~POV Robert House~
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
QUEST ADDED: Soft Drink Supremacy
Objective: We know exactly what you're plotting, you glorious little corporate thief, and we approve. Recreate (and improve) the formula for the soft drink that will one day be called Nuka-Cola. Profit from it before its official inventor ever figures out how to boil water without supervision.
Description: John-Caleb Bradberton is still years away from his "breakthrough" hit known as Nuka Cola, the soft drink that will become the corner stone of the American soft drink market. You already know how this story ends and how profitable Bradberton's invention will be. The System sees absolutely no reason you should wait politely for that amateur chemist to catch up to your glorious head start. Steal his future, bottle it, and sell it at a premium. Make the entire soft-drink industry look like a pack of caffeinated toddlers playing with a chemistry set.
Bonus Objectives: On top of the original formula, create additional variants of Nuka-Cola. The more distinct, functional, and slightly unhinged the variant, the higher the experience payout. (We at Eldritch Horror's Inc. with partnership of the Princes of Oblivion LLC are especially fond of drinks that do more than just taste good. Surprise us. We dare you mortal.)
Ongoing Quest Modifiers (linked to earlier Technological Ascendancy Cycle): Any genuinely new or significantly advanced technology developed while chasing this sugary conquest continues to grant bonus experience under the existing Ascendancy framework. Innovation isn't complete until the world depends on it, or at least until it starts paying your bills and funding your inevitable supervillain lair. Either way, continue making more inventions that will be later used, abused, and responsible for the death of billions.
Rewards: Base XP upon successful creation and initial market entry of the core formula. Scaling bonus XP for each original variant (the weirder and more useful, the better). Additional technological-innovation bonuses as applicable. Potential reputation and capital gains dependent on how thoroughly you humiliate the competition.
Try not to poison the test subjects. The System is not the only one watching. Don't embarrass us in front of our new friends.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
It took three full days since the contract was signed and the ink dried, yet the bureaucratic paralysis had followed. Professor Gorllewin and the university's trusted legal team had argued hard to keep the top floor sealed. Every additional day the labs remained dark, they claimed, was another day the Continuum stayed invisible to any possible federal warrants. Dean Oswald had listened, nodded in that quiet way of his, getting the full picture of the situation, before making a hard decision of overruling his right hand man. Between Professor Gorllewin's constant need to call upon legal aid all throughout the year and the cost of maintaining the Continuum super labs, the fees have already climbed into the six figures, nearing seven. Victor, after his observations of the Dean arguing with Professor Gorllewin, went to view the financial logs of the school's accounting department, which not only confirmed the Dean's worries, but also showed a rather horrifying conclusion.
Costs were piling up and there was few sources of revenue to staunch the bleeding. As far as Victor could conclude the only source of true liquidity the university had come from their medical contributions in the pharmaceutical field, occasionally selling the works of some minor student project, and the rest heavily dependent on donations. All of the college tuition went towards maintaining the public facilities used by the students and the salaries of the various Professors of CIT, leaving little to redirect towards the growing problems that both the Dean and the scholarship professor had kept tight lip. One of the growing problems came in the form of the cost of the campus security, LeBron's people were running around in the rain, doing double shifts since the dead bodies were discovered, and the university had to pay them all for the overtime. The ADI payout they acquired after a long legal battle was already exhausted, now the Commonwealth Institute of Technology was burning through money faster than their few remaining donors could replenish it. Both CIT's public funds and the secret Continuum private accounts were beginning to feel the strain, something had to start generating revenue and soon.
A discussion of accepting government grants and interference was the next step if a solution to the financial crisis was not discovered soon, but given how the CIT accounting books looked, even Victor believed it would be hard for them to pass an audit. It seemed House's membership into the Continuum society had been an opportunity that Dean Oswald not only jumped onto but rushed through much of the normal standard operating procedures. The cunning old British fox had decided that the saving grace to both his university and his secret society would be Robert House and the marvels he planned to create. The desperation of the Dean, to keep the security and secrecy of his alternative scientific community made it clear to House that no matter what he made, as long as it was profitable, Oswald Cadwell would approve of it in the end. Soon the green light was given, and House was allowed to do what he knew he would succeed at. Making a disgustingly large amount of money as quickly as possible.
As such on Monday, May 10th, at 7:15 am, Robert arrived at the administration building elevator that led to the proto-institute's super Labs. He took the entire week off of his classes, already ahead of the subject matter and with the grace of the Dean, was excused from his classes. Robert could now focus on the project he promised would deliver great monetary returns in both the short term and long run. Behind House trailed two large insulated coolers and a series of reinforced crates stacked with and carefully sealed with wholesale produce. A well negotiated purchase that House had acquired from Mr. Donovan and his contacts within the farming communities that owed the local branch of the Irish Mafia some favors. Inside, the crates were fresh passion fruit, citrus, vanilla beans, cane sugar, and two dozen other ingredients that Robert had acquired at near-cost price, effectively the best wholesale price one could acquire from many of the local commonwealth farmers and food producers. Though he had acquired wholesale prices from the food venders, the cost of transportation was the main issue that hurt House. Luckily, Robert had saved some money for Mr. Donovan in a fight that would have cost his casino a great deal in payouts, that savings was used to help cover the cost in transportation of said produce. House was grateful for that, as it meant he did not have to return to the Cabot Manor to retrieve his ill gotten and hidden gains. As such he pushed a dolly with crates that rattled softly into the elevator that soon carried him upwards towards the secret floor, one whose button was temporarily returned to the control panel.
When the doors opened onto the familiar windowless corridor, Officer LeBron stood waiting in his usual rigid posture, though House noticed a bit of joy in the man's eyes as he no longer had to spend his time outside in the Boston rain. Beside the Chief of campus security stood someone far shorter, far broader man whose nametag read Officer Seamus Cain. The second guard could only be described as looking every bit like the fictional Humpty Dumpty nursery character, though more human than sentient egg man. Even under the horrifying Boston weather, Officer Cain's bald head could gleaming under a thunder storm, the corridor lights reflecting just as brightly of his chrome dome. His neck disappearing into a barrel chest, arms thicker than most men's thighs, Cain would have made a perfect circus oddity had he not been a member of the local Campus security detail. Cain's eyes were small, dark, and completely without humor the exact, the complete opposite of Security Chief LeBron in every way.
The security check point before entering the vault door was extensive and even as a member of the Continuum society, Robert still had to submit himself to the full protection protocols without complaint. Metal detectors, followed by retinal scans, then palm prints, everything and then some all in order to make sure every worry the paranoid members of the Continuum was covered. Wherever Dean Cadwell and Professor Gorllewin recruited these two from, was a place of professionalism and dedication, even the thorough pat-downs left no doubt in House's mind that these men had at one point been someone higher than ordinary campus security. Officer Cain, did not stop just at House, for he wanted to inspect every crate with a methodical and unhealthy amount of suspicion. House had to open lids, wait for both security guards to finish shining a flashlight between layers of fruit and tested out a strange scanner upon them.
House would later learn that the scanner was in order to detect contamination in the form of parasites or dangerous chemicals, the sort that a company like HalluciGen Incorporated would come up with. Sometimes the security guards began a more thorough search within the crate once they found any leaks, juices unleashed from a damaged fruit. The sight of such a spill was taken with a great deal of paranoia, for in the guard's security protocol certain restricted items could be squirreled away inside of said leaking fruit. What grew more ridiculous and tried House's patience was that the guards genuinely believed someone would not only put restricted material within said fruit, but also some form of protection that could trick their radio wave scanners and x-ray machines. Again, they thought House would pack all of that inside of a blood orange, just to secretly haul something sinister into the Continuum labs. The fear of restricted materials were so great, the dread so palpable on the two security guards, they refused to even inform Robert House what those prohibited items even were.
"If you don't know about what's restricted, then you don't have to worry about smuggling it in. That being said, if we find it, we will tell you then." Officer Lebron's statement was given without a hint of humor or mocking sense of superiority, only a dedication to their job. Whatever these restricted materials were, they would not get past the two security guards that Dean Oswald had entrusted as gatekeepers to the Continuum Super labs. With that at the forefront thought of the two security guards, who not only checked the fruit with their advanced security systems but with hand, occasionally cutting them open to reveal the content behind the skin. Trying his best to ignore the damaged produce, House pondered if he would have to wait outside the vault door to the Super labs all day before getting access. Given how thorough the two security guards were conducting their screening, Robert was certain an entire day might be wasted on just being checked. When their screening finally ended, with both men satisfied they did their job to the letter and beyond, both security guards approved of House and his luggage. They even had the courtesy to assist with putting the produce back into their crates nearly the same way they found it, though House left the damaged fruits behind, allowing the two muscled men to consume them. A helpful act that made it clear both men would do their jobs to the letter, but they were not tyrants with an abusive need for control, but members of a secret community that wanted to protect said community. When the last crate was closed and safely approved to enter the vault, Security Chief Lebron nodded his head and spoke to House, rumbling out his words with more politeness than House expected of the man. "Apologies for the wait Mr. House, everything is clear, good luck with whatever science project you have going on here."
