After receiving the first mission that the NCR's ambassador thought important, the Spartan, Courier and their comrades had departed to undertake that Vault 22 request from doctor Hildern. Noble Six and Lunette had been slightly apprehensive on taking said mission so quickly, what with Lunette having explained to them that the place was where a few other mercs had gone missing. Not to mention the other doctor's warning... They'd left Hope at the Lucky 38 for now...
Nestled between the peaks of the mountains surrounding New Vegas and its outlying suburbs and stuck in a ravine with steep, rock-covered walls, Vault 22 was an eerie sight for anyone aware of how a desert would work. Bright colors jumped at them, shades of greens, reds and pinks, big-leafed shrubbery and thick grass surrounded and overtook a concrete case with a rounded, cog-shaped door at the mouth, laying half-open, rusted, the numbers on its center a faded white that read '22'.
The Spartan kept his DMR pointing forward as he thumbed the flashlight to on. The moon hanged high in the sky, between the sparse few clouds in the area, giving faint illumination to the grounds. To the left of the main entrance to the vault was a sign. Though it had originally been a greeting and a welcome to the nuclear shelter, it now had the words 'STAY OUT! THE PLANTS KILL!'
"... That's... Ominous...?" Lunette remarked, Rejector at the ready in her hand, "You sure about this, Sam?"
"We'll be fine," The man replied, checking his AK over, "Right, Dave?"
"... I'll remain on point," He replied, taking slow, calculated steps forward and scanning the area ahead. Indeed, the ecosystem was varied, with a dozen different plans spotted at first glance and many more hidden under the foliage upon deeper inspection. Still, something stirred in there. The chitter of what seemed like chitin against the floors caused the Courier and co's hairs to stand on end, minus Noble.
The Spartan stopped and raised his right hand up, balled up into a fist. The group of six, plus their mascots, all ground to a halt as the Lieutenant and his Mojave-born friend examined the grass. Thumbing the safety of his weapon, he let loose a single shot and the dying screech of some creature or other echoed across the chasm. The others raised their weapons and watched as giant mantises emerged from the shrubs... Before all of said mantises were unceremoniously filled full of lead.
"Guess something's alive in there," Cass remarked, leaning her double-barrel caravan shotgun against her shoulder, "Haven't seen this much greenery anywhere but in old Pre-War picture books..."
"It doesn't make any sense..." Lunette observed, approaching the plants and gently touching one's leaves, finding it to have a strange texture to the touch, almost alien, which would be no surprise for someone who had lived in a Vault or in the Wasteland for their entire life. She spoke, "Nothing should be able to grow in the Mojave... Nothing should be able to grow anywhere where the bombs landed..."
"Technically, that's not true, unless the bombs were laced with some very potent herbicide, which seems unlikely for nuclear weaponry..." David observed, approaching the plants himself and taking a knee. He ripped a bulb of some kind off one of the plants, then added, "It is, however, really strange that an oasis like this could flourish so easily. I get that plants can grow through and out of concrete, but... This is unnatural."
"You familiar with plants, Noble?" Veronica raised a brow.
"Memories from long ago paint a pretty picture of a farm on some ass-backward planet," The Spartan replied, "Faint memories of what my folks taught me about plants still linger..."
"Huh," Veronica smirked, then looked to Willow and said, "Guess he's skilled in a lot, huh?"
"Yeah," Willow smiled and shrugged, slightly uneasy as she asked, "So... Uhm... We going inside?"
"Yep... Hildern wants us to find data, we have to hit the mainframe," Sam replied, watching as the Spartan stood to his feet and readied his firearm yet again. Firmly, the two men took point and waded through the grass and plant life first, weapons at the ready, while the ladies, robot and puppydog followed close behind them with their own guns, Rejector and, in Veronica's case, Power Fist drawn.
Approaching the rusted door, they found the crack was big enough to accommodate one person at a time, including the Spartan. So, he took point, pushing himself through. His shields and armor scraped the steel of the inches-thick door as he snuck on through, sparks flying off the plating. One foot in front of the other and the Spartan was inside, weapon at the ready and the flashlight already cutting into the darkness, assisting the faint emergency lights that flickered on the walls above them. Rust and dust filled the air with a metallic, stale smell, while the walls shined an eerie, oxidized scarlet as the light of the Spartan's flashlight passed over them.
