With a click, the Pipboy opened, and Drew removed the final holotape, placing it back in the box by his feet. He then unplugged his Pipboy from the terminal and took a step back, all without saying a word.

He didn’t know what to say. What could he say? It was hard to believe that any of it could be true, but the evidence was standing all around him, their unsettling gazes on him like predators eyeing their prey.

It also confirmed everything he had suspected. The Greenclaws had once been human, but not only that, but at least some of them were the ones taken from Paulson. From the tapes, it also sounded like there were seven or eight-foot giants roaming around, though he had heard absolutely nothing about them, not even rumors. That meant they had either quickly died or were no longer in the region. That, or they were keeping their heads down.

“It is an admittance of guilt, nothing more,” Matriarch Lotte said suddenly.

The booming loudness of her voice was enough to make Drew jump in fright.

“The ramblings from an evil man.”

Drew wouldn’t quite call the recordings that, but he could understand where she was coming from. The scientist, whoever he was, had tried to do what was right but in the most monstrous way possible. He had sacrificed so many people, and turned them into beasts so they could destroy the super mutants.

It made him shudder thinking about it.

The matriarch spoke again, this time directly to him. “Thank you for putting what was on those tapes to rest.”

Drew looked up at her but had to quickly look away, unable to maintain eye contact. He felt tiny and insignificant in her presence, like a rodent.

He cleared his throat again. “I would say you’re welcome, but that seems a little hollow after what we just heard.”

He kept his gaze focused on the ground as he walked into the center of the room and said the only thing he could. “If there’s anything else I can do, please ask.”

“Yes, there is,” the matriarch uttered sharply. “While I thank you for what you have done for us, I regret what must happen.”

Before she had even finished speaking, large clawed hands wrapped around him and he let out a yelp as he was sharply pulled backward with enough force to lift him clean off his feet. His head was then enveloped by something as he was hugged tightly from behind. It took a moment to realize what it was, or rather, what they were.

His head was between a large pair of breasts.

“No,” he heard Ayma’s voice rumble through him. “Not him.”

Drew realized that it was Ayma who had grabbed him. For what reason, he wasn’t entirely certain, but from what the matriarch had said and by Ayma’s response, it couldn’t be anything good.

He heard the matriarch’s voice rumble, though the volume was thankfully muffled by Ayma’s flesh. “There is none that can know we are here. He will reveal our location to those he knows. He is a threat to all of us!”

“No I’m not!” he said loudly. “I came here to help you.”

“Yes, you did and we thank you for that.” Matriarch Lotte said. “But that does not change what you will do once you have gone. You will betray us, perhaps not intentionally, but you will. That much is certain!”

Another Greenclaw spoke up in his defense, but due to the large breasts pressing against the sides of his head, he struggled to identify the voice and wasn’t sure he even recognized it.

“He didn’t have to come. He could have refused, but he didn’t. He did us a favor. He helped us and we’re gonna repay him with death? You don’t need to eat this one.”

Drew was thankful that Ayma was holding him up because at that moment his whole body turned to jelly. He couldn’t believe what he had just heard. The matriarch not only wanted to eat him, but the implication was that she had eaten others.

“Axa!” the matriarch shouted louder than Drew thought possible, her voice shaking the very air. “You always object, but you know it must be done! He is a threat!”

“I’m not a threat!” he shouted. “I came to help you!”

“Your words mean little, human,” the matriarch said. “You tremble at the sight of us. You fear us and that fear is what makes you dangerous.”

“He’s not!” Ayma shouted, her breasts pushing against the sides of his head as she hugged him tighter.

“You are protective of him,” the matriarch’s increasingly muffled voice said. “But you have to understand that he will bring others to kill us. You know it’s true. That will only result in more death. To protect the humans and to protect us, he must die.”

Another voice chimed in, though she sided with Lotte. “Listen to our leader. She has kept us safe from the humans!”

“Remember Sally?” yet another voice asked. “We found her injured, brought her here, and nursed her back to health. She repaid us by bringing her brethren here to kill us!”

“I wouldn’t do that!” he tried to tell them.

“Sally said the same thing!” a fourth voice added.

“She is right,” another voice said. “You remember how Kiki and Varan were hurt because of Sally? You trusted her, too. You and Axa defended her. You wanted to help her and she tried to kill us!”

Drew felt Ayma’s grip on him start to loosen.

