Another Unoriginal Oneshot Book

Before A Great Fall

AN: So I learned while writing this that Flagstaff, Arizona is actually a beautiful mountainous biome with evergreen forests and lakes and stuff. Not a depressing flat desert. So... any prior inconsistencies with this fact will be chalked up to nukes changin' stuff.

Actually, Flagstaff is the quaintest little town you've ever seen. I had assumed it was more of a city. I literally can't imagine evil barbarians living in it. But, uh, timeline changes and whatnot. We'll just assume in the Fallout universe it has white concrete and a town square somewhere. (And a temple large enough to raise all the children. IDK how that's gonna work.)

Flagstaff, 2267.
-
Gabriel woke to stabbing bright light. He hissed at the sensation, shaking the fog from his brain. His master's soft shushing filled his ears, trying to salvage his trance state, but the fifteen-year-old was awake and fighting it. The Vault-Tec logo filled the screen in front of him, spurring his rebellion on. He'd had lots of practice.

The upper half of the egg-shaped machine lifted off of him to reveal Joshua Graham's unimpressed face. "We weren't finished."

"I cannot help it if I wake up," Gabriel protested. That didn't mean he wasn't pleased with having interrupted his brainwashing session, but it wasn't something he had conscious control over. The trance could last for hours after the machine released him, and Gabriel often found himself waking in his bed, windows casting the last beams of dusk across his floor. Master claimed the hours of anticonsciousness were good for him, healed the scars in his mind. Gabriel preferred to be aware of his surroundings as often as possible.

"It gets worse as you get older. Your mind is more set in its ways."

"Yes? Good," Gabriel barked triumphantly. The ancient generator hummed its agreement.

Master shook his head sternly, hiding a smile. "Sit back. Last time."

Gabriel did sit back, but he complained. "You said last time would be the last time."

"I said this would be our last session," the legate argued. "If you let me finish without waking up, then it will be the last time."

"What difference does it make?" Gabriel hadn't defied his programming in years. Whatever safeguards and precautions Master had been setting up, they weren't going to get much stronger in the next thirty minutes.

Master's lips tightened, and he raised an eyebrow. That usually meant he was coming around, but didn't want to seem too lenient by agreeing right away. "Not much of one."

Gabriel pressed his advantage, allowing himself a smile. "No use in starting again, then."

Master frowned at the control panel for a few seconds, then relented. "Stubborn boy," he murmured, a familiar term of endearment. The man was sentimental lately, and he let Gabriel get away with more, on the grounds that it didn't matter anymore. "That was the end, then. How anticlimactic."

"I don't mind," his apprentice said happily, climbing out of the chair. The egg closed for the last time. Gabriel studied it sternly, then drove one booted heel into the smooth glass, leaving a scuff.

"Gabriel!"

"I hate it," he said obstinately. "You don't mean to use it on anyone else after I go, do you?"

-

Fifteen years was adulthood in the Legion, and Gabriel thought of himself as a mature, masculine battle slave. If he could see the pitiful expression on his own face, he might have thought differently. "No, I don't. I've told you that. As successful as this experiment was, the process is too inefficient to use again."

Brainwashing the ten-year-old rebel entrusted to his care should have taken Joshua months. Instead, it had lasted the better part of a decade, and the terrified child had become a brave, handsome, and skilled teenager.