The rest of my visit proceeded relatively normally. The soup, with the addition of a pinch of salt, was delicious. Rebecca brought out a lanky thirteen year old with a comforter wrapped around her like a cloak, still struggling through the awkward phases of puberty. Still, it wasn't hard to tell that she would be the mirror image of her mother in a few years, and I told her so.

We ate and made polite conversation, Marina, like many others I was starting to realize, was fascinated what the world was like before we nuked the ever-loving hell out of it. She peppered me with questions about little details and rumors she'd heard. I was happy to oblige, though I did give her the sanitized version, she didn't need to know about things like the warzone that Detroit had become or the reports of cannibalism that had been coming out of the Appalachians.

In return, I asked a few questions about how they were settling in, if they needed anything, and a few other questions of that nature. I found out why the entire family was wearing vault suits. I hadn't looked into this because I still had my clothes, but as it turns out, there were hundreds of the suits in storage. Most of the useful stuff had been stripped away, I was assuming that it had been taken by the group that had attempted the coup. The weird thing was that they weren't all 111, the best reason that I could come up with was that they had just sent whatever excess suits they'd had here for storage, either that or it had been a shipping error that the war had prevented from being rectified.

In any case, the end result was the same. We had a huge stockpile of unused vault suits, fashionable, hell no, functional, perfectly. Not to mention, that most coveted of warzone resources, an industrial washer and dryer. At the very least, we could reliably count on clean clothing, something not to be underestimated in terms of morale boosting.

Throughout the entire conversation, I did my best to avoid even in indirectly referring to the events that had led them to Sanctuary. A lost husband was one thing, a lost father during childhood was one hell of another...

In the end, I checked my pipboy and bid them good day. I had one more meeting and two hours left before Asher would be out of surgery.

The caravan was still in its place down the street. A two headed cow wandered around the yards and street, one of the brahmin that I'd heard about. On the porch, eyeing the armed guards that had accompanied the caravan, sat Dogmeat. His mouth hung open as he panted, exposing teeth that had ripped throats out. There was something familiar and reassuring in the knowledge that he could go from playful and relaxed canine companion to deadly predator in an instant.

He gave me happy bark in greeting, and I scratched him behind the ears as I stepped inside. Marcy Long and an older woman with short hair were in the middle of a heated argument over the price of a dozen inhalers filled with what I had to assume were drugs.

Narcotics was a topic that I wasn't looking forward to dealing with. Making them illegal hadn't worked when there was a massive force of law enforcement officers and the full weight of the US government behind them, it sure as hell wasn't going to work for us. On the other hand, the last thing that we needed was a drug problem in our emerging organization.

In any case, I certainly wasn't going to stand in the way of us making a profit off of what we stripped off of the corpses of our enemies.

What I really didn't get was the whole bottlecap thing. I mean, I'm not going to pretend that printed currency had any more objective use, but it was backed by the common belief in the solvency of the United States Government. These things, as far as I knew, were just circles of metal, they didn't represent any tangible assets, and they weren't backed by any authority. They, much like gold and jewels in early civilizations, were only valuable because someone at some point in time had convinced a large enough group of people that these things had value for it to stick, and since then people had just assigned a value to them because other people had assigned a value to them.

At the very least, this gave me a chance to find out why no one had put a bullet in Marcy for her bitchy tendencies yet. The woman haggled like a rug dealer in an Egyptian bazaar, pushing and giving in wherever advantageous. She was still a bitch, but at the very least, it could be said that she was a useful bitch.

The same could probably have been said about me though, if I'm being honest.

After the dealing was done, I was able to get the leader of the caravan, a woman by the name of Trashcan Carla, to sit down and discuss business.

And all of my worries about the currency were proven to be entirely correct.

"So what is, say, a ten millimeter pistol in decent condition worth?" I was trying to get a feel for the currency strength.

"Sixty two caps."

"Why?"

The woman looked at me like I'd declared myself an imbecile. "Because that's what it costs, more if the person's stupid, less if they know how to barter."

The more the conversation continued, the more I realized that the woman wasn't using any objective standards to dictate prices, she just randomly threw whatever price she thought an item might be worth. Everything seemed to hinge on how well you could haggle. Not a massive problem in itself, but when combined with the totally arbitrary nature of pricing, it essentially meant that, assuming most of the Commonwealth was using the same ad hoc system as this woman, the currency had no store of value to it.

Another problem in post-apocalyptic society that needed to be fixed.