The matriarch continued. “I know you care for him, Ayma. I know that you feel you knew him from before, but you also know what I am saying is true. Humans have to destroy what they fear. It’s in their nature. He fears us so he will destroy us, and if what you say is true then he will return with an army of robots to do it for him. We cannot allow that to happen. This is the best way. This is the only way. Because of Sally, we lost Kenna. If we let him live someone else might die. It might even be Kiki.”

Drew had to admit that what the matriarch was saying made a lot of sense, though it didn’t apply to him, not in this situation. Unfortunately, it seemed that Ayma agreed with her leader as she released her hold on him, causing him to stumble on his trembling legs and almost fall.

“Ayma,” he heard Kiki utter from behind. “What are you doing?”

“Sh-she’s right,” Ayma stammered.

Drew shook his head as he turned to face her.

“She’s not right, Gemma,” he uttered as he reached out to her. “She’s not right. I would never do that to you, you know I wouldn’t.”

Ayma twitched at the mention of the name, something she had done before at the Mega Stop. He wasn’t absolutely certain that she was actually Gemma, but she had given a lot of clues that suggested she was. Enough that he believed it was true. Enough to use it as a last-ditch attempt to save his skin.

“She is right,” Ayma said, unable to meet his eyes.

“You know she isn’t,” he tried to argue.

It fell on deaf ears.

The ground trembled and Ayma took several steps back, her gaze turning upward to the matriarch. As a giant hand closed around him from behind, he knew he was doomed. He didn’t even have his laser rifle on him, he’d left it in the room where they’d retrieved the holotapes.

With a rush of nauseating speed, the matriarch rose him up towards the ceiling. At eye-level, she reached in with her left hand, and with a pinch of her clawed forefinger and thumb, she plucked him from her right hand and held him with the tips of her claws, gripping his body painfully between them.

There was no escape now.

From his perspective, he could see all the Greenclaws looking up at him, including Ayma. Even from up there near the rafters he could see the look of sadness and sorrow on her face.

“I love you, Gemma,” he shouted out loud. “I accept what you’ve become and I don’t hate you for it. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you from what happened.”

The matriarch rose him up high above her head. Her colossal mouth opened and her gargantuan tongue flopped out. It then began to swirl menacingly from side to side as she held him high above her waiting and eager throat.

As Drew stared down into his cavernous demise, he remembered a dream he’d long since forgotten. It was the one where he was in the bus being eaten by the gargantuan deathclaw. That nightmare had been triggered by being trapped inside a bus while one of the Greenclaws had prowled outside. In fact, if he recalled that had been his very first encounter.

The deathclaw in the dream had been absolutely humongous and while Lotte was big, she was nowhere near as big as it had been. Even so, she was still easily big enough to swallow him whole.

“Stop!” The yell hadn’t come from Ayma, but Kiki. “You can’t eat him, Lotte! This isn’t right, I won’t let you!”

The maw closed and Drew found himself in front of her snout being blasted by her hot breath.

“You won’t let me?” she asked, incredulously as she turned her gaze down to her brazen subject. “You plan on stopping me?”

Kiki didn’t back down. “He knew us from before. I think I’m starting to remember him. If we kill him then we kill a part of ourselves!”

Drew started to feel hope again. He had been absolutely certain that he was going to die, and yet, Kiki was coming to his defense.

“She’s right,” a Greenclaw he didn’t recognize agreed. “If we keep killing people, especially those that help us, then maybe we deserve to be hunted.”

Much to his surprise, Neka showed him her support as well. It was a surprise since when they first met she had wanted to kill him. “Eating him isn’t the answer. He’s already had plenty of opportunities to betray us, but he hasn’t.”

Drew decided that now was probably a good time to speak. “The man in the recordings,” he said loudly. “He spoke of a settlement up north where they took twenty people. That had to have been Paulson.”

A Greenclaw which stood by the matriarch’s side, both physically and metaphorically, wasn’t swayed by any of their arguments. “Eat him and finish this.”

He looked at Ayma. “You’re Gemma, I’m sure of it.”

She looked away.

He focused on Kiki. “I remember you. You went by Kiki back then, too. You were beautiful and had a crush on me, but I was with Gemma.”

“I think I remember,” Kiki said.

Drew looked at Neka as he tried to think of who she was, but there was nothing obvious that gave it away, so he looked at another and pointed.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Axa,” she answered.

Drew thought of who she could be for a moment before she beat him to the punch.

“My name is Lexa,” she said, her eyes growing wide. “I think I remember.”

Drew turned his head to face the matriarch. She had been referred to as Lotte, which gave him a clue.

