The rest of the week was spent in the robotics class. Through the acquisition forms I'd ordered two stealth boys and other hard to acquire tech and chems. I was running low on funds despite the mayor giving me pretty much anything I wanted. I was planning to remake a stealth suit, make sent eliminating chemicals and soap, and re-arm myself. I needed funds and the best way I knew how in this world was killing. The bounty board in the town hall had multiple jobs and such that I looked through. Most were constant menial tasks with hard and deadly jobs appearing sometimes. One job was scouting a deathclaw nest to the north east and the stuff I was making would allow me to hunt them. One stealth boy was meant for my suit and the other to add to Radar. I'd be taking him with me to hunt the lizards with Elizabeth tied up far from the nest so that she doesn't get caught.
If I'm able to hunt them all I can take her into the nest with a wagon and haul deathclaws back to town to be sold to the butchers. If I got really lucky I'd be able to snag some fertilized eggs and sell them for massive amounts of caps. There wasn't a set price for them due to their sheer rarity and I could abuse that through the mayor and the Chey.
Robotics class had been an eye opening experience as I learned everything I could. The hardest part by far of course had been programming and learning coding languages. Fortunately the coding of robots used and easy to learn and simple language that was incredibly efficient in robotics use. Most terminals and other technologies used the same language but none took full advantage of it like robotics did.
My first project had been to create a basic AI. I had based it off of eyebot and Mr.Handy programming but had failed in its creation, much like most of my peers, as I was missing a critical aspect of the language. The aspect of change was what I had been missing. Through multiple loopholes and complex systems the program could bend and flex to adjust for assigned tasks and could eventually make that bending or flexing into and entire branch program.
I wasn't sure if my old world had anything like it but it explained the robots of this world and their penchant for having human like personalities. At the end of the week Joseph held a class meant for giving our complete AI a personality core. While the others tried to make something unique I already had something loaded. From one of my favorite characters I made a highly intelligent, sadistic assassin with a love of dry or sarcastic humor. HK-01 was basic and unrefined but I would be changing it. It's simulated mind was already referring to me as the superior meatbag and others as the minor meatbags. With access to vision and a voice he became an immobile box that insulted people and called them all meatbags. His constant threats of extreme violence and torture were brought up as being bad but it was sidelined by his sarcasm which matched the sarcasm that Arvand constantly used against him. The old man had become the smart wrinkled meatbag and Joseph had become the target of all his 'cut you down to size' insults.
Do to these insults however Joseph and I quickly clocked in on an error I had made in the programming. What is made was to complex for the hardware I had. I of course didn't listen to others in how to do the hardware update. Getting ahold of assultron parts was difficult and cost a decent chunk of my expenses but I got the frame and automaton musculature I wanted.
I was obviously going to make his body as close to the droid I had based him on. The HK body was still a work in progress when I finally started weapons class and got my stealth boy delivery. My starting project was a sonic emitter based on my words and contradictions to robotics Arvands energy shield. Weapons Arvand had heard of my from his brother and had practically stolen me from my attempts to understand my long rifle. I had given up early on though as I had nowhere close to enough understanding to do anything with the weapon. I knew that the lancers got education on their signature weapon but I certainly didn't.
The sonic emitter was simple in theory. A directed sonic pulse blast at a high enough level to cause damage or carry an EMP to a target. With the technology I had access to a damage dealing prototype was easy enough and most of the work was done by weapons Arvand. The EMP version was much more difficult. Not only did it force larger energy consumption but put massive strain on the technology. The weapon itself was functional but I couldn't harden it against its own EMP emissions for more than a few shots. This was of course solved when a peer brought in an EMP grenade. The idiot and his group had been fooling around and activated it while attempting to dismantle it for its parts. Weapons Arvand had snatched it and thrown it away but not before finding me in the way. It smacked my EMP sonic emitter and my hand snapped out in what felt like instinct. I couldn't even see what I did as the beeping of the device stopped dead.
Looking at the device I bring it closer in my left hand. My pointer finger and thumb were on a small indented knob with small grips. My middle and pinky held the grenade in my hand as my ring finger held down in the activation button. I slowly lowered the grenade to the table and lost control of my hand and arm as my fingers loosened. A small thump sounded as the weapon hit the table.
Pulling back I looked at my hand as weapons Arvand approached. Turning my hand over and looking to the device on my wrist I found something. On screen in the top right corner was a change to the previously blank background. A small loading bar with a percentage of 39%. Arvand took the EMP grenade from my table as I clicked my navigation wheel to my effects screen.
On it were the normal well rested, well fed, and well hydrated. However something new was below them all. Low Nutrient and Vitamin Counts. Navigating to the effect I expanded it and absorbed the info it gave.
