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Chapter Thirty-one: Synth Troubles


BrotherofCats

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“I’m sorry, Robert,” she told the man, who seemed to be sulking. “It was a get together of old friends. I’m sorry if you felt left out.”

 

“It’s just that I was hoping you would spend some time with me, Boss,” said Maccready, hanging his head. “And I’m sorry I’m acting like such a little child.”

 

“Oh, come here,” said Nora, taking him by the hand and leading him into the General’s Quarters. “We don’t have time for much, so how about a blow job.”

 

“Sure thing, Boss,” said the man, now smiling.

 

My God. Men think so often with their little head, she thought, getting down on her knees, unzipping his pants, and pulling his already firming dick out. She started out slow, despite the sense of urgency she had to get on the road. If she was going to offer sexual favors, her pride forced her to do a good job. Ten minutes later, the head of his cock lodged in her throat, her hand on his balls, she brought him to orgasm, swallowing every drop.

 

“Damn, but you are good.”

 

“I know I am,” said Nora with a smile. “And thanks for my breakfast.”

 

Minutes later the party was walking out of the Castle to the calls and salutes of the people gathered. Nora was in her X-01 Assault Armor, newly touched up to cherry condition by Sturgis, who was leaving that day with a dozen people heading back to the northwestern settlements. The Minutemen had cleared out the neighborhood on the days when she was supervising the reconstruction of the Castle, but Nora insisted on the caution of a tactical movement. Raiders and other scum were known to move in without notice, and she hated to think of one of her people felled by a sneak attack from a supposedly cleared area.

 

The plan was to check out University Point for mentions of teleportation, then head over to Jamaica Plain to see if she could establish a settlement there.

 

“Mention of Vault Tech on radio scan,” said her Pip-boy, its newly upgraded software making it a true assistant.

 

“Play it.”

 

“This is an emergency broadcast from Vault 88. Authentication Code Word, Bendis. Unspecified emergency. All Vault Tech personnel are required to respond.” It then gave some more authentication words with instructions to follow the broadcast signal.

 

“Are you going to respond to that, Nora?” asked Heather. “And I’ve never heard of Vault 88.”

 

“Me either,” said Nora, stopping to think for a moment. She really hated Vault Tech, and would do nothing for the corporation if at all possible. However, this emergency might involve Vault dwellers, possibly people coming out of cryo like in her Vault, maybe more of them. Scared, disoriented. Or any one of a thousand other situations.

 

“Let’s go ahead and do what we’ve set out to do,” she finally said. “It will give me time to think, and possibly they will broadcast some more information in the meantime.”

 

The thought that the people in that Vault might already be dead crossed her mind. Vault Tech could screw up, and when they did, they screwed up spectacularly, as they had on 111. She really didn’t feel like facing a bunch of bodies, the remains of people who had put their trust in a corrupt organization that hadn’t deserved it.

 

“So we’re still going to University Point?” asked Heather, her manner more anxious than her normal chipper self.

 

“That was where your article said that attack on you and your people occurred?”

 

“Sure was. The motherfuckers. There must have been fifty Synths there that day, led by that scar faced motherfucker with the big revolver, Kellogg. Fifty Synths. We’ve already got some to add to my total, and I hope I can get some more today.”

 

“Will it really pay for all those people? For your sister?”

 

“No,” said Heather, shaking her head. “No, it won’t. But it will make me feel better.”

 

“Then we’ll kill as many of the fuckers as we can catch,” said Nora emphatically.

 

There was an old weathered sign before the entrance of the neighborhood. Traders Welcome it said. Past it were the ramshackle ruins of old huts, and bodies. They couldn’t have been the bodies of the traders who had been slaughtered that day. They weren’t old enough. Though well into rot, many having been torn apart by scavengers, Nora still estimated they had been dead for weeks, not years.

 

“Okay. We probably still have the killers near,” she whispered over the radio.

 

“Curious,” said a voice with a very mechanical feel over that frequency. “They are using tech that the savages don’t seem to possess.”

