The Anatomy of Melancholy, 92: AEGIS
Table of Contents Third Instar, Chapter 23. Go to previous. Go to next. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming. Appreciate your patience and continued readership. Been having a lot of real life turmoil in the past few months.
This concludes the set of four achronological chapters, which I've termed the "Lockreed Tetralogy." I structured them in such a way that they're sorted into four chapters by theme and relevance, to emulate a sense of "disk repair scan," but if you would also like to read them in chronological order, I have made a Neocities page for it here. I think trying to format it as it appears in HTML, through Tumblr, has taken a year off my life.
It feels ironic that the fourth chapter doesn't have much in the way of content warnings. There's some vague eldritch fuckery afoot, and a bit of memory glitching. Hopefully not too bad.
----------------------------------------
"Aegis-bearing Zeus has a design for each occasion, and mortals find this hard to comprehend." — Hesiod's Theogeny
----------------------------------------
Data integrity recovery... 99%... Please do not power off your system.
----------------------------------------
January 5, 2288
The terminal bonks at 'Choly, to inform him he's used up all his tries for the hour. He's locked out. Again. He slouches and massages his nose bridge behind his glasses.
This would be so much easier if I could get my Pip-Boy working again... and if I had a decryption holotape for it.
Breaking windows isn't an option now that they've solved the building brownout, but the odds of this current trick working are still far higher, he thinks, now that they've restored full power. They just have to remember not to touch the exposed wiring in any security glass Sticks has already shattered.
Despite resistance logging into the admin's terminal at the reception desk, he remains confident that it is crucial to programming his ribbon rack and Lt. Creeley's. He found the required peripheral equipment in a drawer the other day, and a personnel management software manual remains among the reference texts on the desk. He's been at it going on two weeks, without hacking script at his disposal, and nothing at the reception desk seems to point to any clues.
If only the admin were so negligent to have written down the password and tucked it unceremoniously in the desk, or in any of the folders or books.
He sucks a Mentat and skims the desktop again anyway. When he started coming down here to get into the terminal, he would bring his gauss homework with him, but bouncing between failure and rejection is wearing on him more than he can admit. He quickly loses motivation searching the desktop, and lets himself read one of the books to occupy himself for the next hour.
He finds that the orientation text has a unit on the history of this Lockreed site. Maybe it can shed light on the General's interest in this place. Sticks insists she just stole all the robots, but 'Choly knows there's more to it. There's so much more, he swears. There's not any evidence robots have ever been employed here, for starters--there's no storage bays or workbenches, no maintenance equipment, no fuel, no mentions of them in company procedure materials--and the only robot they know is in the building at this given moment is Angel. Understanding just how deep this rabbit trail goes might not solve the primary obstacle that traps them here, but it will still check off a high priority task for them.
So, he reads. His sole taps along the low-pile carpeting, to the faint jazzy tune which saunters the well-lit empty halls of the first floor. The more populated that he learns the world is, the more accustomed to solitude he grows. He's proven he's not as isolated as he thought. All that matters to him is that he's alone by choice.
Interfacing and telemetry prodigies founded the security systems company SysDef in 2052. RobCo negotiated partnership with SysDef, then RobCo bought them in order to procure the patents for their state-of-the-art interfacing protocols. The buyout shifted the company vision: as RobCo Entertainment, they came to script video games. RobCo Entertainment's lavish library could be enjoyed on any RobCo processing system. Thanks to SysDef, that would include the pride of RobCo's Lowell location: the 'Personal Information Processor,' endeared to the world as the Pip-Boy.[2288.01.05-1]
No wonder RobCo devices are compatible with those of so many different companies. The SysDef patent set them a league apart from the rest. Impressed but restless, 'Choly bites through the remaining wafer of Mentat left in his mouth.
His discoveries do substantiate his months of paranoia. It's no secret that RobCo had always partnered heavily with the military, and the military saw special promise in RobCo Entertainment. The federal defense complex orchestrated annexation of the company under their Lockreed Industries. As Lockreed of Nashua, the company resumed full focus on defense systems development. Beyond mention that they had been coding aerospace technologies, the text does not indicate exactly what the military had contracted them to produce for them in the years leading up to the Great War. His only clue is that any questions regarding S.C.Y.T.H.E. Program projects must be routed through the director.
