"Did you get all that?" Danse asked.
"So, there's zombies, robots and the world went to shit. Good to know."
Walking through the forest he once knew felt incredibly sad. He didn't even feel like he was on the same planet, but some kind of copycat planet made by someone with a sick sense of humor. They were south of vault, having been walking for some time. Danse decided to make a beeline to Arcjet, prioritizing the transmitter above all else while Nate wanted to just see what his home had become.
"They aren't zombies, they're ghouls," Danse said shaking his head.
"Ghouls're just semi-braindead former humans with only a taste for human flesh. Totally different from zombies."
"Zombies are in comic books. Ghouls are right behind you and will kill you."
Nate felt a twitch in his neck as he attempted to resist looking behind him. Eventually he had to give in and pointed the 10mm pistol he found in the vault at the nothing behind him. "Okay, fair enough, but the concept is the same."
"Soldier, this isn't a game!" Danse had to stop in place and look directly down on Nate. "Frankly, I find your nonchalant attitude to be concerning. Especially the circumstances you just arrived from."
"It's the only thing that's keeping me together," he laughed pitifully and kept his eyes low, "There's an aneurysm at the back of my mind, all cued up for the moment I accept what's happening."
"Well, some of us are currently accepting this world. And we'd like it if you joined us before we have to lay our lives in your hands."
"I mean… again, fair point. But do you have to be so cold about it all? A reassuring pat on the back would really do wonders right about now." He looked over and saw Danse's armored hand shift a bit. "Maybe when you're out of the power armor."
Danse started moving again. "The way I see it, it's either a cold man or a warm corpse."
"Is that the Brotherhood of Steel's slogan?"
Danse didn't bother answering. They moved along in silence which gave Nate some time to fiddle the new gadget on his wrist. "What's this called again?" Nate asked, pointing to his wrist-gadget.
"A Pip-Boy."
"Pip-Boy… I think I vaguely remember someone mentioning that before." He started flipping through every screen he had, twisting each and every dial to ad nauseum trying to figure out the worn-out abbreviations. The amount of settings it had were outstanding, vitals sensors, a holotape reader, a reminder section for inputted duties, a map and then he ended up on the radio section.
As they were walking, suddenly a frequency showed up. "Military Frequency AF95, hmmmmmmm…" he said.
"Don't bo—"
Before Danse could finish, he pressed on the screen and the Pip-Boy began to speak at its loudest volume. "This is Scribe Haylen of Reconnaissance Squad Gladius to any unit in transmission range. Authorizat—"
"Turn that down!" Danse yelled.
"Trying! I must have turned it up accidently while I was exploring." He started rapidly plucking at every dial. Eventually he hit on one that made it even louder.
"OUR UNIT HAS SUSTAINED CASUALTIES AND WE'RE RUNNING LOW O—" it screamed.
"Remember how I said this would be a fruitful relationship. I take that back in full!"
Eventually he found a separate dial to turn it down. They just stared at each other with Danse getting progressively redder by the second. "Hey, at least you're not the only one in distress."
"That was my squad's distress signal!"
Before Nate could make a witty remark, he felt a rumbling from under him.
"Be prepared," Danse said, pointing his gun at the ground.
Just at that moment, five snarling giant mole rats flew up from the ground. Not one to admire their bloody pink skin and completely white eyes, Nate swiftly dodged to the side, got onto one knee and took four of them out in just four shots.
Danse took out the last one with a swift stomp of his powered boot.
When they looked at each other again, Danse's expression changed a bit. Nate didn't have to ask what he was thinking, it was written all over his face. It was clear he was still upset about the trouble Nate was causing, but his handiwork also spoke for itself. "Good shot," Danse said, moving on.
"Hey, shouldn't we take those?" Nate said pointing at the four rats, "I feel like they could valuable food."
"Valuable…?" Danse raised an eyebrow. "You're really not from this time, are you?" Danse said.
