Andy depressed as he eats the prison meal provided by the Brotherhood of Steel.

The plate contained some bean rice, judging by its shape and state, it was probably canned food, and it tasted very strange, with a chemical feeling.

"It's unpalatable."

He pouted and tossed the plate aside.

Looking left and right, Andy took out a can of luncheon meat from the beep boy, pried it open with a knife and began to enjoy it.

After eating for a while, a voice suddenly came from behind him.

"Hey, bro."

Andy turned around and looked suspiciously, the two people standing guard outside the door seemed to be going to eat now, so whose voice was it?

"This, here..."

Andy followed the voice and looked over, it seemed to be the voice from next door, so.... Could it be that the person who made the voice was a fellow inmate?

He leaned over to reply.

"Who are you?"

A sound came from behind the wall.

"My name is Grans, it's next door to you, I smell it, can you give me some of it."

Andy looked left and right suspiciously, but didn't see any gaps.

"How do you smell it? And how can I give it to you? ”

Suddenly there was a sound near the base of the wall, and then it seemed that someone on the opposite side had taken a few broken bricks that had blocked there, and a hand was sticking out of it.

The hand slowly opened, and there were several bottle caps inside.

Andy watched in silence for a while, then took out a small can of pork stew and beans, took the caps, and handed the can to the man who called himself Grans.

"Thank you."

There was the sound of gobbling from behind the hole in the wall.

Andy listened for a moment and leaned around the hole in the wall to gossip.

"Grans, why are you being locked up here?"

There was an immediate reply from the next door, but it was mixed with the sound of chewing.

"Gollum.... Because, well.... Because I'm a deserter. ”

Andy was happy after hearing this, he was idle here anyway, so it was better to talk to this cellmate.

"Why did you become a deserter?"

The chewing sound next door stopped for a moment, but it quickly returned to normal.

"Whoa, whoa..... When you are a deserter, what else can you do, cowardice. They won't be able to lock me up for long, and now there is a serious shortage of manpower, not even enough men. ”

Andy was impressed by the man's carefree statement, and the two exchanged views on the topic of war for a while.

"I thought everyone in the Brotherhood of Steel was taught to fight for the Elders from a young age."

"yes, that's it."

Grace teased wittily.

"We should unconditionally obey the orders of the Supreme Elders, they will fight whoever we are told to fight, even if it is at the expense of ourselves, and everything we do is not just for ourselves, but to fight for the future of humanity."

The sound of an empty can falling to the ground was heard.

"My grandfather used to fight super mutants, my father died in battle with the enclave, what about me? I was kicked by the Paladin to the team sent to the Eastern Division, and then here for the third time I was imprisoned for being caught as a deserter. “

Andy listened, thinking of the history of the development of New California, this region has suffered many disasters in history, after the nuclear bomb fell, this place as one of the most prosperous areas of the SA before the war suffered a terrible number of nuclear bombs, most of the area returned to the wilderness overnight, into a desert where wild primitive people gather and bandits are rampant, order and civilization disappeared without a trace, and war has become the main theme here for a long time.

The first disaster after the Great War, the plague of super mutants swept through New California, and the unified super mutant organization formed many invincible super mutant armies with several times more physical fitness and extremely powerful firepower than humans, they swept away all those who stood in their way, and captured human transformations everywhere, especially like to find those shelters that were closed from before the war to the present, once found, they will use various means to open the shelters and plunder all the shelter residents, and those people will disappear forever, Super mutants, on the other hand, will have a lot more recruits.

The second scourge after the Great War, the enclaves, descendants of the pre-war SA government, emerged from their bases at sea, claiming to be the masters of the SA, claiming to retake all the lands that belonged to them, and this claim was achieved through brutal massacres, brutal enslavement, and the planned horrific mass extinction of the wasteland with biological and chemical weapons.

After the two disasters, New California was no longer scattered, and people deeply realized the need to concentrate all forces, and the birth of NcR was inevitable in line with the times.

