Chapter 29 “There’s no place like home.”

Six hours passed since back up arrived. Descending from the dark sky, dropping knights to secure the area, then a team of scribes. And the elder himself. Sara told him, pretty much right away, this wasn’t Vault X. The underground storage facility the Brotherhood had been searching for. Hidden so well the closest thing left to its rightful owners hadn’t found it after years of searching. Connecting to the outer terminal confirmed it. While reminding John he failed to check the one outside his own Vault. Too panicked by his escape to check he could actually get back in.

Using one of Rosie’s lesser hacks, and a few of his own, John broke the encryption. Managing to send pulses through the internal speakers, and run a general diagnostic. Vault two five six had the exact same layout as his, the top three levels anyway. Plus the stockroom and reactor level. Although the diagnostics revealed more. Sporadic power, rad spikes far too high for anything to have survived. Anything human at least.

John stared at the vast Vault door exposed by the collapsing building. Illuminated with spot lights from the remaining street above. Bags of soft earth piled to support fifty calibre machine guns, two set either end, manned and ready.

“Alright Ronin, this is your operation, what’s the plan?” Sara gave him space as she spoke. John never ran a briefing before. He’d been asked for input, suggestions. Planning for the whole team, with the elder stood in, made him nervous.

“We need to get to the stockroom, check for spares, but there’s no power to the front freight elevator. So are best option is to use the Overseer escape tunnel. That will take us onto level one, we can try the main cargo lift from there, then level two, and then level three if we have to.”

“Equipment?” Sara smiled as she asked him, knowing they’d covered it beforehand.

“Smg's, it’s tight down there. Lots of doors, windows, low ceilings, and sound travels. Carbines in case there’s anything more dangerous than ghouls down there.”

“And we will be in our nbc suits, full respirators. Aside from the rads we don’t know what’s in there. Someone could have blown their nose a century ago, leaving us a brand new virus to catch.” John hadn’t even thought of that. Sara had, hence the delivery of the suits and masks. Protection against threats, be they nuclear, biological, or chemical.

“Questions?” John just wanted to get in there, an odd feeling for him, but the last few hours dragged. The intense action only made the boredom worse.

“How do we open the internal doors without power?” Crixus gave him an easy question.

“I can reroute power as we go. Acetylene torches, or thermite if needed.” No one had any more questions, John nodded to Sara.

“Suit up.”

John hadn’t worn the full protective gear before. Similar to the dull green fatigues. With heavier, thick lining, and a hood pulled tight over the full face respirator. All to keep the hazardous, toxic air at bay. The Marauders lined up, getting checked over in turn by Jen. Ready to follow them in once cleared. John didn’t share her excitement, he’d had more than enough of Vaults.

Final check over, Tempest raised her arm. Signalling those above, ordering John to open the vast, dark alloy, cog like door. He clicked the four pin into the outer terminal, ran Rosie’s esc code, and waited. Long dormant gears whirred. Locking pins retracted. And with a screech of metal, the door rolled open.

The unit moved as one, John on point, into the exact same entrance he’d ran from months ago. Same security booths, same punishing ladders, at least according to the map screen. Only this time, he wouldn’t be climbing them. This time he’d be going straight through the Overseer’s office. John shorted the hidden door disengaging the magnetic locks. The multi-tool more useful than ever now it was back in familiar surroundings. They descended the stairs, footsteps echoing up the further down they went.

Compared to the ladder, this felt easy. More than enough light coming from his torch to see in the dark, enclosed stairwell, even though the mask. It took a long time to reach the the secret escape tunnel. And almost as long again through a tight, low corridor, to reach a single flight of stairs that led up to a solid ceiling. John felt the tension without turning, he’d sensed it rising the lower they went below the surface. No one else adjusted well to being this confined, constricted. He hoped they’d settle, they could be down here for hours.

After a simple reroute of a poorly hidden fuse box, the ceiling retracted and John led the team up, guns raised. He’d never been to the Overseer’s office in his Vault. He’d only ever been to level one twice. A large, comfortable, carpeted room. With a round desk, elaborate chair, and well stocked drinks cabinet. Somehow it felt like he’d imagined it. Some lazy old man, living the easy life, while those below broke their backs.

