Lillian woke up early the next morning. She stretched and did her morning exercises before getting dressed. She had a breakfast of molerat meat, then brought out the rest of it to the lobby.
"Good morning," she greeted Rhys who was sitting at the table drinking a Nuka Cola.
"Paladin Danse is waiting for you outside," he grumbled.
"I'm fine, thanks," she said sarcastically as she dropped the meat on the table in front of him. She waited for a moment before speaking again."You're welcome." If he wasn't going to be nice to her, why should she be nice back. Rhys scowled, but pulled the food towards him.
Lillian and Canigou went outside to see Paladin Danse checking over the front entryway. Once he was satisfied everything was clear, he turned and greeted the two.
"Ready to get going?"
"As ready as I'll ever be," said Lillian.
"It might be best for the dog to stay here," he said.
"Why? He's good in a fight. You saw him yesterday."
"I know, but I don't want him getting in the way or getting hurt."
"Fine," Lillian sighed. She turned to Canigou. "You stay here. I'll be back." Canigou whimpered, but sat down obediently. "Good boy." She turned back to Paladin Danse. "Okay, let's go."
"Right, follow me."
They left out the side gate and down the road to the west. On the way Danse told her about the strange signals they kept receiving. They were significant enough to investigate further, but they needed more people. He also told her that they weren't the first recon squad out to the Commonwealth. Others have been before, including one that had gone missing. But his was the first to discover these signals. Lillian was trying to understand what sort of signals required investigating, but Danse could only tell her that they were extremely brief and they barely knew themselves.
Danse slowed to a stop a short way down the road. He suddenly realised that they had been jogging at a good pace since the police station and while he was in power armour which didn't take much physical effort, she wasn't. He was surprised to see that she hadn't even broken a sweat.
"Why are we stopping?" she asked.
"I thought you could use a breather," he said.
"We've barely gone a mile," she replied. "I'm fine, it's good to be out for a run again, even if I don't have proper runners." She wiggled her booted foot.
Danse nodded and they continued down the road until he stopped again.
"Hold up," he said, raising his laser rifle, "Raiders." Lillian looked and saw a woman in a jean jacket talking to three rough-looking men. Two others were standing to the side of the woman. Suddenly there was gunfire and the woman fell to the ground, dead. Danse immediately stood between the raiders and Lillian, firing his rifle until they lay dead. The caravan guards managed to escape with their lives.
"Fuck, guess we're out of a job now," one said. "Come on, let's go back to Bunker Hill, tell Kesler what happened."
Danse checked the dead bodies and retrieved a few things from them, though Lillian couldn't see what. He was about to continue on when she interrupted.
"Hold on, we're just going to leave these bodies here?"
"We have more important matters to attend to," he replied sternly.
"Yes, but -"
"We don't have time."
"Okay."
Lillian followed him silently. She felt a sadness within her that these people were dead and now no one will care. What if they had family waiting for them? Regardless of whether they're a raider or not, surely someone will miss them and will want to find out what happened to them. Neither Danse nor Lillian said another word until they reached the ArcJet Systems building.
"Okay, listen up," said Danse as they reached the front door. "We do this clean and quiet. No heroics and by the book. Understood?"
"Understood."
"Outstanding. Just stay focused and check your fire. I don't want to get hit by any stray bullets."
They enter ArcJet and discover it's a mess. Walls are partially destroyed and ceilings were caving in. Lillian wondered how on earth they were going to find a transmitter in all this. But Danse seemed to know where to go as he confidently headed down the hall.
"It's corporations like this that put the last nail in the coffin for humanity," he said. "They exploited technology for their own gains, pocketing the cash, and ignoring the damage they've done."
"Maybe not the last nail," said Lillian, "Humanity is still around, isn't it? If just a bit wounded now."
"It might not have happened if people didn't abuse technology."
"Says the man in power armour in charge of a group looking for and investigating technology while also looking for a long-range transmitter."
"That's different."
"If you say so." Lillian could tell she hit a nerve, so she bit her tongue to keep from speaking any further.
Danse remained silent. He had to exert his authority, but at the same time he didn't want to scare her off. He wanted her to stay/
"Looks like the facility's automated security's already been dealt with," he said as they entered a room of destroyed protectrons. "Damn it, I was hoping to avoid this."
