Greetings from Big MT

Chapter Twenty Five: History Lesson

All right, the objective was simple: Rescue Gleeson, Layla, and Junior from Aurelius of Phoenix and his entire company of Legionnaires, without getting captured or killed, and then escape Big Mountain forever. Yeah, it was pretty straight forward, but as Tonya looked at the image of the screen of everything that was happening just outside the crater… she didn't know how the hell she was going to do it.

"Even if we turned off the radar fence." She said, making the image go back so that the whole crater could be seen. "Me and Julius would still have to go back around to the Legion camp in order to rescue the others, so climbing over the crater wall is kind of pointless. There has to be some way to do this… we're in a pre-war science museum for God's sake."

"Ah, the plots and plans of youth." Dr. Mobius commented, moving sideways for a second when his thruster failed. "Makes me remember back when Dr. Klein and I wanted to sneak out of here to go to the movies, but orders were that anyone trying to leave would be shot dead… ah, the fools never even knew we were gone."

At first the Courier wasn't listening to what the malfunctioning brain tank was saying, but then her ears perked up when she heard the part about people never even knowing that he and Dr. Klein were ever gone in the first place. Could it be possible that Dr. Mobius had been the answer to all of her problems from the very start? If so, then why was there so much friction between him and the others of the Think Tank? He didn't seem aggressive at all, so what was going on?

In response to her inquiry about the Think Tank, the floating robot began to tell her a tale about how Big Mountain had been left untouched completely after the bombs fell, leaving those within save from nuclear fire, but trapped because of all the lingering radiation that permeated the air outside the crater wall. Eventually the scientists of the Think Tank, Mobius included at the time, came up with the idea to preserve their brains inside of robotic bodies, which was great at first, since they survived while everyone else slowly died of old age.

Over the first hundred years of complete isolation, though, Dr. Klein and the others gradually forgot what it was like to be human, running their individual experiments without ethics or even a purpose, resulting in such horrors as the flying insectoid Cazadores and the coyote-rattlesnake hybrid Nightstalkers… both of which eventually escaped into the Mojave, and both of which Tonya had encountered before during deliveries… and never wished to see again.

For the longest time the Think Tank was content to stay where they were, looping through their daily routine while almost forgetting about the outside world completely… that is, until the radiation started to clear, and the descendants of the war's survivors began to wander down into the crater. It was only then that the true level of depravity and inhumanity that the floating brain tanks had sunk to was revealed, not only with what they did to the people, but with the plans that they started making for the world outside Big Mountain, now that they knew that something else was out there.

With an extra-large dosage of Mentats coursing through his brain, Dr. Mobius did what he knew was best for the society that was just beginning to redevelop outside the crater, namely a small town called Shady Sands that he had taken an interest in, and spent his time constructing the radar fence, while the others were busy planning horrific experiments to inflict upon the budding society, trapping them within as soon as it was completed.

However, even with as depraved and soulless as the others had become, Dr. Mobius knew just how highly intelligent his colleagues were, and that it was only a matter of time before they found a way around the fence… so he gave them something to keep their minds busy. Hacking into the base code of their mechanical bodies so that an irrational sense of fear and hopelessness would be instilled upon activation of the trigger, he placed that trigger into the intercom system, and used it to declare his hatred for the Think Tank, announcing that he was sealing himself inside of the Y-42 Auxiliary Control Center, hence to be designated as a zone that was forbidden to them.

Now that they had a threat within Big Mountain to contend with, the Think Tank eventually forgot all about their intentions to leave, while the daily threatening broadcasts reinforced their feelings of fear and desperation to the point where they hardly left their individual laboratories… until the news was spread that after hundreds of failures, Dr. Klein had succeeded in removing the brain from a live subject.

"I can only thank the heavens that Superego, er, your brain found you when she did." Dr. Mobius explained. "You should be all right now that your brain is back inside your head… even though I had to force the procedure on Superego… you see, that suit makes you almost impossible to find with my scanner, and if you had brought it back to Dr. Klein, well… he might have escaped."

It took the Courier a minute to realize what Dr. Mobius was saying, but then it all made sense, while also causing a knot to form in her stomach at the knowledge of how close she had come to fulfilling the Think Tank's goals. Apparently, Dr. Klein was planning to replicate the stealth suit technology, and then provide one for each of the other survivors of New Reno, before replicating the successful brain removal procedure as well… and then putting his and his colleagues' brains into the now vacant bodies.

