The storm buzzed with electricity. Franklin had infiltrated the DERVISH camouflage system and replaced most of the sand, chaff, and other particulates with his nanites. He was the storm. The lightning strikes were his doing, to add to the tension of the standoff.
To pull off a good heist, the criminals needed to control the environment to the beat of their ability. That meant learning the layout of the bunker, figuring out how long to give them to evacuate, and which systems he needed to take over. Franklin got more than enough information from the few brains he picked apart during his invasive surgeries to create a plan for stealing the entire Brotherhood bunker.
First, he took over the DERVISH system. This would give him control over the surface above the bunker. The system also included the cameras the Brotherhood used to spy on the surface so Franklin created a few looped recordings and left them running.
With the Brotherhood unaware of his activities he built a new fence behind the old one and filled the sand with shells waiting to be turned.
Second, with the stage set he replaced the monitors of the reactor control computers. No need to actually cause a reactor meltdown when you can just pretend it was happening. He also needed the alarm system to sound off but that wasn't hard either.
After McNamara was convinced the meltdown was real, he ordered the evacuation. Franklin figured an hour would be long enough to get everyone out with most of their personal things and some survival options. Over half of the Brotherhood's weapons, armor, manuals, and other hoarded technology waited below. All for Franklin to take.
But that wasn't going to be enough.
The Brotherhood still had three dozen heavily armed Paladins in power armor. The scribes and initiates all used some form of ballistic or energy-based light handgun.
They would be a cruel force to unleash on the wasteland. Someone, somewhere would be their teeth kicked in by these cultists and it would be Franklin's fault.
This leads to step three, robbing them again.
“Brotherhood of Steel. I am a wander with more power than most nations. Power that lets me enact my will upon the world and its people. As such, I judge the Brotherhood today. Your sin is that of Pride.”
The storm blew over the crowd getting into every shoe, bag, and crack. Franklin’s nanites placed themselves wherever they needed to be. Ready to disable power armor and weapon.
The first to speak up was Paladin Hardin. “Weapons up knights!”
Elder McNamara called out quickly, “Hardin. Have your knights protect the scribes. Taggart, have the scribes form up next to the fence. See if we can get through it.”
The Brotherhood scrambled into place. Franklin could have threatened them to stop or ordered his shells to attack, but they had done exactly what he wanted.
They gathered by the western gate which leads west towards I-15. This would leave them two options for fleeing. South towards the Mojave Outpost and NCR territory, or north towards New Vegas. They would also pass by the new MRCS compound but Franklin has already informed P.A.T and Meyers about potential hostiles.
NCR territory was a death sentence for the Brotherhood. They were still officially at war with the NCR. Going south would require them to surrender to the NCR if they wished to survive. They could loop around Nipton but that would put them in conflict with Legion patrols. Not exactly a good place to be.
Heading north to New Vegas wasn’t a good option either. Franklin had completed a drone sweep of the southern portion of Vegas and some of the surrounding western desert canyons. Southern Vegas was home to numerous raider gangs and even more NCR at McCarran Airport. If they continued northwest they would encounter gangs of drug-abusing irradiated rapists. If they went northeast they would find more NCR. Every path forward sucked for the Brotherhood. They could fight but they were trapped in the valley and Franklin was never going to lose a battle of attrition.
Stolen story; please report.
Franklin hoped that Elder McNamara would realize how desperate the situation was for them and negotiate.
“McNamara. The time has come for you to advocate for your people’s case.”
Franklin put over his 600 hours of college theater and acting courses to work and tried to raise the tension with his performance. A good hostile negotiation was all about making the other party off guard and hopeless.
“Advocate? We have done nothing wrong! You say our sin is pride but what is it we have actually done wrong? Protect mankind from dangerous mutants? Resist a tyrannical government that repeats the mistakes of the old world? Or are our efforts to collect, study, and protect technology our sin? We, the Brotherhood Of Steel reject this accusation,” McNamara said to roaring applause.
The Brotherhood cheered for their leader and his speech. They were devout in their rigid doctrine.
“This world does need protection. It needs a healer to fix the wrongs of the past and mistakes of the present. But as I said, your sin is Pride. You believe that you are the shepherds and everyone else is sheep. You take away books on medicine because you fear it will teach them how to make diseases. You take away guns while raiders steal their crops. You would take away a coffee maker from a child because you wanted the metal. Brotherhood of Steel? More like Brotherhood of Steal. I have judged your history and know you to be thieves pretending to be knights and scholars of yore.”
