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XxX-XxX-XxX
The first part of her night passed in a blur of utter agony, every heartbeat sending thrums of heat through veins that felt like they were full of white hote, molten metal. Every breath was agony, and the pressure Uncle Leo used to hold her down may as well have been torture. She bit her tongue and tasted blood, at one point, before Skull loomed over her, shoving a gag into her mouth to prevent a repeat.
At some point, though, she finally thankfully lost consciousness, slipping into absolutely insane fever dreams. Dreams of philosophy debates between her, Nate and a Deathclaw. Of a clone army of nothing but her, told to build a fortress but too busy quarreling about resource allocation and scavenging duties to get any work done. And then another, of when she'd given birth, except the doctors were all Ghouls, hissing and chittering as they delicately handled the procedure and then handed her her baby.
A bright green baby, the size of her own chest, but her baby regardless.
Finally, groaning, she woke up to the feeling of a wet cloth on her chest, gently scrubbing between and under her breasts.
Too drained to be angry, she blinked awake, looking up at the green giant and asking, "Why'm naked?"
"You had a remarkable fever all through the night, which worked up quite a sweat." Uncle Leo answered quietly, gently scrubbing down along her stomach and along her hips. Then, lower, as the mutant went on, "The way the treatment works, the radiation is absorbed and then forcibly excreted via essentially every liquid avenue. Blood, if you bleed, tears, saliva and, most pertinently here, sweat. It's radioactive, though, so it must be removed promptly."
"Sorry 'm gross." She slurred, head too fuzzy to care about the propriety.
"Please," Uncle Leo turned a smile on her, working his warm, wet rag along her thigh gently, "I'm a doctor, madame. This is nothing compared to tending to a mother giving birth, or a wounded Raider with a bolt in his innards, let me tell you."
She only grunted a reply, throat too dry and head too fuzzy to muster a more proper response.
Once her sponge bath was done, the Super Mutant exchanged the soft sponge for a rougher towel to gently dry her off, and then helped her into a set of clean clothes. They were stiff clothes, made of leather with thicker layers over her chest, shins and forearms, but inside they were lined by a soft fur of some kind, pressed down fur that kept her warm but wasn't rough or uncomfortable.
What it was from, she had no idea.
So, she did the obvious thing and asked.
"It's from a Mega-Lamb." Uncle Leo answered her, holding her right arm in his giant hands and gently squeezing along the bicep, tricep and shoulder. "They are rather like the kind of lamb you would imagine, except that their wool grows ludicrously fast. A lot of the wool isn't fit to wear, too rough on the skin, but even that makes for good padding on armor and shields."
"I imagine they eat a lot, then…" Like her words had reminded it, her stomach rumbled angrily and she grimaced. "S-Sorry."
"Perish the thought, your body is as it is." He smiled, teeth crooked and over-large, enough she was sure he could rip her jugular out with them. She ignored her instincts, though, and listened, "As for the Mega-Lamb… Well, yes, it eats a lot. But they aren't herbivores, at least not just herbivores. They're lithovores, too."
"Litho-" She blinked, "They eat rocks?"
"Rock, dirt, metal, the like." The Super Mutant nodded, moving down her arm to continue his probing squeezes, and waiting for her to cry out. When she didn't, he went on, quietly, "Rock and dirt are everywhere, and they can eat the unsalvageable concrete, too. Even glass, if you break it up enough. And we feed them any iron or steel that's not pure enough to salvage for use, too."
"Efficient."
"Mhm." The Mutant looked up and around them waarily and then whispered to her, "I would suggest trying to procure one. They're rare in the wild and in captivity both, which normally means they are not for sale. But with the water you have on the line… One or two could easily be a part of the bargain."
"They would be useful." Not just for the clothing, either, but for a way to dispense with their more useless garbage. Even today, there was waste that needed done away with. Scrap and broken materials that even they couldn't repurpose or reuse. But… "Why would you suggest it, though?"
"A better question." He mused, smiling that toothy grin again, "Why not?"
"You don't need to." She answered simply as the Super Mutant stood and paused, raising one misshapen, questioning brow at her. "You don't get anything out of helping me. And if the Assembly knew you had, you'd stand to lose a lot, too."
"I recognized your uniform, when you came in." He answered quietly, "I know what group you represent. I know not why you are here, engaging with these people, now. But you do so in peace, and no doubt for a noble end."
"I do." She nodded, though she didn't dare to explain what that end was. Instead, she asked, "So, what? You have faith in me?"
"Yes, in fact, I do." He nodded, lumbering towards the column that supported the room, and the desks and supplies there. He took a moment to take notes on a pad of paper there before picking up a lidded wooden bowl and returning to her, sitting down and uncovering what smelled like potatoes and beef. Handing it to her he said, quietly, "Eat it slowly, General. It is hot and you are weak right now."
"Alright." She nodded, setting the bowl in her lap and enjoying the warmth of it, spreading through her. Quietly, as she spooned up a bite of the meal, she asked, "Why would you put your faith in total strangers?"
"A good question." He nodded, "Why did you do that?"
"What?"
"You took drugs offered by strangers." Uncle Leo explained bluntly, "Even as they caused agony in you, you pushed through it, trusting us. Trusting complete and total strangers. Why would you do such a thing?"
"Because… I didn't have a reason not to." She shrugged and froze, expecting utter agony as always and then smiling disbelievingly when nothing came. Lifting her arm she found she could twist and turn it without a hint of pain. "It feels like new… Better than new, in fact. It feels great, what was in that?"
"Nothing." The Super Mutant answered quietly, "Your arm should be a bit stiff, but free of pain and impediment."
"Well, it feels as good as new." She shrugged, rolling her shoulder testingly, smiling at how easy moving it came. "Maybe I just bounced back a bit better than normal."
"It's a side-effect of the treatment." Uncle Leo rumbled quietly, watching her arm move with narrow, suspicious eyes. After a while he hummed in thought, "Perhaps you… Have suffered a minor mutation, that, in tandem with the treatment, has strengthened your arm."
"I what?"
"Please, wait here a moment, General." The Super Mutant grunted, rising and trundling off quickly, his heavy feet sending gentle tremors through the beds around him as he moved to and out of the door.
She blinked her surprise, sighed, and then turned to her food, "If it isn't one thing, it's another…"
The Super Mutant returned a couple minutes later, carrying a small, dark red ball of some sort. It looked small, in his hands at least, but was easily half the size of her head. A weird swirling pattern of silver had been inscribed on the surface of it, contoured slightly as if to highly how a person should grip it.
Taking a seat in the chair next to her he explained, quietly, "It's a lead weight used in strength training. And, well, a projectile for one of our weapons. A large one, like a sling combined with a ballista."
"Ah." She could imagine a lead ball like that would hurt if it hit someone, to say the very least. Instead of asking about that though, and filing the idea of the weapon away for later, she asked, "I'm assuming its here for the first reason, not the second."
"What gave it away?"
"The lack of an artillery piece." She smiled, "You're big, I'll admit, but I doubt you could hide something that big behind you."
"Well, you're quite right." He said simply, holding the ball out in a hand and then setting it on the bed beside her hip. It was heavy enough she felt the mattress indent under her a bit, the lead ball resting against her hip. Quietly, he asked, "I would like you to try and lift that with your right arm."
"Just my right arm…?"
"At first." He nodded, adding, "If you feel like you can, though, then use both hands. But try with the one, first."
Grimacing, she nodded and wrapped the fingers of her formerly bad hand around the ball. It only enclosed half of it, the ball way too wide for her fingers to enclose around it. Frowning, she did her best to pick it up, forced to turn her hand and get it under it to stop the ball from getting away from her. It was heavy, she could easily see why it would be used as a projectile and could already imagine what one of these would do to a Minute Man formation, from what she'd been told about them.
But, arm trembling from the effort, she managed to just get the little ball a few inches up and off the bed before her grip started to fail. Uncle Leo was swift, though, his own massive hands sliding under her forearm and hand, and the ball as well, of course, to stop her from dropping it.
"So," she smiled, "how'd I do?"
"Do you know how much these weigh, General?" She shook her head and, frowning, the Super Mutant took the ball from her and then gingerly sat it down on the ground between his feet. "Around ten pounds or so. Far more than someone coming off the injury and treatment you are coming off of to handle."
