Chapter Text
Nora had learned a while ago that following Institute synths on scavenging runs always led to good things. After the first few trips turned up a series of interesting pieces of tech, a few Brotherhood Knights had asked in their exceedingly rude way where she'd gotten them. Blueprints had been copied, handed to Quinlan, and then Elder Maxson had asked if he could join her on these missions to ensure that their alliance was working as intended, and to ensure also that his skills didn't wither on the Prydwen. It wouldn't do to come up against the Institute and find that he was no longer as good as he used to be. Nora, stifling her complaints, figured it wouldn't hurt to have a man over 6 feet tall hauling a gatling laser around on her missions, and agreed to notify him when she next headed out on one.
And so here she was, searching a synth corpse in the remains of some old house for anything that might tell her what they had come here for.
Finally, tucked away, she found something - it looked like an ID card. What it was now to be used for was another question entirely.
“Found a keycard,” she called over to the Elder. Holding it out, she toed the synth corpse away. “Somewhere in the house should have somewhere for us to swipe this.”
Arthur had been rifling through a few papers when he heard her call to him, his head turning to glance at her over his shoulder before he tossed the stack onto the desk where he’d found it—they were filled with useless notes, anyway.
“Excellent work, General,” he praised, making his way over to her and stepping over a robotic corpse in the process. “Hopefully, we can find where it goes, but I haven’t seen anything it would even remotely belong to.”
Nora turned it over to see if anyone had left anything on it - a name would be nice - but it was blank. She looked around the room. “Assuming this belongs to a scientist, I’m thinking this is a lab keycard, which means he needs somewhere for the lab. And probably not somewhere too in sight.” She looked up. And up. Fuck, she always forgot how tall he was. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re right,” he agreed, meeting her gaze for a moment before stepping away. He clasped his hands behind his back as he slowly traversed the room, observing each spot he passed. “It might be hidden behind something, then. Or under something, like a rug with a ladder leading down to a cellar?”
“It wouldn’t be upstairs.” Nora looked over at where a darkened doorway led into another room. “And definitely not in this room.” Most of the walls were destroyed. But she stepped over to the doorway, turning on her PipBoy to illuminate the dark. The pale purple beam swept over it, and she took another step in. “Not to sound like an idiot, but if it’s in any room, it’s gonna be in here.”
Following, he stuck close by since she was the sole source of light even though the room was small, and his eyes were immediately looking around, only to zero in on the bookshelf nearby. It was… cliché, but possible. Maxson hummed before breaking off from her and moving over to it, running his fingers along the books.
The fact that there even were books on this shelf was suspicious, and she shone her light around it. It brought up a noticeable lack of dust and some faint scratchmarks on the floor. Letting out a quiet ‘huh,’ she moved over to join Maxson by the books.
“So, do we pull them all until they hopefully reveal something, or…?”
“No need,” he answered before moving to the side of the bookshelf, then pushing his weight against it and lifting to swing it open—it was just a door.
The card reader gleamed, metallic and out of place, with a large metal panel beside it. Nora swiped it. “Well, whatever the Institute was searching for,” the door slid open from the top, disappearing down into the ground, “hopefully, we can take it from them.”
Lifting the light, she shined it over the new doorway to reveal a staircase that headed down. Lights lit the floor, soft, if slightly stark, white, and she scanned the walls and floors for traps, cameras, anything, even turning her light off to see if a laser showed in the darkness. But there was nothing, and she took a step in.
The immediate clean smell hit her - the radioactive tang and sour smells of the outside world disappeared. It wasn’t like anything she’d ever smelt - the Prydwen was all metal and people, the Vault cold and wet, and even hospitals hadn’t smelt this sterile.
Maxson had gone back to retrieve Final Judgment before descending the stairs behind her, his nose crinkling at the smell—it was almost gagging him—but he kept close by as they reached the bottom of the steps, where it only grew stronger. “What is that stench?” he asked with clear disgust in his voice.
“Whatever it is, it’s keeping this place spotless,” Nora murmured, as they made their way down the stairs. The whole place was gleaming, the air still and filtered. “I have a feeling nobody’s been here in a while.”
With an annoyed grunt, his nose crinkled again, and he mumbled to himself. “What the hell were they doing down here?”
All that was at the bottom of the stairs was a door, recessed into the wall. Nora spotted another reader, and swiped the card into it. Once more, the door slid into the ground, revealing a small corridor, and at the end of it, another door.
“For fuck’s sake,” she muttered, looking around briefly. Once more, there didn’t seem to be any traps, so she stepped towards the door and swiped this one.
