Q's Cue

Chapter 13: I'm Sorry, Pt. 1

Colvin and his squad came out of the metro station into the blaring sunlight.  The smell of cooking meat wafted on the afternoon air from Wilhelm's Warf.  Most of the patrol was recon; a one day jaunt into the metro tunnels and back out again.  They found no Super Mutants during their sojourn, but were attacked consistently by strung out raiders and the random ghoul that prowled around in the dark.  He sent that poor soul to the Maker, as he always had when he encountered them.

The group walked in silence towards the Citadel when a static filled buzzed crackled in his helmet.  Old Morse Code bleated a message and looped several times.  The squad stopped and strained to listen to what was being transmitted.  Over the din of static, Sentinel Lyons' voice came in faintly.  

“I need all patrols to return to the Citadel, ASAP,” Sarah ordered.

Her voice seemed stressed.  Something's happened, he thought as they started a quick jog towards headquarters.  His heart was already thudding rapidly against his chest as a thousand scenarios played out in his head.  It could have been Super Mutants, perhaps a Behemoth, anything.

He entered A-Ring, the hallway buzzed with more excitement than he had ever seen.  Analysts and Scribes walked rapidly in front of him, their eyes fixated on various clipboards.  Paladins and Knights hurried down to the armory or out into the Bailey.  Initiates were ushered back outside by Gunny.  It was complete chaos.  He could barely keep his bearings about him, what with the noise and bodies crashing into him at irregular intervals.

One of Lyons' Pride headed into the conference room down the hall.

“Kodiak, what's going on?” Colvin asked, nearly yelling at him.  

The young man turned to him and allowed the Knight Captain to catch up.  He had a strange look on his face.  He almost seemed perplexed by the question.

“You don't know?”  Kodiak replied back.  Colvin shook his head.  He honestly had no clue what had happened.  “You know the Jefferson Memorial?”  Colvin nodded .  He was becoming frustrated and just wanted answers, not the run around.  It didn't help he had a migraine and the movement of his head made his previous concussion seem like he'd received another.  

He knew the Jefferson Memorial had some defunct project still there.  Which was a strange location for anything to happen there.  No one in their right mind would go through that hell to scavenge some derelict tech.

“Some scientists were there, I guess.  Civilians,” Kodiak continued.  His eyes looked past his commanding officer to the opposite end of the hall.  The Knight-Captain shifted uneasily and turned to see what his comrade was looking at.  He saw Sentinel Lyons standing over a person on a bench.  When Kodiak noticed he was watching him, his eyes snapped back to him.  “I don't know what they were doing, but they were attacked – by the Enclave.”

That name caught Colvin's attention.  His eyebrow crooked.  He knew the remnants were alive and well here and instantly he knew what was going on.  Everything from twenty years before came back and why the old Doc looked so familiar to him.  Waters of Life:  An ideal pipe dream for free, clean water.  He was young then, barely a Senior Initiate when he and Paladin Cross were there for protection detail.  He'd lost many friends during that time from Super Mutants, disease, and other Wasteland dangers.  He didn't know where it had all gone wrong.  He knew that one of the lead scientists had died during childbirth and then everything went downhill from there.  One day, he was told he was being reassigned to the Citadel and that was the end of the Project.

“But why now?” Colvin uttered aloud.

“We don't know yet.  Elder Lyons is talking with one of the scientists now,” Kodiak replied.  Again, his eyes turned to Sentinel Lyons.  “If you'll excuse me, Sir, I have to get these reports to Vargas and Glade.”

Colvin stuck his head into the room, each chair was filled by a member of Lyons' Pride.  Except for Sarah who was still talking to someone.  He made a decision to get debriefed from Sarah about the Project.  His gut told him nothing good was going to come from the Enclave in control of the Purifier.

Sentinel Lyons turned when she noticed Colvin coming.  She quickly approached him, blocking his view of the person she was talking with.  He leaned around her briefly and directed his attention to his commanding officer.

“Is she alright?” he asked.

Sarah let out a sigh and gently pushed him back.  She glanced at the girl sitting by herself – head down, lost in thought – and frowned.  She shook her head sullenly and cleared her throat.

“There was an incident at the Purifier,” Sarah began.  He could hear her voice slightly wavering as she spoke.  “Her dad didn't make it.  Another researcher was executed as a warning.”  Colvin went to press passed her, but she stopped him with a harder shove.  “That's all I could get from her.  She needs to talk to someone, but not now.”  She gave her another sad look.  “She just had to watch her father die in agony, helpless to do anything.” Her hand fell to her side.  “Just – Just be careful with what you say.”

The two parted in silence.  He watched Sarah enter the conference room.  She was always so stoic about those sorts of things, but this moment – the event – had stirred something from within the Sentinel.  They had lost friends, colleagues, even loved ones before, but his commander’s unusual demeanor unsettled him.

