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Time & Place: A.) Washington D.C., 2274 | B.) Enclave-controlled Detroit, 228X
Description: A.) Bellamy and Abner’s first mission together | B.) The Gang Solves A Murder
Content: It’s Fallout, you know the drill

A.) Introductions

This is a retrieval mission. One of our own, a traitor to the cause. You'll be accompanying Agent Rook. He has the details, along with a photograph of the target. Your duty is to assist with the retrieval and protect your superior from any harm in the process. You'll be meeting him outside the main gate at 0600 tomorrow. Do you understand? Good boy.

It was a quarter to six when Abner took his position by the gate, folding his arms tightly over his chest. February was fucking cold, and his civilian disguise didn't offer much in the way of insulation. At least they'd given him a scarf—as much to hide the shock collar as anything else, but it kept his face warm. He pulled it up to cover his nose as he scanned the area.

There. Someone else was emerging from the bunker. Smaller than him, almost child-sized. Was that supposed to be his superior? He stood at attention as the figure approached, just in case.

- - -

B.) Whodunnit

Abner remembered in flashes. Blood. Bruised knuckles. The sight of someone’s face being pummeled into a wall, over and over until it looked more like a crushed melon than a human head. And before that—a whisper in his ear, a voice he didn’t recognize, saying words they weren’t supposed to know.

Do you remember your training?

So yeah, he’d definitely killed someone. That wasn’t the important part. The important part was that he hadn’t done it alone. Someone, somewhere, had the controls to his brain. And that was blatant misuse of Enclave property.

He’d turned himself in immediately, of course. Fully cooperative. Now all that was left was to sit patiently in the interrogation room, hands folded on the cold metal table in front of him, waiting for the detective to ask his questions.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Was a parent?

Abner got the uneasy feeling he’d heard something he wasn’t meant to know. It happened sometimes, superiors forgetting about him and saying too much. All he could do was try to ignore it, forget it, and be silently thankful for the programming that suppressed his own painful memories.

Not a moment too soon, Mrs. DePleur returned with the address book. He took it from her—Anderson was busy with his notes—and skimmed through the pages. Most of the names were male, unsurprisingly, but there were a handful of women listed. Carter, Gina. Duke, Evelyn. Daniels, Tammy. Gutierrez, Brenda.

Holland, Maria.

Abner’s breath caught. One hand crept up to scratch his at his throat. Why was she here? She couldn’t be involved, right? What if Anderson wanted to question her? His stomach turned, and he quickly snapped the book shut. “Here,” he mumbled, pushing it towards his superior. “You should take this.”

"Alright. And I'll tell you what. I'll write down a location in the city for your nanny to meet me at-" He proceeds to flip a page to do that. "This is neutral. It's a park. We can talk to her there rather than moving into her space. But if she doesn't show up, I will need to find her to ask her some questions. Fourteen hundred hours tomorrow."

He puts down the note, ready to get up because he's noticed the shift in Abner's demeanor. And he has some questions for him now that are inappropriate to ask here. He taps his elbow and offers a quick, "Come on. We gotta go."

"Good day Mrs. DePleur."

He suspects that she won't like that her friend or otherwise involved associates need to be questioned. But Hank's not at all approaching this like her husband would. Once they're outside, Hank shows him the black book.

"Alright, which names are familiar to you and why? Somethin's up. I can tell."

Abner’s nerves were on fire as Anderson herded him out of the house. A knot of dread had tied itself into his stomach. He wasn’t the most perceptive man, but even he could tell when he’d fucked up. Given too much away. And sure enough, as soon as they were out of earshot of the house, the detective flipped open that little black book and started asking questions.

“I, uh,” Abner started, scratching at his throat again. He could feel the mask slipping when he thought of Dr. Holland, and the distinct shift in his tone and posture as it did. Like a scared little kid. “I know Maria Holland, sir. She’s...she’s the head of psychology in the Enclave labs. We came here together from Raven Rock. Back east.” His memories of the trip were shrouded in a thick fog, but vague fragments stood out—hands on his face, pressure around his neck, flesh and bones between his teeth. It was probably good he couldn’t remember.

