New Vegas: Sheason's Story

Chapter 108: Enter: THE FORBIDDEN ZONE!

It was starting to get dark when I drove to the Forbidden Zone. I honestly had no idea what was waiting for me in there, but it was almost certain to be very dangerous, probably atomic-powered, and almost certainly related to robots and/or scorpions in some way... at least, if Mobius' general modus operandi remained consistent.

On the plus side, it was impossible to miss the place: like the Think Tank dome in the center of the crater, this was also a large dome, almost identical in size and shape. The only real differences were the fact that it appeared to be growing out of (or built into, at least) the sheer cliff-face lip of the crater, and it was illuminated by at least 6 bright red spotlights aiming straight up into the sky. The whole dome seemed to pulse with an ominous and foreboding red light. It looked almost like the fortress of a supervillain.

Things got even more red the closer I got. The only way into what (I hoped) was the entrance at the base of the dome was a narrow, twisting, rocky canyon just barely wide enough for the deuce to squeeze through. The edges of the canyon walls were lined with strangely glowing red crystals, and occasionally I would glimpse a streak of red lightning arcing from one crystal to another out of the corner of my eye... and it never seemed to do it when I was actually looking at the crystals, which just made it seem all the more stranger.

"Hmph," I grunted out, bringing the deuce to a stop. There was a concrete structure built into the rock face, almost like a tunnel - a rounded, half-moon shaped tunnel that cut right into the mountain above it. It appeared to be just large enough for a deuce-and-a-half. Several red lights were mounted in the ceiling, and two metal grates were situated in the concrete floor of the tunnel. Beneath the metal grids were more red lights, complete with a steadily rising cloud of steam that seemed to evaporate when it got more than two feet away.

All in all, this tunnel seemed very suspicious. Ominous as well, but mostly suspicious.

"This seems very suspicious," I said aloud. Roxie and Stripe both nodded their heads, Roxie barking in agreement, and Stripe letting out a low squeak. I rolled the deuce forward, eventually bringing it to a final stop in the middle of the tunnel, and killed the engine. Silence took hold for a few seconds as I popped open the door and looked around.

"This is supposed to be the entrance to the Forbidden Zone, right?" I asked aloud. "So... where are all the robo-scorpions?" That's what was really confusing me. If Mobius was truly this evil dictator supervillain person that the Think Tank thought he was, then he should at least have those robot scorpions protecting the entrance to his fortress, right? But there weren't any to be found.

Roxie barked as she leaped out of the cab, Stripe clinging to her back, and made straight for the entrance to the base. I followed her, and looked up at the massive sign above the door. Unlike some of the other labs that only had an X-number, this had several words stamped above the door as well:

X-42: Giant Robo-Warfare Testing Facility

CAUTION: Live-fire exercises in progress when RED lights activated!

"That's certainly unequivocal," I said with a chuckle. Obviously, I was in the right place... but that still begged the question of where the robo-scorpions were. I was expecting some kind of exterior defenses... but no. Not one. Not even a measly turret to try and bar my entry. Had he pulled them all back to defend the inside of the facility? That was probably it... so why was I feeling like I was forgetting something? I shook it off and hopped into the back of the deuce.

"! !" Sasha exclaimed. "We are at fortress of Doctor Mobius, ?" The minigun barked and let out a panting noise. I nodded, trying to decide what I should bring.

"Certainly seems that way. You know anything about the X-42 labs?" I asked. I was starting to feel like Sasha was more useful for his tactical advice than his ability to fire 10,000 rounds a minute.

"Yes... X-42 is lab with robot scorpions..." The gun growled menacingly. "You will need big gun. Biggest guns, with lots of power. Something that will make the tiny metal bugs explode into tiny metal pieces!"

"That's all I needed to hear..." I nodded, turning to my left. In a flash, I grabbed Elijah's Tesla cannon off it's mounting, hefting it easily with my cybernetic arm onto my shoulder. I turned, and was about to leave... and then grabbed a few plasma grenades and the holorifle as well. I leaped out of the back and made straight for the door. "C'mon Rox! Let's go kick Mobius' ass!" Roxie barked, and Stripe squeaked from his perch on her back.

