Case stepped back into the Sink, the hiss of the airlocks sealing out the dry crater wind. The climate-controlled interior greeted him with a hum of high-tech serenity, a sharp contrast to the brutal wasteland outside.
The scene within was surprisingly domestic. Jacob and Amelia had claimed the space with the effortless shorthand of two people who had spent a lifetime in each other's orbit. They moved with a rhythm that felt almost like a husband-and-wife team in a pre-war kitchen.
Jacob was hunched over the hot plate in the biological garden section, poking at a pot with a scavenged spoon, while Amelia moved between the electronics. She was coaxing a low jazz tune out of the jukebox before shifting her attention to the coffee machine and the glowing, ominous interface of the Sierra Madre Vending Machine.
"I thought Blind Diode Jefferson was out of commission," Case said, glancing toward the jukebox.
"Well, it was. I just found a stray vinyl lying around and tucked it in manually. Suddenly, the old boy decided he liked soft jazz," Amelia said, leaning against the chrome siding of the machine. "Small victories, right?" She then gestured toward the glowing console of the Sierra Madre Vending Machine. "Sadly, this one isn't as cooperative."
"Don't worry, we'll figure that one out soon," Case answered, stepping closer to inspect the flickering interface. "The thing needs a specific type of casino chip to function—some kind of proprietary currency. I haven't quite cracked the code on how to replicate them yet."
Amelia raised an eyebrow, genuinely curious. "A vending machine that only takes specific chips? Sounds like a lot of work for a snack. How does it even work?"
"It's a matter manipulator," Case explained, nodding his head toward the internal delivery chute. "It's some sort of high-tech 'thing-a-magic' that rearranges molecular structures—turns raw chips and energy into physical objects. Food, medicine, ammunition... if you have the right code and the right currency, it just appears. Sounds insane, right?"
Jacob walked toward the machine, squinting at the flickering red display. "Hmm, never saw one of those. If you call this 'Sierra Madre,' I remember the name. There was a casino, perched on top of a hill. Construction was a little late, they said, then poof—it went abandoned. People say those who venture there never come out alive. I doubt a haunted casino has anything we need."
Case looked at him, leaning back against the console. "You know of it?"
Jacob took a long, slow sip of the coffee Amelia had brewed, a look of genuine satisfaction crossing his weathered face. "Damn, this is good coffee. Barely two hundred years old." He lowered the mug, his eyes meeting Case's. "Yes, I know that casino, Case. I'm older than you—more than ten times older. I remember the posters. I remember the radio ads before the static took over the world. Begin again, sung by Vera Keyes."
The reminder of Jacob's age always hit Case with a strange weight. To the Rangers, Jacob was a legendary commander and belonged to the og rangers; to the world, he was a Ghoul. But to history, he was a living bridge to the world Case was trying so hard to replicate.
"Anyway, what do you need, Jacob? You called me from the motorpool; it'd better be something important," Case said, shaking off the weight of the pre-war talk.
"This thing," Jacob said, pointing at the CIU. "Harry keeps pointing the map back and forth, spinning his monitors and making a racket. I just need it fixed. And then... well, I need to know how to use the commissary. We've got thousands of bottlecaps sitting in those crates."
Case paused. "Wait, you know about the commissary? I don't remember telling you that."
"Harry told me," Jacob replied, gesturing to the floating persona of the Sink. "But I don't understand the mechanics. If this thing can produce an ice-cold Nuka-Cola and 14.5mm ammo on demand, we'd be golden."
Case walked toward the CIU console. "Harry, can you open the port for the bottlecaps, please?"
With a polite chime, a large, vacuum-sealed hopper slid open. It was designed for bulk; Case didn't even need to count. He grabbed five bottlecaps from his pocket and tossed them in. A small tab near the port flickered to life, displaying a digital count: 5. Simultaneously, the terminal screen listed a catalog of available items.
"If sir may," Harry's voice chirped through the speakers, "sir may request special items, provided there is sufficient material available within the Big Mountain."
"Odd... It's never explained in the game how you restock," Case accidentally muttered to himself.
"What game?" Jacob asked, tilting his head.
"Nevermind," Case said quickly, coughing to cover the slip. "Still, my point stands. Harry, how do you restock? Where does the physical matter come from?"
"Big Mountain is a vast facility, Sir," Harry explained, his monitors displaying a simplified schematic of the crater's sub-levels. "Much of the subterranean infrastructure is buried, but it remains operational. Most of my inventory is sourced from the deep-storage vaults, transported via a network of pneumatic pipes, and delivered to Sir's location by miniature utility robots."
