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■CHARACTERS: Hank Anderson | Nathan Lone | Whoever
■TIME & LOCATION: Fallout: Detroit Become Human AU
a.) back in Detroit
b.) in the wasteland
■DESCRIPTION: a.) hank is turning in a criminal for re-education or experimentation
b.) looking for Connor and talking for Nathan, follows the Bellamy thread
■WARNINGS: maybe discussion of torture or general fallout stuff

a.) detroit

Hank's a good officer, a good soldier, a fantastic detective. He's been great at figuring out whose been muddling up the populous by spreading chems, or who imported in supermutant dogs for reprehensible secret fights, and he's become a hero in the eyes of Detroit's highest eschelons. AKA someone who they can put on a poster and say, "This, this is the American Dream we want again."

At least that's how it's been until his six-year old son died.

In the three years since that day he's been surrounded by a sense of coldness, a lack of empathy or sympathy or anything remotely resembling compassion he could damn well use. His wife has taken it as the cue to make her other relationship official (what good is being married to a man she doesn't love if she can't brandish it like a perfect family, an aura to her own glistening image). Hank's still good at his job, but he's no longer eager to stand beside of the public figures on their podiums during election time, or appearing to promote his department's newest success.

No. He just wants to work and not waste his time with pleasantries. And when he's off? Fuck it. He's got no one to impress. Just murderers to catch, dealers to pin, smugglers to stop.

Today Hank is dragging in a father in, convicted of murder. His eye turned too earnestly towards his secretary, and a lover just wouldn't cut it. So his wife encountered an 'accident', one that had a poor cover-up. An investigator at half of his capacity could have seen through this asshole's crap.

Hank's looking shaggier than he used to, more tired, haggard with emotion that's been wearing at him. But he's still effective, and he has a snide, sniveling gift to give to the Detroit Enclave scientists. Whatever they decide to do with him. Hank shoves the gangly, short man through a set of heavy doors, allowing the guards to open each layer ahead of him.

"I don't think he's competent enough to get past even one of these guys," he mutters. But damn, this is the furthest he's gone in. Usually he just, you know, drops these guys off, lets the handlers take 'em.

b.) wasteland

After talking to Bellamy, Hank's back at square one apparently. Just waiting. He knows he can only stick around for so much longer. Or else they'll catch up with him. Connor's trail is still cold, and he doesn't want to admit defeat. But he also owes it to him not to just... give up, you know?

Then he gets the communication. A message, encoded in a way he's familiar with. He stakes it out first, making sure it's not a trap.

Now, the raiders up the road? Those were a trap. This? It doesn't seem to be a trap. And the man he sees waiting on him, doesn't seem like your typical wastelander. Hank looks more the part, though someone with especially eagle eyes would note that he has an old-world military vest and boots that are in pretty good shape. He's also big. 6'4'', broad, steely blue eyes to go with that face and its fierce angles. He's the sort of light-gray headed that comes with someone that was blond. And his voice is deep and rumbling and gruff.

"I'm here to see a man about a car," he offers blandly as way of greeting, "you been expectin' me?"

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"Yes, I've heard that you're a car man." Bellamy didn't give him details, just that the man was truly American, with the Enclave in Detroit, and he's in the Commonwealth looking for a man. (A specific man, who is important to him.)

Nathan had claimed one of Boston's many abandoned and decayed houses for the meeting. The setting and the combat armor Nathan is wearing looks like it could belong to a common merc, but Nathan's face was too pale from living underground, his skin was too clean and his hair too tidy to truly look like a wastelander.

"Have a seat, make yourself comfortable. I understand that we're brothers-in-arms of a sort. Maybe more like second-cousins-in-arms."

"Expatriot," he specifies.

"Believe me, I do believe in people becoming their better selves. But uh... got a clue in on how they did it there. And I decided I didn't wanna be a part of it anymore."

He tucks his hands in his pockets, ambling around the old house and looking at the various decrepit items within. A magazine here. An old toy there. Small miracles that not everything had been picked clean. Or maybe it had been, maybe they'd been left by the last squatters. Some roaming, needy family.

Shame he didn't consider this shit before.

"That said, I won't be turnin' anyone in or pointing a gun at 'em or say more than... well, takes a lot more sacrifices than it's worth to keep a place like that running smooth." Sacrifices that were every bit as blisteringly savage as those fuckers that'd throw a living person on a pyre for good luck. Just with a gentrified fashion and an even toothed smile as they extinguished threats that were more often than not imagined.

"I just wanna be straight with you. That's it. I need to find someone. A colleague who passed through. Skinny as a rail, but had a chiseled face, perfect hair, deep brown eyes." Odd of him to note how brown the things were in a tone that suggested he took special notice of them. "Looked like a poster. That's no exaggeration. Practically looked like he stepped out of one of our 'rebuild America' posters. He uh... He had to get out before me. Pretty sure he came back down here, even if he didn't go back to his old job."

"A deserter. I don't imagine they like those very much."