The tall security chief did all of the talking, while his partner Cain only gave House one last flat stare, before he too nodded in something close to a welcoming approval. The heavy emerald-colored security door hissed open on hydraulic pistons, allowing House to enter with the crates that would help him with his upcoming venture. The difference between the public CIT laboratories and the Continuum Super Labs was not merely one of degree. It was a difference of kind itself. Downstairs, the student labs were impressive by ordinary standards, clean white benches, digital microscopes, competent fume hoods, and mid-tier fabricators that could print basic polymers and light metals. Visiting high-schoolers left those rooms wide-eyed. Parents spoke of them with pride. They were teaching spaces, carefully designed to educate without ever quite reaching the frontier.
Here, on the top floor of the CIT administration building, the frontier had been dragged indoors and locked behind military-grade glass. The air itself felt different, cooler, drier, deliberately ionized to suppress static and particulate contamination. The lighting was a soft, full-spectrum white that mimicked natural daylight while producing zero ultraviolet bleed. Every surface was seamless, antimicrobial, and engineered to shrug off chemical spills that would have ruined ordinary laboratory furniture. Holographic workstations hovered above the benches, projecting real-time molecular models that responded to gloved gestures. Quantum spectrometers the size of industrial refrigerators stood beside compact fusion micro-reactors no larger than filing cabinets. Along one wall, six sealed bio-containment chambers hummed quietly, each with its own independent atmosphere and limited gravity simulation. The transparent armor glass that formed the walls of each individual lab was thick enough to stop rifle rounds and optically clear enough that the molecular models floating inside remained perfectly sharp.
House estimated that a single laboratory on this floor had cost more than most mid-sized research buildings, to see twenty of them in total was enough to gush in a giddy joy that only a scientist and experimental engineer could understand. The Continuum had not skimped on cost, and the amount of money that must have been embezzled to create these super labs truly would make the career of any auditor that discovered Dean Oz's deception. House, worried at the thought of how the US government might react at discovery of this Super Lab, if the enclave spy also discovered them and relayed it to their handlers the damage would end Dean Oswald's hope for a brighter future. House wondered how the federal government would handle everything and everyone working within these labs. Would we all be arrested, how much of this research would be confiscated, or would they destroy it all in some form of barbaric act of tyranny that rivalled the Mongol invasion and burning of the library of Baghdad.
Whatever the case was, Victor was on watch for the spy and Robert Edwin House had agreed to work with the proto-institute for now. House had picked a side and now he planned to be with them through the good and bad times to come. Though if matters worsen, House believed he could at the very least make enough money through the proto-institute before cutting ties and fleeing back to Nevada to build up RobCo Industries. Whatever the future held, House would have to go at it one step at a time, and carefully it seemed, as said secret society of the Commonwealth Institute of Technology had one of their members waiting for Robert House.
Her name tag read Dr. Sophia Laurent, it also revealed that she was a member of a bio-engineering department of the Continuum. The blonde haired woman waited just inside the main corridor of the super labs, a clipboard tightly held in her hands, as if she was just finishing taking stock of inventory. This Dr. Sophia wore an immaculate white lab coat, with a breast pocket that held three different color pens, while beneath the lab coat she wore a simple black turtleneck and matching scrubs that were the definition of professionalism in Robert House's mind. Her posture was perfect, her expression coolly superior in the way only someone who had never needed to doubt her own intellect could manage. House placed her origins as someone of a French Canadian mix, possibly from Quebec, Canada. The woman observed Robert with the same intensity as House did with her, though Dr. Laurent did not share his impressed conclusion as the woman regarded the cart of produce with visible distaste that transferred onto the newest member of the Continuum group.
"Mr. House, you have been assigned to Lab Seven. It is small, but adequate for a first-year with an experimental desire for chemistry. You will be assisted by one of our members, his name is Mr. Ellison, he will instruct you on proper laboratory maintenance and safety protocols. Do not, and I repeat, do not break anything, everything here is irreplaceable, even the special ordered beakers." Dr. Sophia Laurent's voice was clipped and precise. Her gaze flicked once more to the crates. "And please clean up after your… Breakfast. Rot and contamination within the Continuum labs is grounds for expulsion, even for new members who did not know any better. You might get away with sloppiness with the public CIT lab, but in a Continuum lab we have zero tolerance for incompetence and clutter."
Looks like I found your future wife Edgar. She shares your bold desire to rule with an iron fist over her labs just as much as you do. Though I doubt I can briber her as easily as I did with you. Before House could reply to Sophia's threats, a tall man with pitch black skin, stepped out from one of the nearby labs. He moved with quiet economy, the kind of controlled stillness that suggested both physical discipline and long hours spent concentrating on delicate work.
"Don't scare away the newbie Sophia. Dean Oz and Professor Gorllewin have high hopes for this one. Given how they talked about him, he seems to be the chosen one, foretold to come and save us from the horrors of a reduced lab budget." The unknown man followed up his joke by giving Dr. Laurent a respectful nod, she was not impressed by the attempt at humor nor the forced reverence, only scowling her further disapproval. The unknown member of the Continuum turned his head towards House, speaking in a low, even, canter that carried a faint cadence House recognized belonging to someone from Nevada rather than the East Coast. Extending out his hand, the dark skinned man spoke with a smile. "Marcus Ellison, third-year staff member at CIT, fourth year member of our super secret club. I specialize in neural science and neural interface, and unlike our dear sweet Sophia, I believe this is how a welcoming committee should introduce themselves to a new club member."
If Dr. Sophia was cold and distant before, now she was nothing short of exhausted by the entire matter and wanted nothing else to do with either House or Marcus Ellison. Though she did not leave, her desire to, only grew by each passing moment. House studied the outstretched hand of Marcus for half a second longer than necessary before accepting his hand shake. Marcus's words were still fresh in House's mind, the accent was subtle, almost buried beneath careful academic speech, but it was there. North Las Vegas, or somewhere very close to it, a fellow Nevadan, even if neither of them had acknowledged it yet.
"Robert Edwin House," he answered. "I appreciate the warmer welcome."
Dr. Laurent's expression did not soften. "Lab Seven is the fourth door on the right. The inventory list and equipment manuals are already loaded onto the local terminal. Whatever project that you work on as well as the resources spent on it, must be documented carefully. I expect a weekly summary handed directly to me. That is due on Monday, May 17th, and every following Monday after. No exceptions, I have clarified myself here and now, and will not accept excuses later."
"I'll give him the full rundown on how we operate, Dr. Laurent," Marcus said, voice low and steady. "Save you any further trouble."
Sophia's trimmed eyebrows furrowed further, but she waved a dismissive hand and walked off without another word or further acknowledgement, her white coat flaring slightly behind her. Marcus watched her go, the look being far different than the friendly attitude he had a moment earlier around Sophia, he turned away and glanced at the crates on the dolly. A flicker of dry amusement crossed his face. Marcus waited until Dr. Laurent's footsteps faded completely, then offered House a small, genuine smile that reached his eyes.
"Sorry for her… welcome. She doesn't like messes, or surprises, or first-years who bring groceries into a Class-Four clean zone." Marcus said his next words quietly. "I wouldn't be surprised if she decides to write you up for biological contamination."
"I'm starting to think it would be easier to tell me the few things she does like and placating her with it in order to avoid her cold attention." House was not above bribes, but from the little interaction he had with Dr. Sophia, he would not be able to handle her as easily as he handled Edgar Bartholomew Crowley the Third.
"Former Scholarship kid to current scholarship kid." Marcus said, voice low enough that the corridor's acoustic dampeners would swallow it. "Welcome to the real CIT, Mr. House. Don't mind Laurent's aloofness. She's been trying to claim Lab Seven for a prosthetic project that involves grafting bio-developed skin that the Dean keeps rejecting due to our limited budget. Come on, I'll show you the inside of the lab and then we can begin the long grueling process that is orientation. Trust me when I say that woman loves her paperwork and wants it done in a specific way, or will raise hell at whatever mistakes inconvenience her rigid thinking."
House pushed the dolly cart forward, the wheels moved almost silently across the seamless floor. As they approached Lab Seven, the transparent armor glass walls revealed a compact but extremely well-equipped workspace. They stopped at the front door as Marcus tapped the transparent armor glass wall with one knuckle. "See this? Chemically strengthened aluminosilicate layers, polycarbonate interlayers, outer transparent ceramic coating. You could drive a truck into it and the truck would lose. The whole floor is built for the apocalypse, Dean Oz doesn't take chances. If he does not want something to get in it won't get in, and if we make something he does not want getting out, it won't get out."
