Meathead found the old-familiar setting of Goodnighbor comforting, the community carved out four square city blocks and were holding it for themselves. If the small area were to ever expand, it would need to contest with no-mans land, where to be able to hold onto a large area of land, patrol it, secure it, and maintain, they would need to quadruple in size. Everything from the Boylston Club to Goodneighbor, the Massachusettes Court House, the Boston Common, and the park station to Vault 114. Everything would need to be cleared out, fences and gates installed, choke points set up, everything needed to take back some real land to call your own. The Boston Common would be a garden, and could supplement a lot of food for the people in larger communities.

\111/

When Meathead arrived at the Old State House with Thunderstruck, the Neighborhood Watch guards told them 'the boss was out hunting.'

"For what?"

"Anything that moves."

So then, without an audience of the Mayor of Goodneighbor, It wasn't even mid-day yet when Meathead and Thunderstruck found himself walking through the piss-scented alley leading to Bobbi No-Nose's warehouse.

Knocking twice on the door, the metal eye slit slid open, where Bobbi's two black eyes stared vacantly back at Meathead.

"Yer' Late."

"<A drug deal gone south, raiders, Gunners, mutants, getting shot at, and a Mirelurk Queen. What else can I say?>"

"Yer' late." Bobbi repeated again, opening the door. "Don't expect no five star review, but thank you for getting Mel out of the pens in Diamond City. What's with the pack animal?"

Meathead entered the warehouse and Bobbi closed the door behind them, locking it. Thunderstruck flashed an angry look, but months of conditioning kept her quiet.

"<Exactly as you said, you said we're going after a store room, Thunder here can help pack a few extras of whatever we find.>"

"Mel's downstairs. She shit's in here, she's dead." Bobbi warned, focusing on Thunderstruck.

Following the winding path down to the sewers, then through the area they blasted out, Mel was waiting with a hovering modified eye-bot next to him. The sight took Meathead by surprise, and how much pride Mel took in the 'distraction' he created.

The modified eye bot carried a large Tesla arc generator on the face of it, and right now it was brimming with electricity.

"Oh hey! Where'd you get the pony? Does she talk?" Mel beamed, asking after a first glace. "Oh, no way, she's got wings?" He asked incredulously.

"Alright, we're all here." Bobbi said, cutting the conversation short. "Mel, how about you introduce your little friend?"

"Yep," Mel replied, "Meet Sonya. This little baby is going to help us move through the earth like a mole rat on Jet."

'Should've just told me' Meathead thought to himself, "<So what does she do?>"

"I can't wait to show you, I modified her radio systems to emit sonic pulses at frequencies that loosen any sediment around." Grabbing the eye-bot, he flicked a switch on her side, and the machine hummed with a building energy.

"Mel says we'll be able to get to the strong room ten times faster than digging, and it's helluva lot safer than loading these old sewer tunnels up with dynamite."

'<I could warp the dirt out just as fast',>

"Still," Mel cautioned. "I don't know how this place will react, so let's all take a step back and let Sonya do her thing."

The eye-bot hovered down to the wall, blasting a massive shock wave of blue energy directly at a wall of dirt, liquefying it and causing it to sink. The eye-bot kept repeating the same shock to the dirt over and over again, but it was quickly moving forward.

"How'd you find the new guy, Bobbi?" Mel asked, and Meathead realized they were talking about Nate.

"Oh, I got lucky with this one, he came right up to the door and took the job. He's curious, but not too curious, and useful when mirelurks come knocking, and able to talk his way out of getting shot by Marowski's men, so he has his uses."

"Definitely got the old world charm, decent looker, maybe this time we don't burn the bridges, yah?" Mel said, offering an upturned hand towards Nate.

Bobbi didn't respond, "So long as he keeps track of time. Let's see how Sonya is doing."

