This story is, in one sense, a squeal to "Broken Lookout," yet on another stands on its own. I'd personally recommend reading that story, along with my oneshots "The Right thing," "The Bunker," and "Some Kind of Family," But it isn't necessary. I hope you enjoy this epic tale of fear, heroism and revenge.
Dear Diary: Today I had the most fascinating encounter….
Slag clutched the incinerator in his hands, wishing desperately the heat from the weapon would expel the chill running up and down his back. Despite the nature of his flamethrower it did no such thing, probably because, despite the late fall season, it was actually still fairly warm for the month and the cool touch he felt was not at all related to the weather.
The raider stood at his post, gazing down at the shattered remains of the former Dunwich Borers, a mining shaft opened up by the pre-war company with the same name. At least, according to the old files and digging equipment the raiders had discovered when they'd moved into the area, or rather the first and now long gone, raider group had. Somehow, the granite crack deep into the earth, menacing as it was, wasn't what caused Slag the most concern. That was the actual entrance to the mine proper, an area now sealed off by rubble. Down far below in the cavernous space the few remaining raiders in Slag's band were digging away at the cave-in, working methodically with far more energy than Slag was used to; being one of the last surviving raider bands clinging to life in the United Commonwealth taking any job that paid, and doing it well, was essential for survival.
"I've got to wonder why the hell the Minutemen sealed this place," Razer mused, striding up to Slag, pipe rifle clutched in his hands. "It took a ton of explosives to bring that tunnel down and this was back when Garvey's boys were nothing but small fish in the pond." The raider visibly shivered, and Razer wasn't the kind of man who spooked easy.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Slag responded, aiming the flamer towards the pile of shattered concrete and steel burying the tunnel into the Borers proper.
"Right, you were Forged back then." Razer slung the rifle under his arm, fidgeting around in his pocket for the container of Jet that he'd stashed away at some point during the escape from Quincy. "You guys were holding out in that old steel mill, trying to burn those ghouls in the Slog before General Alexander and the Minutemen killed the lot of you." Retrieving the little container of plastic, Razer took a huff of the Chem, letting a sigh of contentment ripple outward as the drug took effect.
"The Forged were the deadliest band in the Commonwealth!" Slag rumbled shoving his body towards Razer with flamer in tow, "We were stronger than the Gunners! Stronger than the Mutants!"
"And I used to be a Rust Devil! So don't bullshit me about how badass your band of killers used to be, because the Minutemen stomped the shit out of you just like every single one of us! Look around, Slag!" He gestured outward to the rag-tag band of killers below doing their best to dig out the tunnel while their mysterious employer looked on, "We're doing odd jobs for creepy rich guys now, hiding on the edge of Minutemen territory because, if we piss 'em off, they come down like a hammer! If not them, the Brotherhood flies in on a Vertibird and we're just as dead!" He took another hit of Jet, letting the chem carry him away to a better place, "We just need to accept things."
"Whatever," Slag muttered shifting his stance to a more relaxed posture, aiming the gently smoking tip of his weapon towards the ground, "What were you saying about the Borers?"
"Right," Razer shook his head, clearing the cobwebs from his mind, "Dunwich didn't get sealed in during the war," he shuddered. "I knew a guy who used to be part of the raider band living out here. One day they grabbed some dumb bitch from one of the farms, I don't even remember which one. Huge mistake. The Minutemen fall on the place, shooting the shit out of everyone and grab the bitch. I don't know exactly what happened, seeing as no one came out alive, but next time I stopped by the Borers the place had been sealed up. Apparently Blackwood brought artillery fire down on the mine until it collapsed, and he didn't have a whole lot of firepower then."
"Why the hell'd he do something like that?" Slag asked, looking down the tunnel mouth rapidly opening before his eyes as the raiders dug away "What'd he find down there that he wanted to keep the rest of us from seeing?"
"No idea," Razer admitted, pitching the empty Jet container into the giant crater, "But I know the spook in the suit wants it bad enough to hire raiders, knowing what the punishment in the United Commonwealth is for collaborating with any." He glanced downward towards the figure watching over the process intently, hands folded, rumpled grey suit in fine condition, not withstanding the general wear and tear of constant use.
"He gives me the chills," Slag admitted shuddering again, "It's like he belongs here." The two raiders were about to carry on with patrol when the pack leader, a former Gunner named Shrapnel, waved for the duo of scouts to join their raider brethren in the basin before the now mostly open tunnel.
