Chapter 94: Return To Sender.
It took the team quite a while to sift through all the directions and statements that had been given by the rescued boys trying to identify the settlements they had come from so that they could be returned home safe and sound.
The plan was to plot a route around all the settlements and to drop them off along the way moving in a large loop until they finally reached Diamond city as their terminus point but with careful planning a lot of which seemed to be coming from their newest member the team finally had a route and a plan in place to get the boys all back home to their respective settlements.
Because they had promised to help him out Nick Valentine had been kind enough to pay for a large room for them in the inn for the night so that they could set out in the morning despite the team protesting that they could simply camp outside the city where they had been set up before he wouldn't hear it and simply headed over to the inn and book them a room.
Though it was actually kinda nice to be in a city and to see the hundreds of people milling about without someone trying to run them off or hiding from them as word had travelled about their exploits rather rapidly with even the little local paper doing a piece on them Wisp still kinda missed having the privacy of their own room in the ruined house so she could have her Malakai all to herself.
But after a somewhat restless night, the team were once again on the move with both Nick and all of the boys in tow.
As they walked Fuller was telling them all about the ESF, how they thought, how they operated and how far they were likely to go to get what they wanted and it all came together to paint a rather worrying picture that said to Wisp that Dr Chalmers had managed to get the power she craved so very badly within the Enclave and this little outing of number eight and nine would be a real feather in her cap as to show what her little shop of horrors could do if unleashed upon the world.
Wisp couldn't help but wonder to herself what exactly the pair of them were capable of and what powers they held, having already encountered one of the others when they met Malakai having two super-powered humans on their tail with a group of pissed-off special forces soldiers with access to high-end weaponry and power armour was not a very appealing one.
Then there was the issue of the Railroad, if the ESF did indeed manage to sway them to their cause through manipulation it could make things incredibly difficult for them in the form that they were innocents that had been tricked into believing them to be their enemies, it made killing them a powerful moral question indeed.
Wisp wondered if it came down to it could she actually pull the trigger on someone who wasn't truly her enemy but had been tricked into hunting her?
It also raised a whole host of other problems in their path like how to find them and how to approach them knowing that not only were the ESF most likely watching them closely but it could expose Fuller not only to their wrath and vengeance but to alo that of Glory if she discovered that he had deceived her to escape the ESF and to warn them about what was happening.
Wisp felt like she had a million little Arachnakai scurrying around in her head all wearing their own little webs before they all bumped into one another and got themselves all tangled up in a giant knot all while yelling at one another.
"Cap for your thoughts," a voice said suddenly snapping her out of her stupor and she blinked a few times before her eyes focused on Malakai's handsome but worried-looking face.
"You looked like you were miles away, so much so that I was beginning to think you'd figured out some way to put your body on autopilot and had gone swimming in the clouds or something, he said playfully trying to lighten her mood and she couldn't help but smile at her gentle giant of a man.
"Just trying to untangle the web in my head of how we are going to deal with this ESF and Railroad situation," she said and he sighed and nodded.
"Yeah I've been running that one over myself and it is a pretty damn tricky one isn't it? I mean how on Earth are we supposed to contact them without those guys knowing about it and tracking us down through it?" he said and she nodded.
"Yeah that was the conclusion I reached as well, we've got no way to know where they are currently or if they have already infiltrated the organisation as a whole so we'd have no way to know who we can trust or not, a part of me thinks it's better to neutralise the threat but then I have to keep reminding myself that these are innocent people that are just trying their best to do the right thing, it's not their fault," Wisp said and Malakai nodded.
"The other problem we have is if we reach out to them and the ESF intercepts the message they could send someone instead of the Railroad and the only person who would know the difference is Fuller which would expose him to the danger, no we have to be smart about this," Wisp said and Malakai nodded and then after a little bit of very cute mandible twitching he suddenly looked at Nick.
"What about him?" he asked and Wisp looked at her he was looking with half of his eyes and she raised an eyebrow.
"Valentine? What about him?" she asked curiously.
