3. The Call To Arms
As Deacon slunk across the rooftops of some of Cambridge’s surviving apartment buildings, he wondered how Myra was adjusting to life in the Commonwealth since he’d last seen her. Thanks to the Railroad keeping him occupied with intel-gathering missions, it had been nearly a month since the last time he’d shadowed the young woman after her gore-filled romp in the Corvega plant.
He had to admit he’d missed watching her work. Deacon didn’t have much of a stomach for violence, but the way Myra weaved through the scaffolding on the roof of the factory like a vengeful spirit, laying waste to her targets…it was almost like art. Of course, he still had to cover her back a few times. The young woman may have gotten better at the dance of death, but she was still pretty awful at checking her corners.
But what had really impressed him was what happened afterwards, when she returned to Tenpines Bluff to tell them that they were safe…well, safer, at least. She had won them over to the Minutemen -- no, to her -- so easily with her calm reassurance. He doubted that any of them had even noticed she was covered in blood and filth. She was a natural. He had to have her on his team.
The enigma that was Myra Larimer had proven to be a tough one for him to solve. For someone adapting to life in the Commonwealth for the first time, she had taken a lot of its creatures and pitfalls in stride, which surprised him. He’d expected a lot more screaming, and a lot less precision firing.
The snow-haired cicada didn’t seem overly squeamish, but she also wasn’t very practical. She still wore the same threadbare flannel she’d sported in Concord with no armor, still carried the same old 10 mm -- though he noted with some interest that she’d modded a larger magazine on the weapon. Maybe the old girl could learn some new tricks. Not as useful as, say, how to sneak rather than just rain bullets on everything that got in her way, but it was something.
With her insistence on running at her targets with no regard for cover and not even having the decency to wear defensive gear, Deacon was honestly amazed she hadn’t died yet. She was either the luckiest woman in the world, or she had actual guardian angels backing her up. Having one incredibly charming spy with a sniper rifle watching her back probably didn’t hurt either, though, and he had to wonder if her luck had run out in his absence.
Deacon decided that he’d run up to Sanctuary after this next job, check in on her and Preston. He was certainly curious how the two of them were getting along. From what he’d seen on his last visit to Sanctuary, he couldn’t imagine that such a partnership was going smoothly. Still, she had agreed to be the General of Preston’s non-existent army, so either she was playing an extended prank on the minuteman or they got along better than he assumed.
Only time would tell if the Minutemen would fare any better under Myra’s leadership. Deacon had always wanted to like the militia more than he did. After all, they had been the main unifying force in the Commonwealth, and some of their members even seemed to care about the everyday people who lived there. But he was inherently mistrustful of any organization whose members had too much power, and the Minutemen were no exception. They claimed to be defenders of the people, but recent events had proven that most of the old guard were only in it for themselves.
Preston had proven himself one of the few exceptions to the rule, at least for now. He’d risked his life for the people of Quincy, had saved the ones he could. Deacon could respect that. Hell, he’d even like the guy if he’d learn to loosen up a bit. But one good soul did not sanctify an entire organization. He’d learned that the hard way back in University Point, and it was a lesson that kept him on his toes, even as he worked tirelessly for the Railroad.
“No group of people’s perfect,” he muttered. “And we’re sure as hell no exception.”
His current mission was certainly evidence of that. After all, he could be out saving synths, or helping people rebuild their lives. Instead, Desdemona had tasked him with tracking down a distress signal in Cambridge, with orders to destroy the people who sent it.
According to what he’d been told, a number of tourists had reported sightings of a Brotherhood of Steel patrol in the area. Now, with this distress signal, it was pretty obvious that the rumors were true.
Deacon thought it would have been crazy for the Brotherhood to send another team after what had happened to the last one a few years ago. Fortunately, he hadn’t been involved in that ambush, but the operation had Railroad written all over it. Thanks to the organization’s paranoid obsession with secrecy, he’d never know for sure, though, and spending too long speculating on it wasn’t doing him any favors.
He stopped on a rooftop near the Cambridge Police Station, the source of the broadcast, and peered through his scope at the scene below him. Deacon’s heart sank at the sight of the old gears and blade on the barricades outside. Part of him had been hoping that the reports were wrong, that the signal was an elaborate ploy by the Institute, that Dez was messing with him. Anything but this.
Unfortunately, the Brotherhood recon patrol was real. And now, he’d have to kill them before they compromised Railroad operations in the area. Damn, he hated these kinds of missions. He usually refused them, but these days, there weren’t a lot of other agents available. Besides, he’d done worse in the name of protecting his allies in the past.
“If you’re already going to Hell, what’s a few more murders on the old conscience?” he mused, chuckling bitterly to himself. “Might as well recruit some willing women and finally schedule that night of endless debauchery Hancock keeps pestering you about while we’re at it. Vary it up a little bit.”
