Chapter 159: Sight Unseen.
Clements looked out of the window of the abandoned building that had become their covert operating base within the heart of the Raider compound.
Though to be fair it was more like a Raider city than a compound as it was absolutely massive.
The building they had managed to sneak into and take over was once a finance building that oversaw the funds brought in from the marketplace below them.
Only now the only things for sale down there were weapons and people, not to mention the spoils of their labours.
The boarded-up windows gave enough cover that Clements was easily able to observe the comings and goings of the people below them and given the Raiders constant squabbles over space and goods he was surprised one of the clans hadn't taken this place over.
But it seemed that none of them could be bothered to be the ones to have to clear the place out of the mountains of boxes of files and other paperwork that filled the place up.
No, indeed they would rather be drinking moonshine brewed from Christ only knew what and shooting their veins full of whatever fucking chems they could get their hands on.
Thankfully for Clements, the stealth modifications to his power armour suit had let him slip right into this place completely unnoticed while Delta two had simply walked in like she owned the place.
Granted she had broken the neck of some unlucky fucker who she'd found passed out in a gutter from whatever shit she'd pumped into her veins and then stolen her clothing but still.
it had been Delta's work that had found them this place to begin with, while Clements had been stuck to hiding in corners filled with shadows she had simply adapted her personality to match that of a Raider and then gone on the hunt.
Now the pair of them were situated on the fifth floor of this large but somehow still cramped office building.
They had set up traps and defences to alert them of any potential snoopers lurking about in the building in the form of mines in the stairwells as well as a few other nasty surprises designed to deter the unwary.
Clements leaned back in his seat and glanced over at his armour which was currently stood silently in the corner of the room like a hulking statue.
He found himself wondering what was going on back that their FOB, he had to resist the urge to call and check in as this was a radio silence op but it still didn't sway his curiosity.
During his time with the ESF, he had been involved in quite a few radio silent ops and they were always pretty jarring for the first day or two until you got used to the lack of need to call in your every movement to HQ.
He checked his rifle again for like the fifth time in the last ten minutes and then once again lifted the scope to his eye to look down at the ground below him.
As it was night the place was pretty quiet with only the occasional slave hurrying back to the slave quarters after having been dragged into the Raider quarters of one of the various Clans that kept a presence here.
Over the last day, they had learned quite a lot both from his silent observations from on high with his scope or from the various listening devices that Delta had been planting all over the place while she was out and about posing as one of them.
It was actually uncanny how well she pulled off acting as a Raider to the point where she had more than once caught him off guard with how she had spoken to him before apologising and switching back to her normal self like someone was switching a holotape in her head.
He turned to look at her now as she lay sprawled out on her bed roll which lay in the shadow of his armour and right next to their weapons and planning table where they had been compiling their gathered intelligence.
She looked so real and so normal that had he not known she was a synth it would have been impossible to tell from merely looking at her, though given the way she was able to switch personalities the way she did he honestly now wondered if he'd have been able to tell at all?
This made him think about the Enclave itself.
He would have been a fool to think that the Institute did not wish to infiltrate their organisation and granted while the higher echelons were pretty safe given that they worked on you have to be born into it kind of deal.
The lower echelons of the totem pole were not.
While he had been born into the Enclave there were a great many grunts in the Enclave's army that had been conscripted from annexed settlements, this went for workers too.
He was under no illusion that on some level the Enclave had some form of slave labour though he didn't believe it to be as bad as what he was witnessing outside with the Raiders it still didn't sit right with what his ideal of what his organisation was supposed to be about.
But he also knew that the Enclave was a vast organisation with a very important mission in restoring the USA to its former glory while eradicating all the vermin that had sprung up all over the place.
Like those outside his very window right now for instance.
But this left a bitter taste in his mouth as well as a bitter idea bouncing around in his skull.
Once the country was purged and returned to its former glory, then what?
What would happen to the slaves and more so what would happen to those like Delta?
Honestly, he already knew the answer to that question but really didn't want to face the reality of it as it was too bitter of a pill to swallow.
So he decided to simply focus his mind on the task at hand as when it came down to brass tacks it would not be his decision who lived and who died, but then again it might very well be he and those like him who were tasked with pulling the trigger.
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Zixxy had to admit she was impressed with what Seven and his team had pulled off in this incredibly hostile place.
