Once my business was done for the day, I spent the rest of it expanding my knowledge of Fallout tech. It quickly settled into a huge black or white, on or off dichotomy in terms of usefulness, where I would be working on something boring, like a microwave. I would be struggling through the old, outdated tech, crossing my fingers and barely staying awake, before discovering that the magnetron, the main component of a microwave, had some sort of SCIENCE! based coating that reduces wear and tear on its moving parts to such an extreme degree that it easily competed with Titanfall tech.

  It also caused lung cancer like asbestos on steroids, but that could be mitigated in plenty of situations.

  For every one interesting tidbit, there were four or five tedious inventions that were barely worth the time. Sure, every bit of engineering was useful in some way, expanding my knowledge and understanding, but working on a stand mixer was still dull, even if it descended from the ceiling for some reason.

  I spent the rest of the day plowing through branch after branch, jumping around and searching for what my final topics would be, which was the real reason I was building so many things. I planned on spending four to five days with Frank on medical and biology stuff, but once that was over, I wanted a list of specific items to cram in as the timer ran down. In order to ensure that I could cram the most valuable creations in, I needed to explore the tree as much as possible. The little tidbits of SCIENCE! I was uncovering was only a bonus.

  I was already planning on asking Frank for some safe stimulants to stay awake for at least forty-eight hours at the end, just to give myself an extra fourteen more hours to work.

  Eventually, it started getting late, but I wanted to work on one last project before I went to sleep. I quickly took apart my designs for the power armor frame and modified them into a higher version, before designing from scratch the X-01 power armor suit. It only took about two hours to design and build since I saved a bunch of time with the frame design, and the result was a significant boost in my design knowledge. By my estimation, I was rapidly approaching complete saturation in the power armor field. I was pretty sure that my next design would unlock the full breadth, a sizable download of mechanical engineering, material sciences, and several fields in between.

  After sending the finished armor away to be scrapped, I made my way to my trailer, sleep finding me not long after I settled into bed.

  The next morning, I woke up and headed over to the Shack, where Jackie was just starting to make breakfast. He was making a mush from bean cubes, cooking them into a refried bean paste, which he planned on using to make breakfast burritos. I was about to head up the stairs to see Frank when he beat me to it, stepping out of his doctor's space.

  "Sir, good morning," He greeted. "While I am sure you are eager to start, I was told Samwise and Noah had something to show you at the Garage."

  I narrowed my eyes a bit as I tried to remember just what they could have, when I realized that they probably wanted to show off their progress on the Vault. I quickly apologized to Frank, promising to be back within an hour, and that we would start after breakfast. When I arrived at the garage less than a minute later, Samwise was waiting for me.

  "Good morning, Jackson, I assume you are here to tour the most recent facilities?" He asked, like he would be showing off some new trailers, not the first step to an underground super-facility. "Noah already waiting for us on the other side."

  "Hell yeah, I am ready," I said with excitement. "Show me what you've got."

  Samwise nodded and guided me into the side room of the garage before leading me down into the newly carved-out basement. It was crazy to see a space that didn't exist less than a few days ago, already plated and completely finished, with. It was simple, sure, but some that could be fixed easily by someone who knew how to interior design.

  Along the walls of the new room, there were several raised platforms, each one lined with safety railings. Only one of them had a plinth in the middle of the platform topped with a green light, signaling that it was active and ready to use. On the far wall, past the raised platforms, was a thick, sealed double door, behind which was the teleport systems power generation in the form of two fusion reactors and a whole series of capacitors.

  "If you would stand on the marked-off area, whenever you are ready, just press the button," Samwise directed, leading me to the raised platform with the green light. "Noah will handle your tour."

  I nodded and stepped up onto the platform, noting that the floor had a yellowed area denoting the teleporting zone. I approached the plinth, realizing that the green light was a button.

  "See you on the other side," I said with a smirk, before hitting the button.

  In a second, with the same strange cold flash of darkness, I was standing on a different platform. The room looked pretty similar, though it was substantially larger, with quite a few more platforms. The most glaring difference, however, was that the far wall was unfinished. As I watched, several MRVN units were hard at work putting the framework together. I watched for a moment before realizing that Noah was standing at the bottom of the platform, who nodded when I spotted him.

