A/N: And we're back! Did you all enjoy the madness of the previous chapter? Everyone having happy holidays?

It's at this juncture that I should note that, as much as I'd like to post another chapter on the 25th, the next few days are going to get very crowded and I may not have time to write, much less post. New Years will be equally chaotic. In any event, I can only wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Satisfactory Saturnalia, etc, etc, etc, followed closely by a Happy New Year: chapters will resume posting next year.

Anyway, with all that out of the way, the latest chapter: read, review, and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Fallout is still not mine.

The ordeal lasted a week.

Braun was there for every single death, looking in on Dithers' agonies with a bucket of popcorn by his side, giggling uproariously. Blood loss, failed attempts at self-surgery, infection, suicide… he took in every grisly demise, averting his eyes only to make sure that it was all being recorded for posterity.

Of course, the deaths weren't the only entertainment to be fund here; what made this truly amusing was the fact that Dithers could survive. The odds were stacked against her, but survival was still within the realms of possibility, and that was what kept Dithers succumbing to despair; that was why she didn't just keep killing herself to spare herself any further pain. She'd realized that she and Matty could still survive the bloodbath, and more importantly, that the only way to end the torment would be to successfully deliver the baby without dying.

So, she kept on trying, and Braun continued spectating.

Of course, he'd also arranged this experience to torture Matty, and as the days went by, he savoured all the fear, confusion, pain, and embarrassment the experience could bestow on him, and there were generous lashings of all of it. By far the most entertaining iterations were the ones in which Dithers died first: once, she was actually able to slice herself open, extract the baby, sew herself back up again and attend to Matty in all the necessary ways… only to end up succumbing to a massive infection and dropping dead. Unattended, Matty starved to death.

But alas, the amusement couldn't last forever: eventually, through a mixture of willpower, hard-won experience, careful management of resources and sheer luck, Dithers was able to deliver the baby, cut the cord, sew herself back up again, and attend to the baby long enough to guarantee his survival. She even managed to avoid falling ill this time around, in part because she resorted to using the shiny new steak knife instead of the poisoned surgical equipment. And as much as Braun wanted to continue the punishment, he knew that he couldn't let it drag on forever, not if he wanted to keep his playthings from succumbing to apathy as they had in the early days. Besides, he'd lost count of how many times they'd expired.

Now the two of them were asleep, one slumped across the couch, the other curled up in the cradle that Braun had arranged for him. He could already tell that the two of them were in a very interesting condition, psychologically speaking: this had been Matty's first brush with virtual death and having so many consecutive deaths forced on him would no doubt leave an indelible mark on his psyche. Dithers had never suffered this kind of pain before, had never become so important to another living creature in all her life; no doubt that would be enough to dull her venom. Then again, there was every chance the two of them would still eventually find ways of being rebellious despite their trauma… but really, that didn't matter too much to him.

Frankly, Braun was just happy knowing that the two partners in crime would never be able to look each other in the eye ever again.

He gave them three days to recover. Dithers needed time for the painful process of healing and scarring to begin, and he didn't feel like subjecting her to any trauma she'd have to be resurrected for – not when he could watch her unconsciously roll onto her belly in the night and awaken with a strangled yelp of pain.

Plus he was having the time of his life watching Matty struggle to adjust to the humiliation of being totally dependent for the first time since his infancy back in the real world. Braun didn't know what his life had been like so far, but his experiences out in the wastelands beyond Vault 112 had no doubt involved a great deal of adventures, survival, and individualism, so his current state of helplessness almost certainly left Matty stinging with impotent rage.

He even considered allowing the other residents to visit them, just so Dithers and Matty would have to endure the saccharine well-wishes that would naturally follow, just so he could watch them cringing in embarrassment, silently writhing in humiliation under the barrage of sickly-sweet congratulations like freshly salted slugs. But that would have required too much rewriting of memories just to explain why Dithers now appeared to be in her twenties, so, Braun decided to let that opportunity pass him by in favour of something infinitely more amusing.

As soon as their days of recuperation were over, Braun spirited himself into the house one afternoon and made a beeline for the virtual mother and child. Dithers was half-asleep on the living room couch, while Matty was dozing in his cradle next to her, both having adjusted to their ordeal enough to grow complacent.

He allowed them one final minute to enjoy their slumber. Then, without a word, he leaned forward and jabbed Dithers in the belly, digging a long-nailed finger into the still-healing scar across her stomach.

Immediately, Dithers lurched upright with a shriek of pain, hands immediately flying to her belly in a belated instinctual attempt at self-defence; then she realized who had just awoken her, and promptly lurched backwards, squeezing herself into a corner of the couch in a desperate attempt to escape from the figure grinning down at her.

"Good afternoon," Braun purred. "Just stopping by to see how you and the baby are doing. The strain of caring for an infant can prove quite beggaring to new parents, after all. But then, you already know that."

He chuckled indulgently.

Dithers couldn't even meet his eyes, instead keeping her face turned as far away from Braun as possible, her gaze locked on a window somewhere in the background. She blinked furiously as Braun crept closer, and he could tell at once that she was trying not to cry – either out of fear, pain, humiliation, or self-disgust at her own weakness. Either of the four was good enough for him.

