Motley Mutants: Post-Apocalyptia

by Jem Cottage

"Gather round, oh tired and disillusioned waste-folk! I implore you to tune in those antennas, I welcome you to pop open those cans of Potato Crisps, and I require you to huddle up next to those beautiful beaus and honeys of yours; for I, MC 'Anonymous' Valley Chey, have come to regale you! I bring detailed word of just how everyone's favorite wasteland vigilante crew came to be."

6. Chapter 6 - Alabaster Raiding Co

Motley Mutants: Post-Apocalyptia Ch. 6 - Alabaster Raiding Co.

+ Sweetheart came-to in a dimly lit ten by ten prison cell, soaked in sweat, and panting like a wild dog. He wiped the crust out of his eyes, stumbled to his feet, and looked himself over hoping to find any hint as to what had happened to him since his last memory. He had been stripped down to his underwear, and relieved of all of his possessions. "The fuck…?" he muttered to himself in the shadowy cell. As if his words had prompted it to happen, a pair of yellow ceiling lights flickered on in the free side of the room.

"Sorry about the air conditioning." A young male's voice spoke from the free side. Sweetheart Nosferatued the light away from his eyes, slowly revealing more and more until he could make out the shape of the prepubescent boy speaking to him.

"Who…Where…" Sweetheart croaked.

"Who? I'm Ramsey. Ramsey Fink." The boy said proudly. "What's your name?"

"My name? Uhh, yeah, it's Sweetheart."

"What kind of a name is that?" Ramsey asked incredulously.

"I don't know… What kind of a name is 'Ramsey Fink'? It's just a name." Sweetheart said defensively. "Where am I anyway?"

"You're locked in a cell, inside a Brotherhood base called Fort Duke." Ramsey divulged freely.

"You're Brotherhood? What are you then, a jailor?" Sweetheart asked studying the youthful semi-soldier in front of him for clues.

"I'm a Squire if you have to know. One of the east coast's best." Ramsey boasted.

"One of the best, huh? That must be why they trust you to guard a prisoner like me all by yourself."

"I'm not guarding you. That would be a colossal misuse of my talents. Besides, from what I hear you're fairly incompetent. So much so that the elder thought it wouldn't take much more than a ceiling turret to guard you." Ramsey mercilessly chuckled while pointing to the automated machine gun turret above their heads.

"Mm. I get it. Those guys in power armor don't take me for much, huh?"

"Nope." Ramsey agreed.

"Okay Ramsey Fink. So what all did you hear about me?"

"I heard that you stole a Pip-Boy from a lightly guarded caravan, and that you were immediately captured by a pair of our Knights afterwards. Doyle's been bragging about it all day. That Pip-Boy is the only reason you aren't dead yet, you know. You should count yourself lucky."

"Oh, right. The Pip-Boy. This fucking thing was supposed to be my ticket. I take it the steel boys haven't had much luck getting it off of me?" Sweetheart poked and pulled at the device inextricably attached to his arm.

"Trust me, they know how to get it off. Certain models, like the one you're wearing, utilize a pretty advanced biometric lock, meaning it only releases when its user has either requested its removal by entering a series of pre-war factory codes, or died."

"Or if it just seems like they're dead, apparently. The woman I got this thing off of, I shot her with a serum called lock-joint: a paralysis agent. As soon as she passed out, the thing popped off like nothing." Sweetheart recalled.

"That could actually make sense. Bio-metric locks work by reading basic vitals, like a person's pulse and blood pressure. Both of which are significantly lowered while someone is paralyzed." Ramsey theorized.

"Wait, so if all they have to do is kill me, then why don't they?" Sweetheart said.

"We aren't barbarians, that's why. They're probably hoping to do things the first way, but in all honestly, it won't be long before they decide to hack that thing off of you just to be done with it. They're probably drawing straws to see who'll do it as we speak. Maybe had you chosen a more noble profession they would waste the time, but not for a raider."

"Noble? Yeah, and that's what you are, kid? That's what the Brotherhood is?" Sweetheart asked rapid-fire.

"Of course the Brotherhood is noble!" Ramsey Fink paused and shook his head slightly. "At least, we were, at some point, noble."

"Yeah. Keep telling yourself that kid, you might actually start to believe it someday. Let me ask you something. Have you ever actually left this place? This Fortress guarded by high walls and armed soldiers and god-damn ceiling turrets?" The youngling was looking at his hands, intertwining his fingers nervously, and saying nothing. "No. You haven't. And shit I don't blame you for not knowing what it's like out there, and I don't blame you for being born behind these walls. I'm just asking you not to blame me for being born in an irradiated hell-hole, full of men and women who would gut you with a plastic spork for a handful of rotten, two-century-old dog food." The Squire continued twiddling his thumbs. "Huh, I like you kid. You shoot straight, and you seem pretty smart, but that doesn't always make up for a lack of perspective." Sweetheart wiped the collecting beads of sweat from his forehead. "So when you're not hanging out with prisoners, what do you do around here?" He asked. Ramsey Fink removed his black uniform hat, and scratched his stubby brown-haired scalp.

"I...tinker some. Plus I do some minor repairs on weapons and armor at the Foundry. Most of what I know, I learned from Dalton - he's our weapons smith there. Besides that, I learn by reading old magazines and books, but those charred pages can only show so much. I learn a lot more by hacking terminals. Especially the ones belonging to Scribes."

