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Title: Null Operators
Fandom: Fallout 4
Rating: R
Genre: Science Fiction, Horror, Angst.
Warnings: Major character deaths (canon for Brotherhood ending), graphic violence, body horror.
Characters: Deacon, X6-88, Railroad characters.
Pairings: past Deacon/Barbara
Details: Gen, AU, fix it (sort of), vampires, supernatural elements, angst, horror, grief, survivor's guilt, revenge, unbetad.
Word Count: 3,264
Summary: Deacon told lies as naturally as most people breathed, and he kept secrets even from those a less paranoid man might arguably have called his friends. Many of those secrets he carried for the Railroad, but a few he kept for his own sake...
The greatest and strangest was this: Most people breathed. Deacon wasn't most people.
Notes: Inspired by a scene in "Remnants" by Maculategiraffe. Started out as crack, but the more I thought about it the more plausible it seemed. For a given value of "plausible", admittedly, but we're talking about a setting canon that includes psykers, talking deathclaws, aliens, ghosts, Ug-Qualtoth, Harold, the Garys, the Mist Mother, and whatever nonsense is going on at Cabot House (don't spoil it for me).
Chapter One: End of the Line
"What are you doing?"
He cracked one eye open, looking up at Glory from beneath his shades. It figured she would be the one they sent to wake him. His stillness in repose had alarmed newer agents on more than one occasion. Carrington, bless him, had helpfully diagnosed the "metabolic disorder" that caused him to breathe so shallowly and slowly in sleep that he sometimes looked like he was dead. Still, some were just superstitious enough to avoid the job of rousing him—like it was only a matter of time, and none of them wanted to be the one to find it was for real. Honestly, it was almost touching. Glory was less affected by that sort of nonsense than most. With tensions as high as they were, he doubted anyone else was in the mood to tempt fate...
Of course, to be fair, it wasn't every day he chose to bed down inside an actual coffin.
"Conforming to stereotypes," he answered with a lazy smile.
Two days ago the Institute had made an assault on their operation at Bunker Hill, drawing in all the support the surviving safe-houses could spare. Shit there had gone badly sideways when the Brotherhood had invited themselves to the party. The synths being held there had been lost—and too many agents with them. Those who had managed to make it out had needed somewhere to go to ground, and for many of the wounded HQ—and Doc Carrington—had been the only viable option. Now the crypt in the church's undercroft was packed with as many extra bodies as it could fit—standing room only for those who could stand. With his usual bed unavailable he had been forced to make do.
Though he hadn't been sleeping, really. It was more of a doze. He had never been able to sleep very well at HQ—or in any of the safe-houses for that matter. Too much noise, too much movement—too many anxious bodies packed into too close a space for him to ever relax long enough to pass into the peace of a restful sleep. His inner predator was a pretty chill animal—mostly—but there was only so much it could ignore, and the presence of the wounded so very nearby certainly wasn't doing him any favors. The best he had managed was an hour or two to himself where he could afford to let down his guard and tune out for a little while. Fortunately, his unrest wasn't obvious from the outside.
And Glory didn't get his joke, of course, but as usual when human behavior—and his own; no especially his own—proved confusing, she simply chose to ignore it.
"Be weird on your own time," she said, rolling her eyes. "C'mon. Carrington wants to see you."
When he dragged himself out of his coffin—not for the first time—it was with more than a little difficulty. It must still have been daylight overhead, because his whole body ached from abuse that should have repaired itself before nightfall. If anyone had caught a glimpse of the shape he had been in when he had hauled himself in that morning... Well, actually, it occurred to him that someone must have. It would certainly explain why Carrington—still overburdened caring for casualties from Bunker Hill—had sent Glory to reel him in for this little chat.
"What's up, Doc?"
Carrington lifted his eyes from his current patient and he could see the exhausted shadows living underneath them. The doctor gestured for him to follow. The uncrowded corner where Carrington kept his notes and supplies offered the closest thing their cramped accommodations could to privacy. Still, the doctor made sure peoples' attentions were elsewhere before he spoke.
