Chapter 6
As weapons powered down following the Battle of Old North Church, Lawrence looked around the room quietly. It was actually a pretty good hideout all things considered, though it was now even more of a grave than it was before. "I'll stay here and catalog any tech they had we might find useful. Let Ingram know I'll bring P.A.M. along when I come back." He told Nate as he walked over to Tinker Tom's terminal.
Nearly six hours later, a vertibird touched down outside Boston Airport and As Lawrence stood back for it to fly off he heard something he was surprised at.
"Probably of a Chinese victory: Impossible!" boomed above him as Liberty Prime, once the greatest weapon of the Brotherhood was once again mobile. He'd been blown apart in Adams Air Force Base combat with the Enclave, so he'd been rebuilt, with the help of their newest Paladin. Lawrence noticed the honor guard following Prime, and jogged in to meet with them.
The journey with Prime was slow and tedious, though any opposition they met with was quickly annihilated by Prime's nukes and, on occasion, eye laser. As they cleared the last buildings, the sounds of laser fire echoed around them. Lawrence saw even Elder Maxson has broken out his Gatling Laser to join them in combat, and he charged in to engage with the synths.
While Liberty Prime dug, or more likely melted, through the five meters of dirt and gravel covering the top of the Institute, the Brotherhood fought against more synths that were teleporting in rapidly. As soon as Prime got through the surface obstruction, he threw a nuke at the concrete underneath and blasted a hole in it for access.
As Nate (and by extension the rest of the Brotherhood) moved towards the hole to enter the Institute, Maxson spoke up from his position. "Give us a minute before we move on, Paladin Burns." His words caused multiple people, including Lawrence to turn to look at him, "Carter, I'd like to talk to you. Privately."
Lawrence made his way around the corner with Maxson, and slung his rifle over his shoulder before crossing his arms. A stern look from Maxson brought him to attention. "I don't think I need to remind you that my orders were that you were to remain aboard the Prydwen unless you had orders or an escort. Your current orders from the Railroad destruction were to return to the Prydwen, not follow Liberty Prime. Give me one good reason I shouldn't either shoot you or kick you out of the Brotherhood right now?"
"Because if you kick me out or kill me, you lose more than half your Scribes and Knights on missions that they are under prepared for? Because you are bound by honor to maintain your end of our deal, considering I've maintained mine? Or do I need to remind you that I practically signed your contract in blood, Maxson. My sworn loyalty to Brotherhood in exchange for not being turned out due to actions that saved lives or furthered the Brotherhood's goals." Lawrence played a card he rarely played with the Elder.
"I wasn't going to come back. I had been done with the Brotherhood. I had a small trading caravan, a family back in Megaton, I even had offers to buy me out for up to twelve times what I had put into the caravan. Instead I gave it all up to come back because you swore to me that'd never happen again."
Maxson glared at Lawrence for what felt like ages, before sputtering slightly and jabbing his finger into Lawrence's chest piece. "Fine. But this is not the last time you'll hear about this, Swordsman!" With that the Elder turned and gave a signal to move in and enter the Institute.
Inside the room, apparently right off of where Nate initially came in, Lawrence overheard Maxson talking with Nate, "Our next target is the reactor. If anything tries to slow us down, I'm ordering you to destroy it... man or machine."
"Once we reach our target, you'll need this. It's a Fusion Pulse Charge." Lawrence's eyes widened at the mention of the charge. He'd been the one to find the cache of them before being deployed into the Commonwealth. "Attach it to the reactor, and it can be detonated remotely from a safe distance. It will be more than enough to annihilate the Institute in it's entirety."
The presence of Proctor Ingram was brought to his attention with Maxson's next words, "Ingram, you're to remain here and teleport us out when the job is done. Get that thing working." Lawrence remembered her accident. He was one of the first to reach her and had he not been a medical scribe so many years ago she might not be here, so to see her back on full duty made him smile slightly.