"So they… they were going to steal our bodies, and just… leave?" Tonya asked, shocked but also feeling that she shouldn't be. "And I almost… made it happen?"

For the first time since encountering her own brain in the Superego armor, the Courier was glad that things had turned out like they did, since now at least she was aware of the true nature of the Think Tank. The good news about all this was that without ever seeing her or the others again, they would most likely forget all about the whole thing after a few years, but that still didn't help her with the problem of saving Gleeson and the others.

Using the monitor to take another look at everyone to make sure that they were still alive, she saw that Julius was actually on his way toward the Forbidden Zone by following Superego's tracks… oh, he was so brave and manly, coming to rescue her… ahem, back to the others. Layla and Junior were still on their crosses, but… wait a second, the Lieutenant had almost worked her arms free of the ropes while… while everyone was watching what Aurelius was still doing to Gleeson.

Tonya started to feel sick as she remembered once being in that same position, being held down and taken by that asshole in front of an audience… unable to keep from screaming because of how big he was… and with Aurelius it was never over quickly… he could go for like an hour at a time. Regardless, this distraction allowed Layla to completely free herself from the cross and climb down… only to be stopped when Junior said something to her.

There was no audio on the monitor, but it looked like the Lieutenant was accusing him of something, pointing her finger at him and then motioning at everything else as if… as if their situation was all his fault somehow… which didn't make any sense, beginning with the fact that he had been on the cross as well. With a final shake of her head, it seemed that Layla wasn't going to help him… and the stout man reacted to this by opening his mouth and starting to yell as loud as he possibly could.

Layla tried to get him to shut up, but it was too late; catching the attention of some of the Legionaries, the nearest of which aimed his rifle and shot her in the chest, before turning back around to watch the show. The Lieutenant had been thrown backwards by the high caliber bullet, crashing to the ground, and becoming still a few moments later as blood pooled around her body on the snow covered rocks. Wait, now Junior was calling to the Legionaries… apparently trying to bargain for his release since he reported Layla's escape.

Instead of freeing him, however, the Legionaries just laughed to each other, before that same one fired another shot, making Junior scream when it tore into his leg. The Legionaries laughed again for a minute, before the one next to him raised his rifle and fired a shot, hitting Junior's wrist just right so that his hand was completely severed in a spray of blood. This also freed his one arm from the ropes, causing him to partially fall off the cross… now just sort of hanging there by one arm and one good leg.

Now the Legionaries were saying something to him, looking like they were accusing him of something as well, sort of like what Layla had been doing before she was killed… but there was no audio so Tonya had no way to know what it was. Whatever it was, though, it had to have been bad, because the next time the Legionary raised his rifle, it was a large chunk of Junior's head that was blown off… and then they just left him hanging there like that.

"I have to get Gleeson out of there somehow." The Courier said, turning away from the monitor. "How did you say you and Dr. Klein used to sneak in and out of the crater?"

"Well, technically we didn't sneak out." Dr. Mobius explained, floating over to what looked like a small laser pistol, but brightly colored, and just… odd looking. "See, we wanted to go see Love Sets Sail, since we were all in love with Vera Keyes… I'm guessing your great-great-great-great grandmother? But like I said, security wouldn't let us leave, so we invented… wait for it… the 'Transportalponder'!"

Looking like a child's water pistol, based on Dr. Mobius' description, this thing had the power to literally teleport someone out of Big Mountain, and then back again, but with only one programmed destination: An old drive in theater just outside of Nipton, Nevada, where most of the Think Tank members would go to watch the movies… while Dr. Mobius would be in the restroom, apparently getting frisky with Dr. Dala back in the day.

"It hasn't worked in years, though." The floating brain tank continued. "I had this wacky idea to tie it into the radar fence itself, once, but the targeting program would have to be really specific, because it would hit everywhere at once, but can only take what its programmed to transport… such as only men, or in our case people with an IQ score of over a hundred and fifty."

Well, it was a start… yeah, a plan was starting to form inside the Courier's head, but it would still be risky to pull off… especially the part about lowering the energy field over the tunnel so that the Legion… all of them… could enter Big Mountain.