Richardson knew his suit wasn't enough to save him. It had given out on him miles ago.
As his old, tired legs struggled to carry him, he wished he had the strength to take off his hermatically-sealed helmet. It stank of the vomit he had began violently retching hours before, soon after he had confirmed the jagged hole the fence had punctured into the pantleg of his radiation suit.
He was a fool.
Richardson cursed himself mentally again, even as his thoughts grew sluggish. Sickness has set in fast, testament to just how deadly the levels of nuclear radiation was near the bottom of the mountains. He also cursed the people from Before that had installed the now-rusty chain-link border around the entire base. It was a foolish waste of money to start with, to try to fence the whole mountain. Now it was his downfall as well; left behind years after the End just to poke a damn hole in somebody's suit.
His suit, he reminded himself.
Struggling to get upright from where he had briefly been propping himself on a tree, Richardson let out a pathetic groan of impotent rage. There was nothing he could do but hope to push his putrid, dying body close enough to be found with the documents.
And the DNA sample.
Richardson hefted a briefcase in his left grip desperately, willing his skin to hold together. He knew it was only a matter of time before it sloughed right off his hand inside the suit, rendering it impossible to grip by the handle. He knew carrying its weight would be equally impossible.
The radiation weakened him as it slowly killed him.
He hadn't realized just how much willpower he had possessed until he found himself actually at the vault door, babblering and probably sounding like a maniac through the intercom lodged into the wall beside it. He knew he was out of his mind, probably a hair's breath from death now. He did his best to warn them of his condition, but he was not sure if they understood him. He also tried to ensure they knew to take the briefcase.
He died there at the entrance.
..................
No one spoke of Richardson after that day, the death of one of their own keeping the various researchers, scientist and lab techs rather somber in their work. It affected them so completely that even the experiments could tell something had happened.
Most of the viable living results of the early experiments were barely intelligent, but they were still a success over the intial tests. They displayed at least animal-level awareness, usually correspondent to the genes they were exposed to.
But after Richardson's death, all the experimental test results improved dramatically - and it was all due to the briefcase he had dutifully retrieved and promptly carried to his death.
The wolf DNA had been vital to their research, the species having been thriving against all odds in the wastlelands created after the fall of nuclear bombs. Humans had finally reached the light-year travel space age, only to end up in a mutually assured destruction scenario.
Their work, and Richardson's work specifically, had been ongoing even before the Last War. No one knew what had taken ahold of the hundred-and-six year old man, to go and verify the reports of one of the wolves having been shot and killed outside of the fence by one of the few outside patrol trips - nearer to the plains than any of them had gone to in years. Only the permanent military personnel had dared venture outside of the lab in eighty years. Even with the life-enhancements discovered and mass-produced before the End, to go outside the safety of the vault alone in his advanced age had boggled all of them.
But when he had shown back up, spouting utter madness about wolves and radiation poisoning, immunity, genes and the briefcase, they all had gathered at the intercom and listened. Only one of them was brave enough to suit up and explain her plan before slipping into the vault's external airlock.
By the time it had closed and sealed the hydraulic doors behind her, then released the vault door actual, Richardson was silent.
She stepped out from between the cylindrical door, the rusty metal shrieking as it parted. Just like it had for Richardson before her. Her breathe was loud in the silence that followed when the great door fell still.
Tentatively, Dr. Lindsey side-stepped to her father's corpse. She stood over him briefly, a short prayer whispered quick for his soul before taking the briefcase. She knew best of all of them what Richardson would have wanted.
Turning back to the airlock, she hesitated only once before hitting the button that would seal her back in. She already missed him.
..................
"...And so due to the ingenuity of Researcher Richardson and his daughter, Dr. Lindsey, we have made a break-through in our experiments. Unfortunately, Richardson himself is no longer with us, but Lindsey has graciously volunteered to give you the report herself."
It was only Simeon, her boss, and herself giving the report on their DNA viability tests. It was a ceremony, really, keeping up appearances as if they hadn't had radio silence for decades. Every few years or so, the brass left inside the base demanded results, and so far the lab had been stalled in their past few reports.
The End had been hard on them all, but they kept on in that way.
"Yes, thank you Simeon. I'm Dr. Lindsey. My father has- .... had.. been working on the possible use of wolves for our genetic tests regarding viability and resistance to degradation in highly irradiated areas. He had heard reports of wolf packs roaming from some of the patrolmen, and was convinced that they were the perfect potential DNA candidate. His initial notes on his own side-project regarding them is what has allowed us our breakthrough."
She looked around the room for a moment, on the cusp of announcing her late father's life work. Licking her lips quickly before continuing, she hoped in her heart wherever he was now, he was proud of her.
"We have managed to create our first living genetic werewolf."
She heard the hushed silence that immediately followed her words, and flushed.
"Yes, I said that correctly. We have bred new soldiers with base human DNA and combined wolf's DNA. Our first fetus is growing in the lab as we speak."
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