Although Nathan can't criticize. Technically, he's a deserter, too. It was during a clearly losing battle and him dying wouldn't have helped anyone. But fleeing while his people were being killed around him, maybe that's even worse than what this man did. It's just that there's no one left alive in D.C. to prosecute him for it.

In any case, he wants information and berating this man isn't going to help him get it.

"This colleague...another 'expatriot?'" But the man said his head turner came from Boston originally, and Nathan knows all the Enclave refugees in Boston. None of them fit that description. And, unless Detroit is very different than the Enclave Nathan knew, they don't accept outsiders into their ranks.

Maybe Detroit is different. Manpower was always a problem in D.C. but maintaining purity was more important. Perhaps Detroit made different decisions.

Edited 2020-05-17 16:15 (UTC)

"Hm." He wants to bite back on that. Mostly that, liking, in general, is a two-way street when it comes to nations. He's a defector, not a deserter. Because, honestly, a deserter has some love for their home but a greater fear for their life. He couldn't give half a crap for the place anymore and could have just as easily put a bullet in his head for the same effect, but as a defector he wants to keep living in a place better than there.

"No." He focusses on the question about Connor. "He'd probably be easier to find if he was. We had a situation that required us to allow an investigator to come in from the outside. Turns out the man that provoked that situation? ...Well, he wasn't wrong. Exposed all kinds of lies that weren't exactly there to protect the community. My friend left first. I left not long after.

"This man was with the institute. He went by Connor at the time. Don't know what he'd be going by now."

Edited 2020-05-17 18:19 (UTC)

As soon as the man says that his friend was with the Institute, the description focuses into a clear picture of a man--courser, technically--that Nathan knows. But knowledge is power and he has nothing to gain by just volunteering that information freely.

"You should be very very careful saying that you're friends with someone from the Institute. Since you're new here, you probably don't know the political situation, but the Institute is considered Public Enemy Number One. People get murdered for even suspected ties to the Institute."

"Oh, I know. I gathered as much. But I figure, hey? I might as well be upfront talking about public enemy number one if we're a part of public enemy number two. 'Former' doesn't seem to mean much when you wore the stripes at some point. Institute is fucked. Detroit's fucked. We're all fucked."

He was a hero and now he feels a little like an outlaw on both sides. That he no longer matters in the long run is something he can play to his advantage.

"If the Institute got him back, he's dead. I need... I need to know he isn't. He saved lives. He saved my life." He aggressively points to himself. "I owe him more than to just abandon him to the damn wilderness alone. I got caps, or I can pay you with some sorta reasonable favor, if you can help put me back on the trail."

If Connor's dead, then Hank's gonna have to think long and hard who he chucks off the highest remaining building in the area to pay for his loss.

Nathan twitches slightly at the man's assessment of the Institute. The Enclave. All of them. He can't bear to think about the possibility of what happened in D.C. happening here. It isn't that he's loyal to the Institute, not like he was loyal to the Enclave, but it's his home now and he can't be a refugee again.

"If he came back to the Commonwealth, despite the risk, my guess would be that he's looking for the Railroad. Whether he found them, is still looking, or was snatched up by the Institute first, that I couldn't tell you."

His answer is true enough. He hasn't noticed that particular courser brought in, but he never has paid much attention to the Synth Retention Bureau. He could easily find out if the Institute got Connor, but then he'd have to explain how he has access to that information.

"Tell me about Detroit."

"I know about the Railroad. There was a man we called 'the prodigal son', sprang out of nowhere. He got in good with the railroad, and it had been using Enclave territory to move through. That meant if certain people were caught and went missing? Well, I didn't know how fucked up Enclave scientists could be when I was an officer for 'em."

Hank finds an old chair, pulling it up before seeing if it could handle his weight. Satisfied, he pulls one leg up so they're crossed, lightly gripping his ankle. Right. Should let this guy know about the Detroit Enclave. The real Enclave, not what they put on their posters.

"Over a century ago, Detroit was being set back up. But it was slow going. We had good people, generations of vault survivors. Real scientists, real engineers. Genius kids of genius people. But uh..." He sucks air between his teeth. "Raiders liked it too. And they were constantly being knocked back. They couldn't protect themselves sometimes, had to retreat to the nearest stronghold they set up. An old power armor factory. A bunch of fuckin' nerds who had to slap on power armor to defend themselves, tripping over their own fuckin' feet, fighting like kids on a playground but somehow pulling through." He chuckles, having heard the stories. Sad but victorious stories, of underdogs winning on the power of initiative and creativity. They'd been good things to fall asleep to. He'd told some to his own son. He clears his throat.

It also says something that, at some point, Detroit acquired playgrounds for that comparison to be made.

"About eighty years ago, Enclave moved in. Soooo... things cleared up. Raiders got fucked, they could train real soldiers. Keep the engineers safe. Give civilians who wanted to get by factory jobs. Make real homes out of the remains of the old ones. It was fuckin' great. And they could make new gear. Real new gear, no rust. But uh... like I said, rules got more and more strict. Turned out they needed new threats to throw at their new imported scientists. Meat for the grinder. Still, somehow, the safest territory for the Railroad to run through. Fuckin' radiation to the east, deathclaws to the west, and a magazine cover with fangs smack in the middle."