"What's wrong?" he sneered. "No more snide remarks? No more insults? No more defiance? I'm shocked, Theresa, I truly am. I thought you'd go on being a nuisance forever, but it seems that I've finally found something that you haven't been able to endure. I'm almost disappointed, really. Surely you could spare me one last bon mot, just for old time's sake?"

Dithers closed her eyes and backed herself so far into the corner of the couch that she ended up compacted into a foetal position, legs tucked tight against her chest in a desperate attempt to get as far away from Braun as possible. Judging by the look on her face, she was now in a great deal of pain from the pressure of her legs on her c-section scars, but fear was overriding it; the trauma she'd experienced had crossed beyond the boundaries of second nature and into the realm of instinctive terror.

Perhaps, with a little time to heal, she would one day uncover that thread of stubborn defiance; it might even be amusing to witness in action… but for now, Braun was more than happy leaving Theresa Dithers broken.

"Leave me alone," she whimpered.

"As you wish, Theresa; I was only here to say hello to Matty, after all."

Leaving her stewing in her misery, he crept over to the cradle where Matty lay sleeping…

"Matty? Oh Matty? Wakey-wakey, eggs 'n' bakey. Rise and shine, sweetie."

Matty yawned sleepily, expecting to find himself staring up at the familiar concrete ceiling of his apartment back in Vault 101. He'd no idea why some strange little girl would be whispering in his ear at God only knew what hour of the morning this was, but that could wait until later. If he didn't finish off the programming tweaks to the next round of hand-me-down PIP-Boys, Overseer Almodovar was not going to be happy. Matty could already tell it was going to be a bad day: good days never started with the kind of nightmares he'd been having, especially when they involved Vaults gone wrong and psychopathic Overseers.

Without waiting for his eyes to adjust to the light, he tried to rise from his bed, but for some reason his legs refused to respond to his commands; all he could do was kick feebly in the air, unable to find the strength necessary to force himself upright. More unusually, he didn't appear to be lying on his moth-eaten old bunk at all; instead, he was cocooned in blankets at the bottom of some thickly-cushioned enclosure – an enclosure that looked, to his dazzled eyes, like a cradle. And as details of the room around him began creeping in through the haze of light around him, Matty saw that the ceiling wasn't the familiar pipe-studded roof that he'd known for every year of his life underground. Not a trace of concrete could be found up there, only smooth white plaster… and was that sunlight he could see streaming in through the windows?

And then Matty belatedly noticed the lack of colours around him, and with a dawning sense of horror, he finally remembered where he was and what had happened. He hadn't been dreaming at all: he was still in Tranquillity Lane, his real body was still imprisoned in Vault 112, and Dad was still somewhere in the simulation. Worse still, he was now in the body of a baby, and he was still reeling from one of the most horrific experiences of his life so far.

But the worst had predictably been left for last: Braun was now leering down at him, a look of horrendous triumph in his colourless eyes.

"Did you enjoy your first few deaths?" he purred, in his own voice. "I understand that the earliest virtual deaths are usually the most traumatic; the sense of faltering organs, the growing darkness as consciousness dims, that last paradoxical explosion of endorphins, the plunge into oblivion… as the creator of this system, I was able to guarantee that the sensation of death was replicated perfectly. The trauma that ensues is quite natural… though, of course, everyone experiences it quite differently. Tell me, young Matty, how are you dealing with it?"

Of course, Matty couldn't reply coherently, not even to ask what the hell Braun had done to create the sensations of becoming a foetus. Every time he'd tried to speak in the last few days, all that emerged from his mouth was a string of infantile babble. His thinking didn't seem in any way impaired by what had happened to him, so some automated subroutine to his new avatar was probably scrambling his speech; obviously, Braun hadn't decided to start tinkering with his brain… yet.

But then, even if he'd been able to, he still wouldn't have responded: over the last three days, he'd had to deal with the fallout of everything that Braun had done to him – the sweating fits, the crawling anxiety, the paranoia, the impotent rage, the sense of utter humiliation, and worst of all, the nightmares. He hadn't thought it'd be possible to have dreams inside a virtual reality scenario, much less nightmares, but Braun had evidently allowed him the luxury of REM sleep within this little game of his; and so, Matty had ended up lumbered with a parade of night terrors bad enough to leave him bawling helplessly in Tessa's arms. Over and over again, he remembered dying; at times, he could feel the sting of the blade, even when he was wide awake… and now, with all those unwanted details in the back of his head, he couldn't bring himself to meet Braun's taunting gaze. Even if he'd been able to, he wouldn't have been able to speak to that grinning face above him: his mind was all but blank with terror.

Beforehand, he'd known that Braun could torture him to death in the blank of an eye, but it was another thing to understand it instinctively, to feel that immediate and unconscious sense of terror telling him that he was completely helpless.

