Chapter 33: Return to the Nursery
The NcR team led by Fleming walked out of the camp with an unhappy face, which was also normal, after all, it was difficult to be happy if someone was disarmed and captured.
Alexandra took the members of the Hand of God with no difficulty to get back their rest stop.
Chrissy was embarrassed to get to Andy's side, eager to hide the body armor with the two-headed bear on her body.
"What are you going to do with them?" Andy saw Major Fleming looking at him with a pleading look.
A member of the Hand of God looked at the NcR soldiers crouching with their heads in their hands with disdain on their faces.
"I think they should be locked up until they are willing to convert." Alexandra shook her head.
"Do not go astray, brother, God is Spirit, and his worshipers must worship Him in spirit and truth, and persuade rather than impose." Then she turned to look at Andy.
"What do you think about this?" Andy looked at the NcR flag that had fallen into the dirt in the camp.
"Anyway, don't hurt them, it's the opposite of what you want." He thought about it and thought that this might be a good opportunity.
"I would have liked to go to New Canaan to talk to the prophet Jeremiah about this, but it is better to say it now, and it just so happens that Major Fleming does not know, and he can listen to it together." With that, he began to talk about what he was about to do now, and how important it was.
With his narration, everyone looked at each other in astonishment. Alexandra was silent for a while before suddenly turning around and beckoning a member of the Hand of God to come over.
"You take it back to Jeremiah, tell him what he should know, and then ask him to collect the materials Andy wants from Salt Lake City and other merchants and send them to Hoover Dam by train." Andy was stunned when he heard this.
"Do you have a train?" Alexandra nodded.
"Forget it, O'Connor was planning it in the past, and you got Union Station from those bugs, although you razed the buildings there along the way, and it took us a lot of effort. The coal purchased at Burnham Springs provided the power for the trains, and we were now able to transport goods by rail, but unfortunately the NcR always made things difficult for us after recovering their fort of Alashid, and the trains had to charge expensive tolls when they passed through their territory. As she spoke, she glared fiercely at Major Fleming, who was distracted, still basking in Andy's terrible message.
"Dr. Prester? How could he?" Alexandra kicked him in disgust.
"If you understand it, make some practical actions to help, and don't wait for your NcR to be in ruins before you know that you regret it." She looked at Andy earnestly.
"I'll go with you, you need help, right?" Andy smiled reassuringly, then brought up the question of the bottle cap.
"I'll pay for the caps for these materials." Alexandra waved her hand.
"What are you kidding, this is not to help you, but to help ourselves... That being said, we can be generous, but those Burnham Springs scavengers may not, and you say you need as many high-level materials as possible right now, and they can't let them go. Andy thanked her and the New Canaanites sincerely, then looked at Major Fleming.
"So, you also understand why I'm here, the brigadier general is gone, your mission doesn't matter anymore, let's hurry back to Hoover Dam City and help Mayor Dodge, you've worked together for so long, how can you keep turning a blind eye to what happened to him?" Major Fleming bowed his head in shame, and immediately began to figure out a way for himself.
"I... I see, if you're willing to release me, I'm not going to tell you about Burnham Springs, and I'm going to do everything I can to help you stop Prester. Alexandra and several other members of the Hand of God looked at each other, deciding that it didn't matter what to do with the NcR soldiers in this situation.
"I hope you're not lying, or you'd better pray not to come here and meet us again." Several NcR soldiers were released, but the weapons were not returned.
Looking at their embarrassed backs, Alexandra muttered with some dissatisfaction.
"NcR is a fat bear that can never be fed, when it sees weakness, it opens its mouth and swallows it desperately, and when it is strong, it will not move forward, and it will only hum when it is beaten.. These people will only have a thief's heart and never die. Andy thought the same thing as he looked at Major Fleming's embarrassed back, but he couldn't think of a better solution.
"If something like that happens, I'll help you, but it's imperative for another matter." Alexandra nodded, asking the other Hand of God members to go back to New Canaan first.
Then she saw Chrissy and asked in surprise.
"Why didn't one of the NcR big-headed soldiers get out of the way?" Chrissy gritted her teeth and walked out from behind Andy.
