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Member: Knight Clay Arton
Service Number: 10048360
Date of Birth: 06-16-2255
Date of Death: 04-29-2283
Place of Death: The Hub
Chapter: West Coast – Mojave
Duty Stations: Hidden Valley, Helios One, LA Watchpost 002, Lost Hills
Noted Engagements: Battle for Helios One, LA Gun Runners Operation
Tech Recovered: COC Neural Device, Encrypted Nellis Holodisk, BADTFL Civil L&P Holodisk, Un-sourced Docs & Disks [Remove]
Archive Submission: Journal Entry

10/25/2281

You ever have your past catch up to you and round house kick you upside the head? That happened to me just yesterday. I was working with Scribe Pogue on his stupid dictionary thing to pass the time since I still had a few hours to pass before my surface patrol when Senior Scribe Ibsen confronted me. Yep, the last surface scav run I ever went on before the Helios mess caught up to me. My only excuse for what happened was that I was young and stupid at the time.

Back in 2275, and before all that crap at Helios, my last scav run with Paladin Ramos's team took us to a little ruin in the suburbs of Vegas. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but the office complex we were going through was believed to be a simple 3rd party contractor that did paperwork for some government installation to the northwest. We found some interesting documents inside, but I didn't find anything worthwhile there. Sorta feeling desperate to come back with Something for the archive, I happened upon an apparent miracle. A miracle for an idiot junior Knight.

Inside an abandoned car outside, I found a skeleton sitting in the driver seat and a number of briefcases in the back seats. Figuring the guy was some big shot for the office complex (given all the briefcases) I opened them up to find them full of trash. I couldn't believe it, each brief case was packed to the brim with documents marked "Classified" and "Top Secret." Upon reading some of them, I saw that they were full of utter trash. All those documents essentially titled "Important" were everything from grocery lists, to Grognak Fan fiction drafts, to contracts that basically legally bound women to sleep with the guy upon their signing. Stupid Junior Knight brain kicked in by saying "Clearly these are diversions for something important." Finally I came across the case full of holodisks. One was titled "Proof of Reptilian Humanoid Government Infiltration", another was titled, "Proof of Vera's Affair with Wilfred the Wizard", but the one that really caught my attention was, "Government Secrets from West Tek Confinement (Not a Virus)."

I was sold right there. All those seemingly nonsensical documents and conspiratorial holodisks were Definitely just cover ups for some incredible information that just needed deciphering. I packed all of the papers and disks into only two briefcases that nearly burst at the seams, and when the Paladin and rest of the team came out, I showed my pal, Knight Lorenzo what I found. He was certain that I found a bunch of trash after looking briefly over them, but I insisted that was just what the owner wanted everyone to think. He was hesitant, and only said that I should put my own name on the discoveries as I sorted and bagged them back at Helios, instead of the team's. I stupidly agreed since I would get all the credit when the Scribes finally decrypt some Silo launch codes, the locations of secret research centers, or who even knew what else.

Anyway, back at Helios, I sorted, bagged, and labeled the items, and a few weeks went by. I forgot about that after the team was ambushed by an NCR company. I spent the next few weeks skirmishing with NCR troops on their way to Helios, fought in the siege, and helped execute McNamara's retreat to Hidden Valley. So much happened during the setup at Hidden Valley, tending the wounded, and then with all the patrols and bunker or equipment maintenance. Although, the Lockdown has been going on for nearly 6 years now, and we'd found new ways to keep busy or stay amused.

About a year ago, the Scribes got a high priority list of info to catalog from Lost Hills about the Midwest and East Coast Brotherhood, so they've been busy with that. Not even to mention the amount of crap the Scribes were behind on before that. They were still cataloging stuff from the Enclave War and start of our NCR War back at Helios. However, less than a week ago, they got caught up to some of the finds from when we were under Elijah, and of course, my last scav run.

I had all but forgotten about that pile of trash I pulled from those ruins until Senior Scribe Ibsen's team uploaded the one that said "Not Virus." Apparently, the thing lied. That holodisk was In Fact, a virus. The team of Archive Scribes was shut out of their data stores and all the info they spent the past 6 years of lockdown on were buried behind that long dead idiot's program that corrupted everything and jumped between every terminal on the whole network.

Like I said, I had largely forgotten about that until just yesterday when the data stores were locked, they saw whose name was on the collection bags, and Scribe Ibsen came in screaming at me. 6 years after that idiotic find, and Ibsen ran the incident all the way up to Elder McNamara, back down to Paladin Ramos, and then to me. I'm not sure what my punishment will be, but I hope it's not latrine cleaning duty or grocery shopping. I suppose I have nobody to blame but my ignorant young self… and that moron who parked his car full of fake documents and viruses outside an important scav location. No idea what that long dead idiot's goals were, but I hope he's been in Hell the past 200 years!

Legacy: Knight Clay Arton's body was discovered on 04-29-2283 on a return trip to Lost Hills after a change in duty station. Reports are unclear as to what happened, all is known is that after checking in at Hub Watchpost 001, he was found dead in a Hub alleyway. Believed to have been killed by NCR bounty hunters, the Brotherhood Codex was updated on 10-30-2283 to never allow lone travel within NCR territory. After a life of heroism, excellent tech recovery, and the occasional mishap (as noted in the entry), may this brother find peace in knowing his brothers and sisters across the wasteland will continue to honor his legacy and learn from his mistakes.

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*This is how I imagined the finding of the data disk with the virus in Fallout New Vegas*