 

“What the hell was that?” asked Maccready, his tone one of near panic.

 

“Go radio cold. Now.”

 

If the damned things had radio, and could tap into the party’s net, one of their tech advantages was nullified. Nora waved her hands down, indicating that everyone needed to crouch, while she scanned her surroundings with the PA sensors.

 

“Why do you hide,” said a voice from very near. “Is it that you are afraid to die?”

 

Nora saw three skeletal figures in the red of heat walking jerkily toward the party, advanced weapons in their hands. She pulled up the China Lake, making sure it had the rounds she had intended, then popped one off to land at the feet of the machines, about thirty meters away. The grenade had a noticeably short timer, set to go off less than a second after hitting. Go off it did, the flare of electricity and the glowing ball of the electromagnetic pulse encompassing all three of the Synths. The machines froze in their tracks, all electronic systems fried, then tottered and fell over.

 

Fire came in, two lasers and a something that moved extremely fast, trailing a strong gust of air behind it. Maccready fired, pulled the bolt back and shoved it forward with speed, then fired again. “Why won’t the damned things go down?”

 

“You’re hitting them in the head,” said Heather. “That’s not a weak point.”

 

“Hey, I take head shots.”

 

Nora landed another pulse round onto the balcony of the building, which her Pip-boy was telling her was a residence hall. The round went off and the two Synths up there fell over, one all the way off to the ground. A laser hit Barb on her body suit, deflected away as the woman moved quickly behind new cover. Heather spotted and put paid to that Synth; her laser seemingly much more powerful than the weapons of the Institute.

 

“We must destroy them,” came a mechanical voice from one of the side buildings. The Synth within started to fire, mostly at random, and Nora landed another pulse grenade inside the room. With a flash the fire stopped.

 

There were three quick pops along with flashes of light, and a trio of Synths were suddenly standing out in the open where none had been previously. Shit, the Institute already has teleportation. She had no idea how their process worked, or if it was even the same as the one they were on the trail of. Or if it could teleport living creatures or only mechanical things like the Gen one and two Synths. The team took the Synths down before they could even orient to their surroundings. But now Nora had something else to worry about, since this enemy could teleport into place at any time to surround them or cut them off.

 

“I want to get a look at these things,” she told her people. “Cover me.” She walked over to the trio her people had just taken down, with three intact weapons laying on the ground next to them. And without any EMP damage as far as she could tell.

 

She didn’t think they had anything that would penetrate her armor, though they might do some damage. She had her Handy disassemble one of the lasers and run a diagnostic on the parts, grunting in confusion. “This laser is a piece of crap. Very poorly made, with substandard components.” She looked over at Heather, crouched down and looking. “I’m betting that your laser has three times the power of this thing. Still, we can use the parts.”

 

Conrad had indicated that the computers they needed to pull data off of were in the residence hall. The messages mentioning teleportation had belonged to an advanced student who had lived in that hall.

 

“Maccready,” she said, ejecting from her armor and calling the man over, making sure her two ladies were on watch. “We need to talk.”

 

“I was trying to put them down, Boss,” said the man. “I don’t understand. Hit something in the head and it goes down. Always.”

 

“And you pride yourself on head shots,” said Nora, looking into his confused eyes. “Problem is, the heads of these Synths don’t contain their central processors. You possibly destroyed their sensory systems, maybe. Maybe not. But if you want to kill them you need to take them through the center of the torso.”

 

“I take head..”

 

“Goddammit, Robert. You need to take shots that fulfill the mission, not those that boost your self-esteem. If you can’t take the shots I want you to take, we might need to call it quits. Understand?”

 

“Yes, ma’am,” said Maccready, obviously thinking.

 

Nora was sure he wanted her help with something not having to do with draining his balls. Well, if he followed orders and helped her to achieve her objectives, she would be glad to help him with his. And to drain his balls on occasion as well.

 

“Let’s go have a look inside. And everyone remember where you’re aiming.”

