CHAPTER 37
A Dead World.
There was a winding road that made a rounded few twists and turns up an incline in the land. It ended in a two-way intersection- in one direction, there was a culdesac with five houses, all blown out, holes in the roofs, shingles and flaps from the structuring laying everywhere around them.
The other way lead straight down a street that was lined with houses, and halfway down that street, there was a two-story, white painted home, with drab colored wooden shutters, shattered windows, a roof of navy blue shingles, rippled, chipped everywhere.
There was an underloft that acted in the stead of a garage at the end of the driveway- the rusted corpse of a sedan lain to stillness and final resting in its shady interior. The front door was gone, not even strewn to destruction inside the house- and the floor was littered with pieces of plaster and wood.
Sanford left the Gas Station without his X-01 suit, much to the Deathclaw's surprise- and she trekked beside him for a walk that only lasted a mere five minutes, at best. They followed the paved road that passed the station's flank for a bit, turned onto the winding road.
When they reached the straight shot breaking from that- it was only a minute more before Sanford was standing before his old life again- and the same surreal aura grasped him, even after a decade.
"There it is." He said, lowering the submachine gun he was carrying, and slinging it over his back- beside his rucksack- stuff he had to carry the OLD way, since his armor wasn't present. "That's my house."
"This one?" The Deathclaw stood beside him, center the bare, paved road, just before the curb- she pointed her knuckle at the building.
"That's it. Pretty boring, huh?"
"Non', not boring, monsieur', I wouldn't know if you hadn't told me."
"Well, I mean, who would? Nobody would know you like I do at first glance."
"Mm."
"...Though, come to think of it- look at it this way, every house on this block has its own story, its own people. You know, you look at it and your first reaction is- 'Oh, it's just another house'- but, there were families just like mine in all of them at one point."
"Intriguing to consider, mon ami'."
"...Hey, do I still stink?"
"A tiny touch of citrus, monsieur', very pleasing."
"Citrus? Damn, I thought the bottle I got was more cologne-like..."
"-'Cologne'- isn't that a city, monsieur'?"
"Well, YES, but it's the name for those spray bottles guys use to smell better."
"How does that work, mon ami'?"
"How should I know?" He shrugged- stepping up onto the sidewalk- he gestured for her to follow.
There was a cobble walkway that lead up to the front door, it wound in a half 'S'-shape across the dead, brownish-tan lawn, and there were stones missing here and there, some kicked out across the grass, others gone completely.
A single stone step at the chin of the front entrance- Sanford was atop it, and peering into the hollowness of his old house- he was looking into the foyer, which had a doorway leading to the T.V. room, the kitchen, and a staircase heading upstairs.
The Deathclaw had one heel on the step with him- she peered past his shoulder into the doorframe.
"There she is." Sanford said. "We had a sitting area to the left, and the kitchen to the right."
"Mm."
"Watch your head on the frame."
"Mmhm."
She ducked under the top of the arch after him- her shoulders both bumped into the wood of the frame on either side, as she struggled to squeeze herself through the smaller entryway.
Sanford held his arms at his hips and looked around with a nostalgic stare- a tan carpet that covered the floor was matted, torn in places- pieces of plaster and chips of wood were strewn everywhere from where the structure of the house almost had shattered.
It was serenely quiet in the house- like a lot of places in the wastes, in the world in general, it was just silent- but, this was a calming quiet, most of the silences that they had encountered throughout their lives here were disturbing, and eerie.
Sanford considered her with a raised brow whilst she stood behind him in the lobby area- she examined the tan carpet, the white plaster walls, and she peered up the carpeted steps to the second floor with an inquisitive eye.
"What's up there, mon ami'?"
"Don't ya' want to see the bottom floor first?" He chuckled.
"Mm. Yes."
"Well," He held his hand out. "The lobby! Amazing, right?"
"Very."
"And in here," He stood in the doorframe to the left- he held a hand out to the interior of that as well. "-The television room! WoooOOOOooo..."
"...Funny."
Two navy blue sofas against the rear and side wall of a square room with gray carpet- there was a window over the rear sofa, and a shattered glass door that went to the backyard right between the two seating pieces.
Glass and wood chips were all over the place- springs stuck out of the sofas and their fabric was tinted tan from all the sawdust gathered on them.
Sanford stepped into the center of the room- he nodded at a large wooden display- a big piece of furniture with two cabinets, a big center shelf where their Radiation King used to sit.
"That's where the T.V. was," Sanford said. "I think looters took it at some point. It wasn't here when I found the house again."
"A... -'T-V'- monsieur'?"
"One of those electronic boxes with the gray screens? People used to watch programs on them, like, shows."
"...Shows? I've read about plays, and acts..."
"Picture that, but there's a camera channeling it to televisions across the country."
"...Seems far-fetched."
"Easy for you to say! You thought CARS were far-fetched!"