Back home, there'd been a very vigorous system of propaganda in place to make the children of Vault 101 feel the same way about Overseer Almodovar, to worship and fear him as a living god in all but name; almost everyone had believed it to varying extents, or else Old Almodovar would have been overthrown by the security police at the first opportunity. Braun had several major advantages over his counterparts over in Vault 101: quite apart from the fact he was able to brainwash his subjects at will, he could kill them as many times as he liked without it becoming permanent, inflicting psychological trauma that never could have been replicated in the real world. In face of all that, horrified silence was the only sane response.

"Not too surprising," said Braun, smugger than ever. "It seems you and Dithers have finally learned your manners. But as far as I'm concerned, you've learned too late: you've disappointed me one too many times, and you've proved that I can't rely on you to entertain me of your free will. If I let you grow up again, you'll just try to sabotage the program again. So, as sad as it is to see you go, I think it's time I took definite steps to guaranteeing your good behaviour from now on. You see, people are so much more obedient if they don't remember being rebellious."

Oh no.

"After all," he added, "If Dithers is the only member of my flock that I can't memory wipe, then perhaps I should keep things that way, just so I can restrict my more elaborate psychological experiments to her. There's something very reassuring about a well-maintained status quo, isn't there? What could be more soothing than my own personal stress doll, always aware and always suffering? You, on the other hand, need a much more specific approach: after all, you're the first visitor I've had in a while, and certainly the first that's been willing to show a little gumption. So, I think it's time to see what will happen if you start over with a blank slate."

There was a horrified gasp from somewhere just out of Matty's eyeline.

"That's right! In short order, you will be given a new life here on Tranquillity Lane, complete with infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, and you'll remember absolutely nothing of your life outside Vault 112. More importantly, you'll be educated on how best to entertain me, until at last you become my loyal servant in this simulation. You will rob, brutalize, destroy, and murder at my command; you will never refuse an order, you will never hesitate to torture or kill, and you will enjoy every last minute of it, because it will be the only reality you will ever know. In the real world, your body will grow dependent on your life support systems, desiccating and withering away until you can't leave your Tranquillity Lounger at all; even if you could remember who you really were, you'd never be able to set foot outside without dying in agony. From this moment onwards, the search for your father is utterly immaterial. From this moment onwards, Matty, you will be my perfect companion from now until the machines that maintain our lives break down and leave us rotting in the earth. From this moment onwards, you – are – mine."

Matty tried to find some shred of defiance within himself, tried to squall and scream until Braun got tired of trying to shout over him. But he couldn't: even if the trauma and religious fear hadn't been smothering him into silence, he was now labouring under good old-fashioned dear-in-the-headlights terror.

Never in all his days had he ever found himself threatened with something like this. He'd had to live with the threat of death ever since he'd set foot outside Vault 101, and he'd adjusted so well that it barely touched him anymore. He had waded through battle after battle, gloried in bloody triumphs, faced down monsters of the literal and metaphorical kind, even dealt with moral dilemmas that most people in Vault 101 would never face or even dream of, and through it all, he somehow found himself enjoying it. Once he'd adjusted, he hadn't been afraid out there, not of dying or being hurt or being humiliated, not even when he'd ended up getting irradiated, battered, stabbed, shot or nearly blown to kingdom come.

But this… this wasn't something he'd ever encountered. He'd never dreamed that he might encounter something that could destroy his memories and personality – his very self. The mere thought of it was enough to leave him frozen in the figurative spotlight, unable to do much more than stare helplessly up at Braun as he waited for the inevitable to descend.

Was there something he could do to change Braun's mind? Or was this just another mindgame, something to get Matty good and terrified before he finally unveiled what his real intentions were? Surely Braun wasn't going to wrap up the game so quickly and so easily; there had to be more to it than this. It couldn't be over, not after Matty had fought so hard and travelled so far, not when there was so much more to do: he still had to rescue Dad, he still had to find a way out of here, of finding some purpose out in the Wasteland. It couldn't end like this – it couldn't end here…

"And so, it's time we bid farewell to your old self," said Braun. "You'll live on after a fashion, but only as a dormant element of your psyche: with all your memories suppressed and a new personality developing in place of the one you forgot, the old pattern won't trouble you much – not consciously, at any rate. So, if you're sitting comfortably, I'll begin. Say goodbye to your memories…"

He reached out for something invisible, subtly interfacing with the mechanisms that would allow him to alter Matty's conscious mind… and then, just as Matty was just about ready to kiss goodbye his chances of ever seeing Dad again, a voice from somewhere just out of view rang out:

"Wait!"

After everything she'd been through, Tessa couldn't believe she'd been able to say anything at all, much less shout in protest.

And yet, somehow, she found herself standing upright, voice raised in urgency. She was still terrified, yes; she was still in agony from the wound in her stomach; she was reeling from the trauma of everything that had been inflicted on her… but somehow, she still had one last drop of defiance left in her veins. She couldn't allow this to happen, no matter how frightened or fucked-in-the-head she was.

The moment Braun turned in her direction, Tessa nearly waved the white flag right then and there; it had been a while since she'd seen him look genuinely annoyed, for he usually tended to hide his emotions behind a hateful smirk… but if he looked irritated at having his fun interrupted, then he probably wasn't in the mood to negotiate.