"Why do you say that? You... Don't think that you can say whatever you want if you're good-looking! I... I'm not going to roll.. Can't you use it?" Alexandra was amused by her, and the three of them were happy for a while.
Andy secretly breathed a sigh of relief, it was good that these two unconscious women didn't fight, but both of them had a faint unusual orientation... Hopefully nothing strange will happen after that.
The trio entered Burnham Springs and found Phil. He glanced at Chrissy and immediately closed the door.
"Why would someone from NcR come here, hell, if Sparky saw you, he would go crazy!" Chrissy was surprised to ask who Sparky really was, but Andy stopped her from wasting her time.
"What about Frank? I have something to tell you. With some elusive expression on his face, Phil didn't answer Andy's question.
"Just say something." Andy didn't want to talk nonsense anymore and made a straightforward request.
"I'll have all your specialty steels, advanced polymers, and e-scrap here, and thenβ" He looked at Alexandra and nodded before continuing
"There's going to be a New Canaanite train coming and carrying things away, do you understand?" Confused, Phil took off his miner's hat and scratched his hairless scalp.
"You... What are you doing here? Yes, yes, but you can't take it for nothing. Andy didn't bother to say it again.
"I'll give you 1,500 caps, remember, all of them, and they're premium... Phew, by the way, it's really not possible to leave here with the bottle cap, I'm afraid it won't be peaceful here. Phil's face looked even more confused.
"It's getting better here, I can't just do that... Well, I'll leave after a while, but Frank is gone anyway, and it's just me and Sparky, and it's really not fun to live here. Andy was a little surprised.
"You say Frank is gone? Why? Phil also had a puzzled look on his face.
"I don't know, he disappeared not long after you came back from the underground mines, leaving behind some strange things written on it, what he has completed his mission to go to the next great game, that guy even left us all his inventory, I really don't know what this ghoul has been here for so many years."
"Speaking of which, now that the fire in the ground has been completely extinguished, does this have anything to do with your previous going down to the mines?" Andy briefly told him about the robots, and the ins and outs of the robots they were forced to activate in the first place, and after handing him the bottle cap, he left Burnham Spring.
He immediately drove east with Chrissy and Alexandra. On the way, the conversation between the two teammates in the back seat gradually changed from sarcasm and saber rattling at the beginning to strange.
"Your eyes are so pretty... Like two sapphires. β
"Thank you, yours are not bad, you are in good shape, especially..."
"Hey! Wait, oops... You, you don't... Not! β
"Huh? I thought I understood what you meant, but it seems that I misunderstood. β
"Also... It's not a misunderstanding..."......................... Andy was driving close to the mountains on the outskirts of the nursery, and was wondering how to get in touch with Diana, when the beep boy suddenly rang.
"Where are you now, and why haven't you come here yet?" He looked down and saw that there was a cylinder brain on the display.
"I'm outside...", the tank brain lowered his head a few times, and seemed to confirm the matter.
"Get out of the car, walk about 200 meters to your east, you can see a cave, close enough that I will directly ask Diana to use quantum teleportation to get you in." Andy then found a place to park his car and told his two teammates not to run around, and he would be back in a while.
Both of them were puzzled, believing that this place was completely uninhabited mountainous area.
"Come with me if you want, I promise you won't regret it." Alexandra seemed to be interested, but a restless hand interrupted her.
"Huh?! Aren't you daring? The two of them laughed and played as if no one was there, and Andy shook his head, turned his head, pushed the car door and left.
After getting out of the car, Andy walked into a cave according to the guidance of the cylinder brain, and after a while, he suddenly felt a flower in front of him, and when he looked again, he had appeared in the nursery, surrounded by a white, high-tech wall, and behind it was a standing bridge.
A woman in a white robe walked out, and Andy looked over and saw that it was Akisha.
"Long time no see, Andy." She greeted peacefully.
"Lady Diana is already waiting for you, and the items you need to take with you will be sent with you when you leave." Andy nodded and walked forward, and after a while, he saw Harold and Tank Brain chatting together.
"So, the people of the pre-war world would allow this to happen?"