"... Holy shit..." Cass whispered as she saw massive tree roots punching through the ceiling and down into the floor.
"That's a sight..." Sam spoke as he approached the bark-covered wood, running a gloved hand over it and feeling the creases in said bark. He whistled, then turned to the rest of their female comrades as they filtered in through the crack. Veronica put a hand on her hip, looking around the place while Noble went forward, climbing the rusty stairwell of the door up to the waiting area. He turned to the left, approached a flickering terminal and began to access its data. The taps on the keyboard were one of the only two audible noises so far, with the second being the distant plops of water droplets against concrete, each separated by exactly one second.
"What do we got?" Sam asked as he approached the Spartan.
"Nothing important so far. Just Keely's logs," The Spartan offered.
"'Least we know she made it over," Willow spoke, her voice shaky as she firmly gripped her rifle, Beauty. Through some of the vents, the sight of smaller plants, more specifically lichen and moss, growing gave the group a moment's pause. Veronica hummed, taking a knee and examining one of the vents. She hummed, squinting at the grates as she saw faint traces of some kind of dead material, then stood up.
"... I think six is a party that's a bit too big for this, don't mind me sayin'," Cass stated, approaching Sam and David, "Plus, I figure it'd be a good idea for some of us to stand guard outside. I can already hear some of us shakin' in their boots and I figure it ain't a good idea to go poking around with anyone that may or may not be afraid of going into dark places."
She'd looked worriedly to a spooked Willow as she said that.
"It may not be a good idea to split up like that," Lunette replied as she holstered Rejector, "We can more easily cover each-other's backs if all of us are around."
"And stop one-another from moving if we all crowd up the corridors. They're only big enough to fit two people from where I'm lookin'," Cass countered, "Not to mention JT and the bot. Dog's gonna be hauling all kinds of ass if he smells danger and we may get separated going to recover him. Bot's a different story, though... He seems... Kinda weird, not gonna lie."
Sam turned to Cass, to see the serious look in her eyes, then stated, "You made your point. You wanna hang outside?"
"Eh, why not?" She shrugged.
"I'll go with her, I guess..." Veronica offered, "Been in enclosed spaces most of my life. Kind of wanna smell the roses outside a bit more."
"... Right," Cass sighed, "We're taking JT and the Bot with us... C'mon, kiddo."
"Well," Lunette sighed, "Guess that leaves us, huh, Willow?"
"Y-Yup... Haha..." The girl shuddered, clearly cursing the fates for being stuck in this place. The Spartan stepped away from the terminal, readied his firearm and showed the two women to follow him and the Courier. As they entered the main hallway, the Spartan tilted his head forward, toward a door which had a still-lit sign above it that read 'elevator'. Sam knelt next to it, looking its control panel over.
"Well, looks like it's missing some stuff and it needs power to be rerouted... Should be easy enough," The Courier then offered, grinning, "Hey, Lun. Gimme some light. Dave, Willow, mind covering our backs?"
The Spartan swiveled about, aiming his rifle down the narrow corridor just as Willow did the same. He noticed the young woman trembling as Lunette had stepped up and powered her Pip-Boy's light. Looking to the uneasy blonde, the man inquired out of a sense of genuine worry, "Are you going to be alright in here, or do you want to go switch out with Cassidy or Veronica?"
"I'll be fine..." The girl whispered, still shaking, "G-Gotta get used to creepy places, seein' as I'm gonna be travelling with you guys..."
"Hmm..." He hummed, then looked down the scope of his rifle. He then spoke, "If it gets to bad, let me know... I think I have some Steady on me."
"Appreciate the thought, but I'm not really gonna drug myself just because I'm scared shitless," She replied with an awkward smile on her face. David gave her a nod and left the issue at that, one eye locked on the motion tracker on his HUD and another down the scope of his rifle. She said, "Thanks anyway, David..." before getting a nod out of the man. The whirr of electricity coursing through a power-box and the rumble of semi-rusted motors told the two that their way down had been fixed.
"Am I good, or am I good?" Sam smirked, looking to Lunette.
The girl chuckled, "Nice job. C'mon. We oughta move if we wanna find Keely and that data..."