He looked at Quinn, sitting by herself as if she was invisible to the world.  She was looking at a tattered scrap of paper and then to her Pip-Boy.  She pressed the screen hard and resumed staring at the picture.  Colvin didn’t know what to do at that point.  He knew she was in shock, grieving, in fact.  Whether she was injured or not, he couldn’t tell.  It’s not like she was going to acknowledge any wounds she had received from the Enclave.

He held his breath, not knowing what to say to her, and took his place on the bench beside her.  He nervously twiddled his fingers and leaned to see what she was looking at.  It was the picture he’d seen before.  A small spray of dried red arced across the smiling faces.  There was so much happiness there behind the loss of innocence that had polluted the photo.

“Are you alright?” he finally asked.  He knew it was a stupid question to ask, but it was the only thing he could muster to speak with her.

Quinn sat quietly, her lip quivered as if trying to hold back a sob.  She pulled her sunglasses from her face and slowly turned to face him.  Her eyes were red from crying and fresh tears slipped down her cheeks.

“Yeah,” she breathed.

“Do you need anything?” he queried, tucking the few strands of hair behind her ear.

She shook her head and pulled the Pip-Boy free of her arm.  She handed the photo and  Pip-Boy to him.  He looked at the computer screen and saw that she had paused a recording.  Quinn stood and wiped her eyes before placing her sunglasses on her face.

“I don’t know anymore,” she stated.  

She turned from him and began towards the stairs leading to the Bailey.  He watched the obvious limp she exhibited, but didn’t slow her pace.  Colvin’s attention returned then to the recording and the photo.  He pressed the flashing button on the screen and heard her father’s voice.

“She doesn’t need her daddy anymore.”

The message kept looping until he couldn’t take the heartache the message was creating.  He shut it off and walked back to the Lyons’ Den.  All eyes were on him as he made his way to his chair.  He heard shouting in the Bailey and within seconds Knight Artemis was in the doorway, out of breath, with a stunned look on his face.

“We’ve got a problem,” he huffed out.

The group all got up and headed for the stairs.  None of them knew what to expect when they burst through the door into the fading daylight.  From across the yard, Colvin saw Quinn quickly walking away from a man with a woman following quickly behind them.  The man was screaming at the girl, but she kept walking.  Everything seemed to stop as the scene played out in front of everyone.

The man was reaching his breaking point; his face beet red with rage.  His pace quickened and he caught up to Quinn, grabbed her arm, and spun her around to face him.

“This is you and your father’s fault!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.  “It was both of your faults this time and last time!  Why did you come back?!  Why did either of you come back?!”  He started to shake her, but she pulled away and for a second Colvin saw her fingers twitch near her holster.  The other scientist tried to pull him back, but he shook her off and came at Quinn again like a bulldog.  “If you’d never been born, your mother and your father would be alive!  You ruined everything, both of you!  What gives you the damn right to interrupt people’s lives that were better off without you?  How do we know your father didn’t betray us?”

The Knight Captain saw Quinn’s lips move, but couldn’t make out what she was saying.  He didn’t think that the man could tell either.  It just infuriated him more and the woman backed off, putting more distance between the two of them.  Colvin began started walking quickly toward them and hoped that she wouldn’t do something she’d regret later in her moment of grief.

He felt Glade pull him back and that’s when he saw it: a right hook across the older man’s face.  His jaw gaped and that was the cue to try and end the conflict before everything escalated.  Glade and he hurried over to her and she pulled her side arm and pointed it at the injured man.  Blood dribbled down his chin onto his clothes.  He looked stunned by the hit and he held his jaw gently in his hand.  The other scientist was knelt beside him pleading with Quinn to not do something foolish.  Glade stopped; a small little smirk crept across his face and went to Quinn’s left flank; Colvin took the right.

“Don’t do this,” Colvin begged.

Quinn was crying, he could hear the ragged breath and sniffling.  She was trained on her target and from the look in her eye; she was seriously considering executing him.

“My father is dead.  He died trying to save us,” she stated through clenched teeth.  She pulled the hammer back and the man jumped.  “Why?  What was the point?  Why did he save you?”

“I- I- I- didn’t know.  I’m sorry,” he stammered.  “I just thought –“

“Hildebrand, shut up,” the woman hissed.

Colvin placed his hand on the gun and felt her grip loosen as he slid it away.  Her shoulders slumped slightly and she spun around pushing both soldiers out of her way.  He knew she needed to be alone, now was not the time to follow her.  She was too eaten up to deal with anything.  She needed to come to terms with what had happened.

I’ll check on her after a little while, he thought.  He started back towards A-Ring when another Paladin stopped him.

“We need to talk.  Now,” he coldly snapped.

He knew the man behind the voice as Paladin Hoss.  It wasn’t often that he returned from Falls Church, but when he did they were close.  They had history and a shared connection.  And given his tone, he knew exactly what they were going to talk about.