This door, however, slid away to reveal a room. It was just as sterile-smelling as the corridor, if not more, and lit up by lights that were bright but not blinding. It was clean, though - no dust, no dirt, no blood or guts or anything to indicate a fight. That was suspicious as fuck.
Peeping her head in, she looked around, and then took a few steps in, turning her light off. Nothing happened. She waited a little longer, but if something had changed, it wasn’t obvious.
The room must have run underneath the house, and it looked like a lab. Metal units lined the walls on either side, some with cupboards above. Various beakers, bunsen burners and other scientific equipment scattered about the place, and as she stepped further in, she noticed a terminal at the end. Making another check for traps, she began to carefully make her way over to it.
Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, he fanned out from her to check for hostiles and secure the area, being cautious of any traps, his attention focused solely on his surroundings since he trusted her to be careful and take care of herself—the room wasn’t terribly large, anyway, so he was still able to keep an eye on her. Checking beneath desks and in any tight spaces someone might hide, once he was sure there weren’t any enemies in the room with them, he moved over to her and set his weapon on the ground.
The terminal was protected by a password, but it didn’t take Nora long to crack it. There were a bunch of different entries here. Some had clinical names. The others…
She clicked the first, titled found a good place.
July 8th 2287
Got myself set up. Didn’t take much to biometrically reprogram the chips in the synths they sent after me so that they worked for me instead of that swaggering asshole Ayo. Going to get started immediately. Bioscience might have mocked me, but when I perfect my formula, they’ll be begging me to let them use even a drop of it.
“Well, whoever they were, they were making something,” she noted. “They didn’t leave a name, though. Strange.”
Rather than hovering over her, Arthur opted to lean on the desk beside the terminal, arms crossing over his chest. “I take it they didn’t explain what they were working on, either,” he said as he looked over at her. “I can search the place while you keep reading, if you’d like.”
Nora nodded, and reached into her bag to pull out a spare holotape. She slotted it into the terminal, and set the files to copy over as she moved to the next entry. There wasn’t really much she understood - it mentioned something about pheromones, chemical uninhibitors, stuff she would need specialised knowledge for.
“Neriah or Quinlan would probably have more use for this,” she commented. “He said he was from Bioscience, from the Institute, so he wasn’t with them, but he doesn’t seem particularly good either.”
“I’m sure they’d appreciate the opportunity to look at whatever we find,” he replied, having moved away from her as he started going through drawers and cabinets, searching for anything useful. Most papers contained notes that were beyond him, but he’d likely send a team of Scribes to retrieve them some time later, as well as any technology that could be useful that he and the General didn’t take with them when they left.
The terminal flashed, showing it had finished copying the files, and Nora ejected the tape from it. When they were done here, she would ask him to drop her off at Diamond City.
Day 30
I finally did it! The hormonal reaction was successful! Field tests were conclusive for that part, at least. I doubt the long term effects will be visible - Raiders have pathetically short lives, but at least I know my next subject will be less likely to need so much. You never know what they’ve taken.
I had to dose her heavily. After that she staggered back off towards her camp, mumbling incoherently. Sadly I wasn’t able to stick around to record additional data.
While she read the next entry, Arthur opened another cabinet to search it, but a container abruptly tumbled out. He quickly attempted to catch it, though the object bounced off his hands and fell onto the floor with a crash, combined with the Elder growling ‘shit!’
Pink liquid spilled out onto the immaculate floor and a translucent cloud of gas abruptly wafted up into the air. Something beeped.
The lights turned red. Cursing, Nora looked up, and the door slid shut.
“Fuck,” she hissed, and pushed off from the worktop, running for the door. The keycard flashed in the reader, and the door made a noise but didn’t open. “Oh, come on!” she yelled, swiping again. Beep, nothing.
Maxson was immediately at her side, reaching up and sliding his fingers against where the door connected to its base to try to pull it down, though it was a futile attempt. “Fuck,” he groaned, letting his arms fall back to his sides after a moment.
He wasn’t normally clumsy, but having just let a container of some unknown chemical fall and break, now seemingly locking them in the room together, might have said the exact opposite. They didn’t know what the chemical was nor if it were dangerous, and it didn’t seem like they had any way out of the room, either, let alone a way to contact someone for help. But how long would they be stuck there?
“Did the notes you read say what this stuff was?”
Nora ran back to the terminal. The taste of berries started to settle on her tongue, but she quickly forgot all about that.
24 hour lockdown initiated
23 hours, 55 minutes remaining
“Ah hell,” she growled, tapping esc.