The door clunked with the sound of some kind of heavy machinery, and pulled apart like the mouth an angry behemoth, complete with jagged interlocking metal teeth. When it opened fully, it led into darkness. I made my way forward without hesitation, switching on the nightvision in my eyes as I walked. It didn't really reveal much - just enough for me to see the edges of the tunnel I was walking down.

THUD.

"The fuck was that?" I asked, looking around just on reflex. It's not like I could properly see anything anyway.

THUD. THUD.

There was an end to this tunnel I was heading down, I could see that much. Some kind of light... I rushed forward, Roxie at my heels. Whatever was making that sound was huge, I could tell that much. But other than that?

"Attention: Visitors!" A voice bellowed out over some loudspeakers somewhere above my head. That definitely sounded like Mobius. "Combat experiment is now in progress! Please, put on your goggles and take your Rad-X now, because the show... is ABOUT! TO! START! NYA-HA-HA-HA-HAA!"

As soon as I reached the end of the tunnel, an immensely bright light flooded my vision. I was practically blinded, and reached up to clutch at my face. I slowly cracked my eyes open, making sure that my eyes had gone back to normal. Looking up, I saw a horizontal line of four enormous lights pointing straight at me.

"The X-42 Giant Robo-Scorpion... IS ALIVE! IT'S ALIIIIIIIIVE! AH-HAH-HAH-HAH!"Mobius yelled as I looked up... and up... and up. I finally realized where I was: a giant cavernous room, with a roughly hexagonal floor, and right in the center of that floor was a robo-scorpion larger than anything I'd ever, ever seen before! The four lights that made up its eyes were easily 20 feet off the ground now. The red-painted pincers were large enough to take the deuce and snap it in half like a twig! Hell, even the legs were wide enough to crush me completely underneath them. "Awaken, my pet! Initiate your search-and-destroy protocol in the name of all that is MOBIUS!"

The giant tail hove into view from above the robot, and pointed straight down at me. Panels on the end of the tail opened up, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Light flooded out of the tail and my ears were filled with a massive low frequency hum.

"FUCK!" I yelled, running as fast as I could along the edge of the chamber and away from the robot. The hum got louder and louder until finally it exploded in a cascade of noise, lighting up the whole chamber. The whole ground shook like it was hit by an earthquake. The noise died down enough for me to hear the Geiger counter on my Pip Boy furiously clicking away, even as I kept running.

I looked around, trying to find something I could use that could give me an advantage against this ridiculous metal behemoth. All around the room, I could see catwalks, connecting metal observation rooms scattered all around. Every so often, there was a set of stairs leading up into the twisting, turning maze of catwalks criss-crossing the walls.

The ground shook again, amid a cacophony of sound from giant hydraulics and gears. I skidded to a halt, spinning around in place and brought the Tesla cannon resting on my shoulder to bear. The giant robot was slowly turning, and hadn't quite managed to face me again. I braced my feet, and took aim at the closest (biggest) target on the robot: the claw.

Five beams of bright blue light cut through the air out of the Tesla cannon, one after another, kicking up clouds of dust around my feet. The beams struck the claw and slashed into the metal chassis, creating great gashes of molten slag along the outer edges... but other than that, there didn't appear to be any real damage.

"What's this?" I heard Mobius' voice echo through the speakers. "Oh! It looks like the target drones got activated!" I looked up, and sure enough, some flying robots that almost looked like eyebots dropped out of the ceiling and started firing lasers at the robot. There were maybe 10 or 12 in all, and thankfully, they seemed to draw the attention of the giant robo-scorpion. "Oh, how cute! They're engaging the X-42 Giant Robo-Scorpion! Let's see the shrapnel fly!"

