A/N: I own nothing except the laptop I wrote this story on.
Piper could barely think straight as she made her way through the streets. Deacon and Desdemona had disappeared from sight shortly after she'd agreed to help them…but that didn't make things any better to calm her nerves. It was late at night, and she was supposed to be writing an edition of the Publick Occurrences about how the Brotherhood and the Minutemen were making headway. And here came a potential mushroom cloud to destroy it all.
Piper had mixed feelings about the Railroad. On one hand, she'd always been suspicious of Synths growing up. But after she'd met Blue (and Curie and, yes, even Danse), she'd started to re-evaluate her prior opinions about these individuals. And when it came to the thought of Synths wishing to escape the Institute, then she wasn't opposed to anything that let them get away. And the Railroad was pretty good at getting those that wanted to leave out of the place.
It was the "and then what?" aspect of it that soured her on the Railroad. They were great at executing their plan, but she got the feeling that they didn't have any end-game besides destroying the Institute. She'd been there when Blue and Desdemona got into a legitimate screaming match over the fate of the Prydwen: When Desdemona had suggested bombing the thing out of the sky, Blue had terrified everyone with his outburst. It was like he'd grown to be the size of a Super Mutant as he howled about the ethical horrors of killing those that the Railroad wanted killed. Desdemona, to her credit, had backed down.
But ever since the Institute had gone up in flames, the Railroad had been quiet. And Piper had known that it was only a matter of time before they reared their head again. She just wished that it wasn't in something so sensitive. But then again, perhaps it was exactly to be expected.
She opened the door to the Publick, and saw that Blue was on the couch reading the previous day's edition of the paper. The slight smile on his face as he read Piper's work made her heart flutter a bit…for some reason. Why did it matter to her that much if he liked her work? Didn't she feel the same whenever anyone complimented her work?
He looked up at her, and smiled.
'Hey, Piper." He said. "What's-"
He stopped talking, and his smile disappeared. Urgently, he motioned for Piper to shut the door. Piper turned to do so, and let out a squeak of shock as Desdemona and Deacon had silently followed her inside the house. Piper shut the door, and Deacon took off the wigged hat he was wearing, revealing his shiny bald head. Piper knew that he'd been wearing a wig after all this time. Of course, he then reached into his pocket and pulled out a newsboy cap, and rested it on his head. Evidently he was a little touchy about his head.
"What's going on?" Blue asked. "Piper, are you alright?"
"Relax, chief." Deacon said. "Dez and I would never do anything to her. She was safer than…well, a Deathclaw when it goes out for a morning stroll."
"Deacon, cut the jokes. This is serious." Desdemona said. She turned towards Blue. He nodded, a slightly stunned look on his face.
"It must be. You never leave the headquarters unless things are important."
"This isn't just important. It's crucial." Desdemona said. She took a seat on one of the chairs, and reapplied her lighter to the cigarette she was puffing. Piper wrinkled her nose. She'd never understood anyone's fixation on cigarettes or cigars. She tended to tease Blue for his nicotine addiction, but there was no hope of stopping him. That was kinda gross, though. She wondered how his wife handled it. It was probably like kissing an ashtray.
Wait, where did that last thought come from?
"Well, there's no point in dancing around the subject." Blue said. He looked at Desdemona. "What's the issue?"
"Remember how, when you went into the Institute, you said that you fired off the evacuation beacon to tell everyone to get the hell out of dodge?" Deacon asked. Blue's eyes widened slightly, and yet he didn't say anything.
"We were investigating an open building to see if it would make a good safehouse." Desdemona said. "But then we realized that we weren't the first people that had found the place."
"Which is kind of a surprise, seeing as how no one except that weirdo who names his rifles lives in the Salem area." Deacon said.
"Well?" Blue asked. "What the hell did you find?"
Desdemona took a deep breath.
"We found everyone that got out, Fixer."
There was a silence that seemed to last an eternity. Blue's mouth hung open slightly agape. Deacon nodded.
"Yeah. Scientists. Engineers. Their kids and families…there's about fifty people that got out of the Institute because you were kind enough to pull the plug on the emergency switch." He said.