"Well he's a synth and something tells me they have most likely tried to approach him and maybe just maybe they might even have a relationship with him in some way, I mean think about it, who better to find other synths passing through the diamond city than another synth and given how the people of the city already know and trust him he'd be able to easily point them out to someone like the Railroad and they could free them before the people even become aware who they have in their midst," Malakai said and suddenly Wisp's face brightened right up.
"Malakai you are a fucking genius you know that? A gorgeous fluffy genius!" she said leaning in and kissing his mandibles and then his mouth.
I'm just a simple boy who likes to knit and sew but thanks I guess," he said looking flustered enough for her to wish there was a bush big enough around here for her to drag him behind of where she could ravish him in peace.
Wisp turned and matched pace with Valentine who glanced at her as she fell in step with him, "Help you with something doll?" he asked in that old-world city speech of his that made him sound like an old world gumshoe detective or cop.
"Well actually you just might be able to Nick, tell me what do you know about the Railroad?" she asked and by the involuntary ticks that passed through his face and the exposed motors in his face she knew she'd hit a synthetic nerve with that one.
"What about them? A load of cooks that are one step off trying to free talking toasters, infact I'm surprised that hasn't tried to uproot and save one of those Puloski presevation shelters by now given that the things give digital responses to things you say," he said with an obviously forced chuckle.
Wisp raised an eyebrow to let him know in no uncertain terms that she didn't buy a single word and the old synth sighed which thanks to his vocal processor made it sound a bit like a cough and a crackling speaker.
"Alright fine what do you want to know and just so you know I'm only willing to talk about this because of how far you lot went to dig me out of that hole I was in otherwise you'd get fuck all out of me," he said and she nodded.
"Actually I was thinking about a kind of quid pro quo how about we tell what we already know and why we're interested and then you can tell us what you know and see if this is something that maybe you might be willing to help us out with?" she said and he looked at her in surprise.
"Well that's a first, usually when dealing in info most people play their cards pretty damn close to their chest's but you're a different breed ain'tcha?" he said and Wisp smiled and nodded.
"Yeah that's the way I like to think about it," she said and so Nick gestured for her to continue so with a bit of a deep breath she began to fill him in on what was going on.
As they walked and dropped off the boy's Wisp told Valentine her and indeed the group's tale as a whole, she told him everything from her meeting Seven to them meeting Visa and Ven right the way up to today and the old synth simply listened in stunned silence as she told their tale until finally she finished and he simply stared at her in amazement.
"Wow that's quite a tale, you guys have seriously been through the grinder haven't you?" he said and she nodded.
"Yeah you could say that, look we are just trying to make things better, not just for ourselves but for everyone, it started out as us just wanteing to get as far as we fucking could from the bloody Enclave, but now, now there just so much fucking more going on that we can't afford to sit back and pretend it's not happening, it would be too fucking easy for us to simply disapear and bury our heads in the sand like it's not happening but we have a real chance here to do some real good in this world and we're going to take it, a war is coming as much as I hate to admit it to myself I can feel it, they are just never going to leave us alone they want their weapon and as far as they are concerned that is Seven and to them that means fuck everyone else as long as they have him under their control and if they ever do achive that no one is safe and I do mean no-one, when I say this guy is powerful you have no idea, he can crush a human to the size of a soda can with nothing more than a single thought or level a building to absolute rubble if he wants to, he's like a walking talking nuclear bomb and they want him back and we cannot let that happen, ever because if they ever get him then it's all over for everyone that disagrees with them, they'd use him to destroy the Brotherhood, the Institute, the Railroad and fucking everyone that would stand in their way, we cannot let that happen, ever," Wisp said.
Valentine listened to Wisp intently and nodded, "If I hadn't already seen what you people can do I'd think you were full of it or had hit the jet a little too hard but having seen it already with my own eyes I believe you and you are right, plus this Seven guy sounds like a pretty stand up guy a little self-righteous maybe but still there aren't too many people out there who are trying to make a genuine difference for everyone and not just themselves, not too many people willing to stand up to the Enclave or the Brotherhood let alone both so yeah you really got my attention now, so yeah I do have contacts in the Railroad and they are ones I trust fully with my life, we've worked together many times, one of them is in a place called Goodneighbor a pretty rough town, to say the least, but the people who live there are decent they've just had a rough time of things you know?" he said.