"yes, what's wrong?"
"No.... I just wonder why a pregnant woman can't be called a pregnant woman, but a pregnant person? β
"How can you assume someone else's gender, isn't that depriving someone of their freedom?"
"But... But men can't get pregnant at all, and there is no such thing as a pregnant man! β
"Hey, it would be nice if those stupid guys in the past were as simple as you, but in the pre-war period these strange turmoil has subsided, everything has to serve the war, and the same is true for the propaganda of ideas, as long as the government stops their deliberate indulgence, nothing strange will happen, and I want to say that in the past, the SA enclave did some good things."
"I don't like that word, I've heard that they're going to kill everyone after the war."
"You're not right, the Vault dwellers and those of them who weren't contaminated with radiation don't die from FEV, so not 'everyone'... Well, I'm the same. β
"That's not the point, roughly they're going to kill everyone."
"Hey, you're also a pre-war person, why can't you figure it out? I'm telling you now that you can't understand what happened before the war, and those who have been self-enclosed since before the war can't understand it after seeing the post-war world, imagine that you grew up living in a closed shelter and receiving an education that continued in the pre-war world, and then you went into the wasteland and saw a lot... Beings beyond your knowledge, such as super mutants with muscles in their heads, or all kinds of strange mutant monsters... Oh, and you have a tree on your head, so how would you react? You'll just feel like the outside world has gone crazy and needs to be cleaned up. β
"I was only a few years old before the war, and I wasn't a pre-war person at all... Well, if I had seen me before that incident, I would have wanted to draw my gun in the first place, but that's still not true, is it? Andy walked over, and the two stopped talking and turned back.
"Hello, Harold... Has your little tree grown a little bit? Harold touched Bob above his head.
"Well, I don't feel it, maybe its growth will bring me wisdom and strength, I don't know why, I also feel that I am getting stronger and stronger as it recovers, and I always have the urge to go out for a walk... Anyway, you're doing something amazing, I heard you're planning to go to space in a pre-war spacecraft? Andy nodded solemnly, then looked at the tank.
"I need help." The Tank Brain turned and looked at him with the electron one-eyed.
"No problem, but I'm not going to go to space with you, there is no seat for robots in that rocket, and it would be too scary if I fell into space, I couldn't even kill myself, I could only drift in a vacuum until I stopped thinking, and I would rather be blown up." Andy didn't say anything more, Tank Brain was a pre-war scientist with a big dome, and it would be best if he helped.
"I'm going to find Diana." Harold suddenly stood up and stopped him.
"Wait." Andy paused and looked back in confusion.
"What?" Harold hesitated for a moment before speaking.
"That girlfriend of yours, string, did she tell you about the decision she made?" Andy was even more puzzled.
"What? What decision do you say strings made? Harold immediately kept silent, just prevaricating that he was nothing.
Andy wanted to stop and ask carefully, but he felt that it was a waste of time, and no matter what decision Xian made, he would just ask her in person when he had taken care of everything.
Walking all the way to the high-ceilinged room where Diana had appeared to hand out the reward, almost the moment he entered, a huge blue translucent figure appeared there, but the problem was that she had never had a back-to-back posture before.
Andy looked at her strangely until she spoke.
"You have to stop that man, the world can't survive the Second Great War, that will bring everything back to primitive times, I tried to persuade him to stop, but he in turn persuaded me to join him... It was clear that he had made up his mind and could not be convinced. β
"Like I said, hurry up and do it." Andy didn't have a problem with what she said, but he was very curious about her holographic pose.
"Why are you talking to me in this position?" Diana gave a brief answer.
"I'm doing a special self-organizing projection, and there will be some changes in the meantime, what you see in front of you is just a holographic projection, there is no real distinction between the front and back, don't say these meaningless words anymore, go ahead." A blue light enveloped Andy, and when he opened his eyes again, he appeared in the position before entering the nursery, next to the tank brain that was spinning its tracks and running around, and several 'iron balls' piled aside, which seemed to be a robot that had not been activated, and it was probably the so-called 'eyeball maintenance robot' in the Pip-Boy task prompt.