Chapter 190: Chapter 185

Christine Royce could not shake off her conflicting emotions as she was reunited with Veronica in the now unhidden Mojave bunker. She’d been saved when a force like no other descended upon Sierra Madre. Her bomb collar went dead before Father Elijah could react to the bulbous metal robots diving from the red-tinged skies. 

 

She watched her prey and captor be swiftly disassembled by the tentacles of those robots, while more of their kind swept through the rest of the resort grounds. She was healed with some kind of exotic light before being promptly carried out with surprising gentleness. The men and women who greeted her were polite and almost friendly in their interrogations. 

 

They introduced themselves as people of the Nexus Severalty, and they had come to bring peace to the wasteland…through power. After seeing some of the technology they used, Christine did not doubt them.

 

She was brought into a small but comfortable apartment where her hosts left her to rest. On the next day, they came in after breakfast (the deliciousness of which would forever be etched into the Brotherhood Knight’s memory) to inquire about Elijah, and what little Christine knew about Sierra Madre. They also listened intently as she described her travels into the Big MT, but reassured her that the research complex had been cleared out.

 

“The floating brains that run that place have been captured,” a young woman who introduced herself as Kelly explained briefly. “Despite the potential usefulness of their breakthroughs, they will still be held accountable for their rampant and unregulated research.”

 

The conviction of that declaration unsettled Christine, mostly because it betrayed the amount of power the Nexus must have to be able to bring the madness in that crater to heel. It was unsurprising that they barely reacted when they found her allegiance to the Brotherhood of Steel.

 

Still, her short stay with the Nexus was far from uncomfortable and agonizing. If anything, Christine felt pampered and a little spoiled, to the point where she was seriously having doubts about leaving for home.

 

But seeing Veronica and other familiar faces again was good. She fought hard not to cry when her old…friend buried her face into her shoulder and sobbed aloud. After settling back in with her old family, Eldar McNamara broke the news of the Mojave chapter’s current crisis; They had the choice to dissolve the chapter and join the Nexus, or leave the Mojave in peace. 

 

Apparently the Nexus had a poor encounter with the Brotherhood prior to this, and this deal was their leader Sev being generous.

 

The choice as a loyal Knight of the Brotherhood should have been simple: Leave, or better yet, resist the Nexus to avenge their fallen brethren in the east and claim guardianship over the Nexus’ technology. But after glimpsing into a portion of what the Nexus had, and hearing of the new order it brought to the Mojave, Christine highly doubted the latter would be anything other than a messy suicide.

 

She joined the debate, and after mulling over the dilemma in the days to come, Christine finally came to a decision and placed her vote on the fateful day. 

 

Gripping Veronica’s hands tightly, Christine and the rest of the Mojave chapter left their bunker home for the last time. The Nexus peacekeepers greeted them passively, ready to usher them into armored buses that would take them to the nearby immigration center.

 

Christine had only some regrets, but there were other Brotherhood converts in the Nexus who would eventually help her come to terms with abandoning the cause she was indoctrinated in. And having to share her home - and rediscover her passion - with Veronica more than made up for it, in hindsight.

 

*****

 

The technologies harvested from Sierra Madre and the badly named Big MT were actually impressive, which was an interesting change of pace. The ‘matter recombinators’ wrapped in the guise of Sierra Madre vending machines were particularly intriguing, and Curie earmarked its unraveling for herself. There were plenty of applications for such technology within the Nexus.

 

The red toxic cloud from the casino (which according to notes also came from the Big MT) had some potential uses too, once they figured out how to render it benign. Some bright minds were making good progress on figuring out the haphazard construction of the self-replicating virus. Curie had read their updates, and had been righteously appalled at the amount of precautions that must be willfully ignored to create such a thing. Still, if its effects could be reversed significantly, it could be a great method of healing the wounded en masse.

 

Unfortunately, most of the other stuff that came from Big MT were far less obvious in their potential applications. The amount of nonsensical ‘research’ and horrific experiments that took place there was tantamount to violating the scientific spirit. 

 

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Blacksite Tleilax had clear goals and purpose for its dark experimentation. The Big MT did it for - as Sev would put it - the shits and giggles.

 

Highly mutative plants, overengineered fauna, badly programmed exo suits, atmospheric ionizers mislabelled as weather control… There was so much damage to undo, now that they knew the source of a lot of the region’s calamities. The nightstalkers and cazadores were already enough of a headache to deal with. 

 

If the atomic exchange had not ended civilization, the lunatics in Big MT would have done a more thorough job later on, Curie was sure of it.

 

As it was, she looked forward to meeting with arguably the only decent soul found in the crater (they had to euthanize the ‘lobotomites’ and the ghouls in Little Yangtze) to thank him for his efforts. Dr Mobius would require significant rehabilitation, but it was already clear that his self-sacrifice to keep his colleagues distracted had put him in good stead amongst the scientists of Ix. If his restored mind is as decent as his deteriorated one, the researcher might find himself with a new body.

 

The Nexus could always use intelligent minds with a conscience.

 

His colleagues on the other hand would serve a long time sitting in the Niche Room. Curie would’ve preferred forcing synth compliance chips onto them, but Sev and the vote results found it good enough that they’d be trapped in a virtual prison lab until the cerebral fluid in their brain tanks expired.

 

Well, at least their brains would be vulnerable to chemical experimentation…the same useless kinds they practiced on their hundreds of poor souls. 

 

Hm…

 

Curie stared blankly at the papers before her as a grin slowly crept up her face. “Eva?”

 

“Yes Curie?”

 

“Regarding the cerebral experiments from Big MT…”

 

The AI seemed to understand her intent. “Those marked as inhumane and ineffective?”

 

“Yes. Could you please forward my request to Sev to have them retested…preferably on the incarcerated Big MT doctors?”

 

There was a second of silence before Eva replied. “Would you like me to organize the experiments beginning from the least lethal?” 

 

Instead of the most likely to yield results? Curie chuckled to herself. “Yes, please.”

 

A few more seconds passed before the AI’s voice came back. “Sev has approved compensatory experimentation. Inmates 0, 8, Borous, Dala and Klein reclassified as Tleilax test subjects and will be moved to testing labs. I will notify you if we get more tangible results than those they’ve already reported.”

 

“Thank you, Eva.”

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