Fallout - Chapter 121: The Weight of the Truth (Patreon)

That afternoon.

Sunlight slanted across the weathered brick walls of Cambridge Police Station.

The walls were still riddled with bullet holes and blackened scorch marks, all left behind by the previous feral ghoul attack. Danse’s squad had made some basic repairs, but there was no hiding the burns and dents.

They remained etched into the walls like scars that would never heal.

Jace approached alone.

No Tankbot, no escort, not even a rifle slung over his shoulder. There was only a pistol on his belt, making it look as though he were simply dropping by for a visit.

The Knight on duty at the entrance immediately stood at attention when he saw him.

“General.”

Jace nodded.

“Where’s Danse?”

“The Paladin is inside maintaining his equipment.” The Knight quickly stepped aside. “Would you like me to inform him that you’re here?”

“No. I’ll go in myself.”

The police station lobby was considerably tidier than the last time Jace had visited. The walls had been given a basic cleaning, the bloodstains on the floor were gone, and the field cots in the corner had been neatly folded away.

A terminal hummed on one of the desks, with several handwritten logs stacked beside it. A map of the Commonwealth hung on the wall.

Scribe Haylen was typing at the terminal, processing data. She looked up when she heard him enter.

“General. You’re here.”

“I’m looking for Danse.”

“He’s in the storage room.”

Jace didn’t linger in the lobby. After exchanging a few words with Haylen, he walked down the corridor and opened the storage room door.

Danse was crouched with his back to the entrance, working on the leg assembly of an opened suit of T-60 power armor.

Assuming Haylen had come in, he spoke without looking back.

“The interface gasket is starting to wear out. We’ll need to find some replacements.”

“I’ve got brand-new spares.”

Danse’s hand stopped.

He turned and found Jace leaning against the doorframe.

His expression shifted from surprise to genuine astonishment, then softened into a sincere smile.

“General.” Danse smiled, sounding more relaxed than usual. “What brings you here?”

“I have some news about you.”

“What kind of news?”

Jace didn’t answer.

Instead, he pulled a paper document from his pocket and held it out.

“Read this. You’ll understand.”

Danse took the document and unfolded it.

It was a medical examination report.

The format was standardized, a military-grade medical form printed on unusually thick paper, with a serial number and date marked in the corners.

Danse’s name, service number, and rank were listed at the top.

Below them was a detailed record of physiological data.

Heart rate.

Blood pressure.

Blood oxygen saturation.

Neural reflex speed.

His eyes moved steadily down the page until they stopped on the final conclusion.

A single line of black printed text stared back at him, neat and cold.

[Final Conclusion: Institute Fugitive Synth.]

Danse froze.

His pupils contracted sharply, then slowly widened.

It was as though a sealed door somewhere inside his mind had been forcibly pried open, revealing an abyss he had never imagined existed.

He stared at the words as if desperately trying to decipher an impossible code.

Or perhaps he was simply waiting for them to disappear.

He read the line again.

Then again.

No typo.

No ambiguity.

No room to convince himself that he had misunderstood.

His fingers tightened around the paper, crushing a deep crease into its edge.

Then he raised his head and stared at Jace.

“...General.”

His voice was dry and hoarse, forced out from deep in his throat.

“You’re joking, right?”

Jace said nothing.

He simply looked at him.

“Are you a ghoul?” Jace asked.

Danse blinked, then instinctively shook his head.

“No.”

“Have you ever worshipped Atom?”

“Never.”

Jace met his eyes.

“Then have you never wondered why your resistance to radiation is so much higher than a normal person’s?”

The words struck Danse like a thunderbolt.

Long-buried memories surged back all at once.

Back then, he had been nothing more than an ordinary scavenger in the Capital Wasteland.

He hadn’t joined the Brotherhood yet.

He hadn’t worn power armor.

He had fought to survive among the ruins of Washington, scavenging usable pre-War parts and scrap every day, then selling them in Rivet City for water, ammunition, and a hot meal.

Other scavengers avoided heavily irradiated areas whenever possible.

Destroyed reactors.

Abandoned military facilities.

Nuclear blast zones.

No one wanted to go near them.

Except Danse.

He had never questioned why.

He hadn’t cared enough to investigate.

All he knew was that dangerous radiation zones often contained valuable salvage.

Intact pre-War weapons.

Undamaged precision electronics.

Any one of them could fetch a good price in Rivet City.

Again and again, he had ventured deep into irradiated ruins.

Protective suits tore.

Filters failed.

Yet he had never suffered even the slightest case of radiation sickness.