"I've never seen one in working condition." She raised a brow. "What did you expect? Parfaite' comprehension'?"
"Nope."
"...Mm."
"There's the backyard," Sanford pointed to the back door- he stepped through the glass over the carpeting, his boots making tiny clinks as they landed with each footfall. He angled his head through the jagged edges of the shattered door. "...When I was little, there was a swingset, right there, and the fence wasn't white, it was a plain wood color..."
"You were born to this house, monsieur'?" She stood behind him, focusing more on him than the yard outside- the dead grass, the rickety, amazingly intact fence boxing the yard in.
"I never moved, yep," Sanford nodded. "My old man lived in Mobile for a few years before he met my ma', he was born in Florida."
"What about your mother?"
"Newfoundland."
"...That doesn't sound like a state I recognize, monsieur'."
"It isn't. It's Canadian. My grandmother was living there, my grandfather was a fisherman who met her there, and they had ma', and they moved to New England, then my father moved here too, and he met ma', and well, here I am."
"What about your father's sire and mother?"
"A 'Sire'- huh?"
"Is that not meaning father?"
"Yeah, no it is, it's just funny that you said it like that."
"...Mm."
"-Yeah, what about them?"
"What was their... 'Deal'- yes?"
"...Dad never told me. I know his father was born in Florida, I know his mother was born in Florida, but I never knew them, and dad said that they had died before I was born. I'm not sure if that was true or not."
They walked out of the living room, and they were standing in the kitchen- tiled floor, an array of dark wooden cabinets mounted on the walls, acting as base for drab green granite countertops- a silvery sink, now rusted with age, a steel refridgerator missing its doors, and a dishwasher missing its door.
"Did your father purposefully stray from the subject, Sanford?" She asked, using two nails to pinch the blue-tipped knob on the right of the sink's back top- it squeaked when she turned it back and forth.
Sanford watched her play around- he remembered all the times he and his parents had stood over that sink. He looked over and saw the same table and chairs- some of the chairs lying on their backs, overturned- that he and his father would sit and talk at.
"Yeah, he did." Sanford moved over to the table- the wood was almost colorless, creamy, dull, cracked and buffed all over.
"I suppose that could be a sign of your suspicions being accurate," The Deathclaw shrugged, turning from the sink- she leant back on her tail bone against the countertop, folding her scaly arms over her gut. "...Tell me about what you did everyday, monsieur'."
"...What do you mean?" Sanford mumbled- he was still looking about the table- he righted a chair on the floor, it creaked as it sat on its legs again. Brushing the seat off with a dusting palm- he sighed. "I lived here. I slept upstairs. I went to school a few miles away. Three houses down the way we came, I knew a guy, I forget his name... Best friend. Nearby development I had two or three other good friends."
"What about that table?"
"This table?"
"Mm."
"We ate dinner here. Me and my old man sat across from each other almost every night, every weekend morning, we'd chat. Me and ma' would sit here sometimes too."
"What did you talk about?"
"...Uhm... I-I mean, I dunno'," Sanford rolled a shoulder. "There was so much shit going on back then. The Army had rolled into Canada, the government was going insane, the Resource Wars were just starting to morph into something else, and no one knew what."
"What were the Resource Wars, monsieur'?"
"That was in the Middle East- Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iran, you know the countries?"
"I do."
"I dunno' what ever happened with that, and I don't know what the Middle East looks like now, or Europe... Because, the European Commonwealth started shooting at each other too in that conflict."
"You've told me before that they're probably wastes."
"In my opinion," Sanford nodded. "The Europeans had nuclear warheads flying around when us and the Chinese did- I can't imagine anything having survived in such a small cluster of countries that basically unleashed hell on each other point-blank."
"Mm."
"...Forget me for a second, Deathclaw, forget all I've lost, just... Look at my house, you see it? There are millions of houses just like this across the country. We've destroyed our planet, and the crazy thing is, we saw it incoming for decades. Ever since the Cold War.
The Russians were stirring shit in Eastern Europe, the United States was stirring shit in Central and South America and in Asia... This is why I had been saying to you before, why we should work together in the first place. Humans didn't get along- we bickered over pointless and primitive things- greed, racism, nationalism, politics, who was right and who was wrong...
...Nobody ever respected that none of that would fucking matter anymore, if we didn't find new and ingenuitive ways of TALKING, about our problems, than acting against each other about them.
...Now? Now it's too late. The thing we feared? It happened. The world's been tossed into the shitter, shit out, and tossed in an even bigger shitter. We've killed our planet. It's a miracle the human race still persists. Oh, and, here's the cap to it all- we learned nothing. See? We blew each other back to the stone age, and we still kill each other every day. Every single day.
I said I understood where you were coming from with your opinions on the human race. I get it."
"...I won't bring it up again, Sanford."
