"Is it really you? Really?" Cort collapsed to the sidewalk, barking her knees painfully as the dog made as close an approximation to a nod as he could. Burying her face into his neck for a long moment and hugging him, she sat back and let out a sob. James pawed at her leg, whining as she wiped her face with the back of one hand. "Look, it'll be fine Daddy, I'll fix it. I already know stuff that Braun didn't want me to know, so that's nearly the whole thing done right there."

Cort scrunched her brows together, thinking. She still had a job to do. At some point Braun would probably catch on to the fact that she wasn't playing along. She decided leading him down the garden path for the moment would not be a bad idea, possibly lulling him into believing she was doing his dirty work while giving herself more time to work with. Fucking bastard. I don't do anyone's dirty work. I do my own work. He probably doesn't believe anyone can do something aside from what he wants after all this time anyway. She turned back to face the boy.

"So, Timmy, where's the abandoned house Betty doesn't want anyone to go in?" She stood and looked towards where he was pointing, the last house she had to check. "Typical. It's never the first one, ever, is it."

"Huh?" The boy looked at her questioningly.

"Nevermind. So Timmy, Doc's my dog now, and you can play with him later if you want to, but we gotta do something first."

"Really for real? What?"

"Well, Betty gave him to me to make you cry, but I don't want to do what she says, she's dumb and creepy. Her games are really boring, too."

"Yeah. And really, really mean." The kid looked so depressed Cort wanted to walk up to Braun and floor him all over again.

"Sooo I figured we could play our own game. Alls you have to do is fake crying and run into your house, and then she'll think I made you do it, and then tomorrow I can come over to your house and play! She won't be able to go backsies or anything and take Doc away then."

"Coool. Can he do tricks?"

"Uh, yeah!" She leaned down and whispered to James before speaking louder. "For the love of God, play along. Okay Doc, sit up!" Timmy laughed as the animal clumsily sat up, pedaling his front legs in the air for balance. "See? Now make with the fake, kiddo! I'll see you tomorrow."

Putting on an appreciably genuine performance in her opinion, Timmy started wailing and bolted into his house, slamming the door. Cort swung around to face Betty, throwing a thumbs up and slapping a rictus of a smile on. She hissed quietly through her teeth as she waved in response to Betty's clapping. "That's right, I just made the kid cry, everything's working out, your plan is succeeding, you fucking pint-sized tinpot asshole." Stopping her motions she looked down at James, who was glaring again. At least, Cort thought, as much as a dog could glare. She frowned down at him. "Hey, don't look at me like that! At least I've managed to keep the correct amount of feet. And my species." Rubbing at her eyes again, she took off around the perimeter of Tranquility Lane, skulking towards the abandoned house and slipping in a moment later, holding the door open long enough for her father to slip through.

Blinking in the sudden dim she looked around the musty-smelling house, starting to wander carefully through the rooms. The living room was filled with assorted junk and she bypassed it immediately to head upstairs, James clicking behind her. "Is there even any point to asking why you left me in the Vault right now? I mean, it's not like you can give me an articulate answer. Everything went to hell after you left. And I'd be dead by now if it wasn't for Dogmeat and Charon." He made a strange strangled series of sounds as she walked into one of the bedrooms, terminating in a loud whine. "Yeah, I thought so. No point in asking." Cort felt around the walls, frustrated that she couldn't reach higher, then headed back downstairs to search the kitchen.

"Creepy thing." She flicked the face of a garden gnome among the detritus in the living room and jerked to a halt when a jarring, discordant tone rang out of it. Darting her hand out to touch it again, the same thing happened. "Okay, that's definitely odd. Try poking the other stuff." Cort and her father walked around the rooms tapping things, her with a hand and him with a paw, the broken radio singing out with a pure note when he scratched at it. "That one." Rushing over, she tapped it again, getting the discordant tone instead. "What the hell?" Striking it once more produced the pure note. On impulse, James nosed the pitcher next to it, producing another, different pure note. "Oooh."

Rapidly catching on, Cort darted around the room, striking and re-striking notes until all she received were the pure ones. "Radio, pitcher, creepy creepy gnome, pitcher, cinder block, gnome, and Nuka bottle!" Immediately after flicking the neck of the bottle, the far wall of the room shimmered with static and disappeared, revealing a terminal attached to a mainframe. Hugging the dog as he barked, she smiled. "We did it!" Trotting over to the terminal, she reached up and pulled the keyboard down, rapidly bringing up the different screens. Her face fell rapidly as she read.

