Sam shuffled nervously, trying to get rid of an itch he couldn't scratch. He had always hated wearing power armour. The bulky full suit of armour may have provided extra protection, and the joint servos may have boosted his strength, but he had never quite gotten comfortable wearing it. It always made him feel oversized, too big for his skin, and all that extra strength and protection had never been able to make up for the reduction in mobility, at least in his mind. Taking bullets, no matter how well armoured you were, had never seemed like a good idea to him.
Of course, his feelings weren't helped by the fact he was in stolen power armour, strolling through an Enclave base like he belonged there. Charity was walking slightly in front of him, seemingly unconcerned by her situation, especially the pistol he had stuck in her back.
She was in stolen armour as well, stripped down just like when they had found her, missing her helmet and the sections that covered her arms, blonde fringe draped casually over one side of her face. He, on the other hand, was completely suited, afraid to show his face in what he figured would be a hostile place. He kept waiting for a shout or an alarm or even a bullet to signal that they had been found out, but it never came.
The vertibird ride had been short, the time spent mostly on putting on their suits of armour. The pilot, Eagle, had done his part without complaint, although Sam caught him throwing Charity dirty looks whenever she couldn't wasn't looking. Isaac and Original had stayed with the vehicle; partly to watch it, partly to keep their unpredictable behaviour somewhere they couldn't do much damage. Sam didn't want to take any more chances than he had to.
They were in a large room, huge in fact. Vertibirds were scattered around, tubes being fed into them, men in overalls scurrying over them, chatting about this or that, tossing tools to each other. Behind it all stood the entrance, an enormous space in the side of the mountain that let the vertibirds come and go as they pleased.
The pair made their way across the hangar, towards the back, where double doors led deeper into the mountain complex. There were several guards around the doors, all dressed in the black power armour as well, but none of them so much as looked at them as they strode into the complex. Sam let himself hope, just for a moment, that everything might go to plan.
The doors led to a corridor, metal walls reflecting the light from the panels that lined the middle of the ceiling. Every corridor seemed to be identical as they passed them, with doors occasionally cut into the walls leading to rooms.
He hadn't realised it at first but now, as they took a right for the second time, he saw that he was following Charity. He grabbed her arm and pulled her to the side.
"Where are we going?" he hissed quietly. She glared at him and opened her mouth to speak.
"Can I help you?" someone asked.
Sam whirred around, jumping at the sound of the voice. Just down the corridor stood a slight man, covered with simple green fatigues and with a clipboard tucked neatly under one arm. He walked over to them as Sam let go of Charity, straightened up and did his best to hide his pistol behind his back. Sam opened his mouth to speak but, with horror, realised he had no idea what to say.
"Charity Innes, 2nd Irregulars," came Charity's voice, "We're here to see the General,"
"Ah, of course...one of Captain Abercrombie's men?" the man asked, flinching slightly as he said the word 'man'. Charity gave him her usual scowl but still nodded. He looked the corridors up and down, then turned back to her with a slightly quizzical look. "Do you realise you're going the wrong direction?"
She frowned, leaned out to sweep the corridors herself. "Its...been awhile," she managed to say, her eyes still searching the corridors. Sam didn't know why she was bothering. They all looked the same to him.
The man sighed, lifted his wrist to check his watch. "Alright, I've got some time, follow me," he said. Then he turned and swiftly marched down one of the corridors, back the way they had come. Charity fell in behind him, Sam joining her a moment later.
"What's happening?" he whispered, careful not to let the man hear. She glanced at him but didn't say anything. He ground his teeth in frustration, knowing there wasn't much he could do. Savagely beating the information out of her might draw attention to himself, after all.
They continued walking for a while, twisting and turning through the various corridors until Sam swore they had passed the same spot 3 times. He had no idea how someone could know their way around this place without a map stuck to their forehead. Maybe that's what's on the guy's clipboard, he thought?
They were striding down another identical corridor when Charity suddenly ducked into a side room. Sam stopped, eyes flicking between the dark room she had entered and the man they had been following, still striding ahead. After a few steps the man must have noticed they weren't following anymore as he turned, a questioning look on his face.
