The setting I chose was my house, I was going for a friendly and informal atmosphere. Codsworth had apparently spent the entire time we were in Concord and the time that I was unconscious preparing the house for my return. He'd swept out the leaves, killed all the roaches, dismantled and removed all of the debris, and essentially gave the house a top to bottom cleaning. He'd even set to work on repairing the roof and walls with scavenged supplies. He hadn't made much progress on the latter, even with his construction subroutines he was just one robot, but the house was clean and decently arranged. So there was that.

I had the scene set, two chairs around the kitchen table, my PT on the table, two Nuka colas in the fridge Codsworth had jury rigged to work again using some of the cryo tech in the vault, and some candy in my pocket. I'd swapped out my tee shirt for a light blue collared polo and put my hair up in a tight ponytail. Based on the limited read I'd gotten of him, I was going for the kid glove approach. I was aiming for an informal, almost homey feel. I was aiming for a certain vibe, more than platonic but not quite maternal. I was going for the cool big sister approach. Someone kind, understanding, approachable, but more than willing to call him out for being a dumbass.

The first thing I learned about interrogation was the same thing that my friend Emma told me for years, appearances matter. The CIA lost over a dozen defectors over the years for one reason, they treated them like crap. The CIA viewed defectors as traitors, they'd give them their blood money quite happily, but they didn't hide the disgust in their voices during the interviews, they didn't shake hands with the assets, they didn't look them in the eyes. All the money in the world can't win someone over if they feel like they're not getting what they deserve. The FBI knew this, they knew how to make suspects and informers and witnesses feel like they were on the same side as the agents, that yeah what they'd done might've been bad but it wasn't their fault. That's how you flip a person, you make them think that you understand them and sympathize with their problems. You make them think that they're on the same team, how you feel about them doesn't matter, what matters is what you can get from them.

The first time I saw this in action, I was in a black site in what used to be Israel. There was a top IRA assassin that they'd been trying to crack for months. They'd tried everything, torture, psychological domination, sleep deprivation and schedule manipulation, they'd brought out their whole tool box. I went there with a British intelligence officer named Desmond Lockheart, he wanted to use a new system of interrogation methods that he and a couple of Oxford Dons had come up with. The new system had proven fairly successful and was integrated into military training, but most of the actual field ops were slow on the uptick. It wasn't anything new really, it basically boiled down to being relatively nice and breaking them with manipulation and finesse instead of force.

But the first day I was there, Desmond immediately put a stop to the brute force methods and had them move the guy to a new room. Then he went in and started talking to the guy, not about the IRA or any of the intel we were after, but about random things. Soccer, jokes, the bars in Belfast, whatever came up, and eventually they got to talking about the guy's wife. Apparently he had a wife and a girlfriend, the girlfriend had expensive tastes. Desmond told him about how his wife was always spending money on the stupidest of things and how hard it was to work with that on a government salary. That was how the guy ended up with the IRA, he was former special ops, just like Desmond was, and those were his only marketable skills, so he started taking hits for the IRA to pay the bills. In one three-hour conversation, he'd gotten more out of the guy than six months of strong-arming.

The only thing was that Desmond didn't have a wife, he'd never served in any official capacity in the British military, and he wasn't hard up for cash, he was one of the top fifty wealthiest people on the planet. That's the lesson he taught me that day, it doesn't matter what the truth is, when you're handling an interrogation or a potential asset, you are whatever you need to be. Whether that's a henpecked husband sympathizing over an overspending woman, or an understanding big sister trying to help with a bad situation. It certainly helped that in this situation, I actually did sympathize with Asher.

I was sitting at the table when Codsworth brought Asher in. "Ma'am, I present to you the young Master Asher as requested." You had to love those English personalities programmed in, they make everything sound better.

