Chapter Text
As she surveyed the market, Mave sighed, hands sat on her waist. Several raiders milled around her, all looking skeptically at her. It was easy for Mave to understand their apprehension. After all, if someone had asked about Coursers and a rumored Institute head strapped with weapons like she was, she would have been concerned as well. She turned her attention back to the slave woman she was talking to. "So you haven't heard any raiders mention anything about the Institute?"? Do you know anything about the parks?”
In the back of her mind, she thought about telling Jasper about the raiders in Nuka World. Let her Minutemen General brother handle what was happening here instead of getting involved. Nevertheless, if any army came through the door Dr. Ayo and the Coursers with him could run west and escape. Jasper was also a new father, and the last thing her niece needed was to lose a parent so young. From how it seemed she wouldn't be surrounded by family like she was before.
Upon completion of her Railroad mission, Mave was leaving the Commonwealth. The Lieutenant Hasting and the Agent Whisper identities would be lost. Eventually, Mave would become Lady Maxson, the woman who, at one point, destroyed the greatest enemy of the Commonwealth.
"Only that some of us tried to escape into them when the Raiders moved in a year ago." The woman replied, wiping away a stain from years earlier with a rag. The new Overboss might be interested in knowing what's going on."
Mave slumped her shoulders and sighed. “Here’s a few caps for your troubles.” She stated, setting them down on the booth. Before turning, she straightened her rifle on her shoulder. Her face hit a large yellow cage armor. Looking up, she saw a man of similar height to hers. His face and body were strewn with scars. A patch sat on his eye as he glared at her.
“How did someone get through here without going through the Gauntlet?” He gruffed, grabbing her by the arm.
Trying to get away from him, she rolled her eyes. Nerves churned in her stomach as she stared at this man. She had done most of her accomplishments peacefully, so there was no way she was going to start a fight here. Before blowing up the institution, she had even set the damn evacuations in motion so that everyone who wanted to leave could do so. “I walked and skimmed past some ferals around Bradburton. Don’t you guys ever leave or get new recruits?”
“Recruits usually end up going to one of the gangs. Not asking the slaves questions.”
“I’m just here to investigate rumors that an Institute Head and some Coursers are hiding here.” Mave hissed, crossing her arms and staring at the man. She wished she had brought Deacon or someone else with her to do most of the talking. Upon entering the Park, Piper would've obtained most of the information they needed within minutes. “You hear anything about that? According to rumor, it happened when the Institute blew up months ago."
“What if I told you we killed them?” The man taunted, leaning closer to her. “What would you do then?”
“I would ask what you did with the bodies to the Chips in their brain. Also, ask what color was on the Head’s lab coat to make sure it was the one I was hunting.” She snapped, “Any raider or groups of raiders killing three Coursers and an Institute Head would be something worth celebrating. As soon as it was mentioned, someone would be bragging about it."
Quite quickly, she realized everyone was afraid of the Institute and its Synths. In the end, Jasper had grown wary of them. Not Synths, considering they had discovered his now fiancé was a Synth. His fear came from the fact that they had kidnapped her for two months. Once she was freed, she fled the Commonwealth for a month. When they destroyed the Institute, he was shocked by the sterile environment they created and impressed by their science.
It would be fantastic if none of the Synths were in the park. Let Jasper know that the theme park is full of raiders, and allow him to destroy it. The lie would be that she had been killed during the battle, when in fact she would be hiding. After the Brotherhood and her fiancé left, she could finally become a mother to Shaun.
“I don’t think you could take on that many Coursers by yourself.” The man grunted, looking at her.
She stared at him in feigned confidence as she shrugged, "So take me to your Overboss." As he dragged her out of the park, he grumbled something before taking her arm once more.
Mave kicked her feet, looking around the headquarters of the Railroad. She looked up at Des, standing over reports that had been written since the Institute's destruction three weeks ago. In total, she spent just two weeks with the Synth version of her son, nearly all of which she spent in Far Harbor. On her first trip there DIMA had offered a home for the small child if she could ever get him from the Institute. The only problem was that she hadn't wanted Shaun to know just yet that he was a Synth.
According to the reports she had pulled from Father's computer, the boy would grow. However, it would be much slower than most children his age. The risk of separation anxiety would also be present. A part of her still didn't understand why he had made a five-year-old version of himself as bait for her.
He was only going to be with DIMA for a few months. Her marriage to the Brotherhood Elder would take place sooner rather than later. Deacon and MacCready offered to take the boy to the Capital Wasteland and raise him with Duncan. As Deacon's last mission, he would live with his boyfriend and raise his best friend's child.
“Agent Whisper,” Carrington snapped. “Are you listening?”
Mave nodded, looking away from the wall. Tom was building another MILA, which someone would later install. Drummer Boy or High Rise, she would guess. You want me to hunt down Dr. Ayo and the Coursers who escaped."
A flicker of ash flitted off the end of Des' cigarette as she nodded. “We have reason to believe that they’re in a theme park west of here called Nuka World.”
“I did a dance competition there once,” Mave replied, turning to look at her boss. "They picked fifty of the best teen dancers and had them compete. We would have toured if half the men hadn't gotten drafted that fall. I know where it is.”
"I've heard there are raiders in the park," Des said, looking at Mave. She knew those looks well, they were a mixture of pity and worry. Over the past three weeks, she'd seen it from everyone who looked at her. A woman who went to hell and back to find her son, only to abandon him. Deacon gave it to her the moment they returned to HQ to meet Shaun. She got it from Jasper the moment a five-year-old called "Mommy." She got it from MacCready the night she lay sobbing in his and Deacon's arms after they had left Shaun and stayed the night in Far Harbor before heading back to the Commonwealth. Danse, he had given her that look much longer, since the morning when she had given up her freedom for his life.
