The M60 tank roared into the facility, its treads screaming against the concrete as it slammed into the forward platform. Without missing a beat, Vance leveled the 105mm cannon and unleashed a shell directly into the Robo-scorpion's core.
The explosion was deafening. The giant's torso plating shattered, venting sparks and hydraulic fluid, but the machine groaned and held its ground. The tank didn't stop to admire the handiwork; Vance kept the M60 in a tight, aggressive circle, flanking the beast as the loader slammed another shell into the breach. The second shot shrieked through the air, catching the scorpion's massive tail dead-on and shearing the "stinger" laser assembly into scrap metal.
The main column of Rangers flooded into the hangar behind the steel vanguard. Jacob stood his ground, leaning into the recoil as he peppered the giant's torso with a relentless stream of .50 BMG rounds. The other Rangers followed his lead, the air filling with the high-pitched hum of Tesla cannons and the roar of missile launchers. Each impact sent a fresh cascade of sparks and shrapnel flying across the arena.
"KEEP IT COMING, RANGERS!" Jacob's voice boomed over the chaos, his Browning M2 glowing red-hot from the sustained fire.
Case and Milla sprinted along the elevated catwalks, their boots clattering on the metal grating. From his higher vantage point, Case methodically punched .50 caliber holes into the giant's leg joints, while Milla emptied her 12.7mm "Bolter" into its side. The smell of acrid gunpowder and scorched wiring became suffocating, but the Rangers were relentless.
"Don't let it attack!" Milla shouted over the chaos, her gatling lasers lighting up the smoke-filled room.
The giant Robo-scorpion swayed, its internal systems screaming in a digital death rattle as the combined weight of the Rangers' firepower tore it apart. The Rangers didn't let up; they didn't care about the machine's mechanical agony—they just wanted it dead.
Suddenly, Vance's voice cut through the comms, sharp and urgent. "I SEE A GLOWING CORE! WATCH OUT, IT'S GOING TO BLOW!"
Through his scope, Case saw it too—a brilliant, pulsing blue light emanating from the jagged hole in the beast's chest. The M60's turret swiveled with lethal precision. Vance didn't go for another explosive shell; he loaded a sabot. The high-velocity kinetic penetrator shrieked through the air, punching straight through the center of the glowing core.
The sabot shattered the reactor with surgical force and… nothing. There was no cataclysmic explosion, no shockwave to level the hangar. The blinding blue light simply flickered and died. The massive machine emitted a long, low whine that sounded like a slowing turbine, and then every motor, gear, and sensor simply powered down.
The Giant Robo-scorpion was finally still. It sat there, a hollowed-out monument of scrap metal and scorched wiring. Not a single creature in the Mojave—no matter how legendary—could have survived a direct 105mm sabot to the heart, and this was the ultimate proof.
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the sound of hot metal cooling and the heavy breathing of the Rangers. The "Steel Wall" of T-60s lowered their machine guns, and the infantry began to emerge from cover, staring at the ruin of the Big MT's greatest guardian.
"Clear!" Jacob called out, his voice echoing in the now-quiet hangar. "Check your corners, but I think the big bastard's done for."
The Rangers didn't hesitate. They fanned out across the grease-stained floor, their boots crunching on glass and twisted metal. Some began scavenging for high-tech components, while others moved to secure the terminal banks that lined the walls of the massive hangar.
"Search for any entrance, any loot—let's get to it, people!" Case barked the order, his voice amplified by the Elite Riot Gear's external speakers. "Core team, let's confront Mobius! Rendezvous at my location."
Within seconds, the inner circle converged on Case at the base of the secondary blast doors. Jacob and Amelia arrived first, their T-60 suits hissing as they vented heat, the massive barrels of their weapons still smoking. Milla emerged from the shadows near the catwalks, her 12.7mm "Bolter" held at the high-ready, her stealth suit shimmering back into visibility.
"The doors lead to the Forbidden Zone dome," Case said, checking his HUD. "Mobius is just on the other side. Remember: nobody pulls a trigger unless I say so. We're here to negotiate our position."
"Roger that, Case," he said.
