New Vegas: Sheason's Story

Chapter 78: Brotherhood and Followers

The moment the two of us stepped out of the elevator, the pit of my stomach fell out. There were four Brotherhood paladins standing in front of us barring our way, and not only were they all wearing power armor (complete with helmets), but they were all armed with their weapons drawn. The weapon carried by the one in the front - the only one of the four to be wearing T-51b - looked like a minigun, except instead of normal barrels it had the accelerator coils of a Gauss weapon.

Right, this is not a place I want to be right now.

"What is this?" The man carrying the Gauss minigun stepped forward, his heavily armored feet shaking the metal floor. "Veronica brings an outsider into our home, then has a private audience with the Elder?"

"I've had audiences with the Elder before, Cutter," Veronica said, apparently unfazed by this sudden turn of events. "This is no different." The powered armor behemoth with the massive gun turned his head to look at Veronica, and then turned back to me.

"The two of you may have the Elder fooled, but we know better. Veronica has always twisted the Founder's principles to her own ends. We will not stand idly by and allow her to corrupt our Elder's thinking..." I half expected them to open fire right then and there. And there I was with nowhere to go.

"CUTTER!" A voice like a hammer smashing an anvil bellowed from behind the crowd of powered armor troops, and the four of them turned at the sound, lowering their weapons. Another man wearing T-51b - minus the helmet - walked up to the Gauss minigun-toting soldier. "Stand down. All of you."

"But Sir, I-"

"Get a cup of coffee, paladin. You, and your squad. Now." It was obviously not a suggestion. Hell, his tone of voice almost made me want to leave to get some coffee. The soldier in the lead straightened up immediately.

"Sir. Yes, sir." Before he left, the paladin turned to look at me. "We'll be watching you, outsider. Count on it."

The four power armored soldiers marched off, and the helmetless man turned to face us, finally giving me a good view at what he looked like. Two things about him stood out to me right off the bat. The first was the massive scar on the left side of his face, running from his forehead, over his left eye, and down to his cheek. And the second was his balding head, with a pitiful attempt to hide it with the thin, wispy strands of a comb-over. I would've laughed, if it wasn't for the power armor, the scar, and his heavy-set jaw that looked sharp enough to cut glass.

"Hardin," Veronica said curtly. He nodded in her direction.

"Veronica." He folded his arms across his chest, and turned to look down at me. "So, you're the wastelander that's been given leave to wander around freely. Desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess. My name is Edgar Hardin. I'm the Head Paladin of this chapter, and I'd like to have a word with you." He cast a glance with his one good eye to Veronica, and then back to me. "In private."

"Sorry, Hardin," Veronica stood her ground next to me. "We were actually just leaving."

"I'm sorry, scribe, did you get the impression I was asking?" The two of them scowled at each other for a few seconds... And then Veronica sighed, clicking her tongue on the roof of her mouth.

"Fine. But he's my responsibility while inside the bunker. Don't be long," She started walking away... but as soon as she was behind him and out of sight, she mouthed a warning to me: Do not trust him. Before Hardin could get suspicious, she kept walking, and turned into the first hallway on the right.

"I think you and I might be able to help each other, wastelander," Hardin said, refusing to unfold his arms. "I don't know what the Elder talked to you about, but I can tell you this chapter is in trouble, and he is at the center of it. Are you willing to listen to what I have to say?" I looked up at his massively armored form, looming over me, and sighed.

"Do I have a choice?" I asked, honestly. He shrugged - which, given the armor he was wearing, I wasn't quite sure how he pulled that off.

"You always have a choice, wastelander." I wasn't entirely convinced of that, so I decided to play it safe and listen to him. At least for the moment.

"Alright, let's hear what you have to say."

"As you may have already heard," Hardin said, finally unfolding his arms "this entire base is under a state of lockdown. No one goes out except small patrols at night. Most of the chapter has been sealed in here for years, and those few who were outside when the lockdown was initiated are forbidden from returning. Morale has plummeted as time has gone by, and many of our current paladins haven't even seen combat outside of training simulations. And all because of the Elder's explicit order that no one be allowed in or out. The only way things will change is if a new Elder is installed."

"What about Veronica?" I asked. "She seems to come and go as she pleases."

"Veronica is..." Hardin grimaced. "... a special case. She handles the procurement of supplies. If we didn't let her and those like her back in, we'd all starve. If the Elder could manage it, he'd shut them out as well, and all in the name of security. Which is why we need to replace him."

