1
"Where is the delegation?", the General asked MacCready.
The special forces unit was camped out at the opening to the cave tunnel that led to Vault 101. The General had Overseer McNamara of Vault 81, Bridget and a reunited marine force behind her.
MacCready held his hat in his hand. "Well, we opened the door/"
"You opened the door?", McNamara stopped him. "How?"
The General started counting the fingers on her hand. "I have access to a predictive, military-grade, experimental A.I. through the Intelligence branch. Overseer Barstow gave me the original Vault-Tec codes as she was a pre-war employee. It turns out all you really need to open a vault is to be registered as a resident on a reasonable PIP-BOY due to potential resettlement. The Institute gave me a hash-table compressor with desalinator for lock decryption. I was trained in enemy bunker penetration in basic pre-war." The General flipped her hand. "Admiral Goa let me copy his enemy bunker penetration software from pre-war on the other side."
McNamara held up her hand. "Okay, okay. I get it. You can open a door that's supposed to withstand a point blank thermonuclear detonation like a hot knife through butter."
"What's butter?", asked Emaline. Sydney quickly shrugged and shook her head.
The General side-eyed her. "Just don't go telling the Triggermen in Vault 114 and this all stays classified.
"So, you opened the door and then what?"
"They started shooting at us.", MacCready answered. "Not every mission's a combat mission. I figured that diplomatic interests mean we pull back rather than returning fire."
The General folded her arms akimbo. "McNamara, follow me."
The General walked her and Bridget back to an APC. Bridget pointed out, "I've come to know you. MacCready's right in the way you want him to be right. You aren't intending to kill everyone in that vault, after all."
The General sat McNamara down and brought up a QUAD-BARRELLED MISSILE LAUNCHER. "But it is her home vault, so what do I know?", Bridget finished.
The red head walked back to the special forces unit and uttered a simple command. "Follow me." She walked into the tunnel and saw the door to the vault still ajar. She lifted the launcher and called out "Hey you!", then pulled the trigger. The door guards poked their guns out just before the missile exploded on the wall behind them.
The General dropped the still loaded launcher. "Let's go collect them."
While MacCready's command was pulling the coughing, thrown about vault dwellers down the tunnel, the General found a microphone patched into the public announcement system of the Vault. "Overseer of Vault 101. This is the General of the Minutemen. I am inside your vault and taking your people outside. Please meet me at the entrance of your vault so that I can stop doing this."
The General marched back out of the tunnel, scooping up the launcher along the way. She came up to MacCready. "You're right, you know. This isn't Vault 75 spitting out future Gunners. Look at them. The Lone Wanderer is alone. They're...descended from the people that I went in with. Civilians that only know the way life is supposed to be isn't. If we go in, there's no way to put it back together. Not with these people and what they had."
Overseer Amata Almodovar came out of the tunnels entrance dressed in Vault 101 security armor and pointing a 10 MILLIMETER PISTOL at anything that glinted in the sunlight. The General rubbed her face and handed off the launcher to a marine. "She's just like me when I climbed out. Just without the war experience or battle training."
The red head walked up in full sight of the overseer. Almodovar paid closer attention to her as she approached. "Ma'am, focus on me. I'm the General. Right here. Right in front of you." When the General was right in front of her, the overseer nodded and pointed her gun at the General. The General grabbed the slide and receiver with the same grip from the outside which locked both into not firing and twisted the weapon from the woman's hand. When she turned to run, the General grabbed her by the back of her armor and let her feet flop in front of her to bring her down.
"Come grab her.", the General commanded. "Gently."
Sydney and Emaline both grabbed an arm and dragged Almodovar into the sunlight. When she looked back at the General, the General disassembled the magazine, slide, barrel, and receiver in one motion and threw the pieces to bounce against the overseer. The woman licked her lips. "I demand that you release the hostages."
The General furrowed her brow. "They're not hostages. They're temporarily prisoners."
"What's the difference?", the overseer asked.
"Negotiate with me or I'll kill the hostages.", the General answered. "That would be if they were hostages. See, you're going to talk with me whether I murder your guard team or not. I'm holding them because when I have to go back into your vault, I don't want to have to do anything more to them again."
McNamara stormed up. "Is this what you've been doing in the Capitol Wastes? Is this how you've been bringing in communities down here?"
"Decidedly not.", the General answered. "That's exactly why I've brought you down to help explain. Overseer Gwen McNamara of Vault 81, please meet...You can let her go now."
Sydney and Emaline walked away. "You can pick up your weapon and reassemble it if you keep it holstered.", the General offered.
Amata looked down. "I...I don't know how."
Gwen nodded as the General picked up the pieces and put the weapon back together. "It goes like this, see? Where's your...Okay, it's important for a gun to be held in a specialized holster. But since you're wearing armor let's just keep it in your belt for now.
