I was up and out of my bed before I even realized my alarm was going off. I had gotten a solid eight hours thanks to the help Frank offered me, so I was feeling pretty good as I took a rushed shower and quickly got dressed. When I stepped out of my trailer, Duke was hot on my heels, almost like he sensed my excitement, following me as I quickly walked through the town. I was about to cut across the road towards the workshop when someone called for me.

  "Jackson!" Kaytlyn called, prompting me to stop and turn towards her. "Jackie is making breakfast for us again. Samwise says you need to eat before you get to work, anyway. Today's session of the too-smart-for-your-own-good club is apparently going to be pretty intense. Plus, I doubt you want to make Jackie pout that you skipped his hard work."

  I gave Kaytlyn a glare as she leaned against the doorway of the Shack, before letting out a long breath and nodding, making my way towards her. She chuckled at my suffering, pushing off of the wall as I got closer.

  "We just don't want you to burn yourself out, Jay," She pointed out. "Even if what you're making is mind-boggling."

  "I'm careful not to overwork myself, Kayt," I assured her, pushing the door open. "But you guys know what I'm working on. Surely that is worth putting in a bit of extra time?"

  I stepped into the cooler room to find that not only was Jackie cooking in his little area, but that Misty would also be joining us. She smiled as we stepped inside and gave us a wave from the table where she was sitting. Jackie looked up from his area and nodded, a smile on his face. He was wearing an apron that said something I didn't understand in Spanish.

  "Good morning, everyone," I said, smiling and nodding to Misty. "It's good to see you, how are you?"

  "I am doing well, sorry about just showing up without calling," She said. "Jackie promised me a breakfast that I wouldn't ever forget, so I wanted to come to see what was making him so confident. Did he buy a bunch more fish or something?"

  "Not exactly," I responded with a chuckle, sitting down. "A couple of our friends made a breakthrough in re-creating artificial versions of various foods. They taste about as close to the real thing as you can get, though quite a few of the textures need work. Jackie volunteered to be our experimental chef and come up with recipes that work despite the weird textures."

  "Oh, that's exciting… and it's healthy?" She asked, a hint of concern working its way into her voice.

  "Completely. This isn't chemical slop we mix up to make a quick eddie, Frank, the man in charge of the development, is very careful," I assured her. "In fact, almost every single thing we have replicated is as good for you as the original."

  "It's true, Mi Vida, it's incredible, and I have felt terrible keeping it from you," Jackie admitted, before wincing and looking at me. "I know we need to keep it quiet, but…"

  "I get it, Jackie, I get it," I assured him. "I trust Misty, I know she isn't the type to spread secrets."

  Both Misty and Jackie smiled before the latter turned his focus back on his cooking. I wasn't sure what he was making, but it smelled really good. I was trying to figure it out by smell alone when Kayt brought something up.

  "Just in case you forgot, Jackson, tonight is the night we hit another Wraith base to klep some major goods."

  "Are we going to go with the same calling card as before, or do you want to mix it up?" I asked. "And please keep it clean, we are about to eat."

  "Wimp. And honestly, it might be hard to beat what we did last time," She admitted. "Let me do some thinking."

  "Sure, I'll tell Riggs to look out for the smoke," I responded with a smirk. "How many- Is that orange juice?"

  I was talking to Kaytlyn when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Misty lift a glass of light orange liquid to her mouth and take a sip. My mind immediately cut me off to discuss what it clearly considered more important.

  "Yeah, it is!" Misty said excitedly. "Jackie said he made it using some of what you guys are working on, but I guess it's what Frank is working on...."

  I quickly grabbed one of the glasses on the table and poured some for myself from a large pitcher, letting out a groan of appreciation as I gulped it down. I finished the glass and refilled it, this time drinking it more slowly.

  "I take it you're a fan?" Kaytlyn asked with a raised eyebrow.

  "It's been way too long," I responded, taking another sip. "My family, well, orange juice was kind of a staple for every breakfast. There was almost always a carton of it in the fridge. I just didn't realize how much I was craving it until I saw it."

  "Good to know, I'll make sure to make extra next time," Jackie said with a smirk before looking back down to his work. "Alright, guys, breakfast is just about done. Just be careful 'cause the pan is hot."

