New Vegas: Sheason's Story

Chapter 99: Higgs Boson

One thing is definitely for sure: I'm gonna have to get the Think Tank's help with this one.

Probably.

The very first thing I did with the holotape Roxie had recovered was try and plug it into my Pip Boy. Unfortunately, all that appeared on the screen when I tried to open the files was a load of gibberish. Numbers, broken RobCo termlink code, and symbols I'd never even seen before...

I don't think I'll be able to upgrade the sonic on my own.

I sighed as the dusty ground of the Big MT desert crunched under my boots. I looked up at the blue-green sky. I still couldn't see the sun... it was obscured by those greenish-blue clouds, making the whole place look like some alien world. And yet, somehow, everything was still brightly visible.

"Well?" I said aloud, turning to the dog trotting along beside me. Roxie looked up with an interested whimper. "What do you think? Should we head back to the Think Tank right away, get this stupid thing upgraded?" As I spoke, I pulled the sonic projecto gun from the makeshift holster in my duster, and twirled the pistol around my finger several times. Roxie just let out a single bark, snorted, and then shook herself like she was trying to dislodge an annoying case of fleas.

"Good point," I said, shrugging and putting the pulse gun back in place. "There's still plenty to do out here... and really, the less time I spend around the bickering, floating tin cans, the better off I'm probably going to be..." Roxie barked again happily, apparently pleased with that idea. "I wonder what other secrets this place has to offer..."

"What is this place?" I asked aloud. Roxie didn't respond... not that I could've understood her barking, anyway. I'd been following her lead on this little exploration endeavor, and she'd led me here. Only trouble is, I had no idea what this place 'here' actually was. It looked from the outside like a big warehouse. Maybe one of those large aircraft hangars I'd seen in Nellis. Several concrete buttresses were sticking out of the ground, connected to the side of the building; a few rocky outcroppings were jutting out at odd angles on either side of the building, almost framing it. Several large pipes snaked their way around the rocks and buttresses and into the side of the building.

"Hurm. You see any way inside?" I asked, looking down at the cyberdog. Roxie trotted along ahead, and made a beeline for a door I'd failed to notice earlier. I followed her to the metal bulkhead, and pressed the button on the wall; the metal double doors slid into themselves, and then disappeared into the ground, allowing me access.

"Wh... the hell?" I asked, stepping forward onto a catwalk and looking down at... well...

It was a neighborhood. It was like a small neighborhood from the old world, like it had been plucked from the world before the bombs. Six houses in a small cul-de-sac, with a fountain in the middle. The houses were white-paneled, two-story homes... it was the kind of thing you'd only ever see in an old world tv show, where father knew best, the mother always wore pearls, the two kids were scamps, and the dog was adorable. The houses even had white picket fences, green grass lawns, flower pots below every window, and a single tree in the middle of each lawn.

Even from this distance, I could tell that every single plant was fake. And yet... I was at a bit of a loss for words. You'd think I wouldn't be surprised by anything after finding out my brain had been removed, but the Big Empty was quite clearly the Twilight Zone, and it wasn't going to stop throwing me curve balls anytime soon.

"Well, this is certainly..." I paused, leaning against the railing, trying to find the words. "... different. What do you think we're gonna find in here, Ro-" I looked around, trying to find the suddenly missing cyberdog. "Roxie? Where'd you go? Here girl..." I whistled a few times.

No response. Not even a bark.

"Oh, hell," I sighed. Off to the side of the platform I was standing on was a metal staircase, leading down into the backyard of one of the houses. Most likely, Rox had slipped farther into this fake old world neighborhood. And she'd brought me all the way out here anyway, so... guess it was time to go exploring.

When I got down into the cul-de-sac proper, I couldn't help but take note of just how... eerily quiet everything was. I walked up to the closest house, and inspected the front door: only two of the numbers remained.

"Zero... zero?" I couldn't be certain, but it looked like there should have been a third number, either at the beginning or at the end. I looked around, and saw that each of the houses had numbers as well. 101... 104... 108?

"Who numbered this place?" I asked aloud. I looked back at the first door. "Alright... well, let's try you first. I'd ask what's behind door number one, but... clearly, this is door number zero." I looked around again. "00... 101... 104... 108... wait a minute..."

The light bulb in my head finally clicked on.

"Higgs village..." I said aloud, finally understanding. "Dala mentioned this place, didn't she? This must be...This must be where the Think Tank all lived when they still had bodies..." I turned back to the door, pushing it open and stepping inside.

