[b]20 October 2077
Portland, Oregon
Morning[/b]

".... Sergeant?" A nervous, shaky voice trailed behind Nate as he knelt beside the Lieutenant's corpse, prying his 10mm sidearm from its late owner's holster. He ignored it, instead aiming the sidearm towards the clowards and firing off a single round, before quickly pushing the weapon towards the Lieutenant's side, as if he'd been holding onto it when he'd died. When he finally saw Coporal Quentin's frozen gaze once again, he gave him a firm stare from behind the visor of his helmet, before speaking up. "He snapped, just like the Captain did." On paper it might've sounded like a statement, but face-to-face he may as well have been pointing a rhetorical question at the man. Corporal Quentin gave a stiff nod without another word.

With that out of the way, Nate quickly brought a hand over his radio and blurted out, as if on-cue ,"We've got a man down!". It wasn't too long before the cavalry showed up, a small squad comprised of yet another CO and several men who were a little more beefed up than Nate's own post, perhaps because they were expecting a fight. Instead they found a shell-shocked kid, a worn-out sergeant and the cadaver of their CO with his brains splattered all over the wall. In peacetime, there was a good chance Nate would've been sniffed out by some hardass MP who was smart enough not to take the word of two potential suspects, but with Uncle Sam's finest straining to keep the city under wraps it had been something of a cakewalk. As far as the relief team were concerned, the Lieutenant had grabbed for Nate's gun, then failing that pulled out his own and made a meal of it. When they questioned Corpoal Quentin for his side of the story, he gave the same answer he'd given Nate earlier - a stiff nod, accompanied with the mutterings of "Like Captain Morgan..."

Even under his 45d, Nate could still hear the CO muttering 'poor kid' under his breath as he turned away, not that it was anything new, before shifting his wearied gaze back towards Nate and offering him a few parting words. "There's nothin' more you can do here, Sergeant. It's a damn shame... waste of good men like that, but there's nothin' more either of you two can do. We'll take over and clean up from here, you just take the kid with you and get some rest. Dismissed." The middle aged CO, a limping old wardog who had probably been kept out of a desk job for the sake of the war effort, gave Nate a reaffirming nod and patted him on the shoulder plate of his T-45d, before turning his attention back towards the scene. Glancing back towards Corporal Quentin for a moment, Nate stiffly gestured for hi mto follow with a tilt of his head.

For a short while, the two were silent as they passed through the streets of downtown Portland - a few prying eyes occasionally glanced from behind the safety of their barred shopfronts to get a look at them, but otherwise nothing. Turning into an alleyway, intentionally, Nate's thoughts were interrupted by the Corporal's voice "What did you just-" only to be cut off by Nate, who hit back with a "What -we- just did, you mean." He shifted his view back towards the Corporal, and continued. "You heard it straight from the Lieutenant. 'Weapons free, Corporal.' Tell me, why'd you enlist?" It took a little while before he got an answer. "To protect my country. Friends, family." Just as he expected. "And you think that taking potshots at a couple of rowdy civvies is going to protect this country? Hell, you even refused to do it yourself. It was either the Lieutenant or them, and it's not the civvies that are pointing rifles downrange at their fellow Americans."

Yet another long pause followed, before the Corporal eventually spoke up once more, this time somewhat dejected. "Al.. fine. You did what you had to Sergeant, but... what now? I... we can't just go back after this, can we?" At least this time, he had something of an answer for the Corporal. His thoughts drifted northwards, to a place where rumours were born. "No. But there's other places, too."