Josh and the Lone Wanderer, who just told them all to call him 101 as he didn't want people to know his name, were sitting in the food court, there were some tables scattered around. They had decided that them leaving their Vaults at the same time was a coincidence.
They were eating steak when Shawn came running in, dressed in BoS recon armor.
"Hey," he said, panting. "you better get to Bes Uy."
Bes Uy was the intercom room. It had televisions, radios, and CDs. 101 was fascinated by the TVs. He said they didn't have them in D.C. They just had Galaxy News Radio and the DJ played the same songs over and over again, and they were all songs from the 1950s!
The two looked around the Prewar store and found Lyons and Craw standing at the monitors that showed the security cameras. They walked up and looked at the screen. What they saw made Josh feel sick. From the sign that said MALL OF NH, there hung a man with a BoS mask on hanging from his neck by what looked like his own intestines. His torso was sliced vertically and his guts hung out from the hole. There was a sign hanging from his stomach. It read: You are next Vaulty. You can't hide forever. Morty.
They all looked at Josh who had gone pale and look on the verge of puking.
"What do we do," Craw asked the group.
"Well," 101 started, looking around at the other three, "I think we should fight these assholes."
Craw sighed and said, "Mr. 101, things are run differently up here. We are trying to build a new society here in New Hampshire. We can't just go guns blazing in the middle of a suburban area, someone innocent could be killed."
"Yeah well, innocent people will start dying if we don't do anything," 101 retorted.
Josh piped up, "I think 101 is right here Paladin Craw, if we don't act now more people could die than just the casualties we'll face by fighting."
Craw looked solemn for a minute, but Lyons stood.
"The Vault boys are right Paladin, sometimes you need to sacrifice a few pawns to take out a king."
Shawn ran into the room, "Paladin, Sentinel, McCole is on the VidCOM."
"Bring up VidCOM one," Craw ordered one of the young Knights.
McCole's face came up on the the big screen. When he saw Josh a shocked look crossed his face.
"Josh Romano," he said, chuckling deviously. "Who'da thought you would be the remaining survivor from Vault 909. I have to say, I am surprised. I would've expected your father, or your brother, hell, I would've even thought your mother to get out alive over you."
Josh's blood was boiling, he wanted to retort but knew it would only limit the time they had to prepare for the attack.
"Listen Brotherhood," Morty said, addressing the Paladin and Sentinel, "Just hand the boy over and no one has to die."
"Yeah," 101 snorted, "except for Josh."
Morty turned to look at the Lone Wanderer.
"And who do we have here," he asked pleasantly, then he seemed to notice the Pip-Boy on his arm and said, "Send this one too."
101's cocky look on his face faded and he looked at the others. They mirror his shock and Lyons turned back to the TV.
"Why him," she asked. "What does he have to do with any of this?"
"A lot more than you know," Morty told her gravely. The TV shut down and they were staring at reflections of themselves in the black glossy screen of the television.
Morty turned from the TV, scowling.
"How could another be alive," he snapped, knocking a cup from the table near him.
"If I may, boss," Jack said, walking up to the big screen. "Pull up a freeze frame of the two Vaulties," he ordered the man at the operating system. When he did Jack said, "zoom in on the Pip-Boys." Again the man did as he was asked and zoomed in on the two, clearly different Pip-Boys.
"As you can see," Jack pointed out, "The two Pip-Boys are clearly different. The one from your Vault, had the newer 3000 edition. This unknown Vaulty has an older, but still affective, 2000 version."
"Yes," Morty said impatiently, "What is your point Jack?"
"Well, if we search the Vaults that use the 2000 edition of the Pip-Boy," again he addressed the man at the operating system. A screen popped up and showed a hand full of Vault numbers. "You can see that the only area in the U.S that uses the 2000 edition is in the D.C area, this is the Lone Wanderer from Vault 101."
Morty's face lit up, "Ahh, James' son! How could I not see the resemblance! Excellent work Jack, excellent! We shall take him out as well."
Someone in the room asked, "Sir, why is it so important to eliminate these Vaulties?"
Morty looked at the man who said it. He was a young man, not a day over 20, so young, so innocent, so curious. Morty walked slowly over to the young man, who turned beet red and looked away.
"My dear boy," Morty said softly, "what is your name?"
"J-J-Johnathan," the man said.
"Well Johnny-boy, let me paint you a picture," Morty looked up at the big screen, "open up the Resurrection Files please."
The file loaded and it showed a map of New Hampshire now, with large blue areas highlighted, and minimal red areas highlighted.
"Now, this is our splendid state," Morty said, bringing the young man to his feet. "Now, as you can see the blue represents where the Brotherhood have set up base. The red indicates all the forces I have spread across the Granite state. Now, obviously there is much more of them then there is of us, so I thought, what if I could make them all just... disappear."