It seemed that the very land itself was against their success but still, they had gone from strength to strength here and now this, the capture of not just one but two Enclave intelligence operatives.
The secrets that their minds must hold with regard to not only the operations of the Enclave but also their positionings could be absolutely game-changing to the Free Peoples and their allies.
The ebony-skinned intelligence operative was currently glaring at her with such venom in her eyes that it made Zixxy positively tingle with both anticipation and delight.
Only a person with something truly valuable to hide within the depths of their mind would have such passionate hatred burning in their eyes as they were using that hatred to cloak their despair and more obviously, their fear.
Zixxy skipped over to her with Seven flanking her and giving her somewhat odd glances though to his credit he didn't disrupt her theatrics, which were all part of keeping the target on the back foot.
A confused mind was far easier to pry open than a focused one was and given what the person before her must know she had undoubtedly undergone rigorous training to withstand interrogation.
Zixxy reached out with her small green hands and placed them on either side of the woman's head focusing on her eyes as she did so.
The woman began to try and struggle but with a single wave of his hand, Seven stilled her as if he'd locked her head in a vice.
"Let me begin with this, the more you resist the more of yourself you will lose at the end of this, I will get what I came here for, I always do, the only question is how much of you will be left at the end of it?" Zixxy said in a soft but menacing voice, a little fear always helping to lubricate the cognitive wheels so to speak.
With a sensation that felt like she was falling, Zixxy forced her way into the woman's mindscape and the battle began in earnest.
Standing up Zixxy found herself standing inside of what appeared to be a box of some kind and a soft smile broke out on her face.
"Predicable," she said softly as she looked around.
Her first instinct was to simply bulldoze right through this rather feeble defence but then where was the fun in that?
Her pride told her that it would be far more satisfying to simply dismantle the woman's defences piece by piece letting her know in no uncertain terms that no matter what she threw in her path, she would simply dismantle it and move on.
It was a show of prideful strength to be sure, but Zixy also knew that mind games were what these people specialised in but then they'd never played them with someone like her before now had they?
Zixxy walked up to one of the walls of the box and ran her hand over its surface, it appeared to be a brick wall made of fortified bricks.
Tracing her finger along the seams between the bricks as if she had all the time in the world it didn't take Zixxy long to find what she was looking for, a crack.
Hastily conjured defences like this were always prone to cracks and flaws, it simply took a disturning eye to spot them.
With the greatest of ease she simply tapped the crack and the seams between a single brick vanished as it turned to dust so fine that it was invisible to the naked eye.
With the greatest of leisure, she simply plucked the brick from the wall.
Now if this wall were real the removal of a single brick would not really do much to fully compromise it, but this was not a normal wall now was it?
No to a mental defence wall like this, the removal of even a single brick caused the whole thing to crumble as to the mind's eye it showed that the wall was not strong, that it was flawed, that it was weak and that weakness reflected back into the person's mind.
With a crash of falling bricks, the wall simply crumbled away to dust leaving Zixxy with an open space where it once stood.
"Oh dear, I do hope you can come up with better than that dear or this is going to be the world's fastest interrogation?" Zixxy said with a smugness to her voice that was very unbecoming of her and in fact made her feel somewhat sick.
But theatrics was part of the game that was being played here and keeping one's opponent on the brink of desperation as well as near panic was a tactic that a pro like her often employed to prevent them from constructing far more resilient and tactile defences.
Zixxy stepped out of the box and suddenly found herself on an island surrounded by ocean in all directions.
So vast was the horizon all around her that it didn't seem to ever end and a smirk crossed her small green lips.
"Now that's more like it dear oh I am glad that you could come up with something a bit better than a mere box to hold me, I was beginning to feel rather insulted," Zixxy said strolling through the white golden sands of the island.
As she walked she reached down and picked up a couple of pebbles that sat in the sand before tossing one up in the air and catching it again.
"A deserted island in an endless ocean is far better than a box I will admit but do you know the problem with the ocean technique?" she asked tossing the pebble up into the air again.
There was silence from the sky above her as she caught the pebble again before launching it at high speed across the glass-like ocean where it began to skip across the surface leaving ripples in its wake.
Zixxy simply stepped on each of the ripples and hopped from one to the other to the other.
