October 27th, 2287.

2:45 P.M.

"Brick," Nate said, waving for Meathead to bring him something heavy.

Nate leaned over the railing of the USS Constitution and released a cinderblock down at the Super Mutants milling outside Faneuil Hall. Falling like a meteorite, the concrete brick smashed into the plaza, missing a super mutant by fifteen feet, but barely triggering a response out of anyone far down below the ship.

"'Nother brick." Nate kept his eyes locked on the green body builder type figures, mutated with their faces flattened and senses dulled. Their reflexes were as sharp as the debris and bricks Nate was heaving at them.

Dropping a cannonball, the iron weight fell forty-five stories, enough to reach maximum velocity, and crash through support pilings and scaffolding.

"Your turn," Nate said, passing the second cannonball back to Meathead. The changeling looked at the gift like it was a stick of dynamite, and he was the one with matches.

Meathead floated the cannonball out and over the railing, let it hang for a moment, and then plummet.

They both watched the projectile pick up speed and crash down onto a mutant dog's back. Impacting a crater and crushing the dog's neck and spine, "Nice shot."

The mutant dogs were like the Bull Dog's you've only ever feared about. Green skinned like their masters, and treated brutally, they were infected with the Forced Evolutionary Virus that accelerated their enduring capabilities and adaptability to the environment around them, at the cost of severely stunted intelligence growth and lack of social cognition. Empathy was nearly non-existent, it was a sign of weakness. Super Mutants were literally forced into a dead world with no schools, no parents they could call their own, no friends, and most importantly, ready to kill every living thing that wasn't a super mutant.

Living their whole lives they're told, from the moment they are created, to hunt down and kill other living things. They're told by other mutants that humans are weak, spineless, worthless, good for meat or for sports hunting. They live dumb, dull lives uneducated. Given a gun, and told to go find a bigger gun or go find someplace that looks like a good strong fort, they take that lesson with them their whole lives.

It's only after decades that Super Mutants, through a hierarchy based on age, experience, and loot, that they learn to defend themselves and how to be a better hunter, how to rally other Super Mutants behind them, how to track and kill humans when they least expect it. Some mutants bring back their catch because they've learned that the things around them are broken, and they sit and watch in hiding a human who can fix things. They target that human and smile, that's the one they'll let live for a while. The humans aren't as strong as super mutants, but there aren't that many humans who train every day, fighting creatures bigger than them, who are well fed enough to maintain the body mass of a body builder. This says something about the super mutant metabolism, it digests very slowly to retain what is in the system, even when their hunger is overwhelming and drives them to the point beyond insanity where they eat anything, metal, flesh, hard, soft, it doesn't matter. They only know the stabbing hunger in their gut and will eat other super mutants if they find them annoying or bored.

\111/

To get down from the USS Constitution, there was a ramp of rubble coming down to the deck from the Weatherby Investments building, leading up to an elevator shaft. This elevator and staircase leading down to a second lobby for the executive suites, which were mostly caved in from the floors above crashing down when the ship struck the building. Then a second elevator ride down to the ground floor put them right at the north side of the building, where the duo needed to walk through a Slocum's Joe coffee parlor and through a blown out bus crashed into the doorway of the lobby to reach the outside.

Climbing over heaps of rubble and debris, they came around the corner and saw the plaza in front of Faneuil Hall. The large three story brick building had a statue of Samuel Adams, partially dissolved in acid rain, and surrounded by a fire of burning chairs in the planter around it. There was a white tower spire on the west side of the building, and scaffolding to the left which lead up to the roof. Three super mutants were on patrol outside, on both sides of the building. With six super mutants, minus one of their mutant hounds, there was still one more sniffing around, unaware of Nate armed with a combat rifle, and Meathead floating a grenade directly over their heads with the use of his telekinesis.

The targets were two super mutants on the lookout on the scaffolding, one carrying a missile launcher, and the other, a long pipe rifle.

Nate carried the Broadsider, intending to drop it immediately after firing, because of its heavy weight. Meathead watched with straining eyes as the grenade tipped against the metal pole of the scaffolding, making a small 'tink' noise which made Meathead's nerves stand up on end.