That's when I saw something very strange: Roxie's head was visible inside one of the observation boxes on the other end of the chamber. Had she turned the target drones on somehow? Hell, she can drive a car, why not?

The whole chamber shook again, as the robot scorpion slammed a huge claw into one of the walls, crushing an eyebot underneath it. I started running again, just as it fired the giant laser at another of the eyebots. The whole chamber lit up, and the Geiger counter spiked again. As I scampered up one of the stairs, I saw something that looked very promising: when it fired, something opened up on the robot's spine. It looked like a vent...

"OH-HO! Activating the laser turrets now, are you?" Mobius yelled again over the speakers; sure enough, several turrets dropped out of the ceiling and started shooting lasers at the robot. "Such a pitiful attempt at resistance! I laugh at your attempts to bring down the X-42 Giant Robo-Scorpion! Ha! HA, I SAY!"

I ran up to the highest catwalk I could find, and nearly lost my balance as the metal observation box ahead of me was obliterated by a giant claw smashing into the wall. Shrapnel flew everywhere, and the concrete wall behind was turned into a fine grey cloud of dust. This was my chance! I ran straight for the claw. It started to pull back, breaking off huge chunks of metal and concrete as it passed. I kicked off the catwalk and leapt...

I hit the top of the scorpion claw running, and just kept going. The claw was so huge that it couldn't move all that fast. I managed to stay upright long enough to leap off the claw and onto the main body. Result! I ran straight for the middle of the robot, right near where I'd seen the vent on the spine, and did my best to steady myself against the swaying, rocking motion of the robot moving around.

My eardrums were assaulted by an enormous exploding sound for half a second, and then everything was drowned out by a ringing noise that consumed everything. The tail had fired again, and rendered me temporarily deaf. A large vent (easily three feet wide and two feet high) popped open beneath my feet, and blasted me in the face with a burst of scalding hot air that very nearly knocked me off balance. I held firm though, and aimed the Tesla cannon right into the vent and squeezed the -

Nothing.

I'm sure I yelled out some kind of curse, but I couldn't hear it. The damn Tesla cannon was out of ammo! I couldn't waste any more time. I pulled one of the plasma grenades off my chest, primed it, and tossed it into the vent mere seconds before it snapped shut.

I still couldn't hear anything, but that didn't matter. I just ran for the back edge of the robot as quickly as I could and leapt off. Twenty feet down - at least - but I was ready for it. I just rolled and kept running. I cast a quick glance over my shoulder (since I still couldn't hear anything) and saw the giant robot convulse with electricity arcing along the outer edges of its chassis. Several panels mushroomed and exploded off the robot in a shower of fire and shrapnel.

I looked back ahead of me just in time to almost trip over Roxie and Stripe. Without hesitation I dropped the Tesla cannon resting on my arm, picked up the giant cyberdog in my robotic arm like she was made out of feathers, and just kept running. Ahead of me, I could see an alcove - I had no idea if it would provide any protection, but it had to be better than just staying out in the open.

I dove into the darkness, Roxie and Stripe in my arms, and braced for the inevitable explosion. Sure enough, the whole room shook, and I probably would've been rendered deaf... if I wasn't already. A wave of heat washed over me even as I kept my head down, trying to shield the dog and tiny deathclaw with myself. A solid minute of vibrations, heat, and fire lighting up everything... and then, slowly, surely, everything started to die down.

My ability to hear faded back into existence as I popped my head up out of cover. The robo scorpion was simply not there anymore. I mean... okay, yeah, there were parts of the giant robot, but there was a giant fiery crater in the center of the room, billowing black smoke up to the ceiling, and surrounded by shrapnel. A few lights in the ceiling flashed, raining down in a shower of sparks and glass. Lying on the ground a few feet away from me, I could see the Tesla cannon - a bit charred around the edges, but still relatively in one piece.

"Heh... ah-heh..." I finally let out. "Heh-heh-hee... I'm surprised that worked!" Roxie barked and licked my face.I just swayed there on my knees a bit unsteadily, staring at the smoking crater as the fires all around the room kept crackling away.

