Chapter 11: Followed

"Question, Clements," the party had moved their way into the stairwell when Rep tried to fill the silence of the climb up, "Why can't you communicate with Reggie? You guys have radios."

"Elder's orders," Clements was in the lead, stopping on each landing checking for trip-wires and hostiles, "Until we find the source of the leaks, we're to maintain radio silence on all small party missions. That goes double for all missions involving you."

"Then why have me at all?"

"The Chain that Binds. That's why."

"Come again?"

Clements stopped moving altogether and turned to the Vault Engineer. "The Chain that Binds; in Brotherhood hierarchy, when the Elder says something, it's to be obeyed by everyone. Elder tells the Paladins, Paladins tell the Knights, all down the chain so every member knows. To break the Chain can get you ousted from your title or stripped of your rank. In order for the Brotherhood to find the leak the Elder has to bypass everyone by employing an outside agent."

"In other words," Rep filled in, "...Me."

"We all have the order to follow you when assigned. Only you will know exactly where you're gonna go, so the chain stays intact."

"So," Rep adjusted his glasses and raised the bill of his hat, "what you're saying is because of the leak, no one knows where we're going, and to make sure it stays that way, no one is to use the radio. Did I get that right?"

"Just about," with that, Clements continued climbing. Rep just sighed as he spoke to himself, "When did I become the world's fucking whipping boy?" he looked behind him to find Cheryl looking down over the stair railing. She looked to be actively looking for something. "Trying to find your loogie?"

The Wastelander asked, still looking over the railing, "Don't you have that feeling?"

"Uh… Feeling?" Rep asked, "You mean like after you eat brahmin for the first time?"

Cheryl grunted, "That we're being watched? Followed?"

"If we were being followed Reggie would have said something by now." Rep nonchalantly turned and followed after the Brotherhood member speaking as he did, "Come on, before we lose Clements." With that Rep disappeared up the staircase. She looked back up and found him gone which made her run up the stairs in a panic.

When she finally caught up with the two men in her group, they were stopped by a cave-in in the stairwell that sufficiently blocked the path up. They only got to the third floor, "Shit." The Initiate turned on his helmet light and concluded the wall was immovable, "If I move any of this the whole well will collapse on us. We gotta find another way."

"Now, how the hell are we gonna do that?" Cheryl was again more agitated than normal, her tone of voice broadcasting her stress. Rep stepped up to calm her, "No biggie; we just go through another floor until we find another stairwell or something." "Do you have a short memory or something Vault Boy?" she yelled, "The car outside? The elevator? We go into the building, we're gonna get blown up or something!"

"So, what? You want Moreno to die?" Rep's question threw her off. She almost forgot about him and why they were there. "Look, I ain't thrilled about walking in a minefield, either, but he's depending on us."

"You're right, I just…" she put her hands on the side of her head and took a deep breath before talking again, "I'm getting a very, very bad vibe about this place."

"Hey, I'm getting weird transmissions on my Pip-Boy. Believe me; the feeling's mutual."

"If you're done jawing," the tone of Clements' voice was starting to sound annoyed, "Can we please get going? I don't have all fucking day." The Initiate walked down to the previous landing and opened the door to the third floor. Cheryl scoffed, "Who shoved a Rad Roach up his ass?" Rep shook his head, "Place must be gettin' to him, too," he kept talking as he started moving, "Either that, or he needs a Midol."

"What's Midol?" Rep looked to her with a look of unease on his face, "That's probably the scariest question a woman can ask." With that, the Vault Dweller walked through the door. Cheryl felt like she should have been offended at that, but didn't get it to be so. She just huffed in frustration and followed them in the door.

Outside the building Reggie was perched on top of an overturned semi-trailer looking through his rifle's scope, laying on his front in the prone position. He had lost contact with the party for a bit until they came out of the stairwell. He adjusted his sights to get a clear view inside the building and saw that Clements was carefully scouting where he was walking as Rep and Cheryl wandered freely on the floor. "Good God, Cheryl," Reggie said to himself, steam escaping his mouth in the cold air, "I thought you were more cautious than this. Vault Dweller must be infecting you with his lack of survival instinct." That was when he saw it. It was just in the shadows, but he definitely saw the outline of a person. "Oh, great," the ghoul said as he grabbed his radio, "Nightstalker to Boyscout, you have party guests!"

