"Cursed is the man who dies, but the evil done by him survives."

Attributed to Abu Bakr

"Do not be satisfied with the speech of your lips and the thought in your heart…you must arise and do!"

Rabbi Manachem Mendel of Kotzk

"Love is not to be purchased and affection has no price."

Saint Jerome


From memories long gone by…

It had been four years. He did not call them a waste but he had learned as much as he wanted to. He had quietly known this all along but only now was he fully at peace with it; this simply was not the place for him. This was going to be a rather hard thing for him to do but strangely he felt quietly relieved that he had worked up the courage to do so.

"Knight Isaac Vanderbraun, it is good to see you. What brings you to my office?" Elder Hail asked. He had only recently ascended to the command of the Brotherhood base.

"Elder…I am here to request…" Isaac slowed down and tried to gather himself.

"What is it, Knight?" Hail asked patiently.

"I am here to request my resignation from the Brotherhood of Steel." Isaac finally let out.

"Re-resignation?" Hail practically choked, eyes bulging.

"Yes, Elder. I no longer wish to serve the Brotherhood." Isaac explained.

"…Knight…no one has left the Brotherhood except under circumstances of being Outcast. This is a most unusual request. People leave the Brotherhood only under the circumstances of being Outcast, missing in action or KIA." Hail replied.

"I know it is unusual. But like I said, I'm done." Isaac answered.

"And what may I ask is your reason for this…request?" Hail demanded.

"I want to help the people of the wastes…and the Brotherhood is not the way I can best do that." Isaac replied, still standing at attention. He grew uncomfortable with the long time that Elder Hail stared at him.

"I am told that is very much an attitude of your father. Still, you are Julia Vanderbraun's son, a respected scribe in the field…" Hail murmured.

Isaac inwardly sighed in annoyance. So much special treatment just because of his parents.

"With all due respect, Elder, do not show any partiality to me. If I must be stripped of my rank and Outcast and my name stricken from the Records then-"

"Hold your tongue, Knight Vanderbraun. Your name will indeed be removed from the roster but we will simply list you as MIA. You are dismissed, Knight. I expect you gone within twenty four hours."

Isaac still had not told Lowell or Evelyn.


As it turned out, the towns folk were friendly. It was a bit nerve wrecking for the three Regulators when they first emerged from the surrounding wastes and wandered towards the outskirts of the village. Joseph did not need to carry his weapons, Isaac voted just to keep his Excelsior rifle on his back while David loosely cradled his rifle in both of his hands, the gun pointed down and to his side towards the dirt.

When they were greeted with waves from the inhabitants, they decided it was a good sign and started to relax.

Even more encouraging was when they were directed to the local tavern and hotel. Apparently, the inn keeper explained that Regulators were always a welcomed presence in the town. Although the locals usually did not have any trouble from raiders or bandits, they considered the arrival of Regulators as a sign of good luck. If a famous band of Regulators called the "Liberators" could turn so much bad into good, then who knew what more Regulators could do.

That explained, the inn keeper made a deal with the three vigilantes. They would be given the best rooms for the night free but any other expenses had to come from their own pockets.

The guys decided it was a fair deal.

"Sure you want to order that fire water, Chief? I heard the stereotype was that you folks couldn't hold your liquor." David ribbed Joseph who had ordered a glass of whisky.

"And that is why it is just a stereotype." Joseph muttered though he let a sly grin cross his face.

"What about you, Isaac? Why just a Nuka-Cola?" David inquired, turning to Isaac.

"Heh…heh…I found out in the Brotherhood that I have the alcoholic tolerance of a little girl. Heck, my sister can hold her liquor better than I can. It's quite embarrassing." Isaac muttered.

"Man, I'm starting to like your family more and more, and by family I mean your sister. I betcha she'd be good friends with Rachel. Ah well, happy early mini Purim to me." David announced, taking a gulp of scotch.

"You talk too much, David." Joseph said.