Asher, for his part, seemed no worse for wear, he was still wearing those scraps of leather that seemed to be the unofficial uniforms for raiders. I'd have to see if we could dig up some new clothes for him. He was also still hand cuffed, I hoped they hadn't left him that way the entire time that he'd been locked up. "Wow," he said, a look of surprise on his face, "You're awake. I kind of thought you were dead when you passed out and that huge guy tossed you over his shoulder."

I chuckled, "Good to see you again too Asher. Want a soda?" I turned and went to the fridge, "And for god's sake Codsworth, get those cuffs off of him." I pulled the Nuka Colas out and set them on the table.

"Of course Ma'am," Codsworth did as he was bidden and I gestured towards the seat in front of me.

"It takes a lot more than whatever that thing was to kill me." I flipped open my PT, "The passing out was because of the cryo sleep. Quite honestly, you're not supposed to do anything strenuous for at least a week after coming out of cryo, most people can't even walk properly for two or three days. I came out yesterday and initiated a series of events that led me to fighting what seemed like a dinosaur. So yeah, I was pretty tired."

That knocked him off kilter, "What the hell is Cryo sleep?"

I smiled, this sort of thing was going to happen a lot. "It's an incredibly complicated process involving high level medical and chemical and biological science where your body processes are slowed to a standstill using methods of supercooling to ensure cryopreservation." Asher nodded along as I spoke, "You understood none of that, right?"

He shook his head, "Not a word."

Smart enough to admit he didn't know, "Good boy, brutal honesty, I don't understand the whole process either. The technology was just becoming practical for large scale use before the bombs dropped. The cliff notes version is that they shove you in a specially made metal box and freeze you, and that keeps you alive for a damn long time. About two hundred and ten years in my case."

That was what left him dumbstruck, "What…?"

I sat back and let the wheels in his head spin for a bit. In the meantime, I pulled the candy out of my pocket and popped a few Nuka-bursts. After a few minutes, the look of confusion turned into a look of awe. "There it is."

"You…" if his jaw dropped any more, it would have clattered to the floor, "You're prewar. You were alive back then, before the war bombs."

I took a sip of my Nuka Cola. "Two hundred and ten years ago, and one day now. I woke up in the bedroom down the hall, got dressed with my husband in that bathroom, had my morning coffee at this table, watched the news on that couch, and spent time with my son in his nursery." I gestured around the house as I spoke.

"We were planning on taking him to the park, getting ready for Halloween, and if I'm honest, I'd probably have skipped out for a half hour to check in at the office. None of that happened, because at about a quarter to ten in the morning, the sirens went off and the world ended." I might have been giving him more than I should, but it felt good to say this out loud. It helped make this seem less like some sort of insane dream.

He listened with rapt attention, "Nate grabbed our son and we made a mad dash for the vault. The Vault-Tec rep just got us registered less than ten minutes before it happened. We were in too much of a rush to question little things that we should have." I shook my head; I'd been such an idiot. "They said the pods were for decompression, there was no need for decompression at that level. And I've seen decompression pods, those didn't look anything like decompression pods. Then they froze us."

If I would have noticed it, said something, maybe… No, I couldn't think like that. That could wait for a dark night and a bottle of strong liquor. "And that brings us up to now."

He looked at me differently, curiosity sparkling in his eyes. Then he frowned, and I could see the wheels going once again. "No it doesn't."

I arched my eyebrow, "Excuse me?"

He didn't back down, "You mentioned that you were with your husband, Nate, and your son. You called the guy with you earlier Mikhail, none of the others were dressed like you. And I didn't see any kids at all. So there's a part of this that you're not telling me." He paused, "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Hmph," Of course, he notices that. I allowed a small amused grin to slip out. "Clever boy, don't let it go to your head though, we're all clever in this business." Odd choice of words, I realized after the fact, it was the same thing Mikhail told me when I was still a novice. "So tell me, which part of Maine are you from?"

His eyebrows shot up, he tried to cover it a little bit too late. "Why would you think I'm from Maine?" He was obviously trying to keep his tone nonchalant.

