Chapter Nine
The next three hours were not fun for Patrick. In fact, that would be an understatement. It wasn't torture, but it was stressful and very, very annoying and repetitive. Despite Corporal Williams trying to convince his superior otherwise, the Captain of the Special Crimes Unit dragged in the Internal Security Unit due to Patrick's position as an auxiliary, even though the Captain was convinced the document was forged.
However, after Patrick told the same story five times, the Internal Security guys were convinced that he was telling the truth. The story how the Overseer dragged Patrick into doing this delivery targeted at Corporal Jenkins, and then how he tossed the bomb out the window.
"But why would the Overseer be going after you?" Patrick asked when the Internal Security guys at last left.
"I've been investigating corruption, drug and weapon trafficking through Vault H for six months now," the corporal explained. "Dealers and smugglers we've arrested here in Winnipeg have been getting their hands on merchandise that is clearly not from Assiniboia, so we've been trying to trace where it comes from. All indications at the moment point to caravans coming from Vault H.
"I was thinking it was someone in the Vault, say a businessman or security officer that could get through the paperwork and roadblocks. But I never expected it to be the Overseer."
"So, does this mean that we can just go there and arrest him?" Patrick asked.
"Unfortunately, no," the Corporal sadly replied, shaking his head. "He's got a lot of friends throughout the government, with even the Minister of Justice a close ally of his, being an MP from Vault H himself. If he knew that we were investigating the Overseer the operation wouldn't only be shut down, but I would be out of a job. We've managed to keep it secret so far, but soon it's going to come out, especially when the news of a bomb going off in the center of the RAMP HQ breaks the news tomorrow."
"Okay," Patrick said. "So what do we have to do?"
Corporal Jenkins wheeled over closer to Patrick. "I need someone to infiltrate Vault H and the Overseer's office, and find anything that might implicate him. Only then can I present the information to bring him down." The RAMP officer looked at Patrick.
"Whoa, wait… me? I'm not suited for this! He already knows me!"
"Then you will have to be sneaky about it. Wait until evening, or disguise yourself as the staff, something," Corporal Jenkins said. "I'm sure you will figure something out."
"Well, I can't get there tonight. That will be as suspicious."
"It needs to be done soon. I can get the press guys to say that we don't know who it is, and that we are investigating. But that will only work for a couple of days. Any longer than that, and the truth might leak out. Three days, tops."
Patrick chewed on his lip again. The rate he was doing that, he might not have one soon enough. "Well, I guess I really don't have any choice, huh?"
"Sorry," the corporal said. "I would do it, if only I had two functioning legs."
Patrick sighed. "Fine. I'll do it. I'll get on the train and get there as soon as possible."
Corporal Jenkins smiled. "Also, I should mention: we just got word of some of the other things you have done. Because of that, the RAMP is making you a Sergeant of the Auxiliary. Congratulations on your promotion." He handed over a piece of paper that listed the things that he had done already, and with the official promotion.
"So what does that mean?" Patrick asked.
"To be perfectly honest, nothing. You are still an auxiliary. But you're now qualified for a few more pounds every month."
"Wait, I get paid?"
"Yeah, but not much," the Corporal said. "An Auxiliary is still expected to have a job outside of their roles, though you are, well… different in that regard."
Patrick forced a smile, just to make Corporal Jenkins feel better about giving him the news. He was different, alright. He was the one sticking his neck on the chopping block right now.
It seemed like everything lined up this time train wise. The Red River Express, the nighttime high speed run, also used one of the Atomliner locomotives, allowing it to race at over 120 kilometers an hour to it's destination going full tilt. Considering that Vault H was really only 30 some kilometers away from downtown Winnipeg, it would never have reached full speed on that short trip, but was still fast enough that it took a little less than an hour to arrive.
And for once, the train was on time, and added bonus. Patrick was back to Vault H just after sunset. The snow had mostly melted in the warm weather that afternoon, leaving puddles on the streets that, because they were paved, wouldn't turn to mud like they would have back home. The streets were illuminated by bright street lights and the softer, warmer glows from windows all over town, were a lot less crowded. Only a few people here and there wandering around. And thanks to the Vault H jumpsuit Patrick had on under his normal clothes (provided by the RAMP), along with the styled hair and shower he took, he looked just like a resident of Vault H. That, along with the codes to open the big door after hours, getting into the Vault would be easy. It was getting to the Overseer's office that would be the problem.