He shook the thought from his head as quickly as it had arrived. Now was hardly the time to berate himself. Whether he liked it or not, he had a job to do. Now he just needed to figure out the best way to do it.
Deacon scouted the compound from his perch, watching for each sign of movement through his scope. There seemed to only be a small patrol in the station, just a paladin in a suit of T-60 power armor, a wounded knight, and a scribe who was tending to the injured man as best as she could. There were possibly a few others inside, but it was difficult to tell. The place was built like a fortress, with hardly any windows he could aim his scope through.
Even if a handful of Brotherhood soldiers lurked inside the police station, there were hardly enough to constitute a threat… yet. And it looked like they were running low on ammo and medical supplies. If Deacon could just coax a large enough pack of feral ghouls through the barricades, he might be able to wipe them out entirely before they became a problem.
And they would become a problem, he knew, even if he didn’t want to admit it. The current policies of the Brotherhood of Steel would hardly allow the militant order to be anything less.
As he often had before, Deacon wished that the East Coast Brotherhood of Steel would return to the way they’d been under Elder Lyons. The man was still deeply flawed, to be sure, but the Brotherhood had been almost a positive force back then. This new Elder was trouble for all non-humans, not just the really dangerous ones. And that made him trouble for the Railroad as well. It was in everyone’s best interest that the Brotherhood not gain a foothold in the region. The Commonwealth had enough dangerous bigots without adding highly trained soldiers with advanced technology to the mix.
At least Cambridge had a particularly large feral population. It would not take him long to attract a fairly sizable pack of the irradiated former humans. The only problem was organizing them. Feral ghouls weren’t particularly known for their ability to take direction. He needed to the right motivation for them to follow him.
There were three main ways to predict human behavior, he knew. But these did not apply to ones whose brains had been melted by radiation. Rather than caps, beliefs, and ego, ferals were motivated by food, pain, and noise. If he could generate those three things, he could turn himself into a feral-collecting machine.
Food was the easy part. He already had about 170 pounds of premium-grade Deacon at his disposal. Pain could be produced by hurling rocks and other debris at the shambling horde as he ran. The real question was how he was going to generate enough noise without immediately alerting the Brotherhood squad to his presence.
Noise was definitely not Deacon’s specialty, at least not in the field. Since a majority of his missions required him to slip by unnoticed, he had cultivated an almost-silent way of walking. But there was one method he could think of that, while not being particularly subtle, would be incredibly fun. Perhaps that would take his mind off of the reality of what he was attempting to do.
He rummaged through his pack, extracting a battered piece of silver metal that he’d found a few weeks prior -- along with a few other choice goodies -- when he’d stumbled upon the remains of an old joke and novelties store downtown. He’d mostly been using the kazoo to annoy Carrington, but he had a feeling that the ferals would be very curious if he started playing it. Besides, such instruments were not common in the wasteland, so even if the noise carried farther than he thought it would, the Brotherhood soldiers still would probably not be able to identify the source of the ominous buzzing.
Deacon clambered down from his perch, taking note of the building’s stairs and fire escapes, just in case he needed to return there to avoid his pack of ferals. Once they discovered the Brotherhood buffet, they would probably ignore him, but it was better to be prepared.
He crept towards College Station, where a large group of feral ghouls frequently hung out. There were easily fifteen in the immediate area, but he needed to find more, just to be on the safe side. After all, why kill when you could overkill?
It took him a few minutes to devise the best route through the blocks surrounding the station. He needed quick, efficient routes that also were mostly debris-free so the ferals wouldn’t get trapped behind any rubble as he lured them. Eventually, he found such a route, and headed to the far end of it, preparing his kazoo.
“Here goes…something,” he exclaimed, humming into the small metal device. He hoped the ferals liked Bing Crosby as much as he did.
To his delight, his mad kazoo skills seemed to do the trick, sending a snarling mass of ferals darting towards him. He continued to play softly to keep them interested as he ran through the streets of Cambridge, gathering more and more irradiated shamblers as he went.
“I’m like a pied piper of death,” Deacon mused, pleased with himself. This was going to make a hell of a story. It was a shame that no one would believe him.
Part of him would have preferred to just put a bullet in the soldiers’ heads, at least spare them a certain level of pain and horror before their inevitable demise. But he knew that an execution would be more suspicious, and would mean more interference. The Brotherhood might even send another recon team, like they had after the last one. No, an unfortunate incident would be better for everyone.
When he was within a block of the police station, he put the kazoo away, instead relying on the persistent hunger of the ferals to keep them on his heels. This was working. He was going to pull this off.
As he neared the compound, however, his heart clenched. There, standing beside the paladin in charge, was Myra. Her pistol was raised and ready, blood from a few stray ferals who’d gotten there before his horde already staining her shirt.
“I know I scouted this area thoroughly. How the hell did I miss her?” he moaned to himself, doing his best to stay out of her line of sight. “Three weeks without a sign, and she has to show up now?”