“She didn’t do it. She wouldn’t do something like that, she’s a really nice person, and I would recognize her voice anyway. I...just didn’t expect to see her name here. It startled me, that’s all. I didn’t know they were friends. That’s all, sir.”

"...Head of psychology."

Again, Hank can do a little bit of math. Enclave labs aren't a good place. He's seen the dread when the worst offenders are told they're gonna be sent there- Hank's taken pains to keep more sympathetic folk from ending up with the fate of reprogramming, let alone whatever they do in the labs.

Nice person. Somehow he really fucking doubts it. And his confidence in the thought is... disappointing. He'd once hoped for the best in mankind- like what he sees in Mrs. DePleur when she talks about her friend or secret lover or whoever she is. But more often than not, he's being scathed.

"And would she have given any personal knowledge about you to anyone?"

Abner fidgeted. With the skin on his neck picked raw, he started in on his wrists instead. “She, uh, she is usually the one who assigns me to people,” he admitted. “But it’s all official business. She only uses me for approved purposes, sir. Really, there’s no way she could be involved.” He gave the lieutenant a look of barely concealed desperation. Please don’t let her be involved. Please don’t involve her.

“There’s a lot of names in here. More than enough ground to cover without her. I—I shouldn’t have even mentioned it, sir, I’m sorry, I just wasn’t expecting to see her.” The words were spilling out too quickly, but he couldn’t seem to stop them. “I know it wasn’t her voice, so you can just cross her off the list now, right?”

The tone sounds familiar in a way that's unsettling. So he's blunt with his next question.

"If I were to talk to her, what's the likelihood of you showing up with another black eye?"

“What? That isn’t—Dr. Holland wouldn’t do that,” Abner insisted. It wasn’t a lie—the orderlies had given him last night’s bruises. On Holland’s command, but still. The doctor herself had never gotten physical with him. Not like that. “She hates violence. She’s the one who fixes me when I get hurt. Even if I deserved it, like last night.”

He sighed and rubbed his cheek. “With the way this is going, I might deserve it tonight, too.”

"Just stop-" he cuts him off, drawing a line through the air with his hand.

"Stop talking about how much you deserve it. One person can't breathe in my ear that you had no choice while the other person tells me you oughta be punished for it. The two things don't line up." And he thinks he understands now what the mayor's people meant.

"So either you do, or you don't. And if I need to talk to her, I won't do it with her as a suspect," because even if she was guilty, she might be too high up the ladder for him to do more than watch her burn when stronger hands take hold. If that ever finally fucking happens. "-And I don't want you there."

He gestures. "Come on, we got another place to hit up."

“There’s a difference between being forced to do something and being allowed to do it, sir,” Abner said. He didn’t explain further—he’d already been told to stop, after all. Instead, he obediently fell into step behind his superior, breathing a quiet sigh of relief that wherever they were going, it wasn’t back to the lab. Not with him in tow, at least. It had been hard enough to explain his behavior without Subject 51 in control, he couldn’t imagine Anderson would react well to seeing him drop the soldier persona.

“Where are we going?” he asked. It was strange, asking questions of a superior, but he felt pretty good about his chances this time. The lieutenant seemed to appreciate it when he acted like a person.

"Allowed? ...You know what? Still counts."

Because if the people in charge are convinced that Abner is 'innocent' in whatever fashion they mean, that he didn't have a choice in the matter, merely a weapon, then he didn't fuckin' deserve a black eye. A bunch of tender fuckin' cocksuckers that can't deal with the idea they fucked up by letting one of their goddamn pet projects fall into the wrong hands.

"We're going to City Hall. Gonna stroll around a bit. I want you to listen to voices while I'm questioning people."

