It was a white room, so white that it was impossible not to squint. Nathan thought as he followed George through a different wing of the NORAD facility.
"Do you know why I never leave the compound, Nathan?" George asked, not looking back. Striding quickly seemingly not caring if his follower kept pace or not.
"No, sir. I don't." Nathan muttered and did his best to follow.
"Thanks to the engineering process by which the federal government has created me, I simply can no longer go outside. Something with the change in atmosphere and environment and whatnot." George commented carelessly. He turned and gave a small smile. "I never cared to look anyways." He continued down the endless corridor.
"Made you, sir?" Nathan was confused. "How do you mean?"
"Simply put, in 2096, an idea for breeding the perfect presidential candidate was put forth on the Congress floor." He turned waved his hands as if to show off his whole person. "I am the result of said idea." He smiled once more warmly, then his brow knit together and his expression turned dark.
"Is there a problem, sir?"
"Yes, to ensure that there would not be more than one 'perfect' candidate for each election they messed with the aging process of each of us." George stopped at a terminal, leaned forward and typed in a password. The terminal chirped and the screen began displaying row after row of numbers and letters.
"Aging process? Us? Sir, I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about at all whatsoever."
Nathan grunted. The white, metal door slid open with a whoosh. Anders stood behind it ever the solder standing at full attention, holding his helmet in the brook of his right arm.
"Are you ready to inspect the new batch, sir?" Anders asked promptly. George shook his head and waved Anders off. To which Anders acknowledged with a nod and stayed put.
"Batch?" Nathan asked.
"Pay him no heed, Lieutenant." George responded quickly. "All in due time. Everything must come at the right time. Isn't that right, Anders?"
"Of course, sir." Anders said curtly.
"Wait, what the hell is going on? Seriously." Nathan asked once more. George chuckled and turned around smiling while walking backwards. Another, much larger door began to slide itself open as the trio neared it. It seemed to pulse with energy.
"All in due time." George smirked. The door became fully opened and the light blinded Nathan for a moment. Blue vats laid spread out all throughout the room with technicians in biohazard suits scurried here an there. The room was not truly a room, it was really more like a cavern that was almost as large as the cave that served as a proving grounds of sorts. The same cave that Nathan have traveled through himself.
"What are in the vats?" Nathan asked. He looked up and about trying to get a good angle to see the contents of each vat.
"The real question is who?" George responded. He placed his hands on the railing in front of him, watching the work unfold before him. "President Robert Grimes converted the NORAD facility to serve as the nation's most advanced research center. At least in terms of government, the private sector's obvious giant in the industry is CIT. Or at least whatever is left of it. I hear it goes by the Institute now."
"Who? What?"
"Exactly!" Nathan began to stride forward once more, leaving Nathan bewildered and once again responsible to catch up to George.
"That has been the question I have been asking myself for a very, very long time. Ever since the President Grimes decided to start the cloning program in 2124 there have been numerous candidates for the cloning subjects. It wasn't until my terms of service between '56 and '64 that I decided to tweak the age limit of the Presidential clones a bit." George took a clipboard from a technician scribbled a few things and handed it back to the technician. "I mean think of the possibilities! Who was the original? Why did he do all this? What convinced Congress that democracy had to be set aside for the greater good of the country?"
"A cloned President? The Old World Country cloned their presidents? And the people were okay with that? I'm sure if the NCR heard about this, no one'd trust the fed." Nathan commented.
"Well, not cloned in the sense you're thinking of. That was really Vault-Tec's deal. At least until the Great War and then the Vault-Tec got wiped off the map and then I simply took all the data that was still being transmitted by one of their hvaults in DC. Which was it, 101? No that's the interesting autocratic one. Oh well." George continued, he stopped in front of a blue vat.
"Wait, hold on. I really am having a hard time keeping up with you, Mr. President. Please slow down." Nathan said, not paying too much attention to the vat in front of him. Meanwhile George began typing keys on the terminal while whistling a tune.
"You'll have to forgive him, sir. He gets like this a lot. It has something to do with the experimental intellect gene that the Office of Scientific Advancement was trying to isolate with their engineered presidents program." Anders cut in.
