"Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man."
Saturday, August 19, 2277
3:42 P.M.
The descent into Marigold Metro wasn't as trying as it could have been, but it was decidedly tense. Dr. Lesko's notes had mentioned that the ants were attracted to heat sources - at least they had been before they became heat sources. An ancient can of Sterno and its accompanying book of matches from the diner proved an able distraction, luring would-be attackers into ambush. By Julia's estimations, she had about enough fuel in the can to distract ten more groups of ants. It was also eating into her supply of matches, but there wasn't much for that. You can't light a fire if you're ant food.
These and other similarly cheerful thoughts chased each other around her head while she crept around the dank corridors. The once proud metro station was largely collapsed, with bits of ceiling lying atop long dormant train cars. Its retroclassical Art Deco fixtures were scattered around like toys, and a vague haze permeated the area. Incongruously, the old advertisement stands were still glowing brightly.
"Secure YOUR place in a Vault today!" one cajoled silently as Julia passed by.
If only, Mister Sign. she thought ruefully. If only. But noooo, Dad had to vanish and interrupt a very delicate power play.
She put a bullet into an ant and continued, scooping up the Sterno and going down the old escalator to the train platform.
I was supposed to bring sanity and self rule to the Vault! Not go chasing mutant ants through the damned metro rail!
She threw the Sterno a bit further than intended on the next toss, and it smacked against the wall. The ant still followed, but it was embarrassing.
"Easy, girl." she said to herself. "Gotta keep a cool head down here."
"Sound advice." said a somewhat nasal voice from behind her. "You never know what's creeping around here in the dark."
"...Doctor Lesko, I presume." Julia said, turning to face the voice once her heart stopped doing its best to start a Blue Man Group cover band.
A middle aged, balding man stood a short distance away, wearing a stained lab coat and holding a pistol at the ready. His posture wasn't threatening precisely, but it definitely implied that the good doctor was ready to defend himself if needed.
"You presume correctly." he said, gesturing with the gun. "Now, normally I would be more than happy to entertain visitors, but I've had a rather trying week. I am in the process of some delicate scientific experimentation in this station, and -"
"You mean the ants." Julia interrupted. "The ones that breathe fire?"
"They weren't supposed to breathe fire!" he exclaimed in deep frustration, beginning to pace. "They were supposed to get smaller! Every test, every simulation that I ran showed a decrease in size back to their purer, non-mutated form within seven months! They would finally be able to -"
He broke off, realizing he was ranting a bit. "But that's beside the point for now. This is the closest thing I have to an experimental area, and I can't have even more outside variables getting in. Please leave."
"Your 'experimental area' is an abandoned metro station filled with giant mutant ants." Julia noted with a raised eyebrow. "I hardly think my just being here would cause too much trouble."
She held up a hand, forestalling his next objection. "And, I'm actually here for a reason. I'm trying to put an end to the-" what was it Bryan called them again? AH- "-fire ants. Ideally before they burn down what's left of civilization. You're a man of science, Doctor. You know the value of peer review."
Lesko gave it a moment's thought, then shrugged. "You are the closest thing to a peer I'm likely to find anytime soon, and to be honest, I've got nothing to lose at the moment. Follow me, we should get out of the open. I have a subsidiary lab further inside."
-0-
Lesko's lab was in an old maintenance area - pre-war shelving covered many of the walls, and an antiquated RobCo terminal stood on a desk nearby. A well-used mattress lay bare in the corner, and various supplies were strewn around. The decor was rounded out by a large variety of scientific instruments, similar to the ones in his shack up above.
Lesko himself sagged into a chair by the desk, clearly more tired than he was letting on, and Julia leaned up against an adjacent wall.
"So," she asked casually. "What went wrong?"
"In short?" he said. "Everything." He gave a derisive snort and continued. "But to give specifics to that general answer, well. You know I was trying to alter the ants' genetic code to make them smaller again. But it's not quite that simple - genetics is as much an art than science. It's not like flipping a switch - there's a combination of factors that's hard to predict."
"Sure." Julia said. "Inherited traits are usually determined by a number of genes working in tandem rather than just one. Trying to tweak away one trait is like trying to solve four Rubik's cubes at once - and when you turn one side on one, all the others shift too."
"An apt analogy." the doctor said, chuckling despite himself. "Though I haven't seen a Rubik's cube since I left home. But yes, you seem to comprehend the basics of the problem well enough. That, plus two hundred year's worth of genetic degradation meant I had my work cut out for me. If normal genetic engineering is like solving four cubes at the same time, trying to work on these irradiated genes was like trying to do so while colorblind. I'm no slouch, but the problem was truly vexing."
"Which is where things went.. Weird, I'm supposing." Julia prompted.
