Ryuji stumbled out of the elevator, clutching his head. "[This freaking madhouse…]" he hissed to himself. The brains told him that he could use whatever was in the Sink, so he decided to inspect the whole floor before fiddling with the central unit.

The room with the elevators seemed to be some kind of dining area, with two wide booths placed by a pair of meter-by-meter square tables. Next to them were a pair of large worn-out vending machines, labeled with brands he didn't recognize – and while he could guess the flavor of a 'Nuka-Cola', 'Sunset Sarsaparilla' was a mystery to him. Above the doors to the elevators was a camera, scanning the area.

Ryuji marched to the central room and peeked inside the first door on the left. It contained a bunch of large wooden planters, some on the floor and some on the tables, filled with soil and hydrated with the water flowing through the pipes around him. Other things of note in the room included a refrigerator – still working, with some plants and bottled water inside – an electric hot plate with a small pot on top, an electric… machine right next to it, hogging most of the table, and a weird sink, with a metal basin and a faucet with no tap. Ryuji waved his hand in front of it a few times, to no reaction.

Taking note of the foodstuffs available to him, Ryuji left the room and marched through the central room, past the door to the balcony, into what must've been the living quarters. The first room had a table with some glass bottles on it, surrounded by a couch wide enough to sleep on and two armchairs. In the corner of the room was a desk, with some old-looking computer on top of it, and next to it, inexplicably, a toaster. Between two doors in the back of the room, one open, one closed with a serious-looking metal door, stood a tall retro-looking jukebox. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, and didn't respond to Ryuji's fiddling with it.

The open door led to what looked like a bedroom. As dusty as the room before it, it had a large queen-sized bed with two pillows and a stained green coverlet, a safe on the wall, and a bunch of shelves, lockers and boxes for storage, with the only thing worth remarking in them being a set of stained white scrubs, which Ryuji deemed better than a hospital gown. There was also a small robot in the corner – half as tall as him, it was balancing on a single wheel, had two arms reaching to the floor, and a CRT screen on the front, displaying a smiling cup of coffee for some reason. It didn't react to prodding or verbal commands. Behind the robot was the door to the bathroom – cold and utilitarian, but clean and still operational, with a toilet, a bath, and a (working, normal) sink.

After changing, Ryuji returned to the closed door in the living room and spun the handle to open it. It revealed a room filled wall to wall with computers, a desk with some chemistry set on it, and three large glass tanks. In one floated a spine, in the other floated a chunk of flesh that Ryuji identified as a heart, and the third one stood empty.

Ryuji stared at that last one for a moment, watching a faint reflection of himself in the glass. This all felt weird. It even matched his previous milestone for weirdness, which was 'the evil side of his PE teacher tries to execute him for trespassing in his castle'. Except back then, he had someone save his sorry ass. Unless some other Phantom Thief would stumble upon a random satellite and kick it for some reason, he'd have to figure everything out on his own. He could already hear their mocking comments about how he was too stupid to do that and sighed in frustration.

He returned back to the central room. It was round in shape, with the Central Intelligence Unit – a circular machine, less than a meter tall, with a screen displaying something on top – smack dab in the middle of it. On the outer rim of the room were a few workbenches with storage cabinets hanging above each, some threatening looking metal grinder thingie sticking out of a wall, and a massive gray machine the size of a large wardrobe, with a faded cane with wings and two snakes wrapped around it stenciled on the front.

After a few minutes of searching – the holotape slot was incredibly well hidden – Ryuji inserted the tape with a clunk. It whirred about for a moment before a posh voice came from a loudspeaker hidden somewhere: "Salutations and felicitations and a most jocund welcome, sir."

"Yeah, hi," Ryuji replied. "I'm Ryuji. Are you another brain in a jar?"

"That is not the case, sir," it replied. "I am merely a synthetic personality imposed upon a standard operating system."

"So, like an AI?"

"Artificial, yes, but there is no intelligence to speak of."

"Right." The thing seemed more on-the-ball than the Think Tank was; Ryuji considered it a silver lining of his current situation. "The brains downstairs have told me that you can help me with stuff."

"Veritably. As an electronic valet and household central processor, I am equipped to offer sir a variety of services." A loading bar appeared on the top of the CIU. "I shall initiate downloading up-to-the-minute information about the facility, and I can make the waiting period less irritating by answering whatever queries sir might have."

"Okay then, first, uh, query – do you really have to be so formal?"

"Regrettably, removing this part of my programming is beyond my protocols and would require a full recompilation of my personality," the CIU replied. "And I believe the source code for it was misplaced, piling on further complexity."

"Right." Ryuji found the ten-dollar words irritating, but bit his tongue. "The brains ordered me to find three things. The X-2 antenna, the… uh, the something something stealth suit, and the frequency for the sound pistol. Do you know where they are?"

