued on and on where Achilles reached the three-quarters marker, the tortoise would be 7/8ths of the way to the finish line, and on, and one, until Achilles gave up and never raced the tortoise, believing he could never beat the tortoise because of Zeno's paradox.

"My biggest problems right now are Red at the Federal Ration Stockpile, they have scores of food, but won't share. I'm holding Red's sister, Lily, hostage. And now they're giving us all the food we need, so, what other decisions do I need to make aside from killing you both and taking everything you have for myself?" Tower Tom said, leveling the pistol with Nate.

"You'd make more money, caps, and have more food, if you keep people like us alive. Someone has to grow the food, someone has to pick the crops, some one has to ready it for delivery, and bring it here anyway. So if you kill me, then you'll be the one who has to go out and pick the crops yourself.

"I'd get my men to do it." Tower Tom argued.

"But do they want to do that? Wasn't the whole point of raiding not to care about what other people do, and to not care about the wellbeing of others? How long would your men farm before they said, fuck this? I'm through."

"Then we'd go back to raiding."

"If you raided all the surrounding farms, then there wouldn't be anything to raid, it would be all gone. No more food. No more people to raid."

"Then I'd send them out farther."

"Into other raider's territories? Your people would have to face down possibly tougher gangs, and fight fire with fire. Can your men handle that? It's easier to attack defenseless settlers, isn't it?"

"Then what do you suggest, if you're so smart?"

"This is the point I've been trying to get to ever since I got here. Mayor Kessler from Bunker Hill wants to send caravans west of here, but she tells me your men have been shooting all her caravans, and killing her messengers. If you decide to stop attacking the caravans, then they'll stop here along the way to trade with you." Nate looked around the office. "I see you have plenty of beer, people all across the Commonwealth love beer, they'd love to trade beer for food with you. All you need to do is use your resources and manpower to make more beer. If you make more beer, then you'd have more to trade. Same with when I was talking with Sparta, if you have an excess of drugs, then sell it off! Make some caps! Make some money! I guarantee that you could be drunk with bellies full of food every night for the rest of your lives if you stopped attacking caravans, and started trading with them."

Tower Tom leaned, looking off to the left and right.

"Alright. Tell Kessler, she gets to pass through my territory, if they give us food."

"They need to have something to bring back though, they can't just give you all their food, they need something in exchange, otherwise all of their resources will dry up."

"That's not my problem."

Nate rolled his eyes, realizing he was back to square one.

"Nate."

"Hold on Piper. Let me explain this a different way. If you managed to raid every single settlement in the entire Commonwealth, and it was just you and your gang, and everyone else was dead or moved away, who would be there to give you food?"

"My men."

"And if they decide to just leave you, because they don't like having to travel two weeks to get food from the closest settlers, and now it's just you, and you're all alone, here in a brewery full of beer, who is going to go out and get food?"

"Me."

"But, you've already raided everything. There's no food, no preserved cans of food anywhere left in the Commonwealth. Where do you go? What do you do?"

"I'd leave and go somewhere else."

"Okay, let's say you do that, do you have anyone with you? Or is it just you...Remember, your entire gang left you because they didn't like traveling that far out to find food.

"Just me, I can survive."

"Okay. So, you're all alone. You're walking along, and just when you think you come to a settlement you can raid, there's fifty raiders from a different gang that all hate you, and demand you give over everything you have. What do you do?"

"I'd fight back."

"Against fifty raiders? There's just no way. They shoot you dead, and now Tower Tom doesn't exist anymore. That's what happens."

Explaining the pitfalls of a raider based economy to someone who never was afforded the luxury of a proper education was harder to Nate than ripping out his own fingernails. It was considerably easier with all the excess radiation he was exposed to over the last week, making the nails a bit more brittle. But, the long roundabout explanation seemed to be sinking into Tower Tom's thick dense head.

"Okay," Tower Tom finally says after a long thirty seconds of thinking it over. "So what happens when we stop attacking caravans?"

Nate took a drink and savored it 'Ahh' "After you stop attacking caravans, you invite them here, to your door, and you give them beer and caps in exchange for food. Whatever excess beer you brew, you sell at seven caps per bottle. Do you want me to write this down? You sell the beer at seven caps per bottle, and buy empty bottles from people, ordinary people, settlers, farmers at two caps per bottle. That way it's called a deposit. The beer costs five caps to make and fill into a bottle, but the cost of an empty bottle is one cap, and a cap on top of course is...a cap. Five plus one plus one equals seven. So for every beer you sell, you make five caps. If you sell six beers, that's thirty caps you and your people make. If you sell twenty beers, that's one hundred caps. If you sell seven hundred beers, then holy smokes, that's three thousand five hundred caps worth of profit to you and your people. All of that could be used to by more grains from the farmers, instead of raiding them, now your buying from them, and then the farmers get to use that money to hire more people, and grow their farm. So instead of a man and woman out farming a little spit of land, now there's twenty people out there all farming and the farm is ten times as big. See what happens, Tom?"

Nate took another drink, and Tower Tom finally got the clue to do the same. His face soured at the taste, but he kept drinking. Piper tried choking hers down, although she only held her little cup and sipped at it.

"Yes. I see what you're getting at."

"You create an economy, Tom. Now, instead of raiding the farmers, or telling your own men to go out and farm, you send your men to protect the farm from being raided by other gangs! Do you get me? Do you understand?" Nate asked, nodding his head. Tower Tom took another drink from his cup of vodka and held it out for more.

"Yeah."

"Good." Nate said, pouring Tower Tom's cup of vodka very full. "Now, I can solve your Red problem, if you show me Lily."

"Oh no, she's dead. The bitch tried to kill me so I shot her."

\111/

Fuck. Fuck-ity Fuck. "What the fuck you fucking fucker? You killed her? So what does Red know?"

"Nothing! I forge letters and say it's from Lily." Tower Tom says, drinking large gulps of vodka. Nate balled up his fist until his knuckles were white and lightly tapped it against the table. "So, what do you think I can do about Red?"

Nate thumped his fist against the desk three times, sharing a heated glance with Piper.

"Soon." He mouthed to her.

"Tell you what, Tower Tom. I go to Red, and get her to hand over the Federal Ration Stockpile to you, make her clear out and I'll make sure she never knows you killed her sister, Lily. I'll even make sure that Red wont kill you when she finds out."

"You can do that?" Tower Tom asked, Nate poured vodka all the way up to the rim of Tower Tom's cup and gestured for him to keep drinking. "How? What could you say that'll get her to stop caring about her sister?"

"I'll tell her something so mind boggling, yet true, that she'll have no choice but to leave."

"I'm waiting." Tower Tom said.

"She escaped, and is hiding with a gang in the west."

"What gang?"

"What gangs are there to the west of here?"

"The one's at Nuka-World. There's the Disciples, the Operators, and the Pack."

"There you go, Tom. She's hiding off with them trying to convince them to come back and take you out."

"But how's that going to get her to leave the food?"

"Because, you'll demand that she leave the stockpile, with all the leftover food there, in exchange for the information of where her sister is, and then flee to go find Lily. She won't lay a finger on you. She will be a little mad, but her men are going to be furious with her that she's giving up such a good base in exchange for her sister, but I guarantee she won't hurt you at all."

"Nate, what are you talking about?" Piper insisted on knowing.

"I'll explain the deal to them just as I did with Tower Tom here, and I'll tell you everything on the way when we're not here! Nate said through gritted teeth, forcing himself to smile at her.

She got the message, "Now, drink up, Tower Tom."

"Just Tom. The Tower part gets too much to listen to. This vodka's pretty good."

"You're the boss, Tom. It's Polish vodka, this stuff used to be moderately expensive before the bombs fell."

\111/

"Please tell me you're going to kill him?" Piper asked after they left the brewery.

"Oh, I'm gonna slit his fucking throat. That dumb motherfucker, we're going straight to Red, and we're telling her the whole story."

"She'll be pissed though, and that whole deal you set up with him is going right out the window. Red will move in and take over, you realize that, though, don't you?"

"I'd rather work with a kindred spirit who lost a member of their family than I would with a kidnapping murderer. Fuck him, and fuck his shitty beer. It tastes funny. You mind if we take a detour?"

"Go right ahead, I want to see this one through. How are we going to prove that Tower Tom killed Red's sister, though? What if she says we're bluffing?"

"Piper, let me introduce you to another feature on the Pip-Boy." Nate brought up the screen, and it was an audio screen with a timer and a progress bar. "I recorded the entire conversation, from start to finish. Let's see..."

Skipping through the conversation, Piper was amazed when Nate came to the point where Tower Tom confessed.

"...you send your men to protect the farm from being raided by other gangs! Do you get me? Do you understand?"

"Yeah."

"Now, I can solve your Red problem, if you show me Lily."

"Oh no, she's dead. She tried to kill me so I shot her."

"What the fuck, you fucking-fucker? So, what does Red know?"

"Nothing! I forge letters and say it's from Lily."

"Damn. So. You're really gonna bring some laws back into the wasteland, huh? I noticed the bit where you said Red wasn't going to lay a finger on him."

"You're right, she won't. I will. I'm gonna end the fucking insanity going on in the wasteland one suffering choked-out motherfucker at a time."

"Scary."

"It's Halloween. What else do you expect?"

\111/

Author's Note

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year!
Don't forget to leave a 👍 and a comment.

Ch. 40 Red Dawn Nov. 1

Walking north and west, the passed the Arcjet Systems building in the early blue light of the morning, it was a large five-story building with a rocket logo blasting off through the letters of the sign out front, illuminated by a white light shining up at the sign. The building was quiet from the exterior, and the parking lot was full of empty cars.

"Do you know what they used to do here?" Piper asked,

"Build Rocket Engines. They printed special parts and components here, one of the only places on the eastern seaboard and tested them here. Beyond that, I don't know what else they were working on."

"How did they print parts?"

"They designed a three-dimensional model in a computer program, then made a machine re-create the image using metal."

"Anything worthwhile in there?"

"Old Captain Ironsides might want something like that, but he's on his own for now. The Federal Stockpile is just up the road."

The fog was setting in during the morning, and the light from fires in sconces was burning brightly over the Federal Ration Stockpile. Nate felt a sense of dread after looking at the cages the size of humans. These crow cages where people were placed inside and hung from tall posts and forced to die from starvation, and then picked apart by crows. There were semi-trucks moved into place as barricades around the front, barring entrance.

"What's the plan?"

"Hide the guns, make it look like we're not here to attack them."

"Are we though?" Piper asked.

Nate took off his bag and holsters, letting them drop to the ground. "Not if I can't help it." Keeping Kellogg's pistol tucked into his waistband, Piper did the same with her blaster. They stashed their supplies in a drainage pipe with a piece of deadwood over the top to hide it from view.

"We shout until we get their attention. Meathead, go be a good boy and scout around, I don't want them shooting you. Piper, you can go if you want, I have a reasonable fear that they're going to beat the hell out of anything they come across out here." She shook her head.

"I'm standing by you." She said, standing firmly by his side. Nate looked up to the crow cages again, seeing the corpses and rotting bodies contained inside. It was like a form of hanging, hanging in chains. The word was gibbeting, but Nate couldn't remember it at the time.

"Ready?"

"No. But let's go."

\111/

"On three. One, two, three. RED!"

"RED!"

"RED!"

"RED!"

"RED!"

"WE NEED TO SPEAK TO RED!" Nate shouted.

They could see the raiders moving around the base, responding to the noise.

"WE NEED TO SPEAK TO RED!" They shouted together.

Raiders came sprinting out and Nate gestured for Piper to put her hands up.

"You better be right about this one, Blue."

\111/

They came around both ends of the semi-truck, in three groups of two until they were completely outgunned and they shouted again, "WE NEED TO SPEAK TO RED!"

"Who are you?" One raider shouted, he wore a gas mask with goggles, and approached them. "And why do you need to speak with Red?" They brought out two mongrel looking attack dogs, pieces of metal strapped around their bodies and growling fiercely.

"Go wake her up, if she hasn't been already. It's about Tower Tom."

"What the hell do you want? More food?"

"We need to talk with your boss, Red."

"She ain't seeing no one."

"How about we just fucking shoot you?" Another raider suggested.

"And piss off your boss?!" Piper shouted, "Tell Red she desperately needs to hear for herself. Not passed along."

"Who the fuck are you?" The man holding the dogs on a chain pulled at their necks, throwing them into a frenzy making them bark and snarl.

"Who we are doesn't matter, yet. What we're here to do is pass information to your boss, Red, and speak with her about Tower Tom. We aren't demanding food, we aren't part of Tower Tom's gang, we're just here to speak with her about him."

"About what?"

"About Tower Tom and his gang at Beantown Brewery." One raider was tapped on the arm and sent running back inside.

"Don't fucking move a muscle. Hand over your weapons."

Nate kept one hand raised. "Slowly. Now. Drop it." They both let their guns be collected by a woman who came up to them and snatched them away. They didn't move, they were rooted to the spot.

"What about the thing on your wrist?"

"That's a gieger-counter it tells me if there's radiation in the air," Nate replied.

"Down on the ground." Sitting cross-legged on the ground, Nate and Piper waited as the gang aimed their guns at them, then two came up to pat them down. Shoving them around, they both didn't try to resist as they were held at gunpoint.

Nate pulled his legs up tightly to him, closing his eyes, and straining them to look straight up into his third eye. He waited silently as Piper tried getting comfy on the concrete pavement.

Waiting ten minutes. It was a long time of tense sitting, but the duo sat patiently, not moving and showing no signs of hostility to the barking attack dogs or the raiders.

Every time they asked what they were here for, they would reply with, 'We need to speak to Red about Tower Tom.'

She arrived and the first thing they noticed on her was the black and red war paint smeared horizontally across her face in a straight line. Her fiery red hair shaved on the right side of her head, layered over onto the left, and burning hazel green eyes. Her energy was fire, and other raiders around her stepped away to avoid the heat coming from her.

"Who are you, and what do you want?" She said, the attack dogs stopped barking, but kept a low growl in their throat.

"We need you to listen to a recording I took of Tower Tom, just hours ago. We want to kill Tower Tom."

"What is it?" She asked, in her arms was a heavily modified hunting rifle, on the back were crow feathers dipped in red paint, screwed into the hardwood stock. There was a cross inside of a circle burned into the stock as well, and the rest of the stock was painted red, looked just like her namesake.

"Red, just before we came here, we got Tower Tom drunk, and he confessed things he doesn't want you to hear. We were discussing a deal, but once we learned about the kidnapping of your sister, Lily, we both knew we would never work with him. Now we want to kill Tower Tom."

"Where's the recording?" Red asked.

"Here. On my Pip-boy."

"I thought you said it was a Geiger counter."

Nate ignored the comment and was ready with the file before they even walked up to the Federal Stockpile.

Pressing play, Nate asked, "Now tell me this isn't Tower Tom's voice. Before I play it, I'm going to offer Tower Tom to you. I can have him hanging by a rope around his neck if you let us live."

"Play it." She wasn't convinced yet.

'"See what happens, Tom?"
Yes. I see what you're getting at."
"You create an economy, Tom. Now, instead of raiding the farmers, or telling your men to go out and farm, you send your men to protect the farm from being raided by other gangs! Do you get me? Do you understand?"
"Yeah."

There was a pause when Nate refilled Tower Tom's cup of vodka.

"Now, I can solve your Red problem, if you show me Lily."
"Oh no, she's dead. She tried to kill me so I shot her."
"What the fuck, you fucking-fucker? So, what does Red know?"
"Nothing! I forge letters and say it's from Lily."

"We can set up a trap and kill Tower Tom," Nate said.

Red ignited.

"Beat them, then take them inside."

Nate inhaled, expecting this. "Piper, protect your face."

The nine raiders all descended on Nate and Piper, they beat the living hell out of them as they punched them, kicked them, stomped on them, and made them gasp in agony as Nate felt a punch to his ribs, and then his cheek, a boot stomping on his shin, someone swinging a baseball bat at his head, a tire iron to the knees, and then a pummeling from a flurry of fists that made Nate bleed. Bashed in the nose, head punched and kidneys punched, he felt the piercing heat of a knife hit his ribs and he realized he was stabbed.

Guttering a groan, he collapsed, and they kept beating him for a whole minute.

Piper wasn't left unscathed either, they yanked on her hair, threw her to the ground, kicked her, slammed clubs into her, straddled her and beat her, she screamed and yelled, she tried defending her face, but her hands were pinned behind her as she was forced up onto her feet and punched in the stomach. Taken a baseball bat swing to the legs, she cried out in agony. Someone took a rock and heaved it down at her chest while she was laying on the ground, then they picked both of them up and forced them to walk. Piper's walk was a stagger and Nate was limping into the Federal Stockpile.

There were tarps over the original concrete building, stretched tight over the tops of buildings that lead down into barrels to collect rainwater. Three lean-to shacks looked like they were in a state of disrepair, and needed to be fixed. Three turrets puttered back and forth along the tops of buildings, and Piper took note through her one good eye that this place was well defended.

Too much blood was in Nate's eyes for him to see clearly, only look straight down at the ground and shuffle along.

They were lead inside, and down below. They were told to 'watch the landmines' and then came to a catwalk overlooking a pit of water. The catwalk was broken in the middle, and they were heaved across, the raiders taking large steps to spur them onwards, to the cement block room with no visible escape from, and only one way out.

\111/

Piper slumped down onto the floor, feeling pain rack across her body. "Nate...Nate...Nate...why did we do this? Why didn't we fight back?"

"Cause...it was the right thing to do, and she may be a raider, but that doesn't mean anything. She deserves to know the truth, and have justice, just like you and me." Nate coughed, sitting still on the ground. He moaned quietly to himself, trying to breathe through the pain and ease the suffering. "There's a quote that's been said and used a few times throughout history." He kept his eyes closed, it was too hard to see, and his eyes were swollen.

"The one I'm thinking of is by Doctor Martin Luther King. There's good in the worst of us..." Nate swallowed, spitting a gob of dried, reddish-black blood out. "and some evil in the best of us." Clearing his throat he finished with, "When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies."

"What kind of Doctor was he?" Piper asked.

Nate smiled, leaning his head back and laughing. "Haha he he he haha." The laughter echoed through the basement of the Federal Stockpile and set the guard posted to watch Nate and Piper on edge.

"What?" Piper asked, dragging herself closer to Nate. "I don't get it...What's so funny?"

"Doctorate in Theology. He studied religion at Boston University. You gotta know your local history, Piper. He was a great activist who focused America's mind to end segregation of whites and colored people. He would probably say history is repeating itself over...and over...and over...and over...again. Now we got robots. There were the blacks. Then the women...the gays...then the Jews, but they're always getting shafted. Then the Muslims...and the Eastern Mediterraneans...and then the Japs again cause nobody could fuckin' tell a Korean from a Vietnamese, from a guy I knew from Laos, from a Gook. Finally, we got to the Chinese...I wonder how that one turned out..." Nate yawned. "Now we got robots."

"Where's this coming from, Blue? Is it because we just got the shit kicked out of us?"

He shook his head. "I burned down Covenant, Piper. The people there were torturing a woman they kidnapped...Amelia Stockton. I knew she was a synth...they were working on a test to see if she was a synth...and she passed it in the wrong way. I burnt down the settlement because the people in Covenant would signal a group...to come and attack anyone who they thought was a synth...Kidnap 'em. Torture 'em. Electrocute 'em. Beat 'em to death. Then keep on testing. So I burnt the whole thing down. It was a witch hunt, so I killed them."

"It hurts to breathe, Nate. I really don't care right now." Shuddering breaths of pain were the only other noises shared between the duo for the rest of the evening.

\111/

Red couldn't sit down. Her arms were shaking too hard and her people left her alone after she threw a table at Wink. She didn't mean to throw a table at him, but when someone wakes her up too early in the morning and gets her to walk out to the front gate where two strangers tell her with backing evidence that her sister is dead, sometimes furniture gets thrown around.

It's not her fault Wink was in the way. He was standing in the doorway to her room, and now, he was laying knocked out cold on the ground outside her room with her broken table smashed around him.

Tags told her they threw the man and woman into the concrete room, a storage room they couldn't even access all that easily anyway. They were beaten, and they didn't even fight back except to try and keep their faces protected. Her entire body was sweating, and her heart was racing, but she was stone-cold sober.

Next thing she knew, she crouched down low, screaming into her hands and crying. She was lied to, for weeks...She tried looking at the letters, but couldn't focus on the words. Red knew which letter Lily was her last, and the one's Tower Tom started sending as forgeries, but she couldn't read them. Her eyes would tear up and she couldn't stand to look at them without sobbing.

There was too much. She remembered doing things with her, hunting together, going as far back as learning how to shoot, and who was the better shot. She grits her teeth, closing her eyes and crying again. Red didn't know how to be sad, happy, and angry all at the same time. She grunted, roaring as the overwhelming rage at the thought of being lied to by Tower Tom, and then disgusted that she didn't realize it sooner.

Two weeks ago...she finally had the strength to look at the letters and see the difference in handwriting.

Lily's been dead for two weeks, her people inside Tom's gang say they haven't seen her in a while, and know she was moved.

She called for one of her people inside of Tower Tom's gang to report to her. It was an hour before Holso came to her room, and spoke with her.

"Where's Lily?" She asked Hoslo.

"We don't know, and no one else in Tom's crew knows either. We've asked every single person, checked every room, they all think or say she was moved, but they never saw her get moved personally. They have no idea where she is." Holso answered.

"The newcomers said she tried to kill Tom and escape, but he shot and killed her," Red said, relaying the news as collectedly as she could.

"If we don't know where Lily is, and if Tom doesn't have her anymore. Then he needs to pay." Holso replied.

How long had her sister been dead? The words were like a brain parasite, and she wanted to beat the information out of Tom until his arms and legs were bent in ways no human body should ever bend in.

She was going to kill him. That was a fact, she told herself. She was going to poison the food, and kill them all, but then she wouldn't know where Lily was. The strangers. The thought bored itself to the forefront of her mind.

They said they could trap him.

Taking deep breaths, it took her almost an hour to finally calm her nerves enough where she could take a few steps without breaking down into a fit of raw emotion.

When Nate sang, he was making his voice deeper, and it echoed throughout the rocky underground. She could hear his voice echoing through the tunnels, and was sure that one of her gang would tell them to shut up, and beat them into quieting down, but as much as Red wanted Nate to stop singing, he captured how she was feeling emotionally right now. She didn't mind the song...it was an okay one, but why did it have to be this song?

Grabbing two stimpaks, she gripped them tightly in her fist and walked towards the noise. Two women followed along behind her, Territh and Darva. They followed Red closely, keeping quiet, but knowing where she was going, and guarding her in her wake.

\111/

"Some body, please
give me Just a minute
To explain my misery?"

Red could hear it from her room, and it made her knuckles grow white as she walked through the ancient tunnels and the rock floors, echoing her footsteps. She walked at them, trying to get them to shut up. She just regained control of her emotions, and now the song was bringing up the memory of Lily all over again.

"The girl that I love
She walked out on me."

"(Yea she did)" Piper added.

Moving faster, Red followed the winding tunnels to the basement beneath the Federal Stockpile.

"And now I stand here
With just a memory
somebody, please
Won't you help me?
Now wait just a minute now
You got to tell me why
Without my baby
I think I'm gonna die."

Red paused to catch her breath, wiping her face, climbing up some stairs, she gripped her fists tightly and swore, how dare the strangers sing?

"The girl that I love...
She walked out on me"

"(yea she did)"

"And now I stand here
My heart in misery.
O somebody, please
Won't you help me Ooo?"

Reaching the catwalk, Red walked around and jumped across the gap as Nate started on the chorus.

"Can't you feel the fire burning
Can't you see the Wheels are turning
But without you Baby
I know I'm going to go
Oh, can't you feel the fire burning?
Can't you see the wheels in my heart are turning?"

Nate was massaging Piper's back, trying to ease the pain when Red leaped across the broken catwalk and came up to them.

He stopped once they heard her footsteps.

She came up to them and demanded to know. "You said you want to kill Tower Tom. Why?

"We talked with Tower Tom, and he told us he kidnapped Lily."

"Why were you talking with Tom?"

"I struck a deal with one of his lieutenants, Sparta. In exchange for three things, I left her company alive and well. The first was a pile of loot inside an office they couldn't get into. It was ammo, booze, drugs." Nate bobbed his head forward. Counting on his fingers, "The second was to not bring down the ceiling on everybody's heads with a bomb I was carrying with me at the time. Third, I agreed to take out a building in Cambridge filled with super mutants, and she let me live. She agreed to let me go, so she told me to go to Beantown Brewery." Nate flicked his right hand up, dismissing the story. "Piper and I talked with Tom, got him very drunk, and he told us about the forged letters he's been sending you in the wake of Lily's death."

Red's jaw muscles were clenched tightly, rocking back and forth, she wasn't impressed with Nate's story.

"We're adamantly against any murdering-kidnappers," Piper said.

"Why?"

"My son was kidnapped by the Institute, and I only recently hung the man who did it. I want to offer that same catharsis to you."

"Why do you want to do things for me? What's in it for you?"

"The brewery. But more specifically, Beer. They already make beer, but they're killing caravans so they're not trading it away either for resources they need. Namely one is your food. Eventually, when they run out of supplies, they'll sober up and realize that they've scavenged the entire town around them and will be forced to move out, or become increasingly demanding with the tributes others are providing to them." Nate pointed both fingers towards Red. "When Tower Tom is removed, use that brewery to provide beer. Water and alcohol, safe to drink, easy to make, and people can go for three weeks without food...and only three days before they need to drink something to survive."

"Tower Tom has no leverage over you." He finished with, Piper agreed.

"So you want his brewery. I want his head."

"We can help each other out. I'm a long way from having plans in place to secure the brewery, and I don't want another gang moving in. How about Piper and myself clear out Tom and his gang. We give you Tom, and then we become partners in beer? We're not interested in caps, or your food, just the machines inside Tom's building. Caps will become a necessity eventually to pay people, but that's a long way off."

"How long?" Red asked.

"Say the word, and we can have Tom kneeling in front of you in three hours. The brewing would come after that when we're not so busy."

"How can you get me Tom?"

"Piper and I can go in ourselves, sweep and clearing the brewery. There are twelve people, five in the main entrance, seven in the back, if you lead a charge of your crew while we're assaulting the building, we can hand him right over to you in handcuffs once we're done. What you do with him is up to you of course. I suggest hanging him in front of your next enemy.

"So why are you dead set on hanging him?" Red asked. Piper focused on Nate as well, why bring up hanging again?

Nate thought back to False Pass, the gallows for every single Chinese soldier who touched land. How it was a deterrent for soldiers trying to cross the pass.

"It's a process to hang someone. First, you need to tie the rope in a hangman's knot before looping it around his neck, and cinching it down tight. Then, either thrown off a balcony or ledge, his neck snaps. It will show to everyone else around watching it happen that you're not to be messed with, otherwise they'll suffer a similar fate."

"I'd rather cut his head clean off with the sharpest blade I can find."

"That's faster than my way, I suggest when you do lop off his head, get him to bow onto his knees first, it makes him show humility."

Red considered it. "If I release you, who's to say you won't go running back to Tom after we beat the living shit out of both of you? That you won't just try to attack us?"

"You'll have to put your faith in us, Red. We wanted to avenge Lily's death the moment he mentioned it, but we came straight to you so that you knew because Tom has no right treating you like this. He does not deserve to be happy at the expense of Lily's life and your suffering. It was the honorable thing to do to come and tell you, and from what I've seen, there is very little honor or respect in the Commonwealth. You deserve all the respect in the world, and the honor of killing Tower Tom goes to yourself."

"Do you know where her body is?"

"No, but, if we're allowed to leave, and be partners moving forward, I'll find out where she is so you can have a proper burial."

"Why would you do that? I'm not looking for any partners."

"I treat everyone in my community with the respect they deserve. You deserve all the respect in the world for what you had to go through. Tom disrespected you, and he disrespected your sister's memory by forging letters to you. He is a man who doesn't deserve to live for kidnapping a person, who knew your sister would try to escape and return to you."

"My men inside Beantown tell me she hasn't been seen in a while. They thought he moved her."

"You have people inside Beantown?" Nate asked. "I suggest you send them a message or have them identify themselves in some way so we know they're part of your gang. Tell them we're coming. How many people do you have inside Tom's gang?"

"Three. Daro is out with Sparta, and we haven't communicated with him in weeks. Gretchen and Price are both with Tower Tom."

"Is it possible to pull them out of the area without causing suspicion?"

"I can send them a message," Red replied. "They'll know you're coming and to stand down when you arrive."

"Good. That's excellent." Nate smiled, trying to see through his cracked eyes. His eyes went to the stimpaks in Red's hands, hoping that they were for Piper and himself. "Tom is dishonest in telling his people what he does with prisoners. You, however, did us an amazing kindness for sparing our lives. You could've let your people kill us, and be done with it, thank you for sparing us." He thanked her, bowing his head until it touched the concrete floor.

Piper tensed, she's never dealt with raiders this intensely, and the way Nate put it, he was always humbling himself in front of them.

"Why do you talk about honor and respect?" Red asked.

"I come from a time where respecting and honoring the family was a dying art form, and taking pride in the community meant taking advantage of it until the community broke apart. There was no love for the community, there was no love for the family. You would not have spared us unless you loved your sister very much. That is why I respect you. That is why I came to you, hoping you loved your sister. That is why I will never work for a person like Tower Tom."

Red popped her fingers, her knuckles, balling up her fist and thinking things over. She looked up at the ceiling, realizing she hasn't had the time to wonder about the rest of the world with all her focus on Tom and Lily.

"With Tom dead, his people will either have to fight back or surrender. With caravans moving through, it'll be your decision what to do with them. You'll have support with people coming to deliver supplies, and people will still want what you have, but instead of fighting over it, you can trade for it. You will avenge your sister by honoring her memory."

Nate raised a hand to her to shake. "Partners?" He asked,

She looked down at his hand, "Partners. Now, take this." Red said, offering the stimpaks to Nate and Piper.

"As for the beating my gang gave you, think of it as initiation. You're one of us now."

"Don't worry about it, I understand. We didn't expect anything less than what you did." Nate and Piper both took the stimpaks and injected themselves, healing the surface injuries and healing up the open wounds. They were both sore and ragged from the encounter, but with a gesture of goodwill from Red, they felt like they could breathe easier again.

It still didn't make getting beaten to hell and back, then waiting two hours without anything to ease the pain any easier.

\111/

Ch. 41 Recon Squad Gladius

Author's Note

Still Here, Live and Local from Diamond City Radio.

Ch. 41 Recon Squad Gladius

The gunfire was growing louder, echoing through the brick filled streets, and attracting more and more attention. There were thin frail plants still clinging to life in early November, even though the dry season was marred with acidic rainfall, these plants crept up slowly from the dirt, clinging to buildings, trying to reclaim the land they were paved over.

One feral ghoul ran across the street, clambering over the warped pavement, stumbling through the rubble, and joining two more who heard the noise as well. The chatter and chirps of guns firing off were unremitting, Down a long street in Cambridge, there was the police station in the center of it. Large barricade walls were erected around it after the bombs fell, and were used by officers to hold back the tide of people looking for aid, or more nefarious means, guns and ammo.

The gates were rusted, and the barricades were collapsed, overrun by a car long ago that was used as a rolling, flaming battering ram. It was now a burnt-out husk with no wheels, and the police station was abandoned long ago. But the gunfire happening now in the year 2287 on the morning of November 1st, was drawing the attention of dozens of feral ghouls from the western half of Cambridge.

The police station was of interest to the three people scouting the location, the survivors of an eight-man team.

After seven weeks of scouting the Commonwealth, coordinating strange energy reading signals coming from Cambridge, the source of the Institute. Paladin Danse of the Brotherhood of Steel lead Recon Squad Gladius, the third recon team sent to the Commonwealth as part of an investigation to the whereabouts and loss of Recon Squad Artemis.

But since their arrival into the Commonwealth, Recon Squad Gladius was pushed to the limits of, and beyond their survival capabilities.

The first team sent to the Commonwealth was 10 years before them, a group of volunteers from the Brotherhood returned successfully with crates of pre-war technology, and a completed reconnaissance of Boston lead by Captain Sola Vagari of Recon Squad Vagus.

Recon Squad Vagus came and went three years before Recon Squad Gladius, and there was no help coming for them, not yet anyway. They were to make their forward operating base in a stronghold location marked as the Cambridge Police Station from three-year-old information. Over that long period, Nick Valentine tried to reconnect with his past self, and scout for the whereabouts of the infamous Eddie Winter tapes, and drew the attention of feral ghouls to inside the police station.

Recon Squad Gladius started with Knight Keane, Knight Worwick, Scribe Haylen, Paladin Danse, Knight Branch, Knight-Sargent Dawes, Advance Scout Verne, and Knight Rhys. One by one they were dying.

Knight Keane's power armor was damaged after the group was attacked by the Rust Devils near Fort Hagen. Some of their supplies were destroyed in the process. They came to Cambridge and set up their base within the station after clearing out the feral ghouls inside the station, wanting to use the long-range antenna built into the station, and the abundance of guns and ammo in the police armory.

Hounded by raiders from the Corvega Plant in Lexington, Paladin Danse leads the squad in an attack against Jared and his gang, only to be forced to retreat after Knight Branch stepped on a landmine, killing him instantly. He was not the only death in that attack. Knight Worwick was slain by a sharpshooter atop the Corvega plant, gunning him down from afar, striking his skull from over 150 yards away.

With their resources stretched thin after the failure to take over Corvega, they tried resupplying at the Boston Airport and scavenging supplies from Fort Strong, west of the Boston Airport, only to find the old military base was overrun with Super Mutants, leading to the death of Knight-Sargent Dawes.

Down to four members of their original team, Field Scribe Haylen investigated signals coming through the Cambridge Police Station antenna and was to inform their main chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel on their progress.

The Cambridge police station was under attack for a week straight, and the fight was ongoing even to this moment. They were attacked by feral ghouls who were drawn there by the noise of gunfire after the recon team cleared the perimeter around the building, and started construction on barricades. Knight Keane was killed by feral ghouls after his power armor was completely rendered useless, and forced out of the protective body armor.

Torn apart limb from limb in front of the other four members of Recon Squad Gladius, it was up to Haylen, Rhys, Verne, and Danse to fight for their lives, and endure.

\111/

Paladin Danse carried a laser rifle and stood firm in the courtyard in front of the doors to the Cambridge Police Station. He wore thick T-60 power armor that deflected radiation, bullets, was airtight for walking underwater, and could withstand heat and flames for up to sixty minutes at 900 degrees Fahrenheit. Firing cell after cell of energy, the light emitted from his rifle was fired so fast, it was like a continuous laser beam, only halted every seven seconds when Danse needed to reload. Still, firing twenty shots from a laser rifle in seven seconds was an impressive feat, and it was keeping the growing swarm of feral ghouls at bay.

The bodies were shorn in half by laser blasts, burnt corpses littered the street outside, and when one out of dozens got too close, Danse bashed the feral ghoul in the face, kicked it to the ground, and stomped in its head with the momentum of fifty pounds of power armor all weighing down on his boot. Sickening splats and crunched skulls made Danse sneer at the bloodshed. There was already so much, and the bodies kept mounting, there wasn't much of an end to it. Thirty ghouls were all in front of him, and he was ready, firing into the crowd with his laser rifle.

Cutting through the air was iron and steel, the sound of the Chicago Typewriter, the Thompson submachine gun with 50 round drum magazines firing .45 caliber bullets was a new sound of gun that was an interesting noise for Danse to hear after the howling, groaning, and screams of feral ghouls for the last seven days.

The metallic firing hammer tapped out bullets, chewing up the crowd and cutting them down at the legs, ripping the withered corpses apart like thin sheets of plywood, and fracturing them like glass.

The sound of gunfire and laser blasts was prevalent as Meathead walked alone towards Cambridge, following a radio signal he heard three days ago, Military Frequency AF95 repeated itself again and again.

Disguised as Nate, using his Thompson submachine gun, he loaded the drum magazine into the gun, pulled back the bolt to load in the first round, covered his ears and fired.

Getting closer and closer to his targets, the gun tended to pull upwards as the constant recoil and ejecting cartridges forced the gun up and back.

Meathead entered the square plaza in front of the Cambridge Police Station and Paladin Danse shouted, "Civilian in the Perimeter!"

Scribe Haylen fired through the broken out and boarded-up windows of the Cambridge Police Station, as Knight Rhys gasped for breath, clutching his side after a feral ghoul scraped a big chunk of his side out and was bleeding profusely. Advance Scout Verne was a brown unicorn and a blonde mane, using his hooves to press gauze into Rhys' side with plenty of force while using magic to wrap bandages around his chest as the blood clotted against the clean cotton fibers.

Feral Ghouls came up behind Meathead, and he heard them running and growling, coming up behind him. He turned and fired, the chattering of the gun was only matched by the clacking of his teeth as he shook while shooting.

First, it was three, then seven, then ten, and they swarmed on Meathead. Dropping a grenade at his feet, he ran backwards and got away from the group as it exploded, killing six feral ghouls with one blast. Firing again, he moved backward and kept on shooting everything rotten and radiated.

When there were only three feral ghouls left, Meathead pulled out his serrated combat knife and lunged at their heads, stabbing and slicing through them like dried branches. The last feral ghoul came running at him, so Meathead ran at the ghoul, jumping at the ghoul, feet first, he planted them in the chest and kicked it backward. Landing on the ground, he was on his feet in a flash and then he pounced on the downed ghoul, stabbing him in the head, neck, and chest.

In an instant, Cambridge was quiet again except for the pained moans of ghouls who suddenly lost their way, with nowhere to go, and no noise to follow.

Paladin Danse observed the man who came armed with a submachine gun and a sharp knife, watching as he wiped the blade off on the ghoul's sun-bleached and worn rags.

"I appreciate the help, citizen, but what's your business here?" Paladin Danse asked, walking towards Meathead, disguised as Nate.

"" Meathead replied, standing up.

"The way you charged in and engaged those ferals, I find that hard to believe." Paladin Danse challenged Meathead, seeing if there was anything more to be had. "Are you from a local settlement?"

"" Meathead looked past Danse towards the doors of the police station, and he felt the worrying emotions coming from inside. He saw the face of Scribe Haylen, and how she was still raising her gun towards him. "Close enough to hear your distress signal, though."

There was a pointed response as Danse's eyes opened a bit, a flash of recognition appeared in his eyes. "You're a Vault Dweller?"

"" Meathead said, turning around halfway to show the numbers on his Vault suit.

"I apologize for appearing suspicious, since the moment we arrived in the Commonwealth, we've been constantly under fire."

""

"We came South, from Washington D.C. where our main chapter is located. You're a good enough shot, but that gun isn't very accurate. If you want to continue pitching in, we could always use another gun on our side."

"" Meathead asked.

"I'm Paladin Danse, Brotherhood of Steel." Looking over his shoulder, He saw Scribe Haylen still tense with adrenalin coursing through her veins. "Over there is Scribe Haylen, and inside is Knight Rhys and Advance Scout Verne. We're on recon duty. I'm down four good soldiers, and we're running low on supplies. I've been trying to send a distress call to our superiors, but the signal's too weak to reach them."

"Sir?" Scribe Haylen called out. There was a pregnant pause as she came out the doors into the yard where Danse and Meathead were talking and joined the conversation.

Her blue eyes stood out, red hair, while the rest of her body was covered in cloth armor. She wore a pocketed vest with seven pouches over a long sleeve red shirt under that. Her brown pants were sewn up with extra pouches, but the design was intentional. Scribes were meant to carry many supplies with them. Down to her steel-toed boots, she was quite ready for anything. "If I may...I modified the radio tower on the roof of the police station, but I'm afraid it just isn't enough."

"What we need is something that will boost the signal, and our current target is ArcJet Systems. It contains the technology we need...the Deep Range Transmitter. We infiltrate the facility, secure the transmitter, and bring it back here. So. What do you say? Are you willing to give the Brotherhood of Steel a hand?"

"" Meathead asked, looking at the logo on Danse's chest. It was a circle containing three gears, overlaid with a sword going straight up through the center, and wings flourishing from the hilt.

"Our order seeks to understand the nature of technology. It's power. It's meaning to us as humans. We fight to secure that power from those who would abuse it."

"" Meathead asked, brushing his hair back out of his face.

"They are my family. My brothers in arms. We are all raised and honor our members with the respect they deserve and are united in just causes."

""

"The atom bomb, bio-engineered plagues, and the FEV are clear examples of the horrors that technological advancement had wrought. We're here to make sure that never happens again."

""

"And look where that got humanity," Paladin Danse responded, unamused by Meathead's argument.

"" Meathead laughed, "" Meathead left the comment open-ended, allowing Danse to reply.

"I'm pleased you agree. There are very few outside the Brotherhood who appreciate the gravity of the situation we're facing as a species. So what do you say, will you help us?"

""

"Tertiary goals of the Brotherhood involve wiping out all abominations that the failures of mankind produced. Synths, mutants, deathclaws, and the sources of many of these evils, the Institute."

""

"The Forced Evolutionary Virus. The super mutants you see, are mankind's doing. They are not caused by radiation exposure like ghouls but from a virus resistant to radiation. It is a weapon used by super mutants who organize themselves and grow their ranks and numbers. We believe the Institute is in possession of a modified strain of FEV, based on comparisons between the super mutants in Washington D.C. and the one's the Brotherhood has come across here in the Commonwealth."

""

"They lack the one key crucial component that makes their numbers so large. Access to the virus. From previous expeditions to the Commonwealth, we've found that the super mutants here have no reason to be other than to hunt and kill, while as the D.C. mutants are intended to capture and kidnap settlers and expose them to the FEV to produce more super mutants. This means that the source of the super mutants is not the super mutants themselves, but a higher power controlling them. There have been no other unified organizations strong enough, or developed enough aside from the Institute to be capable of such atrocities."

Meathead stared at the ground, then back up to Danse. "" The thought dawned on him. "And the super mutants can't create more of their own! Oh my god! OH my GOD! Fuck! OH MY GOD!" Meathead panicked, "OH my GOD! FUCK!" Meathead looked down at Danse, then turned away and swore again. "FUCK!...that's...so fucked up! Shit! Huaidan!>" Meathead swore in Chinese, one of the few swears he learned from Nate, loosely meaning 'God Damn,' or 'Dang everything to heck'.

Paladin Danse and Haylen both stood there as the realization dawned on another person in the Commonwealth.

Meathead was taking it much better than others. "I take it you realize the extent of why the Institute needs to be stopped."

""

"No one, our presence has gone unhindered by everyone."

""

"What are you referring to?" Paladin Danse asked.

"" Meathead asked.

"Yes, that's why we're here."

"" Meathead said to Danse. "" Shaking at the revelation, "<No wonder they're so fucking angry!" Meathead drew in a breath, then shuddered. "You..." Meathead looked Paladin Danse directly in the eye, hoping for some sort of emotional response.

Meathead could tell a synth from a human apart without even looking directly at them, and the only one who wasn't producing any emotions whatsoever was the man directly in front of him, Paladin Danse.

"" Meathead said to Danse...and then felt the utmost pity.

"I think I understand what you're going through," Meathead shook his head. Sighing.

""

"I'll alert Verne that we're moving out."

"" Meathead said.

Paladin Danse paused from coming up the steps. "Why?"

"" Meathead said, staring back off at the ground as he processed this. ""

"We'd be forced to kill it or expel it from our ranks. This world is a vast place of every conceivable darkness from men's hearts, and it takes a man of many talents to live through it."

Paladin Danse entered the police station, and Meathead stood there, trying to mentally prepare himself to go find his dopple ganger and relay everything to him and Piper.

"Rhys. Are you going to make it?" Paladin Danse asked as he passed the sitting knight. Rhys sat up and patted his side.

"Verne got to me in time. I'll live."

"I don't know about that, it might be more humane to take him out back and shoot him," Verne said lightly in a joking manner.

"Verne. We're moving out. Grab your sidearms, we leave when you're ready."

"I'm ready now," Verne replied, clipping on his sidearms around his shoulders. Trotting out alongside Danse, Meathead blinked and then turned his head towards the noise of clopping hooves against concrete.

Advance Scout Verne was at Danse's chest height with brown and white fur, with a blonde mane, expect with the lack of sanitation, everything was yellowed. Verne bore a compass rose on his flank, but the Brotherhood of Steel emblems on his armor and battle saddle that held Verne's weapons in place fitted to the pony were blocking some of the marks.

"Soldier, this is Verne, our scout, and navigator. Any questions?"

Meathead tensed and flexed his hands. ""

Paladin Danse and Verne both turned their chins down towards Meathead. "How do you know about ponies?"

"Since the Brotherhood's first inception in Washington D.C. over thirty years ago." Paladin Danse replied. "Now, where did you hear about them?"

"

Meathead counted off his fingers on all the things there were to talk about in a small town.

""

\111/

Ch. 42 Support the Troops

Lead west through an alley next to the police station, the trio of Advance Scout Verne, Paladin Danse, and Meathead passed over a rusted chain-link fence lying in pieces on the ground.

"ArcJet is just a short hike to the west of here," Verne said, leading the way. "If we take this road, we should be able to avoid the larger packs of ferals infesting Cambridge."

"Soldier, a word." Paladin Danse asked.

"."

"What's your name, soldier?"

"" Meathead said.

"Is your vault operational, Nate?"

"Unfortunately, no."

"Is there a possibility that it could be restored?"

""

"That's a shame. Vaults are known for their double-sided experiments, but they make excellent bases that can be fortified."

"," Meathead said, ""

"What happened?"

"" Meathead said, his face wearing down. "" Meathead made a clicking noise, "" Meathead lied, not yet trusting the Brotherhood, nor their intentions for being in the Commonwealth.

They picked up into a jogging pace and kept moving west along the Charles River. They passed the bridge leading to Beantown Brewery and passed rusted cars with broken-in windows.

"Traveling this far from the police station is a risk, but getting that transmitter up and working needs to be our top priority," Paladin Danse explained.

"We should relocate, but the energy readings Scribe Haylen detected were disturbing, to say the least. I wasn't particularly fond of what I felt in Cambridge either." Verne mentioned.

"We'll make do, Verne."

""

"Thematic, Short-lived and broadcast on a frequency only obtainable with sophisticated levels of technology."

"" Meathead asked, the real Nate already speculated that the Institute was within Cambridge, and producing a massive synth army, yet no one knew how they were getting their troops around or supplies back to their base. ""

"They're being damnable clever about it!" Verne shouted from the front.

"We're concerned that whoever or whatever is creating those energy readings might be a potential threat, so it's our job to investigate."

The trio passed a grouping of four metal tubes rising up from the ground and painted blue. Four Pulowski Preservation Shelters, these were nuclear protections on a budget for the people who were caught unaware when the bombs fell. These telephone booth sized shelters didn't offer anything except for a safe place to put a locked door between the user and the world outside it. Moving beyond a yellowed bus with wheels sinking into the cracked pavement, they came upon the second bridge leading to Beantown Brewery, this one was part of the train tracks that expanded over the road beneath it.

Raiders were milling beneath it, and before Meathead could say anything to either Verne or Paladin Danse, they both open fire on the raiders. Verne was equipped with two side holsters at shoulder withers level, both with laser pistols mounted inside that Verne could fire by biting down on the trigger an inch from the tip of his snout like a chewable microphone.

The five raiders were shot dead in less than fifteen seconds, and Verne and Danse kept their fast jogging pace up.

Meathead held his SMG close to his chest and ran after them, listening to whatever tidbits of information Paladin Danse was willing to part with about the Brotherhood of Steel.

\111/

"It may surprise you, but over the years, two other teams were sent here by the Brotherhood to gather technology. The first team's mission was a huge success. They came back with crates full of pre-war artifacts and historical documents."

"" Meathead asked.

"Books from Boston University. They found plenty of history that we didn't know existed, and gave us back information on people we only knew the names of in Washington. The second wasn't so fortunate. Shortly after they arrived, we lost contact with them and haven't heard from them since."

Paladin Danse was silent for a moment, reflecting on the lost expedition. "As far as my team goes, we've lost half of our men to this godforsaken wasteland. We've been a target the moment we arrived."

"Yeah, but we don't intend to go home yet, or end up missing," Verne added.

""

"We followed train tracks north from Providence, but the way is heavily dense with raiders capable of putting up a good fight, and super mutants south of Boston. That bridge we just passed under has tracks that cut all the way south to Quincy and beyond. There's a large group of raiders near the Galaxy News Radio Station half a day's walk from here. That was our first point of contact with the local troublemakers."

"Hold up, dogs ahead," Verne said, head swinging left and right. "Let's put them down." Trotting forward, the pony went off the road to the left, drawing the dog's attention as Danse fired on them. In seconds, the pack of four dogs was caught in a crossfire. Only one wild dog managed to get close enough to Verne for the pony to charge back at him, knocking the dog to the ground and stomping and kicking the dog until its face was broken and neck smashed in.

They followed the road north-west for fifteen minutes, drawing closer and closer to the ArcJet Systems building in front of them. They passed a defunct red truck and a speed limit sign that served no purpose other than to gather dust and collect rust.

""

"I was a lucky one, and my ancestors were lucky ones, I guess. I was born into the Brotherhood of Steel, like most other brothers or sisters. It was before my time that ponies were locked up all over the United States in Vaults, bunkers, shelters, you name it. But only handfuls of us survived, we were usually the first to go when the food ran low. Some people just can't handle being a vegetarian."

""

"I heard that. But here's something you might not know, my race suffered a fugue after both mankind and Equestrians discovered each other. Both societies wanted to lay claim to the fact that it was they who were the first to discover the other, and not be discovered. Mankind was terrified of being invaded by an alien race, for fear that the aliens would do unto them as they had done unto others for their entire existence. Equestrian's were looking for a friend in the galaxy as to not be so alone. Once our people realized that your people were in a war that would expand across the globe, we were forced to pick sides, but even though our government chose one side, the individual ponies held free will to support whoever they wanted. I suppose it doesn't matter who my ancestors picked, it's all in the past, and the past belongs to the dead."

\111/

They entered the Arcjet Systems building and Verne and Danse scanned the lobby, looking at how tactically sound the building was.

"It was corporations like this that put the last nail in the coffin for mankind," Paladin Danse said. "They pocketed technology for their own gain, pocketing the cash, and ignoring the damage they'd done."

""

Paladin Danse made a face that wanted to disagree with what Meathead was saying, but he saw through the lines of logic he argued. "The more prime members, you could say that held true. Sticking to a highly militarized discipline to see them through the chaotic times after the Great War. Since then, recruiting is a bit more relaxed during times of necessity."

The trio came to a security room where six protectrons were all torn and bashed apart. Not a single one of them was in working condition, and all their plates were either ripped off, dented, punched in, or missing. Meathead looked down at the type of damage done when Verne spoke.

"Hands. A big group of people did this with their bare hands. Different sized marks scratching the paint, you see that?" Verne pointed a hoof to the claw marks, and how they were jagged or inconsistent with others. "Burn marks on the walls too, these robots worked for a while but were attacked by a group. We might be dealing with ghouls or...some scrappers." Verne observed.

Walking through tight oppressive hallways that's didn't bare any markings to the labs, or offices, they came to a room locked with two security doors linked to a terminal.

"I'll get the doors," Paladin Danse said, going to the computer.

Meathead looked up, feeling some form of life in the building, but it was mechanical. He could hear it, but he couldn't feel it.

"" Meathead said, putting his hand out to the side to silence the other two.

Verne and Danse looked up, staying quiet they heard something walking above their heads, and making the ceiling creak.

"Yep. Something up there. Something heavy. Hopefully, another protectron roaming around, that would be the least of our worries."

Paladin Danse went back to the terminal, typing at the keys to find a workaround into guessing the access password.

"You've been staring at me ever since you first saw me. What is it?" Verne asked, Meathead was leaning against a desk and was caught staring directly at the pony's flank.

""

"Unless it helps us find the Deep Range Transmitter faster, it's not important," Verne replied.

"<Not even if that pony worked for the Institute? I caught him with Conrad Kellogg, a known Institute spy, and legman."

"Where did you come across this Institute pony?"

"" Meathead quickly jumped through his story again.

Verne and Danse both shared looks of confusion, and then Danse asked, "What did this Institute spy have to say?"

""

Paladin Danse stood straight and braced himself against the desk, both arms out and leaning over the terminal at Meathead. "Do you know where the Institute is?"

""

"After we get in contact with the main chapter of the Brotherhood, we'll make sure an army of the best-trained soldiers eliminates the entirety of the Institute, and make sure that type of technology never falls into the wrong hands."

Meathead hummed at Paladin Danse's declaration, he's heard that same line from the real Nate when he was describing his time in the army when a weapon or valuable piece of technology was in the Chinese hands, but the U.S. Army wanted to take it and repurpose it for their own needs and gains in the war effort.

""

"That's classified."

"" Nate said, gaining a cursory glance from Danse and Verne.

"What do you know about ponies?" Verne asked Meathead. "How did you know about the War for Alaska?"

Meathead looked down, ""

"So what's that make you? A man who doesn't age? A synth with human memories?" Paladin Danse asked, looking up from the computer.

""

"Why do you say that it was the Institute?" Paladin Danse interjected.

"" Meathead trailed off, looking at the counters around him, and laying on the technician's equipment was a white and grey laser pistol. "" He said, holding up the Institute laser pistol.

Paladin Danse opened the security doors and five Generation One synths were on the other side, prying metal panels off the walls and pulling up copper cables from the floors. "Damn Synths compromised the facility! Fire!"

Meathead ducked into cover as all five synths switched into action, two of them carrying shock batons while the other three fired their laser pistols.

Paladin Danse in his power armor deflected or absorbed most laser fire, immune to the fear of being burnt alive by a laser shot. He fired back with his own laser rifle, the red beams blasting into the Gen Ones. Meathead fired thirty rounds from the Institute designed laser pistol, finding it was sighted well, and not as a hassle to manage the recoil as his Tommy gun. It lacked the same punch of an SMG but was efficient at melting the synth external components. Stowing the laser pistol, he switched to his Tommy Gun.

Verne bit down onto the triggers, and in the small laboratory, there were more colorful beams flying around in the small space than a rave at a nightclub. Meathead and Verne both stayed out of Danse's line of sight as he fired directly into the group, as the first two synths were knocked down and one was suddenly atomized, crumbling into a pile of red hot glowing ash and dust. Verne fired from his low position, only being a few feet off the ground, the shots went up towards their chins, instead of directly hitting them, any beams of energy were directed up into the heads, rather than dispelled across the synth's armor.

The fighting sprawled from the laboratory into a commons area technicians and staff would use to get from one part of the building to the other. More synths, this time seven robots were here as well, all halted from their previous task of stripping the building of its resources and engaging the heavily armed and armored combatants.

Nate fired small bursts from his SMG, chipping away and tripping up the synths, shooting them in the chest as accurately as he could, then switching to the Institute designed laser pistol, melting their joints, freezing up their sockets, burning holes through their chest and internal engines.

They were all gathered in the common ground, and the fire lasted three minutes. Meathead ended jabbing himself with a few Stimpaks after taking three laser blasts to the arm, leg, and head. One synth smashed an electrified shock baton into his shoulder, and made him lose his grip on his SMG before he let loose a torrent of .45 caliber bullets at the synth's legs, and let the recoil carry the gun up, eviscerating the body from knees to head.

Verne used his height advantage of being low to the ground to stay low and make himself a harder target to hit while firing twin blasts of laser bolts at the synths. At the end of those three minutes, he bucked two synths on the ground, making sure they were dead.

Meathead picked up an Institute laser rifle, scavenging their ammo off the dead synths as they moved along. They were all breathing heavily at the rounds of combat, but this spurred them into moving as quickly as possible through the factory.

They all came to a long hallway that took a sharp right and led to a staircase leading down three flights of stairs and went straight. The hallway was black, and very little light was available except the shine from Meathead's Pip-Boy and Paladin Danse's helmet light.

"The Engine Core should be just up ahead." Paladin Danse said, his ears twitched inside his helmet as he strained to listen for any more synths in the area.

"" Meathead asked.

"Recon Group Vagus. They marked it as a location of interest, but couldn't make time to properly examine the building. It would've been on Recon Squad Artemis list of high-value locations, but there's no sign they were ever here. Based on other factories I've been to, businesses, companies like this, they keep their power supplies in the basement, and their best tech up top."

At the end of the hallway, there was an opaque light shining towards them. It was still dark, but the next room they were inside was massive. Hanging from the ceiling was a massive XMB booster engine, it weighed as much as the four rocket engines that made the USS Constitution fly combined. On the outside of the room was a catwalk that clung to the walls, however, the stairs leading up were now laying on the ground floor, thirty feet below them.

Meathead whistled a low tune of amazement. ""

"The Scribes would have a field day in here," Verne said eyes roaming around the walls of untouched computer banks and project cast files scattered around desks. This was one of the rooms in the Commonwealth where no one had been inside since the fall of the bombs, and everything looked exactly as it had as it was October 23rd, only a little dustier, and the people inside were safe from the bombs above, but their stories of what happened afterward are lost to time.

"We'll have to head down and use the elevator to go up. Scout the maintenance area of the main chamber, look for the power supply. I'll remain here and watch our backs. If any more synths come, I'll hold them off. Verne, lead the way."

Verne nodded. "Come on, fanboy, I know you have questions, and now that we're going off, it's no use putting them off."

"" Meathead replied.

"I can make dirty remarks about your mother." Verne said, "And that's not even trying."

"" Meathead replied. ""

"Roughly over a hundred. There are a lot more casual ponies in Phili who aren't in the Brotherhood, but it's rigorous to join, especially with the physical requirements. I was an obvious pick for manual labor and being a literal workhorse."

"" Meathead asked, already he could tell Verne was impassive towards the subject.

"What else am I going to do? Eat grass and neigh?" Verne replied. They came upon the engine control room, and there was a dusty console with a red button surrounded by black and yellow stripes. There were no other buttons around it, but they were both able to get a good idea of what it did.

"What the heck is that?" Verne asked, looking across the room to a desktop where a mismatched collection of machinery was welded together with three separate air intakes, and a large nozzle to shoot out air at a rate that would make any leaf blower jealous.

Next to the strange machine was a white and orange holotape labeled 'Junk Jet'. Meathead tried hefting it up and felt the thirty pound, glorified air blower was heavier than it needed to be. Dropping it back down onto the table, he shook his head and let Verne take a closer look at the machine as well.

"What is it?"

""

"Any tactical uses?" Verne asked, glancing up at Meathead.

"Not that I can see." They both left the odd device on the workbench and followed their ears towards a mechanical humming of motors, where the generator room was. Inside were two fusion generators, both operating, but all the lights in the room were red. Knowing that red lights for almost any industrial complex meant it was operating on lower power output, Meathead checked the computer terminal attached to the generators and saw the flashing error message that went up over two hundred years ago.

'[Warning: Connection with main generators lost. Please activate auxiliary power.]'

Meathead tapped the prompt and the two generators suddenly spun up louder, moving faster as script rolled across the screen.

[Accessing Auxiliary Generators...Complete]
[Rerouting power from Auxiliary Generators...]
[ Verifying grid integrity..]
[...Complete]

[Power has been restored.]

The lights all across ArcJet Systems returned to life, and the entire facility jumped back to life as any working console was given the energy to work again after remaining untouched for so long.

"," Meathead said, returning to the engine control test room. Overhead, automated messages alerting the facility played.

"[Thermal Engine fueled, primed, and standing by for your command.]"

They saw Paladin Danse through a window of safety glass and tried to get his attention, but he was aiming up with his laser rifle.

One synth fell from the floors above, landing on the ground, picking itself up and instantly going to attack Paladin Danse.

Meathead and Verne couldn't hear the sound of the synth colliding with the floor, but in their minds they could hear it clearly.

Paladin Danse was still aiming and firing laser rounds up when three more synths rained down and crashed onto the bottom floor of the testing chamber.

Then six all at once where there were now nine synths on the bottom floor. "Verne! Push that red button! Danse! Get your ass over here!" Meathead shouted, running out to the main floor with his Thomson submachine gun. He fired into the crowd of synths that now numbered fifteen in total, and more were crashing down from above.

"Holy Shit! DANSE, MOVE IT!" Firing one hundred rounds in ten seconds, Meathead fired a path for Paladin Danse to come sprinting straight at him as the voice of the mainframe above sounded off the next warning.

"[Command Accepted. Countdown procedure initiated. Engine test firing in Five seconds.]

Paladin Danse forced a glance upward at the rocket engine directly above his head, aimed right down at him. He was standing on the center platform with fear striking him more than anything else. Laser blasts of blue light were burning his power armor, even with extensive shielding, his armor was taking a beating after two months, and only minor maintenance.

Without a machine shop, he was forced to focus primarily on making sure his own frame of T-60 power armor was always functioning, at the risk of losing protective capabilities.

[Five...Four...]

Firing fifty more rounds of .45 caliber bullets, Meathead screamed for Paladin Danse to get moving, Danse's feet were forced towards Meathead, it felt like he was being pushed.

He couldn't tell his legs were wrapped in a green magical glow, propelling him towards the blast doors, while also shoving synths to the side.

Once he realized he was moving, he took off into a dead sprint, charging at Nate who backed away from the doors and had one hand on the security safety blast doors to the room.

[Three...Two...one...]

Meathead pressed the button, closing the doors as Paladin Danse burst through, dragging two synths along with him as the doors secured shut behind them.

The synths that were still functioning were firing at the doors, pounding on them, thumping uselessly against the blast doors.

Meathead and Paladin Danse stomped the synths into submission, finishing them off with laser blasts to the head and chest until they stopped moving.

[Engine firing].

There were two sparking ignitors placed beneath the engine, and thermal gas raced out of the exhaust, finally catching on the gas and ignited.

The deafening roar and force of the XMB booster engine shook the entire building, making the doors glow hot and compress inwards as Meathead and Danse took a defensive step away from the door. Hoping that the door wouldn't explode off its frame and crush the two of them, and then be burnt to a crisp.

The test phase lasted ten seconds, and the doors reopened, pushing away piles of molten slag and black ash along the ground.

Verne came running towards them, "Oh my god! Are you alright?" He asked, looking the duo up and down.

"Yes...we're fine...My power armor saved me from being blasted by their lasers..." They went out and saw that while most of the synths were either burnt to a crisp, ash, or melted, but the weapons they carried were not.

Meathead kicked one of the pistols, it was still warm, but it was made of better material than the synths themselves.

"" Meathead said, counting all the guns left on the ground. Enough for a small armory, it would be worth saving them for later.

"Let's keep moving. I don't know how the Institute keeps track of their synths, but I don't need to be a genius even when twenty of anything suddenly go offline and don't report in." Paladin Danse said. They all crossed the scorched black testing floor and piled into an elevator, letting themselves be carried up to the main control room.

\111/

They came to the observation room and found the Deep Range Transmitter plugged into a computer terminal that was broken. Pulling out the connectors, Danse overlooked how it was wired into the computer and then gave it to Verne.

"Alright. Let's get out of here. We'll take the service elevator to the surface." Paladin Danse said. Meathead looked up at the ceiling, not realizing that they'd taken over six flights of stairs going down, they were far underground.

Piling into another elevator, they ascended to the surface and came out of ArcJet systems to the east of the actual facility in a small concrete bunker, surrounded by long-dead security guards.

Paladin Danse took off his helmet and wiped his face.

"Well, that could've gone smoother." He relented.

"" Meathead shuddered, looking off to the southeast towards the North End. Rubbing his forehead, he wipes the hair out of his eyes.

"That sweep was sloppy! We were unprepared and caught off guard, but your extra gun gave us the edge."

""

Paladin Danse looked down at Verne with some recognition of the act. "That engine could've killed all of us. It was a very dangerous move."

"" Meathead said, accepting responsibility and sticking up for Verne.

"It makes no difference who activated it, or who used it, it was still life-threatening to all of us. I can only say I appreciate your assistance, the extra gun is what gave us the edge during those fights with the synths throughout the main building. I'm not sure if we could've accomplished the mission alone." Paladin Danse said to Meathead.

"Yes. Thank you." Verne said, raising a hoof to him.

Meathead reached out and paused, "Make a fist." Verne said.

Meathead nodded, making a fist and bumping it against his hoof.

"That being said, I believe we have two important matters to discuss. First and foremost, I think you'll find this weapon useful. It's my own modification of the standard Brotherhood Laser Rifle. It is the Righteous Authority. May it serve you well in battle-"

Behind Paladin Danse and Verne, a giant flash of white light filled the air, followed by the bang of an explosion and a mushroom cloud billowing up from the southeast.

\111/

"" Meathead said, watching the horizon grow darker after the mushroom cloud dissipated, he swallowed and shuddered to think about what type of trouble Nate and Piper got into in the short time he was away from them. "Thank you for the rifle, but I don't think I need it."

"That isn't the only weapon at my disposal," Paladin Danse replied. Meathead thanked him in return and holstered the laser rifle.

"We've got a few dozen more laying around the police station," Verne said.

"Brotherhood soldiers always carry a backup," Paladin Danse said, nodding. "Now...as far as the second matter goes, I wanted to make you a proposal. Our op could've ended in disaster, but you kept your cool and handled it like a soldier."

""

Paladin Danse smiled, nodding. "There's no doubt in my mind that you've got what it takes. The way I see it, you've got a choice. You could spend the rest of your life wandering from place to place, trading an extra hand for a meager reward. Or, you could join the Brotherhood of Steel and make your mark on the world. So, what do you say?"

""

"You'd be under my command, and I'd expect you to follow my orders. No more mercenary work, this is the real thing. You'd have access to advanced weaponry and your own personal suit of power armor."

""

"You'd have the Brotherhood at your back." Verne said, "We'd be ready to spill our own guts to keep you alive."

Meathead looked down at the pony, then to Paladin Danse. "Offer still stands, can we count on you?" He said.

Meathead internally debated for a moment, he wished the real Nate was here, unsure of which decision to make, he agreed. ""

"What is it?"

""

"You'll have your freedom, Nate. Joining the Brotherhood now will mean much more when the Institute is dealt with later. Meet me back at the police station when you're ready for orders. Verne, let's move out."

Verne led the way forward, and Paladin Danse followed behind him, carrying his helmet under his arm.

Meathead looked to the South where the explosion came from and frowned, ""

He said to himself, closing his eyes and crushing his fist. ""

Turning to the southeast, "" Meathead asked the question vanished into the air, no one was around to respond to it. ""

\111/

Nine miles to the east, Thunderstruck the Pegasus stirred, pawing at the edge of her gel-filled cocoon. Her eyelids fluttered but didn't open. Her breathing was finally restful, it wasn't pained from the shock of being attacked by a shotgun round, and plummeting to the ground.

She winced at the memory but accepted that something happened to her, and wanted to wake up.

Only, she wasn't ready.

While time inside the changeling pod healed the shotgun wound, there were far worse tragedies inflicted upon Thunderstruck's skin than a lead-bearing.

Scars, whipping marks, patches of hair missing or falling out, her underweight appearance from malnutrition, parasites from poor-drinking water, the skin around her neck where a dog collar rubbed the skin raw.

The changeling pods were like safety deposit boxes, the could only be opened from the outside. She nestled closer to herself, bringing her limbs in to conserve warmth, and drifted back to a night of deeper sleep. For once in her life, she felt safe and her dreams weren't reflecting the torment from the waking world around her. Curling her wings around her, a cocoon within a cocoon, Thunderstruck felt odd, that she shouldn't feel this safe. It made her uncomfortable, not even being able to be conscious enough to as reflect on where she was, or her surroundings, but the feeling persisted.

The command to 'Go back to sleep' weighed heavily on her mind, and she quickly found herself dreaming again, but this time, the dreams were pleasant as she felt weightless floating in the Changeling sac.

Her mind made her believe she was flying, and that was the only feeling she needed to feel comfortable, slipping into a much deeper sleep where an endless landscape was passing beneath her, and Thunderstruck could keep flying till the ends of the earth, or until she felt that she had finally ran far enough from the troubles behind her.

Author's Note

"OooH!" Travis Lonely Miles exclaimed, sorting through a stack of holotapes, "Here's one we haven't played in a while. Hello Stranger. It's a classic...and a little more upbeat, which is what the Commonwealth could use in times like these."

"Barbara..." Travis squinted at the label. "Sorry, couldn't read my own handwriting there for a second. It's Barbara Lewis. Coming up next on Diamond City Radio,"

"But first! Arturo's Commonwealth Weaponry. ACW, Ammo for all your rifles, shotguns, pistols, blasters, hand-cannons, laser-guns, missile launchers, grenade launchers, and assault weapons! If it goes Pow~! or Pew~! Zap! Bang! or Kaboom! Then come to Arturo's Commonwealth Weaponry in the Diamond City Market, open from 8:00-8:00 at night."

Ch. 43 Tower Tom

Mid Day November 1st

Beantown brewery was located on the south side of the Charles River, in the town of Waltham. With the town gone and forgotten, and only the hints of roads leading to the few barely standing buildings in the neighborhood, the Brewery was all that stood tall in the area. Of the buildings that were still standing, only one or two walls remained.

There was a bridge for trains, and one for road traffic crossing the Charles River into the south side, a road that would pass through Harvard University to the east, only the fabled university was now collapsed buildings, flooded out and eroded, an empty shell of the great institution it once was.

The sloping hills on the Northside lead down to the water's edge, while the south side was flattened. As Nate and Piper crossed the rail bridge, Red's Stockpile Gang watched from the crest of the north side hill.

Their eyes were cast towards the roof of the building, and watching for any lookouts. Racing to the loading dock in the back, they reached a set of locked double doors. Piper pressed her ear to the door as Nate picked the lock. They raised one arm, hands flat, then they closed their fists, and the gang ran down the hill towards Beantown Brewery.

\111/

Four raiders were separating them from Tower Tom in the back office. From where they were in the receiving room, they needed to go out to the right, up a ramp of stairs, across catwalks that lead left across the entire brewing vat room, and then take a right, and finally ten steps to the office doors. Still only armed with their magnum and laser blaster, the only thing they picked up from the Stockpile was a pillow which Piper held under her armpit and an empty beer bottle in her hand...

The first raider they saw was looking directly at them, leaning against the catwalk, eyes downcast and a slight tipsy stagger to her. Yawning loudly, Nate pushed a cart filled with empty wooden bottle crates. They were used for shipping bottles filled with beer, and they quietly moved towards the stairs. The raider turned around, and Nate waved Piper over, stepping lightly up the stairs. They got within ten feet of the raider when Piper held up the pillow, and Nate strolled calmly up to the female raider, but she turned and was surprised at the sight of Piper and Nate. She squinted at them and then tried to say something, then Piper wrapped an arm around her neck, strangling the pillow around her head. She fought back, thrashing and trying to getaway. Nate placed the barrel of the revolver into the pillow so that the feathers inside the lining pressed tightly against her face and finally he pulled the trigger.

At the same time, Piper threw the beer bottle as hard as she could across the production floor.

As the five other raiders on the ground floor looked to the noise of the bottle shattering as the gun went off. Picking up her legs and arms, they carried the raider to the end of the second catwalk and laid her against the outside wall to the back office.

"Who threw that?" One raider asked, looking to see where the actual bottle shattered. There was an assembly line of beer bottles underneath spouts on the ground floor, all of it connected to the holding tanks where fresh beer was brewed, and ready to be poured. Tower Tom exited the office, coming out onto the catwalk and leaning over the railing.

"What's going on out here?" He asked, a man on the ground floor took two steps and put his foot down on a bottle laying on the floor, forcing him to lose balance as the bottle rolled. Piper and Nate were to the right of the office, as Tower Tom was looking down to the left. They were trying to be stealthy, but the man who tripped reached out for a handhold and ended up grabbing a whole rack of beer bottles on his way down to the ground, yanking it off the assembly line and bringing down on top of him.

The first smashed beer bottle was forgotten about as a whole cavalcade of beer bottles rained down on the raider who tripped. As twenty-four glass bottles were smashed or clanked against the ground, Tower Tom shut his eyes and shook his head, wincing in empathetic shame for the man who just made a fool of himself.

"Fucking clean it up!" Tom yelled as the man shook himself out of the glass pile and was helped up by the closest person nearby. Turning around and strolling back into his office, Nate peered down at the mess, then quickly made his way to the office with Piper right on his heels. Nate took the revolver, spinning it around in his hand, and pressed open the door. Tower Tom was alone in the office about to sit down when Nate was running at him, swinging the butt of Kellogg's revolver as a club, and smashing him right on the crown of the head. Piper was there to choke him, silencing the yell as Nate clubbed Tom in the head again, this time in the temple, then punching him in the chin. Knocking Tower Tom unconscious, Piper and Nate both grabbed Tower Tom before he fell, and dragged him to the chair.

Bleeding from the top of his forehead they bound his mouth and duct-taped him to the chair, and rolled him into a corner. "You've got him? If he tries anything, shoot him in the foot. If he starts wiggling his wrists, trying to get out, cut off one of his fingers." Nate told Piper, she took his word and nodded, going behind his desk and keeping her gun aimed at the door. Nate took Tower Tom's gun, a .308 ported pistol, and took the elevator in his office down to the ground floor. The elevator dinged, and the door rolled back, and Nate was ready with one pistol in each hand.

The first three raiders were rolling with the Beantown Bandits for a while now, enjoying the fact that some other gang was paying them in food once a week after they kidnapped the leader's sister. Nate calmly walked up to the first one from behind, as the other two were smiling, turning their heads to the newcomer. One held a broom in his hands, sweeping up the pile of broken glass bottles, and watched as Nate pulled the trigger and blew a round hole in their comrade's head.

Nate aimed the .44 revolver at the second raider and fired, hitting him in the throat, but nearly blowing the man's head off from the neck. Shooting the last man holding the broom in the knee, he fell again, catching himself on the assembly line, but Nate kicked him into the pile of broken glass.

The man screamed as his backside was embedded with shards of glass, pain-racked up and down his spine. Rolling over, his screams of agony brought the raider's attention from all over the brewery. They came to see what was the matter and saw one of their people laying in a pool of his blood expanding across the floor, then the two dead raiders. Nate picked up their pipe pistols and tucked them into his holsters, moving on quickly as to not be exposed in the open floor.

The first raider to respond ran for Tom's office, but Piper gunned him down in three bright flashes of blue light that disintegrated the man.

Breathing heavily through her nose, she was sometimes shocked at how deadly the laser blaster was.

Heading for higher ground, Nate went straight in the direction of stairs, shooting a man twice in the chest as he was coming down, then shooting woman three times as she was ready to fire back with a hunting rifle. Tugging out the second pipe pistol, and letting Tom's drop to the ground, Nate cocked back the trigger, but the entire gun fell apart in his hands.

Forced to grab the hunting rifle off the ground, he picked it up and checked the barrel. Pulling back on the bolt, a bullet flew out, but he caught it mid-air and shoved it into his pocket.

There was a break room directly above the staircase on the third floor, with two raiders in it waiting for one of their people to come up, or Nate the shooter. Aiming pipe-pistols, Nate shouted, "Hey! We need your help down here!"

Firing two rounds into the air, one raider ran forward as the others followed behind him. Nate was waiting and let the first man run by, swinging the hunting rifle into the second man's head, he whipped out his pistol and shot the second raider two times in the chest, then fired twice with the hunting rifle at the first.

One of them carried a short double-barreled shotgun, which Nate picked up, and checked to see if it was in working order. Mentally counting in his head, that only left three raiders in the front bar of Beantown Brewery left. He heard shooting take place, gunfire, combustion pistols, and gas-powered assault rifles firing.

The constant bang-bang-bang and torrent of bullets being fired followed by pounding footsteps.

Nate went back down to the factory floor and returned to the main office where Piper was waiting. Withdrawing her tense muscles from the aiming position, they both waited for Red to arrive. Sitting down on the ground, he picked up a home improvement magazine labeled 'Picket Fences', Home projects for the casual handyman, and thumbed through the first two pages when Red's Stockpile Gang ran into the brewing room, around the catwalks, and straight to the office.

"You caught him," Darva said to Piper, Tower Tom was struggling to wake up and shake the throbbing pain from his skull, but was shaken awake by the enemy raider's words. He felt the gag in his mouth, and his hands and legs and chest bound to the rolling chair. He tried to scoot away, but his feet couldn't move.

"I'll watch him from here. Find Lily," Darva said to them. Running along the catwalks was another member of Red's Stockpile Gang, and they touched base with Darva, seeing that Tower Tom was captured, and the rest of his gang here at the Brewery was dead.

Piper was being stared at by a glowing computer monitor at the edge of her awareness on Tower Tom's desk.

The Red's raiders were checking every square inch of the brewery, making noise as they ran back and forth, sweeping the entire building from top to bottom. The process was time-consuming, and with Nate reading a magazine, or at least pretending to read a magazine, she quietly scooted over to behind Tower Tom's desk to check the files and documents on the computer as Darva went to Tower Tom.

With Red yet to make an appearance, Darva yanked out the tape gag around his mouth.

"You know who I am?"

"Fuck you. No." Tom spat.

"Doesn't matter," Darva said. "Where's Lily?"

Tower Tom smiled victoriously, knowing exactly where she was, but unwilling to part with the information.

"She's around here...somewhere."

"Where."

"Here...there...go grab a beer and we can talk this over a few drinks."

Darva took an empty glass bottle and smashed it against Tom's head, slashing his face and making him bleed out of his head even more.

"Fucking tell me."

"Who the fuck are you?" Tom asked indignantly.

"Oh no," Piper said, speed reading through all the entries in Tom's computer.

Nate read the next page in Picket Fences, not minding the question and answer session between Darva and Tom, as Piper looked for an answer on the terminal.

The next page Nate read, was how to properly sand wood boards with the grain, and how to get it the small corners if it's already inlaid in a pattern or floor. The most common way to sand a corner was with your finger, but a trick of the trade was to use an unsharpened pencil, wrap the end with sandpaper, and erase the top layer of old dried wood. Moving up in grit, the sandpaper would become finer and finer, as the surface became smoother and smoother. Eventually, you would get to polishing and buffing, which came after a finishing agent was applied to the wood. Oil or staining was not recommended, as when it came time for sanding in a year, the stain or oil-based product would seep deep into the wood pores, requiring excess layers to be taken off before it was uniform with the rest of the board.

"She's in one of the brewing vats," Piper read from Tower Tom's terminal.

Darva scowled, balling up her fists and slamming them into Tom's chest and stomach. Working him over, giving him the beatdown, Nate read the next page which was filled with advertisements for deals on five gallons buckets of paint at Hardware Town, located in the Fens, south of Fenway Park.

"Stop." In the doorframe was Red.

Piper was still wearing her shocked expression as she re-read Tom's log, Darva stepped away from Tom, and Nate set down the magazine.

Red's war face paint was reapplied, this time a yellow line separated the red paint from the upper half of her face, from the black paint on the lower half.

"People tell me you killed my sister." Red said, "How long ago did you kill my sister, Tom?"

"Two weeks," Tom replied.

Red looked at Darva and nodded. Striking Tom across the face, Darva pulled his head back towards the door to face Red. Then Darva punched him again.

"The food was good." Tom insulted her. "Why don't you shit out a kid, and I'll throw him on the grill? That'll keep me fed for a while." Red was disgusted by the thought, but she didn't display it, only looking to Darva again to hit him.

Darva struck his crotch, crushing his testicles and making him howl at a high pitch.

"You want to know the sad part?" Red asked. Piper and Nate both had to remain silent as Red got her final words in with Tom. "If you had come to me before kidnapping my sister, and offered beer in exchange for food, we would've agreed. I like beer, Darva here enjoys beer, the rest of my gang enjoys beer, but then you had to go and do something stupid."

She looked to her left, and another raider from Red's gang came up to her. She held out one hand accepting whatever it was being offered to her.

Leaning against the doorframe, Red looked down into her hands. It was a bottle of vodka.

"Darva. Break all his teeth in."

She did so without hesitation, taking a socket wrench and bashing away at Tower Tom's face and mouth until it was a scrappy mess of busted teeth and a waterfall of drool, spit, and blood pouring out of Tom's mouth while he moaned and screamed.

"Take him out front when she's finished." She said to Nate and Piper.

Walking over and taking one knee in front of Tower Tom, she lifted the butt of the bottle towards Tom's busted face and said, "Open your mouth."

Tower Tom was moaning and screaming in agony. Wailing and sobbing, coughing on blood and choking on scraps of swallowed teeth.

"Wider."

"WIDER!"

Jamming the glass bottom into his mouth, he cried and shook. She yanked it out and said, "Good." Unscrewing the cap, she splashed Tom's bleeding mouth with the 40% alcohol. This triggered him to howl and gag. Coughing as his mouth burned, and splatters of blood dripped down his chest.

"Find Lily." She told Darva. She nodded, leaving and going out into the production room floor as Red told Nate and Piper what she did before arriving here in Tom's office.

"We captured one of Tom's gang in the front. We sent him running to go find Sparta. We heard she's in Cambridge, on her way back originally. She should be here in an hour. I thank you for presenting Tom to me, with his men dead. I trust your aim is steady?"

Nate nodded.

\111/

Lily's body was found preserved in a vat of alcohol that Tom's gang was drinking from.

Two people from Red's gang took sheets and blankets from beds on the third floor and wrapped the body in it. Red spoke to all her people who joined in on the assault.

"I hate speeches, and I know you all hate listening to them, but this motherfucker is going to pay with everything he did to us and to Lily. The next fight will be against Sparta. She gets one chance, join us or die."

"We were nice, we listened to their demands when they kidnapped Lily. But, Tom lied to us. He took your leader, he took my sister, he took our food, and then he lied to us. For that, he is suffering and now he will die."

Tom was taken out front, and Red jammed a mini-nuke between his jaws, but only the tip of the warhead could fit. Red taped the explosive to his mouth and forced him into a chair fifty feet away from everyone else. The front of the brewery was devoid of any sort of tactical coverage. No concrete barriers, just a parking lot with stairs leading directly into the front door. The only road to the brewery made it easy to know which way Sparta would be coming from, so they combined their efforts and shoved a truck to block one half of the bridge coming back towards them.

Nate suggested points of interest for Red to put her men at, One rifleman on the roof of the brewery, and then gathering two harnesses off dead raiders from Tom's gang, they were instructed to hang over the ledge of the bridge directly in the middle, so that they could spring up from the side in anticipation of Sparta attacking them. Putting two men by the rail bridge, the had every direction coming from the north covered. Forcing them into a chokepoint, Sparta and her men would be forced to cross a bridge with absolutely no cover, all the way to Red and her gang.

Placing another man on a rocky outcropping to the left of the bridge on the south side, he could shoot at the bridge as well.

Overhead it was raining, making the road wet, but even in the muted gray haze, they waited silently.

Lightning flashed in the noon rain and illuminated the far side of the hills in the north. Shortly after one in the afternoon on November 1st, ten figures cam down the hill.

They followed the road, walking under leaning power lines and straight to the foot of the bridge on the opposite end. They stopped and Sparta spoke with them, but they could only hear her voice, and not what she was saying from the south side. Lining them in rows of three, she led them across and came to the opposite end of the bridge.

"You have two choices, join us, or die," Red commanded.

Sparta and her team stopped a short distance away from Red and her men. She scowled when she saw Nate and Piper standing idly by, expressionless with salvaged guns resting in their arms.

"So, you killed Tom?" Sparta asked.

"He's over there." Red's gang made sure Sparta had a clear line of sight to the man sitting in the chair in the middle of the road, away from anyone else. The beeping mini-nuke was in his mouth, he was shaking his head side to side.

Sparta looked up to Red, then to Tower Tom, then back to Red.

"I didn't know Tom killed your sister."

"I know," Red said, looking down at them. "That's why I'm giving you the one thing Tower Tom never gave to my sister, a choice. You can either work with us or against us."

Sparta was silent, quietly looking up to Red as her face was hit with raindrops. She debated, she

"Doing what?"

"Same as you've always done. Go out, collect resources, scavenge for supplies, a little grunt work, raid, nothing we wouldn't do ourselves. The only difference, you'd answer to me instead of a lying, kidnapping, murdering man like Tom." Red replied.

"And what about him?" She asked, looking over towards Tower Tom.

"If any of you decide to betray me, or try to take a stab at us, or undermine my authority, this is what will happen to you."

Red raised up a hand and snapped her fingers. The rifleman on the roof swung his sights towards the mini-nuke in Tom's gums and fired. The resulting corona explosion sent up a white fireball and mushroom cloud, leaving a crater and no sign of Tower Tom or the chair he was sitting in.

"Now, will you work for us, or against us?" Red asked one last final time.

"I never liked working for Tom," Sparta articulated. "Working for you, however, I can see that happening."

\111/

Author's Note

"Beware of tourist traps, if a road looks nice, or a building looks like it hasn't been touched since the bombs, it's on you to stay safe. Watch for tripwires, grenades bouquets, or my least favorite, the snare. The last one's kind of like a tripwire, but if you set it off, rope or chair gets wrapped around your feet while a heavy weight gets dropped, then you're slingshotted up into the air. Unless you've got something to cut through whatever's holding you up, or you're traveling with someone, you'll be on your own for a while, or worse, until the owner of the trap comes back."

"Diamond City Radio, always shining, this is Travis Lonely Miles."

"Up next, another heel-klicker. By Kay Kyser.

Ch. 44 The Walk Home

Author's Note

"OH!" Travis said, digging through a pile of holo-tapes.

"Here's one we haven't heard in a while." He said with a smile. Popping it in, he pressed play.

"It's a good one."

"Here on Diamond City Radio, take it away, Louie."

Ch. 44 The Walk Home

Leaving Red and her gang behind them, Piper and Nate walked north.

"Why did we let her do that?" She asked. "I'd still take raiders over synths, but compared to Diamond City...it's..."

Nate stayed silent for a moment, walking slower to match Piper's pace. "Je ne sais quois?. If we didn't do that for Red, how long before she figured out Lily was dead on her own, or Tower Tom decided Red wasn't giving her enough food and decides to attack her gang where she lives?"

"I don't know Blue, I just feel tired, sore, beat, and exhausted, and only half the day has gone by. Did we really need to kill those raiders on our way in?"

"If Red sent in her people, it would've been a lot worse. There's no way we could've gotten all the way to Tower Tom without resorting to violence. Even then, if we made it to Tom without killing a single one of Tom's people, I feel Red would've wanted more blood to be shed. She saw the factory, and she saw the fighting that occurred, but she was satisfied. I didn't want to fight, but we would've been under the gun from behind and I didn't want to chance trying to win over ever single raider in our way to Tom. Morally, wrong, but, this morning was a situation where morals don't always guide the situation for the best outcome. Keep smiling, Piper. It'll be worth it. We may have helped a raider gang, but I try to imagine what it must be like living like them if I were in their place. Unlike ourselves...do you think they ever were guarded by the Minutemen growing up?"

Piper shook her head. They walked the traintracks up the incline, and past a greenhouse with Mr. Handy's milling around plants at the GreyGarden community gardens.

"Can't say that they were, Blue. They probably..." Piper trailed off and sighed. "Yeah...I get your point. You already sold me on your past growing up, pretty darn lucky."

"Blessed." Nate looked up the hill, and smiled. "Hey, look who's here." Nate said, pointing up the hill to Meathead bounding down the hill.

Barking a few times, he was happy to see the duo still alive, although a little worse for wear.

"Blessed, lucky, whatever. God's blessings or devils luck, you got it pretty god...Good!" She corrected herself. "You got it pretty good growing up."

"We faced the same type of problems people would today if they stopped fighting, Piper. Resources. Food. Water. Electricity. Take away one of those, and you've got a crisis on your hands. People can live without electricity, they've done that for over five thousand years. It's only in the last four hundred that people started thinking it was an essential part of their lives. It makes for longer nights, it's what is keeping my wife alive right now, but without it, it forces people to communicate in a different way."

"I think I know what I would do now if I lost my sister." Piper said.

"Something like that?" Nate asked, looking to her, and then gesturing back towards Beantown. Meathead reached them, and danced around Nate and Piper. Barking happily, Nate told Meathead to quiet down, and called him a good boy.

She nodded sullenly, looking at Meathead. "I mean, sure we all get those dark thoughts every once and a while, like 'Oh, I'd take a whack at them if they ever did something like that...but she...Red...she went and did it. It's scary knowing what's out here, Blue." She said, looking down at her feet, putting one in front of the other. Petting Meathead on the head, and behind the ears, Piper found the words she meant to say. "I guess we're not the only ones with something to lose. When we get back to Diamond City...people deserve to know what's out here. I still haven't finalized that interview you gave me, haven't had the time, but people are going to flip when they hear all the details. From the super mutants and Giddyups at Atomatoys, to the USS Constitution flying around, and all the people you've met along the way to Diamond City. The details of your past are fascinating,

"Well, do you want to know a benefit of being part of the Nate fan club?" He asked grinning widely.

"What?"

"Hot shower and good night's sleep."

Piper laughed. "Oh man."

"But you gotta thank Meathead too. Without him, I would've been screwed."

Piper squatted down, calling Meathead over to him, "Well, Meathead, you're just the biggest, bestest dog in the whole Commonwealth, you know that?" Piper kissed Meathead on the forehead and Meathead wagged his tail and let his tongue hang out, happy he was feeling the love. Rolling his eyes back, he licked Piper on the cheek again.

Nate laughed and tried to hold back the blush in his cheeks, but his face was burning red. "I'm glad you're here too, Piper. I enjoy being with you."

"Oh, thanks, Blue. That means a lot."

\111/

After passing through Concord, Meathead growled towards the North, and there was a pack of raiders ten blocks away from them moving West. The avoided their attention, not wanting to get drawn into another fight today.

"Now, mind if I ask you something creepy, in the most non-creepiest way possible?"

Piper chuckled, "What?"

Nate pulled his hands in close, speaking in a nasally voice, and making a garish smile with his lips out and showing his teeth, "Wanna come back to my hole in the ground?"

"Not the worst proposition I've ever received, considering the other guy lived in a sewer." Piper replied, rolling her eyes away from Nate. They were coming up along the backside of the Red Rocket Filling Station, just a stone's throw away from Sanctuary Hills.

"We're almost there, Piper. About half an hour. I got someone I want you to meet."

"Here? Where?"

"In Sanctuary Hills, Piper. It's where I used to live before the great war."

Piper stood up striaghter and her eyes widened. "Oh, oh!" Walking through the parking lot of the Red Rocket station, they crossed onto the road leading northwest and were crossing the wooden bridge into Sanctuary Hills. "I used to live in this suburb here, Piper. I want to show you my house."

They rounded up the hill, picking up their pace in the home stretch, they saw the piles of assorted junk and scrap materials laying out infront of houses, with a small organized pile infront of the house opposite of Nate's blue house.

"Here we are, Piper. Welcome to my home." Nate stood at the threshold of his house, and walked inside.

"Codsworth?" He shouted.

It took a moment, but the old Mr. Handy robot came around the backside of the neighbors house and hovered down the block, then he saluted Nate on his safe return home.

"Salutations, Master Nate. How wonderful it is to see you again!"

Piper blinked twice and then smiled brightly, "Piper, I'd like you to meet my Mr. Handy, Codsworth. Codsworth, this is Piper."

"Miss Piper, how excellent it is to meet you. Master Nate hasn't had any guests over in centuries! I was beginning to think everyone was turning into social recluses. HaHa!" Piper's shoulders were tense, but when Codsworth extended a claw to shake hands, she reached out and grabbed it and gave a firm handshake in kind.

\111/

Entering the house, Nate opened the cupboards and found they were stocked again with scavenged food from around the neighborhood. The were a handful of guns sitting in the neighbors driveway, with bullets stacked neatly on their end by Codsworth. The Mr. Handy servant already got to work on breaking down the demolished houses in Sanctuary Hills, with metal plates and bars all cut into the longest pieces possible, along with stacks of wood pulled up and laid out in stacks.

"Codsworth." Nate said to him, digging through his backpack, he pulled out a orange and white holotape marked 'Update.' "I've got something for you."

"Oh, wonderful, Nate. All the new joys of being slightly less buggy and not running into invisible walls are a thing of the past!" Codsworth said. Nate gave the holotape update they got from the General Atomics Galleria. A panel on Codsworth's side flipped down, and then Nate pulled the extension cord from the Pip-Boy and plugged it into Codsworth. The input menu appeared, with the options of shutting the unit down, restarting the unit, restarting the unit to factory settings, or download update and install. There was also a maintenance protocol that could be ran, but required an Administator's password, but since he knew how to get around pesky things like passwords and codes, it wasn't much of a problem for Nate to hack Codsworth, but he never needed to.

The leaves were swept out into the backyard and all the ceiling tiles that fell down over the family's 210 year abscence were in the trash bin. Dangerously overflowing and on the curb, there robot had taken to cleaning the house and entire neighborhood with gusto.

Nate offered Piper a seat on the couch, and stood for a moment looking out at the trash can on the sidewalk.

"Piper, would you like some coffee?"

Piper turned her head up to look at Nate, as she was engrossed with the concept of someone living in a large pre-war house.

"Can't say that I've ever had coffee before, Blue. I heard about it. Might'a tried it. Very bitter and tastes like dirt? Is that right?"

"You'll love it, Piper. I know how to make a very good cup of coffee. It's all about time and temperature."

Nate looked out through the living room window for another moment, lost in thought now that he was home, and then went to the kitchen. He stared at the stove top for a moment and realized there was no electricity nor gas to power the stove. Rummaging through the cupboards, the hinges opened with a rusty squeak, and clicked closed after Nate pulled out a lighter, a french press coffee maker, a sealed coffee tin, and a jar of honey that turned into a crystallized block of sugar, and set everything on the counter.

Piper came over and looked down at the counter, and picked up a weathered comic book Nate left on the counter two centuries earlier.

"Groknak. The forest of the Bat-Babies." She read, Nate turned around with a cast iron coffee pot in his hands and posed a questioning look to her.

"You're comic book, here." She said, picking it up, showing Nate the cover, and setting it back down again. "This is...ah...really your house."

"I'll give you the grand tour in just a few minutes. I need to put some water on to boil."

Checking his own faucet, the water came out brown and slow, but slowly turned clearer and clearer over time. Filling the cast iron coffee pot, Nate went outside to his grill, picking up some old wood from a tree that collapsed into his yard and put it inside the bottom of the propane grill. The fire will be contained, he reasoned, and set fire to dried brush and branches, making a small flame within the grill space. Placing the grates over it, Nate put the pot of water onto the grill and went back inside.

"The water will be ready in a few minutes, but I can give you a short tour of the house." Nate said to Piper, Meathead went from room to room, sniffing things out, and ended up laying on down on his stomach in the living room.

"Here we have the kitchen, and dining table. Down the hallway we have the laundry room and backup Mr. Handy Fuel. It looks like Codsworth found some around the neighborhood, cause we're all stocked up. To the left is our bathroom, and then the master bedroom."

The bed was rotted away, nothing was left, not even fibers. The frame to the bed was sagging wood that was crumpled and ready to give in.

"First thing I do, after I rebuild society and put a man on the moon, is get people to make king sized beds again. We had these micro fiber beds, they were so comfy, you would feel like you were sleeping on a cloud."

Meathead rolled over from in the living room, pulling his head up and looking down the hallway towards Nate and Piper. Then he rested his head back down, remembering something.

Piper looked at the mantle, the bureau where yellowed pictures of Nate and Nora proudly stood, still in their photo frames. There was a tri-fold american flag behind it, and a blue medal with yellow stars on it in the shape of the Big Dipper, with the certificate of Nate's Honorable Discharge.

Piper looked at the certificate, and her face twitched, her cheek rising and eye blinking at the same time. She thought she was bit by a mosquito, and wiped her face. "Second Battalion, 108th Regiment." She said. "You were in the United States Army. The real one." She said.

Nate nodded. "Yep, I gave my two years and fought for this country, back when it still was fifty states."

"How big was it?" Piper asked.

"The country or the army?"

"The army."

"Huge." Nate said with a single word, looking down at the ground. "Imagine..." Nate swallowed.

"Imagine every person in Diamond City," Nate exhaled, "Goodneighbor, Bunker Hill, and every person in the entire Commonwealth you've ever met in the last year. Now imagine every single one of those people all fought for the United States Army."

"That's pretty big." Piper said, but Nate shook his head.

"That's nothing." He said, dropping his head to level his eyes with Piper. "That is a small force. There were over three million people in the armed services, Piper. Three million. Start counting out loud and let me know when you get to a million, because it'll take a while. We were spread all across the country, all across the world. A little too thin in some areas, but I'm sure not going to make that mistake. You need to imagine if this entire city of Boston, was completely and fully functional, and then triple that, that's how many soldiers there were in the armed forces."

"What's the medal mean?" Piper asked. Blue stars arranged in the Big Dipper on a small blue and white medal.

"It's a symbol for the Alaskan state flag, to show I fought in Alaska during the Sino-American war. That was after America annexed Canada for its resources."

"Geeze. What a time in the world to be living in."

Nate dug through his top drawer, pulling out his father's medal. "The Annexation of Canada medal. My father never liked it."

It was a striped medal, same as Nate's, but the color scheme was red, white, red, white, red, it was mirroring the Canadian Flag.

"It was crazy, back then. Crazy now too, the only thing that's changed is that people forgot what to fight for. Have you noticed that, Piper?" They moved from the master bedroom and into Shaun's nursery. Piper stooped down, picking up a children's book off the ground that managed to fall underneath the dresser.

"People are always fighting, but usually it's over water or a pile of garbage they think is worth putting people in the ground for." She flipped through the book, the title was 'You're Special!' "What's this?" She asked, flipping from the first page, to the second and third.

"It's a baby's book. It was something we would read to him to keep the baby calm."

"Any thoughts on how you're going to get him from the Institute?" Piper asked.

"Yes." Nate immediately replied. "I've been thinking about how to get inside the Institute, ever since I heard it existed. If it's a bunker, I'll open it. If it's a safe, I'll crack it. If it's a building, I'll get inside. But...getting inside isn't the issue." Nate said, leading Piper back down the hallway, through the kitchen, and into the backyard. "The issue is what happens after we get inside."

She turned her head and kept her eyes on Nate. "What do you mean?"

"So. The Institute has an army of synths. Of robots. How many do you imagine are inside the Institute that we don't know about, that we've never seen? Prototypes, synths, turrets, laser grids, locked doors and vaults inside the Institute? Let's say every single synth has a gun, a laser pistol. Well, now they're an army with laser pistols all fighting for the same objective, even if they're all robots. That's not counting the humans controlling all the synths. Say we get through every single synth. Lay waste to every single robot they have. Blow them up, or shut them down. Some way, some how. We manage to fight off every single one of them and shut down their production plant and keep them from making more. We still wouldn't be anywhere close to being done on fighting the Institute. We would only have eliminated their top layer, but from there, we would need to go deeper. The best kept secrets and the people responsible would be the most well guarded and at the very bottom of this hole they've dug for themselves. Plain and simple. But, that's not all. If they know we're coming for them, Piper. Do you think they will give up if we get in there and get past all their defenses? No. They'll fight. They'll fight because it's part of human instinct to survive, no matter what. So, I imagine they'll fight. And then, only then, I'll find my son, and then what? He may be ten years old, he may be seventy, or even a hundred? What then, Piper?"

"How do I explain that I am his father, when my son is older than me, has never seen my face, and was not raised by me, but whoever it was in the Institute that raised him? For all I know, he was raised by synths programmed to take care of children. That's what we were doing before the war, and I doubt that changed for any of the people who went underground when the bombs fell. They were busy surviving, just like everybody else. The difference between them and Vault 111, is that they had a head start on rebuilding, but instead of taking the towns that people mentioned are picked over, and scrapped to pieces. Instead of building something on the surface to benefit everyone, they take it back underground and keep it there. There isn't a doubt in my mind that I will explain things to him, he may or may not listen to me, he may or may not believe me, but I have doubts that Shaun will even acknowledge my existence as his father."

"Ouch, Nate. I feel what you mean, and you've been putting a lot of thought into this, haven't you? Most people I know can't even imagine a face behind the person pulling the strings, but you're talking about taking them out where they live." Nate nodded.

"They're gonna fucking pay, and I'm gonna make sure they feel it. Best thing about attacking someone who's never been attacked, they won't expect it. They wont have the experience to repel an attack. They can send out robots, but the moment they're faced with the actual danger, they will lose."

"So what's the plan?"

"Let's get some coffee, and I'll tell you all about it. After we get our coffee, I'll show you the Vault too."

Piper was excited as Nate pulled off the pot of lightly bubbling water. It was on the verge of boiling, so Nate quickly dumped three scoops of coffee into the french press, and poured into the water, placing the top over it but not pushing the plunger down.

"How long will that take?"

"It needs to steep for four minutes." Nate looked up to Codsworth, "Codsworth, can you remind me in four minutes?" He asked.

"Yes sir. Shall I get some coffee mugs for you, Master Nate?"

"Yes, thank you, Codsworth." The robot Mr. Handy hovered to the cabinets and pulled out two porcelain coffee mugs.

Nate went to a drawer, pulling out a piece of water logged paper and a pen.

"What's with the 'Master Nate', thing?"

"That's how they were programmed. Don't let me forget," Nate said, writing up a list. "I've got a few plans. Number one. Show you the vault. Number two show you my big secret."

The last one got Piper interested and leaning in. "So what's the secret?"

"Not yet, gotta be patient and open minded when we show you. Emphasis on we."

Piper looked over her left shoulder towards Codsworth. "We...as in...you and Codsworth, here?"

"Close. But again, you'll see once were up in the Vault. All you need to do is suspend your disbelief for a little while longer, and let the suspense build."

"Alright, I think I can do that. What else?"

"Number three. Take a shower, get some rest. Four, see what I can do about the generator. I've got plenty of scrap and tools from Diamond City, I don't know all what I'll need, but I swear I can probably fix it. Six and seven...

"...that's still up in the air, one of them will be finding a doctor who can help Nora." Nate rapped his knuckles against the wood. Looking at Meathead, thoughts were running through Nate's head and a wave of confusion was coming off of him. Meathead tilted his head and hesitantly nodded. Piper noticed Nate's gaze and turned to her right to look at Meathead.

"What are you thinking about, Nate?" Piper asked.

"To break into the Institute...there was a time in False Pass when we needed to cross the Pass and get into the Chinese camp on the other side. We couldn't swim across, we couldn't take a boat across, we couldn't fly across and air drop someone, so we took ten suits of power armor, and walked across the bottom and came up on the other side."

"You were telling me about this Pass, where exactly is it?"

"About five hundred miles to the south west of Anchorage."

"So why did you need to get into the Chinese camp?"

"We knew from our intelligence sources, they were making a weapon. They were trying to build a machine that could stop our computers. Thinking about the Chinese, and their hundreds of thousands of people on the other side, while we only had a few thousand on our side...we only needed ten people to take this weapon."

"Sir, timer's going off." Codsworth mentioned.

"Thank you Codsworth."

"What were they going to use it for?"

Nate licked his lips and slowly pressed down the plunger to the french press, forcing all the spent coffee grounds to the bottom. "I don't know how much you know about the past, Piper. But in America and China, were were having a massive arms race. We developed tools of war to fight against the Chinese. While they were using enhanced stealth technology and stealth armor that made the wearer completely invisible, but if you looked hard, you could see the refraction of light around the edge of their bodies. Same with water, or snow, we could see the water hit them. We countered that with Stealth-Boys, but while theirs lasted a lot longer, ours ran out of power fairly quickly. In the end, we took away their tactical advantage regardless."

Pouring two cups of coffee, Nate cut open the cap to the honey jar, and scraped off bits of dried honey into his cup. "Honey?" Nate asked Piper, "It'll help with the bitterness."

She nodded and Nate cut off wedges of honey, dropping them into Piper's cup. Nate took a long gulp of his, shuddering as he remembered more and more about the past.

"The Chinese came into the war using the stealth armor, only they didn't know we built power armor."

"Okay. Yeah. So, you guys take back Anchorage?"

"We did, but the fighting didn't stop there. They wanted to plant their flag and call parts of Alaska their homeland, but we wouldn't allow it. We called for the entire expunging of all Chinese forces from all of Alaska. Usually at the end of wars, people try to claim this or that, but we were fighting for their unconditional surrender. Fuck those dishonest untrustworthy assholes. While power armor helped, it didn't..." Nate pounded his fist into his palms three times, making sure Piper heard the thump.

"It didn't scare them. So, they dropped all terrain tanks. These bastards were huge. They could go uphill, across snow, they could float, and they almost punched a hole across False Pass, but they could only get so many from the mainland China, to fucking nowhere, False Pass. It was a massive arms race, Piper. We were constantly trying to one-up the other side, while they tried to outdo us."

"It was the stretch of water that undid them. An impassible moat." Nate rubbed his face, trying to lay everything out for her.

"So, with all these forces fleeing, heading west on foot, or truck, or whatever that moved, they were picked at by our forces in Cold Bay, to the east of us, but they already had plans for Cold Bay. Our boys were going to pull out and bomb the airfield, make it impossible for planes to land. Everyone was already landing on the beaches. That's another thing they didn't have experience in. Our pilots were more experienced. They tried landing on beaches, and would crash, break their landing gear off, kill themselves on touchdown, lose all their supplies. Americans trained our pilots to fly in Alaskan weather, before allowing them to fly anywhere else in the world, because Alaskan weather is some of the most difficult, terrifying weather to fly in. We had the homefield advantage, Piper. We let nature work with us, not against us."

"Anyway, they used armor, we used armor. They used tanks, we brought in our own tank. It was a robot, a big robot. About forty feet tall, and we called it Liberty Prime."

"I actually have heard about that. There were stories coming from the south years ago in the Capitol Wasteland...the D.C. area. Where there was a huge battle, absolutely huge against two factions. The Brotherhood of Steel, and another group, the Enclave." Piper rolled her head around, trying to remember the details and shake out the clutter. "They were fighting over a water purifier and the Enclave took control of it from the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood came back with a giant robot, people I heard it from said it was fifty feet, a hundred feet, but this sounds like your robot, Liberty Prime. They deployed it against the Enclave."

"Okay, so you have some idea of what it could do. Liberty Prime carried M-28 tactical warheads, Piper. A whole stockpile's worth of explosives, and it would throw them like footballs. The entire gesture was designed and programmed by scientists because the main sport for America was football. We were absolutely crazy about football games. So, this giant robot, carrying explosives, could stomp on you, and out of its eyes shot a laser, not like the laser rifles, but imagine one hundred laser rifles all taped together, firing in one continuous beam. That is what we built."

"So America liked it's robots."

"Yes. After we reclaimed Anchorage, they started developing something to counter it immediately, well, actually. I don't know if it was immediately, or there was an intelligence leak along the way, but either way, in Alaska, the Chinese forces were working on a machine to stop Liberty Prime. It needed to be mobile, something they could carry onto the battlefield and use it against Liberty Prime. They built a weapon, only it wasn't a weapon, it was a computer that could hijack and hack any robot it was aimed at. Their mobile base was forced from Bristol Bay, and thats where we discovered they were working on this weapon. They retreated to False Pass after they knew that we took Anchorage. What they really wanted though, is Dutch Harbor. Dutch Harbor was half a day by boat away from us, but they needed to punch through False Pass and round Cape Lutke, then get past artillery on Scotch Cape and Cape Sarichef. Those were on the total opposite end of the island, and we were getting air drops from Dutch Harbor. No roads from False Pass to those capes, those guys were on their own. But, with a little determination and marching orders, you could feasibly get there on foot...or ATV." Nate said, sipping at his coffee now that it had cooled a few degrees.

Nate made an oval circle on the coffee table with his hands and pointed to imaginary points on the map.

"We were one of the dozens of things that stood in between the Chinese and Dutch Harbor. There was still the land and sea and air, but they were so desperate to take out our food supply for the lower forty eight, that they wanted it bad. They were attacking Dutch Harbor from all angles, and were sunk by our artillery from thirty miles away, because Unalaska Island, where Dutch Harbor is located, is all mountains that drop straight into the sea. It was a fortress, and once we were dug into Unalaska, there was no way in hell to get us out."

Nate took another drink of his coffee, and Piper did the same. She grimaced, then added more sugar and stirred it before trying it again.

"With the Chinese fleeing, their options were to take Dutch Harbor, as they had tried to do from the very beginning of the war, or start ferrying people out and away from Alaska. I'll give you one guess as to what five hundred thousand starving soldiers tried to do when they heard the biggest seafood depot in the world was only a day away."

"They went after you."

"Exactly. But they couldn't get to Dutch Harbor, without getting past False Pass." Nate scratched the top of his head, feeling the slight buzz of caffine. Piper listened intently as she took another sip.

"It would take Liberty Prime three weeks to reach False Pass. We'd already kept them at bay, but now with the report of a weapon that could take control of Liberty Prime or any robot they pointed it at in development in the Chinese hands, we knew that we would ultimately be fucked if they got it working."

Nate jabbed his head to the side, "Which they did."

Piper swallowed. "Every robot?" Exhaling through her nose.

"Yep. We knew they had it close by when all of our machines went haywire. We had about one hundred Mr. Gutzy's, but they killed plenty of American troops. We couldn't get a signal out, but we prepared for that eventuality. We told our people that if we lost contact with the outside, they were to assume they were in control of a signal jammer, and were using a device that could remotely hack into our equipment. We went old school on them and dropped an analogue telephone wire from False Pass, all the way to Dutch Harbor, right over the mountain and into the sea, so we always stayed in contact and told them all our robots started acting crazy. It was a long, long, long chord of telephone wire, but it worked. It became our number one priority to steal the computer from them while all of the American research and development technicians and scientists rewrote a better security system to protect our databases from being controlled by them."

"We were assigned to take on a stealth operation that involved us using power armor to walk across the bottom of the pass, and straight into their camp. Using Stealth Boys, we would have a total of half an hour to locate the weapon. We stole it along with all information they had on the weapon. Didn't matter if it was in encoded, written in Chinese, or not, we were to take everything and let the code breakers and translators deal with it. So we did."

"We thought we finally got the last leg up on them. But then...while they didn't know about Liberty Prime, we didn't know about them working on teleportation. I knew, but, I couldn't confirm it. You see, before I reached False Pass, my team and I witnessed a giant sea and air battle between the Chinese forces in the air, and the USS Olympia, Astoria, and Trinidad. We marched from Cold Bay to False Pass weeks before the Chinese were anywhere close to us, and we went along the beach, watching this battle take place. Our boats shot forty planes out of the sky when all of a sudden they were being lifted up into the air, like someone sculpted the perfect bubble around each ship, and POP!" Nate yelled.

"They all vanished. Their planes started crashing too, some glided along, some went off into the sea, most of them crashed. But there were a dozen Chinese planes that we saw crash around us, one of them had two living Chinese soldiers, and a unicorn pony in it. They were all speaking Chinese."

"Wait, a unicorn? No way." Piper said.

Nate bit his cheek and reached into his backpack again. "Let me show you."

"No way." Piper said again.

Pulling out the glass mason jar with the unicorn's horn in front of her, she looked at it from all angles. Tilting her head and looking up at Nate.

"We had allies and enemies we didn't even know we were fighting. But, from the time of the war for Alaska and today are two completely different worlds. We didn't know that who was backing us, and we didn't know they had enemies either. Have you ever heard the expression, the enemy of my enemy is my friend?"

Nate asked, keeping his eyes on Piper and not looking at Meathead. "No," She replied.

"It means that both parties have a common interest. After the planes crashed on the beach, we went through the wreckage and found two chinese soldiers and a unicorn fighting two changelings. The unicorn could use it's horn to channel energy to lift things up, to teleport, a whole slew of mind-boggling things, but we killed the three of them after they shot at the changelings. One died, and the other told us they were on our side."

"What do you mean? What did changelings look like?"

"I'll show you," Nate said, "Time to go check the Vault."

\111/

After they finished their coffee, Nate showed Piper out the front door and down the street, leading down a worn path that lead behind Sanctuary Hills up the trail to Vault 111.

"The thing about changelings, Piper, is that they want to help people. One's been helping me for a long time now, from the moment I stepped out of the vault. While as the Chinese had stealth, tanks, and Mr. Robot, when we had power armor, Liberty Prime, and the home field advantage, they were eventually going to acclimate and adapt to the cold, and use spies and teleportation against us. Changelings took away that advantage." Nate told Piper, "Go stand on the platform. I'll send the elevator down."

"How did changelings stop them?" Piper asked. Nate went inside the control booth and pressed the red button, making the yellow cage lights spin as the elevator slowly descended.

"They warned us."

"What's a changeling look like?" Piper asked Nate as he stepped onto the platform.

Glancing down at Meathead, Nate hid the small gesture and looked outwards at the horizon as they descended.

"He can show you himself."

The elevator shaft was over their heads, and shadows crawled down towards them as the late afternoon sun couldn't be seen from so far down the more they descended.

Then finally, a pair of doors slid shut over the top of the elevator shaft, suspending them in momentary darkness.

\111/

Ch. 45 Meathead

Nate was leading Piper ten steps ahead of her the moment the elevator doors parted upwards. He shot towards the control panel to get the vault door to open, while she nervously looked up the elevator shaft, trying to see the top.

When Piper stepped off the platform, the vault door was already opening. The grinding noise of the arm opening the door echoed loudly in the underground chamber, making her ears ring. Pulling it open and walked across the floor and up the steps to the walkway. Meathead was hot on Nate's heels, and panting heavily.

"Is it anything like Vault 81?" Piper asked, her voice was a little hopeful as the inside of Vault 111 came as imagination.

"Same design, different layout," Nate said, the vault door was pulled back, like a giant stone being rolled away from a tomb. Nate walked forward quickly and he stopped at the table where vault suits were distributed and tore off the lid to a box.

"Would you like a vault suit?" Nate asked, holding one out for her, and letting it unfurl in his hands.

Piper smiled, looking at the suit, then down at her own clothes. The rank smell of dried sweat came abundantly sharper. The droplets of dried blood from where they were beaten and left to sit in their misery for an hour after first meeting Red were still plenty visible, and clotting the cloth. Her red jacket, she hasn't washed in weeks, and she looked at the crisp, blue and yellow vault suit with the yellow 111 on the back and above the right breast and nodded.

"Heck yea." She said, taking it from Nate.

"If you'll follow me, there's a shower and place for you to change over this way," Nate said, Piper's chest felt warm, even in the darkness of the dimmed vault interior. She held the vault suit to her chest, seeing if the length would match her body.

Wading through thick spider webs, Nate knocked them away as he showed Piper the Overseer's room, and into the bathroom.

"Go ahead, you first, take your time. I'll take one after you're done." Piper looked at the faucet tap and froze.

"How do I work it?" She asked.

"Spin the faucet all the way over to the left so that the bottom is pointing towards the red dot, and then ease it back towards the blue to make it cooler." Nate leaned into the shower, turning the faucet all the way to hot, and then back a few degrees.

The shower head spat up grey water for a moment, then it turned clear. It was cold at first, warming up into a nice steam, and then back down.

"Hot water." Nate said, turning the faucet back towards the red dot, "Cold water," he said, turning it to the blue. "Have at it. Oh, here's some soap and a rag to wash."

Nate offered a bar of soap wrapped inside of a white towel cloth to Piper and she took it. Leaving her alone, Nate and Meathead went to the office, and let Piper be alone for a few minutes.

\111/

Meathead took a place in front of Nate, he was sitting in the Overseer's chair, resting his chin in one hand, propped up with the elbow and his right leg over his left.

"" Meathead asked.

" Walk in like you're best friends after I explain a few things to her, I'll signal for you to come in."

" Meathead didn't even need to turn his head towards the bathroom to know what Piper was feeling.

"" Meathead's ears perked up, and he shook like a dog warming himself up. ""

"Great. Meathead, T. M. I., now you're just being weird." Nate said, but sitting up straighter.

"Hey, the walls in your house were thin, and I could hear you and Nora going at it like grunting rabbits, there is nothing that is too personal when it comes to me."

Nate admitted defeat. "I plan on being here two days. Check the logs, unplug the dead pods, check the liquid nitrogen levels, move the bodies, crack open the first generator and see then what needs to be done. If I can fix it, I will, if it's out of my league. Eventually I'm going to recruit or pay off one or both of the twins from Vault 81 to come up here for however long it would take for them to fix it. As for you, did you find anything while we were dealing with Red?"

Nate tilted his head over towards the bathroom, listening to the water splashing down in the shower.

"...Is she?"

Meathead shook his head. "" He said, smiling, "" Without giving much pause, he launched right into Nate's question.

"<Yes. I've been meaning to tell you. There's a small group in the Cambridge Police Station, the Brotherhood of Steel. They're a scouting party for their main chapter. They traced frequencies that I've felt in the air, short bursts of highly volatile energy that dissipates very quickly. He wrangled me into helping them check out ArcJet Systems for a Deep Range Transmitter, they're trying to get in touch with their main group. Reinforcements are on their way the minute they get the device installed. Their de-facto leader, I believe, Paladin Danse, wants to eliminate the Institute and all synths, but he doesn't know he's a synth himself."

Nate was nodding his head through all of Meathead's explanation but was caught off guard by the last sentence. "He doesn't know he's a synth?"

""

Nate's eyes lifted up, "Overwhelming force only works if the enemy isn't dug in like damn Vietcong with underwater rat tunnels, and there are centralized units of force. If the enemy can keep a constant supply line and spread itself out without fear of detection, the Brotherhood could be fucking themselves over for the next decade."

""

"Can we trust them?"

""

"And this was you, disguised as me?" Nate asked, Meathead nodded yes.

A laser rifle landed on the desk in front of them with a loud thud, it was the Righteous Authority laser rifle that Paladin Danse modified. ""

"What did you learn about the synths while fighting them?"

""

"And just how are they getting around?"

""

"And I know you can teleport, how's you teleporting different from an Institute teleport?"

"" Meathead said, raising a paw to his forehead, where a black horn would've been. ""

"Did you feel anything like this when we were near Fort Hagen?"

""

"What else did you hear from the Brotherhood?"

""

"What's that suppose to mean? Did they say why?"

Meathead 'Mmm-hmmed', nodding his head gravely while biting his teeth together. "

Nate cut Meathead off, "What?! The Insta...fuck? They're making those fuckers too?" Meathead nodded.

"

Nate's voice rose and nearly cracked, "What the fuck!? Synth clones...Releasing them? Re-releasing them?" Nate asked, his brow pinched, "Say that again...The Institutes makes synths...and makes super mutants out of the humans?"

Meathead nodded, swallowing.

"Fuck those mother fuckers, we killed how many damn mutants? Fuck! Those were humans at one point, Meathead! Fucking damnit!" The four mutants outside of the Galleria came to mind, along with the dozen mutants at Faneuil Hall, and however many more mutants at the toy factory all weighed down on Nate's mind.

"" They head the water shut off a moment later, and they waited for Piper to come out. She was panting, from not having felt warm water caress her in an unending torrent like that in a way she hasn't felt in a very long time. She couldn't place the last time she was standing under warm water that wasn't radioactive grey water, or from a broken sewer drainage pipe that was leaking down onto her. Her skin felt clean, her pores felt open and she didn't feel grimy as she was going in. She realized she could smell better, she took one step towards her clothes and was suddenly disgusted at how sour they reeked.

Dawning the white t-shirt, panties, and blue vault suit, she tugged her feet into the boots and laced up the straps, pulling the zipper all the way from her waist up to her neck. It was elastic around the neck and wasn't choking her, but she felt comfy and secure in the new clothes Nate gave her.

Sighing in relief, she shook out the knots in her hair which hung down past her shoulders when it was wet.

Exiting the bathroom, Nate was sitting in the Overseer's office chair, petting Meathead. "Sorry I took so long,"

"No worries. Have a seat, I'll be five minutes." Nate said quickly, his face was red, and heart still racing from Meathead's revelations about the Institute.

While Nate showered, Piper sat in the Overseer's chair, leaning her head back, and spinning around in the chair. She glanced at the computer monitor, then the skeleton on the ground. Meathead rested his chin on her leg, looking up at her with big eyes.

"I don't have any treats for you."

Meathead stuck out his lip, licking them. Piper scratched his head and down his neck and he started panting. "Is this what you want?"

Scratching his neck and belly, Meathead laid down on the ground, one paw up towards Piper, signaling to her not to stop.

Nate was back out when Piper started teasing Meathead with a femur bone, but he wasn't interested.

"Okay," Nate said, water still dripping from his hair with his vault suit back on. "Let me show you around."

\111/

Feeling fresh, Nate showed Piper the dorm rooms, the generator he intended taking apart, and the cafeteria, and then they came to a particular hallway where Nate grew a lot more quiet, his presence taking up the whole hallway as he showed Piper the last section of the vault. She could tell he was nervous, yet when he opened the lift door, he guided her through.

"So where's your Changeling, friend?" Piper asked.

"Hiding, he doesn't care to show himself, but he'll poke his head out soon enough. These are the pods," Nate explained. She could see to her right through a window into a large room, four rows of cryogenic pods. Her ears lowered, and she stood up straighter, leaning in.

"Are all those?" She asked.

If she meant to finish her sentence with 'dwellers', 'people', 'pods', 'dead', or any combination of the four words, Nate simply answered, "Yes."

"And your wife?"

"She's the next room over."

Nate leads her down the hall, back into the room where Nora was. He was inhaling and sighing, mind getting wrapped up in all sorts of different paths he should take.

"You don't need to show me."

"I want to see her," Nate said, opening the door to the cryopod room. Inside were one dozen pods, labeled C1-C12. And there at the end was an open pod, directly across from Nora's unopened pod.

"Come here, Piper," Nate said, stepping into the room. She took a step into the room, noting how chilly it was. Instead of going straight to the pod at the end of the row, Nate went to a computer at the first pod and checked the files. Then going into the command prompt, he checked the time-stamped logs on everything. He frowned. His typing was firmer, he was slamming the keys with the tips of his fingers, more disgruntled the more he learned with only a few lines of text.

"October 23rd, 2278 7:00 A.M. Remote Access Authorization Accepted. Source. Fucking Cambridge." Nate read out loud. "Everything I know tells me the Institute is in Cambridge."

"The Institute let you out?! Why?!"

"Because. I think it was my son. At this day and age...he's in his sixties. That's a long fucking time for someone to move up in the world, I don't know if he's at the top. Or if he has just enough leeway to do this, but I think he did it. I don't know why, or how, but here...look at the log...2218...Sixty years ago. Nora's Pod opened. 2218 June 19th Opened and closed locally from this computer.... All other pods were deactivated last year."

"Wait...All other pods were deactivated last year?" Nate said to himself for Piper to hear. "That doesn't make any fucking sense at all..." Rubbing the side of his face, he looked at the green lines of text before him.

His eyes rolled through the computer jargon, all the pods were deactivated, not failed like he originally presumed.

"You're timeline...so...your son is...sixty years old?"

Nate sighed depressingly. "Yep. My sixty-year-old son let his thirty-five year-old dad out, but let the others die off. That's..."

"Slaughter," Piper said.

Nate nodded. "Why wouldn't he chose to let people out?"

"Maybe because he knew about the experiment and wanted to make sure you and your wife got out?" Nate shook his head.

"He could've just left us to freeze, but he didn't. He shut all of them down, but ours, then he made sure out of everything I could see leaving the Vault, a handgun, and some ammo, but all the beds were stripped. No food in here either, so he essentially forced us out...it's an experiment to see what I could do."

"Are you sure about that?" Piper asked. "He could've just wanted to meet you, finally."

"Then why not send synths for me, instead of at me? Why not come directly to me? Nonononono...this isn't a happy reunion he's after...he wants to see what makes me tick."

"How can you be so sure about that?" Piper asked.

"Because of what Kellogg told me. There's been a long thin line of truth he was feeding me, but he wanted to keep some parts of Shaun's involvement with the Institute out so much, that he was willing to die for it. I found out before he died, however, when I took him onto the ledge at Mass Fusion and dangled him over the side.

"So what's it got to do with all this?"

"Shaun is with the higher-ups. Kellogg said that. Remember that? Shaun is with the higher-ups. He's the one who told Kellogg to go face me, so I could get revenge on him."

"Why would Kellogg listen to your son?" Piper inquired.

"Because Kellogg was over a hundred years old. He was ready to die. If he did manage to kill me, he was going to go after a scientist that escaped the Institute next. The scientist fled to the Glowing Sea. For Kellogg, it was just finishing another job."

"The Glowing Sea? But...nothing sane can live there. Why would the person go there?"

"Radiation, Piper. It messes with electronics." Piper got a knowing look in her eye.

"So that must mean they can't track him in there. The radiation must cast some kind of shield the Institute can't send synths into without losing them." She said.

"There's still something else I want to show you," Nate said, standing up away from the computer.

Walking down the stretch of pods, felt to Nate like walking the long mile. He didn't look at all the other faces in their frozen state.

"You're thirty-five?" She asked.

"Yes. Why?"

"You look good for thirty-five. Not many people know how old they are, or they forget to count." Nate stopped in front of Nora's pod.

Piper hesitated for a moment, shaking and swallowing, she turned and looked into the glass to see the sleeping beauty.

"Wow..." Piper said. "She's pretty. If you need a moment alone with her, I understand." Nate lightly shook his head.

"I wanted to show you Nora, but there's more."

"What is it?"

"What if I told you there was something out there that could detect a human from a synth?"

Her eyes widened. "You have something like that? What is it? Is it here? Did Vault-Tec. make it?"

"Turn around."

Piper bit down on her teeth, her muscles tensed up as a wave of fear shook her. Thoughts raced through her mind, one after the other, but the most prevalent one was that something followed Nate and her down here, and now it was directly behind her. She could tell by the way Nate's head was tilted, looking past her towards the synth detector past her.

\111/

"Piper, I want you to meet my friend, Meathead." Nate looked back towards the observation window, and nodded, not even able to see Meathead, but in his chest, he felt that Piper was ready, and now was the time to introduce him to her.

The imposing four and a half foot tall Changeling came in through the hydraulic lift door, making Piper's nerves stand up on edge. He walked in, his black shell reflecting the soft blue LED lights on the ceiling.

"Wwwhat?" She stammered. Meathead needed to cross the room to greet them, and for that it was all planned exactly like Nate intended. "That's a changeling?!"

The short walk felt long, it gave Piper plenty of time to see the changeling walk up to her, and for her to look at Meathead all she wanted. By the time he would actually be at conversing distance, her fears subverted, and by the end of it, she was looking down at the Changeling.

"This is Meathead. Piper, Meathead. Meathead, Piper." Piper overcame her initial fear but was still heavily skeptical of what would happen next. Meathead raised one hoof, offering to shake her hand when she took a step closer towards Nate.

"What?" She couldn't believe the words out of Nate's mouth, calling this thing Meathead.

"What are you?"

"Meathead, do the thing."

"" Meathead said, she balked. Taking a few steps back, Meathead was surrounded with green fire again and then transformed back into a German Shepard.

""

"What are you, though?" Piper asked.

"" Shifting into a clone of Nate, she blinked twice and looked at the real one.

Her chest tightened, Piper almost forgot how to breathe as the air caught in her chest and didn't want to move. It took two pounding heartbeats, and a moment of intense hysteria, for her breath to come back.

"You can change?" It took her a while to make the connection, but then she stared stupefied at the two of them. "And your not synths?" Piper may have been speaking, but her body was twitching, involuntarily as she tried to understand what was going on. Her knees tensed and and relaxed, her elbows kept moving out away from her body.

Piper stood like a person who only finished crying her heart out, and was coming back to reality.

"Nope," "" Came their reply.

"I'll let Meathead explain." Nate offered.

"."

"So you follow him around like a moth to a flame? And you're okay with this?" Piper asked Meathead, then Nate.

"I'm more okay with it now than I was a week ago. Meathead says he can tell a synth from a human, and in today's age, that might be important in the near future." Nate argued. He reflected on what he said for a moment, he only decided to incorporate that into a reason for keeping Meathead after learning about the synths and the Institute. But before that, Meathead was a companion who he didn't want to see leave.

"

Piper didn't reply right away, she thought about her response, but latched onto the fact she was right. Her jaw tightened, ass she grit to herself. "I knew...it"

"How does that work? You've..." She swallowed, thinking back, "You've been disguised as his dog, the WHOLE time?"

""

She blinked rapidly, "Why?" She asked incredulously. "Why would you do that?"

Meathead was about to reply when Nate held up a finger, "Because, he meant to fool everyone. And it worked. He got in, undetected and did exactly what changelings do. They disguised themselves as something that would be a target for good emotion, and then got out."

""

"That's why you brought me all the way here to the Vault, to tell me?" Piper asked Meathead nodded.

""

"Well, next time you need to tell me something in private, let me know, I know a few places between here and Diamond City we can drop a secret and no one will overhear," Piper said, rolling her eyes around the vault.

""

"Meathead, I don't think we should overwhelm her more than she already is."

"Why? What's going on that I don't know?" Piper said sternly, her voice a bit more demanding than questioning.

"It's easier to think the people kidnapped by the Institute are killed, that they've been spared from misery, but it's worse. Tell her what you learned from Paladin Danse while we were at Beantown Brewery." Nate told Meathead.

"<You said it yourself, Piper, you're living inside of Diamond City, you're right in the epicenter of all this madness going on, that it's hard to see the big picture...so big, that you'd need to be standing in Washington D.C. to figure all this out. There's a difference between the super mutants from the ones here and the ones in Washington D.C."

"What's this got to do with the Institute?"

""

"What's that?"

"" Meathead changed his voice around, one reflecting Paladin Danse, to show Piper another side of the changelings.

"

"How does the Brotherhood know that?"

""

"Why's that make a difference? What's different?" Piper asked, this was all news to her and she wrote shorthand notes down as fast as she could.

""

"Good God." Nate said, hearing it again didn't make any less of an impact.

"So it's gonna get worse!?" Piper shouted, "Intelligent mutants?! NO! No! No!" She vehemently shook her head, wiping off her eyes and shaking.

Nate and Piper both soaked up this information, adding another page in the chapter marked 'Super Mutants' in their heads.

"I don't think that's what Meathead is saying, Piper. Even yesterday, we've seen them group up, they have a pecking order, it's something that happens no matter what we do."

""

Piper was following along for the most part, but the twisted part of her brain caught up with her mouth first. "No." She caught on, as quick as Nate and Meathead both had. She was shaking her head. "No way."

""

Piper swallowed, gagging, she burped and coughed. Her head was burning up with the revelation, and she felt sick, hot, cold, hungry for some reason, and tingly all over.

"All...NO! No way! That can't be true!"

"It's terrible, Piper. The Institute is abducting people, creating a synth army, and then letting the mutants wander off, all so they can observe it. It's a massive social experiment for them. The Institute can never be trusted. They're guiding how civilization forms. Think about it, who do you know was replaced by a synth?"

"Nick. But that doesn't mean there's a super mutant version of him running around, does it?"

"There could be, we saved a person, Amelia Stockton from a group at Covenant after they assumed she was a synth. They were right, but after we freed her, we talked about what happened to the original? Where's the real Amelia Stockton? We hoped and prayed that she was alive, or if dead, that she suffered a less harrowing experience than turning into a super mutant. Now we know that there is a super mutant out there, with all of Amelia Stockton's memories and personality, trapped behind a virus that's made every super mutant. Haven't you ever wondered where super mutants come from? They're created by a virus! They're created by the Institute!"

Piper was more terrified and angered by the Institute than ever before. Before coming down into Vault 111, she blissfully thought that people abducted by the Institute at worst prisoners that they did experiments on, and at the best, killed off. She was able to live with the grief that if she were ever abducted by the Institute, she would most likely die. That a synth clone would take her place and live out the rest of her life as synth-Piper, until she was exposed, then she would die. But, her mind never took her to the possibility that if she were abducted, she would become a super mutant, and the thought made her legs nearly give out.

Nate, and his changeling clone were both telling her down here in this crypt filled with dead bodies that the prisoners don't get to die, they get to live a worse fate than death, as a Super Mutant.

\111/

"How are you going to make them pay for this? They..." Piper waved a hand towards Nora's pod. "They kidnapped your son! They shot your wife! They abducted a bunch of people from all around the Commonwealth and turned them into super mutants! I can't tell you how many I've killed over the years, but it's a lot! I don't want to be thinking about that when all I think about now is that they used to be HUMAN! That was my one fear, being abducted by the Institute! Everyone knows it happens, and at any time, but no! No, we don't just get taken in the middle of the night without anyone realizing it because of magic and teleportation! No! We don't just get replaced by a copycat with all our memories leading up to that point! NO! We turn into fucking GODDAMN super mutants! FUCK!" Piper spat, going over to the rolling chair by the computer monitor, she sat down and let her head sink.

Nate and Meathead let her think for a moment, but Nate suddenly grinned and walked to sit cross-legged beside her on the floor.

"You know, I don't really like telling people what I think, or what I know because it's usually nothing important, but. I think the whole synth-situation is fucking stupid. Both sides. Full of bullshit."

Piper's head was in her lap, with her hands clasped in a prayer position over the crown of her head. Drawing a deep breath, she undid her hands and cleaned up.

"Nate? What the hell are you talking about?"

"The racism, the will-they, wont-they mentality. It's absolutely fucking bullshit. Both sides are thinking, will they? Won't they? Everyone is waiting for the other side to make a move, but I look at this from two hundred years ago, and I'm bored to death about listening to two groups of people talk about the exact same fucking issues about rights two hundred and fuck all years ago. I'm tired of counting, that's why I look at Meathead. Look at that ugly mug."

"" He shouted in disapproval, Nate smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

"Still love you, Meathead. Blame evolution, not me, but yeah, I thought Changelings were one ugly motherfuckers when I saw them. Didn't know if I could trust him either, but you know what? I think about the time I was burning ants with a magnifying glass. No one cares about the rights of an ant. No one wants to imagine the perspective of an ant because we've been treating something so insignificant, so terribly for our entire lives. The same goes for our enemies."

"Ants?" Piper asked, lost on Nate's line on thinking.

"We treat ants so terribly, that if we were to see just a single ant from fifty feet away, we would cross the fifty feet to crush one single ant. No mercy. Look...look behind you right now. There's a spider in the room, it's by the observation window, I can barely see it's spiderweb. That's the only insect here, but I know some people who can't leave tiny things be...In fact, I knew too many people like that. They can't leave the tiny stuff alone, it's so offensive to them that the tiniest detail is out of place, that they would stand up, cross the room, and crush the spider. It's the one insect in this massive room."

Piper turned to look over her shoulder, and saw the white wisp of a spider web clinging to the observation window, but not the spider.

"Now imagine that from an ant's perspective. Something that is one thousand times their size coming from beyond the horizon, faster than they can ever hope to move, and their life suddenly ended by a thumb, or a shoe, or a napkin if one is handy. No one ever imagines the perspective of an ant, constant warfare with every other insect out there. The bees, the potato bugs, slugs, termites, spiders, but then there are birds too. There's so much that wants to kill an ant, why treat them any differently? Why should we care if an ant has a bad day, or care if it eats? Should we care if something on the bottom of the food chain eats, Piper?"

Finally hearing a call to action, Piper drew in a breath. "It's been all about survival up there, Blue. I can't even begin to tell you."

Nate shook his head. "You're the one source of news around here, and in thirty years, your newspaper articles are going to be analyzed and stored on microfilm by researchers trying to piece together how everyone survived in a time like this."

"Now it's with the synths, and all I can think of is laughing at the whole fucking thing. It's what my grandpa did, and now I know why he was laughing. He was laughing at us, the next generation was making the exact same mistakes as his generation did...and that's comedy, you know? I know my father came to me plenty of times telling me how the government and the right and the left extremists should all shut up and do something about it, but my father's generation is the one who annexed Canada, and like the spider on the other side of the room, they haven't done a fucking thing wrong."

"Are you saying my news is preachy?"

"We're all preachy, but Meathead's got jack-p-diddle. My plan is to take on the synths, the Institute, McDonough, the Glowing Sea, the Brotherhood, and then if I get a moment to breathe, I'll show you the pony we saved from the Atomatoys factory."

"When did you come up with a plan?"

"From the time you were in the shower, Meathead and I were talking, to now."

"Doesn't sound like you've given it much thought. Let's hear it."

"The people need something to rally behind, a symbol, a logo, a flag."

"Okay..." She said, waiting for Nate to continue.

"I'd use old Glory, but, I don't think people would even know what it means if I started waving it. It needs to be something people can identify, and recreate off the top of their head after seeing it only once."

"Like Nuka-Cola," Piper said.

Nate and Meathead both swallowed, their mouths watering and thirst growing by the second.

"Yeah. Like that. Everything this group does, just like the NAACP, and...shit that's the only one I can remember from high school. I guess that's what I get for being white in America. Anyway, everything the NAACP do...or did... is for the advancement of colored people. Looking at Diamond City and the synths, it's not hard to see what the first thing that can be done to improve relationships."

"How? People are still going to be afraid of the Institute flipping the kill switch and making synths go ballistic on them."

"Then it sounds like the National Guard needs to come in and forcibly uphold some integration. I'll prove McDonough is a synth and get people to allow synths into Diamond City on the exact same day."

"How?

"Well, I was going to shoot him, and then start carving away until I found the synth component. I know he's a synth, but up until I rip that damn piece out of his skull, I wont have any evidence. And that's the kicker. Even if he acts like a synth, and sits down on the same barstool as a synth seventy years ago did, and eats ramen, chewing methodically, everything you observed about McDonough still doesn't prove he's a synth. Until I have enough muscle to take over Diamond City and French Revolution my way through the Institute, it's all back burner."

Piper opened her mouth a bit, waiting to speak with something to say. "I know some people you might want to meet. What do you mean by the French Revolution?"

Nate held his thumb to his throat and slid it across from end to end.

"It doesn't matter, because the first thing I think everyone needs, but doesn't realize it, is water."

"Water?"

"I'm going to drown this wasteland in fresh, clean, water, and wash away all the bad karma that's built back up over the centuries."

"Why water?"

"Water is the building block for all life. Not even ants can exist without it. If they can't exist, then neither can anything standing on top of them. But, the larger your foundation, the more you can build, the more you can expand and grow."

"How are you going to get the water?"

"I know how to build and maintain water purifiers," Nate said, pointing one finger at his brain. "Anything and everything, I'll make it work, somehow. It may not be pretty, and it may look stupid, but if it works, it's not stupid and I don't care what it looks like."

"" Meathead teased.

"That's how my grandfather described a few cultures north and south of here." Breaking conversation with Meathead, he welcomed Piper to speak up. "Sorry Piper didn't mean to leave you quiet for so long, we're just trying to be funny. The plan, right. The plan is to restore the vault reactor and remove the dead bodies. I'm not asking for your help, because after tomorrow, I want you to go back to Diamond City so you can write your articles."

"Meathead will be traveling with you, I'm sending him to look for supplies so we can make a trip to the Glowing Sea. While you're going back, check in at Cambridge Police Station if it's safe."

"Watch Meathead and Danse talk. Listen and see if there's anything else you can learn from them, or if there's anything they're willing to divulge. I want to trust these guys from what I hear, but I don't know what to make of them yet."

"They're pretty gun-ho, work together and crush the opposition with overwhelming force. They don't like to say please that often either." Piper commented.

"After I'm finished here, I'll make my own way down and rendezvous with Meathead in Diamond City. From there, we keep gathering supplies, or if Meathead finds everything, we go on to the Glowing Sea."

"Do you plan on me coming?"

"No. I wasn't going to ask you to come because I knew it was dangerous."

"Thank you. I didn't want to say 'no', either, but it's scary. I've never heard anything good happening down there. I know there used to be a caravan that used to run along the edge...some guy with a Geiger counter put tags all along the edge, and stay to the outside of it, but that was decades ago. Every time it rains or blows, there's a new smog of radioactive dust that gets blown across the Commonwealth. The caravans stopped running from Providence because the route got so bad, raiders, mutants, radiation, the only ways from there to Boston were too well known."

"How many ways are there south?" Nate asked.

"There was four straight paths that I know of that went south, one that went along the high way, then there was the backroad interstate and then another county road that was part of the Glowing Sea route. The third route, you would need to go all the way west to Nuka-World, then go south before you got there to go around the entire Glowing Sea. Otherwise you'd be cooking in your skin. The last route went along the coast, but, it's just a crap shoot along the water's edge. Lot's of creatures all looking to kill you."

""

"Did you find out where their main group is?"

""

"You ever go to Providence?" Nate asked Piper, shook her head.

"Did you?"

"Hundreds. Usually for a friend's dinner, or sometimes for a movie. Shopping was a big reason why we would go down there. The drive was only about two hours, three on a busy traffic day. God, one time it took seven hours to get from Franklin to Concord. The highways were backed up because there was an accident on the road that blocked three lanes, so by the time we actually got to the spot where it happened, they already cleaned everything up, but the congestion was so bad, that no one could go anywhere or do anything except sit and wait in traffic."

Piper shook her head, lost on Nate's references again. "Sorry, I just can't imagine that many cars all moving, and then suddenly stopped...It'd have to be like it is out there right now...except they would still be painted...and the people in them would be living." Swallowing, Piper felt tense about the suffering the people in the past endured.

"Is it all right if I go lay down? I need to organize all my thoughts."

"Go ahead. Meathead and I are going to start on the first project of getting all the bodies out of here. With the pods unplugged, it will put less strain on the reactor because of less power being drawn."

"You sound unsure of yourself, Nate."

"That's because the tech is two hundred years old, and if I accidentally shut down both reactors because of one of my fuck-ups, then Nora will die."

Piper steeled her teeth, looking right, up a bit into the porthole of Nora's pod. "Gotcha. I'll leave you to it. Unless you need a hand?"

"Nah, it's fine, unless you truly want to help."

Passing through the doors and down the hallway, Meathead changed back into a German Shepard as Piper walked past the viewing windows.

\111/

""

"Probably a little."

""

"Well. As the old story goes, they moved the grave, but didn't move the bodies." Nate said, going up to the closest pod after Nora's. "Time to clear these out and get rid of the ghosts." Nate leaned down, coming to the backside of the pod and grabbing at the first hose. Unscrewing it, there was a small hiss of cold nitrogen gas as he pulled the plug on the pod, forcing it to open. The pressure equalized and inside the pod was a dead dweller, one of Nate's old neighbors.

"Meathead, would you mind pulling the plugs on all the other ones? I want to get them out of here, and give them a proper send off. Keep ours plugged in, we might need them later."

\111/

One by one, Nate took the bodies and carried them to a cart, where they were loaded up, and taken down the hallway, back to the foyer, and then onto the elevator platform. Going back and forth, four bodies at a time, it took twenty-five trips and over three hours to get all of them depressurized and loaded onto the platform. They were literally only skin and bones, but Nate made sure to handle each one with dignity. Piper came back an hour into it, watching as they pulled the plugs on the pods, and loaded the bodies up.

Then they pulled the Overseer's skeleton along with the three others in the office and loaded those up too. They dragged them all to the elevator shaft and Piper asked, "What are you going to do with them all?"

"Bury them. It won't be a proper funeral, but they'll get more from me than what any other person is willing to do in this day an age."

\111/

Meathead, Piper, and Nate all rose to the surface, and they were moving bodies as Meathead dug the first hole, when Meathead barked.

""

Nate and Piper both looked to Meathead, "What?"

""

"What is it?" Piper asked, moving cautiously. "Is someone coming?"

Meathead whined, he put came close to Nate and whined again, looking off into the distance towards clusters of trees.

"What is it, Meathead?" Nate whispered, trying to hear for any danger.

Meathead put his paws on Nate's chest, putting his mouth next to Nate's ear.

"" Nate slowly let his eyes follow towards the tree, there were three ravens staring at them, turning their heads, this way and that.

"Yeah," Nate said, looking up at the sky and drawing his shotgun off his back.

""

Nate sniffed. "Gotcha."

"What'd he say?" Piper asked.

Nate covered his mouth, but spoke loudly." Three birds in a tree and one of them is a fake." Nate said, calmly pulling the bolt back on his shotgun and flicking the safety off.

"Three birds?" Piper asked, looking up towards the tree. One jerked its head towards her, and the other two followed.

Nate swung around on his heel, using VATS to line up twelve rounds of fire at the three birds. Firing the semi-automatic shotgun twelve times, the tree was peppered with buckshot and then all three birds fell dead, blown off the limbs and falling onto the ground at the base of the tree.

Piper uncovered her ears, and looked thirty feet away to the tree, "What was that about?"

"Come here, and we'll show you. Which one, Meathead?"

Meathead swiftly went to the birds on the ground, picking one up between his jaws, and then presenting it down to Nate and Piper.

""

Nate nodded, reaching for his hunting knife, he flicked it open and carved the raven open. Piper burped and turned away from the dead raven, but Nate called her over again. "Look here. In the head."

Piper's eyes watered, but she came back and squatted down, looking at the distinctly not bone or organ intrusion in the raven's body.

"No fucking way?" Piper asked, pointing to the metal chips and small grey box coated red in blood.

"That's a transceiver, it sends and relays signals, Piper. And these..." Nate pried open the skull of the raven, going after its eyes. "Are cameras." Piper rubbed the side of her face, making sure she wasn't dreaming this.

"They're cameras, Piper. The Institute is using birds to spy on us."

A shudder went through Piper, and her knees felt weak. She wasn't sure she could go on, how much more would the Institute make her fear the world? She couldn't sleep at night knowing the synths could come for her at any time, she didn't want to see the faces of the Institute's victims on the faces of super mutants, she didn't want to give in without a fight, but now they can teleport her off with the snap of their fingers, and replace her. Now, she needs to be afraid of the birds as well.

"No...I've gotta get back to Diamond City and tell people this." She said. "The people have to know about this."

""

"We may have to." Meathead looked up at Nate.

Nate looked down at Meathead. "Wouldn't be the first time the U.S. issued a warrant out for the overpopulation of a bird, and since the Institute is using them to spy on people, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if people gunned down birds by the truckload because they're terrified that a bird or a cow or a dog is a spy in disguise too."

"This is crazy, but it just proves the Institute is spying on us. All the time. We've never known about this before, but here they are. They're spying on us using birds." Piper said, her eyes were tearing up, but she didn't know why.

"That's something people can wrap their heads around." Nate offered.

"I'm going to have a lot to write about when I get back to Diamond City. How did you know?"

"Meathead told me."

""

Piper rubbed her eyes. "Oh my God. This blows my mind. Can I take that bird?" Piper asked.

"It's all yours, it's evidence. Take a picture, put it in your newspaper. Let the whole world know."

"Thank you. Do you have a jar, or a rag or anything?"

"I've got mason jars with lids down in my house. Go ask Codsworth for one, he'll get it for you."

"Okay." Piper left the top of the hill and sprinted down to Sanctuary Hills, feeling free of the death clinging to Vault 111. She resolved, she didn't want to spend too much more time there, and she didn't feel like going back down again, at least, not until the bodies were dealt with.

She made it out of their sight before collapsing to the ground and weeping, she let out an angry frustrated scream at the world, demanding it to stop terrifying her.

\111/

Meathead dug the holes in thirty minutes, digging out copious sections of dirt and rock, letting it pile up in ten rows at the foot of each grave was a pile. As Nate carried a body to each hole and set them in, Meathead took branches with his magic and a bit of string, tying crosses together.

Piper returned with the jar and saw the procession being carried out as Nate and Meathead continued working. She silently observed Nate and Meathead working together, looking at them in a new light.

"Mr. Irchovich and his wife were Jewish," Nate said, after getting to the thirtieth body. It was a small detail that seemed so distant right now, but Nate remembered the evening he and Nora introduced themselves to the Irchovich's, sharing a bottle of wine, and getting to know them. Same with the Thompsons, and the Kenner's, and all the other neighbors they got to know. Meathead nodded and made two stars of David for them, and put them atop a long branch. Shoving it down into the hole above their grave, Nate laid the bodies down in and crosses for the rest of them.

Piper picked up the Institute's raven and put it inside her bag. Calling out to Nate and Meathead, she asked. "Anything I can do to help?"

Meathead came up to her, "There's a shovel over there if you want to start filling in the holes. It doesn't need to be perfect.>" She was still a bit nervous, looking at Meathead with apprehension but she took the shovel and scooped dirt back down into the holes with bodies in them. Patting the dirt down flat with the back of the spade, it was a flat mound of dirt with a marker on top. Swallowing, she moved onto the next one.

Nate carried body after body from the cart, one by one into their own grave, and then took the crosses Meathead made and jammed them into the ground. Meathead finished making markers around the same time Nate finished carrying the bodies, and then helped Piper shove the piles of dirt back over to cover the holes.

She was surprised at the telekinetic force Meathead displayed and was caught watching a few times as Meathead put his head down and leaned into pushing the piles of dirt and rock back into their holes.

With Meathead's help, it took them two hours to get all the bodies out of the vault, and another three to bury them all. When they were done, there were one hundred graves, and Nate left to go fetch something from his house. He brought back water for all three of them, and under his arm, was a bible. They drank the water, and then Piper asked them what he planned on doing with the book.

Nate said he was doing it to appease the hungry ghosts.

"They were restless from being tricked into hiding underground and promised they would see the surface one day. Today is that day. Now they may rest in peace."

"Why would you do that for them?"

"Because, no one expects it, but I genuinely want to do something nice for these people. They deserve it." Swallowing, Nate peeled back pages and went to his first annotated spot.

"A reading from the book of Genesis," Nate said. "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first days...

His eyes skimmed down to his next placeholder.

"And God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also...and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And God said, “Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven...And God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. God created all these things, and said that they were good.”

Nate paused and reflected on the creation of heaven and earth, looking over the sight of the Commonwealth and towards the Glowing Sea where so much destruction came down and did so much damage.

"So it will be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power." Nate flipped a few pages to where he held his thumb to a holding spot and continued reading. "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but unseen since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

Nate looked up from his book and searched his own memories for a passage, "And God will wipe the tears from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." Using his ring finger, he flipped to the back of the book, to Psalms 23.

"The lord is my Shepard. I shall not want. He maketh me lie down in green pastures; he leads me besides the still waters. He restores my soul and leads me in the path of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For you are with me. Your rod, and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, and anoint my head in oil, my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord, forever and ever."

Nate let the Bible hang by his side, "Our stories do not end with death." He said, "Amen."

Nate held his hand out toward the ground for a minute, then opened his eyes. Letting his arms drop, he set the bible on the ground and went back towards the elevator.

"I never saw someone get spiritual, only Pastor Clements at the church next door said things like that. I didn't know you had it in you. What did all the things at the beginning mean?"

"Birth, Piper. The world was created, through the big bang and billions of years of creation and cosmic forces, hundreds of millions of years of evolution, fifty thousand years of sentient thought, five thousand years of mankind expanding across the globe, and an untold amount of thought. Birth, life, death, and resurrection. We took every option to extend life just a little bit longer, so long as we didn't have to worry about death. We didn't keep the dead around, and we didn't like remembered what happened to them."

"And what about Nora?" Piper asked.

"She's not dead yet, and I'll die before I give up on her. God may have taken everything else from me, but he's given me the chance to save her. I don't care if he's God, Jewish God, Islamic God, one of the thousands of Hindu Gods, Norse God, a reflection of God, Jesus, Mother Nature, Atom, or God in drag, he's God and I'll still thank him for the opportunity."

"So do you believe in him?"

"Yes.

"I get it. I think-" Piper started off with, but she caught herself. "I think it's time you should know about the enemies of the Institute."

\111/

Author's Note

This one took the longest to write out of all the chapters I've written so far. Clocking in at over five months working to get this one right.

But, time to take a nice big relaxing breath, people! This chapter marks the divergence between Nate and Meathead's plot lines. They'll both be going on their own adventures for a while, "leveling up" so to speak, and making sure everything's squared away. Nate's got to find a set of power armor he can get all buffed and waxed, while Meathead will be making friends on Nate's behalf, gathering supplies for the expedition.

Until of course, they're ready to take on the monsters and dangers of the Glowing Sea!

Looking back now, I think that's what lost people from playing Fallout 4, people didn't know which way to go to Diamond City.

In Fallout 3, everyone went to Megaton, then GNR, Rivet City, and the game was strategic how they could get people to move across the map, and discover new locations and get people to want to explore the nooks and crannies of the DC wasteland. Like being told by a NPC about Canterbury Commons, or to go check out Minefield for the first time, and stumbling across Arefu. On the way, you discover a vampire cult, but after you deal with them, you walk right past Paradise Falls, and find yourself at Big Town, the Germantown HQ, then after a few days of playing, maybe, you finally to the gates around Minefield. But all that feels like it is preparing you for when you actually make it back to Megaton, and finally get around to dealing with finding your father and all that. It felt like a super-elaborate, but challenging tutorial for the main quests. The way F3 handles missions is different than the way F4 handles missions. With F3, Better writing, every settlement had a person worth talking to. Every quest or side-quest, no matter how random, still felt like it contributed to the whole over-arching story.

In F4, Preston tells you where to go to discover new settlements, there's not a whole lot of adventuring going on, nor traders to offload your loot.

In Skyrim, there was hardly a person that didn't have something to say to you. But at the very least, we made it to Whiterun.

Fallout NV, similar instance with F3. Everyone starting off on a new game, or a new playthrough, everyone knew that they shouldn't go north out of Goodsprings because of the cazadors, deathclaws, and giant radscorpions.

We all knew that we might be able to sneak past them all, and run to vegas, cutting down on our game time, but we also knew the roundabout route Obsidian made us take instead. Primm, to the Pit stop, to Nipton, Novac, the REPCONN facility, Solar plant, Boulder city, then finally to Vegas. The first few hours of gameplay for FNV isn't just 'get to vegas'. There's more lore. Again, it feels like a elaborate tutorial to get us to level up in before we get to the more difficult parts of the game.

Fallout 4's route leads us from the Vault to Concord, and stops there. It tricks people into following Preston back to Sanctuary Hills, and doing missions that help you discover more settlements. We all know that if you stay with the Minutemen, it'll be for unlocking Minutemen Missions, but it doesn't feel like it adding anything to the story of finding Shaun.

I want to thank everyone who's read my work this far, it's 10/28/18 at the time of writing,

Update: 1/29/19.
4/6/19
1/20/20

Where does the time go?
Thanks for reading.:trollestia:

Ch. 46 Cait

Cait “Cage” McKlaughton does a lot of drugs and gets her ass kicked.

The November Chill that comes with living on by the coast, or any large body of water, is why your house is so cold in the morning.

It was the reason men and women grabbed the extra blanket, rolled over and went back to sleep in the morning. That morning chill that makes people less inclined to wake up and more active when the air itself is more active. Living in Boston, there was a wet bank of air pooling through the streets, moving along like a big invisible gaseous blob, filling every nook and crevice with cold air that fogged your breath up.

Cait McKlaughton was used to not being called by her name. She was often called bitch, slut, whore, motherfucker, piece-of-shit, useless, good-for-nothing, worthless, trash, and slave. Those were just a few of her names, and she always knew if someone was talking about her. Sometimes she was “Here, now” as in, get here, now. “Move.” was another.

The name she absolutely hated with a burning intensity was “Snap, snap.”

(Neat trick, get arthritis while you’re at it).

The snapping of fingers, trying to get her attention. Snap to it. It was like a crack of a whip, a door slammed in your face, the sound of indignation when someone tries to cut you off from speaking and talk over you. Of all the sounds that make up names in the world, someone snapping at fingers at her to get her to snap to it, was an amazing way for that person to break a finger.

Breaking her master’s fingers and hand was a good way for her to be beaten and starved for two weeks. She was so hungry during those two weeks, the taste of dirt will always hold a special place in the forefront of her mind anytime her stomach ever groans for food, because eating dirt helped her stomach from screaming out for sustenance.

Slave, the last name on that list always felt like someone was taking an ice cold knife and carving out her stomach. It was a cheap shot, a bucket of ice water dumped into her bed.

“Get in the fucking cage, now!”

In times of sickness and soreness, a person’s bed is one of their solemn companions. For Cait, when she wasn't fighting any real enemies, just the ones in her head. She had a few ways of dealing with those negative voices, always trying to bring her down or make her angrier than she just was. It's not her fault the voice in her head sounds like the one that comes out of her mouth, how it's always running off on a fucker who deserves it. It's the voices that aren't hers, the ones shouting at her, screaming at her, yelling, grabbing her ankles in the middle of the night and dragging her over the concrete rubble ground with nothing on.

To deal with the haze constantly hanging in front of her vision, keeping her from ever seeing a better horizon, Cait reaches for Psycho.

Instant Ego. She knew the word, and she knew that when she took Psycho, something in her brain would make her feel this way. She knew all the side effects and horror stories from other people who took Psycho and were plenty addicted, unable to handle their high and overdosing with bloodshot eyes and swollen blue lips, gagging slightly as they realize they've metaphorically bitten off more than they can chew.

But...she and her supplier of Pyscho both argued, in a world where you can't ever remember a time whenever you were happy, why not?

Why, and why not were two powerful convincing arguments for the uneducated and misinformed. When someone says, you might like something, prepare yourself for a lifetime of liking that one thing in particular, in a very peculiar way, creating a perfect condition. If that condition isn't met, the high doesn't feel as high.

The ash-hits taste a little more rank, the vomit in the back of your throat is harder to swallow back down, and worst of all, Cait will sit there, needle in her arm, face full of drugs, and say the words. "I'm not feeling a Damn thing." Her heart's always beating too fast, why is her heart beating too fast? Because, she took some Buffout before the fight to get her pumped up right before going in and it was a long way from wearing off. And then before that it was two or three cigarettes to calm her down after finally getting food she took off another competitor, now dead.

She cracked his skull open, and then to make it look like the fight was still going on while he flailed and fumbled in pain, she patted his pockets down, reaching for lumps in the pockets. A stimpak and a dried piece of meat was in his back pocket. Cait snatched both of them, injecting the stimpak into herself as fast as she could to feel the benefits, and then devouring the dried jerky in one bite, swallowing it and choking it down as two pit raiders came in and dragged off the body.

That was why Cait couldn't feel anything, she was taking Psycho to pump her up, Cigarettes to focus, Jet to pass the time, Mentats for when she felt like being more talkitive, and Buffout to keep her strong. Alcohol to keep her from being thirsty, and then some home made projects she's cooked herself, but not when the Combat Zone was open.

For the last three years, the Combat Zone was her home and her enslavement contract belonged to the man delivering color commentary of the fight.

She was not allowed to leave, nor was she allowed to save any caps for herself, that meant not being able to buy her own food, nor save anything up for herself to buy her freedom. Everything she was paid in, she was paid as a stipulation, a living wage that would always be gone by the days' end. A shitty, terrible existence for the survival of a slave with no end in site. No release date, no date the shackles would come free and she'd use them to choke the life out of the people who did this to her.

Was it a small wonder that Cait had access to plenty of brain candy to keep her high as a kite and angry enough in a fight to rip a motherfucker's head off?

They threw a young adult deathclaw into the cage at her, fucking thing was creepy as hell and not tall enough to be a scary life threatening case of rage rampaging towards you. However, in a metal cage fight, with only the bright lights and the mind in a hazy, raiders throwing beer bottles or even flaming molotovs into the arena just for laughs; it's hard to fight a man sized deathclaw.

Their spines don't jut out like the massive pikes on the full grown adults. Their hands are much smaller, like seeing the beefiest man you've ever seen with hands that were bloated from oil based instant heat. While everyone is screaming 'Kill', she's on stage wrestling the hands away from her head as it tries to slash her face.

They're screaming for blood, her blood, the monsters blood, anyone's blood, anything. They just want to see the walls painted with red blood and spattered across the ceiling, coating everything. That's all it was to these psychos, sacrifice to some greater God of Blood, and let it pour into the Charles River until it runs red. Then the winds will come and pick up the blood water and make it rain, washing all this damn radiation and filth away until everywhere you look, you see red. Red. Red. Maybe they'll be spared.

Cait never heard the voice of God, but she swore if she did, he'd be shouting, "Blood! Blood! Blood!"

Cait's body shook, left elbow twitching against her side and the memory of the young deathclaw vanished, she thought it was a deathclaw, Tommy Lonegan said it was a guy with a deathclaw gauntlet.

She scowled thinking his name, looking over to her left, she could see through the bars where Tommy sat, taking bets and waging who would win or die in his fight club. The rotten ghoul was a man with no recourse. They both knew where Cait stood, she stood in the ring as his fighter, and he stood out there watching her get beat to near death on a daily basis. He collected his money, she'd get food and something to keep her quiet, then she'd cuss at him and tell him to fuck off.

It wasn't a way to live, but at least you could live, she reasoned.

On the small table right beside him, no larger than a stool was a little blue and white box from Medtek corporation, Addictol. God how she hated the thought of him holding that out there in plain site. Cait can't remember if she took Psycho just to spite him, or if he had it because he'd told her she was going to die if she kept doing it and he wouldn't be able to keep making money off her if she was dead.

Not that he cared about her, he was only concerned that if the current clientele cleared out, she'd finally have the time to rest and gain her strength, and clear her mind and then kill Tommy Lonegan.

All the men and women and even runts with a gun twice as big as they are wrapped tight in both arms like a teddy bear, while managing to tip a brown bottle of local rotgut distill alcohol down their pecker bird lips. Savages.

All whistling and cheering.

The lights on stage were coming on, the Orpheum Theater that once housed magnificent plays and musicals, movies, ballets, and dozens of dress rehearsals was now a live combat arena.

"Drop them! We've got three challenger of the R&R Gang, Lepewto, Juygin, and Vanke. Knock 'em down, win a prize." Lonegan said to her.

The lights flashed red then pink then yellow, organ music pumping in the air and the Combat Zone was a carnival.

The pipe organ was screeching, speeding up and slowing down like a wind up toy. The men she was fighting weren't even men, just giant clown dolls you could knock down a million times, but keep getting back up.

She pounced on the first one and smashed it's legs, deflating the sack of air with a wheeze and sputter. The other two clowns punched her with their giant overinflated boxing gloves, but it came at her so slowly, she thought it wouldn't hurt.

It hit her so softly, she didn't feel herself get knocked back into reality with a broken eye socket and a bashed in nose. Thrown against the wall of the cage, she collapsed and smacked her head against the steel bars with a loud clang.

Cait was laughing rolling on the floor, laughing, and the people out there were cheering laughing, applauding for more!
She'd never been to a carnival before, this was amazing! The pretty elephants jumping up onto one leg for a balancing act, a man and a women on a high swinging jump of faith over fifty feet up into the air without a net! The dancers were being pulled through the air on giant pulleys with thick extension cords, but the colored rags and cloths disguised the plain chord and made it look like a flag billowing in a gust of wind.

The clowns were piling out of their car and she could smell popcorn, and hear the criers march up and down the rows offering cotton candy, ice cold Nuka Cola, and chips. If you were over twenty one, a different crier with a big blue ice chest filled with cold beers would come along every so often. Nothing like enjoying a family get together out, watching a performance with a nice little depressant to make the memory bittersweet.

Cait was thirsty. Her head was waving back and forth like a tall tree blown in strong wind. Now she was rooted down to the earth, one thought in mind. She was going to get something to drink, right here and now, and all she needed to do was get past the two clowns.

Her eyes were hot from the swelling and blood rushing to her face, she felt water running down her cheeks, but she didn't feel any pain, so she must be happy, so she must be having a good time.

Swinging a punch, she clocked the first clown right in the jaw, knocking his chin up and backwards, and exposing his throat. The clown cried big jets of tears, but couldn't make any noise so he held up a big sign that said 'WAHHHH!!!" She jabbed her elbow into his windpipe and shoved him back as the third clown kicked her in the side of the knee.

The third clown had a large sledgehammer that said "Pow!" In red and yellow. He swung it like a golf club, letting the weight drop down, teeing off her head to score a whole in one. But it was all an act, and she was still laughing as the sledgehammer clanged against the ground first, skidding, and then hit her skull. All the momentum was lost a fraction of an inch away from her head, that only left her ears ringing.

She twisted off the right and crawled up to her hands and knees, then stood up. The third clown swung again and the hammer clanged against the side of the cage like a gong. His hands shook as the vibrations went up his arm. She threw her left elbow into the mans ribcage and punched out with her right fist into the clown's funny bone making him drop the hammer and leap and yowl with pain.

"Eeek! Ohh! Ahh! Owie!" Running away, he left the center ring and the ringleader announced from "AND NOW, if you'll direct your attention to the far end of the circus tent entering the center ring, you'll see our lovely new addition to our circus, from the wilds of Africa, to the plains of the Serengeti, King of the Jungle, and the ferocious alpha of the pack, the LION!"

Cait had never been to a circus, but she always imagined it something like this. After the clowns went away...next came the ponies pulling a cart with a lion's cage on the back. Parading down in front of the audience, making a full circuit loop in front of all the spectators so everyone could get a good look. For many, this would be as close to a zoo, or as close to a wild, exotic animal as they would get for a very long time.

The lion tamer cracked its whip and the lion roared, scaring the raiders in the audience, and then the circus lights didn't seem so bright, and Cait saw Tommy Lonegan sitting in the stands. "What do you expect me to do? Fight a lion?"

He just shook his head, "Nope, I expect you to survive three minutes! Taking all bets! Who here thinks Cait the champion can survive three whole minutes against this terrifying beast!?"

Oh Gods, she was sweating, she was feeling cold and she was sweating. This thing wasn't a monster of two animal halves put together by radiation and twisted nightmares, it was a lion and an eagle, it was being pulled in by ponies painted blue and orange, and she was at the circus.

All the more reason to laugh and be merry.

A ferris wheel and a merry go round, she could hear the pipe organ music now, even from inside the tent. The ponies galloping around and around forever, up and down on giant poles while little kids rode on their backs with parents by their side, making sure they wouldn't fall off.

But...this wasn't your regular circus.

This wasn't one you took your kids to, this was the circus you've only heard about coming to town, maybe, dreadfully.

The only reason this run down circus came to your town was because of an old un-shakeable contract that lets this shabby group come through once a year. One time, it may have been a credible and respectable show, now it was pitting its zoo animals against combatants and calling the winners gladiator champions.

They'd seen the dancers and the jugglers and balancing acts before from the same crew last year, and the year before that, and it never gets any better. It's the same thing year after year, with less and less of the same practiced finesse, and more of people going through the motions.

The carnival workers themselves became bored with the job, but they don't want to move on. This carnival should've shut itself down long ago, and its employees moved onto bigger and better things, but Tommy Lonegan was too comfy not putting in the effort.

He didn't need to hire jugglers, or dancers, or tightrope walkers when the spectators wanted blood, so blood he gave them.

He didn't need to train the lions, when he could just dump them in a pit and let whoever else was in there make it out on their own.

The ponies backed the eagle lion's cage against the fighting ring, with Tommy hustling up to the side of the cart to open the gate.

"And the three minutes start...NOW!"

\111/

Ch. 47 Pip-Boy Ping Nov. 2nd

Giddy and Gigi Buttercup trotted through Postal Square Park. Along the water's edge, they passed by a herd of rad-elk, two-headed mutant elk, one head watched, while the other grazed.

It was peculiar watching the animals radiated over time migrating on patches of city park grasses throughout Boston and the surrounding cities in a migratory pattern, they knew to always be aware.

One rad-elk kept a pair of eyes on the two yellow Giddyup Buttercups cantering by when Gigi stopped to wave its hoof at them and smile.

Not sensing any immediate threat, they kept on grazing and let the ponies pass.

A few blocks away, the telltale 'CRACK' of a bullet being fired off put the ponies and the herd on edge, but then the return chatter of gunfire told them it wasn't directed at them.

The herd of rad-elk perked up and started moving away from the gunfire.

"I think we're safe for now, but we should keep moving," Gigi said.

"Right."

Following a safe distance behind the rad-elk, they hopped on over towards the waterfront and followed alongside the bay.

Many of the storm walls, roads, and buildings were washed out, entire streets flooded, buildings submerged or collapsed into the sea, but the pair of Giddyup Buttercups were undeterred in their adventure along piers, and showing benign interest in the large irradiated sharks washed up on shore, already devoured by mirelurks and then scavengers like seagulls and crows.

"Look, there it is! I see it!" Donny Kowalski cried out. Standing on the edge of a worn-out pier thrashed and ravaged by time, the young nine-year-old shouldn't have even been able to clamber out that far on the dock without falling through, but the two ponies picked their way out to where young Donny was pointing out into the Chesapeake Bay. Between two tendering boats and a barge stuck in the water, half sunk up to the first level. Through hordes of trash and debris that was constantly getting washed into the sea, was the ferocious sea monster he tried to tell people existed.

Beyond buoys, and breaking through the water, droplets could be seen as the large periscope ascended above the waves and gazed out along the shore.

"Did you see something out there?" Gigi asked.

"Did you see it? The giant eye out there?"

The two ponies leaned over the rail and peer out.

"Where?"

"Beyond all those shipwrecks! It keeps poking up out of the water!"

"What are you doing out here?" Giddy asked.

"Looking for the monster! I knew it was true!"

"That looks like a..." Giddy tried to form the word in her head, but nothing immediately came to mind.

"You should probably find you-" Gigi started to say, taking another step along the dock when an entire section collapsed beneath her.

She gasped, screaming as she fell through and started sinking, but paddling up to the surface, she sputtered out the water and shook her mane out of her eyes.

Below her, she felt the water shift and surge around her, and at the very end of the dock, a large dark shadow appeared below Gigi as bubbles appeared on the surface.

Bursting out of the water, a thirty-foot tall sea monster rose out of the bay, water cascading down its shell.

"SEA MONSTER!" All three of them screamed. "Get on!" Giddy yelled to Donny. The dock groaned in protest at all the weight, but the massive sea monster swung one massive claw down and ripped a massive chunk of the dock out, splintering the old beams and breaking the pilings apart.

Gigi swam for shore as Giddy galloped for land with Donny clinging tightly to her back.

The sea monster took another swing at the dock, trying to get closer to Donny and Giddy. Another section of the dock was destroyed, but Donny and Giddy were already rounding the edge of the dock back onto dry land as Gigi finally managed to reach the beach shore.
Clamoring up the rock storm wall, she took off after Giddy, and the three of them all kept running back to the North End.

\111/

Piper, Meathead, and Nate were all in the Overseer's office of Vault 111, Nate laid out a road map of Boston and the surrounding cities, the entire Commonwealth was up for them to look over.

"So you plan on being here for a few days, while Meathead and I head back to Diamond City, and pass through Cambridge to see what the Brotherhood is up to," Piper said, tracing her finger from Concorde, through Cambridge, and across the bridge to Fenway Park.

"Yes, Meathead if you'd be so kind as to escort Piper back to Fenway, and then make your way East, I know there's a job or two in Goodneighbor, Bobbi could use a hand with whatever she needs finishing up in DC, but it wouldn't be bad if we checked out the North End for Hancock's job."

"What's Bobbi No-nose up to?" Piper asked, Nate, shrugged.

"Digging a tunnel, to somewhere, I don't know, underground it's hard to tell which way you're going, even with a compass," Nate said.

"Watch yourself with her, she was a Triggerman before Hancock allowed her to stay in Goodneighbor, but she's been known to cause trouble for others at their expense. She tried robbing a warehouse that belonged to Hancock in Goodneighbor by tearing down a brick wall, but ended up collapsing a load-bearing wall."

""

"After I'm done here, I'm considering routes down to the Glowing Sea. Piper do you know of anywhere we should avoid?"

Her eyes went down to the map, and she fingered an 'H' and a schoolhouse building. "Milton General Hospital and Shaw High school. There's a big department store down there that's not on the map, but I've heard from traders that this place is a nightmare. It's crawling with Super mutants and anyone who goes there winds up dead...and I heard ones around there are smart." She added as an afterthought.

"Smart? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Smarter than the average lunkhead. They've got enough brains between them to put up a tough fight. Traders usually go east along the coast, and deal with South Boston Raiders, and then shoot for Quincy. Otherwise, go west from Diamond City and across the Charles, then go south."

"What about this railroad here?" Nate's finger started at Bedford Station, directly east of Sanctuary Hills, and moved it south. It ran down from Boston through Neponset to Providence.

"That's your best bet right there. That's if you're planning on going way south. I hear there's a lot of junk and fallen trees blocking it, but it's the most direct path even if you're leading a brahmin train. But." Piper's finger landed on Gunner's plaza, sitting next to Cutler's Bend. "Gunner HQ, baby. They have a shoot to kill standing order and fuck with anyone who gets into their ironsights. Even traders. These guys don't mess around. Nobody who isn't a Gunner goes near it, and those who do, don't come back in one piece."

Nate wrote 'GHQ' on the map, then drew a rough mile-wide circle around it.

Nate marked an 'M' on the map with a sharpie, along with every other location he knew about, from Atomatoys HQ to Trinity Plaza, Boston Library, Massachusetts Statehouse, West Everette Estates, the blown-out construction site next to Monsignor Plaza. Drawing straight lines from location to location, Piper and Meathead were surprised to see how close each of the super mutants were to each other.

"This is all good information, now we know which directions are safe, and what to avoid. Now Piper, the last question, do you know anything about the Commonwealth Institute of Technology Building? Who's in control of it?"

"From Diamond City, you can watch mutants and raider gangs fight over that place all day. You can hear them shooting at each other at night. I've woken up a few times from my bed in Diamond City in the middle of the night and heard them lighting off explosives." Piper said.

"So we know that the mutants are either being teleported up from the Institute beneath Cambridge, or funneling their way north from Trinity Plaza, with reinforcements coming from West Everette Estates, Malden, the Fens, and the State Building."

"What's your plan, Blue?" Piper asked.

"I want to know who's fighting the good fight against these Super Mutants?" Nate said, leaning back to allow Piper to look down at the map.

"Here. Kendall Hospital. There's a whole compound of raiders holed up here. They've got Kendall locked down tight, I know because I was asking about hospitals that could still have some good meds or scrap in them a few weeks ago, and Kendall came up. They're not with Red's gang, nor Tower Tom's. If you go there, you might be starting at square one again with raider relations. That or you'd need to be packing some serious heat if you plan on dealing with them."

"Good to know, all great food for thought." Nate made more notes on the physical copy of the Boston Map, just looking at it gave him a sense of direction, and his mind went down every road along the way. "Is Harvard still around?"

"Nope. The Institute took everything down to the last brick, there's nothing left of Harvard except empty fields and the streets that used to connect them all."

"Damn. Ah, well. Meathead, let's meet back at the Constitution in..." Shaking his head, Nate tried to account for all the projects he needed to take care of. "Five days. Scout around, see what you can find, afterwards, we'll gather up and head south. I'll try to be there earlier and hang around until you show up. I want to meet this Pegasus of yours we rescued."

"Pegasus?" Piper inquired.

""

Piper's eyes widened a bit when she heard the amusement park's name, there wasn't any news coming from that direction West in ages, too long in her book.

"I'd like to meet her," Piper said, but Nate replied with a dismissive remark.

"You and me, both. we'll clue you in after we figure out what's going on first. We've got a mountain of things to do beforehand, and it starts with me taking care of the Vault and getting ready for Winter. All these things happening around the Wasteland, and all I can think about is having enough food to make it through the cold snap." Nate said, standing up and pushing himself away from the desk.

"Piper, Meathead will get you back to Diamond City, no problem. Unless you want to stay here and write your articles, I'll be busy working the whole time."

"No, it's about time I checked on the homestead, see how Nat's doing."

""

"Sounds like a plan."

"Nate, it's been quite a trip seeing everything here, but I'm glad I came. I even got a sexy vault suit out of it, and it fits like a charm."

Nate was satisfied, giving out a light chuckle. "I'm glad you enjoy it, Piper. Now Meathead can show you what he can do."

"Oh yeah?" She asked, "What's that?"

A ring of green fire rose around Meathead, wrapping around his limbs then expanding outwards. In a quick flash, two Nates were standing next to each other.

"Oh, God!" Piper yelled, startled at the sight of the two duplicates.

Meathead deadpanned, ""

\111/

From the elevator platform at the top of the shaft to Vault 111, Piper warily tried reaching out to accept Meathead's hand.
Cruising around in Nate's body, with every detail down to the growth on his chin coming in, to the wears in his vault suit, she needed to shake off the thoughts of this version of Nate being a synth, but a Changeling in disguise was something she didn't know if she felt comfortable accepting.

"Have you done this before?"

"" Meathead replied, all his focus was on a spot south of Concord, he didn't want to teleport too far, and didn't know if his magical reserves would be up to the task to jump around the Commonwealth.

In his mind's eye was the wide-open field at Starlight Drive-In. With the scattering of cars with weeds crawling up through the wheel wells, the area next to the snack booth, Piper wrapped her fingers around Meathead's and hesitated as both of them disappeared in a flash and pop, taking the air from the space they occupied with them, and reemerging into reality directly in front of the large Drive-In screen.

Meathead's head swam, and he felt dizzy for taking the two of them, but it wasn't as bad as when he first tried to teleport himself and Nate.

Piper gasped, heart, thudding in her chest as she breathed, but the sudden and instant change in her surroundings made it difficult to breathe and comprehend everything that happened in the last five seconds, narrowing down her deductive reasoning to point at the fact they teleported and could still live to tell the tale.

"That was...!" Piper tried to say, but words failed her. "That was incredible!"

She spun around, they were standing in the shadow of the tall movie screen, with the sun behind it. "I can't believe you got us all the way here in a snap! Was that how you and Nate got to the Vault so fast while we were at Fort Hagen?"

Piper's inquisitive mind was running back, making small connections, but Meathead wasn't interested in teleporting or patting himself on the back, his attention was caught on the scattering of dead bodies around the Starlight Drive-In.

"" He said, noticing the change, the way he said it was like someone noticing another person shaved their beard, in a 'how about that' type of way. ""

All around them were bodies, mostly stripped, but what remains were on the raider's bodies left Meathead and Piper to guess, if only for a few minutes, as to who these people were, why they were here, and who shot them. Fifteen in all, as if a battle happened all around them, but from their positions, it's like they expected a fight, and all ended up meeting their end.

The remaining possessions, or lack thereof from being stripped, it took Meathead a dozen minutes to piece together the dead raiders were from the Corvega plant, but as to why they were here and who killed them, neither of them knew yet.

\111/

The Lexington Corvega plant changed management, Jared's body was desecrated after his death. Stripped naked, his head sawed off, hooks dug through his hands and the tops of his feet. Chains were attached to the hooks, and then raiders of the crew carried Jared's body and the chains to the ramparts above the Corvega plant and then hung his body from the metal beams.

Bloatfly's feasted on his body, laying eggs which grew into maggots in his chest, then those too wormed their way out and ate through the corpse. The white maggots were coated in slime and blood and fell over thirty feet to the ground where they dried out and died in the sun, or were eaten by carrion crows and smaller insects.

It was three days after Jared died that the raiders in the Corvega plant ran out of food. There were still crates and crates of drugs and chems, but even the raiders were hungry for something more than a high.

It was the hesitation that nobody immediately stepped up to take control, instead of doing more chems, get higher, while those that were already hungry quickly hoarded the food away in their own stashed area of the Corvega plant.

Three people tried to vie for Jared's position, but of the forty people original people at the plant of the time of Jared's death, five people left that day Jared died, grabbing as many chems as they could and never looking back.

The raiding groups brought back more food, but the resources still available in Corvega were held hostage by the ones who wanted rest, and to speak to Jared, but could no longer do so.

It was the confusion, and disillusion that things were the same from when they left, to when they returned, that caused hostilities to keep rising for an entire week. Within the first seven days, nine people were murdered at night, all for clothes, food, a sleeping mat, or because they felt like it and didn't want to see that person alive anymore. It was so petty and trivial, that those with enough intelligence and wits about them saw what was happening to the rest of the gang.

Things were quickly growing into a savage hell. Gristle was nowhere to be found; Nate and Meathead killed him on their first day out of the vault. Lonnie banded together with four other raiders, three were Lieutenants Jared put in command of raiding parties, but the vast majority of the raiders didn't want to do anything more than lounge in the factory and do drugs.

Rendo was a cook for Jared, a chemist. His tolerance for drugs was high, and no matter how many Jets he took, he always was aware of everything going on around him. He had a system in place, Jet to slow things down, Buffout to speed up his heart, Day Tripper to calm down, Psycho to go insane. If he took all of them one after the other over four hours, he considered himself 'balanced' for figuring out what he needed.

Marin, Trevor, and Jupiter were the three leaders of the raiding gangs, they held their crews in check, but it was Marin who came back with supplies for the rest of the gang first, but they were quickly eaten up and taken by the rest of the gang before Marin realized all the details of Jared's death. He ordered his crew to go back out, and find a site to raid until things calmed down, while he would stay and wait for Trevor and Jupiter.

Each raiding crew cycled through a day after each other, with resources always coming in on a new day, it also ensured that the gangs kept to a time frame to make it back to Corvega.

Trevor was stopped by Marin's second in command, Duke, outside of Lexington who quickly gave Trevor the small details, who told them things were changing at the factory.

Trevor decided that since everything Marin's crew brought in was already depleted, and Gristle couldn't be found, they could only wait for Jupiter to decide what needed to be done.

Two men Jared killed during his rampage, Oilo, and Barreta were the following leaders who were going to replace Trevor, and Jupiter while they took some time at Corvega to recuperate before being sent out again.

Their management system, while archaic, was efficient at finding people who wanted chems, raiding, and managing no more than ten people at a time.

On the third night after Jared's death, it was the start of the random murders. There were no clear intentions behind them, but it was an issue that Jupiter walked into with her gang of nine others.

Lonnie, Rendo, Marin, Trevor, and Jupiter all came to the fast decision that whoever was killing in the night, needed to be put to death, then they needed to deal with the flood situation that day, or risk things spiraling more out of control.

There was talk of trying to band everyone together to take on Vault 81 for resources and supplies, but the issue of food kept coming up first, so they decided to send a crew of people to Grey Garden, the greenhouse run by Mr. Handy's, and loot them for food. But, the moment Trevor stepped outside, he and his crew were faces to face with a Super Mutant Behemoth.

It was a rare occurrence for a Super Mutant Behemoth to wander through the streets of Lexington, but their watch teams were stagnating, some too high and dazed to even see or care what was going on around them. They'd take some chems, sit down, or stare out at Lexington around them, but the threat of death and mutants coming at them didn't trigger their urgency to respond.

Three of Trevor's crew were killed in less than a second by one swat of the Behemoth's hand.

The Behemoth came running down the street, kicking a rusted car through the side of a building like a football through wet cardboard.

It took one of the raiders armed with a Fat Man three rounds of mini-nukes to hit and destroy the Behemoth, along with loads of gunfire from raiders all around the plant banding together for a single cause, but they couldn't even start to congratulate each other before the realization set in that they were quickly running out of ammo too.

It was the head of the snake being severed, with the rest of its body slowly dying. The raiders couldn't go out to raid because they wouldn't have enough bullets to fend off any ghouls, Super Mutants, or radiated animals that they would cross along their way before finding someone to steal their supplies off of. They didn't have enough food for everyone to eat, so many didn't have the energy to go out, and knew that they wouldn't be fed either along the way until after something was done to bring more food in.

Every raider still holding hope for the Corvega raiders to rise again held out for the first week because they knew the caravan from Bunker Hill would come. They knew that unless Mayor Kessler paid tribute, they would attack their caravans again.

This created a split between those that wanted to go out now and find resources anyway they could, even if it meant double-crossing Bunker Hill, but Lonnie, Rendo, Marin, Trevor, and Jupiter all decided that it would force the Bunker Hill caravans to take different routes and avoid Lexington all together, which meant they would need to go farther in the future.

Kevin and Hester took up arms and rallied a band of fifteen raiders behind them, making off with Chems, guns, what little ammo there was, and claiming "We're fucking raiders! Fuck that, we raid! Let's go kill some shit!" Their merry band of raiders would head North to attack another gang, at Thicket Excavations, and take on over their mirelurk meat farm.

\111/

Sully Mathis of the Thicket Raiders would lead a short and bloody campaign against the entire group, helped by Nate a few days prior in draining the quarry. In the fields right outside of Concord at the Starlight Drive-In where Kevin and Hester took their new gang to stay, Sully's only command was to point two fingers at the new raiders moving in, and ten of his raiders, killed every single one of Kevin and Hester's men. It was here Meathead and Piper teleported to, and it was this group of dead raiders that they discovered.

Sully knew that these men were from Corvega, but the fact that they were so disorganized, starving, and low on ammo lead him to conclude what was happening at the factory.

It was a regular gang war in the Commonwealth, the murders stopped at the factory only because the same person doing the killings joined in with Kevin and Hester's group, and decided it was time to move on. Not because they felt someone else was going to catch on, but because there was nothing else interesting to him. The killer was bored and not even drugs were enough to convince him to stay.

Clinton and Sully both agreed within the month, they could take Corvega by force, it would only be a matter of timing and ensuring that any caravans going through the area never made it to Lexington.

\111/

Mayor Kessler didn't know what to make of the Commonwealth anymore, but she did know it was raiders killing raiders all over the place. When news reached her that Tower Tom was dead and that his Lieutenant bowed down to Red's Stockpile, a gang that was even further west than Tom, the bottom line was that Red was someone who could hash out a deal. It was on her decision that a caravan of pledged items didn't go to Corvega after hearing about Jared's death, even though she knew that whoever took charge might retaliate by killing one of her own as punishment.

With two raider bosses dead, and a new one to take their place, she honestly couldn't say what was going on in the Commonwealth. Instead, she sent a caravan bound for Red's Stockpile, with a tribute to the new gang leader of the area and a deal that could benefit them. Kessler didn't care who they were, so long as they traded and weren't violent, it was in their best interest to go to Red and get them to offer protection.

In Kessler's mind and on her chart, that was a straight shot for caravans to run from Bunker Hill, West to Lincoln. There were a few farms and small communities around the way, people who stayed quiet and kept their heads down when raiders, mutants, or other creates from the Commonwealth came through. In the end, some people needed things and could trade in products that just weren't available in Bunker Hill. Likewise, meat from seafood couldn't get out into the Commonwealth, and without the salt mill run by one of the residents in Bunker Hill, that's all they did was boil saltwater away, things were quick to spoil.

\111/

"You have a knack for finding trouble," Piper said, her thoughts were still wrapped around the crow in the jar tucked inside her bag.

"" Meathead asked, walking alongside Piper.

"Honestly, it's just nice to not be doing things alone for a change. Even though I doubt I'll ever convince anyone that you're an alien when I can't even convince people about synths. This crow is a real story, something tangible, something real. In my line of work, things tend to get pretty hairy. Even when you...Nate and I were dealing with Red, he was cool about the whole situation, nothing seemed to unnerve him."

"" Meathead's face ticked, ""

"What's that supposed to mean?" Piper asked.

""

"Alright, I'll pretend to know what that means, and ask you later, but every time I'm out here, I never know if there's going to be a tomorrow. I mean, I've been shot at, poisoned, nearly sacrificed. Heck, until recently, they called the lock-up in Diamond City the Piper Suite."

"<Just ignore me, I ramble half as much as Nate if I get the chance, and he's the only other person I know who we can talk about all the things from the past about. That and Codsworth, but he's a polite robot that just doesn't get the little nuances Nate and I understand about each other...Although, I doubt Nate knows anything about me."

"Why do you think that is?"

"It goes back to the Kool-Aide, we know the history. To tell you the truth, it never was Kool-aide, it was off-brand Fruit-mix powder, or something or other. We know history from around the world, he's been all around Boston and knows the city like the back of his hand, I know what he sees and feels when he looks around at the world. To you, Starlight Drive-in may be a graveyard now, but to him, that was a place to go and relax, watch a movie, order a pizza, it's all these little lost experiences he wouldn't be able to recreate in today's world, at least, not without some help. That's why I believe he stayed at Vault 111, to fix the reactor, to save Nora. If he doesn't, then that's one less opportunity to create new memories with the people he knows. He knows me like a dog, and...the moment we lay our eyes on Fenway Park he starts talking about Bark in the Park. Can you believe that? A day where thousands of people from all around Massachusetts would drive into Boston with their dogs, and watch a baseball game with the rest of their family and their dog.> Meathead's eyes teared up as the roar of the crowd from thousands of spectators all gathered to watch the Red Sox try and take on the Cubs on their home turf.

"Wasn't being a dog humiliating though? Being subservient to a master? Being a dog and never being able to talk back?"

""

"That's committed of you, Meathead. You staying by his side like that."

"" Meathead asked.

"Anything and everything. Even if it means getting beaten down a little bit." Piper ran her tongue along with the teeth, feeling where a tooth might've been knocked loose during the beating received from Red's gang.

""

"Are you kidding me?" Piper chuckled, "I barely had the paper going before that happened. The first time I printed an article, it was about this cartel of caravans driving up food prices in the city." Piper grabbed at her arm, feeling it tense for a moment. "The article went over well, we even got a boycott of their goods, so I thought I'd pop over to the Dugout Inn for a victory drink..." Piper shook her head, "I have no idea what possessed me to go there and think I deserved a drink, but I did. One sip and I knew something was off. Vadim wasn't at the bar...and the beer tasted off, more so than usual. I mean, Vadim waters down the beer plenty, and it tastes like piss half the time, but this beer...it was foul. I felt woozy, and I don't know what whoever the bartender working at the time slipped me, but I needed to get it out."

""

"Not till after I looked around and saw the still they got set up in the backroom. The moonshine. I don't know what stage it was in, but I start chugging it down, no water or ice, or mixer to kill the burn. Just straight moonshine. I'm not convinced it was better than dying from the poison, but it worked. The hangover lasted days...I think it was still in the sour mash stage, so after I drank it, it kept on fermenting in my system." Piper rolled her head back and exhaled, her stomach churned at the memory, feeling upset and acidic for a brief moment.

"But it worked." She said again.

""

"Yep. While I was passed out on the floor, security came and nabbed the bartender. He eventually ratted out his bosses, and they all got to share some time in the pen."

"" She gave a partial nod,

"I'm more of a house-partier now than in public."

""

"I was working on a story about irradiated water over in Bunker Hill. Everyone was on board, and a few people helped me trace the water back to the source, but left me to fend for myself in the sewers and storm drains. I trace it to the source, and what do I find?"

""

"That and The Children of Atom. Setting up like they owned the place."

"" Meathead asked, never hearing the name before.

"A cult from the Capitol Wasteland that worships nuclear bombs, the atom, and all things glowing. They're a really fun bunch once they stop drinking their hot water." Piper played on the sarcasm, rolling her eyes and forgoing anything positive to say about them. "Unfortunately, they found me just as quick as I'd found them. Turns out, they don't like reporters. Or maybe it was my personality, but either way, about five minutes later I'm on my knees about to take a bloody baptism in a barrel of nuclear waste and am on the verge of freiking out. They decide to sacrifice me to Atom, as punishment for trespassing... I blurt out, "Atom, she reveals herself!"

Meathead felt Piper's emotions switch around from loathing to happiness. "They buy it. They pull me back from the barrel they're about to drown me in and gave me an induction ceremony. Instead of holding me under till I stop moving, I just get a little splash on the forehead." Piper drew in a sharp breath and smiled. "You are looking at an official acolyte of Atom. It took me a few more days to sneak away, but I got Bunker Hill security to come and clean the place up."

"" Meathead said, Piper, smiled again, picking up on the comment.

"Sure has, but honestly, out here with you...either of you, I feel like I'm just getting started. Getting in trouble is something people like us do. You and Nate, I feel like you're cooking up a storm of trouble."

"" Meathead said, Piper felt the urge to write that down for a quote but decided to file it away in her memory for later.

"I mean, you, Nate, and I are out here putting ourselves at risk so people in the Commonwealth can have a chance at a better life."

""

"I hope you and Nate's plan involves me, because what I feel you're doing isn't for praise, or reward, or glory, but because it's right." Conveying emotions into words is difficult for anybody, but Piper found the words, "I wanted to let you know I'm really happy to be along for the ride."

"" Meathead said, and a third smile came to Piper's face.

"Oh...uh...Thanks, Blue. That's awful sweet...and unexpected of you. So ah...what's our next stop?"

"<Cambridge. That's where the Commonwealth Institute of Technology is, and I will bet anything they're there. There's a lot of people all over Cambridge, but when I focus on what's beneath the ground, it's easier to pinpoint a location. I want you to meet Paladin Danse, and get a quote from him about the super mutants."

"The Institute's tangled with a lot of people over the years, the group that's sticking it to them the hardest right now is the Railroad."

"Oh yeah? How're they holding up?"

"Not spectacular, but they're more committed to stopping the Institute than any other group of people you'll meet around here. Supposedly, they help runaway synths escape the Institute, but they're ultra-secretive and ultra-paranoid. The only thing I have on them is a rumor, 'Follow the Freedom Trail'.

""

Piper's eyes lit up. "You met with them? You guessed their code?! What happened?"

"Piper, I think you're an amazing person, but that needs to stay a secret for now. I helped them do exactly what you just said the Railroad supposedly does."

"All right, but when you start declassifying all the old files in your brains, come let me know, I want to know everything."

""

"Yeah, about the Brotherhood, How much of what I tell you is going to make it back to Nate, Blue?" She asked the disguised Meathead. She looked back towards the town of Concord and felt aware.

"" Meathead replied. Their route angled them towards Cambridge, to the Westside where the police station was located. Ahead of them was Lexington, and off in the distance was the Corvega plant.

"From what I've heard, and what you told us at the Vault, the Brotherhood doesn't do subtle, especially if it's high-tech. They take whatever they want, and don't like asking twice. They might be the only group well-armed enough to give the Institute a run for their money if they ever came up this way, but even then, that'd mean a whole lot of shooting going on and they would be on their agenda."

""

Piper gave a half-nod, more inclined to agree, but she didn't know much more about the Brotherhood of Steel.

"Care to explain why you and the real Nate operate like this?" Piper made small circles with her hand, still trying to dig deeper into the man and the changeling's relationship.

Meathead stopped walking, ""

"So you're a human lie-detector?"

""

"Alright, I get it, Blue. You're a lot more than meets the eye." Piper responded.

Always visible from a distance, the Corvega sign letters lit up in sequence, blinked twice, then stayed on for a few seconds, before blacking out again. It was a landmark Meathead and Piper were using as a reference, cautious to avoid heading directly there, but Meathead kept angling them towards the car factory.

"Didn't you..." Piper shook her head. "Didn't Nate say that you passed through Lexington?"

""

"Ugly?"

""

"What exactly did you do while you were here last time?"

""

"Ride the lightning?"

""

"Whoa now, this is a whole other story I gotta write down, Blue. How'd you get from Preston to their leader, Jared?"

"In a short word, I disguised myself as one of the Corvega raiders. From the museum of Freedom, we were attacked by the Corvega Raiders, they were after an old woman in the Minuteman's party. A deathclaw appeared and ripped Nate out of a suit of power armor, I intervened and saved Nate, but I ah...took the form of a deathclaw and wasn't well-received by the raiders or Preston. Namely, because I never revealed myself to anyone before."

"So what changed?"

""

"That's some heavy thinking, Blue. Was that the last time you saw Preston? That's the Minuteman Preston, right? Garvey?"

Meathead nodded, ""

Piper was disheartened by the news, "What happened at Quincy sounds exactly like my hometown, same shit, different day, huh, Blue?"

""

"Do you have any plans for them?"

"" Meathead asked, but the question didn't even phase Piper. She knew where Nate and Meathead's minds were at; facing down whatever unknown horrors were crawling around the Glowing Sea.

"Arturo sells the ammo, but I don't know about the rifle. Check the National Guard I guess, that place is pretty lousy with old turrets and a robotic security system that is still running. Trust me, avoid the main path, because they will shoot at anything, believe me."

""

The short intake of breath when Piper realized Nate's ace in the hole, it was a small win for the former soldier, but after looking back at it, it never occurred to her until now.

""

"Wait! Are you kidding me?! That's how you got on the ship? I didn't know that little tidbit! That's...insane! How many people's lives do you think would be saved...safer if we could find the terminal where they input all that information!"

"It wouldn't be that hard to imagine at all, I don't know the locations, but I'm sure Nate could rattle off at least five different recruiting stations because they'll snap your picture, and upload it onto the computer...Oh my gosh."

"What? What is it? Do you feel something?" Piper asked, hand going to her machine gun, she readied it in a second before Meathead could reply. Sometimes, that's all it took between life and death.

""

The offer was too tantalizing for Piper to pass up, despite the risks, she wanted that same peace of mind Nate and Meathead had. "Yes. Let's go."

\111/

Sully Mathis armed his gang; they were going to wipe out Jared and the Corvega raiders. There was no point in holding the factory after everyone else was dead, but with a few concentrated efforts, laying siege to the factory would take a few days, but the key would be to draw their gunfire, and get them to waste bullets.

Even though the Thicket raiders were only twenty-three in number, Sully knew what starvation looked like. He knew that after two days of not eating, veins along the arms and legs stood out, dehydration made the lips swell, trying to retain moisture. The men and women at Corvega weren't surviving by any means; they were slowly dying.

He knew that by the end of the week, Corvega would be another hollowed outbuilding, waiting to crumble. In a few months when their numbers built up, maybe they'd move in and secure the Corvega factory, but until then, the only thing on his mind was the number of people who needed to die before that time would come.

Ch. 48 Super-Duper Mart

The Super-Duper Mart at Lexington was a pesky problem for the raiders of Corvega. While under Jared's command, dealing with the ghouls in Lexington near the factory was the only priority. With food and chems coming from raided farmsteads that paid tribute along with caravans from Bunker Hill, the need to scavenge for food was virtually non-existent. If an individual was hungry and felt like wandering around Lexington, there was never any need to go out and scavenge, but with things changing too quickly and unexpectedly for the remaining Corvega raiders, then with only chems and diminishing stocks of food and ammo, the necessity for scavenging ruins in the area became apparent.

Lonnie spearheaded Trevor's group to assist her, even after losing members of his team to the Super Mutant Behemoth. Sending Trevor was important to show the durability of them to bounce back after taking a heavy loss.

The third raiding party leader, Jupiter, voiced her displeasure of taking on the stress and pressures of being the boss of a fledgling gang, leaving Marin to keep everyone's heads cool at the Corvega factory. No one else was allowed to jump ship and leave like so many others did in the last week. It showed weakness and cowardice, but those who remained were rallied into being the new core members of the gang, and then everyone who stayed was promoted.

After leaving early that morning, with their destination well known to the rest of the gang at Corvega, they promised to return soon with food.

\111/

The raiders looked up to the sign above the twin-sliding doors, 'Super Duper Mart', and then to the faded, water damaged, molded, and sun-bleached cartoon cut-out posted in the window of a smiling brunette with a white blouse - yellowed by age - holding up a box of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, with a baguette, celery, and glass carton of milk sticking out of a grocery basket cradled on her elbow, and wearing a yellow skirt with pink flannel patterns.

The difference from the laser rifle and pistol-toting, patchwork armor-wearing, spiked leg guards and shoulder pauldrons, frazzled hair, and starve-faced raiders didn't nearly match what was being advertised.

Passing through the door, one needed to be dragged open, while the other was pushed wide enough for them to pass through. Rusted shopping carts were still in rows, but the building was looted and scavenged many times over the centuries. The air was stagnant and they could see the dust floating in the air through the light that came through the pollen and dirt-covered windows.

Lonnie swallowed, thinking only of food. "Noah, Badmaw, sweep the building for anything else roaming around here, you're not picking up anything, you're searching beneath counters, behind stalls, in the back for ghouls and nested insects. Trinket, Devon, Parkin, grab carts and fill them with whatever you can find on the main floor. Trevor, Duke, you're with me as we check the pharmacy and storage rooms.

Noah and Badmaw broke right from the group, heading to the back wall when a series of howling ghouls cried out, like dominoes, one cried out, then two more, then five all aware of Noah and Badmaw's presence.

"How many?" Lonnie yelled to get their attention.

"Eight ghouls!" Noah shouted, drawing a machete from a loop on his belt and a handgun stuffed into his pocket. He fired seven rounds before the gun was empty, but by that time the ghouls were on them. Badmaw charged forward, knocking three ghouls down, as the five ghouls surrounded Noah and beat on him. Trinket, Devon, and Parkin all ran for Noah and Badmaw when more ghouls shouted, crawling up to their feet, or emerging from the back storage room.

Four more feral ghouls came from the check out lanes, all their ragged clothes hanging onto them by bare threads, and some of their muscles were locked up, lacking the circulation to move them properly.

Lonnie and Trevor used their assault rifles to fire at the four ghouls, as one ghoul bit down into Noah's ear, another bit at his armpit.

Trinket and Devon crushed the ghoul's heads with brute force, bashing them in with metal pipes. Parkin broke the downed ghouls' legs, but they still crawled at Noah, Trinket, and Devon, grasping onto their legs and pulling themselves closer to bite. Simple metal plates worn over Trinket and Noah's pant legs, but Devon only didn't have any leg protection on his left leg, and then cried out in pain as the feral ghoul's teeth ripped through his pants and into his quadriceps. As Trinket and Noah killed their first two ghouls, Devon struggled to tear the ghoul free and finish it off.

Kicking the ghouls off only made Devon trip backward, allowing the ghouls to crawl up over him as he tried to scurry away. They dug their finger bones into his chest, lacking nails and skin, the bones jabbed into his chest and scraped away flesh.

Badmaw killed the three downed ghouls, then rushed to fling the ghouls off Devon, but then was knocked down by two ghouls coming from behind.

Devon shook free his monkey wrench, and swung it ferociously at ghouls, breaking their arms and shoulders, ultimately aiming for their heads. Trinket stomped at the ghouls around her legs, hacking them to pieces with a meat cleaver.

Ghouls from the restrooms and back-office lumbered out, making their way towards the gunfire, but Lonnie and Trevor both realized they were about to run out of ammo very quickly.

"Everyone! Back to the front doors!" But the command was only partially heard, as everyone was busy with three ghouls to every one of them. Duke and Trevor moved with Lonnie towards the rest of the gang, firing only single shots now to conserve ammo.

\111/

Sully Mathis lead fifteen gang members to Lexington, the Corvega factory was never more under-protected than before. Their scout Cray told them a decent-sized group departed North, leaving around thirty raiders left inside the factory. They were moving as one tight group, arm's length apart from each other, moving up as quickly as possible and not making any noise.

Where two days ago ten raiders were manning the ramparts and catwalks above the Corvega factory, now there were only three. The number of lookouts in the apartment buildings was down from seven to three as well. Approaching from the North-East, they used the apartment buildings to block their approach, staying out of the line of sight from the one lookout in this area.

These apartments gave the Corvega raiders an excellent viewpoint of the front doors to the factory, as well as a sweeping view of everything in Lexington.

Five raiders were set to run up into the apartment but waited for the other ten to make it to the container yard. They killed three Corvega raiders as they went up the catwalks into a small office that connected to the factory by a suspended walkway. Once they were in the walkway, the five raiders went up into apartments.

There were seven raiders in the apartment building, but they were grouped and weren't expecting any hostile raiders to come storming in. They were confused at first, looking to their armor and trying to discern who they were, where they knew them from, but they were all gunned down in ten seconds, leaving only the lookout at the top of the building to hear the gunshots from below. There was no barred door the lookout could use to block off the raiders from coming up, armed with only a scoped rifle, she turned it to the stairway, and waited.

No one came calling her name, no panicked footsteps rushing up the stairs, she could only assume everyone in the apartments below was dead. Setting her rifle aimed at the staircase coming up, she crouched down low and watched as the first of Sully's raiders came up the staircase. Firing off one round, she killed the first raider but was gunned down in between loading another round into the chamber.

\111/

Lonnie, Trevor, Duke, Noah, Badmaw, Trinket, Devon, and Parkin were all fighting by the open produce coolers, the interiors were scavenged and filled with settled dust and ceiling debris, by the front store windows along the first aisle.

A ghoul grabbed hold of Noah's neck with its sharp fingers and tore off a piece of his muscle. The painful harrowing scream was loud enough in the Super Duper Mart to make everyone lose focus for a moment. As he tried to put both hands to his neck, he was knocked down again and swarmed by two other ghouls that slashed at his forearms and broke his right hand. Bleeding out, he survived another seven painful minutes, but no one had any stimpaks, bandages, or rags at the ready to bind up his wounds. The fighting would continue for another five minutes, but by then, Noah would be passed out.

The death of one of their own made everyone else fight harder, only because they were scared that they might be the next to die. Badmaw heaved a ghoul towards an empty shelf, pummeling the feral into submission and knocking the stand over.

Devon drew closer to Lonnie, Trevor, and Duke, who were now in the single digits for remaining ammo, ready with knives in their free-hand while their shooting-hand was still wrapped around the trigger.

Parkin ravaged two ghouls, taking Noah's machete and slicing apart their torsos, arms, and legs. When they were on the ground, he swung the machete like a hammer and hacked at the back of their necks to kill them.

Trevor ran to a ghoul attacking Trinket, stabbing down and lodging the knife in the spine, then yanking the hilt down to tear through the muscle and bone in the back. The ghoul's face rose to the ceiling in a contorted scream, roaring at the pain. Trinket grabbed the ghoul by the arms and kicked in its chest, yanking the arms out of the sockets with two pops until they hung loosely.

Duke jumped on another ghoul, colliding with the floor and quickly pressing a gun to the temple, then finally pulling the trigger with a loud 'bang'. Helped back unto his feet by Parkin, they stood close together and fought off four more ghouls that tried swarming them.

Badmaw grabbed a ghoul's arms from behind, and pulled them back, allowing Lonnie to slice the neck from ear to ear, and spend the blackish-green gore spilling onto her arm, down the ghoul's chest, and onto the floor.

Devon swung his monkey wrench at a feral ghoul and missed, opening himself up to be scratched down the side of his chest and arms by the ghoul. Elbowing it in the stomach, the ghoul doubled-over, and Devon swung again, bashing it in the side of the head, then again and again until the skull plate broke open.

As one ghoul struck Trevor in the chest, the feral ghoul's arm was so rotten that the force made it break off. The skin was worn away, the tendons and ligaments were eroded, and the bone was hollowed thin. Only the blood veins lasted long enough before snapping away like a frayed bungee cord. Trevor turned to shoot the ghoul, but his gun was empty, then he turned the assault rifle around and clubbed the ghoul with it.

The swarm was whittled and beaten down to a bloody paste. The ghouls that were still alive, but barely moving, were finished off by Trinket and Devon as they went around and cracked or bashed their skulls in against the faded brownish-red and white linoleum.

Lonnie went aisle to aisle, doing a fast full perimeter sweep of the main floor before regrouping with the rest of Trevor's team.

"Who's hurt?" She asked, only taking bruises during the fight. Right now her mind was aching for some Jet, that would be the only thing that she felt would make her happy right now.

"Noah's dead." Trinket pointed to his body, his gaping neck wound, and pooling blood. He was still alive, but no one thought to check beyond looking at his ravaged body and would then die two minutes later.

"Who else?" Trevor asked.

"Cuts and bites on my legs and arms," Devon said, blood trails running down his arms.

"Arms bruised. I think I fractured my pinkie finger." Trinket said, tenderly pinching her left hand with her right.

"Ankle's hurt bad." Badmaw listed off, leaning against a row of shelves, and rolling his ankle, trying to soothe the muscles.

"I'll live," Parkin said, only taking a light beating from the ghouls.

"Same," Duke said, his knuckles were bloody, and his arms were shaking, but that was more due to the adrenaline than anything else.

"Better red than dead. We're all going to suck it up and sweep this market for food and whatever else we can find. Badmaw, can you walk?"

"Yeah, kinda tender though."

"Watch the front and shout if anything comes for the front door. Trinket, Devon, grab a cart and start going up and down the aisles. Take everything. Parkin, Duke, check the bathrooms and pharmacy, Trevor and I will check the diner in the back, and then once your done, reconvene with us to go into the storage room and loading bay. Let's move, we just made a whole bunch of noise, and there's plenty of ghouls in the parking garage next door that could be moving this way."

"Right." Came most of the responses, everyone else nodded.

"Badmaw, see if you can get Noah's body loaded into a cart, we'll take him back and burn him. When we're through." Lonnie said.

\111/

Sully Mathis let nine of his people go first through the upper floors of the Corvega factory, even moving past a break room without any alarm being raised. The factory was divided into three sections, the assembly line, parts manufacturing, and the assembly area, each section was connected by catwalks above or corridors between rooms with three staircases at the end of each hallway. Only one staircase could lead to the basement, while the other staircase leading down was collapsed.

Coming in from the top of the factory, the ten raiders from Thicket Excavations were able to branch out and catch the Corvega raiders unaware and flush out the rest to the front doors where they were gunned down out front.

The only saving grace was that the front entrance consisting of the car displays, offices, and a path to the corridors was also the most heavily fortified, where most of the groups dumped their raided loot from the Commonwealth.

