Chapter 25 - Foreshadowed Guilt
Evidently the rest of team MRPN had been drained from the initiation as even Nora did not speak much for the rest of the evening. In contrast, Markus was nowhere near exhausted. He was accustomed to far longer days than this. Some firefights could take hours, depending on the scale of the engagement. Compared to the amount of action he typically saw in a day, the initiation was a very short battle.
The dorm that his team had been assigned was almost directly across from team RWBY's. He saw no other teams he recognized. The Courier was found it mildly interesting that Beacon used coed dorms. While he was quite familiar with such an arrangement due to the attainment of absolute equality of treatment between the sexes by the NCR, he was surprised to find it in Remnant. After all, the only reason the NCR was so egalitarian was as a result of its founder being female.
The room itself was comfortably furnished, though it leaned more towards spartan design than extravagant. Ren, Nora, and Pyrrha all set about preparing to sleep as the sun had set a few hours earlier. The Courier did the same. While he had no intention of going to sleep, he made sure to go through the motions, intentionally appearing only slightly less exhausted than the others.
With the rest of his team slumbering, the Lone Courier decided to complete some of his more clandestine objectives. Namely, shoring up his identity.
As a result of being appointed team leader, Markus had revised his strategy to one which would draw more attention to himself. Because of this attention, he would need to further flesh out his created identity in order to better weather the almost certainly inevitable questioning. So far, he had done everything that one could in terms of documents. On paper, Vault-tec was as real as any other corporation. The only thing he could do now, would to organize physical endeavors that would support his story. The narrative that his father was chronically ill and stayed in a countryside estate year round would allow him to forge orders from his non-existent father electronically and use the newly incorporated Scroll functions on his Pip-Boy to send them with the authority of the owner of a company. To actually do this was risky of course; unless there were tangible facilities and products, the charade would be up eventually. And that was something he simply could not afford. He would need all the resources Remnant had in order to repair the Transportalponder.
The Lone Wanderer used his Pip-Boy to change into the Stealth Suit Mk. III and snuck his way to the roof; well "snuck" to the extent that sneaking is necessary when almost perfectly invisible. Regardless, he easily found the stairwell he had taken note of earlier. Once on the roof, the Courier parkoured until he had reached a comfortable position where he could safely change back out of his Stealth Suit and into his Courier Duster. While being invisible was useful, it also had the detriment of making his Pip-Boy exceedingly difficult to use. Besides, the Courier was wary of the side effects of invisibility. While to his knowledge only nightkin seemed to suffer from insanity, with the amount of mutations and modification he had done to himself, he preferred to limit his exposure.
Now that the Courier was more familiar with the value of Lien, he was aware that he had stolen a highly significant amount of money from the White Fang and their associated organizations. This meant that he had yet another group interested in his identity. The second look he had taken at the accounts he had stolen from told him that none of the money had been properly laundered meaning that there was no legal means that the White Fang could attempt to trace the funds. While he did not fear reprisals (he was accustomed to far more dangerous groups after his scal,) if they managed to trace the hack to Vault-tec, it would not take long for them to realize that it didn't exist, thereby blowing his cover.
The creation of fairly simplistic arms manufacturing plants was well within his financial and technical capabilities, even from his Pip-Boy. To his advantage, Vale appeared to be experiencing something of an industrial boom right now, meaning that the acquisition of real estate for warehouses and manufacturing plants was far easier than Markus had anticipated. Rather than individually hiring personnel to run the factories, he simply hired people to do that for him. The less involvement he had, the better. Delegating responsibility was incredibly beneficial. He intended for the company to virtually run itself. It was meant to aid him, not burden him. Still, It would be awhile before Vault-Tec started running, much less shipping products.
The biggest question was what exactly to have these places make. His narrative was that Vault-Tec made highly advanced and military products. However, due to his Brotherhood of Steel membership, Markus was wary about providing this place with technology that they weren't ready for. Therefore smokeless propellant and nuclear energy were out of the question.
As well, nothing too revolutionary could be invented; that would cause too much attention. That put most medical options were out as well. After a lengthy search on the "internet," and much deliberation, the Courier settled with creating a couple products each with moderate innovations that would be directly beneficial to him but none of which would put the spotlight too heavily on Vault-Tec.
Due to his intimate knowledge of the design of standard ammunition, it was not difficult for him to adjust the ratio of Dust to that of gunpowder in order to increase total acceleration. As Dust was a less efficient propellant than cordite he would need to increase the amount of Dust. This meant that longer bullets would be capable of traveling at supersonic speeds. An hour later, and the Courier had sent schematics of supersonic rounds as innovations from the "research team." His second idea was far simpler. He simply sent schematics of hollowpoint rounds. Their reduced penetration would make them useful for law enforcement and against soft targets. Still, he expected only a limited market for them. The inherent fragmentation properties of the standard Dust based round made them nearly as effective at antipersonnel as hollow points are.
