Chapter 1

She didn't know how Goodsprings had gotten its name from. Was it a pre-war name? Or some traveler found an abandoned ghost town after the war and named it after the abundance of fresh water that was available nearby? She didn't know. The water springs that gave the town its name were its major lifelines also, providing clean and non irradiated sources of water. However, water always lured animals towards it and thus a load of geckos had made a nest somewhere nearby. They were some sort of a mixed blessing, people getting bitten was the bad thing, while they provided the weekly steaks and their hides fetched a good amount of caps from the weekly caravan. She had heard that some people managed to create a variant of the usual leather armor from the hides of the mutated beasts, thus the demand of it. Still, the Mojave wasteland was a dangerous place, and sometimes an unlucky chump would be taken down with a group of geckos.

A shuffling noise brought her back from her reverie and she saw that her quarry had arrived at the pump. The Mojave wasteland was truly a desert at heart, and even if the sun was setting, the temperature was rather high. The gecko, an animal mutated from the overdose of radiation after the bombs fell, approached the water pit with caution, its orange eyes alert for any sign of danger close by. However, it didn't manage to sense a rifle was being aimed at its head from a distance. The animal thought that the coast was clear and moved onward to have a simple drink from the water pit.

Seeing her quarry move onward, she smiled and raised her Varmint rifle to her eyes. The rifle was small, yet rather deadly in her hands. She was not a crack shot, but she liked to believe that she was the best one, at least in Goodsprings. The rifle was not effective against anyone wearing armor or anything having hardened plating, but against simple gecko hunters it was overkill. The rifle was chambered for the 5.56mm round and had an extended magazine attached to it, something she had gotten after some haggling with the local businessman. The weapon was not in prime condition, the stock had a slight crack, as she had slugged a gecko who had ambushed her the other day. Even so, it did not hinder her aim, as she looked down the sight and aimed for the animal's head. Gun experts always told her that aiming down the sights and controlling the breathing maximized accuracy, but she never managed to get the last part down. However she was in the prone position and her target was only 20 meters away from her so it was not that of a tough shot. As she squeezed the trigger, the rifle in her hands coughed and recoiled a little. Even though the rifle was not that powerful, the round that was used was. The gecko that she was tracking was dead on the desert floor, a small red hole just above its jaw. Not the place she was aiming for, but close enough. Rising from her position on the ground, Sunny Smiles smiled. She finally had enough meat for the town's monthly barbecue.

Hauling the carcass back to the Prospector's Saloon was easy; she had her dog, Cheyenne to help her manage the weight for half of the trek. Reaching the old watering hole, she saw Easy Pete snoozing in his chair as usual. The other residents of the town had not gathered yet, as there were at least a couple of hours till the barbecue. Opening the doors to the saloon, she saw that Trudy was uncharacteristically frustrated and was jiggling the knobs of her pre war radio. Hearing her footsteps, Trudy looked up and gave her a smile.

"Hey there Sunny, you had a good time I see." Pointing towards the backdoor, she continued," Do take the meat towards the backyard, will you? I've got to clean it before it can be ready for cooking." Her voice had a slight tone of frustration to it, which Sunny picked up on instantly.

"You sound as if you someone ran off with your favorite whiskey, Trudy. What's the matter?"

Trudy considered hiding the incident about the Great Khans from Sunny, but she thought better of it. Sunny was enthusiastic as the town's peacekeeper, and wouldn't stop poking her till she got what she wanted.

Managing a flippant tune, she replied," Oh its nothing. Just a small spat with some customers while you were gone. One of those chums knocked over my radio 'by accident'." She used her fingers to emphasize the last word."But then again, there was not much that I could do anyways. Also, it's not completely broken...just some interference."

After hearing Trudy's reply, Sunny Smiles instantly straightened up, and unholstered her rifle from its resting place on back and made a dramatic show of chambering another round. "Just point me in their direction Trudy, I'll make sure they'll come back here and apologize to you."

"You'll do none of that miss. The barbecue is in a couple of hours and we haven't even started on the preparations for it! Also I doubt that you could make a Great Khan apologize for messing with my radio, so you'd better ditch that thought of yours."

