Thank you to the people who have reviewed the story. I know retelling the Fallout 3 story is way more easy than imagining something new, but I try my best to write it in a nice writing style and add a few things here and there to get the story even more interesting. Anyway, enjoy this chapter.


Damian closed the rotunda door behind him. The Doctor Li immediately pulled him to the left, towards a manhole cover in the floor. They could hear shouts and footsteps around them. Damian lifted the slab and let Madison Li go down first before he, in turn, rushed into the opening and put the slab back in place.

They climbed down a long metal ladder into an old sewer system. The wide tunnel went down into the depths of the earth. There they found Daniel, Garza and Alex hiding behind a desk. Damian used one of the bars of the ladder to pull on the rusty mesh of his handcuffs. It finally broke and Damian was able to regain full mobility.

"Thank God you're all right," said Alex relieved. "What happened up there, Madison?"

"It's the Enclave, they took over the lab. We have to run away now," said the scientist.

She looked at the three men.

"Are you all right?"

"We're fine," replied Garza. "When we heard the doors explode and saw those guys in power armor coming in, we fled here hoping you could join us."

"What about Anna?" asked Doctor Li. "Do you know where she is?"

"No," said Garza sadly. "She wasn't with us when we saw those guys come in."

"What about Janice? Have you seen her?" Alex asked.

Madison Li looked down and shook her head slowly. An expression of sadness crossed the faces of all three men. Daniel clenched his jaw and began to get angry.

"How did those bastards find out about Project Purity?"

He turned to Damian who was staring at a wall. Daniel approached and stood in front of him.

"I better not find out you or your father sold us out. If you or that son of a bitch has..."

He didn't have time to finish his sentence that Damian punched him in the face. Daniel stumbled and fell on the ground. He straightened his head, ready to fight and received a second punch in the face.

Garza jumped on Damian and restrained him while Alex helped Daniel to get up and pulled him away.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" shouted Daniel, his nose and mouth bleeding.

"My father's dead, you fuckin' bastard!" yelled Damian trying to free himself from Garza. "He sacrificed so that we could escape! I swear that if you dare talk about him like that again, I'll fucking kill you!"

"I... I... God, I didn't know... I... It all happened right after you arrived... So, I thought..."

Daniel looked at Doctor Li who was biting her lips and looking down. Daniel stopped moving and wiped the blood on his face, while apologizing to Damian.

"Damian," Doctor Li said finally. "Daniel couldn't have known about James. We're going to need everybody if we want to get out of here alive."

Damian, still restrained by Garza, stared at Daniel, anger in his eyes.

"We're going to need you, Damian," Doctor Li said to disarm the situation. "We have to stay together. Is that okay?"

Damian sniffed and looked at the tunnel ahead of them. He nodded and Garza let go of him slowly.

"Where are we going?" Damian asked after gathering his weapons.

"This tunnel leads to the Citadel, the Brotherhood stronghold. We should be able to find refuge there, that is, if we make it there."

"What do you mean, 'if we get there'?" Damian asked.

"The Enclave will surely come after us and God only knows what's living in that tunnel."

"You know where this place leads, but you don't know what we're gonna find along the way?" asked Damian skeptic.

"In one word; Yes. This place has been abandoned for more than twenty years. Anyone and anything could have made this place their home."

Damian looked at the tunnel again and grabbed his assault rifle. He lit his Pip-Boy's lamp and started to move on. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the small group was following him closely.

After a few meters, they came to a large fork in the road. Damian's Geiger counter began to crackle. Fortunately, the path Doctor Li showed him was not radioactive.

The sewers seemed to have been inhabited just after the Great War. Furniture and small wooden and metal plates were scattered everywhere, as well as old lamps connected to fission batteries and human bones were occupying the corners of the tunnel.

Damian led the group to a maintenance tunnel with rows of cables and pipes running along the walls and ceiling. He heard a voice and signaled the others to stop. He recognized the voice. It was the same voice he had heard coming out of those robots flying in the Wasteland, the ones that were broadcasting military march and the voice of the mysterious President Eden.

Damian looked from the corner of the tunnel and saw one of these robots, motionless near a door. The robot turned towards him and a red ray sprang from a small appendix under its shell. The laser beam hit the wall next to Damian, who aimed his rifle and fired a burst towards the exploding machine. The metallic remains fell to the ground while Damian waved to the others to follow him.

