Nora let out a sigh as she looked over the familiar landscape, in her mind’s eye seeing it as it had been over two hundred years before. The Super-Duper Mart that she had shopped at was still there, still mostly intact. The parking garage that she had parked her own Corvega coup at was there as well. So many familiar buildings that had made Lexington what it was. Some were bomb damaged, many not, only showing signs of weathering.

 

“I never liked this place,” said Barb, standing to the right of Nora, her brand new service rifle in hand. “Too many scumbags hiding out.”

 

“Well, we’re going to take some of those scumbags out this day,” said Nora, looking through her hacked visor, once a set of welding goggles converted to West Tech night vision glasses. They worked during the day as well, showing the body heat of living creatures, indicating them as red outlines. There was no indication of living things in the city, so far, but Nora knew that could change in an instant.

 

“Let’s head up the street to the Corvega plant,” ordered Nora, setting the tactical formation. “We’ll stay to the right side, under the cover of the buildings.”

 

The central park, with its statue to the people who had fought the Redcoats here over five hundred years before, stretched ahead. There were many derelict cars on both sides of the park, while a massive tank sat in the center, armored personnel carriers at the far end. They had walked a couple of hundred yards into the city when Heather  reacted to something.

 

“Run into the building here. Now,” she yelled, pulling on the armor of both of her friends,

 

Nora didn’t know what was going on, but she trusted her friend, and took off at a run into the indicated building, motioning the dogs to lead. A whistling noise came out of nowhere. An instant later a tremendous blast rocked the street, a large ball of fire rising up into the air where they had been standing.

 

“What the fuck,” yelled Barb over the blast.

 

“I saw a figure in power armor on that bridge between the two buildings ahead,” said Heather loudly. “He was aiming a Fatman out at us.”

 

“Good thing you saw him or we’d all be dead,” said Nora, trying to figure out what they were going to do.

 

“Well, we can go for that bastard, or try to bypass him and go for the plant,” said Barb.

 

Nora didn’t like the idea of leaving such a formidable enemy in her rear. But going at him straight up seemed suicide as well. “What kind of power armor did he have on?”

 

“It’s hard to tell through this vision gear,” said Heather, raising her visor out of the way. “But I think it was some of that Raider crap.”

 

If so, that was some of the weakest power armor out there, and it was sure to have some of the crappiest armor plate. Still, any power armor was formidable, and that Fatman was deadly. Any place out in the open was someplace they didn’t want to be. He could rain fire down on them wherever they were. Unless they were right overhead. That last gave Nora an idea.

 

“Let’s work our way around out of sight,” she told the others. “Then I’m going to use my jet pack to get above him and attack.”

 

“You sure?” asked Heather, giving her a look of disbelief. “If that pack drops you to the ground, he’ll send a warhead into you in an instant.”

 

“It also depends on how many mini-nukes he has,” said Barb.

 

Unfortunately, they had no way of knowing how many warheads he had. The only way to find out if he had any was to stand out in plain sight and wait. Not a tactic conducive to survival. “Okay, lets get into that building to the side of the connecting bridge.”

 

The trio and the dogs worked their way through the side streets, making sure they were out of sight of the bridge. Nora located the building they needed, partially wrecked, the outside stairs accessing where they wanted to go. There were ghouls up there, and they took them down almost silently with suppressed rifles, then moved to a place where they could get into the bridge. She had motioned for the dogs to stay below, where they would be safe, then jetpacked up to the top of this building, making her way to the top of the bridge.

 

Now came the dangerous part. She needed to go over the side, hover as she got the Raider to fire at her, then get out of the way. If he was even stupid enough to shoot a mini-nuke at a close airborne target. If he was, and she could get out of the way, he would have an unloaded launcher, with no time to rearm. If she was hit, well, her adventure ended here.

 

She went over the side and hovered, seeing the Raider standing there looking the other way, Fatman on the shoulder of his armor. She aimed in and pulled the trigger, sending a stream of rounds into the helmet of the armor. The bullets bounced away, but small pieces of armor flew off with them. The Raider turned, bringing the Fatman to bear as she continued to fire, obscuring his vision. At the last moment she jetted back up to the top of the roof, while the Raider shot the warhead out into space to hit several hundred yards away.

