Three Dog turned to the noise he thought he heard. He grabbed Margeret by the wrist and ran down the stairs to the back door. When he opened it, the General was leaning against the frame. She was not large enough to take up the entire door way which allowed her marines to point several weapons at the two.
"I apologize, civilians.", the General started. "But I just need to hear your voices. Well, actually one of my synths. Because if either of you is Three Dog, you're marching back up those stairs and we're having a very public discussion about the Right to the Freedom of Expression.
"Or you can leave Radio Freedom and the classical station as the only frequencies in the Wastes. And I assure you, quite permanently."
Three Dog looked to Margaret and she nodded. "Fine. Three Dog knew fighting the good fight would catch up to him one day. Might as well be today."
"Just get to your console.", the General replied. She marched the two back up the stairs.
When they got to the broadcast room. A man was kneeling on the floor. "Who's this?", she demanded.
"Dillon's been fighting the good fight with me.", Three Dog explained.
"Not you. Not yet.", the General spat.
Bridget came up the stairs the other way. "He seemed to the Head Brotherhood of Steel in Charge at the door. Or at least he was until we pealed him out of the frame after his plates gave way."
"Mr. Dillon, was it?", the General asked. "I want you to answer me honestly. Normally, someone who refused to surrender or retreat might be referred to as stupid or even evil in just trying to cause as much violence until the bitter end. But you never turned your back if all of your armor was that damaged because you would have exposed your fusion core if you had. And believe me, our people really want to shoot your fusion cores while they are still on your backs. So as an agent of the Brotherhood, you will have to let me know why you are so very loyal to Mr. Three Dog and his companion that you would try to stall us while they got away. After all, if you thought you were going to stop us then he'd have more of a guard than you."
"Recently, Three Dog didn't need more guards.", Dillon stated. "There's been less frakenstein activity now than in many years."
"Huh.", the General mused. "Could that be because a parasite only survives when it takes advantage of a host? So when an actual government of the people actually protect their citizens the supermutant population starves out? Real protection like guarding the actual communities and homesteads, patrolling trade routes. Not just taking resources and technology and justifying it with flowery language after the fact.
"You know. Like you do here. For our dear Mr. Three Dog.
"But that doesn't answer the question. Why sacrifice for his escape?
"Orders.", Dillon answered.
The General winced. "And here I was hoping that somewhere deep down there was a semblance of humanity instead of fascism all the way down."
She turned to the woman. "Who are you?"
"I don't have to tell you squat.", Margaret decided.
Marines started to raise the weapons that weren't pointed at Dillon. "No, no.", the General cautioned. "She's a civilian. It's Mr. Three Dog that's going to speak with me on the air. If she wasn't a slave they kept here then we can throw her out the front door and move on with our task."
"And if I was?", Margaret asked.
"Then I'd see if you needed water, a STIMPACK, or a place to go or your collar unlocked.", the General answered. "And the conversation I was planning on would be very short, because dead men tell no tales."
Margaret looked back at Three Dog. "I'm Galaxy News' technician. He can't get on the air until I put him there."
The General walked up to Margaret. "Look alive. As part of this operation that's been spouting a lot across the airwaves, you are staying here with us for the moment. I am going to have some of our less human synths escort you as you get Mr. Three Dog on the air. You are going to explain the entire process to very advanced machines built for service by a science conspiracy. If any of the material you touch is not for that express purpose, they may shoot you. They will certainly inform me. Do you understand?"
The woman nodded and then walked off with two white armored drones.
The General turned to Bridget. Her colonel nodded. "This one's a POW. Keep the other two here and comfortable until the General says otherwise." The marines grabbed Dillon and dragged him back down stairs.
The General dragged a chair over to meet Three Dog's at his console. She looked to Margaret who walked back in the room. "I believe that means your song is about to end."
Three Dog licked his lips. "To all the listeners over the years, that tuned into hear the chorus of Three Dog howl in your ears. A day that we suspected was coming has finally come. The Good Fight has been fought up to this day. But the General of the Minutemen has made it to our studio. Welcome one and all to our final broadcast."
"Mr. Three Dog, I have not decided if this will be your final broadcast just yet."
"Well, I ain't spewing no propaganda for no/"
"Sit. Down.
"Now, I thought I had once told you that I would not be able to tell if you were a civilian broadcaster with a perverse take or if you were a Brotherhood of Steel propagandist or something in between, such as a captured technician that they viewed as just another piece of technology to take until I was here. Well I am here, Mr. Three Dog. And I can assure our audience that what you have to say now is not due to any current presence of the terrorists at your shoulder.
