"-is all I need. Got that? Then you and your little buddy can get some better cells."
Carter's eyes fluttered open. He was in a damp, concrete room. His hands were cuffed to a pipe running down the wall. To the opposite of him was a man in power armor speaking with a blond, sturdy man cuffed up to another pipe.
"That's my prisoner, asshat. Now take me out of these cuffs before I have to break out!" the cuffed up man yelled.
"I'll give you some time to think about my offer." the power armor-clad interrogator said, walking out of the room and closing the door behind him.
"What the hell happened?" Carter asked.
"I'll to you what happened. I was about to arrest you for shooting one of my men, then some of Maxson's fuckers launched a missile at the bus! Knocked us the hell out and now we're God knows where!" the chained up man said excitedly.
Carter noticed something about the soldier's voice, it sounded familiar. "Have I met you before?" he asked.
"Right, right. Because I must have met you somewhere before. Gambling in Coldwater? Drinking in the Springs? Hunting out by Denver?" the soldier said sarcastically, but one of the suggestions ticked in Carter's mind.
"Drinking in the Springs.... you're Conrad" Carter stated.
"How do you know my name?" Conrad asked.
"I'm a buddy of Staples, saw you come in the bar first day I met him" Carter said.
"That's great. Now I've got to break outta hear, book you, and then arrest Staples for aiding a criminal. Day just keeps getting better." Conrad said, sighing.
"Don't know about you, but I'm gonna break out of here pretty easily if what I'm thinking is right" Carter said. He reached into his back pocket, hoping these 'Maxson fuckers' hadn't thought to check there. Bingo, Carter thought. The key was still there. He slid it out and tried maneuvering it around his wrist until it slid into the cuff lock. Turning it, Carter was ecstatic when he heard the click and the cuffs opened. He rubbed his wrists and began to stand up.
"See ya Conrad. I'm off to Florida, no Brotherhood and none of these 'Maxson fuckers' there" Carter said.
"Wait, you can't leave me here" Conrad said. "If I know our eastern brothers as well I think I do, they're going to have this place heavily guarded. You need me."
Conrad was right of course, these guys took all of his stuff, he had nothing to fight with if they found him.
"Alright, but when we get out of here you had better not plan on arresting me" Carter said, walking over and uncuffing Conrad.
"Deal" Conrad said. "Mac was killed in the crash anyway. Without another testimony you'd of just been executed with no fun trial to listen to."
Conrad stood up and walked to the door, peering through the slit near the top.
"Hm, coast looks clear" he said, opening the door, Carter right behind him.
Carter looked around. It was night, they were in a dugout in what looked like a baseball field. Over the barrier he could see soldiers in both T-60 and combat armor patrolling. There were footsteps above them.
"You're lucky one of the survivors you brought in was important, a Midwestern Paladin. Otherwise I'd have you locked up in there with them for disorderly conduct. What were you thinking? Launching a missile at a civilian transport, that's reckless." a familiar voice said, the interrogator.
"I'm sorry Paladin Rhys, I swear it won't happen again. It's just that... the vehicle, it had an MWB soldier on a turret up top. The squad thought they were just using it as a troop transport." a women said.
"Well you all thought wrong. And for that, Squad Odysseus has now got inventory duty until I say otherwise. Dismissed." Paladin Rhys stated sternly.
"Yes sir!" the soldier said.
Conrad grabbed Carter's shoulder, pointing towards a gate leading into another room. Crawling up over the barricade was suicide, so he followed him. Sneaking through the door, Carter heard Conrad mutter something under his breath. He turned and realized why. The two of them were in an armory, piled high with ammunition, weapons, and armor both standard and powered. Carter noticed his satchel and weapons sitting on a nearby table and walked over to grab them.
"They're gonna attack Osceola" Conrad said in disbelief. "They could take it with all this. We have to find a way to destroy it."
"Uh, we? I know you kind of just pardoned me back there, but that doesn't mean I'm going to help the Brotherhood. Look, there's your weird PA over there. Get in and let's get the hell out of here." Carter said.
Conrad walked over to his power armor and got in, also grabbing a laser rifle from a nearby shelf and loading it.
"Fine. We leave, but you aren't going on your way after we get out. You're coming to Osceola with me, and then you're going to back up everything I have to say about what we've seen. Got that?" Conrad asked, his voice made metallic by his helmet.
"Whatever, let's just get out of here alive first"
Conrad grabbed a frag grenade as he walked through the next door and up into the baseball field, tossing it at a vertibird resting on the pitcher's mound.
