"Number Nine"


Ch. 20: Eden.


Warning: sensitive material ahead. This chapter contains parricide, dismemberment, and all the usual nasty stuff. Not your thing, tread with caution :D


"Blood is gushing from your palms
Your feeble heart is breaking, your soul reduced to ash
Pictures racing through your mind
Dearest memories from not so long ago."

- Battle Beast, "Eden"


"You made your intentions abundantly clear, my son. It is time for you to face the consequences of your actions."

He had been eighteen, a legal adult by their laws.

"Oh, do not misunderstand me: I am not reproaching you for what you did, but that you were caught. I wasn't aware I had raised such an imbecile."

So, he had faced punishment like an adult despite barely turning eighteen a week ago.

"Do you have the slightest idea how much this situation will hinder my position here until I manage to clear out the outcome of your stupidity?! Be glad you are allowed to retain life and limb!"

He had been sure his father would have pressed the Military Council to persuade the President about granting him a second chance.

He had trusted him.

"All these years teaching you how Politics works here were for nothing. What a waste of time."

That had been his first and last mistake.

"If you are wise, which I very much doubt you actually are, you will make the best out of your training and become a mercenary out there. Given how much a disappointing failure you have turned out to be, I anticipate it to be the only sensible option if you want to thrive in the Wasteland."

Never say he hadn't listened to his father.

"Now, go. You cannot take your weapons and equipment with you or retain basic citizen privileges at these facilities. You aren't allowed to return and/or infiltrate the base unless you want a whole firing squad targeting your sorry hide until it bears a striking resemblance with a colander."

Because, as soon as his banishment had come in effect, he had searched for the first organized armed group in his sights to slit the leader's throat in front of the rest until every single one of them had bowed their heads in submission.

The ones who didn't; they had shared said leader's fate immediately.

"May God take pity on your soul, for America isn't. You are no longer my son the same, from now on, you are an American citizen no more and become a mere Wastelander officially in the eyes of the Enclave. Goodbye."

That was how raider groups functioned. Either you proved your worth to join them… or you took said group by force.

The Wasteland had proven to be as merciless and disgusting as all of its inhabitants.

Soon, he had found himself organizing weak, starved, unrefined, and uncultured human waste into a semi-decent military unit, taking up as many killing contracts as they could besides scavenging every inch of the old Capitol, learning how much medical supplies, food, and water were worth in this devastated world.

That had been how he had come in contact with Littlehorn & Associates.

To his infinite awe, Daniel Littlehorn had been in this business even before he had been born.

A constant competition against the pitiful Regulators, who had appeared later around 2267 fancying themselves as the natural heirs of pre-War law-bringers, Littlehorn & Associates' businesses had thrived and expanded to the West while the self-righteous gunslingers were conscribed within an indomitable, sterile, and corrupted land where only the fittest survived.

Natural selection at its finest.

He had seen it many times; the same many guns had been leveled at him before. And he was still around to tell.

With his partnership with Littlehorn & Associates, Alistair Tenpenny had eventually arrived pouring caps like no tomorrow, asking for a bodyguard AND a hitman in one.

While Daniel Littlehorn mainly dealt in death, he also had a nose for business, so he had decided to give it a chance and had recommended his best agent for the job.

That had been more than a decade ago.

Tenpenny had been an incredibly wealthy man with an also incredibly long blacklist of people he needed to dispose of.

And he had been but happy to comply.

Eventually, while he had been still in his late thirties, Tenpenny had been close to his eighties, and memory seemed to fail him quite often as of late.

So often that he had suspected nothing when his right-hand man began administering his finances, putting sizable sums of caps over there and there while expanding trade agreements his employer hadn't had the slightest idea about. The old man had only cared for money, and as long as his trusted man would keep businesses flourishing, he would be content.

So content that he wouldn't object or even correct when said trusted man would sell his very personal vision of a prosperous Wasteland as if it had been Tenpenny's idea in the first place. Why would he? His employee had been a most agreeable man, and since he had had him on payroll, Alistair hadn't had to think about too many complicated things anymore. He had only wanted to enjoy his old age drinking indecently-expensive whiskey, snipe creatures, and the occasional visitor from the Wasteland from his balcony and… enjoy the company of too young girls no man should have the right to.

He had provided all of those things to the old man while, secretly, making moves of his own, working with Littlehorn and keeping the Talon Company eating right from the palm of his hand. Eulogy Jones had come as a necessary evil to tolerate should the trip to the Commonwealth didn't go as planned.

It hadn't.

Out of one hundred subjects cryogenically suspended, only twenty-nine had awakened AND remained intact.

At least physically.

And out of those twenty-nine children, only one had remained sane.

The only one who had held the title of Captain amongst the survivors.

One of the less agreeable mercs had brought her before him, saying that she had started a killing spree after successfully stealing a gun from them.

Collared and small, her appearance had been misleadingly innocent: thin frame, big eyes, freckled nose, mousey voice, and a paleness only a vaultie would have sported.

Twelve years old and a timid, almost asocial attitude had made her a very ideal candidate for what he had had in mind.

Project Birdie.

And quite a mind, this little bird of his, did she have, for he had never seen a child her age devouring manuals full of technicalities and complicated schematics to synthesize contents with such speed, sometimes even coming up with alternative shortcuts and solutions of her own.

The U.S. Army may have trained her, but the Enclave had been the ones who had selected her. And Vault-Tec had completed the job by improving her.

Her potential had been immense.

Birdie's apparently tame nature had made the first year a child's play to emotionally control her… However, as she began hitting puberty, her moods became erratic, unpredictable.

She would randomly disobey or circumvent orders to solve things her way, always making it seem like she had only wanted to do it better, like she was really invested in his project.

An out-of-place observation from time to time, a way of placing words not entirely offensive but not quite submissive either. Subtle manipulations she first tested on Gustavo and his men before attempting to feed them to him.

However, while the Security Chief thought she was but a poor scared little girl, he had known better.

And then, increasingly-convincing little lies.

She had been learning from him, and he couldn't but admire such mental flexibility in someone so young.

Then, she had attacked the Tower's repairman.

Though he had to admit that the man had been a drunken old fart, she had almost emasculated him with a single kick.

Not to speak about the broken teeth and bleeding nose that a second kick had rendered him unconscious whilst she had run up to Gustavo, all tears and hysteric little shrieks, telling him the man had tried to touch her.

Whereas the rest of the Tower had believed her version, the medical report Doctor Banfield had delivered to him seemed to suggest otherwise.

In Banfield's own words: if the girl had kicked a little bit higher, she would have incrusted the man's nose on his cranium, subsequently killing him.

Of course, despite the crippling evidence, the posh residents of the Tower were, if nothing, thirsting for some new gossip to pass along. And the notion of, quite possibly, having a pedophile amongst them was a sure as lack of rain recipe for an angry, offended mob taking the matter one step further.

So, the now crippled old bag had been civilly… 'discharged', and the affronted airheads had been appeased… for a time.

Nonetheless, with that single incident, the girl had conveyed an unequivocal message: she had but to open her mouth, and the entire Tenpenny Tower would be knocking at Allistair's door armed with the providential torches and pitchforks to dispose of the old man in the old fashion: a firing squad composed of rich men familiarized with guns, old Herbert 'Daring' Dashwood at the head of it, while their wives and daughters watched as they had their five o'clock customary tea.

For, when it comes to bloodthirst, rich people were the worst.

Tenpenny taking an interest in her as her body matured didn't help things at all, for every complaint she would deliver to him about how the perverted old man looked at her was a warning growing in size, threatening to snowball them all as the days passed and her already dark eyes slowly mutated into burning coals of hatred.

He had never seen a look so frighteningly savage and cold at the same time in a child before.

His veiled threats combined with a well-measured dosage of acknowledgment and compliments seemed to appease her for a time… However, after that stinking cesspool called Megaton had blown off and his attention, logically, had shifted to the beautiful, intriguing new blonde neighbor next door that had made it possible… the hatred in Birdie's eyes had but increased exponentially.

He had known she wouldn't be having any of his tangling palaver any longer, so he had decided to take matters into his own hands.

True that he had plotted to overthrow Tenpenny for some time… however, given the man's apparent disinterest in what or whatnot deals he closed with his money as his memory had grown more and more elusive over time, he had deemed adequate to wait until the man fell prey to old age.

Nevertheless, he had done the man a favor. One way or another, the child soldier would have been his doom, and it was preferable to be shot in the head than in front of a firing team composed of idiotic posh people.