 

Nora quickly reversed her magazine and went back over the side. The Raider was trying to get another warhead into place, while Barb and Heather, having come into the end of the bridge, hit him with everything they had. Heather was sending blast after blast of laser fire into the armor, while Barb held down the trigger of her rifle and sent a stream of 5.56 into the Raider. With a hundred round drum, she could send quite a few rounds out before having to reload. Nora aimed in on the helmet, the most vulnerable spot, and let loose, shredding armor as she ran through her ammunition. The Raider dropped the warhead, which only armed on launch, then the launcher, trying to fumble a weapon into his hands. The helmet came apart, then the head underneath, and the Raider fell.

 

Nora felt herself falling a moment later herself, the jetpack failing. She fell quickly toward the ground, engaging the jetpack a bit before she hit, shedding most of the momentum and setting down softly on the ground. Breathing a sigh of relief at surviving several things that could have killed her.

 

“You okay down there?” yelled Heather.

 

“I’m fine. Did we get the bastard?”

 

“You killed him. And we took down two more of the bastards.”

 

“I’ll be right up.” Nora ran around the side of the building, not wishing to risk the pack at the moment. It needed to cool down first. Running up the stairs, she came into the bridge, her friends covering the other side, looking over the bodies of two more Raiders who had come to the aid of their leader, too late. The large form in power armor lay in the middle of the bridge corridor, the helmet gone to reveal a pulped head. The torso plate was also almost gone, leaving only the arm and leg armor still intact, and of course the frame. Nora pulled the fusion core, then picked up and stowed the five warheads.

 

“Good job, people. Now, let’s reload and get ready to take that factory.”

 

It took about ten minutes to slide rounds into magazines, a more laborious process for Barb with her drum. “I suggest we go in through the lower tunnel,” said the Scaver. “We can get into the factory before they know we’re there.”

 

“Sounds good. Then that’s what we’ll do.”

 

The tunnel was cramped, forcing them to crouch the entire way in. When they were almost all the way through Nora spotted red figures shuffling ahead. She put her stock to her shoulder and took down the three ghouls, then moved on. There were more in the first room off the tunnel, and she took those down as well. She then looked over the terminal, which had a log of concerns about their leader, Jared, not providing enough security to keep the ghouls out.

 

The ghouls are going to be the least of your problems, she thought, topping off her ready magazines. Just judging from what she saw down here in this first room, there was going to be a lot of interest to loot in this factory. “Let’s take the Raiders down in here first, then we’ll go back through and loot the place.”

 

They caught the first three Raiders in the corridor up above, sitting down and shooting the shit. Nora took them out with a quick burst that she swept across them. A child in a Vault suit came running out with a machete in hand. Nora wanted to talk him down, but the little bastard took a swipe at Dogmeat, and Dewey ripped his throat out. They moved up some stairs, taking down Raiders as they came to them. As she entered one area the sound of a turret firing up alerted her to the new danger. A burst and the turret exploded, and challenges called out from several directions let her know that their incursion had been detected.

 

There was a lot of loot they were leaving behind, and Barb was almost bursting with anxiety at not getting it. Nora wanted to kill the Raiders, who, even if they knew enemies were among them, were probably still off guard. Fat, lazy and stupid. She unlimbered her grenade launcher and prepared for a real fight. One small room with some curving walkways contained a turret and Raiders. The first the Raiders knew that they were not alone was when the turret exploded. The three Raiders started into their spiel about how badass they were, how cowardly their enemies were, and how they were going to end Nora and her friends quickly. They need some better dialogue writers, thought Nora as they moved on.

 

Coming into one of the main vehicle assembly rooms she knew a major fight was at hand. First thing she spotted was a turret glowing red as it prepared to fire. Barb hit it with fire from her rifle and the turret exploded. Heather took out the one higher up with a laser blast. A Raider came running down some steps with a flamer, a portable flame thrower, and Nora sent a grenade into the grill work at her feet, blasting her body into the air. The rest of the Raiders started yelling, boasting and insulting, firing their weapons wildly, sometimes at a target. Nora landed a grenade among several on the catwalk in front of the control shack, then hit the roof of that building to blast another Raider.

 

Fuck yeah, she thought as she ran up the steps and engaged the switch that closed the walkway ahead. Shock and awe.

 

Another Raider, this one a large man with a real military grade rifle, shot down at Heather and Barb. A moment later Nora was putting rounds into him, taking him down.