"What are you doing...where's your friend?" he asked. Sam didn't know what to say so he just pointed into the room. The man rolled his eyes and moved over to the door.
"I don't have time for thi-" he started before Charity's fist cut him off, a straight left that took him right in the nose, snapping his head back. He took a few stumbling steps back, dropping his clipboard, and fell right into Sam, who pushed him back on an instinct, right back into Charity.
She dragged him into the room and Sam joined her, swiftly checking the corridor to make sure nobody had seen them and being sure to pick up the clipboard as he went past. He gave it a quick glance; to his surprise it wasn't a map but some kind of list. Judging from the items, food and the like, it was a supply list.
He jerked at the sound of a sharp crack and looked over, seeing Charity tossing the man's limp body to the ground. He wasn't moving.
"What are you doing?" he hissed, tossing the clipboard to the floor angrily and taking his helmet off.
She ignored him and strode over to a computer screen sitting on one of the walls. Sam hadn't given the room much attention when they first entered, having been concerned with other things, but he saw now it looked like a security station of some kind. One wall had a large computer system on it, several monitors, keyboards and chairs in front of it. There was a metal desk that dominated the middle of the room and a pair of filing cabinets in an opposite corner. And, of course, there was the dead body lying between them.
She was typing furiously, words appearing and disappearing on her monitor quicker than Sam could read them.
"Give me your wrist device" she ordered, holding her hand out.
"My what?"
She pointed at his wrist, the one with the Pip-Boy strapped to it. The small device had proven useful ever since he'd gotten it from the doctor in Goodsprings; it had a map in it that updated in real-time, a database that collected any information he seemed to come in contact with and, most importantly, it was connected to his blood stream to provide up to date medical information as well as having a port to stick all manner of chemicals and medicines directly into his body.
It wasn't much to look at either, nothing more than a tube of bronze that covered his forearm, a glowing green screen on the top and a few buttons on the side. It had saved his life a few times already though, and he was loath to give it up.
He narrowed his eyes. "What for?" he asked.
"Just give it!" she snapped, waving her open hand at him again.
He sighed, loudly, making sure she heard the frustration in it. If she did, she didn't show it, so he removed the glove from his power armour, then his forearm piece before detaching the Pip-Boy and handing it to her reluctantly, having to step over the body in the process.
She snatched it and turned back to the computer. Pressing a key on the keyboard, a small compartment opened to the left of the screen. She reached inside, producing a long cable that she plugged into the Pip-Boy, then pushed a separate key. A bar appeared on the computer screen as Sam put the rest of his armour back on. It slowly started filling up with small blocks. When it was filled the computer gave a low whistle which the Pip-Boy seemed to answer with its own. Unhooking the cable, she spun and pushed it forcefully into Sam's chest before turning back to the computer.
"What did you do to it?" he asked, moving it around in his hands so he could look it over. He felt foolish when he realised he wouldn't be able to see anything by looking at the outside of it.
"It's been uploaded with the base schematics," she explained in her usual steely voice, not taking her eyes off the computer screen, "we're going to have to split up."
"We're going to have to what?"
She sighed explosively, smacked a key angrily and a few of the other monitors lit up, showing video feeds into several different rooms. Sam took them in one by one.
The first was an empty prison cell, light flowing in from outside and leaving bar shaped shadows across the floor. The second was a laboratory of some kind, with a few people in white lab coats in an animated discussion, huddled around a computer. The third was a medical room. It had a slab of a table that dominated the middle of the room, several small trays located around it holding various surgical tools. People, this time in green coats, were busy crowding over the table, passing equipment around to each other, talking excitedly. He couldn't see what was on the table though...
Suddenly one of the men dropped a large, saw-like instrument. As he bent down to reach it, Sam finally caught a glimpse of what they were working on.
It was Oz.
