New Vegas: Sheason's Story - Chapter 141: Jury-Rigged

I strode calmly and confidently through the wreckage of the drug lab. The floor was covered in a carpet of spilled chemicals – both liquids and powders – mixing occasionally with the many pools of Los Zorroz blood. Every few steps or so, a discarded syringe or Jet inhaler would crack with a pop of breaking glass under my boots. While I searched for my target, Cass, Veronica, Stripe and Sasha got to the business of engaging in some post-combat small talk.

“Oh, man,” Veronica muttered from somewhere behind me. “You really have done a number on this place.” Stripe let out a heavy snort in response.

“Y’know, I’m kinda surprised he ain’t eatin’ any’ve these guys,” Cass said.

“Stripe would not eat these baby-men,” Sasha barked; Veronica sighed.

“Well, that’s a re-”

“No, since leaving the Big Empty – and especially since having more options for food that are not Lobotomites – he has expressed distaste in the texture of human flesh.” Sasha clarified.

“Human is too stringy…” Stripe growled after snorting again. “Not enough meat, and too chewy.”

A heavy silence hung in the air.

“Oh…” Veronica finally squeaked out. “Well. That… that’s…”

“So, if ya don’t like th’ taste’ve people, what do y’like t’eat?” Cass asked; if she was as horrified as Veronica seemed to be, she was hiding it well.

“Bighorner. Brahmin. Lots of juicy, tender meat. Not much of a challenge…” Stripe snorted again. “But tasty.” He started laughing that deep, guttural, almost coughing laugh of his, and even I found it a bit unsettling.

“Please tell me you’re doing something less disturbing over here,” Veronica said as she suddenly appeared next to me. “Actually, what are you doing?”

I turned to look at her, and was treated to an unexpected lightshow. I couldn’t remember if I’d ever seen anyone with my EM vision this close before, but it certainly was different. Dim, flickering lights in the vague shape of a person – with brighter lights around the brain and eyes – all dancing around in front of me as I picked up Veronica’s firing neurons; the semi-powered armor under her robe shone like a spotlight, nearly blinding me from this close up.

“Hello-o-o-o!” Veronica snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Earth to Sheason. Still in there?”

“Oh… yeah. Sorry, left the EM vision on,” I said, turning back to the wall. “I just think I found another vault protected by a force field.” I blinked, and my vision returned to normal. I’d been staring at a blank, vaguely nondescript wall with only a mild case of graffiti.

“Wait, what’s goin’ on?” Cass asked, walking over to me. Stripe followed, shaking the ground with every step.

“Sheason’s found another one of those force field vaults, like he told us about,” Veronica explained.

“Oh, sweet. So, that’s, like, a false wall or somethin’ right? You gonna look for a secret lever to open it or –”

Before Cass could finish, I shoved my fist through the wall with a crunch of plaster and wood, burying the cybernetic limb up to my shoulder. I found a good hand-hold, and pulled down the flimsy partition, sending splinters flying everywhere. The wall crumbled like it was made of paper.

” – or I guess you could just do that, sure.”

“Yep, that’s our Sheason,” Veronica shook her head and laughed. “When presented with a puzzle, he’ll brute force a solution. By wrecking it.”

“I prefer to think of it as the pragmatic approach,” I smiled back at them, shaking splinters off my fist. And then I realized: I was still wearing my helmet. Smiling was completely pointless. “Besides, I learned it from you.” Veronica nodded with a shrug.

“Fair enough, you’ve got me there.”

I turned back to the open hallway behind the fake wall and – sure enough – there was a door protected by a faintly shimmering blue energy field. I tapped the side of my helmet.

“Hey, Emily? You readin’ me?” I asked. “Is the picture coming in alright?”

“Yes indeed!” Emily’s cheery voice buzzed in my ear. “Looks like that camera you installed is working better than I thought it would.”

“So? What’s the verdict?” I said, walking over to the force field and pulling out the Sonic Emitter. “Does it look like those force fields you saw up in Vault City?”

“A little… do you think you could move closer? Maybe pan to the right a bit?” I was a bit put off by the instruction, but moved my head to the right all the same. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. See that exposed wiring, and the splices next to the magnetic stabilizer? That looks like a hatchet job, built by a gorilla. They must have stolen the plans from somebody.”

“Good to know,” I nodded, shooting the force field with the Sonic. It shimmered and fizzled away with a pop. “Make sure you save this recording, I want to take a look at it later.”