  "Welcome, sir. You will be happy to hear that construction is currently ahead of schedule," he explained, gesturing around the room. "The teleportation hub frame is almost complete, though there are no actual teleporters under the other platforms yet."

  I nodded, looking again around as I stepped down off the platform. As I did, Noah handed me a pair of ear muffs designed for loud construction zones, before leading me towards the unfinished wall. As I put the earmuffs on, we crossed through an unfilled doorframe, walking out of the teleport hub. Stepping through the frame was like walking into another world.

  The teleport hub was set almost completely into the solid stone wall of a large semi-circular cavern. Originally, the floor was solid stone that sloped down drastically to the left. Thankfully, most of that seemed to have been filled with gravel from carving out room for the hub, leaving the space mostly level, with more gravel being dumped already.

  Three separate teams of MRVN units were working together all around the cavern. To the left, I could see MRVNs using particle bores to carve out an already existing tunnel, with another crew doing the same in front of me. One crew was digging downward, while the other seemed to be moving straight ahead.

  To the right, another room was being carved out, chunks of gravel being shipped back and dumped into the main cavern. This room was taller, wider and appeared to be deeper than the teleport hub.

  "This, when it is complete, will be our primary production room for the first stage of development," Noah explained, gesturing to the incomplete space. "Eventually, when the Vault is complete, it will be repurposed as a sort of equipment and staging rooming for excursions outside."

  "Smart," I said with a nod, still looking around the cavern. The space itself wasn't that awe-inspiring, beyond being a cavern deep in the earth, but I could see a shelf along one wall, where a flowing river carried water down and around. I could see the water was crystal clear, and the lights that lit up the cavern made it easy to see into its depths.

  "The river seems to have first carved this system, before a partial cave-in, which we already investigated and stabilized, forced it onto a partial new path," Noah explained, his voice coming clearly through my high-tech earmuffs. "The small gap that we descended through has already been sealed up as naturally as we could. The next time a sandstorm blows through or it rains, any trace we were here will be covered or washed away."

  "Good, good. How deep are we exactly?" I asked, walking towards the center of the cavern.

  "We are currently two hundred and thirty-two feet deep," he answered.

  "Damn… That's deep… Still, I want you to plan on reinforcing that at several layers, just for some added protection," I instructed. "Sometime after the Vault is complete, but just keep it in mind."

  "I already had plans to add several layers of anti-busting armor and other protections," Noah assured me. "It has already been worked into the schedule. ."

  "This is all fantastic, Noah, you're making incredible progress," I complimented. "I can't wait to see what you do with everything."

  "Thank you, sir," He said with a nod. "And thank you for the opportunity to build such a critical structure."

  "Hey man, I know you can handle it," I said with a smile. "Just don't forget to work with Samwise too. He will have some good points of input, I'm sure."

  We spent another few minutes talking about what the next few steps were in the plan, before I eventually stepped back into the hub and back through the teleporter. I couldn't help but be excited about the progress, even if it was just in the first stages. The Vault represented a level of safety that I had been craving from the moment I woke up in this world. An untouchable space that I could easily retreat to, someplace even the nuclear weapons that these major corporations like to throw around couldn't touch. Once the hub was finished, I would work up some emergency teleporter beacons for everyone, so that at the drop of a hat, any one of us could drop out of trouble and back to the safety of our Vault.

  That was at least a week or so away, though, and would probably end up being my first task of my break week. For now, I just had to patiently wait. We were so close to finishing the first step to real change, that I could practically taste it.

  When we were done talking and exploring the chamber, I stepped back onto the teleporter to return to Rocky Ridge. Samwise was waiting for me, and I couldn't help but excitedly pat his shoulder.

  "It's looking great, my friend. I am so excited to see the progress you and Noah make over the next few weeks," I said with a smile.

  "Thank you, Jackson," He said, nodding deferentially. "We will do our best."

  "That's all I can ask for, and I'm sure that will be more than enough," I assured him, before letting out a sigh, mentally shifting gears a bit. "Okay, I'm going to see if Jackie is done with breakfast, and after that, I'll be working with Frank, so feel free to do your own thing."

