Chapter 47: Chapter 47

The initial administration duties of Caladan were dull but refreshing in its own way. I got to spend about a week in the office feeling important as I went through meetings with Curie, Piper, Cait and the occasional drop-in from Gwen and some of her vaulters, or Deacon with his Railroad friends.

I used the office to try out some new stuff as well, and Cait is really creative in coming up with new ways to be an executive toy. Piper was happy to join in, though she preferred just staying underneath my desk, particularly in meetings with Gwen or someone from Caladan in for casual feedback. Gotta admit, it is kinda funny having her opinions on a matter suddenly come out from behind the desk. Everyone pretended it was perfectly normal each time, and that the gagging sounds didn’t exist.

Not too hard actually, considering in those situations Cait was in some form of nakedness and in various states of exposing bondage on or beside my desk. Having her weigh in on meetings while she was forced in a squatting position with her legs wide open and her arms bound behind her was probably a much harder sight to ignore.

Boring but essential minutiae were brought up by the ever thoughtful Curie, like how we would sort currency and trading in the future, or how to settle in Vault 81 once they assimilated. The question of allowing synth escapees in was also mulled, though it was ultimately decided that until we got more transparency from the Railroad, we’d just maintain the current hosting privileges to them.

I got a whole week of enjoyable mundanity, but after that Rylee called to inform of a convoy looking for me, consisting of a delegation from Diamond City.

As I took the train along with Curie and the girls, we reviewed the information about the group of visitors. They were a group of fourteen people, six of them clearly guards judging from the video feeds from the robots who escorted them in. At least one was a big shot from the way everyone else bent over backwards when he talked to them, maybe the mayor? There were a couple of ghouls, but then again it should be surprising since synth McDonough wouldn’t be taking control and chasing them out anytime soon.

We got out of the station and briskly left New World 81 (to be rechristened Station 81 soon) and headed to R&R 81. The Diamond City delegation got up from their little huddle once we entered.

“Hello there, I’m Sev. Heard you people requested to meet me?”

The greeting made the big shot we tagged earlier light up and he strode over to me with a disturbing eagerness. He was a slightly old guy, the muscular heavy set type that’s just starting the slide down growing fat and rotund, but had this friendly uncle sort of air around him...as well as a thin film of greasiness that I can only assume belonged to experienced politicians.

“Well there, good day to you Sev! Good to finally meet you!” the man said as we shook hands. I could tell his voice was forcefully boisterous, and a quick console peek showed that he was definitely more nervous than happy to see me, if I’m reading the fear stat right.

“Ronald Cavort, deputy mayor of Diamond City. Pleased to meet you.”

So not exactly the mayor, but close enough to count. I just nodded as he went ahead and introduced some of his entourage. “Indra Tomlinson, our chief economic advisor. Clarence Codman, agricultural producer. Professors Scara and Duff from our science department. Dr Sun, our city’s most prestigious medical practitioner...”

I knew some of the faces, though obviously they’re a lot younger here and they somehow were part of the city’s admin too. Must’ve been rather competent to be able to stay alive until McDonough’s time, if that’s their real history. I traded smiles and polite greetings with the Diamond City folk, ignoring the quick glances some of them gave to the girls behind me.

“Nice to meet you all. If you’re here on official business, there’s a meeting room downstairs where we can more comfortably discuss any matters you’re here for?”

“Of course, of course! Thank you, lead the way!”

Definitely an experienced politician. A shame console didn’t give conversation options to handle these kinds of situations, I could definitely use the help. I led them down to the room we hosted the Railroad more than a week ago, making sure to send a message to Gwen via bots in case she was interested in joining in.

“Now then,” I said as we all got seated. The delegation were all polite enough to hide their judgemental looks when Cait and Piper took their seats next to mine. “What can I do for you?”

It started with a good ten minutes of brown-nosing, it turns out. The deputy mayor was good at laying it thick about how relieved Diamond City was having New World 81 ‘tame the western borders’ and went on for a bit on how glad they were that the rumors of my benevolence were reinforced by testimonies from the settlers I’ve liberated all those months ago, along with news from the Minutemen. Fuck, it’s been what, two, three months since the slave camps? It felt both too long and too quick a time…

Anyway, with the Minutemen resurgent and maintaining peace along the major routes, Diamond City is finally in the position to reach out for talks and trade with us. Deputy Mayor Cavort made it sound like they were surrounded by hordes of savages or something. The eye-rolling from the other reps hinted at the stench of his masterful bullshittery.

