[Sorry for the delay. Ended up permanently separating from my wife of 15 years and just had too much on my mind to focus on my fic. I'm currently watching the new season of Fallout and got some motivation back. Thanks for your patience.]
Alarms blared throughout the dome. We couldn't stay undetected for long after all.
As we made our way through the curving hall of the dome, we had silently dispatched a few scientists and robots.
But our luck ran out as one of them survived just long enough to hit an alarm button. I plunged an explosive bullet into his skull immediately afterward.
"Boss! Enemies!" Jonny alerted us to movement from one of the lab doors connected to the hallway.
I turned and saw another scientist followed by an assaultron and other robots.
The scientist spotted us and jumped behind a fallen gurney while the Assaultron sprinted toward us.
Lady was the first to fire, followed by Jonny after a short wind up of the gatling plasma.
I dual fired my pistols, while staying mindful of the scientist firing a laser pistol from his cover.
The Assaultron got torn apart by the collective fire and collapsed into a sparking heap.
Our shots then rained down on the scientist and other bots that were with him.
The flimsy gurney he hid behind was quickly shredded as well as the squid scientist behind it.
When we confirmed all the enemies were dead we marched forward.
We were pressing hard to secure the hostages before anything happens to them.
We plowed through any obstacles that we ran into. Scientists armed with laser, plasma weapons and sometimes plasmids like Electro Bolt or Incinerate, along with dozens of robots.
Some screamed and begged before we killed them. Some fought till their last breath. But we killed them all without exception.
We could see the experiments they performed in their labs as we encountered them.
We were almost there. Just a little further and we would have reached the lab where Elizabeth was.
But the dome began to shake unnaturally as soon as we reached it...
<><><><><>3rd<><><><><>
She was too weak to resist. Elizabeth wanted to struggle as the tube connected to her arm began to glow with an incoming red fluid.
As it crept closer, all she could do was flutter her eyelids. Whatever they injected her with already kept her body in a semi state of paralysis. She could still feel but she could not move.
The scientist, with his grotesque visage watched with delightful glee as the serum reached her arms and entered her veins. His face tentacles wriggled like a dog wagging their tail.
Monitors and instraments moved erratically as the process began.
The fluid entered into Elizabeth and for a moment there was only the quiet calm before the storm.
"Oh? How fascinating!" The scientist stated while looking at his terminal that was reporting her condition in lines of code.
Elizabeth felt a sudden heat flowing through her body and a deep pain ignited as glowing veins grew.
She wanted to scream but was unable to. The serum was taking its course and there was nothing she could do.
The scientist continued to monitor her with rapt attention until an alarm began going off.
"Huh? Intruders? At a time like this... Wait! What the hell is happening?!"
The alarms going off surprised him as there had never been a time that this alarm had been used in the past, but his attention was quickly diverted back to his terminal.
"No! How could this be..?!"
His words were cut off by a deep rumbling of power coming off Elizabeth in waves. The equipment began failing and sparks erupted through the room.
"How could a human subject handle this kind of power?!" He screamed as he tried his best to shut everything down and terminate the test subject, but unfortunately for him the system was already compromised and there was nothing he could do but watch.
Elizabeth felt it. Power thrumming through her, wild and unchecked. She had no control over it and she was in too much pain to try anyway...
<><><><><>1st<><><><><><>
"In here! This is it!" I shouted so they could hear me over the many sounds of sirens. We burst into the lab where Elizabeth was supposed to be held only to find hell.
A squid scientist frantically inputted commands into a terminal while the containment tube holding Elizabeth cracked and leaked fluid.
But what was most surprising was the small tears in space that were slowly materializing into existence and tearing the place apart.
I couldnt believe my eyes. A blue energy fizzled and popped in random places before a small opening in space would appear and begin to slowly expand.
'We were too late... they already experimented on her...' I thought with self loathing but I didn't have time to dwell. She was still alive even if she was currently out of control. She needed me.
"Kill the bastard, I'm going for her." Jonny and Lady nodded and moved forward. A lone robo-brain stood between them and the scientist.
But they didnt even need to dispatch the bot as before they could engage, a blue spacial tear formed in the same space the brain of the bot was.
The tear opened and all the matter that was there disappeared like it was gouged out of existence.
I moved toward Elizabeth not minding what was happening on their side. My focus was completely on her.
I sprinted through the lab to reach her while pinpoints in space opened up and tore everything they touched to shreds.
The entire space around her was becoming a mine field of spacial tears.
I activated VATS and used it to avoid those points as best as I could while moving toward Elizabeth, who was now standing in a broken empty pod while silently screaming into the air. Her body covered in blue veins and energy rolling off her like a tide.
As I dodged and weaved through the opening spacial tears, I saw glimpses of what was on the other side of some of them.
One had opened on top of a ruined skyscraper and a destroyed city could be seen. Maybe New York?
Another I saw a highway full of broken down and rotting vehicles.
But there was a few I saw things that were dangerous. The green glow of radioactive goo or the violent clash of people fighting.
These tears all lead to different places and not all of them were safe to leave open. My Geiger counter spiked hard from the radiation coming from the other side of several tears.
I didn't stop to admire any of this but kept moving toward Elizabeth.
I was only a few feet away from her where a spacial tear opened right in front of me. I managed to dodged left to avoid it but it grew rabidly and clipped by shoulder, causing a large piece of flesh to vanish.
"Ahh!" I gritted my teeth from the pain to move and quickly reach Elizabeth's side.
Blood rolled down my arm even as my healing factor began working to close it.
I managed to get to her and I threw my arms around her protectively.
"Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Snap out of it! You gotta control this or everyone here is gonna die!" I screamed as I tried to shake her out of it.
She was unresponsive but the power was flowing out of her instinctively.
I looked back and more spacial tears kept appearing. Lady and Jonny had already dispatched the scientist and now were backing up back to the door to avoid being torn to shreds by the hundreds of new tears that were forming.
If this kept up, the entire dome would crack and we would be crushed by tons of seawater. Or worse case scenario the entire world gets torn apart...
The thought of killing Elizabeth to save us crossed my mind for a moment but I shook my head and thought quickly of a solution that didnt involved eliminating her to end this.
I pulled a syringe from my inventory that contained the strongest sedative I had and then glanced back at her.
She was still out of control, but maybe if she was put to sleep it would end? I didnt know but it was the only solution I had.
I lined up the needle to her her neck as another tear opened behind me and was shredding my back.
I pushed in the needle and watched with bated breath as the sedative entered her.
"Come on! Fucking work you bastard!" I gritted my teeth from the pain but watched as her hollowed eyes rolled back into her head and her body went limp.
The blue veins receded and the energy coming from her began to dissipate.
I looked around the lab and breathed out in relief as I watched the tears begin to close.
But there was one issue I still had to take care of before this was settled.
One of the tears had let in a large amount of rads and I could see that Elizabeth had absorbed too many.
As a child without resistances or immunity there were bright yellow boils that were starting to appear on her skin.
I quickly pulled out a pouch of Rad-Away and injected the end into her vein while I held the bag up. After few moments it appeared to be working as the boils stopped growing on her skin.
As an extra measure I pulled out one of my remaining survival syringes and injected her with that as well.
I collapsed to the floor with the little girl in my arms and another dead silence took the room.