"Come on," Razer grumbled, "Lets make a few caps and get the hell out of here, I'm sure the Capital Wasteland is nice this time of year."
For his part Slag couldn't agree more.
"Alright boys, here's what's what," Shrapnel growled, chewing ferociously on the stump of a cigarette, his badly tattered slouch hat doing little to hide his rapidly thinning piss-yellow hair. With a face more scars and tattoos than natural skin, Shrapnel earned his place as boss of the rag-tag band by force of will and fear, yet even he seemed nervous around the Borers. Somehow, the air leaking upward from the mine shaft was ice cold.
Gesturing towards the suited man, the Gunner continued, "Our employer wants to go into the Borers and retrieve some lost property he stashed before the Minutemen collapsed these tunnels. According to him," Shrapnel gestured a thumb towards the silent man, "The place is overrun with feral ghouls, who got all riled up when the Minutemen brought the house down, so he's going to need an escort." Looking around his motley band of killers and mercs the ex-Gunner ordered sharply, "Razer, Slag, Greggs, you're all coming in with me and moneybags here to get his stuff back, the rest of you, hold onto this entrance. I doubt we're gong to see any trouble but I want to be able to get out of this shithole when we're done." Spitting the wadded up cigarette butt out of his mouth and drawing the Chinese assault rifle from his back, the leader of the raiders waved them towards the entrance.
Slag lit the end of his flamer, wishing desperately to the entire world that he'd been assigned to guard duty as the closer he got to the entrance the more ominous it became. It became painstakingly obvious the air around the tunnels was cooler than outside, almost unnaturally so, carrying along the stench of rotting flesh and irradiated meat. A few low growls could be heard echoing about the rocky chamber though given the old concrete and steel construction of the mining facility, the lumbering ferals could have been anywhere within the complex. Taking a step inward, Slag found his mouth entirely dry, swearing he could hear something faintly aside from his own frightened breathing and pounding heart. Beside him, Razer's face was lined with sweat, barrel of his pipe rifle wavering. Though Greggs wore a gasmask that left his expression unreadable there was no doubting the fear in the raider judging by his hunched posture and nervous glances towards the clip in his combat rifle, as if afraid he'd suddenly be without ammunition.
The suited man, despite lack of obvious weaponry, seemed completely unafraid. He stepped forward, expression entirely neutral, as if bored with the entire situation. He was a slight man, short and slender and, under normal circumstances, Slag would have already broken him in half. His hair was dark and closely cropped with a simple, yet elegantly maintained, brown beard lying perfectly in place. His eyes held a menacing quality Slag couldn't hope to explain yet somehow feared utterly. Even though it was suit against armor, flamethrower against fists, Slag would have avoided the man given the choice; he seemed somehow alien.
They walked downward into the Borers, glancing about nervously at every disruption. His nervousness was taking effect in the form of a few phantom sounds seemingly without any source, whispers, whistling and footsteps. The echoes of ghoulish growling continued however there seemed to be no sign of any ferals leaving Slag more frightened than ever. Sweat ran tracks down his grimy face and his hands twitched something awful; the suited man continued to be unimpressed.
Then something horrifying happened.
There was a brilliant flash and, for one second, the area around him was clean, neat, modern. There were people he didn't recognize, standing around in pre-war clothing, operating fully functional machinery and chatting. Then the vision faded away and only skeletons filled the chamber, the bulldozer they'd been using rusted away to nothing.
He felt profoundly disturbed. He didn't have a trace of chems in his body so there was no way he'd been tripping, yet no one else had reacted. Was he going mad? The stress of his new reality of scavenging and huddling away from Brotherhood and Minutemen troops driving him over the edge?
Swallowing a lump in his throat, the raider moved forward, putting one cloth-wrapped boot on the ground in front of the other with continually more and more robotic motion trying his best to ensure he kept advancing, the jingle of caps in his mind, the relative freedom of the Capital Wasteland just beyond his reach. He'd be safe there, he'd get this job done.
He'd actually almost convinced himself that he was really fine, that he'd not actually seen any vision when he experienced another flash. A vision of men standing around, drinking bottles of Nuka Cola and Sunset Sarsaparilla, enjoying a smoke and a laugh. The solid stone walls were clean, undamaged, an area of peace in a world ravaged by wars and rumors of wars. It was a world he shouldn't be seeing, and it frightened him.
