Chapter 661 - Moraltry

Once Anja and Juan get back to Cass's shop, they hunker down and awaits any news that could potentially lead to trouble... During this though, the duo engaged in a rather heated debate against one another on whether or not they'd done the right thing...

Anja was seemingly completely fine with murdering a man in front of his children, but Juan being the 'hero' he is, completely rejected such a notion... It wasn't like he didn't have a point either though, morally, what they did was wrong. But, Anja thought that the end justified the means.

After all, they weren't priests, they were infiltrators, spies, assassins even. Juan literally couldn't take the moral high ground as he'd agreed to work this position. Afton had literally written a contract for him that detailed everything he might be involved in or have to do.

Anja had looked over it before she'd lost her eyesight, and whaddya know. 'Committing morally repugnant and borderline evil acts' was literally written down... Juan probably just didn't read through it all, somehow trusting Afton's 'charisma'...

They continued to argue for an hour or so, but Anja finally ended it with "I know you do not like what I did, but this is my job. I will continue to work for Afton, even if I have to do bad things... If you can't deal with that, quit." she states.

Juan scowls for a moment, but relaxes after calming himself. Yeah, he knew what he'd gotten himself into when agreeing to work for Bulwark, but personally witnessing it was another matter entirely... Regardless, he'd be able to think about whether he wanted to continue after they'd completed the mission... Hopefully, it wouldn't involve orphaning too many other children.

A day passes and they heard no word of Becker's death, meaning it was considered either natural, or just an accident. His daughter's statement would certainly promote the latter of which, but you could never be too careful, especially when dealing with a government.

The duo's job was done for now, it was now Cass's turn to get involved. First, they needed to secure Samuel's position in delivering the goods... With Becker's death, the chance of him being called upon was high, but Cass didn't want to risk anything on chance. Thus, she borrowed some caps from Bulwark and purchased all other products aside from Samuels...

Of course, this needed to be done carefully, otherwise they risked alerting the NCR... Thus, they covertly teleported Bulwark 'civilians' to purchase small amounts individually. This wouldn't draw the attention from anyone watching, as it'd just seem like a random influx of people wanting meat...

To promote this further, Cass paid a couple homeless folk to hand out pamphlets detailing the joys of 'BBQ' and 'Cooking meat in exotic ways', by the time two days passed, the NCR capitals meat stores were almost entirely empty... The only person having any less being Samuel of course.

It was inevitable then that Samuel would be picked to deliver goods to congress on the day they would be voting for the next president...

As for what Juan and Anja would be doing during this time? Well, they'd be invisibly posted outside congress, waiting in position in case they needed to do anything the initial plan failed to do.

An hour or two before congress started, Samuel had a couple brahmin pulling a cart with many crates atop it towards the back of the congress building. Despite his outwardly confident demeanor, he was incredibly nervous. He was currently approaching the NCR guards with his product, and knew if they found anything wrong he'd either be instantly killed, or imprisoned, tortured, and then executed.

He'd heard of similar things happening to anyone who tried to rebel against the supposedly 'civil and democratic leaders'. He shakes his head at that thought, the way they acted made him wonder if the NCR was secretly a communist dictatorship hidden under the veil of choice and democracy. He idly wondered if pre-war America was like this as well, or if it was just an isolated incident...

"Stop, what is your purpose for being here." the trooper commands, his rifle tightly gripped in his hands, waiting for an excuse to use it.

Samuel gives a tentative cough into his hand before slowly retrieving a piece of paper... It was the order he'd received from the government, essentially requisitioning his goods so those corrupt officials to imbibe, while leaving nothing for anything else... They were even paying him the bare minimum for his products as well!

Again, he shakes his head of those thoughts and concentrates, handing the paper over, "Erm, it was a bit sudden... I was actually hoping to sell this stuff the next town over, but, when duty calls I guess." he shrugs while giving the soldiers a nervous smile.

The soldier squints suspiciously at him for a moment while gesturing at his comrade behind him. He walks over next to the cart and inspects the crates, taking a sniff to see if whether or not the meat was rotten or not.

His buddy came back with a crowbar in hand, using it to pry open a crate under Samuels aggrieved attempts to stop them... Regardless, his complaints fell on deaf ears as the man finally pried the crate open, revealing many fine-looking steaks covered by coldbags.

The leading trooper climbs atop the cart and takes a couple out, examining them with a smug look. He takes many steaks out and hands them to the other troopers. "Don't worry, just making sure they ain't poisoned or anything... And, er, tax of course." the soldier explains as Samuel goes up to reseal the crate, going slightly pale when he spots the metal exterior of the device he'd been given by Cass, barely revealed under the steaks...