"Ah." She grimaced, shaking her hand gently to get the gentle ache out of it, from holding the ball. "That's, uh, not good right?"
"On the contrary, it's splendid news, General Nora." He smiled warmly, adding, "So long as you don't mind that it's likely a mutation brought about as a consequence of the radiation infection, you should take this as good news. Presuming that you actually are recovering, and weaker as a result, your right arm should be even stronger than before."
"Oh." She blinked, looking down at the palm of a hand that had, until that moment, been nothing but a liability. And now… "Well, that is a bit of ironic whiplash."
"I imagine." Uncle Leo murmured, hefting the ball again and, once more, laying it beside her, this time on her other side. "Please, try and do the same with your other hand, now. Let us see if it is isolated."
Remembering how heavy the ball had been in her other hand she took a breath, and lifted as hard as she could-
And watched the lead ball sail up, out of her fingers and beyond the foot of her bed, cracking into the stone floor a foot from the end of the cot. She blinked, for a moment, before slowly turning a look on the Mutant beside her. He sighed, gave her a smile, and stood, sauntering to the foot of the bed and kneeling to wrench the lead ball out of the floor.
"So," he chuckled, "you are a Mutant, too."
"I-I guess so." She murmured, "That's the most reasonable assumption at least, right?"
"Yes it is." Then he paid her a little look, and asked, "How does that make you feel, though?"
"I don't…" She also almost said she didn't want to be some kind of freak, before she realized who - and what - she was talking to. Instead she settled on, "I'm fine, I guess. I'm not thrilled that my body is out of my control, but… I mean, I can't do anything about it, now can I?"
"Not that I'm aware of." She heard stone crack and the Mutant chuckled, standing and paying her a nod, "I should see this returned to its home, and get Skull for you. That one can see the meeting you came for arranged."
"Are you…" She blinked and grimaced, hugging her suddenly very alien feeling arms around herself tightly. "Are you going to tell him about my mutation?"
"Do you want me to?"
"...Yes." She nodded, "I'm not used to it, and don't want to hurt someone. And you'd know how to put it better than I would."
"I'll let him know." He nodded, turning to leave and adding a parting, "Luck to you, with your meeting and your new mutation alike, General. You may find you need it."
Which he meant, she didn't know for sure. And he was gone before she could ask him about it, too.
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Father's typical morning musings were cut off by the sound of his door chime, telling him someone was calling on him. Taking a long draught of his coffee, blessedly one of the first comfort crops that the early Institute had sequenced and begun growing, he stood and stepped in front of his mirror, to check his uniform and beard for any flaws in need of correcting. Running a brush through it for safety he nodded and moved for the door.
Instead of one of his department Heads or a Synth, both of which were normal, a wiry young technician was waiting for him. She was thin, with hunched shoulders, mousy hair and the plain white lab-coat of those still interning in the various departments, searching for their calling. She clutched a folder anxiously, shuffling where she stood before offering him a small, nervous smile.
"G-Good morning, Father." She smiled, nodding her head, and offering him the thin folder, "Doctor Rosen was supposed to bring these to you, but something came up. So he asked me to do it."
"Ah." He smiled, taking the folder and tucking it under an arm. SRB colors were splashed over it and, eyebrows raised, he asked, "Do you know what it's about, Miss…?"
"Miss Anais." She answered politely, "And, um, he said it had something to do with an SRB project. Something classified, your eyes only. Even he couldn't look into it, beyond what he put in the folder, he said."
"So you did as you were told, in a manner befitting any and every member of the Institute." He smiled brightly, watching her eyes widen ever so slightly and her cheeks flush, the professional praise rushing right to her head and heart. Paying her another nod, he said, "I'll see to these reports. Tell Doctor Rosen to pass my appreciation to the rest of the SRB team on this project, if you would."
"Yes, Sir."
"And Miss Anais?" He smiled wider, "I look forward to seeing where your career takes such a promising young doctor as you."
She stammered her thanks and rushed off, cheeks aflame. He wasn't lying, either, she was a very promising young woman for the SRB's interests. Her skills in unit allocation, survey coordination and Synth behavioral anomaly noticing were not to be ignored. Even if she did seem a bit too gentle of demeanor to work well with the SRB's less empathetic fields, she could be very useful in the SRB's coordinated efforts to observe and survey activities on the surface.
