"Coming to you from ah...the Jewel Green--Erh! I mean...ah...Er! Green...no...The Great Green Jewel of the Commonwealth! Here's Sunny & the Sunliners with Talk to Me." Travis put a hand to his face and thumped his his against his forhead.

"I'll get it right one of these days.

9:00

Nate's Pip-boy were playing different broadcasts, up high above the city he was receiving perfect signals from all over the Commonwealth. One was the Nuka-Cola Family Radio, and the jingle it played, attracting customers to the theme park, Nuka-World.

'What if there was a place with all the zip of Nuka-Cola?
Quench your thirst for adventure at Nu! Ka! WORLD!

The dopey sound of the mascot 'Bottle', from the duo of Cappy and Bottle, advertised the end of season for October, and the words were like an ear worm.

The end of October.

Either the broadcast was still playing on abandoned radio equipment for the last two centuries and ten years, or there were people living at Nuka-World, south of the Northpoint Reservoir.

Nate was in his junior year of high school when he went to Nuka-World for the last time. Carried there on school buses as part of a class-trip. As part of a massive group discount for inviting all the schools in Massachusetts to rotate through on different days, it was a day many students looked forward to. In exchange for a short lesson about one of the newest successful companies of the 2050s, they would be able to spend the day at the park exploring and having fun.

Their parents helped pay their way to Nuka-World, permission slips were signed, and buses left the school as early as 6:30 in the morning to take the kids to the park. Nuka-World USA and the parks around it, Kiddie Kingdom, the World of Refreshment, and Safari Adventure were open for the public. Dry-Rock Gulch was still under construction, and the latest addition to Nuka-World, Galactic Zone, was still in its early concept phase when Nate was only a teenager.

Nuka-Town USA was an homage to all things soda and advertising. The company made it easy for anyone to find a bottle of pop or soda within arms reach no matter where you were in the park.

Now, Nate's mind went to the World of Refreshment, and the bottling plant, how it produced hundreds of thousands of gallons of nuka-cola daily, all processed there inside the factory. The facility was equipped with a water purifier to clean water coming in through the Northpoint reservoir, and then mixed with chemicals to make the soda. Capable of bottling thousands of nuka-colas per hour, Nate licked his lips at the thought of the plant being able to bottle water.

Nate tuned to the next channel on his pip-boy, a frequency labeled MFAF95. "This is Scribe Haylen of Reconnaissance Squad Gladius to any unit in transmission range. Authorization Arx. Ferrum. Nine. Five. Our unit has sustained casualties and we're running low on supplies. We're requesting support or evac from our position at Cambridge Police Station."
The message repeated, but Nate tuned to the only music playing radio station available in the area, Diamond City Radio.

While the music was playing, Nate was writing on a piece of paper, the equation for predicting an object's trajectory written as such /\D_x=V_xV_y.

Plus he needed to factor in height changes which was a whole other equation Nate was only partially sure of. On the mounted Fat Man was a swivel with angles marked into the side, with a piece of metal Nate screwed in to check the current angle. Armed with a slide rule, and a calculator, Nate found the angle that would hit Swan's pond at 400 meters away from a height of seventy stories. On the ground next to him were two more mini-nukes, and two pairs of binoculars.

Looking towards Cambridge from his viewpoint on the top of the Mass Fusion tower, he guessed the general area of the police station and sighed. Even with an emotional sensing creature, it was difficult to get an actual feel for the Commonwealth. He didn't understand how the world was working around him, and there were plenty of things that appeared broken, every one of them he could restore to pre-war glory.

\111/

When Hancock, Fahrenheit, and three Goodneighbor guards stepped out onto the observation deck of the Mass Fusion tower, they were blown away by the scene of Boston around them. Hancock whistled, a low whistle to show he was impressed with the view. "Hell of a spot to see! Smokes, So glad I got baked before coming up here! It's fucking beautiful!"

"Mentat?" Nate offered, he was already sucking on a few of the candy coated tablets himself to figure out the rest of the equation.

"Hell yeah!" Hancock said, taking two and grabbing Nate by the shoulder, he brought him in close for a side hug. "Wow. Can't believe you got up here! This is it? Damn. You can see everything from up here!"

"Look all you want, this tower used to be off limits even back before the bombs fell. Most people couldn't get past the lobby, and you needed to know someone who worked here to get up to the roof. Nora knew a friend of an intern who worked here, but we never got to come up here before the War."

"You keep talking about, before the war, what's up with that, man?"

"I was part of an experiment that Vault-Tec. conducted. We were all cryogenically frozen and preserved in liquid nitrogen that kept us in suspended animation for 210 years."

"Whoa. That's like some shit out of a comic book I read one time. Slept for a 1000 years and woke up in the year 3000. I dig it." Nate gestured towards the Fat Man and Hancock was wowed. "These things are like unicorns, Kleo's got a Fat Man in his store, but wont fucking budge on the price for one of these. I keep trying to figure out how to hack him so I can take it without him going ballistic on me, but it's hard to sneak up on a robot that never sleeps, only waits."

Nate nodded his head. " Well, go ahead. I've got all the angles right, and it should hit right about near the pond."

"Fucking A!" Hancock said, stepping up the mounted Fat Man. Nate passed a pair of binoculars to Fahrenheit and kept one for himself.

"Fire when ready."

Hancock wrapped his hand around the trigger and fired. The mini nuke was launched out of the cradle and sailed up, then peaked over Park Street Station before the velocity changed and gravity pulled the mini nuke back down towards the ground.

Nate and Fahrenheit were both looking over the rails with their binoculars, watching the mini nuke strike the ground close to the pond, exploding in a great mushroom cloud of fire and heat.

