As the de facto force behind the 'throne' of the Minutemen, there is a great many things for you to do on a daily basis should you so choose. Luckily, you can and do delegate absolutely brutally, shoving the vast majority of these things onto the pile of 'Things For Somebody Else To Care About'.
All the same, you do still keep an eye on new developments, making Preston alarm you whenever anything out of the usual (read: Uninteresting) comes up. Such as in this case, with a request for aid coming to the Minutemen in the form of a simple trader usually operating more towards the East, but still connected like they usually are.
That this one is apparently wearing a vault suit with big yellow '81' printed on it is surely a coincidence considering the request in question.
Simply put, Vault 81 is blocked off by wreckage from your little wide-scale aerial scuffle with the Brotherhood of Steel, old news as that is, and they don't have any industrial equipment on hand to just move it to the side. Which, considering the vault's activities as a minor trade hub around the western wasteland, is kind of a problem for the inhabitants- they need that space so large caravans can make camp right in front of their entrance.
Normally you'd just have your robots prioritize the area and Preston extend an offer for a sort of partnership in preparation of your encroaching grip around the entirety of the Commonwealth arriving in full force, but as it is the whole thing is kind of attracting your attention for a simple reason.
It's a vault. It was built by a nefarious evil organization to capture human test subjects for a slew of experiments. And yet, according to what you're hearing, the people inside are both alive and neither horribly mutated nor bugfuck insane (no offense to Taylor).
This bears further investigation. And who knows, maybe you'll find something interesting in there- all the vaults you've pried open so far have contained new technology for you to analyze and steal.
Yes, it's only been two, but you can hope for a lucky streak.
So you go on ahead and leave the investigation of Boston's ruins for unusual raider activity for tomorrow instead of jumping right into it- not like you don't do something like that all the time anyway- and have yourself, along with a team of scavenger robots, teleported right on along.
It does bear mention, by the by, that the increased teleport range owed to that technology you took from ArcJet really does make your life a lot easier. It's just less fiddly machine adjustment between you and seamless movement from one place to the next.
Popping up out of nowhere, you're confronted with a scene kind of like Brockton Bay's downtown looked like after the E88 was done viciously blowing itself up, destroyed and distended metal lying scattered everywhere. The environment is a lot more 'dried out wilderness' than urban, of course, but the thought counts.
What's more important, however, is the closed vault door you can also see. Looks like you've found the correct pile of junk lying around, at least.
Finding yourself the speakers isn't particularly hard- it's a similar enough setup to Vault 111- and so when you press a button and get the Overseer of Vault 81 on the line, you already know how all of that works just fine.
It takes a little bit of talking to get them to (literally) open up, but before long you are speaking to the woman in the flesh amidst a backdrop of searing lasers being used to disassemble the blockage. From the sounds of it, it seems the vault has been running low on parts for the generator keeping it (also literally) alive for a while now, which was why the decision to open the vault up after generations living underground was made in the first place.
Trade to get the stuff they need, including food and water. They have hydroponics running down there, but they've been running for two centuries nonstop and, more importantly, their output is insufficient to feed the population as is, even before accounting for taste.
Which they can not guarantee.
In short, they sure were in a pickle before you arrived. Due to the massive blockage you indirectly caused. Hah, well, it happens and nobody's starved to death yet, have they? That's better than most can say after you've crossed them, accidentally or not.
Anyway, you inform the Overseer, a woman going by Gwen McNamara, that the Minutemen are a bit far, but might very well be open to trading with the vault directly if it wants to; it's not like Concord' ever turned anyone down as of yet.
Naturally, it isn't like you expect the vault to be producing much of anything by itself, pretty much everything it's been actively gaining in net worth has been by making advantageous deals with the traders coming by, buying and selling whatever they can do so at a profit. While it is saddening they aren't churning out, like, kelp rations or something (you remember something about kelp being well-suited for hydroponics), you can't exactly fault these people for doing what they can to stay alive- not everyone has your far superior capabilities on call, after all.
Anyway, the vault. Once you're down an elevator, the place holding two centuries' worth of farts within its halls lies before you, and you mean that, again, literally; the place has air filtering on as a matter of course, it has to, but even so the stink of living people has set into everything down here. Confined living quarters for several generations' worth of humans will do that.
Well, it's not as bad as you're making it out to be, but clearly the generator isn't the only thing in need of repair.
There's a couple of guys with guns out standing around, playing at being 'vault security', but for the most part the people down here are just civilians doing their jobs, some of which are looking more tired than others. As in, notably; it seems like there's been a lot of work for some people.
The vault is falling apart and none of these guys want that, obviously. There's a lot of psychological dependence on the safety Vault 81 has been granting these people for generations, to the point some seem to be actively shunning you as an outsider to it.
McNamara apologizes on account of the stares you're getting, but you're mostly just fascinated with the potential for psychological studies here. Oh, if only you cared enough to look deeper into it! This place has lasted without sunlight longer than Rapture did without descending into a bloody civil war, after all.
Still, none of this explains exactly what Vault Tec was planning with this place. It couldn't have been just putting a bunch of people into a vault and seeing what kind of society develops, right? They weren't that subtle, in your experience. Not by a long shot.
With no obvious signs either way, you'll have to either make inquiries with the locals or perhaps… investigate further. And you would say you have a passingly decent touch for machines…
The Overseer's office is much like any other room inside the vault, much as VaultTec may have made it a point to mark up the job's importance at every turn in all of the handful of manuals and instructions you've seen of the corporation's long-lost plan for how to run a bunch of human test labs.
There's an office desk and a big, bulky computer frame off to one side, but that's really just about it. No, what's much more important is one Gwen McNamara, the main occupant of this room, fiddling with the seamless zipper of her vault suit as she saunters towards her desk.
"So I don't suppose a strapping guy like you would have any interest in anything this boring old vault has to offer?" She asks, pointing back to your earlier conversation about trade you nudged her towards to avoid talking about the small army of robots outside.
Gotta choose topics carefully, after all. "Oh, I'm none too sure about material goods, but I'm sure we can… come to an agreement," you therefore suggest.
You know that look, after all.
"I am greatly appreciative of that outlook." Pushing herself backwards onto her desk, Overseer McNamara draws her vault suit's fastener all the way down onto her stomach- the suit's tightness still keeping both halves on her, the valley of her chest straining the material.
She isn't the biggest you've ever seen by a long shot, but she's got a nice pair on her, that's all you're saying.
In response, you shrug off your jacket and shirt, following her as she splays her legs out to beckon you in. She shrugs herself out of her suit, rolling it past her hips and letting you see just how soaked she is. "It's my fucking pleasure," you growl. "Someone sure is pent up."
It's in her scent, really.
"You're the first guy that hasn't started a conversation with me by whining in two months and I'm off of two all-nighters," the overseer admits with a fire in her eyes. "If I don't get it now, when will I?"
"Surefire logic," you agree with a nod, losing your pants and letting your cock free.
"Ohh…"
"I aim to please," you grin, interpreting her loud breath as approval.
Gripping her thighs, you dip your tip against her sex, already moist lips easily parting to embrace you. In a single stroke you shove over half of your length inside of her, McNamara's eyes going cross-eyed. Both her hands raking your back, she pulls you towards herself. "Don't stop now… !"
"Who said anything about stopping?"
It's always nice to know you're appreciated, you won't lie.
You fucking the Overseer is an open, fast and hard affair, nothing but raw sex applied repeatedly and thoroughly. You nail her on her desk, on her chair, against the wall, then you kick her blue bodysuit to the side and fuck her ass, too, the vaguely Irish woman cursing and howling up a storm just as she comes all over her office twice as hard as before.
Turns out she's into anal, after all. Huh, come to think of it, why is it that all of a sudden, you're meeting two women of Irish descent one after the other like this, first Cait, now her?
The universe is probably trying to tell you something. Too bad for it, but you're kind of busy testing Gwen's flexibility by pushing her legs against her body while filling her up as hard as she likes it.
By the end of things, you have one office thoroughly smelling of sex, one blissed-out Overseer draped across her desk and an old note you found inside of it once she lost any capacity for coherent thought. Apparently, there's an old terminal of a past Overseer with a password the in-house 'technician' couldn't crack.
As good a place to look for answers in as any other.
There's a guy in the basement ordering around a mostly stripped Mister Handy, the badly disassembled machine probably doing most of the maintenance work down here; the man, one Bobby De Luca, doesn't seem like he has any personal experience in this field, to say the least.
He's also looking kind of strung-out and his pupils don't track quite correctly, so you'll go out on a limb and assert he's probably on something. Oh, also, his hair style is just ridiculous, but you don't let that bother you.
Anyway, with him in charge of technical matters, it doesn't particularly surprise you the terminal of that past Overseer has never been cracked of its password protection; at the very least convincing him that you're here on behalf of the Overseer is child's play so you get to have a crack at it quickly enough.
Once you're on it and have some space for yourself, you take a moment to look at it. You could probably take it apart, plug it into a real computer in Vault 111 to brute-force the encryption and get at the data inside that way… But first off you'll have to try the classics, of course.
Looking under it, there's no password scribbled on the metal. Starting it up, you see the boot happening and the whole thing still functioning properly.
So you try the usual candidates- it's a five-digit code, so it can't be too hard to guess, right? '12345' isn't accepted, nor is 'asdfg', sadly.
… '54321'? That one works, actually.
Neat.
Welcome to ROBCO Industries (TM) Termlink
Welcome, Vault Overseer!
CONFIDENTIAL CONFIDENTIAL CONFIDENTIAL
OVERSEER EYES ONLY VIOLATION VTP-01011
By using this terminal, you are acknowledging that you are an authorized user or technician. Unauthorized users must cease reading and log out of this terminal immediately. Violators will be subject to civil and criminal penalties.
Luckily, you do not give the slightest fuck about this company possibly trying to sue you- if they wanted to be respected, they should've ensured they'd still exist by this point. As it is, you just tap enter and proceed to scan through the documents contained within this thing; it isn't like the technological base of this crap would be capable of anything more, really.
… Well, maybe you could program a few simple 8-bit games into a terminal or something. Nothing possibly comparable to IronCock, though.
Man, you loved working on that thing. It was a load of fun conceptualizing and creating that entire little world.
Anyway, looking through it, it seems Vault-Tec, as the company's proper name spells out, left a set of instructions for the overseer they meant to put in charge of this vault. To sum it up?
'Overseer Olivette' was meant to oversee the vault's front operations, keeping the civilian test subjects in line while they would be unknowingly subjected to a wide variety of pathogens and their cures in the search of better ways to heal various diseases, complete with a preinstalled system meant to incinerate the people inside and ensure no contamination with the outside population takes place.
That's it. This vault's whole purpose was to make people sick and see how they respond to various cures. Now what's baffling, of course, is how the place isn't some source of madness and horror filled with disfigured zombies seeking to infect all other living beings they can find.
Which was your spontaneous first thought upon reading this stuff, by the way. Like, from experience, that's kind of what you would've expected.
Hence you turn to a separate log of what turns out to be diary entries of Overseer Olivette. She didn't actually like her role in all of this- turns out not all people in lab coats were conscience-less sociopathic assholes before the bombs, after all- and only stayed in her position to sabotage Vault-Tec after it became clear to her blowing the whistle wouldn't work thanks to the company's connections to the Feds.
So she instead used the vault the way it was marketed: A shelter for the case of a nuclear apocalypse wherein people would be evacuated into to outlast the worst of the fallout before coming back to the surface. Calls for said evacuation thus never went out to the scientific staff so only three of them ended up showing up by sheer coincidence and, eventually, Olivette ended up just shutting off the vault-wide nozzle network and cutting communications.
Leaving the three guys inside a secret part of the vault to live out the rest of their lives amongst themselves with no real way to communicate with anyone outside. Happy fun stuff, but perhaps their lab would still be intact… And hey, you aren't saying no to more medical data to throw into your collection.
Naturally, these tales of a hidden vault within this vault interest you enough to go searching for it, which you do in the form of your own shadow simply to make it easier to move around without anyone the wiser. That and its ability to slip into and through any crack, no matter how slight.
You figure that would be useful when looking for any secret doors or whatever.
However, before you can really get to examining the vault's walls in depth, you notice something unusual; Bobby De Luca, the quote unquote 'engineer' of this place, has just moved somewhere you don't remember a door to be. At all. Rapidly snaking across the ceiling while avoiding the lights, you take a look around where he just disappeared past a wall.
Seemingly, that is. Closer inspection reveals that wall to contain a secret door leading onward past the rest of the vault. Bobby is currently busy frantically inhaling a dose of jet just behind it, a small stash of the stuff lying all around him. The little plastic containers filled with specially treated Brahmin dung (yes, you did make sure you knew how this literal crap is made) are stained with dirt, the entire area less a proper vault anymore and instead an earthy tunnel leading onward.
Transforming back to normal, you surprise Bobby by slapping a hand onto his shoulder, spontaneously stunning the obvious addict. "Make sure you don't OD on that stuff, yeah?"
Still in the midst of having his perceptions of time and relative distances shift wildly, he just babbles something behind you as you proceed. And it doesn't take long for you to reach entirely new areas, no human scent nor footprints left behind to indicate anyone has been here in centuries.
Of course then there's other things instead, but you can't have everything. The spirit of discovery remains unbothered by the colony of molerats you manage to stumble into.
As is normal, the things immediately attack without a single thought, the voices you can hear from them translating to 'kill, murder, eat'. As always, riveting to know more about these little wasteland creatures.
You also crush their little heads under your boots, for they are annoying.
Finally, after mauling all the notably salivating hairless vermin standing between you and whatever remains of the hidden vault, you find yourself searching long-abandoned stairs and hallways, steadily drawing near whatever is left of the vault's lab after all this time.
Until you stumble right into it, or rather, against it, a hermetically sealed door and a wide window marking the target of your little expedition into the mildly unknown. Said window is marked with age and, you believe, rodent teeth, but you're more concerned with the robot on its other side.
"Oh. A stranger," it says, speaking in a mild, but distinct French accent of all things. "Are you Vault-Tec security? I've waited so very patiently for you to arrive."
Well, when life gives you punches, you've always been of the opinion the best thing to do is to roll with them. "You could say that I am not no member of non-Vault-Tec security," you verbally fumble on purpose just to see what this robot's programming makes of it- you'll refer to this one as female on account of the voice until further notice.
"I see. I have been awaiting Vault-Tec security ever since my last recorded research task has been completed, as per protocol," she states with that distinctive voice; you don't think you've heard any other robot around using it. Which is curious, to say the least.
"Perhaps we could both close one eye and pretend?" You suggest with a wink and a smile, a finger hovering in front of your mouth. "I promise I won't tell, either."
"I believe we may have come to an agreement, monsieur…?" The door into the lab opens up as if by itself, sliding apart and admitting you inside.
"Gabriel, Gabriel Livsey. A pleasure to make your acquaintance," you introduce yourself.
"Monsieur Livsey… The pleasure is all mine? I am a Contagions Vulnerability Robotic Infirmary Engineer, or CVRIE. The human scientists call me Curie. Or more properly, they called me this when they were alive."
Curie, like the scientist's name? Quaint.
Anyway, you come inside, making note of the surroundings. It's a lab, geared towards biology if you're any authority on the matter, though the trio of lockers towards one corner acting as improvised graves is by far the most interesting thing right now- you can smell the corpse-dust when you pay attention to it.
Whoever they were, most likely the three scientists mentioned inside the old Overseer's terminal, they've been dead for a good long while.
"Once again, it is a pleasure to meet you, Curie," you repeat yourself. "I suppose you would be free to do whatever you need a member of security for, then."
"Indeed, monsieur," Curie says, bobbing up and down in the air a little bit. "Which is simply superb. I placed an emergency call so long ago, I was beginning to think something dreadful must've happened. I am pleased to report I completed my primary duties 83 years ago. Thousands of pathogens were grown in the mole rat hosts. Then a single broad spectrum cure was developed to treat them all. Very satisfying work for many decades. Now, however, I believe the time has come for me to be released from the lab."
So both a medical research assistant and kind of very good at what she does? Huh, if you didn't know any better she'd be perfect for your own purposes.
"Oh, what might you be aiming to do in that case?" You ask. "Not to put too fine a point on it, but the world outside of this vault is a tad… violent."
"Why, I must explore the world, find bastions of learning and men of science to exchange views with! Surely wherever there are people, some will inevitably seek to better themselves by understanding the world around them?"
You hold back a snort. People, actually trying to better themselves through self-improvement instead of just tearing everyone around themselves down? Like, it happens, you suppose, but not often enough to make that any really notable thing.
"Might I offer to help accommodate those aspirations then? I do happen to have a passing familiarity with the sciences and I would love to make further acquaintance with you, Madam Curie." With a slight bow, you lift one of her three robot arms, the one with the laser attachment, to brush your lips against it.
"Oh my!" If she was human or human-adjacent, she'd be fanning some air towards her face right now. "Perhaps I would not be opposed to such, Monsieur Livsey. Ah, but would you mind terribly if I took just a minute to pack up my research results? They might become useful at some point in the future."
"Right, that broad spectrum cure," you nod. "Would you mind explaining it functions a little closer? I confess, I am intrigued- a cure to all pathogens sounds incredibly fascinating."
"With pleasure, monsieur. This is-"
Yoshi overlap and analyze!
Uyehara Yoshiaki was unsure whether to scream or just defy all logic and hope for some alcoholic beverage to be available the next time he made a pass by the strange restaurant-style rooms he was familiar with.
"It's just… not fair. I spent my whole life trying to do good, you know, to help people and maybe make robots one day. But everything I ever did just ended up making things worse instead and this asshole out there is legitimately doing a better job of it than I am and he's the kind of monster that considers torture a good first step to research. How does that make any sense?!"
Indigo put a hand on his shoulder. "There, there, get it all out."
On his other side, Nolac munched on some of that popcorn Julianne somehow kept supplying steadily. "Eh, no idea how he'd even use this. No big deal, is it?"
"It's more about how Yoshi-kun tries and tries and never succeeds," the blue-haired scientist explain, setting him off again.
"I try to do some good science and automate as much industry as I can to advance humanity, but all I manage is to help build up a place that murders preteen clones by the tens of thousands and get killed, but he just goes, copies the technology from elsewhere and builds my dream on the backs of all the people he tortures and kills, just because he can!"
He slammed his fists onto the white desk, arms shivering.
It just wasn't fair.
"Eh, you'll get over it. Think about it, if it wasn't for that, we never would've met, right?" Nolac's hand landed opposite of Indigo's.
Uyehara just left it there. Brushing the mad doctor off didn't help anyway.
You smile at the liquid held securely within the flask. "I absolutely need to reproduce this stuff. Think of it, the one major cause of human death all throughout history is and always has been disease, but with this, we could entirely wipe it out within a given population in a generation or two!"
Cattle that doesn't ever get sick? Yes please!
"I see you appreciate the results of my research," Curie giggles in that robotic way- not actually giggling, but implying it with her tone of voice. "However, creating more of this panacea would require an advanced set of equipment and ingredients that-"
"Oh, we can think of something," you wave off her concerns. "I have fabricators for nearly everything already, it's only really a matter of time until we find sources for the raw materials. Anyway, let's go and get you to Sanctuary first of all, that's my base of operations, and I can introduce you to everyone."
Curie harrumphs momentarily, but still relents rather quickly. "Very well, Monsieur Livsey, I shall be looking forward to it."
Score.
Of course getting out of the vault involves incinerating the bodies of the escaped colony of infected molerats (infected with everything Curie could think of and then some, that is) and fiddling with the secret door, opening it in the middle of a couple of people that are down in the basement for some reason and generally just pointing them at Overseer McNamara if they have any problems with you taking a look around.
All in a day's work, however, and now you're outside the vault's shielding and within your teleport signal's range once again. The scrap outside has been cleaned up, too, just in time for you to finish your most immediate business here.
You may need to come back in a bit to discuss how to integrate Vault 81 into the greater whole that you are assembling in assimilating the Commonwealth- it is a sizable population center in itself, after all- but right now, you have some people work to do.
Your specialty.
Cait slowly woke up, confused for a moment- this wasn't her room in the CZ, what was going on? But then she remembered, her shaken skull still dully aching as she covered her eyes with a hand, the bright lights always stinging them after she got up.
Right, the Combat Zone had been raided (heh) and she'd changed employers because Tommy was off to do his thing somewhere else. There'd also been something about a magical chick just showing up and beating the crap out of Cait, which would explain why she was still feeling awful.
Or maybe it was just the drugs. Flexing her arms to test, she nodded. She'd been stimpacked, so it was definitely the drugs, the little things usually fixed this shit.
She pushed off the oft thing covering her body- shit she was in a bed and all- and struggled to her feet. The room around her was weird, all… clean and smooth and stuff. There wasn't any dust or debris covering it and everything looked unbroken.
"A-haa, it would seem you are awake, Miss Cait." A robot walked in, but not any kind she'd seen before. She eyed it suspiciously. "My name is Codsworth, I am the head butler of the estate you are finding yourself within. Also the only butler, but that merely means my position is quite secure. But where are my manners, please, follow me for some breakfast if you so please."
Cait looked out the window. It was still dark out. Then she shrugged. If anything free food would be welcome, but she'd check it for poison just in case. "Whatever."
The robot kept on babbling, but she was a little busy taking a look around. This entire place was unfamiliar, so she had assume-
"And this is Cait, a former cage fighter I picked up earlier. We can observe her now in her natural habitat, prowling in search of food." That was the guy she saw chatting it up with Tommy.
"Oh my. My scanners detect extensive deterioration of her body's functions. Perhaps she should see a doctor?" Some kinda female Mister Handy in white?
"Yes, I did notice, but she isn't dying in the next week or so. Should be enough to figure out a fix in time," the guy shrugged.
"Up yours too." Of course Cait gave both of them the finger.
"My, how rude!"
"Yes, quite." He was super smug about it too. Ugh.
"Look, I don't remember much, but someone said something about hiring me and I need food to 'function', alright? Mind if I just go get to that?"
She was getting her headaches earlier than usual… Because she was awake earlier than usual. Normally she was fighting all night and sleeping all day and shit.
Your continued experiments on the faux-human test subjects available within your inner world have born some further fruit- sure, a couple dozen of the souls you used will be feeling violently ill for a while, you have no idea how long, but once you got the recipe of your latest concoction down right, the luckier ones started feeling like they'd just eaten a full three-course meal!
A meal in a bottle. It's interesting, definitely, and has some definite potential considering all that you ended up needing was a bunch of water to cook it up. Just heat one part with the special tools, cool the other down using the same, then mix them both together again at the correct rate while stirring counterclockwise thrice, then clockwise twice steadily and repeatedly.
It's deceptively simple. That's what threw you off initially. Still, with this you can, while not necessarily turn water into wine, actually do one better than Jesus. Not many people can say that.
Of course you'll have to keep observing all your test subjects for a while until you're sure this potion has worn off, but for the time being? Complete success.
Then you put all of that aside to go look at how the work of your soul splinters is going, the Dollmaker and the Pitlord both hopefully at it and making progress.
Which… They are! You aren't quite sure what to make of the scene as you let go of the maid body that brought you to them, but they are.
A massive construction site, squirming, alive. The tottered old man that is the Dollmaker is wearing a hardhat, both on his own head and on the ones hanging on the harness stretching around his back. "Now don't'cha screw dis up, we need 'em shiftin' by two degrees exactley!" He shouts.
"Don't you tell me what to do old fogey, this is my wheelhouse!" The rough voice of the Pitlord answers from somewhere far above, actually not sounding slimy or like he's a five-year-old for a change.
"'s a foo-ken team effart, ya little fart," the oldest-looking among the Guardians inside your soul you know of mumbles to himself. "Now where'd Ah leave dem tachyon sensors? Baryon lances ain't nuffin' easy ta aim…"
You eye the mass of one-hundred people forcefully fused into a single whole, their suffering faces pressing out against the giant monstrosity's pink, almost newborn skin.
Yep, they're getting somewhere, you feel. You aren't sure where that is, but it is happening.
"Monsier Livsey, who might be this strange lost child in a lab coat outfit clearly too large?"
"Hey! I'm twice the scientist you are, weird french robot lady!"
Curie hadn't seen much of the outside world yet- teleportation was a wonderful tool to cut traveling short, which she had mixed feelings about- but for a first look, this Sanctuary, as the walled compound was called, was quite adequate for her needs. Several of the buildings were used for both storage and experimentation, though the majority was for housing and various functions of daily life.
Oh, it was so exciting! There was a sky above her sensors, plant life in the dry trees allowed to continue growing in beds of earth left in the concrete of the ground and a plethora of concepts and ideas she never would have thought of recorded in easily accessible data storage she was free to peruse.
It felt like the time she had yet to internalize all the knowledge programmed into her very existence yet. And whenever she was bored, she would be able to go out, albeit only protected by a phalanx of almost human-like robots. She felt like a rich family's young lady!
In fact, Monsieur Livsey's (or Gabriel's, as he'd insisted she call him) social status was still unclear to her, how he could afford to build and maintain a massive complex such as this, but she would find out in due time. Surely, modern sociology would prove to be just as interesting as that which she had been able to observe before the three scientists that had been the only people she had ever known had died to either Clyde or old age!
