Reactor 5
"Are you Festus?" Sativa asked of the ghoul in the supervisor's office.
He looked particularly unkempt and glum looking, with a particularly rancid appearance and the body odour of an infected wound. "Are you the one in charge?"
Despite his appearance she hoped the answer was yes. She'd had to search the whole place, acquire three coloured keycards and just wanted to hand over the part before the feeling of these steel walls closing in around her became too much to bear. Or all her hair fell out from the radiation leaking out all over the place. One or the other.
"Yep, I run the whole reactor," he said. "Without me, this whole town would be shut down. I'm a very busy man. They really overwork me here..."
"Well, I have a part that you can use to fix the reactor," she replied, holding out the Hy-Mag.
The ghoul took the part and examined it from every angle, before replying hesitantly, "You know, I'm not so sure that this is the right part after all. Maybe you should take it back to Vault City to check. I don't think I can help you with this, after all."
"I'm sure it's the right part," she insisted. "I have..."
"The people I got running it mean well, but... well, they are not the sharpest tools in the shed. If you know what I mean."
"...great confidence in your abilities."
He looked back at her, remaining stubbornly unconvinced. "I don't think that those people in Vault City really like us all that much. I wouldn't put it past them to booby-trap this part. Maybe it only looks like the right part, and it's really a bomb! You can't fool me that easily. I'm not installing this thing."
"With your technical expertise, if it were a bomb, you would already know it. Please, just. Install. The part."
"Okay, I'm here. But I'm still not sure that this isn't the right part, or that it's not a trap somehow. You know, I'm much too valuable to waste. Maybe I should just let someone else do this... later... much later."
"It needs to be done now," she insisted. "And you're the only person that can do it right. Come on, all Gecko depends on you!"
She felt a tap on her shoulder as Cassidy whispered in her ear, "Much as I wanna stand around here all day, are you really sure we wanna trust it with to guy?"
"Do you trust anyone else to? One of us, maybe?" she asks back, shaking her head before turning back to Festus. "Can you at least show us where we need to put it?"
Scratching his flaking chin, he nodded, "I guess so. I am the supervisor, of course."
The group followed the ghoul who led them, very slowly to the reactor control room. A window gave them a view of the heart of the reactor and a very thin barrier between them and painful death.
Festus directed their attention to a computer terminal. "Station #3 Reactor Maintenance & Repair Robot Control Terminal. You probably ain't all that keen on going inside yourselves, so I figure if you can get that machine up and running from here you can have it do all that for you."
"Uh-huh," said Sativa, whose only prior experience with an automaton was bashing it to pieces for trying to kill her. She took one look at the computer and turned to her companions to remind them, "Look, I grew up in a village, just in case any of you think I'm remotely qualified to handle this. I shouldn't really have to explain this."
Cassidy shrugged. This was, admittedly, out of his range of expertise, limited as it was to pouring drinks and 'killing the shit out of things.' None of the spirits Sulik consulted had any ancient wisdom regarding power plant repair systems. "Uh, boss?" Vic raised his hands. "I might be able to give it a shot."
She looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Really? You've worked with robots before?"
"No," he admitted, "But I can follow instructions pretty good..." He picked up a thick manual handily located next to the terminal and leafed through its plastic-covered pages. "I've managed to get an old computer up and running a few times, too. Couldn't really do a lot with them, but I think I got the gist."
She stepped aside to let him use the terminal. "All right, I'll leave it up to you."
Vic beamed as he stepped up to take his place. "I won't let you down, boss."
"I hope you don't. I really don't want to die here."
"No pressure, huh? Okay, let's see here..." he tapped instructions painfully slowly, one key at a time with his index fingers and his tongue sticking out to one side.
Tertiary Functional Access Code Accepted. RM&RR Unit warming up... Unit ready for service. Service Procedure?
"I'm in! Okay... 'Initiate Coolant Maintenance Sequence.' That should-" The machine bleeped uncooperatively.
RM&RR unit roll-out initiated.
Checking Drive Systems... OK
Checking-Manipulator Arm... OK
Checking Internal Stabilizer... OK
Logic Circuits... FAIL
"The Logic Circuits failed. I wonder what that means." Tat-tap...
Logic Circuits damaged. In emergency, RM&RR unit may be directed manually.
Everyone else stood around uncomfortably waiting while Vic entered the commands one-by-one, checking the manual at every step. "...Amplify Plutonium-Gamma Shield... Deharmonize Neptunium Impeller... Calibrate Uranium-Rod Driver... Set Voltage on Saturn-Class Capacitor... I guess it knows how to do that... Test Jupiter Wave Complier whatever those are..."
Finally a hatch opened, ready for a component to be placed into the receptacle. "Okay, that's it! Now we just have to install Hydroelectric Magnetosphere Regulator and we're all set."