 

“Everyone okay.”

 

“No problems,” yelled Heather.

 

“Keep a look out,” she ordered as she ran into the control shack and went to the computer terminal. There was a naked woman dead on some furs, probably a captive who had bored her captors. Hacking into the computer, she read the story of the Raiders who had set up here. Jared and his people had been consolidating their power in Lexington and taking travelers for their own use. Including a family from Vault 81. And they talked about the Raider in power armor Nora and company had killed earlier, and how that worthy was at work keeping Lexington cleared of threats. There was even an entry about seeing Preston and Mama Murphy on the road.

 

“We’re going to kill your sorry asses,” yelled a woman’s voice as shots rang out. Nora ran out of the shack, bringing her grenade launcher to her shoulder and sending a round into the Raider standing by a car. Another came out of cover and started firing at something down where she was, before a laser bolt came in and reduced her to ash.

 

“I’m hit,” called out Barb.

 

“Oh shit,” hissed Nora, running back the way she had come. To find Barb sitting against a wall, Heather ministering to her.

 

“She’s okay,” said Heather, giving Barb a stimpak injection. “Flesh wound. But the armor repelled a half dozen rounds.”

 

“When you feel up to it, start gathering the loot. We’ll dump it down here so I can load it into Wilson and the cargo bots. But stay alert in case we missed anyone. And don’t wander off by yourselves.”

 

Barb perked up at that, and was soon on her feet. It took over four hours to gather everything in the place of high value. There were some more Raiders at the front office, taken down easily by the well armored warriors. And Nora started to sort everything in the large piles.

 

“I found a magazine and this bobblehead,” said Heather, coming down the stairs from another trip.

 

Nora took the bobblehead from her friend, who it seemed to have no effect on. Nora felt information flowing into her mind, and her abilities to repair things increased magically. She felt her body strengthen as she read the Grognak comic book. Then she started loading up Wilson. While still not sure how these things worked, they definitely did, and she wasn't going to question that.

 

She had scores of phones, cans, bottles, ammo and meds. Her Handy was stripping materials from vending machines and computers and ferrying them to her. She packed almost two hundred compact pounds into Wilson and sent him on his way, then started in on loading up her cargo bots. She was wondering if there was a way to build a portable QESS unit to make this work easier. Unfortunately, they appeared to have a link to the red workbenches, and needed proximity to those constructs to work. Fortunately, there was now a QESS unit at Starlight Drive-in, a third of the distance that Sanctuary hills was, and Wilson had been set to unload there, where the construction bot could load up the QESS station.

 

It was getting late when they packed off the last load in Wilson. Nora thought they had stripped every loose item from the factory, giving them large quantities of circuitry, aluminum, steel and glass. She also had numerous technical manuals and holo-tapes for Sturgis and Conrad to look over. She didn’t think they would be building cars anytime soon, but knowing how to build machines and control industrial processes had to be useful.

 

She thought it a good idea to see to any Raiders that might be on the outside of the factory, especially since some had come in from outside while they had been looting. So they went outside through the highest door, to immediately come under fire from a couple of children with shotguns. One got a blast in at Nora, hitting her in the chest and knocking her back. Her armor handled it, and all she suffered were rattled nerves. A 40mm took out both murderous children, and Heather and Barb took down their adult support. Then it was a running battle, up and down stairs, clearing out industrial control rooms, stripping bodies of weapons and armor to drop over the side to the platforms below.

 

One of the Raiders had a bag of grenades which he tossed about with abandon. Fortunately, he didn’t know how to prime them and kept boasting as he threw them. They caught some shrapnel, their new armor handling it easily, and the Raider went down. Unfortunately, his bag was empty by that time. Raiders up high tried to snipe at them. There were some near misses, about the best that could be expected from pipe rifles from long range, while Heather’s laser and the two military grade rifles of Barb and Nora were perfect for pinpoint accuracy.

 

When all was said and done they were able to load up Wilson one more time, then sought beds in the factory. Nora had never really been superstitious. She thought that if there was an afterlife, people went there and were separated from the world. Still, the silence of the place creeped her out, and she thought of waking her two partners for some stress relieving games. In the end she simply got up and went back to one of the computers in the front office, one she hadn’t looked over, taking Dogmeat with her for security while leaving Dewey on watch.

