"Hey, It's Diamond City Radio, and I'm your host, Travis. Here's a short one for you, Sixty Minute Man. Heh, not even three minutes long, but here's an hour worth of music..."
Travis trailed off, looking down at the microphone in front of him.

"We just set up a Patreon page for the first time, since we don't really make any caps on this show, please give what you feel is right. If you feel like supporting us, we here at DCR would really appreciate it."

Being the only person inside the trailer, he cleared his throat and looked around for some sort of assurance. "Here it is. Sixty Minute Man."

October 26th, 2287.
7:30 P.M.

Captain Ironsides, named after the nickname given to the USS Constitution after a sailor in the war of 1812 saw a British ship fire a cannonball at the oak hull and bounce off, was a sentry bot. The large tank on three rolling legs was linked directly into the ships speakers and the orders could be heard from anywhere in the ship.

"Disable the defenses, power down the turrets, deactivate the protectrons, we have an allied soldier coming aboard." The voice bared down on Meathead and Nate as they ascended to the deck of the ship.

"Midshipmen, stand down, Stand Down I say! This soldier is a guest on our vessel."

"Hey Meathead," Nate called back to him.

"<Huh?>"

"God bless the U.S. Government. Sometimes they went overboard on getting us supplies in Alaska."

"<Okay, where are you going with this?>"

"The brand name on the rockets, Rocketdyne. There was a whole fleet of those bastards in Cold Bay. They asked us how we could use them for war, and the government bought a couple dozen of them, then turned to us and said, Here! Figure out what we can use these for. We took them during the fall and rigged them together to make a massive chain of rocket boosters and floated them out into the middle of the pass and sunk them down. This was when I was on Unimak. We strung them together and then put them down in the water. Then, about two months later, the Pass started freezing over. It was an unbearably cold winter that year, the pass hardly ever freezes because of how much water is rushing through there all the time. But, we knew that just in case, we would need to thaw out the ice and keep the pass from forming a natural ice bridge across the water.

I remember seeing the Chinese camp on the ice, three thousand feet away, and the sick fucking twisted smiles they had. It's like they kept thinking to themselves 'Boy oh boy, we're going to get across the pass soon. We're coming for you.' That's an expression you'll never forget. They were getting closer every hour, but all we could do is smile back.

So, on the days when it got exceptionally cold, Chinese soldiers tried rushing across the ice and usually broke through, a couple made it to the halfway point, but the middle of the channel hadn't completely frozen yet, so they fell through. It wasn't until the third week of December that the Pass completely froze over and the Chinese soldiers could just walk right across without falling through the ice.

That was when we turned on the rockets, burned big holes in the ice, and broke everything up. These rockets burned and burned and melted the pass and we made at least fifty thousand soldiers freeze to death in the water that first day, or be crushed in between the ice, or trapped underneath.

That was only on the first day. We kept it up for a week, and every day they'd try to run out and cross. It wasn't until the third day a few of them actually got close enough, but we laid out explosives and artillery shot them to hell. Not a single fucking Chinese soldier made it across to our shore that entire winter."

"<Oh?>"

"But, that doesn't mean we didn't try to go over to their side. We did. We lost a few guys. We saw what was happening to the losing side."

Nate shook his head, realizing how lost in his memories he was. "If these rockets are broken, I could fix them in a heartbeat with my eyes closed."

"<Nate.>" Meathead said, feeling a dark weight on Nate's shoulders, an emotional trigger that was firing off.

"<What happened on the Chinese side in False Pass?>"

"They were eating each other."

Meathead nearly choked trying to swallow the dry lump in his throat.

"They ate the ponies first, cause, you know. Fuck 'em if they weren't human, I guess? Fucking bastards. It was worse than anything I've seen here in New Boston, not even the dead bodies here were..." Nate ran his tongue over his teeth, Meathead sat their patiently, waiting for Nate to get this off his chest.

This was a goal Meathead strived for every day, a heart-to-heart connection where he could be the role of silent companion and soak in all the suffering, take it into his heart, then let it flow out of him as bliss for others to enjoy. To improve other's lives, and make them happier it creates an environment where Changelings can thrive in a symbiotic partnership with other species.

