(FTG)Chapter 87: DLC explaining (Patreon)

I put the two new summons away and began my walk back to the gate of Nellis to go pass the time by collecting some alien stuff. The ones guarding the gate looked at me funny as I walked out but nobody shot at me with the howitzers even as I distanced myself from the place. Not that this was very surprising. Even in the game once you reach the base the first time they stop shooting at you. It's just sorta part of Pearls plan to open the people of Nellis to the outside world slowly.-

She's not a stupid woman and obviously understood that eventually the world outside this howitzer based isolation bubble they made for themselves would eventually get in. Rather than that being because some faction got tired of them shelling people who got near them and came to wipe them out Pearl believed it best to slowly trickle in the outside world. Which is where I, and in the game, Jess would have come in. Regardless I had been given free entry and exit to Nellis by Pearl. The guy who wanted to make a bet about my survival on approaching the base looked at me warily as I walked past him.-

To be fair he did watch me get shelled three times and stand back up without much more than dirt and soot on me so that was understandable. I ignored him as I walked towards the shining form of the strip since the road I was on led there. From Nellis I walked almost perfectly west along the road that was at the back of Vegas. Along the way I got attacked by fiends and a pack of nightstalkers. -

Nightstalkers were a species that Big MT created through gene splicing that mixed rattlesnake DNA with Coyote DNA. They had roughly canine bodies with four paws, a head and a tail but the appearance was all wrong. Hairless scaled skin, a rattle on the end of the tail, and heads that looked like a horrific combination of snake and dog with the front fangs being long enough to sit outside the mouth. Did I mention them being highly venomous AND aggressive? These things might mind their business most of the time but if they spotted you it was game on as they'd attack you on sight.-

"I'm coming up with a blank as to what these creatures are." Adam said confused.

"Nightstalkers, gene spliced abominations made from mixing coyote and rattlesnake DNA." I supplied helpfully.

"Why though? What possible purpose could there have been to create such a thing?" The A.I asked horrified.

"Because it could be done of course. Honestly I'd even say the ones who made them originally even took proper steps to keep them contained if they weren't the smartest bunch of idiots in the world. See they THOUGHT they had sterilized the first generation of the things they made but since they had no idea how to actually do that they didn't in reality. Very smart idiots to say the least." I explained honestly.

"They can splice genetics but couldn't sterilize the result?" Adam asked incredulously.

"Some context would help here. So the Think tank of Big MT back before the great war performed self lobotomizations where they removed their entire brains and put them in sort of flying glass robotic containers. Like the braincase of a robobrain or robodog. But without stripping away their memories and knowledge first. When they were human they weren't great people but in this new state they became FAR worse. Insane is a good word for it. They believe themselves infallible so even when they obviously fail at something they believe they succeeded. They became strangely stupid despite their top quality scientific knowledge being preserved." I explained. 

"So the most technologically advanced people in the wasteland have no moral lines, no oversight and experiment on whim without caring? That sounds an awful lot like the exact thing the Brotherhood is supposed to take care of." Adam pointed out.

"Oh the Brotherhood would go absolutely rabid if they knew the place existed. Well if any of them minus one exiled elder did anyways. But he's going to get killed soon enough anyways." I agreed.

"One of them knows about it? Who?" Adam asked curiously.

"Ex-elder Elijah. He was in charge of the Vegas branch of the Brotherhood during the events of the Helios one take over by the NCR. That event drove him mad so he was usurped for Eldership and exiled. He spent the years since then tracking down technology and knowledge in order to "right" the Brotherhood. At the moment he's currently drooling over the Sierra Madre with it's frankly unfair technology and riches that could indeed allow him to make a whole new Brotherhood." I said frankly as I walked.

"Unfair technology? What counts as that to you of all people?" Adam asked concerned.

"Matter rearrangement, hard light constructs, chemicals that create what are effectively immortal zombies. You know, things of a decidedly unfair nature." I say casually.

"What?" Adam asked like it's processors just skipped a zero.

"Oh yeah. The tech in that place has some deeply uncomfortable uses." I say knowingly.

"And he just HAS that?" Adam asked horrified.

"Well kinda but not really. See the tech is there but he's so focused on his end goal that he's entirely ignoring it. Like I said he's mad." I say with a chuckle.

"So he's got the kind of technology that would achieve his goal right in front of him but he's ignoring it in favor of some sort of ultimate prize?" Adam asked speechless.

"Yep. See the guy who built the place left a massive fortune in the hotel and casino itself. In a vault set to self destruct with whoever entered it to take the fortune. He doesn't know that last part though so he's only focused on the fortune. Hilarious since the matter rearrangers could turn dirt into just as much gold after being reverse engineered." I say with a grin.