Case stepped through the heavy blast doors, his boots thudding softly on the floor of the inner sanctum. The room was a mirror image of the Think Tank, but the atmosphere was entirely different. Instead of the sterile, neon-blue hum of the other scientists, this place was draped in a sickly green light. Chalkboards lined the walls, covered in frantic, overlapping equations, and the air smelled of stale chemicals and old paper.
In the center of the room, the floating tank of Doctor Mobius hummed unevenly. The rig looked ancient and neglected—one of the monitors was completely dead, and the glass of the brain jar was clouded with grime.
"Let me handle the talking," Case said quietly over the squad comms.
"No problem, Case. We'll keep a watch on him," Jacob's muffled voice crackled back from his T-60. He and Amelia took up flanking positions, their massive frames casting long shadows against the chalkboard-covered walls, while Milla faded into the greenery of the corner.
As Case approached, the rusted machinery of Mobius's chassis hissed, and the remaining monitors flickered to life.
"Mmm, yes, hello there? Eh, you, all of you, are there, aren't you? Pardon my confusion, hard to tell these days," Mobius's voice wavered, sounding more like a confused grandfather than a world-ending threat. The screen drifted closer to Case, the digital eye squinting. "You seem familiar somehow. I'm guessing… eh... You're here for your brain, perhaps? It's just up there. Such a… depressed brain, very bright, yet very gloomy."
The monitor nodded toward a high, glowing pedestal in the back of the room. "Can you walk to my right POV cone, first?"
Case looked at the flickering, dead screen on the left side of the rig. "No replacement parts, Mobius?"
"Depth perception is a problem, went black a while ago. That's old age, and the Big Mountain is older," Mobius sighed, a sound translated through a raspy speaker. "Should look at the visual nerves reattached... hallucinations. The flying tortoise is the worst. Do you want Mentats?"
Case looked at the "Mad Scientist," seeing the tragedy beneath the drugs. Mobius wasn't the villain the Think Tank described; he was a simple brain-har who had stayed at his post so long he'd forgotten why he was there, or why he was forgetting.
Case shook his head, declining the offer of chemical enhancement. "No thanks. Anyway, that's my brain, right?"
"Yes, that's your brain. Do you really need it? Does it even want to go back with you?" Mobius asked, his voice drifting in a drug-induced haze. "Maybe you should ask it. It is quite independent, has all manner of opinions. Tell you what, I'll leave it up to your brain; you should respect its wishes."
"You said depressed, huh? What?" Case frowned. He felt fine—focused, even. He knew he had a past—the scars of the Legion, the memory of chains—but he hadn't realized the organ itself was holding onto that weight so heavily.
"About your brain… well, I have no idea what you've been through, but your brain asked me to destroy it. Kill it," Mobius explained, his remaining monitor flickering sadly. "Of course, nothing chems couldn't fix, but hearing its life story, you've been through a lot of trauma as far as I can see. It's quite... vocal about its dissatisfaction with your previous life choices."
Case looked up at the jar on the pedestal, a strange chill running down his spine. He pushed the thought aside for a moment and focused on the flickering hardware in front of him. "Anyway, about your monitor? I think I can fix it. The ghost perception is coming from your broken screen, right?"
"The ghosts aren't real? That changes everything!" Mobius exulted, his tank bobbing excitedly in the air. "Why, I can save my computing power for something other than perceptual impossibilities!"
The massive brain tank hovered down to Case's level. Case stepped forward, his armored fingers surprisingly delicate as he inspected the ancient wiring. He saw the culprit immediately: a frayed receptor and a misaligned visual relay.
"The receptor is here," Case muttered, reaching into the chassis. "And the side-switching wobbly-bob... just need to turn that." He clicked a toggle and re-seated a glowing vacuum tube.
"Good, good... better. Oh-ohhhh yes! That feels wonderful!" Mobius cried out as the dead monitor suddenly flared to life with a crisp green display. "This feels better than my afternoon Mentats break! I can see the corners of the room! I can see... oh, my, you have quite a lot of friends with very large guns."
Jacob and Amelia shifted their weight, their T-60 armor groaning, but they kept their weapons lowered.
"Anyway, I want to ask you, Mobius—well, more like remind you of something," Case said, stepping back from the repaired rig.
"Owhh, let me hear it," Mobius replied, his two functional monitors now zooming in on Case with newfound clarity.
