Chapter Ninety-One

HELIOS One. Mojave Wasteland

The elevator doors slowly ground open and we were presented with the lovely view of a large room full of mainframes, cables, and a lot of terminals.

"I was expecting more," I said as I stepped out of the elevator door "This isn't very impressive".

Well, looks didn't matter much in this case and it was normally a bad idea to put much stock on surface impressions when you weren't in combat.

"Find the controls to operate the power plant and information on ARCHIMEDES" I ordered "Once we get this place up and running as a power plant we can leave it to the Ad-Mech to finish up".

Mr House could take control of this place later on if he wished, but he would not get the weapon and neither would anyone else. As for the Ad-Mech if they wanted to claim credit for getting this plant running that was fine with me.

There was a terminal, but it seemed to be locked, thankfully it wasn't too hard to crack as Veronica provided that she was well worth keeping around. She moved on to check on some other computers leaving me free to examine what data I could find. I went through the litany of data retrieval just in case machine spirits were really a thing and then asked the machine god to bless my efforts. At least the operating system was easy to understand.

"Well, I got into the system," I told the two girls, who were in other parts of this room "but it's not giving me any options. It says something about low power".

'Please repair mainframe generator before attempting to access power grid options'

This could be a lot of work and I was about to start when I saw Mr Handy that was now floating toward me. The spherical, octopus-armed robot with three eye stalks was honestly not something I was expecting to see. Apparently, Sarah had gotten it online as she'd been tinkering with its recharging station.

"Mind explaining the robot?" I asked.

"Welcome employees," said the robot "I hope you are having a productive day".

This was odd.

"And why it thinks we work here?" Veronica added.

"I reprogrammed it to think that everyone here is an employee rather than an intruder" she explained.

"How did you know to do that?" Veronica finally asked.

Miss Lyons smiled at us.

"This isn't my first mission," she said "I did more in the DC ruins than shoot Super Mutants".

While the robot and the girls got to work I tried to learn more about this place. Poseidon Energy was certainly more than just a power company before the bombs dropped. That much was obvious, going through the files on the terminals here. One of them mentioned an 'upcoming' visit (upcoming in this case meaning November 2077) by Brigadier General Scott Lowe of the US Army.

It also mentioned ARCHIMEDES II by name, but it didn't mention specifically what it was, what it did, or even where it might be, not that it matters since I already knew all of that. Whoever was running the show here for this ARCHIMEDES project had serious pull with the pre-war military-industrial complex if a General was coming to visit the power plant, and was the only person here allowed to authorised its use for anything other than a test.

"Thrax I found something," the scribe told me "Take a look at this"

She slid a holotape into a slot, and a projector started to hum.

"It's a recording. Of one of the ARCHIMEDES tests," Veronica said, sounding a little upset "Just watch".

The image showed a small column of light appeared out of nowhere, from the top of the image to the bottom, and then it got wider, and wider, getting brighter. There was a flash, and then a mushroom cloud was slowly rising from the spot on the ground where the beam of light had impacted.

"What... what was that?" Sarah asked.

Something very dangerous.

"That was the initial test of ARCHIMEDES," Veronica said while pointing at the hologram. "It is, or was, just like you told me, a satellite in geosynchronous orbit around the planet. It's a sort of space-based laser, powered by energy collected by this power station and sent to the orbital weapons platform by way of microwaves. I'm not sure how it finds a target, but the yield on impact is... well, you saw the mushroom cloud".

I understood why she felt concerned.

"If someone got a hold of this and figured out how to activate and target this thing," said Veronica "No one would be safe, but if the satellite is gone there's nowhere to send the energy so we have nothing to worry about".

Sarah wasn't so sure.

"Didn't you mention that this place could explode" she reminded.

If the energy had nowhere to go it might overload the generators and go boom. I didn't know if that was actually possible, I just assumed that the worst would happen if someone came down here and started messing about.

"I can wipe all the data" Veronica offered "This is a piece of the old world that the new world can do without".

Assuming all went well we could turn on the power plant and then get the fuck out of here. Just not before I gathered up the holotapes.

"Doesn't look like there's any tech worth taking" I commented.

The terminals and the robot could be used by the cogboys and girls, however, I needed stuff that I could carry out of here such as weapons.

"The truth about ARCHIMEDES will help us to convince a few members of the Brotherhood that the Eldar's leadership isn't as solid as it might seem," said Sarah "I just don't think it will be enough".

Veronica didn't look worried.

"Don't worry I know about some more places that we can visit" she assured us.

Hopefully, I would make a profit today.