"He's been torturing these people. Ripping them apart for decades. Centuries, now. Killing them over and over in different simulations, then just wiping their minds clean to start it all over. No wonder that old lady was so scattered." Grimly, she read the last entry left. "Chinese Invasion Simulation. So the bastard wanted to be able to end it all when he got too bored to slaughter them anymore, but he screwed up, can't be killed by it. And he won't let them die either because fake people aren't entertaining enough." She looked over to James, who had remained silent. "I can't let them stay like this. Can I." She watched the dog awkwardly twist his head from side to side. "No." Cort selected the 'Initiate' option, gently pushed the execute button, and headed back outside.

Everything was anarchy. Chinese commandos with assault rifles were everywhere, gunning down the residents. Horrified, she watched Timmy shot down next to his lemonade stand, and the old lady who had told her about the Failsafe Terminal nearly in front of her, talking to her as she died. "Thank you! Oh, thank-" Her head was obliterated a moment later. Cort sat on the stoop, hugged her father to her and wept as she watched the invasion program take place.

Winding her snuffling down as everything went quiet, she got up and shakily dusted herself off. "Okay. Let's go see that bastard Braun and get the hell out of here, if we can. If not, I'll teach you how to write or something." Cort strode up towards the playground, pausing when a pair of commandos ran up to her and snapped out a salute, one of them barking out a stream of Chinese before both repeated the gesture and left. "Huh. That's interesting." Eyeing the retreating figures speculatively she headed over to where the child Braun had turned himself into was fuming next to a freestanding door rippling with static, his voice cracking between that of the German man he really was and the little girl's.

"Do you realize what you've done? You've triggered the Failsafe! Now I'll be stuck here alone in this hell forever! You've ruined everything!"

Cort snarled at him. "You fucking deserve it for what you did to them, and keeping my father from me!"

Braun waved a hand at her and spat. "Pah. Your father has been in front of you the whole time, and you were too dense to see it. He was the dog the-"

"Yeah I figured that one out, Einstein. You named him Doc, nitwit, how stupid do you think a person has to be not to figure that the fuck out? Now you're going to answer my questions, you little bitch."

"No! This is my world, my creation! I own it!" He slumped defeatedly a second later. "Fine. Ask your infernal questions."

Cort grilled Braun about everything she could think of, from how to leave the simulation, the G.E.C.K. and himself, to why he had created Tranquility Lane. This final topic caused him to degenerate into his previous vitriol.

"Everything, you've ruined everything! Simulated people will never be as interesting as the real things!"

"They weren't things! They were never things! And I've had just about enough of you!" Cort hauled off and belted him in the face, putting as much of her currently small shoulder behind it as she could.

"You, you meanie!" Braun screeched in the girl's voice and started kicking at Cort, rapidly retreating a moment later when a stream of Chinese rang out, soldiers rushing towards him. "No, no! The system is designed to resurrect me automatically and I can't turn them off! I will be killed by them forever! You must return to the Failsafe Terminal and shut them down!"

Cort's face broke into a manic grin as she realized what had happened. "Oh no, I don't think I shall. This seems too beautifully poetic. Besides, that's what you get for attacking their commanding officer. I'll be sure to reset 112's door as well, so nobody aside from me will ever be able to get in again." She turned to the dog standing beside her as Braun screamed in his two voices, then walked over to the door and opened it. "Come on Dad, get going. Don't..don't freak out at Charon when you wake up, okay?" Cort waited after the dog went through, listening for the shrieking from behind to her stop. She only moved forward when it had finally begun all over again.


Charon was finding it extremely hard to hold on to his patience as the minutes slipped past him. After barely an hour had gone by, he had moved around and hesitantly poked at the terminal for Cort's Tranquility Lounger, wanting to have at least some idea of how she was doing. All he could learn was that like everyone else, her stress levels were elevated. Since when is that a fucking change from normal. She's nothing but fucking stress with legs. Slowly pushing the keyboard closed, he returned to his place by Dogmeat, who hadn't moved, and resumed his position. He was grimly considering setting up a permanent camp in the room they had slept in, trying to figure out how to organize resupply missions for him and the dog, when the terminals started beeping one by one. A second later, the occupants started jerking around as Robobrains streamed into the room. He darted in front of one as it passed by him.

"What's happening?" It whirred to a halt and spoke pleasantly before detouring around him to one of the now opening pods.

"Failsafe system has been activated. Previous Tranquility Lounger residents are to be removed as they terminate for storage or disposal." Charon rapidly moved back towards Cort, looking in anxiously. She was still breathing, but everyone else dropping dead around her was probably not a good sign.

Jerking his head up, he looked across to her father's pod as the last of the others opened, the robots starting to remove the bodies and disappear with them. It was still closed, and there was no movement from within. Leaning over, the ghoul placed a hand on the side of the glass and waited. If Cort was still alive then she was probably the one doing the killing, particularly since her father wasn't dead yet either. He absently watched the last Robobrain quietly leave with its emaciated cargo, positive that his employer would be coming back to him soon.