'Choly recalls the crates of ballistics fiber at Boott Mills were labeled S.C.Y.T.H.E. property, too.[2288.01.05-2]
"I really wish I knew what that stood for, damn it."
----------------------------------------
February 4, 2288
A terminal with an unburnt screen.
'Choly sits down at a cubicle in an office on an upper floor. He's been wandering a wider path researching the military documentation in the building ever since Sticks began making trips outside. Despite the degree of preservation throughout the premises, because something seems to have prevented the screensaver script on many terminals from triggering, centuries of disuse have burned images deep into their screens. The glow bleed on inoperable terminals, he imagines, resembles what it must be like to stare into the sun.
He hopes he's not Icarus.
It doesn't take long for him to ascertain that whoever once occupied this desk used its terminal for a diary. It's encrypted by pay grade. He unfurls his Pip-Boy keyprong to attempt his password decryption algorithm. Before he can analyze the possible correct commands among the guesses on the screen, a synchronization between a biometric sensor in the room and his nameplate verifies his identity and O-6 pay grade.
It dismisses the encryption check. He's had no reason to wear his bekesha-tulup indoors, so he's tucked his ribbon rack and nameplate into the small pocket in his Vault Suit's lining. Still, he would have expected secure terminals to require more than his physical presence to access them, but he supposes it's not too unlike a unique fingerprint, if the building's biometrics are as advanced as he suspects. He leans into the keyboard and favors proximity to the screen such that he can remove his glasses.
Delight flushes over any possible terror, to recognize the last active user of this terminal was Olivia Francis, then designated Major General.
April 12 2096
I knew this moment would come, but here I am. I may have set up here as a contingency because it was the next nearest secure military property, but there's a very real possibility its SCYTHE products could be the key to reclaiming Deenwood. I'll stay here a few weeks to get a head start on my research before heading to the mall to regroup.
He cannot imagine what enemy hand could accomplish the feat of seizing Deenwood. He squirms, and smiles knowing from history that their occupation was temporary.
April 30 2096
I resent that the... tests disfigured me, but resembling what the locals call a 'ghoul' has afforded me some degree of anonymity. I couldn't clear my head and instead shifted gears during my stay at the settlement that's sprung up inside the local shopping mall. It's my understanding that all Lockreed employees who survived Great War Day relocated at this 'Ant Lane.' They've integrated well enough that they've given me trouble tracking them down to question, but some still haven't broken the habit of wearing their Pip-Boys in public. I've found a lower-rung developer already. This Ken Luther knows nothing about AEGIS, remembers nothing notable about his tenure, and doesn't grasp why a scavenger would have much interest in a video game facility. Locating Brock Taskerlands would probably solve all my problems. For how hot he was to procure the property, he has to have known what he was buying into, but I need to continue under the likelihood that only his legacy lingers here.
After my stay, I know now what I must do. What I need is locked inside the mall, and the key to freeing it IS here.
He sits for some time. He rereads the entry trying to jog his memory of those names. Surely, he reassures himself, she had not set in motion the events which transpired last October. This couldn't have anything to do with the granite, or the fungus, or the hypnagogic chroma shifts, or the widespread acute memory damage.
He curses under his breath in a healthy mix of English and Russian. The idea that the General believed Taskerlands was actually remarkable ruffles him a great deal. Eventually, he jots some notes... Luther, Taskerlands, AEGIS... underscores Taskerlands, overwrites the name time and again with a strained gurn... and continues.
May 18 2096
At least one AEGIS technician survived the War, but she's since passed away. This Marion Rigley seems to have kept her classified training confidential and has shared only the most rudimentary repair methods. It's unthinkable that she couldn't recognize that her proprietary knowledge would prove invaluable in maintaining one of the largest and most effective bomb shelters on the Eastern Coast. Maybe she didn't believe Ant Lane would need to exist as a community much longer, and held onto the misguided idealism that the United States she knew might one day return to its glory days. Maybe she thought similar threats to human life have ceased to exist in this post-nuclear tapestry. Or maybe she knew that with an intimate familiarity with the system comes the capacity to abuse it. The irony almost stings.
