New Vegas: Sheason's Story - Chapter 167: Reactor Action

AHWOOOO! That’s right, children! It’s me, Three Dog! BOW WOW! First things first, I gotta shout out, and give a little love to all of you out there, taking time to call in and let me know what you think of the new music: you guys rock! I think I knew, deep down, that you all would like it, but I never imagined I would get this kind of response so quickly! All of you kick ass, I’m more than happy to keep spinning these new tunes! Up next, we’ve got a little bit of Jimi Hendrix tellin’ us all that “The Wind Cries Mary.” Only on GNR!

I emerged through the curtain of sparks and lightning, stepping off the teleport platform and back into the Lucky 38.

“Hey, Yes Man!” I called, not even slowing down as I entered the main room. Immediately, the big monitor winked into life and Yes Man’s smiling face appeared.

“Hi there!” he said. “What can I do for you today?” As he spoke, Emily appeared at the edge of the room, carrying a fresh pot of coffee and two mugs.

“Boone said you had some work for me to do?” I asked, sliding down the banister and landing with a heavy metal thud. Emily handed me a steaming hot cup of coffee, which I took with a nod. “Thanks.”

“I do, indeed!” Yes Man said, his monitor flickering briefly. “I was actually going to wait until you came back from saving the President…” he began, but I waved him off.

“Eh, President Dickhead can keep till morning.”

“Kimball,” Emily corrected.

“Whatever,” I said with a shrug. Yes Man’s monitor flickered again.

“Well, if you’re willing to do it right now, then that’s fine, too!” he said. “I think it’s time for us to activate one of the two locks preventing access to the underground securitron army on standby! Specifically: the lock within the El Dorado Dry Lake Substation!”

“Oh yeah, I think I remember you saying something ’bout that, like… a week ago…” I took a sip of coffee. Had it really only been about a week since I killed Vulpes? Felt like longer. “Wasn’t there something about a cold fusion reactor, too?”

“I did indeed!” Yes Man said, as his face vanished from the big monitor. It was replaced by a schematic wireframe, but he kept talking as the image assembled itself. “Although, describing the reactor as ‘Cold Fusion’ doesn’t really do it justice. It’s only cold in the sense that it has the ability to generate electricity without first generating heat!”

“Wait a minute…” Emily practically whispered next to me, transfixed by the image as it took shape on the screen. Her mouth was wide open and her glasses were slipping down the bridge of her nose. “I think I’ve seen this before…”

“You have?” I asked, calmly sipping on my coffee. She started slowly nodding.

“About a month ago, when April, Arcade and I were going through some of House’s files…” she said absentmindedly. I vaguely recalled the three of them arguing about something like that when I came back. And then it hit me:

“Wait, is this the thing that you needed the palladium for?” I asked, and she nodded much quicker.

“Yes Man, are you saying that this reactor exists?” she asked him, as the schematic on the screen winked away to be replaced by Yes Man’s huge smiling face. “It’s not just drawings on a blueprint?”

“It does indeed exist!” he replied happily.

“Can… can we see it?” she asked.

“No!”

It took me several seconds to register what he’d just said, as it was the same tone of voice he always used.

“Wait, what?” I asked incredulously. “Why not?”

“Because she didn’t say the magic word!” I could almost swear that I heard the slightest hint of a laugh in his voice. Emily, on the other hand, just sighed heavily and started rubbing her temple.

“Right. Yes, I know, I fixed your programming so you’re no longer physically obligated to comply with abandon to every order given to you… but can we please see the reactor?”

Ding.

“The elevator is waiting!” he said, before the big monitor switched off. I turned to Emily, took another sip of coffee, and motioned to the elevator.

“Shall we?” She laughed, and the two of us headed up the stairs to the elevator. “So, you fixed Yes Man’s programming, huh? You didn’t tell me about that.”

“Yes, I did…” she said, although I could hear the uncertainty in her voice. And that was only compounded when she followed it up with: “At least… I think I did…”

Ding.

“How do you still have those rocket boots?” Emily asked as the two of us exited the elevator, into a cavernous basement made of concrete. “Didn’t you say they were blown up when you went to the Moon?”

“Oh, the original ones got broken, sure…” I shrugged, finishing off the last little bit of my coffee. “But Jeeves’ scanned the boots when I recovered them from Y-15 the first time, so he had them on file in that holographic replicator of his.” I chuckled. “No big deal.”

