29th May 2282
14:43 MTZ
**[A mutant in heavy metal plate armour, spikes on his shoulders and a cybernetic replacing his right eye.]**
I nod. "
Attis."
**[A force of Brotherhood of Steel paladins attacking a mutant force… Underground somewhere? They're gradually forced back and I see their leader get struck down. His helmet gets torn off and-.]**
"No, that… Didn't happen.
Rhombus beat Attis. He retired to be a farmer. The Texans have a memorial where he's buried."
**Yes.**
**[An elderly Rhombus guiding a plough behind a pair of brahmin.]**
**[Attis taking a volley of gauss gun shots to the left arm and chest and being forced to retreat. Shale takes command, but the charge against Brotherhood lines fails a little while later.]**
"I… Don't know if that was exactly what happened, but it seems more correct than the first version."
**[Attis falls to his knees, the flesh of his body expanding to fill an entire arena.]**
"Ah… I think we'd have noticed-."
**Something changed.**
"I don't think you can change something that didn't happen." I frown. "Unle-. Time travel?"
**I don't know. We don't know.**
I wince as her voice changes, getting an… Echoey quality, with the echoes coming from different voices. The.. only thing I've heard like it was the way Crimson Acolyte psychics could speak in unison, but… But the voices
here are far more human.
"You're seeing different things and some of them didn't happen." I shake my head. "Could it be that the super mutants have their own psychic disrupting what you see? My people haven't really studied prognostication in the same way we have other psychic phenomena."
**[An image of a ghoul-inhabited city-. Los, I know it all too well. Super mutants patrol the streets while the cloak-shrouded ghouls try to avoid drawing their attention.]**
"Okay, but is that what's actually happening or what
didn't happen?"
**We don't know!**
Augh!
**[Hundreds of people suspended off the ground in a cavernous room, tubes and wires connecting them to the floor and ground. All of them shouting the same words!]**
I
glare at the First Chorister.
**Don't
do that. I can't absorb the shock without a network and I don't
have one here.**
**I am sorry but we grow frustrated! Things are not as we see them!**
I…
I turn to Dr. Saunooke.
"Do they have access to the outside world without their psychic powers?"
He shakes his head. "We haven't found a way to safely disconnect them. Their bodies just.. aren't used to doing things for themselves anymore."
Which is… Fixable. Probably not
here, but Vault City could fix it and so could I if we were back in Groom Lake.
"Can you get a television in here?"
"Not down here, no. This part of the facility is shielded against radiation, which includes radio waves."
"Okay, no live broadcasts, but could you play tapes?"
"
Holotapes?"
Yes, because instead of inventing CDs like back home or crystal rods like we use in Groom Lake, the people of this Earth invented a sort of ultra-high density laser readable magnetic tape for improved data storage. The first time I saw one it look me back to the long car journeys my family took during holidays to visit relatives, where my sister and I put our personal tape players on at the start and only took them off to ask for replacement batteries.
"A cellulose reel would be fine if you've
got any. The lack of variety is making them obsess over their psychic visions. I-." I turn to Mr. Entertainment. "You haven't reinvented cable television, have you? I'm pretty sure that my people can work out how to manufacture fibre optic cables."
He shakes his head, his mood genuinely becoming more sombre for the first time since I met him.
"No can do. Twenty third century America is nothing like stable enough for that kinda infrastructure project. And without infrastructure, there's no demand."
I nod. Like electric cars: without charge points no one will buy them, and without electric cars to use them no one will build charge points.
"But we can get a cinescreen down here in a couple of days, if the doc thinks that'll help the Choir." He brightens up slightly. "Heck, my singing voice might be a little rusty, but I wouldn't be much of a Tubehead if I couldn't set up an impromptu solo performance."
"Thank you." Okay. **First Chorister, do you have any visions of the inside of Los that
don't contradict what we know about history?**
**[A miserable looking Shale standing in front of a computer terminal.]**
**That's plausible, but I don't see-.**
**[A vat of cancerous flash PAIN-.]**
I stagger back, clasping my head in a hopeless attempt to block out the agony! I keep-. Trying to tell myself that these visions shouldn't involve telepathic contact as they're not happening
now, but so far my brain…
Really hasn't gotten the message.
**O
kay, now,
this time,
don't show me. Just tell me.**
**It is easier to show-.**
**It's
really not.**
**There are great vats under the city. The same substance that the researchers injected into us.**
I nod. **FEV
can induce telepathic abilities.**
**Shale vanishes. The remains of Attis vanish. The machine vanishes. Something appears that we cannot clearly see.**
I don't want to know. But I
need to.
**Show me what you can.**
…king up.
Uh?
I blink-. Hospital, I'm in a… Hospital? I'm an FEV enhancile, I should-.
I push myself up and Dr. Saunooke tries to push me back down. He's not strong enough to force me, but now I'm… I'm still in the Watonga Correctional Facility. Okay.
"What happened?"
"I-I don't know. You and the First Chorister were just staring at each other, then your-. Your eyes and ears started bleeding and you fell over. I was-. I wasn't sure that you
would recover."
"How long?"
"Maybe an hour?"
I nod. "The First Chorister tried to show me what we're going to have to face. I…"
Screaming. Lots of screaming. And a… Chest with a mouth in it and tentacles all around…
"I think we might need to rethink our priorities."