"Sounds to me like something you'd want to actually talk to the Elder about, and not some random outsider who talked to him a grand total of two minutes. Have you brought it up with him?" I asked. Hardin snorted.

"Of course I have. Many times. The Elder has an open door policy, and will listen to advice on any subject, save this one. He refuses to see that our isolation is slowly weakening us. Aside from being our duty, going out on missions is what kept us strong, and because he fails to see that... he must be replaced."

"And I suppose you'd nominate yourself to replace him?" I said, putting two and two together. His expression remained unchanged.

"I would. I am the senior-most paladin in the chapter, and have more combat experience than any two others here put together. I'd gladly support another candidate, but no one has the courage to step forward and make the attempt, so it falls to me. I would put this chapter back on the right path, if I could just assume leadership."

"So why talk to me?" I asked. "What do I have to do with any of this?"

"Because, as an outsider, you can find information that I cannot," Hardin said simply. I raised an eyebrow.

"I'm... not sure I follow." Hardin sighed.

"I've gone through the records dozens of times, looking for a precedent regarding the dismissal of an Elder and come up with nothing. More than that, the people who are most likely to know how it could be done are also some of McNamara's strongest supporters. They will refuse to help me, but you? You would arouse less suspicion asking questions about such matters. The fact that the Elder has some tasks for you means his faithful won't suspect you, and you have a line open to the man himself. You are in a perfect position to help me."

"That seems to be a common thread, lately..." I grumbled, musing about my current situation in the Mojave. "Everyone seems to think I'm the right man in the right place. I'm starting to think I keep finding myself in the wrong place." Hardin smirked for half a second, and snorted.

"The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world." I looked at him oddly. I had a feeling I'd heard that somewhere before... I just couldn't place it... I shook it off.

"Yeah... alright, let's assume for a minute that I help you with your scheme to further your own personal ambitions, and help you overthrow McNamara..." Hardin seemed to bristle at that; good, let him know I'm not an idiot, like he was obviously expecting... "What happens once you're King under the mountain? What do I get out of helping you?"

"When I become Elder, the lockdown will be lifted, and we'll once again be able to send patrols out into the wastes. We'll become powerful again. And when that happens, it will be good to have the Brotherhood as an ally. Good enough?"

"But you still wouldn't recruit outsiders, would you?" I asked. Hardin cocked his head to the side, and narrowed his eyes at me curiously. It was like he didn't understand the question.

"Of course not. The Codex forbids it. 'We do not help them, or let them in. We keep knowledge they must never have.' If I were to recruit outsiders, then I would be turning my back on our most sacred teachings."

I shook my head. This guy seemed even more obstinate than McNamara. And neither of them realized the real reason they had no future. If nothing else, Veronica seems to think there's a chance McNamara could be swayed, but this guy? Forget it.

"Sorry. But I'm not going to have any part in your little coup. You have fun!" I smiled up at him, gave him a wave, and started walking. He turned to keep facing me as I walked away.

"I half expected you to say as much," he said. "I'll continue to pursue the matter on my own. Should you continue dealing with the Elder and find yourself beginning to see my point of view, I'll be around."

"Sorry about all that..." Veronica said as we made our way down another corridor. "Hardin's a bit of an ass."

"Ambitious, too," I said, checking over my shoulder. Nope, he wasn't behind us. "He wanted my help to oust McNamara."

"Oh god, THAT'S what he wanted to talk to you about?" Veronica chuckled a few times, and seemed... I dunno, a bit relieved. "No wonder he wanted me to leave, I would've spent the whole time laughing."

"This isn't the first time he's tried to do this, I take it?" I asked. She just smiled and shook her head.

"Hardin has been after the Elder post for years. Before Elijah was named Elder, even. He always said it was 'highly unusual' that a scribe was made Elder, that 'the post should pass to a paladin or knight - someone with combat experience.' But everyone knows he just wants the power. He doesn't even try to hide it."

"Yeah, he didn't seem all that subtle..." I smiled to myself. Well, that's one less thing to worry about. Hopefully. "So, where are we going now?"

"We're heading to the workshop level. You said you wanted to talk to Lorenzo, and that'll be your best bet at finding him. He's always tinkering away with something..."

