Original AN: Callie has been screaming at me from the inside of my head. I've got to get through this chapter in the first person; it doesn't work any other way. I realize some people don't go for first-person fic, so I'm mentioning it upfront.
(edit 7/6/14 [keep as of 8/5/14], I sort of regret this chapter now, but rewriting it entirely in third person would lose something, so it remains in first person)
/
When I get out of this grave I'm going to set the whole Wasteland on fire.
It's time for everyone to get the fuck out of my way. This shit is fucked up.
Arcade says that I had a series of seizures. Other than that, they can't be sure yet. The Followers don't have an autodoc at the Old Mormon Fort. Even if they did, the docs aren't particularly good at diagnosis. They operate off of a best guess type of programming. If your symptoms match up with their encyclopedia, they decide that's the ailment you've got. From there they start cutting and poking and prodding and curing. I've already read their encyclopedia cover to cover. It's stored in this second-hand Pip-boy of mine. What I've got isn't to be found. They'll just cut and rip and tear and break without a hope of putting me back together again.
The first seizure must have been when I overrode the Securitron yesterday morning. That makes more sense than any of the alternatives. I had an ordinary, run of the mill, perfectly human seizure that just happened to have poor timing. The Pip-boy freaking out might have had more to do with the poorly executed bot command that I pieced together from several places. Messy code ends with messy results. I never was much good with precision in a hurry.
And yes, I'm well aware I'm talking to myself and I also know that's fucking weird, okay?
Before you ask, no, I still don't know who the fuck I am.
My toes feel all tingly.
So let's consider the situation so far...I, me, the person I was at one point, who could be any number of people, was a Courier for the Mojave Express. That person, carrying a very sensitive piece of equipment, gets shot in the fucking face by a fuck up who wants to play with toys that don't belong to him, fine. We've all had that urge. Besides, from what I've heard, House is a real cockhead and deserves what's coming to him. More power to you, Benny.
Courier wakes up, after being SHOT IN THE FUCKING FACE, in the home of a kindly old Vault doctor operating in a nuclear wasteland with limited supplies and limited equipment. But the point is, she wakes up, face intact and ready to go.
This all seems really suspicious, doesn't it?
But, moving on, assessing the situation so we can move forward. "I," whoever "I" am, appear to be in great physical condition. I can run, I can jump, I can swim, kinda, and I can hack the shit out of a computer.
Despite the fact I can barely shoot straight I manage to kill most of the outlaws between Goodsprings and the 188. Like my head tells me I'm a shit shot and my hand has another idea entirely and I'm tearing shit up. All the while, I'm having these...visions...about a girl that I think I am. But they're not complete. There's a big gap in those memories, a whole year in fact. That shouldn't be abnormal with a head injury. Head injury is putting it mildly. So the visions don't seem strange at all, at first.
But that little girl is covered in dirt and drawing symbols in the dust. She's learning to fire a rifle (albeit, poorly) and I'm pretty sure I don't even know how to hold something bigger than a laser pistol. And when would a tribal girl learn to hack? Where does she learn to assemble stimpaks?
And why is it that the man in the checkered coat, the man who shot her in the face, is also a boy who is holding her close and whispering in her ear like she's a real prize. But really, she's just a strange little girl who speaks to stray dogs.
Oh and then this is rich. At the 188 there is a fucking Brotherhood of Steel woman just waiting to come along with me. She'll drop everything just to follow me around and hold my hand. In time, she starts sticking her hands other places too. And I don't mind. This "I" that is the chimera post bullet. This "I" that is not an "I" because it has no past and no future. It's a weird in between level where "I" barely function.
But Veronica is pretty and sweet and quirky and everything feels new and fun. Life isn't fun otherwise.
Arcade wants me to stay put in bed, at least for the next 24 hours. I say Arcade, but it probably was another doctor speaking through Arcade. Or maybe another doctor was speaking to me second hand about something Arcade said. Fuck if I know. Everything has been blurring together for so long now.
They took away my tin. I'll start seeing withdrawal symptoms soon. I'll have that to add on top of my every growing list of problems. The Followers can't spare the Fixer. They need it for the Freesiders who are just the fucking image of perfectly fucked society.
I'm worth a thousand of them and they can't accommodate my vices.
I'm starting to think I was fucked in the head even before I died.
Veronica is visiting me. She must have come while I was asleep. I don't remember falling asleep, only waking to a blurred world. I could have sworn I saw my mother behind her. But I don't know what my mother looks like. I can't remember a single fucking detail, not what color her hair was, or her eyes or skin. I can't remember if she sang to me as a child and brushed my hair or was drunk and threw bottles at me to get me to shut the fuck up. There is an empty void where she should be and I nearly suffocate and Veronica holds my hand between two of hers and stares at me with rapt attention.
It's almost like she cares about me.
I've long suspected she's a spy. She's watching me, getting close to me, following my movements and me behaviors. I'm a specimen to be carefully tracked and monitored. There is a notebook in her pack with precise lines of writing. She'll be very talkative, inquisitive, then silent for hours. I never see her write in the notebook, but I do see her shuffle it around in her pack, making sure it's always there.
As far as Arcade, I'm still unsure. The Followers and Brotherhood would not be working together. Still, I'm suspicious. He looks at me with sad eyes and he passes, like he knows something I do not. He knows a ton of fucking shit I don't. He acts like he knows me but can't stand the state I'm in.
