Chapter 22

We did get a decent sleep that night. Admittedly, it was after some great loving, but with the way Gwen felt, there wasn’t much else we could do. She wanted to be subservient to all of us, so she took turns giving us all orgasms, and that girl sure could use her tongue. We finally got her in the end, both figuratively and literally, with toys we’d brought up from CIT with us.

And we made Piper squeak again.

The next morning the six of us flew to the airport. Katie wanted the vertibird checked as we’d put considerable stress on the engine, and it was an easy walk from there to the RobCo Sales and Service Center. We didn’t encounter anything while walking there, but it gave us time to discuss strategy and to help educate Gwen about watching rooftops, windows, and always doing what my Dad had taught me, checking our six.

The center of the roof had fallen in. Two counters were set up with terminals on them, but a quick check showed the interiors were mostly destroyed from the elements. We found a safe with some items in it and one terminal that wasn’t damaged we could get some salvage from, anyway. The offices had been ransacked at some point in the past, with everything destroyed in them.

A hallway led to a flight of stairs. I stopped halfway down the hallway. “Okay, that does not belong here.” Everyone else stopped instantly. I heard Piper hiss at Gwen to look behind us, that was her job when we stopped like this, and a muttered, “Oops.”

“A trap on the ceiling? Someone’s been down here, boss.”

“Yep. But what put that up there?” I disarmed it, then found the triggering mechanism and disarmed it as well. We were more careful going down the stairs, but found no more traps. I did find a couple of terminals still working. There were some service requests and notes about customer’s home terminals. But I also found a very odd note. “Deacon, come here and read this. See what you make of it.”

“There will be no tampering with any shipments labeled RB-2581. I believe all employees are aware of what our typical shipments look like. Any so-called accidental opening of these shipments will not be tolerated and result in immediate termination, followed by extensive questioning by our friends downstairs.” He looked at me. “That doesn’t sound like your usual note. And I thought we WERE downstairs.”

“So did I. Spread out, everyone. Now we’re looking for something that doesn’t belong.”

After a couple of minutes, Curie said, “Like this, Mon Cherie?”

“Yeah, that definitely qualifies. What the hell was RobCo doing here? That’s definitely a strange looking device.” I looked around. “Interesting, there’s no terminal. This is obviously the opening mechanism, but no way to open it.”

“Does it have a spot where our Pip-Boys could connect to it?”, Gwen asked.

“No. I wonder if my Pip-Boy can send a signal out to it?” I started typing on my screen. “Huh, there’s a very close-range handshake protocol.” I continued typing on the screen. “Oh, no you don’t. Damn, this takes me back. Military grade ... where are you, little backdoor ... ah, I knew that would come in handy at some point ... right there ... yep, open that file ... and one executive level password I’m not supposed to know ... Open Sesame!”

Piper said, “You’ve said that before, what’s it mean?”

I hit the button on my Pip-Boy. The door in front of me started to open. “It’s from a very old story, ‘Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves’. It’s supposed to be a magic phrase that opens a locked cave.” The door in front of us opened, followed by another door behind it that opened. Followed by a door that resembled a Vault door in the way it opened.

“Shit, I’ve heard about secure facilities, but isn’t this a bit much for doors?”

“Tell me about it, Deacon. Something down here didn’t want to be found.” Once the doors were finally open, there was a short hallway, with another door. This one had a plaque on the side. The plaque read, ‘Robotics Technology Facility RB-2851’. There were two red lights flashing above what looked like a bank vault door. A thick bundle of wires was to one side, with another one of those strange looking devices above the bundle. “And this is why I hit ‘memorize’ on that key sequence.”

I held the Pip-Boy close to the strange device and pushed the button. The Vault door locks retracted, the handle spun, and the door opened smoothly and quietly. Then there were four more doors behind that one that had to retract and otherwise open. The hall led sharply downward, with a series of arches at the end. There were a tremendous number of laser detectors in the archways. Thick glass windows showed two rooms that could watch the hallway, with a door leading into them beyond the arches.

“Ma’am, this looks like a serious attempt to keep intruders out.”

“To a certain extent, James. However, with the doors all responding to the same code for opening them, unless something changes, once you’re in, you’re in.”

