Please enjoy this chapter.


The white light gradualy faded away. Damian was in the simulator pod, inside the Outcast outpost. The pod lid split in two and opened. Damian struggled to get out of the pod and ripped off the cables connected to his suit.

His head was spinning, and he was nauseous. He blinked several times and felt a hand touching his arm. He startled and raised his fist to fight back.

"Take it easy. It's over," said a calmly a woman's voice.

Damian looked around and saw all the soldiers and scribes of the Outcast gathered in the room with him. A faint wave of almost inaudible murmurs passed through them as they watched Damian, and he thought he saw some of them exchanging small bags of bottle caps. He relaxed and looked up and saw McGraw's face just in front of him, a slight smile on his face.

"I never thought I'd see a savage complete the simulation," he said.

His remark raised several nods or giggles from the other Outcast.

"But you did it, and I have to say that I'm glad you did. Now all you have to do is open the arsenal, and if the records are right, there will be enough technology inside for all of us."

Damian just nodded his head. He would have wanted to take a few moments to rest. He got up and lost his balance. Olin caught him by the arm and helped him sit down.

"What's the matter with him?" McGraw asked, looking visibly preoccupied.

"The side effects of the simulation are starting to show", Olin answered.

"What are they?" McGraw asked.

"Loss of balance, and a terrible headache," answered the woman.

It took Damian several minutes to recover. In that time, he could see McGraw and his men staggering impatiently. Damian didn't know how long they had waited for someone to finish the simulation, but McGraw would wait a few more minutes for him to fully recover.

Damian had also lost all sense of time. He had the impression that the simulation had lasted no more than a few hours, but Olin informed him that he had been in the pod for a whole day.

Damian finished putting on his armor and walked, under the impatient gaze of the Outcast soldiers, to the large armory door at the end of the corridor. He still had a headache, and just looking at the terminal screen to unlock the door required a great deal of effort not to turn a blind eye.

The large metal locks disengaged, and Damian noticed that the members of the Outcast who were not wearing a power armor helmet were holding their breath.

The door slid open to reveal a small room, lit only by the dim red lights of two computer servers and several white neon lights on the ceiling.

In the center of the room, a small pedestal held an authentic t-51b power armor with its winter camouflage.

Damian noted that McGraw invited him in first and he entered the arsenal.

The armor was in perfect condition and no doubt the Outcast would argue over who would have the privilege of wearing it. Damian would have taken it for himself, but he knew that the Outcast would do anything to prevent him from leaving with the armor and he had learned from Sarah that he would have to undergo special training to hope one day to be able to enter and handle a power armor.

Damian didn't know if Sarah had told him the truth or if she had told him this to prevent him from putting one on and running headlong towards the Jefferson Memorial, so he decided to leave it to the Outcast.

The arsenal also had several shelves containing weapons, ammunition and military uniforms.

Damian noticed a large closed briefcase. He opened it and discovered that it contained a Gauss rifle. Next to it were several microfusion cells for the rifle. Damian took the rifle out of the case and took it with him. He was curious to see if a weapon like this could penetrate a power armor.

On another shelf, he found armor similar to the one he had used in the simulation. The Rangers' armor was still in good condition, but Damian decided to take it with him, along with the Crimson Dragoon camouflage gear. Although he didn't plan to wear them, he was planning to leave with them as compensation for his time in the simulation.

As he tried to get the breastplate into his bag, he saw Olin, McGraw and other Outcast members enter the arsenal. After putting the armor in his bag, Damian retrieved some ammunition for his assault rifle and one of those US trench knives with the spiked fist guard.

He finished tying the knife to his leg and stood up to see McGraw in great admiration in front of the power armor. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Sibley and a few other Outcast soldiers standing outside and waving discreetly at each other.

Sibley entered the arsenal and pointed his minigun at McGraw.

"Alright, enough of this!" Sibley shouted.

The soldiers accompanying him had also drawn their weapons and were holding Damian and members of the Outcast in the arsenal at gunpoint.

"Sibley! What the hell are you doing?" McGraw said in disbelief.

"Shut up!" Sibley said. "I'm not going to let a fuckin' savage get away with the tech my men died for."

"Put the gun down, Sibley!" McGraw shouted. "I'm in charge, and I've decided that this person is going to..."