Patrick casually walked down the dirt ramp until he got to the big door. Now that it was in place, it looked even bigger and heavier than he imagined it. It looked almost like a mechanical gear, only with a two foot high H in the center. Beside the door a control panel was located, with a keypad to enter the code to get in. Another similar control panel would have been on the other side.
Before Patrick punched in his code, he casually slipped off his leather jacket and the black pants he had been wearing since he had left Melita, until he was only wearing the blue and yellow Vault suit. He shoved his clothes into his backpack. Patrick was about to punch in the code into the control panel, he could hear footsteps behind him.
"Excuse me, what are you doing here? Vault residents are supposed to be inside the Vault at this time of night."
Patrick spun around, only to see Officer Roy Gordon again.
"Roy?"
"Patrick!" he said in surprise, before walking forward. "What are you doing here?"
Patrick thought quickly. "When I finished delivering my package, I was supposed to come back to the Vault as soon as possible. The Overseer gave me the code to get in."
Roy's eyebrows went up. "Really now? That would be the first time he would have given anyone outside of the Vault the code to enter."
Patrick continued smiling, hoping his lie wouldn't catch him. "But what are you doing out right now?"
"Last patrol of the day for me. I'm about to go into the Vault myself. I can let you in if you need to go in. But the Overseer won't be in his office right now."
"I know, but he said I could sleep there until morning," Patrick continued lying, giving as big of a smile as he could. No use in lying if you were going to luck suspicious and nervous about it.
Officer Gordon hmm'ed to himself, before shrugging, much to Patrick's silent, unshown, relief. "Very well then. I'll let you in, and guide you down to the Overseer's office."
"That's greatly appreciated," Patrick said, a smile on his lips.
Roy Gordon walked over to the control Panel, and punched in the code. A siren began to blare, red lights flashing of the entrance and the big door. Air hissed out as pneumatic release valves let go of the door. It slowly slid back, sparks flying up as the heavy steel door grinded along the metal brace that held into place.
On the other side, an arm would be reaching out from the left, and latching into place. With a grunt, the machine would then roll to the door out of the way, the H doing somersaults as it spun around and around until it and the door were safely out of sight.
"Quite impressive, eh?" Roy said, flashing an award winning smile. "They sure knew how to make things back before the War of 2077. But Vault H does our best to replicate it." Patrick could only nod.
Patrick followed Roy through the dizzying maze of passages, stairs and elevators, past miles of clean, untarnished corridors and hundreds of pressurized doors that lead into rooms, all labeled with lights above proclaiming "Kitchen," "Washrooms," "Clinic" and a dozen other places until they finally reached the lowest level with the Overseer's office. Patrick and Roy walked toward the door.
"I hope he gave you the code to get into his office," Officer Gordon said. "Because only he knew it."
"I have it, yeah. I just can't use it when others are around, for safety reasons" Patrick lied again, his biggest one of the night.
But Roy didn't know that, and he just smiled and walked away.
"Good night Patrick. In the morning we can have coffee or something, yeah?" he said over his shoulder.
Patrick nodded, and waited for a moment until the elevator closed and carried Roy back to whatever floor he needed to be on.
Patrick took a deep breath and exhaled. He could feel himself shuddering as he thought about what happened, and how close it was, how close he was to being found out. Thank God it was Officer Gordon who found him, and not some other security guard!
Patrick turned around, to see a small computer imbedded on the wall. He really didn't know the code at all, which of course meant this was going to be anything but easy now.
He looked at the keyboard, and noticed five keys were particularly worn down, most likely from constant use: P. That might be a clue.
Patrick then brought up the screen that Corporal Jenkins had quickly showed him back in Winnipeg that would allow him to find the password, usually used to help the forgetful or computer techs to get into a computer. RobCo thought of everything, apparently. The green monochrome screen showed two columns, with at least a dozen words, random letters, brackets, symbols and other things were all on the screen. Patrick glanced over, and mentally cancelled out all the ones without the six letters from above.
