The jolt came suddenly and Tom opened his eyes. He sucked breath fast and hard into his aching lungs. His body felt numb. He tried to move but was unsure of his motions. He worked his arms and pushed himself slowly into a sitting position. A thin plastic sheet covered his body, which was lacking any clothing. Panicked, he gripped the sheet and flung it off of him. His vision was blurry and his head spun as he moved and he fell off the elevated bed to the poorly tiled floor. He lifted his head and drops of blood fell from his nose. He shook his head to clear his vision while he looked around. His joints cracked. Tom felt as if he had been in a very uncomfortable position for a very long time. The poor lighting made it all the harder to see where he was. It looked like a hospital wing or an infirmary of some sort, but then wouldn't the light be better? The ground quaked. Hard. Tom heard metal instruments clang and glass bottles shatter on the floor. He crawled over the cold, damp tiles looking for a solid structure to lift his body from like a chair or a wall. After moments of searching, he found the wall he was looking for. His joints cracked again as he pushed and pulled his way to his quivering legs. In fact his entire body was shaking and his breath was shallow. He leaned his shoulder against the wall for support as he felt for the switch on his pip-boy for the light. Instead of touching cold steel, his hand caressed the cold flesh of his bare wrist. Too exhausted to care, he dropped his arm to his side and felt along the wall for a light switch of some sort. His hand rested upon a protrusion on the wall that felt quite similar to a light switch. He curled his finger over the small metal switch and lifted. Blinding fluorescent light flooded the small room and he was blinded. He blinked his eyes rapidly to clear his vision. Well at least he found the lights.
His eyes soon adjusted to the white light and he tore his gaze from the tiled floor. He wished he hadn't looked. At least twenty covered bodies filled the room and he now knew what had inhabited the glass bottles that had smashed earlier. Wet organs now littered the floor along with broken glass and the medical instruments. Tom wasn't in an infirmary. He was in a morgue. His heart began to pound and he anxiously fidgeted with the door handle trying desperately to get it open. The locking mechanism turned and the side flaps opened. He pushed the door down into the slot and fell through. Tom managed to maintain his balance but had to lean heavily against the brick wall. Sweat poured off his face now. Large drops ran of his face and peppered the floor sending out small echoes down the hall. Tom found that his throat was achy and dry as he swallowed heavily. Chills ran up his spine as a draft washed over him and he remembered that he was nude. He looked down the halls for anything to wear while at the same time wondering why anyone would leave clothes in an open hallway. After a minute or two of fruitless searching he saw that each of the doors in the hallway had crudely formed words next to them scratched into the walls. Tom followed the doors down the shorter hall until he came to a door bearing the universal cross of an infirmary. Tom walked to the metal door. The joints were corroded from rust but clearly still operable. He gripped a hand grimy and sweaty from the crawling he did earlier around the old doorknob. The squeaky knob turned and the door creaked open slowly. Through the threshold was a relatively clean room obviously cleaned for medical use. Pain wracked Tom's body as he entered the sterile infirmary.
Tom pulled a small vacuumed sealed package of underwear that included a small cotton shirt and boxer shorts out of a locker in the corner of the infirmary. After further searching he found an old field medic uniform. After sliding into the clean clothes, something caught Tom's eye. A familiar sign was stencilled on the wall in the infirmary. A sword pointed into the ceiling backed by what looked like wings and three gears fitted together. The Brotherhood of Steel. Memories of Tom's earlier endeavours flooded his mind. Tears welled in his eyes as memories of his father overwhelmed him. His hands were balled into fists and he was shaking. Sweat again poured off his face. His lungs heaved in and out fast as his anger intensified. He gritted his teeth as his nails pierced his palms. He leaned heavily against another wall and wept. He tried so hard to keep his father safe and still he couldn't save him. Tom's anger took him over and he smashed his fist against the brick wall. The bricks must have been brittle as his hand punched a fist-sized hole right through the wall. After a minute just staring at the wall he pulled his hand out. He looked at the hole for a minute before turning his gaze to his hand. A massive deep gash ran to the bone on his hand. Then the pain set in and blood seeped heavily from the wound. Tom squeezed his hand shut then opened it wide in an attempt to ease the pain. He looked over the infirmary for a medical supply closet. He saw one over by a desk and stepped over to it. He discovered it was locked and grabbed a scalpel. He stuck it in the keyhole and forced the lock. He opened the cabinet and looked over the various chems that where stored on the shelves. Tom rifled through the boxes until he came across a box full of syringes filled with med-x. He also grabbed a packed of gauze and a towel. He closed the cabinet and set them on the desk. He dabbed the blood off his hand and unravelled a generous amount of gauze. He went to wrap his hand but stopped. There was no wound. More as a reflex than anything, he looked at his other hand. Not a scratch on either hands. He began to sweat again and looked at the towel he used to wipe off the blood. There was blood on the towel, so why wasn't there any blood wounds on his hand. The pain that had once been there before had all but vanished. Was he going insane? There was no explanation as to how his hand could just hea-.