Looking in from the outside, House saw two large volumetric projection benches driven by early photonic-quantum processing arrays. The brief case sized quantum chips were nowhere similar to the sleek miniaturized size silicon chips that would be found in the laptop that contained Victor. Instead they were bulky monstrosities of cutting edge science, requiring constant cooling in order to perform the powerful real-time three-dimensional marvels expected of the Fallout universe's technologies. Beside them sat a compact research reactor the size of a small refrigerator, followed by a full chemical analysis suite, and a sealed cold-storage unit large enough for the produce Robert had brought with him. The technological wonders had even House, whose usual lifeless expression, transformed into something that displayed a hint of eager anticipation, like a child opening their holiday present believing it contains the gift they prayed a diabetic from the north pole to deliver.
The door recognized Marcus's credentials and slid open with a soft hydraulic sigh, the glass doors parting in a single fluid motion. Inside, the air was even cleaner, scrubbed to standards that an individual with a compromised immune system would have no worries housing themself in Lab 7. House set the crates down carefully and began unloading the various ingredients into cold-storage, leaving only enough samples for his first attempt at recreating the soda drink. Marcus, who watched for a moment out of curiosity, soon moved to the main terminal and began waking the systems with a few precise gestures. House, when finished unpacking, studied the super lab with genuine professional interest, already cataloguing the tools he would put to use. High-shear homogenizers, jacketed mixing vessels, a rotary evaporator, and precision carbonation equipment sat ready alongside the heavier research hardware, tools that could aid a chemist with research in anything from researching medicines to developing horrors that HalluciGen would blush at. Everything here was at the cutting edge of the chemical field, and House almost felt silly that he was utilizing all of this in order to formulate a simple soft drink.
"The public CIT labs down below are equipped with some impressive machines," House spoke with a reverence that denoted his respect for what was around him. "However, there is nothing that needs more protection than standard tempered safety glass. Functional, yet if someone really wants in, a decent wrench is all it takes to shatter a pane. Looking at what you have here, it's clear most of this equipment is several generations ahead."
Marcus gave a short chuckle. "That's a fair assessment of the lower floors. Don't get me wrong, when I first stepped foot on the CIT campus and got a tour of the lower labs, I thought the spectrometers and a few industrial printers down there were the height of scientific advancement, something cutting edge that I never thought I would have the honor to operate. Up here, though, we work with tools my younger self would have thought to be something straight out of a science fiction story. Something created by a mad AI dictator, or something found on an alien space ship. I sometimes imagine a younger version of myself running around touching anything and everything that would drive Dr. Sophia to the brink of a mental breakdown. The terminals in these labs alone run specialized quantum simulation arrays, the plasma arc furnaces can hold up heat upwards of twenty thousand Kelvin, and the micro-fabrication systems operate at true nanometer precision. The power infrastructure alone is two generations beyond anything the rest of the university will see for years."
House wandered through Lab Seven like a child at an amusement park, eyes moving across systems the earlier overview had not fully revealed. A bank of precision analytical balances sat beside a row of vacuum desiccators. Further back, a compact freeze-dryer waited under a clear protective hood, next to a pair of high-speed centrifuges and a glovebox isolation chamber for handling particularly reactive compounds. Along the far wall, temperature-controlled incubation units and a small-scale supercritical fluid extractor rounded out a chemistry suite that could have supported serious pharmaceutical work. Most important of all, given the orientation that Marcus was working on, included a tour of a major workstation that stood fully stocked with safety stations, such as emergency showers, eye-wash units, sealed cabinets of neutralizers, absorbents, and comprehensive first-aid supplies ready for any chemical spill or injury. Everything was pristine, purposeful, and quietly expensive, with Marcus's orientation and introduction into Continuum procedures taking a good three hours to go over. In 2038, this single room represented the quiet peak of American experimental science, the kind of concentrated capability that only existed when money, talent, and secrecy were allowed to work without interference. Marcus had just gotten onto terminal access by the time House finished combing over the lab, noticing half a dozen security cameras and surveillance equipment that, unlike the lower CIT labs, made sure there would be no blind spots for House to work in a secretive corner.
"Everything in here is networked to the Continuum backbone, with administrators keeping a careful eye of everything being uploaded and downloaded." Marcus said, not looking up from the terminal. "Don't try to connect anything external without clearance. The system will notice, and if it notices something it doesn't like, Laurent will know before you do, and may Dean Oz help you then, because Sophia will go on a one woman crusade to have you expelled from the club."
"Sounds like a very efficient security system. Are we running on an ADI operating system underneath all the custom work? And more importantly… is the network fully air-gapped, or is there still some controlled exposure risk if I store sensitive data on these terminals?" House had hoped to upload a version of Victor within the Continuum network, not just to pilfer through the proto-institutes data banks for information, but also aid House in the mundane matters such as writing up the report that Dr. Laurent. However, given how his senior lab colleague explained the security system he would be dealing with, House would have to prepare some other means of infiltrating the security setup of the proto-institute.
Marcus finally looked up from the terminal, his face looked hollow as he pondered an answer. "First question's a sort of yes. We still use a lot of ADI code as the foundation, but our in-house tech team has been rewriting and expanding it for years to fit the kind of research we do here. After the recent legal mess with ADI, though, Professor Gorllewin's been pushing hard for the Dean to switch everything over to Nippon Electronics. From what I have understood the two of them have gotten into a heated debate on the matter, as Malvagio is not just pushing to redo the Continuum's systems, but the entirety of CIT. Dean Oz is against it, first over the cost of redoing the entirety of the universities digital infrastructure would be too expensive and switching out of an American based company for a Japanese one would not sit well in this politically charged climate. Though Professor Gorllewin's fears of ADI finding out how heavily we've modified their language and what we've been using it for, would be more horrific. If ADI lawyers got wind of our projects, they would burn the midnight oil just to drag every experiment utilizing their vandalized code into the open. At that point matters won't just be expensive, but straight up ruinous."
Marcus Ellison, a man who House felt a modicum of comfort around his out-going nature unlike Simon's that lacked a certain, looked on speechless as Marcus shuddered at the insulation's with ADI legal. Axiom Dynamics Incorporated were the worst of the worst that the Fallout Pre-war America enabled to exist, a corporate giant that was stagnate. Instead of developing further upon their work, they rested upon laurels of stolen glory, utilizing the corrupt legal apparatus of this hidden dystopia that allowed them to maintain a powerful enough monopoly that not only squashed their competitors but parasitized off their consumer base. They did not sell their programming languages, instead leasing it out in a tiered subscription, only to reap the harvest of other people's hard work, just because they had utilized ADI's tools. It would be like H&H tool company instituting that any home or construction project made by using their construction tools was now owned by the H&H tool company. It would be as ridiculous as it was blatant unapologetic theft. Though knowing Anthony, I would not be surprised if he attempted to push something so extreme as the tactics used by ADI.
"As for the second question… we don't have a perfect closed system yet, though a lot of us would prefer one as it would eliminate our primary fear of exposure. What we have is more like… a single controlled pipeline that connects our network to the rest of CIT. Everything that moves through it goes through Dean Oswald's personal terminal first. His terminal effectively serves as the entire nerve center of the Continuum's projects. Dean Oz reviews the data, decides what gets funding, what gets rejected, and what little pieces are safe to share with the public labs downstairs." Marcus spoke the words as causally as one would of the weather, not realizing nor caring about how much control he had handed over to the Dean that could effectively decide the future of the secret society's projects.
House raised an eyebrow, keeping his voice light. "That's a remarkable amount of control to place in one man's hands. If he holds the only key to that pipeline, what's the actual purpose of keeping it open at all? Why risk exposing any of the Continuum's work to the wider institute when everything could simply stay here?"
Marcus didn't hesitate when answering, it was not dripping in a defensiveness that House expected, instead filled with a quiet conviction. "Oz isn't a dragon sitting on a hoard of knowledge, nor would he ever want to be one. That's never been the point of our club. The Continuum exists to produce research that actually helps humanity without getting twisted by politics or corporate greed or the myriad of other outside influences that would ruin true progress. The Dean is the one who made all of this possible, and he's the one we trust to decide which discoveries the world needs most right now and which ones still need protection. He uses that pipeline carefully, trickling out small, carefully chosen results down to trusted researchers in the public CIT labs so they can recreate them. Numerous breakthroughs in both the medical and technological fields have been released by the Continuum, but under CIT's name. It is a mask, a means for us to help the future generations, with no desire for credit nor laurels, only a desire to continue on with the work we are doing here. It lets us share real progress that will improve humanity, while directing the more extreme attention of said discoveries onto the school."