Things didn't happen in quite the order he would have preferred. Down the row, her father's Tranquility Lounger swung open first. Charon watched the man slowly wake up, almost falling when his legs hit the ground. Rubbing his face and then flexing his hands in front of him while smiling and muttering about 'thumbs', he made his way over to where Cort lay, freezing instantly when he noticed the ghoul standing next to her. Warily keeping an eye on him, James straightened up and calmly addressed him.

"I take it you're Charon?" Deciding that he definitely did not want to have this conversation until Cort instructed him on how to proceed, if at all, Charon fell back and hid behind old habits.

"Talk to Cort."

"I will as soon as she wakes up. First I would like to know exactly how-" Cutting him off before he could go any farther, Charon straightened up to match James' posture and visibly shut himself down after replying.

"Talk. To. Cort."

James frowned as he stared at the ghoul, distracted a moment later by a yip in front of him. Looking down, he smiled. "Well, you must be Dogmeat. I see the resemblance." He crouched down and rubbed at the dog's ears, the animal wiggling happily at the attention and excitedly sniffing. All three of them snapped their heads around a moment later when Cort's Tranquility Lounger started to open, her hands scrabbling at the lid and chair before she launched herself out of it, yelling.

"Daddy!" James had time to stand up before she slammed into him, crushing him in a hug and knocking the air out of his lungs.

"Oof! Someone's gotten strong." Cort pushed her face into his chest and squeezed harder, easily lifting him entirely off of the ground. James blinked, his feet dangling for a moment before touching down. "Someone's gotten very strong." He gently put his hands on his daughter's shoulders and pushed back lightly, looking into her face as she turned it up to him. Cort was caught between crying and whooping for joy.

"I had time to while I was looking for you, and I found you, I finally found you. I had to go to so many places, I-"

James gently cut her off. "Yes, honey, and you saved me. I thought I would be stuck in there forever. I expected to find research notes, or holotapes, anything but an insane and alive Braun." He pulled her back, hugging Cort to him. "It's so good to see you, but what are you doing here? What are you doing outside the Vault at all? I don't even want to know how you got out, but I suppose it's irrelevant now. There's no way Alphonse would let you back in."

Wrenching herself backwards, Cort pulled away, quickly starting to lose her temper. "I got out because Amata came to help me escape, to help me find you. And no, I'm pretty sure he won't let me back in." James reached out towards her, dropping his hand as she backed up even further, eyes wide and staring.

"I wanted you to stay there honey, where it was safe. To make a life for yourself there, not out here! You could have had a good life in the Vault."

"Yeah, it was starting off really excellent Dad. I can't even decide what was the best part was, Amata yelling that you were gone, Jonas being beaten to death over you leaving, or people trying to shoot me! Alphonse blamed me for everything, Daddy, not you. The only reason I even got out was because of Amata. You have no idea what I had to do after that to get here. How many people I've had to kill." Cort clenched her fists, shifting from foot to foot as she watched her father's face furrow up in pain, replaced a moment later by a firm authority.

"Honey, I am sorry, so sorry. I know you don't understand, but I thought I was doing the best for you, keeping you somewhere secure, where you could live your own life, have your own family, your own children." The last tenuous hold Cort had on herself snapped at his words, and she shrieked at him.

"I'LL NEVER HAVE CHILDREN NOW!" James' face blanched, and he started towards her, Cort holding her ground this time.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I'm a fucking mutated freak who's as barren as the damned dust in this shithole world!" Sobbing, she wrapped her arms around herself. "I helped some crazy researcher out to get supplies for going after you and the surprise payment was getting screwed up genes and sterilized." Cort started rocking back and forth while James rushed over and grabbed her by the shoulders again, his face and voice frighteningly inscrutable.

"Who did it to you?" She twisted in his grip, shaking her head with a disdainful look.

"It doesn't matter, she had no idea it would happen and was pretty damned horrified when I told her. All that matters is that I'm a messed up ugly piece of shit nobody's ever going to want."

James pulled her in tight, resting his head against the top of hers. "Oh no honey, don't say that. You're beautiful." She brought her arms up and violently shoved him away, catching himself on the edge of one of the loungers and staring at her.

"I'm what? What? FUCKING LOOK AT ME!" Cort ripped the top of her Vault suit open, tearing it off to the waist, then flung her arms out, breathing heavily with an anguished look on her face. Lacing in and out of her underwear and the bottom of the suit were a network of scars, made up of slashes, bullet wounds, bite marks and others James couldn't even begin to identify the cause of. Dried blood from herself and Charon was scattered in patches over all of her, soaked into her bra. He walked back over and cradled her face in his hands, eyes full of love and sorrow as he kissed her on the forehead and spoke quietly.

"All I see is my beautiful little girl." Collapsing to the floor with her father following her, Cort let out a shattering wail from the very depths of her damaged soul.