Case headed downstairs once again.
The strangeness hit him immediately. He couldn't even pull the weapon from his shoulder now—couldn't even think the words a-g-g-r-e-s-s-i-v-e or k-i-l-l. The thought simply slid away before it could fully form. The pacification field was doing its job.
The Think Tank buzzed as usual, terminals clacking as the brains worked through non-existent arms and phantom fingers. Case moved to the left side of the chamber, giving a brief nod to the head of Robotics. Or… whatever Zero had been.
An executive, originally. Someone who fiddled with robots back in the Old World. That role belonged to Mobius during Old World Blues, though, so Zero had always been something else. Not an idiot—far from it—but compared to the rest of the Think Tank, he was… less than optimal.
Case turned his attention to the monitor bank. "Zero, I need your help."
"Oh, it's you again—the lobotomite," Zero replied, his twin screens flickering with an agitated hum. "I thought you were retrieving the technologies we requested. And how did you even figure out my name?"
"It's 0, not O. There's a difference," Case said flatly, leaning into the glow of the screens. "I'm not lobotomized enough to miss that."
Zero gave a slow, digital nod, the monitors displaying his stylized eyes pulsing with light. "And what assistance do you require from me?"
"I know you have the control codes," Case said, cutting straight to the point. "For the robots. The Sentry Bots. Everything—well, everything except Mobius's Robo-Scorpions. We need full access if this turns into a head-on fight."
There was a heavy, static-filled pause.
"Wait. Wait, wait, wait," Zero said, his voice rising in pitch. "Are you asking me to hand over complete command authority to a total stranger—one who already leads a sizable army—just so you can possess an even larger one?"
Case let out a long, weary sigh. "There's always the alternative," he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous chill. "We do nothing. Mobius lets his Robo-Scorpions roam free, and they walk in here after everyone's dead. Besides, if I wanted all of you dead, it would have been done by now."
"You wouldn't dare!" Zero shrieked.
"I'd dare," Case countered, his eyes locked on the monitor. "But the truth is, all of you are far too useful to kill."
"Are you attempting to intimidate me, lobotomite?" Zero asked, the scan lines on his monitors vibrating with indignation.
Case shook his head, his expression shifting from a threat to a cold, hard logic. "No. I'm asking for a more meaningful cooperation. Look at the state of this place, Zero. You're trapped in this dome while Mobius's toys tear the crater apart."
Case then continued, "Like I offered: you need hands. If we are going to secure the whole mountain so you can actually run your experiments again, we need the whole place cleared out. My Rangers are those hands. But we can't spend all our ammo fighting your security bots while we're trying to kill his scorpions."
Zero then hummed, "A... 'meaningful cooperation.' An interesting phrasing for someone who just threatened to accelerate my expiration date. However... your logic is unfortunately sound. The attrition rate of the current security grid against the 'Scorpion Menace' is, frankly, embarrassing."
"Ding, turkey's done," Zero added, his digital eyes shrinking to sharp pinpricks. "You and your 'rangers' been granted full access to all security robots in the whole mountain. Every Protectron, every Sentry Bot, and every automated turret now answers to your specific signature. But... tell me, am I doing something I'll regret?"
"Just don't backstab me, Zero," Case said, his voice level as he unlatched the Pip-Boy from the interface. "This is a fruitful collaboration. As long as you keep the codes active, my Rangers keep your facility standing."
Case leaned over the interface, his fingers moving with surgical intent as he dissected the master security codes Zero had surrendered. The data was tethered directly to the facility's mainframe, a sprawling neural network that pulsed through the very bedrock of the crater, something that he only found out now.
No wonder the ending made it as if each facility had its own 'brain.'
With a few precise keystrokes, he began uploading the "Ranger Profile" into the Big MT's collective consciousness. He fed the system the iconic silhouette of the Riot Gear, the specific thermal signatures of the Rangers' power armor, and the distinct heraldry of their logo.
By synchronizing his Pip-Boy with the central terminals, Case realized he had achieved total tactical fluidity. He could now redirect whole cohorts of machines with a simple gesture. A swipe on his wrist could send a patrol of Protectrons to haul crates at the village, or a simple command at a terminal could reroute a Sentry Bot to guard a dark corridor.
