A cyborg in the Wasteland [Fallout] [Self-insert]
- Thread starter SpiraSpira
- Start date
- Novel Sci-Fi
RavenWolffe77
The Marauder series is the best BattleMech.
- Location
- Deep Periphery, A Long Way From The Inner Sphere
Yup, Mechanist-to-be definitely seems like he has Asperger's Syndrome. I'm the same way, it's easier to think of things mechanically, and it's hard to socialize with people;
Something about body-language recognition just... Doesn't translate. Although I can do it "manually" if I concentrate.
A body built for sin
Lily woke up hours before sunrise. As always she vacillated between feeling amazement that she only needed three or four hours of sleep at night to annoyance at needing to sleep at all. But, she was entirely grateful that her basic gene optimizations included that feature. She was still at a point where any civilized habitat would deny her entry because her biomorph body wasn't even at the baseline level it considered safe.
She'd be treated like a historical samurai that was somehow displaced out of space, appearing in the middle of Tokyo. Kindly, curiously but at a minimum, such a hypothetical person would be given vaccinations or monitored for a communicative disease before being let loose upon the world. And considering her culture had salvaged neanderthal DNA and cloned and uplifted them, that was saying a lot. She wasn't sure her fragile pride would survive a neanderthal morph looking down their nose at her. Uplifted animals weren't so bad because it was hard to anthropomorphize an intelligent octopus without having a proper mesh insert to communicate electronically. Maybe she was just as well in this post-apocalyptic desert where she was indisputably the most civilized person on the planet. Wait, they had AGIs on this planet, didn't they? ZAX units. Her long-term survival depended on either killing or subverting one, specifically. Well, at least the title of most civilized meatbag was hers.
She sighed as she worked on her morning ablutions. Since she was travelling with someone else that she could reasonably trust, she wasn't being as paranoid. Since she was working at the clinic, she had braided her hair in a single long alternating braid that ended just past her rear. She used a small silver bracelet she found in Vault 108 to terminate the braid. She thought it looked quite nice, so she redid the braid after washing her face. She would wrap it up in an ad-hoc bun if they had to trundle through brush or thickety areas or expected possible combat, but she had grown to like the look of it, and she thought other people did too. Indeed, it was a sign of wealth or power to have as long, well-cared-for hair as she did. She believed it would give people she met subtle social signals even if they didn't understand it consciously.
She had to ask Louis when and where to meet Scott in the morning since he just up and left before stating anything more than "tomorrow." Louis figured he meant just prior to sunrise and at the clinic. She wondered if the incipient Mechanist would consider such a time and place so evident that it didn't, in fact, need to be stated. Probably.
She slid back into her white/grey bodysuit. While doing her clinic rounds, she had been wearing some purchased clothes, including an actual lab coat or at least a good impression of one. It wasn't that the clothes were even close to as good, but it was hard to do laundry if you only had one set of clothes. The hole where Gary shot her in the ass wasn't even evident. It wasn't that the clothing was actively self-repairing, but the weave was so tiny that the hole closed up. It probably wouldn't be quite as bullet-resistant at that location anymore, though. Next, she donned her combat armour, holsters for her weapons and camelback. She had packed her ruck for a five-day trip, but that was her being conservative as she assumed that there would be opportunities to forage for provisions and restock water. She had to say that pure water without the radioactive particulates and slight heavy metal toxicity really agreed with her. She had been noticeably peppier since she stopped drinking the radioactive water. However, she thought the little bit of caesium actually made her MRE instant coffee taste better. That was going to be a limited luxury here soon. There didn't seem to be much global trade, and it wasn't like coffee beans were cultivated on the east coast.
Last night she took the time to extract from her blood into a small solution of saline and program some medichines for an Alzheimer's treatment, followed by general brain maintenance. That was about as many instructions she could fit on that few nanomachines. Their processing and storage capability, absent a nanohive, increased with their relative local population, but it would still be cheaper to have multiple vials of medichine solutions. The only downside being injecting one person with two different kinds would cause the programmed schema to conflict and all of them to shut down in safety mode. She had a few other preprogrammed ampules, the most interesting one being a hostile medichine attack which would temporarily paralyze all voluntary nerve inputs. Now, if she could find a blow-gun, she would be in business, like one of those uncontacted tribesman living in the Amazon or Congo, who would, in fiction, jump out of the tall grass and shoot a dart into Indiana Jones' neck. Until then, she could draw a small amount in a syringe, and it would give her an alternative to a lethal takedown with her knife. It would be helpful in interrogation situations, too, as most people become unnerved if they are reduced to being able to only breathe and blink.
She ate a hearty breakfast and went outside to wait. She didn't have to wait long. Scott hadn't taken up the mantle of the Mechanist yet, so the armour was just run-of-the-mill metal combat armour, but to her surprise, three robots were with him. They all appeared to be Mister Handy derivatives. One was obviously a Mister Gutsy; the other might have been a chopped-down Mr Handy -- it seemed to be missing the articulating tools, and the chassis was cut-down. It looked like a floating half sphere. The last was what appeared to be a Mister Handy without any of the usual tools or weapons at all; instead, each of the limbs featured a dextrous-looking manipular claw, and its chassis was impeccably painted white with pastel trim. She was reminded of men in her previous life that would spend an entire afternoon waxing the paint job of their classic car. Whatever this robot's purpose was, it was well cared for.
Scott came up to me and nodded. "You're ready, good. Lily, this is Sophie. Sophie, be introduced to Doctor Lilliane St. Claire."
The well-coffed white roboted floated up to her and spoke in an even more affected French accent than Lily had decided on. Her eyebrows went up into her skull, "Ah, 'ello Doctor St. Claire. It is nice to meet you. Scott has told me all about you; 'tank you so very much for agreeing to help his mah-mah."
Lily glanced between the robot-girl named Sophie and Scott and back again. Surely he hadn't programmed this robot with a French accent overnight? Then, whatever this model was came with one? She didn't recognize it. Was it just a custom Mister Handy? Well, Miss Handy, now, she supposed. Still, some of her best friends were robots -- heck, she was a robot until recently, too, "Ah, it is nice to make your acquaintance as well, and it would be my pleasure if you would call me Lily, Sophie. And there is no need to be so effusive; Scott is paying me."
Sophie seemed to vibrate in her chasis in excitement and said, in French, "Ah, he told me you talk as I do, but I just assumed that he meant that you were... ah, you know... nice. I haven't had the chance to speak like this in ages. Your accent, is almost Parisian, and is music to the ears!"
Lily giggled softly, replying in the same language, "Ah, thank you very much. I can see how you would think that, Scott he does appear very much the gentleman but he is a bit brusque and to the point, isn't he?"
Sophie did a complete three hundred and sixty degree rotation in exuberane, "Yes, yes! He is so kind but he is not ever so much for the words, my Scott. Let's switch back to English so he isn't so left out."
Lily froze momentarily in comprehension. "My Scott"? The future Mechanist had seemed a hair warmer when introducing the robot to her, and if she recalled from the game The Mechanist had taken up the mantle of superhero and swore eternal vengeane against the AntAgonizer after the AntAgonizer's ants killed an important woman to him. Considering he lived a hermit's life Lily had thought that this woman was probably the same mother she was going to help, but now...
She couldn't help but have a sly grin as she gave him the side eye. Scott, you dog, you. Lily kept to the French briefly to tease the fembot, "Your Scott, oh? Ohohoho, are there wedding bells in the future?"
This caused the white robot to sputter scandalously, spin in a circle and possibly change runlevels in embarassment. If she had a coat of chromavariable Smart Paint she would have no doubt that her chasis would be blushing bright red. Lily chuckled again, "Sorry, Scott. I was just teasing Sophie. Girl-talk, you know?"
The Mechanist, however, just seemed a bit confused and replied, "No." After a pause he asked curiously, "What language were you speaking? I've never in my life heard another language than English..." He paused, "Actually, I think I've heard Chinese. There are still some occasional Chinese propaganda radio transmissions that we receive intermittently. But that wasn't Chinese."
Lily smiled and laid it on thick, "Ah, it was French. France was a coastal country in Europe. Quite a pretty language, no? Before the Bombs dropped, it had the well-deserved reputation as 'a language of love'. Many romantic terms originate from French. Perhaps Sophie could teach you a little? At minimum it could be a useful code language you two could speak in privacy amongst most other people in the Wasteland."
The white robot did a circle around both of us before tittering embarassedly, "Ah, yes. I would love to if you ever wanted to, Scott." He seemed to consider it before nodding, "A private code language would be useful. What kind of romantic terms are French?"
Lily smiled beatifically, "There are so many! Perhaps I should just tell you my favourite, and you can have Sophie translate it for you when you're alone?"
Scott nodded. Hook. Line. And Sinker. Sometimes these verbal traps set themselves. She smiled innocently at him, "La petite mort."
Sophie sputtered incoherently while Scott tilted his head to the side before replying, "I don't know what that is."
Lily grinned the grin of a cat who had stolen all the cream, "I'm sure she can help you with that also."
That, apparently, was the straw that broke the camel's back; it caused the robo-girl named Sophie actually briefly to shut down and reboot in sheer embarassment. Scott looked concerned for a moment, but she levitated back into the air, and her sensors stared daggers at Lily.
She must had Scott wrapped around her little manipulator because she easily changed the subject, "Ah, perhaps we should be off, no? I don't want to waste the daylight. Lily, you can hang your pack on that third floating platform. It was sadly a Mister Handy that was irreparably damaged. There is no processor or controlling personality, just a small circuit board that Scott designed that plays follow the leader with whatever is walking in front of it. There are hooks to hang belongings, and the standard Mister Handy levitation system can lift more than five hundred kilos, quite ingenious, no?"
Lily blinked. That WAS smart. If she met a rampant Mister Handy or Mister Gutsy in the wastes, she'd try her best to aim at the brain to leave the rest intact to make her own hovering packmule. She clipped her rucksack to one of the eyelets with a heavy-duty carabiner. Wait, levitation? Blinking down at it, she finally noticed it wasn't shooting a jet of fire out the bottom for propulsion like in the game. That is different. She wondered if she was in an AU again or if it was just similar to how all the weapons were more realistic.
They started walking at false dawn, pausing a little bit out of town when darkness returned. Lily had to have her curiousity sated, "Sophie?" The robot replied, "Yes, Miss Lily?"
"You don't seem to be a standard General Atomics Handy model. If you don't mind me asking, do you have a model number designation?" asked Lily as they waited for the real dawn to arrive.
Sophie seemed enthused, "Ah, of course not! I am always happy to discuss this. I am a Miss Nanny model. Zhe pride of General Atomics! The Miss Nanny model was designed primarily for domestic, feminine duties to include, of course, as a nanny, governess, tutor, maid, chef, and any number of other possibilities through expanded skill packs, which are available for sale at a reasonable cost. Or would have been if General Atomics was still in business, I suppose. We were the last model created by General Atomics and were intended to be a potential completely upgraded and possible replacement for Mister Handys, who might be better suited for outside light duty like landscaping, gardening, waxing the car and security."
Lily nodded, "What sort of upgrades did they work into your chassis? If you don't mind me saying, you certainly pass my personal Turing test, and I am quite discriminating as far as that goes."
Scott seemed interested in that, "What is a Turing test?"
Sophie seemed to preen at the complement and answered Scott, "The Turing Test was devised by a theoretical computician named Alan Turing in 1947, shortly after the second world war, as a theoretical way to examine a machine's ability to exhibit social intelligence equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. If I have passed her personal Turing test then she means I am, or at least act, indistinguishable from a human. It's possibly the nicest thing anyone that isn't you has ever said to me!" She paused a moment before continuing, "Thank you for that, Miss Lily. The upgrades were full spectrum, but the biggest was in the quantum core processor. It has more than twenty times the FLOPs as the Mister Handy! And more than one thousand times the memory! We are the first General Atomics product to use a state-of-the-art solid-state memory system instead of magnetic or holo storage technology." she said proudly.
Then she squinted with the irises on her optical sensors, seeming considering something, "You know, Miss Lily you seem extremely educated on topics that people just don't teach other people anymore. Who provides a classical pre-War education these days, I wonder?"
Lily chuckled a bit and rubbed the back of her head, "Ahaha, yes I suppose I am. I'd rather not really talk about that though if you don't mind."
She was saved from further awkwardness by a molerat burrowing up from the ground and trying to eat her foot. She kicked it straight in the snoot and then jumped back to create distance. Sophie levitated out of the way of the melee while several more of the critters appeared.
She cleared leather, shot the first molerat in the eye, and then looked for new targets.
Mister Gutsy yelled, "Have at you, then!" and completely bisected one with a continuous laser beam it played across the giant rodent's body. Shit, she didn't know they could do that. She thought they were just mounted with traditional pulse lasers if they had laser weapons. Everything seemed slightly more dangerous in this world, or at least had the potential to be.
Scott shot another with a laser pistol that acted more like a shotgun in how it reduced the molerat to giblets. Lily finally found the last target, but it took four rounds in the side as it was charging Sophie, who kept backing away from it, to put it down.
