"Word in that Gunner gangs are spotted moving across the city to the east, and Super Mutants to the south, traffic on the 405 is gonna be terrible today folks. Keep clear of those highways."

"Up next. Strange Feeling, like the one you get when you think someone loves you, but you're not sure."

"Diamond City Radio, I'm your host, Travis 'Lonely' Miles. Take it away, Billie."

October 25th 9:07 A.M.
Seeing the lights around the massive thirty foot tall Mr. Handy statue, despite panels missing, Nate's pace picked up, Meathead needed to trot, then sprint to keep up with him.

A hundred yards out, and an over whelming urge to reach a familiar place drove him to run faster down the hill from Zimonja Outpost, and rushing past cracked open semi-truck trailers, long abandoned defensive positions. Sandbags piled up around wooden planks made into makeshift ramps, yellowed mannequins missing limbs, and supported upright by black metal pole running up through their rear were set up around on top of two trailers connected with more planks, dressed up and wooden sticks wedged into their hands, making them look like rifles from a distance.

"<Nate...>" The tone of his voice silenced Nate's breathing and made him come to a complete stop.

A cold chill ran from his arm to his leg and he brought the recently pillaged Fat Man up to his shoulder and dropped to a knee.

"Where?"

Meathead's knees locked up, "<Behind the trailer, they don't know. It's anger. I feel hatred and rage, and determination and anger. It's bad. It's real bad.> His voice was quieter with every word.

"<It's killing intent. Nate, aim quarter turn to your left, about two inches up.>" Nate's fingers curled around the trigger, feeling the twenty pound weight and five pound miniature nuke resting in the launch bay. Pneumatic pistons were ready to launch this bomb two hundred feet per second, with more destructive power than three missile launchers.

Nate corrected himself and aimed towards the back left corner of the semi truck, waiting for any sign of the enemies to round the corner.

"<Nate, I'm gonna run forward, and you need to trust me, I feel their emotions and all they want to do is murder and kill and rape and drag whatever's left away. Please Nate, Trust me. I'm going to draw their attention and get them to round the corner of the semi, and when they do, you launch the mini nuke. I'll teleport away last second. No matter what, the second you see them. YOU FIRE.>" Nate double checked to make sure the safety was off and nodded. Exhaling, Meathead slowly stepped forward, body close to the container and frame of the semi-truck.

Peeking around the corner, Meathead recoiled and nodded frantically at Nate.

"<Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! WOOF! Woof! Bark! Bark! Ruff! Ruff! Boof! Bark! Rarh!>

"Something there?" The voice was deep, growling. Teeth clenched together and only parted by the "Ah"and "Ee" sounds. Lips curled back, two hands on a hunting rifle, an A-Bolt Browning rifle, .223 Remington rounds, four in the cartridge, one hand went back to a brown satchel and rested the barrel of the rifle under one arm, pulling back the slide and loading a fifth bullet directly into the chamber.

Rounding the corner, Meathead peeked around the corner one more time , head disappearing as he took a look and immediately turned and bolted back towards Nate, two seconds later, Nate saw a green leg, rippling with muscle, covered in scrap metal pieces ripped off from whatever was available at the time and then hammered and welded together to make armor. The leg was much longer than a human leg, and stood two feet taller than Nate. The three similarly taller green men also standing two feet higher than Nate's head broke around the corner, also carrying hunting rifles.

Nate's leg spasmed and went immediately went numb, but he fired the Fat Man, and the back end of the semi-trailer was obliterated, and three of the super mutants were incinerated in the blast. The last one's torsoe was ripped from the waist, blown thirty feet up into the air, beyond the top branches of a tree five feet off the side of the road, scattering gore in a mist of red and black, cooked blood.

The breath was sucked from Nate's lungs and the burning white light ten times brighter than the sun blinded him, and the noise deafened him, he dropped the Fat Man launcher and fell to his side; choking.

\111/

A female's voice screamed, neighing and whinneying.

Yellow paint, faded and peeling in some areas, and a dirty brown mane warped from the heat, and blue lenses to make the blue eyes, now cracked and busted.

Over her back were makeshift saddle bags made from repurposed shopping carts, cut and welded back into shape, these saddlebags carried raw meat and hunted game. After the mini nuke went off, her entire right half of her body was scorched black, and the rest scattered twenty feet behind her body, both front and back right legs blown off from the force.

