Fallout - Chapter 102: Rituals and Reforms (Patreon)

A new iron cage had appeared on the training ground at Sanctuary Hills.

It had been welded together from scrap rebar. The welds were rough, but sturdy. Inside were several feral ghouls bound with ropes.

Their hands and feet were tied tightly, leaving them able to do little more than writhe helplessly and let out low, guttural growls. Their eyes were a murky white, reflecting an eerie sheen. There was no trace of reason in them, only pure, primal hunger.

A group of new recruits had gathered along the edge of the training ground.

Most were young people who had only recently joined the Minutemen. Some had come from nearby settlements after hearing about them, others had been rescued from Raiders by Minutemen patrols, and a few had come over from Diamond City to try their luck.

Most of them had never actually seen a living feral ghoul before.

“So this is what a Ghoul looks like...”

“Just as disgusting as the rumors say.”

“Look at the little one. That was a kid, right? How did it end up like this?”

“Nuclear radiation. What else would it be?”

The recruits talked among themselves, some pointing at the Ghouls inside the cage.

But the Ghouls showed little interest in the people gathered around them. Every so often, one would lift its head and sweep its cloudy eyes over the crowd outside before lowering it again, almost as if conserving its strength.

They were so subdued that some of the recruits began to wonder whether these things were really as dangerous as everyone said.

But whenever Nate approached, everything changed.

The Ghouls that had been lying quietly on the ground raised their heads almost at the same time. Shrill snarls erupted from their throats as they thrashed violently in his direction, pulling the ropes around their limbs taut.

When Nate stepped closer, their reactions became even more intense.

Especially the smallest one, Chris.

He slammed his head against the iron bars several times, each impact producing a dull thud. A gash opened across his forehead, and thick, dark red fluid began to seep from the wound.

“Sir, these Ghouls seem to be... especially focused on you,” one recruit said cautiously.

Nate did not answer.

He stood there watching the Ghouls struggle wildly inside the cage, an emotion he could not put into words churning inside him.

They still recognized him.

The thought sent a strange shiver through Nate. Not from fear, but from something deeper and far more unsettling.

Feral ghouls were called “feral” precisely because they had lost their reason and memories completely, leaving behind nothing but the instincts to feed and attack.

They should not have been able to recognize anyone.

Yet the way they reacted to him was completely different from how they responded to everyone else. It did not look like prey instinctively reacting to a predator watching it.

It felt... directed.

Personal.

As though fragments of memories from two hundred years ago still lingered somewhere deep inside those rotting brains.

They recognized him.

Nate stood outside the cage and watched them in silence for a long time.

“Sir?”

A voice came from behind him.

Nate turned and saw Codsworth standing there. A rag hung from one of the Mr. Handy robot's mechanical arms, while its optical lens was fixed on him with something that looked almost like sadness.

“Codsworth, what are you doing here?”

Codsworth turned its optical lens toward the Ghouls inside the cage and remained silent for several seconds.

“Sir, those are Mr. Parker and Mrs. Parker,” it said, its mechanical voice quieter than usual. “And the Donoghues... Mr. Sumner and Mrs. Sumner...”

Its lens finally settled on the smallest Ghoul.

“...And Ms. Rosa and little Chris.”

Nate said nothing.

Codsworth continued, its voice growing even softer.

“Right after the bombs fell, I didn't yet understand what a Ghoul was. I saw Chris running around nearby. I thought he was simply playing in a Halloween costume...”

It paused.

“Sir, I mourn for them.”

Nate remained silent for a long time.

He looked at the smallest Ghoul in the cage. Chris had finally stopped struggling and was now staring blankly at Codsworth through cloudy white eyes.

“I mourn them too, Codsworth,” Nate said softly.

Codsworth's mechanical arm shifted slightly.

“Thank you for saying that, sir.”

Then it remembered why it had come.

“Ms. Murphy would like to see you. She says there's something important she needs to tell you in person.”

Nate paused.

Murphy?

