Chapter 14: Getting Ready for Prime Time

The kid said to me while moving rubble, "How are we going to explain to Lyons just how Gallows died?"

"He got shot by a sniper at 800 yards while trying to out-snipe him. What's so difficult about that?" I finally saw some hope scrambling down along the rubble. It looks like a hollow chamber, probably held up by the Girders around it. I slid down a piece of concrete and it all came back to me. We were standing in the main laboratory. I remember the fateful night that we reclaimed Project Purity. This giant tin can killed more than it's fair share of Enclave that evening. I remember when they called down a orbital strike salvo on him at a satellite. Steven wouldn't rest until every last person in there was dead and every scrap had been salvaged and put towards rebuilding him.

Jack tumbled down the rubble and said, "How are we going to explain that sniper was you?"

"It was an accident." Was all I said, even though I knew I had shot him where he stood on purpose. The fact was that the Lyon's pride and the 10 black chips were not on good terms even though we were simply different pieces of the same organization. They turned on us after the Citadel was bombed and Steven and I were forced to kill them or be violently killed ourselves. Gallows was one of them who survived and probably would have found a way to kill me had I not shot him first. But regardless we had found what we were looking for. I looked at the condition of the girders that surrounded the plate where Liberty Prime stood. The girders, while damaged, had dealt with the strain incredibly well. At Prime's feet was a terminal with wires running up the girders. I turned on the terminal and found it was a makeshift terminal that was used to access him and his main drivers. I tried to activate him via the terminal, but instead of the drivers being repaired, they had been destroyed in their entirety.

"Dammit! They wiped his main software, all he is now is a giant pile of scrap metal." At that moment, I saw beyond the robot to a doorway clear of rubble with a light on. I jumped up and ran for the doorway. I stood in the doorway, horrified at what I saw. The traitor had been a very busy person, brotherhood corpses, civilian bodies, super mutant blood samples, he or she was doing research into something. There was a holotape on the desk with a vial of something. I sat down in the chair and played the holotape.

Voice #1: So you've collected the bodies I asked you to. Good, good.

Voice #2: So? When do we reintegrate them into the citadel's mainframe? I want to kill Lyons and the Wanderer soon. They've taken so much from me, I want them to pay.

I was shocked. It was Casdin. He had been playing his own angle all these years.

Voice #1: Now hold on, that damn ghoul goes too or you won't live to watch Lyons die.

Voice #3: That damn kid dies too. He killed too many of my men with that damn riot in the prison sector.

It all started to fit together. That was the Colonel, and Casdin has been playing us for years. He is a Enclave spy. This last voice is a mystery to me, and what ghoul?

Casdin: Jack and Charon will be arriving to reactivate Liberty Prime within the next few days, I imagine that they'll all be in the new citadel after they fail to reclaim Prime.

Colonel: Fine, I'll have the troops wreck Megaton if my guard doesn't have any problems with it. He has been sticking to a highly defensive tactic because he fears if we go in head first, that they'll have a fail-safe ready to destroy us. So far we haven't had any major casualties so he might be onto something.

Voice #1: Don't you get it Augustus? I can do as I please, I can change things with ease. Horns, hair, fin, or feathers you name it. I control the wind and weather. And the thing is? I'm just here to watch the world burn.

That was arguably the creepiest way to end the holotape. An unknown voice saying that he was here to watch the world burn as if it was not a nuclear wasteland already. I turned around back out to the main lab chamber, and I saw a man crouched by Prime's foot. He looked at me for a minute, stood up and I saw the crater in his helmet. It was Gallows' body. He walked up like a normal human, handed me two vials, and mumbled something,

"Gallows speak up man!"

"Project Nightingale: initiate protocol delta 2-1-5-3-6. Disengage frontal lobe device 356A. Welcome back, doctor."

I looked at him like he had lost his mind. Suddenly my muscles tensed, my mind flooded with images. I collapsed as the world faded to black and Gallows turned into another of those foul creatures. Luckily, Jack shot the critter in the head. And then, pitch black.

Memories flooded my mind. I remembered everything. I was a doctor for Poseidon and West-Tek corporations. We were tasked with discovering the key to immortality. In the process, we create the super mutants, the deathclaws, and the closest thing to a immortal human we could. They were these shape-shifting creatures that could form around a dead body and bring it back, also allowing it to change in form. It was more a military device than anything. Killed only by dismemberment or burning. But we finished it too late. The bombs dropped 3 days earlier. Our boss continued experimenting, tinkering with the DNA strand, determined to find something. We only knew him as the Director for years until someone blurted it out over the intercom. Director Robert Christian Lee. Eventually he ordered us inside the conference room and after we had assembled, he took a rusty scalpel and impaled himself in the arm and refused assistance. Seconds later, his blood started boiling and he cleaned off the wound and he had healed flawlessly. He killed everyone by turning them into his shape-shifting army after transforming them into ghouls. I ran after I was changed. He stopped me, he gave me the 'we can go up there and rule the world together' speech. We got into a struggle and I ran him into a gas canister that had his experimental mix of the two chemicals. We were both heavily exposed, him more than I. I got up above after sealing the door and went on a journey to the commonwealth for a piece of technology to wipe my mind. I finally found it. Sold myself to a band of slavers, and used it. I forgot, but apparently Lee has other plans for me.

I blinked myself awake with a old mister gutsy standing over me; it was sawbones. I was hooked up to a machine regulating my vitals. I got out of bed and walked out to the main lab. Jack was working hard at the terminal with a series of data discs scattered around him. I limped over and he said,

"I found back up copies of his key drivers. They were hidden in a safe on the other side of the complex."

"Can you get him working? And you might want to check for actual physical damages to the robot."

"Yes I can, and already done. Significant damage physically, but I jury-rigged the main power source around damaged areas, repaired what was necessary, gave his physical attacks and his laser systems increased performance. I couldn't salvage his bomb systems, but with the extended range on his lasers, it won't be missed." I looked up at him and saw where he had opened up Prime with a Thermal Lance and resealed him with the same instrument. I also noticed a good deal of debris had been removed out of the way.

"Either you haven't blinked since I was out, or I've been out cold for at least a week."

"You've only been out for an hour or so boss."

"How long until he's online? We need to get back to the elder so we can warn him about Casdin."

"I'm just setting up a firewall around his main drivers in order to make sure the systems can always be run. After that we can send him topside to cause some havoc."

"Smart move kid."

"And...Done. Can you flip that electrical switch over there so we can power this old boy up?"

"Absolutely boss." I walked over to the switch and flipped on the power, I turned around to see liberty prime rising into the bailey. I saw the gears rolling in the machine and thought that had they lived to see it, this would have made my superiors very proud. I saluted the old machine.

"Charon you alright man?"

I knew I couldn't hide it forever, I had to deal with the facts of my life. I told Jack everything. He was stunned at the revelations that came through this new knowledge. He was silent for a time and said, "Well, at least we know what we're up against. Thank you doctor. You have been invaluable to our cause." He was just trying to sort through it, like his father had when James was killed. So much, so fast.

Chapter 15 Part 1: Double or Nothing