Chapter Twenty-Three
The Road to Freedom, Part 1
"Alright, they're fast. And they use some freaky armor," I explained on the way to the MIT ruins. Danse nodded, immediately acknowledging the new information. I kind of liked that about working with him - he didn't ask unnecessary questions. "Looks like just a coat, but it's almost impenetrable. We hadn't managed to actually damage it last time around. MacCready with a sniper rifle, Cait with a shotgun and me with two pistols."
"We'll have to assume conventional ammunition is useless against whatever material that is, in that case."
"I thought exactly the same thing. Good thing you use energy weapons anyway." I looked away. "You, uh... You really didn't have to come with me. This is a suicide mission."
"That's not the first of our ops someone's categorized like that," he pointed out. "If there's anything you've taught me in those six months, it's that anything's possible."
I smiled. Shit, am I glad to have someone with me. I glanced at him - he was sorting something in his Pip-Boy's inventory. But he can't know that.
Oh, no. I was independent and strong. I'd sooner die than admit I needed someone.
...Which, incidentally, might just be the case.
I think it took Danse a while to understand we were headed to Greentech Genetics, but once he did, he patiently waited for me to explain. I didn't, and only then did he ask.
"What now?" he asked - a question that wasn't stupid, considered everything.
"Now we wait." I looked around, but the area seemed safe. "They're bound to send another Courser - or the same one - here sooner or later. That one clearly didn't get to finish its job, whatever it was. He just legged it as soon as he realized we were a danger. So he's gonna be back here eventually."
"But that might take days."
"I know," I answered simply. "I'm ready for that. You don't have to be here if you think it pointless."
Between leaving me alone for sure death and proving a point, Danse chose, with a displeased expression, to stay and guard me from doing something stupid. Which, as far as I was aware, I would do regardless of him being there or not.
I tuned in an SVR to the Courser frequently (white noise), set it down on the ground, unfolded my sleeping bag, and lay down with the book MacCready had given me - Chinese Infiltration Tactics (Know Your Enemy!). I was expecting a whole lot of waiting.
oooOOO***OOOooo
"Nora." Danse shook me again.
"Shut up, mom." I groaned, rolling over not to face him. "Let me sleep."
"Nora!"
I blinked, rubbed my eyes, put on my glasses, and looked at him. Holy hell.
"Did you sleep, like, at all?" I asked, cocking my head to the side. "You look like shit."
"Thank you," he said. "There's nothing like courtesy from your teammates."
I think Cait had made my Danse a bit too sarcastic for my liking. Thinking about Cait, of course, made me think about all the bad stuff that'd happened recently, and I soon found myself saddened.
"What time is it...?" I lifted my left arm to look at the Pip-Boy, but there was nothing there. "Huh. Figures. The only thing I used that thing for."
"You only meant it as a watch?" Danse asked. "Then how about I'll get you one and we will be even?"
"Sounds good," I replied. "Except we're gonna die in, like, a few hours."
"Hmpf," he huffed. "And answering your question, it's six hundred and fifty. You slept for ten hours, I think."
"You let me sleep for ten hours?!" I exclaimed. I sprang to my feet. "What about-?"
"Nora. Nothing happened, the radio was silent all the time, and you needed that rest." I hated it when he was being all reasonable like that. He had a point.
"Fine," I said. "You'd better get some sleep, too. I'll take over the guarding."
He nodded his head in acknowledgement and lay down on the same sleeping bag I'd just crawled out of. I watched curiously; Cait had been right about Danse's problems - I'd never seen the poor bastard sleep.
I walked away to stretch and do a few simple strength exercises. Funny, before I'd joined a military, no one would've forced me to do pushups, let alone burpees. Now, living in the Commonwealth, in the Wasteland, I knew well enough how important it was to stay in shape.
I narrowed my brows at the low beeping noise that came from somewhere nearby. What the hell was... My SVR! I ran back to our camp like crazy.
"Danse!" I screamed. "Wake up!"
He looked at me, not a sign of sleepiness in his eyes. "I am," he said simply.
I grabbed my combat armor greaves and began quickly strapping them on. "We can't let them get away this time," I said frantically, "we can't!"
We managed to break camp at what had to be record speed, but I was still worried. This whole thing was a very stupid idea either way. We hadn't managed to get the upper hand last time around, when there had been more than two of us. And the timing was terrible, because as much as I wanted to believe in my strategical importance, I wasn't blind to the fact that Danse was the better fighter - and he hadn't had a good night's rest for at least forty-eight hours.
All in all, this was a pretty shitty situation I'd put us in. It'd been alright when it'd been just my life on the line, but I couldn't just decide someone else's fate like that. I'd done it with Cait and I'd done it wrong. I wouldn't have Danse end up the same way. No one else would get hurt because of my stupidity!
I clenched my fists, digging my nails deep into my skin. It didn't hurt. It didn't hurt at all. I looked down at my hands and saw the gloves from Cait did one thing perfectly; they prevented me from hurting myself like that again.
"She knew," I whispered. She had known... Why did I always have to lose those that really mattered?! This was all my fault. Nate. Shaun. Cait. Preston. I had been making mistakes and mistakes and nothing else... I narrowed my eyes. No more.
oooOOO***OOOooo
I kicked the door open, but this room was thankfully void of Gunners. We'd been fighting constantly for at least half an hour by now, so this was a welcome change.
"This is bad!" I noticed. "Shit!" I unclipped the used fusion cell from my laser pistol to insert a new one.