"You're a filthy traitor, McGraw! A fuckin traitor like Lyons and his daughter!"

Sibley fired his minigun and several of his men fired as well. Damian dove behind one of the computer servers in the room. Several Outcast members collapsed, and he saw McGraw draw his laser pistol and take cover from the flood of bullets and laser beams coming down on them.

Damian heard Olin screaming and saw her fall holding her leg. He fired a blind burst over his cover, but the bullets ricocheted off Sibley and his men's power armor.

Sibley's minigun ran out of ammunition and Damian grabbed his new Gauss rifle. McGraw stood up from behind his dugout and emptied the magazine of his pistol at the mutineers. Damian placed Sibley's head in his sights and pulled the trigger.

The Defender's skull exploded, leaving only his lower jaw clinging to his neck. The corpse collapsed backwards in front of the surprised and horrified eyes of the Outcast soldiers.

Damian placed a second mutineer in his sights and fired, but nothing happened. He cursed at himself and bent down to avoid a burst of laser beams in his direction. He hurriedly searched his bag for the energy cells needed for the Gauss rifle and his hand grabbed a grenade instead.

He removed the pin and clumsily threw the explosive towards the door. The detonation shook the walls and forced his opponents to take cover, giving him time to reload his weapon. He straightened up and fired at an Outcast soldier. The projectile from the Gauss rifle hit him in the chest. The man collapsed in a scream, a large hole where the bullet had hit him.

McGraw had grabbed a rifle from one of the shelves and had just eliminated two other Outcast soldiers. The last mutineer looked at the corpses of his companions and got up and headed for the exit before a laser beam hit him in the head.

Silence and dust settled in the bunker. Damian lifted his head from his cover and looked at the bodies of his assailants.

McGraw emerged and walked out of the armory. He walked towards the body and Sibley and watched it silently. Damian heard one of the bunker doors open and he triggered a new energy cell in his weapon.

A dozen Outcast members had just arrived from the surface and surrounded McGraw and the bodies of Sibley and the mutineers.

"What the...? Protector McGraw, are you all right? Defender Sibley... He's... That fuckin savage! He's the one who..."

"Sibley and his squad tried to kill me," McGraw cut him off. "And if it wasn't for this young man, they would've had the upper hand on me."

Damian heard a groan next to him. Olin was sitting against a computer console holding her leg. A bullet had pierced her thigh.

"Don't move," Damian told her.

He reached at his belt pouch and pulled out a Stimpak and a bandage. While McGraw explained the situation to the other Dissidents, who were obviously unconvinced, Damian helped Olin up and took her out of the arsenal where another Outcast who had survived the shootout, helped him carry her to McGraw's office.

McGraw entered a few moments later. He asked the soldier present to leave and remained alone with Olin and Damian.

"I think I owe you some thanking," he sighed. "Without your help, I think we'd all be dead."

Damian remained silent. McGraw followed his gaze and saw that he was staring nervously at the other Outcast in the hallway.

"Don't worry about my men. I've explained to them that you had nothing to do with it, so you're not going to get shot in the back once you're outside, if that's what you're worried about."

Damian thanked him with a nod. He noticed that McGraw was watching his Gauss rifle hanging from his shoulder but the leader of the Outcast said nothing.

"If you'll excuse me," McGraw said. "I've got a hell of a mess to clean up."

He left the office and started barking orders to his men in the bunker.

"Will your leg be okay?" Damian asked, turning to Olin.

The young woman tried vainly not to show that she was in pain.

"Yes. Thank you for your help. I really appreciate it."

A soldier entered the office carrying a first aid kit and approached Olin. Damian walked away and left the bunker.

Damian walked through Megaton's big outer door and automatically headed for his house. The return trip from the Outcast outpost had gone smoothly and Damian was relieved that McGraw's orders not to harm him had been carried out. Looking back, it was hard to believe that soldiers like Sibley, who put the importance of pre-war technology above human life, had ever been associated in one way or another to Lyons and the Brotherhood. He also found it hard to believe that he had survived the simulation.

As he walked through the metro tunnels and through the Wasteland to Megaton, Damian couldn't get the images of the fighting he had seen in the simulation out of his mind. He was still suffering from the side effects of the simulation, and all he wanted to do was to lie down on his bed and sleep for several days.