House studied Marcus for a long moment before speaking, his voice hiding any traces of his true emotions. "And you're all content with that? You and the others do the actual work, solve the real problems, and then watch the university take every bit of credit. No papers with your names on them. No recognition. No chance at the kind of reputation that opens doors later. Doesn't that bother any of you?"
Marcus didn't bristle. If anything, he looked faintly amused, as though the question itself revealed a misunderstanding. "Why does the name on the paper matter so much? The breakthrough still happens, the knowledge still reaches people who need it. Someone lives longer, or eats better, or has a tool they didn't have before that improves their lives. That's the part that counts, the rest is just noise and distraction that leads to nothing but trouble."
House would have gawked at the dark skinned man, not believing his ears at the juvenile thought he just heard, instead he maintained his mask of calm. Marcus leaned against the edge of a workbench, arms loosely folded. "Don't get me wrong. Money and fame would be nice. I'm not a monk, but they're distractions. They pull people toward the next grant, the next headline, the next corporate contract. That's how good research gets twisted into something evil. Here, we get a stipend that lets us live without worrying about rent or feeding our families, all while we work on the next ground breaking discovery, pushing the limits of science further. The work is the reward."
Marcus gestured vaguely at the floor, indicating the world beyond the Continuum labs. "When CIT takes the credit, more bright kids apply. Some of them are just chasing prestige or a fat salary later. Those are the ones the outside world, the distractions, the corruptive influences, can have. The ones who actually care about science, who get frustrated with how slow and compromised everything else is… those are the ones who find their way up here. The bad attention stays on the university as recruiters look to poach young minds who are happy to sell their soul, while the real scientists and engineers stay protected. It's not a perfect system, but it works."
House said nothing, as he saw Marcus shrug, as if the entire arrangement were self-evidently reasonable and sincere enough by itself. Internally, the assessment was colder, as Robert House knew that he was staring upon a zealot that would one day enabled the creation of the Institute in all its horrors. Marcus believed every word of what he spoke, and from what he hinted apparently, did most of the others within the proto-institute. Dean Oswald had given them purpose, a modest living, and a carefully curated story about selfless progress, and they had accepted it without serious question. Rose-tinted glasses, fitted permanently onto minds whose empathy outweighed their self interest. House wanted to point out the flaws of their noble world belief, to point out their constant fear of exposure, the financial strain that now threatened the entire floor, even the presence of an Enclave spy. All of it flowed from the same sentimental refusal to claim power and resources openly. Empathy elevated into strategy, and that strategy turned suicidal. I would not be surprised if they do not even take credit among themselves within this Continuum of theirs. Had they documented their goals, perhaps their future descendants that will one day become the Institute would have not turned into the menace that they became.
"I understand, thank you for explaining it." House was reserved with his opinion, saying what this cult of progress wanted to hear. When matters get worse, when the paranoia of the United States reaches a fever pitch, when that bad attention finally discovers their hidden club, exposing these people of science and rains down ruin onto their noble goals, House would be nearby. He would recruit these philanthropists into the safe haven of RobCo industries R&D department, hopefully their naive way of thinking is expunged out of them and they are willing to come to real reason. Or better, they can remain ignorant, work endlessly just for a base salary, and do what they love, and give my future corporation all the credit.
Marcus glanced at House, coming to some sort of conclusion of his own, before offering a small, almost reassuring smile. "If you're worried about someone hacking in and stealing your work, don't be. Our cybersecurity team has built protections that would make most government agencies jealous. The network pipeline is as secure as we can make it, and trust me we have enough firewalls to defend against anything. But if you'd rather keep your notes on paper like it's the nineteenth century, nobody's going to stop you. We'll only judge you a little bit for being barbaric."
House actually laughed, a short, genuine sound that surprised even him. Marcus's conclusion, something House imagined was of a new member afraid of his work getting stolen, was wrong, but dry, slightly cutting humor reminded Robert of Simon, who sometimes managed to make the future corporate overload laugh. Though Marcus carried more with his humor. For a brief moment the calculated mask of Robert House slipped, and the first-year from Nevada looked like he just found someone he would enjoy future conversations with. Marcus finished initializing some last minute work on the terminal before turning back to House. For a moment the two of them stood in silence, looking upon the lab space, taking in the quiet hum of advanced machinery that could achieve what both men desired.
"You're from Nevada," House broke the silence not with a statement, but an attempt at proper small talk, on a level that hopefully Victor would finally be proud of. Marcus's expression did not change much, but something in his posture shifted, recognition, carefully controlled, but like a family member that just recognized one of their own.
"North Las Vegas, my parents back west own a smoke shop there. I worked a couple of summers at it before heading to CIT, though I regret the smoke shop job. You could smell the sickly sweet scent of the North Vegas customers before they walked through the doors. Chem fiends, looking for tools that could help them better smoke or inject whatever insanity they got addicted to." Marcus' answers perfectly described the situation that House knew about in North Las Vegas. The half-way home that House lived in had many such broken willed people, Robert would not be surprised if some of them had visited the Ellison smoke shop for something that kept them in their poor state of addiction. The horrors that House remembered almost made him miss Marcus when asked House a question of his own. "Are you also from Nevada? I'm feeling certain enough to claim that you're from the Vegas area, and not that shit hole Pharump."
"Same state, same city. However, no family, they died when I was young, I have nothing of theirs to inherit unlike you. How bad was the tax on cigs before you left? Last I remember hearing from some tobacco fiends I met, they increased nearly 3%." Robert did not listen to Marcus's shock and horror at the rising cost of luxury goods his family sold. Instead House's thoughts fell upon his half brother and the H&H tool company that was owned by their father. I may not have been allowed to inherit my rightful share of the family business Anthony. But before the bombs drop I will make sure to take it all from you. Every last part will be mine Anthony, and you will regret your theft until the last agonizing moments of your life.
Marcus gave a small, almost invisible nod. The shared origin hung in the air for a second longer than either of them acknowledged, then settled into something quieter and more useful than conversation. When Marcus spoke next it was in an almost familia way, as if looking out for a younger sibling. "Let's go over the inventory log and show you how Dr. Laurent's forms are done properly. Trust me when I say she will be hunting you down come next Monday."
By the time Marcus had finished the orientation and left, House was free to do as he pleased within Lab 7. The lab was smaller than the rest of them that he had passed by when in the grand chamber of the Continuum vault, but it was more than enough for his soda venture. With the equipment here, he could begin proper formulation work on Nuka-Cola within an hour, three tops. He might make some different variants, though not the more radioactive variants, but House's own special touch. More importantly, Robert could work on some ideas he had for his other LLC, PermaHarvest, one which would focus on preservatives that enabled food to have a long-shelf-life and fertilizer that could revolutionize the agricultural market all in order to prepare for the future food shortages.
The entire lab soon became a focused chemical workshop, soon the equipment from the chemical vats to the Pasteur pipette's would be utilized for crafting and containing a brew that would take the America soft drink industry by storm. The jacketed stainless mixing vessels hummed under precise temperature control, the high-shear homogenizer was reduced extracts into stable emulsions. The rotary evaporator concentrated delicate aromatics under reduced pressure. It would have been easy to just brew from there, but House did not desire to create a camp fire brewed knock off or a quick and easy process of dumping fruit essence into a vat and infusing a tasty blend. House wanted to surpass Nuka Cola in all its wonder, and to do that he would have the science done to the letter. House would treat every piece of produce as a chemical library, by running continuous assays. Acquiring reading on pH levels, dissolved solids to the reading of Brix, residual pesticides, organic acid profiles, volatile ester concentrations, gas chromatography–mass spectrometry, liquid chromatography, spectrophotometry, automated titration, every aspect was measured and recorded.
The entire process of extracting essences and cataloging their data would take nearly 6 hours, possibly 8 hours tops. As the long essence extractions and molecular assays continued across the lab, House turned the growing pile of peels and spent pulp to a second purpose. Like every aspect of the buffalo utilized by the Native Americans, House planned to use every bit of the produce he acquired for profitable ventures. He began a controlled acid extraction for pectin, carefully adjusting temperature and pH to pull the long-chain polysaccharides free without excessive degradation. Filtration, alcohol precipitation, and gentle drying followed in sequence. By the time the final flavor fractions were locked into the master concentrate, he had a clean, pale pectin powder in useful quantity. Preliminary stability tests on small carbonated samples suggested the natural extract, used at the right concentration and paired with proper bottling, could push peak quality from a few weeks out to roughly four or five months of shelf life. Not the reality breaking wonder of the stronger and far more dangerous preservatives of the Fallout world, but something modest, with potential for real improvement down the line, and more importantly the first practical preservative product logged under PermaHarvest LLC. Robert also desired to use the produce waste into creating a High-Surface-Area Biochar, a soil amendment that could more easily hold water longer, and slowly release it for plant roots to absorb over a longer duration of time. House helped off on making the Biochar, as running that process at the same time as the Nuka Cola recipes risked cross contamination with the fruit essences. As such House would wait until after he developed his Nuka Cola original recipe, and then a more modified versions, before developing the specialized biochar. That being said, twice House was able to create the pectin preservative before he acquired the essences and assay readout needed to calculate a stream of data directly into the Continuum terminal where House adjusted ratios in real time of every fruit essence he had extracted.