I can't take his pity.
Still, pity is perhaps better than this sick charade that Veronica carries on. She's kissed me and called me pretty and wound her fingers between mine. Now she's sitting here next to me with all the concern of a long-term partner and not a half-stranger that I've come to depend on out of necessity. If I were stronger, if I was less fucked up, I wouldn't need her.
But I'm awake now and staring at the canopy of the tent that is protecting us from the harsh sun. One of my possibilities is that I didn't see the sun until I was eighteen. Could I dare to dream of something so wonderful to have not been born into this filth and waste?
"Veronica..."
Even though I don't trust her, she's all I have. That may be why I can't afford to trust her. If people really were as good as she pretends to be, the world would have never gone to absolute shit. It hasn't been so long, you know? Since the planet was green and fertile and we weren't all tearing at scraps. Two hundred years really isn't all that long, only just long enough for us to lose a bit of our humanity, but not enough for us not to care.
"M-" She corrects herself, "Callie?"
My head feels so heavy when I try to nod. I'm not sure how long it's been. Only a moment ago I could have sworn it was only a day since I saw Benny, since I fucked the man who fucked me. Now I'm not sure how far time has elapsed. I told him that I would see him again. Maybe I lied.
"What happened?" It's as good a place to start as any.
Veronica bites her bottom lip before she answers. It's a gesture so adorable and disarming that I'm almost certain it's practiced and planned. She's like a robot built to destroy me I swear to fucking god. She's custom built to make me not suspect a thing, and that's what makes her most suspicious.
"You've been having seizures."
Seizures, plural, over a span of time. I don't want to know how long.
I wonder if Benny expected me to come back, if he has thought of me at all in the intervening time.
"How many?" My voice is hoarse, I haven't used it in awhile.
To that she shakes her head. She doesn't know or the number is too high to be safe. Like, the number is brain-dead high. I've been brain dead once, at least, I can come out the other side of this.
Oh, it's very strange. I'm afraid of dying. I'm not sure I've felt this sensation before, at least not as the current incarnation of 'me.' Really and truly I'm afraid of dying before I kill every fucker that has wronged me.
"How many?" This time, my voice sounds a bit more confident, assertive.
She won't look at me now. "Arcade doesn't know. They can't always tell." Her voice is just loud enough for me to make out what she's saying.
The sheets on the bed are a faint off-white color. If I pretend hard enough I can make myself believe they were this color all along. There is only the thinnest sheet draped over me, like they're preparing to bury me any hour now. They can just wrap me up in it and toss me in with the other corpses.
Someone must have the job to dispose of the dead here. Probably some lackey with more muscles than brains and a kind smile. The dumb ones are always kind. That must be why I'm so much of an asshole.
Under the barrier of the sheet I can still wiggle my toes. There doesn't appear to be any nerve damage in that sense. Every single one of them moves just as they did before. I'd test my fingers too but V still is holding my good hand with the rotten pinky that didn't work anyway. It would only bend halfway over and then just stop. Still was my good hand though, stronger and steadier and first to react. The left one.
"I want to get up."
Surprisingly, Veronica helps me up into a sitting position, my legs coming to rest on the ground beneath me. There's no floor covering so the dust gets in between my toes. The ground is cool even though the ambient air temperature is quite high. It must be close to midday, if not a bit after.
It's not until I go to stand that she stops me. I should have known better than to push my luck and now she's clucking over me like a mother hen. Suppose she can keep just as good an eye on me to take notes when I'm bedridden. Maybe this is even better for her.
Even just from sitting I know I could stand. I could stand and run and jump and swim. Nothing feels particularly wrong with me other than a dull ache all over. It's just as likely the ache is from the Mentats withdrawal. Until I have to do something that requires my brain and all, I won't know how much my abilities have been reduced without them.
It's so fucking obvious. I'll just sneak out tonight.
Not a single doctor has been in to see me since I woke up, no one is bothering to count the frequency or duration of my seizures. They don't give a fuck about me. As far as they are fucking concerned I'm already six feet under. If Veronica is keeping notes on me (she is), she'll have to leave at some point to write them down. I doubt she's dumb enough to write in front of me, even if she thinks I'm asleep. So that's it, tonight I'll just stroll out of here through the front door and no one will even fucking miss me.
There's never been anyone to miss me.
Benny misses Mint, desperately. I could feel it in every touch he gave me. Every pulse whispered to me, "you're not her." It was some romantic bullshit like that. A cheap imitation is all I could ever hope to be. He misses her so desperately now that he's reminded of her. In time he'll forget. In all likelihood he's forgotten me already and soon enough he won't be forced to think about Mint anymore. She'll retreat to the back of his mind behind more recent, meaningless fucks that fulfill him in ways a dead girl's ghost never could
Arcade misses Callie, quietly. When he spoke to me and told me he was sure I'm her, there was that quiet sadness that accompanies the memory of a lost friend. She's someone who he has lost and would like to have back, but it's no trouble, really, if she never comes back. He doesn't make friends easily and she wasn't around long enough to get really attached. He liked her though, not too much, but enough that when she disappeared he must have worried. Still, she had tits and a vagina and wasn't much use to him in the way people use each other.
Veronica couldn't miss anyone. She's got a notebook full of me. Maybe carefully drawn diagrams as well. She couldn't miss me any more than you miss an insect in a display box, its delicate wings pinned to the soft cushion of its coffin.
