Penelope sat in her lab examined a slide of bright green liquid through her microscope. FEV had always intrigued her, from the Institute's use of it in creating their synths based upon untainted human DNA to the remnants of the Master's barbarous "science" still walking the wastelands, all of it had peeked her curiosity in one way or another.
The specimen she was examining now though was by far more interesting than any she'd seen before. Her grandfather's unique variant of FEV held all of the versatile traits of its forebears of course, merging a sheath of hydrogen with gene editing that bypassed or overpowered the immune system of DNA not already inoculated by the air born strain of FEV. Yet the more she looked into the structure of her grandfather's FEV variant the more she was impressed. Not only had he somehow found a way to merge organic carbon molecules to the hydrogen sheath, resulting in a far sturdier and versatile virus, but he had also reorganized the structure of the virus itself.
Meaning that anything carbon based, exposed to previous FEV strains or radiation, could receive the full effects of the virus with none of the side effects associated with its past incarnations. She checked her terminal and smiled as the reports she was spying on came back with delicious affirmations. The Svalbard seed vault had been cracked open and the team was busy cataloging thousands if not millions of genetic maps. Everything from whales and cows to lizards and amoeba, soon enough she'd have every thing she'd ever need to perfect her own FEV strains, everything she'd need to change the world for the better.
"If the Master had access to this his Unity might have actually worked." She said as licked her lips. "The things I'm going to do with you little cuties will change the world, or several if Mr. Mordin's theories are anything to go on."
"You know, talking to yourself is kind of my thing."
Penelope looked up to see her father fiddling with vials of FEV samples.
"You aren't the only one who finds themselves a good spring board." She said, chuckling. "What brings you by? I thought you were getting your speech ready."
"Oh it's done." He said, rolling his eyes. "All it is is a pep talk and a reassurance I'm totally not mad about being sidelined. Easy stuff to fake, anyway, how's the work coming along?"
"Splendidly." Penelope said, happily making room for him as he saddled up next to her. "Your father's FEV strain might just be the purest and most useful variant since the original strains were created. The "blank" variety is quite possibly the key to universal genetic enhancement and correction. Even our resident alien doctor is fascinated by it, and believes that he can use it to cure something called the Genophage."
"Father, you have no idea the power that just one of these vials holds." Penelope continued. "If I can create variants of my own, based off genetic traits I've curated, there's no limit to what we can do with the biological form. A man can be reborn a woman and vice versa, super mutants can become human again, and we can improve the lives of every life on this planet."
"How's hope tasting?" He asked, grey eyes glittering.
"Like the finest wine." She said, smiling at him as she took his metal hand. "Thank you for all of this, and for the chance you've given me."
"You're welcome." Rex said, squeezing the daughter that wasn't quite his' hand in response. "Never let a good Craster go to waste is my motto."
"Speaking of." Penelope said, releasing his hand and retrieving a small self injecting hypo from her sample's vault. "I've finished examining the Nimrod formula, and I have to say it is quite something. If Roxanne's Andraste variant is anything like this its no wonder she's survived so much."
"Is that right?" Rex said, taking the hypo and examining it.
"Oh yes, not only will this express the more severe enhancements in your genome but it will basically act as a hyper enhanced stimpak." Penelope explained. "Considering the nature of the triggers within it, I suspect that your biology would merge with the mechanical augmentations keeping you alive, as the Master's once did. Essentially father, you'd be the first true hybrid of synthetic and organic physiology."
"If I doesn't kill me?" Rex asked, an eyebrow raised.
"There's also a chance of that I suppose, but betting on you to die has never paid out before so why start now?" She said, smirking at him.
"Not a year in New Vegas and she's already a gambler." Rex said, smiling. "Out of curiosity, what would it do to Tyrone?"
"Hm, I suppose it would enhance your already tweaked intellect and neurological performance." Penelope said, scratching her chin. "Honestly, it would condense and multiply the neural matrix that is your shared brain enhancing your cognitive ability by magnitudes. If your physical body did merge with your artificial augmentations, I suppose Tyrone could very easily merge with technology as well. Brings to mind thoughts of how the Master was merged with the computer systems of the vault he inhabited."
