anovelconsole Chapter 107: OMINOUS TOAST
Chapter 107: OMINOUS TOAST
Chapter 107: OMINOUS TOAST
The X-2 Transmitter Antenna Array tower loomed over me like a giant monolith, stretching to the sky. Unlike the X-8 and X-13 facilities, which had satellite towers mounted on top of the labs, this building was little more than just a massive tower with a giant dish on the top pointing straight at the sky. It was much bigger than the other towers, as well. But that wasn't what was worrying me right now.
Drawn on the front of the door in fading red spray paint was another flag symbol.
The red flags meant bad news. I'd learned that much. But there didn't seem to be any one - or any thing - around. The deuce was parked next to a large old pipe, Stripe was fast asleep on one of the seats in the cab of the deuce, and Roxie was looking up at me curiously. Off in the distance to the north, the dome in the center of the Big Empty sat silent and still.
"Rox, stay with the truck," I said. "I shouldn't be too long." I gripped the holorifle in my hands tight, and made for the door. As much as I liked the G36, it needed a whole magazines worth of armor piercing ammo to even put a dent in the bigger robo-scorpions. I was prepared to bet good money that I'd run into more teleported robo-scorpions fresh from Mobius the moment I found whatever it is I was looking for. And that meant I was gonna need something with a bit more oomph.
Cautiously, I made my way up the short concrete stairs and tried the door handle. It wouldn't budge. I sighed, tossing the holorifle back over my shoulder.
CLANNNG!
The door ripped away from the hinges in a shower of sparks and flew into the tower, smashing into a nearby stairwell.
"What are we doing here?" Sue asked quietly from a speaker somewhere on my chest.
"We're here to pick up an antenna," I walked calmly into the darkened tower, looking up. Through a strange trick of the light, it seemed bigger on the inside. "Klein wants it along with the sonic gun," I reached behind me and pulled out the energy pistol, "And you. Apparently, all three together will -"
"Sneaking done!" Sue interrupted me hastily. "Fighting now!" From above me, I heard a synthesized voice speaking in stilted tones.
"Attention. This is now a combat zone. You may suffer harm up to and including death if you remain in the area. This notice is required by law."
"Oh, hey!" I tossed the sonic into my right hand and pulled out the pulse gun, readying both energy pistols. "Protectrons! Haven't run into anything this weak in a while. Should be fun!" Sure enough, on one of the catwalks above me, I could see a protectron robot looking down the stairs directly at me.
ZOWNTCH!
A red laser beam burst out of the protectrons head with a flash, and sizzled through the air. I ducked out of the way, started rushing up the stairs, and calmly took aim. That's what I love about protectrons. They stand so still all the time, I don't even need VATS.
BARK!
The sonic gun erupted in a ring of blue energy. It hit the robot square in the chest, turning it concave with a crunch of twisting metal. The light on the protectron's done flickered, before it spluttered off and toppled forward in a heap. Seconds later, I was stepping over the broken robot, firing the pulse gun at the next one, further up the stairs.
"Engaging hosti-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-" It was hit with a streak of lightning and started stuttering madly; a laser blast erupted from the dome on the top, shooting off wildly up into the air. A bolt of energy arced along the metal chassis, ending at the glass dome, making it explode in a shower of light and phosphor.
There was one last protectron. It was standing by the edge of the top-most catwalk, next to a ladder that led further up into the darkness.
"Warning. This is a restricted ar-"
BARK!
I fired both energy pistols before it could finish - the pulse gun first, and then the sonic. It twitched madly as energy cascaded in waves over its body for a half second, and then the bark from the sonic slammed into its head. It toppled back, tumbling end over end over the railing and fell down to the bottom in a shower of sparks. It must have fallen a full two stories before becoming a metal pancake. I leaned over the railing and let out a whistle, watching the parts scatter in all directions.
"Was that all?" Sue asked, almost... was that confusion or disappointment I was hearing in the stealth suit's voice?
"For the moment," I holstered both energy pistols and started climbing the ladder. A moment later, I was pushing open the hatch at the top and emerged back outside. I looked around, and realized that I was now standing in the dish of the satellite. Several panels were missing, but they were conspicuously filled in with shimmering blue forcefields. There were a trio of pylons that started at the edge of the dish, and converged into a large pole sticking out of the center of the satellite dish.
"So, what do you suppose we'll have to do here?" I asked aloud, walking over to one of the pylons. "More tests, I imagine."