His body was cut open in several areas, healing rapidly around the wounds and obviously forcing these 'doctors' to continually re-open them. His face was a mask of pain, his eyes squeezed tight, his jaw clenched so tight it looked like it might explode. His hands were shackled and, while Sam couldn't see them, he guessed his feet would be as well.
"My god..." he whispered.
She pointed to the third monitor. "The first man is there, undergoing experiments. The second man..." she trailed off, frowning at the other two monitors, "I haven't found your other man" she finished.
He opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off as a loud alarm came on. Charity froze, acting like moving might make things worse. Sam didn't want to take the chance, so he didn't move either.
"Is it us?" he finally asked, not meaning to whisper as softly as he did.
Charity shook her head. "Something worse," she muttered, "I know where your second man is..."
Patrick gritted his teeth at the pain, though it did nothing to dull it. He kept trying to move his arm, forgetting that it was missing. Each time he would look down, almost curiously, only to have his heart skip a beat as he realised his arm was gone. He would look away, focus on his ragged breathing. His head was swimming, from adrenaline, shock or worse he didn't know, but eventually he would forget and go through the process again.
Look down, no arm, heart stops. Over and over he did it, like he couldn't do anything else.
No he thought savagely.
He needed to focus, focus on anything but his damn arm. He looked around, watching the arcs of electricity still jumping from construct to construct, but they were too fast and too numerous for him to watch without feeling even worse. So he focused on the only other thing in the room; the big bald man with the sword.
The other man, in the leather coat, had called him Barger. A towering mass of muscle, almost a head taller than Patrick, he cut an imposing figure. Arcs of light continued to dance around him, covering him in shadow randomly, making him look like supernatural, almost, like a god from some ancient legend. His sword was still above his head, ready for the killing stroke.
No, Patrick thought savagely.
His left hand crept down his leg, fumbling for his boot. He didn't take his eyes off the man in front of him, not wanting him to see he was doing anything. He felt around, looking for it...there. A button, about half-way up his boot. He pressed it in, gripped the small handle that popped out and roared to his feet.
He moved fast, faster than he would have thought he could of. By the look on Barger's face, faster than he expected too. The knife in his hand wasn't big, it had to be small to fit in that compartment, but Patrick knew it would do the job.
He came up too hard, however, and crashed into Barger, knocking the now-tangled pair back a few steps. Patrick was hissing, snarling, Barger growling, the pair sounding like a snake fighting a bear. But the snake only has to bite once to win...
Patrick pushed out with his good hand, knife cutting shallowly into Barger's chest. The bigger man swept his arm down, grabbing Patrick's back and forcing him in closer again. Patrick swung his right arm, forgetting that it was nothing but a stump now, and the charred flesh slapped Barger across the face, leaving a smear of charcoal across one cheek. It knocked him off balance, just a little, but more than enough for Patrick.
His left arm went back, swept up in a murderous arc. The knife thudded into Barger's neck, going up to the hilt and then some, so far that Patrick almost lost his grip on it. Hot blood poured out around it, covered Patrick's hand and began dripping down his arm armoured arm.
Barger's eyes went wide with shock, his mouth opening to give a surprised gurgle. The electrified sword dropped from his hands, hitting the floor with a loud clang, and the giant joined it with an even louder thud. His hands moved shakily to his throat, pointlessly trying to stop the blood flowing from the gaping wound.
Patrick stood, hunched over, left hand on his knee. His breathing was ragged, his stump of a right arm hurting worse than ever, something wet seeping from it and dripping to the floor with a steady rhythm. But he was still alive.
He looked around and spotted a computer terminal beside an open elevator, what Barger must have used to beat Garrett down here. He stumbled over it to, mashed the buttons on the keyboard until the monitor came to life. Computer code scrawled across it, none of it he could understand.
What is it, he asked Mo? There was no answer. Maurice!
Uh...what? Came his counterpart's voice, echoing through his skull. He sounded euphoric, like he was just woken from a pleasant dream. Or snapped out of a drug state. Patrick knew what that man preferred to do when he was locked away.
This, what is it, Patrick asked again, nodding at the terminal.
...a computer? Mo answered hesitantly.
