The two looked at each other, neither wanting to speak first.  Finally, Andrea grinned at Dean.  “I was already willing to follow Dean.  He’s been taking good care of us since we gathered together.  I have faith in him.  Sounds good to me.”

Dean nodded, returning her smile. “I’d depend heavily on you to help me make decisions.  And I wouldn’t want our people to think of themselves as separate groups.  Your people should mix and mingle here at the Mall.   And maybe some of my group can go there to train, or help with repairs, do some farming inside the walls, that kind of thing?”

Andrea held out her hand.  “Agreed, sir Chancellor!”  Dean took the hand and they shook.

“Right!  Perfect.  Now, I’ve authorized all three of you for access to almost every door in both places.  As well as the two outposts between here and the Warren.  I’ve also authorized you to add others to the list at your discretion.  You can control who has access to what areas.   The only exceptions are my quarters here in the Mall, and at the gun shop Outpost.   And once Andrea explains to me where the big explodey stuff is inside the Silo, that area will be restricted to just the four of us, maybe a few others.”

They all made agreeable sounds.

“For now, I think everyone is trustworthy enough to be able to open the outer gates.  It might be necessary for their survival if something is chasing them out there.  That may not be the case with later recruits.  Use your best judgment.  And have a plan in place in case there’s some kind of mutiny or Trojan horse situation.”

“Got it.” Andrea gave him a thumbs-up.”

“You’ll each be in charge of a discretionary fund of klax or system points.  We get a specific amount just for creating the bases.  I intend to keep selling things through the market to make our communities rich.   I’ll ask that your foraging teams keep an eye out for rare or valuable items we can sell.  This early, Earth items are going to sell for a lot of klax.  I’ve already sold some cool vehicles for hundreds of thousands of klax.  Those can be converted into system points that you can use to add onto your structures, or purchase spells and training scrolls for your people.  I’ll do some of that while I’m here, but I expect you’ll continue on while I’m gone.”

He looked each one of them in the eye for a moment, his countenance deadly serious.  “Getting stronger is the number one priority.  And that means everything.  Our individual levels and attributes, our crafting and fighting skills, our weapons and armor, and our defenses.  We need everyone mentally and physically tough.  If one of our people encounters an ass like Twitch or Durham out there, I don’t want it to be a fair fight.  Our people should be able to crush them.  Everybody clear on this?”