There was a crack in one of the walls, before the archways. From the discoloration on the floor and walls, something must have exploded here. I gave a little kick at walls, felt it give just a little. I missed my power armor at this point. “James, Deacon, if you big, strong men, would kick on that wall a couple of times?”

“Boss, you know that doesn’t work too well on us. But let’s see what happens.” Deacon and James gave the walls some good shoves with the bottom of their boots. The crack widened, then fell in. There was enough room for us to go through in single file.

James wouldn’t let me go through; he went first. “It’s clear, ma’am. It looks like there was a hollow spot behind here, no dirt, so the concrete flexed instead of transferring the vibrations. This leads into this control room.”

I was right behind him then. Once I was in the room, he let me take the lead. I saw one small explosive trap set up that I easily disarmed, and that was it. There were switches in here that would turn off the lasers in the archway. I also noticed there were machine gun and laser turrets in the hallway to shoot anything that the archway detected.

“Interesting. There’s a working terminal here. Let’s see what it’s got. What the hell? Epsilon-VI Security alert? Rank 22 Badge? General Rawlings? Okay, what the fuck were we doing here? Let’s see what files I can access. Is there an elevator back there?”

“Yes, ma’am. There’s a terminal here that appears to be working as well.”

I was seriously puzzled. Piper noticed it. “What’s wrong, Tina?”

“What’s upstairs is definitely RobCo. But this? I know I was out for a few months, but this isn’t something that they built overnight. If RobCo had something to do with it, then Mister House knew all about it, years ago. But what bothers me is that these aren’t our codes. Those are General Atomics codes.”

“How do you recognize those?”, she asked.

“Simple. Nate thought that a high security password was to capitalize every other letter in the word, password. You don’t think I’d let them put a robot in a home with my baby and not know absolutely everything there was to know about that machine, do you? I had four backdoors into Codsworth before he ever left the assembly line, since RobCo wrote the software that ran the Mister Handy’s and Miss Nanny’s.”

“Madam, did you make any changes to Codsworth?”, Curie asked. I could tell from her tone that she wasn’t sure she liked what she’d heard.

“Not like you’re thinking. I didn’t adjust his personality at all. Um ... you know those things that we have in our quarters at CIT? I may have programmed into him the ability to use an attachment or two like those. But I removed that when I first found him again in Sanctuary.”

Her voice was quiet. “Did you program me to love you?”

“That would be a definite no. That’s the reason I took that knowledge away from him when I came back and realized he’d become a person in and of himself. It gave me too much control over him. He’s a free person now, just in a metal body. I even asked him if he’d like to have a created body like you, and he said he preferred to stay as he is. You and he, all of you ... you’re my friends, my lovers, my companions.”

Piper leaned over to Curie. “Sweetie, Gwen and I both love you, both love Tina. If you want to be technical, the only programming she’s done on any of us is to simply be her. Nature has done the rest. You know she’s loving, kind, caring.”

“Oui. I am perhaps silly, but I find this whole facility to be disquieting.”

“You’re not the only one. Let me see that elevator terminal.” I pulled up the entries on it. “Hmm ... mass uprising of the robotic janitorial staff? Central Control ... automated lockdown ... Ah, here we go, a failsafe ... three Class-II supervisors. Well, I don’t have that, but let’s see what one RobCo Level Five password does.”

Nothing happened. “Really? How about a RobCo Level Six password and command override?” Nothing happened. “Okay, now you’re just pissing me off. Let me see the source code. What do you mean, access denied? Do you want the biggest gun in my arsenal, the one I’m not supposed to have? Here, chew on Robert House’ password. Yeah, I thought so. There we go. And overwrite the voice codes, just like that.”

“Boss, has anyone told you that you’re scary smart with a computer?”

“Yes, they have. But I’ve tried to keep it hidden. Basically everything I learned was when I was a young girl, and I’ve only refined it ever since then. I think Shaun has the same set of skills I had at his age, which means he’s going to be a terror when he gets a little older. That’s why I started teaching him how to shoot, to distract him. There is a LOT of trouble you can get into, otherwise.”

Gwen laughed. “Speaking from my experience with you, I like that kind of trouble.”