Danse didn't answer, and I could see he was weary already. This was going badly enough. Maybe it was time to face I'd never had a chance at keeping him alive. If I couldn't do it for Cait, how could I guarantee it to anyone else?
"Hello-? Is someone there?" a weak female voice called out. We exchanged glances.
"Yes," Danse answered hesitantly.
We didn't get to find the girl until she pressed her palms against the pane of the glass door to some closet she was locked inside of.
"You're not like those mercenaries," she said. "Can you please let me out of here?"
"What happened?" I asked, coming closer to the closet.
"The Gunners locked me in a broom closet. They thought I was going to run away... Which I probably should." She took a step back when she saw Danse. "No." She shook her head frantically. "I won't go back there! I can't!"
We both looked at her strangely. She gradually stopped panicking, though she still eyed my friend suspiciously. "You're not... I'm so sorry. I thought you were a-" She looked around. "There's an Institute Courser somewhere here. He can't find me. Please, help me get out of here before he does."
Something wasn't quite right here. I took a step back, considering the girl. She was probably pretty with platinum gold hair and a shapely figure, but she was wearing tattered rags and was covered with dirt and grime. She looked normal. Nothing about her stood out as odd. But still...
"What's your name?" I asked.
She fidgeted, uncomfortable a bit. "My Institute designation is K1-98... But I prefer Jenny." She smiled, but that smile fell soon. "So yes, I'm a synth. If you hadn't guessed already."
There was a moment of silence. I looked at Danse. "Well, what do we do with this one?" I asked in a half-joke. I was only trying to cover my nervousness, though. The Brotherhood's policy regarding synths was simple: kill on sight. And my personal feelings towards them weren't the warmest right now. A synth had killed Cait, for one.
"We could just leave her," I said aloud. "She's not part of our mission here."
"I don't think..." He gave her a long look. "Isn't that-"
"Danse, honey, I know that you're exhausted and you're not thinking straight right now, but this-" I pointed at the broom closet accusingly. "This is a synth. It's not a real person, it only acts human."
Danse looked at my expression and something in his eyes told me he thought the same thing. "You're right," he said coldly.
"Wait. You can't-!" K1-98 called out. "Do you have any idea what they'll do to me? And the Courser?! Please, I- Don't leave!"
I didn't turn back on any of those begs or shouts. Heartless? Maybe I was. But then again, my heart had died enough times already.
Continuing on, we managed to find a trail of death that led through the hallways. The Courser had been systematically killing- no, butchering - the Gunners as he went, which left a conveniently clear path for us. It also meant, of course, that he could kill them all.
"Oh my god, please..."
"Someone give him what he wants!"
The Courser had the last three surviving Gunners at gunpoint. The mercenaries were disarmed, one of them scrambling to get away. The Courser, the same one that had killed Cait, shot him without much consideration.
"I'd hate to repeat myself. Where is the girl?" he asked calmly.
"Shit, I... Shit!" The young mercenary cried out in pain when she got shot in the leg.
While the Gunners weren't really on my good list, I was keen on leaning towards them rather than the Institute.
"Hey!" I said loudly, stepping forward. My voice was so steady that it surprised even myself. "You there. Drop the gun." I aimed both my laser pistols at him.
"No. It's you again." If the synth was surprised, there was nothing to show it. "And you've brought a friend..." He looked at Danse intensely, as if placing him. Then, he pointed his rifle at him with a smug smirk. "Well, this is certainly an unexpected boon. Looks like there'll be a bonus from this mission for me."
I wasn't very sure what he was talking about, but I had the common sense to push Danse aside the moment the Courser fired his gun.
That sudden movement must have triggered the automated defense system, because two previously dormant machinegun turrets sprung to life, shooting in our direction.
The Courser lost all interest in the Gunners once we'd arrived. He shot them both without even flinching. After that, he proceeded to try and take us out - which only added up to our problems at the moment. We ran for dear life!
"Why does he want to kill you?!" I exclaimed.
"Is that really what you want to focus on?!" Danse screamed in response, keeping his head low at the shower of bullets that rained above us. "I don't know! It's the Institute, why wouldn't they want to kill either of us?!" There was an open doorway and we just dove into the room without much thought. "We haven't exactly been nice to them!"
We threw ourselves to the door and shut it as fast as possible.
"Good point, my man." I patted him on the shoulder. "...Well, at least now we know where the enemy is."
"And vice versa." He pronounced it in Latin, not in English, and that threw me off for a good moment. "The enemy knows where we are."
"You okay?" I asked. There was blood on his combat armor chest piece, but I couldn't tell if it was his or not.
"...It's just a scratch," he said quietly. I wasn't convinced, but there was no time. We had to keep moving because, unlike the turrets, the Courser was a thinking, mobile enemy who could and would pursue us.
Stupidly enough, our position had turned from the hunter to the prey again. The problem was, a Courser was a hunter. It had been made for that. Sure, we weren't runaway synths, but disposing of us would be pretty much the same.
Counting up: we were injured, outmatched, tired, and we didn't have the genetic advantage of being specifically designed for fighting (even if I sometimes got the idea that Danse indeed had been so).
We ran through one door after another, half hoping that it would make the Courser cease pursuit and half hoping to actually find him. For now, we were pretty much lost - and time wasn't on our side. I had a wound in my side that didn't react nicely to me running around all the time.