He opened the door that the robot was guarding and entered a large room with a deactivated generator and large pipes from which oozed a greenish fluorescent liquid. As he approached, Damian heard his Geiger counter clicking. He got around the strange fluid and walked through the room looking into every nook and cranny, his rifle ready for use, and entered another maintenance tunnel.

The tunnel led to another sewer pipe. Damian stepped back in the maintenance corridor just as another one of those little robots passed by without noticing him or the others. He tilted his head at the edge of the corridor and saw the machine disappear at the corner of the tunnel. Access to the left was render impassable because of a pile of orange and yellow barrels on which the radioactive clover was painted. Damian and the survivors of Project Purity had no choice but to follow the little robot from the Enclave.

The machine was gone. Where it had turned, there was a wide corridor with a closed metal door at the end, connected to a terminal, and another door, wide open, leading to a maintenance room.

"Which way?" Damian asked, looking over his shoulder.

"We have to go through that door," Doctor Li replied, pointing to the large door at the end of the corridor. "When we first left the Memorial the first time, we locked the door behind us, just in case. I can unlock it, but it will take time."

She walked past Damian and as she passed the open door, a laser beam hit the floor at her feet. She stumbled back and ran into Garza who had rushed to help her. Damian knelt and pointed his rifle into the opening. The little robot was in the room, but he wasn't looking in their direction. Moreover, the beam had been on a downward trajectory. Damian looked up and saw a concrete platform at the back of the room, protected by a metallic grille with two soldiers from the Enclave in power armor.

Damian reacted in a split second. He raised his rifle and pulled the trigger. The staccato of his gun echoed through the room and he could feel the stock digging into the hollow of his shoulder as the bullets were ejected from the barrel. The bullets ricocheted off the front of the soldier's armor in small spurts of sparks, until one of the cartridges hit the target and pierced the metal layer. The man collapsed in a scream of pain, while his companion jumped back to get in cover.

Damian pulled his finger from the trigger and leaned himself against the wall.

The cries of the wounded soldier gave way to those of his companion who called for help. The little robot turned around and aimed its laser at the door. Damian noticed that two other Enclave soldiers had just entered and were moving into position behind a door at the other end of the room.

"Doctor Li, we really have to get that door open!" Daniel cried, hiding behind a concrete block and checking his ammunitions.

"I'm doing my best…" answered the scientist.

Damian fired a few rounds of ammunition blindly, more to keep their enemies' heads down than to try to kill them. He heard a metallic squeak and saw the door open.

"Everybody inside!" he yelled.

Damian aimed his weapon at the soldiers in the Enclave and noticed a generator between him and them. He fired a short burst and the generator exploded, creating a cloud of black smoke and throwing metal shrapnel everywhere. Damian and the rest of the survivors walked through the door. On the other side, he closed the door and just before it closed, fired at the terminal on the other side. The door closed with the same metallic squeak. For good measure, he hit the control box with the butt of his gun and disconnected the power cables responsible for the opening.

"That should give us a bit of a head start, but let's not stick around," he said.

The scientists nodded silently, and Damian took the lead. This section of the sewer had suffered small collapses and portions of the drainage tunnel had fallen from the ceiling creating small piles of rubbles. Damian walked forward cautiously, listening for any noise that might indicate the presence of one of these flying robots or the arrival of enemy soldiers.

Suddenly, he heard a scream behind him. He turned around and saw Alex struggling as a skinless hand grabbed his ankle. A ghoul, trapped under a pile of rubbles, had just grabbed him and was visibly trying to knock him down to attack him. Damian ran towards the ghoul and crushed his head under the sole of his boot. The ghoul's skull broke on impact.

"Thank you," said the scientist, freeing his ankle and looking relieved.

A grunt from the depths of the tunnel answered him. Damian turned around and pointed his rifle in the direction of the noise. Nothing. He motioned for the others to follow him, silently. This part of the tunnel had been also been inhabited after the Great War. Tables, beds, everyday objects, everything was gathered here underground to create a living space. Damian didn't know if the people who had lived here had come when the bombs fell or if they had come down much later, to hide from the Super Mutants or Raiders, but he didn't have time to look for an answer. All he cared about was getting out of here alive.

They advanced through the tunnel to a fork in the road. Madison Li pointed the way to Damian. He stopped when he heard the voice of President Eden, but after checking, there was no robot, just an old radio half rusted, surrounded by human remains.

Damian felt a hand on his shoulder and turned his head. He saw the Doctor Li with a worried look in her eyes.

"Something wrong?" Damian asked.

"We've got to stop."

"Stop? You're kidding, right?"

