CHAPTER 11
Costs
Major Cantrell escorted her from the car and into the fort, hand cupping her elbow, body pressed against her side. Some might have perceived the gesture as gentlemanly or old-fashioned, but Grey knew it was anything but. His pace had been unusually slow, his lips all but tracing the bend of her ear. She willed herself not to recoil.
"You're familiar with the restructuring of the fort's command earlier this year I trust."
She dared not answer. The question, like most of Cantrell's drivel, was rhetorical. She was aware of the restructuring though, but only because of the intel that had slid past her desk several weeks earlier. Intel that had apparently also fallen into hands less gracious than hers.
Cantrell continued, voice at a volume only she could hear. "General Brock's methods may leave... something to be desired. Let us say subtlety is not his strong suite." He told her then of the dossier that had been passed to JAG Corps, presumably through an anonymous CID source. How CID had unearthed the intel was inconsequential to Cantrell and his superiors. What mattered was that Fort Strong had a leak, and that JAG Corps was forced to involve itself. What the Major failed to identify, however, was the way in which their division was to become involved. That, Grey realized, was her test.
Her heart hammered in her chest.
"Are we expected?" she asked as the Major escorted her into the administrative office.
The receptionist's gawking face was answer enough. He fumbled into position, taking too long to salute. Even Grey found herself growing irritated.
"Major Cantrell and Lieutenant Grey to see General Brock."
The receptionist stared daftly, face flushing red. "I, uh, I don't have you in the General's diary, sir."
"I'm sure the General can spare a moment for an old war buddy and his colleague."
If the receptionist had half a brain, Cantrell's tone alone would have been sufficient to get them through the door. Both Cantrell and Grey knew that throwing the word "JAG" around would only arouse suspicion. Or panic.
The receptionist's cheeks continued to burn. "I, um, well. I'll check with..." The man scrambled up from behind his desk and knocked on the General's door, edging it open as he spoke. The General barked in response and the receptionist flinched.
"My apologies, sir, but there's a Major Ca—"
"I don't give a flying fuck if it's the goddamn President outside my door, Murphy, I am not to be interrupted by trivial—"
Cantrell guided Grey to the door and pushed it open over the receptionist's head, cutting the General off.
From her position, Grey watched the General's expression switch from one of boisterous rage to contained disgust.
"Brock," Cantrell greeted coldly.
The General cracked his jaw, face strained. "What do you want, Cantrell?"
The Major gave a curt smile. "Nice to see you, too, old friend."
Grey worked to suppress any overt signs of curiosity. She'd thought the "war buddy" line was a ruse, and it likely had been, but Cantrell and Brock clearly knew one another. Either that meant Brock had been investigated before, or the upper echelon's dealings extended farther than she'd suspected. Both prospects were problematic.
"Fifteen minutes and we'll be out of your hair."
The General scoffed. "Right."
He waved Grey and the Major in and threatened Murphy with latrine duty should he repeat his mistake ever again.
Grey had barely sat before Brock's seedy eyes latched onto her, giving her the once over. He sneered with disapproval. "And who the fuck are you?"
Grey felt Cantrell side-eye her. From the periphery, she could see the subtle softening of his posture in his chair, the gentle pressing of his fingertips as he relaxed. His way of telling her that this conversational minefield was for her to walk alone. She suspected he or someone above him had decided that it was time for her to demonstrate her worth. The Walsh case? That was an organizational necessity, her involvement apparently of Sergeant Anders' making. But this? This was a true test. The kind that ended in her continued service or an empty seat in the town car on the way back to Boston.
She'd known the stakes from the moment they'd pulled up in front of the fort. Best case scenario, Cantrell was going through the motions with her. Worst case scenario, she'd been flagged. Had someone looked too closely at her background checks? Had she drawn the ire of someone far above her reach? Had her organization been compromised? If the military had got even a hint of the fact that she was—
Grey cut her thoughts short. She couldn't venture down that rabbit hole. Not then and not there.