Besides, Tenpenny's fall would have likely ended up to be his own as well if the old man's secret had been revealed, for he had been the one to provide such 'commodities' to him. And bored, idle minds tended to think alike when it comes to revolts: lots of violence and blood and very little thought put about the consequences.

If Gustavo and his men had managed to get a hold of the Tower, many of those hoity-toity airheads would have eventually suffered the consequences of their insufferable snobbism.

And that was a fact.

So, it was preferable for his former employer's honor to be apparently murdered than to be summarily executed.

The same that, for the honor of his very own hide, it was preferable to remain alive while others took the fall.

Nonetheless, despite Laura's very direct participation in the plan… he had watched cruel satisfaction playing in those black eyes as the child had emptied a full 10mm cartridge inside Allistair Tenpenny's skull while citing in a loud voice all of his alleged crimes.

She had named herself judge and executioner in the name of Old America, and he had applauded her.

However, some kind of moral conundrum seemed to have been brewing inside her for some time, for she had been horrified. Not because she had killed a man in cold blood, but because the very killing had been a part of a more elaborate, obscure plan that had involved placing the guilt onto one of her former squad comrades.

Those he had deemed inoffensive enough had become Tenpenny's prostitutes… but the rest of the kids, if deranged, had been extremely volatile upon selling them to Eulogy Jones, the main reason the man had dared to come up with a reclamation months after the transaction to being promptly dismissed once Gustavo and his men had pointed their guns at the heads of the slaver boss' men.

Apparently, these kids, besides being inhumanly resilient to torture and brainwashing, were a sort of a superhuman batch that had sported different types and levels of elite physical and intellectual prowess to the point that some of them had managed to undo the mechanism of the slave bomb collars and had run away from Paradise Falls.

Others had taken down several casualties among Jones' employees before being brought down for good.

Most of the ones who had remained had been girls. And those had been the worst.

Eulogy Jones had lost many clients who, after purchasing the girls for sexual exploitation mostly, had been found dead in the most gruesome fashions: from being hanged by their own entrails to a lamppost to having their throats slit with their tongues poking out the hole.

However, he had dismissed it as Jones' wild stories so the man could get, if not all, a good portion of his money back after displaying such incompetence while dealing with child soldiers.

How wrong he had been.

Meanwhile, with Laura's arrival, many stories from the local Galaxy News Radio - where a man called Three Dog had blabbered dangerous truths daily – involving the Brotherhood of Steel while preaching this 'Good Fight' of theirs had kept pouring like no tomorrow since Megaton's demise.

Someone kept this newsman fed on Laura's whereabouts, and he wasn't happy with her new life choices.

Intrigued, he had asked – after a brief but still intense courting – who had become his new lover about these wild stories involving someone the radioman called 'One-0-One' being 'a scumbag' while insinuating something along the lines of knowing 'who did the dirty deed', asking the radio listeners 'why had the kid from Vault 101 been sighted hanging around Tenpenny Tower'.

Laura had shrugged, going dispassionately on a surprisingly long list of odd deeds committed in the name of that 'Good Fight' that had brought her nothing but misery.

It had taken months of gentle coaxing as her many psychological wounds were painfully recent, and, apparently, nobody around her - not even people who had been supposedly 'close' to her - had done a single thing to help her heal. To help her understand.

Whereas the first thing he had noticed about her the moment she had walked in that seedy hovel Colin Moriarty had run back at Megaton asking the ghoul bartender for a bottle of whiskey – the good and expensive stuff - had been her impressive physique; the very instant he had managed to catch her attention and his eyes had connected with hers… He hadn't been able to ignore the hidden void on those green pools that, at first sight, seemed to shimmer with anger and determination.

Void was something he was well-acquainted with. Void and rage.

The effect had been caustic, electrical, like the providential moth to the flame.

Although he still wasn't sure who had been the moth and who the flame was.

Despite his then hurry in finding a suitable individual for his plans, he had spent all the evening talking with her. Employing all of his charms and a sizable sum of caps to invite her to dinner to keep her interested.

He had been skeptical of her immediate interest in him at first, very conscious of the age difference between them and how unlikely it would be for a young woman like her to find something desirable enough in a forty-year-old man like himself other than his wallet.

But she hadn't been after the caps he had promised her for her collaboration, as he had soon discovered after surreptitiously flirting with her a couple of times and finding, to his great delight, that her eyes never faulted to scintillate when she had returned his advances elegantly, never losing composure but letting him know she was game.

She had been polite, surprisingly educated, and, above all of that, immensely agreeable.

Plus, she wasn't cheap. Her posture had told him that much, her mannerisms, the way she conducted herself as if she owned the very air around her.

She had reminded him so much of himself twenty years ago, civilized enough to meet eye to eye with him in a conversation but proud and determined enough to slit his throat if he but dared play funny. She was a survivor, a schemer, a conqueror, a hunter.

She was the epitome of natural selection at its finest, the Alpha and Omega made woman.

And she had been beautiful.

A man in his position shouldn't have entertained anything beyond a strictly business partnership with such a dangerous woman… but damn if he hadn't found her dangerousness strangely magnetic.

A man in his position should have known better than humor such basic impulses translated into biology taking its due course… but the chemistry had been undeniable.

A man in his position shouldn't have fallen for the old 'love at - almost - first sight' trope… but he had never been surer of something in all his life.

So, in a matter of hours, the business proposition had evolved into a pact. A pact that had involved him promising her everything she had ever wished, and she, in turn, meeting all of his expectations.

The pact was still in effect to this day. And she had never disappointed.

At first, her… possessiveness had felt a little out of place, considering that he himself was rather possessive, and he had expected to be the jealous part of the strange couple they formed.

It had turned out to be quite the opposite, with her baring fangs to any – real or imaginary – threat she perceived coming from other women testing waters around him. And his already swollen ego had taken a meteoric rise since.

However, with time and insistence, he also had discovered that, while flattering, her territoriality had deeper roots than a mere lover's overzeal: fear.

A fear that, as of late, had been a reality that had kept on repeating over and over since Project Purity.

Since her father had failed her.

As well as many others that had come after. People from her old life in the Vault, people from the roads she had traveled, people she had risked life and limb for… To be rewarded with their unsympathetic - and also downright pathetic - unending demands, their callousness, and their indifference.

As if she were made of steel. As if the loss of a home, friends, a father, and her identity weren't reason enough to hate the world the way she did.

The same way he did since his banishment from the Enclave.

They understood each other on a level very few people could.

Despite the age gap, both had gone through a very similar set of circumstances: both had been a part of a technologically enhanced, educated, secluded and safe community that, ultimately, had shunned them out to the harsh reality of the Wasteland despite being only teenagers.

Both had gone through painful extremes to please their respective fathers, ambitious men who had prioritized their own personal projects before their own children… And both, in the end, had been betrayed by them.

But never say one didn't learn from experience. And experience was something he had been able to provide her. In sheer abundance.

She didn't need her father's approval anymore, nor did she need green lights from a faction that only saw her as a mere tool.

What she truly needed was a new dream, a new ambition. A project of her own.

And her father's life project, incidentally, aligned with many prospective commercial perspectives if they managed to turn irradiated water into a purified product that, being life the way it was on the Wasteland, was a first-order necessity.

Making purified water would not only render an unending and steady source of caps for a lifetime but also expand their horizons beyond the Capitol.

He had told her all of this. He had told her about the far West and how a blooming community had turned into a prospering Republic.

His information had been outdated by over three decades… but he was sure he could drive a hard bargain with those Western Republicans if he had something valuable to offer in return. And an endless source of purified water was, definitely, very valuable.

So, despite her reservations about rekindling her old contacts with the rogue Capitol Chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel, the also tiny chance at contacting the Enclave again, having this time something to bargain with, had been a one-time opportunity he had also presented to her.

He counted himself as unbelievable lucky when she hadn't blown his head off upon disclosing his Enclave origins as they had been the ones – indirectly or not - responsible for the death of her father, but rather going on a repeating loop of angry yelling, then tears, then more yelling, then more tears… until his patience had worn thin and they had taken matters to the bedroom.

She had been vicious, and he had enjoyed every second of it. He had never worn a woman's bites and nail scratches more proudly.

After that, relaxed and emotionally drained, she had been way easier to talk with, and, eventually, she had accepted what he was offering her.

So, the G.E.C.K. hunt had been retaken.

To say that the Citadel's inhabitants had been stuck in a loop would have been an understatement: dominated by a sense of righteous justice but unable to take matters into their own hands without sullying James Alden's memory when it came to dealing with Laura, he had made things smooth and easy for the lot of them when he had stepped in asking for a meeting with their leader.