Piper felt a massive wave of panic. The Institute was supposed to be gone. GONE. Then why were there still people from that place walking the earth? Why was there still a group of people that had survived? Did that not mean that everything that they were working so hard for was about to go up in smoke? She felt her heart racing at the thought of a rebuilt Institute, and of more of those terrifying Gen-II or even Gen-I Synths that had chased her, Blue and the others through the Commonwealth. It could all start over again. Couldn't it?
"What's their status?" Blue asked. "Are they a threat?"
"They're pretty pathetic, to be honest." Deacon said. "Mostly still in shock that their home was destroyed, and the usual shock that comes with the realization that the world on the surface is waaayyyyy worse than anything that they could have imagined. Most of them are just sort of ambling around the church in the center of Salem. Remember that one old whacko that we met out in Salem?"
"Barney's not a whacko." Blue said, though there was a small smirk threatening to appear on his face as if he was trying not to laugh. "He's just…a bit out there. Being the only member of the Salem Volunteer Militia will do that to you. But what about him?"
"He's the one that tipped us off." Desdemona said. "I don't know how, but he managed to get in touch with one of our runners that was scouting out the Salem area to see if we could stick a few Synths in a potential safehouse. Well, our runner got spotted by this Mr. Rook, who warned her to come towards his palce of residence because the Mirelurks were about to come out that night and they'd been hungry of late."
"So your runner went to his house?" Blue asked.
"Right." Desdemona said. "While she's there, Mr. Rook was doing the usual questioning of who she was and where she was from, but she didn't give us up. Just said that she was a travelling missionary."
"And Barney bought that?" Piper asked.
"I'm not entirely sure." Desdemona said. "I think he was just looking for an excuse to tell someone, because he told my runner to tell whomever her superiors were that he'd just helped 'around fifty people' into the church in the center of town about a day ago, and there was no way that he had enough food or water for all of them. So he asked her to send for help. She came back to base, and as soon as she told us her story we left the HQ to tell you."
"And the reason you told me first is?" Blue asked. Desdemona looked almost insulted.
"Who would we tell instead?" Desdemona asked. "The Brotherhood? They'd come in guns blazing and raze the entire church. I hate the Institute and everything that they stand for but…" She sighed. "I have a conscience. And I can't bear the thought of executing children. There are children in there."
"You seemed fine with it when the Brotherhood was the target." Blue said.
"I had no idea that there were children aboard the ship!" Desdemona fired back.
"Okay." Blue said, in an entirely unconvinced tone. He leaned back in the chair. "Well, here's the deal. They're going to be found out eventually. And make no mistake about it: when Maxson finds out that they've survived, he's going to want every last one of them killed for crimes against humanity. The trick here is manipulating when he finds out, as well as the context for how he finds out."
"What are you getting at, chief?" Deacon asked. Blue took a puff from his cigar.
"If the Brotherhood were to find the Institute remnant in someplace as undeclared as Salem, then there's no reason to think that they wouldn't just purge the place." He said. "But…doing that would just make them even harder to deal with. Maxson is pretty hard-line in his beliefs, but…he isn't a complete lost cause yet."
"I dunno, Blue." Piper said. "He's kind of an asshole."
"That doesn't mean that he's utterly irredeemable." Blue replied. "But that is a good point. If we don't figure it out and he gets to the Institute remnant first, then I might have to deal with a zealot for the rest of the time I'm in the Commonwealth." He sighed. "And there were plenty of those back in my day."
There was a silence in the air. Blue took a puff of his cigar. He then turned towards Desdemona.
"Desdemona, how discreet are your best runners?" He asked.
"Well, they're not as good as you were." Desdemona said. "But…they're good. I think they were taking notes while you were with us. And I'm proud of them."
"How many of them have made bulk trips before?" Blue asked.
"A couple. But they've never dealt with more than a few people at a time. Why?"
Blue sighed. He laced his fingers together underneath his chin in thought. And then he spoke.
"Because we're going to need to pull off the mother of all bait-and-switches."
"You lost me, chief." Deacon said. Blue nodded.
