The Courier not having realized he fell asleep, wakes up to find himself seated on the corner aluminum chest of his bedroom, the soldier with the wounded ribs still laying on his bed grimacing but resting. He rubs the grogginess from his eyes, trying to remember what he was doing before he woke up. The clipboard sitting precariously on his lap clatters to the ground. "Inventory," he reminds himself, picking up the board and setting it off to the side. Deciding that a quick stroll might keep him awake long enough to finish his counting, the young man wanders aimlessly through the nearby rooms, stepping carefully over the strewn about uniforms laying on the floor.

The Big Mountain facilities keep their own internal time, with the CIU being no exception it seems, although this simple fact usually escaped him with his constant running around. The peace and quiet of the dimly lit laboratory and napping appliances puts him at ease. Even the snoring from the various military occupants has a soothing effect. With nary a sign of Arcade in the sitting room or computer alcove, he assumes him to be fast asleep with the crotchety Enclaves in the lower auditorium.

He makes his way into the central room, places his hands on the Central AI and lets out a sigh of relief. The young man realizes he's making progress, albeit slow progress. "Baby steps Rylan. You killed Benny and saved the Hoover Dam with baby steps, why would this be any different?" He stifles back a yawn, reaching into the breast pocket of his scrubs for a tin of Mentats. Finding none within reach, he detours to the vending machines at the entrance alcove, retrieving a Homemade Nuka-Cola. The Courier breaks the wax seal, chugging the bottle as if it were the last bottle in the whole crater.

Rylan crosses through the central room out onto the balcony, overlooking the Big Mt. At the very top of the crater's jagged lip, the brilliant gold sun rises to bring forth a new day. He takes a seat at the nearer balcony bench, staring off into the distant early morning. A warm, faintly metallic breeze brings back his splitting migraine, and a memory.

A bad memory.

"Rye, come and play!"A girl no more than eight screamsout happily as she runs around the corner of a condemned building. The skirt of her rag dress flutters wildly around her knees as a warm, spring wind whistles between the broken bricks and windows.

A younger Rylan chases after her in dirty clothes and bare feet, dodging rubble and rebar. He knows her hiding places amongst the slanting building well, but she is always quicker.

The little girl in her brown pig-tails runs through the crumbling doorway of an old apartment block. She stops just inside the rotting frame of the doorless entry, sticking her tongue out at him. "You can't catch me!" The girl hot-foots in towards the back of the empty first floor, climbing hand over foot up the awkwardly repaired brick wall.

Rylan freezes at the apartment's entrance. His hyped brain pushes him to keep running after her, but his feet suddenly won't move, no matter how much he wills them.

She hangs off the wall, with one hand, taunting him again. The little girl beckonshim adamantly to enter.

The little boy still can't move his legs. He wiggles his toes, but even the small appendages feel as heavy as lead ingots.

The girl hops down from the wall, traversing the fractured stairs to the second story.

The boy wills his right foot to cross the threshold of the doorway, finally succeeding after many agonizing moments.

Aloud crack from the sky rings through thedestroyed city streets.

The baffled boy searches the clear, blue sky for the source of the sound, as the earth beneath the dilapidated apartment rumbles deep and violently. The vibrations knock him off his feet and onto his backside.

From the upper story, the little girl screams out in horror, frantically running back down the cement staircase.

Rylan watches his sister running towards him, her smaller hand reaching for his while the building breaks apart above her head.

His whole body freezes up at the tragedy unfolding before him."Sammy!" He yells her name, staring at the concrete structure falling apart all around her.

A large chunk of concrete crashes down in front of him, showering him in red splatters and grey, powdery dirt. The warm droplets on his face don't register with his traumatized brain until a stream of blood pours out fromunder the concrete rubble, trickling into the cracks of the sidewalk. Rylan stares helplessly at the pile and the hidden remains of his sister, Samantha.

A middle-aged woman comes running fromaround the corner. "Rylan! Where's your sister!? What's happened!?" Still in shock,his mother tries to shake the sense back into him.

It is then that the world aroundhim no longer exists. It drifts away into nothingness, and all he can hear is the beating of his heart in his ears. The boy can't hear his mothers calls, he can't feel the blood of hissister on his cold face, he can't see the rubble she's buried beneath.

Arcade kneels before the young man staring off into the distance. He waves a hand in front of his glassy-eyed stare, softly calling his name. "Mordecai." The Follower snaps his fingers near both his ears goading no response whatsoever. "Mordecai."