"Hey, I'm talking to you."

I took a breath and turned around, "And hello to you to Marcy."

The Asian woman glared at me. "There's a trading post at a diner south of here, Carla says a gang is giving them problems, you need to fucking go deal with it."

With that, the woman spun around and stormed off.

I didn't let myself get angry, I kept my voice calm and matter-of-fact when I called after her. "Marcy, one of these days, you're going to tell me what the exact reason is that you have such a problem with me, otherwise I'm going to hurt you very badly."

That seemed to get her attention, she paused, clenched her fists, and then continued storming off. I'd have to catalogue the supplies she'd bought later.

"Or maybe I can get you to do it, huh boy?" I scratched Dogmeat behind the ears again. "I've got to go deal with this nonsense and I'm taking Preston. Seeing if I can't get him to come around to our way of doing things."

The Shepherd cocked his head and gave a sarcastic bark, good luck.

"I know, I know, but we can use all the help we can get. Think you can keep things orderly on your own?"

He nodded and woofed in assent, then dipped his head in goodbye and went off to handle his own business.

There are some really surreal moments in my life these days, moments like these make me wonder if I'm still drowning off the coast of China and all of this is a fantasy created by my oxygen deprived brain.

In any case, I went to change and hunt for a fallen colonial. Once I was suitably attired, with a pistol on my hip, a pair of knives strapped to my forearms, and a tactical vest. I didn't really feel the need to fully suit up for what was probably a simple nuisance job.

I found Preston across the bridge, sitting under the Minutemen monument. His musket lay disassembled before him, meticulously cleaning each piece. The level of improvisation that the Minutemen had achieved was actually quite impressive, R&D had come up with plans for homemade laser rifles, but couldn't work out the ammunition problem. A simple handcrank hadn't occurred to some of the finest minds that we had to offer before the war. A dozen techies were rolling their graves.

He didn't speak to me as I approached, just went on cleaning. So I sat down next to him and started working on my pistol. After a few minutes, something occurred to me, and I laughed.

Preston eyed me suspiciously, "What?"

I shook my head, "Nothing, just noticing some irony." I paused and pointed at the statue we were sitting against, "How much do you know about the original Minutemen, way back in the Revolutionary War?"

He was quiet, and his cheek reddened slightly. He was fucking blushing, I wanted a camera. Embarrassment was a new look for him, a vast contrast to his usual attitude around me of righteous indignation. "Not much," he admitted. "Colonel Hollis said that they were a group like us, or we were like them, they were formed to protect their communities, and they stood ready to protect any innocent threatened at a moment's notice."

His eyes went misty as he reminisced, it almost felt wrong to break his delusions. "Well, partly right, they were formed to protect their communities and the Minutemen in particular were kept on alert for what was at the time considered rapid deployment. But the part about innocents had nothing to do with it, most of them were firm believers in slavery and a great deal of them wouldn't have cared if everywhere outside of New England was burned to the ground."

"What do you mean they supported slavery?" His eyes narrowed, it seemed that slavery still struck a chord in people, good.

Still, "That's a much longer discussion, I've got a few books on the revolutionary war and the historical period that I'll loan you some time. But you do know they participated in the Revolution, right?"

He nodded, "I read a few things here and there, and there was a bunch of shit in Concord talking about it."

Anything from Concord was most likely bull, the Museum of Freedom as it was called had been revamped in 2075 as part of the Induced Patriotism Initiative under Operation Brainstorm, a domestic propaganda engine focused on the promotion of American exceptionalism, undoubtedly one of the stupidest programs I'd ever heard seen. "Well, back then, weaponry was heavily inaccurate, so they had to conduct what was called massed formation warfare. You line a few thousand men on one side of a field, do the same on the other, and then have them shoot each other until one side retreats, is dead, or is weak enough for a charge to work."

Preston seemed to only be half following me, he seemed to be stuck on the fact that the original Minutemen endorsed slavery, not all of them of course, there was actually a significant number of African Americans involved. Still, the 1700s were the 1700s and today's horrible crime against humanity is yesterday's sound business practice. "The Minutemen weren't eager to give the British a battle on their terms, so they didn't. They hid in the trees and bushes, launched ambushes, raided camps under the cover of night, targeted officers, and used sharpshooter tactics. All of which was considered incredibly dishonorable, but it worked."

I didn't bother telling him that, while it had played a decisive role in denying the British freedom of movement in the American countryside and interior, the Revolutionary War had been won, for the most part, through large scale European style battles. "There's a big difference between sniping and ambushes, and fucking gassing someone."

