FALLOUT: Sievert - Vol.4: Divergence

Chapter 34 - Lost in direction

   While relaxing in the warmth that I might never get again, Blaire barges in on me then says out of left field, "Oh, hello there. Are you trying to seduce me?" She says with a smile, knowing she's trying to tease me.

"No, about- to go to bed, where- are my clothes?" I say in a hesitant response noticing that Blaire's very light blue, almost silver-colored eyes were ether very reflective of light, or kind of glowing. I felt kind of displaced, something not right about her.

Blaire's solid look turned to a bit of a pout or defeated look. Almost as if she felt guilty look. "They were disposed of. They were stretched, damaged by your fluids, and the machining to fix a vault suit isn't present here." She explained before walking up to me as I stood up. She poked my nose, I blushed a bit and just stayed calm to try and win this one. I walked past Blaire and out the door of the bathroom, to the dresser. Finding some pretty standard men's comfort boxer briefs 2 levels above my size, I put them on, and then a tank top from another drawer, it fit all loose down my figure, comfy non-the-less.

I climbed into bed; Blaire was laying there where I was once lying. She smiled at me, turned over, and faced away. I cleared my mind and covered us up with a blanket, turned over facing away from her, and closed my eyes, getting comfy, falling asleep.

...

Waking up at the sound of an alarm on my side of the bed, I pushed out of Blaire's warm embrace, hitting the alarm button to turn it off, Blaire climbing up on me and pulling me back in bed. I close my eyes as she pulls back, nearly falling asleep.

Not caring at all about the world around me, just enjoying the sleep I had. A buzz is then heard from the door, Blaire gets up this time, and she walks over to the intercom as I watch her. "Hello?" she says on pressing a button next to the speaker.

"This is LT Pompey, get ready NOW. We need you in the briefing room."

I jumped out of bed, walked to the dresser to handle through the clothes. No jumpsuits, no regular shirts, all just military fatigues. Oh well, I pulled out an olive green military dress-button-up and pants, quickly putting them on, the size was too big. But a belt in the top drawer helped the pants.

I looked at Blaire and asked if she wanted anything, she looked at me with a blank face, turned over in the bed, and covered back up. I guess she was still tired. When ready I walked out the door, with combat boots untied and two sizes too large, garb untucked, and baggy pants. I closed the door behind me and said to the LT "I'm ready!" feeling late. He turned around and simply said, "Follow." I did as told.

I walked into a guarded room following behind the LT, the guards wearing the dark green Combat Armor, and armed with standard R91s in hand. The LT walked over to a table with a topographical imaging system over it. A few CPTs and other LTs were seen here by the rank on their combat armor shoulders.

A Colonel spotted me, then started. "So we will get right into this; a few questions, uh. What's your name?" He stopped and looked at me; I looked down at the table, it was a holo-table with my pipboy's recorded travel map.

Blaire walks in with my dog tags, wearing a vault jumpsuit. And hands them to me, "You forgot these." she said. I smiled up at her and said thanks, convenient. I pushed my dog tags to the Col. across the table.

He read them. "Weskier, Lynnette. BT:0. CC: 603611450. Okay. What outfit did you receive these from?" he questioned. I replied about my time with the Southern Idaho National Guard unit.

After he knew my story, we moved onto a new subject, a private military contractor that popped up from a section of vaults calling themselves 'Cry'.

"So what we're going to do is we will move to investigate this hard-line military company 'Cry', access to a Vault and a depot we might not have popped yet." He talked out slightly louder for everyone around the table. As he did I looked around, the room was white painted, a filing cabinet in the corner of the elongated room, and a computer on a desk in the other corner near the main table. This table could easily fit some 20 people if it needed to. It was all in perfect looking condition.

The Colonel continued, pointing to the map. "There are Vaults here designated as 13, 14, and 15. As the mountains were solid here, they gave alot of cover and separation. We have no information on these sectors, all we know is the Cry Unit might be US, and they're too far from their borders to be Legion.

From what we have seen, they might even be mountain specialized forces, similar to our Rangers. If this information is correct, then there is a MASSIVE gap in unpatrolled and unregistered US front lines. We're going to push the beachhead, take what we can, and try to hold everything down, then shimmy our way down to these Vaults. We can't connect the 2 beachheads as Vault 8 is separating it out." He stopped and looked at me.

"Is there any tips or things we need to note?" he asked while looking at me.

I replied quickly remembering an encounter. "Yes! Follow this path all the way back. Avoid this town, there's something really off about it. The US, Raiders, and even wildlife avoid this town, it even has a runway. So there must be something really wrong about it." I said while pointing at McDermin on the map.

The Colonel sat back in his chair then told me that I'm good to go as he started looking through paperwork on a clipboard. I left the room and Blaire followed me out. The door behind me was a sliding reinforced door, it closed shut tight as we exited, giving a whiny air pressurization sound.

I walked out into the hallway and looked over at the food court. There were some soldiers eating, sitting around, chatting, and relaxing; filling nearly 2/3rds of the food court. I walked in and sat down, facing the windows. There was a large number of vertibirds parked on the runway and other propeller aircraft, with soldiers maintaining some of them.

The girlish-looking boy from yesterday in the Green BDUs walked over. "Hey! Welcome back~ want another burger, or something easier, like a potato meal, or ham and turkey with cheese, mayo, and grilled up!?" He described in excitement.

I said quickly, "I want that last one!" The boy in Green BDU smiled and said, "you got it, darling." Blaire gave me a stale look. "Darling?" she said, monotone.

I spoke back in confusion, "Hey, how are you able to just walk around here?" I asked.

"Enclave, high command. Free taskforce." She explained in her usual short sentence.

"Taskforce?" I questioned, "Aren't task forces comprised of atleast a full Section for assistance, information, and other fighters? Where's the rest of your unit?" I asked sounding a bit pushy.

After a few seconds of no response from her, she turned her head and acted to ignore the quest. "Oh fun." I say with a sigh in parallel, looking back out the window, and the brightening dawn.

I gave a relieved sigh and laid my chin down on my arm, on the table looking up at her. The blue vault jump-suit really didn't suit her look. I closed my eyes as I was still a bit sleepy. I was cut short from my cat-nap by the P.A. system chimes.

"Warrant Officer Lynnette, Report to Development. Thank you" said, in an older-sounding woman's voice.

I stood up and shuffled over to the room following signs on the walls. Entering the room I see a girl in probably her late 30s waving at me from the back, a real tomboy grease monkey. The rest of the room was filled with tables, mechanics working on this or that, and some weapons being tooled. The girl was standing next to my suit of T-45L and I walked over to her as she started first.

"Hey! I'm Shanna; I'm one of the top engineers around here. I'm tasked with finding out how all the systems in here work before we even take a screwdriver to anything. So all I need to need to know is if the systems are the same as T-45D.

I will ask you down a line of things the T-45D can do and you just say yes or no. okay?" She concluded.

"Why don't you just suit up in it yourself?" I questioned.

"Well, it's now considered rare tech by us right now and a high valued package by command." with a bad sigh behind it all.

I then ask, "You won't actually take it apart, will you? You're suppose to be getting these suits soon anyways."

"Nope, I was told not to tinker with your armor. But I still think it'd be really nice to have a little info before we get ours in!" the slightly muscular, hyper girl explained.

"Alright, I guess," I say as we started off. She started from the top of her list from "ABC separated pipboy to suit listings." to "beta-ray imaging detection system." half I didn't even know I had and the other half was mostly a yes.