Travis 'Lonely' Miles looked at the script he wrote for himself, smiling a goofy grin and checking out the clock. Waiting for the second hand to come back around to the 12, he had his right hand on the switch. Mentally counting down.

Clearing his throat, he threw the switch,
"What's up Diamond City? I was just at the Dugout Inn, having a drink, and then I couldn't help but look into my glass and start thinking about this song. It made me laugh. I felt embarrassed that I was laughing so much in the bar, most of the bar was looking at me. But I couldn't stop laughing!

I had to slam my beer- choking on it a few times. Coughing real loud, way to go Travis.
Anyway, And Travis Said, Let there be lips." He licked his lips and straightened up.

"Crazy He Calls Me, by Billie Holiday.
Coming up next.
Brought to you by Diamond City Radio."

October 25th, 2287

5:35 A.M. Sunrise in twenty minutes.

The rusted chain link fence was bent, warped, and wrapped around most of the Starlight Drive-In movie theater. The massive fifty-foot tall screen was three times as wide and could fit to show the lot of two hundred fifty cars a movie at any time after sundown. The parking lot was a field of weeds, poking out through the concrete with a sinkhole of dirty, radioactive water in the center. The drain field collapsed after the lack of maintenance and pooling stagnant water over the years, aided along with radioactive barrels that were illegally dumped and buried right under the center of the lot

The snack bar was at the back end of the lot, an oval circuit shaped building with a concrete patio and eroded red and white tiles on the inside. Layers of dirty footprints and a makeshift cooking spit out, along with a shopping cart ripped apart, and the grates used as a grill over a car rim campfire. It made it clear that at some point during Nate and Meathead's two hundred ten year tenure, the place was used.

Empty popcorn machines, with paper bags coming in four sizes from small personal bags to family size. An untouched hot dog warmer and a rack for pretzels stood side by side, some untouched and stale. With bags of corn tortilla chips and jars of salsa, there was a liquid cheese dispenser next to that. Two soda fountains were untouched and covered with dust, displaying Vim and Nuka-Cola, Nuka-Cola Cherry, Grapefruit, Lemon-Lime, Orange, Root Beer, and Lemonade, and the last slot was marked with bold black letters, Water.

Next to the machines were stacks of paper cups coated with wax to prevent moisture from turning the drink cups into pulp after being filled were upside down and layered with dust.

Two drip coffee machines and a metal hotel pan filled with grayed coffee cups and spiderwebs on top of them. Packages of ground coffee sat piled up in the box next to the coffee maker, along with filters.

The snack bar also served as a ticket counter for people arriving, with a projected roof over the ticket window. On the other side of the building, the same projected roof was collapsed, turning it into a ramp. This second roof had the markings of exit for cars leaving. Built into the building was a projection booth that was built forty-five feet up into the air with a staircase going up the inside.

There were wooden plank tables held together with large steel bolts, and skeletons sitting at them with their hands wrapped around bottles of Nuka-Cola or coffee mugs.

The marquee was used to display showtimes for two movies that were playing in the year 2077. The first was Captain Cosmos and the second, The Silver Shroud. Spots of mold and algae buildup bloomed against the whitewashed and sun-bleached plastic.

A pile of dead mole rat carcasses and bloodstains from where they were killed, to where they were dragged to, displayed the recent activity at the old drive-in movie theater.

\111/

Nate was already set up for the morning, the remains of his fire from last night were rekindled into a decent small sized fire inside the car rim firepit. He took a small scavenged saucepan filled with water and was boiling it on the makeshift stove.
Shaking out oversized coffee filters, banging out the dust. Underneath the counter inside the snack bar, Nate found a sealed plastic bag filled with rags, and he used one to wipe out two coffee cups.

With water simmering, he took a paper cup and poked holes in the bottom of it to make a strainer to for the filters to rest in. Opening the packet of coffee, he put it to his nose and sniffed it.

The same dark roasted, almost chocolate smell, with toasted oak and dry dirt smell came up to meet his senses. He inhaled and sighed, relaxing his shoulders. Scooping two big spoonfuls into the filter

From half a mile away, he heard barking.

Nate turned his head up and looked all around him in every direction for the source of the noise. He put both pointer fingers into his mouth, curling his tongue back and then blowing out an ear-splitting whistle.

It was another five minutes before Meathead could be seen picking his way through the tall grass and weeds. Going around cars, the dog kept on moving straight for Nate.

He poured the boiling water into the drip cups and watched Meathead cross the drive-in movie theater lot, to him at the snack bar. By the time Meathead reached Nate, there were two cups of coffee ready, with steam coming off the top.