She ignored the sweat slithering down her back, ignored the anxiety swirling in her gut.
Focus.
She had to piece together what Cantrell wished of her, and fast. There were two primary options, but the two were so far removed from one another that she wouldn't be able to facilitate a tactful switch if she sensed things weren't going right. No, she had to make a snap judgement, and she had to do it before the first words fell from her mouth.
The General's expression deepened with the growing silence. "I said, who—"
"You've lost the knack for listening, General."
He balked, turning to the Major. "Cantrell, what is the meaning—"
"We're talking, General," Grey said calmly, cutting him off. "You and me. A nice little chat, and nothing more."
She softened her gaze and flashed him a smile, her guise just enticing enough to stun him into silence.
"Good," she cooed. "As I was saying, listening. It's a strange skill, isn't it? So key at the beginning of your enlistment. Hanging onto your CO's every word, keeping your ear trained for the subtlest of sounds. It keeps officers in check and then it keeps them alive, hopefully long enough to progress up the chain of command. Long enough to be useful. But after a while, some stop listening because they feel it is their words that must be listened to. And, while there may be some truth to that, there is some merit in continuing to keep one's ear to the ground, so to speak."
"Look, missy, if you're here to give me some grade-school lecture on—"
"Why do you think we're here today, General?"
He shot her a glare, but his silence was telling. His weakness was that few challenged him anymore, which left his conversational skills rusty. He couldn't tolerate her interrupting him, her challenging him. As clever as the man was—and he was clever; she'd seen the intel, after all—he struggled to cope with the power imbalance she was creating. That had been her intention though, and the only way in which the scenario could be effectively played.
"What," she posed, tone whimsical, "could have brought two JAG officers to your door?"
His posture shifted ever so slightly, but Grey knew it masked a whirlwind of dread. For every allegation in the CID's report, she knew there were likely dozens more infractions. Dozens more examples of code violations, criminal dealings, officer misconduct, and unethical research practices. But it was all conjecture, and Brock would know that if he saw what had been leaked. Except he didn't know. He could only speculate what trail had led them to him and how detailed it possibly was. Grey was relying on that. For the guilty but untried, endless possibilities tended to evoke greater panic than actual facts.
Grey leaned back in her chair, slowly uncrossing and recrossing her legs, letting the General's attention have a brief waver. She entwined her fingers through the platinum chain she wore around her neck, allowing a manicured nail to "accidentally" undo the uppermost button of her blouse. She shifted her weight, leaning against the armrest in a way which she knew would press her cleavage together. Anxiety and arousal were a potent combination, one that typically worked in her favour. She could see it in the General's face, the clamminess of his flesh, the strain in his jowls, the lingering of his eyes. He was where she needed him.
"Friendships are rare in this business, General. Even rarer are those relationships born of respect and loyalty—loyalty to the cause, to the good fight, to freedom. American freedom." She met his gaze. "If we're to win this war, we need to maintain our relationships with such loyal patriots. True patriots, like yourself.
"Cantrell and I thought we'd visit a good friend today, see how he was doing, catch up on old war stories. And, of course, ask you about that boat you've been working on." Grey gave a coy smile. "Marvellous piece of craftsmanship on your part. Something you've worked tirelessly on for—what—six months now? Especially marvellous when one recognizes that you inherited the frame from someone else, someone... less skilled. Except even things of handcrafted beauty can have hidden flaws. And sometimes, sometimes beneath that flawless coat of paint is a hole. A leak, if you will. One with the potential to eventually sink all of your hard work." She dropped her chain. "What a shame that'd be."
She could see his brain work through her metaphor, that anxiety and arousal turning to something angry. Angered, but back in control.
"As your friends, we thought we'd advise you to see to that leak. Scrape back the paint, if you will. I'm sure—hypothetically—that the CID has better things to do than investigate a known drowning. Best avoid that eventuality all together really."