I was immediately face to face with a securitron.

"What." I said aloud. "Wait... what? Why is this... what?" Almost immediately, I realized that I wasn't actually face to face with it... as it was turned off. There was no face at all. Just a blank, cracked screen. In fact... I stepped around the robot, to get a better look at it; it was slumped on the couch just in front of the door, almost like it was sitting on it. "Is this thing busted?"

Sure enough, it was obviously broken. Panels were hanging loose, broken and frayed wires were scattered around inside and out, and when I looked closer at the cracked face screen, I could see that whatever was used to project the image behind the glass was simply missing.

"Okay... yeah, this isn't creepy at all." I walked through the empty, darkened house, occasionally stepping over scrap metal and spare electronics. Every now and again, I would see a half-broken robot lying in a corner - a protectron, half a securitron... parts from a Mr. Gutsy...

"Hmmm..." I racked my brain, trying to force myself to remember details about the Think Tank's bickering from earlier. "Didn't Dr. O say something about being a robot...ical... engineer... person?" I looked down at the head of a broken protectron. "I suppose this must be his house then..." I sighed and shook my head, heading further into the dilapidated house full of broken robots.

"Rox? Y'in here?" I called with a whistle, stepping into the kitchen. I didn't find the cyberdog; the place wasn't that big. I was just about to turn around and head out when I saw something on the wall... stuck there with knives. Easily nine or ten of them.

"The hell?" I pulled the knife in the middle out so I could get a better look... it was a faded and yellowing photograph of a dark-haired man in a business suit. He was standing in front of the legs of a giant robot. I looked closer... and instantly recognized that mustache, and the smug grin below it. "Huh... well, someone had a grudge against House..."

Damnit. There's nothing here. This place is nothing but a robot graveyard. No cyberdog. No nothing.

... so what's making that noise?

I headed upstairs, trying to follow that... it was like a skittering. Some kind of faint scratching coming from somewhere...

There was a lab upstairs. Machinery and servers lined the walls, but they were all deactivated. Broken robot parts littered the walls, just like the rest of the house. But there was a terminal. A single dusty terminal... and it was active. The sound was coming from the terminal. The sound of legs, skittering and scratching against something. Hissing...

Hang on. Was that a holotape?

"Huh..." I pulled out the holotape; the terminal fell silent, and the light in the monitor dimmed into nothing. "Audio Sample - Giant... Tarantula?" I held the holotape in my hand, and reached into my duster for the holotape I'd recovered from X-8. "Huh... maybe the holotape wasn't the important thing I needed from X-8?"

I thought about that... and my eye twitched.

"Oh, fer fuck sake. I'm gonna be pissed if I could've just come here first instead of dealing with that stupid high school nonsense."

"I wonder who lived here?" I asked aloud, stepping through the door to 104. I paused, wondering for half a second if it was a bad thing that I was talking to myself so much. I shook it off as quick as I could.

Like O's house, this was dusty, dank, and dilapidated... but there weren't any robots. There was something a bit... odd about this place. Was it the mannequins? The teddy bears? Or was it the color...

"Red." Even faded, I could tell that almost everything in this house had been a deep, dark shade of red at one point. The couch, the walls, the ceiling, even the carpet on the stairs that led up...

"Okay, what the fuck am I looking at here?" At the top of the stairs was... seriously, what was this? A bunch of broken mirrors? Discarded, ragged clothes... Stools with... teddy bears... sitting on them...

Teddy bears...

"Dala..." I picked up one of the stuffed toys... and the limbs popped off almost immediately. When the head disintegrated, I just shook my head and laughed, tossing it aside. "I guess she got tired of these bears, and moved on to squishier ones..."

And that's about when I stepped into her bedroom. All it took was one glance at the plush surroundings, the red awning over the red bed, the female mannequins wearing the tattered remains of rather naughty undergarments, and the teddy bears scattered everywhere...

"This isn't the house of a scientist. This is a love nest."

I stared at the tattered old world flag. It was hanging above the door, just inside house 101. And then I looked off to the side... at a fully stocked bar. This was the living room. There was a bar in the living room.

"Klein must have been a hideous drunk when he wasn't a brain in a jar," I said, not entirely sure how I was able to make the connection. I shrugged, reaching behind the bar and pulling out a dusty bottle of rum. "Ah well. His loss is my gain." I popped the cork and took a swig as I walked around the house.