I don't know how Veronica found the place - absolutely no doors or hallways down here were marked or signed - but the next thing I knew, the two of us were walking into one of the workshops. I knew immediately it was a workshop, because there were dozens of people with dozens of tools working on dozens of machines, weapons, armor... you name it. Off in the back, I'm sure I saw a pair of people working on something massive and unidentifiable that was arcing electricity across the room.

The next thing I knew, Veronica was dragging a dark haired, dark skinned man wearing welding goggles and recon armor out from around a corner.

"Hi Lorenzo," Veronica said. "I think you two wanted to talk?"

"We do?" Lorenzo asked, confusing crossing his features as soon as he pulled his goggles off his face. "I'm sorry, I don't believe we've met? I'm Senior Knight Lorenzo." He smiled at me and extended his hand.

"Sheason," I shook his hand. "You're right, we haven't met. Not really. You sent a message to me through ED-E a few days ago?"

"Oh!" His expression perked up immediately. "You're the one with the robot, aren't you? Yes, I was hoping you'd bring it my way..." Lorenzo started looking around. "Where is it?"

"Not here," I said. "I wanted to talk to you first, before handing him over. What exactly do you want with ED-E?"

"Well," he turned away, gesturing for me to follow. Around the corner was a RobCo terminal, spewing termlink code from the top to the bottom of the screen at a rapid-fire pace. "I picked up its signal several months ago when he arrived in the Mojave. Merely based on the information I was able to pick up on the surface, I can tell it is an impressive piece of hardware - I've never seen a data stream from any robot quite like his. The signal went dark for several weeks, and didn't come back online again until very late in the day on the 19th of last month. Since then, the signal has been scrambled."

"What do you mean, scrambled?" Veronica asked, peering around my shoulder. Lorenzo stared at the screen, continuing to talk.

"Perhaps 'scrambled' is the wrong word... Before his signal went dark, I was able to track it by periodic bursts of data packets. The data has been far more infrequent, lately." Lorenzo turned back to me again. "Based on what little I have, I believe it may be carrying some Enclave data. Has it said or done anything that might indicate what that information might be?"

"Well..." I cleared my throat. "There was a recording. Two of them, actually. I think they were made by his creator, and they mentioned something about Enclave Duraframe Eyebots, and something about Poseidon Energy research." His eyes widened to the size of pie plates immediately.

"D- did you say Poseidon Energy? I've been researching a number of Poseidon projects here! Incomplete logs I was able to retrieve from Helios before the NCR took it over! If you could bring your robot here, it might have just what I need to complete my research!"

"ED-E." I said. Lorenzo looked taken aback.

"Sorry?"

"His name is ED-E."

"Well, that was... horrible," I said the moment we exited the bunker and emerged on the surface. We'd only been down there for an hour or two, but already I was grateful for the sunlight and the fresh air. "I can see now why you don't spend too much time down there, the air is stifling!" Veronica shrugged.

"That's just how the bunker has always been," Veronica and I got in my car. "So, what next?"

"Well..." I looked at my Pip Boy's map, trying to find the coordinates Ramos gave me right before we left. "McNamara wanted me to look for three patrols that had gone missing. According to this, the holotape tracker... things are..." I looked closer at the map. "There's three of them. One is up near Nellis, another is somewhere in Henderson, and the last one is actually pretty close, just northeast of here near Black Mountain. Think we should try and find them?"

Veronica paused, weighing her options for a minute.

"Not yet," she said eventually. Before I got a chance to ask why, she continued. "The Elder said you could track their mission holotapes, yes?" I nodded. "That's..." Veronica looked concerned.

"What? What's wrong?"

"Brotherhood mission holotapes come with a built in distress signal... but the paladin in charge is supposed to hit what is effectively a 'snooze' button every few hours. They only go active if they haven't been reset." Veronica looked worried. I looked back at the map on my arm.

"So what you're saying is, these guys are probably in trouble."

"In trouble... or..." She gulped audibly. "More likely, dead. And if there are things or people out there that can bring down a team of paladins in powered armor..."

"You don't want to go in half-cocked, with no firepower." Veronica nodded. "Alright, we'll leave it till tomorrow."

"So what next?" Veronica asked as I put the car in gear and started driving away from the bunker. I was going over everything that had been said the last few hours, and I latched onto something Veronica said after mentioning Elijah...

"You said there was some technology you found, that Elijah only trusted you with, yes?"

"Well, yeah, but... you seemed very..." Veronica paused, as if searching for the right word. "...emphatic about not using anything Elijah might have wanted to use." I shrugged.