 

Nora ejected from her armor before entering the residence hall, removing her power core and locking down the frame. While the armor would give her great protection, it was not stealthy. She thought about getting an integrated stealth-boy added, but it would still make noise. Not much, true, but enough for the Synths, with their sharpened sensors, to pick up. She was sure that she would move in her nano-armor and Forteleza strap on as quiet as anything on this planet, and she could depend on her superior speed and agility to out maneuver and take the Synth’s down. If she was within three meters of them before they located her, she could speed forward and smash them to the floor with her ultrasharp sword.

 

The outside of the building had been fairly intact, with no visible holes in walls or roof. The inside was a complete mess, with collapsed walls and floors that were little more than gaping holes over the morass that was the basement. She could see muck and mirelurk eggs through a hole in a wall that opened onto a collapsed floor. To the left were intact stairs that led up to a mostly whole floor. To the right were a couple of rooms, entered through collapsed walls, but with sturdy looking doors opening on what she hoped were other intact sections. There was power in the building, with working lights, and she hoped enough computer terminals for her to search for clues.

 

And further into the building, the loud sounds of the clumsy synthetic creatures moving around. She wasn’t sure what they were here for. To look for the secret of teleportation themselves, or to keep that secret from others. From what she had seen outside she would guess on the latter, though the technology hinted that somewhere in this building might be the superior process.

 

Nora went to the right, deciding to check out that section first on instinct. The dogs moved crouched and silent beside her, while Heather moved slightly behind. Barb was set as Maccready’s babysitter. The man moved quietly enough, though nowhere near as well as any of the females or the animals. Nora was hoping he would improve from working around so many experts, and from his proficiency with other combat abilities she was sure he would get better at sneaking as well. His problem right now was they were in an environment where his long-range weapon was not optimal. And the MAC-11 machine pistol hanging around his neck had little in the way of hitting power, though it could throw out a stream of slugs.

 

The first room had a safe and a working terminal. Nora picked the safe and scooped up a number of tech manuals, as well as some prewar money. She hacked into the terminal, then jacked her Pip-boy into the machine to let her handy assistant scan its databanks. It came up empty as far as teleportation was concerned, though some of the power and military applications on the machine could prove of interest.

 

The next room was a complete bust, shattered desks and wet books that were falling apart. She moved up the stairs, senses alert, when she heard something moving up there. Then the chilling sound of machine voices. She motioned to her people, got head nods in return, then went through the open doorway at the landing at the top.

 

Two Synths stood in the room, both looking toward the next room, which featured a floor that was more hole than anything else. One started to turn, and Nora sent a suppressed burst through its chest, then swung her rifle to sight in on the next and send it to robot hell as well.

 

“Cover me,” she told her people. “Maccready, on me.”

 

Barb and Heather took up positions to cover all the entrances into the room, while Nora went to work at the terminal behind the desk. Again, no mention of teleportation, though the scientific and historical information she downloaded onto a couple of holo-tapes could prove interesting.

 

The group worked its way from room to room, taking down Synths as they came to them. The robots seemed capable of only verbal communication with each other, though they could tap into Nora’s com. It was as if the people who created them had no conception of the tactical realities of war. That was okay with her. If the super geniuses who created the Synths wanted to act like such idiots in other areas that was fine with her. Give her a stupid enemy any day.

 

“Jackpot,” she whispered as the Pip-boy alerted her to mention of what she was looking for on a terminal that sat in an office that had to belong to a high-ranking professor or senior administrator. She looked over the information, reading about a doctoral candidate student who had been communicating with some scientists on another campus about quantum teleportation. From what she read, it was a process that didn’t actually disassemble to structure of the object to be teleported, but flipped their quantum resonances to make them pop into existence in another area. CIT, the Commonwealth Institute of Technology, had been working on the process prior to the war, but were face with a number of problems, including radiation damage to the subjects and the high energy usage of the teleporters. While another CIT, the Connecticut Institute of Technology, a New England rival, was working on it from another angle, and thought they had solved the problem of power use. Radiation was still a problem, and unliving objects were easier to teleport, since it required lower power but caused much more radiation exposure. While living creatures required the most energy, if one was to come through with minimal radiation damage.