The implications were staggering. A phalanx of Sentry Bots—the heavily armored robot—marching toward the Forbidden Zone alongside the elite Ranger squads would be nigh-unstoppable.
Static hissed through the handheld radio before Amelia's voice broke through, "Case, we got a report a bunch of sentry bots approaching the barrack, what happened?" Amelia asked.
"I thought you were asleep, Amelia," Case replied, using his handheld radio.
"Well, I'm not sleeping—sleep is the last thing on my mind when three tons of pre-war hardware is parked on my front porch!" Amelia shot back. "They aren't shooting. One of them actually just beeped at a Private and moved aside to let him pass. They're... they're asking for orders. Is this your handiwork?"
Case's grin was visible even in the dim light of the Think Tank room, a sharp, cold expression reflected in the glass of the dormant monitors. The power was intoxicating—the feeling of a thousand mechanical hearts beating to his rhythm, a digital pulse vibrating through the floor and into his very bones. He had never felt more powerful than he did now.
Heck, this was only the beginning.
"Yes," Case said simply, his thumb hovering over the broadcast key. "The Big Empty just got a new sheriff. Case out."
He stepped into the elevator, the heavy hydraulic hum echoing his own rising ambition. When the doors slid open, he was greeted by the cool night air and the expanse of the Big MT.
He walked off the concrete floor and out onto the glowing blue grass, the strange, bioluminescent flora of the crater swaying under his boots. In the distance, smoke plumed high from distant facilities that currently lacked a master—hollow shells waiting for a soul.
Soon enough, he thought, he would have total control of this facility.
He paused, looking at the silhouettes of the Patton tanks parked near the village, now flanked by the hulking, silent shapes of the newly loyal Sentry Bots. He let the vision take hold: a Mojave where the Rangers weren't just a militia, but a modernized juggernaut.
If the Rangers could be equipped similarly to what the United States Army used to be—the fearsome force that broke the stalemate in Anchorage and pushed back the red tide—no one would ever dare mess with them again.
The NCR had the numbers, and Caesar had the brutality, but with the Big MT's labs, Case would secure the Mojave for itself, no god, and no master.
A soft hum of sliding doors came from behind him. Amelia emerged into the cool night air, stripped of her heavy Riot Gear plating. She was wearing only the undergarments of the suit: dark khaki cargo pants and a thick, charcoal-grey ballistic shirt designed to absorb the kinetic shock of the armor.
"Can't sleep, Captain?" Case asked.
"Don't you 'captain' me, Case," Amelia hummed, coming to stand beside him. Her gaze swooped over the silhouette of the Big Mountain. "You know, it reminds me of something... this place. Where I used to be."
"Enclave?" Case asked.
"Yeah, that organization," Amelia replied. "A shame it got destroyed, in a way. The tech, the order... but well, all in all, they deserved it. They deserved to burn. The NCR might be a bastard to us, and they've got their share of corruption, but their ideals are at least closer to what the founding fathers intended. The Enclave didn't want a nation. They wanted to clean up the whole wasteland by bleaching it white instead of integrating it, of merging with what survived."
"You never brought it up in public, though I suppose everyone knows you and Markus are former Enclave," Case added, his voice low as he watched a distant security bot pivot on its axis. "Only the two of you are... evidently experts with power armor. Still, even Jacob doesn't care about the uniform you used to wear."
Amelia leaned her weight onto her elbows, looking out at the shimmering, artificial horizon. "Some of us don't dream of exterminating the wasteland, Case. However, we do dream of the promises of the Old World. The safety, the medicine, the feeling that tomorrow might actually be better than today." She gave a dry, hollow laugh. "You can say we've got a bad case of Old World Blues."
Case then replied, "I can see why."
Amelia looked at him, a spark of genuine excitement cutting through her exhaustion. "Wish we could bring back those techs, Case. I know where I stored my APA—my Advanced Power Armor. And well, if we got a hand on a working Vertibird, and this place is as… great as you advertised, I can only imagine…"
The vision was clear: a fleet of Vertibirds taking off from the Big MT hangars, fueled by the crater's reactors and maintained by an army of specialized robots. He could imagine this place as a town, as a working town, filled with people from all over, a place where they could begin again.
The Big MT wasn't expanded to the edge of the crater. The crater still had space left; for all intents and purposes, this place was not that expanded back in Fallout: New Vegas. Now, he had the means and the tech.