Once I got back on my feet, it didn't take long to figure out which way to go. Even despite the damage caused by the giant robot exploding, the entrance that led deeper into the Forbidden Zone was obvious. I didn't bring the Tesla cannon with me, though - I kept it near the exit. I didn't know if it would even still work without some serious maintenance, and I was probably out of ammo anyway.

I had the holorifle aimed and ready to go as I moved deeper into the facility, followed by Roxie and Stripe. There weren't as many twists and turns as I was expecting, and then finally, I found an elevator. It ascended, and deposited me without a sound into a chamber almost exactly like the interior of the Think Tank dome. It wasn't... quite like the Think Tank's room, though. All the lights here were a dim green, and most of the metal appeared to be dark grey and black, rather than shiny and blue-grey. There was also a pair of hexagonal pillars in the middle of the room...

But the strangest thing was the humming. A tuneless, distracted humming, that sounded like a person humming a tune they didn't quite remember correctly, and the voice was pushed through a synthetic voicebox.

"I'm running out of floor space for my calculations..." I heard a voice from around one of the pillars. It almost sounded like Mobius, except it wasn't quite as emphatic and over the top as all the other times I'd heard him. Cautiously, I stepped forward, holorifle at the ready, and came face-to-screen with Mobius.

He looked almost identical to the other members of the Think Tank, being a brain suspended in a jar with three monitors for his eyes and mouth. The major difference was the state of the jar. The biogel in his tank looked a sort of sickly green, with tinges of red. The metal chassis was flecked with scratches and rust. His right eye screen was cracked and completely black.

When I came around the pillar, he didn't seem to notice me - he was holding some kind of pen in a tractor beam, and writing out equations in white ink on the pillar itself. That's when I realized: every single flat surface - even the floor! - was covered in these same kind of equations. And not just once, either. I looked down, and saw that beneath the newest equations, there were the faded remnants of ink that had just been written over completely. I looked back, and he still hadn't noticed me.

"Uh... Mobius?" I asked aloud, utterly bewildered. The rifle was still raised, but not quite raised at him. He jumped (actually, he just sort of bobbed in midair a bit...) and the tractor beam immediately evaporated; the pen clattered to the floor. He spun around in place several times before finally settling on me.

"Mmm? Y-oh! Oh, wait, hang on, I know this -" Mobius shuddered, making a sound like he was clearing his throat. "Yellow! Uh... Hallow. No, wait, uh... oh, hello! Yes, yes, that's it! Hello there! Eh..." He floated in place, staring at me with his one good eye-screen, and clearly trying to lift the other. "Er... you... are there, aren't you? Forgive my confusion, it's so hard to tell these days. You seem familiar, somehow. I'm guessing... eh... you're here for your brain, perhaps?" He hovered to the side, and seemed to motion with his tank to a spot up some stairs off to my left. There was a large metal drum at the top of the stairs, sitting under a shaft of light. "It's just up there. Such a nice brain. Young. Very bright." Mobius nodded again, turning back to look at me. "Eh... So sorry, but it's a little hard to see you. Can you walk into my left - er, right FOV cone?"

"Uh..." I was still so taken aback, that I just stepped to the side without thinking. "Is... is that better?" I just stared at him and blinked, completely confused and confounded. This guy is the big threat?

"Ah, yes, that's it," Mobius said happily, his tank bubbling a bit. "You're coming into focus nicely. Depth perception is a problem with this old monitor of mine. Went black a while ago." I heard a strange mechanical whirring noise and it quickly became clear that he was trying to lift up the cracked and disabled eye screen. "Heh, heh, heh... Well, that's old age for you. Should look at getting the visual nerves re-attached. It's just that the right eye would see the wrong things. The flying tortoises were the worst!"

"I'm not sure I could fix your monitor," I found myself saying, not entirely certain myself where I was going with this. "But... I think you're describing ghost reception with the camera on your broken monitor. I think I can fix that." Mobius' tank flashed and bubbled.

