"How are you feeling, Colonel?"

Augustus groaned, raising a hand to his face and rubbing his temples. "Nngh," he answered, cracking one eye and immediately slamming it shut against the glaring lights of the medical bay.

"Doctor, lower the lights. The Colonel is uncomfortable." There was a shuffling noise in the room, soft noises of clothing moving. "You may open your eyes, Colonel. Come now, we've much to do and little time."

He opened them slowly, feeling what must have been a month's worth of sleep shaking from him. He was... in the bunker? When had he―

Augustus closed his eyes and felt them moving dryly in their sockets, trying to recall what had happened. He'd... gone out of Raven Rock, he remembered that. Flown to an area in the D.C.―he opened his eyes again. The memorial. He remembered with perfect recollection, what had happened. Good God, James had tried to kill him―

Augustus tried to laugh, but could only cough. He was dehydrated, obviously. Even though he was trussed up in a hospital bed with I.V.s sticking out of him like decorations on a damned Christmas tree, he wasn't taking fluids very well. A side-effect of the massive amount of rads he'd suffered. Among the other, more unpleasant symptoms of radiation poisoning.

"Water," he commanded the doctor. He pushed himself upward slightly, then weakly fell back to the bed. After having his fill of water, he sought out the glaring eye he knew was watching him.

"Mr. President," he said, acknowledging it.

"I'm glad to see you are alive, Colonel," Eden replied, though it's "voice" sounded as if it couldn't care less. "You've gone through quite a bit of treatment, in the past week. We weren't sure we would be so graced, again."

He moved his arm out, coughing lightly as he examined his skin. Flushed red with some sort of rash. But it was still attached to his muscles―thank God for that. The very worst thing he could have imagined was to become one of the disgusting ghouls stowed away in the specimen containers around the base.

"You'll..." he put his arm down and tried to push himself upward again, "have to tell Watkins his work wasn't without value."

"It is remarkable that the experimental drugs worked so well," Eden commented. "Sort yourself out, Colonel. When you are ready, I will be waiting to speak with you." The eye dimmed.

Augustus hauled himself up, coughing and groaning. Examined his skin again. He was intact. A goddamned miracle, really.

He turned his gaze to the side. The doctor removed the I.V.s quickly, as he stared into the medical bay. Hard to collect his thoughts into coherence, after that―after he'd nearly died, after...

He sighed, rubbing his temple again. The pain was irrelevant. James had attempted to kill him, which was to be expected of the man. He had not succeeded, which was relevant, but he himself... likely, dead. The man had nothing to keep him from being exposed to the full brunt of the radiation that the purifier had released.

True to that outcome, Augustus knew the man hadn't been lying when he said the purifier didn't work. He would have to speak with Eden and ascertain why. James' idealism had, as Augustus had always expected, put him into an early and thoroughly undeserved grave.

Would that the man had listened to him, at least once. He felt no sorrow for James' loss. He had wanted to kill the man. And there was―

Lillie. God! He felt the sharp spike of pain in his temple and groaned loudly in the too quiet room. She'd been watching―and she'd known what her father had been doing. She'd implored him not to―not to―

He must find out what had happened in the week he'd been indisposed. Augustus stood and dressed himself as swiftly as he could manage.

"The game's going on rather better now," Eden told him, as he approached the "body" of the supercomputer.

"Sir?" he asked, his voice roughened by the week-long coma. Not even awake for an hour and it was already beginning its insidious machinations again. He could barely stand up straight, much less defend himself against the thing.

He must, though. Everything hinged on it. Augustus paid as close attention to the words it spoke, as he could.

"Well." Eden's eye burned into his eyes, painfully. "I will debrief you now, Colonel."

James was dead. Augustus had expected no less. Lillie had fled the purifier, pushed through the evacuation tunnels underneath the memorial. She'd ended out near the Citadel, and―if Augustus was to believe that Eden was being truthful as it skewed the information for him to hear―had infiltrated the Brotherhood of Steel.

"How could she?" he found himself asking the unblinking eye.

"It's very simple, Colonel. As she was thrust into the wasteland, on foot and unadorned, no one could know she was Enclave. Unless she told them herself..." Eden chuckled, dryly. "And I daresay, she's dealt with the few who do know in rather a most unpleasant way."

Augustus breathed out, shifting his weight off one leg and onto the other. He couldn't spare even a fraction of a thought to deal with that. "And the reason for her joining the Brotherhood, sir?"

"Naturally, having eyes inside the Citadel is of benefit."

"VIOLA is still operational, then," Augustus mused.

Eden made a thoughtful noise. "She did attempt to interfere with the signal, after fleeing the memorial. I was forced to activate the auxiliary signal, to compel her to behave." It barked out a laugh, making him wince. "As we've both discovered, dear Colonel, teenage girls are quite hard to discipline."

He couldn't feel the sinking of his heart. He'd not known about an auxiliary, of course. But he had known that he would be out-thought. It couldn't hurt him any further, knowing that Eden had planned for her to disrupt the signal and put into place some kind of failsafe.

