Three days had passed since I got into the college and I finally had a class. The classes I took were all staggered throughout the year to allow for better attendance. One week would be Vehicles and the next would be weaponry. This week was robotics and I'd been told that if I had a robot or anything with an Artificial Intelligence I should bring it with me to class.
The robotics class was the third biggest and most expensive class the college had and it showed. The room I entered had a desk set up with a teachers desk at one end. Every desk was a table with terminal and was covered in papers. Almost all the chairs were empty however as the room led into the robotics building. Inside was a large, open room full of robots and automated machinery.
At one end an old man was showing a small group the insides of a sentry bot and the other end had a tall middle aged man directing another group in controlling a mechanical arm to put together a Mr.Handy. The close side of the room had tables full of dissected robots and people working on them. As I walked in Radar beeped in alarm at all the junked robots and what looked like lots of people experimenting on his kind.
I smirked at the little robots alarm and gave him a pat on his round frame. "Chill out little guy. The only person that will be taking you apart is me and I'll make sure you get put back together correctly." I snorted at his responding beeps as the middle aged man walked over. "Hey kid, are you our newest student?" He asked. His question brought me up short as I remembered that I was still pretty young. I was 22 years old this year and looked like some kind of main character from an action movie just dressed in the best jeans and shirt I could find. A mental snort brought me out of my thoughts and I gave him a nod. "I'm Joseph and your main educator for this class. The old man over there is Arvand and can teach you pretty much anything you need to know about robotics. Make sure you don't get him mixed up with his younger brother in weaponry if you're taking the class, they go by the same name and look like twins."
I raised an eyebrow and he smirked. "I see you followed the advice the handbook gives and brought a bot. He looks quite customized to me, though I specialize in combat bots and not support bots like that one." I nodded and spoke "Don't need a combat bot. Need something that can scout and move fast. It helps that eyebots have better intelligence programming compared to others."
He nodded in agreement and waved for me to follow him. "You can take any table in the teaching room that is open when we're holding knowledge classes but for today we have an open class." He pointed to some empty tables and started again. "Those work benches are open but you'll need to set them up as you go. Their all free to use as long as someone isn't already set up at them. If you need help you can ask one of us or a senior student. Their all marked by a badge with a small protectron head." He then pointed to a side room and spoke "All the tools and equipment you'll ever need can be found in there alongside resource procurement papers for anything not in the storage rooms." He pointed to another door with the label of storage above the door.
"You can get yourself what you want and can post your projects on the board in the teaching room and mark it as an open project so that others might join you to learn and work alongside you."
I nodded at that and set my bag down on the first available table. "And remember, if you are testing something make sure to take it to a designated area so that accidents don't hurt anyone. Additionally no explosives above that of a 22 caliber bullet are allowed outside of designated areas. You'll get in big trouble if you break this rule."
"Got it" I responded as I nodded. "Good I need to get back to my group. Don't need them screwing up the only production arm we have in here."
As he walked away I grabbed Radar and pulled him down to the table. Shutting him off I carefully remove the cryo tech from him and make sure to immediately hook it back up to his original fission battery. With it removed I begin actually work on Radar. My first thing to do is an all round upgrade. Ripping out his original thrusters and increasing their power is easy enough. Following that with a new fission battery and an upgrade to his laser is even easier. The next part becomes significantly more difficult as I remove his AI core systems and his fog pilon. I don't know how the pilon works but I do know it was the main catalyst for his AI mind to begin evolving. The other catalyst had been the massive holotape that now housed his entire existence.
Once Radar was removed from his shell I got to upgrading it. Basic armoring and covering gaps in his plating. With that done I put his stuff back in without the pilon. Using my pipboy and multiple other tools I took a scan of the pilon and made some blueprints for it. Copying its programming was difficult as the pilon wasn't designed for easy access. Once that was complete I left the pilon to the side and began working on a full sensor upgrade that would work in conjunction with the pilon.
If Radar was to be my scout then he'd need plenty of powerful sensors. LiDAR was the biggest upgrade and took the most space. I wanted Radar to be able to 'see' anything that might be a threat. The next sensor was radar and most of that was taken care of by the pilon. It was however missing long range weather tracking systems. Adding that took about an hour but I was fortunate enough to find a holotape in the storage room that held what programming and knowledge I needed to do that.
I spent another hour going through the holotapes in storage and found many interesting things I'd probably need later. Infrared was the last sensor and Radar already had high quality sensors for it. Making sure his IR was in good condition was easy and I reinstalled it. As I began putting him back together however I was stopped. The old man Arvand was poking at the pilon while looking at the blueprints and data on the device.
Using my terminal he separated the pilons fog tech from the rest of the pilon and began looking over a book he had. I realized that he had been there for a bit as he'd already left to find the weather technology book that he was now looking through. As he clicked away at the terminal I and a few others watched. Eventually, ignoring all of us he walked over to a bench and began setting it up.
He then began fabricating what something. As he did so most of the class came to observe. Joseph began looking over the stuff on my terminal before aiding the old man in his work. At some point the old man pulled out a fusion core and a plasma cutter. Multiple laser emitters were then added and lots of other things followed. Eventually two pilon like devices sat on the table.
