The thrill of another fight with the supermutants of Murder Pass coursed through Talia's veins. Being within the snaking tunnels of the caverns, even Sarah had seemed a little more cautious to her. Her comfort in enclosed spaces had given Talia far more confidence than their skirmish outside. Whether it was excessive or more driven by pain was moot since they had triumphed.

"You were right Sarah… cake walk."

"Huh! Easy there tiger, don't get too big for your boots now."

The heavy quiet of the caverns settled over them again, the air thick with the sour tang of a conventional firefight. "You gotta admit though, you love your lasers but they just don't let you know what you've got. No kick, and that smell. Don't you think?"

"Oh I know what I've got, cavegirl."

They checked the bodies, relieving them of any ammunition they could use. As the adrenaline faded and the red mist lifted, the roar in Talia's ears quieted enough to let the small voice in the back be heard. It was small like the kids who populated the caverns, who'd told them about their friends that went scavenging and never came back.

"Man, I wish we could help these kids though… you know, the ones they said were caught by slavers." She pondered aloud at one of the corpses.

"Me too, but there's only two of us and we're at war with the Enclave. Besides, if that's even what happened, they've probably been moved on already. Nothing we can do."

"...Do you really think that?"

"I can't know without going to the slavers and askin' 'em, and I don't think it's that simple."

Talia stood and stared for a second. "But we should try right?"

"It's not our fight. We're here to get this geck and take it back to the Citadel, then batter the Enclave."

"And what, it's their fight? They're little kids!"

Sarah turned. "We have orders, Talia. We can't do it, and they're probably dead or sold. We can only go into this Vault now, then get back home."

"Fuck that. You have orders, I'm not one of you."

"Talia-"

"And it's not my home. I can't go home. I'm stuck out here with all this fucking shit I can't do anything about- ow!" She hurled a foot at the supermutant corpse by her only to stub her toe inside her boot, so huge and thick skinned as they were. "Fuck's sake!" she hissed while doubling over.

Sarah watched her struggle to squeeze her foot for a few moments before speaking. "Are you finished?" Talia didn't answer and she stepped closer. "Bitching and moaning like a true wastelander. We didn't have to let you in you know. Before we took recruits no one set foot in the Citadel. But father allowed it, and as long as you're helping with the purifier you have a home there.

"Now you can run off after some unlucky kids if you want, see if you make it, and let me know how you manage to bust them out. But I have orders, and it's to go through that door over there.

"Are you coming?"

Talia cursed and grumbled incoherently from the ground.

"Hey, do I have to slap you? Get a grip of yourself. Are you coming?"

Talia glared up and huffed. "Yes. Fucksake…" She got to her feet and checked over her gear.

"We've helped these kids by clearing out this pass. I used to think there were monsters under my bed. Imagine living next to this at that age."

Talia sighed heavily. "Yeah, I guess."

"Can't wait to see their faces when we come back to tell them it's all clear. They think we're dog food."

Talia tried to summon a smile but her lip only twitched. "Shh, Dogmeat will get excited. You're good with kids you know."

"They're just like cheeky initiates, only smaller."

"I… I never knew any kids. Isn't that weird? I was one of the youngest in the Vault. I think we were dying out. We were all taught about fertility and how we should be having babies for the good of the Vault... Didn't seem to work."

"Huh, lack of romance down there?"

"No. Just nobody seemed to be getting pregnant. I mean we were overworked, so maybe there's that. Or maybe 'cause we were living in a damn hole."

"Huh. I'd have thought with clean food, clean water, you'd fare better... The radiation gets people out here I think."

"You're telling me. I'm a mess. We had to track our cycles you know… the Pip-Boy can measure everything. That page crashed after about a week up here."

"Yeah, it happens. It'll settle."

Talia pinched the bridge of her nose. "I wish everything else would. Why the hell am I down here?"

"It will, I keep telling you. Now, there are probably more mutants inside the Vault. You ready? Can I request that wild Talia that killed most of these mutants out here? You're getting brassy, and not without merit."

Talia shrugged one shoulder and looked away. It wasn't conscious. Inside her she held a pool of anger laced with guilt, and she felt so very heavy. But despite Sarah's request she couldn't tap it at will. She hoped at least it might vent at a helpful time again. During the battle in the cavern she hadn't worried for her own skin one single second. It was strangely relieving. And, looking at the results, effective.