  "Of course, Jackson," He responded, nodding again. "Good luck with your work."

  I gave him a wave as I walked away, heading up the stairs to the side room, exiting the garage, and heading back to the Shack. Kayt was already sitting at the table inside, nursing a large cup of coffee, steam flowing up over her face.

  "Buenos días, Jay," Jackie said, stuffing his burrito shells with cheesy, beany meaty goodness. "These are just about done, so get some coffee and have a seat."

  After pouring my coffee and sitting down, Jackie quickly served up breakfast, a pair of burritos for each of us. As we ate, he promised something interesting for dinner, though he refused to tell me what it was. Once I was done eating, I poured myself another cup of coffee and excused myself, heading towards the stairs to the Bio lab. Before I could get to the door entrance, Jackie reminded me he was looking into finding more work, so I shouldn't be surprised if he has a mission for us soon. Kaytlyn shouted up after him that she was already looking for a new Wraith target, so I should expect that as well.

  When I finally stepped into the lab, I looked around, checking out the decent-sized space. This was the first time I had been up there since it was finished, and it was easy to see that Frank had done a solid job setting it up. Various bits of equipment were lined up along the exterior wall , and there were also cabinets for storage and free space for more gear, should we end up building anything new. Where there was previously an opening to the first floor was now a lab area, with black slate counters, a sink, gas taps for burners, and everything you could need for a chem lab. It really did come off as the perfect blend of medical and chemical laboratory. Along the far wall, beyond the lab station, was a computer set up with a dozen molly makers, a few small, two medium, and one large.

  "Greetings, sir. Are you ready to get started?" Frank said, standing in the lab area. "Do you have a subject you plan on starting with?"

  "I am, and I do," I said with a nod. "The Stimpak is too good to be anything but the first thing we make. Just give me a minute to settle in and find it. I've been purposely ignoring the medical, chemical, and biological branches since I couldn't really do anything with them."

  Frank nodded, and I made my way to the chair in front of the computer, sitting down and closing my eyes. By now, I had explored a good chunk of the Fallout tech tree. I had a solid grasp on its breadth, though there were several depths I hadn't even touched. For a long moment, I slowly scanned around, looking for the Stimpak recipe. It took me a moment to realize that due to my incredibly low knowledge of medicine in general, I would probably not be able to start making the more imprecise chems and medicine, right off the bat. It had been such a long time since I had needed to do it that I had almost forgotten what it was like.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Hopefully, we would be able to push past that relatively quickly.

  "Okay… looks like we are going to have to start at the bottom and work our way up," I said, my eyes still closed. "Let's start off with a disinfectant they have, it's pure chemistry, so we should be able to whip it up pretty easy…"

  The instructions for chemical creations, as I had seen on a smaller scale a few times, were presented differently in the tech tree. Where most of my inventions presented as technical diagrams and blueprints that I had to copy out of my head and then replicate, the chemistry-focused creations fed me a recipe, like a complicated, chemical-filled cookbook, and it was up to me to put the process together. In some ways, it was more difficult since the "cooking" process usually had quite a few failure points, which could result in the entire process not counting towards the creation.

  Luckily, I had Frank here to help me. He would prevent me from making any amateur mistakes, sort of like a master chef watching over a new cook to keep him from putting water in the deep fryer.

  I rattled off a list of ingredients, writing it on a list for my own benefit while Frank went to the storage and began gathering what we needed. As he did that, I pulled on a full, a thin and sterile body cover that would keep me from contaminating anything, as well as keeping anything from splashing on me. When I was all dressed, I started exploring the lab area cabinets, pulling out a few different types of flasks, funnels, condensers, and beakers.

  It only took about half an hour to set up, and when it was finished, we started adding the proper mixtures and powders, slowly refining a potent disinfectant that was surprisingly skin-safe. It took about thirty minutes to create about five ounces of the liquid, which was finally when the process ticked over, and I got credit for the creation. A flow of chemical knowledge, low level but still useful, flowed into my brain.

  "Alright… It's not much, but it's a start," I muttered to myself, looking into the small brown bottle full of the newly created disinfectant. "It's gonna be a long day, but I'm already looking forward to what I can get through. Let's get to work!"