"No-no, I don't care about that in that way- I've had twelve years to vent my frustration, I'm done with that. I'm just saying, for the record, the one only we know. Huh."
"It's powerful."
"What? Everything that's happened?"
"Your words... And that too, of course."
"Words are words, I can't always see them as being anything but."
"It meant more than simple words to me."
"...Hm. That's good."
"Show me upstairs."
"Sure."
-0-0-0-0-0-
"I don't know what that little bastard did, or how he did it- but somehow, a fully exo' armored man, a seven foot tall hybrid reptile, and a loudmouthed, flying, robotic junk-heap slipped RIGHT by our craft's scanners, without a trace."
Laslar was standing before four other individuals in the depths of the Braggmen plant- the Commander of the 7th Division, Rime, was actually at the Superintendent's flank- before them in a row were Master Sergeant Hector, E.I.D agent Laureen, and Sergeant Luft.
The group was divided by an aluminum desk that had a holo-tablet laid out on it- the Commonwealth shown in amber hue across the metallic-rimmed screen- Laslar had his eyes fixed on the blinking blip that showed the location of Springs Quarry.
"...I'll admit a blow to my pride," Rime chuckled- Laslar looked at him- he knew was actually being serious through the 'Harmless' jesture. "But Superindendent Seduun is right. There's no way our 'birds should've missed that."
"This Wastelander you encountered is obviously resourceful... He must be a good talker to get an abomination on his side," Laureen said. "Maybe he acquired some kind of jammer? Something unseen? Home-made?"
"No. No I looked him up and down," Laslar grunted. "All he had were a few projectile weapons, carry sack filled with ammo, and the armor- some kind of heavy weapon over his back, he didn't use it. Probably dry."
"You didn't see what else was on his person?" Laureen persisted.
"Woman, what else am I supposed to fucking say? I shot him, he survived- he's in an X-01 suit, that's basically OUR tech', it's durable."
"Ma'am." She corrected.
"-Damn it- do you know how BIG, a jammer he would need to simultaneously take down six Vertibird com' teams and all their equipment? The Brotherhood don't even have something like that- the NCR, don't even have something like that, and they've evolved into an industrial power."
"Maybe this man IS Brotherhood?" Laureen shrugged. "Unmarked agent sent to cause havoc with a liaison op'?"
"...What the fuck would be the point of that?" Laslar shook his head in astonishment. "It obviously isn't a good enough answer that we've run into a tough son of a bitch who happens to be a loner, right?"
"We should be focusing more on how to eradicate the problem, not determine exact point of origin, don't you all think?" Hector chimed in. "It's apparent that he's hostile, and that he's an enemy of the Enclave- what difference does it make on WHO sent him? They'll all burn anyway."
"Aghta' boy," Laslar chuckled. "He's not Brotherhood, he's not Republic, and I for one don't know of any other powers that would be capable of sending someone like this after us, besides the Institute, here, or the Legion out west- the prior hasn't hampered us in its entire existence, the latter's too busy rubbing shit down their faces and dancing for rain."
"...I agree with the Superintendent," Rime stated. "I think we have just come across someone who is good at surviving out there. He wouldn't be able to put up with a direct assault- I'm confident he isn't armed properly, and that he doesn't have combat training."
"...We're going to have to rely on aerial patrols, until we find him," Laslar sighed. "But once we do find him, I'll lead another strike team."
"I would fight beside you, Superintendent, he's killed men under my command." Rime nodded to him.
"...Appreciated. Here's something else, that will make this whole process a lot faster- look into some of the local settlements, traders and merchants- some of them are bound to know this man, and we can use them as a way to get to him."
"What if our man isn't a martyr?" Laureen asked.
"I never said we hold any hostage. If it turns out he IS the heroic type- my favorite -then, sure, why the fuck not? Kill a few natives, piss off the vigilante, always gets them running to us. I'm saying for now, if we can just find a traveler or two that knows where our boy LIVES, that'll be the ticket."
"Sergeant Hector, do a geographic scan, and do a heat sweep- determine areas with population density." Rime said.
"Sirs." Hector trotted back from the group, into the shadows of the chamber.
"...You think we might be able to get a Hound or two for this? If the scans don't work?" Luft suggested on a whim.
Everyone looked at him funny- even Laureen -and Laslar opened his mouth twice before actually getting the words out.
"Eden, much? Hello?" He scoffed.
"President Eden isn't very keen on redirecting MORE resources for this simplicity." Laureen added.
"Yeah-yeah, very noble." Laslar mocked her with an expressionless glare beneath his helmet. "You think Houndbots are going to solve this?"
"They worked wonders in Nevada and California," Luft reminded. "The situation calls for it- that Deathclaw wouldn't last a second in close quarters with one."
"The answer's a 'No'." Laureen grinned.
Laslar looked between the two of them with slow sweeps- he grumbled, and nodded, seemingly with acceptance.
