Chapter Text
War.... War never changes.
At least that's what we once thought 200 years ago.
But war has always changed, molded by thoughts and ideas.
While the act of war has stayed the same, the idea of it has expanded.
War over our way of life, over race or color, over an ideal.
After all this time...
War... war has changed.
It had been several hours since the two went to find the bunker. From the data collected from the Institute, it was supposed to contain data for some of their projects stored off-site. It could contain medical supplies, data on diseases, something that they might have missed after the attack on the Institute. So off Nate and Macready went, into the woods, hoping it contained something worthwhile.
"Hurry up Nate!" Macready said as the sky began to turn a dark shade of green, signs of rad storm coming into the area. "Radstorm comin!"
Nate, dressed in a dark green military shirt with jeans cursed. "Damn pipboy says the entrance is he-" He spotted it mid sentence, a dark steel hatch covered by the growing green grass. "Here!"
He opened the hatch, shining his pipboy light through. He saw the ladder leading down, but it was a good enough height to just jump down. Which he did.
He motioned for Macready to jump down too, closing the hatch to the approaching radstorm.
Macready sighed. "That...was close."
Nate raised an eyebrow. "We were fine. Now let's see here." The survivor could see there was a door, similar to the ones in the institute, only it looked like it was locked by a terminal.
He cracked his fingers. "Easy." He went up to the computer, letting it go through the Rob-Co Booting sequence before jamming in a wire from the pipboy into the side of the terminal. The screen went into a group of lines, showing various passwords and numbers. After a few false passwords, Nate selected the right one.
"What kind of password is Pizza?" The door opened, to a clean room, white sterilized walls.
Macready squinted his eyes as he entered. "What the hell is pizza?"
Nate sighed. "It's... I'll explain it when we get back to Sanctuary."
This room was surprisingly not dusty, but still looked abandoned, scattered books on desks and various lab equipment thrown around. Nate grimaced. "Guess these guys knew what happened..."
The door to the next room looked a little damaged, a burn mark near the side of the door. Nate drew his Colt 45. Pistol as Macready took the safety off his hunting rifle. "Laser marks. Be wary."
Opening the door, Macready cursed as he took in the sight of the room. "Shit!"
Dead Gen 2 synths, parts scattered everywhere, laser guns still in their hands. Or what remained of them. "Well, looks like someone beat us here first."
Nate didn't like this as the two scavenged the microfusion cells from the dead bodies. This seemed too... quiet.
"Hey, another terminal!" Macready pointed out another terminal near the side of the room, on top of a desk. Nate grabbed a nearby chair and turned on the terminal.
It opened to a page of several entries:
NOTE 1
NOTE 2
NOTE 3
CORRUPTED DATA
Nate clicked on the first note.
DATA SHOWS THAT TESTING OF PROJECT ANIMALIA IS GOING WELL. SUBJECT 89P13 IS SHOWING BETTER VITAL SIGNS WHEN PAIRED WITH 90P17. DOCTOR LEONS IS SUGGESTING THAT HAVING 90P17 THERE DURING MUSCLE AMPUTATION WILL HELP WITH STRESS RELATED ISSUES BUT I DISAGREE. 90P17 WILL ONLY BE ALLOWED AT CERTAIN TIMES, AND HAVING THIS MAY TAMPER WITH DATA.
Nate grimaced. Muscle amputation? What the hell? He opened the next note.
89P13 IS STILL NOT RECOVERING WELL FROM THE DEATH OF NORMAN MELHUES. WHILE HIS DEATH WAS NOT NECESSARY, THE MERCENARY HAD WARNED HIM NOT TO INTERFERE. HE WAS A GOOD TECHNICAL WORKER, AND HE WILL BE MISSED.
Mercenary? Could this log be talking about Kellogg? Nate had killed him 3 months ago. This log must be more than 3 months ago for it to have happened. Nate opened the last one.
89P13 NEARLY FLATLINED AFTER SPINAL TRANSFER. THANKFULLY HE WAS ABLE TO BE BROUGHT BACK, BUT WHEN HE CAME TO, HE DIDN'T SCREAM LIKE BEFORE. HE JUST STARED AT ME. WITH HATRED. I'M GOING TO ASK FOR DESMOND TO REASSIGN ME TO OUTPOST 12. THE PROJECTS THERE ARE LESS LIKELY TO CAUSE AN INCIDENT.
Nate sighed as he closed the terminal. "What the hell were they doing?"
He showed the notes to Macready, who reacted in disgust. "These guys are like raiders."
Nate went to the next door in the room, surrounded by the corpses of synths. It didn't open at first, before opening slower than the other doors.
Entering the next room, Nate could see the table, probably where they mutilated whatever the doctor was talking about in his terminal.
He got closer to the table, noticing the blood still stained on the table. Fresh. Something was still here.
It was at that moment that Nate heard a yelp from Macready, leaving him to turn around, gun pointed forward. What he saw was something he had not seen before in his time with the wasteland.
A raccoon, wearing white rags, pointing a 10mm pistol at Macready's head as the man cursed. The raccoon turned his head to Nate, and words came out of his mouth.
"Gun... down."