Before we could continue, there was a heavy clunk over our heads, and the lights in the ceiling came on, one by one. Ahead of us was a large curved structure – easily two stories high and perhaps forty feet wide. Metal panels on the structure opened up, revealing curved glass walls, and faintly glowing arcs of electricity moving in waves along the interior edges. The lightning was concentrated most heavily around dozens of metal rings, each placed about a foot apart from one another.

“Welcome to the reactor!” Yes Man’s voice boomed from a speaker somewhere above us, and echoed throughout the cavernous chamber. Immediately, Emily rushed up to it, spouting off all this science jargon that I might have been able to understand if she’d managed to take a pause for breath. Something about electromagnetic coils arranged in a torus or something…

“It looks like a big glass donut,” I said, finally. Emily paused in her ranting to shoot me a look of UTTER disdain, but I ignored it. “So, how is this gonna work, anyway?”

“Mr. House found a way to utilize the beta decay of a specific palladium isotope, and turn it into a power source!” Yes Man said; Emily looked up at the ceiling in confusion.

“Wait, are you talking about when palladium-107 decays into silver?” she asked, and Yes Man (in his ever cheerful tone) replied in the affirmative. “But… but that doesn’t make sense, though! There’s no net electrical current when the electron is released, because it balances out the proton count between the two resulting atoms!” I was about to interject, but Yes Man cut me off.

“Ah, but you’re not taking into account the imbalance of protons and electrons in the center of the reactor, thanks to the influx of gamma radiation!” Suddenly, recognition dawned on Emily’s face.

“Wait, so then that means… does the electron-photon counterflow create a deficit of electrons in the core? And the ejection of electrons from the core to the rim produces an –”

“GUYS!” I shouted, raising my arms trying to get them to stop. “You know what, forget it. I was hoping you guys could dumb this down to my level, but I forgot you’re scared of heights.” Emily laughed, remembering that joke she’d made when she tried to explain muons. “What I really want to know: why do we need the El Dorado Substation to send it a burst of power?”

“What do you mean?” Emily looked confused.

“Well, look at this thing,” I said, gesturing to the electricity arcing between the metal coils inside the rounded glass tube… donut… torus thing. “There’s electricity inside, it’s all glowy and shit… It looks like it’s running already.”

“It is running!” Yes Man replied. “But not at full capacity! House never got the chance to turn it on completely before the world ended! Not to mention, two centuries of little to no maintenance has caused the reactor’s output to decay into 3.8% of its optimal capacity. At its current power level, it’s enough to provide power to the casino, the computer network of House’s systems, and the teleporter – but not the command and control tower allowing tactical control of the securitron army. Fun fact: if House’s life support system was still active, the teleport pad wouldn’t work! Both devices have roughly the same power draw! Isn’t that neat?”

“So… if we get this thing running at 100%…” I began, finally starting to understand what was required.

“At full capacity, this reactor will provide enough power for the entire Strip, all of Freeside, and several other communities in the surrounding area! In essence: the reactor would become a self-sustaining energy source, allowing Vegas to become completely energy independent! We wouldn’t need any of the power generated by the Hoover Dam turbines at all!”

Emily and I both started to smile at each other, with broad, toothy grins.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” I laughed, clapping my hands and rubbing them together. “Let’s get to it!”

At first, I wasn’t quite sure where I was going to find that substation. My first thought was that I needed to head back to the ridge just outside Hoover Dam to grab my Corvega, but Yes Man said that I didn’t need it. He said that I had been there before, and I could use the coordinates from my Pip Boy to teleport there…

But that didn’t make sense. I hadn’t been there before… had I? Despite my misgivings, I plugged the coordinates into the teleporter and hoped for the best. It wasn’t until the dust settled (and the lightning and sparks swirling around me finally died down) that I understood where I was and why I had been sent here.

“Well, fuck me sideways…” I laughed.

I was standing on a very familiar hill, just outside Henderson. It was the exact spot where I’d parked my car several weeks ago, when I came here to drink and be alone after my fight with Veronica. You know, right before I got shanghaied by that crashed Big Empty satellite. And then I remembered the other thing that happened that night.

Images began to flood my memory: Legion troops assaulting a small outpost, NCR soldiers doing their best to defend it… and then, an Enclave assassin arriving from nowhere, slaughtering them all to a man.

Tuera…

For the first time since I knew she was alive, I was glad she’d decided to leave.

