A/N: This is now officially a project I'll be taking on. along with my other Fallout story, since Chapter 2 is in existence. Nice.
-M.A. Cunningham
You know, of all ways to wake up, I wish I didn't wake up as I did today. I wake up, and get a big headache as I try to move my head to the side. Half my head is wrapped in bandages! What the fuck! I just lay there, you know. It hurts to move my head, and so I let myself adjust and slowly and carefully move my body and sit up on the bed I'm on. Wait, why am I on a bed? I look around the room and I see tables, glassware, shelves full with boxes and crates.
Everything looks very sciency… am I at a drug lab? No, no, no. I've never been too caught up in drugs… have I? A sudden breeze comes through the window. I get major chills so I wrap my arms around my body, and I … feel… boobs. I look down at my body and holy fuck I'm naked! Why the hell am I naked?
I walk around the room, trying to find some apron or something because drug makers have aprons, right? I don't know. God… what if I was raped…. I mean, I don't feel sore. But I don't know how long I was out. I don't even know where I'm at! There's that open doorway right there… No! The perv that lives here is probably sleeping on the couch or something… but maybe I can find food, or clothes at least.
I walk around the room and take a scalpel from a table. Cautiously I walk out of the room I'm in and into the next room. No one in the living room. No one in the bed room. Okay, food. Kitchen. As I make my way to the next room, I here dishes shatter and press myself against the wall, scalpel at the ready.
Slowly, I slide against the wall to the doorway and I peek into the kitchen. There's an old, bald man there! Damn it! I was raped! Okay, okay, no need to panic. Just walk silently over and slice his neck. Nice and easy. That's what I do. The old man is too busy picking up broken glassware with his back turned toward me so it'll be easy!
I ready the scalpel and I turn into the doorway and make my silent march to murder. Damn it how Lady Luck hates me because I step on a shard of broken dish and yell, dropping my scalpel as I clutch my leg to remove the piece of broken glass. The old man turns around and I yell even louder in fear.
"Oh! I'm so sorry miss! I didn't mean to!" He shields his eyes away from me, but I know he enjoyed seeing me!
"Shut up! Where am I, why the fuck am I naked and who the fuck are you!" I pick up the scalpel again, pointing it at the man.
"Put the scalpel down, miss." He tried creeping up closer to me but I slashed the blade at him, sending him jumping backwards as he raised his hands. "Fine, don't put it down then. My name is Mitchel. I'm the doctor that took the shards of bullets from your noggin. You could say I saved your life. You're in my home slash workplace." I keep the knife pointed at him but use my other arm to cover my bare chest. "Now, the reason you're in your birthday suit is because your clothes were dirty and stained with blood. Plus, I didn't want you suffocating by your own clothes! Now put the knife down, miss."
"Do you like raping women in your home, Doc? Is that your underground operation? Rape women and make drugs in your lab while being a doctor, huh? Huh!"
"Now, now," he cried, "I don't rape women or make drugs. Well, I technically make drugs but I make my own meds to help people live. You know, Med-X, Stimpaks, Super Stimpaks, those sorts of things. No need to be accusing me. The only thing of yours I touched was your noggin and only to remove the bullet shards that were left in it. That's the God honest truth!" He raised his left hand while covering his heart with his right.
"Give me my clothes! Now!" He ran past me into another room. No sooner than he left, he came back with my clothes.
"This was all the clothes that was on you ma'am." He handed me a pile of clothes which I took in my free hand. "Here, you can change in here," he opened the door to a bathroom. "I'm sorry for giving you the frights, madam." I lowered the scalpel as I got further into the bathroom before slamming the door shut.
So maybe he didn't rape me. It still doesn't mean I take kindly to the fact he's seen me naked. "I'm sorry to bother ma'am," he called through the door, "but I'm pretty sure you can take off your bandages now."
"Um, thanks for the notice…" God, I nearly killed an innocent doctor. I looked at all the clothes and sure enough, they were clean. Good.
Underwear first, then my grey canvas pants, my black t-shirt next and I slip on my black socks. God, it feels warm and nice to wear clothes again. Next came on my almost knee-high boots and then my gloves. Shit. One is much longer than the other is. The shorter one now only goes to my wrist instead of mid-forearm. Damn it. Oh well. Now… the piece of resistance… my leather duster… that won't go on now. Nope. I'll probably be sweating up a flood inside this house or something.
I exit the bathroom, duster folded over my arm and scalpel still in hand. "Doc?"
"In the living room." I go there and see he's sitting on a chair facing the couch with papers in his hands. "Have a seat please," he said as he motioned to the couch in front of him.
"Hey, Doc, I'm sorry about yelling at you and the accusations and stuff." I walked around and sat on the couch. "I don't know where I am, being naked didn't help and sorry about nearly cutting your throat. Here," I handed the scalpel to him.
He held up a hand to me and told me, "No, no. It's perfectly understandable. Being in a strange place with no memory of how you got there, why or even when can be stressful. Yes, being naked makes it worse. Believe it or not, it actually happened to me once before."
