John advanced through the third floor, following the lights that flickered on as he walked. He saw a figure in silhouette at the end of the corridor, bigger than the bots. The lights went out as John fired, hitting nothing. He's fast, John thought, and gave chase.

John felt he’d had the upper hand, going around the trap, baiting the voice. Now, as bright lights clunked on, John knew he’d walked right into the trap. Steel walls, dinged and scorched, overlooked by a thick glass observation bay. It looked like a target range, and John stood in the middle of it.

The lights in the observation bay came on as the ones outside went off. “Behold.” John fired, bullets skipping off the glass. The lights shone on matte black armour. Smooth and featureless like the bots, save for dials on the chest, and blazing red eyes.

“You want me, here I am.” John snarled, keeping the attention on him while he loaded his last magazine of tungsten core rounds.

“What The Mechanist wills comes to pass! I am unstoppable!” The voice filled the range, no longer speaking in just his ear.

“What do you want with my pipboy?” John wondered how deep the delusion went as he played for time, looking for a way out.

“The device will serve as the brain to my creations! All controlled through here and reaching out across the world!” The figure paced behind the glass. John let out a mocking laugh.

“Listen, Mr Mechanic, you—” The figure slammed a metal clad fist on the glass.

“Mechanist!” The figure paced and ranted. “I am the all powerful, all knowing, master of the mechanical!”

“Well whatever your name is, I’ve worn this thing for fifteen years, and it doesn’t listen to me. What makes you think it'll do what you want?” John began side stepping slowly, gradually nearing a small door in the wall. The repetitive laugh boomed, triggered from a button on the gauntlet, like the section of floor that hissed and retracted straight down.

John ran to the door in the wall and kicked, harder and harder, without any movement. All while the cold, looped laugh boomed. The retracted floor returned, four of the featureless, humanoid bots flanked by a pair of Sentry bots. They fanned out to reveal a medical table, chains to hold him in place while they cut his arm off.

John bolted straight for them, the fear pulling him into the nightmare, dreamlike state. Even as time slowed, the humanoid bots moved quickly. The last of the tungsten tipped bullets, fired through axe wounds, dropped two of them. John’s chest and muscles burnt as he felt time speeding back up.

A final swing of the axe took the heads of the bots. Metal arms still sent the axe from his failing grasp. The axe clanged and skidded as time snapped back, leaving John on his knees.

John felt pain in his shoulders and wrists as quad pronged claws dug in. The Sentry bots rumbled round from behind. John got enough of a look at them to know they’d been built properly. And were equipped with dual, triple barrelled Gatling guns. Well, I bought them time, John thought as the bots dragged him. Now what?

An eyebot pushed through a vent, descending from above. John felt a presence inside the bot, its movement too precise. A thin arm unfolded and dropped an injector in front of him.

“Take it. All of it.” The voice boomed and the eyebot pincer sparked blue.

“I need my arm.” John readied himself to exploit a mistake. He drew in steady breaths, slowly turning his head to get his bearings. Then everything went dead.

Bots slumped, the eyebot hit the ground, and only light became the red eyes behind thick glass. Thank you, John thought, and then he started to laugh. The Sentry bots powered up first, red lights falling on him.

“Stay down.” John heard a voice he knew through the trundling, hulking bot. He did what Rosie said. The triple barrelled guns clunked once, then erupted with booming gunfire. First the humanoid bots shattered, then the glass cracked under the impact.

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The Sentry bots fell silent, John got to his feet and saw red light refracted through the cracked glass. The two angled eyes soon became lost in the glow from another red light.

The red glow reached an intensity too bright to look at, then shot forward in a brilliant beam. Even as time slowed around John, the beam carved through a Sentry bot, then started to chase him. Glass dripped like wax, steel warped and split, while John found himself missing getting shot at with bullets.

Time snapped back as the beam shut off. Peering through the melted glass, John saw the black armour and red eyes. Held like a rifle in his hands, he saw the head and exposed spinal power cells from an Assaultron, modified into a handheld weapon. Fire from the remaining Sentry drove the figure back, before the bot wheeled over to the glass. He climbed up it and through.

John pushed into the corridor, the figure clomping away. He made it round the corner and saw the red light. He barged through a wooden door at his side, feeling the heat behind him as it fired.

Inside the old world office stood a copper mesh cage. A simple bed, a bucket, bottles of Nuka Cola that still felt cold. Comics and toys on the floor. He knew Wallace had been here, held against his will by a lunatic. John found relief that Wallace wasn’t here now, then raged that he’d been brought here in the first place.

