Elder Maxson is liar and a monster
Do not trust him
He will turn on you, and nobody will remember
-LW
A simple note, jabbed into her desk at the Castle with a switchblade knife with a green snake jabbed into the note and the desk. A Minutewoman hung her head, holding her hat in her hands, waiting for the General to pass some kind of judgement for her failure. The General had been at Boston Airport for the better part of a week, coordinating training and patrols with Paladin Brandis. The Minutewoman had been tasked as the General's office guard, her bodyguard, one of the last lines of security, and she had failed in her duty. It hadn't been glorious duty, but it was an honorable position.
"And when was this found?" the General asked, studying the knife.
"After I returned from my break, General."
"Who was watching my office?"
"It was just to get a quick bite, sir, I was only gone for a minute."
The General nodded, and looked to her, "I understand. You may go on leave at quarter-pay for four days, and your Sergeant will process your demerit. Go to him first and inform him of my orders, and remain there until told otherwise. Dismissed."
The Minutewoman nodded, and took her leave.
"Four days of leave and partial pay?" Preston asked.
"Not going to punish her for being hungry and bored while on one of the most boring jobs in the Minutemen," the General said, sitting at her desk, studying the note and knife again, "Do you recognize this snake symbol at all, Preston? Maybe some Raider gang?"
Preston shook his head, "Can't say I do. But whoever they are they went through a lot of trouble to get this note to you. Not easy sneaking in here."
The General bit her lip, "I'm not so sure. The Castle may be a military installation but we treat it like any other town, really. Plenty of traders and civilians looking for housing placement come in through here. It wouldn't be tough finding a crack through the patrols. Just patience and attentiveness."
"What do you suggest?"
"I suggest we get a powered door for my office with a key to get in and out from now on. Keep the generator in here, maybe in the basement so this doesn't happen again, and nobody cuts power to the whole Castle if they want to try. And double my office's guard so they can work in shifts and get some lunch! Having people standing here watching the hallway for hours at a time. No wonder we had a slip-up, I can't believe something like this hasn't happened sooner," she went on.
"Are you concerned about further infiltration?"
"Only if I let this slip. I'll look into this knife. Whoever left it wants to be identified without giving too much away, so I'll hear them out, at least."
"Like the Railroad?"
Nora nodded, "Like the Railroad. Do you know where MacCready is these days?"
"He was headed back up here from DC last we heard with his kid," Preston informed her, "He should be back soon, if he hasn't gotten himself killed."
"RJ's tough, and so is his son, they'll be here. Besides this 'Steel Road' has made it a lot easier to get back and forth. I want to be informed the moment MacCready arrives back in the Commonwealth."
"Should we have him brought here?"
"What? No! Just get him to a radio. We're not going to drag people around the Commonwealth at my whim, Preston. Jesus, what's gotten into you these days?"
Preston winced, and his face twisted into a grimace, "Sorry, it's just not what I expected. All of this. The alliance with the Brotherhood and the Railroad. Trade with other regions. And, well…You, General."
"What about me?"
"People are talking. Saying things, about you, and…We've done some extraordinary things, General. I've been there through all of it, but I don't know what to think these days. I'm not sure what we're doing anymore. What's the plan? Where are we going?" Preston asked.
"Certainly not into a world where we can seize a private citizen and his son away from their plans to settle down just so that I can talk to them!" she shouted. Her eyes darted to the door, where a startled Minuteman was gawking at them. She stood, lumbered over to the door, slammed it, and turned back to Preston, "That is not the world we are trying to build, Preston. I came from a world like that, where people could just get dragged out of their houses and beaten for being suspected Communists. Do you know what a Communist is? Err, was?"
Preston shook his head, "I've seen posters and read some books, they're some kind of monster from Asia? They like to bleed people?"
The General let out a snort, then a second, and burst into laughter. Preston blushed and wrung his hands, and said, "Well sorry I didn't grow up around roving bands of Communists!"
She shook her head, "That's…What the old Government would want you to think. No, Preston, Communism was a model for politics and economics. It meant sharing all the means of producing goods-labor, food, metal, and so on-among all people, proportionally to their needs."
Preston shrugged, "Is that it? Sounds pretty good to me."
"Except that it wasn't practiced that way. Communism was just an excuse evil people used to justify enslaving other people, and said that they were going against the welfare of the people. But really, they were just trying to make themselves more powerful."
"Yeah I've heard that line before."
"On our side, we had politicians and corporations saying the same thing-they provided the things people wanted, so saying bad things about them meant you hated America. It meant you were a Communist. Of course over there, I think, if you said bad things about the Communists, you hated China, and you were an American. Sound familiar?"
"If you don't live our way, you must be a Synth," Preston said, nodding.