"Think you can put us in contact with them?" Wisp asked and he nodded.
"I'll do one better than that doll face I'll take you there myself and halde the introduction, if even a quarter of what you said here is true then we're all in danger, think those Enclave bastards are going to just ignore old detective Valentine as a harmless gumshoe helping people out if they take over do you?" he said and she shook her head.
"Damn straight so this shit affects all of us and I'd be pretty stupid to ignore it given it'd be my tin arse on the block for the first chop if they manage to pull this off, but the question is how do we deal with those ESF folks, they sound like a pretty tough bunch especially if they have to of you number people with them," he said.
"Oh I've got something there that could help," Fuller said suddenly from behind them and they both glanced back to see that the ex-ESF sniper had fallen into step with them and was listening to their conversation intently.
"Oh? What have you got in mind?" Wisp asked.
"Simple the ESF's biggest boon is stealth, we operate in small heavily armed numbers yes but those numbers are still small, so the first thing to do is out them and expose them, make it so they can't hide in the fucking shadows, we need to give the Railroad a way to counteract their cloaking tech and to out any potential members of the team that may have tried to infiltrate the group in my place since my supposed 'death'," he said doing quotation fingers on the word death.
"Ok do you have descriptions of the other members?" Valentine asked and Fuller nodded.
"They were my team I lived, ate, slept and worked with the people I know them all by heart, everything from every little scar to the way they talk ot their mannerisms," he replied and Valentine nodded.
"Good that will help now what about the cloaking tech, you got any ideas about that do you?" he said and Fuller nodded.
"Been giving that a lot of thought lately and Enclave power armour is a tough nut to crack at the best of times but it does have a minor flaw in that it has a weakness against high-intensity EM fields like say the type of EMP grenades people use to take out rogue droids, the problem is if you set something like that off in the Railroad HQ you'll take out all of their equipment as well, so they need to be pulled away from that place to a place where they can not only be exposed but ambushed but don't expect easy they will not go down easy or without a major fight, we will also need to silence their comms otherwise they'll radio the remainder of the team and they'll vanish before we have chance to silence them for good," Fuller said.
"Ok yeah that makes sense but that leaves the two number people what do we do about them?" Valentine asked and Wisp shrugged.
"Now they are the real wild card in all this as we don't know what their abilities are, now my gut tells me they don't have the same kind of power level as Seven not even close or they wouldn't need to send two of them we've obviously got them rattled after the last time they sent one of us after him and he killed him with ease and they have got have been paying attention to what's been happening in his wake, they are going to be aware that he's gotten far more powerful from the last time they encountered him, but these two do at least have to be a threat to him or they'd have never sent them," she said.
"What about the Brotherhood?" Fuller said suddenly and both of them looked at him curiously.
"What about them?" she asked.
"Well they hate the Enclave more than just about anyone, didn't you say that that Raymond guy is currently trying to broker a peace treaty between those Avian people and them? Well that could be a rather nice sweetener and a way to prove to them that we're trustworthy, I'm sure they would absolutely love to get their hands on or at the very least wipe out an active ESF team working in their territory, perhaps we could use that?" he said and that really got Wisp thinking as well as Valentine.
"Yeah, it's no secret that in team one absolutely hates the Enclave with a passion and to be fair who can blame them? I'd be willing to bet they would absolutely jump at the chance to take down one of their special forces teams, doubly so if they could be handed over to them alive, something tells me they would not be gentle in the interrogation of their rules and regulations or not," Valentine said thoughtfully and Fuller nodded.
"Exactly, they hated us because we showed them up multiple times, they believe in rules and codes of conduct even in war, all we believed in was winning and would use any trick in the book and even some we wrote to win and it was damn effective too and they hated us for it, but that's only the mild stuff I think the biggest hatred came from while the Brotherhood has a habit of simply ignoring civilians we simply rolled over them like a fucking steam roller, it was either get in line or you were a traitor to the USA and were treated as such," Fuller said.