 

She found information files that documented all the factories and distribution centers in Lexington. The Abraxo center, a bottling plant for Nuka Cola, an engineering firm that had done work for the plant. The hardware stores, diners, electronic outlets. And, her eyes widened as she saw the entry, a Med-Tek research facility. That was the prize, though the listed residences and hotel rooms of visiting technicians and scientist were also of interest.

 

She crawled back into her sleeping bag; her anxiety replaced with a buzz of excitement. They would do Med-Tek tomorrow, then head to Ten Pines to give them the good news and set them up as a proper settlement.

 

*     *     *

 

The Med-Tek research facility was a nightmare. Lots of valuable items and data, but a gauntlet of turrets, robots and ghouls, oh my. They entered to the sight of a Protectron fighting a glowing ghoul. Nora took down the ghoul, then switched her fire to the Protectron that had taken exception to her interference. There were ghouls behind security gates that were no threat. Unfortunately, there were interesting looking things there. So she opened the gates one by one and took down the ghouls.

 

It was obvious that this place had still been in use up to a couple of decades before. The ghouls in cells had been a dead giveaway. To research ghouls the ghouls needed to exist, which they hadn’t prewar. Nora decided to go to the top floor up the stairs and work her way down.

 

The top floor proved to be an employee diner, a couple of ghouls guarding rotten food and dried out pastries. Nora took one out with her nano-sword, the ultrasharp blade taking off an arm with one swing, the head with the next. Barb put a bullet in the head of the other, who was coming at Nora, fast. The search revealed little other that some Nuka Cola bottles and some glasses and pitchers. Useful enough, but not really what she was here for.

 

The next floor down had a large room behind a security gate, three or four ghouls wandering around. There were lab tables and shelving crowding the room, with all kinds of interesting objects showing. Nora worked the lock, breaking a couple of picks before it clicked open. She stood at the entrance and took three of the ghouls down with head shots, then switched to full auto to splatter the last one that was charging at her with murder in its eyes.

 

She went from shelving unit to shelving unit, quickly perusing the contents before gathering them and shoving them into one of her cargo bots. There were scores of syringes filled with liquids, chem bottles, surgical gear. Even an entire shelf of Stealth-Boys, a dozen of them. The center tables held prepared specimens and more surgical equipment, while some of the other shelves held high end electronics. She filled the cargo bot to the top, figuring that she would be filling Wilson up soon.

 

Next floor down was the same, and she gathered more chems, more high-end electronics, more of everything but the one thing she was looking for. The last floor was the same, and she loaded up on all kinds of unknown chems, and about twenty pounds of seeds for the farms. She hacked into a terminal and downloaded everything she could to look at later, or to give to her techs back at the settlement.

 

“Okay. We’re going down. And I think we’re going to encounter more resistance down there, so be ready.”

 

The first thing they saw on the bottom floor were a pair of aggressive Protectrons, which immediately started shooting lasers. Nora took a couple of hits on her armor, it taking and reflecting most of the energy damage. It still hurt like hell, and she sent half a magazine into the head of the robot, dropping it, while Barb did the same with the other.

 

She prepared for more fight as her eyes caught sight of the set of power armor standing in the middle of the room. When it didn’t move she walked forward, recognizing the suit as a complete set of X-01, post war armor, and as far as she knew, the best PA out there. Of course, if she reverse engineered it through the Worsin’s bench, it would be so much better. If she was able to find some software for the improved varieties. There was a fusion core already inserted, and Nora turned the wheel on the back to open it up.

 

“Welcome aboard, Pilot. Controls turned over to pilot.”

 

“I’m going to march this upstairs and leave it,” she told her people.

 

“Not going to wear it through here?” asked Heather.

 

“Not on your life. I want to reverse engineer this thing, so I can make several sets of prime armor. And I don’t want it taking any more damage.”

 

Nora walked the suit up to the lobby, then ran back down to the room. She pondered on the way if she wanted to open the containment cells and get whatever was in there. It would mean killing ghouls, and using up ammo.

 

“Okay. I want to clear out these cells and get what’s in them. So set up to fire before I get the door open.”

 

It went smoothly. As soon as the doors were open the confused ghouls oriented on the egress, stumbling forward to be taken down. Nora really didn’t get much from the rooms. There was more in the central room of the lockup, more surgical instruments and chems. She opened one door that led into a storage room, taking everything not nailed down. Which left one last door. And the sounds of a Protectron moving around came through the metal.