Lowering it oh so carefully behind the super mutant's head, it was barely touching the spine and shoulders where they connected to the neck, Meathead used his magic to pull the pin on the grenade.

"Huh? What's that noise?" the mutant said, looking to the left, and then to the right. The ticking of an armed grenade was right behind his head.

Like a small clap of thunder, the backside of the mutant's skull was blown out the front, the dead mutant fell forwards over the railing, and collided with the ground. The mutant standing next to him was hit with the force and concussive blast, also at head level, killing him as well.

The mutant's turned their back from the street to investigate the noise coming from behind them, and Nate and Meathead lobbed another grenade each. The grenades bounced down the alley and exploded. The mutants were firing wildly before they even knew where the shooter was. The mutant hound picked up on the new scent of an intruder to their domain and charged down the alley, howling, straight to Nate and Meathead.

Nate launched the first cannonball, striking the mutant hound in the jaw, blowing off half of it's face and snapping its neck in a bloody pulp. The four remaining super mutants all charged towards the noise as Nate weighed his options and took the time to reload a second cannonball they'd carried down from the USS Constitution, and aimed it at the group.

The swivel cannon boomed as the one pound weight flew through the air and smashed into the chest of the first super mutant, crushing his lungs and ribcage, forcing the broken bones into his internal organs. He screamed and clenched his chest, but didn't die quickly.

Nate dropped the cannon and switched to his semi-automatic 5.56 combat rifle. The bullets spat out at breakneck speeds, hitting the super mutant behind the first twelve times before he started to stumble and fall over dead. The mutants covered half the distance to Nate as he lined up VATS shots, aiming for the third mutant's head. The first three missed, and the other five crippled and blinded the third mutant, but he still ran straight as possible but slowed way down, allowing for the fourth super mutant behind him to come around the side.

Nate swung Justice around and aimed for the legs, nearly on top of him now, Nate fired three times, blowing off the mutant's bicep, into the stomach, and once in the kneecap. Meathead snarled and dove at the super mutant's bleeding arm. Biting down at thrashing at the torn muscle, the mutant yelled and shook, trying to throw Meathead off. Nate ran up and knocked the mutant down with the butt of his shotgun. The mutant was thrown backward, flailing his limbs as Meathead let go. He tried to get back up on his feet when Nate fired twice into the mutant's head, then three times at the blinded super mutant.

The last gunshot echoed through Boston, and Nate retreated, finding cover and keeping low, he reloaded each weapon and listened for more noise.

"<We're clear.>" Nate drew in a sharp breath through his nose and exhaled.

"How many more inside?"

"<Twelve. Four on the bottom market level, and then a cluster of them in the staircase foyer, two more on the third floor, with at least three dogs running around inside.>"

"And they're not coming out?"

"<They're placated. They don't think anything of the noise coming from outside. If anything, they probably think all the noise is normal.>"

Nate swallowed. Good, that meant they were shell shocked.

"<Do we keep going, or try to take them on?>"

"If I ever need to come back to the ship, I don't want to deal with super mutants," Nate said. Standing upright, he walked over to the Broadsider by the side corner of the Weatherby Investment building and picked it up. Hauling it over to the first dead super mutant hound they managed to drop a cannon ball on from the top of the building and kill it, Nate brushed off the cannonball and loaded it into the Broadsider.

"Alright. Let's go say hello to our new neighbors."

\111/

Into the lobby of the Faneuil Hall marketplace, the old building was repurposed every fifty years or so until the Great War. The bottom floor now housed a mini chain of Fallon's Department store, with select brands of T-shirts, business apparel, watches, and ties. A deli, a bakery, and a pharmacy were on the walls of the bottom floor of Faneuil Hall, with a ring of cash registers in the center, surrounded by counters. They were looted and gutted, hardly anything worth picking over other than the glassware and silverware laying out, or the large containers behind the pharmacy counter containing raw chemical compounds for making medicine.

Closest to the door was a security terminal and recharging pod for security protectrons that Nate was aware of the moment he walked through the door. Leaving the Broadsider by the steps going down to the market on the bottom floor, he went up to the monitor and tapped the enter key a few times to get the computer to boot up and see if it had any power.

