"For how well that unicorn's coat is, that Palo Santo is from the Institute."

"<Like Youngblood?>"

"Yes, but maybe more open-minded. Did you get a read on everyone in that room right? All living?"

"<Yep. All flesh and blood. The Near-mint condition unicorn with the pink mane looks just as fresh out of a vault or bunker as we-do, with less gore in her hair.>

"Well, let's help Deacon run this errand, and see about getting in with the Railroad a little more."

"How can you see everyone in there is human?" Hancock interjected.

"<With my eyes, Hancock.>"

"Funny. So, what I've been trying to figure out, is...why didn't they ever come back?"

"Who?"

"<The ponies?... The Princesses you mean?>"

"Yeah. If I know where guys from Goodneighbor go when they go out, at the least I can send some guys to go check on them if they don't show up after a few days. But, that's just me. The Princess of the ponies, or whatever, everyone before the war must've had a way better way of tracking and keeping all this shit organized, so I wanna know is why didn't they ever come back. I'm no chump, but I can put two and two together to see that after the bombs fell, radiation or not, they got abandoned here."

"<Athena suggested something along the same lines.>" Meathead said, "<Pickman's companion.>"

"Maybe they can't come back. Inside Vault 81 was a Glowing Ghoul Unicorn, it looked like it was casting a spell, but its whole horn melted in on itself before the whole pony combusted. I don't know enough about magic to know if that's what the Glowing Unicorn was going for, or if it just went 'poof'. Does radiation affect your magic, Meathead?"

"<No, not like that.>"

"But it could affect a pony, though."

"<Yes.>"

"Then it's safe to safe, after a pony absorbs a certain threshold of radiation, they develop radiation sickness. Extrapolate the effects over a few weeks, and after a month, you may wind up with a pony that can't teleport or portal their way back to Equestria."

"What do you mean, not like that?" Hancock asked.

"<It's an energy that's more visible to me than it is to you, if you want to go all metaphysical, changelings bodies are shielded from certain energies, drawing in others, channeling energy around us, Earth has an energy, that's why it's so easy for me to dig through the ground, or how we're able to see humans."

"So who all in there was a synth?" Hancock asked, "I been thinking about it ever since you said you could tell the difference."

"<Everyone I saw in there, Hancock. They were all human.>"

"Then why would a human say they were a synth?" He followed up with another question.

"<When we, I, helped the Railroad outside of Charlestown, one of their agents showed up with a synth named H2-22. I was a heavy gunner for another agent who came to retrieve him. Somewhere in the Commonwealth is a doctor capable of doing facial reconstruction. Link the doctor, the lying about being a synth, and the fact that humans can't tell a synth from a human apart, even while under the knife, together, and you'll see that this is an opportunity for them to get a fresh face. Either they're running, or hiding, and this was a chance for them to reinvent themselves.>"

"Bah, there ain't no helping perfection," Hancock said, referring to himself. Scratching the side of his withered cheek and tenderly rubbing the area where his nose would've been, it burned away along time ago.

\111/

The path Nate, Hancock, and Meathead took lead them Northwest through Charlestown, through the quiet neighborhoods of Cambridge, this is where Meathead alerted them of a large group of people moving north through the area. Spotting a slave train of twenty men and woman, three dirt coated ponies, two brown stallions, and an orange mare in the rear hauling gear. All shackled and tied together with chains and rope, whatever the raiders could find, with thirteen marauders leading the train South. They wore whatever clothes they could wrap around themselves to prepare for the colder months ahead of them, but were emaciated and starving.

Tired creatures, Nate and Hancock were unprepared for the sudden appearance of the slave train. Outgunned, out in the open, with no fallback location, these marauders were experienced in being attacked on the road non-stop, all day and night, with slaves running away. It burned Hancock there was no obvious solution to deal with the slavers, free the slaves, and make a full-on sprint back to Goodneighbor, but there wasn't time to spring a trap or corner the whole group into stopping. Shooting would put the people in chains at risk of being shot, and forced to eat his own words, Hancock shook his head and said, "I don't think we can risk it."

Too many variables weighed against them, and the human train kept on with their march, keeping pace. Both disgusted and angered by the practice of slavery, it made their palms itch. In another minute, they were over a hundred yards away and rounding a block corner.