The next area Sonya tunneled into was ripe with mold and old drain water, but they pressed on. They were in a part of the sewers were a fusion generator was still running active, but the actual passageway to the surface collapsed when the bombs fell. Mel patted his hands along the walls, finding a spot where the dirt was at its weakest.

"<How are you feeling?>" Meathead asked Thunderstruck, he already knew, but he could tell she was aprehensive about following Meathead underground with humans they didn't have much experience with.

She couldn't decide on shaking her head or knodding, "Okay."

"Okay, Sonya. Right here."

The moment Mel said that, Meathead felt something from beyond the wall of dirt, it was annoyance, and curiosity, something was wrong, and primal living in the sewers so close to where they were going to dig into next.

"<I think there's something on the other side of this wall.>" Meathead said, but if he was too quiet, or Mel and Bobbi didn't care, Sonya fired another shockwave blase and tore through the wall.

The emotions of the creature spiked into anger and rage for disturbing it, and when they all saw the creature beyond the wall, Bobbi shouted. "King! King! Kill it!"

A Mirelurk King, nesting right inside the sewer runoffs, Meathead didn't know how to kill it, so he fired his own shots at the Mirelurk King, but was hit by a roar that was as powerful as one of Sonya's sonic blasts. The air was distorted and he felt his ears pop, but he was knocked to the ground and he felt the air leave his chest as if was just punched by a brick.

"<Get back!>" Meathead yelled at the group. Bobbi and Mel didn't need to be told twice, and ran back down the tunnel, Thunderstruck retreated back to far enough not to get caught in any crossfire, leaving him to fight the King alone. "<Now it's just you and me.>"

The Mirelurk King was dripping in mucus, red webbed flanges growing out of its head, down its spine, along the tail. It croaked and the first thing that came to mind was a massively overgrown mutated frog. The large air sack under it's chin inflated, and then another massive sonic wave echoed out and slammed into Meathead. The air was ripped from his lungs and his ears were ringing to a long high annoying whine.

Meathead raised his gun and fired off a dozen shots, but the Mirelurk King croaked again and spat out it's long tongue. It stuck to his arm and in an instant he was ripped off the ground and sailing through the air at the Mirelurk King's jaws and serrated teeth.

Before his arm could be chomped off, a wave of green fire overtook Meathead's form and the guise of Nate was replaced by a much larger Deathclaw. Meathead's arm was now the size of a drainage pipe, claws larger than the Mirelurk King's head, and just as the jaws clamped down. Meathead scowled in pain, but with one arm, the Mirelurk King looked like he was noodled, like a giant catfish caught barehanded.

It's jaws were stretched wider than what it could open, and couldn't let go because it's teeth were sunk into Meathead's arm. Raising the Mirelurk King up, "<Who's the smart one now?>" Meathead said, using the other hand, he gouged the Mirelurk King with the tip of his claw right through the stomach, then ripped down, disemboweling the Mirelurk King down to the groin.

\111/

Bobbi and Mel were sprinting, back into the warehouse they slammed the door behind them and threw the bolt over the door. "Out of the way!" Bobbi yelled at Mel, running for a stack of suitcases on the first floor.

She was panting, not having run that fast for that long in ages. The first case she unzipped and threw everything to the floor. Guns wrapped in clothes tumbled and clattered to the floor, "Where is it?!" She yelled, kicking the pile away. Going ot the second case, she hefted it up, but immediately dropped it from how heavy the suitcase was.

"Here it is!"

"What?!" Mel asked. "Can it kill it?"

"Oh it will!" Fumbling with the zipper, she yanked it down and around the bend, and then flipped open the top.

Swallowing, the gun she had stored away for an emergency event like this was ready and waiting for her.

The fifteen pound rifle was worth it's weight for the piston propulsion mechanism that could drive railway spikes at 500 feet per second. The Railway Rifle.

It took a few seconds for Bobbi to load and turn on, but after sliding the pump bolt in, the semi-automatic feature loaded the rest of the ten rail spikes into place.

