Scribe Jameson, acting Sentinel Cross and Star Paladin Casadin sat in the still usable conference room of the Citadel.

"I don't like it.", Cross stated.

"You don't have to like it.", Casadin snapped. "We're running out of supplies. Your team's done nothing but run around on our caps, stalling."

"She's recovered Three Dog's transmitter.", Cross objected.

Casadin scoffed. "Troops don't march on propaganda alone."

"Three Dog isn't propaganda. He's a lifeline of information to the Capital Wastes.", Cross explained - again.

A hand slapped the table. "Enough.", Jameson demanded. "If we're going to do this, then let's find out exactly what we're doing.

"Bring in the prisoner."

Two power armor clad knights dragged in a woman. The woman must have been insane, smiling despite her rags and her dirt and chains. Once she was attached to a chair she looked the pseudo-council of the Brotherhood of Steel in the eyes. Insanity confirmed. Then she started laughing.

"This is your big play, Casadin?", Cross mocked. "The lunatic?"

Lizzie Wyath spoke for the first time is some time. "Don't mistake genius for lunacy."

"You're a psychopath.", Scribe Jameson reminded.

Lizzie shrugged her shoulders. "Cracking under the stresses of life then."

"Then explain the cackle.", Cross demanded.

Wyath smiled. "Because you're all fucked."

And at the expressions she got. "Oh, come on. You don't have to act all butt hurt about it as well."

Casadin snapped. "We're not/"

"Yes, you are!", Lizzie shot right back. "Remember what your precious Head Scribe Elizabeth Jameson said to me when she commanded you to take me into custody?"

Elizabeth tried to speak calmly. "That's only because of what we caught you doing."

"Remember!", Wyath demanded.

The older woman let out a sigh. "That it would be the darkest day on earth that you would see anything but the gun of an executioner."

"And there's not one here to be found.", Lizzie pointed out. "So I'm thinking the day is pretty dark. And what could possibly darken your day?"

"You mean besides your human experiments? Your tricking our own men and women into choking on and melting under your concoctions? Addicting good people into slaves through your drugs?", Cross accused.

The ex-Operator chemist shrugged. "Besides that.

"I don't think it's a surge in super mutant tactics. Or even a new supply of feral ghouls. I didn't hear any additional gun fire when I was being dragged in here.

"No, there's only one thing I know of that can bring an organization filled with violent hypocrites to their knees. Particularly when they're accustomed to strutting their stuff like they're the only Deathclaw in town.

"Her."

Cross objected. "Look."

Lizzie scoffed. "Not your Wasteland Savior or whatever your radio man wants to call her this week.

"Her. The Overboss. The General. Our Favorite Vault Dweller. The bitch with a thousand titles. She's finally come here. I couldn't escape her. And now, neither can you. Let me guess: she hit your operation like a spear point, just deep enough to stop it dead in its tracks and see it from the inside out. Then when it looked like she was about to stop she was really squeezing the whole thing like an youi guai.

"Why else would you drag me out of that cell? Sit me down to (ha!) conference with you. I'm what you've got from the Commonwealth that's your last best hope of stopping her and her thrice damned, ever growing legions. You've already used every other free-lancer you've got."

Jameson folded her hands. "We are prepared to allow you certain privileges, that can be revoked, in exchange for your services."

"And you can screw those privileges to the sticking place.", Wyath replied.

"Here is what is going to happen. Since you like your medieval styles so much, you're going to promote me to Proctor of Potions. You're going to assign enough knights, squires and scribes to keep me and a vertibird happy to my direct command. You're going to allocate a secure, well ventilated, space filled with workbenches and any supplies my team may abscond with. And never ask me again what I'm doing with all the soap.

"Oh. And a young, innocent page. So I can corrupt her with my mad scientist ways."

Cross glared at her. "You poison."

The woman's chains shook as she banged her fists on the table in front of her. "You're right, I'm the poison. I'm fire-breath of this dragon. And now the knight errant is at the entrance to your cave, ready to free the princess you were going to have for dinner and take all your gold after ripping out your heart for her own immortality. Now are you going to light her up? Or are you going to fade into myth?

"You have two takes to choose from. Either take up the quill, dip it in blood and sign on the dotted line. Or take me back to my cell and wait until you're even more desperate but know that it's way too late."

Cross' frown was probably permanent now. Casadin tried to hold his face together, but the other two saw the gleam in his eye. Jameson's face fell.

"Guards. Unchain Proctor Wyath and escort her to Edwards Air Force Base where she can designate a building to be her new laboratory."