People really need to pay attention to natural reactions, you don't act nonchalant when someone asks you a random question, you act confused or mildly irritated. "You started to drop the R when you said war, you caught yourself but a stuck on that W just a second longer than normal. Maine is the nearest place with that particular manner of pronunciation."

He eyed me skeptically, "No way you could tell that from one word."

I leaned back in my chair, "Like I said, we're all clever in this business. Now, you were telling me which part of Maine that you are from. How does a fisherman's kid end up all the way down here?" He had scars on his hand that likely came from fishhooks and netting. And he was too young to have taught himself.

He ran his hand through his hair, "Lady, you're a psychic or something. I guess there's no point in hiding it. I'm from a little fishing village called Far Harbor, it's on an island up north. We just called it the Island, but some stuff I found when I was poking around pre-war ruins called it Mount Desert Island."

There was a name that I recognized, it had been a big tourist spot way back when. "How were things there? I'd have to imagine the place is relatively in one piece, it wouldn't be a priority other than a minor naval base. The Chinese didn't know we used it to maintain our boomers." I paused, realizing he wouldn't know what that meant, "Boomers were…"

"Submarines used to launch nukes." Hmm, him knowing that was interesting. "I used to poke around that base, there's a leak somewhere in the Vessel, gave me a nasty case of radiation poisoning." Radiation poisoning, from a vessel. The only vessel that would be there would be a nuclear sub, if that was leaking, then there was either a halfway functional nuclear reactor there, or SLBMs that hadn't been fired. In either case, they needed to be secured.

I blinked that thought away. I needed to stop thinking of myself as an operative for the United States government. "Impressive, poke around a lot of old world ruins?"

He tilted his head to one side, "A bit, I love learning what the world was like back…"

"Before we fucked it up." I smiled a little wider. The more at ease he was the better. "No need to mince words with me Asher. I mean, we always used to say that the generations before us were the ones that fucked things up, the wars in the Middle East, the overuse of fossil fuels, but mine really messed things up for you guys didn't we?"

He didn't respond. I didn't miss a beat, "So tell me, teens these days the same, blame it all on the elder generations?"

He took a long drink of his soda, stall tactic. This kid was locking up, he opened up on his home easy enough, it had to be his family that was the sore spot. Time to switch vectors. "Actually, let's leave getting to know each other better for later, let's get business out of the way. Tell me everything you know about the organization you worked with. Give me numbers, weak points, firepower. Tell me about the leadership, according to what you told me in Concord, one of the lieutenants is already dead, who's left?"

On that subject, he was decidedly more open, and for the next few minutes there were only the sounds of him speaking and the clicking of the keys as I typed. The leader of the group was the Jared person he'd mentioned in Concord, under him were his two lieutenants, Lonnie and Gristle. Gristle was dead, so that left Lonnie. She apparently didn't get along with Jared, we could use that. Apparently Jared got everyone to follow him by promising free chems, where he got them to start with, Asher didn't know. The guy was trying to figure out something he called 'the Sight.' Murphy, the old woman had mentioned something about that, I'd need to follow up with her on it. Lonnie thought it was a waste of time and effort. Division among the ranks, another good sign.

They were holed up in Lexington, half of which was held by the raiders while the other half was infested with feral ghouls, which was a colloquialism for people with an incredibly advanced form of radiation poisoning. I believed I knew what he was talking about, we'd heard a few strange reports of black sites in the Middle Eastern wastes getting attacked by what they'd described as the walking dead. I'd seen pictures of what looked like emaciated corpses, but the whole thing was covered up and transferred over to DARPA. After that I never heard another thing about it.

In any case, the raiders had set up shop there only recently, two or three weeks at most. They'd cleared out enough to set up outposts in the town, but the ghouls were giving them trouble. Their main stronghold was in the old Corvega assembly plant, solid concrete walls, a lot of high towers and walkways for sniping, not that many entrances, it was a very defensible location. Then there was the fact that there were anywhere between sixty and eighty hostiles to deal with. The direct approach was definitely out the window. However, there was a drainage tunnel that we could use for infiltration.