\111/

"What did you find?" Lonnie asks, shouting over the aisles to Trevor. His blonde hair was just visible over the tops of the rows as he and his group wheel rusted shopping carts down the aisles, emptying the shelves of all available food.

"Not enough," Duke replied.

"Keep checking!"

"We're going in-" Parkin stepped on a land mine set by a previous scavenger, a former Minuteman laying half-eaten and decomposing on the pharmacy counter. The trap was laid right by the door, but the ghouls that were now dead opted to crawl over the counter, rather than go through the door.

The explosion rattled the back half of the Super Duper Mart, and the explosive blast didn't leave anything of Parkin left to find except for the splatter of blood across Duke standing behind him when it happened. Duke was knocked back and deafened, he couldn't hear in his left ear, leg broken, and partially blinded. His agonized screams were wails that brought everyone running, except for Badmaw who only leaned forward enough to see down the rows of aisles to the pharmacy where everyone else was running.

"Duke!" Trevor shouted, running to his side. "Just hold on! Just hold on! We're gonna get you back to the factory and get you fixed up!"

Duke couldn't stop screaming, he tried to get his pain under control, but it was so hard to see and hear, the pain only added onto his disorientation.

"What happened to Parkin?!" Lonnie asked, but it was then she saw the blood spray and the remains of an exploded corpse decorating the walls of the pharmacy.

"Fuck!" She yelled. "Trevor, Trinket! Let's load Duke into a shopping cart and push his ass back! We need whatever's left in that pharmacy." Watchful of landmines and any other traps left behind, there were none, but that left the drawers to be rooted through for medicine, and enough supplies to put together a first aid kit for Duke.

The leg was braced with an actual leg brace from the pharmacy shelves. The bone was forced back into position, making the man cry out in pain and agony, but the straps kept the bone from moving. Stimpaks were used to help Duke heal his wounds, but his eyes, ears, and leg would need a doctor.

Set inside a shopping cart, Devon volunteered to push the cart with Trevor back to Corvega, and they took off running as the rest of the gang would follow behind as they gathered the last of scavenged supplies from Super Duper Mart.

The dead Minuteman left a box of ammo and a laser musket, along with a 10mm pistol. The diner was host to canned goods, the storage room contained a decent amount of canned goods as well as more ammo that was left by a previous group years ago, before succumbing to radiation sickness and turning into the ghouls which were fought today. Between the pharmacy and the diner was an enrollment station, where a skeleton holding a .22 caliber pistol still had five rounds left in the gun, which they took and let the skeleton hit the floor.

The last area left of Super Duper Mart was the loading bay. A cargo truck was sitting with its hatch doors still closed. The pallets inside were still preserved in time by completely binding the outside with plastic wrap. Any grains were molded or eaten by cockroaches long ago, but there was enough packaged and canned food in the entire cargo truck to fill another rusted shopping cart that creaked and squealed with every turn of the wheel.

\111/

Pushing the rusted shopping cart down a bumpy cracked street, marred with potholes and hitting every bump along the way, Trevor and Devon were running with Duke in the cart as fast as they could. From the factory to Super-Duper mart was nineteen blocks, going from the north end of Lexington to the south end, their frantic pace through the streets attracted the attention of two ghouls that they shoved down and kept running, knowing they were already getting back up moments after they passed by.

They knew they could outrun them, but Devon was the first person to be shot in the chest as one of the four Thicket raiders shot at them from their nest in the apartment buildings.

Devon clutched his chest, it burned like a heartache, and it felt like he was punched in the chest by a hundred fists all at once. The painful unease of every heart palpitation making it harder to move and both hands let go of the cart. He stumbled over his own feet and fell to the ground, clutching his chest, but then it dawned on him that he was shot.

When he hit the ground, he rolled and somersaulted, but died looking up at the sky.

The other three Thicket raiders were all aiming at Duke, Trevor, and Devon as well, and now with four guns aiming down at the street, they all fired.

Duke and Devon's bodies were torn up in the short hail of gunfire. Trevor gained a sense of the situation when Devon hit the ground, about to stop and go back, but he ducked his head and sprinted for a storefront, sprinting straight for a wall to hug as more bullets ripped into Duke and Devon.

Duke wasn't even able to raise a fist to stop them, or even move left or right. Stuck in the shopping cart and gunned down, he was the third person to die on what should've been an easy food run.

The storefront he put his back to had a large awning that hung over the sidewalk. Capable of hiding him from the sniper's vantage point, but the apartment buildings connected through torn down walls and makeshift bridges on the upper levels, meaning he would need to move before one of them took a new vantage point.

The ground around his feet cracked open as three bullets tore up the concrete, trying to flush him out. His mind went to running back towards the Super Duper Mart, but there were now five ghouls shambling down the road, the two they shoved down making their way closer and closer.

Trevor prayed if he stayed still, they wouldn't see him, but he knew that wasn't going to save him. His heart hammered as a bullet struck the ground less than a meter away from the tip of his shoes, skipping down the road. He shimmied left towards the storefront door he stood in front of and felt his way towards the handle.

The doorknob lurched quarter rotations at a time, but the door was locked. Looking down towards the feral ghouls shambling down the street, he weighed his chances with the undead or the living trying to kill him. After one ghoul was past him, he waited as the second was a few paces past him, when Trevor decided to bolt.

Hugging the wall and with his eyes only on the opposite side of the street. There was not a single thing for cover, if he was caught thirty feet up or down the street, there would've been piles of rubble and concrete to duck behind, where the least he would be able to get a running start.

But, putting one foot to the wall, and pushing himself off, Trevor made it three-quarters of the way across the street before the Thicket Raiders fired at him.

They were only able to get one shot off, but it was the ghouls seeing and hearing him run and pass by that drew their attention. Never looking back, he was sure from the number of snarls and coughs from the ferals, that there were at least seven ghouls behind him.

Trevor's mind went back to the only safe place he could reach right now and turned right around the corner at the end of the next block, still being chased by a pack of ghouls. Super-Duper Mart was three blocks away, and the route Trevor was taking would also lead him right past the parking garage where he could see into the covered structure, with over a dozen ghouls, and one glowing one, all banging and pounding on the sliding glass double doors. There was rubble in the way keeping the doors from opening, but these former-humans were determined and could hear the humans moving around making noise inside, meaning that they were determined.

One ghoul was already forcing itself in through a hole punched through the glass, cutting long streaks down the arms, chest, and legs.

Trevor almost slowed, but instead of running to the main front doors, he gambled on the idea that most of the ghouls were all gathered in one part of the garage around the doors, that the rest of the parking structure was empty aside from a few sleeper ghouls who wouldn't move until you were on top of them.

Yelling at the pack of ghouls, he ran at two near the back, knocking them down and gaining the attention of the dozen feral ghouls gathered there. All of them were vicious and agitated, ready to take a bite out of anything that moved. When Trevor presented himself as a target, he didn't waste a step as the number of ghouls chasing him swarmed even higher.

Angling himself towards the ramp to the second level, the pounding of the feet chasing him echoed in the concrete complex, until they were all out on the top, exposed to the sunlight bearing down on them.

There were patches in the roof where water accumulation or rust bored holes or wore out entire sections of the rebar and concrete rooftop. Trevor made it around the final turn, avoiding a hole in the ground, and sprinting the last hundred feet leading back towards the Super-Duper Mart. The only part in this plan of his that required any sort of dexterity was the five-foot gap between the parking garage and the Super-Duper Mart.

Jumping, he launched himself farther than he needed to, knowing the further he jumped, the better the chance he would make the gap. The effort only made him lead with his chest forward, making him land on his chest, then momentum cartwheeled his legs up, rolling to a crash on top of the Super-Duper Mart.

The nineteen feral ghouls that were chasing him were lost over the edge of the second-floor parking garage. Several feral ghouls leading the chase went right over the edge, headfirst back down into the pavement below where they picked themselves up, shook themselves off, then scrambled to search in every direction. As the rest of the pack howled and snarled from the second story, Trevor moved away from the roof's edge and looked for a way down into the supermarket.

There were sunken spots where water tainted with fallout accumulated, then burned straight down through the roof. All the rust in the new world, wasn't so much as water in the air and natural corrosion from the elements, it was that, but also the atomic-sized fallout particles constantly radiating energy. Like a red-hot sun, shrunk to the size of an atom, then multiplied by the number of stars in the universe, all burning away at the surface of everything fallout dust touches.

Trevor went to a larger hole in the roof and dropped down.

\111/

Author's Note

I enjoyed writing this chapter, and the next one as well, but they were challenging because of how many names used and being able to coordinate all their movements to make the chapter flow.

Ch. 49 Fire Sale, Everything Must Go

In the days leading up to October 23rd, 2077, the people working in Corvega parked their cars either on the west side of the factory, using the main entrance to quickly access the offices, and then either go through the ground floor or use an elevator to the third floor. The second option, which most of the workers used, was to park on the east side of the factory, then use the over-ramp to go from the parking lot and shipping yard, to walk through the upper catwalk section on the third floor to get to their station.

Now, there were three ways to get to the offices where the Corvega Raiders were holed up, conserving ammo for their last stand and stockpiling every resource left. The assembly area, which was now occupied by Sully Mathis and the Thicket Raiders. Spread through the parts manufacturing, the Assembly Line, and the Final Assembly Area, five of Sully's men were playing the waiting game against the last of the raiders who barricaded themselves in the offices.

Cray, allied with Sully, worked towards demolishing the walls along the hallway leading from the ground floor Main Entrance to the Final Assembly Area. This hallway ran parallel with the hallway in the offices, with only a wall made of wood supports, filled with wiring and drywall to separate them.

They weren't waiting in vain, almost immediately they prepared explosives to blow holes through the makeshift barricades made from wooden desks and cheap office dividers that were used to create cubicles.

The number of raiders for Corvega started at thirty that morning, when Lonnie, Trevor, Duke, Badmaw, Trinket, Devon, Noah, and Parkin left for the Super-Duper Mart, leaving 22 raiders to protect the entire Corvega factory. When Sully attacked, seven of the raiders were in the apartment building next door, while three were manning the main entrance, four in the shipping yard and suspended walkway leading to Parts Manufacturing.

Every single one of the raiders outside of the factory was killed. When Sully and the Thicket Raiders breached the factory, they killed three more and lost two of their own. From Sully's original sixteen men, counting himself as well, they numbered thirteen by the time Marin, Rendo, and Jupiter realized what was going on and retreated to the Offices. Of the thirteen, four of the Thicket Raiders were still in the apartments next door, providing long-range fire for anyone else they saw and keeping the main roads clear.

Of the thirty, Duke, Devon, Noah, and Parking were dead, meaning there was only Rendo, Marin, Jupiter, Lonnie, Trevor, Badmaw, Trinket, and then Valik and Corbin left alive.

With Lonnie, Trevor, Badmaw, and Trinket boxed in at the Super-Duper Mart, the parking garage was flooded with ghouls. While the entrance to the market was clear, they were in no better position to get back to the factory without being spotted by the snipers.

The main reason they left in the first place was to find food, and hopefully some ammo, but fighting Feral Ghouls inside the market diminished their rapidly dwindling supply of combustion ammo down to four, 5.56 rounds for their assault rifles.

All they found in the market was a dead Minuteman's Laser Musket, with 3 energy cells and ten shots to each cell, and his 10mm pistol with 9 rounds, followed by a .22 revolver with 5 rounds.

Forty-eight shots between four guns.

\111/

The Thicket Raiders were barely able to get the first round of explosives in place when Rendo, Jared's cook, threw bottles of chemicals at them. With two chambers inside the containers that mixed on impact, the first skirmish had Rendo throwing bottles of Bleach and Ammonia, smoking the Assembly Area and Main Entrance out with Mustard Gas.

One bottle broke over the Thicket Raider's face, blinding and gagging him as Rendo threw seven more bottles into the Assembly Area. The chemicals formed the deadly cloud of toxic gas that made him turn and run, choking and coughing and heaving for fresh air.

Jupiter ripped out the fire suppression pipes, water lines that were supposed to spray water in case of a fire, but they stopped working long ago. Down they came from the ceiling, and with Rendo's guidance, was being filled with sugar cubes from the coffee break room, motor oil, and the last of their alcohol.

They stuffed one end of the pipe with a rag, poured everything in, and shook it all together, making a molotov cocktail mix that would stick to any surface.

The Corvega raiders inside the offices were down to their last clips of ammo as well, but with the barricades in place and not enough confidence that they could get a killing shot, they were saving the last of their bullets for when the Thicket Raiders eventually broke in.

Defensively, they were cornered, sooner or later, the Thicket raiders would just knock down sections of the wall running parallel to the hallway, and then blast their way in.

\111/

The four surviving raiders in the Super-Duper Mart were at crossroads.

"It's over. Corvega's done for." Lonnie said after being told by Trevor about Duke and Devon's deaths.

Trevor didn't want to admit it either, but the thoughts were weighing heavily on his mind. He wanted to rouse them, inspire a bit of confidence that would lead them to take back Corvega, but with only four guns, and a handful of ammunition, they took one look at the shopping cart full of canned food scavenged from the delivery truck, and then stopped to ask themselves if returning to the factory, potentially dying, killing the Thicket Raiders, and saving the others, only to be in a worse position than when they started the day, was worth it.

"Option A," Lonnie said to Trevor as he paced in front of the check outstand. After running from the ghouls, he was still too on edge to sit down. "We fight our way back, rescue whoever's left, and hope we don't die along the way. We don't know how many guys there are, but if you say they got our lookout tower, and you say you heard shooting from the factory, we all know that there was only a little bit of ammo left, so our guys could only hold out for so long."

"Option B, we say goodbye to Corvega. We either band together, or split up and take equal portions of food, and say 'that's it.' Honestly, finding another gang, or starting over fresh doesn't sound too bad. Two weeks ago, we had sixty. Now what? Ten? People notice this type of shit, and this is why some other gang came outta nowhere to fucking finish us off!"

"How's it going to sound tomorrow when you don't get your fix, Lonnie? When do you start getting the shakes? Hell! I'm getting the shakes just thinking about the fucking mounds of drugs sitting in Jared's office." Trinket said.

Lonnie clenched her legs together, looking to Trevor, and he too was wishing for a couple of Mentats to clear his headache that was forming. On top of the Jet he wanted to smoke as well, but he had a few spares in his pocket. The dragons he chased were chained for now, but they would get out of their binds, and sooner or later, he would chase them again.

They knew they couldn't stay there for long with the horde of Feral Ghouls outside in the parking lot, but getting back to the factory and dealing with the snipers along the way would spell their deaths.

\111/

Sensing the violence was like smelling a burning cigarette in the air with no humidity, it lingered, spread over a large area, and didn't want to lift itself. The wildly changing emotions from those being attacked and the absolute aggression from those attacking were palpable to the Changeling. Meathead felt the deaths of twenty-three people in the span of an hour all coming from Lexington, and countless more ghouls. It made him uncomfortable, and the muscles in his legs tense, but Meathead was sure he could quietly guide Piper to the Super-Duper Mart, deal with any ghouls, raiders, or other critters milling about, get Piper registered, and then teleport the two of them to Cambridge before realized they were ever there.

But, blood in the air assaulted Meathead's senses. The gunshots echoing from the apartment buildings, and the shooting coming from the Corvega plant was alarming to the Changeling.

Piper's questions about what was going on in Lexington were only partially answered, Meathead didn't know who was fighting who, or if they should get themselves involved, but after ten minutes of silence, slowly walking towards the Super-Duper Mart by navigating behind houses through the suburban neighborhoods, staying off the streets and putting as much cover between them and any tall buildings, Meathead came to a fence and crouched down.

"."

"Should we help them, or shoot them?" Piper asked.

""

"How?"

""

"Okay, so a rescue mission, I can get behind that. Better than Nate arming and helping every raider he was coming across." Piper said, voicing her displeasure at Nate's actions.

""

"I know there are some windows in the back of the super-market that are already smashed out, I remember seeing it a while ago. We could get in that way."

""

"Then how would you snap them out of it?"

"<...Well, we eliminate the source of stress.>"

"How do we do that?"

"

\111/

Meathead pulled two shotguns from his pocket dimension, and enough 12-gauge shells to stuff both Piper's coat pockets and his own until they were overflowing. Four rounds, plus one more in the barrel, to take on over a dozen ghouls.

""

Piper nodded, turning the shotgun over in her hands, testing the pump, and getting a feel for the weapon. She ejected a shell, then picked it off the ground and reloaded it. The click-Clack of a shell into the gun was audible, "Feels a little stiff."

""

"Okay, I'm ready."

""

Leaving the fences and safety of the urban neighborhood, they came to the North wall of the Super-Duper Mart. It was completely brick, and the shadows were cast over them as they crept along to the West. Turning his head around the corner, the horde was gathered by the parking garage doors leading into the market, with a few wandering in absent-mindedness.

""

"Got it."

Meathead sprinted across to the cement pillar making up the corner of the parking garage. Patting his chest, he then pulled a molotov cocktail from the pocket dimension as well. Taking a lighter to it, the rag on the end burned, flaming up. Using his magic, he lofted it up over the ghoul's heads, to where he thought the tightest grouping of them were, then slammed the bottle down into the crowd.

The effect was immediate, firing off his barrage of shotgun shells in all of seven seconds, the burning mass of Feral ghouls spun in all directions, howling and screaming, thrashing at the flames as they looked for the source.

Ducking behind the column, Piper turned the corner and fired off three shells when the gun locked on her. "Fuck! Jam!"
Beating the stock against the ground, she yanked on the pump, trying to dislodge the spent shell.

Meathead reloaded as fast as he could, feeding one shell into the barrel, while Piper dealt with her issue. ""

Dropping the shotgun, she pulled out her Sten II and fired into the crowd of Feral Ghouls.

Meathead finished reloading and kept firing. The swiftness of how quickly they were eliminating the Feral Ghoul threat didn't leave much time for them to react, a few stumbled towards them, but were shot down by the impact of hot lead bearings tearing apart their torso and skull.

The rending of shriveled flesh parsed by droplets of congealed blood spread across the ghoul's bodies as they were hit sprayed across the concrete and pavement.

They held their ground, even as three flaming ghouls with most of their skulls burnt away and their legs on fire snarled and screeched, lunging at them with muscles that failed underneath them. Their awkward steps from ligaments that barely worked caused them to stagger, allowing time for Piper to shoot them, and for Meathead to blast them away with another shotgun shell.

In a minute, all nineteen Feral Ghouls were dead, some of their corpses still burning from the initial burst of flame.

"You think they heard us?" Piper asked, putting one finger to her ringing ear.

""

"So what next?"

""

Reloading the shotgun, Meathead went to Piper, accepting the jammed shotgun, and then using his magic to rip the shell out and force the pump to retract. From there, they walked around the building to the front entrance where Meathead knocked loudly.

Tap-tap-tap-TAP-TAP. Butting the barrel of the shotgun against the glass display windows, it the glass rattled in the frame.

""

Trevor and Lonnie were both hiding behind the cash registers and checkout stands, they exchanged glances, head nods, and head shakes, both settling on nodding their heads. Trevor turned to Badmaw and pointed two fingers up towards the ceiling, then to Trinket, keeping his hand flat and waving it down.

"Yeah. We're here. What do you want?" Lonnie shouted out.

"Right now, all I want is to talk. I came to offer help. A lot of people died in the last half hour, I want to know if you need help.>"

Badmaw poked his head out, seeing the blue Vault suit and the 111 on Meathead's chest. "That's the fucker who shot up Concord!" Coming out of cover, he aimed the 10mm pistol at Meathead.

Calmly and slowly walking out of the door frame, he was ordered to stop by Lonnie and Trevor both coming out of cover with their guns raised.

"Hands up!" They shouted, "Don't move another muscle."

Meathead took quick stock of their weapons, an assault rifle, a laser musket, and as Trinket came out of cover, a .22 caliber revolver.

"Damnit! I'm the one holding the gun around here, is it worth all your lives to shoot the guy tryin' to help the bleeding lot of you?" Seeing through the dark interior, it was difficult to make out their faces at first, but Meathead recognized Lonnie.

"Wait a second, I know you." He said, digging through his memories for a name. He pointed at the woman standing next to Trevor and asked, "Lonnie?"

She doubled down, aiming her sights at Meathead. "How do you know my name?"

"" Meathead corrected himself, ""

"Oh yeah? Where is he? Did you kill him too?"

""

Meathead raised his gun, ready to fire. Piper was aiming her shotgun barrel through the broken window in the front, aiming Lonnie and Trevor.

The standoff lasted ten seconds, when Trevor said, "Alright," Pointing his gun up to the ceiling. "What do you have to say?"

"I've got enough guns and enough ammo to take out every raider from here to Diamond City. All I need to know is who is with you. From what I understand, you're down a few members and low on ammo."

"Yes," Lonnie said, stepping forward. "We are. The gang that came for us, we think they came from the North. They've got a few shooters up in an apartment building near the Factory that gives a good lookout down the main and side streets. It covers the shipping yard, the walkway, and the main entrance. If we tried going around, we would be spotted and they would know which way we were coming from and could mount a defense, trapping us.

""

Trevor suspected something wrong, "What's the cost?"

"" Meathead saw the barrel of Trevor's gun raise a few degrees towards him. "" He replied.

"What kind of service?"

""

Trevor looked to Lonnie, she was shaking her head, Trinket was ready to pull the trigger and Meathead new it. Badmaw never let his gun fall for a moment, but they didn't see Devon and Duke murdered in front of them. They didn't have to run back and tell them Corvega was under attack.

"Where're the guns?"

\111/

Rendo took two thermometers and broke them into a beer bottle, taking a welding torch and heating it, the mercury grew hot, and then he took Abraxo cleaning solution and added sodium.

He had no idea what he was making, all he knew was that it would burn like fucking hell if it touched anyone's skin. When Sully's gang finally took fire axes and started bashing through the wall, Rendo took an air pump for a bicycle and taped one end to the pipe he was mixing in and blasted the hot concoction at the raider's faces, blinding them. They screamed and dropped the axes, following up by three gun barrels shoved through the hole and entire clips of ammo unloaded into the offices. The bullets chewed up the desks and cubicle dividers, splintering wood, then nine bullets caught Marin in the chest.

\111/

Meathead was silent, motioning for the others to get ready to run.

A drainage pipe from the factory with the Railroad call sign pointing into the tunnel was three blocks away, but the shooters were still on high-alert ever since Meathead and Piper shot down the ghouls. Tapping Badmaw on the shoulder, ""

Focusing all his attention on the four shooters, the hardest part of timing was how fast each of the Corvega raiders could run. "" Trinket ran across the open space, the shotgun in her hands and the shells bouncing in her pocket. Three fell out and clattered to the ground, she froze, unsure of herself at the moment and tempted to pick them up off the ground.

"" Meathead shouted, his eyes glowed green for a moment, and high above their heads, the barrel of the rifle pointing at Trinket was tilted a few degrees down. The bullet rang out, striking the ground, sending Trinket scurrying for the next sign of cover.

Trevor and Lonnie were now helpless to watch as three more guns fired at Trinket. She made it in front of a low concrete barrier and was forced to lay down, but now she was trapped.

The angle from the roof made it easy to see Trinket, and she was shot in the back once, then a crackle of bullets pierced her backside. She flinched from the first bullet and thrashed as two more bullets cut through her back and spine, afterward she was dead, but the bullets kept hitting her from above. Riddled with over two dozen bullets, the snipers finally relented and stopped firing.

""

Meathead stormed up to the closest building, bashing out a covered up window and breaking in. While Trevor and Lonnie looked through the hole to see what his plan was, Meathead turned the first corner around a wall he could find, and disappeared in a flash of green light and a loud 'POP!'

Straight to the top floor, then two more teleportation jumps, and Meathead was three floors below the shooters. He took canisters of used motor oil and drenched the floor, the walls, furniture, doors, and hallways. Working upwards, he climbed the stairs, dousing those in spent oil as well, until the third and second floors from the top of the apartment building were completely coated. Setting fire to the oil, it spread back down the stairs, slowly catching everything on fire, but once it took, the apartment floors smoked and burned. Barring the exit down the stairs, the shooters on the top floor were trapped.

Satisfied, Meathead teleported himself down floor by floor, setting rooms on fire as he went down.

By the time the shooters realized the building was on fire, every floor was set ablaze.

Black smoke poured through the windows, and as Meathead returned to the gang members in the street, he held his hands up and outward. "" But his body language spoke volumes as well, What more do you want?

\111/

Rendo overdid it this time, taking rust, and aluminum shavings, he ground them up with the butt of his handgun, mixing in whatever he could with whatever was left. Abraxo Cleaner, Ammonia, motor oil, and then lighting the composition on fire, he barely was able to throw the dish it was all contained in when the chemical batch exploded in his hands, killing him immediately, and choking Corbin to death with a toxic cloud. Valik and Jupiter were the only raiders left alive, but only because they ripped off their shirts and doused it in water. Wrapping their damp shirts around their heads as they held their breath, it was the only thing keeping them breathing.

Their skin stung from wooden splinters breaking off from bullets turning every surface in the Office into shrapnel. They were at the far end of the office, near the Main Entrance, while Rendo and Corbin were near the Final Assembly doors. The sounds of their chemistry bombs backfiring was music to Sully Mathis' ears.

Four Remington 870 Pump-Action shotguns, and a pocket full of shells for each of them.

They took the same route Sully Mathis and the Thicket Raiders took when that group stormed Corvega in the first place. Two Thicket Raiders were posted in the Parts Manufacturing Area, there weren't as many bodies as there was one week ago, making it easier for Meathead to know the exact location of everyone in the building. Calmly easing the door open, he glanced through the sliver of visibility through the door, even though he didn't need to. Holding up two fingers, then pointing to the left and right sides of the hallway, they breached the Parts Manufacturing and shot them.

Jupiter and Valik dragged everything they could to barricade themselves in a private office, desks, chairs, filing cabinets, computers, all the time Rendo, Marin, and then Corbin spent making bombs, Jupiter and Valik were building a small fortress they could barricade themselves in. Half the office floor was now empty, and the only thing keeping Sully and the seven raiders left was a wooden wall that his men were taking no time in demolishing, now that the chemical assault had stopped.

One raider in the Assembly Line shouted after hearing the shotguns, sprinting for the Offices. He was shot in the back and fell dead on the ground, close to the bodies of two Corvega raiders. Trevor, Lonnie, and Badmaw were furious as they moved through the factory, sensing that they were too late, but instinctively going to where the last stand was being held when they didn't see anyone else.

Six Raiders poured into the Office, scrambling over every inch of the office space when Valik and Jupiter fired off a dozen rounds, killing one of the raiders and wounding another. Cray and Sully Mathis took cover and fired back, shooting at the private office, shattering the glass windows that surrounded it and waiting for an opening. They knew they could wait, and be patient, but when they heard a shout coming from the production areas, they readied themselves to be attacked from another direction.

There was no warning, or battle cry, just four shotguns that spread hot lead bearings traveling at 1200 meters per second in every direction. The blinded raider recovering on the floor with his back to the wall felt a warm shotgun barrel pressed to his head, and that was the last thing he felt after Lonnie pulled the trigger.

Firing three hundred rounds at the private office, Valik was shot three times in the neck, twice in the head. After that, Jupiter pulled Valik closer, using her as a body shield.

The barrage was relentless, Meathead, Trevor, Badmaw, and Lonnie all firing in tandem, obliterating the office that was already well on its way to being destroyed. Cray and two more raiders were shot dead, filled with hot lead, leaving only Sully Mathis out of all the Thicket Raiders left alive.

Meathead cheated, ripping the gun out of Sully's hands from a distance and flinging it away.

Badmaw and Trevor both sprinted at Sully, recognizing him as not one of their own, and tackling him, even though he was already on the floor. Unleashing a fury of blows, Badmaw punched Sully Mathis in the face, lobbing punch after punch, even as his fist grew bloody and knuckles broke against Sully's face, but the raider boss reached down with his free hand that wasn't pinned and shot Badmaw four times in the chest with a gun strapped to his belt.

Trevor blasted Sully Mathis in the head with a shotgun round, ending the assault on the Corvega factory.

Dropping the shotgun onto the ground, he was panting, his blood was pumping through his ears and the pressure behind his eyes was intense enough to feel like daggers were digging their way out of his skull.

Lonnie was sprayed with a splattering of blood and let the shotgun fall weakly in her grasp.

Jupiter was in pain, she was shot in the hip. Crying out, the others heard her and rushed to dig her out of the fort she and Valik built for themselves.

\111/

Meathead met with Piper outside the front doors of the Corvega factory, turning his head up to the smokestack, the Corvega sign was still dutifully lighting up in sequence, C-O-R-V-E-G-A, then once fully lit, it blinked twice, staying fully light for three seconds, then blacking out.

Piper was waiting with the shopping cart full of canned food, and her gun was holstered by her side. She shared a look with Meathead and shook her head, the computer terminal inside the Super-Duper Mart that was used for Army Recruiting was destroyed.

The apartment building across from the factory was now raging, but no one was in a hurry to put it out. The smoke curling up into the sky would be visible for days, changing from black to white as sections of the building made from different materials catch fire. In five hours, the whole apartment building will collapse, sending a massive plume of radioactive dust and smoke high into the air, spreading out over the whole district. From there, it will burn for the next three days, as the hot ashes smolder and draw the attention of people at night, as the rubble mound gets smaller and smaller.

Trevor and Lonnie both helped Jupiter outside, where they could wrap her wounds under the bright, clear sky. In the fresh air that they craved for so long now, She limped along, with both arms over the other's shoulders. Sitting down on the main steps, they finished their task in relative silence, too dazed and shocked to talk, but the silence was good. They didn't want to talk, they just wanted to breathe in peace.

Like everything, the silence was broken eventually, and it was Meathead who was the one to break it.

""

"Fuck you," Lonnie said.

Meathead wasn't bothered in the slightest, ""

"Does this count as the favor?" Trevor asked.

"

Walking East to Cambridge, they left the burning apartment building and Corvega behind them.

Author's Note

{A/N}: So many notes! Nate or Meathead dealing with Corvega is a long time coming.

Ever since I started writing Vault Dweller two years ago, I was loosely basing Nate and Meathead's progression through the story off the events in Fallout 4. One of the quests you're given early on by Preston is 'The First Step'. You take your power armor and mow down forty raiders and Jared at Corvega.

I knew that once I benched Preston, Corvega would have to wait. Two Years, people, :facehoof: Two years I've been building up to this point where Corvega finally empties out for good.

These last three chapters are a perfect example of why I write big group scenes last. Setting up the whole battle, Coming up with all the dang names, keeping track of all the characters for Who is Who, What they're doing, Why they're doing it, How they go about doing it, and When it coincides with other people's actions, it's fucking hard!

(That's why I ended up killing mostly everyone off.)

I didn't know who was going to survive or not on the Corvega side, but I knew that Sully Mathis and everyone he brought along with him would die.

I have notes in my journal that I keep everything Vault Dweller related, about this scene and chapters in particular dating back five months from the time I wrote this about how Sully and the raiders move in, from which direction, how they split up, and even hand drawn maps with arrows all over the place of Lexington and the factory for both sides! :flutterrage: GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaHhh!

Turning it into a mad dash for Badmaw, Trevor, and Lonnie to reach the Offices to save the others was the way it played out.

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

Ch. 50 Ad Victorium

As Meathead and Piper returned to Cambridge's police station, he was spotted by the grey and brown Brotherhood pony Verne a few blocks away. The pony quickly cantered up to them, and while expecting to hear the clop of hooves, Verne was wearing leather covers over his hooves to muffle the sound.

“There are more super mutants to the west, they're making noise over at the Kendall Hospital,” Verne said, quiet enough not to let his voice carry too far.

“”

“Raider gang operates out of there, they're violent and aggressive to any who've approached. We don't have the manpower to take it out or hold it as a defensible position, but they've been watching us. After you join the Brotherhood of Steel, we might be able to punch a hole through the savages, weaken them, and then send them running. That'd be enough to make sure they leave us alone.”

“”

“What do they do?” Verne asked to clarify.

“” Meathead voiced with a little more urgency.

“They've been taking people off the street, then sell to slavers,” Verne replied. “They held a deal this morning.”

“What's this about joining the Brotherhood?” Piper inquired.

“They need an extra pair of hands, but once the cavalry shows up, then they'll give the Institute a run for its money, or at least, that's the gist of what I've heard so far, right, Verne?”

“Something like that. What's your interest in Kendall? The Brotherhood is tasked with recovering technology that the Institute's been hoarding away for centuries. We need to make sure it's not abused for the same vile purposes they're using for it now.”

“”

Piper shot Meathead a disparaging look, 'Why them?' she mouthed.

Mouthing back silently, 'You'll see.'

“”

“I'll relay the message, I don't see why you wouldn't be able to get back there.” As they quietly retreated, there was nothing more left to do without drawing their attention.

\111/

Inside the police station lobby, Rhys was posted behind the reception desk with a laser rifle resting right on top, aimed at the door. “Look who decided to come back?” He asked, holding one hand to his stomach as he stood up.

“Quiet.” The voice came from the next room over, Paladin Danse wasn't far behind as he and Haylen both entered the lobby as well. The Paladin was relieved it was Nate, then his eyes fell to his traveling companion.

“Verne, report.”

“Mutants moving around to the north of us. Heading West. Our recruit here also needs to check the evidence room for old info.”

“Follow them. If they leave Cambridge proper, turn back. Otherwise, I want info on where they end up.”

“Yes, Sir,” Verne said, the pony cantering back out the door.

“Team, this is Nate, we spoke earlier about him becoming the newest recruit to our recon team. Nate, who's this?”

Meathead turned his hand upwards to Piper, allowing her to introduce herself. “Piper Wright, Reporter for Publick Occurences in Diamond City. I have a few questions for the Paladin that can wait until after introductions are wrapped up.”

“Good, He shows a lot of promise, and with proper guidance, I think he has the potential of becoming one of our best.” The Paladin was pleased with Nate's return.

“” Meathead asked.

“We'll explain everything in a moment,” Scribe Haylen said, dipping her head back towards Paladin Danse.

“I'm honestly surprised the waster stayed,” Rhys said, rolling his eyes at Meathead.

He would come to regret underestimating both Nate and the Changeling impersonating Nate at that moment later, but for now, “” Staring him down with wide eyes and a crazed grin, Rhys cracked and shook his head away back towards Danse.

“Rhys, that's enough. As for you, you need to understand what it means to be a part of the Brotherhood. We're not soldiers of fortune. We're an army and we've dedicated ourselves to a strict code of ethics. If you intend to stay within our ranks, you need to obey our tenants without question.”

This was the point of Meathead coming in as Nate, he needed to know if this group was what Piper said, a group that could give the Institute a run for their money, or people who think they're soldiers carrying the best guns.

“” Meathead began to say, but Paladin Danse picked up where he left off.

“Then there's no need to give you the long lecture, so I'll get right to the point. I only ask two things from anyone under my command. Honesty and respect. You fall in line, you stay in line. I give an order, you follow it. It's as simple as that.”

Meathead remembered a time when Nate and himself were watching an old war-film on TV, the Drill-Sargent is grilling the recruits fiercely, actively trying to get the maggots to crack under pressure.

Nate says, 'There are people who say they want respect, otherwise they won't treat you with respect. But what they mean is, they want you to treat them like an authority figure, but if you don't, they won't treat you like a human.'

This felt like that scenario, something on the TV triggered Nate to say that, but at the time, Meathead could only yawn like a dog, and look happily up at his master.

“There's one last thing that needs to be said, I'm granting you the rank of the initiate. This is only a training rank...I'm not permitted to grant any ranks higher than that.”

Meathead couldn't tell if there was excitement in Paladin Danse's voice, all because the man didn't know he was a synth underneath. Broaching that subject would be a tough one to corral, but as Meathead stood there, trying to read the person on facial expression and tone of voice alone, it was one of the more challenging conversations of Meathead's life.

“” Meathead said, remembering to add 'Sir' at the beginning and end, probing to see their response.

“Thanks aren't necessary,” Danse said, voice uplifted and expression becoming less rigid.

“Ad Victorium, Initiate.” Scribe Haylen said, genuinely happy for another person to be on the team. She still held some reservations, which was normal, but for someone who killed off a horde of ghouls and helped Danse and Verne retrieve the deep range transmitter, she could allow a chance to Nate.

Rhys followed suit, relaying 'Ad Victorium', with significantly less effort. “But he doesn't even know what it means-”

“” Meathead quickly said, taking the words out of Rhy's and Paladin Danse's mouth. “”

Danse nodded, “In our eyes, defeat is unacceptable because we're fighting for the future of mankind.”

“”

"Oh yeah? And who were they?" Rhys asked.

"," Meathead stopped himself from speaking any further. Paladin Danse intensely glared at Meathead, not in the mood for a history lesson.

“...Our rallying cry is more powerful than any weapon you could ever carry. Remember that.” Danse said, but to the seasoned soldier, other phrases came to mind.

“But for now, Haylen and Rhys both have assignments that need assistance with completing here in the Commonwealth, you're dismissed.”

Meathead was glad he came here, if the real Nate were initiated, then there might've been a fight. Getting a veteran to follow orders from neo-military techno-conservative fascists would be interesting.

Nate and himself didn't appreciate the scope of the Brotherhood of Steel, in return, Paladin Danse only saw them as a person fresh off the street. Meathead was beginning to understand the depth behind the Brotherhood of Steel, but until the cavalry arrived, there was little to base assumptions off of.

\111/

Meeting with Rhys and then Haylen while Piper spoke to Paladin Danse on clarifying a few discoveries on super mutants, Meathead trailed Rhys to the main reception desk where he took up his post.

“Alright, out with it, what's your game?” Rhys asked.

A typical hothead, “”

“I should kick your ass.”

“”

Rhys was on his feet in a flash, chest to chest with Nate. “You talk a lot, do you walk like a cowboy everywhere you go?”

“”

“I can usually size people up at a glance, but you...you're different. And it's bugging the heck out of me.” Meathead fought the urge to smile, it was a little intimidation he released into the air.

“You're not the military type, you're a loner.”

“” Speaking for Nate, Meathead was sure he would laugh about that line later.

“You got what you want, so why stick around? I still can't figure that out.”

“”

“So you're here out of anger,” The smirk broke on Rhy's face, as if he figured out Nate's intention and the whole scheme of things, “As far as reasons go, that's a pretty good one.” But as long as Meathead was out gathering information on Nate's behalf, Rhy's was far from seeing the larger picture.

“”

“I'll cut you some slack since Danse and pony-boy trust you, but if you step out of line or put any of my brothers or sisters in danger, I'll make sure you regret it.”

“,” Meathead said, biting the top of his bottom lip as he said it.

“Alright, like it or not Rook, one of the most important duties is to keep the wasteland clear of the trash. I'm talking mutants, ghoulies, rad-dogs and raiders, synths, and the occasional Deathclaw hunt. Anything that wasn't here before the bombs that are here now. Right now, priority one is clearing out College Square. The place is lousy with feral ghouls. Seeing as how I'm still down for the count, go take care of them, and don't come back until you get the job done.”

\111/

“Is Rhys still giving you the cold shoulder?”

“” Meathead said.

There were certain patterns Meathead learned to pick up on in people, Nate and Nora had a whole throng of friends coming over every other day, or going out to meet people exactly like Rhys and Haylen.

“If you can handle Rhys, you'd be the first. He lives and breathes the Brotherhood. It's all he cares about, it's his whole family.”

When the wind changed directions that afternoon, the entire police station shifted, dust rained down from cracks in the ceiling. There was ominous creaking from wooden supports as one pillar moaned a while longer than the rest when shifting weight.

“If anything gets in his way, he tends to shove those things aside.” Gesturing around to the filing cabinets around them, she waved her hand. “What exactly were you looking for?”

“"

"No, it hasn't been a priority."

"You should all go there, get your head out of the trenches for a day. There's a Generation Two Synth there with a profile of the man who was on this same task force, Nick Valentine. He asked me to dig up records for him from that case if I was in the area. Last time he was here, he was forced out by ghouls before he could find them.>”

“Well, one of the Brotherhood's most important duties is the recovery and preservation of technology that was lost when the bombs fell, any info from old books or schematics are stored and cataloged by our scribes. Piecing together stories about life from before the war could lead us to prevent another catastrophe like that from happening again.”

“”

“Recon Squad Vargus came up with a list when they were here a decade ago, potential sites for artifacts that can be recovered. Based on inventory lists and shipping manifests, these locations should still have these parts if no one's found a reason to use or scavenged them.”

Corvega – x

Boston Airport - x

Fort Strong

Fort Hagen

Cambridge Labs – multiple

Commonwealth Institute of Technology

Boston Public Library

University Point

Malden Tech. Center

Federal Stockpile – x

Hallucinogen

National Guard Depot.

GNR Plaza – x

“” He asked, looking over the list.

“Those are places we attempted to get to but were met with heavy local resistance. Boston Airport was the only place we managed to clear. Nothing there but a few mutants looking for scrap and some mirelurks along the waterfront.”

“Well, Corvega's cleared out, for now, gang turf-war. And there's not much left of the Fort Hagen main base after what I did to it. What happened down at GNR Plaza? What were you looking for there?”

“Broadcasting Equipment, GNR was going to be our first choice for as a FOB, but when we get there, the place was overrun with Gunners. They're entrenched in tight, they've got a working vertibird and a cache of missiles for short-range artillery. Fuck me on where they got those." Haylen covered her mouth for a moment before speaking again. "Sorry, I don't swear much. Especially not in front of the Paladin. There were well over a dozen suits of power armor, but they weren't in pristine condition. Even so, they made getting anywhere near that building extremely difficult. This was a heavy base of operations they had running there.”

""

"We scouted it for two days, saw their weaponry. We knew if we moved fast and struck hard, cut them off from access to their outside weapons, they could be turned against them. But there were landmines. We didn't get close enough to realize until it was too late. After tripping one, all the Gunners knew we were there and were at their posts in a heartbeat. They all didn't run out, so there's definitely a structure of who defends the exterior, and who stays inside."

"How long after the land mine was tripped did the Brotherhood turn back? What happened afterward?"

"We kept going forward, to make it to..." Scribe Haylen made a circle with her finger. "An outer wall surrounding the plaza, tall enough to squat down by and not get your head blown off. We made it there, but there were men on the roof shooting at us along with more coming out of the front doors. There were barricades, sandbags and cement bricks piled out in front of the doors as well. Three of the Knights made it halfway through the parking lot when they started coming out with their suits of power armor. That's when one of the Knights was killed by a missile launched from the roof after that Paladin Danse ordered us to retreat.>

“”

“They're the most organized mercs in the Commonwealth, but they're still raiders. Did you catch the raider across the street with the rifle?”

“”

“He's a lookout, another block west, and two more pop out from the ruins and demand payment from people passing by. They rotate out every six hours or so, but the roads all around the church and hospital are watched. That's the territory, and they stick close to it. Anyone who doesn't pay up gets beaten and sold.”

“”

“We don't know yet, it hasn't been a priority. But, what we need is your help with the Deep Range Transmitter. It's broadcasting, but something's blocking our signal, so we still can't get in contact with our people.”

“”

“They're in Philadelphia, but until they get an update about our status, we're cut off.”

Meathead smirked, but quickly calmed himself, he'd been wondering which city along the East Coast they'd set themselves up in.

“”

“A chapter of the Brotherhood will be on their way, with enough forces to wipe out the Institute and their synths completely.”

The Brotherhood of Steel was in more than one city, Meathead realized. A chapter is just a part of the whole operation. More than likely, their main forces were in Washington D.C. or spread from Virginia to Florida. Maybe even Michigan or Illinois. With a higher concentration of military bases, stockpiles, armories, along the American East Coast than anywhere in the world, the arsenals left behind were massive.

“

“Storms from the Glowing Sea might be the reason, but if that were the case, they'd be sporadic, and even part of a garbled message would be able to get through. I believe something else is broadcasting on the same frequency.”

“”

“Seventy-Two on the VHF. You should be able to pick it up on your Pip-Boy.”

Meathead tapped in the signal key and recognized it instantly. Adjusting the squelch, a scratchy voice on repeat came through.

“This is the Boston Massachusetts Emergency Distress Signal, all residents are to report to near-bye shelter's immediately and await further instruction. This is not a drill, all residents in the Boston and greater Boston areas are to report to designated shelter hubs-”

Turning the volume down, “”

“Can you track the source with your Pip-Boy?”

He could, the piece of machinery on his arm was definitely capable of tracking down the source of radio transmission, but Meathead didn't even need to use it.

The Emergency Distress Signal broadcasts from Trinity Tower, the tallest building in Boston. You wouldn't even need a special Deep Range Transmitter, the equipment up at the top would be superior enough to broadcast everywhere on this side of the Appellation mountains.

With small conversation exhausted, Meathead continued the search through piles of molded folders, checking the labels and serial numbers on faded tags for holotapes, holding papers up to his Pip-boy light, he finally came across the Late Nick Valentine's original copies for the Winter case.

\111/

Ever since leaving the Vault for the first time, Meathead felt as if something was weighing down on his mind, but he couldn't quite place it until seeing Trinity Tower and the Glowing Sea.

It felt like a leech on his brain, sucking away his focus and ability to see and sense emotions. Two giant holes, pocking over his mental map of Boston like a black hole. He said to Nate that Trinity Tower was like a piece of rock that had been sitting in a microwave for 200 years, something you wouldn't want to eat, and is like a charred smoking over-cooked carcass.

One mental block was coming from a skyscraper-filled with dozens of super mutants, the other in a barren sea. Not that Meathead suspected much life around Ground Zero, but being unable to sense anything at all irked the Changeling. The presence was like noticing a blind spot, something Changelings rarely, if ever had.

Outside the police station, the sky was patchwork with grey clouds and rays of light shining down through them.

“For how chatty he was with you, Paladin Danse wasn't exactly a wealth of information for me,” Piper said as they left the Cambridge police station.

“”

“I asked him to clarify what you told me about mutants, getting a quote from the actual source was nice, but anything about the Brotherhood or what they're doing here was like talking to a stone-faced wall. What did the knight and scribe have to say?”

“”

"I don't know about taking out Trinity Tower, but the College Square is just around the corner. Ghouls are ghouls, and we might as well take them out, save the next guys some hassle.”

“ Meathead said, gesturing with one hand towards the center of Cambridge.

\111/

Tad and Ricca

For as observant as Verne and Haylen were, they were wrong about the replacements changing out patrol duties, Ricca stayed alert and watched the roads leading from Greygarden to Cambridge, all the way to the USS Riptide where a small gang took over and was holding the bridge as a toll road.

The USS Riptide was a tow barge that was sailing up the Charles with a 40-ton barge behind it the morning of October 23rd, 2077. When the wave of heat and radiation blasted the storm windows inwards, ripping the house off the top of the boat, the barge was left to ram straight into the Fens Bridge.

The barge platform it was towing was carried forward, ramming into the back end of the USS Riptide, uncoupling. Chains holding down containers snapped as all the weight and momentum were pushed forward. Crashing down, containers rolled off the barge and into the river, but the boat came to a rest right in the center of the river.

While the next bridge connecting Cambridge and Boston was partially collapsed for 30 meters on the north side, both bridges happened to run right past the East and West entrances to the Commonwealth Institute of Technology campus.

It took one look by Meathead, and then later Nate, who would see the Mass Turnpike Bridge damage for what it was, deterrents and choke points.

Anyone who wanted to enter North Boston or the Fens area would need to backtrack to Beantown Brewery- then face Tower Tom's gang (who is now dead and the rest of his gang absorbed into Red's Stockpile gang), or even further all the way south to the Mass Turnpike (Held by Gunners), and then travel West through the suburbs.

Another route involved going north to travel far enough East to Bunker Hill, avoiding Cambridge altogether, or pay tolls to the raider gangs along the Cambridge waterfront, particularly the Fens Bridge.

No matter which way you looked at it, the foot traffic was diverted away from the Cambridge, away from the CIT. The only way to reach it purposefully was to face the raider's toll or go through the ghoul, mutant, and synth-heavy populated areas to reach the old college.

After looking from their maps to the existing roads that could still be used, Nate and Meathead were both sure that the placement of trash gates blocking entire streets, and the destruction of the Mass. East Bridge was intentional, all to keep people from being able to directly access the CIT.

It was clever, but a well-placed explosive would sink the USS Riptide, dislodging the bridge and forcing the rusted gears to bust their teeth, sending the bridge falling back into resting position, opening up the road to-and-from Diamond City. Ninety yards of lumber would be enough to fortify a bridge and rebuild access to the Northside of the Mass East Bridge, opening up the road farther down to the west as well.

But, those plans wouldn't come into action for another six weeks.

\111/

College Square was shaped like an 'H' with six roads leading around the plaza. Three of the roads were blocked, by a bus on the north end, with some wooden pillars slapped together to form a bridge to the roof of the bus, from the adjacent building across the street, narrowing down paths traders could take with their brahmin. The other roads were blocked with sandbags and concrete barriers put in place long ago. The entire square was ripe with stores, a newspaper stand, a bar, laundry co-op, grocery store that had long collapsed in on itself, and access to the College Square Station Metro.

When the sirens rang out, there were over two thousand people within a block radius of the Metro station, but only four hundred people made it to shelter. While avoiding instant death from the wall of fire and concussive blast sweeping through Boston, the radiation blew in like dust to the lower levels, settling on the scared, starving population, outright killing or leading to ghoulification for the rest of the survivors.

Over the years, the ghoul population was whittled down, drawn out by the noise, the gunfire, or even the ground beneath their feet shaking was enough to get ghouls up and moving.

On the same block as the Cambridge Police Station, the partial reason why the raiders didn't move in on the Brotherhood was because of the massive ghoul population less than two hundred feet away.

If any sort of firefight were to break out, the ghouls would come trickling down the street, all on parade, then come up their backside by the time they finished the first wave of trading bullets with the Brotherhood.

\111/

Meathead ran a wide circle around College Square, finding the best location to set up a sniper's nest, on the roof of a newspaper stand that could see straight down five of the six streets, with a partial view of the stairway leading down into the station.

Over forty ghouls were wandering the streets and buildings, singular thoughts keeping them moving in one direction for a while, then back to where they were.

It wasn't until now that Meathead realized he couldn't see as well as he used to. For so long he was with Nate, but even the short times he was away, Nate and Piper were close-by. But without his friend, and with Piper still on the edge of fully trusting the new companion, Meathead could focus, but it made him aware of how alone he was in the Commonwealth.

See in the manner of detecting emotions, he knew where every living thing was within a hundred miles if he truly focused, but it occurred to him now that there was something 'clouding' his vision.

Like black holes, he thought, and the source of this light-absorbing spectacle was coming from Trinity Tower. There were more, but centering his thoughts on those missing gaps in the world made his head hurt. Something he would need to tell Nate, and come up with a plan to deal with.

Meathead didn't like the sense of not knowing where all his enemies where. He knew there was a small army of Super Mutants camped inside, but there was something more to it than mindless aggression. It felt like a weight on the back of the eyes.

Helping Piper across a makeshift bridge, then knocking it down behind them, the duo stood atop the stand in the crowd of mindless zombies with only a few reacting to the noise and shuffling towards them.

Tuning to Diamond City Radio, Travis 'Lonely' Miles was speaking live and local to the Commonwealth.

“This is Diamond City Radio, and I'm your host, Travis 'Lonely' Miles. I'd be lying if I said I was always lonely, I got to speak to my special lady friend again the other day, and she said that as long as I wait for her, she'd come back. I said, 'Well! La...la...la! Lalala means I love you. I'm still sitting in the park, waiting for you, babe. So, please, please, please come home.”

A riveting viola solo and then male chorus keeping time with 'Do-wops', started the intro to “Lalala...(Means I love you)” by the Temptations.

Turning it up as loud as possible, “” Meathead said to Piper. A soft glow came from his eyes, and the music from the Pip-boy was magically amplified, fueling it with more energy and concentration, the noise rocked and echoed throughout the square.

Loud enough to be heard by Verne, scouting three blocks away. Rhys and Haylen both heard it at the same time as well, it took Paladin Danse an extra second to hear the music with growing tinnitus ringing in his ears, but the blank expressions and upturned faces of his subordinates to better hear the noise made the Paladin stop and listen.

In moments, everything sentient enough to come running towards the noise with reckless abandon came spilling out of the woodwork.

Effectively trapped on top of the newspaper stand with ghouls clamoring and banging on all sides, Piper was rigid with fear, suddenly unsure of how well thought out the Changeling's plan was.

“Well, dinner bell's rung!” Piper shouted over the blaring noise of the Pip-Boy, twenty feral ghouls swarmed around them. They clawed and clamored to tear at them, and the perch they placed themselves on shook and swayed, but still stood.

Firing down into the crowd of feral ghouls, they could choose their targets, but their flailing limbs and jerky movements didn't always yield a headshot. With the laser rifle, Danse gave to Meathead, Righteous Authority, the twenty-seven shots at short range were more than powerful enough to sever the dried, shriveled up, dead limbs, or bore holes straight through the skull plate, killing the ghouls and leaving small black divot marks in the concrete behind them.

“How many shots do you have with that?”

“ Meathead said, carrying an ample supply of energy cells to reload the weapon.

“What about those? Ten/eleven-o-clock.” She said, pointing to a Glowing One hunched over and walking towards the rest of the pack.

This Glowing One wasn't aware yet of the fight, it was still shuffling along, but behind it were three more Glowing Ones, and they bumped into each other as they walked down the street, only partially aware that something was around them.

Their ears worked, as Piper fired off seven more rounds at the ghouls crowding the stand with her Sten II Gun, making the Glowing One's twitch with shock, as if they were struck.

Meathead could feel the Glowing Ones approach, they were walking mini-nuclear reactors, while it washed off him like water off a duck's back, but these feral ghouls lived off radiation and were healed by it.

Watching as holes made by Piper's Sten pierce holes straight through ghoul's chests, arms, and heads, only to watch them seal and burn shut as the Glowing Ones came closer and closer.

The Pip-Boy Gieger counter ticked away. “ He said out of consideration.

Reassessing his options, and looking twenty steps ahead, there was a steady stream of feral ghouls all coming from the North Cambridge neighborhood, an area that would've been dense with apartments, dorms, schools, churches, and urban housing.

One of the more densely populated areas in the Commonwealth area, while Boston was all offices and corporate buildings, there were many places where it was apartments or homes built above businesses.

But, as much as Meathead knew about being a Changeling, living in Boston, its people, and their emotions, he deftly realized he didn't possess the same strategic planning Nate was taught.

The only logical choices coming to mind were 'Shoot the Glowing Ones,' or 'Shoot everything, but faster.' And now Piper's life was on the line because he thought the best choice to deal with a crowd of ghouls would be to go to the best vantage point and set up a shooter's-nest.

How would Nate get rid of a crowd? He wondered, feeling the urgency rising through his limbs as the crowd of twenty feral ghouls doubled to forty in the last three minutes.

Oh right, Covenant.

The Glowing Ones were healing other feral ghouls, even if they didn't realize it, but well-placed shots or enough lead and holes punched through them did manage to kill the ghouls, then there was a matter of doing it quickly.

Forty-one, Forty-two, the ghouls were appearing from all over the place.

A sniper rifle round cracked the skull of one ghoul, coming from the East, but neither Piper or Meathead could see the shooter.

He could sense where he was, but his target wasn't them.

A drawback to creating a massive fire would be containing the blaze, a second reason came to mind that they weren't boxed in, unlike Covenant. His eyes rolled to Piper and they unintentionally locked, smiling, she smiled back, hoping he had a plan.

Nodding, he did not have a plan, but he was going to get them out of this situation no matter what.

Taking inventory, there was ammunition, but being overrun was their biggest concern. The stand they were shooting out of rocked precariously with the horde of ghouls banging on all the sides, one managing to find a hand-hold and crawl upwards, but before either Piper or Meathead could shoot it in the head, three ghouls from behind grabbed hold of its skin and dragged it back down, where it fell off backward and into the crowd.

Any old buildings support made from timber were dry and rotted enough as they were, an out of control wildfire could take out half of the city.

While the landscape was mostly damp from rain and cold temperatures, almost all the trees still standing were dead and ready to turn to cinders.

A series of quaking shakes of the gunner's nest caused by the feral ghouls, and it sent both of their thoughts to finding an alternative way to deal with the situation.

'Kill 'em All'.

Exterminate the lot of them, but once the words crossed his mind, Meathead wondered the same idea many people on the verge of losing say when they suddenly see the winning chance.

Could I do it? Could it be so easy to do it like this? I always knew I could, but I never thought about doing it this way.

Winning the fight, ending all the feral ghouls lives all at once, but then again, this wasn't a fight neither Piper nor Meathead wanted to lose. To do so meant death.

“” Meathead needed to shout over the sound of her Sten-II firing, ears ringing, she turned a confused face to him and looked with wide staring eyes.

“What?”She could barely hear him, after shooting for a while now, and the compounding cries of the ghouls, along with the constant banging of their fists against the metal, it was hard for both of them to hear each other.

“” He yelled, pinching his nose and inflating his cheeks. While there was a good gathering of ghouls around them, it was two to three bodies deep of a ring of people.

\111/

Meathead inhaled, but when a Changeling inhales, they draw off the life forces around them. In the span of one long breath over ten seconds, every feral ghoul dropped dead.

Piper nearly choked on her tongue at the sight of everything dying around her, the sound of air leaving their lungs in a wave of exhales, groans, and sighs.

She tried to look at Meathead, his entire face was red, and then once everything in a block radius was drained of all life, he doubled-over, tripping and falling off the newsstand and onto the pile of dead feral ghouls.

Barely rolled up on the side with his elbows propped up, he vomited black liquid and shuddered, and gasped, and panted, then dry heaved again, spitting the last of the black liquid and saliva out of his mouth.

“Meathead!” Piper said, squatting down, she let her legs hang over the edge, then she lowered herself down, dropping the last meter next to Meathead. “Are you alright? What was that? What did you do?”

Meathead spat again. Swallowed, then spat twice more, barely getting out any spittle.

“,” He said, getting one knee under him and slowly working his way up to a standing position. “” He was still wobbling, holding his arms out to balance himself. Wiping his mouth, he smiled and looked up at her, grinning.

“What...happened?” Piper asked,

“” He spat one last time and swallowed, “”

“What, so these ghouls were scared of us? What do they have to fear?”

“”

\111/

Ch. 51 Maintenance

There were two pod rooms in Vault 111, where as the room Nora and Nate's pods were in was smaller, with only two rows of pods, Nate was measuring the length of the adjacent cryogenic pod room from end to end. This larger room had six rows of pods which would become hydroponics greenhouse. After disconnecting the pods, he brought in Codsworth to start dismantling the pods in this room for pieces, parts, and scrap metal.

There were twelve heavy valves that needed to be shut, cutting off the liquid nitrogen to this room.

The intention was to use the hoses from the cryopods to build a drip irrigation system for the garden. That project would wait for another day after returning to Vault 81 for advice from Priscilla Penske on layout.

After spending hours looking for the manual that described how to dismantling and reassemble the main reactor along with operating procedures, while turning off all the excess power systems throughout Vault 111 as he searched for the book, he turned off the first reactor for maintenance.

Ensuring he wouldn't trap himself inside after losing power to the doors, Nate laid out a massive bedsheet and laid the parts down one by one, screws, bolts, gears, metal shielding. He got to the fans, and saw what caused the initial damage in the first place. Two bullet holes cracked and warped the fan blades, keeping them from spinning properly. This metal was bent inwards and stopped the fans from moving as well as causing an exposed copper wire to touch the metal.

It took nineteen hours straight with no sleep, or food, and only a few sips of water to dig the bullet out, wrap all the lines with rubber tubing followed by heat shrinking the wires together, reshape the fans as well as finding the one replacement part, replacing the worn out keyways, one which was sheered off, making it impossible for the gears to catch and spin. Gears too were worn down and wouldn't catch on the teeth, so they were removed and replaced as well. Then after replacing the rod filter, installing new friction-less bearings, while greasing everything in sight that spun or moved, Nate finally reassemble the entire reactor for it to work again. When he popped the panel back on, there were no spare pieces and everything fit perfectly.

Sure of himself, Nate laid down on the ground after turning the first reactor back on. His hands were black from the grease and the oily tools. The ground was freezing, but he was so warm from being active while working, he pulled his vault suit off down to the waist.

Sleeping for seven hours there on the ground next to the reactor without a pillow or a blanket, he woke up with stiffness in his back, but was satisfied that the main reactor was working again.

When he woke up, he was stiff, sore, still extremely tired, and ravenously hungry. He showered off, and went all the way back to Sanctuary Hills to make himself some breakfast. Bringing Codsworth along, Nate stopped to inspect the growing pile of timber from salvaged houses.

The neighbors house on the lot to the right of Nate and Nora's house in Sanctuary Hills was reduced to the foundations, where Codsworth piled boards and lumber. The only type of wood that was able to avoid the mold and termites was the eternally thirsty wood-type, Cedar.

For a moment he remembered a job he picked up during his teenage years, painting a tall cabin by the ocean made from cedar. The salt water spray eroded the paint, but even without the color, it held a grey sun-bleached tone that looked very decorative. The rest of the boards from the pile were still usable, but heavily worn from constant exposure to the environment.

While working on the reactor, Nate couldn't get his hands into the tight reaches of the machine without his Pip-Boy bumping into everything. He didn't put it back on until after he came back to the Sanctuary Hills for some fresh air a second time. When he finally did, he got a little pinging message from Vault 81.

"To Vault 111, we need your assistance with an emergency health crisis, please come to Vault 81 immediately."

Nate barely started on a bowl of Sugar Bombs, with powdered milk rehydrated with some water while he was listening to the message. He looked down at his bowl of cereal, picked it up, and drank it all down. Wiping off his mouth, he left the bowl in the sink and went out again.

"Codsworth, I'm heading out again. Keep working on the houses, I'll be back in a day or two. I'm going to Vault 81."

Ch. 52 Curie

Author's Note

"Travis Lonely Miles coming at you with Barbra Davis. LEWIS! I meant Lewis. Davis...She was the Trillionaire. Barbara Lewis."

Ch. 52 Curie

The second time Nate visited Vault 81, the air about the bunker felt different. It smelled like activity, perspiration, and the smell that appears when too many people are in a single room, but one of them starts coughing. The vault door was closed again, but even looking at a closed-door, it was offensive and trying to ward Nate away.

It was fear.

Not needing to be a changeling to sense the change in body language, the security guard over the Vault Door spoke on edge, with a slight pleading, expecting tone.

"You're here? Good." Came the reply, although Nate could've probably told them he was the ringleader of a circus back in town, and they still would've recognized his voice. Next came the same grinding noise that rattled every joint in his body and the shaking vibrations of the vault door being pulled open.

The first big tip-off was the face mask the guards wore, the kind available to people for free at a hospital with symptoms of the flu or a cold, runny nose or coughing.

There was a hasty gathering of vault guards that escorted Nate to the elevator and sent him down with two of their own.

"What's happened?" Nate asked as they descended the five stories below ground.

"A mole-rat bit Austin, a kid here in Vault 81."

"What really happened?" Nate asked wanting the whole story.

"Dr. Forsyth can explain more." The second guard replied.

The first time Nate was here, the Vault was loud and busy with maintenance projects being accomplished, tasks being done, people working on repairs, but now as the elevator doors open, there was a silence that reigned throughout the vault. It was unsettling, like when he first stepped out of his pod and collapsed onto the floor. He didn't yet realize who Meathead was, and there was a quietness to Vault 111, only the reactor and the hum of machinery coming from somewhere, but he could never exactly place the source.

Down the foyer steps, there was Maria and Mark Summerset preparing food in the cafeteria, but their heads were down, focused on cooking. There were guards posted around the foyer on both levels, but they weren't as animated.

Horatio the barber was buzzing another resident's hair down to the scalp, with all the hair being swept up, gathered, and it was there the scent of burnt hair was prevalent. These were quarantine measures, Nate realized.

Barely able to save a glance, the hydroponics greenhouse was vacant, but that meant Doctor Priscilla Penske was with Austin.

"Where're all the residents?" Nate asked, being guided along the long hallway.

"Overseer MacNamara asked that all residents stay in their rooms for the time being."

From the one clue about the Mole Rat, Nate internally knew that Austin must've contracted something terrible to put all of Vault 81 on a high alert.

When he reached the second set of stairs leading down to the Clinic, the guards stopped following, but voices could be heard.

\111/

"Well, you need to do something, Jacob, aside from looking back and forth at those charts and telling me nothing!" Dr. Penske called out.

"These charts show the results of bloodwork and every asset we have available, and I'm telling you, there's nothing more that can be done! I'm running tests as fast as I can, Priscilla." Dr. Forsythe replied.

As Nate stepped through the door, he quickly read the expressions on the doctor's faces, Bobbi De Luca's face was locked in a manic 'caught red-handed' panic, and Gwen Macnamara was standing over Austin's unconscious body with two more guards standing at a respectful distance.

Her frown was palpable to the situation and visible through the facemask.

"I can't treat Austin until I know what he is infected with." Dr. Forsythe went on, beyond them in the operating room was Rachel working on a Mole Rat's corpse, presumably the one that bit Austin. She wore gloves and a face mask as well, but her expression was unreadable.

"Dr. Forsythe," Bobby tried to intervene and add his two cents to the conversation, but Dr. Penske immediately cut him off.

"Not now Bobby, and as for you, stranger," Dr. Penske glared at Nate, sizing him up. "You'll have to wait your turn." Done with Bobby and Nate, she turned her attention back to Dr. Forsythe.

"Austin got bit by a Mole Rat, Jacob, there can't be all that many mole rat diseases or toxins!"

"Rachel is examining the Mole Rat, hopefully, she'll find something, but that stranger," Jacob turned to smile at Nate, but it was the type of smile that was going to be followed up with a stringent request. "You dismissed may help us save Austin's life. These aren't ordinary mole rats, we don't know what type of diseases they may be carrying. Because Austin is just a child and doesn't have the developed immune system, nor the shots we haven't had in decades, it's affecting him more severely."

Bobby found his words again, "Dr. Forsythe, please! I found something that may help Austin."

"What is it, Bobby?" Dr. Forsythe asked.

"You know that door Austin found? I found it first, I was keeping it as a storage space for things, but I think Austin saw me get in there."

"You mean your damn chems!" Dr. Penske accused, Overseer Macnamara bit down hard on her teeth and turned away from Austin, and Bobby couldn't look Priscilla nor the Overseer in the eye.

"Bobby, please continue. What did you find in there?" Dr. Forsythe asked, growing tired of Dr. Penske's urgency.

"It's like a whole other Vault in there! Half ruined, and caved in, there's a terminal in there with notes about using Mole Rats to grow viruses, but they also used them to create vaccines and treatments!" Bobby swallowed, unable to finish the sentence, but both doctors stopped listening and were already forming a response.

"Then there might be a cure for whatever Austin got from that mole rat somewhere in that place." Dr. Penske said, looking to Dr. Forsythe for support.

"There may be, that's why I asked Overseer MacNamara to send out a message, asking for this stranger you disregarded."

"Would anyone care to fill me in?" Nate innocently asked.

"Yes." Dr. Forsythe replied. "After you left, I did an analysis on the blood samples you gave me, and you're toxicology came back with startling results we haven't seen in generations. You got your shots." He finished with, leaving Nate to piece together the situation at hand

All twelve vaccines, Nate told himself.

From Shingles, Polio, Rubella, Hepatitis A, B, and C, Shiganosis, Rickets, Malaria, Zika, West Nile, Tuberculosis vaccines, and then a booster shot that Nate and every other military personnel got for free when they joined the army. It was mandatory, the U.S. Government didn't want an unvaccinated soldier dying from a sickness that could be prevented, nor spreading it among other soldiers.

The shots were taken over six months, but it put his immune system through the wringer, and then he and every other soldier came out stronger.

"When I discovered the number of antibodies in your blood, I thought that it was a mistake, this was shortly before Austin was bitten, and there was time for me to look deeper into your actual blood work. After he was bitten, I made a comparison, and three strains were flagged in Austin's blood that your blood helped us identify."

"Wait, three?" Nate asked, even a normal brown rat from Pre-war times rarely carried more than two diseases on it, but three was like injecting toilet water into the blood. Nasty things to think about, but Nate asked, "How many strains have you identified?"

"We still don't know, there may be as many as seven, but the results haven't come back yet. We've been growing microcultures, but that takes time, time Austin doesn't have. This secret vault that Bobby described, Overseer Macnamara sealed it off, but not before we saw inside. We need to ask you for a favor and look inside the vault. If there are any research notes, or as Dr. Penske said, a cure of any kind, or even anything that relates to the diseases that were used to inject into these mole rats, we need you to find them and bring them here. We don't have the immune system as you do, if we send people in, they may end up worse than Austin, and then we'll be doubly under pressure with trying to combat all these different diseases."

"I would be glad to help, but...do you have any protective gear? A biohazard suit? A radiation suit?" Nate mentally crossed his fingers, but Overseer MacNamara spoke up with different results.

"We can give you protective padding, an armored vault suit, and a flamethrower to deal with the mole rats on the other side." Overseer MacNamara said. "Bobby here can show you the entrance, and my men meet you there with the equipment."

"And I'd like to thank you for doing this...I apologize, I remember Austin introducing you to us a few days ago, but I've forgotten your name." Dr. Penske said, thanking him.

"Nate. Just relax, worrying won't help Austin, and right now it sounds like Dr. Forsythe and Rachel need everyone on their side working with them to help Austin."

"You're right. You're right." Dr. Penske told herself. "Thank you, Nate."

"Let's go, I'll show you where the door is," Bobby said, he spent far too much time in that room already and was sweating bullets. As they both left, Nate looked around the room and saw the Overseer looking directly at Bobby, arms crossed and scowling, head down and glaring at him. Reading the writing on the wall, Nate followed after him.

They walked to the Reactor, through the door when Nate said, "Calm down, everything's going to be fine."

Bobby swallowed, on the verge of breaking down, he was about to speak when Nate said, "Stop. Find your breath." That took a massive weight off Bobby's chest, and it felt like he could breathe again.

He exhaled a long sigh, "I think I'm gonna get fired."

"Just remember, life on Earth was only temporary anyway, a job is only a small part of that. Thing's will work out." Nate patted Bobby on the shoulder, and in that few moments, he felt like his vision became much clearer. "But," Nate whispered, "I suggest you get rid of the chems, it's not going to help you or your sister's case when security roots through your room and they find any spare chems you've got tucked away. When this is all over, what do you think the Overseer will want to talk to you about?" The breath in Bobby's throat caught as his neck muscles tightened up.

'He's right,' Bobby realized, remembering and realizing his carelessness. There were more than just his stash of chems from the secret vault, but little tidbits of paraphernalia and drugs all over his workplace and room. By themselves, no one would make note of it, but when guards piled everything all together, it made for a different story.

"I..."

"Go take care of it," Nate told Bobby, walking the rest of the to the reactor room himself.

\111/

Nate secured the padded vault suit armor over his own from Vault 111.
Tina De Luca was sitting in the corner, head between her legs and hands over her head, clasped together.

Overseer MacNamara briefly took off her face mask and spoke to Nate before showing him the door. "Be careful of the molerats down there. Kill as many as you can. If they infected Austin, they could infect you as well." She warned.

"That's why I asked for protection." With the flamethrower sitting ready on the table, Nate still prepared his shotgun and kept it close for swapping out if the mole rats got too close.

The Vault 81 security pressed a panel on the wall beneath the staircase in the reactor room, and the wall slid upwards to reveal a white painted hydraulic door, leading to the secret vault.

Picking up the flamethrower, it was an old M-44 model, from the days of World War 2, with a large tank he wore on his back.
Twisting the fluid on, and lighting the pilot, a hiss of gas could be heard as a small flame jetted out of the nozzle.

"Try not to completely burn down the vault, if you can't help it." Overseer MacNamara asked.

"I will endeavor not to let that happen." Stepping through the white door, the security closed the hydraulic door behind Nate.

\111/

The bottom floor of the secret vault was completely dug up or covered with thick layers of dirt. The walls were collapsing in, showing the lack of supports from Mole Rats eating their way through solid concrete and metal.

The path through was blocked and forced Nate to go upstairs to the second floor, where a glowing terminal with power still running through it sat idle. This was the terminal Bobby was referring to, but for an addict to come up here to this room where a few rotted mattresses, a desk, and a chair for him to sit down and get high in, it was more than enough. The air smelled damp and moist like mildew, whatever chems Bobby burnt off, the smell was long dissipated.

There was a brief glimmer of hope and shock that on the computer, the logger listed 167 known diseases were being used on the mole rats, with 67% of the diseases curable through 11 vaccines.

Nate jumped when he heard 'Protectron on duty!', then through the door, a Vault 81 protectron was lumbering through the next hallway. All the walls were falling apart, and looking down onto the ground floor, dirt and rock from above were collapsing through the ceiling, down the ground floor.

The second floor was littered with tracks and marks of the mole rats, but until now he hadn't heard anything.

Carefully making his way through the hallway and back down to the dirt first floor, he found their dining area and kitchen, still stocked, but partially rummaged through by the scavenging mole rats and other bugs that made their way in.

Readying his flamethrower, he heard scraping and the sounds of dirt being moved. Through the darkness, mole rats were clawing their way up through the dirt tunnels they've made for themselves and were swarming.

Nine mole-rats scurried towards Nate, the size of golden retrievers, he didn't waste time incinerating them as they got close. One blast of the heat was enough to make them break, but circle back around again. Firing more jets of propane, the skin of two mole-rats blackened and burnt, making them squeal as they were torched to death.

After holding down the nozzle for a second, a ten-foot-long spray of flame was as far as he could get. The mole rats kept coming though, they wanted Nate, but he jumped up onto the counter in the dining area and swung the flamethrower back and forth. In a minute, seven burning mole rats were running, squealing, all bumping into each other as they ran around the dining area, trying to stop the flames from killing them, but Nate kept the heat on until every single one of them was dead.

Shaken by the mole rats, an eerie quiet returned to the secret vault.

"Jesus! This thing's fucking hot!" Nate's face and hands felt like well-done steaks under a grill, after blasting off a few bursts from the flamethrower.

Progressing down a hallway, Nate figured it was leading back towards the main vault's foyer area. Passing into an area marked maintenance, four reactors stood half-buried in the dirt, and inactive.

"Jesus." He said to himself, the amount of energy they could produce and the parts that could be used, there was plenty of potential for these machines.

Another staircase took him back up again to a second floor, but the groaning of the metal staircase must have been what set the mole rats off.

Three mole-rats burst out of the dirt from the ground floor he just walked through, making him set the whole area ablaze as the mole rats ran up, into the line of fire, then back down again. From behind a mole rat jumped and bit down on his shoulder pad, Nate was horrified that one got so close and struck him. Letting go of the flamethrower, the harness let it swing down to his side while his free hand grabbed at the knife clipped to his waist. Yanking it out, he stabbed the molerat in the head and then the neck, then once more for good measure in the head again, this time plunging the knife deep into the eye socket. The mole rat was forced to let go as it thrashed on the ground. Nate tipped the flamethrower down and burnt the rat to death on the spot.

Another mole rat came running down the ramp from the third floor, but Nate pulled up his shotgun and fired. The head and foreleg exploded in a red paste as the body went limp.

The sounds of things crashing around, metal crates being shoved to the side were coming from above, scaring Nate into taking the high ground.

"Where are you, you fucker?" Nate asked, readying both weapons.

The sound of the protectron firing off laser blasts made him tense, then he realized it wasn't aimed at him, but a mole rat in the other section of the vault. Still, there were more above him, making Nate move cautiously to listen for more mole rats.

The next detail caught of the secret vault caught Nate off guard, but he expected it as well. A darkened window covered with dirt and grime built up over the years was marked with the tag "Hydroponics Garden."

Through a speaker, he could hear Dr. Penske and another woman he didn't know the name of speaking to each other.

"I'm sure this whole thing will blow over with Austin in a week."

"He'll be up and running in no time." Dr. Penske said, slightly worried, but remaining optimistic. "But why him? He's just a boy."

"He's going to be fine. You'll see."

Nate tapped on the glass, unsure if they could hear him or not. Slamming his fist into the glass, there wasn't any response from the other side, no indication they heard him, or even the gunshot from before.

With no other way to go but up, Nate came to a security door marked 'Research' and allowed himself to give a depressed sigh, this is where things really would go to shit.

Pressing through, he closed the door behind him.

The first wall had another observation window that was darkened over time from neglect to the point he couldn't see through it, but the tag on the wall marked it as the "Vault 81 Depot."

More voices, more conversations that could be overheard, but Nate didn't want to waste any more time listening in when there were so many more things he needed to pay attention to while on this side. Down the hallway, he passed a third window that marked it as the Overseer's office, but this time the voices were much louder and more strained.

"You and your staff are to make sure every resident remains under stringent medical observation." Overseer MacNamara ordered.

"But, Overseer," Dr. Forsythe began but was cut off.

"No buts. This is for the good of the Vault."

Nate shook his head, "For the greater good." He said to himself.

"We can't risk this pathogen from spreading," Overseer MacNamara said.

"Understood."

"How is Austin doing?"

"Not good. The infection is progressing rapidly."

"Then let's hope that outsider pulls through and finds us a cure."

There was an unsaid 'if' hanging in the air, and Nate could tell neither Dr. Forsythe, MacNamara, nor himself wanted to admit it.

If Austin didn't make it. If Austin died from the infection.

Going through another security door, down onto the second floor, Nate immediately ran back up as seven mole-rats all came running at him. Three were on him in a second. Biting him in the leg, the arm, and then in hand. Tearing through his glove, the mole rat gouged through the skin and drew blood.

"Motherfuckers!" He screamed, burning everything in sight, he jerked his bleeding hand out of one mole-rat's mouth, and stomped its legs, then kicking it like a ball to the far wall.

Nate yanked the second off his arm, which thankfully was protected with armor, and torched that one as well. Kicking the third one, he stomped and stomped until the neck bones were broken and it couldn't move. Incinerating the whole lot, Nate kept the one that bit him alive, intending to come back for it later.

Nate looked down at his bleeding hand, "FUCK!" he yelled. "Goddamnit!"

Unsure of what to do at that moment, he stared down at his bleeding hand, and then the flame thrower.

"God...If you're with me. I hate what I'm about to do."

Readying a stim pack, he awkwardly angled the flamethrower in his right hand, cradling it against his chest. Looking around, he didn't have anything to bite down on, and then said: "Fuck it."

Burning away the top layers of skin on his hand, for three solid seconds. Nate was screaming and hating every part of his life right then and there. Howling, he was filled with regret as his left hand was set on fire.

The bite mark was completely incinerated, along with most of Nate's left hand, but after dropping the flamethrower and plunging the stim pack into the muscle behind the thumb, he kept shouting and swearing through the pain.

It was still too much, falling onto his back and pinching the wrist to try and suffocate the nerves from sending signals back to his brain he screamed and screamed.

"Oh...You fucking bastards. You bastards. Oh, I'm going to kill every last one of you." Rolling his head toward the mole-rat with the broken legs that bit him, "Except you! I'm gonna make sure they experiment the shit out of you!"

His head was pounding, but he was sure that he wasn't infected with the mole-rat diseases. He couldn't get sick but damn the alternative. Plan C was to lop off his hand and cauterize the wound, but he needed his left hand, he was attached to it in more ways than one.

Nate could barely move the muscles in his left hand, still regretting everything he did, but his heart rate disagreed and kept pounding away.

\111/

Charging back down the stairs, Nate lined up his shotgun sights with two-mole rats that were hesitant to come near him again after the burst of flame, but Nate fired three times and killed them. He couldn't grab anything while his hand was healing, instead, he rested the barrel over his left arm, and shot with his right.

The next area of the vault opened up like their foyer, but each room was lined with opened cages and more mole rats. Nate didn't hesitate, with the shotgun propped against his body, and flamethrower in reach. Nate burned or shot his way through the labs, killing five more. Poking his head in each room to make sure he killed all of them, there was an ugly green glowing bloated mole rat, pregnant with more little devils.

"Oh, God," Nate said, looking at the immobile mother mole-rat. It could barely waddle with how pregnant it was, but Nate didn't know to shoot it or let Dr. Forsythe take the first chance at it. Glancing down at his hand, he raised the flame thrower and burnt it to a black charred corpse.

Not thinking about the horrid smell, and refusing to acknowledge the sounds he was hearing or the little pops as skin oils burned, Nate left the room and opened the sliding door to the next lab, ready to blast everything in sight, but immediately stopped.

Swallowing, behind a locked cage door, was a glowing unicorn.

Its bones were visible through the skin like an x-ray, it tilted its head toward the noise of the door being opened and opened its mouth. All the teeth were visible, and the eyes were white glowing orbs.

"A..ah..ah...ah...at tah...tah...tah. huam..." It tried to say.

Nate was struck with shock, and unsure of what to do when it's horn started glowing, and the air in the room became hot. His pip-boy ticked away and Nate realized this unicorn was expelling radiation in lethal amounts.

Watching the horn, from the tip it started melting in on itself, but the green glowing corona of energy around where the horn should've been, grew brighter, and the rads in the room kept going up.

The unicorn's skin grew brighter, it was difficult to look at, and fear finally made Nate move his legs away from this room right as the spell the glowing unicorn meant to cast finally reached its peak. The unicorn's horn was completely melted away and then the entire unicorn exploded from its core outwards.

Completely burning and atomizing itself in the process, a wave of high nuclear energy blew itself outwards into the hall. Nate shut the door and shook in a slight panic. The pip-boy read he was at 500 r/u.

This was going terribly, but the adrenalin rushing through his body made him want to finish this as quickly as possible, then get the hell out.

The third floor of this foyer was lined with more cages and food bowls for the mole rats, where another mole rat mother was quick to attack him, but Nate fired and killed the three mole-rats on this floor.

Finding a research lab on the third floor, along with a surgery room, there was a fridge that Nate immediately went to and found test tubes with dried specimen samples in them. Taking them out, he carefully slid them onto a rack and wrapped them with rags, then finally put the whole thing in his backpack.

There was a working computer monitor that Nate quickly went through, but it was a day-to-day operations log and gave Nate the story behind what this side of the Vault was planning on doing. This section of Vault 81 was meant to grow viruses, and inject them into the mole rats, after creating a breed of mole rats that could survive the virus, they were going to infect the population of vault 81 with the virus while working on a cure. They intended to create a vault dweller impervious to viruses by making a super virus, combated by a super serum.

This whole experiment was to allow the Vault Dwellers on the other side the ability to keep up with diseases on the outside world, and not need to worry about their immune systems needing to go through generations of playing catch up when it was finally time to reclaim the outside world.

"God-damn motherfuckers," Nate said, squeezing his bleeding burnt hand again, he found a roll of duct tape laying on a table next to a toolbox. Wrapping the wound several times in duct tape, the next area leads him higher into the vault.

Three lockers were laying down on the ground, with burnt-out candles on top of them. All of them had lab coats folded neatly and laid down on top of the lockers, with the one on the right with a pair of glasses on top of the pile.

Nate suddenly realized he hadn't seen any bodies throughout this side of the vault. No skeletons, just mole rats.

Three bodies and these were their graves. Leaving them untouched, his eyes roamed around the topmost floor for any other signs and came to a window. Peering in, a dark floating shape came and approached the window, making Nate recoil from the shock. He didn't expect to see anything else aside from mole rats, but it was a Mr. Handy unit painted white that eyed him. The lenses zoomed in and out, taking photos, memorizing him.

\111/

Nate swallowed, "Hello?" he asked.

"Oh! Another stranger." The robot replied it was a females voice, with a french accent. 'Miss Nanny,' Nate corrected himself.

"Are you Vault-tec Security? I've waited so very patiently for you to arrive."

A chill went down through Nate's legs, he scratched at the side of his face and seized the opportunity. "Yes. Yes, I am."

The Miss Nanny bot replied extaticly, "Superb! I placed an emergency call so long ago, I was beginning to think something dreadful must of happened. I am pleased to report I completed my duties 83 years ago."

Nate felt the blood rush to his head, so he simply nodded and smiled, "Great. Great." he said twice.

"Thousands of pathogens were grown in the mole-rat hosts. Then a single broad-spectrum cure was developed to treat them all. Very satisfying work for many decades."

Nate couldn't stop smiling, his eyes were tearing up as he was about to say something, but the Miss Nanny bot had one last thing to say, coming closer to the glass. "Now please, tell me you have the authority to release me from the lab."

"I..." Nate caught his breath. "I'm authorized to release you from the lab."

"Superb. I almost gave up all hope of ever leaving this lab." Nate swallowed, watching the Miss Nanny bot hover over to the sliding door and unlock it. The door parted and they both met each other face to face.

"Since you are a Vault-tec representative, I entrust you with the broad spectrum cure I developed."

Nate kept his mouth shut for the most part, "Fantastic."

"If you have an equivalent to my digital Hippocratic oath, please us it quickly to prevent any undue suffering. But please be advised, there is only one dose left, and I am unable to make any more."

"One dose?" Nate watched as the Miss Nanny bot pulled out a syringe with the broad spectrum cure from a glass and metal housing, "If given the right resources, could you potentially make more? You have all that information stored?"

"Yes, but sadly, the organic compounds to make more have all deteriorated. If that is all, I am most eager to leave."

"Thank you for the cure," Nate said, in his right hand was the cure, in his left, a duct-tape wrapped wound. He shook his head, there was never any doubt what he would do with it in the first place if one was found.

"It is my hope that this cure finds it's way to someone who needs it."

"What's your name?" Nate asked.

"My original designation was CVRIE, Contagions Vulnerability Robotic Infirmary Engineer, a Miss Nanny Bot from Robco. But, the scientists here in Vault 81 began calling me Curie after Marie Curie. Due to the lack of staff, I was reprogrammed with greater operational freedom to assist with experiments in Vault 81. Hopefully, now I can properly further my scientific research. Since my job here is done, I think I will follow you out." It was decided then, Nate felt that if Curie had a mouth, she would be smiling and bobbing her head along to a tune only she could hear.

Nate nodded, accepting Curie as a follower. Taking one last look around the lab, there was a Vault-Tec. bobblehead sitting on the desk. Walking over and picking it up, it was Vault-lad with a giant oversized hypodermic needle, with the inscription reading, "The Smart Man Knows Only A Bandage Hides His Wounds." Swallowing once more, and testing the range of motion of his left hand, tears of pain formed in Nate's eyes, but he deeply inhaled and breathed through burnt nerve pain as the both left the lab together.

\111/

After crossing the threshold, Curie chirped, "Oh how wonderful it is not to be in quarantine."

At the far end of the hallway was an elevator, Nate pressed on the pad and found that it worked. The elevator came rumbling down.

"A routine analysis of you indicates you suffer very little from radiation, curious." Nate looked over at Curie, unsure of what to make of the comment himself.

The elevator opened and they both entered it together, then, rising, Nate was unsure of where it would spit them out, but he had a slight cognition of possibly where.

When the doors parted, they were in a pristine hallway that was well lit, and then at the far end of the hallway was a computer built into the wall. The door was locked, but after checking the computer, it was a security feature that only needed to be switched off with the tap of an enter key.

Instantly, the doors parted.

"The Hell?!" He heard from the other side.

Curie and Nate were both looking out at the backside of the Vault 81 door, and a security guard was staring at them with a gaping mouth. An ordinary wall hid the secret entrance to Vault 81, no panels, no indentations, the entire wall was flush with the rest of the vault interior.

"Howdy," Nate said to the security guard. "Mind the burnt mole rat carcasses, and do me a favor and go fetch the one with all its legs broken. I need to see Dr. Forsythe about a cure for Austin and this fucking burn on my hand."

Holding up the burnt hand with ducktape wrapped around it, it was the second time Nate severely burned his hand, the first from rocket thrust. The thought of the painful memory sent a spasm of heat through his hand.

Curie followed along behind him, as the security guard stared vacantly down the newly opened hallway, unsure of what to do.

"Curie, I know someone who needs this cure right now."

"I see that you were bitten as well, are you not going to use the cure?"

Nate swallowed, "I'll be fine. There's a child who needs this cure much more than I do. I got all my shots from the army. And nobody gives out free drugs to a soldier like the United States Army. God bless the U.S."

Tapping the elevator control panel with his right elbow, he favored his left hand and waited for the doors to part.

"After you, Curie."

\111/

Nate gripped the cure tightly, but not too tight. He didn't come all this way just to let the only cure break in his hand.

Overseer MacNamara was watching from her office on the fourth floor, watching as Nate and Curie exited the elevator. Nate stepped out, holding his right hand with his pinkie, ring, and thumb curled around the needle while holding his pointer and middle finger to his eyes, then finished with by turning his hand around and making the peace sign.

Nate and Curie both saw MacNamara pull her head back in surprise, she wasn't expecting that.

Overseer MacNamara found Nate and Curie talking with Dr. Forsythe in the clinic when she arrived behind them, listening to their conversation play out.

"Take the cure, and could you do me a favor? There's a mole rat I left over on the other side, broke its legs, but it bit me. Don't worry though, I burnt the infected area down to the muscle..." Nate shallowly laughed, still tearing up and crying in pain at how bad his hand hurt. "Do me a favor and run some tests would you? See what the hell is cooking inside those mole rats."

Dr. Forsythe examined Nate fully, noticing the changes in his personality and demeanor after the expedition into the secret vault.

"I'll...do my best. As for Austin, I hope this works. If this doesn't, there won't be anything left to analyze to try again."

Overseer MacNamara stepped through the threshold of the sliding door into the clinic, "I see you returned." She said, glancing at Nate's duck tape wrapped hand.

Dr. Forsythe examined the cure in his own hands for a moment before going to unconscious Austin, he hadn't stirred since after Nate left, and his fever was running at 103 degrees.

Nate held his breath as he watched Dr. Forsythe give Austin the injection of the broad spectrum cure, and looked at Austin's chest as his breathing changed.

Exhaling, he acknowledged the Overseer of Vault 81 with a nod.

"It shouldn't be too long, we'll constantly monitor Austin's progress over the next two hours, but until then, we can only wait. Perhaps we should take a look at your hand as we wait."

Nate nodded again, Curie bobbed along behind him, taking up residence at the far side of the room as Overseer MacNamara followed up with a few reassuring remarks.

"I want to thank you, stranger. The people of Vault 81 are grateful, and I want to give you a room here in the vault. A place you can call home."

Nate couldn't stop himself from tearing up, it felt like a heavy crown was pulled off his head, and he gladly accepted it. "Thank you."

"It's in the main hall, on the left as you get off the elevator. Seeing as how we have more space now, we won't be needing the room for storage any longer. Once again, thank you."

"A clean room..." Nate said to himself, he felt his head swimming as Dr. Forsythe leads Nate to his desk. Cutting off the duct tape, he winced as Dr. Forsythe examined the burn, and grabbed burn gel to prevent the wound from getting more infected, and to ease with the pain.

"Care to explain the robot you picked up along the way?"

"My name is Curie, I was programmed to assist the scientists of Vault 81 in developing the broad spectrum cure used on Austin. Now that my task is complete, I hope to follow Nate and research new sciences in the outside world, after he's ready to leave."

"I suppose some thanks belongs to you as well, Curie. Without your work, there wouldn't be a cure at all."

"Thank you, Madame Overseer."

"You're welcome. Please, anytime you need repairs, or likewise, a place to stay, Vault 81 will always be your home.

Overseer MacNamara waited as Dr. Forsythe applied gel and bandages to Nate's hand, "There's the issue of you possibly being infected as well." She told Nate.

"Lady, after what I did to keep the disease from spreading, there's not much else I can say!'"

"I'm not sure if I understand fully, did the mole-rat bite you on the hand?"

"Yep, then I used the flamethrower to keep the infected blood from spreading back to my heart."

"You are crazy."

"It keeps me alive."

"At what cost?"

"Everything that I emotionally care about. This was my wife's favorite hand, too." Nate's frown flipped into a smile and he chuckled, Overseer MacNamara's face turned flush as she realized the joke, and Dr. Forsythe barely suppressed a frown.

"As long as I've got you here, Mind if I ask you about any future plans for Mr. De Luca?"

"Bobby De Luca is going to find himself no longer employed by Vault 81. There's too much to be ignored and let him get away with his habitual drug-using while at work, along with the potential dangers he was exposing the rest of the vault to every time he used the secret entrance to the other side."

"Well, if this were still the America I knew, I'd say he go talk to the union. But since they don't exist anymore, I want to hire him and his sister at Vault 111."

"Why take on the risk?"

"Because I've spoken with both of them. They're bored and looking for a new challenge. That's why Bobby's been taking drugs because he can accomplish the same amount of work in the span of a drug high than his sister can during a full day of work. If at any point, something goes wrong, he would need to report to his sister, the Mr. Handy robot, security, and then you. That's four bosses who come by to give him a hard time, so he's only been working hard enough not to get hassled. Now that this happened, he's worried about losing his job and his home."

"He should've thought about that harder before endangering the lives of everyone in Vault 81."

"Things like that are taken for granted until they're at the risk of being lost, but I'm willing to let him work for a chance to redeem himself."

Overseer MacNamara didn't see any harm in letting someone else deal with a junkie, "He's all yours."

"For morale's sake, I going to speak to Tina as well, it might be something the two of them need to talk about, but might be worth it in the end if they left amicably together."

"I'm going to speak with Bobby soon, and I expect that when you leave, he leaves with you. If his sister wants to leave as well, that will be on her own volition."

"That's all some people want in life, Miss MacNamara. A choice and a chance."

"Dr. Forsythe, I leave our guest in your capable hands. Please update me if Austin wakes up. Dr. Penske will want to know immediately as well."

\111/

After Gwen MacNamara left, the air in the clinic became a lot less heated. Jacob Forsythe finished wrapping Nate's hand, and offered something to him, "I've got a syringer rifle that I never got to use. For the better part of its life, it's been sitting in a storage closet or getting moved around from one closet to another. I never really knew what it would be used for, but now I can make a safe assumption that it never was intended to be used by us on this side of the vault. My only guess now is that it was something that was meant to be used on the mole rat population on the other side, as a way to safely dart the mole rats from a distance."

"About that, there was a unicorn on the other side in one of the cages, still locked up."

"A what?"

"A glowing Unicorn, kind of like the Glowing Ones? The glowing ghouls? I kid you not there was a Glowing Unicorn, except right after it saw me, it tried to say something."

"I've heard of a Glowing One, but not a Unicorn. I'm aware of ponies, or rather, mutated beasts of burden roaming the surface, but my life involved staying down here in the safety of Vault 81. It was a blissful unawareness while it lasted, but I'm glad it was you who helped me see the reality of the situation. I know everyone here will be ever smarter because of it."

Nate looked down at his pip-boy, scrolling through the files to find the recording of the last hour. It took a few minutes, of fast-forwarding and rewinding, but he found the part of him charging into the lab foyer, then finding the glowing Unicorn.

A..ah..ah...ah...at tah...tah...tah. huam..

Nate replayed it, rewinding the clip then listening to it again. Dr. Forsythe heard the ragged breath and felt a chill.

"A..ah..ah...ah...at tah...tah...tah. huam.."

Pressing the rewind button again, Nate accidentally went too far back but decided to listen to the file twice as fast to listen specifically for the unicorn's voice. It was this time Nate's entire arm twitched.

When played at double the speed, it sounded like the unicorn was saying "Atom."

\111/

Ch. 53 Diamond City Blues

Piper's notes were thick and spanned everything that happened from the last seven days.

From the confirmed deaths of raider bosses, Jared and Tower Tom, to the consolidation of power under Red. Nate's interview was sprinkled with information about Quincy, Covenant, and the U.S.S. Constitution. His actions aiding in the destruction of a super mutant base at an old construction site followed by driving out two more super mutant hubs at Faneuil Hall and Atomatoys HQ, culminating with the return of Nick Valentine and the death of Triggerman Sonny AKA Skinny Malone along with multiple Triggermen in Vault 114. The kicker would be the public hanging of Kellogg Conrad, a known Institute Spy.

From the power struggles all about the wasteland with raider gangs, and the revelation of the Institute crows. Piper had enough stories to fill an entire Sunday paper, the only thing missing would be a sport's section and comic strips. Looking back through her notes and everything she wrote down the last seven days, it was a challenge to sort through it all, not knowing exactly where to begin, but she supposed, it started when a man and his dog came marching down the street singing an old song, sporting the biggest grin that couldn't deny the sheer boundless positive joy they were willing to share.

Reflecting on everything that happened made Piper quiet, knowing that the death of an Institute Spy and the Crow would be front-page news, but everything else was the lead up to that moment.

But of course, nothing would top the dead bird in a jar sitting on her desk, close enough for her to touch her pinkie finger to it. A synth crow, the realization made her feel exhilarated and that this tiny machine would reveal all the Institute's dirty secrets.

\111/

"What's your next step, Blue?" She asked as they left the perimeter of the Cambridge Police Station,

""

"Hancock's a good friend to have." Piper said, keeping pace with ~~Nate~~. Meathead, she reminded herself. "He's not the prettiest face in the Commonwealth, but he knows a lot of people. What about the Brotherhood? What are you going to do about them?"

""

"Do you have a way of communicating with him?"

""

"I'm not sure if I should be glad, or put off that you can track me down," Piper replied.

""

"Tell me when you're heading to the U.S.S. Constitution, I've been waiting to meet this pegasus of yours."

""

"What's happening to her?"

""

"Aren't either of you worried that people might mistake you for being in two places at once?"

""

"When someone calls you a synth, don't say I didn't warn you."

\111/

From home plate in Diamond City, Meathead could feel the history of all the people who stood there. Looking up, imagining a fly ball going off to the right field, his eyes settled on the Colonial Taphouse in the upper stands. But, up above his head was the ruffling and flapping of feathers. All at once, twenty birds all took off from the wires strung between buildings up into the air.

Meathead clenched his jaw, there was at least one Synthetic Crow among the bunch, but after they landed again, spotting the fake amongst the real ones was like seeing a purple dot on the green sky.

Swallowing, as their cawing made Meathead wish for the sounds of doves, pigeons, or quails cooing, rather than a murder of crows hanging above his head.

There were dozens in Diamond City, synth crows that is, tucked and nestled in among other crows. As Meathead sensed upwards, it was like looking at a string of lights and seeing burnt-out bulbs. Each one glaringly obvious to the changeling now that he knew where to look, and where his and the Institute's blindspots were. It comforted him that now that he knew he was being watched.

Meathead's mouth quenched for a beer.

The first stop he went to was Diamond City Surplus run by Crazy Myrna. ""

"Hello." Myrna, replied, she spotted him the moment Meathead came to Diamond City Market. Recalling everything she knew about this man, she watched his footsteps, his gait, the way he walked, and then thought about his absent canine companion. "Anything I can help you with, today?"

""

"Yes, I still don't have any. How'd you forget? Are you a synth?" She asked straight-faced. They were legitimate questions, and she refused to carry on until bartering until Nate answered.

"" Meathead bought and sold a few things he picked up along the way to Diamond City.

Checking the other stores, there was no radiation suit to be found in Diamond City, at least, not one in good enough condition or willing to be sold. There was one in Fallon's Basement, but the visor was cracked, and there wasn't any suitable replacement. The seems were rubbed too, meaning it was worn out and could potentially rip.

This was an expected problem Nate touched on a few times, but this was keeping them from their goal. Running a hand across his face and shaking his head, his mind went through all the locations of a well maintained, if not preserved, radiation suit.

His right hand went up and out, flourishing to the sky, "Refinery." He said. "Disposal site." Inhaling sharply through his nose, "National Guard. Armory...The electric company..." all possible sites he thought of in his mind that could contain a radiation suit. Bumping up the National Guard as a possible location to scout out sooner than later, he ran out of places to search in Diamond City.

With nowhere else to go but up, he took one look at the Colonial Taphouse, and decided to wind his way up there.

It'd been a long time since the last time he was here.

For Nate's father's 60th birthday here at the stadium, they came up to the bar sometime after the third inning and drank the rest of the game. The sign remained the same after all these years, except for the faded paint and weathered look.

\111/

This time was quiet, the thousands of fans filling the stadium and generating all the background noise was gone. The organist was gone, the radio announcers weren't broadcasting, and the music that used to come out of every speaker wasn't there. When he pressed open the door, he absently wondered if the bar was completely deserted until the people on the inside moved. There were five people inside, the bartender, a blonde woman at the bar, and a man leaning in on the counter, trying to get the female's attention. Two more people were sitting off to the side at their table, smoking cigars.

"Come on, Darcy. Let's go."

The bartender frowned at the man, "I don't think she wants to leave just yet. Paul, take it easy."

The door took time to close, squeaking and squealing the whole time it took to shut as Nate walked in.

The man snapped back at the bartender, "This is between me and my wife! Why don't you mind your own business for once?" Leaning his elbow on the counter, trying to break the eye-sight of Darcy and Henry Cooke, he pleaded into her eyes.

"God, Paul, why do you always need to make a scene?" Darcy said dismissively, spinning her stool so her legs were pointed away from him. "Pour me another drink, Henry." Henry wiped off the counter, looking at Darcy, Paul, then to the drink well of bottles by his knees.

"Damnit, Darcy, I just want you to come home!" He pleaded.

As Meathead crossed the threshold, he wondered if this bar was worth going into. It wouldn't be the first time walking into a seedy bar, but the stale air and teensy flies hanging in the air were offensive. To get closer to order a beer while overhearing the conversation, his mind made the disconnect from his time drinking at Fenway Park, and the squalor that took hold of Diamond City. The flies were buzzing near glasses, empty tables held leftover glasses that were rimmed with dried alcohol.

There wasn't any food being served, but there were scraps of other people's meals left on the tables, sitting there collecting ants.

"I'll be home later, Paul," Darcy said, Henry set another shot glass on the counter then poured Darcy another drink. After he set the bottle down, he came around the end of the bar.

"You better get out of here, before you do something stupid, Paul," Henry said, taking steps towards Paul, fists raised defensively.

"You son of a bitch!" Paul yelled back, taking two steps forward and getting kicked in the shins. Henry punched Paul in the face, and quick-shot jabbed Paul in the arms. Paul lashed out, striking Henry in the balls, then shoved him to the ground. Stumbling, Henry came back and swung twice at Paul, knocking him over, spewing droplets of blood as his head slammed into the floor.

"Go home, Paul," Henry said, standing over him.

Paul coughed twice, looking up to Darcy, who didn't even turn around. Climbing up to his hands, Paul said, "I'll be home, Darcy. Taking care of our son." It was a struggle to reach his feet, but Meathead offered a hand, and he took it. Being pulled to his feet, Paul tried looking at Meathead, but he was too ashamed to get a good look, so he covered his face with his arm. Pushing out through the door, Paul left.

After another second of silence, everyone seemed to remain frozen in silence until the door clicked close, then Henry spoke to Meathead.

"Sorry you had to see that, it's usually a lot quieter around here. It's a perfect place to drink if you're buying."

"" Walking back behind the bar, Henry nodded.

"We can do that." He said, reaching down into a cooler and extracting a beer for Meathead. Stacking a small tower of eight bottle caps on the counter, Meathead paid for the beer.

Henry opened the top and set it in front of Meathead. He took a drink and sighed. Taking another drink, he asked, ""

Henry inhaled, and Darcy rolled her eyes away.

"You see, Darcy here likes to relax from time to time, and her husband Paul doesn't."

Darcy shook her head.

"But, he's not a bad guy. A little uptight, he just needs to learn to relax. Huh, Darcy?"

"Shut up about Paul, okay? I didn't come here to talk about Paul." Darcy said, spinning in her stool to face Nate. "You there. You. In the blue suit. Why don't you do something useful and buy me a drink?"

"" Meathead said, holding up his beer with his right hand, and lightly tapping his ringed finger against the glass.

She didn't notice the ring, but said, "Well, aren't you all high and mighty then, why don't you get lost, so I can drink in peace?" Darcy said, blowing Meathead off.

Henry was already there to reprimand her, "Lighten up, Darcy. This isn't your private bar, no matter what you think."

Nate took a few drinks of his beer, Henry stood back and smiled. "Can I get you anything else?"

Meathead shook his head. ""

Henry nodded, "Yep. Owner, Bartender, sympathetic ear, I try to provide an oasis for all of life's hardships. Name's Cooke by the way, Henry Cooke. Just let me know if you need anything."

"" He said, offering a hand. Taking a firm grip and shaking once.

"Nice suit," Henry commented on the blue Vault 111 outfit.

"" Meathead said, laughing once to himself.

"Heh?" Henry asked, unsure of the joke.

"" He explained, knowing full well how outdated the usage was.

"Eh," Henry said, giving up. He was a bartender, he'd heard all the stories and jokes from hundreds of people around the Commonwealth coming through to drink. "What's it mean?"

"," Meathead said, taking another drink from his beer. This time, the flavor was finally settling in. His mind could finally appreciate the beers of the past because of the watery grainy wheat beer he was tasting right now. His eyes rolled back, trying to focus purely on the alcohol of the local beer, but he guessed it would take at least ten more beers to finally feel anything.

"How's it do outdoors?" Henry asked.

Meathead nodded, ""

Henry nodded back, "What'cha in town for?"

""

"Used to be that you would get a few people from New York every once and a while. Even a few fellers from Philly, maybe. Had guys from Providence wander this way at least once a month, every two months, but haven't gotten any fresh ideas down that way in over five now. Some'im's changed, but I hear that's a cause of the Gunners. Where are you from?" Henry asked.

"" Meathead asked, ""

"From what I hear, shitty. But, the last guy to come from there was almost three years ago now. Haven't thought about that place since you walked in like a breeze of fresh air, mister."

"" Meathead said, ""

"The guy who I talked to last, said that there are only a few bridges you can use to reach the island. Which, from what he said, you wouldn't want to go there in a hundred-million years. The metro system that makes up half of everything still dug in and standing down there...in his own words... collapsed tunnels, mutants, cannibals, and other shit. Plenty of them are flooded too. There's no saving grace going to New York, and I tell everyone the story ends there. There is no 'but' to this story, but there were, maybe still are, a few safe spots...compounds... like Diamond City, but I was told more places were looking to enslave or kill you, rather than let you squeak by in life keeping to yourself. Lott'a slavery...Lott'a fighting going on between the neighborhoods in and around New York."

"," Meathead said, raising his bottle and finishing his beer. Ambiguously leaving 'it' up in the air, a gang war could consume the whole city, or an even bigger army could come in and wipe the whole slate clean, while divine intervention was doing its best by sending acid rain and nuclear winter.

"Cheers," Henry said.

"" Standing up, then turning around, he left for the door.

"Come back soon," Henry called out after him.

""

As soon as the door closed, the brown man in a scavenged white button-up, suspenders, and black pants smoking his cigar stood up and approached the bar.

"Took them long enough to leave," Nelson said. He was waiting to talk to Henry Cooke for some time now.

"How are you, Nelson?"

"I'm good, but do you know when the next shipment is coming in?"

"Soon, real soon. I'm going outside the city to check tonight."

\111/

Making his way down to the Power Noodles stand, a bowl of hot ramen sounded especially filling right now. The outside was overcast but bright. Walking down the metal staircase, the weight of his footsteps shook the entire structure and made it creak with every step.

His boots sloughed in the muck, over the piles of trash in the field. Taking a seat at Power Noodles, Meathead felt the self-pity before he heard a person sit down a stool away from him. The man was Paul, holding a piece of meat to his face.

The cold cut of beef helped with the sting and bruising muscles. Taking it down for a moment, he used his free hand to check the bones in his cheeks and eyes. He saw Nate sitting across from him as he checked a loose tooth, and tasted the iron of blood in his mouth.

"Hey, you," Paul said, looking at Nate. Putting the meat back to his eye, and applying pressure, he waited for Meathead to look back at him.

Meathead looked from his left and saw Bobbi No-Nose wearing a full gas mask that covered her face and eyes, with gloves to hide her hands. She approached the round bar at Power Noodles and took a seat across the ring from them. Turning his head to the right, Meathead looked Paul in his good eye.

"I got a question for you," Paul said, smiling at Nate.

Nate inhaled and nodded, ""

"You were in the Taphouse. Right before..." Paul gestured to himself.

"" Meathead said, offering his observation.

"Yeah. Pretty pathetic, isn't it?"

"" Meathead replied.

"The guy's sleeping with my wife, and I can't do shit about it." Paul winced, feeling the muscles sting. His teeth ached at the thought of Darcy with Henry.

"" He asked, looking up towards the Colonial Taphouse.

"I'm going to go back and talk to Henry, and I want you to come with me," Paul said.

Meathead frowned, shaking his head.

"He won't take me seriously otherwise! I don't want to hurt him, I just want him to leave Darcy alone."

"" Meathead said, drawing it out, hoping Paul would catch on first.

"Why not?" Paul asked.

"" Meathead offered.

"You're right. You're right. What do I owe you?"

"" Meathead asked, "" Offering again, he was trying to genuinely be nice.

"If you have a spare, that'd be great," Paul said, leaning towards Meathead. Setting the piece of meat on the counter, Paul waited as Meathead dug out a syringe for Paul, and gave it to him. Paul wiped his hands, then pressed the tip to a vein in his cheek.

The blood in his face flushed, becoming bright red as the swelling went down around the bruises.

"" Meathead said, now looking across the counters at Bobbi No-Nose. She was looking across the counter at him. She wasn't making any noise, but she was tapping her wrist.

"When do you think you might be able to talk to him?"

"" Nate said.

"Great," Paul settled into his seat, taking the cold-cut of brahmin meat away from his face and held it up. "Hey, Robot-San! Robot-O! Noodle-Bot! Cook this up! I don't want a good piece of meat going to waste."

"Nan-ni shimasho-ka?" The protectron chef asked, waddling over to Paul with a butcher knife.

\111/

Meathead slid around to the other side of Power Noodles, taking a stool next to Bobbi.

"I was wondering when you were going to show up." She said, faking disappointment.

"" Meathead replied.

"Good to know you're loose, now let's get down to business," Bobbi said.

""

"That big wall of glass looming over Diamond City is the mayor's office." Bobbi rolled one wrist, casually pointing two fingers up towards the announcer's booth.

"Most people don't know it, but there's a stronghold buried beneath it. Mayor's just sitting on top of it. That's our target."

"" Nate asked.

"That's another task, for another day. Right now, the mayor has it coming. With how he treats my kind, maybe he deserves worse." Bobbi vexed her frustration against the mayor of Diamond City.

"" Meathead asked, pressing his fingers together.

"Caps. Meds. Food. Everything to keep this city running. It's things we want, it's things everyone wants. If you're in, you'll get your share."

"" Meathead wanted to know.

"I managed to track down my tech guy, Mel. He's here in Diamond City. The guy can make a gadget to solve any problem." Bobbi No-nose explained.

"" Meathead replied, waiting for the exception to the rule.

"Thing is, he's a little locked up right now. You need to get him out of there, I can't walk in there with this face, covered or not." Bobbi upturned her palm towards her face while looking at Nate.

""

"Causes a distraction."

""

"One that you don't need to worry so much about. Trust me, this is the guy we need." She avoided his question.

"" Meathead asked, trying to build a profile of Mel in his mind.

"I'm sure I don't know. Pick a lock, bribe a guard, find a key. The usual, just get him out." Bobbi said, standing up and leaving the counter.

\111/

Meathead went to the security office for Diamond City, it was in the opposing team's dugout on the left side of the field. The floor was caked with tracked-in mud and dirt, but the concrete walls were solid and the cells they put in were able to keep anyone rowdy inside.

""

The security officer standing guard gestured to a man sitting with his legs crossed and leaning back.

""

The man in the cage smiled, leaning forward a little bit.

""

"Since you're the only one asking, I'd say he's about served his time. Let me go get the keys, and we'll get him out of here."

Meathead smiled, expecting more of a hassle.

Mel overheard, standing up and stretching his arms out. "Well, out you go. Don't do it again. Or at least try harder not to get caught. Next time I'll just break your favorite fingers, and then we'll see how much you want to hack the robot." The guard said.

The Diamond City guard unlocked the door with one hand and pulled it open with the other with practiced ease. "I know you know how to do it, but please don't. We want to focus on threats outside the city, and keep them from coming in, not the other way around." The guard voiced his displeasure against crime in the city.

"" Meathead asked.

"Derrick." The Guard replied.

""

"Oh yeah? And who's the enemy here?" Derrick asked.

""

\111/

Mel and Nate didn't speak until leaving the security area and were back outside.

"Thanks. God, that woman doesn't have a patient bone in her body. It's not like I was serving a life sentence in there! I was in for sneaking some beer! Not a big deal!" Mel's hair was red in the sunlight, but the dirt in his clothes made everything look brown.

"" Nate speculated.

"Yeah, well, what's the job?" Mel asked, crossing his arms.

"" Nate says. Mel looks back to the security station and lifts his eyes.

"That's a good score. You work with Bobbi before?" Mel asks.

""

"Yeah, that sounds like enough caps to keep me going for a while. She may be shady, but she always pays in the end. Is it happening at her place in Goodneighbor?" He asks with finality.

""

Mel let out a deflated sigh, "That sounds like Bobbi, anyway, it'll make sense after we do the job. Where's she having us meet?"

""

"Guess I'll see you there," Mel said. With only the cramped streets between shacks to navigate the city, they both wandered back to the city market. Bobbi was gone, feeling that her time was beginning to be unwelcome. Mel departed past home plate, leaving separately from Meathead.

With only a backpack with ammo, a tight amount of food rations, stim-paks, and water. He knew he would need more to take on the vast deadly environment of the Glowing Sea.

Paul Sheppard was served his steaming eating his bowl of beef and noodles at the pitcher's mound, blowing off the steam and slurping it down.

Turning up to the left, the Colonial Taphouse waited above the stands.

\111/

"I'll be ready," Nelson finished, standing up off the stool. Henry took the mug from the bar counter and brought it back to his side. The door to the bar opened, and both Nelson and Henry looked to see who it was.

"I'll be there, I just need to close up," Henry replied, standing up from his stool.

It was the vault dweller, wearing his blue suit. "Nate," Henry said, calling out to him. "Thought I scared you off with my good charm." He joked, hoping to get another sale out of his return. Nelson passed Meathead through the pro-offered open door, then let it close.

Darcy was gone, the bar was empty aside from Meathead and Henry.

"" Meathead said as he came in a second time that evening.

"Oh yeah? What's this about?" He asked, leaning against the bar.

""

"Oh really? What's the question? What're you? Some kind' a ghoul? Was that what was happening to your Vault?" Henry rattled off the questions.

"" Meathead asked.

Henry shook his head, "I don't know."

"" Letting the joke sink in, Henry smiled, ""

"I don't see how that's much of your business," Henry replied, leaning one elbow down on the counter, the other went under the bar, and Nate's eyes followed it, watching the anger rise behind his voice. What he was looking for was the way the forearm flexed, as if it were grabbing the grip of a gun below the bar.

"" Meathead summarized, ""

"Nobody tells me what to do in my place, bub. You better turn around and walk out while you still can."

"" Nate rubbed the side of his face and nodded, ""

Cooke was filled with loathing and dread at the mention of Piper's name, while not ideal, it was the intended effect as Cooke took a remorseful deep breath and sighed.

"Alright. I admit it. It was never a good idea from the start. You know how it is, Darcy always hanging around, she says she wants a little excitement in her life, but..." Cooke didn't finish the sentence. "Go tell Paul it's over, and Darcy gets the ban. That good enough for you?"

Meathead nodded, pulling his lips in, Cooke was hiding something and Meathead could see it on his face and through his emotions clear as day. "

Cooke raised his eyebrows, internally questioning Nate's motive. His hand lessened his grip around the stock of the gun he was pointing at Meathead underneath the bar, but he still hadn't let go of it.

"How 'bout this. We kill two birds with one stone, and yes, I say we 'cause the more muscle, the better, to do this. Something I been thinking on for a while now...Think of it as a peace offering, I want you to bring Paul along."

"" Nate sat up, readjusting in his seat.

Cooke let go of the gun and leaned in on both elbows, "Here's the deal, I got a little side gig." Cooke's face broke out in a wide grin, this was the real moneymaker of the Colonial Taphouse, not the cheap beer or the climate.

"That punk who walked out of here just now, Nelson Latimer. He absolutely loves spending his dad's money to make himself feel like a gangster." Rolling his eyes up, Cooke imagined the whole scenario unfolding.

"," Meathead said with mock astonishment.

"Nelson and I are supposed to meet with some men from Goodneighbor. Cash for chems. My plan is we take the money and the chems."

Meathead smiled and nodded, giving Cooke leeway to keep talking, but it hid what he was thinking. Meathead had no intention of ripping off drug dealers from Goodneighbor. This plan sounded like a bum deal, and end up with Cooke dead for trying to double-cross Nelson and the dealers for taking their cash. It would only get worse once the suppliers came asking questions, and Cooke couldn't come up with anything else aside from 'I don't know what happened to the deal'.

If this deal was a regular occurrence, then there must be people on the other end who know Cooke, Nelson, and the dealers meet. It doesn't leave much to the imagination that only a single person gets away alive.

""

What Paul said next would only confirm his suspicions, that Cooke wasn't playing the long game. He was greedy and wanted a short quick score that would end up hurting plenty of people.

"Come on. You know the answer. No witnesses." Cooke held his hands out and up like this was a fool-proof plan. How he couldn't see past the end of the day showed his shortsightedness.

Meathead responded with a "" Pointing to a bottle of whiskey, Meathead thought back to what Nate told him, about how fools like this didn't last long in a world like this. Time to prove him right.

"Sure. Sure. Forget the caps, when this is done, you'll have enough to buy a bar of your own." The smile on Cooke's face only got wider and wider, his face more energetic. Placing two shot glasses on the counter, he poured one shot and passed one to Meathead.

Then, reaching under the counter, he pulled out a little pill, crushed it up with the shot glass, and scraped it onto his hand. Snorting it, he gasped and coughed heartily. Pouring a shot for himself, Nate was still holding his as Cooke raised the shot glass, "Cheers."

Drinking it, Meathead asked, ""

Cooke coughed to clear his throat, "Mayor McDonnough..." Cooke coughed loudly twice, then steadied himself by placing his free hand on the counter. "McDonnough takes a cut of all chems coming into town. I just walk in through the gate with Nelson and a duffle bag full of chems, and we go on our merry way doing business. Nelson fronts the cash, I make the arrangements, cheap chems for everyone. Now, let me close up, and I'll meet you outside the Wall. Gotta get prepared."

Meathead left the Colonial Taphouse, then went to the rail's edge.

Looking down at his Pip-Boy, he stopped the recording and shook his head, no wonder the real Nate always left the Pip-Boy on.

His senses went out to a young, dumb drug dealer who was about to wise up real quick.

\111/

Meathead caught up with Paul Pembroke on the third baseline drive, his head still swaying from the black eye which reduced in swelling down to dark bruises.

"" Meathead called out, catching him by the shoulder.

"Nate?" He asked, jerking his head around.

<"I did what you asked, Henry told me he and Darcy are sleeping together.>"

Paul's heart broke right there in the street, his lips were trembling, from sadness to anger, then back to sadness. He broke out in tears because he couldn't pretend he didn't know anymore. Paul was suffering, but the facts didn't give him the immediate bliss he expected. It was painful to watch, but Meathead was empathetic to his misery.

""

"What...What now?" His face was red, and head swinging left to right.

""

Replaying the talk between Henry Cooke and himself, he skipped through the lines to get to the part about the deal. Paul looked up to Meathead, "I don't know, that plan sounds kind of risky. You want me to help you kill Nelson and the dealers?"

""

"What?"

"<O' Henry? Yeah, I saw Henry leave with two other guys at this time of day...Nelson? No, I haven't seen him since that day either! Paul, we would be walking targets, Henry would be dead within a week, that's if he doesn't rat us out, and then they'd be after us. But, if we expose him in front of Nelson and the dealers with this tape as evidence...>"

"He'll be gone for good."

""

"We're leaving right now?"

""

Paul was silent for half a second, "Yeah," He said, his face lighting up.

""

"Okay. Let's do it."

\111/

Malcom Latimer was a man with a bird's eye view of Diamond City, spending his easy days relaxing on the balcony outside or above of the Colonial Taphouse, he knew that what his son did with his money was buying drugs and smuggling them into the city. There was never any issue with credit, not that he needed it, but it was always available for him at the Colonial Taphouse.

The only reason the dealers didn't shoot his son and rob Nelson blind was that he was Malcom Latimer's son.

He was aware of most of the details, even when his son didn't think he did. But, it was through old connections that a Triggerman came up to him in broad daylight, and told him that his son was making purchases from Marowski's ghoul crew.

No warning, no preface, "Your son buys from the ghouls from the South End."

The only reason this courtesy was extended to Malcom Latimer was that he was a Triggerman. Not as active in his later years, he was finally in a position where all he needed to do was drink all day, and watch the caps come rolling in as tribute.

When Paul Pembroke, sporting a black eye and babbling that his son was about to be double-crossed by Henry Cooke, the same man who gave Paul the black eye, the first thought that came to him was that it was a ruse. But when he said the vault dweller had a tape of Henry bribing him to be his second gunman, and that Henry wanted to kill Nelson, and the dealers, the second thought was that this was a poorly-thought-out ruse.

"Look, Malcom, there's no other reason in the world I would come to you unless it was an emergency. I'm coming to you as a friend, and warning you, that Henry's going to kill your son, but the vault-guy he's got with him is going to pull a fast one on Henry and expose him in front of Nelson, and whoever else is there, with a holotape he recorded of the whole conservation!"

If Henry killed Nelson, the bartender must realize that he knew about the dealings he and his son made, when in such a small community where everyone knows that the best place to get cheap drugs is from the Taphouse, how stupid does Henry think he can act completely blind to a deal turned south?

\111/

It was clear to the Diamond City Guards that something wasn't right, but they didn't interfere. Meathead walked behind Henry, who was leading them north to the Charles River. They went around the left side of the stadium, along the outside of the third baseline. Henry carried an infantry rifle, something that could pop off a dozen shots in a short amount of time, but not as fast as Meathead's rifle aimed directly at the backside of Henry's kneecap. Playing the waiting game in his mind, Meathead bided his time.

They passed Bobbi-No Nose outside the gate, waiting across the street. Meathead hung back for a moment and gravely shook his head making the finger-gun hand gesture and pointing it at Henry Cooke. 'Pow' he mouthed. Bobbi tapped her wrist, but other than that, no words were said.

"Nelson is starting to think he doesn't need me," Cooke said, his overweight appearance did nothing to slow down the trot speed he worked himself into. Voicing his thoughts out loud, he was riding the pill's effects full swing, and his smile kept growing wider and wider as he became more sure of himself.

"We're late, but I'm sure Trish won't hand over the chems until I get there."

Meathead took a glance over his shoulder, at the far end of the block was Paul Pembroke peering around the corner. After a moment, Malcom Latimer and Paul both followed at a far distance.

Making their way to the riverfront, they walked east parallel to the water and came to a stop a block away from Back Street Apparel.

"Okay, this is the spot. There's always four of Marowski's goons: Trish, who's in charge and waves the gun around, and then three guys who offload the boat."

"You should be able to work your way around these buildings and get a good angle on them. I'll wait for the shooting to start, then join in from there."

Meathead thought to himself, realizing how Henry Cooke imagined this all in his head.

He would claim the deal was getting raided, and that he was barely able to escape with his life, while Nelson, Trish, and the other gang members were shot dead.

This would play out in Meathead's favor, he's setting himself up for a double-crossing of a lifetime, one that will soon end.

"Remember, we can't afford to let anyone get away," Henry instructed Meathead.

""

\111/

Waving Paul and Malcom Latimer over, Meathead didn't have much time to explain things to Nelson's father, but the urgent expression on his face made the father impatient.

""

"Yes, but why are you doing this?"

""

"Yes."

Practically shoving the two around the corner, Nate instructed them to lay low as he took cover behind a brick wall and lined up his only shot.

\111/

"Where's Cooke?" Trish complained the weathered ghoul's face could hardly display her frustrated emotion, but to Nate, it was clear as day. "We can't keep sitting around here forever."

"Relax, he'll be here any minute," Nelson replied, looking over his shoulder for Henry to arrive.

"Come on man, I'm seriously getting pissed off."

"Why do we need him anyway? I got the money."

"You do, huh? I'll keep that in mind. But, where's Cooke?"

"On his way, old crusty is taking his sweet ass time though."

"I'm here! I'm here." Henry said, walking up with his rifle in hand. He couldn't see Nate but didn't want to chance a glance looking for him. "Nelson, Trish, I apologize, I needed to close down the bar."

Meathead stared down the scope, inhaled, then on the exhale pulled the trigger.

There was a fraction of a millisecond from when Henry heard the shot, of pure exhilaration and joy that the plan was going to go off without a hitch, and then the bullet burst through his right kneecap, forcing him to fall on the ground and scream.

Everyone went into full panic mode, completely alert and guns ready to shoot anything that moved.

""

"NELSON!"

The muscles in Nelson's neck clenched and he dipped his head toward the sound. "NELSON!"

All the Triggermen and Nelson swung their guns towards the noise, but Nelson shouted back, "Don't shoot! -...Dad!?"

"Nelson! Don't shoot! We're coming out! Henry was going to try and kill you! We got proof! It's all on tape!"

"Nelson! What the fuck is going on?!" Trish demanded.

"That's my fucking father!"

"Nelson!"

"Dad! Where are you?" Scanning the storefront, and the alley, Malcom raised his hands over his head, and slowly approached the gang. "Don't shoot. Don't shoot."

"" Meathead whispered, ""

"

"Don't listen, he's lying!" Henry shouted from the ground, he dropped his gun after being hit, but it was so close he could reach out and grab it. Only, his hands were preoccupied with clasping the wound over his leg, and his palms were covered in his blood.

"" Meathead shouted again.

Trish and her guards didn't know what to make of the situation, but they waited on Trish to pull the trigger and give them the sign to fire at will.

Slowly, Malcom, Nate, and Paul all came out, and then as they approached, Paul kicked away Henry's gun.

"You've got about five seconds before there are holes in all of you, to explain why you just shot my business partner," Trish ordered.

""

"Nate, you cocksucking fucking rat liar! You're a fucking rat!"

Meathead ignored Henry's insults and unclasped the Pip-Boy, offering it to Trish. "."

"All right, all of you on your knees. Jarome, Theo, get over there. Take their guns."

Grabbing their weapons, Malcom looked the ghoul called Theo in the eye and told him, "That's my son." As he relinquished his weapon, he sat down on his knees, with his hands behind his head. From that moment on, he never took his eyes off Nelson.

She hesitantly approached, and when she came within a few meters, Meathead pressed play. The rest of the Triggermen and Nelson were silent, intent on listening to the evidence as well to cast their judgments on the four people in front of them.

The whole conversation, from when Meathead entered the Colonial Taphouse, admitting Darcy and Henry were sleeping together, which Paul had to endure hearing the words again, to Henry telling Nate about the side business, and Henry's offer to Nate to kill Nelson and the dealers. Trish noted that Nate never actually agreed to Henry's double-crossing deal, he only replied with 'Cheers'.

"That does it then. Nelson. Shoot him." Trish ordered. Nelson took his revolver and shot Henry dead center of the skull, without another lying deceitful word out of Henry's mouth.

Henry's body went limp, and the blood splattered across the road and onto the sidewalk.

"The rest of you, on your feet," Trish ordered, looking at Malcom first.

Malcom went up to Nelson, "What did I tell you about messing with gangs?"

Nelson was still shocked and embarrassed his father was coming to save him, but he was relieved as well. "Don't get caught?"

Malcom slapped Nelson with the back of his hand. "Don't be a dumbass! Get the fuck home! We're talking about this when I'm through here." His son spun, tripping on his heels and falling onto the ground as his father berated him.

Nelson was sent scurrying away, leaving the drugs and the money behind him. "Now that's out of the way, mind telling us who the hell are you, and why did you help us?" Trish asked.

""

"Trish and I are acquainted through a friend of a friend," Malcom replied, not needed Meathead to make the introductions.

Nate nodded, ""

"You're a smart man, but that still doesn't explain why you helped us. That rifle you have...I've seen the model, you could've taken maybe two more shots before we found where you were shooting from."

""

Paul was slightly surprised that his name was being put out there, but Trish and the Triggermen all sized him up in one glance as if to say 'yeah, he will do', before moving on. He didn't get to voice his opinion, but he was put in a position where he couldn't exactly refuse. He got his wish that Henry is dead, and if the cost was to take over Henry's life and be cut in on the profits made from a side gig he never knew about, there was an opportunity to be made.

Malcom spoke next, "What are you expecting to gain from this, Nate?"

With the attention of the group on Nate, he replied. ""

Trish wasn't in the mood to strike a deal, but with Henry dead and this vault dweller offering a deal, she accepted it.

Malcom departed after his son, leaving Paul, Nate, Trish, and the other three Triggermen to finish up.

"Business goes on, but-" Trish said, turning to Nate, "I want to have a little chat with you, One-Eleven."

\111/

After taking the keys to the Colonial Taphouse, and whatever else was in his pockets, the Triggermen carried Henry's body to concrete rail lining the river, and then dumped him over. The keys to the Colonial Taphouse were given to Paul, along with half the shipment of chems, and with the money being fronted by Meathead, Malcolm, and Trish for Paul to buy the Colonial Taphouse from Diamond City legally, Malcolm left as well.

Only Meathead, Trish, and the Triggermen were there to talk.

"You said that Henry was bad for business, but no one does something like this for people like us without wanting something more than money in return."

"" Trish was unfazed by the comment but pressed on.

"What do you really want, One-Eleven?" She asked, referring to the numbers on his Vault suit.

""

"What kinda project is this?" Trish asked, "What are you building? Sounds big, sounds juicy, but I want the details."

""

"Fine Mr. One-eleven. Deal. A favor. But, what do you want right now that'll get this big project of yours rolling?"

""

"Jet, Mentats, Psycho, Buffout, and Stimpaks," Trish responded, rattling off the five names.

"" Meathead pointed down at the pouch strapped to his leg, ""

"How'd that all come about?" Trish asked.

""

"I'll need to be sure what I say around you," Trish said, scratching at her chest. "So you want us to cut a deal with these raiders?"

""

Trish exhaled a no-pressure offer, something that might not even go through, a little test run. "All right, let's see these chems, what are they anyway?"

""

"And what do you get out of all of this?"

""

A deep sardonic laugh came from the pit of Trish's lungs like she was coughing out a load of flem, and growling like a dog, "Ah haha."

""

"Yeah, in about a thousand years."

""

"All right, you want to walk around without being shot at? I'll tell Marowski and our ghoul crew in South Boston to keep an eye out for One-Eleven." Trish turned to the other three Triggermen, "All right, back on the boat, we'll get these chems to Marowski and see if they're worth the effort. As for you, for saving us the trouble from dealing with Henry, come to the Four Leaf Fishpacking Plant, but watch for ghouls, smooth-skin! Southie is crawling with ghouls we'll hook you up with whatever you need for a good time. Remember the code word, Applejack." Waving him off, Trish and the Triggermen left on a metal boat welded together with a small motor attached to the back.

\111/

Author's Note

No joke, that's the password Trish gives you in the game.

Ch. 56 Oh My Angel Nov. 3rd

Author's Note

Tell me what you think in the comments.

Ch. 56 Oh My Angel Nov. 3rd

""

She shook her head, wiping her eyes and sniffling, but Meathead insisted. ""

Gulping, her throat felt dry. Meathead took two paces outside of the cabin door and picked up a yellow plastic jug filled with water, pouring out some into a large mug that Thunderstruck could wrap her hooves around.

In the few seconds it took Meathead to retrieve the water, she took another glance, looking out through the door and seeing the wooden ship interior.

"Thanks." She said, accepting the water. "Why did you do this? Where are we?"

"" Thunderstruck tensed up at the sight of a protectron patrolling through the glass, but Meathead quickly calmed her down. ""

Thunderstruck was quietly reserved, but Meathead read her easily. "" Meathead phrased, avoiding Nuka-World.

"Hundreds? What was that word you said, the Constitution? What is it?"

Meathead gestured all around the room. "<This is the USS Constitution, all of this we're standing in right now is a big sailing ship that Nate and I helped restore. Do you remember an extremely loud noise about two-three days before you flew over Diamond City?"

"Loud...noise? Ah! The noise! That distracted them long enough for us to escape! Oh my gosh! I need to go!" Thunderstruck was already turned towards the railing, taking steps to build momentum and fly away.

""

" A few other pegasi broke free, but we all scattered. I...I don't know where any of them went, but we heard about humans that helped slaves, who help people break free and escape."

""

"That's them!"

""

"Who's Nate?"

""

"A red unicorn? Athena?" She shook her head. "That's her name?"

""

"Her!" Thunderstruck worked her jaw, "I didn't know her name, but yeah! She is extremely violent, but she's a raider for sure...other raiders wouldn't go near her, but was never randomly violent like everybody else, when she attacked someone it was for a good reason. She was one of the ponies I saw who wasn't a slave. I didn't think she would still be alive...I didn't expect to see any other ponies outside of that hell-hole. I don't know which gang she belonged to or what her kind of deal she made, otherwise, I'd steer clear of her."

"" Meathead was about to say 'good hands', but thinking about Pickman made Meathead's skin crawl.
""

""

"Change? What do you mean?"

""

"Huh? Why do you chose to look like a dog?"

""

"Could you change yourself to look like me?"

""

"Do it."

"" Meathead replied, accepting the request. In a flash of green fire, Meathead changed into an exact replica of Thunderstruck.

Before Meathead could say anything more however, Thunderstruck kissed Meathead, startling him. She pulled away and frowned.

"Hmmm. Didn't think I was that bad."

"" Meathead replied in Thunderstruck's voice, but sensing he could get a second chance, ""

Leaning forward, Meathead primed the emotion of love, letting it flow into Thunderstruck as they kissed again. Passionately locking lips and falling in love with the new image of herself. She felt free and happy, something that she withheld from allowing herself to feel that way in a long time.

When they broke, ""

Thunderstruck nodded. "Better."

""

Thunderstruck sat down and nodded again, breathing in and expecting the change.

In another flash, Meathead was Nate, and the first thing Thunderstruck did was tilt her head. "What's that your wearing?"

"<It's a vault suit. It's what Nate wears most of the time. We're from Vault 111, see here on the chest?" Meathead said, pointing to the numbers. Turning around, it was much more obvious.

"Why don't you go around as yourself?" She asked.

""

"Robotic birds?"

""

"They sound terrible."

""

""

\111/

Meathead's tour of the boat first lead Thunderstruck up to the top deck, where the duo were able to make out some of the skyscrapers, but it was the light from the stars and moon that made the early morning visible to them.

The darkness was unsettling, and the patrolling robots didn't do much to quell any fears she had about robots, but after a few assurances from Meathead, and after realizing they wouldn't attack her, she calmed down a little.

""

The word made Thunderstruck cringe at the mention of the place.

""

Meathead's declaration only made Thunderstruck twitch violently and dip her head down.

""

"So he knows about the Gauntlet too?"

""

"The Gauntlet. A death trap that tricks raiders and other people into going into a maze filled with explosions, poison, and every other horror. It kills most of the people who try, but those who make it through get a chance to fight the-" Stretching her neck, the word didn't come out easily. "Overboss. Ever since they built it, the rule is if you kill-" She swallowed "Colter. Then you get to be the new boss."

Meathead stood there...unsure if he heard Thunderstruck correctly, ""

"If you kill Colter, then you get to be the new Overboss of that hell-hole. But any person running that would be just as terrible as the people who put it all together. I heard nobody's even been able to put a scratch on Colter. Electric Power Armor or something. It stops people from even being able to touch him."

""

As Meathead went down below, Thunderstruck felt the cool night air put a damper on her flight, but still, she persisted.

Flying off the rail, she flapped her wings and aimed straight for the next skyscraper. Wandering through buildings with blown out windows at the top usually were devoid of desks, cubicles, chairs, and other supplies. Instead, the fierce winds so high up could blow upwards of 70 to 110 knots per hour, ripping most of the interior out. Otherwise, like seaweed on the beach, everything was washed up against one wall.

Thunderstruck kept her exploration to the high towers, yet refraining from exploring the darker floors below, then returned in time to watch Meathead wake up.

Ch. 57 The Harbormaster Hotel

Nate and Nora didn't often stay in Boston proper. Only at times they were invited to grand events like weddings, parties, or a special night with their friends was when did they stayed downtown.

The Harbormaster was a location that they used to dine at, enjoying their excellent seafood selection. The Shamrock Taphouse that was partnered with the hotel next door contained a large selection of beers in every variety to pair with the extensive New England cuisine. During evening times, both businesses would refer customers to each other. Hungry guests staying at the Harbormaster would be directed to the closest source of rich local food, while the Taphouse would refer drunk or inebbriated customers to the Harbormaster where they could sleep, or quickly hail a taxi home.

The old hotel was once painted blue, but over time mellowed out to white-ish blue. There was a fountain in front of the main entrance, and the most iconic photogenic area was just behind the fountain, where people could walk to the waterfront. There was a boardwalk and dock that was built out over the water, with stairs leading down to a thin strip of beach for people to explore and walk on at low tide. A second viewpoint was on the sixth floor where an outdoor pool and balcony created a picturesque backdrop with the city of Boston in one direction, and the Charles Bay in the other.

Nate and Nora never stayed there at the Harbormaster personally, being so close to the city, it was only a twenty minute drive for the couple. They saw the rooms of the hotel when a friend of a friend was staying there, and invited them up to get ready and enjoy some pre-wedding libations.

Cigars, Brandy, and Cognac for the men, while as Nora came back to tell them the ladies sipped Champagne, or made Mimosas. The guys agreed not to tell the women about a indulgence with marijuana, and a tiny snort of cocaine, while the women agreed not to talk about the Xanex pills, and a cocaine that was acquired before hand.

The before-and-after parties seemed like such a blur now, but once they were both back at their home in Concord, collapsing onto the couch for a few minutes to let the past day sink in, they whispered and admitted to what they did in the privacy of those hotel rooms, then went to the master bedroom to have sex before going to bed.

The second most prominent feature of the Harbormaster Hotel was the pool and ball room on the sixth floor, which the second part was a bit of a misnomer.

The ball room was a small dining area that could fit around 100 people that would get flipped for weddings, ceremonies, buffets, and other events, right next to the pool and bar area.

When Nate and Nora went to their friend's wedding, the wedding vows were exchanged in the ballroom, over looking the Charles Bay, they kissed, then they congregated to the pool area and bar for drinks and conversation for an hour while chairs were rearranged, tables brought out, decorations and flowers placed, and silverware set.

After a break in the music, they all moved back into the dining area for dinner.

\111/

Meathead woke before daylight, only sleeping an hour and a half after finishing talking with Thunderstruck, when the Pip-Boy Alarm started going off.

Cracking both eyes, he switched the Pip-Boy off and clasped it onto his forearm, rousing Donny, while letting the Pegasus sleep.

Donny was still rubbing his eyes, half-awake aware that the man who looked like Nate, but was actually Meathead in disguise was guiding him home. Standing quietly in understanding that the adult was guiding him home before the rest of the city woke up as they descended, he didn't notice the small armory Meathead was carrying with him.

""

"Yes."

""

"Yes."

""

"No. We just walk up. But there's always someone keeping an eye out." The boy held the gun with a sharpshooter's grip, quickly checking to see if it was unloaded.

""

"Okay."

The doors parted and they were both struck by the cold early morning air coming in off the water. Being this close to the ocean made everything freezing cold in the morning, and made both of them tense for a moment.

""

\111/

The streets were still dark, but all of Meathead's senses were telling him the majority of Boston was still sleeping, which was perfect for the Changeling. It meant less chances of being attacked, which any engagement would put the kid at risk.

Meathead lead them down the blocks, at every intersection they crossed, they could smell the salt air and feel the temperature drop, and see the ocean just beyond the tide-wall. Avoiding any life source that seemed even remotely hostile. Their steps were quiet, but the rubble packing the streets, made walking through the city stealthily difficult. The roads were packed from times higher tides and storms from the ocean spat up debris and left them there as the waters receded.

A good thing to know for future endeavors of living along the coastline, there was to be an expected amount of flooding that washed out most of the bottom floor windows and basements. This allowed Mirelurks to get further into parts of Boston than expected, but it made sense as to their appearance farther in the city.

Passing Postal Square, Meathead could make out the sign for the Shamrock Taphouse and frowned. Signalling for Donny to stop. "" Meathead asked, sensing the dormant aggression from afar. So long as they were quiet and didn't draw any attention outside, they should be fine.

"Yep, but they don't bother us. Usually."

Weighing the kid's words, Meathead nodded and kept walking quickly rounding the corner past the building opposite to the Taphouse, they both saw the Harbormaster Hotel. While it was a reassuring sight for Donny, the bodies hung over the fountain were gouged with meathooks and suspended by chain, were not a tell-tale sign of a good time. On the walls and barricades built around the entrance of the hotel were paintings of skulls with 'X's over the forehead, with stitched mouths.

Meathead inwardly cringed, whispering under his breath, "" He was walking towards a Gunner's base.

""

Meathead suddenly realized the most logical question the Gunner's would ask is where the kid had been for the last 24 hours, and then Donny would come up with is that he stayed in the tower with the ship in it. Even if they didn't ask that, they might ask him how Donny got back, and the response would be that a man wearing a Vault 111 jumpsuit helped him get back.

That is, if they even cared about the kid, but in Meathead's limited experience in dealing with children, was that they were like little drunkards. You couldn't keep them from talking.

Trying to come up with a way that wouldn't lead a team of Gunners straight back to the USS Constitution, there was no time to critical think. He discarded the first and second ideas, both of them involved violence, and seeing as how it involved Donny's seudo-caretakers, Meathead didn't think to dig deeper into the group dynamics of who took care of him when there was time on the ship, but now he was walking towards options that should've been avoided.

With early morning light quickly ascending, the day was beginning, and from a darkened window inside the Harbormaster, they were both spotted. The '111' plainly visible on his coat, Meathead's choice was made for him.

" He asked as they crossed the street. "" Drawing out his pistol, he pulled back on the hammer, and switched the safety off.

\111/

Since the clearing out and destruction of their outpost inside Mass Fusion, Winlock and Barnes were both forced to crawl a long ways after Nate broke their knees. Humiliated them in Goodneighbor, the only way they got back was after leaning into each other for support, One step from Winlock, one step from Barnes, their rifles tied to their broken legs for braces.

Even after given Stimpaks, their bones weren't set right and took much longer to heal. After reaching Gunner Company, they told everyone they could of the piece-of-shit vault dweller from Vault 111. God-damn drunk was how they described Nate, possessed by the liquor to fight without recompense. Then, once they were mobile enough to move on, they left, but the description of the man who beat them remained.

\111/

Meathead went into the lobby, one of the more better preserved rooms he's been in. The lounge area was kept decent, but most of the ceiling tiles had fallen off, exposing the wiring and insulation above. The walls were cracked and peeling, a few deep splits in the painted drywall where the elements had worked their way in. There were a few dozen bullet holes grouped together, but the lack of blood indicated whoever was fighting held off their intruder. The skeletons were all pre-war, but shoved off to the sides instead of dealt with in a more proper manner.

Above their heads, Meathead and Donny could hear people moving around. The floorboards creaking and dust raining down from the ceiling. The elevator off to the side of the check-in desk was called to the third floor, where he could hear people being loaded in.

""

The movements stopped, but there was loud thumping, someone was chipping away at the floor from above, trying to bore a hole down through the ceiling.

A fist-sized hole appeared, and a grenade was shoved through.

""

It fell halfway down, before getting caught in a green glow and sent back up. The ceiling exploded, and two people fell through. One person was already dead from the explosion, while the other fractured his leg during the blast, and then got the wind knocked out of him as he slammed down onto the check-in desk.

Donny was screaming, having a fit because Meathead, or rather, the person for all appearances looked like Nate, killed two people he knew. "You Bastard!" The kid yelled, running behind the desk, Donny dove for cover.

The elevator cables banged and groaned at lack of maintenance as the rusted coils lowered the car down to the ground floor. Before the doors parted, and the door chime dinged, Meathead aimed at the elevator and let loose a whole clip of ammo straight through the doors, eviscerating the three people inside.

The doors parted and one body fell over, torn apart by bullets, and filled with holes, the interior of the elevator was covered in blood. Meathead sighed, tired from not getting enough sleep, and then forced into action.

With the stairs not immediately visible, and possibly only one way up, Meathead stepped over the body blocking the door frame, shoved him out onto the main floor, but as he did so, he felt Donny's rage, and looked up to see the kid holding a gun at him.

Donny was making a odd assortment of facial expressions that went from anger, to sadness, and then confusion, but the overarching look on his face was rage.

"" Raising one hand out towards the child, he spoke calmly.

Meathead was cut off by the kid shooting at him. The gun's recoil bucked the kid's hands wildly. The bullet struck the back of the elevator car, so Meathead used his magic grip to tilt the gun up, to avoid being shot, but Donny was fighting the telekinesis, and he was oblivious to the forces working against him. Firing again, the gun was already tipped up, the bullet struck the ceiling.

"" Realizing what was about to happen, Meathead let go of his telekinetic grip on the pistol Donny was aiming at him, but Donny fired three more times, all within the span of a second. Each pull of the trigger making the recoil tip the barrel up. Donny wasn't realigning the sights of the barrel towards his target and wasn't strong enough to properly compensate for the recoil. As he fired that third time, the gun was pointed directly up under his chin when Donny pulled the trigger on himself.

\111/

The elevator doors closed on the gruesome lobby, leaving Meathead squatting over three dead bodies there in silence, while the elevator waited for any sort of input to move.

Meathead stood up in the darkness, rubbing his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment before blindly reaching out to find the button.

Sighing, he closed his eyes, but the darkness behind his eyelids was still as dark as when his eyes were open. The bright image was still burned into his corneas.

\111/

Author's Note

Travis Lonely Miles cracked the door to his recording studio open, and sat on the stair stoop leading down to the walking path. Letting a fresh breeze of cool air come swirling into his home and station. The clouds were grey, while the air felt moist and the ground smelled of wet dirt, it maybe meant rain, or worse, acid rain. Mounted to the outside of his trailer door was a thermometer, currently reading 50 degrees, but Diamond City was a heat-pocket. It tended to be two to three degrees cooler outside the baseball stadium.

Clouds were blowing west, taking everything inland.

Sitting, he turned his torso around and extended his arm up to grab the microphone. Leaning far back, he curled the plastic cord around one finger and pulled the rest of it towards him.

"When the Four Tops wrote this next song...I doubt they had any idea what kind of world people would be living in. Ghouls? Mirelurks? Deathclaws? What a world."

"It's the way Nature planned it. Live on Diamond City Radio."

Ch. 58 The Taphouse

Author's Note

"It's the way Nature planned it, Radscorpions, Deathclaws, and acid raid included. Oh wait, Human's might of had something to do with the last two.

It's the Four Tops, only here on Diamond City Radio."

Ch. 58 The Taphouse

\111/

Thunderstruck feigned being asleep as Meathead woke up that morning. Leaving within minutes of getting up, he left the ship's cabin, and went to go find Donny to return him home.

Finally alone, there were candles on the writing desk which Thunderstruck quickly lit with matches, and then took the candle to a mirror.

Examining her hooves and forelegs, feeling her sides and barrel, running a hoof over her mane and stretching out her wings, all she could do was shudder at the alien sight of herself.

Her mind was telling her that she didn't deserve to feel this good, that she's never looked this pretty, or even has any right to feeling safe.

Even though it was only a week, and the changeling pod was still there in the bed quarter, she looked at it and felt as if a whole chunk of her life was missing.

The Nuka-World Dog collar was still in the room, but when she craned her neck up to look at the rub marks, but they were completely gone. That realization made her swallow, phantom paid made it feel tight and itchy, hard to breathe, but the more she rubbed her neck while looking in the mirror, the harder it was to finally accept she was free, let alone look and feel so drastically different.

Nate and Meathead left dozens of weapons about, picked up and gathered in their travels, amassing a small armory, with separate crates of ammo placed around the galley.

Moving topside, the sky was still dark blue-green but the sun was definitely rising quickly far to the east over the water's horizon. The securitrons and robots made Thunderstruck hesitate for a moment until she remembered that they were there for her protection.

\111/

Armed with enough ammunition and explosive ordinance to take out a 'monster the size of a house', Meathead was ready to fight a Mirelurk Queen, but the Gunners distracted him inside the Harbormaster Hotel.

Meathead exited through the hallway leading to the rooftop pool, where he sensed the last two Gunners were. One standing lookout over the street was unaware of the deaths of their comrads, while the other was behind the bar preparing food for breakfast.

The Gunner behind the bar looked up, expecting anyone else besides Meathead, and was shot with a look of confusion still on his face. The blast echoed off the seaside buildings, stirring any close enough from their slumber.

The lookout swung around, startled by the gunshot and was then shot four times in the chest by Meathead. His body fell over the edge, six stories down onto the street. There was the sound his body colliding with the concrete, followed by the clatter of the gun he held bouncing off the ground.

With an sigh of relief, Meathead was now alone. Finally feeling room to breathe, his mind was able to start processing Donny's death. It was a shame, but the kid pulled a gun on him. Recoil is what did Donny in, and that was why he didn't give a gun to the kid in the first place. He considered it, but knowing what he does now, it might've gotten him shot sooner.

Facing the south-east, the Charles Bay extended up to the north where Donny and the Buttercups claimed the sea-monster attacked them. The damage done to the docks was visible, and below the calm waves of the bay, a visible life force could be felt by Meathead.

It was large, for sure, but seeing a new creature always gave Meathead a pause, appreciating the life force, but also knowing he would need to snuff it out.

His focus went to the rest of the bay, and like the stars above, he noticed a cluster of ghouls, all trapped in a state of boredom or fear out on the water. He thought to himself that the only reason these ghouls were still alive, was because of an overturned ship, still bobbing just below the surface of the water.

Either way, they were of no importance to Meathead as he readied the weapons to fire down on the sleeping Mirelurk Queen.

Meathead had never seen a Mirelurk Queen, and his experience with the Mirelurks was limited.

Laying out grenades, clips of ammo to quickly reload his rifles, and a mini-nuke, he thought he was prepared to deal with the Queen, and then picked up a grenade.

He was about to throw it, his hand ready to pull the pin, when he thought about the Super Mutants next door in the Shamrock Taphouse, and left the balcony to draw them out.

\111/

The Shamrock Taphouse was a brewery, over twenty beers on tap. Ten beers brewed in house, and seven were all from around Boston, the last three were owned by AB. The last three were the standard cheap beers that could be found in any bar at any time, mass produced and made for $.02 per beer, then sold at a 30,000% markup for $6.00 each on draft.

Not a single beer had been served at the Shamrock Taphouse in over 150 years. A few years after the fallout settled, and people migrated through Boston, there was a time when someone took up the responsibility of making it an establishment again. There was always an edge in the air, since paper money was now worthless, and bartering was in full effect, it lasted only a year before being vacated when raiders became too much of an issue. Because of its position by the sea, people would wake up with Mirelurks outside the backdoor. As the centuries rolled by, the Shamrock Taphouse was host to many parties and groups over the years, but the most recent and destructive were the Super Mutants.

They lacked many cognitive abilities and abstract thought, like making rope or twine, instead using chain or lines that were leftover from before the war. This lead to them repurposing shopping carts as cages that they could shove humans into, or would take large stretches of chain-link fence and wrap them around with chain to make baskets or sacks.

Filling these sacks with hunted animals, prey, and humans, they were like gibbets. Crows and whatever other flying mutated creature would pick and peck at the decomposing proteins inside. Flies would lay eggs, leaving behind hordes of maggots to spawn and flourish in the congestion. In the summer times, maggots would be raining from the rotting meat sacks, but the Super Mutants would empty the entire sack onto a grill or into a giant cooking pot made from empty oil barrels or empty beer kegs to cook, and eat the entire festering gore stew.

\111/

Unable to get the scene that took place in the lobby out of his head.

He wasn't focusing, browning out, not blacking out where entire segments of time were completely forgotten, but so emotionally distressed that he could only remember bits and pieces of the last ten minutes, the same way someone has difficulty in the morning remembering what they did two days before now.

Knock on wood, he thought to himself.

Behind him, about one hundred feet to the waters edge was the sleeping Mirelurk Queen, while in front of him, standing at the backdoor of the Shamrock Taphouse, were Super Mutants on the inside.

Making sure there were no watching crows or hidden Institute cameras, he changed into the form of a Super Mutant.

Lobbing a grenade into the water, the explosive blast blew water sky high, and woke the now angry and confused Mirelurk Queen.

It rose out of the water, but Meathead had to tilt his head back at how tall this massive twenty-five foot tall mutated crustacean was.

"" Being one of the first things seen by the Mirelurk Queen, Meathead immediately started backing up towards the Shamrock Taphouse, but not before firing at the Mirelurk Queen.

The massive Queen shrieked, it's mouth and jaws parting, only to spray a massive greyish-green slime. Meathead counted with a shield formed from magic like an umbrella, but was shocked to watch the slime come into contact with debris, metal, and concrete.

This two-story monster was spraying acid.

It's massive creature had claws the length of its torso, and struck down. Tearing up the concrete and sea wall, Queens eight legs moved consecutively like a spiders. The body was as wide as a small car, and the shell was thick as a 3/4 inch metal plate. Climbing up onto the walkway and coming towards Meathead, he baited the creature towards the Taphouse.

Being a changeling, he was using magic to aid his ascent to the third story roof, and took caution as tiny membranous eggs were dropped by the Mirelurk Queen, and baby mirelurks struggled to life.

If Nate were here, he would say something along the lines of "Where's Attenborough when you need him?" But Nate was ten miles away, and dealing with mutated spawns of nature called molerats.

On the Mirelurk Queen's torso, there were three pairs of smaller claws meant for feeding and moving food towards the mouth, while the larger ones were for fighting and crushing.

Taking cover below the edge of the bricks lining the roof, Meathead held steady with baited breath, counting on the Mirelurk Queen to strike the entire building to get to him.

When she did, the entire Taphouse shook.

Gouging a claw deep through the third and second stories, a large strip of wall was ripped from the side of the building. Sheetrock and insulation was thrown away, scattered onto the street as the Mirelurk Queen spit more acid and cleaved at the backside.

All eight Super Mutants inside the Shamrock Taphouse were aware of the giant monster destroying their base, and charged to the back end of the restaurant and bar. With rifles, sledgehammers, and even a missile launcher, they all attacked at once, but Meathead skirted to the opposite side of the building, then jumped across the alley, through a window back into the Harbormaster Hotel. The room he landed in was rife with debris from the floors above and a collapsed ceiling, making it difficult to reach the hallway, but he went quickly broke through the door to the sea-side facing room to watch and study the super mutants fighting the massive sea monster.

The mutants equipped with sledgehammers bashed at the legs of the Mirelurk Queen, breaking through the shell, but the queen felt the pain, and slammed her claw down, killing one by crushing the mutant with her massive claw. Raking it across the ground, she flung up chunks of concrete, showering the mutants with rubble as bullet after bullet was fired into her.

A missile exploded across her chest, ripping deep cracks and spraying thick globules of bluish-clear gel like blood across the street and splashing bits into the water.

This thing was a killing machine, a war bot set to destroy, even though it was damaged, hurt, and weakened, as long as it could still move it's claws, it bashed against the backside of the brewery, scraping the walls and bending the foundations.

There were only vats and tanks in the back of the Taphouse, connected by rusted out pipes that used to carry beer, and as the Mirelurk Queen forced her frame against the brewery to reach in and jab at anything she could touch, the super mutants jumped on one claw to pin it down, but were bashed against the ceiling, then dragged across the floor over rubble and into the street.

Laying his weapons out in the hotel room, Meathead took one look around, then went to their sink. Underneath the sink compartment was Abraxo cleaning powder, then a bottle of turpentine was sitting in a cupboard above the fridge. Taking an empty Nuka-Cola bottle and a fresh full bottle of soda, Meathead made something Nate and his friends would make for 4th of July.

Nuka-Grenades.

The trick was remembering how much Abraxo to Turpentine mixture, but if Nate's firework filled summers, and killing the Mirelurk Queen was anything to go by, equal parts Abraxo and Turpintine with half Nuka-Cola Quantum.

It was a passing thought that kept him preoccupied while making the hand-grenade that before the war, Nuka-Cola was premiering the new Nuka-Cola Quantums for months in advertisements, billboards, and radio broadcasts. It was going to be the next big soda, if not the only one left.

The contents of the bottle quickly expanded and made the bottle warm, but that would settle. Recapping the grenade, and going to the balcony window, the fight was mostly over, with the battered queen wanting to retreat, and the three remaining super mutants of the original eight either in cover, or taking pot shots when the queen wasn't facing them.

Wanting to genuinely know how much it would take to kill a Mirelurk Queen, Meathead threw the Nuka-Grenade, using his magic to make it perfectly sail and strike the Queen, not in the head, but the face. Much like Meathead, the mirelurk had a faceplate with two sets of jaws, one for ripping and tearing, the other for chewing, but the idea that he went straight for the unprotected teeth and muscle closest to the Mirelurk Queen's brain meant that it had all of one second to realize that it was about to bite into a glass bottle when the entire grenade exploded.

The mouth and face were obliterated, but the Mirelurk Queen was too big to die slowly, it thrashed and went into death throws, like when you cut a live lobster in half with a knife head-to-tail, the body and nerves keep twitching and activating, but isn't getting any response back. Shooting at it now would be redundant, a waste of food and ammo.

The monster collpased on itself as the echo from the explosion died away.

The Mirelurk Queen was still moving, it's claws and legs stretching out, reaching for something, but not seeing. It rolled the joints around managing to crawl up, then fall over to the otherside, but all and all, this thing was nearly dead.

Dropping down into the brewery, the three remaining super mutants were part of the reason Meathead didn't need to over expend any of his resources or fight much, so he was quick to kill them while they were still recovering.

The back of the brewery was easy to walk into, a blown out hole in the wall that went up three stories. There was a super mutant there, sitting with a sledgehammer propped up against his legs, and a rifle across his arms. The mutant was breathing heavily, exhausted and still coming down from the adrenalin of fighting a monster. Something caught the mutant's attention, and was suddenly up on his feet, aiming the rifle at Meathead, but in a flash, Meathead reappeared right behind the mutant with a shotgun of his own. Blowing the backside of the mutant's head off, the other two came out of their recovery to fight.

The one was armed with a missile launcher, and didn't want to blow more holes in the building they were inside, so he didn't fire, leaving himself open to be taken out with a fury of buckshot that scattered the muscles and bone in his arms, rending them away and burning hot lead pellets scalding their way deeper into his skin.

Forced to drop the missile launcher, it was like shooting a carnival dummy, knocked down with three more shells to the body, then falling down with eyes still open, still looking even unto death.

The last super mutant, Meathead didn't use any tactical planning, or diversions to deal with the last mutant, he readied a small machine gun, one he could hold with one hand and held thirty rounds of ammo, and then sensed where the last one was hiding. Catching the mutant off guard, and then firing all thirty rounds into the backside, the mutant was dead half-way through the burst of gunfire.

Laying the gun on the counter, there was no one else in the Taphouse, and the Harbormaster Hotel was completely empty. He'd cleared two giant buildings and in less than twenty minutes.

Like a mosquito on the back of his neck, Meathead's hand went to his neck as he spun around, sensing a bit of Intrigue.

Far across the radiated bay, Meathead sensed the emotion for a moment. For the first time in a long while, Meathead felt as if he were being watched. His focus went out into Charles Bay again, but whoever he sensed was dampening his emotions. All that remained in Meathead's vast plain of view of the water was lingering boredom and fear again.

\111/

Wandering through the taphouse, stashing a few beers away for later, the brewery was mostly destroyed, but the restaurant, kitchen, and bar attached to the front of the building were still standing.

Confident that the building was safe, or that he could burrow himself out of a cave-in, Meathead went through the restaurant, ignoring the bodies hanging upside down from chains, bleeding out, with piles of organs on metal prep tables nearby festering with flies.

Away from the kitchen, down a hallway decorated with faded beer advertisements, and cracks running up and down the walls, with sections of sheetrock missing and ceiling hanging down, was a back office that was untouched by mutants.

It was locked, but even a wedge and a credit card could pop the door open.

Two steps into the room, there was a desk with a computer on it, and then to the right was a tall silhouette standing perfectly still in the darkness.

For not being able to sense the robot, Meathead jumped at the sight it, back towards the door.

"" He said in surprise, cutting himself off.

The protectron-sized robot didn't activate or move until Meathead came around to inspect the front side of the robot.

A panel with two switches and a dial was open, one label clearly identifying the on-off switch. The main logo and brand across the front side read "Drinking Buddy," in metallic red.

There were four taps and dispensers out of a large keg-sized body, with a speaker built into the frame above the taps.

"" Meathead asked, reaching out to flip Drinking Buddy on.

\111/

Ch. 59 Leaving Vault 81

After receiving a complimentary bag of Rad-Away to bring down his radiation level from Dr. Forsythe, and the syringer rifle, Curie asked for "A moment of your time," to Nate.

Nate nodded and turned to face her. "After being trapped for so many years, I believe it is customary to say thank you in your role for saving me."

"You're welcome, Curie." Nate replied, smiling back at her, but for him, it always satisfied the curious part of his mind that wondered what machines thought.

"My entire life was spent in this vault. I analyzed and learned everything there is to know here. Now I must see the rest of the Commonwealth, consult with scientists, and unearth more data to challenge my hypotheses." She raised her claws, posturing herself with hand gestures.

"What do you want to learn up there, Curie?" He asked, hands raised up towards the ceiling, looking upwards to the sky.

"Down here is an enclosed system," One of her three eye cones rolled to the door of of the clinic, examining a person walking by and taking notice of the duo together. "Without the introduction of new mutagens, viruses, or bacteria, it's quite dull, medically speaking." Nate swore a the robot was programmed to take an audible breath, but his ears might've been playing tricks on him. "The world up there is infinitely more complex. Who knows what type of diseases can be found and studied?"

"You said you wanted to follow me out, but there's more than you know. On October 23rd, 2077, Atomic bombs fell on Boston. The scientific community you want to reach out and find is desperately lacking in all departments."

"But surely there is still men of learning out there. And if nothing else, there is data. Please Monsieur, may I come with you?"

"I like you Curie, you're curious about the world, and that type of yearning to understand more about the world changes peoples perspectives. Yes, you can come with me. In fact, I want you to come with me. You seem animated and full of character. You wouldn't happen to have any surgical knowledge in your memory would you?"

"Oh! I am so delighted to hear you say that. Unfortunately, I do not possess any advanced surgical techniques, however. I know by going to the local public library, or by visiting a hospital the necessary information might be available for me to download."

Nate nodded, rubbing his left eye. He swore in his head, knowing what lurked inside the Boston Public Library, and how his chances at finding to a non-corrupted file of main aorta surgery along with treating a bullet wound at a hospital were equally slim.

But, he looked down at his hand. If he caught a sickness from the mole rat bite, then it was still worth it, because now he found his surgeon. Someone with steady grips and a careful degree of excellence. The next step in rescuing Nora would be to get Curie smartened up a bit, prepare the surgery room, and then find a place Nora can recooperate after surgery. Once everything was in place, Nate would be able to see the life spark in Nora's eyes again.

\111/

Overseer McNamara's office was hot and dry, like the inside of a microwave. The fluorescent meter long light bulbs buzzed above Bobby De Luca's head, making him think there were flies incessantly droning about.

Circling about, he felt the synapses fire in his brain, and his limbs were tingling, but his stomach was a hot tight ball of knots that knew exactly what was coming next.

Vault Dwellers are saved from certain pains of the surface, while opening themselves up to other different types of suffering. What they do with that pain and suffering, how they process it, how it becomes a part of their lives are all part of life and growing up. They can feel pain, but don't have to suffer, since suffering is a construct of the mind.

A person can be in no physical pain, but be suffering greatly on the inside because their mind is telling them to suffer, because they have no other outlet to process the stress behind it.

No mantra to sing, no hymn to hum, no deity to get down on their knees and thank. By going down into the vaults, the dwellers cut themselves off from spiritual growth, because if the original residents were to have a degree of law to sort through the cyrptobabble mess that was the resident sign up, they would come to realize they've been hired as part of a much larger job.

They aren't residents, they're employees. And employees can be fired much more quickly than a resident being kicked out of their home. The rooms aren't residents room, they are employee housing.

All benefits and perks of living in a Vault, is because they are hired by Vault-Tec. to work and maintain the Vaults for as long as possible.

Most people after a few generations don't see it that way, that the Vault takes care of them. They've found a resolute happiness from working every day. They took pride in what was built and aimed to maintain the status quo and keep things running smoothly.

Overseer McNamara was speaking to him, but Bobby's had years of training, ignoring important conversations and cherry picking the details. It was clear on her face, the redness building in her throat, the way her dried lips were bared and how her teeth were visibly showing. Like a dog chasing off another dog, 'no food here, no water, Grrr. Go away.'

She started slow, but now she was simply tearing into him, all the power and control in the world belong to her, and in that brief moment, Bobby thought to himself.

"She has no control over me. She never has. What power she does have is turn all the other residents against me, and kick me out." Bobby came to the realization with a tear forming in his right eye, then his left. Hot steamy tears running down his face while Overseer McNamara tore into him, getting louder after seeing the tears run down his face and platter onto his blue vault suit.

"...Visibly slowing down, losing track of equipment, tools, personal items, etc. Repairs are taking two, three times as long, which is why we've been training replacements. Your performance is unacceptable, while working on the job, you sneak away to get high, and not only do you put your stash in a abandoned second half of the vault that no one ever knew about, a part of the vault you don't even bother mentioning to anyone, you couldn't even move your drugs and come up with an excuse for how you found the place. We've been desperate for space, storage, and expansion since the Vault first closed."

She paused only to gather her breath, the flames in her heart weren't cooled yet.

"Instead, you kept it a secret, and didn't pay attention to your surroundings, this lead to Austin being able to sneak into the reactor core. He learned when you would take your so called smoke breaks, and watch how to get into the second half of the vault. You've endangered your sister as well as the rest of the residents of the vault."

"One of these mole rats already infected a resident you need to realize that, what if the entire nest was on the other side of that door one day, and as you go to open it while you're looking for drugs, and you're attacked. An entire swarm of diseased mole rats are unleashed into the reactor room."

"Who is the next person, after you're bitten and possibly killed, infected by molerats if you survive, who is the next person to stumble upon the swarm? Your sister? What then? The classroom close by? Any number of the residents in housing?"

"You do realize how this looks, right? You do realize the depth of your actions and the consequences they have? Everyone here is lucky, beyond lucky that the circumstances are what they are. I feel aggravated. Not only because of the implications for what Vault-Tec. did to us, but if not for the foresight and intuition of men and women born and died decades before you were born that it was possible for Austin Encill to be alive right now."

"The Sole Survivor was the first to offer himself in a heartbeat, and we don't even know who he is except that he's a Vault Dweller from a different Vault. Here he is, helping out fellow Vault Dwellers. He hasn't hesitated once in finding an outcome that benefits everyone, and he comes with more understanding of how the pre-world surface works than anyone alive today. He knows how to apply terms that we've only been able to have the basic understanding of because, we've never been able to gain experience from using that information in the real world. You realize he was bitten? That while Austin lives, he may succumb to even worse diseases?"

"He spoke to me earlier, and we discussed your end of employment here at Vault 81. We discussed potential outcomes. We discussed your future, Bobby DeLuca. We discussed the future of Vault 81."

She looked into Bobby's eyes and spoke with the force of a sledgehammer behind each word. Thank God for the quick little puff of Jet he took before coming in, otherwise Bobby would've felt the true fear of God and felt like he was being electrocuted with lightning bolts from McNamara's intense gaze. He would've felt like being blown backwards twenty feet, out the doors and thrown down the stairs, rolling the entire way down.

Still, his heart hammered against his ribcage, entire head swelling up like a balloon. Here it came. The breaking point. The so called piano wire that was being plucked and plucked and plucked finally about to break.

"If you were to leave Vault 81, it is undoubtedly assured that your sister, Tina, would leave with you. Whether I say or try to convince her otherwise and continue working on the Reactor is up to her, but I know that she's expressed desire to leave the Vault. That leaves us two empty positions to fill in the Reactor Core." McNamara said, "Which I've already filled."

Every time the Overseer finished a sentence, it was like another nail being hammered into Bobby's coffin, and this last one was his own sister. A person he never wanted to hurt, not even by accident or his own stupidity.

"The Sole Survivor reached out to me and offered to transfer you to a new Vault. Vault 111. As acting Overseer of his Vault, we agreed that a transfer would be in the best interest of both parties. It wouldn't be leaving you out in the cold, but I'm told you would be working extra hard just to survive in Vault 111. They haven't even started a garden, one which Dr. Penske is helping Nate plan and coordinate. There are water, beds, and the exact same job of maintaining and repairing the reactor, the only difference between him and me, is that I can't stand to look at you anymore, Bobby. You don't have to take his offer, but I strongly suggest you do. He's the only one offering any other outlets for you and your sister to both pick up and move. Without it, you would be assuredly on your own in the Commonwealth Wasteland, with only the standard equipment that will be issued to all Vault Dwellers when they leave. One Ten millimeter pistol, thirty six rounds, a canteen, five stimpaks, five doses of RadAway, and three days of food ration. That is Vault 81's gift to you."

"Pack up your things, convince your sister to go with you, and then leave. I wont have morale dampened by separating siblings from each other. Nate is in the re-purposed room by the elevator, waiting for your answer. Now go."

\111/

Can electricity feel stale? Stale isn't the right word, Bobby knew. It was all about Voltage, and wattz. He read in a manual, that America's voltage output was 110 volts, while in Europe their voltage output for plug ins was 250 volts, more than double. Which meant electronics going from continent to continent might burn out from being overloaded with energy, or not work from receiving enough electricity through the wire.

That's what he felt like. He wasn't getting enough volts through his body. That he should be operating with more energy, and he is, but the plug ins are all screwy, and the lights buzz even louder than before.

Every step down the Overseer's office stairs back to the main foyer felt jolting, sending racks of electric tingles through his legs. He didn't know if it was pain or relief, he didn't know what to make of the sensation of being fired and rehired somewhere else.

That's what it was, wasn't it? He was fired. And in the same breath, rehired to work in a Vault. Exact same thing, different people, different environment. It was all on him to make it work.

It was his responsibility to make this new job work.

His head shuddered.

Bobby feels the tension of doing Jet from the other members of the vault and dwellers complain to Overseer, Tina goes with him. Nate hires them to work in Vault 111.

Walking around the upper floor to the main lobby, Bobby saw Nate sitting on his bed talking with Tina inside, and they both looked up to him and his sullen face.

Nate waved him in.

\111/

"Here I was about to leave, but there's a radiation storm going on up above, so we're waiting out the storm." Nate said to Bobby, there was only one chair by the desk, but Tina was sitting in it while Nate sat on the bed. That left Bobby standing as his eyes rested on Nate.

"I was talking with your sister about being employed up at Vault 111. It's not glamourous, or well lit like Vault 81, you'll need to find and cook all your own food. The work will be maintaining the vault and the reactors, but you'll have a bed and clean water. I've been writing up long lists for jobs and tasks that need to be done around Vault 111 and Sanctuary Hills, that's the neighborhood where we'll all be living in. These are things you can do to make caps and start earning a living for yourselves. An important item on the list will be setting up the greenhouse and hydroponics system to start growing food, but before we even start that, we need to remove all the cryogenic pods in the room, find seeds, and bring in dirt. Are you ready to work harder than you've ever worked before to survive, Bobby? There wont be any sneaking off, because you'll both be on your own and if you think that you can do things your way, and go against me, you'll be mistaken." Nate said, making sure to keep Bobby's attention.

"I'll throw you out, same as Overseer McNamara is doing right now, but if you listen to me, and follow my instruction exactly, then you and your sister will be much better off in the long run. You'll gain self-worth, and maybe take pride in your work after building something, but all that is up to you if you want to fuck around and do drugs and not work, that's fine, I'll say good bye and tell you to not come back. But, if you accomplish your work, and get things done, then you'll do great."

"I don't have anywhere else to go." Bobby said, trying to take everything in.

"That's not what I asked, Bobby. I asked are you ready to work harder than you've ever worked before? There will be so many things to do, you wont have time to complain or think about other things, because you'll be working too hard."

"Bobby, he's giving us a chance. Say yes." Tina urged her brother.

"Yes."

"Good. Now, shake my hand." Nate said, extending his right hand. Bobby gripped it, but Nate's grip was tighter and strong. Shaking once, he let go. Bobby flexed out his hand afterwards.

"Go pack your things and anything else you want to take with you, because you'll be carrying it yourself. No offloading anything to your sister or expecting anyone else to take care of you, you got me? It'll just be you. I'll guide you back to Vault 111, and there you'll meet Codsworth. He's overseeing the tasks your doing, while I have him working on something else. I'm going to give him the list of tasks, and make sure both of you are doing it, but I'll be heading out back into the Commonwealth, understand? Once I come back, he'll give me a report on both of your progress. If things are running fine, then you'll get to stay. Otherwise, I wont need you and I will ask you to leave."

Bobby nodded. He flushed most of the Jet away, aside from his last little personal hit before being called into the Overseer's office. No more drugs, he swore to himself. He needed this, to get away and find something else to do. Life was boring here in Vault 81, maybe that's why things got so out of hand. Drugs were a stimulus, but the wrong type. Buildings things from the ground up sounded hard, but even the reward of not needing to find a new place to live in the Commonwealth sounded so much better than nothing except the clothes on his back and the few rations of food in his kit.

"What will we do for food?" Tina asked.

"We'll be passing a number of farms on our way back. There's a farm south of Sanctuary Hills, Codsworth will give you items to trade, and then you can take them to Abernathy Farm, it's right under the giant electric wire supports, you can't miss it. Talk to them about trading for food, or if you're interested, there's a store farther south of Concord, called Drumlin Diner. I'll introduce you to Trudy there. There's Oberland Station, where a couple is settling down and living out of a train depot, but they've managed to set up a garden in a fenced in area. That's on this side of the river, and I don't expect you to often make the trip from Sanctuary Hills to Oberland, but they're friendly and need help with jobs. They might pay you, and be more open to trading their tomato plants at a better deal if you help them. Lastly will be Greygarden, it's a greenhouse run by Mr. Handy's. They've got the seeds we'll need for our own garden, I'm buying a few from Priscilla, but Greygarden will be one of your best resources for fruits and vegetables. There's a Mr. Handy you can trade with, but, if you steal from them, they will hunt you down and kill you. That's not me just saying that to intimidate or scare you, that's how they were programmed."

\111/

As Nate spoke, both Tina and Bobby's pip-boys gathered and collected all the notes they needed to keep track and be aware of. Their task list had never been longer than before since they received their personal computers, and before they knew it, they were already packed with their entire lives into three bags that they strapped onto their backs, and a gun to their waist.

They met back in Nate's room, who was talking with Curie, but it wasn't more than five minutes later a guard came and rapped his knuckles against the sliding door.

"Come in." Nate called out.

The latch on the sliding door clicked, and the doors parted upwards. The guard took one step into his room and said, "The storms broke."

Nate stood up, "Time to go."

\111/

When they ascended in the elevator, both Bobby and Tina were nervous, they'd been up to the main entrance before, but there was a line mentally drawn in their minds about how far they've ever gone. It was to the catwalk that extended out and through the Vault door, then everything else beyond that was unknown territory to them. Nate strode ahead with Curie behind him, then the twins both followed after them.

Nate waved goodbye and mentioned, "See you around." While a guard thanked Nate for saving Austin's life. The twins weren't given the most heartfelt goodbye, but they expected that.

Outside, chills ran down from the tip of their skull, down to their feet.

Nate let them have their moment of awakening and awareness of the outside world, even though it was hazy with fog.

"We'll follow train tracks north, which will take us right past Oberland Station and Greygarden, but we'll be passing a raider's camp at Corvega Factory, I'll point it out, but they shouldn't give us any trouble."

Rounding the hill and walking to the top through the barren tree husks, Nate stopped for a moment to let the twins and Curie get their bearings.

"That over there is Diamond City. Best way to get there from here is run along the waterfront, then take a right at the first drawbridge you see there with the tugboat against it. Go into the city for five blocks, and then you'll be there at the front gate." Nate turned around and looked North, "See that way up there?" Through the fog it was difficult to see, but the group could make the outline of a highway overpass, and beyond it was the telltale shape of the Corvega car factory. Even now, the lights blinked in sequence.

"Yeah."

"That's the Corvega car plant, the raider camp. Once we get to Grey Garden, we're going to detour West and North. I haven't dealt with them in a while, but they'll be hostile towards us if we get too close."

\111/

After reaching the train terrace bride leading across the Charles river, the fog lifted and they could see clear up and down to the West and East. "What's that?" Tina asked, pointing to a cluster of buildings to the West.

"That's a water treatment facility, but I doubt it's operational." Nate said, stopping to dig through his satchel. He pulled out a scope and frowned. "Yeah, Super Mutants are holed up there. Take a look."

"Super Mutants? This close?" Bobby asked.

"Hey! Look there." Nate said, pointing to two moving shapes by the waters edge on the far side of the river. "You want food? I'll show you how to get some food." Ejecting the shotgun rounds, he loaded in three slug rounds. By the river were two rad-elk, grazing by the river's edge.

"That'll be enough to feed one person for a month. Let's see if I can hit them."

"What are Super Mutants?" Curie asked, scouting her memory banks, there were no files found. She created a new one and was

"Just a sec." Nate said. Crouching down, both the twins and Curie were hesitant to intrude on Nate's line of thought as he laid his shotgun barrel on the rail, and aimed down the ironsights.

Exhaling, he fired and the slug round rocketed out of the end of the barrel, striking the elk 50 meters away and tearing into the shoulder. The elk yelled and collapsed, quickly trying to get back up as the other fled, but the shot elk was in pain and couldn't rise.

"Yes! I got 'em!"

Both the twins and Curie were startled by the detoured hunting trip, but Nate saw an opportunity and took it. Running the rest of the way across the bridge, Curie called out again, "What are Super Mutants?"

"They're humans infected with a Forced Evolutionary Virus. Makes them stupid, increases their muscle mass, impervious to radiation, extremely aggressive. They're all green and hit like a sack of bricks." Nate said, grabbing at his chest where an old wound was felt. He remembered the Mutant who got a hold of him in Faneuil Hall, and how fun it was to be rammed through a wall, and tossed down two stories onto a staircase with only wood to cushion his fall.

"I don't want to be the one to point out the obvious, but aren't we running towards the water plant where you said the Mutants were?" Bobby asked.

"Do you want to eat meat? Then follow me and stay quiet. We'll need to take him and be quick about it. I for one want elk steak tonight, and if you don't help me carry it back, then you're not getting any. Plain and simple."

The twins last meal was breakfast that morning, before Nate arrived and went into the other side of the Vault. Their hungry went by the wayside when it came to lunch, and by that afternoon, they were outside Vault 81, and neither of them wanted to quickly break into their food rations. Jogging to keep up with Nate, they got to the elk, which was panting on its side.

Nate took out his knife and killed the elk, stabbing it in the chest. The elk tensed up for a moment then collapsed completely. Passing his shotgun to Tina, he told her to keep watch, and handing her a handful of shells, she examined the shotgun and figured out how to load the gun.

"Safety's on. Safety's always on." Nate said, showing her the red and black switch along the barrel. "When you're not aiming at something, safety's always on. When you need to shoot, flick the safety off and fire. I'm going to break down the carcass, and it'll take a while."

\111/

Tina, Bobby, and Curie stood watch in a circle facing away from Nate as he skinned the elk from the head, down to the legs, and then the rear. Pulling out the organs and tossing them into the river, Nate kept the liver and the heart. Careful not to puncture the small intestine or the anus, the elk was gutted and skinned.

With bloody hands, he asked for Bobby to go through his backpack and find plastic bags he stuffed in there. Afterwards, Nate filled the first three bags with elk meat and bones. Cutting the whole legs off at the ball joints, he wrapped them up as well. Cutting the head off, Nate preferred not eating the brain, and into the river it went as well.

Cutting down through the spine took the longest amount of time, but in the end, the two halves of the elk, along with four legs were divided into six bags. Rolling up the hide and placing it in his backpack, it took an hour to break down the carcass, and one slug round netted them over one hundred pounds of meat and fifty pounds of bones.

In all that time, Tina never took her eyes off the water treatment plant down the road, and let the rest of the group know whenever she saw movement, but nothing ever came for them. Bobby kept his eyes down the road, nervously looking all around him as the Jet wore off and he was sobering up. He felt cold, but sluggish as well. Curie kept her eyes on the water, testing the water itself and recording the toxicity levels and amount of ambient radiation in the water as well.

"Alright, everyone take two bags. We're moving out." Nate went down to the river to wash his hands and knife free of the blood, eager and hungry to taste some home cooked food that wasn't preserved. The taste of powdered milk and Sugar Bombs were still on the top of his tongue, but the more he thought about a grilled steak, the more his mouth watered.

Taking his shotgun back from Tina, he holstered it on his back and picked up two bags of elk, as the twins picked up their own bags and grimaced that blood got on their suits.

"Don't worry about the blood, it washes off. Since your hands are already dirty, they might as well get more dirty. There's water at Vault 111 that you can use to wash up."

From the water a mirelurk emerged, drawn by the scent of blood in the water.

"Interesting," Curie said, making the trio turn around. Nate dropped the bags he was carrying and went for his shotgun, but Bobby was already there with his pistol, firing at the face and chest with his 10mm pistol.

The mirelurk retreated, and dove back into the water, but the group didn't wait for it to return.

"Come on. I'm starving and we got a long way to go."

"What a bizarre creature...It's a type of shellfish, correct?" Curie asked aloud, Nate didn't know for sure, and the twins never saw anything like that in their entire life, they only knew that it was getting too close for comfort.

"I believe so, yes. I haven't had time to really look at Mirelurks yet."

\111/

The expedition back to Sanctuary Hills wasn't a straight shot, they stopped at Grey Garden, and traded caps for seeds, along with an entire mut-fruit plant down from the roots, that Nate was hoping to transplant it back in Sanctuary Hills. Since it was an outdoor plant, and with the winter season coming upon them, it was imperative they get a greenhouse up and running as quickly as possible.

From Dr. Penske, Nate gave her the outline of the room and she drew in blueprints for how many crops could be yielded from the area. Naturally, the fastest growing plant would be potatoes and onions, both of which she gave to Nate while they were in Vault 81.

But following the train tracks North lead them to Rocky Narrows park, at which point two ghouls were standing next to a table, fingers dragging over the wood.

"Tina, you're up. Those are ghouls. Irradiated humans. Take your gun, and line up the shots. Remember the recoil, but stay calm. They don't look too animated. Aim for the chest area, you're more likely to hit them than the head."

Tina set down her bags and nodded, taking a step closer they were thirty feet away.

"Shoot."

Tina fired three shots, and all three went wild. That got their attention though, Tina panicked and fired six more times, only striking one ghoul in the chest once. The others hit the dirt, or sailed past them.

"Three shots left, make them count." Nate said.

Tensing, Tina fired two more shots, but now the ghouls were about to hit her, "Do something!" Bobby said to Nate.

Nate unsheathed his knife, "I am, unlike you."

Tina screamed as one ghoul hit her, but she kicked it back and fired straight into the skull. It didn't die, so Nate charged at one, knocking it to the ground. Grabbing the second ghoul by the shoulders, he flung it back and let it tumble to the ground. Shoving the knife into Tina's hands as she fumbled to reload her pistol, Nate said "Here, knives don't need to reload. Aim for the neck."

Taking a step back, both ghouls started to rise. "Anytime Bobby." Nate said off-hand.

"Huh?" He asked, confused.

"Any fucking time, Bobby, you're sister's in danger and you're standing there with your thumb up your ass! Let go of the bags and grab your gun!"

Tina swung and stabbed the ghoul in chest above the heart. But it snarled and swatted at her as the second turned its attention towards Nate.

"You need to want to kill it, Tina! You need to both channel some inner bloodlust or this world is going to kill you dead! Hurry the fuck up, Bobby!"

Nate raised his elbow and bashed the second ghoul in the side of the head.

"It doesn't want to die!" Tina yelled.

"Then keep stabbing it until it's dead! Kill it!" Nate shouted, Curie raised one of her arms, ready to fire a laser blast, but Nate told her to hold back.

Bobby tackled the second ghoul to the ground with the gun in his hand. Holding it to the chest, he fired three times, killing it as Tina unstuck the knife and plunged it in again.

The ghoul groaned but Tina was beyond the point of tears, she pulled the knife out and stabbed the ghoul three more times before it stopped moving. Taking a few steps away, she let go of the knife and collapsed to her knees, crying.

Bobby rushed to her side, "What the fuck, man?"

"Neither of you possess a killer instinct, without that, you're both good as dead."

"You're a monster!" Tina yelled.

"I don't care what you think of me, without first hand experience on how to kill, the both of you will not survive in this world. You need to pick yourselves up off the ground, grab the bags, and then we all need to get the fuck out of here. That was way too much noise, and something is going to come check out the noise." Nate said.

"Tina appears to be visibly shocked, Monsieur." Curie said.

"Good, she'll remember that next time something worse comes along. Tina, good work finishing the ghoul off with the knife. Bobby, overkill but you got the job done. If you and Tina want to survive, you'll need to work together, always. In a dangerous situation, hesitation like that can get both of you killed. Now, let's move out."

\111/

The march to Vault 111 didn't end with the encounter with the ghouls, they hadn't even reached Drumlin Diner when they came across a pack of feral dogs. Nate and Curie both assisted Bobby and Tina fending them off, but farther on their walk, they came to a leaning blue house with the roof collapsed in, and voices shouting from the inside.

"You're not going to rat us out to the Institute! We're not going to let you leave!"

Nate waved Bobby and Tina back, drawing his shotgun and readying it, he took cover near the door.

"I'm not a synth!" Poking his head in, three people, a ghoul and a woman were aiming rifles at a man with his arms above his head.

"We're going to find out right now! Kill him-"

"Hold it! Vault Tec. Calling. Drop your weapons!" Nate shouted, aiming his shotgun at the woman as she was closest to the door.

"Shut up!" The ghoul yelled.

"Don't let them kill me!" The man turned to Nate, then they saw Curie behind him.

"What the hell is going on here?" Nate demanded to know.

"This thing's a synth. That's what. It's been traveling with us for weeks."

"How do you know?!" Nate shouted down at the ghoul, keeping his shotgun trained on the woman.

"Today he let slip that he's an Institute errand boy! The whole fucking time!" Nate grit his teeth but didn't change his aim.

"Because I thought you were my friends!" The man in the middle said. That changes things, but he wasn't about to murder a man in cold blood. Hearing the words, the first man never explicitly said he was a synth, only a job that he worked for the Institute.

"I'd never be friends with a damn synth!" The ghoul shouted back.

"You already were friends, now please, just...just let me go!"

"You think we're stupid!? You're gonna run back to your Institute buddies, to come put us down! That ain't happening pal."

"I'm not with the fucking Institute! I ran away! I need to get to Bunker Hill! I swear! You'll never hear or see me ever again!"

"Both of you back the fuck off, and drop your weapons. Institute or not, you don't kill a man in cold blood." Nate said, "You charge them with a crime, then hang them. Curie, aim at the woman."

Readying her laser blaster, Nate changed targets and aimed at the ghoul. "Now everyone hold up. Shit-for-brains might be telling the truth, he just happened to tell two people who weren't interested in hearing it."

The man in the middle, shit-for-brains, turned to Nate and begged for him to listen. "Please, you believe me, right? You can't let them do this!"

"Everyone needs to stop talking, because I can't get a clear story out of anyone here. Now. I'm asking you to lower your rifles, so we can all get to the bottom of this. This man might be worth a lot more alive than dead." Nate said, looking to the ghoul to drop his weapon.

Taking note of the blood stains all along Nate's cuffs, chest, and the burnt hand scabbing over, he was a unsettling sight, prone to violence and freshly coated with the blood of something else. Slowly, the ghoul lowered his rifle, and the woman did the same.

"I want names, all of you."

"Fred." The ghoul said.

"Jules."

"Angie."

"Let's start with you, Fred, don't you think killing Jules here would make them madder? I've got proof that the Institute is watching us in ways you wont even believe until Piper writes up the whole article in Publick Occurences. They'll know in an instant Jules' heart stops beating, and then what? Their synths swarm the whole area and take you back to their lab."

"..." Fred bared his teeth, "Jesus. What do you know? How are they watching us?"

"There's a lot more to be said, Fred. But if you want to know more, it's the fucking birds. Go to Diamond City, ask Piper about it. She's writing up a story this very instant about what we discovered a few days ago. Jules, get your hands down."

Jules slowly, albeit hesitantly lowered his hands. "Now, I don't care if you're a synth or not, tell me, you say you want to go to Bunker Hill, who are you looking for there?"

"The Railroad! I heard the Railroad could be found there."

"Is it true that you worked inside the Institute?"

"Yes! I was forced to do whatever they told me to, I never had a choice!"

"What do you mean, you never had a choice? How'd you leave? How did you get away from the Institute?"

"Synths are programmed to obey, we...get to speak, but it's like our limbs don't respond when they say certain things...Code words. Phrases. It makes us act out!" Jules explained, begging for his life made him forthcoming with information.

"Then who let you out? How did you come to say that you wanted to leave the Institute?"

"Down in the Institute, the scientists don't always need us, but we're always working, we know what they're doing to people from up on the surface, and we hate it, we hate what they're doing, how they lack empathy and don't care about human life at all."

"Enlighten us on how you got out." Nate told Jules to explain.

"When we're sent out on scouting parties, someone on the inside changes the registry log to say that we died or went missing. Our only advice from then on is to make contact with the Railroad...That's why I'm trying to get to Bunker Hill." Nate inhaled, digesting the information.

Do you even know how to get to Bunker Hill? Who's your contact?"

"I don't have a contact! All the synths going in and out have their memories wiped of how they get to the entrance and how they get out!"

"Jules, I need a name, anyone who can vouch for you or is on your side in this world."

"Nick Valentine! Nick Valentine told me that I can find the Railroad, and then they can get me out of the Commonwealth."

"Is that so?"

"Yes! Yes!"

Jules went from tense, to beyond hysterics in a second, feeling his life grow shorter by the second and how there was very little chance of him leaving this house alive.

"Angie, Fred. You're going to let this man go. Bobby! Tina! Come here!"

The twins crowded the door, peering in, and the new faces only made the situation more tense as they saw the guns pointed at each other.

"Now, Fred, Angie, you are going to need to put in a little effort to see if this man is innocent or not. Find Piper Wright, find Nick Valentine. If this man is a synth looking to escape the Commonwealth using the Railroad, then that's as far as you go. Tell them to point Jules here towards Bunker Hill, and from that point on, you'll never need to see Jules ever again. But, if you kill him right now without knowing the whole story, then you may as well be damning both yourselves to an early grave."

Jules groveled, "Thank you, thank you!"

"Jules, I suggest you shut your mouth until you reach Diamond City. Fred, Angie, it's not worth the bullet, when a noose is cheaper. He hasn't hurt you yet, and that's not how the Institute operates. Think about it. Every time I've heard of the Institute, they swarm a place with synths, kidnap them and drag them back to parts unknown to experiment on them to create Super Mutants, releasing a synth lookalike and then the human now turned Mutant back into the Commonwealth."

That declaration made all three of them revulse the new information. "I ain't ever hear of the Institute making Super Mutants." Fred said.

"Then you learn something new everyday, don't you? There's a man over in Cambridge, part of the Brotherhood of Steel. He and his buddies were doing experiments on dead Super Mutants from here in Boston, all the way to Washington D.C. and he explained that Super Mutants are created by a virus. The Mutants down in D.C. are smarter than the ones up here, and the only way that's possible is because the Mutants down there have had access to vats of the FEV for decades, making it less effective, while the ones up here, do not. But that means since more Mutants are still coming out of the woodwork, and not abducting people out of their beds, and dragging them away to make a Super Mutant army, is because the only people with access to the Super Mutant virus is the damn Institute! Jules here is not the issue, he doesn't even look like he's got the killer instinct in him! Look at his eyes, and those are not the one of a man who is working for the Institute, but trying to run as far as fuck away from them as possible."

The three travelers gulped, shaken by the new information Nate was laying down for them. "Is that true?" Angie asked.

"Every word, Take him in and find someone who can point you to the Railroad, but neither of you mention the word 'synth', or the entire Diamond City guard will lock you out. They've got terrible aim, and might hit one of you by mistake. If the Railroad does in fact want Jules here, then they would welcome him in with open arms. However, if the Railroad hasn't heard of him, then it would make sense they up and kill Jules right there on the spot, just as you were planning to do right now. Does everyone here understand? All you need to do is put up with each other for a few more hours, and then you'll all be out from under each other's skin."

Fred and Angie both nodded at each other, while Jules accepted that his sentencing just got delayed.

"Alright, we are going to Diamond City. Jules you're in front. Fred, make sure he doesn't bolt." Angie said.

Nate stepped backwards through the door, keeping his gun at the ready, but walking back outside.

\111/

"Damn. That was close." Wishing for Meathead to be here, he could've known in an instant if the man was synth or not. If he was lying, however, remains to be seen.

"Why did you do that? I thought the Instiute was the enemy up here?" Tina asked.

"The Institute is causing problems for everyone, and hated by plenty of people as well, but there's a whole other fight going on I doubt you're aware about. There's a group up here called the Railroad. While the Institute creates newer models of synths, they incorporate personalities into their programming. These personalities don't care for being treated as lower class working slaves, so the Railroad finds them, wipes their memory, and gives them a new face. There was a man wearing similar clothes I met last week who the Railroad was currently helping. I don't know if Jules was lying, or telling the truth,, but things will clear up if the Railroad finds out, because my line of thinking is that they will either welcome him in with open arms, or shoot him dead on the spot. That's not up for me to decide."

"So you're heading to Diamond City?" Bobby asked.

"Yes, but first, I need to set the both of you up properly at Vault 111."

They were at the end of the driveway, as both parties eyed each other, with Fred, Angie and Jules heading one way, and Nate pointing to Drumlin Diner down the road. They could make out the sign and the faded red features of the diner less than a football field away.

\111/

"Afternoon Trudy."

"Howdy. Huh...There's more of yah! You Vaulter's are multiplying." Trudy remarked. Nate laughed off the joke as he gestured to the first bag of elk he was carrying.

"Here, I brought some meat for you, better than that cat you tried to serve me last week, God. Still can't get the taste out of my mouth. This is Tina and Bobby, they're from Vault 81, and they're going to be helping me up at Vault 111 to get the place whipped into shape."

"Well, ain't that nice?"

"Yep. How's your son Paul doing? Where's he at?"

"He's running some supplies out to Abarnathy, but thanks to you, he's doing fine."

"That's good. Well, this elk is fresh, skinned it less than an hour ago, and I wanted to leave some with you. That and introduce you to Bobby and Tina, they might be showing their faces around here in the future, looking to trade and get some grub when they can."

"Glad to meet both of you."

"Go on, shake hands and introduce yourself."

"I'm Bobby,"

"Tina."

They all said hello and shook hands, then Nate directed Trudy's attention back to the bags of elk meat. "How much do you want?"

"I'll take whatever you're giving."

"Put it on credit and thank me later, these two might need a few odds and ends, tracking down parts to fix up the Vault, and you're the closest thing to a store from here to the D.C."

"I could talk to some caravans, get them to run up that way. What've you got going up north?"

"At Sanctuary Hills, Vault 111 is close by, but getting caravans to stop by that way would be great. In a few weeks we'll have plenty of scrap to trade, I've got a Mr. Handy breaking down junked houses up there, and sorting things out. There'll be plenty of lumber and other things worth caps to someone. I will take salt if you have some. We'll probably end up letting it marinade for a few days, then smoking it to keep it from going bad."

"Will do. That's not a bad idea either. Thanks for the meat. Lord knows the last time we had some big game worth eating." Nate transferred a few pounds of meat and bones out of the first bag into his second, and then gave Trudy twenty pounds of elk bones and meat.

"Do you have any tips for these two for cooking? They're about to embark on a whole lot of self-sustaining, and could use all the help they could get."

Trudy looked at the fresh faces out from the Vault, and how they didn't look as hardened as herself. "Aside from telling them to make sure they use everything before it goes bad, and throwing out anything with mold on it, make sure when you're cooking, you keep an eye on the food, otherwise it'll burn. Salt and vinegar is good for breaking down this tough muscle. Elk you said, Nate? Yeah, strong tough meat there. Let it soak in vinegar for a few hours and you wont need to take a chainsaw to it after it's done in the pan."

"Are you making notes?" Nate asked Tina and Bobby, they both nodded. "How's your vinegar supply? I'll take a bottle off your hands as well if you've got one to spare."

"Low on vinegar, I'm afraid. Next caravan should be here tomorrow, but I doubt they've got anything like that. Maybe a sour bottle of wine, but that's it." Trudy gave Nate a box of salt, and took the bag of elk off her counter.

"Ah well, we wont take up any more of your time now, Trudy. Thanks again, neighbor. See you around."

"Au Reviore! Madam Trudy." Curie said, making the shopkeeper grin at the French speaking robot.

"Bye, Trudy." Both twins said, leaving the shop after Nate. "Nice to meet you." Tina added.

"All right, we're in the home stretch." Nate said to them outside the shop. "Up there is Concord, and once we reach the welcome sign, we'll take a left towards Abarnathy Farm, and follow the power lines up into Sanctuary Hills. The only thing is, is that it's all uphill, so expect those bags to get a little heavy."

The twins nodded, and they all followed the road north towards Concord, and past the "Welcome to Concord" sign, they followed the road left until they were directly under the power lines, from there, they passed a rusted out van and went off road, hiking up the hill.

It was two hundred meters from the road to Abarnathy Farm, where Connie, Lucy, and Blake Abarnathy were growing melons and tomato plants out of their home that was built into and wrapped around a power line support.

The family was tending and watering the field, with their brahmin filling up on water in its pen.

They saw Nate and his followers coming from a ways away, but weren't on edge as they were the first time Nate came through, expecting him to return.

"You can set your bags down for a sec." He said to Tina and Bobby. "Afternoon," He called out to the Abarnathy's.

"You're back." Connie said, "And there's more of you." She said, looking at Tina and Bobby's blue vault suits.

"Yep, we're setting up a greenhouse in Vault 111, and are going to need some good dirt here soon. What's the chance I can hire one of you to come help us get our garden up and running? I've got caps, meat, and plenty of other things to trade in Sanctuary Hills. These two will be busy keeping Vault 111 from falling apart, but we'll need any help we can get to grow some fruits and vegetables."

"I'll go. One hundred caps a day, sound fair for my time? It's time I'm not here helping my family, but we could use the money and whatever other supplies you want to trade."

"Sounds fair. Come up in three days, and we'll have things ready." Nate reached into his pocket, "Here's fifty caps now. Just don't forget."

"Deal." Blake said, taking the caps from Nate.

"This is Bobby and Tina, they might be coming down this way here in the future to buy some produce off of you for food."

"Sounds good." Lucy said.

Another deal struck, new connections made, they were off again, and passing the Concord water tower when they needed to deal with two large bloatflys, neither Curie, Bobby, or Tina ever saw one of these things before.

"Those are unknown insects." Curie said, logging their giant fly like shape away for reference.

"What are those?" Bobby asked.

"Bloatflies. They're all over, but we'll take care of them as needed." Nate pulled out his shotgun and fired four times, killing both of them.

They cut down towards the road, passing the Red Rocket Filling Station, crossing the wooden bridge into Sanctuary Hills.

"Almost there." Nate said, passing a empty site where a week ago, there used to be the ruins of a house, but now it was dismantled down to the foundations and floorboards. Everything else was laid in piles of usable wood, lengths of metal, and then a giant burn pile ready to be set alight.

\111/

"Codsworth!" Nate shouted. it took a minute, but the Mr. Handy came hovering along down the road and was pleasantly surprised.

"Mister Nate! How was your trip to Vault 81? I see you've brought some guests with you, and if I may introduce myself, it's good to see some friendly faces around here. My name is Codsworth. Hello, pretty lady." He said to Curie.

"Good afternoon, Monsieur Codsworth, I am Curie."

"I hope you'll stay, it would be nice to have someone around to comfort through these long lonely nights."

"I'm afraid not, Monsieur Codsworth, I am traveling with Nate to study the Commonwealth."

Codsworth put a claw to his chest. "Ah! Shot down in flames, Curie, I barely knew thee. Anyway, there doesn't look like there's a more suitable companion to help you, Master Nate. I realize I'm no Mister Gutsy, but if needed, I'd be honored to accompany you throughout the Commonwealth. Just say the word."

"The trip went well, Codsworth, but I'm going to need you here to keep an eye on things. Go ahead and introduce yourself," He told Bobby and Tina.

The twins went through the last introduction of the day before Nate got down to business.

"I see that you've been busy Codsworth, breaking down the houses around Sanctuary. Well, I've got a new task for everyone. I hired Bobby and Tina to maintain the Vault, but we need to set up a greenhouse within Vault 111 for food, and I'll be giving you a task sheet of everything that they'll be taking care of. I want you to check on them every once and a while and assist with breaking down the cryopod in the room we're planning to use. Everything else is to remain untouched."

"Bobby had a knack for letting the Mr. Handy at Vault 81 take care of his work, so don't let him bully you around, Codsworth." Tina said, receiving a look of ire from Bobby.

"Noted, Miss Tina. Shall we make our way to the house for refreshments, or straight to Vault 111?"

"Grab some sheets and pillows, we need to set Bobby and Tina up with beds in Vault 111. That's where we're heading now."

"Right away, Master Nate. It'll be a grand time working with you two." Codsworth said, hovering off to find the items Nate requested.

"All right. That's it, next stop, Vault 111."

In the brief span of time from walking from Abarnathy Farm to Sanctuary Hills, the sun was setting. Codsworth, Curie, Nate, Bobby, and Tina all descended down together into Vault 111. For a brief moment, the twins exhaled a breath they'd been holding onto for a while now.

"Home sweet home." Nate said as the blast doors above closed over them, and then the elevator came to a stop at the bottom of the shaft.

\111/

Ch. 60 Libertalia Nov. 4th

Picking up a gun from the arsenal Nate and Meathead were amassing aboard the USS Constitution, Thunderstruck's hooves felt tight, like her ankles were hot to the touch, but it was really because of the laser rifle she was holding.

Suddenly her mouth felt dry and hocks felt scratchy, but her wings shudder-fluttered out and settled by her sides. Shaking off the cold, Thunderstruck feels the weight of the gun and the energy cells.

This was the first time in over a year she held a weapon like this. All the memories that'd been just under the surface of hard-slavery were breaching through, emerging upwards as it felt safe to relive a better time of her life. There were hundreds of ponies, and humans all living along side each other in Nuka-World and the surrounding areas, all up until a year ago when the raider gangs banded together and stormed the amusement park.

Taking the laser rifle, Thunderstruck felt the weight of the weapon in her hooves, eyes watering for reasons unknown to her.

Looking around, her hosts were content to let her come and go as she pleased, but they weren't clear on the whole weapon situation. For how many guns laying around, and boxes of ammo being stockpiled, taking one didn't diminish the growing armory.

Taking a leather satchel and 20 energy cells, she knew what came next.

Retuning above deck, eyes to the coast, she saw a cargo ship terminal landing across the Charles Bay, where a mess of boats and structures were all clustered around a dock protruding out into the water. This dock was battered and worn, wooden pilings that were fractured and dented from centuries of neglect, the concrete on top crumbling into the sea, leaving gaping potholes along the dock.

Breath increasing pace, Thunderstruck left the patrolling robots behind her and flung herself over the rail of the U.S.S. Constitution, and took flight. The wind bent her wings upwards, but thrusting them down she gained lift. Again and again, like a rolling stone to keep from gathering moss, Thunderstruck flew.

\111/

The open-air cage holding the ponies Flatbush, Cherry Fizz, and Rotary were made from a mesh grating, with rust crawling over most unpainted surface, enough was punched out to create gaping holes, but their small yard of mud, the size of a 40 foot cargo shipping container. To sleep, they stayed standing, letting their heads drop, locking their legs, otherwise the cold mud would sap the heat from their legs, as painful as it was to their hooves to live in standing water that would reach biting-cold temperatures during the night.

They didn't talk much, they hadn't looked in each others eyes for more than a few moments for the last three months.

A raider stood over them, quietly watching them sleep. Lowering a noose, he swung the loop around Flatbush's neck.

Signaling to more men, they figured out the best way to keep the other ponies quiet when butchering one was to drag one out, after snapping it's neck.

Jerking hard, four men ripped back on the rope, yanking Flatbush to the side of the pen with a loud crash and bang. Unable to scream, the torque broke something, but Cherry Fizz and Rotary we forced awake, screaming at the sight of a pony they knew being limply dragged up and out of their pen. Cherry Fizz was screaming, Rotary banging and thrashing against the sides of the pen, but if they took one step outside, they'd be shot, but Rotary didn't care.

Better to die fast, full of adrenalin and terror, it makes the meat taste terrible.

Bashing through the mesh, Rotary sprung from the cage, leaving Cherry behind as her voice broke, sobbing, shreiking, she tried to form words to call out after Rotary, but he made it thirty feet before a torrent of gunfire perforated holes across his flanks and barrel.

Cherry Fizz broke, throwing herself into the wall and curling in on herself as she cried. Monsters.

Shaking, Cherry Fizz was so cold, that scenarios of freezing to death brought more joy and warmth to her heart than dying by monster. She could control that. She could decide how she died, and that was the only thing left granted to her while she was awake. She needed to stay awake now, always. Never sleep.

There was a sound she knew, one she didn't want to hear. The moment she heard the first noise, the sound of a knife being sharpened, she shoved the cold mud in her ears, but not even deafening herself would stop her mind from playing out the noises in her head.

They were butchering Flatbush.

There was a thud that felt like an earthquake to Cherry Fizz, but that was just the cleaver striking the neck, trying to remove the head.

She could scream, but that's all Cherry had done for the last few months since being sold. Scream in terror as ponies she knew were killed indiscriminately.

Her hooves and legs were moving, digging down, scraping away dirt and rock, she didn't know why, but she needed to dig. Dig a tunnel to escape, dig a hole and crawl out.

She dug a depression deep enough to curl herself in, dragged the frozen mud over her, then as she closed her eyes to the world, she prayed the hypothermia would come and take her away from this awful place.

\111/

Rage, an unexpected emotion to come bubbling up, but after recooperating outside of the Changeling pod, Thunderstruck felt more in touch with her feelings, and right now, it was rage.

Flatbush was being spitroasted and grilled, pieces of him being hacked or pulled off, to cook closer to a flame.

No tears, just the thought of melting holes in everybody's skulls from where she stood.

Thunderstruck arrived at Libertalia half an hour after Flatbush and Rotary were killed. Rotary was just left there in the dirt, body bleeding out until one of the raiders got around to hauling the corpse back in.

The indifference. She wanted to say, there were thousands of things that needed to be said, but there wasn't a friendly ear to listen.

Thunderstruck flew up three hundred feet, then dropped into a freefall. Her target was a raider standing on the back deck of a boat at the dock. Plowing into him, hooves first, she landed on his head, cracking his skull and neck, busting the collar bone as she jumped up, heaving the raider into the water with a splash.

Thunderstruck went inside the boat and found two raiders sleeping in their bunks, so she killed both of them in their sleep.

There were dozens of boats, and the main cargo ship all the raiders were clustered around tied to the dock was impossible to reach without taking a winding route over back decks of ships, or swimming a straight line across.

Thunderstruck flew overhead, seeing the cages, seeing more ponies, ones that were in stronger cages, and actually fed. These ones were the ponies who were utilized by the raiders for carrying scrap, junk, and whatever else they could think of. Cherry Fizz, Flatbush, and Rotary, were picked out as ponies who would be used for food.

It didn't matter to these human raiders if they begged for their lives, or stayed silent. They were abused and neglected all the same, one raider even sneaking in to their cage to rape Cherry less than twenty-four hours ago. The raider got as far as sticking his dick inside of her, since she was asleep, legs locked, exhausted, she woke up after a minute, and bucked as hard as she could.
The raider's ribs were broken, but the bastard still managed to haul himself up and out of their pen before the ponies stomped him to death.

The main ship, the Libertalia, was a 320 ft cargo container vessel that was now half-sunk at the dock, with it's bow underwater and the stern raised high into the air. Built around the listing ship were planks nailed together to form bridges and supports to expand outwards on, but Thunderstruck still couldn't find the person she was looking for.