Looking back through the scope, he saw no response from Rep or Cheryl to his calls. He spoke into the radio again, "Nightstalker to Boyscout, you… AH!" A loud screech pulsed out of the radio causing him to drop it and hold his hand over his ear. The radio kept squealing, causing Reggie to stand, pull out a 9mm pistol, and shoot it numerous times until the sound stopped. "Jesus Christ!" he put his finger in his ear and wiggled it a bit to stop the ringing, "What the hell was that?" It wasn't until a few seconds later Reggie realized the ringing wasn't in his ears - it was coming from the Kandewit facility.

Inside the facility everyone looked around as the alarm klaxons blared. Cheryl screamed over the noise, "What the hell is going on?" That was when a sickeningly cheerful voice spoke through the intercoms, "Hello, and Welcome to Kandewit! The facility is currently under attack - possibly by Communist forces - and security measures have been activated! Please stand clear of all windows and doors! Thank you and have a glorious day!"

"Well," Rep said disconcerted, "that's one way to quell panic in an emergency." Outside the building the party heard a massive amount of squealing and vibration. On the roof of the building a set of long rectangular boxes slid forward on tracks to the roof's edge. Once the boxes started hanging over, steel grating dropped from the bottoms of each container and slammed into steel - possibly magnetized - receiving latches at the building's base. Inside, the alarms had stopped, but the light was heavily blotted out leaving Clements to turn on his helmet light and Rep to activate his Pip-Boy's overbright mode. The only other light sources came from the flashing emergency lights that were still active.

"What the fuck just happened?" the Brotherhood member asked, confusion in his voice. Cheryl unholstered her 10mm, "I told you…" She turned to behind her and shot through an office cubicle wall. Something awkwardly jumped up in the darkness, floundered, and fell on the ground. The party rushed to where the mystery guest fell, both light sources shining on their visitor. "We're being followed," Cheryl finally concluded.

On the floor looked like a man, but was not. It was not a man in Power Armor, either. It's head was small with one eye and an antenna protruding from it's head. It had four fingers on each hand. It was rusty and leaking oil from its joints. It also wasn't dead. It sat against the window on the floor in a ball cowering in fear and trembling. It made sounds as though it was whimpering.

Rep and Clements looked at each other, confusion assumed to be on both faces due to the latter's face being covered. Cheryl kept her gun trained on the visitor as she started yelling, "Who the fuck are you? Why did you lock us in here?" The robot on the ground cower even harder as the female yelled each question. "You better talk or you're a dead motherfucker!"

Rep put a hand on her shoulder and quietly spoke to her, "Calm down. We're obviously not gonna get anywhere pointing a gun and screaming at it." He started approaching the cowering robot when Clements stated, "I wouldn't approach that thing if I were you." "Well, you're not me," Rep fired back, "just cover me." With that the Engineer walked forward and slowly knelt down in front of the robot, "Hi, how…"

"Please, don't hurt me!" the robot said in a synthesized voice, interrupting the man before it. Rep raised the bill of his hat a bit as he spoke bluntly, "I won't hurt ya, but depending on your actions my friends back here will turn ya into a cheese grater. Now, you better explain why you're trying to kill us."

"I didn't do it!" the robot exclaimed, a sound of human-like panic in it's voice, "I never do any of it! I just want them to stay away!" Rep raised an eyebrow, "'Them'? 'Them,' who?" "Those people!" the robot whimpered like a child pleading not to be punished, "Every time someone comes here, he gets really mad!" "Wait a minute," Cheryl interjected, "are you saying someone else is in here with you?"

"I try to warn people," the robot went into the fetal position, placed it's hands behind it's head, and started rocking back and forth, "I warn them and they never listen!"

"Warn them? You mean," Rep raised his Pip-Boy to show the strange repeated "ABORT!" message, "you sent me this?"

"I've had enough of this," the Paladin in training stated, him moving forward causing Rep to stand and stumble out of the way as he grabbed the robot by the chest plate, "You're gonna turn off these goddamn security systems, or I might have just found myself a fresh batch of melting steel!"

"Clements!" was all Rep managed to say when the robot broke free of the Brotherhood member's grip, him being distracted a slight moment. The robot jumped up, ran toward Rep, knocked him into cubicles, and continued running toward the other side of the office space. Clements stood up and started firing at the mechanical man, missing each time as he did. The robot disappeared in the darkness and flashing strobes of the emergency lights.

Rep groaned in agony as he rolled to his side to get up, "Man, I'm gonna be sore in the mornin'." Cheryl stood in total confusion at what just happened, "What kinda robot was that?" "I donno," Rep said with a groan as he stood up, "I'm only familiar with RobCo and General Atomics built robots. Never seen one of those before."

"It's an Acme C-27 Humanoid," everyone looked to Clemets, "During the Brotherhood-Calculator war, those things spread all over the midwest with the intent to destroy all humans. They were the base model meant to help humanity until the main computer at Vault 0 became corrupt."