John never wanted to kill anyone, apart from who he’d imagined the master of his Vault to be. Even the people he’d already killed, he’d reacted in the moment, or the pipboy had, he still wasn’t sure. He didn’t feel bad about it, but he hadn’t taken any pleasure in it. He stood over the bones, disturbed by their arrival. Still dressed in blue. Skull cracked open from a self-inflicted gunshot wound long ago. He felt good, then immediately horrible.

He didn’t know the person long dead on the carpet. They’d never wronged him, imprisoned him, made him into a willing slave for all those years. And here he stood gloating. It was one of the few moments he felt glad Rosie wasn’t by his side.

“What kind of leader has a secret escape tunnel for themselves.” Styx sounded disgusted, John agreed. The idea that Elder Maxwell, or his daughter, would abandon the people they oversaw seemed ludicrous.

“Can it. Ronin, get that terminal up.” Tempest issued her orders, she looked, and sounded uneasy. Nowhere near as bad as Crixus though, John could hear him breathing from across the room. The biggest, bravest, toughest person he’d ever met, had begun to panic.

John set about hacking the Overseer’s terminal. Same basic security. The arrogance that they didn’t need to improve it. That no one would dare access it, made the one terminal wired into everything easy to hack. Within minutes he had full access.

“Ok, I’ve shunted the emergency power to this level, Crixus, can you force that door?” John could have opened it remotely, he didn’t, giving his teammate something to do in hopes of calming him. It worked, at least for the time it took to pry open the unlocked door. “Pipboy tracker shows no movement, no life signs. There’s some active systems, a load of vmails, and the rest looks corrupted.”

“Crixus, double time topside, get Jen, plus some ammo, set up here. She can feed us intel over the comm. Take this with you.” Sara snapped the arm bones of the long dead Overseer with a stomp. Shaking the loose fragments away as she scooped up the bulky pipboy. John saw that Sara noticed her second in command’s panic and, as a good leader should, she gave him something he could do.

“Copy Tempest.” He left, back down the short stairs, to go all the way up the long ones.

“They used to lock him up in a small room, he’s never been good underground since.” Sara couldn’t hide sadness in her voice. Almost twenty years since Crixus had been freed from the savage masters that made him fight, and kill for sport. He still felt the effects. John wondered what effects he would feel twenty years from now. “Jen can operate this right?”

“If she knows Unified OS, sure.”

“Good, take point, let’s get this done and the fuck outta here.” Sara sounded like she wanted to go topside too.

Level one of Vault two five six looked identical the level John made his escape through. Same open, high ceilinged atrium. Same luxurious seating around a sculpted metal tree. Same spacious cafeteria, residential blocks, windows into offices filled with desks and terminals. Only with emergency lighting instead of the simulated sunlight. Dirty, grimy and deserted. “Sweep and clear, heads on a swivel.” Tempest gave her orders, and the team of four began clearing each room, opening the metal doors, entering as a pair.

The four set to clearing storage rooms, offices, washrooms and bedrooms. Two inside, two covering outside. Then alternating for the next room along the corridor. Just like in the Kill House. Routine, mixed with a task that required concentration, calmed everyone. Easing the rapid breathing. Distracting the three knights from conditions that made level six in John’s Vault seem spacious. Even the storage rooms were bigger that his previous accommodation.

Every time a room had been cleared of any potential threats, he got a little bit angrier. Looking around at the double beds, private showers. Unlike the group ones he’d been left no choice but to get used over a decade of hard labour. He almost hoped for something to shoot at. “Crixus in position, got our favourite pencil pusher set up.” John thought he sounded better, more relaxed, he hoped it would last.

“Jen here, hey wait, why don’t I get a cool nickname?” Jen seemed as fearless as ever.

“Can you get the main cargo lift moving? It’s under.”

“Utilities, hang on...nothing, dead.”

“Copy Jen, keep working it, we’re almost clear on this floor, and I’ll think you up a cool nickname.” Sara cut the conversation short with a joke, mostly for her own benefit. John had never seen her like this, she looked scared. “Take point John.” She didn’t use his call sign, maybe she was more scared than he thought.

With Level one cleared, John led them down to level two, Med deck, Family deck, Rec deck. Where he’d spent most of the first fifteen years of his life, being force fed lies upon lies. All making him believe he was lucky. One of the few fortunate enough to be in the one and only Vault, proud to be building the future for humanity. As angry as it made him, he knew Rosie would be counting on him. And the fastest way to her lay ahead, along with the chance to find the parts the Vault needed. Although he no longer knew if finding them would do more harm than good.