The super mutant behemoth known as Swan erupted from the pond, roaring and shouting, but was completely unintelligible from where they were up high.

"And he takes it like a champ." Nate said, looking through the binoculars. "Load another, quick."

Fahrenheit and Nate loaded a second round in and Hancock fired, the warhead sailed high up out over Boston again, this time striking the pond, and exploding behind Swan. The behemoth screamed and looked for where the explosives were coming from, but couldn't tell. Through the sets of binoculars, they could see the mutant's left arm and leg were lame, struggling to pull them along.

Nate angled the Fat Man down a few degrees, while Hancock loaded the last mini-nuke in. "All yours."

Nate fired and they all waited for the last mini-nuke to come crashing down, encapsulating Swan in a plume of fire and ash, when the dust and haze cleared, the mutant was laying on the ground.

"Shit, we killed him."

"Maybe. Now I'm going down there and taking the fucker's head off to make sure he's dead." Nate said, Hancock was surprised at Nate's forward aggression.

"Swing by Goodneighbor anytime you need to duck your head in, my door will be open. If you need any chems, let me know, we'll get you hooked up. We'll spread the word that you are one mother fucker who shouldn't be messed with, because fuck, the behemoth never saw it coming. What's your plan, Nate? We're heading back, now that the show's over."

"I've got a few things on my plate. I can't be sure." Picking up the Fat Man from the tripod, Nate shouldered the massive gun and walked back for the elevator. "Would you mind holding on to this for me while I'm gone? I can't go lugging this heavy thing all around Boston, and I'm out of ammo."

"Hells yeah!" Hancock said, taking the 30 pound mini nuke catapult. Passing it off, Hancock stood up straighter and smiled. "Always wanted one of these, I think I got one or two mini nukes laying around. Where'd you get this thing, anyway? I didn't see you carrying it around Goodneighbor."

"I stashed it. I didn't want to walk around town with half a dozen guns I've picked up on the road anyway."

They all stepped onto the elevator and rode it back down to the lobby, exiting quietly and waving good bye for now after leaving the Mass Fusion building. Nate strolled down the road, past one of the North End graveyards were a few of the Founding Fathers were buried. He glanced at the plaque drilled into the cement and kept walking, past the Park Street Station into the Boston Common.

The grass was yellowed, dry like hay, and the trees were vacant of leaves, but remembering that in this time of the year, fall, he smiled, looking around. Following the concrete path through the Boston Common, there were heavy footprints and gashes in the ground, but nothing that couldn't be smoothed over and redone. Waiting at the fountain at the south side of the Boston Common, was Nate with blood covering a Ripper, a handheld chainsaw, with his attention on a sign sitting in the basin of the dried out fountain.

"So the giant's dead?" Nate asked.

"<Yep.>" Nate replied, setting the Ripper down onto the edge of the fountain. The first Nate from Mass Fusion came around looked down at the sign. Off to their right, a pod containing a protectron tour bot reopened for the second time that day as Nate came around to see what his double was reading.

"At Journey's end, Follow Freedom's Lantern." The first Nate said, "I remember when we all walked this."

"<I contacted the raiders at Haymarket Mall, they're busy with Faneuil, and if they get the chance after they're settled, will move in to Mass Fusion. I told them to barricade one of the doors and rig the lobby. The second floors and above are where they can make their best defensive positions. Same with Faneuil, they're barricading the south doors and funneling people through the backside where we went in.>"

"Where to next?"

"<Aren't you going to...change back?>"

Nate nodded, like the idea just occurred to him. "<There's no one around for quite a ways>." A flash of green fire circled him, and was back to being a German Shepard.

"Keep going if you want. I don't mind."

Meathead looked up at Nate, feeling his sincerity. Bunching up his shoulders, he was unsure, and the fire wrapped around Meathead again, this time revealing his changeling form.

"I bet you don't get a lot of opportunities to be yourself."

Meathead shook his head, "<Not really>."

"Would it be to blase if I asked if you wanted to fetch?" Shaking his head again, he adjusted his feet, ready to transform again when Nate asked. "What do you do for fun?"

"<Impersonate things...>"

"So you can be a dog, you can be me, a deathclaw, I'm assuming Super Mutants, ghouls, anything you can't be?"

"<Buildings, or functional objects...Scratch that, I can change into a radio.>"

"When did you transform into a radio? And...an...d and why?" Nate asked excitedly.

"<To see if I could. Any voice, any song, any orchestra or band I hear, I can replay all the background noises.>"

Meathead demonstrated by tilting his head up, and the sound of birds chirping came from his mouth, people walking by, cars running all at the same time, all the nuances of a busy Boston downtown street. Fire trucks racing by with police sirens following right behind. He changed it to a forest with wind blowing through, the sound of running water, a small bush plane flying overhead, dirt and rocks being crunched underfoot.

Nate's head spun, all around him was the sound of silence, but Nate heard every thing around him being projected out of Meathead's mouth.

His smile changed from unsure to comedic, "So, Elvis impersonators can eat their heart out."

"<I never actually listened to that much Elvis music before the bombs. You were always listening to Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Guns n Roses, Aerosmith, Pink Floyd, Ozzy, Queen, Bob Marley, Sublime, Led Zepplin, and then the all the golden oldies from the 1950s and 60s>."

"What? Are you kidding me? Okay, first stop is a music store. You should've heard the speaker system we set up in False Pass. We aimed it at the Chinese and blasted music all day. The guys in Dutch Harbor about a day away by boat said they could hear us inbetween all the bombing runs."

"Nate, how long were you up in False Pass?"