"Getting Hungry." a mutant said. "Gotta feed."

Nate froze and Meathead kept his senses drawn out, ready to alert Nate at a moment's notice. Nodding at Nate, he turned back to the security monitor and tried logging in through the maintenance fail-safe.

"Okay, Meathead, we're about to get some help." Designating himself as the commanding officer, Nate activated the three security protectrons and they all stepped out of their pods around the bottom floor of Faneuil Hall.

They all announced themselves with the words, "Protect and Serve" in unison.

In an instant, three laser wielding protectrons lumbered out of their pods and started shooting the perceived threats. Meathead followed Nate down the stairs as he fired the last cannonball round at a super mutant, crushing the chest and breaking the arm, killing the first mutant Nate saw instantly in a deafening boom.

Leaving the cannon at the foot of the stairs, Nate marched forward and took cover behind a deli counter and fired four times at the next super mutant preoccupied with laser blasts to the head and chest.

Gunfire raced back and forth, a second and third super mutant fell dead as a fourth charged a security protectron and tried ripping its arms off as it bashed the mutant in the chest and head. The protective glass dome on the robot's head cracked and broke, and the mutant howled, "You are gonna die!"

As Nate was shooting at a mutant wearing a pipe valve and anchor on its head for protection, and the metal plates from power armor units strapped onto its body, another mutant targeted the weakened protectron with a laser rifle, blasting it relentlessly, even hitting his own kind until the damage was too much for the robot and it ceased to function.

Meathead bit down onto the hose of a fire extinguisher, they whipped his head and flung the weight like a shot put, right at the super mutant's head. Dazing him for a moment, the protectrons and Nate all fired, bullet wounds and laser burns peppering the mutant's chest until the mutant couldn't breathe.

Meathead ran past the row of cash registers, snagging the last super mutant's arm and wrestling it away from the gun it was holding. The mutant smacked Meathead with the butt of his gun, twice, a third time as Nate and the protectrons lined up their sights and shot the mutant dead. A thin line of blood was coming from Meathead's forehead, but other than a bruise to the skull, both Nate and Meathead were okay.

Picking up the mutant's laser rifle, he checked the energy cell and replaced it with a fresh one. With one long rifle in both hands, the combat rifle and shotgun were slung over his back.
\111/

The intense scent of repulsive, rotting meat hit Nate and Meathead almost immediately after finishing sweeping the bottom ground floor. It was rank, repugnant smell that made Nate gag, he could hear the tiny flies, and see clouds of new born flies coming down from the first floor. They were tiny, and Nate turned his head away from the doors leading up to the main hall with disgust. The only source for these tiny newborn flies smaller than the head of a pin could be maggots. The only reason maggots would be this prevalent was the countless meat bags chained up around the foyer, and the Main Hall.

They had to fight the stench of the super mutants, and the smell of meat rotting which could only be described as one of the worst smells because of how it wanted to oppressively invade your tongue and sinuses, and refused to dislodge itself even if they covered their mouths and nose.

Opening the doors to the stairwell, there were three mutants on different levels, firing down at Nate and Meathead, while the protectrons were incapable of firing straight up out of their peripheral.

Drawing his shotgun, Nate unloaded round after round, each 10 gauge round bucking back into his shoulder, and flaying the targets in front of him.

Meathead pounced on the closest super mutant, teeth aimed at the weak flesh below the chin, trying to rip out the throat with his jaws. Punched backward, the mutant threw himself up onto both feet and roared "WHY. STUPID. HUMANS. FIGHT. BACK?!" Nate fired three more shotgun rounds, blowing a hole in the mutant's face, making it look like someone took a rock, and flung it directly into a stone bust, with the rest of the face cracking and splitting around the damage.

Up the stairwell into the first floor and the bottom of the Great Hall, Nate inhaled when he stepped into the room.

The smell was the most intense, but Nate picked out the old building's smell of hardwood floors, the rotten wood, the dust that comes with a four hundred-year-old building. Along the back wall were paintings of the Founding Fathers and a row of American flags. The balcony directly above their heads to the two-story open room was broken off and missing a collapsed section. While all around the upper level, meat bags were hung like gore filled Christmas ornaments and was the source of the rotten meat smell and the millions of insect larvae, maggots, and bugs.

