Kaytlyn begrudgingly donated a liter of blood for us to experiment with, but only after I explained just how incredible stimpaks had the potential to be. While Frank drew her blood, I started to formulate the artificial enzymes, which were named the catalyst enzyme and the guidance enzyme. Both of them were pretty complex and made me question how either of them could have possibly developed in nature first. Once everything was set up, I double-checked the seals and the valves on the laboratory apparatus before starting it off by igniting one of the bunsen burners.
While the enzymes were being distilled and refined, I sat down at the lab counter and put together the Stimpak injector. I could immediately tell that I would end up redesigning the administration system because, with all the tech I had access to, a pressurized needle injector was incredibly crude. Still, I needed the original for the design to count, so I quickly copied it down in my CAD software before sending it to the molly makers. I have to admit, watching the molly makers print out an honest-to-god stimpak left me feeling a bit giddy, even more so than making the Pip-Boy had.
While making the enzymes had been as complicated as some of the other things we had made, maybe even a bit more so, putting together the stimpak itself was pretty simple. The first step was to mix ten milliliters of the catalyst enzyme with around three hundred milliliters of blood. This causes a reaction, turning a good seventy-five to eighty percent of the blood into a red-black sludge. Once the blood has separated fully, which takes about fifteen minutes, you drain the thick dark sludge off the top, leaving a much lighter red liquid behind. After that, you pour in the guidance enzyme while stirring gently. After thirty minutes, the remaining liquid is drawn into the stimpak, which is then locked and put under a slight pressure.
If that sounded light on details, it's because it was, and I had no idea what it was doing until I completed the first one. Once I did, I finally got the rush of information I could hardly wait for.
The catalyst enzyme basically eviscerates and binds to all of the cells and particulates that make up blood, save for the, which are only present in low amounts. Basically, these cells, once activated, can turn into a variety of other cells, regenerating muscle, bone, fat, and cartilage. The guidance enzyme, the second enzyme, affixes itself directly to the mesenchymal stem cells, or MSCs. It then guides them to injuries in the body, following the body's natural responses to damage, only at a much more rapid pace. Once the guidance enzyme reaches an injury, the MSCs are released to bind to the injury and begin a rapid healing process. The disconnection from the guidance enzyme also seems to supercharge the MSC in a way that the Fallout universe scientists didn't fully understand, but were more than happy to take advantage of.
It was a fascinating biological reaction and explained why Xander root and Broc flowers could be combined to make lesser healing poultices and treatments. The enzymes in each worked on your blood, even blood in and around a wound, it just also produced that black sludge, which the body needed to process, hence the reduced effectiveness.
Still much better than bleeding out, though.
…I needed to make sure that Jackie had a few on him at all times.
The stimpak was an impressive healing item, and if we could figure out a way to mass produce them, it would not only go a long way to making me feel safe, but when we could finally release them to the general public, they would massively decrease the number of lethal accidents significantly. Unfortunately, that would require a level of mass production that not even the Fallout universe managed to really achieve. While stimpaks weren't uncommon in their home reality, they were not plentiful by any means, simply because it required blood to make them. In the same vein, I would need a significant amount of blood or some way to mass-produce it in order to really saturate the general population.
...Someway like a synthetic bone marrow, which was so close to the real thing that it was impossible to tell the difference.
"Okay, so unlocking the Institute's biology projects just became even more important," I said out loud, rubbing my face as I sat at my computer, the completed stimpak on the desk in front of me. "They may hold the key to mass producing stimpaks even better than pre-war Fallout world could."
"Was that not the plan already?" Frank asked as he cleaned up the last of our project. "To tap into as much as you could?"
"I had kind of assumed I wouldn't get too much of the Institute," I admitted with a shrug. "Especially because it took almost an entire day to work up to a stimpak."
"In that case, we should push to create a foundation, and when we have achieved that, we should push toward biology, rather than chemistry," He pointed out. "Eventually, you will uncover something that could tie into the Institute. What aspect of their biology experiments do you need?"
