"I'd hate to see you put yourself in danger for us, Cosmos, but if you really think it could help... I'm willing to give it a chance."

 

I had deep misgivings about Cosmos' idea that we could parlay with the mercenaries. At the same time, a lot of lives were on the line, and if there was any chance of settling things without a fight, I had to give it a try. And so, I stood by while Starchild - one of his followers - walked a brahmin loaded with purified water up to the base, promising to ask for a meeting.

 

While we waited, Dirk and his party arrived. Cosmos was obviously unhappy to see the Minutemen filing into Fiddler's Green, but I assured him that if the mercenaries were willing to negotiate, I'd try to avoid a fight.

 

"I still don't trust those Minutemen," he complained. "Folks like that are always, you know, coming in and pushing rules on folks who just want to live easy."

 

"They'll listen to me," I said. "You don't have anything to worry about."

 

Starchild came back the next morning; based on the contents of her brahmin's packs, she'd traded the water for scrap and building materials. Cosmos and I met her at the edge of the settlement, and she explained how her visit had gone.

 

 

"They're pretty sour on you up there," she said, "but they said they'd talk, as long as you came alone."

 

"I told you this was a terrible idea," Nick said.

 

I called Dirk over and filled him in on the situation. "I'm going to try talk with them," I explained. "I need you and your men to stand by at the perimeter fence. If you see me light off my flare gun, it means things went sideways and you need to rush the base. Radio the contingent from Forest Grove and make sure they know the same."

 

"Sure you won't reconsider, boss?" Dirk asked. "This smells like a trap."

 

"There's a good chance that it is, but I'll be watching for any sign of trouble, and I can bug out fast thanks to this powersuit."

 

"Alright," he said, still obviously skeptical. "But don't take any risks - you're too valuable to lose."

 

"Thanks, Dirk. Don't worry, I'll be careful."

 

By the time we'd finished coordinating with the Forest Grove force, the sun was already sinking below the horizon, and I didn't start my hike to the base until sunrise. I reached their guardpost just before noon, and waited while the mercenary who'd been standing watch called in my arrival. More troops arrived, cautiously keeping me in their sights, and after a bit more wait a familiar face emerged from the building at the center of the base.

 

Kellogg.

 

 

"Well," he said, "if it isn't the woman who's been making my life difficult lately. You've been busy. But what brings you to darken my doorstep? I haven't caused any trouble for Concord."

 

"You've got something that belongs to me, and I want it back."

 

Kellogg laughed. "A lot of people feel that way, Lady, but I'm still here and they aren't. What makes you think it'll go different for you?"

 

I shrugged, "probably the army I've got ready to storm this shithole. But cooler heads have prevailed on me to try and negotiate first."

 

He smirked at that, before bringing his face back under control and into a neutral expression. "Ah, yes, the Minutemen. Back from the grave, I'm told. Or do you mean your pet raider gang? They were a little soft for their business. Probably good that you gave them some real leadership."

 

 

Continuing, he said, "It's true that you've got your 'army,' but I think you'll find that my men are better trained and better equipped than your hopped-up settlers and half-hearted raiders. You'll also find that we have a well-fortified base. You aren't going to be taking anything away from me by force."

 

"I'm content to watch you and your crew starve to death, if you'd prefer it that way."

 

"Oh, really? You going to shoot Cosmos and his buddies when they send us food and water? I doubt it."

 

I was really tempted then to just shoot off the flare gun and get the party started. It hadn't escaped my notice that Kellogg's people had formed a loose circle around me, and I wondered if they planned to try and stop me from leaving.

 

 

"I can't imagine that an experienced merc like you would come out here to talk if you just wanted to waste my time," I suggested. "What do you want?"

 

"Part of it was I wanted to see your face. I've got a hunch about who you might be, and I wanted to confirm it... but with that helmet of yours I guess I'm out of luck."

 

"You can have that one for free," I said. "I'm, 'the backup,' as you said."