 

“Sure you want to open that?” asked Heather, her eyes wide.

 

“I’m looking for something, and it might be past this door.”

 

She picked the lock, marveling at how skilled she had become. So skilled at everything. Maybe not perfect, but she was definitely improving.

 

The door sprung open, and Nora jumped back at the sight of not only a Protectron, but an Assaultron, the first she had seen since going into cryo. The Army had used the deadly robots in her time, as had the fleet. Fast, agile and heavily armed, able to close and strike with power, or vaporize the enemy with a powerful head laser at a distance.

 

“Watch out,” she yelled, as she spun and ducked behind the wall. “Assaultrons.”

 

“Oh shit,” cried Barb, ducking down as a laser swished over her head.

 

Heather spun into firing position and hit the Assaultron with her laser, then spun away to get out of the doorway. Barb held down her trigger, sending the full hundred rounds into the room in less than ten seconds. A laser near missed, its firer falling back as Barb took out its legs. The Protectron fired its much less powerful beam weapon, hitting Barb’s helmet and knocking her over. Nora did her own spin from around the door, lighting up the Protectron with a stream of rounds to the head, then spinning back. She had seen some wavering in the air coming toward her, and thought they might have another Assaultron moving at them in stealth. She jumped back into the doorway and sent a grenade through. The round struck the Assaultron in the chest, the blast knocking it over to lay unmoving on the floor. A moment later it exploded in a fiery blast

 

Another laser came from the smoke covered room, hitting Nora in the chest once again. Her night vision outlined the form of another assualtron coming at her. She pulled herself up to a sitting position, grimacing from the pain, and fired a long burst into the right leg of the robot, which fell to the floor. Nora fell over to the side and scooted herself out of the way, waiting for the Assaultron to crawl through. As soon as its head appeared she sent a long burst into the controlling unit.

 

“Come on,” yelled Heather, grasping Nora under the arms and hauling her backwards. The Assualtron exploded, not catching either of them in the blast. “I think that took care of the damn things.”

 

“I’m hurt, Heather.”

 

“Yes, you are. But your courage saved us. Now let me get your torso stripped down so I can see to you. Barb?”

 

“I’m going to be okay. The stimpak I shot seems to be taking care of me.”

 

“Good enough. And, oh my. You got badly burned. If not for your armor you would probably have a hole burned through your chest.” Heather slathered a thick salve on Nora’s left breast, then worked it into the skin between.

 

“That feels so good,” said Nora, smiling.

 

“Give it ten minutes and you’ll be good as new. Well, maybe not good as new, but serviceable, until we can get you some rest to finish the healing. Now, you want to leave.”

 

“No. I do not. I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”

 

“Well, you’re in charge, so we’ll do what you want, Under protest.”

 

Nora set her Handy to scavenging the robots, who all were full of electronics and mechanical parts. One of the Handies jacked into the only still intact Assaultron and started to download data. Meanwhile, she took a glance up the stairs, then decided on the doors at the end of the room.

 

“Oh shit,” said Nora, moving back as fast as she could despite the pain radiating from her chest. There were over a dozen turrets, the laser variety, warming up and aiming.

Barb fired off an entire drum, her second, while Heather hit turret after turret with laser blasts. A few got off shots, all misses, and then the threat was over. Nora limped to the next door and picked it open, pushing the door open and getting ready to jump back. Nothing moved in that room, which was occupied by a huge machine.

 

“What the hell is this?” asked Barb, walking in and looking over the machine. There was a space in the center for what must have once been a pool of liquid, and two sections that had the outlines of bodies. A mechanical arm with a number of probes on it stood before one of the body shaped hollows.

 

“I’m betting it’s a machine to make Synths,” said Heather, closing her eyes for a moment as if she didn’t want to see it.

 

“Doesn’t look like its been in use for quite some time,” said Nora, moving gingerly into the room.

 

“Good thing,” said Heather. “You got any explosive charges?”

 

“Why?”

 

“I want to make sure this thing never makes synths again. Par tof my mission, so please help me out.”

 

Nora opened up one of her cargo bots and hauled out five pounds of plastique and some detonators, handing them over to Heather, who took them and placed them expertly around the machine.