As the final assay data streamed into the terminal, House did more than lock the current formula. He studied every chromatogram and sensory threshold with an eye toward the future. The readings told him exactly which volatile compounds, sugar-acid balances, and aromatic esters gave each fruit its most valuable notes, the bright top-note esters in the passion fruit, the clean citrus lift in the blood orange, the deep mid-palate richness of the black cherry, the floral softness of the guava. Those were the traits he intended to amplify. Every viable seed was carefully cleaned, labelled, and set aside, with the passion-fruit seeds given special priority. Over the next four years he planned a patient program of selection and controlled breeding, aiming for cultivars that would not only survive the blight he knew was coming in 2044, but would consistently express higher concentrations of the precise flavor molecules that made the ideal Nuka-Cola. The present batch would be excellent. The batches that followed, grown from improved stock, would be better still.
Most of the Continuum members had already begun packing up for the evening, either having to worry about classes or work assignments that they publicly had to do for CIT. When Marcus saw House still working inside of Lab Seven with no intention of leaving, the elder scientist thought it wise to advise his junior on the dangers of burning the midnight oil. Upon stepping inside of the lab, Marcus was met with the concentrated scent of citrus oils, passionfruit, and warm fruit pulp that met him like a lover, jumping upon him the moment he opened the door. The rich extractions remained overwhelmingly strong even with the ventilation and lab security features on. Robert Edwin House was not bothered at all by the aroma, he was more focused in his research, almost like as if he was in a trance like state, barely looking up from the lab terminal. He stood at the main terminal, eyes fixed on the cascading assay data, one hand still adjusting a ratio on the input panel.
"Smells like you declared war on a tropical orchard in here." Marcus words came with a short dry laugh. House glancing over to him noticed the wrinkled nose of his senior club member. As Marcus stepped closer, his voice low, but warm with an almost elder sibling like energy. "You've been at this since the morning and after orientation. Take a break, work on some class assignments, get some sleep to do it all again tomorrow. Every new member tries the all-nighter heroics at least once, but sooner or later they make a mistake, sometimes big, other times minor. The latter I can help you with, but the former will have Dr. Laurent involved. Please do not get her involved, if your body is requesting sleep see to, no need to overcome your limits."
"I appreciate the warning, and will keep it in mind. I've prepared a sleeping bag and some tools in the corner and an active experiment that needs monitoring. I'll be fine here, and will make sure not to cause any problems that either you or our superiors will have to worry about." House offered a small, polite, but reassuring nod to his worried senior. Marcus held his gaze a second longer, clearly unconvinced by House's clear dedication to his project, then gave a reluctant nod of his own. Concern still sat in his expression as he turned to leave. The quiet worry of someone who would attempt to be present early to the super labs tomorrow and the next few days that follow. Hopefully, before a first-year managed to draw the wrong kind of attention from the higher-ups, or worse, from Dr. Sophia Laurent herself. Leaving a badge for Robert House to utilize to gain access to Lab 7, Marcus left, the facility door sealed behind him. House returned to the terminal without another word, the soft hum of the lab settling back around him as the night shift began in earnest and Robert intended to break the formula for Nuka Cola and make as many variants as he could in the short amount of time.
Working purely from memories of John, while enhanced by both a maxed out science, and survival skills, House went about creating the classic Nuka Cola formula, the one John-Caleb Bradberton would invent four years from now. Robert House saw the combination to be a blunt instrument of mass-market and decent use of chemistry. Through the mortal lens of Bradberton and others with his skill set, the work looked elegant and brilliant. Carbonated water, artificial caramel coloring, with a mix of aspartame and phosphoric acid for that signature metallic bite and low pH. Then came the potassium benzoate as a preservative one that required an unhealthy amount of sugar to mask the unholy bitterness of the preservative. Then came the citric acid, a heavy caffeine load, and even more sugar, one that pushed the drink past the one hundred and twenty percent of the recommended daily value. Finally it was all wrapped around with the seventeen fruit essences that House attempted to acquire the highest quality, through his criminal contact of Mr. Donovan. Though given the assay data he had acquired, Robert House was assured, without a doubt in his mind, that Mr. Donovan had cut corners on quality to make his own bit of profit off the medium quality fruit. The end result was something just as creative as the version that Bradberton was to make.
The lab's analytical tools verified each measurement of essences, House mixed a small reference batch as a baseline creation, purely for comparison when improving upon the recipe. Robert watched the phosphoric acid drop the pH hard, the aspartame dissolve with its characteristic slight lag, and the caramel color turn the liquid an opaque brown. He ran it through the carbonation system at standard pressure and set the finished glass aside. One sip confirmed the idea that it was Nuka Cola given form. Aggressively sweet, slightly metallic, with a chemical aftertaste that clung to the back of the tongue and a flatness that no amount of bubbles could fully hide.
The drink known as Nuka Cola had been engineered for addiction, bright color, aggressive carbonation, and long shelf life, not for actual quality. This was most likely due to the fact that Nuka Cola's competitors were few and limited to certain regions of America, opening up the beverage market for this drink that was revolutionary for the era. Bradberton was an above average chemist, who lucked out with Nuka Cola, as his product opened up his ambition for more extreme and radical works of chemical science, while leaving Nuka Cola to stagnate, only adding new, slightly modified variants of the same recipe. The formula reflected every limitation of that ambition, containing a great deal of potential, but due to the events of the current climate, settling on short cuts that attempted to capture an already conquered market. The first batch was finished, this alone was enough to conquer the beverage market, even earning House 1000 experience points by the system. Yet it was not enough for the perfectionist who had scientific knowledge that surpassed every creature currently on this planet or above it abducting earth's people.
House discarded every compromised element and started over from the first principles. Something healthy, but more importantly tasty and could change the soft drink industry like the splitting of a nuclear atom did for national policy. Premium sparkling mineral water, already rich in natural bicarbonates, replaced ordinary carbonated water and gave the finished drink a cleaner mouthfeel. Real cane sugar was dissolved under controlled heat, then carefully balanced with a precise ratio of monk fruit extract so the sweetness registered as full and round without the metabolic spike or the artificial linger of aspartame. The original combination of seventeen fruit essences were abandoned in favor of a refined mixture, one with a brighter profile built from fresh-pressed juices and steam-distilled essential oils that House cultivated better than what he used for the original recipe. The blood orange for top-note brightness, mango and passionfruit for tropical depth, pineapple for acidity and lift, pomegranate and black cherry for mid-palate richness, yuzu for a sharp citrus edge, and guava for a soft, floral finish. Natural kola nut extract and Madagascar vanilla provided the classic cola backbone without the muddy bitterness of artificial flavorings.
The natural pectin preservative was then utilized, giving a far shorter shelf life, but enabling a flavorless harm to the final product, unlike the potassium benzoate which was as dangerous as the level of sugars used to mask that preservative. With the pectin preservative, House also utilized more sugar, but not for masking but enhancing. House set aside a small portion of the pure cane-sugar syrup and cold-smoked it under controlled conditions, drawing a gentle stream of applewood smoke through a sealed glass chamber for only a few minutes. The phenolic compounds dissolved cleanly into the syrup without heat or ash. He filtered the result and blended it back into the master concentrate in precise drops until a soft, natural smokiness settled beneath the tropical fruit and cola notes. Next came the electrolytes, born from a mix of sodium, potassium, and magnesium, all added in concentrations calibrated for mild rehydration. Vitamin C and a full B-complex were introduced for genuine nutritional value. A measured dose of natural caffeine extracted from green tea, paired with L-theanine in a 2:1 ratio, delivered steady alertness without jitters or a horrifying sugar crash. There was no phosphoric acid, no artificial dyes, no synthetic preservatives, no aspartame, or the extreme chemical compounds better suited for creating methamphetamines.
House monitored every reaction, controlling every aspect of the drink and documenting it with as much care as he would give to a new born infant. The cane sugar inverted slightly under heat and mild acidity, creating a smoother sweetness profile as well as a smokey finish. The essential oils formed stable micelles under high-shear homogenization. The final pH settled at a bright but non-corrosive 3.6 that would not cause enough damage to require a dentist even from long term drinking, but enough for them to scare young children over brushing their teeth at night after consuming this variant of Nuka Cola. Carbonation was locked in under higher-than-standard pressure, producing finer, longer-lasting bubbles. Finally House would perform the final test, the taste test, as he poured a glass, held it to the light, and watched the persistent bead of carbonation rise in perfect columns. Then he took a slow, deliberate sip, for a brief moment even his iron self-control cracked as the wonders of the final recipe lit up House's taste buds as it would any within the beverage industry.
