Her vision slowly focused and Briar Rose had to blink rapidly to make sure she was seeing what she was seeing: all around her was black except for blue nerve receptors lighting up in purple and fading to red as they fired up and sent some message to another nerve. She stood on smaller blue nerve receptors linked together; green boxes floated far before her. There wasn't a single sound.
"Ah, you're in safely; good." Dr. Amari's voice echoed around her. "The simulation appears to be working, although the memories are quite fragmentary. Let me work to create a path to the first memory."
Whatever she did made more blue nerve receptors appear and link together, creating a path for her. Briar Rose followed it, twisting and turning up to a green box. As soon as she stepped in, a young boy sitting on a bed and looking down at an opened magazine, and a woman sitting in a chair and reading a book appeared. It looked like they were in a children's bedroom. They didn't move, just remained frozen.
"Now remember, you're experiencing these memories as Kellogg," Dr. Amari warned. "This may prove disorienting at first."
Briar Rose jumped when Kellogg's deep, scratchy voice boomed around her. "Mom knew how it was. She wasn't soft, but she loved me in her way."
She now understood that the kid was a young Kellogg, and that was his mother. It was uncomfortable seeing him as an innocent-looking kid and knowing the monster he would become later. She wondered if his mother could tell what he would become.
"I never knew what happened to her after I left; I didn't want to know. Not then. Dad was either drunk or not around. I guess he must have run with one of the Raider gangs, but I never really knew what he did. I don't know why Mom was with him. Maybe at some point in his life, he wasn't a complete asshole."
The picture unfroze and the green light faded: normal colors appeared, the young Kellogg breathed, and his mother flipped a page in the book. The radio on the end table was on.
"And that makes it official, folks! The final vote count from the Hub is in: 55% in favor of joining the New California Republic. All five states have now signed on, which means that, as of this moment, we are all citizens of the NCR. I'm sure that's going to take some getting used to for a lot of people."
"Turn down that goddamn radio! I'm trying to sleep!" a male voice shouted behind the closed door.
Kellogg's mother scoffed. "Hmm, what a joke."
"What's it mean, Mom?" the young Kellogg asked. It was odd hearing him with a soft child's voice.
"Nothing, Connie. People like to talk and hope someone else is going to keep them safe."
The scene froze and Kellogg's normal voice spoke again. "I was such a dummy then. What did I know about how the world worked? I think now she wanted me to kill him. I should have; instead, I ended up running away. I told myself I wanted to find somewhere out from under the thumb of the NCR and all their rules. But really, I was running away from the guilt of not protecting her from Dad. Doesn't matter now, though."
The memory came back alive. "Teacher at school said the NCR would bring back the good ole days; like before the Great War."
Kellogg's mother shot her eyes at him. "Don't you listen to that twaddle. I'm going to stop sending you, if that's what they're teaching you."
"I'm going out!" the male shouted again—Briar Rose assumed that was the father. "Where the fuck did you put my boots?"
Kellogg's mother scowled at the door, lowered the book, and reached behind her to pull out a pistol—specifically the one Briar Rose remembered the older Kellogg had—and handed it to her son.
"Listen to me, Connie. Take this; you're old enough. You're the man of the family now. It's your job to protect us. Your father's useless. But you won't turn out like him; you're a good boy. And all that on the radio—all useless talk. The only thing that will protect you in this world is that gun in your hands. You need to learn to use it if you're going to survive."
He looked through the sights as he aimed it before him. "I will, Mom; I promise. I won't let you down."
"You've always been my good boy."
So, you think, Briar Rose thought. Kellogg and his mother disappeared as the memory faded back to green.
"Hmm, that doesn't seem to be what we're looking for," Dr. Amari said. "There appears to be another intact memory close to you in temporal sequence... There; try that one."
More nerve receptors attached to the box she was in and she followed the new path to another box. This had a young man in a leather jacket and a young, pretty woman cleaning dishes at a sink; a baby crib sat at the end of the room—it looked occupied with a baby.
