At the edge of the Mojave, a passage between the rocks. The twisted wreckage of cars and trucks, swept off a road that used to be, now just shifting sands, here in the middle of nowhere. The coordinates led me to a half-hidden door that looks like it belongs to a bunker or maybe a vault, labeled with the words “Hopeville Missle Silo.” The large interior room was sealed off by a blast door, but without power to the building it was closed up tight as a fist. I poked around in the machinery a bit and found a functional eyebot in a pristine case, what are the odds.
I opened the maintenance terminal and let it out to see if I could make use of it or at least salvage some parts, and it played some old pre-war kids’ show jingle about Ralphie. Where have I heard that name before? A poster…in The Sink? Anyway, after the bot shook the pre-war detritus from its circuits, I mentioned ED-E and it apparently used the termlink in the silo to scan ED-E’s memory banks all the way across New Vegas, because it started replaying Dr. Whitely’s logs from when he was building ED-E.
Experiment log 369248/b, Eyebot duraframe universal interface override system, this is doctor whitely presiding. We boosted signal gain and enlarged the overflow buffer system, that should ensure 100 percent connectivity and control. ED-E, whenever you’re ready. Yes! Success! Ahem…um…reporting full success on reporting 369248/b, ED-E was able to interface with and override the test panel in under 3 seconds. Great job, team. Now let’s start on the proposal for the full rollout.
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Whitely: Doctor Grant? What the hell do you think you’re doing?
Grant: Ah, Whitely, There you are. Orders from Colonel Autumn. He feels the eyebot duraframe project isn’t advancing fast enough. I’m to…
Whitely: You didn’t even disengage his damage avoidance protocols! You’re…hurting him!
Grant: Don’t be ridiculous! It’s just a machine! See here? I’ve already increased the navigation system’s efficiency by 65%.
Whitely: Get the hell out of here!
Grant: Fine, Whitely. It’s your lab…at least until I tell the colonel about this.
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I can’t believe it! Grant actually went to Colonel Autumn and got approval for her damned “efficiently guidelines.” All experiments will be carried out with the test subject fully active to reduce iteration time. It’s barbaric. I’d explained this to the colonel, just because the eyebots don’t have true AI doesn’t mean they’re just machines. I guess results are all that matter around here. Forget things like ethical procedures or humane treatment. I’m starting to have serious misgivings about leadership around here. At least I’ve got you to talk to, huh, ED-E?
So I guess for all practical purposes, this hunk of junk is ED-E. He can unscramble signals on these com stations and unlock them, including commissary panels that give me access to the pre-war military supply cache. Apparently the system can’t tell the difference between a 20th century pay token and a Nuka cap, lucky for me. I picked up a nice piece of tech – a helmet with a low-light vision toggle – and oh yeah, ED-E unlocked the blast door for me. We took out a couple of protectrons and hightailed it out the back door.
In the passage there were all these men around who look like they were flayed alive. Bodies, but they were bloodless and clean, as if they’d been stripped of their skin and gotten right back on their feet. They were carrying heavy weaponry and some of them had NCR dogtags. Others looked Legion. What killed them? More importantly, is it out there, waiting for me?
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