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:

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."

From:

aeons_crackshot

"There's no understanding some people," Annabelle says with a shake of her head.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"No, ind........"

Ellen trails off, looking from the computer to the dead woman and back again.

"I'm downloading the data," she says suddenly. "It's probably not anything like the same, but if there's anything at all useful here Ms. Vance ought to know about chips in skulls that overheat and go bad."

From:

aeons_crackshot

Annabelle hisses. "I hadn't thought of that connection, but you're right," she says solemnly. "If this is anything like what the Combine do to people..."

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"And now we should check out that noise," Ellen says. "Bets that it's Stefan?"

From:

aeons_crackshot

"I try not to take sucker bets," Annabelle says with a wry smile. "Let's go but Mister Nightlight out of his misery."

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Mister Nightlight, as it happens, is a snuffling, shambling Glowing One locked in an oversized closet that's been converted into makeshift living quarters. Apparently the scientist's been feeding him, if the distinctly partial human corpse in the corner is anything to go by.

"You want to do this or should I?"

From:

aeons_crackshot

"I can do it," Annabelle says calmly. She'll spare Ellen whatever wounds on her soul that she can.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Ellen nods. "I'll go get the scientist laid out," she says. "I mean. If I can find anything. That was a big grenade."

From:

aeons_crackshot

"Just be careful while you're looking," Annabelle says with a small smile. Annabelle suspects she won't find anything, but you never know.

Once Ellen is out of earshot, she says quietly to the snuffling thing, "I can't fix you, but I can end your pain."

The sound of the her rifle is oddly loud, echoing a bit.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Eventually Ellen calls out, "All done out here." When Annabelle emerges, Ellen's not only located a few lumps of mad scientist, but she's cracked the lock on a safe tucked away in the shadows to one side and gathered up as many supplies as she could find in the room.

"We should go now," she says. "Find as many horse parts as we can, and bring them back to Milliways. I don't think either of us needs to be here any longer."