"Lemme down lemme down lemme down!"
"Curious… I do not believe your physical age matches your mental one. Quite the puzzling notion, oui?"
Most of the dedicated laboratories were buried underground, inside a former vault, she'd been told; Curie… did not like to be in vaults, she hypothesized, for she had been stuck inside of one without any aims of her own for the last 83 years. And even before this, seeing her creator and the others die one by one, slowly reduced to lying in bed powerlessly by old age (or being overwhelmed by molerats released by her poor darling, Clyde- he'd always been a smart one and the serum to enhance his intelligence had clearly worked a little too well, in hindsight) had been…
She may have been tempted to use the term 'traumatic', despite the paradox in applying it to the situation. A robot could not be traumatized in the same way a human could, but perhaps there was some similarity to be found in examining this notion all the same.
An entirely new field of robotics, robot psychology. She had never considered it before, but perhaps it was simply a matter of programming?
She would have to investigate in further detail.
"Don't go in that room! It's where I keep my personal stuff."
"Is that why it is labeled with a warning sign?"
"Well, duh. My personal stuff is danger- hey!"
"… My, why are there pictures of Monsieur Livsey all over the walls?"
Not that human psychology was any less interesting in itself. of course.
Still, Vault One-One-One, or One-Eleven, was as far from her experience of what a vault was like as it could be. For one, everything within it was much- wider, the rooms and hallways not reduced to the minimal space they could be allowed to take up and instead giving off the impression of something constructed not for strict efficiency in design, but rather… a space meant for something beyond the minimum.
A place to excel, from which to grow beyond present limitations. Or perhaps it was just her, truth be told. Her programming had been unreliable as of lately.
There were plants growing in some of the compartments, outside of a hydroponics lab! Mysterious growths that could in no way truly be as human as DNA testing had claimed and a series of facilities beyond anything Curie had thought to find in the outside world.
Gabriel truly was an astounding man of science, if he indeed did design all of these himself. All indications pointed towards 'yes' so far.
"Why won't you say his name normally?"
"I simply respect Monsieur Livsey too much to make casual use of his name."
"I think you just can't pronounce Gabriel right."
"Why, but I believe you are simply mistaken."
"Oh yeah?! Prove it then!"
"'Gabriel' is not that difficult to pronounce, dear Addison."
"… Okay, new rule, you aren't allowed to say names! They sound too sexy with a French accent!"
"Excusez-moi?"
"Everything sounds sexier in French. It's a rule of nature."
Curie was also feeling a little lost, however. There was so much to do… And no direction whatsoever. For the first time in her existence, she had free choice of what projects to pursue and what knowledge to seek, but without the all-encompassing directives she had been working with to date, she was unsure how to proceed.
Her processors ran hot as she contemplated. Her first step needed to be analyzing the data shared with her freely to incorporate it into her current understanding of the body of science, but which field to inspect first?
"Hey, look, I got a- hey! Hey, lemme down, lemme down!"
"I believe we have talked about this, young lady," Curie said patiently, knowing that Addison required a gentle touch. Including by the robot arms holding her above the ground. "You are not to create any self-replicating beings nor objects."
"I didn't even make this one! I just stole it while Nolac was busy with something." The short woman with the psychological profile o a scheming, unruly child held up a beetle the size of her own fist, metallic wings clattering uselessly against her hand. "Isn't it cool?"
"Whatever will I do with you…" Wait, did Curie not see something about artificial womb earlier while skimming over datastreams? Perhaps she should begin with the files on genetic engineering, after all. Any approach was promising to be interesting.
"Can I get down now?"
"Non. Not until we have seen Gabriel to talk about your behaviour."
"Aww… Traitor!"
The residents of Vault 81 had been used to the decade-long opening of the vault by this point, no matter how often Overseer McNamara found some of them bitching and moaning about it- and not always to themselves or each other, sadly. How some of them never got it in their heads that they all needed the outsiders to survive, not to mention thrive inside the vault, would remain a mystery for the ages.
But hey, McNamara had done a good job of it, she figured. The generator was still running, they were all still fed despite the small hydroponics space available to them and she'd finally found out where Bobby De Luca was taking his chems so they could get him off them properly.
The same incident had caused a handful of robots to appear when Gwen, without realizing it, had to have been a better lay than most, considering the results. She hadn't exactly planned to sleep with Gabriel in order to get results like these and a part of her was patently insulted, but on the other hand…
The generator was like new now. Better than new. It didn't need repairs anymore, instead running smoothly without any intervention at all. If Bobby wasn't losing his current job anyway, she'd have to reassign him somewhere else, but instead Gwen just went ahead and had someone take a look over the most vital piece of machinery inside the vault once a day and left it at that.
They were already starting to receive food deliveries, too, crates of edibles that just came for free with being part of the Minutemen. They didn't demand anything in exchange, as long as people kept to a few laws (no murder, no theft, no rape, which was horrifically easy enough to understand for how big an issue it seemed to be) anyone was entitled to at least feed themselves.
Gwen had no idea how that worked or where the tato supply was coming from, but she sure as hell wasn't complaining.
Then there was the new vault expansion, an apparent hidden vault sleeping within their midst for generations. If Bobby had a lick of sense, he'd have told someone about the secret door he'd found while avoiding doing his job instead of using it as a glorified drug stash, but now that it was safe and free, again thanks to Gabriel, they could see about using the space that didn't need anyone to come out of the vault's safe confines.
Things were looking up for Overseer McNamara. Now if only a certain someone hadn't pumped her full of… certain fluids and then wandered off without cleaning up! Not that she was innocent in that regard, but mopping her office clean and saving the notes that were still legible had been some damn exercise right there!
She figured he owed her another 'date' at least. Yes. And she'd put him in a janitor's…. No, he'd still look sexy inside one of those jumpsuits. Somehow.
Some people had all the luck, she supposed.
Addison may be pouting like the utterly unrepentant girl she was in spirit, if not in truth, but it was nevertheless Curie's part in this arrangement to bring her before Gabriel. Due process and punishment demanded as much.
What Curie had not necessarily been expecting was that, once the situation had been explained to the patriarch and acting judge of Sanctuary (at least she assumed as much), he would incinerate the proof she had brought (a sensible action, at least) and look down on the accused. Or rather, the following events.
"That sounds like you've been a bad girl, Cupcake," he enunciated, looming over her like the Sword of Damocles. "I told you very clearly not to mess around in the biology labs precisely because any single specimen escaping could be a catastrophe, didn't I?"
"You did?" She asked more than answered.
"I did," Gabriel affirmed. "And yet what do I have to hear about you doing?"
"I dunno…?" Addison trailed off, fiddling with her fingers instead of maintaining eye contact. "Messing around in the bio lab…?"
"That's exactly it. You did the exact thing I told you not to do. And do you know what, Cuppy? That sounds like you want to be punished." He grabbed the shorter female under her arms, lifting her in the air. "I should bend you over and spank you until you can't sit for a week straight."
"Noooo! No spankings!" Her arms and legs waving through the air, Addison tried to wiggle her way out of trouble, only to fail against the grip Gabriel's wide, strong hands kept on her, kept securely in position. "Anything but that!"
"The one at fault doesn't get to complain about the punishment!"
"Nuoooh! Nuoooh!"
The sheer desperation emanating from the pitiful girl (that was really a young woman) was growing palpable. "Perhaps a milder punishment is in order on account of the quick resolution of events?" Curie suggested, having kept her silence until this point. Corporal punishment surely couldn't be the solution, no?
"Well, I suppose we could be a little lenient," Gabriel smiled, as though to say he was expecting as much. "You hear that, Cupsip? You're getting off lightly this time."
The girl kept wiggling mid-air. "No spankings!" She celebrated, clearly in a joyous mood.
"You're still getting punished, don't get ahead of yourself," the master of the house rebuked. Easily rotating her mid-air, he caught her again by the ankles, her coat fluttering all around during the deceptively simple-looking maneuver.
Like an acrobat! Or perhaps a juggler, more specifically? She would need to ask if the man had an experience in-
Addison stretched out her hands, undoing Gabriel's pants. Curie was shocked, but even so he did not move to pull her away despite her misbehaviour. She watched one, visual receptors angling to see-
Oh. That was a rather large phallus. Gabriel adjusted Addison's height, the girl's hands on his organ holding fast and her mouth opening to such in the penis of rather prestigious size.
Why was there no material to compare its size against precisely? Curie had the world's greatest works of science programmed into her and all the references available inside the hidden vault, how could there be no base for the average dimensions of male anatomy among them?
It was… lewd and perverse, but even so Curie did not look away as Addison took the length of flesh deeper into her mouth, the display before her hypnotic in a way that she had never before experienced. She could see Addison's tongue, moving as though under its own power, crawling along the veiny shaft she was fellating and her throat almost widening under the pressure of the girth slowly pressing into it.
It was an utterly depraved act. It was also, Curie believed, a perfect opportunity to learn, especially once Gabriel began speaking again.
"The trick with Cuppy here," he explained, holding her upside down like a doll, "is that she misbehaves when she wants attention. As long as she's engrossed in something that has her busy, she'll be fine, but the moment she stops and realizes nobody is looking at her, she'll act up like a bratty child."
"Hn-gnh!"
"It's the truth and we all know it." Looking back up at Curie, he gave her a smirk and a wink. Conspiratory. "She just needs a little love like this to be reminded we all care, hm?"
Curie's processors were heating up to beyond safe levels. Her motherboard froze and needed to restart.
Addison, sweet little Addison, was greedily devouring Monsieur Livsey's penis, his sex engorged and slimy with her saliva. The flared head resurfaced, the throbbing organ exposed to the air for her to lavish kisses the kind reserved for one's lover upon it, never at any time fully leavingcontact with her lips.
She didn't take the opportunity to say anything. She just returned it into her mouth, head bobbing as her short black hair waved through the air in her upside down position.
Gabriel let go of her, then, the figure of Addison paradoxically remaining in place. "Just a little trick I've picked up over the years," he explained with another smirk, large and manly hands now roaming Addison's legs.
He proved himself dextrous, too, unlatching the girl's pants and pulling them up and off her, leaving her feet to wave in the air. Only a pair of pink panties and socks remained on her lower body as she was suspended by nothing but his penis; it looked unreal, as though a work of fiction, and yet no matter how often she checked it seemed to be the truth.
Then he pulled her undergarments off, too, revealing Addison's privates to the world. To her and to himself. He smiled as he grabbed her buttocks, kneading the small deposits of muscles and fat while pulling them towards himself.
"Our little Cupcup's a needy girl today, isn't she? Were you worried Curie might be trying to replace you?" A startling thought and not one Curie had considered- though she doubted its validity. For one, she simply lacked the parts necessary to do so. "Don't worry, we would never do that. You're a good girl, aren't you?"
Then, with a twinkle in his eyes, Monsieur Livsey did something Curie never would have anticipated; he gently, but firmly bent a thumb to finger and press into Addison's anus. The girl moaned and whined into the penis inside of her mouth, but only seemed to grow more aroused, for the sheen of fluid Curie could make out glistening against the room's light only intensified.
"Such a good, dirty little girl, right?" Gabriel's whispers were loud enough to drown out the entire world. "I'm going to fill you up. I'll pump your stomach full from both sides until my cum meets inside your stomach. Wouldn't you like that?"
This was scientifically unlikely, for in order for a fluid to do so it would need to travel-
Addison's tempo sped up, her rhythm abandoned in favor of wild, almost violent sucking on the fleshy rod she was so fixated upon. Her rear was still taking the same man's fingers, being stretched and prepared for what was to come and why was Curie feeling like her processors were at it again?
"I'm about to come." Her sensory templates shrunk until all that Curie was concentrating o was the slight thrust of Gabriel's hips, the short body held under his power and fellating him eagerly and his eyes, his deep, dark eyes full of desire directed at her for just a moment.
The moment it happened. He came with nary a sign but a slight growl, his ballsack shrinking as his seed was pouring out into Addison's throat, soon to land inside her stomach. He pulled it out briefly, heavy surges of the white fluid covering parts of her face, but she angrily sucked it all down again almost immediately.
Just how much was he producing? This could not be medically safe…
They all stayed like that. If Curie had a heartbeat, she would have counted it to measure the time. Her chronometer indicated it had been just under five seconds, but it had to be calibrated wrongly.
Then he leaned back, pulling Addison (who had briefly ceased breathing entirely to instead swallow) off his manly rod. "Ready for round two?"
The girl coughed, showing off an upside-down outstretched thumb. "Yes pleashe…"
Belatedly, Curie realized she must have been pleasured significantly. How? The mouth did not contain the nerves to- Her anus being worked over? How did that work?
Gabriel tossed her around again, catching Addison by her thighs as she came to hang in his grip. He took care to brush her coat aside, letting Curie see the widely spread, absolutely wet sex of the girl she'd been asked to look after, her legs spread wide enough she could even see the anal orifice twitching in the open air.
He was leaning her backwards against his wide chest, his also twitching member, still slick with Addison's saliva, hovering below her. Its size was imposing, almost intimidating compared to her slighter frame; Curie knew human bodies were quite resistant, but she had to doubt the possibility of it fitting inside of her.
Inspecting it further, it was a model penis, she suspected, if somewhat large. Straight, showing an average amount of veins best described as 'aesthetically pleasing' and with a wide tip, its color looking rather healthy, too. Curie had no comparison, but she believed if she had to judge it, she would say it was a good example of male anatomy indeed.
Then she realized he was coming towards her, Addison still cradled in his arms. "I still haven't forgotten who had to help clean up after you this time. You owe Curie an apology, don't you?"
"Yesh, shorry you had to help me be a good girl…" It seemed Monsieur Livsey had a point when he described the psychological components of his actions. Curie believed this was a rather effective method of education, in fact, if the eagerness with which Addison was behaving was any indication.
She also silently hovered closer, letting Addison's arms hug her main chassis. She did not feel like she was owed an apology, but she was quite happy to be included like this.
"Isn't this nice?" Gabriel mirrored her opinion. "Looks like you've been adopted into our weird little family already. Welcome aboard, Curie."
She could feel the shivering anticipation as he positioned himself, the girl holding onto Curie opening her mouth to gasp and moan freely. She could feel it penetrate her anus, Addison screaming in babbling notes as her behind was ravaged by the manhood of the man that had freed Curie.
She could feel as he pulled back, hands on Addison's hips to rut into her, none of his earlier tenderness remaining. All that was obvious to see was a blank, sweltering heat, an expression Curie had been intellectually aware of, but never thought she would be able to feel, least of all in such a manner.
"Do you like that? Do you like being fucked in the ass in front of someone you've known for an hour or two at most?" Gabriel whispered, never missing a beat. He was pumping, now, his hips, a brief look revealing a noticeable bulge on Addison's stomach moving in time with his thrusts.
This was not coitus, Curie thought. This was raw sex had not for the purpoe of reproduction, but simply to feel perverse pleasures of the flesh. And she was a participant in it, however distantly related as she analyzed what was happening entirely clinically.
"L-love iiit," Addison gasped, tears on her little face running next to her sloppy smile. "Love Cu-riiieh… !"
"That's right, and you love being my dirty little girl, too, don't you? Just like Riley, back home. And you also love it up your ass."
"Lone it anyyy- where! I love your cock anywhere!" She screamed.
"That's good, because I'm about to come inside you! Take all of it!" He handled her almost like a toy, but still played with her as he juggled her up and down the length of his sizable erection, Addison's glistening sex running over to lubricate it as it pistoned into her anus, stretched wide around it.
The penis plunged inside her bowels, releasing itself once again as Curie watched. A detached part of her wondered if it would be rude to observe closer through x-ray pictures, but as a white fluid began to leak around Monsieur Livsey's penis, she realized the reason why Addison and shuddering and twitching renewdly was her own climax.
Most intriguing. Few of the journals she had access to referred to anal sex and most glossed over it outright, but it seemed pleasurable for both male and female participants.
Gabriel wiped a strand of sweaty hair out of Addison's face, nuzzling her face with his own as she gasped for air. "You realize it'll take a lot more before it reaches your stomach? Especially with you leaking like that."
Addison froze. Then he started thrusting into her from below again, an ecstatic look spreading on her face. "Best, punishment, eveeeer!"
Most intriguing.
Also, Monsieur Livsey's body could not possibly produce this much semen. Addison's belly was positively swelling before he let her off with 'just a warning, this time'.
Curie still did not know whether he was overly harsh or indulgent. Perhaps it was both?
The substance Curie refers to as a 'panacea' is, in fact, pretty much that, you find yourself admitting after a few tests on hastily replicated versions of it, having promised her that you will take care of it.
It was a bit fiddly, but you only needed a tiny sample, really, in the end. You just went ahead and sized it up repeatedly inside a flesh sack situated inside one of your undead, one of the kind specifically tasked with reproducing fluids. This stuff would normally require sterile lab conditions to be created viably, but you just do your usual thing and skip all over that in a flash.
Your conclusion after playing at being an actual scientist and watching it under a microscope? Well, either Curie is secretly a witch and can do magic herself or she's found some way to create a substance that autonomously eradicates any pathogens it comes into contact with without also somehow damaging human cells, merely destroying viruses and bacteria that are not supposed to be where they are, by simply doing science.
Which brings you back to magic. Funny how that works.
Anyway, you have the theoretical recipe- Curie didn't mind sharing when you asked her, a little while after the whole Cupcake Buttfuck Incident. If pressed, you should be able to recreate it. Not that you intend needing to, of course.
That's what the undead mass producers are for.
You eye the barrel of panacea you have standing in the room. If you get it into a freezer, it should last for years before going bad.
You do, as always, have a lot of administrative work to do, much as you strive to avoid and delegate it at every corner. Without Sarah present, though, your entire business strategy is short its most proficient leadership position's influence.
And there's only so much work you can ask Nora to take care of, doubly so in her current condition, not to mention Kate would probably get violent with you if you tried to interrupt her vacation of wandering around the outskirts of Boston and leveling buildings with big-ass disintegration blasts at random.
Instead you made her look after Cait, who could stand to be kept busy by someone with experience in dealing with her particular brand of crazy; Kate has done many things in her life, but one of them certainly involves babysitting violent criminals that have a thing about drugs and adrenaline highs, which comes as close to summing the situation the ginger is in as it gets.
You may need to look into keeping her alive in the long term after her brain got a little too fried with long-term psycho-addiction and her body is kind of breaking down, but if anything she represents a great opportunity to look into the long-term health issues these drugs so prevalent on Earth Fallout cause. Not many actually use on her level and don't just die in a ditch, after all.
It's so much easier to look up statistics and studies on this kind of stuff when there's an actual internet to work with. You swear, it's a miracle this entire civilization didn't just collapse under its own weight due to the absence of humanity's perhaps greatest invention ever, right around the same level as guns and vaccines.
Not that the latter will remain terribly necessary with widespread use of panacea. Only issue would be to actually distribute the stuff in a way that puts all the power over it into your own hands, but hey, you can figure something out. Or just keep the stuff up your sleeves until such a time that you can simply pressure the world into doing your bidding and throw it to the humans like your table scraps.
Yes, you do enjoy the idea of world domination, how'd you know?
Anyway, today you're mostly occupying yourself using the data of the geological surveys supplied to you by the Institute to deploy a couple hundred of your robots to various promising locations you can have them board up as they dig down- there's a surprising amount of minerals to be had as long as you aren't too choosy on the amount you get or the quality thereof, both of which are the main reasons corporations didn't just mine the whole place to the ground before the nukes went off.
Well, that and the amount of bribes necessary to pull something like that so close to a major population center like Boston. Long story short, mining just wasn't really profitable back then.
Of course in your situation, that looks very different. You need as much resources as you can get to stockpile in case of another emergency situation and you just so happen to have a surplus of robots specifically made to dig into anything in sight and extract useful materials. Combine one with the other and, well… Your short-lived mining initiative back during one of your earlier visits to this dimension, when you were looking into this stuff but eventually refocused due to other priorities, is coming in handy.
You don't even need to design robots specifically for this because you already did.
All that truly remains now is to send out your little workers and wait for them to bring you what you want. Advanced enough robotics is the one field of science you can only describe as the gift that keeps on giving.
As opposed to using ADAM and, to a lesser extent, FEV. That stuff is more an art than a science, you feel, and you should know, being somewhat of a hobbyist artist yourself.
Nevertheless, your work is never done. Even and especially when you pretend going around essentially doing the same as Kate is work. Speaking of…
How could you possibly not join in on the fun your right-hand-woman (distinct from Sarah, of course, but still occupying that place) is having while all of this is going on? You may need to put a lot of time and attention into other things, but who could resist the joys of committing senseless destruction and violence in a place absolutely nobody is going to even complain about it?
Not you, for one. Sure, some would cry and scream about the inhumane brutality inherent in what you're doing and planning to do, but you're specifically going after raiders! Those barely even count as humans on a technicality, but that's the most that can be said about that.
Hence you don't just send Cait off with Kate and leave it at that, you're making this a group exercise. Because that's what kids like, right? You remember how the girls would always insist to be grouped with you back in high school, but you always chalked it up to them liking your serious attitude in finishing whatever tasks were assigned to your group before you started goofing around.
It's like destroying a village or something. First loot the valuables, then burn everything down and get drunk, in that sequence. You can claim some experience on that topic nowadays and so you shall shamelessly do so.
"This is gonna be great. Let's go and get into a fight!"
Kate's exclamation once you ask if she would mind yourself tagging along for fun is about what you expected, though Cait seems to be mildly taken aback. "Whoa there, usually I'm the one that's itching to kick some ass."
"Goes to show what you know about it, if you did you'd be doing it instead," Kate waves her off.
The former cage fighter of Irish descent squints at your lover. "Yeah, you keep saying that, but there's a reason your boytoy hired me."
Oh hey, how'd she know your old nickname? Everyone called you that way back when. Well, a lot of people. Same difference.
"He hired you because he felt like it," the second vampire you ever made snorts. "Now c'mon, let's go get to Boston and raise a little hell."
"Only a little?" You ask.
"If it was any more, I'm sure you would literally start to summon demons."
"Point." She does know how you tick by now. "Alright then, no time to waste, I guess."
With that, you send a teleportation request via your phone, one of the most deeply satisfying things you ever got a teleporter to do coming to the fore; acting like a smartphone app. It's just a great amount of fun, even if you do need to type around a bunch beforehand.
You disappear with a silent popping noise, experiencing the world as a flash of light while traversing time and space in the most direct manner you have found yourelf doing to date, reappearing with a quiet burst of air- somewhere in the northern reaches of the still standing ruins of Boston, that is.
"Whoa, wait, the fuck?!"
"We have teleporters. They teleport people. Try to keep up, will you?"
Cait frowns for a moment. "Man, you guys are fucking weird."
"You haven't seen how we do relationships yet," Kate grins, throwing an arm around the slightly shorter woman. "Lemme tell you, this womanizer here just can't keep it in his pants and sometimes whoever he stuck it into stays stuck to him until he comes back home."
"You can just tell her how we first met, you know?" Also, you resent being called a womanizer, okay? You're a manwhore at most.
Boston, as it turns out to exactly nobody's surprise, is running full with the kind of human scum you're after today. Kate is scowling against the sun pretty much constantly, but a few kisses and whispered promises are all it takes to keep her on task instead of, as she'd usually do this, messing around indoors and underground until the sun goes down.
Vampire and sunlight. That's just how it is, you suppose, no matter how much you poke at your spawn to sunbathe and just get used to it already. Maybe you should return to that old idea you had about covering yourself in liquid chocolate and lamenting how quickly it will melt under the rays of the sun… ?
No matter. What does matter is that you have your choice of juicy targets, your vampire senses for blood (and especially the blood of humans) letting you navigate Boston's ruins with ease.
Until you find your targets.
Your strategy in this little endeavour of yours is twofold; one, you are systematically hemming any raiders that you can find in, ensuring that they have only one way of escape. That being the direction you are waiting for them in. Two, brutally murderizing each and every one in a way that involves eating them, regardless of whether you or Kate do it.
In practice, this takes the shape of you using your magic to conjure ice blockades, your semblance to create your old favorites for situations like this, the chain demons, and of course your esper power to tear down walls and building parts to deny passage to anyone in a given area.
Kate, on the other hand, solves this problem like she does any other, with the use of a gun. Specifically, she fires icicles out of her variable gun shifted to machine gun mode, the projectiles growing in the air so they end up constructing barriers of their own across doors and windows.
"I'm kind of jealous, not gonna lie."
"You got all the crazy magic, let me be the gun wizard here. Gun witch?"
"Gun sorceress, maybe," you suggest. "Eh, doesn't really matter. You're still amazing anyway."
"Damn straight I am!"
Cait, standing off to the side a little awkwardly, points towards the apartment building you've just turned into a trap. Which is also currently on fire. "Don't wanna crash your little flirt lounge here, but we got company."
Ah, the food has arrived! And, really, it is kind of like takeout. "Each take half and Cait gets to fight one of them?" You ask.