"We can fucking use that alright, pretty sure that the settlements around here would be rather unhappy to hear that they have the potential to be 'repatriated' by force or exterminated if they fail to comply, pretty sure the commonwealth minutemen would have something to say about that," Valentine said thoughtfully.
"Yeah I'm willing to be the Brotherhood and the Minutemen probably don't see eye to eye on many things but this I'm willing to bet my bottom cap that they'd shake hands over," Fuller said.
"Exactly and that means not only would we out these fuckers but we'd have a fucking army at our backs, hell this might even be the thing that finally fucking unites the commonwealth in a fucking peace that it's sorely needed in too fucking long, boy wouldn't be such a wonderful irony that the thing that actually winds up uniting the peoples of the Commonwealth is the bloody Enclave?" Valentine said.
"More like people's hatred of them and to be fair this might actually be a damn good chance to show people that the none humans of the commonwealth have their back as well," Fuller said and this really got Wisp thinking.
"You are absolutly right Fuller this is a good oppertunity hell it's a golden one, we might even be able to get Raymond to get the Avian in on this because I'm pretty sure they are going to be in as much danger as everyone else is if not more is the Enclave establish a proper presence here what with being non human and all, so if he can pull some sway with them not only might he might be able to stop the war between them and the Brotherhood but he might be able to turn them into brothers and sisters in arms and nothing forges stronger bonds than standing together on the battlefield shoulder to shoulder united against a common enemy, because when you are about to go into a situation which could very easily kill you a lot of trust is placed in the person next to you and if that person happens to be non-human it could go a seriosuly long way to show the Brotherhood that just because you are not human it doesn't mean you are not worthy of life and respect, hell it could very well wind up being the dawn of a whole new age right fucking here!" Wisp said excitedly.
Over the next couple of hours, they continued to discuss details as they continued to return the wayward boys to the loving and incredibly grateful arms of their families and friends of their home settlements.
By the time they had returned to Diamond city again, they had the motions of a very solid multistage plan in place, one that Valentine had pledged not only to give his full support to but his resources as well, as he put it given his stake in this place and it's people he was all in, it was time to repay the faith and trust the people of both Diamond city and the commonwealth had placed in him by letting him live among them unharmed, now it was he who would show them what a synth could truly do for them.
So after promising to return the following day to discuss the details of the plan with Valentine the team headed out to a nearby radio relay to relay their plan to both Seven and Raymond though it turned out to be a little tricky to reach Raymond and given the amount of static on the secured line it seemed he was only just inside the transmission range of the relay they used but he was very excited by the plan they'd outlined to him as was Seven who said once he was done freeing the place was going to see if he could get the Gatorclaws on the side as he felt it would do absolute wonders for interspecies relations if the common people of the commonwealth saw an army of Gatorclaws ready to stand with them to fight for what they saw as their home too.
So once the message was delivered and the wheels were turning the group returned to their little camp outside of Diamond city in the ruined buildings where they had camped before the first time they'd entered the city and they retook control of their prior rooms and Wisp was infinitely grateful to be able to have some privacy with Malakai tonight as he begins to look too unmolested for her liking and was in dire need of a good ravishing, but first there was still much to do and to work out, so it was planning now cute spider molesting later with a healthy side of ravishing if she had her way.
Fuller, as it turned out hadn't been idle during that time either he'd been working out the perfect bait to bring out the ESF's spy or even maybe the whole team, he told Wisp that the best way to do it was to circulate a few reports that could be sent from different points into HQ of an odd human with strange abilities but keep them vague so that while they would believe it was Seven wishing to meet with them it would never be explicitly said because if the reports suddenly started mentioning him by name they would be very suspicious of the motives or of a potential trap.
He'd also expressed a concern about their backup and how it would be prudent to take out their base of operations to either prevent escape or reinforcements from being dropped in, as even as small as they were power-armoured ESF agents were no fucking joke and would come in hard with absolutely no regard for life or civilian casualties, they would hit absolutely everyone and thing in order to either escape or to win the day, so they either had to destroy their base or disable it, a point she'd agreed on wholeheartedly but had expressed that this should happen preferably when the meeting was just kicking off so they wouldn't have time to correct the problem before the trap was sprung, something he agreed with completely.