“Good. I need the three of you to come over here and say the words, ‘Open Sesame’, one at a time.” They looked at me like I was off in the head. “No, I’m serious. The code requires three different voices to say a key phrase. I couldn’t change that. I could change the key phrase, and make it so it thinks each of those voices is a supervisor.”

Piper glared at me, but walked up to the terminal. I pushed the button so when she spoke, the computer would hear her words. Curie was next, then Gwen. With that, the elevator light came on, indicating power.

Piper whispered in my ear, “At least you kept it clean.”

I whispered back, “I thought about having you say something dirty, but the way Curie is such an innocent at times, making her say out loud, ‘I like to lick Tina’s clit’, would be a little much.”

Piper laughed loudly at that. “Even though it is true, we would NOT have said that.”

We loaded onto the elevator, then pushed the button leading down. The elevator ride wasn’t nearly as long as the one below Mass Fusion. The hallway the door opened on was similar in construction to many of the underground facilities we’d been in before. I could hear some noise coming from the end of the hallway, around a corner. I made sure we were in quiet mode as we crept down the hall.

From around the corner, it sounded like a bunch of people were typing on keyboards, all at the same time, like in a busy office. I heard a single voice, it sounded like a young woman. “What’s going on, Sparks?” There were some varying whistles. “What do you mean, the outside doors opened, but none of our bots came in? How could anyone open the door without an M-Sat?” More whistles. “Overrides. From who?”

I stepped around the corner, weapon at the ready. “Me.” I was not ready for what I saw in the room. “Okay, why are you dressed up like the Mechanist?”

She gasped. “You bypassed the pinnacle of pre-war security systems. I can see you’re no common criminal. Perhaps we can reason this out.”

“Criminal? Not hardly, lady. I’m General Tina Wilson, Commonwealth Minutemen and the Governor of the Commonwealth of New England States.”

“But ... but ... I’ve been working so hard, to get my bots ready to help everyone. There aren’t any Minutemen left, no government. How... ?”

I took a moment to look around. There were people typing at controls, sort of. They were robot bodies, working at keyboards. With what looked like human brains inside clear compartments on top. “My God, what have you done in here to these people?”

“Huh? Oh, no, no, you don’t understand! I didn’t make these. They were already here, just shut down, when I found this place. Look, I’m ... I’m not good with people. I’m good with machines, like Sparks here. The Commonwealth needs help. I’ve taken the machines that I found here, adapted them so they can help. There’s a whole factory here, all sorts of facilities, for making robots of all kinds. I can use them to kill Raiders, to help people!”

I shook my head. “You’re a little late. As much as I appreciate the help, there’s no need for it. We’ve already cleared everything north and west of the Charles of Raiders, super mutants, and feral ghouls. Maybe two more weeks and we’ll have everything south of the Charles cleared. But ... you didn’t answer my question. Why the Mechanist outfit?”

“Oh. Right.” She took her helmet off. “I’m Isabel. Isabel Cruz. I sort of picked up the idea for the suit from the old comics and radio show. The Mechanist had an army of robots for evil. I thought I could use an army of robots for good, you see. I’ve found old robot workbenches down here, lots of parts. I set up programs so that there’d be one robobrain with each group of robots, to help direct them.”

Curie was examining the brains in their cases. “Madam, these date to before the war.”

Isabel nodded. “Yes. I found some notes, the scientists were working with the military to take the brains from convicted prisoners, reprogram them, so they could run robots and fight the Chinese. I found a way to wipe the brains, program them to help people however they could, and kill Raiders. I was planning on sending my first batch out later this week.”

Piper asked, “Is that even ethical? Not only are you using human brains, but you’re wiping them, too?”

Isabel shrugged. “Why waste a resource that someone died for? It’s a skewed outlook, but it gives that life meaning.” She thought for a second. “Potentially, over 200 years in preservation may have made them more susceptible to corruption. But this was, and is, breakthrough science, a huge advance for robotics!”

“Possibly, yes. Let me see your program, the one you wrote so they would help.”

“Ah, you know programming? Certainly, you must, otherwise how else could you have bypassed everything. Here, look here.” She turned and pulled up a program.