“You must be Charlotte,” he said.

“My name is Lotte,” she uttered loudly. “Matriarch Lotte to you.”

“But you weren’t always called that. Don’t you remember?”

“No,” she said as she once more raised him up above her head and opened her mouth.

“You were a pretty muscular girl, even back then,” he said quickly, knowing his time was limited. “You were tall, too. Do you remember the time we headed out to take out that troublesome Yao Guai pack?”

Lotte frowned as she closed her mouth and lowered him back down to eye level.

“Do you remember?” he asked, hopefully.

“I think…” She shook her head. “You are trying to confuse me.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Listen to him,” Kiki urged. “He can help us remember who we are.”

“We need him!” another voice shouted.

“You eat him and we might lose the only one left who knows who we are!” Axa said.

“Listen to them,” Neka added. “They’re right.”

Lotte shook her head. “No, they are not.”

She rose him back up, opened her mouth, and then…

And then…

And then she did nothing. She stared up at him, a frown forming on her face before she yet again lowered him back down to eye level.

Drew barely dared hope that he would survive the encounter after all.

“You got your pants caught on the branch of an old fallen tree,” she said, the faintest hint of a smile flickering across her face.

“Yeah, and I tore them,” he said.

“I do remember that.”

For the first time, Lotte looked genuinely conflicted.

Drew decided to try and push it in his favor. “I love Gemma, Charlotte. I’d never do anything to put her at risk, no matter what she has become. You know that.”

“A nice sentiment,” Lotte said, “but I’m not sure I can believe it. Things have changed. Kiki holds Ayma’s heart now. You are just a human. Small, weak, fragile.”

“There’s room in my heart for one more,” Kiki said.

For the first time since letting him go, Ayma spoke, agreeing with Kiki. “Yes, there is room for one more in our hearts. Ever since I first saw him, I felt a connection. I can’t lose him, not again.”

Lotte focused back on Drew before she lowered him down to the concrete floor and let him go. He dropped about three feet and stumbled before falling onto his hands and knees. He felt like he was going to vomit.

The matriarch’s voice boomed overhead. “What will you have me do with him?” she asked.

“Keep him here,” Kiki said.

“Humans are too slimy and sneaky.” Lotte shook her massive head. “No, we can’t keep him here. He is a risk.”

“Then what?” Neka asked.

The matriarch took in a deep breath before she closed her eyes. “I don’t know.”

Ayma offered an option. “If we cannot keep him here, then I would like to return him home to his factory.”

Lotte smiled. “Yes, that’s it!” she exclaimed loudly.

“Return him home?” Ayma asked, confused as to why she sounded so excited about the suggestion.

“A test,” Lotte said. “A test to see if he can be trusted.”

“What kind of test?” Kiki asked looking nervous.

“A potentially stupid one,” the matriarch answered before explaining her plan. “I want Ayma and Neka to go with him back to his factory.”

Neka was surprised. “Me? Why me?”

Kiki raised a clawed hand. “I could go.”

“No!” Lotte said firmly. “I want them to observe him to see if he is a threat, which will be difficult for you due to your size.”

Drew pushed himself up off the floor, barely able to get his footing on his shaking legs.

“There are others there with me,” he said, his voice trembling like the rest of him. “Two of them are also from Paulson.”

“Who?” Lotte asked.

“Jack and Amy.”

One of the Greenclaws made a peculiar noise which the others picked up on.

“It looks like Glower recognizes one of the names,” Neka said.

Drew continued. “There’s also a doctor there, Sarah.”

“Do you get frequent visitors?” Lotte asked him.

Drew shook his head. “We don’t get any visitors. At least not at the moment.”

“Good. Then Neka and Ayma will accompany you back there tomorrow. Then in a week, they will return with their findings. If they do not return, then I will know you betrayed us. We will then come to your factory and I will personally devour you. But I will eat your friends first. Understood?”

“I won’t betray you,” he promised.

“And what of the others?” Lotte questioned him. “Will they betray us?”

“I can speak for Jack and Amy. For Sarah, I don’t know.”

It was a lie, he couldn’t speak for Jack or Amy. He had no idea how they would react when he returned with two Greenclaws in tow. He doubted it would be anything positive.

“Then it is settled,” Lotte said. “Ayma, Neka, he is your responsibility now. He will spend the night here and you will leave tomorrow. Now, all of you depart, I want to be alone to dwell on the day’s events.”