"Okay that makes sense. But were people really okay with this? I mean what about the democratic process and such?"
"Well, truthfully, I've no idea, sir. That is not an area I was trained or taught while in the academy. All of us here learn about the history of the United States and how we have to defend its memory. As far as we're concerned the Republics still intact and strong, sir."
"Interesting. You do realize there is nothing up there but wasteland creatures and dangerous people, correct?" Nathan asked.
"Of course, sir. I'd expect nothing less. That's why we were desisnged and bred to serve as the perfect soldiers." Anders responded.
"We? Who's we?"
"That would be us, sir." A voice that sounded almost identical to Anders came from Nathan's left. A man wearing the same armor as Anders but colored a pristine white when compared to Anders' dark grey.
"You sound the same as Anders." Nathan said.
"Well, that's because we're clones." The man responded. "Name's CT-5216 or Oddball if you prefer nicknames. We here are clone troopers, bred to fight for the Republic."
"Oddball?"
"We don't like the numbers, sir. It's a bit degrading and bad for moral. So we come up with nicknames for ourselves." Anders cut in.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. First presidents, now soldiers?!" Nathan asked.
"Well, yes." George turned around, his eyes sparkling. "It was quite easy really, the Kearney administration wanted to create the perfect soldier in '76. They contracted West-Tek and Vault-Tec to do it for them. I was pissed, ever since I left the office in '64 I'd been stuck here doing nothing. So I hacked the Vault-Tec computers and stole their research. To make sure no one would notice, I made a few design changes and decided to base it off this one secret service agent I hated named Gary. I wonder what happened to him? No matter. After I had the research all I had to do was figure out who to clone. Before I could finish my studies, the facility sealed itself and I later learned that the Great War had occurred. I became scared, I knew my life was almost up thanks to the aging process of clones." George took a drink from a water bottle on the table he was working at. "They wanted to keep it short, President's elected in, leaves and disappears. No one notices anything wrong. It was effective, I was bred to lead and to think. But I was also bred to live for only twenty years. I was ten years old when I was elected into office so after I made it to '77, I was well over twenty. I was confused, how could this happen? So I began to conduct a few more studies until I figured what the original scientists had done to mess with my aging process in the beginning. After figuring that out, reversing it was a cinch. I've been alive ever since."
"Since before the Great War? Damn. And you're not a ghould?! What have you done all this time?"
"Designing weapons and armor that would have allowed us to beat the Chinese at Anchorage in record time. And then after that, designing the man who would get to wear and use the kit I've designed." George waved his hand before the blue vat. It hissed and opened.
An explosion shook the walls and the floor. A backpack fell out from under Nathan's seat. A red light blinked on. Then off. On. Then off. Nathan coughed. He looked up and saw himself hanging from the seat, he felt himself sway back and forth. He tore the buckle open and flew down to the ground. He grunted and rolled off his back and onto his feet. The vertibird creaked. Nathan turned and saw the limp body of a dead ranger veteran.
"Aw, shit." Nathan grunted. He rubbed his head and reached for his helmet. He couldn't find it for a few seconds and scrambled to locate it. He saw the recognizable glowing T in the dark and threw it own. Gunfire and explosions. Nathan was awake now. He loaded a magazine into his marksman carbine and reached for the door handle. Suddenly it was thrown open and a man donning a white parka, fatigues, combat boots, and a ski mask stood in the door way, blocking the light from a nearby street lamp. The man then slumped to his knees and fell into a pile inches from Nathan's feet. Captain Keely stepped into view, holding his Ranger Sequoia in his left hand while wiping his bowie knife on his sleeve. He coughed and sheathed his knife. A wisp of fog came out from his mask. Was it cold? Keely reloaded his Sequoia, three rangers followed suit and took up firing positions near him.
"Clear!" One of them shouted.
"You all right there, Hale?" Keely shouted he reached out his hand. Hale gripped it and felt the man pull him up effortlessly.
"Yeah, just took a hit to the head when we landed. How'd you get out?"