\111/

After an hour of walking, Meathead directed them to the west of them and followed the highway overpass for a quarter mile until coming to the place the Railroader described.

Without much natural cover, no place to retreat to, or hide if someone else came along, it wasn't the ideal meeting place, but they could see further to the west was a massive Gunner base built up on top of the highway overpasses, with a broken chunk of road laying on the ground, preventing them from expanding this way.

Deacon was easy to spot, but he was sporting a different look. A grubby coat looking like he picked it up off the ground, a wide brim, formal black hat, scarf, grey trousers, brown boots, he was waiting for them to arrive.

"Thanks for meeting me, and Hancock, you're looking especially crusty." Deacon's smile was pressed into containing his enthusiasm for a recruit. The Railroad agent changed his clothes to a beige-tan overcoat. Deacon was now bald but wore a wide gardener's hat to cover his head and sunglasses. "Bet you didn't even recognize me."

"My, what a lovely baritone you have," Hancock said.

"Eh...I'll fool one of you, one of these days. Anyway, over yonder, a few blocks from this highway turnoff is one of our old hideouts. It was based out underneath an old Slocum Joe's."

Deacon lead the group up to the top of the access on-ramp. "There, you can see the road pretty much up to the turn, sixteen blocks up, and there's the roof, partially caved in. Big, two-story building. You can see the top of the lettering for the coffee shop. Blue, white, little dash of pink."

"I got it," Nate said

"You gotta scope?" Deacon asked.

Nate nodded, "Come down a little farther," Deacon said, leading them closer. One-thousand feet down the highway, and they were looking directly into the second floor of Slocum Joe's. "Palo Santo is nearby in the Parking Garage of the Super-Duper Mart, waiting for our signal to get closer. Tell me if you can see a synth standing there on the second floor with a gun."

Peering through his binoculars, Nate didn't even need to look that hard to see all the hazards and synths around the shop.

"I see two on the top floor, three on the bottom."

"And there are two ways to get it, either through all those synths, or we go through the sewers which was our bogey exit, and it probably has synths still sitting there from when we got chased out."

"Well, that sounds like a problem then, Deacon. I have no issue taking out five synths with the three of us. How many more do you expect inside?"

"There could be a small army, or there could be none, all we know is everything on the outside hasn't changed in days. Whichever way we go will be like dealing with jack in the boxes, they'll spring right up and pop into action the moment we get close."

"Then, let's go for the front door. Quietly. Have you ever crept up on a robot while it's in sleep mode? I used to do it with Mr. Handy's."

"Yes, if you think a frontal assault is the way to go, then I'll back you."

"Good. It'll be easy then."

\111/

Between the four men all stealthily making their way through Lexington, they were able to make it to the outside walls of the Slocum's Joe doughnut and coffee shop without raising detection from the synths.

Some were locked into a standing position, like mannequins, others sitting cross-legged. Peeking through a broken window before dipping back down again. "You two," He whispered, gesturing with his pointer and middle, "Stay here, I go around back. I get their attention, or you hear me start shooting, then you go."

They both nodded, Meathead following Nate as they went around to the back door. It was kicked open, the door latch failing to catch after years of abuse. "Can you use your magic to rip out their neck joints?" Nate asked.

Meathead nodded. "Then let's get them."

Moving into the back of the store, the ground creaked, floorboards bending in. Passing by the staircase in the back hall, he came around to the front of the store, and saw the three synths and took aim. A green glow wrapped around the first synth's head, before a short electrical snap jerked the synth backward and the wiring was torn right out. Nate fired his shotgun, blowing eight small divots into the second synth's body and head, blowing a hole through the machinery with a second-round as Deacon and Hancock rose and fired on the third. Immediately they could hear two more synths spring to action and march down the steps, but Nate was already in a defensive position, Deacon and Hancock ran inside, taking cover in front of the counter to watch the doorway to the back hall. When the first synth ran through, they all fired, killing it in a spray of metal parts, torn carbon fiber limbs, and a shower of hydraulic oil. The second synth responded differently, jumping through the frame and missing the second volley they all fired, but they were quick to re-aim and fire again as the synth fired off two laser rounds from a rifle.

Remaining quiet, they all listened for sounds of more movement for ten seconds before saying anything else. Letting the ringing in their ears die out, Hancock asked, "Think that's it?"