"Now my people are at your shoulder. Then again, that doesn't influence Diamond City Radio or Silver Shroud Radio or even the fool who took over Eden Meadows Cinema Radio playing nothing but commercials for products that aren't even made anymore. But for you, it probably will. Because you have lied so very profusely about so many things that it has caused very specific and identifiable harms to innocent people. And you are going to be held accountable for what is not protected by the Right to the Freedom of Expression."
"How are you going to do that?"
"Anything you can't defend on air, right now, will be held against you. If it was actually malicious, intentional, or otherwise knowingly done then we're going to go one way. If not then I am going to try very hard, Mr. Three Dog.
"Did you find any? Yes, thank you. Mr. Three Dog, here are articles by Publick Occurrences gathered from your own base of operations. Do you agree that they came from here and I have not simply brought them in when I took operational control of the building? Like this one with your mug stain on it?"
"Sure. Three Dog can cop to that."
"So you admit freely and without coercion that you have had a detailed accounting of the head of the Minutemen not being responsible for nuking a target in the Commonwealth while regularly repeating that accusation. Even after that accusation was dismissed as nonsense by the council of the gathered communities of the Commonwealth before which I sat due to presented evidence. Do you admit that, sir?"
"I have the best source in the world for what I said."
"Is this source the woman who is currently wanted for attacking a child diplomat as well as directing numerous mercenary agencies to attack the populace?"
"What?!"
"Sit. Down.
"This is the contract that Lil' Miss Bad Ass funded with the Regulators to entice them to add to their collection of fingers at their headquarters. Allow me to provide the location of their ex-headquarters so that anyone in the Commonwealth can come visit and see their dead body part collection for themselves.
"This is a similar contract with Littlehorn and Associates. Only this time for ears and we haven't found a body part museum in connection with this operation.
"Bring him in. Identify yourself to the listening public."
"My name's Joe. I'm a Talon mercenary."
"Where did I find you, Joe?"
"In our headquarters at Fort Bannister."
"What was I doing at Fort Banniester?"
"Destroying my unit."
"Because?"
"Mercenary activity is illegal in the Commonwealth."
"And how did you believe that you were getting around that mandate?"
"What's a mandate?"
"A mandate is a decree. Dictate? I as the General of the Minutemen said so and the council hasn't said otherwise."
"Dictating is what dictators do, General."
"It's the same ability in use by most mayors in the Commonwealth, just on a federal level. Fortunately, our communities keep that ability in check by limiting me to the Roman use of the ability, Mr. Three Dog. Now Joe - what were you doing?"
"We were pretending to be Minutemen by dressing up like you guys. The Lone Wanderer had told us that you took in the Gunners, so if we did our thing but flew your flag you would take in us when we did what we always did."
"Get him out of here.
"Now Mr. Three Dog. Do you accept that your Lone Wanderer is wanted for directing multiple mercenary units?"
"She has a right to resist your take over of her home."
"The Brotherhood of Steel surrendered their existence already. They were supposed to disband. And I am regularly finding Dillons that have not."
"Rivet City. You took them over, no niceties at the door. She has a home there."
"These mercenary stunts came well after what was Rivet City's council voted to join the Commonwealth."
"As a community! Not just one of your under the thumb work bases."
"I am a public servant. The council voted on what their status would be upon joining. As I stated, I am limited by the will of the people."
"There's her pad in Ten Penny Tower."
"Mr. Masters has assured me that not only are all of Ten Penny Tower's residents ghoulified, it would be extremely difficult to exist within the building otherwise. Try again."
"Megaton."
"Oh, I can tell you quite clearly that she doesn't have a house in Megaton. But Megaton is no target of ours. Their new, freely selected mayor/"
"Selected, not elected?"
"I did not judge or even witness their selection process. While some communities such as Diamond City hold elections, other communities such as Far Harbor are more organic, and places like Goodneighbor can be seen as nearly gladitorial. I'm not assuming what Megaton's selection process was. I just know that the method they chose was not imposed upon them.
"As I was saying: Moira Brown is currently touring the Commonwealth because I will grant that our introduction was strained due to you and her. When she's seen what we are and how we help, she'll go back to Megaton and share what she's seen. She is the author of the Wasteland Survival Guide after all, and you know how descriptive and thorough she can be. That way Megaton can make their own informed choices."
"Nothing to resist there."
"And her home vault? I've heard you've been sending a commando squad around to crack them."
"If she's not in it. I'm sorry, I thought you were claiming she had a right to resist occupation. Are you claiming she has a right to resist arrest? And paying off criminals and bossing them around to do criminal things under false colors and body collection bribery are ways a criminal should use to escape?
"Because besides being stupid and evil, she was not wanted as a criminal then. These are only the added charges after the fact.
"Bring in the pilot.
"Identify yourself."
"Carlie, ma'am. Vertibird pilot under the command of Colonel Brandis in Motorpool."