However, that eventually only left Patrick two words: PATROL and PORTAL. He grunted at the frustration, but then he remembered the other trick Corporal Jenkins told him. If you find the two similar brackets to close together, it would cancel out words. So, Patrick started finding all the brackets he could find, and tapping away, hoping to remove one or the other of the words. One after another, words began to disappear, but after finding seven brackets, he still had PORTAL and PATROL. And in his rush, he accidently hit three words, meaning he now had one more try out of his four tries (two of the brackets he hit at the start were to give him more tries, which really annoyed Patrick). And if he screwed this up, who knew if that would mean that the system would lock him out, would only have a cooldown, or, heaven forbid, sound an alarm.
"Damnit," Patrick muttered to himself, sweat starting to drip down his face, though the corridor was a comfortable 21 Celsius. Really nervous, Patrick looked over the screen again, carefully trying to find any brackets that he didn't get, but there wasn't one.
"Fuck!" Patrick swore, louder this time. He really needed to get it now!
Taking a deep breath, Patrick pulled a coin out of his pocket, an Assiniboian half pound coin with a bison and maple leaf on one side, and the head of Prime Minister Landon on the other. Heads, it was PATROL, tails it was PORTAL. What else could he do?
Patrick snapped his fingers, sending the coin skyward. Just as it was starting to come down, Patrick snapped it with his left hand, and slapped it onto the back of his right hand. He carefully lifted it up. The bison and maple leafs stared back at him.
His choice made, Patrick moved the keys over, until it highlighted PORTAL. Taking a deep breath, he pressed the enter button.
"ACCESS GRANTED" the green letters read out, much to Patrick's relief. The door beside the computer terminal slid open, allowing Patrick access to the Overseer's office. Patrick slipped inside, and pushed a button on the panel on the opposite side, letting the door close and lock again.
The lights came on, revealing the wood paneled office. Patrick stretched, and walked over to the filing cabinets on the wall. He pulled open the first one, labeled Finances. He looked through the folders, before finding the one for 2217, and he pulled that one out. As he looked over the numbers, one thing became apparent: there was a lot of entries written in red ink for expenses, and not even half as many black numbers for income. However, one income entry under "Great American Caravan Company" more than made up for the expenses, and gave a surplus for Vault H. But Patrick had never heard of that company before.
Patrick hmm'ed to himself, holding the sheet up to the built in camera on his Pip-Boy (another thing Corporal Jenkins' showed him), and snapped a picture of the sheet. He then replaced the paper and the folder back in its file, and opened up 2216's folder. Once again, a large amount of money from the Great American Caravan Company more than made up for any losses made. Patrick glanced through different files, but once he got to 2210, there were no income entries for Great American Caravan Company. Before that, a lot of loans from the Dominion of Assiniboia and the Dominion Union Bank seemed to be the only thing keeping the town and businesses of Vault H afloat, and the interest on those loans were only going up. Only that caravan company seemed to be keeping the whole thing afloat.
"Well, Mr. Morrison, I see that you didn't like my little present, eh?" a familiar voice asked, making Patrick turnaround. Still in a blue and yellow jumpsuit, but his hair disheveled and his eyes bleary, the Overseer stood in the doorway with a laser pistol pointing at Patrick. "I knew you were a clever guy, but apparently I underestimated you."
"Mr. Overseer. How did you know that I got in here?"
"That friendly security officer let me know, thought I should at least know you are here," the Overseer chuckled. "Sometimes you just can't trust anyone, eh?" He motioned the gun upwards.
Patrick stood up and lifted his hands into the air. "Corporal Jenkins was right, there is something going on here that you don't want to know about." He then glanced at the clock. It was 1:45 AM. Almost on time.
"Ah yes, Jenkins," the Overseer said as he sat at his horseshoe desk, laser gun still pointed at Patrick. "Took a lot of searching to figure out who it was. And when I couldn't pay him off, or threaten him to give up, I decided to be a bit more direct."