"Allow me to display a three-dimensional representation of the premises." A holographic projection of the entire area manifested on top of the CIU, startling Ryuji a bit. It resembled a bomb crater, with a dome-shaped bump in the center connected to all the other buildings around it with pathways and pipelines. A red marker blinked on the top of the bump in the middle. "The crimson arrow represents sir's current location and direction." Three blue markers, matching the color of the hologram, appeared in three separate buildings on the outer rim of the map - one near what resembled a satellite dish on a tall, narrow base, one on a building surrounded by some weird hexagonal pillars, and one near a larger complex, slightly elevated on some concrete base. "These are the facilities containing the technologies – X-2, X-8 and X-13. Each of the facilities are within walking distance, even considering the dangers surrounding them."

Ryuji winced. "Yeah, the brains mentioned the roboscorpion thingies."

"They are merely one of many potential dangers awaiting you outside," the CIU proclaimed. Something whirred rapidly and a stack of papers emerged out of some slot, one sheet at a time. "I took the liberty to prepare a primer on them, since sir appears to be out of sir's depth."

Ryuji picked the papers up from the floor and skimmed through the descriptions, glancing at the black-and-white pictures. "Uh, are these wasp thingies really that large?"

"That is correct. Cazadores, singular form 'cazador', were a product of DNA splicing in one of the laboratories of this very facility. The intention was to make them docile, but regrettably the project failed in that regard."

Ryuji briefly dipped into the living room to put the monster manual on the desk, to read later, before returning. "What can you do to help me not get murdered on the spot by all these things?"

"Beyond answering your questions, I am able to access the commissary, allowing sir to procure necessary supplies. Since the barter protocols are active, sir might be able to merchandise unnecessary goods as well."

"So, you let me buy and sell stuff," Ryuji rephrased. "Can't you just give it to me for free?"

"Unfortunately, my protocols restrain me again in that regard."

"'Kay. What else can you do?"

"I am equipped with mechanisms and procedures for maintenance of equipment – also for a fee, regrettably – and given the right blueprints, I am capable of assembling small items for sir."

"No food without pay and no healing?" Ryuji pointed out. "Like, don't get me wrong, I ain't ungrateful or anything, but I'm really out of my depth here, and I'm gonna need all the help I can get."

The Central Intelligence Unit responded with a grumble. "If sir insists: there are other personality matrices in the Sink, offering a wider variety of services, most of them without payment. Unfortunately, there are two caveats to discuss. Caveat one is, the Sink as a whole was an experiment in interfacing between man and machine, and so every single personality present has… ahem, quirks."

That didn't bother Ryuji. "Dude, I was in a team with a chatty cat with a catapult, a silver spoon with a sadistic streak, and a hyperactive hacktivist. I can work with quirks."

"Admirable alliteration, sir." Had the CIU a neck, he would've nodded. "That leaves a second problem – all the personality files, which are necessary to operate the other machines, have deteriorated beyond self-repair. The Auto-Doc lasted the longest, but it broke after operating on sir. Sir would have to retrieve backup tapes scattered around the area before usage."

"Couldn't have been too easy," Ryuji muttered to himself. "And where are they?"

"Here and there." The map showed up again, and nine markers appeared, dotted around. "Sir mentioned potentially requiring healing services." One of the markers got a bit larger and started blinking. "The backup personality file for the Auto-Doc can be found in the Y-17 Medical Facility. I would recommend prioritizing acquisition of it." With another whirr of the internal printer, a sheet of paper came out of the CIU and landed on the floor. "I took the liberty of preparing instructions for how to reach the building in question, complete with a visual aid."

Ryuji picked the map up and inspected it. "What's an Auto-Doc?"

"It is the device present in the room with us, marked with a faded caduceus," the CIU explained. "It is capable of automatically administering whatever treatment is necessary to bring sir's body to perfect health."

Ryuji assumed that 'caduceus' meant the stick with the snakes and wings. "Sounds like I'm gonna need it, with all the baddies running around the crater," he said, picking up the map. "Do I need to know anything more before I go out for the backup? Is it on a holotape?"

"I believe so," the CIU replied. "I would recommend a thorough read of the materials I have provided on the inhabitants of the research facilities," the CIU replied. "I also want to draw sir's attention to a module allowing limited transportalpontation across the facility."

Ryuji just gave him a glance. "You made that word up."

"The technology is referred to by that name in the official documentation. Regardless of the nomenclature, it allows sir to instantaneously transportalpond between a few selected spots in the Big Mountain facility, provided sir reaches the target destination using conventional means beforehand. I have the activation module in stock, and I am willing to part with it for a small fee."

"I'm kinda flat broke for now," Ryuji said. "The brains downstairs said they'll bring some cash, but they-"

As if on cue, one of the elevators dinged, and its door opened. A small pedestal-shaped robot, like the one he had seen earlier, rolled into the room, dumped a small jingling sack on the floor, and rolled back into the elevator.