“Got it, boss,” Emily said happily. I turned back to Cass, Veronica, and Stripe, all standing just outside the ruined wall and looking at me curiously.

“I’ll start collecting everything here. If it’s like the last one, there’s gonna be piles of cash just waiting for us to take it. While I’m busy here, start setting the explosives.”

“Explosives?!” Veronica’s eyes went wide. “Wait, what?” Cass just smiled and started chuckling.

“Got everything?” Cass asked when I finally made my way back to the deuce. I nodded, adjusting the strap on the duffel bag hanging off my shoulder.

“Yep. And it’s not just cash, either. I got more of those radios, but I don’t think they’re tuned to any specific frequency.”

“So, just like the last bunch of radios then.” Veronica said. “Fairly useless for the job of spying on these guys.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” I tossed the duffel bag in the back of the deuce. “But, I did find some maps and a few holotapes. That might just give us the intel we need to see at who’s turning these wheels.”

“Then lets make a statement,” Cass tossed me the detonator with a smile. I stood there for half a second, my back to the warehouse across the street, and immediately regretted the fact that I didn’t currently have any sunglasses that I could put on.

Beep.

The ground shook under my feet, and a shock front of heat and wind buffeted my back, threatening to knock me over. The sounds of windows shattering one after another in a rising crescendo of broken glass was swiftly drowned out by the mortar and brick walls crumbling and being consumed by the fire and smoke of the exploding C4 that had been attached to all the support columns. Cass and Veronica both ducked, and brought their arms up to cover their faces, but Stripe reared back and roared, while Sasha started laughing raucously.

“MWAH-HA-HA-HAAA!” Sasha bellowed. “MORE RUBBLE, LESS TROUBLE!”

I was sitting at the dining room table the next morning, tinkering away at my latest project, when I suddenly heard a very tiny wheel squeaking below me. I looked up from my work and off to my left just in time to see a pair of tiny metal claws – attached to tiny little noodly metal arms – latch onto the edge, followed swiftly by Muggy pulling himself up and onto the table.

“Hello!” He said, rolling on the table over to me. “How’s your coffee? Almost done? Can I have your mug?”

“Oh… uh, sure, I think,” I nodded, setting down my screwdriver and grabbing my coffee. I knocked the rest of it back in one go, and all I got were the last mildly warm dregs. I did my best to fight back a grimace and a cough, handing Muggy the empty coffee cup; he took it carefully, cradling it in his tiny metal arms.

“Thanks,” he said calmly.

“I can’t help but notice,” I picked up the screwdriver again and went back to my work. “You seem a bit less twitchy and neurotic lately. Are you feeling alright?”

“I am?” Muggy paused, looking up at me confused. “I… I suppose I am. I think the amount of coffee you guys drink has helped. I spent the better part of 200 years with nothing to do. No… no purpose.” His chassis twitched. “I mean… all I ever wanted is to help with one simple thing: cleaning coffee mugs. Brains in jars don’t drink a lot of coffee. But since leaving The Sink, I’ve had plenty of coffee mugs! You guys suck down coffee like its water!” He paused, his metal claw-hands tapping against the side of the ceramic with tinny little ‘tink-tink!’ sounds. “Plus… you know. That April, she… she’s… she’s nice.” He let out a soft, nervous chuckle.

Hoo boy. I could see where this was going.

“She called you adorable when she first saw you, didn’t she?” I said, holding back a smirk. He wobbled unsteadily on his wheel, gripping the mug tightly.

“Yes. Yes she did. I should… yeah, I should go, thanks for the mug,” he said quickly, hopping off the table and rolling away. I just shook my head and chuckled to myself, continuing to tinker. At this point, I wasn’t even going to question it.

“Hey, Sheason?” Cass’ voice echoed from somewhere out in the hall a few minutes after Muggy left. “Shea? Where are ya? Arcade, Veronica’n I wanna talk to ya ’bout somethin’.” Before I could respond, Cass stuck her head in the kitchen door and made a beeline for the fridge. “Oh, there y’are.” She grabbed a trio of Nuka Cola out of the fridge, tossing one each to Veronica and Arcade, respectively, as they appeared. As soon as he walked through the door, Arcade sniffed the air.

“I smell burning metal,” he said, pulling a bottle opener out of his labcoat. “Have you been soldering in here?”

“I have, actually,” I said, still tinkering with the gun in my hands. “What’s up?”