Sunny whistled at the words 'Great Khan'. Despite being a simple gang of drug traffickers and raiders, the Great Khans were most famous throughout the Mojave wasteland for their endurance, and unwillingness to give up. They used to have a greater presence in the area in the past, but after a few skirmishes with the NCR, they had retreated into their stronghold at Red Rock Canyon, and were mostly seen outside of it only for trading. In the end, combining their drug usage with their endurance, tangling with a Great Khan with a simple Varmint rifle was never recommended.

Seeing Sunny visible deflate, Trudy smiled."Good, now forget about it, and help me with the preparations will you?"

They never knew his first name. He was always known as Doc Mitchell to the local townsfolk, and his first name was only known by his wife, who was dead. The residents of Goodsprings never questioned it or poked into his matters, as good doctors in the wasteland were rare, and they didn't want Doc Mitchell packing up and leaving the town just because someone offended him. People who had lived in Goodsprings were secretly glad that their resident doctor didn't charge them much for his services and he only took food as his base fees. Out there in the Mojave he could have been paid in caps or some other form of services, but in Goodsprings, which was an isolated town, some way off from the main road, people were willing to barter simple food for his services. For this reason, the doctor was highly respected in the town.

Doc Mitchell currently was sitting in his sofa of his main hall, reading a pre war book titled 'An account of Neurology'. The name of the author was missing. Even though the doctor had got it from the vault where it has survived the ravages of time, the book had suffered some wear and tear. Most of his medical treatment had been undergone with the help of a Vault-Tec Auto Doc as the trainer, since there were only 6 doctors in Vault 21, one for a specific field. The Auto-Doc which was installed in the vault was an engineering marvel, and was totally capable in precise surgical operations, and thanks to it Doc Mitchell had managed to become a skilled surgeon and a mediocre doctor. There were no cadavers for him to practice on in the Vault, so he had to do with the simulation programs that the Auto Doc had in store on its external drive. Doc Mitchell still used to remember that the Vault Overseer used to get angry with him whenever he used to plug in the external drive just to practice more medical simulations; but like every other quarrel in Vault 21, that one was also settled by luck. Or being smart, as Doc Mitchell knew each and every one of the Overseer's tells in poker.

His reading was interrupted by a soft knocking at the door. Doc Mitchell slowly got up, his leg hindering his motion. The benefits of staying in a Vault for a prolonged amount of time meant a poorer immune system, which meant that the tendon that was ruptured in his left leg didn't mend properly in the wasteland, and it left him with a slight limp and random bouts of pain. On the way to the door, he grabbed his Pip-Boy, a pre war device which was meant as a one stop device for everything, be it maps, to-do-notes, time, calendar, vital signs and even a Geiger counter. Currently the neon green display told him that it was almost 7 in the evening, which meant that the town's weekly barbecue was going to start soon.

Sure enough, Sunny Smiles was standing outside his door, patiently waiting for him to open the door.

"Hey there, Doc. Got up here to fetch you for the event." She said, in her usual off-beat tone.

"You didn't have to come all the way up this hill just to tell me that every time, Sunny."Doc Mitchell replied back, despite knowing her answer."I do have a pip-boy, and it tells me the exact time."

Sunny waved off that last piece of dialogue."Nah, I would've still come up here anyways. Trudy would lose it if she found out that I didn't escort you down to the saloon." She paused for a while to scratch Cheyenne's ears, who wanted to poke inside the open door and explore the house. Sunny's sudden ministrations caused her to pause her action and enjoy the attention that she was receiving. Happy to see that her dog was not poking around anymore, Sunny continued,"Anyways, you might want to replace this fission battery of yours, Doc. I saw the external lights dim out at least a couple of times while I was walking up here."

Doc Mitchell nodded in understanding, "I have been meaning to do if for a couple of days now, but I thought that I could delay it till today. Had no other tasks down in the town a few days before and walking up and down the hill makes my leg cramp up a lot."

Sunny grimaced, remembering the time when a gecko had gotten a lucky bite out of her knee. The good doctor had fixed up the knee, but the lack of Med-X meant that she had to walk around for a couple of days with full blown pain in her leg, unable to perform any complicated action other than walking around. "I can understand that, Doc. Do you want to stop by at Chet's for a quick replacement?"