Rep reached into his messenger bag and pulled out the printout for all Vaults. "Vault 0, Vault 0… 'Central communications hub for all Vaults in network.' Doesn't say anything about robots or anything here."

"Vault 0 was meant to collect the data the other Vaults supplied. It was meant as an Enclave data extraction relay. The Vault-Tec west coast relay station was struck by a missile during the great war. Didn't help almost all backup systems were skipped installation, too."

"Enclave?" Rep never heard that term before.

"Remnants of the United States political elite, military brass, and corporate tycoons including Vault-Tec executives. They're the ones that put all those experiments on Vault Dwellers like yourself," Clements tapped the paper in Rep's hands. A wave of realization caused the Vault Dweller to turn white and caused Cheryl to put a hand to her mouth to hold back a gasp. Noticing the discomfort he just inflicted, Clements changed the subject back, "Anyway, why's that C-27 even walking? The transmitter for those things burnt out 30 years ago from what I was told."

The engineer asked, "What transmitter?"

"They were dependent on a national transmission system that was controlled by Vault 0. When we fixed the computer we reprogrammed the robots to serve us, but the transmitter burned out. All of our robots became useless. That's all I was told about it anyway."

"Hold on," Cheryl interjected, "If these things depend on a transmitter, then how…"

"Can it be functioning?" the Initiate finished for the Wastelander. "That's why I'm confused."

"Wait a minute!" Rep started playing with his Pip-Boy again and activated the radio signal they detected outside the building. After a moment Rep explained himself, "What if this is the new transmitter? It seems like it's limited to the building; it didn't pop up until we approached the place."

Clements walked closer to the wrist-mounted computer and had a closer listen. "You could be right, but how did they know of the original programming sent to the robots?"

"Maybe it isn't," Clements and Cheryl looked at the Vault Engineer as he turned off the signal, "We might have to do some snooping."

Cheryl asked in a daunted voice, "Where do we start?"

Outside, Reggie kept his eye on the building seeing if he could see past the metal grating on the outside. It was completely locked off. "Fuck!" the ghoul swore, "I'm gonna hafta see if I can bust in there." Pulling the gun's scope away from his face, he got up from his prone position behind the overpasses' embankment, slung the rifle over his shoulder, and began making his way toward the building. "If any of ya end up dead," the ghoul huffed, "I swear to God, I'll kill ya."

"Nope… No, I can't open it," Cheryl was down on one knee trying to lockpick a door with one of Rep's screwdrivers and a bobby pin. She already broke 3 pins trying to unlock doors leading to the stairwell and this was the last pin she had. Clements was getting edgy, "Come on, this is a waste of time!"

"Patience, grasshopper," Rep said in a faux Asian accent, "Does not a fire need water, too?" He placed his hand on the Initiate's shoulder and looked knowingly to the air, "Does not a mountain need the storm? Does not our scrotums need kicking?"

Clements turned his head to the still-wayward looking Vault Dweller, "What in the fuck are you talking about?"

Rep still looked to the cosmos, "...Haven't got a clue!" the man gave the Brotherhood member a good hard slap in the shoulder, then walked closer to Cheryl. "Is it me," the Paladin in training asked with a bit of confusion in his voice, "or are you getting goofier?"

"Could the two of you give it a rest?" Cheryl huffed as she looked over, "You're distracting…" TINK! As she turned, she put too much pressure on the door lock with the screwdriver and broke her last pin; she closed her eyes in anger as she finished her thought, "...me. Goddamnit." She stood up, dropped the screwdriver to the ground, then kicked the door in rage, "Why can't we just blow this thing up? Why dick around with this shit?"

Clements sighed and put his hand on the forehead of his helmet as Rep explained, "Because it's a security door; it's blast proof."

Cheryl turned, punched him in the arm, and yelled, "I know that you corpulent retard!" She proceeded to punch him in the arm several times before Clements stepped in, "Hey, knock it off!" After getting between them, "Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ, you two make Lucy and Desi look like rank amateurs! Cut it out or I'll cut it out for you!"

Rep rubbed his arm more annoyed than hurt as he spoke out loud, "It's obvious the robot is tied to the security with a wireless transceiver, the doors must be controlled by a mainframe. Find a security checkpoint, we might be able to disable it, or at the least unlock the stairs and the main entrance."

Clements turned around and shined his headlamp in Rep's face, "Can you really pull that off?" Rep raised an eyebrow, again in annoyance, "How do you think I escaped my Vault?" With that, Rep walked off in search of a security terminal. Clements looked to Cheryl, "Where did you find this guy?"

