Chapter 75: Chapter 72

Nick Valentine liked to think that he had the figurative gut instinct for sensing trouble. It was rather ironic then that the lack of that gut instinct screaming out was troubling him.

The terrifying robot patrols had ignored him after a cursory scan, the so-called Obelisks marking the boundaries of the Nexus Severalty hadn’t lit up when he passed between them, foreign traders and travellers barely gave him a double-take.

Nick should have enjoyed being treated like everyone else for a change, but he couldn’t help worrying, even if it’s to worry about finding something to worry about.

He’d heard the tales like everyone else in Diamond City, of the rapid expansion to snuff out raiders, the Institute and more recently the Children of Atom, their people slaughtered or experimented on.

Or the promise of an easy life, in exchange for complete loyalty and subservience. Or was it a stint as a sex slave?

It all sounded vague and weird, but he’d been dealing with vague and weird for long enough to not have it bother him too much.

What brought him here though was watching the Nexus’ little party of Mr Handies with weird attachments sweeping through the city over a few days, scanning everyone with a contraption. A few people dropped unconscious from that. Or more accurately, they were deactivated as the synth components in them forced a shut down.

Quick surgeries of the synths confirmed their non-human-ness, leading to summary executions or incarcerations.

The ruckus caused by the revelation of hidden synths had helped improve Diamond City’s relations with the Nexus Severalty, and more importantly boosted Mayor Sacklen’s approval ratings for tackling the lurking bogeyman of the Commonwealth.

It also meant Nick got a job from a bereaved Iosof Yaric who wanted to know when his wife was ‘replaced’, and once that reached the rumor mill, Nick ended up taking a trip to the Nexus to find closure for pretty much all of the friends and families deceived by the synth impostors.

So here he was, entering the lands of the wasteland’s rising superpower, hoping they’d have some information about the body-snatched victims and are willing to hand it over to him if he asked nicely even if Nick didn’t have a single Nexus Credit on him.

Easy.

*****

Nisha knew better than to question her good fortune. It seems that like it or not, the raider’s life was not for her. Sure Sledge had raised her as one, but after the coward fled as the robots rained from the skies, she was sure her time was up and she’d be torn apart like many of the others around her.

Instead, after a few heads were torn from shoulders or ribs split apart like they were rusted suitcases to cow everyone, Nisha and a few others were captured and literally carried away into the notorious Blacksite Tleilax of the Nexus. The trip was uncomfortable, but considering she was still intact, Nisha wasn’t going to complain.

The underground lair was boring and sterile. Only the muted screams and whirring of machinery from somewhere beyond the walls livened the place up, though far from a good way.

She met more robots who interrogated the fresh captives. They were filtering out slavers and rapists, it seemed and had some way of figuring out lies, because when Smiling Tony said no to being the latter, he got his dick ripped out by tentacled claws and then swiftly spirited away to the darker depths of Tleilax before he could really scream.

Anyone who answered ‘yes’ honestly were still taken away, but at least their genitals weren’t in a wet lump on the ground.

Her time in captivity was short, at least she thought so. It’s hard to tell the passing of time when you’re locked in a dim cell. Eventually though, Nisha was let out and given some options by her robot wardens:

Stay in the cell, or volunteer to scout the Glowing Sea with experimental gear. Surviving the latter meant her cell time would be reduced.

Nisha wasn’t deaf to not know what happened within Blacksite Tleilax, but the chance of leaving the cramped room, and the faintest chance that the robots would actually let her go after this (assuming she survived) was too tempting an offer for her.

And so Nisha and a few other raiders, all women, she noticed, were told to take tablets and given only a normal wastelander’s clothes to don before they boarded an armored transport to the Glowing Sea.

It was a death sentence then, she and her fellow reluctant volunteers thought at first. The place was bad enough even if you had a tank of Radaway fed into you on drip while clothed in power armor, and they were going in with just rags? Were the tablets they swallowed supposed to be some sort of radiation repellant or something?

That depressing notion was dispelled once they stopped and Nisha realised that she was exiting the restored bus without her skin or lungs burning. The skies above were murky with irradiated clouds, a clear sign that they were in the Glowing Sea, but there was no metallic taste, no weakening of her body.

Simple tools were distributed to the prisoners; shovels, hoes, hardhats with lights and such. The order was simple: delve into the cave the transport had stopped in front of and start expanding it until their robot overseers told them to stop.

So Nisha started excavating the cave with her reluctant crew, prying and stabbing into the earthen walls and dragging out rock and dirt on canvas sheets to a soft tune of curses and grunts. They only stopped when they were told to, which seemed like forever. The robots carted away the tools while everyone rested their exhausted bodies in the transport.