When he arrived in front of his house, he came across a young blonde woman, not much older than him, wearing black jeans, a sleeveless leather jacket and a white T-shirt, leaning against the railing overlooking the crater. When she heard Damian approaching, she turned around and walked towards him with a determined step. The young woman's face was familiar, as Damian had already met her at Moriarty's when he arrived in town, but he didn't know her name.

"Are you Damian Franklin?" the young woman asked before Damian could open the door to his house. "Are you the one who often travels out of town?"

Damian looked at the young woman. She was a little older than him, had tied long blond hair and blue eyes and was quite attractive.

"Who wants to know?" Damian asked in a slightly annoyed tone.

All he wanted was to sleep until his headache disappeared and he didn't want to engage in a discussion with anyone.

"Me," replied the young woman in the same scathing tone as he used. "I need your help with a delivery."

"I don't feel like playing courier, at least not in this life, sorry," Damian replied, unlocking the door of his house.

"Please..."

Damian stood still for a few seconds. He sighed when he saw the young woman's imploring eyes and cursed his kindness and bad habit of helping every people he would meet.

"I need more details before I can make up my mind," he finally said, turning to the young woman.

She smiled and rummaged through the lining of her jacket. She pulled out a small yellowed envelope sealed with a little red wax from one of the pockets.

"I would like you to bring this note to my family. They live northwest of here."

Damian had never been too far North of the Capital Wasteland and didn't know what he might find beyond the Springvale Hills.

"I'll tell you more if you agree. Please, I really need you to help me.

"All right," Damian replied after a brief silence.

"Thank you," said the young woman visibly relieved. My family lives in Arefu North of Megaton, near the Potomac, but I haven't heard from them for two months now and I'm getting worry."

"Do you think your family is in trouble?" Damian asked, grabbing the envelope the young woman handed him.

The young woman bit her lip. She was worried and it didn't take a body language expert to tell. Whatever theories she could have imagined, there was a good chance that the death of her family was at the top of the list.

"No... Not really. In fact, I'm not sure what to expect," she said, without really believing it herself. "Maybe it's my letters that aren't coming in, but... I'll be reassured if you bring them this letter and then come back to see me."

Damian nodded. He activated his Pip-Boy's map and approached the young woman.

"You can show me Arefu on my map?"

The young woman looked at the small screen a few moments before pinpointing at a road on the map with her index finger.

"Here. You can't miss the spot. Arefu is built on an old highway bridge over the river."

"Anything else you need to know?" asked Damian, turning off the screen.

The young woman explained to Damian that there were a total of 7 people living in Arefu. The young woman's parents and younger brother, a young couple, a single woman and a man named Evan King, who served as town's Sheriff.

"One more thing," Damian asked. "You didn't tell me your name. I don't think showing up at your parents' house without knowing who to talk to or sent me is going to help."

"Oh, yes, sorry. My name is Lucy. Lucy West."

"All right, Lucy. I'll head to Arefu tomorrow at dawn."

"Thank you so much," said the young woman smiling at Damian, visibly relieved.

Lucy gave a brief description of her parents and of her younger brother, Ian, before thanking Damian again and walking away.

Damian returned home and was greeted by Wadsworth who was dusting the stairs.

"It's good to see you again, sir."

Damian grumbled an answer and dropped his bag in the hallway and fell on the couch. He had furnished his house with some furniture and trinkets, bought from Moira. She had not forgotten that Damian had been to the Super-Duper Mart at her request and when he had come back from the Citadel, she had literally jumped on him and bombarded him with questions. Once the interrogation was over, Damian had been offered a new task for the book. Expose himself to high levels of radiations. Damian had cut short the conversation by telling Moira that he would think about it, to which the young woman had replied with disappointment.

Damian had thought that bringing a irradiated subject back to her would be more prudent, but he realized that he would probably end up with radiation poisoning himself and had kept Moira's offer in the back of his mind.

Lulled by the faint whistle of Wadsworth's engines, Damian sank into a deep sleep, the images of the Anchorage fighting mingling with those of the shootings in the Wastes before disappearing.

The next morning, Damian left Megaton and headed North. He walked through the ruins of Springvale and passed a ruined school. Rumor had it that a rather large group of Raiders had taken up residence here, watching Megaton for the time being in preparation for a possible attack. Damian went around the place and went down the hill until he was about twenty meters from the river. On the other bank he could see a small group of three Mirelurks. The mutated crabs were standing guard in front of their nests and were feeding on the corpse of a dog.

