We've been traveling at dawn and dust during midday we look for a shady area like a cave or abandoned building usually littered with drugged out or starved people or giant radiated animals or insects, dusk we start moving into west toward the sunset until we lose visibility and make camp for that night. We don't know if the men, women, and even children are bad people or not, but most of them are armed with loaded weapons and all of them have some kind supplies we need, I know they feel remorse but they were trained to shoot first when entering dark buildings or caves. I stayed outside and just listened to the sound of laser fire and told to shoot anyone that tries to come in in their back flank. I hear the term "raider" screamed out a lot in these caves and houses. I guess, in a lot of ways we are, but I know that raiders spare children and unarmed civilians and recruit them into their ranks or sell them into slavery. I know that because that's what they were trying to do a few days ago when they attacked our bunker and me and five unarmed Brotherhood of Steel Knights manage to escape and blow it all to hell.
Right now, we stack the bodies outside so they attract crows, other winged insects, and nearby mutated critters and that gives us more food. Depending on how hot it is the smell will still seep into the abandoned houses or caves where they died, and even as we carry the bodies the smell of shit stays in the building where our victims die. A lot of people in the Brotherhood of Steel have this power fantasy when hold on their rifles and talk about how they can move into an area and kill five or ten armed enemies in five to eight seconds, but what people don't understand is that one or two minutes later that room will start smelling like raw sewage center, and the heat does not help. It's always painful to see the children, but they always close their eyes when they died, looking somewhat peaceful, the adults will sometimes have a look on their eyes like they're trying to hold on to something there about to lose, some of them have a look to their face like they just got kicked in the gut or the nuts, and some of them do close their eyes. We carried them outside to be feasted on by the crows and wasteland critters. I carried the children because… they were lighter than the adults, some of them had guns, a lot some of them had grenades. You hear something heavy and metal fall on the ground while moving body you need to cover the grenade with him or her before it explodes, this has happened move then a few times. After you check all the pockets for supplies or weapons you place the victims' arms over their head and pull their shirt over their head if they are wearing one, if not leave them with their hands up until all the bodies have been searched once all the bodies have been searched that when we start moving them outside. I still remember when I was 12 years all having to do this kind of "clean-up" duty moving body parts from the ground to wagons because it was the humane thing to do. I threw up at the first signs of death and smells of decomposition, but after a while it was like picking up meat, before it was gross, and then I started seeing things on a logical since like how long a body might have been there or this or that person might have died.
This is not that though, the dead burnt with laser-fire and explosives some of which were family members fathers, mothers, elders, and children who's faces I still remember as I write these letters on the pages I realize that they were barely covered by leather clothing and bodies covered in strange makings. I have tried to look at this from a logically point of view, and yes, we need as many supplies as we can carry we need to eat and drink as much as we can if we are going to make it to Shady Sands, but I have no idea where we are or how far we need to walk.
Here's how this whole thing began, I came from Washington DC flying from base to base on Vertibirds, then I we walked a lot from bunker to bunker. Is hasn't been a straight shot from Washington DC to here I've lived in places and gone to school in curtain areas, but it has been hard to make friends over the years especially when kids my age find out who I am and what people think I might have done. I will admit I sometimes like the admiration from time to time especially when it came down to girls but when ask to prove what I've done I couldn't always pull through, it has made me a target for bullies, and almost completely unapproachable for normal kids. So, you could say since I was thirteen I've been kind of a quite kid. I don't want to confirm or deny anything because the truth is…. Well, I guess I'm writing for a reason I don't like being in the Brotherhood of Steel. I know I sound like a selfish rich kid when I say that, I know that a life in the wasteland could be so much worst but, I will start from the beginning because even I'm starting to think I may be a bit of a pretentious ass hat.