It was a very good thing that this hill was about a half a mile away from the substation. It meant that the lights and noise from the teleporter were less likely to be noticed by the NCR troops who had turned it into a garrison. I ended up going back and forth between that spot and the Lucky 38 several times; I wanted to make sure I had all the gear I would need.

For instance: the very first thing I went back for was a pair of binoculars. One of the things my cybernetic eyes couldn’t do was zoom in. And if I was going to properly scout out the location before sneaking in, I needed to get a good look from afar. Preferably, several good looks.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: why would I even bother with scouting out the location first? I mean, my usual M.O. for this kind of situation would be to charge in headfirst, guns blazing. But there were a few reasons I didn’t want to do that.

First: I discovered pretty quickly that, despite the attacks a few weeks ago, it was still an NCR outpost. It was crawling with soldiers on patrol and I didn’t want to kill any NCR troops if I could help it. “Punch the head, don’t kick the feet,” and all that.

Second: I don’t know how much the NCR knows about my plans for Vegas, but I have to assume that they know at least some by now. Tipping my hand needlessly before Hoover Dam goes down is probably not a good idea, so I need to play this as quiet as I possibly can. I mean, I don’t really credit the NCR with an overabundance of brains, but give them enough pieces and they’re bound to put something together.

So that means I had to go in all sneaky-like.

By the time I started to make my way down the cliff, it was already dusk. Not quite pitch black yet… but enough darkness for me.

“Think this will work?” Sue whispered in my ear as I cautiously made my way over to the outpost.

“Of course it will,” I whispered back. “You’re the one always going on about how no one is more unseen than us, right?” I skirted along the edges of the fence as we talked. There hadn’t been a fence the last time I was here, but I can only assume they must have installed it after… well. You know.

“I was talking about getting in and out without killing anyone,” Sue replied. “Your track record with that isn’t exactly stellar.” I checked to make sure no one was around; nothing back here except row after row of electrical transformers. I disabled the therm-optic camo with a click, and pulled out a pair of wire cutters to get through the fence.

“Aw c’mon, you too?” I sighed, slipping through the new hole and vanishing with a rainbow click. “It’s bad enough I have to take that from everyone else…”

“It’s true, though,” Emily’s voice buzzed in my ear. “Your usual method of problem solving involves lots of gunfights and massive explosions.”

“I’m not talking to you guys anymore,” I muttered. “I’ve got work to do.”

If my earlier count was correct, there had to be at least a platoon of infantry stationed here. There couldn’t be many more than that; soldiers needed places to sleep, and I only saw a grand total of four tents. The only solid structures were the one squat building wired to all the transformers (the place I needed to be), and the two concrete pillboxes with mounted guns at the south end creating a killzone for anyone trying to come at it head on (the place I definitely didn’t need to be).

So far, the various patrols hadn’t spotted me. But that wasn’t really a surprise. I mean, I’d been sneaking around Hoover Dam with the therm-optic camo earlier, passing between people quite easily in broad daylight and nobody had spotted me there.

However, there was a problem. I’d been cautiously making my way around the outer edges of the big concrete building that I needed to get inside… but I couldn’t find any entrance. Except one. And, just my luck, there were not one but two NCR troopers sitting on either side of the door in a pair of folding chairs, with their rifles resting against the wall.

“You hear the President is comin’ tomorrow?” one of them asked the other.

“Yup,” the other one replied with a nod, digging in to… was that an MRE? It was definitely something at least pretending to be food.

“Yeah, I tried to get leave to go see it. But LT wouldn’t give the go-ahead, y’know?” the first one said, leaning against the concrete wall. “Said I hadn’t filled out the paperwork in time.”

“Mmhmm…” the second one muttered, still chowing down.

“Apparently, Kimball’s coming to give Watson some kind of medal…” the first one said. “You remember Jeremy, out of F Division? Stationed at Forlorn Hope since forever?” The second guy nodded, taking a drink from his canteen.

“Oh yeah, I know Jeremy,” he grunted.

A very long silence followed.

“You’re really terrible at this,” the first one said, breaking the silence. “I’m just trying to make conversation, you know?” The second guy growled angrily, pointing at his food.

“Yeah, and I’m trying to eat my dinner, man!” he grumbled. “Would you give it a rest?”

I moved away. They clearly were not going to move, but I still needed to find a way in. And it’s not like I could take them out with the chloroform I’d prepared, because I’d only be able to take out one at a time. Not only that, but with their backs against the wall like they were, there was physically no way I could get behind them.