"And if I merged with the coils in my head that keep us connected?" Rex began.
"Then the two of you would technically become something akin to a walking super computer." Penelope finished, intrigued fire behind her eyes. "The coils are already highly advanced, artificial psionic connection through a quantum entangled transmission pair."
"Yes, I'm still astonished that Klein managed to fall ass backwards into fucking quantum entanglement." Rex said, rolling his eyes.
"Indeed, who knew what could be accomplished by an idiot with the brain power of a small army?" Penelope said, giggling. "Merge that with the template of your neural tissue stored within your DNA I suspect that it would create something we've never seen before."
"Ooh, add that to already being a genetic super soldier and I can make a living as a traveling freak." Rex said, chuckling before raising an eyebrow. "Penelope, if Mordin's thinking of using this to cure the genophage then could it be modified to treat an illness in say a Drell?"
"I suppose, with the blank strain we can modify to treat any number of illnesses in other species." She said. "The drell are the bird lizard looking ones, right?"
"Yes they are." Rex said. "And I happen to know a very sick Drell."
?
Veronica stood in the empty space that was the coffin, staring at the large window and the wall of dirt beyond it. She was fuming mad and had already dispatched every special ops unit the Mojave had at their disposal to hunt the renegade Asari down. Her techs were pouring through the teleporter logs trying to find just who teleported the aliens out of their custody and where they might have gone. Yet she knew that who ever was smart enough to do this was smart enough to cover their tracks, hell, Rex regularly used the teleportation matrix and the only reason Veronica knew about it was because he never bothered to hide it.
"Ma'am." An aide said appearing at her side. "We have a report from where the Asari craft are impounded, three guards were found dead and the ships' armories were stripped clean before an encrypted message was transmitted."
"So they went to one of the work platforms in orbit then." Veronica considered. "They would have needed space suits for that, get someone on tracking down where they would have gotten them and start tracing back any teleports in or out from the impound. And send out new orders, if any of these renegade Asari are found they're to be shot on sight. Maximum use of force authorized, no engagement beyond violent measures is to be taken, got it?"
"Yes Ma'am." The aide said. "The Newsmen are waiting for permission to bring the Courier into this. What should I tell them?"
"Rex doesn't need to know." Veronica said. "But just in case, double the guard around his home and monitor for any chatter that so much as mentions anyone in the Craster clan."
"Yes Ma'am." The aide said before departing for the teleporter only for someone else to teleport in.
"Veronica, you called?" Sylas Regier said, sauntering over to her like a concerned uncle.
"Yes Sylas." She said, turning to face him. "I need you to start making overtures into the other council members, who ever freed the Asari used council level clearance to access the matrix and then hide their tracks. I might be toxic to half of the council but most of them still respect you."
"Of course Veronica." He said, his old face melting in to a smile. "I'm always happy to help."
?
Shepard sat in a comfortable corner of a coffee shop just off the main strip. She was enjoying the newly implemented AC that fought back most of the Mojave's repressive heat and a drink that she was pretty sure was brewed with mutated coffee beans. All in all, it wasn't a bad day and the only thing that could have ruined her rare day off was Rex Craster appearing across from her with an unmarked parcel in his hands.
"Morning Rex." She said, eyeing the skinny man warily. "Long time no see."
"You don't look happy to see me." Rex said.
"Jack told me you're up to something." Shepard said, sipping her coffee. "And its my day off, a me day if you will."
"Oh I'm up to a lot of things, shadow wars and tipping the scales of power and all that." Rex said, sliding the parcel over to her. "How's Thane? Haven't seen him since our last meditation session."
"He's a bit under the weather but well enough." Shepard said, opening the parcel and finding a small vial of a yellow liquid inside. "What's this?"
"A respiratory drug that repairs the lungs through specialized stims allowing the lungs to take in oxygen more easily." Rex explained. "A pre war drug we're just now getting back into production, and one I want to treat Thane with."
"You what?" Shepard asked, dumbfounded by the declaration. "Rex, that's thoughtful of you but Thane's not human and all of the medical technology in my own universe could only delay his sickness."