The next person Thunderstruck killed wandered far enough away from the roaring fire where three other raiders were gathered around, quietly landing behind her, Thunderstruck lifted her laser rifle to the backside of the raider's neck and fired.

Taking the raider's knives, Thunderstruck gripped a blade in her teeth, breathing heavily as the her next thoughts were 'I need to kill more.' The three raiders were all staring into the fire, watching blood and oil his and drip down into the flames, speaking softly.

Getting close enough to fire, she fired as fast as she could, as many rounds as she could until it was empty. Gunning down three raiders, only one died in the first volley, the other two survived with holes melted in their flesh and muscle, but Thunderstruck was on them like a demon in the night.

Gouging the neck and punching her hooves against the legs of the first surviving raider to make them trip and stumble, she shoved hard, knocking the raider into the fire. Tackling the other one, the raider shouted for help, but Thunderstruck bit down on the raider's face and bit his nose off. Then she bit down on the man's neck, a hard vice like clamp that shut off his airway and made him painfully choke.

He was still alive, but Thunderstruck was alone with him. Biting his coat, she dragged him. "You wanna eat?" She asked, taking the cleaver from a metal table. Hacking off a hand, she took the appendage and shoved it into the raider's mouth. Choking him. He tried pulling it out, but Thunderstruck bit down on his hand, shattering the fingers.

Ripping a finger off the raider's hand, she tasted blood in her mouth, and felt the fingers there. Chewing on them, she chewed and chewed, rough raw pieces of meat still on the bone with fingernails attached.

Instead of spitting them out, she chewed them for another minute, the taste and feeling of them in her mouth was completely removed from her mind as she sought out the next victim. When she finally spat them out, she didn't even remember why she was chewing them in the first place.

Of the raiders left, four came to investigate, and they fired some rounds into the air with their rifles to alert others that they were under attack.

Thunderstruck was already back in the air, watching as all the raiders around Libertalia came crawling out of their hidey-holes, to see what was going on.

That's when she saw the brown lump in the pen, the form of a pony body laying on its side, mud dragged and pulled up on top, but parts of the body were still visible.

Dropping down into the pen, Thunderstruck wiped the dirt away, "Pony? Wake up."

There was a shaking, a feverish, chill type of shaking, a refusal.

"You need to wake up." She couldn't tell if this was a mare or a stallion, but the more mud she cleared, she was able to glint at the idea it was a mare, and only two names came to mind.

"Vanilla Rum? Cherry? Can you hear me?"

Cherry was breathing, but she was in such a fugue state, she could open her eyes, but wouldn't.

"I'm dead." Cherry said.

"No, that's not true. Cherry, it's me. I need you to wake up."

"It's not you. You're dead. I'm dead. Everyone I know is dead. I'm dead."

"Cherry," Thunderstruck pulled Cherry's head up out of the mud impression in the ground. But she shook her head and refused, pulling away.

"No, I'm dead. Go away."

One hoof went to a soft pile of mud, and scooped some up. Smashing the mud clod into her mane, Cherry let her limbs relax as she tried slipping away again. She didn't want to give this life any more energy than what was already given. Cherry wanted to die.

On the verge of tears herself, one raider suddenly hopped up to a container, looking down into the pen for all of two seconds, not even enough time to realize it was an entirely different colored pony with wings and a gun, only seeing the mare standing upright, before looking elsewhere for their unknown attacker.

As the minutes ticked by, the raiders grew increasingly impatient, and were quickly thinking that whoever did this, was already gone.

"Cherry." Digging her friend out of the hole she dug for herself, Thunderstruck reached one hoof around the backside of Cherry's barrel, lifting, when the mare erupted.

"NO! I'M DEAD! I'M DEAD! Let me go! Leave me alone! I'M DEAD!" She wailed, eyes cracking open and wildly looking around. Unable to feel or see Thunderstruck, Cherry knocked her head into Thunderstruck, and she didn't catch herself from being hurt as she fell.

"Cherry!" Cherry fought Thunderstruck as the mare wrapped both hooves around her, lifting her up out of the muck, even though she resisted.

She kept whimpering no, and bit Thunderstruck on the foreleg, but Thunderstruck refused to let go. Sharing her body heat, extending one free wing out and around the frozen mare, Cherry tensed, but the second she felt warm, she stopped making any noise whatsoever.

Like a flick of the switch, Cherry made so little noise, that Thunderstruck could barely hear the mare breathe through her nose. "Cherry, I'm going to fly us out of here. Some place safe. Some place warm."

Thunderstruck would have more luck talking to a tree than getting a message to Cherry's mind now. It was under lock and key, under the furthest mental wards to protect that last little shred of soul Cherry still clinged to, but wouldn't stop itself from being snuffed out.

Cherry was so light, that Thunderstruck only then realized how much the changeling pod restored and strengthened her. "Cherry. Just rest."

Picking her up, plucking her off the ground, she used all four hooves to wrap around the poor abused mare, then lifted off with her wings. Flying fast and low over the water, she was halfway across the Charles Bay before rapidly gaining altitude, aiming straight for the U.S.S. Constitution.

Author's Note

Well, it only took two years and 300k+ words for a pony to have their own chapter.

Ch. 61 Ship Dweller

Drinking Buddy powered on, then spoke out loud that it's microbrewers and subroutines were all operational, and that it even had an internal bottling mechanism. It was loaded with a Gwinnette Pale Ale recipe, and the last batch of beer was sealed with nitrogen to make it inert, and it only took sixty seconds from the moment it turned on to pump out the lines, cleaning out the dust and excess build-up, by shooting hot water through them. Followed by ice cold water, then finally switching over to pumping beer through its refrigeration system. Despensing a small ice cold beer for Meathead to try, it was poured into a bottle visible held in a metal ring through a small window, then once it was full, the window opened, the bottle tipped out, and a beer was offered. The walking, talking modified-protectron robot had a keg-sized micro-brewery in its chest cavity, with multiple buttons for dispensing different beers.

"" Meathead said, taking the cold bottle from its holder. The window closed and Drinking Buddy remained still, awaiting feedback.

Tasting the beer, Meathead realized this was immediately infinitely better, smoother, and crisper than what was served at the Third Rail.

Five Lakes, New York, Or, was it Finger Lakes? Were there were five lakes at Finger Lakes? Whichever the case, he would ask Nate about it later. The wine growing region was home to some of the finest wines on the East Coast with vineyards dating back pre-Revolutionary War. If some owners sprung for a Mr. Handy unit to monitor the wine storing and aging, then there could be sealed vats of wine ready for consumption, or barrels of 210 year aged wine, but the chance it was all sour vinegar was possible too.

Swallowing the rest of the beer, ""

"Very Good. I appear to be operating at an optimal level. I'm scheduled for delivery, would you care to select the HOME designation?"

""

While not the most ideal way to start a morning, finding Drinking Buddy was a definite bonus. After scouring the rest of the restaurant, which there was a relatively untouched bar on the second level, finding spare recipes to put into Drinking Buddy was a long-term investment. How to restock or resupply the robot was beyond Meathead, and there wasn't exactly an intact owners manual laying around either.

\111/

Walking back to the U.S.S Constitution, and having two more morning beers, there were still three stars visible in the morning sky, with the sun quickly rising and turning the sky orange.

The Giddyup Buttercups were excited to see the new addition to the Executive Suites, but they were excited about most things, quickly tapping and prodding the robot to see all its features.

When he went up to the ship, Thunderstruck was out on the bow, her wings readjusting every so often to keep her steady, as the only thing far below her was Faneuil Hall.

""

She turned around, leaping high up into the air with a few flaps of her wings to clear the railing, then landed on the deck.

"You're back, I need your help. Are you still...you?" She inquired.

""

"I feel fine, but I went out last night and found somepony."

"Oh? Somepony? Who? Is she below deck?"

Pausing to take in his surroundings, Meathead felt the life form below deck and a sour expression came to his face, this was bad.

"Yes. But I need you to make one of those pods."

'<I can tell.>" Meathead thought, "What happened?"

Moving across the deck and pulling the hatch open, they went below deck where Meathead was introduced to Cherry, but the mare in question was in a terrible state. Non-responsive to the outside world, emotionally dead, Meathead tried calling out, but she wouldn't even blink.

""

"Yes they can! It fixed me, and when I came out, I...I actually felt alive!" Placing a hoof to her chest and rubbing small circles to feel her breast. "You helped me, and I...I didn't even recognize myself! I can't remember what I used to look like! When I saw myself after coming out of the pod, I thought it was a sick joke! Cherry Fizz just needs to rest! She needs a warm, safe place, and not to be disturbed. You're the only pony in the whole world who could make something like that for her to recover. Please, make one."

"" Meathead asked, hoping for some sort of response to help better gauge the traumatized mare. ""

"When I found her, she had buried herself in the mud, and kept saying she was dead."

Meathead grizzled at the thought, he didn't even know where to begin unpacking abuse victim's emotional baggage, but he and Thunderstruck were both praying that waking up in a rested body would begin the journey to recovery.

\111/

Cherry was podded, and Meathead used all the excess emotion and energy given to him by Pickman, happy to disgorge the affection and other misplaced emotions into Changeling resin. Pickman was attracted to Nate, or at least, the idea of Nate, since Meathead was the one running about, but this attraction was not in the romantic-lust type of way, more like two apex tiger predators relishing in their place at the top of the food chain, and enamoured with the strength each of them possessed.

It's what drew Pickman to Athena, he realized, he was attracted to power.

"Did that kid make it home safe?" Thunderstruck asked soon after Cherry slipped below the surface of the hastily constructed changleing pod.

"" Meathead replied, omitting what happened to Donny after he arrived at the hotel.

"You look like you wanna say something."

"" Pointing down to the Old State House, she spotted the building. ""

"And then what?"

""

There was a hesitation, and Thunderstruck looked over the railing towards the city. "I wanted to find other ponies that escaped or got out. A lot of us were sold off, but some of my friends were butchered. I found one pony on a spit...roast. While I was rescuing Cherry."

Thunderstruck swallowed, not wanting to think about the smell of...of her friends being smoked over a fire with their rib cages exposed and organs ground up then shoved back into the intestines for sausages, and head boiling in a vat of soup water that would boil over, sending the skin and blood oils over the edge of the pot, causing it to burn on the metal and send black carcinogenic smoke into the air that was once someone Thunderstruck knew, with the smell coating her tongue.

Meathead knocked against the wooden railing, seeing Thunderstruck's eyes come back to focus on him and widen. ""

Pointing across the bay to Libertalia, Thunderstruck recanted her story of how being late meant the death of two ponies from Nuka-World. She saw their bodies from above, killed whatever raiders she could, snuck in and dug Cherry out of the mud she was trying to drown herself in, and then carried her back to the Constitution.

"< I'm going below beck. I'll see you in two hours if you're still here. If you go exploring, stick to the tall buildings, avoid the streets, and watch out for signs of any life. Assume everything will want to kill you and you should be safe, Afterwards, I'm going down to Goodneighbor.>"

"Is it alright that I stay here longer than...now?"

""

"I guess so. I wouldn't even know where to begin looking for any other ponies."

""

Thunderstruck sighed, having to relive her time in Nuka-World to answer the question.

"After the raiders took Nuka-World. It was bad. But the first thing the smartest raiders did, was sell off the weaker animals. Pack animals. That was the best we could hope for. Being sold. There were a lot of merchants that used to come through Nuka-World. And for a month or two afterwards, those same merchants would still come through. We still knew where ponies were going, what trade routes they were taking. We would pass along messages by word of mouth."

"

The tan mare nodded, "Yeah. How do you know all that?"

""

"One more thing?"

""

"Why did you call me Thunderstruck?"

""

"It's fine, Thunderstruck is better than anything I've been called in the last year. You still didn't tell me why you chose that name."

""

"I think I'll keep it for now. After waking up I felt like a completely different pony, and it took me a while to realize that it was you to thank. I didn't recognize myself. I feel like a new pony."

""

\111/

Cracking his fingers, and stretching out his neck joints, Meathead checked the doppleganger Nate's appearance. Hopefully in the time they've been seperate, the original twin didn't take on too many scars.

Thunderstruck claimed the leather satchel for herself, and Meathead helped outfit the mare with weapons that were in working condition.

Loading up a bag with six Institute laser pistols and then energy cells into ammo box, they carried everything with them while walking to Goodneighbor.

\111/

Walking from the Constitution to Goodneighbor was quiet, which was exactly how both Meathead and Nate liked it.

"" Meathead said to Thunderstruck.

The mare walked a pace behind him, "What do you mean?"

""

""

\111/

The gang of Rythen's raiders in the mall next to Faneuil Hall spotted them, but did nothing to inhibit their path. They curiously eyed Thunderstrck who remained quiet under the gaze of the raiders. Instead, Meathead went to them with the laser pistols and the ammo, which they quickly distributed, or tried to horde. When they asked him why, he told them it was a to help keep the super mutants away.

Just as Meathead and Thunderstruck were about to leave, the most horrid, garish roar like a bear gargling a running chainsaw made everyone freeze.

Suddenly everyone was down on the ground. Meathead felt the creature before he heard it, which made sense now that the emotions were absolutely spastic and more hyperactive than a cornered rat.

There was deep thudding noises, like something big running and shaking the ground. The creature roared again, shorter, but it was louder and closer. There was cement cracking, bones of an animal breaking as it was slaughtered. The roar rose three octives into a pitch. Everyone could hear the creature ripping the flesh and crunching bones as it chewed through whole sections of the prey.

Meathead chanced a swallow, hoping not to be heard.

After a minute, the creature was slowing down on its ravenous feasting, and was panting now, satisfied, but its breath sounded like steam coming through a sewer grate.

With a fourth and final roar, it thundered off, bouncing across the ground faster than bull, and disappearing to the west.

Someone brave poked their head out and came back to say it was gone. The sigh of everyone's relief was audible, ""

"That. Was a starved Deathclaw. I don't know if you ever got the chance to watch one of those big scaly bastards, and not many people live to tell the rest of us about them, but to be that big, those things need to eat a lot. I bet'chin you anything that one hadn't had a good kill in a few weeks. Don't get them much, but now that it's into November, we'll be seeing a couple more of those. Luckily, you can usually hear them coming before they see you. Otherwise...well...you just see them coming."

The kill sight was two blocks over, and from the blood it appeared to have been a mirelurk, but there was hardly anything left. The deathclaw bit through whole sections of shell and ate the limbs whole. There were bite marks bigger than Nate's chest on the dome of the mirelurk's armor.

Getting to Goodneighbor, Meathead and Thunderstruck kept a sharp ear out, and a tab on the wild deathclaw until it ran so far, that it completely disappeared from his senses.

You can't reason with starvation.

\111/

Ch. 62 Malden

The second expedition from Vault 111 lead Nate and Curie on a western route, staying to the North of Boston. Their first stop was the General Atomics Galleria, only to have a destination in mind and a safe haven to rest for a few minutes before moving on to Malden.

Nate had been meaning to come North this way ever since the bartender, Joe, back in Bunker Hill mentioned his grandfather up here. A minuteman, he reminded himself. It wouldn't take too long to scour the area,

Nate crawled forward, on his stomach, the tip of his wrapped gun barrel leading the way through the low foliage as he quietly crept forward to the crest of the embankment.

Directly infront of him was a 10ft. drop straight to concrete sidewalk, then across the street was the Medford Medical Center.

Three super mutants and a mutant hound dog were outside, one sat out front next to the double doors leading into the hospital, while one wandered to the right of the first, carrying a mini-nuke, casting glances around the parking lot, while the third mutant with a savage dog were far to the left-hand side of the building, from Nate's point of view.

Lining up his sights, the sitting target was the first to be fired. The rag wrapped around the front of Nate's rifle was ripped off as the bullet pierced through the fibers, setting the fringes of it on fire. It muffled the first shot, but the clang of a bullet being fired was still audible to the two other mutants and hound.

Sitting so perfectly, it was one shot through the skull, then the mutant slumped over. The other two mutants froze for a moment, turning towards Nate and the noise, but didn't know where to look yet. This allowed enough time for Nate to line up his second shot. The mini-nuke carrying mutant slowly took a step forward, wrapped feet shifting gravel in the parking lot, one hand on the trigger ready to prime the explosive.

The second shot that rang out was much louder, but it struck the mutant's chest, punching a gory hole out through the back of the ribs. The explosive was thrown on a reflex into the air, crashing down onto the ground with a tense and loud 'CLANG' as the mini-warhead did not like being tossed about so carelessly. It rolled across the ground and petered to a stop some three meters away.

Seeing the flaming rag, the super mutant savage raised its rifle and fired a dozen rounds at where it thought Nate was, sending the mutant hound ahead into the fight. Seven shots were fired back, but the super mutant was slow in taking cover, not taking advantage of its surroundings and still caught up in the surprise attack. When it tried to hunch down behind a waist high cement barrier, the arch of its back was still completely exposed while it reloaded.

Nate fired at the top of the mutant's back, blowing holes into the mutant's spine and shooting apart its shoulder blades.

As the mutant hound bounded across the road, it reached the wall and ran up, jumping up the ten feet in a snap, its jaws were wide open, ready to bite down and thrash apart anything it could sink its teeth into.

A revving, whiling sawblade came vertically straight towards the mutant hound's head, colliding the spinning diamond-tipped blades with the dog's skull, the blade went straight down between the eyes, the nose, and the top half of the jaw. Sinking into the brain, blood and bone bits were spraying in every direction as Curie kept Nate from getting his head bitten off. The robot wasn't spared from the dog's gore, neither was Nate as he closed his right eye to the shower.

Curie's saw blade stopped spinning, and her arm retracted inwards, replaced with a regular claw for gripping items.

With all four targets infront of the hospital dead, Nate waited another minute for any more reinforcements to come out the front, then advanced forward.

Not going through the main door, Nate and Curie went in through a broken window to a patient's room, quietly entering the East side of the hospital.

\111/

"When we get to Malden, we'll need to be absolutely quiet, no talking. Curie, there's no telling if there's people inside, or if there are raiders, terrorists, commies, ghouls, hostile robots, or mutants in the area," Nate rattled off, hoping one of the words he said registered to the nurse droid. "But, whatever we do find, we will sweep and clear the hospital until the perimeter is secure and all hostiles are down. I know for a fact there's a surgery center on the 4th floor, which will have the best chance of finding surgical equipment, as for the surgery data and operating drives..." Nate blew out a breath. "We'll have to find doctor's offices for any medical textbooks or holodisks...I'm not familiar with the layout."

The times Nate went to the Medford Medical Center was, thankfully, for visiting other relatives and family that came here when they were sick. He had a general idea of where most public areas were located, but what he wanted was most likely in an area he, Nora, and Meathead hadn't been to in two weeks for them.

\111/

Leaving the rifle outside, and favoring the 10 gauge shotgun in hallways and enclosed areas, Nate swallowed tensely as he heard way too many footsteps thumping around and super mutants talking.

Breathing inward, then exhaling, he passed the skeleton hooked up to an empty dried out IV bag that lay in the hospital bed. Easing the door to the hallway open, rubble and dirt scuffed the floor, but nothing was amiss yet. Leaning around the door, he could partially see the nurse's station where one mutant had his back to him, but clearly talking to another mutant just out of view behind the nurse's desk.

"No attacks today."

"Bots haven't shown up either."

"Not hungry for bots, hungry for humans."

Checking all directions, and stepping out, Nate crouch walked down the hall fifteen feet, stopping when he saw the left arm of the second mutant. He was less than eight feet away from both super mutants, and raised his shotgun.

Finger on the trigger, Nate stepped into the second super mutants line-of-sight, but in the darkness of the hospital hallways, it didn't immediately register to the mutant. It wasn't carrying a weapon, and was about to break conversing with the first mutant when it was caught unaware by Nate.

The shotgun blasted out the 1/10 of a pound-weight tungsten-alloy metal bearings at a rate of 1350 feet per second at a range of eight feet.

The effect of firing a second 10 gauge shell less than a moment later at the 2nd mutant, was like painting the entirety of the back wall in the nurses station blood red. Each booming blast echoed through the wing of the hospital, but by the time two mutant hounds galloped to the scene, followed by six more super mutants.

"Come out, come out, Human! We know you're here!"

"You'll die, human! I'll rip your bones through your skin before you leave here!"

Smarter than the usual sack of rocks, two of these mutants were stinging short sentences together, and from the crack in the door Nate was peering through, directing the rest of them. They were all gathered around the station, and the phrase "Like shooting fish in a barrel," was replaying over and over in his head on how to deal with the situation at hand. Cradling his shotgun, Nate ejected the magazine of shotgun shells, and replaced it with a different one. This was purchased from Arturo in Diamond City three days ago, and now he was presented with a chance to use them.

Breaching rounds, small bits of spiral metal compact into a shotgun shell, and made for blasting through drywall and other thin barriers. Without an immediate target in front of the barrel, the metal shrapnel tended to fly in every direction and shred anything it touched. The only downside was the range.

Fifteen feet, and eight targets, with eight shells in the magazine. They were ready and prepared, pistols, handguns, and pipe rifles aiming at him as he opened the door. Bullets fired, striking the wall and wooden frame, but Nate was smart to keep his body mass out of the door frame, firing through with the shotgun bucking in his hands as hundreds of tiny red-hot metal blades flew through the air, bouncing and cutting and shredding everything in the hallway and beyond.

Nate couldn't tell how many mutants were down, but one mutant hound survived, and ran for the doorway. Nate retreated away from the door and was at the backwall of the room, ready to move outside again if needed, but he saw the shadow of the doorframe grow dark and he didn't hesitate to fire.

"AGH! I'M WOUNDED! MAKE THE HUMAN SUFFER!"

Nate fired at the door, listening to the impact of metal bearing punch through drywall and tile, blowing out, and then into green flesh. Another mutant was downed outside of the room Nate was in, when he drew out his .44 magnum and waited for the next noise.

The sound of footsteps running over cracked tile, dirt, and rubble, charging along the hallway to get to the door, the Super Mutant had to duck its head down to get under the doorframe, opening itself up to be shot three times by Nate.

"WHY ISN'T THE HUMAN DEAD YET!?" The same mutant shouted, and in doing so, Nate wondered if he killed the rest of them.

There was no immediate reply, but there was still one mutant alive, shuffling around, trying to find a purchase on something to stand him upright.

If only they had a wheelchair.

Nate took cover by the doorframe, peering out and seeing eviserated hallway and bodies, with one of them still moving.

"IT'S A HUMAN! YOU CREATED US, NOW SUFFER FOR YOUR SINS!" The mutant shouted, but nothing else came running.

"Oy." Nate said. The Mutant thrashed and jerked its head to Nate, boring holes into Nate's flesh with its eyes.

"BLEED HUMAN! SUFFER AND DIE!" It shouted, flailing around its lacerated arms, the super mutant barely had any arm strength, and could not stand up either.

"What made you so smart, but made you so dumb?" Nate turned away from the super mutant as it cursed at him. "Does the FEV really retard humans that much?"

"HUMANS HAVE NO RIGHT TO LIVE! THEY ARE CATTLE!"

"I suppose in about two years, I could have a working antigen to unmake the super mutants. I could turn you human, how's that sound?" Nate asked rhetorically.

"THEY WILL NEVER UNDO PERFECTION!"

"It scares you, doesn't it? The thought that one day, everything you've ever known suddenly gone in an instant?" Nate snapped his fingers. "Just like that? God comes down with a Hand of Fire and wipes it across the whole slate? I wouldn't know the feeling." Bored, Nate's eyes strayed away from the super mutant to a row of cabinets and a case mounted to the wall. "Wonder what it's like," He said with no emotion beyond the first word.

"NOTHING SCARES US! WE ARE INVINCIBLE!"

"Ah! Uh-huh! I hear you...keep talking." Nate said, ignoring the conversation, instead he could be heard moving chairs aside, shoving a desk back, and then a cracking of glass as he broke through a dust covered emergency fire-ax case.

"Are you sure?" Nate asked the super mutant, raising the ax up over his head.

"NO! STOP!"

"AH-HA! There it is. If I begged you to stop, you would've just killed me."

Nate slammed the fire ax down onto the mutant's neck, severing the throat. Twice he swung to decapitate the mutant, Nate went around and put an ax blade through the rest of the mutants skulls to make sure they were dead.

Loosely holding onto the black rubber grip of the ax handle, Nate called out.

"Curie. You can come out now. They're dead."

\111/

Finding a veritable treasure trove of drugs was enough to make Nate overjoy, but couldn't muster up the time or the energy to show it. Every drug stocked in this section of the hospital was under lock and key inside a security cage. Everything available to man at the time of the bombs falling, completely untouched, sealed, and under a few layers of dust. The door was barricaded, but the magnetic lock was connected to a personal computer. When the rest of the hospital was clear, he would come back through again to scour every pill and medicine bottle from its preserved sanctuary. The super mutants hadn't been able to get in, and nobody in the last two hundred years hadn't been able to get in either, but the second reason was more partial because of the presence of the first.

The administration offices and doctors offices were easy enough to tell apart, but the search for medical texts were fruitless. At best, they came across a few issues of Massachusettes Medical Journal, piles of old x-rays, and a few books pertaining to biology and diseases, all of which Curie logged for reference later, but nothing substancial that would help her perform the surgery.

Their search turned up a ring of maintenance keys to the surgery center wing. The hospital was sectioned off into eight areas, Foyer, Patient Rooms, Intensive Care Unit, Adminstration, Doctor's Offices and observation rooms for diagnosis of mild issues, Physical Therapy Gym, Cafeteria, and Surgical wing.

While there was an alternate route to get into the Surgical Wing, which is what the super mutants were using right now, to get there without using the most direct route would take you through the patient ward on the first floor, through ICU on the second, down a long hallway and up through a hole in the ceiling where the roof shunted in and collapsed, where you would need to climb up six feet, to get to the third floor, then walk back to the stairwell, up to the fourth floor, then finally you would be at the back door to the operating theater.

With the key in hand, all they needed to do was walk up the stairs to the fourth floor from the foyer, and then go in.

\111/

Curie was silent as her eyes roamed the walls of Medford Medical, it was as Nate described, but the interior was completely destroyed in her opinion. Like Vault 81, the walls were deteriorating in many places, but the people Nate shot at defied classification at first. Whole new files and pictures needed to be logged and stored for everything on the Super Mutant.

She noticed the changes to Nate's patterns of speech first and foremost. Comparing it to his pulse, rate of oxygen consumption, and infrared scan of his body temperatures, being in destroyed buildings with hanging meat bags of human body parts, hunting the super mutants, baiting them out to be killed, it all made Nate uncomfortable, and were all components of a toxic living environment, but the man was quick to focus on all the tiny details around him. Curie suspected that her traveling companion was just as articulate and detail oriented as she was, it was easy to tell by watching the iris of Nate's eyes dilate and retract as his gaze combed over the hospital ruins interior.

His breath was increasing as their path lead them to the foot of the operating theater, but there was a terrible odor that made Nate tense and make his heart beat faster as well.

Reaching out and turning the key to the door, it quietly clicked open, but creaked as the door swung wide enough to let Nate and Curie through.

The wave of horrifying, gag-worthy odors assaulted Nate, making him shudder and recoil, stepping away from the open door. "Egh," He blew the noxious gas away from him, tying a mask around his face to stifle the smell.

It was a short hallway that met with a T-junction, but the flickering light over the dried blood along the walls, and the skeletons left behind from centuries ago did little to make the hallway more inviting. Straight ahead, Nate could see the doors to the operating theater.

At the junction, one hallway to the left was completely collapsed, with a nurse receptionist desk to the right. A sign marked 'Observation' lead down a hallway to the right, and without making more noise in this section of the building, they opted to go down the hallway to look into the operating room.

Two mutant hounds and their tamers were butchering human corpses in piles and piles and piles. Nate fell back away from the window, not wanting to let the image of dozens, upon dozens, upon dozens of humans piled up and hacked to pieces. It was a slaughter house, limbs being thrown into piles, organized based on arms, legs, heads, or torsos. The dead men were having their cock and balls chopped off and tossed directly to the mutant hounds who snatched them up and chomped them down like tasty scraps. Everything was red, especially the freshly cut bones that were thrown into a rotting heap.

"Monseuir Nate, you are witnessing a number of horrible, gory, images that are unappealing to the human psyche. You ned to remove yourself from the situation and find a calm place to relax and slow your heart rate. It's been well above 140 beats per minute for the last seven minutes. As to their deaths, if getting rid of them who would do such casual butchering and slaughter of humans will assist with calming you down, then I will help you kill them."

Nate dragged himself away, leaving the scene and wrapping his arms around his head. Curie noted his breath was more strained, but he was breathing harder, partially because of his mask. But the temperature in his limbs was dropping, he was hyperventilating and Curie reached out a claw to put under his armpit.

She guided him back to a empty office, closed the door, and sat down against the wall.

\111/

"Thank you Curie, I'm also trying to protect you too, because you're my only option right now for saving Nora."

"Monseuir, the surgery room is disinfected and sanitized through chemical induction through the vents to prevent any airborne bacteria from developing in the operating theater. My filters show that one of these chemicals was denatured alcohol as a dispersant. The room would've been sealed and all human personnel would've vacated the room during the sanitation process. If we were to leave a large enough flame inside the surgery room, then activate the cleaning protocol, the entire room would be expunged. Causing considerable damage to the ventilation, it would be wise to vacate because fire might spread to the rest of the building as well."

"While I do not condone the burning of a hospital, after exploring this building in depth, there is no easy way to say this, but the building is structurally unsound. Supports are leaning more than 9 degrees! Many exposed wires and cables ripped and pulled down from the ceiling, or left to hang, I identified six different types of mold in many sanitation bays, and while the violence only added to the unsanitary conditions of excess gore on the walls, and floor, this building is only fit to be condemned, so I say it is time for something greater to rise from the ashes."

"...Like a flare?" Nate finally asked.

When Curie spoke to Nate, it reminded him of Codsworth finally seeing his old master again, the list of small grievances that couldn't be addressed for so long all came tumbling out.

"Oui,"

"Then let's do it."

\111/

Nate and Curie would set the fire, but it would be half an hour before the the lookout at the Bunker Hill lookout obelisk saw the smoke in Malden. One minute, he saw some white smoke, signs of something wet catching fire, but then it turned black and rose straight up. The top floor of the Medford Medical Hospital was on fire, the roof primarily, but it was hard to tell how fast it was spreading.

In that half hour, Nate and Curie would leave the Hospital, skirting the attention of raiders who would discover the fire raging next door to their metro train-station within minutes, and come across painted white skulls on the outside of the Malden Middle school.

A two story school, the football and soccer field, baseball diamond, and playground behind it took up more square acreage than the building itself. But, there were no lookouts, there were no signs of anyone in the school itself, only the white Gunner skulls. It wasn't until they reached the white linoleum hallway with hundreds of muddy footprints in both directions leading down to the basement that there was more to be seen.

The door to Vault 75 was wide open, three Gunners on the inside, completely oblivious to Nate and Curie approaching them. Lights were shining out through the open door, illuminating the duo when they passed into its shining beams.

Over the course of the next day, the rotten-two hundred year old timbers would succumb to the fire, and the flames would be hot enough to melt the rusted cars in the parking lot. It would rage and rage, and the smell on the air was putrid too, but by tomorrow, most everyone in the Commonwealth would know that another building, another super mutant base, went up in smoke.

Nate could only speculate on how many the super mutants were in number, but if the Institute had been creating mutants since before the war, then there could be tens of thousands super mutants, all in bands of groups anywhere from three to twenty, and upwards of fifty. It didn't sit well in his mind, so many brutal killing machines that lack empathy or logic, never showing any hesitation. They would surely try to take another location within Malden when they realized that the Medford hospital was gone. That only left two suitable locations left within the small berg which might've been used as a base camp by the Minutemen in Brent Savoldi's time, the long dead father of Joe Savoldi.

There weren't any signs, banners, or insignia's of the Minutemen, a rifle and a lightning bolt overlaid like two crossbones, inside the Medford Hospital. Without any trace of them, and after clearing out the pharmaceutical cages for all the equipment, medicine, and drugs, the building was now worthless. It was a mass grave site, and was soon a funeral pyre for the remaining super mutants still alive inside, and all their victims.

Medford Medical Hospital was a location the Minutemen could've housed and protected people and settlers thirty years
ago, but it wasn't the site of some great battle Joe Savoldi described. The Minutemen would've chosen a historical site, but with only plaques dedicated to listing areas where Union troops once camped, the fields and suburbs around Malden weren't likely. That left Med-Tek Headquarters, maker of Mentats, which seemed like an unlikely choice for the Minutemen to have chosen back then, or Malden Middle School, established in 1996. Of the two, the school community center held the possibilty of being a bigger draw than the medical-research building.

Nate and Curie walked up the street to the Malden Middle School, as the fire at Medfore Medical spread to more parts of the building. The supplies were safely stashed away inside of an ambulance, far enough away from the fire that was becoming more and more visible too the rest of the Commonwealth.

Long before the fire consumed the rest of the hospital, Nate and Curie were already standing at the doors to the Malden Middle School, held up from entering by markings they discovered. It wasn't the Minutemen, instead it was white skulls with cross-hairs painted on the front, the mark of the Gunners.

The ground was covered in mud and dirt, dozens of footprints of boots tracking dirt back and forth into the Malden Middle School, but its first floor was vacant, its second floor was vacant as well, Nate almost lead himself to believe the Gunner base was in disuse until they came to the basement, and in the wall was a giant hole for a Vault-Tec. door.

Curie grabbed the Gunner's arm with one claw, then brought her whirling buzz saw down on the woman's elbow, severing through the limb. She screamed wildly as she took two steps backwards, clutching at her stub of an arm before falling down.

While parts of Vault 75 had emergency power, no one knew how to fix the lighting, and abandoned the bunker, leaving Gunners to move in. Nate and Curie arrived in their plunder room, a room filled with all the possessions and items ever taken off a freshly killed scavenger or wastelander, and brought here to be sorted. It let them realize if they tried to speak with them, they were likely going to die.

Approaching the Gunners, they were like the Super Mutants in many ways, only Super Mutants were once human, the Gunners still are.

Killing them and burning the Malden Hospital was only letting the rest of the Commonwealth be aware that the Sole Survivor from Vault 111 was blazing a trail straight to him.

\111/

A long wide cart used for carrying and moving the school's lunch tables, was now being stacked with Gunner's bodies. Seventeen total, Nate kicked empty suitcases and boxes out of the way to get the bodies back to the basement entrance. The Vault could be used again in the future, but for now it would stay abandoned. Nate used his Pip-boy to close the door behind them, and wheeled the cart across the ramp, into the basement of the middle school.

While the blood would still need to be washed off the walls, Nate didn't want to come back to a festering hole in the ground.

The quickest way to carry 17 dead bodies was to open a set of hatch doors connected to the basement, which allowed suppliers and delivery drivers to slide giant items that couldn't be carried down through the doors, and pull the bodies up with rope. After clearing the doors, they could see straight to the street.

He tied a rope around their chest, under their arms, and then tied the other end to Curie's frame, and then they towed each body up to the surface.

Emerging from Vault 75 and the Malden Middle School, the air was filled with smoke as most of the Medford Medical Hospital was on fire now, with nothing being done to abate the fire, it would burn and smolder for days.

\111/

They found Joe Savoldi's relative in a classroom, desks piled up against the windows, door bashed in, bullet holes all around the walls. Shots through the window, and then whoever came through after them knocked the door in to finish off whoever was left alive.

Still clutching a Laser Musket and wearing his militia hat was Savoldi. The flesh was gone, bones nibbled on by cockroaches and rats, but there was not much else indication of any other Minutemen in all of Malden. The uniform was similar to Preston's, though faded and worn from left to sit out in the elements.

The Battle Joe Salvodi described, and what remained of the fight were two completely different worlds. If there were more Minutemen in the area, they packed up what they could and left a long time ago.

Curie and Nate were both dirty, Nate felt the oil and blood soaking into his hands, everything felt greasy no matter how much he wiped them off. Curie needed maintenance after helping Nate fight the Super Mutants and Gunners, since she was bleeding hydraulic fluid around the seems in her frame.

With plenty of daylight, Nate picked the next spot South of them where they could accomplish the most and recover, walking south to the National Guard Depot.

Ch. 63 The Big Dig

Meathead found the old-familiar setting of Goodnighbor comforting, the community carved out four square city blocks and were holding it for themselves. If the small area were to ever expand, it would need to contest with no-mans land, where to be able to hold onto a large area of land, patrol it, secure it, and maintain, they would need to quadruple in size. Everything from the Boylston Club to Goodneighbor, the Massachusettes Court House, the Boston Common, and the park station to Vault 114. Everything would need to be cleared out, fences and gates installed, choke points set up, everything needed to take back some real land to call your own. The Boston Common would be a garden, and could supplement a lot of food for the people in larger communities.

\111/

When Meathead arrived at the Old State House with Thunderstruck, the Neighborhood Watch guards told them 'the boss was out hunting.'

"For what?"

"Anything that moves."

So then, without an audience of the Mayor of Goodneighbor, It wasn't even mid-day yet when Meathead and Thunderstruck found himself walking through the piss-scented alley leading to Bobbi No-Nose's warehouse.

Knocking twice on the door, the metal eye slit slid open, where Bobbi's two black eyes stared vacantly back at Meathead.

"Yer' Late."

""

"Yer' late." Bobbi repeated again, opening the door. "Don't expect no five star review, but thank you for getting Mel out of the pens in Diamond City. What's with the pack animal?"

Meathead entered the warehouse and Bobbi closed the door behind them, locking it. Thunderstruck flashed an angry look, but months of conditioning kept her quiet.

""

"Mel's downstairs. She shit's in here, she's dead." Bobbi warned, focusing on Thunderstruck.

Following the winding path down to the sewers, then through the area they blasted out, Mel was waiting with a hovering modified eye-bot next to him. The sight took Meathead by surprise, and how much pride Mel took in the 'distraction' he created.

The modified eye bot carried a large Tesla arc generator on the face of it, and right now it was brimming with electricity.

"Oh hey! Where'd you get the pony? Does she talk?" Mel beamed, asking after a first glace. "Oh, no way, she's got wings?" He asked incredulously.

"Alright, we're all here." Bobbi said, cutting the conversation short. "Mel, how about you introduce your little friend?"

"Yep," Mel replied, "Meet Sonya. This little baby is going to help us move through the earth like a mole rat on Jet."

'Should've just told me' Meathead thought to himself, ""

"I can't wait to show you, I modified her radio systems to emit sonic pulses at frequencies that loosen any sediment around." Grabbing the eye-bot, he flicked a switch on her side, and the machine hummed with a building energy.

"Mel says we'll be able to get to the strong room ten times faster than digging, and it's helluva lot safer than loading these old sewer tunnels up with dynamite."

'

"Still," Mel cautioned. "I don't know how this place will react, so let's all take a step back and let Sonya do her thing."

The eye-bot hovered down to the wall, blasting a massive shock wave of blue energy directly at a wall of dirt, liquefying it and causing it to sink. The eye-bot kept repeating the same shock to the dirt over and over again, but it was quickly moving forward.

"How'd you find the new guy, Bobbi?" Mel asked, and Meathead realized they were talking about Nate.

"Oh, I got lucky with this one, he came right up to the door and took the job. He's curious, but not too curious, and useful when mirelurks come knocking, and able to talk his way out of getting shot by Marowski's men, so he has his uses."

"Definitely got the old world charm, decent looker, maybe this time we don't burn the bridges, yah?" Mel said, offering an upturned hand towards Nate.

Bobbi didn't respond, "So long as he keeps track of time. Let's see how Sonya is doing."

The next area Sonya tunneled into was ripe with mold and old drain water, but they pressed on. They were in a part of the sewers were a fusion generator was still running active, but the actual passageway to the surface collapsed when the bombs fell. Mel patted his hands along the walls, finding a spot where the dirt was at its weakest.

"" Meathead asked Thunderstruck, he already knew, but he could tell she was aprehensive about following Meathead underground with humans they didn't have much experience with.

She couldn't decide on shaking her head or knodding, "Okay."

"Okay, Sonya. Right here."

The moment Mel said that, Meathead felt something from beyond the wall of dirt, it was annoyance, and curiosity, something was wrong, and primal living in the sewers so close to where they were going to dig into next.

"" Meathead said, but if he was too quiet, or Mel and Bobbi didn't care, Sonya fired another shockwave blase and tore through the wall.

The emotions of the creature spiked into anger and rage for disturbing it, and when they all saw the creature beyond the wall, Bobbi shouted. "King! King! Kill it!"

A Mirelurk King, nesting right inside the sewer runoffs, Meathead didn't know how to kill it, so he fired his own shots at the Mirelurk King, but was hit by a roar that was as powerful as one of Sonya's sonic blasts. The air was distorted and he felt his ears pop, but he was knocked to the ground and he felt the air leave his chest as if was just punched by a brick.

"" Meathead yelled at the group. Bobbi and Mel didn't need to be told twice, and ran back down the tunnel, Thunderstruck retreated back to far enough not to get caught in any crossfire, leaving him to fight the King alone. ""

The Mirelurk King was dripping in mucus, red webbed flanges growing out of its head, down its spine, along the tail. It croaked and the first thing that came to mind was a massively overgrown mutated frog. The large air sack under it's chin inflated, and then another massive sonic wave echoed out and slammed into Meathead. The air was ripped from his lungs and his ears were ringing to a long high annoying whine.

Meathead raised his gun and fired off a dozen shots, but the Mirelurk King croaked again and spat out it's long tongue. It stuck to his arm and in an instant he was ripped off the ground and sailing through the air at the Mirelurk King's jaws and serrated teeth.

Before his arm could be chomped off, a wave of green fire overtook Meathead's form and the guise of Nate was replaced by a much larger Deathclaw. Meathead's arm was now the size of a drainage pipe, claws larger than the Mirelurk King's head, and just as the jaws clamped down. Meathead scowled in pain, but with one arm, the Mirelurk King looked like he was noodled, like a giant catfish caught barehanded.

It's jaws were stretched wider than what it could open, and couldn't let go because it's teeth were sunk into Meathead's arm. Raising the Mirelurk King up, "" Meathead said, using the other hand, he gouged the Mirelurk King with the tip of his claw right through the stomach, then ripped down, disemboweling the Mirelurk King down to the groin.

\111/

Bobbi and Mel were sprinting, back into the warehouse they slammed the door behind them and threw the bolt over the door. "Out of the way!" Bobbi yelled at Mel, running for a stack of suitcases on the first floor.

She was panting, not having run that fast for that long in ages. The first case she unzipped and threw everything to the floor. Guns wrapped in clothes tumbled and clattered to the floor, "Where is it?!" She yelled, kicking the pile away. Going ot the second case, she hefted it up, but immediately dropped it from how heavy the suitcase was.

"Here it is!"

"What?!" Mel asked. "Can it kill it?"

"Oh it will!" Fumbling with the zipper, she yanked it down and around the bend, and then flipped open the top.

Swallowing, the gun she had stored away for an emergency event like this was ready and waiting for her.

The fifteen pound rifle was worth it's weight for the piston propulsion mechanism that could drive railway spikes at 500 feet per second. The Railway Rifle.

It took a few seconds for Bobbi to load and turn on, but after sliding the pump bolt in, the semi-automatic feature loaded the rest of the ten rail spikes into place.

Panting and breathing heavily, Bobbi felt much more safe secure with this beast slayer of a weapon in her hands.

"Woo..." She sighed, nodding her head and then convincing herself it would only take a few shots to kill the Mirelurk King. Her desire to see her plans come to fruition were stronger than her fear of the Mirelurk King.

"Shame about the new guy." Bobbi said, "Now, Mel, I want you to open the door, and I'll take the lead. This is the only thing that'll pin that sucker to the wall before it can get to us. I want you to close the door behind me and lock it. If I don't come back in thirty minutes, then I'm dead and I need you to blow the tunnel. Heist's over, not worth it. If that thing get's out, then that thing will get out into Goodneighbor, but you'll be the first thing it kills."

"Got it."

Bobbi stepped slow, going back down the steps to the basement door.

Inhaling and exhaling, she gulped and aimed the rifle out in front of her. Swallowing, Mel opened the door for Bobbi and she went down into the tunnels, primed with the railway rifle, she stepped carefully and listened for any type of movement, any clicks, any croaks.

The silence was only disturbed by her footsteps against dirt and the ground beneath her feet. The sound of her own breath was getting too loud for her own comfort and she tried to hold her breath and listen for any signs that the Mirelurk King was moving towards her.

She expected the sounds of bones crunching, tongue lapping up the blood off bones, the distinguished cries of pain as a man was eaten alive.

But there was none, and that made her all the more cautious. She flicked a light on attached to the end of the rifle, and a beam was cast out into the darkness, brightening up the dark sewers.

Into the first area, she paused at the threshold and scanned the room from end to end, listening to the whirring hum of the fusion generator.

"Bobbi? Mel?" Nate called out. Bobbi flinched after hearing his voice.

"Jesus!" She yelled back, "You're alive?"

"" Meathead yelled back, drawing closer to the light. He reappeared in the flashlight's beam, right arm bleeding with bite marks around the bicep, torso stained with the greenish-black blood of the mirelurk King and left arm soaked in more blood up to the elbow. Meathead's left arm was shaking, jittery, but it was all an act. In his left hand was a serrated knife, every inch covered in blood.

Pointing the tip of the rifle down to the floor she asked, "How in the hell did you survive?"

He held up his left hand, "" He said, throwing in an Australian accent. A few drops fell from the tip of the blade and Bobbi's head rolled up and she took a step back.

"Christ! I thought you were dead." Putting a hand to her face, she wiped her eyes. "Jesus," she said again. "Looks like you got it. I've never heard of anyone outright killing it with a knife, let alone doing it yourself. Good work."

""

"Railway Rifle, shoots rail spikes they use for railroad ties. I was expecting a lot more of your blood, and a lot less of the Mirelurk King on you."

""

"Stay here and catch your breath, I instructed Mel to stay back." Bobbi said, retreating back up the tunnel. "Jesus," she said to herself a final time. "I can't believe he actually did it."

\111/

When Mel and Bobbi came back down the tunnel, Mel had Sonya right behind them and he was surprised at Nate wiping the mane out of Thunderstruck's eyes.

"Dang, I thought you were dead." Mel admitted.

"Any more in there? Anything else moving around?"

"" Meathead looked down at his pip-boy, then both his arms and chest.

Picking up her rifle, Bobbi unfastened the flashlight and tossed it to Meathead. He caught it and lead the way back into the mirelurk den with Bobbi and Mel close behind.

In the center of the floor was a pool of water where the mirelurk king was thriving, but beyond it, still untouched since the day the two skeletons took refuge down here, was a suit of power armor.

"X-01!" Mel said, Meathead raised an eyebrow to question him, but Mel kept speaking. "Trying to find pieces to this suit are hard enough, but holy hell! Bobbi, are you sure this isn't the storeroom right here?"

"" Meathead quickly said, feeling the desire strongly coming from Bobbi and the fascination coming from Mel. "<I'm going to need it, especially if there's any more Mirelurks down here, which at this rate, we could be standing on top of an entire nest." Meathead let a sense of dread wash out from him, infecting both people in a small room.

They didn't know what they were feeling at first, and Bobbi wanted to protest this alien sensation, but the fear gripped at her and she didn't argue Meathead taking the suit for himself. "" he said, raising the bite marks on his arm for emphasis.

"For taking out the King, you earned it." Bobbi said, her voice unchanged. Shaking off the sense of dread and uneasiness, she nor Mel knew what came over them, but the thought of more Mirelurk Kings in the tunnels ahead filled them with more fear then they ever felt in a long time.

All and all, it was Meathead manipulating their emotions. Same as drawing emotions out of a person, he could leave them feeling a lack of happiness, joy, and hope.

Taking the suit of X-01 power armor, Meathead never heard of any design with the bearing X-01, the most advanced he'd heard of was the T-60E model from Nate, and that was while he was still in the service.

\111/

Mel took longer to shake off the effects of Meathead's emotional draw, still on edge and consistently thinking that there might be another mirelurk around every corner, he checked their bearing and set Sonya to dig through the walls at a South West setting.

When they came through the next wall, Meathead took the forefront, with Bobbi behind him, pleasantly surprised, the next open area was to a subway station that was still holding up the ceiling.

"Well now, isn't this a grand old time." Bobbi said, looking around the metro station.

"" Meathead said, readying his rifle. Mel flicked another switch on Sonya, and her Tesla energy changed red, and the eye-bot's energy was directed to a single point.

When one crawled to it's hands and knees, Meathead fired the first round from his hunting rifle at the ghoul, which set dozens of more ghouls in the station alert. Bobbi fired her railway rifle, ripping and shearing limbs off the withered humans and impaling the severed limb or skull to the wall dozens of feet behind them.

"" Meathead asked.

"I use it for killing Mutants. The guy I bought it from made them to hunt Deathclaws, but even those giant bastards still take more than one round to kill those things!" Bobbi yelled, firing six more times. Her pockets were stuffed with twenty extra spikes, which she pulled out, flipping the hopper open and shoving more spikes in. As Sonya fired direct laser beams of energy at the ghouls, Mel took a position far in the back, firing a .50 caliber handgun he grabbed off the floor of Bobbi's warehouse.

Meathead fired at three feral ghouls, shooting each one more than five times, but their radiated forms didn't want to die. Even after Bobbi shot one with her railway rifle and ripped a leg out of the ball and joint socket, the ghoul still crawled along the ground, barely moving at the speed it wanted to, but the sludgy blood oozed out like tar.

Five rounds to kill one ghoul, then another three as more ghouls got closer, making them an easier target. They clawed at the X-01 power armor, not even scratching the armor as their muffled thumps and scraping could be heard through the suit.

Knocking or punching them back, Meathead used his own revolver and rifle in tandem, switching to the handgun when they got too close.

With a final 'Clang!' Bobbi's railway rifle was silent, and they looked around the collapsed subway station. Meathead couldn't even begin to tell which station this actually was, but if he had to guess, closer to the Boston Common, and Vault 114. Even underground, he got turned around from following the hollowed out tunnels. Where they were actually at, only Bobbi knew.

"This is good. This is good." Bobbi said, "This station is right next to the building the storeroom is in. One more wall to dig through, and we'll be right below it.

Pulling out a compass from her pocket, she checked it for a bearing and told Mel to keep letting Sonya dig south.

Mel switched Sonya back into a the sonic emitter mode, and the face of the eye-bot cracked blue with electricity again. Sonya's blasts were unlike the Mirelurk King's, it didn't bother any of them, while the King's were deadly with a punch behind them.

The next wall was eroded enough that when Sonya made her way through, the concrete wall only needed to be kicked through. In a sub-basement of a much larger maintenance area, Bobbi explained, "There's a brewery in the basement of the storeroom, and this has to be this basement it. We're really close now."

"" Meathead asked, casting his senses out, there weren't any other life forms he could feel that were locked in an emotional state. There were however, some human emotions coming from higher above their heads.

They followed the hallways to another dead end, but the rock wall was worn away by water and spilling out. "If Bobbi's directions are correct, and I have my doubts, the storeroom should be right through here."

Sonya blasted her way through the last of the dirt, and the area opened up out to a two story pipe chase with a flooded floor. Hopping down into the water, Bobbi grimaced.

"Great, my socks are wet, but we're here. We're right under the Diamond City Strongroom."

"Diamond City? I've been mapping it out and I think Diamond City should be a little bit farther North of here." Mel said, even Meathead knew that there's no way they could've walked the distance from Goodneighbor to Diamond City completely underground. Checking his Pip-Boy, he knew that they'd been traveling south and west for over an hour.

Mel's prediction was on the right track, but Bobbi replied. "I don't have a doubt in my mind. How about a little faith for the boss?" It was after she said that, her emotions darkened, she was trying to hide them from being expressed. Bobbi was lying and the Changeling disguised as he knew instantly.

""

"That's right. Mel, will Sonya work here?"

"Of course! Look at this foundation though, it's crumbling. One blast and the whole roof should fall right through. We'll...ah...want to be back in the tunnel for this since we are taking out foundation."

"Good thinking." Bobbi said.

"All right then, everybody out. Sonya is probably going to get crushed after this, and it'll take a few days for me to build another one." Meathead thought Mel was funny for getting sad over the thought of losing his robot, but Meathead admitted it was a useful digging tool. For Nate's sake, and the future plans of digging new sewers and pipes, the design had a lot of potential profit in the future. It was a shame that there wasn't more of a demand for one now.

"" Meathead spoke softly. ""

Mel set the robot to dig upwards, then ran out after them.

The blast collapsed a whole section of ceiling directly down ontop of Sonya, and the metalic crunching noise sent a ache of pain through Mel's heart. His whole face dropped and he frowned, saddened by the loss.

Bobbi was the one who picked up on Mel's mopey expression and said, "You can make another robot from the haul we get from the strongroom."

The rubble made a partial ramp up to the floors above them, and where they came out looked like a break room with lockers and an old Nuka-Cola machine. There were giant generators that once powered fans to keep wind moving through the underground tunnels, but now they were shut off and covered in dust. Nate looked around the break room, and then to the old faded posters on the walls.

Definitely not Diamond City, but the only way out was through a door. He could feel people's emotion on the other side of that door. They were in the strongroom beyond that door, so Nate called out to Bobbi, "Wait. Do you hear that?" Her hand was on the doorknob, and she gripped it tightly. Her heart was racing, but she was undettered.

"No, we need to go before someone finds this."

Swinging the door open, Bobbi's regret and emotions of boldness rose as she straightened up and readied her railway rifle.

\111/

The Strongroom was a train house, a giant mechanical shop used to maintain trains and house them for later use. There were shelves along the perimeter of the room, but almost all of them were empty. There was a traincar with a sliding door closed on one of the rail tracks, there were rusted motors from car engines thrown into a pile against the wall, with a rusted out crane at the far end of the warehouse.

Only the heaviest of tools and mechanical parts were left behind. Bobbi's frustration rose, and on the catwalk above them, three figures waited behind floodlights aimed down at Bobbi and Meathead. Mel was still taking the cautious route and staying back. There were five people in the next room over, three were angry, determined to fight, while three more figures were farther off, worried.

Meathead recognized the emotion before Bobbi opened the door, and now he was caught in the thick of it.

"You seriously didn't think Hancock wouldn't catch wind of your scheme?" Fahrenheit asked, all three of them readied their assault rifles. Meathead took a step back as Bobbi boldly walked forward. "Hancock took you in, and you're stealing from him? I think I saw that coming from a mile away."

"" Meathead accused.

"And I lied, don't listen too her," Bobbi said, eyes still on Fahrenheit.

The blonde smirked down at them, "So you kept them all in the dark? Nice No-nose, know's nothing!"

"To tell you the truth, it was pretty dark down there!" Mel called out.

"You all just broke into Hancock's storeroom."

Bobbi's emotions raged at the mention of Hancock, she saw him as an insufferable soft-hearted fool who needed to learn it was easy to rip off a person so willing to help others.

"Dangit Bobbi!" Mel complained.

"Now I know this isn't what you expected, but there's still a ton of caps on the line-" Bobbi said, but Meathead swung his power armor covered fist right into the backside of Bobbi's skull. Thunderstruck watched as her companion beat the female ghoul down.

The audible crack was heard by everyone as she screamed out in pain and landed on the floor. Meathead squatted down and lifted her up by the neck.

"Whoa!" Mel yelled, still gripping the .50 caliber handgun in one hand. He wasn't tempted to bring it up, nor aim at Nate, and dropped it instead.

"" Meathead said, Fahrenheit tilted her head. The filters on the X-01 power armor helmet made it difficult to make out who's voice it was, but she thought the voice sounded familiar, and she was glad Bobbi's mercenary turned on her.

"" Meathead asked, facing Fahrenheit.

Fahrenheit slid her thumb across the throat.

"This...isn't...how it's..."

"It's done." Choking her out in his grip, thumb and pointer fingers tightening around her larynx, she wheezed, coughed, struggling to smash at Meathead's hands, but they pounded uselessly against the X-01 power armor. There was confusion and anger, which made Meathead wonder why humans were always confused when they were about to die, as if they didn't expect it to come so quickly, followed by the anger that they might not survive, and something was keeping them from living.

When she stopped struggling and Meathead didn't feel any emotion left coming from her, Bobbi's body fell to the floor.

"" Meathead said, looking up to Fahrenheit. Thunderstuck came up along side Meathead, feeling safer by his side. The other two watchmen from Goodneighbor were still pointing their guns at them, but with the power armor on, he wasn't holding his breath.

"You made the right move, pawn. That's not the first time Bobbi tried doing this. Hancock will be happy to hear about your loyalty."

Meathead frowned at being called a pawn, but he hid the expression under the X-01 helmet before taking it off. Feeling her emotions shift again as she figured out who the man in the mask was, she was glad it was Nate, and not anyone else.

Inhaling through his nose, a particular scent caught his attention.

"I don't really want any part of this." Mel said, sidestepping Bobbi's body.

"Both of you should go pay respects to the man in person," Fahrenheit said, "It's best to stay on Hancock's good side. Trust me."

His eyes latched onto the traincar. Two frightened figures were on the other side of the door, and with one hand he pointed at the car.

""

"Making friends, wastelander." Fahrenheit replied sarcastically. "Revere, Betsy, come on out. Where'd you find that one?"

The carriage house was silent for a moment, but the latches on the traincar door clicked and then the bars turned, unbolting from the mount. The wheel and door was coated in a brown glow, and Meathead knew instantly what was inside.

"" Meathead said, smiling. The first mare to come out, Betsy was a unicorn. With brown fur and white hair, her cutie mark was of three shooting stars.

The mare looked young, twenties maybe, but the stallion that looked older. Meathead shuddered at what he saw, it was a blue pegasus with brown hair, but there was only a stump where the right wing joint would've been. Grown over and healed, the damage occurred a long time ago. Revere wore a coat around his midsection, because the stallion couldn't regulate his body temperature without his wings at his side. On his flank was a lantern cutie mark.

They were shocked at seeing Thunderstruck, but because of how well she looked after recovering in the changeling pod, they didn't recognize each other.

They lead the Institute pony, his horn still bound in resin, but his expression turned dark and emotions leaned towards hatred at the sight of Nate.

""

"Youngblood here doesn't like the surface here as much as he does being locked inside of a cage." Fahrenheit responded flippantly.

"I know you're hiding something." Youngblood said, "And when the Institute finds out how you captured me, you'll all pay for your stupidity!" His voice rose, and the threat only garnered incredulous laughs from everyone except for Mel and Thunderstruck, who were out of their league. Thunder looked at Youngblood, seeing the hatred outpouring from his eyes, his bared teeth, snapping at every word. "And why aren't you killing them?" Youngblood directed the question to Thunderstruck.

"Excuse you?"

"You're too pure to be festering on the surface with these retarded degernates! You have the power to wipe every human off the face of the planet! Humans should be on their hands and knees grov-"

"AND that's enough." Betsy said, her brown magic clenching Youngblood's mouth shut. He fought against the magical grip, but couldn't fight it.

"Well, at least he's talking." Revere said. "Progress."

Meathead felt sad for the pegasus stallion, but Fahrenheit called down to them as she descended the steps from the catwalk.

"He's been more stubborn than a tree stump, and less willing even after Hancock had his way with him." Revere said.

"" Meathead said, walking towards Youngblood. ""

Meathead was feeling particularly cruel in that moment, welling up all of Nate's frustration's, anger, sadness, lonliness, depression, rage, hatred, and pain, he used the energy to turn the air around them into a cold, desolate sense of dread. Youngblood recoiled, fearful of the burning gaze Meathead cast at the pony.

""

Youngblood snorted, but Meathead thought it was cute how the pony tried to look intimidating.

"" Meathhead asked, Youngblood was confused, and then Meathead laughed. Mirroring a confused reaction,

"" He asked Fahrenheit, and then she filled in the details.

"Drugs, he's tried everything under the sun to get him to speak, but what we have gleaned from his ramblings is that there's not much to like about the Institute. Turns out, as noble as a quest is to purge the surface of all human life, turn us 'savages' into 'docile' super mutants the Institute wants nothing more than to control the super mutants into being their slave labor, just like the synths."

"" Meathead said, turning to look at Betsy and Revere.

"No one touches the ponies without Hancock's say-so, you understand?" Fahrenheit threatened.

Meathead nodded, "" he said, giving her a two finger salute. She pointed at the door leading outside and gave Nate a hard look, but before they left, Meathead picked up Bobbi's Railway Rifle and strapped it onto his back.

""

\111/

Mel and Meathead, and Thunderstruck walked outside, Mel was bummed that his boss was dead, but he wasn't surprised. He was concerned at how quickly Nate dealt with her, but not by the fact that he did it to keep in the good graces of Hancock.

"Well, I'm broke." Mel said.

""

"Seriously? You're just going to offer me that?"

"" Meathead offered, Mel didn't immediately turn down the offer, so he kept speaking.

""

"You think so?"

""

Mel held his head up and looked out at the city of Boston to the North of them. "Not like I got much else to do. All right, deal. I work for beer and caps, and you get some robots. There aren't many places North of Boston thought that has a lot of hardware. There's the Robco Factory over on the East side, but I heard it's been locked down ever since the bombs fell."

""

"What, you want me to sell these things too?"

""

"How small a percentage?"

"<Thirty percent, that goes to caravans and hired muscle coming your way, and I already know some people in the neighborhood at Bunker Hill who would love to buy some working robots for protection."

Mel inhaled, "Sounds pretty good. I'm heading back to Diamond City to sleep this one off, then in a day or two, I'll go see Hancock after he's had time to cool off. I'll be around the Hotel Rexford if I'm not already there. How long will it take to set up?"

""

"Heck yeah. I have no idea where we got spat out. I know were just a little south of Boston at some trainyard, but I haven't been this way in a long time."

Meat glanced down at his pip-boy. ""

"Great. I knew we were farther south than the strongroom. Hey, what was with those ponies in there? And why was Fahrenheit so defensive about them?"

""

Looking at Mel, she didn't want to talk to him at first, looking down at the ground towards Meathead's feet. Drawing her head up to look them in the eyes.

"We were bought, sold, or butchered." She said.

"The way the brown one looked at you with those big darn eyes reminded me of that time I accidentally kicked a cat and it looked up at me all sad. Didn't mean to, I just didn't see it."

""

\111/

Ch. 65 Stockton

"So how about a drink when we get to Diamond City? Oh wait, I forgot we didn't get paid." Mel said, happy in the moment, sad in the next.

"" Meathead said, cradling his X-01 helmet under his arm as they walked the remaining blocks to Diamond City.

"Huh? How'd you get Henry to sell? I didn't think that was even on his mind."

""

"Oh, so you know about that too? Speaking of which-"

""

"Damn. Well, I'll still take that beer though."

""

"I know cause I worked with a lot of power armor over the years, I spend my freetime disassembling and rebuilding robots and their plating, welding, programming, diving in and out of factories and warehouses that have good scrap, but the X-01 was the very last models of power armor developed before the Great War. They were rolling through assembly line production, shipping models across the country when the bombs fell, but that didn't stop the survivors from cranking them out until all the parts were gone. If I knew where they were assembled, we wouldn't be having this conversation, but what I do know is that the Army had a lot to do with using them after the bombs fell and they were top of the line model. The T-45 Iron Maidens were already strong enough to tank repeated RPG fire and three to seven anti-tank rounds before the suit is completely inoperable, depending on if it strikes a critical point. The X01s, after the T-51s, and the T-60s, were rated to withstand 35 anti-tank rounds before compromising the integrity of the suit.

""

"You got it. Now, I did hear about an X-02. Enclave shit. The part of the army that was still the army after the war that was cranking out the X-01s made a design after that, but as far as I know, I've never seen them, and only heard about it from traders who come up from down south, New York, and D.C."

""

"The Enclave? They were all the generals and higher ups that knew the world was going to turn out like this, so they hid, built themselves up, and...and I don't know too much about them. What everyone mostly knows is that the Brotherhood of Steel and the Enclave went toe-to-toe down in D.C. ten years ago. Big fight for what it's worth. The version I was told was that the Enclave tried to do something to the water. Or, fighting over a water purifier or something, but they were trying to put something in the water that would kill off everything mutated. First instinct is 'Oh, that's good, right? Kill all the super mutants?' Half-true, everything above ground is mutated. I know enough to know, that over the 200 plus years since the bombs fell all that fallout's been getting in everyone's systems, and the radiation's been playing with human DNA like a cat with a ball of yarn. So whatever they were trying to do, they got stopped. Enclave got ran out of town, and we've been singing Khum-bay-ya ever since."

Thunderstruck landed by them, as they were only a few blocks from the Home Plate entrance to Diamond City. ""

Seeing the lights of Diamond City, and the D.C. Guards patrolling outside, Thunderstruck shook her head and flew to the top of the stadium, hidden behind the flood lights, and waiting for Meathead and Mel to make an appearance.

"Shy gal. How'd you get her to follow you?"

""

"Isnt that why you're keeping her though? For food? Just in case you run out?"

""

Shocked and confused about Nate's sudden outburst of rage, Mel hazily replied, "So...we'll keep her as a pack animal then?"

Meathead raised his hand, and Mel winced, but he patted him on the shoulder. ""

"Got it."

\111/

Knocking twice on Publick Occurences, it was late, but Meathead knew Piper was still up. "Come in." Came a response.

""

She asked, "Is that you? Nate? Or..." Wearing her red coat over her blue vault suit underneath, she pulled away from her desk and stood up to face the door.

""

"Oh? But I'm kinda almost finished writing up those articles."

""

""

""

\111/

"" The synth detective was always awake, he had heard footsteps outside of his home, walking along the third base line drive before Meathead knocked on his door.

"What's the word?"

"Meet me up at the Taphouse in ten. There's someone I want you to meet.

\111/

Getting the keys from Paul Pembroke, the new bartender didn't ask questions, which for tonight, that was all was needed. Meathead unlocked the bar, and held the door open as Thunderstruck dove from up on high, and flew straight through the door in a flash. Mel was about to follow Meathead in until he said to grab a seat on the balcony and wait for Piper and Nick.

"" Meathead said, looking around the bar, it was still as dirty as Henry left it. "" Cracking all ten knuckles, and popping the joints in his neck, Meathead inhaled and shook his hands out.

It started from the ceiling, and ended at the floor. From the ceiling panels, it looked like dampness was spreading across them, growing more opaque until droplets of moisture started to form. The panels themselves were actually getting cleaner as Meathead pulled yellowed tobacco tar stained into the ceiling, condensing it all with his magic and discarding it in the trash. He repeated it with the walls, the furniture, and gathering all the dirt tracked in on the floor, with little effort, the floors were clean but the ground was still warped and cracked.

Back to his changeling form, Meathead rubbed his hooves together and resin poured from his pores. Seeping into the cracks, he re-surfaced the floor, using his magic to change the color of it, but ultimately smoothing everything flat. All the insects, cockroaches, and fruit flies in the air were killed in an instant. Gathered in a ball of magic, which to see them coming from all corners of the room to the center like they were drawn to a magnet was creepy for Thunderstruck to observe, but they were tossed as well. All the dishes and glasses, Meathead went a step above cleaning them, he used his magic to separate any scum or water marks from the glass, making them shine like brand new. The refrigerators and cabinets were scoured out with a blast of hot heat magic that burned away any mold spores, and lines cleared.

From the time it took Piper to finish making adjustments to her articles for the evening, then walk up to the Colonial Taphouse, all of seven minutes passed.

Knocking on the door and pushing it open, she froze, suddenly feeling like she was walking into a alien world.

"Uhhh....Did a little spring cleaning?" Piper asked, eyes-wide open in amazement at the transformation.

"Hey, boss, can I come in yet?"

""

Mel whistled at the cleanliness of the bar, "Woo-wee. How'd you get this place whipped into shape so fast? Last time I was here-"

"You got arrested for trying to steal booze. I used magic and the power of friendship. Now let's get down to business."

"Alright, Mr. Sarcastic."

"So, Nate? Is this what you wanted to show me? Love what you've done with the place." Sniffing the air, it wasn't offensive in the slightest. Meathead drew out a few drinks, even offering one to Thunderstruck, but she looked at the bottle, unsure if she should partake. It seemed so long that she got to enjoy herself in the slightest, that she didn't want something bad to suddenly happen and ruin the moment.

It was then, Nick Valentine knocked and opened the door. His eyes roamed the interior, but he couldn't believe the radical change the inside underwent. "You got some magic gremlins running around I don't know about?" Nick joked.

""

"I've met your kind before, nice to meet a pegasus again." Piper said,

"When was the last time that happened?" Thunderstruck asked.

"Too long, I'm afraid. There were a few ponies who came through up until the takeover at Nuka-World, but since then they dropped off the map for the most part."

"Thunder, well now, aren't you a pretty little thing. You look like you're fresh out of the box." Nick said, "So Nate, am I to believe that you called me up here to help Thunder here track down her friends?"

""

"Anyway, while you two were out, I did some digging. There's more ponies than I realized, or really, bothered to count, but I have locations for ten of them, all around Boston, and then a few leads on merchants who use pony-trains to carry their gear. Once a month, a trader from Nuka-World comes, his name is Wex, but he's got two ponies and a brahmin for pack animals, and three guards with him. The D.C. Guards make a note of everyone who passes through the gate. I'll keep asking for more, but these are the ones we know of."

"Where's some of the Ten?" Thunderstruck asked.

"Four of them were seen at Easy-City Downs. Gunners bought three and are either at University Point, or GNR plaza, so put a pin in those for now, two are up in Salem, while one managed to make it's way out to Nahant Island."

""

"I talk to the caravans nearly every day, asking what's the word around the Commonwealth. If I ask them if they've seen any ponies around, they say where they've seen them."

""

"That would be one of Hancock's men, a ghoul by the name of Derrick. He was a Gunner until he got the ghoulies. Got sick, dropped out, survived the change, came out on top. However, I hear he pays some seriously steep prices for not getting shot at, but he's one of the most well armed caravans in the Commonwealth for a reason."

""

"What's in the Glowing Sea?" Mel asked.

""

"Well, Good luck to you then, Nate. What've you got planned for the rest of the night?" Nick asked.

""

"Are you planning on sleeping here?" Piper asked.

"Am I getting the boot?" Mel followed up with another question.

""

"So where's...?" Piper trailed off, referring to Nate.

" "

"Thanks for the beer," Piper said, taking a sip.

""

"What! But people need to know about this! People are being spied on 24 hours of the day!"

"Crow article?" Nick asked, Mel and Thunderstruck both mirrored Nick's confusion. "What crow?"

"We found out the Institute's been spying on us using birds. Bird Synths. Robots. Drones, whatever. They're all over Diamond City and flock in the hundreds on all the wires and perches all over the place here. We found one while Nate here was shooting at some birds, when he went to go check them out, he cut one open and found camera lens behind the eyes, and a transponder in the chest cavity."

"Piper..." Nick said, "That's incredible the Institute knows no bounds of making everyone's lives even more terrible. Watching us every second of the day. Crimony, those buzzards don't look when they're rad-ded out, and come to think of it, they've been looking a little phoney or sickly as of late! People need to know they're being spied on."

"<Piper, Nick, I can't agree more, but this is the only advantage we have over the Institute right now. Piper, the moment you print that article, one of two things are going to happen. One: everyone and their mother is going to aim up at the sky and start gunning down birds left and right. Two: The institute is going to scrap whatever birds they've got left, remodel them, and then the next thing we know, it's going to be seagulls, or finches, or hawks, or eagles that just stay aloft all day, far out of range. Three: just because we stop the birds, doesn't mean the Institute will stop spying on us, they're just going to find a different way, either through dogs, cats, brahmin, rats, cockroaches, anything that wont arouse suspicion, but can slip in and out of view. They could even try flipping a switch to see if they can get a live feed through Nick's eyes and ears, listen in to all our conversations without him or us even knowing it. Then number four: humans driven to paranoia start killing off livestock and other animals, Thunderstruck here barely has any rights as it is, and saying she's not a synth won't help her any more than the last person who was gunned down in the marketplace for saying the exact same thing, claiming it's for the greater good, citing your articles as the reason why."

"I resent that, but it's true. Closest to wrapping my head in a lead scarf, I see Nate's reasoning here, Piper. The Institute wont stop, but at least this way, we can work in the blindspots."

"Shit!" Piper said, furious at the Institute and angry that she couldn't have this one win under her belt.

"Can I see this Crow?" Mel asked, "I'm curious."

"<Later. Piper, show Mel the Crow when we're done, he's a whiz with robots and could find something useful by studying it."

Thunderstruck tried to remember the last time she had anything alcoholic, and couldn't even pull up an image. She knew she'd tried something in the past, but everything felt locked away. Taking a sip, she shuddered.

"" Meathead asked, guiding the question to her.

"I'd like to hear." Piper said, "I gotta...come up with more stuff to put out now."

Thunderstruck felt the attention on her, and she swallowed. "It was before the sun was even up. I'd been trying to get to a place on the coast where a friend of mine told me they knew where ponies ended up at. He described it as a ship graveyard, a massive ship sticking halfway out of the water North of the Boston Airport, with all these smaller boats clustered around it, and the dock."

"That's Libertalia," Piper said, "Big raider base. Sorry, keep going."

"When I got there, I only rescued one. They were already- hei- " She exhaled rapidly, dipping her head and seeing past the images in her head. "They were gr...they were coo...There was a pony over the fire," She cried, Meathead placed a hand
behind the base of her skull, easing away the toxic emotions so she could get through the story without stopping.

"And another one they just shot to death because he tried to escape, but they were only using them as food! They set aside three ponies for food, and three for being their damn pack animals!" She stomped her hoof on the ground, tears of hurt plainly expressed on her face. "They don't care about us! No body cares about us! You don't care about us!" She pointed an accusing hoof at Mel.

"Hey! I already got the fear of God speech, sorry that not all life is treated equally. Sucks to be you."

""

"I took a laser rifle and killed seven of them, pulled Cherry Fizz out of the hole she was burying herself in, and now she's out of there but she's not...right."

"Sounds like you pulled her out of the gates of Hell." Nick Valentine said, leaning in a bit closer to her. "That sounds like a lot of trauma for anyone to go through, and I can only imagine how she must feel. You said there were other ponies there too? Ones they used for work?"

"Yes."

"Well, Thunderstruck, as brave as you were for rescuing your friend, I fear your actions may inadvertently put the other ponies at risk."

"I know." Regretting she didn't do more, she may of rescued one friend, but doomed three other lives to the same fate.

"Then how about in the morning, we go stage ourselves a rescue mission, how's that sound? If one pegasus could sneak in, wipe out seven of their guys and pull a friend out of danger without raising the alarm, then with the two of us, it should be a snap." Nick asked the pegasus.

"We don't have any armor or protection to bring Thunderstruck along with me to the Glowing Sea, meaning I need to leave her here without anyone to be with. I don't know how long it'll take me to search ground zero, but while I'm there, Thunderstruck can take care of herself, and I'll hire you to help her find more ponies. Tomorrow I gotta go talk to Hancock in Goodneighbor about something Mel and me accidentally stuck our heads into, but after that, we'll go kill some raiders."

"Sounds like a plan." Nick said.

"Cheers."

\111/

That evening after arriving at Bunker Hill, Nate performed maintenance on Curie, buying tools and liquids for her from a mechant named Deb. The trees and fences around Bunker Hill had a few crows, to which Nate observed from the corner of his eye.

One of them, maybe more, were fakes.

A mooing two-headed Brahmin made Nate look towards the other pack animal of the Commonwealth, "May be." He said under his breath.

Stockton approached Nate, hearing that the vault dweller arrived. "You there, what's your name again?"

"Nate."

"Nate, could you care to explain something to me? You see, I've got the worst suspicion that you weren't the person you said you were."

"It's called a background check, this time ask me the questions you would've asked then."

"So you're not with the Railroad, and you know one of our Safehouse locations."

"That's true."

"So why did you go along with it, then? Why not back out?"

"Because I know how to work a job without asking questions. If the message of the day is to keep quiet as we take a midnight stroll, then I keep quiet and stretch my legs. It's not such an ethereal concept to follow orders exactly to the letter. I just happen to have more experience."

"So what are you after then? Money? Weapons? Robots?"

"Yes to all, but a radiation suit to start with. While I'm willing to be patient on everything else, finding a suit that hasn't been worn through or patched in places is difficult. That's why I came here. You've got to be one of the most well informed public people in all the Commonwealth next to the mayors. Between all the caravans you fund, you get direct feedback from merchants on routes to take, hot zones, villages, townships, communities, who's coming, who's going, who's buying what, and so on. What I want to know is the location of every single raider, mutant, ghoul, synth, mirelurk, and deathclaw that crosses their path, and create a map."

"A map? I can sell you a map."

"I already have a map, what I want to know is the routes and roads your caravans say raiders attack, choked off roads, or set up booby traps, which raiders out there could be strong armed into giving in to Bunker Hill, and which ones should get the axe."

"I know what you're planning, but I won't give you the routes. That's proprietary information. You want to wage war against the Commonwealth, you're a damn fool, you'll get what everyone gets when they try and take on the Commonwealth."

"How much does it cost to run a caravan to Diamond City and back?"

"Three-hundred caps, roundtrip. That's feeding the pack animals, food and water for the caravan guards and merchants, sleeping arrangements, and ammo, plus any losses incurred."

"Is that about the same for Lexington, and South Boston?"

"Aye."

"Tell your friends, that just because of a little communication error, doesn't mean our interests don't align. I'll be knocking on their front door here tomorrow evening."

"You came by here two days ago, and spoke to Kessler, saying Jared and Tower Tom are dead, then headed to Pickman's Gallery. How is it that you came from the North?" Stockton asked.

"I backtracked up towards Malden, and found the resting place of Tony Savoldi's father."

"You've been leaving quite the trail of smoke in your wake, I see."

"Where there's smoke, there's fire. You're quite observant."

Old Man Stockton gave up on the conversation, satisfied with what was said and didn't say another word, walking off without even saying goodbye. After Stockton was gone, Mayor Kessler made her way around Bunker Hill to see Nate working on Curie.

"Where'd you pick her up?" Mayor Kessler asked.

"Vault 81."

"Bonjour madam," Curie greeted her.

"Is there something I can help you with, Nate?" Feeling a sense of anticipation rise.

"Yes. Thank you. Kessler, I need to know about the raiders at Revere Beach and the mutants at the Satellite Array." Stockton moved away, but not so far that it wasn't out of sight.

"What do you need to know?"

"Who's in charge there?"

"A boss by the name of Cinder. As far as raider-relations go, their one of the less infuriating groups to deal with. They trade, they dig up clams and have seafood every few days, they keep the mutants at the array in check. They're close enough to where we have an understanding not to shoot at any caravans passing by."

"Then about the satelites, where do all these mutants keep funneling in from?"

"There's a few places, but you already know of one. It was the building you blew up in Cambridge. The second..." Looking to the skyline, the Malden Medical Center Hospital was still smoking from a distance, and would burn for another two days.

"I believe you already know that there were super mutants in Malden as well. The last place that I and all Bunker Boys know of is West Everett Estates. A suburbia overrun with Mutants. Taking the mutants out there, would open up everything North of Boston."

"I've seen it. It's on the list, but thank you for confirming it. Anywhere else?"

"Cambridge and Trinity Plaza. I've got eyes on the CIT building, if I could get a few cement posts up, and lay down some planks, I could get the bridge open and send runners all along the north side of the Charles river, all along the waterfront, take a right turn right before the college, then a left, after they cross, and they'd be right in Diamond City without needing to go around or through the North End."

"What route do traders take normally right now?"

"They skirt the north side of Cambridge, up towards Lexington, where one Caravan heads north to offer tribute to Jared, thank you for killing him by the way, or turn south and give tribute or time it so that Tower Tom's men wouldn't see them. Again, thank you. Some caravans go through the North End, usually stopping in Goodneighbor, before following the main boulevard through uptown. That's where most of the caravans run into trouble, it's a long sprint, and Brahmin don't move that fast. There was a traveling merchant pony, came through about every two weeks, but after the raiders took over Nuka-World, the only thing anything being sold by anyone over the hills was slaves and pack animals. I tried early on to convince Stockton into buying some for his caravans, since they're smart and can fend for themselves, but he didn't want to. Principal of the matter for trading with raiders that enslaved former trading partners, and risk, neither of which he was willing to compromise on."

"So there used to be a trading route between here and Nuka-World?"

"Yep. But caravans would only have to go as far as the Parking Center for Nuka-World west of Lexington."

"The parking center there?"

"They have a working monorail that goes all the way from there to the park in 10 minutes, we used to get alot more bottle caps, nuka-colas, and fruit from them, but that all changed after the gangs attacked."

"Any idea on what happened to the merchant pony? Do you remember their name?"

"Happy little pony called Cherry Bomb. Born in Nuka-World, she has, or had, I don't know anymore, a sister Cherry Fizz. And they used to travel with a woman named Anita. They'd make the effort to come to Bunker Hill every two weeks. But now? I don't think they'll ever come around here again, not by choice, but...that's the way she rolls."

"Have there been any mutant retaliations since the construction site collapse?"

"Only one, that I've heard of. They attacked a settlement in the North End, a storefront that a few people were living in. Wiped them out, but that could've been any mutant group moving through, and not just because of what you did. It stopped them from gaining a foothold in Cambridge, and this close to Bunker Hill, we all appreciate it. Already we've been able to make it as far as Monsignor plaza before running into trouble. That's three times the distance, and a hell of a lot more breathing room for the traders. Stockton might have his opinion on how to run his business, but he's a bleeding socialist dictator when it comes to picking and choosing who works, who trades, and who makes the money. He sees 100 merchants and says, it's too many, forces 20 of them to hefty contracts that end up costing them everything, and takes everything when they can't make the return on investment. Instead of allowing everyone to go where they want, he gaslights them into selling products to his merchants, but then in return offers no services like food and water for the other merchants or their animals."

"School bullies accomplish more by demanding lunch money."

"What?"

"Nothing, just a bad analogy."

"What are you planning to do now?"

"Go talk to the Railroad, I've been all over, and found some power armor, but I need a radiation suit for the Glowing Sea."

"The Glowing Sea? Why would you ever want to go there? I don't even know anyone who's gone there willingly, not even to scavenge. I mean, the lack of protection for one, but why do you need both?"

"You ever fought a deathclaw?"

"Yes. Me and ten others."

"I meant by yourself."

"No. Noooo, no, no, no." Kessler said, rejecting the idea.

"Well," Nate said, licking his lips, "Seeing as I only fought the one Deathclaw, he was peeling my suit off like a can opener. Ripped me out of the suit, and tossed me around like a rag doll. I don't know what I'll find in the Glowing Sea, but if my armor goes, then I die instantly. If I have a suit, then maybe, just maybe, if my power armor goes to shit, or even gets a small hole in it, I can get out, and run for my life. Otherwise if the frame locks up or ejects me, and I don't have a suit, it's over. I'd maybe survive two minutes exposed, and if I survived that I wouldn't be able to crawl for the next week afterwards from all the radiation poisoning. I got a shitload of Rad X, Radaway, and my lead-lined undies, so I'm rearing to go."

"They're hard to come by in good condition."

"I'm beginning to understand why."

"How's Pickman?"

"Pickman? Oh, well, we didn't get much of a chance to talk, but he's quite the character. Didn't quite expect to see all the...the ahh..." Making small circles in the air, as if he were gesturing to a spot on the wall. Nate never met Pickman, but Meathead came through here.

"The paintings and the heads? Yeah, he's not exactly welcome in Bunker Hill, but he's not banned either. I take it you wont be passing through here for a while?"

"I'll be making one more run north of here. A big run. I'm going to need a lot of people. I found a cache of supplies, and it'll give me the firepower I need to take on whatever's in the Glowing Sea. "

"Well, if you have any spare cases of 9mm or .22s in the lot, we use a lot of those for handguns and target practice around here. Shotgun shells too. But for mirelurks, we need the rifle rounds."

"You got an ammo press?"

"Yep."

"How big?"

"Big as you want. I have a grenade shell for a launcher sitting on my self for three years now that I haven't been able to use, but I had all the gunpowder and the pieces to make one at the time."

"I'll make sure to let you get first look at what I bring in, but I think you'll have to make a trip to the tower over yonder to see the whole supply, that's where I'm set up shop."

"Good to know, don't let merchants upsell you, they charge too much for their wares as it is. You staying here for the night or gonna make a break for your ship?"

"Well, I was thinking about it, but then I remembered why I went through Malden in the first place, and low-and-behold, I find the Minutemen's last stand in a middle school classroom, where Brent Savoldi met his final resting place. Tony Savoldi promised he'd build a whole room addition to his place, but maybe I'll see if I can twist his arm a little for a room tonight."

"Good luck to you then Nate, tell us what you find."

\111/

Ch. 66 John Hancock November 5th

John Hancock was rolling a cigarette using a roller crank. He'd rolled a dozen already, feeding the tobacco into a hopper, placing the filter and paper in one end, and then cracking a handle down to pack the tobacco in, and plug the cigarette.

He awoke three hours earlier, feeling the cold in the air, and the blood in his veins get thicker like tar. Harder to pump, he beat his chest twice. Kick-starting his heart, and to make sure it was still beating, the benefits of being a ghoul, also meant feeling the chill in your bones.

Smoking brought a damp-heat to his chest. A warmth that only hot soup, a dozen blankets, a roaring fire, and healthy living could bring.

Growing his own plants and herbs that could be ground up and rolled helped extend his personal supplies as well.

Ever since Kellogg hung five days ago, he'd woken up excited, high's had been absolutely fantastic, he spent the rest of Halloween and November 1st completely trashed, partying just as hard as any other night, but he couldn't help but jump up and say 'God! Revenge is the best drug!'

He even ventured out to the Boston Common, and saw a six Yao Guai, radiated bears tearing off sections of rotting meat from Swan's body. In an already inebriated state, his mind made jumps in logic and reasoning, walking out to a fire truck, he jerked and tugged at the fire axe held in place, until the clasps finally gave.

He already knew where he would do it too, he watched as the bears walked right under the gate awnings that lead in and out of the Boston Common, and climbed up. Waiting there, he watched as a bear walked right underneath him, and his mouth was already watering.

Bonzai! He jumped, swinging the axe down from high above his head, down onto the backside of the bear's skull, chopping right at the base of the neck. Embedding the fire axe all the way down to the stock, the bear died instantly and Hancock was cackling manically at the thought of trying to do it again.

\111/

That release, that lessening of pressure in his skull made all the beer taste better, and the drugs make him all the more high. He was happy and didn't need as many drugs to feel that intense rush of euphoria he was still riding five days later. It was energy, it was enough to make Hancock ask the Neighborhood Watch to inform him if the guy in blue came back.

While Hancock was hunting bears, Meathead passed through with Thunderstruck and proceeded to disappear down into Bobbi's warehouse, while Nate and Curie were dealing with mutants and Gunners in Malden.

\111/

Thunderstruck and Meathead left Diamond City with Nick Valentine, Nate and Curie left Bunker Hill and Charlestown behind them to go to the U.S.S. Constitution.

As Hancock was grilling himself a bear steak in Goodneighbor, Nate was making enough breakfast for a family gathering of eggs and sausage with rice in the galley of the Constitution. He didn't have to wait long, as his doppleganger and Thunderstruck both walked onto the ship.

"" Meathead said, "Good to see you." Quickly embracing each other with a hug and pat on the back, Meathead was surprised at the burn on Nate's hand.

"" A green flash of fire turned Meathead back into a german shephard, ""

"Hi!" He said, dropping down to one knee to shake her hoof. "Glad you're alright. You went through quite a bit. I'm gonna go bring up Nick Valentine, and we'll all get caught up."

"Why don't you want the detective knowing about each other?"

Nate was already walking across deck when he turned back and answered. "As much as I trust what Nick says, I don't know for certain if he knows that he's being monitored. The Institute, the people who made him, could be logging everything he sees and hears, waiting to play it back, or if they've got a live feed camera beaming signals straight back to base. Until I know without a doubt that's not happening, this is the way our relationship with Nick will stay. I don't need the Institute knowing about Meathead."

Curie wasn't sure what to make of the two monsieur's, when what must of been a lag in her optical relay showed an intense flash of light and then a dog. Isolating the incident in her memory banks, she labeled the entire experience as a corrupted file and deleted it.

\111/

Introductions all around, Thunderstruck saw what type of game Nate and Meathead were playing at. A level of disbelief that she wore unceremoniously until she processed the whole sight, of how a man and his companion...changeling could bounce back and forth under the same identity and get away with it. How Meathead didn't have any objection to following behind as a dog, when he had the strength to overwhelm Nate, Nick, Curie, and herself in a heartbeat.

Spooning up bowls of sausage, eggs, and rice Meathead voraciously ate his portion, licking the bowl clean. Thunderstruck ate hers out of a bowl at the table using a spoon, and Nate ate a small portion with two mis-matching chopsticks.

It felt so alien to have a family meal, that she was missing out on the conversation. "What are we doing?" She asked.

"We're deciding on either going to Goodneighbor or Libertalia first. If we went to Goodneighbor, I'd need to talk with Hancock for a few minutes, or however long it takes, and then we'd go North. After freeing the other ponies there, we would come back to the ship." Nate said. "Afterwards, you and Nick would be off on your own adventure, tracking down other ponies from Nuka-World."

"But, it doesn't sound like Thunderstruck's friends have all that much time. We're racing against an unknown deadline for whenever those raiders at Libertalia get peckish for fresh meat." Nick argued.

"Right, so we should load up, and move North. Goodneighbor will still be here-" Rapping his knuckles against the wooden table, "...when we get back."

\111/

Meathead appeared in Goodneighbor, stepping out of an empty warehouse and right next door to the Old State House. He passed by a few Neighborhood Watchmen and went upstairs to the second floor which was curiously quiet for the early afternoon.

Trapsing up the steps, the wooden boards creaked and announced his presence to Hancock long before Meathead reached the top of the stairs.

Hancock had been listening to the footsteps, hearing the creak of each wooden step, focusing on how long the noise was, guessing in his mind how much they weighed, how fast they walked, because everyone was different. Seeing the top of Nate's head as he wound the spiral staircase, Hancock nodded to himself.

"So, my new favorite ball-buster breaks into my warehouse cause of a bad tip-from Bobbi No-nose," Hancock said, closing the door behind Nate as he entered. "And, sounds like you know a thing or two about assets I like keeping close to chest. You made a wise choice putting Bobbi down like that."

Meathead replied, ""

"That's usually how the story goes around here, but, lemme ask you. How is it that your story involves stops at Pickmans, Bunker Hill, Goodneighbor, and two trips to Diamond City? Got a way of getting around I don't know about?"

""

"Yeah?"

""

"I've heard a few things."

"<Like the names Equestria, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, any of those ring a bell?" Meathead was watching Hancock's expression as he listed off the names, for as scarred Hancock's face was, he still couldn't hide his reactions.

"Okay, so you know about them too?" Hancock asked "Alright. The story I heard was that ponies showed up before the Great War, the bombs fell, and they got ditched by their Princess. No line of communications, no check-ups, no choppers coming down to pull them out of the shit. Or, if there were, it didn't happen around here. They all fucked off to Equestria and haven't shown their faces around here since."

"" Meathead said, pausing, "What if there was a fifth? What if there were more? A sixth, or even more?>"

"So you got one of these ponies following you around?"

Meathead was quiet for a moment, wondering how to word his next sentence.

""

"Cause, I feel bad for them, same as you, if you're going through all this trouble to hide your friend, but for the other reason too. I know what they can do, I seen it, and I may of been high, but I seen 'em move the weather, and make things happen that no man could ever accomplish in a million years without magic."

""

"Afraid of? Nah, they'd shoot them all the same. The Institute is afraid of Jack shit as far as I can tell. They're bunch'a shadow government cronies."

""

"Well hey now, I didn't even know anything like that existed. Can your friend do that?"

"" Looking out the Old State House's windows, Meathead looked for any birds roosting. ""

"So where is he? Roll him out."

Meathead raised both hands, palms turned upwards, and spread his fingers out.

"" Meathead said.

"Get out'ta here. That's trash." Hancock said, eyes narrowing to who he thought was Nate.

A green flame spiraled out, wrapping around Meathead disguised as Nate in a brief flash of light, before being replaced with the black shelled Changeling.

"Jesus!" He said, jumping up from being startled. "You're gorgeous compared to me! Damnit! At least you got a face a mother could want, I got radiation burns across 100% of my body, including mah' dick! I got nothing going for me except long life and...a...a memory like a steel trap! A rusty steel trap soaking in salt water!" Hancock admonished, "So who the hell are you?"

"" Meathead said, performing the spell again, the changeling shifted to the form of a German Shepard.

"You! You've been going around as his dog the whole fucking time!? Fuck that's smart. So what can you do? What the hell are you doing this for? Is that...you know about ponies don't you? You've been going around like the fly on the wall! You probably know more shit than anyone about what's going on around here."

Changing once more back to his original form, Meathead was glad that Hancock's reaction wasn't to gut the changeling for being able to shapeshift.

"<I know quite a bit, but I'm not a God, I don't know everything. I can tell you all about where the ponies came from, how we all got here, and all the bullshittery that was happening right up until the very last second before the bombs fell. It took some piecing together but, most of my life, really, but I these are the facts that remain true even after all this time has passed, and it starts with a magic spell that most unicorns and magical creatures can figure out with a lot of practice."

"Oh yeah? Which one?"

""

"Diamond City."

The two disappeared from Hancock's office, materializing in the Colonial Taphouse in Diamond City. Still locked up and not open yet, Hancock spun around, coughing from the change of pressure in his chest. Whipping his head around, he felt like a leaf in a hurricane, "WoAH! Ah! Where! The bar...the Taphouse...Holy hell. We're here. Geeze, they really cleaned this place up since the last time I was here."

""

"Teleportation! You mean to tell me you been jumping around the wasteland lickety-split!?"

"" Floating a few more cold beers out of the fridge, Hancock blinked watching the bottles levitate through the air, wrapped in a magical green glow.

" Grabbing one, Hancock looked at the bottle and pressed it to his forehead, feeling the cold transfer.

"So where's Nate? Where's the One-Eleven?"

"" Hancock nodded, and with a second flash, they both rematerialized in the Old State House, Hancock looking dazed before flopping down onto the couch. Wiping his eyes and setting the beer on the table, he looked at the Changeling across from him.

"What the fuck just happened? Catch me up. I wanna hear the whole thing. What are you doing here? I mean, what..." Hancock trailed off, mind lighting up like a circuit breaker. "Why aren't there more of you?"

A straight-line smile stretched across Meathead's face, ""

"Kinda like a synth."

"" Meathead had been thinking about how to answer this question for eleven days now. ""

"Yeah."

"

"So why the hiding and secrecy?"

"

"

"Where's that?"

"Central America, south of Mexico, south of Guatemala, just keep going south. One massive teleportation jump across millions of light years for an entire species, and we landed there. Now, why did they do this? Why did the changelings come to Earth? The Changelings were losing the war. They were on the losing side of a war they knew was wrong to keep fighting. There were two alternatives, one they knew all about, a slow stripping of all their rights under a new Equestrian government, limits placed on their natural abilities, forced change of their skin color and appearance, and then enduring racism from a tribalist species that looks at the reformed changelings as a second class citizen. We were the ghouls of their own planet, but we ran because of another reason too. There was a King of the Changelings, he was considered a traitor to changelings, hero to the ponies. He was their Benedict Arnold, told them all the changeling secrets, changeling hives, changeling bases, tactics, maneuvers, laying out his full abilities on display for the whole world to see, all at once. The Equestrians didn't like what they saw, and went to war with the changelings still holding out.>"

"What kinda Institute stuff?"

Rolling his eyes back, Meathead head a hoof to his mouth, neck muscles flexing, Hancock saw a lump rising up and out of his throat. "" A small bright blue orb, no bigger than a lawn-bowling ball. ""

"Who's the other?"

"They're called Windigos, and there's two, maybe as many as four in the Commonwealth, as far as I can sense. As far as lesser of two evils go, I don't mind being the last of a species and dying out. Windigos will fuck your day up because they're fucking asshole winter spirits that thrive off negative energy, hate, rage, and all that bullshit. Every time it's snowed this last week, was in isolated cases. Remember the night of the big fight in the Boston Common? Whole Gang war in every direction? It was snowing. I know now there's a big bastard sitting at the top of Trinity Tower, sucking on a big old titty of angry mutant milk. Riling them up, staying lazy at the top, making everyone else's lives miserable because that's all they want to do. Windigo's are bastards like that, they will take a person at their most vulnerable, most weakest, and squeeze them until they're an empty echo of their former self. I told Nate a while ago we should just bomb the whole tower, but he could escape. We need to take him out the hard way and make sure he stays dead.>"

"How do you kill them?"

""

Hancock counted off all the races of Equestria on his fingers. "Any other creatures I should know about? Loch ness mosters? Bigfoots? Yetis?"

""

"Thirty Years?!"

""

"The Equestrians worked with the U.S. but by then, fifteen years into fighting a secret war, there were changelings in hiding all over the country, all over the world. Embedded, told to hide for the rest of their lives, and never look back. I was one of those changelings who was told at birth to run, hide, and never expose myself for fear of being castrated in the streets. Fast forward to the Great-War, the changelings and ponies already called a truce, but they can't get word out to the whole world that there've been aliens living among us for the last 30 years, and that it's okay for them to come out of hiding, so they focus on stopping the war. Changelings and ponies working side by side to stop humans doing exactly this. The U.S. was winning the war. No doubt in my mind about it now. We let loose early versions of the F.E. Virus across China, and the world, killing tens of millions. We had Liberty Prime, one of the largest war bots ever constructed. We'd been bombing, and shelling, and raiding, and pillaging, and raping China for years by sending over soldiers in power armor to decimate whole towns, yet China never even made it past the Inside Passage. Not a single bomb ever touched the mainland U.S.A. before the great war. We were facing food shortages, but that's no reason to bomb ourselves to the stone-age. We crippled their economy, destroyed their faith in humanity, plagued them, infected them, burned them alive, shot them as they tried to get close. Two years later Nate was sitting in a two-bedroom house in Concord drinking coffee, planning on giving a speech at the Lodge on how war never changes. God, how wrong does that sound now? And I was disguised as his dog. just a happy little German Shephard soaking up love from a family that cared about him. We were doing some diabolical shit to make war worse than a living hell for them, taking everything away from them that we could to force them into surrendering. But, that never happened.>

"

""

Hancock looked high, not because he'd already smoked weed, and done some jet before Meathead arrived, but his eyes were all squinty, while his eyebrows were raised in surprise.

"That's dope. So. You follow Nate around, pretending to be him...for what? How the hell did you convince him to agree to this?"

""

\111/

Shaking his head, he threw down his feet, and stood up off the couch. Readjusting his hat, Hancock said, "That's a lot to keep under the cap, and this tricorner just ain't sitting right..." He stooped over the coffee table piled with drugs and beer bottles, guns, and ammo, looking for a particular roach to smoke. Filching one out of the ashtray, there was still half a loosey left to burn. " 'ere I've been saying fuck Tyrants," He said, lips down on the cigarette, lighting it, then transferring it over to his fingers, inhaling a pull, he spoke while exhaling smoke. "...but spending a lot of my time putting down people who I would've been proud to run with years ago."

He raised his arms and then let them flop to his side. "I need to go on a walk. Get a grip."

""

"So where we headed? I need to see what really matters out here in the Commonwealth."

"" Meathead said, not expecting Hancock to invite himself along. "<Nate's just around the corner, he'll be here in just a few minutes. How about we drink up til' then?" Meathead said, drinking the beer taken from the Colonial Taphouse.

"Don't worry, I've gone on walks plenty of times, and a mayor is still a mayor, whether he's in this building or one down the street, or across the Commonwealth. Keeps me honest. Can't let power go to my head, after all that's not what Goodneighbor's about."

""

"Ah, well, now. Ain't that just what the doctor ordered. Radiation bath to help my skin glow, and restore my dashing good looks."

""

"What's going on over there?"

""

"I like it, you and Nate sound like the kind of people who know how to stir up the right kind of trouble. I just gotta have a little chat with the community, and give them the news, then I'll start packing."

\111/

Author's Note

True story # 3, There was a guy named Stanley who worked up in Alaska, he was a Landing Craft boat driver during WWII, and knew all the tricks of giving machines a little 'johhny' to get into the beach fast, hard, then dead stop, before full reverse.

He fished around False Pass, and would hike, hunt, all over the place, back when regulations were looser, and the closest Johnny Law was a week-long boat trip away.

He knew of a trail that bears used ALL THE TIME, and I want you to think about how abundant bears were in AK back in the day, imagine Fallout or Skyrim glitching bears all over the place.

That is a normal day in AK.

He knew from the tracks and bear scat, that bears were using one particular trail all the time, he ALSO said he wanted to hunt a bear with an axe.

The normal response was 'Stanley, you're going to get yourself killed doing that.' But he was the ambitious type of person who thought about every little detail and would say to himself 'You know what?...I could probably do it like so...If i'm in the right spot. Bears don't look up anyway.'

So, while I don't know if he ever did it, the story goes he knew of some branches or a ledge, or a tree, that was right over the trail that forced people and animals to dip their heads down to go under.

Stanley said all he had to do was wait for a bear to go under, then WHAM!

Insane as it was to hunt a bear with an axe. He's passed away, but the story of his ambition is still fun to talk about.

Ch. 67 James Wire

"Hey, everybody! Gather around! I got something you need to hear!" Hancock shouted off the Old State House balcony.

"Look, everyone, I'm taking a walk. I need to go breathe that fresh irradiated sea-air, and see how the Commonwealth is getting along."

\111/

Nate and Nick were pulling a raider boss, the leader of Libertalia, James Wire, back to Goodneighbor.

The raider couldn't close his hands, as most of his fingers were broken. He couldn't shake free of the rope tied around his wrists either without causing intense shooting pain to lance up his arms.

Their clothes were still soaked from the sea water, and stunk like drying algae on the rocks at low tide.

Leading a party of four ponies, and Curie, they were all silent, but filled with deadly intent.

\111/

"Hancock, you can't leave!"

While they didn't want to ask any questions, the ponies following Nate and Nick knew what was going to happen, just not how much.

\111/

"Thunder, where's your friend?"

"She's...on the ship."

"Go get her."

"But she's."

"Thunderstruck." Nate said, leaving no room for argument. "Bring her to Goodneighbor."

"I-"

"I thought I said no talking!" Nate said, jerking on the raider's wrists, forcing the broken fingers to mesh and bend together. The raider boss moaned and wailed.

"Sir, your hands appear to be broken, I strongly advise refraining from any activity that would aggravate your injuries even further." Curie offered.

\111/

"Hey, I'm always gonna be here in Spirit, my man. Goodneighbor and I, we got a connection. We're like this." He said, raising one hand and crossing his fingers.

\111/

"We really need to stop showing up at Hancock's door with a warm-body in tow."

"It was only once before."

"Still, strange that it's happened twice now in the same week." Nick replied.

\111/

"But, like any hot-and-heavy relationship, sometimes we need to spend a little time apart, let things cool off. To remind ourselves of all the little things we appreciate, and remember who you are."

\111/

The Neighborhood Watchmen at the gate to Goodneighbor grinned darkly at Nate and Nick, and the familiar sight. Opening the gate, they passed the message along that Hancock just started speaking to the community, and should hustle over to hear the end.

"So that's why I'm leaving. I'm still your mayor, I'm still gonna be here when you need me, but it's time I stopped living so comfortably. We all know, no one in power deserves to be comfortable for long! Now, what's the best town in the Commonwealth? Where can someone live free? With no judgement?"

"Goodneighbor!"

"Of the people."

"For the people!" The crowd of voices shouted back, but as Hancock was wrapping up, heads were turning to the latecomers.

"And don't let no one forget it! Of the People, for the people!"

"Hey Hancock!" Nate shouted, the mayor leaned way over the ledge to look down.

"Nate!"

"Got another one for ya'." Nate said, looking behind him, Meathead the German Shephard was standing right by his side, he didn't even notice the changeling sneak up.

"So soon?" Hancock asked.

\111/

By the time Hancock collected himself, and stepped out into Goodneighbor, Thunderstruck was landing in the square with a visibly shaken and emotionally defunct Cherry Fizz.

"What's it this time?" Hancock asked, looking around at the odd gathering , a few other people were trailing over from the square to observe the commotion. "James Wire? Is that you? How's life of a former Minuteman going for you? See that it's all come full circle? Nate. Fill me in here, what'd I miss?"

\111/

When Nate and Nick Valentine reached Libertalia, they were on the south shore, directly across a small channel of 200 meters from the cluster of ships that made up the staging grounds. In the middle of the night, from the time Cherry Fizz was poached by Thunderstruck, to when they returned, the bodies of the seven dead raiders were discovered, and everything went to hell for the settlers around Nahant Island.

There was a community of settlers, traders, merchants, farmers, who were living under the threat and protection of raiders who demanded food and payment to live there. Once the alarm was raised, James Wire sent his men to round up seven people at random from the community and bring them back.

Stuffing them into a cage on a flat barge out in the middle of the swath of boats, the interrogation began. Who did it, no one could answer. Who killed them? No one was able to say. Tying ropes and chains around the top bars of the cage, an old metal crane groaned into lifting the cage up off the deck of the barge, then swung it over the water.

This is when Nate and Nick both heard the crane start up, lifting the people and listening to their screams as they realized what was about to happen. "Oh no." Nick said, sprinting out into the water. He swam as far as he could before sinking to the bottom, but the synth didn't need to breathe, moving across the bottom as quickly as he could, hoping Nate would follow along.

Nate dove into the water, as Thunderstruck took to the air. Curie was unsure what to do without instruction, but chose to float over the surface.

With everyone's attention on the screams of the trapped Nahant settlers, or the running sputtering engine motor belching black smoke, they didn't notice the Mrs. Nanny bot glide up to a medium sized 50-ft boat, and propel herself on board.

Nate's Gieger counter ticked away in the radiated sea water, but he couldn't think about that right now. James Wire demanded an answer one more time from the seven settlers, retribution for the seven dead, who killed them, but they only begged for him and the raiders not to do this. They were innocent, but couldn't be given the time or energy to prove their worth. The order was given, and the crane's winch reversed direction. They all screamed in terror as they were about to be drowned.

Nate pulled out his knife, popping his head above the water, he was only halfway to the massive ship Libertalia, with dozens of small boat craft in the way. The cage was descending, and the people were pounding against the sides, rocking it, trying to find a weak spot to break free.

Stroking for the big ship, he saw Thunderstruck high above, unsure of how to attack without getting immediately gunned down. Swinging out high over the ships, where seagulls were circling, she saw the raiders at the highest point, holding rifles across their chest, or slung over their shoulders, watching the massacre.

Diving, she extended both hooves out in front of her and angled her wings to spin as she dove. Like a thrown boulder, she crashed into the first raider, crushing his skull and neck on impact. He didn't even have time to respond as his body was thrown against the side of the cabin. The loud crash made James and the other Libertalian raiders nearby ferally rush to the noise, where Thunderstruck was waiting to unload a full burst of hot laser into the first person she saw. Diving off the side again, circling around the ship to the other side to hit them from the rear. Snatching a second raider off the railing, the raider fought and struggled, but she flapped her wings hard, gaining altitude until she was three hundred feet up in the air before letting go.

The raider screamed and screamed until there wasn't a single breath left, inhaled, and screamed some more before colliding with the water like hitting concrete.

The cage descended beneath the water, all the warm-bodies floating up, pressing against the top of the cage. They stopped screaming, and held their breaths.

Nick Valentine could barely see through the dark murk, but he could hear the crane engine, and a small outboard motor attached to a dingy ripping around. The closer he came, the tall dark pilings appeared, coated with barnacles and seaweed, he pushed on. The barge in the middle was a floating platform, tied up to brick and cement posts sunk deep into the ground. The crane stopped, just enough length under the water to submerge the whole cage. Climbing the piling, his metal hands gripped the barnacles like hand holds and climbed up, clawing at the side even as his grips were crumbling away.

Fifty feet from the bottom of the ocean floor, Nick needed to climb nearly to the surface, then push out, grabbing onto the cage before he sunk. Making his way around the outside, desperately looking for a way to open it, the settlers were already underwater for more than a minute. The first of the seven settlers unaccustomed to holding their breath for so long gave up, letting water fill his mouth and lungs.

Curie was spotted by two raiders on the same ship she was on, and they fired at her. Bullets dug into her metal shell, so she launched herself at the first one, buzz saw spinning wildly, she hacked through the first raider, drawing the attention of everyone on the smaller boats, while Nate pulled himself onto Libertalia. Worn out, but shaking from adrenaline, Nate pulled out his knife and crawled up the deck of the listing ship. Raiders were firing at Thunderstruck above their heads, or down at Curie, they didn't notice Nate until he was running full speed at them, tackling them in a bear hug down to the ground, he slit the first raider's throat and took his shotgun. Making sure it was loaded he racked another round into the chamber and fought up to the Captains Cabin where James Wire was.

Thunderstruck heard bullets race past her, the constant barking of guns as they tried to shoot her, weaving down, she used the boat cabins and masts as cover, winding around and banking quickly to break lines of sights from the shooters. Darting past the side of a tow boat, she tackled one raider into the water, and kept up her flight.

Nate killed two more raiders without others catching on to who was shooting, the bullet fire lost among the combat. When a raider came jogging down the stairs, Nate heard the steps and fired up. The raider gripped his chest as pockets of blood and skin were ripped away in a single instant. Slooping down over dead as a second shell blew the raider down. Collapsing at the bottom of the stairs, Nate stepped over and ran up.

James Wire shot at the pegasus, then looked down at the path it was taking, spotting Curie cut her way through a second raider. Firing at her, she spun around and took cover, but he kept firing across the water at her. When Nate popped his head up through a hatch in the captain's cabin, he saw the raider boss with a LMG, absorbed in killing everything that was making his morning miserable.

Pulling out his knife, Nate went across the deck and aimed straight for the lower back and plunged it in. Wrapping his arm around the man's neck, he twisted the knife and made James Wire scream and drop his gun.

"BRING IT UP!" Nate screamed into James Wire's ear, twisting the blade in his lower back and wrenching it side to side. "MOTHER FUCKER I WILL END YOU! TELL THEM TO BRING UP THE MOTHER FUCKING CRANE RIGHT FUCKING NOW!"

Ripping the knife out then shoving it back in again, Nate shoved James down to the deck, he scrambled for a weapon, but Nate took the pilfered shotgun and clubbed James' hands. Stomping on them, repeatedly until his hands were a bleeding horrid mess.

"ALL YOU PIECES OF SHIT! LISTEN UP!"

Nate stooped down, grabbing the LMG and letting loose the whole clip of ammunition, drawing the attention of every eye and ear in Libertalia. Nate dragged to the sight of their boss being man-handled, and dangled James by the collar of his shirt over the edge of the boat.

"TELL THEM!"

"FUCK YOU!" James screamed.

"WRONG ANSWER!" He shoved his fingers into Jame's wound and pulled at whatever muscle or tendon or veins or bone he could find. The hoarse octives of James' screaming made the raiders pause, "BRING UP THE FUCKING CAGE!"

The raiders operating the controls to the crane switched it into action, bringing the cage up and watching it ascend.

Nick Valentine was riding the top of the cage, water pouring off of him and his clothes as he surveyed Libertalia around him.

Three drowned bodies in the cage were laying at the bottom, with four terrified and frightened people swimming to shore, putting as much distance between themselves and Libertalia as they could.

"Thunder!" Nate yelled, the pegasus returned to his side and scowled at the beaten man on deck. "Nick!" The detective raised his chin to Nate, looking up. "Get the outboard!" he shouted down.

"We're gonna hunt down and kill you." James said, Nate turned around and everyone in Libertalia felt the temperature drop a solid ten degrees.

Steam was coming out of Nate's nostrils, as he took one step then with a balled up fist he raised it and beat James across the face with all his weight into the punch, sprawling James to the ground.

"No talking."

Ice was forming in the smallest of pools of water, and Nick was demanding the small dingy with an outboard motor from two raiders who were reluctant to give up their vessel.

"Curie! Nick!" Nate said, waving them over for a pickup.

Taking old, salt encrusted, fowl smelling, stiff rope, Nate bound James' hands and arms together. "Up." Practically forcing Wire up to his feet to march down.

His steps were sloppy, but Nate forced James all the way down to the waters edge where Nick and Curie were waiting.

"Thunder, Get your friends. Curie, grab the stern and angle your thruster up." Piling into the rowboat, there were a lot of guns trained on them, a lot of angry, hateful minutemen who gave up on trying to make life better for others, and turned to evil. Nate didn't care, he would artillery strike Libertalia to the shallow watery grave before letting people massacre each other by drowning them. A brutally sick and twisted way to die in mass, Nate had his own fair share of hate directed towards his prisoner, but it was all being channeled into surviving.

Taking the boat, they zipped across the harbor, passing the Boston Airport, it took nearly half an hour by boat to come to the dock in-front of the Custom House, and disembark.

\111/

"You know, James, when I say 'Live without Judgement,' I know it's up to interpretation, but to all the good people of Goodneighbor, it's because most of us were kicked out of Diamond City for looking like ghouls and freaks, or because we dress like we can't afford anything else." Hancock looked around him to the people clustered and living the in the three block radius that made up Goodneighbor in the former remains of Scolly Square.

"To live without Judgement, is to acknowledge that one day, I may go to sleep a sound-sane person, and wake up the next a snarling, howling feral ghoul, ready to rip your throat out. You, however, are an asshole." Hancock said after listening to what happened.

"Thunderstruck, what is your friend's name?" Nate asked.

"Cherry Fizz."

"That's a good name." He said, "Sit." He told James, pushing him down onto a bench. Nate stood down on one knee, but Cherry Fizz wasn't even acknowledging where she was. "Cherry. Cherry Fizz? I need you to listen to me." She pulled her head away. "Cherry Fizz, this is important. The man who was in charge of the men at Libertalia, is right in front of you." Pulling out a knife from his belt, he picked up Cherry's hoof, even though she fought and resisted for a moment, he wrapped his hands around the one leg and let her grab onto the hilt. "Cherry. If you want revenge, vengence, to get back at one of the people who killed your friends and made your life a living hell, he's your chance. Your only chance. This is your decision to make. You have the power. You have the control. You can decide this man's fate, because you should have the honor."

"Get away." She whispered, too quiet for most people to hear.

"Cherry, it's going to be alright. You're safe now. What do you want us to do? Do you want to kill him yourself? Or do you want us to do it? Do you want us to let him go? We can, and we will. We brought him all the way from Libertalia so you could see for yourself, with your own eyes, that the person who's making you feel like shit right now, will never lay a finger on you again. He has no control over you, or what you decide to do. He will never come for you in the night, and he will never ever be a threat to you or your friends ever again. See how weak and powerless he is right now."

Meathead saw the emotional breakthrough, her expression was etched in stone; horror, despair, but she was internally screaming louder than banshees. Going from zero emotions to full flood of anger, she grabbed the knife with one hoof and snarled and growled, like a mad dog. She looked the raider boss in the eyes and screamed out loud. "You fucking monster!" She howled. The raider tried putting his bound hands up to fend off the attack, but Nick was pressing down on his shoulders, keeping him from getting up or turning away.

She stabbed him, pulling the bloody knife all the way out, then stabbed him again. Pulling it out and stabbing him again, pushing deeper, waggling the blade as it came out. Then a third bloody cut across his chest, stabbing him, and shoving the knife inbetween his ribs. Poking holes in his lungs, they filled with blood. She kept repeating it over and over again until there was a waterfall of blood pouring down his chest and splattering against the ground that she was slowing down, but not done yet. Her breathing was finally coming under control after panting in frustration, 36 times, she cut the raider boss.

The other three ponies winced, feeling sad for Cherry that she was driven to this level of insanity, but they didn't oppose what she was doing either. Deep down, they were cheering her on.

Thunderstruck was watching her friend take back her own life from the one who did her so much harm, and saw that even though the pain was gone, the scars of what happened would always be there.

Cherry stepped back, and was finally aware of her surroundings, but not even aware of her own self. She'd totally forgotten there was a knife in her hooves until she looked down at it. With an unwarranted coldness spreading across her, Meathead focused on making her emotions turn to thoughts of rest.

Ready to slice her own throat, Meathead felt her intention and knocked Cherry Fizz out with a quick spell. Because of the traumatic nature of the execution, it was easy to chalk it up to Chery fainting because of stress.

"Oh dear, her heart rate peaked at 202, at 195 over 85, she collapsed." Curie said, coming to Cherry's side. Reaching under the pony, Curie lifted the blood splattered mare up into her arms and cradled her. "There, there, it will be all right."

\111/

"Wow, so that was quite the morning." Hancock said, "I need to be careful what I wish for, Ask and ye' shall receive and all that. Well, I asked for some trouble, and got some trouble."

Two Neighborhood Watchmen carted off the body to be incinerated, after the crowd dispersed, Nate instructed Curie to take Cherry back to the Constitution and wait there, while they dealt with the three new arrivals.

"Lucky for you three, I happen to be in the know. What's your names?" Hancock asked. "Nate, did you ask them what they wanted to do yet?"

Nate shook his head. "Didn't have much time to talk until now, so, like Hancock said, Ask, and you shall receive. What's your names and what do you want to do with your new freedom?"

All three ponies were used to being ignored by the raiders of the Commonwealth, treated like cattle and pack animals, but for so long, it felt alien to be treated equally again, that when the first Unicorn tried to speak, a Brown maned, green coat stallion, the other put a hoof up to try and stop him. But between the lack of hygene and caked on filth and shit, coats falling out, it was hard to tell if they were overgrown dogs with mange, or even what animal they were.

"It's all right, we're here to make your lives a little better. Thunderstruck, could we get your help?"

"If you can't trust the humans yet, then trust me. They want to help." She said. The ponies looked at her fine bamboo colored coat and mane like she was an alien, not recognizing her either after her changeling pod transformation.

"Who are you?" The second pony asked, a mare with an orange coat and blue mane, "Hollow Point, It's me. The one they kept calling Chicken. And you're Warner," she said to the first stallion, then to the second stallion with a reddened-wood colored coat and a brown mane "And you're Serin Copper. My name's Thunderstruck, it's been about eight months since you were sold at Nuka-World."

She may of well said they were sold a lifetime ago, because none of them could remember who she was, or a pegasus named Chicken, or see past her recovered features to the depraved reflection she used to be.

"I guess it doesn't matter," She said, "All that matters now, is making our lives better, and putting down any one who comes after us."

"Do you have anywhere we can go?" Warner asked, Nate and Thunderstruck nodded.

"Follow us."

Ch. 68 The Road to Freedom

Nate led the party of eight to the U.S.S. Constitution, where they were welcomed by the Giddys, and situated into the lower floors of the Weatherby Tower. A place to call their own, bedrolls, water, food, a place to clean themselves, a bathroom, and a weapon.

Nick and Thunderstruck with their list of locations prepared to scout for more ponies around the Commonwealth, while Serin, Hollow, and Warner could recover under the protective gaze of Curie at the Weatherby Tower.

Unloading and taking stock of everything they accumulated while separated, Nate eyed the X-01 power armor left by Meathead on the Constitution's deck with curiosity, wondering where in the world it was designed, and who went through the trouble of making it.

Hancock saw all the guns arranged in stacks and rows, he knew then that Nate and Meathead were serious about taking the fight to the Institute.

Nate shared that he discovered even more weapons, and suits of pristine power armor, along with fusion cores all sitting in the National Guard Depot, and before Nate was even done with the sentence, Meathead teleported the three of them to the parking lot outside the National Guard, ready to bring the supplies back.

After six round trips, Meathead was exhausted, burnt out, and breathing heavily, but the compounding guns and ammo made for an impressive sight. He stumbled the first few steps after returning to the USS Constitution, but their armory easily outweighed most Bostonians, and was on par with Goodneighbor in terms of firepower.

"We could cause a lot of trouble with all this rampage you've got stockpiled here."

"Oh, this is barely even the start," Nate said dismissively. Looking up to the sky, it was still daytime, but Nate knew overhead there were satellites still in orbit, there were still missiles buried in silos across America. A few suits of power armor and a stash of guns was a drop in the bucket. The more Nate thought about the Glowing Sea, the more convinced he was that something went terribly wrong the day the bombs fell.

His mind went back to what he said 12 days earlier, the early detection warning system. Part of the Civil Defense, the sirens, the vertibirds racing overhead. They should've had ten minutes from the time the sirens went off, to the time the bombs detonated.

It was a given that Nate knew where to find most military bases in the whole state, especially since hundreds of thousands of people drove past one military base in particular on their way along Interstate 95.

There was a red sign warning: Authorized Vehicles only, and a turnoff the highway without a designated highway exit sign.
You could see the base from quite a ways away, but it stuck out like a sore thumb. It was a big, black pyramid. Inside were M-28 warheads supposed to be used in a countermeasure against incoming nukes. Nate was solely convinced that whatever happened on October 23rd, 2077, Sentinal Site did not work as it was intended.

\111/

Once Hancock realized what everyone else was doing, he asked his new wandering buddies where they were off to next.

"The Railroad."

"Oh, why didn't you say so?"

"Because I've looked just about everywhere else for a radiation suit for the Glowing Sea." Nate shook his head, there were always more places he could look, but he would be blindly searching for it.

"Good thing I don't need one."

""

"Is that so?" Hancock asked.

"" Nate laughed and Hancock cast a glance between the two of them.

""

"How'd she break her neck?" Nate asked

"" Nate's response was to only laugh harder.

\111/

The Freedom Trail leads directly to the North End Church, despite its quiet wooden, stone, and steel exterior, there were signs of activity all around. Namely, the muddy and dirty footprints on the concrete, tracks of dirt leading right up the front steps.

A burning lantern left outside the door, either to honor the historical significance of the building and what men before did to alert others of invaders, or to signal other members of the illusive Railroad that they were in, and the building was safe.

Relatively, the ground floor had three feral ghouls with legs already broken to act as guard dogs the moment Nate, Meathead, and Hancock stepped inside.

""

"This church was used since before the Revolutionary War, it's got a basement that connects right up to the sewers, and I'll bet you could go from the sewers to the subways tunnels and utility beneath that. The first sign of invading force that's too big to handle, it'll be a good escape route. Hancock, do you deal with the Railroad much?"

"Yes and no. I pretend I don't see them running people and synths through Goodneighbor, and they pretend that they're not even there in the first place, otherwise, the Institute would come crashing down the door with an army of synths. In exchange, they keep tabs on things, and make sure people make it to the front door."

Following the trail of dirt and footprints leading down to the basement, there was a vacant chair with a small pile of discarded seed pod shells, and the core of a fruit by the chair's legs.

The basement was old enough to have burial catacombs, with grave markers in the brick tunnels dating bodies back over 500 years. The air was cold, but also stifling as well. When reached a brick wall held together with concrete that was newer than every other wall, with the footprints and amount of dirt on the floor all leading to the one dead-end, hidden behind a secret door.

"How many in there?"

""

"Alright, let's go make some friends."

Nate stood his gun up by the doorframe, then pressed against a brick impression, to get the false door to slide open.

Knowing people were waiting in the dark, silently tense, waiting for him to move upwards so that way the door to their base wouldn't be wide open and close behind the duo.

Nate paused for another moment, Rapping his knuckles six times against the brick to knock and make noise.

"Think they know it's us?" Hancock asked.

"Vault-Tec. Calling." He said loudly.

\11/

The response was silence until Nate, Meathead, and Hancock entered a small room 10x15 feet. It was dark, but then a sound like a flare firing to life, emitting an intense brightness that momentarily blinded the both of them.

Nate and Meathead were both locked into place, wrists and ankles forced down by their side by an unseen force. Hancock was frozen to the spot, for only a moment, until the magical grip released upon seeing who it was.

They both knew that by fighting, they could break free because this was magic holding them down. A white unicorn with a pink mane and one long curl to it was the orchestrator of the flash-and-grab.

Next, the room was engulfed with bright humming halogen lights running off a humming generator in the distance.

They were in the target zone of two Railroad agents training weapons on them, with a woman who held the same type of gaze as Overseer McNamara when she allowed Nate into her Vault. Suspicious, yet also carefully optimistic.

"Stop," the red-haired woman who addressed them was carrying a weapon as well, a knife strapped to the outside of her gun holster, where the handle of a metal laser pistol was shoved into.

"You went through a lot of effort to arrange this meeting, but before we go any further, answer my questions. Who are you?"

"Nate; You know who I am."

The red-haired woman nodded once, and the white unicorn's grip ended, allowing Nate and Meathead to move their arms and legs.

"Who told you how to contact us?"

"No one, people talk. There are holotapes with your voice on it saying to follow the Freedom Trail, there're Railroad hobo lantern signs all around Boston, the Boston Common has a tour guide from the Pre-war, telling tourists to follow the Freedom Trail. All those things, along with one of your agents tailing me for a bit, but we never sat down and chatted." Nate held up his pointer finger and thumb, in the shape of a gun, pointing past Desdemona, inhaling sharply through his nose, Nate guessed, to Meathead's astonishment, of taking a random shot in the dark, that this agent was there with them right now.

"Tell the man following me I have his scent."

Feeling caught, a man waiting a dozen feet down the brick corridor turned out from his cover and walked towards them. Deacon smelled like a stable, but not that anyone except for Nate and Meathead would recognize the smell.

"I'm Desdemona, the leader of the Railroad."

"...And what gives?" The man announced, intruding on their first meeting.

"Deacon, where have you been?" She asked, turning her head to address him.

"You were having a party, I was looking for my invitation." Deacon was wearing a white cotton t-shirt that didn't look too yellowed from age and sweat, faded blue jeans, black sunglasses, and had stark black hair, but it was a wig.

"I need intel on our newcomer, who is he?"

"This guy? Unless someone's got another Vault 111 suit, and unless he's been swapped out by the Institute in the last day, then this guy is the man who hung Kellogg off the tower and is making waves in the Commonwealth."

"I do a lot of community outreach," Nate said, trying to gauge Deacon.

"Don't I know?" He replied, but the way he spoke was buffeted with a desire to know and retain secrets. A little coy, but letting on that he knows more than what he's saying.

"You joined the Brotherhood of Steel, cleared out two super-mutant bases, one by blowing up the whole building by working alongside the raider, Sparta. Nate here took out Faneuil Hall, a known mutant hangout. Fighting the Triggermen in Vault 114, Killing Swan at the park, and bringing down the raider bosses Jared at Corvega and Tower Tom at the Beantown Brewery while buffering Red at the Federal Stockpile. To add it to the long trail of burnt bodies both mutant, feral, and raiders, and smoke in his wake, James Wire from Libertalia was last seen being cut to pieces by a rescued pony in the streets of Goodneighbor, and that was just this morning. He's got the stamp of approval for getting a job done with tenacious speed."

"You should see what I do in my free time," Nate said, accepting the compliment.

"So you're vouching for him?" Desdemona asked Deacon.

"Yes. Trust me, he's someone we want on our side." He said, all the while smiling, unable to keep the enthusiasm from showing on his face.

"That changes things, so tell me, stranger, why did you want to meet with us? Palo Santo, that's enough." The unicorn with the white coat and pink mane suspended her magic, letting Nate and Meathead regain control of their limbs.

"You're the only ones fighting the Institute, or from what I hear, undermining them; I want to take every single person from the Institute, and drag them up to the surface, kicking and screaming." Nate prophesized. He could envision the bright day play out in front of him, his fingers wrapped tight around the hair and scalp of any number of foreheads, male or female, them thrashing in his grip as they screamed, pleading to not be taken to the surface.

"I'd like to say that nobody comes here out for blood, that everyone's here to help their fellow man, though that would be a lie," Desdemona replied.

"That's good because I'm not out for blood, I just want to baptize them in the Charles River until their sins are washed away. But it may take a while, let's hope they can hold their breath."

"You have a lot in common with too many of us, I'm afraid," Desdemona said, looking down to the ground for a few moments. Long enough for Desdemona to count how many layers of hell stood between them and Kellogg.

"If we're going to be dealing with you, I need to make sure we're on the same page. You know what a synth is, right?"

"I've pieced a lot together in the last two weeks from rumors, but what do you know?" Nate asked.

"The Institute created them, Synthetic humans. They're mostly organic, part machine. Somewhere along the line, they became more than just constructs. They think they feel, they look like you and me, but the Institute treats synths as property, as tools. We seek to free the synths from their bondage. Give them a chance at real life. I have a question. The only question that matters, would you risk your life for your fellow man? Even if that man is a synth?"

"What about living slaves? Things you know 100% sure are alive and in chains?" Hancock asked.

"If we're confronted with it, and have the resources, manpower, ability, and experience to lift a person from a slave pen or bust up a chain-gang, then yes. We'll do it. There are always those who will seek to abuse those at their most desperate. We try to help those instead. We know of the slaves and the sentient ponies at Nuka-World, but we need all forces focusing on dealing with issues here. Once we have our foothold in the Commonwealth, then...we plan about what may come until then and how to deal with it. So, will you risk your lives for another?"

"Yes."

"Well said. You're right about us, we're the only ones brave or stupid enough to fight the Institute, and we could use more brothers-in-arms. But right now, we don't have time to train a new agent, there are, however, other ways you can contribute. In turn, we can help you. You may speak with Deacon and Palo Santo for details. You're free to go. If you need to meet with us again, we'll know you're coming."

Killing the floodlights, the power was switched over to grounded lights drilled right into the brick and rock tunnels that drew less energy, and put less strain on the generator. But there was a few moments of total darkness for everyone as one was turned off, and the other wall lights were turned on.

Desdemona and the Railroad agents eased back, going further underground into the catacombs underneath the church, leaving Deacon and Palo Santo with Nate, Meathead, and Hancock.

"Hope you didn't mind the reception," Palo Santo said, rolling her eyes up to Deacon, "But, it's hard to know who's who, these days."

"I'm surprised more people haven't caught on to the whole Freedom Trail," Nate said.

"Exactly, kind of killed our chance at a friendly first impression, though." Deacon said.

"What are you talking about? I must've seen you at least three times."

Meathead remained silent through the encounter, quieter than the church mice nested around them. "Geeze, your dog's quiet." Deacon commented. Noticing that for a dog, he was barely panting. Long, slow, measured breaths.

Palo Santo flashed Deacon an annoyed look, "Are you going to tell him, or what?"

"Since Lexington went quiet, turns out there was a big shootout at Corvega, now would be the only perfect opportunity to go there before the buzzards start to show. Under Lexington is a base we used until the Institute found us. During the panic and flee, we lost a lot of good people and left a lot of important tech and gear behind. The jobs too big for one guy, or at least, I'd feel a lot better with backup. Could I do this one-handed? Sure, I'd give myself a 50/50 chance of doing this without a scratch, maybe. But that other 50%, it might end up with me running a 100-meter sprint with a grenade clenched between my buttcheeks. Backup is backup."

"Either way, what my partner is asking is that you help with the fighting...and when you're done," Palo Santo lamented, "I get to be the pack animal that hauls everything important back. Whoopie."

"Santo means well, you're normally much more cheerful; she's a lot more jolly." Deacon said, switching between Palo Santo and Nate's group, "She just likes the smell of old books, practicing magic, and long walks on the beach, but she lost a lot of research and friends when the Institute attacked."

\111/

Deacon leads the trio back to the surface, then mapped out a walking path to Lexington. Nate was making annotations and notes in black ink on a road map of Boston and the greater surrounding townships. It was filled with red dashes across roads, showing that they were blocked, green boxes with diagonal lines running through them were around buildings that were radiated, jagged lines and triangles on roads for debris. Tiny arrows for safer routes. X's were crossed over destroyed or dangerous buildings.

Tracing a line to an overpass in Lexington "Under this overpass is where we'll meet, once Santo and I make contact with our other Railroad agent in the area to see what route to take, then we'll move in. We'll see you there."

Ch. 69 The Switchboard

"For how well that unicorn's coat is, that Palo Santo is from the Institute."

""

"Yes, but maybe more open-minded. Did you get a read on everyone in that room right? All living?"

"

"Well, let's help Deacon run this errand, and see about getting in with the Railroad a little more."

"How can you see everyone in there is human?" Hancock interjected.

""

"Funny. So, what I've been trying to figure out, is...why didn't they ever come back?"

"Who?"

""

"Yeah. If I know where guys from Goodneighbor go when they go out, at the least I can send some guys to go check on them if they don't show up after a few days. But, that's just me. The Princess of the ponies, or whatever, everyone before the war must've had a way better way of tracking and keeping all this shit organized, so I wanna know is why didn't they ever come back. I'm no chump, but I can put two and two together to see that after the bombs fell, radiation or not, they got abandoned here."

"" Meathead said, ""

"Maybe they can't come back. Inside Vault 81 was a Glowing Ghoul Unicorn, it looked like it was casting a spell, but its whole horn melted in on itself before the whole pony combusted. I don't know enough about magic to know if that's what the Glowing Unicorn was going for, or if it just went 'poof'. Does radiation affect your magic, Meathead?"

""

"But it could affect a pony, though."

""

"Then it's safe to safe, after a pony absorbs a certain threshold of radiation, they develop radiation sickness. Extrapolate the effects over a few weeks, and after a month, you may wind up with a pony that can't teleport or portal their way back to Equestria."

"What do you mean, not like that?" Hancock asked.

"<It's an energy that's more visible to me than it is to you, if you want to go all metaphysical, changelings bodies are shielded from certain energies, drawing in others, channeling energy around us, Earth has an energy, that's why it's so easy for me to dig through the ground, or how we're able to see humans."

"So who all in there was a synth?" Hancock asked, "I been thinking about it ever since you said you could tell the difference."

""

"Then why would a human say they were a synth?" He followed up with another question.

""

"Bah, there ain't no helping perfection," Hancock said, referring to himself. Scratching the side of his withered cheek and tenderly rubbing the area where his nose would've been, it burned away along time ago.

\111/

The path Nate, Hancock, and Meathead took lead them Northwest through Charlestown, through the quiet neighborhoods of Cambridge, this is where Meathead alerted them of a large group of people moving north through the area. Spotting a slave train of twenty men and woman, three dirt coated ponies, two brown stallions, and an orange mare in the rear hauling gear. All shackled and tied together with chains and rope, whatever the raiders could find, with thirteen marauders leading the train South. They wore whatever clothes they could wrap around themselves to prepare for the colder months ahead of them, but were emaciated and starving.

Tired creatures, Nate and Hancock were unprepared for the sudden appearance of the slave train. Outgunned, out in the open, with no fallback location, these marauders were experienced in being attacked on the road non-stop, all day and night, with slaves running away. It burned Hancock there was no obvious solution to deal with the slavers, free the slaves, and make a full-on sprint back to Goodneighbor, but there wasn't time to spring a trap or corner the whole group into stopping. Shooting would put the people in chains at risk of being shot, and forced to eat his own words, Hancock shook his head and said, "I don't think we can risk it."

Too many variables weighed against them, and the human train kept on with their march, keeping pace. Both disgusted and angered by the practice of slavery, it made their palms itch. In another minute, they were over a hundred yards away and rounding a block corner.

\111/

After an hour of walking, Meathead directed them to the west of them and followed the highway overpass for a quarter mile until coming to the place the Railroader described.

Without much natural cover, no place to retreat to, or hide if someone else came along, it wasn't the ideal meeting place, but they could see further to the west was a massive Gunner base built up on top of the highway overpasses, with a broken chunk of road laying on the ground, preventing them from expanding this way.

Deacon was easy to spot, but he was sporting a different look. A grubby coat looking like he picked it up off the ground, a wide brim, formal black hat, scarf, grey trousers, brown boots, he was waiting for them to arrive.

"Thanks for meeting me, and Hancock, you're looking especially crusty." Deacon's smile was pressed into containing his enthusiasm for a recruit. The Railroad agent changed his clothes to a beige-tan overcoat. Deacon was now bald but wore a wide gardener's hat to cover his head and sunglasses. "Bet you didn't even recognize me."

"My, what a lovely baritone you have," Hancock said.

"Eh...I'll fool one of you, one of these days. Anyway, over yonder, a few blocks from this highway turnoff is one of our old hideouts. It was based out underneath an old Slocum Joe's."

Deacon lead the group up to the top of the access on-ramp. "There, you can see the road pretty much up to the turn, sixteen blocks up, and there's the roof, partially caved in. Big, two-story building. You can see the top of the lettering for the coffee shop. Blue, white, little dash of pink."

"I got it," Nate said

"You gotta scope?" Deacon asked.

Nate nodded, "Come down a little farther," Deacon said, leading them closer. One-thousand feet down the highway, and they were looking directly into the second floor of Slocum Joe's. "Palo Santo is nearby in the Parking Garage of the Super-Duper Mart, waiting for our signal to get closer. Tell me if you can see a synth standing there on the second floor with a gun."

Peering through his binoculars, Nate didn't even need to look that hard to see all the hazards and synths around the shop.

"I see two on the top floor, three on the bottom."

"And there are two ways to get it, either through all those synths, or we go through the sewers which was our bogey exit, and it probably has synths still sitting there from when we got chased out."

"Well, that sounds like a problem then, Deacon. I have no issue taking out five synths with the three of us. How many more do you expect inside?"

"There could be a small army, or there could be none, all we know is everything on the outside hasn't changed in days. Whichever way we go will be like dealing with jack in the boxes, they'll spring right up and pop into action the moment we get close."

"Then, let's go for the front door. Quietly. Have you ever crept up on a robot while it's in sleep mode? I used to do it with Mr. Handy's."

"Yes, if you think a frontal assault is the way to go, then I'll back you."

"Good. It'll be easy then."

\111/

Between the four men all stealthily making their way through Lexington, they were able to make it to the outside walls of the Slocum's Joe doughnut and coffee shop without raising detection from the synths.

Some were locked into a standing position, like mannequins, others sitting cross-legged. Peeking through a broken window before dipping back down again. "You two," He whispered, gesturing with his pointer and middle, "Stay here, I go around back. I get their attention, or you hear me start shooting, then you go."

They both nodded, Meathead following Nate as they went around to the back door. It was kicked open, the door latch failing to catch after years of abuse. "Can you use your magic to rip out their neck joints?" Nate asked.

Meathead nodded. "Then let's get them."

Moving into the back of the store, the ground creaked, floorboards bending in. Passing by the staircase in the back hall, he came around to the front of the store, and saw the three synths and took aim. A green glow wrapped around the first synth's head, before a short electrical snap jerked the synth backward and the wiring was torn right out. Nate fired his shotgun, blowing eight small divots into the second synth's body and head, blowing a hole through the machinery with a second-round as Deacon and Hancock rose and fired on the third. Immediately they could hear two more synths spring to action and march down the steps, but Nate was already in a defensive position, Deacon and Hancock ran inside, taking cover in front of the counter to watch the doorway to the back hall. When the first synth ran through, they all fired, killing it in a spray of metal parts, torn carbon fiber limbs, and a shower of hydraulic oil. The second synth responded differently, jumping through the frame and missing the second volley they all fired, but they were quick to re-aim and fire again as the synth fired off two laser rounds from a rifle.

Remaining quiet, they all listened for sounds of more movement for ten seconds before saying anything else. Letting the ringing in their ears die out, Hancock asked, "Think that's it?"

"For up here, at least. Come on. There's a secret elevator in the basement."

\111/

Downstairs was a fully equipped bakery and kitchen for the store above, despite being used by the Railroad, they'd left most of the things untouched to prevent anyone else coming along raising suspicion that there were people active in the area.

"Behind the wood shelving." Deacon waved his hand towards the right-hand wall with a hand-wash sink as they entered the basement. It was the only thing out of place in the basement, having moved as agents came in and out of the base before the Institute forced them out.

Their footsteps echoed in the old building, every step they took down the stairs and crossing the basement floor sounded ten times louder than the ground floor. A minute later they heard the clopping of hooves against concrete, and Palo Santo appeared in the front entrance, following the trail of destruction down to the basement.

They pulled the shelving away from the wall, and Deacon called out, "They cut the power." Thinking about it for a moment, he sighed. "Shoot. The Backup power is in the sub-basement. I guess escape tunnel it is, at least it'll be easier getting out." Deacon said, his mind already walking the path back out.

Meathead looked up to Nate, he hadn't given up yet. "Get me a crowbar," Nate said, looking around the room, there was nothing to use, so Nate went upstairs, and returned two moments later with a synth's arm, and was able to force the arm joint between the seal in the elevators door. Working it side to side, he was able to slip it in further and work the doors apart.

After Nate was able to part the doors, Hancock and Deacon's attitudes changed, reaching their hands in, all three of them forced the doors open with ease, showing a black elevator shaft. Ten feet, a bit of a drop, but Nate turned on his pip-boy light took point, and jumped down. Landing on the roof of the elevator, he helped Deacon and Hancock down, then caught Meathead as he leaped.

Pulling the top of the hatch open on the elevator, they dropped down again, forcing the doors open from the inside. "You're resourceful." Deacon said, "Santo, wait here, we'll switch on the power. I don't think you can fit through the escape hatch. You can ride down after we flip it back on. Everyone else, watch for Gen 1 and 2's."

"Are you looking for anything in particular?"

"A prototype device Doctor Carrington was developing."

"What's it look like? Big? Small? Something that would've been left out on a desk?"

"Small, it could slip into your pocket." Deacon went to a small computer wired into an inlet next to the elevator, tapping a few buttons of command code to restore power to the elevator. "Better do it now, before we need to use it." He reasoned out loud.

\111/

The synths inside the underground base were patrolling the halls, concrete walls that gradually lead down a series of stairs on one half of the hallway, with a ramp on the other, sloping down, indicating they wheeled large machinery down through here. With the tight quarters, shotgun shells were especially effective at the close clusterings of synths. Fighting through each area, reaching the foyer, a central office overlooking a larger work bay with desks and computers were all arranged in a square formation.

They passed over two humans slain, shot in the back with laser fire as they were running away. The Hallway branched, towards Databanks, towards the Water Closets, and X Department. "We'll need to go right, and there's no reason we should go left except to make sure synths don't come up our butthole while we're getting into the security vault back in the research department. It's loud, and a process to open with all these magnetic locks going click-click-click all the way around."

"Then we go right, make sure it's clear, then while you're opening the vault, Hancock and I will take Meathead and sweep the facility. If we run into trouble, we fall back to the elevator and go up."

"Again, if you want to keep going full frontal assault, go right ahead. I'll pop the door and follow up."

With synths stationed around, spread out through the facility, it was easy to pick them off in groups of two or three. With them barely having enough time to fire a shot-off before being gunned down by Nate and Hancock. They came to the bathrooms and Nate laughed, "Cleanest toilets I've seen since leaving home."

Behind them came a loud 'click-click-click', sounding like a metal car door slamming shut. The elevator hummed and dinged, with Palo Santo emerging to go straight for the Research department. Picking up things with her magic and gathering them all in her enlarged saddlebags, she hummed while she worked, ignoring the humans as they carried on with their security sweep.

"Goodneighbor would kill for this type of living space. I know plenty of people who would be happy with a roll-out sleeping mat anywhere in here."

"That's what I'm thinking too."

Deacon came running up to them quickly, petering off once he saw that there were a few downed synths and they weren't actively being hunted.

The central office was decorated with a rich blue rug and a wide oak desk, an American flag in the corner. With two staircases on either side leading down, below them on the main floor was an insignia on the floor that said 'Defense Intelligence Agency'. A few more past Railroaders made their last stand here, with a security door leading to a pipe-chase where the escape tunnel leading back to the surface was located. To the right side of the room was the generator room, 4 fusion generators, three of them powered down, not even in use, while the fourth hummed along.

"We're in a secret Defense Intelligence Agency research lab, a place that never officially existed. It's called the Switchboard."

"What were they doing with places like this?" Hancock asked, "How'd the Railroad get found out?"

"Spying through phone lines and collecting information as far as we can observe. I could point to some reasons on why the Institute found us, but plain and simple, this location was meant to be popular in the old days. This building is supposed to be visible from the highway, it's supposed to have a lot of foot traffic of humans walking by, coming into the donut shop above, where agents could give a wink-and-a-nod or whatever they did back then to get to the back room and take the lift down, without drawing attention. I think we were too...secretive, suspicious that a whole bunch of Railroad agents would go into this building, but then never come out? I think if we put up the storefront as a cover front, we would've been able to keep up the guise a little longer. We would've been more alert about enemies coming, and buy time for people to escape, but we didn't. We were worried about attracting the attention of Jared and the raiders from Corvega."

"This place is still one of the most secure places I've been in in a long time, Deacon. Does the Railroad have any intention of retaking this place?"

"No, once a safe house has been burned, it's just asking for attention and trouble if we tried moving in again. That, and most people wouldn't want the bad memories."

There were five more synths, with all four of them picking a target, Meathead tackled one synth to the ground as a hail of gunfire and laser blasts lit up the air for three seconds. Their ears were warm from how loud the gunshots were in the enclosed area, but they shook it off fairly quickly.

"What do you know about the earlier generations?" Nate asked.

"Stepping stones used along the way to develop the near-perfect human lookalikes today. The Railroad isn't fully united on how we feel about them."

"If the choice came down to sending one piece of machinery that I could rebuild 10,000 times over to fight my enemies, or losing 10,000 human lives, which do you fear more? The one machine that keeps coming back, or the swarm of 10,000?"

"As I said, it's an issue that usually ends with people agreeing to 'Put a Pin in it', till later. Everyone agrees on the liberation of the Gen 3s, the most human-looking. Some of the synths in the Railroad, like Glory, think we should help earlier models, too. But, if you look at the programming of a Gen 1 vs a Gen 2, It's like a protectron to a Mr. Handy. A Mr. Handy to an assaultron, then after that it's like an assaultron to you and me. At which point do we say we're being too broad on our direction? AI rights? Terminals? Turrets? It's a regular firework show every time. Speaking of, Tinker flipped on the turrets before making it out. It stopped a few, but Coursers blew right through."

Deacon didn't even stop, "Coursers are top of the line, Institute tech. They will fuck up your day."

"How so?"

"They take all the muscles of a human synth and replace it with high-density armor plating, and then give it a machine gun after strapping bombs onto its chest as a final fuck you and everything in the general vicinity of you. So yeah, Nate. I fear the robot that keeps coming back."

"Then you'd feel a sense of dread or dejavu if you ever find a copy of the movie Terminator."

"The what?

"The Terminator, in the future, nuclear war is caused by robotic AI taking over nuclear missile defense systems. They determine the most destructive threat to AI is humans themselves, so they resolve this by launching all of America's nukes. A robot is sent back in time to kill the mother of a person who would lead a resistance against robots after the Great War against Skynet. Which, in retrospect, we called one of the missile defense systems Skynet, and it almost became a self-fulfilling prophecy based on a freaking movie made in the 1980s. Thank God it was only humans who pulled the nuclear trigger and not rogue AI that logically reasoned surface-dwelling humans were the greatest threat to their existence. And it's not like the Institute is completely controlled by soulless machines who send out legions of undying robots that can be brought back to base to be built over and over again! That would be chaos!" Nate shouted at the end.

"What the hell kind of stuff were humans watching back then?" Deacon asked, even Hancock looked like he was about to ask the same question.

"Historical-Fiction, you could call it now."

Deacon leads the group back up to the research department, passing a room marked databanks, Nate nearly passed by until out of the corner of his eye he saw blueprints tacked to the wall. "Whoa, hold up." He said, walking in, he went to the blueprints and blinked his eyes. Schematics and notations to building Mark 5 Sentry Tanks, Mr. Gutsy Mark 7s, Assaultrons, Nate carefully pulled it off the wall and examined it, holding it like the lost text it was.

"Holy, geeze, this is what they would've been after, Deacon. This. This has got handwritten notes about all the improvements and upgrades they were making for the newest of weapons and equipment. This is all experimental, high-end stuff...I wouldn't even know where they would test-build this stuff. I'm just looking at this and seeing how freaking impossible it would be to take one of these things out."

"Put it away for a rainy day then. Make sure the Institute doesn't wise up and come back for it."

"You really say that?" Hancock asked, hoping for more clarification.

"When I was in the Army, there were Mark 2s in use. Everything was an experimental stage, the Mark 2s went through a dozen subclasses, some were armed with lasers, others miniguns, launchers, but these show plans on how to deal with the trapped heat from the fusion cores by creating heat sinks out and through layered shingle plates to allow more flexibility for the turret and for it to breathe. Just knowing about this would be enough to put me in federal prison for a long time."

"Then small miracles those people aren't around anymore." Deacon said, "Come on, I've got something for you."

To the left of the Research Department's security vault was an infirmary. It was about as untouched as the day the Railroad left it, and they didn't even get much of a chance to use it, so it was fully stocked with medical supplies, morphine, surgical equipment, antibiotics, penicillin, tramadol, and so on. Most of the items were encased in a cellophane plastic wrap, preserving them outside contamination.

Nate's heart was pounding, everything that a surgeon would need for the direst of wounds in a battlefield, from replacement surgical saws to outfit Curie, to a chest-spreader, sterile IV bags, heart monitors, everything he was searching for was all right here.

"Bottom shelf, there's the hazmat suits you've been looking for."

In a metal box, three times the size of an ammo crate, was a perfect condition hazmat suit, with a manual on how to wear and use the suit. Nate didn't know what to say at first.

"Hey, Deacon."

"Yeah?"

"So, you seem to know a lot. I'm coming back to this place, this is everything I need to save my wife."

"I know. There's a skilled plastic surgeon with the Railroad who's expanded into pulling bullets out of people. But, I haven't been able to get ahold of since the Switchboard collapsed, I'm also tracking down leads for hard drives that could tell your friend how to do the surgery."

Still taking a mental inventory of everything here, "Thanks." He said.

Deacon held up a small microchip, the size of two thumb drives. "This is it," Deacon said, holding it up for them to see. Deacon looked down to right on the ground, waving his right hand towards the decomposed body laying inside the vault. "That's Tommy. Tommy Whispers."

Squatting down beside the body for a moment, "I had really hoped he made it out."

Deacon leaned down, slowly pausing as he lifted Tommy's body enough to reach inside the coat. Patting the inside, he felt the metal grip and pulled the gun out. It was a Walter P9, with a comically large 8-inch suppressor that is more suited for an assault rifle, than a handgun.

"Here take this. You'll never find another gun like it. Tinker restored it, it's powerful, and most importantly it's quiet."

Checking the slide to see if it was loaded, it wasn't, so he tucked the Walter away in his waistband.

"Find what you're looking for?"

"Yeah. We get this back to Desdemona, and she'll let you in."

Nate looked around the strong room, seeing some of the most valuable things in the Commonwealth, sitting on the shelves. Two stealth boys and three mini-nukes, just waiting for someone to come along and grab them.

"Well, now..." Hancock began, spotting the mini-nukes.

"Deacon. You and Santo head back, I need to do another pass through here, I'll take the escape tunnel out and clear that too. There's too much valuable stuff laying around here for me not to see what else I missed. After that, we'll be back at the Church."

"Alright, don't take too long though," He said, pocketing the prototype and leaving them.

\111/

Carting up Railroad member bodies, and fifteen synths; Nate, Hancock, and Meathead walked away from the Switchboard with high energy and hopes, knowing they would come back here often.

Nate found his radiation suit, he had his armor and more weapons than most gun-store owners, and now nothing was stopping them from packing up and heading south.

Ch. 70 Desdemona

Author's Note

Travis 'Lonely' Miles was tapping his hands on his desk along with the beat, making a 'ticking' noise with his tongue. Drumming along, his head was bobbing, eyes closed, completely lost in the moment, he was in his studio in Diamond City, but in his mind, he was in a TV station studio, sitting in the audience as the band took the stage in front of blue curtains with glowing orange, yellow, and light blue stars. The band members wore matching leisure suits, and the woman singing wore an updew with a full length yellow dress that came down to her ankles, wearing matching colored heels. Cameras on rollers six feet tall, and the light blinking 'On Air' 'Applause'.
'Onetwothreeone, Onetwothreeone, Onetwothreeone, shoobiedoop.'

"Gee what a guy," Diamond City Radio, Who knows, Diamond City? I could be that guy."

Ch. 70 Desdemona

As Nate, Hancock, and Meathead returned to the North End, they followed a similar route back towards Bunker Hill but were halted by the display of dead marauders.

All twelve of the same marauders leading the slave train were hanging, strung up onto lamp posts and traffic lights, with the word 'Slaver' carved into their chest. The first body had a note pinned into the abdomen held in place by a knife. All down the road and above the streets were dead bodies hanging, with the addition of blood and drag marks, bullet casings littering the street, abandoned guns of where the raiders died, it looked like a warzone.

""

Whisking the note to them with Meathead's magic, it was a big red heart with the words ""

"What's it say?" Hancock asked.

"Love you. Killer?" Nate read the note aloud, flipping it over and passing the note around, Meathead groaned.

""

"What the ever-loving hell is this?" Hancock said, reading the note and looking around at the hanging corpses everywhere. "It's...like they took a bombed-out street and made it even worse! Crimony!" Hancock whirled around, looking up at the faces to see if he recognized any of them. Shuddering, he hated the feeling that was coming over him.

"If this is...If these are the guys leading the slave train...where the hell did everybody go?" Nate asked, Hancock was still in shock of seeing the blood-bathed street.

"How'd they do it so fast?"

"Any idea where Pickman and Athena are, Meathead? Or any of the people?"

Meathead hummed, closing his eyes to block out any visual distractions so he could focus, "" Spinning around, ""

"Well, next time you see him, tell him that this," Hancock said, whirling his finger in small circles, "Comes back around to the settlements in the wrong ways. Any of these guys' buddies show up, the first place they go is towards the closest town and start demanding answers, questions people can't answer. Then it's just like what happened this morning at Libertalia all over again."

""

"Well, tell your girlfriend she's gotta tone it down a notch."

\111/

Descended to the basement and through the catacombs to find a small group waiting for them. Deacon, and the Railroad's leader, Desdemona, with Palo Santo, and another female agent alert by the tunnel leading further into the base.

The unicorn's horn was glowing, holding the chip prototype they retrieved from the Switchboard. Observing Nate's party as they entered, Desdemona spoke, addressing the group. "Deacon tells me that you single-handedly secured Doctor Carrington's prototype, counter-ambushed a synth party, and wiped out over a hundred Gen 1 synths."

"Generals who get promoted quickly wipe out one hundred enemies, and ten commanding officers, with a single bomb; Altogether, there were fifteen synths. It was a coordinated effort between Deacon, Hancock, and myself with Meathead, with Palo Santo as moral support."

Hancock exhaled a small laugh, "Hea...he..." But the noise was discarded.

"Still," Desdemona said, looking back to Deacon, "I was expecting Deacon to grab a full team, including Glory to secure this."

"You wouldn't have wanted a large team, tight corridors, blind corners, confined tunnels, any more than four, and it would've been too much." Nate reasoned. "The gunfire echoing down there was loud enough as it was."

"The two of you cleared out the rest of the Switchboard yourself. Deacon hasn't spoken this highly, or lied so much, about anyone before, you make quite the impression. So, welcome to the Railroad."

"Great, what's the Railroad's next step?"

"Secrecy is the only thing keeping the Railroad alive right now, so we need to know what to call you. What do you prefer we call you?"

Hancock suggested, "Call him, 'The Handler', cause there's not much he can't handle."

Nate was looking over his shoulder to him, then turned back to face Desdemona, nodding, "Yeah," he said.

"Seems appropriate, considering all the contacts you've made for yourself throughout the Commonwealth. Your first official order is to escort Santo to Doctor Carrington and see if he can use another pair of hands. I'm also aware that you intend to head south, but, if we are to make it to the end of each week without the Institute crashing down on us, we need your help before you go. Handler, time to meet the rest of the gang."

"Do I get a nickname?" Hancock asked.

"John Hancock the Second, Hancock for short. You're wearing the original Hancock's outfit from over five hundred years ago and promote equal treatment of the social classes; were there any other defining attributes we don't know about?" Desdemona deadpanned. Hancock was profile enough as it stands.

Hancock hummed, "I like it."

"The main entrance is our most viable and direct way in or out of the Railroad, so be careful when coming or going. You never know who may be watching."

"Then I suppose now would be a good time to mention the Institute is using synthetic crows to video monitor and record everything happening in the Commonwealth," Nate said, seeing how his word carried a small amount of weight.

That got everyone to stop, "Excuse me?" Desdemona asked, "What did you..." Everyone not already informed shared confused looks with each other. "Did you just say synthetic crows?" Squinting her eyes, there was a flame of indignation and anger at the realization of the Railroad's misfortune.

Desdemona looked like she was about to swear, but Deacon's outburst cut her off. "When the hell did they start doing that?! How did you find out? Why didn't you say so?!"

"Shooting at birds found two reals and a fake crow. Ask Piper in Diamond City. We took it, and it's in a safe place. Despite her wanting to publish an article on it, I convinced her that this was the only advantage over the Institute. When she publishes, the Institute will switch gears, and the public will go gun-crazy on shooting everything that flies, including the possibility they target our Pegasus friends. After that, who knows? Cows? Synthetic Chickens? Nah- those would be rooted out too quickly. Synthetic seagulls?" Nate stopped speaking as he saw the monkey wrench he tossed to into the Railroad's machinations grind everyone's gears to a halt.

The agent Glory pushed herself away from the wall she was leaning on and stormed off, rage present on her face but contained under a thin veil.

"Nate - Handler, take Santo to Doctor Carrington, I need to address this issue with the rest of the Railroad," Desdemona said. "Deacon. Go tell the lookout." He did a quick one-finger salute before walking back up to the church.

"You're with me," Santo the Unicorn said, she spun around and followed Desdemona into the lower catacombs, expecting Nate to follow.

\111/

In the lower catacombs was a brick tunnel tomb, curved ceilings, with a covered well in the center leading straight down to the Charles River and bay. Desdemona rallied everyone to the center well where a map was laid out, and quickly introduced Nate as Handler, before informing everyone about the Switchboard, and the Synth-crows they discovered.

There were upwards of fifty people all hunkered down in the catacombs, ponies counted in the mix as well, fifteen hooved supporters of the Railroad, who Meathead was quick to roam around the room in his dog-form and get everyone's scent.

While the discovery of more ponies was what Meathead was silently hoping for a while now, he had yet to find any trace of another changeling anywhere in the Commonwealth. He acknowledged he was lying to himself that he had any hope of finding another. When a changeling dies, their form is locked, and they forever remain in their final state, unable to switch back. That way the deception remains permanent, long after the body is dead to fool the greatest detectives and analytical minds. It's only as the changeling is dying, they lose focus, they lose touch with reality, and are susceptible to shock that they change back, exposing themselves. But, if a changeling dies exceptionally fast; a car crash, gunned down, a piano falls on them, then the deception remains. There wasn't enough time, nor pressing reason for Nate to speak with the ponies of the Railroad except for Santo and Doctor Carrington at the moment, not until after introductions were made and the conversation turned to the plight of the ponies.

The room was converted into a small operations center, a safe house that could send and receive field messages, beds, and bunks for sleeping; some on top of coffins, others inside of coffins. Shelves lined with food and supplies, tools, and scrap, guns leaning everywhere, all loaded, all ready for an Institute attack when the day came.

After Desdemona's announcement, the mood in the Railroad Headquarters changed, "I believe this is the reason why we were found out in Lexington." They were all still bitter about the loss, and still stinging, this only forced the wound back open, and the sour emotion was puss leaking out.

Meathead balked quietly to himself, gagging on the stink they made for themselves. Hancock was being doubly interested in the dog Nate let follow him everywhere, aware that it was all a guise. That is what he was laughing about.

\111/

Santo nudged Nate, pulling his attention to the Doctor in the white medic gown, stained yellow from age and heavy amounts of bleach.

"Doctor Carrington?" Santo asked, still holding the prototype with her magic in a small pink ball.

"Ah, Palo Santo," Doctor Carrington was a fair-aged Indian-American, in his thirties, but because of the stress of living in the post-war world, his black hair was plagued with strands of gray hair. "So this is the recruit brought on without any training, and without knowing anything about you because we were all tired of smelling desperation in the air."

The dry comment was washed off by Nate, who wasn't looking to impress anyone. Inhaling and staggering his exhale, he overturned his right hand for a moment, as the gesture was meant to ask, 'anything else you'd like to say?'

"It would've been nice if she consulted her second-in-command, but what's done is done."

"I told you she was going to be bringing a new person on pretty quick. A Vault Dweller. This is him." Santo said, passing the prototype to Doctor Carrington's hands. He brightened up for a moment and saw the expression on Nate's face.

"An extraordinary feat to recover this, but before you ask, no, I specialize in western medicine practices and pharmaceuticals, the honor of surgeon goes to our agent Doctor Ripper in the field."

"What exactly did we retrieve?" Nate asked, looking down to the chip in Carrington's hands.

"A rapid-data scrubber. It takes time for files on computers to be deleted, and even destroyed motherboards can still contain corrupted data that can be salvaged. This was to be a kill-switch that would wipe all servers clean, in the event of an attack, but now, it remains untested, as we've been rebuilding our network since the fall of the Switchboard. To test it now, would mean starting from scratch all over again if it does work, which we can not spare the time."

"So Desdemona said you might need a hand with something else?"

"I would've, but you already met with Old Man Stockton, yes? You ran an operation with him and H2-22, yes? How in the world did you accurately respond to the code phrase he gave you?"

"The Geiger Counter in the shop?" Nate inquired, holding up his pip-boy. "I thought he was being facetious, you know; joyful without dignity? I thought he was making a crack about my Pip-boy. That is not on me."

"Then why did you take the job, and help him then?"

"It was a job, and I was new in town looking for money and wanted to know what was going on around Bunker Hill beside the weather, and who was coming and going. So make of it what you will for me talking to the burger-meister."

"Regardless, the H2-22 situation is dealt with, and since the fall of the Switchboard, two other safehouses went dark."

"Where at?"

"You know of Ticonderoga, we appreciate that you didn't return there until after formally speaking with us." Santo said, "Augusta or the Massachusetts Bay Medical Center was one, Herkimer and Allen are both confirmed burned,"

Hancock was shaking his head, "Just how bad of shape is the Railroad, doc? Goodneighbor is practically a well-oiled machine compared to what I've been hearing in the last hour."

Santo and Doctor Carrington both gave grave looks, a sign of weariness passed between them, "We're lucky there's a Railroad at all. We're it. There are a few communities with allies and safe houses out in the Commonwealth, and even fewer beyond, but this fight is wearing thin on our numbers. If we don't act fast and strike hard with the information you've given us, then there is the strongest possibility the Institute already knows we are all here and are preparing a strike team as we speak to wipe us all out. Once the Church crumbles, the Railroad will be no more. There's always the chance scavengers come across our bodies and raise the flags we wave right now, but by then it will be far too late, and the Institute will be secure with its hold on the Commonwealth."

Looking around at the names and faces gathered under the Old North Church, fitfully shaking as they slept, worried that any loud noise was the announcement of their end, working on fumes, no luxuries here, no cots, just a ragtag team of individuals who all come together, but with two goals on their mind. One, free the synths, two, take down the Institute. Neither goal could be accomplished without completing the other.

Nate and Meathead felt the state of affairs in the Railroad headquarters and saw how well the two of them compared to the entire collective. "Hancock," Nate said, getting the ghoul's attention.

"Hmm?"

Nate tilted his head up, nodding towards the ceiling. Taking Meathead and Hancock upstairs to the church interior, Nate addressed the Railroad below.

\111/

"So that's the Railroad," Nate said.

"Yep," Hancock said as if Nate expected more.

"Well, shit. One puff of wind and the whole thing collapses. We've been better off ourselves, how long do you think before the Institute moves in?"

""

"Should we put them up?" Nate asked

""

"Vault 75. It was a Gunner base in Malden until Curie and I cleared it out. There's Vault 114, too, closer and right under the Boston Common. Where the Triggermen set up, but it's not very practically designed."

"How would we convince the Railroad to move?" Hancock asked.

"I don't think it'll take much convincing, I think they'll prefer sleeping on top of beds rather than half-a millennia-old coffins."

""

"Yes. Whether they want to move or not, I think they'll see Vault 75 up in Malden as a pretty strong opportunity. Or 114 as a safe bet. A step up, they can keep using Old North Church until it gets burned, not literally, but I hope it doesn't collapse, I'd want you to help me do a restoration on the place and whip it back into shape."

"" Meathead flicked his attention to below his feet. "" Switching to barking like a German Shephard, and sitting by Nate's side, Nate pet him and turned towards Hancock, pretending to only notice the creaking floorboards as Deacon ascended from the basement.

He flashed a smile and saw the pow-wow they were having, joining in. "Well, we're colorful and insane, but you're stuck with us."

"More like you're stuck with me, Deacon."

"Speaking of which, what are your plans for the next week? I'd like to get a good thing going and travel with you"

"Join the club," Hancock said.

"Yeah, join the club and get a free vault suit and a hot shower." Nate played off of Hancock's words. "How would you and the rest of the Railroad feel about getting the fuck out from underneath this church and into Vault 75 below the Malden Middle School? Free real-estate, Malden is Gunner and Mutant free as it can be, as of yesterday. There's Vault 114 too, plenty close to the center of the action, right in the middle of things. Knockdown a few walls, and you'll have escape tunnels into the metro and sewers leading all around Boston."

"I'll run it by Desdemona and Doctor Carrington, but after you let the quip about the synth-crows monitoring us, I don't think it'll be too hard to convince everyone to pack up and leave in a hurry. Dez is already is losing hair over the thought of the Institute tracking us from the Switchboard to here." Deacon replied.

"Huh, well, It's going to take a whole minute for everyone to pack up, but if you say Malden and Vault 114 are clear as they can be, we'll start sending out teams of people to take wide births and double-backing routes to get there by sometime this evening."

"Good plan. We're going to the Constitution, and loading up for our trip south. Oh, and Deacon, Why awfully look so tragic? Put on a happy face." Nate sang as he headed for the door.

"What the heck are you talking about?"

"Smiling can work like magic, put on a happy face...
Take off the gloomy mask of tragedy, it's not your style." Nate stood outside of the doorway, hands raised praising the sun shining down on top of him, brightening the Old North Church.
"You can spread sunshine all over the place.
Just put on a happy face!"

Hancock shook his head, rolling his eyes as he followed behind Nate and his dog out into the North End. Deacon stood there for a moment, watching the trio get swallowed up by the sunlight shining through the door before heading back downstairs to tell the Railroad it was time to pack up and move out.

Ch. 71 The Mill November 6th

Author's Note

"It's raining in Diamond City today, streets are flooded a little, I could hear it patter off the sides of the roof. It really quiets things down, but we all know the Commonwealth is busy as ever. A caravan merchant dropped by and passed along the message that one of the Raider Bosses along the riverfront got wiped out by another gang. Tower Tom? Yeah. He's dead. More details to follow once I know more."

"Until then, the rest of us get to listen to this old gem...Let's see...the labels scratched off. I can't remember the artist, but I know the tape. This one's 'Not a loser', no wait... 'Guess that don't make me a loser', that's it."

Ch. 71 The Mill November 6th

Soldering copper wire to the steel rail ties, they prepared fifty metal bolts to fire through the Railgun.

The Giddyup Buttercups were manning the Cafe & Storefront, while the other ponies Warner, Serin Copper, and Hollow Point didn't know how to approach their new landlord.

Keeping the door to the Captain's room locked, Cherry Fizz was still recuperating in the Changeling pod.

Nate was bringing 90 .44 magnum rounds, 80 shotgun shells, 50 conductive railroad ties, a Ripper, a knife, and a spare 10 mm pistol with 72 rounds. 7 lbs of dried meat that could be eaten as is, or rehydrated. A gallon jug of water, along with a hand-held water purifier, 10 packs of rad-away, three containers of Rad-X, a shot of Med-X, 10 stimpaks, five pounds of dried oats and grains sweetened with honey, 10 packs of uncooked noodles, dehydrated apples, and dried pears.

"What do you know about the Glowing Sea?"

"Is Natick still standing?" He said, pointing to the town built by Lake Cochituate."

"As far as I know. The Deathclaws get wind of food from Natick and come up from the Glowing Sea. We might have a clear shot on the west side of the lake if Red's Raiders run the show over there. You can see the Glowing Sea from just about anywhere around there."

What about the east bank? Following the Highway down?"

"Gunners and Mutants. Mutants control this whole corridor, except for the Mass Pike Interchange."

"I saw mutants here, at the Weston Water Treatment Plant. I've got it in my mind to clear that place out and get some Mr. Handy's in there to fix the place up, but we'll get to that later. Forest Grove South of the water plant...we passed through there, nothing but ghouls milling around, so long as you don't draw attention to yourself."

"We got a place in mind to Boogey-to if things go south in the Glowing Sea?" Hancock asked.

They put their eyes to the map and frowned. The only safest community was the Federal Ration Stockpile, or Vault 81, miles north of Natick, or practically touching the Fens.

"Nope. Either Natick or from what Piper told me, stay the hell away from Shaw. Mutants are galore. Quincey is out of the picture too."

"Sounds like everywhere's a shit show," Hancock said, looking at the map. "Sounds like we gotta get through no-mans-land, to get to a DEADLIER No-Mans-Land, just to find one guy?"

""

"Finding him will be the least of our worries, it's everything else in the way between point A and point B, that'll be a problem. Narrowing down a search grid of all the potential areas that might still be standing, and where he might be." Laying out an old map of the Commonwealth, there were three rings drawn around the town of Franklin, where Nate guessed Ground Zero would be, where the scientist might be hiding, and then the supposed limit of radiation. Everything within a mile is either vaporized, or buried, so they won't need to search there. The only points of interest "Beyond this area, in the second ring, are the only things that would still be left standing. A nuclear reactor sight, a few factories, a suburb, and then this park along the hills here where he might find a source of water, and then Sentinel Site, a military base. If the rogue is smart, he won't be there."

"Why wouldn't he be at the Sentinal Site?" Hancock asked.

"Because that's the first place I'd look."

\111/

Telling the ponies to 'Man the fort' while they were gone, Serin Copper, Hollow Point, and Warner were shown where they could wash in the Tower's mop closet bathrooms, places where they could lay out to sleep in the offices, and a given a metal box near the windows to make a small fire for warmth and cooking. Nate brought two of the Giddyup Buttercups to them as he told them they didn't need permission to leave or stay.

They were free, period. As for the Weatherby Tower, if they chose to stay, there was enough food for a week before they needed to go out foraging or scavenging. Make it their safe house, but keep it clean, was all he asked. Not to bring attention to themselves was also important. Thunderstruck left with Nick Valentine, heading North to track down more ponies if they were still alive. To either bust them out of the raider's holds or see if they were carving out a living somewhere in the Commonwealth.

It was only after Nate, Hancock, and Deacon left with Meathead, that they finally spoke to each other.

Listening to the power armor suits march out of the building, around the corner, and then out of sight, they gulped in relief and anxiety.

Clustered on the third floor, looking down at the street, "They're gone." Copper said, watching the spot where the group was last seen.

"What do we do?" Warner asked.

"I want to wash off..." Hollow Point replied. "It's been too long." She said weakly. "I know it's too good to be true, but I think we should shower off, sleep, and then make ourselves some food."

"What about Cherry Fizz? We should check on her." Copper suggested.

"Remember what the human said? She's up on the ship, unconscious, and would stay like that for days, being taken care of by the robots up there."

"Should we leave?"

"Thunder said it was alright if we stayed, that it was safe here and that we didn't need permission to leave, we could go if we wanted to." Hollow Point countered, swallowing the thought, it'd been too long since they had any freedoms of their own. "But the man said there's a safe place outside of Boston, to the Northwest called Sanctuary Hills. I don't know about staying long in the city."

"Let's get cleaned up first. It'll give us time to think," Serin suggested.

They bathed together, ate together, and slept together. It was the only way they felt safe. They couldn't remember the last time they openly discussed things without a psycho with a gun or an ax nearby, waving it at them.

When the cool water hit them in the mop closet, Serin and Hollow both cried during their turns in the make-shift shower. Scouring themselves with rags, scraping themselves clean under running water, they pulled clumps of hair free, and the water was brown for minutes on end as they washed themselves and each other. When they were done, Giddy helped spray the dirt and mane towards the drain, wiping up the bits that wouldn't go down the grate and tossing the large wad into the trash before they left.

Curie examined them, spotting the obvious signs of physical abuse, and malnutrition, along with mange caused by parasites, and poor living conditions. The stress of their lives being ruined by the raiders didn't help, only now that they were cleaner, their attitudes were immediately more positive, and relaxed.

"Are we calling this place home for now?" Hollow Point asked, eyeing a desk where weapons were left behind by the humans.

"I guess so, no point in going back to Nuka-World." Copper replied.

"Don't even say that name, I don't even want to think about it," Warner said distastefully.

"Sorry, Warner, I was thinking about everyone else who's still there."

"It's fine. I just don't want to get too settled, in case we have to leave again." Warner said, looking down to her hooves.

"It feels like the first time in a while we can think for ourselves again, you know? I'm scared to say it, but I don't feel like an animal anymore." Hollow Point said, tentatively smiling about the change.

"So we stay with the guy who just rescued us, and now what? He's gone and didn't ask for anything in return. What do we do?"

All three ponies faced the first crisis of their newfound freedom together, "We make sure where ever we end up is safe and keep it that way. He put a timer on his charity too, a week. The human said he didn't mind if we stayed here, but he didn't say he could feed us forever. We need to find food or something valuable to trade so we can afford to stay."

"So where to, then?" Curie perked up, along with one of the Giddy's turning to them.

"We've never been here in downtown Boston before. All we know is what the raiders at Libertalia told us, that this place was way more dangerous than the rest of the Commonwealth."

"If you're looking for someplace to explore, there' lots to do around here!-" Giddyup was waiting to speak, suggesting a few things the ponies could do instead of waiting around. "There's the Old North Church a few blocks from here, part of the Freedom Trail, a stop along a walking tour of Boston. Or, if you're more interested in soaking up some sun, there's the coast just a couple of blocks away from here where you can walk along the wharves and beach. If any of you need a checkup, there's Curie here capable of assisting you, or the Mass Medical hospital." Giddy suggested. "The Giddy's and I are going to explore Boston for all its wonderful sights and attractions!"

"I've noticed that all three of you contain various stages of a parasitic infection that is easily curable by the name of mange. Monsieur Nate and I expressed interest in finding any relevant medical information at local hospitals. Si Vous would care to accompany me to Massachusetts Bay Medical, I know there will be items to help regrow your mane and hair, along with a few things of interest that will make fantastic offerings to Nate. Otherwise, if you wish to make yourselves of further use to him, his dwelling at Sanctuary Hills will most definitely require more hands to maintain." Curie explained, hoping to recruit some followers. In the time she's spent outside of Vault 81, things were drastically different. There were so many things to catalog and record, it warranted a companion for protection when societal rules broke down.

"Let's check out this hospital, find anything worth salvaging, and bring it back." Hollow Point said, taking lead. "Afterwards, if we feel that the city is too dangerous, we leave for greener pastures."

\111/

"Your rescuer is quite a character," Nick Valentine inquired, "but how is it that you made it to the Commonwealth?" He asked Thunderstruck.

Thunderstruck was flying along, just above head-height. North of Charlestown and Bunker Hill, the city quickly dropped off to suburbs and dead trees still standing from before the war. There was new life taking the form of moss in many places, weeds, and vines crawling across the ground, buckling the pavement.

"There was a day where we heard this great-big noise echo across the whole valley. Turns out it was the ship with the rockets strapped to it. The noise made a big distraction for me and a few other Pegasus to escape," She replied.

"Who are your friends, how many escaped?"

"Seven of us. Cola Nut, Vanilla Spring, Wind Whisper, Mango Blast, Quantum Quartz, Red Dawn, and Cinnamon Stick. We all took off in different directions, so I don't know who went where, or if they were caught, or decided to just keep flying."

"Well, the Commonwealth is a big place, there's a good chance you'll find them again. I'd heard about what those gangs did to Nuka-World, it's a shame. Every time a group in the Commonwealth here seems to get organized enough to make something of themselves, either raider, super mutants, or the Institute shows up to throw a monkey wrench right into the works," Nick Valentine quipped back.

"Nate's friend said the same thing, that I had a good chance of finding them again, but it's like the humans, don't care about letting the raiders or the mutants go wild, and from what I've seen so far, there are plenty of humans more than happy to let super mutants get right up next to them."

"What makes you say that?"

"The first time I flew to the Diamond City, there were super mutants all around the neighborhood. Looking down on the stadium, there was nothing but shanty houses and walls of garbage building up inside. Everything on four legs was penned up, so I realized then it wasn't a safe place and kept on flying. I've been to Goodneighbor, and the mutants set themselves up all over the place in the Courthouse a block up the road, and Fanueil Hall right below us before Nate and his dog pushed them out."

"You must realize that not all humans are like that."

"I know, but there are more people who are hungry than there are reasonable. No one came to put a stop to the raiders at Nuka-World, and the closest big city is doing nothing when it comes to monsters in their backyard."

Nick Valentine tisked, not finding any way to argue that point. "You're not wrong, but if Nate hadn't found you, where would you of gone?"

"Anywhere quiet, abandoned, and with clean water."

"Strike out on your own, then?"

"Only until I find more friends, then we can start again. Only the next time around not get ganked by fucking raiders. Nate said there's a sanctuary he intends to build up."

"C'est la vie."

"What's that?"

"It is the life. It's a saying for the world we live in, the world we strive for, or to describe the follies of this world, depending on how you say it. If you find one of your friends from Nuka-World is living life somewhere out here in the Commonwealth, what do you intend to do?"

"Ask if they want to come back with us. I like being high up in the ship, looking over everything, but there's no real food being grown anywhere within. I can't send all the ponies I find to the ship, we'd run out of food in a heartbeat."

"But if your friends were sold, or belong to someone, a Commoner, or a farmer, or a trader, then what?"

"You consider us property, so should I scrap you for parts, or do you consider yourself an independent, free-thinking autonomous being with rights just like everyone else?"

"You didn't answer my question."

"Make a deal, we were free before the raiders chose to put the collars on us, and we're free now, but if they don't wanna talk, then it would be a shame when lightning struck them on a clear sunny day. So, answer me, Nick. When you turn to rust in fifty more years, do we melt you down for scrap, or bury you?"

"Since when did emancipation become too hard of a concept to grasp?"

"When all the gangs at Nuka-World said, 'You're so carefree and nice. It'll be easy to enslave you all.' Every living thing that owns another pony or human perpetuates slavery. Equestrian pony freedom is my only goal."

\111/

With conversations between Thunderstruck and Nick Valentine progressing towards small talk, the duo came to a small place called Finch Farm, under the shade of an overpass along the coastline. North of Revere, and in the shadow of a large iron mill by the name of Saugus Ironworks, the farm grew rows of tomatoes by the sea.

Pushing a spade through the dirt, an orange stallion with tree-green moss hair, let down his tools for a moment to see the bamboo-colored pegasus flying to them, with a synth in a trench coat walking beneath her.

He shook, excited to see another pony, but the farmer owning Finch Farm who was pumping water into a barrel felt a change in the air and turned to see the pegasus and Nick Valentine.

"'Ew'er you? A trader? Got another one to sell to me?" Abraham Finch, using two fingers to gesture to Nick, and then Thunderstruck.

"I'm not even going to dignify that with a response, Nick, I'm using my second plan."

"Hold on, Thunderstruck." He said, calming her, if only momentarily. "That type of talk will offend my friend, Mister Finch, I believe?" Nick Valentine asked.

"Yeah, what can I do you for? Why are you here?"

"Two things, really, but it's my friend here who will dictate what our party will do next."

"You there," Thunderstruck addressed the stallion, "Does he treat you right, or would you leave given the choice?"

Before the stallion could respond, Finch spoke first. "Well hey now, if you're here for the pony, I'm not selling him. He's too valuable helping out with the crops. My bastard son of mine ran off to join the Forged, and I'm short-handed."

"Well, how about a deal then? We convince your son to come back, and if the stallion feels like leaving, he decides whether he stays or goes." Nick said, intermediating the conversation

"Good luck, those trumped-up raiders are obsessed with fire and metal, and will shoot you first before even thinking about talking to you."

"So how'd your son join them then?" Thunderstruck asked.

Abraham Finch growled, anger rising within him, the stallion flinched. "The idiot son of mine took my granddad's blade and gave it to them as an offering! Fuck him! Just get me the blade and hang the consequences for whatever happens to the damn fool. I just want what's mine back!"

\111/

Thunderstruck and Nick Valentine's first approach to Saugus Ironworks was cut short when the lookout, a sniper on the seven-story tall mill shot at them from nearly 400 yards away. Spurred into retreating, more lookouts were shooting in their direction, and before they knew it, gunfire and bullets echoed all around them. Chewing up the treeline and the road around them, one of the snipers had an automatic laser rifle and was firing down from above. Thunder could trace the blasts of red light back to the shooter from the ground.

With free speech thrown out the window, they came up with a plan of attack. "Those Bastards!" She declared.

"Makes you wonder how the kid got in," Nick commented.

"I'm more curious as to how the farmer is living in between two raider gangs, a mutant hot spot, and a Gunner base."

"Where are the Gunners?"

"Just down the road towards the coast from the Ironmill. I saw them scouting us through a scope while we were at the farm."

"Well, I can answer that, they're the only ones growing food, and everyone's gotta eat, but they're the only ones doing the hard work. If Finch dies, then all these gangs get antsy real quick when they realize there's no more food to be raided. It sure must be nice having a personal feedlot nearby. I'm sure there are half a dozen more little communities and farms all around us, eeking out a living, paying tribute to two or three gangs, just to get by."

"Doesn't matter, if the kid was shooting at us, then he's a raider, through and through now."

"What's the plan?" Nick asked.

"I'm going to fly high, do a big lap, check things out, and then see about pitting all these glunk-heads against each other.

\111/

Captain Bridgett of the Gunners was alerted to the Pegasus her scouts saw at Finch Farm. When caught, they could be starved for three days, and then on the fourth, be trained to serve as an aerial scout that was loyal and devoted to the only source of food available to the lowly animals.

To have someone willing to return to them quickly with every bit of information they could find, it was the classic, 'Carrot or the stick,' without the carrot. It was the stick or nothing at all. Pegasus made great runners for the Gunners, willing to divulge locations of every person they saw coming or going from a location. Breaking them was easy, especially since most of them arrived in a sorry condition from Nuka-World.

"Go find where the animal lands, kill whoever it's with, then bring the animal back here. Keep them away from all forms of contact, don't feed her, only water. The pony will be ready to follow every command by the weeks' end."

"'Aye, Ma'am."

From the Hub City's Auto Salvage Yard, they were cutting metal for weeks. Sending caravans of brahmin, and recently acquired ponies laden down with sheet metal to different bases around the Commonwealth for reinforcement. Everywhere the Gunners went, there was an opportunity to raid, or demand payment from settlers for protection. If they couldn't afford protection, they'd be burnt to the ground within hours. That was the cost and price of doing business in the Commonwealth, and it suited the Gunners just fine. No one was able to beat them, with how organized they were compared to the raiders or super mutants, it would only be a matter of time before they rolled over every township around the Commonwealth, and cut off Diamond City.

Within a year, they would have the city for themselves, and a whole mess of people not worth their time to kill, as a show of strength to those who were allowed to live, that to mess with the Gunners meant death. To go against the Gunners, was death. The world was strict and cruel, and that lesson needed to be passed down with the weight of a hammer. Everyone worked until death, which was only natural. Every Gunner came from harsh realities, and therefore, any child was taught the same lesson.

If they survived the beatings, they made excellent creative crafters keeping their weapons in tip-top shape, and didn't eat much either. Any complaints, or God-awful annoying-as-hell crying, meant they would be shot, and body left to rot in the open as crows and other scavengers came to pick apart the rest.

A scrapyard was no place for a child, but there two were, working under three Lieutenants, and alongside Gunner conscripts, all proving their worth.

\111/

When the Gunners came for Thunderstruck, they shot Nick Valentine four times in the back from 15 yards out.

Every bullet, Nick couldn't feel. His worn-out nerve endings, oiled casings, and synth body otherwise prevented him from feeling any sensation, but he knew he was struck when his entire center of gravity was thrown askew. He heard the gunshots and made a split-second decision. The second, third, and fourth bullet pinged through his chest, tearing holes in his duster.

Falling forward to the ground, he told Thunderstruck to flee, they were after her, not him. Laying still, playing dead, Thunderstruck was barely off the ground when they flung barbed long-line, a rope with hooks tied every 12 inches, into the air and yanked her down to the ground. Piercing her skin, she cried out, at risk of being in more pain, she needed to ground herself or feel gouges of flesh be ripped out of her.

She cried out for Nick who was motionless on the ground as the Gunners dragged her down, and wrestled ropes around her wings.

"I'll kill all of you! I'll remember your faces, and -" Bashed in the face, she was punched twice, then kicked in the head to be subdued. A rope was tied around her neck, then she was forced onto her hooves, choked into being dragged forward, any time she resisted, the rope was pulled tighter and the hooks sunk deeper.

Dragged along, forced forward, Thunderstruck was taken into the scrapyard and locked in a metal container. Her only light was the rusted holes in the roof and walls.

\111/

Nick Valentine laid motionless until the Gunners were gone, before standing back up again.

"Darn Gunners, I hate to stage a rescue mission all by my lonesome...the first one turned out so well." Ending up getting caught by the Triggermen, he let the memory pass. "Back-up...? I got no backup...Crimony."

With only two magazines of ammo for his submachine gun and an extra pocketful of ammo for his revolver, the detective was outgunned every way he saw the situation. Not one to leave his employer strung up, he considered his options, and tried to figure out if there were any more beyond 'going it alone.'

No quote from the past seemed adequate to spur inspiration, but he couldn't let this day end in disaster. Looking around him, there were mutants at Revere to the south, raiders at the beach beyond that. There were Ironmill raiders who shot on sight, and Gunners beyond them, and then to the North and West, absolutely nothing for miles and miles.

It took Nick Valentine from the time he stood up, to taking several steps before words came to him.

"A whole army may be robbed of its spirit; a commander in chief may be robbed of his presence of mind."

Striking out after the Gunners who kidnapped Thunderstruck, he would make sure they would pay.

\111/

It took a few hours of scanning the beaches and watching how the Gunners moved around their fort set up inside the salvage yard. Green clouds of crackling lighting giving bursts of hot winds blew north from the Glowing Sea, a sign of approaching acid rain and radioactive dust. While most of it didn't bother Nick, he took it as a sign as the perfect distraction. If the lack of Mirelurks were anything to go by, then the water approach just like before would be the best, but also the most difficult path. While a large majority of their stockade was built around the road, preventing people from attacking from the front, Nick Valentine came at them from the rear. Climbing the metal fence was easier than it looked, with the shore rolling through tides, the water crashing on the beach sent echoes up and down the coastline. Covering any noise he may of made while climbing the fence.

Fourteen Gunners total, versus a peeved robot with the digital version of Sun Tsu's Art of War being read directly from his memory banks.

There was a sleeper-camper where three Gunners were already resting for the evening. By taking a fusion core generator from a car and cracking it open, Nick slipped the radioactive tube inside and barring the doors, turning it into a microwave. A minute from now they'd wake up in pain, in two minutes they'd be pounding on the door or blasting their way out. Three minutes from now, they'd be dead or radioactive to the point where death would be a sweet cooling embrace. Nick Valentine was hoping they were heavy sleepers.

Walking up behind a seated Gunner, looking out at the road, he was careful not to sound like himself and to not walk like he was about to kill her.

The Mk. 2.1. Synth, was over seventy years old, metal pieces that always needed retightening, or swapping, wrist joints in particular - by loosening and tightening two bolts, Nick Valentine's right arm tendon was now jutting out 8-inches past his wrist, a single sharp point that made a makeshift blade, and one that he used in more than one occasion.

Driving the tendon-blade into the Gunner, it pierced through both sides of the neck. Pushing off the body with his left hand, he let the Gunner sloop down into the chair. Wrench already in his hand, he fixed the blade again to fit back into his arm.
Pulling a knife from the recently deceased Gunner's waist-strap, he took her laser pistol as well.

Staying behind cover, he watched as one Gunner came through the yard, walking quickly towards the road. Nick let him pass, then he dove at him with the knife stretched out, aiming at his neck. Tackling him to the ground, Nick drove the knife into the side of the Gunner's head, killing him, then dragging him behind a wrecked car. This would keep the body from being discovered right away. As he did this he heard pounding coming from the Gunner's camper, muffled shouts of pain.

The door broke down easily, and the only Gunner to make it out alive was completely flush red. On his knees, bent over in pain, he threw up blood, before falling to his side.

Nick Valentine called out Thunder's name, quietly, but below a shout's threshold. "Thunder!"

"Thunderstruck!"

"Nick!" Pounding twice against the metal container she was in, "Oh thank the skies!"

"Thunder, there's still a handful of these Gunners left, I'm gonna get you out of here, and then we're going to get the hell out of here."

"Fuck that! Nate said the mutants weren't attacking ponies. I'm going to get the mutants to attack everyone, and then once they're done, we kill whoever's still standing!"

"Easy there, Kali, let's just get you out of there first."

"They deserve it, Nick. They shot you down and kidnapped me!"

"I know they deserve it, just...shush for one second! I think a Gunner's coming!"

Running off, Nick Valentine nearly was spotted by three Gunners investigating the rest of their camp. Laying down low on the ground, his duster was covered in mud, but he readied his submachine gun.

"Alright, let's see how you like getting shot," Nick said, raising the sights to his shoulder, he aimed at their legs.

Three short bursts, firing off twenty rounds, the Gunner's legs were the least protected. Even those with some sort of leg armor or padding were vulnerable to perforation by the .45 caliber rounds.

The gunshots alerted the other six Gunners, a Lieutenant and a corporal Gunner came running to their comrades crying out in pain, they were all still alive, but crippled from the knees down and bleeding out.

"Quiet! Who did this?! Where are they!?" The Lieutenant demanded to know, but he wasn't looking down at them, he was spinning around, looking for where the attack came from.

Thunderstruck banged away at the sides of the metal container, "Hey! Buttheads! Let me out!" Causing a distraction, the Gunners couldn't discern Nick's footsteps as he took a wide circle around them. Taking a large iron pike off the ground, he charged one gunner from the back. The Gunner whipped around, hearing the rapid footfalls, and was spiked through the chest and speared to the ground. The Lieutenant fired his laser rifle a dozen times at Nick, striking his metal body, and perforating holes, but Nick fired back with his pistol and with more handgun experience. The shots rang out through the scrapyard, Nick dashed to the container, and unbarred the container Thunderstruck was in, she rushed out, and blinked through the darkness, scanning the skies.

"Distract whoever's left, I'll take care of them." She said before rushing into the skies with her wings carrying her upwards.

"Can do, little lady."

\111/

From the highway overpass adjacent to the Hub City Auto wrecker's yard, was a metal siding shack that housed Captain Bridgette and the other remaining Lieutenant. They were with a Sargent Gunner and a private Gunner pony when the gunfire broke out inside their base.

They took firing positions from the overpass, looking down at the wrecking yard, but the containers and where the three gunners were laying with their legs blown off were barely out of view.

They uncapped flares and heaved them down onto the ground, illuminating the dark grounds and showing the junked cars, casting bright lights, and showing Nick Valentine as he rushed behind the auto yard's crane.

They fired immediately upon seeing someone they didn't recognize. Pinned down, Nick couldn't move out of cover, but the Sargent and Gunner's pony flanked Nick to shoot at him from the side.

Far above them, Thunderstruck returned with a dark thundercloud, bristling and crackling with energy.

She was enraged and breathing heavily, soaked from carving the cloud away from the rest of the cumulonimbus, but as the cloud turned black, she positioned it over the Captain and Lieutenant's heads and thrust her hooves against the top of the cloud.

"Shouldn't be wearing all that metal armor," She shouted.

Green lightning bolts erupted from the clouds, arcing down and striking both the Captain and the Lieutenant, daisy-chaining between the two from how close they were together. Brighter than the morning sun, the light caught the last two Gunner's attention so quickly, they jerked their heads to see the afterglow of a lightning strike their commander's down.

The following thunder claps this close to the ground, located just above the auto yard echoed for miles, but shook everyone still standing.

"You there!" Thunderstruck shouted, "Guns down! You're the last man and pony standing. We killed the rest, so you get two options."

Short black hair, nearly a buzz cut, squared-off cheeks, and crooked nose from being broken multiple times from fights and being beaten, brown eyes, and dressed in the Gunners' green garb, aiming an assault rifle. He looked down to the support pony, a blonde maned, brown-coat earth stallion with a white star for a mark. Everything he saw around him leads to the realization that they were the last men standing.

"What's your offer?" he called out, not seeing Thunderstruck flying above them.

Landing down behind them, with Nick Valentine behind the Gunners, he raised his submachine gun, ready to fire as Thunderstruck spoke.

"Option one, you free the pony to me, and you get to leave this junkyard alive, or option two, I cut your head off and give it to the mutants to snack on."

It took a few seconds to mull it over, "And what if I decide to just shoot you? You got no weapon."

Thunderstruck raised her hoof to the Gunner, "Bang."

A torrent of bullets cut into the Gunner's backside, blood spots appearing all over his chest and ripping holes out through the front of his face as Nick Valentine cut the Gunner down.

"So, hot stuff," She asked, speaking to the stallion, "You still with the Gunners, or ready to do something worthwhile?"

Turning his head to Nick Valentine, he was aiming down the sights, directly at him, finger on the trigger, ready to fire again.

Spitting out his rifle, it fell to the mud. "The name's Dart."

"I know, I recognize you from Nuka-World. My name's Thunderstruck, and I'm doing everything I can to make sure human raiders never take advantage of us like they did, ever again."

"Sounds better than what the Gunners did to me. They starve you and work you day and night for your food, just to keep you grateful for whatever scraps they toss our way."

"Then I hope you don't mind, but I want you to round up all their guns, and whatever weapon you can find and follow Nick Valentine over there. While you're doing that, I need some rope and a hatchet."

"You know, Kali wore a belt of human skulls."

"Nick, your girlfriend was a freak."

"She's not my girlfriend, she's a Hindu deity, who would metaphorically cut your head off and show you your true reflection."

"Well, I'm cutting this asshole's head off, and using it to barter with the mutants to attack the raiders at Saugus. While I'm doing that, you convince the raiders down at Revere beach to come in behind us with all the guns Dart gathers and wipe out any mutants still standing afterward."

"Kali was also known as the destroyer of worlds, Thunder. A woman whose skin was black as the cosmic dark matter of space between stars, depicted as bathing in blood."

"Nick, I get it. Am I bearing a strong resemblance?" Thunderstruck asked, covered in blood, hooves darkened from handling the radioactive rainclouds, a fierce thirsty look in her eyes.

"You're not...She's a protector...just...I hope you're okay. I'm glad you're still alive."

"They shot at us, they shot you, and those other raiders tried to kill us too. I'm damn angry at the world right now, Nick."

"Me too, kid. Me too. If you need a knife...I got one right here for you. Just, I don't want to be a part of this stage of the plan."

"Ghouls tear humans apart, Nick. Mirelurks rip humans to shreds, Deathclaws chomp people in half, bloat flies lay eggs in your corpse, humans aren't top dogs in this world anymore, Nick. I don't feel sorry for what I'm about to do, I just feel like I need to fight to survive, and then kick and fight harder to live like I did before we were turned into slaves."

Taking the knife from Nick, Thunderstruck addressed the new pony in their party. "So, tell me, Dart, know where any other Gunners are holed up?"

The stallion nodded.

\111/

Flying to the Revere Satellite Array, Thunderstruck was weighed down with the belt of human heads, making her look all the more fearsome. They hadn't shot at her yet but made sure to let other mutants know of her arrival. She looked for the biggest, baddest, meanest looking Super Mutant she could find, one wearing a bandolier of skulls, ghoul, and human, and spoke first.

"These are the heads of every human who tried to imprison and bend me to their will. This is what happened to them."

The Super Mutant Warlord's face ticked, muscles stretching and forming a twisted smile of pleasure at seeing the proof of so many dead humans. "A small pony with such power and strength, a sign to super mutants! Why did little flying pony come here?"

"Because there are humans in the factory to the North who shot at me as well, and I want to kill them all."

"Then go, pony, use your strength to kill them." The warlord responded. Thunderstruck saw from the expression, out of all the super mutants gathered, this one was able to rub a few brain cells together.

"They are too great of numbers for one small pony like myself to kill all of them, that is why I bring these to you." She said, undoing the belt. "I need the protection only the age of super mutants can bring. I need your anger and strength. These humans need to realize it was a mistake to attack us and pay for their insolence. I know super mutants can crush these humans and make them regret the day they were born."

"Why should super mutants listen to pony?"

"Because this pony will rain down fire and hell from the sky, I will shock them with lightning again and again until they're dead! Super Mutants are smarter and more cunning than humans will ever be. They think that by banding together they can fight off progress, fight the new world, and kill or take everything. These humans need to learn to fear Super Mutants forever. You will strike hard and show them no mercy because Super mutants are strong, not weak like pesky raiders! It's the age of the Super Mutants, it's time to crush those humans like the insects they are!"

\111/

After a few more minutes of riling up and instilling confidence in the super mutants, they left to attack the Saugus Ironworks mill. While Nick and Dart succeeded in convincing the Revere Beach Raiders to agree with the plan in a quarter of the time, after arriving with a load of guns. Under the idea of wiping out two birds with one stone, the raiders saw the tactical logic of the plan to let another raider clan take the brunt of the mutant force, while they mop up the rest.

The thirteen mutants didn't march, but walked. Tall lumbering brutes carrying heavy weapons, and cages for any humans they could catch, the lookouts on top of the iron mill saw them coming from the moment they crested the hills. Moving across the forested marsh and wetlands, they broke into three groups when they got closer to the mill. Four mutants came around from the South-East, four from the South-West, moving through gaps in the rusted fences, engaging the Forged Raiders. The last five and Thunderstruck circled and attacked from the North, coming in by the road to the front entrance.

The shooters from the top were armed with scoped hunting rifles, and it took upwards of seven accurate shots to the chest to kill one super mutant. They needed to reload and track their target again, as the super mutants broke into a charge.

Forged on the ground came running out with modified welding torches, flamethrowers spitting jets of fire fifteen feet long. While several mutants were consumed in fire, three of the green super soldiers rushed through the flames, swinging sledgehammers and crushing the Forged weapons with a single blow. Even as their skin was burnt off, they worked themselves up into an enraged state that pushed them onwards as more fired on the Forged with laser and assault rifles.

One mutant, dressed with only chains holding up a metal plate over his torso ran forward with a mini-nuke, armed and primed, dashing through a whole torrent of bullets and fire to a cluster of raiders by the main entrance, slamming the nuclear warhead down into the ground.

Everyone in a ten-meter radius was disintegrated instantly in a wake of heat and bright light. A whole section of the wall to the factory was blown wide open. The blast shook the building and sent tremors through everyone's feet beyond the explosion, drawing their attention to the area where the band of super mutants was rushing in.

When the mutants told Thunderstruck to 'go make sparks', she took to the air gathering clouds in the sky to form and condense the charged molecules in the air.

Nick Valentine alerted the raider boss, Cinder, that once the majority of the super mutants rushed in, it was their time to close in. Twenty-five raiders armed with Gunner's rifles and pistols all sprinted for the factory perimeter, taking cover behind cars, trucks, containers, cement barriers, dumpsters, anything to conceal themselves and wait for the mutants to come back out.

Thunderstruck flew in through the roof, through a door leading to workshops and offices high above the rest of the plant. Opposite the main control room for the ironworks mill, there were only beds, cases of scavenged ammo, and Forged raiders unaware of an aerial assault.

Firing with a laser rifle, she shot at three Forged snipers that withdrew from the roof; they barricaded themselves by the staircase to wait for the impending super mutants to come rushing up, where they could easily fire down at them.

Super Mutants rampaging their way through the factory from the ground up, Thunder fighting her way down, it sounded like a warzone with all the guns firing. A light machine gun was positioned in the foreman's office overlooking the smelting floor. While there was plenty of covers to utilize, more mutants were gunned down over the open floor because they didn't know how to be tactical. The smartest of the Super Mutants, they took cover, they waited for the Forged in the office to reload and charged up the gangways to the office, ripping the heads off the Forged bodies, crushing their chests in with their bare fists. The Super Mutant Warlord ripped the LMG out of its turret holder and carried the belt of ammo with him.

All the paths lead to the blast furnace, where five mutants entered, facing the Forged raider clan leader in his suit of power armor, wielding a flaming sword. "Burn," Slag gestured with his sword, then two massive stone buckets filled with molten iron were poured down onto the mutants' heads.

The Super Mutant Warlord threw himself out of the way, leaving the rest to be burned alive as the rest of the Forged opened fire on the last remaining super mutant. Bullets tore chunks and pieces out of this last mutant, but he unloaded the whole nine yards of ammo into Slag and every human he saw. Even in death, his fingers were wrapped around the trigger, firing the LMG, letting the recoil buck and jerk his arm around.

With all 13 super mutants dead, the Forged lost 35 of their own, with only three people left. One of them was Slag, who was badly wounded and power armor crippled. Letting the Shish-kebab clatter to the floor,

The coward, Jake Finch, was hiding, on the main factory floor. He made it to the front door before being stopped by 25 rifles all pointed at him. Gunned down in a hail of bullets, Jake Finch never made it back home to his father after running away to join a raider gang.

The woman, a Forged raider who was with Slag in the Blast Furnace area was the only one untouched, but when Thunderstruck came through the door, the pony shot her in the back before flying across the room, bucking Slag backward into a burning cauldron of molten iron. There was a pained scream, high and low wails of agony as the raider boss was burned alive, but then it suddenly stopped.

Picking the sword up in her teeth, she bit down hard and the sword ignited. Letting off the pressure, it extinguished.

Pulling in a shuddering sigh, she knew she wouldn't have long before more raiders from the beach would come to claim everything here as their own. Ransacking whatever she could find, and loading it into her brown satchel saddlebags, she went up to the roof and then flew down to Nick Valentine, Dart, and Cinder.

\111/

"Well, there you have it," Nick said,

"Two birds, one stone," Cinder replied, "Just like you said."

"Three if you count the Gunners," Dart said.

"That opens up quite a bit of new territory for us."

"So, does our deal stand? You got the factory, the satellite array, and the scrapyard, all up for grabs. All we want is to be able to move around without getting shot and robbed."

"Any other day, we would've taken your guns and shot you anyway, but, seeing as how you cleared the neighborhood, give us the stallion, and well let you go."

Nick stared at Cinder, then down to Dart and Thunderstruck.

"Not gonna happen." Thunderstruck whistled. "Hey, pretty boy. Down here, fucknuts." Spinning around, she stood on her front legs and bucked Cinder right in the balls. "LISTEN HERE, YOU INBRED SEWER RAT! I WILL UNLEASH A HORDE OF SUPER MUTANTS ON YOUR CAMP! You will be up to your assholes in mirelurks! I will personally go out and lure a mirelurk queen right back to your little boardwalk to fuck your day up!"

Twenty-four guns were aimed at them, and Thunderstruck laughed it off, "You would'a pulled the trigger if you could. But you won't. Here's why." Unleashing the flaming sword, she stood up on her rear hooves and transferred it from her mouth to her forelegs. "You wanna play raider, or do you wanna die? I don't have to kill everyone, just you. So, here's the new deal. You let us walk wherever we please, whenever we want, Or I'm gonna cut your fucking skull from your body and let you look at your bleeding corpse while you're still blinking, you got that!? My count's fourteen heads today, and I have no problem making it fifteen. Your choice. All you need to do is say, the words, 'you're the boss.'"

"I'm the boss."

Lowering the flaming sword down to his neck, everyone else raised their guns, ready to fire. "Say again?"

Feeling the heat on the back of his neck, "You're the boss."

"Glad I heard you right. Now get up. To the victor, go the spoils. Make sure everyone gets a piece." Thunderstruck extinguished the sword and lowered it back down. "Nick, Dart. Let's go."

\111/

"Do you feel like talking?" Nick asked.

"Nope."

"That's okay, you went through quite a bit just to get that sword."

"I'd say it was worth it," Dart chimed in. "You got me out of those Gunners, and it's nice to talk to someone without feeling like it's a travesty to speak up."

"It's never been a travesty, others beat you down and demeaned you until it felt that way. Now, both of you be quiet, otherwise, I'm flying ahead."

It was a few minutes of ample silence, walking along in quiet retrospect, absorbing everything that recently happened in the last eight hours.

Broken by Nick Valentine, he started up again with, "Interestingly enough, Kali was known for-"

Ch. 72 The Glowing Sea

Author's Note

"Happy Holiday"

"White Christmas"
May all your days be merry and bright!

Why the Christmas Music, you ask? Well, it's that time of year for the Commonwealth.

[A/N]: Great Googily-Moogily, Vault Dwellers! Nate and Meathead finally reach the Glowing Sea with Hancock for this extra-long chapter.

Ch. 72 The Glowing Sea

The Vault-Lad on the Pip-Boy screen was resting in bed, then woken from slumber by a clanging alarm-clock. The time read 5:00 A.M. The Vault-Lad animation shut off the alarm, threw off the covers to his makeshift bedding, stretched his arms, and stood up.

Coughing lightly, Nate cleared his throat and pulled the stretchy black long johns up to his waist. Grabbing a blue striped thermal shirt, it clung tightly to his body, and within minutes, warmth spreads through friction as he moves around. Hancock rolled up, and immediately went for a cigarette. Time to start the day.

Next came the hazmat suit, holding out the arm sleeves in both hands, he crawled in feet first, then arms, and pulled the hood over his head last. Zipping up the side, the hose valve connected to Nate's re-breather extending to his power armor helmet's air filtration system.

Sucking in a lungful of air, then exhaling, blowing the carbon stale air out through his mouth, he switched on the X-01 power armor and entered the suit. The hydraulic hiss of air sealing off locked Nate inside the power armor, then the holographic display on the inside lit up.

The world around Nate was now only the hard lines and rigid features, two-dimensional lines on a three-dimensional plane, with scanners constantly sending out wavelengths and representing distance through the internal radar and range finder.

Without being able to see through the eye-holes on the suit, he relied solely on the graphics display.

His Geiger counter ticked slowly, and he sunk a small wooden stick into the ground. Beyond the stick to the south, the Geiger counter picked up more radioactive particles, while to the north, it drastically dropped off.

The vision featured within the helmet reminded Nate of the early arcade games of the 1960s, where the player was a 3D tank, moving around blocks.

A feature that belonged to the X-01 technology was the Internal Transmission Locator, it could detect and show the direction of other transmissions being broadcast.

Every twentieth of a second for distances less than five meters and then every eighth second for distances up to three miles, the display would update as another wave pinged inside his helmet, and Nate grew comfortable learning to pilot this night-vision like display. Everything looked cartoonish, blocky, and lacked color.

The technology was based on no-vision displays meant for firefighters to use in smoke-filled corridors where the black smoke was so thick and dense, that you couldn't see the tip of your finger even if it was less than a centimeter away from your eyeball.

Looking down at Meathead, he waved his hand at him, moving his arm, the thermal-suit, the radiation suit, then the power armor protecting everything on top. Clapping his hands together, he couldn't feel the shockwave of pressure as his hands touched.

This was the edge of the Glowing Sea, where a visible line of decay meets organic life trying to push against the radioactive wasteland.

A spiral of green flame went from Meathead's forehead, down to his paws, casting off the illusion of a German Shephard to be in his true form.

"" He said.

\111/

Walking forward, kicking up radioactive dust along the way. The ground was grey, the life leached from it.

Less than a quarter-mile into their expedition into the Glowing Sea, there were pools of stagnant water with illuminating flowers growing in the center.

"What type of plants are those?" Hancock asked, observing the blossoms.

"Couldn't tell you, but they're worth studying. See how they're glowing? Even in the light? Dollars to donuts, they're terraforming the Glowing Sea. Slowly eating up the radiation. If we cultivate a few million of them, the radiation zone will dry up in thirty to fifty years. Maybe even less."

Reaching down into the pool, Nate plucked three and put them away into his bag.

Following the path of water, dried remains of creeks, and runoff formed during rainfall, Meathead alerted them to the first signs of life. A large collection pool of water was plagued with a small gathering of feral ghouls, drinking from the water, or standing in it.

"All the rads a ghoul could want," Hancock said, "More of your flowers growing around the edge." He pointed out.

"Yeah. That's a good sign."

