Note: Thank you for the review, anon. Wouldn't be the first time I started something a little boring (looking at INF, same problem, same result too, the characters take a while to come into their own). I actually did that on purpose this time, so the problems could culminate... in these chapters.

edited for tensity problems, ironically enough

Augustus sat down at his desk to write up a proxy for some requisition-related nonsense about the Hellfire armors, something he ought to have done ages before but he'd delayed. This―he looked at the paper in front on him and rubbed his face. It was some idiocy related to Lillie's implant, and he was on the hook for finding a suitable replacement. The lens she'd had repaired required a steady hand; Dr. Isben did not have one. The man had wasted resources that were simply not available.

He would have loved to open the door and boot the man into the wastes, but President Eden's orders countermanded him. Isben could destroy half of the medical wing and he would get off scot-free.

Augustus downed a shot of scotch and waited for the slow buzz to overtake him. Paperwork was paperwork, whether he was drunk or not. And this... Augustus rubbed his temple, feeling the soft spike of pain forming. This was a two-shot kind of paperwork. The kind that one didn't care if the writing was legible, mostly because one simply didn't care.

He knew why he was so irritated. He'd thought that having his concerns vested would have taken the brunt of the weight off his shoulders, regarding his pride and his ill behavior. But even so, he was annoyed as easily as ever. Pushed into being an ass―

After that snide remark he'd made on the gun range, and seeing Lillie's face amused at his forgetfulness, he certainly knew why. She was still the cause.

Eden made it painfully obvious that it desired the two of them to spend time together. Augustus was halfway convinced it was running some of sort of social experiment; after recalling the supercomputer's flair for Vault-Tec records, he'd examined the recovered data at his leisure. Despicable, what the company had done to citizens of the United States of America. It was for a nobler goal, but the sheer amount of people who had been lost...

There was a link between the Enclave and Vault-Tec. Augustus hadn't read into the reports prior to his remembered parallel, and now he regretted that. He hadn't been well-informed of the "Societal Preservation Program" before he started reading. He had known about the secret Vaults that had housed what would become the Enclave―he was aware of the existence of public Vaults, and some of the less than public ones, as well. The Vaults where generations of Autumns had lived.

Gone, now. Almost every Vault had failed, whether or not it was intended to. The preservation program had failed, as well. What had begun as a laudable attemped to provide shelter to a minority of people had turned into some grand murder plot with a side line of unimaginable terror.

So many different experiments―some more or less dependent on the residents, some designed to fail, some that were little more than badly-planned meat grinders. He was especially disturbed by Vault 11. If he himself had been in that same position...

He knew that he would have gone to his death willingly. He would have been another martyr for the cause. Blindly following orders was something he had done for his entire life, until Lillie and her father arrived at Raven Rock. It was how he was raised, and only now did he truly understand the value of freedom.

Now that he was effectively denied that freedom. It was unnerving, how much of a fool he'd been.

His cause was failing. His people were subject to the same poor planning and psychopathic schemes of those Vaults, designed to provide data. Eden was toying with them in the same manner Vault-Tec had, and this time―this time there was no backup. No secrets under the earth, no untainted people waiting to start again.

The Enclave was destined for failure, at this junction of time.

Augustus did not want to see it fail. Not when he had spent his entire life keeping his people alive, and furthered so many goals.

He grumbled under his breath. He'd drank more than he ought to have, again. Stared at the bottle with wavering vision and sighed to himself, rubbing his forehead with one hand and holding a pencil absently in the other. He was waxing on about some dramatic hogwash when he ought to be working.

It was ridiculously stressful, having to keep his thoughts so focused. Not being able to properly express them, and having moments in which he violently spewed those thoughts forth. Uncontrolled, unrestrained.

At least he wasn't speaking them aloud. He would already be dead, not merely content with drinking himself to death.

He'd filled out the form and written in half a comment regarding the armor components when he realized he could barely see straight enough to read, much less write anything coherent. It was time for him to sleep. If the scientists knew he was in such a bad way, he could expect an immediate demand for his dismissal. Worse case, he would end up in one of the very armors he was trying to develop. Stuck on the front line in the wastes, guarding Enclave assets.

There were too many people dependent on his knowledge, for that to happen―he stood up, intent to go to bed―

"Colonel Autumn," Eden said, startling him.

Augustus nearly fell over, grabbing the desk for balance, and knocked the paperwork to the floor. So late in the evening―he did not expect the supercomputer to bother him. Unless it was an emergency, it wasn't supposed to. It had never happened.

"Yes?" he slurred, and turned his head in shame. Good Lord, he was too drunk. This would end badly.

"You have a visitor arriving," Eden said.

Autumn frowned. "It's too late, sir," he managed. "I need my sleep."

"I did try to dissuade her," Eden said, sounding full of itself and highly amused. "But, I regret to inform you, my words are not much salve for a wounded teenage ego. I will let you have your privacy, if you wish."

Lillie.

"Sir, I don't think this is appro―"

A loud knock on the door. Augustus pressed his mouth shut and breathed out through his nose in a rush, his hand gripping the edge of the desk too tightly. His glove split along his pinkie finger. He was so very close to actually swearing out loud―

"Colonel Autumn?" Lillie asked, through the door. She sounded angry and insistent. "May I please speak with you?"

