Chapter 98: Woof

Chapter 98: Woof

Cold.

For some odd reason, that is the thing I focused on about the Big Empty (heh... M-T... Empty... I get it) when I finally stepped outside. It wasn't the mountains in the distance that I quickly realized were not actually mountains at all, but the lip of the crater; this place was clearly a lot bigger than the holographic map upstairs would suggest. It wasn't the strange, almost alien assortment of geometric shapes and sharp angles of what I could only assume were buildings in the distance. It wasn't the boiling dark-green-grey clouds overhead that allowed pieces of the sky - which was entirely the wrong shade - to poke through. It wasn't the slightly blue-ish tint to the soil or the concrete. And it wasn't the patches of grass just outside the entrance to the Think Tank dome made out of turquoise plastic.

No, I decided the best course of action was to focus on how FUCKING COLD the damn place was, holy crap! It wasn't snowing, sure, but it was a noticeable, biting cold that got through all the armor I was wearing and chilled me to my bones. Not even Jacobstown was this cold, fuck me!

I bristled, cupping my hands around my mouth, blowing as much hot air into them as I could, and set off. I walked along the concrete footpath for, perhaps... ten feet? Maybe? And then it just stopped.

"... h-uh." I said aloud, looking down. I had a sneaking suspicion that the path wasn't designed to end here. Partly because I was now looking over the edge at a small cliff, but mostly because the end of the concrete was cracked and broken like someone had taken to it with a sledgehammer.

"Well," I sniffed, shoving my hands in my pockets. "They did say the labs sometimes get up and move around... I suppose that's not... completely..." I shut up, tilting my head sideways.

Something was making noise.

I didn't think. I just acted. In a flash, Roscoe was out of its holster and I leapt through the air, aiming myself at the nearest source of cover in the opposite direction of the noise. As it happened, the closest piece of cover seemed to be some kind of generator - or, half of one, at least. Like the pavement, the machine (and the fence surrounding it) ended abruptly at the edge of the small cliff.

I looked out from behind the broken and silent machine, watching and trying to see what had caused the noise...

Four figures emerged: three men and one woman. Most of them were wearing jumpsuits (except for one of the men in the back, who was wearing a half-torn patient gown and letting the boys flap in the breeze...), but they all had goggles and respirators covering their faces. It didn't look like they were wearing them; if the screws were anything to go by, the facemasks were bolted to their skulls. All of them were carrying weapons. The man and woman in front were carrying bits of junk like clubs - a lead pipe and a big wrench, respectively. The man in the back with the patient gown was carrying a laser pistol. The last one was carrying what looked like an axe, but... it was strange, because the blade was crackling with blueish-purple electricity.

By all rights, they looked human. And yet... I could tell, somehow, that they weren't human. At least, not anymore. Maybe it was the strange, almost animalistic way they hunched over as they moved. Maybe it was the frantic and highly audible sniffing of the one in front. I think, however, that it was perhaps the scars on their heads. They were barely visible beneath the straps, goggles, and respirators, but they all definitely had surgical scars from, say, a lobotomy.

These must be the lobotomites that the Think Tank talked about. The poor unfortunates who'd been suckered here, somehow, and weren't as lucky as me to keep hold of their mental faculties when their brains were scooped out.

I can't really explain why I did what I did next. It felt like the thing to do, at the time. I mean, logically, I should've remained in cover until I could figure out if these lobotomites had anything 'special' about them (like how the Ghost People wouldn't die unless you cut one of their limbs off). Not to mention, that axe definitely looked nasty - anything with any kind of electricity arcing off the blade is bad news. I should've played it safe, and not taken any stupid risks.

But no.

All I remember thinking was this: I don't have much ammo. And then, I holstered Roscoe, pulled out the boot knife, and I ran at full tilt straight at the lobotomites.

The next thing I knew, I'd grabbed the nearest one by the goggles and buried the knife into his neck. I kept a firm hold of the knife and kicked him square in the chest; the knife ripped the front of his throat out as he tumbled backward, crashing into two of the others and sending them all flying to the ground.