"Yeah, I just... I want us to be... cautious. That's all." Veronica eyed me curiously. "If you think there's something he might have found that he trusted you with, then... we should try and find it. Where is it?"

"Well... there's one I can think of that would at least prove my point. If it still exists. But I don't know where it is off the top of my head. We'd have to go to one of the comm terminals I used to use to keep in contact with him when I was out on patrol, scavenging for technology. This was back when the Brotherhood owned Helios One. If we go there, I can pull up his research on it."

"Alright, we can head there. After a slight detour." Veronica looked at me curiously. "I want to talk to April, remember? The girl from the Followers who wanted to look at ED-E?"

"Oh, right! I forgot about that..."

"What, this is where she is?" Veronica asked as we pulled up outside the small shack. We were several miles north of the 188 trading post, in the south part of Henderson. The building was one of the few around that wasn't collapsed, and there was a flagpole sticking out of the ground in the front, complete with the Followers of the Apocalypse flag flapping in the breeze.

"These are the coordinates Arcade gave me this morning," I got out of the car, walking to the outpost. "Why? What's the problem?"

"No... there's no problem, it's just... I know this place. I used to do some trading with a doctor here, back when I was scavenging out of the 188."

"Well, that's great then! C'mon, let's go."

The interior of the Followers outpost was small and cramped. The only illumination that I could see was the outside light filtering in through the half-dozen filthy windows. Several of the Followers - instantly identifiable by their white labcoats with the black cross stitched on the shoulder - were busy in this room and the next. Alongside the doctors, I could see at least two men in leather armor with guns strapped to their backs, leaning against the walls and keeping watch. That makes sense, the Followers would employ mercenaries this far away from Vegas.

"Doctor Alvarez?" Veronica asked aloud. A woman with frizzy black hair peeked her head above the nearby desk, adjusting her glasses as she rose.

"Oh! Hello Veronica!" The doctor smiled broadly. "Sorry about that - the damn connection for my terminal is loose again. How have you been? I haven't seen you for nearly a month! Any news or salvage from the 188?" My, this woman had a rather motherly feel about her, didn't she?

"Sorry doctor," Veronica smiled, shaking her head. "Not today. I'm actually here for my friend," she jabbed a thumb in my direction. "He was told April Martimer was here. Is she around?"

"Oh, you're looking for April?" Alvarez turned her gaze in my direction. "I think you can find her in the back, dear. It's lucky you dropped by when you did, though."

"Lucky?" I asked. "What do you mean?"

"Well, she's packing up all her equipment. I believe she said she was going to the Mormon Fort outpost in Freeside," Alvarez stated simply. "I don't think she's left yet, so you should still be able to talk to her." I nodded and started off for the back. As I left, I heard Veronica and Alvarez keep talking:

"Do you want me to take a look at your computer? I'm pretty handy with this sort of thing..."

"Oh, would you? That would be lovely, dear."

It didn't take long to find April, if I'm honest. Her office was in the far back of the outpost, and light was spilling from the outside through the open doors. Several mercenaries were moving large boxes and electronic equipment on metal hand trucks. There was a black woman wearing a labcoat, with long black hair tied in a braid behind her standing in the middle of the room, packing things from her desk into a crate.

"April Martimer?" I asked; the woman turned with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes? I'm sorry, but I'm kind of busy at the moment."

"Don't worry, I shouldn't take long. I'm the guy who you contacted through ED-E the other day? You know, the robot the Brotherhood also wants?" She snapped her fingers, started nodding her head, and gave me her full attention.

"Ah, right. You must be The Courier then. Pleasure to meet you." Now, it was my turn to look at her with a raised eyebrow.

"You recognize me?" That seemed odd - didn't House say the other day that I wasn't readily recognizable as The Courier? April shrugged and smiled.

"Not your face, no. But I've heard through some of the Followers' channels that the man called Courier Six travels with a robot, identical to the eyebot I've been tracking. Didn't take a rocket scientist to put two and two together." She paused, looking me up and down. "I honestly thought you'd be taller."

"I get that a lot," I tried my best to suppress a smirk. "So, you said you wanted to look at ED-E. What do you want him for?"

"Well, it has research data inside it that's related to the Enclave and Poseidon Energy tech, yes? I'd like to get what I can from it and use that data for the good of humanity. All of humanity, unlike the Brotherhood."

"So, what are you going to do to him? You're not going to take him apart, are you?"

