Beyond Kelloggs words echoing through the intercom speakers was a faint broadcast being played through a radio in a dark side room. Classical Music Broadcast.

The walls of the desolate and eroding elevator were illuminated by the green glow of Nate's Pip-boy, but the only thing Nick Valentine took notice of was the puffs of breath coming from their mouth's, turning to steam in the cold air as they descended further and further into the Command Center of Fort Hagen.

Nate was breathing slowly, Piper's intake and outtake of air lasted anywhere from five to six seconds, while Meathead was panting away, in-out-in-out-in-out-in, but Nick Valentine felt like a vampire, not even able to breath a shred of warm air.

A speaker in the elevator crackled, "Hmph. Never figured you to come knocking on my door-"

Nate raised his head, tilting his neck back so he was looking straight up, then exhaled a long breath loudly from his chest through his nose. His eyes wandered to across the ceiling tiles, then finally resting on the speaker embedded into the wall.

"[Gave you fifty/fifty odds of making it to Diamond City. After that, I figured the Commonwealth would chew you up like jerky. Sorry you're house has been a wreck for two hundred years, but I don't need a roommate, leave.]" Kellogg couldn't hear Nate, nor tell where he was in the command center, but he could speak over the intercom system, antagonizing Nate along the way.

The doors opened and the intercom speakers lining the basement carried over his voice, and echoed, but as they moved forward, the voice behind them grew more faint while the next speaker in front of them became louder. "I understand, you're pissed off, but whatever you hope to accomplish here, it's not going to work-" There was a large amount of static and feedback coming through the speakers, and it made everyone clench their teeth tightly.

Meathead whined at the hatred rolling off Nate, how he was able to contain himself, he couldn't be sure.

When they stepped out of the tight fitting elevator with two occupants wearing power armor, they faced down a long hallway glowing with red lights. Nate held up his hands, and pointed to a piece of metal on the wall. Firing at it, the electric coil sparked wildly and bolts of electricity blew out in all directions. When the batteries died, the electrical light show stopped.

"How'd you know what that was?" Piper asked.

"I didn't. It looked man made, and like it was recently put up. It's like finding a wooden sign in the middle of the forest, it may be wood, but it's not a tree."

A generation two synth was at the far end, baiting Nate, Meathead, Piper, and Nick forward. Nate squatted down to one knee, Piper and Nick fired over Nate and they all slayed the synth at the far end. A small turret was puttering back and forth, which they also destroyed after shooting it with a volley of gunfire.

Following stairs down to the lower basement, stopping at a security gate with metal grills covering the top part. Nate paused before opening the door, looking up at the other side, he saw it was rigged.

"It's got another electrical coil trap attached to it. Stand back. Nate eased open the door, the killswitch resting tenderly against the doorframe. Nate yanked on the wire, pulling it off the battery source, disabling the trap.

"[Look, I get it, you're angry. But whatever you came here to do, it's not going to work out the way you think it will.]"

"Oh, I don't care if it works or not, you're still going to hate your life when I'm done." Nate said, picking up the Institute laser rifle out of the synth's hands.

Pushing on through another security gate, they heard more static, and were then inside a room with broken monitoring equipment, pieces of machinery that regulated electricity within the building. There were old terminals with memory banks, all defunct and worthless now.`

Heading deeper into the command center, they came upon a hallway painted red, and on the left side was all security gated doors, that lead to a black room. The ceiling of the hallway was crumbling in, no thanks to the barrage of mini-nukes from above.

Meathead whined and barked, jumping up onto Nate. "<Talk.>"

Synths ran up the hallway and everyone fired. "Go ahead to the end of the hallway. I need to give Meathead some instructions."

They both looked at him curiously, then continued on, "What is it, boy? What's up?" He said loudly, then dropping his voice to a whisper.

"<He's in the next room. He's not alone. There's a pony in there.>" Meathead growled.

"You sure?" Nate asked, Meathead nodded.

"<Definitely synths, but I don't need special senses to know he's rigged the shit out of that room.>"

"Alright, Meathead. Stay here, unless I'm not 100% positive this hallway loops back around into this black room, I want you to be ready to yank us out, can you do that? Moment of truth. Watch us. Make sure he doesn't pull a fast one on us, when he does. If he tries pulling a gun on himself, rip it out of his hands. I don't know what to do about the pony, make sure it won't be a problem for us."