"I was away for two years. Not all of it was spent at False Pass. I spent a month in Seattle, Washington, waiting to be deployed. We were working Mr. Gutsys, sentry bots, and building power armor. I didn't know where I was half the time in Alaska. I know I was in Homer for a few days, but all the fighting was happening in Anchorage, and the Chinese really wanted Dutch Harbor."

"What's so special about Dutch Harbor?"

"Next to New York City, Dutch Harbor on Unalaska island has the second most exports in terms of weight. Tenders and fishing boats from all over Alaska would deliver their catch to Dutch Harbor, and then boats from all around the world would come pick up their loads. Just because a war was going on, didn't mean that business stopped. Oh no. Asia was the largest purchaser of seafood, hands down. Before the war, America was selling lower quality fish back to the lower 48, while selling it's highest quality fish and seafood over to Asia, because they were paying three times as much for the same fish. Fish and shellfish needed to go farther, and cost more fuel and manpower to get it that far, so they paid more. Once the Communists invaded, we cut them off like a wrist slit vertically. " Nate waved Meathead towards him, and they started walking along the concrete path leading west through the Boston Common.

",Nora said that fish was the cheapest it had ever been. Ever.>"

"That's because Alaska provides more fish to the lower 48 than most people realized, since one market of the fishing industry tanked, now it needed to offload a lot of their product. We were starving Asia out. As bad as the cattle industry and food shortages were in Denver, they Commies were feeling the sting, Meathead. They were feeling the gnawing hunger in their stomach. They were hungry, it made them desperate. Like every industry that's about to go under, the government subsidized the fishing industry."

"<When were you on Unalaska? Isn't that weird, to call a place- Unalaska? How far away is it from the mainland?>"

"My last days before coming home. Three days by boat, if you're going slow. There were enough guns on Unalaska, the sky would turn black with the amount of bullets being fired upwards. It was a sight to see, Meathead. The Chinese flew cargo planes full of men, and tried airdropping troops in. They got a couple, but only because they sent teams of airplanes to do bombing raids right before. They didn't attack the docks, only the ships in the water. They needed to have the infrastructure to support themselves and send back fish to Asia and then the rest of their troops, but they couldn't do it without a processing facility."

"Where they cut up and froze the fish?"

"Yep. I heard about one of the boats that came down from Siberia was a processing tender, it belonged to the Commies. It was a seven hundred foot ship called the Black Bear. A whole fleet of small fishing boats were right behind this processor, and they were fishing in the northern Bering Sea, fishing in the north end of a war zone. They gave the fish to the Black Bear, and landed planes right on the deck. Then those planes went straight back to China."

"<Where else did you go?>"

"I didn't know most of the time. There were no maps, nothing like the Pip-boy. A lot of the fighting occured trying to get into the Susitna river, west of Anchorage. The highway, highway 3 ran all the way from Homer, to Fairbanks. They wanted the Alaskan Pipeline, which is why they staged simutaneous attacks on Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Prudhoe Bay, and Prince William Sound. Each on was different, but all of them had air support. From Prince William Sound, they used oil tankers and cargo ships to carry men and soldiers on board, then ferried them into Valdez. Fairbanks was taken by semi-trucks loaded with containers, filled with soldiers in the back, and with Anchorage they threw everything at it, land, sea, and air. Prudhoe Bay they took by boat."

"<What about the capitol, Juneau?>"

"They weren't interested in Juneau, not right away at first. If you look on a map, there's pumping stations near Fairbanks, and at Valdez was where big container ships pulled up, got their oil, and carried it anywhere in the world, so there were battles happening all over the place. We fought battles at Port Heiden, which was on the north side, Nelson Lagoon, they tried taking Cold Bay because that's where we had all our planes. The only way to get around Alaska quickly was by plane or boat, we walked most of the way. They were long walks. One day we were sent to King Cove, south east of Cold Bay, and a whole battalion of starving Chinese soldiers were running for us. They hadn't eaten in weeks, we tried to get them to surrender, but they didn't want to. They just wanted to kill us and eat everything left."

"They thought they could take Alaska by controlling the major ports and centers of commerce, so we sent all the boats away, and they were sitting on a whole bunch of frozen product they couldn't send back to their mainland. The Navy was busy blowing boats out of the water left and right in the North Pacific. I heard the Asians tried taking Hawaii. Guess how far that got them?"

"<It went about as well as the first time they tried that in 1943. I remember, all it did was piss America off even more. There was never so much anger in America, I didn't want to go out some days because I felt it in the air>."

Nate sighed, "Yeah. Pretty damn pissed." It was an understatement. "Let's get going."

The pair walked away from the fountain, through the Boston Common, and Nate paused for a moment to examine the corpse of the giant super mutant behemoth. Grimacing at the size and smell.

"No country could just take a small bit of land without expecting serious resistance from the mainland force. There would be no disputed territory. It was all, or nothing with America. With one of the largest fleets sailing north from Hawaii, it was a week long journey when the fleet sailed at full power. Small tenders, anything under 200 ft would take up to nine days to go from Seattle to Dutch Harbor. Those carriers could seriously move in the water, plowing through the worst of weather and fifty foot waves, and still get there a day early. Most of the resupplies came from Hawaii after leaving the west coast of America. Their goal was to avoid the gulf of Alaska. It was an obvious target to use as a refueling station, and to a keep the fighting on the Mainland."

"The Battle of Delta Point was a big one, I heard. That was east of Fairbanks. Once we got a foothold back in Alaska, we shut down the pumping stations and bled them dry. No fuel for their generators, so they didn't have any power. Without power, their food expired. I think we were still at war, trying to take back Prudhoe Bay when they dropped the bombs. That's at the very tippy north end of Alaska. Beyond the Northern Lights."

"<Did you ever see those?>"

"Nope, wrong time of the year, wrong part of the state."

