Those!

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Those! is a Fallout 3 quest. It is also a Xbox 360/PC achievement and PlayStation 3 Trophy

A small boy called Bryan Wilks will approach you as soon as you are in the vicinity of Grayditch - this includes Super-Duper Mart or Sewer Waystation, or as far as Wilhelm's Wharf.

He will ask you to help him find his father, Fred Wilks who seems to be trapped in Grayditch infested with Fire Ants.

Objectives and Walkthrough

During two first stages of the mission Bryan will be hiding in the Pulowski Preservation Shelter near the diner.

Find Bryan Wilks's Father

Bryan Wilks will approach you in the area outside Grayditch. He, his father, and the other dwellers were attacked by Fire Ants. The father's body can be later found in his house by the shack, killed by the Fire Ants. You can loot a Chinese Assault Rifle and some ammo off the shelf in the house and the Shack's Key from Bryan's father's body. In the shack you can find Doctor Lesko's equipment and terminal. Read the notes on the terminal to receive the Marigold Station location and the option to proceed there to locate the source of the fire ants. Also, with mildly challenging speech check you can convince him to give you the key to a dumpster behind the diner with some pretty valuable loot for a lower level.

Find the source of fire ants

Searching the Marigold Metro Station for the cause of the Fire Ant infestation, you instead find Doctor Lesko working in a makeshift laboratory. He explains the origin of the Fire Ants', particularly their ability to spit fire. You can choose to help him reverse the effect or deal with the Fire Ant Queen yourself.

When speaking with Doctor Lesko, if you ask for a "serious incentive", he will offer his old lab coat along with the ant perks. Lesko's Lab Coat provides +20 Radiation Resistance and +10 Science.

You will find the Fire Ant Queen in the Queen Ant's Hatchery, beyond Dr. Lesko's lab.

• Path 1: Kill only the Fire Ant Nest Protectors guarding the Fire Ant Queen and return to Dr. Lesko for a choice of either the Ant Might or the Ant Sight perk.

• Path 2: With a Speech check or high enough Science skill you can kill the Fire Ant Queen and convince Doctor Lesko it's the best for the humanity, and get one of the perks. You are awarded positive karma for killing the Fire Ant Queen.

(Optional)

• Hack the terminal in the hatchery to send an inhibitor pulse which will kill all Fire Ants found in the Grayditch area (excluding those in Marigold Station).
• Hack his terminal in the hatchery to destroy the Mutagen Sample (FEV). You are awarded positive karma. Having done this, to receive the perk you must pass a Speech check or sufficient Science (70) skill to convince Lesko that it was best for humanity.
• Kill Doctor Lesko and receive negative karma. Loot: Lesko's Inventory. Same happens if you lie about the Protectors being dead: he runs into the hatchery and you receive negative karma. The instant you enter the hatchery, he spontaneously drops dead and you receive the hacking objective.

Note that it is possible to get both of the rewards (lab coat and perk) and good karma (from killing the Fire Ant Queen or destroying the Mutagen Sample) without passing the Speech check. First, talk with Doctor Lesko for the "serious incentive". Then, go inside the Queen Ant's Hatchery, kill the 5 Fire Ant Nest Protectors but do not kill the Queen. Go back to Lesko's lab and claim the rewards. Then go back to the hatchery, kill the Queen or hack the terminal to destroy the Mutagen sample. You will gain good karma in either way while keeping all rewards from Lesko.

Find a place for Bryan Wilks to stay

First, talk to Bryan and tell him about his father's fate and the Fire Ants. He is located in the Pulowski Preservation Shelter to the right of the diner in Grayditch. You can then also decide to help him find a place to live. Bryan will tell you his cousin Vera Weatherly owns The Weatherly Hotel in Rivet City. You just need to ask her about Bryan Wilks and she'll agree to take him in. You will need to go back to Grayditch and tell Bryan that he can move in with his cousin.

It's also possible to convince the Mayor of Little Lamplight to let him stay there. Be forewarned that discussing this option with the Mayor will prevent the dialogue option for Bryan's relocation from appearing with Vera Weatherly, closing off that path even if Bryan has not been told of his potential new home.

Alternately you can go to Paradise Falls. Talk to Eulogy Jones, and tell him you have a child for sale. He will offer 100 caps initially, but you can receive 300 caps if you pass the Speech Check. He will give you a collar to put on the person. You then trick Bryan into putting on the collar, and explain that it will guide him home. The quest will be completed, experience points will be given, caps from Eulogy and negative Karma.