Wisp was just glad that it was going to take days to set all of this up because they were really going to need the backup. After all, numbers eight and nine were most likely going to put the ESF's fighting capability over the top.
Without blowing her horn or feeling arrogant she knew that any force that had one of her kind with them had a real advantage over conventional soliders just because of what they brought to the table.
Take her and Seven for example, she couldn't be hit by conventional firearms making her immune to counterfire while also being able to not only disable enemy electronics but also their soldiers by invading their bodies and sending their senses haywire, now granted she couldn't exactly control them but she could shut their muscles down or blind them, in short, she was basically an agent of chaos in the right mindset.
Then there was Seven and if she was an agent of chaos he was literal chaos embodied, if he truly let loose he was just about unstoppable and she always thought it was kinda ironic that the man's only real limiting factors were himself in both his biology and his morality.
Biology in the fact those headaches of his could cripple him and while yes he had made truly incredible leaps in power by learning to control them or ignore them but she'd been inside his head when he'd had them and she knew how bad they were and it still amazed her that he was able to function through them at all.
The other was his morality or his own sense of how far he was willing to go to achieve his objective, if either of these factors ever broke Seven would literally become unstoppable short of nuking him from orbit, because how exactly do you stop someone who could catch said nuclear missile out of the air and throw it fucking back at you without ever touching it?
This brought her thinking back around to what exactly it was that eight and nine were capable of, it had to be something powerful if Dr Chalmers had up them up against Seven and her thought primarily Seven because when all was said and done it was pretty much going to be all on him to stop them a task she really didn't envy him.
This made her really think about how far the pair of them had come since those days when they were just two souls with no memories or real identities to call their own escaping into the night just for the chance to live free and by their own rules.
The pair of them had come so incredibly far in their journey, met so many wonderful people and touched so many lives, Seven especially had become a symbol of what real freedom and unity looked like, a human man with the power to crush a city but used it to shield the common innocent people for no other reason than he cared and wanted them to prosper and be happy, a man who had fallen in love with a female Claw and through methods unknown had managed to get her to fall head over tail in love with him and now the pair stood back to back as a symbol for all great and small of what the world could be if only they were willing to fight for it.
Wisp looked around her own group and she saw the instant signs of this influence reflected in every single face that sat with her by the fire in the living room of that old prewar house, Malakai a beautiful and truly handsome Araknakai boy that she would kill the entire world with her bare hands just to see a smile, Shepherd a survivor of the vilest slavery who now stood tall and proud at the side of Passa a beautiful Claw boy who while being three times her size loved the very air she breathed. Gregory was another escaped slave and a gay man who would face so much persecution in the world before let alone the world now but was made strong and proud by the proud and strong bisexual Claw boy that stood happily at his side loving the very atoms of his being and would tear through the hate aimed at them with a fury so hot it put the sun to shame and now their wildcard, Fuller.
A man who had had his mind opened to what was truly possible in this world if we just give it a chance and stop hating something just because it is different and scares us, a man who was once their enemy who would have happily killed them in order to return Seven to DR Chalmers so she could use him to enslave the entire country to fear of retribution, but now a man with his eyes opened by the heart of a woman who was made in a lab, a woman who was created and not born, a woman who with her synthetic heart had shown him the truth of right and wrong and more importantly that love really is blind and unjudging.
She had taken his hand and guided him into a world that he might have feared but was willing to look at for her and now he had truly seen it, he had seen not only the truth but he had seen the future and what it would be if he had continued down the path he was on and that's when his pride and his integrity had refused him to be a part of creating that and he had rebelled and joined them all for a chance of redemption for what he had done and Wisp actually found herself hoping that when this was all said and done that he could either return to the arms of his synthetic love or maybe if that bridge was well and truly burned to ash that maybe just maybe there was another non-human girl who would welcome him into hers who with her feathery, or spindly or maybe even scaly hands would pick up the parts of his shattered heart and would put them together again and make him whole again, better even because he would be a truly free man.
