"There's something off about your, uh, friend," Arcade starts. The ex-sniper looks over his sunglasses at him.
"What makes you say that?" They both look over to the woman playing with the children the Followers had taken in. She's laughing, holding one of the smaller ones upside-down by their ankles. The child laughs gleefully when she gently sets him down.
"Well, she seems to remember a different history," Arcade states. Boone grunts, and the doctor takes that as a cue to continue. "Her divergence occurs in the 1960s. She remembers men named Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong landing on the moon. But in all of the books I've referenced, no such men existed. They list Richard Wade, Mark Garris and Michael Hagen. She claims to not remember anything past the year 2011, but that would make her older than House."
"Yeah, she mentioned that," Boone muses. "Not a ghoul, though."
"I estimate her age to be around nineteen or twenty years old," Arcade says. "She also said that she doesn't remember nuclear fission ever existing as a viable energy source but by 2011, it would have been powering every home in America."
"What's your point?"
"I think she should see Doctor Usanagi. The world she remembers is not the world that exists," he concludes.
"So you think she's crazy?" Boone asks.
"Don't you?" Arcade retorts, watching as the woman lovingly carries one of the children around on her back. His line of vision is blocked by Boone moving in front of him.
"She remembers a time that was afraid of the bomb. She remembers green grass and blue skies. And you want to take that away from her. In exchange for the Mojave, where everything burns up?" He shakes his head. "If she can remember a better time, then who are we to begrudge her that?"
"I-"
"Hey guys!" The two men look over to see a smiling Courier with a flushed face and fly away hair.
"Hey," Boone grunts. "You ready?" She looks at him perplexed.
"I thought we were staying the night," she says.
"Thought it'd be better to hit the road. We'd catch Benny sooner. Plus, I want to hear more about 'The Beetles'," he says, cutting a sideways glance at Arcade. The girl brightens.
"Oh, The Beatles! They were part of the British Invasion!" she says, clapping her hands together.
"Was that a war?" Boone asks.
"No, silly. They were a rock band," she laughs. Arcade stares at the duo in amazement. Boone handles her ongoing chatter the way an indulgent parent would handle a child telling a story they made up. He is the parent unwilling to tell his child that Santa Claus doesn't exist, and that Superman is just a man. The world she lives in may not have been right, but damned if Boone was going to take that away from her.
Arcade could respect that.