Her neck was bent ninety degrees and the plates on her back were buckled from the heat, showing the metal frame, wiring, and ruptured hoses.

Then the Giddyup Buttercup's damaged capacitors ran out of energy. Her head fell down and she stopped moving.

She was dead.

Meathead and Nate walked by it, looking down at the dead Giddyup Buttercup robot pony and kept on moving for the General Atomics Galleria, with their eyes lingering on the shopping cart saddle bags for only a moment before moving away.

\111/

"All communists will be SHOT ON SITE!" Reported a Mr. Gutsy, the combat variant of the Mr. Handy robot, over a loud speaker system set up throughout the galleria.

Nate and Meathead went right under the arch and saw a dozen Mr. Handy robots hovering, some stationed to posts, while more were roaming around with a broom and dustpan, keeping the streets clear. The only mess and trash Nate observed that hadn't been picked up yet were the skeletons littered about, an entire snapshot of a working mini-mall, and all the patrons are dead. Their bones lost their red color, and sunbleached their way to an all white, frailness.
A Mr. Handy approached them and greeted them, "Hello! Welcome to the General Atomics Galleria, you must be our new supervisor."

Nate cast a sidelong glance down at Meathead, lips coming together then turning back to the Mr. Handy greeter, he replied, "Yes! Yes I am."

"You've been expected for many many many years."

"Total nuclear annihilation made traffic a nightmare to get through."

"Ah, yes, traffic during rush hour is always a bore. Please, once you get settled in, in your office, please speak with the director. He can be located in the main statue in the center of the plaza. The galleria is currently closed to the public, but staff and employees are permitted. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask."

"Where is my office?"

"It is currently located in the Back Alley Bowling Alley, marked employee area only, on the lefthand side adjacent to the staircase leading to the second floor pool hall."

"SHOPLIFTERS WILL BE TREATED AS COMMUNISTS!"

Nate and Meathead swallowed, looking up to the thirty foot Mr. Handy statue, "Why is the galleria closed? It was open three weeks...and two hundred ten years ago."

"Due to pending litigation, I am unable to comment, please refer all questions of that nature to General Atomics Legal Affairs in East Boston." The Mr. Handy said, pre-programmed to start gently moving away when people started asking those types of questions.

"Thank you."

"Of Course! And Welcome to the General Atomics Galleria!" The Mr. Handy Greeter called back

\111/

Inside the Galleria was a roundabout with shops all around the Mr. Handy statue in the center. Starting on the right was a boxing gym and weights room. Operated by three Mr. Handys, one of them was a boxer meant to stand in for sparring when there was no one else around. Then next to that building, moving clockwise was the General Atomics Galleria showroom, where all the current models of 2077 were on display. The only thing that changed were the robot models were either inoperative, or gone. Left through smashed and blown out windows, the only thing left was a Mr. Handy robot waiting to show off empty shelves for store that didn't have anything in it. All this Mr. Handy had left to trade were some bottlecaps. It astounded the Mr. Handy to no end, meaning at some point their entire inventory was taken, which means all he had left to sell were bottlecaps. And who would want bottlecaps when the American dollar is at such a good value?

Moving on was the diner, populated by a handful of patrons who are still waiting for their bill, and for the Mr. Handy's to accept their payment. Every so often, one of the waiters would stop bye, ask if they would care for anything to drink or eat, then assume they were still looking at the menu and move on with their routine.

Beyond the diner was Back Alley Bowling, a two lane bowling alley with an upstairs pool hall, and bar. The bold curling letters with red starbursts around the lettering were faded, and missing sections. Connected to the Bowling Alley, but a completely different building was Fallon's Department store, one of the many chains stores running across Massachusetts and the North East all the way from Nova Scotia to Washington D.C. They offered working class lounge wear to many people in Boston. They even offered a more rugged flanel shirt and jeans selection for outdoor work.
Last in the lineup of buildings was a coffee shop, and a bakery. Both Mr. Handy's were waiting for their inventory to sell out before baking more pastries. Their coffee supply was virtually untouched. SInce the Great War, they've only made five cups of coffee.