"What did you learn?" He said, offering the cup of coffee to Meathead. The uncertainty was plain to see on his mouth.

"<Nate, what are we doing?>"

Nate didn't respond immediately, taking a quick sip of his coffee, he set it down onto the table and then looked at Meathead's ears. They were raised, interested in what he had to say.

"We're advantageous, that's what we are, Meathead."

Nate picked up both cups and carried them inside the snack bar. Waiting for Meathead to enter behind him, he turned around and nudged the door closed with the tip of his boot.

Meathead was wrapped in a flash of green fire and re-emerged in his changeling form. Now able to see over the countertops, and level with Nate's sternum, it was easier for the changeling to look Nate in the eyes with his own blue, dichoptic eyes, layered with over 1000 lens.

"Would you like any coffee, Meathead?" The bug shook his head. "What do you want to know?"

"<What are we?>"

Nate nodded. "Can you tell? We're two people who just don't want to die yet. You don't want to die, I don't want to die, so let's try not to die, together." He added on, trying to look at the changeling differently.

Meathead shook his head. "<It's troubling, knowing what the past was like, how...structured and organized things were. Trust was more freely given...sparingly, but it was there. Not like this, not like Corvega."

"Then, for your sake, we are a man and his dog, going to find his lost son. If you want to tell me more about who or what you are, I'd love to learn. I don't know what to tell you, that you wouldn't already know from living with us for the last three years. I see you...and I still see my dog. This...real you...I don't know of any animal on Earth that looks like you do. I don't know of any animal that can talk like you do. So you must not be an animal, but something more."

"I don't know what we are, any more than...." Nate exhaled through his nostrils. "People who've finally decided to talk to each other."

"When you ask me, what are we, it took the world a couple hundred years for the communication barrier to break down and two hours for you to admit that you weren't a dog and something more. Meathead, what we are is the last of a dying breed. I'd rather face oblivion, eternity, or whatever is on the other side of the Wall of Death always coming for us, with some company, telling stories about all the good old times we had and bullshitting about the things we wish we could change." Nate exhaled again, chest shaking and eyes burning.

"But you know? You Changelings helped the Americans in Alaska. You let us stand on your back, raising up the humans to see what was on the other side of that wall, Meathead. And then, I understand. You say I might not understand everything, that's true. I know nothing. But, what I can observe is that everyone you've ever known aside from me is most likely dead.

And that's made you scared, Meathead. You had a whole bunch of baggage and projects on the side that you always wanted to finish, but that time has passed, and now it's time to face the much harsher reality." Taking a sip of his coffee, he cringed at the black, unsweetened, bitter drink, and relished at how powerful it tasted after all this time.

"You don't want to die, Meathead. Neither do I. Like every single person who has ever lived, you are afraid of dying before leaving your mark on the world. You want to be remembered, Meathead. You want others to remember you, and that's not a bad thing to want. Not as my dog, but as a changeling. Unlike the monkeys, or the dogs, or the cats, birds, bees, you have a chance to share your history. You have a chance to share and pass on your entire changeling history and traditions, and customs, because we can't go back home. But, the only one whom you feel like you can tell is me. I don't know where your home is, so I don't know what's stopping you from going home and leaving me here."

Meathead's head tilted straight up and his eyes went upwards for only a second, a physical response to the one thing on his mind.

Nate nodded.

"Meathead. Do you know what happened to China in the 1950s?"

He shook his head, no.

"The Communist Uprising. Do you know what happened to all the Buddhists, monks, gurus, priests, and holy men in China and Tibet during that time?" Nate asked, Meathead only gave an impartial shake of his head.

"They left. They needed to get the fuck out of China or be executed. That's why the Dhali Llama, the spiritual leader of the Buddhist religion fled in exile through the Himalayas to India. He was labeled a terrorist by the Chinese government and is leading in exile ever since. All his followers who didn't want to die packed up everything and left. They left their homes, their belongings, neighborhood, neighbors, friends, family, fields, their jobs, their temples and their shrines, and towns because they knew that the Chinese were coming for them like a wall of death.

When they got to India, and beyond, they realized one thing. WE CAN NEVER GO BACK, Meathead. We can't go back. As much as I screamed and yelled, and fucking cursed the sun and everything under it, I'm not any closer to giving my speech that night in the year 2077. So, when all these monks and holy men realized that, they looked for any way to pass along everything they knew to someone who could pass it on. The only way I know this is because I met fifteen years ago when I was fresh out of high school and my friend Bobby was a Jew who got me interested. He said he was going to Mexico to see this man, and I told him he had me at Mexico."

