Fallout - Chapter 119: Father and Son (Patreon)

That afternoon.

Nate stepped outside and stopped in the doorway, looking up toward the treetops.

Only one crow remained.

Just like the two from that morning, it sat perfectly still on a branch.

The Institute hadn’t sent any replacements. Apparently, they thought one surveillance unit was enough.

Nate watched the crow in silence for several seconds.

“Let’s talk.”

The crow tilted its head slightly.

Then, surprisingly, it gave a small nod.

It spread its wings, circled once overhead, and landed on the roof of an abandoned, half-ruined house nearby. Then it turned back toward Nate, clearly signaling for him to follow.

Nate went back inside, picked up a backpack he had already packed from behind the door, and slung it over one shoulder.

He brought only one weapon.

A 10mm pistol.

Not even a spare magazine.

He had barely left the yard when he ran into Anthony.

“Nate, where are you going?”

Nate raised a hand and patted him on the shoulder, his tone light and casual, as though he were heading out to take care of some trivial errand.

“I’m going out for a bit. Remember to feed Dogmeat for me.”

With that, Nate glanced quickly over all of Sanctuary Hills, checking every rooftop and treetop one by one.

Only after confirming that there were no other crows anywhere in the settlement did he leave.

Anthony remained where he was, watching Nate disappear into the distance.

Something about it felt wrong.

He just couldn’t figure out what.

Nate followed the crow along a weed-choked path.

About half an hour later, it landed on the windowsill of a half-collapsed house and turned to look at him.

Nate pushed the door open and walked straight inside.

The room smelled of mildew from years of being sealed shut. Sunlight filtered through gaps in the broken window boards.

Several Generation 2 Synths stood motionless in one corner.

They looked more like props than living beings.

A crude wooden table stood in the middle of the room, with an electronic screen resting on top.

The instant Nate entered, the screen lit up.

A man’s face appeared.

His skin was pale, with the dull complexion of someone who had spent most of his life underground. His white hair was neatly combed straight back, exposing a slightly high hairline.

His short, graying beard was carefully trimmed.

His gaze was sharp and intimidating.

But deep beneath it lay profound exhaustion.

Father of the Institute.

Shaun.

Father and son stared at each other through the camera.

One stood on this side of the screen.

The other sat on the opposite side.

For a moment, the normally clear boundary between which of them was the father and which was the son seemed strangely blurred.

Shaun remained silent for a long time.

He stared at his biological father.

For the first time in his life, he genuinely didn’t know what to say.

He had imagined this reunion countless times.

He had rehearsed every kind of opening line in his head. Rational. Authoritative. Gentle.

But now that he was actually looking at that face, every carefully prepared word seemed hollow.

In the end, Nate was the one who broke the silence.

“All right. I’m here.”

Shaun leaned back slightly in his chair, relaxing his posture.

“I know you have many preconceived ideas about what we’ve done.”

He paused.

“But everything we’ve done was necessary.”

Nate said nothing.

He simply stood there and watched his son on the screen.

Shaun continued, but every word sounded as though it had been memorized from a prepared script.

“Let’s introduce ourselves again. I’m Shaun. Your son.”

His voice dropped slightly on the last two words, unable to hide the stiffness.

No matter how many times he had rehearsed it, he still couldn’t make it sound natural.

“Now I’m the Director of the Institute. They call me Father.”

Silence filled the room for several seconds.

Father and son stared at each other through the camera.

Nate’s expression didn’t change at all.

No anger.

No excitement.

No emotion.

Nothing that could be interpreted as even the slightest reaction.

Only an almost icy calm.

Shaun finally said,

“...Your reaction isn’t what I expected.”

Nate answered flatly,

“What was I supposed to do? Start shouting, lose control, and put on some dramatic father-son reunion for you?”

Shaun fell silent.

When he spoke again, the composure in his voice had cracked.

“I had no choice. The situation now... is complicated.”

He drew a deep breath and forced himself to regain control.

“None of this has ever been easy. What we do is often misunderstood by people on the surface. Maybe one day, we can make them understand. But for now, we have to remain underground.”

“The Wasteland is unstable. You’ve seen it yourself. There’s no future on the surface. Radiation, mutated creatures, endless wars. People simply keep killing one another.”

He looked at Nate.

“I want to talk about what we can do for everyone.”

Nate almost laughed.

The Commonwealth really was a disaster.

But why didn’t Shaun mention where most of that disaster had come from?

Radiation aside, nearly every major problem in the Commonwealth had some connection to the Institute.

How was this any different from praising that little mustached man for greatly accelerating the end of World War II and therefore deserving a place in heaven?

Nate couldn’t be bothered arguing.

Instead, he changed the subject.

“Aren’t you going to let me meet that ‘Nora’?”

Shaun’s expression barely changed.

But his answer came half a beat slower than before.