“Hey, Em?” I whispered, skirting the edge of the wall to get back to the transformers. “I think I saw a skylight on the roof earlier. Can you double check my helmet cam footage?”

“Sure thing, boss,” she said, before the sounds of typing clicked in my ear. I didn’t wait for her to finish. I was already at one of the transformers near the south, trying to judge the distance from the big metal box to the squat concrete building. “Uh… yes. Yes, there definitely looks to be a way in from the roof. But I don’t… it doesn’t look like there’s any way up to the roof.”

Fuck. That’s way too far for me to jump on my own. I checked to make sure I was out of sight, and turned off the camo again – because I needed to get my grapnel gun. I needed to weigh my options here. I couldn’t use the rocket boots to get to the roof, because those would attract too much of the wrong kind of attention. And I couldn’t fire the grapnel at the roof, because it made a very distinctive sound and, again, would attract too much attention.

Cautiously, I flipped one of the switches on the side of the grapnel, and the dart dislodged itself from the mountings. I pulled out the cord as cautiously and quietly as possible, constantly checking as I worked to make sure no one noticed me. Once I felt I had enough slack in the cord, I faced the wall and started spinning the dart as fast as I could.

“What are you doing?” Sue asked. I didn’t respond at first. I just threw the dart as hard as I could, straight up into the air, and watched as it fell out of sight – hopefully, on the roof. I aimed the grapnel at the edge of the roof, and thumbed the button to retract the cable; within seconds, the cable snapped taught, the dart caught the edge of the roof, and I started to ascend!

Result.

I let out a sigh of relief. So far, no one had noticed me, and there were definitely not going to be any troopers, since there didn’t seem to be any way up here. I mean, not unless the NCR had decided to have the roofs of all of their buildings guarded by big scary dogs airdropped into the location by parachute… But that would be ridiculous.

Almost as ridiculous as riding in an alien spaceship to go fight Space Nazis on the Moon.

“… Sheason, what are you doing?” Sue asked. “Why are you looking at the sky?”

“Just paranoid, I guess…” I laughed to myself, shaking my head as I moved to the skylight. I opened it up and carefully dropped down to –

“Freeze!” a female voice barked, punctuated by the unmistakable metal clack of an AR-15’s charging rifle being pulled, drowning out the sound of my boots hitting the ground. I didn’t move at first – mostly because I was so surprised. And then I remembered: I turned off the camo before climbing onto the roof. Very slowly and cautiously, I raised both my hands in the air and stood up straight.

“Who are you? You a ranger?” the female voice called out from somewhere behind me. “No, that’s not Ranger armor… Who are you?”

I tried to weigh my options. It’s possible that my armor would be able to take the shot if she got trigger-happy and decided to fire, but on the other hand… Sue was definitely not the Gun Runner armor. Plus, if she fired, then everyone else outside would hear the sound. I could try dropping a smoke grenade, but that would only obscure her sight, not disable her. A flashbang might do the trick, but that has the same problem as the rifle: too much noise. She has the drop on me, which meant that the chloroform I’d prepared was continuing to be useless. That copy of the “Compliance Regulator” I’d borrowed (and replicated) from Chris was inside my duster, but I wouldn’t be able to draw it without her shooting me first.

“Who do you think I am?” I growled out, still keeping my hands in the air and slowly looking over my shoulder. The blonde girl in the NCR uniform with the rifle trained on me couldn’t be more than 25. Maybe younger, I dunno. Despite that, she didn’t seem scared.

The rifle in her hands wasn’t shaking, at least.

“You’re that Courier everyone has been talking about…” she said, after a very long pause. She didn’t lower the rifle yet. “Aren’t you?”

“Got it in one,” I chuckled.

“Are you going to kill me?” she asked; her voice cracked slightly near the end. I turned on my heel, swiveling in place very slowly, and faced her with my hands still in the air. She kept her rifle trained on me, but didn’t fire just yet.

“Not unless I have to,” I said, staring at her from behind the blue lenses of my helmet. “I don’t want to… but I will if you force me.” She adjusted the grip on her rifle, and her jaw clenched.

“I’ve been assigned to guard this location,” she said. “And every trooper in the Mojave knows about the Courier. That he… you’re not to be trusted. Things explode around you. You’re just the kind of danger I’m supposed to guard against.”