"The man came to back to America and wanted to teach people what was truly happening over in Asia to the Buddhists. He was a white guy in his twenties in India while the Communist Uprising was happening."

"He was there, in that part of the world learning about all the Hindu Gods and all their beliefs, doing the scholarly thing, when BOOM! A flood of immigrants came in and took one look at this white man and said, 'Hey! We can pass everything we know to him! We can teach him everything! He can take in all our traditions, all our culture, and make sure it stays alive. We can use him to make sure that this knowledge that's been passed down for the last three to five thousand years still exists after we die, Meathead. He had a lot to say about the world's religions, and what I got from him is that governments are temporary. Religion is forever. How do you think the Jews keep getting back up after all the crap they've gone through because of my religion? "

"So. I don't know why you decided what you did, but I think I understand what was happening at the time to make you reach out to me and talk." Nate said, the long analogy was long, but he hoped Meathead saw the connection.

Meathead swallowed, his jaw mandibles moving like he was biting the inside of his lip. Ticking back and forth like metronome out of sync with the timing.

"How you decide to deal with that is up to you. I'll always remember you like my dog, and if you want to go back to a time where there was abundant love all over the place, where we fed you every day, and scratched your neck, took you on walks, and gave you baths, and let you lick our faces, then fine. I would be more than happy to always have that." Nate was leaning against the counter, "But..." Nate swept his hands towards the windows and around the old snack bar.

"I want to go back to that old life as much as you do, only you can still be a dog if you wanted to. I have to be a human on Earth, you can be anything here. And if you really want to go back, we need to keep moving forward. Eventually, things will come full circle."

"<Agreed. The leader for Corvega is dead. I apologize if you had any plans for him.>"

"Okay. What happened?"

"<Mama Murphy was there, she had a magical surge and was drawing in a lot of different energies, and also projecting a lot of wildly different energies in return>."

"<Have you ever heard someone ask for something in a way like, 'I don't care how You do it, just get it done!' It's like that, except she was asking a God, or demons or whatever, but she didn't care whom she was asking. She was asking to channel energy, and something gave it to her>."

"What kind of energy?" Nate asked, interested.

"<The bad juju, kind. Like if you were walking down the street, and you saw a homeless person inject themselves with heroin, but then they see you want to come to give you a hug. That type of bad juju, she was wearing that energy like a fur coat dipped in black oil>."

"What happened to her?"

"<She broke, too much mental strain from all the excess magic, but I could tell the difference between magic. There's my good, holding, grounding, work energy that I use for digging, telekinesis, and changing my appearance. Then there's her. Her's was like some different-dimension, hungry-ghost. Jared forced her into that cycle through drugs, she was going insane. She was pulling in four different types of energies, and I didn't want any part of it. She was calling upon all the energies, good and bad, to try and keep herself sane. She was doing magic, I looked at her eyes and they were shooting out energy. She was being overfilled with cosmic energy...and when you ask for energy, you need to be aware of where it comes from, and what it's used for.>

"I'll be sure to remember."

<They're using free drugs to draw in numbers, there's thirty-nine raiders at the plant as of six hours ago, plus another thirty out roaming around. Mama Murphy and Sturges are both held in captivity, but Murphy was the target of their leader, Jared. He did something to her, gave something to her, and she was a rambling mess to everyone who was human in that room.>"

Nate waggled his head, jutting his head forward a few inches and squinting. "Can you feel that it's actual magic?"

"Can I feel magic? Yes. It's like hearing a microwave running. Some decide to toss in aluminum to make sparks or a book of matches to make fire. But the noises that were coming from Mama Murphy's head, it's like someone threw in a baked potato, wrapped in aluminum foil, and cranked the machine on to 'nuclear'. I could practically see the smoke coming out of her ears, and the light coming from her eyes.

"What did she have to say?"

"<Hounds, Tartarus. Dog. Ma. The killer is alive, Dog, Killer in the square in the square. She pointed right at me when she said "Killer in the square, ma, in the square. There was an inflection in her voice.>"

"Killer in the square in square...square in the square..." Nate turned around, walking towards the snack bar. Piled up on the counter were a few things Nate scavenged from around Concord and Lexington, mostly ammo, plenty of colas, and a couple guns including a snub nose .44 and a laser pistol, boxes of preserved food, and shoving everything to the side, was some magazines.

"While I was out, I overheard a group of raiders talking about a man named Boomer carrying around a Fat Man..."