\111/

"Fifty Thousand Dollars for a game. Are you kidding me?" Nate asked the Mr. Handy manning the cash register at Back Alley Bowling. The first lane had part of the ceiling caved in on the bowling pins, and ball return. The twelve to eighteen pound balls were scattered across the floor from the shelves giving out. Half of them were still sitting untouched, gathering dust.

At the far end of the second lane, the ten pins were standing upright, Nate smiled and huffed through his nose.
'It may be the last game of bowling I'll ever get to play.' He thought to himself.

"I'm the new Manager here, I'm going to my office. Also, do a routine check on lane one, there's debris on the wood floor."

The Mr. Handy's eye cones lifted upwards and carried the command. "Yes sir."

"I'll be doing a personal visual performance inspection of lane two." Nate rattled off, moving down the stairs and grabbing a dusty bowling ball off the rack.

"Yes sir." The Mr. Handy replied, hoving past Nate and down the far right side of the alley lanes, it disappeared into the employee's only section.

Nate lined up his feet, "<Did you seriously come all this way, just to bowl?>" Meathead asked out loud, making sure his voice echoed.

Nate let the bowling ball hang by his side. "Meathead, this might be the last game anyone will ever get to play, anywhere. So yes, I intend to bowl this last game."

Nate lined up his feet again, swinging the bowling ball back behind his right leg and hip, letting it go, it carried a meter out oer the lane and slammed down. Rolling and wobbling down the warped wooden lane, it looked dangerously close to falling into the gutter, when at the last two feel, the bowling ball veered off the left and struck the 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 9 pins.
The clack of pins striking pins echoed through the bowling alley, the Mr. Handy attendants spun towards the noise and focused their three eye cones towards Nate and Meathead.

Four pins stood standing, and the bowling ball slammed into the bumper in the back.

There were no belts funneling the bowling pins away, no rack returning the ball up the lane, or pins being reset. The number four pin was spinning lazily on the lane floor, then came to a stop.
The bowling ball rolled off to the side and came to a stop with a thunk.

Meathead called out to Nate from behind him. "<Satisfied? Why did you come here?>"

Nate looked down the lane, at the pins that were still standing, then to his dog.

"I needed that..." Nate's eyes trailed up the stairs, off behind Meathead to the pool tables and bar on the second floor.

"I feel safe. Meathead. I feel...safe. I've felt sick ever since we met, Meathead. That the outside wasn't safe. I've been skirting Boston because I'm off imagining the worst scenario, and who might be coming around the next bend, or what might be making some noise, or if a trap was set in the last day, or the last two hundred years, I don't know. But, here, behind all the Mr. Handy's, doing something that's familiar...and fun when I can bowl one hand without worrying about dying. We can die at any moment, Meathead. Any moment, the ceiling could come crashing down on us. Any moment, the robots could turn, or now we have to worry about mutants. I try not to worry by preparing, and staying rested, and taking a shower, having a morning routine... If I don't get that morning routine, Meathead, I can't prepare for my day. I don't get that moment to think about who I'll be talking to in the morning, where I'm going, what I'll be wearing, what I'll be eating...

My morning started with taking a shower, and by the time I'm taking my first sip of coffee, the bombs are dropping. This just feels like a really, really long day. If bowling is a part of this really long day, then I will go to sleep knowing that I was alive, and I got to go bowling.

Now, go grab a ball. I'll re-rack the pins." Nate said, turning around and walking down the gutter of the lane.
"<Nate, your kid was kidnapped and your wife was shot, why the detour?>"

"I need to know what I'm working with! I need to know just how screwed my hometown is! Is it worth repairing anything? Is everything a battlefield?! No, Meathead! It's not! This here, the Galleria proves that there is somethings that can be worth repairing. Probably after gutting the building, but I'm thinking about after we get Shaun back. Suppose I'm wrong. Suppose it's only been a day since the Institute took Shaun.

"If he's still a baby, how long would an infant survive out here?" Nate shook his head.

"This place is a start, but still a far cry from what I'd still call, completely safe. If I can't keep myself safe, then I can't keep Shaun safe either after I find him. I can't keep you safe either, but I do my hardest at protecting the ones I care about. Every time I have to fire my gun here in Boston is another reminder to what's actually happening out there."