"I'm sure they'll piss me off once we get inside," she offered.

They headed to the door and covered each other as they entered. They stopped at a scene straight from a horror movie.

Bloody remnants of multiple bodies littered the service room. There was not much left apart from the bones, some tissue still clinging to them. Which, given Talia had seen plenty of skeletons of people who perished in the atomic blasts, meant these remains had only become remains fairly recently.

"What the fuck..?"

"If I had to guess," Sarah pondered, "with all those supermutants outside… the way these bones are scattered around like… like…"

"Like someone's just finished a plate of chicken wings?"

"Oh you don't know how close to the truth you may be. I'd say the mutants must be using this place as a base. And a base needs a food source."

Talia wrinkled her face in disgust and checked the pistol round she'd stashed in her pocket, as Sarah advised, was still there. The theory was supported by the gore bags they found hanging in the atrium (which looked exactly as they sounded), and the many more supermutants they encountered around the halls.

"Looks like the residents put up a fight at some point," Talia commented as they passed the third barricade made from tables, beds, and lockers. "Wonder what made the mutants invade?"

"Maybe the warhead that hit the main entrance damaged the door and they just walked in?"

They took the stairs up one level, leaving the living quarters behind for what looked like a medical wing. A large one. A chill ran down Talia's spine.

"What's up? It's just a hospital."

"A Vault hospital. In my Vault that consisted of one doctor's office and a theatre for surgery. This place is huge and… I dunno, it just feels wrong."

Sarah shrugged and led the way down the hall to the left. "Check if any of these doors open. We better clear each room as we go." She let Talia punch the door control to the first room on the left and moved in swiftly, then stifled a scream and backed back out.

"What! What is it?" Talia hurried to her aid, freezing as soon as she crossed the threshold herself. Inside the room, strapped to an examination table was… maybe it used to be a person. They were horrifically deformed. The neck and shoulders had swelled and almost absorbed the head, face skull-like and frozen while contorted in pain. The limbs were mangled and clothes torn where the body had warped and burst through the fabric, while some of the internal organs were threatening to do the same to the skin.

Talia pushed her way past Sarah and threw up in the hallway.

"That's not a normal mutant," Sarah said lamely.

After she'd finished heaving Talia responded. "That's a fucking person. Definitely. Or, used to be. What the fuck."

"Not a normal hospital then. You were right. Let's… let's look for a working computer. Might tell us what the hell happened here. I think I saw an office back there."

Talia nodded and followed Sarah back up the hallway. The office Sarah noticed was that of the Chief Physician, presumably now deceased (if they were lucky). Sarah found the terminal to be powered and sat down to check it out. Talia listened out for movement at the door and tried to erase the image from her memory. It was somehow worse than the centaurs. Still wearing regular clothes and being strapped to a medical table and all. At least she could imagine the centaurs had just had a very unfortunate accident involving radiation, an explosion, and a box full of mannequin parts.

"Shit. Where's Dogmeat?" Talia realised he hadn't followed them back up the hallway. "I better go look for him. He's probably just cleaning up what I left out there, you know how gross he is. But who knows what weird shit is on this floor."

"Wait until I've found something here and I'll come with you. He'll come back if he gets spooked."

Talia was tapping her foot manically. "No way, I'm not letting him run around this horror show. I'm sure he's just around the corner. I'll be back. If anything is still alive here it's fine, I'll see it first. Corridors, huh?"

She left without hearing Sarah's response. She couldn't lose Dogmeat to this place. They'd only gone up one floor but she felt as if she'd been swallowed by the Brotherhood and James and the Enclave and the hole was just getting deeper and she might never come up for air. Dogmeat was the only friend she had who asked for nothing from her- aside from a portion of her dinner. She reached the room at which they turned back but there was no sign of him. She continued along the hallway, cluttered and dusty, illuminated by the jittery flickering of a single functioning light. She tried not to imagine the screams of the misshapen body in the cell behind.

Vault 87 was wiped out. Vault 112 was run by a madman. Vault 101 was pretty close. She started to think her former home had been doomed anyway. At least until Amata opened it up. The evidence wasn't stacking up in favour of the setup working, or even being designed to work as a shelter more than a scientists' playground. She'd always said they were lab rats when she was in a bad mood, but it looked like she may have been right.