John opened a fuse panel near the door. “Ok Jen, shunt to level two.” John heard the power come on. Electromagnetic locking pins disengaged, and the door split open, revealing a shambling ghoul. Still dressed in blue, left hand missing. No doubt torn off by the weight of a pipboy, unable to cling to rad rotten flesh. John fired. The sound of the suppressed submachine gun’s bolt cycling louder than the bullets that zipped through the undead skull.

The sound of the staggering corpse collapsing drew more blue suited ghouls. Turning, screeching, charging them from the corridor ahead. John dropped them both with two quick bursts, headshots, as he’d been trained to do. He heard Tempest fire to his right as John stepped forward. Knowing better than to take his eyes from his sector, his area to keep clear. Which proved wise as more ghouls tumbled in from an open room, each put down in turn, quick and clean. All while trying not to look at the blue suits, near identical to the one he wore every day of his life.

By now Styx and Acheron were firing too, controlled bursts. No louder than the bolt cycling, or spent casings pinging off the metal walls. “Hey I found something.”

“Not now!” Tempest cut Jen off as Ronin reloaded. Every thud from dropping a corpse drew more. Drawing more still as they were put down with clacking bursts of ten mil rounds that tore through rotten flesh and weakened bone. Leaving piles of twice dead, blue suited corpses, leaking blood that looked more like oil.

“Clear.” Tempest called it after thirty sends of silence.

“Form up, let’s move.” John took the lead, the three far more experienced knights at his back. Following him into danger, stacking up by the door, then tapping him to enter first.

Here, now, he had the advantage. A lifetime in a place that looked exactly the same meant he moved the fastest, the smoothest, the easiest. It filled him with a sense of pride, a feeling of value. No one else could do what he could do for his team here, and he wouldn’t be here without them. Literally in Sara’s case. He felt effective in a way he hadn’t before. John liked it, being Ronin, being part of something bigger than him, something real.

“Sweep the centre, then the outer rooms.” No one looked to Tempest, they just stacked up behind him. Entering the open middle area, lining up, slowly advancing in a firing line. Dropping the dozen ghouls before their rotten brains realised what happened.

Once clear, John looked around the same basketball court. Hoops built atop five-a-side goals. The only place he’d ever felt part of a team before now. Although winning the league two years running paled in comparison to this.

“Styx, Ach, go get an ammo bag, I don’t want to go loud unless we have to.” The team split, leaving John and Sara in the Recreational Deck. “No place like home right.” She tried to lighten both their moods, but misjudged it.

“Every week I spent breaking rocks for twelve hours a day got me an hour of rec time, unless of course you got reported. Talking back, being late, laziness, whatever, they’d take your time and give to whoever filed the report. I didn’t get any rec time in eight years.”

“Bastards turned you against each other, kept you from organising and fighting back.” Sara stepped closer to him, making eye contact through the plastic visor of the respirator. “Say the word and we’ll roll in heavy, drop ‘em all before they know what’s going on. No one fucks with my friends.” She meant it, despite how much Sara obviously hated being deep underground.

The thought appealed to him. Watching Vault Sec piss themselves as the Marauders rolled in heavy. Code for fully armed and armoured. Part of him liked the idea of dragging the Overseer out into the sun, then putting a bullet from the rose carved pistol in his head, but it passed. All he wanted was Rosie free, safe, and Sara had never referred to him as a friend before.

Regrouped, restocked and rearmed, John led the team through the remains of level two. Sweeping, clearing, dropping angry, screeching ghouls wearing blue suits. Near identical to his own, save for the number on the back. Every few feet John kicked pipboys to the side, some till wrapped around rotting arms. The weight of the personal terminal, far bigger and heavier than the jet black one attached to his own arm, too much for slowly dying flesh. “Hey, can you guys talk?” Jen sounded eager to share her intel.

“Go ahead...Bookworm.” Sara had a gift for finding just the right nick name, after a moment of silence, Jen responded.

“Looks like the reactor was shut down manually, seems like they split into two factions. One wanted to leave and the others didn’t. They tried to force the Overseer’s hand but something went wrong.” John knew telling the people in his Vault would cause damage, they’d fight to protect the lie even when confronted with the undeniable truth. Even if it meant dying, suffocating in the dark rather than facing reality. These people faced a similar choice, now they were dead, again.