"In here,even if they mean nothing. Even if one of those Deathclaws comes bashing in the walls two seconds from now, I can remember what I'm fighting for. Good times. I'm fighting for every time someone has a conversation here about work, a past game they've bowled, people coming into their lives, people leaving, you can talk about those things here, Meathead. There was a bowling alley and a swimming pool in Dutch Harbor, did you know that? False Pass to Dutch Harbor on a boat took a day, and we were given a week off from war in the middle of winter!"

"We were given a week off from war, and got to go swimming, drink at the bar, go bowling, and eat fresh fish, in the middle of war it's mind boggling, but when you're in here, getting warm, the Chinese were out there freezing to death! That's how we won the war in Alaska, we got around the burning oil barrel and sang 'White Christmas', while the fucking winds howled and blew."

"Mother Nature did our job for us, and I can't thank her enough. Otherwise, I would've been the one out in a little pillbox, hands glued to my rifle. If any of us took our boots off, we would never get them back on because our feet would swell. It was too cold, and they were running cigarettes, ammo, water, gas, fuel, food, up and down, up and down, going from hole to hole. My hands are turning cold just thinking about it, Meathead.

You could look up at the mountains and volcanoes punching straight up out of the water, and look straight up into a clear bit of sky, surrounded by darkness and see a stillness in the storm. Then the snow and rain would pick up and form long tall towers of water and snow, falling down and blanketing everything. You could look right up to the top of those mountains and feel the crazy, wild energies charging around like five bulls in a pen above our heads. Stomping around and sending out blasts of thunder, or the roars of airplanes from the best pilots in the world taking off in the shittiest of weather and flying a escort mission for two cargo planes. There was a force up in the air, Meathead. and just by going to a place where we could relax for a week from war, we were protected from the built up hateful energy."

"<You seem very in tune with energy,>" Meathead commented,

"You should know more than anyone, that when we were looking across the water, and seeing half a million faces of people who want to kill us, and don't want to surrender and be fed because, we would've taken care of them. It was a big mental fucking. A big mental, 'we're coming. We're coming for your head.' And it was a very real threat.

The only fear like that I could relate it to was after I talked with a guy Harmen from India, we were halfway up the side of Roundtop Volcano, posted there, waiting for anything to happen when he leaned over and said the half million Chinese across the pass was like Kali, and that she's always coming for us. I turned my head and said 'what?' Didn't have a fuckign clue what he was talking about. I thought that was worse, but he went on to say that Kali wields the Sword of Truth, and that when she swings it, and picks up your head, and shows it to you, it's suppose to be a reflection of who you are. Seeing the Chinese camped across from us was like that.

I didn't get it. I was too close to the action. I still didn't get it on my way back home. I didn't get it on the plane, I didn't get it when I saw Nora again at the airport with you and Shaun, and I didn't get it when we moved in.

But.

I got it when Codsworth shouted to us from the living room...and right when the newscaster looked off to the right and said, 'We lost contact with everyone...'

"It's that I'm coming for you... so you can't scare me, Meathead. You don't look at me like a person who wants to kill me...I've seen that in a person's eyes. You don't have it."

Nate walked to the end of the lane and reset the pins. "I'm checking out the back." He called over his shoulder, moving to the employees only area.

Moving past the Mr. Handy's charging station, there were two robots coated with dust, and untouched. Still sitting in their charging cods. The Mr. Handy labeled Kingpin bobbed between the workbench and a pile of rusted machinery that was a former Mr. Handy.

Circling around the back, he came upon the supervisors office, a role meant to be taken by someone centuries ago, but the honor was now Nate's.

Pushing open the door, it was a desk with a computer terminal on it, then a wall of memory banks for the Mr. Handy's.
Along with a few filing cabinets, Nate looked to the note taped to the side of the computer.

Seth Longran. O/p Mng. Sp.
07/13/77
Manual Override Password: S5749PK

Nate sat down in the manager's chair, rolling backwards, he exhaled and closed his eyes. His eyes went to the busted clock on the wall for a minute, and it took him a moment to realize it was broken. Calming his breathing, he thought. 'Only for ten minutes'

\111/

Jolted awake by a sense of urgency, he felt he had overslept. Ten minutes turned into half an hour. Nate stood up quickly and swung his head around. Ripping the note off the computer, he shoved it into his pocket.

"Meathead?"

Walking across the linoleum floor, his boots made muffled thumps as the tiles crackeled beneath his feet.

