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purkinje-effect · 6 years

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The Anatomy of Melancholy, 14

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Updated 2019.01.29. Minor name tweaks.

Pretty hard surveillance tw on this one, ah. And you get a cookie if you can spot the historical conspiracy reference.

Melancholy locked the pharmacy's front door behind himself, then wheeled to the back and took the elevator to the second floor. As he exited the car, Angel came from the break room about the same time, and stopped him in the lounge area.

"Ah, Sir!" It paused, genuinely confused. "Did you just come from downstairs? I was just thinking I needed to check on you. How did your little rooftop rendezvous go with your chums, ha ha!"

"--About that." 'Choly chewed at his lip and eyed his Handy-bot. He favored pushing past it in the belief it would follow. "I know it's a bit early, but could I bother you for a bit of dinner? Really, anything will do."

"Good that you're open to variety," Angel replied, right behind him as expected, "for we haven't got it. I'm afraid all we have left is Halloween candy, a few boxes of Instamash, and BlamCo Mac. Really, we should consider replenishing our pantry next you feel up to it. Perhaps a trip to the grocer's is in order, hm? You did outfit me with this dandy harness, and update my hydraulics, so that I might facilitate that kind of endeavor, after all." It held up two boxes, a red and gold square one and a thin flat teal one. "Would you rather the potatoes or the macaronis?"

"Mm. The macaronis."

While it put back the square box and commenced preparation of the other, it hummed a jaunty vaguely-British tune which its owner couldn't quite place. 'Choly set down his syringer and hood on the table, and with a lump in his throat, he watched the robot.

"Angel, I've been giving it some thought. About how Defense Intelligence Agency gifted me with you when I first came over. I... I know the DIA used you to spy on me. That it wasn't just nationalization effort to adjust me to culture and language. I also know the DIA fell with the rest of the government. We can talk more openly now, don't you think? Being honest with you is going to help us both help each other. Sure, the mandatory name change didn’t fool anybody: everyone still all thought I was a Russian spy or something. But really? They approached me, offered me the position at Deenwood. Part of transplanting key Asian experts into the US military, best I can tell. What can I say? I get bribed easily with promise of access to big toys. But really. All I was hiding was chem trafficking. Lots and lots of chem trafficking."

"I know, Sir."

"--Hawthorne and I--" The chemist cringed and glazed over. "Wait, what?"

"I know all about you and Mister Hawthorne's business practices. I didn't report any of that because it's not what I was programmed to identify and report. They cared only how you handled confidential information. My objections to your proclivities have always wholly been in my interest of preserving your health and quality of life, Sir." It stopped a moment to let the saucepan boil on the hot plate, but readily resumed stirring it as needed. "I am still transmitting this to proper authorities, mind."

The inability to process Angel's response elicited a strange smile.

"Yes, of course. You're likely transmitting to skeletons, but I understand."

He nearly related that Communism had lost, but so had Capitalism. It didn't serve to argue no clear winner when in the nuclear exchange, everyone had lost. His head hurt, between the goings-on with Jared and learning his robot had concealed this level of self-awareness from him from the beginning. In attempting transparency so his activities would come as no surprise, he could have never expected his robot to reciprocate such honesty.

Back when he trafficked chems under the paranoia of crossing the DIA's scrutiny, he'd taught himself enough robotics to defuse what bugging technology he could identify, such that these variably sophisticated sensors transmitted all-clear, where simply disabling them would have drawn attention to any tampering. Yet, even now the remnants of his robotics knowledge would benefit him, to perform maintenance on this stunning testament to the longevity of General Atomics craftsmanship.

Still, the possibility nagged in the back of his head, that Angel's transmissions might ever amount to conflict. He'd discounted the possibility of an existing surviving population, after all. He could get all manner of things wrong, including the radio death of the DIA. He'd have to do something about the bugging equipment, to sate his paranoia. Regardless, it relieved him that his cyclomorphine research had only come up between him and his business partner within the month leading up to the apocalypse. The nature of the chems he had skimmed hadn't stimulated his Handy to rat him out, but provided that it ever determined that any of the military compounds he'd formulated had left the compound...