Nisha was too tired to realise back then that they had just been doing heavy labor in an environment that should’ve killed them for it. At the time, she was just complaining in her head that the robots could’ve done the job faster and the Nexus was just enjoying using slave labor.

It was only once she got back and got scanned by the bots before being relocated to a building on the surface that Nisha had the time to really ponder what she had been through. The Nexus had given them tablets which had allowed them to operate normally in a highly radioactive environment.

When the robot came in to explain her sixty-day probation, Nisha was smart enough to take the opportunity and work hard to earn her place as a citizen of the Nexus.

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*****

When Edward watched the recording of Sev’s encounter with what surely must be the Atom itself, a part of him wanted to kick himself for not following after the Glossu to help his master, but an even greater part of him was left in awe at what was accomplished.

The radiation the glowing being put out was so high that the source of the recording was tainted with static even from a considerable height. The details were clear enough for all to see though: the supposed god of the rad-lovers manifested, did shit all to Sev for a while, and finally had to give its all to wound Sev.

And then Sev sent it reeling with a touch of his hand and the magic tech he ‘discovered’ from Tleilax beamed down from the recorder to evaporate the glowing god.

Edward watched and rewatched the whole thing several times in the park as it was projected nightly in the park. He was not alone, with many comrades from 1st and 2nd Company, as well as even the common civvies marvelling on their second or more viewing as they did in their first.

Watching how the Children were extinguished and how their deity was brought low, Edward realised something about Sev that was now clearly obvious.

“Sev is not a god,” he declared in his next speech to his company. “It’s easy to think of him as one, even when he didn’t want us to. But he’s not a god.”

Edward met the eyes of his friends gathered at attention before him as he gave voice to the revelation in his mind.

His hand shot up to point at nothing in particular. “The Children had a god. Sev killed it.” Edward let the inevitable snide comments pass before continuing. “Sev killed it, sure. But their god never showed up to help them at all when we took them on.”

There was satisfaction watching bewilderment set on his comrades as his words settled in, but Edward fought the smile from forming. He quickly warmed up to the subject and enjoyed the attention, arms gesticulating to emphasize his words.

“The Children of the Atom talked so much about how great their Atom was, but the fucker only had enough balls to send its people out to try causing a dent to us. The lazy fuck only finally showed up when Sev dropped right by its doorstep, and even then only after the new bots went to work on the Children.”

Edward paused to draw in a breath and smirked as he saw the comprehension light up in some of his friends’ eyes.

“Sev is not a god. Gods are lazy, useless shits that do nothing for the people who pray to them.”

Edward spread his arms wide to make his point. “Since day one, Sev has been working hard to make our lives better, right?” He waited for the nods to stop before going on. “Even when he was away and busy with his works, has Sev ever left us high and dry?”

“No…” The mutters and shaking of heads was satisfying.

“Has Sev ever sent us out without telling us the risks?” Nonexistent as those risks might be, Edward thought to himself.

“No.” “Never.” More denials, more vehemently this time.

“Has Sev ever asked us to do stupid shit just to keep him happy?”

“No!” The outside rumors of Sev ‘rescuing’ slaves to keep as his own personal toys was an especially sore topic for those in 1st Company, and one only the truly stupid would bring up in Caladan.

By now, the boys and girls of his company understood and were completely in agreement with him. Anything else Edward said was just icing on the cake. Still, he hammered a fist into a palm for heavier emphasis. “Then Sev’s not a god. Gods leave their people out in the wasteland with bullshit like trials and tribulations. Gods never do more than just give their followers a reason to hope. Gods…”

Edward sighed softly before sharing a faint, wistful smile. “Gods don’t truly care for you.”

He blinked away the stirrings of lust and got back to his point. “But Sev does. Sev’s been here for us ever since he helped us. Sev cares. For all of us.”

Edward relaxed and let go of the unknowing tenseness he built up in his little speech. “Sev’s not a god, but he should be treated like one… He wants to give us a life worth living, so…let’s make him proud alright? Show him that we’re willing to play our part. ”

The cheers were soft, but no less lacking in zeal as the assembled troopers nodded earnestly. Edward smiled, happy to have everyone on the same page. Then again, this was 1st Company, Sev’s Own. Anyone that doubted even the slightest bit in their ruler had no place here.

“Peace through power!” Edward called out, his right fist punching to the sky.

“Peace through power!” the company echoed back, their fists shooting in the air.

They trained harder after that, fuelled by a zealous fervor. And the raiders and super mutants that 1st Company encountered over the next few days suffered the cold wrath of hyper-focused fanatics eager to prove their worth to their not-god.

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