The corridor looked clear so John kept moving, free to make sure no one else would be put in danger by the fleeing figure again. He kicked in the door and saw the red light charging. John threw one of the cola bottles from Wallace’s cage, smashing it on the chest plate of the black armour and spilling onto the weapon. It fizzed and steamed before shorting out.

“You dare attack The Mec—” John had grown tired of the voice and unleashed his anger on the figure. He quickly saw the upscaled bot armour with a man inside wasn’t a patch on his own power armour. Had John worn it, he’d be tearing the figure limb from limb. Instead he struck at the exposed motors and servos with his hammer, firing off pistol rounds to destroy what the hammer didn’t.

John had fought in armour, and knew that the protection and strength came at a cost. A lack of awareness, dulled senses and tunnel vision. He bobbed and weaved, as he’d been trained, striking from the sides with speed. Ringing the hammer off the helmet whenever he could. He knew the blows must be hurt, yet the figure showed no signs of injury, countering with amplified punches and kicks that hurt, even when John blocked them.

John pummelled the knees and elbows, drawing something wet from the seams he’d hoped would be blood, but gave off a noxious tinge. It took him a moment to place the smell, then he remembered it, and the word Sara used. Volatile.

With the last of his strength John hammered at the damaged elbow, a blow splitting metal and hitting something soft. He threw himself at the armour as the figure recoiled, knocking them both to the ground, then he ran. Looking for what he needed.

John burst into a room that had been an office. Now workbenches lined the walls, banks of oddly arranged screens showed the path he'd taken to get here, and the destruction left in his wake.

In the corner stood a tall steel tube, dull green with a hinged door. An empty Assaultron drop pod, a terminal connected to it. He made straight for the oxyacetylene torch and dragged it over to the legless fridge bot by the screens, undoing the valves as he moved. John touched the bot torso and it felt cold. He heard the slowed clomping approach. He forced the drop pod door open, making enough noise to give away his position.

The repetitive laugh heralded the arrival of the figure. John dropped his weapons on the stained carpet and put up his hands.

“Yes. Finally you see. You are no match for the mighty Mechanist!” John backed up slowly, as if scared. “Surrender now and your death will be swift.” John heard laboured breathing behind the modulated voice.

“Can I ask a question first?” John stopped, the figure lured closer.

“Speak.” The cold voice snarled.

“Hey Buddy,” John yelled, remembering the night he met Wallace. “Got a light?”

“Sure…” The bot started to respond. “Thing…” John bolted for the drop pod. “Buddy.” The crude wrist span and a small flame shot from the finger, igniting the gas the armour clad figure couldn’t smell.

Flame engulfed the room with a roar and flash. The tanks melted the straps and fell, spraying fire as they rolled around. John heard the modulated voice scream, before it became a human voice filled with pain. He heard clanging and dull thunk as the burning armour fell.

John took a deep breath and threw open the drop pod, pushing through the acrid smoke and dwindling flames to grab an extinguisher from the corridor.

Hissing bursts of carbon dioxide smothered the remaining fire, dousing the armour clad figure. John wafted the gas away and saw the person beneath the armour, hidden by a comic book identity, now slumped against a wall, dying. He’d torn away the armour as the chems it constantly pumped into metal ports in flesh had ignited. His face had metal fused to it down one side, the scar tissue healing round it over time. Yet none of this shocked John.

What froze him in confusion were the eyes, eyes he’d seen before, only set in faces both younger and older. He tried to dismiss it as coincidence, chance, a trick of his tired mind, but couldn’t. He looked like an older Wallace and younger Robco. A sickly hand reached out, twitching and injured, it touched the soft lapel of John’s coat, and let out a rattling whisper.

“Lou...Louisa made this.”

“For her husband.” John saw it in the familiar eyes, touch and a moment of clarity bringing back memories. “Wallace leant it to me, to keep me safe. He’s a good boy.” That hurt the so called Mechanist more than the explosion. A father’s love twisted by chems, trauma, and insanity, had brought his son here. It had turned him into the villain and he knew it.

“Don’t...tell...them.” The broken and scared voice begged.

“I won’t.” John took the coat that wasn’t his and draped it over the man that tried to kill him. “Wallace is fine, my friend got him out. Your dad is ok, and Louisa, she misses you.” John saw the memories soothe Wallace senior’s passing.

“Keep...them...safe.” He wheezed and begged.

“Always. They're my family too.” John made a promise to Robco’s son, letting him die with peace.

John shut out the questions from his mind and set to work. Wallace can never know. He idolised his dead father. With a heavy heart John pulled back on his coat, made for the man dead at his feet, and grabbed the extinguisher. He threw it down once, and glanced at the body just enough to know he didn’t need to do it again.