Worst of all, he understood with horror, was the likelihood he was entirely right about the demise of the Agency. The only thing that had kept him in line after his American conscription was the threat of surveillance. Who now existed in this wasteland save himself compassionate enough to mitigate his moral compass for him? He doubted even he could keep himself from acting out on fantasies any longer, the more he recognized them trickling into mundane waking world. Of any aspect of this creeping reality, that terrified him most: more than the ghouls, more than the mutated insects, more than anything else he had not yet encountered that his imagination could not reliably fabricate. Who had the audacity to grant him self-agency?

Angel, presenting its owner a bowl of creamy reconstituted pasta, startled him from his waking nightmare.

"Bh--hoze--" He found himself frowning as he rapidly and repeatedly retraced his platysmal scar. Angel joined the bowl with a shot glass and the near-empty bottle of whiskey, and he poured himself a glass with his head hung. "Thanks, Angel."

"Sorry to startle you. You were most lost in thought."

"Doesn't change a thing." He favored eating over starting with the liquor for once. After a few bites, he cleared his throat. "So, I suppose I should explain my sudden willing openness. I have a job now. Salaried. I might still pick at the by-commission rooftop sales on the side, if it goes smoothly."

"My stars! What exciting news." Angel's movements seemed lyrical and airy a moment before it shifted to a scattered panic. "When do you start! Oh, oh dear. We've nothing for you to take for lunch! We must--"

"Angel. Angel, it's all right." 'Choly snapped his fingers a few times, then continued eating. "Stay with me. Maybe once I get Jared the information he needs, we can make a trip out of the pharmacy. That way, I can draft a laundry list of what all we need to scavenge for."

"Apologies, Sir. I'm just..." It idled beside him with its tendril-limbs curled up close. "I'm so eager for both of us. You've no idea how elated I am that I can foster vocational habits in you again. Tend to you, like... before. The normality of routine--that's the cement you need to get back to your old self. Ha ha!"

"Mmh. Makes two of us." He washed down the cardboardesque pasty mouthful with half the shot and, with a sigh, absently tapped his spoon in the dish. "I doubt the lab here would be suitable for the scale of distillation he described. Don't much like the idea of that much manure in the pharmacy, anyway. You're fond of reminding me not to bring home my work with me, and I think we can both agree that this building is very much becoming my home now. I don't think you need to remind me to leave that elsewhere."

"I haven't the slightest what you're on about, but manure? Yes, I'm quite glad we're in agreement that it doesn't belong indoors."

"Talking aloud. Imagine it doesn't make much sense. Mm mmh." He finished off the serving and shot glass, and sat back in thought. "I surveyed the assembly plant before I returned, and I think there's a good place there to set up a vat-style rig. Lots of pipes to make use of. Maybe... maybe refining a few water heaters...." With a sniff, he adjusted his glasses and glanced down to his Pip-Boy. "I'm going to get working on my invoice. Thank you for dinner."

"Of course, Mister Carey!" It cleared the table for him.

"I'm going to have to fix that one of these days," 'Choly mumbled to himself as he wandered off in the chair to nurture a Berries-induced engineering conflagration.

Taking stock as he navigated the building, he absently annotated in his Pip-Boy with blind keyless keystrokes, and as he went, he cross-referenced these against a more coherent draft he composed for Jared. In his ramble, he listed off various possible equipment which they could combined into a small-scale substitute for the mechanisms by which to load the crate of empty inhalers he had on hand in the pharmacy lab. To sustain the chem habit Jared sought to cultivate, there would have to be a tacit recycling effort of paraphernalia until they could locate more actuators. Too, he requested minimal opposition from Jared's crew as he toured Lexington, endearing that the city must already belong to the raider boss, or inevitably that it would. Something of this new world civility tickled 'Choly, and he guarded any potential conflict with the raiders by asking permission to scout the Super Duper Mart. Self-serving, he also tacked on a postscript that Jared's crew supply him with large quantities of Abraxo cleaner, to make possible synthesizing fresh Mentats of any variety, and he cited the need to stay sharp for the task at hand. By the end of the evening, he read it all over one more time and transcribed it onto a piece of card stock packaging, then shoved the results in the capsule pipeline.