  After a few more seconds, Jackie stepped away from his cooking area, carrying the large pan over to us at the table, where he placed it down on a towel. Inside was what looked like a skillet breakfast, a sort of mish-mash of breakfast foods, including bacon, hash browns, and scrambled eggs. Most of that was hard to see, however, as it was covered by a layer of gooey melted cheese.

  "Jackie… Is that cheese?" I asked, my eyes wide. "Did Frank make real cheese?"

  "That's right! I got a few samples and passed them onto Frank a few days ago," he said with a proud smile. "He finished one this morning. It's nothing super classy, according to him, but it is a decent run-of-the-mill cheddar. The texture is a little soft, but it melts better than most cheddars should, according to what I've been reading, so you win some, you lose some."

  "Jackie… I… you… please, for the love of god, serve me some before I start to cry."

  Jackie laughed and used a spatula to serve out the food, giving the first bit to Misty, but laying the second on my plate. I took a minute to just sit there and enjoy the smell before digging in. It was amazing. The cheese wasn't the sharpest cheddar, but for something like this, that was more than okay, as something too sharp would have distracted me from the rest of the food. I did my best to slow down and enjoy the meal, but I still finished it way too quickly. When I was done, I looked up to see everyone else was just as enamored with the food as I was, maybe even more.

  "Jackie… I'm so glad you volunteered to cook and work with Frank," I said, eyeing the leftover scramble. "This is fantastic."

  "I just have good ingredients, Jay. I'm no super chef," he said modestly, smirking as he spotted me eying up seconds. "Go ahead, I have another skillet already going."

  I immediately served myself a second plate, pouring myself more orange juice and digging back in. By the time the food was gone, we had all eaten way too much, but that wasn't surprising, considering it was as good or even better than his breakfast burritos. When we were done, we chatted for a few minutes, everyone digesting the heavy meal before I finally headed off, back to my garage.

  As I walked in the side door, closing it up tight behind me, I found Samwise working on the QPE, checking its internal sensors. Not far from it was part T-51 power armor frame, mostly disassembled so Sam could get a closer look at the servos.

  "Don't get too attached to the design," I warned him as I sat down in my chair, nodding to the parts. "I plan on making a few more advanced frames until I have the whole branch locked down."

  "I was just curious as to the composition," He explained. "An idle curiosity to keep me busy while I monitored the GPE."

  "Fair enough," I said with a shrug, my warning delivered. "How did the monitoring go?"

  "As well as we could hope. The first run was a failure, but I managed to isolate the fault and repair it," he explained. "The second and third runs each created a single pair of entangled photons."

  "Let's see them, then."

  Samwise reached over to his work surface and pulled out a small, carefully constructed case. He snapped open the latches and opened it for me, revealing a foam interior with four container inserts, two marked with red bands and two with yellow. I carefully pulled one of the capsules out, turning it over in my hand before pushing it back into the foam slot. As far as I could tell, the capsules felt completely empty, but I couldn't imagine a single photon weighing that much anyway.

  "Fantastic, Samwise, well done," I said with a smile, watching him close the case up and put it gently back on his desk. "We are getting closer, Sam, I can taste it. This technology will give us a massive edge, something that no other group could hope to trump. Hell, it's even impressive on the grander, multiversal scale. Plenty of advanced Sci-Fi settings don't crack safe teleportation."

  We quickly got to work, meaning I copied down the proof of concept teleportation chambers, while Samwise cleaned up the workshop, including the power armor and the frame. He then built a quick table, welding it together and leveling it, as a place to place the parts, capacitors, and fusion generator.

  The machine itself was one hell of a complicated design, and some of the more delicate parts were reaching the upper thresholds that the molly makers were capable of. Not nearly at their limit, mind you, but certainly high enough that it must have been an absolute nightmare to build this in the Fallout universe.

  Slowly but surely, we assembled the large machine, starting with the fusion generator and capacitors, before moving on to the control systems. When those were all set and in place, we finally began building the sealed boxes and cables themselves. It was interesting to find that the thick connecting cables were not part of the transfer process or anything. Instead, they carried a ludicrous amount of power to both of the thick sealed boxes from the capacitors

  Once everything was in place and the chambers were set, we began locking it all in place, attaching the thick cables and capacitors. After that, we attached the fusion reactor. We did a lengthy double-check to ensure that everything was hooked up and ready to go before moving into the final step. In the base of each chamber was a small cavity, just big enough for one of the entangled photon capsules. After carefully inserting a capsule in each, I sealed them up tight.

