The Protagonist System

Most of the people on escort duty with Atlas as he cleaned up the spillway of the Coronado Dam were more than a little surprised that it had been completely done on one side, the non-water side. It had significantly more junk and garbage piled in the space between it and the retaining wall stopping the contaminated water from flooding the city.

The cargo hauler made many runs during the day to finish in time for the normal shift change from day to night. When asked, Atlas claimed it was easier to do the 'dry' side, since the contamination was so prevalent, thanks to the crashed ship that had leaked whatever it was carrying down into what used to be the city's reservoir.

Oh, and he cleaned that up, too. Seeing that huge eyesore get sucked up into the cargo hauler's containers like it was nothing, really put a feeling of awe into the people that saw it. How did it generate enough power to lift something that huge? It was mind boggling if you thought about it too much.

They landed back at the base and the maintenance crews went over all three ships, cleaned them up, refuelled them if they needed it, and everyone had a mini-party before the night shift had to go to work. The patrols went out and a few of them were surprised to find some actual NCPD cars and officers were out as well. They looked haggard and not happy about it, too.

Atlas went out again, back to the Coronado Damn, and did another sweep to tear up hundreds of tons of contaminated ground. That really shocked a few of the guards and escorts, since they hadn't seen the sheer power work like that before. It only took one pass and the entire inside of that small canyon was now as clean as it was before anything had happened to it.

Atlas went back to the facility to pretend to empty out the cargo areas into the industrial replicator, then took a maintenance vehicle that had been converted into an AV and flew it back out to the spillway, which was actually the Laguna Bend Reservoir dam to examine it. Only one AV escort went with him this time.

The thing had been locked up and seized for decades by that point and the mechanism to open it and control the water flow had been long since rusted out or claimed for parts by the Scavs. So, he went to work building a facility to handle it. He generated parts with a replicator that were needed and worked out a decontamination protocol that would filter out any contaminates from the lakewater behind the dam.

The problem was, the water level was too low to reach the spillway. That didn't bother Atlas, though. He built the decon facility right in front of the dam and would then build a pumping station on top of the Laguna Dam to start pulling the water through and into the decon facility to then pour right into the recently cleaned up reservoir.

Inside the decon facility, multiple conveyor belts worked underneath various water filter screens of all sizes, from huge to microscopic, and they would catch and pull away anything found in the water as it flowed through the pipes. It would all be hermetically sealed after it was built, so even if the thing ended up underwater, it would still work and not be impeded at all.

“Man, he's just kicking ass today.” One guard said as he stood on the AV's extended platform. His harness kept him from falling off when the AV needed to adjust position.

“I know, right?” The pilot asked. “If he wasn't such a fucking boyscout, I'd wonder if he was going to hold the entire city hostage and make them pay through the nose for fresh clean water.”

The guard laughed. “I'd pay to see the shock on the faces of all those asshole corpos if he did that!”

The pilot laughed, too.

“At the pace he's going, he'll be done well before midnight.” The woman on the dispatch added. She was listening in to their open comms, just in case of an emergency.

“That's because he does the Arasaka Tower run every night.” The pilot said. “Who would have thought they could make so much garbage every single day?”

“Corpos, man. Fucking corpos.” The guard answered.

“So.” The woman said after a moment of silence. “Which one of you is going to send the recording of this to the newsies?”

“Not it!” The guard and pilot said at the same time, then both laughed as the dispatcher groaned.

“Fucking fine. Send it along when he's done. I'll have my friend edit it and send it in.” The woman said.

“Did they already finish with the cleanup video?” The guard asked.

“Yes, and she can't fucking believe it.” The woman responded. “Hell, I watched it as it happened and I still can't believe it.”

“It was both awesome and terrifying.” The pilot said.

“Definitely.” The guard said and then had a weird thought. “What if he flew over the slums and did that?”

The pilot and dispatcher fell silent for a moment.

“There'd be a lot of people left behind with nothing around them.” The dispatcher answered. “Remember the briefing about the Wraiths hideout they cleared out this afternoon?”

“Oh, yeah.” The guard said with relief. “Then I'm not worried about it if it happens. That ship will just suck everything up except for the people.”

“Leaving them high and dry.” The pilot added.

“We can give them the usual recruitment speech and everything will be fine.” The dispatcher said.