"Agreed," He nodded, then watched as David and Willow stood up, weapons at the ready. The four entered and the Courier looked over the buttons, before turning to his compatriots to ask which he should press. Seeing shrugs from everyone just as he turned, he rolled his eyes and hit the button for the last sublevel. As the elevator descended, the Spartan looked over his equipment once more.
The descent was quiet, unnerving, the only noise echoing across being the whirrs of the motors and the scratch of steel against cable as they descended. Finally, as the door opened, the group exited out into the main hallway, their sights landing upon a pile of grass and leaves dead ahead of them. Out from it, a creature seemed to slowly rise. Humanoid, but not human anymore, covered in moss, grass and with plant-like spikes pushing out of its back and emanating clouds of what seemed to be spores, the creature slowly crawled forward on all fours, before opening its rotten mouth and roaring at them.
Willow yelped, surprised at the sight of the semi-humanoid monstrosity, before both the Spartan and Courier blasted it apart. The Spartan lowered his rifle, approached the yellow-blooded thing and sealed his suit, then stomped its head in. He looked back to the Courier and stated, "I have a bad feeling about that Data now... I want to go check out the other floors... Maybe find information of what was going on here."
"... Right..." Sam nodded, "Don't do anything stupid. Meet us back at the Gate."
"Noted. You take care of the girls, then..." He offered.
"Oh, no. I'm coming with..." Willow said, "You're gonna need someone to cover your butt."
"You'd be safer with them. Larger group... I can handle myself," The Spartan stated, but Willow was having none of it. She went back to the elevator to wait for him, while the Spartan and his Courier comrade exchanged a single glance. Sam simply shrugged at him, smiling, then waved goodbye as he and Lunette moved deeper into the Vault's lowermost innards, weapon and Rejector at the ready.
Entering the elevator and selecting the second sublevel from the entrance, the Spartan said to Willow, "I can leave you up top, so you can stay with Cass, Veronica and JT."
"I'll be fine, David..." She replied, "I mean... I'm gonna stay freaking close to you. No way I'm getting lost in this little Green Hell..."
Noble snorted, "Fitting..." and got a smile out of Willow as the elevator ground to a halt and the door screeched open, revealing another winding pathway of plants, traps, doors and the likes. As the Spartan took point, the two found themselves. The Spartan and the girl passed through multiple rooms, so far being lucky enough to not encounter anything else that was hostile. Entering one room, a larger one, which also contained some plants stuck behind railings, the Spartan and his companion found another terminal on a table.
He set his rifle down, leaning against the table, before accessing the item of interest on the terminal. A simple noise complaint about something in the air vents. He looked around, up at the ceiling and inside a room opposite their own through some windows, to see the thick roots of trees growing from floor to ceiling through the vents. Could have been the noise.
"So... Whatcha got there?" She asked.
"Noise complaints..." He replied, straightening up and grabbing his rifle, "Let's move. We still got this entire floor and three more to explore before we leave..."
As the two walked forth into the further depths of the place, the girl scanned the walls and looked at the light of the Spartan's rifle. It was lighting up the dust that floated around them, motes that would usually be problematic for the people to breathe in simply scattering as the two passed by them, as if they were somehow alive. To be fair, to Willow, half this stuff didn't look the part of simple dust, but she kept that to herself.
"Any reason you wanted to search the place for info?" She asked.
"Curiosity," The Spartan replied, "I wanted to see what made this place tick. I've heard enough rumors of the grand Vaults of VaultTec that I'd wanted to know what exactly it was they'd do for the betterment of mankind," He then explained as he leaned to the left, scanning past a corner they were about to take. Willow smiled. Well, curiosity and a Supersoldier with ultra-modern power armor. Heck of a combo.
"And how's it so far?" She asked, eyeing the plants going through the concrete.
"... I'm somewhat impressed," He replied as they crossed past an open door in which were multiple plant pots filled to the brim with what looked to be simple jungle foliage. Taking a turn to the right at an intersection, both of them stopped as they heard the crunch of bones underneath the Spartan's boot. He looked down, noticing that his foot was pressed against a flattened mass of green hiding among the leaves and roots.
Springing up and causing a scream of surprise to echo from Willow, another one of the same type of creature they saw down below pounced on him, screaming bloody murder and breathing out spores. His armor's seals automatically kicked in, separating him from the spores just as the creature began to claw at him with its good hand and bite at his helmet's visor, only to wake up with a nasty electric shock.
