The Castle is no Prydwen, but the Minutemen have somehow managed to make something of it nonetheless. The Brotherhood had looked at claiming the fort for themselves, but had ultimately decided against it due to the crumbling walls, and mirelurk infestation. There are no signs of any mirelurks now. Even their nests are absent, the only indication of their existence being the soot stains on the granite where the Minutemen had burned the nests to ash. Even the walls have been patched; scaffolding lines the granite outer walls, allowing workers to continue filling in the holes. Even the grounds are cleaner, grass a vibrant green, and the soil dark and fertile. Somewhere in the distance he hears the hum of a water purifier, no doubt connected to the bay Fort Independence sits alongside. All sort of electrical cables criss-cross overhead, providing power to every inch of the Castle.
"Preston—you'll meet him soon—wanted to turn this area into a trading hub that would rival Diamond City's market," Ridley explains, leading him down a newly laid gravel path that cuts through the inner grounds. She gestures as she talks, drawing his attention to specific parts of the Castle. "I opted to make it into a garden. It brings in fewer caps, but at least we won't have to rely as much on the traders that come by here. You might have noticed when you landed that we're slowly setting up an irrigation system to turn the surrounding area into farmland, and houses for the farmers. I don't know an awful lot about gardening, truth be told, but things are slowly coming along."
Maxson wouldn't necessarily use the word "slowly" seeing the progress the Minutemen have made, but he knows they've been working on this for at least half a year now. "A daunting task," he says. "What do you think, Paladin?"
Danse almost seems surprised by the question, having kept quiet the entire time. "It's an ambitious goal, but if anyone can do it, it will be the General."
Ridley only laughs. "Flatterer," she says jovially. "Our signal transmitter for Radio Freedom is located in the centre, as you can see, Elder. We wouldn't be able to be the Minutemen without it. 'At a minute's notice' requires... an awful lot of communication. I'm trying to convince Preston to let me move it somewhere a little more out of the way, but who knows if he'll agree to it."
"You said Preston was your second?" Maxson raises a brow.
"Mm, though he's just as much the General of the Minutemen as I am. I think he just wants someone to put the blame on if somethinag goes wrong, truth be told." She sweeps her hand behind her. "The western bastion hosts our main residential quarters. The south-west bastion used to be our armoury, but we've since cleared out the tunnels beneath the Castle which have now become our armoury. We're in the midst of turning the south-west bastion into our main food storage, and the door's always left open, so if you ever get peckish..." Ridley coughs. "The south-east bastion contains what we call 'the garage,' and is where we design weapons, armour, chems, and the like. The eastern bastion is our common area, while the northern one consists of my quarters."
"You've done a lot with the place," Maxson says as she leads them towards the northern bastion.
"We used to operate out of Sanctuary," she says. "But there were... personal reasons we couldn't stay."
"Personal reasons?" he asks, even as Danse's eyes widen, silently trying to tell the Elder to drop the matter. He doesn't listen. "What sort of personal reasons?"
Ridley stops in her tracks, twisting the golden band around her ring finger. "It was where I lived before the war." Her whispering voice cracks. "With Nate, and Shaun."
He realises immediately that he should have listen to Danse. "Ah."
She swallows. "Yeah." She doesn't give any more explanation that that. All she does is fiddle with her holotags, and continue on walking.
Her quarters are a mess. Papers, and books litter every surface, and dozens of empty bottles of beers are stacked on the coffee table. Beneath the clutter, however, there are pieces that hint to it holding some sort of structure. Papers are stacked by subject, alongside books on similar topics, and the tea is indicative of many late nights spent pouring over them. An empty dog bed is shoved in the corner, surrounded by a small mountain of chew toys.
But her desk is clean, save for one faded picture in a pale blue frame.
A picture of a woman with a head full of golden hair, and bright green eyes, cradling a baby boy.
While the picture has aged, Ridley hasn't. She looks just as she does in the two hundred year old picture, even down to the smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Gone though is the brightness in her eyes, leaving behind nothing but grief, and memories that haunt her more than any ghost ever could.
Ridley catches him staring, and slowly turns the photo over onto its face, hiding the picture from view. "I'm sorry about the mess." She sounds chipper, cheery, but her smile is forced, and clearly fake. "Preston should join us shortly. Take a seat—can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee? Nuka-Cola? Something stronger? I have brandy, red wine, white wine, whiskey..." She continues on rattling, but by the look on Danse's face, both he and Maxson know what this is really about.
For whatever reason, she's nervous.