"But why do all this? You have the most advanced technologies in the country, and the machines to rebuild it. So why do you need to go into all these shady dealings?"
"Have you seen Assiniboia?" the Overseer asked. "A bunch of subsistence farmers, uneducated tribals, gang leaders, ignorant leaders and idiot yokels. Who would have thought that a post-apocalyptic society that is more concerned about survival and living to the next day would need many computers, or laser weapons? When we lost the contract to build the Radiograms a few years ago, that hit us hard. And while we sell a lot of radios to Assiniboians, it's just not enough."
"And you never got help?"
The Overseer shook his head. "Barely. About 15 years ago, the government managed to re-negotiate all the supply deals with my predecessor to reduce the price on them all, and then locked it in for fifty. I tried to solve the problem by asking to renegotiate the prices, but the Government wouldn't listen, instead offering 'loans' to me to keep running. But it's hard to keep going when you have to go begging for more money just to pay off the previous loans you already had." The Overseer scowled as he thought about the government.
"I'm surprised that had never been revealed before. That would have been a scandal," Patrick said.
"You are a smart fellow," the Overseer said. "Too bad you had to waste it with the RAMP. But the Winnipeg News Network once got close. But I offered them brand new broadcasting equipment, and they forgot the story," the Overseer said. "And DBS is too scared of losing government support to bit the hand that feeds them, and I did everything I could to keep the Prime Minister and his cabinet happy. But had the government decided to cut me off from loans and then reveal that we were basically insolvent, Vault H would be no more, torn down by Dominion to wring that money back."
"So, you turned to this Great American Caravan Company," Patrick said.
"Yes. A representative came to me soon after the end of the Assiniboia-Brotherhood War and offered us a great deal of money, enough to free ourselves from the banks and the Dominion government and their greedy fingers."
Patrick took a few steps toward the Overseer's desk. "But what would a small time trading company want with advanced tech? Enough to pay hundreds of thousands of Pounds to you? Where would they get that money?"
"I don't know, and I don't care. They don't ask me how I run my business, and I don't pry into theirs. All I know is they want computers and mechanical parts, and stopping points for their caravans and we provide them," the Overseer continued. "Business and commerce, something that the Dominion says it respects, but in reality is always trying to find a way to stifle, for any number of excuses."
"But what if the business is detrimental to Assiniboia?" Patrick asked back, sneaking a glance at the clock on the wall. The hands said that it was only a few minutes to 2 AM. Good.
"There is no such thing as detrimental business. I make and sell a product, and then I spend some of that money to buy other services of products, and the government gets some with taxes and fees and that. All business is good," the Overseer replied.
"But what if you were selling things to someone that is against Assiniboia? Like a raider group or Brandon or something?" Patrick asked back.
"Bah, you think the raiders or gangsters want a computer? They are more likely to smash it with a rock then write something on it," the Overseer said. "I'm a bit surprised you managed to get in here though. How did you do that?"
"I've picked up a few tricks since I left Melita," Patrick replied. "In fact, one thing I'm really proud of getting is my Auxiliary papers."
The Overseer snorted. "So? What about them?"
Patrick looked back at the clock, then back to the Overseer with a smile on his face. "Reasons."
Before the Overseer could say anything, Patrick dropped to the floor, and rolled as close to the desk as he could get. Surprised, the Overseer tried to aim his laser pistol at Patrick, but before he could fire, he heard a metal canister thud onto the carpet. He turned around just in time for the flash-bang grenade to explode, blinding and deafening the Overseer. He stumbled back, tripping over his chair and landing on the floor with a solid thud.
Five RAMP officers in camouflage combat gear and helmets, with weapons ranging from the stand .44 Magnum revolver to shotguns barged in. Patrick looked up, but he couldn't hear anything through his ringing ears, despite his best effort to plug them when he dropped.
Two of the officers went over and picked up the disoriented head of Vault H, while the other three held their guns out, surveying the room and the outer hall for any danger to their colleagues.
After a few minutes, Patrick could make out one of them were shouting at him, and he stood up, and walked over to the RAMP officer shouting at him.
