New Vegas: Sheason's Story

Chapter 96: The Think Tank

In the years before the Great War, Big Mountain had been the home of the brightest minds of the 21st century. Scientists of vision were drawn to the facility to tackle the greatest technological challenges of the era. They sought to create a new world, fueled by technology, for the benefit of all mankind. Sonic emitters, space age alloys, DNA hybridization, force field particle research, Auto-Doc advances in cranial, cardiac, and trauma surgery... the hopes and dreams of a century become realities in the electronic forges of Big Mountain. The nucleus of this research was the Dome, a huge stone facility that held the labs of every science known to man. It was a think tank where no problem could not be solved, where no question could not be answered. The Great War brought a new energy to Big Mountain and its scientists. Although sheltered from the frontlines, the scientists waged their own war, fighting their battles at the atomic level. Equations and calculations marched endlessly across chalkboards and computer terminals toward one solution: Winning the war. For years, the minds and computers of Big Mountain were a blaze of trajectories, weapon schematics, and nuclear theories. The problems began to outpace the solutions, first geometrically, then exponentially. As the war escalated, so did the questions. On the night of October 23rd, 2077, the scientists received an answer that put all their questions to rest. In the aftermath, Big Mountain's silent experiments went to sleep, their creators slowly dying in the new world that had been left behind. And the great stone in the middle of the Big Empty lay untouched, filled with countless technological wonders... Wonders that, in the end, had been answers to the wrong question.

I sat there on the couch, staring in slack-jawed silence and confusion for several minutes at the slide show. An old man had been speaking, while colorful images of scientific experiments had graced the wall in front of me. Behind me, I could hear the projector for the slide show humming and clicking away as each slide was swapped out.

"The fuck?" I muttered aloud, my own voice sounding raspy and tired to my ears. Many questions rattled around my befuddled and foggy head, none of which I seemed able to really answer. Where was I? What had happened? What the fuck did I just watch? Why do I feel much heavier than normal? Why does my head itch? And why do I appear to be wearing a dress?

Fuck, this is like the worst hangover in history.

I got up off the couch - and then collapsed back onto it. Holy crap, I'm dizzy all of a sudden. What happened? Why am I -

And then it hit me. The crashed satellite in the drive in. There must have been a teleport or something hooked up to it because... a sense of panic and dread hit me like a sack of bricks. Immediately, I reached up to clutch at my neck, and then I breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn't wearing a bomb collar. Ok, wherever the hell this place is, it's already a step up from the Sierra Madre.

My head was still reeling, but eventually I managed to get up off the couch. I needed to try and get my bearings, but everything was just so... fuzzy. At least I was able to tell that I wasn't quite wearing a dress - for some reason I couldn't determine, I was wearing a the kind of lightweight cloth gown given to medical patients.

I couldn't tell much about the room I was in, except that it was connected to other rooms, and the walls, floors, and ceiling were all made out of the same kind of dull, grey metal, giving it a cold, clinical, almost antiseptic feel.

I stumbled into one of the adjacent rooms, and was deposited in a circular room, with a circular table in the center... except it wasn't quite a table. I was having a lot of trouble thinking. Everything was... what was that humming? It was like the dull thud of machinery, but... I couldn't... what was that?

I checked out another of the adjacent rooms, and found a pair of doors. There was a sign between the two doors: at the top of the sign were the words "TO BIG MT" with an arrow pointing to the left door, and beneath it was "TO THINK TANK" with an arrow pointing to the right. In the middle of the sign was a symbol made up of two hexagons, the smaller one overlapping the lower right-hand edge of the larger hexagon. As soon as I approached, the large wheel in the center of the door on the right started to spin, and the door opened, revealing an elevator.

I was still a bit groggy, and I was obviously not thinking clearly. If I had been, I probably wouldn't have stepped into the elevator so quickly - clearly, this was a trap. As it was, I didn't so much step into the elevator as I did stumble, and as soon as I did, the door shut silently and the elevator descended.

I rubbed my eyes, trying to wake up properly; the next thing I knew, the elevator stopped and a door on the opposite wall opened, depositing me somewhere else. Cautiously - and a bit unsteadily - I stepped out of the elevator. I was in a small room made out of more of that same cold, antiseptic metal, and there was a ramp leading up somewhere right in front of me. As I started to ascend, a voice from above boomed and bellowed.

"I THOUGHT I HEARD THE PACIFICATION FIELD KICK IN. ALL RIGHT, SHHHH. NOBODY. MOVE. I'LL HANDLE THIS."

When I got to the top of the ramp, I found myself in the middle of a vast dome, ringed on the edges by technical equipment and computers and servers and dozens upon dozens of things that I couldn't make sense of. What confused me most of all, however, were the five robots hovering right in front of me.

The first thought that crossed my addled, fuzzy mind was that a Mr. Gutsy and a robobrain had come together in a broom closet somewhere, made mad robot love, and these five were the illegitimate offspring to have resulted from such a coupling. Each one of the robots consisted of a single large glass dome - clearly with a brain inside - with metal pieces attached that allowed it to hover several feet above the ground. Underneath were three screens attached to the robot with multi-jointed mechanical arms. Two screens for the eyes, one underneath for the mouth. As I drew closer, I realized that the bio-med gel that the brains were sitting in were different colors for each robot.

