The door to the bedroom slammed open less dramatically then it should have due to the door stopper. “It’s time to go Diwectow. Daddeh nee’ to see ou…” Isaac added coldly. Director sighed as Nanny entered the room.
“Diwectow see ou’ soon.” They added standing up and stretching from the post coital cuddles before making the ‘upsies’ pose to the extending robot hands. “Isaac, pwease take sundae to dah woom on dah weft. She can wait dewe wif babbeh fow daddeh.” Director added past Nanny who was already proceeding out the door and to the stairs down.
“Bye~ Bye~ speciaw fwiend…” Sundea added with a slow waving hoof while giving a contented sigh before standing. “Sundae hope daddeh nu kiww dis speciaw fwiend.” She smiled aloofly stepping down the drawers of clothes and allowed the robot to escort her to the ‘safe room’ where she joined her foal who had just starting to wake up from the commotion. She would proceed to feed and doat on her foal as she completely absorbed herself in the moment.
Nanny crammed Director into the green goo like a freshman in a locker before the hatch rotated back into place and director gurgled a series of bubbles out their mouth before going unconscious. The cable flickered slightly until a large bit of light transferred back to the lounger.
“That’ll be all…” Johnson groaned from an intense headache as if his mind was unzipping and decompressing into his original body. “Thank you nanny…” Johnson sighed covering his face as the Asasaultron left the room. His clothes were soaked in sweat and other fluids and he was not okay with this. Johnson realized he was ravenous after sleeping almost 18 hours. After stripping from the soiled outfit and tossing it in the hamper Johnson made their way over to the mini fridge and started to snack. Two waters and a nuka cola to drink and three whole pickles from the jar while his cram heated up on the skillet before flipping it to the other side of the pan and using the previous side as seasoning and a non stick coating as they added some mire lurk eggs. He had considered eating the boiled deathclaw egg in the drawer but decided against it with all the salt he’d be having with the cram. Sprinkling in some brahmin mozzarella and transferring the cram into the egg he folded the omlete and plated it. “Ugh… Why can I still taste it?” He paused having finished his first water at this point. He desperately popped the cap on the chilled nuka and let it sit on his tongue and the taste finally disappeared with the hit of radiation.
“Better.” Johnson sighed before polishing off the cola after finishing the omelet now that it wasn’t fouled more than garage bachelor chow should be. He grabbed his toiletries tub, put his feet in his flip flops and otherwise walked naked through the street promptly to the decontamination ring. Despite it not being his own dick, he couldn’t help but thoroughly clean his junk after the experience. He gripped the soap hard enough for it to slip out and land in the basin.
“If she’s anything like I think, she’ll probably want to be washed after that…” He shuddered at the thought. He was really tempted to have Nanny do it and the thought of Nanny accidentally killing her in the process seemed appealing for a second but his brain was still in super ego mode. “She was kind of prompted into breaking the rules by Director… Let her hang herself, it’s inevitable for a smarty…” He scrubbed the rest of his body off and then toweled off before walking naked through the sunset streets.
Johnson changed back into his military fatigues and general wear he had changed out of prior to the fluffy joy ride. He paused before leaving eyeing the container before proceeding to add a padlock to the side of the swinging door and turning it to face the back of the Locker before putting a secondary lock on the locker and randomizing the combination, so he’d have to snip the lock or lock pick it later. He doubted the fluffy could act while he wasn’t in it… But this wasn’t the experience he expected and wasn’t taking anything to chance in case Smarty Id still occupied the body while it was supposed to be dormant.
You shut off the lights and closed the door, locking it too while you were at it. Johnson proceeded into his house and stopped at the bottom of the steps… Then back to the kitchen. Johnson assembled a salad of mixed greens with a few sliced berries for presentation and flavor while a pot of noodles boiled and a soup warmed up on a back burner. When the noodles were done he let them cool slightly before plating in a dish and serving in a tato soup. After draping a towel over your shoulder you proceeded upstairs.
“Thank you Isaac. You’re relieved.” You add stopping Isaac from saying what they were going to say. “Enjoy your evening.”
“Of course…” Isaac added hovering past and muttering “Nu as much as ou’ appawentwy.” As they hovered out of the house.
“Hello, Sundae… My name is Johnson but you can call me daddy if you like.”
She looked up from the special flip book she had been enjoying with her bestest. “Sundae tink, she wike caww ou’ Daddeh~…” There was something weird about the way she drug that out that kind of made you cringe. ‘Wait. . .She couldn’t know that~’
“Dat is if ou’ nu wan me stiww caww ou’ speciaw fwiend.” The plates shifted in his hands and he nearly spilt their contents or dropped them but kept his composure. ‘How does she know?’ but suddenly it clicked.