In order for these things to be actually implemented, the Courier also needed to modify the designs of existing machines for the manufacturing of ammunition to fit the new dimensions and schematics of ammunition he was having made. Once again Remnant's network of terminals proved useful. Adapting the existing designs took only a small amount of time, especially compared to how long it would have taken for him to design the machines from scratch. He sent the schematics to specialized third party companies that would have the machines manufactured and delivered to where they were to be used.
The last thing he needed to do was to acquire a source of raw materials. Naturally, with their practical monopoly, Snow Dust company was the only option. As much as he found them to be suspicious in both their business partners and practices, anything else would cast suspicion on him. Actively going out of his way to avoid purchasing from the SDC would be unusually enough to spark curiosity from somebody or other. Interestingly enough the company was capable of supplying him with both the Dust and the brass he needed. For having the word "Dust" in their name, the company had done a surprising amount of diversification. Markus was surprised that they had not yet renamed to something more accurate and representative of the variety of products and divisions they possessed.
That was about all the Courier felt he could accomplish at the moment. While Markus desired to assemble one of the higher caliber weapons whose schematics he had retrieved from the remnants of a USSOCOM base near D.C., he knew that he did not have the materials, tools, and the time to build a weapon from scratch. Still, it was a priority for him. The fact that his Anti-Materiel Rifle caused nowhere near lethal damage to the larger Grimm was of major concern to him. The only reason the initiation had gone as well as it had was his ability to drop several tons of stone on his enemy. His surroundings weren't always going to be on his side after all. He shelved his thoughts however. There was nothing he could do for the time being, and thusly there was no use in dwelling on it further.
The Courier decided to head to bed. A tired Courier was one that was not operating at optimal capacity. If he was not operating at optimal capacity, he was far more likely to make mistakes he could not afford. He sighed to himself as he changed from his Duster back into his Stealth Suit and made his way back to the dorm. He reminisced to himself about the days when things were simpler; when he knew what he should be doing and his problems could be solved by shooting at them. While it wasn't that he didn't appreciate the (relative) peace here, it was that everything was now far more complicated. He had never been undercover this long before. Unlike most other times he had been undercover, it was quietly likely he would remain so for months. The Courier slipped into his bed soundlessly with his mind a million miles away switching from his stealth suit into his sleepwear before closing his eyes. Slowly, the Lone Wanderer's thoughts turned to less technical aspects as his mind wandered. He wondered briefly about the classes that he would have the next day. At least none of the teachers would be as bad as Mr. Brotch. Or so he thought.
The transition to sleep, and the dream that followed, was sudden.
For once, the Lone Courier did not recognize his surroundings. His dreams mostly took place in the past in locations he knew well. Of course, his mind at rest, he would not realize this until after he had awakened. His surroundings were entirely obscured by shadow, however from the silhouette of the horizon he was in a coniferous forest. The sky was a purgatorial gray, foreboding, but not indicating a future storm nor a recent one. The dream was entirely silent. Of course, he was in a clearing. Dark dreams always take place in clearings. As Markus was not a lucid dreamer, he was entirely at the mercy of his subconscious. Forced to watch, unable to shut his eyes from his dream or interact in any form but emotions. The woods started to glow red. Not a blood red, a pale red. From the edge of every object the same ghastly glow emanated. Each individual pine needle pulsed with the same illumination. Suddenly, all light disappeared as a shadow was cast over the sky. Involuntarily, Markus looked up. Covering the residual light of the overcast sky was a Nevermore of colossal proportions. No light could pass it. It was scores of times larger than the one that they had encountered at initiation. And just as suddenly as it appeared, it vanished. The light returned, brighter. Harsher. The clouds were gone, in their place hung a shattered moon, drenched in flowing blood, pouring its crimson torrents like at waterfall. There were no stars in the sky. Only infinite dark. As physics do not exist in the land of one's dreams the blood acted in a two-dimensional manner, falling directly onto the hands of the Courier. As he looked up from his blood covered hands he was greeted by a far more horrifying sight. In the center of the clearing three figures stood. Perhaps "stood" was not the correct word, "hung" would be more accurate. From left to right, Pyrrha, Nora, and Ren hung from crosses. Crucified. The dried blood indicated that they had been hanging for a while. In a few seconds, their bodies rapidly decayed, leaving nothing but mummified corpses. Their heads simultaneously looked up at him, empty sockets staring a silent a silent accusation at him. Markus' gaze returned to his hands. They were now stained crimson. Deep cuts along both palms read, "How many more?"