Nate was pouring his heart out, something that felt so natural to do when staring at his dog, Meathead.

"All the bones had teeth marks, and they fucking hated us for coming over to their camp, killing their leaders. They shouted at us like they asked for the gates of hell to spill open, then demons to wash over everything, even them, just so they could kill us for what we did."

"<What happened during this mission? What did you do?>"

"We knew that the power armors could operate underwater, I was a testament to that, only the mud and weight was an easy workaround issue once we came up with a distribution method. Adding ballast like a submarine, removing a few components, heavier parts, swap out heavier armor for lighter armor, reducing protection from higher caliber rounds and longer durations in battle..." Nate held his hands up, fanning them out. "But ideally, these were used for underwater operations, so the decision was made. Submersible power armor, lightweight, and meant to be a survival suit for extreme hostile weather environments. We made ten of them during the winter, because information came to us before the siege that a robot professional, a Colonel in the Chinese Army, Doctor Xian Quin created a device that could hack into American war bots from a distance. Already, a few of our bots were malfunctioning, safety protocols being disabled, they'd randomly crash, but it was after a sentry bot shouted in Chinese that it was going to murder us all, that we knew that they'd hacked us regardless if this device existed or not."

Nate took the time to sigh, it was a memory that felt so fresh in his mind he could still feel where bullets hit his helmet. He could still feel the heat from the fires that he helped cause.

"We swam under the ice, but brought long gasoline hoses that were all connected. Yeah, the EPA would've loved hearing about this one. We used these gas hoses from all the ships and tenders that were either pulled out, or disabled. Then we walked out onto the shore on the other side."

"One team went up the hill with the hose, we went for the doctor. We had to make sure he wasn't able to hack us, or if it was all bullshit, track down the real source. It wasn't though. After the first team started pumping the gas down the hill, they lit it on fire to create a distraction. We went in and found Xian Quin, and a device hooked up to three different computers, and an Assaultron's head. He took one look at us, then muttered something and pointed at us, but we shot him. It could've been a fancy piece to a coffee table, but it looked liked a metal vase with a glass lamp shade over it, with cables plugged into it. We took it and were retreating, that's when most plans go south, and that's where's ours did too. We lost two men from out team, and team one was completely wiped out."

"<I'm sorry for your loss Nate, it must've been hard seeing all that destruction at once.>"

"It wasn't that...Meathead...they were screaming at us for days afterward. The type of screaming where you're sure that they're frothing at the mouth in rage. They fucking hated us for what we did. But, the water carried the sound, and I thought for sure they went from humans to something monstrous."

"<What kind of monstrous?>"

"I thought about it...the cannibals, the hatred, the fucking cold winter, all of them starving up the the god-damned frozen North. It's like a plague of zombies, they feed on someone else, and then they become one too. I thought with all the rage they had, they were turning into Wendigos."

\111/

On the top deck, Nate and Meathead saw Captain Ironsides sporting an 18th-century captain's hat, and the large imposing tank bot rolled right up to them.

"Ah...Our soldier has arrived. It's been too long since we've seen the Congressional Army."

Nate looked down to Meathead, then back up to Captain Ironsides. "Captain. What can I do for you, Captain?"

Nate tried not to look at the armed missile pointing out of Captain Ironside's left arm, nor the chain ammo leading into the mini-gun mounted onto his right.

"You visit the vessel in dire straights. Becalmed by these long years on her airy perch. DAMN YOU TO HELL WEATHERBY SAVING'S AND LOANS! I SPIT AT YOU!" The sudden outburst made the duo both tense up and freeze to the spot, not expecting the rise in volume so quickly.

Nate curled his lips in, nodded once to Meathead and then back to Ironsides, "Sir, a sad state of affairs for such a historic ship. I remember the day the USS Constitution sailed on her 250th-anniversary voyage, it was a momentous occasion that...filled my heart with.... the...ah...utmost patriotism." Nate trailed off and rolled his eyes realizing he'd talked himself into a corner, running out of eloquent words to say, however, the Captain was immune to sarcasm.