"BE WARNED INTRUDER!" The brain with the blue-tinted bio gel right in front bellowed as soon as I stepped into the middle of the dome. Every time he spoke (or yelled, as the case may be), the gel lit up from the inside, and the screens twitched and moved, like it was using those screens in an attempt to convey facial expressions."YOU ARE IN THE PRESENCE OF THE MIGHTY THINK TANK OF BIG MT, THE COLLECTIVE GENIUSES OF... WE..." He seemed to trail off, and the robot stopped yelling just long enough to turn and look at the other robots. "BY OPPENHEIMER, WHICH ONE OF YOU SELF-PROFESSED GENIUSES HAS BEEN ADJUSTING MY VOLUME KNOB? WHO WAS IT?! WAS IT YOU, 8?"

From off to the side, one of the robots floated close to the central one; his bio gel was a sort of dull burnt-orange color. And then... it spoke. If you could really call it that.

**[#-! ! ! !-#]**!

It was the strangest sensation. I knew in the back of my head that all it was really "saying" out loud was static, but somehow... I dunno. It was almost like I could see the characters in my head... I didn't have time to think about that, though, because the central one started yelling again.

"OH, 'DOCTOR O,' WAS IT? LIKELY STORY, O COULDN'T SPARK TWO NEURONS TOGETHER IF THEY WERE IN A LATTICE OF BIO-MED GEL!" As soon as his name was mentioned, another of the robots floated in close; this one's gel didn't really have a color, and instead just seemed to reflect the cold, antiseptic grey of the metal all around.

"What? Me? Breaking news, Klein, it wasn't me - all right?!" The robot spoke in a... how could something have a nasally-sounding voice if they didn't actually have a nose? "I am the robotical engineer, 8 is soundwaves, that's his 'specialty!' You always do this, you always demean me in front of guests! And it's not 'O," all right, it's -" The central robot - Klein, apparently - pushed past the two brains on either side and started yelling again.

"ENOUGH! EITHER OF YOU DO IT AGAIN, IT'LL BE THE LAST TIME! NOW... NOW... GREAT. NOW I FORGOT WHAT I WAS SAYING... WHAT WAS I TALKING ABOUT?" Even dazed and confused as I was, I saw this as a perfect opportunity to interrupt.

"Uh... what's going on?" I said aloud; all five of the robots turned to look at me. "Last thing I remember, I was at a theater... and then I was here? What is this place?" Klein stared down at me... at least, I think he stared. The eyes on the screens were focused on me, at least.

"DID... DID IT JUST SAY SOMETHING? ANYONE CATCH THAT? BOROUS, YOU WORK WITH ANIMALS, TRANSLATE!" One of the robots from the far side hovered in close and started scrutinizing me; this one's gel was a sort of dull green color.

"It's a LOBOTOMITE! Here! In the DOME!" When this one - Borous - spoke, it was like I was listening to a bad actor in an old holotape with the way he put emphasis on certain words. I'm sure if it was a person and not a brain in a jar, it would wave it's arms around as it spoke. It floated away and Klein started up again.

"OH, AS IF THIS SITUATION COULDN'T GET ANY WORSE, NOW WE'VE GOT LOBOTOMITES! DALA, GET THE SPRAY BEFORE IT EXCRETES ALL OVER EVERYTHING!" I looked around behind me, and then - wait, they're talking about me, aren't they?

"Lobotomite?" I said aloud. "What are you guys talking about?" As I spoke, the last of the robots hovered close to me. Much closer than Borous. This one had purple gel in it's tank, and the eyes and mouth on the monitors looked slightly different than the others... almost... feminine, maybe? Hard to tell, with such a limited picture of the whole face, I know. But I just had that feeling.

"Doctor Klein," Sure enough, it spoke in a female voice. Synthesized, like all the rest, but definitely a woman. "If my hypothesis is correct, this Lobotomite is the repository of the brain we sent the signal to - the skinvelope once containing it. If so, it's proof that there may indeed be something beyond the Crater." As it... she... spoke, she started circling around me, the eyes very obviously scanning me. I was suddenly very much aware that I was still wearing only a medical gown that didn't quite cover my backside. "Just look at it... the way it blinks. It's like a big hairless teddy bear."

"I KNOW WHAT IT IS, DALA, I WANT TO KNOW WHY IT'S DOWN HERE! WITH ITS..." The robot shuddered. "ITS LIMBS ALL OVER EVERYTHING! AND - AND ARE THOSE PENISES I SEE WRIGGLING ON ITS FEET? DISGUSTING!" I looked down at my bare feet and wiggled my toes, slightly amused at the thought. The purple one - Dala - leaned her eye-screens in close to inspect my toe-wiggling, and then floated back up closer to Klein.

"I believe those are toes, Doctor Klein. Little teddy bear toes. Penises are much larger than those tiny extremities -" She paused, looking back and forth, almost nervous. "Er... eh, not that I would know."

"Well, mine certainly is," I said with a smirk. The gel inside Dala's tank lit up at that. The one from the far side - Doctor O, I think - hovered around Dala to get a look.

"I don't recall the human penis ever being that large..." Dala regained her composure and turned to O, making a sound like... how could something clear their throat when they didn't have one?

"It depends on one's own frame of reference, Doctor O. Look at it's little nose with its two orifices for ingesting oxygen..."

"NOSES?!"Klein barked again, "BY THE GREAT STATIC, THESE LOBOTOMITES CONFOUND ME WITH THEIR SHEER NUMBER OF USELESS EXTREMITIES!" Useless, huh? That gave me an idea. Without saying a word, I held up one finger, high above my head. All five of the robots turned to look. I planted the finger right in the middle of my chest. Then, I pointed at each of the robots - one, two, three, four, five - and held up all five fingers on my hand. Klein paused for a second, and then started yelling again.