Panting and breathing heavily, Bobbi felt much more safe secure with this beast slayer of a weapon in her hands.

"Woo..." She sighed, nodding her head and then convincing herself it would only take a few shots to kill the Mirelurk King. Her desire to see her plans come to fruition were stronger than her fear of the Mirelurk King.

"Shame about the new guy." Bobbi said, "Now, Mel, I want you to open the door, and I'll take the lead. This is the only thing that'll pin that sucker to the wall before it can get to us. I want you to close the door behind me and lock it. If I don't come back in thirty minutes, then I'm dead and I need you to blow the tunnel. Heist's over, not worth it. If that thing get's out, then that thing will get out into Goodneighbor, but you'll be the first thing it kills."

"Got it."

Bobbi stepped slow, going back down the steps to the basement door.

Inhaling and exhaling, she gulped and aimed the rifle out in front of her. Swallowing, Mel opened the door for Bobbi and she went down into the tunnels, primed with the railway rifle, she stepped carefully and listened for any type of movement, any clicks, any croaks.

The silence was only disturbed by her footsteps against dirt and the ground beneath her feet. The sound of her own breath was getting too loud for her own comfort and she tried to hold her breath and listen for any signs that the Mirelurk King was moving towards her.

She expected the sounds of bones crunching, tongue lapping up the blood off bones, the distinguished cries of pain as a man was eaten alive.

But there was none, and that made her all the more cautious. She flicked a light on attached to the end of the rifle, and a beam was cast out into the darkness, brightening up the dark sewers.

Into the first area, she paused at the threshold and scanned the room from end to end, listening to the whirring hum of the fusion generator.

"Bobbi? Mel?" Nate called out. Bobbi flinched after hearing his voice.

"Jesus!" She yelled back, "You're alive?"

"<Close, but I ain't no saint!>" Meathead yelled back, drawing closer to the light. He reappeared in the flashlight's beam, right arm bleeding with bite marks around the bicep, torso stained with the greenish-black blood of the mirelurk King and left arm soaked in more blood up to the elbow. Meathead's left arm was shaking, jittery, but it was all an act. In his left hand was a serrated knife, every inch covered in blood.

Pointing the tip of the rifle down to the floor she asked, "How in the hell did you survive?"

He held up his left hand, "<I killed it with moi' knife!>" He said, throwing in an Australian accent. A few drops fell from the tip of the blade and Bobbi's head rolled up and she took a step back.

"Christ! I thought you were dead." Putting a hand to her face, she wiped her eyes. "Jesus," she said again. "Looks like you got it. I've never heard of anyone outright killing it with a knife, let alone doing it yourself. Good work."

"<What kinda' gun is that?>"

"Railway Rifle, shoots rail spikes they use for railroad ties. I was expecting a lot more of your blood, and a lot less of the Mirelurk King on you."

"<Let me see your light, there's some stuff back here, and I can't see it in the dark.>"

"Stay here and catch your breath, I instructed Mel to stay back." Bobbi said, retreating back up the tunnel. "Jesus," she said to herself a final time. "I can't believe he actually did it."

\111/

When Mel and Bobbi came back down the tunnel, Mel had Sonya right behind them and he was surprised at Nate wiping the mane out of Thunderstruck's eyes.

"Dang, I thought you were dead." Mel admitted.

"Any more in there? Anything else moving around?"

"<Nope, dead end. We'll need Sonya to keep moving forward, but there's some skeletons hanging around a suit of power armor inside, and I need a rag to wipe off all this blood off my... everywhere.>" Meathead looked down at his pip-boy, then both his arms and chest.

Picking up her rifle, Bobbi unfastened the flashlight and tossed it to Meathead. He caught it and lead the way back into the mirelurk den with Bobbi and Mel close behind.

In the center of the floor was a pool of water where the mirelurk king was thriving, but beyond it, still untouched since the day the two skeletons took refuge down here, was a suit of power armor.