As she sat back she felt Malakai's arms encircle her and she glanced behind her to see her big handsome spider boy folding his legs in under himself transforming him into full spider loaf mode so he could cuddle her from behind, she smiled up at him reaching up to stroke his kind and handsome face.
It made her happy to know that out of all of them her man was probably the most accepting of them all, he was a part man part spider who loved to knit and sew who loved himself a little sparkly cloud girl who lived inside of a synthetic body that wasn't her own but he still loved simply because it contained the soul of the one he adored and loved.
She looked around the room again as she similar scenes playing out among the others, Gregory had slipped into Vens lap so he could feed him some of the meat stew he'd been cooking, while Passa had done the same to Shepherd with the added benefit of wrapping his wings around her so only her head poked out of the top of those snow-white wings while he fed her happily infact it was only Fuller that sat alone now in the golden glow of the firelight staring into those golden dancing flames with a morose look on his features that told Wisp that he was remembering Glory.
"Think you'll see her again when this is all over?" she asked making him jump and look a little surprised that she'd read his mind so easily.
He shrugged and sat back to look up at the swirling and flickering shadows painted on the ceiling by the golden flames, "No idea a part of me wants to say yes, hell a big part of me does but a voice of reason keeps telling me that I'd have absolutely zero right to see her again after what I did to her, I mean how am I supposed to look her in the eyes after I basically destroyed her heart, she took a chance on me and fell in love with me and god I love her too but how can you do that to someone and ever expect them to trust you again? No, I don't think I could bare seeing the doubt in her eyes even if she did forgive me for what I did, just waiting for me to vanish like a puff of smoke again at the first sign of trouble, I think it would probably best if I just let her be and let her live her life if I gave her anything it's at least hope that a human man can indeed lover her for who and what she is and just accept her and love her regardless, I think I'd rather let her have those happy memories than piss all over them by showing her what betrayal really looks like," he said softly with a lot of hurts in his voice.
Wisp felt her own synthetic heartache for him but she still nodded in understanding, "If it's any consolation Fuller I think you did the right thing, you wanted to protect her from the ESF's wrath and you did just that, while you were with her you loved her honestly and that's all anyone could have ever asked for, even if it was short you gave that girl your entire self and showed her what an honest heart is, that will mean the world to her and don't worry I'm sure that someone somewhere will love her and mend her heart who will bring her happy back and now she knows it's possible it will give her hope," she said and he smiled and nodded.
"I hope so Wisp I really do because that girl deserves to be happy, she's been through hells that most of us can't even begin to imagine and I'm just glad that for the time I was with her I made her happy and made her smile, I hope the next man who takes a chance on her will do the same if not more for her because if there is one thing you can say about her she loves honestly," he said with a sad smile.
Wisp leaned forwards and patted his shoulder, "Don't worry Fuller I'm sure that there's another girl out there for you and now you've seen what the non-human community can offer those wide-open eyes of yours might even see her in the most unlikely of places," she said.
"Yeah who knows the next one might even have scales and a tail," Ven said with an honest grin on his face that said he wasn't joking for once but still made Fuller laugh.
"God that's be a thing wouldn't it? I can barely handle a human or a synthetic human doesn't know how in the hell I'd be supposed to handle a fucking Claw girl," he said chuckling.
"Hey who says you'd get to? Pretty sure it's us Claws who handle you humans you know?" Ven said ruffling Gregory's hair playfully making him swat at his large hand with his spoon.
"Speak for yourself Ven I'll have you know that I handle my Claw boy very nicely thank you very much," Shepherd said leaning up to kiss Passa's chin.
"I'll also remind you you said that the next time you got your tail in the air," Gregory said with a wicked smile on his face as he made Ven flush.
Fuller roared with laughter and leaned back against the chair he was sitting in front of as he smiled into the fire, "Well whatever the future brings we'd better make sure we win this fight first or don't think there's going to be a whole lot of happy in any of our futures," he said and they all nodded at that.
"Amen to that brother, amen to that," Ven said and with that, the group all retreated into their own thoughts there was a lot to plan for here, they could not afford to fuck this up as know it or not the entire commonwealth was relying on them.