Chapter 7

"Brotherhood of steel?" Asks Blake

Nick grunts in reply, "Crazy tech hoarders, almost come off as religious."

Blake didn't quite understand, and his interest in the subject was quickly depleting in favor of more interrogation plots.

As the minutemen began to disperse, something detatchrd from the passing zepplin, a VTOL aircraft that quickly settled next to Fort Hagen, out of it stepped a man in power armor and a man in a black duster coat, he looked normal at first glance, but his head was sloped back and covered in a brown speckled nsectoid carapace, 8 soulless black eyes dotted his face above a humanlike mouth adorned with two small pedipalps.

"Now there's something you don't see every day." Chuckles Nick as the pair walks up.

"Howdy thar " the spider man spoke in a surprisingly human voice, "Are you the Local militia known as the Minutemen?"

Nick shook his head, "not us, they were here to aprehend a suspect in a kidnapping case of mine."

The man nodded, "that must make you the synth gumshoe I heard tell about, Valentine, right?"

The man in the power armor huffed, "Its a machine it doesn't deserve a name."

The spider man held up an angry hand, "Danse, if I want your opinion, I'll ask for it."

Danse looked pissed, but shut up all the same, the spider man extended a gloved hand, "Daryll "8 eyes" Jackson, former Texas ranger, now Sentinel for the Brotherhood."

Nick blinked, "I thought the brotherhood hated mutants."

Daryll nodded, "wooie would you have been right ten years ago! But a trip to texas taught these idjits a thing or two about my people, and in exchange for peace, I came along with the Prydwen."

Nick nodded, "Right...so what do you want with the Minutemen?"

Daryll looked between the two, "Asylum, a place to build a base, we've been tracking heresay about this group of shady bastards called the institute...straight to the commonwealth."

Blake looked at the still present Minutemen, "I think...as long as you dont start raiding, or killing for no reason...you'll find yourself welcomr amongst civilization."

Daryll pointed at Blake, "Y'aught to get yerself something better'n a vault suit, son, I can see your sleeve's all torn up."

Blake looked at his torn sleeve, remembering the mutant hound from earlier, "right...I'll look into that."

Nick grabbed Blake's shoulder, "well, we have to be on our way. On account of apprehending the suspect." Blake nodded, remembering why they'd blown a hole in the wall in the first place, "Right...nice to meet you Daryll."

As they turned to leave, there was the click of the hammer of a revolver, "Hold up fellas, now I see several dead institute synths lying around, you have any useful information about that?"

Blake turned around to look at Daryll, "When we're done with the suspect. You can have him, they took my son."

Daryl winced, blinking all 8 of his eyes rapidly with thin nictitating lids, his mouth pulling into a grimace, "I gotchee, no need to say anymore...if'n you find out where they're hiding, just mosey on over, I'll tell my men to let you in."

And with that, the two got into the vtol and flew back towards the Prydwyn.

"You're not going to take those crazy up on that are you?"

Blake looked after the retreating Vtol, "I'm genuinely not sure."

Nick and Blake get to the castle where they're told to enter the dungeon, "Dungeon?" Asks Nick, "you mean the armory?"

"Its been converted into a dungeon!" Growls the elderly female minuteman lieutenant, "now get yer hides down there before the General rips that man's arms off!"

The two entered the barracks, descending the stairs, as they crept deeper, the sound of a beatdown became more and more apparent, "You slimy little radrat, tell me what you know about the institute!"

Kellogg laughed, "if a beatdown is all you can manage old man, then you wont get anything out of me except broken teeth."

"You want broken teeth!?"

Blake shouted, "GENERAL!"

Haldis chuckled as Blake entered the room where Kellogg was chained up sitting in a chair, "I was just warming him up for you." Chuckled the General as he got out of Blake's way

Kellogg looked up at Blake as he looked at the tools he had at his disposal.

Polished srainless Surgical tools, a washcloth, borax all purpose cleaner, a pitcher full of water and an empty tub.