"Oh hush, you-"

David stopped when he saw the smirk on Joseph's face and noticed that he already had two empty shot glasses in front of him, a third full one sitting in front of him.

"Oh you little Shlemiel…" David bantered back."

"Slow down guys, can't have you guys walking completely hung over tomorrow." Isaac said, a cautionary hand raised.

"Yeah yeah, try not to get inebriated on that Nuka-Cola there." David quipped.

Joseph actually chuckled.


The rotors of the vertibird started to swivel to a vertical position, signaling that Athena was preparing to land the aircraft. Daniel Siaga made sure that his sniper rifle was securely fastened to his back before comfortably setting his Infiltrator rifle in his hands. He could start to see plumes of dust and sand starting to rise under the craft. They were getting close.

"Approaching landing point. There does not appear to be any signs of hostiles. No other ground life visible either. Area appears secured." Athena announced.

Daniel stood from his seat and approached the open door, stepping into the roar of rushing air and the noise of the rotors.

"Touchdown in ten seconds. Prepare for departure." Athena radioed.

Daniel took a deep breath from the filtered air within his helmet. He let his body stretch before relaxing one last time before he would set foot into the mission. He had been serving the Enclave as a black ops agent for over twenty years. This was just another day at the office for him.

"Touch down. You are free to depart. Agent Delta Sierra on the ground. Good luck, soldier." Athena radioed, allowing the agent to step off before slowly returning to the skies in a cloud of dust.

Delta Sierra ran along the earth, determined and professional as always with seemingly no restraints despite his forty years. Within seconds his stealth suit cloaked him to his surroundings and the soldier became a shadow, a ghost by day and a phantom by night.

The New Human Effort would never know what hit them.


There was no such thing as a panic button in Albany but if it had existed, Gerald certainly hit it. Panting and sweating but doing his best to remain calm, the brawny man hollered for the people to get into the blockhouse. That alone was enough for the Albany residents to understand that they were in an emergency situation. Those too far from the central blockhouse made for the docks where the ships immediately raised anchor and cast off.

The blockhouse was essentially the emergency fortress of Albany. Stocked with ammo and weapons, the building was heavily built to withstand even heavy blasts from missile launchers. Inside, halls took sharp turns only to reveal heavily armed gun emplacements waiting to shred any invaders seeking to root out any of the defenders.

Even a small gang of children could keep out an army with the preparations within the building.

Back on the northern side, Otto watched anxiously as he saw the small force of raiders, there had to be at least fifty of them, closing in on his building. James Vanderbraun had always taught him that with a silenced, long rang weapon, marksmen had the advantage in being hard to detect. He had to hit them from where they would not expect it.

Otto was praying that they wouldn't bother going inside the building and pass right under him.

Several tense, jaw clenching moments later, he was relieved to see that they had continued to dash right pass the building.

Now to hit them from behind.

The first raider to fall to the ground was simply gawked at by his comrades. Perhaps they thought he had stumbled. The problem arose when Otto nailed the second one in which the bullet obviously cleaved through most of the man's torso.

"Come on you guys, Anthony, Gerald, Juan, anyone! Get at them so they don't suspect me…" Otto thought furiously.

Compelled to keep popping them off, and there were still many of them, Otto started to noticed with dread that they were starting to look around, trying to take in their surroundings.

The sound of a heavy minigun going off drew a sigh of relief from Otto.

"Come on, take your best shot you scum bags!" Gerald called, firing the minigun wildly. In all reality, he was trying to slow the raiders down. The longer they stayed away from the town proper, the more time the villagers had to secure the block house and evacuate. Truth be told, many of the workers in the factory had settled on remaining within the manufacturing center and trying to fortify the place. Julia and Cindy were going to need all the help they could get to make sure everyone was safe.

Gerald's teacher, Carl, was not a man of many words. The mantra Carl taught him was "Squeeze and point. Squeeze and point. Stand like you're made of steel…and then run."

