Kellog broke first thing this morning.

As I entered the room, he spoke the magic words to begin my interrogation.

"Please, kill me."

It was the first time I had ever heard them spoken in English. I told him that I thought that he wasn't serious.

"I am fucking serious!" He screamed with what little energy he had left. "Please fucking kill me!"

"See Kellog... I told you this wasn't about fear... That it was about passion... It was about desire... I can hear the passion in your voice... I can feel your desire now... Now, I will ask you my questions. If I feel that you are being truthful, I will grant your request."

"Thank you..." I heard a certain relief in his voice. Quite possibly even gratitude.

"If you satisfy my requirements, I promise you, I will make it quick." I paused, for effect. "You will find that I am a man of honor and a man of my word. Do you remember when I told you that this was not going to end the way that you thought?"

"Yes..."

"Have I lied to you, even once?"

"No..."

"Can we trust one another now?"

"Yes..."

Because he had started to volunteer information the day before, the actual interrogation was actually quite quick. I believed every word he said.

1. The Institute was underground, with no entrances.
2. They had developed teleport technology and had been using it for years.
3. The Institute was buried beneath the ruins of CIT.
4. A squad of synths consisting of two Coursers and 12 synths was to be dispatched within the next four hours to investigate why he had not checked in.
5. Coursers were the Institute versions of Special Forces.
6. His last mission was to locate a scientist that had escaped the Institute. His name Virgil and had gone into hiding in the Glowing Sea.

When I was satisfied, I pulled out his weapon from my holster, and held it by my side as I stood in front of him.

"I believe you, Kellog. It is time."

"Thank you..." He whispered while staring at the floor.

"Do you have anything to ask of me?"

"One thing, if it isn't too much..." He was looking up at me with his one remaining eye. I heard a deep sincerity in his voice. "Please don't leave me here. I know I have no right to ask, I left your wi..." He stopped, I heard a sob come from him. "I left Nora in the cryo chamber... I beg you, though, please, bury me outside."

"I buried her myself. I buried her the day that I left the vault, behind our house. In a way, you did me a favor, Kellog. Because I buried her, I know where she is. I will grant your request."

"Thank you..."

"You're welcome."

"Cain..." Just a faint whisper came from him as I raised the pistol.

"Yes, Conrad."

"I am sorry."

"I know."

The sound of the .44 echoed through the hallways of the abandoned building. I cut him free from the chair and moved his body back into his control room and placed him in the chair of his desk, hunched over the console, and then I prepared for my guests. I gathered all of the synth's weapons on the floor behind the furthest desk and made sure they were at full charge. It had the best vantage point in the room and was to be my hiding spot. I rigged two plasma grenades as booby traps on Kellog's body, one on each door, and placed mines on the floor behind the 4 desk/partitions that could be used as defensive positions to avoid my fire. I loaded the .44, the 12g, and had the 10mm as a last resort in my pocket.

I waited, but not for long. Individual flashes of light started to appear in the room within 20 minutes of finishing. the first dozen that arrived looked similar to Nick, but without any attempt to disguise their true nature. The last two looked human. They were wearing body armor and equipped with different weapons that I didn't recognize. One showed up almost next to Kellog and the other was across the room near one of the doors that I had rigged. I hadn't thought about it, but apparently the tech in the room and metal of the desk I was hiding behind blocked out the sensor sweep that the synths performed. I heard one of them say "Sensor scan complete. No life signs detected."

I watched as Courser #1 pulled Kellog off the keyboard - I ducked behind the desk as the grenades detonated. I heard the remaining Courser order the synths that were left to spread out. All of the mines I had laid down detonated at about the same time I heard the grenade explode on the door where I had last seen the Courser. A few of the synths had enough left of them to hilariously announce that they had experienced catastrophic damage and were shutting down. I also heard the heavy breathing of massive bodily injury coming from the far side of the room.

Perfect. This went far better than expected.

I stood and scanned the room. The remnants of the first Courser were in the area around Kellog. There were bits and pieces of synths all over the place and their weapons scattered about. As I approached the door, a bolt of blue energy streaked past my head and blew a chunk out of the wall behind me.

"Who are you?" The voice that asked was riddled with pain.

"They let you assholes feel pain? Interesting." I replied, making sure to use the word I had heard the synths use so often. I moved low and behind the cover of the desks til I could see the Courser. He was in bad shape. The entire right side of his body was shredded - leg gone from the kneecap down and arm blown off at the shoulder. I could see what looked like his skull through the remnants of burnt skin. "Man, you are in bad shape. Need a hand?" I chuckled at my horrible joke. He had started to raise the pistol he was carrying with his left arm and move it towards me when I shot him in the shoulder, causing him to throw it to the side.

"Who are you?" He replied in a tone that indicated that he might have some kind of pain suppression system that had kicked in.

I walked around him in silence, examining his condition. He was fucked. I think the only thing that wasn't damaged or destroyed was his left leg. His armor was shredded, but I noticed a small, intact contact woven into its collar. When I reached out to touch it, he smiled. I stopped.

"Is that your ticket home? Is that how I get in?"

He smiled a sick, almost cocky grin.

"No. It is how I get in. You can't use it. It is tuned to my DNA. Safety protocols." He laughed a sick, gurgling, raspy laugh.

"You know.. that sound means that there is blood filling your lungs right now, right?" I asked.

"Yes. I doesn't matter. What I see. What I know. What I feel. The Institute knows. They will come for you."

"Good." He looked at me quizzically. "Say, does that work when you are dead?"

"No. There needs to be electrical activity in my synapses, otherwise it is inert."

"Interesting." I taunted him. I found a pen and paper in the wreckage and wrote down a simple note and placed it in a pocket. "So you know, your last act will be to serve as my delivery boy."

Before he could reply, I reached down, lifted his hand and touched it to the contact. In a flash he was gone.

The note was simple. "I am coming." I signed it "Mogui."