And just like that, irony goes back to the argument. Let's be honest though, this was always where this conversation would lead. Still, we were finally at the central problem. "Why?"

Preston looked at me as if I'd just asked why a man has a penis. "What the hell do you mean why?"

"I mean, why?" I pressed on. "Explain to me what makes my methods unethical. Explain to me how doing things your way, going in and shooting them would have been better."

The Minuteman shook his head incredulously, still not believing the question. "Did you even see those corpses?"

I didn't blink, "Ever seen what a single 50. Caliber round does to a person, or what plasma will do to a person, or hell, have you ever seen a high powered laser reduce a person to ashes in a second. I'll agree, chemical weapons are a nasty business, I don't use them when they aren't the best solution, but the end result is the same. They're dead, they were problems in the way of restoring order and furthering our goals, so they had to die. Do you disagree on the premise that they had to die?"

"No, but…" he began.

I cut him off. "So why does it matter how they die? Why is it more ethical to kill a group of people one way than another? I'm familiar with all of the ethical theories on the matter. From a utilitarian perspective, I'm in the right. What I did minimized suffering by killing them in the way that presented us with the least risk and cost the least in terms of materiel. This will allow us to maximize happiness by using our time and resources to help others. From Kantian deontology, they killed others, they opposed the social order, thus they had to be deemed guilty and punished. In Kant's words, this was a categorical imperative. According to Hobbes, we're working to restore the social contract, that automatically gives us carte blanche to do whatever we need to accomplish that goal." I cocked my head to the side as another thought occurred to me, "Rawls and Rosseau might disagree, but the very existence of the raiders presents a problem for Rawls and outright disproves Rosseau."

"What the hell are you even talking about?" Note to self, amend top ten list of priorities in the reestablishment of civilization to include ensuring the revival of philosophy as an academic discipline.

Beside the point, I shook my head. "My point being, I can work my actions through every major ethical framework, and I come out right every time. So tell me why it's morally wrong, and please do not pull the desecration of bodies argument again. Because it's insulting to both of us."

Preston scowled and went back to reassembling his weapon. "I don't need a whole bunch of fancy justifications like you, I know what's right and wrong."

"No, you fucking don't." Okay, I'm about to completely lose it, but this shit has been thrown at me too many times. "If you do, you have to have a reason why something is right or wrong. Otherwise, you're just fucking co-opting pseudo morality to justify why you like or dislike something. That's not ethics, that's bullshit pride and a god complex in a bad disguise. And if you're killing for bullshit pride and pretending to be a hero, then you're worse than the raiders, at least most of them seem to acknowledge their motivation is personal gain."

This wasn't the goading I had done previously, I was legitimately fucking angry. And by the way Preston jumped to his feet, ready to throw a punch, the feeling was mutual. "You wanna know how I fucking know what's right and wrong, I know what I've seen with my own fucking eyes, I know what I've done with my own fucking hands. You think I haven't heard your bullshit before, anything for the mission, anything to win. Who cares who gets in your way so long as the mission is accomplished? That's the only thing that matters, right?"

I'd really struck a nerve here, the professional part of my brain blotted out my anger and I stepped back into cold observation and just let him continue. "Prisoners only cost supplies, so why not just execute them? Who cares if they surrendered? Why bother honoring terms of surrender? If a settlement is in your way, why not take what you want and burn it down? If a member of the team is wounded, they'll only slow you down, better to just put a bullet in them and be done with it, right? What's wrong with abducting children to help fill the ranks, nine years old is old enough to block a bullet?"

Ah, now I was starting to get a real idea on Preston's antipathy towards my tactics. It wasn't even about the Minutemen, not really. From the sounds of it, our golden boy hadn't always been so golden. I let him continue on his rant for a few more minutes, these things were a little too specific to be random acts of violence. When he finally wound down, I asked, "So what exactly did you do?"

"All of it, and more. You wanted to know how I know what's right and wrong, that's it. What I did with the Gunners, that's wrong. What I did with the Minutemen, that's right. I don't need any 'ethical theories' as you call them to try and justify one or the other. What I did when I was a kid, I can never make up for it, and the Minutemen were the only thing that let me even try." Guilt is a powerful motivator, and from the looks of it, Preston Garvey was highly motivated.

Now that I understood what was behind those feelings, I knew that a screaming match was getting us absolutely nowhere. "Alright, I can understand that, but I have a simple question for you, why were the Gunners doing what they were doing?"

