aaaaaaaagh_sky | RobCo Facility

The trek from Megaton to where Moira said the RobCo facility had been took longer than Ellen had expected. She'd started out from Megaton just as soon as the sun came up, the better to make her way south over unfamiliar, uneven ground. Moira had given her a processor widget to install before attempting any downloads; it was nestled snugly in her backpack between two days' worth of rations for two people. No sense taking chances, after all.

The distance hadn't been the big issue, though. The real source of delays, Ellen felt, was the landscape itself. Southwest of Megaton the surface became more and more uneven, rocky and hilly in places, studded with the long-dead remains of multiple trees in others. More than once she had to climb over the fallen rubble that was all that remained of the old elevated roads, only to have to turn around and pick her way across some other area to avoid landing in radioactive ground-water. And if that weren't enough, all of it was anything but empty. More than once she found herself chased by starving wild dogs or harassed by mole rats. In one area, she had to outrun a gang of spike-wearing Raiders, one of whom was armed with a missile launcher. She regretted leaving the sniper rifle home then, to be sure.

Eventually, though, she spotted one of the huge metalwork towers she'd assumed were navigational markers. As she followed its lines to the next tower, and the next, she spotted a hefty-looking grey building up ahead, easily twice the size of Super-Duper Mart. It was surrounded by broken grey stone that might once have all been of one piece, and here and there slender metal posts- possibly lamps of some kind- rose from the ground. The slanting rays of the sun as it crept down the western sky picked out faded red lettering over the door, an R and a couple of O's; she checked her Pip-Boy.

Yep. Looked like the RobCo facility, all right.

Ellen glanced around and started a perimeter sweep, just to be on the safe side. There were no enemies in sight, whether Raiders or Talon Company, save for a black beast somewhat larger than Ellen that turned out to be a giant scorpion, of all things. It was a tough one, too, not giving up the ghost until she'd emptied five or six shotgun shells into it. She eyed it, opted not to bother trying to butcher it (Moira had said she could get good meat butchering any mirelurks she managed to kill, but never said anything about scorptions), and moved on. There was some kind of enormous tower to the south, she noted, possibly the single biggest building she'd ever seen. She'd have to explore it later, if she ever got the chance.

For now the important thing was that there was a bit of chain-link fence up ahead that still had its gate hanging on by rusty, fragile hinges. She opened it and stepped through to Milliways in search of Alyx Vance.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Sheriff Simms is all right," says Ellen after some thought. "And Gob, the bartender at Moriarty's, even if he is a ghoul..."

She'd cite her father at this point, but Dad did sort of leave her a note to the effect of 'stay in the Vault and you'll be safe' which she discovered while she was, y'know, on the run from Security trying to kill her. So Dad might not really qualify.

From:

vance_prime

It's really disturbing how long it took Ellen to answer that question.

"He's a what?"

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"A ghoul. That's what they call it when a human being is exposed to an incredibly high dose of radiation but doesn't have the good luck to die of it," Ellen says. "They wind up looking like raw Brahmin meat and sounding like they swallowed a ball of steel wool. The radiation basically cooked them partway and preserved the rest- Gob says there are still ghouls around now who were alive when the bombs fell."

From:

vance_prime

Alyx looks almost physically pained.

"That makes no goddamn sense."

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"It seems kind of strange to me too," says Ellen, "but honestly, I can't think of anything else that could do that to Gob. Not that I've read all of my dad's medical texts. There could be something more exotic that he just didn't tell me about- but that's what Gob told me, anyway."

From:

vance_prime

"I've seen what radiation does to a person, it's not--" Alyx shakes her head. "Nevermind. Let's just go see Moira and get this over with, okay?"

She is not comfortable hanging around that warhead, disarmed or no.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"All right."

They have to descend all the way to the bottom of the crater to reach the walkway that leads up to Moira's. This would generally be an uneventful process save for two things. One, it does bring them close enough to the bomb to hear the skinny, bearded man ankle deep in the water around it preaching about the splendor of Atom's coming. And two, the walkway to Moira's starts just next to the Brahmin pen outside the Megaton clinic.

At least the Brahmin is chewing its cud and not generally doing anything un-cow-like other than, y'know, existing.

From:

vance_prime

It's hard to say which of the two has Alyx more weirded out.