After about half an hour, Damian arrived in sight of a small pre-war town. The place seemed occupied, judging by the wooden and metal barricades around some of the houses and the column of smoke that rose from the center of the town. The small wooden houses were the same as the Springvale ranch, a small porch at the entrance and windows caulked with wood panels, boards or newspapers.

Damian approached with caution. If, as he feared, Arefu had been wiped out two months ago, then perhaps these people could inform him, hoping that they were not responsible and were not going to shoot him on sight.

He bypassed the barricades and arrived at the entrance to the city. Instead of finding a large gate like at Megaton, he found himself facing a crater about five by three meters, filled with dark, foul-smelling water. A wooden and rope bridge allowed him to cross the crater and enter the town. The crater rims all had wooden spikes fixed in the ground and car wrecks, piles of tires and empty barrels formed a makeshift barrier around it, forcing anyone wanting to enter the town to use the bridge. A perfect bottleneck in case of attack but also in case of escape.

At the other end of the crater, Damian saw two small walls of sandbags behind another row of wooden spikes and, sitting on an old plastic chair, a man wearing a leather suit and a helmet with a plexiglass visor. Anyone with any kind of shooting skills could have easily eliminated him by positioning himself a little further up the hill.

The man got up quickly, grabbed a bolt-action rifle in poor condition and addressed Damian in a trembling voice.

"Halt! Who are you?"

"Calm down," Damian replied, raising his hands slowly. "I mean you no harm. I'm just a simple traveler."

The man took a quick glance behind Damian looking for a presence. He wasn't as dumb as he looked.

After carefully scanning the surroundings, he lowered his gun and quickly signaled Damian to cross the bridge.

"Well, you're not a Super Mutant and you don't look like a Raider or a slaver, so…"

"No shit man," Damian thought.

"You are either really brave or completely oblivious to venture out here alone," said the man as he sat down and scanned the horizon again.

"What, what's so special about this place?" Damian asked, looking at the Wastes.

"Super Mutants!" said he man, unconsciously raising his voice. "And the Raiders and the slavers of Paradise Falls! They're all over those hills to the North!"

Hearing this was not a very good news. If there really were Raiders, slavers and mutants around here, then Lucy West had all the reasons to fear for her family in Arefu.

Damian had heard about groups of slavers before, and was amazed in a bad way, that it was a very flourishing business in the Capital Wasteland, according to some travelers he had met in Megaton. He was also convinced that the Super Mutants only occupied the ruins of D.C. but behind the man's plexiglass visor, Damian could see the look of someone who have seen these abominations a little too closely and a little too often.

Suddenly the man jumped up and grabbed a pair of binoculars and quickly brought them to his eyes. After a few seconds, he sighed and lowered the binoculars.

"Nervous?" Damian asked, crouching behind the sandbags.

"That's an understatement. We get attacked all the time. In turn, it's the slavers, then the Super Mutants and Raiders come to try to get the leftovers. Big Town's about to become a ghost town."

Damian looked over his shoulder. He saw two silhouettes a little further on, that of a woman sitting facing the barricade and apparently looking through a small hole in the barricade and that of a man walking nervously with a small revolver in his hands.

"I'm heading to Arefu," said Damian turning his head to the guard and the Wasteland. "Heard anything about the place recently?"

"No, can't say I have," replied the guard. "I know it's a bit further North from here, but frankly, we have too much shit do deal with to care about the rest of the Wastes."

Damian tilted briefly his head, silently agreeing with the man.

"You'd better leave quickly," said the guard, his eyes still on the horizon. "Otherwise, you're going to get snatched by the Super Mutants, just like our friends in the last attack. Poor guys, I can't imagine what they'll do to them."

Damian raised an eyebrow, intrigued. Apparently, the Super Mutants were not just killing everything they came across. They also took prisoners, too, but God only knows why.

"Your friends were abducted by these monsters? When did they take them?"

"This morning," said the man. "I was on my way to guard duty when they stormed into town and broke down some doors before they left with Red and Shorty. Poor Timebomb tried to escape... Those monsters practically pulverized him.

"And you don't have a doctor to treat him or anything to fight back with?"