Then we moved on to other gangs in the area. Asher knew of only two that were close to Sanctuary, one was a small outfit occupying Walden Pond led by a man named Bear, the other a slightly larger organization that had established a base in USAF Satellite Station Olivia. I'd been there a few times, I hoped they hadn't destroyed all of the communication equipment and computers, they could come in handy.

Other than that, he only knew of the major players in the region. There were the Gunners, a mercenary group that weren't too far off from raiders, he didn't know any names or distinct locations, but apparently they liked to use overpasses as bases. There was another guy called Bosco who had his headquarters in an old school, Red Tourette who made her base in the old federal ration stockpile, Tower Tom who split from Red Tourette's group to make a base in Beantown Brewery, and there was apparently some new group of pyrophiles based out of an old ironworks. Ironworks could really come in handy in the long term if they were still functional.

That did it for what he knew about the local hostile groups. "So," I asked as I finished typing, "How did you become so knowledgeable about all this? I can't imagine there was a briefing on this in Jared's organization."

That actually got a smile out of him, "Yeah, that came right after orientation and before the welcome breakfast." I laughed, he shook his head, "No, some were people I met, some were people that Jared and the others talked about, and some I just heard about from rumors."

I added that to the file I was building, "so were you and Jared close?"

His chuckle was more bitter this time, "are you kidding? I just joined up a week and a half ago, I doubt the guy knows I exist. Only reason I even met the guy was because Lonnie liked to…" he trailed off, realizing he was saying more than he wanted to. "Was because Lonnie and I had an arrangement."

I leaned back in my chair, trying to keep my expression neutral. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore and just burst out laughing. Asher looked at me as if I was insane, "What's so funny?"

I didn't stop laughing, that was the funniest thing I'd heard in two centuries. Asher grew irritable, "What's wrong with you?"

I regained my composure and took a drink of my soda. "I'm sorry. It's just comforting to know that even two hundred years later, even after the entire goddamn world's ended, teenagers still do dumbass things to get laid." I blinked, "This was about getting laid, right? Are you in love with her?"

Asher was taken aback, "Hell no! Look, I was having a drink at the Third Rail when this girl came up to me. She said she wanted to hook up, we did, she liked it, and she said that she was with a crew that was set up in Lexington. They had free chems, good pay, and she was a good lay, so when she made the offer to join up, I took it. Half a week later, I figured out just how crazy Jared is, he pumped a guy full of buckets worth of Psycho, then let him loose. The guy killed four of the guys in the gang, he tore them apart with his bare hands, and then the guy literally just exploded. Jared just sat back the entire time asking the guy what he was seeing." He held his head in his hands, his voice trembling as he recalled the massacre, "Then he just called it a failure and had us toss the bodies in the sewer for the ghouls. I mean who the hell does shit like that? It's just fucking insane!"

His voice grew in pitch and volume as he spoke, a wave of sympathy came over me as what few maternal instincts I had kicked in. This kid, and he was just a kid, the fear in his eyes made me more sure of that than ever, had been deeply disturbed, "And that wasn't the only time, he kept getting people to shove more and more drugs in them, to try and get them to have visions or some shit. We had at least two guys overdosing a day. None of them ever got anything, so what was the damn point." His breathing was picking up; he was close to actually sobbing.

I stood up and walked slowly around the table. "Slow down," I said, placing my hands on his shoulders. "Focus on your breathing, stay in the present." I gently tugged on his arm to get him to his feet and sat him down on the couch. "I'm going to count to ten, I want you to breathe at the pace I set," He did as he was told and after about fifteen minutes he was calmed down again.

"Sorry… I'm not usually… I mean I don't…" He kept his eyes on the floor.

I stood up and got him his soda, "Don't worry about it, you witnessed a horror, albeit one you unknowingly volunteered for, but still a horror. I've seen Navy SEALs, real badasses, have the same reaction." I sat down next to him, "I'm guessing that this isn't your first one."