I know that! Patrick snarled, what's it do?
A deep breath, then a sigh. Looks...looks like it controls power flow to the base...wait, base? Where the hell are we?
Can we hurt them with it? Patrick asked, not bothering to hide the hope in his voice.
Who the hell is 'them'?
Could we? Patrick persisted.
Yeah...I mean, I guess, Mo answered, what's happening?
Vengeance, Patrick growled.
Mo knew the sensation, the feeling of falling forward with no way to stop yourself. He gasped, as he always did, when it finally stopped. He was back in control of the body.
He howled as a sudden wave of pain shook his body. He looked around wildly, eventually spotting his right arm was missing.
"What the fu-"
We don't have time, came Patrick's voice, echoing through his skull as it always did when they talked like this.
Uh... Mo grunted through the pain, time for what?
Vengeance, Patrick repeated, overload their power generators. Wipe them out.
Wipe who out?
A deep breath, then a sigh. The people, here, did this to us. Vengeance...it's time for vengeance.
Did...this? Mo asked, confused. I thought it was slavers? The Legion?
No, it wasn't. I remember it all now. Just...can you do it? Patrick asked.
Mo sighed, gritted his teeth at the pain and focused on the computer screen. Or, tried to focus. The pain was all-consuming, running up from his stump and spreading throughout his body until it was all he could feel, all he could think about. It filled his mind until it felt heavy, slow.
I can't...focus, he grunted eventually.
Hold on... came Patrick's voice. A moment later the pain lessened, still there, but enough was gone to work. Can you do it...now? Patrick asked, his voice laboured.
You...took my pain? Mo asked, surprised.
Can you? Patrick asked, annoyed.
Yeah...yeah, I can, Mo answered.
He turned his attention back to the screen, lifted his right arm up to type, remembered he had no right arm and so lifted up his left instead. It was awkward typing with his off-hand, but he managed to do it, albeit slower than usual.
He passed through menus, examining sections of code when he needed to, eventually coming to a core directory. Finding the safety protocols, he overrode them with a chunk of his own code that he quickly typed in, then found the generator controls and set them for 150% output. A warning siren started, lights flicked off above him as a solitary red, spinning one was all that was left, squatting just above the elevator doors. A radio terminal next to the computer began blaring, panicked voices all asking the same questions at once.
It's done, he told Patrick, now what?
Now...it ends.
Mo knew the sensation, the feeling of falling backwards with no way to stop yourself. His eyes closed, he gasped...and Patrick re-opened his eyes.
Charity was still typing furiously on the keyboard as Sam had his head stuck in the crack in the door, watching the corridor. Shortly after the alarm had started he had seen people streaming this way or that, seemingly random and obviously panicked. But none of them moved towards their room.
"So where is he?" Sam asked.
"Reactor room," she answered, not taking her eyes from the computer.
Sam clicked on his Pip-Boy, scrolled across to the maps and found the reactor room...at the bottom of the base.
"Wait...how are we supposed to get to the bottom without getting noticed?"
"We don't. You will take the elevator at the end of the hall," she answered.
"And where the hell are you going?"
"To get the other one," she growled, finally finishing what she was typing and rounding on him. She pushed her way past him to the man she had killed earlier, rolled him over and knelt down to pick up his weapon, a glowing plasma pistol.
"Whoa, who said anything about you having a weapon?" Sam asked, hand resting gently on the hilt of his own pistol.
She got up and walked over to him until she was right in his face, until she was so close he could smell her. His heart skipped a beat as he took a deep breath of her, almost forgetting everything else. She cocked her head sideways a little, her eyes looking over his entire face, curiously studying it.
"You know this needs to happen," she whispered, almost seductively, the usual steel in her voice replaced by an uncharacteristic softness. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to think of something to say. He couldn't focus with her so close and, he realised, closing his eyes didn't help much.
He eased them open to find she was gone, door wide open. With a curse he followed her out, shoving his helmet back on angrily. Angry at her, angry at himself, angry at everything.