"Red's our doctor, and she got abducted. Without her, Timebomb's doomed, and as for defending ourselves... We'll be faster off shooting ourselves in the head."

Damian stood up. The man looked at him briefly before turning his attention anxiously to the Wastes. Damian walked towards the center of the city. The houses all had small signs beside the door. On one of them Damian could read the word "Red" written in white paint. He knocked on the door. Seeing that no one answered, he looked around and went in.

Inside, a young man was lying unconscious on an operating table. Damian saw several bandages on his body. The man had received multiple gunshot wounds and it seemed that some of his limbs were broken. Upon further examination, Damian realized that he would probably die soon.

Damian searched the house and gathered all the medical supplies he could find and began to treat him as best he could. He heard the door open behind him and a woman's voice called out to him.

"Who are you, and what are you doing in Timebomb?"

Damian turned around. A young African American woman with a leather outfit and brown hair in a ponytail, had just entered and alternated her gaze between Damian and the unconscious man.

"Your friend needs a doctor, doesn't he?" Damian said, putting his hands in the air.

The woman opened her mouth and immediately closed it again. Damian pointed to the wounded man with a gesture.

"Your friend will die if I don't help him."

The woman did not answer, and Damian slowly continued to treat the man's wounds, keeping an eye on the woman and the BB gun she had on her shoulder. After a few minutes, he stepped back and wiped his blood-covered hands on a cloth.

"It's okay, he should be all right now."

Damian wasn't as good a doctor as his father had been, but he knew how to treat most injuries. As if to support his words, the grimace on the man's face disappeared, giving way to a more peaceful expression. The young woman rushed to his bedside, convinced that her friend had just died. She let out a long sigh of relief when she noticed that the man's chest was rising and falling at regular intervals as he breathed. Damian looked at them briefly and returned to the entrance of the city.

"Your friend is off the hook," he told the guard.

"What, but... How?"

"I treated his wounds. He won't be able to walk for a while, but he'll live."

"Why… Why did you help him?" the man asked.

Damian wasn't sure what to answer to that and the thankfully, the guard did not insist.

"Where did the Super Mutants who kidnapped your friends go?" Damian asked as he checked the chamber of his assault rifle.

The sentry pointed to a point on the horizon.

"They always come from that direction and that's where they leave after each attack."

Damian crossed the bridge, under the surprised gaze of the guard. Never could he have imagined that one day, a young man could enter Big Town and without warning, set out to save his captive friends from the greatest threat of the Capital Wasteland. Anyone else would have run for their lives when they heard the Super Mutants were in the area, but he didn't. Whoever this young man was, the sentry thought, he was a blessing.

Helping Big Town would mean that Lucy West would have to wait a little while for her letter to reach its destination, but Damian wanted to check if the Super Mutant did not have anything to do with Arefu and the lack of response to Lucy's letters.

Damian headed North, following approximately the direction the sentry had told him to go. A landscape of hills and small rocky formations appeared before his eyes. A large steel structure mounted on pylons stretched through the area. The remains of a monorail. Parts of it had collapsed and Damian noticed a stationary train suspended several meters above the ground.

The road he was following passed under the monorail and near an old wooden chapel. Damian heard voices and approached cautiously. He glanced out one of the windows and saw two Super Mutants inside, as well as a man, locked in a cage made of two supermarket shopping carts strapped on each other. Damian adjusted his rifle, stood up and fired.

The two mutants fell to the ground, incapable of reacting. After making sure the coast was clear, Damian entered the chapel. The man looked at him in a daze, only to realize that he was about to be set free.

"Oh, thank God! Thank you!" he cried.

Damian broke the makeshift lock and opened the cage.

"Are you one of Big Town's people?" Damian asked.

"No," the man replied. "I was part of a caravan that..."

"Yeah, okay. Do you know where the mutants were going to take you?"

"No... Wait, yes! I think one of the mutants talked about a place called Germantown. I think it's a little further down the road."

Damian nodded his head. The man gathered up some things and left on his own.

Germantown was a small pre-war town in ruins. The Super Mutants may not be the smartest creatures in the Wastes, but some of them were intelligent enough to understand the strategic interest that a collection of ruins on a hillside could offer. Damian had no way of seeing what was behind the destroyed walls of the houses and buildings surrounding the city. Further West, Damian could see columns of smoke rising from a large group of buildings, encircling a large human-looking statue with his right hand raised.