"NOW IT'S HOLDING UP AN ARRAY OF FULLY-ERECT HAND PENISES! IF IT TRIES TO INSERT THEM, ACTIVATE VIVISECTORS!"

"Doctor Klein, WAIT!" Borous floated in from the side. "I... I don't believe those gestures were RANDOM! Random AT ALL! It's been FOLLOWING our conversation! The Lobotomite... it understands US!" As Borous spoke, Dala hovered above Klein, and came back down to buzz around me again.

"I agree with Borous' histrionic findings," Dala chimed in as she spent an inordinately long time lingering near my backside. "This little Lobotomite is unusually attentive for something whose brain has been extracted."

Wait, what?

"NONSENSE. LOBOTOMITES CAN'T COMPREHEND US!" Klein bellowed. Dala floated through the air back to the group of robots and away from me.

**[= $ + _ - - *]**?

"8, have you been in the Mentats again?" Doctor O chimed in as things got more heated. All the robots started circling around one another, starting to ignore me entirely. "If we slow down our auro-processo-resceptors to understand this excretion, we'll all be rendered ignorant!"

"ALL OF YOU! POWER DOWN, SHUT UP, AND LET ME PROVE ONCE AND FOR ALL HOW WRONG ALL OF YOU ARE - AS USUAL!" Klein rose above all the other robots, and flew down right in front of me, extending one of the eye monitors until it was merely inches away from my face. When he spoke to me, he was still yelling (and up close, he really hurt my eardrums) but he was speaking very slow, the way an idiot would try and speak to someone who spoke a different language... "LOBOTOMITE - DO - YOU - UNDERSTAND - ME? CAN - YOU - SPEAK?"

"Okay, hang on," I said, pinching the bridge of my nose, and holding up a finger. "Back up. Did she say my brain has been taken out?" Klein paused, backing away from me. He turned from side to side, the bio gel in his brain-tank bubbling slightly.

"THOSE... THOSE WERE WORDS, WEREN'T THEY? IN THE FORM OF QUESTIONS... IT'S ASKING ME QUESTIONS! IS THIS SOME KIND OF TRICK?"

"Our efforts have turned against US!" Borous yelled hysterically. "In playing GOD, we created a MONSTER!" He started hovering around and around in quick circles, all three of his monitor's shaking. Dala, on the other hand, seemed more interested than frightened.

"Perhaps as we were ruthlessly lobotomizing it with our cutters, we filled this skinvelope with... awareness. A teddy bear with new stuffing..." She started edging closer, her two eye-monitors never leaving me, when O hovered right in her way.

"Wait! If you're theorizing that this Lobotomite can understand us..." O pivoted in the air and turned to Klein. "... can reason with us..." Klein looked at O, then at me.

"THEN THIS MAY BE JUST THE ANSWER WE'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR!" Klein boomed, looming over me and looking down. "AT LAST, A CHANCE TO -"

**[#-! ! ! !-#]**!

"Doctor Klein!" Borous chimed in after 8 unleashed his burst of pseudo-static. "A TRANSMISSION! A transmission from the FORBIDDEN Zone! Coming right at US!" Suddenly, I heard a sound like a giant monitor flickering to life from behind me, and turned around; sure enough, there was a huge, wide screen mounted on the wall just behind me, and it was, in fact, turning on - but at the moment, it was only static.

"IT CAN ONLY BE..."

The signal cleared, and I was greeted with... another one of these brains. Except this one was... there's no way I could mistake it for any of the others. For one thing, the monitor for it's right eye was cracked and blackened, hanging limply on the end of one of the arms. The tank where the brain was kept looked filthy - the bio-med gel was yellowish with a strange red tint to it. Or maybe that was just because everything in this video looked like it had been pushed through a red filter. And then the robot spoke - with the same voice I'd heard in the slide show when I first woke up, except it echoed and clearly had been manipulated to appear altogether more threatening and dramatic.

"If it isn't my old colleagues, the mighty 'Think Tank' of Big MT!" The brain reared back, and let out burst of maniacal laughter. "Big FOOLS, all of you! It is I, DOCTOR MOBIUS! Transmitting from my dome-shaped... er, DOME in the Forbidden Zone! A zone... that is, yes... forbidden to you! Even now, my deadly Robo-Scorpions swarm across Big MT with their pincers and pointy laser tails! Soon, all Science will be mine! Even the technologies sealed inside the Big MT research centers cannot save you! So, cower in your 'Think Tank!' and wait! Wait, for the end! Nya-ha-ha-ha-haaa!" After his last burst of laughter, he seemed to settle down, and for a few seconds, we were treated to a bit of awkward silence. Had he left the camera running? "Um... That's all... er... goodbye!"

And then the transmission shut off. I gotta say, the last bit didn't sound all that menacing.

"MOBIUS..." Klein bellowed behind me, and I turned back; all four of the brains surrounding him were cowering and shaking behind him, with Klein the only one seemingly unfazed by the transmission. "ALWAYS THE SAME BROADCAST. HE'S CLEARLY MAD, DRIVEN INSANE BY HIS FLAWED AND IMPRECISE KINDERGARTEN-LEVEL RESEARCH METHODOLOGY!" O was the first one to stop cowering - though, by no means did he stop shaking.

"What are we going to do? There's no way we can breach the Forbidden Zone! There's those robot scorpions everywhere!"

"The FORBIDDEN ZONE!" Borous emerged, spreading all three of his monitors in opposite directions. "Where no brain has EVER entered! Nor ever RETURNED!"