"You came in later than expected last night," Carrington said, his voice pitched low. "How bad was it?"
"It's bad," he admitted, quietly. "Finished my rounds last night. Ticon was hit while our heads were turned...looked like it happened maybe two days before shit erupted at Bunker Hill. Randolf's still dark. Augusta was burned, just like you feared. And Switchboard is still crawling with Institute hardware, so there's no use considering it as a fall-back point. Dayton's been overrun by ghouls. And the Brotherhood is close, Doc. Way too close. They've got thermal equipment on those 'birds of theirs...if it was anyone but me they would have picked up the heat last night. Even if we had somewhere to run to, if we try to use the escape tunnel they'd spot us as soon as we raised our heads."
He took a slow, steadying, but otherwise unnecessary breath, rubbing the back of his head. The stubble was coming back in now, but he doubted he get the chance to shave.
"You can see the report for yourself if you like," he finished. "I dropped it off on Des's table with my Christmas list and next month's rent."
Carrington let out a quiet huff of breath, the corner of his mouth ticking briefly before he shook his head.
"I was inquiring after your condition, Deacon," Carrington said, looking at him squarely.
It was his turn for a faint smile, though it wouldn't have reached his eyes if anyone could see them.
"My condition or my 'condition'?" he asked, emphasizing the word playfully with full air-quotes.
"Both, I suppose," Carrington said, seriously but not without real concern. "Drummer Boy saw you when you came in. I think I managed to convince him he was seeing things, but you have to tell me how bad it really was. If they find us-"
Carrington hesitated.
"When they find us," the doctor corrected, "we need everyone in the best shape possible."
The man wasn't wrong.
"Ferals usually go out of their way to avoid me if I'm on my own," he finally admitted, "but the ones at Dayton brought a night-light. Makes 'em a bit braver, and you know how crazy they get for road kill, even if it's still walking around."
And Carrington also knew that, whatever his other advantages, he was just as vulnerable to rads as anyone else—if not more so. As much as he might have liked to downplay the damage, they both knew a brush with a glowing ghoul and its pack wasn't something he could shrug off easily. The look the doctor flashed him was both tired and unimpressed. Just this once he would cut Carrington a break.
"Look, Doc, I'm fine," he said, lifting the edge of his shirt so Carrington could survey the worst of the damage himself. "I grabbed some RadAway before I hit the hay this morning, and see? I'm not even leaking anymore."
The half-healed flesh was still raised and uneven where teeth and nails had dug in, though not as reddened as it would have been on anyone else. They could almost be mistaken for scars. The wounds would have been gone entirely by now if he had fed, but attention on the surface was too hot to risk leaving, and Carrington's stocks had been depleted by the wounded from Bunker Hill. Their supply of stimpacks was low, and the others would need every one once the Brotherhood caught up with them...
And it seemed like Carrington's thoughts had begun to run in a similar direction.
"Would it-" Carrington paused briefly, as though reconsidering his words, before he continued. "Do you think a transfusion would help?"
There was little hope in the doctor's voice, however. In response he offered Carrington another tight smile.
"You know that's not how it works, Doc," he said quietly. He cast another glance over the room, needing to make doubly sure no one was listening. "And to really make a difference, someone's gotta be bled dry."
And it had been a while since he had taken care of that—far longer than he should have let it go. But between the Institute's hidden agenda and the Brotherhood's arrival in the Commonwealth, too many pieces had come into play too fast. Then Operation Wanderer had turned and bitten him in the ass—fuck, but he'd outsmarted himself there—and now they all were paying for it. In trying to fix his own mistakes and stay on top of the positions rapidly changing on the board he had gotten distracted from taking proper care of himself.
Man, was he regretting that now.
As he watched, Carrington cast his own eyes over the others. A faint tremor crossed the doctor's frame that he doubted anyone else would have noticed, and he could guess at the kind of calculus going on inside Carrington's head. Because he was watching he could see the moment Carrington decided he was ready to make that offer, but he interrupted it before it could even be voiced with a shake of his head.