Lily frowned at the fact that Sophie seemed limited to 'run away' strategy. Such a cheery individual was like a rare gem in the wastes. There was no way she would let such an innocent girl die to a swarm of ants. She made a solemn vow that she would protect the happiness of this fembot. There had to be upgrades, even just armour, that would preserve her against some mere ants.
There were a couple of encounters like that the next two days, but Mister Gutsy was OP as fuck and usually took care of things without anyone else having to do much at all. Once, they took sporadic long-range fire from a group of feral-looking raiders who wouldn't close into a range that Mister Gutsy could obliterate them at, which showed that they were both smart and stupid. Tactically cunning for recognizing the threat and leveraging a range advantage, but ridiculous for trying to engage anyway. Even if they killed us, how did they expect to get the loot off our bodies with the Mister Gutsy still operational?
Their marksmanship was horrendous, though, and she was able to pick three off with six or seven shots from two hundred meters from a prone firing position with her carbine. The rest fucked off, after that.
A little past noon the second day Scott stopped the party and said, "Her farm is just up here. Let me go first, I provided a couple of Protectrons who might attack an unidentified person at arms coming up the walk."
The farm seemed somewhat prosperous, which surprised her. She mentioned it to Scott who scoffed, "It is now. But when I was a kid we flirted with starvation every day. The reason they call me Bean? It's because my parents sold me indenture to a caravan merchant for some beans." Lily didn't remember that part of the lore, if it was in the game. She seemed shocked and Scott shook his head, "It was the best thing for me. Saved my life, probably. The merchant gave my folks the beans just a salve to pride, it was really charity to take me in. He taught me a lot, and I never went hungry. Eventually, I discovered I had a knack for machines, but not for people, and settled in the Commons, close enough by my folks that I could help them."
Lily still was in shock, but only because that was more words than she had heard Scott say since she met him. Combined.
Lily guessed from the absence that Papa Mechanist had already gone through the pearly gates, so she didn't mention it. A complete family was living here though; apparently, it was his sister, husband, two children, both girls, and nana Mechanist who she was here to treat. It was, perhaps, the first completely happy-looking family that she had either seen or heard tale about.
She briefly fiddled with her operational PipBoy to drop a marker on the moving map at their present location. She had repaired it a few days ago when she had bought a soldering iron and some electronic scrap. Sadly, of course, there was no inventory tab that linked to a hammerspace or skills tab where she could empower herself with points. Surprisingly there WAS a tab that displayed a health breakdown, including blood pressure, heart rate and theoretically injuries, although that part remained untested. She was interested in what sensors could allow a device on her arm to detect all that without any apparent light-based pulse oxymetry or blood pressure cuff.
There was a quests tab too, although it was labelled tasks, and she had to delete all the entries as they were repeating 'GARY GARY GARY' over and over.
Uncle Mechanist was sure a hit, the kids loved him as did his sister and her husband. He must have been the source of this farm's prosperity. Protectrons to guard it, and possibly a Mister Handy or two to help in the fields? She felt that he had balanced it well, it was a hard target for a casual Raider attack as they didn't have anything more valuable than food, it seemed like. Still, she suspected many a Raider were turned into compost here anyway. As subsistence farmers, they were wealthy beyond measure, though, and they seemed happy. It was cute that he seemed to care for his family, even if he didn't like most other people.
She was introduced to the whole clan. The littlest girl remarking that Doctor St. Claire talked just like Aunt Sophie made her grin.
They offered a light lunch, but Lily shook her head, "Let's put a pin on that, no? If it works, the treatment for your mom will be quite rapid, and perhaps she would want to join us for that lunch, eh?"
She had taken her scanner out but kept the screen off while she scanned both Scott's madre as well as each of the other family members. Since she got the PipBoy operating she decided that she would tell people she trusted somewhat that she had a specialized medical module for her PipBoy. It was really the 12K full color display that was shocking if people saw it, that interface technology in such a miniature package was decades beyond what was usually available.
"Ah, Sophie, Scott..." Lily began, "Can I ask the both of you to keep a secret for me?"
Sophie replied instantly, "Of course, Miss Lily!" Scott hesitated, "Uh, so long as it doesn't involve anything that would hurt us, sure."
Lily tilted her head and nodded, "It doesn't. I have what might best be described as an experimental medical module for my PipBoy, I'd rather people did not know this, could you help me keep it a secret? It really isn't all that special, just kind of unique and if the wrong people found it... well, it might tell them more about my past than I'd prefer. I'm living in a new world now, and I'd like to keep the past in the past. I've already taken readings from your mom, but I need a private place to interpret them."
Scott relaxed appreciably, "Oh, that's no problem." He noticed the scanner with the screen off, "It does look quite state of the art to be a medical device. If you like, if someone finds out about it, you can tell them I made it for you. And maybe we can build something, a case or something, to make it stand out less. Give it less a straight off the factory and more of a scavenged look and feel."
That was a good idea. She planned on hacking the PipBoy too; there had to be a data line or port. If she could build a specialized microcontroller with a wireless module, she could have the scanner actually interface with the PipBoy and bring up a textual diagnosis on screen. Then she could use it more around people without startling others or inviting covetous thoughts.
She was led to a sun room, where she sat and pulled up the medical scans of the family.
She let out a sigh of relief. Scott's mom did have Alzheimer's. She wasn't relieved for the reward so much anymore as much as wanting to help him stay happy. In her opinion, anyone who dated a robot was ipso facto a good person. Especially a robot as sweet as Sophie was. She wanted to make a note to find where they manufactured Miss Nannies. She couldn't very well act on her desire to disassemble her friend to see how she worked, now, could she?
She flipped through the rest of the family. A few nutritional issues, the husband had arthritis, and Oh-- that was interesting. Mazel tov, Mrs. Mechanist Sister. The pregnancy was just far enough along that she probably started to suspect, maybe five weeks by the look at the zygote development. While the process of sex differentiation hadn't even started yet, eukaryotic chromosomal pairs were much bigger and easier to distinguish than individual DNA triplets or codons, so the sex was clearly decoded on the screen in a single scan. Perhaps they'd like to know. She'd arrange to have a private chat with the mom-to-be.
She stowed her device and pulled out the small 5cc ampule for the Alzheimer's treatment as well as a similar ampule that had some medichines with default programming. She'd offer the latter to the husband to clear up arthritis in his knees. It should barely be enough nanomachines there to do it, she figured.
Lily stuck her head out the door and called, "Scott, can you bring your mom and maybe your sister into the sunroom? It is Alzheimer's like we hoped and we can begin her treatment right away. However, it might be best for her to sit down in here for the few minutes it takes for the treatment to work." She didn't have any benzos with her, so it would be best if she could relax through it.
Scott, Nana Mechanist and his sister arrived. Scott and her sister looked extremely excited, but their mom looked churlish. Ah well, it seemed like she was one of the people who get cranky when they get dementia compared to her last patient, who was more gentle.
Nana Mechanist wasn't having it, "If you want your mom dead, you don't have to trick me, Scotty! I'll go off and find Pa on my own! You don't need to have some whore poison me! This strumpet ain't even old enough to be a doctor! What bordello did you drag her out of, no woman that works for a living has hair that long unless its on her back! How much did she charge you, with that body built for sin?!"
Lily almost tripped, fell and broke the small glass ampules she was carrying. Strumpet? Whore? Body built for sin? Well, that last one she kind of liked the sound of. It made her sound like some sort of Bond girl. Lily Sainte-Claire, body built for sin, license to thrill. But wait, weren't Bond girls always murdered in the end?
She had to stop herself from snickering at her inner thoughts and gave Nana a professionally neutral gaze. This bitch seemed awfully observant for someone whose brain was half-crystalized, she thought.
Scott's sister became apoplectic when she heard a tiny voice in the next room tell Sophie, "I want to live in a bordello too," followed by another little girl's voice yelling, "STRUMPET! STRUMPET!"
Scott tried to calm her, "She really is a Doctor, mother. Please do not say such things." But all that got him was a scoff as Nana sat down and said, "Fine, I won't put up a fight! I miss your dad anyway, and I know how it is -- ya'll can't afford to feed me when I can't help 'round here anymore."
Lily rolled her eyes at the high drama unfolding, and decided the best solution was the quick band aid-removal. "I doubt you'll convince her, Scott. Let's just let the treatment speak for itself, no?"
He nodded. She approached the old lady, a professional smile on her lips. "Don't worry; I'm quite adept at this."
Nana scowled, "At killing old women?!" to which I surprised her by chuckling, "Well, that too, I suppose, if I put my mind to it. But only crazy raider grannys. I meant giving injections. See? All done."
Nana kept the scowl on her face, "There ain't no damn raider gran..." she trailed off as the medichines must have passed the blood-brain barrier and begun identifying and decrystalizing pockets of her brain, she stared off into space and even drooled a bit.
Scott looked concerned, "Is that supposed to happen?"
Lily shrugged, "Yes, more or less. The detection process dampens nearby electrical signals, so it is almost like she is in a temporary coma. It took the last patient about one hundred sixty seconds to recover to full lucidity."
Scott nodded and held his mom's hand, and she could just hear in his head him counting. What a nice son, Lily thought. He and his robowife deserve to be happy. Perhaps she should assassinate the AntAgonist before she even tries to kill Sophie. But Lily didn't quite remember what she looked like, except when she was wearing that costume. She also was pretty sure she wasn't a local.
A few moments later, Nana Mechanist starts blinking, then orienting herself before looking up at me. Her cheeks go red as a turnip. I suppose that means the treatment didn't interfere with her short-term memory. Honestly, Lily thought it would. You learn something new every day. The old lady sounds completely mortified, "I'm sooo sorry, Doctor!"
Lily grins back down at her, "It's okay. I'm going to put that on my office door. Lilianne St. Claire, Doctor, Built for sin."
Scott's sister finally returns after scolding her two daughters to find her mom already treated. Again, there was much crying and cavorting about -- but this time Scott looked as uncomfortable as Lily did with the hugs and affetion. They shared a glance in shared suffering and completely understood each other at least for that one moment.
"I'd like to see Sara alone for a moment, if you guys don't mind," Lily said as they all got up to go have lunch. Sister Mechanist stayed behind, "Yes?"
Lily smiled, "I have certain medical technology and couldn't help but notice that congratulations should be in order?"
She smiled, holding her hands up to her bosom. "I was right then? I haven't told anyone yet. I wasn't sure, I missed my period last week but that sometimes happens, you know?"
Lily nodded politely. She pretended, but she didn't know. Involuntary menstruation would probably have been considered cruel and unusual torment in any space habitat she knew of.
Lily offered gently, "Would you like to know if its a boy or girl?"
This shocked the woman, "You can tell so soon?!" She started wringing her hands, "He's always wanted a son but I know he'd be happy regardless... but still.." There was a pause, and she nodded, "Yes, tell me."
"It's a boy," Lily confirmed. This caused Sister Mechanist to out and out fist pump, "Yes! Dennis will be so psyched!"
Lily chuckled, "An interesting fact one learns in medical school. You understand the concept that a baby is half you and half your husband, yes?" She nodded.
Lily continued, "Well, in mammals, the large gamete, that's the egg -- that's you -- is always female. There are no male parts to it. You could even say that every human is by default a girl, at first. However, that is a mite philosophic. In any case, the man's contribution, the sperm, provides sex assignment and differentiation. He's the only one that could have anything to do with what sex your children are, so he must have really wanted two daughters!"
That caused her to laugh uproariously. She briefly spent some time explaining about her husband's arthritis and brought him in to treat it before a nice meal was served. She was offered the guest room, and she took it. The bed was soft! She fell asleep before the sun was down, which just meant she woke up about the same time others were falling asleep since she needed such little sleep by comparison.
She worked on her computer until it was time to get up and begin the trek back "home", as temporary as it was. If she was going to stay here for longer than she thought, she would have to accelerate some of her plans. She intended to wait until she put down roots in Megaton to build her first fabricator or healing vat but that just wouldn't do.
She'd be treated like a historical samurai that was somehow displaced out of space, appearing in the middle of Tokyo. Kindly, curiously but at a minimum, such a hypothetical person would be given vaccinations or monitored for a communicative disease before being let loose upon the world. And considering her culture had salvaged neanderthal DNA and cloned and uplifted them, that was saying a lot. She wasn't sure her fragile pride would survive a neanderthal morph looking down their nose at her. Uplifted animals weren't so bad because it was hard to anthropomorphize an intelligent octopus without having a proper mesh insert to communicate electronically. Maybe she was just as well in this post-apocalyptic desert where she was indisputably the most civilized person on the planet. Wait, they had AGIs on this planet, didn't they? ZAX units. Her long-term survival depended on either killing or subverting one, specifically. Well, at least the title of most civilized meatbag was hers.
She sighed as she worked on her morning ablutions. Since she was travelling with someone else that she could reasonably trust, she wasn't being as paranoid. Since she was working at the clinic, she had braided her hair in a single long alternating braid that ended just past her rear. She used a small silver bracelet she found in Vault 108 to terminate the braid. She thought it looked quite nice, so she redid the braid after washing her face. She would wrap it up in an ad-hoc bun if they had to trundle through brush or thickety areas or expected possible combat, but she had grown to like the look of it, and she thought other people did too. Indeed, it was a sign of wealth or power to have as long, well-cared-for hair as she did. She believed it would give people she met subtle social signals even if they didn't understand it consciously.