"Kellogg...is that your full name? Or is it an alias?" Blake's air was now incredibly calm, professional and cruel, glaring at Kellogg who spat at him, "Eat me."

Blake looked at Haldis, "put him in the tub."

Haldis obliged, picking Kellogg up out of the chair he was in and setting him down hard in the bathtub.

Blake looked down at Kellogg, who looked up at him with angry defiance as he struggled to move in his chains, "Have you ever heard of Waterboarding?" Kellogg chuckled, "Eat me."

Blake laughed, "Ok, I just wanted to know if you wastelanders ever heard about it, it'd be funny if I was the first person to waterboard a terrorist in what? 200 years?"

He soaked the washcloth in the pitcher, "you've never even heard of it?" He looked up at Kellogg, who's look of concern was growing as Blake's smile grew, "Hold his head, Dorian."

Kellogg, still convinced there was nothing they could do, laughed as Haldis walked over, "Yea Dorian, hold my head."

Dorian's massive hands clasped about Kellogg's face and squeezed lightly, causing Kellogg to grunt, "Oh I'll hold it alright...so what's waterboarding?"

Smiling up at Dorian, Blake took the wet washcloth and laid it across Kellogg's face, "I need a rubber band."

Nick gave him one, "You sure about this? I mean...waterboarding...wasn't that deemed a war crime?"

Blake snapled the band over Kellogg's nose, holding the rag in place even after Kellogg tried to bite it off, "Can't commit war crimes if there isn't a military to judge you...Haldis get the bottom part of the washcloth, it has to be over his mouth too."

Once Dorian had secured the washcloth in place, Blake poured the water over the washcloth.

Almost immediately Kellogg began to seize, his body thrashing around desperately as he felt like he was drowning! He thrashed about with pained gagging sounds as Dorian held the cloth over his face, finally Blake stopped the water and Dorian let Kellogg breathe.

"The location of the institute, where you took my son, I need to know everything."

Kellogg coughed and spluttered, "Fuck...fuck...FINE!" He shuddered, "I'll tell you everything if you promise you can keep me safe..."

Blake took the washcloth off Kellogg's face, "safe from what?" He coughed again and there was an explosion outside, men began screaming as laser fire discharged!

"Courser..." he sputtered as the door to the dungeon was kicked in.

In the door stood a man in a black leather trench coat over body armor of a similar color, his face was that of any normal human being, but completely emotionless, sunglasses covered his eyes, "Get out of my way." He said, his voice was a deep monotone, he held a gun that Blake now identified with the institute synth soldiers.

Nick drew his pistol as The General stepped in front of Kellogg, absorbing the laserfire that would have connected with their witness! He grunted in pain as he felt his body start to slow down, "what...is this..." Haldis' skin slowly began to frost over as he protected Kellogg from the assault, Haldis' body beganto shudder frantically. "S-SO...cold..."

Nick fired a few shots that hit, but the bullets hit the frontal plate of the courser's skull, making them ricochet into walls, the courser stepped forward and grabbed Nick by the throat, "You are ancient...how are you even still functioning?"

Blake drew his sidearm and aimed lower than the head, shooting 5 10mm bullets directly into the Courser's armpit, the weak point in any body armor he'd ever encountered short of power armor.

There was no ricochet this time and the courser dropped Nick, backhanding Blake, sending him to the floor, "I told you to get out of my way."

As the courser turned to shoot Blake, before he could pull the trigger, there was a shrill screech and an explosion of black mist!

There was complete silence within the blackness, until the courser spoke, "intriguing, i've never been rendered blind before, some sort of smoke? But it smells..."

Blake hazarded a breath in, the smog didn't burn his lungs, instead it tasted and smelled vaguely sweet.

As he came to this conclusion, there was a hiss and a light cut through the blackness, two red lights, positioned equidistant from each other, about 3 inches, like eyes.