Bugs were landing in Nate's hair and on his face, but his attention and focus were on the four super mutants in the room, two on the bottom floor, kicking over chairs to use support columns for the second floor as cover. Then there were two more, one on each side of the second floor. Nate took cover behind the collapsed balcony section, and vomited, the smell was too much. Meathead bounded across the floor, tackling the first super mutant as Nate recovered and fired ten times.

"Die, mother fucker, die." The rounds impacted the second super mutant on the lower level and bullets raced back to hit him from two different

Leaning around cover, wood chips splintered and flew into his eyes, stinging him. Nate fired back with the laser rifle, the straight long burning shots bore holes straight through the super mutant's chest and head, killing one on the second floor on the right side.

An uninterrupted burst of machine gun fire made Nate duck and count, waiting for it to stop as Meathead ripped his target's arm off, gnawing at the shoulder joint until the limb came and all that was left was a bloody stump.

Grabbing his .44 magnum off his belt, he raised it and fired all six shots, killing the mutant after four. The mutant from up above on the left side held a Molotov cocktail rag to an open burning torch fire and heaved it down at Nate behind cover. The bottle was caught in a green glow and was sent sailing back up, smashing into the super mutant, and exploding in flames.

The sound of a super mutant screaming thundered through the entire building as his skin was cooked, and his eyes melted out of his skull, and flesh fell from the bone.

Nate sprinted across the Grand Hall, hacking and spitting and waving teensy flies away and out of his mouth. Blinking the bugs out of his eyes, he and Meathead ran up the stairs on the left back side of the hall and went up the steps three at a time. Next to the smell, Nate didn't care about seeing the corpses, it was the bugs in his eyes he felt were the worst part about the entire day.

The smell was intensified by the sight of maggots literally falling off the fifteen meat bags hung around the second floor of the Grand Hall, liberal pools of blood underneath each one. They were made of chain link fence wrapped around and strung together by chains and steel cable like a bouquet garni of spices. Filled with limbs of multiple different animals, and Nate saw, humans, his stomach shouted no, no, no, and he hacked and vomited again. Running back towards the entrance on the second level.

"<Only three more and the dogs.>" Stepping past overturned wooden chairs, the same ones used for kindling in the fire at the base of the Samuel Adams statue outside, they went to the doors in the back. "<Behind that door frame, right side. Right side.>"

Nate pulled out his shotgun, aiming it at the wall and firing into the wood and plaster. The super mutant waiting, hiding on the other side yelled and charged through the door, instantly heaving a massive butcher's knife the size of Nate's head directly at him. Nate narrowly ducked under the flying metal and was grabbed by the collar by the super mutant. Meathead bit down on the super mutant's leg, but the mutant picked Nate up off the ground and ran with him, smashing Nate through the door frame, wall, wood, and into the main stairwell again. Lifting his battered body, the mutant held Nate over his head and then heaved him down two stories.

Nate felt something in his legs, and head, and chest, and spine, and shoulders, and everything felt broken and screamed in pain as he reached one arm blindly for a stimpak. His fingers in his left hand were numb and blood filled his eyes. He pawed at the leather case with the stimpak needles but couldn't work the zipper.

Meathead shifted into his true Changeling form, charging at the super mutant butcher and goring him in the back with his crooked horn. An instant later, the super mutant was blown off Meathead's horn with a bang of green magic, the mutant's guts errupting out the front side of his abdomen as he collided with the far wall, then fell the two stories beside Nate.

"GIVE'M HELLLLLLL!!!" Nate shouted, coughing and ripping the satchel of stimpaks off his leg and then biting down on the zipper and using his mouth to open it.

Meathead shifted again, this time to the human form of Nate, picking up his dropped shotgun and a second Molotov cocktail off the ground.

His senses told him there were two more mutants, both hiding, both aware of their presence, but unaware of their position. Meathead felt the emotions rolling off of them, arrogance, anger, rage, and disgust that a human could be doing so much to them.

On both sides of the stairwell were offices for the building, two desks and an elevator inside the office with two doors. One leading in, the other leading out. Meathead glanced down at Nate, jabbing himself with three stimpaks and moaning curse words at how terrible he felt.