This time, when the vision faded, he was absolutely not alone. "Did anyone else see that shit?" Greggs mentioned in a hushed whisper, his head practically flying off his shoulders as he twisted his neck about, trying ever so desperately to find again the vision he'd seen.
The suited man, as always, looked unnerved. "Really? You think you've seen something? Delusion, I assure you." Slag realized, to his bizarrely intense horror, that it was the first time he'd heard any words out of the man. His voice was sickly sweet, like sugar left out in the sun long enough to rot. It was cold, emotionless, yet also somehow predatory, leaving him with a merciless aura. Somehow, despite everything he'd seen and done in his brutal life, there was nothing that scared Slag more than the man in the suit.
"Alright boys," Shrapnel ordered, rubbing a hand around his forehead beneath the slouch cap and removing a notable amount of sweat as he did, "Keep moving down, there can't be that much of a ways left to go."
But there certainly was. The cavern seemed to be going deeper and deeper into the earth, the weight of the entire Commonwealth hanging over his head. Rotten guard railings and construction equipment were interspersed among corpses, both long dead skeletons and not so long dead raiders and ghouls, the remainders of the forces left behind after the Minutemen rampaged through the territory formerly belonging to the raider forces. Still the whisperings continued, the phantom footsteps sounding louder by the moment and the hunting screeches of feral ghouls continued echoing throughout the rough cut tunnels. Yet none of the ferals showed themselves, preferring to keep hidden from the small yet heavily armed band of cutthroat raiders who'd dared to venture deep within their domain.
They walked for what seemed like hours before the signs became clear to him. Somehow, someway, perhaps it was the nature of the walls growing rougher cut, perhaps it was the distinct lack of corpses, instinct suggested to Slag they were nearing their final destination. Mercifully, there'd been no more flashes and still no sign of feral ghouls. "Just attack us already, damnit," he growled under his breath, training the barrel of the incinerator towards the nearest patch of darkness, as if all the ghouls in the Commonwealth lurked inside. None did.
Their tunnel ended in a massive open area, obviously the forward base camp. A rusted digger occupied the center while rotting wooden crates and platforms that belonged to the long-dead company piled to the side with the skeletons of their workers. The shattered remains of raider tents and burned out fires suggested what the bodies confirmed. The gang that originally made their home in the Borers had made one last stand here, yet the surrounding bodies of ferals and the condition of their wounds suggested they hadn't been killed by the Minutemen attack force, but rather the ghouls who inhabited this unhallowed place.
"God what a mess," Shrapnel muttered, aiming his Chinese assault rifle around the area, scanning for any surviving ferals. Despite the mysterious whispers and footsteps that echoed all around them, nothing appeared. Greggs flipped on the flashlight duct-tapped to the side of his gasmask, the sickly beam of light cutting through the musty darkness. Slag, for his part, couldn't help but wonder about the last moments of those raiders who'd set up here.
"Gentlemen," the stranger almost hissed, keeping his mouth still as he spoke, "We've come so very close to our goal." He pointed a pale hand towards the farthest side of the cavern where a rusted bulldozer rested blocking a portion of the wall. "Beyond that piece of equipment is the opening. Inside you will find there is a small cave. My belongings are stored within." He was so certain, so confident, despite the clinging dampness and foul air.
Shrapnel jumped on the opportunity to get out of Dunwich. "Alright boys, you heard the man! Move!" The raiders dashed towards the bulldozer, weapons held high, eyes scanning for any possible hostiles. The tension was riding Slag's neck like a weight, the lack of action genuinely frightening him. The twisting maze of concrete and steel was pressing down, weighing on his head like a Behemoth, driving him mad with worry and fear. The soot and filth that months without a bath had covered his face with was now gone, washed away by rivers of sweat.
Still, the suited man remained unbothered, walking briskly but nonchalantly, his finely crafted shoes tapping against the granite beneath his feet, echoing around the chamber.
Slag finally rounded the bulldozer's carcass, his eyes falling upon an opening in the wall, just as the suited man had said. The tunnel beyond the hole appeared natural, lit faintly by glowing mushrooms and torches somehow still burning. A few feral ghouls, now quite dead, lay scattered about the soft earth that made up the tunnel's floor. It was like nothing he'd seen throughout the entirety of the Dunwich Borers and, for some reason that frightened him more than anything.