There was really only one thing other than the bar that caught my eye: in the upstairs office was a tiny silver box, sitting on the desk next to a terminal. I unlatched the box, and found a chip inside. It looked exactly the same as the metal personality chip that activated Jeeves in The Sink. If I was right, this was another one of those personality chips.

Just a shame there wasn't a label or anything. That would make things more convenient.

I still couldn't find Roxie. Then again, maybe she was staying hidden for some reason... Maybe...

"I wonder," I said aloud, taking another swig of rum. "Maybe she wants me to learn more about the Think Tank? I mean... they seem like a bunch of idiots, but... maybe..."

I shook it off.

"Nah."

Hell is that noise?

House 108. This had to be Dr. 8's old house. He was all about soundwaves, wasn't he? Of course his house would be full of static. It was just a constant, wearisome drone; a never ending hail of static white noise assaulting my ears. But where was it all coming from? After looking around for only a second, the answer was obvious.

Speakers... there were speakers everywhere. Speakers on the walls. Speakers on every appliance. There were megaphones. Radios. Alarm clocks. A jukebox. Stere-

Wait, a jukebox?

Every piece of electronic static-spewing junk in this house was sterile. Gunmetal grey and featureless... except...

I was in the bedroom upstairs. There wasn't even a bed anymore - just an empty, broken frame. And off in the corner was a single jukebox, still plugged in, and spewing the same static as everything else, except... it was colorful. The lights ringing the sides lit up the room in a multi-colored rainbow display of shifting light. The wood paneling - obviously fake, since it hadn't rotted away - was a deep, rich mahogany color. Hell, even the tiny disks behind the dusty glass case seemed to reflect the light with a wavy rainbow pattern...

And sitting on the very top was another silver box. Just like the one I'd found in Klein's place. I unlatched it, and sure enough - another personality chip. I snapped it shut again, and put it with the other one inside my duster.

Maybe there was something else good in here...

Oh, fuck it. I can't stand that awful racket anymore!

How had I missed that?

Out of all the other houses, this was the only one in Higgs Village that had any signs of... well, I was going to say life. But half a skeleton, still wearing tattered rags around its torso, and clutching a broken camera in what's left of it's hand isn't exactly life in the strictest sense, is it?

I looked up at the door. There used to be the number 102 here on the door, I could tell that much. But... someone had covered it with spray-paint graffiti. And they'd written something else.

"4-BIDDEN HOUSE!" Complete with three exclamation points on the end, and even underlined several times for emphasis.

"Forbidden house... forbidden zone... guess this must be Mobius' old place..." I mused aloud. I looked down at the skeleton on the ground, and then back at the door. "Hm. I guess he just doesn't like visitors."

Slowly, I reached for the door handle... and then backed off, turning away.

"Not worth it."

One last house in Higgs to check. 103. The only one left was Borous.

There were no robots here. No teddy bears. No booze. No static noise threatening to drive me crazy. No skeletons. Hell, there wasn't even any furniture. But there was a lot of one thing...

Cages.

Every piece of available space, save for a series of small, twisting walkways, was filled with stack upon stack of empty animal cages. Some were open, some were shut... some looked like they'd been forced open from the inside. All the wallpaper behind the cages? That wasn't cracked or faded. It looked like it had been shredded. I couldn't tell if this was the result of animals that had been here before the war and were now long dead, or if they were the result of something more recent... animals that might still be around right now. Either way, the effect was the same:

"Yeah... fuck that noise. This is a big can of nope that I'm puttin' right back on the shelf. Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope."

I shut the door behind me, and leaned up against it, sighing heavily.

"Fuck," I eventually managed to squeeze out. "Where the fuck is that goddamn dog?" I shook my head, walked over to the dry fountain in the center of the fake cul-de-sac, and sat down on the edge. I looked up at the ceiling; there were several banks of lights attached to the inside of the roof, like you'd see in an old sports stadium, keeping the place lit up. Every once in a while, I could see a crack where some panels in the roof didn't fit quite right, letting just a little bit of light from the outside spill in, unfiltered by the filthy square windows ringing the upper edge of the warehouse.

"Bark!"

In a flash, I was back up on my feet. That was definitely Roxie. But where had the sound come from? I looked around... where was... There! Between 8 and Borous' house! There wasn't much of a backyard, but there was something there, almost directly behind house 103...

A dog house. Littering the ground were a few letters that looked like they should've been attached: G, A, B, and E.