With the landscape sloping upwards towards Roxbury, West Roxbury, and Franklin, these towns were higher in elevation than Boston down at sea level.

"We'll need to follow the water to the source. This scientist must've found a spring to drink from."

Observing them from afar, they skirted the ghouls' detection, intent on saving ammo for bigger predators.

\111/

Following the remains of a riverbed, they came across more pools of stagnant water, bloatflies, and oversized mosquitos. The bugs were incessant, attacking the trio on sight. They shot them down when they came close, Meathead ripped their wings off with his magic, making it easier for Nate and Hancock to smash the insects under their power-armored boots.

The higher they went along the riverbed, they came to sets of footprints, feet dragged across the ground, from a pool of water, and then back.

"Meathead?"

"" He said, sensing them nearby. ""

"Can you tell where the Windigo is?"

""

"Then, we kill this thing, and get your vision back."

"Any chance this guy is a ghoul?" Hancock asked.

""

\111/

The radio signal was scrambled, so no music could be heard. If anything, all Nate wanted was something to keep the silence at bay between himself and Meathead, and even he picked up on that. But, with nothing to talk about, and no interesting landmarks to find, the conversation was limited, but with the threat of radioactive monsters, whenever they spoke it was quickly and quietly.

Navigating was a challenge itself, Meathead knew from the roaming energies beneath their feet that there were scorpions, active predators that sensed changes in the surface above, then spring out of the earth to surprise their victim.

The Glowing Sea was one of the harshest environments in the world, yet life struggled to continue. There was very little water here, and what was to be found was expected to be immensely irradiated. The wildlife adapted long ago, being able to digest the radioactive water without adverse side effects. The long-term effects of living in this desert environment made the predators of this land grow large to defend themselves from larger predators or prey in a massive arms race.

As the ground continued to slope upwards, they came to cliffs surrounding the riverbed, and a bridge above their heads.
""

Scrambling up the embankments, they came around the hill to be on a level with the road and felt the ground shake as a plethora of Rad-Scorpions, ranging from the size of a small car to a semi-truck crawled down the channel.

"" Their options were limited, from the rubble to downed trees, the trio could only stay low, stop moving, and hope to remain undetected. Meathead's horn brightened, a green aura emitting from it.

"What are you casting?"

""

The ground shook, and Nate shuddered at feeling the vibration up through his suits. There was a deathclaw fast approaching, sprinting towards them.

Meathead, Nate, and Hancock stayed motionless as two deathclaws dove at the horde of scorpions, swinging their massive claws, aiming for the stingers first.

The radscorpions tails were like wrecking-balls moving as fast as whips, the echo of their stingers slamming into the deathclaws' hides, the ground crunching under their feet. Ripping one scorpion apart, another lashed out with its claws, grabbing one of the deathclaws legs, slamming its stinger over and over again into its captive.

Gobs of venom poured down, splashing onto the ground like water-balloons. Giant welts the size of bowling balls appeared all over the deathclaw, but the captured deathclaw cleaved back at the scorpion, bashing through the exoskeleton, dropping down to use its teeth to bite through the faceplates surrounding the eyes.

""

Two scorpions took notice of them, peeling away from the fighting deathclaws to chase them. Meathead's horn glowed brighter, heaving a dead tree into the air, and slamming the trunk down onto its body. Nate and Hancock shot, bullets chewing up the tough exoskeleton of the second as the first dug down through the ground.

"" A third scorpion, and a fourth following after were drawn by the gunshots. In the distance, the deathclaws roared. Overwhelmed by their size, and quick speed, the trio moved further down the road, away from the river and bridge towards buildings that were nearly completely buried in dirt and rubble.

When the first scorpion attacked them, it struck at Meathead. Using telekinetic magic, the scorpions' claws were immobilized. Keeping the giant claws from crushing him, Nate and Hancock shot buckshot into the body as its tail thrashed and whipped around.

The second and third radscorpions charged against Nate and Hancock, bulldozing Nate down. Meathead cast another spell, a blast of fire lasting ten seconds erupted from his horn, setting the first scorpion on fire. Hancock was close enough to the second scorpion to fire directly down into its body, shooting twenty rounds from his machine gun into the scorpion's body.

Nate pushed himself off the ground, lifted by Meathead as well to quickly get him back in the fight. A radscorpion tail lashed out, striking Hancock in the chest. With the force of a sledgehammer, Hancock was knocked back a few steps. Caught empty of bullets, Hancock was struck again and again as he reloaded. Meathead jumped at the second scorpion, landing on its back to bite off the tail. Snapping his head back and forth, the exoskeleton and tendons gave, using his telekinesis, he heaved upwards, rippling the radscorpions tail away.

Nate's shotgun blew off chunks of radscorpion, finishing off the first burning scorpion, as the third and fourth circled, trying to grab hold of him. Struck in the shoulder with a scorpion's stinger, he stumbled and then moved backward, trying to gain distance. Hancock fired another full clip of ammo into the third, drawing its attention as Meathead dug his hooves down through the second radscorpion's spine, boring straight through to its innards and stomping them. Pinching at Hancock's legs, he felt the force of its massive claws squeeze the armor, compressing it tighter against his legs. The tail stinger lanced out, striking his frame three times. Meathead lashed out, ripping the claws out of the scorpion's body at the joint, twisting and breaking them off, freeing Hancock. Firing off another twenty rounds, the third scorpion stopped moving. Nate and Meathead dealt with the last radscorpion by. With his handheld Ripper, Nate dove onto its back, Ripper roaring, and cut directly at its face, jerking the mini-chainsaw through its eye sockets as Meathead came around the backside, holding its tail in place, keeping it from striking Nate. The radscorpion thrashed, Hancock rushed up to them and stomped on the radscorpion's right legs until they were broken off or crippled. Rolling off the left side, Nate dropped the Ripper and fired his 10mm a dozen times into its back. A ball of energy grew from Meathead's horn, a bolt fired from his horn, striking the radscorpion and blasting it ten feet away. The insect rolled to its side in its death throws and stopped twitching.

With the last insect dealt with, they were recovering, panting, out of breath, but saw it necessary to reload and make sure nothing else was coming for them. "We need to get out of the area." Nate said, "That was a lot of noise."

"" "Agreed." Meathead and Hancock replied.

\111/

The ultimate alpha-predator of the Glowing Sea was the deathclaw. Rarely seen in packs outside of concentrated areas where food is abundant, most deathclaws act independent of each other, staying within their territory and avoiding other packs.

Meathead guided Nate to a bus that was melted into the highway, telling him to get in and not move. Pointing west, there was a herd of twelve deathclaws trudging to the northwest. All of them had their claws out in front of them, their bodies were camouflaged into the dark brown and green environment around them. But when they moved past stumps of trees, or a bit of wind picked up, they were visible in their march. There was the Broodmother, a black devil of a deathclaw flanked by two baby deathclaws, and a young deathclaw taller than Nate by a few inches. Its claws weren't as large, but they could still crush their victims with the force of a sledgehammer.

They were on the hunt for giant rad-scorpions, and when they came upon a pack, they used their massive claws to rend the exoskeleton on the scorpions to pieces, before tearing apart at the exposed flesh with their powerful jaws

\111/

Moving on through the Glowing Sea, he felt like he was in a submarine, but seeing Meathead trot alongside him without a disguise made the experience a little less surreal, which is what he needed. Still, the air felt cold, and the deeper he went into this ocean of radiation, the colder he felt, even though he was inside two suits. It wasn't a physical chill, but one from knowing you were a tiny little tin-man walking through a desert, where anything could kill them.

Meathead cocked his head towards an off-ramp, and they followed a road that constantly shifted under their feet.

""

The off-ramp was in shambles, broken off and impossible to use, the only way off the highway was forward. Nate looked down through a hole in the road, there at the bottom of the culvert

Humming inside the suits that protected him, it was completely nonsensical. He settled on a bass line from a song, but after a few moments, he changed tune. After three minutes, he realized he'd started humming the tune to 'Winter Wonderland.'

'In the meadow, we can build a snowman.'

But Nate was biting his lip, he couldn't remember the rest of the song! Those same words replayed themselves over and over in his head on repeat until his annoyance could be felt by Meathead.

""

"Song stuck in my head."

""

"Winter Wonderland."

""
"
"Walking in a winter wonderland." They sang together.

"
"

\111/

Most Bostonians driving south passed the large imposing black pyramid with vents and two covered missile silo openings on top of it on their way to Pawtucket and Providence, Rhode Island during their morning and evening commute.

The last time Nate and Nora drove down interstate 95, with Meathead in the backseat, was when they visited Nora’s cousins in Newport. They were in their red Corvega, top up with their windows cracked open. A nice day, partly cloudy, but still plenty of warmth. To their right, a semi loaded with military crates.

The 114/114-A Exit was marked

114 O’Neil Rd. First Right

114-A Military Site: Sentinel

Next Exit

Auth. Veh. Only.

Bold white letters with a red background. This black pyramid was a local landmark for West Roxbury, Massachusetts, in the same way, a giant statue of Paul Bunyan was an attraction for the town of Derry, Maine. Whenever a section is surrounded with high walls and the sounds of banging hammers, and power grinders smoothing out the metal can be heard, the hovel of West Roxbury. It was a small town within the greater southwest Boston area that was dug up, paved, and built on with the spread of the megalopolis.

Everyone in the local area knew about it, and what they did too. Of course, locals will have told you, 'it’s a military base’, For the quick and easy story, the nitty-gritty story is that it’s a nuclear deterrent site for small, suburban areas. Any missiles launched towards this location, if it were to fall into a certain range, would be met with retaliatory force. Missiles with nuclear tips, meant to intercept and destroy any incoming missiles before reaching ground zero are launched from one of four blast bays. Two were built directly into the pyramid, one disguised as a cooling tower, which it was. Lastly, the fourth launch tube was 90 meters behind the Sentinel site, unmarked in a field of tall grass and wheat except for a tiny wooden stick with a pink plastic ribbon tied around it shoved into the ground.

Interstate 95 ran almost parallel to Sentinel site for a mile before veering back towards the coast, and then south until you reach the sea. Surrounded by a ten-foot-tall chain link fence, this place was the local ‘area 51’, a place people driving by wouldn’t have the slightest clue what went on inside, while kids and teenagers would say, aliens, ghosts, communists ships, and a Chinese Alien pinko-commie ghost!

Of course, anyone driving by taking a second glance would notice the silo covers and then think to themselves, ‘looks like the one over in Springfield County’, and remember that this isn’t the only sentinel site in Massachusetts. There’s one over in Springfield, Massachusettes. A third in Camden, New Jersey, one deep in White Mountain National Forest past the Lincoln turnoff in New Hampshire. Gravel road, no sign, and it’ll cut straight back for forty minutes over flat ground with high trees looming over with the sun barely cutting through the gaps in the branches. Another long wall of ten-foot-high chain-link fence with a sign at the front gate reading ‘Military Sentinal Site, Authorized Vehicles and Personnel Only. All Other Personnel are Considered TRESPASSERS. NH-142-I3.’

Just south of Natick to Roxbury, Roxbury was the epicenter of Ground Zero for the nuclear detonation that destroyed Massachusetts during the Great War. From this suburb that housed one of the United State’s largest eastern seaboard nuclear deterrent systems. All the soldiers there under Captain Dunleavy of the 132nd Engineering Corps were waiting for their communications to be fixed while nuclear missiles left their launch pads and sailed through the sky. Multiple launches were detected and every soldier there stood rigid and at attention when sirens wailed, reporting to their station, drill or not, but no one could get a line to the General to find out if it was the real thing.

\111/

The Charles river would be irradiated longer than humankind will still be around if left as is. All the seeping radiation dust and dirt, blowing high up into the clouds, agitating the clouds for crackling lightning during storms that will carry the radioactive dust out over Massachusetts Bay where it rains, or is blown right back west at New York. Like putting out a fire by spraying water mixed with oil on it, radiation is washed over everything. Like most things dug up by humans, Uranium, Oil, and Coal, it’s best if the waste product goes back down deep underground to the bowels of Hell and beyond, where it can never hurt anyone ever again. At least, that was the best they could do with radioactive waste, there was always so much of it growing up as a kid. Every month, Nate’s dad would take a pair of special brown, oiled gloves from the drawer, and a pair of metal pliers, like one a blacksmith would use to carry a small cup of molten gold and go out behind the house to a small energy waste box.

Nate told him “Son! You see this here energy waste box? All these biohazard and radiation signs everywhere?” Every question was always answered with “Yes, sir.”

“You see how I’m wearing these special gloves? These are my special brown gloves, Nate, they’re lined with lead. I use them to open this box. I never use my fingers to open this box here on the back of the house, it’s hot and’ll burn yer fingers. So if you ever come back here, you’ll see a pair of gloves hanging up real close. I want you to put your hand up real close son, and then jerk it away and say ‘Wait! I don’t have the gloves on!’”

Nate looked up at his dad and the grey painted box with a radioactive sticker on it, warning residents not to tamper or attempt to modify the device in any way. Reaching one hand up close, his dad smacks his left hand and Nate shouts “Wait. I don’t have the gloves on.” Rather listlessly and awkward, his Dad doesn't care. He smiles and gives thanks to Nate for doing the silly task.

“Good, man.” Nate’s dad says, smiling at him. He takes off the gloves and passes them to Nate. “Here you go.” Nate takes them and puts them on, his father holds up the pair of pliers.

“Go ahead and open it.” Nate reaches out with his left hand at the little knob, pulling lightly as the door swung open, revealing a glass tube encased in stainless steel and more metal attached to a pipe in the house.

“Alright son, now, take the pliers and grab the tube. You’ll grab it and twist to the left. Lefty Loosey, righty-tighty Then we’re going to take it around the front and put it in the yellow bin out front on the curb.”

Nate pulled the tube out under the supervision of his father, then walked around to the front of the house again, carrying the tube in the pliers grip the entire time, down the driveway.

Walking with extreme precision, his father opened the yellow waste bin, unscrewing the top and letting Nate drop the container inside. “Alright, with that taken care of, the city will come to pick up the waste today, clean it out, and give it back to us cold, so that way we can put it back in the house.”

“What is that stuff, dad?”

“Nuclear waste, all the energy we use to power cars and the house also create waste too, just like humans. Instead of CO2 from burning coal or wood, after the nuclear material is burned by the house, it creates this little bit of tar and collects in the containment tube instead of going up into the atmosphere. There's a lot more back at the plant where me and the boys work.”

He was referring to his army buddies and how they all got jobs working for the electric company after the war, Mass Energy was hiring production line work, along with installation work out in the city and across Massachusetts. A project that would keep the soldier boys busy with busy-work until the next generation of vibrant workers ascended to the right age and began working.

The tube design Nate’s father had in their house was an example of outdated technology going in with better designs already coming. By the time Nate and Nora would pick up the Boston Bugle and turn to the Property For Sale section, entire regions would be serviced by large power substations that accumulated the waste there, rather than people living at home. This house chore disappeared with the advancement of technology. The need to have a singular centralized location that accumulated waste was that people were apt to forget about garbage and collection day. Or, worse, they forgot to change it out after a year and now it backed up and overflowed with nuclear waste.

Now that person gets a fine and a hospital bill for the radaway they need after scaring the neighborhood like that.

That of course is all gone now just empty lots that look like bigger gravestone sites. The old foundations sticking up through the dirt make it look like places where they bury massive giants, with the foundation marking off the gravesite. Nate wanders between broken trees, stepping over a few to get to a higher view, but otherwise not disturbing the graveyard.

All he could hear was his breath, in and out, in and out.

\111/

Nate's fourth grade class was the first time he remembered learned about anything Nuclear. His teacher had blonde hair, and wore this type of redshirt like old ladies would wear, with all the plastic beads sewn into the front to make a design of a flower or a bird on their front. It was a red shirt, with the red and black beads catching the white glare of the overhead lights or a thin stretch of yellow light coming in from the sun. It made her shirt look like she was on fire that day. Orange and red, black and red, yellow and red. She held up a book that was red too, as we all gathered around her as she read to us. "Today we are learning about Ray--dee--ayy---shun." Everyone in class spent a few moments trying the new word out for themselves. "Oooh, Radiadiadiadtional!" Sammy Jones shouted, "Raideeation." Larry Hemsworth tried, "Radiation." Sally Wentrow, said perfectly. "Radiation, Radiation." Lee Zacher repeated. "LIMITATION," Gene Lorren botched. "Radiation."

And then she opened the book, held open to a certain page by her thumb, and there were three red triangles, pointing down with two triangles on top, touching corners with the one below it. A yellow ink cloud, and a few electrons and protons swirling around it, and boom, Mrs. Cunningham's fourth grade class suddenly knew what radiation looked like for the first time in their lives.

\111/

""

"What's yours? How do Changelings deal with land this bad?"

"We have a few ways. If there were more of me, we'd terraform the land, every square inch of dirt overturned and buried deep. Every tree dragged out and burned. We don't have to worry about breathing irradiated dust thanks to our two sets of jaws. The inner one is for chewing and digesting, the outer is a thicker jaw acts as an air filter, its meant for bashing, crushing, digging, and grinding."

"So you could potentially clean all this mess up?" Nate asked, Meathead nodded.

"

Nate took a step sideways and nearly fell. "Are you kidding me? Gooh," The dirt underneath Nate's boots cracked and crumbled. No bacteria to fester and grow, no dogs to dig through the scraps, nor cats to happily eat up any leftovers hanging around. This certainly wasn't the American Southwest, so no Vulture birds either to go after the skeletons burned into the ground.

A woman hiding behind a thick gnarled tree that's still standing, only her arm is melted into the wood and her mouth is thrown back in wild agony as she tries to tear herself away.

"Hot stuff," Hancock said, referring to the atomic blast.

It's hard not to notice which way the epicenter is, everything is blown in the direction away from the blast.

Trees, powerlines, cars, pylons, all knocked around. Like some kid picked up a blanket all their toys were laid put on, grabbed one end, and then tried to snap it. Buildings that were still standing, or visible above the ten feet of detritus were more often half-blown open in the blast facing side, while the front looks sandblasted and worn like a beach house that no one's ever taken care of.

Trying to find any semblance of reality, any calls to action that there is still a little bit of normalcy is jeopardized by Radscopions bursting free from the dried ground, forcing them to walk on the buried highway overpass, or the remains of roads, which prevented vibrations from passing as easily into the dirt. He honestly couldn't tell if the dirt path he was on now, was any different from the dirt two feet to his left or right. It was all that dull, emotionless grey-brown with green hanging in the air. Like the air was sick.

\111/

“”

“Of what?”

“”

Down in the fields below them were twelve deathclaws, all guided by an Alpha Deathclaw, trailed by the Broodmother and her babies, then flanked on both sides of this pack were regular Deathclaws, but away from the main pack were two hunters, the protectors of the group. Their claws were longer, and skin was darker, the spines on their back were longer. They looked more hunched over than the others, but that was to accommodate the weight for their size.

“Jesus. We should get the hell out of here, Meathead.” As armored and prepared as they were, Nate easily recalled his first experience with one single Deathclaw, let alone a whole pack. It was not a fight Nate ever wanted to envision, but when it came to the forefront of his mind after looking down on the twelve Deathclaws, his mind went there.

It was a fight he wouldn't win, easily.

Retreating away from the ridgeline, Nate relaxed his breath and exhaled.

“We're lucky they're way down there, and we're way up here,” Hancock said.

Nate was still tense, not wanting to attract remotely any attention to themselves, he didn't say anything for another two minutes until they were far from the pack of Deathclaws and out of range.

“Interesting group dynamic,” he said, given plenty of time to replay the image of twelve death bringers walking across the fields like a herd.

“” Meathead said,

\111/

“Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus,

Right down Santa Claus Lane.”

The jingle of bells through a speaker spitting static to a burning wasteland under a green hazy sun was like hearing a beacon.

After the promise of mutually assured destruction and losing the safety net of a society reformed over dozens of generations, to hear a Christmas tune in the Glowing Sea made Nate extremely lorn for a semblance of normality in the Post-Great War era.

The trade-off between breathing and not breathing was death. As annoying as the filter in Nate's helmet was, at some point after finding a haven, if at all possible, in the Glowing Sea, or hiking back to civilization, he could take it off.

Pushing the sound of his breath out of his head, tuning it out to listen carefully to the echo of a Christmas tune emanating from seemingly everywhere made Nate jostle and look around warily.

The first instincts told him it was a trap, but after quieting his breath, fanning out his fingers to signal Meathead and Hancock to slow down. They come to a stop and waited.

Meathead's ears perked up to the noise now that they stopped moving, “Christmas music.”

“”

“Can you tell which direction it's coming from?”

Meathead nodded, head pointing to the southwest.

“”

Nate shook his head.

As 'Here comes Santa Clause' came to a wrap, there was a discerning quiet as they both slowed down again, waiting for another song to begin playing, but then, 'I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas' by Bing Crosby starts up and they both are on the move again.

The difficult thing to understand about radiation and fallout is the irradiated dust and how it settles.

Fallout is everything to do with the world after a nuclear bomb goes off.

With more destructive force than a wildfire in a single instant, the smoke and ash choke the air until it settles, but even then, coming in contact with the fallout absorbs into your skin, where it affects your body on a microscopic level.

It's like standing inside of an oven after the fire was put out.

After being exposed to sunlight all day, a rock can stay warm into the night, it retains heat. But, when a nuclear detonation occurs, everything in the surrounding area is exposed to radiation so intensely blinding and hot, ten times brighter than the sun, produced directly on the surface of the earth, everything stays hot for years.

That massive release of radiation directly on the surface sends up clouds of dust into the winds, these charged molecules enter the atmosphere, where wind currents react adversely to the energy.

The day was November 7th, but Nate wouldn't realize what day it was until after seeing the corroded, rust-red speakers cackling out 'White Christmas'.

The only part of the building still visible from the outside was the billboard sign mounted on top with the roof coming out of the ground enough to make Nate realize the actual pavement road was fifteen feet below the dirt, and he was only looking at the topmost level.

Super-Duper Mart.

"Meathead..." He said very quietly. "Hear that?"

In the meadow we can build a snowman," the echo came.

Meathead heard it too, not too far off, but distinct.

"And pretend that he's a circus clown."

"Who's playing that?" Hancock asked.

"Shush." Nate looked around, seeing the scant remains of the tops of buildings, and trying to piece together where they were.

"We'll have lots of fun with Mr. Snowman until some other kids come' knock him down!

They went towards the music, following it through the roads as it grew louder and louder.

Nate picked up on the noise and hastened towards it, the song was scratchy, playing through speakers that were long past the end of their shelf-life.
"What the hell is going on here?" Hancock asked.

"What's here?" Nate thought out loud, trying to draw up mental images of what could be playing the Christmas music. He wasn't going insane, he thought, they were hearing things.

"When it snows, ain't it thrilling? Though your nose, get's a chillin'

The frame of a blasted-away billboard on top of the roof of a two-story building made Nate stare as he tried to make out the colors and shape of the building like an archaeologist coming across a discovery.

"We'll frolic and play, the Eskimo way..."

It took a moment to realize what the trio was looking at, and the source of the noise itself. They were at the foot of a Super-Duper Mart with speakers mounted on lampposts around the parking garage, and inside the store.

"Walking in a winter wonderland. Wonderland. Wonderland."

Hearing music for the first time that wasn't Diamond City Radio, nor the Nuka-Cola Family jingle, Nate's mind reeled for explanations as to why music was coming out of the speakers, and the most logical one came to mind.

As Frank Sinatra reminded Nate, Hancock, and Meathead to have a 'Merry Little Christmas', the music playing on the speakers must be set to an automatic playlist within the store that's set to play in November and December. The unlikeliness of this happening, made it feel like discovering a shipwreck, with the radio still playing at the bottom of the ocean.

The pleasantness of the Christmas music in the Glowing Sea made Nate want to search for the source.

"Is there anything inside this building, Meathead?"

""

"Windigo?"

""

Nate noticed it too, the dip in temperature, the chill in the air, and the increase in wind. There was a cold front moving through, and the vortex of this storm was coming from the Super-Duper Mart's parking garage.

\111/

It was the end of days, as far as they knew, hope had been lost. They were depressed, starving, and angry. War brought different types of scavengers, flies, maggots, vultures, wolves, wild dogs, mosquitoes, but those all fed on the physical realm, on physical things like flesh and bone.

Windigos were like mosquitoes sucking away at the soul, and like mosquitoes, there were thousands of them, all drawn to the hatred and fury of the Chinese soldiers entrenched on the other side of the pass.

Like changelings, the Windigos fed on emotion, but that is where the similarities ended. The Windigos were dark spirits born from hunger in frozen wastelands where food was scarce and hope was lost. They possessed the soldiers and turned them into cannibals, the first raiders of their kind. Those that were transformed and gave up their humanity to survive became the Wendigos.

They turned on each other and froze even more soldiers along the way, all the while Nate and the 108th were singing Christmas carols, while the Chinese were possessed by Windigos into eating each other.

\111/

The Windigo's voice was in their head, but the Christmas music playing over the loudspeakers was fighting for Nate and Meathead's attention.

The voice was like a hungry-ghost, “Surrounded by fear, all I see are dead men.”

“”

“Feliz Navidad, Meathead. Feliz Navidad.”

"Nate, how do we plan on killing this thing?"

"Shoot it till it's down, then tear' it limb from limb. Tactically, we're taking this thing head-on, and it knows we're coming. Lure it outside. Meathead, go do your thing, and I'll pump the Windigo full of as many copper ties as I can. Then, after we draw him outside, you light him up like a Christmas tree."

Always the beacon of positivity for those around him, it was that sure-headed clarity in the face of imminent danger.

Meathead's ears flattened down as he heard Nate humming the tune to the Christmas jingle 'Feliz Navidad.'

“I want to wish you a Merry Christmas, from the bottom of my heart.' Nate sung.

The Windigo kept droning on, but Meathead recalled Nate telling him about False Pass,

'There we were, all tucked in, singing Christmas songs, then so-and-so busted in with 'Driedal, Driedal, Driedal' while the Chinese were freezing to death across the Pass.'

Meathead saw Nate's confidence for what it was, and even though they were walking straight at the Changeling's most feared enemy, one that was dreaded for millennia, Meathead couldn't help but be carried by the shared emotion and find the air rising out of his chest in the sound of laughter.

Meathead was laughing and Nate was crying because it was all so funny to them.

“Nora cussed after I forgot to get her a gift for Valentine's day.” Nate said, the only thought that came to mind in light of the christmas music. It reminded him of holidays, both successful and failed ones.

Meathead tripped, stumbling down onto his two front knees as he doubled over with laughter. The entire memory came flooding back in vivid detail. Despite the numerous decorations, the reminders, the alarms, and Lovey-Dovey emotions in the air, Nate still managed to somehow forget that February 14th comes after February 13th. Even after priming their emotions to be more in sync with each other, back when Meathead was still a German Shepard for Nate and Nora, and nothing more.

Nora flipped, she bought Nate a ticket for skydiving and gave it to him during breakfast, Nate didn't have anything to give her and asked “What's the special occasion?” meaning he came up empty.

Taking to the air, Meathead went to go coalesce and gather clouds.

\111/

The only way into the Super-Duper Mart was through the parking garage, still accessible from the roof. Before descending, Nate and Hancock took one last look at the horizon.

They went around the building, crawling over cement barriers to reach a door to a stairwell leading down. Pressing the door in, they were plunged into blackness, but Hancock turned on the headlamp, while Nate's sonar made clear outlines of the dark interior.

"The walls are damp. See this?" Nate said, pointing to the concrete walls, rubbing his hand across, they came back coated in wet grime. Descending the stairwell into the parking garage, Nate needed to force the door open with his shoulder before it came unstuck.

His first step out was onto a sheet of ice that cracked and splintered under the weight of the power armor and immediately retreated. Water splashed up around his boot, but looking down, the water was only twelve inches deep.

Fighting in the Super-Duper Mart, the entire store is shrouded in darkness. Only light from Nate's headlamp illuminates the dark, dusty interior. The air was cold and it took a few moments for the smell of mold to reach through Nate's air filters.

As effective as gas masks were, they still couldn't stop the smell.

The aisles were knocked over, but surrounding the Windigo was dead Deathclaw Broodmothers, around them were shattered eggs and stomped-on fetuses. Along the back wall, near the freezer section was pillars of ice with trails of water leading across the floor and straight to the parking garage where it was pooling up. They'd walked into a Deathclaw massacre, and this was the aftermath. They wouldn't even be fighting this Windigo at its full strength.

The Windigo itself was an apparition, glowing white eyes and a mouth that reached down farther than a normal mouth should reach. Its jaws were filled with sharp serrated teeth that were blue, like icicles that were jutting out in all directions. The tongue was black, hanging behind the teeth like a snake, combing over the backside of the teeth, licking out the blood and bits of meat stuck in between the teeth.

“They killed them,” The jaw moved, but not enough to close completely. It was always open, “Just to spite me.” His head swung around to the dead Broodmothers, but the lower jaw was like a hanging weight and it bobbed and dangled free. The white eyes laid to rest on the stomped baby Deathclaws, some barely free of their eggs.

What they noticed before the fighting was the long deep gashes on the Windigo's body, made only by a Deathclaw's hand.

“Chew on this,” Nate said, raising the rail-gun and firing all eight spikes.

The Railway ties each weighed half a pound, fired at 1000 feet per second, traveling less than fifty feet, six of them struck the Windigo's body. The neck gushed blood, the body was like something from the book of Revelation, a horse of the Apocalypse.

Famine.

The spikes sunk in up to the tooth, causing black blood to come pouring down, but this was a demon, it would take more than severely fatal wounds to kill it.

Hancock lobbed incendiary canisters, making them burst around the Windigo as it charged at them. The fire bursts stuck to the skin of the Windigo, burning off chunks of flesh, not that this thing needed its skin anyway.

It screeched, but this deafening boom of a yell ripped a swath of destruction across the store floor, tearing tiles off the ground, scattering rubble and shelves, slamming into Nate as he tried to move, and making Nate himself clench at his head as his eardrums whined a high-pitch buzzing tone. Knocked backward, the Windigo was on Nate in a heartbeat, but Hancock fired four shotgun shells out of his pump-action shotgun before baiting the Windigo to come closer.

All four shells peppered the body, spraying gore and bone as the Windigo turned its head and charged.

BLA-BLAM! A roar of fire came from the two incendiary shells directly into the Windigo's face, momentarily blinding it. Like a charging bull, the Windigo slammed into Hancock, knocking him back through several shelves and knocking old grocery store products everywhere.

The Windigo's horn sucked whatever available light there was out of the air, making Nate's headlamp flicker, as the temperature in the store dropped twenty degrees. The ground rumbled and ice spears burst out from pools of water.

The roof shook as Meathead landed on top, punching his way down through the ceiling, the clouds were in place and the fight was already well underway. Landing in front of Hancock, he threw a shield around himself as three ice spears shoved Meathead back off the floor and pinned him to the ceiling as the Windigo dove on Nate, throwing him to the ground. The Windigo reared back, its jaws clamping down on his left arm.

Crushing his arm, he felt the metal pinch around his bicep and elbow, but Nate raised his freshly reloaded rail-gun and fired directly into the skull of the Windigo six more times, pinning the jaw shut to the roof of the mouth and ripping more of the Windigo's face away in large gashes.

Muscle and bone were exposed, there shouldn't be any mortal thing that could live with this much trauma to the head, but after two of the spikes pierced through the left eye and tapped into the skull, the Windigo thrashed and flung Nate back.

Meathead responded by breaking the ice spears away and lofting them overhead in his magic. Flinging them at the Windigo's backside, he speared one icicle in the right flank of the Windigo as the other two broke and shattered across the Windigo's backside, leaving more long bloody gashes.

The Windigo dug the spike pinning its jaw shut by digging a hoof underneath the lip and driving it out. Charging Meathead, the Windigo dashed across the store, its hooves spreading swaths of ice in its wake.

Extending its jaws, he went for Meathead's neck, but Meathead turned his body, and for seven long seconds, he felt the Windigo's teeth sink into his right shoulder. Screaming as a chitin plate was pulled from his body. It didn't pull or stretch, the moment the Windigo's teeth touched his skin, it felt like liquid nitrogen was being pumped into his veins, it burned because of how cold it was. His exoskeleton turned white, then shattered like glass.

The scream of agony ripped out of Meathead's lungs wasn't anything Nate or Hancock ever heard before.

It wasn't his dog whimpering in pain, it wasn't a human voice that Meathead copied and was playing back for him to understand, it was a Changeling's voice, and never in the three years, Meathead was living with them as their family pet did such a horrific noise come from him.

It never occurred to Nate before now that he never heard anything in Changeling aside of a few clicks of the tongue from Meathead, nothing forthcoming in dialect. But to hear the choking scream of a family member made Nate furious.

Hancock fired an entire clip of ammo from his assault rifle, reloaded, and fired another twenty more before a blast of ice washed over him, freezing him to the spot. He struggled and jerked his body left and right, hearing the ice around his crack. The ice was growing thicker around his body, spurred on by the Windigo's magic.

Ejecting himself from the suit of power armor, Hancock was mobile and free of the creeping ice. The ice around his suit locked up all the joints and crawled inside the open frame, forming a solid block that would've encapsulated him completely.

Drawing the .44 magnum revolver, Nate lunged at the Windigo, wrapping an arm around its neck from behind and yanking back, with his gun hand he held the barrel straight over the Windigo's chest where a heart should be and unloaded all six rounds point-blank into its chest. The Windigo bucked, screeching at the wounds inflicted upon it.

The Windigo whipped Nate off, sending him flying thirty feet back.

A ball of energy grew from Meathead's horn, a hot orange fire that grew to be baseball-sized. Leaning forward and pressing the incinerating magic directly onto the Windigo's skin, the ball exploded with fire, burning away the Windigo's flesh and setting its mane on fire.

The face was burned away, skin turning black and crispy. Its eyes were melting out of its skull, its ever-hanging jaw was hanging on by sinew and cartilage until it too finally was scorched away. The jawbone landed on the floor with a wet squelch.

But this thing roared, then retreated towards the freezer section in the back of the store. Hancock came to Nate and Meathead's side.

“Don't let it get away! It's not dead yet!” Nate yelled, running towards the freezer section in the back.

“” Meathead focused on his enemy in front of him, gathering energy, but he didn't know what shape the spell was going to take. All he knew was that this thing needed to burn. Launching the fireball, it exploded against the Windigo and consumed the walls and ceiling of the Super-Duper mart.

Conserving his ammo, Hancock fired his laser pistol at the dark mass of the Windigo, Nate reloaded the rail gun, but the store was filling with smoke, and the ground shook as Meathead blasted bolts of raw energy at the Windigo.

Meathead panted but was unrelenting in the assault. When flames threatened to draw back and hurt himself, he moved back.

“”

“It's not dead, till it pops. Then burn the heart for good measure. Take no chances.”

\111/

From the flames of the freezer section rose a massive creature, the Windigo gone, and in its place was a Possessed Deathclaw standing in the fire.

It spread its membrane wings and fanned the air.

"Oh for FUCK'S SAKE! GODDAMMIT!" Seeing the abomination step forward. It abandoned its old body for this one kept on ice.

Hancock was getting low on ammo for his machine gun and fired what he had left before dropping the gun. Next came his shotgun, loaded with slug rounds. Boring holes and blasting away chunks from the Possessed Deathclaw. Pieces of its thick hide were blasted all the way down to the bone, but this monster refused to show any signs of weakness or slowing down.

The Possessed Deathclaw roared, and Nate and Meathead started their second assault. Billows of cold mist smothered the fire, turning the smoke to steam. The Possessed Deathclaw flapped its wings to cross the fire line and dove with its claws extended toward the duo. Nate shoved Hancock back, as the claws rended part of his armor nearly breaking through.

The frosted claws made the entire length of his arm go cold. It seeped through and threatened the integrity of the power armor, something they were sure the Windigo knew how to exploit. Before Nate could fire his railgun again, the Possessed Deathclaw swung its arm back behind its head, then down like a club, smashing into Nate, flinging him across the market.

Nate was thrown through the concrete walls into the parking garage, the bottom floor is covered with two feet of irradiated water and scattered with rusted car husks.

""

Meathead grabbed the ceiling support beams with his magic and pulled the whole store down on top of the Possessed Deathclaw. Firing as he moved backwards, dust and rubble rained down on their heads as the ceiling foundations gave in. Diving through the double doors leading to the parking garage as the rubble threatened to crush them, twelve tons of metal, concrete, and the Super-Duper Mart sign rained down as the whole ceiling collapsed. A massive plume of dust rose as the Possessed Deathclaw was buried.

Nate was rising to his feet, a little winded from being thrown around, and eardrums were nearly blown out, but his confidence was unshaken.

“Did we-?” Hancock asked.

“” Meathead yelled, galloping towards Nate, kicking up the water behind him.

“What's going on?”

“”

“I lost the rail rifle.” Nate placed one hand to his head, wanting to wipe away sweat on his brow. Finding the tactical advantage of the space given to them, was more open, but also meant that the Windigo could attack directly at them.

They both heard the growls and felt the tons of rubble shifting. “You think that we're few, but there are thousands of us. These seas of the dead will feed for all eternity thanks to you, humans.”

The Windigo was feeding on feral ghouls, living hundreds of years longer than a human, and unable to move past the last primal emotion before that moment of losing the rest of their sanity.

Basic emotions, and all because there were very few ghouls who were happy, or filled with joy and love when a nuclear explosion stuck them into damnation.

“" A green trail of fire wrapped around Meathead from horn to hoof, then in a flash he transformed into a Deathclaw himself.

Fishing out more ammo from Nates bag, they ran and reloaded as they reached the surface. They both readied themselves as the Windigo's voice cut through the air like grating ice.

“Freeze you all.”

The words wormed their way into Meathead's brain, there was life all around them, ghouls were frozen underground, and this Windigo was grazing off them, never drawing too much to drain his supply.

Before now, Meathead never really needed to test his metal, he was able to improvise many things along the way, get the jump on any enemy by knowing their emotional state, and pre-emptively attacking the moment before they would strike.

Nate and Hancock rushed outside, as Meathead in his deathclaw form wrestled and heaved the Possessed Deathclaw up through the ceiling, bashing through concrete and iron. In a flash, Meathead took to the skies, racing for a large black thundercloud above their heads as the Possessed Deathclaw expanded its wings and took after him.

Hancock and Nate fired a hail of bullets at the Possessed Deathclaw. When their shotguns were out, they switched to their handguns, the magnum, and then his 10mm, shooting holes into the Possessed Deathclaw's hide.

Meathead bounced into the black thundercloud as the Possessed Deathclaw reached out to grab Meathead.

Lightning arced straight to them, in a blinding white flash, Nate and Hancock saw the teeth of the Possessed Deathclaw explode out of the mouth, the enamel was superheated to the point of boiling, turning to steam, then expanding. Meathead took a lesser brunt of the electricity shocking him, only because his shell was positively charged.

The Possessed Deathclaw's skeleton was visible for a moment as all the nerves were electrocuted, but this wasn't a normal Deathclaw, and the Windigo was riding its host for all it was worth. There was no emotion coming from the Deathclaw except sadistic intent.

Meathead's chitin was smoking from the daisy-chain electrocution, but only for a moment as he thrashed and fell free of the Possessed Deathclaw's grip. Pushing himself away as they both free fell, Meathead landed in a heap of Glowing Sea dirt.

The wings of the Possessed Deathclaw went rigid as both of them fell from the sky, hurtling towards the ground, crashing a small impact crater.

Nate sprinted across the open ground and pressing the Ripper right into the Possessed Deathclaw's neck before it could regain its senses.

“Die, Motherfucker, Die.” He shouted, the Ripper cutting through the throat and aiming for its heart. Nate could hear it, he could feel it pulsating against the armor's gloves.

Taking his time saying those words, the eyes of the Windigo locked onto him as the Possessed Deathclaw's body was shredded to pieces, but the monster still tried moving.

“Fucking die already!”

Meathead pulled his head up, sensing picking up on more life in the wasteland, all around them were Deathclaws.

Circling them, pack hunting, waiting for the moment to come in and strike them down. Only, it wasn't emotions driven by aggression, it was hope, boredom, and interest.

Unable to interpret the pack of Deathclaw's emotions that they were giving off, he pushed those thoughts aside and pulled from their energy, their life force, just enough to get him back on his hooves and charge at the Windigo.

Nate didn't even have time to react as the Possessed Deathclaw lashed out one frozen gauntlet and like a snake striking out, the claw pierced through Nate's left arm, one tip through in the bicep, one straight through his Pip-boy, and a third in his forearm.

The blood froze on contact, but Nate dropped the Ripper and screamed. The Windigo's voice echoing inside his head. Hancock blasted away with his handgun, diving for the Ripper and plunging it into the Possessed Deathclaw's chest. The mini chainsaw tore through rib bones and ripped out the Possessed Deathclaw's guts, but this thing wouldn't die.

Held above the Posessed Deathclaw's head, he shook Nate.

“She's next.”

The screams that were torn out of Nate's throat were practically strangling himself, screaming himself hoarse as Meathead threw himself up onto all fours and sprinted at the two of them. Dipping his head, Meathead pulled energy into his horn, feeling it grow hot and seeing the glare through his closed eyelids.

Rearing back to rip Nate away from his trapped arm, the Possessed Deathclaw's hands were freezing the blood, spreading up into his veins. Held up above the Deathclaw's head only by the arm, it would shatter or be ripped free from the shoulder.

Ramming his horn into the Possessed Deathclaw's chest, Meathead unleashed all his magic at once, one powerful blast of unchained energy that bubbled up, growing green and then turning white-hot as a burn mark appeared on the Possessed Deathclaw's backside, skin and spines expanding outwards as everything burned, blood boiled and turned to steam contained within the meat sack.

With a massive pop, the ribcage and spine blew out the backside of the Possessed Deathclaw, a shower of blood and gore spraying thirty feet back as the final blow incinerated the heart, throat, spine, and lungs of the monster, but the head, arms, and torso, minus a puncture wound in the sternum, were still together.

Everyone was thrown back, collapsing in their piles as the fight came to an end.

\111/

His Pip-Boy was speared right through the display, and he felt every part of his body clench and thrash in pain at the shock, but no other thoughts invaded his mind, he was completely present at the moment.

Holding his arm still, there was no other option but to lay there still, and rely on his friend to help him in this situation.

Around them, the Deathclaws observing the prey howled and roared, witnessing the conclusion to the battle in front of them, and now we're moving in to clean up the leftovers.

“MEATHEAD!” He screamed, the changeling was galloping and flying full speed at him, hooves barely touching the ground as his wings kept him aloft.

Hancock pulled himself up, groaning, he rushed to Nate's side.

The changeling skidded to a stop, worry stretched across his features.

“You gotta...” He gulped, trying to come up with rational thought. Grabbing at his chest with his right arm, then his hand landed on a blade.

“Take this, and get me the Deathclaw's arm."

“”

“Meathead! I KNOW! I Know! Bandage arm!” Nate said, heart, pounding in his head, eyes bulging through his skull, face red and sweating as he was exposed to lethal radiation. Every second he bled out, was another moment at the end of his life gone.

Realizing what he needed to do, Meathead hacked through the Possessed Deathclaw's arm, wearing down the serrated teeth as he cut through the tough skin.

"Hang in there, buddy, you'll get through this," Hancock said, peeling off the power armor and radiation suit around Nate's arm. Putting his weight on the bleeding wounds to staunch the bleeding.

He was laying on his back and was crying and moaning. He accepted that his arm was pierced through his protective suits, exposed to the radioactive air around them.

His arm felt was shattered, nerves shouting at him that it was freezing, and then hot, and it took the effort to not suffer.

Nate was shaking, cold, and sweating at the same time. It was taking all his energy to stay warm. He couldn't tell if he was hot or cold.

Meathead came back carrying the Possessed Deathclaw's hand, Nate nodded once, “Do it.”

The pain made itself aware immediately away. The suffering was intense, enough to make Nate cry.

Meathead couldn't stop himself from crying either, feeling as though he could've done more, acted more aggressively, bringing the fight to its conclusion a moment earlier if only...

“You wanna know what my name was in the army?” Nate asked, pounding his right hand into the ground. adding to Nate's agony, but he panted hard and contained his pain, if only for now.

His arm was completely exposed, but radiation wasn't immediately at the forefront of his mind. It was still killing him, but stripping back his Vault-suit, Meathead's horn glowed, and Nate's entire arm was held in a vice.

Three stimpak shots, the small beads absorbed the blood like a sponge, expanding and filling the puncture wounds to get the vessels to dry out and scab over.

His arm was lumpy, swelling, and they both knew why. With the bones misalign, they were jabbing into the thousands of nerves that were still functioning, sending back pain signals to the brain.

“” Meathead said, horn glowing brighter as his telepathic grip intensified. Meathead was using his magic to keep blood from flowing out. Laying Nate's arm out as best as they could, was the easiest way to see all the muscles and bones. It felt like Nate's entire arm was in a clamp, pressed down from every angle as Meathead pulled and pressed the bones and muscles back into place.

The pain was so strong that his teeth hurt, screaming like they were being ripped out by the root. He was in so much pain he couldn't even place what he was feeling or where, everything hurt. From the ringing in his ears to the numbness in his left arm, his vision was fading. White spots appeared, his suffering was immense.

Hancock took the Deathclaw's hand, and the knife, and deboned the hand. "God, it's still freezing cold," Hancock said, feeling the tips of his hands' frost up. Peeling back the arm, he laid it on the ground next to Nate.

Breathing deep to manage the pain, reigning in his scattered senses, and then Meathead slathered the arm in Changeling resin, the green ichor secreted from his hooves and mouth. Moving Nate's arm into the cover of the Possessed Deathclaw's hand, it was a makeshift cover to prevent Nate's arm from radiation exposure. Meathead slathered changeling resin up and down Nate's arm, all the way up to the shoulderblade, coating the suit as well.

“” He swallowed “<...active.>”

Out of the ground, feral ghouls that were once locked in purgatory by the Windigo draining them of their life force, were now aware and awake, crawling their way up to the surface.

Nate was stuck staring at the Possessed Deathclaw's hand, morbid thoughts about his demise at radiation exposure running through his mind. The hand was still cold and frozen, tainted from the Windigo's touch.

\111/

His fingers felt pins and needles with pain shooting up his arm, but it took a minute of concentrating and deep breathing to finally make it up to one knee, then onto both feet as he stood up. Hancock and Meathead helped him balance, but they all knew they couldn't stay in the Glowing Sea for much longer.

“Gah.” He exhaled when he stood up, shaky and nerves shot.

"Deep breaths," Hancock said, inhaling audibly through. "Just breathe in that crisp Glowing Sea air."

Nate took steps away from the dead Possessed Deathclaw, cradling his arm wrapped in the enemie's limb. Cautious to avoid the tips. Even now, after death, the claw tips were still bleeding coldness, like dry-ice creating fog, and the color of them was ashy-white with purple beneath, like frostbite.

“” His eyes went to the shotgun laying nearby, Nate dropped it after being struck in the arm. Floating it over to them, Meathead felt a migraine of shooting pain spike through his skull, telling him not to expend any more magic. The only thing he could do was ready an assault rifle for Nate, laying him onto his back.

The ammo they had left wouldn't be enough to take on an entire pack of Deathclaws, along with the fifty feral ghouls coming out of the woodwork. Dozens were finally moving onto their feet, looking around, sensing that there was something alive, and a target for their mindless impulses.

These ghouls were different, Meathead immediately noticed, their skin was shiny, like gemstones, but green in color.

\111/

What Meathead and Hancock didn't know he was looking at was feral ghouls covered in Moldavite, a gemstone that is created when asteroids hit the surface of the earth, causing the rock around it to be super-heated and liquefy. As it hardens the gemstone is created, however, these were created when the bomb struck one mile southwest of them, superheating the dust and rock in the air, scorching the humans, and burning the liquefied rock, the Moldavite, directly onto their skin.

These Mold Ghouls were under the spell of a Windigo for over two hundred years, and now they were free from its control. They were conscious, active, alert, and able to roam freely. Unfortunately, this would make Nate, Meathead, Hancock, and the rest of the Commonwealth's situation a whole lot worse.

More active ghouls with skin as tough as gemstones.

\111/

The first Deathclaw roared, howling, setting off all the other Deathclaws to respond and come charging in.

Meathead's ears perked up, and then, howling back in the Deathclaw's tone, Nate was soldiering through, aiming at one of the Mold ghouls that was approaching them with wide staring eyes and a mouth that looked twisted and warped, hanging open in a scream, with Moldavite coming out of its eyes, mouth, neck, chest, and arms.

"Hell, I don't think we got enough ammo for this," Hancock said, his arms were shaking, but he blamed that on not taking any drugs for the last day. He'd been too excited for the Glowing Sea expedition, that he didn't think to get high that morning. He checked his ammo reserves and frowned.

One-shot would've alerted the entire horde, but the Deathclaw's were there, and they immediately went for the closest ghoul. One swipe of their claws was enough brute force to shatter their spines, cutting their claws on the Mold, but they were heading directly for Hancock, Meathead, and Nate.

Meathead responded to the roar again, quickly grinding his teeth together, a Deathclaw's shout coming from his mouth.

“Wha's goin' on, Meat?” Nate whispered. “Can you teleport us the fuck out of here?”

Meathead shook his head, down his horn was a trail of Windigo blood. The magical blast was Meathead's end-all, everything worthwhile in one single blast that took far too much energy out of him.

A black Deathclaw threaded through a grouping of ghouls, killing three of them with a backhanded swing before he and seven other Deathclaws all closed in on the trio, stopping only a few meters away from them. They were twenty feet tall, and their towering presence was intimidating.

The Deathclaws shouted and roared, Meathead responded.

“”

The Deathclaws were growling to Meathead, staring directly at them with their black encompassing eyes.

Standing next to Meathead, listening to the low growls, he likened it to dogs barking, hyena's yipping, ragged panting, and howls. Nate contemplated the dead creature in front of him like hunted game.

“”

“What do you mean?”

“”

"Oh thank God, thought I would'a had to bite the bullet there for a sec," Hancock said, easing his shaking hands off his weapon.

The Deathclaws looked to the Alpha, the black Deathclaw, and it made a gesture with its claws. The right pointer finger was placed at the knuckle of the left pointer finger, then sliding it down the length of the left finger, it reminded Meathead and Nate of different things. To Meathead, it looked like the Deathclaw was sharpening its claws.

\111/

Watching the pack of Deathclaws gather around him, Meathead asked if Nate was ready to move.

Nate shook his head, “That thing deflected a railroad spike directly to the skull, I saw it glance off. There was enough force behind one shot to shatter concrete and embed itself two inches into steel.”

Meathead took Nate's knife once again and cut through the neck of the Possessed Deathclaw to take as a trophy for hunting the Windigo.

\111/

It was like the blindfold had been taken off and Meathead could finally see. The entire Glowing Sea came into his awareness, he knew where every living thing was, and what they were feeling.

But, with severe exposure to the Glow, Nate was doing less than well, feeding himself RadAway in an IV drip directly to his blood. He couldn't tell how fast he was absorbing radiation through the jury-rigged protective wrapping, but his mind was reeling and telling him now was the time to not hold back on the RadAway.

With the death of the Windigo, Meathead felt the energy in the air change. Like the ground itself was relaxing and breathing again after holding its breath for so long. Hancock helped support Nate, carrying the Possessed Deathclaw's skull on the back of his suit.

Seeing further than ever before there was life where before he could feel nothing.

Meathead felt that his improvement wasn't worth Nate's sacrifice. "" Nate didn't respond.

"We'll get him, Nate. Don't you worry." Hancock said, hoping to spark some life into Nate.

Every moment they basked in the Glowing Sea, Meathead felt a little stronger, while Nate marched toward more suffering.

Overexposure, or most certainly cancer if they made it out of the depths, or ghoulification, which was a chance Nate wasn't holding his breath for.

Their time in the Glowing Sea was getting cut short, with 8 remaining RadAways, they allotted themselves nine hours left before exposure overwhelmed the amount of RadAway in Nate's system.

In that time, they walked in one direction, and one direction only, North.

The renegade scientist would have to wait for another day, another expedition, but for now, Nate's arm was barely hanging on by a thread, Meathead was missing a chunk of his shoulder exoskeleton and was using his resin to cover the wound.

Everything was feeling hot and itchy, uncomfortable and burning like a sunburn that kept being rubbed.

With the landscape leading downhill, the grey outline of the highway five miles in the distance became clear, still over an hour away.

Three miles away they tried moving faster, jogging even, but Nate was crying in agony and falling at every other step.

One mile away from the edge, Nate was leaning heavily onto Meathead, and Meathead was pushing back up to support Nate, when they finally crossed the threshold, past the marker Nate sunk into the ground before the expedition started, Nate used his good hand to rip off his helmet and throw it to the ground.

Sinking to his knees, he fell over and nearly died on the spot. Fighting the Windigo drained more out of the both of them than any other foe they came across since leaving the Vault. Walking away with its skull and arm, the rest of the body and organs were obliterated. Hancock helped Nate get out the remains of his power armor and it helped him breathe easier. He laid there gasping for air, chest heaving, exhaustion setting in.

"Meathead; my call-sign was Meathead."

\111/

End of Act II

Ch. 73 Publick Occurences

\111/

Piper stared at her notes, then back to her computer screen.

It was difficult to compress the last two weeks of her life into articles worth sharing. Where to finish?

The Institute Crow in a jar on her desk, inches away from her right hand.

The Brotherhood of Steel, with their information on the Super Mutants.

The public execution of Kellogg, and the lengths Nate went through just to hang him.

Then the affairs of the raider gangs, conflicts in the Commonwealth.

But Nate's story as the Man from Time, and everything she learned about Vault 111 was an article in of itself,

Piper smiled to herself, tapping the words out on her keyboard.

"Almost done." Inhaling, she caught a faint whiff of the Vault 111 suit she wore back with her. It still had a fresh scent to it, and reminded her of how precious a luxury clean clothes were.

While her promotional side wanted to publish the story of the synthetic crow, she filed it for later. It was a burning flame lit under her to sit on such a groundbreaking story. She couldn't argue past the point that once word got out, things would change rapidly. Birds getting shot down where they roosted, the Institute changing tactics, and the paranoia leading people down the rabbit hole to attack anything with wings, including pegasus, and then go on to mistrust other animals as well. It was understood the synthetic crow situation would require a delicate touch. Being able to tell fakes from the real thing, and only one creature in the entire Commonwealth had that skill.

It was Nate's Ace up the Sleeve.

Thinking about Meathead gave her an excited rush, her mind fixated on that little nugget of information like it was a cigarette. To think one Changeling could undo all of the Institute's plans...lead down a rabbit hole herself, she chastised her self for thinking the Vault Dweller's biggest secret would make their goals known to a reporter.

Beginning the article, with the end of Kellogg, and then letting the readers work backwards, it showed the building tension of how a man fresh out of the Vault relentlessly pursued the Institute's most notable active field agent. Using all the skills and experience granted to him from a time before the world was under the great green sky, she was shown firsthand what it meant to survive in a Vault doomed for failure. The lengths Vault-Tec. went through to test the population at large at what would be the most successful way to reintroduce humans back onto the surface, with the greatest mindset to prevent tragedies such as the Great War from ever happening again. Some would call it luck that Nate survived, a flip of the coin, that lead him to bring his dog with him, while his wife carried his son. But in the same twist of fate, his son was kidnapped and wife shot by the man Nate pursued, only to discover Shaun was so far removed from Nate and Nora's life, that the day might come where Shaun wont even be able to recognize them as his parents. The pursuit is still on, the search continues, and the hope Nate has in succeeding remains.

All this thinking did was make her want to get up out of her chair and track them down again, to see how this story all played out.

\111/

It was no big story, but for a small town, Henry Cook being replaced by Paul Pembroke was as big as stories could get around here. It took people's minds off the Mayor McDonough being a synth when the mayor himself stopped in the bar, socializing and commenting that the place looked better than it had in years. For her own sake, Piper grilled Paul long and hard over the course of several beers, confirming with the Diamond City security that on November 2nd. Nelson, Henry, Nate, Paul, and Malcom all left within the span of an hour, yet Henry was the only one not to return.

Being friends of a friend, and talking herself up as the Vault Dweller's traveling companion, Paul eventually spilled that it was Nate who fronted the caps for Paul to buy the Colonial Taphouse.

With every source of news squeezed out of this city on to paper, she felt restless enough to go traveling again. She prepared the newspapers to be printed, and let Nat churn out bundles of articles. Deciding now would be the perfect opportunity to take up Nate, or Meathead in disguise, on their offer to see the U.S.S Constitution up close. Packing her kit, rifle, bundle of ammo, plus two pistols for her pockets, grabbed a few strips of Brahmin jerky, and a stack of twenty newspapers to sell in Goodneighbor, she went out to go hunt down the latest scoop. While she usually traded with the caravans to deliver the newspaper, this edition felt special to her.

She was two steps out the door before spotting four crows on a conduit wire running above her head, 'Crork, Crork,' they cawed, and Piper clenched her teeth, wondering which one was the fake, or if they were all real, or any combination in between. Piper disliked the idea of being watched, and the fact she couldn't do anything about it yet was enough reason for her to get out.

\111/

Ch. 74 Mass Bay Medical

The flooded streets of central Boston were packed with the washout of buildings and debree. Sand and dirt ebbing in from the tide and broken down sea wall, refuse and collapsed floors from skyscrapers spilling out their guts packed the sidewalks, making only the center of the road accessible. Along a few roads, there were boats that drifted in during a high tide, or during a large storm that thrashed buildings along the waterfront, and settled on the streets, leaning against a building or laid down.

The ponies, Serin Copper, Hollow Point, and Warner all trotted single file, close together and ears standing upright and tense to listen for any signs of life.

Lead by Curie, she followed an old map of Boston programmed into her brain, picking out the most direct route, while re-evaluating paths based on blocked roads, traffic, and construction work on the road. Her thought processes registered the beams and moldy drywall, desks and office chairs, cement blocks and glass littering the streets as construction, which was all filed away in her GPS.

It was eerily quiet, how whole blocks were devoid of any movement. No birds, or mirelurks, they halted for a moment when they saw a raider dressed in black pants and boots, with pads of armor over his chest, walking the opposite direction at a cross street two blocks away from them, but no contact was made. A similar instance of a female raider, her wild black hair, shoulders length, brown shirt and grey pants, carrying a plasma rifle, was standing in the middle of the crossroads, but didn't do anything else but raise her chin and stare at them as they passed by.

"Where is everyone?" Copper asked, head tilting up to the buildings around them, hoping to hear some other forms of movement or life. The ancient skyscrapers groaned like trees shifting in a light breeze, failing metal supports bearing the brunt of excess weight.

From what signs still remaining, they found their way to Mass Bay Medical, fifteen blocks from the U.S.S Constitution. Here the roads were in better condition, it wasn't as claustrophobic as making their way through the packed streets. While water was still pooled along the road in some areas, and there were plenty of alleys and side roads clear enough to where they could take to escape danger if it came at them.

"Such destruction." Curie said, wiping all the unnecessary data from her memory banks, the decades she spent in the same spot, unmoving and preserving energy waiting for Nate to arrive were all deleted. "Surely something must of survived."

Eyeing the Mass Bay Medical Center on the corner of Stuart and Kneeland Street, the ponies pointed to the Gunner's X-ed out skull with stitched mouth.

"Those skulls, we should be ready." Hollow Point said pointing to the painted markings. Readying a hunting rifle, Warner levitated a laser pistol into the air, Copper was ready to grab a machete slung around his neck. Curie looked to the others bearing weapons and how they tried appearing more fierce, and remained alert for anyone who might act hostile towards them.

Coming around the building to the main entrance, they saw fortifications set up by the Gunners, but no one was actively outside. They circled the building completely, passing the emergency entrance where a old rusted ambulance was sitting on its rims, and seeing more Gunner's skulls, but no signs of life.

After making a complete circle, they chanced going in the front door. The waiting lobby was mostly clear, aside from a few skeletons let to decompose in the chairs and benches, but there was also the whirring of a metal turret. "What, are they still having breakfast?" Warner whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Shush."

Curie floated herself over to behind the receiving desk, internally frowning at the wrecked monitors. Not a data port to connect to in sight, she went past the open elevator doors and was caught in the line of sight by the motion activated turret.
Darting out of the way before being shot in the siding, the other ponies jumped at the sound of the bullets racing out of the elevator.

"Found the turret." Copper said, creeping closer to the doors edge. Peering around the corner, he poked his head in and out to get a quick glance before the motion sensor detected him. "Warner. Use your magic to pick it up and spin it around."

"Swap places with me." Getting closer to take a glimpse of the turret, Warner nodded. "Okay, got it." Spinning the turret around to face the walls, it was still active, but facing away from them.

After the ponies passed through the hallway leading to the rooms of the hospital, Warner spoke up. "Wait, I got an idea. Everyone behind me."

"What are you going to do?"

"Just watch." Warner said proudly, hoisting the turret in front of them.

Picking the turret up again, he kinetically leveled it, facing the barrel away from anyone. The machine buzzed, but didn't fire. Holding the turret in front of him like a shield, a smug grin came across his face as he thought about using the Gunner's weapon against them.

"This'll keep anyone we come across busy for a few seconds while we get to cover," He said.

"You're going to get us all shot." Hollow Point said distastefully, not liking the idea of playing around with floating guns that could go off at any moment.

"It's going to work."

"Curie," Copper said, getting her attention. "What are we looking for to cure our coats?"

"A hospital such as this will have on on-site pharmacy. I spent decades studying disease cultures, vous mange will be curable through anti-parasitic topical gel or cream, and a week's worth of anti-bactieral medication. Both are fairly easy to manufacture, even if I need to result to a less powerful, but still effective home remedy. But if not here, there are veterinary clinics not far from here that will surely have what we need. Man put much effort into caring for their animal companions."

Copper itched at Curie's diagnosis, "Ugh," Warner said, rolling his eyes. "Again with the animal."

"Ponies were only on Earth for a short time before the Great War, Warner," Copper said. "Not many humans actually knew about us. The best people did were those Giddy-Ups to integrate them to the idea of us. Besides, she's talking about dogs and cats."

"What, am I supposed to be impressed they made robots that looked like us?" Warner replied.

"Think about it, if the humans with the Giddy-ups rolled out their models, and made them more widespread, people would've been more accepting of ponies."

"Would'a, should'a, could'a, no denying we went through hell to get here." Hollow Point said.

Curie breezed through the examination offices, noticing the guns and ammo laid out, sleeping rolls behind the desks, two more Gunner skull paintings. She looked at the old reports and files, opening cupboards and drawers to view medical records.

"Do you smell that?" Warner asked, "Someone's cooking."

"I smell it too. Someone's here." Copper said, following the scent down the hospital corridor.

Turning her attention away from a degrading magazine left on the counter, Curie followed the ponies as they went down the hall leading towards the cafeteria. They moved quietly, taking extra careful steps to not let their feet clop noisily against the floor. The wide doors were forced open from garbage, dirt and ceiling debris, but they saw a man over a roasting pot and a fire, cooking a breakfast bean stew. He wore Gunner's green garbs, and on the ground there was a rifle.

Warner motioned for the others to get ready, floating the turret out and aiming it at the Gunner.

When the turret didn't activate, the Gunner noticed the movement and was surprised, "What-" He began to say, when suddenly the turret flew at him. He warded against it by raising his arms, and the turret crashed into him, knocking him sideways. He was up off the ground when suddenly the turret kicked into action and started spitting out bullets. The Gunner jumped away like he was shot, his muscles spasmed after every gunshot he heard.

Hollow Point fired her hunting rifle, striking him in the chest. "Warner, get rid of the damn turret!"

Hoisting the turret, and flinging it into the wall, it broke into pieces, machine parts spilling out as the gun barrel bent in.

Crossing into the cafeteria, Hollow Point stood over the Gunner, and shot again, executing him.

"Copper, take his gun and his sling."

"On it."

"Warner, why wasn't the turret working?"

"I think it needs to be on the ground for it to work."

"Figures. Hear anyone else coming after all that noise?"

They all paused to listen to the air, but it seems like there was no one else coming to investigate the outburst of noise.

"Alright, either way, we shouldn't stay long. That looks like a lot of food, and I don't see or hear many people yet. We made a lot of noise, and no one's come running. That leads me to believe that we walked in on a Gunner base while they're all out. Where? For how long? I don't know, but we need to get out of here before they come back."

"Sounds like a plan."

\111/

Abraham Finch didn't respond well to his son's, Jake, death, when Thunderstruck, Nick, and Dart returned to his farm. He saw the Shishkebab, the flaming sword and silently held out hope that his son would return with the group. Instead, his eyes got real wide, and he looked down at the pony he bought, and then his face scrunched up. Kicking Golden Grain, his voice exploded out of his mouth and he shouted, "Go on! Beat it!" Kicking again he shoved the pony away. "Leave! All of you! Get out of here! Take the metal and the stupid horse and get the hell off my damn property!"

His face was red as he shouted, "GET OUT OF HERE!" Golden Grain was shocked, unsure if it was right to leave him and join the new group, even if it was part of the deal, or console the grieving man even after he kicked him.

Throwing down his gun, he grabbed a rake and went out into his crop patches, digging up long lines in the earth. Ranting to himself, about how he would need to work twice as hard, twice as long, all because his son ran away. How he'd never find a moments rest...

"Hey!" Thunderstruck called out, "Your son died, but it still ain't right to treat Golden Grain like that!"

\111/

Nothing else worthwhile came from the remaining time at Abraham Finch's Farm. In the shadow of an overpass, with the Gunner's killed off, the Forged slaughtered, the Mutants ambushed, there was a raider group further to the North to contend with, and now the Revere Beach Raiders.

Thunderstruck didn't pay them any more mind, however, "At least he let you keep the sword," Golden Grain said.

"After what he did to you, I wasn't giving it back to him anyway."

"He was displacing his rage at the loss of his son," Nick said. "But even though he honored the deal in the worst way, he ended up losing everything he saw as important in his life. His son, the sword, and now you, Golden. So, newcomer, tell us about yourself. You feeling alright joining this little crew?"

"He didn't kick me that hard, so I'll be alright. I was just startled when he did. I was even more surprised he didn't try keeping me." Golden Grain said. "Why did you all come this way to get me anyway? What's the long term plan?"

"I'd been wondering about that myself, since you two are partially responsible for killing off the last people who owned me," Dart questioned.

"We reconnect with some other ponies and humans who we can trust," Thunderstruck said. "Then we'll be off setting up own own community North of Concord. Scavenging the town, setting up homes for ourselves, it's a good spot of land. Not too many critters roaming around that can't be shooed away; other farms in the area, if what I'm told is true. The down side is that everything from Lexington and Concord is all about to be taken by one single gang, however Nate, the human, is working on setting up some kind of deal with them so we wont get raided. This gang probably expects tribute, just like any other, but we'll have the opportunity to build up homesteads and trade. Longer term then that, I'm searching the Commonwealth for other ponies from Nuka-World and doing whatever I can to free them."

"Tell me Dart, Golden, Thunder," Nick inquired, "You're all from Nuka-World, correct? How big is this place? How many raiders are there?"

"Huge. It's an amusement park from before the bombs, there's three raider clans, all jammed in there." Dart replied. "Hard to tell, last year, 300 of us, 500 raiders. We actually outnumbered the original settlers there who joined us, there were only about a hundred or so of them. But now, I imagine there's more raiders, less ponies from being either sold off, or killed. The settlers got turned into slaves, so... the numbers could've gone either way for them; I guess?"

"Yeah, we're all from there, but..." Golden Grain began, then trailed off.

"It's painful to remember how good we had it before the raiders showed up. Trading one group for another doesn't sound appealing, but it's all we can do right now. Better than Nuka-World, but not as good as being free." Dart spoke, sensing Golden's apprehension.

"Raiders from places at Nuka-World don't stop just because there's mountains in the way. This gang, whoever your human friend is dealing with, better be stronger than them and the Gunners, otherwise they'll get swallowed up, just like everything else around there," Dart said.

"Nate and his friend are better than strong, they're smart, and resourceful. The human saved my life, healed me, and let me go, no strings attached. There aren't many humans I trust to do the same." Thunderstruck said.

"If there's no strings attached, then why are you helping him?" Dart asked.

"Not many humans will treat you like a human, this one does. The only other ones who did that are all dead or slaves, I work with what I got." Thunderstruck said, pulling her head back towards the road in front of them. "For now, we check out what the mutants left behind at the satellite array in Revere before the raiders get smart enough to pick through it themselves. After that, then We'll go to the ship and rest."

\111/

While making their way through the examination rooms, they came across doors blocked from collapsed ceiling debris, and needed to circle around to a fitness center, and climb their way up to the second floor. It was as they reached the second floor, they saw movement through the building's windows, a whole team of raiders, rushing by in pairs.

Seven pairs, eight pairs, the raiders were all rushing for the same entrance to come in behind them. "Oh shoot, there's a lot of people coming this way." Copper said, "We need to move or hide. Now!"

Rushing through patient rooms, finding walls torn down, collapsed, hallways blocked, the Mass Bay Medical building was only navigable by taking a winding route. Climbing higher onto the third floor, they came across doors to the E.R. area. "Most non-pharma medicines, if there are any remaining will be in this area." Curie said, trying the double doors but they were sealed shut. "Huh, locked. Perhaps we must find a doctor to open the doors for us?"

They all froze when they heard a different noise, a loud engine roaring, turbines spinning, a whine filling the air. It grew louder and louder, when suddenly the building shook. A vertibird landed on the roof of the hospital and the whirring blades were sending tiny tremors through the building.

"That doesn't sound good."

"Hollow Point, you're a better shot than me, take this pistol, and go back to see if the raiders are coming this way. Copper, help me get these doors open."

Warner examined the doors, they were locked, and he thought it might be worth picking, but they didn't have time. Hollow Point was gone for less than half a minute before rushing back to them.

"Okay, quick, help me buck the lock off. Everypony on three." Turning their back to the doors, "One, two, THREE."

Slamming their hooves into the emergency room door, it broke the wooden board around the lock, but there was rubble blocking the doors. The kicked again, and shoved what they could aside, "Heave! and HEAVE!" Wide enough for them and Curie to slip through, they crawled into the E.R. section, then shoved the door back closed, piling whatever they could on top to block any potential followers.

\111/

With Gunners landing on the roof, the vertibird only stayed long enough for them to disembark before taking to the air again. When they were clear, the pilot took off from the building.

Crocodile, the captain of these eight Gunners was aware of the thirty raiders swarming the building. With superior firepower, and sufficient knowledge of the accessible areas and layout of the Mass Bay Medical Hospital, they were sure to drive the raiders away.

What happened was a five hour shoot-out. Starting on the first floor, the Gunners shot five raiders dead before they could organize themselves inside mount a counter-strike.

Raiders armed with rifles, against Gunners with semi-automatics, the raiders came prepared on this rush, heavily armored, some carrying shields big enough to cover their body and hide behind. Thick enough to block bullets, there was a small line of raiders hiding single file behind the shield carriers and shooting forwards as a hail of bullets sailed all around them. One wrong step was enough to get their foot blown off, elbow grazed, or head scalp shot clean through.

Hearing the gunshots for half an hour straight, firing every few seconds, then absolutely nothing. No sounds, no footsteps, it was hard to tell if people were breathing, and then one rifle would go off, and everyone would hear a loud bang, followed by the return rapid fire.

With the E.R. section blocked off, Curie and the ponies remained silent and hidden for the first hour, fearing the fight would come through and reach them. Then, the second hour, they only moved around when the firing occured, then froze when the bullets stopped. They didn't want their hoofsteps to be confused for another Gunner or raider, and draw attention to themselves.

They drew away from the doors, and searched the rest of the E.R. from top to bottom, pooling everything they found at the nurses station.

While most of the rooms were filled with skeletons, some with empty I.V. bags loosely hanging nearby, there was still medicine littered everywhere. They moved closer to the surgery wing next to the E.R., and found a broken Auto-Doc, but Curie was able to plug herself in and collect all the files she could. There were medical textbooks which were still in readable condition, and carefully packed away, knowing they were valuable.

Hour three, they heard knocking, the raiders were trying to find a different route through the hospital to get behind the Gunners. This continued for fifteen minutes, and while everyone tried remained quiet as possible, they quickly put everything they could together and loaded it onto their backs.

After the raiders knocking realized they couldn't get through the doors, they tried finding weaker walls. From the ground to midway-up the walls it was tile, with a rail running the length of the hallway at waist-height for support. Above the rail was painted drywall. There were a few loud crunches of tile being shattered and torn off the wall, but the walls were thick with wood, metal rebar, insulation, concrete, and electrical wiring.

The only other way out or into the wing was an elevator shaft with a ladder that could take them up to the roof or down to the ground floor, or through the windows.

Finally, in what sounded like desperate pounding, amidst gunfire and shouting, a raider blindly threw himself into a wall and breached the area Curie and the ponies were in. The supports were weak enough, and ceiling tiles rained down, but a raider made it through.

The raider was shot, and shrapnel from chipped tile was blasted into his face, neck, and shoulders. He was taking cover when a bullet ricocheted off the walls, spraying tile everywhere, and lost sight for a few moments. He was shaking, too much to actually feel the full amount of pain he was in, but everywhere hurt. His face felt burnt, eyes cloudy, ears ringing, it was hard to hear. His lips were dried and cracked, stomach growling from lack off food, and his legs felt still like wooden branches about to snap.

He looked around, seeing the ponies running away from him, but he didn't register what was happening. He only felt the warm blood coming from his cold body, and the chest wound, right below the shoulder, above his lungs, otherwise he'd be bleeding a lot more.

Copper, Warner, and Hollow Point all ran as fast as they could, leaving Curie behind.

Tore into his ribs and muscles, the bullet didn't have an exit wound. Still lodged in there was a 5.56 mm round, but it still hurt to breathe. Bone bits shattered inwards, making every movement feel like a stabbing lance of pain directly into his nerves.

Taking a saline solution, and a roll of gauze tape, Curie went up to the raider and scanned him. "Monsieur, you need medical attention." He raised his gun, but dropped it when he began coughing, painful wracking coughs that made his chest wound bleed more. The gun was empty anyway, but Curie carefully slid it to just out of his reach.

"Take my claw, Monsieur, I will help you to a table to remove the bullet in your chest."

"What are-" He couldn't stop coughing, wheezing and then doubling over as the intense pain made him give up on speaking. He didn't want to move, he just wanted to lay there on the floor until the pain stopped.

"I've never done this before, but the Auto-Doc here is a fast teacher, and I need the experience. I will assist you to your feet and we will go into the closest room, less than five meters from here. Are you ready? Alright, here we go." Wrapping her arm underneath his arms, Curie pulled him up onto his feet, and he cried out, painfully aware of how bad things were for him now. Fear gripped him, the fear of dying.

"Do not worry, everything I need to operate on you, is here in this room."

Moving into a room, Curie laid the man down on the medical gurney bed, and quickly washed the wound and surrounding area. Illuminating the wound, it was in his upper-right torso.

"Med-X?" The raider begged.

Curie looked over her supplies, limited in manpower, and equipment, she knew humans sometimes needed med-x to numb the patient during surgery to reduce the pain. X-rays were needed to see depth and extent of the wound, but she at the rate of bleeding the raider was showing, she could draw a few conclusions that the bullet struck bone and broke it, with it being lodged within.

The first priority however was stopping the bleeding. Curie wished she had more articulate apendages, fingers, to be even more accurate, but shoving the bleeding wound full of cotton gauze with one claw, she pulled the strip up and continued to apply pressure while withdrawing one claw and swapping it with the other holding the gauze, all until the wound was plugged up. The man howled, biting his teeth, trying to keep his body from thrashing around, but painfully crying through restraint.

Applying a small dose in the chest region, it helped lower the man's heart rate and knock him out.

Doing a cursory scan of the ward, there was a mobile X-ray machine available. Film that was found and placed at the nurses station by the ponies was easy to grab, and to get the machine working would require a power source.

Wheeling the mobile x-ray to the man, and providing her own power as a source, she snapped pictures from the sides and top down of the chest area to build a 3-d map in her head.

From around her, the gunfight between the raiders and the Gunners picked up again, and this time one of the sides used a makeshift explosive, a small bomb as far as Curie could tell, caused by the tremors sent through the building.

Pulling bits of bone, and sucking away blood with a small vacuum tube, carefully peeling back tissue and spreading the muscle not to agitate it more than it was already, she pulled the bullet free, causing more blood to come out. Clamping the wound shut, she needed to reattach the torn artery, and using microneedles, thread, and robotic precision, she sewed and lashed the two bleeding ends together, then slowly removed the clamps to check circulation.

Probing for any more bones, there were cracked rib bones she set back into place and used a medical adhesive to bind them together. Using adhesive to seal the wound, she proceeded to sewing the muscle back together, then finally the skin on top.

In ninety minutes, she did a fast and dirty surgery, that with luck, wouldn't become infected.

With a bit of satisfaction coming through at her own handiwork, she turned to sanitize her self, then ventured out into the hospital, looking for anybody else who needed help.

In some cases dragging people, as most couldn't stand, others, she brought in limping with their toes shot off, or bullets in their legs. She brought nine raiders that were still alive and operated on each one of them, cataloguing and forming a surgical database of her experience.

Of the nine people Curie brought into the cordoned off area, three died, one in transit to the E.R., one while she was mid-op, and the third waiting as she was operating on someone else. After the other six raiders were seen to, she still did the proper dissection and analyzed the wounds on the corpses to understand the injuries and how she might of gone about performing the surgery.

It was a curious thing, to feel the weight of a human organ. So much potential, she was in awe of the life force within each one that all humans carried.

When Curie was finished, she wiped herself off, and saw to make sure every bit of her was sanitized. Taking the X-ray machine apart, she disassembled it and took the lens and components, outfitting them to her own body.

Of the few who were conscious, one female raider tried stopping her as she made to leave.

"Hey, medical robot, you're valuable."

"My name is Curie, not valuable. If that is what you see me as, then you do not see what I can accomplish for many people all over the world who are suffering. Where all of humanity's knowledge is eroding, all it takes to rebuild is for someone like yourself to stop focusing on what is and isn't valuable, and focus on what's important."

Curie gestured around the E.R., pointing to other raiders resting after their surgeries, "There are six of your companions in all different states of agony or recovery, who would not be alive if you said my time is more valuable than theirs. I am leaving, I gained much knowledge and experience, and will dispense no offerings to those who wish to inhibit my growth. If you think you can stop me, then you do not realize how close to death you are, nor do you know what I am truly capable of when threatened. Now, Good Day, Madame, and Bonne Chance."

\111/

Ch. 76 The Offer

Author's Note

No More Crying, Diamond City. It's time to dry those eyes and get back to it."

Ch. 76 The Offer

Flittering across the Commonwealth through the air, Thunderstruck flew the short distance to the National Guard, avoiding the roaming sentry tank on the ground and coming down through holes on the roof, she noticed all the dead ghouls. There were more than she could shake her hoof at, and looked for a body that wasn't like the others. She ended up coming across the same sight Nate and Curie came across only a few days ago, the bitten body of Knight Astlin torn to shreds, and a holotape that had been recently played.

The mare could tell it was recently touched because there was a big swipe of a thumbprint clearing away dust on the side of the cartridge. While Thunderstruck didn't have a holoplayer of her own, she kept the one found with Faris and listened to it as well. Grabbing one of the two dogtags around her neck, and scoping the rest of the main facility out before flying out again, she followed Nick's instructions to fly to the west side of Cambridge and look for a helicopter landing pad on a two story concrete building.

Spotting the Cambridge police station from a mile away, she flew down and landed on the roof as well. Worried that whoever these Brotherhood of Steel types were, they might be jumpy about a pegasus showing up, so she called out loudly as she went down the stairs.

"Hello? Danse? I'm looking for Danse?"

\111/

Since the discovery of their blocked signal, for the last six days, Danse was scouting alternative methods to send a stronger message to the Brotherhood of Steel.

He and Verne hiked North of Lexington to a Air Force satellite station, Base Olivia, to find the old installation occupied by raiders. Not in the mood to say please, the two of them cleared the small base of all life and found that the equipment and machinery were all defunct. Most of the parts were stripped out long ago, consoles torn open, anything of value scavenged long ago.

It was only after returning less than an hour before Thunderstruck arrived, he, Rhys, Scribe Haylen, nor Jules Verne were expecting a voice to be calling out from the second floor.

"What the hell is that?" Rhys quickly said, grabbing his laser rifle. After recovering from the feral ghoul attacks, he was restless and wanted action. The creaking noise of someone moving above their heads made everyone go on high alert.

"Rhys, Verne, on me." Paladin Danse said, grabbing his own laser rifle as well. They listened to the hooves clopping on the wooden floor, the time between steps, and listened to Thunderstruck's call.

"Paladin Danse?" Came her voice from the top of the stairs.

"Show yourself, but you better not have a weapon in your hands, if you do, know that we've got a small armory aimed up at you."

There was a moments pause, Thunderstruck was rooting through her bag to grab the dogtags. "Okay, I'm just here to speak with Paladin Danse about some old dogtags I found."

Coming into view, there was a small sigh of relief from Danse, and he signaled for Rhys and Verne to stand down when they saw the pegasus.

"You should know that we don't expect people coming down from the roof," The Paladin said, clustered around the bottom of the stairs, he gave Thunderstruck the benefit of the doubt. "What are you here for?"

"These," She said, showing him the dogtags from Faris and Astlin. From her fashioned backpack saddlebags, she pulled out the holotapes she found with the player. "They recorded messages before they died."

Paladin Danse examined the names on the tags, frowning and offering them back to Thunderstruck. "Where did you find these? Who sent you here?"

"I was told about you by the detective from Diamond City, Nick Valentine, but you may know Nate the Vault Dweller as well. We were up by the Revere satellite array, after a really long night of dealing with mutants and raiders. Anyway, Faris' body was there, his tape lead me on a thin trail to the National Guard Yard, where I found Astlin's body. Do you know anything about a bunker in the North that these tapes mention?"

"Allow me to look at a map, and listen to the tapes, and I might know what you're describing. I recommend that you come through the front doors to avoid any future misunderstandings."

Thunderstruck gave a side glance to Verne as she passed him, cantering after the paladin to the lobby. While the paladin took a seat behind the old desk, he set out an aged, folded up map of the Commonwealth and added some annotations to the map. "Tell me again, where you found the bodies?"

"Revere and the National Guard training yard just outside of it." Thunderstruck said.

"Did you come across any more?"

"Not that I've seen."

After listening to the tapes, a dark look came across his face. These were the final words of a lost patrol that never made it back safely. With half his team gone, they were in a similar dire straight.

"What were you hoping to achieve by finding the remains of the patrol?" Paladin Danse asked plainly.

"Guns and ammo, I guess. Faris mentioned a bunker, so maybe a safe place to bug out to? Scrap to salvage? Anything and everything."

"This is the first sign of anyone from Recon Squad Artemis in three years," Danse relented, "They've been presumed dead, with no contact." Either consciously, or nervously, Danse kept knocking his knuckles against the desktop, weighing the options in his mind. "...and this only confirms it. I'll write up a full report, and if we ever make it back, notify what happened to them."

Wiping his nose quickly with his thumb, he stared at the map, making a small X, just to the east of Lake Quannapowitt. "As our situation stands, I don't have the resources, nor the manpower at the moment to spare heading up to this location. I was informed before coming to the Commonwealth that based off what these tapes contain, and their references, that there is a bunker close to this lake. Tactically, it's too far North from any potential sites to access other parts of the Commonwealth quickly."

Thunderstruck saw a few other marks on the map, one in between Malden and the Saugus iron mill wrote 'LPB'. "If you decide to scout this location for us, you would be doing a great service to the Brotherhood of Steel for finding any sign of what happened to Squad Artemis. Either signs that they moved on, or bringing back their tags, it'll be a small comfort to know what became of them." While it pained him to say it, "As a reward for me granting you this knowledge, you may keep what you find up there, all I want are the tags if you find bodies. Putting the chapter to rest is all that the Brotherhood can do right now."

"Thank you, I'll come back this way to let you know if I found anything."

"Before you go, you said that you knew the vault dweller, Nate, from Vault 111, correct?"

"Yes."

"Do you know where he is?"

"No, but I know where he went. He and a friend of his loaded up on a lot of guns to go after a monster in the Glowing Sea."

"A deathclaw?"

"Something like that."

\111/

"Was it really in the best interest to let a Pegasus go off and search for our lost team?" Rhys wondered aloud to his captain.

"If it's a wild goose chase, and she doesn't find anything, then yes. We need to be preparing ourselves to go on the offensive. While not explicitly saying, she came from the National Guard, meaning it's clear as it can be. If we can salvage Knight Astlin's armor, and any other suits or plated pieces we can find, it'll help us go a long way towards assaulting the Mutants in Trinity Square. I've come to a conclusion that the only way we're going to get a message to the Brotherhood of Steel is to take Trinity Tower. If what the pegasus said is true. We'll be on our own to move on Boston, but for now, your orders are to get yourselves ready, We'll move out within the hour to secure more power armor."

\111/

Thunderstruck wished that there was music she could listen to, but instantly regretted it when the worst tune she could imagine popped into her head. It distracted her wing flap timing, making her lose altitude. Flying over the brown landscape was serenely quiet, and she focused on the landmarks below. All the while, she could hear the chorus playing over and over again. Powering through it she shook her head, braying, humming one note, anything to get that darn jingle out of her head.

'What if there were a place with all the zip of Nuka-Cola?' "Darn-it!" She cried to herself, there wasn't a single thing up in the air with her, and couldn't for the life of her figure out why it was coming back to her in full force now. Every moment she was away from that cursed park, it felt like a lifetime of freedom.

Being alone with her thoughts, she judged, was a bad idea. It lead to her dwelling too much on a place she rightfully feared, and had no intention of going back to. She knew there were hundreds more ponies still trapped there, but the reality was that she was lucky enough to escape with her life. Thunderstruck was sobbing through the air, bawling by the time she was passing Woburn and needed to land. She saw a field with no buildings, lined with trees and grass, and impulsively landed. Curling up, she laid there until the feelings of survivors guilt went away.

When she finally looked around, she saw a tattered, blackened flag in the middle of the golf course she landed in, with a golf cart overgrown with weeds and moss a few hundred meters away.

Wiping her face, Thunderstruck decided she would need some goggles while flying to help keep the dust out of her eyes, but otherwise, she felt better and retook to the sky.

Passing suburbs with groves of trees, the pegasus finally came to a sickly brown colored lake and guessed that this was Lake Quannapowit, and from the air, spotting a distinctly man-made shape of buildings tucked in between the hills. Along the shoreline were a few small shacks, built along the waters edge, but the lake had receeded in the winter. Beyond the lake houses and shacks was a road, ending gate that lead to a dirt road heading North.

Less than a minute's away by flight from the water's edge, was a concrete shed, but it was marked with old signs that read no-trespassing, and fire-lane. While in days past, the concrete out-cropping would've been hidden by trees, leaves, and dense foilage, now the human made structure stuck out like a sore thumb. There was treated wooden posts with electrical wires running directly into the ground outside, making it all the more obvious. There were bits of salvaged cars, metal sheeting, and even a golf bag with a few clubs sticking out.

What surprised her was the garden plot, four feet by four feet, just beyond the shadow of the shed's roof. Well worn down grasses, where the rest was all thigh-high weeds. It was a small subsistence garden growing carrots, tomatoes, and cabbages.

Staring at the vegetables growing in the garden, Thunderstruck felt her eyes watering again, but this time she didn't know why. There wasn't a sound to be heard, no bugs buzzing, and the wind was nigh non-existent. Getting emotional over a plant growing, she didn't hear the door open, nor the man in his late forties, long grey hair and beard, wearing a old painted piece of metal armor with the BOS insignia covering his chest. His clothes beneath were scavenged street clothes, but they were clean. Whatever uniform he brought with him to the Commonwealth was worn down long ago.

Even though he was carrying a Vector .45 caliber submachine gun in a loose grip, and although his posture was straight, he spoke with the voice of a man who sounded much older than he was.

He cleared his throat, from not having spoken in a while. "Hold up there now, you may look innocent, but I know better than to let my guard down. Why are you here?"

"Are you...Paladin Brandis?"

"I am, but I asked you a question first, little lady. Now do I need to repeat myself again?" He said, a tad irate.

"I followed your team's holotapes, found their bodies, and asked around. They mentioned this bunker."

"You found my team? What happened to them?"

"I didn't find all of them, but I know about Knight Astlin, she was overwhelmed by feral ghouls at the National Guard Training Yard. Then there's Scribe Faris...I don't know who shot him, but he took a bullet to the leg and his body was in a shed at the Revere Satellite array. I recovered their tags, and I have them here in my bag. I wasn't expecting you. I wasn't expecting anyone, really."

Paladin Brandis lowered the barrel a few degrees, letting Thunderstruck dig out the dog tags from her backpack saddle bags, "You can have them."

Accepting them, Brandis felt the metal tags and gripped his fist around them, running his thumb over them to make them shine. "This means alot to me, I tried going back for them you know." Beside the door to the bunker was a wooden stool, he sat down on it and continued to talk. "But there was nothing I could do, not alone. I had hope...for a while." He said, swallowing.

"So why was a pretty thing like you, without the look of being dragged through the rustyards and the scars, crying just now?"

Thunderstruck tried starting a few times, but ended up sitting down on the dried grass across from Paladin Brandis. "You know the loud noise that shook the Commonwealth a few weeks ago?"

"I recall a disturbance."

"We heard it all the way in Nuka-World. It was a rocket thruster. Anyway, Raiders took over Nuka-World a year ago. Other pegasus and myself all took the chance when the raiders were distracted. There were still unicorns, earth ponies, and other pegasus who were still chained up. The moment before it happened, we were getting pulled out of the pens they keep us in, and let go of our leashes and chains. They were all standing there, caught off guard, and we just all decided to take that opportunity to run. There was no plan, no talking, it was like a big herd thought and we took off... They started shooting a few seconds after that. Not everyone made it, but I know there's a few who did. I haven't seen anyone I escaped with, since. I found a few other ponies who were traded and sold off, but...this is the first time I've been alone with my thoughts long enough for them to catch up with me...When I saw your garden plot, I realized...it's the first thing I've seen anyone growing anything green in a long time. I don't know why that stuck me in my tracks, but...it's like seeing life."

"Well, I hope I'm not being rude, but you look pretty amazing for someone who went through all that for a year."

"I didn't always look like this. A healer did a lot for me, I used to be shaggier than a mangy dog, whip marks on my flank, feathers ripped out, ribs poking out, collar rubbing my skin red around my neck. After breaking out of Nuka-World, I got shot through my wing and crashed straight into a coma. When I woke up, I was like this. A little thinner, but this human vault dweller and his dog offered me food. They were the ones who saved me after I was shot, and they were also the ones who fired the rocket booster. I...I feel better? I don't feel sore and the pain from being there anymore... but I still feel hurt."

Brandis maybe found some hope in that statement, smiling, but shaking his head, "Don't I know about starving, there for a while. You're a survivor. Just like me. I appreciate you bringing me these, I feel like I owe you something for doing what I couldn't bring myself to do." He raised an upturned hand to the Commonwealth. "Too scared. I'd seen what the Commonwealth does to a man, and hid here, alone. Away from people. If you see anything you like, I've been collecting tech and scrap for years. Take it. I could let you sleep here to, I suppose. That's alright. Try the food, if you like, I don't have much, but if you're hungry. You could stay here if you want, hide with me."

"I think there's still some things I need to do, thank you for the offer."

"I'd offer you one of my guns, but I ain't dead yet," He said, leaning forward. "So I still need it. Lucky you, though. You got wings. If I were you, I'd fly and fly... don't know where, but I'd keep above it all."

"What were you scouting? What brought you up here?"

Brandis readjusted his seat and sat up taller. "My team and I were on a recon mission, trying to follow in the footsteps of another successful team that came before us. We were too far away from the Brotherhood to help us, and when we tried patching through to them...you name it, there wasn't a problem that didn't rear it's ugly head at us. We spent more time running from shelter to shelter, trying to find a safe place to bunk down for the night, than recon. Barely made it a week before my whole team was dead after we reached Boston."

"So you've just been exploring since then, building a life for yourself up here?" She asked.

"Hiding. From the outside world. I can't go on a one man journey back to where I'm from, too far to make that trip alone. I realized, or...fell into convincing myself I'm too scared to die than face my fears, and I accept that. What season is it? Winter? So that's...two years...three years!" He corrected himself, "Three years...and I can't go home. Too long to be away from home. AWOL."

"Are you going to be alright up here?"

"I'll manage, I'm used to running, fighting, and fortifying what I got. No one knows about me up here. Not many creatures, but it's tame for the most part. Easy to spot Deathclaws from a mile away, haven't had a run-in with one of them in over two years."

"Actually, when I said I asked about this place, I was talking with a someone from the Brotherhood of Steel. The Brotherhood of Steel is here, in Cambridge." Thunderstruck said.

"Who was it that you asked about this place? About me?"

"Paladin Danse in Cambridge, they're a small recon team, but they're not doing so hot. They're running things out of a police station down there."

"Danse..." He said, looking past Thunderstruck and into his garden. "Danse...I'd have to see his face to remember, been a long time. I should know the guy, can't think of his face. You got a name, Miss Pegasus?"

"Thunderstruck."

"It just can't be that way...miss Thunderstruck. The Brotherhood is too far away. They didn't send you this way, for me, did they?"

"I'm honest when I say, they thought you were dead. I'm not with them, and was only doing this because curiosity got the better of me when I found the tape on Faris. One thing lead to the next, and here I am."

"So they sent another team..."

Paladin Brandis sighed, flexing his hand out then letting it rest over the Vector in his lap. "They wouldn't want me. I've turned soft."

"Actually, I think they could use all the help they can get. I don't know how big recon teams are, but I only saw a three head count, plus another pony like myself. I don't know where Equestrian's stand in the whole Brotherhood grand scheme of things, but give or take someone out on patrol, I'd say there's only four of them there."

"Half. They're already down by half." Brandis replied, doing the mental calculations in his head. "You can carry four suits of men in power armor, two pilots, two scouts, a scribe, and a pony like yourself without overloading a vertibird, Miss." From experience he knew exactly how much weight a vertibird could carry, along with the supplies, ammo, and other equipment, you could fit quite a lot in to one of those flying machines.

"I don't feel like I have much of a say in this, but I think they'd be jumping at the bit to have someone like you, even to just fill them in on all your experiences here in the Commonwealth if you were to go back."

"And what about you? Would you be willing to go back to where you came from if it meant helping those in dire straights?"

The muscles in Thunderstruck's back legs felt like they were cramping when he said that. She flicked her tail and was distraught long enough for Brandis to notice.

"It ain't easy being courageous, is it?" he asked.

"You're right, it's hard..." The next words nearly choked her, she didn't want to think about Nuka-World in the slightest, but all she could imagine were how many more Equestrians who were still stranded there, begging to be taken with her as the rocket blast distracted the raiders long enough for her and a few others to slip loose. If not for others sacrifice...and then she realized it was Nate and Meathead who made the darn ship fly, she wouldn't be free at all. She needed to swallow, from her throat feeling so tight and dry, but she finally spoke. "But it's easier if you have someone helping you. If you go back, I'll go back with you. I'll even offer you a ride and you can tell Danse and everyone what happened, that you survived."

"Pony express, huh? Hard to say no to a Bruinette who can fly. I don't want to, that's just my first instincts whining. Unless I go back, everything'll be forgotten, and I can't let that happen. I'll do it. But tell me, would you go back to this Nuka-World to free your friends?"

Thunderstruck blinked, she didn't want to die, but enslavement was worse than that. It was drawn out, it was long, it was starvation, rape, deprivation, unsanitary, sleepless nights. It was the fear they might eat you if they're running low on food. Death was 'blink and it's over'. She almost said, 'They have to deal with this on their own,' and the words were right there in her mouth, but Paladin Brandis had this pained look on his face, like she was deciding for the both of them.

In all of two seconds, she envisioned the rest of her life here, in a tiny little bunker on the far northern reaches of the Commonwealth. Away from everyone, digging out another 4x4 plot of garden, letting her entire life go by in a relative harmony of solitude. The offer was there, and the Paladin seemed like the type of guy who needed a companion to talk to, who wouldn't hurt her. Nate and Meathead both talked about Sanctuary Hills, about accomplishing the same thing, but kept gearing up for war. There was still obstacles they needed to clear before they settled down, yet here she could do the same right now.

She could leave. She could chalk up everything from escaping Nuka-World, to waking up out of the Changeling's pod, all to this point in her life as the adjustment period it took to wipe the slate clean. She'd fought for her life, going against Gunners, becoming a living embodiment of death, wearing human heads as a bloody trophy to mislead super mutants into fighting for her. Some of their blood was still dried onto her fur and wings. She still carried the flaming sword taken from Slag of the Ironworks raiders. Dart and Golden Grain would grow bored waiting for her to return, and find new paths to follow, maybe finding her here, but there was a side of her that knew about the power she had in saving those other ponies.

She could lead them to Sanctuary Hills, a safe place for not just herself, but every pony she came across to escape to and feel this taste of the old world before the raiders showed up and ruined their lives.

"I can't leave them to die." Thunderstruck said, "I just want to forget about them and move on, but I can't. I may be the only one who's free enough to go back and save one of them. Maybe sneak one out." Her voice sounded hollow, still not fully committed to it, but then Paladin Branis spoke.

"Well that settles it then," Brandis stood up and left his Vector on the stool, "You take one step, then your body follows. I wasn't planning on making an excursion into town today, so I guess I'll get my things together. Just gotta set the pump and the timer too for the garden, can't let that die. Come in, grok yourself some water. I got a homemade water filter."

Thunderstruck was pulled from her thoughts and promises that felt empty, and cantered in behind Brandis, seeing how the hermit survived for the last three years.

While the bunker was lined with shelves filled with junk, there was a wall near the windows devoted to projects like a water filter, where rain-barrels were filled and then pumped into a second covered barrel that would drip through the filter, then a third and fourth barrel for collection. There was a working fusion core generator providing electricity, enough bunks for eight people, but there was a few piles of clothes and papers spread around.

"Help me with the water, would you? I need to take this barrel and get it outside, and put it on the drip system."

Thunderstruck followed his instructions, carrying one plastic rain barrel outside, where he put a plugged hose on top, and fed it down into the dirt, screwing the hoses together. "Now, when the soil get's thirsty, it'll automatically come out. Should be good for a few months, so long as the crops don't freeze over here in the next month. Even then, it'll still be enough to squeak by for two months after that."

"That's a really neat system you came up with."

"Ain't it? I would'a withered away if God didn't tell me to get down on my hands and knees and use what he gave me to dig out a bed for the vegetables. Take a gander inside, if there's anything you want, go head and grab it." He offered again. Brandis poured himself a bowl of water, and offered one to Thunderstruck as well.

She took another look around the bunker Brandis called home, and didn't see anything that really stood out to her. She did end up grabbing a blanket and a length of rope for the Paladin. She folded the blanket and set it on her back, to use as a bit of a saddle to keep from rubbing, and the rope to keep him from falling off her back while flying along.

She was just about to cross the threshold outside when she spotted a pair of biker's goggles for riding a motorcycle. While on a human, they would cover the whole upper half of the face, on Thunderstruck, they covered her eyes.

Adjusting the straps with her teeth and hooves, she pulled them on and drew in a breath to calm herself.

'It's hard to be courageous, but it's easier with friends.' Between the two of them, even if it was false bravado or just the idea that company is better than being alone, she felt like they could muster up enough courage to share and make a few other lives better.

If not, looking to the drip system keeping the garden's roots moist, she could always come back.

Thunderstruck stretched out her wings, letting Paladin Brandis tie the rope around her barrel and neck like a harness not to choke her, but to let the human have something to hold onto while she flew. The Paladin was skinny enough to where she looked at him and thought he wouldn't weigh much at all. Brandis tied the other end of the rope around himself and synched it up after climbing onto her back. Sitting on the blanket, she asked if he had a good grip. He said yes. She was flapping her wings and then finally they were off.

Paladin Brandis looked back down at the bunker he called his home for so long now, and then to the great expansive view of the Boston skyline infront of them, holding the reins a little tighter. Thunderstruck felt his legs cling to her a little tighter, so she kept herself level and eyes forward.

Ch. 77 Paladin Brandis

Brandis felt his stomach twist in knots, flip flop, and spin. It would be easy to assume that about him because he was on the back of a flying pegasus, but it certainly didn't help settle his stomach any. The thought of returning to the Brotherhood of Steel shook him enough from his core inside out to vomit. The feeling of bile never reached his throat though, it just sat there in the pit of his stomach like a ball of sour candy and refused to stay calm no matter how much he relented the subject.

As Thunderstruck's speed tapered off, and they descended in elevation towards Cambridge, Brandis tried admiring the sight of the Commonwealth Institute of Technology and College square from above. This entire time, his sight was mostly aimed at the ground, picking out settlements, or the scant number of people roaming around.

Thunderstruck was taking note of which roads were blocked, and how the buildings were spread out between streets, which areas were absolutely clear and devoid of life, other parts of town where there seemed to be life crawling out of the woodwork. They finally came into view of the Cambridge Police station, and came into land in the courtyard perimeter out front.

Brandis untied himself, patting Thunderstruck along the mane, thanking her for the ride and inspiring him to come back. Then he swung his leg over and stepped out of the makeshift saddle onto solid ground, wavering for a moment as he reacquainted himself with gravity, then turned to look up the steps.

Jules, Rhys, Haylen, and Paladin Danse were all assembled outside, the metal door was still swinging shut behind them and clinked shut.

He met all their eyes for a few moments, then Paladin Danse saluted him, everyone else quickly followed in their leaders actions and saluted the returning soldier.

"Paladin Brandis of the Recon Squad Artemis?" He asked, Brandis nodded in return. "It's an honor and great privilege tp know that you're alive after all this time."

Paladin Brandis stood there for a moment, then did a quick salute in return. "I'm not you superior officer, so get those hands down. If it weren't for this Miss tracking me down, and explaining what happened, I wouldn't be standing here. I understand you're in great need of assistance, Paladin and company. Who am I addressing?"

"Recon Squad Gladius, I'm Paladin Danse and this is my team. Knight Rhys, Scribe Haylen, and Advance Scout Jules Verne."

Paladin Brandis nodded to each of them, then turned his attention to the departing mare.

"Quite the view, coming in. Miss Thunderstruck, what do you intend to do now?"

"People are waiting for me," Thunderstruck said, "I'll be near Goodneighbor, then a group of us are heading towards Concord for the time being with a small caravan. If the roads are clear, we may swing up through this way. Otherwise I might do a fly-by on our way back. Let me know how things go, I'm glad I could bring you back safely."

"Please tell me when you decide to go to Nuka-World to free your friends," he said.

"I will."

Paladin Brandis watched as Thunderstruck readjusted her pack, stretched her back out for a moment, then flapped her wings to embark back into the sky again. As Thunderstruck left, the Paladin turned around and thought of the contents of his pack, the papers and bits of tech and scrap he felt were valuable, even if he couldn't offer much else.

"I suppose...It's been a while since I spoke with anyone from the Brotherhood...Shall I debrief?" Brandis asked, forgetting protocol.

"Let's go inside and we'll get properly acquainted." Paladin Danse said, allowing Brandis to enter the building.

\111/

Paladin Brandis spoke with the other Brotherhood of Steel members for one of the longest conversations he could remember in a long time. The days seemed so condensed for the returned Paladin, so much of it seemed to pass by with hardly a thought.

He told his fated story of how things ended up for the Recon Squad Artemis team, they were hoping to follow in the successful footsteps of Recon Squad Vagus.

From Revere all the way to a suburb in Winchester, Paladin Brandis was wearing power armor that same day Faris died, until his fusion core ran dry and was forced to strip the power armor. The suit was stashed in a withered shed behind a house. Covering it with a plastic tarp, one push made the whole structure collapse, and the suit was hidden in plain sight.

Avoiding the marauders, eventually shaking them from his trail, although they came close to finding him again. Paladin Brandis was forced to scavenge and find supplies in the Commonwealth, spending weeks coming up with plans to return South, or even get in contact with the Brotherhood, but was met with the same issue Paladin Danse and his team were facing now.

Paladin Brandis pointed out a large number of locations he scouted and rooted through on the Northern edges of the Commonwealth, from Wakefield, Lynnfield, Melrose, Woburn, Reading, Burlington, most of the towns were on the verge of collapse, grown over, or some were completely burned to the ground some time ago in the past. Where some towns were picked clean, and all that remained were the shells of buildings with crumbling walls, showing signs of people had come and gone.

Paladins Danse and Brandis left with Verne to go salvage these caches and reclaim the lost power armor.

\111/

Thunderstruck landed on the deck of the USS Constitution, and pulled the deck hatch open. Climbing down the steps and into the Captain's room where Cherry Fizz was recooperating in the changeling pod. There was a pen-knife on the bureau, and Thunderstruck used it to break the seal and pull the pony out. Thunderstruck roused Cherry Fizz, giving the mare a few minutes to wake up as she came to her senses.

"Cherry, time to wake up." Thunderstruck said, rousing her friend.

"We're leaving in the morning in a caravan."

"Caravan? What caravan?" She asked in return.

"We can't all stay here, not enough resources, too many people, it's going to attract the wrong attention so tonight we're packing up, and leaving tomorrow morning. That's the plan, anyway." Thunderstruck explained. "I'll lead you downstairs when your ready."

While it took her a few moments to reorientate herself, she swallowed to clear her throat, coughing up some of the changeling resin in the process. Thunderstruck went below to grab guns and loaded her bags with tools.

While the robots were stationed in the bank outside of Bunker Hill, they spent a vast majority of the time scavenging and preserving old carpentry tools, made before the 19th century to keep the ship period-specific. These tools were thick, large, heavy, but a pony could wrap their hooves or mouth around one and use to build.

Wiping off the green gel, Cherry Fizz was still regrowing patches of her red coat and pink mane, but like Thunderstruck, she underwent a short transformation from a half-starved half-crazed, mangy mare, to a softer version of herself. Cherry eyed her surroundings, shoulders tense, and neck stiff, she asked. "Where are we again?"

"We're on a landlocked ship, Cherry. You're safe, remember? You killed James Wire then passed out from exhaustion. Curie, Nate, Meathead, and Hancock all brought you back up here. You've been out for over two days. Rub the sleep out of your eyes, and the rest of the goop out of your hair, and then follow me. We're leaving on a trip and there's ponies you need to meet."

\111/

The elevator doors parted, sliding open to the Weatherby Executive Suites, where everyone made themselves comfortable for the evening.

"Thunderstruck, how did the lead turn out?" Dart asked.

"Cherry, good to see you up and about. You look great with all the new fur coming in." Golden Grain complimented.

"The detour to find what happened to Paladin Brandis turned out better than expected, he was still alive and I ended up giving him a ride back to Cambridge, so no guns." She said, turning to allow Cherry Fizz to enter the foyer carrying some dried food from the ship above. "I ended up by Lake Quannapowitt, he's got a little shop tucked up in there, pretty far from most of the action. A lot of golf-courses. It could probably be really good farm land in the future. " Thunderstruck said, she emptied her bags, while they weren't full, there was some ammo, leftover grains, a roadmap of Massachusetts, and a laser pistol. "He said he hadn't seen a Deathclaw in over two years until he rode on my back into town."

"How many did you see?" Serin Copper asked.

"Four." Thunderstruck felt her own stomach, her wings were tired from flying all day, so she tucked them in tighter against her side. Hunger pangs struck a chord in her expression which mirrored everyone else's.

They began cooking what they had. When they reached a time during the preparation of the meal, while everything was simmering in the pot, Thunderstruck gathered everyone.

"Tomorrow we're going to be moving out. Our destination is Sanctuary Hills, Concord. That's Northwest of Lexington, Northwest of Boston. We can't all stay here, and speaking with the ponies from Nahant, they got a taste of what it means to be this deep inside the city. Concord is our next best option right now, outside of the city, away from most Mutants and raiders. I say most raiders, because from what Nate told me, is that there would still be one raider group to contend with. However, from what I understand, he's in good standing with their leader, Red.

Their group is spread across a large area of land Nate single handedly opened up for them by slaying two different raider bosses. However much leeway that buys Nate, will be paid in full when we go to deliver a tribute to them. I'd rather keep them stocked up and happy, meet them on their own turf, rather than them coming to us. They may ask us for tribute, they may demand things from us, they may go out of their way to come all the way up to our community we're setting out to build, but we're capable of dealing with them. Make no mistake, these guns we're bringing are for defense, to kill when necessary, but we must not let ourselves be treated like we were ever again. We'll have four goals to accomplish tomorrow, but first, Hollow Point and Curie have something to say."

"While our group went with Curie to Mass Bay Medical, she picked up some valuable information and started pulling raiders in to operate on. The group of raiders who took the Mass Bay Medical from the Gunners were from the station below the hospital. They need numbers, and are willing to meet with the raiders down at Haymarket Mall, less than a block away from the tower here, on the condition that a caravan from Bunker Hill is regularly sent to them. The Giddyup Buttercups, Sugar Cube, Gigi, Giddy, Trotsiana, and Stampede all confirmed that the area from here to Mass Bay Med, along the coastline and a block from the water's edge, is nearly totally devoid of mutant activity. Barring Mirelurks, and a report about some giant creature in the bay, caravans shouldn't have too much trouble with an escort from Haymarket down to Mass Bay."

"Which leads us to our first and second goals. The first being, we finish packing up tonight. Tomorrow, we speak with the Haymarket Mall gang and inform them that there's another gang wanting to negotiate the open territory. By going to Bunker Hill and speaking to the Mayor there, we can speak to them about sending a caravan to Haymarket, then Mass Bay Medical."

"Our third and fourth goals will be harder. Only the humans know which gang we'll be dealing with when we get to Concord. I can't say for certain is this a gang we should fear, or accept their protection?"

"Accept their protection?" Cherry Fizz asked, "Are we really just going to lay down and accept what they might do to us, like the raiders in Nahant?"

"It may not mean much, but Red of the Federal Ration Stockpile gang seems to be one of the lesser unbearable raiders in the Commonwealth, as far as gangs go. Tower Tom kidnapped Red's sister, Nate and Piper killed him, and Red's now in control of everything from Wayland to Watertown. There's a road that leads from Wayland, where the Federal Stockpile is, on a direct route to Concord. Realistically, she has dibs on everything from Lexington, since Jared of the Corvegas' is dead. But, the leader of the gang who attacked them as well is dead too, so until the gang from Bedford reorganizes, they'll be our primary threat between the two gangs. If we can help them force the Bedford gang out, or kill them, then all that land North down to Natick, and maybe even west to Sudbury. That's a lot of ground, most of it is suburbs and farmland. Red's setting herself up to sit on a nice slice of the Commonwealth when we go down this route of paying tribute to her and her gang.

"There is never going to be a place where we're either too small to be bothered, or too big to be taken over, all we can do is build what we can so that more ponies and people can join us. One day even, we may be able to buy the freedoms of our other brothers, sisters, and family who are still trapped at Nuka-World. I want them to know that there is a chance of something better waiting for them,"

"How can we be sure?" Warner asked, "That Concord get rolled over and taken like Nuka-World? Why not go to Lake Cannot-pronounce-it?"

"That's what the guns are for." Thunderstruck immediately replied back. "This time I'm not going down without a fight. They'll have to put a collar on my cold, dead body and drag me into the grave before I let that happen again. And the reason why we don't go to the Lake, is because it's a shed that's waiting there. Paladin Danse's shed the set-up is good for eight people, max. Winter is already here, and we can't be caught without a solid defense, food itinerary, and backup plan. Sanctuary Hills already has most of the supplies we need to start building an entire community immediately, along with it the neighborhood being on an island in the middle of a river where we already have freshwater purifiers to draw water. Then, there's the bunker that we can run to if things get too hectic."

Thunderstruck drew in a breath, filling her chest, she sensed everyone's apprehension about coming together again. The worst feeling was that transition between depression and finding hope in something again. She and the rest of the ponies wouldn't spend the rest of their lives on Earth forsaken by humans. On the exhale, she said, "Food's ready."

Author's Note

"Sitting all alone,
Thinking of you,
And of the wonderful world, we once knew...

Oh Diamond City, come back to me, Baby.
Travis Lonely Miles, Diamond City Radio.

"Thinking of YOOOOOOIIIIIIUUUUUEEEEooooou."

Ch. 78 The Wendigo and the Scientist

//------------------------------//

'Riding Down the Highways, Goin' to a Show
Stopping on the Byways, Playing Rock'n'Roll
Gettin' Robbed, Getting Stoned
Gettin' Beat up, Broken Bones...
It's a Long way to the Top if You Want to Rock and Roll...', AC/DC

\111/
Meathead's limbs ached, a chilling pain that spread from the center of each mass, then spread out to his exoskeleton. Rubbing one hoof against the other caused skin to crumble and chip, exposing cracks and causing him to bleed.
Even with the Radaways flushing Nate's system, he was still heavily dangerously radiated. A stinging-burning intense pain like jabbing, stabbing needles puncturing his arms, penetrating his bones, ripping apart his lungs that felt like they were filled with glass. His arm, bound in changeling resin, and Windigo-tainted Deathclaw hide was bubbling.
Nate was cooked, and his skin was peeling off from the worst sunburn you could imagine. He'd been partially awake during the trek back, but in no shape to even speak. 'Technically conscious' are the right words to use to describe Nate's state of being, otherwise he was laying there in pain.

An hour later they peeled away the outside edge of changeling resin around Nate's shoulder, and then lifted up around the edges of the deathclaw hide. Hancock watched Meathead's expression as the changeling examined Nate's injuries, the left side his face pulling back, nose flaring, baring teeth, cringing at the sight.

“"
"Is he gonna lose his arm?" Hancock asked. Meathead looked up and to the skies, smelling the flesh.
"" Meathead was veering off course, Hancock grabbed Nate's torsoe, helping Meat Meathead's back, shocking some nerves awake.
"Then we just keep talking to each other, then. Keep Nate still, and just keep talking to each other. It'll keep our minds busy." Hancock replied, looking back down at Nate. "He's really not going to enjoy this next bit. When I turned into a ghoul. The whole skin...thing...was like sitting in a broiling oven for eighteen hours, wandering around the Glowing Sea produces...questionable results."
""
"Can you use magic yet, are you good to go?"
Shivering, Meathead exhaled and gasped. Shaking his head teeth chattering, the chills were wracking through his body, making every step unbearable and strenuous. "" His limbs were aching too, far more than ever.
"Sweet emotion, God I could use any amount of drugs right about now, don't worry I'd share! That'd get you going. Hot to Trot!" Hancock stammered, redoubling his pace to move faster. He kicked up his heels, but groaned, the ghoul was limping ahead, bruised and sore from walking out of the Glowing Sea, but alive.
\111/
Approaching Lower Roxbury, South of Boston, they were coming to rows of dilapidated two story buildings, homes, apartments, storefronts, faded ads, and the sides of streets lined with cars and blown around debris.
Meathead grit his teeth and chewed at the inside of his mouth, ignoring the weight of his friend on his back, the hunger in his stomach, and the feeling of ice water spreading through his veins. Meathead said, ""
The ghoul froze and looked out ahead of him, readying his rifle and raising his guard. "How many? Where? How far off?"
"" Meathead shook his head, trying to get a read on the small atmospheric changes in the air. "
"You psychos really went and did it; Didn't you?" The arching voice came, it was bitter full of arvarice, and the voice wanted to find them.
Where are you?" The voice was close, two blocks away, rounding a storefront and kicking rubble and slanted bits of concrete sidewalk out of the way with her hooves.
"There you are!"
Her beheaded-Medusa cutie-mark, red coat, and magenta iris, horn glowing blood-red as everything was pushed out of Athena's path from small bits of dust and pebbles, to cars and bricks all being shoved out of her way like a bulldozer.
"" Confirming it was her emotions, it felt like Meathead's legs and shoulders were being held in place, he tried moving, until he realized what type of pressure force he was moving against. His body was halted by Athena using magic to drag him around.

"You killed an Equestrian Windigo. Now why did you have to go do that?”
“”
“Before you go and do something stupid like doing that again, the other Windigo would like to speak with you. Now.” “”
“I've got eyes! But you clearly didn't see the signs that the Windigos were keeping the whole Commonwealth in the fucking dark! They were keeping people from finding us! Don't you get it!? There's too many damn threats in this world, and all we're looking is to be left alone.” Athena said, “But the only one smart enough to do something about what's happening in the Commonwealth is Mona, she's at the waterfront, waiting for you.”
“”
“That wont be an issue if you come with me right now.”
“<...?>” Meathead said, biting his lip and feeling the tightness in his back where Nate was placed.
“What?” Hancock asked, missing what he said.
“”
“Come with me, and there's a good chance should Mona snap her fingers and put Nate back together where the right bits and pieces should be, given what's left. Keep on walking and you can kiss Nate goodbye, but I'm still taking you to Mona.” “”
“That's her's to give.”
“Then lead the way,” Hancock said,
“Sorry, Hancock. Party's full, we're taking the express route. Meathead, I figured out that party trick you showed me.” In two loud air snaps, like the cracking of whips, two small wormholes sucked all the air in around it for a single instant to create red portals. Meathead, Nate, and Athena all disappeared, leaving Hancock holding his gun, bereft of of where they went. He looked to the Boston skyline, to Trinity Tower, the second tallest to Mass Fusion. “Damnit,” Hancock said, feeling the energy return to his legs and the lack of presence weighing down on him. Alone, he picked up his pace to a slow jog, feeling left behind and far from the action.

\111/

Unlike Meathead using his own magic to teleport, being teleported by someone else made him all the more aware of how weak his magical skillset was. After draining himself fighting the Windigo of the Glowing Sea, he felt like he was being carried the entire distance, fluidly, the weight of Nate was off his back, then set back on top of him in the few seconds where every sense was overwhelmed with a sense of being thrown like a fast ball, but able to land on his hooves the moment they arrived. The buildings were tall in every direction around him, but to the East, the shoreline was only a block away. Postal Square. It took him a few moments to realize what intersection they were at, the last time Meathead was here, he was cruising in the backseat of Nate's car, looking out the window.

The historical brick buildings were awash with building debris, old barricade facades, and ocean erosion creeping upwards, There were signs of people come through here often and recently, but now all deserted overnight. All that remained was a supermutant on a crucifix, strung up with metal cables, pulled so tight against the skin it was leaving purple bruises in the skin, like a snake coiled around and around, wrapped in layers and sucked into the flesh until the rest of the skin buldged out. Signs of a fight, a surprise attack on a group of super mutants, slaughtered here in Postal Square. The others laid dead, shot and cut down. “Mona's this way.” Athena said, leading them to a waterfront park adjacent to the plaza. Mona the pony-sized Wendigo, was staring at a object out in the bay. She had darker blue, almost black, fur. were an extension of a face plate protecting her forehead and eye sockets.

She was from Equis, quadrupedal in nature, but she was standing on her rear hooves to look even further across the water.

When she turned she spoke, “Of Constant Sorrow.... I Find Myself..., you however, are quite likeable for a changeling, you realize that, don't you?” Athena raised Nate off Meathead's back, bringing him closer to Mona. “The stability of thousands are put at stake.” She tilted her head, and her eyes glowed white. “The ghouls no longer contained from the Glowing Sea are already pouring out, and hundreds of them have wandered towards me to now remain under my control, making my herd that much larger. So I am to offer my gratitude.” Bandages and wrappings around Nate's arm were undone in Mona's magic, everything suspended in the air. The deathclaw skin and hand, the salvaged radiation suit, Nate's own flesh and muscle were unraveled and spread out like a spider making the edges of a web.
“We need to come to an agreement on how to keep the herd number stocks up. I can't have synths, Meathead, there's no emotion. These mutants the Institute I feed on are loathe of rage when they do not have an outlet to quench their laborious anger.” Mona stretched Nate's arm muscles and nerves, blood vessels, shattered bones, and spread them out down along this web, everything down to the marrow to Nate's shoulder-joint, his blood and DNA were on display for everyone to see. “When we're finished with our conversation, you will kill Super Mutant's who've ascended in intelligence beyond my control. They plan their own raids, kill who they want, are more vicious, and are getting out of their pens. Kill the Alphas that stand above the rest, or slaughter them all, I celebrate their deaths with as much jubilee as you. Meathead and Athena watched as Nate's finger and arm bones were reknit,
“I want ponies, Meathead. Anything worth fighting over anymore amounts to a bloated corpse attracting us gulls. I want fresh meat, but you need it. There's more. You and I are alike in that we need emotions to survive, There's ones who wont do as I say. It may surprise you but I've kept communities out of mutant's perception out of their sight, out of mind. A human growing up with a healthy fear of the world...to never trust mutants...to always fear is much more simple.” The deathclaw arm and hand unraveled as well. The changeling resin unbinding, skin fibers down to a single thread. Broken, black, infected, burnt, shards of bone, melted skin, and bad blood were discarded as Mona pulled from what was available. Nate's forearm and wrist was mangled and shredded, but everything was pulled out to fine thread fibers, then coiled, and re-knit together. The claw was disassembled, the arm, the wrist and palm, rebuilding Nate's own arm and hand. Like a needle pulling tiny threads, with the percision of a spider weaving together, the deathclaw and Nate's arm were seamlessly fit together from the skin of the shoulder meeting hard-as-leather shell.
“The weak inherited the Earth, lo that is a truth, the truly weak and pathetic inherited the Earth while all the good, strong men died. There aren't many like Nate left. It's a shame you can't make a human like that anymore, we just get to piece together and build with what's left.” The spiderweb of nerves and blood were all bundled up again, his hand and fingertips were thick and descended down into the deathclaw limb. From the shoulder down, his arm was thicker and hand larger, and his fingers were fat like overstuffed sausages. His fist was the size of a cinderblock and still wickedly sharp claws at the fingertips. “Do this for me, and Nate won't unravel. Athena, you've kept tabs on the mutants who need to be removed from this world. They become stationary after gaining a following of mutants behind them, and are easy to locate; Like packs of wolves sticking to their own territory.” Mona looked Meathead up and down, head gaze from the tip of his horn to his hole covered chitin hooves.
“”
“You're a predator, Meat.” Mona stated, “You killed a member of my race: I feel threatened by you. I would be remiss if I didn't deal with a threat.”

\111/

Flying was the last thing Meathead wanted to push himself through, but his mind was on the giant tasks of a short list, so flying didn't bother him. The meeting with Mona, Athena, and Nate's departure with Athena was rolling around in the free space in the part of his brain not busy staying alive in the Glowing Sea. Athena and Nate left North to deal with a mutant named Hammer, Mona sent Meathead south to deal with Savage. He and Nate were tasked with killing several intelligent mutants, but this was something he needed to take care of now, or it would never get done. It'd been biting him in the ass ever since he killed the Wendigo of the Glowing Sea, now he could feel a storm of emotion on the horizon coming towards him. Him specifically. It felt like the announcement went out, and he was the unknown force of nature that killed an even bigger monster. Seems that Athena and Mona weren't the only ones to notice they killed a Wendigo and coming to investigate. Emotions were funny like that, but he felt like a satellite dish taking in all the confusion, worry, and mistrust, and sending out pride, heroism, and happiness.

The Glowing Sea beneath him, narrowing down the rogue scientist's location closer to the epicenter of Ground Zero than Nate or himself would've first originally thought.

He had no idea where his friend was right now. Mona was feeding off Nate, hiding him. With Athena, but the mare was straddling a greater line he was sure he began to see. Athena could find people and ponies just as easy as he could.

She could do it alot faster than him, too.

\111/
On the southern side of Ground Zero was the steep rolling mountains of the Medfield State Forest, Meathead felt a small blip on his emotional radar of paranoia, worry, anger, mistrust, and boredom. It seemed much more on par for a rogue scientist on the run from a institution known for sending out teams of emotionless killing machines, and kept on the course all the way to the steps of a small cave with a collated metal roofing acting as a door, with rags and sand bags around the edge. Coated in pine tar, the entrance was sealed as well as it could be, but fairly obvious from the footsteps left in the dirt, that something was living here.

Meathead drew in a breath and then exhaled, picking up his hoof and rapping it against the metal siding, he shouted out, ""

There were stings of metal cans strung up around the door to act as chimes to alert whenever something came into the cave. Meathead lifted his hoof and shook one, hearing the marbles and metal bearings inside rattle and shake. "" He repeated.

There was movement at the back of the cave, heavy footsteps, and the tell-tail sound of a ray-gun powering on. A patch of dirt crumbled away, a rock was removed to see the outside, and two dark amber eyes stared at Meathead in his prone Changeling form.

"Hold it, take it nice and slow..." The rogue scientist said, easing out of his protective rock cover. Instead of any protective suit, stood a super mutant, dressed in a stained, white tattered shirt, brown stitched pants, wearing glasses with cracked lens. "No sudden moves..." Behind him, a protectron and turrets were wired up and ready to defend the rogue, in a place where all other forms of technology and human existence was barren. "I don't know what you are, but you're from the Institute, aren't you?! So where's Kellogg? Huh? Trying to sneak up on me while you distract me?" The mutant shouted, "Well it's not going to work!" The scientist focused on Meathead, finger on the trigger.

"" Gesturing to his saddlebag, he didn't move, waiting on the scientist's reaction before attempting any magic or movement.

"I'm not stupid, I knew they'd send him after me."

"" Meathead repeated himself again, slowly drawing the gun up, and holding it by the barrel, he passed it off to the mutant.

"Dead? He's dead? Don't you lie to me!" He said, gripping the magnum and aiming it at Meathead. The gun was empty, but Meathead failed to mention anything about it being loaded.

"" Meathead said.

"Kellogg was ruthless...There's a reason why the Institute used him to do their dirty work for so many years. I knew they'd send him after me; tried to prepare for it. But, still wasn't sure I'd make it. I knew about the Glowing Sea and the Windigo, how once I disappeared I'd be all but impossible to follow."

""

"I noticed the moment it was dead, like a breath of fresh air passed over the whole landscape. So, you're responsible for that too?"
""

"The Institute Unicorns kept an active tracking log of all 107 Windigos across the continent, and you just killed one of them. You do realize that you've only doomed yourself further by drawing that type of attention."

""

"Windigos exhibit thaumatic properties much like a black hole. From the observable outside, entire regions from satellite scans go dark. What you did was just wipe the fog off a map and shined a light on the place that was once completely dark. It may take a few days, it may take a month, but eventually, someone will notice that the counter dropped from 107, to 106.
A scan of the entire continent using old pre-war computers and satellites, someone will find the little blip of a map that makes up the Glowing Sea and come to investigate. Not just the Institute, but anyone outside the Commonwealth and beyond with the technological capabilities. If Kellogg's dead, the Windigo's dead, and you found me, what do you want?"

""

"Like the Brotherhood of Steel, the New California Republic, the damn Warlords from the West, the Empress! Anyone with enough brain cells to rub together to see that there's a whole chunk of wasteland up for grabs now that the only thing preventing incursions, is dead!"

""

"There were three. Maybe you noticed the one in Trinity Tower?"

""

"It roams around, as Windigos are want to do. There are eight in New York, but that hasn't changed in many years. One in Providence...a few around Philidelphia, and one left in D.C. More to the north, more to the south, this planet was a beacon for Windigos before and after the Great War. Killing one is enough to draw unwanted attention."

"”
“The Brotherhood of Steel.”
“"

"That's asking a lot."

""

"You're crazier than I am if you want to get into the Institute." The rogue scientist rambled, agitated at the thought. "Are you insane? Never mind how nearly impossible that is, if you did get in, it would certainly end in your immediate death. What reason could you have for possibly taking this kind of risk?" Paranoia from lack of any sort of contact was identifiable in his voice, it'd been quite a while since the scientist spoke to anyone at all.

""
"A friend? You're...whatever you are, you must be a mutated pony spat out by the Glowing Sea...You're doing all this for a friend?"
""
"I can get you in there, but I want two things in return."
""
"Yes. Before I made my escape, I was working on a serum that would serve as a cure for my...condition. I wasn't able to bring it with me. It's still in my lab...and well, look at me, I need it." the rogue said, finally a de-escalation in his voice could be heard.
""
"For you not to kill me."
""
"How will this work?"
""

\111/

From the surface is ten feet of dirt and pipes, followed by the sewers running directly through the CIT campus. Fifteen feet from the surface was the outer concrete shell of the Institute. Beneath five-feet concrete, there was a magical-electric current surrounding the entire Institute in a perpetual-shield powered by the main nuclear reactor, preventing any unscheduled teleportations in and out of the Institute. From 20ft. below the surface, to 80 feet was the entirety of the Institute. Spreading out for five hundred feet in every direction from the center, the bunker complex housed offices, residental areas, meeting rooms, recreation, water purification, classrooms, workout centers, and storage rooms spread between the first, second, and third floors. The Institute was circular in design, with the center concourse being open to allow subterranean trees and fauna to grow in a terrarium park-like setting. There was an elevator that lead to the Institute Director's office, only accessible from either the main concourse, or the teleportation Molecular Relay on the first floor. Each floor was a ring, with many windows all looking inward to the terrarium.

Synths and scientists were always walking the hallways, most always armed, except for at night in their residential areas. Above the doors to each stairwell access point on each floor was a laser turret built directly into the wall. Above the residential access areas were more turrets, with a noticable lack of turrets in the reception, meeting, office areas, primarily patrolled by synths and occupied by humans and ponies during 'working hours'.
Earth ponies were taught math, science, engineering, and theory, being the number crunchers for formulas and putting their brain to use when they lacked horns or wings, or put to use physically expanding the Institute underground.
Pegasus were taught to cultivate water, disperse chemicals and test biological components on organic matter, electrical, wiring turrets and lights in hard to reach places.

Each Institute unicorn pony was trained to cast a magical bolt of energy, allowing them to stun or incapacitate foes. They were taught to lift and manipulate multiple objects which he, and finally, expand any relevant arcane studies to become more powerful as an individual.

On the bottom floor, at four intervals around the circular floor, was an access point to the four main labs. At the Northwest section was the Advanced Systems Lab. Workshops where Institute weapons were developed, or imbued by unicorns to add to the Institute's arsenal. While the weapons imbued by unicorn magic are immensely powerful, they need to be recharged every few days to retain their properties, otherwise the entire weapon's integrity quickly degrades. These weapons were outfitted to the Synth army, over four hundred synths waiting, all ready to activate at the push of a button. There were only twenty scientists and ponies in this section.

Connected to the Avanced Systems area was the Reactor Core, operating on Auxiliary Generators, the new main reactor core was missing a crucial component, the Beryllium Agitator, to cold-start a nuclear reaction. This would supply the Institute with all its energy needs, and provide unlimited electricity for the next several millennia. This fact was well known throughout the Institute, as the complex was occasionally prone to blackouts due to power draws.

\111/

Next to the Advanced Systems Laboratory, was the Synth Retention Bureau. With the development of advanced synthetic humans, many developing complex personalities, came the desire to escape servitude and slavery under the Institute's rule. Less than ten people working in this area, they were responsible to limit synths ability to think freely, act, and feel independent of outside commands. The purpose of the S.R.B was to wipe templates and repurpose the synths after being recovered by coursers. Ponies working in this section disliked working for the director, Justin Ayo, because of the subservient attitude that was expected of them.

Next to the S.R.B. was the lifeblood of the Institute, the Institute Robotics laboratory, connected to Old Robotics chambers that were sealed up with combat robots left in the dark to conserve energy, all robots and synths were created in this grand chamber. The assembly line was able to produce one synth every hour, before being sent to processing to be uploaded memories and task functions. Thirty people and ponies worked here, producing synths all day to be sent to the surface or work elsewhere in the Institute.

Finally in the Circle was the Bioscience Division, where most of the food was grown, and non-unicorn ponies worked. Creating a perfect temperate climate that was suitable for optimum year-round growing conditions. Dozens of people, ponies and synths worked in this area. Connected to the Bioscience lab was finally Brian Virgil's FEV Lab. Leaving a trail of destruction in his wake, a fire was lit and synths were destroyed in his escape attempt to divert attention and draw personnel away from their stations for the brief moments Brian Virgil needed to get through the Advanced Systems lab, to the reactor, and finally to the access terminal which would only allow access to anyone during an emergency.
This fire he cause released a electromagnetically locked door opening to the Public Works Maintenance area, and let him swim his way to freedom through a flooded tunnel leading to the Charles River.
As Brian Virgil breached the surface, he pushed himself in a circle, looking around for the shore, shocked that he was finally outside for the first time in his life. Adrenalin coursing through his veins, he saw the tall dilapidated buildings around him, the border to the river, and the Ticonderoga building to the North of him.
\111/

Meathead sat there, face trembling. He and the Railroad were literally a stone's throw away from discovering the emergency access backdoor to the Institute. He saw everyone, all their faces, and counted, he saw the hallways and the offices, labs and cubicles, meeting rooms, and Brian's memories and emotions bleeding through to everything he remembered.

Gasping like he was drenched in icy-cold water, he saw Brian escape, and the weight of emotion tied to that specific memory. Meathead now knew the layout of the Institute, their forces, their access points, everything he would ever need to mount an offense against the Institute. One hundred and sixty. The number rang out in Meathead's brain. One hundred and sixty people make up the entire Institute. Four hundred synths ready at a moments notice, hundreds of protectrons in sealed, dark rooms that could be retreated to and powered on. Meathead salivated at the thoughts running through his mind. All the knowledge, all the risk.

\111/

""

"In theory and practical manufacturing, yes. Absolutely. But... In application... highly unlikely. The FEV mutates the body's cells, altering cognitive functions and thought processes. After time, humans affected by the FEV exposed to a counter virus could potentially revert back, but...there's no data of what might happen. All the results would be venturing into uncharted waters. Time affects mutants as well, their muscular stature, their frames, bone density, brain neurons...the list goes on and on. Everybody that's been living above ground for the last two centuries is already drastically more prone to FEV and more likely to survive the transformation process, with more radical effects to their psyche and conscious. Older mutants gather and retain information better, and may be more suitable to testing, but while as I dosed myself with a modified version, I'm a misnomer in my own data. If you're planning what I think you are, then yes, it could turn humans back to normal, but they might not remember who they were, let alone return them to exactly who they were before being exposed. Like I said, this is all uncharted territory. If you manage to get my serum, I will spend the rest of my life creating the cure, perfecting it, working on it, tweaking it, until every mutant is turned back into human. I am part of the cause that allowed super mutants to keep on being created, unleashing genocidal monsters on humans. I deserve to die, but not until I've finished the serum to counter the FEV."

""

"Not many people know about it, but the unicorns were able to guide the Institute in creating a shielded teleporter. Without the keyed signature, you're not getting in or out. If you do get in without the key, you get shuttered to a prison cell. Certain ponies can attune themselves to it. They call it the Molecular Relay. I don't know all the science behind it, but it works. Now, you ever seen an Institute Courser?"

""

"Yes. But, I see your horn. Trying to get information from an Institute Unicorn, if you caught one, they could easily trick you into attuning your teleportation matrix to the wrong frequency, and you'd never know. You'd be shuttered to the prison cells as fast as you could blink. Without the coursers chip, you're out of luck. The Coursers, they're hunters, if someone like myself goes rogue, a synth goes missing, operations go wrong, a Courser is dispatched. They're very good at what they do, and are imbued with magical energy to make them resistant to just about everything you can throw at it. You'll have to kill one if you want to get inside the Institute."

"" Meathead asked, Virgil's grin upturned.

"They do not. Every Courser has special hardware that gives them a direct connection to the Relay in the Institute. It's embedded in their skulls. They haven't sent one after me yet, and sitting around here waiting for one to show up isn't the most appealing idea either. I don't know where you can find one, but the primary insertion point for Coursers is directly above the ruins of the CIT. Now, the Relay causes heavy interference across the EM spectrum. You'll need a radio, or a Pip-boy capable of tuning into numerical frequencies to the second decimal. When you get to the ruins, tune to the lower end of the spectrum, and you'll be able to hear the interference. Follow the signal, and it'll lead you directly to a Courser."

""

"I created what I am, and am responsible for creating hundreds of super mutants. Before the Gen. 3 synths, we were experimenting with FEV to build synthetic DNA. I learned there was nothing more to be gained or learn from making more mutants. Without me, their progress in creating super mutants will stall, and in time, my lab will be sealed up along with the rest. My small sacrifice to stop their pursuit of conquest over the surface will only slow them down for a short time. It didn't stop them from stripping the rest of the world away down to nothing."

""

"Looking around. I don't know if I understand as well as you do." Brian said, outside of his cave was a forest of dead trees, mostly knocked over or barren matchsticks that were still standing. There was a small irradiated creek, but it wasn't a bother to the mutant Brian turned himself into in order to survive.

This side of the hill was facing away from ground zero, so while marginally spared from the initial blast, it was the follow up wave of heat that scorched the earth.

""
"What? Why? There's no way they would trust me, there's no reason why I wouldn't be suspected for every action I took. There's no reason why they would want me back."

"Oh, there's plenty of reasons why they would want you back, but we need a spy on the inside. Getting them to believe you're worth more alive than dead is the trick. Before you left, what was the Institute after? We know they send out groups of synths, but if we jump their gun, and you find technology, or weapons, or people that would be of greater interest to the Institute, you can bargain that your degrading sanity caused by the FEV is interferring with your mind. That you need to get access to your lab and continue working to reverse the process. Top it off with the cherry, that if you continue your work, then you cold provide a failsafe for every member of the Institute against an outbreak of FEV, if it were to ever get out and spread.>"

Brian Virgil was silent for a few moments, clearing cobwebs out of his mind, trying to think of who, or what would interest the Institute enough to where he could gamble with his life in such a way. The serum failsafe against the FEV alone would be enough to get them to reconsider, but not enough to ensure his safety from suspicion. "I do not like your plan, but they have familiarity with me. I caused alot of damage during my escape, and finishing my work on the serum wouldn't guarantee they wouldn't dispose of me when I finished."

""

"There was, I spoke with the Director of the Institute, but he denied to shut down the lab."

""

Brian took off his cracked glasses and wiped his face, sitting down on the rocky ground.

"There are a few things...Dr. Madison Li heard through one of her contacts about a research project on reactor efficiency in University Point. She leads the Advanced Systems for weaponry, along with her assistant, a Pegasus by the name of Rock-it O' Risk-it. Rock-it is weapons' smart, but not tactical. Doctor Li and Rock-it were so convinced that this efficiency data for the Institute's power needs, that an entire platoon of synths were sent to University Point after learning about this from one of the caravans informants. The whole situation was handled terribly, from what I heard. The synths swept through the town, and the town turned in on itself trying to kill the person who first told our informant about the data she discovered. The synths wiped out the rest of the settlers and scoured the university from top to bottom, but never found anything."

""

"There was talk of a hard drive, or a mention of it, but since coming out into the Commonwealth, I deduce whatever was discovered there, it must've been a note, talking about the notes. Like a book series that references all the answers you seek are explained in the next volume. Maybe the settler stole themselves away with the hard drive, or hid themselves where the synths couldn't find it. Terribly unobservant, the Gens 1 and 2. They're one's and zero's compared to the Gen 3's. Either way, Madison Li is extremely vocal, Rock-it is enthusiastic like her mentor, but once won over, they both could damn well be on my side if given the research data."

""

"She and the rest of the Institute are rampant about finding the Byrillium Agitator to start the Institute's reactor, it would solve all their power problems for the next thousand years, they could teleport themselves anywhere in the United States and beyond if they had that, it would make the Institute nearly unstoppable. The shield I mentioned, it draws a lot of power, the creation of synths draws just as much. Top it off with the teleporter, and you're faced with time management power consumption issues that lead to blackouts. To give them that, they would welcome me back, but then have no need of me. Whatever happens, the Institute can not get their hands on the Agitator. Otherwise, there's only one other possible avenue left that might get me back into their good graces."

""

"Then...Ayo. He's set his sights on a potential candidate to join the Institute, I can't remember his name, but I know where this man is. He and Holdren from Bioscience were interested in a man near Greygarden. A self-taught engineer, and chemist, who was spotted working alongside the Mr. Handy's there at the greenhouse gardens set up there. Persuading him to join undercover would net more results than just myself as a spy. Bringing on the man from Greygarden may be enough to sway Ayo. My return and movement around the Institute may be transparent to others after I return. I may be under surveillance. But a newcomer, with no previous affiliations or motives would likely to be remain undiscovered for a longer period of time. He would be a better candidate to act as a liaison and may outlive me should I go back and successfully integrate back into the Institute."

""

"Before I left, there was a known case of a Railroad sympathizer working within the Institute, he or she's been reaching out to the Railroad, sending messages, but the division leaders were doing nothing to investigate it. Maybe they already know who's sending them, or are apathetic to a single man's machinations, knowing the Coursers can retrieve missing synths, or feel like it's not a security risk with how little knowledge is being sent. For the wellbeing of the Institute's reasons, is they don't want to investigate, to put on a bold front that the entire Institute is united, and to probe would cause suspicion and uneasiness within. A third reason why the investigation isn't going anywhere, which at the same is most logical, because we're all too smart for our own good. Egotistical to say that, I know, but small colts and fillies to toddlers can figure out how to operate a computer, adults could do a lot more. To send a message to the outside world, it would need to be sent through one terminal that is re-routed to appear as if the messages were sent from a different terminal within the Institute, throwing off the investigation. Most personnel at the Institute, including myself have a solid understanding of how the computers work and operate, so to send out an encrypted message isn't all that difficult. It's fair to say whoever's sending the messages out knows how to cover their tracks as well, making an investigation all the more fruitless, unless the person was caught in the act. But, I, and the royal 'we' would need a location to send the messages to. There are Institute agents in the field who receive messages from the Institute, orders. Ayo would be able to track a message if it were sent, but he wouldn't be able to know who it was sent to, nor who sent it."

""

"Yes. A Pip-Boy would work, it may even be better than sending it to a terminal, where synths could be sent to the terminals receiving location, a Pip-Boy would be highly mobile."

""

"It sounds better than going back halfcocked and groveling to restore my sanity. I accept."

"" From Meathead's own saddlebags, he floated out his own Pip-Boy, and handed it off to Brian. “”
\111/

Author's Note

[A/N]: Thumbing through a copy of H.P. Lovecraft, Tales of Horror, only now do I realize how many references were pulled from his works and put into Fallout 3 & 4, The Dunwich Horror, Pickman's Muse, many other references.

Ch. 79 Shamrock Leighla

Author's Note

"All-right, Diamond City I think I got it. If you're looking for a way to keep out The Intruders, playing some of their loud music might scare or ward people and animals off. I haven't heard anyone coming in and telling me it's worked yet with humans, but... It works for Yao Guai, and those are pretty terrifying, so who knows? It might work in other scenarios. 'The Intruders, Cowboys to Girls'."

Ch. 79 Shamrock Leighla

One by one, ponies filed out of the Weatherby Tower heading different paths but in the same direction. Hollow Point, Serin Copper, and Warner left towards Haymarket Square as Golden Grain, Dart, Cherry Fizz, with Curie in the rear led by Thunderstruck went North towards Bunker Hill.

Following far behind each group was a Giddy-up Buttercup, which Thunderstuck noticed on her first overhead pass flying back towards the group to check their rear.

Their goal and destination were someplace they hoped to dig in for winter. Three to four hours at a steady pace, they would reach Concord sometime after mid-day.

\111/

The Copper Dome of the Massachusetts State Courthouse overshadowed the Old State House Goodneighbor built itself around.

It'd taken him most of the night, but walking blindly in the dark he made it to the North End before it got light enough to see the Copper Dome and use that as a bearing until he walked right underneath the posted gate sentry of Goodneighbor. The sentry didn't even notice Hancock standing right underneath him until the tired ghoul took the butt of his rifle and slammed it against the tin siding, tapping loudly, "You, sleeping?"

"Holy smokes!" The sentry said after being startled, "It's Hancock!"

\111/

The return of Hancock caused a small stir as he entered the Third Rail, by the time he was walking down the steps, already a group of four people was following him, all of them offering to buy a drink, but waving most of them off. "I ain't even been back five minutes, I haven't even sat down yet, so what I should be doing is finding the yahoos I left in charge while I was gone, and nursin' a giant bottle of brown bourbon and sour mix-" was what most people in the Third Rail heard as he went straight back to the V.I.P. section.

"That's it for me," Deacon said,

"You still have an outstanding debt, no matter how many times you change your face, I recognize your voice." Whitechapel Charlie said.

"And I pay a piece of that tab every time." Deacon said, laying down a tower of caps from his coat pocket and placing them on the bar, he knocked them over with his ring finger, scattering them behind the counter. "Oops, well, gotta run. Money's...here and there...and there..."

\111/

Ice was a rare commodity in the Commonwealth, so much so, that Hancock didn't even have an ice maker in the Old State House, the Third Rail was the only bar from here to Diamond City with a machine to have the ice cubes churned out.

As Hancock sat there sipping on a glass of bourbon sour on the rocks, he thought of how nice it would be to have ice anytime, anywhere. He was making a mental note to find more ice makers, eyes on the ceiling, legs splayed out, arms wide open, taking up the whole couch, the coolness of the glass spreading up his fingers and easing the hotness in his heart, and every sip, his chest was tempered with damp heat that made him sink in a little bit deeper when a dark figure approached from below his vision.

He closed his eyes, recognizing the figure, savoring the last gulp before addressing the person standing in front of him.

"Back so soon?" Fahrenheit asked, when Hancock left, it was she who ended up handling the Neighborhood Watch, along with dealing with traders and business fees.

Gulping, Hancock sighed, "Just came back for a pit stop," he said. Sitting upright, Hancock took another sip and then spoke to Fahrenheit. "Tell one of the guys to ask Betsy or Revere if they ever heard about a Unicorn named Athena. One with a Severed-woman's head, with snakes for hair marking on her flank, magenta coat, red mane."

"You wanna tell me what happened in private? Or keep this conversation open to the bar?" She asked, feeling the sensation that others were listening in.

"Nah, it's fine. Heck of a walk. Feel like I'll be on my way again soon enough."

"What happened to the person you left with... And his dog?"

"Hold up right now. Sleeping the last two days off."

"Is this conversation open?" Deacon asked, approaching the duo.

"Depends," Fahrenheit replied.

"Let him," Hancock said, waving Deacon towards a bar stool.

"Heard you were down in the Glowing Sea. See anything interesting?"

Hancock rolled his eyes up, head back, and laughed, taking another sip he settled back into the couch, "First, Deacon, grab a seat, not too close, I'm still radioactive-hot. You look like you just got thrown a bone...well, Deac's? Where'd ya' bury it?" Hancock titillated, knowing how this conversation of give and take was supposed to go.

"I heard you mention a name, Athena. Three months after Nuka-World was taken over, the number of ponies around here just sorta dropped off real-quick. Plenty of parties noticed quickly that shipments between Diamond City and Nuka-World dropped off. A year ago, there used to be regular caravan trains- whole trains of twenty-thirty ponies. Remember that? You weren't there in Diamond City... Anyway, there are as many wild marauding ponies out there that are as deprived of childhood as any other raider. Athena, I hear, is a marauder from Nuka-world. Not just a raider, but an organized one. So whatever she's planning, it's in her own best interest."

"Fucking dandy. Where do these ponies and things come from anyway?" Hancock saw Deacon and Fahrenheit about to ask what happened the last few days,

"Equestria." Deacon said, "But there were Vaults and bunkers all around America sheltering ponies all the same. The closest one I know of would've been Vault 97 over in Springfield."

Hancock made a low "Hmmm," noise with his throat, "Yeah."

"A few hours ago, Tom and I dug this hunk of rock growing out of a ghoul's body, see anything like it down in the Glowing Sea?"

"A few, after we killed this big damn beast down there. What's so special about the rock you wanted to show it to me?"

"Takes about two to three ballistic bullets before integrity shatters it, so it provides minimal protection against gunfire, but it is amazingly reflective and absorbing of laser and plasma weapons. We shot at it for a bit, and you can see there are some black marks on it, but hardly any divots or scorch marks burned out."

"So whatcha need?"

"More of these things. You know why they started popping out of the ground like zombies?"

"Yep. That Windigo thing was feeding off them, keeping them all like penned-up cattle. Hypnotized or brainwashed or something. Killing him came with the unfortunate side effect of more fucking ghouls to deal with."

"I probably would've run."

"This wasn't something we could've outran. It's not something most living creatures would be able to outrun, Deacon. Nate's the only one who's killed these things before. He said it could be done. I didn't believe him at first, but...we blew it the fuck apart and cooked its insides black, and even then I'm still not convinced it wont come back for a third round to try something again. That isn't even the whole fight, but God, all I can say is that we were damn lucky."

"Is Nate hurt?"

"Yeah. Pretty Bad."

Deacon drew in a deep breath, handling the chunk of moldavite. "What's next?"

"Then what? Nate had plans, something I haven't had in a long time," Hancock mentions.

"Did you see any groups of feral ghouls with these crystals growing out of them?"

"Dozens, If you want to do another expedition to the Glowing Sea, great. That's fine. I'll pass this time around, I'm not eager to go back in already. You wanna try luring ghouls out of the Glowing Sea? Keep it simple. Use lights, noise, big bangs, and boomy noises that get them all stumbling, shambling out, and you'll get all the crystals you want, just watch out you don't call any deathclaws or radscorpions along the way because those are what'll get you when you're not ready."

"How bad is the Glowing Sea?"

"There's a radscorpion Queen's nest somewhere between the North edge and Ground Zero. Irradiated streams along the east side seem to draw the ghouls and creatures that survive in that place toward the water. Turns out everything still needs a drink... those that could move anyway. Dried dirt and their tunnels send vibrations down through footsteps into the ground, and that's what they feel to use to hunt." Hancock patted his pockets, remembering a bunch of plants folded up in his coat pocket.

They were folded over in a bag, "Here, I almost forgot. Plantlife from the Glowing Sea, it'll do the Railroad a lot more good studying this than I'll get out of it. Nate was suggesting the same thing about getting it to a spot where it could be properly looked at. Careful though, the bag's hot, and I'm hot, heh...I think that's why I'm craving ice for the first time in a long time."

Deacon gingerly took the bag and placed it on the table, "Sounds like quite the expedition down there."

"Well, cheers then. To the Glowing Sea. You never know what it'll spit out."

"Cheers, Hancock."

\111/

The ponies were in two close groups, with Thunderstruck as overwatch, keeping an eye on their path ahead and circling to check their rears.

The morning tasks and meetings with Mayor Kessler at Bunker Hill and Rathen at Haymarket Hall separately ensured a caravan was sent South to Shaia at Mass Health Metro. The cost of a caravan was paid for and armed by bartering guns from the Constitution. They asked which roads were clear, hanging around the merchant's den for a few minutes to listen for the morning gossip, and were cautioned how a colorful, large group like themselves might draw attention.

The streets were busier and lively, with lots of creatures along the waterfront this morning, everything watering up for the day. Good for a hunt, but not so good if you're not prepared.

They left as they came, in two groups. Walking under an overpass, Westbound from Bunker Hill, Thunderstruck flags their attention, Golden Grain, Dart, Cherry Fizz, and Curie come to a stop, as Hollow Point, Warner, and Serin Copper wave back, signaling to her.

She landed with Hollow Point's group, "We're about to intercept a group of robots. There are six robots that I spotted coming out of East Boston while we were in Bunker Hill, they've been moving parallel to the river on the other side this whole time, but they're moving faster than we are and one of their floating ones just crossed the closest bridge in front of us. I hate to think they're here for us, but the big tank rolling around is what concerns me most."

"Do we arm up, or take cover?" Dart asked.

"Take cover, they're moving fast and will be on us any second. Get into cover, everyone carrying tools, keep low, everyone else grabs a weapon and stay quiet. The moment we pass the corner of that next building, they'll be in sight."

\111/

The ponies were all directed East and told Thunderstruck to run as she flew above them. A band of robots was coming down into Cambridge from the North, all that separated the two groups from being spotted was a line of buildings from a mini-mall complex, with plenty of open space across the parking lots, a bus, and some old cars. A few leaning lamp-posts and tall weeds separated them from waist-high cover.

From her viewpoint, while her attention was on the group, she became aware of a third group that they were about to run into. Humans, scrappers, from what it looked like, and more robots. There was a pony and a brahmin hauling loads of metal and scrap, but there were two minutes where Thunderstruck was the only person who saw all of these groups moving towards each other.

As a rule, she didn't know who was a threat or not, and directed her group away, circling behind the mini-mall cluster of buildings, but as the scrappers saw the ponies, the robots saw the scrappers.

The eyebot identified targets, transmitting data back to the tank bot, protectron, assaultron, swarm bot, and Mr. Gutsy.

From the Eyebot's speaker, the message came, "You are a threat to the Mechanist!"

"The What?" Zoe shouted, unsure but firing her laser rifle at the swarm bot coming straight for her.
Of the three humans, there was Zoe, a caravan guard. She was hired to protect Shades, a merchant specializing in tech and bots, and Jackson, the mechanic merchant who was able to repair and operate machines of his own, and program them to protect the caravan. Jackson built and maintained old-world robots if there were parts, but it was the guardians themselves that drew the eyebot's attention. They wouldn't be after the brahmin or the stallion, they were just pack animals, he noticed. Not a single shot was fired in their direction unless provoked back. That's where Ada, a modified assaultron, came in. If any other reason, he was sure it was Ada that somehow triggered the robot's proximity threat sensor.

For years this arrangement worked, but in the last two weeks, Jackson couldn't help but wonder if he was better off abandoning the robots, that if in some way, attracting the attention of this band of robots not just once, but three times since leaving the Boston Airport. They'd spent a decent amount of time looking over the cockpits of old planes and rooting around the terminal for parts. They knew of the mirelurk population close to the water's edge but were caught off guard by the sound of different robots suddenly appearing and attacking them.

It was a terrifying thirty seconds, as they fought and blasted away rounds through metal, while they fired laser beams back, or were armed with ammo, or rockets, blades, and electric batons, while they were able to blast their way out of the Boston Airport with an excessive amount of force, it was necessary just to survive at the cost of most of their electric weapons and explosives.

Jackson meant to lead the group West, towards the interstate of Massachusetts where guns and ammo were even more plentiful outside of the major cities and suburbs, where ordinances on guns, rifles, and the like were much more relaxed. There were plenty of towns that were abundant with what they needed since Diamond City was too expensive to both do business in and be a customer simultaneously.

With that in mind, he felt confident about reaching a haven, but it was that second evening a fresh batch of six robots tracked them down and attacked them as they were setting up camp for the night. Liza, another guard, was killed while reloading her rifle.

Now they were being run down into the dirt. Shades was yanking at the brahmin's ropes' trying to get her to move as the yellow stallion, Hertz Donut, was close to bolting with half a load of supplies barely tied down. Shades, Liz, Jackson, and their three combat bots protect the cargo.

Ada was the only robot capable of dealing with an Assaultron since he spent as much time programming and building, as he did scavenging and traveling. The fast-moving, teal-coated with a red glowing eye to take in its surroundings and fire a laser as well as the standard for every assaultron, but these looked fresh out of the factory, with no dents or dings.

The Tankbot was spinning up a mounted cannon attached to its arm, and the echo of bullets ripping through metal, concrete, dirt, and brush was all around them.

Jackson's fingertips felt numb, fumbling with his gun as he wrapped his finger around the trigger and squeezed to counter back. Twice he felt two small objects slam into his chest, blocked by thick pads, but the force knocked him backward onto the ground. His chest seized up in pain, cracked ribs for sure, but he couldn't rely on the others to finish the fight without him. Dragging himself behind a wrecked car, he readied his weapon again.

Liz reaches into a pouch on her leggings, grabbing out her only Pulse Grenade. Gripping the handle, she needed to aim and time this correctly. Heaving the grenade, it clanged once off the side of the Mechanist Assaultron, before exploding in a ball of blue sparks encompassing it and the protectron.

While the Mechanist protectron burst into flames, its circuitry and hardware were completely cooked by the EMP, while the Assaultron was only walking slower. The machine was taking longer to register its surroundings.

Its response was to charge up a laser blast directly from its eye-laser cannon and sweep the field from left to right. The cylinders driving the dynamo core were audible as the power charged, whirring faster and faster until the bright beam of energy fired out, slicing through everything it touched.

Shades was cut down in two, Liz was able to throw herself down to the ground for cover after watching Shades be killed, only for the beam to sweep over her head moments later. The laser swiped through the brahmin's supplies, spilling them all over and across the ground, and trimmed the top of the mane for the pack pony Hertz who nearly had his head taken off.

The yellow stallion Hertz heaved his saddle off and scrambled for the brahmin. Laying on the ground next to the cow was a tank with a hose attachment on it, a welding torch they were using at the airport to cut through metal siding and beams, but Hertz knew how to operate it. Extremely dangerous, the tip nozzle could be tampered with to spray out a long jet of flame five feet long over 1000 degrees, and capable of melting tank armor.

Lighting the burner, the sparks made the torch flare up, the unicorn pressed the equipment away from himself, knowing that one stray blast could ignite him and everything within a 3-meter radius instantly to ashes.

The robots didn't know how to identify a floating flamethrower, because they were expecting an operator or human to be carrying it. The fire lancing through the air bore cuts straight through after glowing white hot, overloading the electronics with too much heat. The assaultron took ten seconds to burn through its helmet and fry the hardware, making the robot pop with a crackle of expanding metal under pressure bursting.

\111/

The ponies were almost tempted to leave the other merchant caravan be, Dart and Hollow Point were readying weapons in case the robots slaughtered the other caravan so quickly, that they turned on them next. Cherry Fizz and Warner were looking away from the battle, looking for possible routes out. Golden Grain was grabbing his rifle out of his things when he heard a whirring noise, like fan blades spinning, "Hey we-" He didn't even finish, as floating above him, flying right on by and aiming straight for Curie, the mechanist's eyebot scanned and identified the Miss Nanny bot and belted out its message once again, "You are a threat to the Mechanist! prepare to be neutralized-" It fired once, twice, missing both times as it struck the wall and ground in Curie's direction.

Hollow Point flung herself at the floating eyebot, tackling it out of the air. The eyebot resisted franticly as its servos sped up to keep the both of them afloat before succumbing to the pull of gravity. Hollow Point tumbled to the ground, and as the eyebot tried to right itself and hover again, two stallions descended on it, stomping and bucking its case, crushing it, smashing the frame into bending pieces as the metal ripped apart.

\111/

From across the parking lot, the Mechanist sentry bot and swarm bot, the only two robots still functioning receive a series of commands, and then sweep over the area again. All the humans are downed, or as they perceived, [down]: out of commission, as Jackson lay there on the ground, painfully breathing, as Liz remained completely motionless, gun laying next to her, but in direct view of the sentry bot.

They turn towards the storefront of Watts Consumer electronics and start moving in that direction. Hertz is the only one unscathed, along with the brahmin who was shocked and unsettled from all the gunfire and loud noises, but he noticed the lack of interest the robots had in the four-legged animals, and the way they froze for a moment, suddenly interested in something else.

As the sentry bot rolled across the uneven cracked pavement towards the storefront entrance, a missile was launched from the first-floor window, directly down at the robot tank's treads.

Dart pulled backward the moment he fired, taking cover as his ears rang, and an explosive ball of heat and rubble erupted outwards, ripping the sentry bot's legs and body cover off, throwing the two tons of metal up into the air and flipping it down onto its side. A moment after the Mechanist's tank bot was destroyed, the swarm bot was taken out by a volley of lasers and bullets right afterward.

The entire block was deathly quiet as everyone held their breaths on their account, silently wondering and waiting if the fighting was done before a collective assessment agreed that the shooting had stopped.

\111/

Ada was at Jackson's side, the man painfully digs through his pockets for a stray dirty pill that he shoves in his mouth and chews on the dry powder, shuddering at the taste before pulling himself to a sitting position. He wheezes, feeling it painful to hold his head upright and take full breaths, he doggedly grabs at Ada's heels, then pulls himself up, using his robot for support.

"Hmm, cow...Shades..." He takes a moment, head still spinning as he takes in the aftermath.

Hertz notices Thunderstruck land close enough to Jackson to draw his attention, "Are you badly hurt?" She calls out.

He grabs at his side, "Thank you," he says as his eyes are drawn to Liz as she shakily comes to her feet, looking in all directions to make sure there aren't any errant robots, taking a step towards the motionless body of Shades, before reconvening back with Jackson. "But no, I'll live."

"We have to get out of the Commonwealth. Or go to Diamond City, or anywhere out of range." Liz says to Jackson, "Who are you?"

"I'm Thunderstruck, we're passing through, our paths collided, saw the robots, my group is on its way now. What happened to you? Why were those robots attacking?"

"They've been after us for three days! That's the third group. All the same," Jackson stated, working himself up. "A tank, a protectron, an eye bot, a floating drone swarm-bot, an Assaultron, and a Mr. Gutsy. All spouting that same message."

From the storefront, the trundles of ponies emerged, with most everyone moving West again, except for Dart and Cherry Fizz who broke away from the group, quickly striding over to speak with and introduce themselves.

Jackson watched the other caravan, noticing the Miss Nanny bot, in particular, he pointed out, "That's why...! The person behind these messages, I...I don't know why they're targeting humans and robots, but they came after my robots first, then us...Hertz! You got ahold of Ion still?" The stallion leading the brahmin nodded, bringing the cow over to the others.

"They never even looked at us," Hertz said,

"That's the third group," Jackson started, only to be cut off-

"We won't survive this again tomorrow," Liz says, "This isn't a coincidence- and where did you drop in from?"

"I've been watching them for the past two hours, keeping my group out of their sight," Thunderstruck said,

"The eyebot spotted Curie, played its message, and started shooting at it."

"I fear that the Mechanist is targeting robots," Ada concluded, "and as we speak...assembling another round of robots to send after us, and when they are successful at eliminating myself, and my traveling companions, followed by renewed interest in your Miss Nanny unit."

"Well, hell. We can't have anyone follow us, we can't just let Curie be tracked down and destroyed, we need to get her out of here, and keep moving." Dart said, looking back West, he saw the tail end of the caravan turning the corner around the street.

"I want to know, right now, does Curie have a target painted on her back?" Thunderstruck asked, looking around the circle, from Jackson, Liz, Hertz, Ada, Dart, and Cherry, no one said anything at first. "Our relationship with Nate depends on Curie, he needs her. That means we need to get her underground by tonight, hide her, and hope that when they come again, they pass on by, that they find nothing, and search somewhere else."

"We're just going to let them come?" Cherry Fizz asked,

"Only when they come," Thunderstruck clarified, "But that means we need to move faster. As for your caravan, do we part ways? Or, if you come with us, we may be able to help each other and come up with a solution to the Mechanist and her roving robots."

At times like this, when the group was painfully low on morale, and large decisions needed to be made, it was the captain of a ship or the caravan leader to make them. As much as he was parted, he nodded, "Our caravan...we need time to recuperate and find a way to deal with the Mechanist. If this is the third time in three days, I can only expect a fourth. We need to get off the streets."

"Then, when we're all done with this, we do some trading, how's that sound?" Thunderstruck asked, hoping to inject some good foresight into the dreary demeanors of Jackson's caravan.

"It sounds like a day that can't come soon enough," Liz said,

"Then let's make all the time count, then. Cherry, and Dart, see if there's anything they need help grabbing, otherwise, we may be expecting more robots by this time tomorrow. I'm going back up to keep overwatch."

\111/

If Nate was stuck with new features, Meathead reasoned, he would change as well and adapt the appearance, but at the same time, the thought of plain-looking Nora came up...until the image of her chest with a gunshot wound to it soured the memory. Despite people's reactions everyone else in this world was used to walking mutants, deathclaws, and a human with a permanent gauntlet attached might not stick out as much as he considered.

He spent a moment looking around the Boston skyline, wondering where Nate and Athena were.

Sensing Hancock and Deacon were both near, he discovered them in the Old State House and changed into Nate's new appearance, Deathclaw arm and all.

Meathead landed on the streets of Goodneighbor as quietly as a paper ball thrown off the roof and made his way inside the building.

"Nate?" Hancock asked, Deacon was stunned, seeing the gnarly appendage hanging off Nate's side, unsure of what to say.
"What happened to your arm?"

Meathead shook his head and Hancock got the message, "Oh,"

""

\111/

Deacon heard the words, but didn't pick up what Hancock was asking Meathead at first, Meathead turned to Deacon, mustering up energy for a grin, ""

"Yeah, that's great, but, Nate, what the heck happened to you? Where's...you know? What happened with the unicorn?" Hancock pressed.

"Yeah Nate, what's the word? What's the big secret? Are you a synth too? What the hey happened to your arm?" Deacon asked, "I mean, we all got big secrets, but what's so captivating you two?"

Meathead felt Deacon trying to be humorous, but for how he was feeling at that moment, it washed right over him, he chuckled, for Deacon's benefit. ""

"Show him the form-changing thing," Hancock said.

" Meathead said, feeling that Deacon was comfortable and eager enough to see if this was a ruse or not.

Sitting there was the German Shephard, and then after a few seconds, Meathead changed into a green unicorn with grey hair, but only furthering the demonstration, he changed into Deacon before realizing it struck a nerve, allowing a green wash of flames dispelled the illusion to his plain changeling self.

Sitting there in his skin, Meathead felt like steam was coming off the top of his shell, he looked down and saw that the bite mark was all green with his congealed blood. Still gooey, but otherwise mending. He hated to think that it was infected, but the warmth was abnormally hot and concentrated.

"Here I thought the dog was some secret Vault 111 experiment... a super smart dog and...hmm... I don't know what else I was thinking... Secret government army hunting dog...? I was way off... Nate. Or, what do I call you?"

"

"Alright, so...you can look like whoever you want, but...why Nate? Especially if there are two of you running around? I don't get your logic."

""

"So where's Nate now? I got one part of the story from Hancock, why were you a dog though? Back then? Before the war?"

"I told him most of it."

<"Well, as for Nate, we killed the Wendigo in the Glowing Sea, Nate was injured in the fight, we dragged him out, Athena showed up took us, we arrived somewhere along the waterfront, and we met the second Windigo in Boston. Her name is Mona, she did this to Nate.> He held us in his arm, letting the two of them examine the Deathclaw arm.

""

The ghoul took a big deep breath, exhaling, "Yeah, let me just go get a little high first before we do."

"Meat, I'm listening. The fact that you came to us with the synth-crow is the reason why we moved. We already trust what you have to say. The Railroad's got...you're well, Nate's back if you're going to keep looking like him. We're split between Vault 75 and 114, we got a phantom crew left in the Old North Church, but I'm willing to join you. I'm used to working solo. What do you have to say?"

"

Deacon looked out past the boarded windows and towards the Boston Common, through his sliver of vision, he saw a brown stallion and Drummer Boy loaded down to make themselves appear as merchants moving quickly for the gates of Goodneighbor.

"I'm expecting someone to be looking for us shortly, so this conversation will have to get wrapped up."

""

"Okay, so what'd she want?" Hancock asked.

""

"She sent you out with a kill list?"

"<Yep. I got mine, Nate's got his. So. God forbid, we cross paths with him sometime, didn't give us a time limit, but the sooner the better. Otherwise Deacon, here's the part the Railroad would be interested in. After all this! I was tired. Hancock, I saw you and I passed you and kept flying to the Glowing Sea to take care of this one thing. I found Brian Virgil. I found the Rogue Institute Scientist. I found him and I went to him."

"Hell Yeah," Hancock said.

"How's he managed to fight off the radiation for so long?" Deacon asked.

""

Deacon's hands went to his face, quickly ripping off his sunglasses and wiping his eyes, shaking his head and hoping he didn't hear the word right, "Damn it."

""

"What about it? What'd you learn?"

"<While I was with Brian Virgil, I asked him how he got out of the Institute. While there's a lot, you need to understand that Ticonderoga...the Railroad secret safe house, is right above their secret fire escape. So, Deacon...tell me how you wouldn't suspect or feel something knocking on your backdoor? Because Brian caused a fire inside the Institute, that disengaged the safety protocols on the escape safety door, which allowed it to open. Otherwise, the hydros and magnetic seal keep it permanently shut. When he came out, through a sewer tunnel leading to the river, the closest building he could recognize was Ticonderoga. I don't have any evidence to back up my instinctual gut feeling about Ticonderoga, but my senses are telling me that you need to clear that building and that it's not safe."

"Wait, no...You found the Institute's entrance?"

""

The more this conversation revealed, the more Deacon felt his pride hurt from lack of insight. Every time Nate or now Meathead came around, they openly dropped information that would've taken them weeks, if not months to discover. Deacon couldn't remember the day he first thought about the Institute, or even heard its name. The harder he tried remembering, the more he was drawn to the fact that they'd been looking for the back door to the Institute for longer than anyone could say, and Meat just revealed it to him.

"That explains so much of our losses...they've been tailing us from Ticon, which lead them to our other safehouses using the crows to expose our whole network. We need to shut it down."

Without warning, Deacon wrapped Meathead in a bear-like grip, the changeling felt Deacon's arms shiver as he felt both grateful towards him, and extreme self-loathing at the same time. "Oh my God, you don't realize how much you've helped us."

It only lasted a few seconds, before Deacon broke the grasp, "Thanks, bud,"

Deacon refreshed himself, going through the motions of processing all this when a knocking at the door came from a Neighborhood Watch Guard.

"In a meeting!" Hancock shouted, but there was more knocking at the door.

Hancock threw the bottle at the wall where it exploded into a rain of glass and dregs of alcohol, "We're in a damn meeting!"

"It's important!" Drummer Boy shouted through the door, "Deacon, we just got word of a big fight happening soon."

Deacon went to the door and opened it, "Drummer Boy, I'm wrapping this up,"

"It's synths at the Combat Zone, I just got word. Some raider clan caught three synths from one of our trains, beat our conductor to death, and they're already in the Combat Zone. They're setting up the whole street like some kinda demented fair, people are already showing up. They're going to get beat to death and then ripped apart. Or hell, I don't know, they might be forced to fight each other, or just keep fighting to the death, all I know...is that they're going to die unless we do something."

"Yeah...that sounds about right. That's a hot mess. Tell Dez I'm there...with: Code Red; Ticon is Blacklisted. Don't send anyone else there, everyone there is on their own. Got that? Priority. Ticon is compromised. I'll explain everything back at base, we'll get the synths, and I got Boston's finest with me. Right? Maybe?" He asked, looking over towards Meathead and Hancock, "Would you mind helping me out with this thing real quick? I promise that's all I need to take care of, I'll help you wherever you need."

""

"Yeah, I'm ready too, I need more ice for my drink."

\111/

It was a street fair, a throng of twenty people outside the Combat Zone, thirty more inside, with raiders and marauders all in their world. But the slave market crier selling collared three feral ghouls for sale, while another offered all arrangement of drugs for the upcoming fights. Two raiders pitted their guard ponies against each other in the street, two feisty earth mares clobbering each other with their hooves. While a small crowd watched cheering and placing bets, others held guard dogs, ready to pit them against each other next.

Some people were sitting on the ground next to the building, a few wares laid out, stolen twice, sold once. Showing off their best armor, the latest gear or the newest acquisition was bragging rights. One gang tried to capitalize and sell giant slabs of meat off brahmin cooking over a metal barrel spit.

A sign advertised 'Synths Fight,' Then in bolder letters, 'Til they Die,' Beyond the bouncer, everyone had to pay the cover fee for the night, 5 caps, no acceptions. Inside was booze, another drug vendor with more diversity and reliability that it wasn't cut with a filler agent, then the seats, balcony or auditorium, the matting was so old and decrepit, most chairs were broken, but still, plenty attempted to sit in what remained or stand to watch the fight.

Tommy Lonegan sat closest to the stage, in a padded chair brought down especially for himself, with a small writing desk covered with caps, bookie bets, papers of lists, and names, besides the armrest. Along with a few drinks, and a box of Addictol, it was perfect viewing entertainment after he announced the fighters.

Deacon, Hancock, and Meathead were a block down the street, on the rooftops after climbing up fire escapes to get a better view of escape routes, and amount of people, raiders, and marauders in the area.

"We need to stop the fight before everyone kills each other." Deacon said,

"Then everyone will be trying to kill us," Hancock said,

"" Meathead said, ""

"The place needs to be torn down," Deacon said.

"Then where would all these depraved suckers get their kicks? They'd probably take it down the road to the Highschool, and just keep on being deprived." Hancock said, "That bastard...Bosco. Remind me later I need to shove a grenade up his ass."

""

"Back exit door along with giant shutter they use for bringing in creatures and cages for fights, dirty dealing all in front, as you can see. Drinks upstairs, drinks downstairs, everyone you see is carrying some sort of weapon, the head honcho Tommy Lonegran, is a ghoul, and has been wearing old business suits from before the pre-war for years now. It's an old theater, so there's a lobby up front, and cages in the foyer too. The most scandalous thieves among thieves, the most perverted rapists, or other poor sobs dragged in off the street for whatever reason. But, as for synths, to spare them from getting shot before the big show, I think they would be put in the back, or down below. You can get upstairs seating with a staircase on the left, they built shacks, and booths, but everything all slopes down with seats aimed at the stage. Fighters and slaves are brought up from below backstage, and more combatants and better-off fighters come from the green rooms backstage. There used to be a catwalk, but the whole thing fell off the ceiling. There are four ways to the basement, one on stage, a cargo lift or a staircase in the back, and then a hatch from the street to the basement, but it leads directly to cages, so we would be stuck down there with whoever else is already down there."

"It might make a good escape route if the hatch doors are unblocked," Hancock said.

""

"Will do." Deacon said, "Got it," Hancock replied.

""

\111/

Meathead entering the Combat Zone from the roof took little enough effort, the decrepit theater was sinking in on multiple places on the roof, and as he knew, there was a fire escape hatch forgotten about built-in. Letting sneaking downstairs to the backdoor, and letting Deacon and Hancock in went remarkably fast, but five raiders working directly for the Combat Zone, these people allowed the callous carnival to continue. Beside Tommy Lonegran, there were tenders and caretakers to the creatures in the cells for the Combat Zone, Bruce, Terrance, and Parri were all apathetic bastards who didn't even feel thrills anymore watching blood splatter across the stage, sure they would cheer, but wheeling out the next fighter, and making sure they didn't starve, as little as they cared or fed them, was their job. Two women, Ophelia and Jenny, worked the bar concessions, gun sales, acquisitions, and purchases of live cargo.

Parri was clearing out the ring, and Cait was just finishing a seeded fight, something easy for her to win and remain the undisputed champion of the ring, capable of surviving seven minutes in a bare-knuckle fight against a gryphon fed on Buffout and entire sides of brahmin cattle.

The gryphon, while expensive in its upkeep, practically drew a crowd every night wanting people to see the monster fight.

They were giving the gryphon Buffout in its meal, making it grow voracious and strong, chunks of mirelurks, fish, and other meat to keep it full, the gryphon was kept in a near-constant state of alertness when awake.

The basement was a cement and bare wiring exposed sublevel with barred cages and chain-link fencing. Storage areas were repurposed for different times, but Bruce and Terrance were both responsible for feeding the gryphon a fresh side of a brahmin and packing the meat with the drugs. Right now they were applying the chems like a dry rub, with the side of beef perched over the open basement hatch doors, ready to slide things down directly into the gryphon's cage. As Bruce was rubbing the powder into the meat, they knocked the entire box holding six extra-large containers of Buffout. With no way to get the drugs away from her, and the animal already needing to eat, they dropped the carcass side and let lit slide down the ramp.

The gryphon tore into the case of Buffout, ravenously hungry, but stopping when the chemical taste hit her mouth. She screeched, roaring at the putrid taste in her mouth, wanting only something to eat, and then the side of meat finally came into her view. Biting into and ripping off large strips, she devoured the bones and muscles, chewing through nerves and letting the drip of blood not get in the way of a meal.

"She ate six damn containers of Buffout! She's going to be on a hairpin trigger for days! That's if her heart doesn't explode!"

"Fuck her, she costs way too much to feed all the time anyway."

\111/

Cait was awake, hearing feeding time commences and then their blunder. Within minutes, the whole carcass was consumed and the gryphoness was clawing around the pen, cawing, doing laps to burn off all the energy, flapping her wings, trying to get enough room to stretch out, but the walls were so close, her wingspan touched both sides. Being cooped up for weeks was only agitating the creature more and making it more fierce in the openness of the larger cage on stage. It irked Cait to no end, how she'd been the champion, and now it was a spectacle, something these marauders laughed at, or internalized and responded to seeing something so alien, that they only wanted her to kill this gryphon.

"Leighla, please, calm down, you know what they're doing to you ain't right, but you need to fight it!"

Cait couldn't. Not that they didn't try the first three fights, but, all without talking, they both understood in front of all the raiders gathered at the Combat Zone, as they needed to drag this out as long as possible. The pain she could see in the gryphon's face, just to be able to stretch out completely, to move, be agile, even in a larger cage, it was the only time in the whole day this animal could be free to move, and it was spent fighting her.

That's why the fights started lasting longer, the strongman and a lion both in the ring, trying to make the bit last as long as possible.

It's what the audience didn't see, what Cait and the gryphon both were able to communicate to each other on stage, was the reason why the gryphon never went in for the killing blow, because they both knew they were part of the act.

These six people who are responsible keep feeding the gryphoness a whole cocktail of drugs. Sometimes Cait is forced to fight the hen while it was shaking so terribly, it could barely stand, but her heart was racing two hundred miles a minute. Not to mention how large she grew in captivity, she would put junk-yard pit bulls to shame, gaining nearly three times her weight since being captured and sold to the Combat Zone, the gryphoness was beginning to be known as a powerhouse of an animal.

"Damn, Bastards!" Cait would say, not that it mattered, or anyone was particularly paying attention to what she said, but this latest mistake would put the screws to anyone who got near the chick until the Buffout wore off.

The sounds of footsteps coming down the 300-year-old staircase were impossible to hide, and Cait knew it well, but it didn't sound like any footsteps she knew, which put her in the right spot to face whoever turned the corner and be waiting for them.

Two men appeared, giving her one look, then stopping, "The hell you're looking for is still a few floors down, so what're you doin' here?" Cait asked, leaning against the cage bars.

Deacon was about to speak, but Meathead cut him off, "" He said, then addressing Cait, ""

"There's not a day that goes by I don't think of that, but tell me? How long's the leash then?" The way she spoke, Meathead looked at her eyes, the heavy bags and sunken look on her face made him realize she was not at her most lucid.

"" Examining Cait's emotions, she was like a loudspeaker for energies passing through and around her, everything became amplified, the high, the lows, good energies, and bad. Right now, she was radiating waves of grey depressed energy that was lit up by self-deprecating humor.

"Meat, I found them." Deacon went to start yanking on the chain around the gates keeping it closed.

In a cell were two men and a woman, all beaten, wearing the same pre-war clothes that they were given after leaving the Railroad, one man with a broken arm, the second with a broken rib and actively bleeding wound in his abdomen, then the woman's face was cut and scratched up, along with her shoulders, and back. All of them showed cuts nipped out of their earlobe, patches of hair cut out, and fingernails cut down to a nub, but those wounds, in particular, were stopped and congealed. They were taking bits and pieces off them, examining them, and somehow discovering through invasive surgery that they are synths.

"Everybody up, this is a breakout."

"Oy!" Cait shouted, clarity clearing her vision, "You're there for those synths, machine-fucks? But you ain't even look at me twice! I have been here for years, you selfish bastards, but the night those boy'os drop in, it's all hands on fuckin' deck to save those who are already dead? I see how it is you limp-dick-for-flesh robot-fuckers!"

There wasn't any real way to effectively deal with or calm Cait, but Meathead was paying more attention to his surroundings, he could feel a shift in energy above them, and the noise of two more sets of footsteps crested the peak of the stairs and was coming down.

"That's what you get for not letting me out first you Samaritan good-for-nothing!"

"Meat, sounds like company." Deacon stressed, readying his weapon.

With only a little magic effort, Meathead broke the lock to the cage with the gryphon inside, then he shoved Deacon and the synths back into the cell as the door to the cage slammed open. Eyes already dilated and heart pumping, the bulked-out berzerking gryphoness sprinted through the halls, leaving deep gouges on the floor with her claws.

Leaping through the air at the left corner going up the stairs, she extended her right claw out, and gouged it into the drywall and wood, leaving long drag marks to slow her momentum as she slowed only for a moment before running directly into two of her captors.

They didn't have time to draw their weapons before Bruce's head was crushed into a ball, skull, and brain oozing through one claw as she opened wide and bit down around Terrance's skull, crushing through his neck, spine, and ribs, ripping the body in half with a spray of blood as she devoured two short bites while dashing up the stairs.

"Leighla!" Cait yelled, arms against the bars reaching after her.

Leighla reached the upstairs hallway, she expanded her wings fully and screamed, feeling more alive and unstoppable at that moment just from being able to stretch that one muscle after being cramped inside for weeks, that one moment where she wasn't fighting was euphoric and enough to make her rely more on senses than what instinct was telling her to do.

\111/

"" Meathead said, directing everyone towards the gryphon's cell, "" He yelled, listening for a response.

"Hey! You can't just do that to my friend, you heartless bastards! You can't do that to her! Leighla isn't your meat shield! You don't let me out right now, I will rip these bars out and beat you senseless with them! I will shove a pole up your arse and out your mouth, I'll spit roast you over the fire! Let me out of here you finger-bangin', toothpick-smoking-" She threatened, becoming more descriptive and agitated by the moment, her red hair was as fiery as her emotions.

Deacon cast a side look to Meathead, "Oof Dah," He implied with a whisper. God Damn translated into Norwegian.

"" Meathead quietly replied. "Hey!" He shouted to get Cait's attention, cutting her off. She was actively bending one of the metal posts, and was in the process of forcing a second bar apart when she finally stopped to look at him.

Deacon climbed up the chute, noticing all the claw marks along the passage, he pounded on the metal doors, shouting for Hancock again. The hatch doors opened above, opening to the street where Hancock was ready to reach down and start pulling people out.

""

"What?"

""

"Cait."

""

Meathead didn't have time to deal with the lock, balling it up in his fist with magic force, he broke it, and allowed Cait to leave. "Ain't you a strong one? Still, you let the lion out of the cage! If Leighla dies, I blame you."

Not entirely sure what to do with her at the moment, Cait nearly shoved Meathead out of her way as she went for the destroyed containers of Buffout on the ground in the gryphon cell. Reaching down she scooped out piles of the raw powder and ate it. She reached for another one, ate dug her way through the scraps as Meathead readied his weapon. She smacked herself in the face a few times, hopping up and down. When Cait stood up she yelled a powerful battle-cry, and grabbing a knife off Terrance's front, she stormed upstairs.

\111/

The enraged screeches of the gryphon tearing apart the Combat Zone from the backstage, spilling out into the theatre was one long scar of destruction left in her wake. Contestants and self-proclaimed gladiators backstage were arming themselves to beat down synthetic-looking humans, and tried taking swings at the gryphon with clubs, axes, and bats, but it was like beating on a mattress. With a wave of her wing, she hurled them with enough strength to send them flying through drywall and timber or impact cement and brick. There were a few wild shots, but nothing high of enough caliber to bring her down.

Those first shots were what alerted the rest of the Combat Zone to the fight inside. There were those close enough to the doors who thought the fight was starting, and others close in were pushing their way out, or suddenly caught unaware. When Leighla the gryphoness finally reached the lights of the stage, she took a giant breath and screamed, wings jutting out she took off the ground, racing for the rafters, towards the second floor where raiders were suddenly the target of a massive 800-pound flying lion with an eagle's wings, head, and claws. She tackled the first person with a rifle as shots were squeezed off, gouging his chest in with the weight and momentum of her body alone, Leighla jumped 10 meters with a single bound, beak open and claws upright to rip and tear the second raider's arms off, using them as s post to jump off, then diving down off the mezzanine, swirling through the air as she swept five raiders off their feet.

Blasts of gunfire peppered her, only directing her to the raider with the clearest shot, Leighla stomped down in the middle of three raiders, throwing them to the ground, spinning around and slashing at them, bucking with her hips. As one raider stabbed at her with a spear, she reared back, grabbing the tip and heaving the raider scavenger closer as he attempted to hold on. Taking the raider scavenger in her claws, she crushed his windpipe, then slammed him head-first down into the ground. All around his head, a bloody halo splattered out.

Another maurader came at her with a sledgehammer, as more patrons of the Combat Zone either ran out or in, the confident ones came alone, or the cowards grouped up. More bullets flew through the air, Leighla took the sledgehammer blow to the side, raising her left foreleg to ward off some of the blow, it pounded painfully into her left forearm, which put her close enough to bite the arms of the ravager, forcing him to drop the sledgehammer and make the other raiders back off with their shots.

Punching the ravager, he sailed through the air, slamming into the seating. Leighla jumped to the second story again as more shots tore past her, clattering holes into the walls. Two raiders came to the show with a bandolier of Molotov cocktails, plugged and ready to light, and without regard to the old timbers keeping the theater standing, lit four and were hucking them around. Keeping Leighla moving, smoking out the second floor, bullets reigned in her direction, but as two more bottles landed, splattering flaming oil across the old rugs, Leighla brought her wings in, slammed her claws down into the flaming liquid, then dove through the air with flaming talons poised out ready to strike the pyro.

Smashing into him, her talons grip was so wide, that she crushed a bottle still pinned to his side, piercing through his back and frontside, then standing on her rear legs, she ripped the man in two from the chest and stomach as flames crawled over the two of them.

Leighla was shot through her wing, then another in her back leg, and then a shotgun pellet struck her in the chest. She yelled again, and looked up at the ceiling, looking for any way out.

Extinguishing her claws, she pounced on three legs, jumping twenty feet along the right side of the theatre, beak outstretched, as she landed her beak snapped shut, biting through a 9mm machine pistol and the raider scum's hand that was holding it. She flung the man thirty feet up into the air with one sweep of her wing but then screamed as a hot burning lance of pain coursed through her limbs. Her vision swam as she collapsed to the ground, breathless, her heart was about to explode.

The Buffout.

The coldness strangling Leighla was her heart stopping and lack of blood flowing through her veins, heart skipping beats like a record needle jumping the groove during an earthquake.

Cait was sprinting down backstage, knife held backward in her left hand, she came on stage and the lights hit her, there Leighla was, pinned down behind old metal chairs, seven raiders about the seats, upstairs on fire, with four more coming in from the lobby.

Diving off the stage with all her limbs stretched out, she landed on the back of a raider she'd seen observe the fights. They both toppled to the ground, but Cait plunged the knife into his neck as she tackled him, ripping it out and jamming it back in three times before their tumble came to a stop.

The next in her sights was three rows up, she jumped up off the first row of chairs, and kicked square down in the shoulder with the back of her heel. He crumpled at the blow of the impact, nerves compressed as he hit the ground.

Meathead took to the curtains on the stage, staying mostly obscured from view, but able to get a line of sight to the lobby where he stood, firing shots with his laser rifle at anyone aiming at Leighla. He burned holes in one raider, and blasted at a second, but only drew their attention long enough for Cait to close the distance and deliver a spine-twisting skull-popping punch to the jaw, sending that raider spinning with teeth flying through the air.

The gryphon was crawling up the side of the theatre steps, shaking but undeterred to keep moving despite her blackened claws and blood trailing down her sides.

Cait took two long strides, then jumped, tackling another raider across the ground, this gun grabbing his gun out of his hands and blasting the trigger a dozen times until it was empty, then hurling the gun spot-on to collide with a gunner's skull.

While her target shooting was wild, her throwing skills were accurate, the 5lb pistol hurled through the air smashed into the gunner, knocking him out instantly.

There was a lull in the fighting, where everyone inside the Combat Zone was pressed up against the edge, waiting for the next person to stick their head out, reloading, or tentatively hanging back by the front lobby doors, poking their heads into seeing if the fighting stopped. There was a tense dread filling the air like smoke, along with actual smoke from the embers of the fire burning out upstairs.

"Cait! You fucking bitch! You and that fucking bird!" Tommy Lonegran shouted, he was hiding on stage, behind the metal cage, a dozen feet away from Meathead. "Biggest waste of money I ever spent on that bird and the" rapping his fingers against the chain link fence, "Fucking cages!"

Cait clenched her jaw at those words, like a railroad spike being pounded down into her skull, "Greedy! Acid-dipped, rat-faced, whore's lippin', puke-stained, buggering bastard is what you are!"

"And you used to be able to fight! Once I cook and serve that bird on a spit, I won't break even for all the drugs pumped into her system. Look at her, she's dying, O'D'ing. Screw serving her up, the meat's probably all stressed out."

Cait suddenly jerked her head towards the table-stand next to Tommy's chair, where he would watch during the fights.

"Looking for this?" Tommy asked, holding up a box containing a syringe of Addictol. While it does contain the equivalency of an adrenaline shot, this old-world treat is a premium-luxury medical item, where the chemicals or drugs a user is on or addicted to are burned out of the system, all the way from the tip of the brain, to the endings of the longest nerves in the toes. It was created in conjunction to stop an overdose, as well as purge the drug from the person's system causing the overdose from pulling the person back under.

He stuffed the Addictol in his interior coat pocket and then held a pistol toward Leighla.

"She killed our meal ticket, Cait!"

"To Hell with being fed at all! I ain't eat a decent meal in two years you overstuffed, leather-faced, shit-spewin', pig! More always come, and they always do, you know it, and I know it. I could fight a million more fights, and they'd still be coming."

"Nah, this is a blessing in disguise, the cost of drugs being slammed through the two of you both shaking so hard, looking ready to collapse. Look at your hands Cait, you can't hold a candle. If you and that little bird aren't making me money, that my whole audience could be slaughtered, then the both of you are a liability. Unlike you, I can always get more fighters. So here's what I'm going to do, I'm going to get the place back in order, and you are going to turn around, and leave through those doors, right now."

"The hell you say? Give me the Addictol, Tommy! You're nothing but an inbred-muther's taint-suckin' child if you don't."

Meathead went around the backside and pressed the metal square of the laser rifle to the back of Tommy's head. "" Meathead asked, Tommy raised his hands, caught.

"Yeah."

Meathead pulled the trigger, blasting a bright red beam that appeared for a quick second that blasted out through the front of Tommy's forehead, wrapping his arms around Tommy before he fell, Meathead dugs his hands in and grabbed the Addictol, then ran for Leighla.

He felt an enormous, ferocious-like protective wave of angry energy coming from Cait the moment Meathead got close, "Give it here!" She stammered, but at the same time, he could tell she was crying on the inside, terrified that her friend was dying.

She was shaking so violently right now, from the Buffout and whatever else, that when he tried to say anything Cait yelled back.

""

Cait's head was spinning, but she listened to the command and held away Leighla's arms, peeling back the left wing, Meathead popped the lid to the case of Addictol, and saw that it was still factory-fresh sealed on the inside. He filled the plunger, found the ribcage, felt for the gap in breast tissue between the ribs where it was easiest to reach the heart, and slid the injector in.

\111/

Leighla's mind never experienced a shift in sudden change so quickly from her entire body burning up, dehydrated, muscles burning and growing stronger with every movement, to suddenly a bitter-aching, harrowing pain of icy-cold spreading through her soul. She inhaled a breath so deep to nearly draw the air out of the room and then screamed as her eyes opened to the blinding unknown surroundings she couldn't recognize, and the terrible real pain of being shot and burnt and beaten down.

The yell was so loud, that it sent people running from the building, raiders were pulling each other to get away from the Combat Zone while hearing Leighla scream. She bolted upright from the floor and took off like a rocket through the lobby doors. Once she saw the open sky, even on three legs, she jumped twenty feet up the side of a building and crawled the last ten feet with two short ledge grabs. Once she reached the roofs of the Theatre District of downtown Boston, she was out of sight.

"Leighla!" Cait yelled, running after her friend, "Lee-la!"

"" Cait stopped, turning around to look at Meathead.

""

Cait was forming the words to protest, but Meathead cut her off, he reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder, guiding her away from the front doors.

They made it to the street, and then looked for a route out, but Cait kept demanding that they search for Leighla.

"" Meathead's attention was more on listening for any signs of being followed or looking overhead, for any signs of crows.

Far overhead, Leighla could be heard crying out,

"Leighla!" Cait yelled up through the alley.

"Lee-la!"

\111/

Ch. 80 The Overseer November 8th

Leighla's erratic path sent her running in ever growing loops taking her further South. It was only when she found the water's edge that she stuck to a direction and went bounding along the Boston waterfront until she could come across a place to hide and recuperate.

As Leighla is fleeing, the streets are slooping off into the water, she only ended up stopping by being swallowed over her head in sea water. The submerge blasted her senses wide awake, and as she came to the surface shivering and pushing off the ground back towards the shore, she hadn't realized the roads were all leading down into the water. Leighla hastily shook herself off and finally caught her breath, able to listen for anyone chasing her.

The path she took lead to a great stone brick and mortar building with 20ft high walls, erroded or broken by the waves pounding into it unabated in some places, Leighla caught the scent of the dry ocean and crusteaceans, surrounded by eggs.

A whole field of mirelurk eggs, and after fighting for so long, being fed only enough to always be on edge, she let every other thought and emotion go to consume.

Her adrenalin was still pushing through her system so quickly that it wasn't until she accidentally crushed two eggs underfoot that she realized what she stumbled into.

The first mound of eggs, she bit into, shells and all, devouring the yolk, tipping her head back and breaking open. Some were partially developed mirelurks, but that only meant softshell crab meat to the hungry gryphon. During the second dozen of mirelurk eggs, the grown-ups appeared, but Leighla was undeterred in her feast. Even as they charged her, bearing their thick shells down to ram her, she pinned the first one down and pecked through its outer shell with one strike, gouging and devouring its brain and guts, mowing through sections of mirelurk arms as it struggled to die.

A ravenous hunger inside her awoke, an unrelenting urge to eat.

After three more mirelurks, and another three dozen eggs, a Queen Mirelurk came sensing that its eggs and protectors were in danger. It saw the gryphon ravaging her eggs, eating them one after another, but Leighla stopped to look, only seeing more food. She stood up on her hind legs, then screeched at the Mirelurk Queen, flaring her wings out.

The Mirelurk Queen claiming the Castle as their bedding ground lashed out, but seeing it was far too slow to swpie at Leighla it spat bursts of stomach acid. As the twenty-foot giant crustacean was crawling her way up into the Fort to protect the thousands of eggs laid around the complex, this only offered Leighla leverage to dash up to the top of the rampart, leaping and flutter through the air to sink her talons deep into the Mirelurk Queen's shell. Pecking and clawing at the back of the Queen's neck, Leighla clawed her way into the outer shell as the Mirelurk Queen struggled to grab at her. The Queen lacked the mobility to reach up and grab behind her, Leighla ripped off one of the Queen's feeding arms along her chest. Blue, thick blood that seemed to glow in the light sprayed her as she ate apart the Queen. Leighla only let go to get a better grip, breaking off large chunks of shell, cracking the joints apart with as much ease as breaking small branches.

When Cait and Meathead arrived, they found Leighla laying on her side against the wall, along with a half-devoured Mirelurk Queen, and the rest of her feeding frenzy scattered about.

"Are you alive there, Lass? A little peck'ish were ye', Leighla?" Cait asked, looking around and only feeling hungry herself.

Leighla only laid there, looking up at the two of them with her swollen gut pinning her to the ground. Meathead sat down on the ground a few feet away from her, but this brought him down to her level.

""

Lieghla gave Meathead a sad-look, "I just want to eat," she said.

The thousands of parasites populating both Cait and Leighla's digestive systems, Meathead could practically feel the parasites emotions, and see in their eyes the milky-yellowness. Their skin looked like they weren't getting the right nutrients, already hard enough being the pit-fighting slaves to a battle arena, along with sun-light, the food was hardly in the right state for consumption most of the time. Leighla and Cait's hungry looks were because of no matter how much they ate, they came away feeling ravenously hungry.

"" Meathead asked, they both looked at him like he was speaking an alien language. "" He could kill them all at once, but that would leave the body with a plethora of dead parasites the body would need to dispose of and filter out naturally. That dead material would cause an even greater sickness, and leave them ill for days, if not kill them first.

"Like we really get a lot of choice of meat to begin with, Blue Jay." Cait says, referring to the blue vault-suit. "And what'll you be doing?"

""

"And why don't you want us then?" Cait asked.

""

"And what's in it for you?"

""

"And why be your muscle? You can handle yourself."

"I can, but there's people and ponies who can't. They've been attacked in the night, dragged out, raped, beaten, and are all shocked into a lower-level of consciousness that only a giant brute of gryphon and a cunning decisive striker can elevate.>"

"Elevate what?"

"Homes, security, and a sense that when something comes, they need someone strong to rely on. People need you to show them that you're capable of protecting each other and them as well from threats. How are you feeling about your newfound freedom?>" Meathead asked, Leighla cocked her head, eyes settling on the man sitting in front of her. ""

She inhaled, curious about the scent, she was still content. ""

"That I can't trust you...?" Leighla asks, gauging Caits reaction and expression.

Meathead swore he miss-heard the bird, but she didn't repeat herself. She was having a conversation in her mind, but the words weren't connecting with her mouth.

"Two people in this world.. when they see me, those first types are scared...you're the second type."

"Well, hold on now, Leighla, what's that supposed to mean? He's stuck with us for using us as meat-shields, he's plenty right a person we should worry about-"

"Cait- If you're here, that means the Combat Zone is done for, without a floor to piss on..and I'm covered in crab shell that is already reeking in the morning dew. If Blue Jay can compliment me, and get me a place to sleep, then yes, I'll join you."

" Meathead said. ""

"Good, you talk too much anyway." Cait said.

""

"I'm actually still hungry, but not starving like I was. I could eat."

"At least you left a few eggs for the rest of us." Cait said, taking one last look around. "After a night like that, I'm dying for a runny egg."

\111/

Ch. 81 South Boston University

Author's Note

"Diamond City Radio here, uh... this goes out to my friend out there in the Commonwealth, a little personal message to my Runaway. I heard what happened, sorry things turned out like they did. I wish the time we spent together could stretch out and that you and I were still here together in Diamond City, but I get why you had to leave. I hope you and your group is doing well. Back to the music, Del Shannon up next."

Ch. 81 South Boston University

“Up here,” Athena says, they'd made their way to 35 Rockwell Ave, Nate's nerves coming to full realization in his new arm, and had stayed silent most of the walk. The tall skyscraper complex was art-deco on the inside, black, shades of red, and white marble lined the inside. While the lobby was simple, the entire building was a stone fortress of gilded metal and craftsmanship from 1935. Most of the windows on the lower floors were intact, making the interior darker.

The red unicorn led Nate to an elevator, which took them to a second lobby that was just as big, Close to the elevators were two large double doors that were adorned with gold fleur de lis and embellishments, with a waiting area in front of the unmarked doors.

Nate never got the chance to enter this building before the war, and to see it still so well preserved on the inside was like stepping into the Boylston Club, which lead him to understand that whatever was beyond those doors was not inviting, not for an outsider like him.

“Take a seat, that's enough walking for now.”

With nothing to shed, only cradling his new arm, it gave Nate the first chance to sit down and idly examine and touch it, as Athena settled in across from him and addressed him again.

“You need to do quite a lot in a short time if you want to keep your wife safe, Nate.”

“Like what?”

“There's two people who you're going to help me kill if you want to keep your family safe. And I'm not talking about, the threat of a gun, or the plug being pulled, I'm talking about someone taking the land under your feet and slapping chains around your neck. These two men are conquerors, they don't care about your little home, or business that you and a few buddies started up, they want to kill you, take all that you have, and grind up your bones for fertilizer because they do not dig cold hard graves when it's faster to water their crops with fresh warm blood...Their names are Sola Volgari and the Alicorn Firelance. ”

\111/

“A decade ago, Sola; With skin like yours, not all pitted, burnt and dry like people who'd been up on the surface all their life, and his pony Firelance, arrive at a city called the Pitt. He was still a unicorn then. Orange coat, blonde main, and a ray-gun cutie-mark."

"Ashur was the Overboss in charge, he was betrayed by a man who worked for him, Werhner, by helping Sola and Firelance escape slavery, and take an audience with Ashur. They killed Ashur, and then to break the remaining raider's grip on the city, they unleashed an entire horde of feral ghouls locked up in the sewers. This decision to release a horde of feral ghouls spread through the entire city, hundreds of the most well-armed raiders were penned in, and the thousands of slaves with no place to hide were flushed out into Ashur's minefields if they wanted to escape the riot. Parts of the city burned and people died. But, there is much more to the Pitt than senseless violence and death, there was planning and execution. Sola and Firelance may of been put in slave-rags, but they were too clean. I realize now what it is that separates you, Sola, Meathead, and Firelance, and vault dwellers from all the rest. You're all from a Vault. You grew up with pretty skin. Your hair roots aren't matted, and ends aren't split. I find that most vault dwellers have a tendency to be clean beyond normal standards.” Athena seemed parched at the thought, looking down at her own gnarled and chipped hooves, filed and rounded out in her spare time, they had put in plenty of distance over the years. “It's ingrained in you.”

“I didn't care for Ashur, but all the projects Ashur had for all of Pittsburg stopped. Ashur and his wife, Sandra were working on a curing a mutagenic-skin disease stemming from generations of over-exposure to the environment. Radiation poisoning and industrial smog were what was killing most of the people there, raider, slave, trader, didn't matter. it was hell on your lungs. The same ferals that were being penned up were being experimented on by Sandra to synthesize a cure were let loose by eye-witness accounts saying Sola and Firelance blew the gates wide open after they killed Ashur to let them roam across the city.

When I arrived, Sandra was still laying dead. All of her research was still laid out, nobody had even touched the scientific notes detailing treatment, experimentation, trials, and different reaction by testing on the local feral ghoul population. All the different strains of bacteria and diseases injected into the various ferals. Let loose and sent to bite and scratch their way through Pittsburgh. The plague that followed killed thousands.

When the lowest of slaves can tell me that the Pitt's raiders were experimenting on ferals for years, that doesn't register what could happen if all those biting, snarling, bacteria ridden, all released on the local population? Sounds like something you went through yourself all too recently.” Athena said, “Vault 84 I believe? You made the choice to save an entire vault, and not keep anything for yourself. Sola and Firelance had the same opportunity at the scale of a city, and kept it all for themselves. Would you be evil enough to take those mole rats from Vault 84, and shoo them all towards the door to bite their way through the local population? I see in your eyes you're not that type of person, you shake your head and wince at the thought, you even look down at your hands the doctors say were hurt...but Sola and Firelance... they were pretending to be slaves for two months before they could get to Ashur. Can you tell me why someone who experiences something like that for a short time wishes for others to experience it for the rest of their lives?

My brothers, sisters, bastards and bitches of Equestrians they may be, scattered and enslaved here and there across America. They're still in chains. I do what I can, where the opportunity lies to free them. Firelance and Sola deserve to die for their lying, for their disregard of human and pony life, callous indifference to letting thousands die so the Brotherhood could build work camps, keeping people away from rebuilding and planting roots. Werhner was waiting to hand over Pittsburgh to the Brotherhood after Sola and Firelance left, making him easy to find. All the progress towards making homes for the slaves, expanding farms, demolishing old pre-war buildings, curing the sick, all of that went away. The work camps sprang up quickly from the bottom-up, groups trying to get a hold of basic supplies, and that's where I realized they won. This was a frustrating time of waiting,

Those three were still hailed as heros as the ones who caused all the chaos in Pittsburgh. Sola and Firelance. After the Brotherhood arrived, their answer was Radaway which they sold to anyone who could afford it. The cure vanished and everyone either was absorbed into the Brotherhood, or left before they could get too settled. People were only free enough to suffer even more under the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood has never been in the market of selling, only taking. I've spent the last ten years hunting Firelance and Sola down for using the Pitt slaves as a springboard for their own gain. I found Werhner in a penthouse skyscraper in Uptown Pittsburgh with three women and two mares chained up, so I placed a white-hot iron collar around his neck and let him scream until his vocal chords melted."

\111/

“I get your promise of a painful death, and why you want to kill them, but what would you like me to do? Why do you need me?"

“In Nuka-World, about 20 miles from here, in the twelve months since raiders stormed Nuka-World. They enslaved the locals and my Equestrian brethren, and have been steadily using Nuka-World as a trading hub ever since. While the water is brackish, high population density, and stabbing is encouraged between gang rivalries, those gangs are at each other's throats and it's begging for a group like the Institute to slip in a synth, or the Brotherhood to declare open-season on. In the last six months, in rigged death-match, that I attended, watched, and saw. The prize is Overboss. A rule, no ponies, since were considered expendable work horses, or meat. Meathead and you would win before he could even blink. He's rigged an power armor frame wired to the park's electrical grid and welded with enough plates around it to take a cannon's blast. I want you, and Meathead, to go in there and kill him.”

“You want me to become Overboss? Why?”

“Like I said, no small wonder how the suggestion came up; Everyone is dissatisfied with Colter and are looking for an excuse to kill him. I'm surprised someone in the Railroad hasn't contacted you already to try and take this challenge, but it sounds like a fools errand if you haven't walked around Nuka-World and seen what's at stake. Killing Colter won't be the hardest thing about taking over Nuka-World, It'll be getting the raiders to listen to you. You need a fighting force, an army, or even a group of well trained guards willing to listen to you and only you.”

“That's great, but why do you want me, Nate, to be Overboss?”

“I need you as you are, because anything short of an Alicorn, or a Warlord won't be accepted as a leader. I can't stop Colter, free slaves, and build a paradise for my own kind alone. I need you because I can't do this alone. You need to realize that right now you look terrifying. You went into the Glowing Sea a human and came back with a Deathclaw arm in place of your own. This mutated-scary looking human who already has a small reputation of drastic frontier justice left Kellogg's body still swinging in the breeze, rotting. Anyone entering Goodneighbor passes his hanging corpse every time they go through the gate and are reminded what happens to the Liars and thieves who are making the rest of the world harder to live in for everyone else. Does that answer your question, Nate? I need you, but I'm not going to let an opportunity that you don't realize the scope of yet, slip away.”

“What will you be up to while I'm stepping into role of big boss?”

“I'll be phasing slavery out from the ground up, moving caravans, using what little pull I have with other traders to make sure certain goods are always in demand for Nuka-World until Colter is dealt with.”

“What do they need the most?”

“Medicine, and clean water. I'm not above seeing how fighting the Institute and Brotherhood could be portrayed as the path to a slave's freedom. You end Slavery, Emancipate them, from the top down, but the raiders and slavers will whine and moan terribly because they would be forced to give up their precious labor source. Those who feel like they aren't getting enough will come to betray you. Fulfilling Mona's contract will leave the super-mutant gangs scattered. Nuka-World will be at a stage to absorb all the gangs of the Commonwealth, giving you more than enough manpower to take the Institute. Once you have the Institute, it wont be long until the Brotherhood strikes.”

“Have you thought about beating the Brotherhood?”

“I have, and while the Railroad wouldn't win in a shooting war, they would win in a blitz. The Railroad has been the Brotherhood's main source of intelligence and synth information for the last decade. Once they arrive, the Brotherhood will try and make contact with the Railroad, but it's only a ruse to scout their base location. I don't know if you realize, but the Brotherhood and Railroad aren't compatible. The Railroad is a movement, the Brotherhood is a war-party. The Railroad needs to evolve, or be overran by Synths, or soldiers. You take Nuka-world, and the Railroad will be forced to make a decision of focusing their efforts on you as Over-boss. When the time comes, you need to convince them to work for you, and Nuka-World taking the Institute first.”

“Why? Why Both? How do you know Sola and Firelance want inside the Institute? What's in there that we don't know about?”

“After Firelance became an Alicorn, they realized Firelance was just part of a special set.”

“What kind of set?”

“S.P.E.C.I.A.L, Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck all of those descriptors are attributes that can best describe someone, or embody in physical Alicorn form of someone who is special.”

"What do you mean?”

“The only sign I've found of Sola and Firelance in the Commonwealth was the mention from a book Sola brought with him. From this single book, I know for sure that Sola and Firelance came here, searched for months, but didn't succeed in finding what they wanted.

Nate traced Athena's eyes, and realized she was looking at the coffee table next to Nate, he was surprised, the Wasteland Survival Guide was sitting right there next to him, and he didn't even notice its presence until now. It was an old copy, spine bent back and covers folded over and rolled back to be held in one hand.