"If one knows that the ocean is nothing more than false hope it becomes even more solid than concrete," she finished as she hopped to another ripple.
Zixxy could actually feel the panic and fear increasing with every hop she made until finally, she reached what was blatantly another wall.
After only a few short moments had passed Zixxy had found the hidden door in the wall and had passed out of the room and into the next.
This time it was a seemingly endless and completely empty desert that was so convincing she could feel the heat of the sun beating down on her skin.
"Now this is more like it!" Zixxy said striding confidently out into the burning hot sands with her purpose clear in every step she took.
Zixxy couldn't help but smile at this scenario as it was designed to create a sense of endless despair in the viewer just like the last one was designed to create a sense of isolation.
The use of powerful emotions like this was a very common technique and was quite often based on the creator's reality which given the emotions used to create these scenarios actually made Zixxy feel a little sorry for the woman.
But then given the nature of the job she did it was understandable really.
Isolation, despair and paranoia are kinda normal job requirements for what she did for a living.
As Zixxy looked around the desert she was looking for little tells that would give the nature of the scenario away and it didn't take her long to spot one.
The God rays of the sun only existed in one direction and all pointed towards a singular place, so almost skipping along in the sands of the desert which she could feel was both annoying the woman who was defending it and also causing even more fear.
Finally, Zixxy reached the point where the God rays were pointing and she tapped her foot into the sands feeling a very satisfying thud like she was standing atop of something solid.
Brushing the sands aside with her foot she saw what looked like an obsidian box hidden beneath them.
"Well well, what do we have here?" Zixxy said plucking the box from the sands and turning it over in her hands.
No sooner had she lifted it up than she felt the panic and fear of the woman whose mind she had invaded meaning that there was something rather important in this box but she got the feeling that it didn't relate to escaping this defence.
No this was something else entirely, this was a secret.
Turning the box over in her hands Zixxy couldn't find any obvious way to open it but this was exactly the sort of puzzle that she lived for.
As she turned the box she realised that she could twist the corners to form another shape, so after a few minutes of adjusting the corners and forming a series of different shapes with the box it made a satisfying click sound.
Suddenly it levitated from her hands and began to spin on its axis looking like it was changing from a box and into a little black pyramid.
"No! That's mine!" a voice screamed from the sky.
"Was yours, I believe you humans are familiar with the principle of finders keepers no?" Zixxy said and with that, the box popped open.
A series of images flashed rapidly into Zixxy's mind like she was watching a movie in fast forwards but when it was done Zixxy couldn't help but smile to herself.
"Well well well now isn't that interesting?' she said to herself before turning her face to the infinitely blue skies above her head.
"Sabine Heslock ehh? Interesting name lady and one you kept even from your closest friends, how many fakes you came up with to hide the reality," Zixxy said and just like that the desert collapsed in on itself leaving her in what appeared to be an arctic wasteland this time.
Zixxy smirked as she got to her feet and dusted the snow from her shoulders before looking around herself.
"One step closer, you know these barriers you keep throwing at me won't stop me right? They simply make me more determined," she said turning on her axis until she spotted what she was looking for.
As the snows howled along with the winds Zixxy spotted what looked to be a perfect hole in the snow, like something was simply sitting in plain sight, invisible to the naked eye but uncovered by the complexity of the illusion surrounding it.
So Zixxy set off into the snow and by the rising sense of fear once again she instinctively knew she was going in the right direction.
She had to admit that this illusion was very powerful, it was blatantly built upon the cold exterior that she was forced to show the world in order to survive in the world that she had been plunged into.
It had obviously affected her due to the ferosity of the storm that she created that swept across the barren white landscape as well as the biting cold that tore at Zixxy's exposed skin.
But try as she might Sabine could not keep the little alien from simply carving her way right through the landscape like a little green icebreaker until she stood directly inside of the hole in the wind.
It was like being in the eye of the storm here, a perfect hole in the centre of the chaos outside of it and Zixxy could positively feel the presence of something hidden there.
Reaching out with her hand she let her instincts guide her as well as the growing despair and fear of her rather unwilling host, until finally her hand collided with that which she saught.
"There you are," she said softly as she felt the hardness of the edge of something hidden in plain sight.
It was simply white on a white background, an effective camouflage in an arctic wasteland to be sure and probably would have been a hell of a lot harder to spot if the woman hadn't gone overboard in firing up a storm around it.