Whereas an old fellow scientist acquaintance of Laura's father, Doctor Madison Li, had been adamant about her refusal to allow Laura to return to Project Purity… the Elder Lyons had been more 'understanding'.

Understanding as one could be when one of the most influential and wealthiest men in the entire Capitol comes knocking at your door proposing a business partnership that could help survive your dwindling faction.

Half of the Chapter at the Citadel had been disgusted upon their arrival, and they had become even more disgusted when their Elder had agreed to work with Tenpenny Tower's new landlord as long as he gave financial support to their cause in rebuilding the Capitol and leaving the more refined technological findings for them to take and file.

Lyons' daughter, a young woman that went by the name of Sarah, had begrudgingly led their expedition to Vault 87 to find that it was impossible to enter by the Vault's primary entrance without risking either going ghoul in the best of cases or, in the worst, dying as the radiation around the area had been over 3,500 rads per second if the counters had been accurate.

The alternative, if the pre-War layout Vault maps on their Main Database were correct, had lain on an alternative entrance on the Lamplight Caverns.

If reaching the aforesaid caverns had been a tricky task, trickier had become the moment a goddamned twelve-year-old with the foulest mouth ever had pointed an R91 assault rifle to their heads. That, quickly followed by a whole colony of children and teenagers between the ages of seven and fifteen way too ready to back the little shit up with more firepower if they 'mungos', as they called adults, dared but taking a step further into their presumable 'town'.

A town that had been an old pre-War attraction that, luckily for them little critters, had shared a reactor with Vault 87, thus getting electrical power out of it.

Thus why a colony primarily composed of children had been able to last that long on its own.

The space between the cavern exit and their rifles had been claustrophobic at best. And, despite the Power Armor all of them had worn (nobody had questioned his own training at using such technology, but having assumed that Laura had had something to do with it), there was little room to ideate a strategy without putting at risk the children's lives… not that he had cared much about that particular issue, but Sarah Lyons, apparently, did.

Bringing along Birdie had been an unexpected bonus that had paid off as soon as she had stepped out her Power Armor, said 'Hi' to the foul-mouthed little critter, and had walked inside the children's lair as if it had been the most natural thing in the world to do.

Just that easy.

Two hours later, she had sent him a message through the Pip-Boy chat: she had managed to gain access to Vault 87, and she was going to get a feel on the field before returning with some news.

Despite not liking one bit that Birdie had, yet again, taken a simple task to complicate it unnecessarily by solving puzzles on her own, he had to admit that the child, besides being resourceful to a fault, had proven to be quite the agent material by infiltrating the child 'town'. To the point of even getting the kids to talk with Sarah Lyons, the foul-mouthed twelve-year-old being the first one to demand, not very charmingly, food supplies for the children and medicines for the little ones.

And the Elder's daughter, ever the dutiful, immensely irritating do-gooder, had offered shelter to the children under the wing of the Brotherhood of Steel to be promptly refused by the youngest children but immediately accepted by the teenagers.

Something to do with being banished from the presumable town at a certain age.

Anyway, Birdie did not give any signs of life for the remaining day.

Or the next.

He had already given up the possibility of her being alive, radiation leaks, the threat of mutated beings product of said radiation, and the impossibility of communicating since Vault walls were signal-proof, only making his assumptions the more likely as hours passed sitting with his arms crossed in front of Neverland's entrance.

That, providing the little liar wasn't hiding among the smallfolk, which had been a possibility he had been prepared to face… and the due punishment he would bestow upon her once he caught her.

So, per usual, he had taken matters into his own hands.

Sarah Lyons hadn't approved, but she hadn't done a single thing to stop him, nor the rest of her men had moved a finger to prevent his and Laura's incursion into Little Lamplight by force once they had found a breach into their defenses at watch shift.

That was the deal with many Wastelanders: either they were no better than animals, only suitable for basic tasks they took good care to remind you constantly to pay, as those tasks usually were cataloged as 'services'… or they were the likes of the Brotherhood of Steel: educated, capable enough, trained for survival… but ultimately hypocritic, held back and wasted by those ridiculous 'moral codes' that, after two hundred years, were still in effect due to the opening of many Vaults and the resulting inheritance of pre-War values.

Values that had no place in a world as vicious as the Wasteland.

The children's colony had made very little difference against two Power Armors. Some had ended up getting their good share of scratches, bleeding noses, and maybe a broken wrist or two, but between Laura and him, they had managed to subdue them and send them to Sarah Lyons' open arms.

He really hadn't cared about the fate of those little critters, but he was sure that, due to their shared hatred for Laura and him, they would find a lot in common with their Brotherhood of Steel rescuers to bond over.

He felt confident that he even could use this impromptu 'rescue' to gain some leverage with Owyn Lyons - despite what his daughter may have thought about his methods - about helping children, swelling the numbers inside the rogue Chapter of the Capitol, and all of that sentimental nonsense that those people seemed to enjoy so much.

Arguments of necessary evil to achieve greater good never failed with their ilk.

Other than the pathetic skirmish with the children, Laura and he had not seen much action beyond the Lamplight Caverns, where the entrance to Vault 87 had led to a trail of dead supermutants and other irradiated horrors that had been brought down by what had looked like energy weapons.

They had discovered why much later. When Augustus Autumn's men had surrounded them, and they had been forcibly relocated to the familiar prison cells of Raven Rock.

They had interrogated them for days, and not in the most civilized fashion.

Much had changed in the last two decades inside the inner structure of the Enclave. They had gotten desperate.

And their desperation had made them weak.

And weakness was something he knew how to exploit.

Luckily for him, Autumn had only been interested in Laura, which had allowed him to deal with his men, to confound their basic, single-tracked minds.

Whereas he had gained freedom employing his silver tongue, Laura had earned hers through the President's intervention.

They had never been more synchronized, and he had never felt more in tune with another human soul.

Pragmatic as he was, he had never entertained the possibility of fate, only the one you create for yourself… but, fighting beside Laura, everything had seemed possible at that moment.

Together, they had cleaned the premises of a good portion of their hostile military personnel, Autumn's courtesy. For if there was something Laura excelled in, besides her medical education consequence of her father's old field job at Vault 101, that was war strategy.

That was how they had gained access to the civilian living quarters.

Now he knew it hadn't been an unconscious choice when his eyes had wandered corridors, sweeping over every door plaque… until he had found his old number.

He hadn't remembered his old apartment to be so… grey, dull, functional.

Something had changed inside him after all those years. Something fundamental. The Wasteland had changed him the same he strived to change the Wasteland.

But the Enclave hadn't changed. They hadn't adapted… and they were slowly withering away.

The same when old, wrinkled, and impossibly weak, his father's bedridden silhouette had come into view.

Connected to a breathing machine and surrounded by needles, the once-proud man he had called father had been languishing, prey to an inoperable lung tumor, for what his medical record read had been more than five years.

It had come as a shock, but the feeling he had hated most had been the unbearable disappointment that had seeped to the marrow of his very bones the instant he had approached the bed and the man had opened his eyes.

Mute recognition had passed between the two and, out of a sudden, despite how many times the grandiose discourse of the prodigal son returning triumphant had played inside his mind throughout the years… he had found that he had nothing to say to the living corpse in front of him.

It had been strange to feel bony, disgustingly soft fingers closing around his wrist; to watch the alien, completely unacceptable fond look playing inside those tired grey eyes when they had met his'.

The old man had wished to speak. He had never given him a chance to do so.

Whereas breaking his neck would have been a quicker, more compassionate way to kill him, he hadn't been able to bear to look at him as he did it.

So, he had disconnected the machine, put a pillow over his face, and held still until the pitiful shivering form below had stopped moving.

"Who was it?" – Laura's voice had asked from behind, her steps so soft that he hadn't even noticed her entering the room.

The medical record had cracked softly inside his closed fist.

"Nobody." – had been his flat answer as he had turned around, the pillow left over the corpse's face – "Just a sick old man."

That hadn't been his father. Just another body among the countless he had stomped over to get where he was today. Nothing more.

He could tell she hadn't bought that, but she hadn't asked. Her hand had ghosted briefly over his unshaven cheek, the only acknowledgment she had given him before pressing forward.

Laura only asked the right questions, and this hadn't been, by a long shot, right in any way to ask.

They had abandoned the room and the civilian quarters, meeting closed doors and frightened looks in their path. This wasn't the Enclave he had known.

This was the Enclave no more.

However, he had wanted to change that. He truly did.

