Rebuild Capital Wasteland.

Chapter 11: Second Link

Something had changed around the Mall. First of all the new focus were on war and defence. Scouts and scavengers went out and took with them all they could find of weapons and ammunition and sold it back too the Brotherhood. They again started to maintain them and make them ready for action again. Ammo was produced in a speeding rate also. It was not so hard, the metal came from junk that was in huge amount around the area. Before a week had passed by there were enough guns and ammunition for each of the person living in the mall.

The next focus was on the defence and intelligence. The enemy was the Legion, an unknown faction that was probably wreaking havoc in the west. Unfortunately it was not much to say about them. The few traders that actually knew something about them was to afraid to say something. Some other show sympathise with the Legion. The traders told about the security in Legion controlled areas and that they saved tons of caps on hiring mercenaries to protect the caravans. It seemed like the Legion showed a zero tolerance for anything that was not approved by their leader. A man called Cesar. Elder Lyons was afraid of the unknown threat and establised the Second link. A group that was going too be the Mall intelligence and espionage agency. He assigned Paladin Novac as head of the organization and he put up shop in the building adjacent to the GNR.

TLW was now heading in that direction. It had gone one week since they moved in and he wanted to see what Novac had did with the place. The first assignment was to grant clearance to those who were important enough. Becides Novac himself, only Elder Lyons and TLW had full access to everything. The rest operated on need to know basis. When TLW crossed the square he once fought a Behemonth at, he thoughts went with the two steels that had perished in that battle. Now everything was different. The wall that was being built not long ago gave a shadow over the place and made it colder and darker than it had to be. The ruins had been demolished a long time ago, and there was now a working fountain with fresh water and new build benches at the place. There were talk about making a statue there but nothing had happend since that.

The Second Link headquarters had also been upgraded the last couple of weeks. TLW remembered the building, run down, destroyed with holes everywhere. Not much different from all the other buildings, but someone had given this place priority. The workforce of the Mall had done a great job on the building. The facade actually looked new and fresh. Thanks too the Pit they also received windows, building materials and paint. The doors were built from Timber from the trees at the Oasis. Using wood was still a no no, but since the spores of Howard has spread around the wasteland, new vegetation had sprung. In two-three years time there actually would be a forest some places around, and therefore a quota of wood could be used for prioritized work, like this.

TLW went inside the lobby. There some workers were busy with installing some Mark Turrets on the ceiling and making a reception at the front desk. There were also some steels standing on each side of the door. Security was clearly an issue here.
"There you are, welcome to Second Link HQ" a voice coming from above said. It was Novac himself. The fifteen year old veteran with greyish hair and caucasian skin was clearly the best and only candidate for the job. But he had a hell of a task infront of him. Creating an intel agency was a hard job, especially when the skills needed was very limited. Novac went down the stairs behind the reception too greet TLW.
"Thanks for coming. As you can see we are soon done with the final preparation before we are fully operative." Novac said. First now TLW saw that some technicans was working with some kind of sluice at the entrance.
"We raided the presidential metro you used to get to the enclave base. We found programs and protocols to implement a ID card system. In some days time no one can get trough without the right ID."
TLW was impressed, this was something he had not thought about when he was fighting hords of ghouls and robots in the underground.
" You want the tour?" Novac asked. TLW was courious on what was being done. TLW was out of the loop in the preparations stage and had been busy scouting and planing a defence. Estimates showed that The Legion needed atleast 10.000 soldiers to manage an effective campaign, and for each day that went The Mall got stronger and stronger. So the conclusion was that the Legion needed a divide and conquer tactic to achieve sucess. That was worrisome because the Legion had to come to the same conclusion. The odds were that there were spies inside the Mall already. But so far no real damage had been done, and Sarah Lyons had been almost an inquistion in hunting Frumentari.