"X-01!" Mel said, Meathead raised an eyebrow to question him, but Mel kept speaking. "Trying to find pieces to this suit are hard enough, but holy hell! Bobbi, are you sure this isn't the storeroom right here?"

"<I'm taking it.>" Meathead quickly said, feeling the desire strongly coming from Bobbi and the fascination coming from Mel. "<I'm going to need it, especially if there's any more Mirelurks down here, which at this rate, we could be standing on top of an entire nest." Meathead let a sense of dread wash out from him, infecting both people in a small room.

They didn't know what they were feeling at first, and Bobbi wanted to protest this alien sensation, but the fear gripped at her and she didn't argue Meathead taking the suit for himself. "<I like my arm still attached to my body,>" he said, raising the bite marks on his arm for emphasis.

"For taking out the King, you earned it." Bobbi said, her voice unchanged. Shaking off the sense of dread and uneasiness, she nor Mel knew what came over them, but the thought of more Mirelurk Kings in the tunnels ahead filled them with more fear then they ever felt in a long time.

All and all, it was Meathead manipulating their emotions. Same as drawing emotions out of a person, he could leave them feeling a lack of happiness, joy, and hope.

Taking the suit of X-01 power armor, Meathead never heard of any design with the bearing X-01, the most advanced he'd heard of was the T-60E model from Nate, and that was while he was still in the service.

\111/

Mel took longer to shake off the effects of Meathead's emotional draw, still on edge and consistently thinking that there might be another mirelurk around every corner, he checked their bearing and set Sonya to dig through the walls at a South West setting.

When they came through the next wall, Meathead took the forefront, with Bobbi behind him, pleasantly surprised, the next open area was to a subway station that was still holding up the ceiling.

"Well now, isn't this a grand old time." Bobbi said, looking around the metro station.

"<Watch out, ghouls.>" Meathead said, readying his rifle. Mel flicked another switch on Sonya, and her Tesla energy changed red, and the eye-bot's energy was directed to a single point.

When one crawled to it's hands and knees, Meathead fired the first round from his hunting rifle at the ghoul, which set dozens of more ghouls in the station alert. Bobbi fired her railway rifle, ripping and shearing limbs off the withered humans and impaling the severed limb or skull to the wall dozens of feet behind them.

"<Where'd you get that?>" Meathead asked.

"I use it for killing Mutants. The guy I bought it from made them to hunt Deathclaws, but even those giant bastards still take more than one round to kill those things!" Bobbi yelled, firing six more times. Her pockets were stuffed with twenty extra spikes, which she pulled out, flipping the hopper open and shoving more spikes in. As Sonya fired direct laser beams of energy at the ghouls, Mel took a position far in the back, firing a .50 caliber handgun he grabbed off the floor of Bobbi's warehouse.

Meathead fired at three feral ghouls, shooting each one more than five times, but their radiated forms didn't want to die. Even after Bobbi shot one with her railway rifle and ripped a leg out of the ball and joint socket, the ghoul still crawled along the ground, barely moving at the speed it wanted to, but the sludgy blood oozed out like tar.

Five rounds to kill one ghoul, then another three as more ghouls got closer, making them an easier target. They clawed at the X-01 power armor, not even scratching the armor as their muffled thumps and scraping could be heard through the suit.

Knocking or punching them back, Meathead used his own revolver and rifle in tandem, switching to the handgun when they got too close.

With a final 'Clang!' Bobbi's railway rifle was silent, and they looked around the collapsed subway station. Meathead couldn't even begin to tell which station this actually was, but if he had to guess, closer to the Boston Common, and Vault 114. Even underground, he got turned around from following the hollowed out tunnels. Where they were actually at, only Bobbi knew.

"This is good. This is good." Bobbi said, "This station is right next to the building the storeroom is in. One more wall to dig through, and we'll be right below it.

