FIFTY-FIVE
Vault 15 area
October 1st
08:41
Phyllis ran back to the bushes as fast as she could. Lysanna, Matt and Lara didn't need her to bicker anyway. They'd figure out the details on their own. She was a bit annoyed with herself for not being able to tell Lysanna what had happened, but she didn't want to cause any needless worry. Of course, not telling exactly which problem Chris had might make her worry even more. She snatched up her Steyr as she ran back, and as she got close to the bushes she could already hear Chris snarling and grunting. She supposed it was a good sign.
She parted the branches and saw Chris where she'd left him, his hands clamped around one leg.
"Ah geez, Chris," she said worriedly as she knelt down beside him.
"The others… okay?" he grunted.
"Yeah, they're fine. Let's worry about you now, 'kay?"
"It's… not that bad," he hissed painfully.
"Not that bad?" Phyllis repeated. "You stepped in a god damn bear trap! Look at your leg!"
"I'll live."
She shook her head in disapproval. "Why do guys have to be so damn macho about everything anyway." She reached for her medical bag and pulled it closer. "Okay, hold still."
"What the Hell are these things… doing here anyway?"
"I don't know," Phyllis replied, inspecting the trap and the damage it had done to Chris' leg. "Probably left here long ago, maybe even before the war." The trap was rusty and old, and the mechanism had probably lost a lot of its force, thankfully, because Chris' leg didn't seem broken. The edges of the jaws had bitten through his pants and into his legs though, the edges biting even deeper when he'd overbalanced and fallen down, and blood welled up from the torn skin, soaking the leg of his pants, but it didn't look like the bleeding was dangerous just yet.
"Shit. Just my luck," Chris muttered.
"Have you tried prying it open yet?"
Chris shook his head.
"Good. If you do it yourself you'll probably just hurt yourself even more." She frowned at the trap. "Wait a minute," she muttered, pulling a handle next to the spring mechanism. The trap clanked open, making Chris grunt in pain and almost breaking Phyllis' fingers as the jaws flew apart.
"Is it bad?" Chris asked, looking at his leg with a worried face.
"Not that much. You're lucky the damn thing was older than both of us put together, because those things break people's legs when they're new. No arteries hit either." She gently pulled the fabric around the wound open and then said, "I don't think you'll be running a marathon for a few days though."
"Got any stims left?"
Phyllis nodded, "Uh huh," and reached into her bag, taking out a hypodermic filled with red liquid.
"Man I hate those things," Chris muttered. "Alright, if you gotta do it, no time like the present."
Phyllis smiled briefly and then pushed the needle into Chris' leg, emptying the hypo. Chris grimaced, his teeth clenched and his eyes screwed shut as the stimpak raced through him. His fingers hooked into claws around his leg.
"That help?" Phyllis asked redundantly when the worst of the overdrive had passed.
"Yeah, thanks," Chris panted. "Damn, those things are tough on the old bod."
"Let's see if you can walk."
After a few failed, and painful, attempts, Chris managed to get to his feet. "I think a limp will manage."
Phyllis looked at his leg pensively. "The stimpak should take care of most of it. I'm thinking you'll be able to walk normally in an hour or two. It'll still be sore for a few days though. I'll need to disinfect it too, but I don't have the stuff for that right now."
With a grunt, Chris made a few limps forward.
Phyllis seemed satisfied, and with a smile, she said, "Might want to go shopping for some new pants though."
"Good," Chris said between gritted teeth. "The two of us need to be in town today anyway."
Phyllis frowned. "Oh yeah. You wanted to take me somewhere." She fished some bandages out of her medical bag and quickly bound the cut on her shoulder.
"That's right."
"And I don't suppose you're going to tell me before we get there, wherever it is?"
"Nope."
The weather today didn't seem to want to make up its mind, alternating between sunny blue sky and overcast, with the occasional short spot of rain then and again. By the time they reached the NCR, Chris' limp had vanished for the most part, but he still winced occasionally when he put his weight on his injured leg.
"Where are we going, Chris?" Phyllis asked, annoyed.
Chris merely replied with, "You'll see."
Her mood had darkened again during the walk. With nothing keeping her mind occupied, it seemed she had started to fret again, and it seemed that being alone with her thoughts wasn't making her feel good. Chris had tried to make conversation a few times, but after receiving mostly one-word answers, he'd given up.
"Ah, you've got to be joking!" Phyllis shouted when she saw the sign above the door they were walking towards.
"No need to overreact," Chris said calmly. "It'll help to set all our minds at ease."
"No way," she said resolutely, stopping and crossing her arms. "I'm not going in there."