Infact it had been the storm that had been her undoing here as it had allowed Zixxy to see the hidden memory box from a distance thanks to it creating a hole in it.
"That is mine you shall not have it!" a forlorn and desperate voice screeched from all around her like the very wind itself was speaking to her.
"Oh you poor dear, you are still labouring under the illusion that you can stop me, but don't you worry it is an affliction that will soon pass as you come to understand the futility of your situation," Zixxy said with a soft chuckle as she ran her hands over the box until her fingers grazed over a small indent in the side of it.
Pressing her finger into the indent she felt a small but satisfying little click from inside it and suddenly the whole box simply shattered like ice struck with a hammer.
As the ice box crumbled Zixxy caught sight of her real prize, just like in the desert there was a box within the ice box and before it hit the ground she snatched it out of the air.
"Alright let's see what you decided to hide in the heart of this frozen wasteland shall we?" she said turning it over in her little hands as she worked on the puzzle.
As she set the pieces into place by twisting and turning the corners of the box she could feel her host's despair growing much more vivid and powerful by the moment until with a final click she cracked the box open.
Just like last time Zixxy found herself in another place now, a place filled with maps, charts, paperwork and reports.
She felt an unusual calmness and satisfaction in this place.
It took her a moment to realise that this was the place that her host felt most at home, a place where she felt at peace.
It seemed that she rather liked sifting through the mountains of reports and intelligence that came in from the field teams, piecing them together like a giant puzzle to form a much larger whole.
The word 'Spectre' kept echoing around her head like the peal of a distant bell echoing through the streets of a quiet town.
"Huh, so the Enclave has an intel section within their intel section, how quaint, the Specres hmm?" Zixxy said softly as she let Sabine's memories fuse into her own.
"You won't stop us! You can't stop us you freaks!" the voice screeched above her but there was a powerful despair to the words being screamed now.
"You do realise that you are the bad guys right?" Zixxy said and her words caused a momentary glitch in her host's train of thought so Zixxy decided now would be a good time to start on some good 'ol deprogramming efforts.
"I mean come on, how can somebody who devotes their whole life to figuring out puzzles and piecing together larger pictures not see that the big picture in all of this is that the Enclave is a megalomaniacal dictatorship who wants nothing more than to rule everyone with an iron fist, while systematically wiping out anyone who doesn't fit into their ideal little picture?" Zixxy said.
"Not true! Enemy and communist propaganda!" Sabine yelled back with such fire in her voice that Zixxy felt that something a bit more subtle might be called for here, something like a puzzle.
"Well riddle me this then, why is it that nowhere is the Enclave hailed as heroes, can you even name a single place where their presence is welcomed with open arms by the populace, where the people are happy to see them and you don't have to either sneak about in the shadows or come in like a fucking sledgehammer?" Zixxy said softly as she stepped through the barrier of the Arctic wasteland and into the next area of Sabine's mindscape.
She could feel Sabine actually trying to rack her memories in order to prove her wrong and she was struggling hard.
Suddenly Zixxy found herself in a giant library that seemed to stretch out in all directions endlessly, she was getting close to the centre now she could feel it.
With every layer of the puzzle that she peeled away the defences became more elaborate and cunning, this woman was smart there was no doubt about that but there was so much more at work here too.
"People don't have to love us, merely respect and obey us, we are the government and we're here to help!" Sabine finally said, her voice booming through the silence of the library like a gong.
"Oh really? And when was the last time that you helped anyone other than yourselves then?" Zixxy asked as she lifted down one of the books to find all of the pages blank.
Another book was simply filled with gibberish.
She got the distinct feeling that doing it this way would be a waste of time, she needed a guide, she needed...a card catalogue.
As Zixxy strolled deeper into the seemingly endless halls of books searching for the card catalogue she could feel Sabine struggling with her question.
"It is the duty of the people to help us!" she said finally.
"Oh and why is that then?" Zixxy asked as she peered between the massive wooden shelves and she strolled along almost carelessly with her hands clasped behind her back.
"Because we're the government!" Sabine said again this time with obvious exasperation in her voice like it should be an obvious concept.
"Yeah but whose government? Because you sure as hell aren't the government of the USA anymore because there isn't a USA anymore, think about it the clue is in the name there honey, the United States of America, can you point out one element of America that's United anymore?" Zixxy said.