"Do you need another lesson in manners, Theresa?" he said icily. "Or is there something that genuinely couldn't wait for another five minutes?"

It took a moment for Tessa to find her voice again with that baleful stare boring into her. Right now, what she needed was to be cunning. She needed to persuade Braun to leave Matty's mind intact… and with the jitters steadily creeping their way up her spine, Tessa didn't know if she had the guile or the gall to manage it.

Eventually, she gasped out the words, "Don't do it: don't take his memories. He's more useful to you with his personality intact, I swear."

Braun snorted derisively. "You really are drawn to the dregs of society, aren't you? If it's not emotional cripples like Timmy, it's this bottled-up ingrate. No matter: your little friend has already proved that he can't be trusted to operate according to my rules, much less entertain me consistently. So, what is it about this worthless young man that makes you think that he could be more useful to me in his default condition?"

Tessa's mind went blank. In desperation, she floundered, searching for anything that her captor might treasure: "Because… because he can still be entertaining if you just give him a chance! I mean, wasn't he playing along with your game before he slipped the leash? Didn't he actually impress you?"

"He did," Braun sighed. "And then he disappointed me. What would I earn from giving him a second chance, other than an opportunity for the young man to stab me in the back?"

"Well, you haven't shown him what his life might be like in here. You haven't really given him any real incentives to work for you. I mean, there's so much more you can offer him in the simulation: you've got to show him how his life could so much better if he stopped trying to escape and enjoyed life in the dreamworld."

A mad, desperate idea sparked in Tessa's fear-muddled brain. There was a faint possibility here, something might just work in their favour if she played her cards right, but she'd have to be very careful about it. For one thing, she'd need to know if it was even possible.

"He'd appreciate a little power, too, you know," she blurted. "J-just think of the life he's had up until now: who out there wouldn't want to share in some of your control over the simulation if they got the chance? Er, you can do that, can't you? You can share control over the simulation with him if you wanted, right?"

Braun eyed her suspiciously. "I could," he begrudgingly admitted. "As Overseer of this Vault, I can extend my own administrative powers to other residents at my discretion – and withdraw them at will. To date, I haven't met anyone worthy enough to share in my control, and if you propose that little Matty could remotely be described as 'worthy…' well, Theresa, you know what I prize in individuals. The fact that he's ended up in this predicament at all is sufficient proof that he doesn't deserve to partake of my gifts."

"Well, like I said, you haven't given him enough incentive; if you just showed him how much better things would be if he just played along-"

"Oh, Dithers, Dithers, Dithers… my dear Theresa, I gave you every incentive to play along with my little game, and you didn't even try: your infuriatingly stubborn grip on morality was simply too ingrained for you to ignore the pull of your atavistic conscience. Matty might have been a bit obedient than you, but at the end of the day, he chose the same path as you – more hypocritical Sunday-school morality, more childish devotion to a worthless moral code, more disappointments."

"But he didn't!"

"…excuse me?"

"He didn't choose the same path as me: he didn't betray you out of morality, Braun, he betrayed you because he thought you were going to screw him over."

Tessa was now openly inventing details that she couldn't have possibly known of, trying desperately to come up with something that could satisfy the rotten old bastard. For the moment, it seemed she'd managed to come up with something convincing enough to shut him up, but now she had to follow it up with something even more convincing: she needed to come up with lie that could fool someone capable of reading her brain activity, and she needed to do it quickly before Braun lost interest. The best she could do was improvise and hope that fortune was smiling on her.

"And anyway, he's not like me at all: he's done things that I couldn't even dream of doing, Braun! He's a thief, a murderer, a torturer, and he's enjoyed it! Why do you think he tolerated the games as long as he did? He's not like anyone else in the Vault – I don't even think he's like anyone else in the world!"

"…what exactly are you trying to say, Theresa?"

"I'm trying to say that… that…"

Tessa's mind briefly went blank, and for a split-second, she had no idea what to say. But then she remembered their confrontation in the days just prior to Matty's arrival, and suddenly the answer lit up the inside of her brain.

"I'm say that he's the one you've been looking for all this time!" she exploded. "He's what you've wanted from the visitors all along: he's your equal. Yes, he's a little shy, but he's already admitted that he's enjoyed the things he did out there in the world, including the murders. Matty has the potential to be just like you, Braun, if you'd only give him the guidance he needs. I mean, would you be where you are today you hadn't met Elizabeta all those centuries ago? If you lock away his personality, you'll lose your best chance to find a kindred spirit… but give him a chance to prove his worth and he'll become your protégé, just like you were to Elizabeta. If you treat him well enough, I'm betting he'll even be willing to find more victims for you in the real world. Think of that: think of the fun you could have with new playthings brought in every month – and all you'd have to do to get it would be to give Matty another chance!"

A deafening silence erupted across the living room as Stanislaus Braun considered this.

"It would be very easy to discount your argument as a false equivalency," he whispered. "I was a child when I was first introduced to liberated hedonism, and I was nowhere near as reluctant as this little disappointment is at nineteen. From everything I've witnessed, he's too attached to his own empathy to become exactly as I was..."