He sank into his seat at Eleanor's desk and slumped his head along his outstretched arms. He popped a few painkillers in his mouth and chewed them mindlessly, and washed it down with the stale coffee he'd forgotten on the desk at some point. The familiar post-Berries headache crawled across his skull, but he hardly cursed it. The brain was just like a muscle in some regards, after all--running a marathon is a very different thing for someone who's prepared at length for it as opposed to someone who dashes from start to finish without even stretching beforehand. The habit would return. He'd gladly nurse it.

As he started to drift off, radio static echoed in Eleanor's office. Bewildered, he squinted and rubbed at his head as he pushed the button on the intercom.

"Chemist--" The caller was Jared. "You expect me to read this novel when you've got a working comm?"

'Choly grunted and resumed leaning on the desk. He hadn't expected Jared to come himself.

"I can hear your awful face paint loud and clear." He stiffened, double checking whether the button was depressed for automatic two-way chat, or if he'd simply held it a moment to check the caller. He swallowed hard and pushed the button again, hoping Jared hadn't heard that. "Sorry. I have more than a bit of a headache right now. And this is the first I knew that restoring power to the building had also restored the intercom."

"Fuck you're longwinded." Jared paused at length. "It's always the quiet ones. Ugh."

"Apologies. I was just trying to be thorough. Operating on the presumption that our correspondences over the invoice would all be written word, I just figured that a comprehensive list of everything that came to mind would limit how much time got wasted. I'm guessing you've had a chance to look it over?"

"Yeah, I got it. Flattery will get you everywhere in my town. You have the most unnervingly good handwriting I've ever seen, but I still can't believe I'm reading this right. You want in the SDM? You really are crazy. I'm not wasting warm bodies on that, but far be it for me to turn down the proposition of you spreading around any profit to be had of your confidence that you can manage it. Try not to die before we even get started. And get me some Sugar Bombs while you're at it."

Even Jared thought it a terrible plan to try to scavenge the grocer's for food reserves. 'Choly would have to think things through for certain, and he hid his anxiety over it behind a tiny chuckle.

"Heh, I can do that. What... about the other things I mentioned?"

"You've gone from asking for cash to asking for a metric fuckton of soap. That's marginally more sane than most of the things you've said today, but even that's pushing it. We're going in the right direction. Yeah, I've got a lead on where to load up on Abraxo, but remember. I'm only interested in Mentats as far as they're helpful to distilling my Jet. My project takes priority over any of your unrelated fun, and don't forget it." Jared snorted. "Still, you're going to have to let me try some of these infamous Berries you won't shut up about."

"Oh, for certain." 'Choly rubbed at his temples, his voice strained. "I swear by them. Only way I got through my military contract."

When Jared had nothing to say for a little too long, 'Choly realized that had been entirely the wrong thing to say.

"You a fuckin Brotherhood defector? That takes balls."

"Oh, I, no. The actual military. I'm a Pharm Corps chemist. Nine years, eight months, for Anchorage."

That had been an even worse thing to say.

"--I grow impatient with this conversation, chemist. Give me a few days to gather up what you've requested. Answer your damn comm when I come knocking." Jared snarled. "You're really starting to piss me off. If you're gonna get high like this all the time, at least journal your trips so they're useful to more than just you, all right?"

This time, 'Choly remained silent for a bit. Had he heard the raider right?

"You... want a transcript of my high?" 'Choly licked his lips and held in a breath as he stared at his Pip-Boy. "I... I can absolutely do that. You're in luck that that's... already an habituation of mine."

"All right. Now that, I like to hear. Expect to share. Both... experience and goods. Heh." At first, 'Choly had thought that was the end of it, but then Jared came back with somewhat sarcastic enthusiasm. "Let me know how your grocery trip goes."

"For certain."

When the intercom stayed idle for several minutes, relief oozed out of him, and he slouched back in the chair with a groan. He removed his glasses and dug his fingers into his eyelids. He could appreciate that Jared was on board with his plan, and that the raider was willing to accommodate interests that ran in direct tangent to the grand scheme. But, this conversation also solidified the contract into something tangible and unable to ignore. The chemist had a job again. Responsibilities. Someone he had to answer to. On the other hand, this also meant more of the building worked than he thought previous. If he intended to set foot outside the pharmacy, he was going to have to throw together a sign for the intercom, so that anyone who came calling would know he wasn't just blowing them off.

In the mean time, he took to the couch in Eleanor's office and passed out halfway through disrobing.