She almost asks Ellen how Brahmin are born, but then decides she really doesn't want to know.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Ellen's been too squeamish to ask anyone about that anyway. On the other hand, that thing does have an enormous rear end. Possibly the pelvis is appropriately sized... anyway, Ellen just leads the way past the Brahmin and hastily proceeds up the gangway to Craterside Supply.

Inside is dim and dusty, as usual. There are a few customers, but they clear out with their purchases shortly, leaving only the usual grumpy-looking fellow with the assault rifle and a shockingly red-headed woman in a pale blue jumpsuit. She looks up and waves. "Hey there! Fiddle with any interesting technology lately? And who's your friend?"

"Moira, this is Alyx Vance," says Ellen. "Alyx, this is Moira Brown, the woman who's writing the Wasteland Survival Guide."

From:

vance_prime

"Nice to meet you," says Alyx, offering a hand to shake.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Same here!" says Moira brightly, shaking the offered hand. It's about as weathered and scarred as you'd expect of someone who not only lives in essentially a desert environment, but fiddles with engineering projects frequently and has limited access to soap. "Welcome to Megaton! Staying in town or just passing through?"

From:

vance_prime

"Passing through," says Alyx firmly. "I've gotta get home."

And I can't imagine why anyone in their right mind would stay here, she thinks but doesn't say aloud.

Edited Date: 2009-03-29 12:52 am (UTC)

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"All righty! I hope you enjoy your stay here anyway," says Moira. "So, Ellen, how did it go at the factory?"

"Pretty well," Ellen says, pulling out the widget. "Alyx here got into the mainframe for us and even reactivated the robots and was able to modify their programming."

"Ooh! Harnessing the technology of the past and using it for your own purposes? That's just the thing!" Moira fairly beams. "Tell me all about how it worked out."

From:

vance_prime

Alyx looks sheepish. "Ellen gives me too much credit. I only got into the mainframe by accident."

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"You still got in," Ellen says. "Alyx set them to attacking each other instead of us. They don't seem to have any kind of persistent recognition of who they're dealing with. I don't think RobCo built them very intelligent. They make kind of questionable allies."

Moira nods. "Seems like a good thing to watch out for with tech of any age," she says. "If they're that easy to turn on each other they could probably be just as easily turned on us, right? And we don't want that. So here, have a few pulse grenades, just in case you run into anything more dangerous. Nothing dampens a robot's day like having an electromagnetic pulse chucked at it from twenty yards away."

She hands over three metal canisters with green 'button' indentations on one end. "Push it right here and throw it, and it'll detonate on impact. Just be careful. They can still hurt living things as well as robots."

"Thank you, Moira," Ellen says. "Alyx, you're welcome to a couple of them if you want..."

From:

vance_prime

"Hm... maybe just one," says Alyx after a moment's thought. (Privately, she's wondering if she can reverse-engineer it to make more, although given that nobody here seems to know what a transistor is, she doesn't have very high hopes.)

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"All right," says Ellen, handing the canister over. "I'll keep the others until I need them- what's up next, Moira?"

"Oh, your choice. Researching local history at one of the bigger survivor settlements in the region or trying to find and retrieve information from the ruins of a library. I won't even have this part written up until tomorrow, though, so you might as well come back then."

"All right," says Ellen. "I'll think about it in the meantime. See you then!"

"Try not to die!" Moira answers brightly, and heads into the back to get out her broom and a dustpan.

Ellen, for her part, just shakes her head a little and leads the way out into the sunlight again. "Well," she says, "like I said, she's kinda... she's really something."

From:

vance_prime

"She doesn't happen to have any relatives named 'Kleiner,' does she?" asks Alyx. "Or 'Stantz'?"

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"I don't think I've ever asked her about her family," says Ellen after a moment's thought. "Why?"

From:

vance_prime

"She reminds me of some friends of mine, that's all." Alyx stretches. "I should head back to the Bar before Gordon gets too worried about me..."

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"All right," says Ellen. "I'll open the door for you back up at the house, if that's all right."

From:

vance_prime

"How do you pick where you open it, anyway? I've never gone to Milliways under my own power before."

The first time she was teleported there, and the other two times D0G physically dragged her in.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Well, you find a door, first," says Ellen, "or a gate sometimes, like the one at RobCo. And then you concentrate on the Bar, and you keep that thought in your mind when you open the door, and there you are. It's easier if you have something from the Bar with you, though. At least it seems like it's easier to me."