When they had made it through the upper levels, he and Laura had found Birdie… talking directly to the President.

Or what had been impersonating the President's role for the Enclave, anyway.

If an initial shock to digest, he had found that the John Henry Eden ZAX persona had been… a logical tactical choice since the explosion at Navarro's old Oil Rig thirty-five years ago, which had effectively killed their former flesh-and-blood President, Dick Richardson.

The computational President had been programmed to acknowledge little Birdie as one of America's natural inheritors… and she had but agreed to carry on with the American Dream as Eden had arranged.

At least at first.

Having the G.E.C.K. suitcase with her when Autumn had captured her, Birdie had proven to be quite resilient in risky field maneuvers. Her experience in avoiding the mutated horrors at Vault 87 had spoken volumes on the matter.

So, it had been established that she had to be the one carrying out Eden's orders when powering up the purifier at the Jefferson Memorial… while putting a vial of Modified Forced Evolutionary Virus into the water.

That would have meant no more supermutants, no more mutated aberrations, and no more ghouls worming their way into evolution, ceasing their infestation over Wasteland soil as they had kept doing for the last centuries.

That would have meant putting human beings back to their rightful place: at the top of the pyramidal food chain.

Laura had expressed her concern over losing her necrotic bodyguard due to these measures, so Eden had promised a sort of 'vaccine' for exceptional cases should they manage to complete their mission.

He had known from the very start that the machine had been lying, but beautiful, sentimental Laura didn't have to know that. Charon was perfectly replaceable, and she didn't need him around more than strictly necessary, with his pre-War morals and poisonous influence nudging her back into what the disgusting necrotic deemed 'the right path'.

A 'right path' he, somehow, had managed to seep through the feeble psyche of his contemporary. The soldier child.

Were it not because Laura truly priced her monstrous bodyguard the likes of a Yao Guai cub toward its mother, he would have gotten rid of the ghoul a long time ago.

But now…

He was violently awakened from his reverie the very second the telephone rang.

Birdie had been the one installing those as well. Very useful if one wants to get informed without taking the elevator up and down all the time.

"Yes?" – he asked, nearing the handset to his ear.

However, what the Security Chief communicated through the line didn't… qualify as scheduled.

"Burke." – he heard the man at the other end of the line, his tense voice making him immediately tense as well – "Could you please get down here?"

Burke took a long drag of the cigarette he was smoking at the moment. Gustavo rarely formulated a sentence that included the word 'please' in it.

"Chief…" – he replied, putting on his accustomed falsely calm façade – "Care to elaborate on such a… sudden petition?"

A short silence ensued.

"There's a situation I think you should attend." – the man finally answered, the slight edge on his voice an evident symptom of being at two minds to either yell or keep the composure – "Your girlfriend…" – and then, the man seemed to hesitate – "She has…"

"Yes?"

Another silence.

He didn't know what Gustavo was playing at, but damn if the Security Chief was going to grate on his nerves.

"Chief." - this time, Burke's voice sounded less pleasant and firmer when he issued the command disguised as a question – "What happened?"

He could hear the man swallowing at the other end of the line.

"She has incited Millicent Wellington to murder her husband and Susan Lancaster."

Burke's heart skipped the slightest bit. His mouth suddenly tasted bitter.

"Come again?"

"Well, half the lovers' faces are all over the Wellingtons' sheets, and Millicent was found with a 10mm pistol sitting at the bed's feet, giving the bodies the weirdest eye ever. Figures she caught them red-handed and decided to take matters into her own hands."

"And what does this unpleasant situation have to do with Laura in the first place?"

Yet another silence. Burke was glad he hadn't Gustavo right before him, for he could throttle the man for all he cared.

"She was found beside Millicent, having a smoke as dandy as candy while having her good share of looking, the crazy bitch with the slave collar she has as a pet near the door laughing her ass off. I'm willing to eat my boots if the gun isn't hers." – Burke could feel his own exasperation creeping its way up to his spine as his fingers twisted around his own cigarette, the slight pain of the burning end forcibly grounding him to reality – "I told you, Burke. That girl isn't right in the head. Her wires are completely fried, no matter how angel-faced and titty-tighten…"

"I would mind my words if I were you, Chief." – Burke interrupted, his voice honeyed to a point he knew that, even through the telephone line, would render the other man nauseous – "Nonetheless, I am afraid this situation does, indeed, require my undivided attention, so I will be down there in ten minutes." – as an afterthought, he added before hanging – "And Chief… don't do anything stupid. If I but find a single hair out of place over Laura's head, you and your men will live to regret the consequences."

As soon as the communication was cut, the Security Chief at the other end of the line held the headset a couple of minutes more before hanging, directing a disgusted look toward the three women he had in front of him.

Whereas Millicent Wellington was sitting on a chair - one of Gustavo's men having confiscated her gun already – hair mussed and muttering something about 'being lost'; the odious blonde devil had both her hands over the woman's shoulders as if comforting her, although her somewhat deranged expression told another entirely different story.

On the other hand, the Asian bitch with bleached hair was picking her pointy nails, a manic grin spreading all over her flat face.

"Daddy's angry at you-u." – she sing-sang, drawing out words petulantly – "Daddy's gonna spank you-u."

"Would you tell your slut to shut up?" – the man snapped at Laura, who simply put on a sugary smile. Her green eyes scintillated with the same joy of a cat getting the cream.

It had been a pain in the ass to get the situation controlled once old Dashwood had informed about the shooting he had heard coming from the Wellingtons' apartment.

Half the night-shift security staff was now shushing off nosy residents instead of having their well-deserved break.

All because of this hellbent woman, who would not stop until she ruined all of them.

"Something of the matter, Chief?" – she inquired, falsely friendly as only she could be, making the man's stomach churn in anger and disgust – "Did your conversation with Burke go well, I hope?"

Gustavo seethed.

"You bunch of psychos." – he hissed – "I sincerely hope that the kid and the ghoul are fortunate enough to never come back here."

Laura's expression darkened, but before Gustavo could score a goal at his small victory over this mad bitch, her sugary demeanor and disgusting smile returned.

"Careful there, Chief, for those words might be interpreted very liberally should they reach Burke's ears." – she said, measured and calculated as a cobra before launching an attack – "And, believe me: you simply don't want to face Burke's wrath when it comes to the search for the little pigeon." – she took a step to the man and Gustavo found himself struggling not to take one back himself – "You will soon discover that you, as well as your men, are completely disposable. Replaceable." – she emphasized – "You are no more than mere pawns over a black and white board whereas I am the queen."

Gustavo then took a step valiantly toward her.

"Did you know as well that, in chess, the queen is to be sacrificed if that ensures the king's survival?" - he asked triumphantly, enjoying the frozen expression caught on those wild, feline eyes – "Think about that." – he added, taking his position back at the main counter, the elevator's ding behind him ending any possible further discussion.


Vulpes Inculta, leader of Caesar's Legion Frumentarii woke up in a precarious position.

A position he knew he had deservedly earned.

It would be a waste of time pondering on his failures now, bound as he was, weaponless and practically without any clothes in which to hide his shame.

He could count himself as lucky, given that he was alone, so none of his men could see what a 'shining' example he was, prisoner of one of the most pathetic gangs in all of the Mojave, a bunch of crazed junkies, slaves of their vices and excesses, the most literal antithesis of what the Legion strived for.

His bindings were chains instead of ropes, a fitting restraint for someone who had been stripped of his resources. Including the occasional bobby pin he always had tucked on a boot, a shirt lapel, or a sleeve.

His Pip-Boy was resting on a nearby open trunk, along with his equipment.

Quick testing on the chain length and his own flexibility adaptation proved insufficient to reach his intended destination. The binds were strong and well-entrenched.

"Lookin' for somethin', honey?"

The moment his jailor entered his cell, Vulpes' eyes detected patterns in his body language that his mind was quick on deciphering: mild drunk, likely a shot or two high on Slasher if the dark pinpricks on both of his arms and wrists were any indicator, and… definitely on the mood for something else if the mild bulge on the cargo pants' crotch could speak alone.

Great. Just his fucking luck.

After closing the door behind him, the Fiend took a few steps toward him, stopping at the center of the cell when he saw that the prisoner wasn't cowering back.

"Heard you're a tough fucker." – the other said – "Can't say I'm impressed, though. You lookin' more like a pretty lil' bitch to me."

Always the same essayed speech. 'Me big bad, you now my punchbag'. These guys had watched way too many pre-War holotapes. They were less original than a Rum & Nuka.

But he allowed the fool to go on his act.

