'I wanted to spare you.'

The phrase sticks in his mind like flypaper.

Shaun climbs up the ladder to his treehouse. It's at the end of the cul-de-sac, surrounded by other settler's houses and shops. When he's at the top, he shuts the trap door. He closes the curtains and flips on an electric switch that lights up the whole tree.

Shaun looks around at his hideout since the last time he's been here. On the low end-table, there's a ham radio in the corner that he's tweaked himself, and he tunes into the Diamond City radio station. "Accent-tchu-ate the positive, eee-liimmm-mate the negative…"

Shaun plops down on his sleeping bag, zipping it down so he can get in. He scoots his sleeping bag to the corner of the treehouse, burrowing himself in.

He feels like he's boiling. He knows why his mom hid that thing on the top shelf in Red Rocket. Far from where he could find it.

He figures his mom would follow him to the treehouse right away, but she doesn't. That's when he realizes he wants her to find him, so he waits longer. Ten minutes go by. But she still hadn't come. That was surprising to him. She always came to see him when he got upset about anything. His chest ached.

He can picture his mom waking up MacCready, telling him that he was in on the biggest secret of his life. He can picture his mom freaking out, and a little pang of gilt forms in the pit of his stomach. For as upset as he was, he still takes the time to wonder if she was okay.

That was another thing—should he even call her mom anymore? He wants to, but that holotape phrase sticks in his mind like flypaper. 'Reprogrammed to believe he's your son'. He feels nauseous.

A little buzz comes through in the room. "Hello?"

He peaks through a little hole in his sleeping bag, peeking at what made the noise. He wipes his eyes. "Mom?"

He sits up. Then he notices it's coming from his radio. There's a voice coming through. Not a song, or radio announcer. A voice.

He waits in silence. The radio only playing static. Then—

"Hello? Can...hear me? This is Ohm's Law…." The voice buzzed in and out of the frequency like someone was rapidly changing the volume. "I'm trying to contact... again, I lost contact…"

Ohm's Law? Shaun knew what that was; Sturges taught him about it. Interest peaks in him. He sits up, waits if she'll say anything else.

"Is this Acadia? Darn it, darn it… don't fizzle out…"

He gets up, fiddling with the radio knobs for a moment to clarify her voice. He puts the microphone up to his lips so he can say something back. "Hello?" He asks, a little nervous. He's tried to reach other settlements before, but it never worked in the past. Nobody's contacted him before.

A hopeful voice comes back."Hello? Is this DiMA?"

Shaun shakes his head, but the gesture is lost. "Um. No. Who is this?"

There's a pause. "This isn't DiMA?"

He presses the button to speak, "no." He thinks for a moment, and then asks; "who's DiMA?"

"He's a…." She doesn't answer back for a while. Static on the other side. "He's a synth?"

Shaun raises his eyebrows, he answers back, "a synth?"

Ohm's Law waits for a moment to respond. "I'm trying to contact Acadia. What settlement is this?"

"Sanctuary, the Minutemen base," Shaun trips over the words so suddenly he doesn't even think to lie. He's supposed to not talk to strangers. But something is sort of cool about it; talking to someone on a radio frequency, someone who knew circuitry, who wanted to talk to synths. He wonders who DiMA is.

"Sanctuary? Darn it, I thought…. I was trying to get this signal from up north again, my radio was wa-ay off. Sorry, I'll let you go…"

"Wait!" Shaun says, "Who is this?"

"Ohm's Law," the voice buzzes back.

"Is that like your code name?" he asks, "the circuitry thing?"

The girl on the other side huffs. "You… you know about Ohm's Law?"

"Yeah, Sturges teaches me all about those sorts of things," Shaun says. He hesitates, but asks, "who's up north?"

Ohm's Law fazes for a minute. "Um. A group of synth refugees. I first spoke with them yesterday, I've been trying to get back in contact with them again, but my radio is acting up…"

"You're a synth?" Shaun asks the same way he would if they were budding over a Grognak comic. 'You like Grognak, too?'

She sighs, "That's the thing—I don't know."

"Oh."

"Yeah. They've just… well, they asked me these questions. And I've been realizing how off everything has always felt," she says. "You know? Like I don't belong here… or there's someplace else I should be."

Shaun nods, "Yeah. I understand that."

"You do?"

Shaun explains he's a synth, which is hard for him being such new info. But whoever this woman was, she doesn't seem to mind at all.

After he's told her this, there's a pregnant pause. Then—"My name is Kasumi. Kasumi Nakano."

"Nice to meet you, Kasumi," he smiles. "I'm Shaun Clarke."

"Well, Acadia… The synth place? They're trying to build a place for their kind. Where they can be themselves and be accepted for what they are. That sounds nice, don't you think?"

"Yeah, it does," he agrees.

"How… How old are you? You sound really young."

"Twelve," he says. "How old are you?"

"Nineteen," she answers back. Silence for a beat. Then two. "I've never had someone to talk to about this. This is really strange. Hey, can I ask you a question?"

"Okay."

"If you were me," Kasumi asks. "Would you go?"

He doesn't know. So that's what he tells her.

A long break of static between them. "Okay," she sounds disappointed. "Well, I guess I should go."

"Oh," he says, a little bummed. He shakes his head. "Can I talk to you later?"

"I guess… I'll be on the frequency tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay! When you get back, can we talk about the synth refugee again?"

"Sure."

"One more question?"

"What?"

"What's the place called?"

"Acadia. It's on an island in Maine called Far Harbor."


Shaun lays in silence on his sleeping bag for a while. He thinks about her question, and if he would go to a synth refuge. A part of him really wants to. He thinks it would be cool to meet other people like him. He would want to ask them how they dealt with finding out, and if they ever felt strange before they finally found out.

He thinks about his mom now. What would she say about all of it? Would she want him to go? Probably not. He's not even allowed to go to Red Rocket without supervision. No way would she let him go to Maine.

Maine. He tries to imagine how far away that would be. Would it be like when mom and MacCready went to get Duncan? They were gone for a couple of weeks on that trip. Maybe Preston had a map of the wasteland he could borrow.

Thinking of his mom puts him back in his situation, his new reality. Suddenly, guilt forms in the base of his stomach. He's never fought with his mom on anything.

The treehouse felt cold. He shivers and grabs his pillow, and climbs down his treehouse. He walks back to his house, and into his parent's room.

Elenora is awake, he can see her eyes a little in the dim light. MacCready is holding her.

"Mom?" he whispers.

She leans up, "you okay, honey?"

He shakes his head. "Can I sleep with you?"

Elenora scoots towards MacCready's side, and Shaun snuggles up next to her. She kisses his hair.

There are a few moments of silence between them. "Mommy?" he asks. He doesn't know if he's ever called her 'mommy' before now.

"Yes, darling." She says it so quietly he can barely hear her.

Tears start to come out of his eyes, he whimpers a little. She squeezes him tight. "Am I not really twelve? Am I still ten?"

There's a pause. "You're twelve," she sounds so tired. "You're twelve, baby, don't worry."

He doesn't feel any better. She kisses him again, and he buries his face in his mom's shirt. "I don't feel twelve," he murmurs.

"We can talk about it in the morning," she says. "I promise. Now go to sleep, sweet boy. I love you so much."

He nods, sniffling. But he can't go to sleep, even after she had fallen asleep. He can hear MacCready sleeping, too. And he thinks he can hear Duncan sleeping across the hall. He wonders about Acadia for so long that decides that when Kasumi asked if he wanted to go, he gave her the wrong answer.

Not, I don't know. Now it was, Yes. Why wouldn't you?