The flavor was extraordinarily crisp, effervescent, exploding across the tongue with layered tropical brightness that unfolded in distinct stages before resolving into a smooth, luxurious cola finish. It was richer and more complex than Bradberton's original would ever be, yet cleaner and lighter, leaving no cloying aftertaste and a faint, pleasant mineral freshness. In a pre-war America already beginning to feel the first real pressures of scarcity, a drink this good would not merely compete. It would dominate.
The flavor was extraordinarily crisp, effervescent, exploding across the tongue with layered tropical brightness that unfolded in distinct stages before resolving into a smooth, luxurious cola finish touched by a soft, natural applewood smoke. It was richer and more complex than Bradberton's original would ever be, yet cleaner and lighter, leaving no cloying aftertaste, unless the taste tester despised the faint pleasant mineral freshness. In a pre-war America already beginning to feel the first real pressures of scarcity due to a lack of oil, a drink this good would not merely win the soft drink industry. It would dominate, like an unstoppable conquering army of the caliber of Alexander the great, or Napoleon Bonaparte. The system was begrudging in its reward, as this would be considered a new variant of Nuka Cola, though it would replace the original recipe completely. 500 experience points were awarded for the creation of the House variant of Nuka Cola. The rush of experience points were great, more addictive than any kind of drug or dopamine rush, it was the key for House's future domination of the wastelands, the future key to bringing humanity to a brighter future than it was doomed to. Weight upon House's shoulder lessened with every point awarded, with every push for a level up.
With the perfect recipe forged, House had enough time for two more creations before his body would require the two hours of sleep he would need in order to feel refreshed enough to handle the next day's work. Once the full-sugar formula was locked and tasting notes recorded, House turned immediately to create a healthier variant. As it stood, House's recipe for Nuka Cola was a fraction of the sugary monstrosity that Bradberton would unleash upon the American population. That being said, overconsumption was just as much of a sport as it was a way of life for the American people. House was more than happy to profit off of a sugar addicted population, but he also wanted to honor the claim that Bradberton failed to properly honor when he claimed Nuka Cola was healthy to drink. House would not blemish his reputation with a lie, and as such he would make a zero-sugar variant that would be healthy for those who consumed it. Not out of some moral or philanthropist purpose of fighting obesity, but a simple utilitarian reason that any good capitalist in the food and beverage industry would desire. Keep your consumer base happy, alive longer, enjoying that life with your product, and in turn extract more from the sacred capital from that cash cow. Every year they are spared the surgical tools of a diabetic amputation or cardiac arrest from an overworked heart that supported a large build, ensuring a consumer base that not only lasted longer, but also consumed more in the long run.
Robert kept the same refined fruit matrix, the same kola-vanilla backbone, the same electrolyte and vitamin profile, and the same clean mineral water base that ended in an apple smoked finish. The challenge was sweetness without compromise, aspartame was rejected on the basic principle of trying not to poison customers who would not follow any recommended dosages you prescribe, instead willing to overdose upon the endless supply of sugar. Sucralose was also rejected as it left a hollow, chemical echo that would do too much harm to taste of the final product. Same went with stevia, for it alone carried too much bitterness at the concentrations required to replace the solution.
The solution came from a carefully calibrated blend of monk fruit extract and a high-purity allulose, adjusted until the sweetness curve matched the full-sugar version almost exactly in onset, peak, and finish. A trace of soluble citrus fiber restored the slight viscosity that sugar normally provided, so the mouthfeel remained full rather than thin. Carbonation pressure was increased by a few psi to compensate for the missing sugar's contribution to bubble stability.
The first pour of Nuka-Cola Zero produced a glass that looked identical to the original, brilliant clarity, fine persistent bubbles, the same inviting color. The taste, however, was a revelation in its own right, the same layered tropical brightness, the same smooth cola finish, yet with none of the caloric weight. It finished clean, almost refreshing, and left the palate ready for another sip rather than saturated. House set the two glasses side by side, one full-sugar, one with zero, and allowed himself a second, smaller smile. Two flagship products, both superior to anything Bradberton would ever release, were already made within his first day at Continuum high tech labs.
House seeing the system awarding him with another 500xp, and soon began envision a future marketing campaign that he would launch for Nuka Cola Zero. One that would be remembered in the psychology of everyone desperate to return to their ideal weight and beauty. House imagined a beautiful blonde haired woman, the sort that would make a perfect trophy wife for a sleazy Hollywood executive. This beauty would elegantly swim in a crystal clear pool, near a large mansion owned by her rich and overweight fat cat of a husband, who even at home, is engrossed in a meeting over the phone. Exiting out of the pool, the stunning enchantress of the commercial, with a figure that woman would kill for and men would drool over, would sip some Nuka Cola Zero. Looking into the camera, the blonde beauty would claim Nuka Cola Zero as the solution that helped her maintain her figure, and how every other stay at home wife should utilize it to make sure their man's gaze did not wonder and that they would have his full attention.
At that point the fat actor, one that House imagined with gold rings on his fingers, playing the role of the husband that was the senior manager of a fortune 500 company, suddenly hangs up the phone call in a rush to listen to his wife's concerns. The fat husband would be given a Nuka Cola Zero of his own, and the drink would cause him to shed all of his fat in a cloud of smoke that upon dissipating would have a new actor take the obese actors place. Now a strong handsome male individual would remain behind, the sort with a body build that men would kill themselves to achieve and woman would ogle at as if he is the perfect partner that their biological drive demands for. Both comely commercial actors would then look out into the setting sun in the horizon enjoying a Nuka Cola Zero, as a deep voiced actor would read out the health benefits of the soft drink with no sugar. It was not an accurate commercial of how the product would change a person instantly from a couch potato to a gym rat, but House knew that the Fallout America Better Business Bureau would be nothing give an ounce of care to what a powerful business does. House imagined many such similar commercials that he would utilize to push his products, the sort that would play upon the fears and desires of American woman reduced to the role of homemaker. The most suspectable to multi-layer marketing schemes and commercials, retro futuristic 50's style America took much from the 1950's, especially the idea of leaving behind their woman alone in a house with nothing but their thoughts of an incomplete life with a unending desire for a way to fix it. House's future commercials would play up materialism as the solution to a level that it would drive the Pre-war woman crazy enough to spend their husband's capital faster than the man could make it, all for products or services carefully catered to scratch an itch that will never end.
The final creation Robert Edwin House was willing to make before resting, would be something inspired by the memories of the transmigrator John, of his old world and its dependency on a similar sugary abomination that was called a monster. This new flagship recipe would be something that late night workers, researchers behind on their objectives, college students cramming for their exams, and any in need of productivity over slumber would consider a godsend of an aid to their overworked existence. House, would call this new formula Nuka Cola Focus, and it would demand the most amount of care and forethought.
House desired one day to engineer the chemical solution known as Mentats, the nootropic that sharpened memory and accelerated thought, yet one that did not come at the cost of brutal addiction and crushing withdrawal. Robert House wanted clarity without the horrible side effects that would chain many poor college students and researchers to the will of Med-Tek, who would unleash their abominable product upon the Pre-War America world in a few decades' time. House desired the effects of Mentats, but with an energy boost that enabled as much productivity that could be milked during a time crunch, one in a gleaming Nuka Cola bottle.
Using the Super Lab's precision equipment, Robert built the drink recipe from the ground up, far different than the other two. A heavy dose of natural caffeine extracted from black tea and guarana, deliberately higher than anything found in commercial colas, was micro-encapsulated for steady but powerful release. Taurine, glucuronolactone, and a full spectrum of B-vitamins were added in large enough concentrations where Robert House would sooner die than consume said nightmare product. L-theanine was implemented in a precise 2 to 1 ratio with the caffeine smoothed the stimulation, preventing jitters and promoting calm focus. Low-dose, highly bioavailable citicoline and bacopa monnieri extract supported working memory and mental processing speed. Rhodiola rosea and Panax ginseng added fatigue resistance and mental stamina under prolonged stress. Electrolytes and another spectrum of B-vitamins rounded out the profile, supporting sustained cognitive effort without the crash that followed pure stimulant products. The fruit matrix was kept closer to the original Bradberton variant of Nuka-Cola profile so the functional blend of new ingredients would not dominate the taste, but the carbonation was slightly higher and the finish drier to reinforce the sense of alertness.