"Hey, Doc," he said quietly, "let's save that for when the bad guys actually show up, okay?"
And for Carrington that was that, but as he left the doctor's corner he had to wonder...
Would it make a difference? Perhaps, but he doubted it would have been enough to make much of one. Maybe, if the Brotherhood's attack came in the night, when he was at his strongest. Maybe, if he had enough time to rest after the feeding, enough to really make it count. Or if someone younger, stronger, healthier than Carrington offered their lifeblood up for sacrifice...or more than one. But he knew how close he had come to getting caught just making it back that morning. He didn't need PAM's estimates to tell him they wouldn't have that kind of time.
Time. Shit, but there always felt like so much of it—almost too much, until it ran out.
There were things he would have done if he had known their clock was counting down. How many times had he considered sharing his secret with Glory? How many times had it crossed his mind, only for him to chicken out and leave the confession—the offer—unspoken? He had wondered for decades whether it was even possible, or if synths were too different for the changes to even take. Then again, he had always been just as afraid of learning the answer...
(Just how different could things have been if he had known the answer, all those years ago? If he had known there was even a question to ask? If he had trusted her, if she had trusted him, if they had trusted each other with the truths of their lies and he had made the offer, taken the chance before it was gone...)
It was far too late now to even consider. Not enough time now, if he told Glory, to convince her it was true and not just another of his jokes. Not enough time for her to go through the change and recover from it, if she would even have recovered at all. Carrington was right, after all—they needed every gun if there was any hope to survive until nightfall, and Glory was the best they had.
And it all came back to trust, didn't it?
You can't trust everyone. It was an easy lesson to impress upon a new agent, and one of the first he tried to deliver, but the B-side of that very good advice was that you rarely got far without finding someone that you could trust. And that was the regret that was really digging at him as he looked at the people around him. He had trusted Carrington out of necessity, but he had known for a long time now—and had hesitated to admit to himself—that he could have trusted the others as well. Maybe not everyone, but he knew he could have told Tom, and Glory, and Drummer—and he absolutely could have told Des.
There just wasn't enough time for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but, though perhaps they could settle for the next best thing.
"Hey Tom."
Over at his desk the tech's head shot up at the sound of his name. His expression was wide-eyed and startled. Tinker Tom could be high-strung and jumpy on his levelest of days, under present circumstances it was hard not to feel a little proud of him for being as composed as he was. The only possible explanation was that he had found something to keep himself occupied—gotten lost in some project or other and lost track of the world. He began to regret distracting Tom from his work almost instantly, but with the damage already done he might as well go through with what he had to say.
"Look, man..." he began, lowering his voice. "If we don't make it out of this alive, I just wanted you to know that you were right about me."
Tinker Tom just stared at him uncomprehendingly for one, long, blank moment before comprehension finally dawned in his eyes.
"You mean...?" Tom asked, a cautious excitement evident in his voice.
"Yeah," he said, leaning in and affecting a vulnerable softness in his voice that even people familiar with his lies mistook as earnest. "Only...I'm actually from the past. Secret project by West Tek in the 2060s, very hush-hush. Didn't work out like they thought, though. It's really...kind of a bummer."
The roughness in his voice—of loss, of faded grief for the Old World—held within that understated sentiment at the end wasn't precisely a lie. Perhaps that was what sold it. Perhaps that was what caused that hesitant, doubtful line between Tom's brows to smooth away and new energy to kindle in his eyes. What caused him to believe, even after so many lies, because deep down Tinker Tom had always needed to believe in something.
That something should not have been Deacon—Deacon was a lie even he barely believed in himself anymore—but the tentative smile on Tom's lips parted into a grin that almost made it worth it.
"See, I knew it!"