Damian took a quick glance at the rest of the group and saw Garza leaning against a wall, an expression of fatigue and pain on his face. He was sweating and holding his chest.

"Garza has a heart condition. His heart will give out if we don't find medicine."

"Did you notice there's a whole army of guys armed to the teeth on our heels?" Damian cried out.

"I'm not moving until Garza gets his medicine. You must have Stimpaks on you. If you do, I'm asking you to give them to me."

The idea of leaving Garza behind ran through his mind, but the poor guy had no chance of surviving if he stayed here alone. Damian banished the sordid idea from his mind and searched his pockets, convinced he had nothing on him after being searched by the Enclave soldiers. He had left his bag inside Project Purity after they arrived.

"I have nothing on me," Damian admitted. "All my Stimpaks were in my bag."

The Doctor Li bit her lips and looked at Garza.

"I'm not leaving him behind," she said.

Damian ran his hand on his face, thinking rapidly. He looked around and saw an old office chair in a corner. He walked toward it, looked at it and brought it back to the others.

"You think you can transport him on this?" he asked.

"Well," replied Madison Li. "I don't know if that's going to work, but that's all we have."

Garza claimed that he was fine and that he could walk on his own, but the Doctor Li convinced him to sit on the chair, while Alex and Daniel would push him or carry him. It was far from being perfect, and it would slow them down, but it was the only option they had, other than leaving the poor man behind to a certain death. They started to walk again in the corridor. They stumbled across a large room with metal stairs. Damian walked into the room and halfway up, he felt warmth at the top of his skull. A small burning smell emanated from his hair and he turned around to see a soldier from the Enclave in full armor standing on a catwalk behind him. Damian saw the soldier turn his head as Doctor Li and the others entered the room, giving him time to raise his rifle and shoot his assailant. A bullet passed through the helmet's eye patch and the soldier collapsed backwards. Damian felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up when he heard the soldier's horrific scream.

"Hurry! Go to the other side!

He shouted to the other survivors and led them out of the room. Alex and Daniel had all the difficulties in the world to carry Garza on his chair. Damian was looking at the catwalk the soldier had fired from and the opposite end of the room, fearing that other Enclave soldiers would come.

He climbed the stairs and came face to face with yet another soldier. The soldier raised his laser gun to him. As he watched the soldier raise his rifle, Damian was pierced with a strange sensation, as if his stomach had just fallen into a bottomless pit. He waited for the fateful moment when the energy beam would hit him and leave a smoking hole in his chest. Then a feral ghoul came out of nowhere and threw itself on the soldier. Unsettled, he stumbled and fell on his back, taking the ghoul with him. With superhuman strength, the creature began to strike the soldier's head with surprising speed. The helmet broke and Damian heard a hiccup of terror, which was lost in a crack that indicated that the ghoul had just pulverized the skull of its victim.

The creature slowly calmed down and began to plunge its face over what was left of the soldier's head. When the ghoul lifted its head, it revealed a bloody jaw with a piece of flesh hanging from it and what Damian identified as an eye. The ghoul didn't seem interested at Damian, nor to the other survivors, who all looked like they were about to vomit. Damian noticed the soldier's laser gun at his feet and grabbed it. The weapon was lighter than his assault rifle. He noticed a small light gauge with dotted lines, right next to the fusion cell inserted into the weapon. The rifle was loaded and ready for use. A little extra firepower wouldn't make much of a difference if he and the scientists came across a whole squad of Enclave soldiers, but anything that could increase his chances of survival even a little bit was good to take.

Damian signaled the others to move forward. He stood between them and the ghoul, ready to shoot him if the ghoul lost interest in his meal.

The stairs led him to another maintenance tunnel where they would be able to carry Garza more easily. A room on the left that had once been used as a locker room for the city's sewer maintenance workers had been converted into a clinic by the former residents. Damian notified the other to wait while he searched the room. Inside a first aid box, he found some Stimpaks.

"Here, this should help," he said, giving a syringe to Doctor Li.

She nodded her head and walked over to Garza, who, despite his tough guy looks, seemed happy to be able to ease his heart until next time. Damian put the Stimpaks back in his pocket and they continued to move forward.

The maintenance tunnel opened into another sewer pipe.

"This is it, there should be a Brotherhood outpost right at the end of this tunnel, behind this door," Madison Li said.

Daniel, Alex, and Garza passed Damian and rushed to a large steel sliding door where human bones were piling up.

"Open the door! Open up, damn it!"

