He woke up connected to an IV in a comfortable bed inside a rather large tent with at least four other people with various injuries. Two of those had the torn and bloody remains of the uniforms worn by those Roman wannabes he was running away from in the underground facility laying beneath their beds. Another one, with what looked to be recently amputated legs, wore the tattered remains of a uniform similar to their rivals. These three were all restrained to their beds, likely to prevent them from fighting each other once they wake up again.

He found his boots to the left side of his bed and he could feel that his underwear and socks were still on his body.

"At least I'm still not "completely" naked." He jokingly thought to himself.

"I see that you're finally awake." A young woman asked as she entered the tent. She was Asian, appeared to be in her early twenties, and had a smile that seemed to radiate pure cheer and joy.

"Can you understand what I am saying?" She asked as she sat on a stool next to his bed.

"Yes." He answered honestly.

"My name is Dana Morden and I am the doctor who saved your life yesterday. Can you tell me your name? The man who brought you and the specimen that attacked you, to us declined to identify you. He did say that you were a vault dweller. Is that true?"

"I honestly don't know. He seemed to think that was the case because of my Pip-boy," he raised his left arm with the device to emphasize his point, and because I didn't know what a ghoul was. I think he was referring to his deformed skin. Was he?"

That question seemed to take Dana off guard for a moment, it was obviously not one she was accustomed to hearing. It took a couple of seconds for her to compose herself and answer his question. "In a way, yes. However, you need to know that ghouls like him are more than just deformed people. Technically they are no longer even human."

"No longer human? What do you mean?"

"Ghouls were once humans who were exposed to extremely high levels of radiation and, for reasons that still baffle us, mutated into their current state instead of dying. In addition to their skin and voices being different from ours, they have a far greater tolerance to certain chemicals, are completely immune to radiation and most known diseases, and age "much" slower than we do. Also, some of them can go into periods of hibernation when trapped and kept away from food and water for prolonged periods of time. However, that last ability is normally only seen in Feral Ghouls."

"There are feral ones? What makes them feral?"

"That is an even bigger mystery really. At first, people simply thought it happened when ghouls stayed near highly radioactive materials for too long, but research conducted in the last forty-five years has disproved that theory. What is known is that certain ghouls suddenly lose all intelligence and reason, in some documented cases while they were in the middle of conversations, and become permanently homicidal towards all known life forms other than fellow Ferals and normal ghouls, who they completely ignore unless attacked by them. Strangely, their body temperatures tend to only be a few degrees higher than the air around them. That is not the case with normal ghouls."

"That's a lot of detailed information for a short question."

"Yes. I do tend to ramble on this subject whenever it's brought up. As you can likely tell I am fascinated by their biology and study them professionally. In any case, everything I said is common knowledge known to everybody that has grown up in the wastelands. So common in fact that you are the first person I have ever met that didn't try to stop my rambling. You truly didn't know any of the information I gave you."

"No. No, I didn't. In fact, everything about the world has been a complete mystery to me ever since I first woke up naked in this strange mechanical pod and was attacked by men wearing their uniforms." He pointed to the three wounded soldiers in the tent."

"Which side tried to hurt you?" She looked worried as she turned to observe them.

"Both groups fired at me, but the robots that were fighting to protect me from them said that one side wanted to enslave me while the other was determined to kill me. I have no idea who either of them are, why they were after me, or why they were tearing each other apart. I also don't know why every water source I came across has been contaminated to the point of being poison, why there are giant bugs and other monstrosities determined to eat me literally everywhere, or why most people I have run into since escaping that war zone appear to be drug-addicted maniacs. What has happened to the world doctor?"

"Tell me what year you think this is?"

"November third, 2076. Yesterday was the second after all. Right?"

Dana looked confused and worried as she asked another question. "What is your name? What kind of pod were you inside of?"

"I don't know how to answer those questions. I really don't. The earliest memory I do have was waking up inside a pod and being escorted through their warzone by robots." He answered truthfully.

"Do you feel up to taking a walk with me?" Dana asked as she got back to her feet.

"I think so. Yes."

Dana unhooked him from his IV and gave him some clean perfectly white clothes, a T-shirt and what appeared to be unusually sturdy sweatpants, which he promptly put on, along with his boots, before they left the tent together.

He looked around and saw many people walking around. The most notable thing he noticed about them was that they all wore extremely filthy and worn out clothes. Many of their outfits looked to have been poorly homemade too.

"Why the extra clean clothes? They seem to make me stand out."

"My mother purchased a bunch of these white outfits from a company in Brotherhood territory three years ago. Mostly for patients whose clothes we had to remove and destroy. They're so clean because they have been in a sealed plastic bag since they were made. You're actually the first person to ever wear them. That's not an easy thing for most people to get. Even in the eight nations."

"What is this place?" He asked as they walked through a maze of tents and hoards of people and animals, which included what looked to be two-headed hairless cows being used to carry luggage, surrounded by three watchtowers with two heavily armed men and a modified Mr. Gutsy on each one. He also couldn't help but notice two rings of Heavy Machine Gun Turrets surrounding the camp and at least two Sentry Bots patrolling the perimeter.