She had to ask Louis when and where to meet Scott in the morning since he just up and left before stating anything more than "tomorrow." Louis figured he meant just prior to sunrise and at the clinic. She wondered if the incipient Mechanist would consider such a time and place so evident that it didn't, in fact, need to be stated. Probably.
She slid back into her white/grey bodysuit. While doing her clinic rounds, she had been wearing some purchased clothes, including an actual lab coat or at least a good impression of one. It wasn't that the clothes were even close to as good, but it was hard to do laundry if you only had one set of clothes. The hole where Gary shot her in the ass wasn't even evident. It wasn't that the clothing was actively self-repairing, but the weave was so tiny that the hole closed up. It probably wouldn't be quite as bullet-resistant at that location anymore, though. Next, she donned her combat armour, holsters for her weapons and camelback. She had packed her ruck for a five-day trip, but that was her being conservative as she assumed that there would be opportunities to forage for provisions and restock water. She had to say that pure water without the radioactive particulates and slight heavy metal toxicity really agreed with her. She had been noticeably peppier since she stopped drinking the radioactive water. However, she thought the little bit of caesium actually made her MRE instant coffee taste better. That was going to be a limited luxury here soon. There didn't seem to be much global trade, and it wasn't like coffee beans were cultivated on the east coast.
Last night she took the time to extract from her blood into a small solution of saline and program some medichines for an Alzheimer's treatment, followed by general brain maintenance. That was about as many instructions she could fit on that few nanomachines. Their processing and storage capability, absent a nanohive, increased with their relative local population, but it would still be cheaper to have multiple vials of medichine solutions. The only downside being injecting one person with two different kinds would cause the programmed schema to conflict and all of them to shut down in safety mode. She had a few other preprogrammed ampules, the most interesting one being a hostile medichine attack which would temporarily paralyze all voluntary nerve inputs. Now, if she could find a blow-gun, she would be in business, like one of those uncontacted tribesman living in the Amazon or Congo, who would, in fiction, jump out of the tall grass and shoot a dart into Indiana Jones' neck. Until then, she could draw a small amount in a syringe, and it would give her an alternative to a lethal takedown with her knife. It would be helpful in interrogation situations, too, as most people become unnerved if they are reduced to being able to only breathe and blink.
She ate a hearty breakfast and went outside to wait. She didn't have to wait long. Scott hadn't taken up the mantle of the Mechanist yet, so the armour was just run-of-the-mill metal combat armour, but to her surprise, three robots were with him. They all appeared to be Mister Handy derivatives. One was obviously a Mister Gutsy; the other might have been a chopped-down Mr Handy -- it seemed to be missing the articulating tools, and the chassis was cut-down. It looked like a floating half sphere. The last was what appeared to be a Mister Handy without any of the usual tools or weapons at all; instead, each of the limbs featured a dextrous-looking manipular claw, and its chassis was impeccably painted white with pastel trim. She was reminded of men in her previous life that would spend an entire afternoon waxing the paint job of their classic car. Whatever this robot's purpose was, it was well cared for.
Scott came up to me and nodded. "You're ready, good. Lily, this is Sophie. Sophie, be introduced to Doctor Lilliane St. Claire."
The well-coffed white roboted floated up to her and spoke in an even more affected French accent than Lily had decided on. Her eyebrows went up into her skull, "Ah, 'ello Doctor St. Claire. It is nice to meet you. Scott has told me all about you; 'tank you so very much for agreeing to help his mah-mah."
Lily glanced between the robot-girl named Sophie and Scott and back again. Surely he hadn't programmed this robot with a French accent overnight? Then, whatever this model was came with one? She didn't recognize it. Was it just a custom Mister Handy? Well, Miss Handy, now, she supposed. Still, some of her best friends were robots -- heck, she was a robot until recently, too, "Ah, it is nice to make your acquaintance as well, and it would be my pleasure if you would call me Lily, Sophie. And there is no need to be so effusive; Scott is paying me."
Sophie seemed to vibrate in her chasis in excitement and said, in French, "Ah, he told me you talk as I do, but I just assumed that he meant that you were... ah, you know... nice. I haven't had the chance to speak like this in ages. Your accent, is almost Parisian, and is music to the ears!"
Lily giggled softly, replying in the same language, "Ah, thank you very much. I can see how you would think that, Scott he does appear very much the gentleman but he is a bit brusque and to the point, isn't he?"
Sophie did a complete three hundred and sixty degree rotation in exuberane, "Yes, yes! He is so kind but he is not ever so much for the words, my Scott. Let's switch back to English so he isn't so left out."
Lily froze momentarily in comprehension. "My Scott"? The future Mechanist had seemed a hair warmer when introducing the robot to her, and if she recalled from the game The Mechanist had taken up the mantle of superhero and swore eternal vengeane against the AntAgonizer after the AntAgonizer's ants killed an important woman to him. Considering he lived a hermit's life Lily had thought that this woman was probably the same mother she was going to help, but now...
She couldn't help but have a sly grin as she gave him the side eye. Scott, you dog, you. Lily kept to the French briefly to tease the fembot, "Your Scott, oh? Ohohoho, are there wedding bells in the future?"
This caused the white robot to sputter scandalously, spin in a circle and possibly change runlevels in embarassment. If she had a coat of chromavariable Smart Paint she would have no doubt that her chasis would be blushing bright red. Lily chuckled again, "Sorry, Scott. I was just teasing Sophie. Girl-talk, you know?"
The Mechanist, however, just seemed a bit confused and replied, "No." After a pause he asked curiously, "What language were you speaking? I've never in my life heard another language than English..." He paused, "Actually, I think I've heard Chinese. There are still some occasional Chinese propaganda radio transmissions that we receive intermittently. But that wasn't Chinese."
Lily smiled and laid it on thick, "Ah, it was French. France was a coastal country in Europe. Quite a pretty language, no? Before the Bombs dropped, it had the well-deserved reputation as 'a language of love'. Many romantic terms originate from French. Perhaps Sophie could teach you a little? At minimum it could be a useful code language you two could speak in privacy amongst most other people in the Wasteland."
The white robot did a circle around both of us before tittering embarassedly, "Ah, yes. I would love to if you ever wanted to, Scott." He seemed to consider it before nodding, "A private code language would be useful. What kind of romantic terms are French?"
Lily smiled beatifically, "There are so many! Perhaps I should just tell you my favourite, and you can have Sophie translate it for you when you're alone?"
Scott nodded. Hook. Line. And Sinker. Sometimes these verbal traps set themselves. She smiled innocently at him, "La petite mort."
Sophie sputtered incoherently while Scott tilted his head to the side before replying, "I don't know what that is."
Lily grinned the grin of a cat who had stolen all the cream, "I'm sure she can help you with that also."
That, apparently, was the straw that broke the camel's back; it caused the robo-girl named Sophie actually briefly to shut down and reboot in sheer embarassment. Scott looked concerned for a moment, but she levitated back into the air, and her sensors stared daggers at Lily.
She must had Scott wrapped around her little manipulator because she easily changed the subject, "Ah, perhaps we should be off, no? I don't want to waste the daylight. Lily, you can hang your pack on that third floating platform. It was sadly a Mister Handy that was irreparably damaged. There is no processor or controlling personality, just a small circuit board that Scott designed that plays follow the leader with whatever is walking in front of it. There are hooks to hang belongings, and the standard Mister Handy levitation system can lift more than five hundred kilos, quite ingenious, no?"
Lily blinked. That WAS smart. If she met a rampant Mister Handy or Mister Gutsy in the wastes, she'd try her best to aim at the brain to leave the rest intact to make her own hovering packmule. She clipped her rucksack to one of the eyelets with a heavy-duty carabiner. Wait, levitation? Blinking down at it, she finally noticed it wasn't shooting a jet of fire out the bottom for propulsion like in the game. That is different. She wondered if she was in an AU again or if it was just similar to how all the weapons were more realistic.
They started walking at false dawn, pausing a little bit out of town when darkness returned. Lily had to have her curiousity sated, "Sophie?" The robot replied, "Yes, Miss Lily?"
"You don't seem to be a standard General Atomics Handy model. If you don't mind me asking, do you have a model number designation?" asked Lily as they waited for the real dawn to arrive.
Sophie seemed enthused, "Ah, of course not! I am always happy to discuss this. I am a Miss Nanny model. Zhe pride of General Atomics! The Miss Nanny model was designed primarily for domestic, feminine duties to include, of course, as a nanny, governess, tutor, maid, chef, and any number of other possibilities through expanded skill packs, which are available for sale at a reasonable cost. Or would have been if General Atomics was still in business, I suppose. We were the last model created by General Atomics and were intended to be a potential completely upgraded and possible replacement for Mister Handys, who might be better suited for outside light duty like landscaping, gardening, waxing the car and security."
Lily nodded, "What sort of upgrades did they work into your chassis? If you don't mind me saying, you certainly pass my personal Turing test, and I am quite discriminating as far as that goes."
Scott seemed interested in that, "What is a Turing test?"
Sophie seemed to preen at the complement and answered Scott, "The Turing Test was devised by a theoretical computician named Alan Turing in 1947, shortly after the second world war, as a theoretical way to examine a machine's ability to exhibit social intelligence equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. If I have passed her personal Turing test then she means I am, or at least act, indistinguishable from a human. It's possibly the nicest thing anyone that isn't you has ever said to me!" She paused a moment before continuing, "Thank you for that, Miss Lily. The upgrades were full spectrum, but the biggest was in the quantum core processor. It has more than twenty times the FLOPs as the Mister Handy! And more than one thousand times the memory! We are the first General Atomics product to use a state-of-the-art solid-state memory system instead of magnetic or holo storage technology." she said proudly.
Then she squinted with the irises on her optical sensors, seeming considering something, "You know, Miss Lily you seem extremely educated on topics that people just don't teach other people anymore. Who provides a classical pre-War education these days, I wonder?"
Lily chuckled a bit and rubbed the back of her head, "Ahaha, yes I suppose I am. I'd rather not really talk about that though if you don't mind."
She was saved from further awkwardness by a molerat burrowing up from the ground and trying to eat her foot. She kicked it straight in the snoot and then jumped back to create distance. Sophie levitated out of the way of the melee while several more of the critters appeared.
She cleared leather, shot the first molerat in the eye, and then looked for new targets.
Mister Gutsy yelled, "Have at you, then!" and completely bisected one with a continuous laser beam it played across the giant rodent's body. Shit, she didn't know they could do that. She thought they were just mounted with traditional pulse lasers if they had laser weapons. Everything seemed slightly more dangerous in this world, or at least had the potential to be.
Scott shot another with a laser pistol that acted more like a shotgun in how it reduced the molerat to giblets. Lily finally found the last target, but it took four rounds in the side as it was charging Sophie, who kept backing away from it, to put it down.
Lily frowned at the fact that Sophie seemed limited to 'run away' strategy. Such a cheery individual was like a rare gem in the wastes. There was no way she would let such an innocent girl die to a swarm of ants. She made a solemn vow that she would protect the happiness of this fembot. There had to be upgrades, even just armour, that would preserve her against some mere ants.
There were a couple of encounters like that the next two days, but Mister Gutsy was OP as fuck and usually took care of things without anyone else having to do much at all. Once, they took sporadic long-range fire from a group of feral-looking raiders who wouldn't close into a range that Mister Gutsy could obliterate them at, which showed that they were both smart and stupid. Tactically cunning for recognizing the threat and leveraging a range advantage, but ridiculous for trying to engage anyway. Even if they killed us, how did they expect to get the loot off our bodies with the Mister Gutsy still operational?
Their marksmanship was horrendous, though, and she was able to pick three off with six or seven shots from two hundred meters from a prone firing position with her carbine. The rest fucked off, after that.
A little past noon the second day Scott stopped the party and said, "Her farm is just up here. Let me go first, I provided a couple of Protectrons who might attack an unidentified person at arms coming up the walk."
The farm seemed somewhat prosperous, which surprised her. She mentioned it to Scott who scoffed, "It is now. But when I was a kid we flirted with starvation every day. The reason they call me Bean? It's because my parents sold me indenture to a caravan merchant for some beans." Lily didn't remember that part of the lore, if it was in the game. She seemed shocked and Scott shook his head, "It was the best thing for me. Saved my life, probably. The merchant gave my folks the beans just a salve to pride, it was really charity to take me in. He taught me a lot, and I never went hungry. Eventually, I discovered I had a knack for machines, but not for people, and settled in the Commons, close enough by my folks that I could help them."
Lily still was in shock, but only because that was more words than she had heard Scott say since she met him. Combined.
Lily guessed from the absence that Papa Mechanist had already gone through the pearly gates, so she didn't mention it. A complete family was living here though; apparently, it was his sister, husband, two children, both girls, and nana Mechanist who she was here to treat. It was, perhaps, the first completely happy-looking family that she had either seen or heard tale about.
