[StLee]

Originally Posted by Tyke

Love the Wanted poster!! The Boys definitely need a reliable closer - "Dead or Alive"!

I put on my Nate Howard hat, and with my Nate Howard hat I became Emogene Cabot, who must have conjured the spirit of late-1990s Brian Cashman, if he existed at all in that universe, where the Boston Red Sox were never World Champions in 2004, 2007, 2013, and 2018. I could continue this string of relative clauses, but it must also be mentioned that Nate Howard has a unique curiosity many in the wasteland do not possess: he cannot help but to read the entire contents of every working terminal he encounters, especially those "magically" functioning in an abandoned, unpowered building. On those terminals, he has encountered some interesting information, which only begs his curiosity for more. I included one below.

Now, I am not prone to madness, at least not officially, genetically, but madness breeds incessantly in the wastes. The Dunwich corporation most certainly knew all about that madness. And in this universe per multiverse, there are so many things Nate Howard does not yet know. I know, but I cannot just tell Nate. Who would? The man has gone through enough by falling asleep like a tenfold Van Winkle in 2077 and then waking up in 2287 and the . . . other discoveries.

What does all this mean? Simply put: madness. I am not prone to madness, but the fact that I am two months into this dynasty and not even halfway through the first season, and in two more months my workload increases to approximately 50-60 hours per week, this dynasty may be going nowhere fast. At least, those were my drifting-to-sleep thoughts. I think I am most impatient in seeing where this thing is going. And how, pray tell, do the other stories get told? Like Nate's buddy Valentine? He plays a role here. Or at least I want him to.

Now, back to the present, which is so confusing to me, and so on. Kevin Containment done messed up, for if he had stayed with Vault 81 or played for any other team in the CBO, he would have probably just faded into irrelevance and nothing more. However, in my universe it is currently Sunday, May 31, and Containment and his teammates are about to arrive back in Nordhagen Beach for rest and practice and substance abuse. And Containment is going to see that flyer after he has been told about that flyer. And his teammates are going to laugh and rib him and not really care much about it because they are just happy to have a fun job that does not include mercenary work or digging up plants or mixing up slop for the masses. They are going to tell him how he is a horrible pitcher but they love him anyway and would still offer their sister to him if he needs some company. They are going to continue drinking and laughing and having a good time on the beach restaurant where the first flyer was found. Containment, let's just call him Kevin because Containment is so formal and his own last name was used against him in the flyer and Publick Occurences publications. So, Kevin is going to smile and slowly sip on his Gwinnett Stout on the beach where the restaurant employees have pulled together several patio tables with umbrellas for the members of the Party Boys team. And the restaurant manager, let's call him Carl Beachson because he grew up right here on Nordhagen Beach and thus understands the culture of the beach life, thus making him perfect manager material for a beach restaurant, will say to the team, "I wanted to let you know that your drinks are on us tonight, except you, Containment." The manager will then laugh because he was joking about not paying for Kevin's drinks, and Kevin's teammates will laugh, and Kevin will give a quick, forced smile. But Kevin is dying on the inside. This game he plays is no game for him. He can hear the words of his father, "Success is short-lived. Failure is forever." The Party Boys will continue partying and will eventually ignore Kevin completely because he is sitting there quietly while nursing his Stout and his fractured ego. At that point in time when it is 1:33 AM, Kevin does not yet know that his teammates will all eventually stumble away into the dark towards their abodes or pass out right there on the beach. Kevin just knows that he is miserable and "failure forever" is ringing in his ears, stuck on repeat like a pre-War military radio broadcast. But, later, around 3:41 AM of Monday morning, the first day of the sixth month of the year 2296, he is going to stand up from the plastic chair he is sitting on, and then he will step into the water at Nordhagen Beach, a place that pre-War was called Winthrop, Massachusetts, into the former Massachusetts Bay of the Atlantic Ocean. He will walk out until he is forced to swim and then swim until he reaches a small sand dune island where he will arrive in the darkness at 4:07 AM. They do not know, but I know, that on that small island there was a shimmering blue color approaching Kevin. Kevin will think at first it is God or at least a god coming to end his pain, his failures. And he is right. But it is no god. It is a glowing mirelurk hunter, the mutated form of what was pre-War called a lobster and who is in league with the mirelurks that were once crabs in the unholiest of unions. Kevin will not even see the claws coming at his neck and pinching him instantly to death, will not feel those claws ripping him to shreds and moving pieces of his meat and clothing to its mutated mouth and feeding on his dead body. He will not feel the remaining carcass of his body wash right back to Nordhagen Beach three days later while the rest of the Party Boys were already at County Crossing for their next series, still wondering where Kevin ran off to, where his remains will be discovered, quite unironically by a man named Carl Beachson who made the final joke that convinced Kevin that he was unworthy to exist in this world or others, though his patience would have told him that hardly anything by me goes to completion and he could have unexisted with the rest of the entirety of the Commonwealth Baseball Organization. And so on.

When his team arrives back home from their series with County Crossing, which is still undetermined as of yet if they will win any games at all, they will learn the truth of Kevin. A Commonwealth-esque funeral will be held for Kevin and a gravestone will be erected for him but not on the beach because that is prime land, so he will be buried in the town area of the former Winthrop, Massachusetts. Most people of Nordhagen Beach will attend his funeral, including his 39 teammates on the Party Boys, Emogene Cabot, Carl Beachson, and Kellie Matthews, who had dated Kevin a couple of times after he arrived in Nordhagen Beach and really liked him. Not present will be a miserable young man who was bitter that he could not play baseball because he was born from an irradiated mother and one of his legs was 17 inches shorter than the other. His name was Dwayne McCormick, but everyone called him "Legs." On Kevin's tombstone, which will be erected on a Blue Monday on the eighth day of the sixth month of the year 2296, the incorrect date will be used as his death date. The tombstone will read like this: "Kevin Containment / July 14, 2272 - June 4, 2296 / RIP / Our Friend, / Our Party Boy." After the funeral, on the same night of Kevin's burial, Legs McCormick will waddle to Kevin's gravestone, and just like he did on the flyers he created, he will carve these words on the tombstone with a combat knife: "Can't Contain Anything." Years later, ironically, perhaps, or just coincidentally, Legs McCormick will happen upon a mirelurk nest on the beach where the mother and newborn hatchlings will feed on his flesh and his 17-inch-difference legs.

And that is the story of Kevin Containment I know. Publick Occurences will not know the same thing, so their news story will look like this: "Party Boys Player Found Dead." They will conclude that it was suicide because of a terminal in Kevin's room where the following entry was written on his terminal: "Failure is forever." They will partially be right but not completely because Kevin did not know at that point he was committing suicide. He was just depressed.

Nate Howard once found a terminal in an abandoned building while on a detour to the former pre-war town called Truro, Massachusetts, on a peninsula in the place the pre-war people called Cape Cod. He founded a youth baseball league there, too, where four teams battle it out for the Cornhill Cup. Some of those players will be 16 and eligible for the 2297 season. The terminal read like this: