(FTG)Chapter 88: Let me tell you (Patreon)

"So why is he going to die soon? Some sort of self inflicted matter?" Adam asked curiously.

"Well in a normal timeline yes. In this one i'm going to kill him. First because I'm genuinely not comfortable with the idea of someone like him having that sort of technology. Second because he's really just THE worst. Rude, paranoid, cruel, just the worst." I said honestly.

"What will you do once he is dead?" Adam asked curiously.

"What else? Loot the tech and get to work clearing out the Cloud and ghost people. That's the chemical and zombies I mentioned. It's been given the name of the Cloud because the self replicating toxin hangs in the air of the area like a red rust colored fog." I explained.

"Self replicating? How has it not escaped in all this time?" Adam asked horrified.

"The Sierra Madre resort is in an almost enclosed spot. Ironically this is both great and terrible for the Cloud. Great because the stagnant barely moving air lets it gather up and replicate without dispersal. Terrible however as even with the toxin being light enough to form a sort of fog it is not light enough to actually rise more than maybe fifteen or twenty meters vertically. In other words it's effectively bowled in." I said with a chuckle.

"You mentioned stagnant air?" Adam asked.

"Yep. The one major weakness of the Cloud is that any gust would cause it to condense and turn into the solid chemical form that actually has quite a few medical uses with proper utilization." I said honestly.

"The same chemical that turns people into, by your own admission, nigh immortal zombies. Has medical uses?" Adam asked speechlessly.

"Oh yes. The problem with the stuff is that it's meant to be aerolized and overwhelming in volume. In that state it's toxic as hell and will absolutely fuck you up. In small doses however it can sharpen the mind, eyesight, and even brainwash people. Ironically this last effect is what it most often gets used for. See the stuff sharpens the mind but the cost is that it makes the mind susceptible to outside influences. When matched with sustained exposure over time and the right equipment you end up with people that mindlessly follow whatever they are brainwashed to do." I paused for a breath.

"In the case of the ghost people though they gain a sort of immortality because the toxin turns them feral while pooling in their dead flesh to regenerate it so long as they don't take catastrophic damage. Which is to say the loss of a limb or their heads. This is mostly because of the Darklight hazmat suits they wear that allowed their bodies to not completely fail when soaked through with the Cloud. Mutating into the immortal zombie ghost people." I finished casually.

"I can't help but wonder why the creator of the resort would even allow such a thing there." Adam said with a disapproving tone.

"Oh he didn't. See he was going bankrupt and had to cut corners when making deals with the Think tank of Big MT of a Faustian nature. In one such deal he had to allow them to test chemical agents on his resort. Naturally he assumed it would be an incomplete product that would be mostly harmless, he was quite wrong obviously." I said with a chuckle.

"This Think tank sounds like the source of a lot of problems." Adam said in a displeased tone.

"Yeah, they aren't very great people. Annoyingly, however, they are too useful to just outright kill off. For all the evil they put into the world they COULD put out far more good if properly supervised and managed. The matter rearrangement technology for example would solve almost all of the troubles of the wasteland if implemented at scale. You could turn dirt into food, medicine, raw building materials, literally anything." I said helplessly.

Truly it was such an annoying dilemma to deal with. On one hand they earned damnation and death dozens of times over, on the other they were too damned useful alive. They were a collection of the brightest minds from before the great war so they were literally the best people in the world for fixing the world, with proper supervision. My biggest gripe would be that they were a full time job. Someone had to dedicate their full attention on managing them. Give them room to let their minds wander and, well the results are pretty obvious.-

"That is quite troublesome indeed. A logic versus moral conundrum." Adam said with a clear note of displeasure.

"Yep. I must admit though it's nice to get all this off my chest to someone else. Honestly do you know how tiring it is to have to actually stop and consider how someone might take a piece of information before I say it?" I asked frankly.

"Constantly having to second guess yourself sounds mentally exhausting." Adam agreed.

"Right? But you don't have values blocking your way. Like sure you understand right from wrong but it's from a logical standpoint. I can tell you stuff like this and you don't immediately jump to "murder the shit out of the Think tank" but actually stop and consider everything." I say and Adam goes quiet for a moment.

"Thank you, I think?" the A.I said sounding caught between flattered and confused.