I ran up the stairs, not even caring about Danse anymore - all that mattered was saving my own skin. God damn those turrets! Another bullet got my leg. I would have fallen if Danse hadn't caught up with me and held me up for a moment.
I mumbled a thanks, but we didn't get to enjoy a moment of peace. The Courser was fast on us. I ignored the pain and jumped away any time he got close, remembering how it had ended for Cait. Clearly martial arts were not alien to the Institute.
Using the momentary relief of the Courser reloading his rifle, we both made for the stairs and ran down. Fighting was long forgotten, now we only thought about running away.
There was nowhere to run now. We had to face the synth that was, scarily enough, in a pretty good shape still.
I shot and shot both my pistols repeatedly, but they seemed to do little damage. Ignoring the burning pain in various parts of my body, I threw the now empty guns away. There was no time for reloading! I grabbed Righteous Authority with its wonderfully full fusion cell and started shooting that. The Courser didn't even stagger.
He decided I was little danger and concentrated his fire on my partner instead.
"Danse!" I cried out just seconds before another bullet tore through my left shoulder. I hit the wall behind me and slumped to the floor.
The Courser grinned, looking at the two of us.
"As pathetic now as before," he snorted. "That's why humanity doesn't stand a chance in this war. You just never learn."
I gritted my teeth. With some effort, I managed to pull out a Stimpak from my pocket and inject it into my forearm. I felt my wounds mending, but not entirely. It wouldn't be enough.
"Nora..." Danse said hoarsely, walking to me and pressing his palms onto his abdomen. He was completely covered in blood.
My irises shrank. "God."
"Ah..." He waved a hand, leaning on the wall for support. He then coughed up some blood. "How bad are your injuries, Sergeant?"
I narrowed my eyes. "You should be worrying about yourself right now, sir! I'm not nearly as-"
"It's not that..." He winced in pain. "Let me rephrase the question: Can you still fight, Sergeant?"
I clenched my fists. "Yes, sir!"
"We can't allow him... to get away." He reached into his pocket and gave me some small item. "I'm clearing you of your assignment... You may... leave me."
"I can't!" I protested. "I'm not leaving you! I can't just..."
I glanced after the fleeing Courser and dug my nails into my skin.
"Damn it," I growled, looking at the wounded Paladin. "I'm coming back for you. I'm not leaving."
I didn't give him a chance to answer as I took off after the Courser. On my way, I opened my fist to look at the thing Danse had given me.
My heart sank.
I was holding my holotags.
The fact that he had given them to me meant two things. One, that I wasn't obliged to him in any way anymore. If I left him to die, I wouldn't have to face any consequences. It wouldn't be seen as desertion. Two, it meant that he trusted me completely. More than he did himself.
It also meant that he strongly believed he was going to die.
I clenched my fist on the dogtags. Oh no. I wasn't having that. I had already let one of my friends die here and I certainly wasn't going to make it a second.
"Face me!" I screamed. My voice was hoarse and I sounded desperate, but I needed to confront that synth immediately. Anger was tearing me apart. "Let's finish this! What do you say?!"
There was no reply, of course.
"Is the Institute really so scared of the Brotherhood?!" I shouted angrily. "I'm barely standing! Am I still that much of a threat?!"
No answer.
"WELL?!"
I unbuckled my shoulder holster, letting it fall to the ground. My sight was blurred already - I didn't doubt I was losing blood at an alarming rate.
"COME OUT AND FACE ME!" I couldn't even stand anymore. I fell on one knee. "Face me!" I demanded one last time.
The Courser slowly walked towards me, his footsteps now the only sound in the eery silence. I looked at him, panting heavily, but I didn't speak any more.
"What are you hoping to achieve?" He asked calmly. He was standing close to me. Very close - he wouldn't have done that unless he was convinced I was completely harmless. "You're practically dead by now. You and that other soldier both." He shook his head. "You're completely hopeless. You don't even have the brains to see when you don't stand a chance."
"Yeah..." I said hoarsely. I coughed, spitting blood all over the floor. "You're right. I don't have any kind of common sense." I managed to smile despite the pain. "What I do have, though... Is quite a big stash of weaponry."
The synth's eyes widened, but he didn't have the chance to react when I jumped back, using almost all my strength, and left him with the sheaf of live hand grenades which had been hidden under my body until now.
"No."
What a pathetic last word.
I covered my ears, curling up on the floor not to get caught in the blast. And what a blast it was. Five grenades, all exploding at the same moment. They tore the Courser's body apart as easily as if it were made from paper.
There was so much blood... Even from the inside, the synth looked human. I was just starting to wonder what the difference was.
Looking at the splattered internal organs and flesh was the last thing I wanted to do, but I had a job to do and I was barely conscious. If I didn't get us out of there soon, we would both bleed out to death.
I found the chip, embedded into what had used to be the Courser's head. I managed to take it out, but then I had to throw up. This whole situation was very bad.
I was also completely sure I had been caught up in the blast after all, because something in my chest was hurting that I didn't remember hurting before. At the stairs, I tripped over and went tumbling down. My head was spinning even more now.
I thought I wouldn't be able to stand back up, but then I saw Danse. His state was, if that was possible, drastically worse than mine - or he just happened to have more external damage, I didn't know. The thing remained that I was sure I had broken something while he was completely covered in blood. There wasn't a single clean spot on his body, even his hair was all caked in blood.
Seeing him like that made me hurt in more ways than one.
