“Do I have to?” Cass moaned.

“Can you pick a safe without anyone knowing you were there?” Franklin asked.

“Sure, I can, and then you can distract her,” Cass responded.

Sarcastic beeps.

“What did he say?” Cass said sure, it was rude.

“He said the clinking of your whiskey glasses will blow the whole mission,” Franklin translated.

“Why, you damn rust bot. I will scrap your body and turn you into a radio,” Cass threatened.

Provocative beeps.

“Call down, you two. If you don't want to do it, I can do it later when it's dark and she leaves the lobby,” Franklin said.

They discussed how they were going to search the motel lobby. The owner, Jeanne May Crawford, was in there most of the day, so searching the room for clues was impossible without alerting her. Franklin had already searched her house and found nothing that could have pointed to her being guilty yet.

If the Legion got help from someone in the motel, that would limit the pool of suspects to Manny, Jeanne, an old woman who claimed to be a pilot, and a few others. Franklin couldn't rule out anyone just yet, but he was getting close.

“What about the Brahmin killer?” Cass asked.

“After we are done here, I am going to speak with the family that owns the farm. I will also probably need to confront the killer tonight. If we want to be quick about this, then we need to find both the Brahmin slayer and the slaver tonight so we can search REPCON tomorrow. Then, sooner or later, the trail leading to the checkered suit man will start to get cold, so we can’t sit on that too long,” Franklin explained.

“It's a busy day then. Alright, I will search around town some more, then meet up back at the van,” Cass said.

The owners of the farm were the McBride family. They told Franklin they had known about the person attacking their cattle, but everything they searched, they couldn’t find any sign of who did it. They offered Franklin a bunch of lead-free meat if he could put a stop to the murderer. He accepted the offer because he wanted to analyze the Brahmin’s mutated DNA, and Cass could eat what he didn’t use.

With all of his nantie abilities restricted, Franklin did the only thing he could do with the sun still out: look for footprints. Whoever was doing this must have left a heavy print because they were carrying a minigun.

Sure enough, Franklin found what might be size 16 footprints. They were deep, too. The doctor tracked the prints for a while and found they led further west into the mountain pass, which led to the REPCON facility.

Hmm. The plot thickens. Are the ghouls responsible for the murders? I will find out tonight.

Sadly there was nothing else for Franklin to find so he was stone-walled till sunset so he sent out a few relay drones and got to work on one of his other projects.

_________

“Scribe Gildan! Where is your report on the material composition of the drone?” Head Scribe Taggart yelled.

“Right here, sir,” Gildan said and handed over his report.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Go ahead and give me a summary as well,” Taggart said.

“Yes, sir. We tried numerous corrosives, x-rays, and hardness tests, but we couldn’t get any idea of how it was constructed. Once we tried an eddy current test to find any cracks, we hit a breakthrough. When certain electrical currents are applied to the metal, it turns into fine dust,” Gildan reported.

“Dust? What kind of dust, Scribe?”

“We believe the dust to be microscopic robots. They are simple in design but highly effective at working together. Unfortunately, we lack the equipment to analyze them further. If the threat of an unknown enemy wasn’t behind this, I would love to spend some time speaking with whoever designed these robots,” Gildan gushed.

“You are correct, Scribe Gildan,” a new voice said. Head Paladin Edgar Hardin walked into the research lab. “I have instructed all Paladins to prepare for a potential attack and have begun preparations for such an event. Head Scribe Taggart, I would like Scribe Gildan to give a report to Paladin Ramos about these drones and their capabilities if that is alright with you.”

“Good morning to you, too, Hardin. It's not even midday, and I see you're already trying to prepare the base for war,” Taggart said.

“We need to be ready, Taggart. I had enough fill of failure at Helios One. I will not let us be caught like that again. Now, will you allow Gildan to give the report,” Hardin said with a stern voice of authority.

“Yes, yes, fine. I am sure our fine Paladins will love the opportunity to flex their brains for once instead of their trigger fingers. Gildan, take some of this microbot dust and teach our mighty defenders a thing or two,” Taggert said.