"It depends what 'this time' is."
"2287."
Nate's heart jumped a beat. "Oh. Not too far from my own time."
"How close."
He chuckled. "2077."
Danse gave a rare chuckle of his own. "I figured, Vault-Tec had a nasty habit of performing experiments on the pre-war population immediately after the bombs dropped. A vault of all frozen people, though…"
"You know that aneurysm is really raring to go." He said quietly to himself, "210 years…" Any hope of surviving friends suddenly from slim to none. Nate needed anything to take his mind off of how many people he knew were gone. "So, we've covered what synths and ghouls are. What's this Brotherhood of Steel all about?"
Danse raised his chin a bit when talking about The Brotherhood. "We're devoted to the continuation of humanity, preservation of technology and the destruction of The Institute and their synths." Danse seemingly read his mind as he continued on, "The Institute are a clandestine, underground group of scientists with the goal of replacing the entire population of the above ground with synths."
"They replace people?" His eyes bugged out. "That's… concerning… but also confusing…" A chill hit his spine. "I got to admit that I'm somewhat interested to see these robots."
"You had robot technology in the past, right?"
"Yeah, but nothing on the level of these synths you're talking about."
The thought of him walking into his home to see Codsworth, the floating metal ball with six robotic limbs, in a pink frilly apron, pulling an apple pie from the oven yelling, "Good afternoon, sir! It is I, your wife, Nora!" made Nate chuckle a bit.
"What's so funny?"
"Just thinking about my old Mr. Handy." Another reminder of all the people he lost hit him suddenly. "There's no chance he's still around, right?"
"A lot of pre-war technology has been appropriated by the Brotherhood of Steel, many more destroyed by the fallout of the Great War, but even still General Atomics certainly made their products to last and it isn't uncommon to see one of said creations wandering the wild."
He looked behind his shoulder at the distant image of Sanctuary Hills that they hurried past.
"We can't go back."
"I know, I know. Hurry, hurry, hurry." He couldn't help but look back though, wondering if Codsworth had been waiting all this time for him to come back home. A silly thought, but a comforting one. He brought his head back forward.
They kept on walking, encountering a small pack of wolves and a couple bloodbugs that took him for even more of a loop that previous horrific creatures they saw. But just like before, Nate kept sharpshooting them out of commission (although the skinny bloodbugs did take a few shots). And with each impressive display Danse's dire urge to abandon Nate at the nearest river decreased.
"Hey," Nate said, lightly slapping Danse's breastplate.
"What?"
"Wanna carry me?"
"Are you seriously tired after sleeping for two centuries?" Danse kept his head forward. "No."
"Aww, come on! I've been in power armor before, carrying me would be like carrying a sack of apples."
"If I'm carrying you and an enemy dec—"
"I'm joking, Danse, jeez!" He pouted. "Unless if you change your mind, in which case, I'm not joking at all."
"They let people like you in the army? If I were your sergeant, I might have kicked you out at the first instance of sass."
"Hey!" Nate smirked. "Sure, I can be a little sarcastic, witty, loose, but that's when I'm off duty. On duty, it's all 'yes sir, no sir,' and the like. That's how you have to be when you're in the military. If you're in soldier mode 24/7 you're bound to go crazy." Nate side-eyed him. "I think it may be a little late for you."
A sad look crossed Danse's face. "You'll realize how rare off-duty is soon enough, soldier."
Before Nate could ask, they arrived at Arcjet Systems: a thoroughly rusted through building that looked like it could collapse at any moment. Granted, he'd describe most of the buildings they passed along the way as such.
"This place is almost certainly swarming with synths." Danse locked eyes with Nate. "It only takes two seconds for a synth to sense you and shoot you down. You know what that means, right?"
He stood at attention with a salute "Yes, sir, I only have one second to shoot them down first, sir." He lowered his salute and got back into a casual pose.
Danse did his best to hide a smile. "Let's go already."