June 9 2096
After speaking with some of the locals who maintain Ant Lane's walls, I convinced the Hall to let me look around their maintenance closet, under the guise that I wanted to know what sort of components to scavenge for repairs. They believe I'm interested in learning how to maintain the building. Beyond a doubt they have no knowledge whatsoever of the existence of a mainframe hidden somewhere on the property. I need to be more cautious because this is feeling a little too easy.
June 26 2096
The Lane is one Protectron lighter. No one noticed it wandered outside, and no one noticed it rejoined me one block away. I've proven I don't need access to the STAR Control mainframe to hack AEGIS. The robot will accompany me in a few days. I'll tell them that I found it and felt obligated to return it. When it rejoins the anechoic grid, it will transmit a Trojan frequency to the other robotics on site. It's a shame that STAR parameters only function within architectural boundaries designed for it. Otherwise, I might be able to conscript more robots than just these thirty Protectrons. Finally getting somewhere.
July 1 2096
The Hall let me keep the Protectron, which I've named Helen. They consider her defective since she was able to get outside the mall. I brought their attention to the reality that the robots on site have not undergone maintenance in twenty years, and they asked me if I couldn't take a look. I didn't expect to be able to freely repair and upgrade them prior to commandeering them. They've got me on robotics duty now. My plan exceeds my expectations already.
She's very efficient. It's sublime to finally have a robot of my own, after being surrounded by colleagues for decades whom the government legally required to have them. Even if she doesn't survive this scheme in one piece, I wholly intend to rebuild her. She's the beginning of something I hold dear.
July 24 2096
It's done. I tested the Trojan sequence. When interrogated on whether I tampered with the Protectrons, I underscored that I have nothing but the vitality of the Lane at heart. They blamed my repair work for the casualties, though no one could explain how the Protectrons and turrets all went haywire at once. Only steel and copper can reclaim Deenwood now. My efforts will nevertheless prevent needless slaughter at the hands of army traitors. The Court ruled it manslaughter, and motioned to dismiss all robots from the premises. I never met any of the Aldermen, but I'm thrilled they unwittingly ruled in my favor. When I told the Hall I would ensure total robot removal without further casualty, they decided that my guarantee outweighed taking my life. Some of the guards figured the robots would do me in either way. Going forward, they'll emphasize reliance on their security guards. I wish them all the luck.
Now that I have my reserve troops stationed inside Lockreed, I can uninstall the fabricated programming dysfunction, and convert the Trojan to my customized STAR parameters. I've been able to control Helen remotely. I'll be able to rein the others.
Those Academy of Liberty bastards won't know what hit them.
As expected, these diary entries raise more questions than they answer. When he tries to copy the entries to the JBD in his holotape deck, a permissions error bonks at him. The read function is locked behind an O-6 pay grade, but the write function is locked behind a confidentiality of O-8 or higher. He slaps the side of the terminal case, then pretends he's kidding. He smiles into himself as he retracts his key-prong.
It's fine. If he can't take the terminal's data to his current workspace, he'll take his current workspace to this terminal. This office desk boasts much more desk space than the cubicle downstairs anyway. And if he needs to, next time he can transcribe the entries himself manually.
But what did it all mean?
On his way back downstairs, he can't help but chuckle in a secondhand nostalgia regarding the humble beginnings of Helen's AI signature.[2288.02.04-1]
What other models has the General loaded her into? At what point did she become an Assaultron? His smile fades, but his spirit persists. What will her next model be?
He shakes his head with a tut and smirk.
"Of course See's is her fault. Of course it is."[2288.02.04-2]
He giggles and chuffs intermittently for hours, that the Lane likely never saw what its appointed squad of robots could have done drowning in the electromagnetic distortions of a postwar nor'easter... and that the General very likely never knew that she spared the Lane that tragedy by having rigged a smaller scale fake malfunction of her own.
