Blue gestured again and they all froze. She held up three fingers, and pointed. He wondered if three fingers meant, oh, say...Three enemies. That way. MacCready knelt down and looked through his scope. The muscles of his arms bunched up as he scanned the area ahead. Big pipes, mesh catwalks, water, radiation. Your basic death-trap. MacCready's long coat draped to one side and kneeling drew the green pants tight. Deacon's gaze drifted across his shoulders, down the curve of his back, to narrow hips and firm thighs and round -

MacCready muttered, "I got the back two. You?"

Blue nodded, sighting through her nifty fascist rifle. Oh. Firefight. He should probably at least get his weapon ready, not that he'd needed much up to this point. Hmmm...he thought he'd keep using the pistol since Mac and Blue between them seemed to have the heavy weapon angle covered.

The synths up ahead were doing that creepy thing they do, standing and staring in low power mode until something triggered them. Two white plastic heads exploded, one right after the other. The last activated and whirled toward them and Blue incinerated it. But then three burst out of the water, two rushed out overhead on the mesh walkway and there were multiple alerting noises from the room past this one.

Potential mob-scene—it was dangerous. They should withdraw to a more defensible position. Deacon moved back to the doorway, but the others didn't move. MacCready hunkered down and started firing steadily, and Blue moved to his right and advanced to shoot at the synths above them. No retreat, then. Instead, it was stand your ground/advance time. Dumb. Bad tactics—he was surprised that MacCready was okay with this, because everything that he'd found out about him suggested that he was much more comfortable with distant engagements. Must be Blue's influence-minus one for her.

One of the walkway synths fell off and landed inconveniently close to MacCready and tried to grab him. Deacon grabbed the back of his duster and yanked hard, pulling him out of its reach. Mac stumbled, trying to bring his rifle up, while Deacon put two bullets into its head, one in each eye. The lighter-weight bullets didn't drop it, but it was a lot less lethal without vision. That was a problem with big guns, it took a lot of trouble and practice to use them quickly and efficiently. MacCready was still much faster than most, because it had only fallen back a step or two before he nailed the shot, right in the center of the chest and dropped it.

Deacon fired over his head and took out vision on two more, making it easy for Mac to mop them up. At least two or three were still advancing from the next room, though, plus an unknown number on the walkway. These odds were a little much for Deacon, much less a rational, non-suicidal rush type person. "Fall back?" he asked, raising his voice to be heard over the gunfire. Two rooms east was a nice bottleneck, and they could pick them off, one by one.

Blue shook her head and jumped for the walkway. Pulled herself up nimbly with one hand. The synth took a couple of steps back and started firing. Deacon opened his mouth to yell, and nothing came out...because the Sole Survivor didn't even react, just...advanced, getting hit by shot after shot until she was close enough to blow its head off. His breath left his chest with a rush. She's...that...what the hell was that...

"Deacon!" MacCready said. Another synth down, but two more still advancing. Deacon pulled his attention back to the fight and fired automatically. Got them each with a head shot that slowed them and then fired steadily at the lagging one—even small-caliber bullets add up. Mac dropped the closest and Deacon's fifth shot finally dropped the second. Good teamwork—he appreciated the other's easy professionalism.

Blue finally jumped down from the walkway and returned to them. Deacon could see at least five burn marks on her armor, her arms and her legs. That should have killed her. She noticed him checking and stood quietly, MacCready's eyes flickering back and forth between them, and his rifle still in his hands. "I guess that Pip-boy isn't your only Pre-war tech," Deacon said.

She smiled, but it had an edge of bitterness. "No. Some of us soldiers were too expensive to replace. So good ol' Uncle Sam made us extra-hard to kill." She glanced down at the ground. "If that mercenary had shot me, then my husband would still be alive. And I would be too."

She looked at him evenly. "Don't forget to add that to your file, Deacon." Then she waded into the water, checking the dead synths, casually ripping off the plastic chest plates to rummage around inside. Ouch. Point for perception, and another for sheer badassery.

