Chapter 3

People Are Very Strange III

"If you die in an elevator, be sure to push the up button."

-Sam Levenson

2279

On our down time about a year after Evergreen Mills (it ironically became another part of the Temple of the Union), the black hearted mercs that called themselves "Talon Company" killed a guy named Butch DeLoria in cold blood. DeLoria was working on building up a gang out of Rivet City called the "Tunnel Snakes", and he was formerly the guy that bullied Milly on and off throughout her time in the Vault.

He apologized profusely sometime in 2277 after Milly made a return to the Vault, because she saved his mother's life while trying to escape the Vault and he never got to thank her until then. He became a good friend to her (but she had no interest in him romantically, and I started to wonder if she was asexual), and he even accompanied us on a few wasteland explorations.

He was never comfortable with me around Milly. He was always convinced that I was an Enclave plant, but Milly always smiled and told him she trusted me with her life. Then I'd report back to John Henry Eden on my infiltration. I'm kidding! Just kidding!

Still, he went from being a childhood bully to a good friend. He wasn't the hero type, but he felt like he owed Milly (the whole wasteland does), and so he'd do these things and follow her without question.

Needless to say, when the Talon Mercs killed him (they tried to say that it was an accident, because Milly was responsible for the death of their original leader in 2277), Milly took it personally. The Talon Mercs feared her, and for good reason: This is the woman that shot her way into a Talon Company base (out of a store), and killed the leader at the time with the help of the Brotherhood of Steel because they fired a bullet that grazed Dogmeat.

Now, they had a new leader, and, after seeing how close they came to disarray from Milly's previous attack, they moved into a placed called "Fort Bannister". The leader was named Tom Prescott, and he was almost as bad as Colonel Autumn was.

This was a kill mission. Milly wasn't going to leave anything standing. Fort Bannister was the center of Talon Company. It was the heart and soul. She pulled out all the stops, because there was no way we were getting in quietly. She agreed to wear heavy armor, carry a riot shield, and receive backup from other Paladins and covert operatives.

It was here that we had our first real tensions with the Brotherhood. She had to call in a bunch of favors to get this mission approved. It was her own self-made mission, and it was happening with or without help from the Brotherhood. Lyons said he saw a daughter in Milly, but really he just was afraid of losing one of his best spies. He was going to deny her assistance in avenging Butch, but after she convinced him that she was going to do it anyway, he relented.

The sheer amount of armor she wore slowed her movements to a walk. She was wearing so much armor that nobody could tell from far away if she was a male or female. Her head was covered by a ski mask, a helmet, and goggles. No part of her body was spared. What she wore now was the equivalent of Power Armor, except it was harder on movement.

The Brotherhood called a person wearing this amount of armor a Juggernaut- an unstoppable force or being capable of incredible destruction. Using that armor is one of the advantages to being with the Brotherhood of Steel. One of the big differences between that armor and Power Armor is the fact that you don't need special training to use the armor she was wearing now. Also, Power Armor can be disabled by certain weapons. This armor can be disabled, too... but that requires high explosives or dozens of bullets.

The mission was almost going to be too hot for Dogmeat and I to go along on, but as we always do, we found ways to help Milly. We'd go for the mission, but Dogmeat was more for moral support and I was to help keep mercs from flanking her. She and the other Brotherhood members joining her were all either Juggernauts or in Power Armor (Milly isn't a huge fan of Power Armor for some reason), and all carried riot shields. We all boarded several Vertibirds (the one we were in was large enough that I didn't have to fold up to fit inside), and we headed to Fort Bannister late at night a week after Butch was killed.

The trip was quiet, except for the pilot giving us ETA every so often. At ETA 60 seconds, Milly put her mask, goggles, and helmet on, and checked her gun- an FN SCAR-L. It had an ACOG scope on it, but that would not be needed until we either infiltrated, or the riot shield was shot to hell and was useless. She'd be trying to fire it using one arm, and that's difficult. Still, the Brotherhood did a few tricks to reduce the kick, and so when she rehearsed using the weapon with one hand, her arm didn't dislocate or snap in two.

Her accuracy was severly limited, but at least her arm wasn't. Heavy armor doesn't account for much if you don't have a decent weapon. Don't ever buy into those stories of humans surviving in the wasteland unarmed. You may have a decent left jab, but if you don't have a power fist (and the Brotherhood goes out of its way to collect them), then you're going to lose if the other guy has a gun. If you have heavy armor, you'll still probably lose. Just slower.

When we landed, the pilot instructed Milly to try and get them to surrender first, and she said she would.

Of course, when Milly is this pissed off, her word may be questionable. We stepped out of the Vertibird, and almost immediately we were being fired upon by Talon Company. Milly crouched with the riot shield up, and though she didn't say it, I knew she was thinking "Well, so much for surrendering".