He pushed it from his mind, stacking up by the latest door in the Family deck. Which mercifully looked different, all single or double rooms, no adjoining kids room. Whatever they were doing down here it wasn’t long term. The Med deck had a different layout too. No long wards, just room after windowed room, with doors that only opened from the outside.

John raised a closed fist, signalling the team to stop as they reached the entrance to level three. This had been the fabrication floor in his Vault. Churning out dull steel wall panels and metal doors from loud mechanical presses, casting molten alloys. Row after row of people mindlessly assembling components to run the lighting or speaker systems. The door in front of him said something different, a word he wasn’t sure he knew.

“I don’t know what’s behind this door, mapping is patchy, at best.” Tempest peered round him to read the word stencilled on the metal.

“Lab, laboratory. Whatever they were doing down here, this is where they did it. Stand ready.” John smashed the already exposed fuses, shutting down power to the mag lock and opening the door.

Dark, barely lit, the outer rooms looked like the one John lived in for a decade. Small, a single bed, combined sink and toilet, doors controlled by someone else. He thought these rooms were smaller, or he hoped they were. He felt ashamed that he lived that way for as long as he did, more ashamed he left Rosie there.

The central area looked to be one big room. Windows thick with grime, overgrown with luminescent mould. “Ronin, what do you make of this?” Acheron directed John’s eyes to the floor. Steel grooves, tracks leading right the way round, it’d obviously drawn the keen mind of his teammate.

“Looks like cargo rails, I don’t know why they’d be down here.”

“Can it, let’s move, I want out of here asap.” Sara sounded rattled, they all were.

The main lab took up most of the floor. As soon as they breached the door the reason behind the rails became clear, horrifyingly so. The residents of the small rooms were loaded into metal tubes, mounted to the rails. Pushed through each stage of lab in turn. The tubes opened and laid flat, allowing access for whatever the white coat wearing ghouls shambling around had done to them.

Once the team dispatched them with near silent gunfire John found the nearest terminal. “Jen, I’m powering up a terminal, you see it?”

“Got it, I’m in, lift access granted.” The cargo lift opened, spilling out dozens of ghouls, still wearing stained medical gowns. Both arms attached, screeching, flailing towards them with black eyes.

“Go loud.” Tempest gave the order and as one the Marauders switched to their assault carbines. Filling the entire space with noise, echoing endlessly into a constant wall of sound. Each practised burst blurring into the next. Drowning out the wet crunches mixed with dull thuds as the advancing horde became little more than a twitching pile of meat wrapped skeletons on the floor.

“Clear.” Tempest relaxed, they all reloaded, and headed for the cargo lift. The floor slimy, slick with rotten blood and flesh splattered at high velocity. Between John’s mandatory Mr Fix It training, Jen’s quick fingers and some gentle encouragement of the control panel, the cargo lift began to crawl upwards.

“I figured out what they were doing here. It’s fucked up.” John didn’t stop Jen, he could of, Sara could of, she didn’t either.

“They were working on some sort of next generation anti-rad treatment. They started with five hundred test subjects, went through about one a month for decades. Then dumped them outside, waiting to see if their experiment worked. When they ran out of test subjects they started experimenting on their own people, turning the support staff into those things. They fought back, it went bad and the whole place got exposed.”

“Fucking filth factory.” John heard the disgust in Sara’s voice, he didn’t disagree. Although he saved most of his disgust for the people in charge.

The cargo lift finally clunked to a halt on the stockroom level. If the horrors of this sadistic place held the parts John needed, they’d be here. Like his Vault, in a room so large you could barely see one end from the other. Stocked with anything and everything that couldn’t be manufactured on site. Raw materials, circuit boards, vault-suits, terminals. All except spare carbon coated fan blades, and a main air recirc unit.

The lift doors opened and the team moved as one, silenced submachines raised, ready for more ghouls. None came, just a long, chain link fence corridor, leading to front freight elevator. Used to coral the feral creatures, up and out, leaving them trapped underground still. All the while massing into a horde over years, a horde that John had crushed under a building.

Ronin gave silent hand signals. Ordering them to cover him as he snipped the fence with the pliers housed in the grip of the multi-tool. Peeling it back, holding it open for the team to pass through.