She wrings her hands as her questions are met with answers, pacing back and forth in front of the island of her small kitchen. She opens her mouth, as though to speak, but quickly falls silent as four people step into the room.
"Sorry it took so long," one says, removing a wide-brimmed hat, and placing it on the counter to reveal a man with dark skin, and curly black hair. "Piper started an argument with Mayor McDonough."
"I started an argument?" a woman—Piper, Maxson presumes—repeats. Straight, dark brows narrow over hazel eyes as she sweeps her brown hair back over her shoulder. A hand rests on her cocked hip. "He was the one who came up to me. Sheesh, Preston. Stop blaming me."
"If you'd 'ave just punched 'im in the face ages ago..." starts a woman with bright red hair, her strange accent thick. She looks every inch like a raider, from the permanent scowl that graces her lips, down to her tattered, mismatching armour. Her sunken, pale green eyes drift to Maxson, her scowl deepening, before turning her gaze back to Piper.
"Then she would have been arrested, Cait." At first, Maxson doesn't know to whom the gravelly voice belongs to, but then he spots it lurking in the shadows. If its unnatural, glowing eyes aren't a dead giveaway, then its peeling plastic skin is. It barely manages to cling onto the abomination's frame, revealing the cogs and gears that keep the damn thing running. A skeletal, metal hand holds a lit cigarette between two fingers.
As a child, there had been few things Maxson had been allowed to do. For the most part, he had been confined to the Citadel, the elders too afraid of anything happening to the last Maxson to let him venture out into the Capital Wasteland. But a young child can only read the Brotherhood's Codex so many times before getting bored. So, instead, he had spent much of his time learning how to shoot a gun properly. While not entirely a safe activity, the elders had let him get away with it as long as he had been accompanied by an adult.
He can't even begin to count the hours he had spent in the shooting range, but he does know that he's one of the best marksmen in the entire Brotherhood.
Which is why, he suspects, everyone is in an uproar when he pulls his gun out on the thing standing in the shadows.
"Hey, now, take it easy," the man—Preston, he remembers—says, holding his hands up warningly. "Let's not do anything rash."
Maxson doesn't even notice that Cait and Piper both have their own guns on him. He does notice, however, that Danse is surprisingly lacking a weapon. He's frowning, clearly displeased, but shows no inclination towards violence.
"Blue, if he shoots Nick, I'm going to kill you," Piper growls, her grip tightening on her pistol.
The redhead permanent scowl stretches into an all too hungry looking smile. "Oh, goodie, I was just thinkin' I hadn't shot anyone in a while."
"Ah, let him be angry," the thing says, taking a long drag from its cigarette. "It's been ages since my mere existence has made anyone this angry. I think last time was with bucko over there."
Danse almost snarls.
Ridley slams her fist down on the counter, the force knocking a precariously placed cup off. It shatters as it hits the ground. "That's ENOUGH!" For such a small woman, she might as well be yelling through the Prydwen's P.A system, her voice so loud it makes him grimace. Her fury turns her into something downright frightening, her eyes burning with emerald fire as they turn upon him. "Elder Maxson, if you fire that fucking gun, you will be killing my one chance at finding my son, and Danse, I swear to God, if you say a single damn thing about 'watching my tone when I speak to the Elder' I will throw you off the ramparts in your suit into the bay. And Christ, Cait, stop trying to shoot our allies. Piper, I appreciate your concern, but stand down."
Maxson is not used to being yelled at. His men are too subordinate to ever try to say anything, and the few times he's ever had to report to his superiors, they've been too afraid of offending his family name to do anything more than chastise him. He almost doesn't know how to react. Slowly, but surely, everyone in the room lowers their weapons, though they continue to glare at each other.
"Knight Ridley," Maxson hisses through gritted teeth, "explain why that... that... that—"
"Rustbucket? Machine? Thing? Abomination?" Its glowing eyes narrow. "Or are you going to call me what I actually am?"
"Nick, stop antagonising him." Ridley lets out a heavy breath, wincing as she looks down at the mess the glass has made.
"You named it?"
"No, Elder," Ridley says sharply, bristling with indignation. "He has a name, and I expect you to use it. You asked me to follow the code of conduct you expect your men to follow whilst I am representing the Brotherhood. Right now, I am the General of the Minutemen, and you are, for all intents and purposes, a guest. So I ask you to do the same with our code of conduct."
He hears her point. And hell, a part of him—the rational part of him—even acknowledges it, but his ire has been sparked, and he cannot stop himself from saying the next words that fall out of his mouth. "It's a synth," he spits. "A creation that transcends the destructive nature of the atom bomb."