Why people in the wasteland still make the mistake of angering Milly is beyond me. You'd think that a group of raiders would offer her food and water, and beg her not to kill them. She tells me I can be ferocious in quite a few battles. Even Kastine's mother would be impressed by Milly's fury at times.

Side note: Kastine finally got around to forgiving me about a year after I betrayed Milly, so we're cool too.

I digress. Being shot at is such a natural occurance in D.C that it's easy to lose track of what you might be saying.

We touched down about 100 meters from Fort Bannister, and the Vertibirds in the air were enough to wake the dead, so the Fort was on high alert. Again, there wasn't much to be done in regards to sneaking.

Progress was slow, and the sound of bullets hitting the riot shields hurt my ears. Dogmeat stayed behind Milly like she wanted him to, and I watched her back, too.

It was good I came along, because a deathclaw was sprinting towards the racket everybody was making. The Brotherhood could have killed him, but wasting time on him would allow the Mercs to outmaneuver them.

I stopped him, and he stared at the battle behind me.

"Oh, you're the human's pet... I remember you. You have a name for yourself in Deathclaw Sanctuary."

I said nothing, and the deathclaw eyed me while he continued.

"Who should I kill for waking me up? The lumpy humans, the lumpy human with the food following it, or should I kill you for standing in my way?"

I gestured towards Fort Bannister.

"You should kill the humans in the rock building. They're the reason behind all the noise."

The deathclaw snorted. "Nice try..." he said, at which point a bullet almost caught him in the arm. His head shot to look in the direction the shot came from, and he saw a Talon Merc attacking.

So those are the humans he went after. The Talon Mercs. He was gunned down after about thirty seconds, but he managed to take out two and distract most others, so, in spite of their clunky armor, Milly and her backup was able to close a lot of the distance between the base and them.

One or two of the Brotherhood juggernauts actually knocked down a few Talon Mercs because the idiots couldn't figure out how to get out of the way of the riot shields. Once they were down, they surrendered their lives to a few bullets.

By the time we made it into the Fort, Dogmeat killed nobody and I killed two. For once, I wasn't the one attracting the bullets. The heavily armored Brotherhood team was more of a threat than I was. I wondered briefly what would happen if you dressed a deathclaw up in the armor they were wearing. I shivered, imagining the Brotherhood trying to cram my body into that armor. Vertibirds, I can handle. Armor? Uhh... no.

What kind of perception problem would I have to think I could?

Milly's riot shield was busted finally, and she stood up. The Talon Mercs that were still alive thought that taking out the riot shields was a good idea, but it really wasn't. Without the riot shields, these Brotherhood guys had two hands to hold their weapons, which meant more bullets fired, which meant more deaths, which meant slightly faster progress, and of course, since they were using two hands, their accuracy was much better.

We still lost two or three guys out of an eight man team (discluding Milly, Dogmeat, and I). The sheer ammunition required to finally punch through that armor was impressive, though.

It was about ten minutes into clearing out the base that Milly got sick of the clumsy armor she was told to wear. She took a few layers of it off (but left enough on to protect her a little), and sighed in relief when she took the mask off. The armor must've been very hot, because she was sweating so badly that it looked like somebody filled her armor with water. She grimaced from behind cover for a moment and fingered her hair.

"I need a bath."

I snorted in the air a few times, and though I couldn't really smell anything offensive coming from her (the mercs smelt bad enough), I grimaced.

"I'll say."

She playfully threw the helmet she was wearing at me, and I smiled.

"101, are you out of your mind? Get that armor on right now!" shouted one of the Brotherhood members. Milly looked at him.

"You're not in the position to command me. Get back to the attack, FNG!" she shouted.

Milly doesn't shout that much when she's angry at friends or family. The only reason she does it to the Brotherhood is because they only understand if it's a few decibels higher than normal. Milly had to shout at Elder Lyons to get him to understand that the attack on Fort Bannister was happening either way.

She got into hot water for removing her heavy armor before being instructed to later on, but at the moment she was able to move around easier. She took fewer bullets without the armor on, ironically. Maybe it was because the heavily armored Brotherhood backup was more of a threat than Milly.

I couldn't blame Talon Company for shooting at the juggernauts more often than Milly. Seeing those walking kevlar vests lumbering towards you has to be terrifying.

Inside the building, Dogmeat and I had a few opportunities to join in on the attack. When we got into hallways or corridors, Dogmeat and I were able to fight more. When we were in large open rooms... not so much.

Still, the attack on Fort Bannister was one of those times where everything seemed to go right for us. Dogmeat and I made it out of the Fort without being shot once. Dogmeat said it was because I cowered behind the juggernauts, and I told him he cowered behind me.

After the resulting argument, we both compromised and said neither cowered at all.

I digress.

Fort Bannister has a first floor followed by five sub-levels, and once you got through the first floor (where security was the strongest), the floors below were a little easier.