“Isaac told you about Director and me didn’t he?” you groaned.
Sundae laid down on her stomach folding her hooves in front of her and resting her chin. “Mmmm-hmmm.” She eyed him smugly having never been in such a position of what felt like power over a human and she was enjoying every second of it. “Am dat food fow Sundae Dad-eee…” she coo’d tauntingly.
There were only a few things Johnson had ever wanted to kill more in his lifetime… Thankfully he kept his composure. “Indeed it is Sundae.” Johnson added stepping forward and finding a seat next to them before putting down the dishes of food.
“If I remember correctly, Director did not give a name to this one since they were sleeping…” The foal peaked out from along their mothers side curious at the new human daddeh.
“Namesies?” They added excitedly.
“Dats wite babby. Daddeh gon gib ou’ dah bestest namesie.” She added having just leaned in to sniff the soup and proceeded to lap at it. “mmmm.” She added with mellowed excitement.
“I think I’ll call you…” He strongly wanted to knock the bitch down a peg but he couldn’t bring himself to bestow a terrible name on a foal that had not proven itself a bad egg yet. “Hmm… Which do you prefer Sundae. Gentleman, or Tuxedo?”
As she finished sucking in a few noodles from the bowl and pausing to finish chewing and swallowing she answered. You were surprised at her behavior somewhat and pondered who had possessed her since the institute. “Sundae tink Gentweman sound bewy disting-guished daddeh. Tank’ou fow dah nice namesie.”
“Gentweman. . .Am Gentwe, man.” The foal added moving its wing in front of him and rubbing it under his chin. “Gentweman wike. Tank’ou daddeh fow gud namesies and safewoom.” . . . ‘shit.’
No wait… Actually this might be a good thing.
“You’re very welcome Gentleman. I must say, you two are far more well behaved than I assumed when I heard ‘smarty’ and the like.” You decide not to reinforce the bestest moniker by saying it.
“Am Bestest baby dah wike?” You weren’t sure if she was curious or if she was inserting the moniker after you deliberately tried to ignore it.
“Now sundae, daddy has a rule here that he decides if a foal is the best and what of; and that’s only after they’re big babies. They must earn their titles. I’ll admit he is very handsome and pretty. And of your foals, being the only surviving one that makes him your best by default. But daddy has quite a few foals he keeps so while you must not refer to Gentleman as your bestest from here on, understand?”
Her blue eyes squint slightly. “Sundae can wespect ou’ position on dis speciaw fwiend. Otay. Nu caww gentweman bestest awound oddahs. Wiww instead show oddahs how much bettah gentweman am.” She smiles before daintily picking up a berry slice and tasting it.
You sensed something. “So long as you don’t call him that when its just yourself or the two of you together then that is acceptable. Gentleman I expect you to keep your mother honest and tell daddy if she says that nono word.”
“Otay daddeh.” Gentleman added peeping excitedly that he had a responsibility.
“Ob couwse daddeh.” Sundea added turning away to hide slightly pursed lips and furrowed brow that expressed a feeling of betrayal by her bestest but she quickly snapped back to normal realizing she could explain such things to them eventually. Afterall they were such a smart and amazing baby since all their greatness reflected on her afterall.
“Would you like to be introduced to the other fluffies? Im sure Gentleman can make some friends his own age.”
“Nyu fwiends?” Their eyes look excited until their mothers leg touched them as if barring them.
“Maybe tomowwow if dat am o’tay?” She added with a pleading look to her eyes.
“Of course it is my sweet.” You add reaching over and pausing for recognition. Most of the time he’d handle a fluffy as he felt like but he still felt a little off and that he required a hint of consent despite them just being another pet. Sundae gave another smug grin.
“Sundae nu tiwed of touching daddeh eithew.” She added rubbing into his hand. There was something about the warmth of the actual human hand that was interesting and different. The warmth felt different, more real and the feel of the blood in the veins compared to the wave like static when Director used a telekentic grip to simulate a hand was appealing. He sat there awkwardly for the first two minutes but slowly relaxed and enjoyed a nice thirty minutes of petting Sundae and her foal. You even decided to read them the special book as a bedtime story.
With a kiss on Gentlemans forehead followed by a sleepy peep of happiness Johnson left the room. As the door finished opening Sundea looked up for him to leave. “Can Sundae see diwectow again next bwight time?” Johnson wrenched against the potential muscle lock to continue.
“We’ll see sweetie. Goodnight.” You closed the door and the glow in the dark stars were a glow despite all these years later.
Walking downstairs and out the door Johnson stopped on his front lawn and looked at his wedding ring. His fingers trace the band and rotated it around his finger. Johnson sighed and opened the picket fence to head to tree and check on the fluffies. You approach Nanny. “They eat dinner yet?”