"Really?" I let out a small chuckle.
"Yes, but when I woke up, I was under two women who were s-"
"Okay! Don't need to no more, just need to know if those papers involve me."
He gave them to me and said, "Yup. I just need you to fill out this form. It's just to get a sense of who you are, records that you were properly taken care of, to see if you need any special medication and what not. I won't show it to the world. Promise. We have Doctor-Patient confidentiality."
I looked at the form long and hard. I really did. It kinda hurt my head thinking for the answers. "Doc… I don't know the answers to any of these. I don't know anything about myself; I don't even know my name."
He looked at me and stroked his mustache. "Then we should give you a nice name, shouldn't we? What about 'Alice'? I think it sounds nice."
"It's pretty good." Better than Beatrix, the name that first came to mine.
"I'm sure you can come up with a last name if you wish, but if you follow me, we'll take a look at your vitals." My vitals? Is he going to cut me open? I followed him to the room I woke up in a he showed me a machine I didn't notice before.
"What's that?"
"That there, is my ol' Vit-o-matic Vigor Tester. It tells me what kind of person you are physically and intellectually. Just go on up there, give the handle a firm squeeze and I'll write down the results. Simple as that."
I gave the handle a good squeeze and a number four lit up next to a letter S. He told me to press the button to the right of the handle, and when I did, the lights turned off. Another five came up but with a letter P. A four with an E. A nine with a C. That both surprised me and scared me. What are these letters and numbers? A nine with an I, a five with an A and finally, a ten with L.
After the Doc wrote down the final results, he looked to me and said, "With luck like yours I'm surprised them bullets didn't turn right around and climb back into the gun."
"Let me guess, I have Lady Luck on my side."
"Correct." Didn't seem that way this morning.
"What about the rest of the letters and numbers? What do those mean?"
"Well, you're special. I'll let you find out about yourself. Now, I'd like to have a look at your psyche. Just to make sure I'm not harboring a deranged serial killer. Now, if you'd take a seat on the couch back at the living room, we can get started, ma'am."
"Alright. You can call me Alice now, you know. You came up with the name people should call me, after all."
"Yes I do, madam." Ass.
"Okay, let's get this over with." I sat down on the couch, facing the good doctor who took out some forms from the small table against the wall of the living room.
"All right, then. I'm going to say a word and you say the first thing that comes to mind. Dog"
"Dinner." I'd eat a fucking dog?
"House."
"Renovate."
"Night."
"Campfire." Bandit, I answered swiss cheese. Torch for Light. The one that took the cake: Human shield for Mother.
He stopped writing on the form, leaned over to me and whispered, "Scary what these tell us about ourselves, isn't it ma'am?"
"Very scary…"
Now that that's done, I'm going to say a few statements and you respond by what you feel is in your natural instincts."
"Okay…?"
"Conflict isn't my nature."
"I strongly disagree, I think."
"I ain't given on relying to relying on others for support"
"Strongly agree," I claimed, raising my chin pompously. He's right. It's scary what these tell me about myself. Apparently, I'm a pompous bitch.
"I'm always fixing for the center of attention."
"STRONGLY disagree with that one, Doc."
"I'm slow to embrace new ideas."
"I disagree with that whole heartedly." I'd try the next new thing I come across. If it doesn't work, toss it. Sell it. Whatever, I'd just not want it if it doesn't work.
"I charge in to deal with my problems head on."
"Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope. Disagree entirely." He wrote things on his little form and switched to a new one.
"Almost done. Now if you don't mind, take a look at these and tell me what you see." He handed me a paper with what looked like was an accident with a pen.
"Well, this one looks like an oozing wound. Maybe a girl on her moody time. A puzzled look came across him. He handed me another. "Well, this one looks like two kittens holding up an antenna." The doctor gave me another puzzling look.
"What about this one?"
"Oh! This is an easy one," I yelled, nearly hopping off the couch seat. "This one is showing two samurai high-fiving each other!" Yet, another puzzled look. No? It certainly looked like it.
"Well," he said, "either you were always this strange or that bullet may have done some damage after all." I blushed, whether embarrassed or obscenely flattered. I looked to the side and saw a bookshelf full of books. A quick picture of a wall of books in front of me entered my memory for a second.
"You read, Doc?"
"In my spare time. Oh, let me see…" He went to the shelf and scrolled past a number of books until he came to one with a blank spine, a pale green book with a black spine, a blank cover. "I want you to have this, to keep with you in your journeys. See, a journal for a journey? Get it?" HE started making a small chuckle. I joined, not wanting to make it awkward.
He gave me a pencil to write in it with, a small bag for any supplies I might pick up. "Thank, Doc. Anything else for me?" I was joking. No sooner, though, he came back with a bag full of things.
"This is a Pip-Boy 3000A I got when I served my childhood in Vault 13. I want you to have it. I'm stuck here for the remainder of my days, so it's no use to me anymore. This can help you thrive out there in the wasteland." Oh yeah, the Earth was burnt by nuclear fire. I forgot. Now, every country was some desolate wasteland rife with crazy people, nightmarish monsters, and a whole-lot of radiation. Damn war. Two hours of nuclear bombing and the world goes to shit. Oh, well.