"Then we need to find another way," He sighed. "Thanks for nothing, Fend."
"It isn't about you or me, but the Enclave."
"Mmhm, yep." Laslar glanced at Luft- and he angled his helmet slightly over to Rime's angle- who was watching the exchange with some measure of amusement.
Luft blinked, and dropped the subject purposefully.
-0-0-0-0-0-
She had a bit of a hard time shoving up the stairs- but eventually, the Deathclaw stood beside him, hunched- in the second floor of the house. Despite how cramped she felt, she dealt with it easily and listened to Sanford start to talk again- she found she liked hearing him talk.
There was a hallway with a bathroom in its midsection wall- a carpet floor here too, tan again- and on either end of the way, Sanford's room was to the right, as was an office just ahead of his door- and to the left, his parents old room.
"Sometimes Vertibirds would fly overhead heading for the national guard base in Cape Cod further south," Sanford told her as he turned right, and she angled herself to try and follow him. "It was always at night, and I would hear the propellors going, real faint, I meant to try and travel to Cape Cod, but, the Glowing Sea really doesn't warrent for it-"
sssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-kk
-When he stopped talking, the noise stopped- and when he turned around and looked at the Deathclaw, she angled her head over her shoulder to follow his gaze, and they both realized that her center spine, the one at the height of her rear neck, was dragging across the plaster of the cieling.
She wiggled her back- shk k k -and sighed with annoyance.
"Apologies."
"House is already fucked up, doesn't matter," He laughed. "You wanna' call it a day?"
"I'm fine."
"...You sure it's not too cramped for you-?"
"Go already."
"...Alright, well, here ya' go," Sanford turned back to the doorframe, missing its respective door- and he gestured to the inside of a little room. "This was where I slept."
The remains of a mattress were present, the wooden frame having snapped, and laying flat beneath it on a wooden floor that was encompassed by a large, blue rug- grayish sheets were mangled and in tatters thinly across the bedding.
A medium-sized window was directly over the headboard- no curtains, the glass shattered, a breeze whistling through its rungs unevenly- the street wormed past outside, and the lawn was visible from above.
Two nightstands, one on either side- both missing drawers, were made of a once glossy oak- and now, in the current day, were matted with sawdust, old, cracked everywhere, some of the surface wood was peeling in drawn-out rolls across the tops and sides.
The walls were a light blue plaster- holes and cracks were everywhere, and the ceiling was in a similar state- there was a wooden board thicker than Sanford's arm jutting from a collosal breakage in the plaster, a dark trench- some pink, fluffy insulation bubbling through around it.
There was a white sliding door that lead to a closet space- the door was open enough that the shadowy vacancy of a single metal hanger-holder was evident.
Sanford noticed her staring at the big piece of wood above- he stepped over and ran a finger down the lower crease of its ragged end- as the wood was sticking into their head space low enough that Sanford could reach it.
"...You know, I don't think this was actually FROM my house," He chuckled. "I think this got kicked up and tossed through my roof from somewhere else."
"...Interesting theory, monsieur'." She didn't really care too much about the wood- but, sure, if that's what he said, she'd go with it.
Another furniture piece that caught her eyes was a big dresser, multiple drawers, some missing, some half-rolled out of their slots- it was in the same condition as the nightstands, and in a few of the drawers, she could see some articles of ragged cloth.
She stepped through the arch into Sanford's room- compressing her spines, lowering her head- she was before the dresser, its height only up to her waist- she hooked a nail on one of the drawer handles.
"I haven't slept in this bed in a decade, huh." Sanford patted the matt, and immediately stepped back from it when a cloud of dust belched out into the air before his face. "Pfft-! Agh! Yuck!"
She hummed in amusement, and tugged open the wobbly drawer she was looking into- she bent lower, reached inside, and came back with a torn pair of underwear pinched between her fingers.
"Mmmmmm... Monsieur', you certainly have a taste in, what did the robot term them as? -'Under-Wear'-?"
"Yeah, well now it's- HEY! Put that back!"
"Are these sports balls I see faded in the fabric?" She squinted and brought the dusty, two-hundred year old garment closer to her face.
"They're footballs damn it! I was only ten or some shit-!" She splayed her other claw out, and soon, Sanford was caught between her enwrapping fingers as they went over his chest like a big, warm, scaly flower. "-Lemme' go!"
"En' aucune facon', I'm taking advantage of this position, mon ami'." She draped the underwear on top of the dresser, and then dove her two fingers in to find another- as apparently there was a small assortment of them strewn about in there.
"This is just- WEIRD!" Sanford protested, giving up on trying to get her to let go of his chest- he leant his elbows on her forearm, chin in palms, and watched her annoyedly. "Why do you have to go through my childhood underwear, precisely?"
"No reason." She chimed- holding another pair before her- she made a puffing noise from her nostrils, and dropped it back into the drawer. "Who was the guy on that one?"
