Parting Gift

Danse

Two turrets whipped towards the courier's head, the glint of the sun upon their muzzles highlighting his sweaty face. The kid didn't back down the way raiders did, scurrying away to their holes until he hunted them down later. The courier gripped tighter to his little bag and inched closer to the door. Brave; stupid, but brave. From deep in the bunker, fingers dashed across the controls readying to take fire if the civilian attempted to engage hostilities. But he stopped just outside the door, pulled out a piece of paper, and glared at it with furrowed brow.

"Explain your presence here, civilian!" the voice echoed through loudspeaker's just below the turrets.

Leaping like he stepped on a deathclaw's tail, the civilian pinwheeled his hands, his head whipping around for the source of the mysterious voice. "I, uh, um...Is this 'Listening Post Bravo?'"

"State your business." The voice didn't answer his question.

"I'm looking for someone," he squeaked out. "A, uh..." his eyes roamed across the paper, "Paladin Danse?"

"Who do you work for? Are you in league with the Brotherhood? The Railroad? Or some remnant of the Institute?" the turrets whipped to him anew with every question, the last one causing the targeting lasers to deploy. The kid had enough self preservation instincts to yelp and duck down.

"No, no one! I mean, I have a job but it's not with any of them. Oh god, please don't kill me. I swear, I'm just supposed to deliver this to a Danse." Even curled up so compactly his nose smashed against his chest, rendering his words nasally and incoherent, the courier extended a box above his shoulders.

The intercom clicked below his fingers as he tried to zoom the old-tech cameras in on the surrounding cover. Winds shifted the dead grass, but if anyone else was waiting in ambush they were well hidden. "Hold still," Danse ordered. The courier was in no place to argue, his entire body vibrating in terror.

When the door to the listening post flew open, the courier nearly launched the box at it and ran, but the unmistakable clink of turrets honing in on their target froze his muscles. The courier looked up, then up some more at the man inside those old metal suits - his head covered by a leather cap. Danse trained his laser rifle on the kid while keeping an eye out on the terrain.

"What is located inside this receptacle?" he ordered, gesturing at the box.

"I have no idea. I've never had any idea with any of them," the kid said, struggling to rise up to a stance on jellied legs.

"Place it upon the ground, then move two hundred feet away...slowly," Danse ordered, his voice not one to be argued with. Not that the kid was going to try; getting as far away as his legs could take him was his only option for survival.

Bobbing and swaying from terror colliding into panic, the courier dropped the box and stepped backwards, his feet never lifting off the ground. After making it just on the outskirt of the bunker, his shoes digging ruts in the dirt, the courier stopped. While keeping the gun still trained on the civilian, Danse dropped down to a knee and scooped the package into his arms.

"I..." the gun bounced around in his fingers while Danse struggled against the string, "There must be some mechanism to open this."

"You have to untie it first," the courier called, giving him a jolly wave.

Stone eyes snapped up at the kid, but Danse did as instructed, the string wafting away in the wind. Mercifully, he figured out the paper part on his own and broke into the box without anymore commentary from the courier. "What is this?" he spoke aloud while shoving aside wads of useless paper. The courier squeaked again, uncertain how to respond, when a familiar arm mounted computer rolled into view.

Forgetting the courier, the empty box smashed to the ground as Danse scooped the Pip-Boy into his hands. He twisted the piece of vault-tec technology which none but the Brotherhood should own around in his palms, memories stinging through synapses he once considered a brain. "Is this hers?" he whispered, his words softening to a mist. There was that scratch on the outer casing where a mole rat grabbed ahold before Danse blasted its head clean off. And the blob of green paint upon the knob from her attempts to paint the structure in Diamond City. This saw her through every step across the Commonwealth, cataloging each divot in her path. She would never go anywhere without it. Anger severed his servos and he snapped up at the courier, "Explain!"

"I, uh, can't. I don't know what it is, even still." The terrified civilian gripped tighter and tighter to his shirt, as if that could save him. If he was lying, he was as poor at it as that Railroad agent.

Danse softened, the courier reminding him of some of the young scribes before they were properly hardened for missions. "I do," he said, his voice a whisper. "But I do not understand why it was given to me. Surely, she will require it to continue her mission of...oh." She made mention on occasion that her plans may not tie her forever to the Commonwealth, and would inquire from Danse about the makeup of other areas outside this range, but to abandon such a vital piece of technology to him... He wasn't Brotherhood anymore, he wasn't even human. His place in the world was dubious and desultory -- leaving him a danger to those who knew him, and a threat to those he once served.

Shouldering his rifle, Danse twisted the power switch on the Pip-Boy, a maneuver he'd watched her accomplish a thousand times previous. Green light ricocheted upon his face, and a drawing of a tiny man with an oversized head booted up upon the screen. The animation waved up at Danse, then the screen blinked and a series of entries rolled into view. "I anticipated a note or instructions," Danse said, highlighting the first of the listings. It was her notes; she was always inputting them to remember who required an increase in beds, food, or other resources. This one was more detailed than she seemed to require previously. 'Location - Somerville. Situation - Raiders kidnapped father, requiring ransom. Holed up in the Hubris Comics. Possible feral ghoul intervention as well. Suggest Rad-X and throwing in a mini nuke.'

"Ah, these must be her jobs," Danse said, scrolling through the other listings. Some of them had ties to the Minutemen and the settlements she watched over, but most were merely people begging for help from the only source that could provide it. "But, why give them to me?" he asked, glancing up at the courier.

The kid shrugged, unaware of what the man in front of him really was. "Maybe she thought you could handle it. I guess."

Danse laughed at the implication. He was an abomination. Even after she pleaded with him and Elder Maxon that he deserved a chance, that he'd done good and would continue to do good in the world, Danse felt as hollow as a circuit-less turret. He'd hoped that stopping the Institute would bring a sense of belonging, but it only drew forth more questions. The Institute was a menace to the Commonwealth and the world, but they also created him. He felt no loyalty to them, no urge within his programming to report to them, and he cheered with the others over its demise, but the accolades rang sour in what he once thought was his gut. The others deserved the cheers and laurels, not a synth hiding amongst humans even if it was unbeknownst to him. He no longer had a standing in the Brotherhood, the Minutemen were a pathetic assembling of farmers with rotting weapons, and Danse only left the Railroad to their own foolish devices on her orders. What use was he to the world?

His fingers flipped the dial on the Pip-Boy, scrolling up and down through her list of tasks. They seemed endless, the Commonwealth always needing to be saved from itself. He paused in his musings and read through an entry. 'Children orphaned, at least five of them, perhaps more. Hiding out in an old quarry. Slavers attempting to invade their refuge. Require protecting.'

Danse's fist curled up. How could anyone turn their back to such atrocities? To let children suffer without attempting to aid? Someone needed to stop them. He snatched up his rifle, causing the courier to yelp. Danse broke from his own thoughts and nodded once at the boy, "It is all right, citizen. I...thank you for bringing me this."

"Right, good. You're not going to shoot me then?"

"No," Danse shook his head. "But I am going to teach slavers that they have no place in the Commonwealth." Unknotting the belts, Danse slipped the Pip-Boy over the enormous forearm of his armor and set out into the Wasteland.