"Please, god, don't let me go in there," he murmured, keeping the incinerator aimed towards the entrance.
Shrapnel waved his three men into formation, "Greggs, Razer you stand guard out here. I can't help feeling like this is a trap, and I want to get the hell out of here when this is done. You see anything that isn't us? Shoot it." Both men nodded their agreement, aiming rifles back out towards the shadowy cavern they'd come through.
Slag felt his heart fall through his chest as Shrapnel turned towards him, slouch cap casting a shadow enough to hide his features, "Slag, with me. We'll grab whatever our employer stored and get out. Take point with the flamer and toast anything you don't like. Got it?"
Slag gulped. "Yeah, I got it." The suited man, for his part, remained silent, falling in behind Shrapnel. Double-checking the tip of his incinerator to ensure maximum functionality, Slag took a step down the darkened tunnel.
The flickering light of ancient torches and glowing mushrooms somehow made it eerier than simply blackness would be, casting sinister shadows over every point of open space. The tunnel felt damp, and quiet, and he could almost hear the sound of dripping water pasted the now much louder whispers and footsteps not his own. Still, despite everything, he was moving forward.
Then it happened again.
A brilliant flash of light and he saw another vision. While the previous ones were eerie due to a sense of normalcy that shouldn't have been possible, the vision he saw before him was horrific on its own accord. Men and women knelt around a sickly green pool, heads bowed, dressed in some dark robes. Slightly apart from the kneelers was a man dressed in far more elaborate robes, standing behind a pulpit with a twisted looking dagger in one hand and an evil-looking book in the other. Though the vision was silent it was clear that the standing man was speaking, rather loudly.
Then it ended.
"What the hell is this place?" He asked, loud enough that everyone could hear him.
"Just a little tucked-away corner," the suited man said cryptically, "Forgotten by most everyone who lives. But not by me." He clearly knew more about the place than he'd said, he clearly knew far more about everything. Slag felt smothered, but he didn't care about understanding, secretes or knowledge at that particular point, all he wanted to do was get out.
Just like the vision had shown him, the tunnel ended in a small round room, a few dead feral ghouls remained where they'd been felled but there was no sign of a pulpit or black-robbed congregants. The whisperings were overpoweringly loud here and the raider knew it couldn't have been his imagination, which begged the question, what were they? However, most of his attention was focused towards the pool of water in the center of the chamber. It almost glowed a sickly green, seeming to ripple despite the lack of current. The water was murky to the point it proved impossible to guess exactly how deep the pool ran.
The suited man was, once again, unbothered by the oddly frightening pool of glowing water. "Have you never seen an underground pond?" He asked Slag in that mysterious sickly-sweet half purr the raider already associated with his mysterious employer. At the sound of that voice Slag shuddered, his finger twitching around the flamer's trigger.
Shrapnel seemed just as worried, his piss-yellow hair plastered against his forehead with sweat. Evidently he'd seen something too in the small cavern and wasn't eager to go deeper. Keeping the Chinese assault rifle pointed forward he took a few steps towards the pond, against his better instincts glancing down. Slag had gotten a decent glance at the pool, the murky green water preventing any real investigation. Shrapnel shuddered and stepped away from the pool, glancing about in an attempt to locate the source of the persistent whispers that wouldn't leave.
"We'll be done soon, gentlemen, do not worry." Slag turned towards the suited man again and noticed his actions with surprise. The mysterious man had removed his suit jacket, folding it properly and resting it on the floor. He took off his belt and shoes and placed them besides the coat. He was halfway done unbuttoning his shirt before he stated, "My property is placed at the bottom of that small pool, I shall retrieve it and we'll be on our way." With the shirt likewise folded, the man took a small rebreather from his pant's pocket, fastening it across his face. When the pants were also folded it revealed he'd been wearing a pair of old swim trunks underneath, he'd indeed been ready to take a dip.
He gestured for the two raiders to watch the entrance and then dived into the pool. The splash of liquid-green sent a shiver along Slag's spine and he shuddered for reasons he couldn't explain. "Boss," he muttered to Shrapnel. When the ex-gunner looked to his associate the Forged murmured, "This smells shitty, let's get the hell outta here before he comes up."
"The hell?" Shrapnel growled, "I don't want to have gone into this place for nothing."