"...Superman..." Sanford growled through gritted teeth.
"I know nothing of a- 'Super-Man' -monsieur', who's a super man?"
"...He was a comic book hero before the war..."
"Mm. Comic book? What was that?" She flicked it back into the drawer, yanked out another one- each time she took out another, a thin trail of wavering dust followed it up.
"...Can you stop? Please?"
"What's that, monsieur'?"
"Sifting through my damned underwear? Please?"
"...Mm. Has that machine been through here?"
"..."
"...Ah. No wonder you're so apprehensive of it, alright." She dropped her held piece, stepped back, slid the drawer shut, and released her grip on his chest, smiling. "Onwards we go."
"...And you said I was the one that was evil, in the quarry."
"HmHm."
"...Well, that's it, I mean, there's nothing else in my house that's really worth looking at," He dusted off his shirt with his hands. "This is where I lived, this is who I was before now."
"I never imagined a human showing me through their old home." She commented, her tail flicking over her ankles.
"I never imagined showing anyone but Hancock through my old house, and I also never imagined I'd be willingly letting a Deathclaw into it, right?" Sanford laughed. "Interesting last few days."
"Mm."
"...It's getting dark, you wanna' try that river? Or wait until tomorrow?"
"I'll make it quick."
"Alright, ladies first." He nodded for the doorframe.
"Mm, je vous' remercie'." She ducked through the arch- her spine dragging briefly.
Sanford turned back and looked around his old room a little longer, he nudged the smashed frame of his bed witht the toe of his boot- glanced out the window.
The Deathclaw gave off fumbling thuds as she slowly walked down the steps to the lower floor- the wood creaked as she stopped and called back to him-
"Coming, monsieur'?"
"Yep."
Sanford looked about a bit more- then he sighed, again, and was out in the hallway, following her down the stairs faster than he could blink.
-0-0-0-0-0-
The basement chambers of the facility weren't in deplorable condition- but they were dark, they smelled, interestingly- a scent that spoke more towards mothballs than anything else -and the constant sound of dripping water from all the old pipes was just annoying.
Either way, it was a group of rectangular, concrete warrens that were crisscrossed with steel pipes all down their walls and cielings- water tanks lined the eastern walls in rounded, shadowy masses- and there were holes all over the floor where copper-pipe links had been ripped out years ago.
Deployable bunks were lined in one chamber- there were more crates lying around, and the whole thing just looked like a place the soldiers would be keep prisoners, not their own comrades.
Laslar took one look into the first chamber, and he was so disgusted that he ordered the staff squad sleeping down there to pack it all up and distribute it about the soldiers' barracks throughout the facility- even though, technically, Laureen Fend had already told them to leave, but for Laslar's group to replace them down there.
Laslar then took it up a tad- and he physically carried one of the cots up two flights of stairs, into the old CEO office at the top floor of the building- and he slapped it onto the ground right next to the cot that Laureen had claimed for herself.
Having not seen her outside the armor up until this point- Laslar squinted when this skinny, pale woman emerged from the sheets- looking quite angry, appalled- after all, Laslar was the first person in the Enclave who had even considered mouthing off to her.
"Evening, Fend," He greeted- still in his suit- the cot clambered onto the floor, and he patted its center with his gauntlet to straighten it. "Hope you don't mind."
She didn't say a word to him the entire time.
Laslar stepped into the empty corner of the chamber, in the glowing shadow of the windows lining the northern side of the room- his suit bleeped, whined, hissed- it opened up and the built man stepped out from the internally padded sleeve.
Laureen saw for the first time his muscled form- his narrow head, the small scars all over his cheeks and forehead- he grinned at her with perfectly white teeth, even though, some were missing- and he laid himself out on the cot, back-first- where the thing creaked and rattled further.
"Night." -He was snoring before she got her mouth to work.
"Get him out of here." She called loudly to the ajar, metal door that lead out to the hall and stairway. "I know you hear me, Rime!"
...She sat up for ten minutes and nobody showed up.
She gawked with an insulted exhale- looked down at Laslar, and saw he was grinning in his sleep.
-Back in the second floor of the building, an hour or so later- Commander Rime was just stepping out of his X-01 suit- the exo' unfolding, and he himself stepping out of the back.
He had a hand on his cot when he saw Laureen Fend, the E.I.D agent- the person he had never seen out of the armor before- step into the room, and lay herself out on one of the cots that a member of his personal squad was owner of- he was on night patrol in a Vertibird, so, the man wasn't present to say anything.
"Ms. Fend, I wasn't... Expecting, you?" Rime said akwardly, bundling his jumpsuit top in his arms against his chest.
Laureen looked up at him once- her short, black hair still messed from her failed attempt at rest upstairs- she grunted, and passed out.
Rime had only one person in mind for the reason of the Secret Service operative's behavior.
The Superintendent. Wow.