He draws out the plan uselessly in the air as he explains it. "Bring it up to me discretely if something someone says rings a bell."

“City Hall? That’s where the mayor is, right?” Abner had been there before, in an official capacity, but he couldn’t remember much about it. Obviously. If he remembered what he did as the guard dog, they wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.

Also, he would’ve lost his mind years ago. Selective memory was a blessing sometimes.

“There’s a lot of people there, I think,” he added. Crowds. He remembered crowds. “Important people. Maybe targets, Can you do me a favor, sir?” A little twitch of his head at his own deeply unorthodox request, still half expecting a shock. Anderson wasn’t like that, he had to remind himself. And they’d taken off the collar before sending him out that morning anyway.

“Please make sure I don’t hurt anyone else while I’m there. If it’s public, they’ll have to decommission me, and this whole investigation will be a waste of time. You’ll never catch the real killer then.”

"I'll do what's necessary," Hank promises. Though until he gets that dose of tranquilizer he doesn't know what will be necessary.

"I think I could still get on the right path. It'd just take me longer, I'd need more people. I'm pretty good at this." Which is why he can get away with not obsessing over saving face. He thinks he could solve it in time.

That is, if he makes it that long. Depends on how many times he can 'win' at Russian Roulette, or whatever other way he tries to destroy himself. It's not as if he has much to live for.

"But I'll not let you hurt anyone if I can help it."

“Thank you, sir.” It was good to hear, but he still hesitated—Anderson wouldn’t know the correct procedures, would he? “It’s easy enough to stop me, even when I’m...gone. Any kind of electric shock should shut me down right away. If not, aim for the knees. People say I’m brainless, so I don’t know if shooting me in the head would do anything.” His advice was delivered deadpan as usual, without a hint of sarcasm. For all he knew, the only thing left in his skull was the static.

He went silent after that, trailing after his superior in a haze, until City Hall loomed in the distance and he jolted back into reality. There was an uncomfortable feeling of familiarity as he looked up at the old pre-war building. Like something he’d seen in a dream, but he knew he’d been awake. Well, someone had been awake.

“I think they know me here,” he whispered to the lieutenant. “Do any of them know what I did? Besides you and the mayor?”

Hank snorts at the joke. But, assures him, "I'm not the type of guy to kill someone for reasons beyond their control. I'd get you in the knee before getting you in the head without you having to tell me."

"I don't think so. They shouldn't. I asked Ben to put out a wanted bounty for a male, slim build, late 30s, tall. Descriptions are vague enough to keep everyone side-eyeing each other and maybe the woman responsible feeling like she got away with murder."

Withholding evidence, changing accounts, usually good ways to lead to a killer when someone gave unexpectedly correct information.

“Slim build. Yeah, that rules me out.” Abner’s voice was tense, his eyes scanning the crowd that gathered near the building. “Just hope they don’t find someone matching that. Especially not Enclave. I don’t want a human getting blamed for what I did.” Unlikely, but it wouldn’t be the first time his superiors had created their own perpetrator. He’d been there for some of them. It was for the greater good, but it didn’t make their screams any less haunting.

Someone brushed past his shoulder and he flinched, instinctively moving closer to Anderson—to protect the lieutenant or himself, he wasn’t sure. “Sorry, sir. Not used to crowds,” he apologized. They weren’t even inside and he already felt light-headed, distant, slowly drifting away from himself like he had on the way there. “If I start zoning out when I’m in there, just—“ He instinctively reached for his neck, finding only scarred skin. Right. “I guess just hit me or something. Should work okay.”

Edited 2020-07-04 04:14 (UTC)

"Considering everyone high up enough to care know who did it? I wouldn't worry about it." As if people fucking side-eyeing each other with constant suspicion or thirsting for opportunity was new.

He's considering that, bitterly, as Abner either shelters near or hovers next to him, he can't figure out which. But it was just at a touch.

