The next morning was had clear skies and bright sun - perfect for inspecting the base. However, both of us had gotten dirty from the road, and I asked Dean what the options were for washing up. She tossed her head towards the little pond that housed the base's crab farm enclosure and then reached up to the top of her desk to retrieve a bar of soap. 

 

"It's not much, but the water's clean and as long as you stay outside the fenced in part there's no critters in the pond."

 

I thanked her, and accepted the soap. Piper and I sunk into the cool water and started cleaning up, discussing some early ideas for improving the base.

 

 

"I like Dean's idea about trying developing the excavated area off the side of the original pit," I said. "The raiders had quite a large hideout down there, and with some work it we could do the same and better."

 

"Yeah," said Piper, "but what about the guards? I think they need an improvement too."

 

"I was thinking about that too," I admitted. "There's a marshalling yard against the perimeter wall with some old trailers, loaded up with marble blocks. It'll take some work to clear them - probably drilling and blasting them - but the lot's on flat ground. I haven't really tried out the ASAMs' largest residential footprint, but I think it would more or less fit in there. The alternate option would be to send down Winter and build up something like the homestead at Abernathy Farm... but the one at the Farm is already hitting delay after delay. Starting another one is just going to compound the problem, I think."

 

"Yeah, I was thinking about the homestead too. It's practically a fort in its own right."

 

"It better be," I smirked, "we tore down most of the Abernathy family's old wooden keep to put it up."

 

As we talked through this, we transitioned through the 'cleaning ourselves' stage to the 'washing each other's backs stage,' and finally to the 'thorough and intimate cleaning' stage. I groaned as Piper slid a soapy index finger into my anus, twirling it around a few times before sending in her middle finger to join it.

 

 

"You kids need some privacy?" I heard Dean ask. Throwing my head back, I could see that she'd turned from her work to consider us.

 

"Uh, ah, please," I said. "Unless we're interrupting you."

 

"Nothing I haven't seen before," she shrugged off. "Folks get lonely out here, you know."

 

I didn't answer her, because right then Piper tried to get a third finger in my ass. "Piper," I hissed, "take it easy. I'll have you know that water is a terrible lubricant."

 

"I'm still all soapy," she said, nipping at my ear, "I'll slide right in. I'll have you clean as a whistle in no time."

 

She was good to her word, thoroughly massaging around the inside of my whole rim, and leaving me feel well-stretched without getting to the point of discomfort. I patted her head, trying to roll to face her. "You're getting to know me inside and out, aren't you," I said as I pecked at her nose.

 

"I am indeed, and I owe you some payback for a few nights ago." As she said this, she finally pulled her fingers out of my ass in single, fluid motion, and then gently pushed them into my lips. "Get them nice and clean, baby Blue."

 

I acquiesced without hesitation, though the combination of soap and my insides was foul. I licked the fingers in my mouth, then pulled back so I could suck on each one until it was clean. "Better be careful about these tit-for-tat games, Piper," I warned, "you have no idea the depths of my imagination... and you returning the favor is more of an inducement than a threat."

 

Grinning I continued, in a conspiratorial whisper, "how are you down there? Do you need a cleaning?"

 

"I'm fine," she said, rising and helping me to my own feet before hugging me from behind. She gave me a little kiss before adding, "and speaking in down there, did I feel a little hair? I thought I told you to keep shaving your pussy for me."

 

 

I laughed, "I forgot to pack a razor," I admitted. "I'll trim it up when we get back to Concord. Now let's see how the base is holding up."

 

Once we got dressed, Dean led us down to the generator at the top of the quarry. "I know you're already familiar with the general layout, Overseer, but I think this will be valuable for Piper. Right behind me is the main generator. This big guy keeps the water level inside the quarry to a minimum. That serves a double purpose of keeping the caverns accessible and also preventing the mirelurks from repopulating. We've had it consistently running for a while now, and as you can see we're starting to get some lichen and short grass coming up from the soil down there. Eventually we can probably do some farming down there if we have the people."