The first test pour produced a darker, more serious-looking liquid than the other two variants. House did not want to drink it, Nuka Cola Focus was a better alternative than the radioactive isotopes that would be added to later variants of Bradburton's Nuka Cola, but that was not saying much, as this drink would substitute poison by radiation with poison by an overload of chemicals. However, after an explicit self-motivation monologue that seemed completely unhinged that the Super Labs cameras clearly caught from four different angles, House had forced himself to test out his product. What Robert sold would be tied to his reputation as a business man, and entrepreneur, ruining that image outweighed his fear of the chemical cocktail that entered his body. Small sips were consumed, slowly, all while House ran a series of complex calculations and spatial puzzles on the lab terminal. Within fifteen minutes his thoughts felt sharper, sequential, almost frictionless as the flow of information was processed, digested, and implemented as productively as House believed his potential could reach. There was no euphoria, no tunnel vision, no impending crash, only a clean, usable clarity that lasted for hours and faded gently rather than collapsing. Though unlike the other two products, House in a greedy conscience to have living customers, could not have the new drink served in the same ratio as the other two recipes. It took a while but House decided he would imagine a smaller bottle for Nuka Cola Focus, probably a 6oz glass container while the two other recipes would be put into a 12oz glass bottle. House sat the glass down and recorded the results with focused intensity, and a quiet satisfaction.
His first day within the Continuum super lab had resulted in a pectin preservative, one that was implemented in the three other products House had made that same day, and this was just the beginning. With Nuka Cola LLC's primary product recipes made, House could focus upon the developing the products and services of PermaHarvest LLC, and with it he would have to build the soda bottle design of the Nuka Cola products. He would not go with the classic contour glass soda bottle shape that had patents owned by other corporations, but instead Robert House settled upon the rocket ship designed soda bottle that Bradberton would later use to push his product in the commonwealth and west Virginia area.
House had originally planned to go to sleep, but after consuming the Nuka Cola Focus, he would ride the high, delaying the sweet slumber, instead attempting to produce as much of the three soda drink recipes as he could with his vast wholesales storage of fruit essences. Working methodically through the night, he scaled the three locked formulas against the large wholesale supply he had brought in. The limiting factors were the refined fruit concentrates, the smoked cane-sugar syrup, and the smaller but denser functional load required for Focus. As the limiting factors were dealt with, a timely process, House would focus upon building the bottles that would hold the vast quantity of soda he would make.
Still riding the clean, frictionless clarity of the Nuka-Cola Focus, House turned from the process of working on fruit concentrates and more pectin preservatives, to a third project that had been circling the edge of his thoughts all night. He needed bottles to store the sweet soda nectars he would be making, and he desired the perfect, iconic, patent-free bottles that he could later patent with the help of the CIT legal department that Gorllewin was calling every five minutes. House refused to settle for any existing contour design, the rocket-ship silhouette Bradberton would one day popularize was already fixed in his mind, and he intended to own it first. And he needed something that could perfectly cut through a brick of glass and develop the perfect bottle ship design as quickly as possible.
Robert knew from the transmigrator's excessive memories of this world, that there was an item known as the Cosmic Knife. A sharp cutting appliance that could effortlessly cut through limbs and cutting boards alike. This marvel of design would one day be made by Big MT and be supplied to the Sierra Madre Casino and Resort for extensive use as a kitchen appliance before becoming a weapon utilized by the inhabitants of the casino for the horrors to come. The Cosmic Knife was made up of a material known as Saturnite, a ceramic-like polymer alloy sharp enough to market as the World's Sharpest Edge. Impressive enough to be used for the process that House envisioned, but still not enough for the perfectionist from Nevada. House wanted something purer and more absolute, a synthetic carbon allotrope arranged in a graphene-diamond hybrid lattice denser, harder, and more stable than anything Saturnite could achieve. A metallurgist wonder that could alter the future of humanity, and Robert Edwin House had six hours of his Nuka Cola Focus high to see it done.
Without hesitation Robert began stripping the Super Lab's materials stores of everything that could serve as feedstock to alloy. Such as high-purity graphite blocks, industrial diamond grit, cylinders of methane and hydrogen, catalyst nanoparticles of nickel and iron. He stacked the precursors near the plasma arc furnace with clinical precision while the first dose of Focus still burned clean in his system.
The work towards the synthesis began at once. Under ordinary conditions the creation of a bulk hybrid carbon lattice demanded three full days of staged deposition, high-pressure annealing, and repeated defect correction. House refused every inefficient path and limitations of reality as his intelligence, fueled by scientific knowledge that no mortal man should even be capable of, worked in over drive, enhanced further by Focus. He fed graphite and diamond seed material into the chamber in exact ratios, flooded the system with methane-hydrogen carrier gas, and drove the plasma furnace to eighteen thousand Kelvin. Piezoelectric sensors monitored lattice formation in real time; every grain boundary that tried to form was corrected mid-growth, every residual stress annealed out before it could lock into the structure. Maxed Science and the Prodigy Engineer perk turned the Super Lab's equipment into an extension of House's will, becoming something more towards the supernatural than scientifically explainable. Four hours later the first dense boule of matte-black allotrope had solidified, heavier than its volume suggested, already showing the characteristic fracture planes of a material capable of holding a true monomolecular edge.
By the fifth hour fatigue had begun to creep in at the edges of Robert's clarity. House measured the remaining work, realizing that it would not be enough, before making a decision he hoped would not haunt him. Robert Edwin House allowed himself a second, carefully timed dose of Nuka-Cola Focus, the clarity returned colder and more predatory than before, and with it came the quiet recognition that the drink was already rewriting his reward pathways. He filed the addiction vector for later adjustment of the formula and drove the final cycles harder. In the remaining hour he sectioned the first billet, ran two accelerated deposition passes on the leftover feedstock, and produced two more bars of metal of equal quality. The entire three-day process had been compressed into a single 6 hour night that bled over to the next day.
With Tuesday here, the allotrope sealed and was left to cool, House turned immediately to the process that would create the blade. He machined a twenty-five-centimeter blank from the densest billet, then spent the next ninety minutes refining the edge under the micro-fabrication arrays. A piezoelectric core was embedded along the spine so the cutting surface could vibrate at hundreds of thousands of cycles per second. When the process finished, the monomolecular knife rested on the workbench, matte black, almost light-absorbing, the edge glowing with a faint ultra-fine blue-white line where the vibration ran. It was quieter, cleaner, sharper and far more controllable than any Cosmic Knife Big MT would ever produce. House would make two more of said blades, to be utilized into a far more complex machine, one that would never lose its edge, and more importantly mass produce the perfect bottle shape for Nuka Cola.
Robert locked two oversized blanks of high-clarity glass, the closest he could find to soda-lime within the Continuum lab, put them both into the work clamps and began freehand cutting. The monomolecular edge of the black knife whispered through the material as if the glass were soft wax. With a focus on agility and intelligence, House carved through the glass until the proportions finally sang as something similar to the design he was looking for. One his first try, more due to his luck than anything, he held a flawless twelve-ounce empty rocket-ship bottle, fins sharp, body balanced, neck perfectly proportioned. A second, smaller blank followed until a matching bottle, one to be used for a six-ounce drink rested beside it. Both prototypes gleamed under the lab lights like miniature chrome rockets waiting for fuel.
With the hand-cut masters complete, House spent the final hours of the second Focus dose constructing the automated machine that would reproduce the bottles to Robert's exact design. Within a dull box of metal had a rotator utilizing twin monomolecular carbon allotrope knives, upon being fed the data through a third dimensional scanner, that took the exact the image of both bottles, began a work utilizing geometry and laser guidance to carve the exact bottle designs House desired. With the digital molds locked in, the machine would carve a finished bottle from raw glass stock in under ninety seconds with absolute consistency. The first production run of rocket-ship bottles, twelve-ounce for the classic and Zero formulas were mass produced, then followed by the six-ounce for Focus. All while House prepared the brew that would be put into said glass bottles.
House worked in steady, economical motions, making sure not to waste any excess energy and accomplish everything as efficiently as he could. Robert lined the finished rocket-ship bottles in ranked rows on the central bench, twelve-ounce vessels for that would hold House's Original formula and the Zero variant, then came the six-ounce vessels for Focus. One by one Robert filled them from the three sealed concentrate reservoirs in a manner more automaton than man, the carbonated liquid rising in clean columns until each bottle reached its precise fill line. A compact thermal-transfer printer produced the labels in batches, bold red-and-white for the flagship Nuka-Cola, cool blue for Nuka-Cola Zero, and black with a sharp green lightning bolt for Nuka-Cola Focus. He applied each label with exact pressure so that it sat perfectly straight against the curved glass. When the last bottle was labeled he moved to the laboratory-scale pneumatic crown capper, originally meant for sealing pharmaceutical based tonics, but able to aid with House's current project. A soft hiss of compressed air, a single decisive stroke of the crowning bell, and the metal cap locked into place with a muted metallic snap. Bottle after bottle received the same treatment until all five hundred and fifty stood sealed, labeled, and ready for cold storage.
