aaaaaaaagh_sky | Giddyup Buttercup Factory

It would be nice to say the sun was beating down from overhead, but it's not. Partly because a few minutes ago it was raining, and partly because, well, the door opens onto the factory interior. It's dark here, with the only light coming from Ellen's Pip-Boy, the side lamp on Ellen's helmet, and the occasional crack in the walls or chink in the ceiling.

It also smells here. This was never a well-ventilated place. Two hundred years of neglect have improved the cross-breezes somewhat, but only barely- and things have been living here for a while now that had no concept of sanitation or hygiene.

"I'm sorry about the smell. I can only imagine what it must be like on your side of the helmet," Ellen's muffled voice says.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

aeons_crackshot

"I suspect he's already moved on," Annabelle says with a wry smile. Through the GI tract, that is.

The leg is grabbed and stowed.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Ellen nods and keeps moving. There are gleams of parts in the darkness where her light flickers over this or that bit of junk, but the way she sees it, they need to find the scientist fir-

She stops, and looks back at the terminal.

"Annabelle," she says slowly, "considering what we've seen so far... do we have any chance of actually saving any of these people?"

From:

aeons_crackshot

Annabelle shakes her head. "The people they were were gone before he ever got his hands on them," Annabelle says sadly.

"Death might be the only rescue we can give them."

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Then... maybe we shouldn't waste our ammo and risk our skins any more than we have to," Ellen says. "An explosion's a pretty quick death, right? Bang, no more feeling anything ever?"

From:

aeons_crackshot

"I should think so, what with the explosive being in their skulls," Annabelle agrees. "I doubt they have time to feel anything at all."

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Ellen is not going to bother laying any more of the bodies straight while they are here.

But she will be murmuring the words of the funeral prayers- and meaning them, all- as she moves over to the terminal and triggers the failsafe.

From:

aeons_crackshot

Annabelle is solemn as the failsafe is triggered, although she doesn't speak or make any gestures.

She's put people out of their misery before. It's always hard, always.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Ellen is silent for a while at the keyboard as distant beeps and explosions sound off throughout the building. When the horrible-smelling air is still and silent once more, she looks up.

"Come on. Let's go find whoever did this and see if he likes explosives so much now."

From:

aeons_crackshot

Annabelle's smile at Ellen's words is vicious. "I like that plan."

She does not approve of people who do that sort of thing, period.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Ellen nods.

The rest of the building unfolds around them as they go. Peeling walls give way to broken doors and closets full of long-evaporated cleaning supplies. Offices full of desks dotted with rusty toy horses, hallways no longer navigable because of collapsed ceilings or slumping walls, product testing areas where half the floor space is taken up by corroded scrap metal...

And at virtually every turn there's at least one headless corpse, whether one of the emaciated, already-rotted ghoul types or one of the mutants instead.

Ellen just keeps getting quieter.

From:

aeons_crackshot

Annabelle moves to put a hand on Ellen's shoulder in an attempt at reassurance. An attempt to let Ellen know that she's not alone, and she's with someone who understands what she's going through.

"These people were already dead when you arrived," she says quietly. "You just made their remains stop moving."

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"I know," Ellen says quietly. "I know. I'm just remembering a Bible verse... "'For we know Him who said, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay". And again, "The Lord will judge His people".'" She shakes her head. "I don't want vengeance. I just want this person to stop. I've met plenty of ghouls and I've had supper with a greenskin who was nicer than most humans I've met. What if this person didn't just mess around with ferals, you know? What if one of these was Gob, or Uncle Leo?"

From:

aeons_crackshot

Annabelle nods. "Vengeance is a dangerous thing to take up," she agrees. "But if he did do that, he definitely needs to be stopped."

She sighs, "Sometimes the only thing you can do for the victims is make sure the people who hurt them never get the chance to hurt anyone else ever again."

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Dr. Braun was one thing," Ellen says. "He's trapped in his simulation for as long as the machines keep him alive. He can't end it and he can't get out. That's different. This?" She shakes her head and gestures to her plasma rifle. "This I can do something about. Come on."