"On that, we are in agreement. What vexes me most is my inability to assist in the war effort. My gun decks have naught but mole rats and Ne'er-do-Wells as targets. Now enough pleasantries, the Constitution has systems that need repairs to carry out its mission."

"What war effort are you speaking of?" Nate inquired.

"Against Communist China, of course! But if any Red Coats or Canadians sail nearby, I will give them a good thrashing, to be sure. To avenge the burning of our Nation's capital would be an utterly sweet victory, indeed." All around them, the robots moved and took positions on the starboard side of the Constitution as a bullet suddenly clanged into Captain Ironside's plate armor.

Nate dropped to the deck and crouched low as a volley of laser gunfire came from the streets of Charlestown below.

"Consult with the Bosun and Mr. Navigator for relayed instructions. Dismissed." The Mr. Handies, Gutsys, and protectrons all lined up and fired back at a group of scavengers who watched Nate and Meathead get onboard the Constitution.

"Soldier! Throw the switch! Fire the Cannons! Send those bilge rats scurrying away." Machine gun chatter filled the air as Nate got to his feet, crouching low and duck walking to a spinning yellow light with a circuit breaker switch labeled 'Starboard Cannons.'

A sense of awe went through Nate as he stood up and threw the switch. The entire ship rocked as twenty cannons fired west into the ruins around Charlestown and tore up the streets and demolished brick buildings in one massive volley of cannonball fire. Down onto his knees for stability, Meathead ran up to the railing and took cover behind it.

"What the hell prompted these assholes?!" Nate shouted, ears ringing slightly from the cannon blasts. Readying the scoped hunting rifle, he moved to the side of the railing as well and raised his scope to look between the hole where the mooring cables would be fed through and tied off.

This protected his head so he wasn't firing over the railing, but through it, making him a very hard target to see with all the other robots on deck and Captain Ironsides unleashing a hail of missiles and mini-gun fire all across the street leading up to the USS Constitution.

"<They saw us board the ship! I sensed them nearby, but they weren't doing anything before now! They feel like they can get on board!>"

"And what feeling is that?" Nate shouted out.

"<Determination!>" Meathead responded.

Nate called out, "Meathead, laser rifle." The changeling pulled the Institute designed laser rifle from condensed space and it clattered onto deck beside the two of them, Nate took it and passed it to Meathead. "Here."

The dog looked at it for a second, Nate nodded, and the laser rifle was wrapped in a green glow. Floating up above the railing, Meathead manipulated the rifle and fired it using only his telekinesis. They were wild shots, not the most accurate way to hold a rifle, but with no recoil, the blue laser bolts went straight to where ever Meathead pointed the gun.

Nate picked his next target, a scavenger with wraparound goggles and a stop sign chained around his chest as some sort of makeshift armor. Crouched behind a desk on the second story building with the entire eastern facing wall blown off, he almost laughed at the man's attempt to protect himself. Firing four times from one hundred fifty feet away, three shots missed, the last one struck the man in the arm.

He was unsure of how many people there were, to begin with, and after the man screamed, a torrent of laser fire from the protectrons was aimed at him, followed by Captain Ironsides firing a missile straight into the building, collapsing the second floor onto the first and killing him, along with anyone on the first floor.

"If these scurvy-ridden dogs keep seeking folly and destruction, I WILL reluctantly OBLIGE!"

The robot crew was reloading the cannons, clearing out the residue, packing new rounds of cannonballs in with gunpowder and blast caps. All the cannons were ignited by electronic sparks wired into the cast iron cannons themselves. The design was supposed to be used for launching confetti and blanks for re-enactments using the USS Constitution, or concrete rounds for target practice. The robot's defense mechanisms installed overruled the safety features and drove them to reload the explosive powder packed black cannonballs quickly on the top deck and below deck.

When two minutes roll by and the gunfire is still going on, "Fire when ready, soldier!" Captain Ironsides calls out again. Nate looked over to Meathead, easing a spent energy cell out of the laser rifle and watching it clatter to the deck. Meathead sensed Nate's change in emotions and looked at him, and how he jerked his head and eyes up towards the switch. Nodding, the switch was wrapped in a green glow and pulled downwards.