"This wasn't the Brotherhood's doing?"
"No, these robots were assaulted by Institute synths."
"Synths? Aren't those the same as robots?"
"They're an abuse of technology created by the Institute. Meant to 'improve' humanity. They simply cannot be allowed to exist."
"What's the Institute?"
"They're a group of scientists who went underground when the bombs dropped. They've spent the last few decades littering the Commonwealth with their technological nightmares." Danse headed down the hall. "Come on, this way."
They continued through the hallways, repeatedly needing to turn around when they reached a dead end caused by fallen ceilings and debris. Danse continued to comment about humanity's abuse of technology and how the Brotherhood was doing humanity a favour by seizing all forms of tech, which Lillian tuned out. They came to a large room with a locked door.
"See if you can find a way to get that door open," said Danse, "I'm going to reconnoiter the area. One of the terminals should open it."
"Gosh, I don't know if I can be trusted with all this technology," Lillian said quietly to herself.
"Hm?"
"Nothing." Lillian tried one of the terminals but found it locked behind a password. She tried to log in.
"Any luck?" asked Danse.
"Not yet. Any ideas what the password could be?"
"No."
"Thanks. So helpful." Lillian tried another terminal which happened to be unlocked and with a message on it giving an updated password. She memorized it and tried it in the locked terminal. "Aha! That worked!" She selected the command to open the door.
"Nice work, let's get mov-" Danse was interrupted by laser fire. Skeletal robots barged through the door and were firing at them. Lillian grabbed her pistol to shoot, but Danse kept stepping in front of her. She couldn't risk accidentally shooting him, so she dashed to the side but he managed to get in between her and the robots again. What the hell was he doing?
"Damn synths have compromised most of the facility," he said once he'd killed them all.
"So these are synths, huh?" she knelt down by one of the bodies. "Creepy."
"We need to get to the engine core fast," Danse said as he dashed through the door. Lillian followed. They came across a couple more synths in the next room, but Danse quickly brought them down. After going through a maze of more halls, rooms, and stairs, they finally reached the engine core room.
It was huge. It had to be with the test rocket firing system they had in the middle of it. The stairs going up were destroyed. Danse noted that the elevators weren't powered up so the only option was to go down.
"There has to be a power backup system somewhere," said Danse as they reached the bottom. " Scout the maintenance area off the main chamber. I'll remain here and watch our backs."
Lillian nodded and took out her pistol. The hallway was clear. She was both relieved and disappointed. She wanted a chance to prove herself against these synths, but she was also scared. She found another terminal in the back which had a prompt for starting up the backup power. Almost as soon as she started up, she heard laser gunfire from the engine core room.
She ran back into the observation room just as Danse threw some debris at the door closure button, shutting her in. Synths seemed to be dropping out of the sky and attacking him. Lillian tried opening the door but it wouldn't budge. She went back to the window, feeling helpless as the synths were swarming Danse.
"Push a button! Do something! Anything!" he shouted. Lillian looked down and saw the big red button. Who could resist? She punched it hard and she felt a rumble followed by an announcement.
"Engine core power restored."
Shit. What did she just do?
"Thermal engine fueled, primed, and standing by for your command."
Shit.
"Command accepted. Commencing five second countdown."
Oh shit. She hit the button again, hoping to cancel the command but nothing happened.
"5..."
The synths kept coming. Danse was fighting valiantly, but he wasn't totally invincible. She pressed other buttons on the console.
"4..."
Shit, shit, shit. She punched more buttons, but still nothing happened.
"3..."
"I can't stop it!" she shouted, banging on the window.
"2..."
"It's okay!" she heard him shout back.
"1..."
No, please no.
"Engine firing."
The engine fired up. Lillian had to shield her eyes from the bright light. There's no way anyone could survive being in there. What the hell was she supposed to tell Haylen and Rhys back at the police station? She'll have to find that damn transmitter herself. Then they might not kill her. But what does a long range transmitter even look like?
"Test firing completed with an efficiency of 96.7 percent."
She heard the doors unlatch and she reluctantly looked out the window. There was only ash where the synths used to be. But in the middle of it all was Danse, kneeling on the ground but moving. Lillian ran out to him.
"Oh my god, are you alright?" The room was so hot she could feel the heat through her boots.
"Got... cooked by those flames," he replied slowly. "But thanks to my power armour, I'm still in one piece."