There's no other signs of life on this floor. They take the first staircase up that they find; it leads to a door marked CEO OFFICES. The room beyond is two-leveled and empty, but on the mezzanine that marks the second level there is a door, and bluish flickering light spills out around it, flickering.

[And the mun needs to go to sleep as there is an athletic event waiting to happen tomorrow.]

From:

aeons_crackshot

(No problem. Sleep well.)

"It sounds like karma bit him good and hard," Annabelle says with a wry smile.

She follows Ellen, peering carefully at the light spilling around the door.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

There's an ozone edge to the blood-soaked smell of foulness here; electricity's running fast and loose on the other side somewhere. Ellen glances at Annabelle.

"There's only so much factory. If this isn't where the experimenter is, I'm going to be very surprised."

From:

aeons_crackshot

"Smells like someone's doing something," Annabelle replies, smelling the ozone.

"Why don't we pay him a visit," she says with a knife sharp smile.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Ellen nods and reaches up to crack open the door.

The room beyond used to be a rather nice executive suite. It is no longer quite so nice. There are at least three Van de Graaf generators scattered around the room, and three or four ordinary portable generators, and a central computer terminal, and massive amounts of spotlighting everywhere trained on several operating tables occupied by ghouls who would be strapped down to hold them still if they didn't already happen to be dead. Something off to the left is snuffling and moaning out of sight, and to the right-

"Oh, I don't have time for you assholes," says the pink-haired, ponytailed woman in the labcoat and dirty Vault suit. There are more than a few unhealthy-looking lesions erupted on her face, particularly around the nose.

Oh, and she's carrying a rocket launcher.

From:

aeons_crackshot

Well, she was carrying a rocket launcher. Annabelle takes aim at the weapon, and the force of her shot sends the rocket launcher flying back across the room.

"Oh, I think you've got time," she snarls at the woman in the lab coat. "Quite possibly the rest of your life, as a matter of fact."

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

The woman snarls and turns to grab some wickedly sharp surgical implements off the nearest-

"Fire in the hole!!!!"

"Oh shit," says the woman, though it's pretty much drowned out by the coruscating blaze of seventeen fruit flavors and an unspecified strontium isotope.

From:

aeons_crackshot

"Those grenades are impressive," Annabelle says with a grin once the KABOOM has subsided.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"No kidding." Ellen shakes her head. "That's why I'm headed south at all. I need to get the materials necessary to make a whole lot more of those before hitting Talon-"

Ellen's eye falls on that central computer terminal.

"You know, I think I'd like to see what this woman- this former woman- was doing before we go check out that snuffling noise. Mind watching my back while I get this running?"

From:

aeons_crackshot

"Both of those sound like excellent plans to me," Annabelle says with a nod.

She'll watch Ellen's back very well indeed.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Ellen nods and starts to work on the computer. After a moment, it goes pleep! and spits up a series of entries.

Diary Entry 2R-A0: The first ghoul chips

Some of my earlier chip prototypes(C6-A and C6-L) have started to malfunction causing the chips to overheat and eventually detonate the implanted charge. In retaliation I have upgraded the P7 series and above to counter the malfunction. I have also altered the Y2 series in the mutants as a precaution. Ghouls are easily replaceable, mutants are not.

Diary Entry 64D-A3: Mutant Chips

I have had to alter the chips for the mutants to account for their greater size. Fortunately, they exhibit a higher intellect than the ghouls and can be controlled to an even greater extent. The enthralled mutants have mentioned legends of even larger mutants, almost twice as big as the ones I've captured. If only I could get my hands on one of those...

Diary Entry 07-C: Stefan

My masterpiece! Stefan is now under my control! The latest chip I installed in him seems to have taken and he is now mine. The effort to capture one of these glowing ghouls was immense but finally I can take solace in the fact that I have one under my control. His limited intellect means I will have to keep him downstairs with the rest of the ghouls but I pity any rabble that pokes their head in here now.

"... uh huh."