“It’s for her safety. Mother is extremely perceptive.”

Nate’s lips twitched.

He said nothing.

Before the War, Nora had been a lawyer.

More than a decade spent arguing in court had made her exceptionally good at finding holes in carefully constructed stories.

That was why Shaun didn’t dare let them meet.

After several seconds of silence, Nate’s voice became slightly heavier.

“I can help you, son.”

There was no warmth when he said the word.

No hostility either.

Just flat calm.

“But remember this. Sooner or later, someone is going to pay for all of this.”

Shaun ignored the threat entirely and merely nodded.

“One day, you’ll understand our mission.”

Nate didn’t continue the argument.

He crouched down, opened his backpack, and took out a plain paper box.

Fancy Lads Snack Cakes.

They had been Nora’s favorite dessert before the War.

Nate had previously found the ruins of the local pre-War marketing company and recovered the original recipe.

Then he had asked the best pastry chef in Goodneighbor to recreate them.

Originally, he had planned to bring them to the real Nora, still sleeping inside Vault 111.

Now he gently pushed the box toward the screen.

“Give these to her.”

Shaun looked at the box.

After two seconds of silence, he asked,

“You’re not coming back to the Institute?”

Nate answered immediately.

“It’s for my safety.”

...

Sanctuary Hills.

Anthony watched until Nate had completely disappeared into the woods.

He kept thinking about that one sentence.

Remember to feed Dogmeat for me.

The more he thought about it, the stranger it seemed.

Since when did Nate feed Dogmeat?

Dogmeat had his own food prepared separately, complete with a specially designed nutritional menu. His meals came at fixed times every day.

None of them ever needed to feed him.

As soon as Anthony realized this, he turned and ran toward the doghouse.

The German Shepherd wasn’t sleeping.

He was lying in his bed, playing with a new toy.

A blue teddy bear Anthony had never seen before.

It was a design unique to Nuka-World.

Anthony had never seen one anywhere in Sanctuary Hills.

Dogmeat normally played with an ordinary brown teddy bear.

No one knew when this new blue one had appeared.

Anthony crouched down and pulled out Dogmeat’s favorite two-headed brahmin jerky.

“Good boy. Come here.”

While Dogmeat lowered his head and focused on the jerky, Anthony quietly took the blue teddy bear away.

Dogmeat merely glanced at him without complaint and went straight back to eating.

Anthony squeezed the bear’s soft body.

The stuffing felt evenly distributed, except for one obvious hard object inside its belly.

He carefully cut through the stitching, reached inside, and pulled out a tightly crumpled note.

The instant he unfolded it and read the entire message, his fingers tightened.

His expression turned grave.

He immediately opened the Minutemen’s encrypted communication channel.

...

At dusk, outside the Minutemen base.

Jace crouched beside a concrete slab half-buried in the dirt, a dark gray toolbox open in front of him.

Inside, a complete set of components had been neatly arranged.

A barrel.

Gas valve.

Spring assembly.

Optical sight.

Every part needed to build a BB gun.

Jace picked up the barrel and held it toward the setting sun, checking the smoothness of the bore.

Then he aligned the compressed air cylinder with the valve assembly and tightened it.

A crisp click sounded as the parts locked securely into place.

Donny Kowalski watched from behind him, completely absorbed.

Jace tightened the final retaining screw and checked the seal on the air valve.

Then he sharply pulled back the bolt.

The clean metallic click rang clearly through the evening air.

“Once, there was a hero who had a BB gun when he was ten too.”

Donny blinked.

“What happened to that hero?”

Jace paused briefly.

“He’s still fighting.”

He stood and handed the completed BB gun to Donny.

“Here.”

The gun was slightly longer than Donny’s arm.

A dark gray polymer stock was fitted to a black metal barrel, while textured grooves had been cut into the handguard for grip.

It looked sturdy and serious.

Nothing like a toy.

More like an actual firearm.

Donny accepted it with both hands and tested the weight.

It was considerably heavier than it looked.

Jace brought out a box of BBs, then collected eight empty beer bottles.

He walked to a low concrete wall fifteen meters away and lined them up.

“Let’s compete.”

Donny’s eyes immediately lit up.

He nodded eagerly.

The rules were simple.

Eight shots each.

Whoever knocked down the most bottles won.

If they tied, they would settle it with one final shot.

Donny went first.

He took a deep breath, closed one eye, and aimed at the first bottle.

His stance wasn’t textbook.

It was the improvised kind of shooting form someone picked up surviving in the Wasteland.

But his breathing control was good.

Pop.

The first bottle wobbled.

It stayed upright.

Donny pressed his lips together, adjusted his grip slightly, and aimed at the second.

Pop.

The bottle shook several times before falling over.

Donny exhaled in relief and visibly relaxed.

He focused, controlled his breathing, and kept shooting.