C

“Right away, Head Scribe,” Gildan said, turning around. His day wasn't looking good, so he wanted to leave the lab as soon as possible. Unfortunately, that won't be happening.

“Uhhh, Head Scribe,” Gildan said with rising panic.

“What is it?” Taggert moaned. He was annoyed enough by Hardin, and he didn't need another problem.

“The drone is gone, sir.”

“What!” A few voices in the lab said in unison.

Hehehe. The Brotherhood might have learned they could stun my nanites with electricity, but that won’t work long. You thieves will find that my tech is surprisingly sturdy.

The bunker the Brotherhood lived in had metal grates for floors. It was the worst design a person could make for a floor, and Franklin could already imagine all the loose change and random junk he would find down here. At least he will have plenty of raw material for his nanites.

With the drone missing, the bunker went on lockdown. Scribes and Knights frantically searched for it but couldn’t find a single nanite. This was because Franklin had them eat and replace a few items of furniture. A scribe or trannie would sit on his nanites several times and not know what was under their butts.

Franklin planned to keep this game going for a few days while he spied on them. He wanted to learn about their scientific capabilities, armed forces, leadership, and weaknesses.

So far, they seemed competent enough. Most of their soldiers wore power armor, and everyone seemed to have some form of energy weapon. The scientists, or ‘Scribes’ as they were called, followed the scholastic path. They had books on history, medicine, math, physics, and technology. It's a shame they spend so much effort categorizing stuff based on fear. Most of their books about nuclear physics and radiation were locked away and marked as too dangerous to study.

Franklin’s initial assessment was that the Brotherhood was a group of techno-hoarders supremacists who believed they knew what was best for humanity. They did this while hiding in a bunker away from any major settlement and constantly bitched about other people and their mistakes without even looking at their own.

They deserved to be robbed and taken down a peg. Franklin had just the idea to get them out of their shells.

________

“NCR dogs got nothin’ on me,

‘cause a weird scientist set me free.

We got water clear and clean,

‘cause a weird scientist made our pump pristine.”

It had only been a few days, but the MRCS were already hard at work digging out buried railroad tracks. Following along behind them was a weird robot track-laying machine that fixed anything they couldn't.

There had been a lot of bitching about having to work the same jobs the NCR had them doing as prisoners, but Meyers reminded everyone that they were being paid now and had access to the best water most of them had ever drank. Fuck it was even ice cold.

“Did the boss say anything about the poor bastards sent back to the NCR?” Someone asked between shoveling.

“Nope. Last I heard, most of them got boxed up by those weird slivered men into some trucks that suddenly appeared,” someone else replied before taking a drink from his flask.

“How did he even know who did the worst shit?” another person asked.

“The computers in Eddie’s office had some records left by the NCR; that and Meyers and a few others snitched,” the man with the flask said.

“Damn, that’s cold.”

“Yup, but fuck them anyway. Eddie always kept the best shit for himself and his cronies. At least the new boss hands out free shit. I mean, feel this shirt. The softest thing I have ever felt, and this underwear. It's like my balls are being cradled by an angel.”

“Ahh god, man. Too much information.”

“Whatever. This is probably the most comfortable I have been in a long time. If the new boss keeps this up, I don’t think I will mind working this railroad job.”

The crew continued to talk about the changes to their life brought about by Dr. Franklin and all the things that might be in store. They also voiced their fears about the NCR and the Legion. Franklin didn’t tell them how his trip to the NCR outpost went, nor did he speak about the prisoners, not even to Meyers.

So far, the work they have done has cleared the tracks from Nipton to the quarry. In a few weeks, the railroad from Boulder City to California will be clear. Stone from Quarry Junction would board MRCS-operated trains and travel west. MRCS employees would travel west too, repairing old tracks throughout California.

Or at least that was Franklin’s hope. It remains to be seen what the NCR government will do about the former prisoners and if they will receive their pardons, as Franklin demanded.