Damian walked along the side of the road and entered the town. The only building still standing was a police station, surrounded by a fence and large sandbag walls. Behind the gates, Damian noticed tents in shades of khaki. The corners of the building were decorated with twisted metal posts with barbed wire wrapped around them, holding human skeletons or rotting corpses in place. Damian could see a small group of Super Mutants on another hill a little further up. He crept towards the fence and entered the building courtyard.

The police station courtyard was filled with tents. When Damian investigated one of them, he could see tables, chairs, and a few beds without mattresses. The police force or the army probably used the place as a command post just after the bombing. Seeing the extent of the damage to the landscape, Damian found it hard to believe that anyone outside of a Vault could have survived, but the few notes he read in one of the tents confirmed that the army had tried to maintain some semblance of order after the bombs fell.

Damian inspected the outside of the police station. The main door was ajar and showed a huge concrete block, preventing it from being opened. He went around the building and found an emergency exit, but the door was locked from the inside. At the back of the building, he discovered that part of it had collapsed. He went inside and climbed up the debris and remains of a stairwell before finding a door. Damian slowly turned the handle and glanced inside. A dark corridor stretched out in front of him. Damian quietly pushed the door open and closed it behind him.

The inside of the police station was almost pitch black. The only source of light came from cracks in the walls and ceiling or from poorly caulked windows that let daylight in. To his right was a small room, furnished with wooden shelves, tables and a few broken computers.

A guttural voice resounded in a room a little further on. Damian listened and tried to decipher what the voice was saying.

"The female is locked in. We're going to take her back with us. The little brown one is downstairs. Not many people left in Big Town."

"So?" asked another guttural voice.

"Find others. Somewhere else. We need more prisoners."

The two Super Mutants laughed for no apparent reason. Damian heard them walking and he entered the office to his right. The two mutants stomped past his hiding place and left the building. They were certainly talking about Red and Shorty. Damian left the office where he was hiding and began to search the other rooms. Everything seemed to have been left as it had been since the police station was abandoned. Desks with piles of reports, posters and placards, which had become illegible over time, on the walls. The only clue to the presence of Super Mutants was an old conference room. The big long table was still there, but instead of finding police reports Damian found human remains. Limbs or organs, crammed into large nets, covered with flies. An unbearable smell permeated the walls and it was not due to the mold on the walls.

The police station was quite small. The search of this floor yielded nothing, and Damian took a stairwell to the ground floor. Only one Super Mutant was standing guard, sitting in the lobby and eating a Radroach that still looked alive. Damian sneaked through the old emergency call center and after crossing another corridor, arrived at the cells. In the largest cell, Damian saw a woman sitting on a mattress on a metal bed. She was African American, with short black hair, her forehead resting on her knees and her face buried in her arms. She was wearing a bright red bandanna and a work suit with rolled up sleeves of the same color. Damian looked towards the entrance where the Super Mutant was. He could hear the mutant's unpleasant chewing sounds.

Damian then looked around and picked up a small piece of concrete as big as his thumbnail and threw it through the bars towards the woman. The woman, attracted by the rock that landed on her thigh, raised her head and her eyes widened when she saw Damian. Her jaw dropped as she awkwardly stood up and walked towards the bars of the cell. Damian put his index finger on his lips to tell the woman to be quiet.

"It's you Red," he whispered, getting as close as he could.

The woman nodded her head.

"Yes, but who are you?"

"We'll talk later. Your friends in Big Town told me you were here."

"Oh my God, you're here to save me? Thank you!"

Underneath the emotion, Red had spoken a little too loudly. Damian put his hand through the bars and covered the woman's mouth. With his other hand, he motioned to her again not to make a sound. The Super Mutant didn't seem to hear, and Damian took his hand away, breathing out to let out the stress.

"Are you alone in here?" Damian asked.

"Everyone else is dead... When they take you down there, you don't come back."

Damian stepped back a little and began to inspect the cell block.

"Oh, but what about Shorty, did you see him?"

"I only found you," Damian replied, looking more closely at the lock.

It was an electronic lock, connected remotely to a terminal. The kind you can't break into with bobby pins and a screwdriver. Damian could still blow it up with a grenade, but he could say goodbye to discretion.

