The courtyard erupted into a symphony of chaos. The grenade Jack lobbed detonated near Gabe's front paws, kicking up a cloud of pulverized concrete and simulation dust. Case seized the opening, leaning into the G3 as he unleashed a sustained stream of 7.62mm fire. The heavy rifle bucked in his hands, the rhythmic thud-thud-thud echoing off the artificial sky.
Gabe didn't just growl; he roared with a sound like grinding tectonic plates. He lunged forward, his throat glowing blue before releasing a series of Sonic Barks. The concentrated soundwaves shattered the windows of the simulated houses, sending shards of glass flying like shrapnel.
"Get to cover, Case!" Jack shouted, diving behind a picket fence that disintegrated under the sonic pressure.
Case slid behind a suburban house facade, his heart hammering. He breathed out, thumbing the toggle for his VATS-BT. Time slowed to a crawling halt. He focused every ounce of concentration on the hairline fractures appearing in the dog's reinforced brain casing.
He pulled the trigger. In slow motion, he felt the stock of the G3 punishing his chin with every recoil. The bullets spiraled through the air, glowing with friction, and slammed into the same square inch of metal. The casing cracked further, spiderwebbing under the assault, but the pre-war alloy held.
Jack was relentless, alternating between his riot shotgun and frag grenades. The shotgun blasts peeled away layers of synth-flesh and fur, revealing the truth beneath: Gabe was a skeleton of reinforced steel, hydraulic pistons, and glowing fiber-optic cables. He was a war machine wearing a dog's skin.
"The fuck…?" Jack muttered, his eyes wide as he shoved a fresh drum mag into his shotgun.
Gabe turned his massive head toward Jack and let out a point-blank sonic bark. The physical force hit Jack like a freight train, flinging him backward through the air. He crashed through a wooden porch, his back slamming against a wall. To Case's relief, Jack rolled with the impact and scrambled into the shadows of another house just as Gabe's massive claws tore through the spot where he had been lying.
"Fucking hound is tough!" Jack yelled over the din, throwing another grenade to keep the beast at bay.
"Well, no shit, Jack!" Case shouted back, slapping a fresh magazine into his rifle. He stepped out from cover and dumped another twenty rounds into the breach in Gabe's armor. "But at least we've got cracks in the brain casing! It's vulnerable!"
"Damn bastard shrugs off 7.62 like it's spit, huh? Funny," Jack growled, his voice tight with adrenaline as he finished reloading.
"Not really," Case replied.
Case didn't wait for Jack's distraction. He surged out from behind the crumbling facade, the G3 held tight against his chest. He moved in a jagged, high-speed zig-zag, his boots kicking up clouds of artificial dust as he evaded the devastating ripples of Gabe's sonic barks. The air around him shimmered with the heat of the hound's roar, but Case didn't flinch.
As Gabe lowered his head to charge, Case lunged forward, sliding across the grit and closing the distance in a heartbeat. He activated the VATS-BT, and the world froze into a crystalline, silent green. He could see the microscopic fissures he'd already punched into the alloy. He held his breath, the silence of the simulation ringing in his ears, and jammed the muzzle of the G3 directly into the spiderwebbed crack of the brain chassis.
He pulled the trigger.
Twenty rounds of high-velocity 7.62mm ammunition dumped their kinetic energy into the jar in a single, deafening second. The reinforced glass and lead-lined shielding didn't just crack—they disintegrated. The "brain" of the beast, a mass of preserved grey matter and pulsating electrodes, was shredded instantly.
The massive mechanical frame of Gabe went limp mid-motion. The giant cyberdog collapsed with a thunderous thud, his heavy armor plates clanging against the concrete. Jack stepped out from behind the house, his armor scorched and his breathing heavy. He looked at the fallen behemoth, then at Case, who was standing over the wreck with a smoking rifle.
"Gabe! NO! His Cyberdog atomic core—it's ACTIVE! That means an exceedingly IMPRECISE countdown to critical failure in..." Borous's voice screeched over the speakers, cracking with a mix of grief and programmed hysteria.
"Ah shit, ten seconds of them counting," Jack muttered, his eyes darting to the glowing, pulsing light emanating from the center of Gabe's chassis.
Case didn't waste a heartbeat. He dropped the G3 onto its sling and lunged for the massive cybernetic collar. It was heavy, slick with hydraulic fluid and oil, but it contained the primary research data and the DNA splicing samples they had come for. With a violent tug, he ripped the housing free from the dead beast's neck.
"Go! Move!" Case roared.
They sprinted toward the heavy exit doors. Jack injected a Stimpak into his leg on the fly, the mechanical hiss of the applicator barely audible over the rising whine of the failing atomic core. They dove through the threshold just as the blast doors began their slow, automated cycle of sealing.
The heavy steel plates slammed shut with a definitive thud. A second later, the ground buckled. A muffled, subterranean roar shook the entire X-8 facility, vibrating through the soles of their boots and throwing them against the corridor walls. Dust and insulation rained down from the ceiling as the shockwave rolled through the concrete.