At least, the more hands off ones.
Taking the file with him, he returned to his office and sat at his desk, taking another blessedly caffeinated drink before opening the file and beginning to peruse it. It was a report on the Nanite test they'd run on the Subject. The dispensation had gone off without any problems, including any detection of the Course they had dispatched for the task. Further, the monitoring connection that let him track her, and what the Nanites were needed to do, was up and running without trouble. Already they were retrieving invaluable data on what the foreign contaminants on the surface were attempting to do to her immune system.
The nanites, of course, recorded it all and rectified the problem.
Along with a lot of others things, apparently…
"Ah," he blinked, grimacing silightly, "well, that is an unintended benefit."
The nanites were over-active and didn't police what they repaired as properly as they should. Resulting in a muscle and bone repair that made her healthier and stronger than she had been before the infection. Which meant that, if there weren't any prohibitive side-effects, the nanite treatments would result in improved persons, rather than just restored persons.
It was a surprise, then, but not an unwelcome one.
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Skull and Wolf arrived half-an hour after Uncle Leo left to get them for her, and her uniform, cleaned and pressed in a way it hadn't been in some time. It even smiled pleasantly, a mix of clean soap and an odd, kind of cinnamon that she couldn't place. She didn't hesitate to get changed, the two Foremen turning their backs to her politely as she did.
"What is the scent?" She asked, tucking her armor into place and tugging the long overcoat on over it. "It smells nice."
"The mushrooms we used to treat you." Skull explained quietly, "We boil them, steep them for a week, and then grind them up with animal fat. The mixture congeals into lumps of soap that are useful for cleaning, and mostly non-toxic if accidentally consumed."
"We use them for candles, too, sometimes." Wolf added, asking, "Are you decent, General?"
"I am." She nodded, the two Foremen turning around to face her as she smiled. "Cured my illness, fed me, housed me, you even did my laundry…"
"I cleaned your Ten Milimeter, too." Wolf shrugged, adjusting the box under their arm and explaining when her brow rose in a clear question, "The barrel was a bit dirty, and the magazine casing was a bit loose. Easily repaired, and I told your man, Preston, before I did it. He went through your things, counted your ammunition. If you think I stole anything, feel free to see him."
"It's fine, I don't think you'd steal ammo you don't need." She smiled, drawing the sidearm and inspecting it curiously. She couldn't tell if he was right about the repairs, but the metal was cleaner at least. So she figured he'd done some work on it, and holstered it, "Thanks, Wolf. You didn't have to do that."
"Those of the time before stick together." They answered, taking the box out from under their arm and setting it on the bed between them. Nodding towards it, they added, "A gift, from we, the Foremen. It will state our respect to you, when you meet our leadership."
"Thank you." She smiled, "I'm sure your support will mean a lot."
"I hope so." They nodded, gesturing at the box, "Please."
Nodding, she opened the little metal thing. Inside, nestled amongst thin linen, sat a little silver mask. It was only front-faced, with a black sort of linen hood that would cover her head and run down her neck. And the design was simpler than the others, too. Instead of the well-made, ornate patterns of Wolf and Skull, hers was a simpler, Human visage, smiling thinly and with scholarly looking glasses stenciled into the metal. It looked passably like her, or at least as passably as a mask was likely to emulate, but her favorite part was the eyes.
Instead of normal eye holes, they were made using black glass where the stenciled glasses would have had their lenses. The lenses were wide, too, like the wide rimmed librarian glasses that were so common back in her day.
"A Tinker dwelling here knows how to make glass, and treat it to protect against glare." Wolf explained, "We had them install the lenses since we thought you would appreciate them."
"The Mask design itself can be changed, too." Skull added almost anxiously, "So we simply went with a Human face, smiling calmly. It seemed appropriate enough. If you want it changed later, though, we can-"
"No." She grunted, giving the two Foremen a look and smiling. Lifting the light mask out of the box she set her hat aside and slipped the hood on, nestling the mask into place. Her voice surprisingly clear, she said, "I think it's perfect."
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Misdirection :
It was fun to design, ye.
Blaze 1992 :
I mean, these aren't the same drugged up raiders as canon. So it makes more sense.
Previlion :
Glad you're enjoying it!