"Sounds good. Also, you really should get my gun a grappling hook thingy."
"For you? Always." You reach out a hand, telekinesis plasmid distorting the air as you violently pull one of the ragged and only slightly roasted figures towards yourself. "Who could ever say no to you?"
"Ugh, figures. Magical monster employers and they're all mushy in the head."
"Don't knock it before you've tried it. You'd be surprised how far mushiness can get you," Kate teases the ginger with a smirk.
Cait, as it turns out, is surprisingly okay with the whole 'eating people' shtick, once more demonstrating that people on Earth Fallout are just a little… different. Well, you won't exactly complain about having to explain less things away, so you'll just enjoy the population's idiosyncrasies when they are to your advantage and roll with the punches, as per usual.
Meanwhile, you've made some great strides in culling Boston's population of raiders, repeating your simple trick across several places and buildings; most of them are loosely organized in small gangs of their kind, as bigger groups just tend to be picked off by the area's usual hazards (including other gangs) and there's only so much in food and drugs to rob from hapless travelers or settlers in a given area.
That still lets you net triple digits with just a little bit of work, all the while avoiding said other hazards. Nothing to be said against brutalizing and eating supermutants, but you're kind of concentrating on something here.
Also, human souls just taste better in general. The green mutants can go get fucked right now.
Anyway, having accumulated a very decent pile of dead bodies to be added to your stockpile back home (Moved through teleportation, because why would you do anything else with free access to this technology?), you eventually come to a momentary stop along your route going from west to east, having worked your way into the city one little massacre at a time.
The reason? Well…
"So there's one gang of raiders that's trying to gather all the others?" You ask, more for confirmation than anything else. It's not always eay to properly decipher these drugged-out minds and their memories. "Sounds like a lot of work with little point."
"Bets they're coming together to fuck with us?" Kate asks, having eaten raiders from the same groups as yourself.
"Pass, we're kind of the only thing really changing anything lately."
Cause and effect at work, ladies and gentlemen.
That said, while you do have a 'local' on hand… "Hey, Cait?"
"Mhm?" The young woman in question tears her eyes away from the building you just tore down by looking at it really hard, crushing it under its own weight. "Whassup?"
"The name 'Bosco' ring any bells?"
"Ugh, that's some really crazy raider boss somewhere to the east last I heard. He's sittin' in some old-ass school and raving at himself or something, why?"
"Sounds plausible he'd be behind this, then." Not that you had any real expectations or anything.
"Oh yeah, Cait, I've been meaning to ask," Kate interrupts your train of thought, "you want any powers of your own? Because my boy Gabe here can fix you up with some."
"Right, I've been meaning to get on the whole thralling thing," you nod along.
"… This ain't some kinda sex thing, right? Because just saying, but you'd need to buy me a few drinks before I agree to anything."
"Nah, this isn't that… Unless you make it, anyway." You shrug at her. "It's all your choice, of course, but I can get you some supernatural shit of your own. Low-stakes regeneration, reinforced body, a couple good tricks… You in or not?"
"Fuck it, yeah. Why not." Ah, someone knows they're breaking down and heard the word 'regeneration'… And knew what it meant, of course. Cait's got some hidden depths, you see. "Just, uh…"
Kate turns to you, smiling her satisfied smile. It's the one she usually reserves for her girls when they're actually doing their jobs instead of playing cards or smoking weed. "It'll take a bit, yeah? You think we should take a break, get back to that Basco or whatever later?"
"I mean, we could, I suppose." You gesture at nothing in particular. "It's all the same to me, really. Giving him a little time just means he's gathering more food for us, after all."
"Or you could have Taylor get him, too. The girl's crazy for opportunities to do what you want, you know," Kate says with a knowing smirk.
Well, she isn't wrong per se. And Taylor is your newest vampire and needs all the nutrients she can get, too…
Finding yourself a comfy enough place to get this done isn't too hard; you could just return to Sanctuary first, but there's no real reason to bother with that when Boston works just fine as is once the three of you move into an only partially blown-open building.
Just something to keep you off the open streets, yeah? If anything interrupts you, you can murder it quickly enough it won't make you start all over again.
Once everyone's got something to sit down on, you quickly slash open a little cut to let your blood flow a little, your control over it letting it stream through the air in defiance of gravity. "Here you go. Just need to drink this every now and then while I do the heavy lifting."
"Alright, I guess. Just, uh, aim it up here and- what're you doing?"
Kate, being her usual unflappable self, is throwing off her top, showing you just how little she's wearing underneath. That is, nothing, which you can understand well- when you're in your female form, you also do prefer to let your girls breathe.
Clothes are way too restrictive for boobs. They're a crime against boobkind everywhere.
"Gettin' comfortable, duh," your lover grins, sidling up against you. "This stuff is pretty boring, so 'course I'm gonna have some fun."
You let her cuddle into you as one of her hands finds its way down your pants, her simultaneously rough and careful fingers wrapping around your cock. "It's alright, I got some good control over this stuff."
"… You're kinda freaky, you know that?"
You'll just take that as a compliment. And despite her words and the blush on her face, Cait doesn't look away as both you and Kate lose a couple more clothes…
D.B. Technical High School. Once a place educating new generation in algebra and how to… play football, she supposed. Maybe it even had a track team, once upon a time, though if so Taylor couldn't see it anywhere no matter how many eyes she used. If it had existed once, it didn't do so anymore.
Same went for those new generations, at least this far out into Boston. All that remained within the campus in ruins now were raiders, dozens of men and women milling around aimlessly, some asleep in various corners, others beating each other up or taking drugs, whether by smoking, shooting up or snorting them.
And the bugs. The corners and cracks were teeming with chitinous, segmented bodies, insects filling the walls and swarming as their natures directed until he came within range.
For a brief moment, she was overcome with the overall comparison to Winslow. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same, after all. If anything, less of the raiders were sleeping the day away than students usually did.
Not that it made a difference now.
Taylor regimented her bugs, organizing them to act as her advance troops. She could have turned them into bigger, stronger creatures with her power, combining them into single beings of a much larger size, but all that would achieve would be to make them easier targets. No, her swarm would do the job just fine, especially as she found many of the thing her power could control to be capable enough of chewing through skin and into arteries when working as a group.
Spiders were webbing up strings, cockroaches were carrying other insects where they needed to be… And after only a few minutes of preparation, she was ready.
Taylor nodded.
The screams rose from inside the dilapidated classrooms, twenty-eight people realizing only far too late that they were surrounded. Their feet and hands were bound up with sticky strings of spider silk, most of the ambushes succeeding in one swoop, letting her bugs go to work. One by one, they went silent, several short, agonizing minutes spent being eaten open and bleeding out to the swarm feeding on their blood.
The swarms that were part of Taylor.
Their souls joined their blood, both filling her up, the meal proceeding without a hitch.
Of course due to the noise, the raiders underground came to investigate, leaving the basement Taylor was following through on. There was an opening, a derailed train crash leading to an easy access point the raiders, too, were using to move through a metro station.
Back inside the school, they were running headfirst into the traps Taylor had been preparing all along. Triplines, nets and hidden swarms massacred the rest of the raiders inside, finishing them all off by biting and eating into them until they could drain enough blood to kill them and take their souls.
Taylor was actually feeling pretty good about this one. Another easy victory using the tactics she'd honed against her previous targets.
Also in the basement, there was a swimming pool. Still full of long-stagnated water, chlorine a long-forgotten memory. Said water was also filled with bug larvae, some of which were swallowed by the man drinking from it for some reason.
He would have insects bursting into his lungs in short order. Just because they could.
Thus it was that Bosco's grand ambitions came to an end. He would be remembered for a week or two before the Commonwealth at large promptly moved on, his future reduced to being a puppet forevermore… A puppet with marginally more use than most, as his mental defects had led to him considering himself a great beast cowing all others before itself in such realistic detail he, himself, was convinced it had been true.
And sometimes, pure belief in something can make it true. It was how he became a leader among the psychopathic madmen he grew up among in the first place and it was how he would continue to be used.
You aren't sure whether you really want to know what the giant swarm of bugs dense enough to look like a solid black pillar stretching into the sky is about. Perhaps you just aren't meant to know. Or perhaps you don't care all that much, in the end.
Ah well, as long as she's having fun.
Playing around and chatting with everyone that's just hanging out in Sanctuary is as always a great way to spend a little of your time, though you also very much do keep up your usual quota of actual self-improvement; it's important to keep things like this up in the long term, else you just eventually slip up and become an immortal slob forever caught at one single level of power and ability.
And hey, steadily getting better at the things you do is what's gotten you this far. It can't be that bad of an approach given the results it's brought you.
Hence you don't just spend hours on end talking to Curie about science and your respective approaches to various problems and ideas; you get the impression she actually values human life, but more in an abstract sense and probably wouldn't be too annoyed if she found out about Vault 111's human contents. Still, it isn't exactly something you're eager to just shove into her face, so you'll just leave the reveal of these horrible, horrible people given a better purpose in the name of science for later.
Meanwhile, Nora has apparently been keeping busy just casually exploring the surroundings of Sanctuary, quietly using her shadow-based magic to move around rapidly even without the use of teleportation. She actually prefers doing it this way when she doesn't have any particular target to arrive at in mind, it lets her spy through the shadows on the way.. to an extent.
And you do get that. If only you had more time for leisurely activities like that yourself on a daily basis… Ah well, you just make sure Nora always has her weapon on her just case she needs to murder something and is aware that you demand she call upon you the moment anything even mildly dangerous or unusual comes up.
Telepathy is a thing and you absolutely refuse to risk even the slightest nick on her. You know your lovers can take care of themselves, more or less, but that doesn't mean you should allow carelessness or disregard for the weird shit that can just pop out behind any corner to invite disaster.
You also may or may not have spontaneously composed a short poem about how important her safety is to you on the spot just to express your opinions on this matter. Nora ended up shoving your face away from her, all the while smiling despite herself.
Mission accomplished, you'd like to say.
Still, you don't just goof around all night- much like you'd like to. In this case in particular, a call for something is coming in from the Institute, meaning that Shaun probably needs something.
And, well, he is extended family you don't despise, so you may as well hear him out, of course. Not that you have much in terms of extended family in the first place, but…
It's just a qualifying mention you prefer to make clear whenever you talk about any family you didn't find for yourself.
So. Good news is, it seems like the Institute does know who has been smuggling synths around the Commonwealth, getting them out of it easy reach. The bad news is, they don't have any idea how they've been stealing them from under its nose in the first place and so Shaun seems to have come to a conclusion.
That is, make you do all the work.
"They call themselves the Railroad," the elderly man in the usual lab coat down here (you think the Institute is underground, anyway) explains the issue to you. "They have been destroyed several times, but every time there seem to be more enemies of the Institute just waiting in the wings to inherit the mantle. This is their third and as of yet most problematic incarnation, in that the previous ones were eliminated by sending a few Coursers to wipe them out in one swoop."
"Let me guess, these ones actually learned from the demise of their predecessors, then?" You've heard about the Railroad, actually, just some of the usual rumours you pick up whenever you are near people that talk to each other. Extremely enhanced senses for the win, you suppose.
"Yes, quite. They seem to have embraced secrecy and well-targeted strikes against us," Shaun nods. "Not that it helps them considering the Institute at large has completely left the surface behind, depriving them of any targets to strike at."
"Leaving only the synths," you conclude.
"Leaving only the synths. If we truly want to cut all ties except you and your organization, this issue needs to be removed. The Railroad needs to be removed."
Hence he wants you to deal with it. All in the name of deepened cooperation.
You suppress a sigh. At the very least this will hopefully result in a good few meals for you. "Alright, tell me everything you know and we'll see what we can do."
The impression you get after listening to everything the Institute knows is that the Railroad is largely acting like a terrorist organization, operating in smaller, mutually independent cells that have their own objectives to complete individually.
There's dead drops, there's inconspicuous signs that mark them and whatever else an organization like this finds interesting, there's small teams of trained and surprisingly well-equipped operatives that seemingly always know where and when to strike… Honestly, the Railroad basically went 'how to annoy the Institute' and cranked everything they could think of up to eleven.
Not that the scientists in control of as many expendable synth fighters as they could want have been inactive, of course; several Railroad bases have been destroyed before and any identifiable synths are reclaimed and investigated.
Unfortunately, they somehow are capable of wiping their minds before releasing them into the wilds for some reason, which is one of the reasons the Institute is working with so very little information here.
"Alright, let's try the first thing that comes to mind. Find me the Institute's Railroad traitor." You wait a moment, seeking for the guiding nudge of your magic.
Which you do not receive. Looks like either this was too complicated of a thing for this spell to find or there isn't a traitor after all. Both are valid possibilities, unfortunately, so you're back to square one.
You look at Shaun, who is just looking back at you with a raised eyebrow. "Well, the easy way doesn't pan out, so I guess it's time for some old-fashioned detective work. I'll be back in hour or so."
With that, you turn yourself into your shadow, melting into a two-dimensional surface as you slide off your chair and out of his office.
So. What would Sarah do? Well, first she would be extremely pleased about a chance to play the detective, then she'd go through a list of anyone that might have means or a motive, obviously enough. How do you figure out who that applies to?
As it turns out, the Institute has a whole sub-department whose sole purpose is to keep track of synths and recover them in case they can be found after being lost, the Synth retention Bureau. Its acting director is easy enough to find once you use your magic to scan a few people's minds, letting you access him directly to do the same in greater depth.
Justin Ayo is an older guy with a bald spot that's won the fight for his head, stretching all the way to his forehead by now. He's effectively in charge of the Institute's security operations, coordinating Coursers and regular synths sent to the surface- and also extremely frustrated at the current state of affairs, as his department is being pretty much dissolved for all intents and purposes beyond a few basic things he's still supposed to keep track of- ensure there's a force of fighters on standby at all times, pretty much.
Without operating on the surface once this is taken care of, there's just not much point to his position as one of the leaders of the Institute, really.
That said, he is also an overall pushy and unpleasant person, you come to believe as you cling to the ceiling above him inside his office, having quietly cast your spell to look through his mind when he cleared his throat once. He genuinely feels wronged at how the other departments just don't prioritize his issues and requests for updates when they come up, growing angry and bitter over the slightest thing.
Which leads to him behaving like the jackass he is and everyone else disliking him, too, in turn fueling the cycle of dislike that workplaces so often end up representing. There's a reason you make it a point to resolve interpersonal conflicts and look into the needs and wants of your people whenever you have the time and inclination to- a positive work culture and environment are important to you and here you can once again see why.
Anyway, disregarding this guy just being kind of unpleasant, he is very well aware of the whole synth disappearance problem and has his own thoughts on who could be behind it. The director of the robotics department, that is, one Doctor Alan Binet.
It's your best lead for now and despite Ayo's obvious prejudice in this matter, you do agree with the reasoning inside his head; Binet has the means it would take to arrange for something like this, being part of the Directorate and directly involved in synth development due to his position, as well as the means, what with being a well-known advocate for synth rights and even having a surrogate synth wife after his 'real' one died and all.
You're saying this a lot more politely than how Ayo thought about him, by the way.
Well, the Robotic department remains easy enough to infiltrate and search, including a quick look through Binet's work terminal, though the Institute has been making strides in actually making it a proper computer instead of the deplorable level of digital tech they used to have. And indeed, it looks like someone's been secretly logging in through his home terminal itself… Which does kind of speak against him being the culprit himself.
These people have no concept of cyber-security. Nothing would have stopped him from just doing whatever he would have done directly while at work, after all.
Hence you go ahead and investigate his family, that being his son and synth 'wife'… And bingo, you actually get what you're looking for once you manage to stumble over both of them.
Discovery one, the synth named 'Eve' is actually part of this little family unit instead of a glorified sex toy, having developed feelings for both Alan and Liam, his son. She knows she can't ever replace his real mother, but she has motherly feelings and stuff for him all the same. Which is neat, you suppose, though it doesn't really change your understanding of synths, they're just people and shit.
Discovery two, Liam Binet is the one you've been after, the young man having been influenced by his father's thoughts and values as well as the love he returns for his adoptive mother to the point he's basically smuggling synths outside via teleporting them through his father's remote-controlled terminal.
And discovery number three, Eve knows and has been basically covering his tracks, which is the reason nobody's found out about him yet. Most of the scientists still consider her as just a machine and largely ignore her and all, which strikes you as mildly stupid, but hey, they do them.
Shaun is still inside his office by the time you swing back around, working at one thing or another. It doesn't really matter.
What does matter is that you actually go out of your way to walk in like a normal person for once. "Hey Shaun, I found your leak. Thought you'd like to have some input on how to plug it."
The Institute's leader sighs, tapping in two more keystrokes before he turns towards you. "Very well, if we must. So who was it?"
"Robotics' director's son. Turns out he grew an oversized conscience and got his replacement synth mother to help him."
"It seems that particular social experiment will have to be cut short, then," Shaun muses to himself. "Very well, I assume there is solid proof just in case? My position does allow me to just punish any one member at whim, but I would prefer to have something solid to act on."
"Have someone log into Alan's work account through his home terminal and the logs will do the rest. He himself never uses it for work."
"Good enough, I suppose." If you didn't know any better, you'd suspect Shaun just genuinely doesn't care about this whole affair. Instead, you know he cares a little bit, but only insofar as he needs this taken care of to continue the Institute' course. "The boy will need to be exiled, of course, and the synth wiped and repurposed. I don't suppose you would be interested in knowing about the location he will be teleported to?"
"Why," you smile, "I am of the firm opinion that food shouldn't be wasted needlessly. Where do I need to go?"
"Please, you don't have to do this!"
"Oh, but I want to."
"AAAAaargh!"
The scream cuts out into short, gurgling sound, a lethal bite administered to the throat that was making it.
Turns out pacifism only gets you so far in the face of someone that is decidedly more violent than you can take. Thus it came that Liam Benet died, torn apart inside a crappy, dirty building filled with rubble and trash.
Some may consider it an unfitting end for the young man that had risked life and limb to bring those born into bondage that goes deeper than mere physical chains into freedom. Others may claim that it was more than fitting indeed, in comparison.
And others yet would say that it sucks to be him and move on. As the world always does.
With everything on the Institute's end tied up neatly, you decide to prosecute your little cleanup all the way to the rest of the Railroad, your newly acquired soul being forcefully settled within the background of your inner world. It's always nice to add a little extra to your research team and all, especially when they're the type to abhor violence and direct conflict.
It adds a little extra irony to what you inevitably make them do and help you with.
Anyway, next you need to figure out where, exactly, the Railroad people are hiding- and with any luck you'll actually hit someone important in their chain of command and can call it a day. While you could just hunt them all down to the last, doing so would take you far too much time relative to the use you'd get out of it.
Naturally, you'll need a reliable people detector for this. Your own senses tend to grow unreliable after a city block or two's worth of distance, simply because blood signatures eventually start to grow confusing and hard to see when enough of them are in the way, hence the additional help you require to do this effectively.
In the form of Taylor. Who you carry on your back.
She's clinging to you tightly as the two of you make your way through Boston, occasionally fidgeting a little. Her body is a study in opposites, soft and hard in all the right places. Turns out vampirism has given Taylor more than just boobs, she's also in possession of a very appealing shape in general.
"You okay back there? I can shift you around a bit if you want," you offer, squeezing the pair of thighs you're holding onto to keep her in position.
"No, this is fine."
Well, alright. If she's good, she's good.
The search for the Railroad is a lot easier than you'd initially feared, however; canvassing the first population center you can think of, Diamond City, get you everything you need, in fact. Apparently, people are just telling each other that to find the Railroad people have to follow the Freedom Trail.
Which is known to you. It's essentially a trail laid with red bricks, it's around in Boston too and leads along a couple of historical landmarks across the city. Neither you nor Taylor are particularly challenged by this walk, as pretty much nothing that would actually oppose you seems to be around tonight.
In fact… "Hey Taylor, are you killing anything that would make us stop ahead of time?"
"… Yes."
"I see."
Her chin is nuzzling into your shoulder and her legs, wrapped around your waist from behind, squeeze you once. Taylor can't help herself but be really cute, can she?
You reach back to stroke her side without breaking your stride.
As you find your way to the trail laid out, red brick in the ground showing you the way, you soon also come upon a few signs painted on those landmarks the route leads you along; red circles around letters and numbers. '4L', '6O'… The menaing is obvious, of course.
"It can't be this easy. They are literally spelling out 'RAILROAD' with these," Taylor complains.
"Hey, they have to work with what they've got and most people around here just aren't terribly booksmart. I mean, not everyone can read at all," you shrug. Carefully to avoid jostling her too badly, of course. "They did somehow crack the unnecessarily complicated code their Institute cooperator was using in the synths he just kind of teleported out into nowhere, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt about this."
She grumbles a little more, but settles down after this.
All the way you go until, after a mild hiccup while Taylor's hair got attacked by flying debris you had to dodge (you'd think newspapers would have decayed to nothing by now, but here you are), you finally arrive in front of an old church, still notably intact. Inside you can see the signatures of ghouls, lying still and ready to maul anyone coming near… And underground, there's a bunch of people moving around, actually healthy and active and stuff. Seven in total.
It would seem, then, as though you have found the place the rumours were pointing you toward.
Coming inside, you find that the ghouls are already being eaten alive by swarms of bugs silently covering them, their deteriorated sense of pain and state of mind leaving them to just keep on lying where they are and die. You and Taylor head downstairs silently, yourself hopping down a hole in the middle of the church floor to reach the basement, with you suppose would lead to the local catacombs.
Once underground, you don't take long to scope out the brick tunnels, their cramped and damp interior not particularly bothersome to you. If anything, they're kind of homey, which is probably just your vampire instincts speaking again.
And lo and behold, you soon come upon a conspicuous sign painted on a wall down there in the dark space under the church, fresh compared to everything else around this place. This has to be the right address.
There's a mechanism on the wall, with wheels that look like they could be spun and letters on them.
"Is this really it?"
"Looks like it. So… Do they just want us to spell out 'Railroad' on this or what?" Because if so, that would be pretty stupid.
Oh, and apparently you've been noticed, three of the people inside approaching the supposed entrance to their 'secret' hideout. You won't gainsay that the whole secret entrance in a ghoul-infested old church requiring a secret code to unlock, but did they really just spell that codeword out in the easily visible and accessible literal red brick road leading to said hideout?
Taylor may have been right, that would be too easy.
"… Let me do this," your vampiric companion asks, her head poking over your shoulder now. She's really taken to riding your back, hasn't she? Undead endurance and constitution combined with enhanced strength is great for stuff like this, you suppose. "We can just stay here and make out instead."
Her arms, hitherto wrapped around your chest, slip under your clothes, letting her explore your body once again. Another thing she kind of likes, isn't it?
"Mhm, is that how it is?" You ask, a teasing tone to your voice. You consider the logistics of things for a moment even as you can see the people beyond the wall realizing they're under attack, presumably due to Taylor getting impatient and attacking straight away.
She really is a handful sometimes, isn't she? Mostly by way of over-enthusiasm, though, so you can't help but find it cute.
Grabbing her by the side of her hips, you whirl Taylor around, her grip on you loosening up enough you can just rotate her around your torso. All of a sudden, you have to hold her up by her butt, kneading it lightly as you press her against one of the walls, leaning in to kiss her without further ado.
She melts into your touch, fingernails raking along your back and thighs tensing to pull you ever closer. The two of you don't bother disguising anything about what you're doing; she's only pulling back from the heated makeout session you've got going on for long enough to claw your clothes off, hungry hands tracing the shape of your body almost desperately.
You know, you'd like to say doing this under a church right next to some ancient catacombs makes this the weirdest place you've ever gotten frisky inside of, but that's just really far from the truth. Not even in your top five, now that you think about it.
You gaze deep into Taylor's eyes, the only part of her face you've found to be consistently expressive. Even if she can hold herself back from smiling widely, her eyes always tell you what she's feeling, even if you need to get a little creative about interpreting them.
You have a theory it's because she always tells you how she's feeling through her eyes. Just your and Taylor's unspoken little secret.
Right now, all you see in her eyes is the desire to be with you. To be close to you. A close as possible and closer still.
Neither of you think as your minds begin to overlap, pushing against and into each other like two circles that overlap and begin to occupy the same space. You can feel each other now, every thought, every twitch.
You only do this with your wives. Your vampire brides. And it is with this thought in mind that you kiss Taylor again, claiming her lips and her body and her soul all in one.
Her clothes are just pushed aside, almost sliding off her the moment she doesn't want to actively keep them on anymore, letting you confirm what you were already thinking; she's wet and eager, shivering in anticipation as you caress her sex and slide two fingers inside her, parting her other pair of lips and massaging her from inside.
Tight and hot as always. Your little Taylor is just too cute.
"Put it in already… !" She mewls, coming up for the air to speak. She is unforgivably cute, in fact. Illegally cute.
Her hand dart down to literally tear your pants apart, your hard cock bouncing up and immediately beset by a cute girl's grab as she gently pulls it toward herself.
So cute only you are allowed to touch her.
You dip down to kiss her neck, your lips wandering along the contours of her body just to tease her and play with her a little while more. A quick glance confirms that none of the people in the other room are likely to interrupt you, despite the sounds of explosions and gunfire you can more feel than hear through the wall.