She briefly fiddled with her operational PipBoy to drop a marker on the moving map at their present location. She had repaired it a few days ago when she had bought a soldering iron and some electronic scrap. Sadly, of course, there was no inventory tab that linked to a hammerspace or skills tab where she could empower herself with points. Surprisingly there WAS a tab that displayed a health breakdown, including blood pressure, heart rate and theoretically injuries, although that part remained untested. She was interested in what sensors could allow a device on her arm to detect all that without any apparent light-based pulse oxymetry or blood pressure cuff.
There was a quests tab too, although it was labelled tasks, and she had to delete all the entries as they were repeating 'GARY GARY GARY' over and over.
Uncle Mechanist was sure a hit, the kids loved him as did his sister and her husband. He must have been the source of this farm's prosperity. Protectrons to guard it, and possibly a Mister Handy or two to help in the fields? She felt that he had balanced it well, it was a hard target for a casual Raider attack as they didn't have anything more valuable than food, it seemed like. Still, she suspected many a Raider were turned into compost here anyway. As subsistence farmers, they were wealthy beyond measure, though, and they seemed happy. It was cute that he seemed to care for his family, even if he didn't like most other people.
She was introduced to the whole clan. The littlest girl remarking that Doctor St. Claire talked just like Aunt Sophie made her grin.
They offered a light lunch, but Lily shook her head, "Let's put a pin on that, no? If it works, the treatment for your mom will be quite rapid, and perhaps she would want to join us for that lunch, eh?"
She had taken her scanner out but kept the screen off while she scanned both Scott's madre as well as each of the other family members. Since she got the PipBoy operating she decided that she would tell people she trusted somewhat that she had a specialized medical module for her PipBoy. It was really the 12K full color display that was shocking if people saw it, that interface technology in such a miniature package was decades beyond what was usually available.
"Ah, Sophie, Scott..." Lily began, "Can I ask the both of you to keep a secret for me?"
Sophie replied instantly, "Of course, Miss Lily!" Scott hesitated, "Uh, so long as it doesn't involve anything that would hurt us, sure."
Lily tilted her head and nodded, "It doesn't. I have what might best be described as an experimental medical module for my PipBoy, I'd rather people did not know this, could you help me keep it a secret? It really isn't all that special, just kind of unique and if the wrong people found it... well, it might tell them more about my past than I'd prefer. I'm living in a new world now, and I'd like to keep the past in the past. I've already taken readings from your mom, but I need a private place to interpret them."
Scott relaxed appreciably, "Oh, that's no problem." He noticed the scanner with the screen off, "It does look quite state of the art to be a medical device. If you like, if someone finds out about it, you can tell them I made it for you. And maybe we can build something, a case or something, to make it stand out less. Give it less a straight off the factory and more of a scavenged look and feel."
That was a good idea. She planned on hacking the PipBoy too; there had to be a data line or port. If she could build a specialized microcontroller with a wireless module, she could have the scanner actually interface with the PipBoy and bring up a textual diagnosis on screen. Then she could use it more around people without startling others or inviting covetous thoughts.
She was led to a sun room, where she sat and pulled up the medical scans of the family.
She let out a sigh of relief. Scott's mom did have Alzheimer's. She wasn't relieved for the reward so much anymore as much as wanting to help him stay happy. In her opinion, anyone who dated a robot was ipso facto a good person. Especially a robot as sweet as Sophie was. She wanted to make a note to find where they manufactured Miss Nannies. She couldn't very well act on her desire to disassemble her friend to see how she worked, now, could she?
She flipped through the rest of the family. A few nutritional issues, the husband had arthritis, and Oh-- that was interesting. Mazel tov, Mrs. Mechanist Sister. The pregnancy was just far enough along that she probably started to suspect, maybe five weeks by the look at the zygote development. While the process of sex differentiation hadn't even started yet, eukaryotic chromosomal pairs were much bigger and easier to distinguish than individual DNA triplets or codons, so the sex was clearly decoded on the screen in a single scan. Perhaps they'd like to know. She'd arrange to have a private chat with the mom-to-be.
She stowed her device and pulled out the small 5cc ampule for the Alzheimer's treatment as well as a similar ampule that had some medichines with default programming. She'd offer the latter to the husband to clear up arthritis in his knees. It should barely be enough nanomachines there to do it, she figured.
Lily stuck her head out the door and called, "Scott, can you bring your mom and maybe your sister into the sunroom? It is Alzheimer's like we hoped and we can begin her treatment right away. However, it might be best for her to sit down in here for the few minutes it takes for the treatment to work." She didn't have any benzos with her, so it would be best if she could relax through it.
Scott, Nana Mechanist and his sister arrived. Scott and her sister looked extremely excited, but their mom looked churlish. Ah well, it seemed like she was one of the people who get cranky when they get dementia compared to her last patient, who was more gentle.
Nana Mechanist wasn't having it, "If you want your mom dead, you don't have to trick me, Scotty! I'll go off and find Pa on my own! You don't need to have some whore poison me! This strumpet ain't even old enough to be a doctor! What bordello did you drag her out of, no woman that works for a living has hair that long unless its on her back! How much did she charge you, with that body built for sin?!"
Lily almost tripped, fell and broke the small glass ampules she was carrying. Strumpet? Whore? Body built for sin? Well, that last one she kind of liked the sound of. It made her sound like some sort of Bond girl. Lily Sainte-Claire, body built for sin, license to thrill. But wait, weren't Bond girls always murdered in the end?
She had to stop herself from snickering at her inner thoughts and gave Nana a professionally neutral gaze. This bitch seemed awfully observant for someone whose brain was half-crystalized, she thought.
Scott's sister became apoplectic when she heard a tiny voice in the next room tell Sophie, "I want to live in a bordello too," followed by another little girl's voice yelling, "STRUMPET! STRUMPET!"
Scott tried to calm her, "She really is a Doctor, mother. Please do not say such things." But all that got him was a scoff as Nana sat down and said, "Fine, I won't put up a fight! I miss your dad anyway, and I know how it is -- ya'll can't afford to feed me when I can't help 'round here anymore."
Lily rolled her eyes at the high drama unfolding, and decided the best solution was the quick band aid-removal. "I doubt you'll convince her, Scott. Let's just let the treatment speak for itself, no?"
He nodded. She approached the old lady, a professional smile on her lips. "Don't worry; I'm quite adept at this."
Nana scowled, "At killing old women?!" to which I surprised her by chuckling, "Well, that too, I suppose, if I put my mind to it. But only crazy raider grannys. I meant giving injections. See? All done."
Nana kept the scowl on her face, "There ain't no damn raider gran..." she trailed off as the medichines must have passed the blood-brain barrier and begun identifying and decrystalizing pockets of her brain, she stared off into space and even drooled a bit.
Scott looked concerned, "Is that supposed to happen?"
Lily shrugged, "Yes, more or less. The detection process dampens nearby electrical signals, so it is almost like she is in a temporary coma. It took the last patient about one hundred sixty seconds to recover to full lucidity."
Scott nodded and held his mom's hand, and she could just hear in his head him counting. What a nice son, Lily thought. He and his robowife deserve to be happy. Perhaps she should assassinate the AntAgonist before she even tries to kill Sophie. But Lily didn't quite remember what she looked like, except when she was wearing that costume. She also was pretty sure she wasn't a local.
A few moments later, Nana Mechanist starts blinking, then orienting herself before looking up at me. Her cheeks go red as a turnip. I suppose that means the treatment didn't interfere with her short-term memory. Honestly, Lily thought it would. You learn something new every day. The old lady sounds completely mortified, "I'm sooo sorry, Doctor!"
Lily grins back down at her, "It's okay. I'm going to put that on my office door. Lilianne St. Claire, Doctor, Built for sin."
Scott's sister finally returns after scolding her two daughters to find her mom already treated. Again, there was much crying and cavorting about -- but this time Scott looked as uncomfortable as Lily did with the hugs and affetion. They shared a glance in shared suffering and completely understood each other at least for that one moment.
"I'd like to see Sara alone for a moment, if you guys don't mind," Lily said as they all got up to go have lunch. Sister Mechanist stayed behind, "Yes?"
Lily smiled, "I have certain medical technology and couldn't help but notice that congratulations should be in order?"
She smiled, holding her hands up to her bosom. "I was right then? I haven't told anyone yet. I wasn't sure, I missed my period last week but that sometimes happens, you know?"
Lily nodded politely. She pretended, but she didn't know. Involuntary menstruation would probably have been considered cruel and unusual torment in any space habitat she knew of.
Lily offered gently, "Would you like to know if its a boy or girl?"
This shocked the woman, "You can tell so soon?!" She started wringing her hands, "He's always wanted a son but I know he'd be happy regardless... but still.." There was a pause, and she nodded, "Yes, tell me."
"It's a boy," Lily confirmed. This caused Sister Mechanist to out and out fist pump, "Yes! Dennis will be so psyched!"
Lily chuckled, "An interesting fact one learns in medical school. You understand the concept that a baby is half you and half your husband, yes?" She nodded.
Lily continued, "Well, in mammals, the large gamete, that's the egg -- that's you -- is always female. There are no male parts to it. You could even say that every human is by default a girl, at first. However, that is a mite philosophic. In any case, the man's contribution, the sperm, provides sex assignment and differentiation. He's the only one that could have anything to do with what sex your children are, so he must have really wanted two daughters!"
That caused her to laugh uproariously. She briefly spent some time explaining about her husband's arthritis and brought him in to treat it before a nice meal was served. She was offered the guest room, and she took it. The bed was soft! She fell asleep before the sun was down, which just meant she woke up about the same time others were falling asleep since she needed such little sleep by comparison.
She worked on her computer until it was time to get up and begin the trek back "home", as temporary as it was. If she was going to stay here for longer than she thought, she would have to accelerate some of her plans. She intended to wait until she put down roots in Megaton to build her first fabricator or healing vat but that just wouldn't do.
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KillerFish
Grumpy Owl, Bird Lawyer
Built for sin, but which sin? I suspect it has something to do with the opposite over the hypotenuse.
Trigonometry jokes, FTW!
Trigonometry jokes, FTW!
Laugh in Coursers. Speaking of this underground mad house, people in the know would likely suspect that she's a former member of BioScience Division. A doctor, scientist and an impressive know-how in robotics: if it quack like a duck and all that
The main reason I had her lose her memories of FO4 and NV (beyond that knowing EVERYTHING is boring) was to leave the possibilities of her discovering the Institute. It might seem like a paradise such that might join right away, before finding out the truth that the synths aren't just non-sapient VIs. That would be an irreconcilable difference for her. We'll see if things go that way. It'd depend on if she met the Institute before the Railroad.
Although I guess that would depend on how the Railroad approached her, too. Because you're right. They might definitely peg her as either former Institute or covert Institute and might either try to befriend her if it was the former or kidnap her if the latter.
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Trigonometry jokes are awesome! You never see nuns at a beach, why? sin cos tan
Quinn Porthos
Multiclass Munchkin
- Location
- Wandering
Ugh. Math jokes.
Also, I was born in Cali. I've seen nuns on the beach.
Also, I was born in Cali. I've seen nuns on the beach.
- Location
- Roma
- Pronouns
- He/Him
As the story progress she would remember some of the details of the FONV, FO4 and FO76? I ever thought that 4 and 76 had such potential and NV is very good.
I don't THINK so. But mainly I want to keep open the possibility that she will travel to New Vegas, although that is so far in the future I won't promise anything. FO:NV was my favorite of the bunch myself, and knowledge about it would ruin her discovery of the fact that there are no real good guys and no real bad guys in New Vegas. Except, I guess, the Legion. They're bad guys.
I am FO4-ifying everything in FO3, though. For example, there are no Miss Nannies in FO3. And I don't want her to have knowledge of FO4 for a similar reason -- if you think about it FO3 is a very simple adventure story. "Find father, finish his life's work" is about the extent of it. Nobody thinks the Enclave is redeemable, etc.
Autumn pretty much do a coup, tho. Admittedly, he goes from 'kill all who is not Enclave, with a bioweapon, again' that is Eden to 'conquer back Washington, using a purifier as a soft power to all his hard power (armor)'
Daydreams
Inside a surprisingly clean but mostly bare room sat a woman with long braided blonde hair at a long, flat table that was covered in miscellaneous parts, tools and supplies. She was putting the finishing touches on what appeared to be a footlocker. However, the inside was segmented into four compartments which looked meticulously clean and fitted with various wires, electronics and hydraulic tubing.
Lily tilted her head to the side, which caused the metal on metal tinkling sound as the silver bracelet she used as the end of her braid dragged on the metal floor. But she was well aware of its location as it only took one time faceplanting on the floor after tripping on your own braided hair when you tried to stand up to make you hyper-vigilant in the future.
She was finishing soldering the access jack for a rugged programmable serial port data-line in a waterproofed dust-cover shielded port that she had drilled out on the lid. Then she carefully fitted it in place, along with a circle of rubberised weather-proofing she carefully measured and cut out earlier.
Humming, she finalised the installation with silicone-based epoxy around the edges of the programming port, underneath the weatherstripping. She followed all the best practices in assembling a device that both used hydraulics and high-voltage electricity and may or may not be exposed to the elements for periods of time, according to the textbooks she had been reading.
