The elevator was right next to Animus' unit. He clicked on its button to call it to the fifth floor. While the elevator approached, Animus stewed in thought.
'If I remember correctly, the black rain and nuclear winter cease one year after the bombs dropped. Ordinarily, they should have lasted 10 whole years. But in Fallout, they only last for one year. I cannot exit the vault at least until a year passes. What can I do in this time?' He asked himself.
He looked at his skinny arms and legs. His body was frail. As it stood, he would die easily in the outside world.
'I need to get stronger. Give it my all. That's it. I will have to deal with whatever issues come. Most importantly, I must unite the vault.' He realized.
The elevator arrived with a chime. Its doors opened. Animus entered it. He stared at the nine buttons on the console.
'The Vault 69 mainframe is much deeper in the vault. There are nine buttons on the console. Shall I go for the lowest one directly? Or play it safe and try another floor?' Animus thought.
Randomly, Animus clicked 8 on the elevator button console. The doors closed and a jingle played as it took him to the eighth level.
"The eighth floor... That is pretty deep down in the vault," He muttered.
The elevator stopped after a few minutes. It played a quick chime. The doors opened to reveal pristine white hallways split in two.
← Science Labs
Engineering Labs →
Animus grinned.
"Not too bad. Guess my luck's something else. I should explore the labs first." He chuckled.
'Viva la Luck Stat of 10!" He laughed inside.
Without hesitation, Animus turned left. He walked for a minute before reaching a set of steel double-doors. He clicked a switch next to them. The doors opened, leading him to a set of glass doors. Animus pushed these doors open using their handles; these doors lacked an automatic switch.
Animus entered a large hall with various equipment.
Scientific paraphernalia of all kinds greeted his sight. A few women milled about in the area, dressed in white lab coats. Some of them wore visors to shield their eyes from their experiments. Animus spotted a console for climate and vibration control along with the standard safety options for fire, gas, and alerts on the left. The room was sterile, and a hallway down in the center led to further segregated rooms for isolated studies and glass chambers to view them from the outside.
"Man, I love this." He smiled broadly. He was in his element now.
The people in the room turned to look at him in silence before returning to their work. They were all women.
'Nobody has realized yet that I am the only man in the vault. In a way, this is nice. I need the time to prepare myself. When people find out, I need to be ready.' He thought.
Spotting a cupboard on the right, he walked to it with purpose. He opened it to find a lab coat, gloves, visors, and a few other essential items. He donned the coat, wore the gloves, and pocketed the rest. He quickly moved to a bunch of computers on the left side of the wall and sat next to one. They were large and bulky, retro-style in typical Fallout fashion. Animus planned to change everything about it.
He booted it up and got to work. Instantly, his Level 65 Science skill clicked in. Cutting-edge knowledge and ideas of experimental tech flooded his mind. He struggled to rein it in.
So, he let it flow. He let the ideas and knowledge consume his mind, enhance his existing knowledge, and elevate it further.
The man who once built an AI that would either save or destroy the world now chose to create something even more terrifying.
Animus forgot everything around himself. His fingers typed non-stop. First, he set up multiple layers of passwords and isolated the system from Vault 69's mainframe. While doing so, he ensured the system kept sending blank screenshots showcasing inactivity to ensure nothing seemed outwardly amiss. Tricking the security guardrails with finesse didn't take him too long.
Then, he made pages on pages of notes. Wild ideas entered his mind. Animus grinned as he kept typing.
'This microbe-based 3rd generation fuel should solve the need for petroleum entirely! Genetically engineering bacteria like blue-green algae in controlled wastewater-based environment puts our "useless" waste to excellent use. I can build and run a Lamborghini in Fallout of all places!' Animus laughed and analyzed while typing.
The women looked at him weirdly.
'AH! I forgot about working on Wicca!' He paused.
He began to lay the code for the foundations of Wicca. The code was complex, requiring highly sophisticated algorithms as a foundational testing baseline. Animus carefully extracted massive, high-quality datasets from Vault 69's mainframe through building backdoors into the system. It was highly risky, but there was no other choice.
He felt someone approach him.
"Bro, you suck. I told you to keep me informed of where are you are, no? I even tried to message you," Zoe said, exasperated.
Animus was engrossed in his work. He didn't notice Zoe.
"This dumbass of an older brother..." Zoe muttered under her breath.
Zoe smacked the back of his head. Animus was pulled out of his trance.
"Ueh?" He muttered in surprise, looking around.
"You. Eat. Now." Zoe said, and aggressively shoved a sandwich near his mouth.
"Zo? When did you come here?" Animus asked and dutifully took a bite.
"Thank God you mentioned that you were going to the labs. I had to enter every level to find this area. Nice place, but who forgot to call his dearest sister after our difficult morning?!" Zoe said, poking his chest.
Animus winced.
"I'm sorry, Zo..." Animus said, gently hugging Zoe.
Zoe sighed.
"It's fine. Just stop making me worry. What are you working on?" Zoe asked.
Animus' eyes brightened.
"I won't make you worry. I'm working on an AI to help us analyze the current status of the world outside, and when it would be safe to exit. And..." Animus said, leaning right next to Zoe's ear.
"...It will help us hack into Vault 69's mainframe and ensure that Rachel cannot lock us inside the vault forever. We'll take control instead." He whispered.