Some people view the leader of an organization like Talon Company as being bigger, meaner, and stronger than everybody else. The leader of an organization is often made out to be super-strong. In reality, the leader is almost always flesh and blood (barring mutation), and it doesn't take much to put him or her down. Take Autumn for instance. He was made out to be this big force of evil, and he succumbed like any other human given the conditions placed upon him by Milly (a few bullets).

It works both ways, though. We had to be careful, nonetheless. Once we got to the fourth floor (losing two more of our team), we had one of the Juggernauts kick down the final door on the floor.

The Juggernaut was mowed down almost instantly by two laser turrets. That's another thing the Juggernaut armor and Power Armor don't have in common: Power Armor has more resistance to laser weaponry than the heavy armor did.

A bang-ball was the solution to the turrets and whoever was inside the room. It would overload the turrets and temporarily disable them. That gave us the chance to destroy the two turrets in the room.

The remaining Juggernauts stayed behind at Milly's command, because she wanted to be the one to kill the leader of Talon Company again. The fight was quick. She said no words to the man, and he said nothing to her. All he did was back up until his back was to a wall, and he tried to shoot Milly with a Beretta Tomcat.

That was all he carried to protect himself. He had a false sense of security. Milly quickly showed him the error of his ways.

He got four shots off, missing every time. Milly fired three times with her SCAR-L, and he spun around 180 degrees, and fell down a flight of stairs. Milly approached his body, and then looked over her shoulder at the door the dead Juggernaut kicked in.

"Hey, I'm going to set the charges on the fifth level! It's one room, and I see no movement," she called to the other Brotherhood members.

"Right. We'll set the charges throughout the rest of the building. Meet us where we landed, and we'll set off the fireworks when you're ready."

Milly used silence as her response. She was still investigating Prescott's body. That didn't bother me at all.

What bothered me was the time-era man standing over her shoulder without being noticed by anybody but me. Milly stood up and started down the staircase with Dogmeat close behind. As she said, my eyes were starting to deteriorate, but I was still strong enough with vision to tell who the man was. I frowned as he approached me.

"So, in the end... you decided to help that slave."

"Who are you?" I whispered, trying not to be heard by Milly or Dogmeat. As he always did, he ignored my question.

"I don't understand why you did it if you have no master."

"It was the right thing to do."

"The right thing to do? Cord, the definition of "health" is just 'the slowest possible rate a human being can die.' Was it really right to keep him from death?"

"Why do you care?" I asked. He looked back at the stairs Prescott fell down.

"Everything mortal will die sooner or later, but mortality itself does not. Mortality is immortal."

"By that logic, therefore death is life?" I asked.

"Death is a part of life. Nobody is afraid of dying, Cord. Everybody is afraid of what happens after."

"Who are you?" I asked again.

"When held at gunpoint, an unarmed man does not fear death or the gun. An unarmed man will fear the unknown the bullet brings."

"Who are you?"

"The courageous have fear. Those who do not fear death may fear the unknown."

"Who are you?"

He looked up at me.

"Is there nothingness, a paradise, or a Hell? We all find out. You know why you wanted your humanity back?"

I stared.

"You feared the unknown the new body bought. This is why you are a coward, Cord. This is why you, like so many others... are afraid."

We were both silent for a few moments. I was trying desperately to avoid attacking him.

"Let God be the one to lecture me," was all I said in response.

"Oh, don't worry. You will be judged. I'll see you around, Cord."

The man walked off, and I thought that, since he didn't give me another task or anything, I wouldn't be seeing him again.

I didn't let thoughts of him bother me too long. Once Milly was done setting the rest of the charges, we all left the base. Once we all met (after the Brotherhood members that fell were removed from the base), it was Milly's honor to destroy the base.

Talon Company survived after Milly's first attack because she did not destroy the files in their original base that informed them of all contracts. With that, a weasel like Prescott was able to revive the Company in a new home.

Even after this attack, Talon Company may still survive... but such a humiliating defeat would ultimately crush them to little more than a petty nuisance.

Sure enough, Milly smiled when she detonated the explosives, and she buried Talon Company's ferocious reputation with what was once known as Fort Bannister.

End of Chapter

3,039 words.

This story isn't going to be as goofy as Beneath This Gruff Exterior was. It's still going to have a lot of humor as it unfolds, but for the most part, it'll be somber.

The plot really starts to take off in 2281. What we've covered so far is pretty slow, but it's necessary to build up to the big year. 2281 is the year we see some changes, the plot really engages, we meet new characters, and Milly will leave D.C. There are plenty of other twists.

Additionally, once we hit 2281 (not next chapter but the one after), you won't see the year below the chapter's quote anymore. When you don't see a year under the quote in a chapter, assume the year hasn't changed.

The Juggernauts were just me deciding to take a dump on Call of Duty. Survival Mode is fun until it isn't anymore, and then you have to stop immediately.

Next chapter will likely be short. It's covering Milly, Dogmeat, and Cord simply wandering the wasteland and talking. There's more, but... that's all I can really say.