Not that it mattered, once Willow's rifle rang out across the place. The creature's head popped like a nasty, gas and yellow blood-filled zit. It fell limp, off the Spartan and onto the ground. Gazing over to Willow, he saw her smiling as she lowered her rifle, whose barrel still smoked, before working the lever action to chamber a fresh round and acting all cool while doing it.
"Thanks," He said, "You're learning."
She shrugged, "Hey, I said I gotta get used to creepy places... Wasn't gonna let you get eaten by that thing, either."
"Mhm," He replied with a nod, letting her have her moment to be proud despite being aware of his suit's ability to repel the thing. He spoke calmly, "Let's go. We still have two and a half more sublevels to explore before we do anything else," and they strode forward, with Willow walking behind him, wearing a proud grin on her face. As they passed by several more areas where plants had grown, the Spartan had made sure to stomp out the Spore Carriers, or whatever they were, before they moved ahead.
Treading into another room, with one more RobCo Terminal sat on a table on the right, the process from the other ones repeated as before. Willow watched his back while he accessed the data, which now included a few more of Keely's logs. The room itself had a pair of UV lights shining on some plants in the corner and a sort of indent or deepening in the floor where multiple removable panels lay. Just across from the terminal, past that indent, there was the lab, which had been blocked off by the inhabitants. Apparently, this sublevel was meant for studying atmospheric effects on the plants in hopes of modifying them to produce more oxygen...
Curious...
He hummed, stepping away from the terminal and approaching the door to the laboratory. Entering the small observation hall which led inside, he caught glimpses of corn and other crops beyond the shattered glass. Turning, he saw a terminal to his right which contained some manifests. He read up on the HEPA-20 Cartridges within this place, making a mental note to find them at a later date, should they need them.
After another slow round through the rest of the sublevel, the Spartan and his friend descended to the next. Ahead, another intersection filled with plants lay. The Spartan took a knee and scoped in the little patch of dirt for another target. Both he and Willow were focused on the target ahead... And the Spartan almost paid for it again. He swiveled about after looking at his motion tracker, raised his rifle to the ceiling and blasted the creature crawling above them clean between the eyes, sending the gas-emanating corpse tumbling to the floor.
Willow, though panicked, managed to kill its sibling as it woke up with a couple of shots to the chest and another two to the head. The Spartan and the girl then scanned both sides of the corridor's little L-shaped turn and, content with not finding anything, calmed down. Willow breathed a sigh of relief, before noting, "That was too close... You alright, big guy?" and she looked to him, worried, "Last couple times, you were the one who noticed folks sneaking up on us. Heck, you stopped Nightkin from turning me into a cherry pie smear on the floor."
"I'll be fine..." He replied, though Willow had just now noticed the tiredness in his voice.
... She hummed, then asked, "You sleep any since we all formed this possee?"
"I don't need sleep," He replied.
"... Right..." She spoke, unconvinced. Was he getting slower because he was tiring himself out? She had no idea. This floor was the common areas of the Vault, it seemed. They'd walked past the main atrium, which had also been filled to the brim with plants, through into the Overseer's office, a rather large room with a nice desk in the center, several security screens behind said desk and a terminal sat on a table to the left. Parsing through the terminal once more, Noble read attentively, yet found nothing but the options to open up multiple doors. The data backup, which he pressed immediately for the Courier's and Lunette's sakes, was all he bothered to memorize.
Stepping away, the man led Willow further ahead before she asked again, "Whaddaya think happened in this place?"
"I don't know..." He shrugged, "From what we've read so far, it's some sort of airborne disease or virus... Or was, seeing as we can't see it anymore. Just dust particles in the air, really..."
"Ah, yeah..." She shuddered, "Yeah... Right..."
"Calm..." He said to her, looking right at her, "I feel like you would have given some sign of infection."
"Thanks for that," She nodded, then breathed a sigh of relief, "I feel better..."
"Good," He hummed, then drew his pistol, foregoing the somewhat bulky DMR for the close quarters going on here. Now more alert, the Spartan and Willow both swept the area ahead and cleared out a few more pockets of the creatures before finding themselves inside the rec room. Another pair of UV lights sat in the corner, overwatching some plants, while the Spartan went on to the terminal and accessed it. More of Keely's data.