 

He shook his head slightly. "Yeah, I figured I'd run into you eventually. The way you beat on the inside of your pod while I scooped up the kid... I knew you were too fiesty to stay cooped up in there. I guess I know what it is you want then, too."

 

"Yup, I sure do. Here I was thinking I was the most resilient man in the Commonwealth, but it looks like you're giving me a run for that title - and you're not even a man. Wild."

 

"Where's my son? Where's Shaun?" I asked, growing more angry by the moment.

 

Kellogg shrugged. "Lady, I'm just a puppet like you. Your stage might be up in Concord and mine might be here, but we're both dancing for the ones pulling the strings. Shaun's a good kid. He's doing great. But he's not here. He's with the puppet masters."

 

"You motherfucker," I hissed, "I'm going to kill you and every person in this base."

 

"OK," Kellog said, dismissively, "I think we're done here. You want a fight? Bring it. But it won't get you your son back. How about you let us finish what we're doing here and then leave peacefully. It'd save a lot of lives, and it would make Cosmos' day."

 

"I'll think about it," I said, turning to leave. And I did think about it for a while. If Kellogg was telling the truth, this battle would be just about revenge, and nothing more. I wouldn't be any closer to having Shaun back, and this battle would put a lot of Minuteman lives at risk.

 

But dammit, he killed my husband, he took my son, and then he left me locked in that pod. Kellogg needed to die, and that left me with just one choice. As I left his camp, I raised the flare gun up into the air and fired.

 

 

The shooting started almost immediately, with both forces launching their pincer attack in unison. Initially, it looked like we'd achieved surprise in spite of my failed negotiations. The mercenaries fought hard to defend their fortified positions, but they never attempted to counterattack or push us back. It looked like this was going to be just a matter of grinding them down. 

 

However, things changed then the gunfire of the mercs' rifles was joined by the hum and snap of laser bolts. And not the typical red flashes of pre-war technology, but an electric blue that I'd only seen one time before: during the fighting inside ArcJet Systems. It seemed that the Institute's synths had joined the fight - and not on our side.

 

 

The newcomers were heavily armed and seemed to shrug off the Minutemens' laser muskets. Getting closer, I could see that many of them were armored in thick plastic shells that seemed to be refracting our energy weapons. Danse's rifle did better, perhaps because of its stronger power supply, but now it was we, the attackers, who had to hunker down and fight from cover.

 

While I sheltered in a wrecked house, exchanging shots with our new opponents, one of the synths tried to rush the position. I burned through its chestplate with a sustained burst from my rifle, and just when I thought he was going to leap over the wall, he went still and fell, slumping over the obstacle. While I'd dealt with him however, another one had moved up behind cover closer to the fort and now was firing a heavy, split-beam laser that peppered the whole area. 

 

 

I pushed into the corner of the building where the walls were thickest and most intact, getting ready to trigger the biofuel system and try to close with him before he could blast me. However, before I could do that, a burst of gunfire struck the synth from the flank, sending it sprawling. I took advantage of his momentary vulnerability and laid into him with another long pull on the trigger.

 

With that immediate threat addressed, I looked for the source of the gunfire and saw a Minuteman sheltering under one of the mercenaries' guardposts. Running from cover to cover, I made my way over to her.

 

"You OK?" I asked.

 

"No, ma'am. Not sure if you noticed but there's an army of synths over there."

 

 

"I did indeed notice that," I said. "thanks for the assist, that one with the beam splitter had me pinned down." 

 

"Are we pulling out, ma'am?" she asked. I wouldn't say the woman was frightened exactly, but she was definitely experiencing the feeling of this operation going sideways.

 

"No," I said, "this was their insurance policy. They've tipped their hand about who they're working for, and that means we've got their backs to the wall. One more push and they'll crack."

 

Just then, I saw motion on the roof - another synth was trying to get a bead on me. I shot back first, singing off its arm and sending its gun flying. I tried to finish it with a second blast, but he was already sprinting for cover and my shots didn't connect.