While I was there in Washington DC I was Sarah Lyon ward while my mother was away on missions, and I did a lot of studying about world history before the bombs dropped about all the great kings and queens of the past and learning about the great leaders that build their kingdoms and empires and the Art of War by Sun Tzu. My mother said my father died in honorable combat but it was too short because he wanted to be a warrior, so my mother tried very hard to make sure I was something of a diplomat, someone like Claudius 4th empire of Rome, someone that despite his sickly appearance and lack of experience, Claudius was an efficient administrator, an ambitious builder, and began a conquest of Britain. She said there are already enough people in Brotherhood of Steel that want to run everywhere gun blazing and a day after Elder Lyons funeral negotiations began about the future of the Brotherhood of Steel began and this was the first time in a long time I got to see my mother. She walked into our new fortifications at the Jefferson Memorial in full power armor picked me up and took offer her helmet relieving her short amber brown hair and piecing blue eyes, but it was to brief. She and so many would be elders walked in to debate about what would happen next, I spent the whole day listening to them bicker and argue about what they were going to do now that Elder Lyons was dead. Some people wanted to build a city, some people wanted to build a wall around all the purified water all the while desperate raiders and villagers came to drink nonradiated water. My mother wanted what all the people that took the Enclave wanted; a city that protected it citizens regardless of how useful or un-useful they were to the Brotherhood of Steel, but that could never happen. The raiders that attacked the only confirmed that the people of the wasteland were animals that needed to be put down and that mixing cultures would corrupt the Brotherhood of Steels core values. I wanted to walk in more than a few times, I pecked my head in a few times only to see my mother looking back at me as they argued. I remember trying to get Sarah to take the rank of Supreme Elder when her father started to fall ill, but she said, "There is no way that they will let a woman become the Supreme Elder."
As I sat there listening to tempers flare I started to believe she was right, my mother argued that she held the Maxson name and should take command, only to have it thrown back in her face that she was only married to my father for three years and she couldn't protect her husband. I had a meal with my mother for the first time in a long time and she asked if I could take up the throne of Supreme Elder at the age of eleven. I knew that there had been child Empires in China before and she said that she would be there to guide me along the way. It reminded me of the 5th Roman empire; Nero. Someone who took the throne at seventeen and sang as Rome was invaded as it burned, but that wasn't the disturbing part of Nero's story, it was that he killed his mother to keep his power. It might have made it easy for members of the senate to manipulate Nero from that point, also I wasn't completely sure that I did want to stay in the Brotherhood of Steel. I was a product of leadership education, not the drill and ceremony of listen, believe, and obey that so many soldiers were given and after talking to the Wanderer for so long about all the people he helped, I felt limited by the rules the Brotherhood of Steel had given me, she seemed happy to hear that but also disappointed. I suggested we go into exile like the Wanderer and Sarah… and I unfortunately relieved that Sarah didn't die in the reactor and my mother insisted that her voice was needed in the council, I refused and that made her angry. She smacked me with a belt like when I was five but I didn't tell her so she locked me in my room and told me I wasn't to leave until I was ready to tell her. I went to bed with tears in my eyes and I felt a pain in my head as I fell asleep, I didn't realize it at the time but I had died and my mother revived me. When I regained consciousness, I was outside and I saw my mother looking over me, she noticed the headache and put on her helmet and saw there were traces of chlorine gas in the air. A few members of the Brotherhood were around and some of higher ranked said that the water purifier must have leaked into our room, my mother didn't buy that, this was an assassination attempt. I was naive and didn't know anything about mechanics back then, maybe I wanted to put the whole thing behind me, and couldn't believe that members of the Brotherhood would try to kill each other, I think back on it now and I know that's what happen. I slept next to my mother that night with two guards at our door. The next morning my mother left in a jumpsuit and two people in power armor were escorting her, I guess she was trying to fit in with the rest of the Elders because she was in power armor the whole day the day before. She noticed I was shadowing her and she turned around bent down to my level and hugged me and said, "You look so much like your father Arthur, I need you to take good care of yourself from now on. I love you more than anything." I told her I loved her too I saw her nod at one of the men in power armor and I felt a shock sting me in the back of my neck and when I woke up I was on a vertibird heading to another base. I cried the whole trip to this new Brotherhood of Steel base, it's been years since that happen, I receive messages from terminals but I miss seeing her and hearing her voice, I hope someday I'll see her again.