"<He wont be, I can taste his condescending attitude from here.>"

Meathead nodded again, sitting there, his heart went out to Nate.

\111/

The group of three passed a small dorm area, a med center, and a mess hall, then a kitchen with a tiny little Vault-Tec Bobblehead just sitting there of Vault-Boy holding a plasma caster gun with the inscription reading 'Always Support Your Conversations with Superior Firepower'.

Laser turret defense systems tried holding them back, but the basement was getting so cold, that the electric conductors were starting to freeze over, and one turret simply stopped firing while they were reloading. At first they thought it was a trap, but both Nate and Piper were starting to feel the cold damp on the walls turning to ice.

Synths tried charging at them with rifles, shock batons, but the barrage of bullets destroyed their limb actuators, and broke the robots like smashed chinaware.

"[You got guts and determination, that's admirable. But you're in way over your head.]"

"NO FUCKING SHIT, SHERLOCK! NOW, SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Nate fired at a speaker, blowing it out.

They came to a long curving hallway, and Nate pulled out the cryolator, aiming it at the synths, balls of condensed liquid nitrogen were shot out, and crashed into the synths, bursting like water balloons that instantly froze limbs over. Nate rushed one, throwing it against the wall and watching the metal shatter like glass.

"[It's not too late. Stop. Turn around and leave. You have that option. Not a lot of people can say that.]" The next few speakers echoed.

"Oh, we are way past the point of no return..." Nate said, leading the charge forward. His shoulder was sore from where he slammed into the synth, and his fingertips were freezing from holding the cryolator. The air in the basement was rapidly dropping, and he could feel the chill where his vault suit met his neck. His breath was becoming more and more visible in the cool air, and Piper felt it as well through the gaps in her power armor.

"Blue, something ain't right here. This is feeling more and more like a trap every second."

"Of course it's a trap, Piper. He's rigged traps all along the way. You need to shake that fear, or otherwise it'll grab hold of you. He's scared. Piper. Otherwise he wouldn't be asking us to leave. We're coming for him, and he knows it."

"I'm talking about how cold it's getting! And, it's not just the cryolator in your hands!"

"Piper, I have a plan, and I need you to keep trusting me." Nate said.

The last rooms they passed were the base commander's quarters. The final area was a broadcasting room with television cameras and broadcasting equipment shoved off to the side. Nate looked all over for any sort of trap, and noticed the beds, and the smell.

"What is this room?" Piper asked.

"An emergency broadcast shelter. In emergencies, you could've sent a broadcast all across the nation to any working television. I think I blew up the tower above." Nate said.

"That you did." Nick said.

"[Alright. You made it. My synths are standing down. I'm just up ahead. Let's talk.]"

"Fuck that. Reload your weapons. Make sure you're ready for a fight." Nate ordered. They all silently agreed and made sure they were ready to fire.

The security door at the opposite end of the room opened up and they could hear classical music playing.

The hallway was lined with red flood lights, and through a final security door, they were inside the darkened room.

The overhead shop lights were switched on and Kellogg stepped out of cover with his hands up along with two synths and a pony in a white and grey Institute jump suit to the side. It was a unicorn.

"And there he is, the most resilient man in the Commonwealth. Funny, I thought I had that honor."

"How do I get to my son?"

"He's safe...let's talk."

"You know...do you know about Emperors in China? Do you know what China is?"

"I'm aware they existed."

"Then this might make sense to you... There was an emperor who was traveling through the countryside, and saw a farmer working on the side of the road. The Emperor stopped and asked the farmer, do you know that I am Emperor? But the farmer replied, 'What's an Emperor? Who are you?' and the Emperor was happy. Do you want to know why?" Nate asked, Kellogg's lips smirked, like it was the funniest thing in the world, but he didn't want to let Nate in on the joke.

"Why?"

"Because, it meant that all was well in the kingdom."

"So what? I'm the farmer?"

"Something like that. Or it could mean you're too uneducated living the simple life toiling away for your master to know anything else."