"I want to live to delve again!" Slag hissed, "We don't need the caps! Let's get the hell outta here, run to DC or the Midwest. I don't care, just away from here." He pointed towards the luminescent pool, "How'd this guy know about this palace? Who stores stuff in a glowing puddle? This guy's scary, you know it, I know it. Let's bounce!"
"Shut up and keep watch," Shrapnel ordered, "We'll be out of this concrete box in a moment and we'll get paid. It'll be fine, trust me."
Slag had no alternative, there was no way out, no way of escape, so he grit his teeth and waited. He didn't have to wait long.
A splashing sound behind him, extra loud due to the cavern's confines, erupted. Slag glanced over his shoulder and saw the damp yet still unafraid form of the suited man clamber out of the pool, something held in his hand. "We have what we came for," he said and for a moment Slag thought their employer was speaking to him. Yet all that came crashing down as the suited man continued speaking, ignoring him utterly. "Dispose of them," he announced to the air around them, "No one can know what we came to retrieve."
"What the fu…" Shrapnel roared, aiming his rifle towards the scrawny form that had clambered out of the pond. Yet the former gunner never managed to finish his curse as someone else appeared. Materializing, seemingly out of their air, was a tall, dark-skinned man wearing sunglasses and a long, black coat. In his hand was a 10 millimeter pistol, the barrel covered with a long silencer. His hands were completely, inhumanely steady and he fired without hesitation. A trio of rounds, near silent, slammed into Shrapnel's chest and he fell backward into the pool with a tremendous splash, the murky water sucking away his corpse and leaving the floating, battered slouch cap the only testament to what had just occurred.
Slag finally remembered his training, moving the incinerator towards this new threat but before he could roast the dark man alive something bit into his back, something jagged and icy cold. His hands froze up and body went numb as he fell to his knees weapon falling away. As his eyes closed he faintly heard the suited man say coldly, "No witnesses."
He opened his eyes and gazed into horror. It was a writhing, seething mass of tendrils, eyes and mouths without form or substance, blood red and burnt yellow, screaming silently at him from mere inches away. Slag screamed back at it until his voice was hoarse, thrashing against the bonds that held his arms against the frigid chill of the slat wall.
It took a few moments before it occurred to him that the red and yellow abomination hadn't moved, and wasn't making any noise. It was nothing more than a painting, a twisted creation of some deranged mind and yet so lifelike that it fooled the veteran raider. He was in a room, a bedroom, with the painting hung inches from his face on the opposing wall. Everything was unnecessarily tidy, yet an aura of menace hung low on every tea cup and throw pillow.
A cold sweat broke across Slag's face as he slowly began to realize where he was. He'd heard the ghost stories, the whispered legends, the silent exchanges… People died all the time in the Commonwealth…
His back was burning, enflamed with agony yet still strangely numb in places. He continued to thrash, pushing his arms against the bonds, but it was to no avail, he was far too weak and the chains held strong.
"Good, you're awake. The dagger's poison took long enough to wear off." A pause, Do you like that painting?" The sickly sweet voice announced, entering the room from a position he couldn't see. "It's one of my masterpieces, from the golden days of my muse. It took two cans of blood to get the color right…" Just as Slag suspected, the suited man walked into his field of vision, something jagged and crooked hanging from his belt and a large dull orange gas can in his hands. Judging from the smell it was full of something.
"You…you…You're Pickman!" The words stumbled out of his mouth like a horrified stream.
"I know." He smiled, a terrifying expression in its own right, somehow colder than the walls, than the tunnels beneath Dunwich. "As delightful as it was parading before you insects unknown, keeping myself from gutting the lot of you was difficult."
"The bogyman was right there…and I didn't recognize you?" Slag could hardly believe it, shaking his head defeated, "You're a monster…"
"Not as much as you, dear raider," he announced mater-of-fact, unstopping the gas can. "Slaughtering your ilk has been my glory, my passion, the fuel of my artistic fire." He pressed his fingers against his mouth, savoring his work with an unholy glee. Upending the can and pouring, what Slag guessed was a dark oil, across the floor Pickman continued speaking, "My work served a higher purpose than mere art, you know, even Pickman has a master, master of my own craft that I may be." He paused, moving closer to Slag, continuing to spread the contents of his can about. It was certainly lamp oil judging from the smell and Slag began to sweat nervously.
"What's that purpose?"