The green warning remained on the screen. She turned the screen off, then the terminal.
23 hours, 54 minutes remaining
“Oh for- god damnit,” she muttered. “At least I got it all on the holotape.”
Running his hands down his face, Arthur released a heavy sigh. “Great. Well, maybe that’ll tell us something. We need to—“ he paused, his face crinkling in confusion as the taste of berries finally registered on his tongue, but he just shook his head and continued, “—We need to figure it out quickly to make sure this isn’t harmful. What did you find so far?”
“Something about hormones,” she replied, and slotted the tape into her PipBoy. “He wanted to study its long term effects, so I don’t think it’s going to kill us. He seemed to be using it as some kind of drug, though, so… prepare for side effects. He didn’t mention the size of the dose he gave his test subject but it was big and it left her weak somehow.”
“Hormones,” he repeated under his breath, dull nails scratching his jaw beneath his beard. “Doesn’t sound good. I would keep searching, but…” he paused, glancing over to the pool of liquid on the floor, “He doesn’t seem to have stacked his cabinets well.”
Nora scrolled through the list on her PipBoy, and stepped back towards the cabinet. The movement meant her suit was suddenly pulled tight against her core, and she bit down a sudden moan that wanted to escape her, trying to keep her expression neutral as she walked past the Elder. There were other samples in the cabinet, all neatly stacked.
“That, or he was in a hurry,” she mused.
The smell of the berries was thicker here, and though it was filling the whole room, every breath around this part seemed to slide down her throat like a warm hand, a warm, masculine hand whose fingers were tipped with gun calluses-
Straightening up, she briskly walked over to the furthest part of the room from the Elder and leaned back against the unit. “You keep looking,” she suggested. “See if there’s anything else in the room. I’ve got some reading to do and we’re in here for 24 hours.”
He eyed her suspiciously when her movements became sudden, almost frantic, and she put distance between them—was her voice different, too?
“I don’t mind reading. I would prefer it, actually—“
Nora cleared her throat. “My PipBoy, my rules.”
“Oh. Well, alright,” he conceded. “I will… keep looking for anything that might be able to help.” Maxson glanced around, then moved toward one of the desks, pulling a drawer open and rifling through it. He continued through a second desk before something caught his attention—a card scanner, one that was identical to the scanners they’d come across before, on the wall. After briefly eyeing it, he glanced back at Nora. “General, where’s the ID card you had? Looks like there might be something here,” he called.
She looked up, and fished the card out of her pocket, placing it on the nearby surface. “Here you go.” She scrolled through to find the entries.
The Elder was quick to make his way over to where she placed the card and snatched it off the counter, returning to the scanner and swiping it through. After a green light and a couple beeps, the door slid open from the top, revealing a separate room—a bedroom, specifically. “Huh,” he murmured to himself as he cautiously stepped into the room, glancing around.
It was about half the size of the lab they were stuck in, which was still fairly big, considering. There was a decently large bed and dresser to hold clothes in one area that likely acted as a bedroom; in another closed-off corner was a shower, toilet, and sink; and there were even some… well, decorations, like plants and a painting, though the plants were dead. The smell of everything being overly-clean was still there.
“It’s a bedroom,” he called out to her, his tone slightly impressed with what he was seeing.
Nora looked up. “Oh? What’s it got in it?” She reached the next entry, the one she’d been going to read before the computer had locked down.
“Bed, dresser, bathroom, including a shower. Got some nice plants, too. You might want to take them back to the Castle when we leave,” he answered while he went to the dresser and pulled open one of the drawers to see what was in it, then shut it and sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress was firm but nowhere near as bad as the beds on the Prydwen.
“Mhmm,” she replied, distracted.
Day 49
The worst part of being on the surface is the inability to procure specimens that you can keep under controlled conditions. This lab is barely big enough for me, let alone another test subject or two. I’m making do where I can, using scavvers to test my formula. Most of them are more than happy to get high on unknown substances. A few kept coming back, actually.
I noticed a significant difference in their physical health each time they returned - increased weight, healthier skin, hell, even better posture. None of the female subjects seem to be multigravida - in fact I would be completely certain most of them are nulligravida. But hopefully by the end of this experiment we shall see if this proves otherwise. The formula has proven resistant to common Wasteland emmenagogues, so unless the subjects undergo significant life-endangering situations of stress, results should be forthcoming within the next few months.
Nora blinked, and sat up. Nulligravida? Oh god, had he been checking if they were pregnant?! She swallowed, looking at the puddle on the floor. It… no. No way. No. Way. Well, she could pretend all she wanted that she didn’t know what this shit was doing to her, but Nora wasn’t going to lie to herself.