"Thank god." Lillian was so relieved. She reached out to help him up, but the metal burnt her hand.
"The important thing is we're still alive," he groaned as he stood up, "and now we have a way to get to the transmitter."
"How? The stairs are destroyed."
"Elevator." He slowly walked to the elevator. She stayed where she was.
"The elevator? Really?"
"Is there a problem?"
"Sorry, but we're trusting a 200 year old elevator which hasn't been serviced in the same amount of time?"
"We don't have a choice."
"Fuck," she said to herself and followed Danse into the elevator. He pressed the button to go up and the doors shut. She balled her hands into fists and closed her eyes. She hated elevators. She was relieved when the doors opened again at the top floor. Danse stepped out cautiously with Lillian right behind.
"They're in the control room, open fire!" He ran into the control room, firing at everything that moved. Lillian looked around the corner, pistol in hand, but not bothering to aim at anything. A few moments later everything went quiet.
"Damn it, I don't see the transmitter anywhere," said Danse as he turned over one of the synth bodies. "Check the synth remains, they might have been after it as well."
Lillian checked a couple of the dead synths before she found what looked like a transmitter. She held it up for Danse to see.
"Is this it?"
"Yes, excellent, let's get out of here." He led her to another elevator at the end of the room.
"Another elevator?" Lillian hesitated.
"It'll be fine." Danse stepped in and waited for her. She balled her hands into fists again and followed. Danse glanced over at her as the elevator rose. She had her eyes closed and was mumbling to herself. When the elevator stopped and the doors opened, she rushed out in relief. Danse led them outside once he was certain everything was clear.
"Well, that could've gone smoother," he turned to her, "but mission accomplished."
"Might've gone smoother if you let me do something," Lillian said.
"You did fine," he removed his power armour helmet. "Without your assistance, the whole mission would have been in jeopardy."
"What assistance? You mean pushing a button?"
"Well, you shot those -" he stopped when Lillian crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows at him. "Okay, I suppose I should have let you assist in combat. But-"
"But you weren't sure if I could actually handle myself," Lillian interrupted.
"Regardless, I'm not sure if I could have accomplished the mission alone. So I believe we have two important matters to discuss. First and foremost if you hand me the transmitter, I'd like to compensate you for your assistance."
"I'm getting paid for pressing a button and nearly cooking a soldier," Lillian joked. "Nice."
Danse ignored the comment. "I think you'll find this weapon useful. It's my own personal modification of the Brotherhood Laser Rifle." He handed her his laser rifle.
"I can't accept this," said Lillian. "I don't-"
"I insist you keep it," said Danse. "I have other weapons at my disposal. Brotherhood soldiers always carry a backup."
Lillian looked the rifle over. It felt surprisingly light. At the bottom of the grip was etched 'Paladin A. Danse'. She looked up and saw him looking at her expectantly. She smiled and nodded her thanks.
"As for the second matter, I think you've got what it takes to become one of us. So I'd like to offer you a place in the Brotherhood of Steel."
"Um, I don't know," said Lillian.
"I understand your hesitation," he said, "It's a big decision. Shall we head back to the police station? Regardless of your decision, you are free to take shelter there whenever you need it."
They were silent on the way back. Lillian was deep in thought, contemplating the proposal. She'd always had a dislike for the army, especially since they took over the Opera House. She made an exception for Nate, but that was under different circumstances. But if she joined the Brotherhood, maybe she'd have a better chance at finding her son. She supposed that would depend on whether they sent reinforcements in, or just send in an evacuation team. What would happen to her then if she joined? Would she have to go with them and abandon her search? What would Nate have chosen?
Before she knew it they were back at the police station. Canigou greeted them happily and Lillian knelt down to pet him.
"Um, Paladin Danse?" she turned to him.
"Have you considered joining us?"
"I just have one question."
"Sure. Ask away."
"My priority right now is to find my son. Would the Brotherhood be able to assist me in doing so?"
"While the Brotherhood have our priorities, I'll be sure we look into your situation."
Lillian swore he looked almost regretful. But what other choice did she have at this point?
"Okay, I'll join."
"Exactly what I wanted to hear," he smiled. "Let's go inside, I'll tell the others the good news."
As she followed him in, she wondered if she made the right decision.