An explosion shook the foundations of the infirmary. It sounded far away but Tom's mind already was racing. His eyes swept the room looking for a weapon and his legs wanted to move. Then out of nowhere a voice penetrated the silence.
"All available units report to east wing, I repeat all available Brotherhood soldiers report to the east wing."
So there are Brotherhood here. Tom thought.
Tom looked around the room and was reminded of the morgue. Did they actually think he was dead? How long was he out? What happened to the purifier? What happened to Sarah? Tom let out an exasperated sigh and turned to leave just as two Brotherhood soldiers entered with an injured soldier. He was bleeding and had severe plasma burns. The steel on his suit near the impact point was melted away and other bits were fused to his skin. Tom could tell even through their masks that they were giving him an awkward look. He couldn't really blame them. He was pale looked like a corpse himself. After a short pause Tom opened his mouth to speak and then one of them cut him off.
"You the doc?"
In all fairness, Tom had an extensive knowledge of medical procedures and treatments, at least as much as any wasteland doctor. He had treated more than one person with serious injuries and was certain he could help this man with something as common as plasma burns.
"…Yeah."
They brought the injured man over to the operation table. Tom started by removing the man's armour. It was at this moment that he discovered that it was a woman. Her suit mic had shorted out and when he took off her helmet she was screaming. He used a scalpel to cut away her underwear where there were burns. Some of her clothing was fused to her flesh and could not safely be removed. Tom grabbed a dry towel and dabbed at the wounds. It came back bloody and hot.
"Get me some med-x."
Tom felt med-x land in his palm. He popped the cap and pressed the needle into her arm. Her screaming didn't stop but it was significantly lessened. Tom placed some dressing onto the majority of her wound and he looked up at one of the soldiers.
"Anymore Med-X?"
Again, a quick reaction from the soldiers. The small syringe was soon firmly in Tom's grip. He leaned down next to the girl, who couldn't have been more than seventeen, and spoke softly.
"I'm going to give you another shot, so just relax, okay?"
She obeyed. Tom pressed the needle into her arm with little difficulty and pressed down on the plunger. Her eyes rolled back and her breathing became deep and slow. Tom let out a sigh and looked at the soldiers.
"She's going to be fine."
The soldiers then imitated his sigh. Tom placed the surgical tools in a tray of water and rested himself on his arms. His shoulders slumped on the desk. Tom had felt shaken, but much better than when he had awoken. His body no longer shivered and his thinking was clear. It was time to leave.
"Wait a minute, you're that wanderer aren't you?"
The soldier's sudden question surprised Tom.
"You are aren't you? But I could've sworn you were-"
"Do you know where I could find Sarah Lyons?" Tom exclaimed.
"Uh… yeah. She's in the briefing room."
Tom and the soldier stood staring at each other.
"Which is…!"
"Oh, it's uh…upstairs. Third door on the left."
Tom bolted out of the room. The metal grating floor clanged loudly under his feet as he raced down the hall. He had to find Sarah and ask her what happened. Tom had remembered the keypad and typing in the pass code. He remembered the radiation bombarding his body and he remembered…dying. But what happened afterwards? John reached the top of the stairs and turned left. Door one: supply closet, door two: boiler room, door three: briefing. Tom halted at the door. It was an old wooden door with intact glass. The wood showed obvious signs of decay and the knob was rusted. Voices emanated from behind the door. Tom heard Sarah's voice.