  Finally, after five and a half hours of work, programming, and careful building, the proof of concept machine was finished. We turned it on, and a sweeping wave of information flooded me.

  The system's primary piece was, unsurprisingly, the contained photons, a process that was mind-boggling in and of itself. I had been in such a rush to jump to the next step that I had barely stopped to examine the tech and knowledge that came with the QPE. Now, as I was absorbing the proof of concept teleporter, I was stunned at what I had missed.

  Again, in standard Fallout practice, scientists and engineers from that universe were perfectly happy to use something that they didn't fully understand as long as it worked, but even with that, I still gained a ton of knowledge that was still theoretical in nature in any other universe I had knowledge from, including cyberpunk.

  What the entangled photons meant for communication alone was wild, and yet the Fallout scientists had been happy to stuff it in a teleporter and basically forget about it. I made a note to investigate it more when I had time. For now, I needed to focus on the teleporter, which was hopefully the first model of a few.

  The entangled photons represented a bridge, connected together through ways I could now describe with math, but honestly struggled to describe with real words. What mattered was that that connection could be charged with the right amounts of energy, which was applied to the photon capsule. This charge would change how the connection reacted to the very fabric of reality, basically spreading it open.

  The best way I could describe it was that the two entangled photons are set apart by an unimportant amount of space. However, photons were connected by their entanglement, and the connection passed through space, the very fabric of reality. When a charge was forced into one of the photons, that charge would pass through the entanglement and affect the other particle. This charge would also expand the field that naturally ran along the entanglement, which was what allowed it to pass through space. The result was a field that repealed reality itself, creating a tunnel of sorts, which allowed something to be sent across the photon's entanglement like a train following a rail.

  It felt important to note that the traveling happened towards the originally charged photon, meaning the "catching" photon was the one that needed all of the power systems.

  "Are you alright, Jackson?" Samwise asked as I contemplated what I learned.

  "Yeah, there's just a lot to consider," I explained, letting out a huff before standing up straight and pushing off the seat I had been leaning on. "Good news, so far, I'm not seeing any sign of teleporter murder happening."

  Teleportation came in many forms in science fiction, from the stargates of Stargate to the transporters of Star Trek. The concept was an old one, but it often skirted around the. Basically, if you were disassembled at an atomic level, taken somewhere else, and reconstructed, are you still you, or is the old you dead, replaced by a newly assembled version of you.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  It was a relatively popular topic for discussion and was often mired in questions about the existence of the soul, what constituted consciousness, what constituted "self," as well as where you might draw the line around the concept of death. Personally, I found that the more new-aged and transhumanist someone was, the more likely they were to shrug it off and declare it was just teleportation, and that there wasn't any death involved. In the opposite direction, the more a person leaned towards old-age concepts, like the sanctity of self, personal identity, and individualism, the more they considered this to be a problem.

  Unsurprisingly, considering my opinion on cyberware, I wanted nothing to do with any system that disassembled me completely. I didn't even like the idea of Stargate or Star Trek teleportation, as both claimed to account for the transfer of self and individualism, but still completely deconstructed someone to base parts.

  Thankfully, there were no sign of disassembly or destruction in this teleportation system so far. According to the data I was seeing, this would open up a tunnel through reality, allowing matter to pass from one location to another, without traveling the actual distance between the locations. Of course, there was no way to predict what would happen with later interactions of the tech, but so far, so good.

  Desperate to finally try the proof of concept device for myself, I quickly assembled everyone together. By the time it was ready, Jackie had taken Misty home and returned, and was now watching as Samwise and I prepared for the first example of real teleportation on this planet.

  "Just to warn you guys, this is just a proof of concept," I repeated for the third time. "It's not going to look incredibly impressive. All I'm teleporting is nitrogen."

  Despite being incredibly impressive, both technologically and from a purely physics standpoint, this concept was still in its infancy, at least at this point in the tech tree. The "tunnel" formed between the two charged photons was minuscule, meaning there was no hope of teleporting a physical object beyond even the finest dust. So, rather than struggling with some convoluted method of testing, one chamber was filled with nitrogen, or any neutral gas, really, while the second chamber was put under vacuum. Then, the second the "tunnel" was opened, the gas would be pulled through, and you could test for it.