"Phyllis. Lysanna and I are a bit worried about you. It was no little thing you fought against, and we'd all feel more at ease if we knew you really did recover fully."
The sign above the door said, Doc Jubilee – Medical Clinic – Disease, Injuries, Radiation
Phyllis sighed angrily and rolled her eyes. "What's the matter with you guys! I'm not a child! I can decide for myself whether or not I'm feeling well!"
"I know you're not a child, and I'm sure you know your own body best," Chris answered calmly. "But we'd all feel a lot better if you just got a quick check-up so we know everything's fine. I think you're forgetting how close you came to dying, and how crazy with worry we all were." Chris felt bad lying to her, but it was best this way.
"Fine," she snapped, and stomped towards the clinic. Chris hobbled behind her.
"Your friend's been cooked pretty badly," Doc Jubilee said as he applied a copious amount of disinfectant on Chris' leg, making him wince. The stimpak had managed to clot the blood and accelerate the tissue regeneration, but the teeth marks were still red and open. "And you stepped into a bear trap." His voice sounded awed. "What on Earth possesses you kids to behave so recklessly?" He looked at Chris scoldingly above his round glasses.
"It was a… pretty big dose of bad luck, really."
In the next room, Phyllis was lying down with her sleeve rolled up, a needle in her arm and a machine running tests on her, most likely with an angry frown on her face.
"I see," Jubilee merely said, not pressing the issue. "Judging from the burns on your friend's face though, I'd say she swallowed more than a lethal dose of rads. She should be pushing up the daisies right now. How did she even survive?"
"Vault City has some kind of experimental treatment. I guess we just got lucky it worked."
"I see." He bound Chris' leg and placed the bottle of disinfectant back on the rack. "The fabled Vault City medical expertise."
"Yeah."
He scratched his bald head as he looked at his watch. "I think the tests should be done right about now, you can go keep your friend company while I process the result."
Phyllis was not in the mood to speak, looking away angrily and theatrically rubbing her arm where the needle had stuck. After a few minutes of painful silence, Jubilee came in with a few papers.
"I think there may be a problem," he said, intently studying the papers.
Phyllis didn't reply, she simply kept looking away angrily.
"Have you been taking anti-radiation post-treatment medicine?"
"Not much," Phyllis lied. Chris didn't say anything.
"Not much," Jubilee repeated quietly. "Doesn't look like 'not much' from where I'm standing."
Phyllis let out an irritated sigh.
"You're a nurse, right?" Jubilee asked.
"Yeah."
"Then you realize that anti-radiation medicine, post-treatment or otherwise, is essentially poison. And seeing as you're an adult person, I'll also assume you know it's not nice to lie."
"Ah, for fuck's sake," Phyllis snapped, trying to get out of her chair, but Chris grabbed her by the shoulder (the uninjured one, luckily), and pushed her down hard, back into her chair.
"I'll start with the good news," Jubilee continued, unperturbed. "Whatever Vault City did, it's miraculous, because despite the high amount of radiation you had to swallow, and despite the fact that you should have been dead five times over, you've beaten the radiation sickness, and you're completely clean."
Phyllis crossed her arms, looking at the wall, and muttered, "it doesn't feel that way."
"No, I imagine it doesn't. Which brings me to the bad news. If you keep shooting medicine in your veins at the rate you are now, you'll be in a heap of trouble. Even now your blood's already turning poisonous, and if you don't stop using that stuff right now, you'll have gone to Vault City for nothing."
"Well, then your readings are wrong," Phyllis muttered. "When I don't take my medicine, I feel my joints grinding and my stomach turning. You can't feel what's going on inside me! You can stand there and tell me I'm perfectly healthy, but you don't know how I feel! As long as the pain in my joints doesn't go away, I'm not rid of the radiation, and I need to take my medicine! It's as simple as that."
Jubilee sat down and took off his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Look, I don't care what you do. You want to kill yourself, go right ahead. I'm just telling you the facts, that's all."
"The fact is, I'm still feeling sick."
"You know why you're feeling sick, Phyllis?" Chris suddenly barked. "Because your body's become dependant on that yellow goop you keep feeding it! We've seen you do it way too many times to be healthy. You can say whatever you want, but that's the truth! And we won't stand by while you kill yourself."
Phyllis' mouth fell open, the hurt at being lied to clearly visible on her face. "So that's why you've brought me here! Because you wanted me to hear I was fine, and I didn't need my medication anymore, so you could all wag your fingers at me and tell me to stop taking it?"
"Phyllis – "
"What have I done to you people? You'd actually want me to stop taking my medicine, so I could spend my days in agony?"