Augustus' free hand went to his temple, furiously rubbing the skin. The leather of his gloves bit into the skin and made the pain worse. He felt his temper rising, not slowly but critically peaking, and he closed his eyes.

Couldn't open the door for the girl. It was the middle of the damn night! The very idea of the girl in his room at such an hour―he recalled the last time it had happened, a turn of events likely put into place by that insufferable bastard―

All of this was put into place by that goddamned computer!

Augustus reached out and picked up the first thing that struck his hand―the scotch bottle―and he hurled it at the intercom light, shattering the glass casing and spilling the remainder across the wall.

"Colonel?" Lillie said, through the door. Now she sounded concerned. Damn that stupid girl! Why could she not listen to him! She'd never been as much trouble before, when he'd had her under his heel!

"I do not think you can hide from this problem, Colonel," Eden said, its voice distorted by the wet and fizzling circuits of the intercom. "I will open the door, if you will not―"

Augustus' patience finally snapped. He jabbed the door release and reached a shaking hand out into the hallway, grabbing Lillie by her wrist. She shrieked as he pulled her into the room with a snap, causing her pain, and shut the door behind her. She was released the minute her foot was in the door, stumbling to the floor and crying out in surprise.

"Are you happy?" he yelled at the intercom. "Your inane plot has finally―"

"Colonel, you are obviously very agitated," the intercom warbled. "Calm yourself before you damage Lillie further. She is very valuable, as you'll recall."

He didn't need a warning from that monstrosity of science. He knew precisely how valuable Eden considered the girl―and how much value he, himself, had placed onto her. Sympathy bought and paid for, and his damned money was not legal tender!

Augustus turned and glared at Lillie, who had curled up on the floor and was watching him with wide tear-filled eyes, her chin bobbing in hiccups. "You are not hurt," he snapped. "Leave. I have no patience for you, tonight."

She stared at him for a moment, her shining eyes reflecting back onto him his sins. Again―he had failed himself. He might as well give into the goddamn supercomputer and let himself fall to baser actions! There was absolutely nothing he could do to prevent the terror she must feel―

"Get out!" he raged, casting a hand at the door. "Get out, Lillie!"

Lillie uncurled a little, putting a hand on the edge of the bed, and pushed herself up onto one knee, looking horrified. Horror-struck, by his actions. Well, that wasn't new! He glared at her, and turned his eyes back onto the wall as Eden spoke further.

"Are you going to watch this debacle tomorrow?" Eden asked. "Or will you simply destroy the recording, again?"

He grimaced. That night―admitting to himself his failure. Of course, he'd been watched. Eden had been observing the entire bunker without blinking for its entire existence. He could not expect privacy even when Eden promised it―and it was stealthily guiding this situation into some disastrous outcome. For what purpose―

"I am rather curious to see how you intend to self-medicate after this―" Eden continued, but he was silenced by a curt rebuttal of Augustus' pistol. Lillie shrieked and covered her ears, curling up again on the floor.

"Did I not warn you, you stupid girl!" he roared at her. "I tried to be friendly! You couldn't leave well enough alone! You couldn't, for one minute portion of your life, understand that there are bigger problems than your own?!"

Tears fell from her eyes like there was no end, streaming down her face. Augustus did not pause―he turned his gun onto her, breathing hard and staring intently at her. "You are a puppet," he said, "and you can be made to behave."

Lillie screamed, and kicked out a leg, knocking his knee out from under him. He was glad―Christ, he might have actually shot her if she hadn't fought him―

Augustus hit the floor, his pistol sliding across the metal, landing awkwardly on his hands and feeling the incomparable ache of arthritic joints. His forehead narrowly missed the edge of the bed as he fell forward onto Lillie's legs, his own skating out behind him and turning the chair over his calves.

Lillie kept screaming, kicking out and pushing herself backward, her feet hitting him in the face and the bullet wound on his shoulder. Fire laced through him, disabling him momentarily. He groaned in pain, cradling his side, as she managed to get her feet underneath herself and fled the room.

Eden chuckled, sounding otherworldly over the damaged intercom. "Perfection," it said. "Thank you, Colonel Autumn. You have performed your part admirably." The voice slowly disappeared into a drawn-out growl as the intercom failed.

Augustus hissed in pain, pushing himself up with one hand, and looked about for his weapon. It was gone, goddammit―

Lillie had taken it.

He stood, limping. She was definitely smarter than he'd thought, even if she was capable of such moronic actions―but now she was loose in the bunker with a loaded weapon and a decidedly unpleasant frame of mind―

He poured himself into the hallway, bloodied hands sliding down the door frame. Eden's voice rang out around him, echoing through the bunker. Didn't care about the words. Augustus' shoulder bled freely from torn stitches. He looked about blearily, for a subordinate. For anyone other than himself to chase the girl down―

"One of our member has chosen a path that we cannot take," Eden boomed. "She has chosen willingly. You are not to hamper her progress."

Good God, she―Eden was letting her outside―

Without any sort of protection, without anyone to mind her, and with that damnable VIOLA playing her sight back perfectly―

Augustus lurched himself out of his room and worked his way, painfully, towards James' prison cell.

Cad though he was, he could not let Eden have the upper hand.