Begin Recording

Hermit

Recording by Scribe Ellison

I went directly down to Somerville Place to start my walk back across the Glowing Sea. It didn't feel safe to keep the courser chip in a populated place like Diamond City. I'd heard too many stories from Piper about settlements destroyed by dozens of synths appearing out of nowhere. If the Institute had some way of knowing the courser had been taken and ability to track its chip I didn't want anyone else around when the next courser came for me. So I sent Nick home to Diamond City and took the long walk south by myself.

The courser chip wasn't really a chip, it's a bulb about as big as my thumb, packed electronics covered in glass to keep it from the biological parts of the courser's brain. I wrapped it up and carried it in one of the pouches on my gun harness that I didn't even take off to sleep. The thing had all the weight of being something no one outside the Institute had ever held. No one had ever killed a courser, most people didn't even know they existed though Piper had looked back over her records and found a few reports of people in long coats who appeared in the night, committed a murder, and left again. Probably coursers, and I was getting closer to the people who sent them.

Closer to Shaun, I hoped.

In the days before we went after the courser I'd updated Shaun's room, exchanged the crib for a cot and the blocks and rattle for the medical magazines that Kellogg remembered Shaun reading. Doc Jenna had put the word out with the caravans that she would pay for any medical texts and after she'd got enough copies to donate to every other doctor in the Commonwealth she'd give me the next one for Shaun.

He'd have a place to come home to, once I found him. My worst fear was that he'd already have a loving family, something I tried not to think about as I slogged through the green twilight with my eyes burning from the stealth field on my suit. I think I took a different route across the glowing Sea again, because I saw the steeple but also the wing of a crashed airplane half sunken in muck.

At last the entrance to Virgil's cave loomed in front of me. I called out, "Doctor Virgil? It's me."

He'd upgraded, somehow cramming a decontamination arch in the entry tunnel. I got out of my power armor and stood under it. This time I'd worn my own clothes, and discovered that I was choosing dignity over comfort. My vault suit was soaked with sweat and I swore it'd be the Brotherhood approved orange jumpsuit and hood again next time. I should've trusted the bunch who practically live in power armor to design the most comfortable suit to wear under it.

Virgil was waiting on the other side. "You came back! You don't mean you found a courser?"

"I did. We killed it. Here, this is what was in its head."

Virgil took the chip between swollen fingers and squinted at it. "This is it..." he took it over to his terminal and plugged it in somehow and sank into a reverie of looking at the screen. I slouched into the human-sized chair and enjoyed not being in my power armor.

After some time Virgil asked, "Did you do anything with this after you pulled it out of the courser?"

"No, I brought it straight here. I was afraid it might have a tracker in it."

"It should have, but the tracker's been deactivated. Which must have been done at the Institute."

That made me sit up straight. "What? You mean the Institute tracks every courser except the one I happened to catch?"

Virgil looked over at me, brows furrowed. "Yes."

I suddenly felt very alone in a cave with a super mutant. There was nothing I could say if Virgil got suspicious. I had no idea what the Institute was up to.

But after a long minute Virgil grumbled, "The Institute is conniving but I can't imagine they'd make a plan that includes proving coursers can be killed." He went back to tapping away at the terminal.

What we'd just started to suspect was that I was being set up. I was, and finding that out would just about break me. But at the time we just wondered if something might be off.

I waited while Virgil worked, but he didn't seem to be doing so well. The keyboard tapping turned to banging and he started rubbing his head a lot.

"Doctor Virgil? You doing all right?"

The super mutant suddenly howled, "I can't reeeeemember!"

I jumped and drew my pistol on pure reflex, but after a minute of harsh breathing Virgil said, "I'm sorry. I thought I could decrypt the information on the chip, but I... can't. I can't remember how! I've done this… it's the FEV. I tried to make a strain that would preserve my faculties but it wasn't perfect."

"How did you escape from the Institute?" I asked. Get the client to talk about something they're proud of, it builds rapport. Also, I was curious.

Virgil stared at the screen for a few seconds then pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "I used the molecular relay to send supplies to this cave for a while. I have enough food and water to live here for years! This was the only place they couldn't come for me. Somewhere nothing could survive! Kellogg is vicious but he's not immune to radiation. Even coursers are enough flesh and blood to get radiation poisoning! Of course I wouldn't survive either, as a human. So I did this to myself."

"That is impressive!"

Virgil smiled. "Or stupid. I am… was… a researched on the effects of FEV. I had hoped to find a way to give subjects the benefits of the virus without the drawbacks, like becoming big and green. But since I designed new strains of the virus all day I could design one to be reversible. Once I get the serum I'll change back into an ordinary human. Can't come soon enough. Here, take this back. You'll have to find someone else to decrypt it. FEV causes mental degeneration and while I can still say long words I can't get into this chip."

I nodded and took back the courser chip, wrapping it up safely and putting it away. "I'll ask Doctor Amari; maybe she can get into it. What will you do after you get the serum? You'll be trapped here."

"Yes. I will. The only way I can stay alive is to stay here. The Institute will find me and kill me anywhere else. I have a radiation suit so I can go outside, once I'm human and fit in it."

"That's… wow. You can't even get radio signals through this muck."

Virgil nodded, seeming not troubled by this. "In fifty years, I will leave behind a record of research."

I was already getting into my power armor because it took a few minutes, so I wasn't facing Virgil so he didn't see my face. The life he was planning sounded horrible to me but maybe years of solitude and nothing but science was what he wanted. I promised myself that if I got a chance I'd get another serious radiation suit made so Virgil could rejoin the rest of the world someday if he wanted. He should at least have a choice.

The walk back felt long. My pip-boy reported that I was on the same path as before but this time I passed a decayed highway overpass. I saw a deathclaw nest underneath but the eggs were covered in a layer of dust.

Once I got back to the real world I did talk to Doctor Amari, but she wasn't able to get into the courser chip. She pointed me to the Railroad, so I suppose I should go back and tell you how I met them. And maybe about the next time I met your Brotherhood too, since I liked the second patrol I ran into a lot more than I liked the first.