Now, the third catastrophe after the Great War has also occurred, and the Iron Brotherhood, which had signed an agreement to join the NcR as an autonomous state of Maxson after a long negotiation and repeated tug-of-war, declared its independence from the NcR and launched a holy war against the NcR on the grounds that the NcR was expanding excessively and wantonly appropriated a large number of highly dangerous pre-war technologies for itself. The war had once again swept across New California, and the Brotherhood of Steel had stationed troops in the forward positions established in various regions, mobile patrols stationed in confidential positions, and members of the NcR who had previously been scattered in some of the key positions of the NcR all raised their weapons at the voice of Supreme Elder Jeremy Maxson.

The Iron Plague.

"Sounds like you didn't come here of your own free will?"

Andy thought, Grans's ancestors were also loyal for generations, how did he become deserters in his generation?

"Of course it's not voluntary."

Grans said nonchalantly.

"I hate this war, I don't see any justice, when my grandfather fought the vicious super mutants, he wanted to save the people of New California from the poison, when my father fought the enclaves soldiers who were desperately poorly equipped, he thought that these public enemies of all the wasteland people must not be allowed to carry out their plots, they can be sure that they are not just fighting for themselves or for the Brotherhood of Steel, they are fighting for justice, they are fighting for all of humanity."

"What about me? I can't do the same as them. All I see is that we are creating a bloody war, where countless people have fallen, whether they are our own people or our enemies, we originally belonged to one country, and now we are killing each other. ”

"The Brotherhood of Steel is bound to fail this time, because they are not on the side of the people this time."

Andy listened to his words, and had a new understanding of the inside of the Brotherhood of Steel, it turned out that no matter where they were, everyone's thoughts were similar.

"Are there many others who think the same?"

Grace was silent for a moment.

"No.... I am in the minority, and the elders will never allow people like us to become the majority, and they will not accept us becoming secular NcR citizens, let alone change the precepts and regulations of the first Supreme Elder Roger Maxson in the Codex, I was forced to come here because my superiors decided that I needed to 'reform my mind', but I don't think my mind needs to be reformed, but it is they who need to be transformed. I thought about it, if I had the chance to go back to Lost Mountain one day, I wouldn't continue to obey the dictates of those guys, and it was said that Paladin Leon had publicly supported the reform, and I was going to join him then. ”

Andy understands that this is accompanied by the white-hot external contradictions, and the ideological division within the Brotherhood of Steel is also on the verge of exploding, whether to stick to his faith and resolutely draw a line with NcR, or to seek to reform the code and a series of organizational structures to be reborn, get rid of those ancient shackles and usher in the rebirth of the Brotherhood of Steel? This would be a fundamental question about the Brotherhood of Steel.

"So, is there anyone in Fort Maxson who thinks the same way as you?"

Grans chuckled softly.

Didn't the scribes express their grievances directly? Well, although it is said that what they are more dissatisfied with than the endless battle with the NcR is the oppression of the knights. You see, to take a simple example, there are very few elders who are promoted by scribe background, and the vast majority of elders are knights, not to mention the highest elders, who are always knights. ”

"But I know of one of the scribes who, like me, claimed to have fled for the sake of justice."

"Who?"

"His name is Davis, Davis Hewitt, and this man is a scribe, and because he was the last canonical scribe from the west in Fort Maxson, he has been released. Although he kept saying that he was unhappy with the Brotherhood of Steel for starting a war, I knew that what he said was just an excuse, that guy was actually very timid, he was afraid of death, but he was too ashamed to tell others about it, so he would make excuses. ”

..................

The next morning, Andy was woken up by the sound of the door opening.

Elder Dison appeared at the door again, motioning for Andy to come out.

"What did you come up with?"

Elder Dyson replied solemnly.

"Well... Anyway, you can follow me to the other elders, and when we get there, we will discuss the terms proposed by Joseph Dodge, and what you say may affect our opinion. ”

Andy walked out of the cell and looked back to see a young man lying next door, presumably Grans.

Follow Elder Dyson all the way to an elevator, and he admonished again before entering.