  If you found nitrogen in the vessel that was supposed to be a pure vacuum, congrats, you successfully teleported nitrogen atoms through space.

  Working together now, Samwise quickly pulled a vacuum in the catching vessel while I filled the other with nitrogen. Then, when everything was ready, we started the fusion reactor, which slowly but surely filled the capacitor banks with power. It took the fusion reactor five minutes to successfully charge the capacitor banks. When they were full and the system was ready, the control screen blinked green, signaling all systems were a go.

  "Alright, everyone. This is it. We are about witness history," I said, carefully setting a thirty-second timer on the activation and stepping back, joining the rest of the crowd. "Try not to sneeze."

  The counter slowly counted down, until finally it reached zero. The fusion reactor spun up as fast as it could, producing as much power as possible. Then, the sounds of the capacitors going off filled the workshop, dumping their power into the "catcher" photon.

  "Correct charge achieved!" Samwise said, reading off the screen. "Holding charge disperses in seven…six… five… four… three…two… one… Charge lost, readings stabilizing… systems reading green…"

  "And the catching vessel?" I asked, holding my breath, staring at the machine set up.

  "Vacuum pressure has decreased, sampling now…" Samwise trailed off as he waited for the results before finally perking up. "Detecting nitrogen in the catching vessel. Teleportation achieved."

  I pumped my fist, slapping Jackie's hand in a high five as Kaytlyn stood there with her eyes wide, as if not really ready to accept the possibility that I had succeeded. Jackie, bless his heart, believed me without an issue, congratulated me with a bear hug, joining my celebration. None of my AI companions doubted me in the slightest, of course, so they joined in as well.

  "Are you sure?" Kaytlyn asked, still stunned. "It actually worked?"

  "Yup. We just achieved what many would wave off as impossible," I said, unable to keep a big grin off my face. "Even if this is as far as it goes, this could change the world as we know it. How effective was the exchange?"

  "The vessels reached complete equilibrium," Samwise responded, still reading data from the device's sensors. "The vacuumed vessel pulled nitrogen through the entangled tunnel until the pressures equalized."

  "Excellent!" Okay, let's start disassembling this and running it through the scrapper," I said, giving the system a long last look before nodding. "Yeah, the only thing I could see keeping is the fusion reactor, and it's too specialized to be easily useful. Scrap it all, other than the photon pair, and I'll get to work designing whatever is next. It's quite a bit bigger than this, but with any luck, we will be able to teleport objects around by midnight. I-"

  "Woah, hold up! We have a target to hit tonight," Kayt pointed out, cutting me off before I could build up any more steam. "We are leaving not long after midnight, and I need you prepared and ready, not haggard and manic from whatever law of physics you manage to break next."

  I opened my mouth to argue, only to close it and look at the clock hanging on the wall. After doing some quick mental math, I frowned, realizing that, in all likelihood, she was right. Slamming down on the instinct to prioritize my work over a raid that could likely be done any time we wanted, I took a long breath and nodded. My people came first, and this was not something to brush off.

  "Fine, fine, you're right. I can… put this off until tomorrow," I said, looking around. "I'll keep working on the power armor with my extra time. I can stop that whenever I want, and it's not gonna make me 'Manic.'"

  Kaytlyn nodded, seemingly satisfied, before heading back out to go about her business. Jackie hung around to take a look at the power armor frame, which Samwise had successfully gotten working off a series of Elerium nodes, set under the armor of the back.

  "It's an interesting feeling, Genio," Jackie said as he tested his range of motion with the heavy-duty armor on. "Totally different from your under-armor. Closer to the warden get-up that Riggs wears, but not quite."

  "I hesitate to call them power armor after experiencing this," I added, Jackie nodding in agreement. "They are more like power suits, while this is armor."

  "Can't you get rid of the delay?" Jackie asked, waving his arm around, watching it hitch. "It's not terrible, but..."

  "Probably, but I would need to experiment with it first," I explained. "Samwise is pretty busy, or I'd ask him to take a crack at it. Would you wear one if that was fixed?"

  "I don't think so, Genio," He admitted, turning around and making his way to the power armor station. "It would definitely make my Sandy useless, right?"

  He turned and faced away from the stand, and after a moment, the armor went rigid, parts swinging open so he could climb out easily. Once he was clear, the armor closed back up, hunched over slightly in its unpowered mode.