But most of all, I felt cold determination. I had just killed the person who had done this - but it was the scientists at the Institute who were getting it. I would kill every last one of those bastards. For what they had done to me and to my friends. For Cait. And Shaun. And Preston Garvey, and Paladin Danse. For everyone I'd seen get into harm's way.
I checked and was relieved to see he was still alive, and even partially conscious, which was more than I had been hoping for.
We could barely walk, so as much as leaving the building was hard. Danse had a large wound in his abdomen and, despite our constant efforts, more blood was still flowing out of it. I couldn't stop the bleeding, neither his nor mine. I was pretty sure my arm was broken or at least crippled, but I still put it around him and tried to hold both of us up. I had a gunshot wound in my left thigh and the bullet was still in. Every move of my leg caused more blood to leave me. Danse's right arm was almost completely bashed, blood and blood and even more blood.
I was too weak to walk on my own. He was too weak to walk at all.
By some ungodly effort and enduring more pain that I would ever be comfortable with, I managed to pull a signal flare out of Danse's belt pocket. I didn't have enough strength to throw it. I just lit the tip and waited until red flame burst from the small tube.
"Almost... there," I moaned. "Come on... Come on."
"Nnnngh" was the only response I received from the barely conscious Paladin.
"Vertibird... coming..." I tried to take another step, but I tripped on some small rock and we both went tumbling to the ground. Blood! I landed on top of Danse, but that didn't even matter.
I passed out.
oooOOO***OOOooo
I blinked and rubbed my head with a moan. I felt as if someone'd hit me with a baseball bat. Repeatedly.
Slowly, I remembered what had happened and how much better the bat would have been.
"...think she's conscious," someone said. Their voice was all deteriorated by the blood rushing in my ears. "Sergeant? Are you with us?"
"...just don't try to move for now..."
"Nora, hi." This voice I did recognize - Haylen. "Listen, can you try to hold out for a while longer?"
Weakly, I opened my eyes. I was in the clinic on the Prydwen. I could see Knight-Captain Cade, Haylen, and another medic in the room, but most of all, I could see a big bundle of blood-stained cloth. How much blood... had I lost...? Had I?
"Danse?" I tried to ask, but my voice was so rasped that it barely came out as a word.
"Shh, don't talk now," Haylen said. "You'll just make it worse."
I tried to lift my head to look around the room, but I was held down.
"...not the way to go about it..."
I didn't hear the full conversation.
"Give me an anaesthetic."
I wanted to protest when Haylen injected a syringe into my vein, but my body was partly paralyzed, and those few parts that weren't slowly lost feeling too.
The darkness surrounded me again.
oooOOO***OOOooo
"Danse!" I gasped, sitting up as I jolted awake. I did a quick scan of the room I was in - the medibay again. I was uncomfortable with the amount of IV bags I had strapped to different parts of my body, but nothing really hurt. Probably painkillers. "...Danse?"
"Right here." I was relieved to see him alive and- maybe not well, but alive. That's what mattered.
I hadn't gotten anyone killed this time around.
"And she's up," Knight-Captain Cade announced. He walked up to me with a stern expression. "What gives, Sergeant? I said, slow metabolism. I said, don't push yourself too hard. I said all those things-"
"It was my fault," Danse offered, but he was about as convincing as a drunken molerat.
"You can shut up," Haylen said kindly. "With all respect, sir, but you're in no condition to take any responsibility, sir." She had a point - he looked like he had been chewed up, spit out, and stepped on. And then glittered with bandages and IVs.
"How... long was I out?" I asked.
"Just a day or so."
"A day?!" I exclaimed. "I gotta know if-"
It was then that it hit me that's not what I should be concerned with. The Courser chip... The chip! I didn't have it!
I wanted to start looking in my pockets, but I realized I was wearing only a thin hospital gown.
Danse noticed my panic and explained that it had been secured, alright. Apparently, most of Proctor Quinlan's team and Proctor Taegan's team were working on a way to decode the encryption on the chip now. If they'd been at it for a day already, it had to be a hard nut to crack.
The body of the Courser had been taken for examination, of course, but my little explosion had done so much damage that there was no hope for results. The only thing Proctor Taegan had managed to do was isolate the material of the polymer used in the Courser's armor. Pretty impressive for one day.
All in all, it seemed like, at least for now, my job was done.
"How long until I can get back to it?" I asked. Cade and Haylen exchanged glances.
"You've got four broken ribs right now, and I'm afraid a minor concussion," Cade said slowly. "I would be hesitant to put you into any combat mission in the nearest future. Actually, I'd advise using a wheelchair for three days or so."
"You're kidding," I said. "With all due respect, sir, I'm not..." I drifted off. What the hell did it matter? Why did I want to go back to Greenetech? "That's okay. I can wait."
I asked Haylen to help me get dressed in my regular uniform, somewhere far away from all the prying eyes. Yes, it was still a military, yes, Cade was my GP at the moment, and yes, with our lifestyle, Danse had seen me in various degrees of nakedness already, but I wasn't comfortable changing around all those men.
"Paladin, a word, since we're already at the injuries subject," Cade added. I stopped in the door. I didn't care if eavesdropping was bad - I needed to know what I'd done to my friend. "Do listen this time... Be careful. Don't strain it. Don't break it. You can't get this one arm injured so often, it's not good for you."
Danse glared at him.
"If this keeps on, I'll have no choice but to take it off."
"Noted, Captain," Danse said jadedly. He looked away proudly.
