Chapter Twenty-Three

Sentinel Site, Glowing Sea, 2289

"So," Nate drawled, once the group was inside the walls of the stockpile, "I'm willing to bet you weren't expecting to see me so soon, weren't you?"

Danse raised an eyebrow at him. "That would be a fair assumption, Nate. To be fair, I hadn't expected to see you in the middle of the Glowing Sea. Nor were my comrades. You can understand why they were jumpy."

The others looked peeved to be dealing with Nate, but had clearly recognized that this wasn't a man they could take on without consequences. Nate shrugged, and walked on, with Danse trailing behind him.

"Sure, it's a hostile environment, but that doesn't mean everything is hostile. Unless it's asymmetric warfare, in which case, everything probably is hostile." Nate said, adding the last sentence as an afterthought.

"Asymmetric warfare?" Danse asked him, and the others listened in.

Nate was surprised they didn't know the term. "Yeah, asymmetric warfare. Where the enemy doesn't abide to the same rules that you do?"

"That just sounds like regular warfare. Was that a regular thing before the bombs?" Danse inquired.

"Sometimes. It became common in Canada, but I spent most of my time in Alaska, or pretty much every else. I'd heard tales of the Reds using children as suicide bombers, but never took much stock into it. War tends to demonize the enemy. I'd heard of Canadian freedom fighters refusing medical aide because they thought it would kill them." Grant paused, recalling an event from the war. "Chinese soldiers use to kill themselves rather then get captured, especially by my Delta guys. It was brutal war. Almost as brutal as the fighting is today. I can't thank the war for much, but I can thank it for keeping me alive in the wastes."

Danse was silent for a moment, as he took in the information. "Was it really that bad?"

"Like I said, sometimes. Other times I was on top of a mountain, watching troop movements, or targeting officers for artillery strikes." Nate replied.

The conversation stopped when a group of ghouls began to crawl out from the walls. The Brotherhood soldiers began calling out targets, but Nate just dropped to a knee, and began taking accurate shots, which blew the ghouls heads off. Danse managed to fire off a round, but Nate had been too quick for all of them. Even in his bulky MOPP suit, he had managed to target and fire on the ghouls before the Brotherhood had reacted.

"That was some fine shooting, Colonel Thiel. Somehow, despite myself, I keep getting more and more impressed with your fighting skills. If you'd allow it, I'd like to learn some of your techniques, at some point." Danse told Nate, who just grinned at him.

"Sounds like a plan, Paladin, but for now, I need to sleep. I've got a long hike later, so I need to rest up. Try not to use those nukes for nefarious purposes, yeah? And at some point, I want to know the name of the robot you're building." Nate said, with a twinkle in his eye. Danse gaped, and Nate laughed.

He left the Brotherhood soldiers to their own devices, and found a nice corner to settle down in. Despite the constant laser fire the Brotherhood were emitting, Nate drifted off to sleep, thinking of simpler times. It didn't last long. He woke up an hour later to find himself surrounded by the other Brotherhood soldiers, and no Danse. He figured out their intention fairly quickly. They didn't know he was awake, and were silently debating between themselves.

"I heard Elder Maxson secretly wants him dead, but he can't because Liberty Prime isn't finished." One said, but another scoffed.

"I doubt it. The elder invited him onto the Prydwen, and he wouldn't do that if he planned to kill him. This is an awful idea, and I'm sure Paladin Danse would kill you if you went through with it." He told the trio of others. Then looked to where Nate used to be. "What the- Where is he?"

While they had been talking, Nate had rolled into a recess in the wall, which was why he had picked that specific corner to camp in. It turned out to be a tunnel, and he decided to follow it. It led him to an alcove above where he had previously been, and he watched as the Brotherhood soldiers panicked amongst themselves. He whistled loudly, and they all pointed their weapons up, to where he was. It was too late for them, however, as Paladin Danse stormed over, and smacked the weapons out of their hands. He started yelling at them furiously, and they bowed their heads in submission. Nate wasn't even listening to what was being said. He had made his way back to his gear, and was packing it up. He slipped into his MOPP suit, and started towards the exit. Danse called out to him, but Nate ignored him. He didn't have the time, nor the energy, to deal with Danse and the Brotherhood.