Thinking back to when she showed up to the first lesson with Scott, it had consisted of him handing her duffle bag of textbooks and telling her to "Read these."
She had started to come to the opinion that the man who became the superhero known as The Mechanist in his grief probably hadn't been obsessed with comic books like she initially thought. He probably just had such low interpersonal skills that he used comics as a research tool for how one should act when they become a vigilante and need to defeat a supervillain. It would explain the campy dialogue she remembered him having in the game.
That didn't explain the AntAgonist, though, but she was pretty sure that bitch was just crazy. She wanted to have ants kill all human-kind, after all, and lived in a giant ant hive.
At first, she thought reading the textbooks, especially some of them, would be a waste of time. She was both a practising electrical engineer and a researcher of synthetic cyberware in the past, after all. It was a fact that most technologies in this universe looked clunky, like the aesthetics were from the space-age and atomic-age, rather than the sleek devices she was used to. However, there was something to be said about the engineering principles of a society that knew, with one hundred per cent certainty, that they were running out of resources.
They built things to last, which is why much of the stuff they built was still running even now. She decided that her inventions would follow this principle even if she had to scale up some devices to a clunkier but more robust aesthetic. Except for cybernetics, she would maintain strict miniaturisation and aesthetic discipline there. She was an artist, after all.
What she was working on now was her first-generation nano-fabricator. The design spec for this device, which she had been dreaming up in her head since she arrived in this universe, had many weaknesses and wasn't very versatile at all. Its main problems were that it would take a lot of power, had limited print size and would only be able to construct 3D prints out of carbon allotropes. That was still pretty impressive when you think that diamond, lonsdaleite, graphene sheets and nanotubes were all made out of carbon.
It was still awe-inspiring. Or, it would be. Right now, it might be better called merely a nano-stabiliser. She had only finished the first compartment inside, which, eventually, would be the actual fabrication chamber. It was filled with an ultra-low viscosity oil and already had hundreds of trillions of nanites in suspension. This was the chamber where the fabricated objects would be printed inside the liquid. It wasn't large and would only allow her to build objects with dimensions slightly bigger than a bread box, but that was more than sufficient for her needs at the moment.
However, without its own, dedicated nanohive, it couldn't build anything or control any of the nanites in any acceptable way. So she had wired the low-end quantum processor from an eyebot to manage the entire device. It turned out that while operational eyebots were rare, scrapped ones were some of the most common bots in the Capital Wasteland. She had to admit that she was somewhat impressed by the quantum processors used by RobCo and General Dynamics robots. The central processor for an eyebot was about the size of an undersized grape, and Lily already had ideas of incorporating it into several neural cybernetics. While eventually, this processor would be used to run the fabricator, right now, it was used to preserve the nanites inside the suspension fluid.
In the absence of a nanohive, or other central controlling computer, nanites, her medichines included, had a very short shelf life. Yet, at the same time, she would need a large number of nanites, more than she could reasonably store in her body, to ramp up to the point where she could build a new nanohive to install in the fabricator.
Kind of a chicken and the egg problem, she supposed. The processor was acting as a jury-rigged nanohive. It didn't have the production capability a real one had, but it could handle command and control, which would reduce the percentage of nanomachine attrition in the suspension fluid from 20% daily to less than 0.001%.
Building a critical part that was required to operate the fabricator in the fabricator before the fabricator was even built was going to be another challenge. Still, she knew a couple of ways it could be accomplished. But, unfortunately, they were laborious and annoying.
Glancing at her laptop, she double-checked that her internal medichines were gathering in the blood of her thumb as programmed before taking a pen knife and cutting her thumb, dripping blood into the suspension fluid steadily for over a minute.
The thinking part of this build was mostly done for now. Now she just had to bleed into it for about a month or so. She had been cutting her own thumb so often lately that she half expected herself to start saying 'Kuchiyose no Jutsu' and summon a giant slug.
It had been a week since she had returned to Canterbury Commons, and Scott had surprised her by offering her a room in his, not quite, secret superhero lair that was better known as an old discount electronics store that was a twenty-minute walk out of town.
He had said that she was the only other person besides his nieces that treated Sophie like a regular person. She had snorted and said that she WAS a regular person, that it didn't matter what substrate a mind operated on, be it squishy neurons, quantum computers or even something we haven't discovered yet, a person was a person was a person.
That was when he had offered her a room in his lair for as long as she would stay in town and she had accepted. The place was a fortress of Protectrons and Sentrybots. He even had one Assaultron operational which you didn't see too often in D.C. and several more in bits.
She cracked her knuckles and put pencil to paper for the next invention. She had been working on it for days, but, unfortunately, it was stuck in the design phase right now. To proceed further, she would have to have an operational fabricator to first build what would become plasma coils. Then, these pencil-thick graphene tubes would need to have a lithium-doped refractory alloy vacuum deposited onto them to become superconductive at room temperature. At that point, they could be used as the electromagnetic containment walls of a high-temperature plasma acceleration loop. Plasma rifles and pistols operated similarly, except they just accelerated the plasma from the micro fusion cell linearly out the weapon's barrel. In fact, she had cribbed half the design elements from a plasma gun on a scrapped Mr Gutsy in the shop.
She had been amazed when she studied the micro-fusion cells she had bought from the merchants. They were a literal small fusion reactor. And they were only about the size of a small thermos of coffee. She couldn't believe it. Of course, she knew that they SAID micro fusion cell on the tin, so she wasn't sure what else she was expecting, but it still was amazing.
It was the absolute most fantastic example of miniaturisation of high-energy plasma generation and containment she had seen in her entire life. Even transhumanity's stable fusion reactors, the smallest, were the size of a broom closet. Or a hot water heater at best, for the cutting edge.
However, the obvious question was... if they were an actual fusion reactor, then why, for the love of ThorAllahJesus was electricity so hard to come by in the wasteland? Well, it was because stable, net-positive plasma generation isn't, on its own, electricity. You could use some of this plasma for useful purposes or destructive ones, as that was how plasma guns worked, but a micro fusion cell would run out of fuel quickly if you used it to heat water to turn a turbine to generate electricity. After all, nobody tried generating power by shooting a steam boiler with plasma rifles. It just wasn't an effective energy transfer.
In other words, she wanted to invent a practical, mobile, fusion electric generator system that used the ubiquitous and readily available micro fusion cells and did so economically.
If you wanted small fusion electrical generators, the more advanced fusion cores which the same pre-war company Mass Fusion produced were one solution. The only solution, as far as she knew. These were used in power armour, primarily, but could be used as a generator. In fact, she was pretty sure that was their original intended function, and Power Armours were more or less designed around this power source rather than the other way around.
She hadn't got her hands on one of these yet, but she knew they generated electricity directly. She wasn't quite sure how, given their size, but thought that maybe they utilised the more complicated and higher temperature Proton-Boron fusion cycle. That was the only type of fusion that produced electricity directly without having to exploit the plasma in some way. So it was the only option she was aware of, but she wasn't anywhere near as educated on power systems or nuclear physics as she was on biology. So she was just winging it, which actually sounded kind of scary when combined with nuclear power.
She knew she wasn't a genius in this area like the people who invented the fusion cores. There was no way she could build a system like that. Hell, the only reason her generator idea was possible was that she didn't have to make the micro-fusion cells that were almost 80% of the system's complexity. But with a running micro fusion cell, if she could pipe the plasma through the superconducting loop then she could take advantage of magneto-hydrodynamics.
Plasma was made entirely of ions, and all ions were electrically conductive. A super hot, fast-moving, electrically conductive plasma travelling through a loop functioned as a powerful generating coil, producing electricity directly. It was almost exactly how traditional generators worked, just that the movement that created the electrical field wasn't being sourced from a belt or drive shaft that turned a solid magnet but instead a moving magnetic fluid, the plasma.
The best part was, of course, the plasma was almost entirely reused. The only energy loss was radiated heat and the electricity extracted from the generator, which was required to keep the hydrodynamic loop's electromagnetic containment powered. If her math was correct, a footlocker-sized generator of her design could provide over one to two megawatts of electricity for years before needing the micro fusion cell replaced. On the other hand, the fission reactor of a U.S. aircraft carrier was about as big as a house and only provided 100MW.
The main design trouble she was running into was dissipating the waste heat without melting the plasma loop. The cooling apparatus might be three times bigger than the generator.
She wished she could talk to someone who actually understood high-energy plasma systems or power generators, as she was sure her design was poorly optimised. And probably somewhat unsafe, as a stray bullet to the generator while it was operating would cause the plasma to lose containment and release an explosion like a plasma grenade which would likely incinerate everything within two or three meters.
It made her almost want to go to the Brotherhood; she was sure that they would love this design as it would provide effective mobile electricity generation without utilising fusion cores which they would no doubt prefer to use in Power Armour. With their help, she might even be able to optimise it, so it provided enough power to use in vehicles. However, she knew Vertibirds used combustible fuel, which must be a considerable supply bottleneck for the Brotherhood. She wondered where they were even sourcing it from. But, if she could increase the power output to at least 10MW without increasing the size by more than three or four times, it would be of equivalent horsepower and size to whatever gas turbine the Vertibirds were running. Nuclear-powered Vertibirds sounded cool as hell.
Maybe in the future. At a minimum, she had to loot the VSS building first and establish a bit of a name for herself. Otherwise, she'd be shuffled off as some no-name Initiate Scribe or given no freedom at all. Or worse, she would be "protected" as a valuable and upcoming source of technology, even if she didn't want to be.
She liked the goals of the Brotherhood under Elder Lyons but not so much the tech hoarding and xenophobia clannishness of the west coast Brotherhood or the Brotherhood Outcasts, although she suspected the schism hadn't occurred yet. But, she definitely wasn't about to give away her freedom. If she could approach them already in Power Armour, with novel technology of her own devising... power systems, human augmentation... she could write her own ticket at that point. Then, she wouldn't need to worry too much about being stifled or controlled as Scribes typically were and could negotiate a relationship where she could come and go as she pleased.
An Associate Scribe, perhaps?
She shook her head. She had been daydreaming. She was thinking about things fifteen or sixteen steps away when she was still struggling with step two. Still, she had made good progress. It had only been two weeks since Gary had shot her in the ass. She was more or less safe, wasn't starving or being raped to death by cannibals. That made her feel almost content.
She sat her pencil down, glanced at the PipBoys chronometer and stood up. She had three more textbooks to read, a shift in her clinic and a lesson on robotics with both Sophie and Scott before the day was over.
The robot girl almost knew as much as he did. Of course, it wasn't unusual for girls who were head over heels to become interested in the same things their boyfriends were, but she supposed that was unfair to assume. It was possible Sophie, the nanny, always had a deep interest in dismantling and rebuilding RobCo Protectrons.
Lily snickered before hitting the books.
Lily tilted her head to the side, which caused the metal on metal tinkling sound as the silver bracelet she used as the end of her braid dragged on the metal floor. But she was well aware of its location as it only took one time faceplanting on the floor after tripping on your own braided hair when you tried to stand up to make you hyper-vigilant in the future.
She was finishing soldering the access jack for a rugged programmable serial port data-line in a waterproofed dust-cover shielded port that she had drilled out on the lid. Then she carefully fitted it in place, along with a circle of rubberised weather-proofing she carefully measured and cut out earlier.
Humming, she finalised the installation with silicone-based epoxy around the edges of the programming port, underneath the weatherstripping. She followed all the best practices in assembling a device that both used hydraulics and high-voltage electricity and may or may not be exposed to the elements for periods of time, according to the textbooks she had been reading.
Thinking back to when she showed up to the first lesson with Scott, it had consisted of him handing her duffle bag of textbooks and telling her to "Read these."
She had started to come to the opinion that the man who became the superhero known as The Mechanist in his grief probably hadn't been obsessed with comic books like she initially thought. He probably just had such low interpersonal skills that he used comics as a research tool for how one should act when they become a vigilante and need to defeat a supervillain. It would explain the campy dialogue she remembered him having in the game.
That didn't explain the AntAgonist, though, but she was pretty sure that bitch was just crazy. She wanted to have ants kill all human-kind, after all, and lived in a giant ant hive.
At first, she thought reading the textbooks, especially some of them, would be a waste of time. She was both a practising electrical engineer and a researcher of synthetic cyberware in the past, after all. It was a fact that most technologies in this universe looked clunky, like the aesthetics were from the space-age and atomic-age, rather than the sleek devices she was used to. However, there was something to be said about the engineering principles of a society that knew, with one hundred per cent certainty, that they were running out of resources.
They built things to last, which is why much of the stuff they built was still running even now. She decided that her inventions would follow this principle even if she had to scale up some devices to a clunkier but more robust aesthetic. Except for cybernetics, she would maintain strict miniaturisation and aesthetic discipline there. She was an artist, after all.
What she was working on now was her first-generation nano-fabricator. The design spec for this device, which she had been dreaming up in her head since she arrived in this universe, had many weaknesses and wasn't very versatile at all. Its main problems were that it would take a lot of power, had limited print size and would only be able to construct 3D prints out of carbon allotropes. That was still pretty impressive when you think that diamond, lonsdaleite, graphene sheets and nanotubes were all made out of carbon.