 

“Okay. We’re going into the basement to look for the room of an Andrew Watson. He was in communication with the CIT in Connecticut about teleportation. I’m hoping he will have some schematics, or at least know where they might be.”

 

“Anything else on there?” asked Maccready, eyes narrowed at the concepts being discussed that were going over his head.

 

“Only that Watson survive the war. Probably as a ghoul, since his correspondence was logged in as recently as twenty years ago.”

 

“So he’s our ticket,” said Heather. “If the Institute didn’t kidnap him. Or the Synths didn’t simply kill him.”

 

They ran into their only major obstacle as they came back into the entrance hall. Where a dozen Synths were milling around, waiting. One fired one of the weapons that Nora thought of as a Gauss rifle, the ultrafast round slamming into the wall behind her.

 

“Significant danger,” said her Pip-boyt. “Take cover.”

Instead Nora launched a pulse round into the center of the Synths and they all went down like poleaxed steers. She started a Handy on ripping out circuitry and field stripping weaponry, while she gave the Gauss to Maccready to carry, wanting an intact example of the weapon to get to Sturgis and Conrad.

 

They found a working lift going down to the semi-darkness of the basement. The sound of ghouls came from ahead, and they deployed to move up on them and take them down with auto-fire. There were a number of rooms with power and terminals, and Nora felt she had to check them all out. One had some classified information on the prewar world, and what had happened when and just after the bombs flew. Finally she found the prize, in a room that had the looks of being occupied just a few years back. She hacked into the system, the Pip-boy the perfect cracking device, and looked over the files.

 

“Eureka,” she said. “This is it.”

 

“Schematics?” asked Heather, catching on to the excitement of her leader.

 

“No, though a lot of the theoretical underpinnings are on here. But about fifty years ago our CIT sent a team to recover the schematics of the Connecticut Institute’s teleporter, hoping it would help them to solve some of the problems with theirs. The Institute was in contact with Mr. Watson, who they refused entry into their facility due to his being a ghoul.”

 

“So the Institute got what we’re looking for?”

 

“Possibly not. The team never made it back. Their last transmission, before something killed them all, was on the railway line in the southern area of the Commonwealth. The Institute wrote them off, since they seemed to have solved their own problems.”

 

“So they just wrote off their own people as not worth their time,” said Maccready, sighing. “Nice people. I’m glad I’m not working for them.”

 

“So where to next, Boss?” asked Heather, as Nora loaded holo-tape after holo-tape with data.

 

Nora thought they had found enough already to improve just about every one of the technical systems the alliance used. Maybe not the QESS, but that system was already about as good as she could imagine. But she wanted teleportation. With it their people could go from settlement to settlement with no danger to themselves, at least if the system was safe. And if a system could be established across the Commonwealth? Well, that could wait. She wouldn’t trust anyone outside the alliance with that tech. And…

 

“Oh shit.”

 

“What is it Nora.”

 

“It seems that Vault Tech was rumored to have developed a similar tech to what the Institute used. And there are indications that the bastards are still around. So here’s what we’re going to do. I want to clear out Jamaica Plains and get something going there, so we have a strong point to the south of the Castle. Then we go see what's going on in Vault 88. I want to know if we’re still dealing with Vault Tech. The Institute may be our primary enemy, but Vault Tech could soon become an even greater threat.”

 

“And if you don’t find what you’re looking for in 88?” asked Barb.

 

“Then we walk the rails heading south and look for the missing Institute party. Either way, I mean to have that tech, even if it costs my life.”

 

*     *     *


 

They encountered no more interference from the Synths as they stripped the Residence Hall of just about anything of value. Nora left the computer terminals and generators, in case they needed to visit here again to look for more information. The main frames contained too much data for her to download on a hundred Pip-boys or a thousand holo-tapes. She had gotten everything she wanted, but there was no telling when they might gain more information that needed the research facilities of this place.