She passed more cells containing dead deformities. One contained three dead men, seemingly unmutated, though she didn't stop to wonder how they got there. But she found nothing living. She wasn't sure if the silence was preferable to the angry, armed, everyday supermutants she and Sarah had fought downstairs. She barely noticed how much time had passed nor how far around the floor she'd travelled when someone said 'hello'.

Hello, not halt or who goes there or die, human! So rather than duck for cover, she turned to greet the voice.

Then she ducked for cover.

Behind a window in the room to her left was a supermutant, looking right at her. She began to scramble away on her hands and knees when the voice continued. It was coming through a speaker.

"You! I know you are still there. Please, come speak to me."

She froze and digested the words. The voice was coarse and booming like that of a supermutant. But the words were… polite. "I'm in the room to your left," the voice added, just to confirm her fears.

"Um… Sarah?!" But she was too far away. Damn, how had she idly wandered so far?

"Use the intercom… next to the window," the mutant urged.

She couldn't hear anything else and it wasn't moving within the room- the floor shook when those things stomped around. Taking a breath she carefully peeked over the windowsill into the cell. It was indeed a supermutant, as big and green as all those she'd fought. She couldn't say it was wearing a Vault jumpsuit. The suit clung precariously to its large form, torn where muscles bulged as if the creature had grown inside it. In the room was a toilet, wash basin, and a bed wholly inadequate for a seven foot, seven hundred pound supermutant.

The mutant waved.

Talia ducked back below the sill.

"The intercom…" it repeated. It sounded stressed.

"Well… since you asked nicely," she laughed nervously to herself. Slowly she got to her feet and held down the button to speak. The mutant nodded along like she didn't know how it worked.

"Um… hello?" She watched through the window.

A human might have smiled at that point. The mutant's face did something. "Either you are quite real, or I am quite mad."

"...My thoughts exactly."

"Could you actually be... A pure human?"

"...I'm human, yes. But... What are you?"

The mutant blinked in apparent surprise. "Me? You care who I am?"

"Who, yes, and what. Both." It was very polite but still very large so Talia felt it best to avoid giving offence.

"Forgive me," it said unnecessarily, "I am not used to such pleasantries. I'm more accustomed to grunts and being struck about by the others. The name is Fawkes. I've lived in this cage all my life."

"Fawkes… I didn't realise you, uh, had names."

"Please do not assume I am like the others in this place. I chose the name from a historical entry on the computer. My captors were too stupid to realise it still worked when they placed me here. I have taught myself many things from this room."

"The others? They put you here?"

"Yes. To them I'm a curiosity, an anomaly. They don't know why I'm different than they are and I think it fascinates them. All of the locked rooms in the medical wing contain failed experiments that they created."

Experiments. Talia's eyes widened. "Holy shit… is this why they take people?" A shudder rattled through her bones. "They did this?"

"I can answer your questions, but first, a proposal. I suspect you have come here in search of the G.E.C.K. Am I right?" He continued when she stared blankly. "People have tried and failed to retrieve it many times before you. Why else would you be in this… horrible place?"

She couldn't fault his logic. "What do you know about the G.E.C.K.?"

Fawkes made a sound that might have been a chuckle if supermutants could speak at any volume other than booming. "I know what it is, I know where it is, and best of all, I know how you can get your hands on it."

"And your proposal…"

"Let me out of this makeshift prison, and I will retrieve it for you."

Talia looked around. "You can understand why I might be nervous…"

"I suppose. You are free to seek it out yourself, as many have tried to do. But allow me to offer some information in good faith. The chamber in which the G.E.C.K. resides is flooded with radiation. It's unlikely you'd survive very long. Myself, on the other hand, have surprisingly inherited a useful trait from my fellow Meta-Humans. I am highly resistant to radiation. So you see how I can help."

"You could help…" Talia pondered, biting her lip. "Or that could be made up. How do I know any of that is true?"

Fawkes rolled his entire head in lieu of the ability to make more nuanced facial expressions. "Your kind is very fond of deceit. You project onto me how you might behave if our situations were reversed. What benefit do I have in telling you a lie? I have been imprisoned here for longer than I can remember. I can't stand it anymore! And you can help me. I have already helped you by warning you of the radiation. I hope this assures you that my word is good and I will uphold my end of the bargain."

Talia frowned and chewed on her lip. She pulled at her shirt collar. Her chest was squeezing the air from her lungs and her racing pulse was pounding in her throat. Looking back down the corridor, there was still no sign of Dogmeat or Sarah.