 

Piper glanced over the edge and asked, "is that a couple mirelurks down there?"

 

"Yes indeed. A few of them crawled out of hidey holes after the original takeover operation and just kind of hunkered down in the remaining ponds. We'll have to get rid of them eventually, but until then the men have kind of taken them on as mascots."

 

"Speaking in the men," I said, "those cabins are pretty basic. Is that the only housing that's available here?"

 

"Follow me," said Dean, "I'll show you what you didn't see last night with all the fog."

 

 

She led us towards the stockyard - actually more or less the place where I'd been thinking of building new housing - and pointed out a few metal structures. 

 

"With the ASAM sensors you left behind, we mostly concentrated on fixing up the cabins. As you saw, the results left a bit to be desired. After we ran out of capsules though, we had two sensors left and we used them to make the cages." She waved towards those structures. "They don't look like much, but these are actually the housing that everyone wants."

 

 

Piper looked at Dean with a little incredulity. "Really? They mostly just look like junk."

 

"They definitely are junk. But they've got sleeping bags that keep out the damp better than the mattresses we had to make do with in the cabins, and they've got some little creature comforts like curtains. Lynch should be off duty this shift - he's got the one on the right, why don't you ask him about it?"

 

I knocked on the side of the metal shack and crossed the threshold along with Piper when a voice invited us in. I remembered that there's been a ghoul in the original team that took over here, and that was Jim Lynch. He seemed to be holding up well, and while maybe he wasn't beaming to see us, he had a professional bearing that led me to believe that discipline was still holding up well.

 

"What brings you down here, boss?"

 

"I wanted to see how the living conditions were here, make sure you were all doing OK. And I have a reported with me from Diamond City, Piper Wright, who wanted to ask you some questions about life here at the base."

 

Lynch shrugged, "what can I say? We've got strong walls, plenty of water, the crab farm and the rabbit farm, what's not to like? Oh, and," he gestured to the ground next to his bed, where a stack of pornographic magazines lay, "lots of high class reading material."

 

I chuckled, "a man of culture and taste, I see."

 

"Damn straight, boss."

 

"I'm glad to hear it. I need to talk to Dean about some ideas I have to take things up to the next level. Can I leave you with Piper for a while?"

 

Piper grinned, "I'd love to hear your perspective about what it's like for a ghoul to serve in the Vault 111 forces," she said.

 

As I left, I could hear Lynch starting to say, "well, you'd think that folks would give me a hard time having my shriveled old cock and balls hanging out all the time, but it's weird... no one seems to care. I'd suspect brainwashing, but I think it's more..."

 

I waved to Dean to follow me and led her over to the trailers. 

 

 

"I want these trailers out of here," I explained, "so we can put in better barracks for your people. What do you need from me to make that happen?"

 

"Hmm," Dean considered. "We've tried moving some of the marble blocks elsewhere in the quarry - not happening. Even the robot can't budge them. So we'll need need dynamite," I nodded in agreement, "and an industrial drill. Ideally, we'd want someone with experience in blasting, but I think in a pinch we can DIY what - as long as you aren't expecting lots of good marble for your office floor or something."

 

"What about the trailers themselves? They look pretty heavy. Can you get them out of here? Or better yet, scrap them?"

 

"We've already got some cutting torches here, left over from the raider camp. It'll take some doing, but we can break them down enough to clear the lot, as long as Concord can send some brahmin down to haul everything away."

 

"I can arrange for that," I confirmed. "Any particular needs for housing?"

 

 

"Solid roof, solid walls, that's the main thing. Enough to keep out most of the cold in the winter, and give shelter from the spring rains. We can worry about the summer heat in a few months, but that's probably the easiest season to deal with."

 

"I think the long pole here is going to be the specialized drill, but I'll get in touch with Trudy down at the Drumlin Diner. She's got connections in Bunker Hill that can probably help us." 

 

"That sounds great," Dean agreed. "How about I take you around the guard posts next? You want to collect Piper?"