"They didn't have FEV or my daughter." Rex said defiantly. "We're making strides with understanding my father's strain of FEV, and we believe that we can use it on other species, Drell included. Merging this drug with FEV tailored to a healthy Drell physiology and we can stop and even reverse Kepral's syndrome. Mordin's already looked over Penelope's theory and believes it has merit if you want a second opinion."
She looked at him for a long moment and then back down to the vial. If he was telling the truth, then she could buy a life time with him. A lifetime where she didn't have to guess which cough would send him into a fit or think about how she'd speak at his vigil.
"Why are you offering this?" She asked.
"Because you're my friend and so is Thane." Rex said. "And I want to ask something of you."
"Does my answer change if Thane gets this hypothetical medicine?" She asked, looking up into his eyes.
"Not at all, Thane will get the treatment the moment it's ready, regardless of your answer." Rex said.
"Good, so what do you need from me." Shepard asked.
"I want you to steal a corpse for me." Rex said, smiling at the confused look that came over her face.
?
"Any progress on the Securitron upgrade project?" Tyrone asked the assembled Think Tank before him.
In truth, he wasn't asking the Think Tank anything, rather the assembled aides and technicians that followed the blasted brain bots like ducklings. While the Think Tank's true intellect had been unshackled by Rex and Tyrone's efforts their actual effectiveness was hampered by centuries of being left alone with their infinitely looping thoughts.
He sometimes wondered if he would be better off as the nexus mind of his own version of the Calculator housed in Vault 0. The Think Tank gently lulled to sleep as he used their brains like secondary processors, drawing on their intellect without having to deal with their quirks. All of that brilliance focused through one mind, the memory and experience of some of pre war humanity's greatest geniuses at his disposal.
Should make a note to schedule another long range transmission to Vault 0. Tyrone thought to himself. The frothing little idiots are trying to whisk me away after all, and I wonder if I could prepare a cyber warfare suite to counter-
"THE PROJECT IS PROGRESSING AS PLANNED!" Klein shouted, twirling around like a spice rack. "THROUGH MY DEVIOUS MIND, THE SECURITRON'S CHASSIS HAS BEEN LIGHTENED BY THIRTY PERCENT AND THE NEW POWER SYSTEMS FROM THAT GETH THING ARE PERFORMING AT FIVE TIMES THE EFFICIENCY."
"Excellent Klein." Tyrone said, sending a small command through the interface strapped to his neurons increasing the pay for the technicians that helped Klein work. "I'd like to see the anti gravity turbines functioning sometime in the next month, the Securitrons are currently limited by their mobility. Increasing their range of movement alongside making them lighter will make them far more effective assets, especially if behavior finishes their void warfare suite."
They were preparing for war. Every resource within the Big Empty was being put towards finishing combat and logistics oriented projects. Most of it was on the books, Tyrone kept a very well maintained ledger after all, but there were other projects that only he, Arcade, and the hidden away Dr. Mobius knew existed. Let alone the details of what they actually were.
"Alright, everyone is dismissed." Tyrone said. "Return to your projects."
"Dr. Craster." His aide, a reprogrammed centurion said. "You have a communication from the Courier."
"Ah good." Tyrone said, accessing his internal message system letting the electrical pulses translate into text.
Tyrone, the plan's moving forward and Penelope has discovered some interesting fringe benefits from the Nimrod serum. I'd like you to start testing some brain cells with it and see what you can do.
[Bulk data transmission achieved]
[would you like to decrypt and decompress?]
[Y/N?]
Tyrone set the decryption programs to working on the files and shifted his perceptions to his private lab where a sample of the Nimrod serum sat in his sample vault. He set his small army of worker bots to task, retrieving samples of his body, well the brain housing both he and Rex's consciousnesses, to expose to the serum. As they went to work his mind drifted to archival records of the Master's archaic experiments in augmenting himself and others with his own strain of FEV. Though he and Rex differed in many ways, both had a bit of the mad scientist buried deep within them and the prospect of activating the enhancements locked in their genes was more than a bit tantalizing. As he was lost in thought considering that another prompt appeared:
Incoming transmission from [Vault 0 internal command, IFF: Calculator prime]
Activate encryption
[Y/N]
Tyrone accepted the transmission and felt the delightful surge of electrical energy that was his equivalent of a smile.