With the part placed and the sequenced initialized, all they could do was hold their breath as the robot moved across the reactor floor in a complicated pattern, making half a dozen right-angled turns before reaching the end of its journey and extending the part to embed it into a bank of machinery lining the far wall.
Cassidy broke the silence. "Should we running yet?"
"No, that looks good," Festus answered, watching a random light in the control room turn green. Sighs of relief erupted, earning Vic many heavy-handed pats on the back and calls of "Attaboy!" and "Good job not screwing up and killing us all!"
"So does mean the reactor won't leak anymore?" Sativa asked Festus, wanting to make absolutely sure their work here was done.
"The reactor's running pretty good now, all right," the ghoul nodded, then adding "Could still do with a tiny bit of a tuneup, mebbe, but I'd say it's a pretty good job all the same."
"More work?" She asked. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that the reactor's running now, but it sure could run better. I mean better by a long country mile, if we jist had a smidge more data. Now if you could get the optimization data, we'd be cooking with gas. Uh, well, you know what I mean."
"Optimization data? Where would I get that?"
"Well, you could probably get the information from the Vault City central computer."
"Hmm, that's a thought." Now that she was sure to get her citizenship, she should be able find that along with the Vault location she was looking for.
"I bet a clever one like you could jist sneak in there and use a holodisk with the reactor performance information on the central computer. Then sneak the disk right back here. That'd do it. I'd do it myself, but I'm just too valuable here to leave, even for a moment..."
Overhearing, Vic chimed in, "Or we might be able to do it from here. It says this terminal allows access to something called PoseidoNet. Some kind of network, I think."
Sativa looked over at Vic. "Would there even be anything left to connect to?"
"Only one way to find out... okay, here we go..."
Uplink with central PosiedoNet initiated.
Searching Comlinks...
Searching...
Iron Mountain... Offline
NORAD... Offline
SAC... Offline
Searching PoseidoNet...
--More?--
Active PoseidoNet Stations:
Atomic Powerplant #5
Navarro Refinery
Control Station ENCLAVE
ENCLAVE Vault-Research Control... AccessDenied
Vic frowned. "Everything's shut down except for the ENCLAVE Vault-Research Control. I wonder what that is?" He tapped on the keyboard and pressed Enter.
Everyone almost jumped back as the text on the screen disappeared, replaced by what appeared to be a live video feed.
Someone stared back at them.
And spoke.
"ENCLAVE here."
He looked particularly unkempt and glum looking, with a particularly rancid appearance and the body odour of an infected wound. "Are you the one in charge?"
Despite his appearance she hoped the answer was yes. She'd had to search the whole place, acquire three coloured keycards and just wanted to hand over the part before the feeling of these steel walls closing in around her became too much to bear. Or all her hair fell out from the radiation leaking out all over the place. One or the other.
"Yep, I run the whole reactor," he said. "Without me, this whole town would be shut down. I'm a very busy man. They really overwork me here..."
"Well, I have a part that you can use to fix the reactor," she replied, holding out the Hy-Mag.
The ghoul took the part and examined it from every angle, before replying hesitantly, "You know, I'm not so sure that this is the right part after all. Maybe you should take it back to Vault City to check. I don't think I can help you with this, after all."
"I'm sure it's the right part," she insisted. "I have..."
"The people I got running it mean well, but... well, they are not the sharpest tools in the shed. If you know what I mean."
"...great confidence in your abilities."
He looked back at her, remaining stubbornly unconvinced. "I don't think that those people in Vault City really like us all that much. I wouldn't put it past them to booby-trap this part. Maybe it only looks like the right part, and it's really a bomb! You can't fool me that easily. I'm not installing this thing."
"With your technical expertise, if it were a bomb, you would already know it. Please, just. Install. The part."
"Okay, I'm here. But I'm still not sure that this isn't the right part, or that it's not a trap somehow. You know, I'm much too valuable to waste. Maybe I should just let someone else do this... later... much later."
"It needs to be done now," she insisted. "And you're the only person that can do it right. Come on, all Gecko depends on you!"
She felt a tap on her shoulder as Cassidy whispered in her ear, "Much as I wanna stand around here all day, are you really sure we wanna trust it with to guy?"
"Do you trust anyone else to? One of us, maybe?" she asks back, shaking her head before turning back to Festus. "Can you at least show us where we need to put it?"
Scratching his flaking chin, he nodded, "I guess so. I am the supervisor, of course."
The group followed the ghoul who led them, very slowly to the reactor control room. A window gave them a view of the heart of the reactor and a very thin barrier between them and painful death.
Festus directed their attention to a computer terminal. "Station #3 Reactor Maintenance & Repair Robot Control Terminal. You probably ain't all that keen on going inside yourselves, so I figure if you can get that machine up and running from here you can have it do all that for you."
