There something that need to be said or at least written down, I am not a legend, I'm still just a child. I'm sixteen and now beginning to understand that I could be sold into slavery. Many kids my age that I've known have already been kidnapped and sold into slavery, but not I. No, I am protected or at least worth saving or paying for the ransom, but my name is the only thing that is carrying weight these days. I'm getting close to the age where I can walk away from this family and frankly with all the infighting my organization has been doing, everything my fathers-fathers-fathers built, I have half a mind to let it all burn or a least walk away from it. Things have not gotten better, they've gotten worst, and even though our deeds have been written down in history we have gained a level of exclusivity that has dwindled our numbers after every battle, every attack, every ambush, and every incoming attack, everyone wants what we have and that's power armor. Every raider, every warlord, or tyrant has tried to kidnap members or kill members of the Brotherhood of Steel and learn the secrets of maneuvering them and if it wasn't for a zealous nature to our organization some of the members would have cracked. This was the main reason of our exclusivity, the reason why we only came out at night, among a few other things as well. Technology is dangerous, I do believe that, it's the reason why the world is what it is today radiation or radiation sickness within a few hours and cause: vomiting, diarrhea, fatigue, and a reduction in resistance to infection. Serious radiation sickness effects as in 100 to 200 rems; exposure is lethal to 10-35% of the population after 30 days.

Squires drill in the knowledge to us kids and that 30% of the worlds land mass is exposed to lethal amounts of radiation, 40% of is to non-lethal, leaving 30% so far that we know about with land that can be used for agriculture and those are the areas we are fighting for. Well us and every other warlord and government body seeing how the nuclear winter that followed the bomb dropping hasn't cleared up the lethal amounts of radiation. I suppose I should be glad that there are still people out there surviving all this, lawless as they may be. I never knew if the lessons I was taught about the outside world was meant to teach me about how to deal with the outside world or if it was meant to scare me into never wanting to leave. I have already been kidnapped, disfigured, and forced to lie about how I single handedly killed a deathclaw like the bullseye on my back couldn't get any bigger. I have two more years of living like this. Two more years until I am not longer being brought back after trying to leave, tracked down after being kidnapped, forced from beatings, or gunfire to step into the shoes of so called legends based off outdated beliefs. I would like to make my own legend like the Lone Wanderer but that time isn't now. No, right now another bunker has been compromised from another attack from raiders to trying to take power armor. We left out of secret passageway and blew up the raiders inside along with more than a dozen prisoners they kept alive and the paladins that are guarding me now don't have power armor. All to protect me and my lineage, the Maxson family name. My great great great great…. I forget how many greats it is, founded the Brotherhood of Steel but I'm the sole surviving ancestor of the founder of the Brotherhood of Steel, Rodger Maxson but what people don't seem to understand or know it was Rodger Maxson's security team that protected the researchers that developed the FEV the Forced Evolutionary Virus the virus that created the Super Mutant and several generations later we're still trying to clean up that mess. If Rodger had kept some of those scientists alive long enough they could have created an anti-virus that could have cured the Super Mutants of their conditions, maybe even improve on the virus's original purpose. To create humans that could survive lethal amounts of radiation. It's a little funny to me that it was at the expense of a Super Mutant that the Brotherhood of Steel earned their place is history.

Fawkes was a good person and a super mutant, but no one could ever know the truth, he left into exile, but I did get to speak to him briefly and I am somewhat disturbed by the number of Super Mutants the Brotherhood takes pride in killing. It was the Lone Wanderer's idea that people think that Sarah Lyon died in that reactor. So maybe she could have a normal life with the Lone Wander. I would see them both often enough and I use the term "the Lone Wanderer" because they always went by a different name and looks and the Lone Wanderer even passed for a woman a few times. I suppose I makes me a little jealous that my first crush found happiness with someone that wasn't me. Last time I spoke to them I asked about when they were going to have kids, hoping that they would eventually settled to an area under the protection of the Brotherhood but they said they were trying, but no luck. As of right now the Brotherhood can't protect anyone and being a member feels more like a prison sentence then a place of protection. Two more years, I must just keep telling myself that, maybe this is what happen to the grandparents that weren't written in archive maybe they just decided to leave, maybe I find Sarah and the Wanderer they'll probably know a great deal about hiding.

Well I seem to be learning quite a bit about that now, no bunker, no fortifications, just five people sleeping in four hour guard shifts around a campfire headed to California to work out a peace treaty with the New California Republic, there is a station in the Mojave Desert we were trying to touch base with but they've been at radio silence since we've escaped and there me sitting here with a paper and pencil losing more sleep then I should. The thought has crossed my mind to just make a run for it now but I can't help but feel a little curious about the NCR, they don't follow and beliefs we have and the uncompromising rules we follow and don't have the same zealous nature and beliefs. It seems like there trying to be what the Brotherhood stood for when Elder Owyn Lyon commanded the Brotherhood which was to help people, these day it feels like we're have plans to build wooden house when all we have are seeds, but I stand a better chance of getting to California with four armed soldiers then just a sole squire. I may like being with the NCR they might not have all the equipment we have but they do seem tough, but maybe it the uniforms, brown is a dark color but it doesn't attract heat like the black jumpsuits he have to wear.

If all else fails someone will find what I'm writing off my rotting corpse about how the sole heir of the Brotherhood of Steel feels about the whole thing altogether, but maybe I'll live out these next two years and throw this paper away, maybe it's cold night air that is making me feel bitter, maybe I still haven't gotten over the shock of other members of the Brotherhood dying in the last bunker I was in. None of them were friends but still, they were family on some level, but it does feel like I'm writing a will of some kind even though all I own is an empty pistol, a few caps, and a jumpsuit. I guess give my remains to Sarah Lyon the only woman I ever loved if you can find her.

Squire Arthur Maxson