Chapter 79: Chapter 76

For a brief moment after her eyes opened and her consciousness returned, Sarah Lyons wondered if the afterlife was supposed to look so mundane. She slowly sat up and found herself on a soft bed in a small and plain room. The only thing that stood out was her bed, the toilet on the other corner, and the outline of a door that would otherwise easily blend in with the white walls around her.

In her grogginess, Sarah didn’t know whether she was currently dreaming, or that she had just woken up from one.

Her sides weren’t caved in and there was no taste of blood, so maybe the disastrous encounter with the super mutants was the dream?

She glanced down at herself, noting the soft gown she was in that was completely foreign to her memories and frowned. Maybe she truly had died, and this was the afterlife? If so, it seemed highly underwhelming.

The door slid open with a snap-hiss, snapping Sarah out of her thoughts. Her head turned to see a young man in a black greatcoat striding in, two armored guards just barely seen behind him.

“Hope you’re feeling better?” he asked with a faint, polite smile, skipping through the courtesy of greetings and introductions.

“Yeah…” Sarah didn’t voice ‘I think’ at the end of that as she nodded. “Where am I?”

“You’re in a facility within the Nexus Severalty.”

She recognized that name, the surge of forced recollection in that split second reminding Sarah of her mission.

The man went on casually, though his smile warped a little to hint at an amused smirk. “We barely got to your group in time, but thankfully the hasty reschedule didn’t fuck up our operation.”

Despite having no idea of what he was saying, Sarah had a sinking feeling of who the man was. Her mind hastily battered off her disorientation and trained combat instincts shaved off the groggy rust on her senses. He noticed her change, Sarah realised as she sat up a little straighter and tensed in anticipation.

“You and the others are from the Brotherhood of Steel, right?” She answered with a silent nod and he continued. “Cool. Anyway, apologies that we had to leave your gear and dead behind. Had to do a quick evac when Fat Man launchers were detected.”

His smile faded some as his head tilted slightly to one side and he began muttering to himself. “It’s good to know the Strigoi can take the shots, but maybe pure melee isn’t a good idea…”

Ignoring the string of words she couldn’t make sense of, Sarah opted instead for a more relevant question. “How…how many others survived?”

“From your group? Got two I had to drag out of power armor, and one unarmored guy lucky to survive that many shrapnel bits.”

So one-fifth of the recon team had survived then, and in potential enemy territory to boot. “Thank you,” Sarah said solemnly, hating the bitterness of losing so many brothers and sisters so quickly.

“Don’t worry about the fallen though,” the man added lightly. “We called in a favor and a caravan in Diamond City will be passing through the site to gather them and the gear up and will pass it to your base in the Capital Wasteland,”

Sarah’s eyes narrowed at the mask of reassurance. “How did you know we’re from the Capital Wasteland?”

“Educated guess judging from the direction your unit was coming from,” he answered easily with a shrug. “What were you doing out there anyway? A bit far from your territory, ainnit?”

With a sigh, Sarah rose up from her bed to meet the man’s gaze on a more level height. “I am Elder Sarah Lyons, of the Brotherhood of Steel chapter in the Capital Wasteland. We were supposed to travel to the Commonwealth to establish contact with Sev and his Nexus Severalty.”

He grinned and didn’t seem put off by the straightforward announcement. “Well, good thing we got to you before the muties did then. I’m Sev. You wanna talk after a meal or over it?”

Sarah’s tastebuds were still singing praises to the stew she ate as she was led out of her cell and was escorted by Sev to a sparsely furnished mess hall where the other survivors of Recon Team Heracles were gathered.

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Sarah easily recognized the unsettled faces of Paladin Lyndon, Knight Stenton and Scribe Bourke as they rose at her arrival, all similarly attired as herself. Shame flooded her as she saw the relief on their faces, along with the knowledge that more of her brothers and sisters could’ve escaped if not for her own tumble. It was a hard thing to do, but Sarah gave them a stiff nod as she met their gazes.

“I’ll leave you to it for now. When you’re done, either knock on the door or press on that button there. Surveillance devices will be deactivated until then, as a courtesy.” With that, Sev left the four members of the Brotherhood to themselves, where an uneasy silence took over.

It was Paladin Lyndon who broke it after a few seconds of everyone exchanging uncertain looks. “It is good to see you well, Elder.” The sentiment was echoed by the others, and Sarah fought an uncomfortable urge to gulp.

“I’m glad you’ve all made it, as well.”