“Oh, I was just wonderin’ if they’d told y’about that book… club…” She trailed off when she finally noticed that the kitchen table was entirely covered in tools, spare parts, electronics, and disassembled energy weapons. To say nothing of the vice I’d attached to the side of the table. “What th’ fuck are you workin’ on?”

“New gun,” I said simply. “Or, to be specific: a couple guns all Frankenstein’d together into a single frame.”

“Do I wanna know why?” she asked, cracking open the bottle in her hands on the edge of the counter.

“I got to thinking, and I’m carrying way too much crap most days. It’s probably a good idea to slim down on the amount of weapons and ammo I need to carry at any given time. So, I decided to take multiple energy weapons and mount them all in a single frame.”

“Is… is that – DID YOU DISASSEMBLE THE PULSE GUN?!” Veronica shouted, grabbing at one of the more recognizable pieces on the table – the empty frame that used to be the tube of the Pulse Gun. “What the hell! Why would you wreck something that we spent so much time and effort just to FIND?!” I’d anticipated that response, and reached down into the metal box near my feet.

“I didn’t,” I said, pulling out a perfectly intact and undamaged Pulse Gun and handing it to a perplexed and bewildered Veronica. “At least, I didn’t wreck the original. I had Jeeves scan all the weapons I needed for this behemoth, and asked him to make exact duplicates that I could cannibalize for parts.” I snapped the last piece in place, and held aloft the large rifle so everyone could get a good look at it. “Well? What do you think?”

“I’m surprised at how big it is,” Veronica said, rallying quickly once she realized I hadn’t been completely careless. “I thought if you were gonna make yourself a new gun, you’d make something pistol sized, like your eight-billion other pistols,” Veronica snarked, trying to rile me up. I shrugged.

“I thought about it, but I couldn’t fit everything I wanted into that small a frame.” Veronica looked taken aback by my response.

“I… I was kidding. You seriously tried to make another pistol?” I nodded, and she just shook her head.

“It looks like a mess,” Arcade offered bluntly, leaning against the wall with his soda. “What all do you have in there?”

“Five energy weapons, plus a bit extra,” I said, checking the reflex sight. “The whole thing is based largely around the frame of the advanced LAER I found in the Big Empty, and altering it where needed with Holorifle tech. I also managed to wire in both the Pulse Gun and the Sonic Emitter into the system. That was a lot easier than I thought it would be, since it turns out they were surprisingly similar. I have a sneaking suspicion that the Pulse Gun was developed by the Big Empty scientists before it turned into Project CIRCUITBREAKER for the Army.”

“So, what’s th’ fifth gun?” Cass asked, setting down her soda and leaning against the table edge to get a better look.

“That’s the most genius part about this,” I smiled broadly, turning the gun over in my hands so I could show them the underside. “My original plan was to use something like a recharger rifle or something to power it and cut down on ammo, but Jeeves had a copy of a Microfusion Hyperbreeder Alpha in his files. I couldn’t very well pass something like that up, so I had him replicate one and I wired the power supply into the thing instead. I’ll never have to reload this thing.”

“Well, if that’s the case, why do you have four microfusion cells in there?” Arcade said after clearing his throat, pointing at the cluster of cells in a square shape near the trigger.

“Those don’t actually provide power,” I said. “They just function as capacitors for the MF breeders, so the whole thing can hold bigger charges for longer.” I flipped the rifle around again and grabbed hold of both grips. “I also added a few parts that I picked up from the Gun Runners this morning: a marksman stock, pistol grip, fore grip, a couple picatinny rails, and a reflex sight. I even figured out how to wire up a fire selector so that it can switch between holorifle-shotgun cubes, blue LAER beam, pulse gun blast, or sonic emitter blast.”

“Well, that explains the oscilloscope on the side,” Veronica said, crossing her arms over her chest. “The big question is does it work?”

“Well… yeah?” I said, suddenly unsure of myself. “Why wouldn’t it work?”

“You’re the one always going on about how you’re not suited to electrical engineering,” Arcade offered up. “And putting all those guns together like that seems a bit complicated.” I shrugged.

“No more complicated than building a teleporter that rips up the very fabric of space and time,” I said. Arcade opened his mouth to offer up a counter-point, but his mouth worked uselessly for several seconds with no sound coming out.

“Fair point,” he said finally.

“What’re you gonna call it?” Cass asked, leaning forward on her elbows and resting her chin against her hands. “A gun like that needs a name.”

“I hadn’t really thought about it.” I admitted.

“Maybe you should just call it what it is,” Veronica said. “You know, combine all the names into one word.” She tapped her chin several times. “Like… I dunno. The Holo-LAER-Sonic-Pulsar?”