"An artist!" Pickman exclaimed, "A critic perhaps?" He emptied the container around Slag's feet before tossing the now-empty can onto the bed. "I admire your curiosity, raider. Even in the face of your worst nightmare you probe, you question. I like that, stern stuff." He reached into his pocket, retrieving a packet of cigarettes, "Do you smoke?" It was so casual, so out of the blue, that Slag was taken aback.
"No."
"Good." The killer turned the packet around in his hands, examining it from every angle, "Horrid stuff, burns out the lungs." Pickman looked Slag in the eye and spoke the most horrific words the Forged had ever heard, "You're made of sterner stuff than your fellows. I wish I had time to take you under my knife…really get to meet the true you…Like I did so many of your vile ilk." Still holding the packet of cigarettes in one hand, Pickman retrieved a small container of lighter fluid, upending it onto the package, soaking it. Dropping that empty metal shell, the killer replaced it with a simple lighter.
"What the hell are you doing?" Slag half asked half shrieked, trying to claw his way into the wall, away from Pickman, anywhere but near the psychotic monster standing before him.
"As much as I…enjoy…" Pickman paused, as if ashamed of his word choice, "No. Let's be honest in the face of mortality, As much as I delight in dismembering your fellow raiders and hanging their limbs about my gallery I will be forced to work with a great deal of them in the future. I need raiders for my plan to work; therefore, I can not be killing them, as is my preference. Therefore," he held up his free hand, "My last masterpiece must be memorable." He gestured towards the chained-up Slag with an artist's flourish, "I call it, From the Ashes!"
With robotic precision he flicked the lighter on, setting the carton of cigarettes alight. Letting both lighter and packet fall to the floor, Pickman turned and left.
The room burst into flames around him, the heat rising beyond anything he'd ever felt in the massive steel mill. As the fire licked at his skin and Slag boiled alive in the burning room he shrieked and screamed for someone, anyone, to come save him.
Yet no one heard him and no one came.
Pickman watched the gallery burn to the ground, flames licking the night sky gloriously. X6-88, for his part, seemed unmoved, the Courser making no indication that he particularly cared one way or another, the flames reflecting brilliantly in the dark lenses of his glasses.
"Was it truly necessary to burn the gallery down?" The Courser asked with the same robotic neutrality that many synths, even Gen 3's couldn't quite shake. "It must have held sentiment for you."
"Much good was done within those walls, true," Pickman said with something approaching sorrow, watching the roof of the place cave in on itself, "Yet the destruction of any trace of me is absolutely necessary. The General can not know of my involvement, not until it is far too late."
"I understand tactical sacrifice," X6 stated bluntly, saying no more on the matter.
"We will get our revenge on the man responsible our sufferings, X6, I assure you," Pickman told the Courser reassuringly, turning to face his inhuman comrade. "Together, we will bring what he has built crashing down upon his head. I believe that is your goal."
"Not only mine," the synth admitted, "There are others who want the destroyer ruined and suffering."
"And they shall have it." Pickman patted the sacred dagger at his waist, retrieved from the sunken shrine beneath Dunwich Borers. Phase one was already flawless, the weapon exactly where Obadiah stated it would be. "Let's go out and gather our respective followers. If our plans are to succeed our timing must be precise."
"It will be." X6-88 was utterly filled with confidence, "The talks will be disrupted, the players eliminated and our vengeance completed."
"Then let's be off my friend," the killer stated with a smile, "We have work to do if we are to initiate the second step…"
Alexander Blackwood's journal
"War, war never changes." I can still remember grandpa telling me that, the stink of tobacco and gunpowder on his old fatigues as he showed me the pictures, those images of his grandfather fighting The Great War, against the Nazi's, the war to end all wars.
Heh, we screwed that up royally.
Some days all I can see when I look out the window is that old world, that place I fought so hard to protect and other days I see it as it is now, the new world, the place I'm building up for Shaun, and those after him.
I hear the thunder of Chinese guns in my ear, yet see the forms of Super Mutants. I smell Nora's perfume but see Cait. I'm a man in two worlds, a man who's grasping the past with both hands even as he struggles to let it go.
I'm speaking with Maxson tomorrow, going over the groundwork and last minute details for this peace talk. Maybe if I can get the Capital Wasteland communities to align with the United Commonwealth we can really start rebuilding that country I sometimes see in the mornings.
I can't wait to tell my grandkids about how mankind came back from nuclear war, it's going to blow their minds.
I'll write again tomorrow.
AN: And we're off to the races!