Kellogg's voice boomed again. "Whatever made me think a guy like me should have a daughter... I never deserved her. Not for one second." He sounded remorseful.
The memory came alive with the man and woman wiping off the dishes, the ceiling fan rotating, and the baby moving. "It's going to be fine. You'll see," the man said; it had to be Kellogg from the deepness in his voice.
The woman sighed. "We don't even know anyone here, and now with the baby..."
"Come on, Sarah, you got to give it a chance. I've finally got steady work with a good outfit. Nothing like that in the NCR these days."
Done with the dishes, Sarah walked to the table. "I'm not saying this was a mistake; I'm just... Are you sure these guys know what they're doing? They seem kind of... green."
The young Kellogg followed her. "I know, but that's where I come in. Just wait. In a few years, I'll be running my own crew, as soon as I make the connections I need. Then I can give you anything you want, and little Mary, too."
"I never worried about you before. Must be my mama instincts kicking in." She chuckled dryly. "Who knew I had those, huh?"
He grabbed her hand. "Come on, you're great with her. And you don't need to worry about me. Most of it's just running security. A lot of standing around looking tough."
Sarah eyed him with a smile, pulling up a corner of her lips. "They sure picked the right person for that job."
"Listen, it's going to be great here."
The memory froze. "I was the worst thing that ever happened to her," Kellogg said. "If she'd never met me, she'd have stayed in the Hub, maybe hook up with someone who didn't kill people for a living. Probably been happier than she was with me. Almost certainly would've lived longer.
"The thing with happiness is that you only know you had it until it's gone. I mean, you think to yourself you're happy, but you don't really believe it. You focus on the petty bullshit, or the next job, or whatever. It's only looking back, by comparison with what comes after, that you really understand that's what happiness felt like."
The memory started to play again with Kellogg pulling out a pistol—the one his mother gave him—and showed it to her. "This is what's going to keep you and Mary safe. I promise."
Sarah grabbed his arm. "I know, Connie. I'm sure we're going to be really happy here."
"We are. You'll see."
Mary began to cry and after holstering the gun, Kellogg walked over to check on her. The memory ended with them disappearing.
Briar Rose was conflicted about what she felt: seeing Kellogg's family hurt because he took hers from her—he didn't deserve to have one. Or did he? From the way he spoke, they died too early. Did he deserve pain even before what he did to her? Did that pain drive him to become the monster he was?
"Let's keep looking. I'll connect you to the next intact memory," Dr. Amari said.
The next memory she went to had the young Kellogg readying a gun walking down a concrete tunnel; she trailed him.
"How did you think this was going to end, Kellogg?" A male voice echoed around her and Kellogg. "You thought you could just fuck with us and we wouldn't fuck with you? Just so you know—they died like dogs, without you there to help them."
The young Kellogg kicked open the door at the end of the tunnel and went in, ready for gunfire; Briar Rose went in after him, but the memory ended, and she faced with a new path and another green box at the end.
"I've found another memory to try. I'll connect you," Dr. Amari said.
She entered a bar with an older Kellogg drinking at a table; two men stood close to his table. This Kellogg looked older, dressed in metal armor, and with less hair.
"I didn't care where I was going. Ended up mostly traveling east. Getting as far away from San Francisco as I could, maybe."
The memory awoke. "Mind if we... sit down?" one of the men asked.
"Suit yourself," Kellogg said disinterestedly—his voice sounded like how it was supposed to be.
The memory froze as the men headed for a seat. "There was always someone who wanted someone else dead. Sometimes just roughed up, but dead was usually what they wanted. Sometimes they thought they could cheat me. That was usually only when I first arrived somewhere. It didn't matter to me; I just took it as part of the job—a little extra thrown in for free. I always got paid in the end, one way or another. I don't remember much from that time; it all kind of blends together. There was almost always a bar, though. That's universal."
The men sat down. "So, uh, I hear you take care of people's problems. Is that right?" the black man nervously asked.
"If you pay me," Kellogg stated.