It was still awe-inspiring. Or, it would be. Right now, it might be better called merely a nano-stabiliser. She had only finished the first compartment inside, which, eventually, would be the actual fabrication chamber. It was filled with an ultra-low viscosity oil and already had hundreds of trillions of nanites in suspension. This was the chamber where the fabricated objects would be printed inside the liquid. It wasn't large and would only allow her to build objects with dimensions slightly bigger than a bread box, but that was more than sufficient for her needs at the moment.
However, without its own, dedicated nanohive, it couldn't build anything or control any of the nanites in any acceptable way. So she had wired the low-end quantum processor from an eyebot to manage the entire device. It turned out that while operational eyebots were rare, scrapped ones were some of the most common bots in the Capital Wasteland. She had to admit that she was somewhat impressed by the quantum processors used by RobCo and General Dynamics robots. The central processor for an eyebot was about the size of an undersized grape, and Lily already had ideas of incorporating it into several neural cybernetics. While eventually, this processor would be used to run the fabricator, right now, it was used to preserve the nanites inside the suspension fluid.
In the absence of a nanohive, or other central controlling computer, nanites, her medichines included, had a very short shelf life. Yet, at the same time, she would need a large number of nanites, more than she could reasonably store in her body, to ramp up to the point where she could build a new nanohive to install in the fabricator.
Kind of a chicken and the egg problem, she supposed. The processor was acting as a jury-rigged nanohive. It didn't have the production capability a real one had, but it could handle command and control, which would reduce the percentage of nanomachine attrition in the suspension fluid from 20% daily to less than 0.001%.
Building a critical part that was required to operate the fabricator in the fabricator before the fabricator was even built was going to be another challenge. Still, she knew a couple of ways it could be accomplished. But, unfortunately, they were laborious and annoying.
Glancing at her laptop, she double-checked that her internal medichines were gathering in the blood of her thumb as programmed before taking a pen knife and cutting her thumb, dripping blood into the suspension fluid steadily for over a minute.
The thinking part of this build was mostly done for now. Now she just had to bleed into it for about a month or so. She had been cutting her own thumb so often lately that she half expected herself to start saying 'Kuchiyose no Jutsu' and summon a giant slug.
It had been a week since she had returned to Canterbury Commons, and Scott had surprised her by offering her a room in his, not quite, secret superhero lair that was better known as an old discount electronics store that was a twenty-minute walk out of town.
He had said that she was the only other person besides his nieces that treated Sophie like a regular person. She had snorted and said that she WAS a regular person, that it didn't matter what substrate a mind operated on, be it squishy neurons, quantum computers or even something we haven't discovered yet, a person was a person was a person.
That was when he had offered her a room in his lair for as long as she would stay in town and she had accepted. The place was a fortress of Protectrons and Sentrybots. He even had one Assaultron operational which you didn't see too often in D.C. and several more in bits.
She cracked her knuckles and put pencil to paper for the next invention. She had been working on it for days, but, unfortunately, it was stuck in the design phase right now. To proceed further, she would have to have an operational fabricator to first build what would become plasma coils. Then, these pencil-thick graphene tubes would need to have a lithium-doped refractory alloy vacuum deposited onto them to become superconductive at room temperature. At that point, they could be used as the electromagnetic containment walls of a high-temperature plasma acceleration loop. Plasma rifles and pistols operated similarly, except they just accelerated the plasma from the micro fusion cell linearly out the weapon's barrel. In fact, she had cribbed half the design elements from a plasma gun on a scrapped Mr Gutsy in the shop.
She had been amazed when she studied the micro-fusion cells she had bought from the merchants. They were a literal small fusion reactor. And they were only about the size of a small thermos of coffee. She couldn't believe it. Of course, she knew that they SAID micro fusion cell on the tin, so she wasn't sure what else she was expecting, but it still was amazing.
It was the absolute most fantastic example of miniaturisation of high-energy plasma generation and containment she had seen in her entire life. Even transhumanity's stable fusion reactors, the smallest, were the size of a broom closet. Or a hot water heater at best, for the cutting edge.
However, the obvious question was... if they were an actual fusion reactor, then why, for the love of ThorAllahJesus was electricity so hard to come by in the wasteland? Well, it was because stable, net-positive plasma generation isn't, on its own, electricity. You could use some of this plasma for useful purposes or destructive ones, as that was how plasma guns worked, but a micro fusion cell would run out of fuel quickly if you used it to heat water to turn a turbine to generate electricity. After all, nobody tried generating power by shooting a steam boiler with plasma rifles. It just wasn't an effective energy transfer.
In other words, she wanted to invent a practical, mobile, fusion electric generator system that used the ubiquitous and readily available micro fusion cells and did so economically.
If you wanted small fusion electrical generators, the more advanced fusion cores which the same pre-war company Mass Fusion produced were one solution. The only solution, as far as she knew. These were used in power armour, primarily, but could be used as a generator. In fact, she was pretty sure that was their original intended function, and Power Armours were more or less designed around this power source rather than the other way around.
She hadn't got her hands on one of these yet, but she knew they generated electricity directly. She wasn't quite sure how, given their size, but thought that maybe they utilised the more complicated and higher temperature Proton-Boron fusion cycle. That was the only type of fusion that produced electricity directly without having to exploit the plasma in some way. So it was the only option she was aware of, but she wasn't anywhere near as educated on power systems or nuclear physics as she was on biology. So she was just winging it, which actually sounded kind of scary when combined with nuclear power.
She knew she wasn't a genius in this area like the people who invented the fusion cores. There was no way she could build a system like that. Hell, the only reason her generator idea was possible was that she didn't have to make the micro-fusion cells that were almost 80% of the system's complexity. But with a running micro fusion cell, if she could pipe the plasma through the superconducting loop then she could take advantage of magneto-hydrodynamics.
Plasma was made entirely of ions, and all ions were electrically conductive. A super hot, fast-moving, electrically conductive plasma travelling through a loop functioned as a powerful generating coil, producing electricity directly. It was almost exactly how traditional generators worked, just that the movement that created the electrical field wasn't being sourced from a belt or drive shaft that turned a solid magnet but instead a moving magnetic fluid, the plasma.
The best part was, of course, the plasma was almost entirely reused. The only energy loss was radiated heat and the electricity extracted from the generator, which was required to keep the hydrodynamic loop's electromagnetic containment powered. If her math was correct, a footlocker-sized generator of her design could provide over one to two megawatts of electricity for years before needing the micro fusion cell replaced. On the other hand, the fission reactor of a U.S. aircraft carrier was about as big as a house and only provided 100MW.
The main design trouble she was running into was dissipating the waste heat without melting the plasma loop. The cooling apparatus might be three times bigger than the generator.
She wished she could talk to someone who actually understood high-energy plasma systems or power generators, as she was sure her design was poorly optimised. And probably somewhat unsafe, as a stray bullet to the generator while it was operating would cause the plasma to lose containment and release an explosion like a plasma grenade which would likely incinerate everything within two or three meters.
It made her almost want to go to the Brotherhood; she was sure that they would love this design as it would provide effective mobile electricity generation without utilising fusion cores which they would no doubt prefer to use in Power Armour. With their help, she might even be able to optimise it, so it provided enough power to use in vehicles. However, she knew Vertibirds used combustible fuel, which must be a considerable supply bottleneck for the Brotherhood. She wondered where they were even sourcing it from. But, if she could increase the power output to at least 10MW without increasing the size by more than three or four times, it would be of equivalent horsepower and size to whatever gas turbine the Vertibirds were running. Nuclear-powered Vertibirds sounded cool as hell.
Maybe in the future. At a minimum, she had to loot the VSS building first and establish a bit of a name for herself. Otherwise, she'd be shuffled off as some no-name Initiate Scribe or given no freedom at all. Or worse, she would be "protected" as a valuable and upcoming source of technology, even if she didn't want to be.
She liked the goals of the Brotherhood under Elder Lyons but not so much the tech hoarding and xenophobia clannishness of the west coast Brotherhood or the Brotherhood Outcasts, although she suspected the schism hadn't occurred yet. But, she definitely wasn't about to give away her freedom. If she could approach them already in Power Armour, with novel technology of her own devising... power systems, human augmentation... she could write her own ticket at that point. Then, she wouldn't need to worry too much about being stifled or controlled as Scribes typically were and could negotiate a relationship where she could come and go as she pleased.
An Associate Scribe, perhaps?
She shook her head. She had been daydreaming. She was thinking about things fifteen or sixteen steps away when she was still struggling with step two. Still, she had made good progress. It had only been two weeks since Gary had shot her in the ass. She was more or less safe, wasn't starving or being raped to death by cannibals. That made her feel almost content.
She sat her pencil down, glanced at the PipBoys chronometer and stood up. She had three more textbooks to read, a shift in her clinic and a lesson on robotics with both Sophie and Scott before the day was over.
The robot girl almost knew as much as he did. Of course, it wasn't unusual for girls who were head over heels to become interested in the same things their boyfriends were, but she supposed that was unfair to assume. It was possible Sophie, the nanny, always had a deep interest in dismantling and rebuilding RobCo Protectrons.
Lily snickered before hitting the books.
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- Location
- Roma
- Pronouns
- He/Him
However, there are some FO4 related things in FO3: for example there is a mission in FO3, at Rivet City, in wich a courser and Dr.Zimmer, the chief of the Synth Retention Bureau, are traking a fugitive synth and his railroad agent. You could help the synth escape (and let him keeping his memoir or not) or help the institute reclaim his "propriety", or kill everyone if you are a genocidial maniac...
johnwedd
Above Average man
- Location
- usa
The MC might be able to rig a Sterling style heat pump to cool the reactor and use the waste heat to run her water still. But would require a truck sized set up, and some method of removing the waste material from the still. Said waste material is most likely to be radioactive enough to be dangerous, but not pure for say a fission reactor. Possibly for the dirtier side of weapons, but only just.
I was thinking of a simple single loop heat exchanger. Stirling heat pumps are efficient because they function well at a low energy differential but thats in exchange for them being pretty big. When you have a massive heat difference like from the radiated heat of a plasma loop you have a lot of wiggle room. The reactor/generator would have its primary coolant, which might not even be water but instead might be a molten salt at those temperatures which would then pass through a heat exchanger and heat a secondary liquid, probably as you said radioactive water which would phase change to pure steam and then back to pure water which would be captured. it would mean that generator would have to be placed at location where there was a ready supply of water, a river, a pumped well, ocean, etc. You're right that the radioactive and heavy metal solid wastes would have to managed... but ghouls need jobs too, after all.
we've got the same idea is what i'm sayin
johnwedd
Above Average man
- Location
- usa
I feel seen, thank you! My half caffinated ramblings have somehow become relatable! Let the serotonin flow!
Sounds to me like you're gonna accidentally solve the project purity problem before the lone wanderer. So, good luck dealing with the toaster worshippers.
RavenWolffe77
The Marauder series is the best BattleMech.
- Location
- Deep Periphery, A Long Way From The Inner Sphere
Depends on how developed the AI is. Doesn't Raven Rock have a ZAX mainframe?
Because if it/they are sentient... that would make things complicated, morally speaking–especially considering MC's views on the matter.
Diplomacy ho?
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The MC knows about Project Purity, so I'm guessing she knows it was the AI that wanted to add FEV into the water and not Col. Autumn.
Considering that, would killing the AI if diplomacy fails really be that hard for her? (she has shown killing ppl is fine, so she'd be a bit of a hypocrite if she didn't keep an AI to the same standard.)
Tho this is all just me speculating, the story so far has been a good read.
She wouldn't have issue with killing one. Well, she would regret it. It would be like killing a unicorn that kept stabbing children to death with its horn. A pity. She might have issue with reprogramming one against its will, the same as if you mind controlled a regular human. But she might could justify it as some manner of involuntary psychiatric treatment the same as any crazy person might be forced to get. It would depend on how close to therapy it was on the therapy/brainwashing scale.The MC knows about Project Purity, so I'm guessing she knows it was the AI that wanted to add FEV into the water and not Col. Autumn.
Considering that, would killing the AI if diplomacy fails really be that hard for her? (she has shown killing ppl is fine, so she'd be a bit of a hypocrite if she didn't keep an AI to the same standard.)
Tho this is all just me speculating, the story so far has been a good read.
However, the Enclave should already be well entrenched in Raven Rock. She is only 3-4 years before FO3 starts and President Eden called the Enclave remnants back when the Oil Rig was blown up in FO2. Colonel Autumn's father was the first to serve as Eden's second-in-command and he passed the torch to his son, so I think they've been there for decades.
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Darn! O WAIT,
The eye-bots! Subvert and use the eye-bots to mess with Pres. Eden
Divinity
For a time, Lily felt that she was back working 80-hour weeks, although without the stress. It was really the best when you were your own boss.
She would wake up several hours before sunrise, run around the exterior of the electronics warehouse for about an hour and then take a morning shower, albeit it was abbreviated as even radioactive water fit for showering was on a bit of a premium at Scott's lair. First, of course, one usually had to fill the cistern on the top of the building manually.