“Free food and free health care!” The pilot and the guard shouted, which made the three of them laugh.

*Beep!*

“We got a bogey coming in from the east.” The pilot said and gently swung the AV around to not jostle the guard too much. “It's unknown if they're hostile.”

“If they approach too close, we gun them down.” The guard said. “The boss ain't here to be target practice. He's working too hard to fix this shitty city.”

“Agreed.” The pilot said and lined up the autocannons.

“I've got another crew on standby.” The dispatcher said. “Just say the word.”

The tenseness of the situation built until the unknown AV seemed to shift and then turned away slightly. It sped up a little and then turned right around and flew off.

“Aw, shit. That was a PetroChem AV.” The pilot said and kept them in his sights.

“Should we shoot them down?” The guard asked.

“Negative on that.” Atlas said, breaking into their conversation. “If they're scouting, we need the firepower for any follow-up operations coming our way. If they only came out to see what we're doing, then I expect a call from the mayor's office within the next fifteen minutes.”

The dispatcher snorted and then laughed. “You don't know the mayor, boss. His fat ass is in bed right now and I doubt he'll answer his phone until morning, assuming they claim it's an emergency. If not, he'll yell about missing it tomorrow at lunch.”

“You're still pissed he fired you?” The guard asked.

“That fucking asshole spilled his own coffee on himself and blamed me. I was fined, lost my job, was evicted out of my apartment, and my fiance broke it off after telling me he cheated on me with my coworker.” The dispatcher answered. “City Hall can burn to the fucking ground tomorrow and I'll go down there to piss on the ashes.”

“It's nice to know you don't have any hostility towards them anymore.” The guard joked.

“Fuuuuck you.” The woman said with enthusiasm.

The pilot and the guard laughed.

“So, drinks during mid-break?” The guard asked her.

“Sure, why not? You can't be a bigger disappoint than you already are.” She answered.

“Fuck you, too.” The guard said with a chuckle.

Atlas went back to work and listened in on them as they continued to chat back and forth. It was nice to hear them getting along, despite them being from such different backgrounds.

*

The Mox gang didn't relax until late Monday night when they officially opened their club for business once more. For the last couple of days, the entire weekend in fact, they had been hunkered down and felt as nervous as long tailed cats in a room full of rocking chairs.

All of them, from the top of their organization, namely their fearless leader Susie Q, right down to their least used prostitute, had fully expected the police to raid Lizzie's Bar to arrest them and to send them all to prison for the rest of their lives for what they did during the riots on Friday night.

Some of them also expected the Tyger Claws to serve them some retribution for their actions against them, only for nothing to happen. In fact, there had been no signs of any of their members, let alone any of them showing up to harass them to get revenge.

“I think they forgot about us.” One of the dancers commented when the front doors were unbarred and a bunch of their regular customers rushed in to grab their favorite toys and went into the back booths.

“There's no way they can ignore the body count we caused.” Another responded and pointed. “Oh! There's Jake! Over here, baby!”

“Thank fuck you're okay!” Jake shouted and rushed over to her. The other girls at the bar were shocked when he broke social protocol and hugged her tightly and kissed the dancer on the lips. She was surprised as well for a moment, then she kissed him back just as passionately.

“That's enough.” Susie said from behind the bar. Her eyes took in the rest of the bar and saw similar scenes all over. “Fuck, the bouncers are going to be busy tonight.”

The dancer broke the kiss and her face was red. “S-sorry, boss.”

Susie waved her towards the stairs. “Just go down to the rooms where I can't see anything.”

Jake tossed a handful of eddies onto the bar and pretty much dragged her away.

“Are all the regulars that horny?” The same dancer that spoke before asked.

“Most of them have gone all weekend without reprieve, so probably.” Susie said and nodded as a few bouncers started going around to smack the customers and admonish the girls for not taking them into the back or down into the rooms.

A new group of men and a couple of women came in and seemed to be a mix of lost and needing something.

“You're up.” Susie said and patted a few of the girls on the shoulders and pointed at the new arrivals.

“On it, boss.” They said and made their way across the dance floor to spread out and mark their targets.

Susie didn't comment on the pun they had made and started making up some drinks that she knew the regulars were going to order soon. For good reason, she suspected that tonight was going to be one of their best nights at earning money and tips.