"That would be most kind, thank you." And with that, the doctor and the local self-appointed sheriff made down the hill towards the Goodsprings General store. The owner of the store was Chet, another Goodsprings settler, who had ties with a few trading companies and the Mojave Express. It was thanks to him that Goodsprings had a few more caravans visit for trading rather than the partly few. He even was in talks with the Crimson Caravan Trading Company to start a caravan route to Goodsprings. Pure water was much more in demand in the wasteland, seeing as most of the water sources that were naturally available were slightly irradiated. A little fallout never hurt anybody, but constant drinking from irradiated sources led to minor radiation poisoning in the best case, death in the worst. If the water was not irradiated, it was sure to be dirty. Drinking dirty water over time was definitely not recommended, as the risk of infection was always high. The people in Goodsprings didn't know that they were the third major source of clean water after Lake Mead and Hoover Dam. Water from the other two spots required caravans to pay a hefty tax subsidy, which sort of killed the business for minor caravans. This was why the smaller caravan businesses like Griffin Wares and Happy Trails caravans used to trade for fresh water from Goodsprings, with Chet managing most if the town's business. However, that made him into a somewhat insufferable person who almost never gave a discount on his goods, even to the local residents.

After a fair bit of haggling with Chet, the duo were off towards the saloon. The Prospector saloon was only a stone's throw from the Goodsprings General store, but the barbecue was held in its backyard, as it had more space. The doctor and Sunny were making small talk when their conversation was interrupted by another person walking by.

Or more precisely, rolling by. Behind them, a pre-war robot, a securitron was rolling down the hill on his sole tire. The securitrons were an invention of Robert House, a pre war prodigal businessman. They were attached with a single tire for a higher degree of mobility than the usual bipedal protectrons. Their reinforced metal chassis gave them a high amount of damage soaking ability, but not as much as the rare sentry bots NCR used. The one currently rolling towards them had an image of a cowboy plastered on its CRT screen, which was another oddity as most protectrons had an image of a normal police cop. Then again, the robot was not common, as it called itself 'Victor' and spoke in a very much 'old school cowboy' accent. On seeing the pair, Victor waved its claw at them and rolled up to them.

"Howdy Doc and Miss! How are you doing this mighty fine evenin'?"

Sunny gave the smallest of frowns. Doc Mitchell didn't blame her. Living with Trudy had caused her to share some of her apprehension of robots. Also, Victor did not make it easy for himself by living in a shack and trying to act all cowboy-like. But, courtesy had to be maintained. There was an unsaid saying in the wastes 'Do not fuck with anyone that runs around in metal armour and energy weapons.' Victor fulfilled both of those criteria's. "Hey there, Victor. We're just heading towards the saloon, for the barbecue. Are you coming over to join us?"

"Well ain't that a good ol' surprise, Doc! I didn't know there was a barbecue today!" Victor scratched the top of his metal chassis with his claw, as if imitating a person tipping his hat."Even so doc, I have some stuff that I gotta do. Do lay out a steak for this cowboy though! This cowboy will wander back later to have it for the road."

The statement was something of a minor surprise to the doctor. Victor did nothing other than keeping the odd critters from the north side of the I-15 out of the town.

"Will this is a surprise. What is it that you are going to do Victor? Some minor repairs, perhaps?"

"Nah, I've got a friend rolling by later who has a delivery to make! I gotta clear out the road for him so he can go about his business in ease. Even oiled and cleaned my six shooter for that, you see." Victor said, showing off his 9mm submachine gun attached to one of his hand and the laser firing port on the other.

"That is some fine preparation for one guy, Victor. May I ask who is this friend of yours, Victor?"

"She is called as Courier Six."

Courier Six. That was the only thing Doc Mitchell knew about his patient currently, other than she had 2 neat bullet-sized holes in top left part of her forehead, with the bullets still somewhere inside her skull. It was a medical miracle that she was still alive, despite the massive head trauma that she had endured. The other signs of injuries were bruising on the side of her face, a slightly cracked skull thanks to what seemed to be a bludgeon injury to the base of her skull, sprained ankle, bruised knees and wrists from the ropes that the thugs had used her to bind her with.