The silence that immediately follows makes him regret his words. Everyone is suddenly staring at the ground, unable to look both him, and Ridley in the eye. It's a comparison he's used before—a comparison that oft silences the insubordinate initiates who dare to speak out against his orders. But it is not a comparison the Vault Dweller has any care for.
Her fists slowly unfurl, instead gripping onto the edge of the counter, as though it will anchor her in place, and keep her from lunging at him. "Of all the people in this room," she says, softly, quietly, and it's somehow more threatening than her earlier shouting, "who need to be reminded about the destruction an atom bomb can cause, Elder Maxson, I am not one of them."
The fear that paralyses him is unlike anything he's ever experienced before. Not even when he'd stared into the eyes of the Deathclaw that had left him with the large scar running across the right side of his face. Deathclaws are a known threat, and there have been stories of untrained settlers, with an incredible amount of luck, taking them down. But Eleanor Ridley has gone through hell and back, and survived. She has walked out from the ashes of the old world with nothing more than a fierce, furious fire burning in her heart. No one who has ever stood against her have lived to tell the tale.
He has no response for her, but her sour expression twitches with a small degree of pleasure as he holsters his laser rifle.
She still doesn't let go of the counter, instead jerking her head as a substitute for gestures. "Now, introductions. That is Preston Garvey—" the man tips his hat at the Elder, "—my second-in-command. He calls me 'General' but he does twice as much work as I do, and never takes any credit for it."
Preston laughs. "Perhaps, General, but you do all the hard work."
"Arguable," she replies. She tilts her head toward the redheaded woman. "That's Cait. She's a good friend, and one hell of a fighter. If you need someone decked, or something stolen, she's your gal." The Irishwoman scoffs, but otherwise remains quiet. Ridley continues, looking to the brunette. "You should know Piper. She's the one that wrote the paper on me that you read. Nosey as all hell, but she's great for wheedling information out of people."
"Ah, Blue, you're always so nice to me," Piper teases, unable to hide her grin.
Ridley pays her no mind, looking Maxson dead in the eye. "Finally, we have Nick Valentine. Synth detective, and the man—" Her use of human pronouns is nothing if not defiant, and an open dare for Maxson to say something about it, "who's helping me find Shaun. My inner circle. We're missing Hancock, but I thought you'd have a hard enough trouble with Nick that you wouldn't be able to deal with having a ghoul hanging around. MacCready was more than happy to keep him company so he didn't feel excluded. You'll likely meet Hancock later. Mac says he's met you before, and has no inclination to meet you again."
A synth, and a ghoul? He's starting to wonder if it hadn't been his best idea to accept Ridley into the Brotherhood's ranks, but Danse had sponsored her quite confidently. Hell, he'd even promoted her from recruit to initiate. "Is that all?"
"There's Codsworth and Curie, but Curie's tending to a couple of our injured, and Codsworth helping clean. Codsworth is our resident Mr Handy, and Curie is... Well, was a Miss Nanny, but we recently uploaded her into a synth body, so she's... unique. We used to have a mutant travelling with us by the name of Strong, but he parted ways with us some time back. I have a dog too, Dogmeat, but he does his own thing. I think he's wandering down by the bay. Of course, you know Paladin Danse already..."
It's not even noon, and he already has a headache. "You called me here to talk about the Institute," he says. Slowly, he sits back down. "What does this have to do with anything?"
"Not exactly cheery, are you?" Cait mumbles, perching atop a barstool. Piper soon takes the one to her left, Preston leaning against the fridge. Danse and Ridley are the only ones standing.
Ridley doesn't acknowledge Cait's complaints. "That's where Nick comes in. Three weeks ago, with Nick's help, Piper and I tracked down a lead on the man who killed my husband, and we found him camped out in what's left of Fort Hagen. He told me that the Institute had paid him to kidnap Shaun, and that..." Her voice chokes. "That Nate was just 'a regrettable accident.'"
Piper makes a face, fiddling with the fraying hem of her red coat. "Accident," she repeats under her breath. "You don't look someone in the eyes, and shoot them, and call it an accident."
"It doesn't matter now," says Ridley. "I killed Kellogg either way. Pulled this cybernetic implant from his skull, and Nick had the idea to take it to the memory den. I saw through his eyes, even as he..." Her husband's death is clearly her biggest weakness. She can't even mention his name without choking up. He knows first-hand what that's like, but he can avoid talking about Sarah. A third of his men have never even met the youngest Lyons, and over half only knew her in passing. He can count the number of people who called her a friend on one hand. Ridley doesn't have the same opportunity. To find Shaun, she must relive the day of her husband's death over, and over, and over again.