“In the margins Sola lists himself as Captain of the Brotherhood expedition, along with Firelance, as well as other names, all boxed off and spelling out the details of the first Brotherhood expedition to the Commonwealth seven years ago. Take the book. On the back inside-cover,”

Scribbled in English, “Lost Li and Rocket to Institute, She think's they can create the next SPECIAL Alicorn. I'll prove them wrong again. The Brotherhood will take the whole Commonwealth, no matter what. I still win either way.”

The Institute tries to blend a together an Alicorn using science and magic, while the Brotherhood is going to come drop the Hammer on God's Anvil to forge an Alicorn through battle. Ten years ago, something happened during the Battle for the Capital Wasteland, something special to Firelance. That if I knew I would be doing everything in my power to replicate. I have every reason to believe they're trying to prime another pony into becoming Alicorn. But since I don't know how Alicorns are created, or the environmental magic trigger that would make a Alicorn pop into existence, I can only gather that their answer is to cause enough destruction and chaos to force one into being created. If the Railroad weren't crumbling, maybe you'd discover your friend Deacon has considered the possibility of finding an Alicorn or setting up the conditions for a Special one to be created as well."

"How would you know this?"

"While I'm not fond of slavery, I've bought and sold humans, synths, and my own kind, the rest I've tried to use the Railroad to free them. Doesn't always work, and I've got to send them somewhere once they're free and make sure they don't get rounded up again. I needed people who were willing to take on and place these poor devils, and that's when Deacon approached me after I started asking questions about Alicorns... In my many attempts to find the pony or outright become an Alicorn myself, I considered the only pony who would become an Alicorn was or at the current time, is a slave. Someone so desparate for change, feeling the weight of their chains, begging for freedom, and then the self-motivation and drive forces them to seize their chance and in the process, evelate themselves from a miserable existence into someone like you who sees life for how beautiful it can be."

"When did I say that?"

"In your article Piper wrote and quoted you. I have to say, it takes a lot of balls to look at bombed out craters and say that there's still hope. I haven't come across many people who actually believe what they say when everything is taken from them. When I came to the Commonwealth I asked about Alicorns, and the battle of D.C., when lo and behold, Deacon told me of a big powerful battle that happened three years ago in the Mid-West. While I was on the East-Coast, forces over a thousand miles away were waging war."

“Where?”

“A place called Hoover Dam. It's supposed to be a concrete structure tall as a skyscraper, holding back a river to create a lake. I don't even know who fought or who won, all I know is that there was a large enough of a dust-up for news to travel this far.”

“Hoover Dam...That's Vegas. That's the Alicorn of Luck. I'd bet money on that.”

“What do you mean? Why do you say that?”

"It's something you would've needed to see before the war to understand. It's a gambling oasis in the middle of the Mojave desert. Surrounded by sand, mountains, and scorching heat. What happened there?"

"At some point during the battle, one side planted bombs inside the Hoover Dam as a failsafe to keep the other from claiming the Dam. As the story goes. The losers were loosing, and detonated the explosives, causing the whole Dam to collapse. A single Alicorn stopped the wall of water and pushed the whole fucking thing right back into place." Athena was shaking when she said the last part. “There's something you don't get about Alicorns, they're not common. Any pony could become one, and yes, I spent a decent amount of time deluding myself into believing that I could be the next Special Alicorn, but even I came realize that it just doesn't work like that. I've used my magic to grind a raider's organs up from the inside out, but that doesn't make me Special. If the Institute stalled on their work, or maybe they already succeeded and have the Alicorn of Intelligence on Ice, just like you, ready to be pulled out on a warm sunny day when the time's right. Either way, Nate, Brotherhood or Institute, Railroad, or Nuka-World, you are the owner of a valuable gas that could power refrigeration systems across the entire North-East. Storing meat, vegetables, anything would be possible again with a startup like that tapping into the riches of Vault 111. Sooner or later the Insitute will be back for those freezers you're sitting on, ditto for when the Brotherhood arrives. Not that I'm forcing you to make a decision, I'm just letting you know what's down each road. Your choices are Institute, the Brotherhood, or the Railroad as your backing support while you take over Nuka-World. Once your in position, that'll give the Railroad a reason to integrate themselves into your power structure and try and take up positions below you that would give them access to all of the raider's exploits. Neither of us can win this war without more fire and manpower.”

“So your plan is to use the raiders from Nuka-World as a fighting force against the Brotherhood?”

"I'd rather use the synth army to lay waste against the Brotherhood since a robot can be rebuilt in less time than it would take for a pony or human to be born and raised up to fighting age. The Railroad may not win in a drawn-out shooting war, but they've been the Brotherhood's main source of information on the Institute and everything that's happening inside the Commonwealth for over a decade. The Railroad is more than capable enough to infiltrate the Brotherhood's main forces and either get them to surrender, or back off. Bodies in the ground, explosive chaos, or at the end of a gun barrel, the Commonwealth needs the Brotherhood gone. To keep the Brotherhood's transmission communications from going through, making friends with Mona was necessary to keep the Trinity Tower Signal running. Once we turn Trinity Tower off, they can talk back and forth, up and down the sea board clear as day, while we're stuck with Pegasus mail, hand-helds, ham-radios, and sending smoke signals. Which is why we'll keep the broadcast running until the last possible moment I see them coming over those hills. From there, that'll be the beginning of a new Brotherhood of Steel gang takeover. They force farmers into contracts, making them a slave in every sense of the word except for it being written down or spoken out loud. I have a Brotherhood contact here if you wish to read it, but you'll see what I'm saying is true.”

“How do you know Sola and Firelance are still together after all this time?”

“Wherever Sola goes, Firelance follows. Like a dog and it's master. They're friends as far as I know.”

“And repelling the Brotherhood will bring these two out?”

“Drawing Sola and Firelance to the Commonwealth will only happen when they think they're going to lose their shot at taking the Institute. Once Mona's contract is done hanging over your head, and her herd is culled, that sets the stage for humans and ponies to expand across the Commonwealth. She may be emotionless, but she's rational and calculating. She sees the need of a good population of sheep to fleece every once and a while. Anyone in the coming weeks after our mutant hunting, will be facing the least rational of Super Mutants, incapable of organizing parties, or only those who knew better than not to betray Mona and find rectitude in becoming their own mutant community. There's no doubt that gangs are forming, strongholds are being built all around, the shooting will stop long enough for bigger wars to be fought, but when the Institute and Brotherhood stake their claim first, all that prep-time ends. You need to stop both if you want your Vault and community from being picked clean by either side in the aftermath. I can tell you of a way that can both keep your land, your property, your wife and friends all safe, so long as no harm comes to one super mutant on Mona's list.”

“Keeping Mona's contract over me.”

“Yes, for now. The last time I helped someone like this, they decided that their freedom was more important than ending slavery. If you make that same choice, I want to have a backup way of finding you and ending your life no matter where you are, and this mutant, Strong, needs to have an assurance no harm will come to him when our paths eventually cross. So, either die fighting, or sit back and die. Those are your options."

\111/

Nate kept pinching his Deathclaw limb, pinch me, I'm dreaming. He thought, but the new appendage remained attached firmly at the shoulder where it meshed into his flesh.

At Rockwell 35, Athena lead Nate to the double-doors with brass handles, gilded plates of steel, and thick hinges. “Beyond this door are two Assaultrons wearing power-armor, the owners of this building were guarding some valuable pre-war caches, I'm interested in seeing if you're capable of putting your new arm to use. I've seen Deathclaws rip people in half with one swipe of their claw.”

Nate sat upright at the thought of being shredded out of his power armor in Concord, gripping his new hand to make a fist, he splayed the claws outward.

“That's why you brought me here?”

“See my mark?” A marble white Beheaded-Medusa, on her red coat of fur, “I find heros, and mosters, and heros to kill those monsters,.., but I will never confuse the dozens of people out there thinking they can be the hero by being the monster. Show me what you're capable of.”

Athena's magic wrapped around the ornate doors, parting them to reveal a forty foot long office with grey-rugs leading up a staircase with two Assaultrons around a desk. Nate flexed his claw once, slowly stepping into his room, mentally calculating how long he would have before they reacted. The frames of the two Assaultrons were indeed covered in power-armor, T-45 model.

Swallowing, he felt the tips of his claws touch the floor, he took a three-point sprinter's stance, then bolted for the Assaultron on the left. Four seconds was all it took for Nate to run the length of the room,

but by then, both Assaultrons were both making their first stance to defend against him.

Testing the weight and physics of his new claw, Nate surmised the best strike to be a falling axe-like motion. Intending to cleave through the neck cavity, he was able to get the first hit in by raking the claws down from the robot's right shoulder, across the spine and neck, crippling the assaultron and spewing hydraulic oil across him, down to the robots hip joints. The claws sunk in and dug deep gouges through the steel plates, like cutting a piece of aluminum foil. The power armor was shredded, exposing the sparking and shorting-innards of the robot.

Nate fell over with the first robot, the second Assualtron focused on him, firing a beam of red energy at his chest. Nate shouted in pain as a red burn mark bore into his right side. Lurching left, spinning away from the first, Nate raised his claw to shield his face, feeling only the thickened skin peel like a fresh-tan when the robot fired energy blasts again. Ducking down behind the bureau, the Assaultron bashed its fists down on top of the wood, splintering and cracking the heavy desk, Nate came around to the left hand-side of the Assualtron and pounced up.

He still felt a burn lance across his cheek, burnt skin that instantly blistered made him wince and shout. As he tackled the second robot over, the Assaultron responded with electric tasers that shocked Nate, forcing Nate off for a moment.

He swung his claw like a mallet, knocking the Assaultron's arm off with a loud bang of twisting metal.

Wrapping his claw around the Assaultron's neck and head, he clenched tightly and yanked upwards. The first pinch was like crushing a thick tin-container. Then the plates buckled and casing collapsed, and then with a jerk like snapping a chicken's neck, he ripped the head off.

His whole body shook, nerves still tight from the electric-shock, but he was confident the fight was over. Looking around again, he didn't see any other threats in the office, and Athena was making her way in.

“You got hit,” She said,

“I'll take any burn cream if you have it.” Nate said, shaking some of the oil off himself. He wiped his claw on the closest rag he could find. “Is there anything here worth looking for?”

“The building itself is worthwhile, and can be a layover for people in the future, but the owners of this building had blueprints and maps for all the old telephone lines running underground, they'll be necessary to find and splice into, see if they're still working or run new ones. But, to keep the rest of your body~ the soft and fleshy bits~ safe while we take care of these mutants, you'll need the power-armor that was custom built for the owners of this building to use in an emergency, ”

“How do you know it was custom built?”

She raised her hoof, pointing directly at the T-60 power-armor that read 'Boston Bell. Phone & Utilities,' the armor and helmet were after market, heavily modified to deal with electric-shock and was equipped with a jack-phone.

Nate imagined himself in the suit, and supposed he could rip the arm off and poke his claw through, since it never would fit him otherwise. Suddenly a cold wave came over him, and he stepped away from the suit, taking only the phone to fiddle with later.

“Suit up, Partner. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we get to bed.”

“I need something more mobile, and sturdy than power-armor. I've got something in mind. Why do the maps interest you?”

“Your choice, like I said, we'll be stuck with pony-express and smoke signals when the Brotherhood arrives, we'll need phone lines up and running if we want to at least stay in contact with each others groups and people.”

Athena pulled through the offices cabinets, long trays with thin draws holding wide flat architecture designs. “These, or...” Rifling through the papers, she held three aloft in her magic, “Pipes running all over the old city. Miles and miles of wire. This way we can run a new wire and know where it'll end up, assuming the tubes and pipes aren't crushed or filled with rubble.”

“You get what you needed?”

“I did.”

“Then where's our first monster?”

“About an hour North of here, oh what am I saying?” Athena asked herself, looking up at her horn.

\111/

The air parted with the small sonic-boom of wind as Athena and Nate were teleported without warning to where she described was North.

West Everett Estates, ruled by Hammer. He'd seen it early on with Meathead and kept his distance, but as he and Athena got closer, he realized the gruesome details and decorations were much more graphic up close.

Biting his cheek and ignoring it, Athena led him to a boat house directly across the waterway from the cul-de-sac of houses. There were a handful of weapons, revolvers and a pistol, rifles and a shotgun, even two metal boxes with explosives. From the upstairs balcony and master bedroom interior, they were able to spy and watch the whole neighborhood.

They counted off over a dozen mutants patrolling the cluster of houses, with the wall separating three of the seven houses. The one Athena referred to looked like the most well built house in the whole neighborhood before the war, along with the show-house, and a regular development lot, but the light blue house looked like it had actually seen repairs post-war to keep it as maintained.

One mutant in particular hurried around the whole complex, pointing and shouting, his yells could be heard carrying across the water as he directed mutants to do their jobs.

“He's got an odd look about him, that one.”

“That would be Hammer."

“How long will I get?”

“About three minutes. While I draw the ponies and mutants away, I'll get him to talk to Fist after I'm done speaking to him.”

Adapting the construction supplies, cars, and equipment to make barricades walling off the streets and backyards, the entire neighborhood was a small fort with walls. While the houses on the edges of the development were only partially built, they could both see three ponies working alongside the mutants. One was digging along the junk-wall, another was carrying tools, and the third mare was going back and forth between houses, disappearing from view every so often.

“Are these some of the freed ponies you were mentioning?”

“They wont be an issue. They know we're coming.”

“And they'll know what's happening?”

“Super-mutants see ponies like a big dumb kid sees a dog. We won't shed many tears if Hammer's dead.”

“What's the plan?”

“The plan was that we shoot them, but since you decided to leave the power armor behind, we're going with the silent approach. You see how they haven't put any defenses up by the water's edge? You've got the wall of trash, and cars and junk, the boat ramp, rock wall that flattens out to the backyards, and these three lots are all on the water-front. It's the light neon blue house, small radio antenna in backyard, closest to water-tower.”

Athena stood close to the window, focusing for a moment, a lance of red light flashed from her horn. Across the water, the stallion carrying the tools halted, jerking his neck towards the boathouse across the water. Signaling again, the stallion set his charge down and calmly made his way to the other two ponies.

“Okay, they know what's about to happen, I will go to the front gate and draw Hammer out. I want you to take the wet-approach, and get to the radio Hammer uses to speak with Fist. Rig an explosive to it, and then get out. Mona doesn't care about the rest of them.”

\111/

Athena was letting on that she and others in her circle were planning for this mutant-removal for some time now. Waiting downstairs were explosives, guns, ammo, and the materials to rig an explosive to a pip-mic. When Hammer presses the talk-button, the whole device explodes in his face.

Nate walked half a kilometer north to avoid any chance someone would spot him as he crossed the water way, then walked back. The rocks were well eroded with enough hand and footholds allowing him to pull himself up to the backside of the water-tower.

He heard the whip-like crack of Athena's teleport, a mini sonic-boom compared to Meathead's 'fwoosh' of energy. Mutant-dogs howled and barked and snarled at the noise, nearly startling Nate, only if he hadn't seen them first. Mutants moved about, the sentries turned their attention to the North gate, while Nate made his entrance from the South.

The gap between the water tower and the light blue neon house, and the backyard was the only times he was exposed, but he spotted potential threats and stayed low, moving quickly to reach what was a cellar-bunker built down underneath the house. The radio-tower and wires were leading directly down into the ground, so Nate grabbed hold of the cellar door and heaved it open.

Down the steps, Nate held the wires ready to snap onto positive and negative energy strips, explosive in hand, he was ready to plant the device and leave until he opened the bunker door to the basement.

An immaculate playroom, designed and built by a can-do attitude of a father back before the Big War, Nate and this man would've gladly shared plenty of beers discussing construction and at-home improvement projects, had they ever got the chance to meet, but the niceness of the family bunker wasn't what stopped him from planting the bomb.

Two colts, a pegasus and a unicorn, and an earth filly were playing with dolls and trains, trucks, the colt had enough skill to lift an airplane around and spin it through the air. Listening to music on tape, the far wall with dozens of music tapes still sitting there. Realizing the song that was currently playing was coming to an end made his mouth dry for a moment, one of the colts noticed a fresh breeze of air come in, hair sticking up as he turned to see a human with a monsterous claw carrying odd things.

The start of the song started off with a flute flying up and down the octave twice, and briefly noted it was Peter Gabriel, and most of the lyrics were shuffling through the contents of Nate's mind.

“Hey you there!” The opening line of the song started,

The colt shouted, alerting his brother and sister, they were backing away, trying to put distance between themselves and the human.

“Get away, Human! Get Away! Don't hurt her! Go Away!” The brothers shouted and screamed, the filly stood up and roared,

“I'm not a human!” Nate shouted above them, afraid he was too loud himself. “I'm not a human! Look! See!? I'm only part!” The first thing he could shout to get these kids to quiet down, and either they were still young enough to be tricked by Nate, or they were bright enough to see the difference, they stopped to listen. The young filly was all red in the face, crying.

No way to salvage this, he took one knee to the ground,“You could have an airplane, if you bring your blue skies back, All you gotta do is call my name!” He said sounding out the lyrics, this wouldn't work forever, the song was over five minutes long, and Nate already flubbed the next two lines. “I wanna be your sledgehammer! All you gotta do is call my name! Listen, kids, I'm here because there's going to be fighting up above, do you know what to do when that happens?” Two of the kids nodded, while it looked like the older brother locked eyes with Nate. “You mother taught you to protect your sister, didn't she?”

“Yeah. Because she's-”

“An Earth pony.” the middle child cut in.

“That means we've gotta make sure she's extra tough and ready to take on anything when we're gone!”

“Yeah! I'm rough, and I'm tough!” The filly said, giant tear streaks pouring down. Below her the teardrops splashed against the ground and she couldn't even look up at Nate.

“Darn right you are!” Nate said. He was looking around the family bunker, scanning the walls and shelves, hoping to see something that would help him turn his situation around. Seeing as how this area was used by the ponies and protected by the mutants, there was a level of oranization Nate was able to see, but his eyes landed on a tall brown 12x9x6 inch box. A stealth boy field emitter, Nate gasped. “I need to borrow this brown box!” He said, grabbing it before the youngsters could react or protest.

The hatch doors to the bunker were pulled open, Nate only had seconds as the children started acting up, talking loudly and still not quite sure of this strange man in their presence. Nate heard the bunker door open, but the kids didn't. In the four seconds it took Nate to find the on-switch to the stealth-boy, and power it on, Hammer was standing there.

“Why are you children squabbling?” Hammer asked, he looked at each one of them, and then how they were looking at the spot where Nate was standing only moments ago.bThe way Hammer spoke gave Nate a chill, it was a put together sentence sounded out by a person gargling steel bolts.

Nate was already moving, fist slamming into the lights, he blacked-out the basement, then reached up to grab Hammer by the neck with his deathclaw. Moving towards the stairs as the young ponies were thrown into panic, Nate pulled Hammer far enough away from the door and then pinched his fingers together, the claws slicing through the mutant's neck like machete blades. Throwing Hammer away from him, Nate's first instinct was to reach up and grab ahold of the handle, slamming the door shut.

He was coated with blood, and dropped the stealth-boy in his gambit, but Hammer was dead. Turning and fleeing up the stairs, he got to the top step, saw a straight path for the water, and sprinted for it.

The mutant-dogs sounded their howls and were barking like mad, but Nate hit the water with a loud splash, and dove down deep, kicking and pawwing his way through the water. Only when his lungs started to burn and he was choking that he started surfacing. Gasping, he made it halfway back across the channel, aiming for the boathouse where he started off from, Nate was expecting Athena to already be back.

She arrived ten minutes later, “I was expecting a bang,”

“And they were expecting a shootout! Athena, they put the kids in the bunker for safety because they thought we were going to come in guns blazing! Hammer walked in on a bunch of terrified ponies, and so I had to improvise.”

“And who's fault is that? Yours? Mine? The ponies? I told you, loud would've been the way to go, but it's done, you say?”

“Athena, that bunker was a play room for those kids. Hammer's radio, it was right in the middle of their play room. Those kids could've been caught by shrapnel, did you know about the kids?”

“I knew of their existence, not that they were underground. I'm not your dog who can sniff out creatures like he can. If you were devious enough to rig up an explosive to a radio, then that is on you. But since you didn't, and Hammer's dead? Then we're done here and you can sleep at night knowing you did your best to spare the interior decorator.”

\111/

Tin Hut, Sea Shell, Dahl Nut, Dough Nut, Poppy Cake, Crab Cake, Lotta Rosie, Quark, and Styles.

The nine ponies of University Point were under a similar situation, held captive by the Institute's machines that were left defuct until a human comes near and activates their sensors.

At now over a month from the massacre, where the whole settlement was bustling with humans and ponies, was now a quiet graveyard. There was a declining will to clean the entire battle cleaned up, and they were only slightly aware of why the Institute was there in the first place, to find and recover a piece of data one of the humans found.

They spent their own time searching for whatever it could be, but while they knew the robots and synths weren't going to attack them directly, there was no guarantee that these synths wouldn't kill them all either. The nine ponies left in control of the University were caught in between a rock and a hard place. Their protection was covered by leftover Institute synths that they couldn't control, keeping humans, raiders, mutants, as well as traders and merchants that they've since flagged down with signs warning people not to come within line-of-sight of the synths, or otherwise trip their sensors.

While the synths were threatening in appearance, they left the ponies alone otherwise, viewing them as non-threats, not to be bothered with.

This left them in a state of self-reliance, building up the remains of the school, farming on the main campus, and pick over the scraps of the humans who were wiped out and now buried, but otherwise unable to grow beyond the Institute's watch. These ponies were feeling a sense of freedom that they otherwise hadn't felt with other humans around, but it wasn't mututal. The possibility to break the synths down or disable them was there, but left the nine ponies in a state of purgatory.

They wouldn't realize they were being watched by Meathead, Deacon, and Hancock, or that the trio took heed of their sign warnings and that Meathead was walking right up to the entrance.

The gymnasium that was designated as a caravan's cattle quarry for passing traders, but the ground had barely been disturbed since the massacre. As Meathead made his way closer, he counted off the synths, and their positions.

With the synths on sentry, the ponies didn't even realize Meathead was in their presence until he cleared his throat and shouted, “Vault-Tec. Calling!”

His appearance of a stallion, light blue-coat, blond hair, green-eyes, and a Vault-Cutie mark, made him look like a walking advertisement for Vault-Tec. He was spotted by three ponies right away, Tin Hut, Quark, and Crab Cake were all close in the vicinity to hear and see the new comer, Poppy Cake, Donut, and Dahl appeared shortly after.

“You made it alright?” Tin Hut asked, Meathead nodded a reply,

Quark asked, “How did you get here? Which way did you come from?” and Crab Cake followed up with, “What are you doing here? Is there anyone else with you?”

Meathead answered their questions, and when it came to why he was here, “I heard about the Institute synths attacking this settlement, looking for a piece of technology or data.”

“We don't know what the Institute was looking for, stranger. All we know is they haven't found it, and that there's nothing left in the University Building to be found. We've all taken turns at some point over the last month tearing that building inside out, and there isn't anything here that you couldn't find in any school everywhere else in the Commonwealth.”

“Then they haven't found it yet, or it's not in the main building.” Meathead reasoned, looking around the campus, there was a cafe, a laundromat, a Student Credit Union, a pharmacy, as well as the gym behind him, but the South Boston University Hall dominated the skyline above all other buildings.

“Why are you after it?”

“Because I happen to know what it is that everyone's looking for, it's...” Meathead's eyes rolled to the synths that hadn't moved, but hadn't stopped watching either.

Reading the crowd, these ponies didn't like that the Institute was here, that they'd killed their human friends, but at the same time, they couldn't get rid of them and once they were gone, left defenseless.

“I'll know what it is, once I see it. That's my talent, I have a knack for old-world tech. But, I have to ask, do you like having the Institute synths around?”

The overwhelming silent majority was a resounding 'No', but three of the group gave into their fears and replied 'yes'.

“Okay, well I hate to break the bad news to everyone, but those Synths aren't your friends or protectors.”

“But they've never targeted us.”

“That's fine, but considering they killed every human here, and that I've seen the Institute synths across the Commonwealth, their next step is going to be dismantling every square inch of this campus until its all bricks, plaster, boards, and nails. Why they haven't done it yet,-”

“They've already started doing that,” Poppy Cake said, “They've been tearing apart the basement and backside of the school. There's mirelurk dens down there that made this place part-infestation, part-food supply, so it was a give and take. The tides make a big difference too, the basement completely floods, and makes it so the synths can't get down there without dealing with a wave of Mirelurks coming in from the ocean.”

“Who's in charge here?” Meathead asked, the herd looked towards Tin Hut and Crab Cake.

“Either of us,” Crab Cake said,

“Will you let me look around, see if I can find what it is the Institute's looking for?”

“Help yourself, Lotta Rosie is in the University building right now, she can show you what's been searched.”

Around this time, Meathead noticed the filly Sea Shell watch from a distance with an older stallion Styles standing directly behind her.

“Any chance someone could fill me in on what happened leading up to the Institute's arrival?”

“I can,” Sea Shell called out, Meathead smiled to the filly, earning a confident look back. She was beaming with energy, where before the other seven ponies were all in a fugue-state, her eyes spoke volumes about all the observations she was able to make as an unobstructed child wandering about her home.

“Alright, little missy, you do that, but first, I need you to think long and hard, and remember all the details while I take a look around first with some of the adults, alright? I'm just gonna take a quick tour, then you can tell me all about it.”

The filly was nodding so hard through the excitement of a new-arrival, that she was ready to call Meathead a friend.

\111/

A yellow pony with a red mane, and weighing 19 stone, with a six-roses cutie-mark making the 'XXX' and a head taller than Meathead at his best, she was dragging bundles of the former residents belongings through the halls when Rosie heard her name called. Passing roaming synths, her footfalls sunk into the floorboards making her every step vibrate through the whole building, the pegasus arrived in the atrium, and stepped off the top floor, landing infront of Meathead, Tin Hut, and Crab Cake.

After the introduction, Lotta Rosie asked, “So what is it that you want? Why do you want what the Institute's looking fer?"

“”

“Yeah, that's why I'm not sticking around any longer. You came on a good day, stranger, today I'm leaving and off to try my luck again somewhere else.” Lotta Rosie said. She looked the newcomer up and down, slowly licking her lips.

“”

“How would you know it's an hour by wing?” Her emotions suddenly flared up, becoming defensive. Looking at Meathead closer, she felt offended. Like she was being tricked.

“” Lotta Rosie perked up at the description,

“She's alive?”

“”

“We were kept in the same cage. Yes, I fucking know her! Where is she? She alright? How did she get out of Nuka-World? Who bought her? You didn't go there yourself- you don't look- you're notta pony- who the fuck are you?!” She asked, looking past the facade of Meathead's disguise, she realized that this pony standing in front of her was not at all what he appeared or claimed to be.

“”

Meathead didn't get another chance to speak to Lotta Rosie again, she made a beeline for the rooftops, pumping her giant wingspan, using the rain gutters as a hoofstep, there was a giant dent in where she stepped, then another bound into the sky, then was out of sight. He was still replaying her words over in his head, and accepting the fact this was the first time anybody saw through his disguise based on what he said.

Meathead spent two hours between wandering around Synths, checking the same areas to ensure that they were clear, listening to Tin Hut and then Sea Shell's explanation. The filly had a unique perspective of not being assigned a role yet in the SBU community, and was able to wander freely about with the exception of going into people's rooms and a few doors they made sure to let Sea Shell know there were dangerous monsters, or old rotten rooms she could fall through and get hurt. That left Sea Shell to migrate towards the only other young person in the whole town was the daughter of a scrap mechanic. While Sea Shell and Jaqueline would play, Sea Shell was the only pony who actually saw what it was Jaqueline found. A hard-drive from one of the college's computers that mentioned the Reactor Efficiency Data. While the mentioning was only notes, that Hard-Drive was sold to a trader, who then took that Hard-Drive to Kellogg a month before Nate and Meathead were pulled from the deep freeze. The Synths arrived a week later, and that lead the humans to turn on each other. The only saving grace was that the ponies weren't targeted at all, but terrified to high heavens that the same would happen to them.

“You want to explain to me what Lotta Rosie meant by, you not being a pony?” Crab Cake inquired, joinging the tour group as Tin Hut left.

“”

“Yeah, you're too clean.” Sea Shell said. Meathead made a mental note of that.

“So where'd you come from anyway?”

“”

“Any better than this place?” Crab Cake asked,

“”

“What's the cost? What are you giving them?”

“”

“And what happens then?”

“”

“That sounds nice. Our water tastes funny. I think it's cause the lurkers in the basement.” Sea Shell said, Crab Cake however was still considering the newcomer.

“”

“Sign us up, then.” Crab Caid said, looking around at the dilapidated interior.

The overwhelming scent of sea-water and mold clung to the air and was oppressive, but the ponies were oblivious to the fact or had other issues keeping them from seeing the danger of the dilapidated school building crumbling into the sea.

The top floor was dryer, but the air was more stale and trapped. It was here Jaquline and her father were gunned down by their own kind for believing that it was they who were the ones in contact with the Institute. Because of their proficiency with computers and technological scrap, they never got a chance to explain themselves or reason with others before the Institute acted.

Sea Shell pointed Meathead towards Jaquline's computer, and looked over what was left.

Between the ponies and synths slowly moving all the departed belongings out, Meathead came to the quick conclusion that the data was still here, perhaps on a different computer. Some old signs still remained about the building, Science wing on the left side of the building, Lecture halls first and second floors, Math department on the right, Adminstration and Accounting top floors.

Stationed all throughout the university and campus grounds, Meathead counted a total of Eighteen synths.

“I'm scared,” Sea Shell admitted. “I think the Synths will do something bad after it's found.” She said, not knowing what it was everyone's looking for.

“”

It came to no surprise that none of the ponies were especially computer savvy, and when Meathead arrived at the Dean's office, the door was locked and handle broken off. The door knob was laying broken and bent off on the ground, kicked away down the hall and left to sit there.

“” He asked.

“Yeah, but it locks every time it closes,”

Pressing on the door, Meathead used his magic to flip the lock, which caused one synth in the hall to spring into action. “Activity Detected,” It droned out.

“”

Meathead went into the Dean's office as Crab Cake swept up Sea Shell with one leg and threw her onto his back, galloping down the hall. Throwing the door shut, it locked with an audible latch clicking into place, and a moment later the synth was pounding on the door.

The Dean's office was ostensibly the least decrepit room in the whole building, but small enough to get a job done. Taking one look at the computer, it was one of the nicer models that survived the years of neglect.

All while waiting for the computer to boot up, Meathead heard the pounding double, a second Synth joined the first. Thankfully, the former dean purchased a sturdy door thicker than any other in the entire building.

“” He bemoaned the inanimate object, finally the start up screen appeared and Meathead could access the hard drive.

Folders for chat logs, and dates time stamped, there was only two items that caught Meathead's attention, a chat log regarding the overblown budget for an expansion to the SCUB.

One of the messages sent to the dean from Accounting was titled 'Wasting way too much damn money on this project of yours.”

“” Meathead skimmed the rest, knowing where to check next, but now the door was starting to give. Meathead deleted everything from 2075-2077. Opening a new file, he wrote 'October 22nd 2077 Project budget deemed too expensive, Reactor Efficiency project disbanded, data sent to CIT, Cambridge for further anaylsis...” Right as he clicked the save button, the three synths barged into the room, with a fourth and fifth waiting in the hallway. Meathead moved to be by the window, forcing the panel open as the synths went straight for the computer. Climbing out the window onto the balcony, the synths were gleaming every last bit of information they could from Meathead's false lead.

From his third story perch, he spotted Hancock and Deacon a safe enough distance away, but behind Meathead, back in the Dean's office, the synths were talking to each other.

“Logic, Data regarding Reactor Efficiency relocated to CIT Cambridge.”

“Logic. Data is not found at South Boston University Point.”

“Logic. Site designated South Boston University Point is no longer objective.”

“Logic. Returning to pre-condition mode, Clear, purge, and dismantle site of all creatures, humans, and Institute required resources.”

Meathead only reacted, he didn't think about anything else except hearing the threat the synths just uttered. Firing off a red flash of bright light to Deacon and Hancock, the synths were all raising their weapons, the shooting started almost immediately after.

The only word that came to mind to warn the other ponies of the imminent danger was to scream, “”

“Logic. You are property of the Institute. Do not resist.”

Floating two grenades back through the window, he dropped out of view as a volley of blue laser blasts fired through the opening.

There were screams, but above those screams were warping noises, like the crackling of lightning through power lines surging with too much energy, then the screams vanished.

Meathead saw ponies being abducted, he didn't know who was first, but the Nut brothers were surrounded in the campus lawn by three synths with laser rifles pointed at them, then all of them disappeared in a blue glow.

Jumping off the third story, the entire office errupted in a blast of loud noise, collapsing the whole front entrance. The building had taken plenty of pounding waves from the ocean in the rear for two centuries and had held, but the blast in the face shook the whole building. The atrium entryway fell in, the rotten boards finally giving up after inertia and mold was keeping the entire thing stuck together.

“Mother fuckers!” Meathead couldn't help but take on a few of Nate's angrier emotions, two synths on the rooftops were firing down at Quark and Styles, but only to herd them towards other waiting synths.

Tin Hut was the first pony to pick up a rifle and fire at the synths, but his valiant effort in destroying one made all the other synths now choose him as a target.

Meathead took his rifle, Righteous Authority and fired at the synths to break their focus. Tin Hut was pinned down in a coffee stand in the direct center of campus, being shot at from all sides. His only saving grace was that the stand was made of concrete, and not his own namesake.

“Logic, the land is property of the Institute, all hostiles will be eliminated.”

“I'm not letting you have one fucking inch!” Tin Hut shouted, but it was in vain since he couldn't even poke his head up to fire back without getting scorched.

Meathead fired off volt after volt of energy, burning holes through their plate armor and joints. Firing at all of them, to break the suppressing fire trapping Tin Hut from his concrete fort.

One synth went down, then a second. Laser blasts were flying all around the campus, and Tin Hut was able to hit one in the chest, knocking it down, but not out.

More energy cells loaded into his rifle, Meathead pulled on the trigger twenty times in a five second burst, missing as much as he was hitting, Tin Hut was able to stay up long enough to land a clean shot against a synth's skull, obliterating the head cavity and sending parts and pieces everywhere.

\111/

Poppy Cake screamed, three synths were approaching her, and the eerie blue glow was surrounding all of them. She could feel her hair rising, electricity in the air, like she was about to be zapped.

“” She heard, and suddenly she couldn't breathe. She was wrapped in a green-burning fire of energy, being jerked and yanked sideways through the material plane. One force was trying to teleport her, the other was keeping her anchored to the spot, but she was being split in two. The dueling energies around her made her scream as she felt her vision fade between blinding lights and the cold dark ground.

“”

The crack of machine guns firing and bullets bearing down on the synths broke the connection, but the teleportation matrix went wild.

Deacon and Hancock were close enough to take action as the three synths were ripped apart molecule by molecule along with the floorboards, the walls, and entire section of the pharmacy and upstairs floors all suddenly vanished like a giant ice-cream scoop came and carved a perfect round sphere out of reality.

Meathead's black chitin was exposed, smoldering like he'd just been pulled out of the ashes of a burning fire, smoke pouring out of his pores, he was drained, exhausted and breathing heavily, but he barely kept Poppy Cake on this side of the plane. When Poppy could breathe again, she cried, feeling a pain in her head, blood running down her nose and face, blubbering and unable to understand the head-trauma that just occurred.

All the synths were gone.

“Meat! What the hell happened?” Deacon asked, “You alright?” stooping down, Meathead hadn't even moved or raised his head to address Deacon or anything since the snap. “Are you gonna be alright?”

"."The tiniest of nods and a moaned sigh was enough to satisfy him.

“Poppy?!” Crab Cake shouted, looking for her. “Poppy!”

Hancock licked his lips, put his pointer finger and thumb together and pressed them to his teeth and whistled loud enough to hail Crab Cake from the other side of the campus. “Betch'a didn't know I could still do that?” He joked to Deacon.

Crab Cake was shaking as he arrived, emotions gripping him as he ignored the smoking changeling and two arrivals. “Poppy? Poppy?” He asked as he grabbed ahold of her, wrapping her in a tight embrace. She sobbed and cried into his shoulder.

As Tin Hut crawled out of his stand, nerves shaking so violently he couldn't even grip his rifle any more. He was still rocking and shifting left and right on his hooves, the tremor in his voice and teeth were chattering, but didn't stop him from speaking, “You...What Happened? Who...are you?”

Meathead lifted his head up, finally drawing his first deep breath in what felt like hours, when only seconds passed.

“”

“What?”

“” Meathead stated. “ He sighed a deep breath, "”

“What's it matter to you? Liar. Rosie was right, you're not a pony.” Crab Cake stated.

“” Meathead said, standing up to his full height, “”

“She's fine.” Crab Cake flatly stated, not wanting to give up any more information. “What are you then?”

Meathead drew in a shuttered breath, then as a collective, everyone heard and noticed the downed synth Tin Hut shot, crawling towards them.

Hancock and Deacon both reacted first, obliterating the synth in a wave of shotgun rounds and bullets.

“” Meathead shouted, “” Shaking, he was overcome with a fresh wave of day-dream nightmares of being exposed and seen.

“What happened?” Poppy asked finally. “Who are you?”

“ Pointing to the missing volume of building, ”

Tin Hut, Crab and Poppy Cake with their daughter Sea Shell was all that was left. “Wait.” Crab Cake said. “Not before you tell me what you did, and what you found that made all the synths go crazy.”

“” Meathead knew his reply.

“No,” Crab Cake said, looking towards the SCUB. “I wanna see what it is everyone's been after killing each other over for.”

Meathead sighed, “” Meathead tried taking a step but immediately went down to all fours. A little concern and worry from Deacon and Hancock was enough to get him back onto his feet again, but moving at a snail's pace.

Poppy Cake sat on the ground, gathering herself and sniffling. Tin Hut came to her side and rubbed her back, but he was looking around at the college campus university, and Meathead could sense their despair.

“” Meathead said.

Poppy Cake's response was a fresh wave of tears and crying, but it was relief. She broke down sobbing again, but Meathead knew she felt glad. She was nodding and weeping, and Tin Hut did his best to console her until Crab Cake returned with Sea Shell.

\111/

The inside of the SCUB was a two-clerk teller office, with cash registers and a wall of personal safes was quickly filled by the group of seven. It took Deacon all of five seconds to spot the construction additions that hinted at re-wiring. With a set of keys left by the former clerk, they broke open the safes and found a panel that hid the doors to the secret vault inside the SCUB.

A laboratory with a fusion core generator with two big wires, a positive and a ground, hooked up to a electric diode in the middle of the room on a table. Sitting there was a modified laser rifle, and all around it were notes and blueprints surrounding the research.

“That's it?” Crab Cake asked. “Everyone's after a gun?” Shaking his head, he disapproved that all the violence in the last month was because of the weapon in front of him.

“'” Meathead said.

He was already gathering and collecting everything he could, notebooks, loose papers, and even the laboratory computer terminal. Yanking off the plastic cover, he pulled the hard-drives for later, “This is what everyone's after. The gun...” He trailed off, pouring over the notes, Hancock was the first to pick it up and examine it.

“Typical model, but they rebuilt the whole core. Wouldn't know how to make this myself.”

“Well, according to the research here. That laser rifle isn't supposed to run out of ammo. Ever.” Deacon said, checking between two pages back and forth. “ At least for the next 10 to 13,000 years or so or if the parts don't wear out first. So kind of like forever.”

“Sweet Celestia,” Crab Cake cursed. “What are you going to do with it?”

“Dismantle it. Take it to the Railroad and have them recreate the entire experiment from the ground up. See if we can reproduce more and make it available for everyone.” Deacon said.

“And what about the rest, all this? This lab?” Tin Hut asked, Hancock was quick to reply.

“Oh don't you worry about all this. I got this one taken care of.” He said, pulling out a lighter and a cigarette. His gaze landed on a sleeping bag and mats tucked away in the corner of the lab, and then to bottles of kerosene for cooking left by the scientists who ate, slept, and worked in this lab around the clock. Humming as he went to work, the tune was 'Yo Ho, Blow the man down.'

“Sea Shell, it's time to get out of here.” Poppy said, seeing the fire building in Hancock's eyes.

The filly took one last look at the laser rifle before being escorted out the door. Her eyes locked with Meathead for a moment, the wonder and curiosity overwhelming her sense of fear. She was fascinated with the changeling.

“You. Meat. Were you lying about Concord?”

“”

“Who are they?”

“”

“Why should we trust you?”

Meathead let the silence between himself and Crab Cake weigh in for a moment. Tin Hut was listening, but the sounds outside the conversation of Hancock dumping flammable liquids all over the lab tables, grunting with an unlit cigarette clenched in between his teeth as he splashed the equipment, beds, and rest of the space.

“”

\111/

Ch. 82 Atom Cats

Author's Note

The Jukebox from the Atom Cat's garage could be heard playing Stray Cats, 'Rock this Town,' a private selection of music from their own personal stock.

Ch. 82 Atom Cats

Ch. 82

Zeke, Rowdy, Bluejay, Roxy, Johnny D., Gearhead, Grease Monkey, Duke

“So, who are these guys?” Hancock asked.

“A crew I happen to know who operate South of Boston. They're the only Cats crazy enough to make regular expeditions into the Glowing Sea. Had I known when you were planning on going there, I would've told you to swing by, and give these guys a holler. They got a good portion mapped out, which is worth stopping by to see how the maps improved since then. Ah let's see...there's Zeke. The man with the plan, then...Roxy, Rowdy, Johhny D., and then they've got a few ponies as well, Gearhead and Grease Monkey. Oh and then Duke is in and out most of the time. You said you're resistant to radiation? That might make a few friends around here since these guys would love having another person coming along with them.”

“Pass,” Hancock said.

“I was talking to the other rad-proof member of our group. How are you feeling, Meathead?”

“” Meathead put a hoof to his forehead and groaned, “”

“Can you change yet?” Deacon asked.

The Changeling had been following along at a cantering pace, still exposed but setting a slow pace for the Atom Cat's garage at Deacon's guidance.

“”

“Anything you can think of to help you, let us know. Keep us updated if you can if that group gets any closer.” Deacon said, Meathead tried to show a smile. Even a little concern from his two friends for his wellbeing was enough to spur a little more effort into the emotivore.

The road they were on running parallel to the ocean was mostly eaten away and washed with sand. Not many buildings or cover, and the landmarks were far between stretches of open territory. To the South of them lay the town of Quincy.

“”

“Not since the Gunners took it over,” Deacon said.

“I know what you and Nate know,” Hancock replied.

“”

“Where'd you find that out?” Deacon inquired.

“” Meathead trailed off, Deacon thought the Changeling was too tired to finish his line of thought, but he could sense Meathead was thinking of something bigger.

“Save your energy. We'll get them.”

“”

“Why were they doing that?” Hancock asked.

“”

“What's the idea?” Deacon inquired.

“Any explosives made pre-war would've been locked behind a security gate, rigged to a computer or extra locks at the least...>”

“You think they're sitting on a massive bomb,” Deacon stated, Meathead nodded.

“A whole factory for making land mines?” Hancock wondered aloud, visualizing the mechanics of the operation.

\111/

After a few more minutes of walking, Deacon leads them down onto the sand, away from the overpass and view of any potential lookouts from Quincy. Trekking across sand bars, halfway Deacon raised his rifle with both hands above his head and kept walking. “This is for when the Atom Cats spot us.”

“ Meathead suddenly felt a well of anger coming from the Atom Cat's garage, “” He shouted, shoving Deacon to the left a moment before a bullet rang out, skipped across the water, and struck the sand far behind them.

“I'd say a bit!” Hancock shouted. With no cover except shin-high water, Meathead's horn glowed, as he was timing the feeling of anger at its highest with the second shot fired. It peaked with a sense of grim satisfaction as it was directed at Hancock, who was thrown sideways by Meathead's magical force, pushing him ten feet to his right as the bullet rang out again.

“Stop firing!” Deacon yelled. “Crap! I don't think they recognize me.”

“Deacon! The last time you were here; Were you in disguise?!” Hancock shouted, spitting out sea water as he got both feet under him again to stand up.

Deacon bit his lip, mouth dropping open, “I... Ah...”

“Deacon, you sneaky butthole!” Hancock shouted. “You're gonna get us all killed 'cause you don't look the same!”

There wasn't a third shot, as the Atom Cats ran to the gunner and spotted Deacon and Hancock recognizing them, they stopped the rifleman from firing again.

\111/

Zeke, Johnny D., Roxy, Bluejay, Gearhead, Grease Monkey, Duke.

“Zeke! You need to come up to the Third Rail more often.” Hancock said.

“Hancock! I knew that ugly mug of yours dressed in those rags was you! Sorry about that.” Zeke replied.

“Well thank God, someone realized who we were,” Hancock said, looking up at the three Atom Cats in Power Armor. The suits were a mix-match of several different models. Ranging from T-45 to X-1, the common theme was that they all had hot-rod flames painted on the outside with the Atom Cats logo of a grinning, cartoon cat's head in the middle of an atomic blast.

“Deacon! Holy Smokes, you shaved! Sorry about that, we've been on edge for the last few days. Gunners keep picking at our defenses, Grease Monkey was on the lookout.”

“Sorry about that.” The orange unicorn stallion replied. Wearing a stained pair of red coveralls from the Red Rocket service team, his brown mane was slicked back.

“Well; Introductions then,” Deacon said,

“Atom Cats, this is Meathead, Meathead, that there is Zeke, and those two have got to be Roxy and Bluejay. Over there is Rowdy in the Nuka-Cola tank top and jeans.”

Even with the armor on, Deacon remembered which suit belonged to who. The two members of the Atom Cats took off their helmets to show their faces.

“Well come on in,” Zeke said.

The trio entered the gated area around the Red-Rocket turned Atom Cat's garage, rockabilly music was playing, legs of meat was on the barbeque, Johnny D. and Gearhead were in the garage restoring the back end of a fourth suit of power armor, with dozens of spares and frames all around the entire complex.

“So Deacon, who's your friend? You're not one of those crazy things the Railroad smuggled out of the Institute, are you?”

Meathead shook his head, “”

“Why? What'ch your secret? Are you a radioactive-proof pony or something? You look like you came crawling out of the Glowing Sea.”

Zeke's attempt at sarcasm was well-meaning, but Meathead was feeling drained to not have the energy to respond well to it.

“”

“Meathead here did more for the Railroad ten times over in the last week than I've done all year. He's exhausted, starving, and about to maul someone if he doesn't get a place to crash for a bit while we scope out our next spot.”

“So, Meathead, what...are you?” Zeke asked.

“A Changeling. I detect emotions and live off them, mostly. I have a few other skills, but right now, I'm fighting off the urge to collapse. That's a skill in of itself.”

“You look like you need a steak and a beer.”

“”

“We just threw some meat on the barbeque. Cold beers in the fridge over yonder. Couch around back.”

Everybody looked to the fridge, a pristine Nuka-Cola fridge repainted bright red with crisp white lines to spell out the lettering, and on the side was Rocket-Girl, Nuka-Cola's pin-up gal and advertisement of the time. 'Blast off with Nuka-Cola'.

“”

“What is it?” Deacon asked.

“”

“Got it.”

Meathead raised his head, neck straight, and was quiet for a moment. “”

Deacon nodded, while most everyone was listening, they watched as the Changeling disengaged from the conversation, and rounded the corner behind the garage to see a red sofa with blankets stretched out over it. He climbed up and collapsed, eyes already closed and within a minute, Meathead was asleep.

“So Deacon, Hancock, wanna fill us in on your new friend there and what that was all about?” Roxy inquired.

“Meathead can detect humans, Gunners are on their way.”

Zeke turned around, shouting once, “Gearhead! Bluejay! It's go time.”

With one garage bay occupied by the last human member Bluejay, they all went to their suits, with Grease Monkey entering his suit of pony-shaped power armor, made from repurposed Giddy-up Buttercup frames and metal plates.

While Gearhead was fitting his yellow suit on, with more hot-rod flames along the hooves, and down the neck, the suit looked remarkably different with the addition of two wings on each side.

On the back were two ports for Fusion Cores, one for the suit, the second for the wings. Two motors are connected to turbines on each side to create thrust for the wings.

“Hey, Gear. Stick with your ground suit.” Bluejay told Gearhead. The pony grumbled but quickly ran to the wall of junk and parts, fitting on pieces of armor that would go over his body and protect most of his joints.

“Oy! Quiet! I see them coming!” Rowdy yelled, he was standing by the metal wall, looking out one of the bullet holes shot through to use as a viewport.

“Where do you want us?” Hancock asked Zeke. The leader of the Atom Cats pointed to the roof.

“Get up there and wait for them to get close. We ain't had many chances to prep this long before they try and storm us. Ladder's around the backside.”

As everyone got into position, Johnny and Roxy were by the front gate in their power armor, Zeke climbing a rampart, but staying below the line of sight of the high wall fence. Rowdy was loading a double barrel shotgun with ¼ sticks of dynamite, and the shells had the buckshot taken out. Crackerjack rounds, with an extra long fuse tied on. She laughed deviously as the wicks came out the end of the barrel.

“You're gonna blow your arms off if you keep using those things,” Gearhead warned.

“But they're super fucking fun to shoot!” Rowdy replied, “That's why I got this string tied to the gun to throw it into the water when the gun dryfires. Let's see these Gunner bastards crap their pants when one of these goes off in their face!”

The pony just shook his head, “No way in hell,” He said, taking a position behind Rowdy and away from her line of fire. As inventive and creative as the Atom Cats were, there were some lines beyond stupid.

Grease Monkey readied barbed wire coils into a whip, as Blue jay outfitted his power armor with a laser rifle hooked up to his suit to use as an energy source.

“Crank up the music!” Zeke shouted, the closest person to the garage bay was still Bluejay, so he quickly ran over to turn up the volume to make it seem like the Atom Cats were unaware of the Gunners' approach. Roxy took a canister of fuel and hoisted it up onto her back. Two hoses running down the length of her arms with nozzle spouts extending beyond the hands were connected to two triggers by her fingers.

“Time to make these Gunners remember why it's a bad idea to fuck with the Atom Cats!”

As the rockabilly music was turned up louder, the Gunners were within 200 meters and were running the stretch of road directly to the Atom Cats garage.

“Rowdy,” Zeke said, pulling back the bolt on his assault rifle, “Show them the prize they get at the bottom of a pinewood box.” He was mixing analogies, but she understood what her boss meant.

“Grease, Gear, see if you can wrangle us a Captain. Everyone else, pick your targets.”

“How close are we letting them get?” Roxy asked. She had a bead on the Gunners, aiming through a viewport in the wall.

“Whites of their eyes. Whites of their eyes.” Zeke repeated.

In a nine versus seven-man shootout, with five of the Atom Cats in their power armor, armed to the teeth, two Atom Cats heavily armored, and finally Deacon and Hancock on the roof. Versus a lightly armored gang of seven Gunners rushing for the gates of the Atom Cats garage, Rowdy took the end of the wick and held it up against the exhaust of her suit, the heat hot enough to start the fuse. Roxy and Bluejay kicked open the gates, and with two 'Thump, thump's' of the shotgun firing, the crackerjack rounds were launched through the air, the sticks of dynamite sailed right for the group, exploding in a deafening bang that killed two Gunners immediately in the blast.

The five remaining Gunners didn't have time to react as everyone popped up out of cover and fired in their direction. Roxy ran out with jets of flame blasting in front of her, Bluejay fired laser shots down the road, Zeke and Johnny D. were shooting rounds off at the Gunners as they ran for the cover of blown-up cars along the road and other targets in their shooting range.

Grease Monkey and Gearhead ran out with their barb-wire ropes, Grease monkey swinging one around like a lasso to drag the Gunner Captain back in the most painful way possible.

In fifty seconds from the time, Rowdy fired her dynamite rounds, the rest of the Atom Cats pinning down the Gunner privates, Grease Monkey and Gearhead spotted the one in charge of the rest of them and looped a coil around her arms and legs, and were already dragging the screaming Captain back inside.

The whole fight lasted less than a minute, but that was because they were prepared. Zeke shed his helmet and went to the grill to flip the brahmin legs over before seeing to the Gunner Captain.

She was struggling and howling as the barbs bit at her arms and legs, she was surrounded but the anger in her eyes was a dead refusal to even accept that she was in a no-win situation, and was willing to fight to the end.

“Do your worst, nothing you can do will scare me! I'm not telling you anything! Kill me! Kill me now! Just fucking kill me!”

Zeke shook his head, “Darlin', you got a whole lot wrong with you if you don't realize there's more to life than killin'.”

“Fuck you! The Gunners won't stop until you're all dead! We're going to burn this fucking place to the ground! Your corpses will be split end to end, your heads will be mounted over the gates of Quincy for daring to pick a fight with the Gunners!”

“Alright, you asked for it,” Zeke said, taking his side-arm, a 10mm pistol he unholstered, and was about to raise it when Deacon shouted for Zeke to stop.

“Wait! Zeke, wait. I know how we can get her to talk. Hancock, get Meathead.”

The Changeling was already standing, rounding the corner, pulled from a near-dead sleep by the sounds of the crackerjack rounds going off.

Hancock was about to say Meathead's name when he saw the changeling standing there, bleary-eyed looking at the ghoul and then at the rest of the Atom Cats.

“Meat...” Deacon said, “You got Kellogg to talk, I know you got him to talk. You used your emotional senses, right? That's how you figured out if he was lying or not. You were able to test him out, and keep digging, right? We need you to do that now. Zeke, Meathead has a plan to deal with the Gunners and the Mutants.”

Meathead bowed his head, blinking away the exhaustion, then raised it. “”

The Captain of the Gunner squad didn't even register Meathead as anything less than a mutated pony, but she didn't care. She was still trying to struggle out of the bonds that were cutting into her wrists.

“”

“Fuck what you are!” She screamed. Bluejay stepped closer with his steel-covered boot and kicked her in the head.

“”

The captain spit out a chipped tooth and some blood, coughing but now quieter than before.

“<You're to be my messenger. There are two important messages you need to tell your bosses back in Quincy. Got that? Two. The first will need a little explanation. The mutants on the West side of Quincy, in the Atomatoys Factory. You know about them, yes?”

The Captain stayed motionless, but her emotions were leaking through, “”

The Captain looked down at the ground for a moment, briefly flicking attention to all the Atom Cats around her, then locked eyes with Meathead again. She nodded a tiny bit but allowed Meathead to continue.

“"

Letting the fact sink in for a moment, the Captain seemed to realize what Meathead was saying, “” Meathead was nodding, and caught the Captain nodding slowly but surely as well along with him.

“”

“No,” She said confidently.

“”

“We'll take it over. The Gunners will be in control of the whole Commonwealth soon enough. And All the Rest of you are going to be ashes! Nothing but fuel for the fire! You're-” This time Grease Monkey and Gearhead pulled tighter on the barb-wire ropes, digging into her and making her wheeze out her breath.

“” Meathead pressed on, keeping the conversation and his eyes focused on the Gunner Captain, ”

“Hey, fuck you!” The Gunner captain yelled.

“”

“And the Second?” The Captain asked.

“Careful Meathead,” Hancock said, the tempers hadn't cooled, and his provocations against the Gunners had leeched over to the Atom Cats as well and he was close to crossing the lines.

“”

He looked towards his gang members for a moment, then held up one hand, but pointed downwards with his pointer finger. “Six times.”

“”

“Nope, we've held them off every time.”

“”

“These dumb-shits don't know when to quit. I mean, we've tried just about everything short of what she just described...nothing! They just keep sending more warm bodies to replace the cold dead ones.”

“” Meathead said, focusing on the Gunner Captain “”

Johnny D. and Roxy clamped their hands down on the Captain's shoulders, forcing her to sit upright on her knees. Meathead examined the two, then inhaled a deep breath through his nose, smelling the air, “” Meathead stated, gauging her emotions and which arm she favored as she was forced to remain still. ” The two companions stepped closer, ready to pull Meathead off, but not entirely sure what it was that he was about to do.

“” It took nearly strangling the Captain to fight her right arm up and out for Meathead, and while most of the Atom Cats thought they were about to witness the Changeling bite her hand off, Meathead sunk his teeth into the Captain's arm and drained her. Like a vampire, he pulled blood and emotion from the Captain directly through the contact on her arm, and within seconds, her hand withered up and her muscles depleted. She shrieked and Hancock was already yanking Meathead away. There was a chorus of muttering, mild shock, as Meathead could feel the red flags going up in the Atom Cat's minds.

He felt an arm wrap around his neck and pull backward, in the five seconds he had his teeth sunk into her flesh, the hand and arm turned into a husk of itself, withered and dried like a bright purple violet raisin.

He knew what it felt like to be hungry, and starving like Leighla, and yet he also knew what it felt like to be the parasite as well. He hadn't eaten or taken in raw emotion like that ever in his life. To taste emotion straight from a human-like that was to set a full course meal in front of a starving man, only to let him get a single whiff before Hancock and then Deacon were ripping the entire dinner away.

The Captain struggled and yelled, jerking her arm away at the same time Hancock and Deacon were pulling Meathead away, but found that she didn't have any strength left. Meathead's exhale was filled with a plume of pink mist that he quickly tried to inhale back in, and not let any emotion go to waste.

“” Everyone around the changeling was in a mild state of shock, but they were more surprised that the bug-pony was able to do that and not kill the Captain outright. Meathead shivered and shook, coughing once he spat a black ball of liquid emotion onto the ground. “” He said. “”

Wrapping himself in a faded and dirty blue tarp, Meathead lay in a cleared corner of the garage and fall asleep as the Captain continued to howl.

“You and I are gonna have a long talk when you get up, you know that right?” Zeke called out to Meathead. Looking at Deacon, Zeke asked, “Alright, what the fuck did you just bring into our home?”

“Zeke, look at her for a sec. I've seen feral rabid dogs with more reasoning than this. Meathead's got more going on in his head than most computers I've come across. We let her go crawling back, you'll never have to worry about the Gunners again. ” Deacon replied confidently. His focus was on the Gunner Captain who was shaking, the barb-wire ropes were loose enough for her to move, but she was trapped in her mind, unable to process what happened as the nerves in her hand refused to listen.

“Where do you think you're going? You heard the bug, help me break her trigger fingers so she can't try anything funny.” Rowdy said, stepping closer to finish the task.

\111/

“Play it back again.” Justin Ayo commanded. As head of the Synth Retention Bureau, he was in charge of a plethora of surface information available at his fingertips, but processing everything he was seeing took time and energy to comprehend.

After the mess of three synths' teleporting matrix went haywire, the unicorns monitoring the recall station scanned the destruction of all the pharmacy building rubble that was teleported inside the Institute Teleportation Matrix Relay along with the vaporized synths and studied the remains.

They were able to discover there was latent magic all over the rubble, that magic interfered with the destruction of the three synths they were able to recover most of and determine they were shot, severing the connection mid-teleport. Which resulted in a sphere of space being teleported, rather than the subjects themselves. From what they could ascertain, buckshot and bullets were the cause of the destruction, but some magic was causing interference before the teleport. There was a pull in a quantum direction, one that only a powerful unicorn would've been able to disrupt at the moment of teleportation.

The wall of video monitors and TV screens was broadcasting the battle at South Boston University.

There were hours of ponies moving around, and the arrival of a new one in particular, but piecing together the footage from the synths was proving difficult. Even with multiple different angles, there were small gaps in the timeline where the pony with a blue coat and yellow mane, designated as 'the Vault-pony' simply wasn't in view or quickly moving out of the synths line of sight.

“Alright, comparing the last set of commands transmitted by the synths, they were able to uncover the Dean's Hard-drive. Bad news, it listed the Reactor Efficiency Data was sent here to Cambridge the day before the bombs fell. Li, you and Rocket will just have to keep on crossing your fingers until we get the reactor online. Your hard drive could be sitting in the passenger seat of a blown-out car for all we know, but there's more that we're missing. Move ahead three minutes.” Justin Ayo said to his assistant. The pony in a white lab coat quickly fast-forwarded to the scene of the last remaining synth.

“Alright, Synth number 5S-7B was able to capture the last moments of the group's actions before being destroyed. This Vault Pony approaches from the North, and we don't have a bearing from where he might have come from either. We're checking the Crow Cameras for any sign of where this Vault Pony might have come from, but there's a lot of activity and ground that we don't have covered. However, right here...” Justin Ayo said directing the several Institute scientists and ponies gathered, “Right after the teleportation matrix backfired, we have an image of a pony we haven't seen before.”

From the remaining synth's point of view, the synth Tin-Hut shot, showed the camera view of it falling backward, and then minutes of ground coverage as it crawled along before the synth managed to raise its head. “Look, right here. This black pony. Holes in its legs. Blue mane. A horn. That's indicative of casting magic because before, we can pinpoint that the Vault Pony was right in the same vicinity as the black pony. Moments later, there is no trace of the Vault Pony, and this black pony is in its place. We believe what we are looking at is a pony-chameleon, able to change its shape and outward appearance to mimic its environment and surroundings. We only have a few seconds of it on camera, but if our hypothesis is correct, then this black pony may be the next step in creating an entirely new generation of Synths. To be able to replicate instant mimicry, powered by magic and fusion, Generation 4 synths would surpass even the most human-looking Coursers by being able to instantly change their appearance to blend in with their surroundings or take on new identities without needing to come back to the Institute. The benefits of collecting this creature for study merits the use of Courser Z2-47 for retrieval. As Coursers are permitted more autonomy, this decision to use Z2-47 requires board approval from all members of the board before being submitted to Father. All opposed?”

Silence reigned about the monitoring station except for fans and generators running. “All in favor?”

“Aye,” Director of Robotics, Alan Binet said, intrigued at building a new synth model.

“Aye,” Director of Facilities, Dr. Allie Filmore agreed.

“Aye,” Director of Bioscience, Dr. Clayton Holdren said, enthused by the prospect of a new research subject.

“Aye,” Director of Advanced Systems, Dr. Madison Li said flippantly. Her eyes remained on the image of the black pony frozen on the screen. She gripped her right hand tightly, fingertips digging into her palm. Scraping at her hand, she shook her head trying to remember the last time she'd seen a pony that looked exactly like that.

The mane, the legs, the eyes, the horn. Something, sometime, somewhere her mind was convincing herself that in all her time above the surface, she must have seen a pony like that, but for the life of her, no memory wanted to surface.

“Aye, as well.” Director of the Synth Retention Bureau, Dr. Justin Ayo concluded. “The Ayes have it. Z2-47's deployment will be furthered onto Father for approval in retrieving the black stallion.”

\111/

The Gunner Captain's name was Olivia, but as she was cradling one broken hand in her weakened arm, she didn't know which felt worse off. Her right arm felt like dried timbers, barely able to bend and move, while the other was smashed in. She wouldn't even know how to go to the bathroom properly or eat without assistance.

That was a silent, third message, that the Atom Cats and Meathead were sending by letting her return.

Mess with the Atom Cats, we'll drain one arm dry and crush the other, then how will you fend for yourself?

Olivia couldn't move too quickly as her wounds from the barb-wire ropes were still like pinpricks of fire, and any jostling upset the hot nerves in her hand.

Only after forty-five minutes of walking did she come across the threshold into Quincy. Another ten minutes after that, she was sitting down, being yelled and answers were being demanded from her when all she felt was hunger that she knew she wouldn't be able to save herself.

No matter what she told them about the attack, Gunner Officer Tessa and Sergeant Baker only got madder and angrier. She wasn't even able to mention that the Atom Cats were sending her a message, the opportunity never came up. From failing to even kill a single Atom Cat, to being bound up and tortured by them, they were about ready to beat Olivia to death for making it back alive when she let six other Gunners die under her command.

Finally, the magic words Meathead was waiting for were spoken and Lieutenant Clint, formerly of the Minutemen demanded to know, “At least tell us you found something worthwhile! Anything? Anything at all you stupid-bitch! Give me one reason I shouldn't finish the job right fucking now!” Clint yelled.

“Landmines!” Olivia stammered, “There's a whole bunch of landmines in the Factory the Super-Mutants are holding. Landmines that we can use against them. We can keep the Atom Cats from leaving. Pen them in, make it impossible for them to get in and out without us knowing.”

“And how did you come across this information?” Officer Tessa questioned.

“They were talking about it, how we can drive the mutants from there. They were insulting us, calling us weak and stupid.”

“You're stupid for thinking they would just let you go.” Sergeant Baker said, “They sent you back as a warning. Look at yourself, can't hold a gun, can barely move your hands, whatever the hell they did to your arm, I don't care, and making sure the rest of our men don't see that you failed is the end of your story. You can't serve the Gunners and have no purpose. The more you talk, the more our men get restless. You're a liability, they want us to waste our resources healing you. Resources that we don't need to spend on you. Tessa, show Olivia the way out.”

Olivia barely had time to stand up before being dragged backward by the collar, she was howling to be listened to, that there was more to say, but the Gunners weren't interested in hearing anything. Officer Tessa was wearing a full suit of power armor and a heavy gauntlet around her arm. While expecting to be led back onto the streets of Quincy, she was pushed toward the back of the main church. Where behind the church was a small graveyard plot where graves were already looted and dug up, left ready to fill.

Olivia saw death coming, it was a metal-covered fist with a shock-producing spring equivalent to a jackhammer in a single blow. The power fist caved in Olivia's eye sockets, her jaw, her forehead, and her skull, pinching shut her throat and esophagus. The last thing she ever heard was a metal-pinging whine of Tessa's fist rupturing her eardrums from the surge of blood flooding through her brain.

Her body fell into the grave, and the rest of her skull was spread across the yard. “Fucking Atom Cats,” Tessa said, leaving the body to sprawl out and send up a small plume of dust that settled shortly afterward.

“So what are we going to do about the Atom Cats? They keep killing our men, and we haven't been able to get even one of theirs.” Tessa said, re-entering the main foyer with Clint and Baker talking to each other.

“Lead a group to wipe out these mutants next door. They're getting too comfy where they are and need to be taken out anyway if we're to secure the road from here to GNR plaza. Tessa, you're in charge. Find these landmines, if they exist; Bring them back.”

\111/

Meathead awoke four hours later, quickly inhaling and in a panic state. “” He said, fumbling to get all four hooves coordinated under him as he trotted into the group of Atom Cats. “” Looking above him the sky was slowly turning darker by the minute. It was almost sundown.

“Easy, Meat. Over here. You hungry?” Hancock called out, sitting aside from him were Roxy, Johhny D., and Gearhead without their armor on.

“” Meathead's mind was racing, but he could sense a change in the air.

“Ease up there, Meat. The Gunners haven't done anything. We haven't been attacked, and nothing's going on right now. We're just taking a moment to breathe.”

“”

“What's the rush?”

“”

“You can change into a mutant?” Johnny D. asked.

“He can change into a lot of things,” Hancock confirmed. “He's been going around as a human for a bit, I told all of you this hours ago. He just needed some shut-eye.”

“Well,” Grease Monkey looked back at his suit of power armor. “I haven't been close enough to mutants with my yellow armor on for some time now, but you think it'll fool the mutants?”

“”

“Why do you want those landmines so bad? I thought you said the mutants were going to kill the Gunners and they were going to wipe each other out.”

“”

“Meathead, I think it's best if we just let things play out, and then go from there.” Deacon said, “You already did enough by being the best watchdog and alerting us for a Gunner attack. As long as we know they're coming, and how they're coming, then they can't get to us. If they start an attack with the Mutants, that solves your problem of having to kill one of yourself and take out a portion of their forces as well. It drains them while we get this chance to get some rest and recover. It's what you should be doing right now too.”

“” Meathead's wings expanded, buzzing as he lifted off the ground. “”

Hancock stood up then felt gravity immediately pull him back down, “Awh, crap. I drank too much. Meat, gimme 20 minutes and I'll be there.”

“Meat, you just got your energy back. Are you sure this is the right idea?” Deacon asked.

“”

“Why do you want people to know what happened?” Deacon called out. “I thought you were trying to keep your existence a secret!”

“” Meathead said, feeling that he couldn't find the words to convey, Meathead flew up and out of the Atom Cat's compound. Their shouting drew Zeke and Rowdy from the garage to stare up and wonder why the strange Changeling left in a hurry, but they heard Meathead's final message to them.

“I never got my talk with that thing,” Zeke said. “So who's Nate?” He asked Deacon, then looking to Hancock for answers.

Deacon was about to answer, but found himself short on words, realizing he didn't know much about the vault dweller at all, let alone if he was traveling with the human or the changeling half the time.

“He's the toughest piece of boiled shoe leather this side of the Seaboard,” Hancock slurred. “He took on a Flying Deathcaw in the Glowing Sea with nothing but a ripper knife while Meat and I were knocked sideways through brick walls. He killed the Institute's main man, Kellogg, and left him hanging in the breeze with a noose around his neck. He's the reason why the Gunners are running scared when they even hear a mention of Mr. One-Eleven in a blue suit coming their way. He's a force of nature like a tidal wave, about to come crashing down. Meatheads' like the lifeguard making sure the rest of us don't get swallowed up when the wave finally comes. So if Meathead says we need to get to high ground, then it's time to get!” Trying to stand up again, Hancock shook his head, “Sh'It! I had too much to drink! Damn- Bourbon. Always gets me like this. And Boys! That wave is a' coming. So; Surfs up! Cowabunga!”

\111/

Flying around Quincy, avoiding the Gunner outpost to reach the Atomatoys factory was fairly easy, but in the twenty minutes it took to navigate around the town, the sun set and darkness was quickly closing in.

The swarm of emotions coming from Quincy was much like Mona atop Trinity Tower, something evil was breathing in all the misery like a fine Egyptian perfume. There was too much emotion not to react after the Gunner Captain was sent shambling back. The loss of seven Gunners in a single day caused an effect on the rest, which spread like wildfire from a carelessly-tossed cigarette.

A fire that Meathead sparked, was spreading back toward the Atom Cats, and now towards Atomatoys. When Meathead landed in the middle of a marsh behind the factory, he quickly exhaled and closed his eyes. Focusing on his forehead and directing his thoughts to quiet the rest of his mind down, a green flash of light quickly exposed him, causing two Super-Mutant lookouts to spot him, but he was prepared. Once they saw him, they didn't fire, nor openly react until he got closer.

“What'd you find?” One asked.

“” And just like that, he wasn't questioned any further. The mutants didn't recognize him, nor pressed for any other information. As he carried his laser rifle around, he made sure not to make eye contact with the others and quickly scoped out the toy factory from the outside. The target that Mona sent him after, he felt layers of emotions coming from inside. While it was easy to get a number on how many mutants there were on the outside, he saw two sleeping next to the concrete walls, with two carrying mini-nukes ready to be primed, and two more with rifles.

From outside, he could hear machines running, and while entering was easy as walking through a giant hole in the wall, he saw three Giddy-Up Buttercups in pristine condition, looking like they just rolled off the production line talking with Big Mack.

His presence went unnoticed, and he looked to the other several production lines. While most of them were inoperable, or defunct, he could see that the only line out of seven working was one for Giddy-up Parts. The rest were all for landmines, but parts and pieces were scattered everywhere.

“NO Pony! I Wanna make more of these! Not more of you!” Big Mack yelled. Gesturing at the disk-shaped land mine, an anti-tank mine, meant to wound and inflict more damage than kill. In the mutant's hands, it looked small, but the shells weren't filled with standard explosives and bearings.

“Big Mack, I'm sorry, but the parts and pieces to keep production of the metal Frisbees just aren't available.” The Giddy-up in a foreman helmet filled Meathead with an odd sense of nostalgia like he was witnessing some part of the past replay itself all over again.

We've put in an order for you as you requested, but we can't get a fix on the delivery date! We're just not getting a response from Corporate!” Buttercup tried to explain. While Giddy-up Buttercup was still trapped in the logical loop that society was up and running, she and the others failed to understand the collapse.

“Head hurts! Need to focus more!”

“The best we can do right now is focus on producing the Best Giddy-up Buttercups we can be!”

“Gonna take a coffee break.” Big Mack said, picking up slang and lingo from the Giddy-ups. Watching Big Mack ascend to the second floor and enter the Foreman's office, a Buttercup approached him and asked if he needed any assistance.

“” Meathead replied.

“He just went on break, anything I can do to help you until then?”

“”

“Alright then, back to burning the midnight oil!” Buttercup cheerily surmised, leaving Meathead to wander the plant.

While he was expecting to find traces of the landmine production, he was quietly shocked when he saw the security door that was the victim of a super-mutant suicider, the reason for the hole in the wall, but the frame around the door was jutting out from the concrete. From all the signs of sledgehammer blows, pickaxes, dents, scratches, and burned blood that the mutants tried tirelessly to open the door, but failed to read the signs marked around the building.

Through illiteracy, the mutants spent what looked like days trying to open a door marked 'Year-End Production, GB'. There was a key reader, functioning through the power supply reactivated, but GB was a sign as clear as day to Meathead. More Giddyup Buttercup parts, or finished models he could only assume, but from taking a mindful look around, out in the parking lot and loading bay was a dilapidated semi-truck, faded green paint that was sure to bear U.S. Army insignia at one point in time, and a cargo container blocked by cars, an overgrown forklift, and pieces of the building that eroded and collapsed over the loading bay area.

There were no more parts or pieces, equipment or material to make more landmines, and with Big Mack's efforts to get the production line up and running, he failed to understand that it was humans who were cobbling the ordinance together. Even though the machines were on, the belts continuously looped as he saw one mutant take a pile of bolts, scrap metal, and garbage, dump it from the second floor directly onto the belt, and then watch as all the junk rolled off the end of the belt into a giant pile.

While smarter than the average mirelurk, these mutants didn't quite seem to understand the logistics of what it took to produce anything. When no landmines failed to appear after their efforts of spreading trash around the production floor, two of the mutants went into a fury rage, smashing and punching the other production lines, warping the metal racks, bashing in the frames, destroying what little there was left.

While Meathead was drawn to the truck, a final emotional shift came from the overseer's office, a revelation.

As Meathead climbed the rubble to pry open the back door to the Army cargo container, he stopped when a large amount of metal began to shift and fall out the door. In the darkness of the night, he saw hundreds of mines all stacked, packed tightly to fit every square inch of space. In his attempt to close the door and force back the hundreds of pounds of metal from all falling out onto the ground, seven landmines fell to the ground. Clattering loudly and making Meathead tense that the 200-year-old mines might go off any moment, he forced the bars to the container back into place and closed it.

Taking a cautionary step away, he held one aloft in his magic, rotating it and looking at the mine from all sides, there were arrows stamped with legible lettering on how to activate the mine.

The change of emotion from anger, and confusion, to sudden clarity, was like a chemical reaction. It put Meathead on edge as he heard heavy breathing, then heavy things being moved around.

Big Mack emerged from the office with a wild look on his face, looking, staring at the world around him, hungry for input and information. His expression was a look of hunger, but not the kind from being hungry, but instead was the urge to take anything worth value. Like a dog protecting a bone, Big Mack discovered something, spent the last several minutes tying armor over his body and was carrying a massive mini-gun wrapped in barbed wire with kitchen knives welded to the end of the barrel.

Without explanation, Big Mack mounted the mini-gun and aimed it straight at the door. Meathead turned away and moved back, bullets ricocheting or embedding themselves into cement. Big Mack ended up killing two mutants as he trained his focus toward the security door that at this point would've been easier to go through the wall. Holes were beginning to appear through the concrete and rebar.

Taking this time to move up and behind Big Mack as the onslaught continued for twenty long seconds.
Meathead went into the office and closed the door, setting the land mine down two steps into the office, he saw a red keycard hanging on a lanyard from a thumbtack pinned to the wall.

As the onslaught of bullets came to an end, Big Mack yelled, heaving the entire mini-gun down onto the production floor, angry that he was out of bullets, but leaving only seconds for Meathead to examine Big Mack's hovel.

Empty vials of Psycho were thrown around, and bags of plastic were wadded up and left everywhere. A Radroach was eating its way through a pile of discarded bones, picking off any of the meat left over. From a single glance at the desk, there were tins of Mentats, mostly all empty and depleted, crushed, some chewed through as Big Mack was eating the whole box, packaging and all, some were only identifiable from the teeth marks torn into them.

With magic being the only option available as Meathead saw Big Mack through the cracked and missing windows coming back to the office, He cast off the mutant disguise and teleported up to the roof.

As Big Mack entered the office, he didn't realize the recently laid landmine was right in front of him, stepping directly onto the old explosive, there was a crunch and then a concussive blast that ripped Big Mack's legs off, splattering his torso against the ceiling before crashing back down. The already trashed office was destroyed beyond recognition.

While Meathead could've shot Big Mack or stabbed him, the level of intensity burning from Big Mack spoke to him. It wouldn't have been enough to shoot or stab him, he needed to die without realizing it. Raising his laser rifle, Meathead focused one tiny burst of magic at the suiciders, flipping the switches to their mini-nukes and activating them. Then, blasting two shots at the suicider as he held the bomb upright, trying to turn it off again, Meathead held up a hoof to block the light of the second explosion of the night.

Thoughts raced through Meathead's mind, ones that he wanted to file away and deal with later at some unknown date, but when the mutants were dead, it was like standing atop the roof with Piper. With all the dead feral ghouls around them, while it was easy, there was a sudden sense of how alone he was. It was against his nature in some ways, he felt. To take life instead of ween energy off of it. How the parasite never outright killed their host, only live long enough to spread and find another one.

With only two mutants left, searching for an intruder, trying to seek him out, Meathead was withdrawn into his thoughts as he felt surrounded by rage and confusion. He felt it, tasted it, and like second-hand smoke, it settled in his lungs.

One mutant was firing blindly in all directions, hoping to scare off whatever attacked them, as the other suicider roaming about had the audible buzz of an active mini-nuke, Meathead realized what Nate was feeling the same day he entered power armor on top of the Museum of Freedom in Concord.

The words seem so distant, but he remembered what Nate said, “Somebody stop me.”

\111/

Of what came next following the fight in Concord, a Deathclaw appeared, forcing the changeling to decide to bring Nate and his path closer together before this long separation. That feeling of death bearing down in unexpected ways was what shook Meathead out of his stupor, raise his rifle, and fired again.

From the Atom Cat's garage, and even closer to the Quincy Ruins, both factions heard the explosions,

With the factory empty of all organic life, only two Giddyup Buttercups remained standing. As interesting as the army truck stuffed with landmines was, there was a fascination that in a short amount of time, Meathead was drawn to the security door inside the Atomatoys factory.

If Big Mack went down to check himself, he would've seen the door fall off its hinges and land squarely on the concrete floor. It was so beaten and battered, holes gouged in it from the numerous attempts to open it, that when Meathead came down to inspect it, the door finally gave away.

Inside was a long storage hall with complete models of Giddyup-Buttercups, fusion cores stacked neatly, ready to be inserted, and the Buttercups ready to be sent out.

While the idea didn't come right away, when it did, Meathead felt bad for thinking it. But at the same time, he knew it would work better than any plan he'd thought about before seeing the contents of the room.

“” He said to himself, entering the room and picking up the power cores. Inserting them one by one into the unpowered Giddyup models, they all came to life one after the other.

\111/

Grease Monkey was taking the longer route around the Quincy Ruins, sprinting with more reckless abandon after hearing the explosions go off. He knew that by the time he got there, the fighting would be over, or picking up again, and he didn't want to be caught in open ground.

The Atomatoys factory loomed ahead of the Earth pony, but as he ran along in his Giddyup modeled power-armor, a fourth explosion of the night from inside Quincy made him run towards the now silent factory.

He saw the Changeling standing in Nate's form, back on the factory floor. But there was a quietness to Meathead that made him look drained. Not to say that the Changeling wasn't already tired, but the effort of what he did was noticeable even to the bystander.

“Meathead!” He shouted.

“Meathead!? Where are you?”

"Meathead? Are you changed right now?" Grease Monkey asked, saddling up closer to the human lookalike.

“Did you find the land mines?” When the Changeling didn't respond right away, Grease Monkey followed up with another inquiry.

“Meathead? Hey, Meat, I hate to interrupt you here, but I think there were some Gunners on the way.”

“

“Wha...what? I saw some running this way. I don't think they noticed that I wasn't a Giddy-”

Meathead was shaking his head, “”

“Huh?”

“You know. These old Giddyup Buttercups, still think that society is up and running, that people are going out for walks, socializing, playing sports...October is Football Season in America. They play from October and have the championship games in February every year...and here come the Gunners in their football pads ready to play.>”

“What do you mean?”

“”

A fifth, and then a sixth explosion occurred one after the other.

“What was that?! What's going on out there?”

"

There were eleven Giddy-up Buttercups off the shelves, coated in a dozen land mines each. When they were given the task to play a large game of football with the whole town, it was something they joyfully carried out.

Running through the town, they found the first Gunners receptive, trying to run from them once they saw the ordinance strapped to their bodies. “Tackle!” Was the order they were given, and with glee they tackled any Gunner wearing pads or armor, resulting in eight tackles, with two ponies being shot at to explode, while one blew up from an old mine simply reacting to being jostled too much.

From the worst pages of war in history to it being the inspiration for what Meathead did repeat, he sent out the eleven Giddyups and they blew up eighteen Gunners. While most were grouped close together late at night, standing near fires, talking amongst each other, they weren't prepared for the Giddy-up's appearance, nor when they suddenly tackled one of their members and exploded in all directions.

There was gunfire from the Gunners in Quincy all running or shooting at the Giddyup Buttercups happily running at them. The terror of being tackled next was enough to scatter groups of Gunners but to no avail. The Giddyups were still playing the game as they were destroyed by the opposing team. Something they couldn't rationalize, but the explosions were going off all the same.

All eleven Giddyups sent into Quincy were destroyed, but not all land mines strapped to them were detonated. As they exploded, even old and temperamental as they were, some of the ordinances didn't go off, and when the Gunners were moving closer to examine the destroyed Giddyup Buttercups, one stepped on a mine thrown from them during the blast and caused a second one.

The explosions stopped, and in the three minutes of the Giddyups running into town, twenty-five Gunners were reduced to four who could still stand. Seven of the Gunners were still alive, but bleeding out, wounded, and not likely to receive any medical help from the others as the only four were Officer Tessa, Sergeant Baker, Lieutenant Clint, and a recently promoted Captain to replace Olivia. They were the only ones who were either inside or up on the high ground when the ponies ran through.

\111/

Meathead disguised as Nate, with Grease Monkey walking alongside him, shouted out, “”

One Gunner laying in the street was shaking so badly but filled with so much rage at seeing Nate's appearance, he tried picking up his rifle and pulling the trigger, only to discover his fingers were blown off. That realization seemed to kill him emotionally more than the explosion as he broke down howling and crying, tears of anger and rage that his enemy was this close and he couldn't even form the strength to pull the trigger.

Grease Monkey walked over and stepped on Gunner's leg stump, making him scream and holler. Kicking the gun away, Grease took it and strapped the weapon to his side.

“Little High! Little Low!” The duo heard a shout back.

“It's the Cats!” Grease Monkey said, “Little Hey! Little HO!” He shouted back. Witnessing four Atom Cats dressed in their power armor, along with Deacon surveying the wreckage, he was somewhat shocked at how quickly the Changeling worked.

“Can you believe it?!” Grease Monkey shouted, “Fresh Meat here did all this in one night!” Ecstatic, Meathead felt waves of joy and love for him, acceptance as much he hated the way about getting it.

“Jesus, Meathead. You were gone for half an hour, and you did all this?”

“” Meathead cried at the last bit, sensing the ring of emotions Deacon was jumping through to understand what happened.

The yellow scrap metal everywhere suddenly clicked in Deacon's mind, “You sent in the robots to deal with the clowns.” He said, taking a second look around himself, “What kind of heartless bastard are you?” He didn't mean it, but the comment was meant for the destruction of the Giddyups, and less so for Gunner's lives lost.

“Ay,” Zeke said, pointing two fingers at Deacon, “This color-changing mutt just saved our bacon and about ten thousand bullets worth of fighting. Andy would've been proud to call him one Crazy Cool Cat. Worthy of wearing our leathers a hundred times over. I guess the only question is, did you get them all?”

Breathing in the pink mist emanating from the Atom Cats, Meathead inhaled deeply and then looked toward the center of town.

“”

“Well, shit, let's blow them to kingdom come!” Rowdy said, carrying more Crackerjack rounds.

“”

“Oh shit! You are a crazy bastard, in a good way, though!” Zeke said, looking for the Church. “Oh yeah, I know exactly who you're talking about too. I'll point him out. Lucky you, I got some rope here. Tell me, how do you tie a noose again? Make the loop, then the rabbit goes down the hole, around the base, back-”

From the overpass, Lieutenant Clint fired a flare gun high up into the sky. The red burning marker signaled to all Gunners around Quincy, visible from GNR plaza and even parts of Boston, that they were under attack.

“Well, that made our jobs easier. Bluejay, take to the roofs and see if you can get a bead on this asshole. And Meat, don't worry, I wanna see this guy hang too. Greasy? Go tell Gearhead it's worth it this time.”

Deacon was still accepting the destruction Meathead wrought in such a short time, that he was a step behind the Atom Cats as Rowdy and Roxy charged through the front doors of the Church, they caught Sergeant Baker away from his power armor and Tessa low on power from wearing her suit all day.

As Rowdy lit another crackerjack round and fired it at Baker, the round sailed overhead, bounced off the wall, and then exploded. Instantly deafening the Sergeant, he lost his sense of balance and tried to shout, but couldn't hear anything but the ringing in his ears. As he shot at Rowdy, she charged him and knocked Baker over, grabbing his hands, she pulled his arm and then yanked hard. Throwing him to the ground she grabbed his arm and pulled it back behind him until she heard and felt a pop of his arm being dislocated.

Roxy and Tessa charged at each other through the foyer of the church, locking hands and trying to wrestle the other to the ground, the two power armors creaked and groaned, but the Atom Cat's constant tinkering and modifications were quickly overpowering Gunner's thick armor.

“You and me, Tessa. Ain't I seen you try and charge the Garage before? How's it feel to lose every single one of your men?! Huh!? We ain't even broke a sweat tonight, and a vault-dweller off the street showed up and spanked your asses!”

Meathead in Nate's current appearance set Tessa off as he climbed the steps and entered the church. Running one hand up along the doorframe, he idly examined the fight as Rowdy wrangled Baker, dragging him in front of Meathead and setting her foot on his back. Turning to watch the fight, Roxy and Tessa were trading blows, the two armored fists making loud clangs as they punched at each other.

“Come on! Get 'em! Get 'em! Roxy! You got this!” Rowdy said, cheering her teammate on.

“Meat.”

“”

“That's what I was thinking too. Listen. I know you're under a lot of pressure, but you don't have to run into situations like this alone. I know you're only doing it for our best interest, and sometimes I have a hard time accepting whatever that best interest may be, but...you're right on this one. I know I may not feel or sound like it to you, but you're right. I just gotta wrap my head around all this craziness first. You're not heartless, that was a mistake I made. The last time I saw this much death, it was my people dying.”

“”

Zeke and Bluejay were in a shootout with Lieutenant Clint and the newly appointed Captain, with the Gunners on the highest ground overlooking the town, they could easily spot the Atom Cats and even hit them, but their power armor was enough to protect them from any bullets that struck.

While Clint and the Captain were waiting for reinforcements to arrive by vertibird, they broke the lift that would take people to and from the street level and broke the ramps from the houses and buildings close to the overpass during the time the Giddyup Buttercups were running. Isolating themselves, they were able to keep track of everyone in town from their position.

Zeke and Bluejay kept Clint and the Captain busy as they traded shots back and forth, knowing that one side was to run out of bullets sooner than the other and to keep the Atom Cats from discovering a way to reach the overpass.

Seven minutes passed, and from GNR plaza, a vertibird loaded with Gunners took off and was headed straight for Quincy. Five kilometers and they were flying low, but as they rose above the town, Gearhead with two thrusters under each yellow metallic wing charged for the vertibird and was able to vastly outmaneuver the giant machine, plowing into the side door and plowing straight through, Gearhead knocked all six Gunners in the passenger area out the other.

They all fell to their deaths as Clint and the Captain watched the vertibird fishtail heavily and recorrect itself as the two pilots fought to gain control again.

Gearhead circled, pivoting mid-air and coming back again to strike at the cockpit. Grabbing the landing supports, he focused all the energy into the thrusters and pushed the vertibird up. Tilting the entire flying machine, it rotated on its Y-axis until it was at 90 degrees and then plunged straight down toward the ground. Gearhead threw himself up into the air, watching as the vertibird and the two pilots crashed into Quincy, taking out two buildings and collapsing the front ends where the machine went up in flames before being consumed in a massive fireball.

With their hope of being rescued burning to cinders, the Captain was first to lose his fighting spirit. Lieutenant Clint wasn't ready to accept defeat, trying to rally a cry of anger, but after several more minutes, and sensing the Captain's fighting spirit wasn't in it anymore, he too came to realize the situation he was in.

Cut off, no backup, no way to resupply or get any more rounds, and food was limited, when his mind went to the water he couldn't even find anything to drink, and that's when he heard the antagonistic call.

“” Meathead shouted again.

From the vantage point, he could see the ropes around Tessa and Baker's necks, the Atom Cats were hanging the two Gunner commanders, with a third-empty noose waiting for Clint.

“"

Gearhead didn't wait, nor did he hear Meathead's warning, while audible, he came down and tackled the Captain off the overpass as Zeke and Bluejay distracted Clint with gunfire. Depositing the Captain in front of Meathead, Rowdy, Roxy, and Deacon, he was wrapped in wire and left to watch the rest of the scene play out in front of him.

While Gearhead made another pass, Rowdy took out the crackerjack rounds and placed them at the base of the overpass supports.

“I love it when they fight to the end,” Rowdy said to herself, lighting the fuses and running for cover.

The last explosion of the night collapsed the overpass, bringing down tons of rubble, rebar, stationary cars, and cement down onto the Quincy ruins, Clint was laying facedown in the dirt, dragged up by three sets of hands and with skilled practice, ejected from his power-armor. Meathead picked up Clint's laser rifle, examining it once and seeing the old Minuteman logo of a rifle and a lightning bolt crossed over each other, but decorated with Gunner's X-ed skull.

“” Meathead said, watching as the Atom Cats dragged Clint to the hangman's noose.

“On one side of the lake, he's considered the worst traitor in American history. A piece of shit who betrayed his country for ties to gold and politics over a thousand miles away. On the other side, he's a national hero and he has a statue in his honor. A commemoration of his service to the British to help quash the unruly American colonies. Tell me, Clint. Do you think you'll be remembered here in Quincy as a piece of shit backstabbing traitor who helped massacre dozens of people? Or as a hero for helping quash an unruly Gunner colony? Do you think you'll have a statue or a headstone? When you're dead, ask the Brits if they sorted out all their issues with the Irish for me, would you?>" Meathead punched Clint across the jaw, slamming him into the ground. “ Meathead took a piece of cardboard, wrote a message with a single word on it 'LIAR', and hung it around Clint's neck.

“”

The Atom Cats looped the noose around his neck and then heaved him up into the air by the rope tossed over the lamppost in the street. He danced and struggled, face turning red, then blue, and purple. They all stood around and watched the Lieutenant expend every last bit of energy until he stopped moving. It was a long five minutes of watching him choke to death, but when he finally stopped. There was a silence hanging over the town for the first time in a long time.

Zeke, Gearhead, Bluejay, Rowdy, and Roxy were all gathered around, feeling serene at the thought of having their Gunner issue and Super Mutant issue dealt with in a single night, by the force of one single person's determination and wild planning.

“Well, that just leaves you,” Zeke said, looking down at the recently promoted Gunner Captain. Pulling out his knife, and sticking the blade close to the Captain's face, he pointed over at Meathead in Nate's appearance.

“You see that man over there, Boy? You know him, don't you? He wiped out your crew in Mass Fusion and sent anyone left packing with broken legs and hands, as a mercy and a warning to others that is will what happen if you mess with Mr. One-Eleven. You mess with him, you mess with the Atom Cats. Do you think tonight was a string of bad luck? Your luck hasn't even begun to run out, because you're the lucky bastard who gets to go home and tell the rest of the boys that this fight is unwinnable. That's your prize for being the last man standing. But here's the thing about messages. You're the messenger, Boy. And, Boy, I would not want to be in your position right now especially considering you were forced to sit here and watch as Tessa, Baker, and Clint were all hung as your backup went up in flames. That doesn't even cover what happened with all the land mines we've got access to now, or the shit-show you Gunners tried to put on this morning. So, by all means, we're going to let you go, but not without a little parting gift. You know I sew my own leathers and patches? I dislike when I try to tell someone to deliver a message, and they get all the words jumbled up. So...no more words. No matter what you say about tonight, the message will still get across. Nice tattoo, by the way, of your little Gunner-skull there, what'd you do? Pen and Needle? Looks rough, probably pen and needle. X on the forehead, mouth all stitched up. Normally we would ask you questions about how many people you got left, or what kind of firepower you're packing, but tonight, I got another mark here for you, now. Hold still, these power-armor gloves can make it difficult to keep my knife-hand straight. Roxy, could you hand me my knitting needles? They're on the back pouch of my armor.”

As Zeke carved a similar message into Boy's forehead, the Captain tried to fight against his bonds, but in the end, the Atom Cats escorted Captain Boy to a kilometer from the GNR plaza and let him go.

Ordered to go straight there, with a sniper rifle aimed at his back the whole time down the road. If he were to stray so much as an inch off the yellow lines, he would feel the bullet chase him down.

As day broke, he reached the GNR plaza proper, and a waiting pool of Gunners who were all first to witness Boy with the giant X carved into Boy's forehead, with the mouth stitched closed with twine. Zeke sewed his mouth shut to keep him from talking as a warning to all other Gunners of what would happen if they tried to attack the Atom Cats.

Holes poked through his lips and thread keeping him from speaking, the other Gunners couldn't even get an answer from Boy until someone came up with a knife to cut the strings. But they knew where he just came from, and that the vertibird should've come back a long time ago.

No one approached him at first, they all knew what happened just by looking at Boy. He had to mumble and beg, moan and cry. Breaking down on the steps, he motioned for a knife, scissors, or anything sharp, but no one wanted to be the first to help him.

\111/

As Gearhead was unloading the landmines from the truck with his magic, carrying them down the road and arming them,

Meathead brought Deacon and Hancock to the security door,

“”

“I mean... I know a little about Equestria and Princess Celestia. How there was a conflict between your kind and the ponies that lead them to follow you here, but what are you trying to say?” Deacon asked, not understanding Meathead's line of questioning.

“” Meathead spent the conversation staring through the doorway, seeing the rows of Giddyup Buttercups inactive, with one larger than the rest, all ready and painted for Halloween.

A tall black model with wings, and a port for a unicorn's horn to be fitted into.

All that was required was two fusion cores, and the design was similar to Gearhead's winged power armor.

“<Now why would they go and do a thing like that?>”

Producing the unicorn horn, from Arlen Glass' workshop in Boston, to here in Quincy, it'd been at the back of Meathead's mind for some time now.

“”

He felt a pull to finish the machine, like a puzzle unfinished and he was holding the final pieces. Inserting the horn into the forehead, loading two fusion cores into the Princess Model.

She was still wired to a terminal that was the Princess' brain. Marginally intact, but with a cracked screen and power still running through it, Meathead pressed the keys to start the program.

Nightmare Moon, the Halloween Variant of Princess Luna from the Giddyup Buttercup line opened her eyes and stared quizzically at the human and the Changeling.

“”

\111/

Ch. 83 What Makes You SPECIAL? November 9th

Author's Note

The Reason why Alicorns are being made on Earth and the creation of SPECIAL!

Ch. 83 What Makes You SPECIAL? November 9th

Sanctuary Hills/Vault 111 Residents

Curie, Hollow Point, Serin Copper, Cherry Fizz, Warner, Thunderstruck, Dart, Golden Grain, Codsworth, Cait, Leighla, Tina & Bobby DeLuca, Crab & Poppy Cake, Sea Shell, Tin Hut

Jackson, Hertz, Zoe, Ada,

Equestrian SPECIAL Monitoring Division

Agent Orange Rind
Agent Peacock
Agent Banana Peel
Agent Lunar Rover
Special Agent Palm Springs
Director Parish

Out and About

Nate, Athena, Meathead, Hancock, Deacon, Danse, Verne, Piper, Lotta Rosie

\111/

Meathead laid infront of the television, hidden in his canine German Shepard form, idly listening to commercials and whatever passed for entertainment broadcasts.

Between one long stretch was an advertisement for the Giddyup-Buttercup, a modest $16,000 price tag for your own pony. Bucking Bronco's for the boys, and if you wanted to upgrade to a Princess Models, those came at a hefty $20,000 for Princesses Twilight, or Princess Cadence ($36,000 dollar option only available with purchase of the Cadence model, a Prince Shining Armor model to pair as well!), or finally, the $22,000 option for Princesses Celestia or Luna.

Meathead felt like he just won the million dollar prize at the bottom of the crackerjack box, discovering the Nightmare Moon variant.

But, there was a interesting bit of upgrade tech-wise when it came to the Princess models. Aside from using two fusion cores to power all their sub-systems and flight capabilities, this model in particular was capable of casting magic. The Princess models were built at toy factories taken over by weapons manufacturers, and the results were magical, flying machines.

The real truth however, was that their hard-ware contains a small antenna and satellites dish strong enough to connect with a satellite in orbit around earth. These motherboards of electronic chips making up the Princess Model's brains were the some of the pinnacles of every pre-war resource being funneled into a single project. Thanks to EINSTEIN, these beauties had external hard drives that could be accessed remotely to emulate the princess model selected.

For how few were produced, and how long it took to manufacture a single Princess model, from the designs and resources, it took three years from the time the order was placed to finished production, ready to walk off the line for a single unit. The wait was well worth it, because these Princess Models were not only capable of flight, but energy manipulation as well. In THREE amazing MAGIC SPELLS available to the public, these Princess Models were capable of Telekinesis of multiple objects, energy blasts for defense, and cloud manipulation for gardening and round the clock good weather for your Princess Model. Along with a variety of other features, these Princess Models were top of the line in every way, and built to last.

\111/

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Deacon asked,

“”

“So you want to get in touch with the Equestrians? Why?”

“”

“I know her, she's been asking about Alicorns ever since she came on my radar three years ago. Relentless is a single word I would use to describe her. Does not play well with others, nor accepts criticism well either.”

“”

“She wanted to figure out how to make one, become one, or force one into existance. She was quite vocal a few years ago, saying she had checked off quite a few boxes trying to figure it out herself.”

“Why's she after Alicorns?” Hancock asked.

“One from her past really ticked her off good. The one called Firelance from D.C.”

“”

“The story I got from Athena, is that he and his buddy Sola are the reason why the Brotherhood took control of Pittsburg and helped expand their influence across the North-East, starting about a decade ago in the big battle for D.C. She came to the Commonwealth trying to track Sola and Firelance down, apparently they came through here seven years ago, but we weren't able to be keeping tabs on them at the time.”

“So why's she stuck around?” Hancock asked,

“Athena thinks that the Institute is making one, or already made a fake Alicorn of Intelligence.” Deacon said, apathetically.

“What's with the downer tone?”

“Because, she's insinuating that even though the Institute may of succeeded on that part of mangling together enough DNA to make an Alicorn, she told me in lesser words that it's not THE Alicorn everyone's hoping it'll be.” Deacon said, “Like a test-tube baby sitting under the grow light for too long, or some other mutant they've got cooked up down there. Athena was extremely livid with anger at the thought of them creating a 'abomination', that was a basic mockery of Alicorns, and that they were able to surpass and succeed where she failed.”

“”

“Long time ago, when I first heard she was in these parts, roaming around, being actively violent everywhere she went and hauling carts of goods around. She was looking for information, and giving about as much in return just to explain her situation and plight.”

“Oh yeah? What's she after?” Hancock asked, like he couldn't already guess.

“Well it's not a hot-date, that's for sure. She's really...really...REALLY pissed off at a Unicorn turned Alicorn named Firelance, Hancock. He was One of Seven. Little did Athena know, that oh...three years ago, there was a big show down in the Mojave desert. Heavy hitters out west, Meathead. Big Names like NCR. Now it took traders two months to walk that... speed of things around here...We get word over the wire about big names we've only heard whispers about. That's...New California Republic...and Caesar's Legion... Low and behold, the Legend of the Alicorn of Luck manages to hold back a massive wall of water after the dam explodes in the desperation of battle. One of the two sides was losing, blows the dam, the Alicorn of Luck pushes the dam back into place and forces both parties out of Las Vegas altogether.”

“Alicorn of Luck?”

“I'm getting to that. You see Firelance, now his story I heard a little more. It happened ten years ago, but I heard a lot more traders, mercs, radiers, just about everybody down south who saw it had a version to tell, but I haven't heard as often since. Here's the thing about hearing that story so many times from so many different people. The Brotherhood had a big fucking robot, the size of a fifty foot building, but the Enclave took control of it during the middle of the battle. A lot of people forget that this Liberty Prime started wiping out plenty of Brotherhood forces too.”

“What happened? How did the Enclave take control of Liberty Prime?”

“With an extremely powerful computer at a military base, about 20 miles from the battlefield. They aimed a massive satellite dish at the spot and scrambled the robot's brains. They were able to remotely access it, and turn it against the Brotherhood. Here's the best part that people forget in the whole, Brotherhood won D.C. Battle, after Liberty Prime turned against them, and to stop it, they blast it from space with a laser.”

“”

“I didn't think you knew what one was,"

“”

“No one has eyes on him anymore after the strike against Liberty Prime, sometime later he shows up an Alicorn.”

“What's a space laser?” Hancock asked.

“”

“Bummer,” Hancock said,

“Beautiful paraphrasing, but that's all I know about Firelance. He and Sola tag-teamed together as the Brotherhood's heavy hitters for another three years, then had a falling out with the new leadership since the old ones died in the battle for D.C. After Liberty Prime turned on Brotherhood command.”

“”

“Here's the kicker. The Brotherhood called Firelance, the Alicorn of Perception for being able to 'Quote/unquote' make the shot.”

“The shot that took out Liberty Prime?” Hancock asked.

Deacon nodded, “Yep, you compile a hundred stories and collate thirty witnesses later, I know for a fact that the Brotherhood wasn't able to keep their secret about this one. Firelance was a Unicorn before the Battle for D.C., and then became the Alicorn of Perception after taking the shot that wiped out Liberty Prime.”

“"

“Exactly, so you tell me, why do you want to go asking about them for what you don't already know?” Deacon asked,

“”

“Cause their plans aren't done cooking yet,” Hancock said, “Earth's just been pulled from the roaring hot nuclear oven and still needs time to cool off before your pals slice into this succulent slice of America.”

“That's what I was going to say,” Deacon said, “Getting in touch with the Equestrians might be bad news for you, Meathead.”

“”

“But why, Meathead?”

“”

\111/

A single microsecond of data was transmitted, recorded, and logged sent from Quincy, Massachusetts on November 9th 2277.

While the amount of data was mostly limited to numbers, the combination of numbers showed that could be translated into coordinates to the recently activated Princess Luna Giddyup-Buttercup model.

Special Agent Palm Spring and his Agents Peacock, Orange Rind, Lunar Rover, and Banana Peel, all under Director Perish, who if you must know, reported to a Minister Black Comb, and then two more levels of power above them before someone answered directly to the Princess.

“This is Agent Lunar Rover of the SPECIAL Monitoring Division, I've flagged this interaction as high alert that is necessary for the Princess to see immediately.”

“What is it, Agent?”

“I believe the timeline for Project SPECIAL is about to accelerate again.” Agent Lunar Rover replied.

“Enlighten us then with a date and proof, let's hear why.” Special Agent Palm Spring asked, neither disregarding the statement, but not giving it too much faith yet.

“We detected a Wendigo's presence disappearing in the Commonwealth squadron of North America 48 hours ago.” Rover said, presenting the map of Massachusetts.

“How's this related to Project SPECIAL?”

“This morning we received a transmission from a reactivated Princess Luna Model. Everything we know was that it was developed at a SCYTH joint-development factory belonging to Atomatoys and our old Giddyup-Buttercup program. They were capable of satellite transmission and a feature was getting in touch with an operator or help desk agent to wirelessly ask for help regarding any malfunctions or errors. The only thing is that while this feature hasn't been used by anyone in over two hundred years, we can receive audio and visual during this conversation. There's a changeling in the Commonwealth, it's on hold, and waiting for us to respond.”

“A Changeling?” Special Agent Palm Springs asked,

“A pre-unification Changeling. One of Chrysalis or Gynae's,” Agent Orange Rind specified.

“Bring it up on the board,” Palm Springs said with a hard lean in his voice. The Agents quickly produced all the evidence they were able to gather, pinning it up and spreading everything out.

“These two, a man and a Changeling, they claim the Changeling, Meat, was the one who reactivated or fixed the Princess Model.” Agent Banana Peel said, going over the pictures presented of Meathead and Deacon in disguise.

“What's a Chrysalis era-changeling doing, talking to one of our models? And I'll ask again Peacock, how does this relate to SPECIAL?”

“Ever since SPECIAL was implemented on Earth, there have been some earmarks of certain event that happen under similar instances. Signs that an Alicorn was going to appear within two to six months of these series of events. One variable that's occurred with every SPECIAL alicorn that's come to existence to date has signs of technology and settlement expansion coming back in the entire region.” Agent Peacock said, looking to Agent Lunar Rover, she was quick to show graphs showing the percentage of human activity and projected return to post-feudal lifestyle, and the rate Earth was rebuilding.

“Robots, infrastructure, electrical, utilities, communication satellites, it's all coming back on-line for Earthlings and people are still tinkering away down there scrapping their way back through all the rubble, that's what we know from our other Princess Models that sent data back to us. However, in the last decade, two of three models have been reactivated or repaired, and within those two to six months later. The first being a Princess Twilight Alicorn Model in Washington D.C., repaired ten years ago. The unicorn Firelance was able to repair the robot and have it sending transmissions again, two months from that date he becomes the Alicorn of Perception in the battle for a aquafer for his whole region.” Agent Lunar Rover explained,

“This exact same instance happened again with a Shining Armor model in Las Vegas being repaired at the Gomorrah Casino. Our Cadenza Mi Amore Model is there as well, and the pair have been beaming back information to us since their great war. However we got to know Vivi Roulette quite well for six months before and after she and person accompanying her end up being the Alicorn of Luck. Vivi Roulette's relationship with the Prince and Princess models has been more than we could've ever hoped for in furthering Equestrian relations. Everything we know about Vivi and her companion are thanks to the Prince and Princess Models, acting on their own volition. It's only by supporting Vivi and Marilyn that we've been able to expand our relationships on Earth through them,” Agent Peacock reported.

“To those predictors of the Models coming back online, looking back we also received alerts of activity from those areas prior to the Models, from Satellite Energy Discharge in the Mojave Desert, and a small thermonuclear explosion in D.C., prior to the Twilight Model reactivating. Third time around, we've just checked and there was confirmed reports of a Rocket Launch in the Commonwealth, only terminal rocket thrusters and their afterburners could've produced something this loud in Boston. Followed by more activity of a dead Wendigo, and now a Princess Luna Model waltzes off the production line and starts chatting with a Changeling with the likes we haven't seen in two centuries...” Agent Peacock stated.

“So you've got correlation, but not causation,” Special Agent Palm Spring surmised, “Any details on the human and the changeling?”

“That's where we're facing an issue. We've recorded his conversation with the Princess, he started talking about the commercials ran for the Giddyup Buttercups in 2077-2075. Exact details, schematics, intended purpose, this changeling knows that the Princess is broadcasting everything back to us, and wants to speak with us.” Agent Orange Rind said, “I'm in the process of looking up those old commercials for the Giddyup Princess line.”

“How does this Changeling know about the TV commercials?” Special Agent Palm Springs asked,

“The changeling could've just as easily had access to old films and television programs with commercials from their original run-time spliced in. Otherwise, we're looking at an old Changeling.” Agent Banana Peel said, offering his explanation

“How should we respond?” Agent Lunar Rover asked, “The Princess Model is walking with them and we can get in touch whenever we'd like.”

“Tell them we have a few questions we'd like to ask,” Special Agent Palm Springs said.

\111/

“...Hello?...I understand your anger and frustrations, Meat and Deacon. I do hope you'll forgive us if I ask a few questions to better acquaint myself with the situation here and yourselves.” The voice coming from the Princess Model was Special Agent Palm Springs

“Who are we speaking with?” Deacon asked, watching the Princess' eyes move accordingly to take in his form. He could practically hear the click's of a digital camera taking note of how he spoke and moved.

“Special Agent Palm Springs, of the SPECIAL Monitoring Division, you triggered our activation phrase when you said you needed help from EINSTEIN. That's this Princess Model's brains operating system; Not many people or ponies know about the EINSTEIN activation phrase, let alone use it all that often, which is why we wanted to direct our next question to how either of you came to know about us.”

“”

“If you're looking for Equestrian aid, we'll put you on the list, but be warned, it's a long list. As for the state of things, you're in uncharted territory. We have so little information about life in that area, All our monitoring equipment says you're right in the sink of radioactive soup, and that things should be hotter than a piece of tinfoil in a microwave, let alone thriving, living communities. Pleasantries aside, there's been an incident regarding a Wendigo. Now, you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?”

<“I couldn't care how long Equestria takes, it'll be too late for me and most people I know. As for your Wendigo, you're welcome. I'm only the messenger, but there's a few people and ponies down here who're convinced they can force one out like a genie from a bottle if they rub hard enough, and it's not looking pretty. Fill in the details and help me understand, I know Firelance became the Alicorn of Perception, and there's another Alicorn of Luck far off down to the South-West...I know a pattern when I see one, and it shares Vault-Tec.'s SPECIAL acronym. What is the purpose of SPECIAL once all seven Alicorns are gathered and complete? Is the reason ponies were placed on Earth was because it was so dangerous, that it would kickstart the pony's flight-or-fight response, forcing a evolutionary growth? Is that the purpose of SPECAL?>”

“Meat...Since you were able to repair this Princess Luna model, and have an enourmous in-depth understanding of the past and current events, I'll help fill in a few of those blanks for your giant Mad-Lib world you're stuck in down there... In response to Earth's scientists coming up with a Garden of Eden Creation Kit, our response to their GECK was SPECIAL.”

“Geck?” Meathead asked Deacon, Hancock shrugged, Deacon gave him a look and signal that said, 'I'll explain later,'

“Princess Twilight of Equestria came up with a grand formula and solution, to fix destroyed planets damaged by fallout. The same way it takes an upwards 50 untrained unicorns, or as little as 10 unicorns at the top of their class and abilities, or a single alicorn to move the sun. The power structure is measurable, the amount of magical resistance an Alicorn has before magical-backlash or burnout is far greater than a single unicorn, but a single unicorn can build up that same level of resistance to channel magic as efficiently as an Alicorn can naturally.”

“It takes time, training, and intense focus and effort for a unicorn to raise it's resistance and capacity to that of an Alicorn and beyond a natural born Alicorn without becoming one, but again, it takes a considerable amount of will power on top of all the other requirements,training, focus, and physical demands to elevate one's magical skill to such a level. On Equestria, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna cast a spell every morning and evening, one to raise and set the sun, the other to wax and wane the moon across the sky. In times of their absence or even when hostiles take over, there's been a backup system of trained unicorns in place teaching and instructing others to take their place in the event of an emergency.”

“For over 1000 years, Princess Celestia and Luna cast the same spells on the planet Equiss daily, In theory, there would be a spell to completely re-green and heal the planet Earth's surface. With the core of Earth as the XYZ-axis, to 40 miles below the surface, and 250 miles above the surface reaching the upper atmospheres, she calculated the amount of magical mana required to set everything back to a photozaich period, or what you would consider 'Earth with all the radiation pulled out of it all at once, and everything went back to pre-industrialization standards'.

Using calculations based off Chaos Theory, and practical applications of it, she was able to come up with a formula and equate that such a burst of magic is possible, but is estimated to take the combined effort of 3,655 Unicorns, with the most basic magical skills, or 731 Trained unicorns with advanced magical capabilities and experience, or 7 Alicorns born naturally.

Whichever group, or six of the seven Alicorns, plus a hundred or more experienced unicorns, and have them casting the same spell simultaneously in unison for it to work, daily for the next 1,500 years...which is about the life of radioactive-spent isotopes for them to cool off without intervention... or until such time otherwise they're not needed anymore. So...Earthlings. As you can see, nearly all our eggs are in the one basket, gentlemen. Even now, 4 out of the 7 are known to exist, and are scattered across the Northern continent. So unless you've got 300 plus unicorns of a high-caliber level, then there's not much I can do to sway my superiors into taking your group seriously.”

This realization came as a shock to Meathead, Hancock, and Deacon.

“They're planning to re-greenify the whole planet.” Hancock said, snapping his fingers, “Just like that.”

“Alicorns and their longevity, and durability are more suited for the role. Yes, ponies are suffering, people are suffering, and we're working as fast as we can to help everyone on Earth, but understand, while you go the long route of saving every pony- piece by piece, turning over every single radiated leaf and rock...we're going to put everything back to the way things were for the environment all at once. But, for this type of lightning to strike, this takes as much time and preparation as it takes humanity to pull itself out of post-war raiding, and turn towards factionalism, as it does for a single Alicorn to come into existence. On Equiss, the rate of Alicornism is one every 250 years on average, on earth, it's one every 30-50 years, with the last two bringing down the average significantly. SPECIAL is accelerating exponentially the more Alicorns there are in the world.”

Meathead sat there, his brain feeling like he just stuck his head in a microwave and hit 'Popcorn'.

He felt like his world just got bigger, that spells of absolute magnitude could be cast. He always thought in theory, at the back of his mind, what would it take for a spell like that to snap everything right back into place?

Turns out seven Alicorns casting a 'cure-all' spell once a day for the next 1500 years.

“So tell us, how are you managing to stay fed, Changeling?”

His line of thinking was cut off, a cosmic swirl of magical computations vanished without a trace from thought and memory, and he was dragged back into the present, “” He said, not feeling the effort to give any more of an answer.

“...Just to reset everything?” Deacon said, processing everything Special Agent Springs told them. “That's the goal? What happens in 500 years when one of them has a falling out with each of the others? How do you expect them to come together now?” Deacon asked.

“Until that day happens, continue working on your plans, keep building purifiers, and cities and towns, keep building suits to filter out radiation, bunkers and farms, and when the day comes when they have a disagreement, then it will be on you to have a supply of unicorns, pegasus, and earth ponies coming together in harmony. For Pegasus and Earth ponies can draw upon the magic of friendship as well to accomplish unbelievable feats, it will take them coming together in large numbers to remove radiation from the land. It's a spell meant to put all the energy back into the original atom. It gathers up all the bits of itself it scattered everywhere and puts them all back into a nice tiny little atom, subatomic particle, by subatomic particle.”

“But why greenify everything?” Hancock asked.

“Well, in Princess Twilight's defense, and from instructions and implimentation was simple. The spell was designed to 'Fix' the planet's surface. Isn't that the ultimate goal of every society that eventually establishes itself and becomes powerful enough? Once a township builds itself up enough, and starts digging down to establish roots, they'll come face to face with the same issues they've been neglecting for decades. All that fallout and dust in the soil, contaminated water or rust, the best hope humanity on their own with limited capacity and resources after a cataclysmic event with no infrastructure or support system in place could do is to bury it."

"And not only that, Earthlings could spend hundreds of years burying it, countless generations all coming and going, and even establishing economies of life and death around cleaning and healing tainted patches of environment. Work camps and prisons of people sent to their doom with poor protective covering to toil in toxic dirt. That is an expected outcome of 80% of Earth right now. Then the 20% are going to be the ones deciding how to deal with the 80%, Meat, so not that were looking on Earth poorly, it's that we've been looking down this barrel for quite a while. We've scraped the bottom of this one, and seen what there is to see. Or we could jump to the end. This whole speech I just gave about work-camps and a terrible environment, and every other doom and gloom scenario we can think of can be outdone with a single spell. SPECIAL will Cast a spell and put and end to it all. It'll return the Earth to how it was before your big war, and scrub the whole surface clean of radioactive material. All it'll take is seven Alicorns casting the same spell for the next fifteen hundred years. So go ahead and tell us your solution for fixing up your township, and we'll tell you how we're trying to fix up your whole planet in one shot. Each solution requires a drastic amount of time, resources, and responses to given scenarios, and this is the one that gives the planet the most. We've answered a fair amount of your questions, now, Meat how about you mind telling us a bit more about who you are?”

\111/

“Forces in the area?” Director Parish asked Special Agent Palm Springs,

“Closest Equestrian forces are in an undisclosed location three days from Massachusetts.” Special Agent Palm Springs replied.

“Where there any preconditions similar to this with the other Alicorns?” Director Perish asked,

“Only on paper, there's nothing linking any of the Alicorn's together aside from the fact that 4 of the 7 have all been turned about because of humans about to cause massive damage to the environment.”

“Explain.”

“Adam the Ant became the Alicorn of Endurance the day the bombs fell, October 23, 2077. He was responsible for Equestria's last messages from Earth before the bombs fell, his ascension to the Alicorn of Endurance was caused by him flying after a nuclear warhead, and detonating it mid-flight. Considering Adam the Ant was a pegasus before the explosion, and an Alicorn afterwards, this was the only reason given as to how and why he was able to chase down 40 more atomic wareheads in next 90 minutes. Almost every 30 seconds, Adam was able to hunt down and detonate a warhead midflight before it reached its target destination. Adam the Ant's strength since then has grown and he spends his time tracking down UXO and personally absorbing the energy and fallout across the entire planet. To which, he says after 210 years, has achieved 7% of his goal. It's set to exponentially grow here again after SPECIAL completes it's primary function and all seven Alicorns are brought into existence.”

“Do we have any information that might determine what type of pony will become an Alicorn next? Earth, Pegasus, Unicorn?”

“Iron Horse to date is the only earth stallion to ever become an Alicorn. He appeared on our radar after fighting in Northern California, where we were able to detect a nuclear reactor coming on line, followed by his ascension less than two weeks later. He became the Alicorn of Strength after breaking apart an oil rig used by the post-American military as a staging ground to conduct viral experiments along the pacific coast. According to weather data and sea patterns, this offshore military base was housing a nuclear reactor that was jettisoning waste directly South into the water supply. The destruction of that base, whether Iron Horse knew at the time, was the best thing for the ecology of the entire western Pacific seaboard. Since then he's backed the NCR government and is firmly rooted in their society as a successful figurehead and leader. He's since then chosen to ally with Equestrian forces and SPECIAL's ultimate goal. As for Vivi Roulette and Firelance, her involved with the repair of the Hoover Dam after it's destruction mid-battle, and Firelance for stopping a whole regions water supply from going viral as well.” ”

“Yeah, well, this Changeling and human were both asking questions about the fourth, Firelance.”

“Aren't we all?”

“The process of becoming an Alicorn is classified, and they've all been tight lipped about what happens in the heat of the moment too. No witnesses or ones willing to come forward to explain what exactly happened to these ponies during their ascension, but we know it's happening at a faster rate than normal. They want to know where he is,”

“So do we, but until SPECIAL is complete and all seven Alicorns come into existence, then nobody will see the entire picture. Not even us. It may be another 50 years till the next alicorn, but that's just the average. At this rate, We're not looking at an Alicorn every 50, the time difference between Firelance and Vivi was only seven years, and with these events pointing towards another one after only three years, it's possible SPECIAL is accelerating exponentially. These levels of activity show it'll be here soon.”

“That's not all, Director, we just received word of a massive heat exchange in Pittsburg from satellite. A radio signal went out and caused a whole armada to mobilize. This is the Brotherhood of Steel's army and they're packing up to move.”

“Where are they going?”

“The signal's coming from the Commonwealth, Sir.”

“If this changeling isn't going to become an Alicorn, then he's certainly must be in close proximity to ponies who could be potential candidates. Even a weak Changeling Queen could easily overpower a Alicorn when they haven't trained for emotional manipulation. I want you to find out what this Changeling wants, what he's doing, and whatever he's planning, who he's been impersonating, and above all else, find out where his Queen is. I don't care how old his lead is, I still want to hear the words from the changeling's mouth the exact time and location of when and where he last saw his Queen.” Director Perish asked of Special Agent Palm Springs and his team. “Track her down.”

Within moments of them finishing their conversation, Special Agent Palm Springs, along with his team of Agents Peacock, Orange Rind, Lunar Rover, and Banana Peel were all leaving the SPECIAL monitoring division with bags packed, bound for Earth.

\111/

Ch. 84 Homestead, Sweet Homestead

\111/

Sanctuary Hills was as Meathead and Nate described it, even from above. seeing the Vault Entrance and shack, Thunderstruck saw the Mr. Handy watering the lawn in front of Nate's house, the only painted teal-blue home and green lawn.

While the rest of the neighborhood looked neat, and trimmed, there were piles all about the culdesac, one was a burn pile, another was boards, shingles, nails, pipes, most of the houses were gutted to the frame. These were the stacks of building materials all laid out and ready to go. Codsworth was working around the clock now that he was able to roam where he wanted to.

Thunderstruck from her lofty overhead aerial view signaled to the caravan to follow her, and as they came across the wooden bridge to the neighborhood of Sanctuary Hills, Thunderstruck was the first to approach Codsworth while the rest of the caravan still made their way into the neighborhood.

“Good Afternoon Madam, how may I be of assistance?” He asked.

“We have a caravan with a doctor Curie coming,” Thunderstruck replied.

Codsworth perked up “Ah, Madam Curie! I hope her learning expedition has learned her well? Are you her current traveling companion?”

“Yes, I'm Thunderstruck. Nate sent me to keep an eye on things. Curie's outfitted herself with an X-ray camera, we've got some medical journals and books, and she downloaded some files from an Auto-Doc in Boston for surgery, she's our go to doctor for now until we get more trained up or find someone else.”

“Fantastic news. On my end, I've been puttering around Sanctuary Hills attending to things here and there, there are five lots available for construction. As for the DeLuca siblings, both made excellent progress in expanding Vault 111's capabilities and rewiring old power cables. They've been running new lines for days, so it's much brighter in the Vault now than before.”

“There is an issue of roaming attack robots following us, Codsworth. Have any robots come through here?”

“Not in the last few months, Miss. I usually take my reprieve and am never bothered by tourists. Are you and your group interested in relocating here to Sanctuary Hills?”

“Yes. We need to hide Curie, you, and one other before these robots show up again. They may also attack humans. They were playing a message on repeat about being sent by a person named the Mechanist, and from what Jackson the caravan merchant said, is that they've been attacked every day for the last three days now, and another group may show up as early as tomorrow.”

“Well, sounds like another project for the list. A merchant's house for rest and recovery and a staging ground for caravans, as well as a outward facing security checkpoint by the river. I've been instructed to show new arrivals building materials and guide them in reconstruction of houses to fit Sanctuary Hills,”

“Miss Thunderstruck, along with organizing a line of defense, these Mechanist machines may be a menace to the neighborhood. In lue of having everyone show up without much time for everyone to get to know each other, I believe the first order of business would be to two options, stage a line of pre-emptive strike and then hunker down to wait. Might I direct your attention to the suburban layout?” Codsworth asked, pointing over the houses across the street from them, down towards the entrance to the neighborhood.

“To get to Sanctuary Hills, we are in a suburban area, an only a single road comes out to this neighborhood alone, followed by some foot paths through marshes or light thickets and sparsly-wooded areas. A robot wouldn't be programmed to follow these old trails unless it knew about them, otherwise most robots will stick to the main roads. There are multiple choke points from the bridge that crosses a stream into the neighborhood, or there is the Red Rocket coolant station down the road. The reason many pre-war buildings are still standing is because they've been programmed not to enter them unless provoked or ordered to. Many schools, factories, and businesses such as the Red-Rocket for that reason do not fall under their purview necessary threat. of Once you've decided what to do with the incoming threat, hide and let them pass by to trick them, or use the opportunity to attack them, either way, the second order of businesses would be to escort everyone unable or too essential to fight into Vault 111.”

“Is it alright if we stay in that house?”

“That is up for Master Nate to decide. Although, I'm sure he wouldn't mind since you asked. Permanent housings will be built and maintained by any residents of Sanctuary Hills. Otherwise, there are sleeping accommodations in Vault 111 readily available for now until the rest of the houses in Sanctuary Hills are up to code for permanent residence. I am available for restoration and building planning, as it appears that the rest of your group is arriving and will need places to stay.”

Thunderstruck and Codsworth welcomed everyone into Sanctuary Hills, with Codsworth asking if Curie was going to stay a little longer this time around. While the attempts at flirting were remarkable, Curie insisted she was only staying long enough for Nora's surgery and recovery.

With everyone only coming together in the last two weeks, facing most days thinking about survival, they hadn't been able to properly express interest in their roles or what they would be doing. As each pony discussed their talent, how they might be able to contribute best, it was something that developed over the days spent together, only now becoming relevant.

Occupying the houses adjacent to the left and across from Nate and Nora's home, everyone unceremoniously dumped their packs and stretched out after carrying the weight all the way from Boston. Sorting everything into relevant groups, and deciding where to put things as they were needed until they were more established lead everyone to see what they brought, and what they could do with that they had.

They quickly went around and announced what they were good with, or at least experienced with.

Hollow Point was proficient with weapons and ammo crafting, shooting, targets, guns, she spent plenty of time around them and handling them.

Golden Grain knew how to farm and work the soil, he knew good water from bad water, and knew about dozens of plants and fungus that grew in the Commonwealth.

Dart was handy with tools, fixing guns, and had spent months with the Gunners as a watchdog and basic workhorse for them. Building, digging, being their gopher, as much as he hated it, that's what he knew.

Cherry Fizz said she knew how to read, write, and make basic medicines, drinks, and salves from herbs and animal fats, and then after the raiders took over, she was forced to make chems for raiders before being sold to Libertalia.

Warner and Serin Copper both knew how to build, that they could put together a shelter in no time at all, with Warner spending more time around wood, hammering and cobbling things together while Serin Copper spent more time around welders. Hammering things together, making metal pieces line up, even riveting.

Thunderstruck knew most about the vision Nate and Meathead had for Sanctuary Hills, and was ready to go gather the supplies Curie requested for Nora's surgery, along with knowing more about the area surrounding Sanctuary Hills, Concord, and knowing which groups were around them, to be wary of, or deal with, making her the defacto leader of the group. She knew of Red's Stockpile Raiders to the South of them, along with the territories around them that were all now in a state of flux. This would be the best time to expand and land grab, but they hadn't stopped long enough to set up their beds yet.

The ponies, along with Jackson and his group of Zoe, Ada, and Hertz quickly decided that they would stay to have the strength in numbers, salvage what they could, and then make a second decision on staying or leaving after the next batch of Mechanist's robots rolled through.

As much as they wanted to disengage and go straight to rest, they all needed to take care of setting up a perimeter or a barrier to ward off the next wave.

That lead all of them to work around the clock, leaving little time for breaks or eating, which two of the ponies eventually broke away after it was getting dark since they all agreed that it was better that someone start working on food for the rest of them. Thunderstruck told Cherry and Dart to get with Codsworth to help make food for the rest of them, where they first met the DeLuca twins in Vault 111.

They were like that way until they all slowly succumbed to exhaustion from traveling all day, and working all night. They managed to get traps into place and set up meager defenses that would at least cluster the robots closer together to make easer to catch in a cross-fire and pen in together. Some ponies ate, other's left a cold bowl of food out for them to dig through at their own pace when they weren't busy, but it was far into the next day that eventually everyone fell asleep and was roused again to face the coming threat of Mechanist Robots.

While most ponies took shelter in the houses around Nate's, simply because they didn't want to move their packs again, most of the ponies went up to Vault 111, while only Thunderstruck went to Nate's front door late at night.

It was almost alien as she walked onto his grass lawn and nearly recoiled at the touch of the thousands of tiny plant blades. The smell was surreal as well, pacifying almost. The porch lights were on, and she could see into the living room, where a fireplace was built in the mantle, providing warmth to the whole house. Codsworth greeted her at the door, welcomed her in and offered her a cup of dandelion tea and offered her a seat by the fire.

"Ah, Miss Thunderstruck, I'm happy you've finally retired for the night. Please come in, enjoy the warmth, as you're looking rather tired from the road. Please have a seat in the living room while I bring you a warm herbal tea. I've remedied a solution to the water heater tank, and shall draw hot water for your bath now. Please, enjoy yourself and relax and I shall fetch you once everything is ready."

"I'd actually just like to lie down,"

"I completely understand, madam. However, if you grant me an extended measure of dependance, I shall provide the utmost service to you to ensure you are well rested and cared for in the coming future."

Her haunches dropped, something in the way Codsworth spoke that made it feel like he was only looking out for her best made her relax and she say "I'd like that," guided into the house and shown the living room on the right, the darkened kitchen didn't offer too much interest for her at the time.

"Please, madam, have a seat where ever you'd like while I bring you some tea."

Thunderstruck sat infront of the fireplace in the living room, taking Meathead's place on the floor, happy to stretch out and let her eyes doze off. To the right was a darkened television, with a similar holotape console player that stood infront of the bay windows looking out into the neighborhood.

Nate and Nora's Corvega wasn't looking any better, but the tires had been replaced. This was the only servicable feature the second upgrade from the General Atomics Galleria Codsworth was allowed to provide to vehicles, special auto mechanic features were yet another upgrade offered separately. It was a slow start, but Thunderstruck felt in awe of the past for a moment, feeling the carpet, feeling its textures, her eyes kept on getting pulled back into the fire Codsworth built.

Codsworth offered her a cup of tea with steam rising from the top and she accepted the warm porcelain. Taking a sip, she set it off to the side and looked out the window again. Codsworth hovered off, leaving her to bask in the warmth of the firepit.

Thunderstruck couldn't shake the feeling of leaving others without, so she got up, and went through the neighborhood to track down and offer a place by the fire as well to any other person, but none of them wanted to move again after it being so late.

When mentioning Nate's house, the fire, Codsworth, they seemed resistant to the offer, or hesitant towards being around yet another robot, regardless of how nice it may seem. Even when she described the warm fireplace and setting, they couldn't bother to be roused for any more action that evening.

Thunderstruck returned, finished her tea, was brought more, and by then, she was nearly asleep on the floor when Codsworth told her it was time to get washed before bed.

Being guided up to her hooves, there was something in her mind that wanted to know what it meant to be like a human before all this happened, and that this was some play-pretend to engage in some small part of it. Now that she was alone, and knowing that no one else would be intruding on her until first light, it felt freeing to disengage from the rest of the group.

Codsworth guided her into the washroom, and she honestly didn't know what to do. Without hesitation, Codsworth offered to show her, instruct her how to use it, and then offered to wash and bath her himself.

She replied yes please, and let the robot clean her as she sat there under the warm water and soap lathered into her mane and coat. Rubbed in, combed out, conditioned and rinsed out, she was leaning against the robot, tears in her eyes from trying not to fall asleep on him. It was nice having someone reach the spots she couldn't normally herself.

The robot had afforded twenty minutes of hot water before it started to cool, which was far from acceptable by his standards. Thunderstruck remembered being cleaned by Meathead and Nate, or the weird sensation of being pulled from the Changeling pod like she got laid as an egg. Emerging from a steamy bathroom, with Codsworth gently guiding her to Nate and Nora's master bedroom.

"I can't take his bed,"

"It's quite alright, you asked permission, and you said Master Nate told you to keep an eye on things, didn't he? I'll have new sheets ready in the morning and something for you as well Miss. I've noted the change in temperature dropping is astounding these last few days. We're sure due for a cold snap and perhaps some snow here soon! Anyway, Master Nate and Madam Nora are away on business, as I understand, and as such, the phrase Mi Casa es Su Casa applies."

"What's that mean?"

"My home, is your home. Please, Miss Thunderstruck, allow me to draw back the covers."

Crawling into bed, Thunderstruck had to wonder briefly where the robot was able to find an unsoiled mattress, and clean sheets, but was reminded of Vault 111. On the nightstand was a Vault-Tec pin. Codsworth closed the door behind him, leaving the mare alone to examine, look around, see a bit of Nate's old life.

Head resting on the pillow, she thought, 'What is this feeling Nate is fighting for?' She asked herself, laying there in his bed. Looking out into the darkened neighborhood, the moon was brightly shining down. Thunderstruck curled up, and slipped into unconsciousness.

\111/

"Madam Thunderstruck,-" Thunderstruck bolted upright, tense as a rod, heart already hammering the moment after Codsworth finished speaking, "-I've prepared your breakfast and garments for today."

She was staring at him, trying to hear the words, "The what now?" Throwing off the blanket, she stepped down from the master bed,

"Oats and Honey, with dried preserved cranberries mixed in, and your garment."

"My garment?"

"Of course, I prepared it last evening after I was able to gain measurements from you during your bath, after you retired for the evening."

"I felt like I was going to fall asleep in the tub last night,"

"You did nod off a few times, Miss." Codsworth chuckled, "I can also bring you more tea if you'd like, something to wet your whistle this morning. I shall retrieve it for you now, Madam. Please, have a good morning."

Thunderstruck's needed to fight her instincts and flared out wings from waking up in a place she didn't recognize, by an unfamiliar voice. All the events of the last two days rushed up to meet her, and Thunderstruck dropped her rear down onto the bed and sat there quietly, senses going out the windows and into the neighborhood.

She must've been the first one up, as it was still dark out. Clouds making exceptionally dark blue, almost black, but the first light of dawn had shifted and would be turning to morning grey within minutes. It was riveting, as she shivered a few times, sensing that the house took on a certain chill, but certainly not as cold or as open as the other houses, or sealed as Vault 111. Her mind rested on the thought of why nobody wanted to join her last evening, and figured it was from her pushing everyone so hard the day before. Now when it came for their first time to relax, they all wanted to get away from each other to decompress before getting back together again.

Immensely gratful for Nate having a working kitchen, bathroom, Thunderstruck poked her head into the baby's room and stood there at the doorway for a solid twenty seconds, wondering and trying to recall any mention of Nate having a kid. The pantry where Codsworth accumulated his own resources and power supply station was also next to the Washer, Dryer, and water tank.

Sitting on the kitchen table was her oatmeal and cranberries, sweetened with honey, and dutifully enough Codsworth floated over more tea, this time a Madrona and dried orange peel, making it extremely bitter and citric for the morning, but what she needed to face the day. "Thank you, Codsworth."

"Absolutely, and for the Madam, I've also had this prepared."

She saw it on the way in, the blue vault suit sitting on the kitchen island counter. "I took note of your wings, and was able to fashion a vest that covers your torso and back, but doesn't restrict your rotator cuffs movement for the joints."

Codsworth held up the Vault 111 vest for Thunderstruck, and she suddenly felt overwhelmed. No one had been this nice to her, except for Nate, and Meathead. It was making her nervous about how generous these three were, how she didn't want to say no, but felt that this was all excessive and that she should be giving more stock and worry to those around her and the rest of her community, but Codsworth must've noticed and set the vest back down.

"It's alright, Madam. You did what you could for everyone, and you know you can say you did your best. Let your thoughts go of them, and let's help with making sure that you are your strongest right now, so when you go out there in ten minutes...half an hour...hour...tomorrow...next week, you can stay as long as you want, but when you leave here, I want you to be your best, Madam Thunderstruck. So there's no crying, or tears, and no give-backs, this is a gift for you. Tis the season, anyway, isn't it? Only 7 weeks until Christmas. Oh, now that Master Nate's home, I suppose I'll have to dig out the Christmas decorations this year...and find a suitable tree..." Codsworth said and then began to ramble on. Thunderstruck accepted the gift and poked her wings through the back, zipping up the front, she shuddered, feeling the heat get trapped around her body as her wings fluttered and hung at her side.

"Huh, booby pocket," Thunderstruck said, checking out all the pouches and pockets, one on the left side directly above her breast, over her heart. Feeling the material and how she felt wearing it, she was overjoyed to be wearing something that would keep her top and barrel warm, especially with the wall of winter storms bearing down on them.

It'd been the type of Summer and Fall, that Thunderstruck knew it was going to be a long, cold, winter. A dry winter, one that didn't snow much, but every little droplet of moisture already on the ground would freeze and be picked up and swirled around by howling winds. That meant it was going to be icy and biting cold within a month, but Nate and Nora's home felt insulated from that.

Washed, fed, dressed, and watered, Thunderstruck was absolutely jovial leaving Nate's house that morning, but after taking one step out the door, she realized it was still early morning light. She felt completely revitalized and was the first one up out of anyone besides Codsworth, who surely worked through the night. The early wake-up call, made her gratful for how coordinated Codsworth was in making sure she had everything she needed for the next day.

This feeling of compassion and warmth, Thunderstruck chirped at the process of being cared for and attended to like that. She felt like she was with a caretaker that could provide for all her needs. She didn't want to be the only one to partake in that experience, and tried to share it last night, so listening to Codsworth, she let those thoughts go. A small selfish part of her didn't want to share the unique, peaceful quiet time she had being tended to like a freshly born chick. Now that she floated on that cloud of ideas, sinking into the membrane of feeling things she hadn't touched on since her childhood, Thunderstruck had an inkling of an idea for why Nate missed the past.

She at least felt like she had a better understanding of him. That Nate was used to a certain level of treatment, and offered the same amount of respect in return, but when the bottom fell out of society, people end up taking more than they need or know what to do with. She could see why Sanctuary Hills is valuable to a person like Nate, and while there may be better off suburbs and neighborhoods around, with similar Codsworths and Mr. Handies...this one was here and real, one they had found and didn't need to keep spend time searching for imaginary paradises. This was one they could rebuild their own.

As Thunderstruck went from house to house that morning, she was the one who explored the whole suburb from street and sky level before being satisfied with what she saw. Ponies rising up from their sacks or bedding were slow to move, like sifting through concrete. At this point she didn't want or feel the express need to tell others that she had already been up for half an hour, clean, and fed, full of energy, while everyone else was still digging the crust from their eyes.

"Time to get up." She said, "We've got six hours until the Mechanists Robots arrive. Time to get moving."

\111/

Six more people arrived over the course of the next day, in addition to the six menacing robots churned out by the factory. While the group of four from South Boston University wouldn't arrive until later after all the commotion and fighting with the robots settled down, they would find themselves integrating much more smoothly, and with a much better welcoming committee than the first two who arrived a few hours before.

These two who arrived early, Cait and Leighla were able to provide Sanctuary Hills with extra firepower, and that the plan of attack went off more than smoothly.

Leighla was sporting a painful wing, barely flapping in time, but still enough to keep her airborne. What was really throwing off her form was the massive gut from devouring half the Mirelurks population of South Boston and their Queen at Fort Independance. The feast was making her aerodynamic as a dish of flying jello. The fullness from the feast was only just enough to drown out the bruises, burns and cuts as she plowed on forward to the promise of a warm place to rest. Leighla figured a few more hours, and she would be back to normal, even after devouring enough Buffout and eggs to steroid and protein-load comparable to an extremely muscular elephant. If anything, she was finally feeling back to normal after her long night of getting shot up and shot at.

Cait was antsy, she didn't like the thought of having to meet a bunch of new people, let alone watch them, but that was their new job and role. To guard a bunch of weak ponies who she would have to fight Leighla off to get a fair share of the meat for, and the lack of stability for anything long term Cait to reach out and grab was making her reach for Leighla.

In the transit from South Boston shoreline to Concord, it was one of the longest, furthest trips Cait had taken in years, and most of the time she was forced to be with her thoughts or observe the surroundings.

She knew a handful of landmarks, the Corvega factory, the Museum in Concord, finally between the two of them, they were able to find their way to powerlines that ran North and eventually intersected and branched off with Sanctuary Hills.

But, that didn't matter what she thought, she knew that, all that mattered was that no one else mess with them, unless they were asking for trouble. As they all appeared at different times over November 8th, the ponies were alerted to a cawwing screech as Leighla landed with Cait,

“Alright! You sorry sacks, Nate put us in charge of keeping the rest of you safe. To make sure you survive the week! You hear that? Now, I was promised a hot shower, bed, and some food, so where's it at?”

Codsworth was first to approach, “Allow me to introduce myself, Madam, I am Codsworth, Master Nate's personal assistant. He instr-”

“Master Nate?!” Cait's mind latched onto the word an anger rising in her chest, head growing red hot. “Who get's off on being called Master?! So who's in charge around here when the Master's away?”

Thunderstruck landed bearing her flaming sword, gripped in between her teeth she caught the new arrival's attention and made Cait jerk her head back. She was wearing a vault suit top with holes cut out and hemmed for her wings to fit through.

Cait sniffed the air, the scent of clean mane and fur, suddenly aware of how terrible she and Leighla smelled. Leighla was far worse, having devoured hundreds of Mirelurk crabs hours before, but the giant gryphoness was still immune to her own stench. While the wind as they rode wafted away most of the scent, as they stood there it was overpowering.

“That-” Thunderstruck slammed down into the ground, wielding her flaming Shishkabab sword. “-Would be me.” She saw from a distance Codsworth's gentle approach didn't work, how some people needed a little heavier handling.

“Easy there, I get you're tired and hungry, but you're wrong on one account. You've got no right to be this angry, and I'm telling you the first thing you and your giant friend take a good look around you and tell me what you see.”

“I see a run down bunch a houses, with the exception of that fancy one over there that looks like it might have a nice bed for me to lay down in, or is that just being hallucinations from the lack of me caring?”

“Nevermind the houses, we all just got here in the last day. We worked through the night readying an ambush and defenses for an enemy we know is coming, let alone roll out any welcoming committee you were expecting.”

“Then what is there?” Leighla asked, “We're...not sure what this place is.”

“Excuse the robot, he addresses everyone as Master or Madam. That's how he talks, he's an old robot. He even called you Madam in place of Master because you're a woman and that's what he does. How about you tell us your name first, and how you managed to find your way here, and we start talking to each other like actual adults?” Thunderstruck said. “None of us know where you came from, so how about you start there?”

The gryphon let silence speak for herself until Cait spoke up, sharing silent glances between each other until Cait turned her her head back to Thunderstruck.

“The Combat Zone,” Leighla said.

“From the cages of the Combat Zone,” Cait corrected her, “Nate promised a lot of things, but all I see are empty lots and not much to live off.”

“Nate.” Thunderstruck said, “Nate gave us lists of instructions on what to do with Sancturary Hills to turn it into a fast homestead and getting the outside ready. Winter's going to come bearing down on us pretty quick, so we're divided up into teams right now. A handful of us are inside Vault 111, and the other are trying to get foundations up before it snows. Long story short, we only arrived the day before, Cait. We're only settling in ourselves, and already we've got a lot of issues to worry about before we even get to houses and shelter.”

“And what about that house? It looks all spiffy and ready,” Cait inquired.

“Codsworth put in the effort to make it ready for the Overseer as soon as she recovers from her surgery. As for food, we're working on big indoor gardens capable of feeding everyone. With you, Leighla, we'll see about getting even more proteins around here. For the first winter however, we're going to have to go larger on beans, lentils, rice, and potato portions until we can get a better meat supply going. Storing it will be easy in Vault 111.”

“And I thought Nate was the Overseer?” Leighla asked, “What's this about a surgery?”

“Until Nate comes back, his wife Nora is our number one concern. She's unconscious, and is probably the main reason why Nate sent you two here to protect her. Now that we've got that covered, In exchange for letting us use Vault 111 as a shelter, we get to build up Sanctuary ourselves.”

“Yes. Could spared some of the details, though.” Cait said.

“Alright then, how about yourselves? How did you end up coming here?”

“Nate broke some robot-human lookalikes out, sprung us too in all the hub-bub,” Cait said, crossing her arms to survey Sanctuary Hills.

“And Nate saved me from overdosing on Buffout. He offered us the food, water, and shelter in exchange for keeping an eye on the place.” Leighla explained, feeling a tight squeeze in her chest when she mentioned herself. It was such a horrid feeling that crept up and washed over her, spots in her eyes, like she couldn't breathe. Then it all quickly went away.

Was this Nate or Meathead, Thunderstruck didn't know, but she needed to find a place for them to fit in their community.

“All of that is available. Food, a bed, a hot shower and a job keeping invaders out and keeping this place safe. After you've gotten a look over from Curie, you'll introduce yourself to the rest of the community here and explain that you were put in charge of security. From what I see, it appears like you two are the toughest fighters here, and I can see why Nate would want you around.” Thunderstruck said, playing to their ego. She saw instantly it was the right choice from Cait's response.

“Darn right we're the toughest. Over 300 fights in the cage and I'm still kicking. My Leighla's got more muscle than she knows what to do with. She ate a Mirelurk Queen down to the shell. This Nate feller's strong, but is he tough enough to take down Queen on an off-day? Now 'tis a question I'd like to see answered.”

“Speaking of which, how's the food situation around here look?” Lieghla inquired.

“I'd need to speak with the two ponies in the kitchen, but, as for security, get some rest now, because we already know something's coming our way, and should be here in less than 3 hours. Depending on if these killer robots come rolling through, or run into anything along the way, same as the last four days, then we should have until 2 o'clock this afternoon before we hear the Mechanist's robots come patrolling our way, looking to kill us.”

“Killer robots?” Leighla asked, frowning at their metal shells, they always left black spark marks every time she tore them apart, and stung at her claws. Her talons could easily gouge through the metal, but fighting them was always a chore. With a animal, you rip off its head, or peck out its heart and the creature was dead. Robots had to be dismembered and ripped apart, otherwise they still might move in a dangerous fashion.

“Yep, the plan of attack is to ambush them at the Red-Rocket station just down the road to avoid them from coming up here and spreading the fighting around the houses. We arm ourselves up, wait for them to roll in, and then blast them. That would buy us 24 hours and then another 2-3 hours for them to make it here. In that time, we need to head straight back to the source, and pull the plug on these tin cans. After you get rested, I'll introduce you to the rest of the crew in the ambush.”

\111/

The only people humans who weren't sure if they would be staying long, were Jackson and Zoe, with their brahmin, Daisy, and pony, Hertz, and Assaultron, Ada to protect them.

Jackson needed a day to recuperate since he wasn't in any shape to mount an ambush or fight in a penned-in situation. Zoe was not looking forwards to a fourth interaction with the Mechanist's robots, but when joined with a large enough group all sufficiently armed and waiting to ambush them, it made for an easier time convincing when listening from Thunderstruck. The pony Hertz trained by Jackson was about ready to drag Jackson out of the Commonwealth on his back, while he and Zoe high-tailed it to safer scavenging grounds. Hertz wanted nothing to do with anybody except his own little group. Ada was the only one vocal about her worries of the robots arriving again, and said that the only solution would be to take the fight to the Mechanist themselves.

Ada's worries were met by Thunderstruck who reasoned that if the robots were tracking them, and they were expected to arrive sometime in the afternoon, based on the deduction they were coming from a factory in East Boston. Destroying them didn't end the attacks, only reset the clock.

\111/

Curie examined Nora. Her chamber was devoid of cryogenic tubes, the twins set to dismantling most of them, leaving only a few remainders for emergencies. With plenty of coolant, she composed a scenario in her head for an operating room that would allow her to work and keep Nora cold for the duration of the surgery.

All she would need are the supplies from the Switchboard in Lexington, that Thunderstruck and Jackson's caravan would retrieve after testing Sanctuary's first line of defense.

“Oh, mon coeur, it weeps for thee,” Curie said to Nora, “I'll put it back together, and hope for the best. Put a smile on that face, and a I-shape scar on your chest.” Drawing a smiley face on Nora's pod, she knew that everything would turn out all right with the surgery.

\111/

When the Mechanist's robots came for the fourth time in four days, Jackson and his caravan of Zoe, Hertz, and his Brahmin had less than twenty-one hours since arriving with Thunderstruck and the ponies in Sanctuary Hills to organize themselves.

With Cait and Leighla arriving around 10 in the morning, the Mechanists robots arrived four hours later, clearly visible, easy to hear.

Thanks to Codsworth's input, and Thunderstruck guiding the group to spring an ambush, knowing which way the Mechanists robots were coming, and how many, their lineup, and where they were going, it was easy to lay out traps, tripwires, and coordinate a defense that targeted the tankbot and assaultron's first, to take out the hardest hitting robots, before the eye-bot, protectron, Mr. Handy, and junker bots could coordinate. By picking off the tank and assaultron, their next target was the eye-bot to cut off any visuals and stop them from sending back any more information about their staging ground.

Assaultrons were equipped and programmed to get back up when tripped, they would know how to push themselves off the ground and get right back up. So the trick to tripping them up permanently, was to lay out not one trip-wire, but dozens. The robots wouldn't feel a single line pressing against them, and would continue moving down a street unhindered. But, with dozens of lines wrapped around the front of the torso, legs, around the hips, and then wrapped up in the arms as well, the assaultron looked like it was covered with streamers before the ponies finally pulled the strings tight to get it all caught in their trap.

The tank bot was a lumbering, slow rolling machine with two arms carrying massive weapons off either side.

Thunderstruck told them all night that this would require expert timing to do this fast, and with the least amount of pushback or chance for the robots to resist and go on the offensive. This meant that the tank bot would needed to be dealt with first, otherwise it would take control of the battlefield and make it difficult for anyone to get close to it.

Nate was able to prove that it was possible to sneak up to one of these tank bots, and even climb on it without tripping the sensors, but you needed to be fast and agile too. Thunderstruck saw Leighla and Cait's arrival as a gift from Meathead that he sent both of them to her, and able to understand their attitudes and intentions, even coming to understand why Meathead chose them to be their security guards.

It didn't take long to decide to put Leighla on the first assault team that would strike against the robots. Her role was to dive-bomb the tank bot, and rip off one or both of its arms or appendages. This just turns the tank into a battering ram that can be avoided with heavy precaution and then dealt with without worry of the robot shooting back. That would be the first move against the Mechanist robots, however, Thunderstruck told Leighla not to strike until the Assaultron walked into their trap. The Assaultron was easily the fastest responding and most deadly, since it could easily turn invisible and fire lasers from its head, it was best if they took this robot out from long range before anyone else got anywhere close to the Mechanist's robots.

Like wrapped up in a ball of string, the Assaultron couldn't move or struggle, let alone push itself off the ground, making it an easy target to get crushed and done in at anytime. Since it never registered any threat either, it was taking its time pushing itself off the ground, trying to figure out why it couldn't move as the residents of Sanctuary Hills descended on the other four robots.

With the two most dangerous robots immobilized, the other four were easy enough to overwhelm with sheer numbers and superior firepower. With their 12 against the robots, leading up to the four minutes of them shooting everything like crazy, unloading dozens of rounds to turn the remaining robots into cheese-graters and shot scrap, their was a quiet silence after the shooting stopped and then they all started to cheer.

Crab Cake, Sea Shell, Poppy Cake, and Tin Hut arrived twenty minutes later, they were walking up the road, seeing fresh destruction on either sides of the road, signs that an accident and battles only recently occurred. They had heard the noises farther back and away, but remained cautious on the approach. Having walked from South Boston University, they were hours behind Cait and Leighla, but they managed to arrive after a big fight which put the new community's defenses to the test right off the bat.

Brought together by the community defense, Thunderstruck brought Jackson, Zoe, Ada, and Hertz to scrap down the busted robots for anything worthwhile. Here, Ada told her human companions again that this wasn't the end, especially with four repeat instances to confirm this. She said that the only way to deal with this threat would be to fight against the Mechanist, and this time Jackson agreed. Only, Jackson and Zoe weren't the fighters capable of tanking on this kind of threat every single day, and Ada told them to stay behind and gather resources to make it easier to leave the Commonwealth and go find other areas to scrap and salvage in.

Next came the hard part, as much as they were feeling congratulatory about fending off the first attack on their community, the countdown was on again. Twenty-six hours before the next batch, and this time they would be without Thunderstuck, Ada, Cait and Leighla, While they were up four, and down four, with more empasis on trying to avoid the fight altogether and converse resources.

This meant the rest of them went with Codsworth's plan of hiding. This time tomorrow, they would keep an eye and ear out for any robots coming, and once they got a signal, they would all hide and wait for trouble to pass.

\111/

As the pile of freshly printed newspapers grew to 100 copies, Piper stopped to pack the essentials, fearing the next round of transgressions from Diamond City guards under McDonnough's orders, or something worse from the Institute themselves

This was big news, but any person who read even less than a tenth of the article would be blasting away at the birds without a care or regard to others in the world. Things found a way of falling back on her, from what she wrote to how everyone took it, the good and bad news landed right back on her doorstep.

As she reread the words on the written page, she smirked, 'At least it's better than calling people calling their neighbor a synth.' Which was a step forward, rather than the two steps back she had with McDonnough, this time she had tangible proof, rather than just observations.

In the week Nate and Meathead left for the Glowing Sea, handfuls of reports from merchants were coming in that things were turning downright nasty out in the Commonwealth. More ghouls than a person could swing a stick at, mutant bands moving all over the place, roving groups of attack robots striking at caravans, and now she was about to add more fuel to the fire by saying the Institute was watching their every move through synthetic birds.

Her mind turned the stone of Meathead's announcement that McDonnough was a synth over and over in her mind, he was the only one so far to be able to confirm on a whim. She would find another connection to him and the Institute, she just needed to see it from a different perspective.

\111/

Three miles from Quincy, a fantastic white-limestone quarry was excavated and occupied by Slough and his raiders. A handful of lookouts up near the surface or by the road heard or even saw some of the explosions echoing out. While their own decision on what to do when it came to observing Meathead and the Atom Cat's shootout with the Gunners,

It was early that next morning that a skinny man wearing nothing but shoes and carrying a pea-shooter of a pistol sent to go check Quincy out. He poked around, saw the Atom Cats, the lack of Gunners, and nearly tripped, arms and legs all spread-eagle, onto a landmine while doing a lap around the town.

He tripped.

Landing face to face with an explosive that would've blown him to smithereens before running off back to base.

Ch. 85 Jamaica Plain

Ch. 85

\111/

“So what do you want to do with her? She's your Princess.” Deacon asked Meathead.

“”

“When do you feel like heading up that way?”

“” Meathead said, “”

“Trying to get rid of me? Nah, I know you're not, but why the split?”

“We spanked those Gunners really good last night,” Hancock said, ignoring the fact that he was Johnny-come-lately. “...And they're not going to forget anytime soon. Which is why when they feel strong enough, they'll come for the Atom Cats with everything they've got. So we need to move fast and stick it to them everywhere we can at once to make sure they know it's all over. Their gang, their ambitions, their dreams, and anything they hope to find in the Commonwealth, will be the death of them.” Hancock said, “Fuck the Gunners, and Fuck them Good. Their days of looting the Commonwealth are over. I've had it with them, Deacon. Had it. Had it. HAD IT! I've known you were on the Gunner's shitlist long before I even met you, you know that? I ever tell you that? There were so many Gunners at the Third Rail pissing on about you. Well, you hear the story so many times, and so many different ways it starts to sound like the same guy. These guys hate you, and I don't have to put up with any more of their bullshit because I'm tired of listening to them, and tired of looking at them. Their shit ends, Deacon, so when you do go back towards Goodneighbor, you let my boys know that I've had it up to *here* with them, and it's time for the Gunners to hit the curb. I'm declaring open season on them. You get the Princess back to a castle, and spread the word about what you know. We'll be right behind you,"

“Heck of an order, but I'll let the Watch know.”

“”

“Right, I still need to get the message back to base about Ticon too.” Deacon said, biting back the fact it was more bad news for the Railroad.

“My current appearance is that suited to your Halloween celebration...” the Princess said, slowly frowning as she looked down at herself, “Although the Emulation Information Network Satellite Tether External Interface Node, is telling me that the festivities are over a week past. So, I suppose a change in appearance is in order. Something more accommodating to the current season?”

“The Atom Cats can get you all redone up for the next holidays, but you'll have to wait since they're busy for the next week out.”

“Being Princess means needing assistance recording all the exploits, interactions, and adventures I go on over the years, and EINSTEIN helps with that. Tell me, what are your names? And are you my new companions?”

“”

“Deacon.”

“John Hancock the Second.”

“Meathead? You're the one who found her.”

“” Meathead sarcastically replied lately to Deacon, looking up to the human. “”

"What are you kidding me? Absolutely, hot-rod flames." Hancock said.

“Do you have a home designation or straight to companion mode?” Princess Nightmare Moon asked.

“Wait, I wouldn't mind showing her off around the Railroad first,” Deacon said.

“”

“Straight to companion mode,” Deacon said, he somewhat expected this, but it felt only slightly tedious among the charming tone Princess Luna put out under her Nightmare Moon outfit.

“You're right, but I think maybe some Changeling holes and stiff haircut look might actually suit her better.” Deacon said. “What kind of robot are you?”

Power surged into her horn from the welling-uprising of noise from her power core generators, and wings fanning open to lift her off the ground slightly.

“I am the 4th generation of Atomatoys Robotic companions, but I was specially designed for flight, and magic capabilities. My Creator Arlen Glass worked alongside Equestrians to transfer memories and personalities of their Princesses into me. My role is to be a leader among ponies and rally inspiration when spirits are low in morale.”

“Well then your attitude and morale will be much greatly appreciated with some people I know, Princess. You'll make plenty of friends where we're going,” Deacon said.

“Oh... Damn...” Hancock said, as if remembering something important.

“”

“Bosco.”

“”

“Raider bitch next in line after the Combat Zone. Damn, I wasn't thinking about it, I was just happy to see that place catch fire, and see that damn place in smoke, but son-of-a-bitch! I wasn't thinking about where all those damn rats would run off to!”

“”

“Yeah, the Regulars at the Combat Zone. It would've been the crowds that were outside, they're all going to go scampering off down the road to Bosco's school. He took over a school just down the road from the Combat Zone.” Hancock swore to himself again, realizing the power vacuum he created.

“That's why I always told myself that place needed to be brought down on a full night. Get all of them at once. But no...We got Bosco to deal with now next time we try and get through Downtown.”

“”

“He's a worse-off type that attacks most who come his way, steal their shit, beat's you up, and then leave for dead. But, the school he's in has a big gymnasium and pool below ground. I know for a fact they held fight pits down there in the pool long before the Combat Zone ever got their act organized. Mutants messed Bosco's gang up pretty good, Combat Zone got it's shit together, drove Bosco back a little bit. Now I just started thinking about last night. The rats scattered and regrouped back in the South Boston Tech School...” Hancock said, knowing most of the neighborhoods and groups, it only occurred to him now that it wouldn't take long for raiders to migrate to a new watering hole or stage to start fights up again. Bosco's happened to be the closest, and largest that could accommodate the influx of raiders now idly waking up to the realization that their fight-bar burned to the ground.

“Now I imagine he's escalated to attacking, stealing, abducting, forcing people to fight, and then leaving for dead.”

“”

Deacon, Hancock, and the robotic Princess all looked to Meathead, “”

"What's the deal?"

"Nate and I fight the leader of Nuka-World for the title of Overboss of their gangs."

“That sounds like there's a lot of strings attached to that deal,” Hancock said cautiously, “Wouldn't expect much, even if you won.”

“And dealing with this many raiders on this kind of scale is risky, Meathead. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people, all of the time. This is insane. from the stories I've heard coming from there in the last year, it's not anywhere you want to be, especially you if you're a whole love-bug. The vibe I'm told from there is a lot more rapey-murdery. And how come you're willing to go after this Overboss, and not Rage?"

“”

"Yeah, Cheers." Deacon said, turning to Princess Nightmare Moon and taking the forked road leading along the coastline heading back North.

“Where we headed to next?”

“”

\111/

“Go on! Beat it! You inbred half-brains,” Hancock shouted at the herd of ghouls he was pushing his way through. He held a pistol to one's forehead as two more lumbered close to him “You're lucky I don't shoot you all right now. But if I did, then I would-- I swear I outta...!” Hancock wore himself down to mumbling insults at the crowd of feral ghouls, and any that chose to wander too close to him as he waited for Meathead to finish surveying the valley. Hancock stared down one, looking into its beady, black and grey eyes, then pretended to throw a fist, stopping inches from the ghouls face, 'err,' he grumbled.

But all the response he got was a half-rotten stare and a wheeze from the zombie-like feral jawing its mouth.

“Fucking ferals. I can't believe this is what I get to look forward to; Son of a bitch.” He said, shoving one in the back, forcing it out of his way. “Hey, Meat!” He shouted, spotting the Changeling up in Jamaica Plain's church belfry. His focus was on a super mutant stronghold a mile away, the town of Shaw.

Somewhere in between a massive shopping department store, Milton General Hospital, and Shaw High School was Fist's second in command, a mutant named Rage.

“” Meathead shouted back. The crowd of ghouls swung their heads up to Meathead, trying to track the noise. A few moaned and others shuffled towards Hancock, so he softened his voice.

“Yeah? Well? Spit it out!” Hancock yelled out to Meathead. While he was waiting he drew out his knife and waved it towards the semi-conscious ghouls.

“I'm warning you, beat it.” Hancock said, threatening the ferals. Meathead counted off mutants, shaking his head.

Making karate poses and imitating kung-fu noises as he hacked the knife towards the feral ghouls, he purposefully withheld himself from stabbing into the mindless over-radiated creatures.

It was a test of wills and endurance to see how long he could get away with his carnal fun before stabbing or nicking a ghoul with his knife.

“Hiya- Ki, Yah, Ha! Hoy-ha! Dah- da- da- da- da!”

They were oblivious to Hancock's musings and boredom.

“”

“Well? How 'bout it? I herd up these ghouls-” One feral bumped into Hancock, which he quickly struck with the butt of his pistol across the face, bloodying the shambling ghoul, sending it sprawling onto the ground, “I said beat it!”

Exhaling, he shouted up to Meathead again, “And then we dangle some meat on a stick, and use them as meatshields to lure the big guy out?”

All around Hancock, he was standing in a crowd of ferals, thirty mindlessly wandering the streets, with dozens more all tucked away in corners.

“”

“Then how about we put a pin in Rage for now? Circle back in a week? The Cat's said they'd have armor for us ready by then. They got the scrap and the cores, they're already banging away.”

” Meathead said.

“It's like holding up a fat chick while making love; Punishing on the back and knees, but a little forgiving because of how much cushion she has,”

“” Meathead said, closing his eyes and shaking the image away.

Meathead could hear Hancock laughing, "Hey Meat! Check it out!"

Holding one feral ghoul that didn't have any teeth, "Suckie, Suckie! I'll let you have her for five dollars!" Hancock shouted.

""

"Hey! I gotta dick!"

""

Rummaging through his pockets, Hancock grabbed another cigarette and lit it. Sighing, he couldn't imagine what route Meathead was planning on getting to or finding Rage. The changeling was what you could consider functioning, but even after resting, even Hancock could tell the bug needed something a little more fulfilling than nights on the open road with him.

"" Meathead said to himself, ""

It dawned on him, ""

Wandering back and forth, pacing the streets, Hancock rolled his head back and coughed. Spitting twice, he moaned out a breath of smoke.

His eyes wandered up to one of the billboards around the town. “See the Treasures of Jamaica Plain.”

“Hey, Meat! You ever hear about this before the Big War? The Treasure of Jamaica Plain?”

Meathead's eyes rolled back, trying to remember to a month ago when everything around him didn't look blown to bits. He could recall the advertisements, even a few commercials on TV. “”

“A what?”

“”

“Oh,” Exhaling a puff, “Well? You wanna check it out?”

Meathead sighed, changing into a mutant wasn't like disguising himself as a human or pony and slipping into their society. There was a certain smell to them, like dogs who marked their territory.

As much as he could walk like a mutant, talk like a mutant, but he wasn't diversified enough as a skilled infiltrator to go in and find Rage. Big Mack seemed to be aware on a higher level of his surroundings, and the signs of this much organization spoke volumes that Rage was much more intelligent to have guards posted around the town.

He supposed he could slip in, find Rage, and back stab him much like before. But, that exposed him to getting into a fight with the other mutants, and leaving him surrounded on all sides. Even if he were to teleport out, that still left the question of why and how Rage, Fist, and the others were gaining levels of conscious that rivaled the others. He needed to find the source of their intelligence.

The packets of drugs and mentats gave some indication as to how Big Mack gained his intelligence, if only temporarily, but information gathering and assassination wasn't his most developed skillset. Having spent the majority of his life as a German Shepherd, it took time to learn how to become and act like a dog, it was part of him and the only role he knew how to play better than anything else. In the few weeks since emerging from Vault 111, his skills in that field quickly became limited with how little emotion he'd been able to sustain himself on. From dog to assassin was a step up that even the best Changeling infiltrators at their best would be put to the test. There was no universal form he could take that was loved, and that was a realization that irked him the most. Many people outright feared canines and dogs, there were only a few people aside from Nate that didn't trust he was trained not to attack when first seeing him. Being a dog for so long was a crutch that he'd used, and now it left him hobbling along every where he went.

Heading into a group of angry, vengeful mutants only put pressure on him to act quickly.

Adding to the fact that the amount of weaponry needed to take on such a force of mutants, particularly a group this size was something that needed to be wiped out. It was a threat to all of South Boston with this many mutants.

He needed something to help focus his mind, and Hancock's offer sounded as good as any other place to start.

Meathead clicked his tongue, “”

\111/

“So why do you want to take control of these robots?” Leighla asked Thunderstruck.

“Nate's got a deal of some kind set up with the local raider clan. Before you get too riled up, know that they already owe Nate a favor, and as of now, we're even with them. There's a road next to the Red Rocket Pit stop that turns South and goes all the way to the front door of these raiders at the Federal Ration Stockpile. We give them tribute voluntarily. We're the ones showing up at their door, instead of them pounding down our doors, demanding everything we have. That makes things stay always on our terms. If, and when they get around to watching us build ourselves up, then they're going to demand a larger tribute. Red may hold up her end of the bargain, I don't know her or can say anything about her except for Nate will do everything in his power to keep people like Red from ever thinking about getting near us. Even with those two agreeing, there's still raiders too dumb and too far in between Nate and Red to do something like attack us or raid us for no good reason. That's why Nate's trying to blot Sanctuary Hills off the map until it's strong enough to hold it's own. And the only way for us to do that, is to take over the Mechanist's workshop. It's the only way to rapidly expand and build our defenses up that quickly before Red's Raiders even get a chance to take a second glance. It's what Nate told me he wants.”

“You don't know who you can trust yet, damn raiders, can't trust them as far as you can throw them.” Cait said.

“And to the ones I can throw, I still don't trust that much,” Thunderstruck said.

“Aye, that's what 'ah just said,” Cait replied, feigning annoyance.

“Every day, instead of fighting robots, we could have them programmed to be on our side. I want to line the streets like old lamp-posts, the roads, the stretches of land from the factory, all the way to Sanctuary Hills doorstep, and then from there we spread out across every single inch of the Commonwealth until there is not a single raider clan, or warlord who would even dare step foot towards our homestead without having to pass by ten thousand robots all trained and aimed, ready to shoot. Crimony! I want to hit the Commonwealth so hard it wont even know what happened.” Thunderstruck said,

“We bit angry at a former lover, are yah?” Cait said, always egging on the situation, seeing what would cause Thunderstruck to be pulled into a fight. She could see the hairs on the back of Thunderstruck's neck stand up, part of her mane stiffen too, but this was a different type of anger.

She realized why and also couldn't imagine standing why Nate or Meathead would want this woman around, with a motor-mouth like that, always wanting to pick a fight, it must be tiring being Cait, always being on edge.

“I honestly wish I had a stud, or some stallion to buck me senseless every night, but I don't. I would kill for a good lay...but that doesn't necessarily make it so. Now, I'm trying to keep you and a group of my friends from getting slaughtered. This is playing for keeps, we get that factory, and then.... as long as we... build things up...nice...and quietly...” Thunderstruck said, still seeing all the details fall into place, she realized that this would be more of a attention grabber than she realized.

“So where is this factory? What's it called?” Cait asked.

“It's a factory in East Boston. All the robots made there are coming from a pre-war company called General Atomics. When you get closer, you can make out their smoke stacks and steam coming up from the factory. It's cool enough at night to be able to see them at production, and you can hear them if you're close.”

“Then let's go claim another piece of the Commonwealth for ourselves then,” Leighla said,

“Aye, let's go sling crap at this dumb grease monkey. Whoever's putting these bots together is about to get a all-night beatdown, stompin' most their teeth in, bloody them with baseball bats, pull the pull on their fancy toys, and after that I'll really use my imagination,” Cait said, sensing a fight coming, she looked out towards the south and down the road, staring hungrily at the Commonwealth.

“Love the enthusiasm, Cait,” Thunderstruck said with a level voice.

\111/

“Holy Hardware, Meathead. You think they put enough lasers in the tunnel?” Hancock asked.

Their side-stepping to the Jamaica Plain time-capsule was as easy as following the old signs down to an antiquated museum dedicated to Pro-Baseball Atheletes, with special note of any Boston Red Socks, and the recently claimed 2076 World Series Championship Bat, the game-winning bat that scored the final point, along with the game-winning baseball. While entering the old building wasn't of any issue, the security spent on the old memorabilia was clearly beyond excessive.

With a single sign and arrow pointing the pair down a long hallway, separating them from a bunker of old baseball gear were 40 lasers spanning up and down like a grid wall, and deactivated laser turrets waiting for anything to set off the sensor like a strong breeze or large speck of dust. The walls were humming with electrical panels that made both of them weary to approach the corridor any further.

Hancock had seen this type of lasers security before, but not much and at this high of a caliber in a long time, he was afraid to breathe too hard and set the temperamental systems off.

“”

“That or the off switch. Gotta be a power supply to pull around here somewhere.” Hancock said,

While not the first to try and enter the Jamaica Plain Museum, it was by pure chance Meathead and Hancock made it that far without running into any issues. The group before them were drawn to the 'Treasures of Jamaica Plain' advertisements, to 'come see these magnificent treasures before being sealed off forever!' met unfortunate fates of being attacked by the feral ghouls, and succumbing to the old security system.

\111/

Ch. 86 Whole Lotta Rosie

Author's Note

Ain't exactly pretty,
Ain't exactly small...
You could say she's got it all.

Ch. 86 Whole Lotta Rosie

"Where the hell is this place?!" Lotta Rosie grumbled, she'd been flying for two hours now, ready to rip someone's head off next time she saw that pony for giving her lousy directions to Sanctuary Hills.

'Damn it,' she thought, '!' Beyond words at the moment as she kept jerking her head back and forth to look down look at the buildings below, trying to spot details of where this safe place was supposed to be. The harder she tried remembering the details about Sanctuary Hills, the more they illuded her. Circling back twice now, she was frustrated not knowing the layout of the Commonwealth.

She hadn't even seen any signs of a settlement or ponies for that matter, and the only people she did see were more robots roaming the countryside. Flying high and avoiding them, she instinctually avoided flying West. Associating it with Nuka-World, she didn't want to even think in that direction, unconsciously diverting herself back South or further towards the Coast until she had to give up and ask for directions.

Below her, her eyes were following the broken and crumbling sections of overpass leading out of Boston that connected to to Mass Pike Interchange, where a community was built up around the sections of elevated highway that were still accessible and had lifts or ladders leading up off the ground to a common area where cars, trucks, containers, and sections of rebar and concrete were all shoved together to create a wall and base area.

Spotting the Gunner's motif from afar, she huffed, blowing any strands of mane out of her eyes, and wiping her brow before descending down in a spiral.

Spotting the humans, she didn't give them much time to react before saying, "Hey, I need information."

The Gunner Rosie landed infront of panicked, "It's one that escaped!" Hand already tugging on the heel of his pistol, trying to unsnag it from the pocket lining, Rosie saw the clear hostile intention and flapped up and away,

"Your mother should'a locked you in a cage, ugly!" Lotta Rosie yelled, swooping around she heard the Gunner fire off twelve rounds, missing completely but the sound only angered her. Swooping around in a dive, she spun and charged at the Gunner, hoof outstretched as she aimed right for the Gunner's chest, bashing into him crushing his ribs, knocking him up and off the ground, over the side barriers, and plummeting thirty feet to the ground where he instantly died.

Six remaining Gunners heard, and then saw Lotta Rosie dive bombing the first Gunner, before directing her attention to the rest of them and shouting, "All I wanted was to know where Concord is!"

Lotta Rosie took off to the skies again, chased by gunfire and only riling up her anger as one bullet struck her in the leg. She cried out, reaching for her saddlebags she jammed a stimpak into the wound less than five seconds after the blood started pouring out, and wincing as it knit and raw flesh sealed over.

"AwrrgggH!!!" Lotta Rosie growled, "I am gonna make you bleed for that!" Taking off higher to the skies, she disappeared into the clouds, circling further out to scope out the Gunners who weren't used to being attacked from above. Of the six remaining, one hopped into a suit of power armor, and was aiming wildly at the sky above, unable to trace her.

Lining up her approach to dive again, she set her sights on two Gunners standing close together. Another was moving towards the edge to look over and check on their ally that was shoved over. Chosing that Gunner as her target, she dove at over 100 miles per hour, wings back body to a point, she barreled into the second Gunner before anyone could notice she returned again. Flying under the elevated overpass, she stayed low and flew to the opposite end, using the time to pull out and ready two knives from her saddlebag and catch two more Gunners from behind.

Flying at them with blades stretched forward, she aimed right for their necks, slitting their heads half off as she rushed by, their cries were choked with blood as they collapsed to the ground. A hail of bullets were blasted at her, but Lotta Rosie already grabbed a rifle off one Gunner and was dipping over the edge again. Circling around, she had to be more tactical as she came up again, this time following the on-ramp and staying close to the road, she touched down and raised the rifle at a Gunner who only was aware of her presence as she raised the ironsights up and fired.

Blowing him away, the rifle was empty but still a good club. The gunfire drew the last two Gunners, their leader and a single grunt to fire and shoot at Lotta Rosie, but she hurled the emptied weapon through the air at the head of the unarmored Gunner. He ducked and broke eye contact as the gun passed within inches of his head, clattering against the concrete barriers and coming to a rest on the road.

"Last Chance! You tell me where Concord is, and I'll let one of you live! First to speak gets the deal," Lotta Rosie demanded.

Keeping an eye on the last two Gunners, neither of them even considered the offer or showed any sign of having even heard her. That made Rosie even madder as she charged the armored Gunner and bucked him in the legs. Hitting with enough force to topple him over, Rosie turned and dove at the last remaining Gunner to deal with him first, Grabbing onto him and clomping her teeth down over his hand she crushed the bones and bit down hard, shaking and thrashing her head left and right like a dog trying to rip away a piece of meat off a bone. Spitting the hand out, she shoved the gunner down to the ground as he cried.

"SHUT UP! STOP SCREAMING!" She yelled, "SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP YOU DAMN RAIDERS!" Clubbing the Gunner in the head, she broke his jaw and bashed his nose in, then breaking through the bones around the eyes and smushing the eye sockets up into the brain, her bloody hooves were covered as the top part of the man's skull was indented, but he stopped making noise.

Turning back to deal with the armored Gunner who made it back onto his feet, she grabbed the body and lifted it up. Spinning around, Rosie flung the bleeding corpse through the air right at the leader.

With a burst of speed from her wings, she launched herself at the power-armored leader with a follow up attack aimed right at his left elbow this time. Making him spin 90 degrees as she ran into him she raised her legs and bucked him directly in the helmet. Like having his bell run, the his head inside hit the sides of the protective helmet and was then bucked again and again. Lotta Rosie was relentless as she crumpled and battered the power armor, making it bend and crack, warp and peel, she kept kicking until she was sure the leader didn't move any more.

Exhaling heavily, she slowly calmed her breath with deep inhales, and slow exhales.

Ripping his helmet off she struck him in the throat, he gasped, coughing and wheezing, throat nearly crushed he painfully cried out for air.

"Alright then!" Rosie said through clenched teeth, "Let's try that again. I'm gonna lean on your windpipe, and you point me in the direction of Concord. And that's it."

Stepping on the Gunner's neck, he franctically pointed North, then his hands went to Lotta Rosie's foreleg, but she only leaned down harder as the Gunner sputtered and clawed at her leg. Punching at her leg, digging his fingers into her muscles, he tried to twist and tear her limb away, but she only kneeled down on his neck and made him suffocate.

It was a long two minutes of waiting, the chortling gasps, the staccato of the lungs expelling old air as it fought to replace what was lost. She laid there for another minute, until she was sure the man was dead.

Blowing away the scent of a dead man's breath, she caught her breath before rising to shake herself free of dirt and dust. Composing herself, she looked around, seeing if there was anything worth taking from the raiders she killed, but didn't spend too much time searching as she didn't even grab anything and left to fly in the direction the Gunner pointed.

Thirty feet below, a Gunner lays painfully broken on the ground, he watches the pegasus depart North and towards her destination. He moves carefully not to agitate any bones or muscles, but all he can do now is wait.

'Concord'

\111/

Lotta Rosie was flying at a sedate pace, recovering and catching her breath, but still remaining aware of the landscape below. At this high, most people wouldn't notice her, while she could still make out their features and details. Less than ten minutes go by before she sees even more raiders, this time bearing a different logo of a square box with a line through the top half, and an x in the top rectangle, making it look like a chest with a keyhole.

Taking to the hills, she observes the Federal Ration Stockpile raiders, their movements, and after circling their base twice, she kept moving until she felt that she was spotted.

It was a peripheral sense, but it wasn't coming from below her, further North was the interstate highway leading West towards Franklin, Nuka-World, and then on to Springfield half the state away.

It felt like getting slapped in the back of the head, and when she turned to look, she saw two Gunners spotting from the overpass. To make that kind of distinction from the air, she could see that the raiders from the Stockpile were clearly different than the two spotters, and were wearing the same brands of clothes and carried themselves like the same group she dealt with at the Interstate Turnpike Exchange. When they saw each other, Lotta Rosie looked further inland to where they would've come from and felt her nerves shake as the familiar architecture of the Nuka-World Transit Center came into view.

While Lotta was still compiling everything she knew about the various groups and radiers about Nuka-World and the Commonwealth, she was moving higher to get out of their range and avoid confrontation, but the one of the two Gunners on the interstate overpass produced a hunting rifle and took aim at Rosie.

The bullets cracked the air, two rounds whizzing through the air, "I just finished with these assholes!"

The Stockpile raiders heard both shots, their North-facing lookout already saw and was keeping an eye on the two Gunners spying on them, and since enough time passed between the two parties where no fighting happened, they were left glaring at each other. Until the one Gunner started firing, then it changed the situation and switched the lookout's view. The Stockpile lookout thought that since the Gunners were shooting in their direction, and hadn't yet seen Lotta Rosie far above his own head, that the Gunners were attacking them.

When the Gunner fired off a third...then a fourth...and finally a quick fifth shot, all missing Lotta Rosie, the Stockpile raiders were on the counteroffensive.

The lookout grinned wickedly, since this wasn't the first time he'd spotted those two Gunners either.

For weeks it'd been a game of peek-a-boo, I see you, you see me, but neither side had gone beyond watching each other. Red's gang was more equipped and armed with enough explosives and guns to make sure that anyone who came near would know that it would be a hard fight to take them on. What they were able to determine was the Gunners were trying to establish a route into Nuka-World. The Transit Station was a monorail that was meant to disperse park attendees, and keep land areas around the amusement park for better usage. But, as far as Red Tourette knew, the Gunners weren't in charge of anything, and were only looking to expand and force themselves into the area and create a wedge to be a problem in any of the other gangs side on the opposite end of the monorail. The Gunners were always expanding, callous indifference to who or what they were attacking, only backed with the confidence they could take what they wanted.

Once the shooting started, more gang members ran to take cover, while the lookout shouted out the Gunner's locations.

A long, long, thinly buried plastic lined copper wire ran from the Federal Ration Stockpile, to placed explosives directly underneath the interstate overpass the two Gunners were firing from.

With a press of a button, the highway errupted upwards for a moment as the tons of rebar and concrete flexed upwards, cracking and breaking apart before bowing back down and warping. Destablizing the section, the explosion echoed out for miles as the two Gunners were thrown off their feet. The overpass section collapsed within two seconds, swallowing them both in a plume of dust and crushing them as slabs of concrete and blacktop came together and broke around them.

"Attack me once, shame on me. Attack me twice..." Lotta Rosie said, fighting off the comforting feeling that she survived a second attack, but twice unprovoked. She was as angry at the Gunners as she was glad she survived.

Rosie would've kept on flying, ready to leave the Stockpile and the Gunners far behind her until she heard whinneying.

Crying, braying. The distinct sounds of ponies that made her thoughts come to a grinding halt and replaced with bitter resentment and hatred at humans when she was pulled towards the direction of the Transit center like a magnet. Her thoughts weren't scattered, trying to pick out pieces of the landscape, or trying to conjure up images of a place she never saw before. Like a flick of the switch, she felt focused and aligned towards the one task of making the Gunner's lives as short as possible.

\111/

The Nuka-World Transit center was as large as a city block, but had its own lane and turnoff to the business center along the interstate. There were signs reading 'Only 20 miles to Nuka-World', large advertisements of bottles and billboards advertising drinks and flavors. Turning off the road into the Transit Center, there were two two-story parking garages on either side, one marked with a Nuka-Cherry sign, the other a Nuka-Quantum. Connected with a footbridge on the second story, the parking garages had arrows pointing towards stairwells and directed foot traffic towards either the Bus Terminal or the Monorail station below ground beyond the parking garages. There were buses for Nuka-Wrold, still lined up and waiting in the same spot since 8/23/77. A second road meant for buses entering and exiting the interstate curved through the central boulevard, with a few empty long parking spots.

Adjacent to the Monorail station was a small coffee stand and food stall, and the sight of a bloody butchering that showed that animal carcasses were being broken down on old picnic tables by vending machines, and benches. Old disused turnstiles and rusted barriers lead to a ticket booth and down escalators and stairs leading down into the station. The Monorail itself was like a point-to-point subway, cutting directly though the lowland hills in a tunnel, then emerging 18 miles to the East, with the final two miles above ground on the approach to Nuka World.

Seven Gunners and a reprogrammed Assaultron were designating the transit center as a weigh-station into the Commonwealth. A staging ground where Gunner's merchants and caravans would have to pass through, slaves, guns, weapons, drugs, ammo, they wanted everyone to pass through here. Regular civilians and other merchants would have to pay for guarding and escorting their caravan.

The explosion was loud and powerful, close enough to make all the Gunners at the Transit Center wish that the noise was a lot further away.

Five raiders all scrambled up the hills around Federal Ration Stockpile towards the interstate, taking to the cliffs and rocks where they could drop out of site and have some form of cover, while Lotta Rosie saw Gunners on the surface take watch and wait for the raiders to move in.

There was a tree line beyond the Stockpile and surrounding the Nuka-World Transit Center, but it had heavily thinned out and with the cold winter month of November, no foliage either.

Lotta saw three Gunners pop up on the roof of the Quantum Parking center, rifles and guns pointed towards the interstate, but the raiders were cutting directly up the hill and through the trees. Between the treeline and Nuka-Cherry Parking garage, there was no cover.

A small herd of ponies and slaves were chained up in the Nuka-Cherry parking garage, lead out from Nuka-World days prior.

Of the nine Gunners Lotta spotted from her aerial perch, three above, the other six and their Assaultron was being moved close to the center of the boulevard, while the other six ran about, expecting an imminent attack.

Lotta saw that even with the surprise angle advantage the raiders had to begin with, they were about to walk into their own slaughter. She was able to piece together that the raiders coming up to the top of the hill now were the same ones who dealt with the two Gunners on the bridge, but didn't expect anything less than for them to shoot at her too.

Commander Kaylor stood out among the rest, moving slower and deliberate, the other Gunners were moving around her, watching her point or wave her arms, doling out instructions. Lotta forced herself to look away, or risk putting that same 'I'm being watched' feeling into the Gunner Commander and give away her position again.

Pushing the indifference down, she knew she could surpress her emotions about one raider or the other, and focused on the ones holding her own kind hostage.

"And I'll call this...the smash and grab." She said, rubbing her hooves together, she circled around the parking garages until she was in line with two of the three rooftop Gunners. Bringing her wings in close and falling into a dive, her targets were close enough to be pushed into each other, with her size, speed, and momentum, Lotta Rosie was larger than most ponies, the largest in her family and all her siblings, and knew that throwing this much weight around was enough to snap necks and break bones.

The first gunner she picked she blasted with a hoof directly to the ribs, the Gunner didn't even hear Rosie coming, only feeling a tremendous force strike him and whip him into the second Gunner standing close by. She grabbed his rifle from him as she collided, turning the weapon on the third Gunner who heard the crash and looked up to investigate, before aiming back down at the two stunned Gunners and shooting all of three of them.

As the bullets rang out atop the Quantum Parking Garage, the Gunners thought they were engaging a enemy coming from the interstate and coming down the turn off, while the Stockpile raiders thought they were being shot at, and went further Southeast towards the Cherry Parking Garage as the Gunners moved up the boulevard.

It took the Stockpile Raiders five seconds to realize they weren't being targeted, so they ran up to the perimeter of the Transit Center before another Gunner poked their head out. The first was shot by the five Raiders, and the chatter blasting of gunfire this close to their base set the remaining five Gunners into high alert.

All five raiders moved up again, going under the footbridge and down the central road, some of the Gunners looked up, but didn't see their own men atop the roofs anymore.

The Raiders were more of a single unit, but disorganized as they all clustered together and moving as one instead of taking stock or heed of their surroundings. When they saw a Gunner, all of them swarmed or shot in one direction, but weren't accurate enough to kill. The volley of gunfire aimed at the single Gunner was enough for all the others to coordinate and move, two running across the street to cover behind building corners. When one raider ran out of bullets, they all found themselves reloading at the same time because they weren't pacing out their shots or accurate. But, the raiders were more confident and equipped with more ammo and even carrying grenades.

If they were more coordinated, they would've taken opportunity to cover each other as one fired, instead of all being pinned down at once by the Gunners shooting at them from multiple angles down the same road.

Lotta Rosie raised the ironsites and fired at one Gunner, striking him in the chest. Giving away her position to Commander Kaylor and another Gunner by the bus terminal who saw their own man go down, they saw the way his body recoiled, and their eyes went up to see the pegasus shooting down at them.

The Gunner's assaultron stepped forward, charging up a beam blast, while the other Gunners pulled back to let the machine do the heavy fighting.

With the raiders advancing once more, they were funneled between the two parking garages, with planters, cars, and the sides of buildings for cover, but they were too exposed and confined.

A single blast burned a bright line striaghtforward and swept across the boulevard. Striking down, cutting in half, and searing three raiders all at once. The other two were suddenly out numbered and outgunned. Dropping out of sight, their hands went to their grenades, pulling the pins and heaving them. Each raider was carrying three grenades on them, and now the final two raiders were going over their companions remains, pulling off the ordinance and flinging it towards the assaultron and Gunners from cover.

One grenade wasn't enough to turn the tide, but fifteen grenades turned the whole road into a artillery range as the grenades bounced and rolled, it was ony through the overwhelming use of explosives they were able to randomly land grenades at the Assaultron's feet, blowing a path open as Lotta Rosie moved to a better position and fired down at the Gunners in cover, waiting for the explosive rain to stop.

The last two raiders and Lotta Rosie, versus the final three Gunners, the Gunners tried moving back closer together. With one Gunner running across open ground, Lotta Rosie shot twice, then felt the catch slide back showing her that the clip and barrel was empty. The Raiders and the Gunners saw the top down shot, and knew that wasn't either of them who did it.

"The roof! She's on the roof!" Commander Kaylor pointed, the last Gunner turned his sights upwards, but Lotta Rosie was already flying towards the Gunner. He fired several times, missing seven times as the bullets came harrowingly close to striking the pegasus, she flew in a jagged line to avoid being a direct target.

Wrapping him in her hooves, she lifted him off the ground and went skyward. The air was knocked out of the Gunner's chest as Lotta Rosie climbed thirty, and then to fifty feet in only a few seconds. Letting go, the Gunner fell the five stories to his death right infront of Commander Kaylor and the two raiders aiming at each other.

It was from this vantage point, and few seconds of clarity Lotta Rosie looked down at the battlefield below, and then to the food stall with the old-dried tacky blood around it.

Bones, a ponies skull, legs and hip bones stripped of their meat, a cold firepit from the night before, these Gunners slaughtered and ate a pony last night, and left traces of the butchering out all over the place.

Lotta Rosie felt her jaw lock up as she grit her teeth, painfully hard to the point she felt her teeth would shatter. Tense and wired with rueful energy, she felt an emotion beyond hatred of the Gunners, a loathing so powerful she couldn't stand knowing the people who did this were still alive.

The splat of blood spidered out as Commader Kaylor was now completely outnumbered and outgunned, she fired every bullet in her gun at Lotta Rosie, breaking her concentration to shoot at the raiders as well, but found her chambers empty before too long. The raiders shot at her, striking the Commander in her protective armor, driving her to take cover as Lotta Rosie circled around to finish Kaylor off.

"You damn animal! You stupid animal! You piece of shit!" Commander Kaylor shouted, "NOBODY attacks the Gunners like this! Nobody! You're all going to BURN!"

Lotta Rosie charged the Gunner Commander, headbutting her in the chest and sending her sprawling backwards to the ground. She climbed to her knees and pushed of the ground, grabbing at her pistol she fired, but Lotta Rosie was to quick, and the two raiders saw the intervention and were taking the opportunity to fire at her.

Sprinting up onto a bus, she took cover down below the window line, but she was only going for a stash of stimpaks and weapons stored inside the bus. Crawling on her hands and knees as she moved to the rear, she jabbed herself with a stimpak as bullets tore up the side of the bus, piercing through in the front as she clambored out the back. A readied rifle, and among the things she grabbed was a barb-wire coil. Used for tying up and choke-chains for ponies, she kicked the emergency door in the back of the bus open and ran for the bus terminal.

Lotta Rosie dove at Commander Kaylor from the left, while distracted by the raiders on her right, she nearly was able to knock the Commander down, but she saw Lotta before the collision and braced for impact. Knocking the rifle away, Lotta Rosie quickly flapped her wings to regain momentum and altitude when the Commander Kaylor threw a barbed-wire lasso at Lotta Rosie. Ensnaring her wing, she yanked down had and ripped Lotta Rosie sideways. The Pegasus cried out in pain as the barbs chewed down into her wing and tore at her primary feathers. Scraping and puncturing her flesh, she turned to fly at Commander Kaylor, but with a snap of the wire, it sunk in tighter around her joints and Rosie was forced to give into the pressure or be thrust into even more pain.

"BAD PONY!" She screamed, "YOU ARE A BAD PONY! You don't GET to strike at humans EVER!" She heaved, yanking the barbs into Lotta's neck and flesh, trying to choke and collar the pegasus at once into submission. "You're PROPERTY! YOU ARE FOOD. FOOD IS NOT ALLOWED TO THINK!"

Lotta Rosie flew directly at Commander Kaylor, she pulled a knife but Rosie didn't care, she felt it plunge straight into her chest, but she ran full force into the Gunner Commander and knocked her down.

The commander pulled out the knife and stuck it in again, this time wiggling it left and right as she yanked it back out, but Lotta Rosie was finished with this fight.

Biting down on the arm, she crushed the bones with her jaw strength and felt the forearm snap in her mouth like an overcooked chicken-bone.

Commander Kaylor screamed, "NO! You're an abomination! You're a slave! You're not supposed to fight! You inbred chicken!-"

Lotta Rosie had heard enough, seen enough, and felt enough to not pay attention or listen, "I WILL EAT YOU!" Lotta Rosie screamed, biting down into the Commander's neck, she bit down hard and pinched Kaylor's throat shut.

She'd seen countless dogs all do the same rip and tear head shake, and that instinctual drive made her thrash Commander Kaylor with her bite. Tearing through, she ripped the Commander's throat out, and pressed her hooves down onto the woman's chest to force the skin and muscle away from the body as she tore the neck out.

Going back in again, she bit down and pulled, chewing and spitting the iron and blood out of her mouth, Rosie yelled as she brutalized the Gunner's body, unloading all her anger and frustration out on these terrible people. She hated everything about herself, and didn't even want to imagine what she looked like, but knew she couldn't stop.

Rosie tasted a hard chewy flap of skin in her mouth, chewing it, she spit it out, and then swallowed, feeling blood all down her face, neck, the two stab wounds drawing herself back into reality, she felt hot in the wound, but cold around the edges, like she was rapidly losing heat.

The final two raiders who saw Rosie bite the head off the Gunner Commander and start eating pieces of human were suddenly terrified of the large pegasus, even after spitting it all back out. Her already magenta coat was now red with blood streaking down her front and chest, covering her hooves and face.

Dripping blood as she walked towards them she said, "All I wanted...was directions...'to that pony from vault 111,' but she never said it, the words vanished from her mouth as her lips moved, but they never came out. She was in a fugue state, and a little dazed as well, but still operating at a lethal capacity.

"Now that that's all taken care of... who do I need to eat around here to get some damn answers?" Rosie asked, "Because I... am... hungry..." A burst of laughter suddenly gripped Rosie as she shook to control her outburst, the old phrase, "Hungry enough to eat a...! eat a... A human!" She threatened, seeing as that intimidation and scary looks were the only thing capable of warding off or getting the respect she deserves to be listened to.

Hungry enough to eat a horse, but Lotta Rosie flipped the adage on them, ready to kill either of them if they made any sudden moves. She knew this temporary truce between them was only superfical, that the moment they were done, she would be at their mercy of callous raiders who wouldn't hesitate to put a bullet between her eyes, and then coat her wings in egg, breadcrumbs, and fry at 375 degrees in a pot of oil.

Eat or be eaten.
Survival of the fittest.

The worst of all, was that she had seen raiders sick attack dogs and animals on ponies, chasing them down and ripped apart by three or four dogs at a time. Being hunted down by feral animals, and then ripped apart even as ponies begged and screamed for their life was the living nightmare Lotta Rosie wanted to avoid and not have thrust upon her as well. It was a terrible thought to have burdening her mind every morning, evening, and night, hoping and praying that a wild animal or human wouldn't come up and attack her. She didn't know what else to do or say except be stronger, faster, and above all else, run from these places with whatever strength she had left.

She looked over to her right, to the spot of the slaughtered pony from the night before, shaking her head at the leftovers and careless cleanup.

Looking down, the knife was still in her chest, so with a series of short breaths and a careful pull, she pulled the knife out pressed a dirty shirt to the wound to block the flow of blood.

This display of toughness, and the fearsome sight of Rosie was enough to keep the two Raiders from attacking, but now came the hard part, what to do with twenty slaves with some humans mixed in for the hell of it.

"One of you, pick. Decide now, which one of you will go back to your boss and tell them everything that's happened, while the other comes with me."

She could smell unwashed ponies, the scent of piss and dust, this place was never meant to be a long term holding area, but the Gunners short staffed were unable to send a crew to collect the slaves.

"What's your name? Who are you? What's your bosses name?"

"I'm Kennith, that was AJay, who went running off, our boss is Red Tourette, we're the Stockpile gang."

"Come with me,"

"Who are you?" Kennith asked, trying to feel out any information from the blood-soaked pegasus. At eye level, Rosie moved like she was hurt, but nothing in her expression or emotions showed it. If anything Kennith didn't want to ask if she was in pain, since she seemed so determined on ignoring it, along with his first question.

"Lotta Rosie."

"You're the only pony I've ever heard of taking a bite out of someone like that,"

"Sucks being on the receiving end of the eat or be eaten, doesn't it?" Lotta asked, holding a gun to Kennith, licking her lips the raider stood up straight and Lotta Rosie relaxed in her mind to see the fear response. Easing back only a touch, Lotta Rosie followed with, "Know that there is no limit which I wont break to prove a point now, Kennith. Before, I tried asking nice, tried being kind, but all that's got me is shot at and promised to be raped and eaten alive. So if you want to try and take a swing at me, or take a bite, know I have no problem doing exactly the same. Tell me, you ever been pinned down and fucked by a feral animal? At least then, you still have a use. The way I think humans see ponies as; If you can't be used to get me off, then what good are you anyway? Well, same to you."

Lotta Rosie didn't even know what she was saying, so far past bluffing walking into territory she never wanted to venture in. The only way forward was to keep moving and project this outward terrifying image of a crazed pegasus ready to bite back felt like the only way this raider, or anyone else for that matter would respect her long enough for her to get what she wanted. She felt stupid for thinking like this, she hated saying the words, and felt like her own brain was chopping itself up for having to stoop so low and resort to such violence. This wasn't the life she wanted, not living like this, life was terrible. All around her see could feel misery, but all those intrusive thoughts kept jabbing in at her, that if she didn't fight for her life to survive every day, she would die. The imbalance she felt in herself was tearing at her moral fibers, the stab wounds she actively doing her best to ignore weren't making thinking rationally any easier.

To be as far away from Nuka-World, humans, and everypony as possible, she didn't care how she looked or what type of reputation she would have to carry to get away, she was never going to allow herself to feel that scared for her own survival ever again. Too many creatures and monsters existed already that could've eaten her, from Deathclaws, mirelurks, giant bugs, and anything else that crawled with more than four legs, she didn't need humans on that list, and was determined to make sure anyone coming across her knew that as well.

"Are you alright?"

"I'll be fine." Drawing in a deep inhale through her nose, "You smell that?"

Leading the raider, she went for the Nuka-Cherry garage and went up to the second floor. On the ground in the parking stalls were seventeen ponies and 3 human slaves, all haggard and worse off looking than Rosie.

Lotta Rosie could observe everything she needed to see about this group in two seconds, from the way they breathed, to the gaunt look of their eyes, how they reacted to seeing her, the way their eyes, ears, and head all swung as one, like they were fixed or locked into place. From how skinny these ponies were, the smell, the way they couldn't stop moving even while standing or sitting still. These ponies were about as broken as life could dictate, far from being ready to break themselves out, or even mount enough energy to save themselves. Four of the ponies were kids and clearly ostracized off in their own corner of the group. Separated, their was a clear look about them that the young ponies and adults were being manipulated over whatever food and water was available. The cold ranking sweat, they looked at how well Lotta Rosie appeared and were scared she was a raider as well.

Nobody recognized Lotta Rosie, even at her size, she was too drastically changed since any of them last saw her to see past the exterior.

'Well my day is going as about expected, Rosie said to herself, 'Shitty',

"Everybody up."

"Who are you?"

"Your new master."

\111/

Red Tourette was wearing her red-eye paint, upon hearing the Transit Center less than a mile away from them was now free of Gunners, wiped out by a cannibal Pegasus, she smeared it on and was walking down the main boulevard less than ten minutes later escorted by over a dozen of her own men. Seeing the red and magenta pegasus, she admitted the sight was more gruesome than plain war-paint because the dribbles of blood down her chin and lips soaked and spread through the fur. Whatever injuries she showed weren't slowing her down as she lead a crowd of slaves to the bus terminal area where they could actually use bathrooms that still work and spread out on benches.

Rosie checked over Commander Kaylor's body much more thoroughly than the rest, pulling everything worth of value she could find, including a written paper with orders on them, reading over the slip of paper, she read the names and tucked it away.

She spotted Ajay among the pack, and Red saw Kennith standing near, waiting for her.

Examining the fight scene on their way in, and the body count, Red waited, then introduced herself. "My name is Red, from what I saw and heard, it was you who the Gunners were shooting at that kicked this whole powderkeg off. And from what Ajay tells me, they were only able to kill two Gunners and an Assaultron, while you're responsible for killing six of them, including their leader."

"That's right. I'm Lotta Rosie, and I need your help. You see, I'm looking for a settlement called Sanctuary Hills, and a pony from Vault 111. I've recently acquired twenty slaves, and need to hire members of your gang to escort my group there. In exchange, I've got information on the Gunners here on what their plans for you and this metro station here are. A short list of three names, the first you get for free, seeing as how the Commander Kaylor on this list is over there with her throat ripped out. If you want to know more, then I've got a job for you. Seeing as how these Gunners were observing you and planning to wipe you out, it's in your best interest to listen to what I have to say and accept my offer."

Red took in the look of Lotta Rosie, her unwavering and still resolve, eyes locked in, she wasn't going to look away or submit to anything less.

"You've proved yourself against the Gunners. Fine. I accept. Tell me what these Gunners were up to, and I'll sort a group out to take your slaves with you."

"I do my best talking while I'm moving, so I'd like to see my ponies moving first before we discuss details. I also need someone to dress my wound, the Gunner Commander tried sticking me with a parting gift before she left."

Red was still amazed the bloody pegasus could show this much hostility, cornered or otherwise, she showed no fear.

\111/

Revealing the Gunners plan, the orders and names of a Gunner Sargent and Gunner Colonel, no one in either Red's Gang or Rosie ever heard of a Gunner higher than a Captain.

Gunner Colonel Cypress wrote to observe the Federal Ration Stockpile, probe for weaknesses, infiltrate Red Tourette's gang, sabotage defenses, create dead-zones Gunners could exploit, and kill Red Tourette.

As for the Transit Station, the gunners were planning on using the underground tunnel as a direct route to and from Nuka-World, to constantly funnel supplies, weapons, and people into the area to prepare for an attack. The problem between Boston and Franklin was that the road went through hill lands, and there was only one main road connecting the two. Everyone had to pass through this 20 miles over land, with far too many hazards of all kinds along the way to make it a viable pass. The Transit Station made it possible for the Gunners to go beneath all of the dangers and get as close as they wanted to Nuka-World without risking anything along the way.

One the Transit station was secure, they were to move forward with observing and infiltrating Red's base.

"Colonel Cypress."

"Never heard of him, Where's he?"

"Doesn't say, but next time you see another Gunner, be sure to ask. Which, you wont have to wait long because it sounds like anyone who recently joined your gang in the last few weeks is most likely a Gunner. So, it sounds like it's time for a loyalty test for any new recruits who've shown up recently."

"Seems like it is," Red agreed, "And what about yourself?"

"Well Red, you have my respect for not shooting me, but I know that just because this group of Gunners is dead, doesn't means they wont be back. I highly expect a Gunner crew to come searching for their lost shipment as well, now that I've claimed it for myself. Which is why I want to offer you a trade,"

"What else do you have to offer?"

"A deal that will make you close to a hundred thousand Bottlecaps here in the future, and advice on how to lure Gunner's to their death. Are you interested?"

"Yes."

"Then this is one of the only roads leading East that's safe from the Glowing Sea. I know because I've flown over the pass and the further South to the main Highway, and you get all sorts of deathclaws, mutants, bug infestations, and merchants need to pay out their ass in protection fees to hire a gang like the Gunners or yourself now, to get from the Commonwealth to Nuka-World. This transit station has a tunnel going underground all the way to the Amusement Park, and you will be the gatekeeper, charging anyone who wants safe passage in your tunnel. That's a lot of ground and territory up for grabs, and with this place so close to your base, it wont be long before more people hear about what's happened here. I know your symbol, Red. The Chest with the X in the center, I've seen it at Nuka-World, so I know your gang has made trips that far, Red. How much did it cost you then? And how much money can you make with the safest route directly there and back now that you own everything?"

"I see your point. How much for the slaves you have right now?"

"They're not ready to be sold, Red. I took one look at these ponies and saw they're too weak to even shit themselves out of fear. So I'm taking them all, and if they don't all die of exhaustion before they get to Concord, it'll take years building them up and breeding into full families before I consider having this conversation again." Lotta said, throwing out the idea of selling ponies, she refused to consider it, and only worded it to give herself as much time as possible, to get as far away as possible from Red, with as many ponies and relatives she could gather.

"Fine. But we need more manpower. Recently we've expanded quite a bit, and to do it again so soon spreads my men thin. "

"Where all is your territory?"

"Lexington, to the edge of Cambridge, South to Natick, and now across the Charles River to the Fens neighboorhood. We've almost got a direct route to Diamond City."

"Then if you want to make money, and fast, then you need to spread the word in Diamond City and every caravan merchant that you've got a direct access from Diamond City to Nuka-World. Cheapest and safest route with passing over as few other gang territories as possible. You'll be swarmed with offers and traders trying to get their safely and quickly. Over land, it takes almost two days at a walking pace, more if you've got a large caravan. This monorail works, and from here to Nuka-World, you can be there in thirty minutes. From the Gates of Nuka-World, to here, to Diamond City...How long would it take to walk from here to Diamond City? Two hours? Three if you're slow? A two and a half hour trip, or a two day trip across fifteen different gang territories from here to Nuka-World through the hills? You claim this now, and you'll be swamped with merchants running back and forth. Now a trader could make it from Diamond City, to Nuka-World, and back in less than six hours, rather than four days. That's sixteen times faster than the route overland, Red. And now, I'm offering it to you because I don't have the gang, the people, the resources, the guns, or respect humans who see me as meat to force people into getting my way. That's why I have to resort to drastic extremes just to get a person to see me as more than an animal, Red. You do this, while I take my ponies and leave."

"Then why don't you join my gang?" Red asks, "You seem to know quite a bit about the routes from here to Nuka-World."

"Of course I do. What do you think I did before all the gangs over there decided to do what they did? I've made the trip North, I've walked the route South, even the one super far South to go all the way around the Glowing sea on the East side, back down around towards Providence and then back up along the coast. I know everything there is to getting from here to there, and this Transit station is by far the fastest, safest route you'll ever get your hands on."

"So what's your answer then? I need more manpower, and not just humans either. Ponies like yourself who know how to fight and be vicious, bare your fangs when others try to muscle in on our territory. The Stockpilers need a pegasus like yourself to keep as an eye in the sky watchdog. Do this for me, and you can do whatever you want with your ponies. Breed them, sell them, and..." putting two fingers to the side of her temple and then pointing at Lotta Rosie, "We get too much mirelurk meat from the river as is. Every week we have shells leftover still sitting full of rotten crabmeat. As for what to do with all your ponies, there are two farms near here that they could put their energy to use."

That was the only thing that made Rosie shake, but Red was able to see that it was a point of contention that would've broken any sort of relationship or trust they'd built up over this conversation at the mention of what they were doing for protein and meat. Lotta Rosie wanted to protect herself and others from being eaten, Red needed to let her know that they weren't interested in eating pony.

"Fine. But I need to be able to do my own thing, I'll keep an eye out for Gunners and fly high to keep an eye on things, but I wont answer to anyone unless they understand I'm not a piece of cheap meat to be thrown around or used as a punching bag."

"I understand. I'm surprised how much energy you have, and how you were able to fight all these Gunners with the help of my men."

"Then we come to an agreement?"

"Yes, I believe we do."

Red and Lotta Rosie shook hand and hoof, sealing their contract with a stern look into each others eyes before breaking the grip.

"Now that that's done. I need someone to help me dress my wound," Lotta Rosie said, shuddering as her chest and breast muscles twitched erroneously. The bleeding stab marks were left untreated the entire time, and only added to Lotta Rosie's ferocious appearance and endurable attitude as a tough pony who left little else up for discussion when it came to other ponies.

Before the Stockpile raiders left, they already decided on a name to call this new addition to their gang, a nickname that they didn't say to Lotta directly, but came up with as she and Red talked.

\111/

Rosie laid down after she was bandaged and had to recover for the rest November the 8th, and well into the day after that before she was ready to move again.

On the evening of November 9th, she was stirred from her rest to look out towards the Atlantic where she heard the skies crackling with lightning, blasts of thunder, claps louder than sonic booms that alerted everyone in the whole Commonwealth and beyond to a noise much like the roaring of the X-2 rockets that gave all the ponies in Nuka-World their opportunity to break free and make a run for it.

The sky was pitch black and dark, but the bolts of lightning lit up the night sky, the bursts blasting out massive pillars of light across the whole Commonwealth. Lotta Rosie watched the clouds, and wondered why the electrical storm was so aggressive, but she only watched on as lightning and thunder clashed miles away.

Ch. 87 The Copper Dome

Passing Ticonderoga, Nate didn't feel any inclination to enter the building or mention it to Athena. It was Meathead-by-proxy who stood in for him when they needed a hired hand. Even though he shared a memory of the event, the emotions tied to the memory weren't there.

“There's a reason why Hancock and his Goodneighbor buddies were never able to drive these Mutants out of the Massachusetts.”

“I'm sure the reason is astounding,” Nate said, waiting for Athena's explanation.

“It's the Copper Dome.”

“What about it?”

"Exactly. You don't see it like these other idiots see it, you're too smart. The mutants, raiders, scavengers...have you ever in your short time asked anyone what their opinion is of that shiny building is?”

“Can't say it's come up.”

“I'm surprised you haven't heard then, every damn raider in Boston, along with most everybody's auntie and mother all believe that the Gold Dome to the Massachusetts State House is a golden temple. That there's a big load of treasure stashed in there, because of the big shiny dome on top.”

“But it's Copper.”

“Nate. These people you talk to. These raiders, they think smacking their face into a brick wall is an efficient way to brush their teeth. They're violent. You could tell them it's painted wood, too bad, they want the shiny object.”