"For up here, at least. Come on. There's a secret elevator in the basement."

\111/

Downstairs was a fully equipped bakery and kitchen for the store above, despite being used by the Railroad, they'd left most of the things untouched to prevent anyone else coming along raising suspicion that there were people active in the area.

"Behind the wood shelving." Deacon waved his hand towards the right-hand wall with a hand-wash sink as they entered the basement. It was the only thing out of place in the basement, having moved as agents came in and out of the base before the Institute forced them out.

Their footsteps echoed in the old building, every step they took down the stairs and crossing the basement floor sounded ten times louder than the ground floor. A minute later they heard the clopping of hooves against concrete, and Palo Santo appeared in the front entrance, following the trail of destruction down to the basement.

They pulled the shelving away from the wall, and Deacon called out, "They cut the power." Thinking about it for a moment, he sighed. "Shoot. The Backup power is in the sub-basement. I guess escape tunnel it is, at least it'll be easier getting out." Deacon said, his mind already walking the path back out.

Meathead looked up to Nate, he hadn't given up yet. "Get me a crowbar," Nate said, looking around the room, there was nothing to use, so Nate went upstairs, and returned two moments later with a synth's arm, and was able to force the arm joint between the seal in the elevators door. Working it side to side, he was able to slip it in further and work the doors apart.

After Nate was able to part the doors, Hancock and Deacon's attitudes changed, reaching their hands in, all three of them forced the doors open with ease, showing a black elevator shaft. Ten feet, a bit of a drop, but Nate turned on his pip-boy light took point, and jumped down. Landing on the roof of the elevator, he helped Deacon and Hancock down, then caught Meathead as he leaped.

Pulling the top of the hatch open on the elevator, they dropped down again, forcing the doors open from the inside. "You're resourceful." Deacon said, "Santo, wait here, we'll switch on the power. I don't think you can fit through the escape hatch. You can ride down after we flip it back on. Everyone else, watch for Gen 1 and 2's."

"Are you looking for anything in particular?"

"A prototype device Doctor Carrington was developing."

"What's it look like? Big? Small? Something that would've been left out on a desk?"

"Small, it could slip into your pocket." Deacon went to a small computer wired into an inlet next to the elevator, tapping a few buttons of command code to restore power to the elevator. "Better do it now, before we need to use it." He reasoned out loud.

\111/

The synths inside the underground base were patrolling the halls, concrete walls that gradually lead down a series of stairs on one half of the hallway, with a ramp on the other, sloping down, indicating they wheeled large machinery down through here. With the tight quarters, shotgun shells were especially effective at the close clusterings of synths. Fighting through each area, reaching the foyer, a central office overlooking a larger work bay with desks and computers were all arranged in a square formation.

They passed over two humans slain, shot in the back with laser fire as they were running away. The Hallway branched, towards Databanks, towards the Water Closets, and X Department. "We'll need to go right, and there's no reason we should go left except to make sure synths don't come up our butthole while we're getting into the security vault back in the research department. It's loud, and a process to open with all these magnetic locks going click-click-click all the way around."

"Then we go right, make sure it's clear, then while you're opening the vault, Hancock and I will take Meathead and sweep the facility. If we run into trouble, we fall back to the elevator and go up."

"Again, if you want to keep going full frontal assault, go right ahead. I'll pop the door and follow up."

With synths stationed around, spread out through the facility, it was easy to pick them off in groups of two or three. With them barely having enough time to fire a shot-off before being gunned down by Nate and Hancock. They came to the bathrooms and Nate laughed, "Cleanest toilets I've seen since leaving home."

Behind them came a loud 'click-click-click', sounding like a metal car door slamming shut. The elevator hummed and dinged, with Palo Santo emerging to go straight for the Research department. Picking up things with her magic and gathering them all in her enlarged saddlebags, she hummed while she worked, ignoring the humans as they carried on with their security sweep.

"Goodneighbor would kill for this type of living space. I know plenty of people who would be happy with a roll-out sleeping mat anywhere in here."

"That's what I'm thinking too."

Deacon came running up to them quickly, petering off once he saw that there were a few downed synths and they weren't actively being hunted.

