Dogmeat led them out of the city, where they had to stop a few times because the trail grew cold; Briar Rose and Nick would search until they found something with Kellogg's scent—either a Gwinnett Stout Beer or a used San Francisco Sunlights. Once he got the smell again, he would take off, and they were behind him.

On their trek to find Kellogg, Briar Rose was introduced to two new creatures: a monstrous hairless bear—called a Yao Guai—and a flying group of insects; Nick warned her to watch out for their stingers. The bugs were called Stingwings. They also disturbed a few more of the zombie-things; Nick said they were Feral Ghouls.

A flickering light ahead caught her attention and outlined a slumped human form; Dogmeat headed straight for it. As they drew nearer, Briar Rose found it to be a decapitated robot with one eye and short-circuiting.

Nick put a hand out to stop Briar Rose from going to it. "Careful; that's an Assaultron. Lethal."

Dogmeat walked up to it, sniffed it and whined; he looked back at her like wanting her to come over. She did, with Nick right beside her, looking on edge like he was prepared to throw her out of harm's way.

"Alert: critical... ention, assailant... weapons imme..." Its voice was strictly monotone and robotic; no hint of pain.

"What happened?" Nick asked.

"Operator deceased... Threat level: Omega. He killed us... Fort Hagen."

It sounded like Kellogg had overpowered the Assaultron. And Fort Hagen, she knew that place: a military base.

They left the dying robot and continued down the road; Briar Rose just figured they could've followed the road to Fort Hagen if they didn't have Dogmeat guiding them. Instead, he followed Kellogg's exact path by taking them off the road, into the woods, and through a broken chain fence warning against trespassing. They entered the small military town, and Dogmeat took them to the front doors of the large and concrete military base. The entrance was all boarded up and barricaded; Dogmeat whined as he scratched at the doors.

"He's in there? You sure of it?" she asked; he answered by pawing at the barricade more ferociously.

"There's got to be another entrance," Nick said.

They went searching around the squat structure to find scaffolding leading up to the roof. On the way up, a mechanical buzz beeped in alarm and once again, Nick threw an arm out to stop her.

"That's a machine gun turret; if one's up here, it's guarding something."

They ascended more cautiously to find the machine gun turret rotating in jerky movements—it believed the danger was gone, so it had resumed its programmed watch. Briar Rose shot it, and it exploded. Nick shot another one before they found a metal hatch opening to a ladder.

Nick held Dogmeat under an arm as they climbed down. Reaching the floor, she saw a silver form of a man with an odd gun walking around in alert.

"Intruders detected. Must protect Kellogg." Other robotic voices repeated its announcement.

Nick got closer to Briar Rose to whisper. "Gen 1 Synths; dumb as rocks in their head, but dangerous."

No matter what they were, they served Kellogg and needed to die. There were quite a few synths to kill and, as Nick said, once she ducked out of view, the robots became confused and thought she had disappeared. The guns they shot at them with resembled the laser musket but with a blue beam.

As they delved deeper into the trashed military base, Nick hacked a terminal to make a Protectron—a large robot with different personalities to choose from—fight by their side. With its help, the main two floors were quickly cleared of synths. They found a still-working elevator to take them down underground.

The doors opened, and they cautiously entered the room filled with machines, alert for more synths.

"Well, if it isn't my friend, the frozen TV dinner. Last time I saw you, you were cozying up to the frozen peas and carrots."

The familiar voice broadcasted over the speakers was rough and mocking. Briar Rose quickly looked around and spotted a live security camera looking down on them; she shot it. It didn't help much, though; Kellogg still talked to her even as she shot down each security camera she found.

"I'm surprised you've made it this far; I figured you wouldn't have survived out in the wasteland, if you even got out of the Vault. I guess nothing will stop a mother from getting her son back, huh?"

Every word Kellogg said just made her angrier.

"Look, I'm sorry about your husband—I honestly didn't want to shoot him. If he had just given me the kid, he wouldn't have had to die. But your son: he's out of your reach and this is bigger than you or me. Just stop now, turn around, and go; not many get the option to live."

His cajoling wasn't going to work—she was going to kill Kellogg and find Shaun. She never hesitated as she went further down, killing synths in her way. They came into a nicely furnished room with a sealed door at the end.

"I know you're angry; I understand. How about we talk? I've ordered the synths with me to stand down; I promise."

The sealed door unlocked and swung open, showing a dark room full of computers.

"Careful; it's probably a trap," Nick warned.

"I'm sure it is," she said; she kept her 10 mm in her hand as she walked into the room.

When she got halfway in, a popping sounded and electricity buzzed as the lights overhead turned on. Not a few feet in front of her stood Kellogg and two synths on either side of him; three more synths were circled behind them. He looked just as he did when she last saw him.

"There she is: the most resilient woman in the Commonwealth," he mockingly greeted. "You don't look bad for being over two centuries old."

"Where is my son?" she demanded.

He gestured around him. "Not here, as you can see. He's in the Institute now."

