The installation of the Auto-Doc had been a turning point for the Rangers' morale. Milla, usually the first to charge into a fight, had been the first to lay down on the cold, sterile table of the Sink's medical wing. The machine had worked with terrifying, silent efficiency—whirring lasers and precision needles filtering the Cazador toxins from her system in a matter of minutes.
Case stood at the entrance of the Think Tank, meeting Milla one last time before heading up. She looked transformed; the sickly paleness of the venom was gone, replaced by a steady, healthy glow.
"Thanks, Milla. That Auto-Doc is sure as hell a piece of magic," Case said, glancing at the heavy structure of the Dome.
"You're welcome," Milla replied, stretching her arms and wincing slightly at the phantom itch of the needles. "But I wonder, why did you ask me to bring a dog's bowl? And yeah, it was magic—it laid me down on that table in the corridor, dialysis-ed my blood, I guess? I feel like I could run to the Mojave and back."
Case stepped onto the elevator, Milla right at his side. She was still shaking her head, trying to process the sheer absurdity of the beings they were about to face.
"Sure thing," Case said in response to her offer to join him. "I don't think anyone would mind if we wriggled our penises on the premises?"
"Excuse me??" Milla squinted her eyes, tilting her head as if she'd misheard him through a radio burst.
"They mistake fingers for penises," Case explained with a dry, tired shrug. "I know, crazy, right?"
"And these minds are the brightest of the old world…" Milla let out a long, loud breath, her shoulders slumping. "We really are living in a giant, high-tech asylum."
The elevator jolted into motion, ascending toward the Think Tank—the central hub where the five brains-in-jars presided over the crater. As they rose, the air grew thinner, smelling of ozone and ancient, recycled air. Case tightened his grip on the silver-ish bowl and the heavy cybernetic collar.
Milla's hand twitched toward her holster, her eyes darting between the hovering, flickering monitors of the Think Tank. The sheer unpredictability of the five brains-in-jars made her skin crawl.
"Case, raise your rifle. I feel something odd here," she muttered, her voice tight with combat-ready tension.
Case stood perfectly still, his arms hanging at his sides despite the looming mechanical threats. "I can't," he said, his voice sounding oddly hollow.
"What do you mean you can't?" Milla hissed, glancing at him. "They're right there!"
"Well, I just can't. I can't really explain it," Case shook his head, a look of mild frustration crossing his face. "It's like when you want to punch, but you hold back because your brain is screaming that it's a bad idea. Or when you really have to pee, but you can't because your mind is locked up. It's the effect of having my brain someplace else. The Big MT pacification field. I literally cannot initiate a hostile act against them in this room."
He looked up at the floating canisters. Because his actual brain had been replaced with a Tesla-coil-driven organite substitute during his arrival, the Think Tank had "root access" to his nervous system while he was inside the Dome. He was a prisoner of his own biology.
"So you're just... defenseless?" Milla asked, her voice rising.
"No, not like that, relax, Milla, don't do something I'll regret later," Case said, trying to defuse the situation. He then pulled her hand away from her holster. "Relax, I got this."
Case then walked to the green-tinted floating brain, holding the dog collar and the bowl on his hand. He then looked at Borous, he noticed his appearance, and then, turned his whole arrays of monitor to his direction.
"So, you put down Gabe. Thank you - a scamp, but really, his highly augmented combat programming could have proved meddlesome. In any even, thank you for putting him down. one Less test subject catalogue and sort - cleary a failure of doggie cybo-engineering."
"I found this, is this belong to your dog, Gabe, from X-8?"
"What? Why... yes, it is. I used to leave it outside his doghouse, chock-full of chems—before the cybernetic modifications, of course," Borous stammered. He paused, the green light on his screen pulsing slowly. "And no matter how chemmed the food, he would always eat it. And his tail... it would wag, even while I... I... you know, I am having the most perplexing feeling squiggling through my biogel. I can't quite pin it down."
"Sounds like you missed a good friend," Milla said softly, her voice losing its edge. "No—your best friend."
"No matter how awful my day had been, he was always waiting there. How odd. My gel is de-coagulating?" Borous hovered lower, almost touching the bowl. "And when I would talk to him about Betsy—and how Richie Marcus would beat on me and call me 'Smarty Sissy-Pants'—he'd just sit there, head on my knee."
"Do brains in a jar cry with biogel?" Case tried for a joke, but his voice lacked its usual bite.
"Case..." Milla muttered, giving him a sharp, gentle smack on his combat armor to quiet him.
"If you don't mind, I'll take that bowl. Just... need to remove it, put it away. Somewhere out of my radar range." Using his monitor housing like a tray, Borous scooped up the dog bowl and tucked it beneath a console. "For some reason, its similarity to the crater shape of Big MT is starting to fill up all available cognitive spaces. That, combined with my own overwhelming feeling of having done something terrible... the two are hitting me with unexpected force."
"Well, that's what you've done. Better live with it," Milla added, her tone firm but not unkind. "Life has its own consequences."
"As odd as it is, I believe that is the conclusion. I wonder why it didn't hit me before, until I saw that memory in your hands. This sensation is unpleasant, and I don't care for it. I don't care for this place either. And I feel we've forgotten something."
"Your humanity," Case added.
"Still, it does not matter! Crush the—" Borous started to cycle back into his aggressive programming, his screen flashing red.
"Wait, wait," Case interrupted, stepping forward. "You shouldn't invalidate your feelings. Your current predisposition is definitely due to childhood trauma. If you're sad, you're sad. If you're happy, you're happy. You don't need to relive the pain, but just because Betsy, Richie Marcus, and the others were bad to you doesn't mean you should be bad to the rest of the Mojave."
Milla looked at Case in awe. It felt like watching a legitimate psychiatrist—Case was operating on a shattered psyche. It was a perfect Medicine and Science check combo.
