In the Shadow of the Valley

[snarkingscribe]

Who: OPEN
Where: Outskirts of the City
Summary: Veronica discover a slice of home out on the outer areas of the city.


Not too far off from Central Park, there is a fenced-in sandy area. The only noteworthy things here are some bunkers and vents, and a lot of graffiti on the bunker walls. The sand has footprints - ones that look a bit hurried, actually - that lead to one structure. The door is open - as is the second door inside, which leads to a long staircase, leading into an obviously military installation - quite abandoned, from the looks of things, save for the periodic sound of footsteps and clicking nails on the metal floors and grates.

There's someone here, that's for sure.

Comments

[snarkingscribe]

"I didn't check yet, but if it is, it shouldn't be too hard - nothing against Head Scribe Taggart, but he spent too much time hanging around the girls in the bunker and not enough on his job." Not that Veronica's overly biased or anything, no.

Veronica nods at Christine with a bit of a smile. "Yeah, especially given that robot swarm that people say hit before we woke up." She then turns to Roger. "I guess the big question is where should we start?"

[first_of_steel]

Roger considers this, steepling his fingers. “Here’s what I know right now," he finally says. "As of 2282, human civilization exists in at least parts of old California and Nevada, with what sounded like a democratically elected government extant in California. The city of Las Vegas has been recolonized sometime in the last ten years. I’ve heard ghouls and supermutants mentioned, which I’m taking as a sign that we weren’t able to seal up Mariposa well enough to lock people out until that hell-pit lost its venom after all…”

For a moment, he looks a lot older and more exhausted than his fifty-one years would suggest.

”I knew we should have found a way. Not that it matters now. You’ve told me the Brotherhood still exists as of 2281 and mentioned at least one chapter that wasn’t based at Lost Hills, and one subset or splinter faction with a similar name. And you’ve mentioned that we might still exist, but that we’ve fallen on hard times, and brought up the name of an Elder who sounds like someone my people would’ve been better off without. What happened after I was gone?”

[vintagevoice]

Christine rubbed her temples the second Vee brought up 'robot swarm', and almost made an offhanded comment that she'd almost rather holograms, but Roger took precedence over snark.

"...people happened, sir." It was quieter than she intended, but Christine eventually did raise her voice. "People take a flag and they run with it. To the point they forget what it looks like." She wanted to say more than that, but frankly...it would seem wrong to speak bad of the Brotherhood in front of their founder, let alone Veronica, who still believed in it as far as Christine knew.

[snarkingscribe]

Christine's comment gets a nod. "That's a general way of putting things, but it works." That's followed with a sigh - looks like they were diving headfirst into the heavy stuff.

"We... Never really saw eye-to-eye with the New California Republic. We wanted to keep tech out of the hands of people that would misuse it - they wanted to use tech to help their expansion. This eventually turned to disagreeing violently. We were armed better, but they had more people." Another sigh. "That's the hard times - we're stuck hiding out and being sneaky."

"That Elder, though..." Veronica frowns. "Even in our time, that old phrase - 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'. He had good ideas, but they blinded him to reason, and...well, to a lot of things."

Probably shouldn't end that on a bad note, though. "The mutants and ghouls aren't so bad, though. Most of the ones I've run across are generally pretty civil, but that's limited to the Vegas area and the time I've spent there, so I can't speak for...a lot of places and time."

...well, that attempt toward positivity got bungled.

[first_of_steel]

Roger had always been of the school of thought that said to just rip the adhesive bandage off instead of peeling it away one little bit at a time. Get the pain over with and then you could go on.

"If I'd known there was anyone else out there alive at all..." He shook his head. "Other than the barbarians in the desert, anyway. There weren't a lot of signs that anyone else had survived, other than murdering bands of savages. That kind of thing leaves a body pretty paranoid about how you ensure there's ever going to be a future. Guess it left a legacy."

It could, maybe, have been worse. It sounded as if things hadn't been as bad in the beginning- as if there'd at least been some voices of reason. Maybe there still were; maybe there could be again.

He drew breath to speak, and then stopped. "Mutants," he said carefully. "What, uh... what kind of... could you describe those? Either of you?"

[snarkingscribe]

Veronica nods with a soft 'heh'. "Yeah, you put it like that, and it makes more sense to keep it away from them. Guess they persisted for a long time, then, for it to leave the legacy it did."

