He walked in front of the perpetually scowling mutant, prodded along with the tip of a large hunting rifle's barrel every few moments. His hands were bound behind his back with a thick coil, possibly a large bundle of wires beneath a thick cord of insulation. His black jumpsuit kept him warm despite the chill in the air. The cold, sterile passageway of symmetrical metal came to an abrupt halt. A vast cavern opened up before him, illuminated periodically by electric lanterns hanging from poles embedded in the ceiling. Humanoid figures milled about under the lights. Behemoths, giant yellow-green mutants standing over two dozen feet high, wandered in and out of sight through vast tunnels in every direction. One of them turned to face him, an eery intelligence apparent in it's eyes despite it's bared teeth. It's lips did not extend past it's gums, and it's jaw bulged with unnatural muscle. A deep, guttural, yet eloquent voice greeted him.
"At last, I meet the man who has managed to kill so many of my children. I hear you've even managed to kill one of my old friends from this vault's security detail. An impressive feat, considering what he had become. Odysseus, you may leave us."
The mutant brute behind him turned and walked away, stomping heavily with the great weight of a nine-foot tall body of muscle. The colossal mutant sat upon a huge boulder, smoothed on it's top and front, and covered in large animal furs and blankets. It gazed patiently at him as it waited for his reply.
"A super mutant that's articulate? Wha-, who are you?"
"I am the Alpha. Your kind once knew me as Doctor Wayne Merrick, but that is a name that no longer has meaning.
The man looked around the vast cavern, taking in the decayed faces of those walking with purpose to sturdy metal workbenches along the walls and performing skilled tasks with pieces of machinery.
"Are these rotters your slaves?"
"The Immune, as they call themselves, are incompatible with FEV; the heavy exposure to radiation renders them incapable of reaching the next step in human evolution. Instead of wasting our efforts attempting to do so with them, we have forged pacts over time. They provide maintenance to the vault's systems and your kind's outdated weaponry that my children often use, captured humans that transgress upon their territory, and serve as scribes to record my research and that of my colleagues. I provide them with compensation gathered from raids. The nigh-unstoppable warrior you miraculously slew in combat was outfitted with equipment modified by these 'rotters' as you call them, per my instructions."
"You mentioned your colleagues?"
"Yes, the other learned meta-humans you see before you. Before this life, we were scientists here in Vault 87, seeking to march the people of the once great United States of America to the pinnacle of human evolution within our lifetimes. My staff and I continue to research the great possibilities that the future holds, but the size of our bodies causes difficulties in keeping track of our work. Smearing blood upon the walls of this cavern would hardly suffice."
"So you were all human once?"
"All of my kind are born as you are, and reborn to be perfect lifeforms through the FEV. That is the very fate that awaits you."
"Perfect lifeforms? The average one of your mutants I've come across has no understanding of technology, no fine motor skills beyond shooting and reloading, no ability to read or write, and likely no mental capacity beyond an IQ of 60. Not to mention the infertility, as I can only assume."
"Valid observations, and yet, these are minor setbacks. Radiation exposure has diminished the synergy between the Forced Evolutionary Virus and the DNA of those exposed to it, thus creating defects. The Second, Dr. Filo as he was known before we advanced our own evolution, assisted me in coding the virus to perfect humanity with the DNA we were familiar with. When the vault was sealed and the surface world was destroyed as we knew it, faulty construction and damage from a direct strike outside the door exposed the residents, who were our test subjects, as well as myself, my staff, and our security teams to radiation. Thus, even when we perfected the virus, it did not affect us as planned. Only through the Second's help was I able to reeducate myself upon my transformation, but I accomplished as much nonetheless. Over the many years, those vault dwellers and others unscathed by the DNA tampering effects of radiation have all made intelligent and capable meta-humans. As more are added to our growing race, we will expend all of our effort on advancing our knowledge in only the most important fields. We will reach the stars in a mere century or less with our unbridled ambition and single-minded focus. We will unlock the secrets of physics and become the masters of reality itself. The transformation does away with all sexual characteristics, so yes, we are infertile. Reproduction is a non-issue however, as our bodies do not age. Our cells are replaced in a perfect process I have observed over time, leaving no chance of negative mutations and no imperfections to hinder our health such as cancers or disorders. We are for all practical purposes immune to radiation, immune to disease, immune to allergens, highly resistant to wounds and harmful chemicals; we are immortal. Our population does not increase unchecked, nor does it decrease aside from violence for the sake of increasing our numbers. We will survive indefinitely, keeping a breeding stock of genetically pure humans locked away underground for the rare occasions when our population must be replenished."