"Hacking, huh? You're a mischievous little dude, you know that?" Ramsey crossed his arms and smiled proudly, as if he were posing for the cover of 'Rob-Co Fun'. "What kinds of things do you learn from hacking?" Sweetheart asked.

"The kind of stuff that no one would tell a Squire. For one example, I learned why they want your Pip-Boy."

"Yeah, me too, and I didn't even have to hack anything to figure that one out. They're tech-freaks. Everyone knows the Brotherhood will take anything that lights up and beeps."

"Almost every piece of technology on that device can be, and in most cases has been, reproduced by our Scribes. The only quality the Pip-Boy has that makes it truly unique, is that it's also a key." Sweetheart's hairless brow furled helping his face form a look of confusion.

"A key?" He asked.

"Yeah, a key. A key made specifically in order to open vaults, like the one that's probably laying just beneath our feet. Vault 52. There's a secret passage which leads straight to it, located in the base's catacombs."

"Okay so they cut this thing off of me, they open the vault up and then what? What do they expect to find inside? Some pre-war candy and board games?" Sweetheart watched as Ramsey Fink peered through the small window in the jail door. The squire, now confident of their solitude, walked right up the rusty containment bars, and held on to them with two fingerless gloved hands.

"Elder Cyrus was my hero when I was younger, he's the one who inspired my dream of being an Elder when I grow up. But…when I heard of the truce with the mutants, I couldn't believe it. No one would tell me anything, not even Dalton – at least, not at first. They all just kept saying that the Elder knows what he's doing. 'Trust the Elder'. And I did trust the Elder, but I couldn't trust the mutants. So I hacked his personal terminal, and I read his outgoing and incoming messages. It isn't a truce at all, it's an alliance." Ramsey paused, and hung his head low in shame. "Vault 52 houses a huge reserve of the forced evolutionary virus. They want to create more of those mutants, those…monsters."

"Heroes don't exist in this world, kid. I don't know if they ever did. Just a little bit ago you told me that you're not here to guard me. If that's true, then why are you here?"

"That's easy." Ramsey leaned away from the prison bars, and whistled sharply down the row of empty cells. Sweetheart heard a feint humming sound approaching quickly. In mere moments a multicolored, floating robot with limp, dangling arms zoomed into the room, and halted before the young Squire. "How'd it go?" Ramsey asked.

"Complete blackout." A strange voice that sounded as if it should be accompanying a bagpipe, emanated from the bot's external speakers. "Here are the gentleman's belongings." The strange robot held out a gun bag with the long barrel of a Syringer Rifle poking out. Sweetheart smiled.

"Nurse…" Sweetheart whispered to himself.

"Awesome." Ramsey wrapped his arms around the awkwardly constructed bot and unlatched the dull red tool box attached to its back. He reached into its depthy interior, and a second later his hand returned clinched around a small box of bobby pins, which he then pocketed. Next he grabbed the Syringer rifle out of Sweetheart's personal belongings, along with an ammunitions belt. He pulled from it a rusty projectile syringe. "Is this one lock-joint?" He asked the trapped raider.

"What the fuck kid? What are you gonna do with that?" Sweetheart scooted deeper into the cell.

"I'm going to stop Cyrus. In order to do so, I need to get rid of that Pip-Boy. According to you, a lock-joint syringe should do the trick. Now unless you want me to shoot you with whatever the hell else you have in this belt, I suggest you answer me." Ramsey explained.

"Damn kid. You would've made it out there in the wastes just fine, you know that?" Ramsey smiled. "They're labeled by color. It's the orange one." Ramsey loaded the orange syringe carefully into the rifle named Nurse. He aimed it at Sweetheart's arm, and pulled the trigger. "Good luck." Said the raider.

+ "Is that a detonator?" Paladin Reece asked?

"Why yes it is. You're very astute, for a brute. What gave it away the bright red button?" Montecrief responded, his words dripping with sarcasm.

"Ha-ha, astute brute? Oh man." Agrippina cackled.

"So what now? You're just going to blow this place up with us in it? Is that it?" Rocky asked.

"Of course not. This isn't a ship, and I most certainly am not her captain anymore. With that said, I do plan on detonating this entire compound shortly, so we had best…fuck." Montecrief's ordinarily poised tone and demeanor evaporated suddenly, like an ice cream cone being suddenly exposed to the surface of the sun.

"We had best fuck?!" Demanded Shipley.

"Mr. Montecrief." The group of Brotherhood emissaries and company turned to face the doorway. From out the door to Montecrief's office and down the spiraled ivory-railed stairway and straight to the front doors, they heard the voice of a stranger echo along the same route backwards. Montecrief was first through the door and into the hall, followed by Rocky, Agrippina, Reece, and the members of Intrepid squad. Immediately after entering the hallway they found themselves staring over an ivory railing and down at several dozen raiders, all dressed in tattered business apparel, ranging from browns and blacks to greys and whites. Despite their business-formal style, they still ornamented themselves with certain raider commonalities such as metal pauldrons, macgyvered weapons, and even the occasional disembodied Yao Guai or Deathclaw limb. The foremost one of them was a stocky, ebony skinned man wearing a sleeveless silver blazer serving to expose his crude arm tattoos. The tattooed raider began sauntering away from the group of muttering and growling waste pirates, and towards the bottom of the stairway. As he approached, he began knuckling together his heavy metal power fists, producing a rather unpleasant clanking sound. He stopped when he was about an arm's length away from the staircase, permitting them to see parts of his smirking face through the openings in his steel-gray medieval helm.