He followed Nate and the others through the old Robotics division, and as they reached the main atrium, they heard Ingram's voice come over the PA. "Elder Maxson? Sir? We've successfully broken into the audio overrides for the facility." The fact that she was addressing Maxson slightly angered Lawrence, but he knew that in time all could be revealed. "We're working on the other systems now. I'll keep you updated and guide you as best I can."
As they continued fighting through the other divisions, Lawrence had found a few shots of X-Cell, and using them, kept himself at the top of his game. He hoped he was being subtle, the look he got from Brandis the other day really stung deep, as the other man was one of the few who knew of his problem.
As they got further in, and approached Advanced Systems, Ingrams voice came through again, "Paladin, we've located the reactor. It's accessible through the Advanced Systems division. Only... you can't reach it. The security override can only come from the Director's terminal. You'll need to access his quarters."
"We'll hold here! Go!" Lawrence shouted at Nate through the sounds of battle, taking a blue laser blast to his shoulder. He stabbed himself with a Stimpak and lined up a shot with his own laser rifle, striking down the synth that shot him.
"And I thought normal laser weapons hurt. That burned a hole through my uniform!" He said offhandedly to Brandis next to him, who chuckled, "I know, I'm going to have to spend weeks buffing the scratches, dents, and laser burns out of my power armor." The two men shared a chuckle as they kept fighting. Eventually, Nate returned, and so did Ingram's voice, as more Brotherhood soldiers relayed in. "Well done, Paladin. Looks like a path should be clear to the reactor. And I am happy to report that reinforcements have arrived."
"We've got this covered! Get to the reactor!" One of the relayed in Paladins shouted to the group as they turned and followed Nate down the hallway to the reactor room. The going was slow, synths were coming out of the walls, probably quite literally as they slowly progressed to the reactor. As they rounded a corner and were stopped by yet more synths, Lawrence's vision blurred for a moment and his hands started to shake. He was out of X-Cell, and was coming down off of it, hard. As he checked out the battlefield, he noticed a table in the reactor room, which had what looked like X-Cell on it. And as soon as he saw an opening, he darted forward, breaking through the first line and dashing into the room.
As soon as he passed Maxson he heard the Elder yell from behind him, "Carter! Someone follow him! I have no idea what he thinks he's doing!" But Lawrence wasn't focused on that, he was focused on his prize. As soon as his hand wrapped around the X-Cell though, the synths were on him before he could think. He took at least one hit to the head that sent him sprawling to the ground, and moments later red lasers cut across his vision, killing or pushing back the synths gathering around him.
A glance at his rescuer showed just a Paladin in power armor, so he couldn't be sure who it was. Unconcerned with that, however, he injected himself with the X-Cell before grabbing his rifle and jumping back into combat.
As they neared the reactor even more, opposition got work, but soon the din of combat died down to a soft whine from laser weapons as most of the group stood back as Nate placed the charge on the reactor.
The next thing Lawrence knew he was standing in the relay with everyone else. Nate gave the order to get them out of there and moments later they were on the room of Mass Fusion. Sighting down his scope, Lawrence could see the CIT ruins. Moments later, Nate pressed the button and it went up in a nuclear blast. As everyone else set off to return to the Prydwen, Nate grabbed Lawrence's shoulder.
"I saw what you did in there. If it wasn't for me, you'd be dead right now." He said, as he climbed down out of his power armor. Lawrence nodded at him. "I am aware, thank you for saving me."
"You're welcome, but that's not what I was referring to. You're an addict, aren't you? What's your chem of choice?" Lawrence glared at Nate for a long few moments, wondering why Paladins always seemed to get so high and mighty after achieving the rank.
"X-Cell and Med-X. I can't exactly stop, I've come to rely on it." He muttered, turning away from Nate. "You can't order me to stop, nor can you order me to seek treatment, besides, I doubt it'd work anymore."
"I can't order you, no. But I can strongly suggest it. Listen, Carter. I don't want to go to Maxson, but I will if I have to. If you're willing to seek some sort of solution, meet me in Diamond City tomorrow morning, over by Valentine's, I have someone I'd like you to meet." The other man said, climbing back in his power armor and departing for the Prydwen.
