Chapter 98: Chapter 94

“Of course I’m not!” Nora near-yelled, glaring at Sev across his desk. “What kind of-of…of deviant shit is that?”

The ruler of the Nexus shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. “It’s what some people are saying, so I just wanted to check.” He leaned forwards on his elbows as he continued, a polite plastered on his face. “Not that it’s illegal, but I’d be more worried about…training. Target identification and such.”

“Target identi- What the fuck?”

“It’s a valid concern, if the…partners one boinks doesn’t know who’s ok for crossbreeding and who’s not.”

The words made her face twist in revulstion. “Why the hell am I continuing with this? I’m not. Nor am I going to be. A. Dog. Fucker. Or any non-human fucker for that matter.”

Another infuriating shrug. “Cool, then the IFF issue isn’t a worry for you then. I’ll save the lecture for someone else. So, moving on…”

Nora felt irrationally angered at Sev’s casual air, even though it should be a good thing he wasn’t badgering her or mocking her. The temptation to just walk over to slap him across the face was strong, but common sense reigned in the end.

“...now that you’ve decided to settle in the Nexus, any new issues chafing against your pre-war sensibilities?”

The rest of the private meeting went by as they usually did, with Sev just asking for new perspectives. Whether or not he bothered following up on them was up to how different her sensibilities and his overlapped.

“You planning on rebuilding a family?”

The blunt question out of nowhere caught Nora by surprise, and her dark mood was forgotten. Just briefly. She leveled a glare Sev’s way and her words left though gritted teeth.

“It’s not your business.”

Sev was immune to the threatening look and kept the easygoing attitude on as if to mock her. “Not directly, no. But your body went through cryo shock and it’s a miracle you survived as intact as you are after Kellogg and co put you through the freeze without proper prep.”

This was a new topic. Sev’s casual air melted to take on a more serious expression, so Nora just locked her gaze to his and waited for him to continue.

“Not to be pervy or anything, but you should’ve been lactating when we found you. But you’re not. And the healing arches didn’t restore that. We recently started doing more…ah, tests, in Tleilax, and Curie’s worried that there might be other cryo-related issues that you might be interested in fixing.”

Nora digested the words for a moment, letting silence fill the room. Now that Sev mentioned it, it became bloody obvious that she should’ve been… Would this ‘cryo shock’ explain her increased stamina and healing speed? What else might be wrong with her?

“Why now?” she asked, the anger and foul mood replaced with brittle concern.

“Priorities. We were arming up back then, so resources were allocated accordingly. You seemed healthy enough when we recovered you, so the minor oddity was pushed aside. Until now.”

Sev shrugged once more before he rose from his desk. “Thanks to the Nexus switching paces, we’ve refocused on other things, cryogenics being one of them. You interested in taking some tests? It shouldn’t eat too much of your time and I can promise it won’t be in Tleilax…”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Yup, not optimal ones for everyone to be happy though, sad to say.”

Nora went silent for a moment. That meant that she could likely reject the offer and go on with her life. Sev has a cruel streak, but he’s not that callous with lives.

She gave him a thoughtful look. “What’s in it for you?”

As usual, he answered bluntly. “I’m willing to bet that you’re not a unique case, and it’d be nice to figure out how to settle cryo shock issues before we run into more…dangerous cases.”

That was a half truth, Nora realized. Sev either had a bunch of other people in cryogenics, or he knows where more of them might be. Likely innocent people. Of course his twisted messiah complex would want to help them.

The little revelation severely imbalance the options Nora had. “The tests won’t be too invasive, right?” she sighed.

*****

Since Nora was definitely not fucking Dogmeat (the truth macros didn’t go off after all), I had Eva scratch the plans for hybrid research for now. Until we can find someone who enjoys non-human dicks potentially breeding them, that line of studies would remain shelved. The Nexus doesn’t tolerate forced sexual encounters in the slightest, be it involving humans or otherwise. Can’t go compromising one of the major pillars of this society.

At least she was open to aiding in cryo research. If we can find a breakthrough or two for that, maybe we could restore the stash of people I had in the Tupile, and if things got really optimistic, we could bring back the few intact bodies recovered from Vault 111.