The General sat back in his chair. "Much appreciated, Lieutenant...?"
"Grey," she said with a smile.
He stood and extended his hand. "I appreciate your visit. And the advice. I'll be sure to return the favour in the future, friend."
Grey refused to let herself steal a glance at Cantrell until they were once again seated in the back of his car. Providing she made it that far.
Cantrell's driver closed the door behind her as she stepped inside, skirt sliding against the leather interior. She exhaled, the world finally setting, heart rate slowing.
The doors locked and a body lunged toward her.
Cantrell loomed above, shoulder pressed into her's, his arm gripping the headrest behind her. He pinned her against the passenger side door, his scent of tobacco, sandalwood and cloves suffocating her. The look on his face she couldn't read. There was just intensity, eyes curious and predatory, watching her. He reached for her and she clenched her teeth, forcing herself not to flinch.
His fingertips fluttered over her forehead, gingerly pushing a strand of black hair from her face. As she moved to tilt her head away, he grasped her chin, lightly pulling her face towards his.
"What would you think if I were to confess wanting to kiss you right now?"
His words were but a whisper, hot on her face. She could all but feel the prickle of his skin against hers.
She narrowed her brow, eyes flitting across his face. Faint lines adorned his steely gaze. She traced the muscles working beneath his flesh, from concave cheeks to prominent jaw. They ran down his neck, disappearing beneath his uniform. Each was strained, tensed. There was danger there.
She parted her mouth, watching his eyes trace the curve of her bottom lip.
"I'd wonder what advantage your weakness could afford me."
He gave a flash of teeth, deep laughter filling the space.
"Good answer."
He moved away from her then, settling back into his seat as if nothing had happened. Acting as if nothing had changed.
She'd passed his test it seemed. She was supposed to feel relieved.
Except she didn't.
She felt more frightened than ever.
—
Grey kicked her way through the General's door and the memory of that day flooded back without warning. She remembered sitting in that office, weaving some bullshit metaphor about friends and leaky hulls. She'd woven the story she thought would keep her ass intact, the story that kept Cantrell and his cronies happy. She'd been passed intel that a General was abusing his position and putting countless lives at risk. And what had she done? She walked into his office and told him to subject his staff to a witch hunt. She told him to keep doing what he was doing, but just do it more quietly.
Was that what she'd signed up for back then?
The goal had been to infiltrate and investigate. Keep the mission alive, no matter the cost, which equated with keeping herself alive. Alive and hidden. And yes, she'd done that. She'd walked out of Fort Strong in better standing than ever before, more ingratiated in her boss's world, the proper seeds sowed. But at what cost?
That's what she needed to know.
Two centuries later and Brock's office had barely changed. His desk still stood upright, terminal somehow functional and flashing green. His mini nuke remained in its display case, the surrounding glass shattered, likely from the aftershocks of the bombs. A dusty American flag stood poised next to a painting of a lighthouse.
She wondered if Brock had known that the painting wasn't American. Sure, it looked like any New England coastline, but it wasn't. The painting was of a Cape Breton lighthouse, painted by a French Canadian nationalist, Philippe Charon. He'd been killed during the American annexation of Canada in 2072, framed a terrorist when all he did was publicly protest their pillaging of his home. Grey's mother had always liked Charon's work. At the time of his death, Grey remembered thinking she was glad her mother was already dead so she didn't have to see him executed on live TV.
Grey gave the painting another glance. Its edges were faded and cracked, paint peeling by the frame, reds too pale and blues too bright. Another victim of the bombs. Or of time. She tore her eyes away.
She pillaged through Brock's desk, finding illegible scraps of paper and a useless set of Corvega keys. She slammed the drawer shut and walked to his wall safe, not hesitating before she slammed her suit's fist into its rusted hinges. The safe creaked open and she hurriedly grabbed the elevator keys from within.
"How did you know those would be there?"
She startled at Danse's voice, her brain having somehow forgotten him.