He thinks back to his time at Mormon Fort, remembering these same symptoms from the survivors of the Battle of Nelson. The only treatments he knows of is to either let the episode pass, or use "applied psychology", as some of the other Followers coined it, which means only one person in the whole of Big Mountain can help him.

Arcade rushes back through the balcony door into the waiting elevator. He hurries to the computer alcove, stepping over the other soldiers sleeping around Boone. The medic awkwardly reaches down, shaking his beefy shoulder. "Boone," he zealously whispers. "Wake up!"

He jerks his hand off his shoulder with a sharp shrug, drifting back to his sound sleep.

"Boone!" The medic shakes his shoulder in a more insistent manner. "Rylan's blacked out again!"

The sniper crawls out of his sleeping bag, taking his neatly folded beret from his satchel and placing it back on his shaved head before doing anything else. "I'm not a doctor."

"But you understand war, so hurry up," the Follower commands.

He slips on his sunglasses, keeping in step with the taller man.

The pair of them find a slouched Courier with silent tears streaming from his emotionless eyes.

Boone takes a knee before Rylan, examining his reddened face with great intent. He figures out exactly what's wrong from the distant look in his eye. The soldier carefully reaches into the young man's side satchel, bringing out a weathered rag doll in pigtails. "You need to snap out of it," he tells the far away boy. "Right now." Boone places it at his feet where his line of sight has drifted.

Rylan stares down at the object on the ground blinking his eyes in rapid succession. "It was my fault," he rasps over the forming lump in his throat. He picks the small toy up, squeezing it in his shaking hands. "Now she's..." The Courier's tears roll down his haggard face and drip onto the grate floor. "I could have saved her."

Boone understands that kind of guilt. You bury it so deep inside you turn bitter and resentful, and blame yourself for things long since passed. He stands, dragging the young man to his feet and looking him square in the eye. "You wouldn't have had the chance. Accept it, Rylan."

Something about his words rings through that hollow memory, jolting him back to the present. The absentee leering into the distance is replaced by determined introspection as the memory fades away. Rylan turns over the doll before slipping it back into his inventory. "Thanks."

"Get some sleep," he says to his young friend, heading back inside.

Rylan agrees, going back inside for a quick bite to eat. He roots around the refrigerator, careful not to wake up the Biological Research Station.

Arcade stays within an arms reach of him the entire time as a precaution. "You never told me you had Posthumous Trauma and Stress Disorder."

He furrows his brow in confusion, unscrewing the lid off a large jar of Salient Green, sniffing the contents. "Because I don't."

"Then it must have been a very powerful memory that resurfaced. That explains why your migraines were so frequent."

"I never told you I had migraines," the young man defensively points out, sucking the green jelly from his fingers.

"I know a migraine when I see one, I've had plenty of them, and so has Boone."

"Well geez, between the both of you, I can't even have a headache in private." He foregoes utensils for the duration of his light snack, much to Arcade's dismay.

The Follower crosses his arms, ready with a quip at the end of his sharp tongue. "If I remember correctly, you said something to the effect of 'that's what friends are for' almost a year ago."

"You should have been an Arbiter instead of a doctor," he tells him, finishing off the jar.

"I never was a doctor in the first place, I was a researcher, remember? Now, are you going to go to sleep, or do you need to be babysat?"

"I'm too awake to sleep, I need to do something." He absentmindedly stares at the refrigerator before fetching his Anti-Material rifle and heading towards the exit. "I'm going to fix those damn Securitrons."

The doctor checks his Plasma Defender at his belt. "Lead the way."

He stops at the threshold of the sliding door, asking the obvious. "Since when do you do robotics?"

"I do research for the Followers of the Apocalypse and this is a House Securitron after all."

Seeing the argument already lost before it could begin, Rylan shakes his head, walking out the front door.

Within two hours, the NCR recruits mill around near the vending machines, having very animated conversations as they wait for their commanding officer to show.

Boone approaches them, returning their salutes. "Move out."

Gun shots cracking off in quick succession from the distance disturbs the natural stillness outside the Securitron facility.

"I see the soldiers are awake." The Follower singes a finger on a wayward spark that has him curse his misfortune quietly. "And ready to shoot anything that moves."

