Mystery Meat Mystery Meat is a side quest in " Fallout 4 " . Detailed walkthrough . Upon arrival at Longneck Lukowski ' s Cannery , Theodore and Trader Rylee will be arguing about her ability to sell his product and they will mention people getting sick after eating his canned meat . Asking him about it after she leaves will give you the option to offer to help him out by clearing the mole rats from the building . He ' ll give 50 caps up front . Despite him mentioning that you shouldn ' t go into the basement , there ' s nothing in the cannery proper itself to do , except get the Barter bobblehead and the Tales of a Junktown Jerky Vendor magazine inside the metal catwalk hut at the top southeast corner of the main cannery room , so head to the elevator in the northwest corner and take it down . When it reaches the bottom the elevator will be locked out by Theodore . You can then read the terminal to get a little background and discover that Theodore had been using mole rats in his meat to increase his supply , and is still looking for an alternative meat that will allow him to produce even more canned meat . The room straight ahead is trapped and has some minor loot and critters ; there ' s a good chance the radroaches will trip the trap and die on their own . A bit further along is a room with some feral ghouls and a hole in the wall ; continue through , killing them as you go . The tunnel is fairly linear , but at the first place where you ' re required to dip into the irradiated water , there ' s an area that can be reached behind the stairs with a few extra bits of minor loot and an advanced - level safe . After going up some winding stone steps you will be on a wooden walkway that forks . The left - hand side leads to a dead end with a machine gun turret and novice locked ammo box , and the right - hand side will lead you back , past a generator with a fusion core ( there are a couple of frag mines on your path here and just past the broken generator in the next room ) . You will now be up on the gantry that overlooks the area where you first encountered the ghouls . After a while you ' ll get back to the factory and find out that the meat Theodore ' s been selling has some ghoul in it as well ; upon returning to the cannery floor , he ' ll threaten you from the control room and turn hostile along with the 3 cannery robots . Theodore has companion - level health , but no armor . Killing him will end the mission . Alternatively , if you get within close range to him during the gunfight , he will plead with you . He offers to run the business and split the profits with you . You can either agree or kill him to complete the mission . You can also pacify him to get the dialogue option to come up when you approach him . However , there isn ' t any way to make him stop his shady business practices without killing him . The endings seem to be about the same . If you are with him you get some caps and some xp , if you kill him you get the xp ( same xp ) but no caps save for what he might have on him . Alternative shortcut . Before taking the elevator to the basement , press the red button to send the elevator down . Then once it ' s at the bottom , press the button to bring the elevator to the top and immediately jump down . You ' ll take some fall damage , but this will trigger the " Confront Theodore Collins " message to pop up which you need to finish the mission , whilst also returning you to the main room so you can skip the entire sewer area . Walk to the metal catwalk hut where Theodore will be waiting in the area where you get the bobblehead . If you talk to him he ' ll only try to sell you potted meat and the top option will be left blank , or he can be killed to end the quest that way if desired .