“Affirmative sir.” She replied curtly before returning her attention to the fluffies.
“Dats human daddeh.” You could hear a couple of your fluffies explain to the new fluffies around them.
“Good evening my cutie patooties.” You add with a smile panning over the scene of the fluffies 3 new families and the widower that had been enjoying the company and amenities of the settlement. “New fluffies, line up please.” You add with a double clap to get their attention. The families take a few minutes to assemble since they must wrangle a few of the older foals and gather the younger ones from their various huggy piles with their new foal fellowships.
They lined up in their pairs with their foals and the one widower with his own. The widower was enthusiastically thanking the other mares for sharing the burden of feeding his extra foals since their mothers loss today on the trip in. One of the mares that had lost two of her own foals was particularly willing to help.
“Welcome to sanctuary hills. My name is Director johnson, we shared a short greeting in my fluffy avatar ‘Diwectow’. I am the head director of the institute.” There was a mix of expressions on the fluffies but it was obvious that many things were coming together in their minds and they were all concerned on some level.
“The institute does not blame you for your disappearance and you are welcome return if you so choose. Those that go, I cannot guarantee a life outside the institute again.” You hold up your hand to pause what you can tell is about to be some voices. “If you do not desire to return to the institute then I can find you homes and families so that you may live outside of it ; under the condition that you accept modification that you and your foals can never have baby’s again.” You hold up your hand at the wash of babbling concern about the greatness of baby’s and how much of an atrocity this was.
“I understand your concern; it is a deep rooted biological instinct. However, the world is still recovering and the institute must limit the amount of fluffies available as there is simply not enough food and safe places for all of them if you continue to produce sizeable litters at such speeds. I will check with my fellow directors to see if replacement parts can be installed if your owners are willing to raise more fluffies but that likely wouldn’t be until your foals are almost adults themselves at the soonest.” You said making an arbitrary ‘later’ that they could understand that seemed like at least a month. Simply making a spay or neutering reversable like a vasectomy might lead the railroad or other parties to meddle so swapping out parts of a synth that you controlled the means of production of seemed far more viable for control. No plan was perfect though and if he really put time and thought into it he could find a way that others could still potentially find a work around.
“I do not wish to break up families so you will be making the choices together. Please discuss amongst yourselves until I return.” Johnson paused to note some measurements on his pip boy before heading around the corner and to his workshop garage. There he proceeded to cut some lumber and round the edges before gluing on some padding. After processing down the odd wood bits into powder he collected the bag where he kept sawdust. After deploying a pair of synth grenades for porters he instructed the gen 1’s that showed up to help him carry things. On exiting he summoned a handy unit and instructed it to fetch a drum and fill it with purified water and set it to boil on the shore line. Once it reached that point to dig and add sand from the creek for ten minutes and then run it through a siv in the decontamination archway. The sand would need to purified of various contaminates before he would use it for litter.
He left the wood panels outside of storage with the porters and went in to search through the old containers and found a decent looking plastic catbox and a few electronic components and fashioned a set of sensors and two attached containers. One container was for the automated sweeper to collect the clumps for disposal. The other was for fresh ‘litter’ the system would add when levels got too low. The litter being composed of a mix of sawdust and some clay and sand that had been turned into a silica powder by laser.
He left the plastic box on his mailbox in passing and continued with the porters carrying the lumber and tools to the fluffy area. The fluffies watched curiously as the director had the synths set down his building supplies and took up a shovel and spoke between shoveling.
“So, whats. Your, answer.” He added slowly but surely clearing a cube shaped shallow hold in the dirt.
“Aww fwuffies wan go back to dah institute pwease.” A spokesfluffy added stepping forward for the group. “Sum fwuffies hope get famiwies ob own soon doh aftah tawkies wif ou’ fwuffies.” They added in a tone that suggested they could trust him to help.
“Very, well..” the director added finally finishing the dirt and began laying down the board base frame and the padded walls that stuck an inch or two above the ground. “You two, take that one and their foals back first and put in a request for a team with four transport containers big enough for two adults and their foals. Please have them teleport in front of my house when they arrive so as not to scare the fluffies.” He added finally wedging in the final piece of the wooden container that would serve as the pooping area.
The synths acknowledged and picked up the fluffies as instructed before vanishing. By the time the synths had returned Johnson had begun mixing the sawdust and silica after putting on a show of ‘human magic’ turning blocks of clay, piles of sand and the pile of soil into ashes. He set aside a bit of the mixture in a container for sundaes litterbox apparatus before finally mixing the contents into the minor pit. The visiting fluffies seemed disappointed they had to leave so soon and the other fluffies began exploring the effective sandbox in wonder and amazement. He expected some level of self control but it seems the fluffies had been only using the designated area ‘reluctantly’ until now and were very enthusiastic about~ I dare not say christening less I blaspheme. . . Regardless an impressive poo party occurred as all of the fluffies who were old enough found space and began to unleash.