He hesitated, and for a moment, Tessa thought her attempt had failed.

But then Braun sighed irritably and grumbled, "All the same, I've seen more than a few executives within the ranks of Vault-Tec discard their own empathy in pursuit of their desires. True, they never followed my path to its logical conclusion… but loathe as I am to abide by an old and overused cliché, 'there's a first for everything.' Perhaps your little friend could one day become as liberated as I am now… and I admit, the possibility of new residents is an attractive one."

The relief must have shown on her face because he immediately added, "But first I'd need proof that he's worthy of my time. If I'm to accept him as my protégé, I'll need to know that he has the potential… the predisposition, if you like. So, what exactly has Matty done that makes him so deserving of a chance to share in my powers?"

Tessa's mind raced. "Well, from what he's told me, he's a thief and a murderer; he's killed scores of people, maybe hundreds in total-"

"And how many of these were committed in self-defence? No, any survivor worthy of the name would have acquired a significant body count after enough time spent in the Wastelands. And as for thievery, a global economic breakdown makes robbers of us all. No, such things are unimportant, Dithers: I'm looking for someone willing to pursue their own ambitions and desires at the expense of others, not animals with no interest beyond filling their bellies."

"He's told me that he enjoys violence, that he's looked forward to being ambushed by raiders; he even told me that he shot several of them in the back as they were fleeing!"

"Hmmm. Delight in bloodshed does show potential, but it's still not enough to simply enjoy killing self-defence."

"He killed a man who was begging for mercy, just so he wouldn't be a threat in the future!"

Tessa was bending the truth more than a little bit by now, but she was desperate. If she couldn't change Braun's mind, they were screwed: Matty would never awaken from his new identity, and any chance of ending the nightmare would be dead in the water. Once again, she had to find something that could placate him, something that could stay his hand – even if it was only a half-truth at best.

"You're grasping at straws, my dear. Matty's ability to recognize necessity is once again irrelevant: I'm looking for refined intellects, not instinctive survivors."

"Um… er… he worked as a debt collector and-"

Braun just rolled his eyes. "This interview is terminated," he sighed, and strode back towards Matty's cradle. "It was very nice to hear your frank appraisal of the young man's finer qualities, but I haven't heard a single thing that could possibly indicate that he might one day fit in here of his own accord – much less become my equal. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a history to erase."

"Wait!" Tessa shrieked, frantically scrambling for any possibility that could save them both. "Wait just a second! He forced someone into a fate worse than death!"

Braun paused in mid-step. "Beg pardon?"

And so, Tessa told him the story of Harold, the mutant who had become a forest. She gave him the bare minimum of truths – how he and Matty had met, how Harold had begged to be put out of his misery, how the Treeminders had pleaded for their little utopia to spread no further… and then she started omitting details.

She made no mention of the group that had wanted Matty to spread the forest even further beyond the boundaries of Oasis and had given him the means of doing so. By omission, she made it sound like Matty had come up with the idea himself just so the Wasteland could be shaped into something more to his liking. She also avoided mentioning how Matty had convinced Harold that the Wasteland could benefit from his continued existence, instead skipping directly to the point where Matty had left the tree-mutant condemned to his fate, the better to make him look like a callous bastard.

By the time she was done, Tessa was practically numb with fear, certain that at any minute Braun would lose patience and erase Matty's identity. The silence that followed only made her feel even worse, for Braun was now eyeing her with undisguised suspicion, his gaze seeming to burrow through her head; for the longest time, she was certain that she'd slipped up at some point and pushed credibility too far. But then the doll-like face softened, turned contemplative. Then, his attention turned towards the baby lying in the cradle behind him.

Without so much as a word of warning, Braun shoved the cradle over, sending it crashing to the ground and catapulting little Matty across the carpet – but even as he tumbled away, he was already beginning to change, his body sprouting and ballooning outwards as Braun accelerated his prospective protégé back into childhood. By the time he thundered to a halt against the opposite wall, Matty was ten years old again, clothes hastily rippling into existence around his barely-completed body.

"On your feet!" Braun snapped. "Stand tall for your Overseer!"

Matty obediently shot upright into his best impression of a military parade formation, eyes immediately alighting on the horizon even as his arms locked themselves by his side.

"Now, Matty," the Overseer hissed, "I'm going to ask you some questions, and I expect them to be answered promptly and honestly. I'll be monitoring your heartrate, blood pressure, respiration, adrenaline levels and brain activity throughout; if you lie to me, I will know. Do you understand?"

Matty nodded.

"Good. Now, tell me: were your exploits in this… Oasis… as real as Dithers claims?"

For a moment, Dithers thought he wouldn't be able to speak after the trauma of dying so many times in a row. But then Matty took in a lungful of air and just managed to gasp out "Yes."

"You condemned an innocent man to eternal torment of your own free will?

"…yes."

"And you chose to expand the forest against the wishes of its people? Nobody forced you, nobody put a gun to your head?"

"That's right."

"And the mutant is still there?"

"He was the last I looked."

"Describe his condition."

"Extremely depressed. 'Despairing' would be the most appropriate term."

"And he really will suffer for all eternity?"