What disturbed him more was that his men had engaged in the auxiliary program without his knowledge. The supercomputer was one thing to manage, but he'd thought his people were still of one goal. That was what the Enclave represented―a future where patriotism still had some value―

Having the idea planted that his men would go behind his back and work with Eden, without his knowledge, was more infuriating than knowing Lillie was still alive and being forcefully compelled by Eden. Her treachery had been with purpose, set into motion by his own devices. She'd been given the appropriate information and she'd indicated she understood through her own means.

Augustus was baffled by the girl. He'd threatened her, chased her from Raven Rock, had his men fire upon her―deliberately, because he'd intended for her to turn traitor. She hadn't. The painstaking deliverance of orders, when the Vertibird was sent to retrieve the dwellers, the effort he'd gone through to make sure the men believed that Lillie was a rogue agent...

They still believed this, and he'd quietly encouraged the sentiment. When she returned to Raven Rock he'd hoped that she would be considered the enemy, and thus when Eden treated her as a conquering hero―he would act. His men would support his decision to remove the President from power, for backing someone who was an obvious traitor.

Every iota of his plan had been perfect. And yet... she was still irritatingly loyal, going so far as to ask her father not to kill him. If only he could safely speak to her―

"Colonel, you are unusually quiet," it said, removing him from his thoughts.

"I'm sorry, sir," he mumbled, shifting his weight again. "I'm... still not at my best."

"You will come to your senses, soon. I have a specific set of instructions for you that should brighten your spirits immeasurably." Eden ejected a holotape from its console. "Take this. As of right now, Lillie is moving toward a Vault on the west side of the Capital Wasteland. Going there represents nothing of value, for her mission. I'd like you..." it chuckled, again, as if it were amused with itself. "To record her a missive, instructing her to travel toward Vault 87. Deliver it to the garage hiding the Vault, so that she has no choice but to accept."

Augustus removed the holotape and put it into his pocket, then stared up at the eye. "At once, sir," he said.

Damn the ZAX bastard! It was reading his mind, now!

Making sure Eden was paying attention, Augustus returned to his quarters and set about making himself presentable. He opened the drawer on his desk and stared at the contents, for a brief moment, then tossed the tape into the drawer and shut it.

He changed from the temporary uniform into what he presumed was a replacement for his heavily-irradiated coat. The hole where Lillie had shot him through the shoulder was missing.

A strange feeling rose in his chest. He thumbed the collar of the coat, and sighed. Shaved the week's worth of beard he'd grown and watched his hands trembling in the mirror. Either the massive radiation dosing had lingering effects, or...

His hand dropped to the sink, loosely holding the straight-edge. He stared at his fingers, remembering so many weeks before when he'd raised it in anger against her. She'd... forgiven him, for that. But she had not forgiven her father. Everything that he had witnessed on the holotapes led him to believe she'd unnecessarily demonized James. His lie had brought them into the Enclave fold, but―it had given her safety. Safety always had a price, whether it was the lives of soldiers who defended or being subject to a demoralizing leader such as Eden.

James' actions might have been terrible, but he'd had the best of intentions. Augustus couldn't feel sad for the man, true. But he felt for Lillie. Lillie, who had been denied the bond she required at such a tender age, who'd been thrust into Augustus' unwilling and irascible arms. Who'd been deliberately raised to have as little contact with others as possible, so that she was forced to bond with a person she'd viewed as an... enemy.

No matter how many times her father had tried to speak to her, in the Vault and afterward, she'd never given into him. She was agitated, Augustus suspected, because she'd been angered by the revelation that she was not of the Vault. That lie that had made her into what she was, caused her to fight with James.

Now... he sighed, clenching his hand into a fist. Given what James had done for her, attempting to save her from the Enclave―yet, only playing into Eden's opera―

"What did I say to you. I said be mindful. Stop trying to talk to me. You never know who could be listening," his voice played out onto the air. Augustus' breath caught in his chest, his eyes widening in his reflection.

"I know. I needed to say thanks, though," Lillie'd replied.

"You are a mindless puppet. And puppets can be made to please."

Good Lord. The straight-edge rattled against the sink. He lifted the razor to his neck and slowly, deliberately, removed the last bits of hair.

"Your resolve is admirable, Colonel," Eden said, sounding more amused than ever. Augustus ignored it, drying the straight-edge and putting it away. He cleaned the residue from his face and wiped down the sink, feeling his hands shaking.

Once he'd finished, and felt back to normal, he retrieved the holotape and began recording the message that Eden wanted Lillie to hear. He studied the map of the area before speaking.

"Lillie, these are your orders. To the west of E4 point zero-two. Access is limited on the surface. Seek out a nearby cave system for admission," he said, in the best commanding voice he could muster.

"Return to me, when you find your objective," Eden put in, before he could stop the recording.

Augustus quelled his anger, before taking out a pen and writing onto the side of the tape. He placed the holotape inside the desk, shutting it decisively and moving to his bed.

He'd be damned if he was going to give up, just yet. But... he needed rest.

He laid himself onto the covers and closed his eyes.