Well, that was...interesting. He glanced over and saw MacCready watching him. The dead synth with the blown-out eyes was at their feet. MacCready gestured down at it. "Um. Thanks, I guess. I—I owe you one. "

"Don't thank me," said Deacon coolly. "No, no. That was some other guy, he just swooped in, shot them and ducked back out again. I think I heard mysterious music play when it happened, did you hear that? No?"

MacCready looked annoyed. "Funny, Deacon."

Deacon didn't bother answering. After that exciting bit, the rest of the tunnels were practically a walk in the park. Deacon kept watching Blue, looking for—what? Her eyes to glow or to start flying, maybe? He didn't know. Then they reached the last security door and things went sideways.

"I'm going with you," Deacon said again, as persuasively as he could manage. "Blue-I need to do this. Those are my people in there." Looked like he would have to subtract that 'easy to manipulate' tally. And another for foolhardy stubbornness.

Tried once more by letting his voice shake—just a bit. "Some of them died so I could escape."

MacCready snorted and Deacon scowled at him. Keep your opinions to yourself, buddy.

Blue looked up from her pack and he quickly re-focused on her. "Deacon, I understand, but-" She looked...rather unaffected, considering that he had been using his best sentimental stuff. Her voice had a flat tone that hadn't been there before. Odd—he'd made sure that she and MacCready had not had any private time to talk, to say compare notes on someone named 'Deacon'.

Now that you know she's augmented, maybe she's stopped pretending to be human, mental-Dez remarked. Which was—a disquieting thought to say the least. Not enough data to support it or reject it.

Blue zipped up her pack and continued evenly: "I need you and Robert to fall back to the freeway and wait for my word. I can use your help with the minefield, but here? Piece of cake. I'll go faster without having to worry about you."

Worry about him? Deacon wasn't sure if he should be flattered or insulted. Probably both. Plus, he didn't like the feeling of being shunted off to the kid's table with MacCready, of all people. "Look, I know you're...you. And obviously up for a challenge. But The Switchboard is not a piece of cake. Remember Ricky? There's synths, mines, our traps and about a hundred other things. Plus, you don't know where the prototype is."

She shrugged on her pack and started loading fusion cells into her rifle. "How many modified Stealth boys are lying around? I'll just grab them all. As for the rest—this is a pre-war military installation, Deacon. That's who I am." She smiled. "I'll cut the power, activate the counter-insurg measures and lock it down, and then start the EMP generator."

Okay, Deacon had to admit that sounded impressive. He hadn't had to use any of the Railroad passcodes on the way in. She moved confidently up to each terminal, pressed her finger to the reader and every time, the machine beeped and gave her full access. Deacon had never seen anyone use the fingerprint readers before. It was... freaky. Deacon searched for another reason to put up against her iron self-confidence. The Railroad had used EMP before but- "What if there are gen-3s or Coursers in there?"

She didn't say anything for a moment, but a flicker of sadness passed over her face. Thinking about the missing child perhaps? Plus one for being easy to read, at least, even if she wasn't easy to manipulate. She looked down. "I can handle them too, Deacon. You'll have to trust me. Now," she went on briskly. "Robert's got a Pip boy I modified for him. I can send word on the short-wave."

She straightened up and the tip of her rifle just happened to point close to the floor in Deacon's direction. "Deacon, go." And it looked like he wouldn't have to teach her how to subtly threaten someone. Another plus one.

He stared at her, unwilling to leave but at the same time, unable to think of any further reasonable objections. He didn't want to alienate her. But if he wasn't with her, how was he supposed to finish his evaluation?

"If I don't show up with your prototype in hand, then you can absolutely flunk me," she added flatly, which was spookily close to his thoughts. Were psykers around Pre-war? That was something to check into. Then she gestured pleasantly at the pipe they'd just crawled through. "Goodbye, Deacon."