"No, the first one was last year, I hadn't had one in months before last week." He sat hunched over, eyes on the floor. "God, I really fucked up this time, didn't I?"

I wrapped an arm around him, looking down at him sympathetically. "Yeah, you really did." I patted him on the back and stood up, "But what's past is past, now we focus on the next chapter of your life." I turned towards Codsworth, who was hovering by counter, attempting to wipe off centuries of dirt with a ragged washcloth. I turned back to the boy sitting on my couch, "Give me one second Asher."

I walked over to Codsworth. "Codsworth, I'm assuming that over the years you've had to discourage more than a few looters. Am I correct," I asked in a hushed tone.

To Codsworth's credit, he kept his electronic voice to a whisper. "I have my security protocols, so yes ma'am, I ensured the neighborhood was kept clear of undesirables. All of whom were properly warned, those who refused were dealt with and properly disposed of." His voice was grim, conveying the gravity of that statement. I had to give those designers credit, they programmed one hell of a personality matrix. Either that or he'd done a hell of a lot of evolving in the past two centuries.

I nodded, "Good, you've done a good job Codsworth. Now you're acquainted with our new neighbors, more specifically the Longs, correct?"

Codsworth nodded, "Yes ma'am, Mister Jun appears quite morose, while Miss Marcy was quite hostile to my attempts to assist them in settling in."

Sounded about right, "Codsworth, I'm quite sure that neither of those two are psychologically stable." I gestured to Asher, "That boy is under my protection, and more important than that, he can help me find Shaun. There's a chance that the Longs could try and carry out some kind of revenge on him for things a group he was affiliated with did." I looked Codsworth in the eyestalk, "My point is that the Longs are expendable, that boy isn't, so if they or anyone else try to hurt him…"

Codsworth nodded, "I will do whatever is necessary ma'am. Helping you with your agenda and finding young Shaun are the only things that matter to me."

"Thank you Codsworth," eccentricities aside, Codsworth was loyal to a fault, and in the end, that's what was important in this new world. I brought my tone back to normal, "Do me a favor, go and see if you can't find some of Nate's old clothes for Asher to wear, get him out of those rags. I've got a meeting to prepare for."

Codsworth went back to his cheeriest voice setting, "Come Master Asher, let's get you looking like a respectable gentleman, shall we? The clothes make the man after all. And accordingly I have predicted the need and arranged some options for you." He grabbed Asher by the arm and led him down the hall.

I snorted, of course he'd predicted it. Probably got them while I was interviewing Asher and not paying attention to him. He had to be the best butler in the Commonwealth, he was probably the only butler in the Commonwealth. I let my hair down and grabbed my coat.

I'd promised Asher a new chapter in his life.

First I had to figure out the next chapter of my own.

…

Hey guys, only one chapter this week. I'll admit, I'm not sure about this one, it felt a bit forced.

There was a lot of exposition, I know, but I had to include it for two reasons. One, at no point in the game are you actually informed about the various raider groups that you combat with the Minutemen, which would make strategic thinking difficult, this was my workaround for that. The other is to help with world building, in my opinion, the raiders of Fallout 4 need some flavor to them. They serve their purpose, but they aren't exactly original.

I'm also going to be making them bigger, in case you haven't already noticed, I've increased the number of raiders for Corvega and Olivia, that's going to happen quite a bit. It is literally the only way I can come up with to make them any threat at all. Same goes for settlements, I'm just adding more people in general, I've always assumed the low numbers were more of a gameplay restriction than lore. It's been 200 years, even given a short lifespan and a high infant mortality rate, people are horny and condoms are damn hard to find in the wasteland.

Also, in case you haven't noticed, I really hate Marcy, tell me if it starts seeming irrational. Not a huge fan of Preston either for that matter, like I said, tell me if it doesn't make sense for the narrative.

Damn me and my long author's notes, I don't get to talk to people about this stuff much if you haven't noticed, so I blather on in my ANs.

R&R people, later.