Game-breaking bug? Can't find anomaly artifact in 'Piece of Cake'

This quest seems to be completely broken for me. I killed the bloodsucker in the cave, got to the acid anomaly, and the detector just isn't working (it's dead instead of flashing blue), nor is the artifact showing.

I tried reloading the save, restarting the game, watched someone else clear this with no issues, and gave up. Making matters worse is that my alternate main quest route is bugged as well, I always get kicked out of the conversation with the military guy in the first settlement before he can give me the quest to just kill the guy who sent me for this bugged artifact. Fucking hell GDC, this is like the second main quest the game gave me, I'm barely a few hours in.

edit: I didn't find a way to circumvent either bug, but I did manage to progress the quest by just killing the guy in the mill and delivering the gizmo he was holding to the original quest giver—the guy who saves you after the prologue.