Up next to him, Juan appeared before he immediately started chucking grenades. When they did not create casualties, they certainly succeeded in creating havoc and fear on their invaders. Noticing that they were getting close, Juan fired up his flamethrower and started to lay down a wall of fire. If it didn't incinerate any of their opponents altogether it would certainly slow down their progress.

"Gerald!" Juan called.

"What?" the gunner hollered back.

"We got to fall back. They're going to overwhelm us. Fall back!" Juan yelled.

Gerald looked around him and noticed that the invaders had gathered that they in fact had the advantage in numbers. They were starting to approach in force. The two Regulators were suddenly in a very dangerous situation. Raider gangs were one thing but they were not trained to take on a whole army.

"Spray down some fire to cover me!" Gerald shouted over the noise, bullets still raining from his minigun.

Juan immediately complied.

Taking advantage of the heat and noxious smoke, Gerald turned tail and rushed off, Juan right behind him. Still watching from the ruins, Otto continued to discreetly pick off unsuspecting raiders. It was then that he started to notice others falling that he knew he had not nailed. It appeared Anthony was doing his own work under the cover of a stealth boy.

However, the Regulators noticed, with balls of ice forming in their chests, that the raiders were getting close to the heart of the town.


Asimov peered, as best as his inflexible welding allowed, out the crack of the slightly ajar door of the factory. Inside, most of the factory workers and those who could not make it to the safe house were holed up and crouching behind anything that could be cover, firearms at the ready.

Interestingly enough, one of the refugees in the factory was Rat. He had led a group of children back to the safe house and then turned around to look for more. Realizing that he had shepherded all that he could to safety, but his sharp ears detecting that danger was getting close, he scampered towards the nearest building which so happened to be the factory.

Gunshots from the safe house being traded with the raiders as well as the roar of Gerald's minigun finally hit their ears. Asimov was going to back away when he saw that the raiders were trying to get to the factory door. His programming suddenly kicked in. Protocols that had never been activated before were suddenly called upon.

"Hostiles detected. Activating DEFCON options. Weapons initializing…Whoa, where'd those come from?" Once the computerized part of his programming was finished, Asimov became aware of two laser emitters as well as two flamethrower nozzles that had materialized out of his main torso system.

"Well then, appears it would be time to kick some butt. Hope my training from the corp has not left me-"

Asimov cursed when a bullet slammed into his metal hull. Immediately, his involuntary programming kicked in, blocking out his sentient side.

"Damage to environmental sensors detected. Warning, difficulty in accessing locations of possible targets will be experienced. Caution is advised. Darn it! How am I going to spot these bastards? Oh shoot, there's one!" Asimov suddenly fired two of his lasers, deftly taking down a raider that got too close but he sensed that more were on the way. The problem was that he also knew he could not detect them all in time. He was going to need help.

"Oy, fleabag, I require your assistance." Asimov called to Rat.

The frightened rodent shivered in fear as he huddled in a dark corner of the factory, trying to hide under a table. Rat glanced at him at him for a moment before he let out a distressed whimper. The pint sized mammal had no intentions of stepping into the line of fire.

"I need you to get on my brain and look at where the bad guys are coming. I can't do this by myself, fleabag. If we get shot down, then there'll be nothing stopping those bad guys from coming in here!" Asimov shouted, bullets peppering all around him as he fired back with his limited sensor information.

At first, Rat continued to glance around nervously, even shaking with each eruption of the bullet falls. However, though perhaps not completely understanding what the robot said, the oversized rat got the sentiment of the message. Quite suddenly, a new light lit up in the rodent's eyes. A look of determination filling his beady black orbs, Rat suddenly leaped from his spot on the floor and clutched onto Asimov's brain case. Firmly in place, Rat let out a barking squeak.

"Oo-rah, rodent! Let em have it!" Asimov hollered, swiveling now so that he faced wherever he saw Rat's chin pointed. Between the two, Asimov started to gather that they were beating the raiders back.