This was a fertility drug that was filling the air with its sweet, potent scent, and she was locked in for 24 hours with Arthur fucking Maxson.
“You should get some rest,” she called. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us.” She tried not to let her voice crack. He needed to be in that room now, and he needed to stay there. Or one of them might do something stupid.
By the time she’d suggested he get some rest, Arthur was lying back on the bed, his legs hanging off the side of the mattress, eyes closed. Yeah, this was definitely better than his bed on the ship, and he’d have no issue getting rest. As much rest as his mind ever allowed, at least.
But with her suggestion, Maxson shed his coat, tossing it onto the nightstand beside the bed as he scooted back to lay properly. “Are you not going to sleep, General?” he asked. “You need to rest, as well.”
“I can’t sleep in here. It… reminds me of the Vault. I’m ok,” she added hurriedly. “I just can’t sleep in places I can’t leave.”
“Oh. My apologies. I didn’t even think…” he paused, glancing toward the open doorway, “If you need anything, I’ll be in here.”
In here. In the bedroom. The heat in her throat bloomed beneath her skin, running like hot water underneath the jumpsuit that suddenly felt too tight. She could feel the sudden stiffness of her nipples. The heat fell lower, and Nora hurriedly brought up the next entry, pressing her thighs together and forcing herself not to rub them against one another.
“Yes, thank you,” she mumbled, her gaze fixed firmly on the PipBoy. “Have a good rest.”
Grunting lightly, he laid back on the bed, sprawling out and closing his eyes; it didn’t take long for sleep to take him.
Day 72
Several of the scavvers disappeared. What a waste of a wealth of information. I may need to go further afield. Literally. If I want to see some proper results I need to use subjects from sedentary lifestyles. Diamond City should have a good source of those. I wonder if that man who was selling chems is still alive, and if he’d be interested in some new stock…
Nora sucked in a breath as that heat began to throb, and the urge to reach down and touch herself became hard to ignore. Swallowing, she removed her hat.
She wondered if the gas was hitting him as hard as it was hitting her. Nora bit her lip. 24 hours. 24 fucking hours. That throbbing came again, pulsing in a wet heat that had her desperately trying to keep her breathing even. The fabric of her bra scraped against her nipples, tormenting her with each breath like flecks of heat. Keeping her thighs as close together as possible, she leaned back against the unit and scrolled through entries.
The first entry was simply labelled ‘Formula’ and Nora scrolled through the notes again, pressing her thighs together and stifling her whimper. Gravis Libido Formula was at the top of the notes, and Nora knew enough Latin to ensure that the point was hammered home - this formula was aimed to enhance sexual arousal and ensure pregnancy. Which meant if they gave into it, she would be pregnant, without fail. Because as she scrolled down, what she was reading seemed to be notes from a presentation, describing how the women of the post-bomb world had suffered massive reductions in fertility, and this would be the answer to all those problems. Now she understood what the author of those notes had meant by long term effects and why he hadn’t bothered using the Raider to test anything other than the short term effects of the gas.
Her right hand moved between her thighs, pressing against the seam of the suit. The fabric wasn’t thick, and Nora began to rub, very slowly, swallowing down the moan that tried to escape her as she found her clit and pressed. Her legs spasmed, and her left hand clamped over her mouth. She shouldn’t. But now that she knew what the effects of the gas were…
Through the haze of arousal, something occurred to her. She pushed off from the unit and staggered over to the cupboard, opening it very, very slowly to reveal rows of containers, all with the same number as the one that Arthur had dropped. She took them all out and one by one carefully moved them into her satchel, then found a cloth. By the time she returned to the puddle, the taste of berries was thick on her tongue again and she was hot, panting. She ended up simply dropping the cloth into the formula and leaving it to soak. Drugging effects aside, if this could be used safely, there were a lot of women on the surface who would appreciate access to this.
Nora wasn’t going to need it, after all. She had no plans for more children. Not even with tall, dark-haired Brotherhood Elders who could pin her down with one hand and rip off her-
The zip of her Vault suit had come undone somehow. Totally on its own. She closed her eyes, exhaling heavily, and leaned back against the cabinet and pulled off her gloves, tossing them on top of her hat, then shed her coat. Whatever she did, she could not think about the man in the bedroom nearby. She would not start tugging her suit off, slipping it over her shoulders and down to her waist where she would let it hang whilst she pressed her fingers against her clit through her suit again.
Wait.
Fuck.