"That's some kind of get-up, Montecrief. Regrettably, I don't believe you and I are quite the match - size-wise or otherwise. Looks to me like you've become just as emaciated as your forces, I fear. It's funny, though, I always thought you slavers ate well. From what I hear your trade has never been bigger. Not since before the Civil War that preceded the Great War." The ebony skinned man tilted his helmet upwards, keeping care to conceal his face, and fired a saliva bullet onto the wooden floors.

"I take it you're well-read then, er… Alabaster, is it?"

"Correct on both fronts."

"Well then. In your no doubt genre-spanning, and time-consuming studies, I reckon that you would have stumbled across a book or two on anatomy or biology. Medicine perhaps."

"I'm familiar with all three. What of them?"

"Well before the war you see, just like after it, there were a large number of unfortunate individuals afflicted by cancer. The only difference was that before the war, the tumorous growth could, at times, be combated using radiation therapy. Common side effects of even low levels of radiation exposure in this form, included intense nausea and appetite loss, both of which led to severe weight loss."

"Mm, I see. So that explains your physique. Leaving me with another, far more pressing concern." The tattooed man named Alabaster erected an armored finger towards Rocky, while still addressing Montecrief. "Who is that lumbering green fellow there?"

"His name-"

"My friends call me Rocky." Rocky interrupted, forcing Alabaster to address him directly.

"Friends? It's articulate. Interesting." Alabaster's finger slowly drifted to his side. "Now look, Montecrief, I get that you're real torn up over losing like this. I mean, I know you had a really swell thing going on here for a while. But hey, so did Diamond Inc., back before Rob-Co bought them out."

"You're comparing a consensually agreed upon and signed sale between owners of corporations, to you and your raiders killing my people, and destroying my property."

"Don't be so naïve, Montecrief. In this god-forsaken world, those two circumstances are virtually identical, when you incorporate sufficient context. Our world lacks the law and government of that Old World. It's all about enterprise; I would think a post-apocalyptic slaver would understand that concept better than most. Don't tell me you've got the Old World Blues, Monte."

"You would too, had you been born in that glorious world…" Montecrief muttered to himself in a wistful tone. "But as you can see I don't have any slaves anymore. We run a small settlement to protect ghouls from the likes of humans like you."

"Yes, I had noticed the lack of human property present. Regardless, it looks as though you've failed at your newly found purpose as well. Your ghouls have all either perished or fled into the wastes." Said Alabaster.

"What do you want from us?" Rocky growled, redirecting the dialogue.

"Oh, yes thank you for reminding me mutant, I'd nearly forgotten. This morning I learned of an unfortunate situation, which took place not far from here, on a road named Merchant's Highway. Three of my best employees had been sent to ambush a caravan and steal a certain device for a client of mine. Two of the three returned later, informing me that the third had chosen to take the device for himself; that's a big no-no you see. The other members of his party tell me he was last seen being apprehended by a group of Brotherhood soldiers, who suddenly appeared from the surrounding hills as if on cue. Interestingly enough, the very next thing I hear, my spies are radioing in, saying that they've spotted a group of Brotherhood Knights entering Montecrief House without altercation. Now perhaps I'm being a bit paranoid when I say this, but I'm starting to believe that you may have something to do with this, Montecrief."

"You're wrong." Rocky spoke. "This group of soldiers came with me, from the Brotherhood base. We were sent to discuss terms for a truce with Montecrief and his slavers."

"You mean to tell me the Brotherhood of Steel is working with a super mutant? I don't care how intelligent you are, there's no way they would do that. Those tech-freaks wouldn't work with your kind even if it meant perpetual peace throughout the wastes." Alabaster replied.

"If these soldiers were the same as those other soldiers, then how did I end up with them? How did she? Your story didn't have anything in it about us." Rocky pointed out, gesturing to Agrippina. Alabaster thought for a long moment, with his hands on his hips and his eyes studying the wooden panels beneath his boots. He breathed in deep, and turned to face a specific pair of raiders in his band.

"Well," spoke the first one, who was missing a hand. "I don't know, maybe he was hiding, or something."

"Yeah, I mean they were all hiding at first Alabaster. All of 'em were." Spoke the second, much stouter one of the two. Alabaster faced Rocky and Montecrief once again.

"Their story doesn't make much more sense than yours does, I'll grant you that. But I can't prove your story any more than I can theirs. What I do know is, somebody is trying to play games with the Alabaster Raiders, and I can't have that. We were hired to steal a device called a Pip-Boy, from a traveling trader named Kelly Marshall, of Marshall's Miscellany. The only other person who knew we had that contract was the anonymous person, or persons, who contracted us. According to my boys here, the Brotherhood of Steel knew exactly where to be, and exactly when to be there."

"Well Rocky, looks like we've discovered our mystery culprit." Montecrief decided.

"It's impossible, no brother would hire raiders to attack a helpless caravan!" Reece exclaimed. "It's completely unheard of, it must have been somebody else. It has to be." Reece swore.

"Until today a super mutant working with the Brotherhood of Steel was also unheard of." Montecrief asserted.