The old man carefully hooked them both to the fusion core and flicked a switch. Inbetween the two pilons a transparent sheen of blue light flicked into sight. Arvand grabbed a small piece of scrap metal and wound his arm back. With what was likely a painful throw he hurled the scrap at the blue light. A resounding and near deafening ting sound echoed across the room as the scrap hit the light wall and lost all momentum. It fell to the table with a soft clatter and lay motionless.
"A light wave barrier based on electro-magnetic wave pulse technology. Simply incredible. I'm quite surprised I was able to make this." Then under his breath Arvand muttered "I wonder if this has any protection viability?"
Before anyone spoke I was forced to rain on his parade. "This kind of energy shield has been done before. Sound frequency based pulse weaponry easily neutralizes the shield with resonance feedback."
This was mostly an educated guess on my part based on what I could remember about the energy shields and the sonic emitter. The old man nodded, likely understanding my words better than I did. "I can see why that would be. Who created such technology?"
I internally smiled and answered. "The greatest minds of the Big Empty of course."
He snorted at my answer and spoke "No one knows where or what is in the Big Empty kid. No one's ever been there and if they have they haven't returned."
I my silent smirk the old man approached. He looked me dead in the eyes and spoke. "Am I right boy?"
My smirk became a smile as I told him the truth. "You're not too sure sir. There was that one guy who wouldn't stop going on and on about the bear and the bull. Always talking about the old world and symbolism." After letting that sink into him I spoke again. "There was also that person that accidentally created the great divide. They might have gone in there at some point."
Suddenly the old man grabbed my arm as everyone looked on at us. "Tell me what you know kid. I'll give anything I can as payment."
I dropped my smile at that. "That place is a death trap in a cage. Only those few who are truly great or impossibly prepared can get in and out… and even they don't leave without being marked by the Big Empty. It is not a heaven of technological development, it is a hell of looping minds and the brainless. I'd call it hell but even he'll allows corpses their rest."
I saw one of my peers shiver at that as the old man in front of me slumped. "My father told my brother and I stories of the place after we showed talent with technology. It was a dream of ours to one day go there ourselves and help humanity in its push for progress. You cannot simply tell me of how horrible it is." He waved his hand in anger. "It was supposed to hold mankind greatest minds, its best technologies, it was meant to be the place that allowed humanity to take its next step in evolution."
I snorted at that. "Pre-war propaganda. If you want to become one of the looped minds, an experiment, a body functioning on instinct, a skeleton in a suit… go find that hole in the ground then. That place is not spoken of by those who have left because most have no mind to due so with or are deadly mutant creatures that wouldn't hesitate to end your fragile life. That place is far from a dream and I suggest you find yourself another one because I'll tell none of its secrets."
My cryptic descriptions and lack of emotion towards what I was describing seemed to have gotten to one of my peers. She broke in with her own question. "You speak of it as if its impossible for people like us to go there but you also describe it as if you've been in. What's the place truly like?"
I looked over at her and gave a smile. "Invisible walls of death surround the it as do the beasts that come from within. Cazadors and nightstalkers hunt as lobotomites survive and function on autopilot. The undead wander with plasma and laser at their mechanical fingertips. Robots with human brains for CPUs will cut and blast you apart without mercy. The dogs of war will hunt you down and shatter your insides with their barks before tearing into your flesh with their steel teeth and claws. I'm not even going to get into the mad minds that control the place, because sure there are some nice things there like the halos, the AI, the auto-docs, and matter replicators." I raised my fingers with the good technology I could remember from the game. "But theres also the monsters, the weapons, and the potentially world ending threats created within. I don't need to have been there to know what it's like. Many throughout the wasteland have gained marks from the Big Empty. Whether it be a scar from surviving a mutant creature or losing someone to those creatures. Take this as a warning. Very, very few ever make it there and even less make it out. Don't add yourself to the long list of problems that place has generated throughout its history."
"So you're just spouting nonsense then? If you've never been there then how can you know what it's like?" Another student asked.
Again I tried to stay cryptic. "I have gone through many hellholes. Survived multiple battles. I fought the legion and their flood of human flesh. I have seen and experienced many things, and I don't think I need to experience the unique hell that is that place. Do not go looking for it as all you will find is death. If you want what the pre-war propaganda spoke of then look no further than beyond this college. It is closer to what you seek than that far from empty hole."
With my warnings delivered I grabbed my pilon and went back to work on Radar. When I finally reactivated him he wouldn't stop chattering about his upgrades. I still needed to improve his programming but that was something I didn't really have the knowledge for and wouldn't be soon as I'd need to be nearly a master.
Finally with Radar taken care of I sent him to watch over Elizabeth and got to work on my cryo stuff. Currently I completely lacked the knowledge needed to go through and understand the stuff I'd taken samples of so I fixed up my cryo container to be smaller and lighter and stuffed it into my bag. With my own stuff finished I left my work bench behind and went to learn about robotics as Joseph had begun a class on Mr.Handys.