"Not gonna say no one here would hurt you but I am gonna say it'd be a bad look for them to try and they know it," is the comfort he gives Abner. Not that it's much of a comfort to himself, a reminder of the broken state of the world he thought was Better. But it'll have to do, and he walks up to the receptionist.

She's doing her best to look the part, too. A nice blouse with a pencil skirt, well-washed, hemmed in such a way you can barely tell that it was from a darker time. The trim on the skirt suggests that it's fresher- the fabric hardy old world fabric, spliced from different garments and sewn together to form a nice tailored cut on a body she probably has to work to keep.

"Hi." He introduces himself a little awkwardly, because he still gets a little starstruck by gorgeous women, even at his age. "I'm Lt. Hank Anderson with the Detroit Military Police. I'm uh..."

He hesitates. Fumbles over words.

"I'm here to see the mayor, JoAnn Connelly, Adam Van Cleef, and Noore Najjar. We're here to follow up on the DePleur case."

"Ah, yes. I'll let him know you're here. And hello to you, Private Abner," she responds and greets in a sing-song voice, rising to her feet in heels with the elegance of someone who has trained herself to wear them for the impression they give, and exits to go pass on messages through pneumatic tubes. It's then that Hank glances back at Abner. "Familiar voice?"

“I don’t mind getting hurt, sir,” Abner assured him. “Just...don’t like crowds. Harder to see threats coming. I’m better at it when I’m gone, but that won’t work for what we’re trying to do here.”

Really, he just hated being touched, but that was a weakness and he knew it.

He tensed up, fists clenching, as another person brushed far too close to him. It was a relief when they got inside, the outdoor crowd giving way to a clean floor and a reception desk straight out of the old world. The receptionist was uncomfortably pretty, and Abner tried his best not to look at her for too long. She seemed vaguely familiar, he thought, and hearing her call him by name confirmed it. They must’ve been introduced one of the other times he was there. Or wasn’t there, as it were. It was always a little weird encountering people who only knew him as the mayor’s bodyguard—usually they were surprised he could talk.

“Not her,” he whispered as she walked away, once again trying not to stare. “I think I would’ve recognized her voice. Don’t actually remember meeting her, though.”

Edited 2020-07-05 14:45 (UTC)

Hank knits his brow and looks off the direction the woman had gone to, the sound of her heels having faded completely. Then back to bewildering Abner and all his strangeness.

"Well she definitely remembers you."

The secretary returns, still looking pleasant enough. "You can speak with the Mayor once he's out of this meeting. Mr. Van Cleef isn't currently in the building, but his coworker Mr. Miller is available on floor three, office twelve. Mrs. Najjir took the day off, and Miss Connelly should be available in the archival room all evening."

"Right. Thank you. Come on." He pats Abner's shoulder, indicating that they need to go, and goes to the stairs. Miller first. Then probably Connelly, 'cause god knows how long the Mayor's meeting will be.

"So you don't actually remember any of these people? None of 'em?" He asks once they've walked far enough away.

This time Abner managed to mostly suppress his startle response, only twitching slightly under Anderson’s hand. Ideally he shouldn’t react at all when superiors touched him, but this particular superior wouldn’t know that, and he wasn’t about to bring it up himself.

“Don’t remember them, but I know their faces,” he explained as he trailed the lieutenant to the stairs. “Voices too. Same reason I’ll be able to recognize the killer’s voice.”

He knew he was walking right on the edge of saying too much, but part of him didn’t care anymore. The part that instinctively trusted anyone who treated him gently and gave him food.

“It’s hard to explain, sir, but I’m not always me. I‘m something else when I guard the mayor. I was something else when I killed DePleur. The same thing, I think. But I can only remember bits of it when I’m me again. Sounds and smells. Faces sometimes.“ He paused, realizing for the first time that he might sound a little bit like a crazy person. “Does...that make sense?”