“So who's all inside?”

“Last on the list, Lake. Big bastard. Ugly. Scars. All Grey, Paranoid. Looks like he spent too much time inside the test-tube. Fights with giant bladed knuckles wrapped around his fists, and I've seen him use a stealth boy in combat. So be prepared for a sucker-punch. He's also one of the monster's I've found along the way that needs to be killed.”

“Mutants?”

“Doesn't matter, this place is a regular revolving door of gangs trying to take it over. It's close to Mass fusion, Goodneighbor, and right in the middle of the route between Trinity Plaza straight on to Diamond City.”

Nate heard the way she said 'Diamond City', she was thinking of a way to capture the whole city, if not take it over.

Gotta catch up, Nate. Gettting Slow in your old age. About to be outmaneuvered by a angry pony and a Wendigo that needs to go. A Deathclaw arm and whatever she's planning with Firelance and Sola can't be good. Can't imagine she'll react well to seeing them in person either.'

Nate scratched at his face with the tip of his deathclaw finger, trying not to scrape the skin away or draw blood. It took a little dexterity and aim, but he was feeling more comfortable knowing he possessed this level of control over the new limb.

“Gunners, Neighborhood Watch, Synths come in from the north, the sewers spit out mirelurks, mutants come up from the south and Trinity Plaza, with Raiders coming in from the West and East. Now you've got the Railroad sitting across the street from the Copper Dome as well. This place is a big whole bonfire waiting to go off. Time the most terrifying person in the whole Commonwealth lit the match.”

“Me.” Nate said to himself, surmising that Athena's plan to transform him into the Commonwealth's Warlord wasn't going to be dissauded anytime soon. But, as much as the Unicorn knew, he had a different set of experience on his side. They both saw value in many of the same things, but Nate couldn't help but wonder if there was a way out of Mona's contract. Something that could give him an edge, a way to stop Athena from constantly using him. He knew exactly where he stood in her scale, and if he didn't do exactly what she said to bring about more change than most people can afford, she would easily kill him with her magic by snapping his neck and moving on. If he died, it would be 'win some, lose some', and not a dark day in Athena's book.

Looking up at the Copper Dome, Athena didn't know how to get inside the New Courthouse, or which ways to approach it.

Nate knew how Boston was designed, and even though it was counter intuitive, Nate lead Athena two blocks away to the North to the corner of a crumbling downtown Welton Hotel with drive-up service and drop off. Leading down into the parking garage, the entrance was mostly intact with minor bits of rubble in the way. Nate went along the wall to an unmarked door, having Athena wrench it open with her magic. Scaling up a set of stairs, they found themselves in a long corridor with dozens of cables hanging down from the ceiling. Here, they found feral ghouls that were dispatched with a single swipe of Nate's claw. This tunnel emerged into a blackened kitchen, followed by more tunnels leading deeper underground. The complex of old delivery routes and maps were partially blocked, or locked at doorways, but Nate was able to find a completely underground path from the Welton to the Copper Dome that put them within a single wall of the Boston Common Park Central Metro station, and Vault 114 and the Railroad, and the underground access door to the Massachusetts State House Utility Tunnels.

“How did you know this path existed?” Athena asked.

“Humans design things to be interconnected. If we can't go top to bottom, then we must go bottom to top.” Nate said, grabbing at the rusted doors. They refused to budge or handles even turn. The frames were compressed around the door, meaning the weight of the building sunk around the door itself, really trapping it in place.

Feeling his claw, Athena looked to him, as if asking, 'Well, let's see you try it out.'

Flexing some blood flow into his hand before swinging, the deathclaw fingers scratched a screeching noise of rending metal as gouges were bore out of the safety door. Attacking the door again, Nate succeeded at widening the holes and with Athena's magic, widened it for them to pass through.

“Mold.” Athena said,

“Yeah, reeks of it down here. Rotten crab too. But this tunnel leads to the State House. I guarantee it.”

“How do you know about it?”

“I got to walk it one time helping set up an event here at this hotel for a friend who was doing business here in the State House. Normally, the path from the hotel is locked, but he had and her friend had a key that let them use the underground corridor. We were moving alcohol and tables...a few chairs as well, long story short, I know a secret route to the State House is here.”

The hallways were long, but winding and had sharp corners that narrowed around doorways. “Mirelurks,” Nate said without thinking, feeling the ground vibrate up through his boots.

“You ever fought big groups of them?”

“No,”

“They sense vibrations, that's how they hunt. Wait for a group to get surrounded, then come up all at once. That's how they ambush prey.”

“Thanks for the tip.”

They could hear the popping fizz of air bubbles, clacking shells, crusteaceans hard bodies opening and closing. It sounded like walking in an underground beach cavern, the walls were oozing with moist slime and moss.

“How're they for eating?” Nate asked.

“You gotta look for the Queen Meat, much sweeter and saltier. Mirelurk Queen are...propbably the highest price game meat you'll find next to Wild Deathclaw.”

It was seeing the of mirelurk's eyes, their attention turning towards them, claws raised. The white's of the mirelurks underarms clearly showed their range of motion, and rate of growth.

Athena fired a force-field through the air, only instead of blocking Mirelurks, she was using the force-field to bash through the groups of ginormous crustaceans. Flipping them back, she crushed them with her magic. With a jerk of her head, willing the magic in her horn that was gripped around dozens of Mirelurks to crush and grind their faces in.

“Lead the way,” She said.

\111/

The end of the corridor came to an end with three sets of doors right after the other. Old security doors, unmarked and meant to be opened with a keycard, it was easy enough to force them open with no power to the security system. Nate distinctly remembered this bit of the State House, they were on the North side of the building, 2 stories underground.

The Massachusetts State house took up the same amount of space as Goodneighbor, along with the entire tunnel system complex running under the city. “This leads into a hallway that will lead to a set of stairs and elevators that can take us up into the State House. There, we can kill Lake. How do you know he's here?”

“It's his territory, he wants it, same as any other raider gang leader or smart mutant. To use as a base to harass traders and other gangs, force people out, he's able to keep recharging a Stealth Boy, so that makes him smarter than most... And if there were something like that were to exist, capable of recharging and empowering Stealth Boys, why, it certainly would make sense for it to exist in the Commonwealth's State House. So, Nate, give me your old World expertise, where would something like this exist?”

“Governors office...” Nate said, “Meathead would be the one to bring with you on this one, tracking an invisible mutant.”

“Nonsense, you just need to sharpen your senses. It'll be good training for when the synths come after you with a whole surplus, Meathead won't be able to help you Jack-P-Diddle then, Nate. Don't think I haven't already thought about his weaknesses either. He's a good spy, a saboteur, but a soldier and a killer? Less so.”

“So now it's training, is it?” Nate asked,

“Yep, if you want to have any chance of taking on the Brotherhood, or Sola and his Pet Alicorn, then you'll need to step up to the plate and start knocking things out of the park. As angry as I may sound or get, you forget I'm on your side, Nate. I want to see the Commonwealth do well and thrive as much as you do, just not under a Brotherhood flag is all.”

“Which one would you rather see?” Nate inquired.

“I would say my own cutie mark, but that feels too cliché, and been done before. So...how about the image that shows when ever a TV screen still comes to power? Yeah? PLEASE STAND BY. That could be a flag... I could ask you the same, Mr. Vault-Tec. Why do you say Vault-tec calling? You're more than happy to go around in their colors.”

“Have you tried wearing one? They're insulated, and thick like a water and oil-proof Carhart. Tough too, just with we weren't dealing with damn crabs with claws large enough to cleave though my thigh in one pinch.”

The utility tunnels were up to their shins in sea-water that was flooding over from burst sewer pipes and tunnels. The expansion of Mirelurk dens and their digging also pushed and collapsed multiple parts of the block's interconnected infrastructure as well, making the whole area quite unstable.

The room Nate and Athena pushed themselves into was covered with Mirelurk eggs, while Nate wondered what a Mirelurk Queen looked like, Athena looked to the ground, “Mind the eggs, in places like this...there's usually nest watchers.”

Treading through the water, it was inevitable that the Mirelurks felt their approaching footsteps, they were burrowed down into dirt and mud, and rose up with their claws extended ready to pinch and snap at the intruders.

Nate noticed Athena pulling back, pushing him to see his strength, and what he would do, with already having demonstrated she could handle upwards of dozens of creatures at once.

“Fine,” Nate said, with two Mirelurks on him, he turned and dropped his elbows, protected his face, and swung to grab the first mirelurk. One snapped out at his arms, trying to crush them, twisting sideways out of their reach, he slashed and clawed at their weak joints, smashing through them or tearing the limbs in two. Heaving the next mirelurk into the air, he flipped it over and grabbed at the tail, prying it away from the shell, while stomping his weight down into the back,leaving the mirelurk thrashing and wailing as his shell was ripped off. It didn't kill him immediately, the exposed gills, brains, guts, and thrashing mirelurk was all over the place, Nate had to grab the claws of the mirelurk, then slam the crab against a support pillar for its body to break in two, finally killing it.

“Here they come.” Athena said, directing Nate's attention to the 14 mirelurks charging towards them. In the transitioning of rooms, the next one adjoined to them was much more spacious, part of the actual State House, and had proper signs mounted to the walls. Nate was rushed by three mirelurks, all with their heads down. Using his pistol, he shot at their legs, blasting times, chunks of Mirelurks legs and only striking cement once before shoving it back and trying to catch the first mirelurk bearing on him. Slamming into him, Nate was pushed back as the Mirelurk tried to ram him again and pick at him with its claws. Nate put his Deathclaw hand right over the thick part of the mirelurk's skull and crushed it, talons sinking in he scrambled the Mirelurk's brains with the razor sharp tips as he pushed back with his right. Bashing the second Mirelurk, the third Mirelurk got close enough to grab at him with their tiny claws and jab at him, throwing him off balance or risk getting his arm pinched off in a vise.

Smacking the Mirelurk sideways, the third mirelurk spun, letting Nate get behind the creature so he could rip into the backside, tearing at the limbs and tail, cutting through them as the whole swarm of Mirelurks was on him at that point.
The thing about Mirelurks was that they were quick to jab, but slow to move their bodies and swing their arms around.

Nate had to take steps back to keep the Mirelurks from surrounding him, he glanced quickly for Athena, but she was only calmly watching him, hardly exerting enough energy only to keep the Mirelurks off her, but gaze calmly fixed on how Nate moved, his punches, follow thru, and how he reacted.

'Son of a bitch!' Nate thought, Athena's imposing attitude left a lot to be desired, but even he could see that she was watching him the same way a rival boxer searched for an opponents weaknesses and tells. She already knew about so much of Nate's life, and he knew barely anything about her.

Athena avoided two jabs from a mirelurk hunter before bucking upwards with her hoof, splattering the creature's head with a single kick. She only looked to Nate as if he was expected to catch up in experience, and that fighting these was only a game to her. Demonstrating she could easily defeat this entire crowd, she was deliberately leaving Nate to figure out how to deal with these Mirelurks.

Nate dashed around the crowd of Mirelurks towards the stairwell, hoping to narrow them in. Breaking the group up, the fastest quickly caught up, while the other nine were about to be on him in seconds, but Nate sprinted and dashed at the Mirelurk, deathclaw overhead, fingers pressed together like a blades of a shaving razor and he slashed down through the mirelurk. Severing it in half, blue gore spraying out around him, his lungs were pounding, his chest was heaving.

The deathclaw hand was immensely sharp and strong, lightweight to him, but Nate wasn't immune to physics and the toll it placed on his body. Keeping that much muscle sustained and active took great amounts of energy to remain healthy. It was nearly impervious. The Ripper he had was completely dull, the steel teeth ground down to soft nubs. The reason it took so long to cut through deathclaw skin and bone was because of how densely layered it was to prevent radiation from getting it. Laser blasts, plasma, direct radiation from isotopes, it took a labyrinth of nerves to support and feed.

After a dozen swings and using his new hand, Nate realized how quickly he was sweating and panting more and more.

Clenching his giant fist as two mirelurk claws reached out and nipped his tough hide arm, he felt the pincers clench down, painfully like his arm caught in two vises, but he lifted the mirelurk off the ground, shaking it into others.

The bastard had Nate at an angle he couldn't flick his sharp tips down to sever the arm that grabbed him, and he maneuvering a rifle off his shoulder strap with one hand was a effort he was yet to achieve with seven more mirelurks.

“Go for the eyes,”

Even for breakfast, between Athena and Nate the hard bread and fruit they shared was far from filling for either of them. Yet, Athena wanted to get this done as quickly as possible, forgoing even food because she was too focused.

She was dodging any attack coming her way, moving around them like they were standing still as she only struck hard enough to turn them back towards Nate.

After throwing thirty punches, his arm felt like it was reaching a limit, the muscles tightening up and it was harder to force momentum into the limb. He couldn't do power-punches for long.

Using his rifle, Athena finally relented after it was apparent Nate was going to win against the final four Mirelurks, Even though they surrounded him, he was lashing out, taking deep gouges from any who got too close, and only striking at those who came within reaching distance, otherwise it was too much energy. He could barely hold his arm up anymore, let alone throw any more heavy swings. Cradling the rifle, he fired with his right, aiming over his left.

Nate was shaking, having worked out the new muscles beyond their limits and feeling the burn of cells breaking down.

Seven taps against the trigger, and one mirelurk was pecked apart by bullets racing through him. Seven more, and the oversized crab behind the first was stilted into not moving as it too fell.

Keeping his back to the wall, he moved down and away from the last two Mirelurks, all around him, the twelve were ripped to pieces and hacked apart, but these two were at the back of the pack, and still had plenty of energy.

Nate was a sweaty exhausted mess. He couldn't lift his left am, forming a fist was a shaky challenge, all the muscles were burning and crying out from overuse. That was one thing he wasn't expecting, how much physical energy it took to keep the deathclaw arm alive. He was exhasusted and craving something to eat at the same time.

Looking around the room for a defensive edge, he was stepping and moving away, and walked right into a fire-proof box with an old fire extinguisher inside.

Yanking it out, Nate pro-offered it to the Mirelurks. Baiting them, swinging at them with it, Nate made sure that one of them gripped it in their claws before sprinting as hard and as far away as possible as their 1200 lbs of crushing-weight per square inch came clamping down the outside of the pressurized cannister of CO2, causing the Mirelurk's arms to be blown off, concussing and killing the Mirelurk. One left, Nate was spent, but he drew in a loud breath and exhaled.

“Anytime you want to help,” Nate said, face boiling red, looking at Athena and the last approaching Mirelurk. “Don't be afraid to ask.” Facetiously, even Nate's eyes were burning from sweat and gunk he wanted to wipe clear. His left instinctually tried to rise, but he caught himself and switched to his right.

Athena seemed content watching Nate, but with a jerk of her head and a fast bolt of magic, the last Mirelurk's head was blown off in a repelling blast that crushed the Mirelurk's face bones inward, scrambling the brain.

Nate couldn't get a word in edgewise as he caught his breath and Athena spoke. “That's the thing about you Nate I wish I had, your old world knowledge of how all these things are interconnected. How you see how it all fits together.”

“You do, do yeah?” He said breathlessly. Finding a post to lean on, he sweated for a minute catching his breath while Athena critiqued his battle.

“You were starting to lose strength after 20 swipes, two more after that and you couldn't even use your full range of motion.”

“Didn't realize it took so much energy out of me, carrying this thing around.”

“Should've expected Mona to slip that in,” Athena said, “You're part deathclaw down to your core, I'd readily expect various results. You're gonna have to eat like one to keep your arm from shriveling up and cramping.”

“Let's...get out of here, it reeks too much to think. I gotta get some fresher air,” He coughed, searching for a way up and out of the backwater pits. As much as he knew he was walking into another fight, he wanted nothing more than to be somewhere brighter, above ground.

\111/

When Nate found his breath of fresh air, he heard Athena warn him of movement above their heads. “Yeah, I heard them too.” Nate said. “So how do we track down this Lake?”

“I've already told you everything I know, he's either in the area, or hiding, or gunning for us, or watching us. He's invisible. Invisible things tend to be hard to find, so we're going to have to put on our big boy glasses and get looking.” Athena's horn lit up, propelling a fine red mist that dissipated quickly, but condensed like fog.

“What's that?”

Looking for the doors into the wings of the Massachusetts State Building, she kept casting the spell as she walked and talked. “Tracking spell, it tells me if anyone's entered any rooms I've already cleared, and it gives me a larger sense of my surroundings. I've never had an enemy sneak up on me this way.”

“That means they would just have to rush, right?” Nate asked, looking down at her size. Coming up to Nate's head, he knew Athena was a powerful threat, but decades of looking at smaller animals conditioned him to feel as if he could take her in a fight.

“Let's keep moving.”

The route upwards wasn't the most direct, the building was dilapidated and crumbling like most offices, but this government building was suffering from a drastic number of cutbacks long before the Great War.

Plenty of rooms were inaccessible due to the amount of collapsed debris falling inward, making the hallways particularly narrow in some areas. “Still reeks like stale water,” Nate said, sniffing the air.

The floor started giving in, the weight of their feet cracking through the brittle blackened wood.

Hot-stepping over the ground, they made their way to the central foyer, but stopped quickly before falling into a gaping pit stretching most of the whole ground. With enough room to walk around the outside, Nate and Athena could look down two stories into the sub-basements and sewers, where they could hear dozens more mirelurks, and the wafting stench of the rotten shells and sea-slime.

“Ugh, you can hear them all...”

Looking down, he could see plenty of shapes, their shells crawling over one another.

“Betcha there's a Queen down there.” Athena said, “All those eggs in the tunnels, the Mirelurks were spreading out, I guarantee that's their nest.”

“You're not gonna throw me down there and fight it out, are you?”

“No, Nate. I'm not going to throw you down, I don't have enough force to push you.” Athena said.

Nate's heart jumped, he could hear something running towards them, the ground crackling, wood splintering under a great weight. Nate didn't have time to dodge, and barely enough time to brace himself for the invisible mutant to come slamming into him with a the mutant's shoulder and elbow braced and aimed at his torso.

By the time he opened his eyes, he saw the whole basement of the State-House go whooshing by, with Athena staring down at him.

His back hit the soiled water and his shoulder and right arm exploded in pain, rolling and hearing the ground crack. Of all the things he landed on his human side, rather than the left deathclaw side which would've softened the blow.

Eyes wild, senses firing, he scrambled up to his feet, pain shooting off in bursts of white around his eyes as he frantically wiped his eyes to get his vision back, and felt a thick mucus around his fingers and hand as he cleared it.

“Athena, what the hell?”

“Sola and Firelance are far stronger, Nate. Heck, your own Dog's stronger than you, either grow up, or die, Nate!” She yelled the last part down, Nate was still coming to grips with the disorientation, and heard only the last part about dying.

There were more Mirelurks than before, and he smashed into their eggs. He was covered in yolk, and the overwhelming scent of brine, as the enemies swirled around him, Nate didn't know what he was looking for as the first Mirelurk charged at him. Cleaving through the whole body, the shell cracked and burst around Nate. Splattering the blue gore into the murky brown water, several more Mirelurks were quick to replace the one downed. Surrounding him, his sight went up, looking to the perimeters of the room and there he saw a faded black sign that read STAIRS.

Twelve Mirelurks grouped together infront of him like a crowd separated him from a way out. A mirelurk claw lunged out to nip him in the side, a painful jolt to remind Nate he needed to focus. With the twelve in front of him, and another ten behind him, he was trapped. His energy hadn't recovered completely since the fight before, and now he was thrown into another fight so soon, Nate was faced with a sense of panic.

Clattering, the whole building seemed to shake as he was forced to reach out to hold onto something as a 20 foot tall Mirelurk Queen dragged itself up out of the flooded sewer tunnels, up through the ground and into the basement with Nate and the dozens of Mirelurks.

Pinned down, eggs were dropping out of the Mirelurk Queen. She didn't need to move much to get everything she needed, and the nexus of tunnels, pipes, and sewers converging beneath the old capitol building made it easy for her to always have everything flowing down to her.

Nate was charged by five Mirelurks all at once, no coverage, coming straight for him. He cut himself on the spines of their shells trying to break their closing circle around him. Slashing out at one, catching the arm and face of a Mirelurk, but he was tackled with by another Mirelurk with its shell down. Ramming Nate, tripping him backwards. He stumbled half a dozen steps, as he was pushed into a corner, with Mirelurks coming from all sides, and beyond that, the Queen poking her head up through the hole in the foyer floor.

A second Mirelurk rammed him, crushing Nate's ribs in a painful squeeze, Nate punched down at the Mirelurk holding him against the wall, and cracked through the shell with his fist clenching hard aronud the forehead. A third Mirelurk clamped down on his deathclaw arm and pinched. It was a painful vise that Nate didn't have a knife to help rip off, he could only shake and pivot until the crab creature let go. It was a dark-magenta purple bruise that showed up instantly on the deathclaw skin.

Both arms were taking a beating, and Nate was seeing his death approaching faster and faster as he kicked at one Mirelurk, shoving it back to give himself some room to think.

Clenching his fist, he heard the deathclaw joints pop and a rush of blood surge to his brain. His vision focused, like he could see further than before. Chalking it up to the adrenalin, Nate held off the burning urge to pee, and sprinted for the Mirelurk Queen, rounding to her side, Nate only had to knock down two Mirelurks and use a third as a stepping stool to climb up the Mirelurk Queen. His deathclaw bore deep into the Queen's side, and he knew he would have less than a second before its massive claws came swinging down to bash his skull in. Using his claw to hook himself higher, he was able to outmaneuver the swarm of Mirelurk and avoid the first swing of the Mirelurk Queen.

Dragging himself up higher, he gripped at the Mirelurk Queen's shell and pulled himself to the Queen's neck, before turning around and jumping to the higher sub-basement level.

Having landed in Sub-basement level 2, the Queen was as tall, level with the foyer floor, but it was too narrow and risky climbing any higher. The Queen spotted Nate and lunged at him. The ceiling tiles, pipes, insulation, wood framing, floor, and linoleum all came crashing down as Nate pressed himself as far against the walls of the collapsed room as possible, shuffling over to a locked door, he yanked and pulled at it. “Come on you bastard.” He reaffirmed his grip, heaving at it with his Deathclaw hand. The door popped free of its hinges and Nate threw himself through the gap. The next thing he heard was a splash of stomach acid being sprayed by the Mirelurk Queen. The spray splattered across the floors and ceiling, Nate felt a tiny bubble lance his skin. Making him jump and roll out of the way.

“Hell!” He said, panting, scrambling away from the Mirelurk pit, he sat against the ground, catching his breath. Nate put another room between himself and the pit before taking a moment to breathe.

“Damn Pony.” He was mostly talking to himself, but this was the first time he had a free moment to think for himself. “What's she expect me to do? See how I do against that thing on one of my off days?”

Standing up, Nate took stock of his surroundings. Dead raiders, partially devoured by Mirelurks, but the commotion sent all of the Mirelurks lower, and would be coming back up into the higher levels in due time. Nate figured he wouldn't have more than five minutes before the first of the bored Mirelurks shifted back down towards a relaxed state since he wasn't bothering their Queen or eggs anymore.

As his breath returned and deepened, he looked upwards, head rolling to the Unicorn and Invisible Mutant roaming around above his head. He would have a few minutes of silence to think, at least.

He would rather drop the whole building on this nest's hole and be done with it. One pass wasn't going to clear out this infestation, it would take years fighting the Boston's Underground to stablize sewers, metros, and utilities. Adding radiation, ferals, mirelurks, and erosion and weather into the mix would only cause a bigger delay.

“And now a pony wants to enslave me.” He said, thinking about Athena's words about Firelance. A Special Set.

It had to be a ruse, or a bad perspective, only partially the amount of facts of a story Athena fed to him to get him to be angry at the Brotherhood, Sola, and Firelance when their paths eventually met. There must be a positive side to them Nate hadn't heard of, or that Athena was conveniently leaving out.

Shaking his head, it was a bold, long story about a duo he'd never heard of before, and Deacon knowing about Alicorns, too? He expected the Railroad to know handfuls of things about ponies, he just never got around to asking every person along the way every little thing! Too much to talk about, never enough time. That's the way things usually go, just to act is an even greater motion.

He had to focus on himself and Lake. Athena was still testing him,

The last time he was here, it had to of been over a decade ago, nearly two decades now. A school trip, and then a business conference, each over ten years apart from the other, but two rare moments Nate was in the original Massachusetts State House before the post-war version he was standing in now.

He was in a basement storage room. One floor above the Mirelurk Den and utility tunnel access, and below Athena and Lake on the ground floor. On the first floor were meeting halls and conference rooms, second floor was offices and secured rooms, with the third floor being all utilities and electrical again, and access to the copper dome.

Picking his way through the storage room, Nate didn't find anything worthwhile except for a long knife off the body of dead raiders that were dragged down and partially eaten by Mirelurks.

Looking above his head he was able to see gaps in the floor above him, and he could hear Athena's hooves moving. They were going further away, but Nate listened for the heavier mutant's steps as well. There were a few thuds, but he was running through the halls, Lake was shaking the floors with every foot fall, but he quickly disappeared.

“That's what I get for going in the backdoor, Screw this cat-and-mouse, time to bring the house down,” Nate said, eyes settling on foundation supports around the room.

The whole building stank, a rotten pore wood that was backwater sitting in puddles. While Nate didn't have a plan for Lake, or the Mirelurk Queen, or Athena, he knew that bringing the roof down on their heads was as just a good a plan as any, only he didn't have any way to muster up the force. He didn't want to go knocking down support beams himself and risk collapsing the building on his own head as well, so he looked for a rope or cable.

Old firehose was especially sturdy, the thick woven fibers proven to be chafe resistant and more durable than any actual metal wire Nate was able to find or yank out of the walls.

Wrapping bowline knots around the support beams, Nate used his Deathclaw strength to pull at the rope and collapse them. Pulling every third beam in this room, the whole ceiling was leaning and sinking in visibly, boards were moaning at the newfound weight straining to bear the load.

When he made it to the ground floor again, he was careful to mark his steps, keeping his ears out for either hooves or heavy footsteps.

There was suddenly a burst of static phasing into Classical music screaming over the State House's intercom system. It's not that he didn't care for Beethoven, in fact he really enjoyed the musician. However, the old rusted speakers playing it as loudly as possible weren't doing any honorifics for the deceased artist.

Nate's ears were ringing in seconds, and all he could think of was how it was Athena antagonizing him again. Now he knew Lake was running around, looking for him. He would have less than a minute he expected before the invisible mutant Lake came bearing down on him again.

\111/

The second conflict with Lake only lasted twenty seconds before Nate lost sight of the mutant again, but Nate squeezed off four rounds with his revolver. Lake was carrying a small machine gun that barked a dozen bullets back towards Nate, but the muzzle flash clearly distorted the invisibility spectrum emitted by the Stealth Boys, making it deadly at short range. But Nate moved faster than Lake could track, and the mutant was oft to let the recoil shake his aim upwards towards the ceiling, spraying bullets in large bursts in directions his prey was in.

“How do I deal with people like this?” Nate asked, looking up, he saw the third-floor atrium walkway, and put on a burst of speed to take the high ground. Up the stairs he dashed from the ground to the second floor, he knew this was where Lake kept to, as shown by signs of junk piled and gathered. Stacked and sorted in a way that showed people were here not to long ago trying to make sense of the mess. Plenty of dried blood caked plenty of surfaces, it was a clear sign that there had been multiple fights over decades in these halls, but never a janitor or steward to clean up.

Nate could hear Lake's footsteps come up the old marble steps, the rubble and cracked floor beneath the larger mutant's making noise beneath his feet. The stairs were groaning and could be heard above the noise of the music echoing around the chamber. The old Sate House still had a number of signs and icons posted around, Bathrooms, Exit, Atrium, Park Exit, Security, and others in various places, but Nate saw one icon for Security Robots on the second floor, and took off like a robot to reach those rooms.

Nate tore open a door to a security office, and slammed it shut behind him. He had a moment to lock the door before Lake was already on it, pounding against the wooden frame.

In the security office, there was a door behind a desk counter that stretched the length of the small room, that Nate jumped over the desk and through the door to the inner office. Getting inside as Lake bashed down the first door, Nate was already inside the inner office, door locked and desk being dragged into place to prop the door shut.

It was here Nate saw two pods, one with a Robco Securitron, and the other, a disabled Utility Securitron, but nonetheless, Nate's hands immediately went to the On switch to power the robot up for service.

This was good, Nate thought.

The old terminal still had power, and nobody had touched this room in a long time, gauging on the dust built up everywhere, but it gave him a small sense of protection. That he could use this securitron to distract and lure out Lake, giving him an advantage to take it out.

As the securitron stepped out of its Pod, it scanned him for a moment, then made Nate jump as it shouted, “Halt! This area is under martial law by order of Provisional Governor Graham! Chinese infiltrators are known to be operating in this area, please provide proof of identity. Be advised I am authorized to use deadly force if you fail to comply.”

“Fucking Graham-” Nate said, thoughts immediately awash to his last few weeks pre-nuked having to deal and listen to Governor Graham's crackdown on Boston in the month of October.

It'd started with government checkpoints, all routes leading to and from the state capitol, then it quickly spread to mobilization of the national guard.

Recruiters were calling Nate daily, wondering when he was going to come back, offering jumps in rank, promotion, salary, if he put the uniform back on for another tour of duty.

Then came the roll out of the Robco and General Atomics Robots. From October 2nd, to the 23rd, hundreds of robots were rolling out into Massachusetts to maintain martial law. The factories were overloaded with metal coming in from across the country and overseas because of prices and contracts surpassing the will of the people who needed food or fuel. Workers were flocking to find a line-maintenance job for a factory that was largely automated.

The last day Nate drove his car with Nora from their house, to a restaurant in East Boston along the waterfront, they passed three checkpoints, roadblocks with Tank-bots primed and ready to launch missiles at any Chinese Communist spy.

The roadblocks became so tedious and annoying to the traffic commuters who were already paying high inflation prices on fuel for cars and public transit, even metro lines where people complained that the screening process took too long, that a common phrase emerged to quickly determine Communist spies from local residents who knew why their commute was being congested.

"Fucking Graham," was a passphrase.

The Securitron blinked from red, red, to solid steady green. This was one of the many sub-routine phrases accepted to confirm a persons identity.

Nate's heart crawled back into his chest, shocked for a moment that he nearly forgot about the bastard who enacted martial law on the whole state.

Things were looking pretty hairy on the 22nd off October, Nate remembered thinking. He was getting notes ready for a speech, he and Nora were heading to a Fraternity banquet hall the next morning. The news he listened to that day coming in on the radio, the blurbs from the newscasters, it was just the worst doom and gloom you could imagine. Complaints all across the state about Governor Graham and his robots impeding people's lives, being callous in their use, and overdemanding in their I.D. Requirements.

Nate didn't even think about the name until that robot told him.

“Analyzing, American colloquilism confirmed. Probability of use by Chinese infiltrator...zero point three percent. Thank you. Report any suspected Communists to your local authorities immediately. Have a nice day.”

As his shock disappated, an idea bloomed in his head.

“Securitron, I saw a someone who might be a Communist hiding here in the building.” Nate said, thinking about how to word this scenario right.

“Acknowledged, Communist threat presence in building. Elevated threat level. What is location and description of Communist infiltrator?”

“Second floor, tall grey giant man, carrying a gun. He's trying to attack Provisonal Governor Graham in his office!”

The Securitron lumbered into action, from the room they were in, a hallway connected to the right corner of the room, then turned 90 degrees, down another stretch of hallway with a door locked from their inside latch. Pressing against it, the Securitron walked into the corridor connecting all the parts of the State House together, with Nate practically stepping on the robot's heels. Moving in sync with the robot taking the front, Nate was able to watch the area behind them at all times. It was hard, listening for a sound above the classical music, but with even the securitron providing a momentary distraction when it came to the next confrontation, Nate felt that the odds weren't stacked against him. This time, he would be able to get a bead on Lake before the mutant disappeared again.

Nate wasn't feeling too strong, but he could get at least one good swipe in with his claw. He was saving his energy for that case, until then he walked checking his back all the way to the Governors office, the securitron leading.

Nate couldn't see, but he could sense that Lake had a clear line of sight on him, but the robot directly behind him, Lake didn't charge.

Right into the governor's office, Nate eased the door shut, but the inward swinging doors were left open just a crack. Nate pulled the right door open, then wedged it firmly into place so that it was only 30 degrees inward.

Letting the securitron wander through the office, as Nate quickly scrambled for the garbage can, and set it right on top of the lip to the left door, leaving that pulled inward only 10 degrees.

Leaning the garbage can against the top of the frame. It was posed ready to fall and strike whoever walked through and pushed it the left door open first.

Placing a chair behind the right door to properly wedge it from being opened or closed, Nate climbed up ontop of the door, then gripped the wall. It was a precarious perch, standing on top of the door, looking down at the Governors office, but it was an area most gunmen wouldn't think to shoot towards. While most were aiming chest-height and down to the ground, posed ready to drop down on the mutant felt as clever as a hawk spotting a giant mouse.

He didn't have long to wait. As the door he was standing on top of shifted ever so slightly from the weight being pressed against it, Lake's hand was testing the door.

A spray of bullets went through the office doors, and the securitron was kicked into action. The movement alerted Lake and he fired through the office doors again, “Intruder! Hostile detected! Use of deadly force authorized!”

Lake pushed open the door, causing the garbage can to fall, clattering against his head he wasn't expecting it. Nate saw the outline and dropped down on the mutant as his attention was shifted towards the approaching securitron.

Slashing down at the shoulder to spine, Lake cried out in horrid pain as he dropped the smg to the ground, hands thrown up and back in anger and clenched muscles trying to retract severed nerves. The invisible mutant threw his right arm against Nate's chest, slamming him backwards into the wall and corner. His head hit the carpet but he bounced back up immediately, eyes following the lines of blood up the rapidly shifting torso and legs.

“Got you!” Nate shouted, feeling his fingertips drag through the thick meat of Lake's calves and thigh. Deep three-inch gouges with bright red gore bubbling up and welling over like a waterfall down Lake's leg.

Nate felt the mutant grab hold of his arms, then swing his whole body weight through he air. He was sailing, hurled through the air where he finally slammed into a wall, dropping against a desk then landing headfirst on the floor.

“Auow!!!” Lake shouted, one hand clamping down on his leg as he thrashed around, frantically searching for something to stop the bleeding and revealing his location.

The second throw took a bit longer to recover from, as the securitron stepped in and clubbed Lake, Nate panted to get his head straight and a rush of oxygen through his blood again as the securitron missed and couldn't locate his target for a moment.

Lake swung his mighty fists at the robot, cracking its dome, bending its arms and casing. The securitron cackled with electricity as sparks coarsed over its body to deter attackers. Lake pummeled the robot, punching and striking at the machine until oil and warped metal were being ripped off the frame.

In the room was a flag pole with a pointed tip, Nate grabbed the flag-pole, pointed it down like a spear, and ran straight for Lake's body.

There was a long moment of pushback before the spear pierced through the chest cavity and out the back of Lake's spine. With the target right in front of him, Nate fired his last two shots point blank into the invisible mass, watching the blood spray and give Lake more features as he bled out.

"Fuck you, Athena," Nate said.

Retreating away, Nate stepped away from Lakes body, and listened for any other surprises. Sensing none, he quickly thought of the next task in mind, the Governor's computer.

The classical music finally cut out a few minutes later, and Nate suspected Athena was on the move again. Without his Pip-boy and only one hand suitable for typing, it took longer than he wanted to access the top terminal in the land, but Nate realized he wouldn't get any other chances, nor would anyone else think to do what he's about to do for another three-to-four years.

Governor Graham loved his patriotism to a blinding degree. He thought the more patriotic he appeared, the more power he would have during post-nuclear war. In actuality, it made him extremely predictable, and shallow. While showcasing his inability to run state finances, and borrowing endlessly with no regard to debt or consequence, he picked a password that Nate was able to guess on the third try.

The accepted message appeared on the screen, and Nate shuddered as lines of data and messages appeared.

Command codes, terminal actions, typing as quickly as possible, he found the prompts for the robots in the Commonwealth.

At his fingertips was the emergency martial law protocols enacted by Governor Graham 210 years ago and still in effect today. Everything he was reading told him this was the hub for all the robots in the entire Commonwealth.

The reason why robots were attacking people randomly across Massachusetts were all from this one computer, and before Athena could know what Nate was up to, he sent out the signal to disengage the Martial Law. It was a two-part command, as this also deactivated the Emergency Broadcast being sent out through Trinity Tower, but there was a intertwined subroutine with miles of wire connecting the State Building with the Trinity Tower servers, hosting the Emergency Broadcast Beacon.

That message was switched off, and the Brotherhood of Steel's distress signal went booming out over the airwaves, striking Philadelphia, D.C., all along the East Coast. From this terminal he saw that the emergency broadcast was going out, but he could just as easily cut the broadcast and switch it over to the local radio station, 97.3 FM aka Diamond City Radio.

There was quite a lot of power wired through the Governor's computer, files on Mass Energy, files from all the thousands of businesses from all around Boston and the Commonwealth area. It was all here, and Nate without a Pip-Boy to transfer access to his own device.

The slow approach of hooves coming down a hallway towards him sitting there in the governors office announced the presence of Athena.

When Athena found Nate, he was away from the desk, standing in the center of the room. He didn't even acknowledge her until she fully stepped into the room, and over Lake's body close by the door. She looked down at the body, and surmised the angle of attack.

“I don't appreciate what you did, letting him get behind me like that.”

“I warned you he was invisible and dangerous. You got the drop on him. What made you think to go high?”

“Birds. A lot of people don't often expect a predator to swoop down from above,” Nate replied.

“Then congratulations, you're better at fighting in three dimensions than I thought. Most tend to ignore the airborne combatant. You deserve a rest,”

“Tell me, what's this deal you had with Lake before bringing me here?”

“This is building is a meatgrinder, Nate. Nature at its fastest and most primal, a connection to Mona's powers. This place is oozing with Wendigo magic, to induce fear, to draw people in, to get lost and go insane. Here, many people meet their demise, and ending Lake means taking away power from Mona as well.”

"That's what I thought. Especially after you betrayed me and let me get thrown down a murder hole."

"I was just standing there-"

"Doing nothing. That doesn't explain your relationship with Lake.”

“He was a butcher, Nate, I told you that he was dangerous and invisible. You're not the first human I've tried putting faith in, Nate. This was his hunting grounds where he got to play primal predator and create endless fear for Mona to feed on. Lake was too paranoid or schizophrenic from using his Stealth Boy all the time to listen to any of Mona's commands.”

“Stealth Boys cause brain-damage?”

“For how much he was using it all the time, yes. And would you believe there's a threshold of intelligence and above that creatures need to have before they're able to be influenced by Mona? Too low, too stupid, or brain-dead, insects and lower animals, and it's not worth Mona's energy. Too intelligent, to critical of a thinker, to reasonable, and her influence only affects you so much. While all the other Mutants on the list were on the higher end, Lake however was the only exception where he was definitely on the lower side.

“First it was Hammer, you said something to him while I was sneaking into his bunker that would've made him run straight back and report it to Fist. Now, Lake was willing to go along with this setup to the point of death with you, and not even a hint of resistance. What's got them so wrapped around your hoof?”

“It's simpler than you make it out to be Nate, for a long time now, ponies had a unique standing with mutants of not being considered a threat, and even trade with them. Dozens more are intelligent with great reason, but Hammer, Lake, Big Mack, Rage, Strong, and Fist were all set free by the Institute long ago, along with too many countless others that have come and gone, or vanished into the wastes, they all were son to big daddy Institute, Mona taps into their emotions to control them, and over time they became smart enough to consider why bother taking orders.”

“So a cabinet purge?”

“It's where Mutants like Strong are going to fill the power gap when they're all gone, Nate. Mona keeps the stupid ones in line, but the ones that rise up need a common face they can trust until the damn Institute can be stopped from pumping more of them out. Strong will be a place holder in this battle, to keep other intelligent mutants in line. Once the Institute is dealt with, then we will deal with every last one of the Institute's creations, and kill him.”

“Nullus Amor?” Nate said, softly under his breath.

“What was that?”

“I said no love for your enemy, Athena? Even I'm getting tired of these aggressive attacks against mutants and being thrown to the sharks.”

“Alright, I hear you, Nate. No need to shout. We'll rest here.”

“There's the Boylston Club down the street, it's less likely to collapse than this whole building is, and doesn't have as many Mirelurks sleeping underneath either, so all the same, I'm going there.”

“Fine, Go ahead and enjoy your rest. I'll come get you when I need you. But, while you're at it, you might want to take a look out the front door and see who's sitting there at the bottom of the courthouse steps, waiting for you...” Athena said.

“What?”

“Oh...for the last several minutes now one of your buddies has been engaged with fighting a Courser in the Boston Common.” Athena said, staying exactly where she was and taking a relaxing breath as Nate went to go check out what she saw.

"And you couldn't of told me this sooner!?"

"You said you were tired and hungry! So I was done waiting for you to finish so I could tell you." Athena said,

"What kind of game is this to you, Athena?" Nate asked, moving past her and hastily walking towards the door.

"The one where you realized some-time yesterday that you could kill a Courser with your bare hand. All this chatting? It's coming out of your break-time. Your friend still needs help, too so I'd get moving if I were you."

'Slave driver' Nate thought, this was one uncomfortable one-sided working relationship. He was putting in all his effort into surviving at her side, while she barely ever broke a sweat. Reminding himself that she had played the role of slave-driver before, he wished that wasn't the only role she knew.

\111/

Ch. 88 Iron-Palm of Death!

Author's Note

Oh-La! Head Cha-La, you guys!

Dark hair, insatiable appetite and thirst, goes around picking fights with the toughest people you know, and comes back stronger? Hmmm....How have I not realized this before...:eeyup: Nate is clearly an anime protagonist.

Ch. 88 Iron-Palm of Death!

Getting to the Boston Common without being seen by synth-crows was impossible, all the way from South Boston, Deacon was spotted with a black Alicorn in tow.

Corroborating images, comparing them to the still frame from South Boston University, to the black figure with Deacon, with no other figures to go off of, the Institute's focus was shifted to Deacon and Princess Nightmare Moon.

It was when Deacon heard a crow's caw he suddenly jerked his head and remembered the flying cameras existed, after not seeing one for days.

From that point on, he guided the Princess on a winding route away from the Boston Common.

All around him, he could feel their stares bearing down into the back of his head. As much as he didn't want to think about it, ever since he learned about the synth-crows, he's been aprehensive about any murders bunched together. Blocking out the background noises, it was difficult enough to watch for any other threats around, but to hear a noise so specific made him react instantly with a weapon up and ready to fire.

It was the sound of heavy footsteps, boots, but someone intentionally making loud steps as they walked.

Not too loud either, but just enough to be heard if you happened to hear that noise before. Deacon shuddered and told the Princess to get down, as a synth-courser walked right into Deacon's line of sight wearing a long thick leather duster, thick pads across the chest, legs, arms, and stomach area, wielding a plasma rifle and a pistol. Z2-47 was the same courser that hunted down the Railroad operatives in the Switchboard, and Deacon recognized the synthetic look and freshness of an Institute agent straight off the factory line.

Only, Deacon was able to clearly see it as much as he was able to sense that the crows had closed in on him, regardless of what he had tried to do that day. When he saw the Courser's silhouette, he knew without a doubt this thing wasn't human in the slightest. The air burned too much, like the Institute was already building up a teleportation sphere that crackled and split the air with energy. It was a premonition and cold-sweats that made Deacon know that this man, as far away as he was, was a threat.

“Fuck you.” Deacon said, face and tone of voice suddenly screwing up and emotion burning through. This was the same Courser that shot his way through the Switchboard, killing over a dozen Railroad agents, and now here he was walking in broad daylight, as if this was expected to happen, like he knew Deacon and Nightmare Moon would be here.

Deacon's heart and brain suddenly felt like they were on fire, blood pumping to an extremely high pressure as it hurt to breathe or even move. Lifting his legs and arms to move felt like ripping through muscle tendons, but he blurted out a swear and threw himself into the fight.

They both started firing at the same time.

Princess Nightmare Moon didn't react until Deacon was already three steps away, firing his second wild shot across the park.

Deacon didn't know if he could make it to Park Street Station, his only way cut off by the Courser blocking them. Retreating meant failure of a different type, especially since this machine was programmed to continue hunting, tracking, and narrowing down traces of his enemy until they were eliminated or captured.

While Z2-47 was targeting the dark Nightmare Moon Model, he examined the pony with it's distinguishing features and concluded that the pony from the videos and this one were similar, at 85% similarity. The only final test was to compare its magical capabilities to the event in South Boston University, and the Institute would have its answer.

Deacon firing his fifth rifle shot from 100 meters finally struck the Courser in the chest, but struck the protective armor and clothing, bullet pattering to the ground.

“I need a bigger gun,” Deacon said, lining up his ironsights to aim for the Courser's head. Three more shots, and one struck the Courser in the skull, scraping the skin, barely denting from a direct hit and definintely not a glancing blow.

Before the Courser even registered Deacon as a plausible threat, he already fired off the 19 rounds from his rifle and jerked the whole gun to the side, using gravity and inertia to fling the spent magazine from the gun as he loaded another round of bullets. Deacon was moving up the side of the street towards Park Street Station, hoping that any of the Railroad's lookouts were aware of the situation above, and that someone might come up from Vault 114.

If they knew it was a Courser though, the same order to lock the doors and hide was going out as well, meaning he was stuck out here on the surface with a Princess and a killer robot and no backup.

Running to Goodneighbor wasn't the best course of action either, there was no telling if this Courser was going to stop, and the long game of stand-off and will-they, wont-they was going to be pushed if Deacon sought refuge there either. The threat of the Institute sending in a couple killer robots was always a threat, but nobody wanted to accidentally or unwillingly make that threat a reality.

“Princess! He killed my friends!”

Deacon was carrying the UP-77 strapped to his back, and was worried using it in battle would give away it's secret existence only after they covered up the last traces of it.

Another activation phrase for EINSTEIN, and Princess Nightmare Moon's personality instantly shifted from lax to deadly serious.

The Z2-47 was carrying an Enchanted Plasma Rifle, and while Deacon shots were getting more accurate the more confident he grew in battle against Z2-47, the same pittance of damage was like shooting peanuts at a tank.

When Z2-47 rose his own rifle to fire a shot, the weapon took a moment to charge up, the coils becoming distinctly audible, and casing glowing green and then scalding white-hot. He wasn't aiming at Deacon, but at Nightmare Moon.

Nightmare Moon watched as the blast was fired, creating a halo of light and disrupting the ground around the Courser as the single green bolt of plasma energy radiated across the Boston Common like a miniature sun, scorching the dirt and concrete with boring out chunks of the earth.

Nightmare Moon summarized that the gate entryway around her was her undoing, that she let her guard down when taking an obvious entrance instead of flying or teleporting in, but her defensive instincts kicked in, armor sliding over her mane and skull, protecting her horn in battle-ready protection.

With only a few seconds to calculate the rate of speed, and ready a counterstrike, Nightmare Moon's horn lit up brightly as the first of her two fusion cores went to work. As the plasma bolt came within striking distance, she pointed her horn down as it glowed wildly blue with energy and knocked the entire energy ball away. It lit up the Boston skyline like a green firework for only a moment before striking a up through the creeping clouds, hitting a skyscraper several blocks away, and blasting a gaping melting hole in the iron and concrete supports. Smoke wafted up from the building as it gently swayed from impact.

“Hmpf,” Nightmare Moon snorted, flaring her wings as the second of her Fusion Cores kicked into gear. “Prepare to face the wrath of a Equestrian Princess, for I am Princess Nightmare Moon!”

Warping a large ball of blue energy above her horn, she aimed it at the Courser and shouted, “Energy Blast!”

The Courser deftly dodged, sensing the large ball of energy incoming and recognizing the danger. “Hmm...Magical Capabilities apparent, let's see how much you can muster!”

Z2-47 fired waves of short plasma bolts, Nightmare Moon's horn glowed brightly emitting a blue aura as the blasts were redirected or batted away. A corona of energy surrounded her like a shield as she flew closer to strike at the Courser at close range.

As Nightmare Moon was about to strike, she aimed her magic on the ground beneath the Courser's feet. Launching the grass, pavement, concrete and dirt a meter up into the air, "Telekenetic Burst!" she shouted. The Courser wasn't able to react as the flying metal Princess slammed her hoof directly into his chin while he was still flying mid-air.

"Iron Hoof!"

Careening him across the Boston Common, he skipped across the ground twice, rolling and into the brick wall surrounding the park where he impacted, leaving behind spidering cracks in the crater. The Courser dragged himself back up to his feet, only more determined now to capture the Princess unit.

“You will be forced to recompense the Institute for hampering me from my goal,” Z2-47 said, pulling himself up.

“You and what army?” Nightmare Moon asked, charging up for another energy blast, the Courser braced, but instead her magic twisted, lashing out like a lasso around a cement trash can bolted into the ground, ripping it from the bolts like a broken twig, and flinging it like a slingshot right at the Courser's side, smashing Z2-47 across the park again.

The can crumbled into mortar dust, the Courser was restalled, but quickly learning how to deal with this situation.

“This one,” The Courser said,

In the blink of an eye, six Institute synths appeared, the barrage of laser blasts came from all directions now, slipping past Nightmare Moon's defenses and boring black pocketmarks in her armor and side.

Deacon saw that while his bullets barely touched the Courser, the robots he summoned were meant to distract and complicate the battlefield as they ran straight for Nightmare Moon with no regards to themselves. Taking a firing position on one knee, Deacon fired and fired, gunning down three synths with a single barrage before needing to reload. They still weren't on him, targeting the Princess Model who charged up her horn and arrows of light lanced out, striking the other synths, but the Courser seemingly vanished.

Deacon suddenly felt a lancing hot stab of pain as he couldn't see the Courser standing over him until it was too late. The Courser was in possession of a built-in Stealth Boy. Winking out of existence, Deacon was unaware of the electric baton slamming into his head, knocking him down to the ground with a spit-take of his own blood.

Z2-47 managed to bash Deacon right in the cheek with the electric baton, making his teeth and lips bleed as his head spun and burned, sorting through colors as his head hit the street's pavement. Nightmare Moon leapt, wings fanning, she soared across the ground and came to attack the Courser, but he instead created a blinding burst of light by taking one of the ruined synths, and detonating their energy cores.

While on their own, they were like giant capacitors, still capable of holding a charge of electricity, but apply too much pressure, and like a battery, it'll explode with a burst of chemical lightning formed when gases and minerals react volatile to when exposed.

The bright burst of canned lightning burned brighter than a miniature sun for less than a second, allowing the Courser to slip away into invisibility once again.

Suddenly struck at the neck, Nightmare Moon lashes out in all directions, but can't pick up any trace of the Courser again.

“You can't hit me,” the Courser said as he laid into the Princess Model with tremendous force fueled punches. The springs and weight capacitors launching the pistons behind each thrust of the fist was like hydraulic sledgehammers for hands, capable of bashing through almost anything given enough pummeling.

Nightmare Moon was struck again in the face, the head, the neck, the shoulders and collar. Blasting waves of energy, she couldn't determine where the Courser was until she finally closed her eyes and charged her next attack.

Deacon could make out the Courser's shadow on the ground, how there was a outline of him in the air. Pulling for his laser pistol, he aimed for the Courser's legs. The Courser danced around Nighmare Moon, inflicting punishing blows. Deacon blasted at the Courser's heels and shins, hoping the armor would be thinner around the joints. Laser pistols didn't have any recoil whatsoever, so it was all by count that he had to keep track of how many energy cells left in a battery before being drained. Fancier models had a diode number indicator, or LED. Simple ones lacked everything else.

The disruption caused the Stealth-Boy's field to slip for only a moment, letting Nightmare Moon break the Courser's assault on her and counterstrike. Horn glowing vibrant blue, her hooves were coated in the shimmering magic aura. Turning to buck the Courser, she struck him with her rear hooves.

He threw up his arms, crossing them in defense as the magically powered kick bashed the Courser head over heels, leaving hoof shaped impact indents in the synth's metal arms.

The Courser knew only relentless determination was his only purpose.

Deacon saw the Courser stand up yet again, and fired away with his laser pistol, seeing that it burned much more effectively against the synth's skin than a kinetic bullet.

Nightmare Moon took to the air, reaching ten meters before diving at Z2-47. Magic flaring again, she was about to impact the Courser into a crater below the street until he suddenly vanished.

Coming to a skidding halt on the ground, Nightmare Moon lost sight of Z2-47.

The invisible Courser saw Deacon cutting in again, and responded immediately before Nightmare Moon struck, activating his built in Stealth-field, he was sprinting across the open ground to strike Deacon with all the force his own metal fists could build up.

The blow nearly would've killed Deacon if he hadn't recognized the bare outline of the Courser, and knew what he was up against. Firing a fast burst of laser rounds, he saw the Courser coming for him and stepped back right as Z2-47 swung. The punch still collided, forcing Deacon to take three steps back, but he managed to spare his own life.

“Oh, you're cutting in. I thought I recognized you. You're one of the ones that ran away and kept running while I was gunning down your friends. Come back to die the same way? Can't you humans just go drink radioactive water until you die? It saves us so much effort than having to craft ways to keep killing all you surface dwellers.”

“I'm not going to let you get away this time.” Deacon said.

“And here I thought I was the one who let you get away, Deacon. Run scampering off, leaving trails stained with piss and tears, the shit of humans and liars, all the way back to your nests. You think you can get me to back off, Deacon? That you're going to be the one who wins this? Think again, we're going to purge you and your whole resistance. It begins with your suffering and ends with your death.”

To further the wicked point, the Courser rushed at Deacon, knocking him to the ground. Z2-47 kicked Deacon in his stomach, launching him through the air and crashing onto the hood of a car fifteen feet away, Deacon moaned and looked around, dragging himself off to roll down away onto the far side, away from battle, giving him cover.

“Let's see you dodge this!” Nightmare Moon declared, with a corona of energy expanding outwards from above her horn, it struck the Courser and picked him up, throwing him backwards away from Nightmare Moon.

Deacon was crawling to his knees, trying to drag himself up to the sidewalk or something he could rest his back against for a moment to take stock of his own damage, and survey the battlefield. He ached for a stimpak.

He was sitting in front of the Massachussettes State Court House, he realized. He was past the Park Street Station entrance, and could practically feel the Railroad's lookout eyes peeking out through cracks in the brickwork, “Come on you bastards, show a little leg!” Deacon complained, expecting a show of force from his own team.

Nightmare Moon redoubled her attack on the Courser, after making the one advantage for her, she was pressing it by bucking and blasting at Z2-47, but the Courser was able to block the blows, or throw much faster, targeted punches against Nightmare Moon. The trade-offs were the Princess was built like a Tank, and the Courser made like an Assaultron, one was durable and powerful, slightly slower than the Courser, but built and programmed by Arlen Glass to be a sympathetic companion and battle robot, while the Courser was swift, fast, and invisible, crafty and programmed by the Institute's most devious.

As they were now, both the Princess Model and Courser were at even odds, trading blows and trying to blast through their defenses with pure kinetics, bringing the fight to a standstill. Deacon tried to create holes in the Courser's defense for Nightmare Moon to punch through, but every time he got close, the Courser responded by nearly beating him to death. He was after the Princess after all, Deacon realized.

Wiping his eyes, it felt like dirt or grease got into them, but it was sweat and tears mixed in as well that made Deacon's eyes water.

He looked for the sun, slowly getting blocked out by a wall of fog and clouds descending down onto the city.

Twin doors to the State House opened, then down three flights of long stairs to the sidewalk, then to the street Nate approached.

The most bizarre architecture design for the long steps was the length of distance between stepping down, you would hear three-steps, then a pause, followed by a louder drop of a person stepping down to a lower step, then three more foot-falls, proceeded by a fourth louder clomp that got louder and louder if you were standing there at the bottom and someone was coming down the steps to the State House.

Having spotted Deacon from inside the building, he was already on his way outside when Deacon came to a pause there on the side of the road.

“Deacon?” Nate asked, “Need a stimpak?” He asked, unzipping a little pouch on his thigh and pulled out a stimpak in red-packaging, still factory-sealed.

“Nate? What are you doing here? How are you here?”

“Never mind that, the heck's going on here? Fill me in.”

“The pony toy is yours, the fashion disaster in the full-length leather trench-coat in broad daylight is the Institute's. That and he fucking killed my friends... I shoulda said that first... So, kick his ass, Nate... Ow... and...we need the computer chips in head...so don't break that...Also. What the fuck happened to your arm?”

"I jerked off too much, and the masturbation fairy came down and cursed me. He told me to watch out or I might rip my dick off."

Tossing the stimpak to Deacon, he fumbled with the packaging and bit through the plastic to get the injector free. 'The heck did you get a factory-fresh stimpak?' he thought to himself, looking up to Nate who seemed to somehow be everywhere at once and always prepared. Even after seeing the trick with Meathead, seeing Nate here now, Deacon was still having a hard time these two were so similar yet moved differently.

“Don't worry, I'll handle it.” He said, looking across the Common to the Courser. Balling up his Deathclaw fist, he exhaled and let the fingers relax. The sharpest points being the tips, Nate sized up his claw versus the Courser.

Yesterday he tore through the casings of power armor, and disemboweled a super mutant, now he would be testing his claws against the most advanced synthetic machine the Institute ever produced.

Deacon nodded, Nate looked up at Nightmare Moon slamming both hooves into Z2-47's head, blasting energy blasts point blank to burn the face away, but lacking the force to go the next step and break through the Courser's armor completely.

To deal with threats, the Courser would divide and conquer, distracting the stronger threat to eliminate the weaker one,

Charred blasts left exposed gaps in the metal all across the Courser's body, burning away parts of its skin and showing the hybrid of synthetic flesh and machine beneath. It's chest was all metal, but Nate swore he could see gaps through the ribs, and surely at the center, it's core.

When Z2-47 saw Nate enter the fray, stepping into the realm of being attacked, he quickly knew he needed to separate Nightmare Moon and the new human from being able to coordinate any attack.

Z2-47 changed the setting to the Enchanted Plasma Rifle, instead of a single bolt, a large round sphere of bubbling green plasma energy coalesced and beamed brightly at the tip of the rifle, growing powerfully large, he assessed the threat levels between the two, and their most appropriate responses, and aimed the beam at Deacon who was caught unaware.

The blast melted pavement, concrete and scorched the earth to glass where ever it passed over, Nightmare Moon saw the incoming blast and using all her energy to create a massive shield between herself and Deacon, Z2-47 knew that the old robot might've had the inkling to protect humans.

Throwing herself infront of the blast to shield Deacon, she knew that the corona of explosion would've wiped out several city blocks if she hadn't diffused most of the force with her own shield.

Blasted up back through the air, the sight of detonation was a melting crater as Nightmare Moon was launched six city blocks away from the Boston Common, smashing through buildings and rubble like a rocket powered wrecking ball. She blew through a hole in the Copper Dome as she hurled through the air.

Pulling herself from the rubble, she flew to return to battle.

“Hey, asshole. I just got that mint-condition out of the box.” Nate complained, catching Z2-47's attention. "And you went scratched it."

When Z2-47 charged up a Enchanted Plasma Blast against Nate, the Courser fired but then Nate caught the energy with his Deathclaw and crushed it, extinguishing the energy. Nate's whole body felt hot with excitement as he felt the sun's energy dissapate in his palm.

It was something he gambled on as well, but seeing as how Deathclaws were impervious to radiation, they were already naturally resistant to plasma-based weaponry. His left hand was definitely warm, like he just stuck his hand over a hot-fire for a second.

He'd played this game plenty of times growing up, and figured he could get pretty close to the fire before it burned his hand too badly.

“Not bad, Boy." Nate said condescendingly, "A few more years of experience with your 12Watt flashlight there in your hands, and your daddy might say you're experienced enough for a real toy-blaster.” Confidently shaking off the smoldering ashes in his palm.

Readying his fist, the Courser tried to ready another shot, Nate blocked the second as well, gritting his teeth as the blast was more focused. Waving the heat away, Z2-47 was about to fire a third shot, but Nate was on him with such speed and ferocity that the Course had no choice but to react. “Careful though, you'll shoot your eye out!”

Catching Nate's massive palm as it was about to rip the synth's head off took both hands to stop his momentum. Pushing Nate up off the ground, he threw Nate backwards, but Nate held onto the Courser as he tried to fling him away. Here's where the rest of Nate's agile body made it easy for him to wrestle a better position and get a better foot stance as the Courser struggled to repel him back.

The Courser came out swinging a long extended electrified baton that crackled with energy up and down the length of it. Striking Nate on the back, he shouted out in a pained cry as volts blasted up his spine.

Nate punched the Courser across the cheek with a massive balled up fist, sending the Courser sprawling against the ground. It was quick to hop back up and reorient itself. Raising his baton to strike again, Nate also reared back to attack.

With a perfect strike-on-strike, the Courser was ready to hit Nate with his baton, as Nate had his deathclaw swinging down through the air, talons ripping through the Courser's right bicep, shoulder muscles, shoulder joint, severing the arm off, down through the chest, slicing three long cuts through the Courser's spine, severing all motor function and responses to everything below the neck joint. The eviscerated into three large sections, the Courser's chest cavity was cleaved open with one swing as Nate shouted his rage and energy out in the mighty heave.

With a final pull, Nate ripped down through the Courser's hip joint, crippling and disabling the entire machine in one completely powerful swing. The left leg was completely ripped out of the ball and socket joint front the hip as Nate mangled Z2-47 in a single swipe.

The top torso was completely ripped away from the lower legs, spine warped and twisted, severed in half as the Courser's pieces fell to the ground.

“You'll shoot your eye out!” Nate shouted, Gripping Z2-47's skull, and wrapping his deathclaw around it, he pressed his left boot against the torso and jerked back. Ripping the head from the spinal chord, the Courser was mangled and defeated.

Nate had to go to Deacon, since he had only made it to a sitting up position before painfully getting back up onto his feet when he got closer.

“You'll shoot your eye out...” Deacon said, eyes searching for an answer, “What's that from?”

Nightmare Moon descended back down onto the pavement, greeting Deacon and Nate as she landed, observing that the threat was dealt with, she didn't have much to say.

“A Christmas Story,” Nate said, panting slightly from the quick workout. “Kid wants a BB gun for Christmas, he asks his friends, mom, dad, teachers, santa, everyone you could think of, it's all little Ralphie wants. He begs for it, dreams about it, writes letters and fan-mail about his obsession, but they all say the same thing.”

“You'll shoot your eye out?” Deacon asks.

“Yep.”

“So what happens?”

“Dear Ol' Reliable Dad relents, and gets him the rifle. It was supposed to be the touching moment of the story, how the little kid was left looking towards an underwhelming Christmas, then subverts it because he already gave up any hope of getting the BB gun that year.” Nate says.

“And so what does the kid do?” Deacon asks,

“He goes outside, fires a bb, and it ricochets back into his eye. To save himself from embarrassment, he lies about it.”

“What kinda story is that?”

“Just one of those things from the past, an anecdote, I suppose. Of course there's more to the story, but...the Institute...this obsession they have...” Nate turned up his giant deathclaw hand, and then opened up his regular hand with the other, he started laughing to Deacon. “It'd be pretty embarrassing for them if the Institute got everything they wanted and immediately shot themselves in the face...wouldn't it?” Nate said.

Deacon pondered it, "I guess so," then looked up at Nate's smile “But you just tore this thing apart with your bare hands, ripped it limb from limb,”

“By the way it looks to me, it looks like he shot himself,” Nate said, wiping off the synthetic blood sticking to his fingers.

Deacon started to laugh, “Nate! Ah! You're so strong now! What the heck happened to you? This was the Institute's top of the line tech. You! You... saw me fighting it? Bullets, lasers, nothing was getting through. Nate, what happened to you? Meathead showed us how you looked, but he and Hancock made it sound like you were hold up somewhere. Where've you been?”

“I wish, look at this thing, Deacon. Go ahead, feel it. This is the level of strength you need to finger a deathclaw pussy,” Nate said, letting Deacon touch his new arm, he instantly withdrew and pulled back.

"Ew. What's with all the jokes? Between you and Hancock, you're both neurotic!"

"Yeah! Probably! Haven't slept much, Deacon. I've had a long morning, and I see yours is going about the same as mine...so...where the heck can we find some grub around here? Tell me all about it after lunch, because all I know is that I've got one last thing to take care of inside the State House there, and then I'm walking towards anything edible, and that's the end of it. Everything else you tell me now is going over my head until I get some food in me.”

“Wait, we need to get the Courser body and Nightmare Moon into the Railroad, Nate. They have food! We have food down in Vault 114. In Park Street Station. We have lots of food.” Deacon said, seeing the hungry look in Nate's eyes, he had seen this all too well in dozens of other people, it was a all too common sight. People hit their energy walls and broke through it to keep going, but paid the price.

Deacon could see Nate was about ready to devour a brahmin whole, and moving everything down to the new Railroad HQ was something that needed to be done quickly.

"Two seconds, and I'll be with you," Nate said, walking back up towards the Copper Dome, "Two seconds!" He said quickly disappearing inside.

Deacon didn't notice Nate was carrying the Enchanted Plasma Rifle, but Deacon was picking up all the little bolts and pieces that were shorn off the Courser. Packing them together, Deacon didn't even notice Nate return, and looking up to the State House, he didn't notice anything either.

"What'd you do?"

"I wouldn't go in there anytime in the near future," Nate warned.

Sitting at the bottom of the sub-basement floor of the Mirelurk Den. Nate activated the EPR, then tossed it down the murder-hole. It was charging up a tremendous ball of energy, when it detonated, the entire sewer system turned to boiling steam, blasting steam up through the floors and basement, incinerating and cooking everything instantly in a thirty foot radius. The Mirelurk Queen and all the Mirelurks in the sub-basement, lower levels, sewer, and everything up to the first floor was instantly flash-steamed with a boiling wall of hot air. The explosion was a blast of air and heat blowing out all the remaining windows and plenty of debris, but the collapse of all the supports and tons of steel and cement sliding away was shuddering the ground and sending up big plumes of dust skyward.

Behind them, the whole Massachusetts State House building wobbled, then caved in on itself, the ceilings and walls falling in, the dome collapsing in a tremendously loud roar of collided tiles and supports. Walls finally falling outward, or sinking in, the whole building was a giant heap with a massive dustcloud the size of a skyscraper rising up through the city scape

\111/

Nightmare Moon returned mostly pristine. Her wings still functioned, power casing still intact, but as for her armor and shields, everything needed to be buffed out.

Cradling the Courser's skull in a bundle of rags, Nate carried the head, while Deacon sought out the Railroad's lookout Drummer Boy and Tinker Tom to help fetch Princess Nightmare Moon up in the Boston Common. Deacon was partially concerned about old energy charged capacitors and some kind of internal battery beaming the camera's audio and visuals back to the Institute, despite being visually thrashed and in-operative. He would feel safer if the Courser's head were wrapped in tinfoil until Tinker Tom had a full chance to disassemble the robot's head.

Pointing Nate towards the communal kitchens and dining area, it was hard to stop eating once he started.

Deacon took the Courser's head and lorded it like a trophy, ecstatic that he finally saw the end to one of these machines that caused so much trouble for them.

“Tink!” Deacon yelled, loud enough that he wasn't about to run off to find the man himself. “TINK get your ass up here now!”

Tinker Tom arrived, Breathless, “Sorry, boss...damn stairs in this place...Too many stairs...Whoever designed this place was a grade-A asshole.”

Laying out the Courser and the UP-77, "Time to go to work..." Deacon said, beginning his explanation for what he needed to be done.

Ch. 89 The Mechanist

Author's Note

Cait fails multiple Charisma checks, disastrous results ensue.

Ch. 89 The Mechanist

\111/

Thunderstruck, Cait, Leighla, and Ada spent hours eyeing the Robco factory from a distance, watching it grow larger and larger the closer they became. The size of a distribution warehouse, the factory comprising Robco covered twice the ground area of Diamond City. It was amazing to only a quarter of the group that a building could be so large, and only have a single entrydoor.

Following the TankBot's treads back to the source was an easy enough path to follow. The tracks from the other robots helped as well, but all signs pointed to them leaving from giant steel-plated retractable garage doors that were strong enough to take repeated accidental missile blasts. There were Mechanist machines on patrol outside, preventing anyone from getting too close.

"So how the heck are we supposed to get in?" Cait asked,

"We're still looking for a way in,"

"What about flying in as they come rushing out? Wait for the doors to open, then bolt in like rats or a pigeon looking to roost in the rafters?"

"The roof will be our best way in,"

\111/

The exterior and the walls, fences, building was tall, offered little outside access, and heavily fortified, the roof was contracted open exposed ceilings and wires for easy installation of overhead lights, fans, vents, cables, with no money being put towards putting up a ceiling to cover it all. The factory had windows, but high up to prevent thieves from breaking in, or saboteurs from getting to the machinery.

Flying to the roof, over all the lookouts and cameras, they were able to find a gryphon sized hole for Leighla to pass through, and quickly take cover as the four of them landed inside the factory line production floor high up atop machines and equipment, with dozens of Tank bots roaming around on the floor, with swarms of eye-bots hovering thirty feet below them. Below them, just like an automatic production line in an auto-factory, pieces were being assembled and drawn together. New parts being forged and pressed out, molds capable of reproducing for centuries, they were instantly overwhelmed by the amount of Mr. Handies they could count off in groups of ten, or the constructrons going back and forth between half-assembled robots and ones ready to come off the line.

"Right into the thick of it, we step," Cait said, wrinkling her nose and scrunching up her face.

There was no slowing down nor stopping, and from where they were, they hesitantly looked back up to the hole in the roof and wondered if they were suddenly overwhelmed, but Thunderstruck looked down at the whole factory floor below them and pointed, "There." She said, having to yell the word.

The inside of Roboco factory was vastly louder than the outside, getting everyone to look exactly where she was pointing, Thunderstruck saw the tell-tale sign of a foreman's office. It was a windowed office overlooking down on the factory floor, but the window was already broken in.

"I'll go first, you follow. Ada, grab hold." Thunderstruck said, letting the Assaultron grab on. Shaking out her wings, puffing her chest up, dancing and taking short quick breaths to oxygenate the blood and her limbs, Thunderstruck bolted off the top of the production machines and stuck as high to the ceiling as possible, between lights, exposed cables, around vents, then doing a half downward spiral loop, she dove 180 degrees, turning her body upright and diving through the window. Slamming into the wall to brace herself and come to a stop, she and Ada made it.

dusting herself off as she stood up, she was suddenly rammed by Leighla and Cait running into her and Ada as they all piled into the foreman's office, skirting the detection from hundreds of robots.

"Ow~!" Thunderstruck said, disentangling herself from the bottom of the pile as Leighla pressed into her. The giant gryphon weighed nearly three times as much as herself, and getting slammed into the wall to act as their barrier brake hurt.

"Aye, no time for bellyachin'- So far so good. We made it in. I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I am a heavy blunt instrument, and for that I can say I am gonna bash whatevers whats put's the screws to us."

"Wha?" Thunderstruck said, trying to read Cait's lips, "Cait, what's that sign on the wall say?" Thunderstruck asked, pointing to a yellow, black and white sign that read 'All Employees must wear Hardhat on Production Floor.'

She looked at the sign, and then to Thunderstruck, "What are you talking about? I don't know what these are anyway. I dont recognize the symbols."

"Were you taught to read...?" She probed, hoping not to set Cait off, especially here and now in the office. While they were staying away from the windows, and no bots seemed to be patrolling through here on a loop. She knew this wasn't the best time to learn about her new partners, but to Thunderstruck the fact seemed more important than Cait was showing to understand.

Symbols, Thunderstruck thought, plenty of people can get quite far in life without reading and following symbols, knowing what they mean. But here, the signs on the wall and directions, and even a non-essential map of the factory showing fire-route exits and safety precautions gave Thunderstruck, Leighla, and Ada a sense of the layout, but Thunderstruck noticed the way Cait stared at it, trying to absorb the information through symbiosis.

She could see how Cait realized there was knowledge to be gained from a fire-exit map detailing the Robco factory, but the way she looked at it made her face red, expressions flustered, and anger beginning to build, a sense of frustration that she realized she was being left out. As much as Thunderstruck wanted to bring Cait up to a level of awareness that could understand and facilitate the use of a map, she wanted to say that this wasn't the time or place to be learning the phonetics and A-B-C's.

Leighla knew how to read a map, but wasn't so good with titles or associating places on the map until after she went there herself and saw it. From these and learning from others who could read and write, began associating the place where she lived, with the name for the places in the world around her. Leighla had spent far less time being captured than Cait ever was, but she was far from being able to pick up books and enjoy them. Comprehension and interpretation were as far off concepts as words were for Cait.

"So we are here...in the Facilities Management part of the building here..." Thunderstruck said, looking to the stairwells and how the factory was layered. Fortunately for them, there were only 4 levels, with three of them being above ground. What we're looking for on this map is....this room here."

The way to the main factory's control center, a nexus hub furthest away from fire hazards, and potential invaders, there were three ways to get to the room where all the controls for the factory and the Mechanists robots being created were all programmed from a secure location.

"Systems Control Room. The brain of this place. Everything that happens in this factory can be controlled from there. The only way to get to it though, is either through..." Thunderstruck combed over the map, "Straight through the production line floor, an elevator, or down through the basement. We can maybe get to this elevator, but I've got a feeling it wont work for us. We can try it, we've been lucky so far. Otherwise the only way to get from here in Productions is to head all the way over to Storage, then up the stairwell and back into the Master Control. The way they've got it all walled off, I'm sure is to prevent fire, flood, theft, damage, or any other thing we can think of, but those are our routes." Thunderstruck said, then eyeing their own emergency escape route, options were pretty slim if they were penned in by the robots on the production floor.

"Well, let's try the lift first, see how much we can get away with up here before having to go back down 'ut there." Cait said, not daring to get too close to the foremans windows.

"Good idea." Thunderstruck said, despite her own map reading, the factory's layout was intentionally complex, to stall intruders like herself. She was hoping for another way to get closer to the Mechanist before being found, but until then, staying quiet and not drawing attention to a 800 lb griffon was fraying her nerves. Thunderstruck was impressed with Leighla in a fight against a Tankbot, which was initially why she asked the giant along, but after arriving she woefully accepted that she underestimated how many machines the Mechanist would have on hand. The sheer numbers of machines ready to slip into a murderous state and kill them was frightening, and she was doing her best to let it slip into her voice.

"I...need...them...built." Thunderstruck slowly said, trying to remind herself why she was here. She was here to take over and conquer the whole factory, death machines and their be-damned, but she wanted to do it without smashing up the place. Exhaling a cool calming breath, Thunderstruck checked her weapons and her sword. "I need them..."

"Are you ready?" Ada asked, noticing Thunderstruck's hesitation.

"Yes. Just visualizing the path ahead, I'm ready."

\111/

Despite how quickly they moved, it still took a long time avoiding robots, or waiting them to pass by, darting past them as they turn their back. Twenty minutes of maneuvering closer to their goal, their only setbacks were motion sensor spotlights that they needed to fly above and beyond its height to avoid.

The was a loud speaker playing back a heart-beat. It was listening for their heartbeats to track the noise and locate the source. Microphones and security systems designed to track living objects. Ada had to blast white noise at the sensors and microphones to get them to stop tracking properly.

The next came after they descended down two flights of stairs and came to a path with a cross walk with eye-bots and protectrons passing by. Rolling down the hallway was a machine they hadn't seen before, a tanks treads, with a robotron's body, but domed with a human brain in a nearly shatter-resistant casing was a Robobrain.

"What the hell...nah...Gimme that gun, that ain't right." Cait said, even Leighla seemed put-off by the odd machine. Wirey limbs with claws and blaster tips attached to the end, the Robobrain passed the crossway of robots and came towards them.

Thunderstruck told them they needed to be fast, to get to the far end of this hallway, and then go downstairs.

They barely poked their heads out before the robot's arms started flailing and four lazer shots blasted right around them. The robobrain seemed to be operating independently from the protectrons and eyebots, as they still kept their same pace as before.

Cait and Leighla were looking to Thunderstruck for permission to attack, holding them off for another moment, the Robobrain rolled closer before they sprung at it from both sides. Ada took the time it was rolling closer to line up a perfect blinding shot of energy right into the Robobrain's visual eye-cones, completely blinding it. Even as it fired away, Thunderstuck used her brought along laser pistol with a rifle's grip for her hoof to press against, and tapped the trigger 30 times all clustered at the Robobrain's left arm.

Boring holes and searing through steel and aluminum plates, the wiring connected to the Robobrain's laser sparked and continued waving through the air as it's unending advanced continued. Thunderstruck chose the laser pistol over simplicity to load, but the battery cells had a positive and minus side, and in the heat of the moment put the battery in backward. Dumping the battery to the ground, and shoving in a new one, she was luckier this time in getting the positve and negative magnets to line up to create the circuit and power her pistol again.

Leighla and Ada were the first targets, being larger and robotic respectively, the Robobrain acknowledged Cait then Thunderstruck as threats last, but the weapons they carried bore massive damage against robots and metal.

While Leighla wasn't able to procure a weapon suitable for her size, Cait was more than happy to have brought along a pilfered Assault rifle and Laser rifle from the stack of weapons brought from the USS Constitution, to the Vault 111 armory.

With rifles in each hand, Cait knew everything there was to guns, she could see the numbers, read the labels, knew what every single one did and how they operated, because in her time at the Combat Zone and before, that was all there was to read and talk about with other raiders. The weapons they carried, how to shoot it, what kind of noise did it make, how to dodge it, how to clean it, how to dismantle and reassemble it, bullet sizes, lengths of barrel, types of stocks and sights, scopes, wraps, scrimshaw, totems, feathers, charms, beads, energy blasters, laser pistols, brands, she knew them all.

While she lacked the aim and experience, her knowledge of weapons and how to use them was vast. She knew she needed to carry plenty of bullets and ammo for her rifles, so she taped them to her chest and waist like a bandolier. With the laser rifle, she could hold up and shoot with one hand, since there was no recoil, the other she braced against her stomach or off her thigh and let her body absorb the shock.

Spraying bullets and laser blasts, she would've been more accurate and on target choosing one rifle and using both hands, but Thunderstruck couldn't argue with Cait as the three of them finished off the Robobrain and the whole factory started blaring red claxon alarms loud enough to make Thunderstruck's arteries dilate. Her sensitive ears demanded that they get away from the sirens, as the protectrons and eyebots in this area stopped what they were doing and suddenly shifted into a scan and search mode.

"Hey, we gotta run! Now! Cait! Leighla! Ada! Let's go! Let's go! Now!" Thunderstruck beckoned, hurrying them along as she saw their window of opportunity closing fast. With silence no longer being an option, Thunderstuck pushed them along as one protectron spotted them, followed by two eyebots.

"Get going!" Thunderstruck said, taking aim at the eyebots, she knew they wouldn't stop following them. As blasts of energy sailed by, one struck her in the chest, stunning and electrifying her into tensing up for a moment as the robots got even closer. She rolled sideways and fired from the ground, watching the two eye bots break apart and come crashing to the floor.

Even with the protectron following her, Thunderstruck ignored it and fled after Ada, Cait, and Leighla, not wanting to be too far separated. Hoping that she could break line of sight long enough for the robot to forget about her, she flew down the hallway, disappearing from the protectron's gaze.

Coming to the stairway, they descended thirty feet to the basement of Robco factory and into the Robobrain facility.

\111/

Thunderstruck waited anxiously by the stairs, but no more robots were coming their way, and the alarm was limited to the upper floor of the facility. She was grateful that it was much quieter, but the loud hum of machinery was still present everywhere. It was hard to tell if any floating robots were coming their way, making her cautious about not seeing many yet.

Overhead were long thin orange pipes, caged over and shining down a long concrete tunnel lined with human cells and prison bars.

"Eugh," Lieghla said, snorting out the air, "This prison still smells wrong, like fear and old piss."

"Don't think too hard about it," Thunderstruck said, "And look, another one. Keep your voice down." Down the hallway, most of the cages were open, but along rolled another Robobrain operating on high-alert. Its arms were raised, like it was ready to whip laser blasts to its left or right.

"Easy enough," Cait said, readying both rifles again.

"Cait, use one at a time," she suggested.

"But I have more time to shoot before reloading," She argued, pulling open a cage door, she propped the tips of both rifles through the bars and aimed them down the hallway. Pulling both triggers, one blasting ballistic rounds, the other red laser blasts, Cait sprayed the whole hallway down.

While the initial wall of gunfire ate away a whole level of metal plate, the Robobrain grinded through gears and broken and exposed shielding to turn and face the group.

Thunderstruck and Ada fired their volley next, pulling back as Leighla charged ahead like a bull and slammed into the Robobrain, flipping it up and over, ripping through its arms and crushing the brain with her paws. The casing was pinned like a soda can and flattened.

Moving further down the hallway they came upon more Robobrains, and surgical rooms that only made more sense as to how these particular robots were made.

"What kind of hospital is this?" Cait asked,

"It appears all these rooms down here, from the former human cells, to the surgical rooms, to the presence of robots using human brains as a operating system, all seem to be part of the same process to produce these Robobrains." Ada explained, "Truly a cruel fate for the former prisoners here."

"Lieghla, you get on that one first, we'll blast the other to smithereens." Cait said, reloading her rifles.

Fighting through the laboratory and the hallways that squared off again along the ceiling, making Thunderstruck believe they were under solid ground and supports again. The ceilings were much higher, and knowing to expect seeing a flying robot made Thunderstruck and Ada all the more aware of a patrolling eyebot making all the noise of an electric water-kettle set to boil.

Leighla and Cait had never seen an eyebot before, a floating speaker with a covered metal grate for a face, single laser and camera on the top with long antenna.

Blasting it while the duo looked at the robot like it were a soap-bubble, the pop it made from frying the electrical circuits and bursting open snapped the two back to reality. "Didn't even know that was a robot. Didn't know what I was looking at there for a second..." Cait admitted, shaking the confusion away. Now, with a determined stare, she would just blast anything that moved.

"I believe we've been spotted." Ada said,

"Nothing we can do about it except move faster." Thunderstruck said, looking for signs along the walls that pointed to where they wanted to be.

After saying that, within thirty seconds the sound of more Eyebots descending from the factory floor, swarm-bots being redirected, and protectrons still on the bottom floor all being sent to deter Cait, Leighla, Ada, and Thunderstruck from moving on.

"Come no further," The Mechanist said through the robot's speakers.

"Ignore them! Until we get to this person face to face, they're just going to keep coming." Thunderstruck said, thinking about the production lines above them endlessly producing more and more automatons. There were moments she feared being shot, and when she finally was, her side burned ceaselessly until she forced herself to move. Laser blasts melted a tiny divot of skin on her hide by her right ribs, making full strides impossible as the area was incredibly tender and red with inflamed blood vessels on the surface.

Cait and Leighla were getting hit, but Cait's numb senses and sharp reflexes kept her vitals protected and dodged any close range robots looking to strike her. Even as an Assaultron charged at them, Cait knew exactly where to strike and could knock it off balance with one punch, then follow up with an elbow jab to the core, open palm strike, then kick the whole thing backwards to tip it up and over. She fought dozens of these in the Combat Zone, and fighting them one on one was only easy when she wasn't being distracted by other hovering pests blasting their way in.

Leighla was getting targeted more and shot at because of her size, but this only made the gryphon move as fast as possible. These close quarters had her crawling up the walls, launching herself through the air as she sprinted and dashed along. Never slowing down because she knew to pause longer than what she could strike at as she moved meant they already locked on target and ready to fire. As all these machines shot at her, she wished for a weapon of her own that could fire back, a cannon to fit in her claw. But even as she saw the need for a weapon beyond her own claws and muscles, her strength protected her from the worst damage, and size was able to shield Cait when she wasn't paying attention to the flying robots above their heads.

Ada focused on any robot hovering or buzzing around. There were shafts leading all around the factory, and by design, it wouldn't take long for another wave of swarm-bots, eye-bots, or Mr. Handies to reach them. It was the buildup of tanks, assaultrons, and protectrons, that as they ran into more and more of them, the more surrounded they were.

Downing the Assualtron, Cait blew apart the head piece until it was nothing but a pile of splintered metal and broken parts. Shoving more ammo into her rifles, she turned her assault to any buzzing pests trying to pin Leighla and Thunderstruck to the ground. Every close call made each of them react a bit more fiercely until the fighting was done, not wanting to die or fail. Cait's ears were ringing as she finally got a degree of timing down where she was firing in sequence with the laser and assault rifle, instead of pulling both triggers at once as fast as she could. For a robotic weapons factory, there was a distinct lack of weapons available to pick up and plunder. Her aim improved as she sighted targets flying around them and shot them down.

Ada was more advanced than the other Assaultrons, her programming had been updated and reworked, the experience she gained from the Commonwealth and Jackson's input helped curtail her skills into reacting faster, responding while Assaultrons of a similar model were still processing the best way to react. This split second timing allowed Ada to shoot first, interpret dangers quicker, and avoid damage. Where all the Assaultrons programmed by the Mechanist were running basic funtionality, Ada learned how to incorporate her groups skills and strengths, their weapons and how they lead counterstrikes on enemies in their openings. She knew that the Cait, Thunderstruck, and Leighla were relying on her to be their shield, their protection, and even stand in the way of critical hits that would otherwise kill anyone else.

As the four of them tore through two waves of robots, over a dozen in all, they all felt the pressing urge to run on and sprint for the the stairway leading up into Central Command. They could hear more coming, and visually see more faster lighter robots on their way to lead the fight again.

The stair way was a walled series of ramps that made it possible to roll or push a cart up the entire three flights. At the top, the space opened up to the control center. More stairs leading to catwalks and access points to other parts of the factory, they came up through the longest path to reach this room.

Behind walls and panels of thick indestructible glass, security gates, and laser turrets were the consoles and command nodes for the entire Robco Factory. Dozens of Robobrains were operating the controls, the Mechanist drops the security gates down over the Central Command. One final layer of protection was a thick shutter they hoped would be a final sign to keep intruders out.

"Let me do the talking," Thunderstruck said,

"The hell you are, I got some words to say to this autonomatic asshole! Assinge'ing my ass off listening to an automatic answering machine beep about protecting the Commonwealth." Cait seethed, looking up to the Mechanist's control room.

"You Mechanicalist Shit for Brains Monkey! Show you'self before I drop you faster than a bad mother does with her child!"

"Cait! Quiet! Jesus! You're not helping our first impression." Thunderstruck said, "We're here for the robots and that's it!"

Cait nodded, "Yeah. Yeah! You hear that!? We're here for your robots, Mechanist! So give up now!" Cait demanded, escalating the situation.

"Cait! Damnit! Shut up before something worse happens!"

\111/

Twenty seconds after Thunderstruck silenced Cait with a final shush, the fire alarm went off- causing remote access lifts from the main factory floor to ascend. Thunderstruck saw the top heads of two tank bots rising up and knew what they were before anyone else did. She recognized the shape instantly, while part of her wanted to chew Cait out for blowing whatever chance of talking to the Mechanist out of the water with her stellar charisma, the tanks were an even worse luck as a result of that.

Each Mk.3 Tank Bot carried a mini-gun, ready to fire instantanously as it rolled off the remote access lifts Thunderstruck spotted from the Fire Escape Map. They weren't primarily supposed to be used to bring heavy weaponry into the control room area, but the Mechanist deemed it enough of an emergency that she put the elevators into use.

"Kill the Intruders."

As both Mk.3 Tank Bots pointed and fired hundreds of rounds at them, Ada stopped the hail of bullets by raising the energy in her palms and firing wide beams of lasers, vaporizing bullets to particle matter before it could strike them.

To Cait and Leighla, the Tanks were slow. Fighting each other in the Combat Zone, wrestling, actually walking the line between nearly crushing each other, choking each other out, punching, grappling, and throwing each other against the bars to extend their matches as long as possible, was easy to execute on Tank-bots. Even as their omni-treads kept them on target, Ada let Cait use her for cover, where the only opening was avoiding missiles launched or them ramming into the walls like rampaging bulls.

\111/

The Mechanist shook, body fuming, anger past the boiling point, "Are you alright?" Sparks asked. The Mechanist seethed at the monitors, scared and angry, emotions hidden under a metal mask, the Mechanist recoiled as more and more of the security systems didn't allow them to trap the intruders. Whatever they sent, the marauders either ran from or blew through.

"Are we going to be okay?"

A cool calm voice by the Mechanist's side asked, Sparks a blue Pegasus mare with a two tone eletric-yellow mane and tail and remote control-switch box with a big red button, and off the tip of a small antenna on top of the box was small white bolts of lightning.

"How are these mauraders able to get this far in?" Sparks asked, "The Tankbots will be able to hold them wont they?"

"I'm more worried that they're here now, and we'll figure out how they got in later. These four are more than regular mauraders, they're vastly more ferocious. Each of them are capable of taking on multiple regular Assualtrons, and Protectrons, smashing through them like they're glass. They've got a roided-out gryphon that can peck through a regular tankbot's armor like an aluminum can, and its only because I've put my own touches on these two that the hen isn't crumpling them apart. The woman there is a gunserking trigger-happy, spray and prayer, decimating everything in her path over accuracy, the Assaultron they have is the same rogue bot we've picked up on scanners for days now, and this Pegasus...now she's come and tracked us down. We've barely got any footage of her to compare to know what she's capable of. Only in the last twenty minutes the eye bots were picking up images of her, but even then she's moving pretty fast."

"Then will the security gates hold them if they Tankbots wont?"

"I've got a surprise in store for them even if they're feeling like keeping any tricks up their sleeves. The shutters can prevent anything up to a small warhead, and if they're here for the machines, then they'll risk damaging the main control if they try and blow their way in." The Mechanist replied.

"I should suit up." Sparks said, "I don't want to be standing here, waiting for them to shoot us down when they decide to melt their way through." Retreating away from the Central Command Center, the Mechanist anxiously watched the monitors, tapping away at the consoles to invoke faster commands.

These four marauders were destroying everything they threw at them, and couldn't separate them.

Their cohesion as a unit made it hard to crack their defenses, but she knew if she could take at least one of them down, or separate them, it would be easier to fight them that way.

The Mechanist inhaled a deep breath and held it, listening to sounds of explosions and hails of bullets and laser rifle ricochete and burst off the walls around them. The sound of Leighla screeching as she latched onto one Mk.3 and spun with it as it tried flinging her off. She clawed and scraped at the metal, tips finding purchase every time and gouging long divots into the armor. Even as Leighla was bodyslammed into the wall with the force of a speeding car, The colliding of aluminum on talon grated on all their ears was not a sign they were winning easily.

Ada ran into the tankbot with enough force to lift it up, throwing it's sense of balance out of scale as it hastily tried readjusting by throwing itself in reverse and pushing away from the wall.

"The Assaultron..." The Mechanist said, feeling a sense of uncertainty and confusion. Even with the Equestrian on their side, this wasn't about to stop if they were violent and wanted to hurt them, the Mechanist figured.

While Ada and Leighla fought one, Cait and Thunderstruck fought the other.

The Mechanist's Mk.3's were able to deal with the overheating relay by rapidly raising the open air vents to the central core and vent fans to rapidly blow air through the system to cool. These fans were so strong it could suck air particles out of the air and once the cool damp air touched the Mk3 cores, it turned to steam.

These tanks were pouring off steam to keep themselves cool, and Thunderstruck noticed that these tankbots in particular didn't shift into a cooling stage. She saw those billowing clouds above them and saw her opportunity. Flying overhead, she uses her wings to gather the vapors and condense them into a pillar of cloud.

With Cait and Leighla tag-teaming the first Mk.3, Ada and Thunderstruck on the second, the Mechanist purposefully put extra armor and plating around secure joints and over any vital components, making it difficult to critically strike to take them out of commission, even after Leighla ripped off plates or gouged divots, the tank still lumbered on. Cait kept on shooting at their legs, trying to get the treads to stop moving or cripple it. Even as one leg was ground off, the machine plowed on, throwing up skidmarks of sparks and drag marks rivets across the ground.

Ada kept firing at the Tankbot's eyes, its head, determined to blind it or at least throw off its tracking sensors while Thunderstruck worked to shape and condense the cloud. Chasing after the Mk.3s, maneuvering above them and collecting the vapor trails as it spawned and grew.

With the cloud turning darker and darker, plasma crackled and formed around the sphere as Thunderstruck crushed the cloud into a ball with her hooves, watching as the cloud shook and reeked of dust, but feeling the heat and energy coming off of it made her hooves sweat and burn. She knew it was dangerous to force a cloud down this small, but she wasn't given much to work with. As it neared the size of a bowling ball, the nearly black tesla ball was vibrating violently, and all it needed to break was a point of contact to conduct energy through.

Pushing it away, the ball was a slow moving orb that could be heard staticly with the air around it being charged. But, as it neared chest-height, Thunderstruck pushed her wings and sent a gust of air behind the ball, making it float right at the Mk.3 Ada was fighting.

As the ball of plasma struck the first tank bot, it exploded in a massive orb of electrictity and discharges of lightning spinning and spiraling out in every direction for five meters, with a few errant bolts of lightning lancing across the entire control center room, striking randomly out at metal plates or wired fixtures. The capacitors and energy terminals on the tankbot grew so hot they ruptured and exploded, releasing all the energy in loud explosions that caught fire and burned through the interior circuit boards.

The Mechanist and Sparks both cried out at the sight of losing their last line of defense to the four raiders who were able to bust through everyline of defense. Even as she stood here, waiting for more processes to be enacted, the computers were moving too slow and with how much destruction they caused to the security coming in, it would take a day to program robots to be aware that there were intruders inside the Central Command Center right this moment. Neither of them had time, and as even enacting the code for the factory robots to redirect resources took too long.

"I know," The Mechanist replied.

Fully prepared, Sparks sported her own Mechanist themed Power-Armor, battle-saddle with built in laser-rifles for dual-strikes with triggers tied to a gimble down by her hoof. All it took to fire both lasers was a flick of her hoof. Connecting the power armor's fusion cores to the laser rifle's power supply, she could continuously keep firing for long periods of time. Armor covered wings were 3/8ths aluminum, lightweight, water and rust resistant when combined with zincs. Her wings fit into the suit, then the braces would clasp around her wing joints and expand, allowing for full flexibility.

Sparks signals that she's ready to fight, but the Mechanist denies her. Shaking her head, their eyes were fixated on the last tank bot. While now the four of them could concentrate on a single target, Thunderstruck was attempting to gather more cloud vapor trails to form another plasma ball. Able to put distance from being the direct target, Ada, Cait, and Leighla all swarmed the second Mk. 3, as Thunderstruck saw the opportunity to strike out again.

The Mechanist thought she was being smart by withholding modified tank bots close, that the meer sight of their overwhelming presence would un-nerve any raider or vagabond who saw them, realizing that they couldn't get any closer to their goal than before.

"No." The Mechanist says defiantly, watching Thunderstruck as she gets close to recreating her lightning strike again, the Mechanist activates the environmental controls for the Central Control Room.

Lining the ceiling, floors, and walls were vents, water spouts and nozzles, vents, and fans all devoted to preventing the terminals in the control room from catching fire.

These same systems could be used to create massive amounts of steam. Diverting heat to the central room, rapidly cooled with sprinklers, the entire room was filled in moments as everything was fogged out through thick humid warm air. Thunderstruck was pushed upwards as her Pegasus magic acted against her, keeping her above the clouds as she tried containing more than what she could wrap her hooves around at one time.

The tank bot was moving blindly, but was still visible and extremely audible as its ground-off rear leg scratched skidmarks into the ground, and ran full force with as much momentum as if could muster before colliding and bouncing off a wall.

Intending to crush them, Thunderstruck tried to quickly coax a bit of cloud into her hooves, working faster to get the job done as quickly as possible.

Pulled upwards to the ceiling, Thunderstruck fought the strong current but was then pushed up by the hot air and steam rising, towards the vents where the force was even stronger.

"You think you'll be able to get away with that again?" The Mechanist laughed, instead of cutting off the flow of water and heat, the Mechanist increased it even further, steam plugged the room and Thunderstruck was finding it difficult to fight and fly her way through the thick steam. Her pegasus natural magic instincts were acting against her as the humidity of the whole room reached 100% and it was like moving through a steam-sauna with the blasts of hot air coming up from the floor. Making the whole room wet, it was part of the fire-resistant safety features to control the environment in the room at all times.

Thunderstruck, any loose debris, and all the air were sucked up and out of the room, like a vortex of whirling air, it dragged Thunderstruck along, slamming her through the system before spitting them up and out through the exhaust above the factory. Thunderstruck ached and was sore from the bruises and bent angles her body was forced into before being expelled back outside.

Blasted hundreds of meters into the air, she was surrounded with steam and was drenched to the bone with saturation and water. Her wings were wet, she felt like she was flying through sand, and the steam was like playing hot-potato with her skin. As long as she kept moving, it didn't burn. Keeping her mouth shut, a tiny whiff cleared her sinuses and stifled her nose, slightly burning from the heat. Bruised and sore all over, she couldn't directly place where she felt hurt, just an all encompassing feeling she was knocked upside down and spun around.

Freeing herself from the condensed cloud of air, she was far above the factory chimneys and exhaust vents, seeing the clouds of steam wafting up and out.

"Ohh.....," Thunderstruck said, panting as she gathered her breath. Shaking out her wings she felt the cloud of cooling steam wafter ever higher above her and around her, being blown by the Easterly wind inland.

"You think you're so smart" Thunderstruck said, glowering down at the factory below her. Growling as her mind raced for another solution to get back at the Mechanist. It hurt more to be cartoonishly ejected from the factory than anything else that night.

To most other creatures, their limbs passed through it or the particles wafted around them. For Thunderstruck, she could hold out her hoof and feel the particles condense like a dragging a scoop through powdery snow until it formed a ball of cloud. Pulling the cloud away, it shrank as it cooled, but remained solid for Thunderstruck to manipulate.

With endless amount of water vapor and steam to play with, she flew higher and spread out her wings, her arms, and body as wide as she could, creating a pony-sized cloud in just a few seconds.

"Let's see who the smart one is now..." She said, letting the cloud build and build, as steam from the factory was shaped by Pegasus magic to add onto the mass, the cloud grew upwards and wider.

A roaring engine was loud enough to make Thunderstruck look down, racing up through the air from the roof of the factory was Sparks the armored pegasus.

\111/

"Oy! Cunt!"

"I am the Mechanist!'

"Oy!....ROBO-CUNT! Come out here where I can see you and get a shaft of my 10 inch wrench upside your rusted twat you buggering bolt-Bitch!" Cait's explitives only became more and more derogatory and baseless until she was shouting swears in no particular order, offloaded back with her voice pounding out insults into the Mechanists ears.

Ten minutes of yelling and cursing, even Leighla wondered if there was a limit to how many aggressive threats a person you could make without pausing to take a breath. Cait was finally running out of steam, having promised every sort of gruesome painful path to death until finally wandering away from the blast doors, voice growing quieter as she came closer to sitting down, gripping her head, "Ohff, I feel light-headed...and cold." Teeth chattering, Cait wrapped her arms around herself, shivering and legs locking up.

"I think you said everything that ever needs to be said, Cait. And then some..."

"Then some what?"

"Just take a seat, Cait. You'll feel alright in a bit."

"I feel better though, getting all that off my chest. Like a ballon was inside my head...but now it's all deflated."

The Mechanist was standing there in the dark, terrified of the woman on the outside,

\111/

Sparks aimed at Thunderstruck in her crosshairs and fired as she soared upwards into the clouds. Thunderstruck dove and swung out wide, The twin blasts of laser fire cut through the air and painfully accept on of the blasts piercing right through her side and out her back, burning and searing a hole straight through her body. It made her gasp, but she knew it was only one of dozens more that followed as Sparks continued her unending assault.

Thunderstruck flew ahead, dodging Sparks attacks as she chased her, she could feel the heat of lasers pass by as the armored pegasus gunned for her. The only saving grace was that even though Sparks was faster, Thunderstruck could react quicker than the other pony could. She saw that detail almost instantly when Thunderstruck tried attacking her head on. The armored pegasus stalled, fear, Thunderstruck instantly recognized.

The other pegasus was far outskilled as a fighter, and even though well protected, she wasn't experienced. It was the extra boosts from her fusion cores powering the suit, as well as the weight too that slowed her down. Thunderstruck also had a much wider peripheral than the power-armor's narrowed vision to protect the eyes.

These differences didn't equate much in a ranged air battle, but in close, able to hug tight on her inside, she saw openings to exploit.

Being chased, Sparks was on Thunderstrucks tail, blasting away with twin laser rifles. Pulling up, Thunderstruck fanned her wings and maneuvered up and pulled back, feeling Sparks draw closer she then forced herself to a slow crawl as Sparks came barreling towards her without much time to stop. With only a single chance to strike, Thunderstruck contorted herself and bucked straight down, landing a solid blow at Sparks' left wing joint.

There was a crack of metal as she heard screws and bolts break, a chip in the armor that Thunderstruck was now fixated on. A perfect hit too, Sparks lost rhythm and had to come to a slow and recover. Thunderstruck already was following closer for another strike, this time bashing the back of the mare's skull down, slamming her hundreds of feet down as the Sparks had to work harder to climb back up and reach higher altitudes.

Noticing the extra effort it took for Sparks to fly straight up, Thunderstruck raced skywards.

The air turned cold, and observed Sparks as she flew towards her, studying every movement, her eyes caught Spark's wrist flicking upwards, followed by the twin blasts from her side-mounted laser rifles.

With no options but to attack head on, Thunderstruck dove at Sparks again, on the back of Sparks power armor, a plate slid back to extend and unfold a miniature tesla coil that bristled and crackled with electricity. Thunderstruck's eyes were on the tips of Sparks hooves, grabbing onto her Thunderstruck screamed as she was electrocuted.

Momentarily paralyzed, Sparks shoved Thunderstruck away, letting her plummet. She freefell but shook the stasis off and looked up between her legs as she fell.

Spinning over onto her belly she thrust he wings out and saw the ever-growing magical cloud she formed and was now large enough to cover the entirety of the Robco factory and start spreading across East Boston. Every second thousands of gallons of steam were cooled and condensed into the expanding cloud touched with pegasus magic.

With only a sharpened blade, the Shishkebab, banging against her backside, she drew it out and raked it across the top of the cloud. Sparks ignighted the flaming sword as she began a miniature vortex of wind. Sparks was staying high, readying herself for a second round against the pegasus.

The nimbus cloud forming above the Robco factory started blooming upwards, growing higher and higher. As Sparks chose to dove, Thunderstruck let go of the Shishkebab and let the vortex of wind take it upwards where it was carried out towards Sparks as she dove.

"Thanks for wearing metal," Thunderstruck said, clawing out a section of nimbus she squeezed the blackened cloud till it errupted in her hooves, shocking herself, but the chain lightning went for the closest charged ions and found a metal lightning rod. The lightning dashed up the vortex and exploded in all directions, striking and electrocuting Sparks in a burst of plasma as one of her power cores were overloaded and burst into white hot flames.

Sparks fell through the sky, slamming into the magic cloud as Thunderstruck went after her falling sword.

Now with the positions switched, Sparks was down 50%, her armored wings too heavy to even flap without power running through them. If she were stronger, she could muscle her way through, but this being the only time she ever dawned the suit to use in actual combat, only wearing it before while building it, Sparks felt true fear at losing this battle.

Confined to the floating battlefield, the cloud continued to expand and grow large enough to reach the Charles Bay, expanding over the abandoned Boston Airport.

She didn't react in time to see Thunderstruck slam a punch directly into her helmet punching at the mare's ears, determined to disorient and cause a massive headache for the armored pony, neither of them heard a single word from each other as Thunderstruck fanned clouds up under her wings, using the vapors to stay afloat, putting less effort into every flap as she kicked Sparks in the head this time. Again, and again, and again, Sparks flared up her armored wings, covering her head and deflecting the blow. Pressing a hoof to her chest, a large pulse of energy burst outwards around her form, throwing Thunderstruck back as the remaining power core worked overtime to cover for the energy deficit.

Sparks ripped off her helmet to see, and Thunderstruck's eyes went wide. A moment was all she could spare in determining if she knew this mare or not, and the muscles around her eye sockets were straining, twitching. Her eyes felt dry and she couldn't blink as she could only say that they'd never met each other ever before in their life.

This pegasus wasn't from Nuka-World.

"You're not from Nuka-World! Where the hell did you come from!?"

"So you're from Nuka-World?" Sparks asked, "I heard only nothing but raiders and slavers from there...so you're one of them!" She cried, "You're not getting any further you fiend!"

"Use your eyes, you blind bat! Your robots are killing EVERYONE!"

"No they-"

"EVERYONE!" Thunderstruck screamed, "Attacking caravans, merchants, everyone and anyone! The longer we're up here, the less patient the human and her gryphon are going to be. And they have about as much patience as they have brains combined, so either stop attacking and end this fight. Or you'll see them destroying the Robco factory, raizing it to the ground because you didn't take the time to stop and think. They're not going to stop until you and every bot you created are a molten pile of slag unless you give up, now."

Sparks almost looked down, dropping her guard, but as she broke eye contact, she raised a hoof and cut the power to the rest of her suit, leaving only a single circuit breaker active for the tesla coil. Thunderstruck saw the immense weight that suddenly took its toll on the armored pegasus and took to the air. Raising her sword, Thunderstruck let go of a breath she had been holding onto ever since she first saw the armored pegasus flying towards her.

\111/

A part of her hoped that they shared some sort of kinship, that they knew each other in a previous life, at Nuka-World before things went terribly wrong, or even before that when the Commonwealth was nothing more than a place that existed on a map to her.

Seeing that there was no love lost, Thunderstruck felt sad that the way things turned out, they were compelled to fight, but there were too many faces and stories lost and found along the way to give up and accept defeat. She didn't want to kill another pony, especially another pegasus as well, knowing that in all likelyhood, they were cousins. That fact hit harder than others, seeing that they were relatives, but grown up so far apart, and so differently informed over the years that now when it came to this fight, they didn't even get time to talk and discuss why they were conflicting in the first place.

Thunderstruck's family was small, her father, mother, four sisters, and a brother. She hadn't seen her mother, Live Wire, or father Black Ice, since long before moving out on her own, and as for her brother and sisters, Scotch Bonnie was dead, killed in an accident when they were all still young, Heat Seeker was still kicking in Nuka-World as far as she knew before being separated from each other. High Voltage was sold off, Lotta Rosie, herself, and seven others were the only ones who made it off the chain gang that day and was missing, she didn't know if she was alive or dead, sold or escaped, while her brother War Machine was dragged into a raider gang last she knew. He was only a step above surviving everyday, but he was still miles and leagues from living everyday like it was supposed to be.

She knew her father and mother both had as many siblings, more than she could remember because there was a time she heard her aunts and uncles names as well. She didn't know it, but Thunderstruck was related to a third of the ponies in Nuka-World by blood, and related to everyone by marriage or family bonds when recorded and traced properly.

Several years ago, there was a push from Springfield, Massachusetts to keep first, second, and third cousins from getting too close and creating undivergent family trees. The more narrow a family tree was, the easier it was for the new roots to break and collapse from the weight of their ancestors above. Having a large family, and keeping track of who was related to who, and making sure they weren't walking inbreds was enough to push families out of their nests and go out into the world, meet new people, and then start new ones.

Without a doubt, Thunderstruck knew in her heart she was striking down a relative, but even so, Sparks was the one who refused to yield when offered the chance. Instead, Sparks used that opportunity to attack Thunderstruck with everything her power armor and fusion core could provide.

A blast of lightning arced out, Thunderstruck felt the air molecules heating up as the intense blast of voltage raced towards her.

With both hooves, Thunderstruck gripped Shishkabab and lit the blade on fire. Defending and bracing as the lightning struck the flaming blade, Thunderstruck felt the energy coiling around the sword, then swung it back in an electric reversal and flung the bolts of lightning back at Sparks.

As the lightning struck Sparks, the air split apart, blasting a crater of white light that burned with a sun's intensity and crack of noise that ruptured the sound barrier. The thunderclap afterwards was all that was heard as Sparks was blasted back hundreds of feet, then as she lost consciousness and dipped below the battlefield, she fell through and back down towards the surface. Unable to move, lifeless to the world, Sparks crashed through the roof of the Robco Factory.

\111/

The disturbed cloud rippled and grew darker, this entire time they were fighting, the cloud Thunderstruck started before the battle kept growing and growing, and within seconds, any sign of the scars through the cloud vanished as it grew in size from a nimbus, to a cumulonimbus.

Touching down atop the massive stormcloud, she tried punching down, feeling herself spring upwards and bounce off.

Taking off higher, she slammed down again, this time with more force but the winds blowing in cool air from the sea, to the still warm land was pushing the cumulonimbus thousands of feet up as it grew to cover the entire Charles bay and East Boston as far as Revere to the North.

"Oh no. I can't punch through." Thunderstruck said, trying to bust the cloud.

That never happened to her, and she never considered it a possibility in her life, but her mind went spiraling through dozens of reasons and solutions until she jumped up and down, trying to condense more cloud into breaking off bolts of lightning to strike the Robco Factory, but it was too dense.

She needed to overload the circuit breakers and system to the Robco factory, but now the magic-influenced stormcloud was beyond her control. Thunderstruck couldn't move something this large on her own.

Thunderstruck accidentally created a cold-weather system right over the Robco factory that was being perpetually fueled by the steam coming up, and into this one concentric cloud that was quickly going from a nimbus to a cumulonimbus cloud that was getting bigger and bigger every second.

"Uh-oh." Thunderstruck said, feeling the cloud beneath her hooves.

She couldn't move this much water, as there were hundreds of thousands of gallons of water all particalized and suspended in fine cool vapor, and within ten minutes, it would grow to be over a million gallons of water, 8 million pounds of liquid mist vapors thicker than snow at the top of a mountain. The cloud was touched by Pegasus hooves, supposed to retain it's shape, but without cutting it off from the source. Thunderstruck couldn't even see the ground as more cloud was naturally cooling and joining the rest.

Flapping hard upwards, Thunderstruck slammed down into the cloud from thirty feet, listening to the thunder beneath her hooves roar and beat loud like a drum in her heart. Stomping, kicking, bucking the clouds, they grew darker, but more white steam from the factory was condensing and cooling, only adding to the layers of thickness like slabs of mattresses stacked twenty high.

Sweating as she poured energy into blasting through, wings flapping frustratingly as the cloud she was handling suddenly became to big for her to control.

"Come on, lightning! Strike!" She bellowed, hammering down onto the white tufts with her hooves. Flying higher, she tried 60 feet this time, sending ripples of static through the whole cloud, darkening the tone, but only growing bigger.

"Buck!"

She already spent ten minutes gathering cloud, and by the time she realized her folly, another ten minutes passed. It would take dozens of pegasus to break through a cloud this big, and by the time she attempted her second strike to bust up her work, the size grew to spread most of East Boston.

This type of cloud making was dangerous, as now a runaway cloud production was resulting in a massive bank of energy forming, that without any provocation, would eventually reach a pocket of highly condensed energy like the Glowing Sea, sending hot waves of concentrated postively charged atoms into the air, meeting a cold pocket of negatively charged condensed water slowly floating by as frozen particles, and the resulting swirling currents of air and energy would result in a tornado, cyclone, or a complete rending open of the sky and letting lightning bolts rain down. Until then, as the cloud expanded and walls of water heaped upon themselves to join Thunderstruck's cloud, she thought to herself that the only way to burst through this without bouncing off would be to go even higher.

Taking off, her teeth clattered as she climbed, sensing the growing target behind her. As she reached a thousand feet, she realized that the skyscrapers were even taller off to her left.

The expanding cloud was growing unnaturally, thanks to Thunderstruck's Pegasus magic keeping it all together. To let it go free now would be cataclysmic akin to ten thousand bolts of lightning striking with enough force to rip the landscape apart and vaporize the rest to cinders.

Only moving faster, and dropping in from higher resulted in any sort of response from the water cloud beneath her.

Falling, she could feel the air pressure ripping back at her, trying to keep her from moving faster, the roaring in her ears, it sounded like the blast of the X2-rockets attached to the USS Constitution, and as she struck the cloud from over 1000 feet up, she still couldn't burst through.

Thunderstruck looked all around her, seeing if there was a way to push it, but coming up blank and panicking as her memories took her back to the moments she broke free from the chain-line and sprinted from open-skies. The boom of the rockets ripped through the air like a blast, and she could remember knowing in her heart and legs, and wings that moved before she even acted consciously was that she was long gone like flash of lightning, trailed by the clap of thunder.

Chains seemed to weigh on her, even there above the clouds. She could feel the cold rusty chains grating on her side. Forcing her wings out, she could hear the sounds of all the others who got their chance to run that day, and others who saw them slip away.

Her promise to Paladin Brandis came up as a parched thought, to go back and look those other ponies in the eye who were still on the line. Heat Seeker, High Voltage, Lotta Rosie, and War Machine, and every other pony who weren't given this feeling of pleasurable freedom was better than anything she ever knew from before then. Everyone was given a ticket for the freedom lottery the day Nate and Meathead distracted the entire Commonwealth, she was the one who got hers pulled to lead her here.

Three times she failed, and now she was on the verge of crying. "Come on!" She yelled. Her wings tightened against her side, tired to move but she wouldn't listen to them. Shoving them all the way out she moaned as she wagged them all the way up above her head, drawing in a deep breath, and shouting as she charged upwards.

Blasting up from the clouds billowing around her, threatening to swamp her in thick soupy fog, Thunderstruck rose up even higher. Chasing the sun and moon, she didn't have a reference for how high she flew, only that she could see more landmarks that were slowly being swallowed up by the expanding clouds.

The bay of Boston was covered, and the wall of clouds was moving through the skyscrapers like a wave during the tide. Washing upwards and then spilling back, like a bowl it bunched up along the buildings and trickled in through every part of the Boston skyline.

Most residents in the whole county didn't even give a second moments notice to the odd weather pattern, sniffing the air and idly commenting how it got foggy pretty quickly for them, or how it smelled like it was going to rain or freeze.

Now she couldn't even get back down to the surface cloud cover was so thick, it wasn't even possible to dig through with her hooves, she would need a drill to dig through.

Feeling the weight of Shishkabab by her side, she grabbed for it, pulling it up out of its sheath, 'Or a blade'.

Flying higher that the Mass Fusion building, taller than Trinity Tower, Thunderstruck flew up higher and higher until she was certain she could see the entire Commonwealth, every corner of it, but at the same time, she couldn't appreciate the beautiful view. When she was high enough in the sky to see Cape Cod from Boston, out on the end of the peninsula of Massachusetts, she finally let herself rest. Thunderstruck savored the rest her wings received from not having to flap anymore, and instead let the weight of Shiskabab drag her down along with gravity as she was pulled faster and faster.

Igniting Shishkabab, she saw the flames whipping past and held tightly to the sword as the air molecules could be heard splitting around the blade as she plummeted through the air. Flapping faster and faster, she could see the air resistance building up around her, tugging at her, trying to get her to break her form.

Accelerating as she kept her wings pumping, the sword as a point to break the air-tension, she felt the air want to rip her wings out of her sockets, and the slightest twitch of a wrong feather send her spiraling off course, Thunderstruck felt lightning building around her hooves, trailing off the end of Shishkabab.

As the cone of air and energy narrowed, she felt the whips of lightning burst around her right hoof as she kept it steady and pointed directly down. She was a ball of electricity plummeting towards a massive carpet of cloud covering a quarter of the Commonwealth, from South Boston to Fort Strong, to Vault 81, when Thunderstruck hit the wall she hit it the same was she would've if it were a regular sized cloud, the whole wall seemed to drop and dip like a curtain struck with a weight. With all that energy concentrated around a single being, Thunderstruck's body was suddenly forced to channel that much energy through her body, or hit the magical resistance wall which would've electrocuted and vaporized her.

The insane amount of electricity in the cloud could all be felt in the tip of Shishkebab, through the hilt and grip, into her hoof, up her forleg, around her shoulder, and up the spinal column into the brain. Faltering would break the magical field and cause everything to burst. Using a tool to help her break through a cloud bigger than what she was normally able to do was entirely human as the Pegasus feel raw magic and electricity coursing up through her nerves and into her brain, down her spine and out through her wings, finally bursting off Thunderstuck's sides in static sparks.

A yellow ball of lightning and plasma burned as brightly as a small star in the sky before bursting through the clouds with such tremendous force, the resulting blast woke the ghouls of the Commonwealth again and echoed for fifty miles in every
direction, even further across the water since there wasn't anything blocking it.

It caught the attention of everyone on the water, everyone across the Commonwealth again as they turned to the source of the noise and saw a bright light, followed by a loud Sonic-Boom.

Waves of lightning rippled out as shockwaves piercing down through the thickened cloud in pulses as Thunderstruck was moving faster than the speed of sound, wrapped in thick ropes of plasma around her limbs, a halo of energy rocketing back down into the Robco Factory. The entire supermassive cloud they'd been fighting on erupted in a hurricane of lightning discharges. All of Boston was suddenly drowned in tens of thousands of lightning blasts striking the city in a surge of electricty that ripped the sky apart and bombed everybody's eardrums. The ground shook and vibrated violently as the electrical storm centralized over the Robco Factory unleashed a massive tower of light from several miles up, wider than skyscrapers, this massive beacon of light was visible from states away as a massive glow on the horizon.

Many who saw the light from a distance thought it was an explosion, which it was. All the energy particles channeled through a single point and then triggering an enormous reaction that converted all the potential energy into kinetic energy instantaneously.

Breaking down through the ceiling and directing the force of hurricane force lightning at all of the Mechanists computers and machines.

Sparks was slammed through the ceiling into the Central Command before a ball of swirling plasma and lightning touched down and struck the floor.

Spreading up and down the walls, crawling through the wires and lighting, coursing through the plant and substations, blowing capacitors and energy resistors all of East Boston went completely dark and shook as processes were ground to a halt and attempted to be restarted.

Failure warnings and massive energy surges flashed warnings all across the Mechanist's screens, higher protocols were forcing all her security lockdown measures out of effect, overriding them, dropping security walls, gates, doors, deactivating all sources of energy consumption to cut out and focus on restarting the main computer controller terminal.

As the swirling ball of crackling energy struck the floor, sending out a shockwave through the Mechanist's control room, blinding everyone as it was too bright to look directly at the center.

It was only the Mechanist who wasn't blinded who saw the crater in the main floor appear, and suddenly Thunderstruck within vanished in a flash of smoke

Ch. 90 Tranquility Lane

\111/

Thunderstruck was gasping, still trying to pull in air to breathe as she realized the air was different here.

There was no oxygen, which scared her at first, tasting the environment, but the way the energy filled her lungs and body made it feel like she didn't need to breathe.

It made her uneasy as the world around her came into focus and she was surrounded by endless fields of billowing grey clouds, with a full white moon and pale sun far above them, casting an overcast stark light on herself and the world around her.

Her bamboo colored coat, blonde mane, and Raincloud-with-Sparks Cutie Mark, Thunderstruck felt her legs go numb like she never noticed the brand on her own side before. Feeling it, rubbing her flank, she stared and blinked at the design. Had it always been there?

"Agh," She said, climbing to her hooves. Expecting coldness of concrete and metal to the touch, she felt the ground beneath her hooves and the sensation of grass was beneath.

The clouds pulled backwards, away from her as shapes solidified and took form, she saw what appeared to be houses.

Thunderstruck was standing in the center of a culdesac, almost identical to Sanctuary Hills, with the designs of the homes modeled after the 'House of Tomorrow', all two stories tall. Within the center of the culdesac was a single large oak tree and a small playground of a swingset, sandbox, teeter-totter, slide, and a bench in the shade of the tree, the tiny playground was enough.

This culdesac of houses had a road surrounding the park in the center, with seven houses placed equal distance around the circle like a septagon.

There was no road leading out and away from this place, Thunderstruck quickly saw. Only houses and fences, tall trees, and the endless grey billowing clouds and ethereal eternity beyond the development.

"Welcome," Thunderstruck heard.

Turning to the voice, she expected to see someone, but a pony sitting on the front porch, expectant expression on his face like he knew she was coming.

And for a long time too, his face, as if he was about to ask, 'What took you so long?'

The Alicorn sitting there, leaned back and reposed, she recognized the horn and wings, instantly seeing the power he held.

"I'm Adam the Ant," he said, the Glowing Alicorn was lacking most of his mane, balding, but his coat was still there, even though it appeared to be sun-bleached green.

All across his body, Thunderstruck could see the clear x-ray like images of Adam's bones and circulatory system beneath his skin.

The wings on Adam's side were devoid of feathers, which she knew from experience, it looked like they all fell out and was now a scaley membrane, like a plucked bird's wing.

Adam the Ant was lacking a horn as well, a melted bored-hole directly into Adam's skull was visible, she could even see brain as well, but there was a glowing green outline of a unicorn's horn atop his head where one ought to be.

His cutie mark was a single black ant holding up the sun in his pincer mandibles.

She glanced to the other houses, suddenly expecting to see others come out and great her, but the Alicorn was aware of this, as he had seen it twice now before, along with his own experience.

"The others will realize you've arrived here soon enough. I delegated myself the task of being the unoffical greeter, since it's only going to happen a few more times before all the Alicorns come together."

Thunderstruck moved from the park, walking towards him and stopping on the edge of his lawn. Talking to him from the sidewalk as he spoke down from the porch.

"I'm Thunderstruck. What is this place?"

"For a while now, I've been calling this place Tranquility Lane. But that doesn't really explain what this realm is. This place is within a spell matrix, a cast one so large that only ponies capable of channeling fantastic amount of magic and energy through their body are able to parse through the margins. This is where SPECIAL Alicorns will be working once we're all gathered. I was the first, Iron Horse followed, then came Firelance, along with Miss Vivi Roulette, and now you. You're here because right now you have to make a choice. The kind that quiets the mind."

"What do you mean?"

"This is a job offer. You see, right now, your body was completely vaporized, down to the last molecule. As of now, there is no more Thunderstruck on Earth. You are for all intensive purposes, dead. If you decide to leave this place without becoming an Alicorn, you will die upon your return to Earth, but you will of completed an undertaking so great in your lifetime, that it will be remembered for hundreds of years until one day, all that remains of you and your legacy are four vast granite trunkless legs of granite standing in the desert. Near them, half sunken in the sand lies your shattered visage..."

Frowning at the thought of a desert wasteland, Thunderstruck asked, "What kind of future is that?"

"A parse from a sonnet, Miss Thunderstruck. A warning that I wasn't given that I had to figure out for myself. For you see, I when I arrived, I accepted death the way only a fool staring at a bomb about to go off in front of them could, and then after my eyes adjusted from the brightness, I stood where you stood not so long ago. My thoughts weren't that this was some sort of eternal paradise, but a distraction from it." Beyond the borders of Tranquility Lane, the etherial void of grey clouds surrounded their paradise shining down with rays of sun on it.

" I could've let my part in this story be over, the cost of that choice to return was that I was able to prevent many nuclear warheads from detonating on the surface, protecting tens of thousands of lives. The cost was my wife and children, and friends. family. All those first connections that seemed so important, nobody save myself can remember what they even looked like. Any survivors of my family tree have all gone to spread and grow, but every single person or pony I knew back then have all passed away since then. Which is to say the first 100 years does take some adjustment. It's only through the company of other Alicorns that this existence isn't lonely, which is why I believe this place was designed in such a way to accomodate the seven of us. We're expected to work together once you and the other Alicorns to be awaken."

"What happens when all seven Alicorns show up?"

"The real magic starts. You see, we have the capability of casting a spell so large and powerful, that it will remove all traces of radiation from the surface of the planet, but we need to cast it once a day until the year 3580. Over half a million times we will cast the same spell that will be for the benefit of the entire planet for the next 1300-1500 years or so. After that...After that..." Adam said, trailing off, "I've spent much of the first two centuries wonder what true oblivion looks like. When not even the atomic fire is oblivion, the sun touching your face and skin, wrapping around you like a warm blanket instead of a pulverizing blast...Ode to ponder what true oblivion awaits the nearly immortal alicorns? Maybe our heart beats get weaker, or we wake up feeling tired, so sore and tired that it takes too much effort to even breathe in," Adam inhaled, wind whistling through his teeth and nostrils, sucking air in. "Until we can't even do that. That would be oblivion then...to die of old age where the heart beats slower and slower until not enough oxygen reaches our lungs and limbs that we fall unconscious...Whatever happens then, the bonds we've created, the communities we've learned from and built up, educated and raised take over. They will guide our bodies to the next phase of rebirth and death, Thunderstruck. That is what comes next."

"So what happens until then? Where are the others now?"

"Well, you haven't even made the decision if you want to be an Alicorn yet, you're still you. You must make the choice, a valiant death now, or return and keep fighting."

"But I'm not done yet," Thunderstruck said, "I was winning, I won against the other pegasus I was fighting, I...was about to..."

"To die, yes. It's the same type of situation I found myself in all these years ago. I thought I'd won, I chased down the first warhead flying through the skies on October 23, 2077, and thought I did it, my life was complete, there was no other bit of life I could offer since what I did would surely end my life, but in that moment I came here I was still pounding my hooves against the casing, weeping, crying, begging for it to detonate so it wouldn't keep falling and strike the earth in a massive mushroom cloud...I screamed for God to hear me, and heard a deafening silence so loud, it quieted my mind long enough to realize there were still thousands more. Jetstreaks and vapor trails of all the missiles sailing through the air around me...I felt like the biggest fool, a wasted opportunity that I spent all my energy only going after one, and not all of them. I decided to return and finish what I started. To endure."

"What you did today is only the first in a long series of battles that you need to accept are coming your way. The only way to live through this without succumbing to fear and loss is other alicorns friendship. We may be Alicorns, but that doesn't mean we've exactly figured out how to get along yet. That's why we have separate houses, and not all lumped under the same roof...Thunderstruck. What's your choice?"

"I...well..." Thunderstruck found her mouth dry and she needed to swallow, "Knowing that I'm going to die once I leave this place if I don't say yes certainly puts a point in favor of becoming an Alicorn...and you say by becoming one..."

"Then you won't get to die for quite some time...As someone who can absorb a nuclear blast and walk on the surface of the sun, trust me. There's not much you won't think of or come to discover with enough time."

"You sound depressed," Thunderstruck said,

Adam the Ant's shoulders raised then fell, an exhausted drop, "I hate being melodramatic, but sometimes it feels like I'm carrying the weight of the world, Miss. It's a heavy weight, but I can't let it fall. I know my purpose in life now...you know I'm from Equestria? Born under a different sun, on a different planet, I thought coming to Earth was both a challenge back then, and a goal. To save all the ponies trapped on Earth...funny to remember what we believed at the time...Going into a new situation, all this talking...all these deals and promises back then...the only thing that matters is what is actually done. More than saving ponies and helping them survive, I remember being young enough to want every pony in existence to become an Alicorn...I had children, and they had children. I miss them terribly, which is why I wanted them to join me...if only for a while longer... It's taken great humility and loss to see that those goals are just a dream. But... by chasing that dream and tempering my expectations, I seek to raise up the self-consciousness, worth, and value of all ponies on Earth so that they may find peace and see that life is more than survival. It is. Life is."

"Life is what?"

"Life is." Adam said, tears streaking down the side of his eyes, Thunderstruck couldn't tell if the Glowing Alicorn was happy or sad, "It's beautiful, fantastic, amazing, fulfilling, worthwhile, beyond anything we could ever hope for. We will pass one day, but it's up to us to make the time and life worthwhile, raise others up so that they can teach others to do good as well."

Thunderstruck nodded, then turned to house number 5 in the culdesac.

"So what do I do? I've made my decision...I need to become an Alicorn if I don't want the rest of my friends dying off the day after we just found our home to settle down...and after that...is it wrong to say I don't want my friends to die and I don't want to give up what I fought for, yet?"

"That is a constant truth in life, so many people and ponies all with projects and needs to tend to, until one day it's passed along to someone else. I thought I was dead when I came here, so the choice to go back was more a case of so much left unfinished, that I felt drawn to make the choice to go back as an Alicorn, not everypony feels that way."

"What do you mean?"

"There was one pony who came here before who decided not to go back, and accept their story ended. Solar Scorcher, 126 years ago. He was angry when he came here, mad that all this power was available but out of reach, he said he felt like he was tricked into coming here, but came to understand that this was the only time in his life he was actually given a choice. So, he declined, and said no. Solar Scorcher returned to his home, and was then laid to rest. Both before him and since, ponies have been knocking at the gates to Tranquility Lane, trying to force their way in...You'll hear the noise they make trying to reach this place...I've heard someone recently trying to get into this realm with force alone for some time now. Knocking and throwing themselves against the walls, trying to become something they're not meant to be."

"Who?"

"I don't know. Desperation breeds curious results. Anger and loss grant clarity and wisdom, but being here means that you've put yourself and come from a place where there are no other options left except for the way forward. Where rational reason is put aside; Oscar Wilde wrote it is absurd to classify people as good or evil, they are nothing more than tedious or charming. I find that we all bring a certain type of charm to the table, even though we live tediously long lives. Thunderstruck, do you feel like you've been tricked? That I've tried to hide any of the truth from you?"

"If anything, I've heard your warnings and considerations for both sides, that this is for the long-haul, and just because I have access to all this power, doesn't mean anything special except for what we do with it, and there's others who are going to be mad, or jealous because they feel that fate is working against them."

Adam the Ant smiled, tearing up again, "Agh, dry eyes. Too much staring directly into the sun...tehe" He said, raising his hoof and pointing across the culdesac he gestured towards a blue painted house with the number 5 on a mailbox, iron gate, and a third time adjacent to the front door. "Don't take my appearance to heart, I did much of this to myself after becoming an Alicorn while I was still younger and testing my limits. I must admit I'm excited to see another Alicorn moving into the neighborhood. And house number five too, that must mean you are the Alicorn of Intelligence, hmmm...you know nothing is more divinely appealing and exotic than a fantastically smart mare with an equally powerful body, I need to get my flirting in now before Iron Hoof, Firelance, or Miss Vivi Roulette comes along with their pretty faces and tries to woo you." Flaring out his wings and raising his head up, appearing to be taller and larger, he guffawed and turned her attention to the fifth house in the group of seven. Thunderstruck cracked a smile, looking towards the houses down the row, then back to Adam the Ant.

Rolling her eyes over towards house number five, Adam the Ant saw that his attempts were only partially successful. He saw the bare hints of a smile on her face, and Adam the Ant said to himself that he was "...Stillgame."

"Go up to your house, in the foyer there's stairs directly to your left, living room to your right, and a hallway straight forward after you enter the door. Hanging on all the walls of this hallways will be pictures and memories of your life leading up to this moment. Reach the end, and you'll be in the kitchen where you'll find Princess Twilight waiting for you. She has a piece of advice to offer, a bit of insight to share, and as the creator of all this, she will guide the energy of this matrix to you and write you into the spell."

"Princess Twilight is in there? She's here?"

"She stops by to help with the whole moving-in process. The seven of us are going to be working a lot together in the future, so I'm glad to meet you, neighbor," Adam the Ant said, offering a friendly hoof to shake. Thunderstruck reached up and shook it.

"Nice to meet you too, Adam,"

"Welcome Home, Thunderstruck. Go move in."

\111/

Author's Note

Do yourselves a favor and watch the pilot episode of Stillgame, the buildup and payoff for the whole episode comes right in the last minute and knocks you off the couch from laughing so hard.

Along with Season Five's episode, "The Distillery" where the two old codgers decide to keep looping back around in a whiskey distillery tour to enjoy the endless free samples. Third or fourth time around they can recite most of the tour by heart, and keep on hurrying other tour groups to the end to reach the tasting room.

Comedy Gold.

Ch. 92 Auto November 10th

Cait found a crowbar and was jamming it in the tiny lip between the blast shutters and the floor, more determined than ever now that the power was cut and the whole factory went dark. She was deviously laughing, knowing there wasn't anything left keeping her from her goal. No more distractions, she wasn't making quick progress, but she was channeling raw determination, a buzzing in the back of her skull that kept her energized and awake.

Leighla chipped her talons scratching and trying to get a lip between the shutters, and opted to keep an eye on Sparks, trapped in her own suit of disabled power-armor and unable to eject. Ada shone a light on Cait, eyes towards the doors.

With a large hum of dynamos restarting, spinning up and finding pace again, the lights flickered, and then bloomed around the factory and East Boston as the remaining systems came back online.

Thunderstruck appeared in the center of the systems control room, eyes taking a moment to adjust to the scene and renewed lights.

The destroyed Tank-Bots, Sparks, everything around her, she looked up, keeping her head level and felt the new nerves feeling and sensing for the first time in her horn.

They all seemed to sense she was in the room, looking at her miraculous appearance from thin air.

She was an Alicorn, and the feeling of magic felt like a continuous lightning storm of energy on her brain. She felt more awake and coldly-sober in that moment that when she spoke to Cait, she stopped what she was doing immediately.

"Cait."

She said her name in a way as if she were meaning to ask 'really? You're putting too much effort into this, don't you realize there's a much easier way?' Thunderstruck grabbed all their attentions, and felt struck with sudden realization that the pegasus drastically changed.

She dropped the crowbar immediately, nodding.

"Huh." Cait said, looking at Thunderstruck and seeing the horn, "Oh, one of you." She said, like seeing an Alicorn was a daily occurrence for her.

"Cait, she grew a unicorn's horn!" Leighla said, taking more notice than Cait into the situation.

"Great! Now help us pry these gates open. Sealed damn-tighter than a whore's unused backdoor."

"Fuck you, Cait." Leighla said, "Just stand down for a second and can't you see what just happened?" The gryphon was the only one interested in Thunderstruck's transformation, Ada took in her new appearance as well, but didn't know what this meant either.

"Do...all ponies pop a forhead boner when they get that old?" Cait asked, completely ignorant, her vocie was soft and scratchy, vocal chords worn out from overuse.

"Thunder, what happened to you?" Lieghla asked, "Ignore her, she's been at that for thirty minutes after losing her voice swearing and cursing."

"I've been gone that long?" Thunderstruck asked,

"About that length of time," Ada said, "Your return was expected, but your new appearance was not. What happened to you?"

"I became an Alicorn, Ada. I met with other Alicorns who told me what they were doing, and how ponies need a safe place to grow up and actualize their potential. I was offered a role to help their mission, and accepted. As for the magic, I suppose I'll need to use it, or figure out how to use it here soon in the future."

A panel of lights behind the blast shutters turned on, and overhead the intercom speakers turned on, with a tapping on the mic, "You're an Alicorn..." The Mechanist said, "Please. Wait. I know what you are...Please. Let's talk face to face."

"About Fucking time- Agh!"

Leighla elbowed Cait hard in the ribs, making her take in a painful short intake of breath, and stopping her from ruining any more conversations. "What'd I do?"

The blast shutters rolled up, and Sparks was seeing her opportunity to move without threat of being shot or noticed and struggled to remove the clasps keeping her protected. With the weight of the suit making it hard to move, she could only will enough energy into one limb at a time.

"Who are you?" Thunderstruck asked, the Mechanist held up both palms to her, slowly going up to her head to remove the helmet from around her face.

The black hair was matted with sweat and helmet hair, the woman held it in the cradle of her arm. Wiping her forehead had dark-orange brown skin color, and brown eyes.

"I'm Isabel Cruz. The Mechanist was a persona I took to help the Commonwealth. How...do I have any hope of helping the Commonwealth against fighting an Alicorn with a group like yours behind you? You're...marauders aren't you?"

"We're not raiders. Never have been, never were. You need to get that out of your head this instant and listen to us. We broke in here because your robots were attacking people around the Commonwealth. Yesterday and this morning we were attacked by your robots twice and had to tracked them to the source."

"That. That can't be true. These robots are programmed to protect. Their subroutines are clean: observe, evaluate, and react accordingly."

"Protect who?" Ada asked. "For the last four days, without provocation or hostile intent, your robots have killed members of my group, and have continued harassing us non-stop. What are your parameters set? Who is your designated ally and target coordinates? How have you tested them in the field for someone who isn't designated as you?"

"The testing was thorough, I ran every scenario, they all passed." Sparks said.

"Then somewhere along the way your orders are being misinterpreted. I don't doubt you've tested them, but out in the Commonwealth, these machines are attacking everybody and hunting us down relentlessly." Ada said.

"But these programs were meant to save people, not kill them. All data sent back showed numbers of hostiles killed and lives saved." Isabel argued, not sure where the problem was originating from. They blamed her, but her mind was racing through all the possibilities on why there could be a failure on her end.

"Isabel, protecting the Commonwealth shouldn't be about number of hostiles killed or lives saved at all. If anything, a robot should never have to be used to kill or hurt. That the fact you keep seeing numbers come in, doesn't it seem confusing if the number of people they find is equal to the amount of people dead? If every scenario is seen as a counting game for robots to keep track of dead hostiles, then they'll continue to ignore the safety of human lives, and kill everyone. I'll ask you this once and only once. If you don't believe me, but we came here to stop your robots from hurting people. Otherwise. Stand in front of your latest batch of robots, unarmed, unprotected, and we can all wait and see what happens." Thunderstruck said, reaching for her weapons, she realized she lost her sword, and would need to track it down.

"Or, you can pull the plug on their programming and start again."

Faced with testing her robots logic against herself, and with her options being check the programming, or shut up and stand infront of a tank, she had to back-track on her words.

"Come with me?" She asked, freezing as Sparks was finally able to peel off one wing plate and was flapping to flip herself upright, growing more mobile by the minute. "Let me help her first."

\111/

Shedding their suits of power armor and lead into the Central Control Room, Isabel sat in a rolling chair that scooted across the floor til she was at a bank of monitors. Tapping three times on the escape key, she brought up the lines of code, and shaking her head. Trying to find the one line of logical code that proved she was still right.

Deploying a stastical model, she removed the default parameters she installed and wrote in, fingers flying over the keys as Sparks joined her in the data search.

"Run it." Isabel said to Sparks.

"Where is this group going?" Sparks asked from her own monitor, typing in corresponding actions to initiate simulated trials.

"Doesn't matter, so long as it's outside the Commonwealth this time. Way outside our reach this time. I want to remove all other factors."

Sparks knew how to operate and write code as well with Isabel, but once she ran the program, Isabel frowned.

Watching data slowly scroll across her screen, she checked it and compared it to Sparks monitor, then back to her own station.

"Remove clothes, symbols, and outward identifiers,"

Running it again, responses came back from their program, information offered up and details about what the robots saw and did.

"Remove aggressive attacks against the robots."

This only made the numbers of recorded casualties shoot up, making even less sense to the programmer. "What the hell is wrong?"

"Remove environmental factors."

Humming as both Sparks and Isabel ran simulations again, nothing changed.

"Remove Roboco as their base center of origin."

With the computers churning out scenarios, the data was only pointing and leaning in one direction.

The moment the robots left the range of the Robco factory, they instantly went into an aggressive mode, deeming everything outside of the factory as hostile.

"That can't be right," Isabel said, "How are they doing that? They're not supposed to be doing that." Scratching her head and hair, she ran the numbers again to be sure.

"It's me." She said after two minutes of seeing the responses, "But they're supposed to protect..." She said to the computer.

"You're right," Isabel admitted, sinking down into a chair. "I should've never messed with the original sentry commands. It works as long as they're in range of the Cental Command Console, then they get further South or North, and then...it all stops. It trips them into remaining in a hostile state where they view everything except for Robco as hostile. They run out of internal memory and start dumping information to make room to keep operating"

Staring at the monitor, "Oh my God, what the hell did I do? I was trying to help the Commonwealth with these robots. They're all I know. I've done it on small scale, designated robots to protect and patrol certain areas, but once they switch to roaming programming I installed, it bucks the commands completely. Flips the switch...that hasn't happened before. Sparks...we ran this...we did." She said, looking to her companion.

"We never went or checked out what was happening in the field." Sparks admitted. "We never went out and visually confirmed ourselves that what was coming back were the results we wanted. This keeps coming back as the robots dumping their programming to make room for more raw data coming in."

She looked up to Thunderstruck, "...I see the numbers...but...have a hard time admitting the truth." Her voice peaked, screwed up tight in her throat she hoarsely said, "I...killed all these people...and I can't just take it back," Her eyes looked away from the screens in disbelief, she didn't want to accept the truth, even though she already admitted it and saw what was being shown in front of her.

"I can't do this anymore," She said. Sensing Isabel's shifting tone and emotions, Thunderstruck pulled her attention back to the present.

"We're to stop this from happening again. But, Isabel, I know as much as you did when you first walked up to this factory and have the same thoughts about robots then, as I do now. They can be useful. They CAN protect, they CAN be used for good. We just can't overload them with too many programs and orders. They're meant to be assigned to single locations, patrol certain routes and areas. You two may be one of the few people who actually know how to make robots do what we want them to, so for that, I'm not here to hurt you. But, you're not going to stop, Isabel, neither are you, Sparks."

"I'm am-" Cait said before being shushed. This time Leighla grabbed Cait's mouth, her claw wrapping around her entire head and she squeezed to keep more syllables and consonants from being strung together in the worst combination possible.

"Not helping!" Leighla said. Cait tried shaking Leighla off, making light pleading noises and whining. Punching up at the gryphons arm, Leighla eventually let go after several strikes.

"Listen, I'm going to get in touch with some people who I know can help." Thunderstruck said.

"You can't trust me to not screw up the programs again. I made a mistake that's killed over 120 people so far. I don't even know who these people are or what they did, where they are...I...If you hadn't fought your way in and told me all this...I don't even know how long it would've been before we ever realized."

"Then trust me that I want to do what's right. The way we came in, we were more scared of getting swarmed by your robots, that's why we had to be fast and brutal to get in here. But, your plan for protecting the Commonwealth, I have that plan too, it just moves a little bit slower, and will take a little bit longer to work out all the details, but I promise you, making the Commonwealth secure for everyone is a goal everyone wants to achieve."

Isabel sighed, depression hanging around her neck like a dead crow. She didn't want to look at anyone or anything right now, she could barely stand to look at her reflection in the glint of the monitors. "I need..."

"Just tell your thoughts to be quiet for a minute and count really slow," Thunderstruck said.

Isabel nodded, "Sorry for fighting you," Sparks said. "You tried to warn me, but I didn't listen. Why didn't you take the final shot up there? You could've had me."

"I have my reasons. I'm taking over this factory, and the both of you are going to bring it back to 100%. This factory and everything in it now belongs to me. Understand? Otherwise, I leave Cait here alone with the two of you, and we'll see how that lasts."

"Now, Isabel...let's start with removing your old code. Leighla...Cait...Ada. You're free to go back to Sanctuary Hills. We're going to be here for a while. Don't tell anyone what's happened here, except that it's been dealt with. The Mechanist is no more."

"What do we tell them about you?" Leighla asked, "You changed."

"It's how one of the Alicorns came across to me," Thunderstruck said, "He said to me...Just because we may be Alicorns, doesn't mean we know how to get along with each other yet.. I think that was a warning."

"What kind of warning?"

"Leighla... you know." Thunderstruck said, looking into the gryphon's eyes. Even now Leighla still towered over the Alicorn, but letting Leighla make the connection made her wince. Thunderstruck was able to piece together as much as she could about the gryphoness, but neither of them had the time or conveinence of sitting down and discussing details about their previous lives.

"Alicorns live for a long time...and until we come together and put aside our differences and do what we were created to do, then we're playing for keeps."

"For Keeps?" Cait asked.

"The other Alicorns...We're all off in our own corner of the world. But...imagine there's another factory, with another horde of robots, with another pack of gryphons and an army behind it, all lead by another Alicorn." Thunderstruck let out a shaky breath. "There's other Alicorns doing the exact same thing we're doing right now. Building up our strength, staking our claims, drawing lines in the dirt and setting borders around what we have control over... Like kids trying to figure out how to get along, there's going to be some disagreements along the way until we grow up like the Alicorn of Endurance did. Grow old...I think that's what he was warning me about. That it'll take...generations to come together and stop fighting. Adam the Ant fought and saw how hard it is to put things right with fighting, and is now waiting for the rest of us to do the same."

"So what's the plan then?"

"Adam's had a hard life, and since he's the first, he gets credit for having to go through the worst type of loss and sacrifice. I still care about all the people I know today and won't let anything come between me and trying to make things right with the world. There's too much chaos and suffering for me not to take action." Thunderstruck said.

"Tell everyone that i'm fine, and just taking care of business. Scavenging, scouting, picking over the scraps, and that I'll be back when I'm ready. For now, I want you keeping an eye on things till Nate or Meathead get back. I've got some things to figure out. I'll be sending robots towards Sanctuary Hills once the issues are worked out. Until then, it's just going to be me learning everything I can from our two new friends here."

"Then we'll see you, when we see you." Leighla said.

"Think I'll head out when it's light, still too dark now." Cait replied.

Thunderstruck turned to Isabel and Sparks, "What's the first thing that needs to be done to bring the plant back online?"

"Reset the breakers, check the fuses, run down all the capacitors, make sure they aren't blown, replace any that are. The servomechs and junkbots are doing most of the work now, but it'll still take about two days for the whole system to be back to what we once were before you came crashing in. I've got miles of cables to check now, and Sparks knows how to fix and work on as just as much as I do."

"Well then, let's get to work then. There's people and ponies waiting for us," Thunderstruck said, "That, and I want you to tell me how you know about Alicorns."

\111/

"Sparks and I crossed paths with a Unicorn called Firelance years ago. He and his buddy Sola helped us get into a large computer factory down south of here, but were kicked out by the Brotherhood of Steel a few months later after they were long gone. They wiped out our defenses, destroyed our robots, took control of our computer banks; All our harddrives. Anything we were working on, telling us over and over again that it was too dangerous to be leaving all this tech in the hands of commoners; Regular wasters and scavengers. Anyway, we spent a little time in Firelance's company, and he was a weird egg. Had alot of knowledge about computers and what they did, or were supposed to do, but not much practical knowledge. He wasn't much of a fighter back then, course that could've changed. I doubt he would've been able to do the same you and your crew did to get in here, he would've tried hacking the robots or shut them off completely to sneak around them, to get in. A warning about him, he is an expert shot with his horn. He could lift and fine-tune a whole tank-bot with his magic, inside and out, disassemble and reassemble like a wristwatch. He knows more about computers than any other person or pony we've come across in years."

"And his companion? Sola?"

"He carries enough weapons with him to start a small war; combustion and energy pistols, knives, plasma and ballistic rifles, he fixes guns and knows old-world knowledge like he was reading it from a book. He's a warrior and a scholar, but the personality like a cat. You think he likes you, but then something sets him off, a slight offense you didn't mean to make and he takes it personally. He's quiet and doesn't take revenge by taking your life, he gets back at you by taking everything you have but your life, and leaves you with nothing."

"What did you say or do that might've offended him?"

"Not that we could remember, complimented him on how well he took down the robots, said he was smart to disable the robots and security system trying to kill us, thanked him for helping us get in...somewhere along the way we must've said something that irked him."

"Something set him off, we don't know how we offended him, but he took it personally." Sparks said, nodding, "He turned into a cold man after that. Like he was possessed. Didn't say more than what he needed to after that. From being courteous to suddenly like we personally killed his mother himself."

"We apologized, multiple times, but he still shook it off like there was nothing we could say or do to change his mind. A few months later, the Brotherhood came and took everything, and kicked us out."

"Some people just can't accept a compliment, I guess," Thunderstruck wondered.

"Firelance was a bit more open, and accepting, told us not to worry about Sola. They left a few hours later, and we never saw either of them again," Isabel said.

\111/

Ch. 93 Rage

Author's Note

"Travis Lonely Miles here, and boy the Heterodine Tubes are Humming today! Just got word from a merchant who came up from South today saying we came in booming loud and crystal clear as far as Providence! Howdy Neighbors to our South! If that's the case, then that must mean the weather's clearing up! Usually it's all static past Quincy, the Glowing Sea does a number on radio transmissions too, but the wind must be blowing in our favor. I'll take it, Diamond City. Clear airwaves is a good day in my book. Always gotta look at the positives. DCR is always on the Air for you!"

"Dear Hearts, and Gentle People. Bing Crosby for our Neighbors down South. This one's for you."

Ch. 93 Rage

With Nate, Deacon, Princess Nightmare Moon, Hancock, and Meathead all arriving at Park Street station, descending into Vault 114 beneath the station, home to the new Railroad headquarters, the group shared what happened to them over the last two days, while coming up with a plan on what to do next.

As Deacon relayed information to Desdemona, Hancock offered the name of a gang running a protection scheme he remembered hearing about close to Boston's Freight Yard Depot, that would be able to get all of them close to Rage and the Super Mutants in West Roxbury.

Desdemona didn't know why Nate and his companion Meathead were so intent on wiping out these mutants in particular, but she saw it as an opportunity for the Railroad to finally have their safe-route South out of Boston proper. For months, with the loss of South Boston University to the Institute, Roxford to the mutants, South Boston to Triggermen and raider gangs, ferals, and mutants all waring for territory down to the block, and the way East through Boston and then down being rife with Mutants in the Fens and raider gangs in the East, there was no easy way for the Railroad to punch through down South without being spotted and easily moving their cargo.

She supported Deacon's push for weapons, power armor, and any ordinance they would need for this mission in West Roxbury, with the promise that this gang would understand that the Railroad would be taking over their route. Plain and simple, kill the raiders if they wanted to run their protection scams, and give them nothing until after West Roxbury was secure and a route had been mapped out.

They needed more than safehouses, but proper routes that they could move freely without being monitored, with the streets and skies being watched, Desdemona latched onto the idea of taking the town and route for the Railroad as a top priority.

When Deacon approached Desdemona, relaying all the information he dug up, burned safehouses, Institute movements, and taking stock of their own dismal numbers, the conversation rested at a recruitment drive to boost how many people were in the Railroad.

Meathead and Nate embraced with a short hug, welcoming each other back. Nate was cautious with his arm, letting Meathead see and get a closer look before they both went into details of what happened over the last two days.

In front of them was the Courser Chip, and talk of getting into the Institute, but how it would take weeks to build a proposed Relay Interceptor around the Chip to break past the Institute's anti-teleportation barrier. Nate procured a map of all the train lines in and around Boston. Pointing to one route in particular, from Trinity Plaza to the West Roxbury Station, it was entirely underground an access points above the Freight Depot Hancock had his own storage sheds for Goodneighbor.

"If we can't approach from any direction without getting spotted, can't fly, then we go lower. This tunnel leads all the way from Malden to the heart of Boston. From here, if we expand the tunnel network, we could have underground passages leading all the way from Malden to Roxbury, passing through the heart of Boston, with offshoots to Bunker Hill, Goodneighbor, Diamond City, and through Cambridge to College Square. Aside from how loud it would be clearing the metro lines, we would be invisible below ground. That gives the Railroad a whole network to move through safely. Quickly, point to point."

""

"Then send him a message when we're done. We need him."

""

"Athena was pushing for the both of us to go, pull a fast one on him using your magic and shapeshifting skills to hide the fact you're using magic to help me whack him."

"Do you know where Athena is now?" Deacon asked, wondering where the raging Unicorn disappeared.

"Nope, but she is close and probably got her eye on us or ME in particular, wondering when we're going to get back at it. The less I have to think about her the better, she's got fire in her blood." Nate said, but the anecdote was lost in translation.

""

"I'll have the Railroad agents we have over in the Northpoint Valley update us on the current situation over there." Desdemona said, "Until then, the Railroad needs a secure route South out of Boston, and we're willing to provide the power-armor to get it."

\111/

With the Railroad providing suits of Power Armor, Hancock was the front man who introduced the rest of them to Helter Skelter and his gang.

The whole time Hancock and Meathead were in Jamaica Plain, the old ghoul was combing through every possible way to get to the town without drawing attention. When he remembered the raider gang running a thin strip of highway and tunnels on the South edge of Boston proper, he piped up and told Nate and Meathead.

The Changeling nodded, ""

\111/

Helter Skelter knew he was a lucky savant when it came to the metro lines running through Boston and into the urban sprawl. With the help of Utility Robotrons, and working maintenance droids combing the tunnels, his gang ran a tight corridor of lanes that ran underground. The Mass Pike Tunnel, a stretch of highway starting in the Fens, and ending in the Theater district two blocks to the South of Trinity Plaza, his East to West road was intersected right in the center with a utility access point leading deeper underground to the metro lines that spanned from the North Massachusetts Freight Yard, all the way to West Roxbury Metro Station, three stories underground. These corridors were safe passages he discovered and mapped, controlled and protected, easily capable of sealing off exits and entrances. It was no small wonder as to why the Super Mutants in Shaw never discovered a gang of human raiders hiding directly beneath them.

The West Roxbury station was three stories underground, with every floor having a different purpose. The first sublevel was ticketing, market stalls, bathrooms, and the main staircases and elevators meant to lead to the second floor down with maintenance access to employees tucked away in the corners.

The Second sublevel were the first two platforms, One branched off to the West, but was blocked, leading towards Andrew Station in South Boston, the blocked tunnels south lead to Franklin and the Glowing Sea, with a but the third sublevel below the first platform lead North to South. If the tunnels were caved-in, Helter Skelter would be able to walk all the way from Roxbury to the Fenway Park Station twenty meters away from the South entrance to Diamond City.

The crossroads he controlled made it easy to regulate people moving through his territory, but made it difficult to expand without everyone knowing what they were doing. While the plan was to eventually dig underground, restore the tunnels, and claim the Fenway Park Station, it would've tipped Diamond City to another gang in the area, along with anyone else who thought they could rid the area of raiders camped right outside their front doors. They were trying to build up their people and work quietly without attracting attention before Rage and his mutants made it all but impossible to focus on expanding North with all the fighting happening in the South.

Five months of keeping the mutants out, and shifting focus towards trying to stage hit-and-runs through West Roxbury, Helter Skelter's gang could hit the town every single day for a week straight and still wake up to more Mutants coming down from the city.

They were outnumbered and outgunned. What they needed was power armor, and frames they could get their hands on weren't nearly as reliable as they didn't have any mechanics in their gang to fix, build, or maintain them either.

The issue had been set aside for nearly half a year, far too long without any sort of action, but every time they poked their heads out to check the surface or the metro station above them, they only saw a growing Super Mutant population that got more and more entrenched with every passing day. Helter's gang used to operate out of the West Roxbury Hospital, getting free checkups and treatment from the Mr. Handy's and nurse-bots, but Super Mutants coming down South from Boston over the road, at all times of the day and night forced them to reposition and come up with new defenses.

After locking down the hospital, moving their people back to the metro station and Fallons, the Super Mutants kept pushing and appearing, an endless stream of mutants arriving daily that broke through gaps and charging in recklessly without regard for their own lives that was too much for Helter's gang. Losing people and ground, they were forced underground where the tight corridors made it hard for the Mutants to move tactically, but instead opt for using themselves as meatshields and strapping explosives to themselves to blow out Helter Skelter's gang.

Where before the gang could charge protection for anyone using the tunnels to get from East to West Boston, then funnel guns, ammo, people South to West Roxbury, the route was too hot and Helter found himself dumping resources into fighting a war he didn't even realize he was in until Rage and his Mutants took over Shaw High School. Three weeks after the mutants moved in, they couldn't push the mutants out and Rage was leaving traps and baiting the exits all around West Roxbury.

This back and forth fighting never went the full distance to wipe the other side out completely, and only turned into a building up of defenses and mounting opposition. Until Helter finally decided that West Roxbury was too dangerous to keep hold of altogether and they focused on sealing off all access points the mutants could find. The only way into the station now was up utility ladders sealed with latches and manhole covers the mutants would never hope to fit through. Turning the substory into a dead-end, Helter knew that it was still a viable base, even the metro cars themselves still had power and the platform was a large underground area that they could easily convert into a shelter. It was a secure location, except for the mutants above them, so the choice was to stay and seek out a different solution to break the stalemate between the two groups, with them coming out on top.

Helter Skelter never expected to see or hear The Goodneighbor Ghoul, Hancock arrive with a team of men in power armor, with Nate's armor in particular was missing the left arm armor completely, it was so he could fit his arm and hand through the port and still have mobility. The Railroad insignia's were painted on, and the weapons they referred to as hardware was abundant. His lookouts nearly started a firefight but Hancock was walking towards the lookout with arms overhead, carrying two brown bottles of whiskey, approaching slowly and clearly ready to talk.

When Helter got word from his runners that The Goodneighbor Ghoul wanted to send a crew through the metro tunnels to West Roxbury station, Hancock was the one to facilitate and pay. It was beneficial Hancock had been around long enough to know where most gang's territories started and ended, and people like Hancock went where ever he pleased. It was more of a professional courtesy that Hancock directed Nate, Deacon, and Meathead through the tunnels, while Hancock went above ground to corral the ghouls in Jamaica Plain.

Since they knew timing was important to the takeover of the town, they agreed that the fighting would have to start first in the Metro station, with the deal being Helter Skelter and his gang would take over everything up to the street level as the trio cleared it. Locking the station down first while Hancock's herd of ghouls moved towards West Roxbury from the West, it would hopefully flush out the streets and spread disorder among the Super Mutants while the trio moved again towards Fallons Department Store, where the majority hub of the Super Mutants were gathered.

The Railroad was able to provide power armor, explosives, and the weapons they needed to clear the town and locate Rage. The second part of the deal was that the Railroad would be using Helter Skelter's tunnels and providing them with an influx of business to and from Boston to the South.

Desdemona and the Railroad had been looking for a secure route South for months, either by coast, water, beaches, overland routes, the connection between Helter Skelter and the Railroad never would've existed if it weren't for Hancock mentioning that he knew that a gang ran the tunnels that cut across town.

Hancock arrived leading Nate and Deacon in Power Armor to the entrance of the Mass Pike Tunnel West. Bearing the Railroad's mark and carrying enough caps and weapons to buy their way all the way into Helter Skelter's presence. Hancock knew about the tunnel leading from the Freight station, down South, since he was using one of the rail houses as a storage room, and prison for Goodneighbor. He didn't know the state of Helter Skelter's gang until arriving loaded with caps, guns, alcohol, and meat, everything a gang could want needed to sway their opinion towards listening to a few people passing through.

Hancock pointed Deacon, Nate, and Meathead down the tunnel while he took off over the road towards Jamaica Plain.

"So, you let us use the tunnel, we clear out the mutants, you keep both ends open and clear for the Railroad to use. If this relationship stays mutual, and shows that everything is running well and good, the Railroad gives you access to more weapons and eventually power armor." Nate and Deacon brokered the deal, and made Helter Skelter offers too good to pass up. All he had to do was sit back and collect, to which Nate, Deacon, and the rest of the Railroad agreed, that when the time came, either Helter Skelter would join the Railroad or the Railroad would muscle Helter Skelter out.

Members of the Railroad voiced concern about the potential threat of Helter Skelter or one of his gang members doing something stupid such as revealing the Railroad's business to curious individuals, people fishing for information, and if that ever came, then they would wipe them out. Deacon promised if the threat ever came that Helter Skelter sold them out, he would seal the tunnels himself with Helter Skelter's gang inside.

The threats remained out of the conversation with Helter Skelter, since they hadn't yet even started a new relationship of trust yet, but the assurances from Helter came in the form of him saying 'Fuck the Institute,' and how traveler business was up because of Nate hanging Kellogg. Ever since he died, more people were moving through Boston, and needing safe routes through the city. With three of the most influential groups representing their goals infront of Helter, he knew only good things would come if he could make a deal with the Railroad and Goodneighbor Ghouls.

The sight of Nate nearly terrified his gang on the way in, and after hearing about Mr. 111 himself arriving, the tidbits of information getting thrown around, putting faces to names, he was caught off guard and surprised at the show of force arriving on his doorstep.

With Meathead covered head-to-toe in power armor, he let the silence of being in the presence of the other three speak for itself.

Hancock knew how the gang's operated, and was carrying a dufflebag of what he called 'Catch alls', drugs, seven liters of booze, cigarettes, old nudie mags, clean handguns, boxes of bullets, a few thousand bottle caps, with Hancock leaving it all in their hands saying "Play nice, would ya?"

Like a gift dropping out of the sky right into their lap, Helter Skelter personally guided them back through, nodding and shining the light for them and talking details about what they would expect to see in the future.

\111/

Unsealing the staircases and maintenance access points, manhole covers, they all entered the second sublevel of the West Roxbury station. Before Nate gave the signal, he said, "Alright; Let's go meet the neighbors."

Nate found he no issue racking a pump-action shotgun with his Deathclaw hand, and in the tight confines of the tunnels, one man with a short barrel shotgun was devestating. With Deacon carrying a plasma rifle, the bright green bolts of energy bored burning holes instantly into whatever it connected with. Meathead bringing up the rear with an assault-rifle and the plasma grenades, the Super Mutants barely had time to react. One second they hear dirt and rubble shifting, the next the echos and confines of the tunnel are deafening with the blasts of guns going off.

It took five minutes wearing bulky power armor to walk from the third sublevel up to the first, and killing mutants along the way who weren't expecting an attack from below only added on a few seconds to the walk.

In the first two minutes alone, from the moment they popped their heads up, Nate, Deacon, and Meathead killed twelve Super Mutants, blasting away like it was a firing range. Helter Skelter's gang didn't even fire a single round since there was nothing left to shoot at except dead bodies.

Seeing the heavy hitters in action was a thrilling and terrifying prospect for Helter Skelter's gang to wrap their heads around. They wanted that level of power and control for themselves, but it was the cohesion between Nate, Deacon, and Meathead that made them so efficient.

Three mutants on the first sublevel and ticket area, hearing the gunfire from below they were drawn down and into the waiting ironsites as they rushed headfirst into a hail of bullets.

It took several minutes to reach the surface, and most of them was spent slowly walking up, making sure they weren't getting flanked or surrounded.

Helter Skelter's gang rushed up behind them, sealing off gates and locking down everything behind them as they advanced upwards. With the station under their control, they waited for Hancock to arrive with the ghouls.

\111/

"Hi-yaaaah!" Hancock shouted, cracking a whip over the horde of ghouls, "An-delay! Come on! Move it! Get going! Come on you lazy, skinny bastards!"

The crowd of two hundred ghouls was nearly impossible to keep together, as plenty were shambling off the road in different directions, but the scent of fresh meat and the sounds of Hancock firing off bullets every hundred meters to keep the shambling ghouls dragging themselves towards the noise.

"Get back here! Hup-two three four! Hup-two three four!" Some ghouls actually started jogging, raising their knees and legs, pumping them forward.

Putting rounds through ghouls who strayed too far off the road was enough to spark life and recoil into the ferals and keep them marching towards West Roxbury. With the poor light working to their advantage, Hancock could see the silhouettes of Super Mutants in the distance since he was actively looking for them. There was a trade-off, since he couldn't keep firing off rounds and draw the mutant's attention before they got too close, so he could only use the whip-crack to keep the ghouls plodding forward until he reached the shadows of the first buildings. Switching back to a his pistol, he fired bursts into the air to whip up the crowd of ghouls and draw the attention of the Super Mutants.

The plan worked for the most part as over a hundred ghouls were drawn into mainstreet as Hancock hung back, letting the crowd move around and past him.

The chaos unfolding after that was the Super Mutants on patrol thinking that it was only a small group, but then they quickly ran out of bullets and saw the whole group of ferals. With the patrols ripped apart, shouting and running for the high-school or the department store, they split the horde in three.

With ghouls swarming and tearing apart the mutants on the street, others chasing the mutants into either building, some tried to get down into the metro station but were locked out by gate shutters keeping them out.

Super Mutants held positions, blasting apart the front doors and entryways to keep the wall of ghouls from spreading through and getting into their buildings. Moving heavy machinery, the mutants inside faired much better than the ones on the streets as the mutants organized a counter-strike to wipe out the ghouls trickling into their town and clear the streets.

Hancock took to the highest perch he could find, dipping back towards the Milton General Hospital and following Helter Skelter's instructions on how to navigate through the building and deactivate the security system they left in place.

Taking a shooters nest on the walkway between the hospital and the parking garage that extended over Main Street, he could see the entrance to Fallons and the subway station. There were a sparse amount of shuttered businesses, collapsed buildings, or spaces that didn't have any tactical cover whatsoever and were left ignored by both raiders and mutants, but the ghouls spread out in all directions now.

Now came the lull, the ghouls were scattered, having served their purpose. The mutants within the department store blocking and now pushing out into the street, it was this moment they were waiting for.

After the shooting picked up again, spreading the mutants out again, the second wave of fighting happened in the streets, pulling the scattered ferals again back towards the noise. Some even coming in from the direction of Jamaica Plain, the mutants own heavy weapon holders, large machine guns, explosives, they all shot their way through the streets.

When it looked like the tide was turning against the feral ghouls, Hancock signaled Nate's group waiting to emerge and join in the fight. Firing down the road from his perch, he wasn't picked out or spotted at first as mutants dropped dead.

With Nate, Deacon, and Meathead taking to the street level, they were able to exhaust the super mutants ammo and separate them from getting back quickly. As the mutants screamed and shouted, causing more mutants to rush out of Fallons, they ran straight into the crosshairs of Hancock, or into three power-armor covered shooters blasting holes in anything that moved.

The shouting and confusion, where they initially thought they were being swarmed with ghouls, now with only the clear indication they were being attacked lead them to rush out with clubs or anything they could swing, right into the path of a bullet.

Gunning down fifty Super Mutants, tearing them apart, separating them, tricking and confusing them took over a hundred ghouls and coordination that relied on the natural response of once the mutants thought they could go out and sweep up the rest of the ferals roaming around, meant that there were still pockets moving around. It took nearly ten minutes for the mutants to brave the outside and take the fighting into the open.

With all their focus on the super mutants, the Railroad, Helter's gang, and everyone agreeing that clearing out feral ghouls was beginning to be a past-time in the post-apocalypse, and leagues easier than dealing with mutants.

\111/

The mutants in Shaw high school were pinned inside. After dealing with a wall of feral ghouls, a handful of mutants were quickly trying to find more garbage or tables to block the doors again, pieces of metal, anything to keep more out before Nate, Meathead, and Deacon were spotted by the remaining eight mutants.

Moving forward, the bullets fired by the mutants were only divots and unable to knock them down as Meathead moved forward, heaving plasma grenades supplied by the Railroad. These miniature suns burst in ferocious balls of plasma warping and burning through entire rooms, melting holes through tile and metal.

Rage had never seen humans act like this, in the twenty minutes from when they started, to the entire firefight, Nate, Meathead, Deacon, and Hancock were a force that blew down their doors and cut them down to the shins.

The whole time, they all wondered which one Rage was, what made him stand out, any subtle changes, or markings, any amount of ego that would point them to seeing other mutants rally around.

Only when they reached the corridors of Shaw high school did they notice these mutants were turning to look for signals from another.

Their overwhelming strength didn't account for the four shooters taking no prisoners and leaving no room to negotiate. They were there to kill and execute every super mutant, and the mutants felled before reaching Rage only offered challenges. One shouting that humans were weak and inferior, that the tin cans they were walking in would be easy to pop open. Another challenged in the form of trying to get close with a sledgehammer and bash them down, but between the cover fire on the streets and the three of them cycling through and taking turns as point-man leading the charge, the super mutant's cries and word died in their throat.

Gunned down with laser blasts boring through his skull, shotgun pellets ripping through his chest and arms, they didn't know this mutant in particular was Rage. In the middle of the fight, no amount of gathered smarts or intelligence could guide Rage into coming up with a way to beat Nate, Deacon, and Meathead, except to shoot back and rely on what he knew.

Once Rage was dead, the other super mutants seemed to sense that their numbers were thinning, and now down into single digits. Sweeping through the school, they killed all fifty mutants in a half-hour time span. Once Deacon went outside again and gave Hancock another signal, they started picking off the last of the straggling feral ghouls as Nate and Meathead started checking bodies.

Making their way back to Roxbury Station, Deacon rapped his covered knuckles on the gates, shouting to get the raiders attention. They opened the gates and lowered their weapons, moving up and out towards the surface.

"We're doing a final sweep through now, watch for stragglers and any ghouls milling about. We're done."

The whole Main Street was a warzone, and a massacre of super mutants and ghoul corpses littering the streets. Blood and spent bullet casings were more numerous than the bodies, Deacon kicking a few out of his way with his big armored boots.

\111/

"" Meathead said to Nate.

"Why's that?"

""

"Just stick with me, and I'll make sure we set something up to make sure when the time comes, Mona and Athena are going to be removed from our lives and the grand equation no matter what."

Meathead didn't know what Nate understand phrase the Grand Equation at first, but divided on both sides, Meathead figured out what he meant to say. The remainer would be Nate and himself being whole.

After Killing Rage, the team spread out through Shaw High School. Unlike most mutants, Rage knew how to operate doors with a keycard. Wearing one on a lanyard with books and apple pins decorating the necklace, it was a keycard to the high school's library.

Taking the lanyard and making their way into the library, it was a mold-eaten mess, fungus crawling up and across most books, fouling the air, but from all the piles and garbage lining the floors, a clear path that looked like a giant came stomping through was easy to follow to the Library's back room where office supplies, and books were kept, a temporary storage room, breakroom, and study hall all in one, the multipurpose room was littered and blasted with hundreds and hundreds of Mentat containers.

Everywhere Nate and Meathead looked, all around the floor, the halls, the walls too, still dozens of untouched Mentat packages still in their original containers, still shrink-wrapped were sitting on the shelves.

"Crimony." Nate said, kicking one Mentat box over with the tip of his boot. Reaching down to pick a stepped on box up off the floor, he compared it to the ones still sitting on the shelves, and then to the messy disregardful destruction around them.

"Drugs." Nate said, as if it were the answer to the big mystery of the Super Mutant's intelligence. "Lots and lots..and lots of drugs."

Nate took a shrink-wrapped container and tore the plastic off, flipping open the lid and finding individually packaged pills. Popping one into his mouth, he sucked on the citric-lemon flavor, feeling a slight fizzy sensation in his mouth.

"Still good." Nate said, "These...would explain some things. Fuck me why they're all stashed in a school...probably cramming for finals and the school trying to get good marks and a bigger budget from the State."

"What makes you say that?" Deacon asked.

"It's what I would do, running an underfunded school, all the states in the U.S. would give money to better performing schools, so when it comes to finals and tests, they always tried to either remove the students that would tank the average, or make the tests impossibly easy to try and raise the average, but overall make the students dumber because they wouldn't teach the students anything comprehensive. Terrible money-grabbing schemes all around. It comes from lazy, greedy, slothful, and vain dumbasses who were responsible for why our country the way it is. Irradiated to hell...you notice the raiders around here aren't too bright?"

"Except for the rads glowing through their skin...yeah. I noticed."

""

"This has got to be how Rage...Big Mack...and the others are all getting smarter and able to ignore Mona's influence."

Nate flipped the package over, looking at the small letters. On the back of the Mentats tin, in tiny letters. Nate read aloud, "Med-Tek. Made in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I guess I'm going there next."

""

"I''ll check out the drugs situation up there at Med-Tek, see if any other Mutants figured out this as well. Are you still going south to grab Brian Virgil after we're done here, right?"

""

"I'll bag these up. I'll find a use for them somewhere, or sell them. They're worth some trade value. As for Fist...He must realize by now that everyone's dead. And as far as I know...he's still there along with Mona. But... " Nate considered the options and routes. "Bringing down the house would be the loud option..Heh." Nate exhaled a short-strangled laugh.

""

"We could send You and Thunderstruck up with a rifle and a stick of dynamite...That'd be the real simple solution. Think she'd be up for getting her hooves dirty? How is everyone anyways?"

"" Meathead felt his own wings flutter and shift. ""

"My sentiments as well. Sounds Good. I feel that the Colonial Taphouse would be a good spot to load up and prep. I'm pulling every favor I have. I'll bring all the guns, ammo, armor, everything we need. It's the closest spot to Trinity Tower we can use as a launching point for taking on the Mutants around Trinity Plaza. While you and Thunderstruck go up around the outside, I'll draw mutants down and out. You and Thunderstruck take the lift up to the top of Mass Fusion, save yourself the hassle of getting spotted while flying up, and then just glide over."

"

"Grab a few boxes of Mentats for yourself, there's dozens. No more for the mutants around here either... If Big Mack was on Mentats...and Hammer was on Mentats...all these Mutants...Athena must've known. She's too observant not to have figured this out already."

""

"If I had to guess. On her way to Nuka-World. Where we need to be before she gets too entrenched and makes it even more difficult for us to work around her. Athena doesn't have a lot of patience, and doesn't mind making it harder on us to make sure she gets what she wants. I don't know how big her circle of friends and allies are, but she said she's going to try and make things more difficult for raiders around Nuka-World to get their hands on certain supplies going in. All to undermine slavery that's happening over there."

Meathead blew air out through his lips, ""

"Yeah, and she's a two-ton boulder. I don't know how she's got it in her head that we're supposed to take on Nuka-World's Overboss, but she said something interesting...that she's put faith in people like us before. That this wasn't the first time."

""

"They're probably all dead anyway, she insinuated as much. Ahye, This fucking Unicorn. She's already played the bystander and let me fight it out alone. Nearly lost my head twice now."

""

"Only one thing we can do with a person like that. Wind them up, point them at something else, and let'er rip." Nate sighed, "I'm still figuring that part out. She wants a guy named Sola and a pony named Firelance hard though, she's got a bloody look in her eye whenever she has to think about those two."

""

"Yep," Packing things away, Nate and Meathead didn't see much else worth of value in the school except for the bricks and mortar making up the building itself. The Mutants left a trail of trash and destruction through every room, making the whole building reek of atrophy and decay. "As for the school...Fallons...even the hospital, this whole town's gotta come down."

""

\111/

As Deacon, Nate, Meathead, and Hancock reconviened, planning their routes back, the Boston skyline to the North of them was rocked by explosions coming from Trinity Tower. The showers of glass raining down from the building were plain to see, but even from a great distance, five miles from the center of town, they could see the flashes of bombs going off. If they waited quietly, they could hear the gunfire echoing out over the whole Commonwealth.

"Did we do that?" Nate asked.

Deacon shook his head, Meathead was stunned since he could only take in the sight with his eyes, and staring at an emotionally black void. ""

Hancock tilted his head back and forth, trying to think of who he might know who would be bold, brave, and stupid enough to attack the Mutants in Trinity Tower.

Nate heard Meathead mutter, "What is it?" he asked.

""

"Fine by me, let someone else do the heavy lifting for once around here, any more and I'm going to wind up looking worse than Hancock's date. Meat, take off. Get Virgil, drop him off here, then find Thunderstruck. The signal relay needs to be built in a place the Railroad's never touched before, here and between Jamaica Plain is where we build it. I want to talk to her if what we're seeing doesn't pan out."

""

Nate nodded, "I'll swing by there, up to Med-Tek, then over to Vault 111."

"Well, we might as well get moving, it'll take us about an hour from here just to walk it." Deacon said.

""

"See you around the bend, Meathead." Nate said, waving as he watched his friend depart.

Ch. 94 Nullus Amor

Author's Note

"Help, or Mayday, whatever one says on the radio. My name is Rex Goodman, I'm being held prisoner atop Trinity Tower by mutants, and I think they plan on eating me soon...I'm setting this to repeat..."

Ch. 94 Nullus Amor

Paladin Danse, Paladin Brandis, and Knight Rhys all lead the assault on Trinity Tower, coming in from the North down past Diamond City. With Scribe Halen and Verne bringing up the rear with heavy weapons, they all were wearing salvaged power armor and were equipped with enough explosives to collapse the whole tower. While their initial goal was to sever the Emergency Broadcast, they needed all hands-on deck to make it to the control rooms on the higher floors of Trinity Tower.

After spending the last three days gathering weapons, loading up, and packing, the Brotherhood Recon Squad moved South out of Cambridge Police station into Boston. All five of them wore armor, with fresh power cores fully charged and more ready to swap out at a moments notice, they knew that they would complete their mission, or die trying.

Loaded down with a laser mini-gun, Knight Rhys was the heavy of the group, with Paladin Brandis carrying an assault rifle with a grenade launcher attachment, and his Vector SMG on a sling, he and Paladin Danse with a Fat Man launcher and four mini-nukes, blasted the bottom floors of Trinity tower wide open.

The Super Mutants around Trinity Plaza, Trinity Church, and the Fens district heard the noise, then the blast as Danse lead the charge. The surprise attack bewildered and shocked the mutants before they could react to push back the Brotherhood assault team, as they all charged into the foyer lobby, guns blazing, shooting their way and taking bullets themselves as their goal for the first initial phase of the attack was to get to the stairwells or elevators and then fight their way up.

\111/

"Brandis, stay here and secure our exit route. We may be leaving in a hurry and I don't want to come down to a swarm of Super Mutants blocking our only way out. I want our exit strategy to be clear, if all else fails, we run to the closest settlement, Diamond City, and from there, back to Cambridge station. I expect more resistance higher up."

"Clear." Knight Rhys said

"Understood." Paladin Brandis said, he felt his lone survivor instincts kicking in already, looking for the path of least resistance out of the Back Bay District of Boston. Three days wasn't much time to familiarize with the other members of the Brotherhood team, and it was decided that being the odd-man out, he would remain on the ground, keeping an eye out for any more groups of Super Mutants, and if need be, blast an escape route out as the rest of Recon Squad Gladius moved up through Trinity Tower. Left with the Fat Man launcher, Paladin Brandis was ready to keep any groups of mutants at bay.

\111/

There was real momentum as they made it up the first four floors of the building, the surprise attack and blitz of destruction working for the Brotherhood of Steel members as Knight Rhys shot his way up, Paladin Danse leaving the Fat Man launcher with Paladin Brandis as a means to blow an escape route and keep any groupings of Super Mutants from getting any bright ideas on coming closer to the tower.

When they reached the higher floors that weren't destroyed by the first mini-nuke, the interior mutants were trying to come down as they went up, forcing tight quarters gunfire where the power-armor made the difference between being torn apart by bullets, and being shot apart. Scout Verne and Scribe Halen stayed together, supporting fire to keep Paladin Danse and
Knight Rhys covered. With all the mutants clustered along the stairs, spilling out into the hallways and offices, they had to storm through as one stairwell was blocked, meaning they needed to get higher another way.

Laying waste to floor after floor, the fifth and sixth floors were blasted to smithereens, Knight Rhys laying down on his laser mini-gun to unleash a near continuous stream of searing hot bolts that ripped through the walls and mutant bodies.

With all the explosions rocking the tower, the noise of gunfire traveling upwards, the mutants higher up took to barricading doorways and paths, trying to block their attackers from moving further into the building. Staying quietly dormant until they came up to face them.

Paladin Danse and Knight Rhys could see the ceiling above them bending and flexing with the mutants moving above their heads, and shot upwards through the floors. Debris rained down as mutants fell through the collapsed floors, eviscerated bodies and mutants suddenly trying to aim down and shoot at the Brotherhood attack force moving up.

The same thing occured when they reached the middle of the tower too, stairways blocked, doors barricaded, the only unhindered path leading to an elevator was the only way up, but they knew whatever was waiting for them would be ready to fire at whatever came out. They took this time to lay out explosives, far away from support pillars, and with the only intention of collapsing the non-essential areas, they blasted their way up from the safety of the stairwells, bringing down entire rooms and shuddering Trinity Tower again as it creaked ominously and swayed with the violent explosions.

Their reprieve came as they climbed higher and encountered less mutants, but they didn't stay to sweep the building floor by floor, they were on a mad-dash to the top. They were more organized, better defended. On the 20th floor there was a machine gun nest aimed straight down a hallway right at the stairwell doors, pinning them down. It took a lobbed explosive from Verne guiding his magic to fling the ordinance close enough to their nest to blast them back and allow them to continue.

Only when they finally came to the 26th floor did they need to find another way up, as the whole stairwell leading higher was gone. Completely eroded away, missing and collapsed, the only way up from that floor was the elevator.

The bay area had two elevator doors, one which still worked and had power. After checking the perimeter of the 26th floor, to make sure there wasn't any other way, they reconvened at the elevators and pressed the button to summon the cable car.

Far below the a mini-nuke exploded, Paladin Danse was closest to the windows and checked for signs of activity. Crawling across Trinity Plaza were dozens of mutants coming from Trinity Church, Boston Library, and a whole pack coming in from the Fens from the West. Like giant green ants, they were swarming for the tower in a giant group, coming across Trinity Plaza in a horde. Perfect for Brandis, as he lined up his next shot and aimed right at the mass of the group.

A second mini-nuke was launched by Paladin Brandis, scattering the horde of mutants and sending them scurrying for cover. As quickly as the group formed, they all disappeared off the street in an instant.

"We don't have long before they send Omega's to feel out how many mini-nukes Brandis has left. Verne, Halen, I need that transmitter shut off NOW."

Their referral to Omegas was to indicate the super mutant's command structure, any Alpha dogs, those with leadership skills, would send the runts, the weakest or least skilled in first to feel out and probe for weaknesses in defenses. Paladin Brandis knew that they would come in slowly at first, spread out and trying to keep their distance, it was up to him to keep a careful balance of the battlefield down below and make it appear as if he had an endless supply of mini-nukes at his disposal, even though he only had two remaining.

Coming up from the 25th floor and beyond were smarter mutants who hid or remained behind closed offices that in their haste to reach the summit of Trinity Tower, were overlooked. Knight Rhys fired volleys of laser blasts at the pack of mutants, and Paladin Danse ordered him to get Verne and Halen up to the top while he held off mutants here.

If this was their only way back down, he wanted to be sure they wouldn't all be walking into a trap on their way back down.
While the power-armor had built in compression springs and hydraulic stabilizers to assist with drop-ins, and falling from large heights, with their luck and condition of power-armor, he didn't want their escape route to involve jumping to their potential death.

As Verne and Halen entered the elevator, Knight Rhys continued firing a final volley to assist Paladin Danse until he saw only three mutants left and saw that Danse was loaded again and ready to fire.

With the cramped elevator full, it dipped a little before ascending. Paladin Danse crossed the floor to the elevator bay, rapidly pressing the button, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, trying to summon it back down as quickly as possible.

In the few moments of darkness, only illuminated by their helmet lights, Knight Rhys reloaded his mini laser-gun, having to tip the barrel up towards the ceiling to make enough room for all of them. Cycling another pack in, he told the others he would take point and be the first to lay down a line of fire the moment they stepped out through the doors.

\111/

Athena was waiting, horn glowing as the two elevator doors parted open, she blasted the insides of the elevator car with an intense burst of fire and magic, the fireball incinerated the interior of the elevator and with such force the cables snapped and broke.

Plunging 30 stories down, Knight Rhys, Verne, Scribe Halen all fell to their death in an out of control elevator car. The force of the entire container crushing upwards around them as the metal smashed inwards compacted the three bodies together in a mangled burning heap.

Paladin Danse heard their screams as the car raced past and down, bashing through the interior of Trinity Tower, as it landed on the ground floor, blowing out a massive blast of dirt and dust. Brandis suddenly felt overwhelming fear as what he thought was all of Recon Squad Gladius being eliminated in a single stroke.

Athena inhaled and sighed, bringing a smile to her face "Oh Brotherhood...Where Art Thou?" Warping down four floors, she caught Paladin Danse recovering from his shock and pinned him against the wall in her magenta magic.

"I take great joy in killing you and your companions, the cancerous tumor you proudly die for growing and spreading across the wastes will happily crush you under heel like a hammer to a nail. Here I am, Paladin. Your reckoning. My name is Athena."

Athena's magic crimped down on the exterior of Paladin Danse' suit, compacting it in tighter, the power armor frame pinched all around his limbs, like the T-45 Iron Maidens, the tightness and restrictive movements was crushing him from all sides.

"I want to hear you choke. I want to hear your lungs gasp for air, it's the bark of a human. The humans barking like dogs, whimpering like canines, the feral clutch of a final breath. I want to hear you break, Paladin! I. Will. Hear. You. Give. Up! GIVE UP! Let me see your face as you realize that you are worthless! Let's see it! Let me see! Show me!" Athena ripped off Paladin Danse' helmet and saw the bulging blood-shot eyes, throbbing veins around his neck and face, the struggling Adam's apple, lips gaping like a fish,

Athena inhaled through her nose and then opened her mouth wide, slowly exhaling a loud breath into Danse' face, "Ah...that's it...That's it," She smiled through grit teeth, outpouring all her anger and resentment onto Danse. "I love the expression you're making. Let's see those eyes..." Horn glowing brighter, eyes burning holes right through him, Athena tilted her head to keep herself in Danse' line of sight, "That's it. Eyes getting hazy, face purple, you're almost there...And..."

As Danse lost focus, she released the magic chokehold, he fell to the ground, wheezing and gasping for breath, painfully coughing and heaving, almost a scream to bring the air back into his starved lungs.

"Now you know you can't beat me. Soon the whole Brotherhood will feel exactly what you're feeling now. Defeat. That you...Lost."

Paladin Danse was swallowing unable to find his voice yet, "Get up." She commanded.

"I said, UP!" All of Danse' power armor was stripped and ripped away from around him. Yanked out of his shell, he was forced back into a standing postion. "I had plans, Paladin, but every time I seem to make one, something always ends up happening that skews my life in a completely different direction. I wanted this conversation we're having to happen at a much later date, but you forced my hoof. If only, if only you had bothered to check the radio this morning before setting out. Time for Plan B then, taking a blank mold and shaping it just right to fit my needs. Sometimes I don't even know why I bother making plans, teaching people what I know." She reasoned, "It's much more enjoyable endowing enemies with the hope of survival, then ripping it away from them again and again until they turn the tools of life on themselves and end it."

"You're a psychopath."

"Oh! I'm FAR from perfect, Paladin. I realized that a LONG time ago. I wake up every day with a smile and renewed purpose to bring the Brotherhood to its knees like you are now. I could do it the hard way, negotiating, playing nice, talking with humans to get what I want, but watching you squirm and beg is much easier and less grating on my eardrums and nerves. All while you and your scientists breed and blend together all DNA in the world to create stronger ponies, gryphons, kirin, piggybacking off Enclaves captivating work, and leave the abominations burned to cinders in the grow tanks along with all the deathclaws the Brotherhood grows in captivity. I will put you in your place and slap a label on you. For Sale. CHEAP."

"I'm not- part of that."

"Oh but you are, you've got the sword and steel gears tattooed on your body, you've marked yourself, I see no difference between you and every other Sword swinger that tries to come down with a righteousness and cleanse this land. You don't want peace. You want guns. You want bombs, you want the synths and the technology the Institute's been crafting for centuries, and just so you know, I know the Brotherhood wants to get the Fat Man mini-nuke production line in Fort Strong here in Boston as well."

Athena produced a list, the secondary goals and trirtiary goals of all the valuable targets the Brotherhood Scout Force was meant to assess and locate items of interest. "You don't want to get along an play nice with others, so save your breath instead of lying to me. No other tone of pitch or voice is more annoying and infuriating to me than a person who says 'Cannae we all ge' along?'... No...That ends now, Paladin. Mark my words, the day I get my hooves on your leader, I will lash him to a breeding mount, and run a ten-mile-long train of stallions on him as the remnants are forced to watch."

Forcing Danse around like a giant doll, he could only resist so much before his legs bent and balance came undone. He was forced to move or fall over.

"Know this, you killing yourself is the only way out of this...which is why I'm going to give you that hope of surviving again and again, starting now."

Danse felt catapulted through the air as his body was ripped through space, upwards four floors to the Broadcast control room of Trinity Tower. The sonic boom snapped through the air, dumping the Paladin on the 30th floor.

\111/

Being forced ahead, Danse stumbled forward down a hallway to a small room not much bigger than a garage, but there were windows into all the offices. To his right, a human he had never seen before, sitting in a broadcasting booth with large headphones over and a disinterested melancholy expression. He wouldn't even look towards Danse, while opposite to his right, was a Super Mutant staring with a burning intensity directly at Paladin Danse.

Strong raised his fist and set it against the glass.

Ahead of him was the Windigo Mona, and to her left was Fist. Super Mutant leader over the whole Commonwealth.

"And with this, Fist's time is done," Mona said.

Even as Fist turned his head to look up at Mona, pain shot through his chest and stomach. Ice spread through his veins, blood instantly chilled. Before Fist could even react, he was frozen to the spot.

"We could've used this opportunity to have all the mutants united under a single face, but as I said, I make plans for sunny days, and Chaos rains?" She said to Danse, "Mona, you should know this path only leads to super mutant genocide without a face for them to unite under."

"Good. The lack of engagement in the super mutant's pre-frontal cortex will lead them to be perpetually landed in uncertainty and fear. The longer they stay confused and frightful, the less active their brains will be, making learning skills and higher level thinking an impossibility. The only lessons the super mutants of the Commonwealth will come to learn is that any who dare rise up or show promise of intelligence get hedged. Any who fall too low, get plucked. Keeping them in those bounds are acceptable for me. It doesn't matter to me if the creatures of this planet wipe another species from existence, they've already been successful with so many in the past already. Even now humans are turning their unfounded fears towards magic and powers beyond their understanding...they'll come for you too, Athena. Just as they are coming for me. Their fear will one day become so irrational that they lash out, not caring who they strike. The bombs of the Great War created so much fear that it capped people's ability to grow and think rationally and critically, and only now generations later are creature's brains slowly filtering out the toxic fear.

Athena produced one sledgehammer, floating it out infront of her as she forced Danse ahead and off to one side of the office space while she swung the sledgehammer at Fist.

The ice crystal mutant shattered, crumbling into a bloody melted slush and cracked body parts.

"Do you know who this is?" Athena asked, pointing to Strong, using the sledgehammer to direct Danse' attention, he shook his head.

"No." He said, unsure of and looking down and away.

"Are you sure? Look again." Athena said forcefully, getting Danse to twist his head back up and observe the Super Mutant. She shoved the sledgehammer into Danse' hands, forcing him to take it.

Paladin Danse looked at the Super Mutant's features, his eyes, meeting them, looking at the angle of the nose, the color of his eyes, the eye sockets, the ears, lips, trying to pick out what exact detail Athena was trying to get him to see.

"I don't see it," He said.

Athena unlocked the office door with her magic, "Strong, my promise to you. Yourself. Paladin Danse; Meet Your Stronger Self. As Promised, the only way this will end for you Danse, is by you killing yourself."

\111/

Paladin Danse' heart sunk down and raced in his chest at Athena's implication.

As Strong emerges into the office space, the realization doesn't come willingly, his mind fights the connection, rejects it. Danse shakes his head and tries to say no to it, but he can't retreat.

Resting against the doorframe was a second sledgehammer. Knowingly grabbing it as he keeps his eyes locked on Paladin Danse the entire time, Strong raises the sledgehammer with one arm, completely level and pointing the head at Paladin Danse, he held it there to show his strength.

"The Ego of Danse is split, fractured. We are both, but cannot exist coinciding in nature, as water is to fire. The bonds of one must be broken down to consume the other, become one and grow from the corpse ashes of the other. If I win, I regain my sanity and my human kindness, my human face. An abomination that replaced me and took away all that I am. I am the human Danse, turned mutant, you are the synthetic son of the Institute. Well Old Man, I will tell you news of your son...Give me your blessing: Truth will come to light; Murder Cannot be hid long; a man's son may, but at the length Truth Will Out."

"When you die, Mona will grant me your form, our memories, and my life back. I am you, you are me, and Danse can't exist without both synth and mutant claiming they are human. If this is the life I must live, then so be it. If this is my purpose, so be it. If my will to live is all that remains after one of us is dead...then that is the truth of what is to come. I am Danse and you an imposter!" Strong raised his hammer ready to strike.

\111/

Mona turned her head down to Danse,

"The question remains. Who is superior? Not the human, that's for certain, otherwise you wouldn't be in this conflict I've manufactured. Between the two, a synth human, facing their mutant counterpart. Who would win? Who is Stronger?"

"I'm not a synth!"

"You are most definitely a synth, Paladin, and I'll prove it."

Mona's magic gripped hold of Paladin Danse, his power armor, unraveling it like a spool of thread being yanked off the spindle. Danse couldn't move, he couldn't feel pain or sensation as his body was pooled apart, clothes around his arms, then skin, muscle, and finally the machine skeleton supporting his frame. Mona went further, spreading his chest cavity apart, his head, his skull, eyes, lips, tongue, brain, showing the synth components within. He saw his own beating heart.

"While expanding the depth of human knowledge is an amusing past time, endowing creatures with intelligence and then ripping it away is far more entertaining. Across all the time I've been alive, I see that all my power, and all of my greatest enemies come about due to a battle of wills...An entirely uncontrollable element no matter the programming nor brainwashing, influence, or propaganda, religion or creed, faith nor curse can compare to an indominatable individuals will to live and survive. A brainless bastard with the stronger will to live is my greatest enemy one that bullets cannot pierce, sun cannot burn, ice cannot freeze, a will to survive is another person's greater will to be whole. This is why I'm giving both of you a gift, a chance, an opportunity to prove your will is greater than your own desire to die..."

"Oh my God," The words fell from Danse' mouth, being put back together and feeling removed from his body entirely.

"Vanta Bega, " Athena said.

"What does that mean? I don't understand..." Paladin Danse asked, trying to think of the translation.

"It means, Fuck Your God," Athena replied.

The horrifying reality choked Paladin Danse, a scream that wanted to strangle his voice box and shout away the world around him. As tears filled his eyes, reality burning neurons into his brain, his life was flashing before his eyes as memories jerked his head left and right. Shaking violently, he struggled to remember when or how he could've been abducted without realizing, or any of his team coming to the same conclusion that their captain was a synth waging war against the creator of synths.

\111/

Strong looked at his counterpart with a mix of anger and pity, that he was robbed of months...years of his life because of the Institute capturing his human self, and creating the two outcomes. Splitting him apart, he returned to the Commonwealth without incident and as mindless as the others, the only one who could read into him and see the DNA down to the bonds holding him together was Mona.

It took weeks for him to relearn how to think and speak again, being filled with knowledge from the only other human in the entire tower, kidnapped by Fist to operate and maintain the controls and equipment inside Trinity Tower, Rex Goodman.

The man wasn't looking so well after spending months in Mona's presence, hounded by Fist, and threatened with death on a daily basis, difficult to think about tomorrow, and only on doing enough to not get yelled at.

Talking with Strong was his only reprieve, the one voice among thousands that wasn't hurtful, that wanted to learn and grow. As Strong relearned how to live and accept the lack of memories that made him Danse, it became painful the more he learned that he was once a human, and that this was how he now appeared to the rest of the world.

Strong hated it, hated how he looked, how other Super Mutants treated him for learning and growing smarter, it was a burden to suddenly have to defend Rex Goodman and have no other mutants around treating him like he was part of their own kind. This hate he had for the Institute for creating thousands of mutants, turned the fear of being the victim; Of being attacked, into rage that all he wanted to do now was strike back.

Memories were hard to retrace, but Mona, and Athena both guided his anger towards elevating himself to a position where he could undo the damage done against him. All it took, was his counterpart. With Mona's special ability to weave, the Windigo enjoyed the passionate rage Strong felt, the burning desire for revenge against the Institute, and Athena quietly enjoyed turning a Brotherhood Mutant against a Brotherhood Synth, created from the same person.

Rex Goodman thought that was the true Greek Tradgedy. A man turned into a monster, while his doppleganger went on living his normal life, and the promise from a monster to return him back to his former self if he slayed the clone.

With months passing, and Rex's own thoughts of survival turning to 'this is what life is,' and with Strong's growing passion guided by Mona, he and Strong became disconnected from each other, distant in conversation, and he felt that whatever connection he formed, was largely overshadowed by the Windigo feeding Strong a false ambition, a goal that he was certain neither Mona nor Athena would ever let him reach.

Learning who Strong truly was, and seeing the proof of it, how he and every Super Mutant was once human, changed into monsters, made Strong's blood boil with anger. Not at humans, as so many unempathetic mutants laid their blame on, but at the Institute and all its creations. Good, bad, advances in technology, it mattered little to the Super Mutant, only that he was denied what was his, and robbed of his identity, and expected not to react. The ostracization, the expediency that Fist held over brutalizing anyone he saw fit only added to the rage Strong held in check.

\111/

Paladin Danse was boxed in, hands gripping tightly, his palms were sweating and slid along the grip of the sledgehammer thrust into his hands by Athena.

There was no getting hit, as Strong charged at Danse with a wide overhead swing that came down, Danse dodge and ran to his right. The sledgehammer pounded down into the floor, dislodging and impacting the wood flooring, creating a hole in the ground. Strong swung again, Danse's whole body jerked backwards like he was electrically shocked. With no armor, just a underlining garb with shirt and pants, the 30th floor air blowing through and Mona's chilling presence made the whole building feel like it was a ice box. Breaths were coming out in hot steam, his jaw was shaking, teeth clattering, he had to clench his jaw shut keep from thinking about it.

Strong swung at Danse' arms, trying to get the Paladin to drop his sledgehammer. Stepping back, Danse touched the office wall, and felt his left arm get clipped by the edge of the hammer's head, slamming into his bicep and making him cry out as he recoiled and jumped away.

It'd been far too long since Danse fought a Super Mutant in one on one combat like this, without protection, without his power armor, and almost always it had been settled with him wielding a gun.

With Strong's height advantage, muscles, and speed to cross the office space on in only a few paces, there wasn't much room for Danse to run to for long. His mind snapped back into the present, thoughts clicking into place and suddenly heart pounding so hard he could feel the veins in his arms coursing and shaking as he stumbled over rubble on the office floor, he turned and swung his sledgehammer down low and struck the top of Strong's left foot.

The force of the blow smashed the bones, fracturing them instantly. Where the bigger they are, the harder they fell, Danse applied that saving bit of knowledge to go for the supports keeping Strong moving. The recourse for getting so close, and for Strong to completely ignore the pain and deny that his foot was broken, he swung hard at Danse's side.

Danse nearly dropped his sledgehammer, feeling it slip from his grasp as he shoved his whole body up into the air, feeling the sledgehammer connect with his lower ribs and side. The blow knocked the breath from him, he let go with his left hand, but dragged the hammer along with his right as he skipped to the other side of the office ring he was pinned in. "ARGAAH!" He screamed, moaning as he escaped Strong's range.

Standing on the balls of his feet, hips swinging back and forth, he watched as Strong came at him again, limping along, ignoring the pain in his foot. Ready to jump either way, "I want my life back!" Strong yelled at Danse.

Swinging across chest level, Danse rose his sledgehammer and deflected it agaist the crossbar, his whole body lurching backwards as the momentum rocked both of his arms. Slamming the sledgehammer down on Strong's other foot, it wasn't enough to cripple it, but it did make him shriek out in pain.

"You FUCKING SYNTH!" Strong yelled.

Danse was too close, Strong brought his hammer down as Danse tried getting away, connecting with his back and shouler. Danse cried out, tripping and rolling down to the ground. It felt like his lungs were going to pop from that blow against his back, scrambling to get to his feet and face Strong again, he shakily felt his whole left arm going numb then intensely hot needles pricking along his spine and neck,

Danse gripped the end of the sledgehammer's stock, swinging it once around then twice to build up speed he flung it at Strong's head. The instincts to block his face were too strong, Danse charged at Strong as he brought up his hands and tried to protect his face. Knocking into him, right shoulder down, slamming his whole body weight into Strong the mutant fell backwards and lost grip on his own hammer. Danse was already on it, claiming the weapon for himself as Strong rolled to his side and stood up, yelling in pain as the bones in his fractured left foot shot wires of pain up through his nervous system. Danse brought the sledgehammer down on Strong's right ankle this time, dislocating it and smashing the foot apart.

The anger and denial was too great, Strong wrapped one fist around Danse leg and pulled him in close, flipping him onto his back as the mutant yanked at him. Danse was suddenly held in Strong's arms as the mutant tried to pull him into a headlock, suffocate him, twisting at his neck, he tilted his head down and bit at Strong's fingers.

Strong bashed the back of Danse' head, reaching around with his free right arm, he punched at Danse' face, his ears, his cheeks, bloodying Danse nose and lip. Biting into the thumb, Strong headbutted Danse from behind. Danse bit harder, severing the mutant's thumb and finally getting Strong to let go from the pain.

Shoving himself away, Danse rolled up onto his feet as Strong used the walls to climb back onto his own broken stubs. The anger was far too great for him to acknowledge the broken bones as he lunged at Danse again.

His gait was thrown off, wincing in pain with every step, Danse could track his movements and keep back. Both sledgehammers were laying on the ground, behind or next to Strong.

Eyeing them, the mutant saw this and kept his ground, keeping Danse away from the hammers, but found it incredibly difficult to bend down and grab one himself.

Keeping an eye on Danse, the Paladin looked around the office space for anything he else he could use. Broken ceiling tiles, shattered desks, bits of glass, bent chairs, Strong grabbed a sledgehammer off the ground, taking to one knee as he did so. Danse's eyes combed the whole room, meeting the spectator's gaze for only a moment.

Mona and Athena were both silently observing, Athena seemed pleased at the gladiators dueling for their lives. Rex Goodman and Danse eyes met for only a moment, but with his pupils leading the way, Rex looked down at a jagged piece of aisle runner laying on the ground.

Danse picked it up, feeling how flimsy and rotten it was, knowing this would only be a feint, he heaved it at Strong who swatted it out of the air, missing his balance, he stepped out too far and fell to his knees again, unable to stand up right. Danse blew past Strong as he tried to trip him, stumbling for the other sledgehammer as Strong swung, connecting with Danse' right femur.

"Auugh!" The deep welling impact bruised the bone, paralyizing his right leg as he took one more step on his left leg then threw himself towards the sledgehammer.

Falling to the ground, Danse wrapped his fingers around the sledgehammer again as Strong grabbed ahold of his legs and clawed at him, dragging Danse back towards him.

Danse was on his back, with Strong at his feet, from his laying position, the sledgehammer was at his head, swinging it up in and arc then down at Strong's head, it connected with the back of Strong's skull, bashing the bone in with a bloody snap.

Strong's head only dipped down for a second then back into Danse eyes with a furious bloody stare, "BWAGHHH!!" Strong bellowed, on top of Danse he pummeled Danse in the chest, the ribs, slaming his fists down into Danse' body.

Curling up, Danse could barely breath as he force his legs between him and Strong's fist, kneeing Strong in the crotch, he pushed upwards with his legs, pressing the mutant up and away as Strong gripped at Danse' hair,

Pulling at the roots, it pained Danse as he felt his scalp being torn off, fingers driving into his skull. "Get...OFF!" Danse kicked, punching at Strong's face it did nothing. The mutant fell on top of him, pressing his full weight down on Danse, so he reached up behind the mutant's skull and felt the bleeding skull and pressed his fingers down against the skull cap into the brain.

Strong screamed again into Danse face. Danse was terrified, his fingers were getting cut on the bone as he curled his fingers in and pressed deeper, wrapping around an edge he pressed and gripped the back of Strong's skull and yanked he mutant's skull apart. The blinding pain was too much as Strong roared, hands going to his head and skull, rolling off and thrashing against the ground.

Danse felt the cold air fill his lungs again as he pushed off the ground and to the sledgehammer, turning around he brought it down on Strong's chest. Then again on Strong's head.

Then again impacting the face entirely, and a final time to crush the skull completely as the brains and blood splattered across the floor and back at Danse.

Danse dropped the sledgehammer immediately as his whole body suddenly felt ice-cold, shivering and unable to stand like he was dipped in liquid nitrogen, he couldn't stop shaking and frozen to the spot. He couldn't feel any warmth anywhere in his body, rubbing his arms, curling up into a ball he gasped and moaned. "Fucking Hell, what did you do to me!?"

All the pain crashing into him at once, the shock and adrenalin keeping the worst at bay, he could only see blankets of spots and haze fill his vision as colors mismatched and faded into grey.

He was so cold it was painful, gasping like he was dying there on the floor.

"Aghh...ah....agh....ahh...gahh..." His neck was sore and purple with bruises, swollen from Strong trying to suffocate him, along with Athena before that, that was the first place he felt any sort of circulation and blood. His hands went to his throat, massaging and gripping his pained esophagus, he let himself sink down and close his eyes to the world around him as he fought all the negative thoughts threatening to make his own brain split open.

Fighting for that first swallow was like choking down a gallon of sand, his throat was so scratchy and sore it pained him to regain control of his breath.

Blood poured from his nose, and trying to clear his nostrils only left a bloody iron taste in his mouth. Spitting, and then wiping his face off, he couldn't stand and felt the rising need to get back on his feet, but a voice told him to stay down.

"To the Victor, go the Spoils," Mona said. All around Danse, the mutant Strong and Danse slowly unraveled,

"No... Please no..." Undoing Danse, stretching him out into fine threads, she took pieces of Strong, removed parts of Danse, and put him back together as she saw fit.

He lost sight of himself and reality for a few moments, coming back together as cold air filled his lungs, his right arm went to his heart, beating in his chest. He still was beaten, but couldn't figure out what Mona just did to him.

"Rex, take care of him."

The silent DJ emerged from his booth, carrying a stimpak and asking Danse where it hurt the most first.

"Everywhere..." Danse choked out, but his hands kept going back to his swollen throat, and from where Rex observed, the whole neck area was the first place to receive a stimpak.

The pain was etherial, everywhere and coming in waves, it hurt, and then it didn't as Danse tried to shift his body into a position that didn't aggravate the rest of his injuries.

He laid there for five minutes, rolling to his side, he felt a second syringe of stims enter his shoulder blades, easing the pain in his back and chest. He suddenly felt a warm breath of air deep within his lungs as he breathed deeply.

Finally able to stop shivering, he laid there until he was able to look up.

\111/

"Excellent work, Athena. All the mutants I requested to be slain are now dead. Congratulations, Paladin Danse. You are endowed with purpose."

"Pur-pose?!" He spat, "What purpose?"

"Look there, on the horizon. Your Oblivion. Here they come, the next group to be endowed." Mona said, her eyes were out on the Western Horizon. Out beyond the walls of Trinity Tower, Danse yelled as he sat upright, working himself up to be able to take in his surroundings again.

"Please, it's just shock," Athena said dismissively. "But it will be interesting to see what happens when the Brotherhood discovers you're a synth. Why...I believe they would treat you... just as you treated your other self here. Bashed in and bloody, without remorse, all in the name of survival and safety. You better hope they don't get wind of what's happened here today...otherwise... like cigarettes, they'll shorten your life in a puff of smoke, dragging you along the whole time."

Paladin Danse didn't want to turn his attention away from his enemy, thinking that it was a ruse, but Mona and Athena turned their backs to him, moving past and gesturing to the West.

Over the hills, far away they could see the silver reflecting sheen of a massive metal air dirigible floating over the highlands towards Boston.

The Brotherhood of Steel was arriving in the Commonwealth, Danse realized, but he looked back towards Rex Goodman and the Broadcasting equipment, Athena looked up at Danse and smiled.

"Here I thought you would've known by now, the Brotherhood got wind of a dead Windigo four days ago, and ten hours ago the Emergency Broadcast beacon was shut off remotely from the Governors office in the Massachusetts State House. If you had bothered to check before coming on your little campaign of righteousness, you would've realized that coming to Trinity Tower was moot, and your friends lives would've been spared. Or do you truly believe that there would've been a better outcome against an enemy you know nothing about?"

"What do you want?" Danse spat, understanding how Athena worked and talked, she was metaphorically twisting the knife, enjoying every second of this.

"Give me Sola and Firelance, and I'll leave you to die in peace."

"They're not part of the Brotherhood of Steel anymore, they don't answer to us."

"I know, but the screams and warmth of the Brotherhood of Steel going down in flames will draw them here, same as the cries of a recon squad lost their way...that's all you need to do, Paladin. Bitching and moaning for help; Just keep doing what you've been doing ever since you arrive in the Commonwealth, and they will come."

"Fuck you," Danse said, "You've been planning this. You knew we would come,"

"I knew the Brotherhood would come again once they lost all forms of communication with Recon Squad Artimis three years ago, that's why I sent raiders after them. Separate them and beak their spirit. I felt it was just a matter of time...all I had to do was be patient. And I am nothing, if not patient. I learned my lesson, have you learned yours? Just remember, Danse. Ten. Miles. Long." Without breaking eye contact with Paladin Danse, she spoke again, "Rex, you're free to go. You're done here. Show the synth the way out."

Rex nodded solemnly, reaching down to the floor, he picked up a piece of Strong's skull, the eye socket, with still the eye vein wobbling and sticking out, he carried the piece of with him. Looking at the bulging eyeball fondly, he ignored Danse's stare.