----------------------------------------
February 15, 2288
"I do hope you're finding what you're looking for here, Sir."
Angel tidies the space it has tidied three times already. It whistles as it whisks its feather-bare duster at the spotless shelves of the director's office.
"You know that I had to be certain we wouldn't set off the security systems by coming up here."
Seated at the desk, 'Choly paces the menus on its terminal. For some time, he chews at a pencil bridled between his teeth, and says nothing further.
"Here. Fucking fuck, I've got it." He removes his glasses and rubs at his eyes, then rereads the most recent of several entries. "The S.C.Y.T.H.E. Program outline for this site is all here. All this time I was expecting it entailed a product, but their project was... Fuck. Ant Lane was a military experiment. Listen to this. The director kept drafts of sales pitches, and mental notes of investors."
Pheasant Lane Mall, our most ambitious phase of the STAR Control program, showcases the versatility of our STAR Cores. The property's highly specialized proprietary AEGIS wiring, which provides the above ground vault with an interior secure of all electromagnetic radiation, incorporates twenty STAR Cores. AEGIS in this way blocks external radio frequencies, including EMPs and ionizing radiation, while still providing internal management of all RobCo robotics on site. Thirty Protectrons and fifty-three turrets guard Pheasant Lane. The mall's supervisor has total and simultaneous control of all robots within the boundaries of the mall, all with the convenience and ease of a RobCo mainframe.
Its position straddling the NH-MA state line was not just a strategy of finance but also one of function. Ideally, the convenient location will create opportunities for many to frequent the property. We hope its lavish amenities make it feel like a second home to locals and tourists alike.
"And another. This one's dated 2071."
Due to the high production costs of AEGIS infrastructure, it's been a decade since the completion of Pheasant Lane, and it's still the only standing testament to its virtues. Military interest in STAR Control got us bought into the Lockreed market, and it's kept us going in recent years thanks to S.C.Y.T.H.E. And now, we can applaud John-Caleb Bradberton's sizable investment in implementing yet another illustrious demonstration of STAR Control excellence, by contracting us in the development and erection of the Galactic Zone park in Nuka-World.[2288.02.15-1] Needless to say, as inheritors of the RobCo Entertainment headquarters, we have been quite delighted to see the space themed entertainment park outfitted with dozens of opportunities for visitors to engage with RobCo Games properties. However, the park development committee opted to bring in Vault-Tec in a multi-corporation collaborative decision, and while showcasing cohabitation of multiple big name brands at Nuka-World, it's also a glaring commentary on the failure of AEGIS as a vault technology, as AEGIS-based vaults make no appearance on its roster.
Securing steady funding wouldn't be such a struggle if the only thing that has kept House's interest in us was the SysDef interfacing protocols. He's been investing more and more in private sectors over his military holdings. It's why Lockreed got its hands on the company so easily. My Intel tells me his business habits have been seeming more and more like unhinged hobbies, but they can never seem to spit out what they mean.[2288.02.15-2]
Perhaps Bradberton's investment in STAR Control will inspire further investors going forward. After all, our telemetry doesn't require the costly AEGIS infrastructure.[2288.02.15-3] Drawing in investors like Bradberton will not only improve popular opinion of the military's advancements, but will fund them for decades. To say he's pleased with the Galactic Zone is an understatement. He's reached out to me regarding any other highly proprietary military technologies with which he could be permitted to outfit his park. I contacted Col. Nelson about it, and he's told me to direct him to some bigwig, Gen. Braxton. Mentioned something bigger than the S.C.Y.T.H.E. Program, too. Bradberton is among the world's wealthiest. I can only imagine what Nelson's offhand remark must mean the eccentric inventor's buying into next.[2288.02.15-4]
It's least of many evils, between House, Taskerlands[2288.02.15-5], and Bradberton. If only I could get inside the head of a billionaire. Do you go crazy with that much money, or does it take being crazy to earn it?