Tinker Tom took off after that, no doubt to tell those few agents the tech he could be said to trust—probably mostly Drummer Boy, whose approach to Tom's delusions at least leaned toward the diplomatic. He doubted anyone else Tom told would burst his bubble, though, what with certain doom looming over their heads. The Railroad held a lot of hardened and arguably damaged people—plus one literal monster—but none of them could be that heartless.
"That was a kind thing for you to say."
He looked over, unsurprised to find Desdemona was watching him. She was leaned up against one of the pillars near the planning table, pack of cigarettes in hand. She pulled one out herself before tipping it his way.
"Be better if I thought we had a chance," he admitted, accepting her offer. "I had all kinds of ideas for how I was going to play the part..."
And that actually wasn't a lie. He had entertained the thought, more than once, of humoring Tom's time-travel suspicions. Spinning a yarn about his life before the War might have been the closest thing to telling the truth he had done in a very long time.
Desdemona didn't comment on his fatalism, lighting her cigarette with a steady hand. It had always amazed him how she could manage it in a situation as desperate as this, how she could keep her hands from shaking. He remembered noticing it first after they lost Trinity Tower, again after the Switchboard. He was clinically dead and even his hands were never that steady...
"Look, Des, I know you never asked-"
She cut him off easily with a shake of her head. She handed him her lighter.
"Whatever it is," she said, "it's never kept you from doing your job and doing it well. Don't ruin the mystery now."
When he lit his cigarette his hands were trembling. It was Desdemona's absolution of the secrets he kept from her that finally made it real for him. This was it. This was the end. Five decades in operation, risking everything against the Institute, and the best they could do was try to bloody the Brotherhood's noses when they came.
And there was a voice in the back of his head—vermin instinct, a holdover from his life before the War when it was every creature for itself—demanding he abandon this ship before it burned. He could still get away, it said. Like he had Switchboard. Like he'd escaped the HQ massacre back in Agamemnon's day. If he made for the escape tunnel now, if he slipped away, the vertibirds might miss him on the way out like they had on his way in...
That voice was a bastard. He chose forcefully to ignore it.
The first warning came nearly half an hour later. It wasn't much to hear when it began, just a few pops of gunfire muffled by earth and stone—too faint still for the others to have heard it. As it grew louder conversations died and activity stopped as, one by one, they heard it as well. Even then it was nothing they hadn't heard every now and then whenever raiders or mutants wandered just a little too close. It was when the pops became fewer and farther between that their fears were confirmed—the sounds of laser-fire didn't carry as well or as far as traditional arms, and if the shots upstairs were slowing it meant fewer of their people in the church overhead were still firing back.
Finally there was an explosion as the hidden door was breached.
After that it was chaos. The the zing of lasers and the sounds of gunfire drowned out all but the occasional shout or scream of pain as the air grew thick with the scent of ozone, blood and gunpowder. He lost track of Des and Drummer as his focus narrowed on survival, but he saw Carrington go down from a burst of red energy to the chest. Glory spent her last moments in such a beautiful, deadly blaze that her name barely did her justice. And the Railroad finally got it's first clear glimpse of the monster in their midst when his last StealthBoy wore off, jaws still buried hungrily in the throat of the Initiate who shot Tom dead.
Though that glimpse was blessedly—and just as unfortunately—short lived.
One jack-booted, power-armored thug was usually interchangeable for another, but the suit that stepped through the dust and smoke was one that he recognized. Rather than the utilitarian paint-job of your rank-and-file tin can, this armor was plated with a thick layer of lead. He had seen it when that lead shielding was all new and dully pristine, and he had seen it return bearing fresh gouges and scars after a desperate trek into the Glowing Sea. And he had last seen its owner headed back into that place with one of the Brotherhood's top soldiers at his side. He had lost track of the man after that, the events of Bunker Hill following not long after had made it impossible to pick up his trail again...
Well, here he was, wasn't he? Wanderer had found him. How about that?
The last thing he saw—no doubt the last thing any of them would see—was death being leveled at them by a man they had helped. A man that he himself had vouched for. The man on whom he had gambled the future of the Commonwealth...
And lost.