"God dammit!" Alabaster exclaimed, slamming his power fists together in frustration. "I've heard enough conjecture. I want all of you to walk down here and forfeit your weapons. Now." Dutch, Shipley, Agrippina, and Reece all looked to Rocky for direction. The mutant began to take his first step down the staircase when the slender ghoul beside him abruptly slipped passed him and down the steps.

"Now, now Alabaster. Let's not get swept up in the moment, yeah? You came here to ruin my day, not to end theirs early. Why don't you and I discuss this like the gentlemen we pretend to be, huh?" Montecrief reached the final step as he finished his proposition, landing him directly in front of the pack of wild hyenas and their vicious alpha.

"Discuss? Like gentlemen?" Alabaster asked with a sideways smile.

"That's right." Montecrief responded, pairing smiles with the raider leader, before turning his back to Alabaster on his way to the dining room. "Why don't we just sit -" Alabaster drew one power fist back and rammed it in between Montecrief's shoulder blades, incapacitating the lanky ghoul.

"You know what Montecrief? I've decided I don't much care for what you have to say anymore. Hell, I don't even care whether you did or didn't have something to do with all of this brahminshit. I'm beginning to think this whole day may have just been fate's way intervening in our affairs and giving me a chance to end our quarreling for good."

Montecrief writhed around on the floor, spitting up blood and clutching at his jacket. He tugged on his interior pockets until a tiny detonator spilled into his hand. Turning onto his back, he held the detonator to the ceiling as a threat to Alabaster.

The gathered raiders began laughing boisterously and slapping their knees, while pointing at the clearly bewildered ghoul.

"Y'know what's one of the most common misconceptions in the wastes? That all raiders are stupid. I suppose it's true for most small, loosely organized groups. But I've always taken pride in the intelligence of my boys and gals. How do you think we got the drop on you so easily? We found your secret getaway tunnel, leading to lake just outside the city. It lead us straight into your basement, where we found your assortment of explosives. That amount of bang would have surely ended all life for a good acre." Alabaster signaled for two of his men to grab the half-conscious ghoul, and lift him to his feet. "Up, up, up, come on now Monte. There we are." Alabaster swung a vicious right hand directly into Montecrief's ribcage, followed by a left directly to his stomach. "I'd allow you your final words, Montecrief, but I doubt they'd be intelligible after the shots you just took." The raiders laughed together, sadistically feeding on Montecrief's pain.

"Tisagonnurt…" Montecrief mumbled, interrupting the raiders laughs.

"Come again?" Alabaster leaned in close to Montecrief's mouth.

"Tis is gona, hrt…" Montecrief croaked. His typically faint greenish glow began to burn bright, emanating from every exposed part of his body. The air around him seemed to boil as his facial orifices were engulfed in shooting neon-green light. The two raiders who had been ordered to hold him retreated back to their ranks, cowering with the rest of the awe-struck pirates. The entire house started to vibrate then, its wooden support beams struggling to contain the amount of power being emitted from the glowing ghoul. A noise like a thousand passing cars flooded the ears of all present, prompting some to shield their ears, whilst leaving others too shocked to move. Rocky suddenly snapped out of the trance which had infected the whole room. In a single motion, he pulled Agrippina back into the office and behind cover while signaling for the trio of Knights to fall back as well. Meer moments after they took cover, Montecrief's visual ballad reached its violent crescendo, and the house imploded and crumbled from the sudden release of force. The group fell straight through the shattering floorboards and into the kitchen on the first floor. Rocky wrapped his arms around Agrippina tightly, protecting her from the fall, while the BOS Knights, encased in their power armor exoskeletons, thudded harmlessly against the floor. Rocky remained grounded momentarily, awaiting the possible arrival of an extra concussive blast.

"Greeny…you're laying…on me." Agrippina struggled.

"Oh, my fault. I was just-" Rocky stammered.

"If you wanted a hug all you had to do was ask, y'know?" Agrippina kidded, forcing Rocky to smile.

"Heads up." Dutch called. He was standing amongst the wreckage strewn about the foyer. Rocky helped Agrippina to her feet and the two met up with Knights Reece, Shipley, and Dutch, who were sorting through the mixture of rubble and human remains.

"I found him!" Dutch called. "He's under this beam!" The group huddled around the spot Dutch pointed out. Rocky grabbed the long support beam and lifted it above his waist, while Reece reached beneath the raised beam and pulled Montecrief's bare body from the debris.

"Monte! Speak Monte!" Agrippina pleaded.

"Jenny, I need you to administer a double dose of stimpacks." Dutch ordered.

"No. It won't work." Reece asserted.

"Maybe not, but I don't see another option." Shipley responded.

"No, what I mean is it won't work on him. He's a Ghoul. They require a high radiation level to survive. I think he completely depleted himself." Rocky carefully considered Reece's information, and the kneeling Knights stood up beside the withered ghoul's body. Rocky hastily pushed passed the two of them, grabbed Montecrief, and slung him over his shoulder. He sprinted outside towards the compound's only wooden gate, and hung Montecrief over the pool of glowing irradiated water.

He whispered. "I hope this works." And then he dropped Montecrief's unconscious body in. The trailing group arrived just in time to witness Montecrief sink to the bottom. They surrounded the pool with bated breath, scanning the water's surface for the slightest disturbance. Eventually they spotted one, in the form of a duo of bubbles bursting at the surface, followed by another duo, and then a trio. Before long, there were dozens of bubbles rising to the top of the water rapidly.