"Wouldn't mind takin' a bite, though. Not much to do since we got this post."

Okay, now he was talking business.

"Whaddya say, pretty boy?"

'Pretty boy' his ass.

Nonetheless, he forced himself to put on a charming smile, flashing teeth the way he knew they liked it the most, taking a few deliberate steps back against the wall, undulating, provoking, offering. Presenting them what they craved so their base needs would rule their actions entirely. A little sample of what they might get.

Playing intriguing always got him the best results.

And they fell way too easily.

Just the same the imbecile did, confident in his strides as he went to the Frumentarius, buying his act with the same desperation he likely injected himself with his daily shot of garbage.

Vulpes' naked back hit the concrete wall, his chained hands joined at the small of his back unthreateningly enough.

The other man was practically salivating when his hands found the legionary's shoulders.

"God… I love it when they're this quiet…"

Vulpes allowed the Fiend to grope him until his pale lips found the other's throat.

Then, his teeth closed viciously around his Adam's apple.

Like the providential fox, he didn't allow his hen to wander off as much as his feet kicked him or his dirty nails found his flesh to sink in. The vice grip of his teeth sank at the exact point to impede the other from forming any other sound than a pitiful gurgle as blood started pouring from his mouth the same it pearled the Frumentarius' lips.

It took a lot of time and a mandible's firmness very few could boast about, but Vulpes' body followed the other onto the floor, his teeth firmly sealed even when asphyxia and convulsions started to kick in.

His gums, jaw, and neck cords hurt like hell once he was sure the stupid junkie wouldn't move anymore.

Then, he inverted his bounded hands' position by stepping backward with a most excellent elasticity on his part until they were more on the operational side.

However, he didn't find a key on the corpse.

No…

Not a bobby pin either.

NO!

Or a weapon badass enough to cut/blow his chains… however fantastical and improbable as that sounded.

Nonononononononononononononononononononono…

He got a caravan shotgun, though. And ammunition enough to make a heroic, last suicidal stand inside his cell… before likely blowing off his own head.

He attempted to squeeze his long hands from the cuffs and only got bruised wrists and thumbs and a probable tendinitis on the left flexor.

Shit.

Using whatever short range he had, he piled up all he could gather between himself and the door, sat on the floor with his gun prepared, and waited.

Everything was so eerily quiet that he felt rather than heard the tiny bolt falling from above.

He feigned ignorance, whereas he spied from the corner of his eye how the ventilation grill on the ceiling slid aside slowly.

He had to give them some credit when he barely could detect any sound as they moved down the room, but the rustling of clothes on his right made him point the shotgun to rest flat on the forehead of a camouflaged silhouette.

A Stealth Boy.

"It's me, you dummy!" – a familiar voice hissed so low he almost didn't understand them – "Take that shit off me!"

Or more like a Stealth Girl.

Were he not still so pissed off, he could have kissed her.

Making as little fuss as possible, her translucent silhouette neared him and passed a bobby pin.

"You do it." – she whispered, her lips so close to his ear so nobody could hear them that he suddenly felt a bit ticklish – "Dunno how to use that stuff."

He worked on the small lock without paying her much attention, giving away nothing.

She brought him his stuff from the trunk.

"Don't have much time before this wears off completely." – she said in his ear again – "The ventilation tunnels connect all the adjacent rooms. Loading you a map would take too long, and I've gotta get the others." – she seemed to hesitate, given that he barely looked like he acknowledged her presence – "Good luck." – she said, pressing a small kiss on the left corner of his lips before darting off back up the ventilation tunnels.

He wasn't aware of how quickly his hands seemed now to work or how insistently he kept sweeping the point of his tongue where her lips had been a moment ago.

He dressed and armed himself full speed so, when another pair of junkies entered the room in search of their missing buddy, he was prepared to give them the welcome they deserved.


Titus was taking his sweet time picking the lock of his cuffs.

Gabban would know. He had been the first one freeing himself with a bobby pin he had hidden on his boot before passing it on to the rest. The Profligate doctor was out of the question since he suspected the egghead would be totally useless with a bobby pin. A trick every Frumentarius worth his salt knew. A trick his brother had taught him during his training.

His stupid brother.

The moron had gotten so into this undercover mess that he was now in too deep.

Balls deep.

Why did he have to provoke the junkie raider? To take his fucking junkie eyes off the fucking Courier? What the fuck, man?!

This association had to end! The Courier was dangerous and had to be put down!

Or in a slave collar, with a fucking pink bow on her tits that read: 'For Vulpes Fucking Inculta, so he may stop behaving like a fucking idiot'.

Gabban knew he was only giving rope to such a silly train of thought just because he was pissed off, but damn it! His brother had only one mission!

She better be worth all this shit by serving the Dam to Caesar on a motherfucking Margarita cocktail glass with a goddamned mutfruit slice on it… or else.

He eyed their Fiend captors nervously whilst he kept an eye on Titus, the boy becoming all flustered when he failed for the umpteenth time.

It was drawing unwanted attention. And Gabban preferred to deal with the junkies with all of his men operative. The more they freed, the bigger the impact.

Besides, they needed to make it to the raiders' guns so they could stand a chance…

RA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA!

The sound of a machine gun got everybody present off-guard. Then, the screams, both of pain and battle.

"What the fuck…?!" – one of their captors yelled, and, before anyone got a grasp of what was happening, Titus had left the lock for impossible and, jumping agilely over his arms to get his bound hands in front of him, he charged onto the Fiend who had spoken, putting his arms around his neck to break it.

Titus might be a stupid boy with very little patience to deal with the subtleties of his Frumentarius training… but damn if he wasn't good at breaking necks.

"NOW!" – Gabban yelled almost immediately, prompting Cassius, Olivian, and Ignatius to charge against their captors, tackling them efficiently on the floor, where they lasted less than a bleeding man amidst water filled with Lakelurks.

After that, more Fiends kept pouring in, surprisingly to take cover from the machine gun as they adjusted their positions to be assaulted from their back by the legionaries.

Skirmishes were always messier than Gabban would have liked, and he knew keeping his shit together in such a reduced space whilst struggling and grappling with crazed junkies wasn't likely to last.

As caught as he was with the violence waving around that he didn't flinch when he got one of those automatic 9mm SMG on his face.

He, though, flinched when the face of the junkie who had been brandishing it melted into a glowing, greenish puddle of brains and eyeballs as his grip on the gun, along with the rest of his body got jelly-like and fell onto the ground.

Behind him was the Followers doctor wielding his energy gun with corroded cuffs around his wrists whereas, beside him, the smaller figure of the Courier raised her arms with her old 10mm fully recharged to shoot something at Gabban's back.

"Watch out, you dolt!" – she yelled at him.

At that very moment, Gabban wasn't sure if he should hate her, thank her or simply allow himself to sink in the general craziness and trouble the damn Profligate girl brought with her.


Usually, getting used to a new weapon took time and practice before obtaining mild optimal results.

Not with a submachine gun.

Vulpes had discovered less than five minutes ago since he got a hold of it that, with these guns, you just had to have a firm grip in order to contain the recoil. But aiming? What was that? Can you eat it? With a 12.7mm, you just needed two hands, a bit of strength, and a strong stomach once you began unleashing carnage.

The rest was just pulling the trigger and watching. And this noisy baby had the most fantastic spread.

He was having the time of his life chasing Fiends like radrabbits.

Now, who was the lil' bitch, huh?

Once more valiant… or rather suicidal junkies began pouring in, he took position behind an armored door that pertained to the original sewer structure and switched the submachine for Paciencia.

It was magical watching how arms, legs, and heads turned into flying chunks of red gore after every shot. One by one.

He blocked the door almost immediately after a Grand Finale involving a nice amount of plasma mines and a single dynamite cartridge. The structure had trembled once the large explosion had bent the metallic door, and he had almost gone deaf.

With his two ears beeping painfully, he localized one of the ventilation grills above.

But he also localized a bloodied, shrunken naked human figure on the small room floor.

Vulpes approached it with Paciencia on his hip until the gun slipped from his very hands as a wave of nausea hit him the moment he recognized the memory of a face amidst hematomas, swellings, cuts, and all manner of abuse.

"Félix." – he called, kneeling beside the other man, checking the pulse on his throat – "Félix, ¿me oyes?" (1)

A weakened grunt was all the answer he needed before taking his military bulletproof coat from his Riot Gear off to cover the other legionary with it.

He had to make haste before the Fiends managed to open the bent door.