"It's not like that, Phyllis. You're killing yourself with that stuff."
"I'll die if I don't take it, Chris! I know I haven't recovered yet! I can feel it, and you'd force me to stop taking what I need to stay alive?"
"You don't need it to stay alive, Phyllis," Chris shouted. "That stuff is fooling you into thinking that!" He paused, forcing himself to calm down, and continued quietly, "Don't you get it? Phyllis, you're addicted."
Phyllis rose from her chair and her eyes narrowed. "You bastards," she hissed. "I don't know why you're all against me, but I need that medicine, or I'll die, and if you don't want me to take it anymore, it means you don't want me to live. You could at least have the decency to just shoot me instead of using these disgusting lies to make m –"
Jubilee was too late to react, and most likely Chris himself was too late to stop himself from doing what he did too. With a hard backhanded slap, he hit Phyllis in the face so hard her head snapped to the side and she lost her balance, falling over the side of her chair and crashing down on the ground.
She looked up at him, wide-eyed, her hand on the side of her face.
"We were sick with worry when we brought you to Vault City," Chris hissed, jabbing his finger at her. "Lysanna cried herself silly when she thought you were dying. You've gone through terrible pain, but don't think we weren't suffering right there with you. What you just said is disgusting, worthy of the lowest drug addict."
He turned around and stomped out the door as well as he could with his injured leg.
"Chris…" Phyllis weakly called after him, her voice trembling.
Chris turned around and barked, "Get your shit together or you can go home and poison yourself all you want on your own."
"I'm not going to judge you, or call you a bad person," Doc Jubilee said as he walked into the waiting room where Chris sat and put down two cups of coffee down on the low table, "but from this old man's point of view, you should at least apologize to her for what you did. That was one Hell of a whack you sold her."
Chris didn't say anything, merely staring ahead with his teeth clenched.
"I don't know what got into you, but hitting a woman is never excusable. I don't know what happened before, so I can't judge whether what she said was as painful as you experienced it, and I can imagine you didn't see any other option, but I hope you at least realize what you did wrong. I mean, we've all had the urge to sock a woman in the face at one point or other, but that doesn't mean it's okay to actually do it."
"You think I don't know that?" Chris grunted. "I feel bad enough without you giving me a lecture." Then he sighed and said, "Sorry, I shouldn't be angry at you. I know that what I did was wrong, what she said was just… I don't know, I guess I lost my mind."
"Well, she's doing better now, she's calmed down a bit, and even though I don't condone what you did, it seems to have helped. I think she's starting to understand that her body might be fooling her. Coffee?"
Chris took a cup. "Yeah, I guess, thanks."
"What I'd advise now, if I may, is that you go talk to her, tell her the same things you told me, and try to get her to understand that you hit her because what she said hurt you inside and you lost control. Don't say it like it's her fault, but simply tell her what went on inside you."
Chris made a face as he set the coffee mug down on the table. "Your advice is better than your coffee, doc."
Jubilee chuckled. "That's what my wife used to say too. Except for the advice bit."
Chris couldn't help but feel even more guilt when he saw Phyllis sitting in her chair, her hands together in her lap, one cheek red and swollen. He must have hit her pretty hard. His father used to have the same outbursts, and he'd always sworn he'd never become like him. Seemed like no matter how much they tried, people always made the same mistakes as their parents.
"Hey Phyllis, I…"
Phyllis looked out the window and said quietly, "No one I cared about has ever hit me before."
"I'm really sorry, Phyllis." He sat down next to her. "If I could take it back, I could."
"Too late for that, isn't it?"
He looked down. "I know. If it's any help, I feel really bad about this. Maybe… maybe there's just too much of my father in me."
The corner of her mouth briefly went up humorlessly. "Isn't that a bit too easy?"
Chris hoped she was deliberately trying to lay on the guilt, and that she didn't really feel as bad as she made it seem. "I guess it is. Nothing I can say can justify what I did, but please look at it from my side. The things you said were – "
"Doesn't matter what I said. You hit me. You slapped me in the face, do you realize that's the most humiliating thing you can do to a person?"
Chris couldn't think of anything else to say than, "I'm sorry, Phyllis. I hope you can at least believe me when I say I've never hated myself more in my entire life."
She briefly looked him in the eyes, as if she wanted to determine if he was saying the truth, and then she said, "I believe you. It doesn't make everything alright, but I suppose it's a lot already. And I guess I have every reason to be ashamed of myself too."