"Uh-huh," said Sativa, whose only prior experience with an automaton was bashing it to pieces for trying to kill her. She took one look at the computer and turned to her companions to remind them, "Look, I grew up in a village, just in case any of you think I'm remotely qualified to handle this. I shouldn't really have to explain this."
Cassidy shrugged. This was, admittedly, out of his range of expertise, limited as it was to pouring drinks and 'killing the shit out of things.' None of the spirits Sulik consulted had any ancient wisdom regarding power plant repair systems. "Uh, boss?" Vic raised his hands. "I might be able to give it a shot."
She looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Really? You've worked with robots before?"
"No," he admitted, "But I can follow instructions pretty good..." He picked up a thick manual handily located next to the terminal and leafed through its plastic-covered pages. "I've managed to get an old computer up and running a few times, too. Couldn't really do a lot with them, but I think I got the gist."
She stepped aside to let him use the terminal. "All right, I'll leave it up to you."
Vic beamed as he stepped up to take his place. "I won't let you down, boss."
"I hope you don't. I really don't want to die here."
"No pressure, huh? Okay, let's see here..." he tapped instructions painfully slowly, one key at a time with his index fingers and his tongue sticking out to one side.
Tertiary Functional Access Code Accepted. RM&RR Unit warming up... Unit ready for service. Service Procedure?
"I'm in! Okay... 'Initiate Coolant Maintenance Sequence.' That should-" The machine bleeped uncooperatively.
RM&RR unit roll-out initiated.
Checking Drive Systems... OK
Checking-Manipulator Arm... OK
Checking Internal Stabilizer... OK
Logic Circuits... FAIL
"The Logic Circuits failed. I wonder what that means." Tat-tap...
Logic Circuits damaged. In emergency, RM&RR unit may be directed manually.
Everyone else stood around uncomfortably waiting while Vic entered the commands one-by-one, checking the manual at every step. "...Amplify Plutonium-Gamma Shield... Deharmonize Neptunium Impeller... Calibrate Uranium-Rod Driver... Set Voltage on Saturn-Class Capacitor... I guess it knows how to do that... Test Jupiter Wave Complier whatever those are..."
Finally a hatch opened, ready for a component to be placed into the receptacle. "Okay, that's it! Now we just have to install Hydroelectric Magnetosphere Regulator and we're all set."
With the part placed and the sequenced initialized, all they could do was hold their breath as the robot moved across the reactor floor in a complicated pattern, making half a dozen right-angled turns before reaching the end of its journey and extending the part to embed it into a bank of machinery lining the far wall.
Cassidy broke the silence. "Should we running yet?"
"No, that looks good," Festus answered, watching a random light in the control room turn green. Sighs of relief erupted, earning Vic many heavy-handed pats on the back and calls of "Attaboy!" and "Good job not screwing up and killing us all!"
"So does mean the reactor won't leak anymore?" Sativa asked Festus, wanting to make absolutely sure their work here was done.
"The reactor's running pretty good now, all right," the ghoul nodded, then adding "Could still do with a tiny bit of a tuneup, mebbe, but I'd say it's a pretty good job all the same."
"More work?" She asked. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that the reactor's running now, but it sure could run better. I mean better by a long country mile, if we jist had a smidge more data. Now if you could get the optimization data, we'd be cooking with gas. Uh, well, you know what I mean."
"Optimization data? Where would I get that?"
"Well, you could probably get the information from the Vault City central computer."
"Hmm, that's a thought." Now that she was sure to get her citizenship, she should be able find that along with the Vault location she was looking for.
"I bet a clever one like you could jist sneak in there and use a holodisk with the reactor performance information on the central computer. Then sneak the disk right back here. That'd do it. I'd do it myself, but I'm just too valuable here to leave, even for a moment..."
Overhearing, Vic chimed in, "Or we might be able to do it from here. It says this terminal allows access to something called PoseidoNet. Some kind of network, I think."
Sativa looked over at Vic. "Would there even be anything left to connect to?"
"Only one way to find out... okay, here we go..."
Uplink with central PosiedoNet initiated.
Searching Comlinks...
Searching...
Iron Mountain... Offline
NORAD... Offline
SAC... Offline
Searching PoseidoNet...
--More?--
Active PoseidoNet Stations:
Atomic Powerplant #5
Navarro Refinery
Control Station ENCLAVE
ENCLAVE Vault-Research Control... AccessDenied
Vic frowned. "Everything's shut down except for the ENCLAVE Vault-Research Control. I wonder what that is?" He tapped on the keyboard and pressed Enter.
Everyone almost jumped back as the text on the screen disappeared, replaced by what appeared to be a live video feed.
Someone stared back at them.
And spoke.
"ENCLAVE here."