“I would not want to be you right now Isaac…” Johnson whistled, almost impressed by the display. Daisy and Durum even going back for their foals and introducing them to some of the still clean space of the litterbox and trying to convince them to make good ‘poopies’ and ‘pee pee’.
“A widdwe hewp Nanny?” Isaac added with what Johnson assumed to be what sounded like a ‘gulp’ noise from the voice modulator.
“I must continue watching the fluffies.” Nanny added pulling rank. Johnson had a much-needed laugh at Isaacs misfortune.
“I probably wont be back to tuck you in.” Johnson added picking up the box.
“Uhm daddy? Can Phanes and Duwum tawk wiff ou’?” Phanes added approaching before Johnson could leave and Durum heard this and realized what was happening and excused himself from the moment of pride from his foals using the litterbox for the first time.
“Sure thing, walk with me.” He added gesturing to his house and the two followed him around the corner. Johnson began adding the sand to the litterbox. “So what’s up?”
“Phanes nu fuwwy twust Diwectow fwuffy…” Part of that distrust is why they had to ask. “Daddeh am so stwong and smawt and has so muchies, why daddeh nu hab speciaw fwiend?”
Johnson blinked. “There is something about your minds that makes the experience not one fully in my control strangely. Daddy is going to look into it but even if it seems like I’ve fixed it I’ll say this now, Never… Fully trust, Director Fluffy.” Phanes and Durum shared a glance and gulped. “Daddy had a special friend a long time ago…” He added squatting down to get closer to the two fluffies. “She may be the only human I’ll ever truly love to be honest… I’ve tried dating a few times and I even got married again but it didn’t last. They could tell I would always deeply and truly love my pre war flame.”
“Dat so saddies…” Phanes said empathetically.
“So wong as daddeh am nu into dah young one’s dat am fine.” Durum interjected bluntly as he thought that was the main reason for them calling him aside after sensing something off earlier. Phanes looked on in shock at the sudden bluntness.
‘Oh god, they thought I was a. . .’ “Eww… Ok I get it, no need to go into more detail…”
Phanes and Durum looked at each other and nodded. “If dey nu find uddah fwuffy, we nu mind if dey wan be ou’ speciaw fwiend doh when dey mawes.”
“I uhm, appreciate the sentiment?” Johnson added in a mix of embarrassment and concern as he remembered how relatively non challant about sex and relationships fluffies were compared to people.
‘Wait a minute. Since when can they tell me what to do?’ the thought came incredibly out of left field and he did not understand why he was feeling slightly angry but did his best to suppress it.
“Out of curiosity. . . Are you just asking this of me, or is it a request?” The two fluffies looked to each other uncertain. “How important is it to you? If it’s just an ask, I’ll take it into consideration, and we’ll see how things go. I doubt anything will happen but I don’t trust director fluffy either. . .” You say in a slightly drawn out dramatic tone.
“An if it am a request?” Phanes adds curiously.
“Then I would like to be compensated for my efforts in keeping the Director fluffy either offline or under my most vigilant of control when I do use it.”
The two fathers look gob smacked. “Buh buh~ wha’ can fwuffies eben offah daddeh?” Durum added jumping on the landmine like you expected him to.
“Well… You two seemed so concerned about Daddy needing a special friend. How about you share yours?” The sudden smile that somehow held no trace of malice was one only someone with a 100 barter and speech could hope to pull. “I’ll agree if you both agree that the next litter from each of your special friends is from Director fluffy. You can even raise them together with your special friends as your own.” Johnson extends his hand for a shake.
‘Is an extra ounce of the illusion of security for your current children worth raising another mans future children?’
The two huddled and had a quick hushed whisper session before looking over. “Nu can decide wiffou’ askin speciaw fwiends if they am otay wif it.”
“And I can respect that.” Normally when he was in a bad mood like this but forced to negotiate, he’d follow it up with a high pressure tactic to force them to agree then and there as you may alter the deal when having to negotiate with more parties. However, he still thought he liked his fluffies in his own way, even if he could be a bit mean to them from time to time. So he didn’t want to punish them further by making the best choice in a crap situation. “Out of curiosity. Have you shared your concerns yet with Daisy and peaches?”
“Nu, wan tawk to daddeh stawwion to stawwion so dewe nu misunderstanding.” Oh what sweet sentiment.
