Chapter Text
“The purifier your father helped create has the ability to provide clean water to the whole of this "Capital Wasteland". With a simple modification, it can be used to distribute agents that destroy mutated creatures upon ingestion. In time, we could eliminate all mutations in the Wasteland at the same time the good people of the world regain their health. I need you to make the modification necessary for this to succeed.”
Delilah shook her head, a shiver of disbelief crawling down her spine as she listened to Eden’s words. Why was her father’s work so haunted? It seemed the world, the universe, didn't want it to happen. Why? It was for the good, it always was. Just like her father was good. Or was he? Nowadays she wondered who he really was, he’d lied to her all her life, saying he was born and raised in Vault 101. But he wasn’t. He was born out here, in the wasteland. Delilah’s mind was filled with questions. Questions that would never be answered no matter how she longed for them. He was dead and now the only things she had were her memories of him: his gentleness, his kindness, the soft way he spoke, and his work. The Purifier. Which she’d sworn to protect. The idea of the Enclave using it for harm put a pit in her stomach, black and poisoned. She growled, clenching her teeth.
“And if I helped you,” Delilah asked, eyes narrowing, aggression in her voice. “How exactly would I manage to do that?”
“There is a vial in front of you, filled with a modified FEV virus. It needs to be inserted into the control console for the purifier,” Eden explained. “Once that is done, and the activation code is entered, the purifier will be activated and the process will be automated. It's not too much to ask of you, is it?”
Not too much!? NOT TOO MUCH!? Not too much to kill everyone!? Friends? Innocent people? Not too much to sully her father’s name!? His work!? Delilah clench her firsts. She wanted to punch this monster, destroy it then and there. But… she knew a better way.
“You must be insane,” Delilah shook her head. “I’m not exterminating 90% of the population.”
“I find that unfortunate, and most disappointing,” Eden said. “I must impress upon you the severity of the situation. I cannot allow you to leave unless the vial is in your possession.”
Delilah smirked, slowly, a devilish glint in her eyes. It was time. “I don’t think you’ll believe this but you can’t make me do anything. I have the upper hand,” she stood up straighter. “I have your self-destruct code.”
“Oh come now, bluffing's not really your style, is it?” Eden barely sounded surprised. “And there's certainly no need to threaten me.”
Delilah laughed. “You know, you think you’re so smart, but you let me into your own home. And now I don’t need to threaten you. I can simply kill you,” Delilah stepped forward. “The code is “Priority Override, Authorization code 420-03-20-9,” goodbye mother fucker!”
“I… oh… oh my-” finally, the damn computer sounded shocked, scared. Good. He went quiet for a moment, before speaking again, robotically. “Root level access granted. Override O-923. Authorization J-512. Self-destruct sequence initialized. Civilian is requested to secure FEV vial and vacate the facility at once.”
Delilah sighed. Even when singing his last song, he still has one demand: to take the vial of FEV. An oleander in the daisies. She considered briefly the idea of leaving it, but a flower that toxic couldn’t be left. Left to be a danger to all, left to spread in the air. So she took it before leaving the room.
As Delilah shot through to the exit, executing any and all Enclave soldiers she came across, she felt a pang of sadness. Not for what she had initiated, but for the fact she couldn’t make every single member suffer. She knew how it felt to dispatch justice with her own hands, she had massacred the slavers at Paradise Falls. Almost every single one of them met the end of her gun or her fist. They deserve every bruise, every wound, every single wink of pain she caused them. Their screams of terror and pain as their thick, crimson blood spilt almost gave her a sick feeling of joy. She wanted every member of the Enclave to meet that fate, she wanted them to suffer.
She knew that this would help destroy the Enclave, she knew this would help the Brotherhood take back Project Purity. She knew justice would be served. It didn’t help, she couldn’t shake the feeling. Leaving Ravenrock made her wonder, maybe that violent, bloody longing hadn’t been for the Enclave as a whole. Maybe it was for a specific person. Colonel Autumn had been the one to speak to her father, threatening him, threatening Project Purity, threatening those he held dear. Delilah remembered it so clearly, Autumn executed Janice, one of the scientists who had worked to help restart the project, in order to gain control over the facility. She remembered her body, laying motionless on the ground, eyes still wide with terror, a pool of crimson and meaty gray matter scattered around her head. Delilah looked on in terror while her father’s gaze, though sympathetic, held a familiarity with the situation, or perhaps simply the sight. Maybe it wasn’t Project Purity that was haunted, maybe, it was him. As Delilah’s father spoke calmly, claiming to comply, it made her stomach drop. The sinking feeling of that was only topped when radiation was released into that room. Father pulled himself up to the glass while Autumn and his men collapsed around him. In his final moments he managed to croak out a “Run!”
Despite the radiation, Autumn managed to survive then, even managed to be the one to interrogate Delilah when she had been brought to Ravenrock. She hoped he’d be caught in that explosion, that he would die, even if not as painful as she had wished. If Autumn survived and the two ever came face to face, Delilah would make sure he wouldn’t get the chance to come back. She’d stab him and stab him and stab him. Slicing his flesh, pulling out blood. She knew he’d scream, he’d gurgle and choke on his own blood. She wouldn’t stop until he died, she wouldn’t stop until he was unrecognizable, until he’d felt every measure of pain he’d caused her. She’d stab him until her body couldn’t take it, she’d stab him until she’d have her vengeance. And she’d enjoy it.