"Bubbles!" Agrippina gleefully squealed.

"Hyuh-huh!" Montecrief's raisin like head emerged from the pool, gasping for air. Agrippina applauded, the Knights all sighed, and Rocky fell to his knees in relief.

"Monte! You're not dead!" Agrippina pointed out.

"I…I guess not." The water treading ghoul glanced himself over. "None of you would happen to have a spare set of clothes on your person, would you?"

+117. According to the then most recent census mandated by Head Scribe Rourke, that's how many Brotherhood Knights were stationed at Fort Duke. That's 117 uniquely fitted sets of power armor, 117 different weapon preferences and modifications, and 117 winey babies who all wanted their diapers changed, and their power helmets repaired at the same time. Now if Fort Duke had say, 5 armorers, or 3 smithys, or even 2 professional tinkerers, then Dalton Heyward's job wouldn't have been so difficult. But, to the lonely metal workers annoyance, they had but one, and it was him. When the issue had been brought to the Elder's attention, Cyrus had permitted Dalton to choose one Scribe to shadow him and learn all that he could teach. He of course chose Ramsey Fink, a Squire in his twelfth year with a penchant for mechanical invention to be his assistant. Ramsey eagerly agreed, as Dalton had expected him to; Fink spent most of his free time in the Foundry anyway. For Dalton, the abhorrently large quantity of jobs wasn't so much the issue, as was the creativity-retardant quality of them. Luckily, as a Sergeant he outranked most of the Knights at the fort, and so for the jobs he didn't do himself or assign to Fink, he simply placed in the back of his never-gonna-finish-ever list, until finally the lower ranking Knights were forced to simply buy a new one from Quartermaster Garret. Every now and then, amongst all of the standard plasma rifle barrel fusions, and the jammed power fists, a high ranking individual would waltz into his metal lair and bring him something of extreme intrigue. This time, however, his intrigue for the job quickly converted to suspicion of its requestor. Not wanting to unknowingly become the feline in this tale of curiosity, Heyward cast all dangerous questions aside and completed the majority of his job. Before the final piece of metal was shaped however, he sent away for a list of materials that only his friend and close confidant Liona Daughtry could retrieve from her lab. The small hand on his pocket watch had made an entire revolution along its numbers before she arrived with her scribe in training, Shannon Price.

"Hey Dalton. We've got most of the things from your list. All except the flamer fuel though. My bet is Hummingsworth got to it again." Liona pointed to a rare yet apparently clean spot on Dalton's workbench and Shannon filled it with the box of requested materials.

"Thanks you guys. Thanks a lot. Hey umm…Shannon, right?"

"Yeah... That's me." Spoke the raven haired girl, in a tone somewhere between an inside voice and a whisper.

"Cool thanks Shannon. Did your granddaddy send you down here?" Shannon looked at Liona whose face mirrored her quizzical look.

"No Dalton, I asked her to come with me. You're being especially odd today." The two scribes giggled together.

"Sorry, I'm just being a little weird, I guess. Hey, so this is all I needed from you Shannon, you can leave now." Shannon once again looked to check with Liona. The Senior Scribe nodded at the Initiate.

"Its fine Shannon, obviously the Sergeant has something he wants to tell me in private. I'll meet you in the Infirmary in about a half an hour so we can go over those results with Head Scribe Rourke." Shannon was a nervous girl to say the least, whose usual posture was similar to that of a cowering turtle. The fifteen year-old scribe initiate held her head so low then that it began to look like she was attempting to perform a unique form of ventriloquism, designed to help avoid all visual exposure. She mumbled something along the lines of 'ok bye' and rushed out of the Forgery.

"Dalton you could have asked her more politely. Shannon is really…shy."

"I know, I'm sorry but just - Wait one sec…" Dalton crawled into the nook beneath his workstation and began gathering several metal somethings, then stood with his hands behind his back.

"Liona, I know you're pretty handy with a 10 millimeter. But trust me when I say, when you see what Dalton-Style Industries has in store for you next, you'll never shoot that old thing again. In fact, you won't have to shoot a gun ever again!" As usual, Dalton grew more and more excited by the anticipation he concocted, while Liona grew more and more exhausted.

"WhatnowDalton? Don't tell me you built me another electric glove thingy. That defective piece of junk never did anything but electrocute me when I used it."

"No, no, no, of course not another shock gauntlet. Although… No, never mind. It doesn't matter. What I have for you today L, is none other than the Puppeteer Sleeve!" Dalton revealed an odd glowing glove and handed it to Liona. She grabbed it and slowly slipped her right hand into its finger slots. As soon as her hand filled it, she could feel the sleeve shrink and conform to her arm until it fit skin tight.

"Dalton, what is this? It looks…like a…glove. How is this even considered a weapon?"

"No, no, see that's the point Liona! It doesn't shoot bullets or lasers or even plasma! This weapon, fires beams."

"Beams? Like… Beams of light?"