He then leans forward, fingertips together, elbows on his thighs. "Prodigal son figured out how bad it was. Connor was there investigating the railroad and he convinced him to help him. A bunch of Detroit's labrats were released with the whole truth before they could be broken..."

Hank scratches the side of his cheek, scruffing gray bristles, before shrugging.

"If you guys get desperate for an out, you might find a home up there. It's not a bad place to live, and I bet even with the changes it'll be good 'cause they got a good leader stepping in. But don't count on a position with an Enclave name on it."

Edited 2020-05-19 02:18 (UTC)

It's a disappointment to hear that there's chaos there, like there's chaos everywhere. They had stability the likes of which are unheard of in the post-War world and they gave it up for the sake of some wastelanders.

"I think I'll pass. Revolutions historically have a bad habit of getting carried away. Are you planning to go back, once you find out what happened to your friend?"

"Nah. I swore an oath on my grandfather's and great-grandfather's name, before country and family, that I was going to protect Americans. Because of how the world was going, losses, the people in charge? Forgot that oath for a little while. If I find him? I'm still seeing that oath through. Just with the idea it doesn't take a kennel club registration to make you a patriot. Everybody has a hell of a lot to contribute to rebuilding the world."

And there it is, that streak of idealism that, at one point, had made Hank a great citizen and an effective member of Detroit's military police. Someone who believed they could and were making the world better for families and for individuals. For citizens to thrive.

"This whole country was built on revolution. People demanding that they're not livestock to be fleeced, but participants in a great united plan. You should embrace that. Even on a small scale. Even for men that write great ideas in books and pamphlets."

Edited 2020-05-20 06:46 (UTC)

A cord of envy tightens around Nathan's chest at the man's certainty that he's made the right choices, that he did the right thing. Certainty that America can be rebuilt with good actions. Nathan has never believed it would be like that, not since the first time he saw the wasteland.

"I'm not sure all of them deserve protection. The raiders, the slavers...they're not exactly model citizens. Were the labrats who were set free really innocent people unjustly imprisoned, or wasteland trash better off locked up?"

"Oh don't get me wrong. I kill at least three fuckin' raiders or slavers a week now protecting caravans. I feel a hell of a lot more like I'm helping America out than finding out someone politician fucked his doctor and now they needed to be 're-educated'. Those were the types of people locked up. That's what we found out about. That all the hard work I'd been doing to seek out threats wasn't fucking up the raiders my grandma hated. It was putting good strong people with families into fucked up testing."

He shakes his head, wincing against the idea. He'd been good at his job. But it wasn't a job worth doing when he found abuse and rape victims cowering int lonely rooms with nowhere else to go and worried they'd be found, and then having to treat them like the criminals.

"Might have been a few raiders in there, out of a couple of hundred- trust me, the scientists got thirsty for anyone to run tests on. But honestly, I got sick of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Pretty sure a couple of Patrick McAsshole scumbags who could barely hold a gun and think running at someone gibbering in tongues swinging a wrench is a legitimate fighting tactic won't mean much."

He chuckles, finally. "But I'm not as good with words as the Prodigal Son. He was better at making people understand. Showin' 'em it was worth it."

"Why? They must have had plenty of real criminals, why go after such minor infractions?"

It's a question of desperation more than confusion. He remembers the labs in Raven Rock and can easily imagine how they could have perpetuated, how someone like Dr. Holland or his brother could consolidate their control. Restoring America and building the population up was supposed to change things. It was supposed to result in happy families in quiet and peaceful neighborhoods, Old World democracy and justice, people able to live private lives. That was what he'd always fought for. Vicious tactics are justified to reach that victory, but once the fight was won...things were supposed to change.

"We were real damn good at our job. I was real damn good at my job. There weren't a whole lot of actually harmful criminals in the city limits. I had good officers and good immediate superiors.

"But you know how people fuckin' are." He chuckles hard at that, bitter, before his expression deflates. "Took me a while to figure this out, but our government didn't want people to feel safe. They wanted them scared. All the time. If they couldn't be scared of strangers anymore then they had to be scared of their neighbors and if they couldn't be scared of their neighbors anymore then they needed to be scared of their families. It didn't matter how good I was. People were never gonna feel safe. Things weren't gonna get better. Losing the fear meant people might start being autonomous and god forbid they act like independent Americans and not like fuckin' old world communists."

The disappointment absolutely seeps from him. He wanted to represent something good. He didn't want to think that the best years of his life had been for nothing. He did his job to get rid of threats, to serve and protect. Pervasive, invasive threats like dealers or smugglers, or he made people answer for crimes with all the resources and talents a victim lacked to find peace.

(Depending on the victim. Some 'victims' ended up having their reputations mutilated for trying to use his people to strongarm anyone.)

"That's part of why I need to find my partner. If he's not safe, and he's still alive, I gotta do something about that."

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