Chapter Two
Fandom: Fallout 4
Rating: R
Genre: Science Fiction, Horror, Angst.
Warnings: Major character deaths (canon for Brotherhood ending), graphic violence, body horror.
Characters: Deacon, X6-88, Railroad characters.
Pairings: past Deacon/Barbara
Details: Gen, AU, fix it (sort of), vampires, supernatural elements, angst, horror, grief, survivor's guilt, revenge, unbetad.
Word Count: 3,264
Summary: Deacon told lies as naturally as most people breathed, and he kept secrets even from those a less paranoid man might arguably have called his friends. Many of those secrets he carried for the Railroad, but a few he kept for his own sake...
The greatest and strangest was this: Most people breathed. Deacon wasn't most people.
Notes: Inspired by a scene in "Remnants" by Maculategiraffe. Started out as crack, but the more I thought about it the more plausible it seemed. For a given value of "plausible", admittedly, but we're talking about a setting canon that includes psykers, talking deathclaws, aliens, ghosts, Ug-Qualtoth, Harold, the Garys, the Mist Mother, and whatever nonsense is going on at Cabot House (don't spoil it for me).
Chapter One: End of the Line
"What are you doing?"
He cracked one eye open, looking up at Glory from beneath his shades. It figured she would be the one they sent to wake him. His stillness in repose had alarmed newer agents on more than one occasion. Carrington, bless him, had helpfully diagnosed the "metabolic disorder" that caused him to breathe so shallowly and slowly in sleep that he sometimes looked like he was dead. Still, some were just superstitious enough to avoid the job of rousing him—like it was only a matter of time, and none of them wanted to be the one to find it was for real. Honestly, it was almost touching. Glory was less affected by that sort of nonsense than most. With tensions as high as they were, he doubted anyone else was in the mood to tempt fate...
Of course, to be fair, it wasn't every day he chose to bed down inside an actual coffin.
"Conforming to stereotypes," he answered with a lazy smile.
Two days ago the Institute had made an assault on their operation at Bunker Hill, drawing in all the support the surviving safe-houses could spare. Shit there had gone badly sideways when the Brotherhood had invited themselves to the party. The synths being held there had been lost—and too many agents with them. Those who had managed to make it out had needed somewhere to go to ground, and for many of the wounded HQ—and Doc Carrington—had been the only viable option. Now the crypt in the church's undercroft was packed with as many extra bodies as it could fit—standing room only for those who could stand. With his usual bed unavailable he had been forced to make do.
Though he hadn't been sleeping, really. It was more of a doze. He had never been able to sleep very well at HQ—or in any of the safe-houses for that matter. Too much noise, too much movement—too many anxious bodies packed into too close a space for him to ever relax long enough to pass into the peace of a restful sleep. His inner predator was a pretty chill animal—mostly—but there was only so much it could ignore, and the presence of the wounded so very nearby certainly wasn't doing him any favors. The best he had managed was an hour or two to himself where he could afford to let down his guard and tune out for a little while. Fortunately, his unrest wasn't obvious from the outside.
And Glory didn't get his joke, of course, but as usual when human behavior—and his own; no especially his own—proved confusing, she simply chose to ignore it.
"Be weird on your own time," she said, rolling her eyes. "C'mon. Carrington wants to see you."
When he dragged himself out of his coffin—not for the first time—it was with more than a little difficulty. It must still have been daylight overhead, because his whole body ached from abuse that should have repaired itself before nightfall. If anyone had caught a glimpse of the shape he had been in when he had hauled himself in that morning... Well, actually, it occurred to him that someone must have. It would certainly explain why Carrington—still overburdened caring for casualties from Bunker Hill—had sent Glory to reel him in for this little chat.
"What's up, Doc?"
Carrington lifted his eyes from his current patient and he could see the exhausted shadows living underneath them. The doctor gestured for him to follow. The uncrowded corner where Carrington kept his notes and supplies offered the closest thing their cramped accommodations could to privacy. Still, the doctor made sure peoples' attentions were elsewhere before he spoke.