Pulling out a compass from her pocket, she checked it for a bearing and told Mel to keep letting Sonya dig south.

Mel switched Sonya back into a the sonic emitter mode, and the face of the eye-bot cracked blue with electricity again. Sonya's blasts were unlike the Mirelurk King's, it didn't bother any of them, while the King's were deadly with a punch behind them.

The next wall was eroded enough that when Sonya made her way through, the concrete wall only needed to be kicked through. In a sub-basement of a much larger maintenance area, Bobbi explained, "There's a brewery in the basement of the storeroom, and this has to be this basement it. We're really close now."

"<No more unexpected surprises?>" Meathead asked, casting his senses out, there weren't any other life forms he could feel that were locked in an emotional state. There were however, some human emotions coming from higher above their heads.

They followed the hallways to another dead end, but the rock wall was worn away by water and spilling out. "If Bobbi's directions are correct, and I have my doubts, the storeroom should be right through here."

Sonya blasted her way through the last of the dirt, and the area opened up out to a two story pipe chase with a flooded floor. Hopping down into the water, Bobbi grimaced.

"Great, my socks are wet, but we're here. We're right under the Diamond City Strongroom."

"Diamond City? I've been mapping it out and I think Diamond City should be a little bit farther North of here." Mel said, even Meathead knew that there's no way they could've walked the distance from Goodneighbor to Diamond City completely underground. Checking his Pip-Boy, he knew that they'd been traveling south and west for over an hour.

Mel's prediction was on the right track, but Bobbi replied. "I don't have a doubt in my mind. How about a little faith for the boss?" It was after she said that, her emotions darkened, she was trying to hide them from being expressed. Bobbi was lying and the Changeling disguised as he knew instantly.

"<Well, we'll know when we break through.>"

"That's right. Mel, will Sonya work here?"

"Of course! Look at this foundation though, it's crumbling. One blast and the whole roof should fall right through. We'll...ah...want to be back in the tunnel for this since we are taking out foundation."

"Good thinking." Bobbi said.

"All right then, everybody out. Sonya is probably going to get crushed after this, and it'll take a few days for me to build another one." Meathead thought Mel was funny for getting sad over the thought of losing his robot, but Meathead admitted it was a useful digging tool. For Nate's sake, and the future plans of digging new sewers and pipes, the design had a lot of potential profit in the future. It was a shame that there wasn't more of a demand for one now.

"<Thunder,>" Meathead spoke softly. "<Just keep hanging back. I think we're walking into a setup.>"

Mel set the robot to dig upwards, then ran out after them.

The blast collapsed a whole section of ceiling directly down ontop of Sonya, and the metalic crunching noise sent a ache of pain through Mel's heart. His whole face dropped and he frowned, saddened by the loss.

Bobbi was the one who picked up on Mel's mopey expression and said, "You can make another robot from the haul we get from the strongroom."

The rubble made a partial ramp up to the floors above them, and where they came out looked like a break room with lockers and an old Nuka-Cola machine. There were giant generators that once powered fans to keep wind moving through the underground tunnels, but now they were shut off and covered in dust. Nate looked around the break room, and then to the old faded posters on the walls.

Definitely not Diamond City, but the only way out was through a door. He could feel people's emotion on the other side of that door. They were in the strongroom beyond that door, so Nate called out to Bobbi, "Wait. Do you hear that?" Her hand was on the doorknob, and she gripped it tightly. Her heart was racing, but she was undettered.

"No, we need to go before someone finds this."

Swinging the door open, Bobbi's regret and emotions of boldness rose as she straightened up and readied her railway rifle.

\111/

The Strongroom was a train house, a giant mechanical shop used to maintain trains and house them for later use. There were shelves along the perimeter of the room, but almost all of them were empty. There was a traincar with a sliding door closed on one of the rail tracks, there were rusted motors from car engines thrown into a pile against the wall, with a rusted out crane at the far end of the warehouse.