"Except Doctor Mobius..." Dala chimed in, hovering around Klein; contrasting to all the movement around him, he seemed rooted in place, despite the fact that he was floating. "And the technologies that could save us... They are out of our reach!" Klein nodded his... monitors... in agreement.

"AND MOBIUS MOCKS US. DID YOU SEE HIS CRACKED MONITOR? HE'S CLEARLY LET HIMSELF GO!" 8 zoomed in the air behind Klein, and started... well, speaking, to O.

**[= $ + _ - - *]**? **[*. . . . . . .]**... **[$((*&^#%]**.

"What?" O seemed taken aback by... whatever it is 8 had said. "Ask the Lobotomite for help? 8, I think you need the fluid levels in your logic-assist-pumps checked."

"I agree with Doctor 8," Dala chimed in, turning to both O and 8. "If this Lobotomite responded, then it is clearly intelligent. Perhaps even displaying heretofore unknown levels of helpfulness."

"But what of it's brain?" Borous asked, flying over. All four of the brains that had been flanking Klein at the start were now circling around each other, with only Klein staying in the same place. "We scooped that out! We don't even know where we left it! And for putting it back in... none of us have the knowledge!"

"Yes, but it's still aware and responsive," Dala pointed out, pushing past the other brains to look at me again. "Look at it... it's regarding us even now, with it's big teddy bear eyes. If we ask politely and leave the part about the unnecessary ruthless lobotomizing out, it might be favorably disposed to us.

As all of them were speaking, I finally took the time to inspect my head. I would've done it earlier, but I was so distracted, and... things were still fuzzy. Hell, that's probably the only reason I hadn't tried interrupting them more... I dunno, there was something about this room that was making me feel... passive is really the best word to describe it. It was like something was trying to keep me from thinking about anything important...

And then, as my fingers ran over my head, my thoughts snapped into sharp focus. I couldn't feel any hair, for one. I was bald! What the hell?! Why'd they shave my head? But that wasn't the worst thing, oh no. I could feel a faint scar ringing my head like a crown. I followed it with both hands on either side, and sure enough... it went all the way around my head. But there was more. At the back of my head, where the base of my skull met my spine, I felt another scar, going down. There were also several metal pieces on the back of my neck that I couldn't identify...

I couldn't breathe. I touched a hand to my chest - and that only made it worse. I could feel something else under my surgical gown. Feverishly, I grabbed the top and looked down: there was a large scar, shaped a bit like a Y and a T mixed together, right in the middle of my chest. I looked up, my eyes wide with horror, and I tried to quiet my breathing. Alright, you're not dead yet, and that's enough.

"But..." I clutched a hand to my head again, unable to draw away from the scars on my head. "You... removed my brain... How did... how am I..." Before I got a chance to say anything else, Dala got closer and spoke up again.

"We removed your brain, yes. So soft. Barely wrinkled, yet so... flush with knowledge and experience. Brain extraction technology has been standard practice at Big MT for an immeasurable amount of time." Borous floated around behind Klein, and started emoting wildly again.

"Once the Brain was taken out, then came the COILS! The TESLA coils... the coils... of NIKOLA TESLAAAAAA!" 8 flew over to Borous, and started bursting static at the histrionic brain.

**[$((*&^#%]**. **[*. . . . . . .]**... **[$((&^#%]**.

"Yeah, 8, no need to brag," O muttered from his spot, having been left all alone again. "Wherever your brain is, it's transmitting thoughts to you through... the... what... the, um... uh..." I'm sure that if he still had fingers, he'd be snapping them, trying to help him remember.

"The TESLA COILS!" Borous chimed in helpfully. "It its HEAD!"

"Yes, those. I would've gotten it eventually..."

"This is fortunate in many respects," Dala said, speaking more to me than to the other brains. She seemed oddly... fixated on me. "If your brain anywhere in the Dome, why, you could access your aggression centers..."

"CIRCUMVENTING THE PACIFICATION FIELD." Klein bellowed. I'd almost gotten used to the silence, and my eardrums stung. "THIS IS A NO-NO. WE HAVE NEVER BEEN IN A FIGHT. WE DO NOT WANT THAT."

"Reminds me of my days in American High! And... RICHIE MARCUS!" Borous spat with surprising venom. I finally gained enough composure that I decided to try and speak up.

"Okay, you took out my brain..." I ignored the absurdity of that statement, clutching my chest again. The strangest thing about all this, is that I wasn't really in pain. I felt like I should've been, but I wasn't, and that was making things... somewhat easier. "That doesn't explain the scars on my chest... or on my spine!"

"DALA!" Klein turned to the brain with the purple tank. "WAS IT NECESSARY THIS TIME?"

"I assume full responsibility. I take my duties in the prodding and excision of living, breathing tissue quite seriously," Dala said with a measure of calm that seemed altogether disquieting. "Although, in truth, the Auto-Doc had done most of the work already. Quite industrious, almost cut into all my investigations." She turned away from Klein, and turned to look at me again. "Once it had removed the brain and I misplaced it, other organs began to cry for direction using your nerves as telegraph wires. Rather than let them send their signals, I removed them as well. Shhh, little organs. Go to sleep in your tanks, Dala loves you."

"First, was the HEART!" Borous emoted from the other end of the room.

**[*. . . . . . .]**... **[$((*&^#%]**.

"Wait, I mean... SECOND was the heart!" Borous corrected himself after 8's burst of static. "Brain was the first. THIRD... was the SPINE!"