"Well, the beams are pretty bright, and they do have some color to 'em, but no. More like beams of…control. All of its commands are gesture based. Check it out. Say you wanted to grab that wrench over there. All you have to do is point your index finger at it. But make sure to think about grabbing it." Liona awkwardly and timidly pointed her finger at the wrench. In an instant, a dark blue beam glided across the air and made contact with the metal tool. Liona kept her index finger held out in front of her, and after realizing that she had closed them, she opened her eyes to find that the wrench was now suspended in the air above the counter where it once lay. She swayed her arm to the left, and the wrench and the beam that connected it to the Puppeteer sleeve swayed to the left as well. Smiling now, she began playing with the wrench, swinging it up into the air and releasing it at the peak of its momentum only to fire a new beam to catch it before it fell to the floor.

"You likey?" Dalton asked.

"Considering how it hasn't shocked me, burned me, or covered me in a slime of unknown origin yet, yeah I'd say I do." Liona giggled and dropped the wrench back where she found it.

"I knew you would! I've been working on that sleeve for a few years now in my spare time, just trying to get it right, y'know?"

"Why does it say 1-2-5 on the top of the glove? Are there other gestures?"

"The 1 is for one finger, that's what you just did. The 2 is for two fingers. If you form a gun shape with your fingers, y'know with your pointer and your middle one extended together, it will fire a blue blast stronger than any plasma or laser bolt. But you've gotta be careful, cuz it'll kill the battery quick." Liona aimed her finger at the same dummy that Rocky had destroyed the last time she had visited Dalton. "Don't worry, same as before, the sleeve will know when you want it to shoot." Liona took a moment to brace herself, since she was unsure of how loud it was going to be, and fired. A star-bright blue ball of energy zipped from the ends of her fingers and immediately made contact with the dummy, which was disintegrated with just as much immediacy.

"Woah! Dalton this is crazy! What do five fingers do?" Liona asked excitedly.

"Like I said I've been working on this for a while now, and I knew it had the capability to do more than just help geezers and sluggards grab inanimate objects that lay just beyond reach. I wanted to make it so the wielder of the Puppeteer sleeve could assume control over a living, breathing, pissing human being! Or anything with a brain, really. When you extend all 5 fingers, the sleeve will create a sort of neural link between the user's brain and the sleeve itself which will then fire a large beam. Now, if what you hit with the beam also has a brain, this doohickey'll be able to play them like a puppet, by overriding their central nervous system and whatnot. Hence the exceedingly clever moniker: The Puppeteer Sleeve."

"Yes. 'Puppeteer'. I think get it now." Liona admitted. "Can I try it out?"

"No way L. In fact, you shouldn't ever have to use it. It's extremely dangerous man. I'm talkin' like dangling a Salisbury steak in front of a Yao Guai cave type of dangerous. If the person you fire the beam at dies, then the neural connection will be severed, leaving your consciousness stranded, and you'll be coma-toast."

"You mean comatose." Liona corrected.

"Yeah huh, sure. That's what I said. Coma-toast."

Liona momentarily prepared a verbal volley, only to resign herself to momentary silence. "Dalton, how does any of this work? How did you even know how to create something like this? This is a bit more advanced than your average rifle repair job."

"Well I am not able to say exactly how Dalton Style Industries was able to come across certain schematics…"

"Shut up Dalton! You have to tell me. This is incredibly useful and advanced technology. We need to report this to Head Scribe Rourke!" Liona decided.

"Slow down L. I'll tell you, but you're not gonna believe me. You remember that day I told you my mama was with the Outcasts, back when Elder Lyons was around? Well she believed, just like all of them Outcasts did, that technology was to be the Brotherhoods main focus, even before or at the cost of, human lives. She led a team of soldiers called Inquisitors who were commonly sent out to investigate strange happenings near the Capital Wasteland. On one of these missions, they were sent to investigate the legitimacy of several reports, where wasters in this farm town north of Old Olney, were saying that during certain hours of the night, a giant, bright beam of light could be seen shooting down near their brahmin fields. They would wake up and run to the spot where they saw the light, only to find that everything in the fields looked as normal as it did any other night, so off they went back to their beds. The only problem was, the following day when they counted their Brahmin, they were short by a few. So my mama and her group of Outcast Brothers made camp for a few nights up there. They couldn't find any sign of the light for a half a week. Not until the fourth night, when my mama was walking the perimeter of the farm. All of a sudden she not only saw the beam of light, but was completely engulfed by it! Next thing she knew she was waking up in a bright metal room, full of Brahmin! She spent the first few hours just trying to figure out where she was, and what had happened to her, when finally she heard voices speaking in strange tongues. Eventually the voices, which seemed to be arguing, made their way down to the room full of Brahmin. She braced herself for a fight, but before they opened the door she heard a bunch of shots being fired from what sounded like a laser weapon. The door opened and she met Tai'ekr, a little green alien and her eventual savior. Tai had been studying us humans for a millennia, and had seen our journey from the cave men all the way to the days of waste, and in doing so had somehow grown to love humanity. To make a long story shorter, Tai and my mama became good friends and he was able to help her escape, but not before teaching her about some particularly nifty alien technology. The schematic that would eventually become the Puppeteer, was one of 'em."

"Wow… If any of that were true then I'd be really freaked out right now." Liona said.

"It is true! See I knew you wouldn't believe me!" Liona threw her head back and cackled loudly. "Whatever. Take these." Dalton pulled a clutched fist from his apron pocket and opened it over the table.

"What are these?" Liona picked one of the little blue glowing capsules up.

"Those are alien power cells. But since you won't believe that, just think of them as really frickin strong batteries."

