James was in the clinic still, after Lillie had been gone for almost an hour. He'd been attempting to gain access to the Vault's data files, when an alarm suddenly blared over his head.

He sat upright in the chair, pinched his nose, and sighed out. He'd thought that Lillie would focus more on preserving the Vault itself, possibly in addition to delivering the dwellers to Eden. It was certainly a well-maintained living place.

Apparently his miscreant child had more... dire plans. She'd probably sabotaged something―his caps were on the water chip, based on the unreliability of such equipment in the Vaults he'd researched during his solubility work for the Enclave―and this event felt the same as the chaos she'd sown when she was twelve.

She knew perfectly well how such things could be arranged. She was too damn smart for her own good.

If he were honest with himself, he would say the timing of her sabotage was sooner than he'd expected. His informing her of the plasma charge in her skull must have tipped her hand. Lillie might be smarter than most, but... she was still a moody teenager. She'd made that perfectly clear, over the past few days.

James stood and removed himself from the clinic, as speedily as he could. There wasn't much he could do, to defend himself, but he was grateful he'd managed to acquire a weapon. He had a feeling it would be useful.

The Overseer was certainly going to order Security to kill the three of them.

Dammit, Lillie!

There was a short gunfight in the Atrium that he was privy to, watching from a lower-level hallway. Jericho had his foot on an officer's chest, unloading his assault rifle into the man's helmet facing, while Lillie was exchanging fire with another officer at the doorway to the main entrance.

James didn't react, only watched his gentle daughter killing a man in cold blood right before his eyes. The cracking noise he heard couldn't have been his heart; it had already been broken, irreparably so, after her casual dismissal in the jail cell. He cast his eyes away from her despicable actions in time to see a baton come down on his head.

Stars in his vision, as he scrambled away from the security officer who was attempting to subdue him. Damn, he should have been paying better attention―

The officer fell after a short report from the Lillie's pistol, and James stared up at his daughter. She considered him with a blank face, for a moment, then reloaded the pistol calmly.

"We're leaving," she said, holstering the gun and holding her hand out to him. He allowed himself to be helped up from the floor, staring at Lillie numbly.

"Fuckin' door's locked," Jericho shouted, from inside the corridor leading to the entry. A sharp pinging noise sounded, and a ricocheting noise echoed. Jericho swore, loudly, grunting as he limped back to them.

"I could have told you that," Lillie said, shaking her head at him. "Use a stimpak, Jericho. We're going to take a walk."

The old man grumbled, opening a pocket and applying a stimpak to the leg that had caught the ricocheted bullets. He tossed it away, spat on the floor, cracked his neck, and held up his rifle. "Let's fuckin' go, then," he snarled.

Lillie shot a glance at James, narrowing her eyes. "You're coming with, right?" she asked, cautiously.

"If I stay, they'll kill me, Lillie," he strained out, pathetically.

"Good," she retorted meanly, and led the way further into the Vault.

It really wasn't difficult for her to escape the Vault. Lillie's knowledge of the place―gathered either through Eden's insidious planning or her own stealthy reconnaissance―extended to the secret tunnel under the Overseer's office and out into the main entrance. She marched over to the controls and looked at the massive door with a squint in her eyes, before turning to the men.

"When we get out there, there's going to be an Enclave presence," she said, carefully. "We have to avoid being captured."

"Yeah, yeah," Jericho grumbled, scratching his leg where he'd hurt himself.

"Okay then," she said, simply, and hit the controls.

James was confused. Surely... she hadn't actually considered his offer of the purifier? He knew Lillie would analyze the idea extensively before she even bothered to debate whether to accept it. But... if she didn't intend to surrender herself to the Enclave―

Where else could she hope to go? The Enclave would know where she was, at all times, because of the video feed. She said herself that they would be executed, because they couldn't escape.

"Sweetie," he said, his voice stressed and mood dour, "if you don't let me in on your plan, how can you hope to effect a successful escape?"

Lillie watched the door opening, wincing at the squeal it gave, then turned to look at him. She was wild-looking, her eyes shining and open as wide as they would go, sweating and pale in the harshness of the Simu-Sun lighting. "Dad," she groaned, rolling her eyes at him. "You have your plans, and I have mine. Trust that they run concurrently, okay?"

Jericho said something stupid again. Lillie shot him a glare that should have melted metal, then started toward the tunnel that led to the outside.

"I really don't―" James started, then looked to Jericho. "Are you aware of what's going on, at all?"

Jericho's hand came down heavily on his back, half-shoving and half-squeezing him painfully. "I ain't that fuckin' smart," he said, and pushed him toward the door. "But if you wanna get outta here in one piece, now's the fuckin' time."

Lillie shouted from her position by the door for them to hurry up, stamping a foot and putting her hands on her hips. James stared at her as he was forcibly propelled forward into the tunnel, the sharp report of gunfire behind them lending swiftness to their steps. Lillie opened the door just as they reached her, stepping outside of the Vault into a cloudless day―

He still had no clue as to what Lillie's plan was, but he did understand what was happening in the immediate area. The Vertibird in the distance grew nearer and louder as Vault dwellers began to stumble out into the wastes, shielding their eyes from the brightness of the sun.