"Quite." he continued. "There is a.. substance. An engineered virus that's immune to ionizing radiation and designed to be 'programmed', for lack of a better word, to work on specific organisms. To continue your metaphor, it would be like repainting the faces of the cubes to be only two colors instead of the usual six - still a tough problem, but several degrees less.. insane. It's a dangerous substance to work with - it can often create instability in experiments, and has quite a sordid history - but it's very potent. I brought some with me when I came here to use as a last resort - which I then did, of course. It seemed to be working fantastically at first - I could finally deliberately affect the genes of the samples that I was using. No more was I stumbling around blindly - I was actually making progress! Within a few months I had a full serum ready to use on my sample queen. That was a few days ago, and as you can see it did not go according to plan."
"What actually happened to the ants?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at the understatement of the decade. "Like, structurally. Fire-breathing isn't a trait that we've seen in nature before, even these days."
"My best hypothesis is that instead of targeting the abnormal growth genes, my genetic therapy instead altered the ants' venom sacs to create a highly flammable fluid instead of the usual substances." Lesko explained. "Their already oversized mandibles clicking against each other creates a spark, and thus when the venom is sprayed out, the effect is akin to a flamethrower. I call the process 'pyrosis'."
"Wait, you named it based on wordplay?" Julia asked incredulously.
"It's a process that creates burning based on expelling fluids from deep inside the body." Lesko sniffed defensively. "The medical term for 'heartburn' seemed appropriate under the circumstances."
"Whatever." she said, shrugging it off. "There are worse names canonized in the body of Science. What's our next move?"
The doctor sighed. "We'll have to eliminate all of the currently active pyrosis-capable subjects and repair the viral effects on my queen; I've almost managed to complete an antiserum that should counteract the genetic changes to her system, and there is a terminal inside the chamber that can trigger a toxin dispersal system that can eliminate the ants on the surface. It's quite harmless to humans, I assure you."
"Wait, if you can kill all the ants with the press of a button, then why haven't you?" she demanded.
"First and foremost, I needed to finish the antiserum first." he said, a slight edge in his voice. "The toxin dispersal system I set up requires some effort to reset, so using it before I can cut off the source of more pyrosis ants would be entirely futile. Secondly, there is a large number of ants between myself and the queen. I am a fair shot with a pistol, and well familiar with effective strategies for managing them, but even so I would likely be overwhelmed alone. I believe this endeavor will require both of us to succeed."
"Fair enough." Julia said, mollified. "Is there anything I can do to help in the meantime?"
"Go sit in the corner and don't bother me until I finish."
-0-
Sunday, August 20, 2277
5:30 A.M.
"Young miss? We're ready to go."
"Go'way Amata, 'm still tired." Julia mumbled, rolling over on the old mattress in the corner. This act, however, reminded her of her unfamiliar surroundings, and then subsequently what they were doing there.
"I beg your pardon?" Doctor Lesko asked, blinking owlishly at her from behind his thick glasses.
"Mmrgh. Nothing." she said, yawning. "How long was I asleep?"
"Assuming you fell asleep immediately after you stopped making sounds yesterday, approximately nine hours." he told her matter-of-factly. "A proper sleep cycle is important to one's mental health, you know, as well as your physical well being. You seemed exhausted."
"You're not the only one who's had a trying couple of days." she said, before changing the subject. "How's the antiserum coming along?"
If he minded the topic shift, he didn't show it. "I've just completed the final simulations now. The formula is synthesizing as we speak."
A quiet "ding" came out of one of the machines. "That'll be it now!" he said excitedly, removing a test tube from what looked like a centrifuge.
Julia summarized the plan while assembling her items and self in preparation to leave. "So we'll go down to the hatchery, killing the rest of the ants inside the cavern. How will we inject the serum into the queen? I can't imagine she'll just sit there and take it."
"My science robot will meet us at the cavern entrance once we get close enough." he explained, checking his pistol. "It's equipped with an injector for that exact reason. The ants can't detect robots, which is why I use it as a delivery mechanism."
"So we give the serum to the robot, clear out the caves, then hit the toxin failsafe?" she asked, confirming the plan.
"Indeed." Lesko nodded with a wry smile. "And then I get back to work on my Rubik's cubes, but properly this time."
"Why work with the ants in the first place?" Julia asked as they headed out the door. I already know part of the answer, but it would be nice to actually ask instead of relying on having read his diary. "I mean, obviously there's a need there, but why ants specifically?"
Lesko hesitated before answering. "It's a long story, and somewhat personal. My reasons seem strange even to myself, so I'm not sure how much use they'll be to you."
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want." she said sympathetically. "I was just curious."
"No, no, it would do me well to talk about it, I think." he said, sighing deeply. "It's been a long time anyway, I should talk to someone about it."