"Now that his heart's been layered with liniment and sealed away, the quickest guaranteed method of killing him is gone for good. So yes, he's still there, and so long as the Treeminders continue to protect him, he'll live forever."

Braun considered this. "And how does that make you feel?"

This would be the ultimate test of Matty's ability to pull the wool over Braun's eyes: this wasn't just a matter of omitting details or bending the truth ever-so-slightly; to disguise the regret he'd felt over this incident, Matty would have to tell an outright lie and somehow make his performance so believable that even Braun's instruments couldn't pick up on it.

So, it came as something of a surprise when the only word to emerge from Matty's lips was "Mercurial."

"Could you elaborate?"

And then, to Tessa's amazement, Matty actually met Braun's gaze.

"Sometimes I feel satisfied," he said, his voice flat and dead. "Sometimes I'm not. Sometimes I'm impatient to see my investment pay off… but mostly, I feel nothing. As far as I'm concerned, my work is done, and I won't be going back to Oasis anytime soon. Does that answer your question, Dr Braun?"

There was a contemplative pause.

Then, for the first time since the interrogation began, a smile began inching its way across Braun's face, a smile that could only have occurred in virtual reality.

"Perhaps you do have potential after all," he said slowly. "Not necessarily enough to stand as my equal, but definitely enough to serve as a promising apprentice. But first, we'll need to tend to your education: if I'm to share my power with you, I'd like to be certain that you have what it takes to use them effectively. I want to see you put that ruthlessness to good use and marry it to a well-developed sense of creative sadism. Is that understood?"

Matty nodded silently.

"Good. Then we'll begin tomorrow – once I've had time to arrange a suitably stimulating curriculum for you to study. My advice to you? Get as much rest as possible: this will be the ultimate test of your worthiness, and in my classroom, I operate on a strict basis of pass or fail. I shouldn't need to tell you what a failing grade will mean for you."

The ghastly grin now sliced Braun's face in half, exposing far more teeth than was physically plausible.

"Now, enjoy your evening, Matty. And try to smile!" he added in Betty's voice. "If all goes well, you'll have more power than you'll ever know what to do with."

Then, he was gone.

For nearly thirty seconds, Tessa kept one eye on the park, desperate to make sure that Braun was fully engrossed in his brainstorming efforts. It wasn't until he'd begun idly drifting back and forth on the swings that she felt safe enough to edge away from the window and collapse onto the couch.

"I think it's safe to talk now," she said at last.

Matty, who hadn't budged for the last few minutes, immediately sagged with relief. He didn't even bother making his way to the couch: he simply collapsed against the wall and slid right down to the floor.

"You're sure?" he wheezed breathlessly.

"Well, I'm pretty sure he could hear us if he wanted to, but right now, I'm hoping he'll be too busy daydreaming to pay any attention to us. Hopefully, he wasn't just pretending to be convinced, otherwise we're screwed."

"I think we're screwed either way, Tessa: Braun's a psychopathic narcissist, not an idiot. Even if I manage to impress him tomorrow, he's not going to give me the power I'd need to stop him, not when it's easier just to fob me off like all the other times he offered me something I wanted. He'll teach me a few basic tricks to whet my appetite and bait me on until he's satisfied that I'm loyal. He won't give me the power to stop him, not after what I tried back in the house."

"Maybe you won't have to: maybe we just have to convince him to give you enough."

"He's not gonna give me the keys to the kingdom just because he thinks I could be just as heartless as him with a little training!"

"No, but it could get you a second chance to get back to the Failsafe Terminal. And speaking of which, did you get to see what was on that terminal? Did you learn what the Chinese Invasion Failsafe was about? How far did you get to activating it before Braun stopped you?"

Matty hung his head despairingly. "It's a kill switch, Tessa: it's a military training program designed to mimic… well, exactly what it said on the label. Assuming that running it doesn't break the simulator, it'll switch off the safeties that keep us from suffering real feedback from virtual fatalities. Anyone killed while the program is running will die for real and Braun won't be able to bring them back."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. Apparently, Braun was planning on using it as a suicide pill up until he realized that it wouldn't work on him. All it'd do for him would kill all his playthings, leave him trapped and alone forever – hence why he doesn't want anyone finding it."

"Then why didn't you use it?"

For a moment, Matty looked at her as if she'd just suggested sticking his head in a mincer.

"Because it would kill you," he said exasperatedly. "It'd kill everyone except for Braun. It might end up killing Dad as well if I'm not careful. That's why I delayed back when I had the chance to use it: there has to be another way."

"Sometimes there is no other way."

"Yes, there is! I could find a way to siphon control from Braun, or maybe I could disconnect Braun's Tranquillity Lounger from the Vault computer, or better yet, I could find a way of opening the other Loungers so you could go free-"

"It's too late for that, Matty: I don't know much about the Loungers, but Braun's been very open in explaining all the reasons why I'd never be able to escape from the simulation. By now, we've been hooked up to the Loungers' life-support systems for two hundred years, and from Braun tells me, we'd never be able to survive without it."