Preston opened his mouth, some retort to shut me down probably on his lips, but then he closed it and actually seemed to put some thought into the question. "For power."

Alright, good, this was going where I needed it to go. "Okay, but why did they want power, what did they want to do with it?"

This was part of my argument, but it would actually be good intelligence to have. Preston did at least seem to really ponder the question before admitting, "I don't know, they didn't tell us anything other than our objectives."

Shame, but that would have been too easy, wouldn't it? "And why were the Minutemen doing what they were doing?"

This one he didn't even have to pause for, "To help the common people."

No zealot like a convert, "So if our goal is to help people, then wouldn't it make sense to do what will help the most people?"

He knew what I was doing, but he also didn't know how to fault my logic. "Yes."

"And if the best way to help is to eliminate people who are hurting others, then the best way to go about that is to eliminate them as quickly as possible, using the minimum amount of resources so that we can use the other resources for further operations in protecting the common people, right?" This was essentially the same argument that I'd made to him when I was reaming him out for being an idiot. I was hoping that in a more reasonable discussion, I might actually make some headway.

Preston still didn't like what I was saying, "Not if it means lowering ourselves down to the level of the bastards we're trying to stop."

"But how are we lowering ourselves to their level? If our ambition is to help people and their ambition is simply to seize power, which in your own words is the difference, then so long as our ambition doesn't change, we are morally superior." It was a very deontological argument, a mode of thought I really don't subscribe to, but hey, whatever works.

He looked ready to protest, but he was running out of arguments to make. He was going to pull the methods card out again, I needed to put that to bed. I waved my hand in front of his face, "Was that moral.

"What?" Now he was confused again, good.

"Was it moral for me to wave my hand between us?" A stupid, but poignant question.

And the stupid, unanswerable, question look was back. "I don't know, what the hell does that have to do with anything?

This was basic stuff that anyone who had ever been through a college level intro to ethics class would know. "An action has no moral value unto itself, the only things that can dictate the morality of an action are the reasons for undertaking said action, and the consequences of that action. Can you come up with another way of deciding whether an action is moral or not?"

Of course he couldn't, I couldn't, no one could, because there wasn't one. So I didn't wait for him to answer. "No, because there isn't one. If our reasons for carrying out an action are selfless, then the action is moral. If our actions create more happiness than suffering, then they are moral. So, if we have to carry out a few truly nasty actions in order to restore order and promote the common good, we are doing the right thing. It's that simple."

Actually, it wasn't, I wasn't getting into hedonistic calculus and the equations involved in working out exactly how much suffering and happiness an action created. Nor was I getting into the demands of deontology that everyone be viewed as equal and that treating oneself or others as being special was unethical, not to mention the other prohibition on lying that Kant had tied into that assumption. But none of that was all that important or helpful in getting my point across.

Preston let out a long sigh, my father always described as a wearer-downer when it comes to arguments. "Why do you even care, I already agreed to do things your way, why are you so obsessed with getting me to agree with you?"

"Because after Lexington, I'm leaving, I have to find my son. And you and I both know that once I'm gone, Mikhail is the one who's going undisputedly running things. And he'll need lieutenants with tactical experience who understand and accept what he's trying to do. And unless you plan on running off, that's going to include you." I looked at my pipboy, I only had an hour left before Asher's surgery was set to finish.

"Now come on, I've already spent too much time on this, we've got shit to do."

….

Okay, new rule, I am to be kept far far away from Preston. I think I need to put some distance between myself and the Minutemen too. This chapter did not go anywhere near where I had initially planned. I don't know if I'd call it bad, but it definitely didn't turn out as what I initially started writing. Something about Preston and the Minutemen just makes me go on into massive author tracts about economics and ethics. Or would it be an author filibuster, or character filibuster, I can never remember the difference. I think we're about three chapters away from leaving Sanctuary and beginning the hunt for Shaun.

I'm putting this out on a Thursday because on Friday I'm putting out the first chapter of my FNV story. That one won't be updated regularly as I'm focusing on this one as much as I can. It will be rated M and under the title of Luck Be a Lady. Also, you guys should check out the story I posted on Tuesday, Dark Valentine. It's a rough adaptation of a Philip Marlowe story, I kind of lost it at the halfway point and started racing for the end, I'll probably go back to it at some point to rewrite the last half, but until then, you guys should have a look.

Alright, R&R people.