61 The Centre of Her Web

Lily backed away slowly from the new batch of delivered ether in a crate, as delivered by one of the stupider partners from the distillation company and a worker. The man had caught her after lunch and seemed proud of it, but Lily was just scared of it.

She hissed, "I told you, you 'ad to store zhis in dark-coloured glass bottles. And zhere is no iron in any of zhose bottles!"

"But, it is kind of hard to find dark glass bottles. They're twice as expensive, and that is even when they are available. We haven't been able to find any lately. And we never did understand why you said that about the iron. What's the reason for those things?" the man argued.

Lily had told them the reason! She would tell them again. She spoke softly, gently to the man, "Like most unusual zhings about zhe storage of ether, it is to prevent it from exploding."

She didn't actually remember why, herself. She pulled up memories of herself looking through a chemistry textbook about ether and hummed, "Ether is zhe very reactive chemical. It will react with sunlight and oxygen to produce an explosive gas inside zhe bottle." She thought it was one of the peroxides but wasn't about to say something that might be incorrect, and it wasn't like this man would understand anyway.

Surprisingly the man seemed a little smarter than she thought because he nodded, "Oh. So, the dark glass is to keep sunlight out. And the iron is to..." But, then, he looked thoughtful, "use up all the oxygen inside the bottle to create rust?"

She blinked at him. Did he understand the chemical process of iron oxidation? She nodded at him, "Yes. Precisely."

The man carefully put the top of the crate back on it, "Okay. I'll take these back. Does that mean we can use paint on these clear bottles or maybe even wrap them in dark paper? As for the iron, any steel would work, wouldn't it?"

Lily shook her head, "Yes, as to zhe painting or paper, and yes, most steels, but not rust-resistant ones like stainless steel. Just regular iron would be better. If you wait 'ere a moment, I will bring you a long reel of pure iron wire."

She met one of her robots coming up the stairs with about a few kilos of fine iron wire that she had scavenged in the past and never actually used. She thought it was for agricultural electrical fencing and thought it might have been useful. Well, it was useful now.

She handed him the spool, which he carried himself after thanking her. She noticed he had his worker carry back the crate of ether, who looked slightly disgruntled, which probably was wise of him. It probably wouldn't explode, but Lily certainly wouldn't carry or be next to it.

Downstairs, both her DMLS and nanofabrication systems were already working, pumping out the over seventy-five individual parts needed for her newly designed dual electrolaser/laser auto-turret. She had considered a turret that could fire either as a laser or as an electrolaser but figured that what the Mechanist actually meant was a turret that could fire both simultaneously. It made the device slightly bulkier, but they were still smaller than a normal sentry gun.

Her design was meant to be wired into a building's power supply. However, each turret included one large energy cell that would power the device for a little while in the absence of power so that cutting power to a building would not deactivate the turrets.

All of her buildings would have their own backup power systems, true, but it didn't sit right with her that a ninja could sneak into her electrical distribution panel and just turn off the defences via flipping a few circuit-breakers. That sounded like her playstyle! You can't hustle a hustler.

The only single point of failure left on the turrets was the computing backbone needed to provide any targeting beyond 'shoot everything that moves.' Lily didn't have the capability to manufacture quantum processors yet, nor could she even manufacture traditional processors that were much faster than an Intel 80386.

Hence, she used her building's mainframe to run the software that handled the target acquisition and tactics. Still, even if the system went down, she could take control of the turrets herself, also. So, so long as she or the Apprentice was in the building, it wasn't technically a single point of failure.

She headed downstairs and decided to have a quick chat with the doctor that was on duty, apparently Dr Rebecca. She had been gone for a while, and it was best to touch base with her more important employees.

There were no pressing patients, at the moment, so the Bonesaw girl sat down with her with some tea, "'Ow 'ave zhings been going for you, Doctor?"

Rebecca smiled, and shrugged. "Fairly good, I suppose. I have learned a lot about the technical aspects of doctoring that I never knew about. If I may toot my own horn, I'm something of an artist programming the Auto-Docs, now. Alice has been shadowing me when you were gone; she has a good head on her shoulders."

Lily nodded. She already knew that Rebecca was very good with the Auto-Docs before she even left but decided to review the programmed procedures on the devices. Perhaps Lily herself would learn something, "Zhat's good. Was zhere anything you wanted to discuss with me?"