\111/

"Fucking instigator..." Danse said, unable to shake his thoughts from focusing on Athena.

Stepping across the lobby foyer, Danse couldn't hear any noise except for the quiet breathing of Rex guiding him to the front door. Paladin Brandis was nowhere to be found, yet the super mutants seemed to have all vanished as well. Far above, Mona reveled in the power she held, turning minds and swaying opinions and emotions. Spreading fear, not even the mutants wanted to approach any more after witnessing the Brotherhood blow out their stronghold.

Brandis' survivor instincts kicked in as he felt an evil foreign presence weigh down on him like a wet blanket. Something terrible happened up above, and he hadn't seen or heard any trace of Paladin Danse since the mutants pulled back completely. His own throat kept closing up, like some chilling ghost was trying to strangle him where he stood. It was too much, too powerful of an influence that after hearing the elevator crash, Mona was playing on his fear and apprehension, even from far away. Brandis was only waiting as long as he could, weary for any signs of life. He looked to the open roads and clear shot all the way to Diamond City and took his opportunity to run.

Taking the Fat Man with him, it was a reassuring weight on his shoulders to know he could demolish half a city block and anything else in the direction the launcher was aimed at.

By the time Rex and Paladin Danse made it to the ground floor, the whole Back Bay was quieter than a cemetery.

"Paladin," Rex Goodman said, turning to face Danse, he extended his arm for a handshake and cracked a genuine smile, "Good luck out there."

"Where are you going?"

"Home. And no one is going to stop me." Holding up the eye socket, letting it catch the light reflecting off the buildings, Rex walked off without a weapon, smiling and chin up towards the sky. As Rex Goodman walked off, he started speaking out loud to himself, leaving Danse standing there in Trinity Plaza all alone. Danse was about to call after him, and ask him one last thing, but Rex was standing tall, shoulders back, head up he looked twice size the man he was only moments ago.

Every step he took away from Trinity Tower, Rex Goodman seemed to grow taller and taller, louder and louder with every footstep like a giant lumbering through the streets. Holding up the eye socket and staring into the eye of Strong,

Rex shouted, "Alas! Poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: A fellow of infinite jest!
Of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rims at it.
Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your
gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
now, to mock your own grinning? Quite chap-fallen?..."

Walking off as he orated Shakespear, Rex Goodman's voice resonated as loud as a booming megaphone, off the buildings and echoing through the silent city, the man was unstoppable and walking with such confidence and demeanor that no horrid sight or threat impeded his stride. Devoid of fear, unfraid of death, any super mutants or creatures hearing Rex Goodman quote Hamlet thought that this human was crazy, insane, and needed to be avoided at all cost.

As Rex passed the trio Nate, Deacon, and Hancock all pulled their heads back in amazement at the man walking through Back Bay with an inferno in his chest, a hidden storm cloud booming out thunderous words that rattled windowpanes and threatened to topple skyscrapers, he walked on unimpeded. Most creatures spotting Rex holding Strong's eyesocket thought he was holding a grenade, or some other explosive device in his hands, and were afraid to get near the DJ.

The empty streets were as nearly threatening as loud bustling roads were, as the Trio wearing power armor spotted Paladin Danse, seeing that he was rattled, and worse for wear, Nate was the first to recognize him without the power-armor on.

Nate thought about the man walking past them, but Rex was in his own world, and couldn't be slowed down or persuaded otherwise.

"Oh, well...Danse!" Nate shouted, calling out to him.

"Nate, this guy is kind-of ix-nay on the houl-gay." Hancock said.

"...And the Ailroad-ray," Deacon said, trying to tack on a last word.

"Nah, I've seen that look before. Let me talk to him," Nate said, brushing off Deacon and Hancock's worries.

"What...? Nate...?" This was the first time Paladin Danse saw Nate, his eyes lingered on the deathclaw arm, but then back to focus. "What are you doing here?"

"Never mind that, me and the boys are on our way to the pub. Interested?"

Danse shook his head, "Nate...I really don't drink..." Looking up to the sun and then back down, "And it's too early anyways."

"Nonsense, it's never too early in the day to be an alcoholic, and it's never too late in life to become one. Come on, first rounds are on me."

"I just lost my whole team, I'm really not in the mood right now."

"We'll pour one out for your friends and comrads. How 'bout it?"

"I really don't feel like talking to anyone right now. Thanks for your support anyways," Before Danse could turn away, Nate got his attention.

A loud buzzing cut through the air, faintly at first, but as the group walked along, Diamond City in sight, the roar of engines was plain to hear as Nate turned his head towards the sky looking for the source of the noise.

Spotting the entire air derigable and ship flying over Fenway Park, Vertibirds were breaking off from the main ship, over a dozen flying in a wall-formation, Nate was impressed with the sight of the blimp, but his elation wore off quickly as he heard loud-speakers broadcast a message across Boston as it descended.

"People of the Commonwealth! Do Not Interfere! Our intentions are peaceful! We are the Brotherhood of Steel."

"Well Hoo...oly Shit," Nate said bittertly, a sentiment that all four of them shared, regardless of them being vocal about it or not. "I don't like the sound of that." Watching Danse' reaction, he studied his face, instead of elation that his calvary had arrived, the expression was more apt with someone who just lost everything, and that he wouldn't be able to face the consequences without a proper drink to steady his nerves first.

"Danse, you're wrong. I'm not here to offer you my support, or sympathies. I'm here to offer the opposite of that. Anti-support. I'm telling you to make a bad decision and come drink with us. No talking, just quiet rumination. If you want support, go find your Brotherhood buddies. I'm offering you escapism to distract from all the terrible shit happening around us. Now, do I need to invite you along formally? Danse, please come with us."

Danse tittered, nodding slowly then more agreeably, "Fine, yes. I'll join you."

"They won't let me into Diamond City," Hancock said,

"Ignore them. You're with me, we're going in."

"I really don't feel all that comfortable traveling with a ghoul..." Danse said,

"And?" Nate asked. "I want you to take all the thoughts...and all the words you're thinking about saying...and stuff it down with some brown. Let all that marinade for a few hours. Then, once we have that send off for your team, tell me how you really feel."

"Brown what?"

"Whiskey, Bourbon, Brandy, Whisky with or without the E, or XO Rum, or Anejo Tequila. We'll figure out what your poison is when we get there...Until then, how 'bout them Chiefs? We were on our way to take care of Fist who's supposed to be the head honcho of the mutants here in the Commonwealth...based out of Trinity Tower..." Nate said, seeing barely any response or indication he was getting through to Danse, he tilted his head back and up to look at the outside of the tower, seeing that it was fractured and split. "A Unicorn named Athena had me running around, saying she was going to kill me unless I did her dirty wet-work."

That seemed to snap Danse out of his stupor as a dark grim look of resentment and hurt-anger flushed behind his cheeks and eyes. "Tell me what you know about Athena," Danse said. Nate grinned, turning back to nod at Deacon and Hancock.

"Looks like we got another man for the table," Nate said, "You ever play the card game 10's?"

Danse shook his head, "No...can't say that I have."

"It's easy, I'll show you how to play once we get to the Taphouse. When we get there...it'll be a quick drink and power-lunch, and then back on the road, Boys. Looks like we're back on the clock." Nate looked up to the passing tail of the blimp as it kept sailing towards East Boston and the Boston Airport, the most suitable landing strip for the ship to land and dock.

Nate extended both arms out, wrapping them around Deacon on his right, Danse on his left, the Paladin's eyes went wide at seeing the massive Deathclaw hand resting on his shoulder. Nate gripped them both in a side-hug embrace, then patted them on the back, "Exciting stuff, huh?" Flicking two fingers up towards the passing vertibirds, he sensed their immense discomfort, but Nate only stood up straighter and spoke deeply, letting them go as he took the lead with great strides. Pointing to the top of the Prydwin Blimp, Nate spoke, "Thar She Blows, Boys...! Thar She Blows... it be Moby Dick!"

\111/

Ch. 95 Shadow of Steel

Author's Note

"Just about everyone here saw the Brotherhood Blimp that arrived, and heard their messages too. Nothing say's 'We come in Peace', Like a dozen vertibirds, 100 suits of power armor, and a thousand laser cannons, all pointed down at the Commonwealth. We'll keep you up to date on the developing story here, but as I'm sure you'll figure out like I did, we'll all probably hear it, before we see it come over the desk here at Diamond City Radio.

"I hear you knockin'..." Up next.

Ch. 95 Shadow of Steel

When Nate ushered the group into the bar, Paul Pembroke recognized his boss and asked if there was anything he could do. "Lock the door, it's a private Party, Paul. We're closed." Doling out whatever expensive things he could trade, and bottlecaps, He added, "Go grab four porterhouse steaks from Polly's down there, bring 'em up. I need them medium-rare. Where's the grill? Fire it up." Paul grabbed the order and took off, eyeing the intimidating looking crowd as Nate rearranged a few tables by the bar, Hancock stepped out of his power armor, and Deacon helped move some chairs.

"Danse, grab a seat," Nate said, plucking two decks of cards from behind the bar, along with a bottle of dark colored Tequila. The label was worn off, but the glass still had the emboldened letters '100% Agave Azule Tequila' printed on the collar of the bottle.

The paladin sunk down into his seat, facing the door, with his back to the bar.

Pouring seven shot glasses, and brining them over to the table. "First thing's first." Nate said, setting them down.

Holding one up, "To those who can't join us here today, to those we all miss dearly, and to everyone who we wish could be here today. Here, here."

"Here, here." Hancock and Deacon both said, grabbing their own.

Danse was biting the inside of his cheek, slowly reaching out to grab it, but his stomach clenched up and felt sore. Fingers stopping just inches away from the shot glass, curling up as he retracted his hand.

"You don't have to drink it. Just hold it."

That seemed to help as Danse grabbed the drink and sniffed the air.

"Cheers, Gentlemen."

As they all downed their drinks, Danse was the only one who abstained, left staring at the other three on the table.

He felt Deacon's hand patting him on the back, Nate sat across from Danse, Hancock to his left, Deacon to the right.

Nate for the first time tried shuffling the cards with his large hand, and regular fingers, managing to get one break in before he had to use his regular hand to regroup the playing cards and straighten them.

Spreading them all across the table, mixing them up he instructed, "Everyone, grab 4 cards, face down. No looking at them, then take four more cards and place them face up on top of them. Then, draw eleven cards for your hand."

"Nate- I'm only really here to talk about Athena."

"And I'm only here to play cards and have lunch. She's not going away any time soon. We'll get to her after we play a round. The game is 10's, Gentlemen. Object of the game is to get rid of all your cards. We each take a turn laying down cards into a center pile, starting to the right of the dealer. Kings are High, Aces Low, 10's clear the pile. You can lay as many of the same type of card at once, and you're trying to get rid of them the fastest. So, Deacon do you have any kings? Once you play a card, the next person in line can't play a card with a value higher than the one you placed.

"I've got two kings."

"Put them down, Danse, you can play any kings, or lower. Four of a kind clears the pile and you get to go again. That means if you have two kinds, you clear the pile and can then play a Queen, Jack, or anything lower. If you only have 1 king, then Hancock plays 1 king, The pile is cleared and Hancock gets to go again, You've got one king face up, so do you have any in your hand as well?"

Danse organized his cards, shaking his head, "No," Playing the face up card,

"Three kings," Nate says. "Hancock?"

"Nope."

"Then go lower, Queens, Jacks, 9s, 8s,"

"Three Jacks."

"Alright, so I can't play Queens or Kings now that Hancock laid down three jacks. I have one jack. That makes four of a kind, that clears the pile. I get to go again. You win by getting rid of all your cards. Losers count up the face value of their cards, and lowest scores win. Kings, Queens, Jacks are worth 10, 10s are worth 20 once the game is over, so it's imperative that you get rid of your 10s when you start seeing other people get down to their final cards. When we keep score, and we play a few rounds, it adds up. When we get down to it, and you're still holding onto a high card, you can make it difficult or easier for next person by playing a really low card. Typically you want to hold onto Aces, twos, for later in the game. I'm laying down my King now. Deacon?

"Two Queens."

"Queens to you, Danse."

"A ten?"

"Hold onto that, that'll clear the pile. If you can't play a card equal to or lower than the one face up, then you have to play a card, and pick up the rest of the pile. That card remains face up on the table, while you pick up the rest. You don't get to go again after that."

\111/

Paul returned with the steaks, moving into the kitchen in the back to throw down the meat on the grill.

Going around the table, when they played their hands, "When it comes to the face down cards, you don't get to look at them. Once you flip them, you must play them regardless of what's already on the pile. No take-backs or oopsie-daisys. You pick them, you play them. That's the challenge. You don't know if you've got a face down King, or 8, or 2, which is why the best strategy is to clear the face up cards first. You can't play face down cards until you've played the face up cards. Getting the ones off the table can help you focus on the cards in your hand, and play to have 4 or 5 of a kinds, I've even gotten 7 and 8s of a kind, and then once the pile is cleared, played a face-down card to eliminate the risk of having to pick up the whole pile."

"Gotcha..." Hancock said. "You know, I think I played a game like this a long time ago...man it's been years since I been in here. Can I get another shot?"

"Help yourself. Bar's right there. Go after your turn though."

Danse remained silent for a few more rounds until he made a pained whine noise in his chest, it was quiet, like trying to clear his throat, but Deacon and Nate both heard it.

"So, Danse. Did you finally learn you were a synth?"

Hancock and Deacon both looked to Nate, seeing how his approach to letting the anecdotal 'Cat out of the bag', by dumping the whole sack upside down and shaking things out.

Danse quickly set his cards down, "What the hell do you know about that?" Seeing his shoulders rise up, Nate could see the amount of discomfort it brought Danse.

"Danse, this is the first time we've actually met face to face. You met Meathead before, twice now. Meathead can tell in an instant who's synth. Who's human, who's real, who's fake. Who's telling the truth, who's lying. He is the key to the Institute's downfall," Nate said, leaning in, "And he likes you. You're a good traveling acquaintance." Nate sat back, sipping from the shot glass as he held up two fingers to Danse.

Danse pushed himself away from the table, wiping his eye then asking, "What? Why didn't you tell me this before? Who the hell is Meathead?"

"His dog..." Hancock said, "His shapeshifting, face-swapping, perfect lookalike changing dog."

"A changeling." Nate added.

"Why are you telling me this now?"

"Because I've been busy. Working my ass off, or in case you didn't notice. I got my fucking arm ripped off. Killing Windigos are a bitch and a half. The one down in the Glowing Sea got me good, and now Mona and Athena are fucking me over a barrel, Danse. Look at this. They fucked you and your crew too. I couldn't tell you what Mona wants, I have no idea what she is after. How she moves or operates. All I know is that she has some sort of leverage over the angry-unicorn working for her. Athena on the other hand, she's mad at everything around her. She wants to end slavery, killing Sola and Firelance is a pit-stop along the way in her mind."

"What's she want with them?"

"Because, the story I was told, was that Sola and Firelance are responsible for the Brotherhood's expansion and takeover of Pittsburg. She also mentioned she put molten-hot chains around a guy's neck by the name of Werner,"

"Crimony, this is her? This is the same unicorn that's been dogging the Brotherhood for over a decade...Shit."

"This hand. Mona put it on me to have leverage over me now. Proxy-through Athena, I have to find Sola and Firelance before she does. The only way I can see myself getting out of this magical bullshit Mona cast on me, and whatever hold she has over Athena, is by getting to Sola and Firelance first. Firelance is supposed to be an Alicorn. I know that Alicorns and Windigos get along like sandpaper and tar, so as I see it...Athena wants to kill Firelance. Firelance is probably the only thing on this planet right now that could break or undo, or hold off any type of kill-switch Mona's placed on me. If I go against her. I'm dead. That's why I've been hunting down super mutant leaders these last two days. The Brotherhood arriving...that's no accident. Mona and Athena have been planning to draw them here for a long time."

"At least seven years Athena's been setting the stage, prepping the field for you guys to come floating in like that. This isn't going to end well for anyone until we deal with both of them." Deacon said.

"She has a list of Brotherhood targets too, everything that seems valuable, or the Brotherhood wants to pick over, I'd strongly recommend against sending whole teams into claiming without expecting a big fucking trap laid out."

"Unfortunately, that's not how the Brotherhood operates." Danse said, "Our way of doing things involves going in loud, and wiping the field clean before neutralizing all other threats."

"Danse, I need you to tell me everything you know about those two. Anything. Mona and Athena are putting the screws to me to keep my promise and help them kill these two when they show up, but as you can see; How much help I've been getting I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for Hancock, Deacon, and you."

"Why, what did I do? You said we've never met before until today. So what are you talking about?" Danse asked.

"You helped save Meathead's life last week while you were scavenging the rocket complex West of here. Meathead said you warned him of synths and kept him out of the line of fire. That's his weakness too. Meathead can't see synths. He couldn't see you unless he visually looks with his eyes. He can't tell where they are. He said you pulled him out of the way before a whole group started blasting at you."

"I don't remember anything like that," Danse said, trying to bring up the trip through ArcJet Systems, stepping in the way of some laser blasts in the exchange of fire, but nothing heroic to what Nate was describing.

"That laser rifle you gave Meathead, he ended up using and saving my life with it. He's kept it with him everywhere he goes. It's the only rifle he's ever been gifted, he appreciates it and takes good care of it, trying to preserve the gift you gave him."

Danse drew in a breath through his nose, shaking his head, the details escaping him.

The door to the Taphouse rattled, shaking as someone on the outside tried coming in, only finding it was locked.

"I didn't save his life." Danse said.

"That's not what he says. Either way, I owe you an opportunity to expand your network and find the new path you're deciding to take once we're done here. I'll tell you how to Kill a Windigo. How to Kill Mona. The one who did this to me. Unraveled me, promised that unless I worked for her, she would kill me, and then go after my wife and my community I'm rebuilding."

There was knocking at the door now, insistant, then a voice called out, "Nate?"

"Deacon, could you see who that is?"

Deacon nodded, checking the door and peering outside, "It's Piper and a guy I don't recognize."

"Keep the door closed."

"Are you sure about that? She's a reporter, she'll be trying to find out what we were talking about."

"Then it's a shame she didn't get the memo. Keep the door closed."

"Danse?" Paladin Brandis could be heard,

"That's Brandis," Danse said, standing up away from the table. "He was with me when we stormed Trinity Tower. I lost track of him. He thinks I'm dead. Let him in."

"Hold on there, Danse. Deacon. Danse. Tell me. How committed is he to the Brotherhood, and what's the play he is going to make when he learns you're a synth? Violent reaction? Strung up in the streets? Or will he be cool and calm like the rest of us are right now? You open that door, and you're inviting in your own responsibility to handle that situation. That decision weighs on you and only you, Danse." Nate said, pointing at him with the deathclaw pointer finger.

"I know how Piper acts, and how far out of the loop she is, that she will batter all of us with questions, trying to figure all the angles out to this whole situation brewing in the Commonwealth. No doubt she wants to talk about the goddamn Blimp that just few over, and if she sees you, she's going to want to know everything you know about the Brotherhood and WHY they are here. We know why, and if she can't figure that out, then she's not as good of a journalist she thinks she is. That's the weight of my choices; That's why she stays out there like everyone else. But, if you say let Brandis in, then he comes in, and he gets to be filled in on everything we're discussing now. I trust Piper. But I don't trust her to the extent that if push came to shove, she wouldn't pick this group over herself. Plain and simple trust issues. So. I still need to know about Sola and Firelance. Are you ready to let people know you're a synth? Or do you want to sit here, and learn how to kill a Windigo?"

"It ain't easy," Hancock added, "But we smoked that one down in the Glowing Sea. Mona's gonna need a little more prep work. That bitch and the raging cunt of a unicorn don't seem like the type to be taken down easy. We gotta nuke her from orbit; Use one of those space lasers I've been hearing about to blast her from a million miles away so she doesn't ever see or hear, or know we're coming."

Danse looked across the room to the door, to Deacon acting bouncer.

"Let Brandis in. He lost his whole team three years ago, and just saw the rest of my team plunge to their death because of Athena. He was guarding the bottom floor when it happened. I...can only begin to imagine what he's feeling right now."

"Deacon, you heard the man." Danse blinked at that. "No girls allowed."

Brandis was pulled through and Piper's voice could be heard, "Nate? I just need to talk to Nate for a moment- Nate!"

Piper barely got a glimpse inside, shut out, too inquisitive and too much of a gossip to be trusted with secrets that could change the fate of the Commonwealth. She started pounding on the door, calling out every few seconds.

"And this is why I didn't let her in. She still can't seem to get the message through her skull that the world doesn't revolve around her and her pursuit of answers. Did she recognize you Deacon?"

"I don't think so."

"Paladin Brandis." Danse said, addressing the silently stunned man,

"Paladin Danse...I'd thought you perished. I waited, but once the mutants retreated, I saw an opportunity to leave, so I did. I was in the marketplace, saw a group in power armor, then you coming down the steps. That woman, Piper, spotted you as well."

"God she's persistant." Deacon said, listening to her knocking grow louder and more frustrated.

"For the love of God, whatever you do. Don't open that door. She's about to learn an important lesson about humility."

"That's cold," Deacon said.

"And so is being stuck in a freezer for two hundred years. I outwaited the whole damn War, I can wait for her to leave."

"I'm NOT GIVING UP!" Piper shouted through the door, "I'll be here all day if I have to! I can wait all night! I know who all came in with you, don't make me get Diamond City Guards!"

"And there's the threat," Nate said, "She's weak and relies on others to further her own manipulative agenda. Narcissistic characteristics, I picked up on that after traveling with her for a day. Like I said, push comes to shove, she chose herself. Not thinking about the negative consequences that her actions has on those around her or herself. She thinks she's perfect."

"So what are we going to do about this?" Hancock asked, looking towards the suit of power armor.

"Let her get the guard. Let her scream and whine all she wants, she's not getting in."

"There's no back door to this place," Paul said. "Food's ready too."

"Don't worry. Let's finish our game, I've got it all handled." Nate said, going to Brandis, welcoming him into the circle, "Paladin Brandis, care for a piece of steak?"

"I'm famished."

"Good. I'll share a piece of mine."

The knocking cut off, and the group could hear the footsteps leading away from the Colonial Taphouse.

"I'd say about five-ten minutes before the guard gets here," Nate said. "Longer if the guard still holds a grudge against her. Paul? Got any plates back there or are we just eating off the table?"

Deacon, Hancock, and Danse all wondered why Nate was acting so oddly, aloof, but self-sure that nothing bad would happen. He smiled as Paul brought out four steaming cuts of beef, still blood pooling up on top.

With a knife he cut straight down the center with the sharp tip, taking half and giving it to Paladin Brandis as Paul scrounged up more silverware so they could cut into the meal. "Hancock, three 4s to you."

Danse sat back at the table to get Nate's attention again, "You need to tell me what you know about Athena."

"Aside from the fact she's filled with much more rage than I thought, get's off on torturing the Brotherhood of Steel, constantly on the move, she wants to end slavery for ponies in Nuka-World...No I shouldn't say that. She told me otherwise. She thinks that the only way to create an alicorn, or force one into existence is letting slave raising themselves up to a higher level of consciousness, triggering an Alicorn's creation. If I didn't know any better, I'd say Athena plays the devil's advocate on both sides, hedging her bets to make sure slavery continues to exist until an Alicorn appears...She wants Nuka-World, or at the very least, ending slavery isn't her end game either. I doubt she's the type to settle down and stop fighting after getting what she wants. What she needs...she was open about her attempts on becoming an Alicorn. If anything I'd say she's settling for the next best thing..."

"Which is?"

"Mona. She is going to use Mona to Frankenstein apart an Alicorn, and put her together again with all the right bits and pieces."

"Franken-what?"

"She's going to hack apart an alicorn, and use Mona to thread all the magical bits and pieces back into her. She did it with my hand and arm...why not an Alicorn and a pony?"

"Fuck. She is relentless," Deacon said.

"I can't say for sure, but signs are pointing that way. Creating an environment designed to produce more Alicorns. A scary one, like a biological arms race. Forcing evolution. She wont stop until she gets Firelance and Sola. Speaking of. I know nothing of them, so please, Danse. Brandis. Deacon. Who the hell are these guys? What do they look like? What did they do while they were active? I need a reason to not kill these guys, and put a point under 'reasons I shouldn't do Athena's dirty work, so please. Who are they? I need to know any and every story about them that you heard."

"I know Sola." Paladin Brandis said. "Firelance too." Chewing on his piece of steak, he quickly cut off a large piece and munched on it for a few moments as he thought his words over. "Met with them and spoke with them...oh...six years ago. After they came back from the Commonwealth. Before they left the Brotherhood for good."

"Why did they leave?"

"Elder Maxson put out a decree, kill all mutants. Kill all abominations. Leave no stone unturned, no warped bits of DNA across the land unsmashed. He and Firelance didn't break away at first. There was a whole year of him and the Alicorn trying to change things from the inside, trying to make things work, but they never got any better. I don't know where along the line they realized Maxson was the wave of the new future for the Brotherhood, and that he wasn't going away any time soon. Too many Brotherhood knights had fallen to Super Mutants down South. The ones up here. They're savage, but idiot savants compared to the geniuses running around D.C. It was a bad time to be steel or green down South. Too much bad blood, and Maxson saw that as a uniting factor. Everyone hated Super Mutants, not one person in D.C. hadn't come across them at some point in their lives."

"Sola and Firelance filled us in on personal details Recon Squad Vagus acheived, places to go back and search. Recon Squad Artemis wouldn't form for another four years, and our expedition wasn't even considered back then. You see, while he and Firelance were up here, roaming around the Commonwealth, looking for the Institute, Elder Maxson put out the decree, and had their friend, a mutant named Fawks hunted down and killed by a loyalist Brotherhood death squad. The incident was highly praised by Brotherhood knights and paladins who spent most of their lives fighting Mutants up and down D.C. They managed to befriend this one, and that ignited the whole rivalry between Maxson and Sola. I didn't really know the Unicorn, or Alicorn. He was always there, however. Always at Sola's side."

"Why? What's their history?"

"Sola and Firelance both came from the same vault in the Capital Wasteland. Vault 101. A Vault-Tec experiment, they had dozens of ponies, and humans, and other creatures all living in this Vault."

Nate nodded, mind going to Vault-tec registration day. "As far as I know, they grew up and lived together. Best Buds. Inseparable. Where one went, the other followed."

"Okay, so what did they do to get so involved with the Brotherhood?"

"Going back to their father, he was an engineer and scientist responsible for a massive aqua-purifier capable of de-radiating the whole bay. Cleaning it in one go. Another group called the Enclave got wind of this, and forced us out. The Enclave killed Sola's biological father, and Firelance retaliated." Paladin Brandis sighed, rubbing the sides of his forehead, trying to force memories to resurface. "He was instrumental in expanding the Brotherhood into the Pitt after we secured D.C. from the Enclave...Lotta bad blood up there too. Fuck what was his name? Raider boss in charge of the Pitt...can't remember...he and Firelance were moving around...point to point..." Brandis sputtered out, "I'm losing track of when it happened..."

"Ashur." Nate said, "Athena gave me her version of what happened. I need to know what she didn't see, or conveniently left out."

"There's not much we can say...Sola did what he did to take over the city. Hung the Pitt slavers out to dry. The only contension I know about is that Maxson was pressing Sola and Firelance for weapons they wouldn't give up or turn over."

"What kinda weapons?"

"Crap that made our laser pistols look like flashlights compared to these death cannons. Equestrian Alien Technology. As far as I knew back then, Sola said the weapons came from the Institute. But...after seeing the synths and their weaponry...there's no way the weapon I saw Sola and Firelance with six years ago, doesn't compare in the slightest to anything I've seen the Institute put out into the battlefield since then. It had to of been the magic connection...Something Sola and Firelance didn't want the Brotherhood finding out about, or falling into the rut of 'keeping it out of the hands of the people for the safety of humanity'. Trying to keep humans from laying waste and blowing us all back to the stone age a second time was a goal of the Brotherhood since its inception. I've reflected plenty on the Brotherhood, while I'm still in, I haven't been in the loop since meeting Danse and his crew four days ago. The last three years I've been on my own to the North of here. A nasty habit of the Brotherhood is that once we find relics of the past. Nuclear reactors. Caches of weapons. Old Med-Docs. And Primarily, crap like the Institute is hiding away, once the Brotherhood gets their hands on it, it disappears into the archives for good, but is never forgotten."

Nate sighed, placing a big question mark over Sola and Firelance. Nothing overtly that he couldn't figure out already, but Nate saw Firelance as his potential only hope right now of getting out of Mona and Athena's grip.

"Alright, so you want to know how to kill a Windigo?" Nate asked. "First off, you'll need a conductor, something to channel electricity, and three fusion cores worth of energy at once to stun her. Cook the nerves right out of her. Char her fucking black. Bullets, grenades, fire, it helps slow her down a tick. I brought a railroad-tie slinger. A pressurized rail-gun with copper ties to stick the Windigo full of metal, and then had Meathead fly up and gather clouds to build up a lightning bolt to shock the Windigo. But, to really finish a Windigo off, you need to burn the brain and burn the heart. That's a lot of burning, so gas or enough electricity to light these bitches up like a 10,000 watt halogen-bulb Christmas tree. Back in the day, we rigged a suit of power armor to a reactor generator, and electrified the outsides. Couldn't get anywhere near those suits in a fifteen meter radius without rubber and no metal, otherwise the shocks would travel out and hit you. We waited for the Windigos diving on us, so we set up tesla coils to trip the moment they got close and fried them to kingdom come. After that, we
threw their bodies in the incinerator and called it Kum-bay-ah for the night."

"And how'd the arm come about?" Danse asked.

"Hancock? You want to fill them in?"

"The Windigo down there possessed a Deathclaw... Hell's bells that's how he became one. He didn't possess it, he just did that magical shit to pull all the body parts up around him...Frankensteined himself a new body. Anyway. I'm getting side-tracked. The bastard speared Nate through the arm, suit ripped, radiation creeping in. We finished him off, and used the deboned the Deathclaw arm and wrapped the skin around Nate's to keep it in like a cast...and to keep the radiation out." Hancock added. "It was the only thing we had that would've worked as a patch in the situation."

"And I still have a working arm because of that...I never thanked you or Meathead for that, Hancock. Thank you."

"So what do we do now?" Danse asked, "The Brotherhood doesn't wait idly by, and will be expecting one of us to make an appearance. They don't know about what happened in Trinity Tower, but if their synth-detection technology has improved since Gladius' departure, then there's no point in hiding that I'm a synth. I'm already a marked doomed man."

Brandis looked crossly at Danse for that, then back to Nate, Deacon, and Hancock. "Athena's convinced the Brotherhood is bad for the Commonwealth. Them showing up is all part of her plan to bring down the hammer on them, to force Sola and Firelance out into the open. So far, everything's going exactly according to her plan."

"That's not true. Up in Trinity Tower. I killed a mutant named Strong. She said she had plans for him, and that she wanted him to be take the role of super mutant leadership, but right in the middle of this... she seemed to give up and say 'why bother', Mona had Athena pit the two of us in a fight to the death. Mona and Athena may be on the same page, but they're working towards different goals. Their relationship is a temporary one at best, and once she gets Sola and Firelance, I don't see any reason why Athena and Mona's partnership would continue." Danse reasoned.

" Except for the fact they're both extremely dangerous, and have the potential to wipe each other out, but don't attack each other knowing that the end result would leave one of them desolated."

"So the question is..." Deacon said, formulating the words in his mind. "Any way to accelerate that fight? Any way to turn Athena against Mona now?"

Nate pressed his fingertips together, "Super mutants organizing is something that Athena and Mona don't like, so anything they don't like is something we need to pursue." Digging into his pack, Nate pulled out a dozen cases of Mentats. "These are why the super mutants on Mona's kill list are becoming smarter and intelligent enough to refuse Mona's mental manipulation. Rage. Hammer. Big Mack. Savage. All these mutants had the Mentats in common. With Strong dead...and is Fist dead as well, Danse?"

"Mona froze him. Athena smashed him to bits. After that she pinned the mutant Strong against me in a death match. Winner got to live."

"Uh..huh..." Nate said, picking up and filling in his own details on what happened next. "Back to finding another mutant then. We force a bunch of Mentats down their throat and get him on our side. Take up the mantle of pacifying super mutant gangs in the Commonwealth. All in favor?"

"We're voting?" Deacon asked.

"We're all together in this. This is a group decision, and I've brought it to the table. We're voting on this. Danse, Brandis, Hancock, Deacon. I want to hear all your opinions on this. We can't do anything until we find Sola and Firelance, or get word to them that Athena and Mona are waiting for them. Until then, the only other options we can play, remain active and in the game of staying alive. If organizing a green gang together puts the screws to Mona and Athena, then that's a route worth pursing until we all agree that no one fits the bill. As we all know, there are independent super mutant strongholds out there. Our goal is to put one mutant in the spotlight who has our backing, and is smart enough to keep his guys in line. So...negatives. Aside from the impossiblity of finding a decent mutant to hear us out and take the role; Let's hear them. We already know Maxson and the current wave of Brotherhood will be against it, making us and him a target for whoever we choose. Therefore, once we do find a mutant with enough sense, and smarten him up, we'll need to hide him for the time being. Both of those tasks are equally long and grueling prospects, but could net us the end result of keeping the peace between raiding mutant gangs, and human settlements. Anyone else?"

Deacon shook his head, "I...know of a group of mutants who might fit the bill. It's a long-shot, but better than letting Athena and Mona keep setting the pace."

"Who?"

"A pony and mutant scrapyard down south of here, junked Giddyups and a handful of ponies working with the mutants to maintain a small lot worth farming on. Mutants give them protection. Ponies get to live independently. The pony connection is the only link mutants listen to and follow. Otherwise, any humans get shot within iron sight distance."

"It'd be hard to do, but has legs." Hancock said. "I know some ponies willing to work. I'm in favor. Aye."

"I don't know any mutants I could trust." Brandis said. "Never have. Doubt I ever will."

"That's not the issue. The super mutants will never trust someone to lead them who isn't one of their own is the real issue. You don't have to trust what he may or may not do, only that all the super mutants end up rallying around behind him. Someone that we can control...and I may know a super mutant who fits the bill." Nate said.

"Getting back into things...What the hell? Might as well. Aye." Brandis said.

Hancock raised his chin and nodded, "Ahhh...I know who you're thinking of. Double Aye, I think Virgil would work."

"Who's he?" Danse asked.

"A rogue Institute scientist whose life's work has been modifying and studying the FEV virus. He injected himself with a modified strain, turned mutant, and ran from the Institute. He's been hiding in the Glowing Sea ever since, and will do anything to keep the Institute from pegging him down again. He will do anything we ask him to, since he also knows he doesn't have a leg to stand on if we decide he needs to pay for all the sins of his work the Institute put out into the world. I don't think he knows about the Mentats stashes either."

"That doesn't help me put any more faith into this plan, Nate. But...I can't see Athena and Mona as the best choice for the Commonwealth. If it helps from ever having to endure a situation like that where I lost my team and everything else like that again...Aye."

"The only issue is that we don't know how to get in contact with either of them." Nate said.

"I think I know how I can get word to Sola and Firelance..." Brandis said, "Send out the feelers, hope something catches...I wont know if they hear it, or if it gets passed up the chain, but...If I go to the Brotherhood's Blimp, I'm sure everything Danse and I say will be relayed up the chain of command as valuable info. Except of course what's been ocuring here. While I may not know much about mutants, I know ponies and mutants get along. You send that one, Thunderstruck in, and she'll turn those mutants over in her hoof. She's got a way with words. I however, have never met a mutant I could trust."

"Let us handle that, if we can't find a mutant, then maybe they'll listen to a pony." Nate suggested.

"Go find your mutant and your pony, I'll make sure Danse secret remains buried. There's plenty I wouldn't want to discuss anyway, but if it gets me back into the loop, then there's dozens of other things to shine light on in this Commonwealth, away from Danse and the unfortunate fate of our teams."

"The majority Ayes have it. Once Meathead arrives, you three will take to the Brotherhood, and report what you've found. Deacon, Hancock, and I need to see about the source of the mutant's smarts, and get Mona's leverage out from over my head." Nate said, banging his large fist on the table like a gavel, "Meeting adjourned."

\111/

No less than two seconds after their first meeting agreed on the course of action, knocking at the door, followed by someone trying to open the door and voices calling out. "Diamond City Security. Open up!"

Everyone's heart rate rose a notch, and everyone looked towards Nate and then Hancock.

"Time to get going,"

Nate looked up towards the ceiling, and as Hancock moved for the power armor to hide himself back inside, a loud 'Pop!' and flash of green light materialized Meathead just over the bar before he touched down on the counter, dropping as gravity brought him down.

"" Meathead said, panting lightly.

"Ah, Meathead, perfect timing. Anychance you could help us relocate to the Boylston club? We've got security at the door."

Meathead clambered down and nodded quickly. "" Exhaling a loud breath, and quickly shoring up his magic reserves again. ""

As they quickly linked up, "Paul, go let them in after we're gone." Nate said, Paul Pembroke nodded, calling out through the door.

"I'm coming!" Paul shouted, the banging on the door was more insistent.

"Hurry up, or we knock this door down!"

As Meathead focused and channeled the magical energy, he said, ""

With a moment of silence for Meathead, they all vanished and were lifted sideways through space, shaking once they all landed inside a building surrounded with comics and in a large reading area with lounge chairs and rows of shelves with more faded comic books.

"" Meathead said, head sinking low to the ground as the rest of his body laid down. ""

"Close enough. Thanks Meat." Nate said, praising his friend.

""

"All the mutants Mona wanted killed are dead. But, that just means we need to find our own green bosom buddy and cram him full of Mentats to let him take the roll of super mutant president leader. If Plan A is no good, we'll see if Thunderstruck can swing some mutants opinions our way. Virgil is first in line, after the Institute; Otherwise, we stay on the lookout. These two are heading towards the Boston Airport where the Brotherhood flew in. Go with them, they wont take...my appearance too well. Brandis is going to try and send a message to Sola and Firelance. If Mona doesn't let me out from under her thumb, I want to have a plan B to undo any magical hold she has over me. As for any targets the Brotherhood is interested in getting to now that they're here...everyone needs to know Athena has that list and has been preparing for this exact day when the Brotherhood arrives. I don't have a single doubt in the world she's rigged all of these places ready to blow. So...be on the lookout and know it's a trap from here on out."

Danse took the warning to heart. Biting at his lip, trying to not let himself appear too shaken as Meathead suddenly transformed into Nate's former uninjured self.

""

"I'm headed there after Med-Tek. Deacon. Hancock? Anything else?"

"Nope. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can put the Windigo and Unicorn behind us. Lead the way."

"I'm just along for the ride at this point, keeps things interesting." Hancock said. "...And...heading to drug super-lab USA central sounds like a pretty decent ride for me. Dibs on any drugs we find."

Dispersing out through the front door of Hubris Comics, Deacon, Hancock, and Nate heading to the right and then North, as Meathead, Danse, and Brandis went left towards East Boston.

\111/

As Paul unlocked the door to the Colonial Taphouse, welcoming the guards in, everyone saw the empty tables, half-finished drinks, unfinished meals and cards still on the table.

"Where'd they all go?" A guard asked,

Piper quick-stepped her way into the Taphouse after the guards, "Paul? Where'd they go? What happened to them I just saw them here."

"You just missed them. A few seconds after you left, they all took off."

"But where?!" Piper insistantly wanted to know, "Where did they go? There's no one here and I know they brought in a Brotherhood agent into this bar!"

Paul took the glasses and cleared the table, "Guess you didn't see them walk out." He said, "Try again next time, Piper."

"Was Nate here? Meathead? What happened? I need to know."

"Nobody's here. Piper. Leave."

"Gah! You're so unbelievable! I can't believe this!"

"You whined your way into my bar, I have every right to deny you service for whatever I feel like, Piper. And if I don't feel like it, then you ain't coming in, end of print. You being a toney-brat sure doesn't help your cause either," Paul replied.

Storming out onto the patio walk, "I can't believe I'm getting shut out!" Looking out beyond the Great Green Wall, she turned her gaze to the horizon,

Ch. 96 Med-Tek

While Med-Tek was able to stay locked-down since the Great War. The signs that persistent individuals had tried making multiple attempts to crack the building open since then were fairly obvious. There was a parking garage to the left of the main entrance, but only leading to administration and offices, no real projects or important valuable data would be accessible on the top floors, and anything worthwhile would be stored underground.

Leading up to the steps were bullet casings, and around the entryway were dead ghouls, long since shot, these were only from the foyer area. The glass doors with metal frames were cracked and glass scattered across the foyer. The lobby looked like a hurricane swept through it, more dead ghouls and shot up Mr. Handies and Securitron attendants. The rest of the foyer was well lit, and well reinforced, mostly intact. Clearly the sign that the robots were running maintenance for the building until raiders or scavengers came and shot their way through.

"Well...you never know." Nate said, unbuttoning his holster. Deacon and Hancock nodded, following behind him and keeping a hand ready to grab their pistols. Sweeping the first floor, they came across storage, security, and bathrooms, a crate's worth of drugs and chems that they all started gathering and collecting. Piling everything together, Hancock opened one Mentat, crushing it between his fingers then snorting the powder.

"Whoop! Yep! Still good!" Hancock said, sniffling twice to clear his nose.

"Thanks for the update."

"Hell, we might as well make a buck off this. Doesn't look like any mutants ever got wise enough to get in here."

With the elevators unresponsive, but power flowing to them, Nate figured there wouldn't be anyway to get them moving without brute forcing the doors open, then rewiring the lift, or finding the executive terminal that would remove the lockdown. Checking the elevator doors, it looked like someone recently tried to attempt exactly that. There were gouge marks, signs that a crowbar had been used to wedge itself in and pry the doors apart. Metal shavings on the ground, Nate ran his clean hand over one of the scratches. Coming up with plenty of metal powder, instead of brown dust, "Fresh," He said.

"Did you say something?"

"Scavenger's been through here recently." Nate said, "Not interested in the chems, probably looking for something stronger?"

"That'd be the only reason as to why most of this stuff was thrown around, and not taken..." Deacon said, "Makes the most sense that there would be some real good, strong stuff in the labs or up above."

In the backside of the Med-Tek building, past the bathrooms and a changing area, shower area, there was a long hallway with decontamination arches leading to a locked door.

Looking down the hallway, their feet met water and chemicals, making splashing noises as they walked through the puddles. "Okay, these have been used recently." Touching the arches, their was still a bit of dampness that could be felt along the nozzles. "Expect company ahead."

"What's the plan, Nate?" Deacon asked.

"Same as always, knock like the neighbors we are, and then if the door's open, we invite ourselves in."

\111/

The door leading into the labs were sound-proof, and once they slid open, allowing the trio inside, Nate was about to cheerily announce 'Vault-Tec. Calling,' but was hit with a buzzing siren, chirping and squealing every ten seconds, plus the sound of laser and gunfire.

"Oh, we're walking straight into the fire here," Nate said, pulling out his handgun, Deacon and Hancock readied their weapons, setting down the crate of meds and chems they picked up along the way and leaving them by the door. "Sun's out; Guns out."

The decontamination arches left a single trail of dried footprints deeper into the lab. There was a hacking growl of ghouls, followed by short bursts of gunfire.

Along the floor, they counted handfuls of decimated ghouls, and even more .45 caliber shells and a dozen .44 magnum rounds.

Following the noise of the gunfire, they could see the walls, missed shots, and even as apprehensive as they were to keep moving forward, they didn't want to walk into a line of sight. "Hancock, take the rear... Whoever's down there has been blasting their way through ghouls, we don't want to spook them."

Hancock nodded, "What's the plan? What are we going to do about our shooter? Let him be? Some of these guys...you know...they get that look in their eye when they're after a fix. No matter what we say, it's all about chasing that high and not stopping for nobody, our chances of getting held up and robbed are more likely."

Listening to the gunshots, it was a .45 and a .44, subtle changes in the tone and noise they made, the bangs from the .45 were semiautomatic, while the deep booms of a magnum were in rounds of six. "We got ourselves a cowboy," Deacon said, listening to the gunfire and making two finger-guns.

"How do we get their attention?"

"Same way we get out of this. Make a lot of noise," Nate said. "Vault-Tec. Calling!" Nate shouted.

"Vault-Tec. Calling!"

\111/

Remaining only a few moments behind their shooter, they were getting closer, as they moved deeper into the sublevels of the Med-Tek building. Passing containment cells, testing labs, a reactor core, the production bay of Mentats and other Med-Tek chems was where they first got a glimpse of their shooter, and dozens and dozens of locked in observation cells in a large room with two floors.

Passing more dead ghouls shot to bits, and noticing that the Mentats were largely overlooked, there was a shipping container untouched that Hancock salivated at the thought of 16 tons of drugs all waiting in pristine condition. "I could...I could..."

"Yeah, Hancock, we know," Deacon said, "Focus for a sec."

"I am focused!" He replied, chewing on another Mentat. Crunching and noisily, crushing down with his mouth open.

"I'm not judging about the drugs, but please chew with your mouth closed! Do you know how loud that is!?" Deacon said, his ears primed towards the gunshots, and as Hancock chewed on Mentats like Altoids candies, the chomping and open-mouth chewing was especially distracting.

"Why, you want one?" Hancock asked, holding out the container and rattling the tin container for Deacon to grab. Hancock put on his best shit-eating grin, making Deacon roll his eyes back towards the front.

The production area was loaded with raw chemicals and powders, all of which Nate saw as a gold-mine of pre-war medications and drugs that otherwise would take ages to synthesize.

"Next time we come through here, we've got to get a whole caravan here. All of this is worth a few hundred thousand dollars. The equipment, the labs, the materials in the raw. We could have ourselves a whole pharmacy running out of here."

The gunfire had stopped, but the trail lead them to a large room lined with over forty rooms, one or two ghouls behind each door in an observation cell, with the only way forward blocked by sealed doors and the sounds of more ghouls.

"You!" MacCready yelled. He was standing in the security control center, overlooking the whole prison-like hospital. Four ghouls banging on the sealed doors to come in after the former Gunner.

After charging into the observation wing, MacCready was about to be swarmed with more ghouls, and lead them up to a security room overlooking the whole area. Taking refuge inside, he locked out the ghouls, but was trapped there until he decided to move on. Taking the time to reload his weapons, and take hold of the armory and security pads and weapons left by Med-Tek, he was preparing to go another round with the ghouls when the trio walked in.

"MacCready! How's it going!?" Hancock shouted, the ghouls still fixated on the security door were oblivious to the conversation, and still trying with no hope of breaking through.

"Want us to take care of your problem there?" He asked.

"What are you doing here?" MacCready shouted back, wondering what reason these three would have being here.

"Hold on! I can't listen to you and these idiots pounding away..." Nate said, aiming his gun up at the four ghouls, he, Deacon, and Hancock all fired away, only provoking the forty ghouls in the observation rooms to their own doors and trying to break through. The muffled thumping and growling only made holding a conversation here that much worse,

"Fuck me," Nate said.

\111/

"Fuck me," MacCready said, watching as the ghouls were gunned down by the intruders following in behind him. He didn't even suspect anyone behind him, or expect anyone would show up behind him.

With the observation cells still locked up, MacCready spent his time going over the controls to the wing controlled from the security terminal in the booth. Before being chased up here, he had tried to check the door leading onwards, but the next area of labs weren't opened by key or card, they were only opened through the security checkpoint here. Meaning he would need to prop the door open after getting through, or the only way to keep it manually open was to disengage the All-Lock sequence, and allow all the cells to open at once.

Feeling outwitted, he knew all it would take is timing and a little muscle to force his way in, but now he felt like being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

"So what they hell do you want?" MacCready shouted down at them, Nate pointed his big hand back towards the door, jerking his thumb over the shoulder.

"Listen, long story short, Mutants eating stashes of Mentats, and I'm here to make sure they don't get their hands on any more. Now that I'm here, I want to come back and revitalize the drugs being made and utilize all the raw materials they've got around here to get a working lab back in order. But what about you? What do you need? Are you the Mr. 44 and 45 calibers?"

MacCready held one gun up in the palm of his hand, "Yep. Here's the thing though. I don't trust you."

"What?! Why not?"

"Cause of the shit you pulled in Mass Fusion!"

"I was acting! I was pretending to be more drunk than I really was!"

"I'm talking about hanging anyone who gets in your way! You're cheap too!"

"That...is mostly true! You're talking about Kellogg, right? Listen, can you come down here so we can have a proper discussion? The yelling and the shouting, and the ghouls moaning and groaning...doesn't make for the best conditions."

"I'm afraid I can't do that. I'm on a mission. I need to get to the trial labs on the other side of those doors over yonder. I need the medicine inside. Whatever Med-Tek was working on. I need it. You need to leave." MacCready said, raising his handgun up, he was still pointing at the ceiling, so Nate put his palms up.

"MacCready, listen, we can make a deal. I need medicine too, for my wife. My wife is about to undergo surgery, and I want to stockpile any and everything I can to make sure that she's got anti-biotics, painkillers, blood-thinners, blood thickeners, anti-vomit pills, IV drips, stuff to start the poop, stuff to stop the poop, stuff for when you have too much poop, top to bottom list of everything a surgery and working hospital needs or would have on hand to make sure that everything goes exactly 100% according to plan so she can make a full recovery. It sounds like we're in the same boat here, MacCready. We can help you finish this out and then we go our separate ways if that's what you want."

"I'd like you to leave, that's what I want, Nate. Hancock, don't even start. I need this."

"Hey, I did you plenty of favors," Hancock said, "What's got you so gung-ho about this place anyway?"

"I said leave!" MacCready said, face turning red.

"Easy, man! What's the score? I'm throwing you a line here, you helped me, I'll help you. We're even keel, right? You got paid, we didn't leave things on a bad note, did we? We didn't even know you would be here. I'm trying to set up a hospital for Vault 111, an infirmary, pharmacy, surgical suite all in one. Any kind of treatment you need, it'll be there in Vault 111. So? What's up, Doc? Where are you hurting?"

"I can't let you have Prevent. It's the one thing I need here, and I'm running out of time. I can't let you have this."

Hancock grabbed at Nate's elbow. "It's his kid," he breathed out. "Sicker than a dog."

"Hey, listen, MacCready, Vault 84 here in Boston has pathogen studies, we have doctors and experienced people who can help with your kid."

That seemed to trigger MacCready more, "Shut up about my kid! I'm giving you the options right now, leave. The only way through is if I disengage the lockdown on all the cells and security doors to the next room. That leaves 40 ghouls crawling over every inch of this place, and no way to shut either of them back in. Or you leave, I get my medicine, and then you fuck off!"

Nate shook his head to confer with Deacon and Hancock, "What the heck is Mac on about?"

"His kid, Duncan. Sick as sin. Laid up in Goodneighbor. Knew about the kid for a long time now, sick with something fierce that you don't see or hear about people getting better from."

"And Med-Tek's got something here to fix that?"

"And you talking about taking that medicine for your own isn't helping your cause, Nate. I think we need to back off, and let MacCready do his thing, and then come back later."

"That's where he's wrong. He's trapped. Those..." Nate turned up to MacCready. "MacCready! Those doors over there. Is there a monitor with a camera feed, and is there controls for this security door up there in the control booth?"

MacCready looked down, wiping the screens off, and taking a moment to turn the machines on.

"Yeah!"

"MacCready, those sliding doors are on a sensor/timer! Those doors aren't meant to stay open longer than it takes for a person to pass through. That's why this room was designed like this, so a single person couldn't break in at night, and that's why the keys to open the door is up there where you're standing, and the door to the secret labs are way over here on that side. You'd have to be a runningback to get from there...to there... in about 5 seconds before the doors close you in. Trust me, MacCready. The people from the past were thinking about this shit. Take one solid look at the cameras, if they're still working. I will bet you a brand spanking new Vault suit right now, that one of those cameras is on the other side of that door, pointing down...am I right? You see, once those doors close, the scientists are locked in there. The only way you're getting back out, is if someone in the security booth looks down and sees that someone wants to come out. If you run in there, you're not getting back out. The doors close, and they stay closed. You would have NO ONE to unlock the security doors. That's a security feature to keep thieves locked in until police or security came in and caught people trying to steal from Med-Tek."

MacCready looked at the security monitor, and sure enough, Nate nailed down the design to a tee. Scientists and lab workers had to show security their clearance before going in and out of the experimental labs. This documented anyone coming or going, and what time they left or entered to pinpoint any internal thefts or espionage.

"So you either let one of us come up there, and work the doors for you, or two, you jailbreak all the ghouls and fight your way through because the safety feature that knocks out all the doors along with it. Either way, you can't do this alone. This is a two man job, minimum."

MacCready already had the security pads on, and a helmet was ready to be worn as well. Palming the helmet he shoved it on his head, "I guess I'll just have to be faster than you."

"Oh crap, he's choosing his family first," Nate said, reading the situation at hand. "MacCready, wait! We'll go!"

Deacon and Hancock were already sensing that MacCready was in no mood to negotiate or reason, and thinking about his family and laid out with the facts that it was either unleash all the ghouls or getting locked in forever pushed him in the wrong direction. He didn't consider the third option Nate was trying to lead him towards, but it was too late to consider alternatives.

Engaging the evacuation protocols, the security system in place thought it was a fire-earthquake-or integrity related issue and allowing all the doors in the observation wing to open at once. Sirens blared for all personnel in the building to evacuate.

MacCready was out the other side door, running with both hands on his guns, hunched like a football player, using his elbows to jab and shove any ghoul out of the way as the observation doors opened and they all came pouring out into the room. Running along the second floor, he made it halfway before the ghouls really started taking notice of their new environment and surroundings. Having not eaten in over two hundred years, Nate and Deacon were first prime cut choices, as MacCready barreled past the next dozen rooms like a football player shoving his way to the endzone. Knocking ghouls over the railing, some charged forward out of their rooms and fell off the side.

As MacCready sprinted, Nate, Deacon, and Hancock made the tactical retreat backwards into the hallway they came from, shooting at the swarm of ghouls emerging from their cells.

He only slowed down to raise his pistols and fire nearly point blank at any ghouls in his way. His expression was flush with determination, shock, and loathing. Three quarters of the way down the balcony, MacCready hopped over the railing, landing behind two ghouls and gaining their attention as he ran for the experimental labs.

While the bulk of the swarm were disorganized and following the crowd of other ghouls chasing after the trio, MacCready shot at several ghouls branching off and following him, blasting and shooting one several times until he passed through the security doors down a hallway bordering more labs.

Flying down the hallway on the tips of his toes, he came to the experimental lab doors, turning there and raising both guns up akimbo, he pulled both triggers on the six ghouls that came after him. When his guns were empty, he charged the last two, and bowled them over. Stomping on them, he pulled out his crow bar hanging from his belt loop, smashing down on the back of their skulls to keep them from getting back up, he shoved his .44 back in the holster and replaced his clip of bullets in the .45, finishing them off with a round to the head each.

The doors to the experimental labs were pried open, and MacCready reloaded his .44 as he stepped inside. Two head researchers were still inside, ghouls with their labcoats in tatters, he didn't hesitate to kill them as they took notice of his presence.

Shaking as the gunfire behind him continued, he swept over the whole room, hoping for an obvious sign or something to point his way to the cure he desired.

Searching rampantly, there were human skeletons, along with a pony's all laid out. Bone saws, old refridgerators filled with body parts, and cryovaccumed bags of organs. When he came to a glass tube stand with syringes of red lined casing, he saw the label 'Prevent' on the side and lunged for it. Wrapping his hand around the vial, the sound of his own heart beating in his ears was enough to drown out all other noise until Nate practically shouted at his back turned to the door.

"You know you didn't have to do that." Nate said, his Deathclaw arm coated in fresh glowing ghoul's blood, arms still shaky at the close contact encounter with the ghouls. Deacon and Hancock both carrying their laser and plasma rifles loosely pointed down at the ground.

MacCready swung around, pointing both pistols at Nate. Raising his palms to MacCready, he covered his chest with his large palm, making sure to position his hand over his heart in case emotions trumped logic a second time.

"Back off, this one is mine." MacCready said.

"Let me take lead on this one, Nate." Stepping aside, Hancock stepped forward, "Take a load off, MacCready," Hancock insisted, "Listen to our offer. RJ, you know I know you. We all know you...we've got no beef with you. You drink at my bar, I remember the first time you showed up at the Third Rail with your kid, yeah? Nate here he wants all this..." Hancock gestured with one hand, making spinning circle motions with his finger, "To come back online. All the medicine here...all the drugs and chems, he wants to make more."

"I don't have time for this, I need to get back."

"Time?" Nate asked, "If it's time. Then I'm a master of it. I'll give you all the time in the world. Listen to me, if that vial is the last in existence, then I need to have Curie, my Miss Nanny doctor analyze its contents. She's a pathologist specialist who spent eight decades developing a cure-all resistance drug to various diseases and viruses. She is an expert at curing people. It's going to take her and a whole team of researchers a while to recreate and synthesize another cure, but with that, she wont have to start from scratch. With you having the power to create more Prevent if you let us look at it, there's always a chance to make more." Nate said, pausing since MacCready was subtly shaking his head side to side while Nate was talking, seeing that he wasn't getting forward with him, he needed another approach.

"I don't have time to wait, my son doesn't either. He wont last much longer unless I get him this medicine."

"MacCready, If you can give me 6 hours. We can get your kid to Vault 111. Curie will analyze the contents of that vial, and take and compile all these notes so we can create hundreds of doses of Prevent. I want to make sure that any other father...mother, brother, or sister who comes looking for that same cure isn't the last one in existence. How much hope will it bring if there's someone else out there right now with the same signs of your kid, maybe just the first symptoms, or maybe even further along, hoping that there's a special magic drug that will cure them...only to come here and find everything gone?"

"My son comes first. Too many times I've heard the phrases, 'first come, first served'. 'Here today, gone tomorrow' I'm not wasting my chance."

"Now hold on, RJ." Hancock said, piping up again. "There's a consequence of using the last one in existence. That's it? Nothing? No hope whatsoever? I don't want to delay you from seeing your son get back on his feet, but this is a way you get your son all the time in the world. It's like putting a big pause on Duncan. He wont get any more sick, and you can have months to get more done. You get to stop his sickness in its tracks. Anyone else who comes looking for the same also gets that glimmer of hope you're feeling right now, and Duncan gets the message that he's on his way to a place that all he has to do is take a nap, and wake up cured."

"What do you mean?"

"Cryogenic Freezers." Hancock said, turning to subtly nod and let Nate take over again.

"We put your boy on ice, we study the contents of Prevent, and then once we identify all the components, we give you everything back. We use everything here at Med-Tek to make more Prevent. That way, if anyone else comes along, looking for medicine, there will be a surplus of medicine. Especially...ESPECIALLY if it takes more than ONE DOSE. What then if it takes more than one dose?" Nate askes, judging his reaction. That seemed to get MacCready to think twice, rationalize that it may take more than whatever's here in his possession. The tiniest of nods, an inkling of indication that they were getting through to him, MacCready was finally open to listening to their logic and reason.

"He wont age more than a few seconds. It'll be instantaneous for him while time passes normally for you and everyone else. I have a carriage we can bring him from Goodneighbor to Vault 111, with the four of us riding coach. We can have your son there by this evening. I just want to see what's inside the vial under a microscope. We need to know what it's made of before you inject your boy, Duncan with it. That's all I want to do. After we look at it, then we give it all back to you."

MacCready was weighing the options as Hancock lit a cigarette, took two draws, then passed it to the nervous father. He shook, twitched as he finally stowed his weapons, but denied the smoke. "No thanks, I grew out of liking the smell."

"RJ, this is a good deal. Take Nate up on it. A vault's hell of a lot cleaner than the Rexford anyhow. You get your kid in a clean bed and I bet you half those symptoms clear up anyway. You put your kid first, and we don't hold that against you for unlocking the doors to the lab here...Right? No hard feelings? Family makes us all a little touchy feely." Hancock said, nodding as Deacon and Nate bobbed their heads in agreement.

"Nate here's got a missing kid and a hurt wife he's trying to do everything to hold onto." Hancock waved his hand flat over the air, clearing the slate. "We'll get your kid all set up real nice; Okay?"

"Okay." He says, nodding.

"Good... Nate?" Hancock leads off, looking towards their leader.

"Great, Deacon, let's look this place over for notes, head out in ten. You and MacCready head to Goodneighbor, Deacon and I, we'll get the carriage hooked up and meet you at the gates. Then, the four of us take the roads all the way up to Sanctuary Hills and get Duncan squared away. Sound like a plan?"

With everyone nodding in agreement, "Alright then, let's get moving."

\111/

Hancock pulled Nate aside for a moment, "I'm going to keep working on MacCready on our walk back. Get him to see that the boys in blue are the right choice for his boy. Just don't keep us waiting too long, yeah?"

Nate nodded, "Yeah, most notes I imagine were stored on data banks and hard drives here, not much written down relating to Prevent. We'll scour the computers next time we're here. Fill MacCready in on what we've been up to too. Remind me, was he a former Gunner?"

Hancock nodded, "Yeah. Started doing extra work outside of the Gunners to bring in extra caps for his kid. Didn't kick back caps to his gang, and then got kicked out for it."

"So he's a family man."

Hancock nodded,

"Good. They're easy to work with. And...the wife?"

"Pheh..." Hancock blew out a breath through his lips. "Brenda? Barbara? Bella? I could be way off. Ended with an 'A', Bull-Dyke type of gal if I ever remember him saying anything about her. Not worth getting into unless you really wanna dig. All I know is that she's not around."

"Nah, I'm sure he'll open up sooner or later. Just get his kid ready to move. We'll be pulling out the moment we get the Giddyups all hooked up. See you at the gates. Make sure he knows that we're all working for in his corner for his kid until we get to Vault 111. With the four of us on lookout, let him know we'll lay waste to anything that crosses our path or gets in a 1000 yards of us that so much as looks at us funny on the way there.

"Will do."

\111/

Ch. 97 Pound of Flesh

Paladin Danse was feeling more and more confident as they marched for the Boston Airport, Paladin Brandis and Meathead both weighing heavily on his mind as both recon teams were decimated, and his own mortality and realization of being a synth undercutting every action. Running or trying to distance himself from the Brotherhood of Steel, would only draw suspicion. Any side comment or suspicion by staying on and continuing to work with the Brotherhood as is would inevitably lead to a situation of 'synth-sweeping', where all of the best technology available would be used to determine any infiltration to their ranks, and upon being discovered, result in his immediate execution.

The paths and options laid before Paladin Danse were equally damning if he didn't report in. He didn't have the wherewithal to take off and run. He couldn't imagine a life fleeing or hiding, and placed on a ticking timer the moment he made himself aware to the Prydwen forces, all the talk of victory and honor for the Brotherhood kept biting him in the cheek.

Brandis' reassurances along with Meathead's arrival and imperative shapeshifting abilities only added to the weight that he had to depend on two complete strangers to withhold a secret that would leave him without a grave or legacy aside from Institute synth not worthy of being remembered.

The most comforting words Paladin Brandis said when they arrived in East Boston, less than a mile from the Airport, Brandis tapped Danse on the shoulder, making him stop in his thoughts.

Patting him on the back, he pointed up to the Brotherhood of Steel banners visible from a distance and said, "Time to go to work."

"And what about everything else?" Danse asked, "I lived my entire life for this. Raised with this. This is my family."

"Eat your heart out, Paladin. Where was this family who wouldn't help me when I was begging for it. Miserable bastards; Every one of us! The only single one time I ever asked for help, even though for decades my whole life I was given the same god-forsaken speech...It was always the same one! The 'Oh, no matter what! I'll be there for you, 'cuz'. I'll be here day or night, Brother. Anytime you need me I would fight for you...I WILL BE THERE FOR YOU. I have your back, I'll carry you through thick and thin. You say the word, I'll be there! I'll do anything and everything except drop to my knees and tickle your cockles!' Fucking load of the biggest God-damn horse shit of 'birds of a feather flocking together until the fucking cat comes around'. When I needed the one person to help me that required him actually pulling his balls out his own mouth, never had I seen a person put distance between someone I trusted and myself, like he was trying to make a landspeed record. Family, the only difference between working for someone else, and working with the Brotherhood family is that it'll hurt that much more when you realize that extended family doesn't care. So this..." Brandis held up both closed hands then opened all his fingers towards the entire Brotherhood of Steel dropship army.

"Elder Maxson and the Prydwen ain't nothing more than a family business. And even though we rock the Brotherhood banners and patch... and walk the Brotherhood path... doesn't mean they wont leave us on the quiet side of the call sign again, the moment they realize we're not valuable... in the moment we need them most. The moment we need them more than ever, is the moment they will gut you and mount your fucking skull over the fireplace along with all the other synth trophies they've pulled out the wastes, Paladin Danse. Don't ever forget that. I ain't saying shit," Brandis dropped his chin and head low to meet Danse's eyes. "...and if the shapeshifter is a friend of Thunderstruck, and Nate...you better believe we will play the stupid and ignorant card of not knowing what happened to you in the meantime. It's up to you to keep your shit together and under wraps."

"You have my thanks."

"Oh, make no mistake, if you fuck this up, I will be right there with everyone else on the firing line, or in the crowd, smile plastered on, applauding, shooting, or helping tie the noose around your neck, because I am not responsible or would expect anything less from you if our positions were reversed. Kill me without hesitation if it means I go against the Brotherhood, but for your own sake and preservation... take pride in it! I wish I was rich enough to be stupid and conformed like the rest of them. I didn't come back here to help you with your synth problem, same as you not coming back here to solve the Brotherhood's Institute problem. We all came here because we know what happens otherwise."

""

"Exactly. Glad someone here understands that. Your balls drop again yet, Danse? Or are you still burning a candle for your dead teammates who would also happily report you're a synth over the wire, with the promise of a nice big reward and shiny medal being placed on their chest? While you're stripped naked and shot in the ditch, they'll grind off your name and weld on a medal to the same armor you wore for the soul who pointed the finger and sold you out."

"I get it."

"I don't think you do. we'll still be your friends, Danse. I'll still call you Paladin, Brother. But, the only way we see this to the end is if we all go together. Get your priorities in order, we've got less than a mile for you to figure out how to act committed to the bitter end. Whether that's in five minutes and they feel that something's off with you, or in fifty years when you gracefully bow out and disappear into retirement. Your choice is figuring out where your priorities lie. Now Ten-hut, soldier. Walk and talk as if you didn't just figure out you're now part of the tech the Brotherhood collects."

"That's all I've been thinking about since. Paladin," Danse emphasized the final word, working in his edge again and protocol driven resolution to speak and act in manner of the crew they would soon interact with, "And what's got you so mad-dogged?"

"Can't stop thinking about the Institute. They created a synth-you, while they pumped the real version of you full of FEV and cut him loose. Can't stop thinking about the real-you running around out there, and all the mutants the Brotherhood is going to kill in these next few months. No way to tell..."

"Don't remind me," Paladin Danse felt a spark of anger concentrate and focus in his chest, pulling on his steely-eyed gaze, the rough-love talk was exactly what he needed to snap his mind out of this morning's tragedy. He swallowed the dry lump in his throat that wanted to speak on the final moments of his mutant self, and aimed his feet towards the Departure and Arrival signs for the Boston Airport.

"" Meathead asked, sensing the irritation and confusion from Brandis.

"Yeah, fine. Just waiting for the other shoe to drop now." Brandis said, looking up to the Prydwen. "That there is enough ordinance and weapons to mount a full invasion for months. Never thought I'd see the day...and here it comes. Kingdom Come seven years later."

"That just means the war Elder Maxson wages against the Institute will be fast and brutal. Leaving no doubt that the Brotherhood is an overwhelming force that can stop any conflict before it begins."

"" Meathead's eyes drifted past the Prydwen to the Boston skyline, the shadow of the USS Constitution still mounted on top of the Weatherbea banking tower, port side aimed at East Boston.

Danse accepted the facts as well, knowing how capable the Prydwen was, a floating battleship with mounted mortar cannons, anti-aircraft and Vertibird Fleet, hundreds of Brotherhood Knights in power armor, pilots, and the Equestrian Armored Division of Spellcasters, Tesla-Pegasus, and Iron Earth Steeds.

\111/

Arriving at the Boston Airport with the Prydwen docked at the Control Tower, there was a small gang-way plank connecting the Blimp to the top floor, all around the tarmac the Brotherhood was expanding and running power lines in all directions, setting up a perimeter, fortifying parts of the airport, the arrival gates, the drive up to the airport, unloading supplies, and digging into create a small fortress above and below.

"No side comments, Nate," Paladin Danse warned. "It's the Brotherhoods duty to wipe the Commonwealth of the Institute, and wont rest until it achieves its goal. Until this morning, I knew the unwavering beliefs that carried me and my team forward every day, how we would cleanse the world of dangerous technology, take it from the Wasteland so that no other forces would try to use it again to cause the downfall of society. Gravity and underestimating my enemy so severely blinded me to the fact that there are those who want to cause the downfall of the Brotherhood."

The trio of Paladins Danse and Brandis with Meathead in the middle walking up to the hastily erected front gates was palpable shock as they all looked like they'd been through the ringer. Brandis was thinned out, scraggily beard, still unkempt from his three years in isolation, but carrying a Fat Man, a SMG, and laser pistol.

The old power armor and weaponry standing next to Danse who looked like he'd just witnessed his whole crew slaughtered and dealing with plenty else on his mind, devoid of power armor, and undersuit splattered with Super Mutant blood. Meathead was able to procure a machine gun and revolver for Paladin Danse from the U.S.S. Constitution, from the armory where a noticable amount of weapons were gone, along with all the ponies and Curie, with the Giddyups mentioning they had left for Sanctuary Hills a few days prior. Meathead had sensed as much, but it was still odd to only see the robots puttering around, maintaining and repairing the parts of the ship they could access.

With the Changeling carrying a laser rifle and assault rifle, one resting on each shoulder as they marched right up to the gatekeeper assigned to guard, Meathead could sense the surprise and startled emotions of how threatening they looked,

"...And who are you?" The Brotherhood Guard asked, even under powerarmor, he could sense these three were here for the Brotherhood.

Meathead nodded, standing back and letting Brandis and Danse do their greetings.

"Recon Squad Gladius Leader, Paladin Danse of the Brotherhood."

"Recon Squad Artemis Leader, Paladin Brandis, for the Brotherhood. Ad Victorium, Brother," Brandis didn't salute a lower ranking Knight, and wouldn't expect anyone recognizing his authority until all the facts came out and spread around the force that he survived.

The guard responded with an "Ad Victorium," back, then Danse held out his right hand to Nate, "Knight Nate. Reporting for Duty," Paladin Danse said, speaking for all of them. Meathead wondered to himself, 'when did I make rank of Knight?' but didn't show it or voice his question out loud. 'Slim picking's,' He rationalized.

"We need to report to Elder Maxson to disclose our findings for the Commonwealth expeditions." Paladin Danse said, "It's an urgent top priority that we relay the details of the Recon Teams Artemis and Gladius immediately to the Elder and disseminate the information through the ranks."

"Proceed into the Terminal Building, we'll notify you when the next Vertibird is available to lift you up to the Prydwen."

As the guard radioed ahead about the three Brotherhood of Steel soldiers coming in from the Commonwealth, no one approached them at first, and none of them expected anything less. They'd been radio silent for months, unable to speak past Trinity Tower's overwhelming signal, and it was assumed Brandis was dead years ago. Seeing the dead return, and seeing the lone Paladin without the rest of his squad, the Brotherhood of Steel was still listening to Scribe Halen's distress signal beaming out of Cambridge Station now that the Emergency Broadcast was shut down, and detatched a Vertibird the moment they got in range.

Correlating the information to and from the Headquarters, the Steel members were able to quickly put together that there was no-one left save these three, and absolutely no records of a Knight Nate.

Which lead to an intense distance and range of emotions directed towards them as they sat in the terminal waiting area, watching Vertibirds descend with equipment, everything quickly unloaded, handfuls of boxes or crates and crew jumping back on, then zip back up to the Prydwen. Everyone kept their distance until they ran the message up the chain of command.

The silence and waiting game was partially intentional, but also a result of everyone still adjusting to the new environment. Things were still being set up and required more attention. First thing Meathead noticed were the armored Pegasus flying off in groups of three, five groups he counted disappearing, with all of them heading to different parts of the Commonwealth it looked like. Scouting and reconnaissance, loaded with supplies, they were watch parties that would report on movements in the Commonwealth. Any large groups above ground they would spot and be able to direct their forces, or tail from high in the sky. Following the armored pegasus were Vertibirds, flying out after them.

"" He uttered at barely a whisper,

"What's that?" Paladin Danse asked, Meathead pointed to the pegasus squads flying out into the Commonwealth, three moving into the city, two going off to the North and South.

""

"The Crows?" Brandis asked, confusion plain on his face.

"Save it for the debriefing session..." Danse quietly said, looking around for anyone listening to them.

Back and forth, for a two hours they waited watching everything unfold until finally two knights carrying miniguns jumped off the Vertibird and came on a direct path to them. Up through the boarding ramps and stairs to them.

"" Meathead said before they got too close, getting ready to get up again.

"Come with us." The Brotherhood Knight said, shrouded in his power-armor.

\111/

Being led outside the terminal onto the tarmac, they stepped onto the Vertibird.

The underbelly of the Prydwen changed, panels rolling back to reveal a large crane with massive cables, capable of lowering and raising supplies down to the ground. A crew was loading a platform of small containers, being that most of the pathways were narrow, and incapable of supporting a high volume of traffic, the unloading process was slow, but capable of moving dozens of tons of weight in a single lift. Safely strapping down cargo and equipment to prevent instability, falling off, or shaking the platform too much, there was a select group of people in safety vests and helmets operating the machinery.

Guided past the landing bay to Lancer-Captain Kells, Paladin Danse spoke protocol and asked for permission to come aboard. The Lancer captain was the skipper and field operations manager for the chapter of the Brotherhood, and greeted the Paladin and company in turn.

"Permission Granted. Is this a new recruit?"

"Yes," Danse replied, gesturing to Meathead disgused as Nate, "I've granted him the rank of Initiate, and would like to personally sponsor his promotion for entry into our rankings as Knight."

"We'll be going over your report as soon as you and Paladin Brandis have been debriefed and informed of the current situation. What happened to your original power-armor, if I may ask?"

"Utterly destroyed by an anti-Brotherhood cell who has made it excessively clear that the Brotherhood of Steel wont be welcome here in the Commonwealth."

Lancer-Captain Kells' only frowned sideways for a moment, a tick that processed the news and integrated the information. "You are to remain on the Prydwen and await further orders, and the rest of your squad, Paladin? We've not received a single message from your squadron since your departure."

"Knight Rhys, Scribe Haley, and Advance Scout Verne were killed in battle this morning in our raid against Trinity Tower. The rest were all killed over the last two months in separate instances of attacks."

"And you?" the captain asked Paladin Brandis,

"Paladin Brandis, leader of Recon Squad Artemis."

"Why and how have you not been able to report in?"

"Extrenuating circumstances, lack of supplies, and lack of resources left me unable to send messages to Brotherhood Command. Any attempts I've made since have either contained information too valuable to be intercepted, or have been intercepted and unable to reach the Brotherhood at all. I sent letters two years ago, and gave up hope of ever hearing back. I've been on my own and only thanks to Nate's efforts and his Commonwealth acquaintance Thunderstruck the Pegasus, I was made aware of Recon Squad Gladius' existence."

"Ad Victorium and Welcome back, Paladin. Your orders are the same, remain here on the Prydwen and wait."

"Ad Victorium, Captain," The Paladins saluted the captain with a fist to the chest, the captain did so in turn, leaving his attention to focus on Meathead. Dismissing the two, they were directed towards the galley quarters where other soldiers were still unloading and unpacking.

"If Danse hadn't vouched for you, I doubt we would be having this conversation. Accepting outsiders has proven dangerous in the past."

Sola and Firelance,

""

"And what information would you know that is so relevant to our situation?"

"Any and all potential hotspots of technology and weapons that the Brotherhood has deemed promising or potentially worthwhile should be red-flagged. I highly expect sabotage and subterfuge to be at play and as an unbiased, open opinion as a citizen of the Commonwealth, I can only suggest that everyone take caution and to hit the ground running to accomplish their mission as fast as possible. What does the Brotherhood know about the Synthetic Crows and birds the Institute uses to spy on the Commonwealth?"

Another facial tick, a stifling twitch of the nose and lips, grim information complied with Meathead's warning put Lancer-Captain Kells on his toes. Eying him in a different light, "And where did you get this information?"

""

Lancer-Captain Kells scrutinized Meathead from top to bottom, giving Nate's appearance a new appreciation and apprehensiveness, "You may expect a Paladin's endorsement to grant you a great deal of latitude with us, but let me make one thing clear, the Brotherhood of Steel came to the Commonwealth with a specific goal in mind. As the Captain of this vessel, I won't allow anyone to jeopardize our mission no matter how valuable they think they are. Understood?"

"<Well if the Brotherhood isn't here to here to bring out their dead, then the truth that remains is quite clear."

"If you're insinuating anything less than 100% commitment to the Brotherhood, you can get off right now."

Meathead looked over to the loading dock where they were loading more crates to be craned down to the surface, some parts were too large to be boxed up, some were plainly labeled, LIBERTY PRIME LT.

Meathead looked Lancer-Captain Kells straight in the eye, and told him, ""

Captain Kells assessed Meathead, placing him at a marginal intelligence above a trench soldier, smarter than a grunt to be put into the meat grinder and front lines, but still needed his mettle to be tested and devotion to be aligned properly to the Brotherhood before being fully trusted.

"Then your orders are to proceed to the Command Deck, Elder Maxson will be addressing the crew, after which, once the details of Paladin Danses' expedition are reveiwed, and recommendation is approved, he will have a word with you. Now, dismissed."

\111/

Meathead progressed up the flight deck, idly watching from a side glance as the parts to Liberty Prime were craned down to the surface. Nate's words ringing in his ears. The moment he got a chance of freedom, he would be heading straight for Mass Fusion tower, the conversation fresh in his mind that the only Byrillium agitator, a key component for starting nuclear reactions, and only one of two in public-knowledge existence was sitting a few floors down from the Mass Fusion lobby.

While in his silent approach, he started counting off the number of Brotherhood of Steel members there were on board, needing to close his eyes and focus on expanding his perception to the brink of his abilities to count all of them at once. Over 200 hundred life forms on board, with over a hundred more already sent out in search parties and vertibird squads.

On his way to the command deck, he watched for signs of technology that could out him as a changeling, or detect synths among the crew. But, as he made his limited observations, there were no signs of scanners, facial recognition detectors, or even any signs that there was a device capable of searching for non-organic life. The realization confounded Meathead, no sign of synth-detecting supports anywhere to be found. Of the few equestrians he passed, none of them were interested in his newcomer's status, or arrival. Even the range of emotions weren't revealing either, no suspicion as to who he was, or wonder as to why he was here. As far as Meathead could see and feel, he was nearly invisible to all but a handful of select Brotherhood soldiers who eyed him with great intensity. Brimming with contempt and anger, clearly obvious he wasn't part of the Brotherhood crew, they were defensive and closed-of in their posture, and unwilling to speak directly to him. Approaching those types would only result in unnecessary confrontation, and until he had been okayed and approved by Elder Maxson and the rest of the crew, it wasn't worth Meathead's effort to speak with them.

The Command Deck was clustered with 20 Brothers of a younger crowd, men and women hardly out of their teens, but standing upright and ready at attention. Nate was double their age; For most of them. But among the whole crew, Elder Maxson at the front was by far the youngest, but clearly the most aged. A thick beard down to his neck, and mustache wrapping around his mouth, trimmed to keep his lips clear, side-burns up to his ears, thick tight curls, and a mostly shaved head, it was clear the Elder's hair grew centimeters daily. The most telling feature of the Elder's expression were his eyes, greyed, dark, sunken but puffed up as well, the sign of a person who did not sleep much, if at all. There was a scar crossing down his left eye and eyebrow, making the hair not grow in those certain places.

Elder Maxson didn't have the broad shoulders of a fully grown man, but wore a large thick padded coat to make him look larger and more rounded. But, Meathead could get a steady read on the man's emotions, dripping with determination, anticipation, excitement. Jittery like a coffee fiend, ears and eyes working in tandem to direct his focus on everyone in the room all at once, and then narrow in on small details.

"...Each and every one of you has exceeded my expectations by rapidly facilitating our arrival in the Commonwealth." He postured, walking back and forth from side to side meeting everyone's eyes, folding his arms behind his back and then glancing at Meathead, "You've all accomplished this amazing feat without a hint of purpose or direction, and most impressively, without question."

Meatehad had to remind himself not to be too telling in his own body language, not questioning everything the commanding officer was saying. He scolded himself for being so blunt with Lancer-Captain Kells, for being so dense when it came to the captain of the ship. It wouldn't earn him any additional support or favors anytime soon, but with how Meathead expected this to play out, he could imagine by the end of the day, he would be sent to one of the Brotherhood's target locations. An armory, or fort, Either Red's or one of the Fort's along the Coast to secure weapons and ammo, explosives, or anything of value to make a quick win for the Brotherhood to establish themselves and boost morale quickly amongst the soldiers gathered here.

"Now that the Prydwen is in position, it is time to reveal our purpose and our mission."

'' Followed up with '' Biting the inside of his cheek down hard, he forced himself to focus on the Elder infront of him. Tearing off the skin on the inside of his cheek, he could taste a wee bit of blood, but it was necessary to keep himself under control.

"Beneath the Commonwealth, there is a cancer. A malignant growth that needs to be cut before it reaches the surface. They're experimenting with dangerous technologies that could prove to be the world's undoing for the second time."

"In recent history, the Institute's created a weapon that transcends the destructive nature of the atom bomb. They call this weapon, a synth. A robotic abomination that masquerades as a free-thinking human being. This...Notion! That a MACHINE could be granted free-will is not only offensive, but horribly dangerous! An like the atom, if not harnessed properly, it's capable of rendering us extinct as a species."

''

"I am not prepared to allow the Institute and their synths to continue this line of experimentation. Therefore, they are enemies of the Brotherhood of Steel! They will be dealt with swiftly and mercilessly! This campaign will be costly, but will save humanity from its greatest enemy, ITSELF!"

'<We're here to save you... from yourselves...! I've heard that one before; Max. The moment you think of people who can be spent like money, is the day you'll find the devil's merchant willing to sell you a monument to your failures.>'

"Ad Victorium!"

"AD VICTORIUM!" The crowd shouted back, making the fist over the chest salute towards Elder Maxson.

\111/

More waiting, and nearly two more hours later, Meathead was called to meet with Elder Maxson. All the while, Paladin Danse and Brandis both debriefed as much information as they could, and were still laying out details of their expeditions, when a partial report on Nate was taken from the interrogation rooms to Elder Maxson. The information outlining that Nate was up for promotion and integration into the Brotherhood of Steel as an Initiate and into knighthood, was laid out for Elder Maxson. With Meathead having been there for the Arcjet run, along with initially helping them clear West Cambridge of Ghouls, and how Thunderstruck's name was only put down as a pony apart of Nate's group who helped deliver Brandis under Nate's decision making and discovery, the details of his Super Mutant hunting expeditions, and the report over KDCR that Nate hung an Institute spy all painted a broad picture for Elder Maxson to see the faint details. With Lancer-Captain Kells notes on their initial summary contact, Nate was to be considered a force to be reckoned with, one that Elder Maxson would have no issue directing the vast amount of energy and local information towards their own goals.

"I care about the people of the Commonwealth, Nate." Elder Maxson began, "I truly do."

Meathead reading Maxson's emotions told him otherwise, ""

"I can understand your indecisiveness, training your weapon on the people you're trying to save can be a bitter pill to swallow,"

""

"Go on, explain what you mean by the last 75 years."

"" Meat shook his head, "The version of the story I was told is that the whole CPG was dead before it even got started, with the Institute to blame using synths as far back as then to wipe out everyone who arrived at this fabled meeting.>"

"I refuse to allow the mistakes of the past to be repeated," Elder Maxson said,

"So what can a Vault-Tec. representative like myself offer to the Brotherhood of Steel?"

"I want you to take responsibility for this planet, to make a difference. and from Paladin Danses' report, it seems like you already are."

'' Meathead thought to himself, this isn't the first time Elder Maxson gave a promotional speech.

"Paladin Danse believes you understand our core values and would be an essential asset to the Brotherhood here in the Commonwealth, Nate. And as one of our most trusted field officers, that couldn't come as a higher recommendation."

While Meathead felt this would be one of his only times to highlight an issue for the Brotherhood to set their sights on, Meathead held his tongue, not mentioning Athena, Mona, nor the Super Mutants. That he figured was private information, and the Brotherhood would learn about them all the same in the meanwhile.

"" A bit of free information, something that he relayed to Captain Kells, and now the Elder. It was already common knowledge to Diamond City, they might as well find out sooner than later.

"I thank you for the input. Nate; From Initiate I'm promoting you to the rank of Knight within the Brotherhood of Steel. With such a promotion comes the grant of Power Armor. Wear it well to protect yourself, and serve the Brotherhood proudly. Once you've become familiar with the Prydwen, and her staff, report to the Flight Deck for your new orders."

Meathead nodded, remembering to salute and reply, ""

\111/

From Proctor Ingram who ran the maintenance bay for heavy retrofitting and overhauls to complete sets of power armors, she pointed him to his own set of Power Armor among dozens of others that were all hung and ready for operation.

To Quartermaster Protor Teagan's proposal to begin taking supplies and food from local farms and settlements to support the Brotherhood's cause, along with handing him a stack of contracts signing in the same groups on a compounding interest to provide protection for the farms, Meathead only took them to use later as tinder.

The Medical Knight Captain Cade and Captain Blood Work was the only time Meathead needed to mentally prepare himself, as the Unicorn and human physicians were working in tandem to offer a quick medical exam and questionnaire.

It'd been over a decade since Meathead had to use the spell in particular, but the counter-surveilance spell he was taught to use was created specifically to fool a unicorn's medical scan. The spell swept over his arms and legs, his torso chest and head. Meathead was sweating by the time Blood Work was done, but the Unicorn hummed to himself, signing off on a clipboard and checklist with a happy nod. The Changeling spell was an undetectable by all forms of magic, since it was changing his internal organs, bones, and nervous system as well to that of a human.

Blood Work seemed to be the only unicorn he met so far capable of casting a magical spell that was capable of detecting anomalies, and since he'd never been in contact with a changeling, as far as Meathead knew, that signature of spell wouldn't be attuned to trace for Changelings. Scarcity and obscurity worked in Meathead's favor, but he knew the longer he was around, and the longer the Brotherhood interacted with the Institute, the more paranoid and advanced the magical scrying would become to ferret out any intruders or synths. All of his instincts told him to get away from the Brotherhood and Prydwen as fast as possible, that his ruse as Nate wouldn't last more than a few days. But, he needed it to last as long as possible, to learn as much as he could. He'd already seen the Liberty Prime crates, which was damming enough, but it would take weeks to assemble something of that magnitude, if not less. On the grand timeline, he expected an invasion of the Institute before Christmas, maybe even as soon as Thanksgiving, third week of November. But that was fast, hardly enough time to establish themselves and gather information on the Commonwealth. They hadn't even made a mention of getting in contact with the Railroad yet.

'<Fool them once, shame on them,>' The first recon squads were already returning, short flights, but already in line with what Meathead predicted when he watched them take off hours ago when the Brotherhood of Steel first landed in the Commonwealth. He put a mental count-down timer on himself, that sooner than later, if things remained positive for the Brotherhood, there eventually would be a security purge, where everyone would be under scrutiny, and an extra layer of verification and authentification would be put into place. Within the first confrontation in the Commonwealth, if things went bad for the Brotherhood, spies, sabotage, information leaked, he would be staring at a mage capable of detecting if he wasn't completely human. But, if the Brotherhood won every fight, saw endless triumph, then the security would be more relaxed, and he wouldn't need to worry about the impending search for long.

Regardless, Meathead told himself, the Prydwen was not a safe place for him to be for long.

A Brotherhood Equestrian guided Meathead to a bunk and rack of Power Armor, instructed that it was up to him to maintain and repair the armor, and that Proctor Ingram would only work on his suit if it was in catastrophic failure condition. At that point, it would either be fitted for scraps, and he would be wearing regular body armor and plating while Ingram worked on securing a new suit for him. Both of which would take time. Leaving nothing, and not even sitting in the bed for a moment, Meathead donned the Power Armor and began to look for Paladin Danse, which as he passed by multiple faces, he wondered how long it would take before not every human on board would return, and how synths would infiltrate within hours, if not days of the first returning squadrons sent out on reconnaissance missions.

Finding Paladin Danse was a challenge as well, trying to find his own blind-spot, but after searching and filtering for people who felt comfortable in a Paladin's presence, it was less difficult to narrow down where Danse was. It was a certain type of comforting, the strength and weight a Paladin's name and rank carried, even if it was marred with failure and loss. To survive the Commonwealth was already seen as a remarkable feat worthy of praise and adoration, but when Meathead found Danse, his face reflected anything but the welcome comments of glory. Waving off scribes and other Knights who wanted to know about his adventures in the Commonwealth wasteland, he only had eyes for Meathead who knew the extent of his trials.

"" Meathead pointed directly to his ear, shaking his head. Danse nodded, knowing that too many people would be straining their ears to listen in on their conversation. There would be no privacy aboard the Prydwen, everything being recorded and written down, reported, and passed along. While Meathead hadn't detected any magic users scanning spells, it occured to the Changeling that since the Institute's influence didn't extend beyond the Commonwealth without the Byrillium Agitator and a nuclear power source to strengthen the range of their Mass Relay Teleporter, the Brotherhood never concerned themselves with security or the threat of synths among them.

"How did it go with Elder Maxson?"

While there was a palpable emotion in the air of 'This is it,' the type of anxiety and nerve wracking that came along before a massive invasion and storm sweeping out over the land, the Changeling surmised that he was under no threat of being detected on more advanced systematic magical energy signatures, at least, so long as he maintained his distance from any higher advanced spellcasters aboard he had yet to meet.

""

Paladin Danse nodded once, " I imagine I'll be receiving similar orders here shortly. As your sponsor, it's my responsibility to guide you around the Commonwealth and ensure our ideals are being observed. Elder Maxson is particular when it comes to new recruits, and while Paladin Brandis is still filling in the upper echelons of command on all the reports Scribe Halen wasn't able to transmit with the Deep Range Transmitter, we'll be finishing what Recon Squad Gladius came here for."

""

"Any creature or monster deciding to pop-in unnanounced would find themselves quickly vaporized thanks to the Prydwen's magical defenses. Thanks to the spellcasters on the Third Deck, Diamond and Amarylis Fortune concocted a machine capable of warding off any magical-thaumatic threat like teleporting that would dare try to attack the Brotherhood unannounced."

""

"Ad Victorium, and congratulations on your promotion to Knight, Nate."

\111/

On the Fourth Deck, The tape recorder went around and round, replaying back sections of Nate and Paladin Danses' conversation. As an inner-intelligence operative specialist listened to the back and forth small talk over and over again, transcribing the speech, and submitting the report to a file, it was all logged and monitored.

\111/

Meathead learned that no teleporting was allowed thanks to the tip from Paladin Danse, while not the same, he imagined the Brotherhood of Steel had a magical shield running through the length of the Prydwen, capable of warding off any teleportation caused by Mass Relay signals sent by the Institute. While Changeling teleportation was different to the Institute's matter-displacement, and more effective than Athena's warping, it was still something he knew now not to attempt without good reason. If they were in tune enough with magic to erect a shield array, then they might even be able to pinpoint and track the type of energy signature that sent the object through the Prydwen's defenses.

When Meathead went down to the Flight Deck, Elder Maxson and Lancer-Captain Kells were there. Kells was instructing flight crews on a path to take for the next operation, as Elder Maxson gave Meathead his new orders to take.

Kells' notes told Maxson that while Nate appeared to be stand-offish, partially to be expected with the arrival of the main Brotherhood chapter, he claimed valuable tactical knowledge of the surrounding area around the Commonwealth. This meant to Elder Maxson if Nate could prove his combat worth and secure a location for the Brotherhood, his Knight status would be truly acknowledged. Unspoken was that Nate was only on a provisional status, seeing if the Commonwealth wastelander was worth the accreditation Paladin Danse gave for him.

Paladin Danse arrived only a minute later, and in time for Elder Maxson to give orders to both of them.

"We have a Vertibird ready on Standby, waiting for you and a strike team to wipe out an existing Super Mutant Stronghold armed with a nuclear arsenal. The Brotherhood cannot allow these abominations to have nuclear weapons at their disposal, go to Fort Strong and wipe those dirty mutants from the face of the earth."

"It'll be a pleasure to kill the super mutant filth." Paladin Danse said. After finding his stride again, he found it easy not to think about his own synth-anatomy, and Meathead mirrored the sentiment.

"Wipe the mutants, and help strike team Nero secure the Fort, you'll be part of Strike team Ocean. Then, wait for the Vertibirds to come in for retrieval once the nuclear arsenal is secured."

Meathead already found himself being compartmentalized outside of relevant information, when he already knew what was being developed and stored at Fort Strong.

Mini-Nukes and Launchers, the island was a testing sight before the pre-war, but the way things were quickly progressing, if the Brotherhood didn't ask, he wouldn't offer up information unless asked about it. He didn't know what Paladins Brandis or Danse said about Athena, but the looming threat of her and her circle of friends booby-trapping the island was painfully obvious on Danse's reactions.

"These Comms are linked through the Vertibirds, back to Brotherhood Command in the Prydwen, everything we say will be heard, so keep your swearing to a minimum." Paladin Danse said, offering Meathead another tidbit of advice to watch what he said. Unless the radios were off, say nothing.

Placed at the gunner position of a vertibird gunship minigun, the two Vertibirds were extended out from the launch pads and took off at a wide half-circle arc towards Fort Strong.

In sight of the Boston Airport, Fort Strong was further East, out on a small archipelago West of Libertalia and South of Nahant, a long bridge still connected it to the mainland through Nordhagen Beach.

The flight took less than a minute, but the angle they came in at over the Fort base town and collection of army and navy buildings were all occupied by super mutants. With direct lines and open commands to fire, Meathead leaned into the controls of the minigun and shot at the dozens of super mutants quick to fire up at them. A Behemoth was in the center of the Fort's complex, hurling chunks of bricks and buildings at the vertibirds. As the Lancer Pilots swung up or out further to avoid the ballistic missiles, plinks of bullets could be heard denting into the armored sides of the Vertibird.

"It's like they knew we were coming," a member from strike team Nero commented. Rudimentary holes were dug into the rubble, nests for firing up towards them made it hard to shoot at from one angle, making the vertibird need to swing around and hit them from the rear.

Meathead's arms were vibrating, jolting in time with the minigun and barely able to hear the chatter over the comm links, he heard from the strike team in the other vertibird, and then from the Lancer Pilot as well to focus his fire on the primary behemoth target. Circling the faux-town, super mutants were taking cover and hiding, firing from covered awnings and under gaps in the rubble as the Behemoth was torn apart by the hailstorm of bullets ripping off sections of flesh in an endless barrage.

"Just look at that thing bleed!" Meathead heard a Brotherhood knight say.

The Behemoth, like Swan, and all other sturdy super mutants, did not go down easily. It took literally sheering off entire sections of the mutant's body and blasting through the skull cap into the brain until the beast was completely defeated. Once the main threat was down, the Lancer Pilot quickly came in for a landing to allow the strike team to move in on Fort Strong itself, while retreating back to the Prydwen. Staying any longer would only allow other ground force super mutants to mount an attack on the Vertibirds.

After circling the island of Fort Strong twice, the Behemoth was shot down, "Alright! Get ready to land!" Coming in at the far side of the island, away from Fort Strong, half a dozen super mutants charged for the vertibirds landing, expending the miniguns ammo on the wave of mutants, the order came for them to disembark after the landing zone was cleared. "Lets go! Let's go!"

"Watch for Mutants hiding!"

As Paladin Danse pushed forward, Meathead and another Knight, along with the other strike team disembarked and ran for Fort Strong.

Sweeping the buildings, the collection was only a dozen ramshackled collapsed houses and offices that were more ravaged by the seas and tide, also used as a weapons testing ground before the war, and were barely structures at that point. With only Fort Strong offering any real cover and tactical advantage, most of the strike team's focus were on any threats coming out of the building at the highest point on the island.

When the six of them all neared the entrance of Fort Strong, four super mutants emerged from the front, miniguns of their own wearing big ammo backpacks, chewing up the ground and rock all around them, sweeping the guns back and forth to blast everything in sight. Their aim wasn't good, but their ammo supply was nearly limitless as the rounds kept coming, divoting holes in four of them as the Brotherhood moved for what cover they could find. As the second strike team fired back, letting their power armor take the brunt of the bullets as they shot, even Meathead felt his armor lurch and vibrate as he found his cover rapdily being eaten away by the relentless swarm of 5mm rounds boring through his rubble cover. His head jerked sideways as a bullet pinged against his helmet,

"You got hit, Knight," He heard Danse say. "Stay low,"

Twelve hundred rounds later, the first two mutants finally needed to reload, and that's when they pressed forward, rising up to shoot back. The barrage of return fire was a mix of laser blasts and plasma cannons lighting up the scene, one mutant fell dead instantly as the next mutant produced a missile launcher and fired directly at the cluster of Brotherhood Knights.

"Missile!"

The armor was blown off one Brotherhood Knight, knocking him sideways and onto his back like a turtle, arms and legs shredded, but miraculously still alive. His torso was the only thing still partially covered, but he couldn't see as the power system to his helmet failed. Meathead and Danse fired up at the super mutants as the one was shoving another missile into the launcher. They were still watching as it fell out of the mutant's hands as he kneeled over dead.

Shoved full of stimpaks, the other strike team helped their downed member back onto his feet, and return to the fight, getting up the beginning of the slope to Fort Strong. Only 20 meters, but still fighting uphill with cliffs all around.

In a fire fight, trading armor and bullets, both strike teams were shot up as they laid waste to the last two mutants, reaching the small courtyard in front of Fort Strong with everyone still intact, but not completely whole.

"Command, this is Strike Team Nero. We've made it to the entrance to Fort Strong, we expect heavy resistance inside."

"Is everyone alive?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Proceed."

Progressing inside, the six of them, with the one knight who lost most of his suit's integrity and the new Knight Nate in the rear they moved into the ruined foyer where over a dozen blood bags were hanging, but no Super Mutants.

"We're inside the foyer, no sign of super mutants upon initial entry."

from the second floor balcony looking down, Meathead pointed his rifle up, ""

Hiding in cover, Meathead sensed over a dozen more mutants all around Fort Strong's interior, more in the back offices, but these two started flinging grenades from behind cover down into the foyer. As the strike team Nero pressed forward, Paladin Danse, Meathead, and the third Knight backpedaled to avoid the small grenades as they bounded down and exploded.

"Stop pushing!" The knight said, "The fight's ahead of us!" The explosions went off nearly a second after the Knight said that, the power armor taking most of the damage, but easily saving the Knight's life from nearly stepping on a grenade that landed at his feet.

As Meathead's ears rung from the multiple explosions going off, Strike Team Nero went for an open door to their left were five mutants all assaulted at once, shooting through the doorway as the first Knight rushed in firing back with a laser rifle.

The headstrong approach wasn't sitting well with Meathead as he and Danse went back through the doors outside, and took cover around the breached doors. Firing upwards, the mutant's grenade supply ran out as they emerged from cover and fired at them. The knight with crippled armor, and the knight Meathead saved both took this opportunity to run forward and join Strike team Nero in shooting at the crowded room of super mutants.

"" Meathead shouted, the closed door opened and the two knights were suddenly pinned behind the strike team Nero as two Super Mutants crowded the right-hand door, automatic rifles blasting into their backsides as Meathead and Danse both fired their laser rifles at the mutants on the balcony and then first floor doorway.

The audible sound of anguish and death was heard over the comms as the one knight with crippled armor was shot down, the second knight disappeared through the left hand-door behind strike team Nero, as they laid waste to the five mutants inside the first of the offices. "Tossing a grenade," Danse said, from his own bandolier, Paladin Danse aimed for the right-hand doorway and heaved a plasma grenade directly towards the open gap. It bounced off the back wall, but landed directly infront of the opened door and blasted the two mutants back.

A corona of green energy dispersed, "Knight Ola is down," Paladin Danse reported, "Pinned between two open doorways the mutants occupied."

"Knight Nate, your helmet. Is your comms still working?" Paladin Danse was shaking his head no, signaling for him to switch it off.

"Knight Nate's helmet was damaged in the last exchange of gunfire," Paladin Danse said over the radio. Strike Team Nero was already moving through the back offices, with the four knights shooting in tandem, Paladin Danse and Meathead were quickly falling behind, and now alone in the foyer.

Meathead removed his helmet, Paladin Danse turned off his comms link, "You said you could detect emotions, how many more mutants are there here?" He asked quietly,

""

"Keep your helmet on, say nothing else. My intuition is saying this place is booby-trapped."

"" Meathead asked, Danse nodded.

"Let me see your helmet," Reaching out, he pulled the plug and ripped the wires off,

Pointing back up to his own helmet he switch his comms back on,

"Make sure the exit is clear, and that no super-mutants come up behind us. There should be dozens of mini-nukes here, and a special type of launcher the army was working on to improve on the Fat-Man launcher. All of which I hate to think they're rigged to blow."

"" With a hand gesture, Paladin Danse motioned for Nate to follow, aiming for the right-hand door to the foyer, they made it in and shot at a super mutant waiting for them. Firing off six rounds, the mutant wasn't able to penetrate their armor, and as Nero was finished clearing the first floor, they met up with them again in the round circuit of offices at the lift and staircases leading down and upstairs.

\111/

The basement to Fort Strong was able to disrupt any transmission or radio signal, and all that came across the comms airwaves was static after both strike teams moved underground.

If it weren't for the losses Paladin Danse faced over the last day; he knew he was being tested as well as observed if his heart was still in the right place, that his devotion was still as strong as ever for the Brotherhood. He knew that he should be rushing in right along with strike team Nero, but the cautious approach Meathead was taking was more favorable after the initial push to Fort Strong and more likable. He hadn't found his confidence yet, and wanted to take the safer approach, rather than rush in headfirst to another trap or mistake like most other times he'd been around the Commonwealth.

It irked him that every where he went these last few months, it seemed like someone always knew they were coming, that someone was already there, whether it was the Gunners, raiders, the Institute, mutants, there was never a place he went to that was clear from ghouls or any other misfortune that dogged him wherever he and his former team went.

Now he knew. Athena must've gotten hold of the Brotherhood's list of scouting locations somewhere along way in the last seven years and made it all but impossible for them to make any progress in the Commonwealth. Along with logic and common sense, it would've been easy to figure out high-value location the Brotherhood would be interested in anyway. Now that they were heading straight for a cache of pre-war weapons and nuclear arsenal, Danse couldn't ignore the mounting fear and premonition that Fort Strong was sitting on a hairpin trigger ready to blow.

With Nero fighting wildly and decimating everything in their path, Paladin Danse reflected on his own reckless path he took with scouting, how overwhelming firepower was always his first answer, and how that lead him into places he relied on an arsenal of weapons at his disposal to fight back. Now it was becoming more and more clear to him how he may of been captured by synths, and turned into one of their own. It was situations like this that lead to his downfall. Somewhere along the way, he was separated from his team for a long enough period for the Institute to make the switch, and return him back before any of Recon Squad Gladius was able to raise concern.

Part of him wanted to know exactly when it occurred, he wanted closure on the exact moment his old life ended, and new one switched out for a synth, but his memories were all flowing like a river, no bends or grey spots anywhere that stagnated the moment anywhere. He couldn't remember any time he went out alone, and now the only people he could've asked about a period of time he was gone were dead as well.

\111/

With the upper floors to Fort Strong free of super mutants, both strike teams regrouped and focused on the mutants in the basement. Forewarning that this next area would be volatile with explosives, and to check their aim, no wild shots or hosing of the enemy was allowed.

Moving into Fort Strong's Research facility below, the strike team rushed down the hallway past a workshop and into a generator room with a balcony where they were able to look down. Gaining the attention of super mutants and their mutated hounds that charged up the stairs as they all fired down.

The higher floor gave them the advantage to clear everything below them, with Paladin Danse leading the way this time.

"Is that all of them?" the leader of Strike team Nero, Knight Jon asked.

""

"Then get back up topside, and inform the Prydwen. Elder Maxson will want to know the location is clear. We'll secure the mini-nukes."

"" Meathead offered, ""

"Find our backdoor then,"

""

Keeping close, Meathead searched for what he knew to be true, that there would be a way to access the underground area, especially if the weight of the crates containing the mini-nukes was anything like he imagined.

When they came to a large depot room, the walls had metal crates around the walls, with a forklift off to one side. Except for a large wooden crate in the center on the back of a semi-trailer. The wheels were all depressed and flattened, and the room ticked with radiation.

One Knight was quick to pop open a crate, but was confused at the emtpy container.

"There's no mini-nukes anywhere. They're all gone!"

Crate after crate, they popped them open, "They should be here!"

"Get the crate on the trailer opened, that must be the experiemental weapon they were working on." Knight Jon commanded.

Aside from the smaller crates that filled up two pallet widths, there was a large military container sized crate chained up, encased in metal and wood.

"We need to get out of here, an...anti-Brotherhood cell knew we would be coming! We're sitting ducks and we need to leave while we still can," Paladin Danse argued.

"We can't leave here empty handed, I don't care about raiders who know about us. This crate matches the build of an old Abrahms tank, if this is what our reports say it is, the tank is outfitted with a Fat-Man Launcher, loaded and ready to ship. We're not leaving here without this tank. A weapon like this will turn the tide of ground warfare to the Brotherhood's side permanently."

""

"It's her. She knew we were coming here and emptied the whole armory! She took it all!"

As they moved to open the shipping container and Meathead suddenly felt a surge of emotions welling up from inside. ""

Their gieger counters were ticking away, counting the amount of rads in the air, "All our equipment says that there's radioactive material, whatever mini-nukes are left are in here." A knight from strike team Nero said,

"Open it!" Knight Jon commanded,

As they popped open the lid, there were several Glowing Ghouls all mangled and smashed into the box, still alive and clueless, but wrapped around a metal car-sized casing stamped with M-28. Strapped on top was a digital-timer with red numbers counting down from Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. "Bomb! We got a live-bomb! Bomb!"

Meathead broke free and ran for Danse, the fear apparent on his face, he sprinted,

Five. Four. Three.

Magic spell building up behind his eyes as he grabbed Danse and yanked him sideways through a teleport.

Danse was about to yell at Meathead, as soon as he realized they reappeared two miles north in the lower level of a parking garage underground. Surrounded by defunct and rusted cars sitting in sand and water, the words were on Danse' lips to demand to know what happened when a massive mushroom cloud and explosion vaporized Fort Strong, the entire island.

Danse shoved Meathead down the moment they heard the explosion, the shockwave blasted out over the Commonwealth, the explosion visible for 30 miles. "Damnit!" Danse yelled.

There was a vertibird circling wide around the Fort Strong Island as it was knocked into the Charles Bay, crashing and bursting into flames as the propellers thrashed through the water, shaking and tearing itself apart as metal scrap went everywhere.

The Prydwin Blimp rocked sideways before correcting itself as the massive blast sent shudders through the hull. Leaning into the control tower, the whole crew and Brotherhood was shocked at the bright light and blast rising up from the crater where Fort Strong once was. Everything not bolted or nailed down was suddenly thrown sideways to the floor as the automatic stabilizers fired into action to keep the blimp stable and return to level.

\111/

Libertalia was rolled over in the shockwave and follow-up wave that slammed into Nahant. The rotting seaside pillars and pilons crumbing from inertia as the waves shifted and boats rocked up against each other. The ships collapsed into the sea, dragged under and then swallowed up.

The Robco Factory jolted as its lights blackened as it missed a cycle, then restarted again. The deafening roar was heard far away in Nuka-World.

As the skyline turned back to its normal grey color, the sky growing dark again, Danse went to the beach and fell to his knees.

As seawater filled up the crater left by the bomb Athena placed for the Brotherhood to find, "Son of a BITCH!" Danse said, anger outpouring as he imagined Athena's face again and again. "She can't keep getting away with this!"

"She told me! She told me she was going to do this! She told me that she knew our targets! And I let her do this!"

Danse looked up to Meathead in desparation, "Meathead, please. You track people by emotions. WHERE is ATHENA? We need to put a stop to her; NOW. She's insane! She's going to do more of...of THIS! She's got more planned!" Danse yelled, pointing to the smoke cloud billowing over East Boston.

""

"How can you not sense where she is?"

""

"But what? Where the hell did she get a bomb like that and all those Glowing ghouls?"

""

"In plain site..." Danse said automatically without thinking, then his head turned South. "In the Glowing Sea."

""

"So we've got to get down there then...but first...what do we do about showing back up? Surviving? How do we explain this? They'll think we're deserters, or synths, and I'm already a synth! I'm half-dead in their eyes already, but once the Brotherhood finds out it's over! You may of saved our lives, but now we're both doomed to answer questions we can't answer without exposing ourselves. We've got no options left."

""

"And the other options?"

"

""Well...I have to go back...I haven't gotten anywhere close to being able to access the communications center. She's going to bring down the whole Brotherhood to get to Sola and Firelance, and I can't let...I can't let her destroy the Brotherhood. They're my family who raised and trained me. I get back to the Prydwen, force my way into the comm center if I have to, and put out the message to Sola and Firelance."

"

"Calling out now...would be seen as a mark against us...You're right. We're playing into her game. Elder Maxson would never admit defeat or call out for reinforcements so early in the game. They've been here less than a day and this...would send things into overdrive. Accelerate the Brotherhood's timeline, rush them, make us sloppy and anxious. Nobody's getting any sleep tonight, that's for sure."

""

"But they have to know what happened. What we're dealing with, who are enemies are. Where would we even go?"

"I know, Danse. I know. But I know a guy who may know where she is..." Meathead said, wincing. "Nuka-World. Nate and I are heading to Nuka-World sooner-than-later now. Nate may be square with Mona, but Athena is going to keep us bound to her schedule of fucking over the Brotherhood, using the raiders from Nuka-World, to get to Sola and Firelance."

"Who's the name were you about to say?"

"" Meathead said, shaking his head.

"Why do you keep doing that with your head?"

""

"Well take one for the team and tell me where he is."

""

Danse's teeth were grinding, chattering as the hard accepted truth wore him down.

It only took a glance towards the smoke filled crater wafting everywhere across Boston, ""

"Get us back there. They'll be mobilizing a vertibird squad this instant to check out the damage. We need to be close enough, but far enough away to where it's believable we were in it. Can you create fire with your magic?"

Meathead nodded, "Burn the outsides black, smoke them up. We'll need to get them looking like they just got pulled from the fire."

""

"We all work on our own suits. You included. It's up to each Brotherhood knight to maintain their own working suit. We'll sort out the rest of the details later. Only Ingram and a few others would be able to tell that the damage isn't from the blast. That's why we'll be hosed down outside at the airport in decontamination chambers before getting anywhere near the Prydwen. Right now, we need to get back there and bury ourselves in the rubble for them to dig us back out." Danse sighed, "Thank you for saving me. How did you know it was going to explode?"

""

"Any ideas on a story? One that puts us outside the Fort?"

""

\111/

Setting the stage, burning Danse' suit to a crisp black, damaging all the systems, scorching the backside and bashing the power armor in. Meathead had to crush the sides of the arms, legs, helmet, and damage the eye ports as well. The whole backside was bent and warped, crimping Danse in. It was hard to gauge how far out from the blast zone they had to move, but once there was enough signs of remaining of the brick walls, Meathead swept Danse under and buried him the wall of a house from the faux-town. Under a wall of concrete and rebar, he was impossible to see from above, and it would take a team of at least five people without the use of magic to get him out. ""

"Yeah."

""

"Yeah. I can move just enough. Meathead...can you sense anyone else from the assault team?"

Meathead shook his head, ""

\111/

Meathead decided to be as far as he could believe on the base island. Taking steel rebar and gouging scratches across his power armor, He could only find traces of the mutant behemoth coated in dust and rubble, and applied the same dirt and scorched makeup to his armor as well.

Sure enough, a second vertibird was sent out from the Boston Airport, Meathead signaled for them, as he wandered around buildings, throwing over walls, raising his hands to call out for any surviving Brotherhood members.

Danse heard the vertibird coming in to land, activating his SOS transponder, it squealed and chirped.

The signal allowed a team of three to dig him out of the rubble manually as the other three spread out and looked for survivors as well.

"Paladin?" They shouted out,

Danse laid there, eye ports leaving him in total darkness, he couldn't tell who was calling his name until rubble was cleared away. His heart was racing in his chest, the suit felt claustrophobic, having been snugly crushed around him to give the appearance he was impacted in the blast. That his suit was the saving grace as to why he was still alive.

"I'm here!" He shouted, playing the role.

"We got a live one! Over here!"

Above him, dirt and bricks were moved away, the weight pressing down on him getting less and less. "I'm still pinned down!"

"I'm here!"

\111/

Ch. 98 Prevent

MacCready emerged from the Rexford Hotel in Goodneighbor carrying his son wrapped in a bundle of blankets, Hancock escorting him, the carriage with the Giddy-up Buttercups hitched up with Nate ontop and Deacon riding shotgun. MacCready was shaking, visibly as he carried his boy and laid him down in the Atomatoy's carriage, and let out a shaky breath as he made his son comfortable in the back seat.

"MacCready, Ride with your boy, us three will be keeping an eye out on the road, you keep your eyes on your boy. Make sure he stays comfy. We leave now, it'll only take us two hours to get from here to Vault 111," Nate said, taking the reigns and urging the Giddy-ups' into action.

There was a soft wheezing coming from the pile of blankets, bedridden and nearly paralyzed was MacCready's son, Duncan.

Keeping a hand on his son, comforting him and whispering to Duncan, MacCready was holding back tears as the carriage went into motion and left Goodneighbor heading West towards Diamond City.

Up Massachusetts Blvd. towards Fenway Park, the destruction around the Boston Common and collapse of the Copper Dome made both raiders and mutants unsure of where to stake their next claim. Considering the area too dangerous to move into yet, left the passage between the two colony towns mostly open.

Picking up speed as they rushed past Trinity Plaza, they were moving too quickly to be cornered by any aware mutants who were watching the streets. Trinity Church was silent and the Boston Library had a lookout perched on the roof, but the mutant didn't know what to make of the trusted ponies pulling a wagon. Too focused on the ponies themselves, it wasn't until they snapped out of their stupor and saw the humans sitting on top did they try to do anything. By the time the Mutants did decide to fire and come out of their posts, only three rounds were fired wildly down the street, out of earshot from MacCready, but Deacon and Nate still took notice. Passing on the North side of Diamond City, they passed a few guards patrolling the outside of the stadium, and kept moving along around cars and other road barriers. In all of fifteen minutes they moved from Goodneighbor all the way to the Northern Fens, making a break for Red's territory marked with the X inside the Chest. All along the route, Nate watched for any signs of danger, any sign that someone would try to stop them, but this was one of the few freeing moments he was able to breath once they were out of Boston proper. Once they reached Red's territory and saw the Beantown Brewery, passing the sunken swamped ruins of Harvard along the Charles River, there were a few mirelurks off to their right, but they were far enough inland to not warrant them being a nuisance.

Right over the bridge, past Beantown Brewery, onto Greygarden, to the West of Lexington, time ticked on and Nate found himself looking at his wrist, only to forget that he didn't have a pip-boy, hoping to see his watch. Counting off in his head, they were making better time than they hoped.

Deacon stayed alert with two rifles and a shotgun ready, primed and loaded, ready to shoot any anything that dared get too close. Rounding past the ArcJet center, their path took them past the Federal Ration Stockpile and then cut directly north on a straight and mostly level road that led directly to the Red Rocket filling station North of Concord.

"Rounding third," Nate mentioned. "Another twenty minutes or so and we'll be in the home stretch."

The fact that they weren't bothered anywhere outside of Boston, and that they rushed from one side of the Commonwealth to the other in less than an hour was a miracle. Faster than they could've hoped or predicted, the Giddyups with their endless amounts of energy made it possible to keep going without slowing down.

When they pulled past the Red Rocket Filling station, slowing down to turn left over the wooden bridge into Sanctuary Hills, they made it from Goodneighbor in less than an hour.

Cracking his knuckles and sitting upright, Nate turned to Deacon, "Let them know we're here. That's it up there."

Pulling the carriage to an empty lot that Codsworth cleared sometime in the past week, Nate brought the ponies to a stop and thanked them all for being so swift.

"Alright, MacCready, home stretch, we just need to get your boy up the hill and down into the Vault. Think you can carry him that far? Need a hand?" Nate told MacCready,

"I got him."

"Hancock, see if you can back the carriage into an empty covered driveway, for easier hook-up and rolling out next time we need them. I'm going to get Duncan here into the cryochamber, Asap."

"Looks like we've got locals," Hancock mentioned, pointing to the ponies further up the street. Leighla was watching from a large tree in the center of the culdesac roundabout, thinking that this was Nate, but once he was closer, she noticed his arm and thought it was some type of sleeve or gauntlet, but her mind refused to accept the differences between this Nate and the one that sent them here.

She chirped loudly, gaining Cait's attention, hurrying out to see the newcomers, she spotted Nate's 111 vault suit as well, but didn't make the connection until she saw Nate's deathclaw and how it moved.

"Hold on a tic, that's new..." She said, walking towards them as they progressed towards the path leading up to Vault 111. "Oy!" She called out, Lieghla coming down from her perch as well to come up beside Cait.

"What's with the arm, Nate? What happened there?"

"Deacon, lead MacCready up, I'll only be a moment." Withdrawing a new expression and a smile, "Cait! And Leighla, seems you met my doppleganger. Meat."

"What's that suppose to mean?" Cait asked, "You don't look hardly the same since we last saw you."

"That would be because you met with my counterpart, Meathead. Looks just like me, except for the arm."

"Do you mean a twin or something?" She asked, shaking her head.

"A magic twin, more like. You know these ponies that cast magic?"

Cait slowly tipped her head down in a nod, "Yeah...?"

"Well, one of them knows how to cast a spell to look just like myself. His name's Meathead, he's the one who freed you from the Combat Zone."

"Is that what this is? Some kind of circus act? Magic Trick? You go round the carousel and keep popping your head up like a whack-a-mole?" Cait asked, confused and still not understanding completely.

"It's a way I keep my enemies off my trail, Cait. It's how I get multiple things done across the whole Commonwealth without people being able to track me down."

Leighla looked down at Nate, "You don't smell the same either," She inhaled deeply through her nostrils, "You smell like motor oil and iron, the Nate we know smelled like dirt and fried fish."

"I don't know what to say to that, since that's the first time anyone's ever described my scent like that. I'm glad Meat sent you here to be Sanctuary Hills security, you both seem capable?"

"Aiye; More than capable. Quickly getting bored."

"Is Thunderstruck around?"

"No, we all dealt with a robot problem following us back to the line here, and we went and took care of it. Thunder horn's still picking over the scraps, salvaging the best loot she can find. She'll be back soon enough."

"When you see her, let her know I'm back. These are my friends, Hancock, leader of Goodneighbor over there by the cart, and Deacon and MacCready just took MacCready's son up to the Vault. Is Curie up there?"

"Ay, she is. Been with your wife."

"Good, I'm going to need her soon. She'll be plenty busy here. Have you been up to the Vault yet?"

"No, just staked our claim out here," Leighla said, "Though we were promised hot food, a bath, and a bed, we've only been granted one of those."

"Come with me then, I need to get MacCready and his son Duncan taken care of first, though. His son Duncan's-"

"Reeks of skin pollups and boils, hasn't been washed properly. Been sleeping on moldy bedsheets," Leighla said, "I could smell the lot of you the moment you rolled into this little burg."

"Right. Once I get MacCready and Duncan settled, I'll give you a proper introduction to Vault 111. Sound good?"

Leighla nodded, Cait only crossed her arms, "Well? Still waiting for the hot meal and shower I've heard so much about."

\111/

With MacCready holding Duncan, Deacon, Cait, and Leighla all standing on the platform, Nate activated the platform lift from the security booth then ran out to join them. As the warning lights spun up, and proximity alarm blared, there was a sudden shift across the Commonwealth. A massive fireball and explosion coming up from Fort Strong echoing off the whole valley and rumbling over the mountains made everyone pause to look at the light.

"That's..." Deacon wanted to say, 'The Brotherhood's doing,' but as the lift descended down out of sight,

"What the..." MacCready stammered, only wanting the lift to move even faster.

"Now you know how I felt the first time I saw those bombs going off back then."

"Hey! Hold it!" Hancock yelled panting as he ran to the top of the hill, but it was already in motion. The lift was already down three feet and dropping, so he jumped down and landed on his heel and rolled to one knee, "Agh! My ankles! Gwahd! Pins and needles...and duct tape holding me together!" The ghoul moaned.

"You okay there?" Nate asked,

"I think my bones just popped. Ohhff, gonna need to ice it." He said, slowly rising to both legs.

"Well, we got plenty of that," Nate said.

"So what the hell was that, that just happened? Brotherhood?"

"I don't know, Hancock. I don't know. Probably, but right now all I'm thinking about is locking this place down, and sealing the entrance. I don't want anyone coming through while I put Curie to work on Nora's surgery. I'm not taking any chances. The whole world can turn inside out, for all I care. I want to see my wife alive."

\111/

Nate's tone was trying to be welcoming and inviting, but with all the prerequisites completed for Nora's surgery to be underway, he ushered MacCready and Duncan into the Vault where Curie was waiting for them.

"Curie, you're needed. We've got a sick kid here who needs a scrub down and spot in a cryopod. Tell me that mine is ready to go, yes?"

"Oui, Monsoir Nate."

"Take MacCready and Duncan here to get cleaned up, and then get Duncan into a cryopod, on the double. MacCready, you're in good hands now, Curie is an expert at what she does."

"Please follow me, Monsoir MacCready," Curie said, turning to lead the way.

Into the showers and decontaminated from too long of a road from traveling, MacCready was careful with his son, barely able to lift his own arms and with Curie's assistance, they cleaned themselves before being given Vault-suits and lead deeper inside to the cryopod room.

"Your turns, take as long as you need."

With Leighla and Cait bathing, Hancock and Deacon followed Nate after Curie, MacCready and Duncan.

"You two are next, you know. I run a clean ship around here."

"Does that mean we get a Vault-suit too?"

"Big pile of them over there in the closet," Nate said, "But first, I've gotta get this underway."

\111/

In the greenhouse room, there were still pods left untouched and connected to the system. Bobby and Tina Deluca refrained from pulling every pod out under the idea that they would eventually need to use them in the future, with this being one of those moments.

MacCready was still carrying his son, promising to Duncan who was listening that by the time he woke up, he would be cured. Nate initiated the program, and within a minute, Duncan was cryogenically frozen. Perfectly preserved, and no sicker, his time was extended indefinitely while Curie could look at Prevent and determine its chemical makeup.

"MacCready? Still got that Prevent?" Nate asked, MacCready nodded, handing over the vial.

"Curie, I've got something special for you to examine. Med-Tek experimental drug called Prevent that needs to be recreated. This is the only sample, and it's already going to Duncan MacCready. So you can only use a little bit, otherwise the original contents need to all go back in and to Duncan, understand?"

"Oui, Monsoir. I will take utmost care and be most delicate with the samples."

"First, though, before you get underway with Prevent, how are things going with Nora? Is the surgery room ready? Do we have everything?"

"Oui, the room is ready and sterilized. I ask that no one accompany me unless they've been thoroughly sanitized. The room will be lowered to just above freezing to inhibit excess blood flow in Nora. After removing the bullet and reconstructing her heart, ribcage and arteries, the temperature of the room will be slowly raised to below standard room temperature over the course of an hour, allowing blood to flow more freely and so that I may then assess her heart rate. I promise a 92% chance of success, Monsoir Nate. Following a successful rebuilding of the heart muscles, I will reassemble her chest and close her up. Then, over the next four hours, she will be sedated and monitored. She will need to be heavily sedated for the next three days following the operation to allow proper healing and to prevent any undue stress on her heart. I'd like the nerves to knit as much as possible before bringing her out of sedation, where then she will be resting, but on a steady regiment of painkillers to numb the pain. She will be in the most amount of pain a human will ever able to endure, and her heart rate must be kept low for the next six to eight weeks following the procedure. But I promise, Monsoir Nate, I have the experience and capabilities of performing this operation."

Nate was tearing up as Curie spoke about Nora, describing the whole operation and surgery. He didn't want to think about how a .44 magnum tore through her chest, ribcage broken, heart damaged, but he had to tell himself over and over again that it would be okay. That he'd done it. He found a doctor capable of taking care of her and that this was the time to do it.

"Do it." He told Curie, tears in his eyes, "I'm locking this place down. Nobody, and I mean nobody's coming in or going out until after Nora's stable and out of surgery. Understand?" He told everyone.

Cait and Leighla were given the option to leave, but stuck around for the hot meal and the warm bed, everyone else watched as Curie sterilized herself one last time, then took to the cryopod room to open Nora's pod.

\111/

Nate cried as Curie opened the pod, nearly breaking down there on the spot as he felt the last two weeks slamming into him. His own pain and weight feeling like a sledgehammer to the back of the skull as he couldn't keep his strength going anymore.

He felt like he was in a safe place, the safest. He was back in his vault, and finally able to let all the things he'd been willfulfully ignoring and denying taking up any mental thought and willpower to come crashing down all at once. Unable to keep his eyes from watering and face from turning red as all his thoughts turned to Nora, and how the next day would feel like the longest in his memories since he first stepped out of the vault. That this wasn't a dream, that he was witnessing death and rebirth all at once.

His stomach felt as small as a walnut, a tight bundle of tubes tied up in knots, even at the same time he was starving, his mind flip flopping at will. He burst out laughing, slamming his fist on the walls, shaking his head. "Oh? Is this really it?" He asked rhetorically.

"Please, I just want this one thing to work," He prayed, "Please let her come back to me."

\111/

Irrational, and far too emotional, Hancock, Deacon, and MacCready were all able to see Nate's bewildered status. Leaving him to his own devices for the time being, they knew he would come around when he was able, and played their own hosts until Nate calmed down. Ever since the explosion rocked the horizon, the mushrooming cloud welling upwards to the sky, he couldn't shake the reoccuring feelings of dread and loathing that weighed down on his thoughts. Athena's warning that the Brotherhood being on their way to collect the liquid nitrogen coolant was staring him directly in the face. Ninety-nine tons, still sealed and fresh, begging to be exploited, but he had other plans for it. Until then he just wanted today to be over, and jump to the day Nora opened her eyes again.

Pulling himself together as the operation carried on, he returned to clean himself up and give Cait and Leighla a proper run-through, and rejoin Deacon, Hancock, and MacCready. Cait and Leighla were off to the side, going through large pot-sized bowls of a elk and vegetable broth soup, but close enough to eavesdrop and listen in on the conversation.

"You okay there, Chief?" Hancock asked, Nate nodded.

Everyone was in the dining hall, sitting around talking, and when Nate returned, MacCready patted him on the back. "I know it feels, looking after someone you love. Does that to everyone."

"Yeah. So. Mac, welcome to the Vault. You look good in blue." MacCready cracked a smile and laughed, "You all do. Cait, Leighla, glad you could find something to eat. Everyone's looking good and neat," Nate said, addressing them as well. "Is there anymore?"

"Over in the kitchen," Cait said, pointing with her spoon. "One of the ponies cooked it up."

Cherry Fizz quietly smiled, nodding and making herself known, Thanking Nate for opening up Vault 111 to her, she was grateful for a safe place to be in from the Commonwealth.

"I'll get it, take a seat, Nate," Deacon said, hopping up for a moment to grab Nate a bowl.

"Alright, so. As you can see, we've got a little greenhouse going, we're a stepping stone away from this place being an actual community. Codsworth was breaking down houses for clear areas to build on, I've got big plans for Sanctuary Hills...that being said, we've got some things to address before we cross that bridge. First off, The Broterhood just arriving in town. Athena isn't going to stop until she gets her hooves on Sola and Firelance, and she's willing to burn down the whole Commonwealth if it means getting through the Brotherhood to get to them."

"Wait, Nate. Sola Vagari? The Lone wanderer and Firelance the Alicorn?...from D.C.?" MacCready asked.

"...Yeah. What's...well keep going!"

"I just...I know those guys! They're my buds, we go way back. They...they saved Little Lamplight where I grew up, and later on helped me move to Big Town a year after that. I stuck with them for a few months instead, followed them around to actually get to know the Capital Wasteland and the rest of D.C."

Hancock looked at MacCready.

"This was back before you joined the Gunners?" Hancock asked, Deacon was interested in the old history as well.

MacCready looked around the table, and then started off slow, "That didn't happen until I came up this way. Sola and Firelance told me plenty of stories about where they went. The Pitt, Point Lookout, every little hidey hole around D.C, and their spaceship in orbit...If there's a crazed unicorn after them. Then they'll want to know. They might not be eye to eye with Elder Maxson, but they still got plenty of friends in the Brotherhood."

Nate rested his deathclaw down on the table, Drawing in a deep breath then steadily letting it out,"...Do you know how to get in touch with them?"

"Yeah. Shit. I forgot to grab it. I got a beacon on a little trigger. It's back in Duncan's room in Goodneighbor. Sola told me to use in an emergency and they'd be there in a heartbeat. I asked them a long time ago if there was anything they could do about Duncan's sickness, and while they said they tried asking around, and for a month or two told me they were asking doctors and med-docs about what I could do, I never heard from them again. I figured they got busy or forgot, or both, but that was...almost two years ago now. I gave the beacon to Duncan, but he's been so sick that I told him it'd protect him no matter what."

"When did they hook you up with the Gunners?" Deacon asked, Hancock was interested in this bit as well.

"A little over three years ago...after Lucy died."

Hancock looked off, mentioning to himself, "I knew I was way off...Where did I get Barbara from?"

"MacCready," Nate said, "Recently I came across a Wasteland Survival Guide,"

"You know about the Wasteland Survival Guide? Where'd you get it?" He asked, wanting to see a copy of it again.

"It was a copy that Sola was writing in, he wants to get into the Institute, but never found a way in. He and Firelance want to use the Institute's technology."

"Isn't that why we're all here? To take control of the Institute, and wrestle the control away from what they're doing now, and put it on a different path?" MacCready asked.

"I wont lie, MacCready. In a way, yes. This is...we are discussing what the hell to do with the Institute and all it's gadgets and weapons it's cooked up since the day the bombs fell. But, before we even get there to that day, Athena wants to kill Sola and Firelance for what they did in Pittsburg, letting the Brotherhood take over didn't change the fact that slavery still exists with them in control, just operating under different name and terms. When the chance comes, she'll expect me to kill them, and if I don't, she puts me in her crosshairs next. I need to undo the magic grip Mona has over me, and Firelance may be the only one capable of doing that. This arm is how Mona and Athena are blackmailing me. If I don't do what she says, I die. Or Worse, Mona possesses me like the Windigo possessed the Deathclaw down in the Glowing Sea."

"Oh GOD!" Hancock swore, turning away from the table. "The flying deathclaw with wings. Fuck that thing. Don't remind me." paling, the reaction made everyone else aside from Nate worry about the consequences. This got nearly everyone to step back from the table. Nate reached up with both hand and claw, rubbing the top of his head and scratching his scalp and hair.

"Athena may already be possessed by a Third Windigo. Mona threatened Athena that she would 'unravel her' just as easy as she would unravel me. I don't know what else Mona's stitched together with Athena, but she's got leverage over the Unicorn as well. As much as I want Firelance to undo this, this is much more finessed and harder to undo than just blasting us with a good-intentions magical beam."

"Like the Elements of Harmony," Cherry Fizz said.

"The what?"

"Equestrian magic. I know it as much as well as any pony who descended from Vault 95, it was a special group of ponies who were bearers of harmony. All representing a trait that were virtuous and for the benefit of Equestria. They were capable of fighting off any threat with their friendship and were protectors of Equestria."

"Well...we have our own Special Group here on Earth. Meathead figured out as much, Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck. Four of the Seven are already born. But, one only shows up every 30 to 50 years...We were told as much by the Princess Giddyup Buttercup, Nightmare Moon product line." Deacon said,

"Alright-. MacCready. I gotta go think about some things. If anyone needs me, I'll be in my office. Writing up some proposals, thinking about some plans I need to make." Nate said, taking his bowl of soup with him as he left.

"Wait, Nate! What'd I say?"

"MacCready," Deacon said, letting Nate walk off. "The reason Nate's still alive is because Athena wants to kill them. If Nate doesn't help Athena kill them when she gets the chance, she's going to let a Windigo rip Nate apart. He's probably wishing you hadn't said that."

MacCready winced, "Which part?"

"That you could get Sola and Firelance here in a heartbeat?" Hancock guessed, "That bitch of a Unicorn can be ve~ry perceptive. Now...well now we've got to figure out what to do with you so you don't squelch on Nate for your old buddy."

"But why!? I ain't gonna squelch."

"Cause, I'll be the first to say it, MacCready. You tell your old buddy the wrong story about what's going on around here, and your son will be the first to go when the Brotherhood comes and drains this place dry of coolant. That'll be on Sola's recommendation that they come here first. While you may know one side of Sola and Firelance, we know that the Pitt is Brotherhood territory, and that big blimp isn't here on a vacation. They're looking to expand. Plain and simple. While there may of been a falling out between them and the 'Hood, the Brotherhood still came here, and we're not looking to cut this share of pie of the Instite any more than it already needs to be div'vied up. Those big bastards running the giant blimp is nuclear. I could tell from just listening to the engine. Quiet, but thrums in the air. You can hear the dynamos spinning around. Sounds just like the one in Mass Fusion Tower. Big bastard like that needs a lot of sea water or liquid ice to keep those babies cool. And the Brotherhood...The Brotherhood wont give two shits about your boy on ice now that you decided to put him up at Chateau 111. They're the whole 'sacrifice one person's life to save thousands... and by that, they mean save themselves...wastelanders be damned. You're in a damned if you do, damned if you don't moment, Mac. You're going to have to wait until Curie is done with the surgery and taking care of Nora to take a look at the Prevent, and if you don't, you'll never get another favor from Nate as long as you or Duncan still lives. Waiting means this, Robert. Either you're Team Nate, and your son get's to live. Or your Team Brotherhood, and you get to watch the Brotherhood fuck Nate, Nora, and your son out of a chance to live while you're waiting for more Prevent. Team Commonwealth, or Team Invader. Railroad or Institute. And I'll tell you right now, You're wearing a Vault 111 suit, I got a nice suit that doesn't reek like 500 year old duds, and we're all sitting here because of Nate. We're all wearing the gang colors. So. There you go, Robert. We're all Team Nate. I'm not saying 'Don't fuck this up, Robert, but DON'T FUCK THIS UP! Fuck! I can see why Nate left!"

"Well, what the hell do I do then?!" MacCready asked, pointing both hands towards himself, looking down at his chest, wearing the clean blue Vault suit with 111 in the lapel, feeling anxious in his seat. "Don't look at me like that! I didn't fucking know! And where are my clothes?"

"In the wash, dirt-butt."

"Sit there and eat your soup," Leighla whispered, rolling her eyes. Even as quiet as she was, her voice was naturally loud and in the silence of the dining hall they all heard it.

"Then. When the time comes, you tell Nate the whole story. Again. From the top this time. Thunderstruck's the fifth one though."

"The fifth one to what? What happened with Thunderstruck? Is she okay?"

MacCready shook his head, "Who's she?"

"Cause," Cait said, wiping off her face, "She said the other Alicorns are building up their armies. She said it's not that the Alicorns are building up AN army, she said Alicorns are building up THEIR armies. Plural! Not Singular. She said that sooner or later, the Alicorns are all going to push their borders as far as they can, and while we get old and die of old age, they'll still be figuring out how to get along. And eventually, the SPECIAL lot will push right here into the Commonwealth. I imagine it'll be a gay old time after it's up to whoever's still alive at that point. It's everyone in the Commonwealth versus anyone who wants to take the Commonwealth for themselves. Sound's like your pal Firelance is already a step ahead of the game with his Space laser and alien mumbo jumbo."

"And how the hell do you know about Alicorns? What happened with Thunderstruck?"

"Nothing! She's fine," Cait said confidently.

"Thunderstruck became an Alicorn last night. The Alicorn of Intelligence." Leighla said.

Deacon looked across at them, standing up from the table, "Are you fucking kidding me?" Deacon said, amazed he was this far out of the information loop, more angry at himself, "Nate!" he called after the Overseer, "Nate!!"

MacCready looked at Lieghla, "There's more than one?" he asked.

The gryphon nodded, "Best to not think about it too hard. The more I try to understand, the less I know."

"Ditto," Cait said, pulling up a baggie of Jet, she pulled some out and started smoking it at the table.

"Cait! Oy! You want to do that, at least go to the airshaft. Show some respect to the guy running this place." Leighla said, "Noone likes the smell either."

\111/

Bobby Deluca's mouth was salivating before he even realized it, sniffing the air, inhaling the familiar scent, it tasted foul in his mouth. "Ugh, does it really smell that terrible? Who's got it?"

Watching Cait walk by the opened door to the hallway with her thumb over bowl of the burning pipe, Bobby's stomach twisted around, even as his nose suddenly felt plugged up and rancid taste returned to his mouth.

"Bobby!" Tina yelled, looking straight at him, she was looking right at his hands, wondering if her brother just managed to come back around and hide it before she was able to catch him.

"I swear it's not me! Look! I haven't touched it since I ran out!" Pointing towards the door, Tina stuck her tongue out, 'Blegh,'

"Smells worse when you haven't been around it for a while."

"It's the new girl." Bobby said, head suddenly feeling toppy, getting a second hand high as the vapor trails disappeared, and the memories resurfaced of all the times he got high.

"Well tell her you're taking a tolerance break, and that you can't get high otherwise I'm throwing you out myself. You work too well without it, and your work's been great on all the machines around the vault. I can't loose you to that again, Bobby. You're too good. There's too much to keep up on anyway."

Wiping his nose and trying to clear the scent away, Bobby nodded, "Smells nasty though, right?" Tina added.

"Yeah. Smells nasty." Bobby sneezed at the old scent, practically able to identify the flavors of Jet. Shaking like a dog drying out a wet coat, he wiped his eyes and turned back to his project, swallowing the dry lump in his throat.

\111/

Nate went through all the drawers again in the Overseer's office, plopping down in the chair, he made a mental note to stash away some whiskey, bourbon, or any again for times like this.

Hancock knocked, carrying his bag and knowing exactly what Nate needed with the look he gave him, Hancock chuckled. "Looking for one of these?" Hancock asked, swirling around a bottle of golden-brown scotch.

"Oh thank God someone was planning ahead; Gimme."

Hancock set the bottle down, as Nate got up and went to the cupboard where the Cryolator was stored, not having much time to tinker with it, there were only so many liquid nitrogen cannisters around the Commonwealth, but Vault 111 had tons in excess and a hose nozzle to refill the Cryolator. Setting two coffee mugs on the desk, Nate blasted the cups so they were ice cold.

"Ah, clever thinking," Hancock said, pouring the shots for both of them,

"Two finger pour," Nate said, extending out his pinky and pointer finger on his deathclaw hand. Obviously joking, the ghoul poured the scotch and picked up his own mug.

"Agh," Looking for a towel, and then pulling his sleeve up around the handle of the mug, Nate grabbed his with his deathclaw and clinked mugs with Hancock's, "Cheers."

"Agh," He said, taking a long sip. "That's Smokey Robinson and the Chee-lights; smoky flavor." Nate said,

"You're thinking of the Miracles," Hancock said, "Smokey Robinson and the Miracles."

"To the Miracles, then,"

"To Miracles." Hancock finished his drink, then Deacon walked in through the door.

Rapping his knuckles against the frame of the door, "Hey,"

"Drink?" Nate asked,

"Yes." Deacon automatically said, "No, I'm good. Cait just told me that your girl Thunderstruck became an Alicorn last night."

Nate rolled his eyes up towards the ceiling, then towards Hancock. Tapping his ring fingernail against the mug, "Bartender?" Hancock nodded, pouring them two more.

"So what are we going to do about that? That came on fast. I hardly know what to do about the Brotherhood, I thought I wouldn've had more time...and the Institute. Well...scratch that, I know what I'm going to do with the Institute now that Nora's out of deep freeze."

"What do you got planned for them?" Deacon inquired.

"Something special. Still cooking. I'm still working out the details in my head, but I know I've got to deal with Athena and Nuka-World first. I know if I can get Athena out of the Commonwealth, that will get her out of everyone's hair for a while and focused on the shit happening over there until we're all ready to deal with the shit happening over here. That's the part I was talking about when I said she's the type we can only wind up and point in another direction, and then let her rip. Because until I'm done with her and Mona...God, I hope there's light at the end of that tunnel, cause I feel it in my bones that it's going to be a long one with those two. I pray that whatever leverage Mona's got over Athena, she tells me about at some point and we can get her and Mona separated permanently. If things are successful ove in Nuka-World, I need the Railroad to come in and take positions. People that we can trust. Not fucking raiders and brigands and gang members pushing the slaver agenda. I feel that we can trust Red and the Stockpile to an extent, but they're not the kind to take on the Brotherhood. You know the Railroad's going to need to change once the Institute's done and over with, right? Not just a new direction, but take on a whole new purpose once we actually beat them?"

Deacon sighed, "Yeah, I understand, and Yes..It's been a long time coming, but always been on the horizon like the sun. We've held conversations about it before, but now that we're getting inside...it feels like we've always been chasing it, never quite able to wrap our hands around it."

"Well, aim for the stars, land on the moon." Nate said, "Tell the Railroad that while they're building the Mass Relay, we're heading to Nuka-World. Track down Meathead and Danse, tell them to get off the front line and back here where they can actually see the big picture. That fucking eyesore that flew into town isn't going away any time soon, and I know we all felt it when it flew in that we're running out of time for all other projects fast. As for Sola and Firelance...they're going to stay backburner until we meet with Thunderstruck and see for ourselves how this changes things and our relationship. Does Thunderstruck owe me a favor? Yes. One. But I'm not calling her on it, and I can't hold her to it either until I know where she stands on favoring the Commonwealth, or SPECIAL? Well...for now at least...she's still with the Commonwealth...but a few months...a decade from now...Hell. She's going to have to be apart of team SPECIAL eventually. I'd just like her to be around on our side for a little while longer now that she's an Alicorn. That is the only thing I'll ever be able to ask of her that she sticks with us for as long as possible."

"Do you know why she didn't come back?" Deacon asked,

"No, but I could figure a few reasons. First thought that popped into my head, is that she's practicing newfound magic. She was a Pegasus, after all. It would make sense wherever she is, it's to get comfortable with her new horn. Nothing would matter much unless she met with a real magic user like Athena or Meathead and learned some proper spells. I never had the long talk with Meathead, but I know he knows more than he lets on. He just hasn't been able to cast all that much because he runs on emotions, and I'm the only one who's been able to help him on that front until Mona...jacked me out of the loop. Hancock, any of your ponies know much magic?"

The Goodneighbor Ghoul shook his head. "Nothing fancy, just stuff you'd read from comic books. Start a fire. Lift some blocks, magic blast, sparks, night vision, shields, nothing ethereal like cosmic warping or the God-stuff you see in later issues. All basic."

"I can only hope she's figuring stuff out."

"Doesn't the death of Fist, and Strong, and all the other super mutant leaders get you out of Mona's contract with her?"

"Deacon, does anything ever really end? I can go to Mona, ask if this means we're through, and pray that she sticks to her word, but that doesn't mean Athena is finished with me. And...no I would rather avoid seeing Mona altogether if possible. I don't want to be left with a stump where my arm was..."

Nate took another sip of his scotch, "Athena made it clear we, as in the royal we, meaning; I need to deal with Nuka-World anyways. I haven't been there since I was a teenager, but I can feel it. Something ain't right in the air to the West. Could be another fucking Windigo over there too. Meathead said there might be as many as three or four in the whole state of Massachusetts, till we killed that first one in the Glowing Sea. Now there's Mona and maybe one or two more we don't even know about. MAYBE. Maybe Athena's possessed, but I do know and am 100% certain that Mona's got something stitched onto Athena. Something not as noticeable as my arm, but Mona is twisting Athena around to get what she wants; I know that for a fact...and what the Windigo wants is a flock of sheep to fleece while she runs around as the big-bad wolf. Fingers crossed that there's only just the one, because I do not have the time or the patience right now to deal with two more of those bastards on top of Mona."

"Here, here." Hancock said. "One was enough, two is too many. Three? Forget about it,"

Nate went through his bag, pulling out the phone he took from Boston Bell. Nate shook his head, drumming his fingers on the desk.

"Why? Something the matter?"

"Not to much of a deal...but I want Nora to be around people...She needs to be around people when she wakes up. It's all about setting the stage for her. She's not used to the Commonwealth as it is up there. I had a fucking fit when I went up there the first time. My house was what finally did me in, kid gone...Shaun. Damn. She's gonna wonder what happened to Shaun.

"How do you intend to send the message? Does Vault 111 have a broadcast system?" Deacon asked.

"I'll call her using the phone."

Deacon and Hancock looked at Nate as if he was talking a foreign language.

Nate used the emergency transponder phone and hooked it up to the Overseer's computer. The ground wires from Vault 111 to Vault-Tec. HQ, then back to Vault 84 were still in working order.

Overseer McNamara nearly jumped out of her seat when the telephone that had sat connected to the terminals in the corner of her office rang for the first time ever.

Ch. 99 New Neighbors November 11th

After hearing the explosion and seeing all the dust come flying off the shelves and raining down from the ceiling, it was hard not to wonder what caused the massive bang. The Prydwen parked less than a mile away, the Brotherhood armored Pegasus scouts on their lonesome already poking around, determining if their factory was a viable location worth acquiring; the first thing on Thunderstruck's mind was that the Brotherhood would eventually make their way here and start asking for the robots and production line they controlled.

Spending the whole day, night, and through the next morning willing magic into her horn and blasting at disabled tank-bots, between the machinery noise and trying to figure out how to use magic with no previous instruction, whipping them around, flinging them with enough force to flatten them into discs. It was a long evening of training, but the newfound adrenaline and excitement from becoming an Alicorn hadn't worn off yet. Once she saw the first sign of the Brotherhood of Steel, the wheels and gears turning in her mind went into overdrive.

"Like hell they will," She said, after hearing Sparks and Isabel's plight from the Brotherhood of Steel, and her limited knowledge of Sola and Firelance, Thunderstruck could sense that her new neighbors were going to come knocking soon. The m-28 firework that just went off in their faces was the reason enough that would send them here. Instructing Isabel and Sparks to lock down the factory, and set as many spare robots they had available to patrol the perimeter and interior as possible. Formulating a plan of attack in her head, she didn't want to lose the greatest asset in defending the Commonwealth from exact threat the Brotherhood of Steel embodied. With all the assemblies available, she was quick to ask the duo about a tesla-bot or weapon capable of firing electricity, similar to what she had done with Sparks in their battle. Isabel created one years ago and had since then scaled up many times over with different models.

Finding out from eye-bots that the Brotherhood of Steel went to Fort Strong and attacked the Super Mutants there. Going back days, weeks, the eye-bots roaming around Fort Strong spotted Athena breifly in a video, and knowing who planted the bomb was enough to turn this situation to her advantage.

After recovering her Shishkebab, and laying the trap, Thunderstruck could only tell herself it was time to meet the new neighbors.

With her new appearance, she intrinsically wondered if she would, or already grew taller. Taking on new poise, she reminded herself that quiet reservation was a card she could play until getting a better understanding of the Brotherhood. But, once she thought it through, she knew they were here for the Institute, and playing quiet is what she had spent most of her life doing. They wouldn't just go away because she asked them to. If anything, they would be asking for her capabilities, her status as an Alicorn to support them and more, expecting her to deliver them the sun if she didn't display an aura of power and strength.

Thinking of what Nate and Meathead would do, sitting in on their conversations, what words to say when it came to a beast this hard to pin down. One that was already dealt a blow and still recovering. Her instinct was telling her to drive the blade home and gut out the beast's heart.

Not one inch.

Don't let them have a single inch, not a single grain of rice, a single grain of salt, a single scale of a fish, kick them out now, or forever feed their greed. Don't let them build with a single grain of sand that is not theirs, otherwise their pillars will be planted solely on the single molecule given to them which they will build an empire a dozen miles tall.

With memories flooding in from the weeks leading up to September 2277, the collapse of Nuka-World, and the raiders drawing closer every day. Her resolve felt like it was being sharpened to a knife's edge. She saw firsthand what raiders would do, what they did, and how they would go about doing it, and how their arrival was the beginning of a new end for the Commonwealth.

Like with Nuka-World, she refused to let it happen a second time. All this was were more raiders under a different banner, she knew what she needed to do.

Practically growling through her teeth as she worked, she went to defend her territory by confronting the Brotherhood of Steel head on.

\111/

Meathead and Danse were spared no expense in being interrogated separately and mercilessly for the destruction at Fort Strong. Meathead was under more scrutiny and felt the misguided anger and feelings of hurt from most of the Brotherhood being directed at him and Paladin Danse for surviving. The unspoken contempt and feelings of betrayal that they were aware of the threat, and were able to survive the explosion made the rumor of them working for the enemy all the more likely.

After being held for hours, their interrogators left. They were discharged and allowed to roam the Prydwen, waiting for more orders. Meathead could feel something different in the interrogation rooms, the microphones in the walls, the buzz of activity moving through the Prydwen took on different forms over the night as everyone tried to figure out what was wrong and how to prevent another threat like that from happening again. The suddenness of the explosion on the strike team's first mission, which was hailed as something to be an easy win and drive forward for establishing a foothold in the Commonwealth ended with complete disaster. Strike Team Nero being slain and the loss of a vertibird did not look good in the first new step in taking over the Commonwealth.

After being confronted by Elder Maxson personally, feeling all the anger that needed to be pinned on someone, or something else, was when Meathead was positive that their time with the Brotherhood was at its end.

It took great restraint, but Meathead could tell Elder Maxson was furious at the loss of Fort Strong, and when hearing about the lack of mini-nukes, and the planted explosive, the drive to find the culprit was palpable.

Lying under oath, swearing up and down that he was outside when the explosion happened, which was true, that they'd sent him up to the surface to make sure Fort Strong was clear, also true, and to then radio the Prydwen, truth as well, his heartbeat didn't even stammer. He could practically hear the heart-beat monitors scribbling lines across their pages, not detecting a shred of lies.

He couldn't say the same for Paladin Danse, bearing the weight of his lost Recon squad, the truth about his synth nature, the Elder's declaration that all synths were abominations, and the devestation at Fort Strong, Paladin Danse was at his breaking point for being able to keep lying about what actually happened.

"The last thing I heard from Strike Team Nero was that there was a live bomb in the basement... and then I was buried under rubble, pinned down and barely able to move.

Heart already beating out of his chest, his facial expressions were betraying him and he could feel it no matter how much he wanted to deaden the nerves in his face. Part of him wanted the Brotherhood to find out, even though he knew it meant his death, but a fraction of hope said that he would survive better off if his brother's knew he was a synth. It was crushing that fraction of hope and disillusionment that kept him alive, strangling that voice in his head that wanted to lay everything out on the table and let him be exposed for what he truly was. He wanted to survive, but he also wanted the Brotherhood of Steel.

He couldn't have both, and as his ears burned, face flushed, neck tightened, he knew that he had to choose one or the other. It was only by the saving grace that a Knight reported to Elder Maxson and Paladin Danse during their hours long 'discussion', that an Alicorn was spotted on its way to the Airport, and that it wanted to speak with him.

By getting ahold of one of the Pegasus scouts, she bewildered one into stopping mid-flight, telling them that they wanted to speak with their leader, and would arrive at the Boston Airport tarmac within the hour.

The Arrivals and Departure area of the Boston Airport was an open area, the terminal lined with ticket booths and counters for the airlines that used to service the area were now converted into a first line of defense, as most the windows were gone or cracked apart.

After prepping all through the night, keeping both Sparks and Isabel up all through the morning, part of Thunderstruck felt the urge to sleep, but the pattering of her heart and newfound ambition kept her awake.

"I want to meet this Elder of yours down here, I won't be here longer than it takes to deliver my message to them." Thunderstruck said, escorted through the gates onto the tarmac, she had a clear view of the Boston Skyline. Told to wait, the vertibird carrying Elder Maxson and four guards, two scribes, and the magic casters from Fourth Deck, Thunderstruck held still with one hoof on Shishkebab.

"I welcome you to leave now, and you'll save yourselves from destruction of the tides of time," Thunderstruck offered.

"What sort of welcome is this?" Elder Maxson replied,

"The Commonwealth does not welcome you at all, Maxson of the Brotherhood of Steel. Leave while you still can. This army of yours will only drain the Commonwealth of all its resources moving into the winter months. There is no excess to be found here, only enough to get by, and even that goes to the raider gangs and merchants who need it more to move through the Commonwealth unhindered." Thunderstruck drew her blade, even as over a dozen guns were suddenly pointed at her. "My message is simple enough that even super mutants can comprehend it. The destruction that occurred at Fort Strong was because those who live and breathe in the Commonwealth will not allow even a single grain of salt to be given to the Brotherhood of Steel. Leave now, or forever let it be known, that you had the opportunity to leave and never return."

Elder Maxson scoffed at this, shaking his head and about to reply but was cut off by Thunderstruck, "Instead of choosing to spend the lives of humans and ponies alike like currency, and buy yourselves only funeral pyres to burn the bodies in. There will be no Brotherhood of Steel graves, only unmarked soil in which the bodies fertilize the ground. There will be no contracts signed or piety given to the Brotherhood of Steel, because no one here recognizes your authority of foreign government. The ground will be salted, the farms barren, the water wells filled with oil. The people who toiled and sweated in the fields you want to reap will only offer dust. You will not subject your will on the Commonwealth, for unlike Steel, the Commonwealth will not bend when beaten upon."

This was a direct insult to the Brotherhood of Steel, making the Elder rise to the bait of showing his true control of emotion, he bared his teeth, ready to bite back. "You dare tread upon the Commonwealth, and I shall walk you naked through the Glowing Embrace of Atom. I warn you now, unless you want the eruption of Fort Strong being repeated from inside the hull of your ship, leave with nothing, and you will remain as whole as you are. Stay, and time itself will be the cause of erasing the Brotherhood of Steel from all traces except what shadows of memories I possess a thousand years from now. No one will remember the names of those who died in a fight no one even knew occurred. There will be no trace of this war, your name, your titles, your honor, and courage, this skirmish, or even the words of this confrontation, it is condemned to be forgotten in the annals of history, that is unless you leave here now. Stay, and everything your glorious pursuit will amount to nothing. Make the smart choice, and go bury your dead somewhere else. My name is Thunderstruck, and I am the Alicorn of Intelligence, swear fealty to me and hand over control of the Brotherhood of Steel to me, and I'll allow you to stay conditionally."

"You have no power behind you, you have no armies. You have nothing! You are only one Alicorn, fresh into this world that no one knows! The Brotherhood is here to purge the Institute of it's abominations it's unleashed on the Commonwealth, and harness its savage technology to be used for good! You can't say the same that your goals are no different?"

"Your goal is to produce abominations even more terrifying branded with your sword and gears. Yes, I'm aware of the story that's been told before. Of Proctor Quinlain's contracts already being distributed throughout the Commonwealth, of farms you mean to take endlessly from and leave the farmers barren on the precipice of winter. The moment the synths bear the sword and gears, they're no longer abominations, abhorrent condemned monstrosities made of machine minds, and machine's blood with no soul, doomed to die for a godless heathen. The moment they bear the mark of sword and gears of your Brotherhood of Steel, then, and only then are they Glorious Machinatations Divined by Imperitive design and creed Bestowed with Everlasting Purpose for the sake of Your Cause! Take your preaching and save it for the blind and deaf, the starving in compassion, and those lacking wisdom and grace. You've already stolen from me and every living creature here the time you've spent. Leave now and never return. No expeditions, no scouting parties, no spies and insubordinates distributing Brotherhood propoganda and finding supporters willing to die for your cause. Abandon everything you've already unpacked, and run. I will not allow even a second more to pass while you disgrace yourselves and the people of the Commonwealth with your presence. Relinquish control and your egos, or Go. Now! Those are my terms, have I made myself clear?"

"You think you're special? Because you've got a horn and wings? You're no smarter or special than the ferals sniped for target practice from the bridge of the Prydwen as we came here! You can't defeat an entire army alone! You have no one! You are making an enemy of yourself of all of the Brotherhood!"

"I'm warning you to leave before you kill yourselves! It won't be my hoof or magic that does you in, but your own incompetence! The Commonwealth cannot support the drain of hundreds of soldiers eating their fill, starvation is already happening because of winter! It's already past the first snow, and there is nothing to begin growing until March! There is no food, no water to be found here either! Fly South for winter while you still can!"

"The Brotherhood of Steel will not be threatened, nor deterred from its goal! Leave this place, now! Or be destroyed along with the rest of genetic diseases the impure wreck upon mankind!"

"At least I never called you impure or inbred! Tell your Paladins that I'm leaving today to free my friends from raiders like yourselves! You will not rule or take a single bit of data from the Institute, because it's not your decision to make! We will not allow it!" Thunderstruck held out her right wing, a ribbon tied to the tips. Igniting her sword the signal was clear across from the top deck of the U.S.S. Constitution that had its newest aerial scout Sparks watching from.

"Men! Shoot this mockery of nature! Shoot this Institute sympathizer!"

'Adam the Ant, I swear I will be pissed if you're wrong!'

While Thunderstruck was aimed at, bullets racing at her, she took off to the skies, retreating back as she gasped and screamed at the first bullets stinging her flesh like angry hornets with inch-long stingers, laser wounds searing holes in her side like miniature hot-irons pressed against her skin. While her face was twisted with the expression of being shot, her skin and muscles were much more endurant and capable than they were the previous day before. Shot several times, the bore marks left divots and bruises and her skin and fur, particularly deep welts that drew blood, but otherwise, it would take a lot more than a handful of bullets to kill Thunderstruck now. Within ten seconds she was already out of the best shooters sights as they quickly tried to aim up their shots again. Twenty seconds after that, she was already half a mile away to the North, and even as the bullets still came from sharpshooters, the Brotherhood Knights were suddenly struck unaware from behind.

She was bleeding well, shot several times in the chest and side, a few deep marks against her skull, and the hollow reminder from Adam the Ant of pushing his limits when he was still a young Alicorn. She hoped it wouldn't leave too much of a scar, and fade with time, even so, everything hurt to move and she felt like she bucked a hornets nest with her backside exposed.

\111/

"Captain Ironsides, have the cannons all been loaded and aimed at the blimp located at Boston Airport?"

"Yes, Second Scout, Sparks."

"Then Fire at will."

Across the Bay of Boston, at a height of 460 feet off the ground, the cannons at the Prydwen and fired. The cannonballs sailed in high arcs, blasting into the side of the Prydwen a distance of 3000 feet, normally unable to at ground level, but with the whole ship cantilevered to the starboard thanks to the anchor, the extra angle was able to project the cannonballs almost a mile. The instant threat of war bearing down on them, and letting the Brotherhood know they were not going to be allowed even a single inch of land to rest on until they left. Thunderstruck made herself clear.

The first volley of eight cannonballs, followed by a second volley two minutes later, and then a third two minutes after that. Repeating itself twelve times until the whole financial district was blanketed with thick black smoke from all the gunpowder burnt off in the air blanketing the skyscrapers in a dense sulfuric fog. Sparks was coughing from all the smoke in the air, hardly able to breathe as the robots reloaded and fired again and again.

The ninety-six cannonballs either struck or bounced off the hull of the Prydwen, bashing through the metal exterior, cracking steel plates inward. Giant cracks appeared in the port side of the Prydwen, as the cannonballs glanced downwards into the Boston Airport landing strip below. As the forces braced for impact or set their defenses to the port, six groups of Mechanist patrols all rolled down from the General Atomics Factory, Six Tank bots, six assaultrons, six eyebots, six protectrons, six mr. gutsys, and six swarm bots all rolled into the Departure/Arrival area of the Boston Terminal and began blasting everything in sight. Deeming everything hostile, the whole landing strip and airport terminal was a battlefield.

As metal-bound plated pegasus were the first to take off and cross the bay to attack the U.S.S. Constitution, Sparks had to only listen, devoid of any metal, and armed with a tesla coil powered by the generators below deck, the first squadron of armored pegasus from the Prydwen were suddenly daisychain electrocuted across the sky.

"Thanks for wearing metal," Sparks said, rubbing her own chest from where she was still sore from the day before. The arc reactor spat bolts of electricity and plasma out into the sky, making anything trying to get near the U.S.S. Consitution a target. When one Vertibird came racing across the sky, oblivious to their own armored troops getting shocked mid-flight, the angry pilots blew past their falling comrads and right into range of the arc-reactor.

With twenty-thousand watts coursing through the hull of the vertibird, all its on-board systems were fried, everyone on board zapped into decommission, sending the vertibird careening down thirty stories where it crashed meters away from the Old North Church.

Stationed below was Liberty from the Railroad, she and five others maintaining a ghost-crew to make the old Headquarters seem active, even as they dealt with synth-crows and seagulls. Lulled to the surface to see the fireball burning near their frontsteps, the Brotherhood ship, and the cannonballs flying across the sky, they quickly checked to see if anyone wearing power armor survived.

Where the vertibird had plenty of momentum behind it to be crashed onto land, the winged division of armored pegasus were either vaporized by the fusion cores overloading and exploding on their back, or rendered inoperable and plunged into the Charles Bay, sinking instantly. Several were able to quickly eject, but beams of light bearing through the sky as lasers targeted them from executive suites of the Weatherby tower where more robots were stationed.

Shrouded in smoke, Sparks flew around the ship to contain the sphere, keeping the Constitution in a smokescreen bubble as the unarmored-unequipped pegasus were forced to turn back for weapons. Those that did survive the tesla coil blast or eject themselves were suddenly made aware of the situation at the Boston Airport behind them. In the process of ejecting themselves from their suits, they had to let go of their weapons, as most were attached to the saddles and firing mechanisms connected to the rest of the power armor. The whole battlefield of robots overwhelming the ground forces as the Knights were quickly clustering up to stage defenses around the gantry of Liberty Prime and the Control Tower where Scribes were rushing up the stairs to reach the gangway at the top back to the Prydwen.

"Scout Sparks, we only have enough cannonballs for four more volleys before we need to assemble more. Of which the time will take another 6 hours before we can produce more for a single blast."

"Aim at the control tower!" She instructed, relaying messages that Thunderstruck gave her.

As the first eight cannonballs blasted across the bay at the Control Tower, the stairwell was exposed and ripped apart. the Elevator shaft breached and control room wiped clean. While the mooring cables remained taught and anchors still tied into the frame of the tower, the two centuries of exposure and errosion on the seaward side was quickly and ominously swaying with the breeze.

On the third volley, the Control Tower suddenly shifted sideways, the rusted supports and centuries of salt air working in tandem with the new destruction finally sheering off the structure.

"Again!"

With the final volley, no amount of sympathy given, the cannonballs now on their descent were brought down with the help of gravity and punched holes into the nose and port side sections of the Prydwen as Lancer Captain Kells fought to level out the ship. The entire control tower crumbled, dragging the anchors down three hundred feet to the tarmac, yanking the nose of the Prydwen down with it.

Dumping ballast, regaining levelness at the cost of being unable to remain stationary. The Captain brought the tail end of the Prydwen down to the ground with a ferocious bang of metal that completely warped the entire flight deck section and the six vertibirds docked within.

Dropping three hundred feet as the nose dived because of the mooring lines attached to the control tower, everything inside the Prydwen was thrown forward, then as the stern came crashing down with tremendous force. The entire Brotherhood Army was now grounded onto the Boston Airport landing tarmac. Soldiers inside grabbed what they could, whether it was a rifle, or armor, and fighting to the exit, they suddenly outnumbered the Mechanist forces and fought to hone in groups of robots.

There were still six more vertibirds on the ground, as only four with the lancer pilots were able to take off with larger crews suddenly scrambling to pile on, split between going after the U.S.S. Constitution, their orders came screaming back to take care of the ground forces swarming the Boston Airport.

Hailstorms of minigun bullets were rained down at the robots, even as missiles were launched back up by tank-bots.

One Vertibird was shot out of the sky, an explosion on the tail rudder making it spin out of control and come slamming back down to the tarmac in a blazing fireball.

\111/

Elder Maxson and his troops barricaded themselves in the cargo and luggage sorting area, with plenty of metal and cover, they were able to move into safety and then blast their way back out onto the tarmac, directing ground forces to head for the terminal. Even as some escaped the destruction by running for abandoned airplanes along the tarmac. All the destruction and noise caused a movement of mirelurks to the surface. The plummeting control tower and volley of cannonballs brought dozens of mirelurks from the Charles Bay up, even a Mirelurk Queen that felt the ground vibrating disturbance. Soldiers and Knights on the tarmac looking to escape the Mechanists robots were now overwhelmed and swarmed by mirelurks. The Mirelurk Queen crawling across the landing strip suddenly became the focal point of attention for the Vertibirds, as the trio of pilots and their gunners blasted away at the Queen. One vertibird simply ran out of ammo rendering it useless, and the second was forced to land quickly after taking off due to lack of fuel. The Third vertibird did large sweeps over the whole airport, circling around and around, shooting at the remaining robots and mirelurks crawling all over their base.

Meathead and Danse were already close together, after the Prydwen was grounded, Meathead announced to Danse that it was now or never. There would be no coming back after this, the fury that Elder Maxson was feeling would burn all of Boston to the ground level with emotions running wild like bonfires set ablaze.

"Is this Athena?!" Danse shouted,

"" Meathead replied, listening to them bash into the floating derigable, Meathead wondered how many it would take to puncture a hole in this floating balloon.

"Why is the Constitution firing at us!? I thought you and Nate were in control of it!...Is NATE Doing this!?"

"<...>" Meathead opened his mouth, but shook as if a blast of cold water suddenly washed over him. "" Recalling feeling Thunderstruck's emotion close by. It was North of them, and yesterday he, Danse, and Brandis passed her by, coming within spitting distance of each other as he passed the General Atomics Factory. It'd stuck with him and been present in his mind, but how something dramatic had changed with her emotions. She wasn't scared in the slightest anymore, this was solid determination, and pity. She didn't hate the Brotherhood, not even a shred of disdain, she just didn't care for them. Even though he didn't reach out to her, he could feel her close by.

"What?" Paladin Danse asked, not understanding Meathead's answer,

""

The sirens and emergency signals blared as the commanders on deck fought furiously to bring the whole airship stable again. Without the mooring cables keeping it tethered to the control tower, the Prydwen was forced to land. While it could maintain its position, the decision to ground the Prydwen came at a hefty cost of pride to the whole Brotherhood fleet. Seeing their airship suddenly grounded, all the scouts on patrol were suddenly recalled back to the Boston Airport.

""

"If we run, they'll hunt us down for insubordination and desertion!"

""

Rushing from the second Deck down the gantry ways where other Knights were rushing to take up arms and return fire on their invaders, they quickly realized that the Brotherhood outnumbered the Mechanists bots, but lost all command and were shooting at whatever they deemed a threat.

With the blitz attack on the Brotherhood, once Knights came spilling out of the Prydwen, the Equestrians in particular weren't deemed a threat by the Mechanists robots until shot at with a clear line of sight, making the Equestrian squads more of a threat to the robots. A threat and fact that made itself clear to the other Brotherhood squads quickly, the Equestrians only numbered in 90 to the other 300 humans. With only ten being Knights within the Brotherhood, the others on patrol, or away from the battle before it happened, the others were scribes, or initiates, serving lower ranks in the chain of command, less than a dozen were truly a threat in a fight. Instincts did the most work, defending themselves, but making themselves targets as well.

\111/

While not devestating to the Brotherhood's numbers, the attack started by Thunderstruck, Sparks, and the Mechanist's bots, the winged Pegasus Knights were down by half, the others were now scared of getting close to the skyscrapers in Boston again, unsure of what else might be training their iron-sights on them, or hidden in the upper floors. The humans on the ground when the attack happened suffered the most, 19 Brotherhood Knights and crew were killed by the Mechanists bots before the circling vertibirds and Elder Maxson coordinating from inside the terminal were able to control and direct their forces into a unified attack and repel the invaders. Seven Brothers were killed by Mirelurks, and three were killed by the Mirelurk Queen before being the main target from dozens of weapons all shooting at the largest target on the battlefield. No one aboard the Prydwen was severely hurt when the bow was yanked down by the control tower collapsing. Six Scribes in the Control tower either fell to their death or were crushed as it collapsed, two of which were struck by the cannonballs blasting through the outer wall at the Control tower's staircase and supports.

The most damage was to all their equipment, of the 24 vertibirds that escorted and were part of the Prydwen fleet, the six in the flight deck were completely crippled and bashed into place, rendered inoperational. With one lost during the attack on Fort Strong, and now a second crash landed into the North End, with a third hit by a Mechanist Tank Bot missile. the Vertibird fleet was down by over 1/3rd of their original strength in the 24 hours from arriving in the Commonwealth. Three totaled, and the other six needing repairs. The mechanism allowing the vertibirds to retract and fold up to be stored within were broken beyond repair and would need to be fully replaced. They would need to be disassembled, taken out of their moorings, then reassembled on land before being able to repair the flight deck. While the Prydwen was still operational, and could float and fly, the belly and port side was completely hammered and battered. Loosing the mooring cables and anchors meant that they would need to stay grounded until being rebuilt and bolted back into place, along with the cables themselves replaced after being stretched beyond their tension limit.

The Interior of the Prydwen was stable, but in utter disarray from being jerked around, one of the four reactors was bearing a large crack in the housing bolts that kept it in place. That appeared when the belly hit the ground, with the whole vibration rattling up through the interior of the ship. Otherwise, all four were still contained and operational, but everything turned out of proper alignment, and was now grinding. More than 10 milimeters out of alignment, entire shafts would need to be readjusted and reassembled. That meant unbolting, welding, and reattaching everything. A repair job that would take weeks to accomplish for a single part.

Proctor Ingrams power armor bay looked like a hurricane came through and blew everything around, the kitchen's stove stacks were now laying on the floor, and the ashes were now smoking up the kitchen and dining area. The doctors office and examination rooms were completely trashed, the only deck to have suffered the least amount of damage was the Fourth Deck, containing the data for all the recorded transcripts and logs of conversations taking place around the Prydwen, and the magician's anti-relay teleportation shield.

The Observation deck next to the captains quarters and Elder Maxson's room was now cracked and the glass was spidered out in all directions, but still in place.

The only thing untouched was the Liberty Prime gantry that wasn't directly under the Prydwen when it came down, and the ground barracks built for the scribes reassembling the massive warbot. The crane was still mostly intact, but everything around it would need to be replaced as the Flight deck was built around the crane, and would need to come off anyway. Losing air superiority was a massive blow to the Brotherhood, more damaging than any setback they could've imagined. Their entire strategy was based around air-superiority, along with heavy ground troops and support to allow for movement.

Now they would need to rely solely on ground-troops with an extremely reduced amount of air-support moving forward for the rest of their time in the Commonwealth.

Morale was utterly capped, with the confusion of Fort Strong still not quite fully explained and communication not fully spread through the ranks as to what happened with the loss of Strike Team Nero, now with the Prydwen grounded for the time being, it would be up to Elder Maxson's vengeful charisma stoking the rage and passion of the Brotherhood army to bring everything back to be reforged into a new point of attack. How this damage was exactly what he meant when he declared it would be a costly campaign, and that not just the Institute, but the abomination called Alicorns would be their target for their fury. They would get payback, revenge, no cost was now too great, as every soldier and Knight would now be paying with their lies to fight for the Brotherhood to reclaim its glory and stature.

Meathead took Paladin Danse and vanished, Paladin Brandis thought to look for either of them, but expected they would both be long gone by now. After less than a day back with the main Brotherhood chapter, his thoughts were quickly turning back to his shack at lake Quanapowitt, or even to joining a smaller group seeing as how ever since he landed back in Cambridge, things were turning for the worse everywhere he went.

He was never formally under Elder Maxson's command, and even though he was part of the Brotherhood, he was technically part of the Capital Wasteland Chapter, Maxson was in control of the Philidelphia chapter. Leaving now would mean turning his back on them, but at the same time, after seeing the whole situation blow up in the Brotherhood's face, he didn't want this to be his problem as well.

\111/

Paladin Brandis went looking for Elder Maxson, having relocated temporarily to the Flight Lounges in the Boston Terminal.

"Want to explain to me what the Alicorn meant when she said she's leaving today to go free her friends from raiders like us?" Elder Maxson demanded to know.

"I don't know any Alicorn, does she have a name?"

"Thunderstruck, and seeing as how you and Paladin Danse were the only Paladins in this entire part of the country before our arrival, I have to assume she was referring to you and the deserter Paladin Danse."

Brandis looked around, out at the tarmac as forces were recollecting themselves, and then to Elder Maxson, "You lost a tenth of your men and a third of your flight capabilities in the first twenty-four hours of being here in the Commonwealth. Is the campaign costly enough for you yet? That's what you said on the flight deck, that this would be a costly campaign."

"I don't need to have my own words repeated back at me, I need to know what the Alicorn meant when she said she's leaving."

Chewing the inside of his cheek, "Thunderstruck said this?"

"Right before she launched an attack on our defenses, we instigated no fight with her before hand, and she strikes at us before we've even had a moments rest. There are men here who haven't slept since before arriving, and have yet to sleep!"

Brandis didn't want to mention that he had seen and been told that Elder Maxson ordered the Brotherhood to shoot first. That she warned them to leave.

"Then what it means, Elder, is that you need to pack up your crew before the Alicorn comes back with a real army, and makes good on her promise to turn this stretch of airport into a longer runway."

Elder Maxson noticed the choice of words, "My crew? You're part of the Brotherhood, we need you."

"What you need is to leave, come back with the full might of the Brotherhood, and maybe you'll stand a chance. Otherwise, I see this ending for you badly, Elder Maxson. You'll be walking the same paths of lonely isolation and reflection that both Paladin Danse and myself have walked extensively since coming here to the Commonwealth. Maybe in two years you'll realize how to live with the Commonwealth, instead of fighting against it. I shudder to think of what comes tomorrow if the Brotherhood is still here..."

"You still haven't told me what her message means, and where do you think you're going?"

"I'm walking back to Philidelphia, if need be. There's a caravan leaving in a week down to Providence, and then from Providence down to New York, New York to Philidelphia. The prospect as always frightened me to go alone, but to stay here is suicide."

"You're not going anywhere, now tell me what she meant!"

"Of Course I'm NOT going! I'm staying here to fix this utter mess! I won't turn my back on a WEAK and utterly defenseless Brotherhood Chapter from the Pitt! It looks like I'll have to resort to the old method of Elder Lyon and help those in need, as much as you detest such an idea of asking for help!" Paladin Brandis said, borderline treason as far as Elder Maxson could care for what he was hearing, but he needed Brandis' experience now more than ever, "As for the Alicorn, She's going to be rallying the largest bunch of the worst, most despicable, cannibal-driven, feral minded, wildest brigands and raiders you've ever had the displeasure of imagining, and bringing them all here to stamp out all traces of the Brotherhood! Less than 20 miles from here is a little shit-hole called Nuka-World. I've had the displeasure of hearing stories about this place, and by God, if even a tenth of the stories are actually true, then there are over 500 raiders in a day's march from here, two days by walk. A caravan train that could line themselves end-to-end to stretch half that long of Equestrian and human slaves bringing all the food, water, guns, and ammo they would need to turn this steaming pile of shit called the Commonwealth, into a flaming, smoldering pile of shit. Only instead of being open about it and warning us, I imagine they'll come for us in the dead of night, crossing the damn bay because that's the last thing we would be able to defend from, and attacking from the water's edge. Irradiated sea-water be damned, that's a morning bath to those who actually bathe when they're not busy inbreeding or sodomizing deathclaws over there. There's a slave train that comes down from the North once a month, twenty people in a whack, with guards from Nuka-World. These are the most skeesiest, drug-addled, tempermental, raiders you've never seen or ever gotten to know. They buy and take more chems than the hardest of drug users, making addicts in D.C. and the Pitt hooked on psychojet look like mid-wives with a sore throat. The only way they'll come here, is because they've been bought off. And Once they've been bought off, you will be looking at the cheapest group of sell-swords you've ever had to fight. If Thunderstruck said she's going there to free her friends...I'd say you have two weeks before you start seeing Nuka-World's first caravans marching over those hills...from then...seeing as how there wasn't any warning before this attack, I'd expect even less warning between now and then."

"Paladin Brandis, we need your expertise and experience here in the Commonwealth to mount an offensive and help defend the Brotherhood."

"No." Brandis replied, setting his branded armor down, "The only way to survive, is to not go to war. Fighting will only draw more attention, and be the Brotherhood's downfall. You're going up against enemies who are drawn to the call of the fight like the Brotherhood, that is why I had to grind my Brotherhood insignia off because I knew it was only a target. I had to scrub my tattoo off with a wire brush to hide the truth from any merchant wanting to know where I came from. That is how I survived for the last three years. "

"And is that what you're doing now? Abandoning the Brotherhood? Turning your back and showing your cowardly side again?"

"Maxson, I'm going to Diamond City, and then to Nuka-World. Am I happy that this happened? No. But can I understand why this happened? Absolutely. I'm leaving to negotiate, talk, and to convince Thunderstruck that what she did here doesn't need to be repeated again. But Thunderstruck isn't the one you need to worry about...What you should've been focusing on, ever since the day you arrived, who's been keeping us from sending messages back to the Brotherhood? Who speaks for the Equestrian Caravans? Who controls the airwaves? Who is it that planted the Bomb in Fort Strong? I warned you once, and you let the information coalesce, and now your eye has already been blackened, so I'll warn you one last time so the memory comes to the surface. There exists in the Commonwealth a mare determined to see us spread across the wasteland like fruit-preserve across pilot-bread. All to bring Sola and Firelance to the front line where this mare intents to kill them. Of Which, I'm most convinced that she has the capabilities to do so. She is an armchair general capable of moving forces far beyond her which already culminated in pitting an Alicorn against us, and to get pieces to move on this grand chessboard of life, is extremely impressive, her name is Athena. I see now that Thunderstruck is the benign-caring touch, as she was the one who warned us of what would happen if we didn't leave, Athena is the cold, calculating side touch of death, the side that doesn't warn us. The side that will stab us in our sleep just to paint a blood-red sunset on the Brotherhood's downfall. Two sides of the same coin. I'd hate to face those odds again. Now...should you chose to ignore my advice, flip the coin of fate again, and continue this fight. Call them. Call Sola and Firelance and tell them what's happened, they will come. They will come, and everyone will die, You. Me. The Institute, the raiders from Nuka-World, and the Brotherhood you brought here will be shattered across the whole countryside as it will never reach its strength again like it was when you first arrived. It will crumble from the inside like the Minute Men of the Commonwealth...but the Alicorns...? They're Special. I see that now. The sun will dawn on them and set for us. Seeing this world end and rid itself of all wars is something they were born to do and created for that exact purpose...and you can't fight purpose," Paladin Brandis warned.

"We're not calling them, they abandoned the Brotherhood, just like you are doing so now! Stay here and fight for the Brotherhood. We need you!"

"I still fight for the Brotherhood, Maxson. But you don't even know who to aim your weapon at now, while I am fighting to see that the Brotherhood survives another day. Now I'm going out to secure resources and supplies; New recruits, and allies. maybe even a few locals who are willing to build up defenses around the airport. This is something the Brotherhood is in desperate need of in both manpower and defenses now. I'll be back... and Ad Victorium..."

Author's Note

I just got a letter from one of our trusted caravans' folks, and I...I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, but it's a contract that the Brotherhood of Steel is putting out...! There's a rumor already floating around that the Brotherhood of Steel has a caps machine press making caps...which means...well...that with them bringing in all this money...they could buy everything out, but then there would be an excess of caps and no supplies."

"Well; The most laughable person is a person who can be bought off with money...and the last thing serious people will take from you and call their own is an unserious joke. Until then..."

"Keep on Smiling, Diamond City. Just keep on Smiling, and things will be alright. Take it away...Louie."

Ch. 100 Keep It Simple, Stupid

Meathead tracked the source of Thunderstruck's emotion to the General Atomics factory, and while having Paladin Danse along in his armor right after the confrontation was risky, Meathead operated on the assumption that all robots were set to kill, and that to approach without it was a much less risky option.

She approached from the Customer Service entrance, exiting the building and meeting them outside. While her emotions were reserved, there was a genuine moment that she was pleased to see Meathead, but quickly shrouded herself with a serious neutral expression as she looked on to Paladin Danse,

"Since you're both here, I'm guessing that the 'guises ran it's course, and it was time to break away from things down South? Follow me, there's a chance snipers are about." Waving them into the factory, Meathead and Danse both eyed the recent additions to security that seemed to have doubled overnight since they last passed by. Wall mounted turrets, more eyebots, servo-mechs welding on pieces to the building, vents now guarded with laser tripwires. Thundestruck asked the improvements to be made to make sure no one else could make it in the same way she could. While the roof was still under renovation, within days any aerial assault against the General Atomics factory would become even more difficult.

Most warfare or fighting was always thought of lateral, but with Pegasus, Thunderstruck was always thinking upwards, the over-route.

In the lobby of the General Atomics factory, Danse was first to being asking questions.

"What I want to know is why you attacked the Brotherhood."

"Your Elder Maxson called me an abomination and mockery of nature, he then finished our conversation by ordering his men to shoot at me. I happened to have a party of warbots and cannons aimed at them before we started because I felt things were more than likely to take a turn for the worse by asking them to leave. It's called being prepared for eventualities," Thunderstruck reasoned.

"So you provoked them," Danse insinuated.

"I did no such thing. I told them what to expect if the Brotherhood of Steel stayed in the Commonwealth, and because he and the entire Brotherhood were unprepared, and built shoddy defenses, mirelurks and robots were quickly able to breach their perimeter." Thunderstruck replied.

"But if you hadn't come to talk to them, then the fight wouldn't have occurred," Danse argued.

"Enough with the hypotheticals, Danse! This factory is already on the Brotherhood's list, too dangerous to be in the hands of the people, as they've said before and will say again. But here's a hypothetical if you're so fond of them. Had they fought their way in, anyone wearing power armor would've been electrocuted. This whole building and the outside ground are wired to detect power-armor suits and vaporize any threats not responding to General Atomics command codes. The robots would've instantly declared them as hostile, and then kill them regardless. Instead of robots being produced for the Commonwealth, they would all be uploaded with Brotherhood programming."

"I think you're making a mistake provoking the Brotherhood," Danse said,

"And I care extremely little about what you think, Synthetic Danse. The moment you walked into this factory, both of you passed through a detection system designed to determine if they were synthetic humans or not. As we speak, highly-advanced computers are running diagnostic algorithms to hack the Synthetic chip in your brain, Danse. Within the next minute, a code could be read out over the loudspeakers which will ultimately give control of all your actions, all your thoughts, everything you know and believe in control to me. You will no longer exist as Paladin Danse, but a synthetic shell, told to go back with a bomb stuffed inside your chest, and then give Elder Maxson a big hug the moment you see him! How's that for a What-If? Have I made myself clear?! Danse! Or! Or we dispense with the unpleasant hypotheticals and stop repeating history much like the CPG or the Broken Mask, while you retain what little humanity you're still clinging to by you listening to me. I already told the Brotherhood to leave once today, but since you're not Paladin Danse, there's no reason why you shouldn't be allowed to remain here in the Commonwealth."

"What changed?" Danse said, he knew he was backed into a corner, but defeated in tone of his voice. Still angry and unnerved that she would be willing to do something like that. "More than just the new horn on your head and a new sense of purpose? Why did you go to the Brotherhood?"

"This isn't the first time the Brotherhood of Steel has expanded. This isn't the first time the Brotherhood of Steel took over territory, this is the first time, however, they will meet with resistance from the local population every step of the way who despise their beliefs and way of operating, and I warned them that this would happen if they decided to stay. I was warning them if they didn't leave, that their own ignorance would be their undoing, same as when you tried to warn them about Athena and what she did to you and your team yesterday. You knew, and I knew from Paladin Brandis that someone was making the Brotherhood's lives and way of operating extremely difficult and that all the locations they've tried to scout over the last three years downright treacherous. I expected a trap at Fort Strong, and was going to warn them of an anti-Brotherhood sentiment here within the Commonwealth, but...once your Elder started throwing names around like a toddler who learned to swear for the first time, I decided to let him and the rest of the Brotherhood learn for themselves that you shouldn't insult people who are only trying to help."

There was a pinging noise over the intercom,

"Stay mad at me if you want, and try to kill me if you think you can, but that noise you just heard was the security system deciphering the code to your brain, Danse. Now, you can remain a Paladin, and stay allied to your memories, or...I send you back with C-4 inside your chest and you not only lose your status as a human, but be exposed as a synth, destroying your reputation in the worst way possible. Think long and hard, because saying 'no' to me now equals you being the reason the Brotherhood of Steel no longer has an Elder. While I know that sounds evil, downright Institutional, but it's not the future path I want you to chose to take. The other path I'd much rather see you join us on, is the one that leads to Nuka-World. Danse. If you can destroy the General Atomics Mainframe before the security system utters the activation phrase over the multiple intercom systems scattered throughout the whole factory, sending all that is you permanently to the eternal void of nothingness, along with getting past me in the process before the words are spoken... now is the time to see how fast you are and test your Metal... Otherwise, I've got a plan and a whole factory with enough computing power that'll destroy the activation mechanics in your head so that no-one can take control of you...Ever. I'll give you a minute to think about it. In the meantime, Meathead...there's some things I need you to fill me in on... come with me."

\111/

<...And that's what we've dealt with since last seeing you. The mutant hunts, the courser, the relay, the Railroad, and everything else I can think of.>

Thunderstruck lead Meathead into the factory offices, "Meat, I want to kiss and thank you."

Thunderstruck leaned in to kiss him. Meathead was ready to bite the inside of his cheek, not to screw up the moment and make a weird face.

The short, well-meaning kiss where their lips only touched for a moment, not pursed out or foolishly duck-billed, a light peck was enough to make the changeling shudder in his sigh the second it was over. Thunderstruck held a genuine smile, relaxed shoulders, everything that showed she was comfortable being around him. "I'd be still on that rooftop, but you and Nate pulled me up and helped me recover."

The genuine love and emotion pouring directly into Meathead was enough to make his lips twitch, Thunderstruck took the changeling's silent appreciation of the moment for her chance to continue. His eyes felt glassy, ready to water and tear up.

"See you tomorrow?"

The well of emotions blooming out of Thunderstruck was immeasurable to the Changeling. For over a decade, all he ever knew was passive adoration and love from both Nate and Nora. This was true love, Thunderstruck wanted him, to be near him, and was comforted knowing he was near.

"What? Is something not right?"

"" He replied, radiating in the warmth that spread up over his skull and down his spine out through his tail.

"You know you've got a goofy smile on your face right now. Better hide it before Paladin Danse sees you again." She leaned in and hugged him, kissing him with light pecks on his lips and cheek and forehead. "The plan is keep it simple, stupid," She said, advising Meathead.

In an instant, the moment passed, Thunderstruck drawing on her resolve to regain a serious tone and Meathead straightened up after supporting her weight for that time.

""

"I have to be serious, Meat. I've seen this all play out before and it's happening exactly as it did before Nuka-World was took over by raiders. The Brotherhood is just the first wave in a long series of fights the Commonwealth is going to have to go through before it's over. If I don't make Maxson submit now, the next thing we both know is going to happen is that they'll make their move on the Institute...If I do make him admit defeat and give up his banners...then they'll wait for their opportunity to kill me and then rise up again,"

""

"I'm expecting Maxson to make the bold move to not give up no matter what I do or say to him, he's one of many who act exactly the same, no matter the speech given to them, or however much data and info they have laid out in front of them, they're only after conquest through battle and other people's strife."

""

"Because they're not engrained in the Commonwealth yet. They can still be uprooted and sent away. There's nothing tying them to the Commonwealth, no one supporting them, making them grow. By grounding their ship, and forcing them to decide between staying and going, they'll be giving it their all. They'll be fighting without remorse... and without remorse or consideration for their actions, as they spread throughout the Commonwealth, they'll act accordingly. The people will see how callous they are, that they're nothing more than well-equipped raiders, and will react and treat them the same way all the same. No special treatment, no deals, no promises of a better future under their banner, just another gang of raiders that needs to be dealt with. I know what their next plan is now too. Logically, they'll need a source of supplies and traders moving towards them and to control the hub of all activity in the Commonwealth. So they'll be moving on Diamond City as soon as possible. It'll be a staging ground for them and their ground troops when they eventually try to move on the Institute."

""

"I need to know, Meathead. Are you and Nate going to Nuka-World?"

""

"So you don't trust the Brotherhood either?"

""

"And we can't have that, Meathead. I may have never been on the receiving end of the Railroad's help, but I know they want to do good for the Commonwealth. The Brotherhood of Steel only wants to help themselves. Can we agree on that?"

Meathead nodded, ""

\111/

"So Danse, have you come to a decision?"

"You make it sound like I have a choice." Danse retorted, at the back of his mind, he was still weighted heavily on the lack of options when it came to his present predicament of dealing with his synth-ification. With Thunderstruck's offer to remove the command prompts controlling his brain, or keeping others from using an activation code over-riding his free-will, it was enough to get him to grind his teeth at the prospects.

"I did, and we already went over the -ifs, -ands, or -buts, of what would happen if you chose to go against me and the Commonwealth."

"Then if it will get the Institute programming out of my head, then fine, I'll help you."

"Tell me what you think the Brotherhood will move on next now that their air support's been crippled."

"They'll seek an over-land supply chain to recoup their losses, which means, moving on Diamond City and occupying it. They'll go after you, me, Meathead as soon as they organize a search party. Doesn't matter where we are, they'll track us down to every hidey-hole they can think to flood us out."

"I suspected as much. The moment they take over Diamond City, is the moment their forces are split, and the traders realize how much they'll be losing in the long run when all the supplies are being funneled towards the Brotherhood to rearm and equip themselves. Once they realize that the Brotherhood has excess amount of caps to keep dumping on all the traders, the value of caps will go down, and the prices for everything will skyrocket. Food, water, ammo, guns, scrap, even clothes in the next two weeks it'll all go up in price. The whole town will be looking at the winter wall with no resources to get them through the cold months. That's when the resources become more valuable, and everyone will blame the Brotherhood for hoarding all the resources."

"It was a mistake for the Brotherhood to come at the beginning of winter," Paladin Danse said, "A spring offensive would at least be warm, The Prydwen's got enough food for over a month at least, rationing by the end of December if supplies can't be refilled."

""

"I don't like the idea of being manipulated, threatened, and controlled," Paladin Danse said,

"Suck's, doesn't it?" Thunderstruck said, "Kinda feels like being treated like a lower class of existing creature? Right in-between burger-meat and...creatures that make fertilizer. Don't worry, by the time we're done with Mass Fusion, my computer mechs will have figured out how to remove the synth-component programming code and you'll be a free man."

"There's a second pit-stop we'll need to make before leaving for your amusement park." Danse admitted, raising his finger to make a point.

"Where would that be?"

"The place where Athena picked up her M-28. The Sentinel Site, within the Glowing Sea. A place where Liberty Prime would be loaded up with a portable nuclear aresenal to be used against the Institute and the rest of the Commonwealth. Once the Brotherhood gets its act together, they'll be separating into four platoons. One to move on Mass Fusion tower, the other to send a whole plethora of Brotherhood Knights down to the Glowing Sea. Since you kicked the Hornets Nest, the last two groups will stay to guard, repair the Prydwen, and continue assembling Liberty Prime. There is a backup way to activate Liberty Prime, but it would require transferring one of the four active reactors from the Prydwen, and then plugging it into Liberty Prime. This of course would reduce the airships capabilities, a tactic that would leave the Brotherhood severely open and lacking in retreat options, but since you already tipped the Brotherhood's hands towards the latter. There's no going back for them, they'll stay here to fight it out. Regardless of whatever you said to Maxson, they'll think you gave them no choice except to fight to the last man."

"You walked here and made it; Then, they can walk home. It's only 250 miles or so from here to Pittsburg. Thirty miles a day, they could be home in just over a week. What will it take for them to realize that there's the option to not fight?"

"<The loss of Liberty Prime, the Prydwen, Elder Maxson, the Institute, the Railroad not divulging relevant information, farmlands not giving up resources and food supplies, two weeks of food loss, and the removal of Elder Maxson and all top-leading commanders."

"That shouldn't be too hard then, nobody I know around here likes newcomers all that much anyway,"

\111/

Ch 101 If you Want Blood... November 12th

With everyone roaming the vault, exploring every nook and cranny, Deacon came to Nate in the Overseer's office again, asking if he could use the phone to contact the Railroad. "If...you can..." Nate said, "Then by all means." Leaving the desk for Deacon to work, he quickly tried phoning the other vaults.

\111/

"They're right outside our front door," Was a response to a situation no-one in the Railroad wanted to hear. The Brotherhood of Steel was in a mad scramble going after all available targets with extreme prejudice. With flick of the switch, they were launching their campaign against the Commonwealth.

"PAM told us they were coming for us, and while we weren't exactly rolling out the welcome mat, they took whatever they could get."

"Gave them an inch?" Deacon asked,

"...And they took a mile. Yeah. Yesterday when we first made contact with them, they were asking for ammo, guns, places close to Cambridge that were safe...Today we've got a whole camp of Brotherhood above our heads and their boys crawling all over the North End, looking for us and our safe-spots. Checking buildings, poking their heads in and searching for deserters they think are holed up with us. They want an excuse to come kicking down our door. This isn't the friendly, buying whatever we can spare, this is...them wanting everything we have."

"Who's giving the order?"

"Their Lancer-Captain Kells. Once we told Pam about yesterday's events, she suspected that their response was going to be rapid counter attacks to project power, land-grab, and create a false-rationalization narrative that if the Railroad could've been defeated so easily, then they never would've been able to stand against the Institute, further imposing the reality that the Brotherhood needs to be here. The Brotherhood is reaching out for whatever they can get their hands on and digging their heels in to make a strong push for Commonwealth territory...even if that means taking us out. They want a win...they NEED a win to justify all this activity. If they get a win under their belts, they'll be back on their feet and keep coming at us until they eventually find out about where we're spread out to. If we hold them off, then that's just another nail in the coffin for them."

"Keep your eyes peeled, and get ready to move. We may finally end up burning the North End Safe house, if that's the case, we need it to attract a lot of Brotherhood attention. I'll check in after I've finished talking with Des and the others again. I'll find out what's really going on and get back to you, Stay frosty, Glory."

"Stay Safe."

\111/

From hour to hour, the Brotherhood was changing gears and tactics from simply trying to make a presence in the Commonwealth, to aggressive expansion. The Brotherhood commanders were retaliating for the attack and failure of the first 24 hours, and were now doing everything they could to rebuild themselves and were power-grabbing. After losing over a tenth of their fighting force, and down one-third of their air support, they needed supply lines to and from the Boston Airport into and across Boston and Cambridge. Starting with the Coastline, they sent out forces to start blasting out routes they could control and maintain for safely moving troops around the Commonwealth. Fighting with Raiders in Revere, East Boston, and arriving in numbers at Bunker Hill, they were quickly trying to establish themselves and were blitzing across the county to make up for their losses and shortcomings.

In a shouting match with merchants and caravan guards moving out of Bunker Hill, there was a short standoff then shoot-out that left one dead Brotherhood member, and four dead caravan workers. Two happened to be synths that the Railroad just finished re-programming, which kicked off a whole new powder-keg once the Brotherhood swooped in with two Vertibirds and checked over the bodies, finding the synth components in their skulls.

The attack on Bunker Hill was still in the midst of occurring when Deacon was told over the phone. Instantly elevating the situation from trying to find potential trading partners, to designating all of Bunker Hill as an Institute spy assembly, the merchants retaliated and ended up killing a Brotherhood knight and a pilot, but that only turned Bunker Hill into a shooting gallery.

Deacon spoke with Dr. Carrington in Vault 75, Desdemona in Vault 114, and was hearing that the deserters the Brotherhood was looking for was and Paladin Danse. Trying to resolve the situation at Bunker Hill, realizing he was far from the frontlines and anything they did or agreed on would temporarily pull the Brotherhood's attention away from Bunker Hill.

By nightfall the Brotherhood would reach Diamond City to secure a land route. The advance party was already buying up as much ammo, food resources, and parts to repair the Prydwen, making plenty of merchants happy for the influx of caps and making the Diamond City Market a flurry of activity. They were all completely ignorant of the Bunker Hill Massacre that just occurred.

\111/

Meathead, Thunderstruck, and Paladin Danse were in the basement of Mass Fusion. Meathead was reattempting to copy Nate's hacking skills and get into the lower section by forcing the security doors to open, knowing they were within spitting distance of passing Brotherhood patrols that were already eyeing the building.

"

"I'm going to keep at getting the door unlocked," Danse replied.

"How big is the Byrillium Agitator?" Thunderstruck asked.

"Large enough for two people to carry, could probably fit on either you or Meathead's back. I'm not sure how heavy it is, but with how specialized the component is, it should be around 60-80 pounds. The only issue aside from getting detected with it, is finding a secondary hiding place for it."

"I already have a place in mind, out of the way. No-one should be able to find it for a while," Thunderstruck said, giving Danse a look that told him he wouldn't be privy to that type of information.

\111/

Nearly ten hours of surgery, Nora's body was under heavy strain, Nate found that the waiting was grating on his nerves now more than ever.

Curie was confident that Nora would recover and awaken, but the chance Nora was ever going to survive was one in two. A flip of the coin, a shot through the heart was an overwhelming odd to beat.

When Curie emerged, the room was raised to normal temperature levels and Nora was under sedation. Now it was up to her to pull through. Everything that could've been done, had been done. Heart muscles repaired, bones reknit, blood vessels reconnected, skin sewn up, it would take days for the body's recovery to accept the surgery, and then weeks to not put the heart under any undue stress. Nora was still in an extremely fragile state, everything now was resting on Nora's body to pull through and recover.

When Curie announced she was finished, there was a collective cheer, everyone was ecstatic to hear the heart monitor beeping along, an immense feeling of relief washed over Nate and his sudden change in emotion spread to everyone. There was a wave of hope at the wonderful news that Nora had a chance to pull through.

Curie would remain at Nora's side for the next coming days, ready to respond at a moments notice, monitoring her at Nate's request, but the doctor asked something from Nate as well.

"It was a remarkable sensation, feeling the weight of your wife's heart, piecing it back together. I realized I had to use every line of knowledge encoded into me to make this sturdy organ work again, and fix Nora from her core to the surface. My circuits were buzzing and every part of experience I had was put to use. My GPU felt full, I was at my limits or all the knowledge available to me, so I realized I need to be able to learn more. My RAM and processers were working full time. If I want to further my understanding of medicine, virus', and disease, I need an upgrade. I need to be able to download all that I am into a human brain and not be limited by the predictablility of a robot under human prompts guiding my movements and actions."

"I think the Railroad may have a solution to that, a synthetic body that needs a brain to upload. Deacon would be the one to ask."

\111/

In front Elder Maxson was a map of the Commonwealth, and his mind was alight with ideas on how to seize control, rebuild the Brotherhood, and storm the Institute. But the most pressing matter, even a trivial one, was the deserters Nate and Danse.

Elder Maxson saw the actions of two as an undermining of Brotherhood core beliefs. If not addressed, when things turned more grim and the true fighting begins, more numbers would think to abandon the Brotherhood if these deserters weren't brought in and made an example of.

A vertibird unit was being sent straight to where Nate was most likely to retreat to, hide and wait things out. Sending a dispatch of Brotherhood knights to secure Vault 111 also served a secondary purpose, to secure the vast amounts of Liquid Nitrogen coolant within, it would keep the Prydwen's reactors from overheating for decades if they could secure Vault 111's projected reserve supply. Thirdly, if anyone got in their way, settlers or residents of Vault 111, then they were to be considered to harboring fugitive deserters and treated as taking hostile actions against the Brotherhood of Steel.

\111/

"I discussed a lot with the Des and the others in Vaults 114 and 75, and someone in Brotherhood of Steel fucking snapped." Deacon told Nate, "They went to war with Bunker Hill, they're still going at it, as far as I know. The shooting's still going on, but all because they're after you and Danse for desertion."

"Meat," Nate said knowingly.

"Fresh Meat," Deacon replied, "There's a team in the North End looking for you, the Railroad, and synths as we speak. There's been a shoot out a Bunker Hill ever since the Brotherhood got kicked out of the merchant hub for kicking in doors, looking for you two. From what I was told, the Brotherhood got in a shouting match which escalated into a bullet fest, which only got worse once they found two dead synths in the mix. The Brotherhood is swarming like mad after getting their nest kicked in. That explosion we saw before coming down here...? That was Thunderstuck. She launched an attack on the Brotherhood...Bots and Cannonballs flying from the Constitution. It's a live wire out there right now. High Voltage situation all around. Do you know why she would've attacked the Brotherhood?"

"I have a hunch, she was enslaved by Nuka-World, got free, and now sees the Brotherhood as the same raiders under a different banner." Nate rolled his eyes back, feeling his thoughts build, "Are any on their way here?"

"If Meat was wearing your Vault Colors and number, then...yeah, I'd say we've got a few minutes before they make their way here."

"Fuck, alright. Grab your gear. Be ready to be mobile."

Hancock was off in the corner, feet up on the side desk, eyes closed but with a resting expression that showed he was ready to move at a moment's notice. "Hancock, we're back on the clock."

"Were we ever off?" Hancock wondered aloud. Grabbing his tricorn and setting it back on top.

Nate went to Nora's side, gripping her right hand, passing a bit of warmth between them he shuddered and spoke, "I love you, Nora. I'm going to work, I'll be back. I love you. I'll always be thinking of you."

With a bit of pressure, he hoped for an ounce of response, but she was still deeply unconscious of the world around her.

Telling the ponies, and the twins of what was soon to come, Nate and the rest of the Vault dwellers were gathered in the Entry Foyer when a small alarm light went off indicating that the elevator lift was coming down.

With Nate's hand over the button to open the Vault Door, he ran back to the Cryolator, grabbing it from the office right as the lift touched down to the bottom of the shaft.

"Grab me the hoses, quickly! They're here!"

Biting his lip, he didn't expect a troop of Brotherhood soldiers to already be knocking at his front door, but tapping at the console, he put it into a manual override where only he could open the Vault's door from the inside.

The next minute passed all too quickly as Hancock returned with a hose that Nate connected to the Cryolator, to a storage tank beneath the panels of the floor where excess Nitrogren tanks were kept. All throughout the entire vault, nearly every other panel hid a tank of liquid nitrogen, as there was an excess of 190,000 pounds of the precious coolant stored everywhere.

Over the control console intercom, the microphone chirped and a demand came over the speakers, "This is the Brotherhood of Steel. We have the residents of Sanctuary Hills above in our control, and unless you turn over the fugitive deserters Nate and Paladin Danse, we will treat them as prisoners harboring a fugitive and they will be taken away to face judgement! Relinquish control of Vault 111 to the Brotherhood of Steel, and you will not be harmed,"

"I will gut them if..." Nate started to say,

"Nate, we've got a plan to cut relations with the Brotherhood of Steel, and draw their attention away from Vault 111, but we need to get out of here," Deacon said, but Nate's mind was too focused on the moment in front of him.

This exact scenario ran through his mind when at Vault 84, how they could seal the doors, but all the outside traders and relationships they made over the last few weeks would vanish. The raiders could easily camp outside their doors, entrenching themselves and waiting for the moment the doors parted open.

Nate was stringing together a line of curses, knowing and damning the invaders for he knew exactly what this was all about. "Cold. Dead. Hands." Nate could be heard muttering. "Deacon! Or Hancock, distract them! I need to wire this in!" Even with his Deathclaw hand, he was still managing to make it work.

Deacon ran to the console, clearing his throat and leaning down to the speakerbox he replied, "This is Vault Security, please tell us the names of the individuals you claim to have with you and their status."

"Oy! I'm supposed to be Head of Security!" Cait said, thankfully Deacon had already taken his hand off the power-button, and she wasn't heard over the intercom.

"Cait! Quiet! I need you to be ready to rush these assholes and help separate our people from the Brotherhood the MOMENT the Vault Door opens! You got me?" Nate shouted back, whipping the hose with one hand to unfurl any tangles and bends in the line, he clasped them on. "Big Girl! Your a giant target, so watch out for any who haven't fully froze over yet!" He shouted at Leighla, but understanding and appreciatign the warning, she knew she would more than likely be shot in the tight spaces underground.

\111/

In all of ten minutes, from the low roar of the Vertibird's engine buzzing across the sky to suddenly two Brotherhood knights dropping out of the rig to them acting with impunity as their so-called head of security gone rogue for the second time since she and Leighla first arrived. Everyone from Codsworth, Serin Copper, Hollow Point, Golden Grain, Warner, Crab Cake, Poppy Cake, Sea Shell, Tin Hut, were all rounded up and forced out at gunpoint by soldiers who couldn't care less about how rough they were being, or they treated the residents. Codsworth was about ready to buzz their heads off for tracking in oily footprints into the carpeted living room, but that would only lead to needing to clean blood off the upholstery and ceiling, so he refrained for the time being as they demanded to know where Nate was located.

Grabbing the mares and children at the point of their guns, separating the males from the females, Crab Cake was thinking of ways to butcher and quarter the Brotherhood into sellable sections for wrestling his daughter away from him, as Poppy kept herself infront of the soldier and keeping Sea Shell out of direct line of sight.

"We'll Be Okay." Hollow Point said, even as they were directed up the hill to Vault 111, parting words with the stallions. They outnumbered the brotherhood, but the two knights, four soldiers, and two pilots staying with the landed Vertibird atop Vault 111, there was little room for counter-attack or negotiation. The groups were separated three, three, and two. Taken hostage and forced onto the lift, they descended to pull Nate out of hiding.

\111/

"What's the plan, Nate?" MacCready asked,

The Brotherhood Knight gave their response of the mares and child they brought with them, the next phase would have to be fast. How they were fine for now, but not to test their patience. They promised they would be forcing the door soon enough, and had the technology capable of opening a Vault's door.

"These bastards want me and 111's liquid nitrogen? They're going to get it."

Attaching the cryolator to the vents aiming outwards, then sealing it off with a remote trigger attached, the limitless supply of liquid nitrogen was run through the Cryolator's cores and directed out into the staging area of Vault 111. With a hiss and no other warning, the Brotherhood and every pony was frozen in an icy mist, only those further away near the elevators shaft were able to gasp once at the trick before being solidified over with ice as well. After three minutes, Nate ordered the doors opened and had everyone run out at once with rope, chains, anything they could to bind and contain the Brotherhood of Steel soldiers sent down, and warm up the ponies taken hostage. Removing them from the ironsites of the Brotherhood, and forcing the guns out of their hands and turning it against them, as the gas disappated into the vault and evaporated, the soldiers thawed out as quickly as they were frozen, but suddenly a lot colder and in swapped positions. Now with their own weapons turned on them, the Vault 111 crew wasted no time in removing the fusion core, and making sure that the Brotherhood made a terrible mistake by trying to intimidate Nate into surrendering.

The Mares were frozen along with the Brotherhood of Steel, but that was a necessity, only by stopping everything in their tracks, could they remove any chance of the Brotherhood attacking, or responding to their counterparts above.

As Nate, Deacon, Hancock, Cait, MacCready, and Leighla moved through the frozen bodies in the Vault 111 entrance, they separated the hostages from the Brotherhood soldiers. Keeping the Cryolator constantly freezing the Brotherhood as the ponies were pulled to safety, once they were out of harms way they slowly let them thaw.

As Sea Shell was woken, she started crying, scared of the soldiers and suddenly frightfully cold. Poppy Cake was angry, confused, but grateful of the surprise once she realized what Nate and the others did to save them from the Brotherhood. Hollow Point coughed heavily and couldn't stop shivering until she found someplace warm to renew her spirit.

Removing the knight's helmet, Nate ordered that all of them were blinded, strips of rags were tied over their eyes so they couldn't see.

"Ladies, I believe you were our security, so what becomes of them is up to you."