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#fallout 4 fanfic #fo4 fanfic #fallout 4 oc #fo4 oc #fallout 4 #surveillance tw #drug culture tw #sole survivor #disabled sole survivor #trans sole survivor #jared fallout 4 #corvega assembly plant #the anatomy of melancholy #melancholy #the purkinje effect

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galimatios · 4 years

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sci-fi au again but it’s some bastardized blame au feat. my twins

thinking about a bastardized blame au that borrows the setting of blame but with some minor differences, aka humans weren't dead for as long and silicon lifeforms are part of a disease that turns pure humans into half synthetic life, aka go feral go crazy some retain intellect tho, and pure silicon creatures are fully sentient and intelligent but im thinking of a society in which android labor was widespread, but bc humans were wiped by silicon corruption, there's huge populations of androids w/o purpose humans do still exist but they're not pure, most of them have varying levels of silicon corruption as well as varying resistances. it does grant these humans superhuman strength or healing though i kind of. wanna put rey and ray as twins in this au as bounty hunters aka humans who hunt down corrupted humans who've gone too far... but they also do odd delivery jobs and stuff likelihood is that they've been alive for Way longer than humans should be due to their own corruption they remember what life was like before things went to shit ray owned a restaurant and rey owned the bar on top of it as siblings they went thru hell together and back and this was their dream and. well. then shit changed but also aesthetic bc: rey with short hair, tank top, sci-fi ass gear and army boots she's also the Slightly Older twin and holds this to ray all the time they argue. Nonstop. sometimes they cant stand eachother bc dumbasses both have strong aggressive personalities but (and ive been thinking abt rey w a sibling for a while) at the end of the day they trust eachother bc they both had the same shitty mom and survived. they can do anything, they're Them? but the scourge... well. they're always upbeat. they have eachother after all, but sometimes when they're alone, ray gets nostalgic. a little wistful, a little sad "it was nice while it lasted, huh? not even a full ass decade, and everything came tumbling down." legs hanging off a ledge, the smell of cigarette smoke "wonder how dom's doing." rey doesn't want to talk about her. she steals the cig from his mouth and puts it out. "that shit ain't good for you." "the fuck? you smoke too you know." but rey's already leaving. neither of them know if dom survived. ray lost a best friend, rey lost a lover it's been two hundred years, maybe more. if she hadn't shown up, dead or alive, she's probably gone but the thing is, the megastructure is huge. so vastly huge and confusing, anything can happen. ray thinks one day she'll show up. dom is tough. she's out there somewhere. (END PROSE) also i just love the idea of rey being a heavy firearm user and she just has a huge laser cannon strapped to her back at all times ray thinks weird flex but ok he probably uses a device that resembles some sci-fi spear/rapier thing but it channels electricity so on his command he can roast shit and also override / destroy power structures as needed. both of them have mechanical skills, can hotwire stuff, they're too dumb for hacking so they usually just try to physically brute force shit (aka... hitting it until it works) ray... leather jacket and gloves. NOTED THO: organic materials are really rare and are either salvaged or synthetically created instead. so this is like fake ass bioengineered leather from one of the few bastions of semi-human life, a big city within the megastructure that's where rey and ray live... they actually do want to start a restaurant again but. i think they've sworn off it until they find out what happened to dom, bc she's the only person they've ever trusted with their dream so until then, bounty work ok wow i kind of love ray w a fucking. black electric rapier spike thing + black gloves and black jacket, leather fucking pants, DANGER BOY!!! then rey loves firearms but sometimes she JUST PUNCHES SHIT. SHE'S STRONG!!! fingerless gloves for the girl. cries I love my redheads

KEITH PROBABLY. WOULD BE A TRAINEE BOUNTY HUNTER/SCOUT AND PROBABLY HAS A MASSIVE CRUSH ON RAY LMFAO. ray is like lmfao (puts hand on head) u are So Short keith: kkkdjdjsjhdhdhfnfbfbfjgjfjfj rey voice god you have bad taste keith follows ray around like a puppy who wants to be helpful and ray doesnt particularly mind as long as he doesnt get in the way. but its like. this video (youtu.be/TJAqwSmbKJc)