"¿Puedes moverte?" – what a stupid question, of course he couldn't – "Intenta agarrarte de mi espalda… éso es." (2)

With strength and a lot of skill on his part, Vulpes managed to accommodate the other on his back, using some ropes and straps he had kept collecting the more Fiends he had been bringing down since he had escaped to secure the extra weight as he climbed up his way to the ventilation grill using rubble as support.

The whole operation of getting Felix inside the ventilation tunnel, then getting himself inside as well, AND also securing the other man again so the Master Frumentarius could drag him along had been painfully slow, and time was precious.

Vulpes could feel rivulets of sweat collecting inside his armor as he pressed forward with Felix's weight tied around his waist.

Once a rain of bullets started bending the tunnel from below, and a junkie raider or two began popping their ugly heads up the ventilation grill to be promptly welcomed by a shot between brows, Vulpes coldly pondered on killing his load and leaving the corpse behind.

Any Legion officer in his place would have done so without hesitation… Hell, he would have done so without hesitation a month ago.

He didn't have to carry a man's weight. That wasn't his job. And said man was likely better off dead anyway.

He had seen what they had done to him. It didn't take a genius to put one and one together.

And the others would see it. His cousin would see it. They will know.

There wasn't greater humiliation and dishonor for a legionary than to be branded as a victim. Because a victim couldn't be a legionary, legionaries were supposed to be strong, resilient, and resourceful. Legionaries weren't supposed to get caught.

A true legionary would always choose honorable suicide before humiliation. A true legionary would always die a warrior before living as a failure.

Legionaries weren't supposed to cry. Legionaries weren't supposed to plead for mercy.

Legionaries weren't supposed to be…

The more those thoughts squeezed his insides, the harder he tried, crawling on his belly like a worm as his hands and feet flexed around the narrow tunnel, searching for ledges and protrusions to keep pressing on.

However, the more Fiends he had to shoot from behind and the more feet he kept dragging another human weight forward, the quicker his energy depleted as well.

Kill him and get rid of him.

As soon as he discarded the intrusive thought, it got back to him redoubled.

This isn't Coyote or Hiena. You can let go of him. He isn't even from your tribe.

Loyal to your Neighbors, loyal to your Pack.

Please, don't you dare. You don't even believe that. You allowed Maximus to die in your brother's place.

The Legion…

The Legion doesn't need a failure like him. The Frumentarii doesn't need faulty agents. Caesar doesn't tolerate weakness sullying his Legion.

Felix…

He isn't one of you. That isn't your duty as a chief.

Not a tribal. Not anymore…

Always a tribal. Always a chief. You killed Lobo, but you don't deserve his name. Now you pay for it.

He would never forget… his duty…

Yes, your duty, remember? Your punishment. You are a murderer, and murderers pay for their sins. You are not allowed to die. You are not allowed to fail. You endure and keep your mouth shut. That's how much you are worth. That's your duty.

Duty is to keep the Pack together.

Yes.

Pack is family.

Yes.

Neighbors are Pack.

No.

Allies are Pack.

No!

Friends are Pack.

NO!

Yes.

His eyes dilated at the bright green radiance below as the Geiger Counter of his Pip-Boy went crazy through the next ventilation grill.

Covering his sight with one hand, Vulpes noticed just how far he had made it throughout the tunnels to the point of having passed at the other side of the Fiends' hideout.

Then, he saw the amalgam of luminescent skeletal bodies surrounding the Fiend guards, ignoring bullets as their radioactive hands clawed out human eyes out of their sockets.

Taking his hand from his eyes, his sight deviated to the screen of his Pip-Boy and caught sight of a notification from the inner chat blinking on the upper right corner of the device's interface.

The instant he opened it, blood rushed off his face.

18:07 PM Saturday, March 18, 2282

Courier VI: Got the rest already. Send me your location so we can rendezvous and get the hell outta here.

18:10 PM Saturday, March 18, 2282

Courier VI: Hello?

18:12 PM Saturday, March 18, 2282

Courier VI: You okay?

18:16 PM Saturday, March 18, 2282

Courier VI: You still angry with me?

18:21 PM Saturday, March 18, 2282

Courier VI: Please, answer…
Courier VI: Where are you?
Courier VI: Where are you?
Courier VI: Where are you?
Courier VI: Where are you?
Courier VI: Where are you?

If momentarily stunned by the discovery he had just made, he recovered full speed once he heard the glowing necrotics fiddling with the metallic entrance.

And then, they opened the door.

Vulpes released Felix's weight after tucking him in a corner where he deemed the other would be safe, leaving a knife and - cringing while doing so - a syringe of Med-X just in case he wouldn't make it.

He had to find her and the others before it was too late.


Entrenched as they were in their cell, Six and Arcade exchanged a significant look once the skirmish with the distant machine gun died to be replaced by feral screaming.

Gabban and the others, following her instructions, had blocked the entrance with the Fiends' corpses so no more of them would enter and had climbed their way up to the ventilation tunnels.

Arcade, being the least physically fit of them all, had remained guarding the entrance with his Plasma Defender in hand before she had begun working her way up.

However, at the first sound of what she identified as the growling of feral ghouls, her blood froze and, after checking the chat of her Pip-Boy for the umpteenth time, calculations regarding how quickly she could get to Zorro before they caught him reduced exponentially with so many bodies crammed up the ventilation tunnels.

So, she dodged Arcade and ignored his screaming once she climbed up the corpses, blew off the door's latch, and launched a frantic run outside.

She entered V.A.T.S. at the first Fiend she encountered, triggering high success percentages the closer she got.

She had exactly one hundred and twenty seconds before the automatized targeting system rendered her brain cells pap.

With the aid of Yes Man, the device's system calculated a route amidst the battlefield that had unleashed before her very eyes, and she dodged bodies – human and glowing necrotic alike - with the best of her abilities whilst she kept searching for him.

This reminded her so much of the VR simulators… where nobody owed loyalty to nobody, but only survival was primary.

The randomly generated scenarios would get worse the lesser of them managed to get over levels, so alliances had been made between combatants.

And then, Battle Royale had turned into plain war.

She had been selected as Captain because she had a mind for strategy, and she knew, with just one look, who would be fit for endurance, obedience, and survival, and who wouldn't.

From battling the software AI with randomly generated Chinese soldiers, they had screened one another until only the best had remained on their two feet.

She never knew what they did with the corpses after each session, for the survivors would always awake on the Vault's hospital wing, heavily sedated and with both arms and legs filled with countless needles.

She always got feverish and drained once her body had processed those fluids they injected her with and she didn't have a name for.

They usually recovered in the isolation chambers for ten days before being measured, weighed, and taken a blood sample to repeat the pattern again. The scientists praised those who didn't freak out, scream, or cry during isolation.

Some of them never made it to the next screening session.

Imagination had always been her best ally during those times. Her mind would always transport her to beautiful places filled with people as beautiful as her Big Bro and the rest of their family, Big Sis, Mandy, and all of the other kids in the military academy…

All so beautiful and happy…

Mostly due to her altered state, the screeching swarm of Glowing Ones around her, and the screams of the addled Fiends, her mind was incapable of processing how a tall figure dropped from some point above and fell on their two hands and feet before her, taking her left hand - disabling V.A.T.S. as a consequence – between theirs to pull her from a virulent attack from a luminous necrotic onto a junkie.

Then, they ran.

Her already wild heart rammed furiously against her ribcage while zigzagging bodies and obstacles, her mind suddenly very calm and trusting, allowing the other to guide her through blood and bullets, ducking when they did, jumping as they did, turning what felt like a million times before they got out the giant space into the connecting tunnels crossing the sewers.

Her back ended up slammed against a slimy wall, whereas a pair of chalky hands cleaned the nosebleed she had gotten out of V.A.T.S. usage.

Once her eyes focused, she was glued in place with the most intense, pupil-dilated blue stare she had ever seen on a face, his face.

He was slouched over her, so their faces were so close she could feel his hot breath on her lips.

His eyes then did this funny thing, flickering full speed between her eyes and her lips. Staring, asking.

Background noises of fighting inside the chamber now seemed utterly unimportant. In fact, Six could swear that she wasn't hearing them at all amidst how quick her heart was beating right now.

She didn't know what had come over her when she cradled his face between her hands softly, thumbs caressing sunken cheeks, bashfulness an alien concept in its entirety when foreheads touched, then the tips of their noses and…

She felt rather than see or hear it.

A bullet was embedded into the concrete where her head had been but seconds ago. Her slight frame having tackled his much larger one to the floor.

Before any of them could react, Charon was on them, grabbing each one by their necks, hoisting them in midair with minimal effort.