The lobotomite in back with the laser pistol let out a moaning screech and tried leveling the weapon at me. I ducked as I closed the gap, and deflected his gun arm with my Pip Boy; the laser discharged wildly up in the air. I surged up, landing an uppercut directly into his jaw with a satisfying crack. At the same time, I wrapped my Pip Boy arm around the arm with the laser, and tightened my grip as quick as I could until I heard the bones in his arm break. I let go of his arm and spun in place, kneeling down, and then catching the falling laser pistol before it hit the ground. I kept spinning - laser pistol now in hand - buried the end of the weapon into his chest, and fired. He fell backward with a smoking, burning hole in the center of his chest.

I leaned back, narrowly missing a big wrench swinging through the air. The female lobotmite stumbled as she missed me, so I grabbed her by the back of her jumpsuit and made sure she stayed off balance just long enough... Zowntch. She fell to the ground with a smoking hole in her face.

The last lobotomite came at me, with that electric-axe in hand raised high above his head, and letting out that same no-longer-human screech. I didn't even flinch. I positioned my foot underneath the big wrench in the dead female lobotomites hand and kicked; the wrench flew through the air and smacked the last lobotomite square in the face with a crack. He squealed, bringing his free hand to clutch at the mask. I casually strolled up to him, and pulled the axe out of his hands easy as you please. I twirled it around in my hand swung it through the air as hard as I could. There was an electric pop as it passed his neck and the arm still clutching at his face... and then both the head and hand detached, rolling away from the cauterized stumps.

I honestly don't know what came over me, but it felt... it felt good. All of this was just... fighting them like that, it gave me the surge of adrenaline, that rush, but it wasn't hampered or dampened by fear. By the end of it, I was barely breathing heavy... but I was definitely smiling.

I stood over the bodies of the lobotomites, hefting the axe in my hands and inspecting it closely when I heard a sound below me. The first lobotomite wasn't quite dead, and was writhing on the ground, blood gushing out of his neck; I casually fired the laser pistol into his face and went back to examining the axe. It was surprisingly light, considering the obvious batteries and capacitors on it. There was an engraving on the hilt:

"Protonic Inversal Axe. If found, return to X-6 Proton Research Facility, BIG MT." I said, reading aloud. I found a small button underneath a cover on the hilt, and when I touched it the electricity stopped arcing, and it immediately fell silent; strangely, it also got slightly heavier. I nodded, chuckling a bit, and shoved it into the back of my belt.

"Alright!" I said, pulling the energy cell out of the laser pistol, and then tossing the weapon aside over my shoulder. "That was a nice, refreshing little warm up! I wonder what the real workout's gonna be like?"

"You know," I said aloud, looking up. "I could be wrong, but I think this is the place..."

The X-8 research facility - where I'd hopefully find the... thing needed to upgrade the sonic-projecto-whatsits (I was still a bit fuzzy on the details) - was a squat, grey building, separated from the chaos around by a raised concrete wall, two pairs of stairs leading up, and fencing that had fallen over in places. Beyond the building itself was a large tower, topped with a (mostly) intact satellite dish, and large rusted green pipes leading from it, and into the building. Painted on the side of the tower in big, bold, blue lettering was a highly visible "X-8."

I started to walk up the stairs that led to the facility when I noticed something odd: the concrete wall creating the raised platform this building was sitting on was marred by several dozen tiny craters and pockmarks. I paused, raising an eyebrow as I looked at it; it almost looked like someone had gone nuts with a shotgun, or detonated some frag mines to pepper it with enough shrapnel...

Brumph!

That's an odd sound.

I immediately perked my head up, looking around, trying to find the source of the noise... especially since it had been replaced by a faint whistling. I got my answer when I finally looked behind and above me - and saw a streak of smoke in the sky off in the distance, emerging from the horizon. My eyes went wide as I realized what I was looking at: an artillery strike.

"What the fuck!?" I shouted, feverishly grabbing at the handrails and scrabbling up the stairs. In the split second I gave myself to think, I connected the dots between the artillery and the concrete peppered with shrapnel, and ran to the building; it looked like this kind of thing had happened before, and since the building was still standing, that was probably the safest spot. Maybe.

The whistling got louder.

I reached the top of the stairs and ran as fast as I could at the door. I punched the button next to the metal bulkhead, and it seemed to crawl open painfully slow. I dove through the open door, and slammed my open palm against the button to close the door again.

The whole room shook. The walls, the ceiling, the floor, my teeth - everything rattled violently. For a few agonizing seconds, it felt like the vibrations were going to shake loose the replacement for my spine. Then finally, thankfully, everything subsided. I slowed my breathing, and started patting myself down to make sure everything was still (more-or-less) in one piece.