 

 

"Form up your squad and them move in under covering fire. Don't let up the pressure. Once we take down these synths, they're done."

 

Even as I was saying this, however, the synths were counterattacking. I fell back down the street with the Minutemen squad, shepherding them into cover before I activated my biofuel and dashed in to spoil the synths' advance. Nick joined up with me from the next street over, and we successfully stopped the rush. 

 

"You OK, Nick?"

 

"Oh, just dandy," he said, "this is definitely how I wanted to spend my afternoon!"

 

 

It was a hard fight, and too many of our people were wounded or killed, but one by one we destroyed the synths with concentrated fire until we'd secured the outside of the headquarters building. From there, the relatively fresh troops from Forest Green, who'd been spared the full brunt of the synth counterattack, penetrated the underground garage complex, which had been turned into a makeshift barracks by the mercenaries. We flushed out the last few synths, as well as a few mercenary holdouts. 

 

 

The problem was, while resistance had ended outside, there was no sign of Kellogg. We were confident that no one had broken through our lines to escape, which told me that he was inside the headquarters building - and that building was locked down tight. More than locked down, the doors had been sealed and welded shut. If there was a secret entrance, I didn't know where to find it. While we tended to our wounded and secured the handful of prisoners we'd taken, I spent some time searching the synths for anything that would help us break into the building. Unfortunately, that proved to be a futile gesture.

 

Curie greeted process with interest, observing, "these are very sophisticated robots... androids even? Certainly not gynoids with their genitalia."

 

"We call them synths," I said.

 

"Oh." That seemed to give Curie pause for a moment, "like Nick, then? I was under the impression that he was unique."

 

 

"He is," I said. "The way he explained it to me, he's a prototype in-between the type we fought here and the newer synths that look just like people. If I had to guess, I'd say these are old models - expendable."

 

"What a horrible way to conceive of a being," Curie musted. "Surely if they are capable of devising complex tactics as we saw today, then they are entitled to a degree of self-determination." Then she paused. "I wonder... am I entitled to self-determination?"

 

"It seems you've claimed it for yourself already," I pointed out, "you aren't here because I ordered your to come."

 

"Yes, but these actions, they are simply the emergent result of continuously executing my program directives over a time scale far longer than my programmers intended. That is not the same as unconstrained self-determination, no?"

 

"Maybe not in a conceptual sense," I conceded, "but truly free choices like that almost never occur in reality. All of us, robot or human, are exposed to instructions, ideas, constraints, and conditioning over the course of our lives - and all those factors influence our behavior. Most of the time, I don't think we even think about it."

 

This conversation was making my mind drift back to the conversation with Supervisor White, and the idea that I might have been conditioned with thought patterns that were agreeable to Overseer Gray. I shook that thought from my mind for the moment - this wasn't the time for having an existential crisis - but I recommitted to learning more about Valery Gray, if for no other reason than to better understand the thoughts she might have planted in my head.

 

It was only when I accompanied a party up to the roof to plant the Minutemen flag that I found the solution to breaking into the headquarters. Just as well, I had been starting to conclude that the only way in would be to blast through the front doors with explosives, and given how badly decayed the buildings here had become, that might have been a recipe for just entombing Kellogg rather than capturing him or at least killing him with my own hands. But once I got up there to raise the flag, I found myself looking at a steel bulkhead set into the roof tiles. An experimental tug revealed that it was neither locked nor welded shut.

 

 

I summoned Nick and Curie and showed them my discovery. "Well, Nick," I asked, "are you ready to take down Kellogg once and for all?"

 

"I've been waiting for years," he said. "Just try to take him alive, OK? He's got a lot of information that I want. Got a whole folder of cold cases that he's involved with in some way."

 

"Yes," Curie piped in, "the correct procedure is to grab his arms and say 'citizen's arrest,' yes? Then he is required to wait until the police come to take him away."

 

"The procedure has changed a little, Curie, but something like that, sure. If there's any way I can make it happen, Kellogg is going to be in a cage by sundown.