"Meathead?" He called out, walking to the front lobby past the stairs.

"<UP Here!>" Nate followed the banister up and around to the second floor, and he was dazed for a moment. The upstairs pool and bar lounge was blown free of dust, all the chairs pushed in and pool table swept clean. All fifteen balls were racked up and in the triangle. The Mr. Handy, Strike, manning the bar waited patiently behind the polished brass beer taps, waiting to tell them that until the Galleria was re-opened, he was not currently allowed to sell anything.

Meathead was on his rear legs, standing over the back end of the pool table. "You picked up."

"<You're glowing chi, good positive energy, so yes. I picked up the ground floor too a bit. You can keep your energy more contained if you want by placing your pinkie and middle fingers along with your thumb together, but leave your pointer and ring fingers free.>"

All the bowling balls on the ground floor was back on their racks, and the first lane was now clear of debris. The wooden surface for lane one was torn up and chipped, but now it looked like someone swept everything out and then blew the dust out with an air blower. The first lane was flat, level, and unwaxed, but it was clear.

Nate placed the three fingers together, and walked up to Meathead. He was in his changeling form and Nate finally got to really look at his former dog.

There were two pool cues, with a hunk of blue chalk on the table, with both tips freshly dusted in blue chalk.

"<Do you want to play a game?>" Meathead asked. Nate nodded, taking the closest pool stick.

The second one started glowing green, and Meathead dropped down off the table. The triangle and pool stick both flew into the air, but moved around with control. The triangle moved off to the side, while the pool cue came closer to Meathead's side. His horn was glowing green as well, and Nate was struggling to come up with the next proper thing to say.

"Yes. Do you want to break? You cleaned."

"<Yes.>" Meathead said, nodding. Nate nodded back.

The pool stick floated to one end of the table where the cue ball sat in the center of the table. Drawing back, the pool cue thrust forward and the tip collided with the cue ball, sending it rolling across the table at the other fifteen pool balls.

The balls clacked against each other and were sent sprawling across the table, bouncing off the bumpers on the side, and balancing closely to the edge of one of the six holes around the pool table, but none went in.

Nate picked up his pool cue and aimed it at the two ball, grabbing the back end in one hand and guiding the tip with his right hand, the cue ball rolled across the table, bounced against the two ball, and missed the hole. Instead, the two ball collided with the nine ball, and the nine ball rolled a few inches closer to the eleven ball, and it rolled in.

"Stripes."

"<Solids.>"

Nate looked at Meathead, trying to be more open to seeing another talking creature around him.

Meathead moved around the table, letting the pool stick follow him in the air, covered in the green glow, same as Meathead's horn as he looked at the table, and shot the next billiard ball down into the hole.

Meathead tried to angle his shot right, but instead missed and the balls rebounded and hugged the edge of the table.

Shooting back and forth, Nate took his turn, Meathead took his turn, and they were totally engrossed with playing pool that some small talk happened, and then when the last ball, the black eight ball. Meathead still had two solid balls, the four and the six ball, on the table, when Nate sunk the eight ball.

Nate exhaled and stepped back away from the table.

"Good game, Meathead. Good game."

"< You did Great.>" Nate clenched his mouth shut, smiling around the edges and nodded his head.

"Yep."

"<I can tell you're feeling better.>"

"<Yeah. Let's go see what..." Nate flicked two fingers towards the Mr. Handy statue out front. "The Director wants."

\111/

On the backside of the Mr. Handy statue was a small grey box with a red call button that brought a lift from the center of the Mr. Handy rear panel, down to the ground.

The small elevator buzzed down to the ground, engine whining all the way back up. A panel lifted upwards, showing the small area containing the Mr. Gutsy, combant variant robot in charge of running the General Atomics Galleria.

"Alright, Maggot. Step Forward. Slowly." The Mr. Gutsy was surrounded in a semi-circle bank of computer memory terminals, all recorded subsystem operations that made all the Mr. Handy's in the Galleria to work properly. Most of them weren't moving, making any noise, or on by any glowing light.

Nate and Meathead took a step forward and the Director barked, "I've been monitoring your approach! Impressive. Very Impressive...for a low life Criminal!" Painted onto the side of the Mr. Gutsy was a white star, for the American Army, now showing signs of rust from water eroding the paint.