"Can't tell if that sounds like some sorta fugue state or what..." but he theorizes, maybe, that Abner's been trained to be completely covert in his actions. That he won't be a threat to confidential information. He can only imagine what kind of toll that'd take on the mind, and while he'd hope someone would only damn themselves to that grief willingly? Knowing what he knows about their imprisonment system says to him that they shouldn't.

They reach the upstairs office first, names listed on one of those signs where you slip in the letters individually. Amazing how much stuff the original resettlement of the area managed to dig up, even small tidbits like that. And Miller's name is written as Kazuhira Miller.

When they reach the door, the man inside with the handsome face, just scruffy enough that it looks intentional and pristine, and shockingly blond hair does not look like a Kazuhira. He shouldn't judge, though.

He knocks on the open door rather than just entering, tapping against the wood so the other man looks up through NCR issued sunglasses and is in a beret with a patch he can't identify, another bewildering mix here. A liaison, maybe? He's wearing a uniform under a tidy long coat, and while he writes with his left hand his mechanized right one sits idly on the desk.

He looks up to Hank and Abner. "How may I help you?"

"We're here to ask about one of the late Paul DePleur's associates. Adam Van Cleef?"

"Oh." Miller responds with all the passion of a man that's found a turd lying in the center of a clean room, and he tips back in his seat and turns his pen in his fingers, real and metal.

“Fugue state? Huh.” Abner had never heard that term before—the scientists didn’t have a name for what he did, at least not one they told him about. He wanted to ask more, but Anderson had stopped in front of one of the offices, signaling that the conversation was over. Hopefully he’d get a chance to ask later.

The first thing Abner noticed about Mr. Miller was his unfamiliar uniform. Definitely not Enclave. Maybe not even American, judging by that mess of a first name. Before he could raise any suspicions, though, his eyes landed on the metal hand. At first glance he thought it was a simple prosthetic, and then it moved.

Whatever his superior was saying faded into the background as he stared at it, fascinated. He’d never seen anything like it before. Was it Enclave? There were other branches of the lab he’d never been to, brothers and sisters he’d never met, but the possibility of a working robotic arm had never occurred to him. He was almost jealous.

He'll explain later if Abner asks, though it'll be in a very Hanklike way, in that he's encountered murder cases before and had to learn the idea sans any particular technical terms.

"Sounds like you have history," Hank says as Miller gestures at two wooden chairs they can pull up. Hank grabs both of them and moves the one for Abner to sit in so he doesn't awkwardly look like he's guarding the door. Though he knows the people here have seen Abner, and probably know his behavior as... whatever that thing he describes is? Anyway, Miller just looks exasperated.

"Van Cleef is good at what he does. Very good." Miller explains. "We have a strong difference of opinion in how things should be done, but we've worked together for a decade now. His beliefs serve the Mayor and I believe him finding a station here-" for however long the man remains "-will benefit us both."

"What is it exactly that you do?"

"We're highly experienced mercenaries. We come in, we train soldiers. Raise their credentials and expand their skillsets. Accept our payment, and leave. Even the Enclave can use the help when the officers are good enough."

"And Van Cleef and you both... are?" Hank tips his head.

Miller looks at the mechanical hand (turning it shows enough of the heavy wrist joint to indicate there's probably more of that arm unseen under the sleeve). "We make due, when the situation calls for it. I'm assuming you're here about DePleur's murder? ...I promise you if it was Van Cleef, neither of us would ever find out and he'd be smug about it for the rest of his life. He's infuriating that way. So I hope for the sake of your sanity, it's someone else."

Abner ignored the chair pulled out for him, opting to stand by the door as usual. Here, even as himself, he was starting to fall back into the guard dog’s familiar patterns. Hands behind his back and eyes fixed straight ahead. This time, though, digging his fingernails into his wrists until they bled, keeping himself anchored the only way he knew how. He had a job to do, one that the guard dog couldn’t.