I asked Haylen to help me walk outside.
"The hell you're grinning for?" I asked skeptically. "Me beaten up or Paladin Danse beaten up? One of us must've pissed you if you're this happy," I noticed.
"No, Nora, I just... I spent a lot of time thinking about what you said about love and relationships and, you know... All that... And..." She kept smiling. "Well... Rhys asked me out yesterday!"
I stared at her.
"But that's... That's amazing!" I hugged her.
"I know!" She hugged me back, which kind of hurt. A lot.
"Broken ribs," I said through gritted teeth and Haylen immediately pulled away.
"Oh, sorry."
So everyone around me was all happy and together while I was still as pathetically single as ever. I could have been with MacCready. I could have made it work with MacCready...
Oh, let's admit it. I wasn't over MacCready. I couldn't accept that he had chosen my best friend over me.
Shit. I should be happy for them. I should. I knew fair well how hard it was for love to exist in the Wasteland. The fact that two of my closest friends had managed to find it in one another should be a reason for me to be happy, not bitter and envious.
Some friend I turned out to be.
oooOOO***OOOooo
Three days.
Three days, chained to this godforsaken stupid wheelchair. My stitches would have to stay on for longer than that, too. All in all, I would be effectively out of duty for circa a week.
And the most irritating thing of all? That bastard Danse was due in two days. I was sure he had been more hurt than me - or at least just as much. And he got away with a few stitches and a sling. Not. Fucking. Fair.
I was also angry because honestly, we were finally on the right track, and for once there was nothing I could do. I wanted to go down to Diamond City and discuss the situation with Piper! I wanted to come by the Castle and check up on the Minutemen - hell, I would be okay with running a stupid settlement recruitment op!
...Most of all, I wanted - needed to talk to Nick Valentine. About synths. I hadn't had any moral problems before, but...
"You can't-! Do you have any idea what they'll do to me?! Please, I- Don't leave!" That girl's screams haunted me at night. So humane. So full of fear.
I really needed to talk to someone about it.
But no. I had to stay put.
I spent most time complaining about it to Proctor Ingram. The first day, I irritated her, but then she must've gotten used to me talking because she stopped complaining. I bet she was like me and didn't like silence during work.
I also tuned her radio to Diamond City radio so I could listen in, get intel on what was going down in the Commonwealth - and how much of it reached the public.
"Oh God, please," Paladin Brandis complained during lunch break once, when I turned it on. "Not that terrible radio again. I don't understand why you even bother."
"It's news," I answered absently, turning it up so I could hear over all the noise.
"-those mercenaries. The... Gunners, right. So, I don't know if that's true, but sounds like, maybe, um... Maybe the Institute was involved?" Travis, the DJ, was such a poor guy. I'd met him just a couple of times in Diamond City and I could tell he wasn't very good at the talking to people thing. My heart went out to him. At the same time, I was happy anyone hosted a radio broadcast in the Wasteland.
MacCready had said Galaxy News Radio in DC was better.
"In other news, there's this... Well, there are rumors, in the Commonwealth... That I have heard... You know the one about the Railroad? A, uh, group that actually helps... helps synths who want to escape the Institute." I perked up at that. "Well, uh... Maybe it's not just a rumor. I mean, it is as far as I know, but, uh... I mean, they may actually be out there." He paused. Travis was a good kid, but he was a terrible DJ. "It- It sounds kind of crazy, if you ask me! And if it were real... It'd be super dangerous, I bet. I think it's safer to just, uh, sit here and play... play music. Yeah."
A sad jazzy tune came on, then.
"Wish on the moon
And look for the gold in a rainbow
And you'll find a happy time..."
Half of the music on this stupid station was massively depressing. I asked Paladin Brandis to turn it off.
"Must have been something," he said. "To see it all before the world went to hell."
"Not that different," I said. "Maybe less radiation and dirt. But some things haven't changed at all."
People never change.
War never changes.
Ultimately, the world doesn't change.
"You should tell us about it," Danse suggested. I looked at him, surprised. He already knew all he had wanted to know.
"Actually, my colleague here has got a point," Brandis agreed. "It would be a nice distraction from the war effort, and everyone here is on a break anyway."
"Come on, Sergeant," Danse smiled a bit, "we want to hear you talk."
"Uh... Sure." I started talking then; about the radio and television, and then about society and jobs and all those things those people didn't know... All in all, I strayed far from the militaristic. I talked and talked and talked, trying to recreate the image of America as well as I could - the image that, with every Wasteland day that passed, became more blurred and distant.
At first it was just Danse and Brandis listening, but eventually a Scribe sat down at our table and joined my little audience. As time went, the whole table was filled with people, some of them standing just to hear me talk.
I was baffled at first and would lose the context, but Danse would just ask me a question regarding my story and guide me back on the thread. Oh, the son of a gun had set it up. Smartass.
"Let's see..." I jogged my memory to answer the most recent question as well as I could. "Well, I didn't work in accounting, but there had been a big inflation during the Sino-American War, with US dollars reaching the lowest price in, like, centuries. And, uh... Yeah. You just went into a store and paid for what you wanted."
Scribe Harris raised a finger shyly. "And they had it?"
"...Yeah," I said, surprised. "Pretty much everything was available..." I drifted off, staring at the far end of the room, where Elder Maxson was leaning on the doorframe and looking at me rather reproachfully.
I went completely silent. Everyone looked away, suddenly reminded that this wasn't something we were supposed to be doing. I felt a lump in my throat and quickly thought about how to explain myself.