*****

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This was not going to end well, Dr Thomas Sun realised. The initial assumptions made by the mayor and his team were far off. It was common knowledge that this Sev had freed and took care of slaves with advanced technology that gave him robots and instant-build structures.

What was less common was the living conditions of the place. Speculations and wild rumors ranged from him keeping the rescued children as essentially his own slaves in just slightly better conditions from their previous life in cages, to serving up paradise to them with all their needs and wants met. Common sense dictated that the extreme ends of the spectrum were romanticised or demonising tales, and that a young man with ungodly firepower would still have trouble accommodating so many former slaves outside of Vault 81.

Seeing the furniture and the jugs of clean water available, it was clear that common sense was wrong this time. Never mind that the robot patrols were intimidatingly advanced, the implications that the residents of Vault 81 were happily staffing and even staying within this structure spoke volumes of just what kind of quality of life was available here.

The vault dwellers were more than happy to provide further tales of Sev’s generosity, of how he gave them R&R 81, and how the water he supplied was cleaner than what the vault’s purifiers could manage. It was clear as day that none of the furniture or supplies here were from the vault, contrary to Cavort’s delusional assertion, and the air conditioning system that fed them comfortably cool air was not Vault-Tec.

The wary looks from Scara, Duff and even Tomlinson showed that they realised it too, and despite their own interests in this place, or perhaps because of it, there was a rising dread at how the deputy mayor’s misplaced confidence might just doom them all. And Cavort had to inflate Thomas and the other doctors’ positions to imply that they were linked to Diamond City’s administration, thus dragging them down along with him.

“We came here as soon as the routes were safe again, and I come to you now to humbly offer Diamond City’s trade caravans to supply anything you might require.”

The doctor shared a heavy cringe with his colleagues at Cavort’s breezy delivery. Sev kept himself neutral, but the girls beside him were more honest with their amusement.

“Uh, what exactly are you looking to offer?”

He wanted to strangle Cavort before he could continue talking, but the man put on a sympathetic mask and blabbered without bothering to read the room. “We understand that you are more than capable of warding off threats and providing for the rescued slaves under your care, but let me assure you that Diamond City has the wares to allow for a more comfortable living for you and your charges. Clean beds and clothes, a more varied food stock...”

Oh god, please make it stop. Thomas could only share a look with the equally horrified women and even Codman who finally took the hint from how the girls were trembling to hold in their laughter. Sev was letting the idiot ramble on about providing luxuries to the children, at the unsubtly ‘small’ cost of a technology exchange.

Sev didn’t laugh everyone out of the room or show any signs of insult, just nodding patiently before giving his reply. “As nice as your offer is, we’re already set, thank you. I’m more than happy to discuss trade of goods or access to my medical facilities out of humanitarian concerns, but other than that, unfortunately you’d be wasting your time.”

The deputy mayor’s delusions burst like a bubble, but he still tried grasping at straws. “B-But don’t you need more than just salvaged foods? We have reliable sources of razorgrain and brahmin meat! An-And Dr Sun here is one of the best-”

Before Thomas could even recoil in horror at being dragged into this, Sev interrupted with a shrug. “We’re good on food for a while, thanks. And I’m sure you’re a good practitioner doc, but our infrastructure has proven sufficient for our needs.”

Tomlinson quickly took over the meeting from the crushed Cavort, trying to salvage something out of this whole debacle. “What would trading between Diamond City and you entail then?”

In the end, Sev showed off just how much power he wielded. Not just the barbaric sort of guns and blades, though he did offer to export arms for Diamond City security. He offered true luxury goods, like intact and clean mirrors, new mattresses with actual springs that weren’t rusted out, pocket radios, actual working fire extinguishers, flashlights and many, many more.

The samples he had the Mr Handy bots bring in were jaw-droppingly impressive. All of this and more were commonplace items in his settlement apparently, enough for him to treat them all as mere baubles and trinkets. To be able to produce such things in a world where most were happy with salvaging and repurposing whatever they could from the ruins spoke of a level of opulence that Thomas couldn’t fathom.

Unsurprisingly Sev’s two girls were grinning at the delegation’s reactions, treating the Diamond City folk like rural hicks.

Of course, he offered essential goods too, like spare parts and medical tools. At this point, Tomlinson used her authority as Mayor Garrett’s trusted economic advisor to apologise for Cavort’s severely mistaken assumption, and all but begged for postponing the talks to another time to reassess the new information.

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