The entire ship bucked against the brick bank it was nestled in and the streets of Charlestown was lit up with smoke and cannon fire. Nate saw a man or a woman dragging a bleeding comrade along the sidewalk, when the Lookout Mr. Handy chased them down and hacked the standing person to pieces with a buzz saw, and then turned the blade on the man on the ground, killing both of them.

The fight carried on for another minute, and Meathead reloaded his laser rifle while Nate moved on, picking off targets as they tried retreating. The farther they went, the less accurate he was. The best shot he got was when VATS helped him shoot a scavenger in the leg from four hundred feet.

The Lookout Mr. Handy hovered towards them, and Nate could hear the buzzsaw spinning from over a football field's length away, and the sound it made when it came into contact with flesh, and the noise the scavenger made as he too was cut into pieces.

That was the last bullet he fired off as the rest of the robots disengaged around him.

Nate exhaled, he needed to breathe, and the tension in his back slowly released.

Not a single scavenger made it even halfway to the ship.

Nate stood up and leaned over the rail and shouted "COA NI MA! TA MA DE! CHI SHI! COA NI ZU ZONG SHI BA DAI!" Meathead didn't understand the words, from the way Nate's eyes were burning holes, he figured they were all insults of the worst kind.

He grabbed Meathead and hugged him to his chest, frantically petting his worries out and putting his face into the dog's fur and groaning. The changeling in disguise could only awkwardly accept the hug and wait as Nate groaned and scratched Meathead's ears and underneath his chin.

"<You doing okay, Nate?>"

Nate held Meathead in silence, processing and dealing with all the resurfacing memories one at a time.

"<Hey Nate, what time is it?>" Nate inhaled and glanced down at his Pip-Boy.

"?" He said to himself, "It's only 7:47. This day has barely gotten started." He said, shaking his head. One of the Mr. Handy's floated up to him, jet propulsion stabilizer keeping him in place as he approached Nate and Meathead.

Nate was shaking his head as the Mr. Navigator Mr. Handy charismatically saluted with one claw and said, "Ahoy, Soldier!" His eyes twitched, and his arms were still tense from the gunfight. Two of the eye cones were directed towards Nate, while the third was pointed out west over Charlestown.

"Scavenger threat eliminated, Damage assessment will commence after this unit has completed its duties."

"Why did they attack the ship?" Nate asked, both to Meathead and Mr. Navigator.

"Scavengers attacked the ship 17 times. Destroyed 13% of the ship's systems. Stole 5% of the ships store. Logic error." His voice box was heavily used, coming out scratchy and hard to understand on top of the 18th century American Colonial accent the robots were programmed with. "Captain will not commence retaliation and commences attacks only to preserve the ship. This unit suggests Captain's core processes in need of extensive maintenance."

Nate pressed a balled fist to his forehead, "Which systems are non-operational?"

"Guidance system offline, multiple errors detected. First error: Guidance chip stolen. this unit requires its return."

"Meathead, where are these scavengers?"

"<Three blocks away in an ice cream and candy shop. They didn't want to shoot at us before and were only interested in the ship. Right now they're confused, angry, hurt. Scared.>"

"Did the scavengers steal your chip?"

"Correct! Guidance Chip is one entry on the list of stolen items. Reclaim chip at scavenger's forward operating station. Captain has approved bounty for its return."

Nate inhaled a staggered breath readying himself for a long night ahead of him, taking a few steps towards the stairs leading below deck, "The Bosun is below deck, correct?"

"Aye, sir."

Clomping down the stairs one at a time, Nate ran into one of the more broken down robots in the crew. A Mr. handy without any arms, and looked like a floating led balloon.

"Aye there soldier, your presence humbles us. My programming would find it amiss if I did not also interject. Long live the Captain!" The lead balloon tried rotating one of its three missing arms in a salute, but Nate and Meathead could only stare.

"our most recent marine expedition was successful at retrieving copper lined power cables. Alas, with the lack of appendages, I find myself unequal to the task of repairing them myself."