"It's my fault, sir," Danse stood up before I had the chance to do anything.
"Danse," he growled. "Why am I not surprised." My friend fidgeted a bit, but didn't lose his composure.
"I encouraged Knight-Sergeant Nora to share her experiences with the rest of the division. I was fully aware this would lead to neglection of duties, sir. I'm taking full responsibility on myself."
Maxson looked at him, then at me. Something in his expression changed, almost like... amusement.
"And you do what he tells you to?" He asked. I figured the question was directed to me, but I had no idea what the safe answer could be.
"Yes, sir..." I answered hesitantly. "I wouldn't dare be insubordinate."
The fact that everyone was watching was even more stressing.
"Well, I'll be damned." Maxson chuckled to himself. He looked at me, then at Danse, then again at me. I had no idea what he was seeing in us. "But this is wonderful. Simply wonderful." He shook his head happily. "Star Paladin Grimes? I want you at the commandment deck. The rest of you can continue whatever that was." There was a spark in his eyes as he smiled at us. "After all, who am I to deprive you of such a good pastime?"
There was a moment of awkward silence. I wasn't sure why Maxson had even allowed this, least of all what I had done to make this something bad, but... But, ultimately, it didn't matter. I was telling a story and people were enjoying it. That was the bottom line.
"Where... Where was I?" I asked nervously.
"You were saying about stores," Harris said kindly. I nodded.
"Right. Um... We had all kinds of stores; there were grocery stores, electronics..."
oooOOO***OOOooo
"I'm taking off your cast now," Haylen informed me. I had already gone through removing the stitches that day, so this would be nicer. "I still wouldn't go doing one of those things you and Danse do when you're in the field. You two just can't stop, can you? Half of the time I spend in medical is time spent on you."
"Yeah. Thanks, Haylen. I'll be careful," I promised. I offered her a weak smile.
"And no synth hunting, right?"
My smile fell. "No," I said seriously. I really needed to talk to Nick. And... Damn it.
There hadn't been a day when I didn't regret not helping that synth in Cambridge. The girl had clearly been scared out of her wits. I hadn't helped at all.
Then again, it's not like I killed her. I quickly shut that voice out. The moment I became a person who thought not killing a good deed in itself, the Wasteland won. I wouldn't let the goddamn Wasteland win.
I wasn't lost yet.
I went to Elder Maxson to ask who I had to ask if I wanted to do something. Stupid as it sounded, I had pretty much no idea who I answered to right now. I wasn't in active duty so it's not like it mattered, but I wouldn't get my peace unless I went back there. I just wouldn't.
I gently knocked on the door to the Elder's office even though it was open, just out of politeness.
"Sir, if I may, a question..." I began awkwardly, "It's just that... I'm not really sure which officer I serve under right now."
Maxson looked at me. "Weren't you in Paladin Danse's team?"
"Well, yes, but..."
"Paladin Danse responds directly to Proctor Ingram. I understand he's out of duty right now?"
"Yes, sir," I nodded, "that is right."
"Then go to Proctor Ingram, whatever it is." He sighed. "I don't exactly have the time right now."
"...May I ask why?"
"Actually, Sergeant, you may not. But since you're partly the reason, I might as well tell you. It's that damned Institute technology." He saw my expression and quickly raised a hand. "Don't take this the wrong way. I do appreciate you securing it, and I'm fully aware how taxing that task was. But whatever data's on that chip, it's heavily encrypted. I've got the Brotherhood's brightest minds working on this day and night, and still we've come up with nothing."
"Then the Institute is a lot more technologically advanced than we are," I said.
Maxson frowned. "I feared so. They posed a threat either way, but with that kind of advancement, they're even more of a danger..." He drifted off, staring intently at something behind me. "I'm sorry, you were saying?"
"I wanted to check in, ask if I could visit the fight site."
"I suppose there's no harm. We've secured the building, so there should be no fighting." He nodded his head curtly. "Yes, I'll send for a vertibird to take you to Cambridge."
"Thank you," I said gratefully.
"Oh no, thank you."
The vertibird that Maxson had issued me was one in a better state than any of the ones I had flown in before, but I never had gotten quite used to the idea that people thought flying in a 200-years-old helicopter was good sense, so it was the same thing for me.
I thanked the pilot, told him not to wait for me, and walked to the Greenetech Genetics building on foot. True to Elder Maxson's words, there was a bunch of Brotherhood soldiers stationed outside, but I wouldn't call that 'secured'.
I politely dismissed the Knight who offered to help me out with anything I needed and just headed straight inside.
The place hadn't changed much, except now there were a lot less dead bodies laying around. I had to put some thought into recreating the exact path we had taken during that wild chase the last time, but eventually I managed to find the storeroom we had hidden in.
What was I even hoping for? That she would still be alive? That I could make amends? Fix the reckless, stupid thing I'd done? Or was I just trying to compensate for Covenant? In a way, both situations were the same. They showed that I couldn't make good decisions. They showed that I shouldn't be left in charge of anything, because I just fucked it up.
My stupid decisions cost Danse and Preston a good portion of their health, and they cost Cait her life. Being friends with me was fucking dangerous. I hurt people. Then why...?
Why did I want so much to make things right this time?