"Squeak!"

"Or as they say back in the corp, Oo-rah!"


Julia and Cindy huddled on opposite sides of a door frame, Julia clutching her plasma rifle while Cindy clutched her SMG. Both women had done their best to shepherd the townspeople to the safe house. That done, both agreed to defend the last but very important building in the town: the explosive's factory.

They realized they were under the point of a very disastrous Damocles Sword. This building could not fall into the wrong hands because if it did the finished products would be used against the people in the safe house. On the other side of the equation, the enemy did not really need to actually storm the building. It would only take one stray bullet, one wayward spark or misguided piece of shrapnel and both women would be gone in an instant along with the building.

"I think they're starting to focus on us. They got to know there's not a lot of people in here." Cindy shouted above the noise to Julia, blindly firing her SMG out the door.

"We got to hold out. If they cut us down then they'll take out the others." Julia replied, trying to take an aimed shot with her plasma rifle but quickly diving back behind cover before she could fire.

"Julia…we're sitting on a building full of explosives." Cindy said.

"Exactly. All the more reason we got to defend it!" Julia shouted in desperation, now also firing blindly out the door with her energy weapon.

"…So why don't we use some of them?" Cindy offered.

"I was waiting for you to do that!" Julia screamed in a mixture of anger and exasperation.

Cindy immediately tossed out several grenades.


A steady stream of fire issued from Gerald's minigun. The Regulator was oblivious to the hefty pile of spent casings at his feet, the fact that his hands were practically frozen to the grips or that the heat from the gun was actually starting to singe his hand for that matter. Gerald had fallen into tunnel vision and was laying a steady fury into any raider he spotted until they fell to the ground. Then he went for another.

"Gerald! Gerald, stop!" someone insistently was tapping his shoulder.

Gerald finally stopped firing to look over at Anthony who was uncloaking out of his stealth boy.

"There's no one left here, they're starting to fall back." Anthony explained.

Gerald shook his head, letting the fog of rage leave his mind. That's when he realized that he had indeed mowed most of the raiders down. Juan also showed up, himself covered in soot and reeking of noxious smoke.

"Took out the last of the stragglers that wandered too far our way." Juan explained.

"Good, that means the gunshots are coming from the center of town. Come on, we got to finish this." Anthony urged.

The Boys, with the exception of Otto, trotted towards the sound of the fight. Sweat dripping from the bodies and feigning heavy panting, they found a rather frightening scene. About seven raiders were keeping the explosives factory under siege. Only the stalwart effort of two unseen defenders were keeping the invaders from wholesale requisitioning the munitions to their own use.

And, just as suddenly as the raid had started, it ended just as abruptly.

Gerald immediately opened fire with his minigun, Anthony taking aim with his dart gun when all of a sudden, Asimov came wheeling onto the scene, Rat letting out barking squeaks of indignation as a cloud of flame roared from the Robobrain.

"Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Who is the dimwit who programmed me to laugh when operating these…oh, curse you, Sven. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha."

Asimov's initial appearance flash cooked the majority of the raiders, leaving Anthony and Gerald to mop up the rest. The last raider who seemed to be getting away suddenly fell back, dead from a gunshot through the head. It was then that Otto appeared from the ruins, revealing that he had made the final shot.

Julia and Cindy emerged from the building to meet with the Boys as well as Asimov and Rat. Both women appeared to be recovering from a rather grueling adrenaline rush, both breathing heavily.

"Anthony, report. How much damage has been done?" Julia demanded, trying to compose herself. She practically dropped her plasma rifle to the ground, not caring anymore save only to hold onto whatever little strength she had left.

"Honestly, I'm not sure yet, Ms. V. We've had no time to assess the situation." Anthony replied, hands folded behind his back.

"Go check for any wounded. Send them to my house so that I can tend for them…then dispose of these dead bodies." Julia ordered.