 

I could still hear them talking, "...I was actually about twenty feet away from dying in the CPG massacre. They had me doing catering, and I was bringing a plate of sandwiches to the conference room when all the shooting started. I dropped the fuckin' Reubens right then and there and ran like..."

 

Shaking my head to Dean I said, "sounds like they're still busy. We can collect Piper for the next stop."

 

"Well, you're the boss... the Overseer, I mean, so it's your call. Let me show you the gate first."

 

 

"I know you're familiar with this design," she said, "same basic concept as the ones at Concord, the Farm, and the Diner. Rolling steel shutter, set up to close automatically at sundown if we don't actively keep it open. We situated the generator way back by the radio tower, so it won't be easy for someone to disable it without going through half the camp first."

 

"Smart precaution," I acknowledge.

 

"Up on the left you can see our favorite gift the raiders left for us. We never managed to repair the machine gun turret up there, but that guard platform is really well-built and has great sight lines. It's helped us a few times spot trouble in time to get the gate closed and the troops up and shooting."

 

 

"Too bad about the machine gun," I said, "that would have been a good force multiplier. Should I have some of the new sentry guns sent down to replace it?"

 

Dean nodded affirmatively. "Definitely. Did I hear that you rigged on up with a laser musket? That would be perfect for us."

 

"Got enough power to run it, or do you need batteries, too?"

 

"Last time we tested the voltage, we had plenty of surplus coming off the existing power system. Just make sure you send down a case of microfusion cells as a backup."

 

"Done," I said.

 

"Hey, Blue," I heard Piper call out, "you left me behind!"

 

I waved her over and gave her a kiss as she rejoined us. "I figured you'd be bored with the gate. How was your interview?"
 

 

"Great!" she answered, "for a private, that guy has so much to share. Did you know he's over a hundred years old?"

 

"I thought I heard you guys talking about the CPG massacre, so that makes sense. Ready to rejoin the tour?"

 

"Absolutely," she said, giving me one more squeeze before letting go, "what's left?"

 

Dean answered that, "last but not least is the pit. I know the Overseer's been down there before, but I think you'll be interested to see it without a hundred raiders shooting at you."

 

"Twenty. Maybe." I corrected.

 

"Ah, I don't know. Legend says there were a hundred of them down there, plus a trained deathclaw."

 

"Oh, for fuck's sake, it's always deathclaws," I muttered. "Whatever, as it happens I do want to see that place in the light of day. Lead the way, Captain."

 

As we descended, I couldn't help but admire all the work the raiders had put into this area. "I didn't really notice all these workshops when I was fighting," I admitted. "If we didn't need to control the road, you could have saved a lot of time setting up down in here."

 

 

"Yeah, well, a lot of things would be easier if we didn't have to worry about the mission," Dean said. "But the road's why we're here. We'll put this to use when - and I assume it's a 'when' - you approve the settlement plan."

 

"Have you taken inventory of all the stuff down here? Looks like lots of supplies."

 

"Not in full," she admitted. "Between patrols, maintenance, and occasional shootouts, we haven't had the spare bodies to go through room by room. We've made a rough tally of the main points of interest. Once we have the people to do it, we'll strip all the good stuff fast."

 

"Good," I said, "that's about the best I can ask for under the circumstances. Any worries about more mirelurks?"

 

Dean shrugged, "lots, but there isn't much we can do about it other than be careful and make sure the pump stays running. Seems like they can't multiply without a lot of water. Come on, I'll show you the bottom level."

 

After a long walk down multiple flights of stairs, we finally reached the bottom of the quarry. Several pens - more than I'd really noticed during my descent - were spaced across this area. The one Dean had taken us to had three mirelurks just milling around inside. The guard force's robot was in there, but the mirelurks were completely ignoring it.

 

"And here's where we keep the mascots," she said. "As you can see, they don't bother our robot at all. I have a suspicion they'd leave our people alone, too, but I play it safe and keep them on opposite sides of the gate."

 

"What's the spike for?" Piper asked.