"Brandis betrayed the Brotherhood and is working for you?"
"Brandis was left to die in a hostile, foreign land after losing his unit. The Brotherhood more than dismissed him. And the Brotherhood doesn't exist by any consent, including their own.
"Now, Carlie. You cannot reveal personal identifying information about a child. Please be careful not to name or describe the child. Yes, even if other sources have made such information public."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Why do you believe that Lil' Miss Bad Ass is charged with the attempted murder of a child and a diplomat?"
"Because that's what she did?
"The mission, as it was explained to me, was that Little Lamplight was only children fending for themselves. But that any adult presence would be met with hostilities. So instead of trying to take care of little ones by shooting our way in, you had recruited someone young enough to talk to them about getting fed and housed and guarded and all the things children should be. I was charged with flying the diplomat to Little Lamplight for the meet and evacuating her after.
"She left with a radio for them to communicate with us and some food for the children just in case. Lil' Miss Bad Ass chased her out of the cave after destroying her robot guards and was only slowed down by the few marines that were on the ground to protect the child. After we were in the air, the child...we tried to get her to tell us about the attack. But we were back at the Castle before she had calmed down enough to tell us about the attack."
"Any questions Mr. Three Dog?"
"Yeah. Is there any place you can't leave well enough alone?"
"I am not leaving a bunch of orphans to the hazards of the wastes. They aren't the Girl Scouts on a long weekend. They are children eating much in a cave. If I have the power to save them, I certainly will.
"But as for you Mr. Three Dog and the original crux of this line of questioning. You have detailed reports on the nuclear explosion in the Commonwealth, including a verbatim of the Brotherhood of Steel agent's admission as well as a full accounting of the Minutemen arsenal. I have sat trial in front of civilian council solely on your word and evidence was presented that showed the entire enterprise to be a waste of everyone's time. You have also stated that the only reason you have accused me of this which I did not do and the Brotherhood did is not because of Mr. Dillon and these Brotherhood of Steel present but because of the word of a child attacking, diplomat attacking, murderer coordinating criminal.
"Now that you are not under Brotherhood of Steel watch and you have been represented with actual evidence that it's been revealed you had all this time, do you admit you have made false claims on your radio program?"
"I just trust her more than I can ever trust you."
"This is not about trust. This is about you disturbing the public tranquility by lying. Not objecting to policies of the government. Not by claiming things would be better if things were done another way. Not even in the encouragement of outright rebellion by trying to convince others that another way meant forming something that was no the Commonwealth. Just an outright blackmail by releasing information to the government so that I might be punished by that government - the only trick is that your information was a specifically chosen lie easily proven false by evidence you had at the time."
Silence.
"Answer the charge. Have you disturbed the public tranquility by false black mail?"
"Yes."
"Is that confession being made due to the military presence here?"
"Three Dog don't say what he says because of guns in his face."
"I have a list of other objective facts that I would like you to abide by on the air. Here."
"The Brotherhood of Steel is an illegal organization, made illegal by the terms of their surrender including their own disbandment after invading the Commonwealth for the the third time.
"The Minutemen have never attacked a civilian population outside the necessary attempts to arrest a criminal posing danger to the Commonwealth.
"All Minutemen are public servants of the civilian population of the Commonwealth. This includes the General who is not a warlord. The Minutemen's actions are curtailed by the civilian council.
"The Commonwealth enjoys a government by the people, for the people. Alright, 'enjoy' ain't a fact/"
"In the legal sense it is. A person doesn't have to like their rights in order to enjoy or make use of them.
"So do you agree that all those statements are facts that you will admit are indeed facts? Because if we have to argue through them all day, let's get started with this issue of Publick Occurences that you have always had which features the Constitution/"
"Alright. You got ol' Three Dog."
A sigh of a woman standing up and stretching. "Mr. Three Dog, you are found guilty of being in break of the Right to Freedom of Expression in the Wasteland's preferred method of trial - trial by witness. In all previous trials by witness that I am aware of, there has only been one punishment meted out. Allow me to be the first to change that. Considering your being surrounded by the Brotherhood of Steel for an untold number of years and that the damage you've caused is minimal, you are hereby sentenced to government oversight of this private radio station to ensure the factual accuracy and not the editorial content of any broadcast should you continue broadcasting for a period of no less than a year. Any person that has due claim to experiencing loss whether of cap or limb or life will be restituted by you and your technician and any other personnel that have contributed to this mess. At the end of a year or at any time before given cause, the Commonwealth will re-examine whether you are acting as a criminal or are limiting your actions to just words I dislike.
"Switch out the green for blue. Mr. Three Dog will show them around. The entire building and the surrounding grounds are declared a Minutemen settlement."