“Yeah, well… what I’m doing here isn’t going to affect the NCR in the slightest,” I said, finally lowering my hands. She still didn’t shoot. “If you’ve heard of me, then you know I’m no fan of the Legion. I’ve just got to do something here, real quick, that will help me kick those slave-trading fucks in the balls. And then I’ll be on my way again. It’s just an unhappy coincidence that you guys have set up shop here…”

She stared at me down the sights of her rifle for several seconds. I stood my ground, just waiting for the shot, hoping that if she did decide to fire, I’d be fast enough with VATS to block it with my cybernetic arm or the Pip Boy casing…

She slowly lowered the rifle.

“Just… Just do what you need to do and get the fuck out,” she said, aiming her rifle at the ground but keeping a very firm grip on it.

I nodded at her, silently letting out the breath I’d been holding, and moved to one of the nearby terminals. Yes Man was currently in my ear, giving me a walkthrough of what I needed to do. So while I got to work, I decided to try and ease the tension in the room. Somewhat.

“What’s your name, kid?” I asked, looking at her over my shoulder as I pressed the needed buttons and flipped the various toggles.

“Mags…” she muttered, clearly a bit unsure where this was going. To be honest, I didn’t know my own self.

“You from up north?” I asked, continuing to follow the instructions in my ear. “I think I recognize that accent.” She nodded slowly.

“Uh, yeah… I’m from Reno,” she said with a cough. “Joined up ’cause I wanted to be a Ranger. And… uh…”

“Didn’t quite make the cut, huh?” I finished for her. She started nodding slowly.

“Yeah, they washed me out. That’s why I don’t want to pick a fight with the Courier…” she let out a single, defeated laugh. “I know I’d lose.”

“Hmmm…” I grumbled, finishing up my work at the terminal. I pulled out the Platinum Chip, keeping it out of sight, and rolling it across the top of my fingers before plugging it into the console.

“You know, despite what you may have heard about me…” I said, doing my best to distract her from the sounds of the console doing what it needed to do. “I’m not a bad guy. I’m not trying to fight the NCR, but I am trying to bring down Caesar’s Legion. And this is gonna help with that.” I pulled the Platinum Chip back out and surreptitiously put it back in its hiding spot.

“All I’ve heard is that the Courier causes chaos wherever he goes,” Mags started lifting the rifle again… but not quite at me. I reached into my duster to pull out the Big Mountain Transportalponder! and kept it hidden from sight as I stepped away from the console.

“Well, I suppose that’s true enough…” I nodded at her, slowly walking towards her, positioning myself directly under the skylight. I was going to need that clear line of sight to open sky in a second. “But think about this: if I wanted to get in here, and I truly didn’t care about the collateral damage… we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”

She stared at me in confusion, apparently taking my advice to heart and actually thinking about that, as she lowered her rifle again. I gave her a halfhearted salute with my free hand.

“Take care of yourself, Mags,” I said, pulling the trigger on the Transportalponder! “You’re a good kid.”

The world disappeared in a flash.

A few minutes later, a burst of lightning ripped open the universe, and I appeared on a hill somewhere very far away from the substation. The lights of Vegas were shining off in the distance, and a securitron with Yes Man’s face was waiting for me.

“Hi there!” he said with a wave. “Follow me!” He turned on his single wheel, and started rolling away.

“So, where’d this securitron come from?” I asked, keeping pace with the robot. “You send him all the way down here from Vegas?”

“Of course not!” Yes Man laughed. “This is one of the old Victor units! They’ve been on standby ever since his AI was scrubbed from the system!”

“Is that right?” I muttered. It didn’t take us long to get to our destination: a ridge with Vegas in clear view off in the distance.

“See that?” Yes Man pointed at the scene with one of his claw arms. “Vegas, right? Same as always – but not tonight!” He started counting down, and I folded my arms across my chest in anticipation. When he got to the “One!” suddenly every single light in Vegas flickered and became dim. That… didn’t seem right.

“Yes Man? Was that supposed to happen?” I asked. Yes Man didn’t answer. He just kept pointing – and with good reason, as it turns out. Suddenly, all the lights in Vegas turned back on again, much brighter than they had been before. Several spotlights around the edges of the Lucky 38 turned on and shined brightly into the sky, further exaggerating the monolithic nature of the spire sticking out of the cityscape. Even Freeside seemed to be getting in on the action, glowing brighter than I’d ever seen before.

“Did it work?” I heard Emily’s voice buzzing in my ear. “How does it look?” I nodded slowly, surveying the impressive sight off in the distance with a smug, satisfied smile.

“Like Christmas, but with more… me.”