"Make an example out of them, send them to walk naked through the Glowing Sea," Cait suggested.

"Nah, then any Brotherhood would just kill the naked ghouls. I still vote for stripping them naked though, nothing strange about a bunch of naked guys galavanting across the Commonwealth, tucking tail and running home?" MacCready suggested to Leighla and Cait.

"That still wont solve the issue of them coming back again; Now that they know we're here. They know our perimeters, they know that we're still miles from being a defendable community. This chokepoint can't be the only line of defense. The elevator, even if we shut it down, most power armors are capable of withstanding the drop in. Short of welding the door shut...I was hoping we'd have more time before anyone strong enough to roll Sanctuary Hills over would show up. But, if they can't take it, they're more apt to blow this whole area up if they can't get their hands on it." Nate said, laying out their shortcomings.

Nate was facing a soldiers dilemna, trying to understand the inner workings of Elder Maxson, a person he'd never met before, and how Meathead's meddling made him a prime target.

"We...!" He announced, "Need to give them something else to aim at. A more valuable goal than myself and Vault 111's Liquid Nitrogen stock." Exhaling a breath, his mind came up with a few tangible solutions, but his mind fixated on one. "We've got to give the Brotherhood a target to shoot at, a bigger one than vault 111. Something to put Sanctuary Hills far down their list..."

"We can give them the Railroad Headquarters under Old North Church," Deacon said. "Ever since you told us about the Institute's crows, we've pulled everyone but a skeleton crew out of the North End, and the crew still there has been wiring that catacombs with enough smoke bombs, explosives, basement napalm, and bombs to wake the dead. Ever since Nora's been in surgery, I've been talking with the Railroad. Either way, in the last ten hours, they situations changed. Bunker Hill is under attack. In the last hour alone, they've tried to move in on Railroad operations and want us to give up our intelligence and all our data on the Institute. We know they'll come after we've served our usefulness. We can't provide for them, otherwise they'll roll over us and know where we are and our strengths and weaknesses. We have to strike now before they get the upper hand."

"Shame about the church," Nate said, making a cross.

"We have old scans of it, 3D maps and everything saved on files. We saved a Mr. Handy that could use 3D projections to build any historical building we have saved. Most of Boston is on file, or at least all the historical buildings anyway. When it's time to rebuild, we can make a to-scale replica of the exact building. Besides the point, The Old one was falling in and decrepit. I'll send word to Liberty and Desdemona that negotiations with the Brotherhood is a no-go, and it's time to cut ties."

"Then what about the other five Brotherhood above us and these three? What do we do with them?" Everyone's attention went to Nate, seeing as how these invaders came into their home and were threatening to kill the lot of them even if they complied.

"Kill 'em all, that's what all the guns are for," Hollow Point said.

Nate contemplated the next course of action, sparing them, taking prisoners, or letting them face some other sort of judgement. Most paths lead to the Brotherhood coming back here to Vault 111 or Sanctuary Hills to finish off the job and wipe out any trace of progess they made since starting their residence. But only a few paths lead the Brotherhood of Steel away and never returning.

"You know what they do to deserters?" Nate said aloud, not to anyone in particular, ready to answer his own question. A few heads nodded. MacCready, Deacon, and Hancock, their heads all nodded.

"They hang them. Meathead joined them, and a day later he and Danse are already being hunted for desertion...They must've figured out he's a synth, or...knew that he wasn't a human and were coming for them."

"We don't have the food or supplies, or a cage to throw the prisoners in...and they were going to kill anyone who tried to go against them just to get to you, and once they found you, they were going to hang you, Nate. They're still holding our men hostage," Poppy Cake said.

"They'll just keep coming until we get rid of them all," Cait said. "Until their ship goes down in flames and the rats scatter, there's only one thing to do...

While Nate took one last look around him at the faces in the crowd looking to him for leadership, then turned his head up to think of the situation above them. With a nod, "Kill 'em all," Nate said.

\111/

Lotta Rosie didn't need to observe Sanctuary Hills for long as she arrived. Her sights were set for her sister, but after seeing the group separated at gunpoint into males and females, she realized Thunderstruck wasn't here.

There was a rising emotional loathing that Lotta Rosie sensed early on, she saw the Vertibird arrive at Sanctuary Hills before her. By the time she arrived the ponies were collected and divided, with the mares being forced uphill towards the vault, and the stallions pushed towards a house across the street from Nate's.

The Brotherhood's attention was on one of the more completed and restored houses in the whole culdesac. Codsworth had moved to do light touch ups on the surrounding houses, but still maintained Nate and Nora's house to the highest degree.

One soldier went through the houses, showing interest in repurposing Codsworth to the Brotherhood, and checking for any more ponies hiding. Two stayed to watch the hostages, as the two pilots remained with the Vertibird.

Following the paths they were taking, Lotta Rosie took her knife from her kit, and held it out in her hoof. Eyeing the hydraulic hoses to the power armor covered Brotherhood knight, he was watching the prisoners. While it would be easy to take the one soldier out in a surprise attack, the others wouldn't hesitate to put a bullet in the stallions they were holding. Seeing that she needed to put herself between them and the hostages, she dove on the most powerful target first.

By crippling the Brotherhood knight, she hoped it would create an air of fear. How their most defensible man was rendered inoperable, and with good timing, Rosie could get the stallions free or out of direct line-of-site for them to retaliate. Even from a distance, it was easy to pick out expressions and see just by looking at the small crowd as to who would be ready to react. The orange and red maned Crab Cake, Grey and Silver Tin Hut, both held the eyes of those ready to react given the chance. The others, she could only hope they would figure out what to do when the time came.

Diving on the Knight, nobody expected or realized she was there until after her knife slashed through the hydraulic lines connecting the frame to the legs and arms. The Knight couldn't even raise his hands without having to life 120 pounds of dead weight on each arm, making the surprise attack all the more startling as he suddenly couldn't move. Before Lotta Rosie even hit the ground, she took a pistol and fired off twelve rounds at the Brotherhood soldier.

The stallions only had a few seconds to react and realize what was occurring as the armored knight hit the ground, and the soldier was shot down. They all saw Lotta Rosie, but didn't know who she was, nor where she came from.

"Grab the gun!" She pointed at Crab Cake and then to the dead soldier on the ground, slicing through the hydraulic hoses and further crippling the Brotherhood Suit. She intended to force the knight to eject, or eventually wedge a grenade up against the neck and test the durability and cushioning for the metal suit. Crab Cake yanked the rifle out of the dead soldier's hands,

In seven seconds, the other soldier tasked with checking out the rest of the houses in Sanctuary Hills came running. Lotta Rosie charged out of the house and tackled the soldier even as he fired at her. Three shots over her head, one barely missing her right wing, he was knocked to the ground and she flared her wings up and kicked him in the chest with both hooves. Across the settlement, the pilots were watching. In an instant they fired up the Vertibird, and were chattering over the radio about the settlement of Sanctuary Hills residents back to the Prydwen.

It would take minutes before properly being ready to take off, but after losing contact with the squad sent to the vault after they descended, and seeing the settlers retaliate, they would retreat back and return with reinforcements.

As if appearing from thin air, a hand reached out and grabbed the headphones from over their ears, yanking them off and forcing the pilot to whip his head around to face a 9mm pistol shoved right into his face, "And where do you think you're going?"

Two raiders from Red's Stockpile, and a thousand feet back were the liberated slaves from Nuka-World that Lotta Rosie freed, all on their way to Sanctuary Hills. These two were sent by Red to act as escorts and see what all the Sanctuary Hills settlement had to offer and what things of value it could provide. When they saw the Brotherhood Vertibird in the clearing, they knew they had an opportunity to get something valuable, and turn the situation to their advantage, even with Lotta Rosie going on ahead of them.

The soldier running across the culdesac towards the prisoner's was shot in the back, atop the hill everyone ascended from Vault 111 and was only beginning to survey the scene when Nate told MacCready if he had a shot lined up, to take it.

The raiders in the vertibird were holding one pilot at gunpoint when the other tried to strike the gun out of his hands. The raider fired twice before dropping his pistol, as the second pilot smashed his hand and fingers.

One bullet struck the first pilot inside the cockpit, but didn't kill him. The second bullet hit the seat and embedded itself into the frame. As the second raider tackled the pilot with a knife, stabbing repeatedly into the back and sides, the three wrestled for control of the cockpit, the first pilot leaned on the controls and raised the vertibird off the ground. The blades weren't spun up enough and dragged long divots across the ground as it moved forward, then scraping itself across the sidewalk and road, it finally revved up higher and took off.

The first pilot jammed himself with an emergency stimpak, then threatened to crash the whole 'bird, killing them all if they threatened him as the second pilot lay dying on the verge of death.

"Land it!" The Raider shouted,

"I'll take you all down with me!" The pilot retorted, "I'm taking you to the lake, and you jump! Otherwise! I crash us into the biggest pile of rocks I can find and you lose the vertibird and your lives!"

\111/

"Can you get me up there, Leighla?" Nate asked, the gryphoness looked at him and then to the vertibird.

"I can. Just don't expect me to get close to those blades of death, or for this to be a regular occurence!"

Nate sat on Leighla's back, holding onto the scruff of her neck as she took a running start at the fleeing vertibird.

"Grab the pilot!" Nate shouted, getting ready to jump into the open side door of the Vertibird, he only had five seconds as Leighla snatched the pilot through the cockpit window, and yanked him out, flinging him down. Muscling past the raider and stepping over the dead pilot, he grabbed the controls as Leighla shoved herself down and away from the vertibird as it started veering and tipping dangerously to the right. Nearly at a 45 degree swing, both raiders desperately held onto handholds as Nate forced the controls back the other way to level the machine out.

"Land this thing!" One of the raiders shouted.

"GTA motherfucker! I'm the only one who can pilot this, now sit down and hold on!"

As the vertibird shakily turned, Nate had to mentally run though the whole procedure of operating a vertibird again. Truth be told, he never flew one solo, but had sat in the co-pilots seat on dozens of test flights along with maintaining and working on hundreds of them during his time in the army. For a moment all the controls and labels looked Greek to him, a distinct moment of 'What am I doing here again?' before reality seemed to snap back into place and he felt the pedals and steering respond to his commands.

"Oh thank God, I remembered my training." His only handicap was the deathclaw arm, and the tiny switches on the control board were far too big for his left hand to flick without destroying them. Switching hands, he held the controls with his left, leaning over with his right, he reached for the headphones to block out the roar of the engines.

The radio chatter from the Prydwen was blaring in his ear, someone on the other end was demanding to know what was happening to him and the Recon squad sent to Vault 111.

Ignoring the call, Nate focused on the two passengers instead. Using his deathclaw to wave one of the raiders closer, "You're from Red's Stockpile, aren't you?

"Yeah, and you just helped us steal this vertibird. Take us to the Stockpile!"

"Did I now? That's not the smartest choice. The pilots are dead and you now have a worthless eight-ton piece of scrap metal that you don't know how to maintain, repair, or fly. Now, you can either tell Red that you brought the attention of the Brotherhood of Steel right to your front door, because unless you know what the pilots said before liftoff, then you just fucked yourselves and your gang by alerting everyone within listening distance that their recon crew is dead, and that they need reinforcements. Wherever this lands, the group of Brotherhood reinforcements who is searching for this vertibird will stop at nothing to avenge their dead comrads, and then proceed to slaughter everyone involved just to make a point. So your choices are this. You either get hunted down, and killed for taking the vertibird back to your base, or two; You leave with your lives and something you can actually use instead. Power Armor and Fusion Cores, all you need to do is scrub off the Brotherhood insignia. Those are your choices."

"Well what about the vertibird?"

"You can't fly it, maintain it, or repair it if something breaks, so it's no use to you or Red. If you're lucky, I can hide it where the Brotherhood wont find it and come hunting for revenge. What's the choice? Hunted down for a machine you cant use, or Power Armor and Fusion Cores?"

The raider looked back at the other, having not been able to hear any of the conversation at all.

As they came to a decision, Nate timidly brought the vertibird around back towards Sanctuary Hills and then eased it down a few feet at a time over a clearing, seeing the group under Lotta Rosie's charge among other things of the groups in Sanctuary reuniting. Landing not to far from where it originally was, he felt the whole vertibird touch down on the ground.

"Gta...ten points," Nate said to himself, neither of the raiders knew what he was talking about, but Nate went through the shut-down process of turning the vertibird off.

As the propellers slowed down, and the engines powered off, Nate sighed in relief. With a moment to collect his thoughts, he turned to the other two raiders and the dead pilot. Still sweating from taking over the controls, his heart was still pounding at the sudden excursion.

"So? How's the Power Armor sound?" Nate asked, leading the raiders away from the vertibird.

\111/

As Nate fielded more questions to the raiders from Red's Stockpile, their answers and walk back to the rest of the group eventually lead to Lotta Rosie.

"So I hear you're looking for your sister, Thunderstruck. You must be Lotta Rosie, I'm Nate, Overseer of Vault 111 and resident of Sanctuary Hills."

"That's right. A pony of yours told me she would be here, but I've already asked around, and it sounds like Thunder hasn't been here in days. So where is she?"

"When she left, she was taking care of a recurring group of rogue robots, and was successful on that front. In the last two days however, I can't account for where she might be now. Only that she's safe, and will most likely return here in time, but the plan is to retake Nuka-World here in the following weeks."

"You and what army?" Lotta Rosie asked, "Your pony also said that Sanctuary Hills was looking to expand, well...?" Pointing to the group of liberated people who spent the last day following Rosie North after her recovery, "That group of sad-sacks just came from Nuka-World over the land. They say nothing good about what's happening West. You and everyone who gets away from that place would be better off forgetting a place like that ever existed."

"Trust me, there is nothing more than I would like to not picture a place like Nuka-World, loaded with raiders, but your sister is the one who is encouraging the plan. She and others want to break the marauders grip and eliminate slavery. We've got people moving into place to move the gangs in different directions, but ultimately, using them as the first wave against the Brotherhood of Steel."

"The Brotherhood of Steel? That's who these assholes are? You're not trying to stop the gangs at all, you just want to take over."

"That's the idea, Miss Rosie. Thunderstruck and I, along with half a dozen others are leaving for Nuka-World in the next few days. Packing up, securing weapons, people, supplies, and finding a route in."

"Then take the tunnel. The Transit Center. It's clear. I made sure of it. Red's in control of that area now. Explain to me what sort of deal you have with her. As I'm not interested in living under a raider's thumb, even when it comes to them leaning on us for supplies and..."

Seeing the two raiders make off with two sets of Brotherhood Power Armor, "...Defenses," she finished.

"I helped Red acquire land from Lexington out from the raider bosses, along with West Boston to Bunker Hill. Cambridge, I'm not entirely sure who's running things there, but I understand the raiders there are based out of the Kendall Hospital and Monsignor Plaza. After killing Tower Tom, and Jared, along with finding her sister's resting place, I've gained what amounts to be a favor from Red. If they really want what we have, then they'll have to earn it by going against the Brotherhood of Steel picking. The Brotherhood already started attacking merchants and traders in Bunker Hill, and word will get out across the Commonwealth that the people who came here today are just another group of raiders with more guns and shinier armor. My goal is to maintain this land and make it thrive more than any other before someone new comes along to challenge us. Whether it's the Gunners, Brotherhood of Steel, Institute, or anyone else who comes up our road and says we need to give them our time, trust, and resources for their greater good, we'll turn them back."

"Seems like you weren't prepared for a simple scouting expedition."

"We were busy."

"So if I come to you and say, I've got people who need a place to settle, and need to keep away from slavers, then what's your response?"

"Then they're welcome to join. Our community needs to grow, we have houses that need to be built, farms that need to be worked, and defenses that need fortifying. If they aren't welcome to the idea that everything they put their effort into is to grow their family and be under the employ of people who need work done to not just create living areas around Sanctuary Hills, but Concord and beyond, then this isn't the place for them."

"That is up for them to decide. The place I came from was barely able to hang on because they found old tech the Institute wants, now I hear a different group wants you and your Vault. All I want is my sister, if you say it's up to the ability of raiders and ourselves to keep what's mine safe, then that is on you. I've got a slaver calling my name, and he wants me in chains. If you can't keep people like that away, then this community is just a breeding ground for the next group of slavers to come in and wipe out."

"I know, that's why we're leaving for Nuka-World. We're going to cut the slavers off at the source."

"What, by freeing their slaves?"

"That will occur, but ending slavery is going to end by introducing them to the free-market trade of small-businesses, and reviving manufacturing. The inventions of convenience made processing easier, and required less manpower. The same machines and technology the Brotherhood wants to keep away from people, empowers slavers to stay in control. By revitalizing plants and factories, building roads, and making trading routes safer and sturdier, we eliminate the need for slaves altogether."

Lotta Rosie mulled over the thought, "Then there's about twenty of us that need a place to stay. However, I am already doing my part to keep raiders from looking in our direction. I fly laps around the Commonwealth and report on who's moving to the Stockpile."

"Then keep your eyes out for Thunderstruck. She's out there somewhere."

"Speaking of flying, what are you going to do with the Vertibird? I saw those two leave with the Power Armor, so I can only figure you lead them to believe the suits were worth more to them than the chopper."

"I'm saving it for a rainy day. Fuel isn't cheap, you know. Until then, I'll paint it up and stash it someplace covered."

\111/

Author's Note

How did nobody ever make the connection to the Brotherhood of Steel coming from the Pitt essentially made them the Pittsburg Steelers?

Ch 102 ...You Got It November 13th

Indiscriminately rooting through houses, the Brotherhood of Steel were looking for and Danse in Bunker Hill, checking all closest settlements for any sign of them. Unconvinced by Mayor Kessler and the merchant's claims that neither of them came through, the Brotherhood decided to check around anyways. When two caravan guards called them out, told them to go weld themselves inside their suits, and jump in the Charles, a knight elevated the situation and fired a warning shot. The caravan guards thought they were being fired on and fought back, both were shot, one right through the skull, and as their knight captain came to examine the situation, and de-escalate the crowd of angry merchants and other caravan workers, the sight of synthetic components exposed by the gunshot wounds turned the whole situation to a bloodbath as the knight-captain ordered the other dead caravan guard's skull be forced open and examined as well. The chance that both of the caravan guards were synths was unbelievably small, but with the Railroad operating heavily out of Bunker Hill, and using the trading hub as a means to smuggle synths out of the Commonwealth away from the Institute, the odds were highly stacked against the two who were freshly given new memories and outfits, ready to head out into the wastes.

Once revealed infront of both the merchants and Brotherhood of Steel that these two dead guards were both synths, everything went from terrible to irredeemable.

As the knight spared no modesty exhuming the second skull, this only outraged the rest of Bunker Hill, as they were calling for the Brotherhood knight's blood. But, upon the discovery of a second synth, the knight-captain turned cold and dispassionate to the entire colony of Bunker Hill, and told them that all synths must be eliminated and rid from the surface of the Earth. The Brotherhood suspected them of hiding abominations was a dispicable act as well, and that for harboring them, the merchants and caravans would need to pay for their ill-intentions. Demanding food, water, scrap, seeds, reserves, ammo, and weapons, along with the entire stock to be assessed, the whole angry congregation were yelling and screaming at the Brotherhood to leave and never return.

Once one rock was thrown, the battle for Bunker Hill was fought from the inside-out.

In minutes twelve people trying to force the Brotherhood company to leave were suddenly gunned down, prompting everyone else to take up arms against the Brotherhood and pin them down. Word already spread back to the Prydwen and a vertibird was deployed to the scene, where it provided air support, firing down and circling Bunker Hill as the residents shot back. With twelve dead, nobody, or animal, or pony was spared as the whole surface of Bunker Hill was razed by a hailstorm of bullets and laser-fire. The Brotherhood knight-captain declared the settlement an infestation of Institute synths and Railroad sympathizers who refused to cooperate and collaborate with the Brotherhood, making them all enemies.

Once the shooting started, the grave situation forced those with much to lose into running, and those without much to lose into fighting. Old Man Stockton, and several other merchants fled once they heard the screams and bullets ring out. Joe and Tony Savaldi hid themselves in the outhouse, hiding neck-deep in shit to avoid being detected as the first wave of Brotherhood reinforcements tore Bunker Hill apart, then resorted to burning the settlement to the ground to force everyone else out of hiding. Within the two hours of Bunker Hill being destroyed, nearly every settlement with a radio knew what happened. Mayor Kessler was within the monument when the shooting started, and less than a meter away from the radio as she yelled over the pip-mic to the situation that was happening.

The rifle-man on lookout started shooting down, but wasn't equipped with weapons powerful enough to blast through power-armor, and was blown out of the lookout along with the top third of the Bunker Hill monument. As bricks rained down, Mayor Kessler shielded herself with her arms, but they were coming down too hard and clobbered her to the ground. Buried in rubble, it would take another six hours before she came to and saw Joe and Tony Savaldi digging her legs out and shaking her awake. The scent alone was enough to rouse the dead, and them being close enough for her to smell was what woke her up. Gagging as she was rescued, she was briefly aware of blood running down her face and how her arms and back were bruised.

The merchants and caravans hadn't returned yet, making their way to Diamond City or Goodneighbor where they were telling the second-hand account of what happened. Unable to recoup their losses yet, and with no other survivors in sight, the Brotherhood had razed the settlement and cleared out. Most of the buildings were still smoldering, wet wood, and mud had prevented fires from lasting too long, but all the buildings were now in cinders.

The Railroad's secret holding area under the monument was packed with survivors, half a dozen residents who were fully aware of the going-on's of the Railroad in the trading hub, and were now sharing space with three other synths who were sitting there quietly before the whole event started. They were only waiting for the next caravan to ship out with, but now that their whole base of operations was burnt to the ground, and not even the brahmin were spared-the animal corpses were missing, taken for food. Along with every single corpse was now headless, the Brotherhood spared nothing at all when checking for synths, no time was wasted, and the decapitation was done sloppily to get at the base of the skull to check for synthetic components.

"Allowed them in...and they took everything we had," Kessler stated. "Never again. Everyone who still believes I can lead people to safety, grab your gear. Now. We're going to the Railroad where they will take us in. I've done too much for them, covered for them too many times, and paid my debts in full to the cause, they owe everyone here a bed to sleep on tonight, and if you're angry and want revenge like I do, then they'll have the weapons to punch through power-armor as well. Food is there for those who've earned it, but right now, we're leaving. Immediately; Before they come back."

\111/

With the march from Bunker Hill to Old North Church, Institute Crows picked up on the fighting, and the mass-exodus of merchants and caravans, followed by Kessler and the survivors to the Railroad's headquarters where a still vengeful-looking Kessler was demanding to see Desdemona.

Liberty and Glory did what they could to mitigate the wait, directing people inside, but ultimately they had to wait for Desdemona to appear to hear the accounts in person, and for the stories to be told directly.

Once the word spread, and at the same time, Deacon was in Vault 111, making contact with Vault 114, the conductors of the Railroad all determined the best course of action. A plan of retaliation, a course of action to prevent the Brotherhood from getting any further into the wasteland, and to let everyone across the Commonwealth aware that only death and destruction awaited anyone who dared to assist the Brotherhood of Steel at the invaders hands themselves.

With the situation unfolding at Vault 111, and the Brotherhood wanting to claim the vault's resources for themselves as well as root out Nate and Danse, Deacon put forth the plan to take the Brotherhood's attention, and redirect it back towards the Institute. The invaders, he argued, were quickly losing sight of why they came here in the first place. When ultimately, they should be pitting the two against each other.

The solution was to invite them in under the guise of trading and sharing secrets, then blow all of the North End to pieces. While the Railroad didn't have much in terms of manpower, they had been amassing a growing supply of bombs and explosives. Of all the items and materials that the majority of the Railroad took when dispersing between Vaults 114 and 75, they left the most of the explosives in the Catacombs beneath the church. Knowing that it was dangerous to transport explosives back and forth across the Commonwealth, and ease of convenience for when it came time to move on the Institute, there were already plenty installed as boobytraps in the tunnels beneath the North End to collapse the whole quarter when invaders decided to storm their headquarters.

The ploy to lure them in, and leave them waiting was decided as cruel, but the loss of Bunker Hill and the supply lines was crippling to the Railroad's secondary purpose. With them having to completely rebuild and establish a new settlement in Bunker Hill when the time came, or rebase out of Goodneighbor or Diamond City, the chances and cost was already extremely demanding.

The Brotherhood already was attempting to make contact with the Railroad, attempting to learn of Railroad safehouses, gain supplies, weapons, and coordinate attacks on the Institute, but they were oblivious to the destruction of Railroad operations. The Railroad remained silent for the first day the Brotherhood arrived, watching as Fort Strong blew up, and then were attacked by a swarm of robots as their blimp was shot out of the sky. Now they had the opportunity to respond with an overwhelming resounding 'no', denying them of any attempts to bolster their forces by taking out even more of their troops.

The decision came down to kick the Brotherhood out. Even without their presence, the Railroad had plenty of other issues to deal with already, and now the massacring of civilians while claiming it was to root out Institute infiltration was abhorrent and detrimental to the Railroad's cause.

The survivors of Bunker Hill were told they would be relocating soon enough, and that the catacombs weren't safe for long.

As the remaining Railroad crew installed more explosives, wiring them in, secondary plans were being made.

They knew that by doing this the Brotherhood would go on a rampage through Boston and beyond. They wouldn't stop until the Railroad was wiped out, that's when Deacon told the rest of the Railroad Nate and Thunderstruck's plan to infiltrate Nuka-World. The Nuka-World marauders outnumbered the Brotherhood of Steel, Railroad, Goodneighbor, and Diamond City combined. With even a tenth of the fighting force brought here from Nuka-World, those willing to fight for caps, the mercenaries would be a distracting force that would keep the Brotherhood occupied long enough for the Mass Relay to be completed and for the Railroad to force their way into the Institute.

Leading members, after taking on the Nuka-World challenge to fight Overboss Colter for the reigns to the park, would need to take positions in the command structure and assist Nate in turning the marauders attention to the Commonwealth.

By the time Nora's surgery was complete, and the Brotherhood had been dealt with in Sanctuary Hills, the explosives were placed and wired around the catacombs, and all that was left was to lure the Brotherhood in with a sizeable piece of bait.

When Thunderstruck claimed she knew a place to stash the Byrillium Agitator, she was initially unaware of the radioactive signature it possessed. As Paladin Danse explained that it would be easily traceable with the Brotherhood's detection systems, her next thought was hiding in Tranquility Lane, but suddenly realized she didn't know how to return to the spell matrix. No one told her how to get back, and the first time she got there was a mystery to herself as well. The only way to hide it would be to seal it in a lead-lined container, then 'scrub' it of radioactive particles, and finally transport it to a second location without the Brotherhood knowing.

The high radiation of the inital transport would leave a trail of particles wherever the group took the Agitiator, meaning that once they left Mass Power, anyone with strong enough detection equipment would pick up on the sudden movement of radiation particles throughout the city.

One suggestion was to stash it in the Glowing Sea, another in a bunker, or even in a nuclear power plant, but Meathead knew that the only people who would be able to utilize it would be the Brotherhood, the Institute, or Nate.

While Thunderstruck, Meathead, and Paladin Danse were playing nuclear hot-potato with the Agitator, Meathead directed them to the Old North Church, knowing that they couldn't take it to the Railroad's new hidden location. Keeping an eye out for crows, the Institute, and the Brotherhood both picked up on the transfer of the agitator to the Railroad's headquarters, and were moving units to send out long before the Railroad called over the open airwaves to the Brotherhood of Steel. As the three were filled in on the plan, and asked to be bait, the whole North End slowly cleared out of all personnel that couldn't make a speedy exit.

\111/
An hour after Kessler and the survivors of Bunker Hill were relocated to Goodneighbor, and then Vault 114, a transmission over the open airwaves was heard by the Institute and Brotherhood. Collated with the sighting of the Agitator, and within twenty minutes, the first synths arrived on scene to attack the North End Church.

The Brotherhood didn't even need to spy, they could see and hear the fighting going on across the water, loading two vertibirds and launching them at Boston's North End with shoot-to-kill orders on the Institute's machines. Securing the Agitator was top-priority, and the elimination of the Railroad was only second to that. Without the Railroad, there wouldn't be any other factions capable to fully back a resistance against the Brotherhood once they started expanding across the Commonwealth. Racing to wipe them out early on in their occupation was a goal they had in mind long before ever landing in Boston. When the fighting started, it turned into a contest of who could wipe the Railroad out and claim the prize of the Agitator first.

Turrets, booby traps, pit-spikes, grenade-bouquets, collapsing floors, guns rigged to trip-wires, the Institute could barely get to the front door of the Church with a team of Railroad snipers all surrounding the building, firing on the Institute's backsides. Pinning them between a tunnel, and a ring of fire, the objective was to draw the Brotherhood in, and then retreat as a second wave of Institute synths were warped in.

Everyone could feel the electricity in the air through their teeth as a second wave appeared, the Brotherhood were less than two hundred meters away, ready to circle and come in for a landing before their door gunners open-fired on the synths moving on the Church. When ground was clear, the Railroad agents in the surrounding buildings backed off, as only two people emerged to quickly wave the Brotherhood inside, before running ahead and leaving them behind.

The Institute was relentless once they realized what was at stake, sending a third wave less than five minutes later after the second. More armor, larger laser weapons, more durability, the synths were all Gen. 2 and 3, the two Brotherhood teams fell into the trap of being lured into the Old North Church, and then called down into the catacomb tunnels through a voice they could hear, but not see.

Among the Brotherhood forces were scribes and scientists, capable of transporting the Agitator safely and under the sole purpose of examining the Railroad's capabilities and equipment as the knights blasted a way forward for them. Once the scribes came in, the second round of traps were deployed. Cages of ghouls let loose, radiation pits, shock-traps, in ten minutes the scribes were cut down from six to two, all because they thought it would be safer for the scribes to go in to a safe-zone first. When the cries came out that the path was rigged with traps and ghouls, two knights pulled away from the shooting on the street, and rushed down into the tunnels, letting their power armor soak up the damage as they bull-rushed their way through.

As the other two knights and Knight Captain were moving from the street into the church, trying to set a defensive perimeter as more synths kept arriving out of thin air, the vertibirds were circling the block, picking off synths from above as more robots swarmed the square.

"No confirmation of Railroad agents," the first knight said, "The whole place down here has been stripped down to the wires. Just like the Institute synths do with old sites- They take everything and strip the whole place out-."

\111/

With a visual confirmation that the majority of the Brotherhood of Steel was inside the Old North Church, and synths were plaguing the whole North End, the explosives lining the streets, the sewers, catacombs, and the walls of the Church were detonated.

The whole street was lifted up eight-feet before collapsing the entire tunnel complex, caving in twenty feet below the surface street-level as the building erupted in a blast of splinters,

Sixteen Brotherhood of Steel knights, soldiers, scribes, and a Knight Captain were all killed. The last words heard were interpreted as the Institute already being there, and that the billowing plume of dust and clouds rising from the North End was because of the Institute. That they would destroy everything to prevent the Brotherhood or the Railroad from possessing the Agitator was a belief that the Brotherhood followed as part of their own creed. If dangerous technology was in the hands of civilians who wouldn't turn it over, they and everyone who knew about the technology was to be destroyed.

The explosion caused damage to the surrounding buildings, the dozens of synths on the surface, and buckled most of the street all the way to the water's edge. This created a back-eddy where water came pouring into the streets, flooding the North End around the church.

Since the Brotherhood never properly made contact with anyone from the Railroad, only through transmissions and radio calls, the strategists were at a loss and disadvantage.

The only reasonable explanation they could come up with that the Railroad had already fallen to the Institute, and that they were lured in by false radio communications and fake assurances. That the Railroad was merely being puppeted by the Institute as a scarecrow force was the only explanation they could initially give before going in and properly examining the blast site themselves.

The radiation confirmed that something similar to the agitator came through the North End, but they were never able to visually confirm it. With the loss of over 15% of the Brotherhood's fighting force in 48 hours since arriving, the blow was the third-strike against them as they were out of options and at a massive disadvantage for securing the Commonwealth. From now on, their sole objective was to wage direct assaults against the Institute before being uprooted and losing their chance to claim the Commonwealth altogether.

Only aggressive expansion and securing the land through force was one of their only options they could currently rely on. Acquiring civilians and locals to fight in the name of the Brotherhood was only an option if they had time to wait, but seeing as how it started snowing over Boston after the bombs in the North End were detonated, and all that confusion and hate stemming from the Brotherhood was directed at the Institute.

Mona was rolling her head back and forth, lapping up all the misplaced rage and vengeful desires to stir things up even more among the Commonwealth's newest invaders.

She watched from her tower, seeing all the emotions scurry around like ants, plotting, trying to come up with plans, seeing who was attempting to get payback or retribution for slights against each other, but her plans were simple, sit back and watch people tear each other apart. So far, so good. Same as it had been for the last 200 years.

As the Brotherhood tried to salvage the mess in the North End, track down erronious messages they'd been detected being transmitted through phone-lines through the Commonwealth, all the ranking members of the Railroad all moved either South towards Shaw or West and North to Concord where they met with Nate and Meathead.

The following days, the Brotherhood blasted their way into Vault 114, occupying the Boston Common as a landing strip for vertibirds. They came across an empty vault devoid of any signs of life. The Railroad had all packed up and left, leaving behind no trace except for the dead Triggermen and synths. Painting the picture that it was the Institute's doing as well, the Brotherhood accepted that the Railroad was completely defunct, and if they were in operation, their numbers to be so small, that not even a fighting force was capable of being formed to address them directly.

As the Railroad pulled out, the Brotherhood banged away at their Prydwen, repairing the canvas and restoring it to flight worthy conditions. Pulling the reactor out, and making re-alignment would take weeks, but also gave them the solution for powering up Liberty Prime when the rest of the machine was operational. Until then, they could only grab for whatever bits of power and land that they could raid and get their hands on, otherwise, most of the Commonwealth was clamming-up to any of their attempts to reach out. Save for Diamond City, but even then, their caps and trade deals weren't getting them far. At highway-robbery prices, the Brotherhood couldn't afford to buy their way out of the bad reputation they built for themselves when it came to how Bunker Hill was treated.

\111/

Ch. 1 Infant, Adult Male, Adult Female, and a Dog

"...Three balls, two strikes. One out. Nobody on. Three nothing Boston. Fifth Inning.
Stafford delivers and Casby takes it outside for ball four...again he walks. Second-time Casby walks ahead of Williams and Wartz. He's batting 3-13. Head's to the box to play second...and single. One out. Stafford in the stretch.
Ground ball hits and he backhands it to Kubuec for one. Back to first! Too late. They got Casby.
Kubuec, not off the bag, but leaning towards home plate side and he reached for the ball, so he was not in a stand-up position to throw to first where he could get any speed behind it, defeating the double play.
It's the fourth out to second...Garren to Kubuec.
Wiliams on first and the bat is quick work he tries to swing to the left to drive in the Red Sox's run in the third inning."

\111/
October 23rd, 2077
Sanctuary Hills, Concord.

A five-minute shower was all Nate had known for the last four years of his life. Three hundred seconds of pure hot water streaming out and splashing down onto his skin. In ten seconds, he poured out soap from a plastic squeeze bottle and mushed it into his hair. More soap went onto a brush, and Nate went to furiously scrubbing all parts of his body.

From his ears to his toes, the seconds ticked off in his head as he set his scrub brush down and placed one hand on the faucet. A small piece of water-resistant tape over a small bump on his right bicep, he took care not to agitate it too much.

Naked, he shuddered. Four minutes and thirty-nine seconds. He allowed himself a whole twenty-one seconds of relaxation in the hot shower to relax.

At the end of those five minutes, Nate turned the shower off and let the droplets drip off him. Panting, he stepped out of the shower and reached for a towel.

"Towel, sir?" Blinking the water out of his eyes, a metallic claw gripping a sea-foam green towel was extended out to him as he pulled back the shower curtain. Nate took a step back, then reached for a pro-offered towel by their latest investment, Codsworth.

"Thank you, Codsworth." His gentleman's demeanor was very well adjusted and reliable to concept and strategy formulation. General Atomics Industries can be thanked for their millions of man-hours spent on coding and capping counter-safety measures to any types of accidents from happening. It said so right on the box when they bought it.

"You're quite welcome, sir. Do you require anything else?" Cosworth's tone was programmed to always be slightly upbeat, and the intelligence allowed for personality to develop over time. This followed the owner's preferences and commands, cataloging them for future reference.

"I set a white shirt and briefs down in the master bedroom, on top of the cabinet drawers. Could you please grab them for me?" Nate asked Cosworth's thrusters kicked into action.

"Of course, I'll retrieve the clothes you requested immediately."

Drying himself off, Codsworth reappeared with clothes in hand and waited for Nate to dress.

"My father...my father..." He said to himself in the mirror. Clearing his throat with an 'Eh-hum'
"My father fought in Afghanistan before I was born. He was able to see her through a video screen, and he said to me seeing my mother's face without being able to touch her left him with similar questions my grandfather had during the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, only this time it was a photograph. These questions are the same ones every soldier will ask. Even my great-grandfather..." He said into the mirror, meeting his own eyes. "A soldier in World War Two constantly wondered when he would see his wife and son again."

"In Anchorage, those same thoughts were with me. Would I see them? Would I ever step through the threshold of an open door into a house with a wife and son? What's changed in the last hundred years since my relative asked these questions, even before thatwhat changed in the time when two .380 bullets pitted nations against each other?

Nothing. War is war." Sighing into the mirror, Nate rubbed his chin, feeling for any sign of stubble.

"You're going to knock them dead at the Veteran's Ball tonight." A warm flow of blood filled his chest as he heard his wife, Nora, slide up next to him in the bathroom.

Their eyes met in the reflection of the mirror, "You think so? I think I need to keep working on it."

"It sounded great. Now get ready and stop hogging the mirror." Nora ran a hand up Nate's back and rested it on his shoulder,

"Right." The bit of affection sent his way immediately perked him up. Running a razor over the rough edges, Nate rubbed his hands along the neck. Engrained habits made Nate shave until his chin was as smooth as the warm steel pressed against it.

Swishing his razor around in the water, he tapped it against the side of the porcelain sink and stepped back.

"Looking good, honey." Nora flirted, coaxing a smile out of Nate.

Nate moved through his new home, trying to place the feelings in his heart. The home was a bit cookie-cutter in design, all the houses in Sanctuary Hills were more or less the same except for the type of car in the driveway, and the people living within. The bright painted colors of yellow, green, blue, pink, purple, red, white, orange, and black. It was home. A chill ran through his neck and shoulders.

Nate was home. He could see his wife. Taking two steps into his right, he could see his infant son too. He was shaking in his skin, beside himself for having made it home. His fingers felt extremely cold, unbearably cold, blood as cold as ice water running through them. Walking to the crib, Nate gripped the wooden frame and waited for the feeling to pass. He reached down and caressed Shaun's face. Above the crib hung a red rocket mobile, he gave it a light push and winced as he listened to the jingle.

Nate felt like he was wrapped inside a metal shell of power armor, the padding kept him in place while the excess heat from the suit's fusion core kept his limbs warm. The only exception was his fingers. Curling them again for warmth. With a rifle in his hands, and an eighty mile per hour wind whipping over the flat wetlands. Bullets were flying off course, everyone was having difficulty finding their marks. Two men were clinging to him like a telephone pole, trying not to be blown away as he could only take one short step at a time. The wind whistled past the helmet's microphones, sending constant noise interference and background noise through the feed. Three dogs were crawling through tall grass, their handlers right behind them on the lookout for landmines. The memories kept flooding into his mind and gripped at his chest.

'Schlop, pant, sch-lick, pant, pant, pant.' Meathead licked his lips and stood right next to Nate beside Shaun's crib. Brushing against Nate and panting heavily, he shook himself from the memory stupor and smiled.

"Hey, Meathead," He said, petting and scratching the German Shepard's ears. Meathead sniffed Nate's hands up and down, then he went to smelling the crib and peering through the bars to see Shaun.

Meathead followed Nate down the hallway, past Nora still getting ready in the bathroom, and into the kitchen. Codsworth happily beamed when Nate entered his radius of awareness. "Good morning sir! Your coffee is ready! One hundred ninety-two and five degrees, brewed to perfection." The robot was a curious design, three eye lens at 0, 90, and 180 degrees around the head that can swivel and turn in all different directions at the same time for a complete 360-degree view. They were connected by metal tendons back to a large grey steel balloon with a jet thruster attached. This allowed Codsworth to float and hover in place. Three long metallic arms, each attached with different utensils, a buzz saw, a flamethrower, and a deactivated plasma caster for home defense. Nate knew the switch and verbal phrase to activate it, but until Shaun was out of the house, he had his own rifle.

Several.

Nine to be exact and they were all loaded. Nora knew it, Codsworth knew it, Nate knew it, even Meathead knew it from watching him while cleaning them.

"Thank you, Codsworth." He said, accepting a small twelve-ounce porcelain coffee cup.

Turning on his heel, he sipped at the hot drink and caught sight of Nora coming in for a kiss. Meathead happily wagged his tail, looking up at the both of them. He was the first to notice movement from outside the bay window and barked loudly.

The couple broke their kiss and jerked their heads to a man in a yellow trench coat, calmly walking up to their front door. Parked along the curb was a blue van with large yellow letters reading "Vault-Tec: We'll Be There!"

"It must be that salesman, he comes for you every day," Nora said, sipping on her own coffee.

"How long has he been coming?" Nate asked,

"A few days?" Nora replied.

"What does he want?" Nora shrugged, Cosworth's eye cones rolled upwards away from Nate towards the kitchen.

"Let's find out what he wants then."

Pulling open the door, sunshine came down onto the shoulders of a man wearing a bright yellow trench coat and a similarly colored fedora with an orange band. His red hair, brown eyes, and bright smile was a positive display of showmanship from Vault Technologies Incorporated. "Good morning! Vault-Tec. calling. How are you today?"

"Feeling Fine. How are you?" Nate replied.

"Good! Good. Nice to find you, sir, you don't know how happy I am to finally speak with you. I've been trying for days, it's a matter of utmost urgency! I assure you." Nate tensed offering a light smile.

Meathead barked twice, Nate glanced to his left and then asked: "Where's the fire?"

"If you haven't noticed sir, this country has gone to hell in a handbasket, if you'll pardon my language. The big kaboom is inevitable, and I'm afraid coming sooner than you think if you catch my meaning." He held up a hand to his chest and realigned his thoughts. Where was this man's bible?

"Now I know you're a busy man, so I won't take up too much of your time. Time is a precious commodity. I'm here to tell you that thanks to your family's service to our country, you've been pre-selected for entry into the local vault; Vault 111." With a wide smile, the Vault-Tec. representative spread his arms open and upwards.

"There's room for my entire family, right?" He said, looking over his shoulder

"Of course!" The representative beamed, "We've even got the room for Fido over there! Vault-Tec. Research and Development strongly encouraged families to bring their pets to improve morale and the body's immune system while adapting to a new sterile environment. Minus the robot, naturally."

"Would you mind running that last bit by me?"

"Oh, of course!" Clasping his hands together, "This won't really affect the first generation like you, however as things stay squeaky clean in the vault humans collectively lose their immunity to viruses and diseases. Science has shown that animals living alongside newborn infants improve that child's abilities to fight off infectious diseases and are less likely to develop allergies when they're much older!"

"I did not know that." Nate mused, caught unaware that he was breathing heavily through his nose.

"In fact, you're already cleared for entrance! I'm talking about being able to move in today! It's only a matter of verifying some information. We don't want any holdups in the unforeseen event of total atomic annihilation. Hehe." He chuckled weakly, Nate's eyes caught the uncertainty, and to his left. Meathead growled low in his throat. "It won't take but a moment." The representative eyes flicked to Nora and Codsworth over Nate's shoulder's, then to Meathead. The shepherd bared its teeth, not liking the Vault-Tec. Representative and he drummed his fingers quickly on the underside of the clipboard.

"End of the world? Tempting." Nate teased. The Vault-Tec. representative smiled and gave a more convincing laugh.

"Ha HA! That's the spirit." The representative held out a clipboard with a short stack of papers. "We managed to work all legalities out down to four forms in quadruplicate. One for you, one for the local Vault-Tec. branch, one for HQ, and one for Uncle Sam."

"Makes sense." Nate mused, he knew that someone somewhere who liked to keep everything organized. Grinning to himself, 'The mob is organized. That's why it's called organized crime.' There's never a better or more efficient distribution system that's under more intense scrutiny than the one designed by a cartel. Organized crime was a forklift operator trying to find room for another six-foot tall pallet of hundred dollar bills in their massive Super Duper Mart sized warehouse. While as the U.S. government was the guy collecting rent off that same warehouse.

Signing on the black line next to all the red X's, he passed the clipboard back to the representative. He tore off Nate's copy and handed it over to him.

"Wonderful. Thank you. Congratulations on being prepared for the future. Just gonna go...run this over to the vault. If you get the chance, please go pop your head in and say hello!" Nate closed the door and sighed. "We'll be there!" The representative called out with finality.

"He seemed tense," Nate said, pulling himself away from the closed door. The Vault-Tec. van started up and shifted into gear. The engine roared as the accelerator peaked in a residential area down the street.

"He's expecting a nuke to drop on us at any second, of course, he's tense. He's paid by a company of tense people. It's a peace of mind too." Nora said. The household was calm, only it was a few moments later that same peace was broken by Shaun crying. Codsworth was moving in an instant.

"Oh, sounds like someone made a stinky!"

Nate flopped down onto the couch, not yet engrossed in the news program going on about the new open border policy with the territory of Canada. "Heh, thank God for the guy who wrote the code to a diaper changing protocol. That guy must be a billionaire now." He joked with Nora, thinking more along the lines of multi-billionaires.

"Shaun has been serviced and cared for, but I believe he requires what you would call parental affection," Codsworth called out, Shaun was still crying, not receiving any attention at the moment.

They both rocked to their feet, moving for Shaun's room in a heartbeat. Nora reached the room first, and she leaned over the crib. Whispering quietly, she calmed the little ball of energy. Just a gentle touch made his cries drop down to a whimper,

"I was thinking after breakfast, we could take Shaun and Meathead on a walk to the park, and if the weather holds...maybe I'll bring a bottle of wine and a little something else for a picnic?" She grinned and looked down towards Shaun.

"You had me at wine," Nate said, cozying up next to Nora's side. Wrapping one arm around her waist, he was about to bring it in for one more kiss when Meathead barked madly from the living room. This was a type of barking that let the owners know an intruder was in the house, or worse, someone was hurt.

"Sir! There's something on the news!" Nate tisked, missing his opportunity when Codsworth yelled, "New York was nuked!"

They had already taken two steps towards the living room before Codsworth's announcement, then they bolted to the television. Meathead's barking was loud, cutting off to a whimper, bolting for the door, he scratched at it and whimpered. Barking again, Nate tried to quiet him with a loud, "MEATHEAD! SHUSH!"

Codsworth was holding the remote in his claws, they gathered around it to watch the news reporter on the other end of a camera lens slowly lose his faith in humanity.

"Yes...Flashes. Blinding flashes. Sounds of explosions, reports." He swallowed, coughing once. "Reports of nuclear detonations in...New York...Washington D.C...and we lost contact... With everyone?...Everyone? With everyone?" He mouthed the last two words again. The newscaster looked off to the right. His face sunk in, and the papers he was gripping in his hands crumpled into a ball. His entire body shuddered, and for a few more brief seconds, he squeezed the last bit of life into signing off.

With a confused frown, that shifted to a tepid smile.

Nate saw the life leave his eyes like a fish that was gutted from head to tail. The screen cut to a haunting image of "Please Stand By" appeared in the middle of the day. The TV was out.

Sirens louder than Meathead's panicked barking split the air, Codsworth retracted his arms and dropped to the floor. The jet thruster shut down as quickly as a switch was thrown. No shutdown procedure, nothing. Nate stood up and felt the blood rush from his feet to his head. Following Nora, as ran for Shaun, "I've got Shaun!" She yelled, "Get the dog!"

"Come here, Meathead!" The German Shepard was at Nate's feet in a heartbeat. Tail wrapped around his legs and shivering. He yelled, slapping a leash on Meathead's collar. "Calm down, calm down." He said, frantically petting Meathead on the back of the neck.

Throwing open the door, Shaun was wrapped in Nora's arms. Nate grabbed her and squeezed them tight. "To the vault! Now! Let's go! Let's go!" Meathead darted forward to the end of the leash, trying to pull the family along faster. Meathead wouldn't stop barking as other people burst out of their homes, bundles of clothing in hand, or a family portrait, some carried cups of coffee or tried shoving everything on the kitchen table into a bag or backpack and they were haphazardly stuffed.

The sirens were twice as loud outside, cutting through the air like a razor. Everyone was outside, front doors left wide open as people scrambled for a small footpath that cut behind Sanctuary Hills, over a river, and around a bend up to the top of the hill looking out over Concord and a good view of the Commonwealth.

Their neighbors were feeling the same fears as they were. Meathead whining increased, vertibird helicopters raced through the air spouting off a last ditched message to coral people towards safety. "Residents of Sanctuary Hills, if you are registered, proceed to Vault 111 immediately." Coming into hard rough stops atop the bunker hill. The pilots didn't care, the soldiers didn't care, the clock had struck zero and there was no time left.

Nate's arms were cold as his feet pounded against the dirt. Nora was directly in front of him, he would make sure that Nora was safe inside the bunker no matter what.

Nate imagined what he would do to make sure his family was safe. Flames came to mind, he would burn down the pillars supporting hell itself to clear a path and make sure they were safe. "We're going to be okay!" Nate shouted, "We still have time before the missiles strike! If they turned on the sirens now, we should have plenty of time! All right, Nora? We're going to be okay! The detection system we have gives us plenty of time!" Honestly, he had no idea if they were going to be burnt shadows on the sidewalk in two seconds or ten minutes, but to see her move with hope and pick up her speed, Nate said whatever he needed to, to make sure they reached their end goal.

A soldier stood proudly on the trail, pointing up the hill towards a billboard advertising Vault-Tec. Industries and how you should 'reserve your spot before it's too late'. and a crowd of people. "Vault residents check in at the gate!"

Time is the only thing the poor and disparaged have, the rich have power and wealth, but they're constantly demanding more time to accomplish even greater feats. Ask the poorest of the poor, they've got all the time in the world to wait things out. This is it, they waited, and they can keep on waiting until the mushroom clouds pass over because today they will finally inherit the earth. This is the moment they've been waiting for. The rich are going away to become poor because once the doors close, they'll have all the time in the world too.

The voices they passed were filled with uncertainty and dread, Meathead moaned. "You're going to let us in?" With the unspoken word of "Right?" implied. "You need to let us in. You have to let us in." Guards were only letting registered residents in, no one else.

"You can't do this! I AM Vault-Tec! I'm going in there!" The representative shouted, a power armor wearing, minigun-wielding soldier spun the barrels, telling the representative to leave. The representative threw up his arms and ran, meeting Nate and Nora's eyes briefly, Nate thrust his arm out into a deadlock. Forcing the man to run into his outstretched palm, "Duffle bag, closet, master bedroom. It's loaded." He said, reaching and grabbing ahold of the representative's shirt, he forced him back down the trail with a push.

Nora stopped, "Nate," she said, the voice spoke volumes above the rest of the neighbors, gathered together and panicking in fear. Nate was filled with pride and relief in a hearing that single word. They were at the back of a line of people stopped at a chain link fence trying to get into the vault. He stood tall and straight, marching to the front of the line. Chest out, chin straight, staring down the Vault-Tec. Security with the same intensity as a Staff Sergent mad eyeing a new recruit on the first day.

"That man delivered our paperwork, we're on the list, we need to get in." He said with chiseled authority, the kind that you can't learn, it needs to be engrained into your skull from service.

The guard looked them up and down, "Infant, adult male, adult female, male dog. Go in. Good Luck and may God have mercy on the rest of us."

A guard in armored blue vault suit shouted, "You two! Follow me!" Waving Nora through first, they ran up the path dirt to a large group of people standing on a metal elevated platform. "What's going to happen to all the people outside the gate?"

Oh, Nora, you already know the answer to that question, why ask it?

"Onto the platform! That's it! We're sending this down now!" Breaking off from Nate, Nora, Shaun, and Meathead, the guard ran up to a small control booth, brought in by a trailer hitch and raised up with wires coming out the door, running all over the ground and some going straight down into the earth. Yellow warning lights flicked on, as a loud whining buzzer sounded off as the whole platform lurched. The operator typed on a single computer monitor, spamming the enter key, as the guard pressed a smooth red button with a divot in the center.

"We're almost there! We're going to be okay." Nate said, looking into Nora, wrapping his arms around her and Shaun. Meathead was shy, whining at their heels, and leaning into them for safety.

"I love you."

The air was ripped from his lungs as he was witness to a flash of light brighter than burning white-hot rage.

This was fear, two neighbors collapsed at the sight, Nate closed his eyes and held his chest up, arms close to his side with Nora in one arm, Shaun in hers, and Meathead howling away, and he felt like he was in the army again.

It was like the sun was enveloping the earth. Nora was in disbelief, unable to understand what she was looking at. A wall of heat, dust, and smoke taller than skyscrapers stacked on top of each other. Taller than volcanic plumes of smoke and ash reaching high into the sky washed over the landscape as the large mushroom head billowed outwards. She screamed at the sight of a flaming car sailed two hundred feet over their heads like a rocket, streaking across the sky. The car kept going until it disappeared out of sight over the highland hills towards Maine.

\111/

Downwards they went, two large metal doors slid over the top of the elevator shaft, meeting in the middle to seal them in.

Their collective hearts were beating out of their chests and a few of their neighbor's teeth were chattering. Meathead whined and laid down, covering his face with his paws.

The elevator shaft was ringed with painted blue and yellow stainless steel with plastic paint so thick that you would need a knife to scrape at it. But, it would also peel away too if it ever started to wear down and tear. Much like the cookie-cutter houses of Sanctuary Hills, there was an immediate sense of how quickly things were installed.

"We did it, we made it." One of their neighbors, Mrs. Panderosa, said.

A large curved blue gate slowly rose upwards and a loud voice called out. A man illuminated by a spotlight shining from behind him wore a blue leather suit with a yellow stripe running down the center. "Everyone please step off the elevator and proceed up the stairs in an orderly fashion. No need to worry, you're safe down here!"

The first people took a wary approach to the stairs, filing into a single line as they passed the Overseer of the vault.

Nora held Shaun tight in her arms, feeling secure, but not safe. There was a reasonable explanation for this, shock, she realized. "Honey, my arms are..." Like holding lead balloons, she was unable to say.

"Do you want me to hold Shaun?" Nate asked she shook her head, reaffirming her grip on the baby.

"No, it's just that I'm feeling a little shaken up."

"Nora, we all just survived a nuclear blast. I just want to get to our room and cry about it, I'm all shook up." He said, dropping his voice down to sound like Elvis about to break out in song.

Reaching out and squeezing her hand, Nora sobbed once as her face became flush red, holding back sobs of panic and relief as the small touch calmed her.

"Right. Let's just get through their shpeil."

"Right this way, we'll get everyone situated in your new home vault 111. A better future, underground." A security guard standing rigidly upright wore a helmet with grey visor and arms folded behind his back. He eyed each and every newcomer as they marched up the stairs and across a yellow metal catwalk through the interior vault door passageway.

In a large foyer, a banner was hung high close to the ceiling that read, 'Welcome Home!' with Vault-Boy reaching his arm and hand out to greet the newcomers. Large sensors lined each side of the catwalk. At the end of the catwalk, a scientist silently read his monitor readings, as a second greeter opened a thigh-height gate. A scientist standing next to a large instrument panel with a Pip-boy connected to it by a long black power cable.

"This way, please. Step over to the table." She waved them through, gesturing them to a collapsible table with boxes of Vault Suits stacked around it.

The new residents of Vault 111 were shown to a woman holding up blue one-piece vault suits, and a doctor standing quietly behind her, arms hanging loosely at his side. There were enough vault suits in every size for the entire population to last three hundred years.

"Here you go," she said with a wide smile. A thump from above made everyone's eyes flick upwards for a moment. Halting the greeting process, Nate accepted his with a polite, "Thanks." Everyone shifted back into motion.

The doctor stepped forward as the last of the new vault dwellers were passed their new uniforms. "If I could have everyone's attention, I realize everyone that this wasn't what you imagined but I want everyone to take solace that you survived. If you would please follow me, we have a few things to cover before orientation and I know everyone needs a moment to desensitize, but I ask of you your patience... Our first step will be going through a decontamination process where you will enter a private chamber and change into the uniform that has been provided for you."

Passing through an open set of hydraulic floodgates, the doctor's tone tried to remain upbeat as a woman's faithless voice tried to remain calm and collected.

"It's all gone, our home is gone. Everything. My parents down in D.C. My cousins in New York. Even my aunt in Montreal."

The doctor spoke a bit louder to dry and drown out the negative pretenses happening a few feet away. The group of twelve people with Meathead following along were lead forward, "You're going to love it here! This is one of the best facilities, not that others aren't just as good."

"How long do you think we'll be down here?" Nora asked everyone who already knew the answer to that question faltered for less than a second before moving on. The doctor, Nate, and a few other's who didn't want to face the future realities so quickly.

"Weee'll be covering all that with everyone in orientation." He stalled, "We just have to get through a few medical items first."

The next set of hydraulic doors rose upwards, and everyone was lead into a two-story room with air vents and thick pipes taking up the second story of the room. They were color coded, some had labels on them, other's were painted white. They all passed through, some wrapped in coils and electrical wire dropped down from the pipe chase and too small pods each marked 'Decontamination #01-#12'. There was a chill to the room that you could only feel through your exposed hands and head, the only parts not covered by the vault suits.

The doctor raised his arms back, passing the decontamination pods, each one was open and everyone passing by could see the series of spouts leading into the chamber.

More vault-tec doctors and people already here from coming down on an earlier lift were waiting for Nate and Nora's group to be lead to their own chamber.

"If you'll please just step into the chamber and put your vault suit on." The doctor's eyes trailed down to Nate's hand and the leash leading to Meathead's neck. "Do you think you can hold your dog for sixty seconds inside the chamber?" Meathead immediately picked up on the question and growled, Nate, shushed him.

"Why, what's going to happen?" The doctor looked to Nora, then back to Nate, taking a moment to look down the rows of people being helped into their own decontamination chamber. "These pods will decontaminate and depressurize you before we head into the deeper levels of the vault. The..." looking down to Meathead, the dog's head rose to meet the doctor's eyes. With a small throaty growl, he bared his fangs. "process is quite loud, and might scare him." The doctor's finger's slowly closed, balling up into a fist.

Shaun cried and the family immediately reconvened. "Hey, bud. I'm not going far, I'll just be over there." Nora's voice was shaking, her entire face turning pale as she came to accept a small piece of truth happening above their heads.

Placing one arm on Nora's shoulder, hand behind the neck to support her, he looked into her eyes and smiled. "See? Daddy's not going too far."

"Are you going to be all right?" Nate asked, Nora, put out her lip and nodded.

"I just want whatever this is, to be over quickly. I wanna sit in my room and cry." Nora pleaded, if she stood up any longer, she might just faint. Nate nodded, "It'll be over in two seconds." Nate quickly changed into his vault suit, holding onto Shaun as Nora changed into her's. This gave Nate the last few moments for him to say goodbye to his little guy.

Nora took Shaun back from Nate, then stepped up into the chamber and turned around. Accepting Shaun into her arms, he leads Meathead back to his side and climbed into his own pod.

Raising his arms wide, he beckoned Meathead to jump up into his arms. "Come on, Meathead. Come here." The dog backpedaled and pulled at the collar, trying to get away from the pod. Nate gave two small jerks on the leash and got Meathead to come close enough for Nate to reach down and pluck him off the ground.

Struggling to get comfortable in Nate's arms, Meathead radiated panic and was constantly whining low under his breath. As the front of the chamber swung down and sealed them in, the doctor looked to the left and right then announced the role of the pods for everyone again.

Nora was feeling cold, holding the little bundle of warmth in her arms closer to her heart, she cradled Shaun. Then, she looked up and saw Nate and a smile came back across her face. She reached out one hand and pressed it against the glass. Nate reached around Meathead and did the same.

"These pods will decontaminate and depressurize you before we head deeper into the vault." Meathead panicked, barking and trying to escape from the narrow confinement. Nate wrestled Meathead's muzzle shut with one hand and wrapped the other arm the dog's legs.

"Quiet, Meathead. Quiet, it'll be over soon."

Such intense emotion forced thoughts into his brain, Nate felt the same fear and looked at Nora, suddenly feeling wrong about the whole situation.

"Just relax." Power surged through Vault 111, electricity hummed as machinery was brought into action that had been sitting idle for this one command.

"Resident Secured. Occupancy vitals, normal."

Those words both of them over the edge, once Nate heard "vitals", he knew there was something intensely wrong. Whatever kinds of pods these were, they weren't for decontamination and depressurizing.

Nate screamed. "Procedure complete. In five...four...

The doctor was lying, of course. He said the procedure would be loud, but it wasn't. A hiss of gas was the only warning any and all residents of vault 111 received before being frozen. Nate felt the cold return to his fingertips and the weight of Meathead disappeared from his arms.

The small glass porthole disappeared, and he tried to catch his breath, but it was too cold. The sound of the wind was screaming past his ears. It felt like he just landed in Cold Bay, Alaska.

\111/
October 2075.
Thirty miles from Cold Bay, Alaska.

A bright intense light shone through the glass windows, and all Nate could see was white snow. "Ah," he complained to himself, turning away from the light. Carrying fifty pounds of cold weather gear, the dull roar of the cargo plane's engines were muffled by fiberglass and steel. A voice shouted from the cockpit, that followed a row of voices from all the other soldiers surrounding him. "Wheels on the ground, About-sh five minutesh."

The flight was anything but smooth, it was by the pilot's intense flight training that the trip out to Cold Bay was being made at all. Usually, if the snow kicked up, that was the end of the story. Flight Canceled, wait until it's clear again. There was no 'it might clear up' or 'it might not be that bad'. Those people wound up dead for thinking that and going out anyway, conversely, Nate and the other soldiers thought the exact opposite and took a pilot who would fly all over from Juneau to Dutch Harbor, Anchorage to Sand Point, just about anywhere in the Aleutian Chain.

The pilot spent his entire life from the moment he turned seven learning how to fly when his father took him on a small four-seater bush plane. The benefits of owning a small plane like that in Alaska was transportation, there were only the barest hints of life every hundred miles outside of the major cities and there were people needing to get to all those places. Cold Bay was near the beginning of the Aleutian Chain, and home to the largest airstrip in the United States during World War Two. Next stop, False Pass. This airstrip was so long you could land a space shuttle from NASA and let it coast to a stop. That same flat patch of pavement with weeds and grass was now covered in three feet of snow. Snow plow trucks are running twenty-four hours a day to keep the landing zones and terminal clear, the downpour of snow was relentless. The saving grace was that it was only blowing twenty miles per hour in a southern direction. On a normal day, it could get up to blowing fifty miles per hour. The landing strips were expanded, some areas repaved, but now everything was boxed in by snow.

The engines were becoming quieter and quieter, the plane leaned to the left, circling the landing strip four times and coming down with a nice smooth landing that was only disturbed by tufts of snow building up. Jostling to a stop, everyone on the plane started clapping, starting with the co-pilot and spreading to everyone in the cabin.

"Hell of a landing." The propellers were already stopped, the engines were freezing over forty minutes out to Cold Bay, and they'd been losing altitude dramatically as they circled the landing strip.

The pilot's hands were white from gripping the throttle too hard. Sighing, he announced to the forty passengers "We've arrived in Cold Bay, trucksh will arrive shortly. I've been your pilot, Chip. Fuck it'sh cold, I'm done flyin' today."

Two large trucks able to carry twenty-four men each barreled down the runway with plows attached. The third following behind it flashing yellow warning lights.

The first two stopped behind the plane, allowing the men to disembark and be slapped in the face by a cold November wind. "God! I hope we aren't staying here long!" Famous first words for an unseasoned traveler who has never had a layover in Cold Bay.

With fifty pounds on his back, Nate followed in line behind others, climbing aboard the trucks as the third truck and its drivers hooked a rope around the front and towed the plane away.

"How long do you think we'll be here?" Nate turned around, a soldier dressed in white camouflage, just as every other soldier, with his collar, pulled above his mouth.

"I'd shay once the shnow clearsh up." Chip laughed, casually walking alongside the trucks, he grabs onto the side rail. "In about two weeksh son! Welcome to Cold Bay. The bar ish that way." He said, pointing off towards the control tower. The sun reflected off the fields of airplanes covered in snow, blinding and so bright he had to look away.

\111/
June 17th, 2227
Vault 111, Sanctuary Hills, Concord.

"It's nice to meet you-" Nate said, shuddering in the cold. He could feel the snow hitting his face, melting on his cheeks.

"It's nice to meet you," he said again, unsure of whom he was addressing.

"It's...nice to.." His mouth was dry like he hadn't swallowed or wet his lips in quite a long time.

"Manual override initiated." The white porthole reappeared, fading to grey, then black. A light appeared across the room from his pod. Nora's spotlight was on. A person with a feminine figure stepped into his field of vision, then went to Nora's pod and peered inside.

"This one, this is it." She said, pointing through the glass. She was covered head to toe in a suit made to prevent any sort of air born toxins or pollutants from penetrating her defenses.

A bald man with a green overcoat enter's Nate's field of view and he addresses a third person off to their left. "Open it."

The weight returns to Nate's arms as Meathead struggles and stretches, dealing with the same struggle to wake up.

The front of Nora's pod opens up and her torso leads the fall forward, still clutching Shaun tight to her chest. "Is it over?" Nora pants, trying desperately to find warmth. The strength is sapped from the permeating cold in her limbs, she can't uncross her arms around Shaun.

"Almost. Everything's going to be fine."

"Yeah." The female reaches for Shaun and he immediately wails out in protest to the icy cold. Meathead perks up and moans, trying to find the air in his lungs to bark.

"NO! No, no, no! No! I've got him! I've got him!" Nora shrugs off the scientist's advancements on Shaun, the bald man raises a revolver and aims it straight at Nora.

"Let the boy go, I'm only going to tell you once." Nate leaned forward and screamed. Meathead freaked out as Nate pounded on the glass with his fist.

"I'm not giving you Shaun!"

The man's wrist jerks upwards a little as he fires a single round into Nora's chest.

It's not powerful enough to pierce through her completely, but stop after breaking through her rib cage after having torn through her breast muscle, and chest. Nora couldn't cry for Shaun as her grip on him ended.

She couldn't fight anymore and fell backward as the pod slid shut over her.

Her mouth was filled with the taste of butter, caramelized white onions, and black currants. Licking her lips, she could taste the bottle of wine she had picked out for their picnic. Then she coughed as the coldness took her completely. This time, she was not able to look down at Shaun for warmth, or up to Nate for reassurance. She was on her own and alone.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?” A voice screamed, thumping coming down the hallway.

The bald man turned to face Nate for a brief moment as he passed by. His hair was scant on the top and grew in all around the sides. A black beard with chops came down from his ears and wrapped around his chin combined with a mustache. He wore a scar on the left eye.

"At least we got a spare."

Nate forced himself to remember those details and his voice, it would make the man he was going to kill easier to track down.

The cold air returned and Nate froze with a mad twisted face of anger and rage on his face, sad at the loss of his wife.

If felt like he'd been waiting at the airport for fourteen long days, waiting for the weather to clear up so that he and the rest of his team could be deployed. Finally, the order came, Nate and the 108th Regiment were loaded up with guns, ammo, and supplies to last four months. There was so much weight being carried between the twelve of them, they needed power armor to help carry it all. Because of Nate's mechanical expertise, he was put into the suit of power armor, carrying 150lbs of weight, in addition to the suit while the rest of the squad carried 75 lbs, but in their cold weather gear.

His breath was fogging up the glass inside of his helmet, and it was the darndest thing to clean off the steam or fog from lenses when it's snowing out.

\111/

Coughing, he blinked twice, then three more times as he stared at the glass porthole and pressed against the side of his chamber.

He reached up with one arm, trying to wipe the imaginary snow from his goggles, but the strength left his arm and dropped.

"Cryogenic failure." A warning siren started buzzing endlessly, "All residents, please vacate immediately."

More awake, he put one hand to the door of the pod and pressed outwards, the pod doors hissed open as the pressure was released. Nate leaned forward but realized too late that his legs weren't responding yet.

Nate collapsed forward with Meathead in his arms. Landing on his side, he was breathless. Water dripped from the ceiling onto the ground, his fists met cold wet concrete as he tried to scramble to his legs and reach Nora's pod.

“Nora….” Nate coughed, rubbing his eyes and feeling extremely distorted with both eyes surging into extreme clarity and then an all-encompassing grey haze that blocked his vision completely. Talking to the floor, “I’m gonna kill those bastards.”

Taking one step forward, he immediately collapsed to his right side with Meathead in his arms. “Agh! Dam…dammit!” Nate shivered on the floor, arms tightly around his dog. “Meat..head…Meaty…are you okay?"

"Meaty?” Nate asked, his voice was very soft. Meathead exhaled through his nose very slowly. Whining a quiet whimper. “Oh…I feel you boy. I’m sad too. I’m sad too.” Petting him softly, Nate wrapped a hand around his head and nuzzled the ears.

Crying, Nate couldn’t stop his eyes from watering as the greyness slowly rescinded, and he could make out features in the subtle ambient lighting. Not very many machines were on, he couldn’t hear the distinct hum that they made only minutes ago.

Stretching one arm out, he let go of Meathead, laying out on his back, flat on the concrete floor.

“Ohhhh…..” Nate moaned, letting the blood settle in his head. “That was cold.” Clenching his palms, blood moved back through his disused limbs and warmth slowly returned. Rolling away from Meathead, he slowly sat up. One arm out, one knee pulled back, he threw his weight forward onto one foot, planting the other down as he leaned on his pod for support.

“Nora.” Turning his head to across the aisle, Nora’s face was visible through the viewport. “Nora!” Nate shouted, awkwardly limping over Meathead to get to his wife’s pod. Reaching down, he pulled the emergency release lever. A white plume of mist and cold air descended from her pod, her skin was still icy cold to the touch. “Nora.”

The wound to her chest was frozen and Nate shook uncontrollably. "No." Grabbing the handle, Nate slammed the lid back down onto Nora's pod and stepped away from her. Meathead coughed, whined and moaned and hacked and coughed and vomited before rolling over onto his paws.

His nose was down in the pile of stomach ooze licking the ground, Nate brushed him away with the tip of his boot and moaned, "Meathead...don't eat that." The dog lapped his lips and thumped his tail against the ground a few times.

He took one step forward and fell flat on his chest. Grunting, Nate forced himself back onto his knees and crawled to another neighbors pod, using the outside edges as handholds until he found his lower body strength again.

Meathead panted very quickly, each one accented with an in-pain whine. Padding over to Nate, he was stiff and suddenly pushed himself away from the metal cryogenic pod with a look of fear plastered onto his face. Through the view, the window was a dark brown skeleton with skin stretched tight over the edges, mold, and rot growing from the eyes and as moisture leaked in through weak gaps in the seal over the years. Nate tried to shout, but his throat seized up and he coughed.

Duck walking to the next pod, Nate felt the coldness wrap around him, dragging him down. The next body was more decayed and the body after that was decaying and the person across the aisle was also dead in their pod. "Ahg." His voice hurt too much to scream.

Meathead rolled to his stomach with his legs under him, standing up he limped to Nate's side and dropped down again. Whimpering, Nate felt how quiet the room was, even with machinery still droning away. Nate's entire body jerked, a spasm, and he was on the floor sobbing next to his dog. Unable to see clearly and pinpricks of freezing splintered metal tore through his forearms and then it was only him groaning on the concrete floor of Vault 111 as the weight of the world pressed down on him from above.

"Come on boy, we need to go. We have to get out of here." Meathead looked up and panted through his nose. As his master started moving, the dog found the strength to keep moving too. Nate reached down and pulled the fully grown German Shepard up into both arms, holding him tightly and feeling the weight of him.

Moving as far as a rolling office chair, Nate crawled into it, using the armrests to hoist himself up and flip himself around. Instantly more mobile, he scooted to the one computer monitor in the room and looked at what it held.

“C-1...” Nate swung his head from the computer to the pods, then back to the screen. “Dead.” Rubbing his eyes, it was painstakingly difficult to make out words longer than four letters. He was squinting and shaking his head trying to focus, but the haze wouldn't retreat.

C-2 “Dead.”
C-3 “Dead.”
C-4 “Dead.”
“C-5...dead.”
“Six, seven, eight, Nine, Ten...Empty. Eleven. Error. Twelve. Dead.”

Tapping his fingers against the space bar, he turned off all the pods except for his Nora. Vents and generators hummed softer as there was less power drainage, “All dead from Nitrogen Poisoning.” Tapping the enter key, all the pods disengaged and powered off except for one.

\111/

Holding Meathead in his arms, he carried him out into the corridor, and down the path that leads him back to the foyer entrance. The main difference Nate noticed was the lack of light and buildup of water and ice. A room with an overhead LED lamp shining through the doorway beckoned the two lives to it. The inside was a small security room with a folding chair pushed out and ready for someone to sit in it.

Groaning, Nate plopped Meathead down onto the cot, and the dog laid down on his side instantly. down into the chair and scooted back. "Ah, yeah." He yawned. " Just gotta catch the breath, Meathead. Then we'll get going."

Twisting around, Nate sighed as he saw a small blinking light in the corner of the computer monitor. Tapping the enter key, he rolled his eyes at the first three tabs that popped up.

[Vault-Tec Security Protocol.]

"Vault 111 is....dah dah dah...something to... test the effects of...suspended...dah dah dah...animation on...unaware humans" He read slowly his eyes were burning and watering at the same time, making things incredibly difficult to read without straining his brain to the point of a migraine.

Turning away from the monitor to look at a Vault-Boy calendar, Nate taps the other files and keeps reading as his strength returns to him. "Goddamnit..."

Nate leaned back, sighing more deeply. Words started to appear in his head, forming a long train of thought to try and explain this whole mess. "We got played. Meathead." He said, flopping one arm out to grab the drawer handle. Yanking it open, two boxes of 10-millimeter ammo clattered against the side. Nate dug both boxes out and cleared the entire desk, reaching up to his left to grab a 10-millimeter pistol off the office drawers stacked next to the desk. His thumb clicked a button on the side of the barrel, and the magazine fell from the grip. Catching it with one hand, Nate reloaded the magazine and shoved it back into the grip with renewed energy. Meathead shook, shaking himself out as he yawned.

“Damn.” Meathead stopped and sat on his back legs, looking up at Nate with worry. “I remember...” He said, looking down the hallway. “We...were bombed...”

Moving through the empty vault, there were no signs of any life in the kitchen or employee dorms, passing more rooms like the one he exited from. Nate and Meathead steel themselves long enough to check the monitors and see that all residents were dead from asphyxiation or Nitrogen poisoning.

Swallowing deftly, they walked all the way to the Vault Overseer's office when they saw four skeletons laid out on the ground. Another pistol in the overseer's bony hands and fingers gave them a partial scene to follow as dried bloodstains were splattered out and away from the three bodies surrounding the desk.

"What the heck happened here?" Nate asked, drawing himself into the Overseer's chair. He plopped down and sighed again. Every room was stripped clean, every locker thrown open and searched. There was another story to be told, one on top of another, on top of his own.

Why leave a gun and some ammo when everything else was gone?

Rummaging through the Overseer's room, the bed was stripped bare long ago, and the personal belongings were sparse. There was an old picture frame sitting on a nightstand by the bed, a few Vault-Tec memorabilia, pens and pencils stamped, safety posters featuring Vault-Boy. A bar of orange soap sitting in the shower, he checked the water situation with a turn of a handle. Water clanged in the pipes and gushed out in air pockets. Sputtering cold grey stagnant water out, followed by a stream of clear hot water with steam wafting off the top. Cupping his hands he splashed water on his face and drank and splashed water on his face again, rubbing his eyes and clearing the gunk away.

“At least we got water, bud.”

There were a few more rounds of ammo in the Overseer's desk with the light still blinking without any signs of damage or wear except for a film of dust over the screen.

[Overseer Personal Log]

"All-clear." Nate's eyes fell heavily, " Where's the vault door button?" Nate asked out loud, rolling his head back to look around the office. "Tunnel 2227. Open tunnel number two two two seven. Damn." He said, rubbing them Nate's eyes glazed over the page, it felt like he drank a gallon of crushed up ice. With the words only making half-logic on the page, he double tapped the access tab to the Vault Overseer's private tunnel that leads directly to the vault door.

“Just show me the button to open the damn door! Why is opening and closing a door in a subfolder?!”

Both Nate and Meathead's ears perked up, waiting for some grand sound to signal that they had found the exit escape tunnel, only to be rewarded with a little ping from the computer and a blinking message that read "Overseer Private Tunnel Open. Warning: Authorization and use may only be given by Overseer or appointed Vault-Tec Representative."

Putting both hands on the desk, Nate pushed himself out of the chair. "I touched your stuff, Vault-Tec. Come get me."
Meathead followed behind Nate, sniffing out the cracks and corners of the room always present. Nate smiled, letting his hands bask in the warm water. "If we ever need a warm shower, Meathead, this'll be the second place I stop."

They were both about to leave when they saw a case covered on ice from the inside. Nate took a glance back at the Overseer's skeleton, then to the cold case on the wall. A panel of glass displayed a gun with copper pipes wrapping all around the sides. Putting one hand to the glass, it was like touching fire for how cold the panel was. Jerking on the latch for a first try, Nate then banged on it, chipping away a block of ice around the edges. Slamming the butt of the gun against the glass was fruitless too as it bounced off without any damage done. Looking to Meathead, the dog sat upright and tried not to look guilty and tired as Nate sighed and left the weapon behind him.

"I'm coming back for that later, Meathead." The dog rose to all fours and followed Nate out into the Overseer's private tunnel. The hallways were semi-circle in shape, giving the sense there was more underneath your feet. Most of the pipes and wiring ran underneath the floor with large panels that can be removed covering them. The tunnel had gold plated metal surrounding it, effectively making this stretch one of the more secure parts of the vault from the threat of radiation.

Through another set of doors, Nate and Meathead both found themselves back in the main foyer. Devoid of any luggage, any sort of welcoming committee was long gone. Long stretches of spiderweb ran across the full length of the room, and Nate needed to brush past them to get to the main terminals that can open the vault door. There were more dead bodies on the ground, so much time passed that only the bones and clothes remain. On the ground was another Vault-Tec. scientist, his arm reaching out and wrapped around his head. The ribs on the back side near the spine were fractured, and when Nate went to scavenge the large device on the scientist's forearm, the arm broke off at the shoulder joint.

The sickening crunch of bones snapping made both dwellers tense. Then they waited in silence for a few moments. After nothing else happened, Nate undid the latches around the arm and tossed the bones back to the skeleton. Clamping it down over his own left forearm, Nate pressed the power button and only saw black. Wiping the screen off, a small Vault-Tec logo appeared and the boot-up sequence loaded.

With a sharp intake of breath, Nate smiled which prompted a tail wag from Meathead. He turned the Pip-Boy 3000 Mk. IV over, looking at all the labels and dials and wires. Flicking and twisting all the knobs, he pulled at a large yellow knob at the top and was shocked as it came out and extended into an outlet plugin as a source for energy.

With the cable in his hands, Nate looked at the big console with only a few important looking buttons. A yellow switch, a big square red button the size of your fist, and thirty blue and green buttons without any power. Connecting the extension cord to the main terminal to act as a power supply, a small solid orange light appeared on the console. After flicking the yellow switch, the entire panel lit up.

"Okay, moving on."

Pressing the red button in, the vault sprung to life as the large hydraulic drill swung down on pulleys and bore itself into the vault door. Pulling backward with a nerve-rattling screech of old metal grinding against old metal, the massive ton weight to the door opened up and slid to the side. A yellow catwalk extended out from the interior side, connecting with the exterior staircase.

"Let's go," Nate said to Meathead, prompting the dog to go explore the new path first. Meathead trotted down the stairs and went to the elevator pad as Nate took an extra moment when he reached the top of the steps.

Each footfall stomped and echoed across the catwalk, after passing through the vault door frame Nate turned around and looked back. Through the closed doors, he could still see Nora would be. But the last thing Nate saw before tromping down the staircase to the surface elevator was the banner still hanging up. Vault-Boy was giving a wink and a grin, saying to him. "Welcome home. We'll be there!"

Nate went to the panel on the exterior side and repeated the same process. Hitting the red button with the bottom of his fist as he walked away and down the stairs. Meathead was waiting for him to press the button that would let them ascend as the vault 111 door slid shut behind them with a rumble that shook your core.

\111/

Both the man and his companion held their eyes closed as they ascended upwards. Yellow flashing lights, dulled orange by time, spun in place, lighting their arrival. The metal doors broke their seal overhead and retracted. Above them was a blue sky and a pale white sun hanging overhead. "At least we didn't lose the sun," Nate said, the elevator came to a stop and he inhaled deeply. His body twitched for half a second, seeing all of what remained of the world above.

The trees were husks, imitations of what they once were. Stripped of most grey leaves, the gnarled branches looked like they were tanned and dried from the core. A vertical take-off and landing helicopter was nothing but moss, weeds that crawled up the sides and over the rotors, and rust. Nate licked his lips, remembering the state of the security pod that was responsible for sending them down, and how there were two skeletons staring back at him.

The billboard still advertising to reserve your spot today was sunbleached and peeled, panels missing and the winking Vault-Tec lad holding out a stack of papers saying 'Register'.

Rubbing a hand over his face, his eyes watered. Tall powerlines ran over the suburb of Sanctuary, now a decimated mess of stripped houses, and blown out windows. He looked down at Meathead and almost didn't want to take the first step.

"Let's go home, bud."

He moved one leg up, and the rest of his body followed.

October 23, 2287.

Author's Note

The nickname we gave to our Great Dane, Indy, was Meathead because, sometimes he acted like a dork.

The brief radio broadcast taken from the August 17th, 1960 New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox. Yankees win in the 10th inning 3-2.

Ch. 18 The Grateful Dead

October 27th, 2287
7:30 A.M.

"" Meathead spoke, guiding Nate to the bottom deck.

"And after that?" Nate inquired.

""

"And this was still going out disguised as me?"

Meathead nodded.

Nate sighed forward out through his eyes, imagining the trouble Meathead could get him into if he wanted to.

""

"What kind of deal?"

""

Nate was silent, but Meathead knew he made the right choice.

"You gunned them down?"

Meathead sighed, ""

""

"I know what a radar transmitter is, why didn't you wake me up after that?"

""

"But wouldn't that put you at a major risk, running around Cambridge and Charlestown?"

""

Nate was about to argue a point when a laugh escaped his chest, "That's hilarious. I forgot you could do that. Did you seriously teleport around town last night while I was asleep?"

The lookalike nodded. ""

"Anything else?"

"< When I was rooting around the Corvega plant. I picked up a lot of junk that I thought was valuable. Captain Ironsides said the ship needed FLL3 Turbopump bearings. I was about to wake you for that when I dumped everything I was carrying and went through it. And look at what we have here.>"

On a yellow circuit breaker board, screwed onto a painted plate was a fuel cycler and two servo-capacitors that primed the pump and counted the revolutions. There were the letters 'FLL3' painted in small black painted stencil letters.

When it was installed into heavy machinery, it would control the flow of fuel going into the engine. In the case for the U.S.S. Constitution's rockets, the turbopumps could move upwards of 500,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and oxygen fuel.

"" Meathead gestured to the turbopump bearing, half as long as Nate's forearm and twice as wide, but he could still pick it up with one hand. It was considerably heavier than it looked, but it was the platinum parts that gave the bearing it's shininess and weight. Made with the heavy metal as well as tin, steel, and iron, the plate protecting the internal components weighed more than the actual fitting needed to make it work.

Before the war, these would cost upwards of nineteen thousand dollars, but there were only six turbopump makers in the world. Even then you could guarantee that the parts designed over in Japan, Sweden, Germany, Russia, Mexico, or India for the same problem, weren't going to match in shape or fitting with other countries.

His dog picked one for free up out of a raider's scrap bin.

"You found that at Corvega?" Nate asked, Meathead nodded.

Nate picked up the turbopump bearing and the guidance chip.

""

Nate inspected the storeroom, how it was devoid of dirt and junk. "How'd you clean it out so fast?"

""

All the guns were lined up, ready to be used at a moments notice. "I can't believe you did all this last night. Did you get any sleep last night?"

""

"Well, after the ship sets sail, maybe we'll get a chance to lay down for an actual night. Let's go give these to the Captain and get this show on the road."

\111/

Pushing open the hatch to the main deck, they let it slam down shut behind them as they went from to the back of the ship where Captain Ironsides had one arm resting against the wheel.

"Ah, good morning, soldier. I wish the confrontation with the scavengers didn't end with violence, as our Lookout suggests they ready themselves for retaliation as we speak."

"If I could've spared them, I would've, but I didn't. They only wanted to kill us and strip the Constitution down to the bare bones and use the hull for firewood."

"I'm sure they made a peaceful resolution impossible. We stand but a hair's breadth away from embarking on our sacred mission. Blessings counted, at long last, we'll set sail. Our hero of the hour is to thank. Our mounted NX-42 rockets will alight and unmoor us from this dreaded savings and loan. The Constitution will launch into the heavens and gently land in the ocean. Then we take our rightful place as the defenders of the Atlantic."

Nate smiled, thrilled at the prospect of seeing the USS Constitution set sail once more. Meathead wagged his tail and barked. Meathead's ears perked up, and he started barking wildly, ""

"How far?"

"Seven blocks and closing fast. I can tell they're moving just past Bunker Hill. A whole group of angry people coming straight this direction."

"Mangey Curs! Crew, prepare to broadside! Repel invad-" Meathead tackled Nate, teleporting him fifteen feet back away from Captain Ironsides as a missile rocket crashed into the sentry bot and exploded. Meathead was shaking, and Nate felt extremely cold and disoriented at the sudden first instance of teleportation. He tried to breathe or talk but his lungs felt like they were trying to force their way up his throat and choke him.

Bending over and coughing, a second missile crashed into the side of the USS Constitution, and the mighty Captain Ironsides hardly looked worse for wear. He was shouting out orders left and right, "Together, we will vanquish these foul scavengers! We will not be deterred from our mission! SHOW NO QUARTER! THAT'S AN ORDER!"

The robot crew shouted "SIR, AYE, SIR!"

Meathead was pro-offering Nate's .308 bolt-action Winchester rifle. Nate's eyes bulged and he grabbed the rifle and leaned on it, taking one knee and then breathing heavy breaths.

"Thank you."

""

"No, thank you for saving my life."

The protectrons lined the railing, Captain Ironsides mini-gun spun up and unleashed an endless torrent of 5mm rounds down on the scavengers, firing missile after missile in return.

"Fire starboard cannons!" Captain Ironsides shouted, the switch was thrown and twenty explosive cannonball rounds cratered the buildings directly to the right side of the Constitution, leveling the battlefield and killing the first wave of scavengers making mad dashes for the ship.

"Mr. Navigator! My Laser Cannon!" Captain Ironsides commanded. The Navigator Mr. Handy disappeared below deck in an instant, going into the captain's quarters to retrieve the captain's sidearm.

Nate leaned over, taking aim at the first scavenger he picked out and firing. Ten more rushed behind the first and bullets were flying all over, slamming into the hull, or vice versa, the firing brigade blasting apart the buildings and brickwork in attempts to push back the scavengers.

Mr. Navigator returned on deck with a laser minigun mounted onto a sentry bot's arm, carrying the weapon between two claws. Captain Ironside's right arm popped off with a hiss of hydraulic steam, and Mr. Navigator fitted the new arm into the socket.

This weapon, Nate knew, was excessively deadly. The arm powered up, and the Captain rolled right up to the railing, and then an unending torrent of deadly, red light came streaming out, burning holes and cutting straight through everything the laser touched. The captain swept his arm back and forth, making wide paths with the laser beam and both Nate and Meathead shuddered as they saw men cut in half at the waist, or straight down from the shoulder to their leg like they were cleaved in half with a single swipe of a blade. The laser cut through brick, steel, bone, flesh, muscle, and defenses the scavengers tried to put between themselves and a direct line of sight of the USS Constitution was suddenly rendered useless as the beam pierced through their defenses and their vital organs and spine.

The captain was armed with a near limitless supply of armaments, and Nate knew the armory downstairs contained enough ordinance to keep the sentry bot firing for months.

"Navigator! Retrieve the missile launcher for our soldier, friend!"

They turned their heads and watched as the hatch to below deck was thrown open again, and the Mr. Navigator disappeared again, and when he returned less than a minute later, he was carrying a missile launcher and two more rockets in the extra claws. "Jesus," Nate said, taking the missile launcher that was shoved into his hands.

Wiping one hand down his face, he sneezed from the overwhelming scent of gunpowder filling the air and the smoke from the cannon barrels. Rising up, he targeted three of the pickers hiding behind a car, taking turns firing and reloading. Nate's hand found the trigger, and then his grip tightened.

Firing once, he fell backward from the awkward position of his feet to the deck and the recoil giving him the push backward. Nate's entire body was shivering like he just dipped himself in ice water.

"Gods." He said, getting back up onto his feet and reloading the missile launcher. each rocket weighed a pound, and the back end rested on his shoulder. Placing the front end on top of the railing, Nate saw the blown out car and three dead bodies torn to pieces. He flexed his hand out and heard the bullets from below race past him, now a target from the scavengers. Captain Ironside's was taking heavy concentrated fire, but the tank like bot was practically impervious to small arms fire, anything less than .50 caliber rounds would only make little divots in his armor.

Firing again, the rocket screamed across the battlefield and exploded against the back wall of the next building, toppling a staircase and books, forcing one scavenger to run out into the street and try and cross the road, only to be cut down by Meathead firing the Institute laser rifle that shot blue blasts of light.

Nate sunk down, ducking his head so he wouldn't get shot, and made to reload the missile launcher again, when the Captain shouted, "Huzzah! The scavenger assault is broken!"

Nate and Meathead poked their heads through gaps in the railing and saw the scavengers turn and flee. They ran and ran, going towards the bridge that connected Charlestown and the North End.

For a moment, Nate thought they got away, only to see the scavengers stop in the middle of the bridge. Two Mr. Gutsy's chased them from the ship to the bridge, but on the far end was a stonewall of feral ghouls, shuffling towards the noise.

Nate and Meathead watched from a distance as the scavengers were torn apart by a horde of thirty feral ghouls, snarling and roaring, chasing the scavengers to the middle of the bridge where they were attacked from plasma bolts from the Mr. Gutsy's behind, or facing death by feral ghouls as they battered them, and tried to sink their teeth into any soft flesh.

Two men jumped over the side, and half a dozen feral ghouls jumped in after them. It was an absolute massacre.

Nate dropped the missile launcher, letting it clatter onto the deck as he tried to control his breathing that picked up during the firefight.

Squatting, Nate sat on his rear and hugging his legs to his chest, everywhere from his toes to his neck felt freezing while his head was hot and burning. Meathead cozied up to his side and whispered ""

Nate sat there and nodded his head, nodding and nodding, looking at the ground three feet in front of him. ""

"That's why I hate bridges, Meathead. You never know what's on the other side, and you don't know what's coming up behind you."

""

Nate's teeth were chattering, and his hands felt icy cold to the touch. Meathead forced his head underneath Nate's left arm and put his head to his chest, and moved it up and down, listening to the frantic heartbeat.

"Jesus Christ," Nate said, exhaling loudly. His arms stopped shaking, but his body still felt cold. Wrapping his left arm around Meathead, he held him close and tightly, waiting for his body to warm up again in the chilly morning air.

\111/

Captain Ironsides replaced his arm with the Mini-gun and rolled across the deck to where Nate and Meathead were sitting together. "Gods be good, the scavenger assault is broken. Not one of those scallywags stepped foot on our vessel. All hands, prepare for launch! We may not have calm weather such as this for quite some time!"

Nate gripped his fists, making the joints in his fingers pop as he reached his right arm back and let go of Meathead. Pushing himself up, he inhaled shakily and looked out over Charlestown. Half of it was destroyed, and he could count the bodies lying dead in the rubble and streets.

"Mr. Soldier, I fear I must call upon your service one more time. We need power from an auxiliary generator to commence our voyage. We've been using the power supply from the Royal Arms apartment building a single building to the south of our location to keep our fuel cells charged. Now we need you to change the power conductor from the direct current, to alternating. There may be scavengers yet, so take this weapon to defend yourself. MR. NAVIGATOR! Bring the Broadsider!"

"Aye, sir!" The robot disappeared under the deck a third time and brought up a swivel cannon mounted inside of a carrying frame strapped to a makeshift rig with metal rivets and thick ropes. This rig allows it to be carried around with both hands and included a hinge allowing the cannon to be angled vertically for easy reloading. It fires explosive cannonballs using an electronic trigger taped to the back handle, and Mr. Navigator floated there, waiting for Nate to take it. He didn't.

""

Mr. Navigator set the Broadsider cannon next to Nate, scooching it closer until it was touching his leg. Satisfied, the robot floated away to carry on his duties.

"Power throttled? Excellent." Captain Ironsides rolled across the deck, "All hands to your stations!" A short whistle noise was emitted, and Meathead threw the switch to the auxiliary power generator.

"Commencing final launch phase. Three...two..."

Meathead flew from the Royal Arms apartment building, his blue membranous wing buzzing rapidly to make it back to the ship on time.

""

"Wait. Four?" Nate asked. I thought there were only two on the back. He meant to say.

"One. Mr. Navigator, Light the engines! Dreaded Weatherby Savings and Loans, we shall be moored no longer! Away!"

The four NX-42 rockets exploded into action, the combined force to make the 2200 ton, the four million, four hundred thousand pound sailing ship fly with the force of six million pounds of thrust.

The excess 1.6 million pounds of thrust dislodged the sailing ship, obliterating the Weatherby Savings and Loans building and overshooting their goal of making it to the ocean by several hundred feet, vertically.

The ship roared across the sky, by far the loudest thing in the Commonwealth to happen ever since the Great War. Everyone in the Commonwealth collectively turned to the closest person they could find and ask, 'What the hell is that?'

The only noise that was comparable to the roar of four NX-42 rockets was the sound of Nate and Meathead screaming 'SHIT!' at the top of their lungs as they latched onto the center mast and held on for dear life.

Sailing for a beautiful nineteen seconds, Captain Ironsides stood at the helm of the ship, ordering to Mr. Navigator to steer a few degrees to the starboard until plowing into the Weatherby Investment Trust skyscraper in downtown Boston.

Tons and tons of metal and glass rained down onto the streets, crashing and breaking into the surrounding buildings and ground below.

"We did it! Victory!" Captain Ironsides shouted. "The Bosun reports we are a quarter fathom closer to the Atlantic. By my calculations, it will be a mere century before we peak to the ocean. Well done, crew."

"Well captain, it appears we've stuck land. Shall I cast out a mooring line?" Nate called out sarcastically, his ears ringing.

"Nonsense!" Captain Ironsides immediately responded, rolling over the deck to Nate and Meathead. "We are clearly too far away from any ascertainable cleat to tie up to. First Mate, Deploy Anchor!" He shouted. Nate sucked in a quick breath of air and covered his ears.

"Aye, Captain! Deploying Anchor!" Came the quick reply back.

"Wait, no..." Nate began, the early morning motion sickness went into full swing. A ceaseless metallic grinding and chain clanking rattled under the railing of the USS Constitution's bow. Nate dropped to his knees and pressed his hands to his ears as hard as possible until it felt like he was crushing his own skull. Meathead fell to his side and howled.

The grinding of metal against metal an ear-shattering, nerve-wracking noise that shook your core happened for everyone as the sound cut through all of Boston. Everything within a two-mile radius of Downtown Boston that hadn't already heard the rocket ship fly through the air, and smash into a skyscraper was woken up and fully aware of their new neighbor making noise at sunrise.

Them dropping the anchor was only the cherry on top of their noisy voyage. There wasn't a single living thing, robot, mutant, ghoul, or animal in that area that didn't hear the chain and anchor drop down.

The anchor chain pulled the weight of the ship forward, suddenly the entire ship leaned forward as more glass and metal crunched underneath. With a sudden jerk, the chain finally reached the end of its length. The old sailing ship jerked forward, knocking tons of weight forward as things rolled and slid across the decks to the forward area. Nat squatted down onto his toes as Meathead threw his paws out to the side to keep himself steady.

Swinging in the breeze, the anchor of the USS Constitution banged against the tower a few times and then was steady.

"Anchor Deployed, Captain!"

"Jesus, I think we woke the Dead." He peered over the rail, down onto the city streets, then taking in the expanse of the Boston highrises, seeing shapes and shadows move like grass blowing through a field. Ghouls were like packs of rats roaming the streets, hearing the echo and wandering in circles. Moaning, aggravated, he stepped away from the rail and put the thoughts of the swarms of feral ghouls roaming the streets out of his mind.

Taking two steps away from the rail, gunfire erupted all over the city, pockets of settlers, raiders, super mutants all lighting up the streets of Boston with early morning gunfire to counter packs of ghouls.

"I am no Deity, I am merely a captain of this fine seaworthy vessel." Captain Ironsides interjected. "I applaud your efforts for helping us in our endeavors to return to the sea, and hereby reward you for your help. Here is access to my stateroom, as I have little use for it and cannot fit below deck, and I'm extending my gratitude to raise you to the rank of Honorary Lieutenant. Three cheers for our new Lieutenant! Hip Hip, Hooray! Hip, Hip, Hooray! Hip, Hip, Hooray! Dismissed."

"Meathead, we're staying on board until whatever the hell is down there calms down."

"<There's thousands of them. Your human ghouls. They're still alive, but their emotions are...melted into place... Where everyone's mixing board of emotions are different, it's like someone took a radioactive sledgehammer to their skull and jammed the settings into its last position. Most of the dead heads down there are stuck expressing fear."

"Great...look where we landed too."

Meathead scanned the horizon, doing a full three hundred sixty degrees spin. To the south was Postal Square, overshadowed by a fallen sky bridge that held up the super highway running through downtown Boston. West was the Old Statehouse, they could see down into the community of Goodneighbor, and beyond that was the Boston Common park, and the Massachusettes courthouse and it's shining golden dome. Beyond that was Trinity Plaza, with Fenway Park in uptown Boston. To their immediate right in the west direction was the Mass Fusion skyscraper, the tallest building in all of Boston painted bright red, and still standing strong after two hundred ten years. From their viewpoint, they could look all the way west up the Charles River, and see the six main bridges connecting Boston to Cambridge, and Boston to Charlestown. The first bridge was raised, crashed into by the USS Riptide, the second was partially destroyed on the north end, both surrounding the Commonwealth Institute of Technology. The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth bridges all looked viable to use, and the third and fourth bridges looked the most well traveled and contested if the amount of scrap and junk walls on both sides of the river were any indication. There was the Greentech Genetics building, and way off in the distance, was the Corvega assembly plant. Nate knew, that a few degrees north of there was Concord, and from there, Sanctuary Hills.

To the North was, Old North Church, and across the river was Bunker Hill and the memorial obelisk sticking straight up. Farther north was the Revere Satellite array and a lighthouse still casting out light in the early morning. To the east was the Boston Airport, now the runways were flooded and half the island of West Boston was sunk into the sea.

"Look straight down," Nate said, pointing down to the forward starboard side of the ship.

Directly below them was Faneuil Hall, and there were Super Mutants crawling all over the roof, trying to stay off the streets as the thousands of feral ghouls clamored through the city blocks, looking for the source of all that noise.

Author's Note

Travis heard the loud roar of rocket engines, followed by an ear splitting screech of metal, finished off with two minutes straight of clanking metal chains. Rolling onto his side, he reached out for the microphone on his desk and mumbled into it.

"Oh...I think I speak for everyone in the Commonwealth when I say, what the hell was that?" Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he pushed himself up onto one elbow and leaned far out of his bed and was just barely able to press the play button with his middle finger. Then he flopped back down into bed, looking up at the ceiling with the microphone still in his left hand.

"Is it too on the nose if I play 'Whole lotta shaking going on' by Big Maybelle?" Travis asked the Commonwealth. "Eh...I'm playing it anyway." He said, watching the reels spin in slow circles.

Laying his head back against the pillow he exhaled. "Today sounds like it's gonna be a long day folks...watch out for ghoulies, you know how they love to party when someone starts making noise."

Falling back asleep with his hand still on the microphone, the Commonwealth heard Travis snore as 'Whole Lotta Shaking Going On' Played in the foreground.

Ch. 31 Marching on Diamond City (Part 1) October 29-30th

Nate was up all night, after showing Piper a hammock she could cozy up in with a pillow, Nate returned to the captain's quarters and pulled the blinds shut.

"Hey there Meathead? How's my good boy?"

Meathead was wagging his tail, glancing behind him to make sure the doors shut. ""

"I do. I brought food and water. Is there anything we can do for her? Won't it be a problem feeding her? She'll need food and water eventually."

"" Meathead trotted to the door to the bedroom of the captain's cabin, and pulled it open, hanging in the corner of the ceiling was a large pod, large enough to house the recovering pegasus in a black resin pod with a clear green sap keeping her in. It looked like a large wasp's nest painted black, with a green window made from gel.

"What is this?"

""

"Any muscle atrophy?"

""

"It takes care of all the things I was planning." Nate said, "Did you ever try putting a human in one of these things?"

""

"Was this during the time you were a dog with us?"

Meathead paused, ""

Nate shook his head, disbelieving it. "Yes, we found him. We're heading back to Fenway Park in the morning, but first, I need you to do something for me. I want to take a picture of the man who shot Nora with a polaroid camera I bought from Daisy. After the photo develops, and since we can't just go straight to Piper and say, here's a picture of the shooter', I'm going to sketch it onto some paper, and get around the explanation that way."

""

"Yeah. Let's get this done and over with, because tomorrow we're tracking the man down."

Meathead took a few steps away from Nate, looking up at him, a circle of green fire flashed around him, and there stood the man who was at large.

From head to toe, he was balding on the top of his head, with hair around the sides of his head, and a beard with sideburns and a mustache all black. There was a scar over his left eye, and Nate noticed the other scar running along his cheek and neck. Wearing a black leather jacket, Nate swore he was wearing a green trench coat when he saw him, funny how the mind works like that. A button up t-shirt and a piece of metal on his left shoulder for armor.

Nate took the picture, a bright yellow flash illuminating the dark space, and a little 3x3 inch photograph spat out of the camera like someone sticking out their tongue.

Taking it to the desk, Nate took a piece of paper and laid it over the photograph, pressing it hard onto the picture. Etching over the details of the man's face, he was done in ten minutes.

Nate let out a long-winded sigh, feeling exhaustion come over him. He felt like he won a small battle against the evil that was against him, it was now given a face.

"Do you remember what the other people were wearing?" Nate asked, turning around in his chair.

Meathead nodded, in another flash of green light, the figures in the orange, grey, and white hazmat suits with the Vetruvian man logo above their right breast were in the room. Nate drew the symbol and set down his pen and pencils. Meathead transformed back into the form of a German Shepard, and sat next to Nate at the desk.

His shoulders sagged, he felt tired. "Alright, sorry for waking you, Meathead. Let's go to sleep."

"" Nate looked down, picking up his dog with both arms, and walked into the back room with the captain's bed. Dropping his dog onto the bed, he laid down next to Meathead who was busy readjusting himself into a better position. Blowing out candles, Nate sank into the bed, scratching Meathead's ears, and the back of his head, falling asleep very quickly.

"Night, Meathead."

\111/

In the morning, Nate fixed a bowl of fish, rice, and vegetables with a very old bottle of sesame oil, and a crusty bottle of soy sauce that he needed to use a knife to break off the plastic cap. Piper was roused early by Nate banging around in the galley kitchen. She was surprised when Meathead came clambering down the steps and hopped up onto the bench by the table and waited for food. Piper reached over and scratched Meathead on the back, he threw his head up and let his tongue hang out, slowly leaning into her as he enjoyed the free back scratch.

"So how'd you get up here, anyway?" Piper asked.

"Right." Nate said, "Did I tell you this already? No, that was...Hancock. Anyway. I was over in Bunker Hill when Mayor Kessler told me to go take a peek from the top of the monument, she said I could see this ship. I recognized it because I've seen it before. There's a few books written about this ship, how it was one of the oldest ships used by the United States Navy still in service. The captain needed some spare parts to get the ships rockets moving again, and Meathead and I were carrying around some old junk that we scavenged from a car factory in Lexington. It was a turbopump bearing, something that gives the rockets a lot of fuel during take off."

"And because of this, they let you on board?" Piper asked.

"They scanned my face, and let me walk right on board."

"Interesting." Piper said.

"Here's some fish and rice," Nate offered, dishing up three bowls. "Here's the picture too."

Nate set the drawing of the gunman infront of Piper. Her eyes widened as she took the details in. When she saw the logo of the Vetruvian man, she stood up.

"I saw this guy a long time ago. Yeah, he's in Diamond City. And that logo...You saw him with this?"

"Yes. There was a team of scientists or soldiers or a just a strike team of people all wearing hazmat suits. On every one of them was this logo."

"That's the Institute's logo! It's on all of their guns! Every synth generation one or two carries around a laser pistol or a laser rifle with this logo on it! That proves it! He works for the Institute!" Piper was brimming with excitement.

"Can you print copies of this drawing?"

Piper nodded. "It'll be the first thing I do when I get back. Public Enemy Number One. Wanted for Murder, Kidnapping, and for kicks, Association with the Institute. I'll make sure everyone knows what a spy from the Institute looks like, oh this will be so exciting!"

"Alright then, eat up and we'll get going."

\111/

From The U.S.S. Constitution, the three of them jogged all the way back to Diamond City, turning up Newbury street, and running past Trinity Plaza when Meathead started whining, they came around the backside of the baseball stadium again, and went straight up to the gate barring access.

Piper was about to go up to the intercom, but Nate stopped her. "How about you let me try this time around." Nate offered.

"Hello?" He asked pressing the button.

"Who is it?"

"Nate. The guy in the blue vault suit. I'm here to see Nick."

The gate intercom buzzed and the gate was lifted upwards, allowing them inside.

"I'm gonna go write up a few quick articles, and I'll catch up with you later. If you're heading out, swing by and come knock on my door and I'll be ready in two seconds. Be sure to bring by the picture after you're done so I can run it."

"I will. See you soon, Piper."

\111/

Knocking on the door and entering Nick Valentine's detective agency on third street, Ellie and Nick were standing there, smiling as Nate walked through the door.

"Good to see you again! I was just singing praises about how I don't need to change jobs or move out anymore! You saved my boss, so thank you. If you're ever in need of some work, there's a few case files Nick could use your help on."

"Whoa, there. Easy Ellie, down girl, one case at a time. Our new friend needs help first." Nick pointed his thumb towards the chair across from his desk, "Grab a seat, and we'll get started."

Nate sat down, with Meathead sitting down next to him. "When you're trying to find someone who's gone missing, the devil is in the details. Tell me everything you can, no matter how...painful it might be."

Nate looked down at Meathead for a second and inhaled. "There was a man and a woman, a third person there as well. They didn't say much, but I remember they called me 'the backup'.

"So we're talking a small team. Smart cookies who know how to get into a Vault, I presume?" Nate nodded. "Sounds like they're the type who can keep their lips tight when they're on the job, or someone else can be paid to make sure those lips stay sealed. Not sure what 'the backup' means though..."

"I've been trying to figure it out for days, and what I've come up with would probably be beyond what most people know about outside of a vault."

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

"Genetic engineering. They wanted my son's DNA."

Nick's smiled stretched flatly across his face, and Ellie paused from writing the details down for a moment to let Nate explain. "You got me there. My memory doesn't have much on what you just said," He looked up to Ellie.

"What about you, Ellie?" she shook her head, turning back to Nate, "Didn't think so. Anyway, what else can you tell me?"

"We're looking for my son, Shaun, and there's things that've happened that might of muddled up my timeline. I was thrown into a cryogenic freezer that gave out. I'm not sure if he was taken last week, last month, last year, or even earlier this decade."

Nick frowned, "That could be a real damper on the progress, it would be a good question to of why they targeted your family in particular. Why an infant, why not the mother...why the violence? And then, if you haven't already noticed from the state of things outside Diamond City, they would be taking on all of his care...and an infant needs lots of it. What you're describing confirms that this isn't just some random kidnapping, whoever took your kid had an agenda. There's plenty of groups in the Commonwealth that might be behind this. The Super Mutants, Raiders, the Gunners, and of course, the Institute."

"He carried a .44 magnum revolver with a bull tapered barrel." Nick looked across Nate, then up to Ellie who wrote the detail down. Nodding, Nick was silent and let Nate continue.

Nate showed Nick and Ellie the picture of the gunman.

"This is the best drawing I can do of him, and there was this logo on all of their hazmat suits."

"Well that about confirms it."

"What can you tell me about the other gangs you mentioned, I've run across the Gunner's before, but who are they?"

"High-end mercenaries. No job too brutal. I would've said they were the likely suspects, but they wouldn't of been the ones pulling the strings anyway."

"The Super Mutants have a weird tick to them. I've heard of a few that get really smart. They're the ones who set up traps, and can even lead hunting parties against settlements. There's talk of a few mutants with enough brain cells between the lot of them to keep attacking Diamond City hiding somewhere in the Fens. Most of them are dumber than a box of rocks...especially when I've seen some eat rocks and break all their teeth on it and keep on going. Wasted fifteen minutes of my life watching that, seeing if the dumb sob could figure it out. We can safely rule them out. They're big, green, muscles on muscles, and hard to miss.

"The raider's were a close runner up for last place, but they can organize themselves every once and a while and be a force to be reckoned with. That is, when they're not shooting at each other. About a year ago there was a big commotion way west of here at Nuka-World, a few lesser gangs banded together and took over the trading community set up out there. Now we get talk from some traders who brave the route and what they have to say isn't very promising. They haven't done anything except for stay put, and for people around here, that's more than enough coming from that lot. Pulling off something this complicated doesn't put them very high up on the list."

Nate nodded at the mention of Nuka-World, the collar on Thunderstruck's neck and the chain shackles around her hooves built a small picture of what was going on over there.

"And this logo I saw all of them wearing marks them as the Institute?"

"Well, they're the boogeymen of the Commonwealth, something goes wrong, everyone blames them. But, this is one of the very first times I've ever heard any sort of physical presence of humans on the surface. They usually send early synth models to do their dirty work. Gen ones would go out and strip whole towns for parts, killing everything in their way. A few people collected weapons off them over the years, and that little four-legged, four-armed man confirms it."

"It's not a four-legged, four-armed man. It's the Vitruvian man. It's a very old picture that they're only using a stencil of."

"Who's the Vitruvian man?" Ellie Perkins asked.

"The Vitruvian Man was a drawing based off the work by a Roman author in the first century, Vitruvius. In the late 1400s, an artist by the name Leonardo Di Vinci, one of the greatest renaissance artists of that time period drew a man superimposed on a circle and a square. It was supposed to represent the perfect proportions of man and architecture at the time."

"Well then, I've read some good books in my day, but nothing about that. It doesn't take a mind of great feats to know that perfection is fleeting, otherwise the Institute would've stopped with me and every synth afterwards would've looked like me." Nick said.

"About that, I've been putting it off since I met you, but mind if I ask what the heck are you?"

"I'm a synth, a generation two prototype synth with a personality installed. I don't know what their plan is anymore than the next person who walks through my door. No one knows where the Institute is either. They were sure to rip that memory out of my brain, and every other synth's head that people have managed to capture and try to beat the information out of."

"You're a prototype?"

"As far as I know. Never seen any other synth like me, except for myself. The Generation threes came before me. I got to town about a year after there was the whole kerfluffle with the Broken Mask, incident. You read or hear about that, yet?" Nate nodded.

"Yeah. It was a little hard for me to gain people's trust back then, but that was...about seventy years ago now. I can barely remember things past fifty years, and what I do, I try and hold onto. The older ones are dumb as rocks, and you can literally throw rocks at some of them and they wont move. They're all metal. Then there's the newer ones which are almost human. I'm somewhere inbetween. Enough speculation, this is getting us off track. With the drawing you gave us, I know who did it. Did at any point you hear the name..."Kellogg? At all?"

Nate shook his head.

"This is way too big of a coincidence...Ellie, give him the details about the Kellogg case."

"Bald head, scar. Reputation for dangerous mercenary work, and no one knows who his employer is."

"Kellogg bought a house here in town a few years back, he had a kid with him, didn't he, Ellie?"

"That's right. The abandoned house in the West Stands. The boy with him was about ten years old."

Nate gripped the sides of the chair and leaned in, "He's here? He lives in town? Is he still here?"

"They both vanished a while back, no one heard them leave, no one saw them go out the gate. They just stopped showing up and we didn't know who or what happened to them. Their house is still there though."

"Lets you and I go take a walk over to Kellogg's address and see if we can snoop out where he went."

They all stood up and went for the door, Nate went a little bit faster out the door with Meathead right on his heels. Panting quickly they were both angry and agitated, they wanted Kellogg dead and Shaun found.

Holding the door open for Nick, it swung shut behind them and he lead the way.

"I didn't want Ellie to hear this, but you should know. Everything I dug up on Kellogg before his disappearance is bad news. He's more than a mercenary, he's a professional. He doesn't have enemies because they're all dead...except you."

Nick lead them down the third base line, and took a right and a left, leading them up into the stands, "Nine to one odds says he's our man. It's more than the drawing and his distinguishing features, it's his his MO as well. Leading a small team into a vault to kidnap a baby, and leave one of the parents alive for a just-in-case scenario later...not many mercs in the Commonwealth are willing or capable of pulling something like that off."

Reaching the top of the stands, the metal staircases lead halfway up the stands along a metal gang way to a small two story house. Directly above Publick Occurences, the crows hanging from old power cables cawed and flew away, others gripped the wire tighter and cawed loudly.

Nick checked the door, "locked, keep an eye out, will you? Let me see if I can get this open."

"Are you sure it's locked?" Meathead was growling, feeding off Nate's rising anger. "Cause I don't think it's locked." Nate charged the door and slammed his boot into the door beside the door knob.

"Cause I dont!
Think!
It's!
FUCKING!
LOCKED!" Kicking it hard with each word, the door bent inwards and broke off, the knob clattered onto the ground, bouncing against the floor as Nate gripped his shotgun tightly with a white-knuckled grip.

The interior of Kellogg's house was quite barren, there was a two seater leather couch to the right with a table stand next to the arm rest. There was a desk with some tools on it, and a rack board with all the pins missing. Above their heads was a wooden addition to make a second floor.

Nate went to the desk, ripping the drawers open, and they were empty. Squatting down, he yanked open the lower drawers and stopped when he saw a small black case with a red button inlaid underneath the desk.

Pressing it, a panel on the left wall slid open and they were shown a stocked room with food, drinks, ammo, a leather lounge chair, and a stand next to it with cigars and an ashtray.

"Well, look at this...all of a merc's favorite things."

"Gwinnett Stout beer...and San Francisco Sunlights." Nate said, looking at the cigar band, gritting his teeth, he turned his attention to a mannequin jammed behind the racks and balled up his fist.

"Interesting brand there, Nate. On it's own, you can't find much of those out here. But..." Nick looked down at Meathead. "What about your friend here? I didn't even catch his name. Most mutts in the Commonwealth can track a guy for miles...If he was smoking these, he's probably left a trail of his stink all over the place."

Nate looked down at Meathead, silently asking him 'Can you do that?' with his eyes, Meathead gave a quick small nod and looked back up at him. Wagging his tail, like he knew he was being talked about, he tilted his head.

"Before you head out...I know this is personal business. If you have to face Kellogg on your own, just say so."

"I want all the help I can get on this, Nick. I'm bringing him in for Justice, and then I'm marching him to the top of Mass Fusion tower with the longest piece of rope I can find and then we're hanging the bastard." Nate was visibly shaking, his hands felt frozen, but he couldn't stop moving.

"Alright, Let's get that bastard. This is your show from here on out, okay? You say jump, I'll say how high. You good to keep going? I don't need to eat or sleep or anything like that. But, if you need to, you do it."

"I'm good. I'm good. I just need to make sure I have everything. Meathead, come here boy. Can you give this a whiff?" Meathead barked and inhaled the scent of the San Francisco Sunlight cigar. He followed the scent like a string of bad perfume permeating the air.

"I need...I need to stop and get some rounds of ammo. I'll be right back, we're gonna find him and I will blow a hole in anything that's stopping us." Nate said, sprinting down to Arturo's Commonwealth weaponry. He met with Nick and Meathead by the stairs with five mini-nukes strapped to his back. Knocking on Piper's door, he shouted in, "Piper we're heading out! We got the man's scent."

Piper bolted down the stairs and was swinging a backpack onto her back the moment Nate started speaking, "Alright, let's go." She eyed the mini-nukes on Nate, and saw he was ready for some action. Before she left, she grabbed her own aluminum Swatter off the shelves, lined with chains secured in place with nails, it was a heavy hitter.

"I'm ready."

Ch. 54 Pickmans gallery

Author's Note

"Alright, I admit it, I have a crush. I wish it weren't true, because I think about her and the time we're spent apart makes me wish she were here, spending that time with me, or the other way around. Out there with her. Wouldn't need to call myself Lonely Miles anymore, But, don't worry Diamond City, I'll always treat you like the first darling baby I ever met. "

"These songs are making me sappy! Elgins up next on Diamond City Radio."

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Ch. 54 Pickmans gallery

The afternoon was far from over as Meathead watched Trish and the Triggermen depart in their boat, checking his Pip-Boy, there were a few things in East Boston that needed to be taken care of. Checking his surroundings, there was nothing organic observing him, but to be sure, Meathead went into the alley behind Back Street Apparel, before disappearing in a flash of green light.

\111/

Meathead exited the Weatherby Savings and Loans building that used to be occupied by the USS Constitution but now laid dormant and empty. With only light, but chilling breeze coming off the water at his back, Meathead walked to Bunker Hill.

There were sounds of gunfire coming from the far South, echoing against the skyscrapers of Boston, ringing out, but then they stopped suddenly.

It seemed like there was always some sort of commotion in Boston, but when there was silence, it only meant that another fight was soon to come.

Upon rounding the wall built around Bunker Hill, he was spotted by the lookout and a few people responded his presence, scurrying around inside.

"It's the Vaulter." Meathead distinctly heard. Disguised as Nate, no one was ever able to tell the difference, not even Piper when he talked to her in her office in Diamond City, while Nate went through the stores, looking for supplies to rebuild Vault 111.

He calmly went up to the memorial, ""

The lookout was a brunette female armed with a hunting rifle, dressed in scrappy brown clothes, and came up to Nate's neck in height. She looked him up and down, sizing him up before she answered. "Yeah, I heard about you. Come on in."

""

"She's sleeping, what do you want?"

""

"Who?"

""

"Well, shit! That's great!"

""

"Shit. Who?"

""

"I...never heard of her. I'm gonna send someone to go peek in on the Mayor, maybe she's...I don't know. Hey!" The lookout called to a guard patrolling the grounds of Bunker Hill. "Go see if the Mayor's up. This guy's got something she needs to hear!"

The brahmin in their pens mood and the guard nodded, walking off to find the Mayor.

"" Meathead asked.

"Marley."

"" He said, reaching his arm out for a handshake.

\111/

Within the enclosure of the walls, it wasn't difficult to find anyone, Bunker Hill Park was three city blocks large, with the monument in the center, and shacks built close to the walls built on the pavement.

"Mayor Kessler?" the guard inquired, speaking softly enough to not wake her if she were asleep but loud enough to be heard if she was awake.

She rose from her bed instantly, a light sleeper by habit, alarm bells rang in her head, throwing off the covers and taking a large breath of air as she stirred.

Rubbing her eyes, and sitting up, "What?" she asked while standing up.

"No rush, but that Vault-guy is back with some news you might want to hear."

"Something good, I hope?" Grabbing her rifle, the guard moved back, allowing her to pass down the stairs of her shack to the muddy grass. She spotted who she thought was Nate and Marley exchanging small talk as she crossed the yard and approached them.

"What's this about?" She asked.

""

Mayor Kessler inhaled and exhaled, digesting the information, blinking the sleep out of her eyes, she nodded.

"<But, there are a few other things that happened as well, a different gang from the Federal Ration Stockpile, they're run by a woman named, Red."

"Jesus, they keep cropping up out of the woodwork. What happened?" Mayor Kessler asked.

"She was quite emotional when it all happened, but Tower Tom kidnapped Red's sister, Lily, and was extorting Red's gang for food and supplies. Lily tried to escape and was killed. I went to Red with Tom's confession, and things escalated from there. After taking out a good portion of Tom's gang and absorbed the rest of them. In particular, his Lieutenant, Sparta.

Mayor Kessler stared at the ground, seeing the scenario and all the problems laid out at her feet. Working her gaze back up to Meathead's eyes, she asked. "So what does she want?"

"<As of two days ago, I convinced her to use the brewery to make beer. Something she could trade, something that would offset the number of goods being traded between here and any of the farms and settlements your caravans try to reach. I don't know if she knows about caravans paying protection to the other bosses, but as of yesterday, there was a massive gang war at Corvega. Only three people from the original gang survived, they went off to join Red's gang, so everything from Lexington to The Fens is all up for grabs, and she's making moves to become one of the biggest gangs in the North-Western part of the Commonwealth right now. It might be in you or the caravan's best interest to send a tithe her way to set up trade routes through what was Tower Tom's territory, and keep the peace."

Mayor Kessler nodded, then sighed. "It doesn't end...But...consider-" She didn't finish the word, thinking everything over in her head as fast as she could. "...That's one less caravan that needs to be sent out." Rubbing her face from her eyes to her chin, she said, "We could do bigger trains as well, and we wouldn't lose as many men." Finding the positives, she looked up at Meathead.

"When did this happen?"

Meathead paused, ""

The Mayor sighed again, trying to understand the whole situation. "You came a long way in a short time."

""

"I'll send a group her way as soon as possible. We need that edge...and we need those routes. I've been waiting for Tower Tom to keel over and die for months, and now that it's happened, I should've expected another gang. Thank you for the information. I'm sorry, but I've forgotten your name."

""

"What is it?"

""

"Oh-" Mayor Kessler said the word with loathing. "It's-" Turning around to a piece of scaffolding with a ramp that was wrapped around the monument, "Follow me." Kessler leads Meathead up the ramp to the lookout perch, then pointed across the Charles River to the North End.

"Let your eyes follow the bridge, then off to the left, you see those brick buildings?" Kessler turned her hand vertically and waved up and down, "Between that alley right there, you can just barely make it out, is Pickman's Gallery. You're not the first person to ask about it, the guy-" Mayor Kessler was at a loss of words for a moment, "His name is Pickman, but from what I've heard, and this is stories from raiders, traders, and freelancers like yourself, is that Pickman has it out for raiders. Fucking hate's them with a burning, blood-soaked passion. It's a booby-trapped nightmare, but a lot of raiders also want Pickman's head for all the..." Kessler shook her head. "Corpse mutilation and art... and... and calling cards he leaves around. Plenty of raiders- oh look! You can see six-or seven- moving towards it right now. See that semi-truck on the road there? Yeah, I just saw two of them disappear behind it. Pickman's Gallery is right through there. They have no idea what they're getting into."

""

"Be careful. Some people like to be left alone, and Pickman is definitely in that category, but if you see him, tell him I said hi."

\111/

"Jesus, you're such a fucking hardass." There were two raiders, both timid, one male and the other female. The male spoke first. He was wearing brown coveralls that crossed along his backside and wore a white, but yellowed, t-shirt, with brown boots that were on the verge of busting through the toe section.

"That's why I'm still alive," The female replied, "but since I need to rely on your sorry ass to watch my back, that's why I'm trying to keep you alive, too." They were standing arm's length from each other, but a green flash of light blinded them for a moment, and they each felt a hand on their shoulders.

Meathead teleported right between the two, and was holding onto their shoulders, "" He said, greeting them both. Their emotions exploded into shock and immediately went to strike Meathead. Dodging the first and second punches from both the man and woman, he yanked them together, causing their heads to collide.

The woman went for Meathead's chin, but he dipped his head down, and she struck her knuckles against his forehead, making her cringe after hitting the thickest part of the human skull. The man tried shoving Meathead off with both arms, but he shoved his knee to the back of the man's leg, dead-legging him and forcing him down on one knee. Quickly jabbing his elbow at the side of the man's head, he was knocked backward and flat onto the ground, allowing Meathead to spin the female around and pin both of her arms behind the back.

Dead-legging the female as well, she cried out and went down to the ground. The man went for his gun, but before he could even draw his weapon, it was ripped out of his hands by Meathead's magic and flung down the alley, not that he was able to notice in the brief second Meathead cast the spell.

Meathead pushed the female-forward, and down to the ground, using a zip-tie to bind her hands together. The man got back up to his feet and pulled out a small knife, but Meathead pulled out his handgun and pulled back on the slide, making an audible 'Click-clack' as a round was loaded into a chamber.

" Meathead warned, pointing the barrel directly at the man. He froze, his eyes searching the ground for his partner's gun, but it was pinned underneath her. "" Meathead hoisted the female off the ground and held her by the arm. "" Shoving the female raider forward, she nearly stumbled, running into the man and nearly knocking him down as well, but he caught her and kept both of them from falling.

Meathead held the gun steady, keeping it level, the man and women hesitated for a moment, sharing silent looks, second-guessing if they should take Meathead's offer and leave, or try to take him on.

Firing once up into the air, it made them bolt back down the alley towards the waterfront. "" Meathead shouted, firing again and again into the air.

The man ran past it, then turned around, running two steps back. He fumbled the gun as he tried picking it up, and then dropping it. The gun clattered onto the alley pavement, he grasped it again, and shoved it into his waistband, jogging after his partner.

Meathead waited until they were out of sight, then a little bit longer as they retreated a safe two blocks away. He could gauge their distance from their emotions, which were slowly balancing back out to normal levels, but there was still a healthy dose of fear from being taken on so suddenly.

"Where the fuck did he come from!? I didn't see or hear anything! He was just fucking there!"

"He must' a used a flash-grenade! Did you see that flash? I heard about grenades like that, just- poof! Caught both of us with our pants down! Fuck! Motherfucker! Should we go back?"

"Fuck the guys inside, I think we got off lucky."

\111/

Easing the front door to the Gallery open, it was a three-story Boston townhouse. A steep-grade of stairs immediately off to the right-hand side leading upstairs, with a hallway down the center that branched off to two more rooms, then a the ill-fabled gallery to the left.

With all the gunfire going off around Boston, the raiders inside didn't even think anything of the shots Meathead fired off, they were desensitized to the violence around them.

"Think we'll catch that Pickman character this time? The slippery bastard got away before."

"Slab won't leave a man breathing after he-" The second raider never finished his sentence.

A tripwire was pulled and an explosive in the wall stuffed inside a jar of nails exploded outwards, ripping the man's skull off and shredding the rest of his body. The first raider hit the ground, feeling pieces of shrapnel in his arms.

"Ah! ah! Ah!" He managed to choke out, too painful to scream.

A shout came from above, "Who did we lose?!"

"ARHG! MMFff! Roy! We lost Roy! I got hit too! I'm getting the fuck out!"

"Get out and stay there! We'll be out of here in no time! Slab is on his way with more guys!" The voice from the second story shouted down. There were five raiders in the building, but the mention of more people coming was what set Meathead off. He didn't detect anyone in the immediate area, scattered groups of people more than five blocks away, but no one directly heading to this location.

Sensing a person's maleficence nearly ten blocks away, if Slab would arrive was unknown, but Meathead knew he needed to be in and out of the Gallery before this second group came.

Meathead reached for his pocket dimension, pulling out a piece of duck tape. The age made it less sticky, but that also made it silent as he pulled off a long strip. If it were fresh tape, the noise alone would be enough to alert someone.

The injured raider was picking glass and nails out of his arms, back to the wall, crying. He didn't even notice as Meathead stooped down beside him. Slapping a piece of duck tape over his mouth, he tried to struggle, but he could barely move his arms.

" Meathead pressed a finger to his lips. Pulling out a stim pack, he held it up in front of the raider for him to see.

""

The raider was in no position to argue, and his emotions were so wreaked, he could barely stand. Nodding weakly, he made to grab the stimpak from Meathead. "<Close your eyes, and bite down on your cheek, I'm going to get the metal out all at once." The raider clenched his eyes shut, and Meathead's eyes glowed, finding all the metal embedded in the raider's arms, then pulled them out.

His arms were drenched in blood as twenty pieces of glass and nails and metal shrapnel were removed. Sticking the raider in the chest with the stimpak, the wounds were quick to stick themselves shut, and being the long process of scabbing over.

Whimpering, whining, Meathead helped the raider to his feet, then gave him a light shove towards the door.

It's a death trap in here.

Moving towards the kitchen in the back, Meathead didn't think to look in the main living room, otherwise, it would've prepared him for the bloodbath in front of him.

On the back wall was a portrait painting, but the color was so distinctly ruby red, that it could have only been blood.

Like Picasso, Bold Black lines, intense glaring yellow eyes, dried blood-red background, pronounced nose, flaring nostrils.

The face was staring directly into the viewer.

But the painting was perhaps the only thing sane in the kitchen, there was a body laying on the table, then in buckets and metal pails scattered around the whole room were filled with bones, still red from being fileted, and most were partially filled with blood. "" Meathead said with a sing-song tone to his voice.

Turning around, he looked into the living room and was immediately filled with a sense of dread. Swallowing, there were poles jammed into the ground, ringing a table with a raider's body on it. On most of the poles were human heads, all pointing outwards. There were skulls and meat bags, but the way everything was arranged was done with a critical eye. There were paintings on the wall, but to describe them, would be like describing the body the blood came from.

One was a red background, but then nothing but eyes that all followed the viewer. The second looked wet, a ghoul's head painted in red, with thick bold black lines. The top half of the skull was missing, and the brain painted yellow was exposed.

The third painting was...Meathead couldn't think of the words at first, but it was a man with black angelic wings. Maybe a demon, but then he thought it was Mothman, the urban monster legend from Virginia's.

The fourth was only showed everything above a man's chin, wild staring eyes with yellow snakes coming out of his mouth.

The symbology behind each one was terrifying to think about, and there were surely ghosts in this room, trying to possess Meathead to look at the rest of them before letting go.

The next one showed the top portion of a man, everything above the shoulders with his arms out of view, but fingers were cut off, next to the man's head. A yellow sun, one with eight sun flares, Meathead balked, it looked almost exactly like Princess Celestia's cutie mark, was painted directly on the third-eye, the center of the forehead, with a yellow line, was spiraling out of it until it reached the edge of the frame.

The next one after that was a smaller painting, but the man didn't have eyes, just black sockets, with the supposed removed eyes to the right and left of him. The eyes were surrounded by black circles that almost looked runic.

The second to last painting was of a beheaded skull, with blood pouring down in torrents like a river. Behind him were yellow lines as thick as his fingers spreading out like all the spiritual energy was coming from the brain.

The last one, the most palpable, was of a man crying. Yellow tears with black lines, almost looking like cuts that were painted across the entire canvas, were painted over the mouth.

"" Meathead could feel the paintings, the well of emotions poured out by Pickman as he painted on the canvas, every line and detail painted with the smoldering outpouring of raw feeling into every stroke.

\111/

"Why the hell did Hancock want us to come here?

Shaking the ghosts off, Meathead heard more shouting.

"Oh shit! Come quick! Think we got a problem!" There was running, then a sudden shotgun blast from above.

"What is it?"

The same voice spoke again. "Oh shit!"

Looking above, he identified two emotions that were not like the others.

One, Meathead could only assume, was Pickman. The other was on a similar plain as Pickman's, but more optimistic.

The other three were angry, fearful, and enraged.

Moving to the second floor, Meathead almost set off a tripwire rigged to a gun aimed through the doorframe. Stepping over it, there were gurneys and wire bedframes, on one of the beds was another dead raider, with a machete laying on the nightstand next to it.

"Come out, come out, where ever you are." The voice came from the next room closest to Meathead. Calmly reaching for the machete, sliding it off the table, he could hear footsteps from the warped floorboards creak and signal that in about two seconds, he would have company.

"Found Y-!" Heaving the machete, it flew forward and impaled the raider in the chest.

From the floor above there was banging, pounding, like someone trying to kick or ram open a door.

Meathead could hear one set of footprints run the length of the building, followed by the distinct sound of hooves galloping after. Pickman and a pony, he realized. Through an unseen set of stairs, the duo dropped down to the second level and then escaped to the first, before going down deeper into the basement.

The two raiders left alive were still pounding, trying to get the room open, and succeeded as Meathead made his way onto the staircase leading to the third floor. The handle and lock gave away, and the door was bashed open.

Above him, hanging from the chandelier chain was a headless body with a lamp sticking out of the neck hole.

"<God, this is fucked.>"

Reaching the landing, the two raiders were trashing the room, looking for where Pickman and the pony escaped to, "Here!" On of the voices shouted.

Meathead heard an audible click, and then the whole house rocked as a tripwire rigged to a missile launcher exploded in the room.

The last two raiders were dead, but Meathead went to check to see if the path was still there. Cleaved through the wall, into the building next door was Pickman and the pony's escape path, but the raiders were blown to smithereens.

What was the most off-putting about this room, aside from the fresh blast marks and blood, was how well this room was put together.

Two clean white beds in wooden frames with green linen and cotton blankets, blue painted walls, swept wooden floors, furniture that was arranged decoratively, then to one corner of the room was a bunch of toys and a toy-chest. It was as if Pickman and the pony recreated a room straight from before the Great War.

The absolute stark contrast to the rest of the house was startling, it was clean, or it used to be until about thirty seconds ago. If Nate were here...Meathead wouldn't know what Nate thought about this entire building.

Thoughts bubbled up, but the grotesqueness from the lower two floors made a hard argument against this one sanitary room. Grabbing a toy rocketship from off the shelf, Meathead went to the blown-out hole in the wall.

Following the path through into the pipe and vent chases, Meathead was quick to spot the land mine left behind and took care to deactivate it before picking it up.

He needed to drop down to the second floor, where it was obvious that this was always the backup plan in case of raiders penetrating the higher floors past the booby-traps.

When he reached the first floor, he could hear the main door open, forgetting to pay attention, or spending too long distracted by the blood-paintings, eleven more raiders walked into the building. Two of them ran for the basement door and two more ran up the stairs, and there was a shout "Fuck! The thing nearly took my fucking head off!" After the basement door was forced open.

Another one of Pickman's traps, but the crew followed the path down.

Reactivating the landmine, and setting it on the ground where, if the two raiders running up to the third floor found Pickman's escape path, then followed it down, they would land right on top of the landmine.

Dropping down into the basement, the air was thick with the scent of iron and blood.

Seven raiders ran down deeper into the building, but where the basement lead, Meathead could only guess.

Two raiders trailing behind heard Meathead drop down to the basement, and shouted for him, shooting at the wooden walls, hoping to blindly hit him.

Meathead pulled off his laser rifle Paladin Danse gave to him and fired back. The burn marks boring into their skin as one raider died almost instantly from a headshot, while the other's armor needed to be burnt off first before the damage sunk in.

Meathead was shaking, in the center of the basement was a shrine, in the center of the shrine was another painting, but this one was of black hands reaching up out of yellow fire towards Celestia's sun, all painted over a blood-red background.

Around the sun were Equestrian symbols and characters, spelling out a question, "God's Forsaken Us?"

Glimpses into the mind of Pickman were disturbing but necessary to understand what type of person Pickman was, but this pony who was with him must be more than a pet. A deeply disturbed man and a resentful pony who knew and hated Princess Celestia.

Possibly one of the best examples of what Nate meant when he said he had been living in the post-apocalyptic world for just over a week now, while everyone else was barely surviving in the chaotic post-nuclear world for decades.

\111/

"Pickman!"

"Come out to Plaaayyeeayyy!"

The tunnel leading from the basement opened up to a brick catacomb beneath the Boston townhouses. Sewage, propane, gas, and electrical lines running overhead.

Back in the Gallery, the landmine exploded.

The hub of the pipes leads to a large circular room with paths leading off in two directions. Meathead saw a raider running back up the tunnel and shot him down before he could realize the enemy was right in front of him.

The catacombs winded down into the sewers which were practically glowing from the radioactive water runoff, but in the dirt was a set of hoofprints, followed by eight footprints. The thing about these sewers was that they dated back to colonial times, Revolutionary war times when America was fighting off the British and was building tunnels underneath Boston to smuggle food, weapons, and people all around the city. It was purposefully designed like a winding maze because multiple entrances were found and raided by the British, but after the centuries, many areas were closed off or walled off as businesses and construction crews dug down for foundations.

Catching three raiders in the tunnels, the gunfire was loud and echoed in every direction, making it impossible to tell where it was coming from unless you were one of the targets.

Meathead fought them only as he knew how in a direct confrontation, no Changeling tricks, no magical surprises, just shooting at them and hoping he killed them before they killed him.

Once one raider was dead, Meathead threw the toy rocketship towards them. It clunked and bounced off the ground, but the two raiders thought it was a grenade and ran for cover, exposing them long enough for Meathead to fire off a dozen rounds from his laser rifle, killing a second. Transitioning forwards, Meathead tackled the last raider, shoving him down onto the ground and using a revolver to finish him off.

\111/

"Found ya' Pickman, and your fucktoy." Slab said.

Pickman was Nate's age, dressed in a suit that needed to be washed. The red unicorn with a two-toned mane of purple and orange and her Cutie Mark was Medusa's Severed Stone Head.

As far as Cutie Mark's stories went, despite everything Meathead saw above, he was interested in hearing how such a bizarre Cutie Mark came to existence but now was not the time.

They were both caught at the end of their maze, raising his hands, Pickman had nowhere else to run, but his eyes didn't show the sad emotion of losing his only friend in the world.

"Thought you could hunt and torture us to your heart's content?" Slab lambasted.

"You're the fucking monsters, human! You damn raiders do is rape us, enslave us, kill us, and then keep fucking the damn corpses after we're cold and dead! You think you're the best thing to emerge from the damn rubble, but you're nothing more than cockroaches!" The red unicorn shouted back.

"Shut the fuck up! You're going to taste good after we kill you, shove a metal pike up your ass and out your mouth, then grill you whole! Same goes for the animal." Slab said the level of their malice was filling the whole catacomb chamber. Wanting to roast both of them until their skin turned black as ash, then feed the rest of his crew their prize.

Pickman tilted his head, spotting the crouched form of Meathead aiming a rifle at them. Meathead heard all he needed to hear and pulled the trigger.

The bullet punched through the back of Slab's skull, spraying both Pickman and the unicorn with Slab's blood and brains.

Normally, Meathead expected a change in emotion, usually, after being confronted with death the feelings range towards shock or relief, but Meathead had to force down a little vomit from the sudden wave of overwhelming ecstasy coming from Pickman, with all the emotion was directed towards their savior.

A knife appeared in Pickman's hands and the Unicorn tipped her head down, they both were running at the closest raider while the death of Slab still distracted them.

Batting the rifle away from being pointed at him, he slashed at his face, his chest, his neck, drawing long lines all across the raider's body. The raider fought back, but Pickman cut at every exposed piece of skin, cutting through the shirts and light armor this raider wore.

The unicorn impaled the second raider, lifting him above her head and shaking him. A trail of blood came down her horn and into her mane.

The raider on the unicorn's horn was heaved off, she whipped her head and the raider was flung to the catacomb wall. She galloped to the raider and spun around, bucking off the ground and slamming her hooves into the raider's skull with enough force to break his neck and shatter the jawbone.

She kept kicking until she was sure the raider was dead, leaving her panting and breathless.

Pickman finished carving slices out of the raider in front of him by sinking his knife into the raider's chest, right over the heart and then weighing into the blade with both palms, leaning forward as the raider was rooted to the spot, dying, dying, and then falling over onto the ground.

\111/

Tugging the knife out, it didn't immediately come out smoothly, so Pickman pulled harder, then wiped the blade off on the raider's coat. "Athena, I believe we have a new friend to thank."

Turning around, Athena looked up at the dark form of Meathead in the shadows. Dropping down to their level, he revealed himself.

She was frowning, "Who are you?" Athena demanded to know. Her horn was glowing red, ready to cast a spell, but Pickman raised one hand and she immediately dispelled it.

"That was close, thank you, stranger. May I please ask your name?"

Pickman was quiet, but that was because he spoke softly. Meathead could feel the suffering welling up inside of Pickman as he talked, a truly tortured soul that felt the death of the world in his chest, that to sink so low, that failure was more than damaging to him, it was eating him alive. Seconds ago it was ecstasy, now it was depressing sadness that slowly turned to hope, all hanging on Meathead's response. Pickman's gaze bored a deeper hole than any other person Meathead ever laid eyes on, it was seeing right through his disguise, knowing instinctively that the figure in front of him was not human.

A psycho recognizes a psycho.

It was psychotic to think Meathead could parade around in another human's form, and not a single person would catch on, but the eyes are the windows to the soul, and he was being examined and read over like a leather book in Pickman's library.
When his entire race used to body-snatch ponies and other races off the street, parade around in their form, taking love from them, and then do absolutely nothing to placate the snatched person's death, it was difficult for Meathead to accuse Pickman and Athena of wrongdoing, when there was blame to be cast in his direction as well. It was garish and grotesque, but so was shoving ponies into pods, and never letting them see the light of day again either.

All in the reaction and tell, he was exposed before the artist, and from seeing the paintings above, Meathead carried a look in his eyes of knowing the symbolism behind the sun, Celestia's sun. It shone a light in the darkest of places, and whatever marks it left on Meathead, it carried with him for Pickman to gauge his reaction.

Was it worth lying to this man and his companion? No, the lie would be too obvious.

""

"And what do I think you should be?"

""

Athena cut in, "Is this some serial killer bullshit that only psychos can understand? 'Cause I'm not impressed."

"Athena." Pickman calmly called out, "I believe he's trying to say that he is not what he appears to be."

"So what are you, if you're not human? You look pretty human to me."

"I know about the sun symbol you painted, I know about Princess Celestia."

Meathead was suddenly wrapped in a glowing red embrace, picked up, then slammed against the brick wall with his arms pinned up. "THAT FUCKING WHORE! I don't want to hear that lowly bitch's name! Who Are You?!" She demanded again.

Meathead thought for a moment, then focusing, he dispelled Athena's spell, falling to the ground to the shock of the pony.

""

Athena looked ready to cast another spell, but Pickman reeled her back in with a flex of his fingers.

"Let him explain."

Meathead dispelled his disguise, allowing his Changeling form to show.

"Meathead the Changeling," Pickman said.

"What the fuck are you?" Athena asked.

"We are both descended from Equestria, but where the ponies looked up to their Princesses, Changeling's looked to their Queens. We are not so different, but born in radically different times and places."

"Where are you from?"

""

"Why did you reveal yourself to us, Meathead the Changeling?"

""

"Those people deserved worse than death," Pickman said, relaxing his shoulders. It took a while after the fight for both Athena and Pickman to calm down, but the longer Meathead spoke, the more he could wrangle and calm the inferno in his chest.

"I know, but it's not always up to us to decide what people do and don't deserve. I want to ask about your inspiration for the paintings in your gallery, but I feel like I know the answer. What was it like for you growing up?"

"I would go to bed screaming because of the pain in my stomach from not eating in weeks," Pickman said, he held up his hands, and they were shaking. "They still shake, and I've been shaking for so long. Only when I hunt or focus on my artwork do they stop."

Athena gave a sad nod.

"I was forced to watch the elders who berated, beat, and starve me, then be butchered in front of me. Where men took chainsaws and hacked them from the top of their skull, straight through their testicles. I wanted that revenge so badly on the elders, but have never forgotten that I got exactly what I wished for."

""

"Did you not feel enraged for what was done to you? The atomic fires that washed this earth, only soaked into the ground and made it prune?"

""

"Then why not kill them?" Athena asked.

"" Meathead floated over the toy rocketship to Pickman, who passed it to Athena.

""

Pickman was moved, his emotions settled on the sensations of glad and satisfaction, that someone was able to understand him, but Athena was lost gazing at the toy spaceship.

"That's sappy," Athena said, "You weren't born in Nuka-World, and you weren't abandoned by that Cunt Celestia."

Meathead felt out Athena's emotions, mostly rage, but from his perspective, a tad misplaced.

\111/

Pickman guided Meathead back up to the street level, with Athena following behind him.

"I'd like to repay you, Meathead for your honesty and for saving us."

Another wave of ecstasy from Pickman, making Meathead feel awkward. Even though he could feel their emotions, the mental math for why Pickman was feeling this way made no sense to the Changeling.

""

"Most definitely. That's all the more reason to reward you." Pickman replied. "If you visit my Gallery again, look deep within the painting 'Picnic for Stanley', and there you will find our gratitude. You'll need this, however."

Pickman passed Meathead a key with a Vault-Boy head on the keychain.

Meathead took it in his magic, then transformed back into Nate, holding the key in his hand now.

"" Meathead asked.

"Rebuilding, but for now, hunting."

""

"I'll take it into consideration, especially now that my studio has been ransacked and all the traps need resetting."

"" Meathead hesitated, ""

Athena snorted at the mention of the Giddyups, but then Meathead offered something more. "" She pulled her head up and gave Meathead a questioning look.

"Teleport?"

"" Giving a small demonstration, Meathead teleported in front of Pickman, then behind Athena, then back to his place between the two of them. "

Athena was curious at the offer but didn't express herself, Meathead put on his best smile that Nate was always going on about, making the mare snort distastefully at his contagiously happy mood.

"Such a wonderful offer, Meathead." Pickman said, "Here. There's the ladder leading to the surface."

\111/

Climbing up into a dilapidated building, it was easy to see how no one would've been able to find the back entrance. They were above ground, and a block away from the Old North Church.

Letting his senses go out, it was interesting to feel all the life forces coming from underneath the old building, The Railroad. He thought about going there now, but he didn't have anything to say to them yet. There were still a few more things to take care of before he and Nate approached the group.

"Be sure to give Mayor Kessler my best, next time you see her again. Her care packages of explosives are always appreciated and put to good use."

<Oh, right, she said to keep up the good work killing raiders, but...I feel I should tell you that Nate, the real Nate, is working with raiders to make it difficult for the Gunners. So...transcendental art; those days might be coming to an end."

"Ah, such is the mind of an art critic, art changes, so is not limited to the canvas."

""

"It means we're doing some art installations around Boston," Athena replied, eyes rolling up to Pickman.

""

Pickman extended his hand, and Athena begrudgingly held out her hoof, shaking both of them, Meathead winked out of existence in a flash of green light.

"Freak."

"Be nice, Athena. We have new neighbors. We shall need to prepare a house-warming gift for Nate, our unspoken host."

\111/

Ch. 55 High Voltage

Author's Note

A knock came on Travis' door.

Followed by more fervent knocking a few seconds later.

"Travis."

"TRAVIS!"

More knocking that evolved into pounding. "TRAVIS!"

The radio DJ woke up and groggily stumbled to the trailer door, unlocking it and swinging the door open.

"What?" He asked, looking down. He couldn't even recognize who he was talking to, the sleep was still in his eyes.

"You left the music playing, Ohh, Baby Baby by Smokey Robinson has been playing on repeat for the last hour! On more time, and someone's going to have a fit!"

"Huh?" Travis said, letting the question sink in. "Oh." Turning around, he flicked the switch to the broadcasting equipment off.

"Just..."

Kicking his chair out of the way, he sighed, still groggy and wearing only a t-shirt and his underwear.

"Did he change the music yet?" A second voice came from the bottom of the DCR staircase.

"Almost." Came a third.

Travis put yesterday's recording on, a solid six hours of music, advertisements, and him dj'ing would give him the time to keep sleeping.

He flopped back down in his bed, leaving the door wide open, and was asleep before the first person even knew that he was finished changing over the music.

"Travis?"

"Travis?"

Hearing the music switch over, and the tape rolling, the first person shrugged his shoulders and quietly closed the trailer door.

"This is Diamond City Radio, your host here, Travis Lonely Miles, so long as someone pokes me with a stick to check if I'm still breathin' every few days, the music will always be rolling, and the bright lights of Diamond City will always be shining. For our first song of the day, is Ohh Baby, Baby by Smokey Robinson."

"Damnit, Travis!"

The knocking resumed again.

"TRAVIS!"

"Only here, on Diamond City Radio."

Ch. 55 High Voltage

Reappearing at the front steps of the Weatherby tower, Meathead immediately noticed the changes that took place since he and Nate left. The Giddyup-Buttercups had dragged all the skeletons out onto the street, followed by sweeping all the rubble into a pile right outside the door. The shelves in the storefront were lined with rows of dried goods and products, all placed neatly and ready for purchase. While on the coffee shop cafe side, Meathead saw one of the Giddy-ups on her rear-hooves, polishing a table with a rag underhoof.

Of the seven ponies there were three down in the store, "" Meathead said, unable to tell one apart one pony from the other.

"Hi, Nate! You're back!" She raised a hoof to her mouth and whispered, "It's Trotsiana, by the way."

""

"Hey, Nate!?" Stampede called out to him, trotting over. "Gigi and Giddy came back a while ago, screaming about a massive sea monster that demolished a dock to the south and west of here. It nearly killed a boy who was there. His name is Donny Kowalski, they're upstairs resting."

""

"Oh, and Nate? Could you help hook us up to the bus later? We want to give it the old heave-ho, and pull it out of the main door."

""

"Okay, see you then!" Stampede said, cheerful as all the other Giddy-Ups.

Meathead went to the elevator, which was also scrubbed clean and smelling of powdered soap, then pressed the button for the top floor.

Checking his Pip-Boy, it was 2:45 A.M. November 3rd.

"" Going from Vault 111, to Lexington and dealing with the last of the raiders from Corvega, to the initiation with the Brotherhood of Steel, Diamond City, Pickmans gallery, and finally the USS Constitution, Meathead was feeling understandably worn out.

At the executive office suites, Meathead shouldn't of expected anything less than the same spring-cleaning treatment that was applied downstairs. The floor was swept clean and mopped, all the piles of dirt and glass scattered across the floor were gone. There were a few full sacks of garbage bags, evidence of other Giddy-Ups cleaning and scouring the place clean while they were gone. So much had happened, he couldn't even recall what day they left.

As much as Meathead wanted to lay down, there were two lives that needed to be dealt with before he collapsed on the bed in the Captain's room .

The first was laying on a couch with Gigi and Giddy cuddled up next to Donny. Gigi had her head laid across his lap, with his arm over her neck, while Giddy was on the ground, next to his feet.

As he approached them, Giddy and Gigi both woke up, and spotted Nate coming their way.

"Nate," Gigi whispered.

"Sorry, but we didn't know where else to take him. It wasn't safe to take him south."

""

"At the Harbormaster Hotel. I don't think he knows his home address, but that must be where his parents work. His parents can pick him up from there!" Gigi said enthusiatically, their outdated logic kept them from understanding that the Harbormaster Hotel was in fact where the boy lived. Donny was still motionless except for the rising and falling of his chest.

"" Meathead noticed on the coffee table stand next to the couch was a 10mm gun, that definitely wasn't his, so it must've belonged to Donny. "" Meathead said louder.

The boy woke up, and jerked his head back. It felt sore from craning his neck forward while he slept, but waking up, he saw the man in a vault-suit standing in front of him.

"Who are you?" He asked.

""

"Okay. It was a Mirelurk Queen."

""

Working himself up, he spoke loud and fast, "It's a huge monster-sized mirelurk as big as a house! It's got super-massive claws that ripped through the whole dock, and spits acid, and it's got giant fangs, and it's huge! But-"

""

"Behind the Shamrock Taphouse. Next to the Harbormaster Hotel."

""

"Well, there's the Captain. But I ain't never seen him on a boat before, and then there's Eddie, Ark...and...uh...Greg Something...There's a whole bunch more, but I can't remember them all!"

""

"Fishing. Trying to catch some dinner." Donny suddenly gasped, "But there's more! I was looking out at the harbor and there was a big eye that rose up out of the water! I saw it turn around, then dip back down. A few minutes later, it popped right back up at the same spot and did the same thing!"

"" Meathead didn't know what to make of the description so far.

Maybe it was a piece of metal from a ship that sunk offshore bobbing up and down with the motion of the waves? A buoy that was caught?

""

"Good night, mister."

""

"Yep-er-rooskie. Absolutely." Gigi said, "Good night, Nate."

"Positively." Giddy replied.

""

\111/

Taking the second elevator to the roof, then walking down onto the deck of the USS Constitution, the small platoon of Civil War re-enactment robots were still patrolling endlessly.

"Ahoy, Lieutenant! I hope all goes well in these troubled times?" Captain Ironsides asked.

"" Meathead replied.

"Very well then, all is quiet on the homefront. Carry on."

Lifting the door to the below-deck, Meathead closed it behind him, and then went to the captain's room. Still hanging in the changeling pod was Thunderstruck. She reacted to his presence filling the room, anticipating her release from the pod. Still unconscious, Meathead flooded the pod with as much positive emotion and love he could spare, making the pegasus twitch and stretch her hooves out, pawing at the membrane wall. The most noticeable difference to the pod was how black and brown the film lining became, it was all the dead skin, hair, and cuts that healed and were bubbling to the surface.

Drawing in a large breath, he exhaled. "" Setting a metal washtub underneath the pod, and laying out a blanket for her to lay on, he readied himself for the newcomer. One last detail, he reminded himself, taking a small mirror and setting it up on the desk for the pegasus to see herself in.

Dispelling Nate's cover, Meathead's horn glowed, and the gelatinous fluid dissolved, pouring down into the washbin, saving him the hassle of cleaning it up later.

The bamboo-colored pegasus with a two tone golden aspen and brown mane nearly fell out, but was caught in Meathead's magic embrace, gently lowering her to the blanket. She shivered and withdrew her limbs closer to her body for warmth, breathing in and out, she was waking up.

The transformation from six days in the pod were drastic, she barely looked like the same pegasus. Meathead wrapped the blanket around her, and gently wiped her mane clean, and moved down to the rest of her body. Quickly wiping her nethers and tail before she woke up completely, Meathead pet her mane, calmly whispering ""

Her wings were next to be wiped off, but she brushed off the blanket that was being used as a makeshift towel as well. Stirring, her legs stretched out and she inhaled a large breath.

"" She made to twist her head to see who was speaking, ""

"What's..." She coughed, then coughed again, and finally a third time she coughed so hard and deeply, the pod fluid came spattering up from her lungs and out over her lips. "What's going on?" The pegasus opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw was her reflection. Her own eyes were looking back at her, and she didn't process it right away, then shrunk back and recoiled away from the mirror, backing up into Meathead.

"What's going on!?" Twisting around, she looked up at Meathead and shrieked, "Agh! Who are you?!"

Grabbing ahold of her emotions, Meathead changed them rather forcefully, bringing them back down to Calm and content, the fear didn't sit well in Meathead's stomach, but he dealt with the inconvenience for now. She swallowed, and took another deep breath, suddenly finding herself not as scared of the creature nursing her. It was extremely important to Meathead to get the first impression right, even if he was uncomfortable.

"<My name is Meathead. I'm a Changeling. We're sort-of Equines, but part insect as well. My friend and I rescued you after you were shot. You've been out for six days now."

"Six...days?" She asked, letting the word rest in her mouth. "What...happened?" Tearing her eyes away from Meathead, then back to the mirror, she looked at her reflection again, and then down to her hooves, patting herself and feeling her chest and barrel. "What did you do to me? What is that?" She said, spinning around the cabin and seeing the Changeling pod, "Where am I?"

Her hoof shot up to her throat and she gasped, she could move, the chains that were around them were gone, and so was the Nuka-World dog collar that used to cut into her neck and rub against her skin. "It's gone." She was elated.

"What happened?" A trickle of fear was working its way back into her conscious, but that was to expected from waking up in an unknown place.

""

"I..." Her thought process stopped dead, "I don't have one. I never got one that I liked."

Not wanting to bring up the subject of her previous captors just yet, Meathead changed the direction of the conversation. ""

Her eyes narrowed, then widened, "Huh...Thunderstruck? Okaaaay?" She was rolling her hoof over, stretching out some more kinks that came with not moving for so long, and mulling over accepting her new name. "I kinda...like it."

Meathead smiled and nodded, ""

"So what happened? What did you do to me?" Thunderstruck asked, she felt clean and fresh. The alien sensation was so foreign, that she never knew she could look like this.

""

Thunderstruck took a step back and expanded her wing, expecting it to hurt, but the look of shock and relief on her face when her wing opened and closed perfectly without any extra strain, she practically sunk to the floor. "What happened to me?"

"" Meathead said, poking the Changeling pod with his hoof. "

"A month...." Thunderstruck looked at herself in the mirror again, frowing, she had a hard time accepting what she looked like, and suddenly found herself tearing up. The last time she looked at herself, she was coated in blood, paint, and other things she didn't want to even think about. Her entire body was sore, and her ribs were showing, but now...

Thunderstruck broke down sobbing, crying out, "What's happening to me?!"

Tears flowed down her face. Meathead came to her side, and she leaned into him, crying into his shoulder. "" Meathead repeated himself over and over again, but Thunderstruck kept crying. She moaned a few times, then kept crying until her sinuses were clogged, snorting to keep breathing. The fur on her cheeks and face was wet with tears, but Meathead held her close, rocking her gently, and letting the pegasus feel happy for what felt like the first time in her life.

"<Wouldn't it be nice if we were older,
Then we wouldn't have to wait so long?"> Meathead sung softly, changing his voice to match Mike Love of the Beach Boys.
"<And wouldn't it be nice to live together,
In the kind of world where we belong?
You know it's gonna make it that much better
When we can say goodnight and stay together.
Oh wouldn't it beee nice?

Thunderstruck wrapped her wings out and around Meathead, embracing him, pulling him closer to hold.

For nearly twenty minutes, she shuddered and sobbed, leaving a streak of tears on Meathead's chitin, but he was patient.

After a while, Thunderstruck stopped crying and slowly lifted her head to meet Meathead's eyes.

"What's happening to me?" She said, swallowing once.

""

Ch. 64 The National Guard

Scouting through binoculars, Nate and Curie both eyed the defunct National Guard Training Yard with caution. All around the perimeter buildings were mounted laser turrets, and a roaming Sentry-Tank. There were corpses of dead feral ghouls, raiders, skeletons, and countless other bodies from people who got too close. The roaming robots left the decomposed remains behind.

"I don't like seeing that many bodies laying around a building." Nate said, but there was obvious attempts at getting inside over the years, and signs that the robots were only activated recently. Knocked over rusted fences, trodded down mud paths, across the yard, office tables and desks piled against the outside to create stepping stones up to the second floor with blown out windows.

The door to the Armory was locked, but that only gave the former soldier even more hope. He was excited, banking on the idea that no one had ever been able to get inside the building since the bombs fell, and if that were the case, then there would be shelves upon shelves of crates absolutely overflowing with ammo, guns, and enough explosives to mount a small war.

"Oh yeah, right there, by the obstacle course," Nate said with a little dejection in his voice, pointing to the robot 100 meters away. "That's an Annihilator Mark II. The one in Concord is nothing compared to that tank on wheels there." As Nate spoke, the sentry-tank patrolled the grounds around the National Guard Center, always on alert. There were a few ghouls lumbering around, and while some were ignored, others were targeted by the tank, and the lights on the visual optics front would turn red.

Missiles were loaded into its arms, then with a barrage of three explosive rounds, the ghoul was blown to smithereens, along with two feet of dirt the ghoul was standing on.

"It would be wise if we avoid the sentry machine with superior firepower."

"That won't be an issue, because I want that tank."

Curie processed Nate's request. "I'm not sure we have the capabilities to accomplish that goal, Nate. What do you intend to do?"

"We hot wire it, but first I want to get into the armory. "

With a screwdriver, a metal bump key, nine bobby pins, the duo was able to unlock the door, the building had listed over time, making it nearly impossible to open the door. The brick and concrete was sinking in on itself, forcing hundreds of pounds of weight all down onto the frame, so as Nate took hold of the handle with both hands, then braced one foot against the wall and heaved backwards, the door barely budged.

Rigging a rope and pulley to Curie's frame, then looping an end around a metal light pole, they were able to drag the door open using some light physics, once it was wide enough for Nate to pass a crowbar through the gap, and Curie using her arms as hydraulic presses, they forced the door open with brute strength.

"Easy, Whoa, whoa...easy. See those?"

All along the hallway at chest and shin height were a dozen laser tripwires, all rigged to one form of security measure or other. Above their heads were laser turrets that were powered down, but looked as if they could turn on any second and be in perfect working condition.

"Miseur Nate, if you do not intend to use firepower against the Annhilator, then what could be in here to help us disable it?"

"Unlike the Mark 1, the Mark 2 has four power cores, and a solid 6 inch plate around it's CPU. Now, what the Chinese figured out is that if you wedge a grenade up under the turret, it blows the casing around the targeting system and cooling manifold right off. But by that time you're dead because the sentry bot's killed you. So it takes a second well placed, more powerful explosive shoved in deeper, to disable it's electronics. I'm just going to go into the back office of the armory and grab the keys to shut it down."

"Oh..." Curie said, strategizing a whole attack plan in her database when Nate said otherwise. "As usual Miseur, the simple solution is often the most easiest."

Taking precaution while moving through the armory, Nate couldn't of been more glad that everything was untouched except for dust. Stacks of crates containing weapons and ammo, enough to arm a small army for a weekend war, was all sitting right here.

Coolly, Nate grabbed the ring of keys sitting in a box on the desk, then detoured on his way back to explore the rooms in the armory. There were five suits of power armor standing perfectly upright, painted Army Green. Nate put one hand out to touch them, and check their model numbers. T-51s, C-class. For Nate, this armor was better than the power armor developed and used during the Sineo-American war, better than the T-45 Iron-Maiden he was ripped out of. This was the finest, and most advanced armor he'd found to date, in pristine condition. On the ground, looking around, there was metal shelves that had three rows of wooden crates all stamped with FCx12.

Cracking the first one open, Nate couldn't believe it, 12 Fusion cores, all still sealed in the box, and there were seven crates.
Stumbling across this gold-mine, he didn't know what to do with it at first, wishing that Curie could wear a suit back to the ship, or Meathead, Piper, or anyone else were here to bask in the joy of finding all these suits of power armor.

As the tank made the next pass around the yard, it rolled right past cement barriers Nate was crouched behind, and waited for the sentry bot's head and bulk of the body to pass by before Nate hopped over the barrier and sprinted up to the backside and jumped onto the back. Hugging the frame, the entire sentry-bot's turret spun 180 degrees, both the machine gun and rocket hub swinging over his head. Pulling his feet in close, he was wrapped around the whole robot, heart pounding. The turret kept swinging back around, and Nate let out a small breath of relief as he flipped a small metal panel off to reveal a key-hole. Pushing it in and turning the lock, the robot's battery terminals were easy to find. Yanking on the wire, twisting it back and forth, the terminal lost contact with the Fusion Core Battery, and the entire tank was shut down.

"-Ahh!" Nate declared, nerves jumping from being that close to a deadly robot. There was the CPU, located next to the fuse box, and encoding himself as a non-hostile took ten minutes of sitting there out in the open, on the side of a tank, waiting for the old-technology to install and update itself.

"Here's hoping." Nate said, turning the tank back on.

\111/

The ceiling of the recruitment center lobby, was caved in to the floor, a large gaping hole in the ceiling showed the offices on the second story. There were two American flags, one on a stand, the other hung up against the wall like a banner, off to the right. The roof of the second floor was showing signs of wear and holes of sunlight spilling through.

Beyond the entrance area where a few chairs lined the perimeter, was a second foyer and receptionist desk, behind the receptionist desk were two dirty, discarded sleeping bags, but they were signs of human presence.

Opposite the receptionist desk was a Commander's Office, and as Nate was rounding the corner, he said "Oh!"
Surprised to see a deceased corpse that wasn't of a ghoul, and wearing the bright clothes of a Brotherhood of Steel Knight, without her power armor.

For a body that was dead for over three years, the body of Knight Astlin was only six-months into decomposing. With high levels of radiation killing the smallest germs and bacteria, her preservation was extended. The muscles and body were dried out, skin like leather, hair like moss. On the shelves next to her was a distress pulser, sending a request for help.

"Oh." Nate said, piecing together the crime scene of Knight Astlin's death. There were dead ghouls around her, and a voracious bite mark out of her abdomen. The gun she used to defend herself was still wrapped around her fingers, the hilt bloody from bashing it into the skull of a ghoul. Her arms were bitten and scratched as well, torn up and gory, but time had congealed the blood into black lines, and withered her skin to be cold, pale, and dry.

'Knight Tara Astlin, Brotherhood of Steel Recon Team 429-Alpha. Serial Number 3431. It's been three hours since I set my distress pulser. There's been no word from the Paladin or Faris. Their objective was a satellite array on the coast, but they may be out of range." She said hopeful. " My orders were to hold this position at all costs. The entire site has been over run."

Stating the facts, there was a definite pause as she thought about the last words to finish the holotape recording with. "The door will not hold out much longer. Paladin Brandis, Sir. It's been an honor, sir."

\111/

The Revere Satellite Array was a tech communication hub for contacting satellites and sending data packs across the world. It was in plain view of the front door of the National Guard Recruiting station, and was a ten minute walk. Designed to be inaccessible to the public, the six satellites, one which had collapsed on itself, were all surrounded by barb wire and an aluminum fence, and access to the facility was limited to one gate. However, since time warps and erodes, there were many gaps in the fences. The back side to the Revere Satellite Array was by waterfront, and where a fence once stood was washed away along time ago.

The Array was occupied by a whole force of super mutants, twenty four, and their dogs. The satellites were perfect observation posts, and could see for miles in every direction. There were no other tall buildings in the area, except for the highway overpass, but sections of it were collapsed and missing.

The two hundred meters to the east, and the closest buildings, was Reeb Marina, which part of the collapsed overpass was now bridging the two properties, and the Revere Beach Station. It was a boardwalk of small shops, cafes, restaurants, arcade, and art stores with a few upper stories for either residents who worked below, or a few beach homes available for rent or vacant for a beach stay.

At the center of the Revere Beach Station was an underground metro station that lead South to the Boston Common, only if sections of the tunnels weren't collapsed, and then North and East to the Boston International Airport.

Occupied by a force of raiders triple the amount of super mutants, fighting between the two groups was an endless daily battle.

Neither side could push the other out, even if the super mutants pushed all the way into their territory, the raiders could fall back into the subway tunnels and force the mutants into a narrow line of fire. At times when the raiders planned together, and went on hunting sprees against the mutants at the satellite array, more would always come within days.

Holding both was a problem, and right now, keeping the mutants numbers down was all they could do as a measure of self-defense. Any losses they incurred was chalked up to being part of the daily struggle.

Avoiding both the satellite array super mutants and the Reeb Marina raiders, Nate formed a plan on how to deal with both. "Curie, we're heading to Bunker Hill, I need to ask a few people some questions."

\111/

Ch. 75 A Genuine Dead Head November 7th

"What we have here..." Nick Valentine said, it only took a few seconds for him to realize why Thunderstruck called him up. The dead body with peculiar red and black clothing lined with pouches. "Is a genuine Brotherhood of Steel Scribe. He was support for the heavies." Nick made a small 'tisk', noting the extent of decay, the lack of skin where flies and maggots had eaten away the most of the flesh, and the dried blood. The skin that remained was dried leather, pulled tight over the bones.

"Curious as to how the mutants never got around to moving the lost soul." Nick Valentine followed the trail backwards from the dead Brotherhood of Steel agent, to the trail of blood left behind on the steps leading up to a small shack integrated to the satellite array, then back to the bullet wound pierced through the leg.

"What we have here..." He said again, then noticing there was something underneath the wounded right leg. Possibly an attempt to elevate it, but instead, Thunderstruck helped Nick lift the body for a moment to see what was under it, and found a holotape recorder. It looked weathered, and dried black blood was still present, bonding to the player.

"I know this man." Nick finally said.

"You do?" Thunderstruck asked.

"Not personally, but, I know he and his team graced Diamond City for a few days some three odd years ago." Nick looked at the eyesockets, how a few strands of hair clung to the head, and the teeth showing through. His eyes drifted down to the dogtags wrapped around his neck, two of them. Nick plucked one off, and looked at the name.

"Could'a maybe only been for a day, but who knows? Scribe Faris, it says. Well. Let's hear what a dying man had to say."

Nick pressed the play button on the recorder, but no sound came out. Popping off the battery panel, a small layer of battery acid was present. Rubbing it off on his jacket, he popped the batteries back in and the reel started moving.

"It's been...two hours since the Paladin left, and I can't staunch the bleeding." There was a noise of air being sucked in through his teeth, and a nervous rattle of a laugh. Bullet must've hit an artery...Brandis. If you get this. I hope you made it back to Astlin at the Guard in time. There was..." The voice went extremely quiet for a moment, completely stopping. "Nothing you could do for me. Get to the bunker up north. You'll survive. That's all..." Another long stop, Faris winded. "That matters."

Nick knocked his knuckles against the wooden beam, "Well, there you go."

"Do you think he meant National Guard?" Thunderstruck asked.

"I would think so, the Training Yard is less than an hour's walk from here. For you, probably fifteen minutes."

"I know Nate was there, not too long ago. I don't remember him saying if they found this Astlin character, or anyone else, but that bunker Faris mentioned has me wondering."

"Well, far from me to deny the truth, but there's only one person who could probably tell you who, what, or where this bunker could be, but I don't know how he stands on synths. Heck, I know Nate stands my company, but he's still a bit leery on the whole issue of how I might be beeming information back to the Institute without knowing it. Hell, a lot of people were like that way when they rolled with me. As for our Brotherhood brother here, are you thinking there might be some good guns laying around?"

"That's what I'm hoping." Thunderstruck said.

"Well, if you want to solve the mystery of the missing patrol, be my guest. You're friends, I don't know if they've mentioned yet, but there's the Brotherhood of Steel camped out in the Cambridge police station. A heavy-hitter type by the name of Paladin Danse. If you want to spend the afternoon tracking down leads, I can escort your friends back to the tower."

"I'd rather make sure they're introduced and settled, before leaving," she said. "But, never hurts to have friends in places you least expect, right?"

"Truer words were never spoken," Nick replied.

"Well, let's head out, I haven't found much here." She said, trotting to the ledge. Expanding her wings she flew out over the Revere satellite array, calling out to Dart and Golden.

"Find Anything?"

"Lots of dead things, but nothing worthwhile!" Golden shouted back. The Revere satellite was more akin to a human slaughterhouse than what it was intended for. Killing the mutants who lived here was a Godsend to the rest of the people in the Commonwealth.

"What about you?"

"I found a rocket laucher, with a missile!" Dart said, setting the weapon over his back with a strap, it slipped suddenly. Dart clung onto it, but with a moment of horror and panic, he accidently fired the missile launcher while trying to prevent it from falling over. It launched at a 30 degree angle where it flew through the air for 200 meters before finally crashing into a cove of trees outside of the satellite array. The explosion obliterated a small hole in the growth, much to the silence of Dart, Golden Grain, Nick, and Thunderstruck.

"Don't worry, I found more missiles!" Dart shouted, smiling up at the pegasus.

"That's not what I'm worried about!" Thunderstruck shouted down, feeling patronized. She landed next to Nick and said, "You know what? I'm pretty sure they can make it from Bunker Hill to the tower on their own. You'll still guide them, wont you? It's a pretty straight shot from here now that everything from the Mill to the ship is dead or occupied."

"I'd be more than happy to," Nick Valentine replied.

"Great, I'll follow you to Bunker hill then split West. I'll be back before you even know I'm gone." Thunderstruck rose both hooves up to the railing and shouted to get their attention. "Hey, knuckleheads! We're moving out! Change of plans, too! I'm taking you to Bunker Hill, then you two and Nick will keep heading South! I'm following a lead to track down some guns! I'll be back before you know it!"

\111/

Of the fifty Railroaders, and the fifteen ponies working alongside them, they all abandoned the Old North Church in haste. Anything resembling a bird within five blocks of the church was shot, and then collected. Small caliber rounds to do the least damage as possible, of 80 birds, seven were synth after being cleaned. This only furthered Nate's point that the Railroad was being watched.

Hunted with a vengence, entire parties moving out of the area in groups of five and six split in all directions, but all in all, a third went to to Vault 75 up in Malden, the rest went to Vault 114 under the Boston Common. Only a handful of people and two ponies stayed in the Old North Church, lighting candles and lanterns, making the entire neighbor hood seem much more active than it was. False sentries, the same core group of Railroaders doing double time walks that covered more area, all to attract and fool Institute attention.

"Why do I always have to be the pack animal?" Santo asked, carrying 400 pounds of gear and moving at a steady trot.

"Because, it's always a good cover for the rest of us to appear as traders, and you can carry four hundred pounds of gear without breaking a sweat." Drummer Boy said.

"I sweat! But at least pony sweat doesn't stink as bad as human sweat with all the alcohol and meat oozing out your pores! Here's a better question, why does Desdemona think I need to go with you?"

"That, you'll have to ask her yourself, but one, you need more above ground experience, and two, of all the ponies, you're the only one who can teleport herself back to base with information," Tinker Tom replied.

"What about Bottle Cap? He's stronger than me and is great with his horn, I've been teaching him how to teleport."

"We've seen it, he's great at moving cargo, strong telekinesis, and battle magic, but he can teleport all of twenty feet before getting winded," Deacon said.

"It's not my fault he doesn't practice! Pine Berry, Mango Blast, Logic Gate, Lemon Balm, Breaker Point, anyone of them great at magic, why do I have to go with you?"

"Familiarity and you're the only one calm enough not to panic when it comes to fighting. The other ponies are great at what they do, but they're still a bit traumatized from Nuka-World. You're the only one that's bounced back faster than them."

"Fuck you, Deacon, I'm halfway traumatized every time we have to walk from one side of Boston to the other; Mutant hanging meat bags, roving packs of feral dogs, getting shot at by raiders... Why do they feel the need to decorate by suspending a headless body between chains?! It seems like they're putting way too much effort into punishing someone, and then making an example out of it...! Look at that! What's with the ghoul?"

A Moldovite Ghoul with crystals embedded into its flesh staggered through the streets, "Like what the hell happened to this one? It looks like he's got rocks shoved into him."

"I'll take care of him." Drummer Boy said, raising his carbine rifle. Checking to make sure there weren't more approaching, he lined up the sights and fired. They all heard the bullet hit the ghoul, but it struck the Moldovite crystals, embedding itself within and chipping off the crystal.

Enraged, the ghoul lurched at them, hustling down the street towards them, Drummer Boy fired four more times, missing half his shots. Deacon aimed a laser rifle at the ghoul when it got closer, and didn't hesitate to help finish off the ghoul. After firing once, the beam of laser bounced off and lanced the ground. "What the Hell?" He cursed, firing again to make sure it wasn't a fluke.

Six more bullets, and seven blasts from Deacon's laser rifle to bring the ghoul down, Tinker Tom, Drummer Boy, Santo, and Deacon all observed the crystals redirect the laser's energy.

"Holy smokes, this ghoul was impervious to lasers." Deacon said

"Well...shit. I could make some badass armor from that. Synths wouldn't stand a chance." Tinker Tom said, already thinking of the possibilities.

"Drummer Boy, run ahead to the Boston Common with Santo. Tinker, let's see what we can pull off this ghoul."

\111/

"Well, that was a bust." Serin Copper said, "We ditched Curie, and half of the stuff we found."

"She's a robot, I don't know how they think, but when it comes to self-preservation, we all set that goal pretty high up on the list." Hollow Point added, "We told her we were leaving, she decided to stay at the Hospital. There wasn't anything more we could do. A raider made its way in, and proved a point we weren't willing to admit. That we're not cut out to be living in the big city. We gave it a shot, and ended up bolting when we could've taken him on. Thinking back on it, he was bleeding, but instead of taking advantage of an easy fight, we ran."

"It also made sense of why the streets were so quiet this morning. They were all gearing up, getting into position for the Gunners come back on their vertibird. The people we passed must've been lookouts." Warner said.

"So where do we go from here? Back to the ship?"

"Yeah. We've got a bundle of medicine and texts that the human wanted, it'll be enough to buy ourselves some good graces. Then, when they show back up, we'll ask about getting out into the countryside where there's less conflicts going on." Hollow Point said, rising her haunches to readjust the pack on her back.

"Wont the human be mad we ditched his robot?" Warner asked.

"Probably, but unless we want to turn back now, there's nothing else we can do about it." Copper replied.

"Well, what if we could? I don't know about you, but even though we were scared, we could still turn this around. I'm going back for the robot."

"We shouldn't split up."

Hollow Point shrugged, "We shouldn't, but a group draws more attention on the streets." Undoing her bags, she took them off and passed them to Warner. Only grabbing her one gun, she said, "I'll be quick."

Galloping at full speed back to the Mass Bay Medical, she swore she could hear a few gunshots follow her, bullets pinging off the ground, or cars as she sprinted by them, but that only made her keep up her frantic pace. When she came to a slow trot outside of the emergency drop-off area, she breathed deeply, knowing that she made it. Planning an alternate route in her head, she and Curie would need to avoid the same road going back.

Careful not to call out the Miss Nanny bot's name, she passed through the open doors and into the dilapidated waiting area. There were signs that the fighting spread through all sections of the hospital, cartridges littered the floor, the walls were more torn up, pieces of ceiling were hanging down.

Hollow Point froze after coming across a few bodies, slumped over without the life in them anymore. Sprawled out on the ground, it was difficult not to see the bits of body blown out of them, spread across the walls and floor.

Carefully making her way to the E.R., she stopped when there was a Gunner waiting, having heard her hooves against the linoleum floor. He was completely dark, but there was a weariness to his form. He'd been sitting there for a long time, only to catch his breath after the hours of fighting and loud noises. He was breathing hard, expecting something to come into his vision, but he halted when seeing the pony. He raised, then lowered his rifle, arm giving out from exhaustion. He couldn't shoot anymore. His ears were ringing too much.

His hand seized, an instinctual twitch, finger pulling the trigger, he shot at the floor, letting the recoil buck and jerk his arm upwards, but Hollow Point threw herself to the side of the hallway, firing eight shots back. Most of the bullets missed, but three struck him. Causing him to fall over backwards and loudly thump against the ground. There was no final words uttered, last breath, he was dead. The Gunner felt dead long before Hollow Point even arrived, thinking how could he be alive after so long?

Jittery, Hollow Point realized she needed coverings for her hooves, to soften the noise. Without any immediate quick-fixes for her situation, she moved slower through the hallways, feeling bits of dirt and tile crunch under the weight of her hooves.

Upon reaching the ward where she last saw Curie, she took her time getting in, but a voice called out. "Hey, who's there? Answer me!"

With no other choice but to respond, or potentially face getting another burst of gunfire directed right at her, she called back, "Hollow Point! I'm here for Curie."

The doors parted a few inches, and the person on the other side examined her. "You're a pony."

"Yes."

"I saw you this morning when you all walked by." The doors opened a little more, and the woman raider with the black hair was illuminated by her plasma rifle she carried. Her arms were wrapped in bandages, her right arm in a sling, with the left arm handling the weight of the rifle in one hand.

She hadn't opened the doors any further, and seemed stuck in her head.

"What's your name?" Hollow Point asked.

"Shaia."

"Is the Miss Nanny bot still here? We had to separate a little bit ago. I need to know she's okay."

"Was that you shooting just now?"

"Yes. There was a gunner who was downstairs. Like he was confused or something. Out of it. That was the only one I've seen so far."

"You killed him?"

"Yes. He's dead."

"They killed 20 of us. Eight damn Gunners killed almost all of us, there were two left. How did you kill one?"

"Caught him off guard, if it weren't for you wearing him out, he would've shot me dead. Was Curie helping you?"

Shaia let out a held in breath, pushing the door open fully. "Yes. She's still here. She's packing up. I tried convincing her to stay, but there's only a handful of us still mobile. I don't want to trigger her, but she's too valuable to lose. Who do you belong to?"

"I...don't..." The question caught her off guard, "The Vault Dweller. He has the rights to us and the robot."

"The vault dweller? I heard of him, how he cleared about a bunch of mutants to the north. Took out a couple groups of humans too. I was there when they hung Kellogg." Shaia said, she was intermixed with the crowds of people who all gathered there over a week ago when the Institute agent was hung off the Mass Fusion tower.

"Then, you should know he's easy to work with, so long as you don't threaten him, he's a man of his word." Looking past Shaia, she saw Curie puttering around, bundling the items they'd left behind together into a big blanket. "Look, I know you don't want to let her leave, but the Vault Dweller's got a vested interest in making sure Curie helps her, especially since finding the data from the Auto-Docs that let her perform surgeries. Maybe I can help you work something out with the two of them?"

"I want to say no, but we're not in the position to say so. What do you have in mind, little lady?"

"A partnership. The Vault Dweller is going to be coming back this way, and he enjoys being able to go where he likes without being shot at. Curie listens to him, and follows him. They're both extremely smart, and can get you more territory from the Gunners. Where are you based out of?"

"Right here. This hospital is now ours. Used to be the Metro Station below this place, but the Gunner's kept butting in on us. They couldn't drive us out of the tunnels and they knew it, so when they left in their little birdy, we moved up and waited for them to come back."

"Are there any more people in your gang?"

"Another fifteen of us back down in the station, holding out."

"I can't speak for Curie, but I know she wont be anchored down to one spot for too long. Let her go, if we can make sure anytime you or anyone in your gang needs her, then she wont say no to helping people in need. But, we need to know who our allies are."

"I lost too many men, and too much blood to say yes. We need something strong to defend this place and more people."

"Then how about this, I put you in touch with a group up near Goodneighbor? They got people, and are sitting pretty comfy ever since the Vault Dweller carved out Faneuil Hall from the mutants. If you think about it, that gives you a straight shot all the way from here to Bunker Hill if you look at a map. That's a nice little strip you can have traders and caravans come along. We came down along the waterfront, and you know what I saw? The Harbormaster hotel was full of dead Gunners, and the Shamrock Taphouse littered with bits and pieces of dead mutants. Who do you think did that? I'll give you one guess. That's a lot of territory, and we need you to protect it. That's a lot of open area for scavengers to pick through and you can charge protection to any caravans running through your territory."

"You almost make it sound like you know what you're talking about. Alright, little lady. We'll do it. If you get caravans to stop by, we get the waterfront, and we'll consider you and the Vault Dweller persona grata to our gang. But, you need to get him to come by and seal the deal. I want him and a caravan right outside these doors to make it official."

"Deal."

"You know about the mutant fights Tommy's got going? Got a good line for a fighter he has. Hasn't disappointed in a long while now."

"No, where's this at?"

"The Combat Zone, pitting fighters against whatever his boys drag in from around the Commonwealth. But, judging from the scars on you, I'm sure you know all about that?"

The scars on Hollow Point, Cherry Fizz, Warner, and Serin Copper were all from being whipped and beaten relentlessly by the raiders at Libertalia, "I do, I do everything I'm told, and then still torn to shreds by asshats who can't fend for themselves. That's why when the Vault Dweller bought us, he paid with iron and their blood, not caps. He dragged the leader James Wire of Libertalia all the way across the bay, to get stabbed to death by a pony in front of everyone at Goodneighbor."

"Seems like this Vault Dweller has got a sense of justice. Trying to lay down the pressure, is he?"

"It depends, did you ever roast one of us alive and treat everyone to a big pony barbeque, or do you have enough sense not to kill your pack animals?"

"I ain't seen enough of you to know, but if you're packing, then that's weight off my back."

"Glad you agree." Hollow Point said.

Breaking away from Shaia, this who conversation left her rattled. A bluff lead to a deal that she didn't know she could make, or even pass. Then the whole dog-eat-dog, eat or be eaten mentality nearly made her break. It was like jumping through mental hoops with these humans, all probing and testing for weaknesses at any moment. If Serin or Warner came with her, she had no doubts one of them would've been turned into food for a gang of raiders that were hungry after a big battle like this. Hollow Point felt her heart beating in her throat, and was trying to swallow the lump back down.

"Curie." She said, watching the Miss Nanny bot tie the blanket of leftover supplies into a big hobo sack. Her eye cones swung around to see Hollow Point, picking up the bag.

"Ah, mon amie, so good to see you. Are you well?"

"Yes, Curie, I am. I see you were quite busy."

"Oh yes, it was quite the learning experience translating what the Auto-Doc described, and implementing it in real life. I picked up an upgrade for myself as well," She said, blinking twice, the x-ray lens replaced her middle eye cone for a moment before switching back. "Now I can take x-rays on the go and develop them all in my head! Isn't that wonderful?"

Hollow Point nodded, "That really is, I wanted to make sure you were safe. Sorry for abandoning you earlier, things were tense with all the shooting going on around us."

"Anycase, I'm glad you've returned. I know Monsiuer Nate would be extremely happy to know of all the information I've picked up since our last encounter."

"I'm sure he'll be ecstatic, Curie. Are you ready to leave? Do you need a hand with that?"

"Oh, I'm quite capable, thank you though. Shall we be leaving now?"

"Yes, let's..."

\111/

Ch. 91 The Alicorn of Intelligence

Thunderstruck climbed the steps leading to the front door of house number five in Tranquility Lane, there were a few 'I' placards, or symbols to fit the theme of SPECIAL. How this was supposed to be the home to the Alicorn of Intelligence, but even with Adam the Ant's greeting and explanation of why they were here. Thunderstruck felt there wasn't any glaring points in her life that would rank her as the smartest pony around, let alone be worthy of the title of Alicorn of Intelligence.

"Alright, what's the reason? What makes me so smart?" Thunderstruck asked, reaching up and pressing on the latch to open the front door, she saw a normal foyer, hallway, living room and kitchen in the rear of the home, and as Adam the Ant described, there were framed pictures hanging up all along the hallway leading to the kitchen. Connecting the living room and kitchen was a dining room. A small simple four room layout with a tucked away bathroom and closet downstairs and an unexplored upstairs.

Passing over the threshold, Thunderstruck was suddenly disjointed from reality for a moment as the hallway grew hundreds of meters longer, the walls disappearing, but the pictures remained where they were, hovering in place. They seemed to glow, then grow larger as the pictures themselves started moving, bits and pieces of memories coming to life.

Thunderstruck only felt herself moving forwards, drawing closer to examine the first picture frame.

When she was a filly, her father and mother raised her and her four siblings all together on farm by the coast. Her father Black Ice was a earth pony, and mother Live Wire was a unicorn, her sister Bonnie was a Unicorn as well as their brother War Machine. Heat Seeker was an Earth Pony, while Lotta Rosie and Thunderstruck were both Pegasus.

There were other ponies to that she recognized, but their names completely eluded her. Ponies she was sure that were aunts and uncles on both sides, and she remembered cousins as well, but as they grew up, the home they were living in became to cramped and small, and both of their parents talked about them one day leaving the nest.

Her parents made water purifiers, showing them how to make fresh clean water and remove the radiation and any other toxins from the water before drinking, cooking, washing, or bathing in it. When Lotta and Thunder were born, their parents encourage the both of them by teaching them about the cycle of rain water and how to collect it. While Lotta could always get larger chunks of clouds, Thunderstruck was much faster.

Every day, her parents told her how important all of them were in helping with the cycle of rain to wash away the gunk covering the planet, and that with enough ponies working together, they could make lives better for a lot of people and ponies.

That was her life as a filly, helping her parents sell water, and watching her father go out and make filters, digging out wells, installing pipes. Her mother raised the five of them, walking them far around their home out through hills, up the coast, to the water's edge, letting them travel far and roam around exploring. Live Wire and Black Ice were one of the only families to have running water in their own home, and it was thanks to a electric box her mother knew how to make an electric water pump from scratch. She remebered her father leaving to go make or find more to keep working, and her mother always being there.

Her shared room came to mind, her and her sister Bonnie. The saddest memory came back as Bonnie was six when a cart accidentally rolled backwards and she was standing right behind it. Crushed her leg and stomach, pinched her between a hard place and the heavy cart, Bonnie ended up dying.

"Bonnie." Thunderstruck said, voice high-pitched and squeaky. Looking at her little sister, Thunderstruck was sad that this was the limit to how far her sister could grow up, but at the same time, seeing her now, she broke down in tears at how well the memory held up and how this place brought all those details back with such vivid detail she could reach out and touch her sister and feel the same hairs. The smell of her sister's fur really set her off though, the light-blue coat, white mane, green eyes, she couldn't believe how long it'd been since she thought about her sibling and was sorry for not thinking of her more. They sung songs, played games, but that memory of childhood stayed where it was, in the past.

\111/

The time Thunderstruck got her cutie mark, she was playing with clouds, jumping up and down on top of one like a bed or a trampoline, oblivious to the darkening thunderhead until as great big tremendous zap lightly shocked her hooves, but unleashed a lightning bolt that startled everyone and burned a small hole in their yard, but the feeling was so overwhelming and surprising, that when the thunderclap disappeared, she couldn't help but burst out laughing. Everyone's surprised face, she didn't know her own hair and mane was standing up on its end from all the static energy built-up, followed by the cloud raining itself out. It took someone else in her family pointing out that she got her Cutie Mark then and remembered smiling and being happy for a long time.

\111/

Nuka-World didn't come until years later, when there was a big community push. There were boring parts of her memories where she and her siblings followed her parents to a larger meeting hall in an old town, with humans and ponies coming together to lay out plans to retake Nuka-World. It was abandoned, nobody except ghouls and monsters were still holed up in the irradiated park, but with both humans and ponies working together, they were outlining details of progression and advancement.

They outlined all the fields, the proposed projects, housing, buildings, food, water, resources, caps, and how long it would take to finish each stage. Step one of course was to get a foothold in the main entrance, since the largest problem before anyone even attempted to move in was the pre-war ghouls still at the park.

Of 22,000 attendees in the first few hours of opening, over 2,000 ghouls still survived, adding in all the workers and staff operating the park as well, the amount of ins and outs, tunnels, gates, and figuring all of this out took years before they even announced how they were going to deal with the infestation and radiation problems.

Thunderstruck was a teenager when they first broke ground outside of Nuka-World. A small tent city that needed water and food, guns, ammo, and building supplies. Something Thunderstruck knew how to make and gather with her own hooves, she felt that she was always going to be needed for something, and that the ultimate truth in life was that a pony could go a long time without eating, but everyone needed to drink water.

All four of them migrated towards Nuka-World, there from the beginning with other ponies and humans living alongside each other. For years, they lived selling water for caps, and it was easy to build up a life doing that. Simple, good neighbors, good company, close family, there was a part of her that thought it was going to be easy.

\111/

The next memory was of the pony exodus migration from Vault 97, the Equestrian vault North of Springfield, Massachusetts. She was told almost all ponies in the state came from a single vault, but it had to open less than fifty years after the bombs fell to encourage genetic diversity to prevent inbreeding across generations. She was told this is where her grandparents came from.

Ponies coming from there were a weird group, but as she saw the memory replay itself, she realized why they were acting weird. They were driven from Vault 97 by raiders, over 30 miles away and relocated here to get away from the fighting and unsafe environment.

She should've realized then that was the first red flag on the horizon, the first warning sign that things weren't well for ponies. Her parents managed to provide a fantastic home for her and her siblings to grow up in, and traveling exposed her to not be afraid of humans, but with this fearlessness came with a lack of urgency when it came to actual threats. She didn't know how to identify them at first, which was the real issue.

The more ponies she got to know and parties she met up with, groups and families, she and the rest of her siblings all went their own separate ways, always meeting back up again, but growing in their own right.

There was all this build up of energy and emotion, and like a wave it carried them into the Nuka-World parks and sustained them for a whole year, even as the red flags all around them closed in.

Thunderstruck saw as the raiders showed up quickly, and then left. That was the one thing that stood out to her, how for a year before the gangs took over Nuka-World, things were changing inside. Gangs were pushing closer and closer to the into the valley, stories of how the passes were becoming less safe to travel at night, then leaked over into the day as well, soon enough people were hiring protection from point to point.

Thunderstruck met her first boyfriend a few months before this, but any chance of romance was ripped apart the day Nuka-World was taken over. It was not a memory she wanted to relive, nor the 13 months that followed.

\111/

September 22, 2277

They were running at Nuka world in a swarm of 500 raiders from over three separate gangs that all banded together for this insane attack. These weren't regular raiders either, coordinated, armed, driven, they ran through the gates and went for their food supplies first, then shooting at anyone with a gun in their hands, the whole invasion took less than two hours, but was a small massacre of 34 people and ponies, but things only turned from terrible, to miserable after that.

Marauding ponies were part of these gangs as well, but they were savage and nearly feral with thought. The way they attacked was with hooked or barbed ropes to lasso a pony or drive them down. They ran in and before Thunderstruck could even get a word off, four ponies she never saw in her life were beating her senseless, only to drag her out into the street and force themselves on her. She was kicked repeatedly, forced to crawl, her wings pulled, feathers ripped out, hair ripped from the roots. The Pack animals would fire off rounds and then press the white hot tip into her side and laugh as she screamed. It was all amusement to them, no words or pleading ever changed their mind or got through their skulls that they were causing pain and misfortune on everyone around them, even other members of their gang.

The only way she was able to get away from being raped was because three humans and two ponies all tried to kill each other just to get to her. Even then her modesty was far from spared, and she was beaten down to the point of breaking, not once could she ever figure out what caused them to act this way, to be this depraved and senselessly violent.

Thirteen months of torture, and she was still one of the ones who got to live.

The word slave got thrown at her so many times, she hated hearing the word. She hadn't flown in weeks, and was trapped backstage in the Pack's Ampitheater, and then dragged out to work at gunpoint, or even thrown on stage and forced to fight.

The worst part was the bomb and shock collars. She remembered the face of the man who put it on her and burned the image into her brain from memory, swearing to personally escort this one man to the lowest level of hell with a shovel in tow, bury him in the burning pits, and leave an unmarked grave for the evil, chaotic bastard to be forgotten for the rest of time. It was the least she could do for all the misery and fearful nights spent unable to sleep, terrified that the collar around their neck would detonate at any moment.

The same man detonated them indiscriminately, never showing any signs of how the ponies could act without being put at risk. There was never a set code or rules to follow, only the whims of a laughing devil.

There were truly evil people who wanted to spread as much fear, misery, and degeneracy as their terrible lives would allow, and would go out of their way and take losses every day than change their ways.

She was beyond relieved as she shut her eyes to the memory, and heard the familiar sound of the X-2 Rockets firing off on October 26th, 2278.

It was the most freeing noise she ever heard, it happened in the middle of the day when all the pegasus were being taken across the arcade to work on one of the five parks making up Nuka-World. That particular day, they were being shuffled over towards Safari Adventure Park, where a family of gryphons were holed up since day 1 of the Invasion, and were using the animals there as a food source.

The Pack raiders weren't smart enough to be trusted with a remote control to bomb collars, and that was their saving grace when the collars came off, and leashes instead linked them all together in a chain gang as they were trundled across the arcade to Safari Adventure.

The animals in Safari Adventure were beyond heavily radiated, monsters in size, like Deathclaws, only their heads were different. Gatorclaws, she remembered them being called. At night or in the heat of the day, the Gator claws were innactive, sedately reacting only to anything unless it came close enough to strike at. You could get right up next to them, but any sudden moves or loud noises instantly changed all that.

The X-2 Rocket blaster shook Nuka-World and woke all the Gatorclaws up at once. Twenty of them all going after the raiders on the ground,

Thunderstruck saw the Gatorclaws stirring, and was already off the chain-leash, having been turned free just moments before when the impossible noise distracted everyone at Nuka-World.

The next five minutes were the fastest in her life, after 13 months of inactivity and waiting for these moments, Thunderstruck tackled the one raider from behind, seeing her sister Lotta tearing at the cuffs around her hooves, she ripped the skin around her wrists and the bloody shackles fell away as she freed herself through brute force. She and thirteen others were all given a chance to run, and they took it.

As the shock wore off, and the marauders realized their animal slaves were escaping to their freedom, they shot them down. Refusing to let them leave, and unwilling to let them taste freedom either, Thunderstruck and Lotta swore not to look back. No matter what, don't look back.

The laughing devil was behind them.

Thunderstruck slammed her hooves into the memory, shattering it as she was suddenly embraced in warm arms around her.

She was an empty vessel when Nate and Meathead picked her up off the roof of the Atomatoys HQ, soaking wet and shot, Thunderstruck was breathing quickly, but couldn't resist as hot water was poured over her mane, fingers mussing through her mane to remove any knots or bugs, Shaking loose dirt and blood, Meathead cleaned Thunderstuck with every careful intention and selfless thought.

Thunderstruck saw what she looked like the day she escaped Nuka-World and didn't recognize the mare, it didn't even look like a pony or a pegasus, a skin-and-bones animal lousy with patches of fur missing. Cutie Mark non-recognizable, chafe around her neck,

Meathead was an unexpected encounter in her life, he saw her from Diamond City, and followed her because of his fascination and admiration of Equestrians. He looked at her the same way her parents did, with that look of knowing she had unlimited potential, able to move the skies and bring so much for everyone by working together.

Watching herself shed and grow in the Changeling pod, it was a unique experience of feeling her stress wash away, the scars of the raiders from Nuka-World fade, the one physical memory she felt was the experience of being full. The last six days of her life from the moment she was pulled free from the pod, she felt nothing but love, joy, happiness she hadn't experienced in so long, sadness where she could cry and let the mourning properly take place without being struck or yelled at, or told to shut up and be quiet. Meathead knew exactly how Thunderstruck felt at every moment of the day and did everything he could to bring out the positive emotions in her.

She didn't realize it back then, but seeing the memory replay now made her want to wrap her hooves around the changeling and pull him into a hug. Thunderstruck told herself to thank Meathead when she saw him again. Changeling magic helped tamper the strength of the negative emotions trapping her, preventing her from acting, and now as the events of the last week played out infront of her, she felt like she was looking at the backside of her head.

Rescuing Cherry Fizz from Libertalia on the 4th of November, the death of James Wire on the 5th, Serin Copper, Warner, and Hollow Point all gathering supplies to move on the 6th, their trek North with Nick Valentine, fighting the Gunners, the mutants, and the Forged Raiders, then the caravan across the Commonwealth on the 7th where they met Jackson and his group Zoe, Ada, and Hertz. The arrival of Cait and Leighla, fighting the Mechanist bots, and then the arrival of Crab Cake, Poppy Cake, Sea Shell and Tin Hut on the 8th. Then all of today on November 9th.

She had a long busy six days since then.

Her fight with Sparks, she rembered not getting angry at the power-armored covered pegasus, only frustrated that she didn't allow reason or was willing to listen and had to resort to fighting. It seemed like a waste of time and effort as she watched the battle replay, which was maybe why she wasn't trying to kill the Pegasus, only knock her down long enough so they could stop more pain and suffering from being spread.

All she wanted to do her whole life was to create a place like her parents had, a home that was welcoming and inviting. A place where ponies could do what they've always done without the force of threats behind them. It was that love she felt coming from all around her that made her want to chase after it.

That feeling of being cared for, unsolicited sympathy and love only came from four faces and names in her life. Live Wire, her mother, Black Ice, her father, and then from Nate, and Meathead the Changeling.

"Life can be..." It was hard to say better, but even her brief converstaion with Adam the Ant stirred her towards rethinking how she saw life. Life can be both good and bad, but that doesn't mean she had to let the pain of the past and present make her suffer in the future.

She wanted to tell others that as well, bring more ponies to the safe haven of Sanctuary Hills so that one day they too could feel that same way.

"Life is."

\111/

At the end of the hallway, the endless expanse of her memories faded and she was standing in a small kitchen with a stove, sliding glass door out to the backyard, table that could seat four, and a small island in the middle with counters and a sink. Refridgerator and appliances, there was a tea-kettle on the stove that was finished steaming and around the kitchen table, separate from the dining room, was Princess Twilight Sparkle brewing a tea-pot with two mugs sitting on coasters and a knit tea-cozy over the pot to keep it warm or prevent their hooves from being burned.

"I hope you don't mind I made some tea for the two of us, my name is Princess Twilight Sparkle. I'm the Alicorn of Magic. I'm the one who crafted this whole spell matrix were living inside of right now."

Thunderstruck didn't know what to say at first, and Twilight picked up on her hesitation, "I was just looking over your book here of everything you've done in your life, and I have to hoof it to you, you're a pretty smart cookie."

"Am I really bound to be the Alicorn of Intelligence? Why? I don't feel...that smart."

"Smarts and Intelligence are two vastly different things. It's how we apply our intelligence and our skills, our knowledge and experience that displays intellect. A pony can be incredibly smart, but have no intelligence on how to use and apply their accumulated knowledge, while as any creature in the world can be intelligent and even lack a brain." Princess Twilight said, taking her tea and sipping it.

"Intelligence is all relative to what we consider useful or applicable to our lives. I know that you are the best candidate for Alicornhood because of how you treat others, and want to be treated, because you are special. You were born instilled with hope and longing for a peaceful life, not to better the world, or seek conquest, but to just make life better for those around you. Since then, you've been a magnet for attracting more ponies to you and doubting if all this effort you've been putting into making things work were for naught. I'm here to tell you it's okay to have doubts, it's okay to be scared or worried, because I've seen you overcome and break free of those bonds holding you back time and time again. This is a step in a different direction than what you normally would've chosen in life, but one that can be utilized properly who knows what needs to be done to improve not only herself, where every task and motion around you is done with full conscious devotion, mindfullness and thought. Once we acheive those goals, we realize we want to share and bring others to that level of awareness as well."

"What makes me intelligent?" Thunderstruck asked, "I...know a little bit about computers, I...know math, and how to read...how to build and a hoofful of other things but am I really the smartest pony for the job?"

"Thunderstruck, I'm glad you asked that, because when I was becoming the Alicorn of Magic, I too thought that there must've been some kind of cosmic mistake. I felt confused, unsure of myself, heavily doubted myself at first, and tried to downplay how much magical reserves I suddenly had access to. It's normal not to feel comfortable at first, this is an entirely new experience, and change is a constant in life with this being a massive one that intends to lengthen yours considerably. I don't get to choose who gets to be Alicorn of what, Thunderstruck. All I can do is set the conditions for a pony to become one, and hope that it grows. Even trying to seed Alicornism and set the conditions on Equestria, we still have yet to introduce any more Alicorns to our world in 282 years. That is why I suspect the efforts of SPECIAL will also result in a 'reversal of the scales', where the cycle of Alicornism is expected to drop significantly to Equestrian levels after SPECIAL achieves its first goal of uniting together."

"So were still waiting then?"

"Yes. We're still waiting for the last two Alicorns to be born."

"What happens when you say the scales tip back the other way...what's that mean?"

"Something you should expect, Thunderstruck. That as you've gotten stronger, the foes you face, the ease at which problems come and go, the amount of energy it takes to deal with larger and larger issues. Even now I'm presented with challenges and threats that seem insurmountable, but with the friendships I've built up over the years, the experiences shared along the way, these tasks don't feel all that overwhelming looking back at what's been accomplished before. Yes you will be going against people and monsters taller than you, stronger, or smarter, but your own skills and learning will scale to meet any problem laying infront of you. I want you to be the Alicorn of Intelligence, Thunderstruck, I believe that you are here for that reason, and I'm here to help you with moving into that next stage of life."

"And what's that supposed to look like?"

"Even after you ascend to Alicornhood, you'll still face creatures and groups that will challenge you because they want to prove that their bonds and power is greater than your own. Whether you spend your life being humble, or egotistical, the universe seems to introduce you to people who constantly challenge you and your character. Even after assembling, there will be a equally large pushback of force that says not to go down this road anymore, to give into their path and follow a different one, denying you of your capabilities."

"Was I really about to die? I wasn't hurt. I won my battle against the other pegasus...I performed a sonic boom with my sword breaking the air-resistance infront of me to burst the massive raincloud."

"That's an interesting dilemma, but not one for Adam to decide. For he wasn't there. Adam was formidable in his own right, but like all heros, they're fading rapidly to myth and legend. Adam the Ant, as well as the rest of the SPECIAL Alicorns need to remeber that you forget. That memories are only as clear as they are from one perspective. He says his body was vaporized mid-flight after detonating a nuclear warhead. But...how was he able to trigger the bomb?"

"He would've had to get infront of it...punching it wouldn't of worked...or grabbing onto it and changing it's flight path. Forcing its trajectory straight down to the ground. Unless he had a trigger for that specific warhead...I don't...know?"

"So after changing the trajectory of one outcome, why not use his wings and fly away? You see, the paths of many people and the tools they use go in every direction across the whole planet and beyond. We all have a path in life, and right now, our two paths are running parallel to each other for this brief moment of time. We are not immortal. But Adam the Ant went through great strife to acheive what he has done. He endured a great amount of suffering and pain, loss, heartbreak, and still carries on. In a way, he has died. He remembers what the past did to him, and died in that moment. He feels that what would've killed a regular person happened to him. Only, he survived, and because of that, he may feel that he is dead, yet still alive. He's dealing with the trauma of that. We are not immortal, we are not perfect, we are falable, and it will take more than one time casting the grand spell to fix the earth. Small actions of the individual can help raise up others around you. Disagreements can be resolved, perspectives can change, healing can happen if we allow them and acknowledge we are bound to live long lives. How you spend the next millenia will be up to you. Happy, sad, excited, angry, joyous, jealous, wistful, mournful, exuberant, vengeful, or loving, those are phases and emotions that we can choose to balance and decide which ones wash over us like waves, and then recede back into the sea."

"So...I didn't die...?"

Princess Twilight laughed, "You're still here, talking to me, aren't you? I don't think that would happen if you were dead."

Princess Twilight poured the tea, "Which is why I brought along the keys to this place and turned on the lights for you. Furnace is on, electricity works, thermostat for central heating, upstairs bed and bathroom, guest room, along with basement storage too."

"Why the superficiality?"

"Because when I was designing this place, I wanted this place to have a certain feel to it. A type of warmth that could only be found in a neighborhood where ponies and people could come together and play or sit and read, enjoying the afternoon sun. A paradise with only minor inconvenience to remind Alicorns and everyone who came here that as powerful as we are, we still rely on others to get small jobs done. You can invite ponies here, for a bit, but they too must eventually return home. Growing up, I believed in being a perfectionist, that everything needed to be perfect, which slowed me down considerably. Too much time spent on trying to get details that weren't even mentioned in history books to please others in the moment, which is why all of Tranquility Lane is the way it is. It's not perfect, but it will accomplish the job and fulfill the needs of everything residents will need for their time here. I remember moving out my first time, how I thought my first home would be my forever home." Princess Twilight took a moment to reflect on her past dwellings, "It's not permanent, but I wanted to make it inviting as I could be for the time being."

"Thank you," Thunderstruck said, accepting the mug of tea.

"My greatest challenge now is finding all seven of you. I feel like I've been sailing through a cosmic ocean aboard the Pequod, and when one of you rises from the deep, I can't help but give chase with all my effort because of how excited I am. I just have to remember not to get over-involved, otherwise I'd end up dragging myself down too."

It was a clay mug, cast over and shiny, textured to fit in the frog of her hoof, without a handle on the cup. The scent wafting up was floral and berry, sweetened with dried fruit and honey, the orangish-red tea swirled around in her glass before sipping it. Taking the tiny vapors of steam off the top of the mug, she could feel the beginning of a tiny cloud forming in the palm of her hoof. Princess Twilight was observing her, smiling and laughing as the tiny raincloud appeared over the cup.

"There she blows," Twilight chuckled, "There she blows," She quoted again, drawing energy into her horn, Princess Twilight was building up energy to a spell, "A hump like a snow-hill. It is Moby Dick."

Pointing down to the mug, Thunderstruck saw all of the Charles Bay and all of Boston. She didn't know what a whale was, but an object the size of one was swimming in the Charles Bay rose to the surface and breached.

Thunderstruck felt the whole ocean inside her cup expand and grow, touching the top of the tiny cloud it thundered and struck lightning, while Thunderstruck fell into the waves of tea.

Plunging down she could feel the base of her forehead grow heavy, like a harpoon-lance growing out the tip of her skull.

She was falling again, down through the clouds, the lightning coursing and crashing all around her, down past the clouds, down past the skyscrapers. Through the air and through the roof of the Robco factory where an enormous ball of plasma branched out and struck all the electric machines, causing a blackout from the overloaded circuits.

\111/

Author's Note

Merry Christmas