"That doesn't matter. I just hope you realize I lost control because the things you said hurt me a lot. Especially because of Lysanna. I don't know how you feel about us right now, but she cares about you a whole lot. She cried for almost an hour when we thought you died. And when you stepped on all those feelings, I just… lost it. We all hurt so much over you, Lysanna even more than the rest of us, and she really doesn't deserve what you said. Hate me if you want to, but at least believe she cares about you more than you know."
Phyllis sighed shakily. "I know. I don't hate you, Chris. I just… You just hurt me so much. But I guess I had it coming for being so ungrateful."
Chris cleared his throat. It might not be the right time to bring this up again, but he guessed no time would ever be right. "Phyllis… are you going to keep taking those medicines?"
Tears welled up in her eyes. "I fucked up, didn't I?"
"Don't say that. You're just facing a problem that needs to be solved, that's all."
Phyllis abruptly stood up and walked to her medical bag lying on the floor.
"Phyllis, what're you doing?"
She briefly closed her eyes and inhaled sharply, and then she turned over her bag, letting the anti-radiation medicine fall on the floor, along with all the bandages and medication boxes. The hypodermics were made of hard plastic, so they survived the fall to the tiles.
"Phyllis –"
After a short moment of hesitation, Phyllis stamped her boot down on the plastic medicine reservoirs, crushing them all and letting the yellow liquid drain from between the shards of plastic. It formed a yellow puddle on the tiles.
Her lip trembling, she wiped her tears away and hoarsely said, "There. No way back now."
Chris got up from his chair. As he reached out to her, she briefly pulled back, but then she allowed him to put his arms around her and hug her tightly. "You're going to be alright, Phyllis."
She shook in his arms, "I'm sorry I'm such a burden."
"You're not. I lost count of the number of times you patched us up. Without you, we would have died of infected wounds a long time ago already."
"I guess. I just feel so worthless."
He held her even closer. Like the first time he'd held her, she felt thin, breakable in his arms. "Phyllis, we've all whined to you about our problems, it's about time we can do something back, right?"
She looked up at him and smiled faintly. "I'm sorry about what I said about you guys, especially Lysanna. I… wasn't being myself. If I keep quiet about your momentary loss of reason, will you be quiet about mine?"
"You bet."
"I might… have more of these moments. I don't know much about withdrawal, but I heard it makes people lose control at times. If I… if I say or do ugly things, will you… understand?"
"I'll do my best."
"I can't ask that you not to be mad at me ever again, but please… don't ever hit me, or even raise your hand at me again. Promise me."
He hated promising things, especially things he might not have control over, but despite himself, he said, "I promise," and let go of her. "Now let's clean up this mess."
"Not another step!" the man guarding the shack shouted harshly as he raised his weapon at Lara and Matt.
Matt calmly said, "Easy there. We just want a word."
"You'll get all the words you want if you put your weapons down on the ground."
"Can't do that," Lara said, as calmly as Matt. "But if you lower yours, we'll lower ours." To prove her good intentions, Lara lowered the AK-47. Matt followed suit with his laser rifle, and after a second's hesitation, the guard lowered his as well. "Alright, what'd you want?"
Matt pointed his chin at the shack behind him. "The girl you're holding in there, it's not right, is it?"
"How do you kn – "
"Doesn't matter," Lara interrupted. "I'm guessing you've noticed we aren't squatters."
"So what are you? Mercs?"
"That's right," Matt lied. "But we're doing this job for free. See, we don't believe in using children as hostages. And we certainly don't believe in executing them."
"Yeah, well, I don't either, but I've got my orders and I can't ignore them, much as I want to."
"Sure you can," Lara said. "Just get out of the way and say we hit you over the head."
"Or better yet," Matt added, "Quit this gang business and go live a life that consists of more than exploiting defenseless people."
"There doesn't have to be bloodshed," Lara finished. "Just step out of the way and we can all go home without holes. If we fight, at least one of us will die. I don't want to die any more than you do, so let's just resolve this peacefully."
"Problem, Phil?" a harsh female voice came from behind the guard. It came from the woman who had apparently been guarding the front of the shack. Lysanna had been right, she looked cruel and merciless.
Phil hesitated. "No problem, Daria." He briefly looked back at Lara and Matt and then said, "But I'm not dying over this. These guys are right. I mean, roughing up some squatters every now and then is fine, but burning children alive? No way, that's going too far. And now Darion expects me to risk my life against people who are trying to make me do the right thing? No way."
"Daria, is it?" Lara asked. "Simply lower your weapon and no one needs to get hurt. Your friend's right, no matter the reason, using children as hostages is wrong and you know it."
"He ain't my friend," Daria corrected. "And I don't care what's wrong or not. That little brat's gonna roast alive."
"For fuck's sake, Daria," Phil shouted. "Are that Hell-bent on burning a teenager alive?"