Kellogg bared his teeth, smiling, but shaking his head. "Your son, Shaun. Great kid. A little older than you expected, but I'm guessing you figured that out by now. But if you're hoping for a happy reunion-" Kellogg tisked, and glanced off to his left to the synth holding a laser rifle and the unicorn standing silently, watching them with knowing eyes.

"-Ain't gonna happen, pal. Your son's not here."

"Now. How do I get to him?" Kellogg's eyes flashed towards the unicorn for only a brief glance. "What, you think a magic little unicorn is going to help you get out of this one?" Kellogg's right side of his lip rose up almost in a sneer.

"What's the cliche? 'So close, yet so far away'? That's Shaun.' But don't worry. You'll die knowing-" Nate pointed at the unicorn with his ring finger so Meathead could see, and the unicorn's horn glowed a soft neon grey. He chose that moment to fire first, shooting blasts of cold condensed liquid nitrogen at Kellogg. It struck him directly in the chest and his entire body convulsed at the freezing burn.

Piper and Nick were standing directly behind Nate to the left and right of him respectively and picked their synths to target.

Nate fired off ten blasts of cryogenic rounds in two seconds before the gun was ripped out of his hands by telekinetic force. Kellogg's hands were resting on his .44 magnum pistol, now they were frozen to the gun and he could only move his trigger finger. Raising his gun, he fired directly at Nate, and Nate took two rounds directly to the chest protected by a bullet proof vest, but each one making his ribs feel like they were bucked by a draft horse.

Meathead used his own skills to warp the unicorn back into the hallway in a flash of green fire as both Piper and Nick shouted for Nate to survive.

He raised the unicorn in his telekinetic field and slammed him against everything, the ceiling, the walls, the floor, the ceiling again, and then flinging the unicorn down the hallway. Dragging him back closer, he slammed the unicorn into submission and consciousness. But then, he felt Nate's fury descending down on the entire fort. Shuddering, his teeth were chattering as the air dropped another ten degrees. Frost was appearing on the walls and glass, it was hard to breathe as the air became colder and colder. Meathead rose his eyes to the ceiling, seeing through the layers of rubble and feeling an intense malicious, haughty aloofness that enjoyed the fighting and chaos below.

"<Oh...Shit.>" '<Nate!>'

Nate rolled up, charged Kellogg, bashing him to the floor and blasting him with the cryolater. Watching Kellogg's limbs be covered with ice as bullets and laser blasts raced around him.

"Monster...in...the...closet." Kellogg's breath came out as fog. "It finds you." He finished, the rest of his body and head encased with ice. Every second it grew thicker and thicker until Kellogg couldn't resist anymore.

"Nate!"

"Nate!" Piper and Nick shouted. They both destroyed the two synths serving Kellogg and watched with morbid expressions of fascination of how or why Nate was doing what he was doing. The ice grew thicker, and the room reached its coldest point where no organic life couldn't stop from shivering.

"NATE!" Piper screamed.

Meathead howled, Nate set Kellogg down on the floor, and turned around. The frost in the air was visible, and the lights flickered, but they both saw the whites Nate's eyes, and the burning green irises.

"Nate!? What the fuck is going on?!" Piper demanded to know. Meathead was barking from the hallway, when far above their heads, they heard a distinct noise.

\111/

It was a whinny of a horse, long and ragged.

\111/

"Nate, I think we should go." Piper said, feeling the situation in the command center change.

"Piper, Nick, since you're both wearing power armor, would you be so kind and help carry Kellogg? As Jerry Reed once said, 'We're Eastbound and down, loaded up and truckin'. We're going to do what they say can't be done. We've got a long way to go, and a short time to get there."

The lyrical reference was unfortunately lost on Piper, and Nick Valentine was only half familiar with the reference, coming from Chicago as a former BADTFL agent. The memory sparked in his memory banks, and he remembered the letters plastered in white across a bullet proof vest as they were stopping a boat loaded with illegal contraband being smuggled into the United States from Canada.

"So, you're gonna hang him?" Nick asked, "What happened to the pony that was here only a moment ago? What did it do? Vanish?"