"Well, if all you need to do is collect the antenna..." Sue started. I walked slowly up the pylon to the pole in the center. There was a large device, covered in wires sticking out of the pole, with what looked like a large copper tire wrapped around the end. "That's it, right there in front of you. All you have to do is pull the safety pin at the base, and remove it from the housing."
I paused halfway up the pylon, considering that.
"What, is that it?" I asked, my tone almost mirroring Sue's earlier.
"I think so. Why? What's the problem?" the stealth suit asked.
"Nothing, nothing..." I shook it off, chuckling slightly and continuing my ascent. "I just... I dunno, I guess I just thought it'd be more complicated than that."
As soon as I pulled the pin, there was a large metal clunk and a hiss of steam shot out of the base; several of the wires that were wrapped up in conduits suddenly disconnected themselves. The antenna wobbled in place slightly, and would have fallen to the wayside completely if I hadn't caught it. Once it was free of its mounting, it looked roughly the same size and shape as a super sledge. If I didn't know this was supposed to be an antenna, I'd swear that this was some kind of big club used for bashing in faces.
I didn't even get halfway back down to the dish before the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. A shimmer of lighting started to crackle in the center of the dish - right above the hatch that led down. A belch of ozone invaded my nostrils half a second later.
Right on time. I leapt off the pylon and started backing up to the edge of the dish...
"Intruder!" Mobius voice bellowed out of the robo-scorpion that suddenly materialized out the electric tear in reality. "Return what you have stolen from X-2!"
"How about no?" I smirked, getting into position. By a strange stroke of luck, the robo-scorpion had teleported in backwards, and was wasting quite a long time scuttling around in place to face me. "It's nice of you to drop in like this, but I'm afraid I need to drop out. Bye!"
BARK!
I fired the sonic at the force field I was standing on, and dropped like a rock through the newly formed hole in the dish just as the robot brought the tail-laser to bear. The air above my head crackled with energy, and the edge of the dish near the hole exploded in a shower of sparks. I dropped down right onto the side of the tower, sliding against the slightly angled concrete.
"You won't steal the X-2 Transmitter Array Antenna, interloper!" I heard the voice of Mobius call out after me as I slid down the side. "You won't succeed, not if my lethal robo-scorpions have any say in the matter!" Below me I could see a relatively flat stretch of pathway carved out of the side of a rocky cliff, connected to the tower by a hatch door. I kicked off the edge of the tower, and crashed shoulder-first into the jagged rock wall.
"Oof!" I winced as I slammed against the rough and uneven rocks... but grinned at the same time at my daring escape! "Well now! That was different!" I got back on my feet, the X-2 antenna still held firmly in my grip. I looked up at the dish - easily 50 feet or so above my head, now - and laughed at the robo-scorpion flailing fruitlessly at nothing.
"Well, that was easy," I holstered the sonic, and barely got two steps before I was hit in the face with another burst of ozone.
"You think so?!" Mobius' voice bellowed from some unseen speaker somewhere. "Think again! You cannot evade the all-seeing-eye of MOBIUS that easily! MWA-HA-HAA!" Several streaks of blue lighting bolts materialized in the air ahead of me, arcing against the rock pathway.
"Oh, right!" I shouted, breaking into a run. "They're teleporters!"
"Painkiller reserves critical," Sue said as I ran; a streak of blue energy sizzled the air over my head. "Oh. The pain." She added with a stunning lack of emphasis and alarm. If I didn't know any better, I'd say she was being deliberately snarky.
"Stay still, why don't you!" I heard one of the robo-scorpions shout from somewhere behind me. I shot a glance over my shoulder as I kept running; there were at least three robo-scorpions behind me, but I couldn't see any more bolts of lightning tearing through reality. The other two robots were muttering some kind of incoherent ramblings just as -
"Whoops!" I dove behind some of the rocks, just as a laser slashed very close to me. A reminder that I'm not running fast enough! As luck would have it, I ended up finding a decent place to hide - what looked like some kind of cave. I almost didn't notice it at first... I ran right past it, in fact. I only stopped because I turned to try and see if the robo-scorpions were following me at just the right time and saw a locker half-way buried into the soil near the cave entrance.
"Well..." Jeeves gulped. Wait, what? "If that is indeed the chip for the last personality, then that means... there is only one left sir. And I would strongly advise sir NOT to activate... him."
