Radiance Ch. 114

Tom's face morphed into one of anger.

"Those rotten bastards are no better than the Institute! Enslaving innocent people under the guise of freeing them!" he wrote and Wisp felt herself smile.

"Exactly and that's exactly what the Free peoples stand against," she said.

Tom looked thoughtful for a moment and then began typing again.

"So let's just say for a moment that I believe you who is the traitor?" he wrote.

"That's the real problem, the infiltrator is another of the Bio-Weapons little pets, a person called number Eight and their ability is especially tricky, they are shape shifters with the ability to mimic a person right down to their looks and voice, apparently they are indistinguishable from the original, the only way to out them is their memory," Wisp explained.

Tom looked both shocked and now a little nervous.

"A fucking shapeshifter are you bloody kidding me?" he wrote.

"I wish I were but as you have probably figured out by now I too am one of these experiments too and just like Seven I escaped, you can call me Wisp and I too am a member of the Free Peoples, there were a whole host of us locked up within the Enclave's Bio-Weapons division and our abilities are pretty varied but no less dangerous, it's literally what was created for," Wisp said choosing to use a little honesty to hammer her point home.

"So wait you are one of these Free People?" he asked.

"Yes, myself and Seven escaped together along with two sentient Claws called Visa and Ven and the four of us started the Free Peoples of the Wastes as were running from the Enclave, we began to see the injustices that people suffered every single day out there and we figured that we could use both our strengths and talents to make people's lives better, it kinda just snowballed from there, now we are a movement," Wisp said somewhat proudly.

Tom once again looked thoughtful before he began typing again.

"Look I want to believe you but this is seriously way out there you know?" he said.

"I can prove it to you," Wisp said.

"How?" Tom asked.

"We currently have a team watching your HQ if you'd be willing to meet with us face to face I can show you who we truly are and you can see for yourself, look I know its a risk for you and I fully understand that we are asking a lot of trust that we have not earned, but we have no desire to hurt you or your people, if lives were not on the line we'd be more than happy to simply let you guys get on with your work and leave you be, if anything we want to help you out as we have some pretty unique skillsets and operators available that can do things your guys can't, but none of that if gonna happen if this traitor manages to convince the right people in your organisation to hunt us down because then it's gonna end up in a war we have no wish to fight," Wisp said.

Tom looked very thoughtful but also a little nervous at the prospect but it seemed that curiosity won out.

"Can you guarantee my safety?" he asked.

"Yes," Wisp replied.

"It will have to happen tonight because everyone knows I never leave the base unless the circumstances are dire, so if I leave in the day it's gonna raise a hell of a lot of red flags," Tom said.

"That works fine for us, my team is standing too not far from you just say the word and I'll make it happen right now if you wish," she replied.

Tom blew out a long-held breath like the debate was still raging in his head and just nodded.

"Alright let's do this, I'll slip out the back Meet me there in say twenty minutes?" he said.

"Perfect, I'll be waiting and you can follow me to the meeting site, it's not far, I'll go and alert my team," she said and with that, she shot out of his Pipboy and back into the pipes.

After a brief flight back to her body and a brief hugfest from her ever-nervous cuddle spider Wisp informed her team what was happening.

Fuller opted to remain in the lookout spot as Tinker Tom knew him by sight and he felt it could jeopardise everything, so with that in mind the team headed down to a spot that Fuller picked out thanks to the great sightlines that would allow him to engage any hostiles with his rifle if shit hit the fan.

So while Malakai carried her powered-down body to the site Wisp flew back to the rear entrance to the Railroad HQ to meet Tom who she found standing in the thick shadows of some of the graves looking around nervously while clutching a gun in his hands.

She floated down into his visual range and sparkled herself so he could see her properly, "Oh thank god, there you are, I fucking hate it out here the noises you can hear in these streets are bad enough in the day, at night it's fucking a hundred times worse," he said glancing around himself nervously.

"Wisp took on the shape of a hand and beckoned him to follow her making him nod as he tore himself away from the imagined safety of his nest of thick shadows.

As he walked Tom pointed his gun at just about every sound he heard, Wisp seriously hoped that he didn't wind up firing a shot at either Ven or Pazza or he would wind up with either an angry boyfriend or girlfriend to deal with, neither of which would be too impressed that their lover Claw had a new bullet hole in their hide or armour.

But thankfully it seemed the team were ready for such a response because as soon as Tom stepped into the silent shop that the team had chosen for the meeting place a shape stepped out of the shadows behind him and snatched him off his feet clamping a hand over his mouth while another took his gun without him having time to fire a shot.

Tom made a muffled cry and kicked and thrashed trying to break free of Ven's iron grip.

"Hey calm down we mean you no harm we only wished to make sure you weren't going to shoot one of us by accident," Ven said in his deep gravely voice which caused Tom to freeze solid.

From the corner of the room a lantern ignited bathing the room and its inhabitants in golden light and Wisp felt herself snort a laugh as she saw that the lantern was webbed onto Malakai's fluffy rear end.

Wisp saw her body lying on a countertop next to him where he was protecting it and she flew over and entered it before powering it up and sitting up with a woosh of breath.

"You ok?" Malakai asked with a note of concern in his voice.

"Absolutely fine my fluffy little lamp post spider," she said making Passa snort a laugh and shoot Malakai a fang-filled grin.