"You came in later than expected last night," Carrington said, his voice pitched low. "How bad was it?"
"It's bad," he admitted, quietly. "Finished my rounds last night. Ticon was hit while our heads were turned...looked like it happened maybe two days before shit erupted at Bunker Hill. Randolf's still dark. Augusta was burned, just like you feared. And Switchboard is still crawling with Institute hardware, so there's no use considering it as a fall-back point. Dayton's been overrun by ghouls. And the Brotherhood is close, Doc. Way too close. They've got thermal equipment on those 'birds of theirs...if it was anyone but me they would have picked up the heat last night. Even if we had somewhere to run to, if we try to use the escape tunnel they'd spot us as soon as we raised our heads."
He took a slow, steadying, but otherwise unnecessary breath, rubbing the back of his head. The stubble was coming back in now, but he doubted he get the chance to shave.
"You can see the report for yourself if you like," he finished. "I dropped it off on Des's table with my Christmas list and next month's rent."
Carrington let out a quiet huff of breath, the corner of his mouth ticking briefly before he shook his head.
"I was inquiring after your condition, Deacon," Carrington said, looking at him squarely.
It was his turn for a faint smile, though it wouldn't have reached his eyes if anyone could see them.
"My condition or my 'condition'?" he asked, emphasizing the word playfully with full air-quotes.
"Both, I suppose," Carrington said, seriously but not without real concern. "Drummer Boy saw you when you came in. I think I managed to convince him he was seeing things, but you have to tell me how bad it really was. If they find us-"
Carrington hesitated.
"When they find us," the doctor corrected, "we need everyone in the best shape possible."
The man wasn't wrong.
"Ferals usually go out of their way to avoid me if I'm on my own," he finally admitted, "but the ones at Dayton brought a night-light. Makes 'em a bit braver, and you know how crazy they get for road kill, even if it's still walking around."
And Carrington also knew that, whatever his other advantages, he was just as vulnerable to rads as anyone else—if not more so. As much as he might have liked to downplay the damage, they both knew a brush with a glowing ghoul and its pack wasn't something he could shrug off easily. The look the doctor flashed him was both tired and unimpressed. Just this once he would cut Carrington a break.
"Look, Doc, I'm fine," he said, lifting the edge of his shirt so Carrington could survey the worst of the damage himself. "I grabbed some RadAway before I hit the hay this morning, and see? I'm not even leaking anymore."
The half-healed flesh was still raised and uneven where teeth and nails had dug in, though not as reddened as it would have been on anyone else. They could almost be mistaken for scars. The wounds would have been gone entirely by now if he had fed, but attention on the surface was too hot to risk leaving, and Carrington's stocks had been depleted by the wounded from Bunker Hill. Their supply of stimpacks was low, and the others would need every one once the Brotherhood caught up with them...
And it seemed like Carrington's thoughts had begun to run in a similar direction.
"Would it-" Carrington paused briefly, as though reconsidering his words, before he continued. "Do you think a transfusion would help?"
There was little hope in the doctor's voice, however. In response he offered Carrington another tight smile.
"You know that's not how it works, Doc," he said quietly. He cast another glance over the room, needing to make doubly sure no one was listening. "And to really make a difference, someone's gotta be bled dry."
And it had been a while since he had taken care of that—far longer than he should have let it go. But between the Institute's hidden agenda and the Brotherhood's arrival in the Commonwealth, too many pieces had come into play too fast. Then Operation Wanderer had turned and bitten him in the ass—fuck, but he'd outsmarted himself there—and now they all were paying for it. In trying to fix his own mistakes and stay on top of the positions rapidly changing on the board he had gotten distracted from taking proper care of himself.
Man, was he regretting that now.
As he watched, Carrington cast his own eyes over the others. A faint tremor crossed the doctor's frame that he doubted anyone else would have noticed, and he could guess at the kind of calculus going on inside Carrington's head. Because he was watching he could see the moment Carrington decided he was ready to make that offer, but he interrupted it before it could even be voiced with a shake of his head.