The elderly prophet possessed an ability known as “second sight,” allowing her to glimpse the future through intense drug-induced hallucinations. But ever since Jace took over the Minutemen, Preston had forbidden her from using drugs, and she now spent most of her time resting at her home in Sanctuary Hills.

If she had gone out of her way to ask for him, it had to be important.

“I'll go right now.”

Murphy's home stood on the eastern side of Sanctuary Hills. It was a reinforced wooden cabin with a set of wind chimes made from scrap metal hanging beside the door. Whenever the wind blew, they clinked softly together.

When Nate pushed the door open, he immediately noticed that the interior had changed since his last visit.

The biggest change was Murphy herself.

She was sitting in a floating chair.

It was a mobile seat modified from a Mr. Handy chassis. A comfortable old-fashioned armchair had been mounted on top of the torso, with a control lever on either side of the backrest for steering and speed. The entire chair hovered about twenty centimeters above the ground, producing a faint hum.

Murphy sat comfortably in it, her face deeply lined with age. Her hands rested together on her knees, her fingers slightly curled from the lingering effects of years of drug use.

Nate stared at the unusual chair.

“This chair is...”

“Preston asked Sturges to make it for me,” Mama Murphy said with an easy chuckle.

“They gave it to me together. I'm getting old. I can still walk, but I need to sit down pretty often. This thing's comfortable, and it gets around fast too. They told me it's called a ‘hover chair.’ Too much of a mouthful for me, so I just call it the Flying Bench.”

Nate couldn't help laughing.

Flying Bench. The name certainly sounded more at home in the Wasteland.

He walked over and stopped in front of Murphy, the last trace of his smile still on his face.

“Ms. Murphy, what did you want to see me about?”

Murphy did not answer immediately.

She glanced at him.

It was only a brief look, yet it felt as though warm water had been poured over his head. The smile slowly disappeared from Nate's face.

“Sole Survivor.”

Her voice sounded stronger than he remembered, but that distinctive, all-seeing calm was still there.

“Something has come looking for you.”

Nate nodded.

“I know. But they seem to... still recognize me.”

Murphy fell silent for a moment. Her eyelids trembled faintly, as though those half-blind eyes were trying to pierce through the haze of reality and glimpse something ordinary people could not see.

“Their souls haven't completely fallen, but they haven't been freed either.”

She slowly opened her eyes. A pale gray haze covered her pupils like a thin veil, making them look both cloudy and strangely deep.

“After the bombs fell, pain and despair twisted them into what they are. They've wandered the Commonwealth for two hundred years, until they finally found you again.”

Nate's fingers tightened into a fist.

“Should I just put them out of their misery?”

Murphy shook her head gently.

“It wouldn't help. Their souls are trapped here. And as far as they're concerned, there are plenty of empty shells around.”

“You need a knife.”

“A knife?”

“A ritual knife.”

Nate immediately pressed her.

“A ritual knife? Where can I find one?”

Murphy closed her eyes again, her breathing becoming slow and deep.

A long while passed before she spoke, her voice lower than before.

“There are some things... I can't look at. Ask the General. He knows.”

Nate had a vague idea of what she meant.

This probably involved some dark god.

So he did not ask any more questions.

“I understand.”

Murphy did not respond. She had already slipped into a half-awake, half-asleep state in her hover chair. Every time she used second sight, she needed a great deal of time to recover her strength.

Nate softened his footsteps and quietly left the cabin.

...

The lights in the command room of the Minutemen's underground base shone steadily overhead.

Jace sat at the table with a report from Ronnie Shaw in his hands.

It was an assessment of the Brotherhood of Steel's recruit training and education. Ronnie had spent several days at one of the Brotherhood's training camps, carefully observing how they trained their new recruits.

The report covered a great deal, but what caught Jace's attention most was Ronnie's assessment of the Brotherhood's cultural education.

The Brotherhood of Steel's Knights were educated, but only in the kind of knowledge the Brotherhood of Steel considered necessary.