I started scanning through it. Her coding was impeccable, each section, each decision tree. I could see a need for robots to help, just as the former Children of Atom who had an inherent resistance or immunity to radiation to help. I kept going, nodding as I let each tree work out. This is good ... wait. Oh, shit.

“Isabel, you’re the third best programmer I know. This is elegant code, well written, nicely documented, fatally flawed.”

“Thank you, I ... what? Flawed? Where?”

“Look at this logic tree. Let me input some variables here. Now, watch this play out.”

She stared. “Oh, my God! The robots could decide that the best way to help someone was to kill them? How did I make this error?” The eyebot that she called Sparks came over, bleeped a bit, then scanned the code itself. It bleeped and beeped in concern.

“You’re right, Sparks. It IS flawed. If we’d released the robots, they wouldn’t just go and kill Raiders, they’d kill ... anyone they encountered.” She shook her head, then went to a different terminal, inputting a command there. I heard several clangs, as doors in the outer room opened. “I’ve shut down the security systems, the facility is yours.”

“I’m concerned about one thing. You said earlier that the doors opened, but none of the bots came in. How many robots do you have out in the Commonwealth now?”

“Oh. Um, four. They’re all eyebots, similar to Sparks. I sent them out to scan the Commonwealth, is all. That way I’d have an idea when they came back of where to send the robobrain and the companions for it. They were programmed to find concentrations of Raiders or super mutants and come back after a week. That’s why I was wondering what was going on, the first of them isn’t due back until tomorrow.”

“Let me see what I can find on this terminal of yours, please.”

“Oh, sure. Um, you said I’m the third best programmer?”

“Yes. My son is second best. Isabel, I’ve been programming since before I was ten years old. Just for your information, I’m also more than 200 years old, too. I was in a cryogenic facility during the war. That’s why I know how to penetrate your security. I’m one of the senior RobCo staff.”

“Oh. That makes me feel better, I think. Although from what I’ve seen, while this place is under a RobCo building, it was all General Atomics and the US military.”

“Mostly military. Damn!” I was using her login to check some things, “Oh, I recognize that name. You prick, you were writing code for General Atomics to do this, eh? And look here, what a shock. Piper, would you care to guess which pre-war company was ALSO involved in this little operation?”

“Let’s see, if I have three guesses, then I’d go with Vault-Tec, Vault-Tec, or maybe go out on a limb, and say, Vault-Tec,” she said.

“Congratulations, you win getting squeaked later. Isabel ... um ... I’m sorry, but in the interests of the Commonwealth, I’m not letting any of your robots out of here. Not with this programming in them.”

She looked sad, but nodded. “I understand. It’s just too dangerous. Damn. I’ve got more than thirty groups all ready to go, too. Now what, do I just scrap them?”

Curie said, “Madam, could they be re-purposed? Just as a Mister Handy could be made into a Nurse Handy? Something where they could be useful, but not dangerous?”

Deacon and I looked at each other, and at the same time, said, “Supply lines!”

Gwen applauded. “Perfect! That’d free up who knows how much manpower that we’re using now.”

Sparks made a whistle. “No, I don’t know what they mean, either,” Isabel said.

“Look, we’ve doing major rebuilding and recycling. I don’t know if you know what a Vault-Tec workstation is or not...”

She interrupted me. “There’s one downstairs. It’s how I get materials for the robot workbenches to work.”

“You have a working terminal?”

“The robot workbenches have terminals on them, and they’re able to communicate with the workstation.”

I nodded, a grin on my face. “Then, Isabel, your robot army will still be able to help. We have probably a dozen or more workstations at different locations, where we’re scrapping and making materials to help rebuild. It’s labor intensive for the traders from Bunker Hill to go around to each spot. And they’re limited, because they’re also carrying trade goods. We’re using vertibirds right now for some basic material loads, but again, we’re limited in capacity. If we had a robot with the strength of a sentry bot, but with something like a truck bed or cart behind it, that could carry hundreds of pounds of materials between the communities. They could also carry things to be salvaged from inside buildings to a workstation themselves.”

I glanced at my Pip-Boy. “We have, oh, about four hours before we have to get back up topside. Isabel, have you actually gone through the whole facility itself?”