"I have no illusions about my power, Preston. We've broken the Raiders and Super Mutants and the Institute, we've rebuilt the Minutemen, we've established trade and protection from Boston to Champlie, and Far Harbor to the Pitt and the Capital Wasteland. I'm one of the most powerful and influential people in the country. To be honest? This is what I wanted."
Preston raised an eyebrow and asked, "You wanted this?"
"Yeah, influence, power. The capacity to direct the future of my country in a way that was more compassionate and productive. Something where people could live their lives with less fear and more food in their stomachs. One day, people are going to write history books again. And you know what's going to be after the chapter about you and I and everyone else that's helped us over the years? A map. That map is going show the Steel Road, if we can keep it going. It's gonna have dots on it showing different settlements, and arrowing and lines, so people can understand how big of a deal the Commonwealth is."
"What's your point?"
"My point is I want that map to show trade routes and the unification of New England. Not dates of conquest. And I want the chapter before it to be about how I was a Founding Mother, not a conquering tyrant. I want the Minutemen to be established all along the Steel Road. I want us to be equal partners in its protection, I don't just want the occasional Brotherhood kill team to be the only protection people can expect."
"That's…A tall order, General."
"Yeah, I know. But I'm not going to order thousands of soldiers to march south just to say we're there. We need to train, and equip, and we need to convince more communities throughout the Steel Road to join us. You mentioned those rumors? I've heard them too. Some say that I'm some kind of prewar Special Forces badass, or that I'm a Synth, and that I could take on twenty raiders with a shotgun, a knife, and Dogmeat, and I'm all out of shells. But the truth of the matter is that, the entire time, I had help. I had you, I had Codsworth, I had that weird loner guy that just pops out of the woodwork and shoots my enemies for me. I've had settlers who stepped up and became leaders in their towns. Smart people who understand modern economics, such as they are. I might be powerful, but I'm not doing everything alone. And the Minutemen can't be expected to do this alone, either."
"Hence, the Brotherhood of Steel."
"They can't be expected to protect the Steel Road. They're barely interested in it. Only reason they are is because it allows them to move people and technology without moving the Prydwen back and forth between here and the Capital Wasteland. Which is why I'm pushing the Minutemen to train and use better gear, because they're going to need it. There are still any number of stupidly dangerous things out there. Even without the Raiders and Super Mutants, there's still Mole Rates and Deathclaws and Yao Guai. Heh. Oh my."
"What?"
"Sorry. Old world joke. Anyway. Point is, we need to be able to handle these threats, and we need to be able to teach others, as well. That's what I'm working up to. To do that, we're going to need the help of the Brotherhood of Steel. And people like Robert Joseph MacCready who, you might recall, is the best sniper in the Commonwealth."
"If you say so," Preston huffed, "But what about this note? Who do you think it's from? What if they're right, and we can't trust the Brotherhood?"
"It doesn't say we can't trust the Brotherhood. It says we can't trust Elder Maxson. Those are very different statements."
"How's that?"
"If I were to get eaten by Mirelurks tonight, would the Minutemen still be there tomorrow?"
Preston paused, and thought. Tension filled his face as he mulled over the possibilities and implications, working out the scenarios in his mind. Each of his expressions showed an anguish that revealed no favorable outcomes in any of the examples that occurred to him. Eventually, he came to a conclusion, and said, "Yeah. We'd have a hard go of it, but we'd manage to move on without you. I'm not sure how things would be with the Brotherhood, but the Minutemen would still be here. We'd still expand and continue to build."
"Now if Elder Maxson were to be eaten by Mirelurks tonight, would the Brotherhood of Steel still be there tomorrow?"
"If Elder Maxson were to be eaten by Mirelurks tonight, I'd say you were due for a promotion, sir," he said. The General cracked a smile at this, but it quickly turned into a shattering glare.
"Elder Maxson is a dedicated soldier and proven leader whose hypothetical passing would be one worthy only of mourning throughout the country," she chided, "But you see my point."
"Yes, Sentinel Killinger," Preston replied in a Brotherhood salute. The General broke the tension with a chuckle, and she folded up the note, and put it in her pocket.
"I don't want anyone to know about what happened here. I don't want the content of the note or any of the details getting. I want you to make sure that soldier keeps her mouth shut. I want her in the first Advanced Drills class run by Minutemen, she is not to talk to any members of the Brotherhood of Steel until I say it's OK. Get her mind off of what happened by training her and making her greatest concern the fact that she hasn't been keeping up with pressing her uniform to the satisfaction of her Drill Sergeant. And once she's been trained to the Advanced standard, bring her back to me. I'll…Figure out what to do to keep her mouth shut if we haven't resolved this by then."
"Yes, General."
"And, Preston?"
"Yes, General?"
"It caught on this time."
"Ma'am?"
She grinned, "We're gonna be parents. The new surrogate took. We're gonna have a little girl."