Deacon had to act fast. He’d been prepared to follow Dez’s unsavory orders. After all, he owed her quite a bit, and trusted her to keep their neurotic little family safe. But this was different. Myra wasn’t guilty of atrocities against synth-kind. She was an innocent bystander who couldn’t help herself when someone needed her, no matter who they were. That was a rare trait in the ’Wealth, and he’d be damned if he let her die just because she’d chosen to assist the wrong people.
Images of another young woman from a lifetime ago flashed through his mind, her soft honey-colored hair stained with blood, hazel eyes wide with terror. Her skull smashed open to reveal the horrible truth beneath. His beautiful, gentle Barbara, reduced to a nightmarish memory, her broken body forever etched in the back of his mind.
Although the two of them were different in their looks and personalities, he had to admit that Myra reminded him of her. They shared that same quickness of smile, that same empathy for suffering souls, that same strange ability to see beyond people’s sins and into their hearts.
Deacon frowned, trying to quickly analyze his options. He couldn’t let it happen again. He couldn’t let another good woman lose her life because of him. He had to do something, anything, to keep her safe, even if it meant defying the person he’d sworn his loyalty to.
“Ferals!” he yelled, alerting the recon squad to their impending destruction as he ran the other way. It wouldn’t help much, but he had to give Myra a chance to escape.
Deacon dashed off towards the river, shouting and carrying on, drawing some of his ghoul army away. But many, too many, continued to shamble towards the police station. Towards Myra.
Well, it was too late now. Hopefully she’d have the good sense to run. He tried to ignore the screams and the hail of laser and gunfire from the compound behind him, to ignore the guilt that gripped his chest like a vise. It was bad enough that Dez had ordered him to kill those soldiers. Losing Myra, the vault dweller he’d spent so long trying to protect, was a prospect he could scarcely bear.
It took him longer than he cared to admit to shake the last ghoul from his tail, and he was halfway to Bunker Hill by the time he figured it was safe to turn around. One thing he could say for the rad-crazed ferals was that they were persistent. Maybe it was the fact that they had once been human that made them so stubborn, so deadly. After all, what in the Commonwealth was more dangerous than humans?
Deacon crept quietly back towards the station, hoping Myra was still alive. If she wasn’t...he didn’t want to think of what he would do to Dez over this. Or what he’d do to himself.
He climbed back to his sniper nest across the street from the building, easing the strap of his sniper rifle off his shoulder. As he watched breathlessly through his scope, he was pleased to see a flash of green flannel entering the police station. Excellent. At least one thing had gone his way today.
But that was where his luck seemed to have run out. The good news was that Myra was alive. The bad news was that she seemed to have made some new friends in the heat of battle. A battle he’d forced her into. Damn it.
Minutes later, he watched in dismay as Myra and the paladin emerged from the stronghold and charged off together, towards God knew where. He thought about following them, but decided against it. He’d done enough damage today.
Besides, he was going to need to tell Dez that his mission was a failure. That was going to be a new one. Deacon never failed. Maybe he could just spin a lie, tell her that the recon squad was taken care of. Like that wouldn’t come back to bite him on his shapely ass.
He could slip into the station while the paladin was away, perhaps sabotage the squad’s remaining equipment. But he had no way of knowing how many Brotherhood soldiers remained inside. Was it just the two, or were there others? He was willing to bet it was just the two. Otherwise, why would the paladin have left with a complete stranger?
No, it wasn’t worth the risk. Even with his best disguise, the chances of discovery were too great. Especially if there were only the two soldiers inside. The old “I’m you from the future” trick never worked quite as well as he’d hoped.
Deacon sighed, easing himself from his perch and working his way down the apartment building’s fire escape as quietly as possible. He could leave Myra out of his report, at least. Maybe that would keep her off Dez’s radar until he had a chance to recruit her. That part of his mission was now more important to him than ever.
As General of the Minutemen, Myra had already gained a valuable position that could greatly benefit the Railroad. If she joined up with the Brotherhood of Steel as well? As much as the idea sickened him, he knew exactly how to spin that to appeal to Desdemona’s ambition. Myra could be their girl on the inside of two of the other factions in the Commonwealth. If he sold her to Dez correctly, the leader of the Railroad would be crazy not to sign the vault dweller up.
Once she was a member of the Railroad, then Deacon could work on molding her into the perfect agent. And maybe, just maybe, the Railroad would have the edge they needed to survive their war against the Institute.
But first, he had to pique Myra’s interest, and that was a challenge that was going to be infinitely more complicated if she was under the watchful eye of the Brotherhood. He needed a foolproof plan, something that Myra would be unable to ignore, but subtle enough that her new friends wouldn’t notice.
“This is going to take some planning,” he muttered to himself. “And at least three new disguises. Maybe even four.”
He had better get to it.