He falls quiet again as he engrosses himself in the documents, a majority of which bear timestamps dating between 2054 and 2062. He recalls that Sacristan Haidinger suggested Vault-Tec had nothing to do with Pheasant Lane Mall's value as a bomb shelter, and these archives confirm that the two companies never communicated or collaborated regarding the site. The government's Project Safehouse, most well known for spearheading Vault-Tec's construction of the majority of the nation's bomb shelters, had also commissioned independent contractors to try a varied civilian-oriented approach to national defense. (For example, Pulowski Shelters spring to mind.)
Several documents indicate that when the military lost interest in the financial viability of constructing subsequent structures like Pheasant Lane, interest still lingered in repurposing STAR Cores elsewhere. The biggest contract for them shows that Lockreed supplied Nuka-World with thirty-five STAR Cores, to control a large and diverse reserve of fully outfitted RobCo and General Atomics military grade robotics.
The thirty Protectrons and fifty-three turrets still bewilder 'Choly. If everything in the General's terminal entries is accurate, the Lane had to determine the source of the earliest true AEGIS malfunction, restore it, and continue fully and knowingly protected. When had the first electromagnetic nor'easter ravaged the East Coast, and put this AEGIS system to the test? Yet, even if these AEGIS bugs do get repaired, he can appreciate how the biological effects of such a storm precipitate such entrenched local superstitions.
Any science Sutter Grove commands is likely reverse engineered at best. He's neither a programmer nor an engineer, and can't do much more than augment their knowledge base going forward. Have the Lane's inhabitants ever truly known why or how the building protects them? He's not confident he can adequately explain to the Lane exactly what such things represent, but he knows with unwavering certainty that the survival of Ant Lane depends on its ability to withstand harsh magnetic weather conditions. Although at heart its inhabitants have largely reduced its architectural aegis to ghosts and shadows, Ant Lane owes its very existence to overwhelmingly advanced technological engineering.
Angel stops its cleaning routine to check on its owner.
"Chin up, Sir. It can't be all bad," the Mister Handy says. "I'm not sure I follow most of what you've just read aloud, but surely there's some kind of silver lining in it all. Some information that makes your trouble getting into this office worthwhile? Mmh?"
He glances up at Angel with an uptick of purpose.
"More of a lead lining. Or copper? Copper lining? Fuck, there's got to be hundreds of tons of copper in that place. I don't follow much of what's detailed here, either, but some of Sutter Grove's electricians might. We'll take them everything we can. Spare parts and all."
There's got to be surplus components here. STAR Cores, the redundant components of Systemized Telemetry for Automated Robot Control, routed through the architectural multi-layered cousin of the Faraday cage AEGIS, the AnEchoic Gridwork Integrated Shield.
He snaps his fingers, and swivels in his seat to push himself up with his cane. Like the one the General had used to pen her entries regarding the Academy of Liberty, this terminal is also write-protected. He'll return to it as needed, to transcribe it and transfer its data somewhere he can print out everything.
He stops and frowns. The orientation booklet. The onboarding manual. If any of the texts he's found here have indicated anything regarding the STAR Control trained specialists, STAR Cores, or AEGIS, he would know it by now. Surely he's simply overlooking something profound in plain sight.
Of course, he reminds himself, the onboarding book is just an entry level training manual. STAR Control and AEGIS must be among the most sophisticated projects this Lockreed ever worked on. Their finer workings eluded a polymath like the General for an entire summer to the point she was tracking down the masterminds behind it all.
"Maybe there's a manual here for AEGIS training," he tells himself, and commences browsing the shelves Angel has just finished dusting for the fifth time today. "Or at the very least, a layout of where they manufactured STAR Cores."
"That's the spirit! Shall I help you look?"
Getting a reply where he expected none shakes him from inside his own head just a bit. He glances up with a pleasant startled thoughtfulness.
"Yes. Thank you."
"But of course!" After a while, it comments, "It's been so delightfully quiet since we've been here in New Hampshire, you know. Just the three of us. None of those pesky voices. So much easier to focus on my housekeeping."
'Choly stops and stares off into the corner. His voice cracks.