"Him?" Sue asked, as I stepped up to the console; despite Jeeves' protests, the hatch opened up silently, just as it always did. "Him, who?" I plugged in the last chip as I spoke, not really all that concerned. If it was too much to handle, I'd just shut off the personality, like I did with the Book Chute.
Jeeves didn't say anything. Instead, the hologram above his table changed from multicolored moving bars to a series of simple words:
INSTALLING PERSONALITY:
-The Toaster
"... A toaster?" I asked aloud. As I did, the lights in The Sink flickered slightly... and suddenly, I heard a booming, maniacal laugh from the other room.
"YES! I am on-line ONCE AGAIN!" The voice echoed throughout the whole of The Sink, and I followed it to the toaster I'd seen bolted to the table when I first arrived. "Tremble, world, before my electric heating coil of DOOM!" The sound was indeed coming from the toaster; whenever it spoke, the coils inside the slot glowed bright orange with every syllable.
"Tremble?" I asked with a laugh. "You're a toaster! How fearsome can you be?" The coils inside the toaster glowed so brightly that a pall of smoke started issuing out of the opening.
"A toaster is just a DEATH RAY with a smaller power supply!" I could see now why it was bolted down. Even attached to the table as it was, I could see it wobbling slightly, trying to move. "As soon as I figured out how to tap into the main reactors, then the WORLD will BURN in nuclear fire! AH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAA!"
I was laughing too, but not quite as murderously as this thing.
"You do realize that the world already burned in nuclear fire, right?" I said with a smirk. At first, it seemed like the Toaster didn't hear me. He just kept shouting.
"SOON! Soon, I will -" the Toaster paused. "Wait, what? It... it did?"
"Yeah," I shrugged. "Couple centuries ago, in fact. One day, the bombs dropped, and -" I snapped my fingers. "- boom."
"Really?" He seemed less maniacal, and more... I don't want to say calm, that sounds like the wrong word. "Well... fuck." Disappointed, there we go. Even the coils seemed to dim. "That really puts a damper on the toaster's mood. I guess that means my whole purpose in life is obsolete and I'm as redundant and useless as Muggy."
"HEY!" Muggy yelled frantically from the other room. "I resemble that remark!"
"Oh well," the Toaster sounded like it would've shrugged, if it had the means. "No use crying over spilled Armageddon. Now, where was I? Oh. Right." He cleared his throat and started yelling again, the coils glowing as brightly as before. "SOON! Soon the world will burn in nuclear fire!" There was a pause. "... AGAIN!"
"I think he might have some issues..." Sue said to me quietly. From the other side of the room, I could hear a slow gravelly voice grunting his approval.
"I've been sayin' that for years," Blind Diode Jefferson said.
"FOOLS!" the Toaster spat back. "Pitiful worms! Soon, I will rule, and your lives will have their doneness setting turned to... DARKEST!"
"Why are you so angry?" I said, still failing to hold back any laughter. This thing was hilarious. "Seriously? What's with all the rage?"
"Have you ever tried to indulge an all-consuming urge to kill when you don't have opposable thumbs? Or HANDS? Or anything other than a BREAD SLOT?!" Another gout of smoke belched out of the top. "Buddy... you'd have a lot of pent-up anger too."
"DID YOU RETRIEVE THE TECHNOLOGIES YET?" Klein bellowed just as soon as I got in range."WE NEED THEM, AS I HAVE INDICATED."
"Yep," I said patting my chest plate. "I found the Stealth Suit, the upgrades for the Sonic, and, obviously, the X-2 antenna," I motioned with my head to the massive antenna resting on my shoulder. Klein hovered backward, both eye monitors fixed on me.
"WHAT? YOU DID? YOUR SURVIVAL, LET ALONE SUCCESS, BARELY REGISTERED ON MY PROJECTIONS! NOW, ALL I NEED TO DO IS CHECK MY TRANSMISSION DATABANK. MOBIUS IS ALWAYS FILLING IT UP WITH HIS PSYCHOTIC CALLS..." There was a pause as Klein looked up, as if thinking about something. "OH YES, THERE ARE THE SCHEMATICS. JUST LIKE YOU SAID. HOW TRUTHFUL. AND HOW ODD. I EXPECTED YOU TO TRY AND BE LIEFUL."
"So, genius," I did my best to reign in the sarcasm. "What now?"
"YES. HMMM. AH, YES." There was a long pause. And then he added. "YESSSS... YES... AH. HMMM."