Crouch walking around to one doorframe, Meathead duck walked in and held the shotgun to the backside of the first super mutant's knee. The mutant was aiming his hunting rifle at the door across from them, waiting for the human to walk through the door when Meathead pulled the trigger. Blowing a ten gauge round hole through the backside of the kneecap, the mutant screamed as his leg below the knee was blown off. Holding the shotgun at the mutant's chest, Meathead fired two more times.

Then there was one super mutant left, shouting out, "This is the age of the Super Mutants! We will kill all humans and crush you!"

Meathead walked across the floor, footsteps creaking on the wooden floor, when a thought inspired by Nate invaded his mind.

Grinning, Meathead shouted, "<Fe! Fi! Fo! FUM!>" making it obvious to where he was. Holding the shotgun level with the wall, he could feel the super mutant was directly behind the wall, switching his gaze back and forth between doors. Reattempting what Nate tried to do only minutes before, Meathead held the shotgun higher and fired six times in the span of two seconds through the old wood and plaster at the mutant on the other side.

"<NATE! WE'RE CLEAR!>" Meathead shouted back down to him on the ground floor. Nate pulled himself up and was sitting with his back against the wall, legs in front of him as he tried catching his breath.

" 'Ja get the dogs!?" Nate shouted, shaking.

Meathead's eyes rolled up to the third floor, behind the last door leading up to the rooftop. There was a grenade bouquet strung with a trip wire on one of the stair cases leading down, plucking them free, Meathead walked up the steps, and stopped at the door.

There was barking coming from the other side. They were scratching at the door, their big paws thudding against the door and scraping bits of wood off the white painted door. Pulling the pin to one grenade, Meathead opened the door a crack, tossed the live grenade in, shut the door and then ran. He moved fifteen feet down and away from the grenade on the opposite side of the door when it blew the door off it's hinges, and killed both the super mutant hounds on the top floor.

Meathead's chest was pounding, and his breath was heavy, his tongue was hanging out of his mouth because he was so used to cooling off and panting like a dog.

He suddenly felt a chill. So much death and the smell was making him nauseous so he changed back into his true form and then descended the stairwell to Nate.

\111/

Nate was shivering, laying back against the wall with his joints and bones popping back into place, and a rifle in each hand. He dropped them once he saw Meathead and exhaled.

"Are we clear? Are we clear?" Nate asked, chest still pounding away from all the adrenaline rushing through him. It was quickly dying off, and his eyes felt heavy and he wanted to sleep.

"<Nate, stay awake. We're done. We're clear.>" Meathead came to Nate's side and looked over Nate's injuries, "<Are you going to be alright?>"

"Good God. Good." Nate swallowed. "Can you fetch me a cigarette? From that machine over there? I ja-just...I just..." Wiping his lips, he licked them.

"<What? Why?>"

"I just need a minute to catch my breath. I need to get the taste of five-month-old rotting flesh, vomit, and flies out of my mouth." Meathead grimaced and nodded, turning to find Nate a cigarette. He spat, a glob of mucus and he blew out his nose, wiping his hand on the ground. Clearing his throat, he dug through his pockets for a flip lighter.

Head pounding, Meathead returned with a packet of cigarettes and Nate took one and lit the tip. Inhaling slowly, he coughed and his lungs seized up and they felt tight. Pushing himself up off the ground, he spat out the flem that instantly formed in his throat. "Meathead. Can you open all the windows to this building?" Nate asked, Meathead nodded, horn already glowing.

"Help me rip these bags outta here. It's fucking disgusting." Nate said, smoking his cigarette.

"What'er we doing with them?"

"Throw 'em in the fire out front. We're gonna burn em. Bodies too. It's fucking disgusting."

\111/

The windows of Faneuil Hall were thrown open, Meathead helped Nate move every meat bag outside onto the burn pile and let the maggots and festering meat roast over the chair fire.

It took two hours, hauling bodies and bags, Nate's hands were covered in grime and slime, but he remained quiet throughout the whole process, only calling on Meathead for a few minor things like help him get the bodies outside.