“Good. Then the only caveat I will request, will be to not bring up the ‘why’ of what you are agreeing to.” As they looked at him with a curious ‘but why’ / ‘how can we explain it then?’ looks on their faces Johnson continued. “I don’t care how you explain it, just don’t make them think a violation of rule 3 might occur to your foals and it’s fine. If you want, you can imply that I have given permission for them to have more foals with director fluffy according to rule 5.” It was nowhere near any kind of intent when you set up the rule about no sex/pregnancy without your permission. But in the immortal words of bob ross ‘we are just gonna take this as a happy little accident.’
“Or you can agree now still.” Johnson added re extending his hand. The two stallions shook their head. “Good boys. Was that all?”
“Yus daddeh…” The two added and began to slink away as if carrying a heavy burden.
His expression turned from a smile to a frown shortly… Whatever satisfaction he had experienced from this encounter had withered all but instantly leaving him feel empty and unfulfilled. ‘Theres no nutrition in it..’ He thought to himself.
After summoning an eyebot to serve as a monitor and linking it to Isaacs receiver he proceeded into the house and up the stairs slowing his pace to walk silently. The door opened quietly, and Sundae squinted in the dark seeing the shadow of Johnson setting down a box that slightly rustled in the corner and a ball in the other. ‘Gud…’ She thought drifting back off to sleep with the security of a litterbox at hand.
Johnson had nearly made the mistake of laying down in his bed until he remembered what had recently occurred. He stripped the linens as necessary, bagged it for laundry and put down blanket before he lay down on his bed. He wasn’t tired as he’d slept for so long in the lounger and it was after hours for the various departments. “Fuck it, lets check the map.” Johnson adds remembering there were still 10 fluffies on the map. Grabbing the laundry and heading down to the garage you collected Directors cannister from the locker and signaled for pickup.
~THWOK!~
Johnson carried the container to his personal suite and deposited his various laundry. He sat down at his computer to type a report on holotape for his colleague with a request for diagnostic of the implant and debugging if necessary. The report didn’t go completely in depth but the important stuff was included. Like not being alone in the body and having to fight with a personality that felt like a smarty or a manifested ID. There was also a report on Sundae and that he was curious if there were multiple forms of smarty syndrome and would be performing a field study on this one. You used it as an excuse to keep her at least temporarily. And if you ever felt like getting rid of her you could send her back and even have her vivisected. After everything was prepared, he brought the container down to bio sciences but realized it was too large for the drop. He taped a label and envelope to the container and left it by the door before using a relay grenade to summon a Gen 2 synth and tasked it with ‘guard this container and its contents until it is taken into bio sciences.’ Along with your clearances so that no one could retask this synth without physically hacking it.
As you started to walk away you paused and looked back. “If it escapes its container, shoot to kill.” The synth saluted.
After proceeding to synth retention to check the map you paused… “Hmm, only six now. Receptionist, there were ten signals earlier today. Were those brought in by our teams?”
“One moment…” The synth added typing. “Affirmative sir.”
“Good…. Good.” You add noticing how closely the lights were placed. “Hmm, have they gathered in a herd?” And then you noticed they were north of Covenant. “Ughhhh~ not the cemetery.” Director johnson groaned.
“I better hurry before they’re ghoul chow.” You add with a sigh appearing in front of Covenant. Everything still seemed in order. The turrets you set up weren’t shooting you at least so at least your settlement hadn’t turned on you yet. If there were still people subverting the institute they were bitches about it and kept their noses down.
You hurried to make use of what remaining sunlight there was to get into position before it got dark. Taking up an elevated position on one of the mausoleum roofs on high ground you went prone and got out your kiloton radium rifle to survey the area. “Why do they keep settling here?” You grumble having cleared this place of ghouls at least six times already. After counting over a dozen you saw it. A nest in the roots of the tree in the center. It was big enough for the entire group of fluffies and made from grass, leaves and lots and lots of glowing mushroom fronds making it very easy to spot them. Well between that and the glowing nightlight of a fluffy in the center.
“I shouldn’t be surprised after Hulk. . .This’ll be another one for the lab boys to study. Maybe the inactive FEV crossed with the ghoul strain? Regardless they were still mostly fresh ghouls but they had changed enough that the ferals left them alone. In fact you even observed how the glowing one got up at one point and began aggressively gesturing while saying something to one of the normal ferals that was getting too close and it buggered off. “So they’re not feral yet…”
You whispered into your pipboy and then changed it over to the institute frequency and began broadcasting. The signal would bounce off covenant since it was nearby and relay to the network. Normally you’d call in a synth or something to deliver a request but you had a feeling that they’d see the flash or hear the noise from here and you didn’t want to go far enough away just to come back. The message was a request for four shipping containers suitably sized for fluffies. All of them radiation and biohazard proofed and a porter team of synths on standby for collection coded to port in on a specific relay grenades id signal. Also to set aside appropriate storage space for such materials until they could be delivered to the lab during opening hours.