 

 

"The raiders stuck dead victims on them, then chop them up bit by bit and throw the meat into the pens to feed the mirelurks. Well, I say they did it to dead victims, but we can't say for sure. They might have been still alive when they got the spike."

 

"Damn," Piper whispered, "that's brutal."

 

"You should come with me up to West Everett Estates some time," I suggested. The super mutants made stuff like this look like amateur hour."

 

My mind drifted unbidden back to following the United States v. Doe, where the occupation authorities tried to suppress a raft of Canadian artists they considered harmful to public morals. The center of the case was around an anonymous John Doe in Toronto who had, back in the late 20th century, produced a series of graphic novels depicting violent sexual fantasies. In the 2050s, his work had gone through a revival, this time couched as a critique of capitalist materialism and how patriarchal culture commoditizes women's' lives. As you can imagine, in ultra-right-wing, rabidly-anti-communist 2060s America, these works were a parade of red flags in the face of the Occupation Authority bull. 

 

The case was a slam-dunk for the prosecutor, and all the artbooks went to the incinerator, but it had academic value in the way it set some new procedural precedents for criminal trials involving an anonymous accused. It also garnered some personal interest for me with the not-especially-censored illustrations from the case evidence. The lurid scenes of cannibalism and hanging, usually portrayed as deeply arousing to the willing victim, were hard to look away from. And spikes like this (actually, not like this - the artist preferred something a little thicker and rounder) featured prominently. 

 

The remembrance took me into a brief daydream, feeling rough hands hoist me up to the top of the pole and slide it into my twitching, resisting anus. My feet scrambling against the sides of the spike, unable to resist the force of gravity slowly pulling me down as the sharp metal pierced me deeper and deeper. 

 

 

While I knew that physics and anatomy didn't actually work that way, I wondered how it would feel for the spike to come all the way through me, up my throat and out my mouth the way those artbooks had depicted it. There was something deeply erotic about the symbolism, like an obscene reverse fellatio, and I felt myself getting a little wet at the thought. 

 

 

"What's on your mind, Blue?" Piper interrupted.

 

"Just thinking back to my law school days," I said, not exactly lying. "This whole situation reminded me of a case I studied. Remind me some time and I'll tell you about it."

 

Then changing gears, I turned to Dean, "Captain, thank you for the tour. I'm guessing this was the last stop because the cavern isn't cleared yet?"

 

"You guessed it in one, Overseer. Give us time, we'll get that place suitable for habitation too. But for now, the bottom of the pit's as far as I can certify as safe."

 

"After our talk before, I've got a good idea about what you need for down here. Anything we didn't cover before?"

 

Dean shook her head, "nothing. Hell, even if you can just get that extra housing set up and the laser turret installed, that'll make my day... make my whole Spring. What about you, Piper? Any questions?"

 

Piper shook her head. "I've got enough for two or three solid stories already. But I might have to come back for a follow up with Lynch. That man's a treasure."

 

"Any time, Piper. Just bring a few copies of your paper for the guys to read. In that case, Overseer, I'll let you make you way back in your own time. I have some duties to attend to."

 

Once she left, Piper turned to me. "I saw you taking a hard look at that spike, and I see your pussy's getting wet."

 

I chuckled, shrugging, "I can't hide anything from you Piper, can I?"

 

"Your suit makes it easy," she confirmed. "What was going through your head."

 

"Like I said, it's a long story, for another time. The short version? I'm glad I decided to ban torture, because now I realize that maybe I'm not as out of control as I feared." 

 

"Oooh," the reported whispered, "cryptic. I'll find out your secret some day, Overseer." She followed the threat with an exaggerated, comic-book-villain cackle. "Now come here and give me a hug before we start these five million fucking stairs."

 

"Worried about climb?" I asked as I closed in. "Do I need to give you some extra strength training?"

 

I pounced then, wrapping my arms around her shoulders and my legs trying to wrap around her hips. Piper caught me though, and instead I ended up with my knees hooked over her elbows, grinding my pussy against the rough fabric of her hot pants - and the curls of her generous pubes. 