"Angel, clarify."
"The voices? Oh, they've been bouncing around in my receiver wiring since sometime in Lowell, I'd estimate. I couldn't tell you exactly when they stopped, but I've felt haywire since long before the damage you've told me I suffered recently."
"The laser attachment." His eyes dull as his head turns to his companion. His gaze falls past it. "We removed all your attachments when we entered Ant Lane."
"So that's where it's all gone!" Angel exclaims, with the levity of mere inconvenience. "I just knew I had attachments! Oh, I pray my service is still satisfactory to you, lacking them, Mister Sir. Should I fetch them so we can reattach them, or shall we continue with the brass tacks?"
He sees red. If her tampering extends beyond having modified Angel's tendril laser, there's no other explanation in his mind than that she tried to power it on during the storm... and that she's thus responsible for Angel suffering gauss damage. He can't cry.
"Moy Angel, you're you no matter what equips you."
"And you're you, no matter your equipment." Angel's chuckle fades out in a glitched static. "Remind me again what we're here for, if you could, Sir."
A smile cracks his haunted veneer.
"Sometimes you're more human than you think."
"Not as much of a compliment as one might think."
He wipes the smile off his face, only to grin and resume searching the shelves.
"Ни фига себе..."[2288.02.15-6]
"Well! No need to curse about it."
"This whole thing. Every turn leaves me speechless. Even you." He grips a book spine. "Perhaps I misspoke. You're complex, in a way humans can be. Complex, tragic, laughable."
"I'm complex in a way machinery can be. Complicated and unpredictable."[2288.02.15-7]
"Never change."
----------------------------------------
January 5, 2288
'Choly looks up from the book to check the countdown timer on the terminal. Three minutes left. He hems and drums his pencil on the steno he's been using to track the possible ten letter passwords he's already tried.
The General must think she's General of the entire US Army, having survived all other known officers. Maybe it's as simple as some presumption that she owns the rights to anything the Army claimed. He hopes it's that simple. She doesn't strike him as the type to binge Grognak & the Ruby Ruins.
His mind drifts, and his eyes trace over the individual letters. Something clicks about the dots and crosses and natural spacing of his handwriting. It may have been nine months ago, but he still remembers just enough of the method he applied to hack Eleanor's terminal in Lexington. The markup of the encryption is one means of finding the password. He's thrown blind guesses at it all this time. It takes a bit for him to jog his memory how to coax the terminal to display that formatting, but once it spills across the screen, he needs only heed the punctuation to determine the answer. Subjectify.
[Server connection severed. Contact an Administrator if the problem persists.]
He hopes he doesn't need an uplink in order to gain access to the nametag application. At least if he does, this is an administrative terminal, so he shouldn't need to stray far from where he sits at the first floor lobby. He plucks around the terminal to get a feel for how this administrator kept his desk. The admin's daily life doesn't concern him, but his curiosity distracts him enough from his immediate task that he still takes a glance at the inbox. Even if snooping doesn't yield anything, reading the admin's various correspondences still seems interesting.
He opens messages that appear high profile, but they're vague at best. Eventually, he doubles back to a shrink of messages with a long chain of back and forth. Most of it is between the admin and the director. He skims to get the gist, and cuts to the height of the drama.
I've told you once, and I'll tell you a dozen times: don't accept his creepy gifts, and don't entertain him! It's not our problem anymore, and we're not beholden to disclose confidential documents to a civilian, no matter how much money he paid for an old SysDef property. If he breaks it by modifying it, that's his problem. He comes in again, you call security. Please take your job seriously.
---
Sir, I accept responsibility for the storm I ruffled. Know that I take my position very seriously. It's just that I figured, if he bought the property, maybe the developers would be keen on helping him? It seemed like a possible avenue to garner his continued investment in Lockreed. I won't make the same mistake again.
I hope you enjoy your vacation next week.
---
As the admin, you have access to accounting files. As the admin, you don't have the authority or credentials to make decisions based on that data.
If the board needed your input on investors, you'd be looped into board meetings.