He wonders if she's even had the opportunity to grieve.
"In the memories," she continues, glossing over the painful thoughts, "we discovered that the Institute has some sort of... I don't know, a teleporter? It's how their synths seem to appear out of nowhere, and disappear into thin air. Also why no one's found a way into damn Institute. The Minutemen have spent the past two weeks trying to figure out how to use it to our advantage. The only lead we've had thus far is the name Dr Brian Virgil—an Institute scientist, who apparently left because of 'disagreements' with the director. Institute Coursers, however, have one job, and its tracking down people who don't want to be found, and even they can't find Virgil."
"He might be dead." Maxson blinks, surprised, when Ridley tosses him an ice-cold beer, and a bottle opener without warning. He almost drops them. It is by some small miracle that he doesn't.
Cait jerks her head towards Ridley. "You're not keepin' that all to yourself, are you?" she asks.
Ridley laughs, but it's a hollow sound. "Of course not, Cait," she says, handing a bottle to the Irishwoman.
"I fuckin' love you sometimes, you know that right?"
"We considered that," Piper says, eyes on Maxson as she leans back on the counter. "But then I did a little poking. Asked a few questions here, asked a few questions there... Everyone we asked agreed on one thing: that somehow Virgil's still alive, just... hidden. So we started thinking, and Blue sent out some scouts, and then..."
"And then last night, I got a message," Preston finishes. "From one of our scouts. He managed to track Virgil down. He wanted permission to continue his mission."
"Permission? Why?"
Ridley pries off her bottle cap on the edge of the counter, rather than wait for the bottle opener to make its rounds. "Because a single scout wearing little more than a few pieces of leather armour, and armed with nothing but a pipe pistol can't do an awful lot in the Glowing Sea. Which is why I woke in the middle of the night to multiple attempts to reach me over Radio Freedom, because Preston didn't know what to do. I went to go inform Paladin Danse that I would need to take a short leave of absence to address the matter, and to find a solution, and it was his idea that the Brotherhood could help."
He knows where this is going. The Prydwen is well equipped with large quantities of Rad-X and Rad Away. But more importantly... "You want power armour to go into the Glowing Sea." While the Brotherhood's standard-issue power armour isn't wholly radiation proof, when used in conjunction with Rad-X, the effects of radiation are almost negligible. "You were given a suit when you were promoted to Knight."
"Yes, but modifications will need to be made, and I don't want to pay for them. Especially not if this is benefitting the both of us. Not to mention, if I'm going, Paladin Danse I suspect will be accompanying me as my mentor, which is another set of power armour that would have to be modified. On top of that, I don't have any Rad-X to spare, but I've seen Knight-Captain Cade's stocks..."
He holds up a hand to stop her, and to his surprise, she falls silent. Sarah would have ignored him. Maxson grimaces inwardly. He shouldn't keep comparing them. It's not fair for either of them, especially not Ridley who already has so much she has to prove. Sarah's legacy, and the legacy Ridley is trying to make for herself are two entirely different things. The youngest Lyons had always cared about the Brotherhood more than anything else. Ridley has to worry about the Minutemen, her settlers, the people of the Commonwealth, finding Shaun, and now she's voluntarily taken on responsibilities that come with being a part of the Brotherhood.
"As a member of the Brotherhood, and for providing me with this information, I am certain Proctor Ingram will be more than happy to provide you with what you need. So long as you keep us updated on the Minutemen's attempts to use the teleporter in exchange, and you do me a favour tomorrow."
"A favour?"
"It's nothing out of your comfort zone, and fits your skills well. I will discuss details back on the Prydwen."
"Any, and all the information we have on the Institute is yours, Elder. It's the least we can provide," says the General, her attention piqued by his vague request. "And as your knight, if you have Brotherhood business, I am required to obey."
She puts a little too much emphasis on "obey," watching his reaction. He doesn't want her to be subservient. While he does want her to follow orders, this alliance of theirs means that despite behind his subordinate, she will always be a step above her peers. No Brotherhood ranks can take her position as General away from her.
Ridley raises her beer towards him in a half-hearted attempt at a toast. Everyone holding a drink follows suit. "To new friends."
"To new friends," everyone in the room repeats, with varying degrees of authenticity. While Piper and Preston are grinning, Cait, Danse, the synth—he refuses to call it by its name, which is, no doubt, stolen—all sport scowls.
Maxson is the only one that remains silent even as he raises his glass, eyes locked with Ridley's. Her lips curl into a coy smile, and she shoots him a wink before downing what's left of her beer.