The Courier contemplates the different colored wires in each hand still connected to the open chest. "It's practice." He touches them end to end cringing. To his surprise, no electrical reaction occurs, so he roots around inside for another pair.

Already peeved by the minor shock treatment he has received by the bare circuits of the robot, he mumbles his disbelief under his breath.

The young man lets the blonde stew in his own discontentment for the bear soldiers carefully lifting out a green wire from the chest cavity.

"Again!"

Half of the recruits present run toward the thrown tin cans as they clatter to the ground.

The ever stoic Boone grows increasingly impatient with their utter ineptitude for sharpshooting. If the greenhorns he brought at the behest of Major So-In-So from Camp Wherever weren't thrust into his care, they'd be one of the hundreds of commonplace infantry with no skill other than the ability to stand guard at some obscure post. He, himself, as a sniper, can see that clearly.

"Ready," he shouts across the line of five.

The soldiers stand wide apart in pairs, the partners who had fetched the cans readying themselves once more.

"Aim!"

The seconds with weapons in hand do as their commander tells them, lining up their sights with the distant hills along with Boone.

"Fire!"

Three cans are catapulted through the air, but only one gives off a distinctive metallic crashing-ding as a bullet knocks it side sideways still in the air.

The Recon sniper gives a dissatisfied groan from between his clenched teeth as he lowers his rifle. "Again!"

Arcade and Rylan burst through the double doors of the facility, defenseless and scared. Either man tries to outpace the other, all the way back to the SINK dome.

A berserking Securitron races out after them screaming nonsensical noises in lew of the standard robotic orders. The disconnected guns click madly in the direction of his two chosen targets.

Approaching fast along his rifle sight, the Courier, Arcade, and a malfunctioning House Securitron speed across the crater dirt after one another. He watches as the robot closes the distance with the undeniably out-of-shape researcher, wrapping its tri-fingered claw around his neck.

The rolling weapon, hoists the skinny man off the ground with ease, forcing the young man into action with the nearest weapon he can scrounge up.

Their fearless leader swings a stick at the hulking, metal assailant, acting as the perfect distraction for the soldiers. Boone rallies his men to practice their shooting at the open back panel of the crazed robot as it swats temperamentally at the attacking Courier. "Fire!"

Rifle shots crash into the naked innards of the House construct, ripping through the wires inside until it seizes and falls forward.

"We were so close," the Courier laments, sadly watching the Securitron sparking face down in the dirt.

Arcade violently clears his throat, yanking his coat collar from the vice-like grip of the claw. "It choked me," he rasps, picking himself up from the dirt while holding his sore neck.

"But we were close!" The young man slumps the whole way back to the SINK. "I'll figure out something eventually. They're just over-sized robots after all."

The researcher louses around the entranceway rubbing his rosy red neck and clearing his throat.

Boone notices him watching the soldiers practice as he paces up and down the cement walkway. "Arcade." He waves him over with two fingers.

The Follower approaches the constantly peeved sniper, suppressing a mild coughing fit. "Whatever it is, the answer is still no."

A frown pulls down on his already unhappy face. "I want the rundown on this tech your people are working on," he demands in an even tone.

Arcade can't help but laugh at his statement.

Boone's face keeps it's natural scowl, only this time he aims it in his direction.

"Since when has knowing what's going on ever been an important part of actually doing," the researcher asks him. "We did fine for two years following someone with no idea what he was doing most of the time."

"It's not just me I have to worry about. If we're the ones putting our asses on the line to protect some scientists, I need to know what they're doing and when."

The Follower removes his glasses, polishing the dust off of them with the corner of his coat. "What exactly has our fearless leader told you?"

"All he's telling me is train."

"Then train." He squints through the lenses, placing them back on the bridge of his nose. "How hard is that to understand?"

"I'm not a god damn moron that salutes anything with a cluster. He has you and those friends of yours, he's bringing in Veronica and the whole Brotherhood. He won't need a handful of recruits in the way, so we better make ourselves useful."

"You're forgetting three things, Boone." He counts them off one by one on his long, bony fingers. "Veronica hates him, he invited you first, and do you realize how large this place is?"

"I still need to know," he reiterates without hesitation. "It doesn't matter how much of it I won't understand."

"You've changed." Arcade purses his thin lips to hide the smile creeping across his face. "For the better, I think." Before he leaves him to his soldiering, the researcher's natural snark gets the last word between them both. "By the way, you and your...fellows in arms are going to be staying in Higgs Village."