Fawkes watched expectantly. "So, what do you say?"

Entry 87-34190

The latest subjects in the Evolutionary Experimentation Program (EEP) are showing some promise after only a single exposure to the modified FEV. We are currently testing five subjects, two males and three females. Each one of them is under 24 hour observation as usual. We hope to have a breakthrough in this strain as the continual pressure from Vault-Tec and the military at Mariposa is becoming most bothersome.

Entry 87-34233

We've had a minor setback. Subject B440, Mary Kilpatrik, is now deceased. According to my autopsy, she died of a massive loss of brain function and was unable to sustain her basic bodily needs. This is the usual pattern we see in all the FEV Strains we test... the brains of the subjects becoming too damaged to support even the most basic human needs (eating, sleeping, etc.). So far, all other subjects are nominal and continue to exhibit physical changes.

Sarah was completely engrossed in what she was reading on this terminal. It seemed the Vault was the site of some human experimentation, under direction of the Vault-Tec company itself. Mostly failures, as experimentation tended to be. Presumably that body they'd found was one such failure. Though it looked as if it had occurred much more recently than these logs had been written. She knew she'd found something very important about the supermutants. She'd be a hero if she brought actionable intel back to the Citadel. What she'd give to get a couple of Scribes out here to speed it along.

Her study was interrupted by the fire alarm. She rushed to the doorway, prepared to take on more mutants, but there was no commotion in the hallway. She called out to Talia but got no reply. She realised she'd lost track of how long she had been gone. Hopefully it was just faulty wiring or Dogmeat having triggered something by accident, but she better check it out, and fast.

She made her way along the hall, doing the best she could to sweep each room as she went. This shit was no fun alone and without power armour. She felt naked. Her mouth grew drier the further she moved without finding Talia, while a voice in the back of her head loudly taunted her for bringing a civilian into the field. She knew they were more trouble than they were worth.

She called out as she moved, to protect herself if they surprised each other round a corner. She found nothing but more empty cells. A dead centaur and a dead man blocked the hallway to the north, and the state of the blood told her this was a recent fight.

She doubled back and took the western corridor, calling as she went. She rounded several more corners until she got an answer. Talia skittered out in front of her, dipping her rifle as soon as she recognised Sarah.

"Sarah! There you are. You're about to see something and I need you to promise me not to shoot, okay?"

"What? What is this alarm for? We got tangos?"

"No, we're fine, I can explain but please promise me you won't shoot."

"Talia, if you think-"

"Promise me!"

"Okay, okay, I promise." She slung her weapon to the side and held up her hands. "Now can you please explain what's going on?"

Talia grinned sheepishly. "We're about to receive the G.E.C.K. from… someone, who I found in a room down there. I had to trip the fire alarm to get the doors open. And that released a centaur that was stuck in one, and that attacked a man from another- he looked normal but I had to shoot him 'cause he was just ranting and trying to kill me-"

"Talia! What was that about the geck?"

"Oh… oh yeah. We can't get it cause the room it's in is irradiated."

"So how can they get it and we can't? Who are they?"

Talia bit her lip. "Just, trust me, we need their help. Hey, I guess you figured it out but this place is the source of the supermutants, right? They were created here in the labs. And the mutants bring people here to make more."

Sarah shook her head. "I- I didn't get to that part yet. Who told you this?"

"Fawkes," Talia said. She held up her hands to remind Sarah of her promise. "Fawkes told me, and he's getting the G.E.C.K. right now…"

In the corner a door opened, and through it squeezed the unmistakable hulking mass of a supermutant. Instinctively Sarah darted back to create some distance and reached for her weapon.

"Sarah no! You promised! It's fine, really, he's friendly!"

It lumbered into the large hallway and joined Talia, towering two feet above her. Admittedly it moved rather casually and its body language was unaggressive- relatively speaking. Sarah slowly raised her hands again while keeping a keen eye on the mutant.

Talia looked back at it. "I'm sorry. Or should I say she?"

The beast actually replied to her question. "The term is, I think, irrelevant to Meta-Humans, and in any case I cannot remember what was appropriate before my metamorphosis. I remember walking around this place with other humans, but I cannot recall anything of my former self, so refer to me any way you wish. However, I appreciate your asking."