Only the heaviest of tools and mechanical parts were left behind. Bobbi's frustration rose, and on the catwalk above them, three figures waited behind floodlights aimed down at Bobbi and Meathead. Mel was still taking the cautious route and staying back. There were five people in the next room over, three were angry, determined to fight, while three more figures were farther off, worried.

Meathead recognized the emotion before Bobbi opened the door, and now he was caught in the thick of it.

"You seriously didn't think Hancock wouldn't catch wind of your scheme?" Fahrenheit asked, all three of them readied their assault rifles. Meathead took a step back as Bobbi boldly walked forward. "Hancock took you in, and you're stealing from him? I think I saw that coming from a mile away."

"<I thought I asked you if we were stealing from Hancock and you said no.>" Meathead accused.

"And I lied, don't listen too her," Bobbi said, eyes still on Fahrenheit.

The blonde smirked down at them, "So you kept them all in the dark? Nice No-nose, know's nothing!"

"To tell you the truth, it was pretty dark down there!" Mel called out.

"You all just broke into Hancock's storeroom."

Bobbi's emotions raged at the mention of Hancock, she saw him as an insufferable soft-hearted fool who needed to learn it was easy to rip off a person so willing to help others.

"Dangit Bobbi!" Mel complained.

"Now I know this isn't what you expected, but there's still a ton of caps on the line-" Bobbi said, but Meathead swung his power armor covered fist right into the backside of Bobbi's skull. Thunderstruck watched as her companion beat the female ghoul down.

The audible crack was heard by everyone as she screamed out in pain and landed on the floor. Meathead squatted down and lifted her up by the neck.

"Whoa!" Mel yelled, still gripping the .50 caliber handgun in one hand. He wasn't tempted to bring it up, nor aim at Nate, and dropped it instead.

"<You lied to us Bobbi, and for that, you have to answer to those who you wronged.>" Meathead said, Fahrenheit tilted her head. The filters on the X-01 power armor helmet made it difficult to make out who's voice it was, but she thought the voice sounded familiar, and she was glad Bobbi's mercenary turned on her.

"<What do you want with her?>" Meathead asked, facing Fahrenheit.

Fahrenheit slid her thumb across the throat.

"This...isn't...how it's..."

"It's done." Choking her out in his grip, thumb and pointer fingers tightening around her larynx, she wheezed, coughed, struggling to smash at Meathead's hands, but they pounded uselessly against the X-01 power armor. There was confusion and anger, which made Meathead wonder why humans were always confused when they were about to die, as if they didn't expect it to come so quickly, followed by the anger that they might not survive, and something was keeping them from living.

When she stopped struggling and Meathead didn't feel any emotion left coming from her, Bobbi's body fell to the floor.

"<I apologize for breaking in to your strongroom.>" Meathead said, looking up to Fahrenheit. Thunderstuck came up along side Meathead, feeling safer by his side. The other two watchmen from Goodneighbor were still pointing their guns at them, but with the power armor on, he wasn't holding his breath.

"You made the right move, pawn. That's not the first time Bobbi tried doing this. Hancock will be happy to hear about your loyalty."

Meathead frowned at being called a pawn, but he hid the expression under the X-01 helmet before taking it off. Feeling her emotions shift again as she figured out who the man in the mask was, she was glad it was Nate, and not anyone else.

Inhaling through his nose, a particular scent caught his attention.

"I don't really want any part of this." Mel said, sidestepping Bobbi's body.

"Both of you should go pay respects to the man in person," Fahrenheit said, "It's best to stay on Hancock's good side. Trust me."

His eyes latched onto the traincar. Two frightened figures were on the other side of the door, and with one hand he pointed at the car.

"<Are there ponies in there? How's the Institute pony holding up?>"

"Making friends, wastelander." Fahrenheit replied sarcastically. "Revere, Betsy, come on out. Where'd you find that one?"