[Deliberate Mutative Growth induced by experimental bio-technology connection via pipboy prototype.]
[Massive loss of essential nutrients and vitamins needed for mutation have been used by the mutations growth and are critically low.]
And last but thankfully not least.
[Further Information about Mutation Experiment can be accessed under FEV-PNAV-5.]
Switching to my data I easily find this information at the bottom with the label [Introduction to your new self]
Expanding it I find a basic introduction to the pipboy and a Robco statement of innocence to anything done with the pipboy that is outside their immediate control. FEV-PNAV-5 or Forced Evolutionary Virus Poly-Neural Anastomosis Vector -Version Five. I understood the name after a bit of difficulty. FEV was ingrained in my mind and the rest stood for the virus mutating me to connect me to my pipboy. Version five had a small expansion detailing the mutation as 'grants muscle memory of military technology and techniques to a near instinctive degree.'
Blinking at the information I'd just read tried to remember anything like that in this world. If this had been a less grounded version of Fallout then I'd have trusted that the info was accurate. In this world however there was actual science behind most things, even if I couldn't understand it. I could however make an educated guess at how this mutation gave me 'instinctive knowledge of tech and techniques.'
The mutation caused by this FEV strain likely connected my nervous system to the pipboy in some way and allowed the pipboys systems to develop control over what was connected to it. A thought flashed through my head at my guess. If the pipboy could do this stuff to my nerves and body then it could likely grant control to the makers of the device. Knowing pre-war scientists and the government this was probably a project meant to make super soldiers and give the enclave or someone control of these soldiers.
I wanted to yank the radio systems and other signal tech out but I could guess that most of the stuff for outside control was destroyed or never even built. It helped that pipboys had built in defenses to counter someone trying something with the radio and other systems. I could probably take a look at the stuff and upgrade or alter it to remove the chance of someone or something using the tech against me.
Looking past that info I found a more comprehensive info dump about the pipboys affect on me. The only important parts after reading stated that the prototype I was wearing was a discontinued model that was never intended for use despite showing success in its purpose. The only bad parts about wearing it was the initial installation pain, the cost of the FEV-PNAV mutation on my body, and that fact that the pipboy couldn't be removed unless I had a way to replace its functions within the mutant system.
The massive mutation cost was caused by it growing a secondary nervous system based on the pipboy and its immovable pipboy was due to the loss of control over the secondary nervous system as the pipboy acted as something like a brain for it. This was all worth it in my opinion as I'd just gotten an impromptu demonstration of its ability via an EMP grenade.
At the bottom of the information was a warning. 'Until installation and mutation is completed the user must expect loss of control in dangerous situations as the body and mutation interact in your instinctive acts to survive. Please be careful till mutation is complete as this loss of control can easily cost you and the company your life.'
That warning only cemented the fact in my mind that this prototype wasn't actually finished as Robco or Vault Tech wouldn't leave a warning like that for its users. Below the warning was a list of foods suggested for larger intake due to the mutation and gave a warning about checking the health monitoring as consistently as possible. After going through all the information I had available I understood that I couldn't do much about what was happening to me. This mutation was likely radaway and rad-x resistant so I couldn't just dose myself with them to get rid of it.
With that all in mind I ignored it all and went back to work on my sonic weapon project. Weapons Arvand had started an impromptu class on grenade technology and safety but I largely ignored it as I wasn't a dumbass that would mess with grenades and other explosives. After class I set an alarm to remind me to get the foods suggested by my info dump and went to take care of Elizabeth and run some tests on Radar to make sure he was doing alright with the changes I'd made to him.
Elizabeth was still the Queen she always was but was resting when I got to her. Her accommodations weren't the best and made her mood worse but she wasn't hostile to me so I was happy enough. After spending a few hours combing her hair and checking her health I patched up damages to her surroundings and ran tests on Radar. He was doing well enough and loved his upgraded sensors so I left him to his job and went for my foods.
Spinach was first in my list and was fortunately a decently common canned food. Eggs and meats were obviously less common and more expensive but I got ahold of plenty. Grains were highly common and definitely the cheapest. Lots of the suggested foods were rare or extinct in the region but pumpkin seeds covered some of what I needed and weren't to rare as they came in expensive candied and salted forms. Poultry such as chicken was easy to come by for protein and was already something I bought. Fish was rarer but easy enough to get. While the place I was now didn't have much of it the surrounding areas exported so much that it was easy to get plenty of tofu and soybean asked foods.
So after getting as much of the suggested foods as I could I went back to my place and made myself a big meal before downing some sleeping pills and clocking out to sleep in through most of Saturday as it was the only day I had off as I needed to head to my vehicular technology classes a day early due to the teacher finding out I had made multiple simple vehicles before.