After popping a rad-x and allowing for his treated patrolman lenses to adjust to the night and tint for semi night vision Johnson lined up the shot.
Be bestest shiney smarty. Been gathering up fluffies to form the bestest herd, even if most of your herd is no longer all that fluffy anymore. No idea why… You give the bestest warmest huggies and herd aways wants you at the center of the sleeping pile to keep them snuggly at night (like you would ever be anywhere else). You even give off light when you and the herd explore dark places because you’re so great! Finally decided to settle down after a lot of walking when see lots of rocky human houses. Place has lots of grass, flower and even shiny mushie nummies! The shiny mushie’s were your favorite but you let the herd keep a few woven into the nest as a night light in case you needed to make good poopies or something in the dark.
Unlike most places the mommies and daddeh’s aren’t big meanies that shoot plinky things at us. But they are also very not pretty like your herd. At least despite them acting like dummies most of the time they seem to listen to smarty and leave your group alone or come back with little things when smarty asks them to bring food or toys. Some of it even was what you asked for and that made you happy. Yep, everything was good and it would remain like this forever.
Suddenly a loud ‘POP!’ echoed from a nearby cluster of resting ghouls as ones head completely shattered and the other two collapsed from the bone shrapnel and force of the explosion. As the second pop rang out taking the legs out from a nearby ghoul mid standing the chorus of hisses rang out from all corners of the graveyard.
“Wha’ am happening!?” The herd was in a confused panic. Some shit, some buried their heads and hid and three tried to scatter. Those that scattered almost immediately doubled back to the nest as whatever was making the popping was causing ghouls to explode in front of them and that was way too scary. Once the group had reassembled, they began to look to their glowing smarty for leadership.
Glowing smarty had seen the ghouls moving in a particular direction and could now see the flash coming from atop one of the stone houses. “Get dat meanie toughies! Hewd Fowwow smawty~” The glowing one bellowed with a slight flash to give them confidence. Reinvigorated by the radiation the group began moving towards one of the mausoleums.
“Perfect.” Johnson added before turning his attention to the assembling ghouls.
After heading through the open door and to the back the group hunkered down behind a stone coffin. Slowly but surely the sounds of struggle died down and it was quiet. “It am otay fwiends. We hide hewe tiww dah meanies go way.” The smarty says when the fluffies all look up from a slight flash of white light and a ‘thump’ nearby. He holds up his hoof and shooshes them, their hiding place was perfect afterall. There was a slight ‘clack’ and smarty continued to gesture for quiet before peeking around the stone blockie.
‘Why dewe a hawf doowsie?’ the smarty thinks seeing a shadow over the lower half of the doorway and the slightly less dark sky and stars in the upper half with the tree in the background. They then quickly drew their head back upon seeing the metallic skeletal fingers grip the edge of the doorway.
“Metaw meanies nu find smawtie, Metaw meanies nu find smawtie, Metaw meanies nu find smawtie.” The smarty added pulling back and burying itself in a huddle as they drug all their fellow fluffies down. The fluffies continued chanting their mantra as the subtle tippy taps of the skeletal figures stepped over the gate and padded across the tile towards them. Until suddenly.
“NU TAKE FWUFFY! SMAWTY HEWP~” Said the first fluffy plucked up only to be followed almost immediately after by “SPECIAW FWIEND HEWP~” And now there were four. After listening for a few seconds and hearing a click and the muffled cries of their friends vanish they began to calm down. “Maybe dey~NOT GONE! NOT GONE!” The smarty added shoving another fluffy in front of them. “Take dummeh nu speciaw fwuffy!”
The regular ghoul fluffy looked back with a glance of betrayal as a second fluffy was taken in the synths other hand and a third bloated fluffy from the other side. “D’nough~ knobe take swoom mah-mah!” The bloated one, mare slurred their words wetly. And then there was one.
The glowing one rocked back and fourth. It was not fair! Everything was supposed to be perfect forever! How could this happen? And finally after so many questions they could only see the glow of anger. As the synths had finished loading up all the other ghouls and moved the last radiation container into place they heard a hiss. Turning around the smarty glowing one flared with light and gave a squealing attempt at a roar that shattered their vocal cords raw.
Bounding forward with great hatred they leapt in the air towards the robot and brought both their front hooves down in the strongest stomp they could muster.
Johnson watched from a safe distance unable to see the smarty from his position but saw one synth turn to the other. “Hostility detected?” They asked as the Smarty went from a stomp into a windmill of blows against their lower half. “Affirmative.” The second added and you saw them turn and wind up a massive kick and punt the mutant into the mausoleum wall.