The carriage house was silent for a moment, but the latches on the traincar door clicked and then the bars turned, unbolting from the mount. The wheel and door was coated in a brown glow, and Meathead knew instantly what was inside.

"<Ponies.>" Meathead said, smiling. The first mare to come out, Betsy was a unicorn. With brown fur and white hair, her cutie mark was of three shooting stars.

The mare looked young, twenties maybe, but the stallion that looked older. Meathead shuddered at what he saw, it was a blue pegasus with brown hair, but there was only a stump where the right wing joint would've been. Grown over and healed, the damage occurred a long time ago. Revere wore a coat around his midsection, because the stallion couldn't regulate his body temperature without his wings at his side. On his flank was a lantern cutie mark.

They were shocked at seeing Thunderstruck, but because of how well she looked after recovering in the changeling pod, they didn't recognize each other.

They lead the Institute pony, his horn still bound in resin, but his expression turned dark and emotions leaned towards hatred at the sight of Nate.

"<I take it he didn't take to being questioned about the Institute?>"

"Youngblood here doesn't like the surface here as much as he does being locked inside of a cage." Fahrenheit responded flippantly.

"I know you're hiding something." Youngblood said, "And when the Institute finds out how you captured me, you'll all pay for your stupidity!" His voice rose, and the threat only garnered incredulous laughs from everyone except for Mel and Thunderstruck, who were out of their league. Thunder looked at Youngblood, seeing the hatred outpouring from his eyes, his bared teeth, snapping at every word. "And why aren't you killing them?" Youngblood directed the question to Thunderstruck.

"Excuse you?"

"You're too pure to be festering on the surface with these retarded degernates! You have the power to wipe every human off the face of the planet! Humans should be on their hands and knees grov-"

"AND that's enough." Betsy said, her brown magic clenching Youngblood's mouth shut. He fought against the magical grip, but couldn't fight it.

"Well, at least he's talking." Revere said. "Progress."

Meathead felt sad for the pegasus stallion, but Fahrenheit called down to them as she descended the steps from the catwalk.

"He's been more stubborn than a tree stump, and less willing even after Hancock had his way with him." Revere said.

"<Well, Youngblood, that's not up for you to decide now is it?>" Meathead said, walking towards Youngblood. "<And here's the thing about magic and ponies and everything you think you know about what I'm hiding.>"

Meathead was feeling particularly cruel in that moment, welling up all of Nate's frustration's, anger, sadness, lonliness, depression, rage, hatred, and pain, he used the energy to turn the air around them into a cold, desolate sense of dread. Youngblood recoiled, fearful of the burning gaze Meathead cast at the pony.

"<Magicians never reveal their secrets.>"

Youngblood snorted, but Meathead thought it was cute how the pony tried to look intimidating.

"<So when Hancock had his way with you, was he gentle and use plenty of lube?>" Meathhead asked, Youngblood was confused, and then Meathead laughed. Mirroring a confused reaction,

"<Had his way?>" He asked Fahrenheit, and then she filled in the details.

"Drugs, he's tried everything under the sun to get him to speak, but what we have gleaned from his ramblings is that there's not much to like about the Institute. Turns out, as noble as a quest is to purge the surface of all human life, turn us 'savages' into 'docile' super mutants the Institute wants nothing more than to control the super mutants into being their slave labor, just like the synths."

"<There's been leaders throughout history who've accomplished more with less complicated ideals.>" Meathead said, turning to look at Betsy and Revere.

"No one touches the ponies without Hancock's say-so, you understand?" Fahrenheit threatened.

Meathead nodded, "<I understand. Mel, Thunderstruck, let's get out of here while the getting is good. Fahrenheit,>" he said, giving her a two finger salute. She pointed at the door leading outside and gave Nate a hard look, but before they left, Meathead picked up Bobbi's Railway Rifle and strapped it onto his back.