As he read, a certain passage caught his eye in the third entry, causing him to stop.
'... Some of the stuff I DID manage to download is, uh... Concerning. It speaks of some experimental fungal spores utilized in the research here and usually combined with the other plants' DNA to guarantee certain effects. Experiments with them were, somehow, failures. Now, that in and of itself shouldn't be so weird, but it was the fact that the reports mentioned two places:The "Big MT" and a strange ruin located within said location. I don't know where that is and even if I did, I don't think I'd wanna be near it if those spores did end up being the cause of death for all these people...'
The Spartan felt his heart jump for some reason. He made notes in the MJOLNIR's inner computer system regarding the 'Big MT' and the structure that was mentioned, before stepping away from the computer. Aside from that weird entry, there were also mentions of using UV Light at a certain wavelength to track said particles in the air. Turning to the small garden growing to the left, just behind a billiards or pool table(He didn't know, nor did he care) he saw that the light was clear.
Sighing in relief, though wondering what had caused his heart to skip a beat like that, he readied his pistol and showed Willow to follow. After another short trip and reading through more of the data in other terminals, they'd descended down to sublevel five. The rattle of 7,62 going off caused the Spartan and his comrade to break into a sprint, both of them running across the corridors, over overgrown barricades and to the sight of a ghoul running past them while the Courier and Lunette were holding off a swarm of bugs from breaching through a hole in the wall.
Two grenades fell into the cave from Noble Six's pockets and two explosions shattered the advancing wave of Mantises, as well as their 'artillery', seemingly moving, gigantic Venus Flytraps that spat corrosive acids of some kind at them. A few more gunshots and directed energy blasts from Rejector later and the entire area ahead was cleared. The Courier and Lunette both breathed sighs of relief, with the former looking at David and grinning, "You saved our asses..."
"Lot of bugs?" David inquired, holstering his M6.
"Yeah... Too many, if you ask me..." He replied, "You alright, Lun?"
The two looked over to the trembling girl as she held Rejector pointed forward, her Pip-Boy a burning shade of red, not that her face told them she was angry. Rather, she seemed frightened, even as she turned to them and said, "S-Sorry... I have entomophobia, seeing as I only saw and read about bugs in books and stuff... Real life giant ones scare the heck out of me." before gently holstering Rejector.
"Right..." The two boys nodded.
David then asked, "Have you retrieved the data?"
"Yeah. The door just up and opened up for me. Thought I'd have to crack it open," The man smirked, "But we got the data right here... And that was Keely running up to the labs, by the way."
"Ah..." The Spartan hummed.
"Yeah. C'mon, we gotta go meet her at the labs. Said she wants to purge this place of the spores that caused the mutations in those people," Sam stated, holstering his rifle as he and Lunette walked out. Willow and David looked to one-another, with both of them turning to join the pair. Taking the elevator back up to the labs, they found Keely sat at one of the first Terminals that the Spartan had read.
She looked to them, then spoke, "Ah, good, you're all here..." Her voice gruff, harsh, as expected of a ghoul who was in a continuous state of limbo ,between necrotizing decay and regenerating life. Clad in an explorers' outfit made of a white tank top, black cargo pants and combat boots, as well as a pack of some kind slung over her right shoulder, the doctor seemed to be 'all there', so to speak, unlike some of the Ferals at REPCONN.
"Doctor," Sam nodded, "Glad to see you made it up here alright..."
"Elevator was on," She replied snarkly, "Courier, you and your big pal come over here."
"Alright," Sam shrugged. The two approached the Ghoul woman, with Sam immediately inquiring, "So what, exactly, is the plan?"
"Impatient, are we?" She snidely remarked, "The 'plan', kid, is that I started pumping a highly volatile gas in through Vault's many vents. All it takes to ignite the damn thing is one spark, loose grenade explosion or blast from an energy weapon. Problem is the thing becomes inert after flowing some feet from the vents, but if you ignite one vent, the others should follow."
"Aha. Sounds easy enough," The Courier shrugged, "Whaddaya think, Dave?"
The Spartan nodded wordlessly.
"Then I guess it won't be a problem, seeing you two are so confident," The woman replied, then said, "You just have to find a vent and pop it... And then survive the explosion itself."