-If anyone else had did what he did, Laureen would've shot them.
-Because, honestly, what else could the two of them DO to each other besides act like children?
That was the weird protection that such positions in the Enclave gave their members- even though these positions, and these ranks, were designed to stamp out insubordination among tides of lower statures- they actually created more of them among the higher offices.
That was because all these ranks and unique positions were instilled by different power bases within the Enclave- the E.I.D was created by the presidents of the past and maintained by their own board sponsored by whatever president was currently in power.
Superintendent Laslar, the first and only of his rank- was instilled to power by president Eden himself, and no other.
Such games of competing bodies had been the name of the game within the Enclave.
It was always Division Commanders against Division Commanders, logistics teams against logistics teams, science teams against science teams, sergeant against sergeant- hell, it even came down to installation against installation.
It had to do with the current state of technology, and how big the world was and what it used to be- the Enclave didn't own North America like the United States did- thus, infrastructure (what was left of it) was random, unkempt, and unrealistic to pre-War records.
It took longer for the Enclave to reach each other- after all, the only way for the varying units of the group to reach other was by air transport- and whenever an air transport was needed to move people or material, that meant it needed to be taken out of military service somewhere, which wasn't always possible.
The isolation and independent behavior of all the different Divisions out in the West, or East- or all the different logistics and science staffs West and East- spanned entirely from them being just that- ISOLATED, independent.
The Enclave boiled down to a series of men and women under the command of different Commanders, who had teams of Master Sergeants and Staff Sergeants who oversaw groups of lesser officers- and the Commanders answered directly to communications at the M-100 in Washington, who then communicated directly to the Capital Rig in the Atlantic.
The president was like an overseer to all this- he or she gave direct orders that were usually followed on the dot, because the presidents were chosen out of the most fanatical of those dedicated to furthering the Enclave.
If the president's decision was to be negated, it needed consensus vote between Commanders of the theater in question.
-For example, if Eden wanted a construction project in the West that was under scrutiny, all the active Commanders of all active Divisions in the West would have to agree by majority to override the project. Same with the East- and if operations ever gained traction in the Mid-American states or Mexico or Canada, the same rule would apply.
So when people in power tried to stick theoretical stakes through the river of command and decision making- conflicts like that between Laslar and Laureen were bound to occur.
Laslar had been given a rank specifically formulated for he himself and no one else- Rime, and officers across the Enclave had no doubt that should Laslar ever meet his much desired end, Eden would liquidate the rank right afterwards.
Laslar had been cause of unrest throughout the Enclave for years- but he was able to stay in power because of his boons to Enclave operations. While officers bickered over him and he did and said things considered unorthodox- Laslar in turn minimized casualties in units he operated over astronomically.
Laslar increased operational success of any units he lead, and every single theater and war he had been engaged in at the head had gone quite well for the Enclave Army- the NCR war was a big example- Rime didn't disparage that if Laslar hadn't been leading, a lot more Enclave soldiers would've died.
While some who believed in the Superintendent more would argue extreme results, that the war would've switched from an offensive, to DEFENSIVE measure if Laslar wasn't in command- Rime had no issue admitting aloud that Laslar knew what he was doing, if not ruthlessly.
That was what had so many officers up in arms about Seduun- he was an outsider, not of Enclave blood- that basically had the presidential-given right to determine if and when and how many Enclave pure-blooded would die to attain something.
People didn't want to accept it.
Laslar understood that, and the ranks understood that HE understood it- nobody knew though if Laslar cared. Nobody knew, because he gave mixed signals on it- he obviously gave a shit about how things were being run, but he also had no problem letting Enclave soldiers die to grant victory.
Most Commanders were quite hesistant to spill their men's blood- operations were taken out quick, and with precision to limit losses- and there had been times in the far, far past, and with officers not in Laslar's proximity- where entire campaigns had been abandoned over concern for casaulties.
Rime, himself- he couldn't say he exactly wanted Laslar to be destroyed- he saw great opportunity for the Enclave overall, even if he DID dislike Laslar personally- but what officer in the Enclave took kindly to their counterparts nowadays anyway?
A good question- too bad Rime's lack of sleep for the last two days rendered him too tired to mull on it any further.
He found out, to his displeasure- that Superintendent Seduun snored.
Even from out of the closed doorway, up a brief flight of steps- Rime discovered Laslar's snoring.
At least Rime fell asleep- Laureen was too angry to even get her eyes fully closed.
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They cut through someone's old backyard- passed a rotting porch, that still had a rusty barbacue on it, lid opened- interior burnt- and they slipped between portions of the fencing that had either been blown away or had rotted to oblivion.
A few dead trees loomed, they walked through woodland for all but a minute- then, the terrain started to dip, there was a thin happening of rocky sand- and the tiny lapping of a river was apparent- the same river that passed directly alongside the urban development.