Daniel yelled at the metal door and banged on it. Several grunts and groans came to them. Ghouls converged on them, probably attracted by the sounds of the shootings and by Daniel who had decided to force the door open.

"Open up! Please!" shouted Alex.

The door slid open and they came across a small sandbag fortification, behind which a Brotherhood soldier in power armor stood guard. Just above him, a pair of automatic turrets watched over the survivors.

"Who the hell are you?" asked the soldier, who did not expect anyone, let alone humans, to knock on the door of his guard post.

No one had time to answer that a succession of grunts resounded right behind them. Frightened, the scientists rushed to the entrance, while feral ghouls began to appear. Damian walked through the door and turned around to see Doctor Li, still in the tunnel. Her foot was stuck in the rib cage of a skeleton and she could not free herself. Damian rushed towards her and, with the stock of his rifle, broke the bones.

"Run!" he shouted to her.

He pushed the scientist forward and they jumped over the little wall of sandbags. Damian felt a burning metal object fall on his head, then a second one and a multitude of others. The automatic turrets had started to fire at the ghouls. He raised his head to see the projectiles cutting through the ranks of the ferals, but barely managing to stop their advance. Twenty, perhaps more, were about to break towards them. Damian saw the image of the Enclave soldier being devoured. He didn't want to meet the same fate. He raised his assault rifle and fired the last remaining cartridges in his magazine. He dropped his weapon and grabbed the laser rifle he had retrieved. The rays spurted out of the barrel as Damian pulled the trigger. The discharges of energy that hit the ghouls, stopped them in their tracks, and resulted in a smoking crater where the ray had hit its target.

One of the rays hit a ghoul on the head and Damian could see its body light up and its skeleton appear, like old pre-war cartoons, before exploding in a sheaf of blood and organs, leaving only a blackened and smoking skeleton where rare pieces of flesh were still hanging.

"Down!"

Damian turned his head and saw the imposing mass of the Brotherhood soldier standing beside him. He heard the lapping of a liquid inside a tank and a great steam of fire appeared before his eyes. The soldier had armed himself with a flamethrower and had just activated it in the direction of the feral ghouls. The mutants engulfed in the flames emitted shrill roars before falling among the other corpses.

The soldier let go of the trigger of his weapon and the fire stream stopped. There were small blazes in the tunnel and entrance where the ghouls had fallen, and a strong smell of burning and overcooked meat filled Damian's nostrils as he looked at the burnt corpses. He looked around and saw that Doctor Li and the others had left.

"You should go back to the surface," said the soldier, putting down his flamethrower and grabbing his rifle.

He entered the tunnel and made sure that all the ghouls were dead and that none were hiding in a corner. Damian holstered his laser rifle and picked up his assault rifle, leaving the soldier alone. The tunnel continued to the right up a small hill and ended after a turn on a ladder. Damian slowly climbed to the surface where a small group of Brotherhood soldiers helped him out before going down to help their comrade.

He had just emerged at the level of the Citadel, just in front of a heavy steel gate connected to a crane. Behind him, he could hear the Potomac and, on the right, the bridge he had taken with his father the day before.

Damian turned towards the Jefferson Memorial. He could see the building surrounded by the Enclave aircrafts, flying over the site in slow motion, landing and unloading their cargo of soldiers before taking off and disappearing into the clouds.

James was still there, dead, locked in the Project Purity control room, surrounded by radiation. Once again he had sacrificed his life's work. He'd rather destroy it than see it fall into the hands of the Enclave. Once again, he had put his son's life before everything else and had made the ultimate sacrifice for himself.

Damian's eyes clouded with tears. He felt his legs shaking and his throat tighten. He put his hand over his face and wept silently. His father's smiling face came back to him. All the good times they had spent together in the Vault, whether it was James' long explanations when Damian asked him about his work, or the exchanges they had about the course of their days. He had finally found him, and immediately after, he had disappeared again, forever.

The sadness and sorrow of his father's death gave way to anger. Damian sniffed loudly and looked up. The anger turned to hatred. He wanted to kill the members of the Enclave. Every one of them. It didn't matter if it was a simple foot soldier, an officer like Autumn or that President Eden, they all deserved to die.

"Lyons!"

Damian was drawn from his murderous impulses by the voice of Doctor Li. The scientist was in front of the heavy steel gate of the Citadel. A soldier in power armor was trying to talk to her, but all Damian could hear was the scientist shouting into an intercom. Damian wiped his face and approached.

"Ma'am, I'm telling you one more time, civilians are..."