He had made his fortune by scavenging places other people were too afraid to enter, slowly saving enough caps to open his own junk stand in Rivet City.

Details he had ignored for more than a decade now came firing back into his mind like bullets.

Jace wasn’t lying.

Danse’s breathing quickened.

He looked down at his hands.

Rough.

Calloused.

Permanently stained with machine oil.

Slowly, he turned his palms upward as though seeing them properly for the first time.

“...So that’s why.”

His voice was barely audible.

His arm went slack.

The medical report slipped from his fingers and floated gently to the floor.

Danse lowered his head and stared at it.

Jace sat down on a nearby ammunition crate and waited.

The air inside the storage room seemed to solidify.

Time passed.

Even the angle of the sunlight coming through the window shifted noticeably.

Then Danse suddenly surged to his feet and flipped the metal table in front of him.

It crashed onto the floor.

Documents scattered everywhere.

Cold coffee splashed across the wall, leaving an ugly brown stain.

Then he turned on the shelves.

Danse drove his fist into the nearest metal rack.

The entire structure shook violently as tools and spare parts clattered onto the floor.

He grabbed its edge and shoved.

The whole rack toppled sideways and slammed into the wall with a deafening crash.

“AAAAARGH!”

A deep roar tore from Danse’s chest.

More than a decade of faith, conviction, and identity collapsed in a single instant.

Pain.

Despair.

The sheer absurdity of it all.

Everything exploded inside him at once.

He raised his fist and smashed it into the wall.

The bricks gave a dull thud.

Plaster cracked and crumbled down.

The skin across his knuckles split, and blood welled from the wounds.

He didn’t seem to feel it.

“Danse. Calm down.”

Jace’s voice came from behind him.

Calm.

Steady.

Like an anchor.

Danse hunched forward, both hands braced against the wall, his forehead pressed against the cold brick.

“Why... didn’t you tell me sooner...?”

Before Jace could answer, Danse spun around and seized him by the shoulders.

“Then why are you telling me now?!”

His eyes were bloodshot.

The skin around them had turned red.

“Wouldn’t it have been better if I never knew?!”

“I could have gone my whole life without knowing! I could have lived as Paladin Danse, died in battle, been buried as Paladin Danse! My grave would have carried the Brotherhood insignia!”

His grip tightened as he shook Jace.

“No one would have known! No one needed to know!”

“Why did you have to tear it all apart?!”

Jace stood there and let him.

He let Danse grab him, shake him, and pour out every bit of anger and pain that had nowhere else to go.

Then Jace asked,

“Are you sure?”

Danse stopped.

“You really want to spend the rest of your life living a lie?”

Danse slowly released him.

His arms dropped helplessly to his sides.

It was as though every ounce of strength had been drained from his body.

He stumbled backward two steps, then sank to the floor beside the overturned shelf and stared silently at the wreckage around him.

The storage room remained quiet for a long time.

The fluorescent light overhead flickered twice as the voltage fluctuated.

Rapid footsteps sounded outside.

The Knight on duty, alarmed by the noise, rushed to the doorway.

He took one look at the wrecked room and Danse’s state and froze, unsure what to do.

“It’s fine,” Jace said calmly. “Wait outside.”

The Knight hesitated, looking from Danse to Jace.

Then he silently backed away and gently closed the door.

Danse looked up at Jace.

There was no resentment in his eyes now.

No indignation.

Only a barren kind of calm.

“I never imagined I was a Synth.”

“But the truth is right in front of me. I don’t have a choice.”

He swallowed.

“I’m a Synth. Under Brotherhood law, I should be executed.”

Danse slowly pushed himself to his feet.

His movements were composed and deliberate, as though preparing himself for a solemn ending.

Then he dropped to one knee.

His posture was respectful.

Resolute.

“I should be made an example to everyone. The law cannot bend for personal feelings. I have no right to make myself an exception just to stay alive.”

He rose and looked toward the T-60 power armor standing in the corner.

It represented everything he had believed in and every battle he had fought under that creed.

“General. Thank you for telling me.”

There was an almost martyr-like peace in his voice.

“I’ll walk the rest of the road myself.”

He looked like a man calmly preparing to die.

No running.

No excuses.

No begging.

Just as he had lived his entire life.

Follow the code.

Never cross the line.

Never compromise.

Jace looked at the pathetic state he had worked himself into.

Then he raised his hand and slapped Danse across the face.

Smack!

The sharp crack echoed through the cramped storage room.

Danse staggered backward.

A red handprint rapidly appeared across his cheek.