"<That's what I thought. Which way are we headed next?>" Meathead asked.

"Commonwealth Avenue. But I want to duck my head in to a club here for food."

"<I'm detecting a few ghouls off to north end of the park,...mutants from the Court House."

"Screw them, we've got plenty worse to deal with." Nate said, picking up his pace. "I heard they got a pool table in here, Meathead. Hardest table to get to in all of Boston."

Nate gestured up to the building with the silver plated sign outside the rock arch leading through a short walkway of livery that read 'Boylston Club'.

\111/

Holding his rifle close to his chest, pressing the door open with one hand, and sight aimed down the hallway towards the elevator in the back, Meathead announced <There's some ghouls in a building down the street, but we're clear in here>."

Nate's shoulder's dropped. "Oh." There was a small podium where a long time ago, someone stood, checking membership status, which they walked right by.

The elegant elevator doors were custom made, art-deco fluer-de-lis expanding outwards, stacked on top of each other in white, brown, gold, and black metal coloring. Nate tapped the button, and the doors slid back slowly.

"I remember someone telling me it took $250,000 dollars up front for membership, plus an additional $50,000 every year in membership fees." He said, walking in. Meathead trotted into the elevator next to him and the doors closed.

Ascending, the doors opened on the backside of the elevator and opened up to a room that hadn't been touched since the day the bombs fell.

It was a lounge with a bar, a pool table to the right, places to sit in front of a bureau filled with cigars, and a fireplace two steps down from the rest of the floor level. There was a wall of books on the back wall, with the bar counter to the left. Almost all the chairs and comforters were filled with skeletons. Every single body was a person who died where they sat.

These were some of the richest people in all of Massachusetts, and maybe a few from the surrounding states as well, but by every one of them was a wine glass, and a empty bottle of wine.

There were a few filled bottles on a small table, where wine keys were set down and corks jammed into the top of opened bottles. Small glass vials with screw lids sat next to them, partially filled with a white powder.

"The hell?" Nate asked, seeing how every skeleton around him died with a wine glass near them. Three bodies were still holding their wine glass.

Nate went to the table, looking at the labels of the wine and on the vial.

Unscrewing the cap, he smelled it, but nothing came off the top scent.

"<Poison>." Meathead said.

"How can you tell?"

"<I smelled it from here. That's Boric Acid. Rat Poison. Nora put some around the outside of the house at the end of winter when it started warming up again.>"

Nate swallowed, looking around the room again.

"At least they didn't waste it on good wine. This was a 2075, and there's gotta be some fancy wine tucked away somewhere in here. Let's...get rid of the bodies. They make the room depressing."

"<I'll handle that, you get started on food. Do you want me to burn them outside?>"

"Yep. Same as the others. Get rid of all the wine bottles you see out too, I'll get started on some meat and beans for brunch."

Out went the bodies, and Nate went to a stove top in the small kitchen, in the back of the club. There was no gas, so he took a newspaper from the Boston Bugle, and small bits of tinder wood and started a fire in the burner. Minutes after he had a sustainable fire going, he placed a frying pan over on top and checked the water pressure in the pipes. There was some coming out in a slow stream. Slightly radioactive, he thought about all the ways to purify water, and how boiling it was the best course of action for now.

All the skeletons were lifted from their chairs, carried down the hallway, down outside and onto the street where they were burned in mass. Sparking a fire with his magic, the site was clear of any lingering spirits. Their bodies turning to ash, and then into dust.

Dust was shaken from the rafters, and the air was refreshed as Meathead blew all the stale canned air up the flume and out the chimney. Half an hour later, Nate brought out seasoned sauteed deer steaks, deglazed in the pan with red wine, and a big portion of beans on fine-china plates made in England.

"Do you eat meat as a changeling, Meathead?" Nate asked, carrying both plates of food to the lounge chairs, big enough for the changeling to sit in. Meathead hopped up and nodded.

"<Not normally, I only really eat for nutrients and the taste. I've eaten plenty of things that you wouldn't get near with a fifty foot pole soaked in chlorine>."

"Like what?"

"<Skunk's ass>."

Nate fake gagged, "Eww. Right when I'm eating too."

It took a while for the image to be driven out of his mind before he could eat any of his brunch. "Crystal glasses, fine wine, fancy china, and silver silverware. Can't get much fancier than this, Meathead."

After a few bite from their own plates, Meathead chipped in, "<I found all the billiard balls. The felt is still good>."

"Want to go shoot a round?"

Meathead nodded, and stepped down from his chair with Nate following him to the pool table. There was a wine stain from where one of the deceased patrons spilled the poisoned cup, but it was long dried and didn't hurt the table any way.

"How long were the Changelings here before the war?" Nate asked.

"<We arrived on Earth on the Mosquito Coast in Honduras in 2046. Within three years we were aquaintances with the man who would later go on to be the CEO of Mass Fusion. The ponies landed in Tibet. So...thirty years. I was born in 2059.> "

"You're only sixteen?" Nate asked.

Meathead nodded, racking the pool balls, Meathead broke with the pool stick levitating in a green field of magic and they took turns shooting pool.

"What was the conflict between you and the ponies?" Nate asked.

"There was in-fighting in the Changelings, we-meaning myself with the black shells- were what you could call seperatists. Our Queen fled from Equestria as King Thorax rose to power. He looked like a fucking faggot with big red antlers, and a green shell. This was the dumbass who divulged thousands of Changeling secrets to the ponies, all under the guise of building friendship, while actively trying to convert as many seperatist Changelings to their side.>"

"How'd you go from Equestria to Honduras...and Honduras to here?" Nate asked, expecting two parts to the answer.