"Mojave... what's that?" Borous asked, the word sounding alien in his speakers.
"The world outside is vast and large, Borous. A field for experimentation—moral experimentation," Case said, his voice gaining authority. "If we don't put limitations and morals on science, the whole wasteland will turn into this place: an unproductive facility with limitless possibilities and no soul."
"I– Lobotomite, you're right. I need some space, if you don't mind…"
As Dr. Borous retreated into the shadows of his private quarters, the heavy blast doors hissing shut behind him, the chaotic hum of the Think Tank faded into a surreal, ringing silence. The blue light of the monitors seemed to freeze mid-flicker.
Level Up: 3 → 4
Case stood in the center of the Dome, the world paused around him.
Name: Case
Level: 4
EXP: 3,000/9,000
S.P.E.C.I.A.L
Strength: 7
Perception: 4
Endurance: 3
Charisma: 4
Intelligence: 7
Agility: 4
Luck: 12
►Energy Weapons: 17
►Guns: 80 → 94
►Explosives: 25
►Melee Weapons: 75
►Unarmed: 60
►Barter: 20
►Speech: 17 → 25
►Medicine: 50 → 60
►Lockpick: 17
►Repair: 80
►Science: 30 → 40
►Survival: 50
►Sneak: 60
[Perks]
♦ Ranger Toughness: Years of Desert Ranger training and frontline combat have hardened you beyond normal limits. You gain +30% Damage Resistance against all damage sources. When wearing Ranger-styled armor, you also gain +1 to all S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes.
♦ VATS-BT: You can voluntarily enter a heightened combat focus state by conscious thought.
While active, time slows significantly, allowing precise targeting and movement. Warning: This ability is sustained by breath control.Remaining in V.A.T.S.–BT too long will cause severe fatigue, oxygen deprivation, and possible loss of consciousness.
♦ Wrong Place, Right Time: You have an uncanny habit of being where you shouldn't be—and surviving it. You gain a small bonus to critical chance, and enemy misfires happen slightly more often around you. However, your life will be much more colorful.
♦ Never Again: You react violently to attempts to control or dominate you. Massive combat bonuses when fighting after intimidation, enslavement attempts, or threats. Any chance of intimidating you will backfire catastrophically.
♦ Animal Friend: Now, any animal won't attack you unless provoked. They will also be less likely to attack you back when hunted by you.
♦ 18B - SF Ballistic Mastery: Somehow and somewhat, you cause 20% more damage using any form of ballistic weapon, and this includes any vehicle-mounted weaponries, and you don't even know how and why.
Milla blinked, looking at Case. She didn't see the level-up screen, but she saw the change in his posture—the way he looked less like a lucky scavenger and more like a man who owned the air he breathed.
"You okay, Case? You went quiet for a second," Milla asked, checking her sidearm. "Borous is gone, but the big blue boss and the others are still staring. I think they're trying to figure out if you just 'fixed' Borous or 'broke' him."
"I'm fine," Case said, his voice resonant. "I just realized exactly where we need to go next. The X-13 facility—and with your stealth skill, I really need you. You're the key to this operation."
"Huh? Me?" Milla said, squinting her eyes again. She was a fighter, but the "sneaking" part of the Ranger curriculum was something she usually traded for loud shotgun blasts.
"My favorite little teddy bears have returned!" Dr. Dala's voice cooed as she blitzed toward them, her monitor housing humming with an unsettling, frantic energy. "My cute teddy bear brought another cute little teddy bear!"
Case felt the creep factor spike. Being the subject of Dala's "internal observation" was one thing—he was used to being the lab rat—but seeing her sensors zoom in on Milla set off a different kind of alarm.
To Case, who carried the mental weight of a man much older than his current body, Milla was still a kid. In his head, he was an adult; the "age of consent" in the Big Empty was a blurry line he wasn't about to let a brain-in-a-jar cross.
"Dala, look, I appreciate your research, but I'd rather you not stare at Milla like this," Case said firmly, physically stepping between Milla and the floating monitor. He reached out and shoved the cold metal casing back a few inches. "If you want to observe something, I'll gladly call in a much more... anatomically accurate teddy bear for you later. Maybe someone like Markus and Amelia."
"Oh, yes, yes! I need more research... much more visceral data!" Dala's voice trailed off into a series of static-filled sighs.
"Great. Thanks," Case muttered, not waiting for her to change her mind.
He didn't give her the chance to linger. Case grabbed Milla's hand and pulled her out of Dala's radar sweep, moving with a purpose that didn't brook any argument. They exited the Think Tank into the cool, pressurized air of the outer walkway. Case stood there for a moment, a strange sight: the heavy, charred cybernetic collar in one hand like a morbid trophy, and Milla's hand in the other.
"Hmph. Now, what should I do with this collar?" Case asked himself, looking at the tangled wires. "Ah, well. I'll drop it at the Sink. Maybe the personality drives can make sense of the tech."
Before they could take a step toward the elevator heading to the exit of the Think Tank, his radio flared to life, cutting through the static of the Big MT's interference.
"All section commanders, listen up," Jacob's voice crackled through the comms, sounding more like a battlefield general than a Ranger scout. "Gather all samples of rare valuables and high-tier loot and get them to the Sink immediately. Prioritize Power Armor components, large-caliber ammunition, specialized electronics, and heavy plating. This is a direct order. Move it. Out."
Milla's brow furrowed, her hand still resting in Case's as she processed the urgency. "Power armor parts? Jacob sounds like he's expecting a siege... or like he's trying to build something big enough to punch a hole right through the crater wall."
"Let's just head upstairs," Case said, his voice flat but focused.
The elevator ride back up to the Sink was silent, save for the hum of the machinery.