Ayma walked back over to Drew and threw her arms around him in a hug, lifting him up off his feet and unintentionally shoving his face once more between her large mammaries. It was something that was very quickly becoming a thing between the two of them.

“I’m glad you’re okay. Come on, I’ll take you somewhere you can sleep.”

She released him and he followed her out of the large room and headed down the corridor to a small barren room that was adorned by a single metal-framed bed with an old mattress, and a broken chest of drawers.

“You’ll sleep here tonight,” Ayma told him before she turned to leave.

Drew held out a longing hand. “Can you-uh… Stay?”

“You want me to stay?” Ayma asked, turning back around.

“I think I’d sleep better if you were in the room.”

She smiled at him. “I’ll go get your laser gun and bring it here.”

“And you’ll stay?”

She nodded. “Unlike you humans, we don’t need beds. I’ll sleep on the floor near the door.”

“If you’re sure,” he said. “And thank you.”

His limbs began to shake anew as she turned and left. He practically collapsed onto the bed as he started to dry-heave. He couldn’t believe how close he had gotten to being eaten. If it hadn’t been for Kiki, he was sure he’d be dead now. That, or slowly being digested alive.

It was horrifying and unconscionable. When he had first arrived, there had been absolutely no thought of betraying them, but now? Now that he knew that Charlotte ate people? He couldn’t believe it and he certainly couldn’t understand it.

The door opened and Ayma stepped back into the room. She placed his laser rifle down on top of the old chest of drawers.

“There you go.”

“Thanks,” he muttered.

“Are you okay?”

“Not really,” he admitted. “Almost being eaten alive has taken it out of me.”

Ayma looked away, shame etched on her reptilian face. Drew couldn’t be mad at her for not standing up for him. Things had been difficult and with her sketchy memory, he was practically a stranger.

“I should have fought harder,” she said. “It took Kiki, Axa, and Neka to speak for you to make me realize that Lotte was wrong.”

“So it wasn’t the fact that she was going to eat me!?” he asked, feeling his ire rise. He forced it back down. “Sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” she asked. “You’re the one that was almost eaten. It is us that should be apologizing.”

“Yeah, I know. I was there dangling above her gaping throat.”

Ayma sat down on the floor at the base of the bed. “I’m the one that’s sorry, Drew. I let you go and almost got you killed. I don’t even know how we got here. Lotte eating people? Somewhere things went wrong.”

“It went wrong when the super mutants took you from Paulson,” Drew said. “I couldn’t stop them. I wasn’t strong enough.”

“Don’t think about it. Go to sleep,” Ayma said as she curled up onto the floor after switching off the light. “We have to get up early tomorrow.”

After what had happened, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to sleep. Images of dangling above Lotte’s mouth were burned into his brain. He had been a few words from being devoured alive and he felt that he wouldn’t be safe until he was back home at the Robco plant.

Unfortunately, that would lead to something else he was dreading and that was introducing Ayma and Neka to the others. He had absolutely no idea how he was going to do it and was considering trying to hide them somewhere. He knew that wouldn’t work, though. Amy and Jack liked to explore the place and anywhere he hid them they were certain to find.

There was no way out of it and he knew that events had fallen out of his control. For good or ill, Ayma and Neka would meet Amy, Jack, and Sarah, and events would unfold however they unfolded.

No matter what happened, he knew he wasn’t looking forward to it, but with the contents of the holotape saved to his Pipboy, at the very least he could let the man responsible for it all explain it for him.

“Are you still awake?”

The question caught Drew off guard. He glanced over to see her staring at him from where she was laying on the floor.

“Yeah,” he answered. “I’m still awake.”

“What was I like?” she asked. “Back before. When I was human.”

It took him a few moments to gather his thoughts. “You were funny, beautiful and amazing. I thought we’d spend the rest of our lives together. We completed each other.”

“I think we did,” Ayma said. “When I saw Neka drag you out of the building at the Red Rocket stop, I immediately felt something. Like recognition.”

“Is that why you picked me up?” he asked.

“Yeah. I wanted to get a better look at you. Even the way you smelled felt familiar.”

“I hope it’s not a bad smell.”

“No, it’s a nice one,” she said. “I’m sorry that I’m not her anymore.”

“I think we’ve apologized enough to each other. Let’s just accept what’s happened and move on. It’s the only way we’ll get through it.”

“I suppose,” she said. “Well, we need to be up early tomorrow, so goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” he said, rolling over and closing his eyes.

Tomorrow was going to be an interesting day, one that he was certainly not looking forward to.