"Mutants are big and ugly. Some of 'em are smart, a lot are dumb. Tall, and either blue or green from what I've seen. Really bad news if they're not friendly." She makes a face and huffs a little. "Kinda hard to punch 'em in the face when it's so high up."

[first_of_steel]

"They were pretty persistent up until the day I found myself in that slime pod, that's for sure," Roger said. "I can only assume they were more of a problem for my son after that."

He heaves a sigh and runs both his hands over his face. "Green," he repeats. "That's... way too familiar for my liking. They look like ten feet of muscle crammed into eight feet of skin?"

[snarkingscribe]

Veronica sighs, then folds her arms. The wheels were starting to turn by this point. "So what was done out of necessity got done for so long...guess nobody ever considered what to do in the event of if you ever encountered other civil people." She frowns a bit - though it's more a sad frown than anything.

She nods. "Yeah. Even the lady mutants, apparently."

[first_of_steel]

"I doubt our policy on deserters helped much, either," Roger says. "Before the War it was government policy to shoot anybody who tried. We didn't do that, didn't think it was a wise idea to cut down the human gene pool that way, but... anybody who wanted to give up on the group and strike out on their own wasn't welcome back, ever. No help for them once they left, neither were they to be let back in. The idea was to make sure people knew what was at stake, so they didn't leave in the first place and drain what resources we had."

What had started off as a steadily-more-gloomy expression comes to a screeching halt at Veronica's next comment, though. The West-Tek researchers, in the grand tradition of scientists everywhere, had few to no female subjects in their medical experients except for specifically testing things that had to do with the female anatomy. All their military prisoners had been men. So... "Lady mutants," Roger repeats, a little disbelievingly. "I'm not sure I even- what does that even look like?"

[snarkingscribe]

"Yeah... Well. Not so much that as at some point down the line, I assume someone never thought to adapt with the times once it became obvious that there were other civil settlements and the like." She sighs. "They were good policies for the time, not debating that."

"Well, in the case of Lily...she looks like any other Nightkin, and sounds like them too. She just dresses a little different in comparison."

[first_of_steel]

"They made sense, once," Roger agrees. "They wouldn't here, if we were going to try to pick up those pieces."

It's a big if, he's aware of that. There's a total of three of them right now, and of those three one of them probably has no reason to even want to try. But... well, who knows. He'd rather work with the people of his world than try to make it on his own, and he's an old enough dog at this point not to want to have to do it entirely through new tricks. So to speak.

"I suppose that would make sense. The ones I saw... they didn't strike me as the sort to draw much of a distinction any more. Not after everything that'd happened to them."

[snarkingscribe]

"Yeah. For one, there's tech everywhere already. Even if we anted to go confiscating, we're obscenely outnumbered. That, and given how much more civilized things seem here compared to home, I'd like to think it's in capable hands," Veronica comments. "It wouldn't hurt to keep an eye out, though. What they have here outclasses anything we ever had, so there's a lot more potential for bad stuff to go down because of it. If I can track down whoever's in charge of tech stuff around here, I can see about getting involved in their departments."

She frowns, though - a rather sad one, really. "I don't want to be suspicious, especially after I said all that about us needing to adapt, but this is a really different situation than the Wasteland. Gotta get to know these people more."

She nods. "Yeah...Lily seemed to be an odd one out from what I've seen out of Super Mutants, distinguishing herself like that." A pause. "Then again, I don't know if I ever actually saw or met any other female super mutants."

[first_of_steel]

"We were trying to reclaim the old tech before it could hurt anyone," Roger says. "This stuff- this was never ours to begin with, so reclamation wouldn't even be in the cards to begin with. Familiarizing ourselves with, getting to know, getting to understand, that's another story. We can't just let this stuff go unknown. Not when any chance of a future we might have might depend on it."

His mouth twitches. "Understand, I've never exactly been on the research and development side of the line. Field testing and evaluation, sure, but- I think we're gonna have to depend on you to get your hands dirty first, if we're ever going to have a prayer of knowing what we're working with. I sure as hell hope you're up to it, Scribe."

[snarkingscribe]

As Roger says that, the realization of just what all this entails hits her.

She's...grinning, actually. Being able to do research without getting chased out of the building (hopefully)? Sign her up.

"I...will certainly do my best, sir."