[center][i]"This man is a traitor to the very ideals of a stable and peaceful state. He is actively trying to undermine our efforts and ensure that what we want - nay, what the people want and deserve - will never be achieved. If it were up to me, sir, he would be killed on the spot for his heinous crimes. But it is your decision. Choose as you wish."[/i][/center]

[b]Bethesda Outskirts, Capital Wasteland[/b]

Light crept slowly into the building, a product of the sun that had only recently appeared above the horizon. The rays slid through cracks in the wall and past the jagged remnants of the shattered windows, on their way to illuminate the filthy floor. On the opposite side of the room from the windows was a hodgepodge of bullet holes, graffiti, and dried blood stains. Rusted shell casings from a conflict far in the past littered the stained and moldy red carpet. Several rotted desks with smashed computers provided the room's main decoration, however. There were two neat rows of workspaces, probably used by accountants or stock brokers before the War. It was underneath one of these desks where a man slept. His head lay on his rucksack, a poncho-liner draped over his body to try and warm him through the chilly night, and a revolver close by his hand. He slept for a long while underneath that desk, but his slumber was finally over. As the light bounced off of a mirror and into his face, the man awoke slowly. His hand crept over to the revolver and he grabbed it gingerly: the first and most vital thing he could do in the morning. Then he rolled out from underneath the desk, sore and groggy. His joints cracked when he stood up and he felt the blood rush to his head. Steadying himself on a cubical wall, Fox looked up at the ceiling and sighed. It was another day.

Breakfast was simple: a canned ration that was some sort of buttered toast and centuries-old peanut butter. Canned peaches and water from a canteen accompanied it. The taste was mildly disgusting, as military rations often were, but at least it wasn't irradiated. He ate quickly, as he was taught, and stowed his trash hidden away in the desk drawers to keep from detection. Fox was still concerned about recent events: he had left only shortly before the Vertibird arrived to assist Major Gonzales. While Fox had mined Gonzales's body before his escape, he had no idea if that would only spur the Enclave forces into further pursuit. He had been holed up in the building for too long and he was afraid that they had triangulated his position. His ears were on the hunt for the characteristic sound of a Vertibird's rotors. There was nothing else like it. He listened as he prepared for that day's adventures. He loaded his rifle with a magazine and checked the NOD scope again. It still worked. He patted down his load-bearing equipment and made sure that everything was ready. He had slept in his boots and his armor: it was uncomfortable but it saved crucial time every morning. The last thing to do was equip his bag and his helmet. There was nothing else he could do besides be mobile. If he slowed, he died.

The door to the building had been busted off of the hinges years ago, so Fox slunk out into the daylight unopposed. It was still early in the morning: the virgin day's orange light cast long, dark shadows over the pale, brown land. Wind blew by every few minutes, kicking up small bouts of dust that swept past Fox's legs. It rustled fences and signs, rusted by the cruel mistress of time. The cracked and broken road led west around the city of DC and towards the Metro tunnels where he was destined. Fox was determined to get to Rafael by nightfall, which meant traversing through the remains of I-495 - the Capital Beltway that circulated around the city. Those were dangerous roads, prowled often by highwaymen attracted by the caravans running throughout. Mercenaries bent on theft and murder accompanied the mix of villainy that had embedded itself into the landscape. They had been changed by the dark sands: they were desperate, and could be more terrible than anyone could ever imagine. Talon Company had its reputation as being almost as brutal as the Raiders. Almost. It seemed as if everyone had to stoop to their level in order to survive, Fox included. It was hard for him to imagine that, only twelve hours earlier, he had torn out a man's throat with his teeth. Desperation bred terrible things. But he couldn't dwell on it. He couldn't dwell on what he may or may not be becoming. If he succumbed to the fear of what he could become, he would become it. So Fox carried on his way, singing a song as he went.

Morning turned to day quickly, and the sun beat down upon the bleak landscape. Light reflected off of the broken shards of glass that lay alongside the destroyed cars that littered the roads. Many of them had skeletons inside, clutching suitcases and bags. They tried to flee from the nuclear explosions, but they were invariably caught either by the radiation or the shockwave. They appeared every once in a while along the lonely road, and Fox paid no attention. He had been dulled to those horrors long ago. But after another hour, he came across something different: a dead Raider was sprawled out in a ditch beside the road. He was missing his leg and was staring at the sky with a pained expression on his face. Fox, sensing the opportunity for loot, went in to investigate. Carefully walking across the road and dropping into the ditch, Fox came across the corpse. With a rifle aimed at the face - it was instinct instead of rational sense - Fox stepped up and dragged it from the ditch. The Raider's body was filthy and his clothes were ragged and torn. The pool of dried blood in the ditch seemed to coat everything in a crusty, black layer. Fox frowned at the dead man before searching his satchel. Inside was general a general affair: a handful of bottlecaps, a few mismatched bullets of varying quality and caliber, some food and irradiated water, and a pair of Jet inhalers.