"Here's the plan." Blue said. "The peace talks are going to keep going on as if nothing has changed. As if neither of you came to me tonight. I will keep Maxson interested in the future politics of the Commonwealth, as well as preparations for an attack on Quincy. While he's looking south…" Blue gestured towards the Railroad operatives. "You're going to sneak in from the north. Take your best men and women, and get the Institute remnant out of Salem. Barney can show you the best way out of the city and down the coast. Stay away from the Kingsport Lighthouse: that's a haven for the Children of Atom, and they're not nice. Have the remnant come to the Castle, and then let your people disappear into the shadows. I will take custody of the remnant, and that's when I notify Maxson that the remaining people that lived in the Institute are in my custody at the Castle."
"Won't that information incite him to attack you?" Piper asked. Blue shook his head.
"Not if I bait him with the carrot of putting the Institute scientists on trial." I said.
"That would be a complete sham!" Piper said. "If you were in charge of such a thing, it's highly likely that most of them would be nailed for crimes that they might have had nothing to do with!"
"And if Maxson is in charge of them, then that is a guarantee." Blue said. "I hate the Institute, but what kind of world are we building if we just repeat the mistakes of the past, or by imposing martial law? I lived through that; it isn't conducive to a healthy society." He said. "Trust me when I say that I can get Maxson to see my side of things. If nothing else, I can get him to re-consider starting a war."
"That's a tall order." Desdemona said. "And if it was anyone other than you, I would doubt the possibility of it all." She took a drag from her cigarette. "This is going to be tricky, Fixer. You know that our numbers took a beating after the Institute attacks on us in the weeks and months before you showed up. If we are going to be able to pull this off, then we need to be assured that there's something to help us. We simply don't have the firepower or the knowledge of how to move that massive of a group in the dark through enemy territory in a short amount of time. The Railroad was meant to transport a couple of Synths at a time. It wasn't meant to transport an entire population. Or a company of soldiers, for a better comparison."
At the last bit, Blue went quiet, pondering the dilemma. But then he lit up like the cigar in his mouth, and Piper knew that he had a solution.
"He'd kept telling me he wanted overtime…" Blue muttered. He turned to Desdemona. "I have someone who will be able to help you out. He's smart, good with a weapon, knows the lay of the land, and above all is excellent at scouting a territory and sensing enemy movement. If he's with you, then you'll be about as safe as you can be while in the Commonwealth in the dead of night."
"Won't it be suspicious if the world sees a Minuteman helping us move a lot of unidentified people?" Desdemona asked. Blue chuckled.
"He's not a Minuteman, though. He's a freelancer."
...
MacCready kicked his feet up on the desk, leaning back in his chair. Sitting at another desk nearby, his host looked at him and raised an eyebrow.
"You're making yourself right at home, aren't you?" Nick Valentine asked.
"Only because I know that you're too kind, Nick." MacCready said. At another desk, Ellie was shuffling through the notes of Nick's latest trudge through the remains of the Institute. She rolled her eyes.
"Sometimes I wonder why we bother, Nick." She said. "He's kind of a hassle. Like an overgrown molerat."
"At least he pays rent, and doesn't make a mess." Nick replied. "For that, I think I can handle a couple of wiseass remarks." He turned around towards Ellie. "How's it going sorting through the information?"
"It…goes." Ellie said. "You didn't find much today, so that let me catch up on filing everything else that you've brought in."
"Have you all found anything to give to the people that are hiring you?" MacCready asked. As he spoke, he took out his sniper rifle and laid it out on the desk he'd been resting his feet against.
"Scraps here and there." Nick said. He smoked his cigarette wistfully. "Enough to satiate a few people…but not nearly enough. I'm not about to stop, though. I'm headed out to the wreckage site again tomorrow afternoon. I know that there's a Minuteman patrol marching in from Covenant, so I figure I go and do this while there's some other people out there to watch my robotic behind while I dig through the rubble."
As he spoke, MacCready started to take apart his gun and took out a rag. He began wiping out anything in the barrel, and then frowned. There was dirt in the rear sight aperture. He knew that that was going to be an issue if he didn't clean it.
The door knocked.
"I got it." Ellie said. She walked over to the door, and opened it. "Oh, General! I didn't expect to see you this late."
