“5, 4, 3, 2, 1. We have lift-off.”

For all the Mojave to see, three rockets shot out of the Black Mountains into the sky. Destination: places unknown.

Not that Franklin needed to mind. With the REPCON facility empty, he could get to work building his own rocket. This time, the destination would be space and then the moon. The goal was to ramp up his production facilities and make a plan to deal with the world's surviving population.

Despite Franklin's knowledge, you can't get rid of radiation. Sure, his advanced nanotech could help him identify the most radioactive parts of an object and help separate them, but he would still have radioactive materials lying around. The next step would be to bury them deep in the mountains, but the whole world was covered with the stuff. Even if he blanketed the world in nanites, lowering the planet's atmospheric rads to prewar levels would take decades. Earth was just going to have to deal with it for now.

For the most part, the planet was habitable. Rad storms, mutant wildlife, raiders, and more assaulted the wasteland, but crops grew, and animals grazed, too. Humans were resilient. Franklin saw proof of that every day, but they needed more time.

Franklin also needed more time. He was only one man. Well, not anymore.

______

He opened his eyes to stare himself in the face. He wasn’t looking at a mirror but his other body. It wasn’t omnipresence, at least not yet, but Franklin had duplicated his consciousness between three bodies now. There was the adventuring body that traveled with Boone, Cass, and ED-E. That one would complete the quest for Victor and find the man who stole the courier's package.

There was the bunker body. That one had stolen the hidden valley bunker from out under the Brotherhood. It would also be the future home of the Mutant Research and Medical facility. There, he would find work on curing all of the Nightkin’s schizophrenia and use the base to launch further missions on crucial prewar ruins. The neighboring Blackrock Mountain was his first stop. It was filled with radio equipment, giant satellite dishes, and many, many angry supermutants.

Now, there is one more worker working here in the REPCON facility. This conscious mindstream would research rocket technology and anything the prewar civilizations left in orbit. He would also work on getting them all into orbit and beyond. Space was one of his best hopes for a sustainable source of non-radioactive materials or at least less radioactive.

Franklin could have split his mind to manage the MRCS, but he had future plans for P.A.T. beyond the redemption of the former inmates of the NCR Correctional facility. He was doing a good job, too. The little AI was sending him nearly hourly messages about the prisoners and their activities. Franklin wanted P.A.T. to grow and manage a lot more than just the prisoners. Franklin would offer people clean water, food, and jobs, but he didn’t want to spend all his time telling people what to do. Let them figure it out and find him when they make a decision. Or at least they would tell P.A.T., and he would tell Franklin.

Franklin wasn’t unfamiliar with splitting his consciousness like this. Some mad scientists had developed experimental VR technology that let an organic mind play two different games at its best. That scientist said he made the tech because he was tired of playing MOBAs with shitty teammates and needed to rank up out of bronze. So, his suffering let Franklin practice having multiple bodies.

The REPCON body would also build the processing units to let him split his mind into more bodies. In contrast, the bunker body would develop wireless communication stations connecting him to his body.

This left the adventuring body with the mailvan. Boone had spoken with a friend, Mannie, who saw the checkered-suited man heading north toward Boulder City. This would be that body's next stop. Hopefully, the town would be a relaxing stop.

_____

I’m down so doggone low

I have to look up to see the soles of my shoes

I'm going under, getting over you

“I know you have more songs than this doc. Can you please play something I haven’t heard for the thousandth time?” Cass moaned.

“Don’t hate on the classics. Fine, let me find something else,” Franklin said.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The van was starting to fill up now that Boone had joined them. Despite how some movies might portray it, people still had a bunch of shit in the apocalypse. Adding Boone’s gear made the back of the van a lot more crowded. If Franklin picked up any more friends, they would have to start strapping things to the roof.

Boone hadn’t contributed to the conversation yet, nor really any of their discussions, road games, or even music selection. The sniper stuck to his stoic, silent guy act the entire day, at least until he spoke up.

“Stop the van for a second.”

Franklin was confused but did as he asked. Once they stopped, Boone got out and opened the rear door to pull out his rifle. He aimed it west toward an old lake bed that was now a dried flat pit. Franklin zoomed in and saw a small horde of giant ants the size of large dogs.

Boone exhaled and squeezed the trigger. An ant’s antenna exploded into a paste.

“You missed,” Franklin said. He didn’t blame the sniper; the ant was a mile away.

“No, I didn’t,” Boone said.

Franklin was about to question that statement, but the ant's behavior shocked him. It started to attack the other ants. Boone raised his rifle again and shot another ant's antenna off.