"What you're doing is playing God!"
"God. . . What an interesting notion. God made man in his image, and provided the ability to choose. Mistake after mistake is allowed, until the right choice is made. Man made their last mistake when they nearly destroyed themselves and their entire world with them. Contrary to all reasonable possibilities, humanity still lives on through it all, scrabbling through the dirt of the ruins of our predecessors for tiny scraps of life. Now the choice has fallen upon me, a divine mandate thrust upon my shoulders from God, or fate, or simply by chance. I have made my choice."
"Yet you would deny all of mankind that right bestowed by their creator? You intend to subjugate every survivor of their ancestors' mistakes and force them into lives they have no wish to live?"
"Mankind have shown again and again that they choose what is pleasant, rather than what is wise. No human, in their ignorant vanity, wish to see their bodies transformed into the evolved state that my kind have reached. Liberation from the distraction and wasted efforts of sexual instincts, the ever quicker march of age that takes all ability and joy away, the fear and helplessness that grip every man's mind in times of insurmountable odds and strip him of action; no human can fully understand these advantages when faced with the numbing comfort of what is already known. My children, my brothers, my kind, kill, and eat, and enslave if that is how you wish to see it, but you are no different. In fact, you are much worse. You slit each other's throats for enough barely edible detritus to survive another week at most. You skin your distant neighbors to ward off their tribe, or for a coat to warm you, or for the simple sadistic thrill. Your daughters you sell to the highest bidder; your sons to whomever promises to bring the chance of glory for the family's fleeting name. These things my people see every day as they roam the wastes, and every day they stop it with bloodshed or the righteous hand of forced evolution."
"You judge us all by the actions of our worst. Even now, with no laws, no education, no gods to bind us together, we follow what is right in the remnants of civilization. Bandits, slavers, and dictators prey on the honest and just. Even with the obvious misery that comes to us of choosing the right thing to do, the choice is still made. The Brotherhood understands the mistakes of the past, and fights to make a future for people who still live honestly. The Regulators-"
"The Brotherhood of Steel?! They fight to hoard every fragment of the past they can gather behind the doors of their metal tombs. Their sacrifices are only made to protect the precious trade they need to stay above the rest of their destitute cousins, just as every nation has done throughout history. They are a shining example of the rapidly approaching extinction of mankind. You cannot survive from the wastelands alone. When the last of the water filters, syringes of medicine, bottles of pills, and receivers for your guns are used up and broken, the final miracle of the old world is gone, you will no longer survive. My kind consume whatever mutated beasts they find with no ill effects; they drink from stagnant puddles with no fear of parasites, disease or radiation; they can grow hardy crops in irradiated soil. The Meta-Humans I have brought forth do not simply survive in this new world. We thrive in it. Humanity has run it's course. My people have no need for trade. No greed or envy beyond what they can reach. We have no need to provide for each other, as we can all provide for ourselves. Distribution of resources, societal productivity, and inequality are problems we do not face."
"The survival of the fittest does not mean embracing nihilism when the odds seem stacked against us. You yourself have mentioned our tenacity, our proven feats of beating the odds. I believe in the tenets of human life. The will to go on no matter what we face. The right to choose our fates. The meting out of justice to those who infringe upon those tenets. If our roles were reversed, would you give in to perceived futility and allow yourself to be subjugated, forced into monstrous transformations? I don't think you would. The choice is vital. If people wish to change in such drastic ways, you could guide them into your "new age." To force them into it is acknowledging that your way is imperfect and flawed like any other."
"Your attempt to persuade me is as feeble as your kind's tenuous grip on life. Though I must say, it was pleasant to speak with someone who doesn't share my goals, and yet made attempts to refute my methods through more than indignant shouts and curses. I will educate you after your transformation. You will be one of my greatest lieutenants, I am certain. Your limitations will soon be removed. Be proud of your future. Odysseus! Take the prisoner to the cells on level six. Don't let him out of your sight."
A yellow-green slab of mutated flesh marched to the man's side, then seized him by one bound arm and led him away. He shouted back to the hulking scientist in the cavern, "If you will not accept our right to choose, you will die just as every other tyrant has!"
The being who was once Wayne Merrick could not help but smirk at the human's pitiful resistance. A useful tool refusing to accept it's role to come.