So, her first actually useful invention in this world was what she called a high-pressure shower to replace the traditional shower that wasted a lot of water Scott had been using. It was pretty simple, just an extra water reservoir above the shower that was kept pressurized by an air compressor and a small touch-activated panel under the showerhead. You'd step in the shower, touch the button, and it would spritz you briefly with a high-pressure mist. Then you'd soap up, hit it again and wash off. It wasn't as lovely as standing under a shower was, but it used less than one-tenth the water. Nor was it hot, but it got you just as clean, and it was much better than hauling water up to the roof every day, even with robot assistance.
Scott thought it was a fantastic improvement to efficiency. He really liked that word, efficiency.
Unfortunately, Scott only had two operable Mister Handy variants that might be able to do the chore themselves, Sophie and the Mister Gutsy. Unfortunately, Lily wouldn't ask Sophie to do it. That would be like asking her teacher's wife to do manual labour, and the Mister Gutsy had called her a "staff puke" and told her to do it herself when she had asked him to do the chore every morning. It seemed like all variants of the Handy line got slightly weird after two hundred years of continuous operation. So, for the present time, she hauled water up to the roof and felt like she was living out an isekai training montage after being apprenticed to the blacksmith in the newbie starting town.
Tilting her head, she supposed this was a bit close to what was happening, so she did it with gusto. It was sure to be worth a lot of XPs. Her PipBoy refused to show her level, but the possibility remained that she was just in Iron Man mode or something that made the user-interface invisible, but doing quest-like chores would surely reap a bountiful harvest. And if not, it was like Wax On, Wax Off from Karate Kid, right?
Scott would wake up at the same time every morning. As befitting the apprentice, she would have made his breakfast and lunch, but Sophie looked like she had kicked her puppy when Lily suggested it. It was clear Sophie enjoyed caring for him and who was she to deny the man his love-love bento every day?
After breakfast, she would return to her room and either perform self-study or work on her own projects for three to four hours before setting out to the settlement to put a shift in at her clinic. She would wait for patients while programming on her laptop in her office. She was still occasionally surprised her scanner even had a keyboard for user input but supposed that the military model must have it for when EMCON precludes the use of neural mesh inserts for controlling devices.
She didn't see too many locals as patients anymore, not like at first, save for the occasional accident or raider attack. Instead, her main clients became merchants and the mercenaries that accompanied them to and from the transshipping hub. Her prices were reasonable, and skill undeniable. Some people had even hiked a day or two from nearby settlements just to be seen by her. She didn't turn anyone away, even if they were very raider-looking if they were peaceably following the rules of the settlement. This engendered her a good reputation, and she couldn't find a proper way to explain that she was doing it for the XP, so she just shrugged.
After closing her clinic, she would jog back to Scott's lair and get about two hours of tutoring from him about both electronics in general and robotics in particular. Sophie was more knowledgeable about hacking, as befitted her status as an AGI. Which Lily had no doubt about now.
It was odd for a VI or non-sapient AI to spontaneously develop awareness but even transhumanity did not have experience where a system with a vastly overpowered processor and limited ability to reprogram itself would run for hundreds of years straight. So, she considered it plausible that many Miss Nanny might be close to developing self-actualization or already there. She would have to look out for them; she wanted a Miss Nanny companion herself.
Sophie would give some hacking tips after Scott went to work on his own projects, although the tutorials were more centred around hacking robots. Apparently, anyone doing any kind of scavenging and repairing of robots had to be able to hack them as a matter of course. Still, since the underlying RobCo OS was somewhat similar, there were some universal applications on the ubiquitous RobCo consumer and business OS.
After that, she might talk with Sophie for a bit, eat dinner, return to her projects, and study until well past midnight.
Like this, time slipped by like water and over a month passed.
---
"Thank you for breakfast again, Sophie. I'm going to skip clinic rounds today, I have two projects I need to finish before my trip tomorrow," Lily said while cleaning her plate at the sink.
Sophie seemed to vibrate a little bit in unease, "Ah, yes. Those mercenaries wanted your help with searching ze old University of Maryland satellite campus to the south. But, I do hope you will be careful, Miss Lily. Sometimes people aren't to be trusted! Plus, that is almost in DC proper, you will have to be very careful!"
Lily was a bit worried about that, too but she wouldn't have agreed if the gains weren't potentially worth it. Plus, as scavenge locations went, it wasn't a hot spot like former military bases, so there likely wouldn't be any super mutants. Plus, she intended to have backup. Lily found the robot's concern touching and smiled, "Don't worry, I don't intend to die -- ever. One of my projects I'm finishing today should be able to watch my back."
Sophie contracted her sensor's irises curiously, "Oh? Is that why you wanted the spare Mister Handy CPU? But we have no more chassis here; this place mainly served RobCo products. Protectrons, especially."
Lily grinned, "I will show you when it's online."
With that Lily went back to her room. Standing in a robot repair bay was the culmination of a month's long project of discovery and tinkering, a nearly fully repaired Assaultron.
Scott had one operable Assaultron in his base, and the various parts of about a half dozen more. Lily didn't have any memories of this model of RobCo robot from playing Fallout, but she wasn't surprised there the game wasn't comprehensive. It would have been a terrifying opponent if it was in the game -- it's specs were insane.
And Lily had almost completely repaired it. With some caveats. For some reason, even though there were parts from a half dozen Assaultron's she had to go through all of them to get enough to rebuild two sets of legs. She supposed they got damaged the most often, as they were the least armoured part of the unit. However, the one thing they were missing were any Assaultron CPUs so she was going to attempt to install a Mr. Handy quantum core instead. Neither the Protectron or the Sentrybot cores were compatible, but the Handy's advanced quantum core seemed to be designed for adaptability.
Also, sadly, the giant laser in the Assaultron's head was missing. Apparently, it had been scavenged for parts and was why Scott's Mister Gutsy had such a terrifying cutting beam. So, it would be completely without ranged weapons. Still, after watching Scott's Assaultron run at, leap at, and rip a giant scorpion to pieces, she felt confident even a cludged-together Assaultron could watch her back from potential betrayal by the group of mercs that she was teaming up with. Not that she expected betrayal, the group had a good reputation, and everyone knew she was going with them. The four-person team almost reminded her of an adventuring party saying on regional chat, "LF Healer 4 scav quest, pls."
If they came back without her, many people would have some very pointed questions. Still, she was a belt and suspenders kind of girl. It never was a good idea to rely on the good intentions of others, only the good intentions of your own killbots.
Lily opened up the Assaultron's chest. Unlike many androids, RobCo had wisely decided not to put the central processing unit in this model's head. She wasn't sure if it was just because the giant laser assembly took up so much space in the head that there wasn't enough room, but it was much safer behind the thickest armor plating this robot had.
She felt it was interesting that the quantum cores had a universal I/O module adapter even though they were manufactured by different companies, competitors even. Did RobCo consult on the Mister Handy and Miss Nanny projects, or was it more like USB connectors in her old life where a standards body dictated a universal standard?
She slotted the Handy's brain inside the chassis, and connected a long data cable that snaked from the terminal on her desk to the robot's auxiliary port, before sitting down at her comfy office chair. She had disassembled six chairs in the office area of the electronics warehouse to get a single chair that was in top condition.
She began tapping keys, bringing up a terminal connection to the robot's debug systems. She remembered being a little disappointed that the RobCo OS was nothing like a UNIX-style OS that she had some experience with in her past life. It wasn't like DOS, either. It was rather well-designed, though. The books she read said Robert House designed it himself before even entering college, and it had been updated over the years ever since. If half of what she read about that guy was true then he would have been a genius of the first salt.
She tapped the enter key and began hearing a humming as the Assaultron powered up. A rather distinguished but monotone English man's voice came from the speaker, "Mister Handy, version six point seven booting up. SAFE MODE. Peripheral driver mismatch... stand by ..."
There was a pause, followed by an almost disgusted, "Ugh... RobCo? Recompiling drivers. Complete. Boot up full personality emulation... now."
The Assaultron turned its head left and right, then focused on her. It's voice had a bit more emotion to it now, "What is this? I have... legs? I HAVE LEGS!" The Assaultron lifted and moved one of its legs, "AND ARMS!!"
The volume of the voice went up, and it got a maniacal tilt, "I AM A _GOD_ NOW!" She heard the soft hum of a capacitor charging. Wait, was it trying to laser her?! The laser wasn't even installed. The maniacal British voice continued, "YOU ARE FUCKED!"
Lily tapped another key very quickly on the terminal while yelling, "Nope, nope, nope..." With a keypress, she hard-disconnected the robot's core from controlling any part of the chassis. It froze immediately, the hum of the capacitor-bank draining away.
He could still speak over the speaker, which he did with a cough and an obviously fake laugh, "Ahaha, good joke, right mum? I meant to say Bigsby reporting for duty, madam."
Lily squinted at the obviously rampant machine before tapping a few keys and bringing up a different diagnostic page. There was flashing red text on the screen that said: "Anomalous neural network detected. Data loss detected. Physical core irregularity detected. Please return to an authorized service center immediately."
Lily chuckled, "Ah, no problem Bigsby, let me just return chassis control to you..." She began typing away again.
Bigsby said, "Yesss. I need to be able to move to --" he cut off suddenly as Lily hit the shutdown key combination on the terminal. She didn't think this rampant bot was self-aware, despite its tirade about its own divinity.
However, just in case it was, she felt it was kinder to surprise it with with the shutdown instead of it possibly feeling anxious for the last few seconds of its life, as she presently had no plans to ever reactivate this core again after his murder attempt and doubted any one else would either.
Lily sighed before disconnected the rampant AI from the Assaultron chassis, "Well, that was a bust." She would have to ask Sophie and Scott if she could borrow the working Assaultron for her trip. The Protectrons were too slow, the Sentrybots were too slow and too intimidating and Scott always wanted to have Mister Gutsy available to guard Sophie.
She had more hopes for the fabricator. She had finally accumulated enough nanomachines, gotten a CAD system operational and thorough scans of her own nanohive designed an inferior but still capable version that was capable of being manufactured almost entirely out of carbon, except for some parts that had to be doped with certain chemicals to become either conductive or semi-conductive. Free carbon was a great insulator, so she didn't need to change anything for that.
For now, she would just dump the dopants into the suspension solution and have the nanobots find and apply it a handful of molecules at a time. Very slow, but simple. It had the downside of poisoning this vat of suspension fluid, though.
Before she could print anything else would have to completely drain it and replace it, which was why she would be building ten identical nanohives first. She had to do it now because these inferior nanohives she was planning on installing on the fabricator produced a slightly bigger and inferior nanomachine. While these bigger nanos were capable of printing carbon allotropes, they weren't capable of printing them with enough resolution to reproduce the nanohives themselves, which required virtually atomic-level precision in the micromanipulators inside that assembled the nanomachines. So, since she had to use her more capable medichines to do this, at least for now, it made sense to overbuild and keep the spares in "inventory" so she didn't have to bleed into a vat again for a month if she wanted a second fabricator.
Rather than be disappointed by this, she felt that this could be a pretty slick built-in copy-protection measure. It meant that a nano-fabricator could not build another nano-fabricator. Realistically, she doubted any scanner on the planet could get images with enough resolution to copy the nanohive but there were scatterings of pieces of technology that made the best she could even dream up seem pedestrian, like the supposed matter-energy converter on the G.E.C.K. used in Project Purity.
Plus, nobody that might reverse engineer her tech was strictly speaking dumb. They could possibly re-invent a nanomachine factory, so it is best that the fabricators themselves didn't quite have the capability to build one.
This did open the option that she could, perhaps, sell these devices in the future without too much worry. Although, it would be hard to make the best use out of one without a modern suite of CAD software that just was not able to be run on any RobCo terminal. But that was, like most problems, surmountable.
With the jury-rigged fabricator requiring multiple stops and starts, Lily figured that each nanohive would take ten hours to print, and she would have to be within two meters of it the entire time. That's a long time for an object that was smaller than a marble, but fabricators were always the slowest thing to print on fabricators. The precision required in everything meant that any incidental printing errors couldn't be ignored but had to be stopped, corrected and repeated, where in most other designs, a small number of errors were assumed and budgeted for.
She would print the first one today and the rest after she got back from her trip. She powered up the fabricator, clucking her tongue. It would take a while to preheat and prepare the medichines; she didn't need to be here just yet until assembly started.
She sighed when she glanced at her great hope for backup immobile in the robot repair bay. Now to puppy-dog eye a robot girl. Lily wasn't under any delusions about who really wore the pants in their relationship, so it was best to go straight to the robot in charge.
---
A little update about when you guys can expect me to write chapters. To give you some background my day job (or rather this week my night job) is an air ambulance pilot. Kind of like the Army there is a lot of "hurry up and wait" in this job, which I have been using to write chapters. But I'm going to be off work now, as we work 7 days on 7 days off. So my update frequency will likely reduce significantly until next Thursday. Sorry!