"Their ability to produce living, aged, functional tissue wholesale. Specifically bone marrow," I explained. "If I could mimic that, I could create massive blood vats, making blood wholesale. Hell, with enough biological know-how, I might even be able to isolate the part of the marrow that produces MSCs and create that by the bucket instead. I would probably have to adjust the amount of guidance enzyme… It doesn't matter, not yet, at least. You're right, Frank, I need to create a solid foundation, and then we can push for biology. Let's hope we can push it far enough in the next four days."
Despite the fact that it was getting late, Frank and I pushed on, since there was no reason for me to head to bed before midnight. Tonight was the night I would need to confirm that I wanted the Fallout universe tech tree for another week, and as I had experienced before, waking up to that sensation was not fun.
Once we were done cleaning up, we immediately started setting up to create two more drugs, this time an artificial growth hormone and an antihistamine. The growth hormone was meant as a treatment for those with atrophied muscles, but it was actually much gentler than what Titanfall and Cyberpunk worlds had access to. When it was finished, the wave of understanding explained that, as far as I could tell, the Fallout universe had discovered how to stifle the body's harsh reactions to most growth hormones by slightly altering the back end of the chemical composition. It was still locked into cells the same way, but the change in chemical structure ensured a less drastic response, resulting in smoother results with fewer side effects.
Of course, as per usual, Titanfall offered a solution that was as good, or maybe even superior, that I could make with Auto-Pharma. It was a treatment that used a more standard hormone but softened the symptoms with a regimen of other drugs. That said, achieving the same result with a single treatment was still impressive and useful and could lead to a combined regimen that was better than the sum of its parts. I would leave working that out to Frank.
The antihistamine was not anything impressive. It was basically just fodder for greater chemical and biological understanding.
Frank and I worked continuously for three more hours, putting together a half dozen more drugs from the Fallout world. Most of them were basically nameless, but we did whip up an honest-to-good Radaway, which was both interesting and a bit of a letdown.
The radiation treatment medication was designed to be taken intravenously, where your blood vessels and arteries would spread out across your whole body, even in your stomach. It would then bind to foreign materials and assist the body in cleaning out tiny particles and heavy metals that it would ordinarily struggle to remove, thus cleaning the body of anything potentially radioactive. Unfortunately, there were two issues. One, in order to get the contaminated materials out of the body as quickly as possible, the medication was an embarrassingly powerful diuretic.
On top of that, it did nothing to help with the damage caused by radiation.
A common misunderstanding about radiation is that being exposed to it would somehow make you radioactive as well. This is precisely how it was intimated to work in Fallout. You would walk through a radioactive area, absorb radiation, and you would need a Radaway to clean it out. In reality, walking through a sufficiently radioactive area would cause great damage to your cells and DNA, but it does not suddenly make you radioactive. You could, of course, pick up contaminated materials, which would make coming in contact with you dangerous, but that wasn't the same thing. Nor was the treatment for contamination Radaway. Instead, it was a high-intensity decontamination shower and scrub, as well as the disposal of your clothes and usually your hair. Radaway was only useful for the times when you accidentally breathed in or consumed radioactive contaminants.
A decent metaphor for describing how radiation worked was to think of the particles as small little guns. They shot out damaging little bullets, which hurt you in ways you couldn't see, but being riddled with these bullets didn't suddenly make you a gun. You would need to come in contact directly with the tiny little gun particles in order for them to get caught on your skin or in your clothes, where they would continue to shoot you and everyone around you.
In reality, once the damage had been inflicted, there was very little that could be done to treat radiation poisoning, even in settings like Cyberpunk and Titanfall. You mitigated the pain, tended to the symptoms as best you could, and prayed that whatever cancer you got as a result was treatable. The only difference was that the advanced settings had better treatment for the symptoms.
Still, Radaway had a place, and in a Fallout-filled wasteland, it was actually useful, despite its real-life shortcomings. Since food was hard to come by in a wasteland, eating contaminated food was kind of inevitable, and Radaway could get rid of those contaminants.
I also wanted to see if it could be used to clean soil. One of the most dangerous aspects of the machines I now could make to clean radioactive particles out of topsoil was kicking up contaminated dust. If I could find a way to make it significantly heavier, say by letting it bind to the chemicals in Radaway, I could potentially mitigate that, and make it easier to clean out that dust.