Lillie had vanished as soon as they were outside, while Jericho hung back and dragged James up to the rocks above the Vault entrance. "Shut the fuck up and pay attention," the grizzled idiot said, pushing James' head down and crouching on the rocks.

"The soldiers will see us, here," he protested, trying to turn his head and watch the Vertibird circling them.

"That's the point, asshole," Jericho snapped, holding James' head in place. "Fuckin' pay attention, like I said."

He watched the agitated Vault dwellers, milling about on the rocks in front of the entrance, their departure forced by Lillie's hand. A few were yelling at Almodovar about―well, Lillie and her entry to the Vault, stating the obvious. Hindsight was always 20/20, and their anger was justified. James could hear most of the words being used, and although they were unpleasant ones, he was very tempted to agree with the former residents.

He still couldn't see Lillie, though he could see the Vertibird coming down for a landing on the road below the Vault entrance. The agony of waiting for something to happen was terrible―waiting for their inevitable arrest―the summary execution that was to follow couldn't happen soon enough for him.

Damn his daughter and her―delusions! What could this latest plan of luring the Enclave in and letting themselves be captured, prove?

The dwellers were shortly corralled into a close group by the Enclave soldiers that poured from the Vertibird. Another vehicle began approaching from the northwest, and James sighed. Loudly enough to irritate Jericho, it seemed, because his grip on James' head grew tighter.

"Listen, jackass," the foul man said. "You gotta have a little fuckin' faith." He removed his hand, finally, and gestured to the first Vertibird.

James turned his head, his neck sore from the pressure Jericho had placed upon it, and stared. Was that―?

Lillie was crouching at the back end of the Vertibird, then pulled herself into the bay. She moved slowly across the floor for a moment, grabbed something bulky from the inside, and fluidly removed herself from the vehicle without pause, heading west around the rocks.

Jericho coughed, muttered something about luck, and grabbed James by the upper arm. Started to drag him southeast, moving through the rocks in a random pattern.

"If I have faith," James said, his temper frayed, "it's that you've betrayed me. When I asked you to get my daughter and I to the―"

"We're still headin' to your precious purifier," Jericho snarled, pulling him faster through the rocks. "Have some fuckin' patience, asshole."

After a moment, Lillie joined up with them, her feet steadily pounding the dry earth. "Southwest toward Megaton, then west to the river," she barked, moving faster than James thought she was capable of. Jericho grunted and dragged him even more roughly, forcing him to keep up or fall down―

A spattering of gunfire behind them brought little puffs of dust from the wasteland floor, and Jericho let loose a loud string of profanities that made James' face turn red. God, and this was a man he'd entrusted his daughter's safety to―he almost preferred Colonel Autumn's hatefulness!

The second Vertibird followed them, spraying the ground with bullets, for a short time longer. Abruptly, it pulled away, heading back toward the Vault, as the trio bolted steadily west.

That worried him, but he had other things to be more concerned about―like where, exactly, they were headed―

Half an hour of frenzied running later, and another gunfight outside of a Metro station, James was finally allowed to rest his sore legs. Lillie led them into a small pump room near the river, having cleared it of raiders, then set herself down onto the floor and opened the duffel bag she'd retrieved from the first Vertibird. Jericho took up position by the door, lighting a cigarette and looking entirely full of himself, as James watched Lillie carefully.

She muttered to herself, assembling something on the floor, occasionally pulling a tool from the bag and utilizing it. The object she was creating from scrap electronics and wiring shortly took on a rounder shape, and he suddenly realized she was making an Eyebot.

"What do you intend to do with that?" he asked her, carefully.

"Got to increase the signal-to-noise ratio," she said, examining and tossing a piece of scrap to the side. "If they can't pick up the right noise―"

James blinked in surprise. "How do you know?" he wondered. As far as he knew, she hadn't been allowed to know anything about the set-up of VIOLA. If she'd known, she could pull a stunt like―like this, disrupting the signal and causing trouble for Eden. He doubted Eden would be happy to learn that Lillie was aware of VIOLA's nature, either.

"You can thank Butch, if you want," Lillie said, placing another piece into the makeshift eyebot. "I was forced to avoid him so often, I ended up in the Vault radio room. You'd be surprised how much you learn, when you're forced to fake an interest." She pushed two pieces of scrap together, then pulled out a power cell, attaching it to the inner workings of the half-made robot. "If VIOLA can't be dug out of all the noise..." She glanced at him, critically, her eyes implying more than she'd said.

James nodded, slowly. He watched her powering on the robot and heard the familiar penny whistle that the Enclave radio played, before she quickly switched the frequency. Lillie closed her eyes, grimaced, and picked up the half-built robot.

She stood, and carried it to the door. "Let's go," she said, firmly. "We have to leave, right now."

Lillie wasn't playing President Eden's game, anymore. She had just tipped the scales in her own favor, by disabling the radio link to the plasma charge and disrupting the feedback that VIOLA would provide the Enclave.

James stood and followed her from the pump room, his feet slowed by the frantic pace they'd set before.

She'd gone rogue... and he wasn't sure that was a good idea, at all.

How much worse could this whole situation get?