You’re wandering through the Cambridge ruins, dodging the usual feral ghouls, when you see it. A clean, imposing building that looks way too intact for the Commonwealth. You walk in, and instead of a face-full of buckshot, you get greeted by Molly. She’s a Miss Nanny robot who is, frankly, way too polite for her own good. She offers you a job. You take it. Suddenly, the doors lock, and you're trapped in a 200-year-old corporate nightmare of "mandatory overtime."
Welcome to Cambridge Polymer Labs.
Honestly, most players stumble into this place while looking for the CIT ruins and end up panicking when they realize they can't just walk back out the front door. It’s one of the most atmospheric, claustrophobic, and genuinely tragic side quests in all of Fallout 4. It isn't just about the loot, though the Piezonucleic Power Armor is a nice trophy. It’s about the fact that this lab is a time capsule of the exact moment the world ended, and the people inside never really stopped working.
The Reality of the Research Project
Most people think this is a simple "find the items, craft the thing" quest. It’s not. It’s a puzzle that requires you to actually pay attention to the chemicals you’re grabbing. If you just start shoving random canisters into the fabricator, you’re going to fail. Hard.
Basically, the goal is to finish a pre-war military contract for a nucleostrictive power armor lining. Director Jon Elwood was desperate. He knew the bombs were falling. He knew his staff wanted to go home to their families, but he also knew that if they didn't finish the project, the military wouldn't evacuate them. So he did what any "responsible" boss would do: he locked the doors and told them they were staying until the work was done.
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Spoiler alert: the military never came.
How to Actually Solve the Lab Puzzle
To get the best ending—and the armor—you need three specific things. You’ll find a bunch of "Unidentified Samples" in test tubes scattered around the rooms. Don't just guess. Use the terminal in the main lab to scan them. You specifically need:
- Lithium Hydride (Sample 3111)
- Gold (Sample 611)
- U-238 (The radioactive isotope)
The gold is usually tucked away upstairs. You’ll have to do a bit of parkour through a hole in the ceiling to reach the sealed-off room. The isotope is the real kicker. It’s hidden in a highly irradiated containment area guarded by a Glowing One. If you aren't wearing a hazmat suit—there’s one in the lab, grab it—you’re going to melt.
Once you have the two chemicals, slot them into the reagent docks. Put the U-238 in the isotope slot. Run the program on the terminal. If you did it right, the machine whirs to life and spits out the Piezonucleic Power Armor chest piece.
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Why the Piezonucleic Power Armor Still Matters
Is it the best armor in the game? Kinda. It depends on your level. If you enter Cambridge Polymer Labs at a low level, you’ll get a T-45 version. If you’re higher, you get T-51. It doesn't scale up to X-01, which bums people out, but the legendary effect is what makes it a keeper.
It speeds up your Action Point (AP) refresh rate when you’re taking radiation damage. In the Glowing Sea? You’re basically a god. You’re constantly taking tiny ticks of rads, which means your AP is refilling almost instantly. For a VATS-heavy build, this is a game-changer. It’s one of those niche items that stays useful even when you have "better" base stats on other gear.
The Tragedy Nobody Talks About
While you’re hunting for gold and lithium, take a second to read the terminals. You’ll see emails from Mary, who was terrified about her kids. You’ll see the logs from Ericka Elwood—the Director’s wife—who was the lead scientist.
There’s a massive misconception that the Director was just a villain. If you find his logs, you realize he was trying to save them. He was wounded, sick, and trying to get a signal out to Colonel Kemp for extraction. He thought the project was their only ticket out of the apocalypse.
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Instead, a scientist named Will Bergman snapped. He tried to hack the systems to escape, the security turrets went haywire, and in the chaos, almost everyone died. Ericka was killed by a trap Will set. When you finally finish the research and Molly lets you into the Director’s office, you find him. Or what’s left of him. He’s a Feral Ghoul now. He’s been waiting 210 years for a report that never mattered.
Getting Out the "Easy" Way
Maybe you don't care about the science. Maybe you just want to leave. You can actually bypass the entire experiment if you have the hacking skills.
Upstairs, in the same room where you find the gold, there’s an Expert-level terminal. If you hack it, you can override the facility lockdown. This turns the turrets hostile, but it opens the doors. You won't get the legendary armor this way, and Molly might try to kill you, but hey, you’re free.
Honestly though? Just do the experiment. It takes ten minutes and the story is worth the effort.
Essential Next Steps for your Visit
- Grab the Magazine: Don't leave the Director's office without picking up the Massachusetts Surgical Journal on his desk. It gives you a permanent +2% limb damage bonus.
- Check the Hazmat Suit: If you don't have Lead-Lined armor yet, there is a suit in the locker room area near the entrance to the lab floor. You'll need it for the U-238 room.
- Loot Molly: After you finish the quest, Molly will likely shut down or "fire" you. You can loot her for some basic materials, but it's honestly a bit depressing to do so.
- Don't Scrap the Samples: If you pick up the "Unidentified Samples," they take up weight. Once you identify them, they become usable. If you have leftovers, they’re basically just vendor trash, but they have unique names, so collectors might want to keep them.
When you're done, head back out into the Cambridge ruins. You've got a new piece of armor, a slight boost to your limb damage, and the heavy knowledge that corporate "mandatory overtime" is literally eternal in the Fallout universe.