Ryuji walked up to the sack and inspected its contents. "Do you take bottle caps?"

"Please deposit them into a funnel on the side."

Ryuji left the Think Tank – which was apparently the name of the building itself as well as the faction of the scientists residing in it. Not confusing at all.

The Think Tank was a rotunda, topped with a massive dome made out of triangular tiles, towering over most of the buildings in the facility. The main building material used was stone blocks – now slightly worn out, but sturdy enough to hold on for the next few hundred years. From the right angle and distance, the force fields surrounding the balcony of the Sink were visible at the very top. The cropped lawn surrounding the building was, inexplicably, teal. No doubt a result of more mad science.

By the entrance to the rotunda was one of the teleportation beacons – Ryuji thought the official name was dumb, even by the low standards of this madhouse. It mostly consisted of a light blue screen displaying the map of the whole facility. Ryuji tapped it with his finger to activate it, and compared the map with the printout from the Sink CIU. The directions were simple – go south, towards the X-2 antenna, then turn left and follow the path until reaching Y-17. Maybe drop by X-2 just to get the teleportation active and spare himself a walk later.

With the home base beacon active, he trotted ahead, eyes peeled and Sonic Emitter at the ready. He had read the primer beforehand. He read it more thoroughly than anything he had read in his life. There were a lot of things that would've wanted him dead if they spotted him. Many types of robots, cyborg dogs, oversized wasps, coyotes crossbred with snakes, walking robotic harnesses armed with futuristic weapons, and last but not least, other people that got their brains scrambled beyond reason.

He didn't plan to fight – with his leg fixed, he could at least try to outrun whatever tried to bite/stab/crush/shoot him. But he knew that with his luck, he would end up cornered in some random spot, and the only way out would be through whatever attacked him. An animal or a robot? They'd get blasted to bits with his new sound gun without a second thought. But a human? A living, breathing human being that had as much choice in this as he did? CIU proclaimed that most of them lacked higher cognitive abilities because for some reason their brain extractions had all gone wrong, but that didn't really make Ryuji feel less like a heel.

With that thought, he marched down the sidewalk, between some high-tech looking pylons and liquid tanks. Then, he quietly descended down a set of metal stairs. Despite what everyone else kept saying about him, he knew how to be quiet. The further path was sandwiched between two elevated pipes, which creaked randomly as he went alongside them. There was also a pair of trucks with some boxes on each flatbed. Ryuji found a few loose bullets in varying calibers in them and pocketed them for bartering later.

He poked his head from behind the driver's cabin of the second truck, and sucked in air through his teeth. From behind a small rock formation to his left came out three lobotomites. Two of them dressed in patient gowns and carrying some weird axe-looking devices with a blue forcefield in place of a blade, the third one was wearing a light-brown jumpsuit and carrying some type of AK.

Without a sound, Ryuji jumped off of the truck bed and dived behind the formation to break the line of sight. Then, to get a better vantage point, he climbed up the black rocks, to the top of the formation, and crawled towards the edge near the sidewalk he just left. From there, he quietly watched the lobotomites, none the wiser, continuing their idle march towards nowhere in particular, thankfully away from Y-17 as far as he could tell.

With no other hostiles in sight, Ryuji slid down the rocks. He landed on all fours on the ground, and realized he ended up in front of a tall cabinet with some symbol painted on it with blue paint: twelve stars encircling a thirteenth, larger one, and five vertical stripes underneath. Ryuji briefly wondered what a flag of Europe was doing in there, when he noticed a handheld lantern placed by an entrance to a cave. Trying to keep the last shreds of his cool, he poked his head inside. After confirming nobody was there, he entered and scanned the area.

The interior was arranged beyond what he was told a lobotomite could achieve. There was a large sandbag barricade in the front, providing effective cover against potential attackers, an assortment of barely standing shelves holding various odds and ends (including some promptly looted ammo boxes), a few planters with fungi growing in them, a workbench, two unfolded bedrolls, and a cold spot where a campfire used to be.

Ryuji stared at the scene for a moment, before the two-by-four of realization smacked him in the head: Some other human was in the Big Empty not that long ago. If they were still there, he could've asked them to help. And if they escaped, then that meant a previously-unknown way out of this heckhole.

Resolving to try and carefully prod the brains or the CIU about it, he turned around and crept out of the cave, then continued towards Y-17.

Again, Sink changes (most of them) are from The Sink - Simple Overhaul. I only installed it because it added a working toilet – getting filleted like a chicken is all well and good, but I can't make Ryuji poop on the grass outside, now, can I?

I mean, technically, I could; it is canon that the grass outside the Think Tank building absorbs all fertilizer, poop included, but let's not be so cruel.

In-universe fast-travel in the Big MT courtesy of the Transporters mod by StealthDick. AK's from Another Millenia or maybe Another Millenia Gun Add-On or Classic Fallout Weapons Remastered. Ryuji wouldn't be able to identify the exact model :P