"I jumped." Keely said. He turned a car exploded nearby. A body landed nearby. "We need to get out of here. Wilcott! Stevens! Recon our path to the market!" Two rangers immediately sprinted away. Nathan adjusted the antennae on the right side of his helmet. He held the button at its base.
"Axe, status report." Nathan spoke into the mike in the helmet.
"We're still moving towards the target. Saw your bird go down, sir. Need a hand?" Axe responded promptly.
"Negative. Secure the market. Keely and I will make our way there on foot."
"Copy." Axe cut out. Nathan flipped the safety off for his carbine. He nodded to Keely. Keely held out his Sequoia and waved the other Ranger vet forward.
Wilcott stood behind a car while Stevens held a pair of binoculars.
"What's the situation?" Keely asked as he neared the pair's location. Wilcott took out a sheet of paper with a crude map of the Downtown area.
"Sir, here's where we were supposed to come in." He pointed to a large clearing in the Southeast side of the map. "We landed here." He pointed at the Northern part of the map.
"Shit." Keely grunted. "That's in the heart of enemy territory."
"What do you mean? The confederate troops got this far?" Nathan asked. Keely nodded and pointed once again at the map.
"We don't know how they did it but they somehow bypassed everything, all the cities like the Hub and Vault City to get here. They didn't fight anybody or cross any border. They just appeared, literally out of nowhere."
"That's impossible."
"That's what Olliver said." Keely grunted. He stuffed the map into his vest. "It doesn't matter now, they're already here." Suddenly a shot rang out.
"Contact! In the roof above us!" Stevens shouted. He fired his Brush gun twice.
"Move! Move! Move!" Wilcott pushed Nathan into a wall. "Sorry, sir." Nathan nodded. He looked up and saw a flash of white, he produced a fragmentation grenade, pulled the pin and lobbed it up.
"Frag out!" Nathan shouted. The grenade exploded shortly after. Then there was no more shooting.
"Okay, we're clear. Let's move, people! Keep going straight!" Keely shouted, directing the squad.
"We're nearing the LZ." The pilot's voice squawked over the speaker. Axe loaded a plasma cartridge into his rifle. The magazine stuck out of his blocky weapon. The side of his weapon held a display that read 300 indicating how many shots he had left. He lifted up his left wrist and pressed his index finger on the blue button labeled "seal" on it. The helmet made a whooshing hiss as it completely sealed itself to the armor. No amount of force short of ripping his head off with let the helmet ever unseal itself. It was a bit claustrophobic but after years of wearing the armor, Axe was used to it.
"Red light, Gentlemen." The crew chief said as he stood by the vertibird door. It was closed since this one did not have a minigun on either side. Bullets pinged and panged off the vertibird, jerking the aircraft as it flew above the landing zone. Four NCR soldiers began to check their weapons and put on their helmets and such.
"Green light!" The crew chief shouted. The doors flew open and Axe leapt through it and onto the ground. Lasers lit up the night as Confederate troops rained down heavy fire on the vertibirds and the NCR military troops.
"We're taking heavy fire!" A captain shouted before a round sliced through his helmet.
"Get to cover!" a soldier shouted. Axe lifted his weapon and fired a burst of plasma. Blue bolts shot out of the weapon, a white-clad soldier fell to the ground minus an arm and completely limp. Axe vaulted over a few crates and crouched behind it. Gunfire. Axe looked at his wrist-mounted tactical computer. Essentially a stripped down Pip-Boy, the computer displayed the local map of the area nad listed objectives that were snet to him by Hale's Pip-Boy. Axe found Tup and Kix. They were together and Ajax was still moving fast, meaning he was still on a vertibird. Axe looked up and saw a missile shoot through the air and into the cockpit of a vertibird taking off. The veritibird swirled and twisted before plopping itself back onto the ground. Axe leapt out of cover to avoid the crash. He got up and rushed to the aircraft. He pulled open the bay doors only to find that all of the men inside were already dead. Cut up by shrapnel and deformed into the strange and contorted positions due to the force of the crash.