Lawrence stayed standing there, thinking about what Nate said, until the sun began to set. Deciding he'd like to entertain the offer, he returned to the Prydwen for the night.
The next morning, he made his way down to Diamond City, not wearing his uniform, but civilian clothing instead, and carrying both his laser pistol and 10mm. As he rounded the corner, Nate and a woman came into view. "Cait, this is Lawrence, the guy I was telling you about."
"So we're in the same boat, addiction wise, what does this have to do with anything?" Cait said in her thick Irish accent.
"Vault 95. They were supposedly some sort of detox vault. Stuck a bunch of junkies in there, and they supposedly had some sort of detox machine. Cait wants to use it. If you want me to stay quiet about this and not go to Maxson, you will use it, Lawrence. The location is to the south, on the edge of the Glowing Sea." Nate said, an edge to his voice as though he was daring Lawrence to argue with him.
To his credit, Lawrence stayed quiet on that part, instead asking, "what kind of opposition could we expect? I didn't exactly bring any heavy hitting weapons, and I don't know what Cait's packing."
Nate frowned, "this is where you aren't going to be happy. Gunners. They have some robots under their control as well." Lawrence sighed. "Fine. We'll go. But I'm going back to the Prydwen and grabbing my combat armor. Cait, I'd recommend you grab some good armor too."
"No. I'm going with you. To not only ensure compliance, but also to lend an extra gun." Nate said, causing Lawrence to roll his eyes. "Fine. Let's go and get this over with. I have work to do and reports to file."
"Fine by me. Let me just get my power armor from inside Valentine's." Nate said, vanishing through the door. And a few hours later, Lawrence and Cait were arguing about who had to go first.
"You wanted to come out here! You go first!"
"But you're the one who's career depends on it!"
"I'm not the one who's a psychotic dame trying to drown out my past!"
"And I'm not the one who rushed in to a mass battle situation because I saw my chem of choice!"
"ALRIGHT! BOTH OF YOU ENOUGH!" Nate shouted, lulling both of them into a stunned silence. "Lawrence, you will go first. Cait will go after you. If I hear another word from either of you before this procedure is done I will dump both of you off with the Children of Atom!"
After a couple very painful procedures, both of them were addiction free, but Lawrence wasn't happy. "I cannot believe I let you talk me into this. Not because I'm not addicted anymore, but because of the amount of work we had to do to get here and how painful that was."
He shot Nate a glare before turning to leave. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do."
He quickly and quietly exited the Vault, and popped off a Vertibird signal grenade, sitting down on the steps to patiently await his ride back to the Prydwen. As the Vertibird landed, Nate came running out of the Vault and joined him in climbing aboard.
Expecting a tense silence, Lawrence was shocked that Nate began speaking to him. "I'm sorry, Lawrence. I was just briefed on what your role is as a Swordsman and I want you to be able to be at your best without any hindrances."
After a moment, Lawrence smiled. "Thank you, Paladin. I spent so long denying the possibility of a fix, that it was just shocking that my problems are now gone."
A few minutes later, Lawrence walked up to Teagan, who pushed 4 holotapes back toward him. "They never suspected I had them. By the way, I took the liberty of calling in Garret Mitchell, the Codex expert that you said you worked with before. He should be here soon, since it was a few days ago I called him."
Lawrence raised an eyebrow and nodded. "Good. Good. I'm thinking the Airport seating area should be large enough, can you have a few scribes re-arrange things and build a platform at the far end? I think we might need it."
Teagan responded with a stiff nod, a sign for Lawrence to clear out quickly. As he made his way back up to the flight deck, he heard something from the bridge.
"Captain Kells, sir, I just got a very odd momentary visual. It looked like...some sort of Vertibird on the horizon. I lost visual contact, trying to re-establish." Lawrence turned and sent down the staircase to the bridge and listened in to Kells's response.
"Affirmative. Keep attempting to establish visual contact. If it is a vertibird send out a few of ours to investigate it."
"Yes sir."
With a smirk, Lawrence headed back to his quarters to prepare for the events in a few days.