"Wait - the ghosts aren't real?! That changes everything! Why, I can save my computing power for other perceptual unpossibilities! Oh, uh, please. Be my guest!" He shifted around in midair, presenting the back of his monitor to me. It looked a lot more complicated that I initially imagined, but my hands... I don't know, somehow my hands just seemed to move of their own accord, opening a small panel at the top of the back, near one of the robot arms keeping it in place. "Yes, the receptor is there... and the side-switching wobbly-bob... yes, just turn that... good... good... better... Oh! Ooooh, yes!" I finished fiddling around with the electronics, and snapped the panel shut again.

"How's that?" I asked, patting him on the side of the monitor. It was still deactivated, but it seemed to be shaking slightly less. His tank bubbled several times.

"Oh, yes, that feels wonderful!" Mobius exclaimed happily. "Mmmm... This is even better than my afternoon Mentats break. Mmmm. I don't know how I can thank you. Would you like a Mentat?"

"Uh..." I grimaced; I was suddenly struck by pangs of bad memories of addiction, muddled with the general confusion, and it made me even more uncomfortable. "No... no thanks." Mobius nodded, and started to hover away, completely unfazed.

"Mmm... I love Mentats. Delicious and smarty. I have all sorts of amazingly science-arific thoughts and ideas when those chalky tablets are zipping through my biogel. I forget them all not long after, though. Especially with all the data constipating my memory core." Mobius spun in midair and turned to look at me again. "Afraid binary streams might shoot out my chassis." He turned around again, and reached down with his tractor beam to pick up the discarded pen off the floor. "Had to start using the dome floor and walls here to inscribe equations. Although... I've somewhat lost track of where they start and end..."

"You know," I looked down at the equations scrawled on the floor that I was walking on, and then scratched at the back of my head, finally regaining my focus and composure. "You're not exactly what I was expecting." Mobius hovered in place, staring at me with his one good eye.

"Really." He said flatly, floating back a bit. "That implies pre-conceived notions - theories and a hypothesis about this meeting? Please, extrapolate. What was I... what I was supposed to be like. After all, it might be worth a cognitive re-alignment if your theoretical Mobius is better than I."

I glanced back up the stairs, at the tank where my brain supposedly was being kept. I pointed at the tank, and forced myself to be a bit more forceful.

"Why did you steal my brain?"

"Oh, a variety of raisins..." Mobius said happily, floating away to one of the walls. "You're something a homily. Er... anomaly? I think that's it. You're really quiet special. Not in the cranially-challenged way, either." Mobius stopped his scrawling on the wall to turn back to face me. "You see, you are the most successful brain extraction experiment ever performed here at Big Mt. A victim of your own success, as it were. If you were to go back with what your brain knows about the procedure, well... your brain could be popped back in and you could walk right out of here. Can't have brains moving around of their own violation."

"I think you mean volition," I said, shaking my head. "But why would that be a problem?" Mobius just stared at me for a few seconds; Roxie made a strange whimpering noise near my feet.

"I'm not entirely sure." Mobius said finally. "Except that I'm sure there's a very good raisin for it. I have very good raisins for almost everything I do. I think. Even if I forget them occasionally. Although I feel this one is especially important. Ha!" He bobbed in place as he laughed, and gave what I could only assume was the robotic equivalent of a shrug. "Oh well."

"Look, seriously," I decided to get a bit more forceful. Something fishy was going on, and he may have seemed like a doddering old fool, but I shouldn't be letting something like that get my guard down. "I need my brain back."

"Do you?" Mobius seemed to genuinely ask. "You seem fine without it. And does it even want to go back with you? Maybe you should ask it. It's quiet independent. Has all manner of opinions. Tell you what - I'll leave it up to your brain. If it wants to go, then fine. If not, then... well... I suppose you should respect its wishes." He nodded his tank again. I looked up to the metal drum at the top of the stairs...