"Look alive. I'm the General of the Minutemen of the Commonwealth. All of the Capitol Wastes, the region your vault is buried under has been surrendered to us by the Brotherhood of Steel. I am visiting every community that exists here and offering a place in our government so that we can all get along not just peacefully but prosperously.
"Vault 101 has some complications though. First, my best pitch is pointing out we can help with farming and water technology - even electricity production. But you're a vault. As soon as you slam your door shut, you won't need anything out of us. We have nothing that closing your door doesn't give you except cultural diversity...and that's not something you're chasing right now. And it's not like our introduction went so smoothly that I expect you to be inclined to join up because of the opportunity for trade. I brought down Overseer McNamara so that you could speak with her to get a vault's perspective on being a community in the Commonwealth and how it's helped them. But when we can't work anything out, I can send you and your people back inside with a CB radio. You can decontaminate and never think of us again. We'll set up a guard station out here to make sure no one comes to your door from the outside without first calling ahead to hear you tell them not to. I still ask you to talk to Gwen after this though.
"The next big complication is the one that makes any attempt at the first impossible. A known criminal, wanted for attacking a child, attacking a diplomat, and unleashing waves of mercenaries on the Commonwealth comes from here. She has a home here."
"She is not here.", Almodovar replied. "Not now at least."
The General took off her hat. "And I wish I could accept that. I, personally believe you. You don't strike me as the type to try to bluff against the marines and robots I've assembled. Unfortunately for the both of us, I can't accept that without checking. And we both know that after I send in people to search your vault, there's no way for you to keep order by anything less than kicking us out never to return.
"So here's what's going to happen next. I'm going to let you talk with Overseer McNamara." The General noticed the look on Gwen's face. "Really? Alright, I'm taking her weapon. Are you calmed down now?
"Sorry. I'll get this back to you. Now as I was saying, you too are going to at least discuss how I can mitigate the disruption on your vault when I search it despite the fact that my people will be searching it thoroughly. If you are correct, and the criminal with a stealth suit is not in there then I will leave, give you the CB radio, close your door, and ask pretty please to not lock yourself away from the rest of the world. If you are incorrect then we'll have to discuss the damage to your vault done in her kill or capture.
"Oh. And by the way, we have what she looks like without the mask from her being recorded at the museum in Rivet City. Do you know if she's changed her appearance any since then?"
"You mean like cut her hair?", Amata asked.
The General smiled reassuringly. "Sure."
"No.", the overseer stated. "I mean, not since she was here last. But that was back when she had just come from Megaton."
"I understand.", the General said. "One last question. If she was in the vault, would you hide her from us?"
Almodovar looked her in the eye. "If she was in Vault 101, you'd never get in."
The General nodded. "Gwen, I'll leave you to it."
She walked back to MacCready's team. "We're going in. I want you and your people as co-team leaders on this as we're the only ones that have been inside multiple vaults. So we're going to start grabbing a couple marines, a synth and a robot. Remember, this woman has torn apart a squad of robots at nearly a walking pace."
"We've handled the Garys over in Vault 108. We're good General.", Emaline offered.
"My special forces team working together survived that vault.", the General reminded. "This time you're leading a team that hopefully has set foot inside Vault 75 and was recruited into the Gunners over more than needing another warm body. Drop your guard and she will kill your squad which might result in us genociding a vault of innocent people. The vault dwellers themselves will be more upset than they have even been in their sheltered lives - they will come at you. But they're not an experiment, they are civilians. I expect them to live through this, every single one of them. We're not here to take anything, no matter how very shiny and pre-war it looks. You're no longer mercenaries, not looking to sell Vault-tech to the Institute.
"Am I heard?"
"Yes, General."
"I'm going in with you. Colonel Bridget will command forces remaining at the opening. Be preprared to enter when McNamara gives the signal."
The group broke up to collect their entry teams and waited for McNamara to finish her conversation with her counterpart. A bit later, she waved the General over.
Gwen started. "Okay, I think we have terms you can accept, General. First, you're going to be escorted the whole time. Anyone you send in has to have at least a member of her security with them at all times. This is just to calm her people down and assure them that this is still under arrangement and peaceful."
The General nodded. "We can embed your people in our teams. If they try anything, especially helping the criminal, I can't garauntee their safety. But their presence is fine."
"Second, you're looking for her. Not a picture she left, not some top secret note. You aren't going to search envelopes, holotapes, small boxes that are already folded up, and the like. She's not hiding in someone's journal. Don't go throwing around everything and taking everything in the name of searching for her."
The General folded her arms. "You're right. We're searching for a grown woman that won't fit inside a love letter or family photo album. But we are searching any hidden passageway or secret room and the triggers for those may be miniscule. I will have synths on every team."
"The fake people?", Almodovar asked.