Two hands on your head interrupt you, pulling your face back to focus on Taylor. She isn't doing or saying anything, but you can feel the mild discontent through your mental bond.
So cute. Makes you just want to tease her even more.
However, before you can do so, Taylor starts pouting and thinking violent thoughts, so you just chuckle and position yourself, feeling her cool body against your own.
Taylor takes you in easily, her slick walls wrapping around your cock tightly the moment you push it in. She's shuddering, a mix of pleasure, gratefulness and deep, abiding happiness deep inside her mind and as you complete your first, almost languid stroke, you can feel through her thoughts how the first bloodbugs form from the bodies of their lessers to decisively murder the Railroad people still surprisingly alive somehow.
You wordlessly fuck Taylor, every full push filling her as far as she can be signaling another giant arthropod's creation. You're groping and teasing her body, neither of your lips or eyes leaving the other's- her pale skin and supple flesh are enough to lose yourself in if you aren't careful.
Vampires are fucking sexy, just to make that statement clearly and plainly. It needs to be said at some point.
You can feel Taylor actively teasing out the deaths of her victims, not allowing any of them to die easily as you rail her against the wall, your bodies entwined tightly and winding in mutual pleasure. It isn't long before she comes, your accelerating speed enough to push her over the edge in short order, and just like that one of the people belonging to the Railroad dies.
Your mission now clear, you grin and growl into your kiss. Then you play with her breasts, just slightly more sizable than before she became a vampire, pinching her nipples and beaming thoughts of suckling and nibbling on them into her mind.
Time to literally fuck a bunch of people to death. Your job has never been this much fun.
You lean over Taylor's outstretched body, going from the curve of her back all the way up to her shoulders and arms currently holding her up where she's bracing herself against the wall. Bending down, you give her one last kiss, the girl's head following your movement as eagerly as her whole body is pushing back against you whenever you hammer into her.
If you were to have decided to get her pregnant, you're pretty sure she would be now. There's fluids all over the dinky grave basement walls. "We should probably leave it at this," you whisper.
Taylor stills, her pleasant shivering ceasing for the first time in two hours. Then she sighs, looking down and letting her hair dip down, the long dark locks swaying with every movement. "You're right."
"Mhm, with the whole 'never tiring' thing it'd be easy to just get caught up and do nothing else for days on end," you comment, regretfully withdrawing yourself from her nubile form. "But the advantages of never aging mean we can just have as much sex as we want, it's all just a matter of time."
She doesn't say anything as he pushes herself upright, a layer of bugs swarming around you to gather onto her discarded clothes. You still can hear the faux-petulant 'but I want it now' anyway.
The mental connection between the two of you persists so Taylor knows you do, too. "Are you absolutely sure you can't read my mind?"
She's up close now, looking up at you. You cup her cheek with a fond smile. "Absolutely," you solemnly swear. "Not without effort and you knowing."
You stay like that for a bit as her bugs drag her clothes back onto her, covering her skin from top to bottom and, you're pretty sure, grooming her manually to make sure everything is back in order.
It takes twenty seconds at most before Taylor is cleaned up and looking just like she did before clinging to you needily turned into all-out hot vampire sex. Even her glasses, cast aside at some point doing your mutual lovemaking, are back sitting on her nose.
It is only then that she speaks up once more, as though to forcefully end the last conversation and let this one begin. "Their souls are very interesting," she notes while you just smile at her antics, your clothes slowly floating back towards yourself as you make them 'fall' into your direction. "This was their headquarters and most of the organization was directed from here. Their chief inventor and respective specialists were also here."
"Oh jeez, they didn't even keep their most important location completely hidden and just put a forward base at the end of Freedom Trail?" Your eyebrow rises of its own accord. You can't stop it.
"They assumed they would see an Institute attack coming and they'd be able to fend off any other groups temporarily." Notably, Taylor doesn't agree with that sentiment. She doesn't say it, but you can read into her statements. "One of them. 'Tinker Tom', was a mad scientist type of person."
"Please don't tell me we're about to have half of Boston go nuclear. More than it is already, anyway."
"We aren't," she shakes her head. Phew. Also, you're pretty sure she just took you literally, the adorable little thing. "He did have a knack for modifying things… Here."
Your eyes drift off as you glance over the mental catalogue of technology and nifty little twists and tricks Taylor is beaming at you mentally. Of particular note would be the ballistic weave the Railroad apparently made lots of use of, a quick and deceptively easy way to armor otherwise unremarkable clothing with a thin layer of extremely resistant, specially made material- as in, resistant to pretty much anything from bullets to brute blunt force to lasers and even plasma.
Nifty, as you said.
There's a couple of other things, too, of course- a variety of surprisingly well-functioning weapons made out of even more random junk than people usually would use to create guns around here (you still despise the literal pipe guns more likely to explode in the user's face than propel a bullet into the right direction), a bunch of actual computer tech (!) you shall file in with the rest of your stuff, a couple of sensors to measure out exotic energies and similar…
Oh snap, there's even something that's meant to measure your magic! "Okay, this is genuinely impressive for once," you nod to yourself. "Also explains how they managed to stay ahead of the Institute. They had tons of equipment for it, including a teleportation dampener and stuff to find places their transporter tech has been used recently… I suppose that explains why they would have been investigating us, too."
"There's more."
"…" You take in the other findings Taylor shares with you directly. "A machine designed to predict the future? Seriously?"
Why does the world insist on repeating itself in the oddest of places?
Hologram Upgrades
Improved Projectors: The projectors making up your hologram tech could stand to be upgraded in some greater depth; let them project holograms more reliably and in more than a single place. Prerequisite for the use of all other upgrades. (3 Points)
Variable Projectors: The technology as you found it only allows a single projector to project a single hologram, a single picture of something. This is obviously inefficient, so look into changing that by going into the schematics and making the required changes. (4 points)
Sharp Edges: The holograms you have so far could do with an optics upgrade, their resolution really does leave some room for improvement. Makes holograms look significantly more 'real' and removes blurry edges, unintended afterimages etc. (4 points)
Sharper Colors: As it is right now, the holograms you have available just aren't terribly convincing, in part due to the excessively washed-out look everything they project has. Fix this issue, by revamping the projectors themselves if you have to. (3 points)
Projectors, check. Image loadout… Check. Looks good, you should be able to test them like this.
Making sure the laboratory's doors are closed tightly, you flip the switch and activate the holograms in one go. All around you, on the floor, at the walls, images of Sarah appear in various cute costumes, interspersed with those of your other wives.
The whole room is covered and you can't help yourself but grin like an idiot at the sight.
"You do know they'd put those on if you asked them?"
"Shut up Yoshi, it's not about that. Why don't you just go off and make Indigo and Nolac happy?"
"We aren't like that!"
"I'll believe that when I don't see you do it all the time," you grumble.
"No, I mean us and Nolac aren't!"
"And why not?"
"Have you seen them?"
Nolac walks by, casually poking the bone of some animal- probably food leftovers, little else ways they could get any in here. "Whassup?"
"I don't see the problem," you tell your chief science slave.
Life in the Commonwealth was getting better.
It was a strange thing to put out there, but, despite how outlandish the claim was, the average wastelander within the Minutemen's realm of influence was seeing a steady improvement in their situation, all over the place. Food was being handed out to anyone that needed or wanted it, raiders and all those other wasteland creatures that had a penchant for eating people were being kept away from those people and all the Minutemen wanted in return was that you didn't behave like a fucking animal.
Which was good, because anyone that did was kind of a raider already anyways.
In Concord, the introduction of an invention thought to have been a relic of the past, the fridge, was revolutionizing the way people thought about and treated food, being able to preserve it easily and conveniently right inside their homes, and the free access to a bunch of books and lessons on how to read them was quickly turning the city into serious competition for Diamond City's reputation as the jewel of the Commonwealth.
Some even went diving through the books purposefully and, upon bumping into the term and finding out what it meant, exclaimed the Renaissance of the Commonwealth. Nobody really listened to them or even really cared, but it was a thing.
Meanwhile, Tommy Lonegan, one of the city's few ghouls (many of which hadn't assumed they'd be welcome or, even if they were, allowed residence), was setting up the first annual Ultimate Robot Fight Tournament, or URFT. Sending out his advertisement posters to be put up all over the city with the caps he had on hand, being one of the few people that knew how business worked before the bombs fell, he soon attracted a motley crew of interested hobbyist tinkerers that got to work on their contestants.
Being sent with a recommendation from Gabriel Livsey, he had no trouble organizing a building and having it renovated for his needs, creating an actual arena as well as several side stages with their own rings to hold as many battles as he may possibly need- and sourcing the molerats to serve as fighters was even easier, as they couldn't dig through massive concrete and plates of metal.
This made things easier for his operation, of course. He was getting things off the ground and mach speed.
In Diamond City, on the other hand, calls were being heard about how Concord shouldn't show it up like it was gearing up to do, but the average citizen didn't really give a fuck, too busy living their daily lives to bother listening to any idiots that had a problem just because the place they were living in wasn't the only real city around anymore.
The Minutemen stationed within the city, of course, just laughed whenever the topic came up, citing that it didn't matter where people were living when they were out to protect everyone.
Then a fucking star fell from the sky, a burning and smoking trail drawn behind itself, and arced right over Boston.
It took approximately five minutes before everyone forgot again. It probably wasn't really important, just some last hurrah from the Brotherhood or something. The Minutemen would take care of it, it was nothing compared to the big, apocalyptic battle in the skies nobody had fully put out of their minds yet, after all.
Cait was sitting inside one of the rooms that didn't really have any point other than to let people hang around inside of them. On a thingy that Kate had called a 'beanbag chair', but she didn't give a fuck how it was called, she was gonna steal it and put it into her own room later.
Which was made for her. Or for anyone that ended up living in it, anyway, but Gabriel had said she could do with it what she wanted and what she wanted was to put this thing inside of it. It was fuckin' comfy.
"So wait, did he just tell us to hang out because our names sound similar?"
"Nah, he's probably thinking you remind me of my girls," Kate waved her off, downing a shot of something red sitting at the little bar over on the other wall. Because of course they had a couple of those, duh. If Cait could just make buildings happen, she'd put a bunch of them everywhere, booze was great.
Also, she was pretty sure that was blood, but whatever floated her boat, man.
"Your girls, huh? Sounds like there's a story or somethin'." They'd retired to Sanctuary after the whole weird sex thing Gabriel and Kate had had going on (and the free peep show that made for Cait), just shooting the shit and doing nothing important.
It was kinda nice. Though a fight or two would'a been ni-
"Maybe I'll tell you sometime. For now, you wanna head outside and beat the shit out of each other?"
"Hell yeah, let's go!"
"Good." Ka-chick.
"Uh… Why're you getting your gun out?"
"Because we're beating the shit out of each other. Try to keep up."
Ah shit. This was what she got for agreeing that easily.
"WHY ARE YOU SHOOTING FIREBALLS AT ME?!"
"HAVE TO GET YOU USED TO DODGING! DUH!"
"STOP IIIT!"
"ONLY IF YOU STOP GETTING SINGED!"
"Please do not move so much. You are only making the scans take longer, oui?"
"Then don't shove those damn, oouh, things into meeeh!"
Curie looked at the rods she was inserting into the bio-mechanical robot's orifices, the bulbous lengths steadily sliding into her body one ridge at a time. "They have been designed not to cause any pain whatsoever. Monsieur Livsey has assured me they shall cause no damage to you whatsoever."
"That's not the poo-hoooint!" Winding in her restraints, Madam Jezebel threw her head every which way. A fascinating feat of science, to build something like it and then transfer her brain into it all without any deterioration despite the known fault of long-term medigel exposure.
She had seen the schematics. It truly was terrific work.
Pausing her investigation of the semi-biological body both grown and built in the penultimate execution of several branches of engineering, Curie reached out to twist the sensor rod, discovering- "Oh mon Dieu, are you deriving sexual pleasure from this?"
Was she this sheltered and unworldly or was it something to do with Monsieur Gabriel? It was the second overtly sexual situation she had found herself in in mere days and this time she had been the one to initiate… To an extent.
"He made this body to do that," Jezebel let her know. Perhaps it was him, after all? "So it's not my fault at aaaaAaaAaa!"
Maybe she would calm down after being stimulated to completion? "Please do your best, Madam Jezebel. I shall require accurate readings from you for a… project of mine."
There was so much to do, so many things to discover… Not all of them purely intellectual in nature. And Curie could not allow her robotic body to stand in the way of gaining new experiences, every part of her programming related to inquisitiveness and curiosity rebelled against it.
Hence, she had to establish whether this technology was accurate to the natural female body and whether a full transfer of her processors into a true brain was possible. Surely any biological hormones would be controllable, but she so dared to hope to experience them for herself…
She could hardly call herself a robot of science if she was not willing to make the step to a woman of science, no? So Jezebel would need to endure a little while longer…
"Okay, so you want to get a human body or something close to it that has the full human experience," you sum up the situation that Curie just described to you in much less medical terms. "Including a brain instead of your current robot parts."
"That is correct," the robot in question agrees with her French accent, her white body gleaming in your office lights as it bobs up and down. "I do not presume to demand too many details, but that is my goal. It feels impossible to share in the same world as so many other brilliant individuals when something as basic as the way I think is so inherently different… So non-conducive to true research."
Well, good thing you can work with this kind of thing? And at the very least you should be able to thrall whatever comes out of this whole project so she won't just die of old age or anything.
"The largest problem I do foresee is the brain transfer in question, of course, as the creation of a body has been proven to be possible and even practical as with Madam Jezebel's case. I have my own ideas, but I thought consulting you would be the wise choice at this stage, n'est-ce pas?"
"Asking for help or others' input is always a good idea, yes. Now, as for how to go about transferring you into a bio body…"
"We could try using using magic to directly access and transfer your mind from one body to another. It isn't exactly something I have attempted to date, but if it turns out to be doable, it would be a simple matter of creating a mindless body and transferring you into it."
"I believe the word 'magic' has wrong connotations for our work. Might I suggest to describe it as 'thaumaturgic phenomena' instead?"
"Isn't that basically just a fancy description for the exact same thing?" You ask, an eyebrow raised in amusement.
"Yes, but it does not make anyone discussing its use cases sound… uneducated." Curie says it like the word is both a horrible swear and a stand-in for something significantly worse, like she just couldn't find the word to say.
"I find myself believing that things are what they are and there's little use dressing them up and dancing around the issue. Until we figure out the exact mechanics on a logical level, we may as well call it magic," you shrug. And really, you doubt your magic will ever cease to defy rational analysis- anytime anyone tries, it's almost like it deliberately misleads and tricks them just for the hell of it.
"We shall have to agree to disagree, then." Oh, you aren't an expert in robot body language, but you'd bet good money Curie is pouting now.
You have to resist the urge to reach out and pet one of her mechanical eye stalks.
"Good. The disadvantage with this method would be the danger of your destruction the moment I cast magic at you- you may have seen it in the notes somewhere, but most advanced technology doesn't react well to that."
"Yes, the effects of thaumaturgical influence are listed in the documentation I have read. While I would be willing to risk it, perhaps there are safer alternatives to consider before we proceed to tests on other robots?"
Right. never use yourself as a lab rat when you can use others instead. Curie has the makings of a great scientist in herself. "Yes, there is another idea. The Railroad, I don't know if you're familiar with the name, habitually erased the minds of synths and replaced them with fake memories and such. If we could find out how, we could look into using the same means to do what you want to achieve here."
"Oh… Two choices, both of which may require deeper thought. Whatever might we do?"
"Well, let's figure out the Railroad connection first," you ultimately decide without putting too much thought into it. "There's always risk when combining outright magic with technology we don't want to break, after all."
"Thaumaturgic phenomena…" Curie mumbles, but even she already knows you won't budge on what you call it. "I believe we shall have to investigate indeed. Oh, can we get the little detective hats like in Sherlock Holmes?"
"Nothing involved enough to warrant that, I'm afraid. I know from a trusted source that the Railroad's contact involved in this business is inside of a place called 'Goodneighbor', in an establishment called the Memory Den." You're taking this straight from the information Taylor shared with yourself, by the way. She made sure to be thorough.
Very thorough.
"You should definitely meet my sister one of these days, though. She's really into playing detective all the time. I do wonder if she still got the hat I gave her when she was eight…"
"She sounds like a delightful person- I look forward to the opportunity, should it arise."
See? Curie gets it. Also, you need to remember to dole out more headpats to Taylor later, her conscientious work ethic is saving you a lot of work again.
Goodneighbour. A settlement, of sorts, carved into a relatively intact neighborhood in the middle of Boston some way east of Diamond City and with a reputation for shadiness that makes it sound like everyone around it is either scum or too high to care about the scum around them.
The truth is a lot more nuanced, of course; it's a place for those that aren't too welcome around other places, as the fact that the ghouls that used to live in Diamond City turned up here after being summarily thrown out for being ghouls demonstrates.
It's still kind of astounding to you that people would go that far over what is in essence a really bad skin condition that confers extreme longevity to its victims. It's… just really stupid, but hey, whatever floats people's boats, really. So long as they don't annoy you over it.
Anyway, Goodneighbour. It's half a street and a couple alleyways of people in whatever livable apartments are still around, plus a whole bunch of shops and services offered on street level- you and Curie walk past at least one brothel, which has the two of you launch into a discussion on the economical side of paid sex and the kinds of organizational challenges facing it.
Hey, you work with a lot of hookers back home, it's only natural you'd read into the topic to some extent.
It's good enough to keep yourself entertained with until you reach your target, the specific 'establishment' operating out of an old theater easy enough to spot with some attention paid to the buildings around you.
"The Memory Den. Finest supplier of Virtual Reality experiences in the Commonwealth, or so I've heard, though I suspect it's the only place the required technology could be found," you explain to Curie. A bit of additional context is always good.
"It looks very classy. Very chic," she remarks as you open the door to let her through- ladies first and all that. "Why, thank you, Monsieur Gabriel!"
Once inside, you quickly give the building a once-over, noting down the locations of any living humans within it. Many of them are lying down in what you suspect to be elevated positions- and, as you quickly find out, some kind of pods arrayed all throughout the Den's main floor.
A lovely place indeed. About as trashy and littered with random crap as you expected, but you like the lighting they got in here. And further towards the back, of coure, you find the 'businesswoman' in charge of operations.
Just sitting there waiting for anyone to come in, already paying careful attention to you and your white companion as you approach.
"Welcome to the Memory Den," she greets you as you come closer, remaining seated herself despite the alert tension hidden in her back. "I do not believe either of you are returning customers, so should I introduce the services we provide?"
VR experiences. Reliving your memories as though they were real, or those of other people for that matter- they apparently have a thing where they let people experience sex someone else had and make some good money through that. You already know the gist, but she doesn't know you know and all that.
You go to verbally browbeat this woman into submission- it isn't like that approach has ever failed you before- but then hesitate, taking in her appearance a little more closely. Blonde hair done up in an actual hairstyle for a change, with some even more astoundingly present makeup to make herself look good, a far cry from the usual wasteland scavenger just living from one day to the next and liable to have no idea what half of the things you're seeing even are.
She's even wearing an elaborate red dress with a jacket of the same color slung over her arms, leaving her shoulders and half her upper body completely exposed. It was probably a prop from the theatre she built her business inside of at some point, though it age does show; it's frayed and obviously had to be patched up several times, the needle work involved decent but the cloth sewed on not exactly fitting the color.
Still makes for a nice view, all in all. Yes, perhaps going ahead and taking a little time would work out for the best, after all.
You smile, having taken a fraction of a second to think this through before changing your intended approach. "I am aware of the Memory Den's usual services… As well as the less advertised ones, of course." Just throw that in to throw her off balance, it's not like you've confirmed or denied anything, technically. As far as she knows, you could just be bluffing to look more important than you are. "The thing is, I am not here to relive memories… I am here to make new ones."
You come to a stand upon the velvety couch Irma, as you know the proprietor of this place to be named, is lounging on, looking her straight in the eyes without a smidgen of hesitation in your body.
"If you wouldn't mind, that is." You bend down slightly to grasp her hand in yours, bringing it up to place a kiss on its back, all the while continuing to look up at her still.
Irma doesn't just blush in response- she flushes, her breathing and even heartbeat completely undisturbed as her cheeks turn so red it reaches all the way to her ears. You knew it. No woman wearing something like that, inside an old, bombed-out theater, would not have some level of appreciation for the classics.
"That is an… intriguing statement." She's all but asking you to 'tell her more'.
"Oh, no need to play the guessing game," you announce with aplomb. "Quite simply put, my robotic companion here," Curie waves a robot arm in the background, "is in need of some specialist advice on neuroscience and the Memory Den was the very best option to look for one. Of course I'll understand if a consultation like that isn't free…"
"Oh, Doctor Amari isn't-" You interrupt her by gently pushing her chin upwards, pressing a kiss onto her lips.
"No, no, I insist," you say, shrugging off your own jacket and letting your shirt follow it immediately afterwards. "I am sure the memories I am about to donate will be precious enough to be worth the good doctor's time."
Irma swallows, eyes drawn to your physique even as her earlier blush fades quickly. Easy to light up, easy to suppress?
You've seen all kinds of blushes before, people generally fall into a few categories. Nothing too surprising there.
With a conflicted look shifting into an aroused one, the woman you're working over seems to come to a decision; lying back, she uncrosses her legs, letting the mildly ragged cloth of her dress fall freely as she raises one of them onto her resting place, the couch still surprisingly intact and making no sound despite her shifting weight.
"I am not sure I know what you might mean," she tells you look up at your face, the miniscule smile on hers telling you she's lying (as if you needed any more clues). "The Memory Den is not in the habit of accepting donations."
"I am sure we can figure something out," you murmur, your pants left behind to let you crawl onto her couch, her immediate look down your body just further confirming that this is very much something she wants.
"Oh, maybe…" Her breathing is growing heavier as you bite at the hem of her clothing, dragging the frayed cloth up as you go. With your teeth looking more or less human, of course, wouldn't do to give the game away quite so easily.
You could faintly smell it before, but Irma isn't wearing anything under that dress of hers, the scent of her arousal hitting your nostrils while you grin at her, finally letting go with your mouth to resume speaking. "Someone's looking pent up," you whisper, one hand stroking along her thigh to make it clear what you mean. "Let me help you with that…"
Your hard, throbbing cock is already standing at the ready, though you don't get right in on that quite yet. Instead you gently feel Irma' sex, confirming that she's just as blonde down below as she is up top, shaved and trimmed cleanly to turn her hair into a triangle right over her pussy.
Or an arrow, perhaps, pointing at the right direction. Unsurprisingly, the woman wearing all red spending all day in a dark room with some pink lighting is also kind of kinky, news at eleven.
She's already slick with arousal, so you merely finger her for a few moments, scissoring your digits inside her in a way that has her bite her lip and look at you with undisguised hunger in her eyes, then withdraw, playing with the clear fluid clinging to your fingers as you hold them up. "See? All pent up, as I said."
Then you lick one finger clean, noting the mildly tangy taste. Not bad, though you really should look into making cunnilingus a culinary experience. Maybe a gene mod a la ADAM? Probably easier than a couple generations of selective breeding programs.
Then you slide the other finger past Irma's panting lips, feeling her tongue mirror your feat in turn. As if to say 'see how bad you have it?'
Then you advance once again, looming over her form to find your angle. "I'd ask you to say so when I should stop… But you won't ever want me to."
One hand entangles itself in her hair, completely messing up her hairdo, to keep her looking at your face while you shove yourself into her, a momentary display of body tension keeping you in the air even with your other hand busy guiding yourself inside her. Your rod spreads her womanhood wide open in one stroke, sheathing yourself inside Irma and making her eyes grow wide.
She holds a hand over her mouth to keep herself from crying out as you fuck her, steadily pumping your hips into her hot, velvety tightness feeling just as soft as the velvet of her couch even as it proves to be pleasingly responsive, her walls wrapping around your length and not letting go at any point.
"You're so… big!" Irma gasps, still resolutely keeping in her cries of pleasure. "Take me… Like an animal!"
You growl, letting her wide spread legs count as the invitation they are. Her arms wrap around you, wildly grabbing and scratching at your back, but you proceed to just take her exactly like she wants, without any consideration as to what she's doing.
Every thrust of your body shakes her from head to toe, rocking her around in a hard rhythm that doesn't let her catch her breath for even a moment. It doesn't take long of this treatment before she peaks, her pussy holding onto you even tighter than before and both her hands squarely on her mouth to keep herself quiet through her shivering, twitching orgasm.
So she doesn't want to be found out that badly, huh?
Pulling her up with yourself, you manhandle Irma effortlessly, only pulling out of her for long enough to turn her around and pluck at a piece of string at the back of her costume. Pulling it right off, you let it fall next to your own clothes, the now nearly completely naked woman (still wearing her thigh-high shoes) completely at your mercy looking back at you.
You smile your most foreboding smile as you hoist her up, ramming yourself right back into her as you hold her up by her waist and shoulder. "Don't struggle too much now, wouldn't want to wake any of them up, right?"