"The entire Fort Maxson is divided into 1-3 levels, now we are standing on the 1st floor, which is also the lowest level of security, now we have to go down to the 2nd floor, originally you were not qualified to go down to the 2nd floor, but this is a special countermeasure I proposed, after all, you need to face all the elders, and the 1st floor does not have a large enough conference room. You understand what I'm going to say next, right? Remember not to walk around casually this time, if the automatic security system on the second floor thinks that you, the person who has not entered your identity, is acting abnormally, even we can't save you. ”

Andy nodded his head to indicate that he understood, and Elder Dison stopped talking, and finally told the other two soldiers to step back, and he and Andy walked into the elevator and stood still, and after pressing the button, the elevator began to sink.

"Some people will oppose you, some people will support you, but no matter what they say, everyone knows the situation in their hearts, and I just want to remind you of one thing."

Before the elevator was closed and the second floor had been reached, Elder Dison suddenly spoke.

"There are people who covet the position of Elder Brixley and may take this opportunity to make a fuss, you must see clearly."

After a clang, the elevator doors opened.

Walking out of the door, Andy saw that it was much larger than the first floor, the corridor was wider, and there were more people around, and he followed Elder Dison all the way to the north, passing a place that looked like a cafeteria, where many Brotherhood of Steel soldiers were eating, some of the cutlery and tables and chairs were in a separate small room, probably the officers' place, and there was no one there.

They continued on their way, and soon entered a hall with a semi-circular table, behind which there were projectors and some equipment of unknown significance, and now three people were seated next to the table.

Elder Billings whispered hello to Andy, and the other two were seeing Andy for the first time.

The man on the left was a male elder of about the same grade as Elder Billings, his gray hair was slanted to the side on the top of his head, but his eyebrows and eyes were deep and his face was cold, which was a world of difference from Elder Billings, who was kind and unpretentious.

The woman on the right looks a little younger, but the corners of her eyes are also full of wrinkles, her hairstyle looks like a blonde mushroom head, and the combination of weird triangular eyes and high chin makes it impossible to fall in love with her in the first place.

Elder Dyson also descended from the power armor and took a seat between the two, with two power armor soldiers standing guard in the doorway.

In this way, all the five elders of Fort Maxson were present, except for Elder Brixley, who had been bedridden for a long time due to excessive weakness, and the two new Iron Brotherhood elders looked at Andy with scrutinizing eyes, and there was not much kindness in their eyes.

The gray-haired, deep-eyed male elder was the first to speak.

"You're Andy, right? Was Joseph Dodge sent to surrender to us and sue for peace? ”

As soon as the elder spoke, he was dismounted.

"Excuse me, are you...."

Andy looked at the man in front of him, and it was clear that he wasn't the type to be easily persuaded.

"I'm Jerry Cosetti, you can just call me Elder Cosetti. By the way, this one next to me is Trisniers, Elder Nils. ”

The female elder glanced up, then picked up the letter from the Dodge Mayor on the table.

"What's in it? Well? Aren't the ncRs ashamed of choosing this guy to take on heavy responsibilities? What do you think? Do you think we've become an object of pity now? 'The Brotherhood of Steel should promise to stop its attacks on Hoover Dam and any caravans that come and go from now on', who does he think he is? ”

She threw the letter in her hand to the ground.

Elder Billings slapped the table and rebuked Nils for his rudeness.

"Tracy! What are you doing? Don't you know where we are now? How can you do that? ”

Elder Cosetti seemed to favor the female elder, and before she could respond, the Cosetti began to confront Billings.

"She knows a lot better than you, the old thing who knows all day about being an instructor, you cowardly fellow, we have the best army and the most powerful equipment in the world, if we hadn't been dragged down by a series of stupid internal problems, we would have completed the task given to us by the Council of Elders, and wiped out that Joseph Dodge and the people he led together!"

Elder Billings laughed twice.

"If that were the case, we wouldn't have had the problem now, we should have taken Hoover Dam for ourselves when the support arrived in 2242, only to have turned out that our well-trained and well-equipped troops had stopped in front of the poorly trained and ill-equipped NcR soldiers long before that incident, which is enough to say something."