"No.", the General explained. "These are obviously genderless robots. If someone is suspected of hiding something that triggers opening a place that a person can hide, the synth will do the searching of the person. My teams aren't looking for you info or personal data. We already have confiscated a personal robot of hers."
"And what if one of these synths is damaged?", the overseer asked.
The General glared at her. "If any of my people or things get damaged, we're immediately taking the kids gloves off. I don't know how much of your vault will survive. Let's never cross that bridge, okay?"
There was a slight pause. McNamara continued. "She gets a bit of time to let her people know what's happening. Not only can they not get surprised, but they can organize anything they need to so it's obvious in the search and you don't need to mess up anything. A half a day."
"Fifteen minutes.", the General countered.
"Give us an hour?", Almodovar asked.
The General checked her PIP-BOY. "Fine. An hour."
McNamara took a breath. "And then we leave. Permanently. She has no interest in dealing with the people who are out to kill the Lone Wanderer."
"Damn her!", the General spat. "I'm sorry. I know she's one of your people. And living alongside someone in a vault, that doesn't mean she's just one of yours instead of one of ours. You must have known her. She's at least your neighbor. But for her criminal acts to come between the Commonwealth and a community within it. The only way to get to the future is together. And now she's shredded that."
The General sighed. "She was spotted in Megaton before negotiations have even started on whether or not to integrate them, let alone integrating them. So I can't leave leave until she's caught. We'll be outside until she's controlled, one way or another. We'll signal you on the CB that we're leaving you alone once she is. That's all I can give you. Anyone coming out afterwards needs to expect to be dealing with the Commonwealth.
"Anything else?"
"Yes.", Amata told her. "We may not be able to have you go through a proper decontamination."
"Oh, you got that right.", the General stated. "Last time I went through a Vault-Tec decontamination, I ended up frozen and here. Besides, there's no way I could secure the other side of the contamination before it began."
The woman nodded. "So we'll have to decontaminate everything after the fact."
"And once you seal up, you'll have no need for caps. So I can't pay for that in cash.", the General stated.
"It will help if you all can wear masks of some sort.", Amata told her.
The General nodded. "Of course. That's standard issue for all personnel. All my biologicals will wear GAS MASKS while inside your vault. And we do have the synths. If there's a decontamination process that you can do on it so that we can witness it and it can tell us what you've done, we'll at least think about complying.
"And if there's some raw material that you can think of that would help make up for what we're about to do, like ALUMINUM or STEEL or something, we can leave a stack outside your Vault door and signal you on the CB that it's ready for pickup."
The overseer of Vault 101 shook her head. The General asked, "Then can I get your map of your vault from your PIP-BOY before you leave to warn your people. That will go a long way to keep my people from thinking you're actively hiding from us."
2
It was late at night when Emaline's crew came stumbling out. Bridget met her, "Where's the General?"
"Where's some food?", Emaline countered. "Boss. Ma'am."
Bridget folded her arms. Then she jerked her head and the seach team followed her back to an APC.
Emaline pulled off her mask and stretched. "The General's still down there with her team. She's cycling the rest of us first before taking her team off the hunt. Gotta keep enough of us down there to hold corridor cross points so no one can slip Lil' Miss Bad Ass in a crate past us.
"Plus, if the vault dwellers finally lose their temper then there needs to be enough of us to reach the surface so we can storm and destroy the place. And we're testing their patience because vaults are huge. I used to think Rivet City was a lot of people. I stopped bothering trying to remember faces. We just started noting the names on their VAULT SUITS and telling them to stay in the room we found them. So everything's taking longer than anyone wants. And the longer we're down there, the closer they are to snapping.
"Personally, I think if she was actually down there then we would have had to slosh our way through the blood of the populace. She saved them from their own civil war from what I here. Three Dog has been on the radio explaining how she's the heroine of the wastes for the past decade. Hear them tell it and none of what we know about her makes any sense."
"Well, at least the General figured out a way to keep this from becoming more of a shoot out than it had to be.", Bridget stated. "Although I am beginning to agree with the council. And not just because they'll have my ass if any thing happens to her no matter how many STIMPACKS we fill her with after the fact. Like that gun snatching stunt. Sure, I could have done that to the little girl that climbed out of her hole in the ground too. But she's the General and the source of all this thinking. She shouldn't be putting herself in these types of positions."
Emaline shrugged. "Hear MacCready tell it, the General used to do what our entire unit did with no rest for days on end with people way less qualified than him. So she's pulling back in a way. Us. You guys. Stationing and recruiting Minutemen at every settlement and community. And she's got way more back up than when she was running around fresh out of the Vault too. She'll be alright."
"And what if her team finds Lil' Miss Bad Ass down there first?", Bridget countered.
Emaline smiled. "Let me finish my GRILLED RADROACH so I don't miss it."