"It's a unicorn, Nick. "

Nate pointed off to the left, beyond the security gate wall, to the unconscious and battered form of the unicorn laying on the ground with Meathead sitting right beside it. Nick and Piper looked at Nate as if he was slightly crazy, "Nate, are you sure about that one?"

"Piper, you know the Giddyup Buttercups that were there at the bottom of the tower?"

"Yes, I asked you at least twice about them, and all you gave me was that they were toys on factory settings."

"Well, go take a look at the dimensions of the pony over yonder, and see if you can see any resemblance whatsoever. Look at it's eyes. Trust me, it can talk. I know it can because I've seen them do it."

"Alright, It's going to be a long interview after you're done with all this, hope you realize that." Piper opened the doors, and Nate stooped down, taking Kellogg's pistol off the ground.

"I know, Piper. I know, and I'll answer every question you have, but my answer will be another question, what do you know about the Broken Window Theory?" He went around, looking at the command center, seeing what there was to be found that the mercenary was waiting to use against him.

There was a terminal, the only new thing brought into this place since the end of the Great War, and clean tables that didn't have the same sort of yellowing a two hundred ten year old table would have.

Nate sorted through the files, "'Boy delivered to Institute. New orders to track down renegade. Gathered reinforcements. Moving out soon." He read aloud, "These were Kellogg's notes."

There was a command prompt to open the security doors, and after clicking the button, the doors swung open on the backside of the room.

Piper looked over the ragged and bleeding unicorn beaten into submission, but nothing she was seeing made sense, these weren't bite marks, these were blunt attacks. "No, what's the Broken Window Theory?" She called out, turning around towards Nate.

"I know this one Nate," Nick Valentine offered, "Back in the 1980 and 1990's, there was violent crime in the subway metros..."

"Close, but not the entire theory. In New York, the metros were how most of New Yorkers got around the city, but there was graffiti everywhere, the tunnels reeked of shit and piss, homeless people were living down there, people were getting robbed and mugged, the whole environment perpetuated stronger negative social ques." Nate swept his hands over the desks, seeing if there were any other scraps of information Kellogg left behind.

"Let's get him out of here. He has a sentencing to attend. Nick, who's the highest law of the land around here? Who's the local judge?"

"Well, It'd have to be mayor McDonough, I guess."

"And who hate's the Institute more, McDonough, or Hancock?"

"They both hate the Institute, but the one you'll get fired up more easily about them would definitely be Hancock." Nick said.

"Then we're headed to Goodneighbor. Piper, in New York, the tipping point for all this to change was when a white man was approached by four black men, and they asked him for his money. He was carrying a gun, and used it to shoot all four of them. He claimed it was self-defense, but the trial isn't the issue. He killed two of them, crippled one, and severely injured the other. The media ran the news across the nation, and people were outraged. A new plan needed to be engaged for dealing with the rampant crime across the city. Instead of hiring more police, cracking down on violent offenders, they cleaned up the metros, got rid of the graffiti, and arrested turn-style jumpers, because here's the thing. When one person who normally paid the fee to ride the metro every day, suddenly sees someone ignore the law and jump the turn-style, it sends out social ques to everyone who saw him commit the act, signalling to them that they could get away with it as well." Satisfied there was nothing left, Nate turned around and let his mind come up with a plan on how to deal with Kellogg.

"So now, someone who was normally a law-abiding citizen would think, If they got away with it, then why should I have to pay, and jump the turn-style as well. This creates a culture of people who think it's okay to ignore the inconsequential laws. One issue was that law-enforcement wasn't always available on the metro, so the police started arresting people who jumped the turn-style. They would cuff them, and force them to put their hands against the wall, waiting for other people to jump over, and arrest them as well. They wouldn't move until there were ten people all lined up against the wall. This sent out the message that it was no longer something they could do, that this wasn't something that could happen anymore. The police needed to and then went on to streamline the whole process of being arresting so that the person could be arrested, jailed, then processed in an hour. One out of seven people arrested who hopped over the turn-style was carrying a weapon with them, while one out of twelve people arrested had outstanding warrants."

Nick was the only one impressed, but Piper was still looking at Nate in confusion, trying to see the bigger picture.