"Well, that's a relief..." I finally said, ending the pat-down at my crotch with a sigh. I dusted myself off and started looking around, trying to get my bearings. Like so much else that I'd seen here in the Big Empty, the walls were a dull, antiseptic -

"BARK!"

I stopped in my tracks, utterly bewildered. That sounded like a dog, only much more... synthesized? Robotic? I wheeled around, trying to find the source, when suddenly I was, without any further warning, tackled to the ground by a very heavy mass of brown fur and grey metal.

A cyberdog! The first thing I thought of was Rex, the King's dog. I struggled underneath the dog's titanic grip, and started to reach for Roscoe... and hesitated. It took me a minute, but I realized that this dog wasn't actually attacking me. If the wet, slobbering thing dragging itself across my face was any indication, this dog was licking me.

That's odd.

"Whoa, hey, calm down!" I tried to yell, spitting out dog hairs between licks. I reached for the dog's neck, found a collar, and grabbed at it, trying to pull the damn dog off my face. Thankfully, the dog seemed to get the message and backed off... so now, all I had to deal with was a very heavy dog pinning me to the ground and panting hot air into my face.

"I suppose I should be thankful you're not trying to gnaw my throat out..." I said; the dog barked again loudly. I tried to get a look at the collar, see if there was any sort of nametag...

"Hmm... the only thing it says here is 'R0-X.13.' Hrm." I scratched my bald head. "Huh. Roxie. I like it. Pleased to meet you, puppy. I'm very glad you're not eating me."

Roxie barked again happily.

"Alright, now that's out of the way, could you do me a solid and get off me?"

Nothing's every easy, is it?

It didn't take too much exploring in X-8 to discover that I couldn't just grab the photonic-resonance-destabilization whatsits for the sonic gun, and leave. No, that would be easy! According to the big computer terminal I'd found, the only way to access the upgrade was to "pass" one of the "tests" in this place.

Wonderful.

On the plus side, at least I had some company. After finally getting off me, Roxie had eagerly started bounding along next to me, and she'd followed me all the way to the big terminal. Next to the terminal was a large metal door with "TESTING AREA" stenciled on it in big, bold, white letters.

"You ready for this, Rox?" I asked the dog after sifting through the various directions on the terminal, and eventually settling on what I hoped was the right one. Roxie barked happily. I smirked, and shook my head; great, I'm talking to dogs now. Either way, according to the terminal, all I had to do was collect three student records from a 'high school,' whatever that was.

How hard could that be?

I hit "execute" on the terminal - and instantly, everything started to shake. For a minute, I thought we were being hit with another artillery strike. The ground rattled, there was a hideous groaning sound of metal against metal, and then -

Ding!

The noise and rattling stopped instantly; it didn't fade out like the artillery from earlier. The sound had come from the door, and as soon as it dinged, a small green light winked on above the door - and the door itself opened up. Beyond the door was... it kind of looked like one of the buildings of the Boneyard University. Black-and-white tiles on the floor, cracked fake-wood panels on the walls and pillars, a trophy case on the far end of the room... It certainly fit the 'school' part of the name. But what made it 'high?' Was it because of the observation windows set into the upper part of the wall near the really high ceiling? Those were pretty high...

"ATTENTION STUDENTS!" A voice bellowed over the loudspeakers as soon as Roxie and I stepped through the threshold; the door slammed shut behind us. "This is the pre-recorded voice of your pre-recorded principal: Doctor-Principal BOROUS!"

I saw a pair of glinting eyes from within one of the darkest patches just in front of me. The growling mixed with the unmistakable sound of huge snapping jaws... bigger than any dog should've been...

"Gabe would bark and snarl and bite whenever ANYONE came to visit!" Borous continued, clearly oblivious to the sounds and sights in the test. "That's why I replaced his legs with spare parts and fed him a steady diet of Psycho-laced dog chow! Gaaaabe! I am sorry I put your brain in a bowl, boy! Oohhh, who's a good boy? You are! Yes, YOU are!"

Thud.

The first paw stepped out of the darkness and into the light. A huge metal foot, easily as big as I was, hit the ground and shook the room. An absolutely enormous, only vaguely canine head made out of a patchwork of fur and metal emerged from the shadows. It was tipped with a large wet nose, and with a glowing glass dome on top of his skull (apparently) housing his brain. The massive cyberdog towered over me, his teeth as big as steak knives, complete with drool oozing out of his snarling mouth in huge globular puddles.

