“I was deployed to the DC chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel. They had just recently finished a war with the Enclave. It was a brutal war that cost the lives of many brothers and sisters, but in the end they were victorious. The Elder of the chapter… their um… leader… was known as Elder Lyons. He had taken the Brotherhood of Steel in an unorthodox direction, using the chapter to aid the people of the Wasteland and helping distribute water to various settlements.” Mira continued before Adam spoke up briefly.

  “Oh, that's good of him.” Mira shook her head.

  “No, it's not the mission of the Brotherhood of Steel.” She said firmly. “Our goal is to protect humanity from itself, not act as stewards to the various tribes that inhabit what's left.”

  “Why not? It sounds as if you guys have the power to do so.” Adam asked, curiously. Mira sighed.

  “It's not… what we are supposed to do… at least that's what I believed at the time. When I was sent out there.” She shook her head. “Anyway my orders were to see what Elder Lyons was doing and decide if his efforts were deemed acceptable by the standards of the Brotherhood. My position as a member of the Circle of Steel was to remain secret, I was, as far as they were aware, just another Knight sent to help bolster their position after the losses from the war. However when I got there I saw… something that completely changed the way I perceived my mission.” She paused. “Society.” She said with a note of awe in her voice.

  “I know it may not sound impressive to a man who came from a Vault, but the Brotherhood were really helping to rebuild society in the Capital Wasteland. The water there was so irradiated that, with the help of Project Purity, a giant water purifier, they managed to supply the entire area with fresh water, free of charge. It was… antithetical to our mission… but seeing people thrive with the help of the Brotherhood was… inspiring.” She paused again and looked Adam in the eyes for a moment before she looked down at the ground.

  “I began my work as normal. Collecting information, data, and everything else I needed, but then I met her.” She said as she looked forward again, her eyes sparkling a bit with a bittersweet memory. “Sarah Lyons.” She punctuated. “She was the daughter of the Elder of the Chapter, but she embodied everything that this Chapter was attempting to do. Build a new direction for the Brotherhood of Steel. One where the people of the wasteland worked hand in hand with the Brotherhood. One where we did not need to hide ourselves away from all the great powers that might spring up every time trouble arouse, one where we did not need to raid villages for technology deemed dangerous and keep it for ourselves, one where we used our massive stockpile of resources and knowledge of old world technology to help rebuild society. It was… inspiring.” She smiled sadly. “Sarah was my ideal and eventually she was…” She paused once more this time for a long time. “My girlfriend.” She said with an almost sheepish tone.

  “There's no shame in that.” Adam said, comfortingly, trying to help her not feel as shy about it.

  “Im not ashamed… though, at least at the time, I was surprised. I never expected I would be together with anyone, let alone a woman. I always saw myself retiring with a nice man. But as it turns out I may like both and I…” She then stopped herself. “No wait, we are getting off track. I’m not here to talk about my preferences.” She said, trying to sternly and forcibly turn the topic away from something that embarrassed her, judging by the deep blush on her cheeks.

  “What is important is that we were together… for a long time.” She said, her tone growing sadder and her words becoming bittersweet again.

  “Did she know you were with the Circle of Steel?” Adam asked.

  “Yes. Eventually anyway. I told her everything. And even despite whatever story I told her she took it all in stride.” She looked off to a building nearby for a moment and then shook her head.

  “Those were the best days of my life.” She said softly. “But good things never last, not in the world we live in.” She then looked at Adam. “Everything began to fall apart when Elder Lyons died.” She placed her hand over her heart and squeezed her hand into a fist tightly, as if she was holding an invisible necklace.

  “When an Elder dies there needs to be someone to replace them. Naturally Sarah Lyons, his daughter, was the most likely candidate. She carried his ideals and was very well liked within the Chapter.”

  “I’m guessing that she did not become the Elder.” Adam said, somberly.

  “She did but… it was short lived.” She corrected sadly. “And worse, she died.” She added, her hand squeezed into a fist again by her side. “On a routine patrol no less. I was… Devastated.” She said sadly.

  “I fell into a period of mourning, as did the rest of the Brotherhood. Though I think you will pardon me if I say it hit me harder than the rest.”

  “Of course. You lost someone close to you, it's only natural that it hurt.” Adam said softly, trying to comfort her.

  “I wish I could have spent more time mourning, to be honest. But that is when things started to get strange.” She paused. “For a long time Arthur Maxon had been raised within the Brotherhood chapter in DC, he was sent there as a boy to learn from them and grow into an Elder of his own someday. I cannot fully describe to you what sort of impact the Maxon name has in the Brotherhood, but suffice it to say they are one of the founding families of the Brotherhood. Going all the way back to when those first soldiers defied the orders of the scientists days after the bombs fell. Their names carry immense weight in our chambers.”

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  “So something like nobility.” Adam inferred.

  “That is not entirely accurate, but it's not entirely far off. Just know that the Maxon family is important within the Brotherhood. Anyway, after the death of Sarah Lyons, the obvious successor, there were a series of ineffectual leaders who took her place. However there was none that stuck.” She said as her eyes narrowed a bit. “Not a single one lived. Which led to Arthur Maxon, the boy who had been sent there many years ago, simply being made Elder.”