"Well I don't know if they're from outer space, but I've never seen anything like them before. Thanks Dalton."

"Yeah, yeah. Don't mention it dude."

"I've got to ask though, why give this to me? This technology could get you an immediate promotion." Dalton walked past Liona to the entrance of his Smithery. He glanced passed each shoulder, then promptly shut the door and locked it.

"What are you doing?" Asked Liona.

"There's too many people around here. I can't have the wrong person hearing what I'm gonna tell you. They'd think I'm a traitor or something."

"What do you mean? Dalton what's going on?"

"That's what I've been wondering too. Liona, somethings not right. Earlier on this week, I got an order from the Elder to make him a new set of power armor."

"So what? You make armor for everyone here, why would the Elder be any different?"

"It's not that the requestor was odd, but the request itself. I looked over the order and the fit specifications, and well… just look for yourself." The diminutive smith walked over to the farthest side of the workshop and pressed a code into his giant safe's door. With a sharp tug he managed to pull it open, allowing Liona to see inside. She walked inside the safe room, barely paying any mind to all of the weapons and technologies spread throughout its dark interior as she stepped over them. All of her attention was focused solely on the massive power armor frame in the center of the room. She touched its thick metal carapace as if had she not, she wouldn't have believed what her eyes were seeing.

"It's for a super mutant - for Rocky!" She turned to Dalton who was leaning against the safe door.

"That's what I thought too, at first." His voice echoed into the safe room. "Until Cyrus came by the shop today, and requested several more of those suckers. Now I'm not a detective or nothing. But that sure sounds like he's expecting to arm more mutants with these things."

"What mutants?"

"I was hoping you could tell me."

"The LEO program? No. We haven't had any new subjects since Rocky. This doesn't make any sense. There are no other mutants."

"Liona, that's not the only thing…"

"What do you mean? What else? Dalton, tell me."

"It's just that… Fink never came in today."

"Ramsey? Is he with his mother?"

"No, no one's seen him since last night. Normally I'd just assume that he was out building something inadvisable with Edgar, but before he went home yesterday he told me something that he made me promise not to tell anyone." Dalton hesitated to continue. "He, he told me that he had been snooping around personal terminals again. The Elders terminal to be exact."

"That little…" Liona fumed.

"It's my own damn fault, L! I shouldn't have been talking to him about that job from Cyrus. He was just curious, and heck so was I. Not to mention I needed his help constructing the damn thing. He told me that he saw messages on the Elders terminal, being sent to and being received from an anonymous user. They were talking about the LEO program, and discussing plans for opening some vault numbered 52 that's supposed to hold a shit load of FEV. L, they were talking about creating more mutants."

"No. I mean, Cyrus couldn't… He wouldn't… Who was he talking to? Who would want more mutants?" Liona sat down at a stool near Dalton's workbench, and dragged her fingers through her messy red curls.

"Fink did what he does best, he hacked, and he hacked a little bit deeper, until he found a location. The unknown user was from Warrenton."

"That's where Rocky came from, before…before we found him. There's a mutant camp there." Liona remembered.

"Yeah, but how did you find Rocky, L? I mean…how did you know where he was going to be when you found him?" Dalton pressed.

"We were told that there were a couple of mutants roaming the roads to the north."

"Told by who, Liona?" Dalton's eyes were intense, more so than Liona had ever taken note of before.

"Cyrus." Liona was shocked by her own conclusion. "We had been working with Cyrus and the Knight Reconnaissance team for weeks. We were looking for a couple of secluded mutants for the first LEO procedures. One night I was finishing some last-minute work in my lab when the Elder came in. He told me that the team had found what we were looking for, and next thing I know I'm sedating a super mutant... Rocky."

"Oh shit. Oh shit this is bad, huh L? I knew something was up when Cyrus gave me those damn schematics! I knew it man!" The smith removed his bandana and dried his sweaty, balding scalp with it.

"We need to find-" Liona stopped midsentence. Dalton noticed Liona's eyes shift focus to something behind him. Looking over his right shoulder Dalton spotted Edgar, Ramsey's personal scrap-bot companion, hovering in his doorway.

"Edgar?" Spoke Dalton.

"Sorry lad, but we've no time for formalities. Mr. Heyward. Ms. Liona. I came here to request your aid, on behalf of my little friend and esteemed creator, Ramsey Fink."

"Where is he? What did he do, Edgar? Is he okay?" Liona asked frantically.

"The boy's fine, for the moment. Although, he was complaining about a slight tummy ache earlier. I'll let him know you asked about him, I'm sure he would appreciate - Ah! Damn these verbose verbal emitters! Must you always carry on tangentially, Edgar?" The bot chastised himself, while flailing its drooping arms around aimlessly.

"Edgar, focus buddy. What happened?" Dalton pressed.

"Ramsey and I went to visit a certain prisoner this morning. He wanted to take the prisoner's Pip-Boy as far away from here as possible so that the Elder couldn't find it. We didn't get very far… The Elder caught Ramsey, but I managed to escape. Ramsey told me to come to you, Sgt. Dalton. He said you knew everything." Edgar remembered.

"I'm starting to feel like I don't know anything at all. Why would Fink bother taking a Pip-Boy from some random waster? What does that have to do with the Elder?" Dalton inquired.

"Because he knows why the Elder needs the Pip-Boy. He knows it's the only way to unlock the vault." Liona stated blankly, rummaging through old thoughts.