**[$((*&^#%]**? **[$((*&^#%]**.

"Heh... spine. Totally overrated, that arrangement of vertebrae!" 0 chimed in, hovering behind Dala. "'Ooh, look at me, with my lumbar and thoracic curvature!' Never had a use for any of that, myself. Spineless is what I prefer."

"Yeah, you can say that again," I muttered under my breath. I turned to look directly at Dala. "Alright, back up. You said you removed my brain... and then 'misplaced' it? What do you mean, 'misplaced' it? How the fuck do you misplace a brain?"

"To be correct," Dala said, her monitors tilting to the side. "you should say, 'the Auto-Doc' took out your brain. It did all the heavy lifting. It has never worked so hard before. It was unusual. It worked so hard on your surgery, it destroyed it's own memory. Zzt." I couldn't tell - was that an actual electric shock, or was she making that noise with her mouth? Wait, hang on, she didn't have a mouth. "How odd. I bet your brain remembers what happened."

"THAT AUTO-DOC JUNKHEAP WAS ONE OF MOBIUS' CREATIONS, LIKE THE REST OF THE TALKING SCRAP METAL IN THE ATTIC!"

"After that, the brain lost itself," Doctor O chimed in, still hovering around near the back behind everyone else. "Er, not in the metaphysical sense. Might have gotten flushed into one of the pipes." O looked from side to side, and hovered even further back. "Actually, that's pretty likely..."

"If so, it was FLUSHED all the way to MOBIUS!" Borous spread his monitors again, shaking them slightly whenever he put emphasis on the wrong word. "Fwooooooosh! That..." He paused. "... is the sound of FLUSHING!"

"BY THE FISSURE OF ROLANDO!" Klein bellowed; it sounded like he was actually shouting this time, and wasn't just hiding behind a turned-up volume knob. "ENOUGH OF THIS BIOLOGICAL SURGERY TALK! LOBOTOMITE!" He got right up in my face yet again. "LISTEN TO MY VOICE! IT DENOMINATES ME TO ASK, BUT... WE NEED YOUR HELP. IN MOST PROBABLE OF PROBABILITIES, OUR ENEMY, MOBIUS, HAS YOUR BRAIN. THIS IS NOT GOOD. HE WILL MOST LIKELY COME AFTER OUR BRAINS NEXT. WE WANT YOU TO STOP HIM. SOMEHOW. WITH SCIENCE."

"Alright, well... if he has my brain..." I sighed, finally accepting it and deciding to just roll with the punches. "...I guess I'll go out to try and find him. Do you have a plan to get into this 'Forbidden Zone' place, whatever the fuck it is?"

"YES. WE HAVE JUST ONE CHANCE. A DESPERATE PLAN THAT CAME TO US AFTER MOBIUS' FIRST BROADCAST. MAYBE... JUST MAYBE... IF WE RECLAIN THE TECHNOLOGIES BURIED IN BIG MT, WE CAN PUT AN END TO MOBIUS AND THE HORRORS SPAWNING FROM THE FORBIDDEN ZONE."

There was a very long pause where nobody spoke.

"... and? What exactly is the plan? C'mon man, you're losing me in the generalities, I need specifics here."

"THE PLAN IS VERY COMPLICATED," Klein said, the eye monitors shifting to the side slightly. "WE ARE STILL CALCULATING HOW IT WOULD WORK IF IT SUCCEEDED. THAT IS OUR PART OF THE PLAN."

"If it's so fucking complicated," I folded my arms across my chest, "Then why do you need me? Can't you do it?" I was getting a bit impatient, sure, but whenever I tried to rile myself up beyond mild impatience, I just... my head went all fuzzy. Klein looked from side to side, and backed up away from me.

"UM. NO."

"No? What do you mean 'No?' Why the fuck not?"

"You are..." Dala paused, staring at me. "...equipped." I looked down, and it was only in that particular moment that I realized I wasn't actually wearing any pants.

"Well, yes, I am," I said without thinking. "But I hardly see how that's relevant."

"T-technologies! Y-you're equipped to retrieve the technologies!" Dala said, stumbling over her words, and her brain-tank lighting up brightly. "Your primitive form... can..." Doctor O coughed, hovering around Dala.

"It's kind of embarrassing, really. You have hands. And... uh, a heartbeat. So to speak. And eyes..." O paused, coughing again. "It's mostly the hands. There's door handles, and lockers, and-"

"ENOUGH!" Klein yelled, cutting O off mid-sentence. "LOBOTOMITE! WE NEED YOUR HELP. WILL YOU HELP US?"

"Yes, sure, fine!" I said, rubbing my forehead. "I'm listening, let's hear it. Just, fucking, spit it out already before you bore me to death..."

"EXCELLENT! THIS TURNING OUT MUCH BETTER THAN THE ACTIVATE-THE-RETREAT-PROTOCOLS-AND-COWER-IN-MY-ROOM IDEA I HAD EARLIER!"

"Agreed! Oh, and I've used my robotical knowledge to um... eh... transmit the... radio map... waves to... to..." O seemed to trail off a bit, like he was confused, and 8... 'helped' him.

**[$((*&^#%]**.

"Settle down, 8!" Doctor O said, talking over the static. "I would have gotten it in a second, all right?! 8's transmitted the last known coordinates of the research centers. They, um... they... well, they move sometimes. Or get buried. Or blow up."

