Fallout 4: AR

34. Revelations

Tinker Tom was hovering over us when I woke up, startling a surprised squeak out of me and causing MacCready to roll onto the cold stone floor reaching for his rifle. As soon as we had identified him, my partner stalked off in a foul temper to clear his head and see if there might be anything for breakfast.

"What the hell? Did you sleep at all, Tom?" I asked, yawning and shivering a little in the drafty corner.

"No, no, no!" he babbled excitedly, "No time to sleep when your little device has such goodies hidden inside!" He grabbed my arm, nearly dragging me to his workstation. My Pip-Boy was still attached to his terminal, which was scrolling a seemingly endless screen of programming text, a complete mystery to me. "Let me tell you, this little thing is amazing! I've only scratched the surface, though."

"What can you tell me?" I yawned, waking up at the prospect of actually getting some answers.

Instead of answering immediately, Tom hustled around the room gathering a couple of extra chairs, placing them near his computer station. "Sit down, this is gonna take a while. Hey, Deacon, come and join us!"

Deacon, trailed by MacCready, sauntered over to take one of the proffered seats. I sat down in another, gratefully taking the hot drink that my partner handed to me. Oh my god, is this actually... coffee? I closed my eyes to take in the aroma briefly in bliss before taking a sip, curling my cold fingers around the mug to warm them. Okay, whatever horrors this world has, at least there's coffee. "Thanks, Mac," I said with heartfelt gratitude. He gave me a cheeky grin and wrinkled his nose at the beverage, pretending to gag. I stuck my tongue out at him in response when I thought no one was looking.

By this time, Tom had used up enough of his boundless energy to actually stand still for a few moments. "All right, lady from another world. Are you ready for this? It's going to blow your mind!"

I smiled wryly at the engineer over my coffee. "After what's happened to me in the last several weeks? Go right ahead and try."

Tom laughed delightedly. "What you have there is definitely an Institute device. It's got their scientific fingerprints all over it! But there's a touch of another technology in there that even I can't identify! It appears to be a low level assembly language, and it's talking to the Institute programming like they were twins. The whole thing is encrypted, and I haven't managed to crack it yet, but I'll get there!" He stood up to pace restlessly in front of the terminal, half muttering to himself. "I'll get there."

I tried to bring his attention back to the discussion at hand. "You said there's more than one technology in there? Who's the second one?"

"Now that, that I don't know. I even ran through that memory tape from Dr. Amari and if I were to make a guess, it's the people who sent you that letter... that B.I.R.D. acronym company from your world. It's fascinating!" Tom whirled to tap away excitedly at his keyboard, ignoring us.

At this point, Deacon stepped in. "Tom, as much as we enjoy our guests' company, they really do need to be going at some point." He grabbed the excitable genius by the shoulder, turning him to face us again. "Would you be so kind as to tell them what you did find out about this fascinating little gadget?"

"Oh, yeah man! Check this out!"

What followed was a very long and somewhat rambling explanation of what Tinker Tom had uncovered so far. He expanded on his discoveries as we took a hasty meal in our chairs. Apparently, the Institute had programmed the delightful cybernetic enhancements that had extended into my body, allowing for the invocation of skills needed in the Wasteland: V.A.T.S., lockpicking, hacking, and the various computer interfaces.