"Open the damn door, Lyons! I know you can hear me!" screamed Madison Li, not paying any attention to what the guard was saying.

Her voice echoed through the surrounding buildings before evaporating into thin air. The soldier, a man in his thirties with brown hair, tried to talk to the scientist again when an impressive metallic squeaking sound was heard. The crane had just been activated and the steel cables lifted the heavy door. Small sparks flew from where the door rubbed the metal on the walls and dust and small pieces of concrete fell to the floor.

The door came to rest, revealing a passage. The thick wall of the pre-war building had collapsed and led directly into one of its corridors. Damian stayed a few seconds to observe the different rooms and corridors cut in two. From the corner of his eye, he saw the Doctor Li rushing into the opening and heard the guard sigh.

The passageway ended in front of a concrete wall with a metal door topped by a panel dating from the time when the building was still intact and indicating an exit. Above it, the ceilings and floors of the upper floors were missing, and a large steel plate had been attached. Damian raised his head to look at it and noticed that the symbol of the Brotherhood of Steel was painted all over the surface of the plate.

The door opened onto an inner courtyard. A crowd of people, men and women of various ages came and went. Most wore military uniforms, but Damian noticed some with power armors. Cinderblocks and sandbags, as well as mannequins were scattered in a small area and Damian could see a row of young men and women standing at attention, facing an older man in power armor demonstrating how to handle a laser rifle.

On the other side, Damian could see several soldiers lying on the ground with a rifle aiming at a row of dummies dressed as Super Mutants. On the other side, Damian could see several soldiers lying on the ground with a rifle aiming at a row of dummies dressed as Super Mutants. The back of the yard was occupied by small groups of soldiers practicing hand-to-hand combat or doing push-ups.

The place was a real military base. Damian already knew that the members of the Brotherhood were excellent fighters, although they were not invincible against the Super Mutants, but this vision gave him courage and reinforced his idea that the Enclave would pay off. If Doctor Li had come here, it was because the Brotherhood was ready for war and would come to their aid.

Damian saw a small movement of the crowd and the few discussions that emanated from the soldiers around them or from his fellow misfortunes ceased. An elderly man was walking towards them. Bald, with a wrinkled face and a large white beard, he was wearing a long blue-grey garment down to his ankles, with a large metal belt more decorative than functional. He was also wearing black leather gloves and Damian noticed military boots at his feet. He was accompanied by a small delegation. An elderly man with a bald head, wearing a similar but bright red dress, and a young woman in military fatigues that Damian recognized immediately. Sarah Lyons took a surprised glance at Damian and the rest of the group of survivors and nodded her head to say hello.

The man in the blue dress had such incredible charisma that Damian immediately felt confident. He walked up to the small group that had just entered the Citadel and looked at each of the scientists and Damian with his magnetic blue eyes.

"Madison," he said, looking astonished and looking at Doctor Li. "I'm surprised to see you here. What can the Brotherhood do for you?"

"Stop patronizing me Lyons, you know very well why we're here!" said Madison Li angrily.

Damian noted that the scientist was much more irritable and spoke aggressively to everyone since James' death. He blamed it on seeing two of his close friends die and also almost dying, but he also remembered the look she gave his father when he came to tell him about his G.E.C.K. findings and he began to wonder what could have been between them. On further reflection, he found that she had always been condescending and haughty with everyone except James and, on rare occasions, Garza.

"Project Purity has been invaded and we have nowhere else to go."

Damian felt that she would have preferred to be anywhere else but at the Citadel, but given the circumstances, she was taking it upon herself.

"Yes, I heard about an incident in the vicinity of the Jefferson Memorial," said the old man. "Can you give me more details?"

"Yes," Doctor Li replied, calming down. "It's the Enclave. Their troops have taken control of the laboratory, and James, he..."

She left her sentence hanging. Damian felt his heart grow fonder.

"You've got to do something!" the scientist said.

Lyons nodded imperceptibly.

"What I feared finally happened," he said in an almost inaudible whisper.

He spoke more clearly.

"Madison, I'm really sorry about James, believe me, I'd really like to do something about it."

Damian couldn't believe his ears. Half-worded, the man who was to be the leader of the Brotherhood of Steel had just told them he wasn't going to lift a finger. Damian was starting to feel anger grow inside of him. The Brotherhood, presented as the last hope of Humanity by his father and crumbling under the praise of Three Dogs, was not going to do anything. In other words, James had sacrificed himself and sabotaged Project Purity for nothing.