The younger woman hesitated a moment before nodding, "I'd like to do more to help Little Lamplight, and especially the kids, as they get too old to stay there."

Lily tilted her head to the side, "Like a Mungo Benevolent Association?" Lily paused and added a potential motto in a sotto voice, "For Mungos, By Mungos."

That caused Rebecca to crack up, laughing, but she nodded rapidly, "Exactly! Something based in Big Town that would help a new mungo get on his or her feet. I'd also like to offer help to Little Lamplight itself, but it's kind of hard to do so after you get as old as I am."

Lily hummed. As far as she was concerned, the kids in Little Lamplight were innocent and, therefore, deserving of protection. "Well, I am definitely willing to assist both of these..." she paused to consider an appropriate word, "charities. Try to think of what both a new mungo would need the most and what Little Lamplight might need the most."

Bonesaw nodded, "Little Lamplight, that's easy. Food, more electrical power and weapons. In that order." Lily blinked. The kids in Little Lamplight had electrical power?

Lily asked, curious, "Where do the Lamplighters get power in the first place?"

"From Vault 87. There are very well concealed wires running all the way through Murder Pass and into Little Lamplight. But, they can only draw about 200 amps. Otherwise, it trips a circuit breaker inside Vault 87. Hasn't happened in recent memory, but there was a cautionary tale of a number of deaths involved in resetting that circuit breaker in the past. As such, they installed a 150 amp circuit breaker on the Lamplight side, so that is the most they can use," Bonesaw said in a straightforward manner.

Lily hummed. She didn't like the idea of giving a bunch of kids one of her fusion generators; there were a number of ways that could go wrong. They did, potentially, require some maintenance now and again. And all of their failure modes tended to involve hot plasma that would turn a kid into a crispy nugget.

However, she could build a generator and attach it to one of the numerous Corvega fission motors she had brought home. Didn't Scott say that was how he provided power to his electronics store for years? "I could, perhaps, build and donate a small generator that would produce about fifty or sixty kilowatts." She knew that the motors were a lot more powerful than that but didn't know precisely how efficient she could get an attached generator, especially without a complicated cooling system.

If the Lamplighters could only use 150 amps, stolen from Vault 87, then at 120 volts, that was barely 9 kilowatts that they could use right now. Rebecca raised her eyebrows, "And how long would this generator run? And, I can't remember, but how much power would that be compared to what they have now?"

Honestly, she is still plenty impressed that what amounted to a former feral child knows what an amp was in the first place, "For about twenty years. It would just be zhe fission motor from a Corvega car with zhe output shaft connected to a regular generator. Assuming zhat Little Lamplight is pulling power from a normal 120-volt circuit in the Vault, 150 amps would be about 9 kilowatts."

Rebecca nodded rapidly, "It is 120 volts. That, I definitely remember. Wow, that would be over five times their current capacity. That would help a lot. Most of the power is used to purify water, with most of the rest being used for some of the defences in Murder Pass and lighting. That would be great! I'm not real sure how to solve their perpetual food problems, though."

Lily agreed to build the device but told Rebecca it might be a few weeks before it was available. She would talk to the Mechanist about his version—no need to reinvent the wheel, after all. She left and headed downstairs to assemble the prototype of her new auto-turret.

---xxxxxx---

Lily triggered the self-test of the mechanism of the installed turret, and it traversed a full 360 degrees, as well as tilted its two beam apertures up and down the full travel. Nodding, satisfied, she ignored the slightly uneasy look from a potential patient walking through the front door.

This version wasn't the covert style that she had considered that would deploy out of the ceiling and surprise someone. Lily both didn't have the time for that additional complexity, and she wanted these turrets to be seen.

She installed the first prototype outside, in front of the main door and offset to the left. She had already tested it downstairs, and both weapon types seemed to work correctly, so she had started the next building, which she would install next to this first one, to the right. Then she would build two more and install those two directly inside the foyer, where she stationed a Protectron during normal business hours.

That Protectron acted as a guard to the man she hired, whose job was to try to ensure patients did not come into her hospital excessively armed. She doubted very much she could get the Brotherhood of Steel to disarm completely, but perhaps they would leave their long guns at the door and meet her with only plasma pistols or laser pistols if they intended to make nice-nice with her.

Two more turrets would be installed in her large office, where she would meet with the Brotherhood. She had other covert defences in there, but they were indiscriminate and could only be used once, so she hoped never to need them at all.