 

“Let’s move away,” said Heather, setting a timer, then helping Nora along.

 

Five minutes later the explosives went off, and Nora and friends looked in to see a tangled mass that was all that was left of the machine.

 

“Does that take care of the synth problem, Heather?”

 

“I don’t think so. I’m betting the institute moved the production of Gen 3 synths to wherever they are located. They probably came here to get the design for what they now use at home.”

 

Nora limped upstairs to the next floor, weapon at the ready, to find more equipment, more meds and drugs. One had a partially disassmbled Gen 1 synth, another a Gen 2. And one had the body of an alien, along with his blaster and some ammo. She had heard rumors of the alien invaders while in the Navy, but the information had been classified Top Secret, and it hadn't seemed smart to probe too deeply. Well, now she knew. She loaded up at each floor, until she came to one that had what she had been seeking. A single vial that was labeled Human Enhancement Serum. With this and the Lorenzo’s Oil vial back at Sanctuary Hills she could augment her biology. On the table beside it was a holo-tape labeled Supersoldier Serum, what she would need to know to mix the two formulas together. Now, whether to mix it herself, or have one of her experts do it for her?

 

“That’s what I need. Let’s get back to Starlight so I can rest up, then back to Sanctuary tomorrow.”

 

“And you’re going to tell me what you’ve got there?” said Heather. “And does it have anything to do with the vial you found at Med-Tek in Malden?”

 

“It does. Let me go over the documentation and I’ll fill you in.”

 

*     *     *

 

Nora was amazed at what the Supersoldier Serum would do for her. For anyone it was given to, but with only one dose she was the only one who was going to get it. While it might be nice to augment her followers, she was the one on point, most likely to take damage. And she was the one with the mission. And her being augmented would help her people as well, since she would be a much better warrior.

 

She sat at the new terminal in the new building she had raised at Starlight, which was going to be her new industrial park. The new building was a large two floor warehouse, with a story and a half on the first so it would have room for factories. Upstairs was her workspace, beds for her and her followers, and her personal work stations. And a power armor station where her X-01 PA was currently parked. She had plans for automated farming here, and some automated factories and rental apartments. What she needed was power, and she almost had enough for several large fusion reactors. She still needed more, which meant salvaging cars in droves.

 

Her mind had wandered, and she went back to reading about the serum. She had gotten stronger since coming out of cryo, and had very powerful muscles for her frame. Meaning she was as strong as anyone of her mass, man or woman, could hope to be. But many men, two or three times her mass, were so much stronger than she was. The Superserum would restructure her muscles, increasing the number of Mitochondria, increasing her ATP production. The bottom line was it would quadruple her strength, giving her one-hundred-and-eighty-pound denser body the same power as an over four-hundred-pound athletic man. It would also increase the speed of healing, bumping it up twenty or thirty times. Maybe more. Rads would not be much of a problem, as her body would shed them almost faster than she could take them in. Her agility and endurance would be increased by a like factor. Her nervous system would be restructured, making her faster. Much faster. Both in reflex speed and in thought, making her much more intelligent. And testing had shown that people treated with the serum had retarded aging, it estimated that they could live for two or three hundred years, much longer than normal.

 

On the downside, if there was such a thing, it would accentuate the feminine in her even while strengthening her physical abilities. Her skin would be softer, though more resilient and more resistant to damage. She would have an amped up sex drive, which could be a problem, or not, depending on how she used it. And she would be releasing pheromones that would drive members of both sexes wild. The documentation said that the pheromone release could be controlled with practice. Then there was the slight chance that the only improvement the serum would make would be to convert her from a living body to a corpse. In the trials that had happened about fifteen percent of the time. Not bad odds, unless you happened to fall into that fifteen percent. And no matter what, she would be sick as a dog and bedridden for up to a week as her body restructured under the effects of the nanotech in the Human Enhancement Serum, bonding the effect of the Lorenzo’s oil permanently with her physiology.

 

With all that in mind she thought she needed to take care of some things first. It was a time commitment she couldn’t afford right now, and frankly, much as she wanted to become Captain Capitalist, the risk still scared the fuck out of her.

 

“We’re going to Ten Pines tomorrow and get them on board. Then Heather, I want to talk with you about the serums I found, and what help I’m going to need from you to make this happen.”