He left the Sentinel Site, and began heading west, towards a crater he knew housed a faction of the Children of Atom. Nate was banking on the fact that they might know where the scientist, Virgil, was hiding out. It took him several hours to reach the crater, and he was bone-tired when he finally did. Still, he pushed onwards, and made his way down a marked path, towards the centre of the crater, where a woman stood, waiting.

"Welcome, my child, to the Crater of Atom, a shrine to His holy light." She intoned.

Nate stared at her for a moment. "Right. I'm looking for Doctor Virgil. He's hiding out somewhere nearby. Would you happen to know where the man is?"

"Yes, Brian Virgil. He traded with us for a few weeks, but then stopped coming. We suspect that he has passed." She informed him.

"Uh huh. Care to tell me where he might be?" Nate asked again.

"He lived in a cave just south of here. Beware of the Deathclaws." And with that, the weird lady turned and left.

Nate sighed, and turned south himself, and started hiking south once more, his eyes peeled for Deathclaws. He had no urge to deal with them at the moment. He found a rocky outcrop, and walked in. After what felt like a minute in the dark, he entered a lit portion of the cave. There were two turrets on platforms on each side of another tunnel mouth. Nate raised his rifle, but the turrets kept idling. He lowered in, and walked through the doorway, making sure to hit the dangling cans. He didn't want to sneak up on the doctor.

A large, almost super-mutant greeted him. It was wearing a tattered lab coat. Nate assumed this was Doctor Virgil. He greeted him as such.

"Who are you? Where's Kellogg? I know the Institute sent you after me!" It roared at him. Nate refrained from shooting the beast in the face.

"Kellogg's dead. I killed the bastard myself. Shot him in the heart." Nate slowly told the former Institute scientist, who looked at him oddly. Well, as oddly as a Super-Mutant could.

"Kellogg's… dead?" He finally got out. Nate nodded.

"How do you think I found you? We had a nice, long talk about his life decisions."

"And why were you searching for me?" Virgil finally asked, after a few moments pondering Nate's previous statement.

"I need to get into the Institute." Nate told the scientist, monster…. thing.

Virgil barked out a rather painful-sounding laugh. "That's funny. Why would you want to do that?"

"Well, it's a long story that involves Kellogg kidnapping my son and murdering my wife. I think you can understand why I want to get into the place." Nate snapped at him, finally having lost his patience.

"Oh, oh. I'm sorry. That's wrong of us, I will tell you that. All right." Virgil sighed. "It's a complicated method to get in and out of the Institute. Do you know anything about how it works?"

"Yeah, Kellogg said they use some form of teleporter. Why?" Nate asked.

Virgil proceeded to explain how the teleporter, or molecular relay, worked. He then informed Nate that he had to kill a courser to gain access.

"Cool. I need a good challenge." Nate had said. Virgil stared at him.

"Coursers undergo some of the most rigorous training ever. They are literal killing machines."

"So am I, and I assure you, I've killed much more people than a courser could ever hope to." Nate replied to the comment.

Virgil then informed Nate how to track the courser signal, and where to start. Nate thanked him, and Virgil asked him to find a cure for him, once he was in the institute. He agreed to the terms, and left the cave. It would be a long walk home, but it was worth it. He had gotten the information he needed. He was one step closer to finding Shaun.

MMXVII

AN:

WELL HELLO EVERYONE. I am back! I've had a crazy week and a half, and didn't really have time to write. If you haven't seen my update, I'm putting my other stories on hold while I finish this one. While I am getting closer to the end, I've still got a fair bit to go. As always, leave a review, and let me know what you think. I'm still taking character submissions, but if they don't appear in this story, they will most certainly appear in the sequels.

8/13- Couple Grammar fixes.

Cheers,

SovietBabushka