After eight shots, three bottles were still standing.

For his first time using the gun, it was already an impressive result.

Donny clearly didn’t think so.

He pouted slightly and handed the BB gun back to Jace.

“General, your turn.”

Jace accepted it and casually raised the gun.

Then he pulled the trigger rapidly.

Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.

Less than two seconds later, five bottles shattered one after another.

Glass fragments scattered across the ground in the orange light of sunset, producing a series of crisp little sounds.

Donny stared in disbelief.

Jace looked at the boy’s expression, caught somewhere between admiration and disappointment.

He decided not to crush him completely.

Quietly, he shifted the muzzle a fraction to the side.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

All three BBs skimmed past the remaining bottles.

None of them moved.

“Too bad. Five to five.”

Jace lowered the gun with a trace of regret in his voice.

“A tie.”

Donny froze for one second.

Then his eyes lit up.

“A tie! That means I can still win!”

Jace handed the gun back.

“One shot decides it.”

He took out a smaller green glass bottle, walked twenty meters away, and placed it in the exact center of the low wall.

The instant Donny took the gun, all his playfulness vanished.

His expression became completely serious.

He steadied his aim.

Pulled the trigger.

Pop!

The green bottle jerked violently, toppled off the wall, and shattered on the ground.

Donny stared for half a second.

Then he jumped straight into the air, raising the BB gun over his head.

“I won! I beat the General!”

The orange-red sunset washed over his small figure.

The boy bounced around as though he had just won a battle that would decide the fate of the world.

Jace stood nearby, quietly watching him.

A faint smile appeared on his face.

Being young really was nice.

Donny ran a few steps, then hurried back, excitedly waving the gun.

“General, did you see that?”

“I did.”

“Wasn’t that awesome?”

“Yeah. Very impressive.”

Donny grinned and ran off again, repeatedly practicing his aim at imaginary targets.

Jace watched the boy’s cheerful figure and reflected on how different he looked now.

The energetic teenager in a clean Minutemen uniform bore almost no resemblance to the ragged child who had once huddled and shivered inside a ruined shack by the docks.

Just then, the Pip-Boy on Jace’s wrist vibrated twice.

It wasn’t an ordinary notification.

It was the emergency signal for a dedicated encrypted channel.

Three long vibrations.

Then two short ones.

Jace stopped immediately.

He looked toward Donny, about a dozen meters away.

The boy had his back turned, crouching beside some grass and aiming at an empty tin can.

“Donny.”

Donny immediately looked back.

“That’s enough training for today.”

Jace’s voice remained perfectly calm.

“Head back to the base and find Zoe. Go have dinner.”

“Aren’t you coming too, General?”

“I’ll be back later.”

Donny hugged the BB gun to his chest and ran toward the base.

After a few steps, he turned and shouted,

“General! Can we have another match tomorrow?”

“We’ll see.”

“Then I’ll come find you tomorrow!”

The boy’s voice carried through the evening breeze.

His small figure soon disappeared behind the base gates.

Once Jace was certain Donny was gone, he raised his wrist and pressed a button on the Pip-Boy.

The screen lit up.

A short encrypted message appeared on the green monochrome display.

Sender: Anthony.

[Nate’s Incident No. 3 has occurred.]

Jace stared at the message for two seconds.

Then he switched off the screen.

He didn’t reply immediately.

He simply stood there in silence.

The sun slowly sank beneath the horizon.

In the distance, the base watchtowers switched on their searchlights one by one, sending pale beams across the deepening twilight.

Incident No. 3.

Jace repeated the designation silently.

Ever since he had confirmed that cut content from the game might actually exist in this world, he had prepared a series of contingency plans in advance, assigning different codes to different kinds of unexpected threats.

Incident No. 1.

The emergence of a large-scale external threat they could not resist.

Incident No. 2.

The betrayal or death of a key individual.

Incident No. 3.

The appearance of an unexpected variable that should never have existed.

A frozen woman who should not exist.

Jace looked toward the distant horizon.

The last orange-red glow of sunset was rapidly being swallowed by the deep blue night.

He typed a reply.

[Confirmed. Continue observing. Do not approach.]

Then he switched to another communication channel and sent a second order.

[Have Nate come to the base tomorrow. We’re holding an operational meeting about the Institute.]

Jace shut off the communicator.

Night had completely fallen.

The corner of his mouth curved upward slightly.

“Interesting.”

A night breeze blew in from the direction of the Charles River, carrying the smell of water and rusted metal.

The base lights glowed in the distance while sentries changing shifts moved along the walls.

Donny was probably already sitting in the mess hall.

Zoe would serve him a hot meal and ask what he had learned today.

Everything was the same as yesterday.

Jace turned toward the base and began walking.

Neither fast nor slow.

His pace was just as steady as when he had arrived.