"What...is that?" Asks the courser, from the fog around them came an answer, a deep rumble from within the fog that seemed to come from all around them, "Mothman."

Then there was the arc of a blade, so sharp that it cut the mist, sparks flew as the blade clashed with metal, splattering Blake with something wet and warm! A body hit the floor and the mist began to disperse.

As the mist began to float towards the floor, Blake saw the only person standing in the room was a shape wrapped in dark grey wrappings covered in wooden armor and black fluff, adorning the head and face were a gasmask adorned by a human skull, atop the gasmask was a pair of deer antlers, in his hand was a bloody serrated blade made from some sort of black stone and another deer antler, about his shoulders was a black cloak that looked like massive moth wings.

"Blake Edge." The figure whispered through it's mask, "You owe the Railroad a lifedebt now."

Blake sat up as the smoke continued to disperse, revealing the desolated room, Kellogg was grunting with exhertion as he was trying to escape the frozen clutches of The General, even as Haldis thawed out, "Fuck that was horrid...who's that?"

Haldis stood and turned only to chuckle, "Whisper...been a while."

Whisper took off the mask, revealing that whisper was a woman, short black hair adorned a scarred but beautiful face with wide brown eyes, "Been a while indeed, Dorian."

Blake was gobsmacked, "Who...what?"

Haldis shook off his frost, "my friend, meet Whisper, the Railroad's top agent, and Adherent of Mothman."

Blake once more took in her appearance, "I'm so confused..."

Whisper looked at Kellogg, "Why is he still alive? He was supposed to be dead."

Haldis pointed at Blake, "He was scaring the whereabouts of the institute out of him, it was working too when the crazy man in the trench coat showed up."

Whisper sighed, "not just a man, that was a courser." Kellogg nodded as he contributedto the conversation from his chair, "A synth made to tie up loose ends, IE me."

Nick sat up, blinking hard, "Woah...what'd I miss?"

Blake helped him to his feet, "Someone saved our bacon."

Haldis looked back down at Kellogg, "you gonna talk now?"

Kellogg nodded, "Might as well...you guys saved my life..."

Over the next week, under the watchful eye of Whisper and General Haldis, Kellogg disclosed the entire ruse, where Shaun was, exactly how long it had been since he'd kidnapped him, who he was now, and the ruse with the synth child he knew would ultimately lead to his demise if Blake ever caught up to him

"But you went contrary to Father's design...you didn't kill me, didn't find my memory backup unit and didn't assume the child was your son..."

Blake's eyes were wide as he took this all in, calculations whizzing by in his head as he struggled to discern if this was truth or not.

"Look, I understand if you still want me dead, being that I shot your wife...but know that you've helped me clear a lot off my conscience."

Blake glared at Kellogg, "Can you help me get to the institute?"

Kellogg chuckled, "your son isn't a baby anymore, he's a full grown man, you think blood relation will matter to him after all this time? Those robotic fucks raised him to be a cold-blooded sociopath."

Blake sat next to his former foe, "Did you ever have kids?"

Kellogg looked down, almost as if contemplating, "...yes."

Blake raised both eyebrows, "oh wow ok...um...would you not at least want to try? To give family ties a shot to win out?"

Kellogg looked Blake dead in the face, "no. Because then they'd have a chance to get the drop on me, nothing is worth dying for, kid, least of all a grown man who probably doesnt even identify as human."

Blake shook his head, "Look, I'll pay you for your trouble."

It was Kellogg's turn to shake his head, "no money...I'm giving you advice, thats free...don't let the old man get the drop on you, leave it alone."

Blake looked at Kellogg with an exasperated face, "you're turning down caps? I'm just asking u to get me inside, the rest will be up to me.'

Kellogg huffed, "and on your head!"

Blake stood, clenching his fists, "then that's my problem isnt it?"

Kellogg put his head in his hand, rubbing his temples, "Fine...I need some time to remember...Virgil..."