After that, she would follow the pattern and install two turrets at every entrance and exit on the ground floor. There was one large loading entrance on each north and south side and two more in the back at the east entrance that opened up almost directly into the Megaton security fence. Nobody used those two entrances, but ninjas might.

Well, actually, she would climb up the exterior wall and would never enter the building from the ground floor if she wanted to sneak inside. It was obvious that the most security would be on the ground floor, after all. That meant she would need one turret on each floor in the stairwell, too, for a potential ninja attack.

It might be a bit too anti-social to include one inside the elevator car, so she might wait until she can design a covert type before doing that.

Glancing at her chronometer, she figured she would definitely get at least the first eight or so turrets built and placed before Sarah Lyons showed up. It all depended on her. She was a military leader and a busy woman, she might not show up for a week or more, or if her schedule was free, she might show up tomorrow. Lily felt it wise to assume she would come as soon as possible.

She had a lot of tasks that she would rather be working on instead of building and installing defences, but at the same time, she got a sense of satisfaction in protecting her web.

Still, there was a lot of waiting involved, so in between assembling turrets, she would bring up some other research and work on it or see a patient for a consult.

After reviewing her patient records, she discovered her clean metabolism modification was selling like hotcakes. It was cheap enough that someone could save for a month or two and buy it without breaking the bank. Moreover, it also provided immediate and apparent benefits compared to her life extension therapy which was only nebulous as far as the average consumer was concerned.

Only one person had purchased the reflex augmentation while she was gone. Lily had even told the Apprentice to discount it by 33%, as it was one of those that would only see sales by word-of-mouth. Hopefully, that man who purchased it would talk about her product, as his post-exposure testing noted a marked increase in his reflexes.

She had ducked into her office to wait for the next set of parts to build, and the Apprentice knocked on her door, "Dr St. Claire, there is a Zhao Yun here to see you. He is a representative of Dr Madison Li, from Rivet City. Do you have time?"

Lily blinked. An obviously Chinese name was unusual in America, even Dr Li had an anglo first name. How interesting. She nodded, "Yes, please. Please show him in, and zhen bring us the tea service, if you don't mind, Apprentice. Then you can join us, if you like."

Alice seemed to like tea, so she brightened and nodded. She stepped inside the office, and trailing her in was... someone as blonde and round-eyed as she was. Confusing. She had stood up politely and just blinked. First, however, she motioned to one of the pairs of comfortable chairs she had in front of her desk, "'ave a seat, Monsieur Zhao." There would be no fault with her manners.

The man smiled and nodded, taking a seat, "Thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me, Dr St. Claire."

Although she was a woman, she was also the hostess, so she waited until he had taken his seat before returning to hers. She smiled, "Of course. I 'ave a lot of respect for what I've learned about Dr Li and her entire team." Lily then paused and asked, hesitantly, "Monseuir Zhao... if you don't mind me asking..."

He chuckled, clearly understanding, "My name? A family adopted me as a baby in a small settlement that had been founded by Chinese POWs and interned Chinese-American citizens before the Great War. Although, there are maybe one in five members of the community that aren't, strictly speaking, Chinese, almost everyone, even the blondes, have Chinese names."

Lily raised her eyebrows. How very interesting. A successful community if they have survived over two hundred years. Lily wouldn't mind visiting if it was nearby, but she wasn't uncouth enough to ask him to point out his ancestral home on her PipBoy, or something.

She decided to take a risk and shifted to Mandarin, "Is a name all that your family gave you?"

Now it was his turn for his eyebrows to reach his scalp, and he even started laughing, replying in the same language, "No! If I hadn't known everyone growing up, I'd say you would have had to grow up next door, although your accent is a lot different. I never expected the shoe to be on the other foot, as it were, but I am now the one shocked. How can you speak Chinese? Did you grow up in a similar community?"

Lily grinned. She was speaking standard Mandarin rather than the Wu dialect she grew up with, but she still spoke with a clear Shanghai accent, while Zhao was speaking with a pronounced and standard Beijinger accent.

She found his accent very fascinating. It was almost the prototypical snooty and elite Beijing urban accent. She suspected that a number of the founders of his community, or perhaps the ancestors of his family, might have been in high status, no doubt POWs. It wouldn't be that surprising for a stalag for officers or high-status prisoners being near Washington, DC. What was surprising to her was that they survived at all. She would have suspected Pre-War America to have some sort of purge protocol in the event of nuclear warfare.

