It was pretty late by the time Adam got home. He was tired, not just because it was late but because he had spent the entire day on high alert driving through potentially dangerous roads and avoiding dangers. Even if he only had one encounter it was not any less stressful up to that point. But his caps bag was positively overflowing again, with a total of 3591 caps. Before, when he was staying in Midway, that would definitely be a sizable amount of caps but hotel fees would drain it quickly. As it is now, living in the Vault, owing no rent to anyone, he could eventually put all these caps back into his enterprise or into his creature comforts back in the Vault. So for the first time this really did feel like a lot of money.
Still he was done planning for the future for the day, he wanted to sleep, so after plugging in APC for the night, sleep he did.
The next day arrived uneventfully though Adam had planned to take it easier, maybe working on the robots, or spending the day reading, he was unsure but he knew that crazy adventures were not immediately on the list.
After a nice slow meal, a hot shower, and a few minutes saying hello to some folks he decided to head to see Eric and work with him on the robots.
Or that would be the plan if the sound of the Vault door opening hadn’t taken his attention. As he walked to the entrance, there was Mira, back from whatever she was doing before, still in her stealth suit and looking more badass than she left, somehow. He couldn’t put his finger on it but it was as if she stood up straighter, it really just served to make her look more beautiful. But such thoughts were immediately disposed of when she approached Adam, a serious expression in her eyes.
“Adam, we have a problem.” She said seriously to him as she took off her helmet and let her hair down.
“What sort of problem?” Adam asked curiously as she put the helmet on a nearby table next to the control console that opened the Vault door. She let off a sigh of moderate exhaustion and then looked back at the door for a moment.
“Things are getting bad out there, real bad.” She said cryptically.
“How do you mean?” Adam asked, not really wanting to be left in the dark with cryptic warnings at the moment.
“The Horsemen. War and Pestilence? It's begun. An open war has started.” She said with a serious tone that left no room for doubt.
Adam was about to open his mouth to respond but then he paused and thought about all the things he had seen and heard since Mira left. He had seen the migration of Pestilence forces into the unclaimed East, he had heard numerous firefights all throughout Chicago when driving the ghouls to the Federal Ration Stockpile, and he had seen the moment when the first shots could be considered to have been fired back at the defense of the East. No, this made sense, now what the question is, how does that affect them.
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“So… what's the situation out there? I assume there is a reason beyond the two factions fighting that you are bringing it up with such a dour expression.” Adam asked, slowly. Mira responded in kind, with a slow nod.
“Yes. War is losing… badly.”
“Is that… a problem?”
“It depends.” She sighed and then leaned on the table where she put her helmet, resting her butt slightly on the edge of the table to give her legs a break. “If either group was wholly good for Chicago we’d want them to win. If they are both wholly evil then we want them to be at equal strength to wipe each other out. But the problem is we don’t know.”
“Don’t know… if either is evil?” She nodded again.
“We know what War is about. So there's no question what his motives are. But-” She began only to be cut off by Adam.
“Wait, we know what War's motives are?” Adam asked, confused.
“Yeah?” She said confused back. “He has a whole radio station about it.” Oh… he remembered now. It was mentioned a while ago that War had a radio station that played throughout Chicago that spoke about his ideals. Adam had just never exactly cared to listen in so he never bothered to tune in, but if he was simply explaining everything he wanted to do in the radio broadcast it would be readily apparent whether he was an issue for Chicago. Though, of course, his forces were made up of raiders so he couldn’t be that good.
“But…” Mira continued, now with a tone that said, ‘wait until I'm done speaking.’ “We can’t just trust whatever he says on the Radio, after all even the Enclave used to do that back in the Cap-” She stopped herself mid sentence and then cleared her throat. “Anyway the point is we know his stated reasons not if that’s his true motives. But that's not important, what's important is Pestilence.”
“Because they are winning.” Adam inferred.
“Exactly.” Mira said within a small smile. “Which is why you and I need to go find out what they are about.” She said as she got off the table and took off her backpack and then rummaged through it. After a moment she pulled out a purple robe and threw it at Adam, who caught it easily enough even though he was not expecting it.
“Whats this?” Adam asked as he unfurled the robe and saw, very clearly, that it was a robe belonging to the Cult of Pestilence.
“A robe belonging to a member of the Cult.” She said with a slightly playful smile. Adam just rolled his eyes but smiled a tiny bit himself.
“No, I mean why do you have this, and more importantly what are you planning on doing with it?”
“I got it because one of the lovely little cultists… donated it to me after some gentle persuasion.” She smiled briefly and then got serious again. “As for why, it's simple. You and I will be infiltrating the Cult of Pestilence personally.”