"Sir, Reporting for Duty, Sir!" Nate shouted back at the Director.

"That's what a lowlife commie would say! Are you a commie!?"

"Sir, No, Sir!" Nate yelled, "Sir, I am to report to you as the new supervisor of General Atomics Galleria effective 0800 hours as of this morning, Sir! It is time to reopen the Galleria!"

"The Grand Reopening? Are you supervisor 18 Alpha? You're Late!"

"Nuclear Warfare made traffic terrible, Sir!" Nate punctuated.

"Unacceptable, Manual Activation of the Grand Reopening requires authorization. I'm going to need to see your I.D. sir."

Nate went over the Director's words once in his mind, thinking to trouble shoot any phrases. "Director, when was the automatic activation of the Grand Reopening Scheduled?"

The Mr. Gutsy's three eye cones blinked, and dipped for a moment. "Automatic activation was scheduled for January 1st. 2078. Wait...Accessing protocols...Analyzing...Corrupt task detected."

If the robot's could swallow nervously, this one would've done it as it realized that a task was left unattended to for the last two hundred years.

"Task Scheduling repaired. Now running previously scheduled task." One of his arms reached down and pressed a buton, turning on the microphones around the Galleria. "Prepare for the Grand Reopening of the Galleria!" His voice box boomed.
"Processing firmware updates. Firmware update's now available at General Atomics Galleria. Done. Activating combat inhibitors, done. Establishing new Facility supervisor. Done.

A pre-recorded message of the Director's voice played, "The General Atomics Galleria is now open for business!"

The real Director reached out one hand and got Nate's attention before he left.

"As the Grand Reopening Supervisor, there is a customer appreciation raffle tonight that you will be conducting. Here is the grand prize."

The Director dispensed a small block of money, $200,000 dollars, enough for four games at Back Alley Bowling, for a family of four.

Nate looked at the pieces of paper, with very little value, and took them.

Leaving the Mr. Handy statue, he rode the elevator back down to Meathead and nodded. Looking around , the lights kicked back on, and the Mr. Handy's starting moving in a new routine.

The first thing Nate convinced the Mr. Handy's to do was to remove the dead skeletons, take them out back into the parking lot and pile them up. They were there until just after one, Nate and Meathead digging through the bakery for some perfectly preserved granola bars when a Mr. Handy reported that all the skeletons in the entire Galleria were cleared out and put into a pile in the back parking lot.

Nate nodded, grabbing a square metal aluminum container with a twist off lid on the cap, labeled 'Mr. Handy Stainless Steel Cleaner & Polish. Warning; Extremely Flammable.'

Meathead followed quietly behind Nate as they walked across the quad grounds, looking at the trails the Mr. Handy's made dragging the bodies across the dirt and dead grass.

In a pile behind the bowling alley was thirty five skeletons, thirty five people who died while trying to enjoy their last morning in Boston before the bombs fell. Nate surmised, dousing the skeletons with the flammable polish.

The gas fumes were visible as Nate drenched the skeletons in the still cleaner. Wetting the bones, Nate reached for a flip lighter, and held it up to an old t-shirt, then pushed it into the pile of bones, watching as the fire caught and spread. The bones snapped and crackled, releasing their old protein bonds and turning hot, and then into ash.

Nate and Meathead were mostly quiet during the burning of the bodies. Nate used a long stick to keep the fire contained in the center, that meant pushing rib cages, skulls, and pelvises back into the fire so they would burn down.

For about two hours they burned everything down, and before they made to leave, Nate came down next to the pile of ashes, and placed his hands on the hot ground.

"Meathead, come here." He said clearly. The dog came up next to him and tensed on the hot ground, feeling the energy from Nate.

Nate put his ring finger into the edge of the hot ash, and dipped it in. Pulling it out, he took some, and rubbed a bit of the ash between the brow line of his eyes, on his forehead above the nose.

Nate pet Meathead with his clean hand, scratching behind the ears. "Do you want this?" Nate asked, Meathead nodded slowly.

Reaching out again, Nate put his right finger into the ash, pulled some out, and then wiped it against Meathead's forehead, where his third eye would be.

"Well Meathead, we could be them. We could be ash. But we're not. Let's keep preparing for the day we are." Nate said, arms open towards the flames.