1
"Okay. Okay.", Morowski understood. "Strong starting position. Prepared to the long haul. I get that, I really do.
"The next step is that I bluster, then you count your strengths, I threaten, you threaten, this breaks down into a shouting match. And we go through this dance for a few weeks before we're eating noodles and TATO sauce wit' each other's families. How about we skip all dat?"
Colonel Shaw raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me."
"Of course little lady.", Morowski dismissed. "Look - I'm gonna take your fairy tale time as a proposal. You put one free murder spree on the table. And as I said, I like that, I'm in the market for a murder spree myself to tell you the truth. But here's what us in the business call an opportunity for a counter proposal. See how you like mine.
"By our count, our community does about an eighth of all the trade in the entire Commonwealth. More than Diamond City's Market. More than Bunker Hill's market. I don't even think you want to put Nuka-World against us in the amount of sheer number of caps moved per day, capice?
"So you can talk all day about how we're just a bunch of whatever names you wanna stick us wit'. Thugs. Criminals. Gangsters. I don't care.
"Because you can't pull that much trade out of the system without blowback.
"And while these two might want get all high and mighty, you're different. You have a pre-war education from back in the day when kids did nothing but go to school. You're smart enough to get the Institute to talk to you like you're one of them. You have to know that I'm right. You actually can't just rip out that amount of back and forth in trade without taking the whole system down with you.
"And I also get that that's a lotta caps and you want your taste. Maybe the first two thousand you got offa me whet your appetite, maybe you ain't greedy but the General's got have her respect. That's cool too.
"Then there's that massacre you're promising. I wonder how much that'll cost? Not just in human lives. I mean, you're pre-war trained. You gotta know how many people you'll lose if you actually try to take out every single one of my boys room by room in a vault.
"I mean, in supplies - that who's gonna pay for? Meds for the wounded your people pull out from the fight. You're not going to sacrifice your men's loyalty for a few caps here and there...until it all adds up. Fusion cells. Conventional rounds. Food. War's expensive.
"And you'll have not only our caps against you but the opportunity cost of not having our caps backing you.
"See, there's nothing more powerful than caps. Not our vault. Not your castle. Not even the Institute. Nothing."
By now Marowski was standing halfway across the room. The General unfolded herself and stood.
And pulled back the flap of her coat to reveal (to the room, not the radio audience) the gun she took from her son's kidnapper's corpse. "I can think of something."
Just then, a bald waiter wearing sunglasses came in the room. "Your Nuka-Grape, ma'am."
Instead of grabbing it by the top and thumbing open the bottle, being careful to have one hand for the cap like everyone in the Commonwealth, she pulled the bottle from the bottom - brushing her hand along the tray in the action. "Thank you."
Marowski nodded. "You know? I think I worked up a powerful thirst myself. Let's break for a few and wet our whistles."
The Triggermen contingent walked out into the main bar area of the Third Rail.
2
"Whatcha got for me, Stan?", Marowski asked his usually present bodyguard.
The other man glanced at the two Minutemen standing guard at the backroom entrance, in combat armor and carrying the Institute's upgrade to the LASER MUSKET. He nodded his head away from the entrance and two men walked a bit away.
"The business is what's you got for us?", Slavin asked his boss. "Listening to the radio's fine and all. But lookin' in a person's eye is the real judge. So now that you've seen her in her element, do you really think the General's gonna go for this?"
Marowski nodded. "If she ain't a psychopath she will."
"And the chance of that?", Stan pressured.
"Considering she lost her whole world, her husband, her kid and is now trying to put the Commonwealth together with spit and gristle? About fifty / fifty."
3
Preston turned after the waiter who walked back out. "Whitechapel Charlie doesn't have a waiter...Hey! Isn't that/"
"A tasty Nuka-Grape, yes it is.", the General cut him off. She unfolded a HANDKERCHIEF that had appeared in her hand after turning away from Connelly working his radio equipment and Piper still gathering her notes. Her eyes were hidden by her WRAPARROUND GOGGLES but her face stayed still as if thinking or reading once the cloth was unfolded. After the pause she raised the cloth to her nose and then balled it up into a pocket.
"You know, you're getting kind of jumpy.", the General told Preston. She took him by the arm and kind of leaned into him, taking him wholly by surprise. "If the Triggermen are taking this time to rest up and relax, we should too."