Rat leaped off of Asimov's brain case and limped up to Julia. He refused to walk on his right front paw which immediately got the woman's attention. Julia quickly examined it but was a bit hesitant on her diagnosis as Rat obviously could not speak.

"It's just been singed from the heat. You'll be fine, Rat." Julia explained, returning to her full height.

Rat continued to mope.

"Excuse me, Cindy, by my long range sensors have been damaged. The sensors themselves are intact but something has interrupted the information feed. I require repairs before I can be operating at my full capacity and return to the factory." Asimov announced.

"All right, I'll look at it right away, Asimov. Follow me." Cindy said, leading the Robobrain to make the proper repairs.

"Shall we try to salvage the weapons and anything of value from the raiders, Ms. V?" Otto asked as Julia dragged herself back to her house.

"…Yes, do whatever you need to do." Julia answered tiredly, not even looking back at them as Rat hobbled next to her.

"She's a very strong woman. I hope I meet a girl like her someday." Anthony said in admiration as soon as Julia was out of earshot.

"Yeah, yeah, but we got work to do. Enough fascinating already." Juan pressed.


Back at the house, Julia sat at the table, her head rested in an open palm. Her dark amber hair was unkempt but at the moment she could not have cared less. She was not sure how much longer she could hold onto the precious little energy she had left.

Gerald knocked on her door.

"We've all the residents and no one appears to be wounded, Ms. V." Gerald announced, poking his head in the doorway.

"How many casualties did we sustain?" Julia asked with bated breath.

"Oh, that the good news, Ms. V. Looks like all your safety precautions worked. Everyone was able to get to safety and no one was hurt or killed." Gerald said with a beaming smile.

"Oh. Wonderful. Just finish what I asked you boys. Good night." Julia said quickly, showing Gerald out before promptly locking the door.

Sitting from his makeshift bed in the living room, Rat watched Julia make a beeline to her room and heard her flop down on the bed. In only two minutes he could hear her snoring. Thinking she had the right idea, Rat also closed his eyes and hoped for his paw to make a quick recovery.


During the initial rebuilding phase of Albany, the Liberators and their Regulator comrades put a lot of energy in trying to erase the memories of a bloody war fought between Talon Company and Rangers on the site of the old city. Trenches were buried but not before their rotting and haunting contents were first purified with fire. Still, their efforts could not completely erase the scars.

Just as the moon was starting to rise high in the evening sky, the Boys were busy with the grim task of disposing of the raider bodies at the mouth of a trench that had not been filled in. They were some distance from the town, at least far enough where they were given a little privacy. The bodies themselves had been stripped of anything of value.

"I'm telling you, something did not seem right about these raiders. I just can't put my finger on it." Juan said, lighting up a cigarette.

"Now that you mentioned it…they did seem organized. A bit too organized. Besides, we've never seen a raider gang this large before. Heck, it's got to be at least five times larger than any gang we put down." Otto agreed.

"Yeah…something does seem a mite fishy about this. Hopefully the Liberators will know better when they get here." Anthony said as he and Gerald tossed the last body into the trench.

"All right Juan, it's all yours. Light em up." Anthony said.

Juan spat his cigarette butt into the trench before pressing the trigger on his flamethrower.


Isaac made sure David and Joseph got up the stairs without hurting themselves. Truth be told, Joseph seemed to be holding his liquor well. Isaac would not have guessed the Native American had been drinking if had not known better. David on the other hand was a bit uncoordinated but still seemed to have his faculties.

"Well, here are our rooms, all lined up." Isaac said, finding the appropriate doors.

"Well then gentlemen…I…I bid you…bid you g'night. Sleep well, friends." David blathered, stumbling into his room before they heard the locks falling in place. Joseph likewise also disappeared behind his door.

Sighing with relief that the day was over, Isaac locked his own door as soon as it closed behind him. He was just about to remove his weapons, greatly anticipating removing his duster, when a revelation suddenly hit him.

He wasn't alone.