Zoe's eyes widened.
Then she grinned wickedly.
"Oh, yeah. Now you're forgiven." Zoe cackled.
"But how did you get so good at programming? Did you really do all that back at home?" Zoe asked, tilting her head.
"Yeah, Zo. Believe your brother. Or maybe my past life's self just passed on its teachings to me." Animus shrugged.
"Yeah, sure. And I am destined to be an engineer who creates a massive robot to fight giant monsters." Zoe deadpanned.
Animus laughed.
Zoe shook her head in exasperation.
"Finish eating. Then come home on time. I gotta go back to class. Take care, Bro." Zoe said, kissing his cheek.
"Yes, Zo." Animus smiled and hugged her.
Zoe left with a wave.
Animus quickly finished eating and safely disposed the plate. He threw himself back into his research. Hours passed. He would not have realized the passage of time if he hadn't notice someone standing next to him for the last few minutes.
"Excuse me... Excuse me... Excuse me!" A voice squeaked.
In a daze, Animus looked up to his right.
A beautiful girl with blonde hair and milky skin was looking at him with big, blue doe eyes. She looked like she was equal parts embarrassed and worried. Her face was beautiful, almost as if it was sculpted with intent. Animus opened his mouth uselessly. He was still typing out code, so he barely had the mind to pay her any further attention.
"Are you fine? You've been here for over six hours. It's almost 7 o'clock. I am the last person in the lab. Our shifts are over. Do you not want to go home for dinner?" She asked quickly, fearing he would stop paying her attention any second.
'She looks... familiar?' He thought.
Animus stopped typing. His fingers immediately scrunched up with tension. He could feel they were sore and hurting. His arms burned. His neck hurt.
"Ah..." He let out a low voice in pain.
"Do your fingers hurt? Wait, let me get an ice pack." The beautiful girl said, leaving quickly to reach an emergency cabinet in the bottom left corner of the Science Lab. She grabbed an ice pack from the freezer and returned in a hurry. She sat close to Animus and gently brought his hands together with the ice pack in-between to help his hands feel relief.
"Goodness, why would you do this to yourself? Let it stay like this for now, okay?" She chided gently.
Animus still stared at her in a daze. He could intimately feel her soft hands over his.
"Thank you. I am Animus. May I know your name?" He asked.
The woman smiled.
"My name is Gwendolyne. You can call me Gwen." She said while shifting her hands to better cover his sore fingers.
His mouth opened wide before closing shut immediately.
'NO WAY. What in Robert's name?!' He shouted inside his mind.
"Umm, are you okay?" Gwen asked, tilting her head.
"Sorry, it's just that I have no idea where you got that." He admitted honestly while looking into her eyes.
"Got what?" Gwen asked, her head tilting further. She had a feeling he couldn't be referring to the ice pack.
"That beautiful smile," He said seriously.
Gwen blushed in response. She was suddenly aware of how close they were, and how her fingers were gently wrapping around his. She quickly retrieved her hands.
"T-Thank you." She said, twirling a lock of her hair.
'I am still in shock. Did Robert do this? He sent one of the most beautiful girls in Marvel to act as a decoy to distract eldritch gods? How cruel.' Animus thought.
He felt that a god was giving him a judgemental look from within his soul.
'Gwen Stacy is one of very few women I truly liked in all the stories I have read and watched, until Marvel almost ruined her. Like they ruined Mary Jane Watson. I can't believe Gwen Stacy is in front of me right now.
'Well, to be honest, her original comic version was a three-dimensional character with genuine human flaws. Her newest Ghost-Spider version is totally my type, though. But it can't be... She cannot be Ghost-Spider, right? That would attract too much attention from the eldritch gods. ' Animus thought with a frown that disappeared quickly.
As for the other woman he found beautiful, Animus did not name her, but a dusky beauty from the morning appeared in his mind's eye.
Returning to reality, he looked at Gwen. He enjoyed her blushing look.
"A-Anyway, are you feeling better now? And what were you working on?" Gwen asked quickly in an attempt to hide her embarrassment.
'Hmm. Ghost-Spider Gwen was sarcastic, witty, and bold. This Gwen is shy, but confident and kind enough to approach me and help me.' Animus analyzed in thought.
"Yes, thank you. I was working on creating an artificial intelligence assistant. You can take a look at the code. I'll put the ice pack back." Animus said, getting up to give Gwen a chance to look at the code.
He quickly put the ice pack back and returned to his seat to find Gwen sitting on it. He stood behind her and leaned a little to look at her expression from the right.
Gwen was locked in a state of trance. She stared at the code blankly while slowly scrolling through it.
"This... This is unbelievable. It is almost too difficult to grasp, but I can see the impact and implications this would have if you were to complete it. How do you know this much?" She asked in shock.
"It's my passion," Animus replied simply.
She turned to look at him seriously.
"Can I read this further? I want to know more about what it can do and what you want to do with it." She asked.
"Sure. For starters, it is an autonomous artificial general intelligence model built on multi-modal thinking and parallel multi-threaded processing to achieve hyper-speed calculation and generate simulacra in the hundreds of millions while simultaneously achieving independent agentic actions within milliseconds tailored to a few core directives established by me..." Animus sat next to her and explained.
The two intellectuals spent the next couple of hours together, talking non-stop.
**