"Woof," I muttered, accompanied by a smattering of some nervous laughter. The giant dog slowly advanced, staring at me with huge, hungry eyes.

"Now," Borous voice continued, still completely oblivious. "Let the intruder have the Sonic Emitter schematics! Klein wants it, all right, boy? Let the intruder dig it up wherever you buried it!"

Obviously, Gabe wasn't paying attention. At that moment, he reared back and let out a deafening bark, pushing off the ground with enough force that the whole room shook again. I started running, wildly firing both pistols in my hands at the massive dog leaping at me. It's not like I could miss the fucking thing, could I?

Gabe landed paws-first directly where I'd been seconds earlier; his massive jaw snapped around one of the wooden posts holding up the roof of the fake-house. The post snapped like a toothpick. He was huge, but he wasn't all that fast. I could use that to my advantage.

But these pea shooters weren't doing jack. I can't imagine any of Roscoe's shots were getting through the fur, much less the metal, and I saw the pulse blast from the other pistol just dissipate into nothing but blue gas and scattered blue sparks after smashing into the dog's side.

I had no idea where Roxie was. Honestly, I wasn't really thinking about that. I kept running away from the growling behemoth behind me, holstering the pistols as I went. I leapt onto one of the broken picnic table halves, and kicked off, diving into a roll, hitting the ground behind one of the other fences. Gabe barked loud enough to shake the cavern - or was he leaping at me again?

I got back up on my feet and reached behind me as I turned to face the giant Frankenstein's monster-dog. Sure enough, the dog had stepped on what was left of the picnic table, smashing it to splinters, and his muzzle was low to the ground; obviously, he'd tried to bite at me and missed again.

I kicked off one of the metal pillars near the edge of the cavernous room, and shrugged my shoulder; I grabbed hold of the falling Holorifle as I ran, leaping back over the fence... and aimed myself directly at Gabe.

The dog snapped at air again, shifting his massive bulk in my general direction. Any other time, I probably would've been caught off guard and knocked flat on my ass. But to be honest? I was actually counting on it. The dog was low enough and I was close enough that I grabbed hold of a giant tuft of fur on its side, and pulled myself up with all my strength; one of my feet found traction against a large metal joint on his back leg, and that was all I needed to swing myself up and onto his back.

There's a bar in a place called Rock Springs, Wyoming, called the Broken Spoke. In it, they have this thing called a 'mechanical bucking brahmin.' You sit on the damn thing, and you have to see how long you can stay put before it throws you off. Most people fall after two or three seconds. As far as I know, the record is 16 seconds - held by yours truly.

Trying to hang onto Gabe's back was a bit like that.

As soon as I landed, he made it very, very hard for me to stay put. He started bucking and writhing and jumping all over the place, trying to shake me off like a bad case of fleas. But I didn't let go. I held onto the fur on his back with a grip like a vice, wrapping my legs as tightly around his midsection as I could, and leveled the holorifle directly at the back of his braincase. And even though every second threatened to throw me off the giant beast, I was able to appreciate one speck of humor in the whole situation:

For as large as the brain dome was, the brain inside was very, very small.

I pressed the barrel of the holorifle up against the glass and pulled the trigger. There was a clunk and a blue flash, followed by a spray of tiny cubes shooting off in every direction... and then Gabe stopped trying to throw me off. It was like someone had thrown a switch, and he just stopped working. The dog's shoulders slumped, and he crashed into the ground; his muzzle skidded along the ground for several feet. With a whimper, the rest of his body followed soon after, and his body collapsed against the ground with a heavy thud.

I slid off the giant dead dog; the cracked and broken brain case was smoking, and leaking fluid. The light inside had gone out. I pumped the holorifle, ejecting one of the spent microfusion cells, and prepared for the worst. This thing was more machine than dog. For all I knew, it would have some method of coming back to life, and I'd have to kill it again...

As it turned out, the problem I had to deal with was much worse.

"Gabe!" Borous voice sounded over the loudspeaker again. "No! His cyberdoggy atomic core! It's ACTIVE! That means an exceedingly IMPRECISE countdown to critical failure in..."

My eye twitched.

"FUCK!" I shouted, vaulting over the enormous canine. Atomic core... critical failure... this could only end badly. I hit the ground and started running for the door...