Lily wasn't about to say that she grew up in Shanghai, which was why her accent was different, so she just shrugged, switching back to English, "Zhere are dozens of accents and dialects in mainland China, some of which you might find entirely unintelligible. But no, I didn't grow up in a community of foreign Chinese nationals on American soil. But, my parents valued... ehh.. 'ow you say? A classical education, of which foreign languages featured prominently." It was true, too. Every Shanghai child had to learn English, and her parents, the little she can remember of them, made her study one language in addition to that.

The Apprentice arrived then, with a tea service on a tray. She sat it in front of Lily, who prepared it briskly into three bowl-like cups. It was a bit uncouth to serve tea like this, at a desk, but nobody would likely call her out on it. The Apprentice offered one of the tea cups to Zhao and sat next to him. The man hesitantly took a sip and then smiled, "It's not bad!"

The Apprentice nodded happily, taking a sip herself. "I quite like Dr St. Claire's tea; it gives me pep!"

Lily chuckled, "Zhat's not very surprising. Zhere is an alkaloid in zhe leaves of zhe mutfruit shrubs I use for tea leaves zhat is a slight dopamine reuptake inhibitor."

Alice stared at her, with her cup close to her mouth. She had studied enough of biology and Lily had talked enough with her about pharmacology that she seemed to understand that, "Dr St. Claire! Are you saying there is amphetamine in your tea?!"

Lily shook her head, "Not at all." Because amphetamine only described a very particular chemical family. The alkaloid was closer to cocaine, actually. She wouldn't say that, though.

"Besides, it is in very small quantities. So long as you don't go out and de-leaf all the mutfruits you find and extract the alkaloid for pure consumption, you'll be fine. It's barely more of a stimulant zhan one would find in a cup or two of coffee," Lily finished.

Alice looked thoughtful, but Zhao didn't seem concerned and finished his tea. After a moment, the Apprentice did the same with a shrug. Zhao remarked, "I wasn't aware that the leaves of mutafruit shrubs had that chemical property. That must be a new discovery of yours?"

Lily shook her head, "Not really. I 'eard that tribals in far-off villages often chew on mutfruit leaves, and zhat reminded me of something I 'eard about in zhe history of Central America. So, zhe tribals get zhe credit for zhis discovery."

Alice mentioned wryly, "That explains why I had heart palpitations after I had three cups last week at breakfast."

Lily snorted, "Yes, you probably shouldn't do zhat." She turned to Zhao and asked, "So, my Apprentice told me zhat your primary purpose was to arrange a time zhat Dr Li and I might 'ave consultations in person. 'ow can I help Dr Li and Rivet City? I apologize for my absence, by zhe way."

Zhao waved off her apology, "It is of no matter. I would have had to wait the same amount of time just to get a safe caravan back to Rivet City, so you did not delay me at all. And yes, that was correct. Dr Li has heard about the power company you started and even had some correspondence with the engineers you hired, two of which are Rivet City citizens. She is very interested in the process you use to generate electricity using a high-energy plasma without going through a traditional steam and turbine process."

Zhao must be one of Dr Li's assistants as he seemed to understand all that, which made sense. Dr Li certainly made a lot more sense in sending a minion to arrange a meeting compared to Sarah Lyons, who just showed up out of the blue. But that was the difference a decade or two of experience could provide. Sarah Lyons was still in her early twenties.

Lily nodded, and Zhao continued, "Dr Li usually makes two or three trips to Megaton a year and would like to coordinate with you to make sure you'll be present. She told me to make sure you were aware she didn't intend for you to come to Rivet City, as she suspected you would be extremely busy for some time setting up your own hospital and research centre."

Wow! How polite! Lily was moved a little bit. And the assumption, as if taken for granted, that Lily was building her own research centre was insightful. She nodded, "I doubt I will leave Megaton within zhe next four months. After zhat, I 'ave a project zhat might take me from home for two weeks or so." Of course, Lily didn't know how long it would take to safely approach the VSS building, and loot it, so she was using a conservative estimate.

Zhao nodded, "That's perfect. She had planned a trip in about two months. I will make sure to tell her that you will likely be present if that is okay?" Lily nodded, and he continued, "Dr Li wasn't aware of your expertise in the field of genetics, and I suspect that she might be as interested in those products you sell as much as your insights into fusion. In fact, I was hoping to purchase some of your treatments so as to reassure her and my colleagues that they are safe and effective."