"Eden is gone but more importantly, so is Colonel Autumn. This means that the Enclave are disorganized, giving us a serious tactical advantage. This doesn't mean, however, that they are any less dangerous. The Enclave are desperate now and as they say desperate times call for desperate measures. They know we're here and they'll likely hit us with everything they have."
Tom gripped the doorknob and turned it. He felt the mechanism give and the door opened. Paladins and knights turned to look at who had entered. Among them was Paladin Gunny. The drill sergeant only had two words to say.
"Holy Shit."
Some of the soldiers wouldn't break eye contact. Others looked over to Sarah Lyons who was staring wide-eyed at him. Gunny spoke up again.
"Say, weren't you dead?"
"Shut up, Gunny!" Sarah exclaimed.
Other than that Sarah was speechless. She slowly walked towards him as if he was a spectre coming back to haunt her. Tom raised his hand to his head to run it through his hair only to find that he had none. His guess was that his hair must have fallen out en masse when he was bombarded with radiation.
"We…thought you were…" Sarah whispered.
She covered her hand to her mouth. This soon changed as she regained her posture.
"Get this man to the infirmary."
Tom sat on the gurney annoyed with the large mass of medical machinery attached to his person. He heard whispering and the nervous hypotheses of a few other doctors that surrounded him. He felt like an animal. An animal locked in a cage made of doctors. Nobody seemed to be actually paying attention to him. All the docs were hunched over their fancy machines scratching their greying beards and speaking in their mysterious medical tongues. When Tom performed medical procedures he spoke in plain English looking for the simplest solution. Had they never heard the expression sometimes the simplest solution is the best? Tom had a headache and his mind was wandering from his main line of thought. Someone stuck him with a needle and took a blood sample. Tom saw a glint of power armour and turned to face Sarah. She looked him in the eyes and chuckled.
"You just don't die do you?"
"I have a knack for stuff like that."
"Well good because we may still need to use you."
Tom wasn't sure to be happy to see her or pissed off at that last comment. A doctor turned to the duo.
"Commander Lyons?" The doc's high-pitched voice was irritating. "There's something I need to show you."
The doc kept eyeing Tom nervously. Sarah must have noticed this because she looked at the doc and then at Tom.
"Tom's a big boy, I'm sure he can handle whatever you're going to throw at him." She winked at him.
"Um…al-alright then." The doc swallowed hard. "Right after we took blood from him, we found that his blood was irradiated with what should have been a fatal level." The doc took a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed his sweaty forehead. "We also to a small skin sample. It wasn't so much what we got from the sample as what we got from the wound we left. The incision sealed almost instantly. We feel that young Thomas must have gone through a very serious genetic mutation. This mutation slowed his heart to such a pace that we mistook him for a corpse. However on the more important side of things, his cells are multiplying at an exponential rate. This means he heals almost instantly. Th-The very miniscule probability of a mutation this profound occurring is nothing short of unbelievable."
Tom's thoughts strayed to a comic book he read as a child. A man was bombarded with radiation and gained super powers. The idea was preposterous. But he asked anyway.
"So what are you saying, I'm some kind of super hero?"
The doc cleared his throat and straightened his duct-taped glassed. "Um, no far from it. You may heal faster, but you're far from invincible. I must do more tests. We need to keep Thomas in quarantine until we find out if he is rad-."
An explosion quaked the facility hard and a crackly voice from the PA system pierced the air.
"Enclave have breached our defences. I repeat, the Enclave are entering the facility."
"Oh dear." The doc mumbled.
Sarah walked over to the intercom and pounded the button.
"How much time before they reach the infirmary?"
A voice crackled through the intercom.
"Ma'am, we may be able to hold them off for twenty minutes at most. If you have a plan I think you should act now."
She switched off the intercom and mumbled.
"Oh, I have a plan alright."
She turned to Gunny.
"Gunny, take Tom to the armoury and get him a rifle."
"Ma'am?" Gunny replied.
"He's taking the tunnels."