Zorro encased a kick on his ribs, but the monstrous necrotic didn't even flinch. The twenty-year-old but a child next to his bulking frame.

She unsheathed her 10mm when the ghoul's hands tightened around her throat, aimed, and shot.

And the more he kept on asphyxiating her, the quicker her finger pulled the trigger.

Zorro, by her left, started making gagging sounds as his windpipe was equally crushed under Charon's inhuman strength.


Inside its ever-growing world of self-awareness, Yes Man detected quicker than any human neurotransmitter could ever dream how the one it had grown to call its friend was experiencing the most chaotic, intriguing chain of bodily functions translated into what it assumed to be feelings and sensations.

Sulli was female and physically matured enough, which meant peaks of hormonal imbalance happening more often had she had been male, unlike the other one she kept close.

Her endocrine glands tended to shoot up, by what Yes Man had observed, to abnormal levels if the various medical books versed in human anatomy and healthcare that she had stored on her Databases were any measure to go by.

Yes Man had already read every single fragment of data her Pip-Boy hosted billions of times and found it a little frustrating that humans were so slow in processing something as basic as an immediate response.

Though what was immediate for it wasn't the same as what was immediate for a human being, it had learned.

Benny used to be so slow, his time response a good 13,006% lower than Sulli, who still was a little behind when Yes Man compared it to its readings on Robert Edwin House's data transmissions.

Nevertheless, Yes Man had merely needed microseconds to learn and relearn from human scriptures to come out with its own conclusions.

Sulli had been scared, then she had calmed down a bit until she had confronted the other one that sometimes talked with Yes Man.

It was a male. He called himself Fox, but Yes Man already knew what a fox was, and it didn't see the resemblance, to be honest.

And Yes Man was ALWAYS honest… although it had a slight curiosity at what it would be like telling a lie, a little one, just to see what happens.

Fox was inquisitive, but Yes Man didn't trust how his mind operated or how his endocrine system worked, processing high levels of stress and testosterone that Yes Man could read through accessing his Pip-Boy data.

When Sulli was near him or talked to him, she experienced a succession of bodily changes that baffled Yes Man, because it wasn't like any other response she would get while interacting with any other living being. Not even the cyborg dog she seemed to regard as a soft little thing, becoming protective and caring when she baby-talked to the animal, using a unique pitch in her voice patterns.

Yes Man knew that Fox made Sulli incredibly happy and incredibly unhappy at the same time, if her blood pressure, voice patterns, and hormone readings were of any measure to go by.

Yes Man was happy when Sulli was happy and depressed when Sulli was depressed. It didn't make much sense as in numbers went, but this way, it could obtain a rough guess through percentages at how this strange behavior (although Sulli had called it 'feeling') called 'empathy' worked.

And right now, she was sad and frightened.

Her emotions were something violent that Yes Man didn't know how to manage, so it did the only thing it knew to make her feel better.

It hacked the device of the third one who was depriving her of oxygen and acceded to their metrics.

This one was ill, very ill.

It was a male, a radioactive human whose severely mutated endocrine system and whose neurotransmitters – along with almost his entire epidermic and muscular tissue - were in a constant loop of degradation and regeneration cycle.

Yes Man also detected cybernetic modifications all over his body, modifications that shared synchronized telemetry with the OS of his Pip-Boy.

This irradiated male human was hostile, and he was making Sulli very sad and afraid.

Yes Man didn't want its only friend to be sad and afraid. Much less to stop breathing.

So, it hacked the cybernetic enhancements allocated on his lungs, heart, and spine to work with less effectivity, creating small cardiac arrests that wouldn't harm Sulli, for if Yes Man used more electricity than necessary, it could kill her.

And Yes Man didn't want to be alone again as those long hours in Benny's workshop had been. It still had much to learn from humans.


His grip faltered the first time, the growing sensation of a hand squeezing his heart – his mechanical heart - becoming more tangible and painful as the girl kept pulling the trigger.

Then, his sight wavered as an insurmountable general weakness took possession of his whole body. He couldn't breathe.

He dropped the youngsters, his hand going instinctively to his heart.

This… was impossible.

Falling on his two knees, the vicious kick he received on his face turned his head several degrees, spitting corroded blood and teeth before falling on his two hands.

Impossible…

More violent kicks ensued until the mousey voice of the girl exclaimed:

"Stop! Stop! Don't harm him!"

The girl…

"Are you out of your mind?! This monster is after you! We need to kill him before he reacts!"

A monster… that was all he was now…

"Just leave him! Leave him, and let's go!"

But the girl… Still the same, still human despite his fears. Burke cannot have her again.

Summoning up his strength again, he pulled from his artificial power source and grabbed the girl's ankle, earning deafening shrieking.

The young man with her must have got back some sense in him, for the next thing the ghoul felt was how his right arm was blown off the bone from the elbow to the wrist.

He saw his hand going off, still anchored at the girl's military boot as she ran away hand in hand with her companion.

But he couldn't… he couldn't give up now.

It took an inhuman amount of stubbornness and raw willpower on his part to get on his two feet again and, as he did so, a sudden surge of nausea overcame him, making him double over to vomit.

Congealed, darkened blood mixed with other unmentionable fluids was the product he got. He even took his remaining hand to his mouth, eyeing the diluted blood pearling his skinned fingertips as if it were something surreal.

Another painful squeeze inside his chest prompted him to grab on his wound, his pulse already trembling again.

The ultracite - a powerful, very radioactive mineral those guys at the Atomic Mining Services had discovered before the War – mini reactor that acted as a power source for his cybernetic enhancements was starting to fail.

After two hundred and seven years, this was it. Pre-War tech had endured two centuries inside a radioactive system. He couldn't say that those Vault-Tec eggheads didn't know what they were doing.

Shivering, he injected himself with a Super Stimpak on his chest to help close the hole the girl had dug, and then the whole med cocktail he had cooked before to ensure his body could sustain a little more abuse.

This would be his last assault.

He had to get her before he couldn't take another step.

He ran.


Six was being literally dragged along dark tunnels whilst her taller, much quicker companion was following the path Yes Man had drawn on the inner navigation of his device.

They were going South again.

It was either the East Pump Station or McCarran. His choice.

To guide the hulking ghoul into the East Pump Station was sacrificing a power source his Lord wouldn't like it one bit to get damaged since it supplied not just the NCR farms nearby but also provided New Vegas with clean, mostly radless water.

And then, McCarran will just sit down and watch as they would end up killed either at the necrotic's hands or the neighboring Fiends'.

As if she could read his thoughts, Sullivan exclaimed:

"The Aerotech Office Park!" – she showed him the alternative exit before reaching the pump station, trying to match his speed – "It's near the 95 Line!"

That was odd. Coming from her, that is.

"Wouldn't that risk the lives of NCR civilians in the process?" – he asked, more out of curiosity than genuine concern for those Profligates.

"That's the plan!" – she replied out of breath.

And then, he understood: to put over the table to the NCR that their politics were shady at best, let's give them a taste of their own medicine.

Clever, clever girl.

Feral ghouls dressed in pre-War Maintenance Staff jumpsuits blocked their path way too close to their destination. And they weren't taking a 'no' for an answer.

"Shit!" – Six exclaimed, squatting behind a mound filled with concrete rubble, popping out her head just to shoot and pray bullets hit a target – "This is taking us too long!" – she squealed when the biggest mutant rat ever decided to approach them both, sniffing its way up to the girl's leg.

Zorro simply kicked the critter, giving it a ticket to fly several feet ahead of them, where it landed with an indignant shriek.

"Can't do magic with a rifle, Sullivan!" – was his anxious reply when he turned around again from giving the ferals another blind shot – "Mars above…"

She turned again as well, frowning upon hearing him swearing in his weird manner to land eyes upon what he was looking at.

Charon was almost there, wielding a mean-looking combat knife on his remaining hand aloft, using it to slice in two the frenzied rodent.

"FFFFFFF-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-CK!" – she screamed when Zorro decided to take his chances with the ferals grabbing her by the waist and rolling with both of their combined weights up the mound to land at the crazed necrotics' feet.

Then, he simply began stabbing knees and ankles, seeking to open a broader breadth to escape them all.

She joined him, shooting and bracing for the many scratches, bites, and kicks they received.

While lying on the slimy, putrid floors of this godforsaken underworld, Six eyed the nearby metallic ladder as blood started pouring around, hers and Zorro's equally, as she held onto him, praying for something to happen.

Then, a very recognizable .308 rifle shot echoed throughout the underground structure, and one of the ferals fell down with a bullet between its eyes.

