New Rome was growing and thriving, and for some reason, immigrants were beginning to arrive from California. That they came from the south, from Mexico, made sense. The AI left behind by the old American army to manage its occupation zones was collapsing. It had been efficient for years, maintaining order in rural and industrial areas with little human oversight, but now its algorithms were riddled with errors. Data corruption, contradictory orders, loss of control over logistical nodes—everything had become unstable. The citizens who once lived comfortably under that automated system were losing everything, and fleeing to a stable, even if authoritarian, structure like the Legion was a logical move.
But California was something else. Democracy, freedom, a deeply different culture. And yet, they were starting to come. According to reports from our spies, the loss of Hoover Dam had destroyed their agricultural balance. Crops were failing, prices were rising. The wages of farmers—once servants to the brahmin barons—were no longer enough to survive. And with those same barons brought down by the new government, their lands were redistributed, as if that would solve anything. The small farming communities, suffocated by the high taxes Kimball imposed to force them to sell, couldn't recover. It was a system collapsing from the root, and many of its former pillars were now crossing our borders in search of food.
Vulpes had them under watch. In a way, they didn't pose a serious problem. The risk of infiltration was low, and he considered it useful to let the word spread: that food was abundant in the Legion, and rationed in the Republic. It was propaganda that cost us nothing and could help smooth future cooperation within cities still resisting our influence. He decided it wasn't worth bothering me with, and I was grateful. I've been far too occupied with the affairs of the city and managing the scattered pieces of the new empire to stop and evaluate every wave of migration hitting our borders.
After all, I've been trying to continue my experiment with the VEF, and something always interrupts it.
But now it was different. For the first time in years, I had time. Peace—something many see as stagnation—was, to me, an open window. I had gained something more valuable than glory or territory: room to maneuver. And I planned to use it like never before, especially now that I had full access to information from the Remnants.
They came with a bonus. They had detailed knowledge of all Enclave bases: arsenals, research facilities, sealed labs, forgotten logistical routes. As soon as I read the first report, I authorized immediate expeditions to all marked sites. I wasn't just after weapons. I was after their deepest secrets.
Some bases were empty, looted, abandoned. But others held priceless items: intact plasma weaponry, incomplete tanks, armored vehicles, still-functional data servers. And among those files, what really caught my interest was a name.
Frank Horrigan.
For years, the Enclave used him as a symbol of its military supremacy. A brute-force aberration that obeyed without hesitation. It took effort, but we finally recovered the archives from Mariposa and other secondary facilities tied to his development.
That's where I found the truth.
Horrigan already had mental issues before his transformation. He wasn't a designed-from-scratch product. He was a Secret Service agent, highly trained but with a complicated psychiatric record. He suffered from psychotic episodes, personality disorders, and had been labeled unstable—but useful. Everything changed during a research mission at Mariposa Base, when an accident exposed him directly to the VEF, which penetrated and forced him to mutate.
What should've killed him transformed him.
His body mutated, strengthened to absurd limits, but his mind became even more erratic. The Enclave didn't abandon the subject. They turned the accident into a project. They stabilized him with a combination of advanced neural implants, chemical reinforcement, and indoctrination. The result was Horrigan: obedient, destructive, lethal. A living force of massive intimidation, the weapon they sent to make sure the job got done.
And now, all that information was in my hands. The implant designs. The medical protocols. The psychological suppression regimen he was subjected to in order to become the Enclave's preferred weapon for external operations.
At my disposal, I had only one scientist—Doctor Henry. He was the only one within the Legion I could trust and who had the knowledge. He lacked the usual superstition of our scribes, and none of that backward view of science. Though his attention was divided: half his time went to tracking the experimental cure for schizophrenia in the blue super mutants of Jacobstown. A project that, according to his reports, was showing real progress, with some already cured completely thanks to a vast research budget.
Thanks to the legacy of the Master, I wasn't short on test subjects. I had access to a significant number of super mutants—docile, loyal, and mostly desperate for purpose. They followed for two reasons. First, because I had eliminated the general who once led them. And in their simple logic, that made me the strongest. Leadership, to them, was strength, not ideology. And second, because I had direct collaboration from several Children of the Master—individuals with superior intelligence who helped coordinate the rest, who barely functioned on instinct.
That gave me a solid base of subjects for the initial trials. Plenty of lab rats. And one crucial question: was it better to use a Child of the Master—valuable and more complex—or sacrifice the dumb ones, moldable, easier to manipulate through implants and psychological control?
So far, the early results pointed to the latter.