At the sound of her identifying the guest, both Nick and MacCready looked up. Blue was standing in the doorway. He looked like a man on a mission, because he wasn't smiling. He quietly thanked Ellie for her hospitality, and then closed the door behind him. As soon as he was done, he turned towards MacCready.
"Mac, pay attention. What I'm about to offer you is a job that is extremely dangerous. It's not going to be easy. It's going to be pressure-filled. And it's the kind of thing where if you screw up there might be lasting consequences for the entire Commonwealth and its future. Needless to say, you can't say no and you can't fail. If you do this, you'll get paid overtime. And I'll never pester you to join the Minutemen again. But you have to do this, and you have to do it exactly right. Can I count on you?"
There was dead silence. And then MacCready spoke.
"What do you need, chief?"
…
The sounds of construction had at one point been little more than white noise in the background. But tonight, for whatever reason, they were awful. It might have something to do with the fact that he'd had a blistering headache. There were no less than five reports that had come in from settlements earlier that day, all of them requesting aid or advice in some way, shape or form from the Castle and by extension the Minutemen entirely. Ronnie had been zero help to him; she'd laughed and said that paperwork was her weakness. Preston wasn't here, so he couldn't blame the man for finding an endless stream of problems that popped up amongst the settlements in the Commonwealth.
And the General…his friend…wasn't here, so there was no one to complain to, and no one that could sympathize with his plight. As it stood, he was sitting out on the second "story" of the Castle, in the middle of the construction, scribbling furious responses to the many letters that had been delivered.
It was a lot of tiring work. And yet, despite it all, there was some sort of relief that came from every letter that he properly responded to. If anything, he knew that there was joy in the process of work, and not just in the payoff. It was a worthwhile endeavor, in its own way, to be able to be actively involved in a team effort again. Especially when he was trusted with so much responsibility.
Now, if only that damned Super Mutant wasn't so loud with his construction work.
"Would you like a drink, mister Danse?"
He looked up to see that Codsworth had floated next to him, and one of the robotic arms was holding a bottle of what appeared to be purified water. It was impressive that, after two hundred years, Codsworth was still able to make his water a bit more purified than the shit that infected 90% of the water in the Commonwealth. Somehow, Danse knew that if this was common knowledge, Codsworth might be the most valuable possession in the Commonwealth.
"Certainly, Codsworth." He said, gratefully taking the bottle.
"Of course, sir!" Codsworth said. He started to float away. For whatever reason, Danse spoke up again.
"Codsworth, do you have a moment?"
"Why, yes. What is on your mind, mister Danse?"
"I just had a question about…your master." Danse said. "The General."
"What would you like to know?"
"Well, a lot…I suppose. But there's one question that's truly bothering me. For the longest time, when he and I were in the Brotherhood together, he heard me go on and on about how Synths were a perversion of science and an abomination. He would always be neutral, at worst gently disagreeing with me. But when the time came to discover that I was a Synth, the very thing that I had been trained to hate and destroy, he refused to kill me. Even when I asked him to. Why is that? What kind of man is he to take such a risk? For all I know, there might be failsafes programmed into me that, upon hearing a choice word, means that I will shut down forever or even attempt to murder him. And yet he still trusts me. Why is that?"
Codsworth was silent for a time. When he spoke, Danse noted that the robot actually sounded thoughtful.
"I have wondered what motivates my master to do the things that he does, from time to time." Codsworth said. "And there are times where I confess that I'm not certain, as my memory and thought matrix are only capable of handling so much. But…but there is something that I do know that motivates my master, and that is that there is no one I know with a bigger heart than him. I think one would be hard-pressed to find someone who loves his fellow man, no matter what they look like, as much as my master does."
"But…" Danse said. "I'm not a man…"
"Codswollop!" Codsworth said. "You might not technically be human, but you are most certainly a man. For if you are not a man, what does that make me? Master treats me as family, and has said so to my face. He even went so far as to call me an uncle for young master Shaun. I am not so presumptious to think that I am human as well, but I think it is a fair assessment to believe that I am a man. And I see no reason why you shouldn't consider yourself a man, either. I know that my master thinks that of you."