Tyrone: Greetings my friend, shall we play another game of chess?
?
Rex's fingers burned as he slid the last piece into the machine on his workbench. It was a specialized amped eezo core built into the heart of a kinetic multiplier/plasma lance hybrid, merging arcing tongues of plasma with the directed kinetic force of a literal freight train. From the reinforced sandalwood handle to the red and black metal trimming the hammer itself, the weapon was a work of art and hopefully a good start to an apology.
"What's that?" Alena asked, appearing at his side silently despite still walking with a crutch.
"You're going to give a romantic partner heart attacks one day if you keep that up." Rex said, chuckling before patting the modified super sledge. "I call it a Thunder Hammer, had an old Turbo sledge laying around and decided to amp it up a little. Lighter and easier to use then the old design and a hell of a lot more deadly, and once I added your spring coiling it's very portable too. Should make your Aunt Veronica very happy."
"I thought we were fighting with Aunt Veronica?" Alena asked as she looked over the weapon, drooling a little at the sight of it.
"That's the thing about Veronica and I." Rex explained pushing the hammer's schematics over to her. "Even when we're fighting, we're not."
"You enjoy being confusing, don't you?" She asked, her enhanced eyes drinking in every detail of the hammer.
"Guilty as charged." Rex said, smiling at her. "Wait until you start dating, then I'm going to be even more insufferable. How are you doing today? Feeling better?"
"Yes I am." Alena said, still half absorbed in tinkering with the power weapon. "My arm doesn't itch much today and I'm getting better at not crushing things with my metal fingers. Penelope's medicine is really helping."
"You're lucky kid, the anti rejection meds I was taking not a year ago sucked worse than your Aunt Roxanne's cooking." Rex said, wincing at the memory before he let out a sigh. "Actually, I've got something I want to tell you Alena."
"What is it father?" She asked, looking up with concern in her eyes from his change in tone.
"You and your class are going to be taking a trip" He said. "The Midwest Brotherhood has a wonderful retreat where they send their scribes, its all workshops and libraries and good food. Mrs. Smiley has been planning this for awhile now and thinks that it will be an amazing opportunity for you and your classmates. Your Aunt Roxanne and Penelope are all set to go as well, give you guys some girl time."
"For how long?" She asked, the suspicion only a mistreated child could affect darkening her face.
"Just a few weeks." He said, slowly kneeling down to look her in the eye. "Things are about to get very dangerous for everyone, war's coming and I don't know if my plan to avert the worst of it will work. I want you out of the way, all of you out of the way while it's going down. Alena, things are going to happen to me in the next few weeks, and I don't know if I can protect you while I'm dealing with them. With you out of the way, somewhere safe and with people I trust I can focus on doing what has to be done."
"Okay." Alena said after a moment of contemplation and sniffles. "If you want me to go father, I will."
"Well, that was easy." He said raising an eyebrow. "No protests or pleas?"
"When I was growing up in the village we'd get raided by other tribes or the ghouls who lived in north." She explained. "All of us kids would go to the ice caves where we stored our food and valuables to be safe. So I understand the concept, father."
"There I go expecting you to be as rebellious and thick headed as I was." He said, brushing a lock of hair out of her eyes. "Well with that out of the way, you wanna help your old man pick the tint of his new guns?"
"I get to pick?" She asked, her excitement at the opportunity pushing back some of the resignation.
"Yep, metal grey is getting kind of boring and your old man needs some color in his life." Rex said, slowly standing up and letting his daughter help him over to his gun workbench.
?
Marcus stood on the balcony of his room and looked out over the loosely packed homes and buildings that was his home, that was Jacobstown. In the years since the second battle for Hoover Dam it had grown with an influx of super mutants from across the Mojave and beyond. More barely sapient survivors of the Unity's later generations and scattered Nightkin came to find a place of rest and healing. Healing he oversaw thanks to the absolutely astonishing amount of resources the Courier had ear marked for the community. Mostly as a way to apologize for the fact they were excluded from the council of course, but Marcus understood his skinny friend's predicament.