"It was US Army protocol for a site's most senior officer to have a complete set of all existing keys and passes. Rarely were these items permitted to leave the base, meaning they'd be securely stored in the CO's office."
"And how'd you come to learn this, soldier?"
Grey froze, realizing her mistake.
She could tell him it didn't matter. That it was none of his concern. But those words only created distance, mistrust. And for better or for worse, she needed Danse. She needed his approval, his positive appraisals and reports. He was her gateway to the Brotherhood, and she needed that relationship preserved until she reclaimed what was hers. She needed his continued trust.
"My husband served. Second Battalion, 108th Infantry Regiment." Grey paused. "He kept nothing from me. Told me things he never should have. Secrets, he called them, for my precocious mind to ponder and keep."
A half-truth, but still real. She vividly remembered his voice murmuring those words, his fingers wrapped in her hair, their bodies entwined in her bed. The way he'd looked at her, the chilling blue of his eyes.
She swallowed, throat dry.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"
She shook her head, cutting his apology short. "Don't do that. It's... fine."
She wasn't sure who she was trying to convince of that, but as she pushed past Danse and made her way back to the elevator, she realized it didn't really matter. She didn't need anyone to feel sorry for her, least of all herself.
She'd come to terms with Nate's death the moment she looked upon his frosted corpse. She'd said her goodbyes, taken his wedding band, and made him a promise. All that remained was for her to deliver on those words.
She shoved the key into the panel, feeling it grind against the years of neglect. But it turned and the doors opened. Grey and Danse checked their sights and turned off their safeties as the elevator descended deeper into the earth. Grey knew there had been offices down there, a reactor, some labs, but she didn't know what to expect. Would the reactor still be active? Did the Super Mutants find another way inside? Did the staff manage to escape when the bombs dropped, or would she be walking into a den of time-locked corpses or ghouls?
Dogmeat growled as the doors opened to a darkened hallway. But Grey could smell it. Rotting flesh. The scent seeped through her suit's filters, a mix of iron and sulphur and feces.
There were Mutants down there.
They crept through the dilapidated offices and onto the upper mezzanine, overlooking the reactor and labs below. Grey could hear the faint click of her Geiger counter, indicating a reactor leak. The lights were still on though, meaning the labs were still operational. They could hold answers yet.
Grey took aim at a sleeping Mutant Hound, the shot striking his hindquarter and severing a leg. It let out a monstrous howl, and the Mutants came alive. Hollers and shotgun blasts and thumping steps.
Grey pitched herself over the railing onto two Mutants below. One went down with her, its chest crunching beneath her weight. The other fell back and fired point blank against her breastplate. Sensors went off in her suit, shotgun pebbles shredding the metal and poking against her frame. She felt metal scrape against her ribs, but she didn't falter, instead decking the Mutant with her freehand before placing the barrel of her gun against its skull. Its face turned to ash.
Dogmeat raced ahead of her and she chased after him, allowing him to snap at the Mutants' limbs, distracting them long enough for her to riddle them with laser burns. They charged at her with wooden planks, but she knew not to let them get too close. She aimed for limbs and joints, watching their bodies drop on bloodied stumps, screams escaping rotting mouths. And then it all went quiet.
Left to the sounds of her armour integrity sensor and her depleting fusion core, she dropped her rifle and stomped into the nearest lab. Meat bags bled upon tables, empty canisters littering the floor. The air smelled of blood, piss, and ozone. She switched off her external filters and activated her onboard air supply.
She caught sight of an old terminal and knelt before it, repeatedly striking the power supply. It hummed to life, resuming from a two-hundred-year sleep. A series of Bravo Team testing reports flashed before her and she poured through each, seeing the damage unfold.
We lost two good soldiers this morning. They were on the surface testing a MIRV variant of the launcher, when one of the warheads misfired and hit the ground right where they were standing. Poor bastards didn't even have a chance. We couldn't even find any remains to send home to their folks, so Brock told us to just fill some cans with sand.