 

“I’m happy,” said Heather as the team moved off the site and headed for the next target settlement.

 

“How many?”

 

“Well, with the twenty-six we got at Malden, and the twenty-five we killed today, I have my fifty Synths. All thanks to you Partner. So you get my biggest discount.”

 

Nora smiled. She had found that the products Heather sold were as good or better than anything she could get from a doctor. And Heather even had some specialty products, like the emollient that had soothed her vagina while healing from the rape of the Supermutants.

 

“Thanks. Then I’ll take a dozen of your relaxing teas.”

 

“I’ll have to brew up some more,” said her friend. “And I’ll need some more mutated fern, so keep an eye out for them while we travel.”

 

Jamaica Plains had been an upscale Boston suburb prior to the war. Now it seemed to be ghoul central. Nora could make out the creatures congregating on the streets as they approached. She estimated about a hundred of them from her vantage on the hills to the north, looking down on the streets. And probably many more in the numerous buildings. Some of the structures were total losses, some seemed to be intact, while there were many others in between.

 

“You sure this place had one of those magic workbenches?” asked Maccready.

 

“No, I’m not sure. But the person who told me about it seemed sure, though they admitted they had run through really fast, and were fortunate to get out with their lives. But you can aim for the head here. Set up and take out all of the ghouls you can target. Meanwhile, I’m going in and attract all of them I can on me.”

 

Maccready took a prone position and sighted in. His first shot hit a Glowing One in the head at over six hundred meters, exploding its brains and dropping its lifeless body to the street. After that it was jack in a round and fire, jack in another and fire, each shot taking out a ghoul. The ghouls may have been brainless killers, but they could tell when a threat was menacing them and go after it. They swarmed forward, heading out of town and up the hill. Heather and Barb joined in, while the dogs pulled down any that looked like they might actually make it up to the base of the hill. And Nora headed down into them, nano-sword in a two-handed grip.

 

In this fight she wanted her enemy to know where she was. The noise the armor made was now an asset, though she wasn’t sure how much of one over the screaming cries of the creatures. As they came within range she swung, the blade cutting through heads, slicing off upper limbs, breaking backs. She killed one every couple of seconds, most before they could finish closing on her. Still, some ran into her, stumbling forward or lunging with their final burst of speed. They rocked her back, but the strength of the suit on widespread legs was too much for them to topple over. There was no way they could penetrate the armor plates, and Nora relished the frenzy of killing them melee. Since most of the force of her blows were generated by the frame servos, she was tireless.

 

The ghouls had no quit in them, no sense of self preservation. They didn’t break and run. They kept coming on until there were no more left. More came out of houses, attracted by the noise, to get cut down by ranged weapons.

 

“Okay. We’re going down there, so everyone stay close and alert. I really don’t want to ferret them out of their hidey holes at night. The damned things sleep like cats, only coming awake when they become aware of your presence. I would like to think we got all of them, but I don’t believe that. We’ll look for a place to camp on the way. Hopefully something on the top of a building with only one way to the top.”

 

“Why don’t we camp out here and go in when the sun’s up?” asked Maccready.

 

“I really don’t want to be wakened from a deep sleep by a death claw running into the camp, ripping everything apart. So we do it my way.”

 

Maccready nodded and said nothing, and Nora decided that was the best she was going to get from the man. They shot down some more ghouls on the way in, the creatures stumbling out of houses slowed by confusion. They found the workbench on the far side of the town, about fifty meters up from the lake that separated the neighborhood from another to the south that was partially underwater. A set of iron stairs led up to the roof, which was fairly clear of debris. The party set up the tents and settled in.

 

“So, what’s your story, Robert?” asked Nora as they sat around a fire consuming the meal that Barb had prepared. “Where did you learn to shoot so well.”

 

“I taught myself in the Capital Wasteland,” said the man around the food he was chewing. “I always thought it better to kill my enemy when they were at a range where they were unlikely to kill me.”

 

“And what were you doing in the Capital Wasteland?”