Nate closed his eyes and said, "I'll get right on it."

"Once you resolved the matter, I beseech you to return to me and accept my undying gratitude," Bosun said, his rotor joints moved where his arms once were, and Nate could only guess what he was trying to do.

"How long do you expect it will take for me to replace all of them?"

"No more than fifteen minutes, all in all, sir. There's a circuit breaker on this deck, plus two more below us. The wires that need to be replaced are over there." The rotor joints spun again, but there was no indication to where the Bosun was pointing. Nate spotted a few chests and lockers and pointed at them. "Over here?"

"Aye, sir." Nate went to the first one, peeking inside, then closing it. Ammo for the Captain.

"Here?" Nate asked, opening a storage locker, it was filled with a library of different ammo, from the small .32 to the 5.66 NATO round, eight cases of .308, .38, 10 gauge rounds, 12 gauge rounds, 20 gauge rounds, eight gauge rounds, ten boxes of .50 caliber ammo, and a whole plethora of laser cells. They were stacked in square bundles, placed there by the U.S.S. Constitution's Mr. Handy scouts.

"Over there, sir." The rotor joints spun wildly, but Nate frowned at the robot. "Just tell me."

"Over there, sir!" Eye cones swiveling in three directions, Nate glared at the Bosun robot.

"Here?" After a third locker, this one with wire strippers, wire caps, electric tape, power grinder fittings, and screwdrivers, Nate grabbed the wire strippers and kept looking for the replacement cables.

"Here?"

"No, sir."

"Damnit! Where the hell are the breaker lids?"

"Exactly three steps aft, on the starboard side." Nate spun around and shot the Bosun a dirty look, turning away from the containers, he clicked the wire strippers together a few times in the grip of his hand like a pair of tongs.

"<What are you doing?>"

"Rigging it."

"Do you know how to jury rig?"

"I've saved more rocket ignition systems on broke down Mr. Handy's than I have nig-rigged car stereo speaker systems, A wire cap here, reconnect a few wires there, install a big ass fuse, and it'll work," Nate said, spotting the first wire hookup, he flipped open the lid and frowned.

"<I don't think that's relevant to wiring a frigate's rockets.>"

"Nonsense. Half the stuff in here is redundant anyway. Like this cable...what the heck do you do...with a drunken sailor...
what do you do with a drunken sailor...?" He spoke to himself while he worked, trying to ilk out the sea chanty tune to 'What do you do with a drunken sailor early in the morning?'

"<Nate? Are you doing all right?>"

"No, Meathead. I feel like I got a headache." Nate ripped out a yellow wire, stripped both ends, put them back into the motherboard.

"<Do you want a five-minute break?>"

It took Nate a long time to respond, he took a green wire with seven inches of extra length, trimmed it, and stripped one end, shortening it, and stretching it back across while using the excess to replace a rusted out wire.

"What?"

Nate wasn't aware of the offer given to him, his eyes were burning, head pounding, and he hadn't slept a full night of sleep in four days.

He yawned, trying to piece together Meathead's offer. "Why?"

"Nate, go lay down."

Nate let his arms hang down by his sides, turning around to face Meathead. He shifted back into his changeling form.

"<You're tired. Just lay down for an hour. You're safe here.>"

Leaning back and resting against the wall, a protectron passed by, doing his routine round through the ship. Sinking down onto the ground, he let his head rest against the hull.

"<Nate, I know you want to pick up the pieces of this world and put everything back into place, but it would take an army to do what you wanted to do. I get it. I understand. You are in a brand new world with only a handful of things from your past you recognize, and there's such a big gap between the year 2077 and 2287, that it's overwhelming. Start small, Nate. It's not a world that I want to live in either, but I'll tell you one thing. Thank your God that you lived through the nuclear war because now you can do exactly what every person from Vault 111 should've done together, and rebuild. I'll help you rebuild, I want to help you rebuild, that's the entire reason Vault-Tec. did what it did. To preserve a little humanity, and experiment to find the best way to govern a new nation so that in times like this, now, after the radiation has finally receded, to rebuild your great nation. Remember the commercial?" Meathead asked, his jaw mandibles ticked together and he made a noise, like music. A jaunty-jazzy intro to the Vault-Tec. commercials they watched on TV. It was punctuated with a bang.