When they were done, Nate was sitting in a wooden chair, watching the burn pile disintegrate everything into ash or hot metal. To keep the fire burning hot, Nate went around the outside of the building, and drained the cars of their old used oil.
Dumping cannisters of used oil on the fire, Nate flicked away another cigarette and spat.

Smiling at the black smoke and bonfire he was hosting in front of the Hall, Nate leaned back in the wooden chair and smiled. "That'll keep 'er going. Nothin' like a lil' Oy'il for the fire. Pull out the hotdogs."

Choking up, Nate turned his head and sneezed away from the fire, coughing after he did so.

Meathead stayed in his form as a German Shepard when they were outside the building, looking out across the street to the parking garage, and to the shuttered courthouse right next door to the South.

There were steps leading up and over the parking garage as part of the side walk with a red tile line put into the ground before the war, stopping right in front of the statue of Samuel Adams, and leading off down a side alley.

The parking garage across the street connected to Haymarket Hall, a large shopping mall in uptown Boston, while the red line lead towards Boston Common.

"Fucking cancer sticks. I already know I got it coming to me." Nate said the first meaningful thing to Meathead in the last two hours.

"<Yeah, they're pretty bad for you.>"

"No shit. We both probably already are on the road to cancer. A big ol' nuclear blast will do that."

"<Changeling's are immune to radiation. I think I tried telling you that. Living underground. Eh. You'll be fine. That's thirty..fourty...fifty years from now. If we're lucky to live that long. A little what you humans call chemo, and...>" Meathead licked the inside of his mouth, "<Can radiation treatments cure cancer caused by radiation?>"

Nate shook his head looking into the fire and listening to small pops and hisses. "I have no fucking clue, Meathead. Not a damn clue."

Inhaling, drawing in big gulps of air, he felt like he could breathe again.

"<We've got curious cats for company.>"

"Huh."

"<People. In the mall. They're much better using their ears than the mutants were.>"

"How long they been watching us?"

"<For a while now, I sensed a lookout a wile back, but now that things quieted down, and we got the fire going, there's a few more Looky-Lou's.>"

"Oh yeah? And what do they want? Where are they?"

"<They're across the street in the lower level of the parking garage. There was a change in the air. They finally got the guts to check us out. What's the plan? Go inside or move?>"

"We're gonna sit right here and you're not to move a fucking muscle while I blow smoke from this here cigarette in their faces." Nate was coated in blood, some of it his, some from the mutants, plenty from moving the meat bags with his own hands. His arms were covered in blood up to his biceps, plenty on his torsoe and abdomen. Nate swung around a second wooden chair and kicked his legs up, and rested his shotgun pointing out across the street. Swallowing once, twice, he spat and waited and watched.

"<I think that's a bad idea. We don't know what these people want.>"

"I know what they want. They want to take a little looksie. Now. Be patient. Stay quiet, and let's say hello to our new neighbors." Nate responded. Leaning forward into the fire, he held out a cigarette and put it to his lips, but didn't suck on the filter.

It was another minute before the first raider poked his head around the column inside the parking garage.

Then, like a small grazing herd of cows, the one raider was followed by eleven more raiders as they cautiously crossed the street, and a few pointed their rifles, handguns, and weapons at Nate.

Nate left the super mutant bodies all laid out in a row, those with arms crossed over their chests and eyes shut. They would be put on the fire soon, but not until after someone else saw. That was the kicker to reputation, it was better if someone else said so.

The leader of the bunch raised his chin, looking down at Nate as he stepped up onto the sidewalk and came up to him. Within thirty seconds he was surrounded by guns on all sides, but Nate kept on staring into the fire. Nate sucked in a lungful of cigarette smoke, opened the side of his mouth and blew it into all of their faces.

The leader waited for Nate to make a noise, take the first initiative, be scared of the weapons pointed in his face. Nate looked up into the eyes of the boss and blinked, looking down at Meathead and then scratching him behind the ears.

"Good afternoon to yea'. It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood isn't it?" Nate said, gesturing with his right hand holding the cigarette between two fingers at the bodies laid out.

"You do this?" He asked, looking at the mangled mutants, then to the blood covering most of Nate's torsoe, legs, and arms.