Everything was chaos outside. Red lights were flickering, people were pushing each other to get nowhere, screaming and shouting without actually using words. Someone was pushed into him, a scrawny man in normal looking clothes. Sam grabbed him by the collar angrily, hurled him one handed back into the crowd, bowling a few of them over and creating enough of a gap for Sam to force himself through.
He stood as tall as he could, looking for Charity, but in this chaos it was pointless. She was well and truly gone. So, he guessed, they were following her plan, which meant going after Patrick. He checked his Pip-Boy for the elevator she mentioned, then began pushing his way towards it.
The crowd felt like a surging tide and, even with his power armour-improved strength, he was struggling to push through the mass. All of the bumps, pushes and hits he was trying to ignore were getting more and more annoying with each one which, combined with his already angry mood, made him even worse.
Clenching one gloved fist he swung an arcing right hook, clubbing down two men and a woman. He stared down at her with a frown. Hitting women wasn't honourable, he knew that, knew he knew right and wrong.
He swung again, this time with his left, and hit another woman in the face with a sickening crunch. She went down and disappeared amongst the crowd. It was beginning to work as people moved around the lethal onslaught, giving him enough room to move. It wasn't honourable, he knew, but, as he clenched his right fist again, he knew it had to be done. He could debate the ethics of it when he got out.
If he got out, he reminded himself.
Farilla looked across at her husband, unsure how to react to his frantic packing. Their room, so decadent and filled with trinkets from both the wastes and Pre-War, was now a complete mess. Clothes were tossed randomly across the floor, some of her favourite ones among them, and Augustus, the General, was going through the draws like a madman, tossing the ones he liked into a large leather bag and just tossing the rest.
She wasn't sure how long it had been since she'd felt like this; her heart pounding, her mouth dry...fear. As one of the elite class in a technologically advanced people, there wasn't a whole lot to be afraid of.
"What's happening?" she asked hesitantly.
He rounded on her, his hair a mess, his face scrunched up. It softened a little as he saw her blanche. "I'll explain everything once we're out of here, dear," he said, doing his best to be soothing and failing, "but now...could you just help me pack?"
She nodded dumbly and moved over to one of her favourite dresses, lying crumpled on the floor.
"Not that one," he roared, making her jump. It was his that voice softened this time. "Only what we need, dear, only what we need"
She nodded dumbly again.
The gunshot made her jump and, for a split second, she thought it might have been her that got shot. She whirled around, fully expecting to see blood beginning to seep out of her dress and feel a gaping hole where her liver should be. Instead she found herself staring into the dead eyes of her husband, slumped over the suitcase he had been packing with a bullet-sized hole in his forehead.
She was horrified, feeling her heart leap into her throat and her stomach collapsing as small as it could. She wanted to stop looking but his eyes, his tongue, lolling to one side, kept her eyes locked on him.
It was the voice that snapped her out of it.
"Farilla, we have to go," it insisted. She turned towards it, standing in the doorway. It had a mop for hair, a baby face, a soldier's uniform on. It was Steven.
"S-Steven," she stammered, "what..." she trailed off, her eyes floating back down to the General's body, a still widening pool of blood forming underneath it.
She felt something grab her arm, roughly, then her world began to move. Outside of the decadent chaos, away from her dead husband. Into red corridors filled with shouting people, pushing and shoving, screaming and shouting, another kind of chaos, one she didn't understand any better.
"Don't worry," she heard him say over the noise, "I'll explain everything once we're out of here..."
Dear, she thought, finishing the sentence in her mind.
Patrick shuddered as the pain swept over him, the ache from his stump that spread up and around until it seemed to fill every part of his body. The pain he had helped alleviate for Mo, returned twice as bad. Still, he knew there was work to be done so he gritted his teeth and got to it.
He strode over to Barger's corpse, stepping over the man, his hands still clutched around his neck in a death grip, trying to stop blood that had already flown into a pool around his neck.
Patrick found his small knife, picked it up and strode over to the elevator. He pushed the button to open the door, waited till it clicked all the way open, then jammed his knife into the small gap under the door, using the small piece of a metal as a stopper. He stood back, waited for the doors to automatically try to shut. They did and, to his satisfaction, they barely moved, programmed not to close with something in the way.
