Note: I made a minor edit to the chapter here. I was not happy with some of the implications.

Augustus, sitting at the desk in his personal quarters, rubbed his temple with one hand and pulled out a bottle of scotch with the other. He slammed the bottle onto the surface of the desk and winced at the reverberating pain inside of his head, breathing out noisily into the very quiet room.

He poured out a shot, then slowly worked his hands out of the leather gloves he wore. Placing these to the side, he massaged the side of his temple with two fingers and tossed back the scotch; without pausing, he poured another shot and also drank it in one go. Closed his eyes and felt the movement of his fingers against his scalp, waiting for the scotch to take effect.

Not for the first time, in the last twenty-some years, he was doubting himself and the efficacy of his leadership. The situation was, as always, exacerbated by that overbearing compu―he groaned softly, and leaned his elbow onto the table, rubbing his temple harder. Exacerbated by that goddamn overbearing supercomputer and its insidious machinations.

These damned migraines. Augustus opened his eyes a crack and stared at the bottle of scotch in his hand. He'd never had migraines until James and his daughter arrived. James was, of course, no longer around to cause the godawful things. That left Lillie as a sole cause for his daily bout with the scotch bottle and his rubbing down the skin on the tips of his fingers in an effort to relieve the pain.

Augustus slowed his fingers against his temple, placing the scotch bottle onto the desk before he was tempted to pour another shot. His objections to the two outsiders had been ignored for too long. He did not need to think about being overruled in the matter; it was clear, once Lillie took to the implant, that Eden had its own plans for the girl. There was nothing Augustus could have done to route its inclinations.

The initial implantation was nothing Augustus could have fought against, either. It would have happened to one of his soldiers if it had not happened to Lillie, provided Isben had the wherewithal to actually complete it on his own. The man was not entirely without fault. Augustus did not care for him.

But, because she was the person subjected to the procedure―

He breathed out again, and grabbed up the bottle. Poured another scotch, watched the liquid filling the glass. The surgeries he'd ordered, to fine-tune VIOLA and to keep the girl enervated and useless to Eden, were marginally successful. Up until Eden had ordered them stalled he was able to keep her confused and terrified, and completely unable to provide what data Eden desired to garner from VIOLA. It was only the budding friendship between the two that had caused Eden to order Augustus to stand down.

Yet another veto of his orders. It was starting to appear that he only had control of his men as a whole, rather than individual units. He could not make any headway unless he was giving orders to the entire bunker, and then he was risking Eden's interference.

Augustus slammed back the shot. Yes, he was doubting himself. Wondering what, if anything, it was worth. What was it worth, to continue existing under the tyrannical thumb of the supercomputer calling itself President John Henry Eden. This―what was happening in the bunker with that girl and VIOLA―this was not what he had envisioned for the future of the Enclave.

Probably the worst of the matter was that he could not not fault VIOLA's usefulness. It would be immeasurably helpful to have recordings of field operations; to have a training procedure implementing the footage provided by the visual integration program. To make soldiers aware of key issues of operations, prior to entering the field.

Even proper training couldn't prepare the average soldier for the first time a ghoul or Super Mutant hurled itself at him, if all he knew of it was a dead specimen in a tube and a story from a senior officer. Augustus sighed and switched hands, rubbing the other side of his head.

Under Eden's manipulation... the girl was becoming a model citizen. More than anything, Augustus felt that behavior was molded by the hormone injections delivered by Enclave physicians. Stopping her from experiencing the inevitable hand of fate, that emotionally-charged and unstable time called puberty. Augustus had no objections to the girl being tractable, but he doubted the injections would be of use after long-term exposure. If the girl was truly of pure stock―of which Eden was fully convinced, and he himself had little cause to doubt―such injections would only hinder the girl's true value to the Enclave.

Of course, her scheduled field test would negate that value if she were to die in the wasteland. Given her physical weakness, her neutral state brought on by a purposeful hormonal balance, and her general education, Augustus was certain her death would result.

If she died, she would at least be out of his purview. He anticipated that. The migraines he experienced would vanish, and he could finally order the actual execution of that damnable doctor father of hers. The man was imprisoned and well-behaved, but only because he had been led to believe that Lillie remained alive due to his continued good behavior. Augustus had not made an effort to check in with the man for nearly a year, and was not likely to do so again until it was time for that execution.

He felt himself relaxing, finally. Imagining putting a bullet between the eyes of that insufferable man always did the trick. Augustus put the bottle and glass away, retrieving his gloves and moving himself to his bed. As he sat, he imagined how he might explain the matter to James prior to shooting him. A smile flickered across his face.

Augustus laid himself onto the bed and stared at the ceiling, letting his eyelids droop and mind float away into the ignorant bliss of alcohol-dampened sleep.

No matter how it happened, no matter when it would, he planned to be the direct cause of James' death. Come hell or high water, he would have the man's death on his conscience.

And he would sleep much better than he had been, for the first time in seventeen years.

"Run the course again," Augustus directed the girl, staring at her with his arms crossed over his chest.