You can also convince Bryan to live in Grayditch by himself. Doing so will bring the quest to completion. At some point after you have finished with the Fire Ant Queen, but before you find a place for Bryan to live, Bryan may move back into his old house.

As long as you do not sell him to the slavers or tell him to fend for himself you get the 300+ experience points (you still get the XP for selling him on the 360 and the PS3).

Finding Bryan

Bryan usually finds you, most often on your first trip to Super Duper Mart. If he does not, or if he approaches you while you are in combat and gets scared off, here are other places you may find him:

• Standing on a sidewalk in Grayditch: to the west of the diner, up a hill, and across the bridge in front of the Talon Company Camp.

• The southern entrance to Scrapyard.

• Granny's Shack at Wilhelm's Wharf near the river near Grayditch.

• Talking to Doctor Lesko will also give you Bryan's location on your Pip-Boy.

• You may encounter a Wastelander telling you to "run for your life!" and that "they burned Grayditch to the ground!" The encounter does not give the quest, even upon entering Grayditch and the player must find Bryan Wilks or Doctor Lesko on his/her own to obtain the quest.

• You can also acquire the quest by looking in the Recently Built Shack (Lock varies depending on your stats) in Grayditch, then by hacking into the doctor's computer. (Xbox 360 version)

Notes

• If playing an evil character and you blow up Megaton before the Almost Perfect perk is acquired (thus either losing the Strength Bobblehead or not making your Strength 10), this quest is a good way to get Strength to 10.
• In Doctor Lesko's shack, look at the desk on the left. There is a recording that contains that terminal's password. Another password recording which grants access to Lesko's terminals in Marigold Station can be found on his corpse.

• Make sure you clear any nearby fire ants upon approaching Dr. Lesko's location, as the ants will trigger him to flee upon exiting dialogue with him. If this does happen, he will die, making the perks Ant Might, or Ant Sight impossible to receive through legitimate means.

• Positive Karma will be given for what you do first, destroy the mutagen sample or kill the Fire Ant Queen.

• Shooting ants in their antennae will cause them to frenzy, attacking friend and foe alike.

• If your Science skill is high enough Doctor Lesko will tell you that he is using the FEV to perform his experiments.

• When inside Doctor Lesko's lab, you can hack his terminal to unlock a "Hatchery Access Door". This seems useless if you didn't shoot Doctor Lesko on sight.

• William Brandice's body can be found north of Doctor Lesko's Marigold Lab, in the connecting tunnel between the two main tunnels. He is wearing a Wasteland Surgeon Outfit (Medicine +5) and carrying his Enclave issue sidearm mentioned in his computer. You also get the key to his footlocker in his Grayditch home.

• After the completion of this quest, Doctor Lesko (if he is still alive), can be found back in his shack in Grayditch. He will offer caps for any Fire Ant Nectars you provide him.

• Talking with Bryan Wilks with the Child at Heart Perk may grant you a key to a dumpster with some mediocre loot behind the Grayditch Diner. You can also obtain the key via a successful Speech Check. If you do not have the perk, or otherwise fail the Speech Check, the dumpster requires a Lockpick Skill of 100.

• It is also important to note that the Ant Queen is hostile causing followers to engage her, which will result in the failure of the bonus objective.

• If you complete this quest (destroy the ants and find Bryan Wilks a new home) you will be mentioned positively by Three Dog on Galaxy News Radio. However, if you fail to give Bryan Wilks a new home (because you murdered Vera) Three Dog will not be happy that you left the boy to fend for himself. Even worse still if you sell Bryan as a slave Three Dog will comment on it even more and will not be happy. (confirmed)