That concluded his analysis of the amount of injuries the young woman in front of him had received. Doc Mitchell was halfway into his gecko steak when Victor came rushing towards the Prospector Saloon, with the unconscious and the heavily injured courier in its arms. It had all been a rush after that. The weekly barbecue was put on hold, Doc Mitchell then instructed Chet to lend him a working vacuum cleaner and a pair of plastic sheets and ordered Victor to carry the girl to his house, where Sunny Smiles took her in and set her up on the operating table. Chet came through a moment later, carrying a small but powerful vacuum cleaner and a couple of plastic sheets. He jury rigged the vacuum cleaner with a fission battery, so it would serve as a semi ventilator for the somewhat clean room that was getting set up around the operation table. The plastic sheet was not the best material for blocking dust particles, but it had to make do. There was not much he could work with anyways, and a vacuum cleaner and some plastic sheets could serve as a semi moderate clean room for operations. He now was scrubbing himself as fast as possible; the patient did not have much time.

It was not much of an operation as such; the scum who had shot the woman had used a simple 9mm pistol. Thankfully, he was an idiot and had used hollow point bullets instead of regular ones. HP bullets tended to burst inside of a light armored target, causing more damage. However, the skull is one of the hardest bone structures in the body, and luckily his patient's skull had resisted the impact of the HP bullets enough for them to cause minimum damage. They hadn't penetrated much, just the outer shell and had mushroomed inside. That was where the good news ended. As the bullets had mushroomed inside the skull, he had to go scrounging inside his patient's brain to remove most of the metal fragments. There was some minor brain tissue damage with some huge cranial trauma. The tissue damage was irreparable, for now. He didn't have an Auto –Doc on hand. As for the cranial trauma, some Med-X and a super stimpack had to do.

It took him almost an hour to complete the most difficult surgery he had ever performed in his life. It was a miracle that his patient had survived; if Victor had been a couple of minutes late, she would have entered a extended coma or worse, died. But now, she would only suffer with some mental trauma, which could be cleared up with some rehab. The only sign of her injury was a small hole in her skin, which was getting knit up with the help of the super stimpack. It was miraculous that her skin was going to remain mostly unmarked, she wouldn't even have a small scar, just a small round dip in her skin when the bullet had punched through. Doc Mitchell got on to other medical details that he needed to catalog for a semblance of a medical file. The patient seemed to be in her mid 20's. Her face classified her as Japanese, but the pronounced cheekbones, the larger eyes and pupil, along with a diamond shaped face, bordering on half heart-like shape told a different story. The Doctor was a gambling man, so he put his money on half Japanese and half Caucasian. Mixed parentage? Possible. He scribbled down those details in his pad and moved on to the next detail.

Height? Around 175 centimeters. He couldn't get a proper reading on her weight until she woke up, but Doc Mitchell put it around 59 kilograms. She seemed a little underweight, but then again, almost everyone who lived in the wasteland was. Shortage of good food tended to do that to people. Both of her irises were hazel, and the sclera showed no sign of abnormalities, so there was no damage was out. He took then her left hand, singled out her ring finger and pricked it with a sterilized needle. He gathered the small amount of blood that flowed out of the wound and placed it on a glass slide for analysis. Keeping the glass aside, he dabbed the pinprick with spirits and studied the blood slide under a microscope, which showed her blood type to be AB, rhesus positive. That was some good news for her. Keeping that aside and disposing of the blood stain on the glass slide, the doctor took her right hand, turned it over and placed 3 of his fingers just below the wrist, where he could measure her pulse. It was around 112 beats a minute, thanks to the trauma. Then he took out a blood pressure monitor, and followed procedure and took a note of her blood pressure, which was 145 over 93, somewhat slightly higher, thanks to her injured condition. Keeping the BP machine aside, he took his stethoscope, and listened to her heart beats and breathing, checking for any problems. Her heart-beat rate was descending back to normal, and she did not seem to have any problems in breathing. Finally, a thermometer showed that her temperature was about average, which meant she was not in danger of running into a fever anytime soon.

However most of the other motor and response tests would have to wait till she had woken up. With any luck, she would hardly need any rehab exercises at all. It was just a matter of waiting till she woke up from her trauma induced coma.

It took her 4 days to wake up.

It was a spur of the moment thing. He was in the process of changing her saline drip when it happened. Just as he removed the needle from her arm, her eyes flew open, and the next thing he knew was a huge pain in his stomach and crashing against the far side of the wall.