Lily tilted her head to the side, "You are not worried about zheir safety or efficacy yourself?"

He chuckled, "I've talked to a number of people in town who have taken at least one of them, and at least in the short term, there doesn't appear to be any side effects, and the effectiveness seems obvious. Besides, I am the most junior of the research team, so it isn't unusual for me to take risky jobs." He then paused and grinned mischievously, "Besides, if I couch it as a test, I can get Dr Li to reimburse me for all of the treatments as a job expense!"

The Apprentice laughed at that and gave him a thumbs up, "Nice hustle."

Lily nodded, "Which treatments would you like? We only 'ave four presently, but I 'ope to have a couple of others by zhe time Dr Li visits. I'd be willing to offer you and any of Dr Li's team sixty per cent off as a professional courtesy on our purely genetic treatments."

He continued to grin, "Thank you for the discount, and I would like all of them! I especially want the reflex augmentation first, as that might save my life in the field." Well, he wasn't just the Ivory Tower academic, then? She supposed the most junior member of a research team might get most of the field assignments.

Lily glanced at her chronometer and nodded. She didn't have time to do his entire intake consult as she still had another turret to assemble and then Scott's surgery scheduled right after that, but the girl was trained, and Lily could glance at his genome as soon as it was sequenced and check her work, "Zhat's fine. You need to wait twenty-four hours after each treatment, is zhat fine?"

That caused him to make a face, "I'm scheduled to depart in three days."

Lily hummed, "Well, zhe treatment is just an inhaler, normally I don't sell zhem as a takeaway item as zhey are perishable and I prefer to be present or at least available during zhe treatment, but I will give you your last treatment, and you can take it while travelling. You either 'ave to freeze it or take it within forty-eight hours, zhough."

That caused him to smile again, "That would be great. Is there some initial exam necessary?" At that, Lily nodded.

"Yes, my Apprentice will conduct your initial intake exam and consult. If everything is fine with your genome, I'll come by and give you zhe treatment and zhen you can return the same time tomorrow for number two," Lily told him and glanced at the Apprentice.

The girl nodded and stood up, "Certainly, Dr St. Claire! Mr Yun, if you would follow me to an exam room."

He smiled wryly and stood, followed by Lily as she corrected Alice, "Apprentice, cultural lesson. In many East Asian cultures, from which you could say zhat Monsieur Zhao definitely originates, zhe family name comes first, followed by the given name. So it is Monsieur Zhao, not Yun."

Alice looked interested, "That is interesting. How do you know which one is which, as I assume sometimes they would switch that when coming to Western countries?"

Lily clucked her tongue, "Sometimes, yes. But Zhao is an incredibly common surname, with Yun being less common, so you just kind of guess, or ask, I suppose. Go ahead and see to Monsieur Zhao; I'll take the tea service back to the kitchen."

Alice looked thoughtful and nodded, then led Zhao out of her office to one of the exam rooms. She had another turret to assemble and install and then the Mechanist's surgery, which might take several hours as she was doing a complete skull replacement as well, as well as an installation of a medichine implant.

Without a medichine nanohive to keep all of the electrical filaments in the proper place in a person's brain, installing the brain-computer would eventually kill them within a few months. Lily hoped to have a bioware interface designed within a couple of years which would remove that requirement, but for the moment, anyone who wanted a brain-computer would have to be trusted with the same generation of medichines that the Apprentice had, so it was going to be strictly friends and family thing for some time.

---xxxxxx---

Sophie wanted to watch the surgery, but Lily nixed that idea. Both she and her social assistant agreed that watching your loved one get the skin flayed off his bones wasn't a good idea, even if you intellectually knew it was for his overall benefit and that he would be fine. To say nothing about when Lily brought out the rotary saw and started carving whole segments of his skull out. It just wasn't a good idea to watch.

When the Mechanist found out about her full list of products, he asked her to sell him a PHOENIX system as well. She had just shrugged. She was charging him her friends and family rates on all of this, even taking a lot of payment in trade, but it was still nice to sell one of those devices now and then. She still had over twenty-five of them, as they were a bit too pricey for the average person walking in on the street to buy.