"Watch out!" a pilot yelled, jumping out of the aircraft and running for cover. He didn't make it. Conrad levelled his rifle and shot the pilot down at the same moment the vertibird exploded. Carter watched in amazement as his former prisonmate was unfazed by all the fire he was taking, shooting at anything that moved. Carter ran to the wreckage of the aircraft and started firing his rifle at a power armored soldier with a gatling laser, hoping to distract him enough for Conrad to clear a way through to the exit just a few dozen yards ahead of them. But that wasn't what Conrad was planning. Carter saw something yellow and black in his hands, a fusion core. Conrad must've grabbed a spare one from the armory.
"Hey, you a good shot with that rifle?" he asked.
"Yeah, why?" Carter asked back.
"Shoot this!" Conrad yelled, throwing the fusion core in the air above the field and running backwards towards the fence to their back.
Carter shot his rifle, the round hitting the core and detonating it into a blinding light. He tried covering his eyes but felt someone forcibly grab ahold of him and carry him away. He heard a tearing noise and noticed that it was Conrad who held him, smashing through the wall fence and running away from the screams and wreck behind them.
The two had been running for almost an hour in the dark, through the Wasteland's monotonous desert.
"I don't think they're following us" Carter exclaimed, trying to catch a breath. His legs had started aching and slowing, even Conrad had begun to slow down in the last few minutes.
"I know." Conrad breathed heavily. "They never were, we just have to get to Osceola and tell them.... huh, huh, tell them what's going on. The attack.". The power armored man slowed down to a stop and knelt on the ground, Carter took a stop too a few feet away.
"We just raised some hell back there. I don't think those guys'll be attacking anytime soon in that much disarray" Carter said.
"You don't understand the Brotherhood. When we lose a brother, we fight back ten times harder. That doesn't change between any of us. And we just killed quite a few of Maxson's brothers." Conrad said.
"What? That was the Brotherhood back there? You're Brotherhood, why did they attack us on the bus?" Carter yelled, confused by the whole situation of events.
"It's... tough to explain. The Brotherhood of Steel isn't one big happy family, we disagree. And of recently, we've been doing a lot more fighting than disagreeing." Conrad said. Carter couldn't tell why, but he knew this was a tough subject for Conrad, for some reason.
"Alright, we get to Osceola. Then what? How far is it even?" he asked.
"Well, now that I've had some time to think, I know where we are. When I was just a Squire I remember we drove past that building and field one day, reminded me of a poster I had in my bedroom down in the bunker when I was a kid. Wanted to go out and play but the Knights just laughed." Conrad said. He began to laugh himself. "Damn, hadn't thought about that in a long time. Okay, we're about three hours walk from Osceola. We should make it by sunrise if we're lucky, don't run into any trouble, especially this far south."
"Lead on then, Paladin Conrad."
"You ever think of what happened at 0?" Conrad asked. He and Carter had been exchanging small talk the last few hours.
"You mean the Calculator? Suppose I'm just glad I got put into auxiliary security. That part of the Vault was cut off from the rest. Staples told me what happened, Overseer went cuckoo and let all the bots out on a rampage, killed mostly everyone. Come to think of it, I was told day I was assigned that the auxiliary sector was made just in case something like that happened. Life support in the main area failed, bots went rampant or broke down." Carter said.
"Wonder if Vault-Tec knew? Sadistic bastards they were, could imagine they allowed a control Vault to fail." Conrad said.
"I... don't know. Staples told me bout that too. Back before the war we thought they were on our side, wanted to help people in case something happened. Turns out we were wrong." Carter responded.
"Well they did create a few bunkers meant for protection. No, I've always thought it's my people that really fucked the Vaults over." Conrad replied.
"What do you mean your people?" Carter asked suspiciously.
"Oh, I assumed you knew all about the Societal Preservation Program. Staples was pretty knowledgeable on the subject, anything shady actually. Why he'd leav-" *PEW PEW PEW* "What in God's name!"
A spray of bullets had hit the sand a few feet in front of Carter and Conrad. In the distance was a large wall hard to see with the little sunlight coming in, spotlights had just turned on and were tracked on the two.
"Don't shoot. I'm Paladin Conrad Smith. This is.... my trainee. Intitiate Carter Lakeman. We're here to speak with Elder Hyde. We have information on recent East Coast chapter movements he'll be interested in." Conrad said, waiting for a reply.
"Initiate?" Carter asked.
"Just play along. The troops here at Osceola are pretty strict in their duty, won't let civies in before sunrise." Conrad replied.
"Come in" a deep voice grumbled from the wall. The gates to the city began opening, and Carter and Conrad walked towards them.