Tempest took point, switching to the assault carbine knowing it had the better range, prompting the team to do the same. She raised her hand, tapping her ear then pointing right, she heard movement. John listened and heard it too, footsteps, fast and steady, not shambling, getting closer.

“FREEZE! HANDS UP. ON YOUR KNEES. DON’T FUCKING MOVE!” Tempest bellowed at the four, still sentient, ghouls as they rounded the corner of the high steel shelves.

“Thank the Lord, I knew Vault-Tec would come for us. Thank you sweet, merciful God, thank you.” One of the two males spoke in the same rad ravaged, rasping tone they all seemed to share. Dressed in blue, pipboys on their arms, skin flaking, ears and noses long rotted away.

One spoke while the others babbled near incoherently. Praising a deity that cared little for their fate. If it had the slightest concern for its worshippers then they wouldn’t be under the barrel of Brotherhood carbines. “We kept faith, we did the work—”

“Shut the fuck up. We ask the questions, you answer them.” Tempest lowered her weapon, no one else did. “What do you know about other Vaults?” The four surviving ghouls looked to each other, confused.

“We only know about this one, we never saw any others.”

“What do you know about Vault X?”

“We’ve never heard of it. Listen, you need to understand, our research, we were so close. With new equipment and more test subjects we can find a cure.” The male spoke as if he expected people to do what he told them. John knew the tone well, not from his time with the Brotherhood, from his own Vault. It made him angry, his grip tightening on the carbine.

“We already have the cure for your kind.” The arrogant sadist, suffering the same affliction he caused. Who wanted to inflict it on others still. had an expression as close to happiness as his rotting face would allow at hearing Tempest’s words. It faded instantly as she calmly shot the other three with single, well placed headshots, echoing up into the stockroom.

“NO!” John yelled out through the mask, Sara turned to him, her eyes filled with rage. He drew the rose carved pistol, remembering who he held it for. He pressed the compensated muzzle into the rotting forehead of the black eyed inhuman monster. Like that long before he became a ghoul. As he babbled to his indifferent god, John pulled the trigger.

Sara killed them for what they were, on principle. John killed him for who they were, traitors to humanity. Whatever they’d learned at the expense of innocents, sacrificing those they deemed less important, it could never justify the things they’d done. A bullet was the only cure they deserved.

Ronin took point again, accessing the nearest terminal, punching in the stock code he and Rosie both memorised. He took a deep breath, as best he could through the respirator and hit enter. “Form up, I’ve got a location.” John didn’t let himself hope, not yet.

Moving as quickly as he dared, unable to properly clear such a massive space, John followed the numbered shelving. Confident that the team had him covered despite being wrought, tense at the thought of more undead targets shambling into view.

He ignored the living space the last survivors created for themselves. Hammocks, crafted chairs, stacks of books, next to lab equipment and active terminals. He pressed forward past still half stocked shelves. The underground stockroom seemed bigger than ever. Until finally, at his feet, a full steel crate of carbon coated fan blades, and two main air recirc units. Sealed, uncontaminated, an exact match.

John ran his gloved hand along the crate, there it sat. A chance to avoid the fate of this Vault. A chance for those who couldn’t handle the real truth, that they were all enslaved by a lie, body and mind. Which only meant a better chance for those who wanted to leave. It meant he could take Rosie away, and they’d never have to think about Vaults ever again. Or at least she wouldn’t. His mission might be complete, but The Brotherhood of Steel hadn’t got what they wanted from him. And he would be leaving in less than a day.

Nine hours after the Marauders entered Vault two five six, they exited back into the sunlight. Back under the endless blue instead of oppressively low ceilings. John and Sara carried the parts, he could see the mixed expression on her face through the mask.

Everyone went an intense decontamination protocol. Washed clean with high pressure hoses, scrubbed with long brushes. Leaving all the weapons and parts to be washed separately. John didn’t want to let them out of his sight, but he knew that if he expected the Brotherhood to trust him, he had to show the same trust in them.

They sat in the quarantine tent, as a precaution, while a medic ran blood samples from the six of them. No one spoke, they just sat in relieved silence. Drinking water, forcing themselves to eat something. Even Sara dozed off for an hour, exhausted from the stresses of being confined, constrained, on constant alert all that time.