Nate took another drag and pulled the cigarette out of his mouth with two fingers.

Looking the speaker of the group directly in the eye, he nodded once.

"You're a pretty sick psycho, going in by yourself. Nothing but a dog."

Nate raised one eyebrow and tilted his chin up. Placing one hand to the side of his mouth, he showed interest in what he had to say.

"We've lost plenty of people to these mutants, we tried rallying other gangs to help us drive out the gangs, but we've only been slaughtered. and you show up out of the middle of nowhere and kill all of them."

Nate raised his right hand, holding the packet of cigarettes with the lid open out to the speaker. He was wearing a brown jacket, no shirt, mangy black pants, and held a Browning pistol in his right hand. The raider took a cigarette out of the packet and Nate lowered his hand.

Nate flicked open his lighter and lit the leader's cigarette, then pointed directly up with his pointer finger to the U.S.S. Constitution.

"Why did you go to the other gangs? Why not come to me first?" Nate asked.

The speaker's head dipped forward, then he up-righted himself. "Who the fuck are you? We don't know who the fuck you are."

Nate waved his hand around the plaza in front of Faneuil Hall.

"I am an American citizen. If you want justice, you come to me. What is it that you want?"

"The hall. We want Faneuil Hall."

"That I cannot do."

The speaker leaned his head in and the raiders raised their guns in anticipation.

"What's stopping us from killing you right now?" The speaker threw away his cigarette.

Nate scratched Meathead on the back of the head, "You've lived and operated out of Haymarket Hall for many years now...yet this is the first time you've crossed the street without worrying about super mutants, haven't you?"

That got the speaker to swallow and stand up straighter.

"You've spent your entire life with raider gangs, protected by numbers and guns, and you've made a living doing what you do. You've got the entire building to yourself and you've never needed a friend like me. You've never once thought you would be standing here in front of the Cradle of Liberty, in front of the one of the birthplaces of this great nation, and you disrespect me after I did all your dirty work for you." Gesturing to his own bloody clothes, Nate went back and petted Meathead a few more times.

"We want Faneuil Hall."

"That is not the justice you were asking for."

"So what do you want? Caps? Food? A bullet to the head?" The speaker pulled back the hammer to his Browning pistol with a click. Nate stopped petting Meathead, groaning once and rolling his eyes, he stood up and all the guns were pointed at him.

"Dios mio. Do you really think I can hold a place like that myself? Hell no, I've got way too much on my plate right now to worry about an old historical building. But, here you are with a contingent of men and women ready to fight for their lives over downtown real estate."

Nate stood a few inches taller than the speaker, chest out, looking down at him with a calm gaze.

The speaker broke eye contact and looked at everyone's faces.

They were terrified by the sight of Nate drenched in the blood of his enemies, their enemies.

The speaker tried mouthing a few words at first, looking left and right at Nate through each eye, trying to find the right words to say that sounded right coming from his mouth.

"Do you know what the phrase, 'talk is cheap' means?" A few raiders were shaking their head, feeling that Nate was addressing them as well, others remained motionless, eyes on their leader.

"What?"

"It implies there's no value behind words, but on the opposite end of the spectrum, we all know a bullet costs money. Guns cost money, food and water costs money, raising a child to an adult, and training them how to fight costs money. If you can resolve a problem without violence, then everyone saves money. The phrase is always true. Talk is cheap, but violence is expensive. If a soldier dies in war, then all that money put into a single life is wasted. That is why I'm talking to you now, and that is why you are listening, because you and your people are weighing the costs in your mind. Adding and subtracting, gambling on facts known only to you, can we remove this man before us? Of course, but at what cost? I'll tell you the cost. It will cost you nothing, only if we keep communicating, and keep the dialogue open. When no body is talking, then it might cost someone their life." Nate's eyes fell to the physically weaker looking members of the raiders.

Nate knew that just because a person looked weak, didn't mean they were any less dangerous, if anything, they were like baby scorpions or poison dart frogs, small but deadly.

"What are you willing to give up for Faneuil Hall? When the answer is nothing, then words are all that is left."

Next Chapter: What Does it Mean to be an American? Estimated time remaining: 31 Hours, 11 Minutes