"There was a vent near the mainframe," Sam offered, "I can go, take a pop with a laser rifle and close the door."
"My armor can withstand the heat if something goes wrong," David replied, "Hand me the weapon. I'll go do it myself... Willow, you're staying here with them," before watching as the Courier retrieved the laser weapon from his pack and handed it to him. Sam then gave the man a thumbs up and mouthed a 'be careful' the Spartan gave an approving nod to. Stepping off, the man left the three women and one guy in the place.
"Your pal seems a bit uptight," Remarked Keely, "Never seen that armor before, either."
"Dave's fine, doc," He smirked, "A bit cold when you meet him, but he grows on ya."
"Sure," She waved it off, "Hmm... Looks like he accessed some of the records here and there, including the ones on this Terminal..."
"We did come poking around," Willow remarked, seemingly more at ease now that she knew the end of this little quest was in sight, "He wanted to read out some of the data you had on the place. Something did catch his eye, though... Something about a 'Big Empty' and some spores that the place got from there..." And the Ghoul woman hummed, then nodded.
"Yeah, that was a weird thing..." She replied, "Never thought the doctors here would mention it, but it seems they were either inert or... Too weak to do anything important..."
"Unless you count the Spore Carriers we've met," Lunette observed, pushing her glasses up, "The spores must've caused some form of mutation or something in the hosts that may have mistakenly inhaled them, then spread it around. Most I can say is speculation without being able to check out that 'Big Empty' place myself, but hey... Least we're dealing with them now, right?"
"Damn straight..." Keely replied just as the terminal wailed. She looked over to it as concern crossed the faces of the people to her left. She spoke, "Looks like your pal managed it... And the elevator's comin' up... Now, that leaves one more thing. The Data in this place has to be deleted, so this damn 'accident' doesn't happen again..." before going to access the mainframe via the Terminal.
Sam just now noticed she, too, had a Pip-Boy on her arm. He watched as she punched in the data, then crossed his arms as she said, "Huh... Weird... Says here the data's already been accessed and copied onto another device..." Before turning with a glare toward Sam, "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you, kid?" and receiving a nod.
"I do, doc... Hildern asked me to bring it back," He replied calmly.
"You saw what happened here, kid..." She stood up, glaring at him, "You want this to happen to an NCR Town?"
"No..." He replied, then sighed and said, "But here's the thing... All the data accumulated here includes the failures," before approaching the doctor. She stared, confused, as the Spartan walked in and the Courier continued, "Scientific discovery is born out of a combination of success and failure as we see in this Vault. This data could help people like Hildern, if they go to pursue this research, to not make the same damn mistakes as the Old World scientists."
Keely looked at him, somewhat surprised, while Lunette simply smiled at the man's observation. The Ghoulish doctor shook her head, then said, "That's fair enough... Go. Get it to him before he kills himself doing god-knows-what with the plants..." and stating, "I'll stay here for a bit to make sure everything's all in the clear, then I'll head for McCarran myself..."
"Alright... Take care, doc," Sam waved as he and the others departed.
Outside, Veronica and Cass were talking, while Cass was petting JT...
"Look," Veronica started, grinning, "All I'm saying is, objectively, Dandy Boy apples are way better than Salisbury steak..."
"Sweetheart, nothing goes better with Whiskey than a fucking Salisbury," Cass chuckled as she leaned back, watching the dog as it laid in her lap, with ED-E chirping along. The sun had risen while they were waiting, hanging out ahead of them in the form of a beautiful, if dusty sunrise, Cass explained, "Sure, if you're having the cheap shit I was having back at the Outpost bar? Sure, anything tastes like ass... But if you're lucky enough to find one of the good bottles? I'm talking one of the oooold brands, like Jack Daniel's? Finest trail meal you can ever have. Hence, Salisburies are superior."
"Sure, sure," Veronica chuckled, then she looked back to see the others stepping out of the place. She spoke, "You folks look more dusty than before... We headin' out?" She raised a brow. Sam nodded, watching as the two girls and the pup stood up, then he marked McCarran on his map and looked to David. The two nodded to one-another, before they set off, with Lunette and Willow joining in on the convoy, the latter a bit more shy...
One more good op under their belts.