Nuka Girl, Nuka'd World

Betrayed

The heel of her combat boot slammed through the glass of the front of the Nuka Cola machine. It wasn't often she found a machine that wasn't completely picked clean, especially one that still had bottles of Nuka-Cherry. So naturally, when she found it was firmly sealed shut, it was obvious she would have to smash the glass. She plucked the bits of glass from her boot and flicked them to the ground, scooping the bottles into her pack.

Her destination was Listening Post Bravo. Scribe Haylen had told her it was Danse's fallback point, they both hoped he was still there. And alive.

Vanessa had a newfound respect for the Scribe. She'd tried to convince her not to kill Danse, not that Vanessa was planning to, and she'd even told her where to find him. She realised she liked Haylen. Haylen was good, she just might not be working for the right people.

In Vanessa's opinion, the Brotherhood were good at heart. They had decent core morals, take away technology to prevent the world ending up the same way it did. It made sense that was the way Roger Maxson decided to make his world. He was always prone to the extremes and had a surprising flair for the dramatics. But at its core, Vanessa believed the Brotherhood were good, they'd just gotten confused along the way and now it wasn't about the preservation of pre-war society and protection of technology. In her opinion the Brotherhood were headed in a direction based on xenophobia. Their hatred of anything non-human, synths, ghouls, was now corrupting them into a not so positive force in the wasteland.

But who was she to talk? She's a raider.

Two turrets on the roof of the old bunker exploded with a well placed shot from her pistol. She had no idea what she was getting into, she wished she had her sword, she could've gone back to Red Rocket to get it, but she didn't have time to waste. God only knows what state she would find the Paladin in.

"Lift is active..." She called the elevator, looking around the bunker. A box of rounds for her pistol but nothing else of use. The elevator dinged and she spun around, pointing her pistol. "Empty... Fine. Down we go."

The lights flicked ominously, and the speakers crackled with a horrifically distorted rendition of classical elevator music. The ambience really set the tone of the events to follow. She felt sick.

A protection bleeped the second the door slid open. Three shots. One shattered the glass protecting its circuits, the other two destroying it. It hit the ground with a louder thud than she would've liked.

"Danse?" She gripped her pistol tight. She wasn't planning on shooting him, but she wasn't planning on letting him shoot her either. "Danse, it's me. Vanessa."

And then she saw him. Through the glass. Curled up on the floor. Holding himself together almost literally. "Danse..." She pressed a hand to the glass. He didn't even react.

A dingy cave with a dead yao guai led into the room he was sitting in. "Vanessa stay away. I could hurt you." She jammed her pistol into her holster and sat on the floor besides him, "and why would you do that?" He flinched when one of her hands rested on his side. Both of them resented Elder Maxson for sending her.

"It wouldn't be my choice. I'm a synth." Vanessa shook her head, putting a hand into his hair, running her fingers through it softly. "You're not just a synth, Danse. You're more human than most people I've met in the wasteland. You bleed. You cry. So what if it's synthetic."

He turned to face her, moving like his head was too heavy. He found all of his body felt too heavy. "The Institute couldn't even be bothered to implant me with memories of a family, or parents. I'm little more than a Protectron." Vanssa tutted, and continued petting his head, "we're family, Danse," "the Brotherhood is not my family anymore. They sent you to kill me, didn't they."