With time and resources he and Dr Henry had treated most of the Nightkin that had come to their doors, and making sure those that were too far gone had a comfortable exile further up the mountain. All in all, it was a good life he'd built here in the mountains. His Super Mutants lived alongside a bustling population of ghouls and even a sizable population of humans so strange they could only live among mutants. Marcus himself had even accepted that after two centuries of grumbling he was turning out to like being a leader. Guiding his people, Super Mutant or otherwise, towards a brighter tomorrow.
"Marcus."
Marcus turned to see Keene in the doorway.
"Keene, how was the hunting trip?" Marcus asked, turning back to look over Jamestown and gesturing for the Nightkin to join him.
"It was acceptable." Keene said, joining him. "There is a nest of Deathclaws to the northeast, and Lily attempted to adopt one."
"Haha, we really need to get Rex out here to have tea before she brings one home." Marcus said.
"Yes, her condition has improved but she still has her quirks." Keene said, rolling his eyes. "But that is not why I came to speak to you. A human woman, reddish hair and smelling of antiseptic, has come calling for you. My Nightkin are agitated, she managed to sneak in here without alerting any of them."
"Seeing as no one's dead yet I'll take her request for a chat to heart." Marcus said, raising a bald eyebrow. "Reddish hair you said? Any chance she's related too-"
"Why yes I am." A feminine voice said, cutting him off.
He looked into his living room to see a young human woman standing there. She wore a sturdy set of traveling clothes, colored in whites and greys, and had an oversized doctor's bag resting on her hip. Two bluish grey eyes considered them both intelligently affecting the aloof I'm nothing you've dealt with before aura her father had a habit of wearing.
"Penelope Craster, doctor and genetic scientist extraordinaire at your service." The woman said, stepping forward to offer her hand. "You would be Marcus then, yes?"
"I am." He said, taking her nimble and tiny hand in his massive one as he nodded to Keen. "This is Keen, but I believe you two have already met."
"We have, no hard feelings I hope, Keene." She said, nodding to the Nightkin as Marcus released her hand. "I was taught a stealthy entrance is a well done entrance, something I think you can appreciate."
"The sentiment is appreciated but the action isn't." Keene said, somehow sounding even more cranky than he usually did as he turned to Marcus. "I am going to check on Tabitha and Davison, hopefully some of fresh game will fill their bellies and calm their minds."
"Good idea." Marcus said, patting the Nightkin on the shoulder as he walked away.
"My father was far too harsh in his recollections of him." Penelope said, turning back to look at Marcus after watching Keene exit.
"Your father met him at a stressful time in our lives." Marcus said, rolling his eyes. "Believe me when I say he used to be much more of an asshole. My friends aside, what brings you to our humble little community Ms. Craster?"
"I'd hardly call it humble." Penelope said, joining him on the balcony to consider the bustling community. "In just two years, not only have you built hydroponic farms big enough to supply Jacobstown but three other communities while also supplying all of the biologics needed for your chem factories. I'm also told you were one of the first to accept the wide use of the auto factories coming out of the Big Empty. Truth be told this is a model community, and the most of the Mojave is found lacking when compared to it."
"Truth drowned in flattery, reminds me of my days selling uranium to Vault City." Marcus said, chuckling. "Though I doubt you went through all the trouble of sneaking past the Nightkin to just compliment my city planning skills. What do you want?"
"Are you familiar with a pre-war company called West Tek?" Penelope asked.
"I've heard of it, but the Vault Dweller stripped its research facility clean of anything useful more than a two centuries ago." Marcus said, memories of the revelations that facility brought to the Master and the suicide it drove him to. "Then the proto NCR flooded the whole area with nuclear waste making the deadly radiation even more deadly, if I recall."
"You are correct, president Tandi made sure the heart of the Glow could never be reached again." Penelope said, nodding. "Mostly symbolic of course, the memory of the Unity was still fresh and destroying anything even remotely related earned her points with the pro human crowd."
"You've done your research." Marcus said.