“I think that would only work if we were speaking German,” Arcade said, trying and failing to hold back a snicker.

“It is a bit of a mouthful,” Cass nodded. “Hey, mind if I take a look?”

“Sure, go ahead.” I placed the rifle in her outstretched hands, and the moment I let go, it hit the table – with her hands still desperately holding on, trying to pull it back up.

“Holy fuck!” Cass half yelled, half laughed. “Cryin’ out loud, man! This thing weighs a ton!” With some considerable effort, she strained to lift it up with both hands. “On the plus side, I’ve got the name for it: The Dead Weight!”

“And yet,” I said, grabbing the rifle by the side with my cybernetic hand, and lifting it out of her grip with ease. One of her eyes twitched. “It’s still lighter than all the weapons and ammo it’s replacing.”

“Bullshit,” Cass shook her head. “I don’t believe you.”

“How much ammo do you usually carry?” Veronica asked. I shrugged.

“Depends on what I’m bringing with me that day, but… generally sixty pounds worth of ammo, explosives, and firearms? Maybe more? It all depends. This’ll cut down on that immensely.”

Silence filled the air for an uncomfortable minute.

“You’re insane,” Veronica said with a sigh. While all this had been going on, Arcade had been staring intently at the gun before snapping his fingers.

“How about we call it the Jury-Rigger?” Arcade said. All three of us turned to look at him. “Well, think about it. It looks like it’s held together with duct tape. Almost. And seriously – combining all those guns into one is the very definition of a hack job, the kind of thing you jury rig together. Combining a holorifle with an electro-laser? How does it work? No one knows…” Arcade pointed at me. “Except him.”

“The Jury-Rigger…” I repeated, trying out the sound of the name as I hefted up the rifle. “Yeah… yeah, I like it.”

“You certainly look ready for a party. Are you leaving?” Emily asked a bit later as I walked past her in the Penthouse. I nodded.

“Yeah, I want to test this thing out,” I said, gesturing with my helmeted head to the rifle resting against my shoulder. “So I’m gonna head someplace where I can cause as much chaos and destruction as I want, and no one will give a damn.”

“Oh?” Emily raised an eyebrow and smiled up at me. “And where’s that?”

“The Big Empty. There’s plenty there I can use as target practice, and the Think Tank won’t care. They barely know what’s going on inside their own dome. Besides, I need to make sure that the force-field-fizzler of the Sonic still works, and I can only do that with a place where I know there’ll be some force fields.”

“You could always hit another Los Zorroz hideout,” Emily offered. I shrugged.

“I suppose I could, but I’d rather make sure everything I’m using works first before going into any serious combat in Freeside. Besides…” I looked out the window, at how bright everything was. “It won’t be night for at least a couple hours.”

“Well… just…” Emily fiddled nervously with some of her hair, brushing it behind her ear. “Be careful, alright? I remember those stories you told us about the goings on in that crater, and everything sounded incredibly dangerous.”

“You really are worried about this, aren’t you?” I asked. Emily scrunched up her face.

“Well, to be fair, the Big Empty is where your arm got cut off.”

“I got a new one!” I offered up weakly, and Emily rolled her eyes.

“Don’t worry!” Sue said unexpectedly, causing Emily to jump slightly in surprise. “I can keep him hidden and safe. No one will be as unseen as us!”

“There, y’see?” I nodded, making my way to the teleport pad. “Nothing to worry about.”

“Do you think you could keep that sat-phone link open, just in case?” Emily said as I punched in the coordinates. “Maybe even that camera as well. It won’t hurt to have another set of eyes, just in case.”

“Fair enough,” I nodded, conceding the point. I stepped on the pad, and it began to hum and spin with ribbons of light. “But it’s like I said, you don’t have to worry. It’s me!” Emily glared at me with a raised eyebrow, folding her arms across her chest.

“That’s why I’m worried,” she said the instant before the world disappeared.

The world came into focus, and I stepped off the teleport pad in The Sink.

“Welcome home, sir,” Jeeves greeted me, bathing me in the flickering blue lights of his holographic audio visualization bars. “What can I do for sir today?”

“I’m looking for a place in the crater where I can test this out,” I said, lifting up the energy rifle for him to see. The bars rapidly flickered through several colors before settling back on blue.

“I was wondering why sir requested me to replicate those energy weapons earlier,” he said flatly. “Does it work?”