Elder Maxwell strode into the tent, “Your bloodwork is clean, we’ll have you all on the next bird home. Ronin, walk with me.” John followed the elder out of the tent, leaving the team to rest. “I understand you found what you needed.”

“Yes sir, exactly what I needed, thank you sir.”

“No thanks required, this is our duty. To keep the horrors of the past at bay, to save lives.” John kept up as the elder walked through the even more ruined remnants. Looking down at people filling into the Vault, wearing the same protective gear he felt glad to be rid of. “What’s your next move?”

“We, Val, Sara and I, plan to fly out by midnight tomorrow. They’ll drop me nearby, I’ll deliver the parts, tell them all the truth. Good and bad. Then make arrangements based on how many want to leave.” John saw surprise turn to sadness in the elder’s eyes. A man who lived as a soldier hadn’t thought that anyone would choose to stay, John knew better. “Should only be a few days, maybe a week, and then...I don’t know, but whatever happens I’ll stand ready when called sir. No matter what, you have my word.” John didn’t know what his word would mean to Elder Maxwell, yet honour mattered to them both, he hoped.

“Agreed.” The elder shook John’s hand with a smile, mimicking the first time they met. When John made the agreement that undeniably benefited him, and that he thought had been a boon to the Brotherhood. “If you face resistance?” The elder walked further through the ruins, stopping outside the flattened building.

“I’m hoping it won’t come to that. Frankly sir, the security staff are going to piss themselves as soon as they get a look at a T-60.” The elder laughed, the same way Sara did. Part of John hoped they would resist, he almost looked forward to it. “If I have to, I can infiltrate the Overseer’s office through his private escape tunnel. Eliminate him, then use his access to broadcast to the whole Vault, give them no choice but to listen. That will start trouble and security will be divided.” John told the elder Rosie’s plan, an idea he’d hated so much he left alone, without her. A plan he now wanted to put into effect.

“Divide and conquer, smart, and if it goes bad?”

“The Marauders roll in heavy.” John didn’t want that, at all. Despite their effectiveness, people would undoubtedly get caught in the crossfire. Then he’d have to ask his people to trust those who attacked them.

“It’s no easy thing to make decisions that may cost lives.” The elder looked him in the eye. John saw the tiredness, the weight of responsibility, the burden of command.

“No sir, it is not.”

“Take last night’s mission, the warhead you helped recover.” John had almost forgotten about that. “I’m told it’s still active, half a megaton yield. If that would have detonated everything you see in any direction would be gone in an instant. Leaving this place uninhabitable for centuries. Poisoning the land, mutating the creatures, drawing the abomination. I had to weigh that against the lives of my men, who chose to serve, who knew the risks. Which is why I gave the order I did. An order you disobeyed.” John couldn’t look the elder in the eye, he didn’t sound angry, which only made him feel worse.

“I’m sorry sir, I believed I had an opportunity to complete the mission, and save lives. I made a choice.” John spoke honestly, he hadn’t considered anything beyond the six lives on the rooftop.

“And you did, this time. I can’t begin to understand what it’s like for you to take orders, given how you grew up. Just know that when I give an order I do so with information you don’t have. It must be followed or there is no trust, then everything falls apart.” John felt better, he realised that the order to abandon the field scribes hadn’t come easy.

“It won’t happen again sir.”

“If I had a cap for every time one of Maxwell’s Marauders told me that.” John smiled as he saw Sara’s father do the same. “Besides, I can’t expect a man without a master to not to go his own way every now and then. I’m assuming Tempest made you jump the armour down?”

“Yes sir.”

“And it hurt?”

“Yes sir.”

“Well then consider that your punishment, and count yourself lucky you were not Grimm’s aspirant as I was once.” The elder became lost in a fond memory for a moment, John didn’t ask of what. “Thank you Ronin, wheels up in ten.”

“Thank you sir. If I don’t get chance…” John barely saw the elder in the last couple of months, he didn’t want to miss what may be his last chance before leaving.

“We’ll talk later John, I promise, don’t keep the team waiting, they’ve had a rough night. I’m glad you were with them.” John had gotten better at taking compliments, being rightly praised for a job well done. This however came out of nowhere, leaving him speechless. Filled with pride, confidence, a belief in himself that came from knowing others trusted him. He liked how it felt, he had value, worth, he mattered.