Chapter 42: Chapter 42

“This is mine.” Edward held the armored chestpiece as he silently declared ownership of it. It was weird, but Sev asked for volunteers, so he stepped up and luckily was chosen. Edward kept his mouth shut as he participated in whatever magic ritual Sev was working on in the recently underground research rooms.

At the moment, he just watched Sev stare blankly, or as Piper put it, go into weird mode’ at one of the armor pieces before handing it over to Edward with instructions to declare ownership of it.

Then Sev smiled while his eyes were still blankly looking at the armor in Edward’s hands. “Nice. Good to see that works.”

Sev then took up another piece of armor and put it up on a target mount, instructing Edward to do the same with his own chestpiece. Once done, they both walked back to a table with a laser rifle on it.

“Give it a go,” Sev instructed, “Yours first, then mine.”

Edward nodded his compliance as he took up the rifle and aimed. The first beam slagged a good chunk of his armor, and subsequent shots melted it onto the mount. Then he shifted targets to Sev’s armor, and pulled the trigger again.

The beam left a hot glow on impact, but otherwise looked fine. More shots didn’t do anything to change that. Edward emptied the rifle’s charge before putting it down and turning to Sev for his appraisal.

New World 81’s big brother was looking rather pleased with the results, and Edward couldn’t fault him. He had somehow made that particular piece of armor as indestructible as Nat (and presumably Piper, Cait and Sev himself).

“Right, now then, stay here for a bit, will you?” Sev left the lab for a moment, and then returned after a couple of seconds. “Try shooting it again,” he instructed as he offered Edward the rifle.

Strange, when did Sev reload it?

Shrugging it off, Edward shouldered the gun and fired again. This time, the armor melted like the other one. Even as he put the gun down, Edward was staring in amazement at what just happened. Sev could disable the indestructible stuff?

“Nice. Now... This gun ain’t mine.”

Edward watched as Sev picked up the gun and shooed him to a few yards away, and as soon as the safety was disabled, the receiver sparked and hummed menacingly as the fusion core’s output suddenly seemed too much for the rifle. Sev pulled the trigger, and a single shot was fired before the barrel glowed and then exploded with a dull clap.

Wait, he used that same kind of rifle back on the beach, how come it didn’t fail like this?

Sev had a satisfied grin plastered on his face as he laughed, tossing the scrapped weapon away before giving Edward a celebratory pat on the shoulder. “Good to know the macro theory is sound. I think we don’t have to worry about anyone taking our stuff and using it against us now.”

Edward tried to wrap his head around what he had just observed, and what Sev had said.

“When you went out…?” he asked, unsure of how to frame the words. Sev understood the question though and gave a smug smile.

“Checked to make sure if I needed line of sight and the menu up. I didn’t, and the macro worked with the remote tracking’s pulldown menu like a charm.”

He couldn’t understand half of what was said, but...as long as things belonged to Sev, he could make things unbreakable? And if you somehow took it as your own, or if he gave up his ownership of it, it would become crap?

That was awesome. Wait, does that mean Piper, Nat and Cait were really his, and that wasn’t some joke?

Despite the shithole of a time abused by raiders, the prospect of getting properly owned by Sev didn’t sound so bad, not if he could really protect everyone like this. Plus, it would need Edward to what, offer up his body? That was a signing bonus, not a price.

Edward had to ask. “Could you...could you do this for me, for us?”

Sev’s shrug was noncommittal, and his smile rather deprecating. “The macros don’t work on people, but the resistance is...well, works better if I owned the people, but we’re trying to not be scumbag slavers here.”

Okay, so more words he didn’t understand, but Edward got the last bit. Sev didn’t want to abuse his power. In hindsight, Edward could see where he was coming from. If you’re indestructible, you could be abused for a longer time right? Edward imagined Sev’s girls not liking their nightly sessions but were forced through it… Yeah, further proof that their ‘big brother’ was really trying to look out for them.

“Anyway, that’s it for now. Thanks, Edward.”

Despite being dismissed, Edward hesitated for a moment, aware that this was practically the only time he was alone with Sev. There was a tugging, but eventually common sense ruled out and Edward just nodded and left. He knew where the line in the sand was, and knew better to cross it for now.

*****

Thanks to the discovery of limited but still damned useful macros, I had a sort-of security function for any weapons and armor I wanted to distribute to my people. Once ownership is dismissed either by myself or someone claiming ownership of it, the console tweaks would reset to default values and the laser rifle with its overloaded assembly will fail spectacularly and the armor will return to its usual aluminium fragility.

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It wasn’t that hard to keep track of either, once I finally figured out the Pip Boy inventory interface. It didn’t keep track of what I had on me, but what I owned in totality instead, which explained why my first look into it was utter gibberish since it tracked the trash on the Tupile too.

The filter tabs turned things around and not only organized everything to useful categories, but allowed for quick mass selecting of items not within New World 81 or in friendly possession, for example.