The central office was decorated with a rich blue rug and a wide oak desk, an American flag in the corner. With two staircases on either side leading down, below them on the main floor was an insignia on the floor that said 'Defense Intelligence Agency'. A few more past Railroaders made their last stand here, with a security door leading to a pipe-chase where the escape tunnel leading back to the surface was located. To the right side of the room was the generator room, 4 fusion generators, three of them powered down, not even in use, while the fourth hummed along.

"We're in a secret Defense Intelligence Agency research lab, a place that never officially existed. It's called the Switchboard."

"What were they doing with places like this?" Hancock asked, "How'd the Railroad get found out?"

"Spying through phone lines and collecting information as far as we can observe. I could point to some reasons on why the Institute found us, but plain and simple, this location was meant to be popular in the old days. This building is supposed to be visible from the highway, it's supposed to have a lot of foot traffic of humans walking by, coming into the donut shop above, where agents could give a wink-and-a-nod or whatever they did back then to get to the back room and take the lift down, without drawing attention. I think we were too...secretive, suspicious that a whole bunch of Railroad agents would go into this building, but then never come out? I think if we put up the storefront as a cover front, we would've been able to keep up the guise a little longer. We would've been more alert about enemies coming, and buy time for people to escape, but we didn't. We were worried about attracting the attention of Jared and the raiders from Corvega."

"This place is still one of the most secure places I've been in in a long time, Deacon. Does the Railroad have any intention of retaking this place?"

"No, once a safe house has been burned, it's just asking for attention and trouble if we tried moving in again. That, and most people wouldn't want the bad memories."

There were five more synths, with all four of them picking a target, Meathead tackled one synth to the ground as a hail of gunfire and laser blasts lit up the air for three seconds. Their ears were warm from how loud the gunshots were in the enclosed area, but they shook it off fairly quickly.

"What do you know about the earlier generations?" Nate asked.

"Stepping stones used along the way to develop the near-perfect human lookalikes today. The Railroad isn't fully united on how we feel about them."

"If the choice came down to sending one piece of machinery that I could rebuild 10,000 times over to fight my enemies, or losing 10,000 human lives, which do you fear more? The one machine that keeps coming back, or the swarm of 10,000?"

"As I said, it's an issue that usually ends with people agreeing to 'Put a Pin in it', till later. Everyone agrees on the liberation of the Gen 3s, the most human-looking. Some of the synths in the Railroad, like Glory, think we should help earlier models, too. But, if you look at the programming of a Gen 1 vs a Gen 2, It's like a protectron to a Mr. Handy. A Mr. Handy to an assaultron, then after that it's like an assaultron to you and me. At which point do we say we're being too broad on our direction? AI rights? Terminals? Turrets? It's a regular firework show every time. Speaking of, Tinker flipped on the turrets before making it out. It stopped a few, but Coursers blew right through."

Deacon didn't even stop, "Coursers are top of the line, Institute tech. They will fuck up your day."

"How so?"

"They take all the muscles of a human synth and replace it with high-density armor plating, and then give it a machine gun after strapping bombs onto its chest as a final fuck you and everything in the general vicinity of you. So yeah, Nate. I fear the robot that keeps coming back."

"Then you'd feel a sense of dread or dejavu if you ever find a copy of the movie Terminator."

"The what?

"The Terminator, in the future, nuclear war is caused by robotic AI taking over nuclear missile defense systems. They determine the most destructive threat to AI is humans themselves, so they resolve this by launching all of America's nukes. A robot is sent back in time to kill the mother of a person who would lead a resistance against robots after the Great War against Skynet. Which, in retrospect, we called one of the missile defense systems Skynet, and it almost became a self-fulfilling prophecy based on a freaking movie made in the 1980s. Thank God it was only humans who pulled the nuclear trigger and not rogue AI that logically reasoned surface-dwelling humans were the greatest threat to their existence. And it's not like the Institute is completely controlled by soulless machines who send out legions of undying robots that can be brought back to base to be built over and over again! That would be chaos!" Nate shouted at the end.

"What the hell kind of stuff were humans watching back then?" Deacon asked, even Hancock looked like he was about to ask the same question.

"Historical-Fiction, you could call it now."