"Then do something about it!" shouted Doctor Li who took the words out of Damian's mouth. "The purifier is in the hands of the Enclave! James, along with other team members, sacrificed himself for us and Project Purity. If we don't do something about it, then his death will have been for nothing!

"Please, Madison, calm down," said Lyons, raising a hand to get the scientist to stop screaming.

Damian was getting angrier and angrier. The man's detached tone in the face of this event was driving him crazy.

"As tragic and regrettable as James' death is, you know as well as I do, that the purifier doesn't work. It's useless to the Enclave. Maybe it's time to put this whole project behind us."

"No," Madison Li replied shaking her head. "James succeeded. He found a way to make the purifier work! He found the missing puzzle part!"

"He did it?" Lyons asked.

Damian felt that behind this detached tone, Lyons held his father in very high esteem, and under other circumstances he would probably have welcomed such news.

"Does the Enclave know about it?" he asked in a more preoccupied tone.

"No... I don't think they..."

"They know."

Everyone turned to Damian. Madison Li made a horrified expression. Damian noticed that Daniel Agincourt was clenching his jaw, but he did not say anything, remembering the fight they both had.

"You must be James's son," Lyons said, looking straight into Damian's eyes. "I'm deeply sorry for your loss, but if you don't mind me asking, how can you be so adamant?"

"My father... He was on the trail of a pre-war device developed by Vault-Tec, a G.E.C.K., the Garden of Eden Creation Kit.

At these words, Lyons turned to the man in the red dress and the latter nodded his head before heading towards a door leading to the interior of the building. Lyons motioned to Damian to continue.

"My father had found notes on the G.E.C.K., and how it worked. He must have had them with him when..."

The vision of his father, his face distorted by pain, passed before his eyes and Damian felt the tears rising.

"If these guys aren't stupid," he said, swallowing his tears. "They'll probably take the trouble to search a little and even if my father didn't have the papers with him, they'll find them eventually and it won't take them long to make the connection between the G.E.C.K. and the purifier."

Lyons looked preoccupied and combed his beard with his hand.

"We'll see what we can do," he finally said.

"What's all?"

The words had overtaken the thought. Damian stood face to face with Lyons and gave him a look of incomprehension.

"If this project is as important as you say it is, then why don't you send your men to take over the laboratory?"

Lyons listened to him speak without the slightest trace of annoyance as the young man shouted at him and lost his temper. On the contrary, he showed understanding and Damian could also read sadness in his eyes. As impressive as the Brotherhood of Steel was, it was probably totally helpless in the face of an enemy like the Enclave.

"What's the point of my father giving his life if you stay holed up in your fortress while those bastards quietly settle down and start working on the project?"

Damian knew he was going too far and a little voice in his head kept telling him to shut up, but it was stronger than him. He felt the disapproving glances of some soldiers, visibly unhappy to see him talking like that and disrespecting their commander. Only Sarah seemed to agree with him. She smiled at him discreetly before she spoke.

"He's right, Father," she said. "Give the order, and the Pride will attack the Purifier. The Enclave must pay for Professor Franklin's death and for everything else. If we're going to do something, it must be done now."

"You are a Sentinel of our Chapter, Sarah," replied Lyons, looking at her with a smile. "But you are also my daughter, and I will not put you in danger by sending you to face an almost unknown enemy. I am sorry, but my decision is final. The Pride will remain at the Citadel until further notice."

Lyons' tone was authoritative, but it was not the tone of an officer talking to his subordinate. It was the tone of a father addressing his child.

"I understand, Father. Please accept my apologies."

Lyons smiled at his daughter and turned to Doctor Li again.

"Madison, until the situation evolves, you and your staff and James' son are welcome to stay at the Citadel as long as you want."

He waved his hand and two young soldiers in grey military dress approached and guided Doctor Li and her team inside the building. Lyons took one last look at Damian and walked away.

Damian stood alone at the entrance to the courtyard, distraught and lost. He was now alone and without a real purpose. Project Purity would remain inactive as long as the Enclave occupied the site, and its troops would remain in place until the Brotherhood intervened. Damian was trapped. Either way, he needed the help of Lyons' men to find the G.E.C.K. and drive the Enclave troops out of the Jefferson Memorial.

Damian raised his head to the sky. Large dark clouds were coming over them, as if to signify that the near future would be much more difficult now that this new enemy had made its entrance.


This closes the "Water of Life" quest. What will happen to Damian? What will the Brotherhood do? Find out next time.