"We were running out of places to hide on Equestria, but our Queen held a Meeting of the Minds with other Queens, and they let their senses wander far out into the galaxy. It was because of this meeting, that they detected Earth. They gathered all their resources, all their magic, and performed mass teleportations across the galaxy. The first of us weren't the luckiest, and landed in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Honduras. The Queen who came was drained, magically depleted, and needed to recover, but we took over a cargo container and sailed straight for land. From there, it was all about building up numbers and integrating ourselves into human society.>

Meathead shot the cue ball at the next billiard ball, forming the second part to his response. "<There was purging on Equestria, but the smart-asses figured out we teleported in-mass to Earth, and did the same. A pony Princess teleported to Earth, we found out she landed in Tibet, but we couldn't do anything about it, yet. They were trying to chase after us, and warn all the humans how terrible we seperatists could be. But, by then we already made friends with the man who would go on to become the creator of Mass Fusion, to work on building a teleporter back to Equestria. Given three months, with the right conditions, and the love of hundreds of thousands of humans, the queens were able to teleport to and from Earth. The problem we discovered wasn't the construction of the teleporter, it was regulating power to it. That's where Mass Fusion came in. That Byrillium Agitator you kept spouting off about that powered Liberty Prime? It was supposed to go to us. But, that's jumping ahead a couple decades.>

"So what happened between 2046 and 2077?"

"<War and peace. The ponies tried their diplomacy, trading magic with the Chinese for sanctuary, but we learned that the Chinese were quicker to dissect the living hell out of ponies who 'disappeared' and grind up unicorn horns as snort them as a healing powder and call it a boner pill, than they were interesting in being friends with the ponies. At least when it came to the Changeling's being acquaintances with the U.S. Government, we would just give them our dead. It took me a few years to understand, but I think it's funny how American's don't really know all the facts in a conflict, they just make sure the person they're fighting with gets fucked over more than themselves by the end of it. It was maybe ten years before the bombs fell when we stopped fighting with the ponies, but here's where I'm at the end of my own facts. I know that once the ponies on Equestria learned what was happening to their envoy's on Earth, and how the world powers were determined to march straight towards war, there was schism. This is where my own knowledge of what did and did-not happen get's hazy.>"

"So what happened?"

"<It was a case of the foot not talking to the hand, Ponies on Earth weren't communicating with Ponies on Equestria, Changelings and Ponies united, trying to prepare for the inevitable. There was still rampant mistrust, myself included, that's why when I was given the opportunity to be adopted as a German Shepard, and get the chance to live with a family bound for a bomb shelter, I took it. We knew Equestria could solve Earth's energy crisis, but information wasn't traveling fast enough to all the different ponies and changelings scattered around Earth by then. After I was sent out from Georgia, that was it. Communication blackout, no messages coming or going, I was on my own. There was a few other changelings in Boston before the bombs, but God only knows what happened to them.>"

"What about these Queens, Queen Geneva and Chrysalis?"

"<They...I don't know. They're probably still alive, but they could be anywhere from here to the other side of the Galaxy.>" Meathead rolled his eyes up, thinking of the distant planet Equestria and how it was millions and millions of miles away.

Shooting pool until all the balls were sunk, they went back to their food, finishing the scraps, and washing them off in the sink.

"Water?" Nate asked, offering a box of water to Meathead. The changeling accepted it and raised the water to his lips, drinking it. Nate drank his own box, and then they flattened them, putting them back into Nate's bag. He checked over his rifle, his shotgun, handguns, and laser pistol. They had ten grenades between them, and by Meathead's count, five molotov cocktails.

Returning to the elevator, they went down, refreshed and filled with food and water back into Boston. Before Meathead passed through the door leading outside, Nate holding the door open for him, he changed back into a German Shepard.

"<People saw and heard what happened to Swan. There's people up and about today.>"

\111/

Wait, Meathead. Look. It's still here.
Meathead wagged his tail, Nate pointed up at the sign that read "Comics!" and he already turned towards the front door.

"Goin' in."

"<Theres over a dozen ghouls on the first floor. Three more on the second, six on the third, and then more all grouped up on the fourth, I can't tell from down here. But they're definitely up there.>"

"Are they doing anything?"

"<Standing perfectly still.>"

"Great. Goin' in." Nate took one step forward and down the cracked and crumbling concrete steps and gently used the rusting, chipped and flecked paint covered handrail leading down to the door.

"<Wait, why? What do you want from in there?>" Nate turned around on the descending steps, eye level with Meathead now.

"Comics, Meathead, I'm not passing by the last comic book store in all of Boston, maybe the world, and I'm not letting some reading material go to waste. It's what my dad and me did on the weekends, sometimes." His eyes flicked up and off to the left for a moment as the memory flashed back into his mind. Meathead slowly wagged his tail, apprehensive about the amount of ghouls he could feel through the walls, oblivious to the time that's passed, trapped inbetween moments of fear of dying and death.

"That and I want to see if they have any CGC graded comics, those should still be perfectly preserved and be in the same condition the way they were when they were graded. Every comic store always has them on the back wall behind the cashier, or in the glass case below the counter." Squatting beside the door, he set his rifle by the door, and tested the door handle, the latch clicked open.

"<How do you know they'll be behind the cashier?>"

"That's where they're always kept. That or upstairs, I remember my dad taking me here one time, and he was up at the counter, talking with the clerk for half an hour. Then they told me to wait downstairs and check out some comics, while they went up stairs for fifteen minutes."

Nate cracked open the door wide enough to stick his hand through the gap in the door, and reached up to the top right corner, and grabbed the small door chime, a bell that would ring loudly anytime someone passed through the door. Gripping it tightly in his hand, Nate shimmied sideways slowly, poking his head in to get a good view of the comic book store interior.