SORRY KEITH HE LIKES HUNKS AND TWUNKS BUT UR TWINKISH TWUNK AT BEST but ray has a soft spot for him once keith proves he's actually super capable at his job puppy gets head pats god i wanna stick all my ocs in this au now jonah would be s service android who used to work for a family he really cherished but they were wiped out. so now he just. kind of drifts. AI technology is self learning so i believe at this point androids have largely gained sentience and semihumans treat them like one of them alister.... heh. fuck. i really want him to be an antagonist actually but a kind of misunderstood one. he's definitely the root of everything. he is probably the progenitor of the scourge and is a human mind implanted into a fully silicon body. who KNOWS how old he is in actuality he was a sick, dying child whose experimental treatment went horribly wrong but this silicon body is stronger, faster, better. he feels no pain anymore. he can walk and run. but he's also immortal. and he can't be with humans bc contact with him is toxic humans with weak resistances died immediately once the plague started. so all the humans left are those who resisted full corruption they went after the source of the plague, intending to kill to stop its spread but even when they did get to alister, they couldnt kill him and boy they tried! took him into labs and did horrible things! some succumbed to the plague from overexposure to him but nothing seemed to stop Alister decided he had enough, killed everyone in a haze, left, then decided to make silicon lifeforms he was lonely! all of them are precious to him and every time a hunter kills one, he mourns semihumans who become fully or mostly corrupted he considers part of his family too GOD I COULD MAKE AND PORT SO MANY OCS cade is about 60-70% corrupted. he's definitely in alister's ranks i gotta think tho bc i do want one pure human with the net terminal gene. probably hidden somewhere in one of those cryosomething freeze tanks idk if i have an oc pure enough to fit the role i gotta check my roster TO EXPLAIN THIS. you need the gene to access the netsphere the netsphere is like an evolved form of the internet that's sort of like heaven and also controls some things in base reality, like the robots that are in charge of automated construction of new structures- these have gone haywire which led to uncontrolled growth this is just canon material but my addition is that once alister went full silicon, he also unintentionally became connected to the netsphere without any real authority to do anything, but the system still detected a breach and it locked Everyone out after alister infected them originally only those of pure genetic pedigrees possessed the net gene haha i love caste systems but now they're all fucking Dead. i imagine life wasn't GREAT before the scourge but it was better than a semi-post-post scarcity environment where some places are uninhabitable so you have silicon life out hunting humans to protect alister, or just for territory, and security systems that have been tripped and now safeguards are running around killing everything that moves safeguards are like antivirus programs but like. in base reality

GOD ALISTER GROWN UP BUT LIKE EVIL AESTHETIC. ALL BLACK EVERYTHING. he definitely has morphing skills, he can connect himself to technology and easily control it bc hes not organic, innocent boy is now twisted and sitting on his throne of black, corrupted human bones truthfully though alister just... wants to successfully turn more humans into silicon so he can make friends and be happy it's sad that they don't usually survive. hundreds of years of loneliness dulled his moral compass the silicon close to him feel like they're not enough they are hideous but fully sentient and intelligent with the same emotions as humans but ig to alister it's not the same. he still loves them but. he truly was human in the past in the end silicon can't truly replace flesh alex... is a high level safeguard with sentience unlike the low level automated ones that attack everything fuck ALEX OF ALL MY OCS TAKES THE PLACE OF KILLY IN CANON THE FUCK he'd probably operate differently tho. way more compassion

"once i find the net terminal gene, most likely the system will begin to purge all impurities. any and all corrupted will likely die. ... but i see no reason to shorten the life of a man already dead." this includes the humans with resistances. people like rey, ray, keith all resistant humans are <50% corrupted. they cannot be allowed to live bc there is a chance exposure to toxic materials or alister will continue the process but i think alex would change his mind and try to find a way to cure it using the net terminal gene he makes friends with the bounty hunting group, aka keith and the twins... and eventually they will find dom and. oh god what if dom is 80+ percent corrupted what if they have to put her down I AM MAKING MYSELF UPSET

BUT FUCK IT WPULD BE A GOOD CATALYST FOR ALEX TO CHANGE HIS MIND ABOUT LETTING ALL THE CORRUPTED DIE AHHHHH also alex in an all black suit with a little cyan neck ribbon I LOVE MY OCS SORRY I ALSO LOVE BLAME AND SCIFI FUCK ME UP anyway i think im done for now but ughghfjgh im thinking about this for days

#ray #rey #notes

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