"Told you she wouldn't miss a trick," he said and Malakai simply glared at him before turning his attention back to Wisp.

"All go alright?" he asked and she nodded before walking over and retrieving the plasma pistol from Passa's large hand and nodding at Ven to let Tom down which he did.

Wisp held out the gun to Tom who looked at it like she was trying to hand him an alien entity for a moment before taking it.

"Y-Y-You're giving this back to me? Why?' he exclaimed in confusion.

"Simple when I said we mean you no harm I meant it, we simply didn't wish you to shoot one of our people by accident is all, I know our group can look pretty scary to the uninitiated but honestly these guys are a bunch of sweethearts unless you threaten their loved ones then just run," she said with a grin as on cue both Shepherd and Gregory stepped up to their lover Claws and embraced them while Malakai stepped up to her and did the same.

Tom looked both amazed and a little scared by the scene surrounding him, but then his curiosity overcame him and he instantly began to flick tools down over his eyes as he looked at Wisp.

"That body, it's synthetic!" he exclaimed and she nodded.

"Yes, killed by the Enclave for study we believe, the previous owner was brain dead when we found her so while I was able to get the skin I wasn't able to save the person within, now I honour the person who this once was by allowing her to live on through me," she said.

"Incredible! So you can resurrect dead synth bodies?" he asked.

"If they aren't too badly damaged then yeah somewhat, I can kinda kick start their nervous system and bio-electrical systems," she said.

"Amazing!" Tom said and that's when he seemed to truly notice the massive male Claw standing over him and his eyes went massive through the lives he was using.

"Holy shit!!" he exclaimed jumping back and making Ven snort a laugh.

"Don't worry little human I won't hurt you, if I'd have wanted to do that I'd have cut your head from your shoulders the moment you walked in the door," Ven said flicking out his Claws to emphasise his point, all four of them.

"H-H-He can talk!!" Tom exclaimed.

"Well spotted," Gregory said with more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice as he patted Ven's massive thigh.

"Told you our group was diverse and this is only a small fraction of it, there are a lot more of us out there spread out all over the place," Wisp said.

"You seriously weren't kidding!" Tom exclaimed.

"Alright take a seat Tom and we'll take you through what we know but first a demonstration to prove a point," Wisp said nodding at Yumi who smiled and lifted off the floor in a cloud of flames before settling herself back on the ground before him and sending electrical surges arcing all over her.

"Tom meets number Nine who is now called Yumi, another of our freed brethren and until recently a member of the very team sent to infiltrate your group with the intent of using you to hunt us down," Wisp said.

"S-S-So you are like her? A super number person?" he asked and Yumi laughed and nodded.

"A super number person I like that," she said in her high voice.

Tom took a seat where Wisp indicated and Wisp began to bring him up to speed.

It took about two hours to get Tom up to speed as he kept asking questions about just about everything but when Wisp was finally finished he seemed convinced by what they were saying.

"You know I get the feeling I know who the traitor is," he said sounding sad as he said it.

"Who?' Yumi asked curiously.

"I don't know her real name as very few of us use them but her code name is Mouse, she's the one who originally made the report about you guys but honestly it was kinda sketchy, but there was just enough of a threat veiled in there for Des to task a team to start looking for you guys, but honestly I've just felt something was off with Mouse, usually she's as sharp as a tack and doesn't miss a trick, but she seems.....forgetful," he said.

"Forgetful?" Wisp pressed and he nodded.

"When she went out for her last run I asked her to bring me back some components for a build I was working on for her, but when she came in she didn't remember either the components or even the build, she played it off as stress and tiredness but she had been harping on about this thing for weeks until I finally agreed to build it for her, at first I got worried that she was a synth so I kinda scanned her but she came back clean, but if she's a shapeshifter then that explains it as my scan is designed to pick out synth bodies, not super humans," he said.

"Looks like we got our target then, so what's the play boss, go in and drag her umm him out?" Ven asked and Wisp looked thoughtful before shaking her head.

"No we can't afford to tip Eight off, he could run and we'd lose our lead on him as he'd take on a new skin and vanish, we need to lure him into a trap and to expose him to the whole Railroad so that way they can see him for who and what he really is, then they will also see we are not their enemy but their allies in waiting," Wisp said.

"Alright, what did you have in mind?" Tom asked and Wisp turned to Yumi.

"Yumi you know him best you got any ideas what would draw him out?" she asked.

She looked thoughtful for a moment before a smile crossed her face, "I believe I have just the thing, it will be kinda tricky to pull off but if we get it to work then it should be the perfect bait to pull him out of his hidy hole but we'll need a part two to get the Railroad into the same place so that when we pull the rug out from under him they are there to see it," she said.

"Leave that part to me I believe I should be able to get one of our scav teams to head where you need them to go I'll just tell them to watch their backs as it's a risky zone, then they'll lay low and stay out of sight," Tom said.

"I can web up the place ahead of time so we'll know when they are in a position to witness our little show," Malakai said twirling his spinnerets as if to make a point.

"Alright sounds like a plan so let's get to it, Tom if you don't mind I'll run shotgun with you until we can get this underway," Wisp said and Tom nodded, so with that they all sat down and Yumi began to outline her plan.