"In two years, the amount of crime, that included murder, theft, rape, all the way down to petty thievery like jumping the turn-style dropped by sixty percent. You see most buildings in Boston now have broken windows or bullet holes in them, but by creating a culture where the petty laws are enforced, then it ques people in that this type of behavior isn't acceptable. People paid their fees to ride the metro, people weren't carrying guns or knives with them when they went traveling because they felt safe. The man who shot four other people? He felt like he was in a poorly lit, piss-and-shit infested rat-hole, but when you put people in a situation where they feel like trapped rats, then what do you expect people to do?

"McDonough wants everyone to pretend shit like that does't exist." Piper said, shaking her head. "That there's no such thing as kidnappings happening in the Commonwealth."

"Then, we take him to Goodneighbor. He's the one I would rather support in all of this. Piper..." He called out to her.

"Yes?" She replied.

"I changed my mind, I'm going to need your power armor. I'll truss up the pony and carry him, then while we're getting Kellogg to Goodneighbor, you run ahead and spread the word. New headline for you. INSTITUTE SPY CAUGHT. Get going. The sentencing will be at Goodneighbor. So tell everyone. Tell that guy on the radio, Travis. Make sure everyone hears about it and knows. Everyone is going to know, and they need to know he's going straight to the gallows."

"Why not Diamond City?" Nick asked.

"Too big of a venue, too many chances that an Institute ally is hiding in Diamond City. He could be shot before he hangs."

"But Nate, why does he have to be hung? Why go through the trouble of dragging him around?"

"If you were to walk a mile in my shoes before the bombs fell, you'd understand. I would walk from Concord to Goodneighbor and back without a gun, because I felt safe. There was graffiti in a few places, but that didn't mean there was crime. But now, if we enforced a little law, cleaned the streets, repaired the broken windows, knocked down the leaning towers of rust, buried of burnt the rest of the skeletons and bodies laying in the streets, then you too would know what it's like to be free of the rats."

"Okay, but what about the whinney we heard?" Piper said, directing everyone's gaze to the ceiling.

"I'll handle it."

\111/

Piper left through the security doors, stopping to look at Meathead sitting proudly by the unicorn pony before darting down the hall back towards the exit.

Nate got up from the computer, "Who do you think he meant by renegade?" He asked Nick.

"Renegade?"

"It says here, 'New orders to track down renegade.'"

"It can't be you, can it? No..." Nick said, trying to reason it out. "Maybe there's some in-fighting happening at the Institute we don't know about?"

"Well, lucky for us, I know how to tell if he's lying. Before he hangs, I'm going to interrogate the living shit out of him."

"Oh yeah? How's that?"

"Oh come on now, Nick. What kind of magician would I be if I revealed all my tricks?"

"A terrible one that get's boring real quick. You gonna tell me or not?"

Nate put his palms up to Nick before going out the command center to Meathead. "Not yet. I gotta be sure of a few more things, make sure that this place isn't being monitored."

Yanking wiring and cables out of the broken light fixtures hanging from the ceiling, Nate used it to truss up the unconscious unicorn. "Who knows, there might be tiny microscopic bugs and cameras all over the place, watching us."

"Nate, you're more paranoid than the people living in Fenway Park."

"It's kept me alive most of the time. Paranoia isn't a bad thing. It may be bad, but we can never be completely 'good' in the sense of the word. It would be like taking a stick, and on the right end, there's all the good, and on the left, there's all the bad. If you tried breaking off the left end of the stick, all you'd have at the end of it is a shorter stick. You could shorten that stick all the way down to a coin, thinner than human hair, and you'd still have two sides. Life is about balancing both out."

"That sounds profoundly deep coming from someone who is so intent on hanging Kellogg here, you've gotta hate someone a whole lot to put in the extra effort of hanging him."

"I hate him as much as I pity him. I pity the fact that out of all the people in the Commonwealth, he was just another person who got paid to do a job, so I can relate...and yeah, I hate him for what Kellogg separated my family from me, but he wasn't the one who tricked us into cryogenic pods, he wasn't the one who dropped the bombs, he wasn't the one who decided I should go to war and fight for my country, and possibly die. He was just another person, looking to get paid, end of story."