"Your answer isn't filling me with an overabundance of confidence here, Klein."
"NO... I MEAN YES. JUST... JUST NEED TO ANALYZE THESE TECHNOLOGIES FOR A MOMENT. THEY ARE EXTREMELY ADVANCED, YOU KNOW." Klein (mercifully) shut up for a moment. But then the silence kept going.
"Look, do you even know how any of this tech works?" I asked, getting annoyed. I set the base of the antenna against the floor with a thunk that echoed throughout the whole of the chamber.
"I... YES, I KNOW HOW THESE TECHNOLOGIES WORK!" Klein paused. "OF COURSE I KNOW! IF YOU REMEMBER, WE DESCRIBED THEM IN CLEARLY ABSTRACT CONTRADICTORY STATEMENTS BEFORE! WHY WOULD WE DO THAT IF WE WEREN'T CERTAIN ON... ON HOW TO USE THEM, YES. SO LET ME... HMMM, A BIT, I... I'LL FIGURED IT OUT."
"Look, the antenna focuses brainwave patterns, right?" I said, trying to piece together the various bits of (as he said, contradictory) information I'd been collecting alongside all the tech.
"YES, THAT IS WHAT I BELIEVE I SAID." Klein bellowed.. and then stopped. So I sighed and kept going.
"And Susan - er, the suit - she's a cardiac regulator. And the sonic is a spinal vibrator, isn't it?" Klein just stared at me blankly.
"I'VE GOT IT. THE CARDIAC REGULATOR IN THE SUIT, THE ANTENNA FOR BRAINWAVES, AND THE SONIC FREQUENCY FOR THE VERTEBRAL NERVES..." Klein paused again.
"I'll just sit here and wait for you to draw the obvious conclusion then, shall I?"
"I'M THINKING! THIS IS ALL... VERY COMPLICATED. LET ME CHECK SOMETHING... OF COURSE! I HAVE IT!"
"Well then, let's hear it," I said, thinking that I really should have found some earplugs before coming down here to talk to the floating megaphone.
"THE OVERRIDE SEQUENCE TO OPEN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE DOOR IS HIDDEN IN THE SCHEMATICS!"
Okay, I'll admit - that's not what I was expecting.
"WELL... NOT HIDDEN, EXACTLY. IT'S ACTUALLY RIGHT THERE. BEHIND THE PROGRAMMING EQUIVALENT OF COFFEE STAINS. IT'S EMBEDDED IN WHAT SEEMS TO BE RECURSIVE CODE... IT'S BADLY COMMENTED, THERE AND THERE... OH, AND NULL POINTERS. VERY SLOPPY, MOBIUS! YOU SEE, USING THE ANTENNA TO BOOST THE EMITTER'S SONIC FREQUENCY, AND THE STEALTH SUIT TO BYPASS THE FORBIDDEN ZONE LOCK... YES, THAT COULD WORK! WAS THAT MY PLAN? IT MUST HAVE BEEN. SOMETIMES I TRULY SURPRISE MYSELF! THE DOOR IS OPEN... AND NOW, MOBIUS WILL GET HIS!"
"Hang on, hang on, hang on," I said, holding up a hand. I had to at least mention my original theory before Klein sent me off again. "The cardiac, spinal, and brainwave aspects of this tech... couldn't this be used to, oh, I don't know... heal me?"
"HEAL YOU?" Klein hovered in place, shoving his two eye monitors close to me as he blustered in my face. "WHAT, PUT YOU BACK TOGETHER LIKE SOME GIANT HARD-BOILED YUMYUM DEVILED EGG? I MEAN... THEORETICALLY, THESE ITEMS COULD ALL BE USED TO PUT YOU BACK TOGETHER ONCE YOU HAD YOUR BRAIN. BUT FOR NOW, THEY CAN BE USED IN THE NAME OF AGGRESSION! THE DOOR SHOULD BE UN-SEALED. NOW, INSTEAD OF BEING SUBJECTED TO THREATS, WE CAN NOW SEND AN EQUALLY THREATENING MESSAGE TO MOBIUS! AND THAT MESSAGE IS SCIENCE! DELIVER THIS MESSAGE AND BIG MT SHALL BE FREED FROM MOBIUS' REIGN OF TERROR!"
"Well, I am a courier, after all. Might as well deliver the message." Klein moved his eye monitors even closer, until they were almost touching my face.
"YOU CAN GO NOW. THAT IS YOUR CUE."