Hearing that the Institute was involved didn't faze her. "How do I get in?"

"It's not that easy as walking in. Like I said, this is way over your head. You should just forget about it and go live your life."

"And like you've already guessed, I'm not going to stop." She lifted her gun to aim. "Now, how do I get in?"

The synths reacted to her aggressive movement by raising their laser rifles; Kellogg started to chuckle. "I knew you weren't going to listen to reason. Are you sure you want to do this?"

"I promised Nate, and I hope that when we both die, we go to Hell so I can kill you all over again, you son of a bitch."

Briar Rose fired; she had her sights perfectly on his chest but he disappeared in a flash and she missed. The synths returned fire, but she had dropped to a roll to avoid their fire; she jumped up behind a computer and returned fire while keeping an eye out for Kellogg. A blur caught her eye; she watched it stop, then quickly ducked behind her cover as Kellogg fired—the revolver's bullet boomed as it dug deep into the metal.

She now knew what to look for; Briar Rose shot at the synths as she ran from cover to cover and shot at every disturbance in her sight. Three synths had gone down, but two remained. She caught sight of the blur again and shot at it, and received a yell from Kellogg, confirming a hit. She felt triumph only a second before a searing burn ripped through the outside of her right arm—a synth had been able to shoot her.

She fell back with a gasp; Nick came over to her with cover fire. "You alright?"

She nodded. "Aim for the blur; that's Kellogg."

With Dogmeat tearing apart the last synth, they could now turn their full attention on finding the invisible man. Briar Rose held the gun now in her left hand since she held the right against her chest, trying to relieve the pain in her arm. She and Nick caught sight of the blur before having to duck back down since Kellogg opened fire.

Dogmeat suddenly ran past her and Nick; they heard an angry snarl before there was an agonizing yell and a curse from Kellogg. They popped up to see Dogmeat levitating in the air and blood gushing out where his teeth were. Briar Rose got her sights on the blur when Dogmeat whimpered in pain as he was kicked away, followed by a gunshot; Dogmeat cried out even louder.

Rage flooded her, and she ran at the blur. "Not my dog too!" She lowered her shoulder to hit the blur; when it distorted the floor, Briar Rose emptied her cartridge into it. In the blink of an eye, Kellogg was back, but unrecognizable: there was so much blood, and he didn't have a face anymore.

The gun clicked in her hand as Briar Rose continuously pulled the trigger. A robotic hand grabbed her gun and gently pushed her hand down to lower it. She looked at Nick; even as a discarded synth, his face held so much expression. She nodded in thanks, then turned to go check on Dogmeat.

He whimpered and struggled to stand, even though he held up his bloody left leg so he wouldn't put weight on it. She could see a dark hole in his upper leg where Kellogg had shot him.

She kneeled down beside him and gently tugged the hurt leg closer so she could make sure it wasn't broken. Nick appeared beside her to give her some cloth he had found for her to wrap around the injury.

"How's the arm?" he asked.

After tying off Dogmeat's leg, she looked at her arm: her Vault suit was torn and her arm was black and red from where the laser had burned into her arm, but no blood.

"It'll be fine; it's just a burn." She looked at him, noticing the scorch marks on his coat. "Are you hurt?"

"Oh, no; laser burns are annoying, but that's all they are." Nick straightened and looked around. "There's got to be something here that'll help us."

She used the spare cloth to wrap around her own wound, then went to go help search.

"Ah, here we go," Nick began; she heard the typing of keys and she looked to find him bent over and working at a terminal. "Dammit, I can't hack this one—it needs a password. Check Kellogg for one, or, well... what's left of him."

She searched the remains in hopes of finding a piece of paper with his password; she found it. The shine of something metallic in Kellogg's head caught her eye; curious, she tugged on it to find it a strange chip with foreign circuitry attached to his brain. She slid it into a pocket and told Nick she found the password; turning, she met Dogmeat's curious expression.

"Don't judge me," she whispered at him as she went to go join Nick.

He let her type in the password and read Kellogg's logs; after reading through all of them, she pushed away from the terminal in frustration—she hoped Kellogg had been lying about Shaun being in the Institute, or had kept instructions on how to get in on the terminal. He had done neither.

"Well, he wasn't lying," Nick stated bluntly after reading them himself.

She felt hopeless. "What do we do now?"

"I don't know how to get into the Institute. When I was there, I only remember a single, white room, then I was outside in the Commonwealth, in a dumpster."

"So, nobody knows anything about the Institute?"

"The only one I know who might is Piper Wright in Diamond City—she's done a lot of research on them for the paper. She might know something that could help us."

Kellogg's terminal also unlocked the doors so they could get out. Nick carried Dogmeat in his arms since he couldn't walk. Briar Rose felt like she had gotten justice for Nate, but her hopes for finding Shaun deflated with Kellogg dead—he was probably the only one who could've told her how to reach him.

She prayed Piper could put them on the right path again.