"<I'll see you around, Fahrenheit. Betsy, Revere, good to meet you.>"

\111/

Mel and Meathead, and Thunderstruck walked outside, Mel was bummed that his boss was dead, but he wasn't surprised. He was concerned at how quickly Nate dealt with her, but not by the fact that he did it to keep in the good graces of Hancock.

"Well, I'm broke." Mel said.

"<Nonsense, Mel, I sure as heck wasn't doing this job for caps, I'll pay you right now to set up shop and start cranking out Sonyas.>"

"Seriously? You're just going to offer me that?"

"<You're smart, and a robotics pro. I've got a position open and I want to hire you. If you can modify a robot like that, I want to see what you can do with a whole assembly line.>" Meathead offered, Mel didn't immediately turn down the offer, so he kept speaking.

"<I've got a settlement going North of Concord, you can set up shop there, or where ever you feel most comfortable, but I want you to join us. That Sonya bot could do wonders for rebuilding the miles and miles of sewer lines around the Commonwealth. With just one, we could get whole aquifiers and underground rivers for farming or drinking water all around Boston. You're machine is the real money maker, not ripping off other people.>"

"You think so?"

"<Mel, I'll buy you enough beer to swim in, if that's what it takes, but I don't want you wasting your talents on petty thievery. It's not worth it when you're this smart, but I want you working for me. You''ve just never met the right person who wants to pay you for the work you do with robots.>"

Mel held his head up and looked out at the city of Boston to the North of them. "Not like I got much else to do. All right, deal. I work for beer and caps, and you get some robots. There aren't many places North of Boston thought that has a lot of hardware. There's the Robco Factory over on the East side, but I heard it's been locked down ever since the bombs fell."

"<How about Wattz Consumer Electronics? I make a pass through there to make sure it's safe, then you've got a whole storefront to yourself.>"

"What, you want me to sell these things too?"

"<Why not? Small business is what keeps projects going, and if you give a small percentage to me, I can use it to pay caravans to come through and buy whatever you scrap. We can trade food, water, guns, ammo, booze, whatever you need to get up and running, and I'll make sure it's protected.>"

"How small a percentage?"

"<Thirty percent, that goes to caravans and hired muscle coming your way, and I already know some people in the neighborhood at Bunker Hill who would love to buy some working robots for protection."

Mel inhaled, "Sounds pretty good. I'm heading back to Diamond City to sleep this one off, then in a day or two, I'll go see Hancock after he's had time to cool off. I'll be around the Hotel Rexford if I'm not already there. How long will it take to set up?"

"<Ayha, you know these things, they take a while to set up, but next time I'm passing through Cambridge will be pretty soon. I'll come find you in a week. Would you mind an escort back to Diamond City? I'm heading that way myself, and still got the nice power armor on.>"

"Heck yeah. I have no idea where we got spat out. I know were just a little south of Boston at some trainyard, but I haven't been this way in a long time."

Meat glanced down at his pip-boy. "<We're about twenty blocks south of Diamond City.>"

"Great. I knew we were farther south than the strongroom. Hey, what was with those ponies in there? And why was Fahrenheit so defensive about them?"

"<Those ponies were forced into being slaves by raiders who took over Nuka-World a year ago. The one mouthing off came from the Institute, but apparently he's not forthcoming about the details. Thunderstruck, is there anything you want to add?>"

Looking at Mel, she didn't want to talk to him at first, looking down at the ground towards Meathead's feet. Drawing her head up to look them in the eyes.

"We were bought, sold, or butchered." She said.

"The way the brown one looked at you with those big darn eyes reminded me of that time I accidentally kicked a cat and it looked up at me all sad. Didn't mean to, I just didn't see it."

"<It's called humanity. Now, let's get moving, I don't want to stand out here in the open like this for too long. Thunder, how do you feel about flying overhead?>"

\111/

Next Chapter: Ch. 64 The National Guard Estimated time remaining: 15 Hours, 49 Minutes