"Well he could be lying-"

"He could be, but I don't think he is this time. Braun can be frighteningly honest when his illusions don't work on you… and besides, why else would he want you as his pawn in the real world? If he could leave his Lounger, he'd have done it years ago. Why else would he be so worried about being without playthings?"

Matty still didn't look convinced, though, so Tessa tried a different approach: "When you first arrived in Vault 112, what did you see of our bodies in the Loungers? What do we look like after all those years on life support?"

A faint grimace crept across Matty's face. "Not healthy," he admitted.

"So… pretty decrepit, then?"

"I think the word 'mummified' might be more fitting. I could barely tell you apart. Braun looks worse, but I have to assume he was even older at the time he took a seat."

"Then it looks like the evidence is clear, Matty: we can't leave our Loungers without dying and neither can he."

"But that doesn't mean there isn't another way!" Matty insisted, voice on the edge of hysteria. "Maybe I can at least get rid of Braun for you; with a little effort, I could give you control of the simulation. Sure, you still wouldn't be able to escape, but at least you'd be happy. If I can get a chance to access the other functions on the terminal-"

"There wouldn't be enough time. Remember, Braun isn't going to take his eyes off you while you're outdoors; he won't be fooled by the same trick we pulled last time, so if you do get a chance to access the terminal again, it'll be with him hot on your tail. You won't have enough time to look for these functions – if they even exist. If you want to end this nightmare, it'll have to be the Chinese Invasion Failsafe or nothing."

"But… but…"

"This is your only option, Matty," Tessa said gently. "Anyway, you don't need to feel guilty for this. You'll be doing us a favour. I mean, just look at all the horrors you've seen so far. We were being tortured for at least a year and maybe even longer than that before Braun started erasing our memories. I've spent the last twelve months immune to the mind-wiping – twelve long months of isolation, torture, and terrible arthritis… and unless you use the Failsafe, I'll be stuck suffering the same treatment for as long as this Vault lasts. You won't be murdering us, Matty: you'll be putting us out of our misery. Do you understand?"

Matty nodded.

For the next thirty seconds, there was silence in the living room, as Matty began almost unconsciously drawing his knees up to his chest, subtly rocking back and forth on his haunches as the seconds ticked by.

"I want to go home," he said quietly.

"I know, Matty, I know; all you have to do is play along for just a little while longer and you'll be back to Megaton in no time."

Matty made a noise that started as a snort of laughter and ended as a choked sob. "Megaton's not my home, Tessa; I've got a house there, but it's not home to me, no matter how hard I try to make it feel that way. I want to go back to my real home – I want to go back to Vault 101!"

"But you said-"

"I know what I said! Yes, Vault 101's a concrete pit in the ground; yes, the Overseer's got all the power and the residents have none; yes, it's cramped, ugly, and smells like a giant armpit; yes, there's breakdowns and shortages every other day of the week; and yes, I had a boring dead-end job with no real freedoms and no days off just like everyone else in the Vault – but it was my home! I grew up there – for the longest time I thought I'd been born there." He took a deep, shuddering breath. "No matter how miserable it got down in the Vault, I had certainties: I had a job, I had a purpose, I had an apartment, I had the guarantee of a warm bed and regular meals… I had some decent music to listen to, maybe even a good book to read every now and again. Most importantly of all, I knew I would live out my days in that Vault and I knew I'd die in the Vault, and until then, I knew I was a good person. I studied hard, I stood up to bullies, I helped my friends and neighbours, I made Dad proud, and I put myself to the fullest possible use. In the Vault… I knew who I was."

He shook his head, eyes suddenly shining with tears. "Ever since I've left the Vault, I've never found a single place where I can live with myself. I don't know if I'm a hero, a mercenary, or a lunatic, and I don't know what I'll be by the time Braun's finished. I don't know what I'm going to do even if I can get out of here. I don't even know if Dad will even be able to look me in the eye after all the insane things that I've done in my time in the Wastelands. Right now, the only certainty in my life is that no matter where I go, what I do, who I kill or who I save, every single step I take is only taking me further away from home!" His voice rose to a scream. "I want to go home! I JUST WANT TO GO HOME!"

And in the echoing silence that followed, Matty hid his face behind his hands and began to cry.

Fortunately, the house was still soundproofed from the last game, so Braun didn't hear his newest protégé's outburst, nor did he notice Tessa crossing the room to hug Matty tightly around the shoulders.

She knew they had limited time to prepare themselves for their next big chance at breaking free, but she could tell that this breakdown had been building up for a very long time: Matty had already told her all about the trials he'd endured in the real world, and she didn't doubt that he hadn't had a chance to vent about it any point outside of combat; after all, hardship was almost certainly so commonplace out in the Wastelands that none of the people he'd met would have been in the mood to listen had he tried to voice his anxieties… and even if they had, they probably wouldn't be able to relate to his experiences. From the sounds of things, the only company he'd been able to keep for long periods had been a taciturn gun-for-hire and a dog, so Matty probably hadn't found a sympathetic ear that could talk back for months.