\111/

"Fuck!" Nate mouthed, realizing that it wasn't just adult ghouls in the store, teenage and kid sized ghouls were swaying on their feet, or some laying on the ground.

The ghouls were standing there, moaning through their vocal cords in an attempt at sleep or rest. Two piles of rubble, and two equally large holes above the piles on the ceiling leading to the floor above were right in the center of the walkway, while the other one came down on display racks of molded and faded comics.

On the bottom floor of Hubris comics were feral ghouls, their sizes ranged from the height of a five year old who is finally able to read the small words and look at the colorful pictures in a book, to pre-teens, to teenagers, to the young adult collector, and finally the parents responsible for bringing them to Hubris comics on October 23rd. 2077.

\111/

"Stay here, Meathead." Nate said. Closing the door behind him. Meathead was slightly shocked as the door clicked shut.

He was nervously waiting outside the store for a minute before any noise could be heard. On the first floor there was the bang of Nate's shotgun, four distinct 'phump!' followed by the muffled shouts of ghouls. There was a grenade that went off, and Meathead poked his head in, observing the door chime and making sure it didn't ring.

"Nate?"

He wasn't on the first floor, it looked like. There was suddenly two long bursts of semi-automatic rifle fire from upstairs that made Meathead turn his head up. Stepping back, he looked down both sides of the street, and saw a pack of five super mutants with two mutant hounds to the east of Hubris Comics, the way they wanted to go, cross the street moving south, towards Trinity Plaza. They were carrying 2x4 boards, clubs, car doors and a sledgehammer, a few pipe rifles between them, and the second Mutant from the rear carried a laser rifle.

There was more gunshots from the third floor, and Meathead swore he saw the muzzle flash. Nate was thumping around, running back and forth on the third floor, making all sorts of noise. This only alerted the ghouls from the fourth floor and a whole flood of ghouls came running down.

Suddenly there was a smash of glass as one ghoul was thrown out of a third story window, arms flailing as it fell with the glass, impaling itself on a wrought iron fence barb.

\111/

The special thing about Hubris comics was that there was a film studio on the fourth floor. Actors, writers, the director, stage hands, prop makers, costume designers, camera men, set designers, and even a lunch caterer were all ready to film the latest episode of 'The Unstoppables' where the Silver Shroud is pinned down in the streets of Boston in broad daylight after two of Marconi's men tail the Silver Shroud from his latest vigilante killing.

The Silver Shroud was tracking one of Marconi's enforcers, a brutal man by the name of 'the Boston Bulldog', after three episodes of introduction and buildup, the Silver Shroud was able to gun down the Bulldog and leave his calling card, but Marconi knew that Bulldog was on the Shroud's list. So, he waited for the Silver Shroud to act on the Bulldog, and sent men to watch him from a distance.

The murder took place early that morning, just minutes before the street lights were shut off when Marconi's men saw their man be gunned down. The Shroud walked up to him, the barrel of his Tommy Thompson still smoking slightly. He reached into his coat pocket and flicked a small business card, dipped in silver, and left it beside the corpse.

Now the Shroud was being tailed through the streets of Boston by two of Marconi's men, and he was none the wiser.

"Make it big, make it public. Pump him full of holes and if you get the chance, piss on his warm blood. Make sure the public and the police know that the Shroud had it a long time coming."

Marconi wanted it to be right early in the morning, where the Shroud couldn't slink off into the shadows and hide. He wanted the Silver Shroud to be executed in public. Nice and messy. They saw him take off his mask, and his long trench coat hid his Tommy gun, but the hat brim pulled down low was replaced with large dark glasses that covered most of his face. Up came a bandana, and the men tailing the Silver Shroud still couldn't get a visual on the face. In that moment, the Silver Shroud was just another Dick going to work.

The last episode ended with the two men drawing their Uzi's on the Shroud, in front of a busy office building plaza with plenty of innocent people coming to work.

But, the bombs fell on the day of the shoot. Now the fans of the Silver Shroud were left waiting for another thrilling conclusion of 'The Unstoppables'

\111/

Meathead turned his head up to the broken window, listening for gunshots and movement. Nate was grunting, swinging something around when he shouted out.

Meathead felt like he needed to pee, but he held his bladder and listened to the silence.

Almost two minutes later, he felt Nate make his way back downstairs from the fourth floor to the first. The door chime over head clinged loudly and he shut the door behind him.

Nate was bleeding out through his right shoulder and right arm, both were bitten and flesh torn from his body. Meathead was ready with a stimpak and Nate slowly accepted it.

"<Are you alright?>" Meathead asked, it wasn't the matter of if Nate was physically okay, but Meathead felt from beyond the door of Nate's confliction and sudden welling sadness.

Tucked under his arm were three Comic Book Grading Commission inspected comics, preserved behind plastic cases. It was Manta Man #3, first appearance of Tijax and Tijax, the twins from South America, Swordfish and Toucan, who became regular recurring bad guys for Manta Man. Rated at a 9.6, printed on off-yellow pages, the only thing degrading its value were rough corners, and the staples were slightly off center alignment.

Then there was The Silver Shroud, issue 37, first appearance of the 'Miss Magenta, the on and off again love interest for the Silver Shroud. Who works both with him, and against him in different issues. She's out for herself, and the only reason she hasn't been gunned down by the Silver Shroud is because Miss Magenta is the daughter of the Chief of Police.
Rated at a 9.2, it was going to be a very valuable comic in the year 2079 when Miss Magenta released her own spin-off movie. Like most things, the chance slipped away when the bombs fell.