“Ooooh~” Johnson added scrunching his face before laughing at the slight flash of light as he heard a tiny ‘poot’ break the silence. The synths loaded up the barely conscious glowing one in its own container.
“Head back when you’re ready.” Johnson added knowing he had to either go to sleep or find something to kill the time until the departments opened in the morning. “Maybe a nice jog will help clear my head?” He added taking a stretch and proceeding to PT back to sanctuary in his fatigues.
Upon teleporting back the ghouls were drug into a storage locker and lined up across from a second series of containers. The four fluffies that were previously captured and brought back too late for processing were in holding here. The Synths left the room after everything was secured. The ghoul fluffies looked across the way and could see the disgust and aversion on the face of their fellow fluffies. “Wha’ ou wookin at Smoove fwuff!?” The normal fluffy turned to face away not wanting to anger the monster fluffies further.
‘What am I doing with my life?’ Johnson thought to himself casually jogging in the dark.
He started thinking back on some of the stranger ideas he had debated in his mind. The kind of concepts that only someone like the sole survivor who possessed his level of station, resources, power and the authority these derive could even dare dream in such a morally decrepit world. He began to wonder if he was subconsciously slipping into the ‘seven families’ settlement plan…
He had initially found it repugnant but had no less found himself starting settlements at least twice in the last year with the premise. Thankfully it had fallen through both times during the interview process, and he simply converted the sites to general purpose settlements before returning to his self-imposed hermitage at sanctuary hills. You pondered how you could so easily accept spontaneous moments of passion but became utterly incapable if you even thought of it becoming something akin to an actual relationship.
However, that which had kept him so shackled was the memory of his wife and the thoughts of saving his son. Now not only was her face unclear, he was no longer certain if he could remember her voice after he had worn out the few holotapes he had from overplaying them during the previous six months of mostly hermitage. Between that and discovering the child you were trying to save was a synth and you had outlived your own son, only to be asked to watch over the family he had made in your absence because they had stolen him from you… You now weren’t even certain if you could feel any potential connection to children you might potentially sire.
He had to stop his jogging to fight the voices in his head that attempted to justify degeneracy by telling him that he was protecting real people by experimenting with these synthetic beings to see if you could still feel an emotional connection. He knew he had to fight, that this was a very slippery slope to saying ‘well they were never real to begin with, so you should try having a real child next~’. Johnson soon found himself holding back his own forearm that had already drawn throatslicer and had been in motion to sever a weapon he felt he couldn’t be trusted to handle responsibly.
In the haze of rage that was to follow you remembered one thing clearly… What you really wanted, was a family. Only for it to slip once again from your grasp along with the severed head of the raider leader you dropped to the ground.
You returned to the institute exhausted and smeared with blood, most of it not your own. You had diverted your path and gone to purge more actively wicked men as a penance… At least that’s what you liked to think. Somewhere deep down you had to wonder if you were just a hypocrite and just hid your lust for violence beneath a veneer of righteousness. After which you had decided that you’d get your laundry in the system asap in the hopes of getting it all back at the same time. You went to sleep washing your hands and face of the blood and attending to your other bedtime rituals before falling asleep naked and alone.
Oddly though, this sleep brought minor comfort. Like the gentle caress of a spoon. ‘Wub.’ Omega burbled from their tank.
Johnson awoke to a knock just before nine. He had forgotten to set his alarm and had hoped to be up an hour earlier. After getting out of bed and forgetting he was naked he opened the door. “Yes?”
“Your laundry, sir…” The Gen 1 synth added holding out the wrapped parcels of clothing before glancing down. “Excuse me.” It added heading back to its cart to continue its rounds. You shrugged and went back inside.
You put on your freshly laundered military fatigues once again and put the remaining laundry in your pack before heading downstairs. You grab some slurp-able institute paste and make your way to Bio sciences. You bin the container before entering.
“Johnson, please report to the back lab.” Came the bio science directors voice over the intercom as they were alerted to your entry. You shrugged and proceeded to the FEV labs through the security door instead of the long way. Walking into the tank room you look over. “Excellent timing.” Director Holdren added waving you over to a terminal.
“Just got done listening to your reports while running the systems analysis on your proxy.” He added gesturing up to Director floating in the tank with a smile on their face as they were being hugged from behind like the two were spooning.
“Huh…” Johnson added finding that a little weird but he couldn’t remember why due to the fickleness of dreams sometimes. “Oh yes, thanks for looking into this so promptly.”
“Thank you for field testing.” Holdren added with a smile. “So you wanted a debriefing?”
“Yes… What did you do to the horn? I was expecting a laser or something when I requested it to have a hold out weapon for courser field work.”
“Ah yes. Advanced systems has made some headways between your own notes and the limited sessions you allowed us to examine the artifact while you observed. I must say we’d probably be much further along if you just let us keep the thing~” Holdren added before johnson cut him off.