"They took him to the kitchen downstairs just before we arrived. It must have been two or three minutes ago, no more. You've got to go and rescue him."

Damian sighed. He thought about leaving Red in the cell while he went to get Shorty, but she would be a very easy target for the mutants, locked in that cell, if Damian had to use his weapon.

"Can you find your way back to Big Town on your own?"

"I... Yeah, but..."

The terror could be seen in Red's eyes. The thought of being alone in the Capital Wasteland and having to return to Big Town on her own terrorized her.

"Look, I'm gonna go get your friend, but I can't leave you here. You're coming with me, but you'll have to listen to me."

Red seemed relieved. She nodded frantically. Damian had a vague idea what he might find downstairs in that "kitchen», but he preferred not to think about it. He investigated the cell block and saw a desk with a terminal. He approached it. The terminal was on. Better yet, it was working and seemed to have been used recently. He was surprised that the Super Mutants had the intellectual capacity to use it.

"No wonder the Brotherhood is having such a hard time dealing with mutants if they continue to think they're mentally retarded, just good enough at shooting and smashing things." Damian thought.

The only option available in the terminal was called "Emergency Cell Activation". Damian pressed a key on the keyboard. A metallic squeaking sound echoed throughout the precinct as the cell doors opened. Immediately, Damian heard the Super Mutant's guttural voice and a heavy series of footsteps moving towards them.

The Super Mutant entered the cell block and saw Damian still in front of the terminal. The monster uncovered a row of rotten teeth and grabbed the assault rifle he was carrying. Damian fell to the ground. He heard the bullets hit the desk and the wall above him.

The flood of bullets stopped, and Damian risked a glance. The Super Mutant was looking at his gun and punching the ejector, giving Damian a golden opportunity to raise his rifle and shoot the monster with a burst.

More footsteps converged on them. Damian stayed behind the desk and pointed his gun at the front door. A Super Mutant entered the room. He looked down at his companion lying on the floor and received a burst to the back of the head. A second mutant entered. This time he checked the corners of the room and saw Damian ready to shoot him. He swung his weapon, but it wasn't fast enough. He slid against the doorframe, leaving a red mark in his wake.

Damian loaded a new magazine and waited. No sound reached him. His ears were whistling slightly. He ventured to the entrance of the room and after listening for a few seconds, decided the way was clear.

"It must have been the last ones," he said, turning to check on Red.

The woman shyly left the cell and quickly joined him. That's when Damian heard footsteps walking towards them. He stepped back and a second later he saw a figure burst into the room. Instinctively, Damian pointed his rifle at the newcomer but held back his finger. A nervous looking young man, his hands tied by a large rope, was facing him.

"Shorty!"

Red rushed towards the young man and took him in her arms.

"I thought you were dead," said the woman, continuing to hold her friend against her.

"I thought I was a goner, Red. When they brought me down and I saw all those bodies... My God... I thought it was the end."

"We've got to get out of here," Damian intervened as he grabbed his knife and freed Shorty from the rope. "The shots will probably bring a lot of unwelcomed guests."

"All right, we'll follow you," Red nodded.

They left the cell block. Ironically, the door leading to the outside was right next to the cell block. Damian removed the wooden bar that served as a lock and opened the door. They arrived in the courtyard of the police station. After a few meters, Damian cursed and pushed Red and Shorty behind the police station sign. The shooting had attracted a small group of mutants who were heading towards them.

A bullet whistled near Damian's ears and he took cover behind a collapsed wall. The Super Mutants stood between them and Big Town. Damian engaged in a deadly cat-and-mouse game that lasted several long minutes. Red and Shorty were on his heels as he slalomed through the walls of the destroyed buildings to avoid the shots. From time to time Damian would return fire, injuring or killing one of his assailants.

The battle lasted several minutes, during which Damian hoped inwardly not to come face to face with the Super Mutants and engage in hand-to-hand combat, as he had to do in the Anchorage simulation.

Damian let out a sigh of relief and closed his eyes. The last Super Mutant had just fallen to the ground. The grenade the mutant was holding had bounced back on a wall and exploded on its face.

He turned to Red and Shorty and tilted his head, inviting them to follow him.


The Operation Anchirage DLC is over. I kinda liked this DLC, not the best on but not the worst DLC I played for Fallout and gear wise, you could get some nice stuff.

Hope you enjoyed and until next time.