The awkwardness seeped away as the old, comfortable hierarchy of the Brotherhood slowly reasserted itself as they talked. What came of it was a coldly terrifying realisation of the Nexus’ capability. Paladin Lyndon was sure his legs were crushed when the green tide swamped him, but the robots that tended Bart had reassured him that he had been mended. Even his older battle wounds were gone, his missing fingers seemingly regrown.

Scribe Bourke testified to her own mutilation from air burst rounds, but there was not even a single scar on her, and the left side of her face wasn’t the ruined mess she distinctly remembered. Knight Stenton likely suffered the least lethal wounds amongst them, having ‘only’ lost a hand to a super mutant’s cleaver, but he awoke on a bed as if the battle hadn’t occurred.

But it did occur, at least Lyndon and Stenton were conscious as they were lifted up by strange tentacled robots with too many optics. They spoke of hulking robots that tore into super mutants as like a deathclaw ripping through brahmin, and the Knight remained conscious for most of his journey in the air to report of the massive horde of super mutants actually trying to flee a thin wave of robots coming from the Nexus’ borders.

When Sarah relayed Sev’s assurances on repatriating the fallen, only some of the concerns that hung off everyone’s shoulders were allayed. There was still the fact that all four of them were now held in some unknown building, under the mercy of Sev, and already what little they were shown had hinted at the technological superiority the Nexus had over the Brotherhood or any other faction Sarah knew of.

This was not the time for the exaggerated rumors to be true, but it seemed that Sarah now had to face that possibility. The Nexus had access to tech that restored broken bodies from the brink of death, and along with the reports from Bart and James, it wouldn’t didn’t require much to believe that the Nexus actually dealt with the Institute and an army of raiders with the callous ease, or that the luxuries enjoyed by those living under Sev’s rule were true.

When they were finished with their private conversation (not that any of them believed Sev’s claims of the surveillance system being shut down), Sarah pressed on the lonely looking grey button and stood back as the doors opened. She got a close look at the tentacled robots described earlier, and saw the lethal potential in their writhing metal frames as they swam in the air.

“Sev would like to extend an offer of providing you with a tour of some of the Nexus,” a feminine voice announced simultaneously through the hidden speakers in the eight robots that now occupied the room with them.

Knowing how to differentiate between an offer and an ‘offer’, Sarah accepted the tour on behalf of her group and after being given plain white shirts and pants to change into, they were escorted out into the hallways. They were in Research Center Ix, which also held the more advanced medical facilities, Sarah guessed. Otherwise, why keep the survivors there?

She caught glimpses of a vast structure through observation windows and the countless hallways that branched off the one they were being led down. She saw no other humans, but she came across Mr Handy robots and more of these tentacled Sentinels on the way to a station that held an actual working rail system.

Scribe Bourke almost fell over when the voices from the Sentinels explained that the rail network was a maglev system. Sarah herself didn’t fully appreciate the ramifications, but she understood the amount of energy and maintenance required to keep a transport network like this running would be taxing to even the Enclave.

They took the train to Station 81, where they met the first people besides Sev, and then led up to R&R 81 for a warmer and more formal reception party. The introduction to the Nexus was done in an open and welcoming manner, the sort one would only give if they truly believed in what they were saying.

A few soldiers of the Nexus were also seen. The guide named Rylee cheerily explained that the men and women serving in the Nexus’ defense were equipped with Sardaukar-pattern power armor and white laser weaponry, advancements introduced by Sev. The outdoor demonstration that followed impressed the traders and travellers, but horrified the Brotherhood survivors. The white laser punched holes through the carcasses of pre-war vehicles and the soldiers took a full gatling laser’s charge without even a mark on their armor.

With more information being made clear, the Nexus was far from the cult Sarah had imagined, but the absolute authority Sev held was made very clear for all to see. It was his weapons and robots enforcing the laws and keeping the peace, it was his tech that people had to apply for healing or purified water, it was his rad-cleansed lands that was being leased out for farming.

All it cost to enjoy these things was obedience to the rules of the Nexus, though Sarah was somewhat surprised that no sexual price had to be paid. If anything the human representatives had to highlight with their words to the Brotherhood survivors and the wannabe citizens present that such a thing was forbidden. It was one thing the rumors got wrong then.

A shame that most of the rest were true. By the time the tour was done and they were led to their new rooms in Station 81, Sarah Lyons felt a nauseating void in her guts. She sat on the soft bed of her new room and spent the rest of the evening struggling to formulate a way to carry out the duties of her Brotherhood that did not result in the extinction of the order.

There was a knock on the door, and when Sarah opened it, Rylee from R&R 81 was there to pass a message that made Sarah’s nausea grow worse.

“Sev would like to meet later to discuss relations between the Nexus and the Brotherhood of Steel.”

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