Hiding In The Green: A Fallout 4 Story

Crunching Numbers

A/N: BTW, the Railroad is still at the Switchboard and not yet in the crypts of the Old North Church. The massacre by synth 1 and 2s has not yet happened.

"Deacon," Desdemona's hands and voice both shook as she tried to light her cigarette, her fingers fumbling with the trigger, "if this is just more of your bullshit, then this time you've gone too far."

"On my late wife's soul, Des, this is for real," he told her.

"The Institute's director, dying," Drummer Boy shook his head. "I know they'll pick another one, but how long has he been the director? Thirty years? Thirty five?"

"Nobody really knows," Deacon said.

"The Gen Threes say they all call him 'Father' in there, humans as well as synths. Anyhow, he's been the guiding hand behind all their policies for a lifetime. When he goes, who knows what will happen?" Desdemona drew on her cigarette, making the coal at its tip flare bright.

"Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world," Deacon quoted. "It's going to be a huge shakeup, however it plays out. Anyway, after Kellogg dropped that bombshell on us, things quieted down for a few hours. In terms of events, I mean, because man, do they know how to party up that way! Seven different polkas—but that has nothing to do with Kellogg or X6 and what happened to them.

"Most of the people left after the music, but some spent the night in the new guest house. Meanwhile, Sturges, Valentine, Garvey and I were taking turns watching Kellogg and the Courser, two at a time. You'll remember that Sturges was the one who got the funny look when I told them 'Exodus' was a Courser.

"Raina had gone home; she lived just a little out of town. As it happened, I was asleep in the next room when the Courser decided to do something really stupid. He tried to use Sturges' recall code on him..."

Deacon was having a truly horrible dream in which he found Barbara alive and well, only she didn't recognize him because of all the face changes he'd gone through. Even he didn't remember what he looked like. So he was peeling off his faces, one at a time, like sheets from a pad of paper, paper which caught fire and flared up in an instant before turning to into ash and blowing away. It was painless and bloodless, which was okay, but then she cried out, 'Stop, stop, that's it. That's you!' Except her warning came a little too late. He'd already peeled that face away and it was gone and lost. He tried to reach out to Barbara, but she had already turned away. 'I don't know you, You're not the man I married,' she said.

It wasn't the thunk of a wrench meeting a skull that woke him, it was Valentine shouting, "Hey, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

Deacon had had to wake up in a hurry before, his life sometimes depended on being able to rebound out of dreams and into full alert mode, but even so he wasn't quite prepared for what was in the next room: the Sanctuary handyman-mechanic, Sturges, standing over the Courser with a wrench in his hand, the Courser bleeding from the scalp, sprawled out on the floor. In the lantern light, the blood was dark as old oil, and the smell of it mixed nauseatingly with the traces of vomit and diarrhea which hung in the air.

"He was going to wipe my mind," Sturges explained, his voice hoarse.

"So you are a synth," Deacon said. "I thought you got this antsy look when you heard he was a Courser. Is he alive?" The question was addressed to Nick Valentine, because he was checking on the Courser's vitals.

"Yeah, but only just. You put quite a lump on his noggin and I don't like how it feels. Pass me that biometric scanner, would you?" Deacon obliged. "If his skull's fractured—. Damn. It is. And what the hell is that?" He frowned at the display before he set it aside. "Okay, Sturges, hand me the wrench, nice and easy. Under the circumstances, I'm willing to call it self-defense, but I wanted to interrogate this guy as soon as he stopped throwing up. Now go rouse Garvey. You probably ought to send Codsworth to get Raina here with her bag of remedies, too."