Hot Rodder, the cover showing a custom kit car with a flame paint job, Taboo Tattoos, showing a naval Sailor clenching his jaw and flexing his arm as an ink needle designed an anchor tattoo on his right bicep. Finally, The Wasteland Survival Guides issues 5 and 8.

"North of..."

The latter books were bound together with braided cord and showed crude pen drawings. The paper was soft and worn and covered in stains. Issue #8, Self Defense Secrets showed a man mid-jump-kick, with an explosive corona around his outstretched fist and him yelling a battle cry.

"The Galleria." Nate finished, moving the book aside and finding the one he was looking for. Holding it up for Meathead to see, he offered it to the dog and felt

Issue #5, the Road to Diamond City, showed a man in patched pants, walking an S-curve road surrounded by gravestones reading 'RIP' and at the end, was Diamond city, a giant wall with a white on a black square diamond in the center.

"Killer in the Square in Square." He said, holding out the tattered magazine for Meathead to see. There was a black diamond square, with a white one in front of it on the gate to Diamond City.

<The road to Diamond City.>" Meathead read the title out loud. "<So what's the book have to offer?>"

"Best routes and roads from all directions getting into Boston, and to Fenway Park. From the North, It says there are bridges all along the Charles, which I know about. Two by Beantown Brewery, one of those is a railroad Three from Cambridge to Boston, one from the Barrens to Downtown. Then it says coming in from the Northeast is the safest path, then making our way through the Fens. But, I found this in the hands of raiders, so I don't know how reliable this information is."

"<Do you think your wife's shooter could be in Fenway Park?>"

"Not even a little," Nate replied Meathead's head jerked back a bit. "If the man's alive. He's ninety, maybe even one hundred years old. I can't accept that Shaun is still a baby. Not when I know in my heart that there's been a change from when Shaun was taken, so when we got out. What else do you know?"

"<...They've got the mechanic. I couldn't break cover and ask Sturges about what happened to Preston. I learned some new lingo today and something about him.>"

"Yeah?"

"<He's a robot. A synth.>"

"A Synth?"

"A synthetic human life, a copycat, looks like a human, but I can do one better. These machines don't have any emotion, and I can feel that there's nothing coming from them."

"But they think they're human?"

"<Commitment to the role they're assigned, I'd say. They might believe they're human, and since they're robots, they could be programmed to have the memories of an entire life up to that point...but who->"

"Hold up, I've been listening to the guy on the radio, Travis; Diamond City Radio. He talked about the Institute and the synths." Nate waggled his head.

"<So why would they kidnap Shaun, then?>"

"The guy said we were a spare, so..." Rocking his head back and forth, "DNA. Something... not found anywhere else in Boston or the world for that matter. Something that can't be replicated..." Nate opened his mouth as if he was about to pose a serious question and Meathead shot him a very pointed look.

"<What?>"

"Are changelings an asexual species?"

Meathead narrowed his eyes at Nate and slowly rolled his eyes up to the right to consider the question.

"<No. We have a Queen. Think of an Ant Queen."

"That's interesting. What's her name?"

Meathead drew in a short breath and mouthed her name first. "<.>"

"<Queen Geneva in your language. In mine, Queen Gynae. That is what it translates to."

"How long do Queens usually live?"

"<The last two hundred ten years would be a blink in comparison. Longer than mostly everything living today. I don't know.>"

"How did you kill their leader? How did you get out?"

"I left a..." Meathead's throat seized up. He tried swallowing, looking up at Nate from where he was by his legs. The words he wanted to say were something he never considered telling another living soul. What he did was imprint negative vibrating harmonics into the polymorphic liquid in his stomach, and then use the negative energy- all the hatred, all the anger, as much as he could soak up in a single breath, and condense it down, then discharge it out his mouth.

A little ball of hate, he called them.

"Bomb. I made a bomb and left it for when their leader, Jared, walked through the door, I shot the bomb."

"How did you make it? String some grenades together? Bleach and Lye?"

"<A little ball of hate.>" Meathead replied, his chest getting lighter as he breathed deeply. He'd let go of a breath he was holding and realized how out of sync he was. <I can take emotions from the environment like a dehumidifier and condense them, separate them in my stomachs for storage or dispel them. I spit some into a can and made him go blind with rage, and he started killing his own men. Then after others saw him, they pulled out their guns and shot him dead. I teleported out and got>." "You teleported?" Nate interrupted.

Meathead's body froze, Nate's curiosity was pouring out of him, like a cat who found a massive fish sitting out on the counter, and he was wondering if it belonged to anyone.