Sanford had followed the river to a gorge that ended on the outskirts of Harvard University- the other end went somewhere way past the Commonwealth's northern borders- he didn't follow it very long at any point.
Now though, from the side- the river looked the same as it always did- even when Sanford had been a child, and he and his friends watched instead of intervened as some stupid kid named Billy Dasser almost drowned in the middle.
Sanford remembered the kid's name too- Billy Dasser -a real shithead- the only reason he didn't get hurt, or worse, was because his uncle had just happened by mid-smoke of a joint, dove in and saved him.
Sanford liked the river when he was younger- he never made time to just walk around it, or sit by it like he always said that he would- now, he never had time, and it wasn't always safe.
Though his development was pretty tame- he and Hancock had gone back and forth through it enough that they had found and wiped out most of the Molerat packs or any of the Mongrels- a few houses south, a Raider group had set up shop- and they shot all of them, so, that wasn't an issue anymore...
Now it was just really quiet. The western edges of the Commonwealth were just as active as the midsection or the east in the harbors- that's because Sanford knew there was some measure of civilization left in Massachusetts.
Strangely, the northern borders, particularly northwest- weren't really active with a lot of wildlife or people activity.
There were rumors that had gone around of a warhead having landed in New Hampshire or somewhere near Vermont- but, Sanford wasn't sure, he never had radiation storms up here, those were only by the Glowing Sea, and according to the Deathclaw, all throughout Pennsylvania, Upstate New York and Connecticut.
Whatever the cause, it worked out really nicely- the Gas Station was left alone, and, even though he really shouldn't have been concerned about it- his old house was left alone.
Sanford had a bit of affinity for the old structure. He'd always wanted to see if he could move his fortifications and his belongings from the station to there- but he didn't have the manpower to relocate a lot of the heavier stuff... He'd never fully disassembled some of the turrets from their moorings.
He put it off, and now he really wasn't in a position to do it anymore. Too bad.
"The water is actually clear, hm." The Deathclaw leant over the edge of the brief sandbank- she let her nail trail in the water, the current forming a small, translucent trench across from its sides.
"Yeah the river's good- it's just, you know, Mirelurks you need to be concerned with, but, I don't see any-"
"I smell nothing. It's fine, monsieur'." She turned around. "Only humans could make such mistakes."
"...Oh, WELL," Sanford chuckled. "Excuse me, madam'."
"Your Francais' sucks."
"Oof."
"Fine, INEXPERIENCED, humans. Consolation?"
"Hmmf, maybe." He nodded at the water- clear, showing a sandy bottom- there was a limb of orange drawing down its center from the dying sun overhead, and the water looked amber in tint. "So you're pretty good on land, but do you SWIM as fast as you-?"
SSPSSSHHH
-A blast of parted water, white frothing everywhere- Sanford watched, dumbstruck- as the Deathclaw shot through the water like a torpedo, and breached the surface on the opposite side of the bank.
spppshhhh
-The sound of her resurfacing was dimmed from both distance, and the volume of the river's motions.
She shook her head, sending shining glitter everywhere off her horns and face- she turned, shot back into the water, and breached right before the sand he stood before, opened her mouth- and puckered her chops.
Sanford blinked stupidly- before a fine stream of reflective moisture pittered and pattered off his face around his nose and brow.
plmlmpmlpmlmp-
"-AGH-! Pfft! -AUGH! -Ew-!"
"Ha-ha." The Deathclaw chuckled, letting herself sink to chest level in the water- her reptilian feet splaying on the bottom. "I know what I'm doing, monsieur'."
"-Pwft! Pft!" Sanford wiped a hand down his face, spit on the ground, and stood straight from where he had stumbled. "-What was that for?"
"Because it was funny."
"Yeah, funny..."
"I suppose I'll extend the invitation of you joining me now- being polite, of course."
"I'm good..."
"Suit yourself."
"Yep. You want to try the soap?"
"...Hm. Sur'."
"Alright, here ya'-"
plplmplmpmlpmlpmlmplm-
"-AGH! Pwfft! PFFT! -C'mon, GIRL!"
"Ha."
She reached out of the water, picked up the bottle from where it fallen by his boot- and vanished back beneath the roiling, reflective surface.
Spitting again- Sanford growled and looked back to see the Deathclaw back under the surface of the water ahead- she was flittering back and forth- the motions were quite a sight for him.
Bending down with the joints in his knees creaking, he sat down and supported his hands behind his backside against the rocky sand- he observed her swimming, and he noted it was kind of crocodile-like, the way she moved her limbs and tail in a swaying motion.
If someone filmed a croc beneath the water, and sped up the swimming motions by ten or something- was pretty accurate for descriptions- she was fast.
Breaching the surface again- she shook her hide, and water flew everywhere- she pinched the soap container between two finger tips, and pooled it in her one palm- she was close enough to shore that she laid it on the sand and rubbed her palms together.