Fox took what he needed and put it in a pile next to the body before duly patting down the rest of his pockets. Luck was on his side that day, however, as he came across a relatively pristine and unopened package of Fancy Lad snack cakes in the Raider's cargo pocket. For the first time, a smile crossed Fox's face. Then, he turned his attention to the Raider's weapon. In his hand was an R91 assault rifle - the weapon that was so commonplace amongst settlers because of its heavy use by the US Army before the war. The soldier pried the weapon out of the Raider's hand with little effort, and inspected it. Of course it was cracked, rusted, and rotting. Duct tape held together the stock and foregrip. A quick inspection of the chamber revealed that it had suffered a catastrophic jam. A shell had literally bent into an unfathomable angle, and Fox couldn't figure out how it happened. His disbelief at the situation turned even worse as he inspected the magazine. It appeared that the shells had been loaded in backwards. It was at this point that Fox felt frustration. He took the bullets out of the magazine to inspect them - perhaps to save them and sell them later - and found that they were unanimous in their horrid condition. The shells had rusted. Fox shook his head and let out an Earth-shattering sigh. "This is why we can't have nice things," he grumbled to the dead Raider. The soldier threw the bullets away onto the street in frustration. "I honestly can't even fucking believe it. It's like you were [i]trying[/i] to fuck your shit up."

Fox snatched up the rifle in anger and proceeded to snap the flimsy stock in half before throwing the piece into the ditch. "You deserved to die, buddy," he spat. "You're a goddamn slob. How the fuck did you even make it to adulthood? You're so slow, you probably should have fallen off a bridge in your formative years."

The soldier sighed again before unclipping his helmet and running his hand through the mass of dark, sweaty hair atop his head. It was getting long and curly again since his last butchering of a haircut. He was also growing out a new beard since he had lost his razor at the brothel in Arefu. All his life he had been neat and orderly, as fresh and clean-cut as the other young men beside him. Now, with nothing to lose, Fox had let his neatness go to the dogs. The rational side of him thought that he needed a haircut, and the conscious part of him agreed. But it wasn't a necessity, and recently the rational side of him was getting less of a say in things. He was talking to a dead man, for God's sake. Something wasn't quite right. He needed a friend, which is why he was so quick to befriend Miguel - or, rather, Major Gonzales. Why did he think that they were two different people, pre and post betrayal? That wasn't rational either. But he wanted a friend, and Kiril was the closest he had in a while. But Kiril was gone now. Dead, maybe. He hadn't seen the Russian since Arefu. Now the closest thing that Fox had to a friend was Rafael, and Rafael was crazy. Rafael was using him to advance a cult's agenda. But Rafael gave him food and shelter, and wasn't trying to kill him. Was that what a friend did? Was that word so broad now that it simply included people who weren't actively after his head? It had lost its value.

Maybe that was why he was angry. Maybe that was why he was letting out his frustrations on the dead Raider. The dead Raider was just a target for his rage. An object instead of a person. But wasn't that bad, too? Fox knew that he couldn't dwell on it, but he did. He couldn't stop. He didn't stop. Maybe this was the road to savagery. But was understanding that he wasn't there yet - that he was still only on the road and had not arrived at the destination - a sign that he wasn't yet a savage? It was like being crazy, which savagery could be. If one knew that they were crazy, were they really crazy at all? Or did they just think that they were? Did a sane person thinking that they were crazy make them crazy? Likewise, when Fox thought that he was a savage, was he actually a savage? Was there some sort of objective scale for some sort of cosmic karma, determining whether Fox was good or bad? And then there was the most important question: did it even matter? Fox pondered this for a long while, before he suddenly came to the realization that he was internally debating philosophy while sitting on the side of the road next to a week-old corpse and a pile of stolen goods. The sheer absurdity of the situation astounded and amused him, so he let out his little laugh and sat up. He took another look down at the Raider and sighed, picking up his stolen gear. The corpse would be left to the devices of the Wastes, like so many others. There was nothing that Fox could do about it. There wasn't much that he could do about anything, really, be it intrinsic or extrinsic. There was a road for him to walk, and the chips would fall where they may.

So Fox stepped back onto the road, shouldered his rifle, and walked. [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueIRPDAbPNY]And he sung a little tune as he went[/url], without a care in the world.