Neat, huh?

I couldn’t apply the macro to people, at least not yet, so unless I decided to enslave everyone to access and ensure their loyalty, there won’t be any mass invulnerability for everyone. Maybe temporarily for combat situations, but that’s about it for now.

I’ll have to refine more security macros with ownership. Like, if a robot got hacked into, could I count it as dismissing my claim on it? Or could I set up a timer to rescind my ownership if my guns are taken out of New World 81 without my authorization?

So many possibilities. I’ll have to get back to the research bots for more macros. I get that it’s kinda like programming, but I didn’t take that class so I’ll leave it to the programmed professionals.

*****

With Sev busy on new upgrades, the girls were out on their first mission without him. It was rather exciting to take the Zippy Lid with just the Wright sisters, Cait and Curie, though the banter was much less lively since Nat’s presence meant Piper and Cait couldn’t revert to the ever important topic of nighttime activities.

Nat was particularly excited to get to shooting bad guys with the new laser rifle introduced during the clearing of the Castle. It had good penetration and range, was flashy with its unusual white beam, plus it outcompeted the normal laser weapons so badly it wasn’t even funny.

They landed near a super mutant camp scouted out by eyebots not too far southwest of New World 81. A potential threat to be wiped out, but also a convenient testing ground for Sev’s ideas.

The three girls followed the Eversor assaultron towards the razed shanty town that got converted into a haphazard camp. They got spotted immediately by lookouts, and soon the bellowing war cries of super mutants filled the air as the green giants streamed out.

White laser beams speared down several of them and torched their watchtower, but clearly the super mutants had a numerical and firepower advantage against the four intruders. Piper noted that their return fire hid their discipline with just how brutal it was. They poured continuous fire down, timing their shots to allow those with improvised clubs and cleavers to rush up.

It was impressive, but useless here, because despite the reflexive flinch from a shot striking their faces, the girls just kept firing instead of diving for cover like any sane person would. Lances of hot light crumpled the charging super mutants before they began chipping off rocks or melting through the metal wall platings. Curie just stood behind passively, waiting for her role to come.

After incinerating a dozen or so greenskins, the robot gave the order. “There’s no heavy ordnance from them. We fall back...now.”

Almost as one, the girls fell over and gave exaggerated cries of anguish, dropping their weapons to grab their face, arms or belly before they crawled and limped away. Curie helped drag a wailing Nat as she covered her face in an attempt to hide the big grin plastered on it, and Cait who seemed to be too into simulating a damaged abdomen.

Piper just ran along clutching her right arm, glancing back to see the super mutants pausing at first, perhaps in confusion, before giving triumphant roars and chasing after them. She tossed a smirk at Cait as more bullets and red laser beams pattered and fizzled around them.

Then the super mutants got to their abandoned weapons and picked them up to turn it on the girls. Piper and Curie stopped fleeing when they heard a sparking explosion, turning to witness one giant engulfed in a blinding fireball as the unstable weapon went off just as Sev said it should.

The other two stolen weapons went off spectacularly as well, the fusion cores overloading the capacitors and turning the rifles into a terrifying ball of plasma that erased anything too close to it (usually the wielder).

“The weapons test has concluded with satisfactory results,” Curie said as she gently let go of Nat and Cait. Then spikes extruded out of her hands with a sadistic click. “Now it is time to see how my new modifications work, non?”

Jetpacks kicked off a cloud of dust as they ignited and sent the assaultron into the air. Piper and the two girls watched the carnage unfold the moment Curie landed foot first into the head of a still firing super mutant. Even as they slowly walked towards the fight, Piper could see the glint of the retractable blades on the forearms and shins of the robot go to bloody work.

Curie utilised her Eversor assaultron body to its full potential and unleashed cruel slaughter on her victims. The chained spikes were no longer barbed or electrified, but still punched through its targets to main or kill. Her shoulder mounted laser arrays lashed out along with her head laser, firing at a faster rate to melt down radiated flesh.

Sev’s promise on making the Eversor pattern to be a terror weapon seemed to be working well, as Piper watched Curie tear out spines to be used as flails, remove limbs and just leaving them to scream in anger and fear as they bled out, or rip out hearts and tossing it into the faces of shocked but still defiant super mutants.

This sadistic Curie was far from the usual doting robot that Piper knew, and she smiled darkly at the thought of the next Chuck to cause trouble in Sev’s lands. He was converting all the assaultrons to Eversors now, and Piper imagined the bloody mess they’d leave to rude visitors.

If one Eversor could cause a group of super mutants to actually learn how to quail in fear, imagine what a bunch of raiders would go through?

Curie rejoined the three girls once her work was done, covered almost entirely in gore and blood. “Test concluded. I must compliment Sev once more, the new enhancements he suggested improved my efficiency by a significant margin. Should I clean up before we move on to testing my psychological warfare protocols?”

Incidentally, guess where they would be going next?

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