**[$((*&^#%]**.

"8 IS CORRECT. ALL WE NEED ARE THE SCHEMATICS. THIS DOES NOT MEAN WE DO NOT WANT THE COLD, HARD TECHNOLOGY, HOWEVER. SO DO NOT GIVE IN TO YOUR BIOLOGICAL TIRED-LAZINESS AND DECIDE YOU WOULD SWEAT TOO MUCH CARRYING THEM. YOU HAVE A NEW SPINE. USE IT! AND EVEN IF YOU DIE IN THE ACT OF RECLAMATION, SIMPLY REACHING THEM WITH AUTO-TRANSMITIFY THE SCHEMATICS TO US. THAT IS STILL GOOD. FOR US."

"I'll certainly do my best to not get killed, you don't have to worry about that," I said feeling my eye twitch slightly. Why do I always seem to get stuck with the assholes who don't care if I live or die? Just once, could I have a boss who actually cared for my well being, or is that too much to ask? "But if you don't tell me what I need to find, I can't help you. So what the fuck do you need?"

"THE TECHNOLOGIES ARE THE X-2 TRANSMITTER ANTENNA ARRAY, USED TO FOCUS COHERENT THOUGHT AT EXCESSIVELY HIGH FREQUENCIES."

"The psycho-analytic cardiac-dampening sneaky stealth suit!" Borous added, after Klein finished. "A suit like NOTHING this world has ever heard, seen, or could EVER see!"

**[*$(^=)#]**!

"... and 8's Sonic-Soundwave-Emitter-Projecto-Gun, able to broadcast sound at lethal frequencies." Dala translated 8's static. And then, she added a bit of an addendum: "It also give a great biogel massage."

"THERE! WE HAVE INFORMED YOU OF ALL WE NEED. WE ESTIMATE THAT IF YOU ARE FOCUSED, YOUR TIME INVESTMENT WILL BE MINIMAL. BY OUR STANDARDS. IF YOU WORK QUICKLY, YOU WILL BE THE RECIPIENT OF A GESTURE OF GRATITUDE FROM US. WE DO NOT BESTOW THESE OLD WORLD GESTURES LIGHTLY!"

"What if I take my time to explore the place?" And look for a way out, I didn't say. Immediately, Klein recoiled and rose up to tower over me.

"WHAT ILLOGIC IS THIS?! KEEP YOUR FILTHY PENIS-TIPPED FEET OUT OF OUR LABS AND SECRETS!"

"There are things here no Lobotomite was MEANT to see, things that would ASTOUND! And possibly terrify." Borous added with a theatrical shake: "TERRIFYYYYYY!"

"Yeah, we don't come into your lab and decant your solutions!" O added from the back.

"Only the magnificence of our monitors allow for true comprehension of the wonders of Big MT," Dala said with surprising urgency. "Shield your jellied eyes, let they burn from your skull!"

May have touched a nerve there. Let's roll with it, I thought with a smirk.

"Nah, doesn't sound like my style. I think I'll do a little exploring. Take some time, have some lunch..." Klein got right in my face again.

"YOU WOULD NOT DARE! PERHAPS I CAN CHANGE YOUR MIND... USING THE GREATEST OF OUR SCIENCES: THE FENCE!" He paused, apparently expecting me to know what that was.

"What, like... a chain link fence?"

"NO!" He shouted back. If he actually had a mouth, I'm sure I would've been drenched in spittle by now. "THE RADAR FENCE!"

"The mighty radar fence protects us ALL!" Borous edged in closer, and Klein hovered away. "Get too close to the blinking posts, and the proximity warning shall be your... WARNING you are TOO CLOSE!"

"If you get near it, your vision will blur as the electrodes in your head shut off one by one," O said. "Click, click, click..."

"Possible memory loss will occur, along with long-term nerve degradation," Dala chimed in. "It is tied to not having a brain attached to your nervous system. The nerve degradation should be nothing to worry about - such degradation would take many life spans to become evident. And all biology dies."

"THE RADAR FENCE THAT SURROUNDS THE BIG MT CRATER WILL PREVENT - ER, PROTECT YOU FROM STRAYING BEYOND THE FACILITY!"

"So I can't leave," I sighed. Great. Not again.

"O, um...Doctor Klein?" Cautiously, O hovered in closer to the central brain. "Doctor Klein? If I may intersect for a moment -"

"WHAT IS IT? THE LOBOTOMITE IS ASKING ME THINGS, O, AND I AM TRYING TO IGNORE THEM! MY PROCESSORS CAN'T IGNORE YOU BOTH AT THE SAME TIME!"

"Well..." He gulped nervously - again, how could he gulp without a mouth? Or a throat? "You know how we asked it to fetch the Sonic Emitter thing? Well, turns out..." A panel on a box near one of the computer consoles opened up, and O projected a beam of light into it - and seconds later, the beam of light held aloft something that looked a bit like the Pulse Gun. "... we already have it! What are the odds?"

"WHAT IS THIS, A HIGH SCHOOL SCIENCE FAIR?!" Klein yelled, legitimately furious now. "GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER, YOU'RE MAKING US LOOK LIKE A COLLECTION OF ROUND-EARTHERS!"

"You're always yelling!" O whined back, still holding the gun aloft in the beam of light. "My receptors can't take it anymore - and neither can my feelings!"

"I AM YELLING," Klein hovered close to O and practically butted heads... tanks... whatever. "BECAUSE YOU CONTAMINATED SPECIMENS CAN'T KEEP YOUR PROBES OFF THE VOLUME KNOB ON MY VOICE MODULE!"

"For fuck sake!" I yelled, clutching my forehead. "Please! Stop! Fighting!" I shook my head... and started to slowly laugh. It was either a laugh of the onset of madness or of sick desperation. I couldn't tell which.