There was silence and she could feel Sabine struggling with the truth of her words so Zixxy decided to press her advantage.
"Most people in most states don't even know the others in other states even exist anymore and hell if we really want to be even more pedantic about it there are towns and settlements within the same state that don't even know of each other's existence, doesn't seem very United to me don't you agree?" she said spotting something off in the distance that made her smile.
"Irrelevant! We will reunite them, we will make them whole again!" Sabine yelled as her anger got the better of her.
"Oh and how are you planning to do that then? By dividing everyone or by simply killing all of those that don't agree with you, gonna be a pretty quiet world if that's your plan because news flash honey, no fucker agrees with you, that's why pretty much everyone is against you like I said you're the bad guys," Zixxy said as she strode confidently onwards.
"Not true! We are here to...help!" Sabine said her voice faltering now.
"Then I repeat my previous question to you, when was the last time that the Enclabe helped anyone but themselves, or even better how about this then, when was the last time YOU helped anyone but yourself?" Zixxy said as she strolled up to a massive set of drawers that was blatantly the card catalogue.
Sabine was struggling to answer now, Zixxy could feel her actually fighting against the question like the answer not only scared her but positively terrified her.
This was good because the answer was the truth and the fact that she was scared of the truth meant that it held power over her.
"Wanna know who is united though?" Zixxy said throwing her what she knew Sabine would take as not only a reprieve but a puzzle and she couldn't resist a puzzle.
"Who?" Sabine asked.
"The Free Peoples, hell we are not only united as a group but thanks to our efforts all the major powers in Boston are united as an alliance which is a first since the bombs dropped, amazing to think that huh?" she said and was met with a wall of silence.
Zixxy began to rifle through the truly giant draws filled with blank cards.
"So play with this mental image then, you call us abominations, unworthy and a few other choice names that I won't repeat, but how is it then that a Deathclaw of the Free Peoples is more welcome in a human settlement than an Enclave soldier?" she said.
Zixxy could feel Sabine actively recoiling against that sentiment, she could feel her mind whirling as it looked for answers to the questions that such a thing was generating en masse.
"Not...true," was all Sabine could muster as she fought against her own mind.
"Oh but it is true, the Free Peoples are welcome in just about every settlement in Boston now, we have Claws, avians, Archnakai, Nightstalkers, and sentient Super Mutants to name but a few and they live peacefully among humans and more so fight for them, even love them and its one of the things you and people like you are so against but yet if you simply left us alone we'd have no reason to come after you, especially given that we are an organisation that is dedicated to freeing people and assisting them no matter what face they have, but yet here we are and all because you decided it would be a fantastic idea to eradicate a colony of peaceful non-humans who were doing no harm to anyone and just wanted to be left alone to live their lives, so tell me again, how are you, not the bad guys?" Zixxy said adding a distinct harshness to her voice.
Her words stunned Sabine to silence and she felt a wavering in her ability to hold her control so Zixxy pushed her advantage and began to push images from her own memories into Sabine's mind.
She showed her flashes of her companions, of their friendship, of their camaraderie and their love for one another, but not only that of their united strength as they stood shoulder to shoulder fighting not only for one another but for all those around them.
She showed them Claws standing in defence of innocent humans, she showed them super mutants fighting against their own kind to protect people.
Zixxy showed her so much and on top of that she added in the images of the pain and fear that Sabine's own people caused, she showed her the images of towns ravaged by the Enclave.
She felt the walls surrounding Sabine's resolve crumbling as each image that she pushed in worked like a wedge being hammered into a cut in the trunk of a giant tree, each memory pushed the whole thing a little further to crashing down to the ground.
"You see what you people represent now? You see who you are and what you do? So I'll ask you again, how can you believe that you are not the bad guys because I did not see those faces of terror and pain in the towns that we liberated?" Zixxy said.
Zixxy could feel it now, like a powerful vibration that was building from a hum to a powerful crash like distant thunder rolling ever closer.
Sabine was on the verge of breaking after being forced to witness first-hand the pain and suffering that she and her people were causing to the innocents of this world.
"I...I...I know that sacrifices must be made, for the greater good, for the good of the country," Sabine said obviously reciting a mantra that she had been instilled with when she was trained for her role.