"Ten!" It wasn't Borous this time. It was Doctor O. "Borous! Why did you install an atomic core? It'll blow when it reaches one, right?"

I was maybe two or three paces away from the exit when I stopped cold, and I realized something: the whole point of coming here was to get the new frequency for the sonic gun - but I still didn't have it! FUCK!

"Nine." Dala's calm voice sounded over the speaker. "All will be fine.

I wheeled around, trying to figure out where the frequency might be. There weren't all that many places it could hide. Hell, everything was broken anyway because of the giant dog...

**[$((*#8#%]**

Wait! Didn't Borous say something about it being buried? I looked around as quick as I could, trying to find any patches of dirt that looked like they'd been disturbed not by a fight, but by the dog having buried something in the ground...

"SEVEN!" Klein's yelling voice boomed over the speakers. "YES! SEVEN!"

I went from pile to pile, overturning the dirt as quickly as I could - hell, I felt like I was practically punching the ground, trying to get the dirt out of the way...

"SIX!" Borous' voice came over the speakers again. "Halfway to destruction, measured in clicks!"

I found a whole lot in the few precious seconds I had to check - a half chewed bone, a cracked bowl, half a dozen baseballs...

"Five by five..." Doctor O spoke up again. "Someone's coming in live..."

Fuck it. I can't find it, and I don't have any more time. I need to leave. Hell, I should've left the first chance I got.

"FOUR!" An ragged, maniacal voice came over the speakers. "As in 4-BIDDEN! Do you hear me Think Tank? It is I, DOCTOR MOBIUS! And I am hacking your frequenoscity!"

Son of a bitch.

The air crackled around me. It wasn't the atomic core starting to go off. It looked like blue lightning suddenly appearing out of nowhere. I knew what this was. I'd seen it before. This was the same lightning that was generated by the device that sent me back to the Mojave in the bunker outside of the Sierra Madre - Elijah's teleporter.

I didn't want to stay to find out what was teleporting in.

"Mobius?!" Doctor O yelled frantically, worry evident in his voice. "Uh... three as in we... as in we are in trouble." He paused. "That didn't rhyme."

More lightning appeared, ripping up the air all around me with the smell of ozone. I ran with all my might at the door, trying to miss the spatial distortions warping and twisting the air all around me.

"TWO!" Klein yelled again. "AS IN TOO LATE!"

I slammed into the door with my shoulder, and punched the button to open it. Maybe my senses were running at super-speed, but the door crawled open like a snail.

"AND ONE! As in MOBIUS has won! MWA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAA!" Mobius cackled insanely. "I hope it's blowing up right now in your faces!"

I dove through the door as soon as I could squeeze through, and slammed my open palm against the button to close it again. Just as soon as it slid shut, everything around me shook and rattled and groaned under an obviously massive strain. It was like the artillery strike from earlier, only amplified by a million. The vibrations were so severe that even if I'd been holding onto something, I'm sure I still would've fallen flat on my ass. I was, frankly, a little surprised that the door held up and the roof didn't collapse.

The roaring and shaking died down. I sat there, out of breath, the Holorifle on the ground at my side. I was in a bit of a daze.

"BARK!"

I jumped in fright at the sound, my arms flailing wildly. I spun around in place on the floor, grabbing at the walls, and scooted myself along the floor until I backed up against the door that had kept me safe from the explosion.

Roxie was sitting there in the hallway, tongue lolling out of her mouth and panting happily at me.

"Oh, fuck... Rox..." I sighed, trying to catch my breath. "You scared me. I..." I gulped, and let out another sigh. "I'm glad you... I'm glad you're alright. You must've gotten out of there before all the fighting started... Whoo..." I ran a hand across my forehead, and I realized I was sweating. "That's... hang on..." I furrowed my brow, and looked down. "What've you got there?"

Sitting on the ground right on top of her paws was a holotape... complete with a fresh coating of drool. I got up off my ass, and kneeled back down in front of Roxie, picking up the holotape, and reading the label.

"Sonic Emitter Audio Sample - Gabriel's Bark," I said aloud, wiping the slobber off the holotape's case. "Heh..." I smiled, looking up at Roxie again. The dog was practically beaming up at me, her tail wagging back and forth behind her. I set the holotape down, and scratched her behind the ears; she shut her mouth, closed her eyes, and nuzzled her face into my hand.

"Good dog. That's a very good dog."