  I handed the bottle to Frank, who took it downstairs to enter into his Auto-Pharma. It was an effective disinfectant, on par with some of what was used here in Cyberpunk land, but it was also surprisingly easy on human skin. While he did that, I worked on cleaning up, putting the glassware through an accelerated dishwasher specifically designed for hazardous chemicals.

  Over the next four or five hours, Frank and I brewed several different chemicals, until finally, I stumbled on tech tree breakthrough, finding a precursor to. In the game, it was heavily intimated that Med-X was basically morphine in its usage, so much so that initially, before the game was released, that's what it was called. However, in the "real" Fallout universe, that was incorrect. In universe, Med-X was actually a mix of an artificial recreation of morphine, as well as a stabilizer that made it more difficult to overdose and reduced the euphoric feeling opioids normally caused. This was why what would have been an incredibly dangerous drug was so readily available to the public. It did not eliminate the risk of addiction, as it still relieved pain and induced low-level pleasant feelings, it was just less likely to kill you or ruin your life.

  As far as drugs that I had access to, it was inferior to what I had access to from the Titanfall, specifically the Auto-Pharma, as there were several painkillers programmed into the machine that were significantly safer and less habit-forming. Still, once I was finished with the precursor, which was just the artificial morphine, I immediately began making the real thing, hoping that it would be the start of unlocking deeper items on the medical and chemical branches.

  Oddly enough, perhaps because it was such an iconic item from the universe, or perhaps because it was a patented recipe from a specific company, but in order for the Med-X to count, it needed to be inside one of the injectors you see in the game. It was a mostly metal syringe with a stable glass panel to look inside. Depending on what stabilizer was used to decrease the risk of overdose and addiction, the glass panel would reveal the liquid to be teal blue or bright purple.

  On the plus side, because I only had to make a single syringe, I had to make a significantly smaller portion than the previous chemical creations. On the downside, it was still a two-part mix, so I was forced to make two separate mixtures before adding them together for the final product. The precursor I had just made was, unfortunately, slightly different from the final form, so it would not work in Med-X.

  When I finally finished the syringe of Med-X, a flow of knowledge came through that was significantly larger than the previous ones. I could now see several more medicines and drugs, including Psycho and Calmex, as well as a slew of drugs that weren't in the games. Frank and I were just starting to discuss what we were going to make next when Jackie radioed from downstairs, explaining that dinner was almost ready and that I should head down.

  I quickly cleaned up a bit, stripped off my safety suit, and headed down to the main Shack area. Kaytlyn was already there, talking to Jackie and Riggs. Jackie was standing by his cooking area, watching me as I entered, ribbing me, and telling me to sit down when I tried to take a peek at what he was cooking.

  Eventually, he made his way over to the table with a large bowl, which he placed in the center of the table. After a moment for dramatics, he pulled off the cover to reveal a beautiful sight. A pile of pasta with a white sauce. He added a plate of grilled chicken, which looked amazing by itself, never mind next to the pasta noodles.

  "So, we figured out how to do a powdered flour and a liquid egg and yolk," Jackie explained. "So I made handmade pasta. Now, pasta isn't anything new, but our version is free of fillers, so it should still be better."

  "It's beautiful," I said, feeling my mouth fill up with saliva.

  "You don't even know what it is yet," Jackie said, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. "It's far from authentic, but it's kind of a bastard child of carbonara and chicken alfredo. It was a struggle to get the cheese not to split, but we figured it out."

  I couldn't help but smile as Jackie talked proudly of his work as our chef. Part of me was beginning to hope I could convince him to be a chef or something, instead of pursuing his crazy dream of being an edgerunner or solo, but I doubted that would ever happen. When he was done talking about his creation, Jackie served us each a generous helping of the pasta before packing away some for Misty, who he would be going to visit after we ate.

  Unsurprisingly, the food was amazing. The noodles were perfect, worlds above what we had been eating up to that point. Somehow, I had gotten used to the subpar crap, and tasting handmade noodles of actually good quality was like meeting an old friend over a beer, and rediscovering why they were such good friends in the first place.