Grey's gut twisted. She remembered that report. It had been included in the intel, suspicion that soldiers' remains hadn't been properly returned to families under General Brock's orders. The report writer concluded that Brock didn't give a crap about them, and the writer was correct. Brock, like many of his cronies, had only been interested in his own agency. His own success. And fuck the rest.
Grey ran a backdoor trace on the system, process hindered my her suit's clunky fingers. She found a hidden subroutine. A two-way chat with three years worth of archives. She narrowed the results to 2075.
09/02/2075
NZ1: I spoke with my contact today. She's in good with CID. Said she'd find a way to help.
NZ2: If you get caught, we're not going down with you. You're on your own.
NZ1: Fine. But someone had to do something. Janet's missing and Lance is still in a coma. And fuck Brock's BS claim that she took emergency leave without pay for personal reasons. Janet was an only child, deceased parents, and no husband. She didn't even have a goddamn dog. I saw her walk into Brock's office but she never came out. She just disappeared.
NZ2: You're paranoid.
NZ1: Yeah, maybe. But try and tell me I shouldn't be.
NZ2: Just be careful.
Grey continued to scroll. Looking for traces of Janet, instead finding more speculation of resources being misuse, safety protocols being ignored, staff mysteriously transferring out overnight.
Her blood ran cold as she found a December entry.
12/06/2075
NZ2: What's this crap Murphy's spewing about two surprise visitors today? Said they were dressed funny, but he forgot to look at their insignia. Described them as tall motherfuckers with judgey eyes.
NZ1: I think they were JAG officers.
NZ2: No way! You think they got your reports? Are there here to help? Launch an official investigation or whatever they do.
NZ1: No.
NZ2: How do you know that?
NZ1: I saw them as they left. One of them looked so smug and I heard Brock call him by name. Clearly they were friendly.
NZ2: OK, but what about the other one?
NZ1: I can't explain it, but I think she knew it was me.
NZ2: What? That you're the whistleblower? How?
NZ1: I don't know. It was the way she looked at me. Like she was sorry? She just shook her head and looked away. She looked ashamed.
NZ2: We are so fucked.
NZ1: Yeah, we are. Time to delete these logs. Or encrypt them.
NZ2: Leave it to me.
She didn't remember seeing anyone as she was escorted from the fort. She didn't remember much of anything, granted, her body in a state of numbness, her mind only preoccupied with her continued existence. Had she been ashamed then? Did she even have the capacity to feel that way at that time?
And should she be feeling that way now?
She stepped back from the terminal.
She wasn't doing herself any favours. Yes, she'd helped a monster continue to operate as a monster. Yes, one could argue that the deaths of some of those soldiers were possibly due to her inaction and the inaction of her peers. But why was it suddenly her job to stop corruption in its wake? She'd been doing that, hadn't see? Different organization, different war, but same desired outcome.
But it hadn't mattered in the end. It had all been fruitless, fighting for a future none of them would ever see. Fuck, few of them likely saw any future at all. In 2077, that world ended. And its concerns ended with it.
She could grapple with her morals on her deathbed, she told herself. For now, it didn't matter.
She disconnected the terminal and walked down toward the arsenal, Dogmeat hot on her heels.
She found Danse standing among more carnage. He looked from meat bag to corpse, visor scanning. "Look at this place. You must hate these mutants as much as I do."
Hate seemed a strong word. Grey didn't really hate Super Mutants any more than she hated feral ghouls or raiders or menstrual pains. They were an inconvenience, sure, and disgusting to look upon, but they weren't worth the energy of hating. The only energy they were worth was what was required to pull a trigger and walk away.
That hadn't been the first time she'd heard Danse make such a comment though. She remembered the venom in his voice on the Vertibird, the offhand remarks he'd made in Cambridge.
"Why do you hate Super Mutants so much?"