"No, nothing like that. I was going to plug him into my equipment, to try and extract whatever log data I can, without causing any damage to its programming. Shouldn't be more than a few days work."

"Sounds like what Lorenzo wanted to do. Pretty much. Why don't you want the Brotherhood to have it?" April rolled her eyes and scoffed.

"Well, if you've talked to them you should know - they're all about keeping technology to themselves, and using what they find to protect themselves. They're isolationist, belligerent, and I have no doubt that they plan to use whatever data they find for weapons research."

"What if that's what it is - weapons research?" I asked. "I mean, ED-E is a military robot, after all." April shrugged, completely unfazed by the question.

"We won't know for sure until I get a look at the data." She packed the last of the equipment into the box, and handed it to one of the mercenaries. "If you decide to let me have a look, come by the Old Mormon Fort. I should have all my equipment set up either there, or one of the nearby buildings in the next few days. Ask around for me or Emily Ortal - either one of us should be around once I'm all set up."

"Need a lift to the Mormon Fort?" I asked, almost on reflex. "There's just one more thing Veronica and I need to do today, then we're gonna head back up to Vegas." I tried to get a look at the equipment that was piled up outside. "I should have enough space in my Corvega..."

"Don't worry about it," she waved me off. "I've got a ride." She pulled me aside, so I could get a better look out the open door. All her equipment was loaded into the back of a rusted pickup truck with no windows, a wooden-walled flatbed behind the cab, and a black-and-white Followers symbol painted on the door.

The 'comm outpost,' as Veronica called it, was about a mile south-west of Helios One. From the outside, it just looked like a shack - something a scavenger would build out of scrap metal, tucked away off the beaten path in the foothills of Black Mountain. And inside... it was more of the same. That is, until Veronica pulled away part of the floor, revealing a porthole with a ladder, leading into a small bunker.

"So, what is it with the Brotherhood and underground bunkers?" I asked as I descended the ladder. "Is Agoraphobia common among members of the Brotherhood?" Veronica ignored me, going straight for the terminal.

The interior of the bunker was very small. There was a single cot hanging off the wall with a footlocker underneath, there was a locker next to it, a workbench against one of the walls, and a terminal on a small desk hooked up to the wall opposite the cot. Hanging on the wall above the workbench was a small Brotherhood flag.

"Let's see what we've got here... Okay, yeah. This is the one I was thinking of." Veronica stepped aside, and let me get a look at the screen. "The Pulse Gun."

"What about these others?" I asked, pointing at the screen; there were two other entries in the section labeled 'research notes.' Veronica screwed up her face.

"Well, one of them I know isn't going to work. The rangefinder for the ARCHIMEDES satellite."

"Oooh, yeah..." Images flashed in my head from the other night, when we held the party at Nellis and got the lightshow of the satellite burning up in the atmosphere. "I don't think that's going to work anymore."

"This other one might work, though... It looks like the NCR was onto some miracle farming technology." That was surprising. Why would Elijah be interested in plants?

"Farming technology?" I asked. Veronica nodded... and then shrugged.

"More or less. Supposedly it's a vegetation enhancer. The NCR has a science division, OSI, and a branch operates out of their McCarran base. According to this, they found something. Guess somebody wasn't very good at keeping secrets. I don't think the Brotherhood would ever pursue it since, it's... you know... not a weapon. But self-sufficiency is fundamental to maintaining our operational efficiency. If it works, then McNamara would see the value of an alternate course."

"Maybe..." I honestly wasn't convinced. I had this strange feeling that McNamara's reaction would be the same as my initial reaction. "What about the pulse gun? Is it like a pulse slug from a shotgun or a pulse grenade?"

"Sort of. It operates on the same principles, since it's an electromagnetic weapon from before the war. It was highly experimental, though. Never saw mass production. But, according to the notes, the US military was developing it as a countermeasure to power armor, which the feared the Chinese were developing. Supposedly, a prototype was being housed at Nellis."

"Nellis, huh?" I said with a laugh. "If it's a gun, we might have trouble convincing them to hand it over."

"Well, I don't think it goes boom, so who knows." Veronica chuckled a bit herself.

"Hell, maybe we should just ask Pearl when we head up that way."

"Might work. But just imagine what something like that floating around could do to the Brotherhood? We'd be on equal footing with any idiot with a gun!" She blanched, looked at me nervously, and then blushed profusely. "Er... no offense."

"None taken. 'An Idiot With A Gun' could be the title of my autobiography."