'She waited for the perfect opportunity.' He thought, just as he saw her getting off the bed with an angry expression on her face. 'She must have feigned sleep for an hour or so.'

His mouth tried to form a coherent sentence, but failed horribly. All that came out were disjointed syllables like 'aaaghhhh' and' uugghhhh' as he was hoisted a good few inches above the ground by just her foot in his neck. He had rarely seen people exhibiting such a high amount of motor control after a medical coma. But the time to be amazed at her skills was later, as she started asking him questions in a very, very, very angry voice.

"Who are you? Where am I?! ANSWER ME!"

He did note that it was getting harder to breathe. Her foot was pushing very nicely against his Adam's apple, crushing his windpipe ever so slightly. When he managed to speak, it was a strained wheeze.

"I am the doctor! Don't hurt me!"

It took him 20 seconds to say that short line. Her chokehold was really strong.

Realizing what he meant, her foot loosed ever so slightly. However, her animosity did not reduce.

"What did you do to me? Why were you drugging me?!"

"Was not... drugging you." Her foot made it difficult to speak. "That was saline!"

"Then why am I feeling so God-damn woozy!"

"That is because you got shot in the head!"

"I- WHAT?! How did I get sho-"The rest of her statement was gibberish as she fell backwards, no doubt by over-exerting herself.

Doc Mitchell fell back to the ground, massaging his neck. His patient was not that lucky, she fell backwards with an audible crash. Thankfully, she somehow managed to stop her head from smashing against the floor.

The doctor pulled himself up, and moved towards his patient. She was still conscious, but slightly. He got down on one knee and helped her up to a seating position, cradling her head while checking any signs of major injury. For a moment, nobody spoke, until she finally opened her mouth, speaking in a quiet voice.

"Where am I?"

The doctor just gestured her to keep quiet and helped her back on the bed. "Easy there, lady. You shouldn't be doing this hectic stuff instantly when you just got out of a medical coma. Why don't you relax for a while, get your bearings."

The woman relaxed a little, her earlier aggression completely gone. Her shoulders dropped, the anger in her voice was gone. She got her hand up slowly to massage the area where the bullets had entered her skull.

Seeing that she wasn't going to start speaking soon, Doc Mitchell spoke up."You've been in a medical coma for 4 days now. You had been shot in the head, and I patched you up the best I could."

Still no response from her.

"I'm Doctor Mitchell. Welcome to Goodsprings."

At this he got a nod from her. Considering it was the only thing she did after her outburst, it was something.

"How are you feeling? Do feel nauseous? Dizzy? "

She mumbled out, "Dizzy."

"Let me fetch you some water. You must be parched." He said, as he got up and searched for a bottle of purified water. He found one and gave it to her, after opening the top. "Don't drink in all at once. Slow gulps please."

He just got another mumbled 'thanks' in reply. She was still in bit of a shock. He didn't blame her. Not many people survive getting shot in the head and get told that they survived after getting shot in the head.
"How about we start the introductions off nice and easy? As I said, I'm Doc Mitchell, the doctor here at Goodsprings. What about you? Can you tell me your name?"

Still silence. No answer came out of her, not even a mumbled one. At first Doc Mitchell thought that she didn't want to socialize so fast, but that was when she looked up, pure terror written on her face. Her mouth was open, but no words came out of it.

Realization dawned on Doc Mitchell. He remembered his thoughts a few days back. 'She would suffer only some mental trauma, which could be cleared with some rehabilitation'

He felt like kicking himself for jinxing his patient's luck.

Author's Note:

Yup, That's for the first chapter.

I know that amnesia is such an overused plot card, but I sort of wanted her to have no possible connection to her past. It's just retrograde amnesia, not much.

For some reason when I had thought about the idea behind this story, it had a male protagonist. Then ideas kept shuffling around until I scrapped the male character, made him into a supporting character and rewrote the idea with a female OC of mine. The change was induced by seeing as how majority of the Fallout NV lore points towards a canon male courier, and I sort of didn't like it. (I may be wrong in assuming that last statement, but the bottom line is that I just wanted to write a story with a female lead for a change.)

As for my prolonged absence from writing? My life was hell for the past year, and lets leave it at that.

Do drop a review.