With every speck of the sandstorm as a camera, Franklin had a good view of the Brotherhood's reactions. Most were furious. ready to raise their weapons and fight through the horde of shells. Some were scared. Scribes or initiates who had never seen a fight before. One person, a scribe in rags and a hood, was remorseful. Franklin was happy to see at least one person with some self-awareness in the crowd.
Taggart, the head Scribe of the chapter, fell into the scared category. He buried his head into a blow torch they had brought with them trying to weaken the bars surrounding the valley.
Head Paladin Taggart was furious. This was to be expected of the man in power armor. His entire life had been devoted to the Brotherhood and its mission. There were notes on his personal terminal about one day taking over McNamara's job as Elder. The man expected it to happen or maybe he was going to find a way to make it happen. The man is a brash bull-headed thug who would use the Brotherhood's military might to expand out from the bunker they had lived in. Franklin predicted that there was over a 60% chance he would challenge McNamara for leadership after this.
McNamara was acting reserved. Franklin couldn't tell what he was thinking without some invasive surgery. The data he pulled from the Brotherhood's computers painted McNamara as a reserved man who chose to focus the Brotherhood's attention on safety. He limited their patrols and prevented most members from leaving the bunker for years because he feared the NCR was still looking for them.
Franklin wasn't really sure they were though. They were busy enough with the Legion.
“Here are my demands. You will leave half of your remaining power armor, all explosives, all rifles, all plasma weapons, and all of your ammo for those weapons. You may keep your food, books, and other supplies.”
“And if we say no?” McNamara asked.
That was Franklin's cue to drop the other foot. A hundred more shells rose from the sands and cliffs on the other side of the fence. The Brotherhood was now outnumbered three to one. Well, at least they were from their perspective. From Franklin's point of view, it was more like they were trying to fight the weather. It wouldn't be too conceited to say that his preparations with the DERVISH system had made his takeover as inevitable as a hurricane.
“That would be a foolish decision. One I expected you quasi-religious hoarders to make, so I made sure to create enough soldiers. Now will you fight till my shells have spilled enough blood to paint the Hoover Dam red, or will you survive to live another day?”
---------
They chose north.
If they had to deal with the NCR either way McNamara preferred the direction that gave them more room to go around them. Going North towards Vegas would be an uphill battle against the various raider gangs but they would have to just squeeze past them. The road would be difficult but they had survived Hellios One. McNamara would ensure they survived this.
Veronica wasn’t so sure. The storm had taken more than just their home. It kicked them out without even a fight. The others might not have realized it yet but the storm didn’t need to fake the reactor meltdown. It was already in the base. It could have killed them at its leisure. The silver robots could have killed their supply runners and blocked the exit. It took over the DERVISH system so it probably could have filtered out the bunker’s air. There were probably a thousand different ways it could have used to kill them all.
But it didn’t.
It let the Brotherhood live but bloodied and with shattered pride,
Pride? It said that was the Brotherhood’s sin. Veronica didn’t disagree.
McNamara would have Veronica clean the toilets for a week if she had said that a week ago.
The Storm was right though. They were kleptomaniacs that collected anything with a screw. The scribes said they knew better than the wasteland savages. The asshole knights said they were the only ones capable of defeating the wastelands mutants and saving humanity.
Never mind that ghouls and supermutants were once human. Never mind that the scribes know how to fix generators, water purifiers, and other things. The combined knowledge in the Brotherhood bunker could have kicked started a nation. This was because a science textbook from over two hundred years ago had some knowledge on atoms. Taggart said it was dangerous. That knowledge could be used to build more atomic weapons. Books on farming detailed pesticides so someone was gonna use them to make poisons. Can’t teach people how to fix electrical wires because then they would make killer robots. It was all bullshit.
They could be doing so much more to make the world better. No, they should have been. Maybe that is why the storm stole their home. Because they weren’t even doing anything with it other than hiding from the whole world.
Veronica looked at the group around her. Last night they made it to the edge of southern New Vegas. Now they were holding up in a warehouse eating cooked giant ant meat. Yesterday they had over a hundred members. In the march north about thirty disappeared. Hardin was yelling at McNamara about something. Taggart was in the back organizing their supplies with Torres. Everyone else was silent.
No one paid any attention when she left.