They could read and write. They understood basic science. They could operate and maintain advanced technology. And they fully accepted the Brotherhood of Steel's mission.

But their worldview was rigidly confined within the Brotherhood's own rules, narrow and one-dimensional.

They knew nothing about literature, art, or philosophy, and understood almost nothing about the cultures or ways of life of other factions across the Wasteland.

Simply put, they were trained to become technically skilled soldiers, not culturally educated warriors.

The first thing every Brotherhood of Steel recruit learned was the organization's “sacred origin.”

Captain Roger Maxson, unwilling to stand by while the U.S. military conducted human experiments, had led his men in rebellion. After the Great War, he founded the Brotherhood of Steel with the mission of preserving the embers of human civilization.

But the Brotherhood's curriculum had deliberately stripped away part of its founder's original vision.

Roger Maxson's true goal had been to rebuild a new human civilization from the ruins of the Wasteland.

Recovering and preserving technology was only a means of achieving that goal. It had never been intended as the goal itself.

Yet the version taught to Brotherhood recruits treated “preserving technology” as both the ultimate objective and the guiding principle behind everything they did.

That was essentially the Brotherhood of Steel's entire humanities education.

Aside from technical manuals and military codes, they barely read anything at all.

Comic books were the exception.

At the end of the report, Ronnie had written one particularly sharp comment.

“This system doesn't even need living people. Just build a batch of robots instead. They'll be more efficient, completely obedient, and never distracted.”

After reading the final line, Jace looked up at Maxson sitting across from him.

Maxson had personally come to Sanctuary Hills to finalize the details of their cooperation following the alliance. At the moment, he was studying the strategic map spread across the table, his expression focused.

“Maxson, take a look at this.”

Jace slid the report across the table.

Maxson picked it up and began reading carefully.

His expression remained calm throughout. His brow furrowed slightly halfway through, but quickly relaxed again.

When he set down the final page, Jace spoke.

“Don't you think your recruits' education is a little too one-sided?”

Maxson was silent for a moment before sighing.

“There isn't much we can do about it. For all these years, the Brotherhood of Steel has been a purely military organization. We've never governed any settlement for any significant length of time. On top of that, we've spent years fighting wars and facing pressure from every side. We adopted this system because we had to survive.”

Jace leaned back in his chair and looked calmly at Maxson.

“Then why do other factions keep treating you with hostility and trying to suppress you?”

Maxson paused before answering.

“Because of this approach to education.”

Jace nodded.

“Back then, Elder Lyons didn't establish the Brotherhood firmly in the Capital Wasteland because he had better equipment or heavier firepower.”

He paused, his voice becoming more serious.

“He won people's support. He made the residents believe the Brotherhood of Steel was there to protect them, not rob them of their resources. The Commonwealth already has a strong foundation. Manage it properly, and there'll be no shortage of food or clothing.”

Maxson looked at the numerous farms marked on the map and nodded in agreement.

Jace continued.

“If the Brotherhood of Steel wants to put down roots here for the long term, you'll have to change.”

Maxson said nothing.

A long moment passed before he finally asked,

“How?”

Jace smiled faintly.

“Start with basic education. Give the new recruits Roger Maxson's complete vision, not just the stripped-down version.”

“You want to make them sentimental?” Maxson asked, a hint of resistance in his voice.

“No. I want them to understand that they're protecting people, not ‘technology.’”

“After all, they aren't going to stay rank-and-file soldiers forever, are they?”

Maxson remained silent for a long time.

Light streamed through the window at an angle, casting a long patch across the floor. In the distance came the faint voices of Minutemen recruits attending classes, mixed with the steady hum of machinery.

Memories of Lyons and Sarah personally teaching and training him surfaced one after another.

Some of the stubbornness and prejudice he had carried for years quietly began to loosen.

Finally, Maxson nodded.

“All right. Then we'll change it.”

Just then, the robot Ada pushed open the door and entered the command room.

“General, Nate is looking for you.”