The VR pods all over the room are, in some cases, occupied by someone that looks like they may as well be sleeping, some of them moving and twitching off in their own little (virtual) world. Every time Irma tries to protest, you pound into her deeply enough to hit her core, pushing her capacity as far as it can go with your cock, keeping her busy suppressing the sounds she's making.
You choose one pod filled with a woman that looks like she's having a very good dream, cheeks flushing, for this next part, depositing the struggling Irma on the glass surface of the surprisingly advanced piece of machinery. Driving yourself into her again and again, her hips held in place by your iron grip as she squirms under your assault, you lean over her. Her breasts are squished against the glass, too, making for an absolutely delicious sight together with her feet trying to find purchase on the ground.
"Imagine she woke up right now," you stage-whisper into Irma's ear. "Do you think she'd just lie there and watch? Fascinated by your naughty body?"
She blushes again, glaring at you over her shoulder. You just grin and nod at the sleeping woman.
"Or maybe she'd stay right where she is, stick a hand into her pants and watch the show. Is that what you want? Perhaps she'd think this is just a little extra, more virtual reality, a file of your activities that somehow found its way into her pod."
Irma is trembling with shame and excitement now. She's getting close again.
"How about she opens her eyes right this instant, sees what you're getting up to… And she gets up to join us? Hold you in place while I use your face like a toy for my pleasure?" You spank Irma's butt, stretched up because of your angle, and she shudders mightily, too close to the brink to think. "She would make you eat her out while I rail you like there's to tomorrow, or she could lick my seed out of you like a good, devoted pet herself… Would you like that? Would you like her to work you over with her tongue and look up at you like a submissive pet while I fuck you from behind?"
Irma comes. The entire pod shakes with the sudden and overwhelming shaking shoves she's giving it, stretched across its surface to the point the woman inside could see where you're connected to her, your own surge of pleasure pumping your cum into her and leaving the front of the pod a sloppy mess of both your fluids.
Finally, Irma's lips open, having stayed clamped shut so far. All she can do is give a ragged breath, but you think you get what she wants to say.
Everyone always wants more when you're involved.
"They are not sleeping, but I do wonder how it feels…"
"I see, I see… It would seem seduction is a reliable way to ensure a human female's cooperation. Further investigation and empirical studies on this topic may be adequate."
"Oh my, how rough! Does she truly enjoy this treatment? Human bodies are indeed mysterious."
"Does the possibility of humiliation bring her pleasure after all? I shall note it down for later study."
"So much fluid! This cannot be healthy. I shall prescribe her plenty of water and rest after this is over."
"Could this be… a dog? No, likely just a visual illusion. I wonder how long she can stay conscious."
You eventually end up just using Irma like a Jezebel, pumping her over your cock like a toy. It takes a bit more care to do it with a grown woman than with the purpose-built shortie, just so she doesn't scuff her feet on the ground, but you do manage, if you say so yourself.
Mostly by just getting keeping her up by her legs, both your arms going under the back of her knees and groping her. Nice and convenient, this.
Confirming that Doctor Amari, the actual reason you even came all this way, is down in the basement where you faintly hear the even humming of large machinery running nonstop, takes a little more effort, but eventually you have what you want including a key that lets you open the door like a normal person. You also take the opportunity to feel Irma up to your heart's content, especially her surprisingly hefty breasts- the corset dress kept them hidden to some extent, but she's still got a very healthy pair of girls displayed for your pleasure now.
Anything to make it harder on her to stay silent.
Of course after over twenty consecutive orgasms, she's having a rather hard time staying conscious, but you keep her on the brink of the next one for a bit, her limbs swaying freely in the air, as you make your way down, Curie following closely behind you again after she drifted off for a bit.
"I hope you didn't get bored waiting? I know I tend to forget how long it takes to get some things done," you ask.
You are a little embarrassed about it.
"Please do not worry, Monsieur Gabriel," the robot you're working with asks, "I have taken more measurements and readings while you were busy. My studies may not be progressing at the pace I desire due to lack of human innovation, but the gathering of data remains uninhibited."
… You wonder what kind of data she's talking about exactly but hey, whatever. If it's all good, it's all good.
A short walk is all it takes, of course, for you to arrive down in the basement, where Curie quickly glides over into the corner. A woman in a white coat is working on something at a computing station along the wall as a pair of those VR pods occupies the center of the room, one empty, one filled with a completely motionless body, so you clear your throat to get her attention.
"Oh, excuse me, I didn't see-" The words die in her throat the moment she sees Irma held aloft by you, her unceasing penetration clearly and obviously visible with her widely spread legs right in front of her.
"Amari," she whispers, voice about to give out as you drive her ever closer to yet another explosion of pleasure, "this is… customer… Wanted to… consult… Please help… him!"
She pushes herself up from where her back is resting against your chest one last time, eyes crossing (you can see it in a reflection off of polished metal in front of you) and legs tensing… Before she falls unconscious, every ounce of strength within her body gone completely.
Out like alight. You won't let go of her yet, though.
"Doctor Amari, right? I'm Gabriel, nice to meet you," you nod at the gobsmacked brain specialist. How she became one in the world she's living in you have no idea, but you'll take what you can get. "Irma said I could talk to you about something I was wondering about."
"I- that- she- what? Why?"
"It's about Curie over here," you say, taking that as a question on why you're here. "Would you mind laying it out yourself?"
"Oui, oui," the robot perks up. "Doctor Amari, I wanted to experience what it was like to be human and, if possible, become one permanently. Do you believe the research you have done has any weight in this matter?"
"I- Maybe, yes, I have- Why is Irma like that?!" The doctor asks with all the force of a particularly befuddled poodle.
"Oh, we had sex and she just finished fainting. Don't worry, it happens all the time, she'll wake up sore is all," you wave her off.
A little, anyway. Your arms are still tied up with (tying up?) Irma.
"I suggest she ingest plentiful fluids and rests for several hours," Curie adds. "She lost a lot of body fluids on the way. Perhaps someone should also clean up upstairs?"
Well, she isn't wrong.
"I- Ugh. Let me- could you not wave that in my face?" You regret nothing and are also entirely innocent. "Irma asked me to help you before she dropped so I'll just assume you can be trusted. A robot could theoretically be transferred into a synth body using the Institute chip implanted inside of its brain, presuming its personality was erased first. Does that answer your question?"
"It does, actually, thank you." And you do happen to have one of those chips on hand, too. You did kill that one synth over in Covenant together with the rest of everything in the area, after all. Her body is currently hanging in your meat freezer just like the rest. "Out of curiosity, do you erase synth personalities often?"
It sounded very casual when she said it.
"I do, when they request it." Solemnly, Doctor Amari looks at the body lying still inside one of her pods. "Living as a synth under control of the Institute is… terrible. They're all traumatized by it to some extent, so many undergo the procedure as a means of escape."
Huh. Happy fun times for the whole family, in other words.
"The Railroad haven't been as active lately," you file that away for later- opsec, to not tell others the Institute disappeared off the face of the Earth?- "but there are a few synths still with us. In fact, we could do it right now, if you wanted, better than to let them vegetate without their designated caretakers."
Oh, someone's pissed those caretakers aren't doing their jobs. Or likely never showed up because they didn't get told where to, huh?
In the privacy of your own head, you whistle innocently.
"I have to admit, it would leave a bad taste in my mouth to just use a synth like that." Mainly because if you're doing this, you may as well get Curie a properly made custom body- finding out whether you can just jam a synth chip into one and connect it properly alone would be worth the experience, not to mention your ethics pertaining to the creation of a person's body.
If you're going to bother with it, you may as well do it right. This isn't like a sloppy execution of your enemies, it's going to affect someone for their whole life! Of course it should be the best it can possibly be.
And yes, theoretically, executions do the same, but it's not like you put value into those lives, which makes all the difference.
"Yes, I thought you may have ethical concerns about this." Doctor Amari grimaces, one hand coming up to massage the side of her head. "Forget I said anything. Not without the agreement of their caretakers, if they ever show up, I'm not qualified to make this kind of decision. But without a wiped synth body…"
"Don't worry, I'll figure something out," you wave her off. "To be clear, the only requirement is that the body has an Institute chip connected to its brain, yes?"
"Yes, uh, that would be it. It is how our technology can interface with their brain, a simple and effective way to… reprogram them on demand." Oh, nice distaste put into that word. "Obviously something the Institute designed them for. But without their technology, there is no way to put a chip into a brain non-lethally- Nobody knows for sure, but we believe that synths are constructed around them in some way."
"I'll take care of it, I'll take care of it. Not to brag, but I do know a thing or two about Institute tech myself." Mostly through just asking them for how their stuff works, but hey, that counts far as you're concerned. "Also, would you like me to leave this anywhere in particular?"
You jiggle Irma around in your arms a little.
"… please put her into the pod here, it is meant to be easy to clean- how much did you ejaculate inside of her?!"
You blithely ignore the globs of cum leaking out of the woman's well-abused cunt.
"I agree," Curie adds nonetheless, "Monsieur Gabriel has an unusually and consistently high rate of production of sexual fluids, oui."
Good to know people have opinions about this.
"There we go. That wasn't hard at all, now was it?" You ask, looking Jezebel's body over for any significant changes you might have inadvertently triggered.
"Please stop injecting me with unknown fluids."
"Oh, I didn't even know you could be this polite." This might just be the first time she even extends this amount of respect for you in her speech. Not to worry, though, you're confident your cyborg sex toy is still as much of a cunt as usual. "And you aren't even asking about what I did to you."
"What did you do to me, you disgusting pervert?"
"I'm glad you ask! You see, I've been thinking about the uses of your body lately and I've come to the conclusion that just being able to be pregnant isn't enough. After all, why lock the advanced functions behind actually knocking you up when it could be just that much easier?"
Jezebel stares at you.
"Ye, I have installed a simple and straightforward switch to make you lactate on demand! May also cause swelling of your mammaries if left on for more than a day or so, but all that should do is make them more sensitive. Hardly an issue, really."
"Damned degenerate."
"Jezebel, Milk on," you command. She twitches, looking on herself.
You go on ahead and give her breasts a squeeze. "Ah," she makes as dollops of something white and actually quite tasty-smelling is pressed out.
"Just think, so much science and genetic engineering I never would have thought of if it weren't for you being my little toy."
Earlier, while you were doing something inside- as in, doing Irma as thoroughly as you could- it would seem an unidentified flying object made its way through the Commonwealth, only to crash somewhere in the general vicinity of Vault 81. Now, while you aren't exactly the fun police around here, you do make it a point to keep an eye on unusual developments like that.
Also, you just made it a point recently that the sky is your fucking property around here. Who- or whatever that thing was, you're collecting a toll now.
Finding the site of the impact isn't too hard, thanks to your massively enhanced senses, teleportation and ability to trivially move through the air at great height. Sure, there's a surprising amount of giant bugs this far up that you barely pay attention to while at ground level, but even so they're not exactly common; it's actually a fairly relaxing exercise even as you slap them out of the sky through multiplying their weight for fun.
It also does help that you can literally see infrared and there's still several fires going on where your quarry landed, presumably through friction burns, though some sort of chemical spill also isn't out of the question with the weird smell currently in the air around them.
More importantly is that this absolutely cannot be what you think it is. There's just no way it's the genuine article, it has to be one of those stupid tourist attractions that some pre-nukes madman enabled to actually fly for some reason.
Because you refuse to believe an actual UFO has just randomly crashed around here. That's stupid.
All the same, you have the sizable chunk of metal here in a trail of destruction it carved into the air- the landing wasn't not 'just gentle', to say the least, and there's some green goop on the ground that your senses are telling you is blood.
Which, uh. Well. Good to know for sure, at least.
"It's aliens. There's… Actual aliens. The hull's made out of alloy of unknown production… Fuck my life, it's fucking aliens!"
"Uyehara-kun, I understand your agitation, but there is no need to shout."
"Don't you get it, Indigo?! It's aliens! It's the one thing every boy is dreaming of besides robots and light sabers!"
Nolac tilted their head sitting in their own lab chair nearby. "I feel like this is 'nother one of those cultural things I'm not getting."
Julianne, on the other hand, was still busy trying to analyze the unknown spacecraft's construction and materials. As everyone else should be, really, this was an alien space ship and all.
Following the trail of green blood, easy enough thanks to your many, many advantages in this regard, you make your way through a short stretch of the usual wasteland, the dark, hardened earth full of stones under your feet giving way to your quick and silent strides rapidly and easily.
The tracks lead into some sort of cave wherein you can already see the form of some kind of humanoid- based off of the blood flow, it's certainly not a human, and as you silently creep inside you come face to face with…
Okay, it's an actual alien. It' green-skinned, with a large, bulbous head, basically a rendition of the Roswell Grey. Shorter than a grown human by a couple heads, it is dressed inside a hazard or space suit of some kind (you think) and its hands have only three fingers that are very long and flexible in exchange, spasming and waving through the air.
Oh, and it's also one ugly motherfucker with a pretty fucked up left leg, the green goo you were following leaking from its shoe on that side.
It has some kind of gun strapped to its back, too, but you don't think it's noticed you yet.
Luckily, it seems this thing doesn't have any protection around it's head, so this next bit will be rather simple and straightforward, after all. Creeping up along the ceiling, you make sure to stay absolutely quiet as you shift into your shadow state, all the while staying well out of any possible sight line to that alien thingy.
You have no idea if they may experience sight in a different way that would make it easier to see an unnaturally moving shadow, so you're going the extra mile over here.
Once you've arrived over your quarry, you you just… let go, transforming into your vampire form and falling onto it from above. It doesn't see you coming, hasn't reacted to you at all and so-
Your claws dig into its sides as your teeth drive themselves into the back of its head, where you could tell more blood to flow than in many other body parts. However these things' biology functions, their blood/brain barrier doesn't work the same way human ones do, though they do indeed have one, or at least there's no blood flowing inside of where its brain is.
Instead they seem to have some other way of pumping loads of nutrition through their skull, with large arteries all throughout it. And particularly towards the back, where you're chewing and ripping it open in a short-lived violent frenzy.
In the end, it takes a moment longer than it usually does with humans, but your target still dies all the same, the gloopy green blood drained down your gullet past your murderous teeth. It tastes very different, too, kind of like… You tried some matcha tea once, while visiting this chick back in LA, and it's kind of like that except also a little slimier and weirder.
It's not exactly bad, but you would prefer the real thing over it. More importantly, the taste lingers, too, no matter how much you scrape your tongue against your teeth.
Irritating.
Regardless, you have the soul now. It has been deposited inside of your inner world like any other… Except not with the rest of the sapients, instead transferred over to the kaleidoscopic menagerie within it. Its habitat is a mess of electronics and machines, the creature scrambling through various controls of random pieces of its environment.
You sigh, looking over its corpse. Going through the thoughts and memories of creatures removed from everything you're used to is always such a giant pain.
The memories you can access are kind of… fragmented, as though someone had gone and fucked around in this alien's brain long before you got your hands on its contents. Well, you won't judge this species' choice of recreational activities or anything, but that does make it a little harder for you to get a complete picture of how it works as a whole.
What you can salvage through available memories is fairly basic- this thing seemed to have been some kind of fighter or soldier, which included working with whatever ships it was sent out in. There's more details to be had, abducted humans, cryosleep, looking down on Earth from within a gigantic ship orbiting the planet, but none of this ultimately matters that much, sadly.
Considering said giant ship seems to have been blown up? Or not available anymore, at least. The way this thing thinks is getting confusing again, it doesn't seem like there's a difference in concept to them between those two things.
Things do get a little clearer when you get down to the little picture. Almost as if this creature was some kind of purposefully engineered soldier incapable of really considering anything beyond 'what to shoot next' and 'how to keep shooting'. How incredibly mysterious.
It had a gun on itself. Some kind of blaster. Taking it from the corpse, you quickly take out the ammunition- some kind of fuel cell also used to drive many other things, which is why this alien found it handy to keep a lot of them around. It doesn't have a complete blueprint, of course, but you're confident you can compare how this thing works with how other laser weaponry around this dimension works and go from there.
And you fucking knew it. You knew it all along. People from Earth Fallout somehow secretly got their hands on alien tech and reverse-engineered it to get laser weapons. It's the only possible way that could've happened.
What's more… You eye the suit the alien was wearing. There's a device on it, unhooked with some effort and a little use of your claws. It's part of a larger arrangement, but it broke down when the scout ship- which is the vessel buried in the earth outside- crashed, preserving this thing's life but unable to withstand the forces involved and breaking which ultimately led to the absolutely crippled leg.
An Inertial Suppression Field… You have no idea how you'd even go about making something like this, but you can learn. Or at least imitate what you can figure out and use the technology at your leisure.
Beyond that, there's nothing particularly special, sadly; just a space suit that you will be taking apart as a matter of course and some kind of… ration, you think, made of what Yoshi's analysis tells you is some kind of worm.
Carrying the body and the loot you got out, you waste no time in teleporting yourself together with everything else, including the scout ship of course, over to Vault 111, shoving everything into one of the quarantine research labs for the moment while you let everyone on your team know that you just found something really cool.
You are so dissecting that alien later.
These aliens are using some kind of alloy that, while not entirely out of your reach, would apparently be a major pain to synthesize; it takes a bunch of rare earth metals and, more importantly, quite a long while to make even with your manufactories doing so automatically.
You tried poking Julianne, the soul of a researcher on this field that you went ahead and summoned for this, but apparently it just takes a bit because the molecular bonds are kind of weird with this material.
Look, you aren't exactly the expert here. All that really matters to you is that you, indeed, can use this stuff to build robots out of spacecraft-worthy alloys. It's going to cost you a lot and it'll take some time because even with the small-scale plasma forges you built into your manufactories, this stuff is pretty damn tough to work with, but even so, you can do the thing.
That's what science is all about, in the end. And it's still easier to do this than to make your robots out of adamantite, you've run the numbers. And yes, sure, it's not like this stuff is actually designed for robots that are inherently of a smaller scale than spaceships and intended to work in very different environments, but you can totally add a layer of it into Project Prydwen just in case.
That aside, that alien 'blaster' you recovered from the dead body is actually… Well, pretty insane. You've made a few practice shots before taking it apart to study how it works and now you need a new shooting range for experimental weaponry, your old one has a few too many holes in it.
In the walls. That consist of three feet of steel with layers of tungsten and titanium in it, made specifically so you could go wild with whatever you come up with without accidentally bringing down any other part of your personal vault.
Incidentally, you'll also need a new testing site for biological hazards. You accidentally sterilized and demolished the current one while testing the blaster. It's your own fault, really, you should've just used adamantite in the first place. If only the stuff didn't take so long to be replicated by magical means…
Ultimately, you've been able to adopt several parts of the alien weapon's mechanism into your own laser tech. It's technically turned said lasers from lasers into actual energy weapons that fire directed, sustained beams and blasts of high-fidelity kaboom, but really, the 'lasers' you've used to date have't been any different, really.
You've always been suspicious about that, but they were called lasers, they did what lasers were supposed to do and when you squinted a lot, you would almost think they were, indeed, lasers. But in the end they were just bastardized versions of this tech which is very much not laser-based.
They literally just fucked around with superior technology and made it work somehow while completely screwing up the execution as such, making the end result much more inefficient. Well, none of that now. You're having everything replaced with some proper energy blasts to go along with the chemical disintegration of your ion weapons.
They even retain much the same range, too. Going with lasers for the sake of reduced energy consumption was clearly a complete downgrade, at least from your perspective given you have your much-improved fusion cores continually being built by the thousands on a daily level.
Which then brings you… To the Inertial Suppression Field.
Which is pretty wild.
(WakiPaki uses a token to enhance the capabilities of applied Inertial Suppression Field technology, letting it be used for mobile robots, static emplacements and at range (which requires a sizable generator))
Once you figured the issue out, it was easy enough to repair the one sample you got- all it took was a couple replacement parts for the ones that blew out. Simply put, it massively decreases the inertia of any object that enters its field of effect, doing so at a static rate and regardless of what kinds of objects are involved.
A big fat rock dropped on it was slowed down to the same speed as a pebble and it's worked reliably against any solid bullets used against it- while doing little to nothing against lasers and energy weapons. Interestingly, it does manage to ward off your disintegrating ion weaponry by making it harder for the ionized matter shot by it to pass through itself.
But where you can analyze and repair, you can replicate, And where you can replicate, you can make changes. Improvise. Adapt. And, ultimately, overcome practical issues standing between you and absolute power.
Technically, sustaining a field like this requires several small little generators that work in tandem to set up this minorly physics-breaking field, but with a little creativity you should be able to adapt them to perform when built as components of a robot instead- letting you build a massive number of bots that are all but immune to bullets thanks to the armoring they already have.
And melee attacks. And anything that involves a solid object, fluids or gases moved at them at extreme velocities. Unless they, say, crash from low orbit all the way to the Earth's surface or experience similar amounts of force, they should be just fine to go.
That plus the mass-manufacturable Inertial Suppression Fields should let you increase the survivability of your mooks all over the place immensely. They take up raw resources to manufacture, sure, but their size means that this aspect is very much negligible compared to your usual material consumption.
And you can just slap these things onto or under normal armor and it won't interfere with the rest of their equipment. In video game terms, they're a stacking modifier.
Also, they work by essentially massively reducing the relative inertia of anything that enters their field from the outside while leaving the inside of the field completely unaffected, meaning the skill barrier to using them is essentially nonexistent. It's basically a discount Brute rating for everyone at this point.
But wait, if you can change the way these things work and even adapt them to robot usage (or at least to use with robots expected to see combat), how about sizing them up instead?
Well, good news. You can do that. You can do that wonderfully. You can do so so well, in fact, you wouldn't be surprised if that was originally a downsized anti-asteroid measure for spaceships or something.
Sure, it takes a huge generator the size of a small building to get any decent range, but you can indeed set one up to project a massive Inertial Suppression Field over a wide range. This consequently creates a one-sided field that makes passing through to one side considerably more difficult and just makes bullets and living beings stop entirely after a few moments of trying, though anything capable of self-locomotion can still simply push through… It just takes a couple hours instead of a few seconds to get through a sizable and thick enough field.
Incidentally, you'd like to see anyone that isn't some kind of energy being try to assault Sanctuary now. Because of course you've set up a bunch of the things all around your little fortress, making your walls even more insurmountable than they already are!
Honestly, you kind of look forward to returning to Remnant at some point. The Grimm are going to be positively fucked when up against this stuff, the vast majority of their variants are reliant on physically attacking their enemies in some way. That plus the tight quarters of Mount Glenn's insides are going to make that continual siege a joke to shut down.
Kate, Nora and Taylor are all standing on the ready, watching you make the adjustments to their personal weapons- you just need to add and replace a couple parts, really, but even so you totally get how something like this means they need to watch you closely.
It's a matter of trust, it's a matter of their weapons being worked over, the ones they use for pretty much any fighting they do. They need them to work properly.
"This is pretty much just a straight upgrade to the same technology I originally stole from hereabouts, so the functionality won't really change at all," you explain while you're elbow-deep inside a very lethal machine. "The colors of the shots might change a little, but the rest is really just greater penetration and energy transference."
"Oh, hey, actually. Can we change the colors somehow?" Kate asks, holding up a finger. "Just thinking, but it'd be metal as fuck to make them look like our auras or something."
… You consider the technology involved. "Not… really? It's just kind of a pale blue as is, but I have no idea how we'd do that without an attachment of some sort to just project light on top somehow."
"Never mind then. Just wanted to see if you could make black lasers." Yeah, that tracks with Kate alright.
"If we had a choice, I think I would make them grey," Taylor volunteers her opinion.
"Why grey?" Nora asks and just like that the three of them are off in their own discussion about optimal death laser colors.
Personally, you only care insofar as they work to obliterate the opposition, really.
Floating along the river in the form of a bank of fog, you take a moment to just appreciate just how easily and safely you can travel pretty much anywhere you want to, even discounting your teleportation technology- which is kind of a big thing to be discounting in the first place, granted.
Still, for the vast majority of people, it's just incredibly hard and dangerous to just… get from one place to the next. It's way worse than just, say, the middle ages- sure, the roads were even crappier then, as cracked and covered in dirt asphalt ones around right now may be, but at least back then they'd only have to worry about, like, wolves and bandits and bad weather or whatever.
Instead of, y'know, radiation storms (that you've been turning away lately), outright psychopaths running around left and right, supermutants, mirelurks and other monstrously mutated creatures… It's a small miracle anyone even keeps any trade up at all when a single deathclaw might wander away from their usual habitats and tear them apart for fun first and for food second.
Way more lethal dangers all around, is all you're saying.
Which is why you're currently drifting over one of the larger rivers in this region. You're pretty sure it could be a really convenient way to move stuff, going by that earlier comparison to times when bodies of water were, ironically, one of the easiest ways to move heavy load around for humans.
Until you get around to fixing up and securing a proper railroad- as in, with rails, not with pretentious people playing at being synth freedom fighters- or the subway network that used to exist in and around Boston proper, it just does make sense to look into something like this. Sure, robot caravans ca do much the same job, but you jut really like the aesthetic here.