Sarah blinked hard and wondered if this place had a gas leak.

"So," Talia continued, "is that it?" She pointed to a large silver briefcase in the mutant's hand.

"Yes. Here is the G.E.C.K. Our bargain is now complete." The mutant placed the case at Talia's feet.

Talia lifted the case briefly to test its weight. "Thank you. Fawkes, this is Sarah. Sarah, Fawkes has been trapped here by the other superm… what he calls Meta-Humans. On account of being so much smarter than them."

"And... you let… him out?"

"It was a fair deal," Talia insisted. "Now we've helped each other and he's just going to be on his way, and we can carry on. Everybody's happy."

"You're going to let that thing out into the world?!"

"Sarah, I promised-"

"You're crazy if you think I'm allowing this-"

"Sarah!" Talia ran forward and grabbed her arms. "I promised. He helped us. It's the right thing to do. Just let him go."

The creature was already leaving. It paused to say a few more words. "I'll find my own way out of this place, don't worry. Maybe we'll meet again somewhere in the wasteland."

Sarah tried not to wonder if that was supposed to be a joke at her expense. She watched it pat Dogmeat, pressing the dog almost flat to the ground under the weight of its huge hand. "I'll give it a few minutes, then I'm going outside. I think this Vault is leaking some funny fumes."

"Thank you," Talia breathed. "Take Dogmeat would you? I really don't want him eating anything in this place."

Talia let Sarah and Dogmeat leave ahead of her. She was clearly more than a little annoyed, so hopefully she would have cooled off by the time Talia rejoined them. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves after all they'd seen and opened the case to see what all the trouble had been for. Inside was some incomprehensible technical miscellany; a keypad, a display screen, some circuitry and tubing, along with several vials containing some kind of liquid. Supposedly this device could kickstart life where there was none. She wondered how James had figured it would fit into the purifier, given she had no clue how such a small bunch of components could achieve such huge results.

She closed it carefully, subconsciously comparing it to the silver case Burke had presented to her months ago. A small amount of atomic material could have huge effects. Maybe it was kind of the opposite.

"May as well be magic to me. I hope it works like it," she muttered, figuring out the best way to carry it without shaking it around too much. She thought the moment ought to have felt more climactic, but she tottered down the hallway with the awkward weight of the case skewing her gait and making her feel vulnerable, despite being sure they had cleared the whole Vault. Something about the deformed corpses and orphaned rib cages littering the place left her on edge, she supposed.

She paused at the top of the stairs out of the G.E.C.K. containment section to adjust the case before descending. As she stepped into the opening at the bottom, she saw something land on the ground from the corner of her eye. Was that- a grenade? Shit-

It blew before she could make a dash for it. The room went white. Her head was filled with a high pitched whine. She felt the floor rush to meet her as she lost all sense of direction and fell down. She dropped the case. She groped for it briefly before deciding she ought to find her weapon instead, but her arms grew sluggish. Her neck followed, until she was lying paralysed on the floor.

The bright light began to fade. She heard heavy, familiar footsteps. Her heart raced as her mind connected horrifying dots, her body still refusing to respond. Two large figures entered her blurry vision. They stopped just in front of her. A voice broke through the faint ringing in her ears, tinny as coming from a radio.

"Objective is secured, sir."

The figures waited, and in her panic Talia wondered if there were more intelligent supermutants like Fawkes in the Vault. They usually yelled and weren't so organised. Another figure appeared from the far door. It approached and crouched just above Talia's face. As it blocked out the bright lights overhead, she blinked and tried to focus while it spoke in a familiar, reassuring voice.

"Good work, soldier. Make sure the G.E.C.K. is secured aboard my Vertibird." Colonel Autumn addressed his troops while looking down at Talia's paralysed form. "You're certain she's unharmed?"

She must be hallucinating. She saw Autumn go down in the control room with her dad. She blinked several times more to clear her vision, only now even that was getting difficult.

"Yes sir," the soldier answered. "She'll pass out shortly, but we can revive her."

Autumn stood, apparently satisfied. "Excellent. Prepare her for transport immediately." He left via the door through which they had entered. Talia tried to keep her eyes on him, to confirm he was real, but she was so tired, everything was going dark.

The last thing she heard was the two soldiers talking as she vaguely sensed herself being heaved from the ground. "Glad she saved us the trouble of clearing this place. Gives me the creeps."