"You're a spineless turd, Phil," Daria sneered. "Show some guts for once in your life and help me blow these two away."
Phil raised his weapon at Daria. "No. This has gone on long enough. Darion's going crazy, and I'm not sinking any deeper than I already have."
"Fuck it then," Daria said flatly, and with incredible speed, she sidestepped and fired her weapon at the same time. Due to her speed, Phil's shot missed, but hers blew right through his gut, tissue and fragments of spine blasting out of his lower back. Lara raised her AK-47, but Matt was quicker, and his laser rifle cut through her, the beam slicing through her mouth and the skull behind it right below her ears, beheading her with the exception of her lower jaw, which remained attached to her neck. Her head fell in the dust, rolled over once, and came to rest standing upright, the upper row of her teeth biting into the dust and her eyes rolled back, looking upward.
Phil lay on his back, feebly clawing at the clumps of grass and gasping for breath. Lara knelt over him, but all he could say was, "Least… I died… doing something… right." His trembling hand held up a small, gold-colored key, pressing it into Lara's hand before he died.
"Shit," Matt said emotionlessly, "that's pretty neatly carved, if I say so myself."
Lara looked back at him, standing over Daria's body. It had collapsed next to the severed half of her head. A cone of blood had spurted from the arteries that had once led to her brain, and her tongue emerged out from her throat like a long, dead, red slug. Lara had no idea a tongue was so long. She could even see the neat cross section of the brain stem and the vertebrae in Daria's neck. "Damn. That's not a pretty sight," she remarked with a grimace.
"No, it's not," Matt said, still matter-of-factly. "Seeing those laser rifle kills took some getting used to for me too, in the beginning." He shrugged nonchalantly. "An ugly end for ugly people."
"Let me guess," the girl behind the locked door said defiantly as Lara opened it. Matt had stayed outside to stand guard. "The boys are tired of getting kicked in the balls every time they try to rape me, so they send a woman to do some demeaning things to me."
"We're not – " Lara began.
"Don't worry," the girl went on, crossing her arms in front of her small breasts. "I can hurt you just as bad as the guys. I just have to kick higher. Get it?"
"What the Hell are you talking ab – "
The arms remained crossed but Lara could tell the girl's legs were ready to kick out. "Those big tits of yours, dumbass. You better believe they'll hurt like Hell when I give 'em a good whack. The bigger they are, the more it hurts, I'm told."
"Will you shut up and listen?" Lara barked. "We're not who you think we are! If you'd shut up for a second, I just might be able to tell you that we're here to get you out."
"Yeah, as if," the girl sneered. "Only Darion's boys know I'm here."
"Not all of Darion's boys are who Darion thinks they are," Lara bit back. "Now are you coming with us, or are you gonna stay here 'til next year?"
The girl's eyes narrowed. "Wait a minute. It was the girl with the dark hair, wasn't it?"
"What makes you say that?"
"Her eyes. They were different. Not as cruel. Plus, she was far too pretty to be hanging out with Darion's boys."
"Gee, thanks!" Lara said indignantly.
The girl giggled coyly and walked out, past Lara. When she saw Matt, she quietly said, "Your girlfriend sure has a long chain."
Matt frowned, confused. "Say what?"
She didn't reply, instead she whined, "Awww, you killed Phil. I was kinda hoping he'd find his heart and free me."
"Actually, we didn't kill him. Daria did, because he wanted to help us free you." She pointed at Daria's body. The girl grimaced as she saw it. "Eww."
"I'm Matt, by the way, and this is Lara."
"Chrissy."
"Come on," Lara said, "let's get you home."
"What, you're gonna take me home?"
"That's the idea, yeah," Matt said slowly.
"Hm, my mom's gonna look pretty funny when she sees me coming home with you two."
Lara frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"
She raised an eyebrow, and the corner of her mouth went up, barely perceptibly. "You don't exactly look like a knight in shining armor, ma'am. Unwashed vagabond in dirty leather jacket sounds more like it."
"You're a bit of a brat, aren't you?" Lara asked irritatedly. She didn't see Matt was trying not to grin.
"Nice comeback," Chrissy said flightily. "Aren't you a little old to be calling people names?"
"Old? Kid – " Lara began angrily.
The girl cut her off and said, "Hey, I know I have a smart mouth, but thanks for getting me out of there. I really mean it."
Lara's frown didn't dissipate right away.
"Come on, I'm just yankin' your chain. Geez, you'd think it was obvious."
Lara settled for an unsatisfied, "Mmmm."
"Come on, kid," Matt said with a grin, "let's get you home."