Besides, after all this time, Tessa wasn't ashamed to admit she dearly missed her home as well: when last she'd left it, her old house had been nothing but a joyless hovel littered with broken bottles and puddles of vomit left a little too far from the toilet; it hadn't been worth living in since Marcie had been forced to leave, and during the last few weeks before the bombs had fallen, Tessa had barely been able to tolerate the smell of lost potential and burgeoning alcoholism. In the centuries since then, she'd had days when she wished that she could be right back there under the same dingy roof; even if Marcie still wasn't there, even if her bed was still cold and empty, she'd have gladly taken that shitty old house over anything on Tranquillity Lane. Of course, the house was probably long-gone by now, either wiped off the map by the nukes or eroded into anonymous ruins by the passage of decades, and even if it still stood, it probably wouldn't have been recognizable anyway. But still, Tessa missed it.

So she didn't protest Matty's despair. She simply let him give vent to his misery and gave him all the time he needed to get it out of his system; better this happened now than later, when Braun might be watching.

Eventually, the last of the tears dwindled away, leaving Matty red-eyed and ashen-faced but clearly breathing a little easier, and in the silence that followed, Tessa took the opportunity to speak.

"I'm not going to pretend things are going to get easier – not that I could – and I'm not going to lie and say that you might have a chance to return home one of these days. But I will say this much: you're still a good person, Matty, no matter what you've had to do to survive. You're not a torturer, you're not heartless, and you've at least got sense enough to feel guilt even after all the people you've killed. No matter what Braun does to you, you'll still have that tiny core of basic decency at your heart. And no matter what you do today, your father will always be proud of you."

She sighed and shook her head, wishing (not for the first time) that she'd ended up assigned to one of the other Vaults – if only so she wouldn't have had to be stuck entrusting this unpleasant job to someone who'd already been through hell.

"I'm sorry, Matty," she continued. "I really am. If circumstances were different, I'd give you a few hours to recover just so you're in the right frame of mind for what's going to happen next… but we don't have that time right now. Here, you don't get chances to recover unless Braun's saving you up for something even worse than ever before, so chances are he'll be keeping an eye on us once he's finished putting his next game together… and you won't get a third chance at escaping if we screw this one up. Under the creature comforts and domestic bliss, this place is deadlier than every hellhole in Capital Wastelands put together, and it's got its own sadistic god controlling everything. I can't emphasize this enough, Matty: if we slip up now, we're pillars of salt at best… and that's why we need to start planning, now. You hear me?"

Matty wiped his nose on his sleeve and blinked away a few errant tears. "Yeah," he said wearily. "I hear you."

He sighed deeply. "So… if we need to start now, first on the agenda is how we're going to access the Failsafe terminal: if Braun has an ounce of sense, he'll have changed the locks on his house, assuming he hasn't just sealed the door shut, and he'll be keeping a close watch on it from now on. If we manage to get him away from the house long enough for us to get inside, I'm still going to need to find a way inside."

In spite of herself, Tessa grinned. "Leave that part to me."

"Are you planning on using a bomb or something?"

"Something like that. I've got the lab for it… but bombs aren't the only thing I've got in the works down in the basement."

"Okay, so we can blast the door off its hinges. That's a start… but before I activate the failsafe, I'll need to know where Dad is so that I can get him away from the effects."

"I had some ideas on that front: like you said, he could be just about anyone or anything… but so far, the most likely suspect would be that dog Braun keeps in the park."

"Doc?"

"That's the one."

"Well, I was hoping he'd be disguised as an ornament or something easy enough carry, but at least he might be able to follow me indoors if I can undo whatever Braun did to his mind. But then there's the matter of actually getting the old bastard's eyes off his house long enough for me to make a break for it."

"Well, how good are you at persuading people? I mean, you're good enough at acting the part, but for this, you're going to need to be Academy Award material. Trick him into showboating or challenge him to a fight or something like that – as long as it gets his attention away from the house once you've incapacitated him."

"How am I supposed to incapacitate him? And what's an Academy Award?"

"I'll tell you later. Do you think you can talk Braun into giving you specific aspects of administrative control over the simulation?"

"I can't do the impossible, Tessa: I definitely won't be able to convince him to give me control over life support or the exit overrides, and if he gives me any control over the virtual environment, he'll keep most of it for himself just to be on the safe side. If anything's going to get us an advantage over Braun, it'll have to be something small, something subtle – something he wouldn't think much of."

"The memory chips, perhaps?"

"That's one option: he doesn't seem to think much of the other residents, does he? Maybe we can use that against him… But that's just one of several things I'll need to convince Braun to give me control over. I'm going to need as many tiny advantages as I can get here."

"Good point. Look, we're going to need paper for this; you keep an eye on the window, and I'll take notes. It's time we started brainstorming. What other functions do you think you could talk Braun into giving you control over?"

Matty thought for a moment, chewing on his lower lip in anxious silence.

Then his eyes lit up.

"Pain," he whispered, gleefully.

A/N: Any guess as to what might happen next? Feel free to furnish me with your theories!

In the meantime, I'm going to brace myself for the holiday shenanigans. Have a happy midwinter festival of your choice, and I'll see you all next year: be safe, be friendly, be happy! Until next time... buh-bye!