"Axe, status report!" Hale's voice rang clear above the sound of the battle. A laser bolt shot past Axe's helmet. Axe turned around and took cover behind a kiosk. He lifted his gun and fired multiple bursts. Three confederate soldiers fell from their firing positions on the roof of a nearby building.
"We're still moving towards the target. Saw your bird go down, sir. Need a hand?" Axe noted that he was not truly at the marketplace. The pilot had overshot his squad's landing. Axe ducked under a laser bolt and squeezed off a long spray of plasma fire. A man screamed.
"Negative. Secure the market. Keely and I will head there on foot."
"Copy." Axe responded. "Ajax, you read me?"
"Yes, sir?" Ajax responded.
"See, if you can man a minigun and fire on positions I mark using the rangefinder."
"Copy." Axe grabbed a the antennae on the left side of his helmet and brought to eye level. It scanned the terrain and red marks began to appear. He pointed his tactical computer to it and held a flat grey surface on it near his elbow.
"Position marked. Firing, sir." Ajax said. Suddenly a spray of yellow gunfire shot through the night air and decimated the enemy personnel on the rooftop. Axe marked another one and Ajax fired. Another. And another. Then there was no more gunfire.
"Any left that you can see, Ajax?"
"Negative, sir. Nothing firing at the bird neither."
"Copy. See you at the market." Axe said.
"Roger. See you there, Lefttenant." The Vertibird hovered and hook before departing towards heavier fighting.
Nathan held his back against the wall. Keely held a fist up. He checked around the corner. Gunfire could be heard nearby. There was an explosion and Keely pushed Nathan back. Sudenly a vertibird shot through the street and landed in the building across the fire team.
"Really getting tired of getting pushed around." Nathan muttered. He got to his feet. Keely darted forward and Nathan covered him. Then Nathan moved. Soldiers clad in white littered the street and market place. Bullet shells, service rifles, but few NCR bodies lay among the dead. The dead mean all had burn marks on them. Clean black holes. Plasma. Laser just would've left a hole. Plasma is what really burns.
"Axe, you there at the marketplace?" Nathan asked over the comm.
"Negative, sir. Still regrouping Chalk 1. We took some heavy casualties, just a click out from the position."
"Roger that. Tup, Kix, Ajax. Status!"
"This is Ajax, still circling the marketplace, sir. Some heavy fighting gone on down there. Three birds crashed down there, I think Tup and Kix are down there too." Ajax quickly responded.
"Understood. Kix. Tup." Nathan shouted as he stepped over bodies and pressed his back against a nearby wall. Captain Keely inspected the dead bodies while Wilcott covered the entire squad from the center of the street.
"Whole lotta casualties over here, sir. I don't know if I can keep up." Tup shouted. Laser fire could be heard and nearly muffled his voice. "We're going to need air support. These men are terrible shots, but their weapons.." he cut off.
"Say again?" Nathan inquired.
"Something about them, sir. Feel familiar. They aren't normal laser rifles. They resemble the ones we use in the NORAD facility." Tup responded.
"Tup, see if you can acquire one of the enemy arms for recollection and study after the battle. Axe, regroup Chalk 1 and lead the whole chalk to the marketplace. Ajax, maintain overwatch on the vertibird. See if you can spot another other downed vertibirds or isolated squads. We're going to need all the men we can. We need to support the market quickly before Cassandra gets here with the main force."
"Understood, sir. I see you down there!" Ajax responded. A humming sound whirred above and Nathan looked up. The visor phased through multiple colors before settling on a blue-gray that lit up the night sky and outlined the vertibird with a clear dark blue. It hung in the air for a few seconds before moving on.
"Keely that's the statud on the convoy?" Nathan asked. Keely tapped his finger onto the antennae on his ranger helmet.
"Fifteen." He said grimly.
"We'll have to make do." Nathan said. He stepped over a piece of rubble and slowly opened a door. More dead lay inside.
"Wilcott, grab the tags and we'll move on."
"Understood." Wilcott moved quickly to a body on the other side of the room, he turned over a dead ranger and suddenly a high pitched whir filled the room.
"Out of the room!" Keely shouted. A green field detonated from Wilcott and enveloped the room.