I knew the synths weren't a good thing. Not a single thing about their existence was good, or right, or even acceptable. But did that give me the right to condemn a whole species? It wasn't their fault. Just like ghouls, they had no say in the matter. The only thing that remained now was whether I could see them as people. Whether I could actually believe that a machine advanced enough could have its own free will, its own mind and soul.
If Nick Valentine was a regular synth, I wouldn't have a problem. I didn't doubt his humanity and never had. But he wasn't.
The Brotherhood of Steel, especially Elder Maxson, wanted it to be clear that synths were abominations of science that needed to be eradicated. The Minutemen held the agenda that the Institute couldn't replace people with synth duplictes and thus form a society of fear and paranoia. There was a middle ground, sure, but it was not where I stood.
Right now, I felt alienated from both of these points of view. I didn't know what I believed in. What I did know was that I had to find out what had happened to the synth, K1-98. I had left her to die here, fully aware of what I was doing. And I hated myself for it now.
I almost hesitantly looked around the room, not really sure what I was expecting. Did I want to find her dead or alive? I didn't know what I wanted. What I did know was that what I saw wasn't even remotely close to any of the things I'd been expecting.
The glass door to the closet had been shattered, glass shards covering the floor inside... It had been broken from outside. But the Gunners had been dead when I'd been here, and the Brotherhood hadn't fully checked this place out yet.
The girl was gone, too, but there wasn't a single drop of blood or sign of struggle anywhere near.
On the wall, someone had graffitied the symbol of a lantern.
oooOOO***OOOooo
"The Railroad?" MacCready raised an eyebrow skeptically.
"Yeah!" I said. "They're stalking me. Or something. I'm telling you, it's like they've targeted me or-"
"Or someone's paranoia has started to spread," he said, shooting Piper a look.
"I believe you," she offered.
MacCready rolled his eyes, exasperated, and walked away.
"I knew you'd believe me," I said. "It's just that... I don't even know what's right anymore. The Courser... That was a synth. But that girl in Covenant..." I hadn't talked about Covenant for months, I had wanted to push that memory far away. I had wanted to forget what I'd done. "And in Cambridge, too. I don't think they'd done anything bad."
"Meaning..." Piper wrinkled her forehead, looking at me analytically.
"I went back there yesterday. I wanted to help her, even though she was a synth. I just felt so bad about leaving her before... "
"You left?" Piper shook her head. "I don't- I don't understand, Blue. What the heck?"
I explained, with every soul-wretching detail of how terrible and cruel a person I was, and of how much my conscience had been gnawing at me since then. Everything. Because the bottom line was that Piper was the only person I could freely tell everything and who wouldn't condemn me, even if she did judge me.
And she was appalled now.
"I can't believe you. You left... An innocent girl. You left her to die? And that counted as an act of mercy in your eyes?!" she exclaimed. "That's the better option than what? Shooting her right then and there?! You can't decide someone's life- You can't decide on the basis of whether you like them or not. Anyone could be a synth, you know! Would you leave them to death, too? Or would you just kill?! What if it turned out someone you knew was a synth? Preston?! Or MacCready?! Or Danse?!" She looked down. "...Or me?"
"Are you?" I raised an eyebrow skeptically.
"That's not the point."
"...I know."
"What I mean, Nora, is you can't be that person. Please. I don't want to see my best friend become someone I can't really be friends with. And I can't be friends with this... this woman who can't even stand by one decision." She looked up at me, her eyes shining. "You can either want to condemn all the synths or to save them. Not choose."
"But that's morality, Piper," I whispered. "It's choosing who deserves or not to live, no matter if they're human, ghoul, or synth." I strapped my revolver in a holster to my belt. "Ghouls had no say in the matter. It was radiation that made them the way they are." I angrily picked up my backpack. "Synths are wrong. I get that you're close with Nicky and all that, but they're wrong. They should never have existed."
"You spend too much time with Danse."
"Bugger off, Piper," I muttered. "That's what I believe."
"And that's fine. Just stick to those beliefs, okay?" She put her hand on my forearm. "Nora... just don't let anyone push their agenda onto your own beliefs. That's all I want. For you to stay yourself." She smiled weakly. "That's what I like you for."
A heavy silence fell between us.
"So, you and MacCready, huh?" I grinned unconvincingly. Oh hell, no point in pretending I wasn't hurt when I was. I let that fake smile falter. "How well is that going?"
"Well enough that I don't like him standing over there talking with Myrna," Piper answered with a small laugh. "That give you about enough of a clue?"
It did. Of course it did; it was just as I'd feared it would be. I had wanted to be happy for them, and on some level I was, but I couldn't take that anger out of my heart. I wasn't just jealous, I was frustrated.
I would never find love again. I had had my chance, and I had blown it. I'd had a chance with Hancock and I turned him down, I'd had a chance with MacCready and he'd turned me down, and now I was headed down the road to loneliness.
Well, no, not really loneliness: I still had my friends. But Piper and MacCready were together now, so would be Nick and Ellie, Danse would find someone too because, let's face it, he was a good catch, the same went for Preston, he wouldn't stay single for long, and I would remain all alone.
Friendship is an amazing thing and it can get you through even the hardest of times, but what my heart really yearned for was to love. And to be loved in return.
Was that really so hard to find?
oooOOO***OOOooo
"All set," Haylen patted me on the shoulder. She checked something out in my medical records. "I can officially say you're fit for duty again, Knight-Sergeant."
"Thanks," I said. Stitches out. That's one less thing to do. "Anything else I need to know?"
"Just that your CO was looking for you."