Lillie, her hands on the mat and her legs extended as she'd caught herself when she fell, relaxed slightly and returned herself to an upright position. He watched her move back to the beginning of the obstacle course―it had been designed for soldiers in power armor and she, only a slip of a girl in a jumpsuit, was forced to run it without such benefit.

He actually felt like smiling at her. It was something novel, given the pressing situation.

Augustus had awakened in a more pleasant mood than he had experienced in quite a while. Watching Lillie failing at the beginning of the course, repeatedly, had only reinforced this mood; his supervision of her physical education was not a daily occurrence, but today he had been reminded of his obligation by Eden almost as soon as he'd shaved and eaten.

Normally such an order would have made his mood plummet, but for some reason he was rather enjoying watching her fail. Perhaps it was his idle thought the previous night―that she would be dead soon, and no longer a thorn in his side; perhaps he had managed to sleep well enough that his irascibility was tempered.

Whatever the cause, Lillie seemed to have picked up on it. She stayed relaxed for the next two runs, actually completing the second, and tumbled to a stop at the end, near his feet. Augustus held out a hand to the girl. As he was quite certain she was about to die a very messy death, why not allow her some measure of politeness? His gesture was met with a frown, blonde eyebrows drawn together over the unnerving reflective eyes she'd been granted by Enclave science.

She did take his hand, eventually. Pulled herself upward with a jerking and weak motion. If Augustus were a more petty man, he would have released her to fall backward onto the mat. When Lillie returned to a standing position he did attempt to remove her hand from his, without a care as to the stability of her footing.

Lillie fell forward and landed on him with a soft grunt, her arms out and grabbing at his shoulders. Bony fingers made purchase through his coat, causing him momentary annoyance. Augustus pressed his mouth together, and firmly shoved the girl backward from his chest. She weighed no more than one hundred ten pounds, soaking wet. His shove sent her backwards with speed.

"I don't see how you will manage this idiotic field test," he snipped, "if you cannot stand after running a simple obstacle course."

Lillie colored and caught herself before falling, wavering in place. She wrung her hands together and brushed a curl of blonde hair out of her face, up over an ear and grazing the scars from her surgeries. "I'm sorry, sir," she mumbled, softly.

Augustus stared the girl down, noting the brilliance of the red across her cheeks. Such emotion had not been drawn from her since the hormone treatment began. He raised an eyebrow, cast an eye at the glaring red intercom light, and crossed his arms over his chest once more.

"Run the course again," he said, firmly.

"Colonel Autumn, sir," she said, hesitating. "May I―" Lillie paused and closed her eyes, turning her face down. "May I take a break, please?"

"Absolutely not." He shifted his weight and glared at the top of her head. "If you cannot run this course five times in a row, you will not be going on your little field trip."

Lillie breathed out, opened her eyes, and marched back to the beginning of the course, wobbling as she returned to the starting position. She set her feet, then made a nodding motion. Augustus watched, impatiently.

As he expected, she made it about five feet before her legs were tangled under her and she went down in a mess of knees and elbows onto the mat. He glanced back up at the red light, a look designed to dare Eden to interfere.

It was very shortly that Eden spoke. "I'm afraid Colonel Autumn is correct in this," it said, sounding disappointed. "You will have to train more, Lillie."

She sighed out a groan, peeling herself from the mat, "Yes, sir, Mr. President," she said, gasping for a breath.

Augustus' mouth turned up in a genuine smile. He was, dare he say, delighted, that the girl was still in such ill health after two years of rigorous training and no recent surgery. She looked the part, as well; she was pale, sweating, and flushed in the cheeks―

His smile became more a frown. The blush she'd had, weighed on his mind. If Lillie was feeling―well, he couldn't imagine what a teenage girl would feel, when placed in that specific situation―but if Lillie was feeling emotions of that ilk, she was no longer taking her injections.

He felt the tiny tendril of a migraine sneaking into his brain. Eden would not order the cessation of the hormones if it did not have an ulterior motive. It did not inspire confidence in Augustus.

He lifted a hand to his temple and rubbed it lightly, closing his eyes. "Return to your quarters for the day," he ordered the girl. She needed no prompting, and immediately vanished into a corridor.

"President Eden, sir," he said, slowly opening his eyes and lowering his hand. "What purpose does removing her from her injections, provide?"

Eden's voice, as calmly amused as ever, filled the room. "Without a certain amount of emotion, Lillie would not fare well in the wastes," it said. If it was because Augustus had noticed, or because it simply thought the whole situation was laughable...

"Sir, I honestly don't grasp the concept here," Augustus said, fighting the urge to rub his temple again.

"Lillie is a model citizen, of course," Eden replied, drawling slightly. "But she lacks the capability to pass undetected in civilization. Even in the wastes, a person without vocal inflection would be noticed. Therefore, she has been allowed to return to her normal physical state."

Augustus sighed and moved his hand upward. "I'd like my objections to go on record, sir," he said, tonelessly. Knowingly.

"Of course, Colonel." The damn thing was laughing at him; he could hear it in its voice. "Please, continue with Lillie's physical education. I see promise in her, yet." The light faded and Augustus drove two fingers into the skin at his temple, groaning under his breath. It wasn't Lillie causing him migraines, after all.

Damn that insufferable ZAX bastard!