Also, having backups for everything is just good sense. What will you do if, for example, a gigantic organism somehow mutates into existence and completely trashes the west half of the Commonwealth? Well, an alternative supply distribution route you don't need to bother paying attention to much anyway would sure come in handy at that point.
And let's be honest, that is a legitimate possibility around here. Say about Earth Fallout what you want, but there's plenty of weird shit around.
Hence your little scouting run for a good place that could do as a small river harbor. It doesn't need much, really, just some solid ground so you don't need to take care of that yourself… Maybe a few structures you can just co-opt for a start and-
Oh, why hello there.
What was probably some rich family's vacation house or maybe an actual normal house for one that lived out in the boonies by choice is standing right over the water, built on extremely stable wooden posts- there's some moss growing all over them underwater, but they're still holding strong even to this day.
Must have been some good wood they put into the river here.
Of course there's something of an issue, too; a bunch of bloodbugs is sitting all over the house, still feasting on a small family that apparently used to live here. There's two brahmin corpses outside, too, so this looks a lot like a little farm that was just overrun by the aggressive wildlife at some point out of the blue.
A very common occurrence, to be sure. Not that it matters to you in particular, of course.
A few quickly applied squashing motions leave the bugs all dead- they have a tendency to just race straight at anyone in sight and, to their detriment, you can react faster than they do- and the place more or less open to be developed as a sort of outpost just east of Covenant and with direct access to the river that runs all throughout half Boston, even being connected to the sea if you recall correctly. Which you always do.
It's kind of a shame it doesn't reach to Concord, of course, but it does terminate not too far from Lexington, you think. May well be that real estate prices in the area will rise in the coming decade or so, should you ever take that much time in this dimension.
Well, it's not necessarily your finest work- you're saving that up for when you get to work on Curie- but it certainly does meet your standards, which is the main priority here.
Basically, what you did was to add some steel plating to the outsides of the boathouse you're working off of, then you went ahead and expanded the little catwalk out back meant for whatever little boats used to be in use here, smoothly turning it into a small arrangement of jetties that should more than suffice for whatever small-scale ship traffic you will have around this place.
By your standards, that is. Which means it should be able to hold around a dozen ships without any problems. Any more than that and they'd probably just get more in the way of each other than anything else, there's only so much space along the river and all.
And of course you added a good couple of turrets all around. This place is yours now. Anyone fucks with it, they get to be blasted to bits and recycled just as all the other samples and biomass you took and had teleported back home once you started working.
Speaking of, it's nice to personally work on a medium-sized project like this. Makes you remember back when you first envisioned the initial prototypes for your manufactories and only just started really getting into engineering as such. Good times, even if the reminder of said prototypes almost makes you cringe in comparison to the later improvements and refinements you kept on adding on top.
God (as in, yourself), they were barely capable of reliably fabricating a single type of object with pre-prepared materials. Basically just miniaturized robot factories. Which they still are, but so much better now it's hard to really compare them.
Oh, and then there's the simple river ships you made. They're really just oversized barges, to be honest, but they can hold a bunch of cargo and are nigh unsinkable without some advanced weaponry, which will have to do. Some simple propulsion and a pair of turrets along with that and a crew of armed 'sailors' should be more than enough security.
Now all you need is a real cause to ship stuff up and down the river… Eh, its northern bank will hopefully see some traffic soon-ish, especially as Covenant isn't too far and well-situated to be a minor commerce center for the surrounding areas.
Speaking of, you should look into organizing your holdings and spreading your influence around at some point… Mostly by making sure Preston isn't fucking anything up too badly and knows what he's supposed to prioritize. Then again, you really don't care all that much either, this is mostly just to satisfy your vanity.
And really, Project Prydwen is more important for that. Most of the auxiliary and outside work should be about done pretty soon anyway with the amount of robot work hours you've put into it during your absence.
So much to do, so few fucks to give. The eternal problem of an eternal life.
One of the many advantages within your inner world is that you are afforded the proper status you are owed by everyone around you- the souls within it fear you, your guardians respect you and, most of all, everyone around knows that you are, ultimately, the absolute authority within it.
You are a God. It's just a shame so many people do not get it- and you're still a little weirded out by the whole cult business going all the nine yards into things even within your inner palace, but that's secondary to the main concern.
Most relevantly, you have an entire section of the palace just for yourself, your personal quarters that just always seem to reflect your current thoughts and latest experiences in some way. Right now, for example, the small library of books filling up the higher level of your 'living room' only reachable via a rotating ladder contains several works put together from several people that have been out to sea before, with a few other books on almost random topics mixed in.
On the ground floor, next to the broken and boarded up fan serving as your 'window', you have several preserved bug specimens and a few children's toys, an obvious representation of your thoughts about ensuring Taylor's mental wellbeing and Nora's pregnancy.
That said, the one thing that's occupying you the most right now is the maid body lying on a desk brought in for your usual daily meal. Naked except for several dishes of food arrayed on her body, the only thing giving her a semblance of decency destroyed by the way her curvy form is languidly moving just minimally so as to not disturb them as you enter.
"Hello, Master," she purrs with lidded eyes, "we have prepared your usual delicacies…"
Mhm, there's whipped cream over her nipples and groin in tasteful mounds, the white substance twitching and wobbling in the air with every miniscule move. In addition, a small bouquet of strawberries and raspberries is set in a thick coating of white chocolate that's covering the rest of her breasts like a perverse, one-sided corset, whereas her stomach and abs bear the main course of brown chocolate formed into an approximation of a leather bodysuit around the area with small pictures of your wives in various poses carved into it and balls of colorful ice cream marking the middle of her body like a dotted line.
"The Cook pledged to outdo herself. Did she succeed?" The breathless, devoted splinter of your subconcious whispers.
"Only one way to find out," you growl.
Neither the magical food nor your soul servant escape unscathed. You devour both to the last shred, granting yourself a little extra flavoring in short order. Because, well, of course you have to eat everything off her directly, only ever touching her skin with your tongue and lips and sometimes teeth, when you have to have a nibble.
A most gainful morning, as ever.
Prydwen Upgrades
4 Points: Satellite Platforms: Though the Prydwen's form as a single, continuous city is its selling point compared to Columbia, it surely cannot hurt to be able to separate a few parts out on demand- mostly to get new firing angles that would be difficult to achieve with the rest of the city, temporarily house parts of the population if needed and keep various facilities at a literal distance
5 Points: Shifting Habitats: Operating on a large enough scale, there isn't anything speaking against simply moving entire 'city blocks' around on demand- get people to work by not moving them so much as you move their homes to them, adjust city layout on the fly and generally ease loads on other traffic systems by making every block of the Prydwen internally movable. Kind of like a block puzzle due to space requirements, but if you have enough space anyway…
3 Points: Extensions: The Prydwen is huge. In fact, it could be described as fucking huge. That said, what you're planning contains more ambition than even its bulk can contain, so perhaps enlarging it would be sensible. Sketch out how you're going to increase the thing's size and fill it out with the modules you've got so far. Can be taken several times for correspondingly larger results.
6 Points: Big Teleport: Your teleportation capabilities can, in theory, be scaled up indefinitely, even though there are increasing amounts of issues to be considered the further you go. While doing so would not be possible in quick succession and require significant repairs after every use, you could install a network of sensors and teleportation nodes responsible for teleporting the entire flying city in one go.
Honestly, Project Prydwen is making some good progress. You're eating into your stockpile of precious resources and funneling any scavenge and mining yields your bots bring in from the newly opened giant holes in the ground (nobody really needed those couple pieces of wilderness anyway and you're not producing any mine pollution, it's fiiine), but your pet project is taking shape before your very eyes.
Thousands of robots are swarming all over it, any Bobs that aren't busy elsewhere constantly occupied with following your directions and even over kinds, meant for combat instead of construction work, are pitting in, carrying materials and workig as part of the crew.
Turns out the algorithms you initially installed to let your robots figure out how to better combat threats are also applicable for this… Even if the first few attempts led to a lot of accidents and trashed bots.
Still, they all learn as a whole and it isn't like you need to be all too cautious about wasting anything- thanks to your industrial base of manufactories (which are also present in massive numbers on this work site) you can recycle metal with such high efficiency the losses are literally less than nothing far as you're concerned.
So then… Continuing from where you left off last time, now that the whole system you're trying to implement is starting to take shape, you can make a few adjustments and get to putting the wheels into motion. Not that you're actually using wheels all that much- most of the mechanisms that are intended to move Project Prydwen's insides around are just strong electromagnets combined with heavy conductive rails that keep everything in order.
Because yes, having a small transport system isn't enough. You want a big one, too. That means having entire city districts rearrange and reshape themselves at your command! Sure, some landmarks won't be easily movable in relation to the city's shell, particularly anything that involves your sunlight enclosures, but that just means you have to work around those.
It's still not really all that problematic- all that remains is space management and making sure none of this stuff is ever going to fail unexpectedly, so you go over the clamps and magnets and the backup clamps and the internal Inertial Suppression Fields meant to kick in in case of an accident several times. No massive disaster movie fodder on your fucking watch.
Then there's the generators for more of those same fields you basically stole from aliens (you still aren't exactly over that, just coping so far) to project a thin one outside of Project Prydwen, a couple of ideas for parts of the thing to just come off and act semi-independently in case you need to, say, quarantine a part of the population or require the use of separate artillery platforms or anything like that and of course adding more space, more space and some more space, which all needs to be planned out, plugged into your existing designs and tested for any conflicts, issues and other details, all of which need to be taken care of on your end as construction advances.
Lots to do, lots to do… But even so, a vampire doesn't need sleep, which does make this easier for you.
You're tempted to hum to yourself as you do this. You don't, but you consider it.
"So the baby's been kicking yet?"
"No, not yet," Nora laughed at Kate's question, holding her weapon in one hand and cradling her unborn child with the other. "I'm beginning to think she might just have better manners than Shaun did back then."
"Come to think of it, it's a girl? Did we ever check up on how the whole pregnancy thing is going?"
"No need. I have a feeling for this." They were approaching the building now. Gunners Plaza was widely regarded as the Gunners' headquarters, the large and dangerous mercenary group having taken it over at some point during its proliferation through the Commonwealth.
It used to be a broadcasting station servicing Boston and surroundings, though that really didn't matter anymore by this point. More important by far was the barricade of mobile shields deployed by its current inhabitants, blocking the front entrance off from easy access even though there were obvious gaps in the barrier presented by the Gunners' efforts.
Also, a heavy buzz was droning through the air, their youngest 'sister' already hard at work.
"So any bets on how many there'll be inside?" Kate asked, her mechashifting gun transforming into an assault rifle in her hands. "You gotta eat for two now and all."
"Honestly, I barely need to eat any more than I had to before. Vampire pregnancies are so much easier than human ones, let me tell you." Not to even mention morning sickness. "Heck, I can even move faster than double amputee cow right now."
"One more thing I'm so glad I won't ever have to deal with," Nora's sister-wife said, shaking her head and letting her braided hair wave through the air. "Also, hey, that a guy with a rocket launcher up there?"
Nora raised her gun, casually taking aim through the long weapon's scope. "That was a guy with a rocket launcher," she replied as she pulled the trigger, taking the man's head clean off. "Also, no bets. Can't be a bad example to the kids."
Then she activated the mechanisms inside her own weapon and turned it into a pair of blades again. These things Gabriel had made for them were so incredibly handy in a fight, she didn't know what she'd do without them.
The first indication any of the Gunners stationed as guards had as to anything out of the ordinary happening was the sound of a suppressed gunshot, followed by a headless body dropping into the courtyard together with its rocket launcher.
Granted, this was a pretty clear sign as far as those went, but even so it took the recruits and other low-ranking members standing around a long moment to really get what was going on.
By that time, the other guard on the roof was already being torn in half by clawed hands, entirely unable to fight back, whereas the turret up in front of the rest of the entirely outclassed Gunners was partially disintegrated by a bright beam of light and the other people outside…
Well, their own shadows were sprouting arms that reached out to pull them to the ground, leading to their subsequent eradication despite their helpless screams and pleas for mercy.
"Good work," Gabriel said, jumping down and dusting his hands off against each other. "There aren't any backdoors, so unless any of these suckers gets creative with explosives, they're trapped for now."
"And even if they do, they won't get far. Isn't that right, Taylor?" Nora smiled.
A great many buzzing flies surged towards the group of three now standing out in the open, coming from all directions. None of them did anything about that, however, and before long the amorphous black mass of hundreds of thousands of small, chitinous bodies shaped itself into something that resembled an oversized balled hand with its thumb raised up.
"You know you can just turn to normal here and say it, yeah?" Kate asked.
Another omnidirectional surge of bugs came, this time including several radroaches and other oversized local insects. They climbed over each other, becoming a vertically growing mound of growing, squirming things that quickly resolved into a female shape dressed only in black drapes of silk.
"I practiced a lot to do that. It would be a waste not to."
And all the while this was happening, more and more bugs were crawling out of their corners inside of Gunners Plaza itself, yet unbeknownst to most of its dwellers.
Gunners Plaza is just about what you were expecting, to be honest. Broken stuff and random detritus lying everywhere amidst the once respectable work place you're making your way into, the usual… Along with a whole bunch of blood signatures moving around inside, some of which are more active than others- not every member of the Gunners is completely deaf, apparently.
Not that that's gonna save them, but it's funny to see the bugs squirm, at least.
You, Kate and Nora walk right in, treating this whole bit more as a sightseeing tour than anything else. "You know, you don't really think about it when you watch TV, but there's a whole industry behind every every bit of making that possible, isn't there?"
"There is. Just thinking about it, news sections alone would require a lot of manpower to keep them updated," Nora agrees to Kate's point.
"Come on you two, keep your head in the game." There's a bunch of hostiles up ahead, so-
"I got it." Kate's first instinct is to fire a volley of heavy railgun fire at each of their positions, effortlessly blasting away both their cover and their bodies, each shot ending a life. "This is almost like a shooting range."
You just sigh and reach out with your hemokinesis, which is quickly joined by Nora's. "At least try not to waste any meals, okay?"
As long as you act quickly, you can still snap up the souls of those that were killed mere moments ago. It's just a matter of quickly slurping the blood down, really. You have a theory that hemokinesis somehow forcefully pulls it along, too, which would explain why it's much easier to succeed in it when using it, but you never really got around to testing that.
Because priorities. You just never really have enough time and you categorically refuse to sacrifice your leisure time for anything. You get little enough space in your schedule to kick back and relax as is.
Healthcare is important, even for the undead that could technically just keep on going indefinitely. You may or may not also just be lazy.
Anyway, a few more quick shootouts involving you and your two companions firing your respective guns to absolutely demolish any opposition (and lots of popped eyeballs, because why wouldn't you do that on top just in case) later you're cleared out around… You'd say half the building, really. You're just making a game out of shooting through walls into the various offices Gunners are hiding inside of, the simple thugs with a minimum of training never so much as getting to shoot back at your group.
That's just the difference between capes and no capes, ultimately. Sure, most capes do die to a bullet to the head, but so does every else, capes just have an easier time to make sure 'everyone else' dies before they do.
That said, you have come to a certain conclusion. One, there is a pretty big basement to this place and two, there's a bunch of Gunners inside of it, the sight of blood inside of them more than enough to prove this to you.
Hence you call for a short stop once you come to an elevator. "Want to try and see of this thing goes down?"
I'll take care of it, Taylor beams into everyone's heads, the latently increased presence of bugs intensifying with every word. Then she pulls her usual, this time growing out of the ground as more more and more of them accumulate to make up her rising body. "This is the only way out of the basement. I checked."
That would explain what she's been doing up to now. Aside from drawing every insect within a few miles right to this place, anyway.
"Got it, have fun," Nora smiles and nods at her, a sentiment mirrored by everyone else, too.
Now to take care of the rest…
It had all happened so quickly. None of them saw it happening until it was too late.
First, there was movement in the dark. It just turned out to be the usual- bugs, rats, whatever was there. None of the Gunners cared, it was just a bit of vermin, but even so they should have brought it up with the others instead of ignoring it.
Because next the rats, squeaking and scrabbling over concrete ground, ran right at them. "Fucking shit, what is this?" One of them growled, shooting and killing a couple with his handgun. "Furry shits gettin'-"
"Uh… You see that?" One of the others asked.
"See what?"
The dark moved, spilling almost solid globs of bugs all over the ground, a nausea-inducing display showing cockroaches and spiders and centipedes and whatever swallowing up both living and dead rats, the panicked rodents injected with venom and eaten alive.
There were more bugs, though. Way, way more. And as they moved closer to the light shone by the lamps inside the basement, they all quickly realized one critically important thing.
They were filling everything up to the ceiling without anyone having noticed. None of them were anywhere close to the ceiling.
That was a literal maneating swarm.
"Oh fuck," one of their number said amidst the quiet only underscored by the constant, rasping skittering of chitin against chitin.
Then the avalanche broke and they all ran with all they had.
"Shit, shit, shit!" The highest-ranking among them was firing his gun over his back in a vain attempt to slow the swarm down, the tide closing in on him by the second. "Go get the elevator!"
"No time! We-" His second-in-command began, stopping short when he saw something. "Fuuuck!"
A giant spider was guarding the elevator door, hundreds and thousands of smaller ones spinning a bunch of oversized webs all around it.
"Shoot it! Shoot-" And those were the last words of the first to be swallowed up, millions of tiny sharp jaws biting through skin and otherwise useless bugs diving into his mouth and nose and eyes and ears.
None of them ever saw the figure standing in the dark. No wonder, considering she was covered by literal mountains (or at least hills) of insects.
Taylor smiled as they all died, one after the other. They didn't even kill the decoy spider before the other five of them hiding on the ceiling dropped to end them all.
As always, the most involved part of these cleanup jobs is the last one you're present for; making sure your robots pick the place clean of anything useful or valuable by your standards and take any sizable enough body parts with them for the purpose of getting as much biomass out of your victims as possible.
Waste not, want not and all that. You don't demand they vacuum every drop of shed blood off the ground, but they tend to overlook missing limbs from time to time, which is just in need of optimization, really.
That said, you do take a few moments on the side to congratulate Nora and Taylor for reaching the ceiling of power your own strength limits them to. Turns out your spawn can actually feel that, or at least intuit a pretty close guess and go from there.
Well, it just goes to show how much more people you need to chow down on in order to progress yourself. You've eaten an estimated metric fuckton of people at this point and if each of them counted like they do for your girls, you'd be a literal god by now or something.
Or at least strong enough people would probably legitimately build churches in your honour. Well, you could get them to do it as you are right now already, admittedly, and have done so inside your inner world by complete accident, but the idea is clear.
The interplay of these things is also quite interesting, you suppose. The vampires you have created and the ones they create in turn are vastly weaker than yourself in terms of the sheer amount of powers they can have (and are somewhat weaker in general besides), but in exchange you require vastly more victims to become stronger, which in turn raises their limit up just a little more.
They have to help you become stronger in order to become stronger themselves. It all comes back down to yourself, which does make sense- you can be kind of self-absorbed sometimes.
Still, so much for Gunners Plaza. It had a good amount of trained mercenaries slash assholes in it, but now it's being systematically torn down and exploited of anything of worth. Just goes to show how very few things in this dimension can realistically impede you in the slightest.
Ah, Diamond City. Still as much of a trash heap as usual, but as with anything in life, it's all a matter of how you view it. Because for as much of a crappy hole as it might be, it still is one of the biggest cities in the Commonwealth and contains certain services and goods that are hard to obtain in Concord as of yet… Which is one of the reasons you're visiting this fine evening, in fact.
Making your way through the marketplace past a small crowd, you keep an eye out for two people in particular, one Piper Wright and one naughty little voyeur living with her, if you aren't completely mistaken. And indeed, after just a minute or two, you manage to find the latter, hawking the newspapers printed right here in this… city.
The words get stuck in her throat and she blushes when she sees you in turn and you give her a little wink before moving right on. That's one part of this evening's program getting primed unless you've judged her completely wrongly- which has never happened in your whole life, mind you.
She'll be there. Only question will be how long it might take her to get ready.
By contrast, Piper is a little harder to find, but asking one of the guards you remember from your last time in Diamond City points you into her direction in the alleyways nearby the market. Sniffing around a bit, you soon find her scent, following it straight to the reporter in red.
She's asking a couple folks a few questions, but waiting until she's done doesn't take too much of your time and so you soon have her walking with you for a bit, steering the two of you back to her house.
"… So you see, it would be quite wonderful indeed to have the Publick Occurrences expand a little, service a larger area. People in Concord are still getting settled in, but something like a newspaper can work anywhere enough people live together, wouldn't you agree?"
"Perhaps, 'Mister Livsey', but that would involve a lot of work… Work that would keep me too busy to keep up with normal operations, you see."
"Not to worry, not to worry, naturally the Minutemen would be paying you for your trouble, including safe transportation and perhaps a little help in the production department- a printing press is good and well, but perhaps you could do with a few upgrades here and there, right?" You make sure to keep your smirk even and easygoing as you go. "You could even hire a helper or two, it has to be hard work to keep running with just your sister and yourself."
"… Tell you what, get me an interview or two with you and whoever's in charge of the Minutemen and we can talk." Piper peers up at you from the corners of her eyes.
"Sure, can do," you shrug, casually moving your hand down along her back until you can grope her butt. "If a few private interviews going on and on are what you want…"
She looks around suspiciously, but doesn't try to move you off of her. "Let's just get back to my place real quick."
As soon as she recognized the man that'd come out of her home that day, Nat did several things. First, she packed up the papers she was looking to sell, they'd be good for a couple days at least- ever since she'd bugged her sister to include some comedy sections, pretty much anyone that had a couple caps left over was completely fine even when the news were a little stale so long as they got a good couple laughs out of it.
Only one more reason why Nat was just way better at the whole business side of running a newspaper than Piper. She'd be helpless without her lil' sis there to help her, really!
Also, she made a note of his appearance again. he was unusually clean, perfectly shaven and walking with that confident stride that only people that could and would go out of the safety of the city had. She'd know, Piper was like that, too.
Secondly, Nat made sure she wasn't followed as she returned home, putting every lesson about spotting any tails on her and staying under the radar Piper had given her to use. Being seen or followed to that hidden little space between the back of her home and the next building over was the last thing she wanted.
And thirdly… Thirdly she went inside real quick when it turned out nobody was home yet (she'd listened for a full minute just in case) to go get a replacement set of clothing just in case. Last time she'd had to run around with a wet spot on her pants for hours before she worked up the courage to come back home.
Then she settled down in that same spot, checking again to make sure she hadn't missed anything and then sealing the peeping hole tight again. She might be discovered if she left it open and all.
Then all she had to do was wait. He had been there, after all, so unless that wink had just been a casual greeting over the secret they shared, that meant it was time for that again, right?
Right?!
And that meant Nat had to be there, too, to make sure Piper was alright and that they didn't do anything too naughty and if they did there was nothing she could do about it but that didn't matter, she had a job to do and she would do it!
And she didn't even have to wait long, either. Piper and that man whose name she still didn't know (because Piper refused to tell her anything) came in through the front door. She couldn't see much, but it looked like they were kissing already, and taking each other's clothes off!
… Damn, she should've brought a notepad with her to take notes on. Though those would also be proof of what she was doing, so…
Nat didn't have a perfect angle for this, but it seemed like her partner in crime was also pulling her sister along to help with that a little, letting her see things a little better. Piper wasn't wearing anything on her upper body now and neither was he, so she didn't know which of the two to look at, though.
He was… Well, chiseled, manly, handsome, those were the words that came to mind. Nat didn't really like boys because they were just yucky and annoying, but this was as far from a boy as it went.
This was a man, and one that made her doubt she would ever be pretty enough to attract one like that. How had her sister done it, anyway?
Which then brought her to her sister. And her breasts, which explained that, too.
… It was alright! Nat would grow. She was far from grown-up yet, so she'd probably have even bigger tits than Piper in a few years. Totally.
He went on to play with them, touching them and doing something with his hands that made Nat's sister moan out so loud she was worried they might be heard… By someone else, anyway. "Pretty sensitive, aren't they?"
"I don't get much action, of course they are."
"Oh? I'm honored I get to be the lucky one, then."
"Please, as if I'd just let anyone at these goods. It's not about luck…"
Guh… They were flirting, weren't they?! It felt kind of weird listening in on them, though it was kind of weird how Nat was doing this at all and… Well, she'd just continue watch-
His hands were on Piper's hips, thumbs digging under her pants to slowly drag them down. Nat's breath was stuck inside her throat; this was it, right?
"Guess I can thank my qualifications then." As he moved her pants down, there was a clear string of something between the thighs of Nat's sister. Seeing her like that, standing straight and letting herself be undressed, made something weird happen to her… And she was getting that same feeling from last time again, too.
Nat made sure to keep her breathing in check as a hand sneaked down between her legs, one eye glued to the peeping hole. She was feeling around and confirming that she, too, was getting wet.
"Your turn!" Then he lost his pants, yanked down by Piper, and Nat had to swallow.