"Thanks-"
"Here is a tin full of stimpaks. There are eight of those in here, here's the gun I found with you, the necessary ammo for it, and the straight razor I found on you. You had this small box with six bobby pins and eighteen caps in a little pouch, too." As he gave me those, I suddenly remembered what these were for.
Caps were our money, and bobby pins were used to keep my hair up when needed and to break into places. It all came back… Wait, gun, ammo, shit, but no holster? "Doc, if I carried a gun, where's my holster?"
"Oh! That's right! Wait, here miss!" He ran to another room and I heard the sounds of boxes opening and things being rummaged through, before he came back with a holster for my trusty revolver. "Sorry, about that, ma'am."
"No worries," I said, strapping the holster around my waist. I loaded my lucky .357 and slid it in its holster. "Doc, if I may ask, why do all this for me? I'm just some stranger you met that was dying. Why give me all these things like a Pip-Boy and medical things for free?"
He walked around and settled on a chair. "You remind me of my late wife Alice. Your hair is the same shade of brown as hers and your eyes are blue like hers. She died here in Goodsprings as we were trying to make it to California. It was her dream to get to the coasts of California…So when you were dragged in here, I didn't want the same to happen to you." I look like his dead wife… him raping me doesn't sound too much of an accusation after all…
"Aw, Doc, I'm so sorry. How did she die?"
"She lived in the vault her whole life, so she had a weak immune system. She died here so I stayed to be close to her. I gave you all these things to make sure you don't befall the same fate."
"I won't."
"Good, just to make sure, go talk to Sunny Smiles at the saloon. She can help you get your bearings."
"Alright, I'll be sure to do that." Sunny Smiles…Sunny… side-up? Mm. I could go for some food. "Got any food doc?"
"Oh, yes. Where are my manners? Please, take what you need from the fridge." I walk to the kitchen again, open the fridge and take out a Brahmin Steak and eat it with a Nuka-Cola to flush it all down. That hit the spot.
I saw the blood stain on the floor, my blood. "Sorry about the blood, Doc. Truly."
"No worries, miss. I'll clean it in a jiff. It ain't too much trouble." God, he was so nice.
"Well, thanks for everything, Doc. Take care."
I go down the hall to leave the house when he calls out to me. "If you see Victor, tell him thanks for digging you out of that grave."
Fuck, I was buried alive. "…Okay… I will. Bye, Doc." I open the door, the sun warms my skin, the sun fucks my eyes and wind blows my shoulder-length hair. Looks like it's a time for my good duster. I put it on, and roll up the sleeves until it feels right above my elbow. Perfect how this one is hooded.
A house on a hill. Nice. Ahh, the breeze feels nice. I lift my arms, embracing the moving air, until I'm blocked by… a robot? "Who are you? What are you?"
"My name's Victor," it says in a cowboy drawl. "I noticed you gone out of Doc Mitchell's house right now, so I wanted to great ya."
"Oh, yeah, that's right. So... you're Victor? The one who dug me out of the grave?" Shit was freaky. It was a giant box on one wheel, with a TV showing a picture of a cowboy. How fitting.
"That's mighty right, ma'am. I saw three men crowded around someone, I figure that was you, so I stayed low. I heard a shot and saw the three o' them run for the hills. Dug you right out when the cost was clear."
"Thanks very much, Victor. Do you know what they looked like? I don't remember anything about myself or them. If you do, it would help a lot."
"Well, two of them were Great Khans and the one that kinda ran the whole thing looked fresh from the Strip by his checkered suit." Images flashed in my head, checkered suit man, Khans, being tied up and shot in the face. A poker chip.
"Thanks, Victor."
"Any time partner. I think they went back to New Vegas. I myself am headed there right about now, so I reckon' I'll see you there soon."
"Maybe." New Vegas… Sin City.
"Well, you take care, miss. Hopefully, we cross paths again sometime soon." With that said and done, it wheeled off on its one wheel, leaning left and right. I put my hands in my pants pockets, breathing in the fresh air, but i feel something in my pocket. I take it out and it seams to be a crumpled piece of paper. 'Deliver the package to the New Vegas strip, by way of Freeside. There, you shall receive a payment by a contact and you must then give payment to Johnson Nash at the Mojave Express in Primm.'
Hmm. A trip to Sin City, city of lights, booze, gamble, sex drugs, well the list goes on. I'd really like to meet Smiles though... she sounds nice.
Alright now, let's see what's up with this Sunny Smiles. Saloon… saloon… oh, there it is. Hopefully, Sunny has some info on Mr. Checkered suit. If not, well we can always go to Sin City. This is my first entry in my Journey Journal. When I write in this again, i should have done something awesome. If not, I'll still write in this but probably not about shooting things. Maybe about this heat. Who knows.
-Alice Grey