With that taken care of he went back to Barger and picked up the larger man's sword. He strode over to the door to the staircase, closed it and stuck the sword between the handle and a piece of metal that was jutting from the frame. It was clearly designed to be used in this way, likely as a last resort if the base was ever overrun so that someone could lock themselves down here and blow the base. Just like Patrick was doing now.
So...what now, asked Mo?
Patrick leaned against the wall next to the door, let himself slide down until his ass hit the metal floor and sighed. Now...we die, he answered simply.
WHAT? Mo screeched, angrily, panicked. Patrick felt him pulling, tugging, trying to regain control of the body. But, like he had done with Garrett, Patrick squashed it, threw Mo in a mental cage he could never escape from. Could do nothing but scream, like Garrett had been doing for years, screams that echoed in Patrick's mind constantly, filled his dreams and created his waking nightmares.
Just like with Garrett, Patrick knew what he was doing wasn't right. But when something needs to be done you do it and worry about everything else after, if there's time.
Except there wouldn't be any time, not for Patrick or Mo or Garrett or the several other personalities that had been created by random events and swiftly destroyed by Patrick over the years. Better to never exist than live this way, he had always reasoned. Just like he was now. Too bad that Mo had emerged before him or he wouldn't have had to suffer either.
After a while he began to drift off, his eyelids growing heavier. From tiredness or blood loss he didn't know, nor did he care. It didn't matter much at this point.
"Patrick?" a voice came through, over the radio beside the computer, seemingly louder than the others. A familiar voice, but this time a welcome voice.
With a groan Patrick got to his feet, made his way over to the device mounted on the wall.
"Sam?" he asked.
"It's me."
"Where are you?" Patrick asked, "How did you even get here?"
"I'm in a computer room...or something," Sam answered, his voice crackling slightly with static, "their system is so easy to hack into...Patrick, I can see you through the cameras, I'm...I can see your arm" he finished lamely.
"Yeah" was all Patrick said. What else was there to say to that?
"I tried to reach you but the damn elevators are out..."
"I know, I did it"
"You did? Great. Then you can fix it and I'll come get you..."
"No," Patrick said sternly.
"What?"
"No," he repeated, sterner.
"What do you mean no?"
"I mean...this has been coming for a long time. Ever since Tonopah, even before that...I'm ready for it" he said. He found his voice choking with unfamiliar emotion, his eyes welling up. "Get out, while you can..."
There was a pause. "I'm not leaving you behind," Sam said. Patrick was surprised by the determination he heard in the man's voice.
"At least you won't have to pay me," he said jokingly, forcing out a laugh that sounded as fake as it was.
"Patrick..." Sam said softly, surprising Patrick again with the emotion he heard in the voice, "What about Mo?"
Patrick stopped and listened, heard Mo's screaming alongside Garrett's. Screaming for freedom, for life.
"Mo is ready too" he lied, smoother than he thought he could.
"I...I can't just leave you behind, to die alone" Sam said, exasperated, but Patrick could hear the resignation in his voice.
"Yes you can. Go, find the Vault, finish what we started..." Patrick started, then he sighed deeply. "And Sam?"
"...yeah?"
"Get out...get out of this life, while you can. Don't die like me..."
Patrick leant back, smashed the small radio with his good hand, metal, plastic and wiring scattering across the floor. He turned to lean against the wall, slumped down to the ground like he had before, hearing now the pounding on the staircase door. He smiled at them, trying to get in, trying to stop the inevitable. They ought to just accept it like he had, so long ago.
He let his eyes close, slowly drooping, darkness closing around his vision. He took in a deep breath and let it out, sighing his last breath, a look of contentment on his face. His last thoughts were of a peaceful garden, him sitting alone in the dirt, pruning back beautiful red roses, no screams, no gunshots, no death, just sunlight and hard work.
He had found peace, for the first time in his life.
Then he was gone.