  "Uh.. yeah, most likely," I confirmed with a frown, doing some quick maths in my head, trying to figure out just how light and responsive I could make it, only to frown and shake my head. "Yeah, I wouldn't be able to get that working. It's a wrecker, not a finesser."

  "You plan on wearing one?"

  "Probably," I admitted, looking away from my computer to look at the T-51. "It depends on how I can max it out. It's funny, 'cause I don't really see it as specialized equipment. Maybe I'm biased from the base material, but when I see that, I think of standard armored infantry, not edgerunners or solos. Imagine forty of these, armed with miniguns or mag canons."

  "Can I not?" Jackie asked with a snort. "What could you need that much heat for?"

  I looked at him with a raised eyebrow, slightly confused.

  "Jackie… you realize when I said I wanted to change the world… most companies are going to fucking hate me for it, right?" I asked. "Militech, Arasaka, Biotechnica, KangTao, and everyone in between is going to hate me. It's most likely going to be a global war. I'm hoping to avoid anything drawn out enough to cause mass casualties, but… It's still going to be a war."

  "I guess, kinda hard to imagine that while working out of a garage like this," He gestured around us, and I nodded in understanding.

  "Maybe, but it's what we are heading for," I said, looking back at my computer. "Night City is just the first step, and that, in and of itself, is going to be a major conflict. Most of the gangs are going to have to be stamped out, and I'll have to straighten out the police. Hell, I'm probably going to have to dissolve the police completely and come up with something completely different, or no one will trust them."

  For a few moments, I stared at the computer blankly before shaking my head free of the encroaching rush of incoming responsibilities.

  "Either way, it's going to be a fight," I repeated. "Nobody is going to give up their slice of power without a fight."

  Jackie nodded, seeming contemplative as he sat down on a stack of crates, looking at the large power armor set. Meanwhile, I started to work on designing the next version. I was going for a clean sweep of all power armor and its many different permutations, upgrades, and equipment, so I couldn't afford to skip any more than I already had in passing by the T-45. That meant that, after completing the T-51, it was time to work on the.

  The T-60 was an all-around improvement from the T-51. It was stronger, faster, tougher, and more maneuverable. It used slightly less energy and was easier to repair and maintain. Plus, it was significantly more modular, meaning it could hold a substantial array of equipment without losing its original functionality.

  The frame itself was also vastly different, showing the same design leaning toward modularity or at least ease of upgrading, that the armor plating did.

  It was about ten pm by the time I finished designing, printing, and building the armor and frame, which I immediately sent to get scrapped. I had only wanted the knowledge and the progress from the T-60, which I got the moment I plugged in the fusion core.

  "Should you not scrap the inferior version first?" Samwise asked, a bit confused, even as he directed a pair of MRVN units to disassemble and take the armor and frame away.

  "Well, for one, I don't ever plan on using any of these as they are. Any power armor that actually sees any use is going to go through an extensive redesign using everything I have learned so far," I explained, leaning back in my chair, watching the large T-60 get carted away, piece by piece, "As for why I'm keeping the T-51? Well, you see... the games I know this universe from? I grew up with a certain iteration, and in that iteration, the T-51 was the top of the line. It might not be the prettiest one ever made, but it's got a special place in my nostalgia-choked heart. This is either gonna remain mostly unmodified, or I will modify it while specifically trying to leave the look and feel as close as possible. Like a pet project or something."

  "Very well… though I do not quite understand, I will follow your orders," He admitted, turning to clean up his workstation.

  "Well… People sometimes feel overly connected to certain things, even if it doesn't always make sense," I explained, standing and stretching, my back popping a few times. "Familiarity is safe because it hasn't hurt us before, so it probably won't hurt us in the future."

  "I see… like having a preferred set of tools?"

  "Kind of, but I'd say more like having a preferred tool brand," I correct slightly. "Having a favorite hammer is likely because you know it works well, whereas buying a new tool from a trusted company makes you feel safe, despite not having experience with that company's version of that specific tool."

  "I see..." He said in a tone that clearly showed he didn't. "I will think more about this, Jackson."

  After Samwise and I finished our conversation, I started to prepare myself for our next challenge, the Wraith hideout. Once I was armed, armored, and prepared, I whistled for Duke to follow me, the loyal robotic hound sidling up next to me as we walked to the Shack, waiting for the rest of the team to file in.