“Um, actually, not all of it. I’ve been through most of the manufacturing sections, got some of the brains from their storage locations and such. There’s one section that I avoided, it has ghouls in it,” she explained.

I sighed.

Deacon said, “Boss, don’t worry about it. You can’t be in two places at once. We’ll take Miss Isabel here with us, so she can show us the rooms and such. I know it may offend you, we’ll use more ammunition than you will, but I think we can handle it.”

I looked at each of my wives. Piper and Curie were quite calm. Gwen wasn’t as calm, but I could see her eyes shining with eagerness. “No chances. If you run into anything, and I mean ANYTHING, that you think is too difficult, no heroism. This isn’t Alaska, where it was stand and die because running away wasn’t an option.” That calmed her down a bit.

James came over to me. “I’m supposed to be YOUR bodyguard. Don’t worry, ma’am. Deacon and I know what we’re doing.”

“We do? Oh, I suppose so. Come on, Isabel, give us the guided tour,” Deacon said.

Isabel hit a button, which opened a door and lowered a ramp so they could go down to the main floor. She and Sparks led the way down the ramp. I watched them as she led them through one of the security doors that was now open. After they were out of sight, I said to myself, “Okay, this isn’t creepy at all, being in a room full of computers that are being operated by disembodied brains. Well, shit. Let’s see what I can do.”

I sat down at the terminal, looking through the code that was written, as well as the way things could be made. I could control the robot workbench in the room downstairs from here. And ... there, I could also control the robots she’d already made. Time to dig in.

I jumped when I felt someone grab my shoulder. “What the...”

“Damn, boss, you weren’t kidding when you said you could get into programming.”

I looked around. “Oh. How long have you been back?”

Gwen glanced at her Pip-Boy. “We’ve been standing here for at least ten minutes. You were just in your own little world there, It was almost amusing, but frightening at the same time. You’d type something, another one of those robots out there would move into the workbench, the arms would come in and modify it, then as soon as it stepped out, another was ready to take its place.”

“When they’re all together like this, I ... I guess I didn’t know how many I’d really made already. I didn’t know I could do this with them,” Isabel said.

I took a sip of water. “Yeah. RobCo didn’t hire me as a programmer, I was actually their attorney. It’s a long story. Your code needed tweaked. I got that done. Then I dug into what all these brains behind us were doing. The process is pretty much automated now. Three of the robobrain ones were scrapped, too many psychological issues. The rest are all now only armed with short range, defensive weapons. They can escort the wagons, and they’re all designed to haul a lot of gear and materials.”

I checked my Pip-Boy. “Oh, you were only gone for barely three hours. What did you end up finding?”

Gwen looked at me with serious eyes. “I know you. I’m just trying to reconcile how you came from the same time period as the sheer evil that we found and saw.”

“That bad, eh?”

Piper nodded. “Literally hundreds of brains in storage solution. Rooms set up for quick and easy removal of the brain from the body, with automated carts to haul the bodies to a giant furnace for incineration. It’s ... monstrous. The only redeeming thing we ran into was a series of prison cells full of feral ghouls. That gave Gwen some time to practice her shooting skills against moving targets.”

Isabel was also shaken. “I ... I really never went too far from here. I was just letting the robots I’d made gather materials. I didn’t give any thought to where, or how, they were getting them.”

“Well, then I suggest we all leave this place for now. It’s close enough to the airport that we can have a full Brotherhood group here before long. And we ought to get to the airport, anyway, so they don’t freak out.” I hit another button. The robots at the far end activated, heading for the freight elevator. “The nice thing is they have plenty of room for them over there, and we can send them out directly from there.”

As we headed for the elevator to the surface, Curie asked, “One question, madam. We came here for boards for Shaun. Did you find some?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve a dozen in my pack, and I can easily make more, now. It’s part of a military circuit board that I found the schematic for in one of the files back there.”

We walked back to the airport, being greeted by the guards. “Knights, I see the Prydwen is coming in for docking. I have to meet Elder Maxson, so I won’t be down here. There will be a group of robots coming. This is Isabel Cruz. She’ll need a place to have them organize. We’ll be able to send them out for scavenging and to set up supply lines for all of our settlements.”