The surgery went fast, with Alice acting as her assistant. She could probably have programmed the Auto-Doc to do a lot of it, but she enjoyed keeping her hands in, as it were, and it only took two hours to complete all three surgeries, including grafting the PHOENIX device into the Mechanist's cardiovascular system, even with pausing to move at the Apprentice's pace and to answer her questions about particular techniques or choices she made during the procedures.

Lily had Alice and one of the Labourtrons take the still unconscious Scott to recovery, which actually served double-duty as one of her few ICU beds. It would likely only take him a few hours to recover enough to be discharged, maybe less than that considering his two new healing implants.

She found Sophie floating a line back in forth in the waiting area anxiously, which amused her. "All zhree procedures are done and a success, Sophie. Your Romeo should be waking up in about fifteen minutes or so, and is in zhe post-op recovery bed, right now. You can go wait by 'is bedside, if you like."

She activated her afterburners or something because Lily had never seen her accelerate so fast. Lily got a, "Thanks, Miss Lily! I'll see you later!" as the robot girl blew past her.

Lily chuckled. Since she had gotten her diagnostic tablet broken, she had to create a different way to initial configure and set up the implants. She already had discussed how unsettling the initial set up was with Scott, who just shrugged. He would be able to do it himself, using the diagnostic port at the base of his skull and a terminal, and she had already left detailed instructions, so she would not have to oversee it unless something went wrong.

She had nothing else to do today except continue popping out turrets. It was kind of nice that her robots did about eighty per cent of the assembly for her. It wasn't quite an automated assembly line yet, but someday she could see that being the case, especially for simple objects.

---xxxxxx---

Lily's dreams in her abbreviated sleep cycle were trippy, as usual. By the time everyone else was awake, and breakfast was being served, she had managed to install and test eight of the auto-turrets, including two inside her office. And it appears she was wise to work as fast as she did, as while finishing up and bussing her plate, she detected an uncategorized voice transmission on an airband frequency.

Playing it back, she discovered as she thought it was a Brotherhood Vertibird that was landing near Megaton. Although it didn't announce who was on board, it wasn't surprising for Sarah Lyons, plus presumably important scribes, to merit a pickup and dropoff using a Vertibird. Interesting, it appeared that the GNR building had a helipad on the roof sturdy enough to support Vertibirds, as the aircraft reported it was proceeding there.

The Apprentice was eating breakfast with her siblings upstairs, so Lily sent the girl a message to expect Brotherhood VIP visitors, sending the girl a link to the radio transmission.

She expected them to arrive shortly after the hospital opened for the morning. Dr Taylor was working today, so she would stay in her office to receive such important guests.

She hummed as she considered her office from behind her large chair. She had decorated it somewhat ostentatiously, but some of that was to cover up what had been, until now, its only defences. She glanced at the seemingly decorative panels on one side of the wall and sent a test packet, signed with her cryptographic private key, to the devices concealed beneath them.

She nodded. Good, they were functioning properly. But everything would have gone to total shit if she were forced to use them.

Sure enough, her drone detected a group of two Power Armoured people trailed by two in Scribe robes approaching the hospital just a little after opening time. Each of the turrets also had audio and optical sensors, in addition to passive infrared and electromagnetic, so she had much of the hospital wired for sight and sound now. She pulled up the feed from one of the turrets in front of the entrance.

---xxxxxx---

POV Senior Scribe Ferguson

Ferguson slowed a little bit as he approached the hospital. He liked Star Paladin Sarah Lyons, but Knight Sibley was a bit of an asshole. Sibley was part of Paladin Casdin's clique, and he didn't even know why he was on this mission in the first place. Scribe Williams was a doctor, like he was, although she was more of a traditional surgeon while he focused on genetics, cybernetics and, most importantly, for this mission, virology.

The Brotherhood didn't encourage the study of viruses but wouldn't stop a scribe that was interested so long as they did so safely. He was the foremost expert on viruses and infectious diseases in this Chapter, so it wasn't surprising Lyons asked for him to attend her in this matter.

A new doctor appearing in the Wasteland, selling genetic alterations using what appeared to be a viral vector? There was no way the Brotherhood would not investigate that.

However, he was actually quite optimistic and a little jealous. They had managed to get some samples of the mutagenic agent by the simple expedient of having one of their local contacts buy the treatment and then examining a blood sample.

Examining the virion under magnification did not help too much in his study of it, as it did not appear like any virus he was familiar with. Thank Maxson, it did appear to be a normal virus, not looking at all what like what the accursed FEV appeared like according to the stored images in their archives.