Mave shrugged, “I’ll still do the mission.”
“We’ll assign Deacon with you for this. Or would you rather like your brother since he’s done a mission or two in the past?” Des questioned, eyebrow-raising up at Mave’s silence. “You’re not doing this mission by yourself.”
"Maxson will get suspicious if I bring anyone with me. He already has figured out I let you into the Institute and he’ll be pissed when I go see him again. I’ve been disappearing off his radar since we got engaged, going by myself will be nothing new. If I get in there and realize I need someone, I’ll radio Deacon in Sanctuary.” Mave grinned, trying to give Des some hope that it wasn’t a suicide mission. “Besides, my brother adopted a baby two weeks before we blew up the Institute. I’m not pulling him away from his child again. She’s pretty cute, named her Ophelia.”
Des gave her a half-hearted smile. “Be safe out there, Whisper.”
Gage had no idea what possessed him to take this woman to meet the Overboss. In some ways, it seemed odd how casually she spoke about what she needed to prove someone had killed the Coursers. She knew the Boogeyman of the Commonwealth intimately enough to know certain people had colored lab coats. The Institute wasn't talked about every day by people.
As she followed him past the other gangs, one hand was always clutching the pistol on her side that he'd just noticed. Her rifle was still slung tightly over her shoulder, along with a small backpack. Now and then, he looked back to make sure she was still following. Not a figment of his imagination.
She said they had entered the parks when tensions were at an all-time high. It had been the point when the Disciples had made the Gauntlet as a tool to get rid of Colter. When he was getting the bosses together with promises of finding a new boss to save his skin. Unless they went straight into the parks and hadn’t left since someone would have seen something. Part of him wanted to put a slave collar on her, but knowing how much she knew about the Institute stopped him. The casual way she spoke about wanting them slaughtered like a Disciple would mention the next corpse they would flay.
It made him wonder what group in the Commonwealth had a leash on her. The Brotherhood of Steel made their war on the Institute public knowledge. The Elder Prick announced it over a loudspeaker when they entered the Commonwealth. Kellog, the dog with only one master, was found dead only days later. The raiders claimed Kellog had worked for the Institute, and mentioning him meant death. Rumors were floating around that the Railroad had destroyed the Institute before anyone else. As far as he knew, they would rather save Synths than kill them. It wouldn't make sense for the Railroad to hunt Coursers who were trying to live their lives. Part of him wondered if this woman was Institute and they were about to be in the crossfires of a wild west for them.
Once they were in the elevator, he got a better look at her. In terms of height, she was only a few inches shorter than the Overboss and him. She wore her auburn hair in braids on her head sloppily with pieces falling out. Her almost black eyes stared into his soul as if she knew everything he'd done in his life. The one thing was, she was a walking stick. There didn't seem to be any fat or muscle on her.
Beau, the Overboss, stared at a map of the theme park from the bar. As he muttered to himself, he erased something from the map and wrote once more. Before returning to the paper, his light brown eyes flickered towards Gage and the woman for a moment. “I wonder if there’s anything worth wild outside the park, but still in proximity so I don’t have to short a gang.” He sighed, running his hands through his auburn hair. He looked back up again, staring at the woman beside Gage.
Beau smiled as Gage finally started to point out similarities in their features in his head. They had the same color hair he had noticed, the same crooked smile that looked more like a smirk, and the same nose. “Mave?” Beau questioned, standing up slightly. As soon as he realized the woman and the Overboss knew each other, he had even more questions.
According to what he had been told, the Overboss was a prewar vault dweller who had just emerged from the ice three weeks ago. Before the bombs, he ran one of the most successful mobs in Boston. From what he could tell, no one in the Commonwealth made an impression on him. He wondered why she had been out long enough to make an enemy with the Institute if she was pre-war.
“What the hell are you doing here, Beau?” The woman, Mave asked. The moment she stepped onto the floor, her body relaxed. As she leaned on the bar, her arms crossed, that smirk appearing on her face.
“Well, after I decided to go on my own I found the signal here. I figured you'd been here quite a few times before the bombs fell, so I wanted to check it out on my own." Beau replied, shrugging. “I ended up becoming Overboss of this place instead. What are you doing here?”
She made a face, “I’m hunting some Coursers and one of the Institute's department heads. My intel told me that they were somewhere in Nuka World.”
“That was the group that kidnapped Shaun and shot me?” Beau questioned. Mave nodded as Gage made a strangled noise. Who the hell was Shaun and what had they wanted him for enough to kill someone and refreeze them. “Understandable that you’d want them all dead,” Beau replied, before turning towards Gage. “Gage this is my little sister Mave. Mave, this is my right-hand man Gage. I was able to get this job only because he helped me kill my last boss two days ago.”
Mave gave him a small wave before sitting down on one of the seats. “Technically we could be twins. Considering I was out of the ice a whole ten months before you were.” She teased, smiling.
Beau rolled his eyes, “I was shot because I wouldn’t let the Institute have my nephew." Mave sighed, glaring at her brother with a pointed glare. "She thought I was dead, so she let me rot for ten months in an ice prison. Your son was cute and squishy and I know you’d haunt me from the grave if the roles had been reversed. No hard feelings, I survived.”
Mave shook her head, before noticing Gage’s worried look. "Don't worry, I won't comment on this deal you're making. Whatever you decide, I don't care. What I care about is what I came here to do and not getting shot by your army of raiders. Do that and I'll turn a blind eye to everything else. I’m leaving the Commonwealth after this anyway.”