“When I was in the army, we watched giant ants move in these lines. They would cross roads and attack caravans all the time. We found that if you break off the antenna on their face, you can throw them into a rage. They will attack anything they can get a hold of. Became a game to see how many we could get fighting each other at once.”

Astonished beeps.

Franklin was impressed. The ants might be giants, but they were still a mile away.

“You made us stop in this godless heat just so you can show off fancy shooting. Doc, turn the van back on. I want my air conditioning back,” Cass sassed and mosied back to her seat.

Franklin looked at Boone and shrugged. He wasn’t going to argue with the drunk cowgirl, and Boone didn’t want to either. Franklin could simulate his senses so he could feel whatever he wanted, no matter the weather. Boone was a soldier, so he was used to suffering.

“ED-E, your turn. I am gonna show Cass some of the best music the 21st century ever created,” Franklin said.

ED-E floated over to the station on the dashboard, which let him control the van, while Franklin hit a button on the steering wheel. The wheel and several other features on the dashboard disappeared, and a piano unfolded around the driver's seat.

“The fuck is that?” Cass asked.

“It's my piano. I am going to do something no human has ever done in reality, only online or in virtual spaces. I am going to perform all of Rush E 1, 2, and 3!!! Mwhahahaha,” Franklin cackled and began with E!

_____

Boone sat back, his mouth hanging wide open. Cass stared ahead, unable to comprehend all that she had heard and seen. Rush E is impossible for an unaugmented human to play completely. You could play the majority of the song, but its back half needed someone to press nearly every key separately within seconds of each other in a cacophony of notes. Only robots or people in VR could manage the feat. Franklin was the first person to complete the since its inception.

“Is it normal for a piano to catch on fire?” Boone asked.

“Forget that! What the fuck was that arm thing? What the hell are you!” Cass screamed.

“Yeah, about that. It's a long story and I wanted to show you first. So here is the long version of it…”

Franklin explained his past as a scientist/rebel/thief/eccentric and how he created nanite conversion and the teleporter accident. He recapped his last few weeks and some of the things he had done away from the group, like his takeover of the Brotherhood bunker. When he was finished, Boone’s mouth was still a gap, and his shades had slid down his nose.

Cass had lost her rosey checks, and her skin paled. Franklin might have told her he had dropped the bombs and that his mother was an alien from Mars.

“So you can make anything?” She asked.

“Not anything but many things,” Franklin explained.

“So when you made me run around Novac looking for the killer, you could have just sent your dust things and found out that way?”

“Yes.”

“I am gonna fucking kick your ass,” Cass said.

“ED-E, save me!” Franklin yelled and oozed back against the driver's door.

“GET OVER HERE!” Cass said, jumping over the center console.

“Watch the road!” Boone yelled.

_____

Jeffery Dukon was a former member of the Powder Gangers. He was arrested two years ago for the crime of cattle rustling, theft, and arson. All serious crimes if you happened to be a victimized land owner with friends in high places. For Jeffery, it was revenge for the Brahmin Barons stealing his pappy’s land.

But Jeffery was just one man. He couldn’t fight the whole NCR so he was arrested and sent to work the quarries in Mojave. Then the riot happened, and Jeffery had nowhere else to go, so he stuck around the prison. The NCR had labeled him and all the other prisoners as terrorists anyway, so he had little choice.

Then the Doctor arrived, killed a fuck load of Deathclaws, and rounded up the troublemakers. Then, he gave them jobs, food, water, clothing, and more. Jeffery thought only the rich folk who lived in Shady Sands got such good treatment. He quietly thanked the Doctor for saving him.

Jeffery’s story is similar to many of the other prisoners. Not all who got sent to the NCR Correction Facility were murderers and rapists. The point of the prison wasn’t rehabilitation but instead to serve as cheap labor for the quarries. Franklin and P.A.T. quickly sorted through who would be of use and who would need to be handed back over to the NCR.

The NCR hadn’t yet sent word about the proposed truce and amnesty, but they didn’t have the drones Franklin did. So, they patiently awaited a courier to hand deliver some good news.

Or for a company of soldiers to assault the prison.

In the meantime, rails south to Nipton and all the way into Southern Vegas had been cleared. Once they are given the all-clear, MRCS will approach caravans at the Mojave Outpost about transporting their goods all the way to McCarran Airport. P.A.T. would also begin development on fixing the rails to Boulder City and then expanding to Freeside on the northeastern side of Vegas. Southwest Vegas still had a raider problem that might also interfere with transports to McCarran. Franklin told P.A.T. he would have either his adventuring body or the bunker body work on that for him.

But so far all was looking well for the MRCS.