 

“I was born there. Grew up in Little Lamplight. Was even the mayor at one time, until I hit sixteen and had to leave. See, they had an age limit, and so I was on my own.”

 

“And the Gunners?”

 

“They were the only people I knew offering my kind of employment when I arrived in the Commonwealth. And boy was that a mistake. They were animals. They killed everything without a thought. I finally couldn’t take any more and left, though they like to say that no one leaves the Gunners. So, what watch do I have tonight?”

 

“You don’t have a watch. You have other duties. So go see to Heather and Barb, and I will keep first watch. But make damned sure you have enough in you to see to my needs.”

 

“Yes, ma’am,” said the man with a smile, getting up from his seat and heading toward the tent they had erected from the panels of the four smaller tents.

 

Soon the gasps and groans were coming from the tent, as Nora kept her attention on her surroundings despite the horny feelings that threatened to overwhelm her. Maccready took his duties seriously, and Nora counted the orgasms of her ladies, as well as the two he had. Soon silence reigned, the trio falling into an exhausted sleep.

 

Nora woke Heather at One AM, her watch, then crawled into the tent, shedding her clothes and sliding up next to Maccready. Her questing hand found his genitals, and she gently manipulated his dick and balls, sighing as she felt it jerk awake, followed by a yawn from the man.

 

“You ready for me, big man,” she whispered in his ear. “I sure hope so, because after today I really need to get fucked.”

 

“Heather and Barb wore me out, Boss. Maybe tomorrow night.”

 

Nora grabbed him with strong arms and turned him over on his back, then moved her mouth down to his groin and inhaled his cock. No matter what the man had said, he responded quickly, and Nora laughed as she thought of the way he had played her. She kept kissing and licking until his dick was straining at full erection. With a quick kiss on his lips, she climbed up and straddled the man. Placing the tip of his dick at her entrance, she sank down with a sigh, letting him seat himself in her tight, wet pussy. Starting off with rocking back and forth, she was soon feeling the pleasure rising from her clit as she rubbed it against his pubic mound. This went on for several minutes, until she started fucking him in earnest, sliding his dick in and out of her with each upward and downward thrust. Maccready started to groan out his pleasure, setting Nora on fire as she realized the effect her tight vagina was having on him.

 

Her first orgasm hit, her pussy clenching on the turgid organ within it. She was surprised that Maccready didn’t pop from the massage her vaginal muscles subjected him to. But he held on, and she continued to ride him for what seemed like an hour, but couldn’t have been half that time. Her second orgasm rose within her, bursting forth as she continued to ride, enjoying every inch of the man’s dick as it rubbed along the lubricated walls of her pussy. She cried out each time her clit came down on his groin, and she felt another orgasm coming on the tail end of the last, not letting her completely down as the most powerful of the night grabbed ahold of her body and turned her into a quivering mass, crying loudly into the night.

 

“My God, Nora. I can’t hold on any longer.”

 

“Let yourself go, Lover. Fire your load into me. Paint the inside of my pussy with your sweet cum.”

 

Maccready cried out and did as she ordered, his cock swelling, then spurting to coat her insides with his man juice. Her orgasm ramped up, her vision blurring, and she fell over and off, her ragged breath coming in deep gasps.

 

“You okay boss? I didn’t kill you did I?”

 

“If you had I would have died happy, Robert. I am extremely satisfied with your performance thus far. Now, I need to get some sleep, but thank you for making a dreamless sleep possible.”

 

Maccready enfolded her in his strong arms as he settled in behind her, skin to skin. He cupped her right breast in a hand, just holding it. Nora needed times like these, times that made her feel feminine and protected. His breath slowed and regularized into the calm rhythm of the exhausted, the warn air pleasantly stimulating the back of Nora’s neck. Moments later the world faded, and she entered an existence where the dreams were pleasant escape, in her subconscious thanking the man for giving her his love.

 

“I’m going to take a bath,” said Nora as she climbed out of her bag the next morning. “Someone watch for ghouls, then I’ll return the favor.”