"Alright, whatever. Look, before I do any of that, I'm curious about some things..." Maybe if I talked to him (at least, since he didn't seem to be shooting at me) I might be able to work out exactly what was really going on in this giant bowl of sugar free insanity...

"Oh, curiosity!" Mobius said excitedly, with a bubble from his tank. "I experience that less now that I know everything. Or maybe it was when I found some unpleasant answers? I don't know. Or do I not remember? How curious."

"Why did you broadcast all those threats to the Think Tank?" I asked. "I mean... you don't... seem all that aggressive. So why make yourself look like a supervillain?"

"Oh, I was probably tripping hard on Psycho when I sent that," he said happily, obviously oblivious to the implications. "Had to work myself up to it. Not really usually violent. Except when I am. Then - HAH! Watch out! Ohh, so many chems! Such varieties! I love the Mentats the best, yes... I can feel my entire chassis breeeeeeeeeeeeeath like a big spherical lung!" Mobius started to giggle, and then coughed a bit. "Well... er... as for the Psycho..." He coughed again. "Sometimes I get the chem depositories in my tank all switched up. They just go in the wrong tube, and then - VOOM! Heh... still, served its porpoise."

"Back up," I held my hands up to get him to stop talk about the drugs. Something was still not adding up. "If you're only aggressive when you take Psycho, then what's the deal with all the Robo-Scorpions?" I paused, looking back to the door I came from. "Not to mention the giant one. Why would you make a giant robot if you weren't aggressive?"

"Oh... did I leave that on?" He looked down, shaking his tank slightly and speaking softly, as if to himself. "I thought I powered it down... although that explains what was causing the power outages..." He cleared his throat and looked back at me. "As for the other robots... well, every scientist needs an army! Mine came to me after these rather large scorpions kept coming in from the dessert. Like poisonous frosting. How scary, I thought! But they had survived when nothing else had. Perfect candidates for improvement, as a reward for their tenacity! Then I had another series of semi-connected thoughts: what if they shot energy energy bolts from their tails? And they acted as walking eyes! And data-drained computers! And acted as bullhorns! And then I made them bigger! Then, I thought... then I thought about custard. I do so love custard. I think. Or was it mustard? Mustard custard... Mmmm... I do so miss sugars and salts..."

"Hang on..." I was trying to read between the lines and process everything. It was just... it was all completely insane, that much was obvious. And yet somehow... "It almost sounds like... did you build the robo-scorpions and issue threats... were you just trying to keep the Think Tank occupied?"

"Did I?" Mobius didn't seem sure himself. "Maybe I did. Can't have them leaving. Some raisin for it. Ethics? Or was it... con-science? You and your brain are quiet alike, you know. I'm sure it knows the raisins better than I do."

"But... everything you've told me..." I clutched at my temple, absentmindedly stroking the bullet scar. "This doesn't add up. Your plan... even your name. 'Mobius.' Like a Mbius loop..." The floating robot brain started to laugh, slowly and softly.

"Doctor Mobius," he said smugly. "Yes, rather catchy, isn't it? It's my name. My new name, at least. Overwrote the old one. This name is as real as you or I, although I believe your brain expressed similar incredulity at the nature of such an appellation. 'Oh, someone's been watching too many Old World science fiction movies,' it said to me." Mobius laughed again. "I believe it meant me. I must admit, I have a vulnerability for holotape fantasies of planets and robots and all that is forbidden. As for the name I was born with? Like the Think Tank, we were all reprogrammed to forget them. Take on new names. It enforces the recursion loop in our perception programming."

And just like that, a huge puzzle piece hit me in the face.

"You reprogrammed their names... as part of a recursion loop?" I asked. "What, to trap them?"

"Now, 'trap' is a rather harsh word," Mobius bobbed around me again. "Like 'excrement.' Not an inappropriate word, but still - rather harsh. But... yes. I did take some liberties with their programming. And my own. It's alright, they don't remember. I certainly didn't myself until you said 'trap.' And then, I said 'excrement,' and then..."