Deacon leads the group back up to the research department, passing a room marked databanks, Nate nearly passed by until out of the corner of his eye he saw blueprints tacked to the wall. "Whoa, hold up." He said, walking in, he went to the blueprints and blinked his eyes. Schematics and notations to building Mark 5 Sentry Tanks, Mr. Gutsy Mark 7s, Assaultrons, Nate carefully pulled it off the wall and examined it, holding it like the lost text it was.

"Holy, geeze, this is what they would've been after, Deacon. This. This has got handwritten notes about all the improvements and upgrades they were making for the newest of weapons and equipment. This is all experimental, high-end stuff...I wouldn't even know where they would test-build this stuff. I'm just looking at this and seeing how freaking impossible it would be to take one of these things out."

"Put it away for a rainy day then. Make sure the Institute doesn't wise up and come back for it."

"You really say that?" Hancock asked, hoping for more clarification.

"When I was in the Army, there were Mark 2s in use. Everything was an experimental stage, the Mark 2s went through a dozen subclasses, some were armed with lasers, others miniguns, launchers, but these show plans on how to deal with the trapped heat from the fusion cores by creating heat sinks out and through layered shingle plates to allow more flexibility for the turret and for it to breathe. Just knowing about this would be enough to put me in federal prison for a long time."

"Then small miracles those people aren't around anymore." Deacon said, "Come on, I've got something for you."

To the left of the Research Department's security vault was an infirmary. It was about as untouched as the day the Railroad left it, and they didn't even get much of a chance to use it, so it was fully stocked with medical supplies, morphine, surgical equipment, antibiotics, penicillin, tramadol, and so on. Most of the items were encased in a cellophane plastic wrap, preserving them outside contamination.

Nate's heart was pounding, everything that a surgeon would need for the direst of wounds in a battlefield, from replacement surgical saws to outfit Curie, to a chest-spreader, sterile IV bags, heart monitors, everything he was searching for was all right here.

"Bottom shelf, there's the hazmat suits you've been looking for."

In a metal box, three times the size of an ammo crate, was a perfect condition hazmat suit, with a manual on how to wear and use the suit. Nate didn't know what to say at first.

"Hey, Deacon."

"Yeah?"

"So, you seem to know a lot. I'm coming back to this place, this is everything I need to save my wife."

"I know. There's a skilled plastic surgeon with the Railroad who's expanded into pulling bullets out of people. But, I haven't been able to get ahold of since the Switchboard collapsed, I'm also tracking down leads for hard drives that could tell your friend how to do the surgery."

Still taking a mental inventory of everything here, "Thanks." He said.

Deacon held up a small microchip, the size of two thumb drives. "This is it," Deacon said, holding it up for them to see. Deacon looked down to right on the ground, waving his right hand towards the decomposed body laying inside the vault. "That's Tommy. Tommy Whispers."

Squatting down beside the body for a moment, "I had really hoped he made it out."

Deacon leaned down, slowly pausing as he lifted Tommy's body enough to reach inside the coat. Patting the inside, he felt the metal grip and pulled the gun out. It was a Walter P9, with a comically large 8-inch suppressor that is more suited for an assault rifle, than a handgun.

"Here take this. You'll never find another gun like it. Tinker restored it, it's powerful, and most importantly it's quiet."

Checking the slide to see if it was loaded, it wasn't, so he tucked the Walter away in his waistband.

"Find what you're looking for?"

"Yeah. We get this back to Desdemona, and she'll let you in."

Nate looked around the strong room, seeing some of the most valuable things in the Commonwealth, sitting on the shelves. Two stealth boys and three mini-nukes, just waiting for someone to come along and grab them.

"Well, now..." Hancock began, spotting the mini-nukes.

"Deacon. You and Santo head back, I need to do another pass through here, I'll take the escape tunnel out and clear that too. There's too much valuable stuff laying around here for me not to see what else I missed. After that, we'll be back at the Church."

"Alright, don't take too long though," He said, pocketing the prototype and leaving them.

\111/

Carting up Railroad member bodies, and fifteen synths; Nate, Hancock, and Meathead walked away from the Switchboard with high energy and hopes, knowing they would come back here often.

Nate found his radiation suit, he had his armor and more weapons than most gun-store owners, and now nothing was stopping them from packing up and heading south.

Next Chapter: Ch. 70 Desdemona Estimated time remaining: 14 Hours, 16 Minutes