 

 

"I should have tried this on you earlier. This feels great," I panted.

 

"Fuck, get down! I'm not made to carry you around like this. Ah, you're going to knock me..." and then she fell to her knees, dumping me onto my back in the dirt.

 

I laughed, peering into her eyes as she pinned my wrists to the ground and leaned in for a kiss. "You are incorrigible," Piper sighed as she met my lips and ran her tongue along mine. We smooched for a while more, before finally rising back to our feet.

 

 

"Damn," I groaned, "I'm all dirty again. I guess we need to take another bath before bed."

 

"Don't make it sound like you don't want to," Piper scolded, "I know you just want me to stick my fingers up your ass again."

 

I had a flash of thinking of the spike - really, of the artist's much smoother, thicker version, parting my anus and sliding into my rectum, and I shivered a little.

 

"You are trying to get my fingers in your ass again!" she accused.

 

I gave her a peck on the cheek, saying, "Piper, you can put whatever you want in my ass, whenever you want. You're the most gentle, warm, and loving ass fucker I've ever known, and I just can't get enough."

 

"Aw, Blue," she said, ever so slightly mockingly, "that's so sweet. I always wanted me lover to complement me on my fine ass technique."

 

"What can I say?" I asked, laughing, "you not only have a fine ass, but you have sublime ass technique. It's a win-win."

 

We laughed and bantered all the way back up, apparently taking Piper's mind off the climb enough that she didn't need to utter a single complaint about the long ascent. We did indeed take a bath when we got to the top - and rightly so, because not only was I caked in mud from our roll in the dirt, but now both of us were glistening with sweat. 

 

As you can probably imagine, one thing let to another and I was on my back, cleaning between Piper's toes with my tongue while she ground her hips against my clit. The sun had set, and all we had to go by was the sparse lights of the base, but we were pretty used to playing in the dark by that point. 

 

 

Once her feet were clean and my pussy was liberally wetted from her attentions, we rose up for some more kissing and, we thought, some mutual back scrubbing. That plan went out the window when Piper started tickling my clit with her index finger in a come-hither motion. I luxuriated in the softness of her mouth and the gentle caresses of her fingers for a little while before I pulled away, whispering.

 

"Hold on, it's my turn to lead."

 

 

Retrieving my strap-on from my bag, I returned to Piper and eased her down on her back. "Keep your hips up out of the water," I said, "remember what I told you about water being bad lube. Here, put your knees over me like this." I guided her into position and then entered her with slow thursts.

 

We carried on like that for a good half hour until Piper finally rolled into orgasm and fell limp against me. 

 

"You really aren't out of control, are you?" She cooed as we cuddled, warming each other against the growing evening chill.

 

 

"I'm trying," I said. "I couldn't do it without you, though."

 

We finished up with a final scrub, then walked arm in arm back to the cabin. I couldn't be bothered to get dressed again, and Piper seemed to feel similarly, so we just threw our clothes in my bag and padded barefoot along the rough-hewn marble path. 

 

 

Just as we were settling into bed, I got an unexpected surprise - my Pip-Boy radio was beeping. Switching it on, I listened to the message.

 

"Hello? Hello-o!" Despite the static, it was definitely Jake speaking. "Damn... is this working? Anyway, I hope you're receiving this. God! Damn! Transmitter! Susie! Get your little butt over here and help me with this!"

 

Piper raised an eyebrow, "Susie?"

 

I laughed, "that's what I heard."

 

Jake continued, "if you can hear this, come on back to the hardware store. Got some news on the comm hub."

 

"Tell him about the well," Susan Cain's voice added.

 

"Yes, listen, I need you to..." a long burst of static cut in, followed by, "is this thing even recording?" After that, the message abruptly cut off.

 

"Jake?" I asked, quickly realizing it was futile. 

 

I looked at Piper and rolled my eyes. "I guess our road trip's over. Let's get some sleep. Who knows what Jake's going to want us to do next, right?"