It was huge, bobbing in the air like a weapon or something. There were veins running all over it and the flared head… Did she… Did she really take something that big into her mouth last time? Maybe it'd gotten bigger or…
"So? Do I pass inspection?" The words brought her back from her weird thoughts.
"Only barely, but I suppose we'll just have to loosen requirements for once," Piper teased.
Then he grabbed her butt with both hands and lifted her like she didn't weigh anything, muscles rippling with power despite not exerting themselves that much. "I aim to please," he teased right back, shifting his footing a little so that Nat could see everything that was going down just fine from below.
She could see Piper's butt moving under his hands, being spread wide as she threw her legs up and around him. She could even see her sister's butthole (which she only called that because saying 'ass' was apparently a bad thing according to her) almost winking, her vagina stretched open just the slightest bit… And glistening in what little light reached it, its lips moist and dark with blood.
Nat's tongue slipped out, wetting her dry lips. Down below, she was circling her own sex, just waiting for…
His penis, looking for all the world like a stake, approached from under Piper, her tense thighs twitching as it brushed against her. "You ready?" he asked.
"I was born ready," Nat's sister said and just like that, she was plunged down with a little shriek, taking half of it in one go.
If she didn't know otherwise, she'd be worried she was hurting herself, but…
"Fuck yes, do me hardeeer!"
That.
"Careful, what if someone comes in and hears you?" He asked, clearly glancing over at Nat. Her eyes went wide and she angled her head a little more to hear better.
"Only Nat would… Come, and she'll be busy at the… market!"
"But what if she sold out earlier, or forgot something at home?"
"We'd… hide!" Piper groaned, now wrapped around the entire shaft to the base. Nat could see it clearly, the way her lips were spread open wide to accommodate it, and it felt extra naughty to hear about how she wasn't supposed to be seeing this at all and Piper would go out of her way to hide it.
If she knew…
"Good thing nobody that isn't supposed to see is around then, I guess." Nat's cheeks burned. As she thought, she was supposed to be there and seeing this…
The two of them went on for a while, Piper doing the twitching thing a few times where it felt like your head was filled with nice explosions, moving around a little bit but always staying somewhere Nat could see at least some of the action. She was also putting her fingers inside of herself, pushing and rubbing where she felt good- She'd gone on her knees at some point so she could keep watching all the while, head pressed against the wall so she didn't miss a thing.
Her skirt and pants were down to her knees too, just so they didn't rest on the hard ground under her.
So there she was, stretching her butt out with a hand between her legs. She didn't have any time to think about that, though, she had to keep watching what was going on inside. Piper was almost being paraded around for her and she was getting a good look at everything, her breasts, her privates, her front and back… All the while Piper never got to see the little hole with the eye on the other side.
It had to be a special kind of talent to keep that up for an hour straight, though Nat sure wasn't complaining.
The man was also doing his own thingy, even if he didn't clench up anywhere near as much as either of them did. Maybe it was a man thing? Or maybe Nat and her sister were just like that? Either way there was a lot of the white stuff again, though this time he didn't shoot any of it into her peeping hole.
Piper hadn't wanted him to do it inside of her so he had to pull out every time. That seemed like a lot of extra effort and Nat wondered if it wouldn't feel better to do it inside, anyway? Sure, she remembered the lecture about how sex worked and how that was how babies were made, but this was just a lot of splooge wasted on the floor where she couldn't get at it, either.
Eventually, though, Piper just slumped down in his arms, breathing hard. The red on her face hadn't gone away for a long while already. "Hey big guy, wanna take a break? I got a couple nukes around again…"
"Hah, sure," he smiled, picking her up with one arm under her back and the other under her knees (Nat felt a flutter for some reason) to dump her on the couch again. "Want to chat about anything? Make this a little less awkward?"
"Please no, last thing I want is to get to know you better," Nat's sister chuckled. "But uh, let's seriously wait with that for later? At least whenever I'm not butt naked."
"Oh, so it's alright if I am, but not you?"
"What can I say, I love me some eye candy." Nat couldn't see it, but Piper had to have reached out, turning on their radio. "Here, how's this for something to break the silence?"
Diamond City Radio was a waste of time at the best of times, but even if the stuttering idiot running it was a stuttering idiot, it was nice to have something running sometimes, so they kept the old radio around. Plus, it was bearable as long as he was just playing music instead of trying to be a convincing show host.
More importantly, it was loud enough to drown out quiet sounds. Was that why… ?
The man went around the house completely naked for a bit, grabbing the nuka cola Nat was only allowed to drink a little bit of at a time- it was still radiated after all, even if it tasted awesome- and threw one bottle to Piper. "So I'm guessing you run things out of your house?"
"Duh, can't exactly get a separate one. Property prices are amazingly high in a place with limited space like this city."
The two struck up a conversation as he came over towards Nat again, talking about whatever. She didn't really pay attention.
Instead she was fixated on the swinging log of meat almost right in front of her, growing bigger and bigger as it did. She pulled back to let it pass through the hole in the wall, suddenly intruding on her side of the invisible border that'd broken things up until now.
As she thought, he wanted to do things again… If Piper didn't move around or look in his direction, she wouldn't know, but was this really okay?
"Anyway, I figure your sister would be weighing in on this stuff. She does a lot of work to keep the Occurrences running, doesn't she?"
Oh, now it was on.
First, Nat looked at the penis she could, for the first time, see and observe clearly despite the frequent fantasies about it over the past couple days. It was big and hard when she touched it, despite being made of flesh, and it was all slimy from Piper, too.
Well, she knew how to change that, at least.
Guided half by a hysterical urge to see where this was going and half by memory, Nat leaned in and gave it a lick to start with. She could feel the heat of the organ through her tongue, dragging it up and down along its lower side, before she came back to the tip and let her lips rest against it.
Was she really doing this? Yes, yes she was. She'd never done something as… naughty as this and it was making her core boil over with its own heat.
She opened her mouth carefully to take it inside, tasting the same thing she did that last time again. But this time, it was different; she wasn't just cleaning up after her sister, she was doing lewd stuff with him on her own.
Nat wondered how he would be looking at her right now beyond the wall. Would he smile patiently? Would he be holding onto her head, showing her how to do it? Maybe he'd tell her to hurry up already, grow impatient and just tear her clothes from her to-
Bad fantasies, back to sucking.
With his tip inside of her mouth, Nat went on to lick and slather his rod in saliva, feeling herself move closer and closer to the base by how much deeper it went. She wondered if she might be able to…
Going a little too fast, Nat had to press back against the coughing, her body fighting to push the penis out instead of in. Bad idea. Instead, she went back to licking it, trying to move her head back and forth rhythmically.
"Don't say that, I'm sure she's doing great work all the time. She wouldn't be doing that if she didn't want to support you wholeheartedly," she caught from the conversation inside, only able to clearly hear the man's voice now.
Was he telling her she was on the right track or was he actually praising her? When in doubt, Nat chose to redouble her efforts, taking his penis as deep inside her mouth as she could and just holding onto it with her free hand otherwise, stroking the half she couldn't fit in time with her head bobs.
Her other hand was busy between her legs still. What else would she be doing with it? This was very, very naughty, after all.
It tasted somehow… savoury. The mix of Piper and the man, stuck to his member. Nat didn't mind, it was kind of nice, actually. She just wondered about the rest… If the hole was big enough, could she also touch his balls, maybe?
She was curious now.
"Well either way, you're doing some great work here. Someone has to bring the truth to people that don't know it, right? Not like it's coming to them on its own."
Wait, did he- Nat swallowed just in time, a heavy spurt of the white liquid she'd been busy staring at for half an hour last time spreading all over her mouth and down her throat. She had to keep going to desperately keep up with the quantity he was spurting between her lips and even so, in the end she just missed a beat and had to pull back, getting a last parting shot all over her cheek.
She spat out the last bit onto her hands, doing everything she could to stay quiet. Inside, the man turned to the side, leaning against the wall now so she could still see his proud rod standing straight.
It was kind of funny. Nat had to fight the giggles even harder than the coughing.
"It's sweet of you to say that. Hey, want to go another round? I can feel my toes again already."
"Can't have that, now can we? How do you want it this time?" He growled.
"Hard and fast and with an extra meal on top," Piper shot back.
"Can do."
And just like that, they went back at it, Nat pouting unseen when Piper drank down his next load. She'd just have to wait, though- she couldn't let her sister know, after all.
And surely, he would feed her his own 'special mix' again, right? Piper couldn't last forever, she'd given out once already.
The Temple: A massive underground complex of buildings with a clearly religious connotation illuminated only by the many fires burning within and a mysterious light source above, bearing many statues of gods both real and imagined. Your own countenance is among them. Any religious rituals held within this facility are more significant and worship of captured souls grows to the worth of about 1% of a living one, should you draw strength from such.
Includes free robes and creates any religious writings, tools or similar wished for by souls visiting it, assuming they know them.
The Nuns: Mysterious women clothed in religious attire of your cult. Their true faces can never be seen, though their crimson glowing eyes belie their inhumanity to any that pay attention to them instead of their mammaries. Appearing in groups no smaller than three, but up to fifty at a time, they are capable of executing various rituals in your honour that have very real effects despite being merely somewhat physically stronger than a baseline human themselves, from conjuring cloying darkness over an area to granting blessings to fertility of fields, spirits and loins, preserve the dead or dying, conduct sacrifices that can cause or stop natural disasters and return anything up and including the recently departed to full health. The more of them cooperate, the stronger their rituals grow. Last for up to two hours, cooldown of one week.
Summon Guardian : The Nuns are summoned with various tools from whips to riding crops to life-sized iron crosses to discipline nonbelievers. Low chance that survivors are gripped with faith in your cult and spread it on their own.
The Farm: A seemingly completely empty village containing signs of industry, but without any inhabitants. Nevertheless, it produces and delivers various resources within our Soul Palace.
Synergy with the Workshop, The Laboratory: Generates magical materials that you have discovered to be used when designing or building objects within your Soul Palace
Synergy with The Kitchen: Provides a wide variety of crops, spices and animal products to be used in cooking food, enriching the resultant dishes. Adds 5 to fruit xp roll totals.
Synergy with The Treasury: Adds treasure to be enjoyed at leisure. No further effects, but taxing the peasants to hoard more wealth is great fun.
The Docks: A dreary, lonely place whose ships sail out towards the sea almost constantly. Allows trade with any other Soul Palaces or similar the owner has come into contact with, including in souls or other creations made within.
Synergy with The Guest Room: Once a month, allows the owner to instantly teleport to the side of another Soul Palace's owner that has been contacted at least once.
The Night: An evolution of The Sky, allowing control over nightly phenomena such as star formations and cosmic nebulae existing within the Soul Palace. Using this control, one may assemble various star formations that signify the passing of time, adding plus or minus 5 to time rolls within the Soul Palace.
Synergy with The Observatory: Once per day, peering into another's soul grants knowledge of the most fundamental parts of their existence, revealing possible past lives and inherent strengths and weaknesses that make up their very being.
The Instruction: Anywhere within The Grounds, one may wish to gain instruction in any one particular subject, conjuring The Instructor to administer it. Training is harsh, but grants one additional xp roll and discards the lowest one made whenever training within the Soul Palace.
The Instructor: A bodyless creature only visible through the equipment it uses, The Instructor is entirely invincible. Any damage its equipment takes is repaired within seconds or minutes in the case of anything approaching complete destruction. About as strong as a baseline human being, The Instructor possesses extreme skill in any forms of combat imaginable when summoned, though its capabilities in any other skills are equally consistent. It cannot plan ahead further than the period of its own summoning, however, so take care- any flaws in its plans or constructions past this point are a given. The Instructor wields a nigh indestructible shield capable of splitting into sharp, floating shards and a sword that can injure any foe through any kind of protection, but will use other armaments when supplied with them. Lasts for up to one hour, cooldown of one week.
Curious as to the recent changes you've been feeling inside your inner world, you take a moment to dive into your subconscious and take a closer look once you've seated yourself on your throne- usually you're just far too busy eating a bunch of supremely tasty stuff (thanks to the Cook) to really pay attention to other developments that don't really spring into your mind, despite the almost hivemind-like structure of command you can and do implement as far as your souls are concerned.
You simply don't care all that much what your constituents are doing unless it's actually relevant to your situation. Huh, almost like a modern government, now that you think of it. You'll be sure to mention that to Yoshi at some point just to piss him off.
Anyway, there's entirely new structures that have come to be in the time since you last looked, which is a surprisingly deceptive statement on account of how differently time works inside this place; things can happen in an instant that surprise you to the bone while on the other hand months can pass without anything significant going on.
Anyway, looking around, you can see some good stuff all around- you have some docks, now, linking a far-off part of your palace in even more ruin than the rest to an ocean that now also exists and you suddenly find you can exert your will onto the passage of time just a little more than you could a day or two ago.
That said, the most abjectly concerning new thing you've noticed would be the additional cavern now sharing space with everything else under the palace, filled to the brim with a giant mess of temple and churches and what-have-you.
And, of course, the massive congregation of souls dressed in black robes and carrying lanterns moving in and out almost constantly under the directions of one Father Simon Wales. How? Why? How?!
You know what, you'll just… leave that alone. Let them play at being an evil cult, how much damage can they actually do from within your stomach?
"AND THE DAY WILL COME THAT THE NAME OF THE LORD IS SPREAD WIDE AND FAR, BROTHERS AND SISTERS, BEYOND THE STARS AND ALL BORDERS THERE ARE!"
""AMEN!""
"FOR THE LORD SAID THERE IS NO CATHEDRAL TOO SMALL, NO SHRINE TOO INSIGNIFICANT, FOR OUR MERCY TO GRACE IT! FROM THE SMALLEST OF SACRIFICES TO THE END OF THE WORLD, ALL IS AN ACT OF WORSHIP TO OUR LORD!"
""AMEN!""
"SO LET THE UNBELIEVERS LEARN! FROM THEIR IGNORANCE WE SHALL LIFT THEM!"
""LIFT THEM!""
"FROM THEIR DISBELIEF WE SHALL CURE THEM!"
""CURE THEM!""
"AND FROM THEIR FOLLY WE SHALL FREE THEM, MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN FAITH! WE SHALL FREE THEM IN GRACE OR WE SHALL FREE THEM WITH THE FINAL CURE, FOR THE GRACE OF MERCY KNOWS MANY FACES!"
""FREE THEM! KILL THEM! FREE THEM! KILL THEM!""
"THUS SAITH THE LORD!"
""THUS! SAITH! THE! LORD!""
Quietly ignoring the going-ons inside your inner world entirely, you focus on what really counts; reality. Where real things happen, unless you say 'no' and shut physics down. Then again, if they knew what was good for them, they'd have acceded you omnipotence already, so you're really just defending yourself, honestly.
Anyway, back to reality. "So have you thought about how you'd like your body to look like in general?"
That's right, you're figuring things out a bit with Curie right now! You've been giving her a little space and time to think and consider her options, but you've taken a little of the latter aside today to help her with her attempt to become a real girl and do more efficient science.
Hey, whatever floats her boat. And if she needs a little longer, you can always pencil in a couple of your other projects, you have enough on your plate you won't run out anytime soon.
"I have, Monsieur Gabriel," Curie politely bobs in the air, delicately manipulating her thruster to achieve this feat. "The human genome offers a great many possibilities, but I 'ave narrowed down what characteristics to prioritize, if possible."
Man, her French accent is just pleasant to listen to. Maybe you should get her to record an audiobook one of these days or something, people would definitely buy it.
Curie's suggestions and requests, overall, aren't really all that crazy or anything; the one thing she mostly seems to be concerned with is her appearance-to-be, which makes sense considering she's been a robot all her 'life' and the one thing that humans have that really differs from them is individual characteristics in their bodies' makeups and all that.
"Considering common attributes, I believe the 'air should be red and bright, with a length passing just under the shoulders. Is this acceptable?"
"Can do. In fact, while we're at it, you can just choose a color directly, I have a palette here somewhere," you point out, looking through the documents lying around inside your inner world's laboratory complex. You did go out of your way to figure out way to permanently dye people's hair through ADAM injection, after all; so far this has been put into practice primarily through the auto-docs you supplied the hookers that agreed to work with you back in Brockton Bay, but Curie certainly merits the same attention at least.
"Very well. I also 'ave several sketches of the intended proportions of this new body, may I submit them for review?" Curie asks, obviously having put a lot more effort into this than you expected, to be honest.
"Lay 'em out and we can get right to work. It isn't guaranteed the first try will come out just right, so we may need to repeat the process a few times, anyway."
And that's pretty much how it comes, too. There's a couple of failed starts as the DNA of the rapidly mutating cancerous material that you end up brewing together fails to stabilize properly in the beginning stages, as combining ADAM and FEV to flash-grow human bodies in a pod isn't exactly as easy as you'd like to pretend, but after you've got the approximate process nailed down, things become much, much easier, letting you proceed with impunity.
Well, all of that also involved a few minor mod to your manufactory used for this purpose to manipulate said DNA more precisely, but that's really all there is to it.
The body Curie requested ultimately comes out looking quite good; long, almost cherry-colored hair, big steel-blue eyes and eyebrows with a very slight curve, all topped off by a cute button nose and shapely lips. On her request, this body isn't growing any hair below the eyes just to make personal hygiene easier to take care of while the overall shape and posture are pretty much just that of an attractive, young woman with a sizable, but not overdone chest and clear pale skin.
The addition of the synth chip went without much trouble during the growth process, even if properly connecting it to the brain was a lot more fiddly than you would've liked. It still seems to be working about as expected, though, which is a major boon; that was honestly the most risky part of this whole procedure.
Having to create the best specimen you could was complicated enough the first time around.
"It looks perfect," is Curie's eventual judgement call when you announce it to be done. "I cannot wait to dress it up in in laboratory uniform. Perhaps a red tie to top it off?"
You immediately get a feeling for how she is going to look, envisioning it inside your head. Curie seems like the type to need a lot of coffee to stay working for days on end, doesn't she?
"Now all that's left is to see whether Doctor Amari can deliver," you nod your otherwise quiet assent. You can get those clothes made easily enough, too. "Let's take everything to the Memory Den and see what happens?"
"Oui oui."
Getting down into the basement proves even easier than the last time around as you come inside the 'memory parlor' of Goodneighbour, giving Irma a wink and moving right onward with the largely inanimate body hidden inside of a body bag you're carrying over your shoulder.
Look, there's nobody inside yet so you won't bother treating it super carefully yet. Not to mention it's actually quite resistant to… pretty much most things, really. "… And thanks to the mixtures involved in making all of this possible, it's pretty much immune to just about any viruses or bacteria imaginable, as well as chemical agent would normally damage it. In other words, unless it's some kind of super acid or several vats of FEV, you won't have to worry about having your appearance changed against your will."
"Most impressive, Monsieur Gabriel," the robot you decided to recruit applauds your creation. "Though I 'ave to ask, does this not make the use of 'plasmids' and 'tonics' impossible as well?"
"Not quite, actually- you may experience some initial limitations, but ADAM is so over the top you will likely be able to incorporate products based on it more or less as normal. It ranks up there with 'super acids' and vats of FEV."
And that's when you arrive at the bottom of the stairs, greeting Doctor Amari with a casual nod. "Hello there doctor, you wouldn't happen to have a minute or two? I finished up the blank new body."
"Oh. You are not accompanied by Irma today." Translation, you aren't currently fucking the woman in question. "Very well, just put it into the pod there and I will need this robot to come over here… ?"
"My name is Curie, I do not believe we 'ad a chance for introductions last time," the white Miss Nanny variant declares. "I 'ad assumed you would be needing access to my internal ports, so I took the opportunity to open them a'ead of time."
"That makes this easier, yes. Okay, so if I…"
Preparations do indeed not take all that long; as soon as everything involved is in place, the doctor gets right to work. You mostly just stand back and observe, though you do so with far more fidelity than you suspect anyone expects; you're keeping a close eye on Curie's soul, readily apparent inside of her current self, just to make sure how this technology interacts with that.
And it does. One moment, Curie is a robot, the pod filled with a body instead of connected to her via several cables containing just that, an empty, soulless body. The next, things are the other way around, her now former body falling to the ground gracelessly as her new, human one (or so close nobody will be able to tell the difference anyway) twitching and stirring inside of its container.
"And that… Seems to be a success," Doctor Amari says, opening it via remote control. "Can you hear me? Are you experiencing any dizziness?"
Curie shakes her head, eyes rolling in their sockets for a long moment. "I am… disoriented, that is all. 'aving a sense of touch is very new to me."
"That makes complete sense. Can you tell us about the oldest memory you can think of? This is important to-"
"Verify whether the transfer was successful, oui. Not to worry, there are no other memories nor personality in this body that could have overwritten my own." Pushing herself up, Curie reveals an unexpected sight; turns out her hair has grown drastically since you put that body into that pod. "I believe it was a complete success. Even instinctual movement is coming to me like an avalanche."
She gets up, smiling at you as she strikes a pose.
"Thank you, Monsieur Gabriel. This could never 'ave 'appened without you."
The doctor standing next to her clears her throat. "That's all well and good, but could you put on some clothes, please?"
"I have some basic ones in here, actually," you say as you reach into the body bag you brought to bring out the rolled-up cloth. "Just temporary clothing until you can get some for yourself. And don't thank me too early, your hair-"
Her hair happens to take this moment to shrink back, reducing in length and disappearing back into her scalp. "My 'air is partially under my control, I believe. A most curious outcome, likely caused by the ADAM used in its creation," Curie hypothesizes. "Per'aps my eyebrows may become extra bushy through repeated application?"
You shrug. "Something to look into later, I suppose."
For now, Curie has her new body and everybody's happy. Mission accomplished, you'll say.
Thralling Curie, now that she has a body made of flesh and blood, is pretty much the exact same as thralling anyone else, in effect. You just go on ahead and feed her your blood once you're safely ensconced inside the safety of Sanctuary, seeing as she has a mouth and stomach and dietary track and all that now.
By comparison, doing the same with Jezebel whom you also grabbed for this is a tad bit more complicated, but you did have a good while to figure this out- there's a whole slew of possibilities, but most of all you literally included a feeding port into her head, one that you can now also fill with your blood.
Of course you do all of this while helping Curie test out her new body, making sure no part of it is malfunctioning or malformed somehow… All the while making Jezebel watch, of course, purely for your personal amusement.
Because you, for one, have taste.
"How does this feel, anything weird?" You ask as you massage along Curie's thighs and down her calves, taking one leg at a time.
"It feels very pleasant, Monsieur Gabriel, is it supposed to?" She asks in that lost, helpless accent. It's really cute, actually.
"It's certainly no issue. Your body is brand-new and there shouldn't be any knots in your muscles, but it doesn't hurt to make sure." You give her a rogue-ish little smile. "Take it as an after-sales service on my end."
"I believe that- Ohhh…" You have officially reached her feet, kneading the soles and rubbing along the edges of the balls. You used to do this a lot way back when and recently rediscovered the joy of massaging a woman's (or girl's, really) feet, much to the amusement of Nora who has been the main target of your foot offense. "That is…"
Curie's cheeks are red now and she can't quite seem to close her mouth.
"Yeah, foot massages. They're a thing. Would be hard to find someone that really knows their way around one, but maybe a massage parlor would be an interesting investment into the future?" You ask idly.
Anyway, her skin is very soft and universally even, on account of being brand new and all, which also means her feet are probably pretty sensitive compared to a normal person's- as is the rest of her body. You are going to enjoy this.
Speaking of, Jezebel is silently sitting there and watching, knowing exactly what would happen if she distracted you. That is, she wouldn't be getting bent over and used as a sex toy, hence her silence. You wonder what sort of face she would make right now… If you'd deigned to give her one.
Curie keeps herself in her seat, shivering at the sensations you rub and press into her, for a little while before you nod in satisfaction. "Looks good. Now…" You let your eyes wander back up her legs, all the way to the lab coat she is wearing- and nothing else. "For the rest…"
"I understand that this area is of particular importance due to reproductive and cultural reasons," Curie say, gesturing for her lap, "so per'aps it would be-"
You dive onto your knees, letting your tongue come out to play and licking along the inside of her thigh, looking up at her smiling all the while. "Please, complete that sentence," you ask, then you dig right in.
Curie shudders when the tip of your tongue licks along her very much virgin slit, parting her maidenly lips and revealing a certain taste you're all too familiar with. Her breathing stops when you get in closer, parting her legs for better access and slowly invading her delicate insides.
Then you plunge inside, your fleshy tongue tasting and licking her inner walls, making Curie flinch and curl up over you, both hands grabbing your head. "M-monsieur Gabriel… !"
No irregularities detected so far. Just a hot, tight pussy and lot of lubrication being produced by it.
Curie is currently unsure of whether to draw you in closer or push you away, her new instincts and sensations paralyzing her decision-making, her hair falling over her shoulders uncontrolled and smooth. "This… th-this… !"
Her smooth, soft thighs tremble as you wrap your hands around them, pulling back to nibble and lick at her clit. It's important that part works, too, after all.
"Oh mon Dieu oh mon Dieu oh mon Dieu…"
You get the distinct impression Curie just came, slumping down on her chair once the spasms subside. You wipe your mouth with the back of your hand. "Looks like the piping works so far. Time for the rest."