When he tried to culture more of the virions by infecting an immortal cell line, he was amazed that after about fifteen cycles of replication, all of the virions ceased all replication and, essentially, deactivated themselves. It was fascinating!

This woman, this Doctor clearly knew much more about his own specialization than he did. Some of the Knights and Paladins thought this was Very Dangerous, but most of the Scribes were a lot more laid back.

He, like most of his colleagues, was a lot less militant in his opinions compared to a small minority of the Paladins and Knights who suggested immediately burning this hospital down, presumably with all of its inhabitants inside, as if she were a witch or something.

The four of them were here today, putatively at the invite of Megaton's Mayor, to analyze a treatment the doctor described as a life extension therapy. The Mayor wanted to know if it was safe and effective. He did too. Who wouldn't want to live longer and be healthier?

The Brotherhood generally cooperated with requests like this from what amounted to civilian authorities, especially in large settlements, with the exception of Rivet City, where they maintained a slightly more formal and chilly, if technically friendly, relationship.

It would have been helpful if the treatment they purchased had been life-extension therapy, but their budget Scribes told them to get the cheapest one available, which apparently made one's sweat act like soap and vaguely smell of mint? It was very effective from his study of the volunteer while he was in quarantine.

Supposedly the Doctor had offered to let a suitable educated person examine her work, according to the Mayor. But, generally, in his experience Wasteland scientists never expected the Brotherhood to show up.

He wondered if this doctor would authorize a licensing scheme for the soap-sweat alteration. Or at least a bulk purchase? Because he knew a large percentage of the Brotherhood, who would benefit from it. Namely, everyone who wore Power Armour, just to start, and if they had to buy it retail, it would blow out the yearly budget.

He had already identified and quantified the changes to the genome, using a snapshot of the volunteer's genome pre and post-administration, and it was quite an ingenious and perfectly safe alteration! He had reported as much to Elder Lyons, too.

"Woah, those are new," Lyons said as they approached the door. He glanced up and widened his eyes as he stared at what were two obvious auto-turrets. And not machine-gun ones, neither. He could see the glint of the optical waveguides on both apertures, they were lasers for sure.

Sibley scoffed, "Never seen that kind of sentry-gun before, it's probably crap."

Ferguson looked at him like he was a very special child, "An unknown model of obvious energy-weapon turrets should make you more concerned, not less." He left out "you absolute imbecile" at the end, but his tone made it obvious that was what he meant.

They had slowed to a halt in front of the door. Sarah Lyons glanced at him and asked, interested, "Analysis?"

He shrugged. He wasn't a damn weapons engineer. Still, he WAS a Senior Scribe, so he would give it his best shot, "Obviously, a dual laser turret. It seems to have a full range of motion, using a traditional half-sphere rotation mechanism. There is a very small third aperture below one of them; figure it for a laser rangefinder, perhaps. I will note that they don't look like they've spent a hundred years in some military base. They look clean, well taken care of, almost new."

Lyons asked curiously, "A rangefinder? On a short-range turret? Try again."

He sighed long and theatrically and considered it for a moment. "If they have the technology for a steerable beam, it might be a type of LIDAR system to defeat StealthBoys. You know that they don't provide perfect optical stealth, and a LIDAR system could give a possible outline to a stealthed intruder." He paused; he had just pulled that out of his ass, but he liked the sound of it, "That's a good idea, actually. I'm going to give that idea to Scribe Bowditch when we get back."

Lyons chuckled, "Okay. We'll go with possible anti-stealth features, then. That makes me worry about them more, though."

He shrugged, "Or they were taken off as a complete assembly from some sort of laser SHORAD system, and they are rangefinders, just included with the design."

Lyons nodded, "That's possible too, but it would still be an unfamiliar SHORAD design then. Well, whatever, I doubt we will be smote so long as we are polite."

They walked as a group into the foyer of the hospital.

---xxxxxx---

Lily POV

That one Scribe seemed pretty smart. In fact, she now had the idea to use a LIDAR system to detect stealthed ninjas.

However, all of his guesses were wrong, though. The smaller aperture was a laser aperture for use when the turret fired the electrolaser in stunning mode, as it needed to create a complete electrical circuit to stun somebody properly. She wanted the option to not always fry someone with a lightning bolt, so having a less-lethal option was very useful and was included.

