"Damn, Well a guy can dream. Guess we head BACK down to the basement to see what exactly we have to do to get rid of all these ghouls." I said a little fed up already but not terribly surprised.
Even in the game this quest was one of the most annoying ones as it had far too many steps for a small pay out. It was so bad many people chose to skip it entirely since they already knew the story from a previous playthrough. I couldn't do that since that would let my meta knowledge slip to Jess.
Can't have that.
So it was with a good amount of reluctance that we followed the rushing ghouls and one human down to the basement. The fact the ghouls all put on red space suits with glass bubble helmets made it fairly obvious how weird this cult was. We moved through the basement following the path that led to the same room the Nightkin leader was in and then past it through the metal sliding door at it's back. That door led to another room with a set of stairs heading even further down.-
There was trash and scrap all over the floor of the room filled with rusted generators humming away at the bottom of the stairs. We followed the ghouls through a massive sliding metal door into a sort of thick concrete tunnel system. These tunnels led to that dome we saw when we first arrived at the facility. The maintenance room with a thick glass window leading to the launch pad with the three old but clearly mostly repaired rockets sat. Jason stood nearby the hatch waiting for us when we arrived.-
"Wanderers. I wanted to speak to you before descending down to the launch pad. I-" he started but I cut him off.
"Save the speech and just tell us what you want us to do." I said flatly.
"Our preparations are nearly complete. But the rockets that will carry us to salvation are missing a few vital components. If you will still help us wanderer, speak to Chris. He can tell you what is needed." he said in a less wordy manner than he clearly wanted.
"Right, so lets go talk to mister deluded and used shall we?" I said casually making Jason frown but not argue with me.
"Deluded I get. What do you mean by used though?" Jess asked and Boone answered before I could.
"He means Chris is being used as a tool before they discard him. Probably the whole reason they even got the rockets this close to functional." he said bluntly.
"Yep. Dudes human, he'd die in minutes of stepping on the launch pad. This "great beyond" sounds even more radioactive. He does the work and at best gets an empty title while they get the real prize." I said with a shake of my head.
"That's horrible!" Jess says angry for the guy.
"It is. Not our business though. We are here to get these ghouls gone, not point out a manipulation that the guy brought on himself." I say with a shrug.
"Pointing out his delusion and the manipulation may be make things far worse as well. My calculations say theres a seventy percent chance he'd sabotage the rockets, killing all these people." Adam said seriously.
"Can't argue with the math. Unless you want to be responsible for all those deaths let me handle the talking." I say mentally high fiving Adam for the timely assist.
"Fine, but I don't like it." Jess said with an unhappy expression.
We moved through the tunnels to find Chris who was set up in a supply closet going over inventory. He grimaced when he looked at us.
"Jason says that I am to cooperate with you on the final tasks necessary to launch the Great journey." he said almost as if the thought was repulsive to him.
"Just tell us what to go get and where to get it and we'll be out of your hair, what's left of it anyways." I said looking at his bald top.
"A quantity of isotope two thirty nine igniting agent and a set of thrust control modules. The igniting agent is highly radioactive and decays quickly which is why we can't use the drums down on the launch pad that leaked. It's no longer potent enough. I need you to find an intact, shielded container of the igniting agent. As for the thrust control modules. They were custom built for the rockets. They won't even launch without them." he said with a glare.
"The leaked isotope on the launch pad can be recycled if the ghoul known as Jason released the radiation within him at a high frequency." Adam says calmly.
"What?" Chris asked confused.
"Isotope two thirty nine ignition fluid can be resealed and bombarded by a wave of high frequency radiation to return it to it's primed state but only a single time." Adam said with extra clarification.
"I've never seen any documentation describing this method of yours." Chris said skeptical.
"Why don't you test it on a sample first then? If it works then that's one step closer to the launch right?" I said coaxingly.
"Fine. If it works then i'll write off that component but only then." he said frowning deeply.
When he walks off to go do that Jess stares at me but in truth was definitely looked at Adam.
"Have experience with little known radioactive substances?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Over the last two hundred years I have experimented extensively on synthetic materials and fuels. This is merely one of them. The energetic decay rate does not innately change to fluids properties so I attempted various methods to see if it could be recycled. I found one but the reenergization process destabilizes the isotope so it's decay rate is vastly accelerated once left exposed again." Adam explained calmly.
"Besides these rockets what even is this stuff used for?" I asked curiously.
"From my database I understand that the popularized rocket fuel used at the end of the war before the bombs dropped was highly inert until agitated with a high energy compound. Hence the isotope ignition fluid was developed exclusively for this purpose. It was later adopted into the seventh generation hypersonic aircraft due to a far lesser amount of fuel being needed to achieve the same speeds as previous fuels." Adam said calmly.
"I don't know if they are seventh generation aircraft but I do know where an aircraft carrier is beached with planes almost fully intact." I say seriously.
"Do they work?" Boone asked suddenly very interested in the conversation.
I shrug "I don't know. I believe they may need some serious maintenance and refueling even if they are mostly functionally intact." I said honestly.