"A recursion loop is designed to prevent the flow of information," I said, finally starting to really get it. "So, that means..." Mobius nodded his tank again.

"The Radar Fence that I built to keep the Think Tank hemmed in wasn't really enough. They kept testing the thing, probing it's defenses and capabilities. Eventually, they would have found a way to disarm it." Mobius started to float away from me again. "I suspect that I have several Plan 9's in place, but I may have coded myself to forget them, just in case... You see, that would almost certainly result in a fate worse than death. Or even worse!"

"A fate worse than a fate worse than death?" I deadpanned. "That's pretty bad..."

"Indeed it is! So I had to do something else to keep them occupied here. Or, as you like to say, 'trapped.' I prefer to have those Plan 9's in place, just in case the Plan 7's fail."

"Klein... Mobius... Zero's a circle... 8 is an infinity symbol on its side... Dala's name comes from a mandala..." I counted my fingers as I rattled the names off. "They're all loops. Loops to enforce the recursion programming. I think I get it now..."

"0, you figured it out," Mobius said with a chuckle. "No pun intended. Dr. 0... which isactually not his real name multiplied, since you can't multiply his real name in the first place... Oro-bor-ous, Klein... They have all forgotten themselves. And not only themselves, but the world. Sense of time. History. All that is left is what's here. I reprogrammed their chronometers, geometers, and cartography programs. This is now their world. Here. The Big MT. It was a merciful lobotomy, really, thinking back to it. They were my friends, but... sometimes they would take things too far. And the world isn't really ready for that kind of too-far-thing-taking. That's my professional opinion, anyway. And I am told that I was once quiet professional."

"Minor detail," I said, holding up a finger. "But a snake devouring its own tail is 'Ouro-borus,' not 'Ouro-borous'."

"Really." Mobius stared at me. "It is certainly so unlike me to make an error in anything I do." I let out a chuckle, and shrugged.

"Fair enough. Well, alright. So if you lobotomized the Think Tank, why continue terrorizing them?"

"Quiet simple, really! Despite their many failings, they are rather bright. 200 years swimming in fish-bowls haven't done any favors for their sanity, but they are the 'Think Tank' for a raisin. That, I didn't change. Without something to distract them, make them afraid, they would simply de-deuce what had happened. And when they start deucing it up... But then you came along. The final variable solved. They saw that their world was larger than they perceived. Bacteria, finally able to see its host."

"But I wasn't the first," I said, trying to work it out as he spoke. "There were other visitors. What made me different?" Mobius nodded again.

"Yes, there have been other visitors to make them doubt their perceptions, but you are the only one who dialed back their monitor-micro-magnifiers. You were irrefutable proof that there was a world outside. And then there was the whole 'brain' fiasco. Such an unpleasant business, that, but I was forced to take more drastic steps. You see, your brain had a... a special kind of... uh... a wrinkle. A unique-ity that they had never thought to try in all their countless escape attempts..."

I ran a hand along my temple again... and brushed the bullet scar.

"The bullet that went into my brain..." I said aloud, my eyes going wide. "Are you trying to tell me that if Benny hadn't shot me, then I would've turned into one of those mindless lobotmites, running around in the crater?"

"Yes..." Mobius said, nodding his tank again. "Yes, very good. I should have Mentats ingest you instead of the other way around. Heh, heh... Mmmm... Mentats. In any event, you showed up at the Think Tank, and because you had suffered a cranial injury in just the right place..." Mobius let out another cough. "Bullets in the head are usually much more fatal, and yours was a light case of bullet-head-itis. But... it was enough for the Auto-Doc in the Sink to change its programming to fix the problem. And the brain extraction technology worked. For once. That gave the Think Tank the knowledge its brains shouldn't... couldn't... sh'couldn't possess. With that knowledge, the procedure can be reversed. If they obtain that procedural data, then they can use it to mush and modify their cranial selves into hosts and slip past the Radar Fence. I'm sure of it. And once they go off the reservation..."