Lockreed has concluded involvement with Taskerlands. We will no longer be doing business with him in the future, not even on prior purchases. Do not let him in the building again, or YOU will not be let in the building again. Do I make myself clear?
The thread ends here, but an asterisk indicates that a reply sits in the admin's drafts:
Sir, I know this week's misstep with Mr. Taskerlands reflects poorly on my skills, but I assure you that going forward, I will prove myself to the board. My desk may not be the brains of this company, but I am its uncanny eyes and ears, and I hear just about everything. I know better than most
'Choly wonders if the admin was cruising for a promotion or simply clawing to keep his job. He muses over the ancient office drama while he gets to work fiddling with Lt. Creeley's RFID nametag. He grabs the personnel software manual, and roots through the admin's desk for the peripheral equipment required to use it. His hand sets upon something cold and sobering.
Instead of producing the name tag cradle, he pulls from the back of the drawer a potato sized bronze paperweight. He wishes he didn't recognize the features of the metal mask. A gift tag still dangles from a thin twine around it, in a crude indelicate script: A gift from the Aldermen, to Lockreed's sharpest and brightest.
He forbids himself from reacting. He returns it to the drawer, and shuts it rigidly when he cannot shut it calmly. He has work to do.
He searches the next drawer down for the RFID cradle, and finds it. Once he plugs it in, he instructs the terminal to scan for it, then dives into the script. Maybe he's just spent an alarming amount of time in recent months immersed in programming literature, but the application is surprisingly straightforward, and reprogramming its identity data for its new owner is a breeze. He notes that the script suggests the lieutenant's name was Maria Greeley, and inspects the tag where it sits in the cradle with a skewed expression. He removes his glasses and picks at the engraved lettering with the tip of his pencil. A fleck of debris dislodges from the engraved letter, demonstrating it is in fact a G, not a C.
Because the server is inaccessible, and because he and Sticks are the only living humanoids present in the building, he can isolate the building's biometrics and indicate which of the two he wants the nametag to define as Maria Greeley.[2288.01.05-3] The RFID cradle has a deck for engraving, but he has no blanks to use to make one that says Sticks on it. He hopes the ghoul won't mind what the physical tag says, as long as its digital programming works.
If they stay much longer, he'll consider snooping around for their office supply closet to locate some. But if it works, they shouldn't have to bother.
It's going to work.
Next, he has his own name tag with him. His ease altering Greeley's tag suggests that Lockreed likely developed this personnel name tag system for all military applications, not just corporate military sites such as this. Greeley wasn't stationed at Deenwood, as far as he can tell, but the tag's similarity to his own suggests even these are about as military issue as it gets. When he loads the script contained in his tag, he must sit back and read it time and again. There's something wrong about it. He's no sophisticated programmer, but between the script he just edited on the other name tag and the script instructions in front of him in the software manual, he can clearly discern entire lines of script that set apart his name tag from the lieutenant's.
"Olivia altered it." He sits back in his chair and chews on his pencil. "When she promoted me to colonel, she didn't just edit my ribbon rack and devices: she... tampered with it."
He's nervous to alter any of the script, lest it bungle his ability to regain access to Deenwood. He sits up and rolls his eyes at himself before poising over the keyboard once again.
That's ridiculous. Why does it matter if I hypothetically ever step foot on base again, if I can't even step foot out of this building? The system won't accept an ID that looks hacked.
Before deleting any lines of script, or changing any parameters or variables, he flips to a new page in his steno and writes down the entire code. It's not that many lines, fortunately, but just like a misplaced comma or unclosed parenthesis, whatever the General added doesn't look like it belongs.
He edits the code to resemble Greeley's as closely as possible, retaining his own name, biometric signature, and credentials, and ejects his tag. Within minutes, he hears the sibilant click of pneumatic locks opening all down the halls.
He shivers.
"Why am I usually only right when that's a bad thing?"
She's been their warden all along, intentionally or otherwise. But she couldn't have known they would end up here. They're here by a fluke of getting lost in the ice Fog. She couldn't have intended that they get locked inside due to a technicality of her code meddling. And yet, with the subtlety and sleight of mind the woman commands, he can expect no better explanation.