"I haven't cleaned myself in MONTHS, monsieur'." She said- rubbing her palms about near her ribcage and underarms. "I haven't used this soap, yet, either."
"Well, how does it feel?" He smiled, watching the suds gather.
"Rejuvenating."
"That's good. Hey- if you've never used it, how do you know how-?"
"Books."
"...Huh. You use 'Books' as an excuse a lot."
"I love reading. I found a lot of things to read about." She used the lengths of her nails to scratch the suds around her flanks- Sanford noticed the water turning a bit brown around her.
She dipped back under the surface- swam in a complete, dashing circle- came back up in the exact same spot- her nostrils wetly huffing to regain oxygen.
"How long you think you could hold your breath down there?" Sanford asked- toying with the wooden stock of his SMG whilst he leant it against his side.
"I don't know, I never tried." The soap bottle bounced off the sand again, now she was lathering around her left arm with her right claw. "This smells like plants."
"Plants? You mean like flowers, right?"
"Yes."
"Huh, suiting."
plpmlmppplmplmpmlpmlpl
-"AGH! Oh-Christ-EW!-PWWFT! Pfft-! How the- how the shit can you SHOOT that far?!" He scrambled back across the ground, wiping his face.
"Hmhmm." She leant back into the lapping waves, dipped her whole arm up to the shoulder underneath the water. "Phobia for saliva, monsieur'?"
"No... It's just startling, is all."
"A likely tale."
"The only one with a TAIL is you, girl."
plpmlplplml-
"-GOD-DAMN-IT! Pfft-! STOP THAT!"
"HA."
She was humming to herself at Sanford's reaction- she finished scratching about her other arm, dipped that below the water, running a palm across and down it until the suds flicked away with the current.
The soap bottle hit the sandbar again, she leaned back and lathered her palms- she narrowed her eyes in thought, and asked-
"Tell me what football is, Sanford."
"What?" He stammered- still wiping his hand about his face. "Where'd that come from?"
"It was on your under garmets." She mused. "A- 'Sports' -game, yes?"
"You haven't read about it at all? Ms.-'I already know how to use soap'?"
"I've read about Harpastum, and Cuju, from ancient Rome and China."
"...What, and... What?"
The Deathclaw stopped lathering for a minute, and sighed.
"Early forms of ball games."
"...Oh, so... Kind of like Woggil'... Woggil'... How the hell was it pronounced again-?"
"Woggabaliri?"
"Yeah! What you said, I think."
"That's Australian."
"...Sure."
"...Tell me about football."
"Uhm... I mean- GUYS, wearing, uhm... Rounded helmets, with face-protecting grills, and padded uniforms, run at each other and shove through each other to get their hands on a football, which they have to run into the opposing team's endzone to score a point."
"Mm. How do they determine who gets the ball first?"
"I dunno' how the precursors of football did it, but modern day, they'd have a coin flip."
"Mm. How many points were needed to win?"
"Time based."
"Ah."
"...So, you get the basics of sports, but not specific sports?"
"I suppose."
"...Weird."
"I read sporadically with any books I found. I missed certain subjects that were closely related to ones I became fluent in. What's the English way of saying it? 'Oops'?"
"What about the French?"
"How I would say it in Francais'?"
"Sure?"
"Qui donne' un baiser'."
"...Wait, that sounds longer."
"It means- 'Who gives a fuck'?"
"Oh."
The Deathclaw raised her legs one at a time in the surface waves to scratch them with her nails amid the suds- eventually, she ran out of soap when she tried to give everything a second lathering- sighed, and tossed the bottle over her shoulder, where it floated away in the current.
She stepped from the water, dripping everywhere- leaving puddle-filled footprints in the sand as she went- she stood over Sanford as wet as could be, and waited for him to get up.
"All done, princess?" Sanford stood in a hop to his feet- he smiled at her, and noted how her mouth looked a little... bulging.
plmpmlpmlpmlpmlmpl-
-"PFFT-! AH! Pfft-! Eww..."
"Phobia of saliva, I KNEW it." She hummed.
"-Phobia to people spitting in his face, more like it..." Sanford grumbled, rubbing his eyes. "I'm going home, you don't play nice."
"Poor baby."
The two appeared shadows as they walked down the center of the paved road out of Sanford's development.
Dead trees surrounded them, and the sky was becoming dark blue, midnight black again like it had that night at the Super Mutant camp, or when they fought the roach- Sanford looked up at the few stars present through the spindly canopy of gray twigs.
He glanced at her, and smiled when she bent down and nudged his shoulder with one of her horns.
A peaceful night- not a sound besides the wind and their footfalls, one set heavier than the other. Sanford looked over his shoulder for a second to the darkness now hiding his old house from being seen through the dead woodlands.
He creased his lips.
One day, maybe he'd wall it off and use it like an extra home. He didn't want it to just rot away.
One day.
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