"IT IS TRULY THE END OF ALL INTELLIGENCE WHEN THE LOBOTOMITE SPEAKS MORE WISDOM THAN YOU 'GENIUSES!' SO - IF WE HAVE THE SOUNDWAVE... SONIC... PROJECT-O... THING-GUN... THEN WHAT IN HEISENBERG'S NAME DO WE NEED FROM X-8?! ANYONE?!"

"I believe we need a new frequency embedded into the gun," Dala said calmly. "It was designed to broadcast may sounds once charged. We just don't know the frequency."

"And it is LOST!" Borous emoted from the other side of the room. "LOST in X-8! Just as X-8 is forever lost to US! The sadness of my High School days! The sadness of my YOUTH! My YOUTH! LOST!"

"Really, Borous?" O said, and my attention snapped to his side of the room; it was like watching tennis. "All you did in High School was Commie fink-tattle-tale on all the kids you hated, you little teacher's pet brown-hound!"

"Brown-hound?!" Borous yelled. "You leave Gabe out of this!"

"GIVE. THE. LOBOTOMITE. THE. EMITTER." Klein seethed. "DOES IT HAVE AN AUDIO EFFECT FREQUENCY LOADED?" Before anyone could answer, 8 hovered over to O, and projected his own light-beam, snatching the sonic gun away from O. And then...

**[ . . . . . . . ! ]**

"Uh... I don't think..." O trailed off, not really sure what...

**[ . . . . . . . ! ]** **[ . . . ! . . . ! ]**

"WHAT - WHAT IS HE DOING?!" Klein asked, and really... I had to ask the same. Everyone, including me, was staring at 8, completely transfixed...

"I think..." O gulped again. "I think he sonjaculating into the gun. Getting it... warmed up." I couldn't look away. It was like I was watching a car crash!

**[ . ! . ! . ! . ! ]** **[ ! . ! ! ! ! . ! ]** **[ . ! ! ! ! ! ! . ]** **[ ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ]** **[ ! . . . . . . . ]**

"Ding. Turkey's done." O said with a subtle laugh. That was definitely a laugh of sick desperation.

"YOU GIVE IT TO THE LOBOTOMITE. I'M NOT TOUCHING THAT THING!" Klein backed away as 8 held the sonic gun aloft in his little tractor beam, trying to offer it to various other brains, each one backing away.

"O, I don't think so!" O said. Dala finally moved up, and took the sonic gun with her own violet-colored light beam.

"I'll do it if you two are going to be ashamed of your own technological needs. Let me give it a little... sonic sterilization first." The light beam changed color slightly, and I thought it was making a humming noise - until I realized Dala was just making the noise with her mouth. "wooOOOoooOOO... All right. All anti-bacterial fresh," She hovered over to me, offering me the sonic gun by holding it aloft in front of my face - and then releasing it from the tractor beam. I fumbled a bit, but eventually caught hold of it... and then grimaced, holding it as daintily as I could between my thumb and index finger. "Here, my little Teddy Bear. I have thoroughly removed all RobCo termlink code spew from the device. It is clean, shiny, and ready for your hands."

"Er... thanks..." I girded my loins, and held the gun more firmly, turning it around, and inspecting it. It really did look a lot like the pulse gun, except there was as small round panel on the back, just above my thumb, which had a small waveform pattern moving back and forth. On top of the gun was a slot for... "Hang on, does this thing use small energy cells?"

"I believe it does, yes." Dala said, nodding her tank. "You may need to look for some extra cells while you look for our technologies. Energy cells such as those have a high expenditure rate."

"HMMM..." Klein added from the back. "YES, I BELIEVE WATTZ ELECTRONICS TENDED TO MAKE THE BATTERY SHELF LIFE ON THE LOW END."

"They certainly did, Doctor Klein," Dala added, moving away. "Batteries for my vibr - vivisectors... would always come up short right before... climax." Dala's tank seemed to glow again.

"I think Wattz manufactured holodisks too, didn't they? Or was it holotapes?" O shook his monitors. "Never could keep those two straight. Anyway, we're out of small energy cells. Dala." O looked at the purple-tanked brain; Dala looked away, at something on the ceiling. O shook his monitors again, and turned his attention back to me. "O, and careful where you're pointing that. That device wasn't always a weapon. It was more like... er... a... force field... kind of... thing. Once."

"Force fields prevent us from MOVING!" Borous chimed in. "FORward or BACKward!"

"THEY ARE IRRITATING."

"The Sonic Emitter was specifically designed to disable our own safety force fields here in Big MT..." Dala spoke up, turning to look back at O. "...when some of us lost our access passes. Doctor O."

"That only happened once!" O whined. "And I know you were behind stealth-fielding my lab keys, Dala, you disgusting formographer!" Dala gasped, and her tank lit up again.

"Doctor O, you rewind that comment this instant!"

"Plenty of rewinding already going on in your formography tapes! Surprised the things don't snap out of their cases with repeated 'observations!'"

"Hang on, hang on," I said aloud, trying to snap the two out of their bickering. "Are you trying to tell me that this thing can disable force fields?"

"YES." Klein said flatly.

**[=$+_- -*]**?

"MAYBE." He corrected himself.

**[$((*&^#%]**.

"WELL. NO. NOT CURRENTLY." He corrected himself again.

"Yeah, we lost that part of the schematics," O said, hovering around Dala. "Or Borous did. In one of his stupid labs - or inside one of his stupid pets!"

