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Reverend Obadiah, pt. 3
Where Zion was a wild paradise, a testament to the enduring power of nature and the beauty of God's workmanship, the Nursery was a testament to Mankind's ingenuity, the fulfilment of the command to be stewards of the Earth and to subdue it. The gurgling of clean water and the chirping of unmutated birds was accompanied by the soft thumps of the machinery that took in the water at the head of the valley, purified it, and sent it back into the riverbed to water the rest of the valley and then the lands beyond. Foxes and rabbits chased among the tall grass, past dozens of Mr. Handies that tended the flowerbeds as well as the biome-specific greenhouses on one side of the canyon.

The Nursery wasn't the home of the Twin Mothers - that honor was given to a Pueblo-like community a few canyons over - but it was the home of the Twin Mothers' goddess, Diana - something Obadiah quickly discovered was a robobrain, a dying one at that. The Twin Mothers hoped he could do something for her; unfortunately, regenerating her brain, which was slowly degrading, was something beyond his medical ability, or indeed beyond anyone's medical ability. The best he could do was scrounge up some Mentats to temporarily increase her brain function to optimal levels. While she was riding the high, she told Obadiah her story.

The Nursery had been a project of the EPA, a complement to Project: Safehouse - where the latter would safeguard humanity, the Nursery would safeguard nature, at least that of continental North America. The actual project had been constructed by Greenway Hydroponics, and its leader Derek Greenway. Complementing this was a vault that he'd proposed, one populated by old people and infants, one where the children would not be instructed in the use of technology as Derek believed that all technology would be rendered inert, and that dependence on them was a sure way to death. The inhabitants of Vault 29 would be sent out into the world with only the most rudimentary of knowledge, left to rediscover the advances of the old world at their own pace.

Diana, having been installed in the Nursery, had disagreed with the program from the start. When the bombs fell, she appropriated a satellite dish, aimed it at the vault, and managed to remotely hack the mainframe inside. With her control, she redirected the project, teaching the kids respect for nature, advanced agricultural techniques, etc. While the core of the experiment stayed the same - they weren't taught to use or rely on advanced technology - they were steered towards naturalism and a worship of mother nature, rather than left to form their own societies once they left. When Diana finally opened the vault, she introduced herself as the goddess that they had been waiting for, and had been around to guide them ever since.

Of course, now she was dying, and she didn't know how to breach it to them. She'd been hoping that the New Canaanite, with his medical knowledge, might be able to prolong her life, but not even the brightest of the pre-war medical establishment could reverse brain degeneration. Obadiah urged her to tell her children the truth, but Diana could not bring herself too. She died, leaving the problem in Obadiah's lap, whereupon he too, found he could not bring himself to tell the Twin Mothers that their goddess had been merely a computer. Instead he tried to make her an angel, who had fulfilled her duty and returned to the side of God in heaven - a convenient and heart-soothing lie.

Obadiah and Moska-Be stayed among the Twin Mothers for 3 years, helping them adjust to the loss of their goddess, and ministering to their needs both physical and spiritual. Obadiah also watched over the Nursery, using what little mechanical knowledge he had to try and keep the facility going on its mainframe alone. Eventually, though, the problems began to stack up, and he himself developed a medical problem which would require returning to New Canaan for treatment. He was overdue to report back to the Bishop anyway, so he and Moska-Be left the Twin Mothers and headed west to New Canaan, to get the medical help he needed and to debrief his newfound geographical and cultural knowledge.

It was here that he first heard of the rising strength of the Legion...