"Then they can inflict their particular brand of 'science' on the rest of the world..." I said, finally understanding his plan. Maybe. "Wait, hang on. Klein said that they had the idea to get the three technologies after your broadcast. Was that a coincidence?" Mobius whole tank shook.

"I consider 'coincidence' to be profanity. Along with the words 'astrology,' 'herbal tea,' and worst of all... 'luck.' So, watch it, Mr. Potty Mouth. My threat broadcast was designed to instill - and install - fear. And along with the emotional download, other data rides the fear carrier wave. It prompted them to focus on retrieving those technologies and bring them to 'attack' me. And coincidentally... pardon my language... all those technologies are needed to put a brain - your brain, possibly - back into its skull. Properly, that is."

"Yeah, I figured that much out already... Was there any other data transmitted in your threat broadcast?" I asked, my eyes going wide. If they were trying to get the technology to put their brains back in their bodies, then that meant...

I fear I may have made a dreadful mistake.

"Oh, yes! My overly aggressive chemmed-up broadcast was designed to keep reinforcing the 'forget,' 'fear,' 'rinse,' and 'repeat' program. Oh, and the 'get me the things to castrate your only possible escape attempt!' Yes, that was a good one. But I couldn't delete you or your arrival anymore than I could the other visitors. Only so much Science can do when you started talking to them. You're really quiet difficult to ignore, you know. It's because you're... well, bah!" Mobius laughed again. "You're really rather intriguing, if you'll forgive an old brain for saying so."

"But..." I gulped. "The Think Tank downloaded the schematics, not the items. They can rebuild them from the schematics, put their brains in bodies, and then get out!"

"Oh," Mobius said flatly. His tone of voice didn't really change. "That means my plan is a total failure. Blast. That is unfortunate. Oh, well. At least I tried!"

"But... isn't there something we can do? Something I can do? I can fix this!" I said, starting to wonder if I actually could. I mean... they were mad scientists after all...

"Your brain might have some ideas... Yes, in fact I think it mentioned something about a plan to deal with the Think Tank, once you found your way here. At least, I think it had a plan. It certainly wanted to deal with them, at least. Your brain is a responsible sort. Doesn't want mad scientists running around everywhere..."

"Yeah, mad scientists seem to be the cause and solution to all my problems lately..." I grumbled, looking back up at the drum at the top of the stairs. "I guess... I should see what my brain wants..." Even the words felt odd. They shouldn't. Everything in this place was nuts, a little more insanity couldn't hurt.

"Indeed," Mobius called out as I made my way to the stairs. "Yes, the, uh... the goodbye part of our little chat then. Uh... Goodbye! Oh, please mind the equations on the floor, would you? Thanks awfully."

Roxie let out a strange sort of whimpering bark next to me as I walked away from the mad brain. I looked down, and both she and Stripe seemed to be shaking their heads. I couldn't help but agree with that sentiment.

"Sue, you've been awful quiet here," I said aloud to the stealth suit I was wearing. "I could use a fresh perspective. You want to weigh in?"

"Not really sure what I could add..." Sue said eventually, just barely soft enough for me to hear. "Apart from wondering aloud if this is what going mad feels like. Is this what going mad feels like?"

"Well, if you are going nuts," I said with a laugh. "You're gonna be in good company. I'm starting to wonder if perhaps the safest place to hide here in the Big Empty is insanity after all..." I laughed again, shaking my head. This had certainly been a strange day.

And yet... how little did I know of just how surreal things were about to get.

I arrived at the top of the stairs, and approached the tank. There was a hiss of gas as I approached, and suddenly the top half of the drum seemed to split open. The lid raised upward, and with a mechanical whir, a glass bowl appeared from the inside of the tank... and inside, floating in the biogel and connected to the bottom of the tank by a series of wires was a brain.

"Well, well, well," a synthesized voice from somewhere in the tank exclaimed in a slightly British accent. Was that what my brain sounded like? "Look who finally decided to turn up. It's about damn time!"