And a bowl. I knelt down and picked it up, turning it over in my hands: Gabe's name was on the side, in cracked and faded letters. I don't know why, but... I decided to keep it. I shoved it in my duster, along with all the other things I'd collected here. I was gonna have to get back to The Sink soon, if only to empty out my pockets of everything I'd accumulated over the last few hours...

"BARK!"

I looked up again, my eyes darting back and forth to every corner, trying to find the source of the-

Something very fast, very small, very heavy, and very slimy launched itself through the air without warning, and latched itself to my face.

"WHAT THE -" I tried to yell; it was difficult with this whatever it was clinging to my face, obscuring my vision and using tiny paw-like hands to hold onto the side of my head. I could feel another set of paws at my leg, and I could clearly hear Roxie's half-way mechanical barking over and over again directly below me. I stumbled back a bit, and grabbed at the thing clinging to my face; there was a row of spines that my hand brushed against. They weren't terribly sharp, and there were enough of them that I could actually get a decent grip.

I closed my fingers around the spines and pulled.

For a solid minute, I couldn't think of anything to say. I just... stared at the thing in my hands, not really able to make heads or tails of the situation.

It was a deathclaw. It was clearly a tiny deathclaw, no more than a foot tall, hanging loosely in my grip and staring at me. I mean, it had all the characteristics of a deathclaw - tiny, beady eyes, scaly skin like a lizard, a pair of horns sticking outside its head, a tail, reverse jointed legs, and a pair of hands disproportionately large compared to the rest of its body.

But I'd never seen one so small before.

And there were a few other strange things about it. Deathclaws get their name from the absolutely massive claws that sprout out of the ends of its fingers - claws sharp enough to rip a tank in half. But this one... it was like it had been declawed. It didn't posses it's namesake. And it's mouth was strange as well. Normally, deathclaws have a maw filled with row after row of razor sharp teeth... but this one? What few teeth it had were relatively rounded... and it only had six teeth, not two and a half dozen.

"Are you... are you a baby deathclaw?" I asked aloud, still staring at the creature in my hands. It squirmed a little in my grip, reaching for me with it's two declawed hands, and letting out a series of high pitched squeals and squeaks. Below me, Roxie had stopped barking; she'd started snarling and growling instead, rearing back on her haunches.

"Hm..." I walked over to the dog house, and set the tiny deathclaw on the roof; Roxie followed me, still growling, but at least keeping her distance. As soon as I let go of it, it immediately grabbed hold of my arm with a grip that was surprisingly strong. It looked up at me with those tiny, beady eyes, and let out another squeak, wagging its tail back and forth.

"I am so confused." I said aloud. The tiny deathclaw sat down on the roof of the dog house, and I got another look at it; the spines running along its back weren't really spines, but more like really stiff fur... and they were white. It stood in stark contrast with the dark green-grey scales, and almost made it look like he had a white mohawk running from his head down his back.

"Quite the little stripe you got there..." I said to the tiny deathclaw. That seemed to please him. "Huh... Stripe... that seems a decent enough name for a de-clawed deathclaw. A declaw." I chuckled a little. He squeaked in approval, and finally let go of my arm... only to try and climb up it. I don't know why... but I kind of liked this thing. It seemed pretty cute, and didn't seem like it wanted - or had the ability - to try and kill me like I'd expect from a full sized deathclaw.

I helped Stripe up my arm, and he finally came to a stop at my shoulder, sitting there like a parrot in an old holotape about pirates. Even Roxie had stopped growling. The cyberdog was sitting on the ground, staring up at me, no longer making any noise. I think she was just worried that this tiny deathclaw was attacking me, and now that it clearly wasn't... she looked as confused as I felt.

"Well, I suppose a little extra company couldn't hurt..." I said with a smile. Stripe squeaked from his perch on my shoulder, and brushed the side of his head against me; his horns scraped against my ear. It stung a bit, but it didn't seem to cause any damage. "What do you think, Rox? More the merrier?"

Roxie barked in approval, the gel in her brain-tank glowing slightly.

"Alright then. Let's get out of here. I don't think there's anything left for us to find here in Higgs..." I turned on my heel, Stripe on my shoulder and Roxie trotting along next to me. I laughed a little; Roxie whimpered curiously at the sound. "Man, this is starting to sound like the beginnings of a joke. A courier, a robot dog, and a tiny deathclaw all walk into a bar..."

Stripe let out a pulsing wheeze that I could swear was actually laughter.