"That vault 52 Fink was talking about? Does anyone even know where it is?" Heyward asked the room.

"No. Only the Elder and a few high ranking individuals know that." Liona admitted.

"As do I. Courtesy of Mr. Fink of course. I am rather surprised that I, Edgar the sundry scrap bot, was able to learn of such delicate information before the likes of you two, a Senior Scribe and a Knight Sergeant. Forgive me my ego, but-"

"You're being verbose again, Edgar." Liona reminded the bot. "And a little arrogant as well."

"Seriously dude, remind Ramsey to check those emitters when all of this is done." Dalton advised.

"My apologies. The vault is beneath your feet, - underground that is - below the Steel Chapel. Has been ever since it was known as the Duke Chapel. Did you know this was a university back before those confounded, atomic life-enders made their catastrophic arrival? Duke University was once a marvelous…-"

Ignoring the bot as best she could, Liona spoke to Dalton. "It was under the Steel Chapel all of this time…Edgar." Liona interrupted the robot's tangent.

"Err…Yes, madam?"

"Ramsey: Where did they take him?" Liona asked, refocusing the robot.

"Upon realizing that we would never make it out of Brotherhood controlled land without getting caught, Mr. Fink ordered me to come here and get help. Besides him being captured, I know of little else. Although, peculiarly enough…" The robot trailed off.

"What else, Edgar? And no more tangents!" Dalton ordered.

"No, no, of course not. It's just that it was very suspicious is all. The search party that found us, they were being led by -" The Robot paused. "Someone's coming. I need to hide."

"Wait! Led by who?" Liona begged, but the robot had already administered his stealth field, and vanished. Seconds later three power armored Knights came stomping through the Forgery's door, armed with laser rifles.

"Sergeant Heyward. We are here as ordered by the Elder to retrieve a custom suit of Power Armor: The T-88 Colossus." The soldier presented to Dalton a requisition form in one hand, and payment for the job contained in a sack in the other hand. Dalton retrieved the sack first, like any good smith would, while Liona snatched the order form from the soldier. "Excuse me Ms. Daughtry, but that's supposed to be for his eyes only." Liona continued reading the form until she was satisfied, then handed it to Dalton who pocketed it.

"Alright boys, right this way." The smith guided.

"Dalton!" Liona reminded forcefully. The smith never looked back at Liona as he walked toward the giant vault door. He entered the vault's code making sure to obscure the number pad from the prying eyes of the soldiers, then he pulled the door open revealing to them the T-88 Colossus armor.

"Ho-ly, shit." Remarked the first soldier to see it. The other two soldiers, after hearing the first ones reaction, hurried to get a look at the armor as well.

"Goddamn… All that for one man?" Asked a second Knight.

"No way it's just for one man. Maybe two." Stated the third Knight.

"Two? What would be the purpose of having two people inside of the same suit of armor?"

"Well I don't know. Maybe…oh! Like in that one issue of Astoundingly Awesome! Yeah, like the one where the two evil scientists built that two headed mech so they could defeat the aliens. You remember, right Josh?"

"First of all, they weren't evil, they were just two genius engineers trying to save the world from an extraterrestrial attack. And second of all, this suit only has one head compartment. So how are two people going to fit in it? And don't say on each other's shoulders. If you say on each other's shoulders I am going to smack you, Joey. I don't even care that we share the same mother."

"Would you two shut the fuck up already? Who cares why it's so big. Jesus, fuck. I knew I should have applied for a new assignment rather than work with you two numbskulls. What I'm trying to figure out is how we're going to pick the damn thing up and carry it out of here." The three soldiers huddled around the armor inside of the vault, and began gripping it from several angles.

"Do we have to take it all the way to the catacombs? I hate going down there. Too many ghosts, y'know?" Joey worried.

"Ghosts? That's it. Come here. I'm smacking you." Josh decided. During their squabbling, Dalton saw an opportunity present itself. He slammed the vault door shut with all of his might and spun the handle until he was confident it was locked completely. Immediately the trapped Knights could be heard shouting incoherently at the door while striking it forcefully.

"Well, that should buy us some time." Dalton sighed in relief and Liona smiled.

"Alright, come on. I'm not sure how long that door will hold with three angry men in power armor slamming into it. It won't be long before they break it down." Liona speculated. "Edgar. Are you still here?" The floating robot disabled his stealth field, appearing directly behind the senior scribe.

"Of course, milady." He spooked the young scribe, causing her to yelp.

"Don't just appear behind someone like that Edgar! You're likely to give them a heart attack."

"I apologize Ms. Liona." The banging from the trapped Knights continued in the background as they spoke.

"Forget about that for now, Edgar. Dalton, did you hear where they said they were going to take it?"

"The catacombs? I've never been there. Have you?"

"Yes. Once, when my mother passed. I know the way but I won't know how to get to the vault from there. That's why we need Edgar. Ramsey being as clever as he is, I'd bet he stores all of his recovered hacking data on him." Liona pointed to the bot's glass encased brain, which had been a unique addition to the Eyebot, taken from the remains of a decommissioned Robo-Brain.

"As per usual, you are correct Ms. Liona. I have the complete underground layout of the catacombs which Mr. Fink acquired from the Elder's terminal."

"Perfect." The smashing from the vault grew louder. "Let's go."