House had exhausted the entirety of the Lab 7's glass supply, and would have to put in a request for more at a later date. By the time the lab's automatic lighting began its slow pre-dawn brightening cycle, the cold-storage unit held a clean, numbered inventory of Nuka Cola. There were 50 bottles of Nuka Cola Zero, followed by 300 bottles of House's version of Nuka Cola original in the 12oz variant. Finally he had roughly 200 bottles of Nuka Cola Focus in the 6oz variant rocket ship bottle. All 550 bottles of Nuka Cola were sealed away with a corresponding colored bottle cap, the same sort of bottle cap that could one day be used as currency should the world come to an end. The high end metallic seals, would protecting the contents of the bottle from outside exposure. With all of the produce utilized, House also had 1.1 kilograms of the pectin preservatives also sealed away in a nice container, only having to utilizing around 190 grams of it for all 550 bottles of Nuka Cola.
House spent the next forty minutes scrubbing every surface, rinsing the mixing vessels, and running the high-shear homogenizer and rotary evaporator through full sterilization cycles until the lab no longer carried even a trace of fruit volatiles. Only when the air tasted clean again did he turn to the remaining peels, pulp, and spent biomass. He loaded the waste into a controlled low-oxygen pyrolysis chamber, slowly raising the temperature to convert the organic matter into high-surface-area biochar. By the time the cycle finished he had produced just over four kilograms of fine, porous black biochar, an excellent soil amendment capable of holding water and nutrients far longer than ordinary compost. He sealed the biochar in labeled containers under the PermaHarvest designation, then performed one final, meticulous cleaning of every tool and surface. Satisfied that Lab 7 was once again sterile, House unrolled his sleeping bag in the corner, set a four-hour timer, and finally allowed himself to sleep. Between the Nuka Cola Zero and Focus, followed by the pectin preservative, the biochar, the synthetic carbon allotrope, the monocular knife, the glass shaper utilizing said knife, and the two bottle designs House was awarded upwards of 8,000 points of experience points on top of the original Nuka Cola formula and Robert's own version. Robert reached level 11, was too tired to do anything outside of sleep, and ponder the logistical work that would be required to mass produce Nuka Cola.
~POV Marcus Ellison~
Three hours later the sliding glass door to Lab 7 slid open with its usual soft hydraulic sigh. Marcus Ellison stepped inside and stopped cold. The lab was spotless, not merely tidy, but surgically clean to the point it looked as if it was not used at all. Every surface gleamed under the soft white lights. The air carried none of the thick tropical scent that had saturated the space the previous evening. No sticky residue clung to the benches. No discarded peels or pulp waited in the waste bins. It was as if the entire of frantic activity from the previous day had been carefully erased. The temperature felt a fraction colder than usual, and something in the stillness made the hairs on the back of Marcus's neck rise. Greatness had happened here, he could feel the aftershock of it, even if he could not yet see the evidence.
In the far corner, half-hidden behind a equipment rack, Robert House lay curled inside a plain sleeping bag, breathing slow and even. Marcus exhaled through his nose at the sight, a bit of disappointment, but not enough to wake the boy from his slumber. Two years ago the Continuum had enacted a strict policy forbidding anyone from sleeping inside the super labs after a series of near-miss accidents and one particularly spectacular chemical fire. If Dr. Sophia Laurent walked in right now she would write House up without hesitation, then turn her disapproval on Marcus for failing to enforce proper orientation. Marcus already knew how that conversation would end, but believed in a more hands off approach, let the boy learn from his own mistakes, and try to reduce the damage. It was best to get them to adopt a more healthy approach to innovations, and letting them work through the night until they caused a mistake, hopefully a small one, was Marcus's way of teaching. Dean Oswald and Professor Gorllewin would quietly bury any complaints that Dr. Laurent sent them, like the hundred of other complaints that Dr. Sophia made throughout the year with new members of the Continuum. House on the other hand, had the Dean's personal patronage and favor. Marcus would not be suprised if minor and major infractions would simply not stick to him, as long as he delivered results that the Continuum could use to deal with the funding problem.
Marcus moved deeper into the lab, eyes scanning for the project he expected to find, early work on the solar-cell battery House had supposedly built once already. Instead his gaze landed on the sealed cold-storage unit, filled to the brim with what looked like miniature rockets. Marcus opened it to find rows of identical rocket-ship designed glass sculptures stood in neat, labeled ranks. Nuka-Cola in red, Nuka-Cola Zero in blue and finally labeled in black and green was Nuka-Cola Focus held within small sized bottles. Three distinct items that Marcus did not understand, but saw hundreds of bottles, every one capped, labeled and stacked with military precision. Marcus closed the unit slowly, mind racing. He continued searching and found two more sealed containers: one holding a fine pale powder labeled pectin preservative, the other containing just over four kilograms of high-surface-area biochar. Checking the terminal Marcus found nothing relating to the solar cells, nor any battery prototypes, or photovoltaic materials of any kind.
If Sophia had been the one standing here and learned that House was not working on his assigned project, she would already be marching toward the Dean's public office issuing an inquire and an investigation into House's conduct. Marcus, however, was not Sophia, though if a deception was at play here, he would report it, but first he wanted the full answer. So he stood in the quiet lab for a long moment, weighing loyalty against caution. House had been given Lab 7 for a little over twenty four hours and was expected to remain working here for an entire week. His career with the Continuum would match that of his time at CIT, at least another three years, yet there was talk about finding a way to keep him for connected for far longer. Whatever was being worked on here, it was clearly chemistry, something sophisticated, large-scale, and deliberately organized in a way even those who weren't an expert in the field could understand. Marcus's own specialty sat far from this type of science and from the terminal notes revealed that majority of the previous day went into creating several special beverage formulates. Marcus could not immediately judge the value of what he was seeing, and would not risk drinking one of beverages without permission from the youth silently resting. Marcus decided he would hear House's explanation before he would do anything drastic like informing the Continuum's superiors. An hour later House stirred, sat up, and met Marcus's steady gaze without surprise.
"What exactly were you working on last night?" Marcus asked, his voice low and even, but far less polite than even he wanted to speak it. He should have started with a Good morning or something friendlier, but the news of possible budget cuts got Mr. Ellison worried enough that he hoped the young genius was not fooling around. "And don't tell me it was the solar cell."
House rose, rolled the sleeping bag with practiced efficiency, and answered without deflection. He spoke of capital velocity, of the Continuum's immediate need for unrestricted revenue, of two newly formed limited-liability companies that could generate cash flow far faster than any long-cycle energy research. Something regarding food production and the creation of soft drinks that could be turned into money inside of weeks rather than years unlike the solar-cell battery. The logic was cold, practical, and exactly the sort of argument Dean Oswald would respect even when all the bills continued to climb. Marcus listened in silence. When House finished, the older student gave a single, reluctant nod. "Well, this is not what the Dean hoped for, but I do see the possibility of solving the funding issue with this, though both Dean Oswald and Professor Gorllewin are hoping for something that they can sell on the market by the end of the year."
"I will have something prepared to start selling by the end of the month. Though I do need a budget on acquiring further produce, as well as a resupply on glass similar or exactly like the Soda-Lime variant. Also metal sheets, I do not want to keep all of the Nuka Cola inside the cold storage but into a proper vending machine. I will produce a list of items I need, if you can help me get everything and preferably without security cutting everything open and delaying me, that would be a large weight off of my work load for the week." Something about the way that Robert House requested the aid felt convincing, as if the first year student was so certain of his products success that it made Marcus certain of it. The sheer charisma of it had Marcus feeling giddy, like as if whatever Robert was planning was contagious and now Marcus wanted a hand in it.
"I'll help you with the requisition forms," Marcus said at last. "Whatever you need make sure you get it all write down, because I do not plan to write multiple request forms. Security will still have to check it, but if I'm bringing it in they will speed up the process considerably. You're also going to have to eventually explain this properly to the higher ups. The Dean is expecting a battery design, not whatever it is your working on. Dr. Laurent is expecting a report on Monday detailing everything you worked on and if it does not include what she was told you would be working on, then prepare for biblical shit storm of inquires, restrictions, and a number of other nuisances that can drive even the Buddha crazy."
House simply inclined his head in silent acknowledgement, brushing his teeth, then soon after heading toward the terminal to begin drafting the supply requests. Marcus watched him for another moment, then quietly began assisting with filling out the requisition forms. Marcus did not know what was going to happen by the end of the week, but somewhere deep in his psyche, he felt something glorious was coming, and he would offer a helping hand to be part of it.