"Oh, we'll pay you," the white man said. "And you'll do this all on your own?"
"That's right."
The black man took charge again. "We pay you when the job's done; is that okay?"
"If that's the way you want to do it. So, who do you want dead?"
"Well, it's like this: there's this family, lives down the creek a way..."
The memory ended there and Briar Rose was glad for it—she couldn't hear them casually discussing killing some family.
"We seem to be getting closer. Try this next one," Dr. Amari suggested.
In the next memory, she found Kellogg standing across from a woman sitting behind a desk with three skeletal Gen 1 synths near her. This Kellogg was how she remembered him: bald, a scar running down his left eye, a metal arm piece, and an arrogant personality smoking a cigarette—the synths were all armed and Briar Rose could see where this was going.
"Mr. Kellogg, I'm glad you decided to meet with me," the woman said.
"So, you're with the Institute; I wanted to see for myself if you really existed."
"We do, as you can see."
The memory froze. "I finally ended up in the Commonwealth. I kind of ran out of road. Plus, I'd come to terms with life. I wasn't going to be stupid enough to get mixed up with caring about other people again. It was just me against the world, and the world had it coming."
"What do you want?" Kellogg asked.
"It's come to my attention that you've been rather disruptive to our operations lately. This must stop."
"The first synths weren't all that impressive. I'm good, but I'm not that good. But the Institute could always make more, and kept making them better each time. They still give me the creeps, but you have to get used to them if you want to work with the Institute.
"You heard all sorts of rumors about the Institute, but I figured they were just a convenient bogeyman for anything bad that ever happened. They were real, all right, but they didn't know anything about operating on the surface. Relied on their synths for everything. They had the resources I needed, and I had the expertise they needed. Turned into a permanent arrangement, which suited me just fine."
On the surface? Briar Rose's heart sped up; hearing that the Institute was underground would help her narrow down her search for it.
"I do what people pay me to do. If that's a problem for you, I can see only one way out," Kellogg said cockily.
"And what's that, Mr. Kellogg?"
"If I'm working for you, there's no more problem. From what I hear, you can afford me."
The woman's lips thinned. "I don't think you fully understand the situation you're in."
"I think I do."
"Very well. B7-48, initiate," the woman ordered and the three synths launched at Kellogg. But he effortlessly fended them off and shot them down with his pistol—all without losing the cigarette between his lips.
The woman had an eager gleam in her eyes. "Impressive; we may have something to talk about after all." Everybody disappeared as the memory ended.
"Getting warmer. One of these has got to tell us something. We're running out of brain here... Uh... Ah! There's one that looks mostly intact; connecting now," Dr. Amari said.
She went on to the next memory, but this one had a familiar setting, and she almost didn't go in: it was Vault 111 and the room with her cryogenic pod. She stood behind Kellogg, the woman in a hazmat suit, and another one typing on a terminal.
"Manual override initiated. Cryogenic stasis suspended," a familiar robotic voice said.
"Vault computers are still working: that's good. Checking through the logs; hopefully it's all..." the one typing on the terminal began; it was a man.
The memory froze. "The eggheads never liked taking orders from a dirty contaminated degenerate like me. But they needed me, and I made sure they knew it."
"Just... find it," Kellogg growled.
"Pod C6. Down the hall near the end."
Kellogg and the woman turned, but the memory stopped.
"I was now the Institute's main operator in the Commonwealth. If they needed something done, they came to me. I didn't know then who it was we were grabbing from the Vault. Of course, neither did they. Not really.
"Even then, I knew it was a mistake leaving her alive. I understood that kind of revenge. No one better. But I was cocky enough to assume I could handle some soft pre-war vault dweller, even if she somehow got thawed out. At least I know those Institute bastards will soon get what's coming for them, too. If she can take me out, they won't be able to hide from her for long.
"I never knew why we just didn't refreeze the rest of them, but we had our orders. I guess the old man didn't want many loose ends. Too bad he left alive the one person he shouldn't have."