The pain hit him like a bucket of cold water.

Jace shook out his hand.

He had put enough force into the slap that his palm was tingling too.

“Clearheaded now?”

Danse stood there with one hand against his cheek.

For a very long time, he said nothing.

Then he slowly lowered his hand.

There was the faintest trace of moisture at the corner of his eye.

But more importantly, some life had begun to return to his face.

“...Thank you.”

Danse looked down at the medical report lying dirty and trampled on the floor.

“By the way... how did you get a Brotherhood medical report?”

Jace tilted his head toward the doorway.

Danse turned sharply.

Maxson stood in the shadows outside.

His face revealed nothing.

But his calm eyes said enough.

He had watched everything.

Danse’s disbelief.

His rage.

His collapse.

His struggle to understand what his life meant.

And finally, his acceptance.

Maxson had seen all of it.

Danse froze.

“...Elder.”

His voice caught in his throat.

Maxson cut him off.

“Danse.”

Danse immediately straightened by reflex.

“You have a new assignment.”

Danse stared at him.

“Elder, under Brotherhood law, I...”

“The mission briefing has already been sent to Scribe Haylen.”

Maxson’s voice was perfectly even, as though he were issuing an ordinary field order.

Danse’s mouth remained open.

No words came out.

Maxson turned and walked away.

His boots struck the concrete floor in steady, measured steps.

At the end of the corridor, just before rounding the corner, he stopped.

He didn’t look back.

“Come back soon.”

Then he disappeared around the corner.

Danse stood motionless, staring at the empty hallway.

His shoulders trembled slightly.

He lowered his head and clenched his fists.

Then he looked toward the doorway again.

Almost instinctively, the words left his mouth.

“Ad Victoriam.”

...

The day before.

Maxson had come to see Jace.

“I have a personal matter.”

Jace looked at him and nodded for him to continue.

Maxson lightly tapped one finger against the table.

“I used the method you suggested to screen every Brotherhood member who came with us.”

He paused.

“We found a Synth.”

“Who?”

“Danse.”

Jace showed no surprise whatsoever.

His hand didn’t move.

He didn’t even blink.

“What are you planning to do?”

There was a rare hesitation in Maxson’s voice.

“His situation is unusual. If this is mishandled, it could create serious problems.”

Jace didn’t bother dancing around the issue.

“If you don’t want him, give him to me.”

“No.”

Maxson answered without the slightest hesitation.

“Then stop wasting time. What do you want me to do?”

Maxson fell into his longest silence of the night.

Finally, he lowered his voice.

“Knowing Danse, if he ever finds out that everything he’s devoted his life to was built on a lie, he won’t simply grit his teeth and quietly accept it.”

He looked at Jace.

“That’s why I want you to go.”

Jace raised an eyebrow slightly.

“You want me to talk to him?”

“Yes.”

Maxson tapped his fingers lightly against the table.

“If you’re the one telling him, it won’t feel like someone is reading out his death sentence.”

Jace considered that for a moment.

He remembered the game’s storyline.

Quinlan had analyzed the Institute data stolen by the Sole Survivor, and that was how Danse’s Synth identity had been discovered.

Danse hadn’t flown into a rage.

He hadn’t rebelled.

He had simply fled alone to Listening Post Bravo.

That meant Danse hadn’t wanted revenge when the truth destroyed his beliefs.

He had simply lost his reason to keep living.

“All right. I’ll handle it.”

...

Back in the present.

Cambridge Police Station.

Inside the storage room.

Danse continued staring toward the hallway where Maxson had disappeared.

Jace stood quietly behind him and didn’t interrupt.

After a long time, Danse took a deep breath and turned around.

“What do I do now?”

Jace looked at the faint spark that had returned to his eyes.

“Don’t ask me. Haylen has your mission briefing. Go see her.”

Danse paused.

Then the corner of his mouth moved slightly as he pushed down everything he was feeling.

He bent over and picked up the dirty medical report from the floor.

Carefully, he folded it in half and tucked it into an inner pocket.

Then he turned and walked out of the storage room.

His pace wasn’t fast.

But every step was steady.

Jace followed him into the lobby.

Scribe Haylen stood there, watching Danse leave.

Her expression was complicated, with quiet pain hidden in her eyes.

“General, what do I need to prepare?”

“A mission briefing and a box of Fancy Lads Snack Cakes.”

Haylen immediately collected herself and nodded.

Outside, afternoon sunlight lay quietly across the scarred brick walls of Cambridge Police Station.

The heavy metal doors gave a low groan in the wind as they slowly swung open.