"It is LOST!" Ugh, again with Borous' overacting. He was chewing the scenery so much, he'd be picking plaster out of his teeth for days. "All questions lead to this conclusion! The blue fields of force within Big MT shall be fielded with force... FOREVER!"

"Ugh, forget I asked," I grunted, rubbing my temple again. "I honestly could care less about all this. Can I go? I kind of need to stop Mobius." I paused, looking down. "And, perhaps, find a pair of pants."

"FINE. SO... YES. GET THESE THINGS FOR US. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO COMPREHEND THEIR COMPLICATED SCHEMATICS. THAT IS FOR US TO DO. NOT A FILTHY, IGNORANT LOBOTOMITE LIKE YOURSELF."

"Oh, don't worry," I said with a nod. "I'll be sure not to tamper with anything. I promise."

No I don't.

"WELL... GOOD. WHAT ARE THE TOKEN WORDS SPOKEN IN THIS CASE? UH... 'THANK YOU?' YES - THANK. YOU."

"Wait, is it leaving?" Dala zoomed around O, and over to Klein. "Uh, but... er, Doctor Klein, the Lobotomite will need rest. Recuperation. It is organic, it will need things like that. I would like to volunteer my chambers so that it might be stared at, my monitor radars slowly scanning its form to collect sensitive data, and -"

As she rattled off what she wanted to do, I let out an extremely nervous chuckle. Everything she was saying was both terrifying and strangely arousing, for some perverse reason, and the fact that I was thinking that was just making me more terrified.

"NO!" Borous yelled, thankfully cutting her off mid-sentence and keeping her from saying any more. "That would put it too CLOSE to US! It could press BUTTONS! Turn lights ON! And OFF! And worse, it could let OTHER Lobotomites in!"

"We could always give it Mobius' old room," O offered up. "It's where its brain got scooped out anyway. It's probably where it woke up. Plus, some its parts are already there. Might be more comforting for it to hang out with its spine and heart. Home is where the heart is, after all. Heh heh... See what I did there? Went literal." Hang on, were they talking about the place upstairs? Where I woke up? My heart and spine were up there?

"I SUPPOSE," Klein said. "WE'LL HAVE TO MOVE THAT COUCH OUT OF THERE, THOUGH. BEEN PUTTING THAT OFF FOR TOO LONG." Yep, they were definitely talking about the place upstairs.

**[$((*&^#%]**.

"8, are you sure?" O asked after 8 was finished belching static. "Actually, now I think about it, giving the Lobotomite the Sink Central Intelligence Personality Chip so it can be re-installed is a good idea. That stuffy Mobius-programmed butt-ler can walk the Lobotomite, feed it, barter with it for us..."

"It would also prevent it from going to Higgs Village and taking up residence there," Dala added. "With my teddy bears. And it would be nice to have it so..." Dala turned and looked directly at me; her tank lit up again. "... close."

"YOUR LOGIC COMBINED WITH MY DESIRE TO KEEP THE THINK TANK LOBOTOMITE-FREE HAS SWAYED ME. HERE." Klein floated over to a nearby desk that had several boxes worth of electronics all around it, and used his tractor beam thing to pick up a device that looked almost like a keycard, dropping it over one of my hands. "I PRESENT THE SINK CENTRAL 'INTELLIGENCE.' LOBOTOMITE, TAKE THIS CHIP TO THE SINK. PLUG IT IN, AND MAKE SURE THE CHIP IS CLEAN, OR IT COULD SKIP. THEN MAKE WHATEVER CRUDE BIOLOGIC DEMANDS YOU NEED OF THE SINK. IT WILL CATER TO MOST OF YOUR HORMONAL WHIMS."

I turned the card over and over in my hand, inspecting it closely. It sort of looked like a tiny computer motherboard; it was a dull green, with a maze-like pattern of metal and wires covering nearly every inch.

"This chip looks a bit like it was mass-produced," I said, holding it up. "Are there any other chips?"

"ARE THERE OTHER CHIPS?" Klein sounded confused.

"Are... are you just echoing what he said, or... are you asking for real?" O asked.

"I believe he's asking," Dala said, bobbing around O. "Yes, Doctor Klein. There are other personalities. If you recall, you hurled them off the Sink balcony after your last argument with Mobius."

"IT IS NOT AN ARGUMENT IF ONE IS CLEARLY RIGHT AND THE OTHER IS CLEARLY WRONG!" Klein yelled back, turning away from Dala and back to me. "YES, YES, I REMEMBER NOW. YES, LOBOTOMITE, THERE ARE OTHER CHIPS. IF YOU WANT, FIND THEM. I BELIEVE THEY ARE STORED ON SIMILAR DEVICES IN MANY OF OUR OTHER FACILITIES. BUT YOU SHOULD STAY OUT OF THOSE - NO EXPLORING AND DISCOVERING THINGS!" I shook my head and let out another soft laugh again, trying to disguise it as a cough.

"Alright, alright, whatever. So, I just plug this thing into the circular map-thing in the room upstairs? That's the Sink?" Why would they call it that?

"YES. YOU MAY NEED TO WIGGLE IT IN A BIT, BUT DON'T FORCE IT. WE CAN'T RE-CODE THEM IF YOU BREAK IT. NOW GO! THERE IS NO MORE WE CAN DO TO 'AID' YOU, AND OUR PATIENCE LEVELS ARE FAR PAST DEPLETED!"

"Finally, we're in agreement!" I said, turning on my heels to go back down the ramp. I gave them a wave as I descended, and just started laughing. I couldn't help it.

I take back every time I've ever said it before: I now know the exact moment that my life got so fucking weird, and that moment is now.