"Hey, Doc," he said quietly, "let's save that for when the bad guys actually show up, okay?"
And for Carrington that was that, but as he left the doctor's corner he had to wonder...
Would it make a difference? Perhaps, but he doubted it would have been enough to make much of one. Maybe, if the Brotherhood's attack came in the night, when he was at his strongest. Maybe, if he had enough time to rest after the feeding, enough to really make it count. Or if someone younger, stronger, healthier than Carrington offered their lifeblood up for sacrifice...or more than one. But he knew how close he had come to getting caught just making it back that morning. He didn't need PAM's estimates to tell him they wouldn't have that kind of time.
Time. Shit, but there always felt like so much of it—almost too much, until it ran out.
There were things he would have done if he had known their clock was counting down. How many times had he considered sharing his secret with Glory? How many times had it crossed his mind, only for him to chicken out and leave the confession—the offer—unspoken? He had wondered for decades whether it was even possible, or if synths were too different for the changes to even take. Then again, he had always been just as afraid of learning the answer...
(Just how different could things have been if he had known the answer, all those years ago? If he had known there was even a question to ask? If he had trusted her, if she had trusted him, if they had trusted each other with the truths of their lies and he had made the offer, taken the chance before it was gone...)
It was far too late now to even consider. Not enough time now, if he told Glory, to convince her it was true and not just another of his jokes. Not enough time for her to go through the change and recover from it, if she would even have recovered at all. Carrington was right, after all—they needed every gun if there was any hope to survive until nightfall, and Glory was the best they had.
And it all came back to trust, didn't it?
You can't trust everyone. It was an easy lesson to impress upon a new agent, and one of the first he tried to deliver, but the B-side of that very good advice was that you rarely got far without finding someone that you could trust. And that was the regret that was really digging at him as he looked at the people around him. He had trusted Carrington out of necessity, but he had known for a long time now—and had hesitated to admit to himself—that he could have trusted the others as well. Maybe not everyone, but he knew he could have told Tom, and Glory, and Drummer—and he absolutely could have told Des.
There just wasn't enough time for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but, though perhaps they could settle for the next best thing.
"Hey Tom."
Over at his desk the tech's head shot up at the sound of his name. His expression was wide-eyed and startled. Tinker Tom could be high-strung and jumpy on his levelest of days, under present circumstances it was hard not to feel a little proud of him for being as composed as he was. The only possible explanation was that he had found something to keep himself occupied—gotten lost in some project or other and lost track of the world. He began to regret distracting Tom from his work almost instantly, but with the damage already done he might as well go through with what he had to say.
"Look, man..." he began, lowering his voice. "If we don't make it out of this alive, I just wanted you to know that you were right about me."
Tinker Tom just stared at him uncomprehendingly for one, long, blank moment before comprehension finally dawned in his eyes.
"You mean...?" Tom asked, a cautious excitement evident in his voice.
"Yeah," he said, leaning in and affecting a vulnerable softness in his voice that even people familiar with his lies mistook as earnest. "Only...I'm actually from the past. Secret project by West Tek in the 2060s, very hush-hush. Didn't work out like they thought, though. It's really...kind of a bummer."
The roughness in his voice—of loss, of faded grief for the Old World—held within that understated sentiment at the end wasn't precisely a lie. Perhaps that was what sold it. Perhaps that was what caused that hesitant, doubtful line between Tom's brows to smooth away and new energy to kindle in his eyes. What caused him to believe, even after so many lies, because deep down Tinker Tom had always needed to believe in something.
That something should not have been Deacon—Deacon was a lie even he barely believed in himself anymore—but the tentative smile on Tom's lips parted into a grin that almost made it worth it.
"See, I knew it!"