Shit. "Where did he say he'd be?" I asked, trying to play it cool.
"At the bridge, I think. Nora... Take care of yourself. I like you better in one piece."
I smirked. "Sure thing, Haylen. I've got it covered."
I went to the bridge and managed to walk in on a briefing that seemed pretty important.
"Oh, good that you're here," Maxson nodded at me to go in once he noticed me. "This concerns you too, so listen." He joined his hands behind his back. "The Institute have already proven their technological superiority. This won't be an easy campaign, in any terms of understanding. But it will not be a campaign at all unless we find a way to bring the fight to them." He looked at me, or rather at Danse standing next to me. "Not one of our Scribes can decide the encryption on that chip you recovered. It seems impossible. And, as you've proven good at solving impossible tasks thus far... Paladin Danse, I want you to find some kind of way to decrypt this information. It could prove crucial to the course of this war."
"Yes, sir," Danse said evenly. "I'll do my best.
I smirked. I was planning on doing my best.
Maxson shook his head with a smirk of his own. "Of course you will."
And, finally, the magic word that makes every soldier sigh with relief that the official part is over.
"Dismissed."
oooOOO***OOOooo
"So basically, what you're saying is that the Freedom Trail is the right trail?" MacCready crossed his arms. "When Nora and I went there, we didn't find anything. And I swear, there was a lot of searching. Or... fighting, in my case." He glared at me. "Some other people were doing the searching."
I shrugged. "Hey, you were hired help. If I'd known we'd end up being friends, I wouldn't have risked your life so much."
"Gee, thanks, Nora. You're ever so thoughtful."
Piper clapped her hands. "Alright! Listen, I love you both, but if you're gonna fight, I swear I'll kick your asses."
MacCready and I exchanged knowing glances. Sure she would.
I crossed my arms. "The deal is this: I don't need any of you guys to do this, alright? I asked you here because I actually want you to come with me. Now, if any one of you feels like this is stupid, or thinks the Railroad doesn't exist, or has any important things to do, you're free to leave. I won't stop you, I won't judge you, I won't even hold a grudge. It's your decision. It's just that you are my friends and I feel a lot more secure when I know you have my back."
They all looked at me, smiling.
"After that, I don't think any of us are gonna leave," MacCready said.
"Good enough." I nodded. "Then let's get underfoot. We don't have much time and we have to get this chip decoded. My best guess is the Railroad. They must've dealt with Institute technology in the past, so it's very possible they understand it at least a little bit. And, to be completely honest with you? I like that one bit much more than the nothing we already have."
"So this is all the code says? Follow the Freedom Trail?" MacCready said. "This will take days. We can't check every single historical site in Boston."
"I don't think everything," Piper disagreed. "Most notably Faneuil Hall, Old North Church, Paul Revere House, and what we now call Goodneighbor, Scollay Square District."
"We can rule out Goodneighbor," I said, looking at the ground. "Just... trust me on this."
"Okay then. So we have three places and four people," she summed up. "We can split up or..."
"Oh no," I said quickly. "Splitting up is a stupid idea when we're about to tangle with a whole organization." I looked at them. "We stick together."
We left Diamond City the same day we had arrived. Thankfully, all of that wasn't as ridiculously far as other places in the Commonwealth. We wanted to check Faneuil Hall first, but we decide to put it off in favor of the other places when it turned out it was still occupied my a large group of super mutants.
Old North Church was next, but as far as I was aware, we could go check Paul Revere's House right away. The place was empty, we had searched it before.
MacCready said so, but Piper and Danse shushed him and went off to search.
"Honestly," I rolled my eyes, "those two make too big a deal out of things sometimes."
"Not Piper," MacCready protested. I leveled a glare at him.
"MacCready, honey? She isn't here. You don't have to do that."
He snorted a laugh. "That's one way of putting it."
"You two are useless," Piper decided, looking at us reproachfully. Reluctantly, we joined in the search.
I didn't think it was going to be a fruitful search. Danse found a feral ghoul; dead. Piper found three; alive. Other than that, pretty much just rubble. A few skeletons on the pews. Just thinking about those people who died here 200 years ago made me all weak. Their last act was to go to church. Make amends with God? Pray? Hide from the inevitable?
Whatever their intentions, they'd all ended up the same way as most of the world. Obliterated. Killed. Eradicated. Turned to ash.
I shook my head, trying not to think about it. Instead, I focused on looking for whatever we were looking for. I wasn't even sure...
"There's some kind of tunnel here," I called out. The passageway was under a pretty unstable debris, easy to overlook. "I think it leads underneath the church, probably some catacombs or something!"
"We didn't see that last time around, did we?" MacCready said. "You think it's important?"
"I don't know," I answered, stepping into the tunnel. "But I think we oughta check it out."
"Well, don't go alone," Danse warned me, quickly catching up with me, the heavy steps of that goddamn power armor making enough noise to wake the dead.
"...Danse?" I said slowly. "Why don't you just lose the power armor for now?"
The debris we were standing on shifted dangerously under the weight.
"You guys," Piper said, sounding genuinely worried, "if I were you, I'd not stand right there."
Danse took a step back and that's when it all went to hell. He stepped on some more loose part of the debris, the whole thing shook and began crumbling, MacCready ran in the stupid direction - our direction - and the ceiling collapsed, right onto us.
I only had the sense to push on the emergency ejaculation control on the back of his power armor before I slipped on something and went tumbling backwards, into the catacombs.