 

“Aren't you concerned about rads in the water, Boss?” asked Maccready, yawning, his eyes locked on her naked body.

 

Nora felt herself blush slightly under that gaze, which frankly amazed her, considering what they had done the night before, and were likely to repeat this night. Watch it, Nora, she thought. He was a good subordinate and a good lover, bringing with him the excitement of new sex with a strange partner. But the last thing she needed was to fall in love. Nate had been the one, and as far as she was concerned he always would be.

 

“Oh, Nora doesn’t have to worry about rads,” said Barb, shaking her head. “Superwoman sheds rads like a drowned molerat fleas. Give her some liquid and the time to piss it out, and she’s rad free. The rest of us have to use meds or some of Heather’s teas if we don’t want to smell like ghouls through the day.”

 

Maccready kept watch from the rooftop as Nora scrubbed herself down, making sure every part of her was squeaky clean, then repairing back to the roof to get in her armor. When she had prepped the rest of them went into the water, splashing and playing, laughing, even engaging in some light petting that had them all aroused.

 

“We don’t have time for sex this morning,” she called down, her eyes roaming.  “Just let it simmer through the day and tonight will be so much better.”

 

Movement caught her eyes, and she fired a couple of bursts that knocked a pair of ghouls down that had been heading for the lake. More appeared and her people ran for the building, while she killed anything that approached. As soon as they reached the top the armor came on while weapons were readied.

 

“Damned things interrupted our baths,” said an aggrieved Barb. Nora thought they had been through with their baths, but not with their sexual play. Despite the ghouls showing up Nora felt good about her party’s mood. They were comfortable with each other, in all ways. A group like this would be there for each other no matter what.

 

It took the entire morning to clear the town, then part of the afternoon to make sure the town hall was ghoul free. They confronted a series of defenses that had been erected to protect the fabled Treasure of Jamaica Plains, which turned out to be mostly worthless memorabilia. By two Nora had set her handy to erecting a QESS, then pull the parts of the constructrons and Handies from its storage. Most of the earlier settlements were down to one robot for maintenance, leaving her with quite an inventory.

 

She claimed the house next door to the workbench, both floors, as her and her followers' quarters. A Handy cleaned it out and patched the windows, while a Handy and a constructron assembled the fusion reactors and some other equipment in the workshop room. Her own workbenches went in her quarters, and she started the robots on putting up a multipurpose structure, mechanical area, settler quarters and recreation facilities, overlooking the lake. She set one of the robots to repairing the old church, which had room for multiple work areas and some shops. The pumps went in, light poles went up, and finally the turrets. By nightfall it was almost all together, and the robots worked though the night to put on the finishing touches and put up the settlement recruitment beacon. Nora decide to make this settlement a farm, as least to start off, since they were extremely low on the circuitry needed in all electronic devices, and the automatic planters needed quite a bit. Possibly later it could become a market center and brothel.

 

The night, with the turrets and dogs keeping watch, the four humans had a small orgy, the women servicing each other when the man wasn’t available. It might not have been the passionate affair of the night before; which Nora was sure she would remember for some time. It was, however, very pleasant to all, and everyone got off enough times to be satisfied. Afterwards they set watches and slept till morning.

 

“In the settlement,” came a voice from the perimeter in the morning.

 

“Come on in,” called out Nora after shrugging into her nano-armor. There were five people waiting, looking tired and hungry. Three women and two men, if one of the preteen children could be called a man. The one adult man had his arm around the shoulders of a woman who had her hands on the shoulders of an adolescent girl.

 

“We heard your beacon,” said the one single woman. “I went by this place last week and none of this was here. Only swarms of ghouls. How did you do this.”

 

“We’ll explain tonight. Now get in here and have some food. Then we’ll show you where you can sleep.”

 

“Are you with the Minutemen?” asked the one adult male, a black man named Walter. “That’s some impressive looking power armor you have there, and those look like Minuteman colors.”

 

“Were you a Minuteman?” asked Nora, noting the laser musket hanging from the man’s shoulder.