Bugs

• After completing the quest by sending Bryan to Vera, the screen text may say completed quest "Thos!" instead of 'Those!'. (within Xbox360 version)
• If you locate Bryan Wilks' father before you find Bryan Wilks and then tell him you'll look for his father instead of picking the option to give him the bad news you won't be able to 'find' his father.
• You should get the Ant Might / Ant Sight perk immediately when offered by Doctor Lesko. If you delay getting it until Doctor Lesko is back in his shack, you might not get the dialog option to get the Ant Might / Ant Sight perk.
• Dr. Lesko's dialog trigger radius extends through his office door. Thus, his whole dialog tree can happen before you even open his door. This seems to be due to him standing near his computer a lot, which is near the door.
• In several instances Bryan Wilks has appeared at the bridge to the Anchorage Memorial which has a long chain of mines on it, when he finally does track you down he will be missing an arm and will also have no dialogue whatsoever, all he does is follow you.
• If you shoot Doctor Lesko during a scripted animation (e.g. bending over a microscope) he goes completely limp. He then runs two rooms away and through a solid wall, disappearing.
• Bryan may not appear in the shelter and instead spawn in a inaccessible part of the map, making the quest unable to come to a conclusion. However, sometimes after talking to Vera, Bryan will be found in his home next to Lesko's shed in Grayditch, rather than in the shelter where you last left him, and the quest can be completed. This is not a glitch. After you talk to her, he can be found living in his home again while waiting for you to report on your search for a home.
• Occasionally if you frenzy one of the Fire Ant Nest Guardians and they kill one of the others, it will not count towards the quest, and when you return to Doctor Lesko the only option is to lie; resulting in lost karma and no perks. (I was able to kill 2 Guardians by making them Frenzy, and still completed the quest on PC)
• There are various bugs concerning the Ant Queen. Usually teleportation glitches in which the queen teleports to your location.
• If Lesko's Protectron is killed inside of the subway, when you visit his shack it will be there and fall over dead as you enter.
• If the Fire Ant Queen is killed for one reason or another, even though Lesko appears oblivious to her death in dialogue, out of dialogue he can be heard saying "Time to start back at square one". (On the 360 and PC, Lesko has spoken this without having the Queen killed. This is because he has to start his attempts at creating a mutagen all over since the previous one...er, wasn't perfect.)
• You can get the Protectron to fight the Ant Queen by getting her and it in the same room and frenzying the Queen.
• Sometimes Doctor Lesko would run back back to the chamber entrance if you follow him on the way to the Queen, then repeat his journey again back to the Queen (amusingly saying "back to square one").This may happen due to the player pulling out a weapon, causing him to flee.This can be prevented by holstering the weapon
• If the Queen starts to attack you and Lesko is with you, he would start running aimlessly behind the ant in a circle.
• The quest doesn't work if the player visits Marigold station and clears it of ants before starting. When prompted to return, the scientist will not be present and the queen ant unreachable. This may also be a result of approaching Grayditch from the wrong direction, skipping the initial trigger.
• After killing the guardian ants but not killing the queen ant in "Those!" quest, after talking to the Doctor, he walks to the Queen Ant and then disappears.

Behind the scenes - Them!

• This quest was inspired by the 1954 SciFi, ColdWar thriller, Them!. The story starts with two state troopers in the New Mexico desert (one of whom is soon replaced by an FBI agent) who happen upon a dishevelled young girl wandering the area alone, with stupor. A footprint found near the scene of her family's disappearance (and destroyed travel trailer) leads a father/daughter entomologist team to hypothesize that the atomic bombings and tests of 1945 have caused common ants to mutate into giant man-eating monsters.

Upon first encountering one of the giant ants, the elder scientist instructs the pistol-armed lawmen to "Get the antennae! Get the antennae!" After one antenna is hit, the myrmecologist continues, "Get the other antenna! Get the other antenna! He's helpless without them!" (contrasting with the frenzied status of antennae-crippled Fallout 3 ants). The trooper is then able to kill the ant with a Thompson submachinegun retrieved during the ant's confusion. Dr. Medford points out the stinger on the corpse, explaining that ants use their stinger, not their mandibles, to kill (although in reality, some species do not sting--and in Fallout 3, Dr. Lesko explains that his giant fire ants have traded their venom for pyrolysis).

The heroes of the film defeat most of the ants by filling the ant nests with poison gas, burning them to death with flame-throwers, and by following the entomologist's advice to "Shoot at their antennae!" However, two queens escape and fly to start new nests on a military ship (containing a research lab, as does Rivet City) at sea and in the drainage and utility tunnels of Los Angeles (much like the tunnels in which Dr. Lesko is conducting his work).

• In contrast to the quest, the ants in Them! aren't seen by the viewer until nearly one-third into the movie, which starts out as a mundane suspense-mystery story.

• The film's original 50's B-movie style poster featured the giant ants grasping people in their mandibles against the background of a city in ruins and consumed by flames. The tagline reads, "Kill one and two take its place!".

• Re-released by Warner Bros. the new poster is of two giant ants bearing down on a group of people along a road in the desert. A mushroom cloud blooms in the distance. The tagline reads, "A horde so terrifying no word could describe Them! The sci-fi classic of the Atomic Age".

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