"More like," she said candidly, "he found me. Opened my back door, there he was half frozen."

Clements scoffed as he turned to follow the Vault Engineer, "Surprised you didn't shoot him." Cheryl was just starting to walk after the Initiate when he said that. It was as though those words were offensive for some reason. She couldn't help but say what she said next with hesitation, "So am I." After another brief moment, she picked up pace with the party.

Reggie strafed the outer perimeter of the building trying to find an access point on the outside. Every window and door he found thus far was completely sealed with the metal covering extending from the roof. As he walked he had his 9mm pistol drawn peering around the building's corners making sure no one - and nothing - was awaiting him as he looked around. Around the side of the building he found the parking lot had wrapped around the side giving access to a semi-truck docking bay. There were a total of 6 bays and 2 of them had semi-trailers backed into them.

"I hope those were left open," the ghoulified Marine stated to no one, "or this is gonna be one shitty break-in."

"Vault Boy!" Cheryl was standing at a security office door waving the Vault Dweller over. Rep had been sifting through random cubicles and their contents when Cheryl's voice made him poke his head over to the top of the cubicle wall. He stopped what he was doing and approached the security office as she spoke, "You think this might unlock the building?"

Looking into the door's window, all he saw were a handful of closed-circuit monitors and a terminal at a desk. Rep shook his head, "No, not the building, but maybe the floor. Look…" Rep stood aside and pointed to the monitors, "That was the door you were trying to lockpick, and that's the door we came in at. If I can just get to that terminal…"

"No dice," the Wastelander said with a sigh, "I'm outta bobby pins, remember?"

"We may not need any," the Engineer pointed to a reader-type device next to the door, "looks like this door needs a keycard or at least a code. Find the keycard and we're golden." Rep began walking back through the cubicles when Cheryl called back, "Where do we start?"

Rep stopped, a look of sadness lightly touched his face, "When I walked through the Joliet Prison after I escaped my Vault I found several skeletons huddled into closets, janitorial, storage - anywhere they could hide," he turned to her, his face still riddled with sadness, "If security was doing its job when the bombs fell they ushered people somewhere safe - or at least tried. Let's start there." He turned away from her and called out to the Brotherhood member roaming around, "Clements, we got bodies to find. Stop dicking around."

That look… It was the same one he had when he was reading that notebook. It was the look of a man that learned a terrible truth and saw a horrible sight, to boot. It was as though the very idea of finding that exact scene again was going to remind him of what he saw in his Vault, or even something more disturbing. Cheryl had heard all of his horror stories and it didn't at all surprise her; the Wastelands were a very unforgiving place. Nevertheless, that man's face - it was the face of a truth seeker that has seen too much, and it was saddening him. She knew what was next for a man…

"Cheryl, this is no time to play, 'Space Cadet'!" The sound of Rep's voice called the Wastelander back to reality. She put herself back into her normal mode and commented, "'Space Cadet'? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It's what my Pop used to call me when I stared off into space. You've been doing that a lot today." She was about to respond harshly, but it occurred to her that his father was killed by his Overseer, and that said Overseer took him in and then tried to kill him, too. She just couldn't wrap her mind around it. "Father."

With a shake of her head snapping her back again to reality, she stepped her pace to catch up to the Vault Dweller.

Rifle over shoulder, Reggie made his way to the back of a truck trailer down a docking tunnel. It was dark and somewhat foreboding, but the hardened ghoul strafed his way past the truck with his 9mm pointing toward the darkness. It wasn't long before he bumped a wall at the back of the tunnel. It was hard to see where everything was, so he started feeling around in the narrow space.

Gun was still in his hand as he felt around the walls with the back of his hand until something started pulling at his gun, "What the fuck is…" before he could finish his question he gun was yanked out of his hand and he heard a loud metallic CLINK! His hand now free immediately turned on his combat helmet lamp.

What he saw was a docking collar extending from the tunnel's back wall and enveloping the tail of the semi-trailer. On the collar signs were visible stating magnetic fields were in use. "Great," the ghoul growled, "a fucking magnetic dock lock." Reggie saw his pistol directly under the sign. Getting a foothold on the tailgate of the trailer he got close enough to start pulling on the pistol. It wasn't coming off the electromagnet, so he reached over with his other hand, then moved his feet onto the magnetized plate to pull the gun off from a pulling position.

That proved to be a bad move as he moved his body close enough that the steel in his anti-material rifle was pulled by the magnet, "What… Oh shit!" THUD! The rifle on his back grabbed him and pinned him against the plate. He soon after tried to push himself off to no avail. After another failed push off, he went limp and sighed, "Fuck today."