"Good job, Auxiliary! We're sorry we weren't able to get him before he might have shot you," he said, his voice a bit louder and more drawn out to help Patrick hear him.
"No worries, it was just a laser pistol," Patrick replied, trying to downplay the danger. "Where is Corporal Jenkins?"
"He's back in Winnipeg. He had to stay behind to debrief the Commissioner when we are done." The officer gave a salute and was about to turn around when he stopped. "Oh, and here," he said, slipping a bulky radio from his hip and tossing it to Patrick, who caught it. "When you get yourself together, you should radio the corporal, tell him what you found out. Your call sign is Buffalo 1 for right now, and his is Viper 2."
Patrick nodded, but then tapped the RAMP man on the shoulder. "What about Derek? Where is he?"
"Your companion?" The officer asked, to which Patrick nodded in reply. "We are going through the holding cells right now. When we find him, we'll send him to you."
Patrick watched as the two officers who arrested the Overseer quietly led the dazed man out of his office. Patrick took a deep breath as the room cleared out, and he sauntered over and sat in the chair behind the Overseer's desk, before turning on and tuning the radio.
"Buffalo 1 to Viper 2," Patrick said into the receiver.
"Viper 2 here," the radio replied back after a moment. "How did it go Patrick?"
"Pretty good, the Overseer is in custody. I did find a couple things in his files beforehand though, all of it tying to something called the Great American Caravan Company. Lots of money being funneled to the Vault, which the Overseer said was for computers and electronics, as well as rights to stop at the Vault. But it seemed pretty excessive."
There was a pause. "What company did you say again?"
"Great American Caravan Company," Patrick replied.
There was another pause. "I'm just being told by the Commissioner that crates with that company name had been found with gangs, drug dealers and bandits that the RAMP has raided over the past couple of years. But all the investigations we have done have come up with no leads. They just seem to be a small time trading company that may unknowingly, or through other channels, be supplying gangsters."
"You don't believe that though, do you?" Patrick said.
"Of course not. But everything we've looked into seems to have been in order, so we have had no reason to look deeper. But now…" Corporal Jenkins trailed off.
Patrick sighed. "Let me guess, you want me to go in and investigate, don't you?"
The RAMP man didn't say anything for a while. "Look, Patrick, I hate to say this, but you are, perhaps, the best person we got to do this. Not many know about what you have been doing, and fewer know your actual identity. You are the perfect agent for these missions that we have."
Patrick sighed. At the moment, it seemed true. He really didn't like the idea, but if this would help him find his brother…
Derek poked his head into the room right then, smiling as he saw Patrick. "I'd knew you'd do it, PatrickMorrison. And thanks for helping me."
Patrick smiled back, and pushed the button on his radio.
"Alright, I'll do it."
Pip-Boy 3000 Info-Tracker Note #3197
NewsNet Update; February 17, 2210
RAMP Investigation into Winnipeg Criminal Gangs Leads to Arrest, Charges (WNN Pip-Boy Service) September 7, 2115
The RAMP today announced that an 15 month long investigation into criminal gangs inside the city of Winnipeg has yielded impressive amounts of ill-gotten money, illegal firearms, drugs and manufactured goods.
The press conference held at the RAMP HQ today showed off many of the weapons, piles of stacked Assiniboian Pounds and Caps used outside of Assiniboia, as well as many products ranging from toasters to clothes to full dining sets. Most were manufactured outside of Assiniboia and smuggled across the border.
"Everything here had been uncovered in a series of busts over the past two weeks," RAMP spokesperson Corporal Zander McKinnon said. "In all, we arrested thirty-two people, laid 554 charges, and uncovered cash and goods worth up to three and a half million pounds.
Most of the charges were for willingly engaging in black market activity, smuggling, resisting arrest, tax evasion and one case of an unregistered canine.
"We would like to remind everyone that being involved in smuggling, black markets and other such ventures is illegal, and the RAMP will investigate and bring charges," Corporal McKinnon stated.
There were rumors that members of the Assiniboian government, including cabinet ministers, were also implicated, but the RAMP refused to comment.