Tinker Tom took off after that, no doubt to tell those few agents the tech he could be said to trust—probably mostly Drummer Boy, whose approach to Tom's delusions at least leaned toward the diplomatic. He doubted anyone else Tom told would burst his bubble, though, what with certain doom looming over their heads. The Railroad held a lot of hardened and arguably damaged people—plus one literal monster—but none of them could be that heartless.
"That was a kind thing for you to say."
He looked over, unsurprised to find Desdemona was watching him. She was leaned up against one of the pillars near the planning table, pack of cigarettes in hand. She pulled one out herself before tipping it his way.
"Be better if I thought we had a chance," he admitted, accepting her offer. "I had all kinds of ideas for how I was going to play the part..."
And that actually wasn't a lie. He had entertained the thought, more than once, of humoring Tom's time-travel suspicions. Spinning a yarn about his life before the War might have been the closest thing to telling the truth he had done in a very long time.
Desdemona didn't comment on his fatalism, lighting her cigarette with a steady hand. It had always amazed him how she could manage it in a situation as desperate as this, how she could keep her hands from shaking. He remembered noticing it first after they lost Trinity Tower, again after the Switchboard. He was clinically dead and even his hands were never that steady...
"Look, Des, I know you never asked-"
She cut him off easily with a shake of her head. She handed him her lighter.
"Whatever it is," she said, "it's never kept you from doing your job and doing it well. Don't ruin the mystery now."
When he lit his cigarette his hands were trembling. It was Desdemona's absolution of the secrets he kept from her that finally made it real for him. This was it. This was the end. Five decades in operation, risking everything against the Institute, and the best they could do was try to bloody the Brotherhood's noses when they came.
And there was a voice in the back of his head—vermin instinct, a holdover from his life before the War when it was every creature for itself—demanding he abandon this ship before it burned. He could still get away, it said. Like he had Switchboard. Like he'd escaped the HQ massacre back in Agamemnon's day. If he made for the escape tunnel now, if he slipped away, the vertibirds might miss him on the way out like they had on his way in...
That voice was a bastard. He chose forcefully to ignore it.
The first warning came nearly half an hour later. It wasn't much to hear when it began, just a few pops of gunfire muffled by earth and stone—too faint still for the others to have heard it. As it grew louder conversations died and activity stopped as, one by one, they heard it as well. Even then it was nothing they hadn't heard every now and then whenever raiders or mutants wandered just a little too close. It was when the pops became fewer and farther between that their fears were confirmed—the sounds of laser-fire didn't carry as well or as far as traditional arms, and if the shots upstairs were slowing it meant fewer of their people in the church overhead were still firing back.
Finally there was an explosion as the hidden door was breached.
After that it was chaos. The the zing of lasers and the sounds of gunfire drowned out all but the occasional shout or scream of pain as the air grew thick with the scent of ozone, blood and gunpowder. He lost track of Des and Drummer as his focus narrowed on survival, but he saw Carrington go down from a burst of red energy to the chest. Glory spent her last moments in such a beautiful, deadly blaze that her name barely did her justice. And the Railroad finally got it's first clear glimpse of the monster in their midst when his last StealthBoy wore off, jaws still buried hungrily in the throat of the Initiate who shot Tom dead.
Though that glimpse was blessedly—and just as unfortunately—short lived.
One jack-booted, power-armored thug was usually interchangeable for another, but the suit that stepped through the dust and smoke was one that he recognized. Rather than the utilitarian paint-job of your rank-and-file tin can, this armor was plated with a thick layer of lead. He had seen it when that lead shielding was all new and dully pristine, and he had seen it return bearing fresh gouges and scars after a desperate trek into the Glowing Sea. And he had last seen its owner headed back into that place with one of the Brotherhood's top soldiers at his side. He had lost track of the man after that, the events of Bunker Hill following not long after had made it impossible to pick up his trail again...
Well, here he was, wasn't he? Wanderer had found him. How about that?
The last thing he saw—no doubt the last thing any of them would see—was death being leveled at them by a man they had helped. A man that he himself had vouched for. The man on whom he had gambled the future of the Commonwealth...
And lost.