Everyone in the room was listening intently, terrified looks on their faces. Although no one looked as scared as young Johnathan. His face was pale white, whiter than the cleanest lab coat. His whole body shook harder than a fireworks store after the nukes fell. Even his teeth seemed to shake individually.
Morty continued, "Now, of course I couldn't do that without, say, setting the nukes on New Hampshire again," at that everyone seemed to stop breathing. Seeming not to notice his workers being unusually still, Morty went on. "But then I thought of the one device powerful enough to take out a large group of people, without taking out the rest of us."
Morty hit a button next to him and a on the screen appeared blueprints. Everyone gasped, but Morty smiled a deviously.
"I thought, hey, why not take hundreds of mini nukes and load them into a large fatman, aim, and fire at my targets."
Everyone looked aghast, even Jack seemed to grow a shade paler.
"I set the device to be detonated only when I entered my code into my Pip-Boy," Morty continued. "It can be accessed by any Pip-Boy, that my boy, is why I must kill the Vaulties."
Morty looked at Johnathan and he said, "Now dear Johnathan, I must ask, do you have a family at home?"
Johnathan gulped, "Y-yessir," he stuttered.
"Ahh, well, I cannot kill a man with a family. I am not a home-wrecker, after all."
Johnathan seemed to breathe for the first time since he was taken from his seat, he gave a weak smile.
Looked at the mad scientist and said, "Thank you sir, you are very generous."
Morty smiled at the boy, "Don't get too excited son," he said, Johnathan's smile faded. "I said I wouldn't kill a man with a family, but I do believe that Jack here has a record of doing such a thing." Morty turned to Jack, who nodded gravely.
Johnathan nearly fainted at the sight of the man, he always did fear the right hand of a madman. Jack pulled his customized .44 magnum, it had a larger barrel and wasn't technically a .44 anymore. It could fire .50cal bullets. Morty patted Johnathan on the shoulder and turned to walk out. As he walked through the door, and there was a loud BANG and the sound of brains hitting the wall and a body falling to the ground.
Morty smirked, chuckling as he strutted along the hallway.
101 was sitting in his room, thinking hard when there came a knock on his door.
"Come in," he called through the door.
The door opened and Sentinel Lyons walked in, not dressed in her blue armor though. She sat down next to the Lone Wanderer and looked at him.
"What you think," she asked him. "You think we can save this area like we did the Capital?"
101 looked at his hands and picked his words carefully, as he often did, and said, "Well, if we get rid of these raiders, these "Ragin' Raiders" I believe it is possible. We can give the scientists here the purifier blueprints and they can build one for themselves and distribute them across the Granite Wasteland."
Lyons looked up at 101 thoughtfully. "You're brilliant," she told him, "you know that?"
101 smiled, blushing slightly. He moved his hands over to Lyons'.
She looked up at him and pressed the button on the wall to lock the door. She then took 101's Pip-boy and flipped on some music, and they stayed there the night, leaving together the next morning for breakfast.
Josh sat up late in Bes Uy, he stared at a blank computer screen, the computer had long since switched into sleep mode as he stared at a picture from the Vault. He held a glass of whiskey in his left hand and his right hand on the table, tapping with his right index finger. The door opened behind him and Bri came in with a tray of food.
"Hey," she said quietly so she wouldn't startle him.
He didn't look back at her, "Hey," he returned absently.
Bri looked at the blank screen and the bottle of whiskey that was half empty.
"Wow," she said shaking her head, "Your bottle is half empty."
Josh looked at the bottle, not moving his head.
"Funny," he said, "I'd've said it was half full."
Bri smirked and sat on Josh's lap, staring into his eyes.
"Something is really bothering you," she said, searching in his eyes, maybe thinking she would find an "X" that marks the spot to where this problem may lay.
Josh sighed and looked up into her eyes, he said, "Its just, why does Morty want me and 101 dead? I mean, it couldn't be because he's afraid I could ruin the whole operation he's got going on or anything."
"Actually," came a voice, "it does."
Josh's head snapped up to look at the big screen. He didn't recognize the face but Bri sure did.
"You," she gasped, "You're the guy that killed everyone from Ailsville!"
The man looked solemn, "Yes," he said, sighing deeply, "That I am..."
"What do you want?" she asked bitterly.
"I... I want to help you stop McCole." he said, eyes shut tight.
"Yeah," Bri snapped, "well we don't want your help!"
"Bri," Josh said, staring at the man on the TV. "We do," he told the man.
The man looked up to reveal the scar on his left face, and Jack said, "Good, because I have a plan."