As it got later and later, I checked the clock more and more frequently. Part of it was nervousness, after all, how could my anxiety not spike over this. I can't imagine myself ever approaching the switch or delay in my tech trees casually. On top of that, I was handling potentially dangerous chemicals. If the sudden sensation I had to fight in order to keep the tree for another week surprised me, I risked dropping something important.
At around eleven-fifty-five, we stopped to take a break. We were waiting for one last double round of mixing, but the process could be delayed to let me focus in peace. I idly noted Frank starting to clean up around our final project for the night as I sat down in the nearby computer chair and closed my eyes. As I focused inward on the Fallout tech tree, I could already feel it attempting to slowly prepare to pull away. Mentally, I reached out and pulled back, focusing on keeping it for another week. As the timer ticked down, the tree pulled a few more times, as if testing me, asking me if I was sure I wanted to keep it, before finally settling just as the clock hit midnight. I let out a long breath as it settled, shaking off the nervousness.
Another week of Fallout tech, another week to try and dive as deep as I could into the strange and unique inventions and developments it offered. I stood and clapped my hands a single time, catching the attention of Frank, who was reading data on his personal tablet.
"Alright, Frank. Let's get these done with so I can get some sleep," I said, walking back to the laboratory space. "Gonna need to be fully rested for tomorrow."
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
We spent the next hour finishing up and cleaning up after ourselves before I finally left to get some sleep. Duke was sitting at the bottom of the stairs up to the lab, and he perked up immediately as I started to descend. He happily walked beside me as I made my way back to my trailer, quickly stripping down and climbing into bed. It had been a long day of playing chemist, and my brain was crammed full of what felt like two Ph.D.s and a master's in medical chemistry.
The next morning, Jackie was back in Night City, working with his mom and spending time with Misty, so breakfast was up to me. I settled on making something quick and easy, just some scrambled eggs, cheese, and some fruit. The eggs were a bit rubbery, despite only barely heating them up, but with an extra thick slab of cheese and some hot sauce, you could hardly notice.
By the time I got up to the lab, I had been thinking for a while.
"Frank, I think I need to spend some time today making medical tech," I explained with a frown. "There are a few drugs we uncovered last night that I want to make and understand, but I'm pretty sure if I want to push further into biology, I need to make things that have to do with biology rather than just medications… Maybe."
"Your confidence is reassuring, sir," Frank said straight, his voice clear of sarcasm. "Are you sure that will lead you to what you're looking for?"
"Honestly? No, but it's my best bet I think I can see," I responded. "Good news, a lot of the medical machinery and equipment branches are mostly exposed since I did so much for the Titantfall medical branches."
And it was true, too. I could read the technical specs for an oversized, overly complicated MR machine verbatim, which was unsurprising considering Frank had a handheld version with better imaging in his office.
"I'm going to start the day off by putting together some of the more advanced things we unlocked yesterday," I explained, rubbing my neck. "Then I'm going to head over to the garage to push my technical medical knowledge forward. With any luck, they will meet in the middle somewhere close to the Institute of technologies synth tech."
"Sir, before you go… You described these Synths to me yesterday… would it not be quicker to try building the first and second iterations, to see if it unlocks the third?"
I stood there, my brain stunned by the simple words he said. When it finally started again, it took me very little time to realize, even if I didn't see it at the moment, that the first generation of synths were just specialized bipedal robots with simple VI control systems. They wouldn't be too hard to unlock when working with the robotics tree.
"That… is genius!" I said excitedly, slapping the AI's arm. "Honestly, it's not guaranteed to work since second- and first-generation synths are so different from the third-generation, but having a concrete direction is worth a little risk! Alright, damn, let's get these two things done, then I'm heading back to the Garage. Building four or five robots should only take.. Half the day?"
"What medications are you looking to make?"
"I want to make Addictol and Mentats," I revealed, holding my hand once I mentioned the addictive drug. "I want to make a few of the more addicting chems because I want to give you a crack at removing their addictive aspects. I know it's unlikely, but if you can make a harmless pill we can all pop to get an even one or two percent boost to our brain activity, that would still be priceless. The same goes with things like Buffout."