  “Well I mean you did say that the Maxon name carries weight, so it could have been just that people looked to him for leadership due to his genealogy no?” Adam guessed.

  “You are right, that is what I thought, at first.” She looked off to the side annoyed. “But things began to move too quickly after he became the Elder. Voices that had long been supporting Elder Lyons’ initiatives were quickly silenced, removed from position, and replaced with those who unequivocally backed Maxon. The splinter group, The Brotherhood Outcasts, who had been unable to reconcile the differences under Lyons were quickly brought back into the fold. Almost as if there had been talks going on behind the scenes.” She said with a skeptical tone as she looked into Adam's eyes. “Furthermore all initiatives that Elder Lyons had begun were shut down without dissension. Even the remaining members of Lyons Pride, Sarah’s team, were quietly moved to posts of little note. So naturally I became suspicious…” She said as she paused to stop and look at a sign of the Church of Salvation spray painted onto the side of a building. After a moment to look she kept walking, continuing her story.

  “Things fell into place too quickly, everything seemed a little too perfect for this new Elder.” She said to Adam now. “I am a trained member of the Circle of Steel, we are taught that when something feels off, we should investigate it. Often it will be. And as it turned out… my hunch led me down a rabbit hole.” She looked down at the ground now, almost looking ready to cry.

  “I did some digging and retraced Sarah’s last steps, her death… it did not look like an accident. Someone had orchestrated her death. And there is only one man who would benefit from killing Sarah."

  “Elder Maxon.” Adam said, understanding where she was going with this.

  “Exactly.” She nodded. “If he had set her up to die then his ascension to the position makes sense. He would have been planning all of this from the start, getting his loyalists into positions of power, quieting dissent, making a deal with the outcasts. With Sarah dead no one stood in his way as a man who carried on the Maxon name. Even if he was just a boy at the time, that would have had no bearing on his ambition.”

  “So what happened?” Adam asked, fully invested now.

  “I did what I was trained to do. I investigated. I began to dig into records, subtly ask around, look into personal letters and communiques.”

  “And what did you find?”

  “Unfortunately I did not get far.” She sighed, disappointed. “What I did not realize at the time was that this went far beyond just the Chapter the new Elder was leading. This went much, much deeper.” She let off a shaky breath, reliving some untold horror in her mind.

  “I do not know how, or why, but once I began my investigations, something I, as a member of the Circle of Steel, was supposed to do, I was now the one under scrutiny.” She paused and then shook her head.

  “It is hard to describe, but I could feel that I was being watched, that I was losing friends, contacts, the walls were closing in around me, my training told me so, so… I ran.” She looked like she was about to cry again. “I ran from that place where for so long I had called home, from that place where my Sarah lived, from that place where my only family I’ve ever known was.” She was on the verge of tears, it looked like she was now beating herself up for her actions, her body was trembling and she had stopped walking.

  “I just… ran…” She said again. “I knew I couldn’t return to the Brotherhood, something was going on that I had dug too deep into and with no home I just wandered… and then… exhausted, tired, and starving, I was captured by those brutes in that bowling alley and… and…” She said, tears starting to fall down her face as she was reliving the worst moments of her life all over again.

  Adam was unsure what to do, but all he could do at the moment was comfort her, so he brought her into a hug and held her close.

  “It's okay. It was hard for you, but you aren’t there anymore. You are free from that place. You are safe now.” Adam said softly to her while he held her, her tears flowing a bit. It did not take long for her, however, to stop crying. No more than a few seconds as she very clearly reigned it back in and gently pushed Adam off of her. Though grateful for his compassion.

  “I know…” She said as she let off a heavy exhale. “I know…” She said again. “Anyway, the point is that my entire world came crashing down around me, everything I knew was broken and I couldn’t return to the only place I had ever called home. Lost, alone, and without anyone to aid me I was taken and broken… until you saved me.” She said with a warm sad smile to Adam. Adam gently placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “You have been through a lot. You don’t have to act strong just to save face. It’s okay to feel vulnerable.” He said to her softly.

  “No, it no longer scares me, I no longer have nightmares about it, I just… still feel ashamed.”

  “Don’t feel that way. It's not your fault.”

  “I know…” She said softly with a heavy sigh. “I think it all just gets jumbled together in my head. And it brings out a lot of emotion in me.” Adam nodded.

  “That is okay. It sounds like you went through a tremendous amount of change in a short period of time. I… can relate…” Adam said slowly at the end.

  “You can?” She asked, confused as she looked into his eyes.

  “Yes… I… too know what it's like to see your world crashing down around you.” He said with a sigh before he steeled himself and then looked back into her eyes. “I know what it's like because I went through something very similar. The world I knew was destroyed and there is no way for me to go back to it. These ruins… these buildings all around us… I was there when it all stood tall and in its glory… I am from pre-war times.” Adam said to her with a resolute tone, ready to share his story to her now.