"An infinite armory, huh? We should crack open this mountain and see just how deep the rabbit hole goes," Amelia muttered, her eyes tracing the schematics on the wall.
"Makes sense..." Case nodded, his mind comparing Harry's explanation to the limited mechanics he remembered from the game. It was never explained… because, why bother? The player only wanted their equipment fixed.
Jacob leaned in and asked the most important question. "Is there a way to... how do you say it, disable the caps routine? We're running a military operation here, not a gift shop. I don't want to be scrounging for change while my men are under fire."
"I'm afraid, sir," Harry chirped, his screen flashing a polite but firm yellow, "the commerce protocols are hard-coded into the primary financial logic of my own chip. To bypass the transaction requirements, you would need to ask Doctor Mobius to issue an override command."
Case reached out and tapped Jacob on his shoulder, feeling the cold texture of his tactical gear. "Relax, Major. We'll get it done. If Mobius has the keys to the kingdom, then we're just going to have to pay him a visit once the sectors are clear."
"Until then," Case continued, turning back to the CIU, "we play by the rules. We've got enough caps to keep us in the fight for weeks. Harry, process a batch order of 14.5x114mm Soviet Saturnite-Core rounds and twenty stimpaks."
"Will do, sir," Harry chirped, his monitors flickering through a rapid-fire sequence of inventory codes and manufacturing schematics. "Where should it be delivered?"
"Just deliver it here later," Case said, deciding it was better to keep the high-grade munitions under his direct supervision until the runners were ready.
"Will do, sir. That will be 687 caps," Harry replied.
Case reached for the small leather sack at his belt and dumped the contents into the intake container. The Sink purred—a low, mechanical thrum that vibrated through the metal floor—as the internal sensors counted the currency. A few seconds later, the unused caps were spat back out into the same container.
Case slammed the chute closed, the sound echoing in the quiet room. He watched the "Transaction Complete" light pulse a steady green.
"Order processed," Harry announced. "The Saturnite-Core tempering process has begun. Estimated fabrication time for the rounds and chemical synthesis for the Stimpaks is ten minutes."
"Thanks, Harry."
"The pleasure is mine, sir," Harry's central monitor flickered with a friendly, stylized smiley face before receding into the background systems.
Jacob stepped toward the center of the room, his eyes sharp. "Harry, would you kindly switch back to the tactical map? Keep it fixed this time—no rotating, no zooming in and out. Just create a clear legend for reference," he commanded.
The CIU screen blinked, and the screen cast a high-resolution topographical map of the Big MT onto the round table. Green dots pulsed steadily, marking the friendly radio signatures of the Rangers and their robotic escorts.
"Status looks good," Case noted, leaning over the table.
The First Team had moved with surprising speed. Their green icons had already shifted away from the X-2 Antenna Array, leaving a secured perimeter behind. They were currently pushing into the crags of the Cuckoo's Nest. "Corbin's ahead of schedule," Case muttered. "If they clear the Nest, they'll have a clear line of sight to the Y-17 Medical Facility, then, we can actually use this broken auto-doc."
The Second Team icons were clustered tightly near the entrance of the X-8 Research Center. The signal was slightly distorted by the facility's heavy and thick shielding, but the steady pulse indicated they were inside and moving. The rhythmic blips suggested they were clearing room-by-room, likely letting Markus and the Sentry Bots do the heavy lifting.
"Everything goes faster than scheduled. Impressive," Case nodded, watching the green icons advance across the digital topography with mechanical precision.
"Kid, back then, we did things minute-by-minute. Sensitive operations, back when the 75th Ranger Regiment was still a thing," Jacob added, his voice carrying the rasp of a century's worth of command. "Of course, I trained my Rangers with that same discipline. Speed is security."
"Yeah, no doubt," Case remarked with a smirk. "Like that time you sent me across the Colorado. I didn't think I'd make it back in one piece, let alone ahead of time."
"That's why we're special," Jacob said, raising his almost non-existent, scarred eyebrow. He tapped the glass over the Cuckoo's Nest icon.
The Sink gave a final, triumphant ding. The output bin slid open, revealing twenty shimmering Stimpaks and several heavy canisters of 14.5mm Saturnite-Core ammunition.
"Ding. Dinner's ready," Case smiled, impersonating Zero