"And where the hell is that," Boone wonders, taking his words with a grain of salt as he always does.

The middle-aged blonde points with his long finger at the dusty warehouse-sized barn. "Ex nihilo nihil fit." With that last bit of Latin sarcasm, the man heads inside the dome to see about the recovering wounded.

He sees their young leader in conference with his scientific comrades as he passes through the CIU into the sitting room.

Three of the four around the couch are eating standard military rations, probably brought with them he surmises, while the last dozes lazily in one of the sleeping bags left by his comrades.

Arcade grabs a doctor's bag from the silver chest, setting to work on the recovering patients, all the while listening in on the conversation between the two parties. From what he can decipher of the murmurs floating in from the other room, the throng of brains are all dumbfounded as to where to begin. Besides their own individual specialties, any of the Pre-War experiments the former occupants were conducting is well past their experience, even with two hundred years of immaculately kept notes.

"You see, some of their experiments are redundant," one of the kinder Enclave tells the Courier, handing him a stack of dusty manila folders. "Even downright pointless to us as the world stands currently." He opens the first two folders to emphasize. "Most of these advancements were initially designed to assist in national defense against foreign armies and nuclear warheads, so any research based off of their notes is outmoded."

"What about the holograms, or the weapons, or even the creatures stalking around the Big Mt.," an over-encumbered Courier wonders, running through his mental list of successful experiments.

"Not to be the one to state the obvious," the elder says. "But holograms mean nothing, cardiac dampening devices aren't practical for public use, and these biological abominations running helter-skelter are as useful as a Pre-War sideshow attraction."

The young man is too stubborn to admit defeat at such an early stage of his plan, but as he pokes through the selected files in his arms, their problem becomes all too clear.

Arcade finishes his round heading into the central room. He seems an opportunity to insert himself into the conversation, but decides to brush up on his reading instead, allowing the Courier to mentally duke it out with very opinionated scientists.

"This place has been around since before the Great War," the young man tells them with the slightest hint of exasperation. "There has to be something of use around here."

"Do the derelict facilities have more of their own studies," an older female scientist asks. "If there are successful products out of use, we could reverse engineer those and use them as a starting point for our own endeavors."

"But we've already established the uselessness of their previous experiments," another one of them reiterates in a slightly irritated tone.

The circular arguments go back and forth for over an hour until they all agree to go through older, failed experiments to see if they can be improved. The former Enclave scientists, head off back to their auditorium, with two of them requesting escorts to the nearest of the unused facilities.

Rylan readily agrees, ignoring the obvious problem it poses for the time being. A familiar throbbing radiates across his brow from the mounting stresses. He rubs his temples, crossing right to the refrigerator. "They have no idea what they're doing," he mentions bitterly, holding a chilled bottle of water to his forehead.

"So I've gathered." Arcade flips to the next page of his medical book.

Rylan stands at the CIU silently looking down at the holograms of the buildings. Seeing no other viable option at the moment, he resigns to his last resort. "I'm getting the Brotherhood of Steel in on this project." He pauses to amend his statement. "And Veronica."

Arcade closes his book, narrowing his skeptical eyes at the boy. "The same Veronica that said she'd kill you the next time you crossed paths?" This turn of events doesn't come as a surprise to Arcade. He knows the Brotherhood has a much better understanding of Pre-War technology than even the NCR government. In order to get to what remained of their resources however, he'd have to go through an infuriated Veronica.

"Think about it, Veronica now heads her own branch of the Brotherhood. She made her base in Vault nineteen ever since that place was vacated by the Powder Gangers without warning. Lucky for her, no one dared touch it in case they might have come back, which they never did. There's a fair amount of them left, even if you exclude her."

"And are you," He queries in his most serious tone, arching an eyebrow.

"If I have to, not before." Rylan summons an Eye-Bot to the SINK interior with his wrist-bound computer.

A short time later, number eight floats down from the metal staircase, awaiting Rylan's commands.

He records a very sincere, very carefully worded message for the ticked off former Scribe, sending the bot on its way.

"The Brothers left after the original Bunker massacre aren't going to be my biggest fans. If they decide to come, I'm going to need a proxy, or at the very least an Arbiter when addressing Elder Veronica so her pneumatic gauntlet doesn't knock out my teeth."

"Let me guess," the researcher snipes. "It going to be me."

"Yep."