“That’s what I intend to find out. Do you know of any places in the crater with a lot of force fields? Maybe some violent, malfunctioning robots I can fry?”

“One moment, sir,” Jeeves replied. The holographic bars vanished, and a 3D representation of the Big Empty crater appeared in its place. Lines of light flashed back and forth across the map, scanning the image several times. “I think I may have found a suitable location for sir’s purposes: the Z-43 Innovative Toxins Plant.”

“Sounds promising,” I replied, my voice thick with sarcasm. “Where is it?” The map flickered again, and a red arrow appeared, pointing down.

“It appears to be on the southern edge of the Hexcrete Archipelago, sir. At least… for the moment.”

“Is it one of those labs that gets up and walks around?” I asked, remembering all too well the giant slabs of hexagonal concrete pillars flying through the air.

“That, I cannot say with certainty, sir.” Jeeves admitted. “But if the archival records I am looking at are correct, sir, then sir will find a multitude of robots, force fields, and obstacles within the bowels of the facility. It should prove a peerless proving ground to practice with the prototype on sirs’ person.”

“Perfect,” I said with a smile.

“Oh boy…” I sighed, stopping just outside the front door of the Z-43 building. “This is gonna be a loooooong day, isn’t it?”

The squat, square, relatively indistinct brick building was sitting within spitting distance of the hexcrete towers, and several large pipes were attached to the side. What really caught my attention, however, was the graffiti painted on the front door that I hadn’t seen since the Divide: one of Ulysses’ flag markers. A red one.

That was never a good sign.

“Wait, this is where we’re going?” Sue squeaked as I pushed open the front door, and made my way inside the darkened building.

“Yeah? Why, what’s the problem?” I switched on my nightvision, but it didn’t really help. There didn’t appear to be anything here except rusty copper pipes, and dirty walls…

“Oh, I’ve just heard stories about this place… bad stories.” Sue let out a nervous squeak. “They say that the old caretaker of this place went mad. Absolutely stir-fry crazy. She chopped up her entire staff…”

“Shit, really?” I asked, just a little bit too soon.

“… of robots.” Sue clarified.

“Oh,” I shook my head, trying not to laugh. Sue continued.

“They say at night you can still hear the screams… of their replicas. All of them functionally indistinguishable to the originals. No memory of the incident. Nobody has any idea why they’re screaming. Absolutely terrifying…” Sue paused. “Though… you know. Not… paranormal. In any meaningful way.”

“So, is that it?” I asked after a pause.

“Hey, that’s a scary story for a personality construct!” Sue said indignantly, apparently picking up on how unimpressed I was. “Can you imagine if I was screaming all the time and I had no idea what was going on?” I shrugged.

“Okay, yeah, I can see tha –”

Suddenly, the floor opened up beneath my feet and I started falling. Both Sue and I started screaming – more in surprise than fright for me – as I slid down a smooth tunnel, unsure of where I was going. I just gripped the rifle tightly, and braced myself for the inevitable impact for when this tunnel decided to stop.

A light below my feet appeared, practically blinding me. I shut my eyes, willing the nightvision off…

THUD.

I’d landed on my ass, but I didn’t think anything was broken. In fact, it felt like I’d landed on something soft, like a chair or something. A strange tinny music filled my ears that I didn’t recognize – like some kind of elevator music for robots. I cracked open an eye, and looked around cautiously.

“What the hell?”

I was sitting on a very soft egg-shaped bed, inside a glass box, and surrounded entirely by pristine white walls and tiled ceramic floors. I looked up just as the tube which deposited me here retracted up into the ceiling, and the panels closed up tight. In one of the corners of the antiseptic white room this glass box was located inside, I saw a video camera aimed directly at me. A blinking red light flashed on the side.

“What’s going on?” Sue asked with a wavering voice.

“Don’t look at me,” I said, getting up off the bed. Suddenly, the music stopped, and a crackle of static issued from a speaker somewhere above me, accompanied by a flicker of the lights.

“HELLO.” A heavily synthesized female voice (that seemed to be putting accent on entirely the wrong syllables) bellowed out of the speakers. “AND, AGAIN, WELCOME TO THE BIGMOUNTAIN COMPUTER AIDED ENRICHMENT CENTER. YOUR SPECIMEN HAS BEEN PROCESSED AND WE ARENOWREADY TO BEGINTHE TEST PROPER.”

“Oh, that doesn’t sound good…” I muttered, gulping hard and gripping the rifle tighter.

“LET’S BEGIN.”