Not that it was much of a job at the moment. He could barely process what the stranger was talking about, only that his voice was as unfamiliar as his name and uniform. A mercenary. That would explain it. Not a true human after all. The thought was comforting—a suspect he didn’t have to obey. Although it didn’t seem like this man was a suspect in the first place.

He kept his mouth shut as usual, but there was a nagging, resentful thought setting in. If the Enclave were hiring, it meant the other mercenary—Van Cleef?—would be his superior. A wastelander. It went against his programming, and more importantly, his mission. He’d been told the only outsiders allowed in the Enclave were the ones like him. The recruits, the assets, a subclass below a subclass. He clenched his teeth on a particularly disobedient comment, and silently hoped that the intruders had engineered Agent DePleur’s death so he’d have an excuse to kill them. It was what they deserved.

Hank glances back at Abner, but doesn't say anything. He would, if he knew about the nails. But he doesn't. Instead, he turns his attention to Miller again, who seems to be unfazed by Abner's behavior. Not just because of Abner, but because this is what Van Cleef does to people. DePleur just got answers. But Adam? He can do that tenfold, break people down, and rebuild. Not just into obedient dogs, but fully formed Manchurian Candidates.

"Seems like the Enclave puts a lot of faith in you both for you to even be here."

"My father was Enclave, West Coast. My mother was... probably Silicon Valley, I'm not sure." Hence the name. Beyond that, he doesn't expand on his history. It's not important. "But I made enough connections through him that I know how this all works. And Van Cleef has people of his own. He's gotten around. He could be fully Enclave. He could be Brotherhood of Steel. I can't be sure, he constantly obscures his background. Anyway..."

Miller reaches into a drawer and pulls out his appointment book. He flips to the times he and his other associates had meetings that day. And then he holds it out to Hank, without having to be prompted.

"...your reputation proceeds you. I was informed you'd probably be coming and here's what you were probably looking for."

"My reputation, huh?"

"You were top of your class. Brought down one of the biggest chem smuggling operations in the city. Displaced several corrupt council members."

Not that it did a lot of good, is all Hank thinks to himself. But he grunts an acknowledgement as he copies details from the book.

"You sound like a good man, Lt. Anderson. I feel like this place is a difficult one for good men to live in."

"That a recruitment line?" Anderson asks, still looking at what he's writing.

"No. Just an observation," Miller's eyes move behind his glasses, regarding Abner. He says no more than that. Who the hell knows what kind of man he was before the Enclave stripped him of his personality. And Miller's own father? His life ended with a gun to his head. He doesn't expect much better for Anderson, outside of a miracle.

Abner’s eyes flicked between the two men as they talked, silently following the conversation. The more he heard, the more he distrusted this Van Cleef guy. Could be a commie traitor, for all they knew. And they were going to hire him? They’d at least re-educate him first, right? He wasn’t allowed to question his superiors, but he did have to question their decision just a little bit. Just about this.

Miller, on the other hand, was technically okay. It was a shame he hadn’t done the patriotic thing to serve his country, but as long as he was human it should be fine. Maybe being a merc was a decent strategy, spreading the Enclave’s agenda to the wastelanders.

It hadn’t occurred to Abner that, maybe, Miller didn’t follow the Enclave’s agenda in the first place.

His stance relaxed slightly now that he was confident his superior wasn’t about to get attacked. It seemed their conversation was coming to an end anyway, with Anderson writing something down in his little notebook, Miller making some sort of cryptic comment about good men. It was no surprise that the lieutenant was a good man, judging by the misguided way he’d been treating Abner. It was a surprise when the mercenary finished by making pointed eye contact with him. It felt like he knew something, like he saw through the carefully constructed mask to the broken shell underneath.

Abner shuddered and quickly looked away. He wasn’t a good man. He wasn’t a man at all.

Edited 2020-07-10 06:13 (UTC)