"Very well, an interesting concept," Frank said, sounding open to the idea. "A challenge to my abilities. I accept."
"Good. Well... let's get started then."
We set to work, quickly getting the glassware set up and the drugs distilling. Addictol was finished first, a dark red powder that we stamped into pill form. Once we had completed one pill, how it worked came flowing through me, and I couldn't help but gasp.
Addictol was a powerful anti-addiction drug that helped stamp out both physical and mental aspects of addiction, even if it was still technically possible to relapse, especially if the patient was a long-term drug abuser. Even with such an impressive description, I was utterly unprepared for what it was actually doing. Addictol induced a temporarily high neuroplasticity level in certain spots in the brain. It allowed a person to think and train their brain through their addiction in a single doctor's visit. They would sit down, take the pill, and spend an hour or so explaining why drugs are bad, while the patient was instructed to consider what made them happy other than doing drugs. Even without that, though, the average brain would simply rewire itself normally, without the weakened dopamine levels.
But there was a problem. Inducing neuroplasticity made people incredibly trainable. Giving someone a single pill of Addictol would let you cement ideas and concepts into a person's mind, much like how a child will build their mind around concepts fed to them by their parents. Not only that, but forcing that level of neuroplasticity took years of life out of your brain. It was like playing rough with a car. The harder you used it, the shorter its lifespan was. Even worse, using Addictol just a few times made you close to sixty percent more likely to develop early-onset dementia and twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's. It also massively increased the risk of brain tumor growth.
It wasn't very effective for people who had been addicted for many years. At that point, the memories, the instincts, and the cravings were too deep for the drug to reach. That meant that Addictol could really only help people who were still at a place where counseling and support could be enough to help someone through an addiction.
But don't bother, pop a pill and think about how much you hate drugs, and come back when you forget what your kids' names are, or it feels like your head is going to explode because you have a tumor the size of an egg. It really did line up with the insanity that was the pre-war Fallout universe.
Mentats, on the other hand, turned out to be a cocktail of several drugs, including an Adderall equivalent and several nootropics. Separate, their effects were minimal, but combined with the potent amphetamine, they affected the brain considerably more, including a mild hallucinatory effect that could sometimes become semi-permanent for heavy, addicted users. Basically, the Adderall equivalent focused the mind, increasing concentration and promoting peak wakefulness, while the nootropics did things like increase blood flow and neuron activity. Not only were you the most focused you had ever been, but ideas flowed from your imagination like a riptide.
Oh, and it was hilariously habit-forming, because not only did feeling smart feel good, but the various nootropics induced multiple types of highs at once. It was like a mixed drink of abusable substances. Still, I learned a whole heap about how chemicals interacted with the brain from both of them, the knowledge locked into my mind by the Tinker of Fiction.
When the drugs were finished, I had Frank destroy them. I knew the recipes, I knew the process, and there was no need to keep a sample around. Besides, Frank could feed the recipe into the Auto-Pharma if we needed them quickly. I would rather not have such dangerous and addictive drugs hanging around, and not just because they might get out. Mentats were a potent tool that could possibly, single-handedly, explain the Fallout universe prediction toward SCIENCE! I liked to consider myself as someone with decent self-control, but I also knew I was only human.
Mentats were one hell of a temptation.
I left Frank to finish up the cleaning once I had disassembled the majority of the glassware, putting it in the laboratory dishwasher after rinsing them. I was determined to try his theory of using the different synth generations to get access to the third, so I rushed back to the garage to get started.
First up was building robots. I had lots of experience building bipedal robots, and robots in general since my drones and the animals I had made for the team fell under that category. That meant that the majority of the robot tech tree was already uncovered, from the humble to the advanced. However, there was still a good amount of how they worked that was hidden, which meant I was going to have to uncover them by building the lesser robots first. While it was tempting to build an Eyebot to see how its hover tech worked, I needed to focus. I had a task at hand, and it meant building an Assualtron first.
