FFF - Search for the fountain

You need to stay on task. The fountain will be outside the building in one of these gardens. You’re losing daylight. Cautiously, you keep your gloved hands ready on your rifle as you prowl, starting with the left side of the house. You duck through a metal gate covered in dead, brown vines. This must have been lovely once. You have seen enough photos of the old world to be able to picture the flowerbeds and statues that are now cracked, crumbling, and overgrown.

Rad Shrooms are growing like crazy here. You have to pick your way around carefully just to avoid stepping in the thick, moist patches of them. Your boots should protect you and you have a resistance to their effects, but even that has limits if too much of the toxin gets to you. There are so many of them that there are probably fumes in the air, and you have no resistance to that. Within minutes, you’re moving with an erection trapped by your underwear.

You find no other robots, although you do find the occasional skeleton. You’re not the first person to get in here, and there must be something dangerous around. This whole place tells a story. It was once a beautiful house, or intended to look like one… but little things give it away: the walls that surround it are tall and thick. There are little industrial touches that indicate that it was used for more than just comfortable living, although time hasn’t been kind to any of it. The way that the gardens are designed with multiple fences and gates… all the gates are open now, and half of them have rusted off their hinges, but at one time it’s almost as though this place must have been divided into sections. Almost like… you aren’t sure how to think of it, but it reminds of you the Vault, where you can use the big metal doors to seal off one section from another.

The fountain is in a large courtyard behind the house. Like the rest of the gardens, it’s overgrown, but someone has at least occasionally hacked away some of the creepers and vegetation. There are also fewer Rad Shrooms. You approach the fountain and look inside to find not a dry bottom, but a spiral staircase leading down. It’s just like Melody said.

You sit on the stone edge and swing your legs over, lighting up your Pip Girl and descending. The bottom is fifteen feet below the surface and you find two metal doors. One has a keypad and a security camera. The other is just a plain, blank, slab of metal.

You can’t pretend that you understand all this, but you remember how Mr. Handy let you through after apparently scanning your body. You know how some of the surface people have reacted to the sort of body that you have, and you haven’t forgotten the things in the woods.

Full of tension, you use your teeth to pull off one of your gloves and press your oily palm against the pad by the door. It lights up green and beeps at you.

The door opens.

The lights are flickering inside. You don’t like the look of this, but you can’t drag your feet. You lift the rifle and move in, discovering exactly what was promised to you: a laboratory. It’s nothing like the Vault. Many of the walls are glass, and you see desks, chairs, and outdated computers just like in the place where you spent the night with Melody.

Beeps and humming from machinery are audible and water drips somewhere. The lights buzz and the air is cool. The place is not small, but a lot of the equipment appears to still be functional. There’s dust and a sense of neglect, but… it’s not completely neglected. Someone’s obviously been down here.

You catch a hint of gunpowder in the air and notice some damage to the lab.

A sound makes you turn, pointing your rifle down the hallway. You heard a banging sound, but it was far off and might have been an echo.

In one room, you find a strange machine with a pink, soft opening attached to tubes and a jug. Are you supposed to put your penis in that? You can’t think of anything else.

This place is creepy.

One room looks larger than the rest. You slip quietly inside, keeping the muzzle of your rifle pointed at the floor as you gaze in awe at the big, cylindrical tanks.

There are shapes floating in them.

“Holy shit,” you murmur as you get closer, lifting your Pip Girl to have more light. This place has lights of its own, but they’re dim and spooky.

People are floating in the two tanks in front of you. The rest appear to be empty.

One of them is… your eyes widen. Memories crowd your brain in a confusing tangle. You see red hair. Daisy’s bare back. Glasses. A face smiling down at you, but it’s not Daisy’s.

You blink and shake your head, staring hard at the woman in the tank. Her hair is wild and red. Her body is slim, pale, and youthful. You know that face. You remember it, but you can’t believe it.

It’s Dr. Curio. But it can’t be. She hasn’t aged a day since she left the Vault a second time, years ago.

She’s alive. There’s a breathing mask fixed to her face and some other bulky contraption attached to a tube between her legs, covering her pubic region.

Swallowing, you turn to the other tank.

Shell floats there, attached to the same devices as Dr. Curio.

You take a step back, only to jump in surprise at a voice behind you. You whirl with your rifle to see what you’d initially mistaken for wreckage on the floor. It’s a robot but it’s damaged.

A screen lights up, displaying a woman’s face. Her blonde hair is short. She smiles at you from the screen, which is crooked because of how the robot lies on the ground. It’s a model you don’t recognize: it moves on treads, but has two primitive arms and a screen for a… face?

“Hello,” the robot says.

The lights flicker again.

“I’m glad you’re here.” The lady on the screen smiles.

Ask her what this place is?

Or ask how to get Shell and Dr. Curio out of the tanks?