But Zixxy could feel the hollowness in her words, it was obvious she herself was struggling to find any weight in them now, she was clinging to the barest threads of her belief and it was fraying fast.
"There are sacrifices and then there pointless wastes of life, innocent life at that," Zixxy said scornfully as she rifled through the cards and noticed that all of them seemed to be blank, all but one.
As she plucked the card from the tray she felt Sabine's fear rise once more as Zixxy read the simple code that was a self number as well as a row number.
Zixxy strolled along the shelves until she noticed that way up high above her head there was a book that looked nothing like the rest.
Looking around for a ladder she found none so all she could do was take her time and climb.
Pulling books from their shelves and sending them crashing to the floor below Zixxy made her way slowly up the side of the bookcase until finally she reached the top shelf where the book lay waiting for her.
Much to her surprise, this one didn't seem to have an intricate puzzle to protect it, nothing more than a simple lock which was child's play to open, then as she began the process of absorbing the memories from the book she had just unlocked she felt Sabine's fear spiking.
There was a flash and once again she found herself seeing a series of images in fast forwards as the secrets that Sabine had tried to hide were pulled from her mind and into Zixxy.
"So it seems your people have been quite busy as of late, a pact with the Institute now that really smacks of desperation, allying yourselves with some of the very things you swore to destroy," Zixxy said using Sabine's own language against her as she felt the library crumble to dust all around her.
She was in the core now, she could feel the woman closer than she had been this entire time, the next challenge she would face would be the last and they both knew it.
Suddenly Zixxy found herself laid flat at the centre of what looked to be a giant spider's web.
She looked around herself and smirked at the scene.
"A web? How very apt," she said.
"Apt? Why apt?" Sabine replied her voice sounding distant as if she was struggling greatly to maintain her focus now.
"Well don't you and those like you spin a web of lies wherever you go and cloak yourselves in a web of secrets?" Zixxy said and this observation caught Sabine royally off guard as was noticeable by the ripple that flickered through the web.
"You see yourself as the spider, the black widow who stalks her prey in shadows and feasts upon their secrets, but in reality, you are the fly trapped in the web of lies that you yourself have spun and with each passing moment you feel the approach of the predator that lives in that web now," Zixxy said in a soft almost melodic voice.
Once again she felt a vibration pass through the web only stronger this time, her words were breaking through.
"But it is not too late for you Sabine, you can still yet escape your fate," Zixxy said.
"How? How can I escape that which lurks in every shadow!?" Sabine asked in a very desperate voice.
"Simple, truth, that is the light that burns through all shadows and sheds light upon that which is hidden, let the truth shine through you now and let it free you from the web that restrains you," Zixxy said and just like that the web vanished.
It was replaced by a brilliant sunrise over what appeared to be an oil rig of some kind.
The light sparkled on the clear ocean below it and painted everything it touched in a warm golden glow.
"So this is where the Enclave leadership hide themselves, out at sea, far away from the problems that they cause, why does this not surprise me?" Zixxy said as she turned to see the young black woman whose mind she was inside of stood next to her looking confused.
"What do I do now? Where do I go? I betrayed my oath, I am a traitor," Sabine said in a voice that echoed the fear that Zixxy had felt her display with each layer of secrets she peeled back.
"Well that's a simple one, you go where you wish and you do what you wish, we have what we need from you and I have learned everything there is to learn from you, the truth has freed you now so from this point on the choice lies with you, you can either retreat back into the web and hide from the world living in the misery that you sowed, or you can do something about it," Zixxy said.
"What do you mean?" Sabine asked her voice tinged with a flicker of hope.
"What I mean is that you can help us, you've seen the truth of who we are and what we do as well as what we truly represent, it's not such a bad thing right?" Zixxy said and Sabine shook her head.
"No, it's not, we were told you were all monsters, villans who would destroy all that we love and sought to build, but I see now that you do not seek to destroy only to unify and build anew," she said and Zixxy nodded.
"Exactly, so why not come with us, help us stop those that wrapped you up in that web of lies, to begin with, you wish to be redeemed, to help and not destroy, well here's your chance, take my hand and make it happen," Zixxy said.
Sabine hesitated for a moment as she looked at Zixxy's outstretched little hand before finally taking it causing them both to finally wake up.