The memory picked back up with Kellogg and the woman walking down the aisle to Nate's pod. Briar Rose turned to watch herself instead of the scene playing out behind her. She watched the confusion and panic take over as her past-self realized what was going on and fought to get free. She still jumped at the gunshot and her heart re-broke again at hearing Shaun's screams.
"What's the holdup?" Kellogg asked after talking to her; she turned to see him talking to the man at the terminal.
"I'm almost finished, Kellogg. I just need to confirm..." He trailed off. "It's good; let's go."
The memory grew dark.
"I'm sorry you had to witness that again," Dr. Amari said; her voice wavered. "There's one more memory to visit; let's hope that's the one we need."
The last memory was in Kellogg's house in Diamond City; Kellogg sat in a chair and a young boy—about ten with dulled-red hair—sat on the floor, playing with a toy car. Briar Rose choked up at seeing Shaun. She ran over and kneeled in front of him; he looked perfectly fine and resembled a younger Nate.
"Is that... Is that your son?" Dr. Amari asked. "This appears to be a very recent memory, so good news... I think."
Kellogg spoke around her. "It wasn't my idea to settle down with the kid in the middle of Diamond City. I thought it was a terrible idea, actually. But it was one of the old man's pet projects, so here we were. Me and the kid like a little happy family. I ended up kind of liking it—a reminder of what my life might have been if things had turned out differently. But there's no going back. I knew it was just temporary, and it would go back to normal business before too long.
"This whole setup in Diamond City was part of some elaborate plan of the old man's. Seems obvious now that we were bait for our friend from the Vault. The timing couldn't have been an accident. That's not how the old man works. I wonder if he outsmarted me in the end; another loose end tied up."
A black man wearing dark sunglasses and a long black coat suddenly materialized at the door—he didn't come through it; Kellogg reacted by reaching for his pistol but relaxed at seeing who it was.
"One of these days, you're going to get your head blown off, barging in here like that," Kellogg said as he holstered his pistol.
"The new breed of synths could easily pass as humans; some of them did. But the Coursers—they weren't built to blend in; they were killing machines, pure and simple. Smarter, stronger, and faster than almost any real human. I'm just glad they were always on my side."
"Minimizing my exposure to civilians is a priority," the black man said as he walked over to Kellogg—his voice was monotone.
"Forget I said anything." Kellogg stood. "So, what's the big crisis this time?"
"New orders for you. One of our scientists has left the Institute."
"Left, as in...?"
"Gone rogue; his name's Doctor Brian Virgil. We know he's hiding somewhere in the Glowing Sea. Here's his file." The Courser reached into his inner coat for a folder and handed it to Kellogg.
"Wow. Some heads are going to roll for this," he said as he snatched the folder and scanned through it. "Capture and return, or just elimination?"
"Elimination. He was working on a highly classified program."
"No kidding. One of the top Bioscience boys. Damn." Kellogg glanced at Shaun. "So, I'm guessing you're taking the kid back with you?"
"Affirmative. Your only mission is to locate and eliminate Virgil."
Shaun looked up at them. "You're taking me home to my father?"
Father? What?
The black man looked down at him. "Yes. Stand next to me and hold still."
"Okay." Shaun got up and got beside the Courser when they stepped back from Kellogg.
"X6-88, ready to Relay with Shaun," the black man said into the air.
"Bye, Mr. Kellogg; I hope to see you again sometime," Shaun said.
In a flash, both he and the Courser were gone. Briar Rose's heart dropped—she had just seen him, only to lose him again.
"Bye," Kellogg said sadly.
Briar Rose looked at him, hearing in his tone that he had grown attached to her son. She didn't know how she felt about that. The memory ended.
"Teleportation... Now it all makes sense," Dr. Amari said. "That's why no one can find an entrance; there isn't an entrance."
The television screen she saw lit up with the familiar gray and white 'Please Stand By' sign. "To leave, approach the screen and look into it."
Briar Rose did, and felt the sensation of being sucked into it as the gears turned and the words disappeared.