"I have and in that research I've discovered something very valuable that the vault dweller left behind." Penelope explained. "Rather someone she left behind. In the heart of the facility is a super computer, the pinnacle of West Tek's research and computation division said to be fully sapient if the legends are anything to go by. A true A.I fully versed in not only the creation, application, and modification of FEV but also power armor energy weapons."
"You're interested in an old computer?" Marcus asked. "The computers and technology rolling out these days would no doubt trounce even that old relic's power."
"Yes they do, their raw processing power and utility is light years ahead of the ZAX 1.2 but I'm not interested in power." Penelope said, turning to look at Marcus. "I'm interested in its mind you see, tell me Marcus what does a computer do? It processes the information given to it, it runs simulations using said information, and through both of those actions creates solutions to problems our biological minds can only begin to understand. Now imagine a powerful computer given two hundred years, all of the data it could ever need about FEV, and no one to play chess with. Imagine what solutions it's created."
"You're working with FEV?" Marcus asked, a dark chuckle following the words. "If the Master couldn't perfect it then-"
"Marcus what if I told you that my grandfather using research from a pre-war off shoot of the Mariposa work with FEV had perfected it?" She asked cutting him off and holding up a high capacity holodisk up. "A pure completely safe variant of FEV, lacking the flaws of the strain that created you and your kin or the strain that infects most life in the wasteland. My grandfather created just such a strain and through it created my father and aunt, true super humans despite the taint of mutant FEV in their genetics."
Marcus looked at the holotape for a long moment. If this woman was telling the truth than that holotape contained the perfection of his creator's work and potential for his vision to be carried out. Not exactly as the Master had planned, two centuries living among the humans had eroded the edges off that desire, but in the holotape Marcus could see a future for his Super Mutant brothers and sisters. Hell, if it worked like she said it did, he saw a future for the ghouls and their rotting bodies, for the countless monsters and mutants roaming the wasteland's shadows.
"You want us to travel to the Glow and salvage Zax 1.2." He said, looking back to Penelope as his brain put together her request. "Why? While I'm sure its familiarity with FEV would be helpful no doubt your grandfather's work and the powerful tech being introduced would make up for not having it."
"It would but I want something off the books." Penelope said, stashing the holotape into a pocket. "I can acquire the miniature blue box computers needed upgrade its capabilities from my father's private stock, but the development of a truly advanced AI needed to do the work I want to do would raise too many questions. Blame my father, my birth father that is, for instilling in me a habit of grand plans."
"So you send a troop of relics off to retrieve another." Marcus said, nodding. "What's in it for us then?"
"Two things, children and intellect." Penelope said, holding up two fingers. "My grandfather mapped two complete human genomes, both male and female, and stripped them down so that it could act as a frame work to build off of. Using that to create a new strain of FEV, I could create treatments that reverse your strain's "correction" of your gametes. Restoring the proper information to reproduce while restoring traditional sexual characteristics, so you might brush up on the foreplay old boy."
"Children." Marcus said, his tone almost reverent. "You could give us the ability to have children?"
"Big beautiful Super Mutant babies." Penelope answered. "With the added benefit of the enhancement that gives my family line our increased intelligence and neural density. A trait that has produced three genius level intellects, in fact, with your larger brains I'd imagine the next generation would be veritable geniuses all around."
"And could this new strain be used to turn normal humans into a New Mutant?" Marcus asked, his entire world turning on its axis.
"Of course, so long as there was enough to perform a full transformation." Penelope said, smiling as she realized that he was going to agree.
"You do realize what this would mean, don't you?" Marcus asked. "Super Mutants would be free to breed and expand across the wastes, the Unity would be resurrected and once again threaten all of humanity."
"Oh it very well could." Penelope agreed extending her hand. "But that's why I'm offering this to you, Marcus. Look at what you've built here in Jacobstown, this is the true Unity Marcus, people of all breeds and races living together side by side. Two thousand souls living in the peace you maintain as they all work towards a better tomorrow. My father trusts you, hell I think he might even like you, and from what I've learned of your past and your present you deserve to try forging a future for your people."
"And all we need to do is bring you a computer?" He asked as he took her hand in his.
"Pretty cheap price to pay for a future, don't you think?" Penelope said, shaking his hand.
/