And Lastly, Guns and Bullets #1. 6.5. An all American magazine showing how to make guns and ammo with no background experience. How to bore a chamber, how to craft cartridge rounds, how to repair and maintain. There was an order catalog in the back for people to cut out and send in a selection of guns or ammo, no limit, to Pittsburg Steel Mfg.

It was this magazine which started the great upstart and creation of Pipe Rifles known and available throughout the Commonwealth.

"<That's it?>"

"I've got Grognak the Barbarian number one graded at a 9.4 back home in the safe."

"<Oh. There was a pack of super mutants that crossed the street heading south while you were in there.>"

"Alright. Sounds like we're not going anywhere near that place without some power armor..." Nate's jaw hung loose for a moment, "And I know where we can find some."

\111/

Trinity Square Plaza was home to one of the oldest Churches in Boston, founded in 1733, the structure looked immensely intact, with only moss and greenery growing on the outside, with the brickwork color faded and awash with dust and built up dirt.

Directly across the courtyard from Trinity Church was the Boston Public Library, reminiscent of Notre Dame and the Courthouse across from it in Paris, France. The facade on the outside of both buildings was decorated with Super Mutant totems, girders and rebar bent and sharpened, dug into the ground and pointing outwards. There were bodies impaled everywhere, leaving the whole area for blocks around to smell like rotting corpses and dead animals that were left in the sun for months and months and months. Some blackened, festering corpses that were so rotted away were lacking any semblance of a skull, organs, or shape.

A decapitated body with one arm and one leg, with flies and crows digging at the putrid remains, that was one of dozens, strung from lamp posts, street signs, out of windows, or left in the street.

Nate and Meathead treaded with caution, but Meathead commented how it was too quiet, and that the Super Mutants were busy inside.

With what, they weren't prepared to poke their heads in through the doors to find out, but as long as they could keep walking the next five blocks without a bullet shot at them or a Super Mutant chasing them down, Nate was thankful for the small blessings.

It irked him that Trinity Church was being treated in such a way, the disrespect and loss of knowledge was blatent. Smoke was coming from the interior of the Boston Public Library, and the scent on the air was that of mildew and rotted paper being burnt in the fire.

The Mutants were burning books, burning cabinets, shelves, and chairs for warmth. They came and saw all this, occupied by humans at one point, and killed them while chasing others out. Then they claimed it was all theirs and free to use however they wanted, so they burned the books and ended up burning a hole in the second floor because they didn't use a firepit, trashcan, or oil barrel. They only piled them up, and set the tinder ablaze.

The fire burnt through the floor and when they started a second one, they tore out sections of wall, punching holes and ripping wood and plaster out of the wall, then restarted a second fire on the second floor, learning absolutely nothing except that when this entire building was gone, they would move into the next building beside them, because it was free and no one was going to stop them.

The arrogance of their stupidity was almost enough to make Nate charge into the library and strangle the Mutants with his bare hands, but he was still sore from the attack on Faneuil Hall, then there was the number of Super Mutants in the area to consider.

\111/

Trinity Tower, a chill went down Nate and Meathead's spine just being near it.

Meathead tried to describe the hatred oozing from Trinity Tower, the cosmic horror of an obsidian rock meant to ward off evil spirits and protect people, inverted and corrupted like a diamond ring put in a microwave for two hours, with the setting turned to nuclear.

It was a damn American phrase 'to nuke it in the oven', meaning, to warm something up in the microwave. But, would you feel rich and powerful wearing a diamond gold ring that was placed in a microwave for two hours? Or would you feel disgusted, inbalanced, hot and bothered by the microwave energy absorbed by the ring?

That was a small sense of the dread feeling Nate and Meathead felt while they were near Trinity Tower. Meathead assured Nate, there were over one hundred and fifty Super Mutants throughout Trinity Tower.

A dozen Super Mutants with the element of surprise on their side was hardly manageable, but over one hundred was a staggering challenge Nate didn't want to think about.

His sores and bruises still made him stagger and walk with a wince, even though they were mostly healed, but the mental pain and trauma was still there.

With the Tower so close to Fenway Park, Nate told Meathead that they needed to do something about the tower, and the mutants, but if they were lucky, the whole thing would rust from the inside out, and then collapse.

Nate and Meathead both knew how to blow up a tower that size, but it next to Mass Fusion, it was one of the tallest buildings in Boston, and the mess wouldn't be worth the hassle.

From Commonwealth Avenue, they walked north, stepping onto Berkley street.

"Creepy fucking crows, Meathead." Nate looked up at the tall trees in the center of the green way running all thew way down the road. To their right was old buildings from the late 1970s that lined the waterfront, to their left were old shops.
Nate saw a landmark, the Holy Mission Congregation and then turned their direction south on, walking half a block and then turning right on Newbury street. The first thing they both saw was the northeast corner of Fenway Park.

Beneath the faded green paint was the dark red brick. There were ramps along the higher outside levels. The 'Second Base' entrance was blocked off, filled with rubble and concrete chunks. White arrows with the diamond within a diamond symbol pointing towards the front entrance at home base.

Nate pointed straight up, "I used to know a guy who knew how to get to the top of the roof here, and then he had another guy who would lay down a big piece of wooden bridge that would extend up, and then fall over to Fenway. We used to sneak into games. I only did it twice though. He would pull up the drawbridge and let it fall backwards onto the building so they wouldn't get caught."

\111/

"Bark in the Park." Nate said, seeing the blockaded first base entrance. Arrows and signs were pointing off to the right towards the home base entrance.

"<What?>" Meathead asked, ears perking up a bit.

"Bark in the Park, remember that? You, Nora, Shaun, me...Boston Red Socks versus the Phillies. Seven to six."