  Dinner was quiet for the most part, everyone enjoying way too much food, considerably faster than we probably should have. Jackie received plenty of compliments on his increasing talents, and when we were done, I made sure to compliment Frank on his work with the food printing.

  "I take it that the pasta went over well?" he asked, standing by as I pulled on my sterile protective suit.

  "It did, much better than what they offer around here. How did you manage to make powdered flour?" I asked. "And will it work with bread?"

  "That was actually Jackie's idea," Frank revealed. "We printed the flour into a solid, dense cube, which we then blended in a food processor. It works quite well. And yes, it could easily work in bread or any other flour recipe."

  "That is fantastic, can't wait to try that," I said, rubbing my hands together before grabbing a pair of gloves. "Maybe I'll take a crack at bread baking when Jackie is out. Anyway, are you ready to continue?"

  "I am. All our glassware is clean and ready to be used again," The AI confirmed. "All that's left is to pick what's next."

  "Well… if our target is Stimpaks… There was an anticoagulant we unlocked, we could go with that," I suggested. "Psycho can wait forever as far as I'm concerned. This world doesn't need another addictive rage drug. I might make Calmex later, but we have better alternatives in the Auto-Pharma, so only if I have time."

  We talked a bit more about it and decided to try something new, making two drugs at once. The anticoagulant I found did have a long distillation time, so I picked another drug, an antibiotic. The antibiotic had a long brewing time as well and would need to be compressed into a pill, which Frank thankfully had the right equipment for.

  Together, Frank and I assembled the proper glassware apparatus, first putting together the anticoagulant process. Once the process was started, we then got to work on the antibiotic, setting up a totally different apparatus setup. Both of these would be turned into pills, but one would be pressed, while the other would be put into a dissolvable pill capsule.

  Because we were making two at once, both of us were constantly going back and forth, checking and double-checking every aspect of each apparatus, making sure all of the reactions were running well. Eventually, after about forty minutes, we had enough product from each reaction to make a single pill of each. I hastily dumped the antibiotic into the capsule and fed the anticoagulant into the pill compressor, absorbing the flow of knowledge as I finished each. Again, the branches of medical and chemical science cleared up, revealing dozens of drugs and finally showing me the Stimpak.

  "Hell yes! I can finally see it," I said, shaking my head and dropping down into my chair outside of the main lab space. "I can see the Stimpak."

  "What are the ingredients?" Frank asked, still cleaning up from the last production. "Anything drastically exotic?"

  "Uh… Well, it's going to be a multistage process," I responded. "We need two chemical enzymes… and we need some donated blood. Not a lot, just half a liter, but that's what it's going to take to make each Stimpak."

  The fact that it took actual human blood to make a Stimpak was not a surprise to me. In all the games, there were a few different recipes, and all but one of them involved a blood pack, literally a blood donation bag. I was pretty sure that the only recipe that didn't use one was from New Vegas, and I was pretty sure that recipe represented a different aspect. That recipe took a and a and combined them with an empty syringe, which could easily be used to draw the blood for the recipe, as well as store the finished product.

  Plus, if I were a betting man, I would bet a good chunk of cash that the two enzymes we would have to make came from the Broc flower and the Xander root. In fact, I was almost certain of it.

  "Okay, so I have no idea how this is going to work in detail. It's too advanced for me to see very deeply into the technical stuff, but I can see the recipe, and that's all we need, so let's get started," I said excitedly, eager to learn the miracle treatment's secrets. "I'll design a syringe while you finish cleaning up. When you're done, you can take some of my blood."

  "Unfortunately, sir, your blood contains nanites from your Bioware," Frank pointed out. "It would probably be better if we use Jackie or Kaytlyn's blood, assuming they don't have something similar already."

  "Damn… I'll be honest, I kinda forgot about the nanohive regen implant…" I admitted sheepishly. "Okay, I'll start us off, and you can go track down Kayt for a bit of blood. Then we can get to work."

  Frank nodded and made his way out of the lab while I got to work setting up the chemical process for making the enzymes. It might have been my imagination, but I was pretty sure I heard Kaytlyn shouting at Frank not long after he left.