He paused, cradling his weapon, grip growing tight around its frame. "They're responsible for the death of a close friend, a Brotherhood knight named Cutler. So when you ask if I hate them," he said, voice terse, "I say hate's too gentle a word.
"These monstrosities," he spat, "are just another example of man blindly taking a step forward only to wind up stumbling two steps back. I've been fighting for years, trying to put a stop to this madness, and just when I thought we were getting the upper hand, along come the synths."
Grey felt herself recoil, not liking where this was going. Not liking the disgust bleeding from his words.
"I've seen what these Super Mutants do to people—can you imagine what the synths would do to us if they ever got the upper hand? It would be armageddon, repeated. And maybe the end of everything that we hold dear."
He sighed. "Look, I don't mean to bore you with my rhetoric. I just want you to understand how important these missions are."
That wasn't good enough though. The synths weren't Super Mutants. They weren't even close, and they couldn't so easily be tarred by the same brush.
"How could synths possibly bring about our destruction?"
Danse didn't need a moment to consider. He already had his response. Grey was beginning to wonder if all Brotherhood soldiers had one.
"If the synths reached the point where they outnumbered mankind... how long would it take for them to decide we were no longer necessary? They certainly possess the capability to make more of their own kind, so we'd become expendable. And with Institute technology on their side... nothing could stop them. Not even the Brotherhood." She could hear the concern in his voice then, its sentiment drowning out the venom from before.
"It's a nightmare scenario almost too terrible to contemplate."
Suddenly she thought of Isaac Asimov, a twentieth century writer and professor of biochemistry. He wrote many essays and fictional works debating the impact of robotics and artificial intelligence on humanity. He'd even devised his Three Laws of Robotics, a hypothetical safeguard against the infinite possibilities of an AI's prowess. He hadn't been the only writer to query the role of fragile humanity in a future where robots were made its protectors and its intellectual superiors.
Was that what the Brotherhood feared would happen to the Commonwealth? That the synths would decide humanity was best saved by its own termination? Hell, they'd only need to look around to see what devastation humanity had wrought. It wasn't a leap in logic to think they'd grown undeserving of planet earth—of continuing to live.
It seemed ridiculous, but she could only wonder what programming restraints the Institute installed in their own creations. Did they have their own version of the Three Laws, or were the synths more organic than an AI? Were they really just people? Oppressed, brainwashed people? Only distinguishable from humans during a postmortem, only distinguishable because of a small bit of plastic and circuitry imbedded in their brains?
The truth was that she didn't know. But neither did the Brotherhood. Or the Railroad. Only one faction knew, except they weren't fielding question. No one knew where they even were. No one except Virgil.
"Anyway," Danse said. "That's enough of that. What's important here is that you got the job done and secured these warheads. You should head back up to the Prydwen and talk to Maxson. I'm sure he'll want to debrief you as soon as possible." He gave her a nod. "Dismissed."
Grey's exhaustion didn't hit her until she and Dogmeat returned to the surface. Sunlight blinded her as she left the fort for what she hoped was the last time. Her body ached as she walked, fusion core on its last 5%. The suit began to slow, each step requiring more effort, actuators tense and uncooperative.
She heard the voice of a small child as she passed by the Nordhagen Beach settlement.
"Look mommy, it's one of those Brotherhood guys! Look how big his suit is!"
A red-headed woman in plaid and jeans pulled her son close as Grey passed, eyes watching too intently.
Grey paused, only for a moment. Her stance was met with the pump of a loaded shotgun.
A man appeared from the small beach shack, double barrel held by his side. "Best move along, stranger. Don't want trouble with any of your kind here."
She could've told him she meant no harm. That the Brotherhood meant no harm. But those words would fall on deaf ears.
The truth was Grey had no idea who she posed a risk to anymore. If history had taught her anything, both her actions and inactions had the potential to kill.
She continued back to the airport in silence, not even letting her thoughts fill the void.
She didn't want the company.