"<Yes. It's not really teleporting, it's the same principle as when I dig.>" Meathead said, then he went on to say. "But I realize your definition of digging and my definition of digging are different. Changelings can condense the mass in front of them and have it expand behind them so we can move quickly through the dirt.

Nate frowned, as he'd just heard someone cut a loud fart. "Are you saying you can warp relative space?"

"<That's how Changelings were able to create pocket dimensions, we didn't have the terminology in our culture, but in your world, yeas. That's how I can store things for later without carrying them around in the open.>"

Nate put one hand to his face, touching his cheek. The room seemed to get lighter as his eyes adjusted even more to the darker interior.

"What?" Nate asked, utter disbelief.

"You would think we would've been unstoppable in Equestria, but... we couldn't even feed ourselves. To live, to feed, we rely on the good-natured will and loving care of others. Heh.

<Heh he HA! Heh HA Ha HA! Ah Ha! HA HA HA! HAHAHAHAHA! AH HA HAHAHA!> Meathead cried out. "<Fucking life! It's so absurd. Oh, Death. Take me.>" He said, shaking his head. Nate was worried about his dog and the spontaneous breakdown of laughter. Meathead was still chuckling when he asked, "<So what were you up to while I was robbing the raiders blind?>"

A big burlap sack appeared from no space and thunked down onto the countertop. Nate's eyes widened and he opened the sack, perusing the contents.

"I went back North, did a big loop towards Walden pond, checked out a cabin where I heard the raiders talking about Boomer, moved east to Thicket Excavations, and..."Nate swallowed. "There's less order here than I realized. Those raiders are all over the place, I saw them walking underneath the old power lines, following tracks towards Sanctuary. There's bloodbug mosquitos...big red honking mosquitos the size of small children, and flies the sizes of basketballs..."

Nate trailed off and the tone of his voice went flat.

"Some bears roaming around...cleared out the mole rats around here. A few packs of dogs... and a lot of skeletons...All over the place." Nate ran his tongue over his teeth and glanced down at his pip-boy.

"A lot of radiation too." His voice picked up again, "This thing on my wrist has been ticking just barely ticking ever since we left the vault. What I want to do is to get a better lay of the land before heading straight there. This book suggests the best roads to Diamond City from every direction. From where we are, the fastest route would be to follow the train tracks and cut west after we cross the river, but, I'm looking for signs of life that are still standing from before the war and, any signs that life is rebuilding beyond little holes in the ground." Nate held up the 'Road to Diamond City', then laid it on the picnic table for Meathead to read and see.

"Meathead, here are the routes I'm planning." Nate said, unclipping his Pip-Boy and bringing up the map feature.

"We either go South, through Lexington, past the Corvega plant, through Cambridge and find a bridge to cross and make our way into the Fens.

"Or we head east." Nate let Meathead look at the map on his Pip-boy, tracing a line east.

"If we head that way, I want to check a site for weapons a bit north of here. I overheard raiders by Walden Pond talk about a group with a Fat-Man launcher with them. If there's nothing there, we go south and swing by the General Atomics Galleria, and see if it's still standing. If there's an update for Codsworth lying around, or saved to a computer, I'll download it to the Pip-Boy. After that, south. When we parted, I went east towards the lake, and there's a cement-walled village on the far side. There's a guard on the outside. I want to see if they're friendly or not. From there, if we can find a place to rest with walls around us, and maybe a roof over us, it'd be a good start to knowing society is rebuilding. After that, we'll head south, crossing at Tucker, into Cambridge and make our way into the Fens from there."

"And what if Cambridge is infested with deathclaws? or ghouls? Or run by another raider gang?"

"Then we go around, survey the land, and keep quiet. First priority is food water, then shelter. Detoxifying every few days with rad-away, and keeping our health up."

"<There was a lot of ghoul activity in Lexington unless we circled way back around west towards Walden Pond and cut south before then. There are the two bridges by Beantown Brewery, the train tracks if it's still up, and the road that swings right in front of the building.>"

"We'd be easy targets for crossing any bridge, we'd avoid Cambridge and be able to walk right into the Fens, but I know that road leading right into the city is wide. Really wide. It's all two-story houses, then goes right to six and nine-story buildings. Anyone with a rifle could be waiting to pick us off.

There's one place I have in mind I want to check out if we go east. The BADTFL."

"<BADTFL?>"

"The Bureau of Alcohol, Drugs, Tobacco, Firearms, and Lasers. If there's any place that we could scrounge up something to take on a Deathclaw, that would be the place."

"<That would be the place.>" Meathead found himself agreeing to Nate's logic.

"Eastward?"

Meathead nodded. "<Let's go East.>"