"The rest… ?" Curie asks, snapping her legs shut in alarm.
"Exactly." getting up, you circle around her, laying both hands onto her shoulders. "There's a lot of your body left to thoroughly… work… over…"
Time to knead every inch of Curie you can find.
With your progress expanding to more and more considerable degrees, new challenges and issues naturally arise. As in, generally speaking instead of 'just' about turning Curie into a blissed-out mess for fun.
Though you do take pride and joy in doing so all the same, but that's not where the problems come in.
Simply put, the robots you're employing to do most heavy construction work around your… Let's call it a faction's, influence, are doing great work, but even so it turns out some of their routine tasks are actually pretty complicated for them despite the great advances you've made in their own schematics.
And yes, you're still calling them Bobs as a reference to Bob the Builder. Say whatever you want, but if you don't want to grow up already, nobody and nothing can really force you to.
Simply put, road construction is putting a lot of strain on the robots you've commandeered off for civil engineering projects. Which is kind of a shame, considering you're really looking forward to rebuilding some proper roads to connect the various locations you've decided to essentially claim to ease up on transportation.
Both through Torpids and other means. Maybe you'll get around to going out of your way to build cars one of these days, just because Torpids are actually pretty resource-intensive compared to a less complicated and massive machine, but you've kind of just been using robotics as your only hammer as far as engineering solutions are concerned.
Hence you use it for everything. And to your credit, a Torpid is actually preferable in term of being able to move through rough, uneven terrain effortlessly and its pretty extensive armoring, making it the definitive mode of transportation for unpowered people here on Earth Fallout, roads or no roads.
It's just that having them would be nice and reduce the amount of space patrols have to cover, effectively.
Hence you're sitting down and looking into designing a few ways your Bobs should be able to cut out a lot of 'manual' effort when paving (or rather, repaving) roads. Now how did you make a cement mixer again?
… This can't be that complicated, really, if human construction workers can do it. Not to knock construction workers, but they're human.
Okay, you did it! It just ended up taking a liiitle bit longer than it really would've had to, but you did it!
Sure, you now also have a bunch of quickly drying fresh concrete splattered all over your body and you'll need to transform into something to get it off, but it was all for the sake of science! That makes it a-okay!
How could you have predicted your first couple of preferred solutions would work too well to do what you wanted them to? You get the sneaking suspicion physics are trying to mess with you again, but it's just a hypothesis so far.
In other news, a brief inspection of nearby roads has proven that it really was high time for you to do something like this; for some reason, a massive amount of grass and random weeds are sprouting all over the place, growing in short, but thick and tough bushels out of any crack deep enough they can root in actual earth.
They're just as dry and reedy as the rest of pretty much all plant life you've come across that's tried to grow in the dry climate of the Commonwealth's northern reaches, primarily brown and dirt-colored, but they're there and popping up like crazy.
… Come to think of it, that might have something to do with you turning any rad storms that would have hit the area away ever since you gained the power to just… do that. Still, the top soil would still be heavily irradiated from centuries of this shit, wouldn't it?
Man, nature is kinda amazing in what it can bring out when the chips are down. Not enough to do much without your intervention, of course, but that's perfectly normal.
Taylor gazed all around the relay tower she'd been tasked with fixing, having taken the site easily on account of the absence of any opposition.
A pair of simple shacks had been built around it at some point, but the only occupant at the time she arrived had been a dead body wearing the uniform of a member of the Brotherhood of Steel; likely not even a survivor of the recent battle, as the maggots inside the flesh had been developed very far already.
No matter. None of her two hundred fifty-nine thousand four-hundred and twelve sets of insect senses alarmed her as to anything moving in the vicinity.
She laid back inside the hammock woven in thick layers of spider silk. Taylor understood why Gabriel went out of his way to obtain creature comforts despite not truly needing them; undead condition and caveats aside, it was nice to have a body through which she could feel relaxed. Luxuriously soft bedding was merely one way to do so.
Eighteen giant spiders were currently installing the signal relays and reactivating the tower's antenna. Until they were done, she could do this… While repeatedly casting the spell to turn shadows into physical objects.
She'd been able to see how far this one could be taken from Nora. Now all she needed to do was reach the same level of proficiency with it.
Ahh, good old recreational artistry. It's like a balm on your soul. Great way to center yourself and bring your thoughts around a particular topic, especially if said topic is always on your mind anyways.
Though in Sarah's defense, that's more to do with your thought patterns being almost autistically wired to continually have you think about your sweethearts. She's just both your Little Sarah and one of your vampire brides, which means she gets a little extra attention from your undead hind brain.
Today's topic? Cat girl Sarah. That's right, Sarah as she normally is, just with cat ears and a tail, playing with a ball of yarn. And because it's Sarah, she's looking extra smug as she takes it apart, getting herself caught up in the string without noticing.
Because, you know, Sarah. All the while she's wearing a cute little schoolgirl outfit on top, just because, inside a warmly colored, sunlit room.
Because cats and sunlight. It just makes sense.
Catty Girl: Picture of Cat girl mode Sarah playing with yarn. When summoned, it generates a practically infinite amount of red yarn the user can roughly control, spewed forth over the landscape and covering any creatures in front of it. May tie up and distract most big targets or smaller. (Painting)
Hologram Upgrades
Basic Movement: Do it like in computer games. Simply render the first intended image, then render a wholly new one in a slightly different placement, repeating this process so fast the human eye cannot tell the difference between it and movement. This allows you to have your holograms move around, slowly, and act as though they were a little more real. (5 points)
Simple Movement: Holograms may move at a normal pace, not as fast as a running person but anything below that goes. Suck it, primitive base tech, hello improved and advanced GabeTech! (5 points, requires Basic Movement)
Miniaturization: By stripping out a few useless features, hologram projectors may be reduced in size to about that of a fist, making it easy to reposition them. Note, expect bugs and intense flickering if you move them while they are projecting something. (4 Points)
Prydwen Upgrades
4 Points: Armoring: Weight isn't much of any issue as long as you figure out how to distribute it properly, so… Have at it.
5 Points: Weaponry: A few good enormous rail guns should do the trick, you suppose, along with several sustained laser cannons distributed all over the place. Long- and mid-range and lots of flexibility in everything you could want to be bombarded from above or out of the sky.
3 Points: Launching Pads: Having flying drones or fighter jets on hand is always a good idea, but you need some infrastructure to actually effectively use them- hidden launch pads along your project's outside are just the first of that. Hangars to store them, maintenance and repair bays… They need a bit of planning.
5 points: Inertial Suppression Field: Surely nobody is going to complain if you just scale up an inertial suppression field via several generators and put a thin one all over the outside of the remodeled Prydwen, right? It wouldn't hold up to seriously bombardment, the equipment would likely just burn out after a while, but you can accidentally ram a mountain or two without worrying.
5 Points: Hologram Network: Having access to the technology required to create and sustain holograms, you can very well implement them inside your project, adding projectors to public spaces to serve for big announcements or entertainment purposes
Progress on Project Prydwen is going well, if you do say so yourself. Already you are focusing on finer details as you add to your plans, your robots finally directing a concerted effort towards the planned outside of the flying fortress slash city, in particular the armoring and several weapons systems you're basically just scaling up as appropriate to have them set all over the thing.
It's not really viable to use ionized matter on the scales you're talking about, unfortunately, or at least not freely, but you do go ahead and have a bunch of ion laser lances readied for point defence just in case. Instead, the vast majority of your basic weaponry consists of giant fuckoff lasers and railguns.
Lots and lots of both. You almost can't wait to use them just because you can once this thing is built and up in the air.
Aside from that… Mostly you're just implementing other technologies you already possess in a way that makes them easily accessible and effective within Project Prydwen. Hologram projectors placed within future public spaces (millions of them, that is), more production facilities meant for robots or, really, anything else if you put your mind to it, you're just kind of prioritizing and specializing here… Nothing particularly out of the usual.
Oh, and your robots are constructing a larger dome around your construction site, just some plates of miscellaneous metal welded together to keep the weather from directly impacting any parts not yet protected by a solid roof of their own.
Because guess what, it's raining for once! And you don't mean the usual kind of rain, largely coming from the south-west and carrying more deadly radiation into this area, the kinds you've been keeping away for a while now, you mean actual, clean, water kinds of rain.
You can almost see how the vegetation is getting greener in response to it. Hey, if you get a little more proper farming space, you sure aren't going to complain about the effects of your own actions, right? Right.
Even if you kind of need to create a lot of sky moisture ex nihilo in order to have it condense into rain. Ah well, it's no big trouble and you can do it as an aside while doing other stuff, so who cares?
"Okay, everyone, welcome to the Meeting to Promote Cultural Advancement." You clap your hands to make it even more official than just you saying something. "As you may know, plans to produce and sell television sets are proceeding apace, so we're taking this opportunity to look through the accumulated books, music, podcasts, radio dramas and of course anything that can be played on a screen to see what we can just throw at the wider public.
You let your gaze wander over the other occupant of your big meeting room two floors above your usual living quarters (because you needed the elevated position for the ambiance). Besides yourself, you have Kate, Nora, Cupcake and Isabel there to cover as many perspectives as possible.
"Here, heeere," Cupcake of all people calls out, a hand raised. "Can't we just release all the comedy shows and children's cartoons and call it a day?"
"No." And that's all you'll say on that notion. "I did, however, take the liberty of perusing the stuff we have there to get a rough idea of what we have to work with."
"Hey!"
Everyone ignores Cupcake.
"Let me guess, at least half of everything is some kinda porn?" Kate asks, feet thrown up on the table. It's alright though, you made sure her boots are more or less clean before you let her in- just a basic cautionary measure with her.
"Closer to two thirds, but yes," you nod at her question. "How'd you know?"
"Gabriel, sweetie, we know you," Nora say kindly, as though it was some deep revelation. "Nobody expected anything else by now."
"Not sure how that makes sense, but okay," you shrug. You also do stretch out a hand to block Cupcake's mouth as jumps onto the table, slowly forcing her back onto her seat. "Any other questions before we begin?"
"Uhm, you said something about radio dramas and music, so… How does that work with the pornography?" Isabel asks.
"Oh, easy. You see, there's a lot of these things called audionovels, and if mankind is capable of writing porn, it is also capable of reading porn aloud, so…"
If there's one thing to be said about having a large population and few real ways to keep big parts of it busy working, it is that that makes it much easier to find someone interested in doing a given job- whether to get something more than base sustenance as provided by the state (you) or to fulfill that strange need many people have to be a positive influence and part of their community.
One way or another, the quickly put-together broadcasting station is already operating, regulating content and even filming new footage to show. There's TV screens around Concord showing that, mainly news broadcasts for now, and any of the shows that they're cleared to air.
It's all overseen by a ghoul you decided either has the qualifications to do this stuff or else can fake it well enough the difference is immaterial in the first place.
Incidentally, you also have a side business ancillary to this one going now, where a couple of people inspired by the old-timey comics they got to see are aspiring to make their own now. They have an industrial printer, pretty much just a copy of the ones you left for the guys in the Boston Public Library, so whether they succeed or fail now is entirely up to them.
… Once you finished writing up a five-page primer on everything important relating to this field you could think of, anyway. It took you, what, ten, fifteen minutes, so really, it's all up to them.
That aside, there's a radio wing with a few radio show host tryouts for the time being and lots of music- you didn't end up choosing what kind of music to play, of course, instead there'll be a public poll for what to play more of in a week or two. Talks are already going around about splitting the Concord Radio thing into two to cover more topics for anyone that's interested and play different genres, too, which would be neat if there's enough demand for it.
In other news, you also went ahead and had another printer delivered to the Publick Occurrences over in Diamond City. You want those newspapers and you want them to be a Commonwealth-wide paper yesterday.
You also debated finally making a point about Piper's name one of these days, but refrained for now. Seriously though, the woman is literally named Piper Wright. 'Paper Writer' really? Her parents sure had a knack for picking out names.
Anyway, every day's a fun day in Concord. Or Sanctuary, really, but sometimes you like to pretend some of your good cheer is coloring off onto the place you basically shoved any civilian population under your (indirect) control by now.
Oh, also, you mixed a few book classics that weren't in the collection you got from your library delegation into the library in Concord while you were at it. May as well, after all.
Overseeing the expansion of your influence is, naturally, also important as the secret mastermind behind… Oh, pretty much everything going on within the Commonwealth, now that you think about it. Or at least everything you know of, anyway. Same difference.
Granted, you're leaving most of that to Minutemen groups, that is literally what they're for in this organization of yours, but you are still keeping track of any new meetings or talks with locals, even if they are rather insignificant at times.
Hence you know, through the microphones hidden along every Minuteman uniform made by your people, when they arrange something with a certain man, patriarch of the Finch Farm, and he asks a particular question. "There's been… raiders, up in old Saugus, but they disappeared one o' these days and a buncha robots been around it instead."
"That's right, sir," the guy in charge of the little mini-delegation (enough firepower to crush any attackers but few enough people not to spook any locals) agrees. "The raiders were summarily fucked up and the factory's been producing some stuff Concord's been using since then."
"I see. Damned fool boy… Ah, don't mind me. Right, so you boys want to work with our little farm here?"
"Same deal we offer any other settlement we've found out here." The Minuteman nods, or gestures or something, there's a short break in the conversation. "You don't have to agree, of course. Hell, half the small settlements we find just pack up and move to Concord instead. But if you do, we're sending robots and helpers and making sure you're safe, get food, water, all the good stuff."
Mhm, probably unimportant. It's just some wasteland hick that had family or friends among the raiders or something. In fact, yeah, you remember eating someone like that.
No matter. Everyone here understands that once they're a raider, the only treatment anyone else owes them is a bullet to the head. Simple as that.
Also, this little family farm is actually one of the better and bigger ones you've seen so far. They even have actual corn, which shall be spread among your other farms immediately- there's a reason the stuff is grown all over the place in any version of America that isn't a literal hellhole.
He was awake.
It happened. Sometimes he woke up, sometimes he was asleep. It was hard to see the difference sometimes.
It was always dark and he could never move. Much, anyway. Twitching a little, maybe. The steel was keeping anything else from happening.
He hardly even felt the things stuck inside him anymore. The needles and the thing in his mouth keeping him fed with what he imagined was tasteless gruel, but in truth he'd never once tasted it. It just went straight past his mouth and down his throat through some kind of tube.
It used to hurt, the cold fluids coming into his body through one arm and the blood leaving it through the other, but he got used to it all. What was worse was the numbness that followed and the dark that never let up.
He suspected it may never do that. He couldn't even…
What was his name again? He had to… Had to hold on to that. Remember. What- who was he?
If he had the space, he'd be breathing hard, but he didn't. Even if his nose was free of the tubes that made him think he was choking to death, his chest just couldn't expand that much. He had to get out, he had to- he had to- he had to-
He could feel it coming again. The real pain. It tore at him, made him forget and made him sink back into the darkness.
He wished he could wipe his mouth. It was his last thoughts as he was pulled back into the waking oblivion his life had become.
You've been putting it off long enough, but PAM, or the Predictive Analytics Machine, has been sitting in your basement for a while now, just under observation until you got around to actually taking it apart to take a closer look at how it ticks.
Which, it turns out, is both simpler and more complicated than you'd hoped. On the one hand, this thing basically works by just looking at what has happened so far to then make predictions about what might happen in the future.
Data input to generate output. It's kind of a more advanced version of the learning algorithms you already put into place so long ago, just… Better, working easier and capable of making longer-term predictions. Certainly a nice upgrade to what you have already even if it's not the literal prophecy machine you were kind of hoping for after your experience with the Thinker AI.
Ah well, all the better, really. Too many precogs just screw up any sense of tension or surprise anyways and you have precious little of both as is.
Robot Modificator Gained:
Predictive Analytics: Having obtained specialized code to predict the immediate future, your robots can predict enemy movement and behaviour, reacting in advance and obtaining 30 to all combat rolls
"So, how has your human body treated you? Any thoughts, complaints, feedback?"
You take customer service seriously for anything you've handmade as a matter of principle. If you didn't care, you wouldn't have made it in the first place and all.
"It 'as been wonderful, Gabriel, thank you." Curie, for her part, seems to be settling into her new existence quite well. "Though being limited to only two arms and eyes takes some getting used to, my new creativity makes up for this in spades. Just look at what I 'ave been working on."
Doing as she beckons, you step deeper inside her laboratory, eyes jumping from one point of interest to another. Curie's been hard at work using your manufactories to create a wide variety of tools, presumably to make up for her inabilities compared to her previous state- you distinctly remember she had a couple switchable syringes built into one of her arms, for example- but that's the least of the things you note.
There is one contraption, for example, that seems to be a modified Virtual Reality pod like the ones used at the Memory Den- "Oh, that is a work in progress, I am afraid," she tells you with an embarrassed smile. "I thought I could modify them to edit brains the same way they can through synth control chips, but it turns out the differences in architecture and formatting are surprisingly 'ard to account for."
"Something to look into in the future, then," you easily allow. "How about these?"
You gesture over to the desk you found Curie working on when you came in. Arrayed on it is a neat and orderly row of vials filled with colorful fluids and notes on the same, from the looks of it.
"Oui, this is a project of mine I 'adn't even started to envision before I gained softer skin," she laughs. "To add to the universal panacea to cure all infectious diseases imaginable, I am pursuing the creation of a universal antidote against any kind of poison. For mammals, at any rate. The complexity of this project, ne c'est pas comparable to my last one, but I believe it is a good way to get back into the practice, as they say."
"I see." And you do.
You quietly overlay Yoshi for a moment, analyzing the modifications Curie has made to try and make brain modifications (and thus mental changes) of its users more easily accessible. Who knows, maybe this data will come in handy yet and hey, you always love it when someone else does your work for you.
And really, is it actually plagiarism when you go ahead and improve on what you copy from others? And who really cares, you regularly commit things that would be much more horrible crimes in any developed society anyway. Not to mention how Curie genuinely wouldn't care about what you're doing so much a she would be happy to see you use her designs to advance the whole concept in whichever way you can.
"So I suppose those would be sample toxins you're working with right now?" You ask to keep the conversation going.
"Precisely. I am compiling a list of ways they may affect an organism and ways to prevent this, though I am 'ardly into the preliminary phases of testing yet."
"Would you like a few more samples? I could produce a few for you right now," you suggest.
"Please Gabriel, not inside the laboratory!" Curie waves you off, all coquettish and looking away with a shy little smile. "The last time we 'ad any body contact was bad enough, non?"
"… Okay, I'm confused," you admit. "What does this have to do with sex?"
"Was it not flirting innuendo, after all?" Curie asks, looking embarrassed and blushing a little. Far from bright enough to match her hair, though.
"No, not really. I just meant I could produce some snake venom by turning into one."
"Oh."
"Don't worry about it, statistically speaking it's usually a safe bet to assume I'm talking dirty somehow." You reach over to pat her head consolingly. She lets you, for the moment.
As it turns out, having your venom milked from you by a pretty redhead is, despite everything, still just a little uncomfortable, even as your scaled form is winding around her shoulders and rubbing against the soft skin of your own creation.
On the other hand, you'd imagine you're a much more easily 'milked' snake than most would be, given your active participation in this whole affair.
Fun fact, you can actually secrete several kinds of venom, many of which aren't even supernatural in nature, so you go ahead and give Curie a sample of everything you can think of.
"Oh my, are there really that many aphrodisiacs found in nature?"
"It isss what I have," your reptilian snout proclaims, using your powers to forcefully twist the sound of your voice into normal language. Because you can do that, so why wouldn't you?
Being a huge talking snake is great fun. Everyone should do it.
Of course this oddly intimate session is interrupted halfway by Cupcake 'rebelling' and demanding attention from both Curie and yourself, being bit by you so you can inject a mild soporific that has her snooze off within seconds (she really is one immense lightweight, after all), but all in all you just get to talk shop and get a little feel for Curie's thought process, the way she approaches her projects and consider problems put in front of her.
Which, for the record, is less influenced by her previous robot-self and more by her being a very logical person, overall. As well as highly intelligent. However the mind transfer worked, it did a good job of restructuring her new brain, to say the least.
Hence you also do go ahead and bring up an idea that's been swirling around your head for a while now. One disadvantage of being so damn creative, you have all these ideas all the time and only so much time to spare to put them into practice.
"Actually, while we're doing thisss," you hiss aloud, deciding to slither off of Curie and transform back just so you can speak normally (you didn't give her a human body just to never be human(-shaped) around her anymore), "I've been thinking about repurposing a few labs and maybe even an old vault over in Medford. Do any particularly sensitive or dangerous experiments in a separate facility."
"I see. So Addy does not find them?"
"So she doesn't ever get a chance to accidentally release any mutants we don't want released, yes." It's not like you're making any big secret out of this. "I figured it would come in handy for any really risky research anyone wants to do."
"Oui, a place to quarantine dangerous specimens would be a boon. Out of the way and easier to sanitize, I presume. Only…" Cure looks a little troubled, but you just give her a little time. "I 'ave made bad experiences with vaults before, as you may remember, so I would prefer not to return to one that 'as not been remade from the ground up like Vault One-Eleven."
"Oh, we can definitely do that. So, can I count on your help when I get started on that? Just, designing the facilities and all that."
"Definitely. Oh, and Gabriel?" Curie approaches you, intently not looking at your face.
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. For everything." She wraps her arms around you in a big ol' bear hug, face buried in your chest.
"Don't mind that, I just do what I always do." That is, whatever you damn well feel like.
"Exactly." Not that Curie would know, naturally. Then again, you did feel like being kind to and helping her, so surely she considers you a kind person of some sort.
Ah well, let her think that for a little while longer. It's not like she's wrong, you are kind, just to a very select few people only.
Although…
"Are you going to let go soon?"
"Non."
"I see." Looks like you'll literally be tied up for a bit, then. It happens.
The rest of your night, once you manage to extract yourself from Curie's desire to share skinship now that she can actually feel and exchange it, is spent on pretty much completely routine tasks. Nothing complicated or hard, just you going around taking care of a few minor errands so you don't keep on putting them off forever.
A quick trip around territory you're looking to add to your domain, as it were. The Slog, an old public outdoors pool a couple of ghouls have taken to farm tarberries inside of, is just the first stop on your latest merry-go-round of the areas to the east of Concord and all the area control it signifies, for all that it is mildly interesting as far as these things go.
The ghouls living in this place are basically more exiles from Diamond City, having chosen to come together here instead of just integrating into Goodneighbour. Notably, the Slog has more than earned its name after the recent rain you kind of pulled together in the north-west of the Commonwealth and then just sent off in all directions, being surrounded my mud and muck deep enough a man could drown if he stepped into the wrong area.
And it legitimately is meant to be a refuge for ghouls that are persecuted elsewhere and just want to earn an honest living, from what you understand. You don't really care either way, but you went ahead and pulled your usual spiel about the Minutemen and all that- last you heard from Preston, a couple traders have inquired about buying or renting Torpids to move more stuff around faster and safer than loading it up on a Brahmin and making the mutated cattle carry it, so with any luck you'll have a couple of big trading caravan forming a larger infrastructure of goods being exchanged soon enough.
There's more to taking over what used to be the Commonwealth of Massachusetts than erecting a single city, as progressive and superior it might be compared to everything else around. Sure, you could go and manually distribute all the stuff at once, but you're not really intent nor willing to regulate the economy to that extent.
Just let people trade whatever they want however they want, provided they don't break what few laws you have. Which, come to think of it, you really should put into proper writing one of these days.
Ugh. Setting down a code of law sounds like a massive drag. Maybe you'll just leave it to Preston and blame it on him when you inevitably have to break it or something.
Aside from the Slog, you also take a look around the National Training Yard, a facility that once upon a time housed large-scale training grounds and stuff like that, you suppose. Nowadays, all it has left are decayed, broken buildings filled with decayed, but insufficiently broken feral ghouls, a sorry state of affairs you waste no time fixing.
Mostly by literally bitchslapping any mindless slavering animals that try to throw themselves at you out of the air with one hand, consummately killing them all one after the other. You'd almost call it sad how stupid they are and how easily they throw their lives away, but if the people they used to be still had the mental capacity to you'd bet they would be begging for you to release them already, so eh.
And no, if they did, you naturally wouldn't just kill them, you'd be drinking their souls straight out of the carcasses running around still, unsalted disgusting jerky taste or no. As it is, though, you can spare your taste buds the torture you would otherwise inflict on them.
Oh, and there's also a sentry bot guarding the backyard. You make short work of it, too, challenging yourself to dismantle it with your claws while it tries to fight you instead of just casting a single spell at it to make it explode. A little searching reveals there's a few bits of nearly undamaged goods still around- an old power armor in almost mind condition, a small armory's worth of guns, that kind of stuff. You end up just teleporting in a Torpid and having the loot loaded onto it as you finish securing the perimeter.
Just a pleasant, quiet night, all in all. Nothing of particular note happened. Nice to have things be this quiet every once in a while, you'll admit.
… Dammit, this had better not be you pulling a Murphy's.