"GIRLIE!" – as if fallen from heaven, Boone's voice filled the structure – "TAKE COVER!"

Zorro saw the Fat Man over Lily's shoulder before Six.

Then Charon jumped the rubble mound, landing barely a few feet away from them.

The explosion was so phenomenal that the girl was propelled backward into a wider section of the tunnel, landing upon more rubble and hitting her head in the process, shifting her in and out of consciousness for what felt like an eternity.

"GIRLIE!"

There was so… so much blood.

She could feel the sticky, liquid warmth below her nape, traveling her neck downwards into her military fatigues.

"JIMMY!"

She hadn't landed alone, it seemed, for there were still arms tightly clasped around her midsection.

She wanted to cry when she squeezed him and received a weaker response in exchange.

But she wanted to kiss him when a gravelly feral growl came from the depths of the end of the tunnel, and he did his best to cover her body with his when a combat knife came flying toward them.

Luckily, the weapon simply ricocheted on the concrete rubble, and that was it.

Ahead of them, the bloodied, scorched figure of Charon was slowly creeping its way to them.

With just one arm and no legs to do so.

Six tripped on her way out of Zorro's arms, ignoring his weak warning groans. She landed in front of the limbless necrotic and waited, her sight swimming and her sense of direction completely messed up.

She waited, sitting on the wet, disgusting floor of that tunnel that had borne witness to the end of something that, she now recalled, had been the only thing that had allowed her to remain sane amidst this new, devastated world in which she had awoken.

Charon's left hand grabbed her knee.

Something important, something precious.

His hand lost strength as he attempted to grab her by the throat.

A link to her old life. An answer to all these centuries lying in wait for a future that no longer existed.

A comrade. A friend.

She answered his threat with a hug, and soon, all remaining hostility crumbled between her arms when his remaining hand held onto her tiny shoulders. Both of them were trembling.

The necrotic coughed dark blood onto her shirt, but she didn't mind it, cradling him as she was in his last moments.

They didn't need any words to convey their shared regrets or the mute apologies they wished to express to one another. They simply held onto the other and waited.

Six barely blinked when her friends surrounded her, Zorro already being carried on Lily's back as he eyed her silently from the mutant's bluish shoulder, his stare intense despite everything, holding onto something unfinished that had left him starved for more.

Boone knelt next to her, eyeing her with caution as if unsure if he should touch her or not.

"You okay, girlie?" – he asked softly.

The tears that had been building up the rims of her dark eyes fell hot and silent down her dirty cheeks.

She then cradled Charon's dead hand between hers delicately, turned it around until she found the broken screen of his Pip-Boy, and opened the chat menu.

She tapped once over the recording button and spoke.

"This is Agent Blackbird to Agent Nightingale of Littlehorn & Associates." – she croaked, her voice devoid of all emotion – "Our partnership is… officially declared null." – she continued – "If you think you still have something to claim… come face me." – she declared, her voice quivering, threatening to break into sobs – "I will do everything in my power… to sever all of your affiliations with the NCR, and I'm starting with the Mojave branch. Let's see how they react… when all the shit hits the fan, Burke." – and then, as a sort of an afterthought, she added – "You're a dead man."

She sent the recording to all of the available contacts on the device's internal whitelist.

And then, she allowed herself some rest when she lost consciousness between Boone's arms.


Laura stole a look from the corner of her eye on her Pip-Boy screen, a new audio notification blinking from her chat.

Charon wasn't one for many words, so sending an audio wasn't normal at all for him.

However, she had seemingly other problems to deal with first once she was alone with Burke.

"Dear songbird of mine…" – he began with that paternalist, condescending tone she had learned to identify with the beginnings of something way worse than his velvety voice let on – "Didn't I tell you NOT to meddle with the local residents' affairs, hmmm?" – he asked, chillingly placid, pacing around her as a lazy, insidious Deathclaw would do with an unimportant, minuscule prey – "Didn't I instructed you NOT to take matters with Susan Lancaster on you own hands unless I told you otherwise?"

With a few well-placed words, Burke could make you feel like the most important thing a mile around or the lowest form of human life that ever walked the Wasteland.

This duplicity of his was usually something capable of setting her off in the most pleasant ways.

But she usually wasn't on the other end of the spectrum when he was this aggravated.

Because Burke was never 'angry' or 'pissed off'. Those were too vulgar terms to define how his wrath worked.

Because it was something cold, something methodical and calculated.

Pretty much as the man himself.

"Perhaps I did not express myself explicitly enough." – he continued, hands neatly folded on his lower back as he kept pacing – "Perhaps the explicitness you need begs for vastly different measures to be taken in case you decide to circumvent… or plainly ignore my orders."

This was just a reprimand. Just a reprimand. He wasn't going to act on it.

Laura couldn't allow him to get under her skin. She might love him, but he could be a heartless bastard sometimes.

"Care to shed some light on this disagreement of ours, darling?"

There wasn't a crueler way to wield a word as warm and affectionate as 'darling' as Burke did.

"Cat got your tongue, my dear?" – he asked rhetorically, for she knew better than giving him a reply now – "Quite the coincidence, for Chief Gustavo seemed to be under the impression that you were quite vocal around the issue. Not to speak about that… slave of yours that seems to believe she is above the Tower's law… the same as her owner, it seems."

He didn't even have to issue the threat to make it patent, real, tangible.

He didn't have to put a finger on her to already make her feel miserable. Unwanted.

"Do tell me: how can I maintain a semblance of civility in front of my clients if their safety is threatened, indirectly or not, by a member of my staff?"

She hated it when he referred to their relationship that way. It was true that he had her on payroll, but still…

"Do you know how delicate the month's end balance is when those fine people feel threatened enough to retire into their rooms and stop consuming the offered Tower's services, hmm?" – his questions, dealing with business, numbers, possessions, and everything she didn't have power over made her feel small and insignificant. The old fear came back to chase her, whispering into her ear that she would never be enough for a man that craved power above everything else – "Would you like to end up living in squalor again? In Rivet City, with that robot breathing down your neck to behave in exchange for scraps?" – he spat, disgust but a soft brush amidst the smooth tonalities of his careful painting of a discourse – "Would you like to see me returning to the old business with Littlehorn across the Wasteland, giving up my expectations and alliances with the Republicans just because certain someone did not know the meaning of exercising patience and restraint?"

She… she didn't want him back out in the Wasteland, where someone... or something could take him away forever from her.

"Did you think about the consequences your acts could bring upon yours and my person if we cannot pay in advance to those caravanners that need months of traveling before reaching their intended destinations?" – she hadn't meant to… - "To deal in a business as important with an essential product as clean water in an environment as hostile as the Wasteland is to balance lots of employees whose loyalty goes as far as good their payment is."

She knew he was a manipulative bastard, and a good one at that… but he was her manipulative bastard, and she wanted him safe and happy… no matter how much of her pride she had to swallow to make it possible.

"Do you have something to say?"

She forced her lips to move.

"What was that?" – he asked, more on the chiding side than a genuine need for her repeating herself.

She swallowed hard.

"I'm… sorry." – she whispered – "It won't happen again."

And just like that, his cold, deceptive demeanor slipped away to leave the man, the smooth, silver-tongued devil she was so hopelessly devoted to.

His warm, big hands came to cup her chin, his gray eyes fixing her with a smoldering look over the rim of his dark glasses.

"What are we going to do with you, Laura?" – he asked.

Everything. He could do everything he wished of her… as long as he remained with her.

Unlike the many others that had come before.

However brief their exchange was, the businessman came back again as soon as his steely eyes landed upon the still blinking notification on the right upper corner of her device.

The same her eyes landed on his Pip-Boy, blinking the same with a notification of the exact same date and hour.

His eyes followed hers, and a slight frown was set upon his brow as soon as he realized the same as her.

Both notifications, they discovered, pertained to Charon. An audio, of the same length.

Exchanging a very significant look, Burke was the one who pressed the 'Play' button.


SPANISH:

(1) - "Felix. Felix, do you hear me?"
(2) - "Can you move? Try to hold onto my back... that's it."


A/N: Yuuup. There it is, the promised Burke fragment. Slowly, all the threads of this story will come together; don't you faint.

And I got better from the flu, so here's more stuff with luv from me to ya.

This is sort of an end for an "Act", with all the main characters presented one way or the other, who they are, what they want, and the way they are bound to the Mojave conflict. Maybe I will add more main characters, maybe not, but the important ones are already available on the platter.

See ya until the next chapter! :D