Case stood firm, the amber light of his visor reflecting off Mobius's freshly repaired monitors.
"You're acting the part of the mad scientist—all that 'wobbly dobbly' talk—because you're trying to scare the Think Tank into submission, right?" Case asked, his voice steady. "Your colleagues, back when they were humans... they weren't exactly 'good' people. You're not actually as aggressive as you pretend to be when you're broadcasting to them."
Mobius's screens flickered, his digital eyes blinking in a rapid, processing stutter. "Oh, well... I've forgotten a lot of things. Luckily, your brain is quite the repository of databases for this world. I think, yes... I did the things I did because of raisins. No, wait... reasons."
"Yeah, that's why you sent the robo-scorpions," Case continued, leaning in slightly. "But why target the Rangers? Why the aggression toward my people?"
"Rangers?" Mobius drifted back a few inches, his cameras whirring as he looked at Jacob and Amelia's imposing silhouettes. "Those are not lobotomites? Why... my mistake. My apologies! My robo-scorpions will stand down immediately. But I must say... all of you look strangely familiar. Like a memory I've filed under 'Do Not Open Until Apocalypse'."
Case took a step forward, gesturing to the team. "Doctor, if I may, we want to offer our services to the Big Empty. We're not here to destroy it."
"My... a pair of new assistants?" Mobius's voice sounded almost hopeful, the static clearing as he focused.
"Yes. But I need you to disable the recursion loop. Stop lobotomizing people. We need our scientists bright and functional, not stuck in a loop of insanity."
Mobius stayed silent for a long moment, his cooling fans the only sound in the room. "Why...? Why did I place the recursion loop? Ah... I just remembered. Yes. Klein, Borous, 8, 0, and Dala. The radar fence... yes, that's why I did what I did. The world isn't ready for a lot of 'Think Tanking.' They would strip the Mojave bare just to see how the dirt tastes."
"And with us," Case said, his voice carrying the weight of the army waiting outside, "we believe we can turn the Think Tank toward a more... ethical path."
Mobius tilted his tank, his primary monitor zooming in on Case's face. "Are you sure about your plan, Case? To rule the geniuses who have forgotten their own names?"
"Yes, we're sure," Case replied, looking back at Jacob, who gave a sharp, supportive nod. "We will keep them in check. Whether it's out of fear, or out of... Science."
"I'm not sure… but let's try your idea," Mobius said, his monitors bobbing in a slow, rhythmic circle. "And about your brain, it's right there, in case you want to talk to them. Alright, you've convinced me. Now, let me remember… what was I saying again? Something about raisins?"
"Arghhh, let's just disable the recursion loop ASAP," Case muttered, shaking off the doctor's eccentricities. "Is there any data or a manual I can use to bypass the lockdown?"
"It's in my terminal, yes, there… or perhaps here," Mobius replied, waving a mechanical manipulator vaguely toward a cluster of ancient, humming computer banks at the edge of the room.
Case didn't waste a second. "Team, scrounge up any terminal that has the word RECURSION on it. If found, tell me," he ordered.
"Alright, Case, got it," Milla replied, her stealth suit shimmering as she moved toward the darkened corners of the lab.
Jacob and Amelia stayed close to the center of the room, their T-60 headlamps cutting through the green haze to illuminate the stacks of servers and paper-strewn desks. Milla was also no different.
Case stepped away from the team's frantic search for the recursion codes, his boots heavy as he climbed the steps to the pedestal. As he approached, the glass cylinder hissed, venting a plume of chilled, preservative-scented steam.
There it was. Gray, wrinkled, and floating in a nutrient bath that looked as murky as a stagnant pond. The bio-med sensors on the tank were flatlining in a slow, rhythmic pulse that felt more like a sob than a heartbeat.
"Case... Will... whatever label you're wearing to hide from the truth these days," the voice echoed in his mind. It didn't sound like a hero. It sounded like a man speaking from the bottom of a very deep, very dark well. "I'm afraid... I'm not in the best state to receive visitors."
The nutrient fluid swirled as the brain pulsed with a sudden, jagged spike of distress.
"I remember the first time we died—that moment you decided life wasn't worth the breath and tried to end it yourself. But the world wouldn't let us go, would it?" the brain whispered.