 

“I sure was,” said the man, snapping to attention. “Corporal Walter Delgado. Company F, third battalion. And what is your position in the ranks?”

 

“She’s the General,” said Heather proudly. “We took the Castle back, and Colonel Garvey is back there organizing the troops.”

 

“Preston is a colonel? And you’re the general? Well, welcome, General. And maybe I need to get to the Castle.”

 

“Please, Walter,” said the woman, pulling on his arm. “You said you would stay with us.”

 

“You need to listen to her, Walter,” said Nora, walking up and taking the man’s hand in hers. “We need troops, but our strength is going to be in our settlements. Perhaps I can talk you into being the temporary mayor of this one. Until we get enough people here to hold an election.”

 

“That sounds good,” said Walter, smiling. “I wanted to do my part, but Margaret needs me too.”

 

“Then you serve all of us. But get some food inside of you, and give me the run down on this area.”

 

The five newcomers inhaled the food put in front of them and hesitantly asked for seconds, which Nora gladly provided. It was obvious that they were near starving, and Nora wanted them to be well fed before she left them to it. She spent the rest of the day showing them how to use the workbenches, including the operation of the QESS, which brought forth exclamations of amazement. And Walter pointed out the trouble spots to the south.

 

“That there swamp city is Hyde Park. A den of the rankest scum this side of Boston. A bad place.”

 

“And what’s the news on Quincy?”

 

“Since the Gunners shattered the Minutemen, the bastards have turned the place into a fortress. Both the town and the overpass. It beggars’ reason that they destroyed a trade center and didn’t use it for their own.”

 

“Well, they’re on my list of people who need to have their asses kicked out of the Commonwealth.”

 

“And when will that happen?” asked Felicity, the older white lady that had come in with the group.

 

“Not tomorrow,” said Nora matter of factly. “But we’re getting stronger every day.”

 

“Nora put together the alliance to the north of the city by herself,” said Barb proudly.

 

“Well, I had the help of my true friends.”

 

“But she was in charge,” continued Barb. “We have twenty settlements built up to the same standard as this place. We even have one farming settlement that is mostly ghouls. A thriving Trade Center, several industrial hubs, even a recruitment center in Diamond City and a militia outpost in Hangman’s Alley. Troops forming up, power armor like that suit, maybe soon even vertibirds. And the ties she has forged with the people who aren’t in the alliance. The energy she has shown to put this all together is frankly unbelievable.”

 

“And where did you come from, General?” asked Walter.

 

“Nora, please. You can call me General during official functions, but other wise we are all friends.”

 

“Okay, Nora. You look like a young woman, but you have to have been walking this world at least twenty, twenty-five years. And you have a military bearing about you. So, where were you hiding out.”

 

“Well, for about two hundred and twenty years I was in cryo sleep in Vault 111. Just came out this year, and I was the only one who survived.”

 

“My God,” said a wide eyed Felicity. “You’re prewar. And what did you do while the bombs were falling.”

So Nora launched into her tale of her life, her career in the Navy as a pilot, a new mother, and the day the bombs fell. She was in tears by the time she got to watching her husband murdered in front of her and her baby stolen. She even gave a description of the murderer, something that took Heather’s breath away.

 

“Kellogg,” said the redhead. “It has to be. Only one man fits that description. He was the one who gunned down my sister and so many others at University Point. Definite Institute.”

 

“Then after the Gunners we’re going to take out the Institute.”

 

“Good luck with that,” said Felicity.

 

“With all this woman had done,” said Walter, looking into Nora’s eyes, “I almost feel sorry for those bastards.”

 

The last thing Nora did that night was show the newcomers how to program the robots and use the QESS, so they could adjust the settlement to suit them. She knew that people wanted privacy, and there were enough semi-intact houses around that could be fixed up for them to have all they wanted.

 

By the time they were ready to head out the next morning seven more people had arrived, and they left a settlement with a small population of twelve, and sure to grow quickly as the refugees in the neighborhood heard about them.

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