The design process took a bit longer than I would have hoped, as I was relatively unfamiliar with the Fallout universe robotics, but after an hour and some change, I was putting together an Assualtron while the production addition was still finishing their parts.
The assaultron design, like a lot of Fallout's tech, was a mix of advanced techniques with crude tech developing into something that pushed past what you would expect. The robot was hardy, had surprisingly potent computing systems, and, in the right circumstances, could be an absolute terror on the battlefield.
In all honesty, in a one-on-one battle, I wasn't entirely sure who would win, an assaultron or one of my combat robots. The assaultron had my robots beat in a melee, but mine were considerably better shots, and the weapons they had were way too much for the simple steel armor the assaultron was covered in to take. I would have to take a closer look during my break week to see if any of the lessons I learned when the combat robot was completed could cross over to my custom creations.
Finishing an assaultron unlocked and filled in a large swath of Fallout robotics, since they were so low-tech compared to what I had already been making. I would easily be able to finish it out by working on a few more once I was done working with Frank. Much more importantly, though, with that wave of knowledge and considerable unlocking came the reveal of the first-generation synth. I spent a few minutes examining the design in my head before finally getting to work copying it down.
The gen one synth was, by Fallout standards, a pretty large leap past what previous robotics had been capable of. The choice to stick to human proportions meant that it was uses were incredibly varied, and the tech used inside it was the best of what the Institute had managed to create at the time. In terms of flexibility, it completely trumped Mr. Handy and Protectron, but surprisingly, it actually compared well to the bipedal robots of the Cyberpunk world. The gen one synth was a bit more stable and dexterous than what Arasak or Militech was producing, but was also significantly more fragile, even with its coverings. It did have a few interesting bits of tech inside it, some extremely sensitive gyroscopes that beat what I had access to here, as well as a power core that seemed to be a miniature fusion reactor, which had a considerably larger size to power ratio than any other option I had seen.
By the time I had finished putting the gen one synth together, I was already excited to get started on the second generation. The parts and materials used in the gen one were novel, but most were below what I already had. The parts and materials I was seeing as I designed and later built the second gen, however, seemed to actually be useful. If the gen one fell just short of being the equal of Cyberpunk's bipedal robots, the gen two just surpassed them. They were a bit tougher, faster, smarter, stronger, more stable, and dexterous. Honestly, I would only have to trade out a few of the synth's internal parts in order to release it to the public as a superior, but not suspiciously so, option to the standard exciting market.
I didn't foresee actually doing that any time soon, but it was a thought for when Tinkertech was a bit better established.
Finishing the first and second gen synths had unlocked a whole tree of Institute tech, which I was hoping I could use to push further and unlock some of their other biological developments.
It also unlocked the third generation design, though it was nowhere near the robotics branch. Instead, it was deep in a completely blanked-out portion of the tree. I could see the assembly process, but I could also see, all around the actual gen three creation process, all the machines that went into making the biological materials that were then combined together to make the actual synth.
In the game, creating a synth was done in only a few steps. A woven net was created on a rack, the bones were then placed on that net, the rest of the body was somehow jabbed into place on the bones, and once that was done, they tased the fuck out of it. The last step was a quick dip in skin juice, and voilà, a synth was born.
In reality, the process was significantly longer and more complicated. The first step was the creation of a placement net, but the bones were not all placed together next. Some of them were placed, but the organs and most of the muscles were placed next. Further, the meat and organs were not just poked and prodded into existence, they were carefully premade and placed into the proper spots, surgically attached to the skeleton where it applied. This in and of itself was a long, multi-step process, as was activating the human tissue.
Luckily for me, each of the machines that produced and made the tissues, bones, nerves, and every other body part was a separate device, rather than a single cloning vat. The Institute really had approached the development of the gen three synth as if they were assembling a piece of equipment rather than building a person.
It would have been impressive if I didn't know just how poorly they treated the synths they created. Honestly, I didn't know if I would ever even create a single, whole synth, but I did know they would either be fully in control of themselves or they would not have any consciousness at all. I felt bad enough about the minor loyalty tweaks I had in the AI I had built, and those barely existed.