Silence followed, save for the distant, fading sparks of short-circuiting electronics.
"Whatever, we got what we came for," Case said, waving the black dog collar.
"What's so special about a bloody dog collar, Case?" Jack asked, shaking his head as he tried to catch his breath. "We almost got vaporized for a piece of reinforced leather and some wiring."
"It's leverage against one of the Think Tank executives," Case replied, his voice low. He knew that to Dr. Borous, this wasn't just tech—it was the only tether he had left to his humanity, twisted as it was.
Jack went quiet for a moment, then looked Case straight in the eye. "I see. But tell me... why shouldn't we just kill the overlords of this place? The Rangers are uneasy, Case. Truth be told, they enjoy the new gear and the fresh water, but they don't exactly understand what you're planning. You're one of the youngest recruits we've got, and now you're leading us into a high-tech meat grinder."
Case leaned against the vibrating wall of the corridor. He could feel the frustration coming off Jack in waves. To the veterans, Case was an anomaly—a kid who knew the layout of a "mythical" crater better than the people who built it.
"Because they're the scientists of the old world, and we need them, like it or not," Case said, his voice dropping into a dramatic, high-pitched warble. "This place is the key to our success in the future! A crater filled with possibilities, and SCIENCE!"
Case's spot-on impression of the Think Tank's manic energy caught Jack off guard. A dry, raspy chuckle escaped the older man's throat.
"I see..." Jack said, finally relaxing. He found an old metal lab table and sat on the edge, his joints popping. He unsealed his helmet with a hiss and took a long, greedy pull from his canteen. After a moment, he wiped his mouth and looked up. "Well, what's the next plan, if you don't mind me asking? We've got the dogs dead and the data in hand."
"I'm going to the Think Tank," Case replied, looking toward the massive central spire of the Dome. "I still have jobs to do."
"Right, see you around, Case."
The scene outside X-8 was a grim tableau of the Big MT's escalating defenses. A squad of Rangers, a mix of veterans in riot gear and ordinary rangers in reinforced combat armor, stood amidst a graveyard of twisted metal.
Dozens of broken Robo-Scorpions littered the dirt, their brass plating scorched by laser fire and their stinger-tails leaking glowing blue coolant. The two Sentry Bots Case had assigned to the perimeter stood in a low-power "guard" state, their Gatling barrels still smoking.
The Rangers were poking at the wreckage with the butts of their rifles, their voices hushed with a mix of awe and unease.
"Next time, we will have these roboscorpions," Case said, gesturing to the scrap.
"Hahaha, alright, will do," the ranger replied, grinning. "You sound like a Brotherhood soldier back there. Shall I say Ad Victoriam as well?" He snapped a sharp, exaggerated salute, pressing his fist to his chest in a perfect imitation of a Paladin.
"Ad Victoriam," Case countered, giving a mock salute of his own.
"Let's not do that again," the ranger chuckled, dropping the act. He kicked a piece of a scorpion's tail, watching the blue sparks die out in the dust. "Seriously though, Case. If we're staying here, we're going to need bigger guns. These things don't feel pain, and they don't get tired. This 5.56 rifle simply won't do."
Case looked at his peer. They were the same age, both technically "young," but the weight of the crater had aged them both in different ways. While the ranger saw a graveyard of the old world, Case saw a blueprint for the future.
"What do you need then?" Case asked, looking over the young Ranger's standard-issue gear.
"Hmm. A minigun like the one Markus lugs around would be nice," the Ranger commented, eyeing the wreckage of a particularly thick-plated Robo-Scorpion. "Something with enough kick to turn these tin cans into Swiss cheese before they get in tail-stabbing range."
Case leaned back slightly, a small smirk playing on his lips. "I recall... isn't there an unused Gatling Laser sitting back in the village? In one of the secure crates?"
The Ranger froze, his eyes widening behind his goggles. "SAY WHAT???"
"Yeah," Case nodded, enjoying the reaction. "A Gatling Laser. A literal, fucking laser-spitting Gatling."
"Why didn't you tell me earlier, bro?" the Ranger asked, his voice rising an octave in pure, unadulterated excitement.
"Ask Corbin," Case added with a chuckle. "That man might give it to you, provided you can actually lift the damn thing. It's a heavy beast, and the battery pack isn't exactly light."
"Sure thing! Thanks, mate!" The Ranger gave a frantic, genuine thumbs-up, already looking toward the path back to Higgs Village as if he intended to sprint the whole way.
Case watched them scramble, a faint, longing smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Everyone wanted a new toy. The younger recruits were obsessed with the flash and the thunder—the Gatling Lasers and the Miniguns that could level a building.
For Case, He wanted the Black Armor. The pre-war Riot Gear with its heavy, duster-style coat, the menacing green plating, and the glowing red ocular lenses of the helmet. He just didn't know, but looking at that thing alone gave him some sort of awe.
For Case, the armor was a symbol. In the Mojave, seeing that silhouette through the heat haze meant one of two things: you were saved, or you were already dead.
"Time to get things done."