At least she was so kind as to stock a season's worth of MREs.
Go to Next »»»
----------------------------------------
[2288.01.05-1] Lockreed of Nashua. The history of this company is based off the historical Sanders Associates. Sanders Associates started as contractor of defense technologies. One of their engineers, Ralph H. Baer, developed the first video game as a side project, for which they partnered with Magnavox to produce. Their console was the Magnavox Odyssey. Eventually Lockheed Martin bought Sanders. Currently BAE Systems owns the property.
[2288.01.05-2] The S.C.Y.T.H.E. Program is mentioned in Fallout 4. In the years leading up to the Great War, the US military contracted existing civilian manufacturing facilities to produce army resources to reduce the time and funds building new factories. There are several such companies mentioned, but the acronym's definition is yet unknown, and it's unknown the full scope of contracts belonging to the project.
[2288.01.05-3] Greeley. Maria shares a surname with the protagonist and programming specialist of The Stone Tape, Jill Greeley. They both met their demise as a consequence of their indefatigable investigations.
[2288.02.04-1] The Assaultron Helen is named after Helen of Troy. One, a major factor to the Battle of Lowell does amount to Olivia and Laverne fighting over Helen, though they both have their notions as to why she's the perfect companion. Two, Olivia first stole her by exploiting Ant Lane's security systems via a Trojan virus.
[2288.02.04-2] See's assault rifles. Olivia may have removed the robots from Ant Lane, but the mall's security and maintenance crew were tasked with the turrets' removal. Turrets in Fallout typically take 5.56 bullets. The assault rifle is See's guards' most used weapon because the bullets would exist in surplus for decades after the 2096 incident. Some higher ranking guards have firearms with converted 5.56 receivers as well for this reason.
[2288.02.15-1] Nuka-World's Galactic Zone employs STAR Control telemetry to manage the operation of military grade robotics for entertainment display. These redundant components must exist in a certain quantity within the system in order to be capable of broadcasting a strong enough frequency to secure access.
[2288.02.15-2] Robert House, the owner of RobCo and all its subsidiaries, began investing in private sectors in the years leading up to the Great War. In Fallout New Vegas, it becomes known that two such high priority ventures for him were ensuring his effective immortality through development of a stasis chamber, and the development of the Platinum Chip with its capacity to control a fleet of Securitron robots. He sought to prevent the nuclear exchange altogether, but ironically a direct nuclear hit on Las Vegas on October 23rd prevented the delivery of that command chip.
[2288.02.15-3] In the Anatomy continuity, Ant Lane was the prototype for STAR Core telemetry modules. In practice, it was proven that a majority of what made the system so costly was AEGIS itself, and that STAR Cores are functionally independent of that infrastructure. Untethered from the problem child, Lockreed would go on to effortlessly produce STAR Cores for the military through the S.C.Y.T.H.E. Program. Bradberton would later furnish a contract to procure enough to furnish the Galactic Zone.
[2288.02.15-4] John-Caleb Bradberton colluded with high ranking military, bartering for confidential technologies both with his wealth and with his own inventions. Nuka-Cola produced several confidential military products, and the partnership promised a front-facing public image which would bolster popular opinion of both the soda and the army. He managed to convince Gen. Braxton to permit his inclusion in the incredibly top secret Project Cobalt, which, in kind with House's ideologies, turned out of be another effective immortality technology.
[2288.02.15-5] Brock Taskerlands is a portmanteau of both the property owner and project manager from The Stone Tape. Although his only holdings were in Vermont granite quarries and Pheasant Lane Mall, the billionaire was not so unlike the other eccentric investors who had their individual hands in Lockreed of Nashua's various interfacing and telemetry technologies.
[2288.02.15-6] Ни фига себе. Somewhat vulgar, definitely impolite. No kidding, no frigging way, not flipping yourself off.
[2288.02.15-7] 'Choly and Angel are exchanging various quotes from Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions regarding string theory, human nature, and self-determination.
2 notes
·
View notes