“Artifact. . . Wait, you don’t mean?”
“Yes that Helmet you showed us? Think you said it’s previous owner was named~”
“Lorenzo. . .” Oh god.
“That’s the one. We managed to isolate the function that allowed the mind to move things through telekinesis and produce waves of force or hard light. We thought we were in a dead end since the only compatible power source we could find was a dedicated synth but not even the gen 3’s seemed to have whatever factor allowed us to prime it.”
“Can the gen 4 use them on their own, or is it only with a mind like ours operating one?” Johnson added curiously.
“A human gen 4 maybe… One of the fluffy prototypes, no… At least not to any real danger I imagine. They could probably manage to get it to glow or even produce some sparks at best but it would take a far more disciplined consciousness to be able to manipulate objects with the mind. Advanced systems will want to begin trials on this post haste~” Hedron added as you grabbed his forearm.
“That may be unwise. You remember in my report how Lorenzo claimed to be in contact with otherworldly entities?”
“Yes… Wait, you don’t mean the personality you encountered?” They balked. “It’s far more likely that’s just the lounger producing feedback in a means you can interpret while manifesting your own subconsciousness.” Johnson blinked at this. If it were true, it said a lot of stuff about him that he was not prepared to accept.
“But if it is because of the technology, we run the potential risk of causing psychosis in anyone that uses it. Im willing to continue testing it but do not outfit any more synths with it until we have thoroughly tested for certainty. Even if they don’t possess the greatly enhanced durability or other aspects the main aritifact provides we do not want to risk units especially coursers going rogue with telekinesis also in their toolbelt.”
“. . . Fair point. As for your proxy here. Most everything checks out. The chip is intact and the brain shows no sign of scarring as has been the case of prototypes thus far…”
“Have we studied any units that have been born without chips that have had smarty syndrome?” You add curious if it can occur in such incidents and if so, does it still show such signs.
“Not yet. Im starting to see why you would ask though… I’ll have the teams assigned to the component less studies keep an eye out for us.” He adds scribbling some notes on a pad. “The rest of the diagnostic came up clean except for one thing.” He added sifting through the pages on his terminal. “Here.” He adds pointing to a series of anomalous code.
“Is that?”
“A black box of some kind… I’ve managed to peel back several layers so far but I don’t know if there is any end to them. It’s like a thousand compressed firewalls and other security measures that each only make the next one apparent when the one before it is defeated. . .I can only think of a handful of people that could design something this elaborate. And only one of them that’s had access to this piece since its appeared since it wasn’t here before it left.”
“I added security to the lounger but I didn’t have a terminal for the proxy… This isn’t my work if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“Perhaps not consciously Director… If this other personality is in fact your own mind, then it’s possible you programmed this without even knowing it.”
“This ghost in the machine shit really has me tempted to throw this one in the incinerator…” Johnson sighs. “I’ll set up some precautions on my end for continued testing but if it keeps causing issues I’ll bring it back promptly for disposal.”
“Would you like it wiped and reset?” Holdren adds curiously.
“Not this time but we’ll see how things go.” You add gesturing to load up your proxy body. “By the way.” You add while he readied the transfer procedure. “How hard would it be to produce units that are missing a certain component needed for breeding?”
“Not just sterilized via a procedure when they’re produced in the lab?” Holdren asks curiously.
“Well if we are releasing them for sale in the commonwealth, we want a controlled product. So if we make it that they need to come in to the factory to install necessary parts for them to have foals since I imagine that’ll be part of the novelty of ownership especially with the fluffies instincts for babys. We can potentially do it as a one time thing, or simply make it a life time upgrade but all foals produced are born without the necessary parts.”
“And then those fluffies might want foals of their own one day, so they’ll need a procedure too. Might be a good way to acquire caps and resources for the institute while getting our spies in place.” Holdren added with an impressed look. “I’ll look into it.”
“Thanks. Also for my batch of prototypes. If it’s possible, I might want to surgically alter my fluffies so that I don’t have to worry about them breaking my no foals rule but being able to return them to operational capacity if I want to allow more. It would certainly beat having to keep making more sex aids… Don’t ask.” Johnson added holding up his hand.
“Fine but submit a report on it. The stallions tend to be afraid of the milker.” You snicker for a moment at the term. “Yeah we can do that. If you bring them in for sterile lab conditions they can probably get back to it after a day or so. If you want someone to come out and do it though, I’d say give it a week if not more to ensure there aren’t complications or infection.”
“Thanks, I’ll let you know if I am to schedule an appointment.” After scooping out Director from the tank you left promptly as the institute would contact you when you were needed for any additional wet work against the railroad.