There was a bit of a hiccup when the male in Power Armour did not want to surrender his laser rifle, but he got overruled by Sarah Lyons. If there was going to be a problem, that asshole was going to be the one to start it.

The Apprentice knocked at her door again, "Dr St. Claire? You have visitors, a Star Paladin Sarah Lyons from the Brotherhood of Steel, and party."

Lily stood up and said mildly, "Go ahead, and show zhem in. Zhen make sure we're not disturbed, please, Apprentice." Alice nodded, and showed the four in.

Lily smiled at the Paladin she recognized and offered in a friendly tone, "Congratulations on your promotion since we last met, Star Paladin. At least, I assume zhat is better zhan a regular Paladin? You'll forgive me if I am unfamiliar with your organization's rank structure."

They all glanced at the two turrets in her ceiling before walking inside. Lyons didn't seem to mind, and she was friendly right back, "Ah, thank you, Dr St. Claire. Yes, it is a promotion of a sort. It's more of a level of confidence to conduct independent operations at my discretion, like my visit to you today."

Lily hummed, "Oh? An operation? Well, how can I help you today? I'm afraid I only 'ave two seats, but something tells me zhat you two strong warriors would prefer to stand, anyway?"

Lyons smiled and nodded, "Yes. Our Scribes would appreciate the rest, though. Let me introduce you. This is Senior Scribe Ferguson, and this is Scribe Williams. Both are medical doctors like yourself, although Scribe Ferguson's speciality includes the study of genetics, viruses, epidemiology and other infectious diseases. This is Knight Sibley."

The one named Sibley was stoic and didn't even nod. Lily wanted to roll her eyes.

Lily motioned for the two Scribes to sit down, and followed suit, taking her seat behind her desk. She glanced at the one named Ferguson, "Oh? Zhat is interesting. Zhat matches many of my own fields of study, as well. 'owever, I admit to not being zhat up to date in epidemiology or infectious diseases other zhan viruses, which I study mainly for their synergy with genetics. I'd love to chat with you about zhat, Dr Ferguson."

She was, calculatingly, being quite honest about her fields of study. It wouldn't due to lie, especially if they had somebody who might be able to understand what she was saying was bullshit.

The Scribe named Ferguson smiled and nodded friendily, "Yes, me too! We were asked by the Mayor of Megaton to investigate the safety and efficacy of a treatment you market as life-extending. When we looked into it, it was clear that your treatment uses a viral or viral-like vector. The Brotherhood takes all instances of synthetic man-made viruses very seriously, and we want to ensure nothing you are doing could be a hazard to the public at large."

Wow, what a silver tongue! She even suspected he meant most of that, but what was left unsaid was also important. She almost forgot that she had told the Mayor's assistant that she would allow a geneticist of his choice to examine her treatment. She sighed; she didn't expect the Mayor to have a relationship with the Brotherhood or the Brotherhood actually to be useful for once.

She nodded, "Ah, I understand, somewhat, at least. You were quite correct, it is virus-like, but not a virus. I call it a virulosin, a medicine derived from zhe virus. Zhe main way zhat my virulosin differentiates itself from a virus is zhat it is incapable of replicating beyond control. Every virion of zhe treatment can only replicate so many generations before being deactivated. Zherefore, zhere is no way for it to be effectively contagious or virulent, at all."

Both Ferguson and Williams looked quite interested in that, with Ferguson replying, "I'd love it if you could explain how you managed to achieve that! It's incredible, if true!"

Lilly hummed, "Well, it is zhe proprietary process. I don't mind discussing it in general terms, as academic to academic, but I don't believe I'd be comfortable talking in specifics. It isn't like zhere is patent-protection zhese days, you know?"

Ferguson started to chuckle, but then Sibley growled out, "If you know what is good for you, you will tell him exactly how it works, and then you will explain exactly where all of your technology came from!"

Everyone, even Sarah Lyons, looked momentarily shocked. Ferguson started rolling his eyes, but Lily was already quietly furious. Not only did she connect to the two turrets in the ceiling, but she armed the other devices hidden in the wall that would kill every single person in the room except her.

She turned to stare at the man named Sibley, the two turrets rotating to follow her eyes and locking onto the man, which suddenly caused everyone to be very still.

She growled out, "You threaten me 'ere? 'ERE? In zhe centre of my web? You are going to die screaming, foolish man."

Her social assistant indicated too late that was definitely the wrong thing for her to say, but she didn't think she would listen to it in this case anyway.