章 95: Chapter Ninety-Five
Vault 22. Mojave Wasteland.
Since it seemed like a good idea for me to get out of New Vegas for a while, so as to let Mr House clean up the mess my assassin had made while dealing with the Chairman, as well as to deal with the other gangs my people had found evidence of wrongdoings going on, I'd decided to led an operation to one of the Vaults that Veronica had told me about before she'd started needing some alone time.
Even from a distance, I could see that the plants were spilling from the Vault 22 gate. The ground near where we'd parked the landing craft was covered with a thick carpet of grasses and moss. Strange considering that this was a desert, and the closer we got to the vault's entrance the foliage just got thicker and thicker. There were bushes, trees, vines, and that was just the green stuff. There must have been a dozen species of multi-coloured flowers. Some of which seemed unnatural and when I reached out with my developing warp powers my feeling of unease was confirmed. There was something very wrong here. Something unnatural.
That wasn't the most worrying thing, however. That honour when to something we found right near the entrance: a giant metal sign.
"Stay out!" Sarah said aloud, reading the spray-painted sign. "The plants kill!".
According to the information we'd gotten from different sources, including the Brotherhood, there might also be a AER14 prototype laser rifle that had been in development before the Great War. It could be worth something to the Ad-Mech if it was a model that had never mass-produced as while they had plenty of laser weapons already a unique model could have functions not seen on other laser weapons or be a source of minor improvements. If nothing else it would look great in my personal armoury. Also, there could be useful data down there or a few bits of cool tech worth recovering hence why I'd brought some tech support.
"Well's that's rather ominous and foreboding," I said.
My words were supported by the fact that a group of giant bugs tried to kill us a few seconds later. Once the shooting was done I noticed that Magos Thea Maxanid was kneeling down, looking at something in the tall grasses. When she emerged, she was holding a giant mantis carcass up by one of its legs.
"Holy hell!" Sarah called out "I've never seen mantises mutated this big before! What are they eating?".
"Hopefully not us," one of the Sisterhood of Steel said.
The head cyborg with us seemed far less concerned than the organics.
"I know a Magos Biologis who will be very interested in this place" she commented.
A Magos Biologis was a tech priest who studied living things rather than machines. He, she or it was more than welcome to poke around in the vault once my people had cleared it out and looted anything worth taking.
Soon I saw the Vault door. Unlike the other Vaults I'd seen the circular gear-shaped door was already open, but not all the way. There were thick vines wrapped around the edges of the door, snaking their way outside from within. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that the vines had forcibly opened the door, and pushed it partly out of the way so they could get out. Giving me a 'Day of the Triffids' vibe. Which made me glad that we all had helmets or other means of protecting our faces, as these plants might go for the eyes.
That feeling of unease was just getting worse the deeper we went into the large underground bunker. The interior layout of this vault was totally different from the last vault I'd been in. I could only blame the plants for the strange interior layout, they made this place seem very alien. The concrete walls of the hallways could still be seen here and there, but they were only just barely visible. Rust and dirt had covered most of the hallways and rooms, this place had been decaying as the plants grew.
Something was definitely wrong here, I knew that for certain. The deeper we went, the thicker the foliage got. There were UV lights down here providing the plants with light, but no sign of anyone to maintain the equipment.
"Hold a sec," said Sarah as we about to round the next corner. "I'm picking up something".
We all stopped and checked our auspex, what passed for scanning equipment in Warhammer 40k, that we had built into our helmets. There was nothing on the motion detectors and my targeting systems didn't display any threat yet there was something here a creature of some kind.
The creature must have heard something as I saw the figure begin to move, to turn in our direction, it looked a lot like a feral ghoul, only green. Some sort of plant person. It was vaguely humanoid, with long talon-tipped hands and feet, as well as a snarling mouth filled with unfriendly teeth. Also, it was covered from head to toe in moss. It didn't have any eyes, and I saw a cluster of spine-looking things sticking out of its back. He, she, or it came at us and was followed by another, then two more. The strange creatures leapt towards us and everything erupted in gunfire. I managed to hit one, an impressive feat given that they were fast, a lot faster than I'd been expecting. It didn't help was that they were able apparently able to cling to the ceiling. Yet none of them managed to get too close thanks to the Sisterhood of Steel.
"What the fuck were those things?" Sarah asked.
A good question. One that the tech-priest with us tried to answer, but I already knew what was going on.
"These are the former inhabitants" I surmised "Vault Tech set up a lot of experiments using the people sealed in the vaults. This must be the result of one of them".
Soon the group further down underground. The sheer number of spores in the air was increasing and I got the feeling that these spores could transform humans into plant people. That was something to be avoided, best to avoid spending too much time down here even with our armour on.
"Where are we going?" Sarah asked after a while "All the way down?".
I actually had a plan.
"The lowest level of the Vault," I told her "If we can find the source, then we can shut all this down. All the Vaults have a self destruct".
We moved slowly and let the Sisterhood of Steel scout ahead.
"What do you know about the experiments?" Thea wished to know.
Not as much as I'd like to, which was why I wanted to find the source of all this so that I could figure everything out or let the Ad-Mech do it.
"The Vaults were never meant to save anyone," I said "They were meant to provide Vault Tech with test subjects for vile experiments".
A couple of the Sisterhood who were guarding us were confused and asked about that. Since it seemed relevant I I decided to share what I knew.
"The Vault programs were a series of massive social experiments, engineered by Vault-Tec and bankrolled by the people who would become the Enclave" I explained to everyone who was listening "They wanted to see how humans would react to various different environments and the stresses of isolation for extended periods. Officially, they wanted to test the feasibility of travelling to another world and colonising it after this one had been blown to shit, but really I think that the Vault-Tec engineers were just taking the piss at the end. Almost every Vault I've heard about had a different 'experiment' and they were all been nuts. Some of them were innocent enough, but most of them ended up like this place: everyone dead, and the place filled with dangerous monsters, or ghouls, or whatever".
Thinking on perhaps the people who'd died in the nuclear inferno when the bombs dropped had been the lucky ones.
"Hang on," Sarah chimed in. "You said all of this was a side effect of this Vault's experiment. What was the experiment?"
It wasn't me who answered, this time it was Thea who spoke.
"This Vault didn't have any food preservatives" she answered "So in order to feed the population, the scientists living here had to develop plants that could grow in incredibly hostile conditions and still produce enough food to feed the Vault's population".
"Guess they failed," Sarah said.
I didn't think so.
"No, it worked too well, look around you" the cyborg was now saying "They just didn't account for any of the side effects. This is the result of unsanctioned research that is not blessed by the machine god".
The sooner we got out of her with the tech and data we desired the better. We'd grab it, blow this place, and go home, or at least back to the casino.
"I found something" reported one of the Sisterhood of Steel
The AER14 was lying on the ground next to a scorched skeleton someone must have taken it from the armoury. Upon inspecting it I saw that the AER14, which I knew to be a successor to the AER9 and AER12 models, was indeed a prototype in development before the Great War. The unit found in Vault 22 turned out to be one of these development models, complete with exposed wiring and loose prototype circuit boards taped to the stock the side that must have been hastily added when the shooting started around here.
"This weapon is badly in need of my order's attention," said Thea.
Given that it looked unsafe to use I decided to hand it over knowing the Ad-Mech would keep it, but that I could also get something in return later on.
"Let's move on," I said.
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