“Of course, Sentinel. How many robots do we have coming in?”

“About a hundred. Isabel, I locked the programming on them so you can’t change it, but you can study it if you’d like. I think you’ll find it interesting.”

“Thank you, General Wilson. Good luck.”

We left her with the guards, heading to where Katie was waiting for us. “So, was it that bad?”

Everyone looked at James. “Okay, I said it in that one room, I’ll say it again. If it were up to me, I’d find a nuclear bomb and set it off inside there, so no one else would ever have to see such a horror again.”

Curie shook her head. “I disagree.” At the look James gave her, she explained, “I do not doubt that it is a horror. What I was doing, for Vault-Tec, was also a horror. But that was, and did end up resulting in a cure, and not with the deaths of everyone else in Vault 81. So no one can see and learn from it. This ... this atrocity ... should be kept, for all time. So children, our children, and their children after them, can learn about history and how evil men can be when pushed.”

“That’s for damned sure. Clean out what we can, what’s needed, leave the rest. Katie, can you take us up to meet with Arthur?”

She nodded. “Give them about ten more minutes to finish docking. Then we can go up. He radioed down, asking if you were here.”

Shortly thereafter, we were all sitting in the lounge at the front of the Prydwen, sipping on assorted drinks.

Desdemona looked incredibly relaxed, more so than she’d ever been. She also looked a good ten years younger. I told her, “Looks like the trip has helped you a bit.”

“You have no idea.” She looked at my wives. “Well, probably you do. There’s no stress on me now. It’s almost not funny how relaxed I feel.”

Deacon nodded. “So the Railroad is officially defunct, then.”

She agreed. “I’ve stayed in contact with some of our people here via radio. You know how you first thought there’d be a need for us to help some created people relocate? It’s just not really come up. Our people are either joining the Minutemen, the Brotherhood, or just becoming civilians again.”

“Yes, the trip with Arthur definitely helped relax you. You’re not ready to bite my head off at that thought the Railroad was no longer needed,” I mentioned.

She nodded in agreement. “I am sorry about that, now that I have, well, perspective on what you’re really doing and this is all about.”

“Apology accepted. Changing topics a little, Arthur, I was down in CIT recently. Ingram is making good progress, they’re just being careful with her is all,” I told him.

“I know. Thank you for checking on her. We’ve put a repeater for the radio here on top of the airport tower, so once we were 80 miles out, the Prydwen was in radio contact. That also means that basically everything here in the Boston area can now communicate through radios, as long as you’re not blocked or underground. Doctor Orman is working on a different radio, something that can bounce off the ionosphere, so we’ll be able to directly talk to Bar Harbor, and also with a repeater, down to Washington.”

“I take it that the engine tests were a success, then?”

He smiled. “Oh, yes. Between that damned robot, the engineering staff, and the people from CIT, we’ll more than double her speed. Without, mind you, reducing her lifting capacity. It’ll take us right at a week to get things ready here, a bit faster than I thought.”

“Don’t expect me to be too pleased. I’m not that eager to spend all my time behind a desk, so if you decide to slow things down, I won’t argue.” I took another drink.

Desdemona said, “I’ll be damned. You didn’t wait for us. Well, fine. We didn’t wait for you, either.” She was smiling when she said that.

Arthur looked at her, puzzled. She shook her head. “Men, they never notice important things. Although he did have the good graces to give me a ring, since I’m not in the Brotherhood. You know what the funny thing is? We had DiMA perform the ceremony. So, who’s the lucky one?”

All three of my wives held their hands up, showing their rings off, grins on their faces.

Arthur looked at me, just shaking his head. “I might have guessed. I knew you were somewhat unconventional, just not how much.” He slyly smiled. “Considering that Rosalind here has been teaching me ... well, things I never knew were possible from a physical perspective ... I think it must be something about Commonwealth women.”

She glared at him, then smiled. “I’ll forgive you for that, Arthur. It’s not often you find a virgin and get to train him the way you want.”

Deacon shook his head. “Okay, WAY too damned much information. Can we perhaps get this back onto what we’re actually here about?”

Piper looked at him. “What do you mean? I thought this was just a simple get together to discuss the future fate of the United States, is all.”