It might be a long shot, but I’m here from another existence, doing a lot of shit that shouldn’t be possible through a console that shouldn’t exist.

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With the cryo issue resolved, I moved on to the next major-ish item on the list.

Finding Parsons Asylum was little issue, and with the help of Nick Valentine, I met with Jack Cabot down the road, away from the oblivious mercs.

He seemed a bit skittish and uncertain, and his voice reflected that. “What…what do you want from us?”

Might as well cut to the chase. “You know who I am, right?” I waited for the nod before continuing. “I know about the blood harvesting thing with your father.” Ignoring the shock Jack was going through, I continued on with my proposal. “If you’d like, the Nexus can provide aid in researching Lorenzo Cabot’s…condition with the artifact, and even reinforce security. In exchange, we get some samples.”

“B-But…”

“It’s either that, or I use the asylum as target practice for my airfleet and crater the place.” I was not going to bother dancing around this. I never liked the Cabots questline - made them all (maybe not so much for Emogene) feel unpleasant to work with. The stupid artifact stuck on Lorenzo’s head was a potential threat, and having a bunch of reclusive immortals who are vulnerable to kidnapping and experimenting was another trouble waiting to happen.

Jack sourly escorted me down the asylum after that, but other than the glum look he didn’t offer any complaints. Once we got down to his father’s containment, I was fucking glad I always took the option to kill Lorenzo.

The fucker’s eyes were maniacal, even Edward’s fanatic moments couldn’t come close to the empty look in his eyes. And console showed that he was definitely buffed to above-human standards, along with having a few lines I’ve never seen before.

“You’ve brought a friend, Jack? How sweet…”

Ignoring the banter between father and son, I looked at the artifact supposedly stuck to Lorenzo’s head. More weirdness there, but…

“Hey, Jack?”

The younger Cabot stopped mid-tirade against his father to give me a quizzical look.

“You’re wrong about the headpiece. I can take it off without killing him.”

Well, through console shenaniganry anyway. There were a lot of linked stats between the helmet and the man, but all the time in Blacksite Tleilax paid off. This would be no worse than transplanting body parts.

Oh yeah, better give the disclaimer…

“But if it’s out, it’s a good chance immortality will be removed as well.”

Jack, to his credit, gave me a steely look. “The immortality isn’t important, I just want a chance to cure my father.”

Huh, guess he isn’t as much of a twat as I thought he was.

After Jack let me in, Lorenzo Cabot looked at me warily through his cell’s reinforced windows and I caught actual unease in the man. The moment I got to the door of his containment cell, I entered the console’s dilated time and carefully queued up the next series of actions. This will have to be quick.

The door clacked loudly as the locks disengaged, and I pushed it open to slip in. In the thick slowness, I saw Lorenzo’s eyes roll back up their sockets and the helm glowed ever so dimly. The telekinetic shockwave washed over me like a mild gust as I dove for the fucker, and with a quick series of snaps, the crazy Cabot was on the ground with his arms and legs broken.

Now, with me straddling the back of the man, I pulled out the healing gun and pulled the trigger as I yanked out the helmet in a fluid, console-enhanced action. It had to be quick or the shock would kill faster than the healing could trigger. Blood sprayed as his scalp got torn out with the artifact, and I could see fine hair-like things poking through the bloody mess.

Lorenzo screamed in anguish before promptly passing out, but he didn’t die as the healing emitters did their work and regrew the skin on the top of his skull. The brain damage was already there and thankfully didn’t get any worse.

An anxious Jack Cabot joined me moments later and glanced at the bloody helmet in my hand. I lifted it up towards him.

“You wanna keep this?”

We had a bit more of a chat before Jack called for his mercs to bind and transport his father away, and I got me some samples of the immortality juice. Locking down my sanity stats and prepping some self-disabling macros once everyone else had left the underground level, I tasted a drop of the vial.

It wasn’t that impressive.

I just saw my age get pushed back a bit, but that was about it. Oh sure, the potion did sanity damage, but it was negligible and wasn’t permanent. I was expecting way more stuff to happen, but just those two lines were affected, for better or worse.

Welp, time to clone the stuff and see where this takes the volunteers of Tleilax.

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