After a few minutes of work, she thought about making a few inquiries about why no one was coming after them for what they did, then thought better of it. Bringing it to someone's attention would only bring the NCPD down hard on their asses, and not in the good way that a lot of them enjoyed.

*

Mama Welles stood behind the bar and prepared drinks as well. Unlike Lizzie's that had been closed for the whole weekend, she had been open every night and spent an equal time serving drinks as she did helping to manage the huge influx of new territory the Valentinos had acquired.

Normally, she wouldn't have much to do with that part of the gang's operations, except it was because of her planning that they had grabbed as much of it as they had. Her rep with the gang had gone up and her son Jackie had praised her for it, because he knew that she would always have people there to protect her if anything ever happened to him.

Mama Welles shook her head at that thought and handed two more drinks to the waitress, whom took them and went over to the table that ordered them. Instead of doing up some more, she waved to her replacement to take over for her, grabbed a couple of beers, and headed to the booth where her new friend sat.

“You're not going to fix things by sitting there doing nothing.” Mama Welles said as she handed a beer to Gloria and sat down.

Gloria sighed and took a drink of the cool liquid, then sighed again. “I screwed up and I know I did. There's nothing I can do to fix it, because I'm too biased to.”

“Well, at least you know what the problem is.” Mama Welles said and took a drink.

“I do now.” Gloria scoffed. “It was pointed out to me pretty directly and I couldn't argue that it wasn't true.”

Mama Welles gave her a pointed look. “You're harping on that gonk Veder again?”

“He's not a...” Gloria stopped herself before she defended him. Why had she automatically taken offence on his behalf like that?

Mama Welles smirked at her and took another drink. “Was he really that good in bed?”

“Fuck, yes.” Gloria said and took another drink as well. “The best I've had in a while.” She said and thought about it. “No, the best I've ever had.”

Mama Welles nodded. “You wanted that to continue, of course.”

“I did, only I didn't want...” Gloria lifted her gaze to look across the bar to the booth where her son David sat with Jackie and Misty and some floozie that had latched onto him after he had proven his loyalty during the riot and helped secure a vital area that used to belong to the Sixth Street Gang.

Mama Welles let out a chuckle. “I get it. You didn't want David to have a new dad his age.”

“Fuck, no. I'm too old to shack up with some kid still in school, even if the school's the most prodigious academy in the city.” Gloria told her. “He's gonna become a corpo and I don't want to be a part of that life.”

Mama Welles pointedly looked at David and then back at her friend.

“Yes, I know I'm a hypocrite.” Gloria said with a roll of her eyes. “I also don't know what to do about it.”

“Forget about him and move on.” Mama Welles said, to her surprise. “If Veder laid down the law the last time you two talked, then why are you feeling sorry for yourself? Go find yourself another young stud to make your toy.”

Gloria blinked her eyes at her friend a few times, then downed her beer and stood. She nodded to her and walked across the bar. Mama Welles saw a lot of men's heads turn to follow her and she was sure Gloria had no clue that she was considered one of the hottest women in the bar.

The small group of mercenaries were shocked when Gloria sat down with them at their table, picked up the drink the golden fingered merc was drinking, and took a sip.

“Pussy.” She said and set the drink back down in front of him.

They group stared at her for a second before the short green haired woman with red eyes burst out laughing. That broke the tension and another drink was handed to Gloria for her to taste. She hummed in approval after taking a drink and the guy looked proud that she hadn't rejected it.

Mama Welles finished off her beer, took the empties back to the bar, and went back to work. She would keep an eye on her friend until she left. She sent her a discreet message to be careful and to call if she needed anything, then did up a round of drinks for the same table and added the weak drink for the same guy.

When the waitress reached their table and dealt out the drinks, leaving the guy for last, Gloria called him a pussy again and they all laughed, even him. Mama Welles smiled at helping her and kept working for the rest of the evening.

*

Wakako Okado stared at the ruins that were left of the large Tyger Claws gang. Only a few hundred of the lowest of the low rung members, that hadn't been important enough to be called out to participate during the riots, were the only ones left. She only had the Clouds business left as a viable asset and the building where the pachinko parlour used to be after being gutted by the Sixth Street Gang's blitz.

She wasn't going to call it quits, though. That was not who she was. She brought them all together and had a meeting as she promoted a few of them up to the next level and they had to rebuild their gang and their reputation. First up was recruitment and then they would start taking back what was theirs.