Danse was quiet for a moment. There was something in his heart that seemed to calm upon hearing the Mr. Handy's words. He looked up at Codsworth, and he smiled slightly.
"Thank you, Codsworth. That…that does answer my question, and in a way that I hadn't expected."
"I'm happy to help, mister Danse!" Codsworth said. "Now, if I may be so bold, there are some of our friends out there down on the waterfront having dinner. Perhaps you might want to join them?"
Danse looked down towards the peninsula that led out to the great sea. There was a small covered wagon sitting out there, and soon Cait had popped her head out of the flaps, opening it up to reveal that there were others in there with her.
"Christ, gimme some fuckin' air!" He heard her growl in annoyance, before disappearing back into the flap. Danse turned towards Codsworth.
"Codsworth, the letters that I have put in envelopes are finished. Can you take those and put them in the mailing station for me? I'll deal with the rest myself."
"Of course, sir!"
…
He made his way over to the wagon. It wasn't the only wagon out there on the peninsula, but it was the closest to the Castle and there were sounds of merriment coming from inside. He took a deep breath, and then ducked underneath the flap so that he could peer inside.
He was greeted by the sight of Cait, Curie, Jonathan the radioman, and two other Minutemen. And there, sitting wedged in between Curie and Jonathan, was little Shaun.
"Hi Danse!" Shaun said, waving. Danse waved hello, and then made a face.
"God, what died in here?" He muttered.
"Corpswoman Cait over here tried making some Brahmin stew in an ammo box." Jonathan said, gesturing to the little green canister that was sitting over a controlled fire. "Too bad the Brahmin wasn't that good."
"You got a reservation at a better place, you fuckin' let me know." Cait said. There were some chuckles in the wagon. One of the Minutemen hesitantly offered a bottle of Gwinnett towards Danse.
"Um, would you like a drink, sir?" He asked. Cait shook her head.
"Nah. Fuss-pot Danse here don't drink. Too course for his virginal tastes."
But to her surprise, Danse grabbed the bottle and uncorked the top.
"Well, there's a first time for everything." Danse said, taking a sip. He made a face as he got used to the funny taste of alcohol. And then he looked up at Cait, and handed the bottle back towards her. "Isn't that right, Cait?"
There was a small smirk on her face as she took the bottle back.
"Aye, sir." She said.
"Sir, if the General is off at Diamond City, and the Colonel doesn't have any interest in leadership of the Castle…doesn't that make you the interim General?" One of the men asked. Danse considered the thought, and then spoke.
"No. I'm a Captain in the Minutemen, but the General is the General. And I'm only following his orders to the best capability that I have." He paused, and then spoke again. "Though I'd recommend treating me nice, otherwise I might have to tell on you."
A little row of chuckles came through the wagon. Danse found himself smiling too. He wasn't one for joking, and yet here he was, making a forced attempt at humor and getting some laughs out of it. He nodded his head.
"Alright, enjoy your meal everyone." He started to leave, and then he poked his head back in the wagon. "Oh, uh, Cait?"
"Yeah?" She asked.
Danse looked from one side of the wagon to the next, and then lowered his voice a bit while he spoke.
"I'm, uh…I'm not a virgin."
As he slipped back out of the wagon in the middle of their stunned silence, he soon heard some uproarious laughter coming from the tent. Cait seemed to be laughing the hardest.
"Sure, he's probably got the fuckin' clap!"
"Sacre bleu, watch your tongue around little Shaun, Cait!"
"Aunt Curie, I've heard way worse. I play around with Uncle Hancock, remember?"
Danse heard that exchange, and for the first time in a while he didn't feel so alone.
A/N: I always wondered what would happen to the Institute remnant after the decision is made to call in the evacuation protocol (unless you're an asshole and chose not to warn everyone that their home was about to go up in smoke), and so I decided to shoehorn in a little wrench in the plans of Blue and everyone else. How will they handle this little bluff? Can they pull it off? We'll see.
Be prepared for plenty of secondary characters from the vanilla game to pop up in the next couple of chapters. I enjoyed the crop of well-developed tertiary stories and characters that litter the Commonwealth, you know?
See you next time.