"Following Total Nuclear Annihilation, the rebuilding of this great nation of ours, may fall to you."

"That's why we at Vault-Tec. have prepared these educational materials for you to better understand the seven defining attributes that make you, S.P.E.C.I.A.L. "

"Today we will focus on Strength. In the Wasteland, essential supplies will be scarce. When an item of value is found, keep it close and away from bullies. Be sure to know your limits, otherwise, you may find it difficult to escape from hazardous scenarios, no matter how strong you are."

Meathead recreated the noises of a symphony playing in the background as he spoke, and Nate realized that the way Meathead's mouth moved, he was capable of recording every sound he heard, and then playing it back. Meathead licked his lips, and Nate inhaled, standing up and chest filling outwards.

"You're right," Nate said. His mind was fixated on the end of the Great Depression.

Nate's ancestor would fall asleep at night, absolutely starving. With only a slice of bread dipped in bacon fat for the whole meal for the entire day, and maybe, tomorrow, they wouldn't get anything at all.

Nate's eight-year-old third-great grandmother would cry herself to sleep at night, wasting away in the year 1921.

Her most favorite memory, the one that brought the moments of sheer joy to her childhood. The best Christmas of her entire life was during the middle of the Great Depression, and the Judge went around town giving food to the poor and starving children. He brought five flats of eggs, one hundred twenty-five eggs, as the only gift her entire family received that year because they couldn't afford anything else.

Certainly not a tree. Or wrapping paper, or a holiday dinner. Nate was lucky he could even say he had a Christmas.

Her mother, Nate's fourth-great-grandmother, boiled them, pickled them, preserved them, and cooked them for her seven children so they could have one egg a day until spring came, and the fields were in bloom and all the children could go out and pick berries.

They would be paid five cents for a flat of strawberries, ten cents for an entire flat of blackberries, and then give it to their mother so she could use it to spend on groceries or pay the tax man.

His ancestors survived the Great Depression, and while their mother took care of the children at home, their father went to go work on building the infrastructure to America. Paving roads, building dams, building bridges, and sending home a little money once a month and writing letters saying 'Love you, make it last. Sincerely."

It took a crumbling America to realize the only way to keep from shriveling up and dying from starvation in their beds was to jar and can food to make it last. That way they could save money, and instead of walking seven miles to cross a bridge, then walk another five miles to the nearest store, the Engineering core built roads and a bridge closer to home, so now it was only a two-mile walk for Nate's grandparents. The government was paying people very little money, and supplementing it with food, water, and a place to sleep for the working people who were away from their homes for years. There was no direct train line they could hop onto and ride home, this was before buses were widely available for public transportation.

There were no highways, no direct freeways, this wouldn't come until after World War Two and the FDR administration looked to Germany with its Autobahn. They would be amazed at how quickly resources could get from one side of the country to the other and wanted to bring that back to America.

The greatest undertaking, however, was that Germany was a few ten thousand square miles smaller than the state of Montana.

The FDR administration wanted to put highways across all lower 48 states. It was a massive project, the biggest the country has ever collectively put all it's effort into that literally bridged the east coast to the west.

There were no planes, except in the military, and some kids have never ridden in a car before, wow-ee, if you knew someone who owned a car, they must've been rich. Especially if they could afford to maintain it and spend money on gasoline.

In the Roaring 1920's it was the age of consumerism. The fanciest of cars, the most expensive of wines, the classiest shows and most elegant dresses ever were designed. Then it broke and gave way to the era of self-sufficiency where every home had a garden, and they were taught an invaluable fear that they would never know where their next meal came from. It took them a long time for America to pull itself out of the Depression, this time around it was taking much, much longer. Nate intended to find out why.

"What do you want me to do, Meathead?" Nate asked.

"<Just lay down for a bit.>"

Resting his head back against the hull, Nate was plenty comfy sleeping sitting upright with his legs out in front of him.

\111/