The application of a modified version of the FEV, specifically designed to intensify mutation without severely affecting mental stability, was showing promising outcomes. My goal wasn't just to replicate Horrigan. I wanted to improve him. Make him taller. Stronger. More resistant. Horrigan stood taller than any conventional super mutant, and his power armor had been literally built around him. He didn't take it off. It was part of him.
I wanted the next generation to be born like this. Trial and error, again and again. What we were doing could hardly be called moral by any civilized standard—and I won't lie to myself: this is, without doubt, one of the most unethical things I've ever done. And still, what does it matter?
The end justifies everything. Absolutely everything.
What does it matter if super mutants can't handle accelerated mutation? If cellular growth spirals out of control, turning them into trembling, deformed masses that can barely breathe before collapsing? If their organs rupture, if their skin tears apart while their bodies try to reach Horrigan's size without the frame to support it?
Each failure brought me closer to the goal. Every broken body was a corrected equation.
I was building something that would shake history. Horrigan was a stabilized accident. Mine would be a pure creation—designed from the beginning, improved, perfected. A living weapon. Loyal. Monstrous. Indestructible.
My understanding of the FEV grew daily. Whether through super mutant testing or potential human applications, each trial taught me more. I learned how to better control adverse effects, to isolate the genetic branches that held stability, to identify why certain tissues failed. The key always lay in the base DNA, which I constantly modified—refining, correcting, adapting.
Every failed mutant was another version of the model.
And then, on one of those days buried in the lab, when the routine had become as predictable as it was necessary, a frumentarius burst in with something I never expected.
He carried the most valuable piece of all: data extracted from a forgotten Enclave archive, buried under layers of encryption. They had risked everything for it—but the results justified any cost.
The full genetic map of Frank Horrigan.
The exact sequence. Every mutation. Every cellular reinforcement. Every compatible implant. The real origin of the aberration the Enclave had crafted as its last weapon of power. I no longer had to reconstruct it blindly. I had the blueprint.
The monster—stripped bare. Line by line. Base by base.
Henry and I prepared everything with precision. Finally, we brought in one of the Children of the Master to apply the recovered Horrigan data. The modified FEV injections, reinforced with Horrigan's full genetic chain, were ready. There was no turning back. This would force the subject to mutate following the original monster's path.
Within seconds, the virus went to work. Muscle and bone growth was violent and fast, as expected. The creature screamed, thrashed—but survived. It didn't melt like the others. It didn't collapse. The body held.
Over the next days, its hunger became insatiable. It needed absurd quantities of meat to sustain the mass it was building.
As the body stabilized, we began installing the implants—one by one, reinforcing muscle, bone, nervous system. We increased strength, endurance, pain tolerance. Then came constant virtual training sessions, hammering obedience and tactical efficiency into its mind. Two exhausting weeks of work between Henry and me. No rest. There couldn't be.
But in the end, the experiment was complete.
Over three and a half meters of pure muscle reinforced with cybernetic systems, and all the tactical and verbal intelligence of a Child of the Master. It wasn't a brute. It wasn't a beast. It was a thinking machine—obedient, built to annihilate with precision.
It stared at its own body for a long time. Its hands. Its reflection. The shadow it cast on the wall. I watched it too. And I couldn't help it.
A single tear—small, silent—slid down my cheek.
Pride. That's what I felt.
I had created the perfect shape of war.
Taller than any ordinary super mutant. Far more intelligent than average. It even surpassed most humans. Some tests showed an IQ of 124—something unheard of for its kind. Logically so. It was based on a Child of the Master's genetics, already cognitively superior, then enhanced by weeks of indoctrination, stimulation, and mental conditioning.
After weeks sealed inside the lab, I finally stepped outside. Sunlight stung my eyes like I had forgotten what it was. But at my side, silent, walked my creation. Loyal. Towering. Careful with each step, as if it knew its mere presence was enough to freeze blood.
The praetorians guarding the lab entrance tensed immediately. They didn't say a word, but their faces said everything. They were truly afraid. Not of me.
Of what followed me.
I didn't take long to finish the work. We immediately began construction on his armor. This super mutant already had several modifications compatible with power armor use—many of the implants were designed to interface with a servo-assisted suit that had an internal support frame. It connected his brain directly to many of the armor's functions: automatic injections of stimulants, adrenaline surges, tactical vision enhancements, targeting optics.
All of it was built into the new Frank Horrigan. He was sealed in steel, alloys, and ceramics—more resistant than any tank, more agile than anything on two legs, stronger than any living creature. And absolutely loyal to one person.
Me.
He was my monster.
My new personal praetorian guard.
The first of many.