Julia nodded, and he began the story.
"It was almost thirty years ago now. I was living in the Commonwealth with my wife and our beautiful baby daughter..."
-0-
"...and so that's the story." he concluded, handing over the serum vial to his robot as they arrived at the entryway to the queen's nest. "A regular ant made an abnormally large impression on me during a dark chapter of my life, and that's led me here. I offer no excuses for how strange it all is, but it is what it is."
Julia pondered as they watched the robot trundled off. "I'm the last person who should judge someone for doing something for strange reasons, really." she said at last. "But I feel like even if your reasons are strange, your goals are still admirable. You're just trying to help people by helping out the ants. Who could fault that?"
"The residents of Grayditch." Lesko said darkly. "And poor Bryan Wilks. I may have begun this project with admirable intentions, but now look! I've become the stereotypical mad scientist unleashing his creations on an unsuspecting town. Just because I managed to eventually halt the damage doesn't mean that I should be forgiven."
"While it's true that you took some unorthodox steps in your research, you can hardly blame yourself for not predicting that the ants would spontaneously develop the ability to spew fire." Julia said consolingly. "How could you possibly have seen that coming? Tell me, what were the second and third most likely outcomes for the genetic treatment in your sims?"
"...32 percent likelihood of a null result, 28 percent likelihood of developing a different pigmentation." he admitted.
"So given the data at the time, could you have made a different decision?" she prodded. "Knowing everything that was at stake?"
"I should have accounted more thoroughly for the instability of the FEV!" he exclaimed. "I was so wrapped up in finally solving the problems that I allowed my optimistic estimates to have too much weight over the pessimistic ones."
He paused his stride for a moment, thoughtful. "..which still admittedly didn't include pyrosis. Even as a veteran geneticist, that outcome is just weird."
"So you became encouraged when your life's work started bearing fruits?" Julia said in mock outrage. "Shame! Shame upon you for being human!"
"I see your point, but people are still dead because of me." he said crossly as they arrived back at the lab.
"Which is why you're going to fix this mistake and avoid it in the future." she reminded him kindly. "Working on solving large, dangerous problems like this one is never going to be a safe job - which you well know. Seal off the metro station and use it as an actual isolated environment for the next batch of tests, and continue your work. If you manage to rid the world of giant ants, then many, many lives will be saved. And that's worthwhile, I think. Don't you?"
"Yes, you're right." he said, smiling once again. "I suppose I just needed to hear it from someone else. And finally talking about what happened with Anna and little Tanya has taken a weight off my shoulders - thank you for being a good listener."
"Anytime, Doc." she said, as he let out a sharp laugh. "What?"
"I just realized - you were right!" he said, grinning broadly. "I really did need some peer review!"
"Long live the scientific method." she intoned in a solemn tone, which was undermined somewhat by her matching grin. She approached the terminal and called up the toxin failsafe controls. "Would you care to do the honors, Doctor?"
Lesko approached the keyboard with a degree of gravitas - a man ready to cast off his past and enter the future with gusto.
"It would be my sincere pleasure."
-0-
Sunday, August 20, 2277
10:28 A.M.
Upon exiting Marigold Metro, Julia was immediately set upon by a particularly enthusiastic blur.
"WOW! Did you see that?" Bryan Wilks exclaimed, fibrillating with excitement. "The ants just stopped moving and fell over dead! Did you do that?"
"Partly." Julia admitted. "But Doctor Lesko did most of the work."
"I'll bet you kept the ants away from him before that though!" he insisted with the indomitable cheer of an eight year old. "You're the coolest!"
"That's true." she said, smirking a little. "But what about you? You can't stay here by yourself forever."
"Now that the town is safe again, I'm gonna go visit my aunt Vera." he chirped. "She always said if I had any trouble I should come see her, so that's just what I'm gonna do. Bye lady!"
And with that, he ran off.
"I- but. You?" she spluttered a little.
They always said that God looks after fools and small children. She thought, shaking her head. Hope he's still young enough to count as the latter. Then again, he's technically better at this wasteland business than I am. He's been at it longer.
Shaking herself out of her reverie, she started off in the general direction that Simms had pointed out the other day. Even if Dad isn't at the radio station anymore, I might be able to use it to send a signal to his Pip-Boy. That would save me a lot of walking. Speaking of..
She turned on her Pip-Boy's radio, and decided to just enjoy the music for a while. It would be a while before she got there, so why not?
A/N: I'm not dead! I was, however, distracted by Fallout 4 and an entire semester of the branch of witchcraft known as "trigonometry". Memorizing arcane symbols and spells left me a bit creatively drained. However, as promised, this is absolutely still a thing and will remain so for some time. We're in this for the long haul, folks.