Meathead slowly resumed his pace at Nate's side as the memory came to him. "Yeah...Yeah! Bunch a dogs everywhere. There was...well...I don't remember all that much about it. But I do remember going. It was nice. Lots of dogs, everyone was happy." Nate looked up to his left, the old brickwork, placing his hand against the wall and letting it feel the coarse erosion for a few steps as he walked forward before taking it off.

The bricks used to be polished and smooth, like running your hand over a piece of glass, but time and bullets chipped away at the bricks, leaving them porous and hungry.

Fenway Park, or as the new signs leading up to it now read, Diamond City, Nate and Meathead's return to the old baseball stadium was surreal. The closer they were to the stadium, the more they followed invisible long forgotten social barriers by sticking to the sidewalk.

The buildings around Fenway Park were almost always apartments on top of businesses, restaurants, bars, and convenience stores.

Nate was irritated as the first four music notes coming through the radio speaker on his Pip-boy. He recognized the song in the first two notes, and quickly tried to shut off the music. It went from very-high, to medium, high, then low.

"I'm as Corny as Kansas in Aug-" Nate turned to the menu and shut off the signal. Sighing in relief he didn't have to listen to the song 'Wonderful Guy' by Tex Beneke for the fifth time in two days.

Meathead picked up on Nate's emotions and asked him a simple question that turned everything 180 degrees in an instant.

"<I know jazz too. Name a song, any song. Name a song that makes you happy, and we can march through the streets with you wearing the happiest shit-eating grin anyone in this world's ever seen.>"

"Really?" Nate asked, drawing it out.

"<Really.>"

"<What's a song you know, that makes you smile, Nate?>" Meathead asked, it was as if a light bulb went off in Nate's head. The biggest, widest smile Nate bore since before coming from the Vault spread across his face and was incredibly infectious as he instantly bellowed out from the pit of his stomach, making sure he was heard for blocks around in every direction.

"M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!"

"WE WORK FAIR AND WE WORK HARD AND WE'RE IN HARMONY!"

"M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!"

"Mickey Mouse!"

"<BARK! BARK!>"

"MICKEY MOUSE!"

"<BARK! BARK!>"

"Forever we'll let us hold our banner HIGH, <Bark!> HIGH <Bark!>, High! <Bark!>"

Meathead was soaking in the good natured humor of Nate's sudden upswing in emotion and trying not to get bowled over. He was giddy, trying not to laugh. "<Shh! Someone'll hear us!>"

Wink. Nate marched through the Police Precinct 8 Station, and nodded at the Police Power Armor standing unfazed by tampering or prospectors trying to take it. Rounding around the First base corner. The large green garage shutter door was pulled down and locked, barricaded. To their left was the parking lot next to the baseball stadium.

The feral dogs living in the rusted out hulks heard. They rose up and chased the alpha through the parking lot, running away from the noise, barking all along the way. Through tall weeds, past piles of garbage dumped by the citizens of Diamond City, and straight south and west.

Nate sung louder. His cheeks were flush with a burning red glow and his chest swelling with unshakable pride and joy at knowing the lyrics. Nate couldn't of cared less who heard him, in fact, he wanted to let the song to be heard through the entire city, and he wanted everyone listening to know that he was singing it. Marching straight past a Diamond City guard who stepped out of Nate and Meathead's way as he strode confidently down the street. The guard's perplexed expression was unsure of the man singing as loud as he could, while still carrying a note.

"Boys and girls from far and near are welcome as can be. M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!
Who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me? M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!"

The pair passed rotating turrets, and a souvenir stand converted into a guard's barrack where mats were rolled out on the ground, and signs that read 'Protected by the Wall'.

"Who's marching coast to coast and far across the sea? M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!"

"Donald Duck!"

<BARK BARK!>

"And Donald Duck!"

<BARK BARK!>"

Nate's mind settled on the night Nora and he were both in the bedroom after returning from Alaska. Deep erotic fantasies were flashing through his mind the entire plane ride home, and he was barely able to contain himself in the car as he was so glad to be alive and safe in that moment. He remembered the stupid erection he had while in the car ride back from the airport and how he kept trying to get Nora to take notice. His mind played out their naked and deep impassioned lovemaking in the dark. Replaying the moments over and over again from the kissing, to the intense fuck fest that they engaged in for hours after arriving at home.

By the time Nate walked from the street to the sidewalk, he was laughing and crying tears at the thought of his dog was aware of how animalistic Nora and he became behind a closed door. Crying that it was only Meathead and himself, he felt sad and barely able to put into words what he felt, but the Changeling could tell.

"Forever let us hold our banner High! <Bark!> High! <Bark!> High! <Bark!>"

'"Come along and sing the song and join our family! M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!"

They looked up and saw the copper turned green statue of a baseball player mid swing out front. Their walking path lead right to the stadium as if the rusted cars, giant barricades, blown out store fronts, and guards appearing at checkpoints as if they weren't even there. Nate nodded to a security guard wearing weathered catchers pads with a wired baseball helmet dinged with a few dozen scratches and dents from two hundred years of use and abuse. The plastics were cracked, and the face underneath shone brightly in the noon-day sun.

They both heard the voice of an argument taking place long before they finally came around the final corner of Fenway park to the Home Plate entrance, and a woman with shoulder length black hair, wearing a news cap, a long red leather jacket, tall boots laced up to her knee, and beige pants turned to look over her shoulder for a quick moment to see a man and his dog walking straight for the green gate and directly towards her. Singing, she was as confused as the rest of the guards Nate and Meathead passed, so she turned back towards the intercom box she was speaking into and kept talking.

"You can't do this to me! I live here!" Piper shouted into the intercom.

\111/