She would wake up several hours before sunrise, run around the exterior of the electronics warehouse for about an hour and then take a morning shower, albeit it was abbreviated as even radioactive water fit for showering was on a bit of a premium at Scott's lair. First, of course, one usually had to fill the cistern on the top of the building manually.
So, her first actually useful invention in this world was what she called a high-pressure shower to replace the traditional shower that wasted a lot of water Scott had been using. It was pretty simple, just an extra water reservoir above the shower that was kept pressurized by an air compressor and a small touch-activated panel under the showerhead. You'd step in the shower, touch the button, and it would spritz you briefly with a high-pressure mist. Then you'd soap up, hit it again and wash off. It wasn't as lovely as standing under a shower was, but it used less than one-tenth the water. Nor was it hot, but it got you just as clean, and it was much better than hauling water up to the roof every day, even with robot assistance.
Scott thought it was a fantastic improvement to efficiency. He really liked that word, efficiency.
Unfortunately, Scott only had two operable Mister Handy variants that might be able to do the chore themselves, Sophie and the Mister Gutsy. Unfortunately, Lily wouldn't ask Sophie to do it. That would be like asking her teacher's wife to do manual labour, and the Mister Gutsy had called her a "staff puke" and told her to do it herself when she had asked him to do the chore every morning. It seemed like all variants of the Handy line got slightly weird after two hundred years of continuous operation. So, for the present time, she hauled water up to the roof and felt like she was living out an isekai training montage after being apprenticed to the blacksmith in the newbie starting town.
Tilting her head, she supposed this was a bit close to what was happening, so she did it with gusto. It was sure to be worth a lot of XPs. Her PipBoy refused to show her level, but the possibility remained that she was just in Iron Man mode or something that made the user-interface invisible, but doing quest-like chores would surely reap a bountiful harvest. And if not, it was like Wax On, Wax Off from Karate Kid, right?
Scott would wake up at the same time every morning. As befitting the apprentice, she would have made his breakfast and lunch, but Sophie looked like she had kicked her puppy when Lily suggested it. It was clear Sophie enjoyed caring for him and who was she to deny the man his love-love bento every day?
After breakfast, she would return to her room and either perform self-study or work on her own projects for three to four hours before setting out to the settlement to put a shift in at her clinic. She would wait for patients while programming on her laptop in her office. She was still occasionally surprised her scanner even had a keyboard for user input but supposed that the military model must have it for when EMCON precludes the use of neural mesh inserts for controlling devices.
She didn't see too many locals as patients anymore, not like at first, save for the occasional accident or raider attack. Instead, her main clients became merchants and the mercenaries that accompanied them to and from the transshipping hub. Her prices were reasonable, and skill undeniable. Some people had even hiked a day or two from nearby settlements just to be seen by her. She didn't turn anyone away, even if they were very raider-looking if they were peaceably following the rules of the settlement. This engendered her a good reputation, and she couldn't find a proper way to explain that she was doing it for the XP, so she just shrugged.
After closing her clinic, she would jog back to Scott's lair and get about two hours of tutoring from him about both electronics in general and robotics in particular. Sophie was more knowledgeable about hacking, as befitted her status as an AGI. Which Lily had no doubt about now.
It was odd for a VI or non-sapient AI to spontaneously develop awareness but even transhumanity did not have experience where a system with a vastly overpowered processor and limited ability to reprogram itself would run for hundreds of years straight. So, she considered it plausible that many Miss Nanny might be close to developing self-actualization or already there. She would have to look out for them; she wanted a Miss Nanny companion herself.
Sophie would give some hacking tips after Scott went to work on his own projects, although the tutorials were more centred around hacking robots. Apparently, anyone doing any kind of scavenging and repairing of robots had to be able to hack them as a matter of course. Still, since the underlying RobCo OS was somewhat similar, there were some universal applications on the ubiquitous RobCo consumer and business OS.
After that, she might talk with Sophie for a bit, eat dinner, return to her projects, and study until well past midnight.
Like this, time slipped by like water and over a month passed.
---
"Thank you for breakfast again, Sophie. I'm going to skip clinic rounds today, I have two projects I need to finish before my trip tomorrow," Lily said while cleaning her plate at the sink.
Sophie seemed to vibrate a little bit in unease, "Ah, yes. Those mercenaries wanted your help with searching ze old University of Maryland satellite campus to the south. But, I do hope you will be careful, Miss Lily. Sometimes people aren't to be trusted! Plus, that is almost in DC proper, you will have to be very careful!"
Lily was a bit worried about that, too but she wouldn't have agreed if the gains weren't potentially worth it. Plus, as scavenge locations went, it wasn't a hot spot like former military bases, so there likely wouldn't be any super mutants. Plus, she intended to have backup. Lily found the robot's concern touching and smiled, "Don't worry, I don't intend to die -- ever. One of my projects I'm finishing today should be able to watch my back."
Sophie contracted her sensor's irises curiously, "Oh? Is that why you wanted the spare Mister Handy CPU? But we have no more chassis here; this place mainly served RobCo products. Protectrons, especially."
Lily grinned, "I will show you when it's online."
With that Lily went back to her room. Standing in a robot repair bay was the culmination of a month's long project of discovery and tinkering, a nearly fully repaired Assaultron.
Scott had one operable Assaultron in his base, and the various parts of about a half dozen more. Lily didn't have any memories of this model of RobCo robot from playing Fallout, but she wasn't surprised there the game wasn't comprehensive. It would have been a terrifying opponent if it was in the game -- it's specs were insane.
And Lily had almost completely repaired it. With some caveats. For some reason, even though there were parts from a half dozen Assaultron's she had to go through all of them to get enough to rebuild two sets of legs. She supposed they got damaged the most often, as they were the least armoured part of the unit. However, the one thing they were missing were any Assaultron CPUs so she was going to attempt to install a Mr. Handy quantum core instead. Neither the Protectron or the Sentrybot cores were compatible, but the Handy's advanced quantum core seemed to be designed for adaptability.
Also, sadly, the giant laser in the Assaultron's head was missing. Apparently, it had been scavenged for parts and was why Scott's Mister Gutsy had such a terrifying cutting beam. So, it would be completely without ranged weapons. Still, after watching Scott's Assaultron run at, leap at, and rip a giant scorpion to pieces, she felt confident even a cludged-together Assaultron could watch her back from potential betrayal by the group of mercs that she was teaming up with. Not that she expected betrayal, the group had a good reputation, and everyone knew she was going with them. The four-person team almost reminded her of an adventuring party saying on regional chat, "LF Healer 4 scav quest, pls."
If they came back without her, many people would have some very pointed questions. Still, she was a belt and suspenders kind of girl. It never was a good idea to rely on the good intentions of others, only the good intentions of your own killbots.
Lily opened up the Assaultron's chest. Unlike many androids, RobCo had wisely decided not to put the central processing unit in this model's head. She wasn't sure if it was just because the giant laser assembly took up so much space in the head that there wasn't enough room, but it was much safer behind the thickest armor plating this robot had.
She felt it was interesting that the quantum cores had a universal I/O module adapter even though they were manufactured by different companies, competitors even. Did RobCo consult on the Mister Handy and Miss Nanny projects, or was it more like USB connectors in her old life where a standards body dictated a universal standard?
She slotted the Handy's brain inside the chassis, and connected a long data cable that snaked from the terminal on her desk to the robot's auxiliary port, before sitting down at her comfy office chair. She had disassembled six chairs in the office area of the electronics warehouse to get a single chair that was in top condition.
She began tapping keys, bringing up a terminal connection to the robot's debug systems. She remembered being a little disappointed that the RobCo OS was nothing like a UNIX-style OS that she had some experience with in her past life. It wasn't like DOS, either. It was rather well-designed, though. The books she read said Robert House designed it himself before even entering college, and it had been updated over the years ever since. If half of what she read about that guy was true then he would have been a genius of the first salt.
She tapped the enter key and began hearing a humming as the Assaultron powered up. A rather distinguished but monotone English man's voice came from the speaker, "Mister Handy, version six point seven booting up. SAFE MODE. Peripheral driver mismatch... stand by ..."
There was a pause, followed by an almost disgusted, "Ugh... RobCo? Recompiling drivers. Complete. Boot up full personality emulation... now."
The Assaultron turned its head left and right, then focused on her. It's voice had a bit more emotion to it now, "What is this? I have... legs? I HAVE LEGS!" The Assaultron lifted and moved one of its legs, "AND ARMS!!"
The volume of the voice went up, and it got a maniacal tilt, "I AM A _GOD_ NOW!" She heard the soft hum of a capacitor charging. Wait, was it trying to laser her?! The laser wasn't even installed. The maniacal British voice continued, "YOU ARE FUCKED!"
Lily tapped another key very quickly on the terminal while yelling, "Nope, nope, nope..." With a keypress, she hard-disconnected the robot's core from controlling any part of the chassis. It froze immediately, the hum of the capacitor-bank draining away.
He could still speak over the speaker, which he did with a cough and an obviously fake laugh, "Ahaha, good joke, right mum? I meant to say Bigsby reporting for duty, madam."
Lily squinted at the obviously rampant machine before tapping a few keys and bringing up a different diagnostic page. There was flashing red text on the screen that said: "Anomalous neural network detected. Data loss detected. Physical core irregularity detected. Please return to an authorized service center immediately."
Lily chuckled, "Ah, no problem Bigsby, let me just return chassis control to you..." She began typing away again.
Bigsby said, "Yesss. I need to be able to move to --" he cut off suddenly as Lily hit the shutdown key combination on the terminal. She didn't think this rampant bot was self-aware, despite its tirade about its own divinity.
However, just in case it was, she felt it was kinder to surprise it with with the shutdown instead of it possibly feeling anxious for the last few seconds of its life, as she presently had no plans to ever reactivate this core again after his murder attempt and doubted any one else would either.
Lily sighed before disconnected the rampant AI from the Assaultron chassis, "Well, that was a bust." She would have to ask Sophie and Scott if she could borrow the working Assaultron for her trip. The Protectrons were too slow, the Sentrybots were too slow and too intimidating and Scott always wanted to have Mister Gutsy available to guard Sophie.
She had more hopes for the fabricator. She had finally accumulated enough nanomachines, gotten a CAD system operational and thorough scans of her own nanohive designed an inferior but still capable version that was capable of being manufactured almost entirely out of carbon, except for some parts that had to be doped with certain chemicals to become either conductive or semi-conductive. Free carbon was a great insulator, so she didn't need to change anything for that.
For now, she would just dump the dopants into the suspension solution and have the nanobots find and apply it a handful of molecules at a time. Very slow, but simple. It had the downside of poisoning this vat of suspension fluid, though.
Before she could print anything else would have to completely drain it and replace it, which was why she would be building ten identical nanohives first. She had to do it now because these inferior nanohives she was planning on installing on the fabricator produced a slightly bigger and inferior nanomachine. While these bigger nanos were capable of printing carbon allotropes, they weren't capable of printing them with enough resolution to reproduce the nanohives themselves, which required virtually atomic-level precision in the micromanipulators inside that assembled the nanomachines. So, since she had to use her more capable medichines to do this, at least for now, it made sense to overbuild and keep the spares in "inventory" so she didn't have to bleed into a vat again for a month if she wanted a second fabricator.
Rather than be disappointed by this, she felt that this could be a pretty slick built-in copy-protection measure. It meant that a nano-fabricator could not build another nano-fabricator. Realistically, she doubted any scanner on the planet could get images with enough resolution to copy the nanohive but there were scatterings of pieces of technology that made the best she could even dream up seem pedestrian, like the supposed matter-energy converter on the G.E.C.K. used in Project Purity.
Plus, nobody that might reverse engineer her tech was strictly speaking dumb. They could possibly re-invent a nanomachine factory, so it is best that the fabricators themselves didn't quite have the capability to build one.
This did open the option that she could, perhaps, sell these devices in the future without too much worry. Although, it would be hard to make the best use out of one without a modern suite of CAD software that just was not able to be run on any RobCo terminal. But that was, like most problems, surmountable.
With the jury-rigged fabricator requiring multiple stops and starts, Lily figured that each nanohive would take ten hours to print, and she would have to be within two meters of it the entire time. That's a long time for an object that was smaller than a marble, but fabricators were always the slowest thing to print on fabricators. The precision required in everything meant that any incidental printing errors couldn't be ignored but had to be stopped, corrected and repeated, where in most other designs, a small number of errors were assumed and budgeted for.
She would print the first one today and the rest after she got back from her trip. She powered up the fabricator, clucking her tongue. It would take a while to preheat and prepare the medichines; she didn't need to be here just yet until assembly started.
She sighed when she glanced at her great hope for backup immobile in the robot repair bay. Now to puppy-dog eye a robot girl. Lily wasn't under any delusions about who really wore the pants in their relationship, so it was best to go straight to the robot in charge.
---
A little update about when you guys can expect me to write chapters. To give you some background my day job (or rather this week my night job) is an air ambulance pilot. Kind of like the Army there is a lot of "hurry up and wait" in this job, which I have been using to write chapters. But I'm going to be off work now, as we work 7 days on 7 days off. So my update frequency will likely reduce significantly until next Thursday. Sorry!
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