"This is my father's medical caravan. We travel all over the unclaimed territories offering quality medical care to everyone in need of it, regardless of circumstances or affiliation. We take payment in caps, supplies, favors, and sometimes information."

"What did you mean by caps as payment?"

Dana seemed to smile before answering, "People have been using bottlecaps as currency for almost two and a half centuries now. Had to use something once the old economic systems collapsed."

"How did everything collapse?"

"My father can tell you that. We're on our way to see him now."

Dana led them to a small, but heavily armored, mobile trailer with at least four of the two-headed cows, speakers, and some sort of antenna array attached to it. "Wait here while I talk to my father first." She went inside for a couple of minutes. During that time he examined the strange beasts in front of him and wondered why on earth any species would need two heads. He looked around at the vegetation and noticed that none of the plants look normal either. In fact, he could swear that some of the branches on the tree in front of the cattle were actually moving against the wind as if on their own.

"They're called Brahmin by the way," Dana said as she stepped out of the trailer.

"I see. Do the trees here move on there own?" He pointed at the one he noticed.

"Those trees are known to eat people when not properly drugged, which it is. Their called Widowmakers. Still best not to get too close though. That one is still young, the adults wander around in packs and are damn near impossible to kill without a flamethrower. The biggest ones are said to deliberately target Super Mutant Behemoths. They even win half of the time too!"

"What's a Super Mutant?"

"It's stupid questions like that which are likely to get you targeted and killed by some people out there. Which is exactly why you need to go see my father now." She used her right thumb to point over her shoulder at the trailer to emphasize her point. "I have another patient to talk to and my parents are both better suited to catch you up to speed on the modern world than I am anyway."

Dana then left him to his own devices as she walked back into the chaotic crowd. With no real alternative, and obviously in need of information, he followed Dana's advice and went into the trailer to find a muscular white man in his mid to late forties sitting in a chair next to a computer terminal and radio set up.

"Hello, Mr...?"

"Morden, Frank Morden to be exact, but everyone just calls me Frank around here. Nice to meet you, now that you're awake and healthy anyway." Frank answered as he got up and shook his hand. "Dana says that you don't know your own name and that you somehow think you're from almost two and a half centuries in the past. Is that correct?"

"For the most part yes. I guess."

Frank sat back down in his chair and offered him a seat on the couch next to the door. "You guess? What exactly do you mean by that?"

He sat on the couch and contemplated his answer before speaking. What I mean is that I can't actually seem to remember anything about myself, even my own name, that happened before I woke up inside some underground facility that was being attacked by what looked like the friends of the soldiers you are caring for in my tent. And I just seemed to have just known what the date was, just like I seem to know how to talk, strategize, fight and even shoot without remembering where or how I learned any of those things. It's simply there in my head. I can't explain it. Is it amnesia or something, can you check me for brain damage in this camp?"

"I already had that done once you were cured. Along with many other tests. There is physically nothing wrong with you other than massive sunburn and dehydration. Literally nothing wrong with you at all. Not even genetically, which means you grew up in a radioactive free environment. Which could only have been inside a vault. Which is impossible."

"Why do you say that?" The tone Frank had taken with his last two sentences worried him a little and he feared he was about to receive some bad news.

"Because every Vault-Tec vault has already been found and accounted for. Those few that didn't fail because of some depraved experiment have either been vacated or conquered by one of the eight nations. None of the vaults in Georgia and Florida survived and are now either used as fortresses by various groups or are completely abandoned."

"So what was the place I escaped from then? Do you think I was frozen in time or something?"

"While that did happen to some poor woman from Vault-111 up north, I suspect that is not what has happened to you." Frank sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, obviously choosing his next words carefully. "While I can't begin to tell you what that place was exactly, I can tell you that you're brain shows signs of having been recently connected to a computer very similar to a VR pod. If I had to take a guess I would say that while you were inside that pod a massive amount of raw information was directly downloaded into your brain. By what I have read about past experiments from before the war that means your original memories were likely either suppressed or completely erased by the procedure. But as far as I know, those experiments also caused neurologic damage that affected mobility. You're perfectly fine."

"Is there any way to reverse the process? Any way at all?" He asked while already knowing the answer deep down.

"I wouldn't even know where to begin to treat that kind of damage."

To say that he was shocked and saddened by this news would be an understatement. "So I may never know who I really am?"

"Most likely, yes. But it doesn't necessarily mean that your life is over. You can give yourself a new name and start a new life for yourself. In the meantime, I can use my contacts to send your picture across the region with a reward for information on your identity. Although you will have to provide the reward money yourself. Sorry, but I have a business to run and supplies aren't cheap."

"I think the man who brought me here, Derecho, said that I would have money waiting for me if I survived. Was he lying?"

"No. He was telling you the truth. There will be an unknown number of caps coming your way once he and my men have sold those possessions in the next trade settlement. Luckily for you, I won't charge you for my services this time considering your rather unique circumstance. So you should have a fairly decent reward to hand out for your identity."

"I'll keep those options in mind. Excuse me I need to go think." He got up to leave with his mind full of questions and theories as to what could have brought him to that place to be...programmed?

Frank smiled and nodded as he spoke. "Of course. I understand perfectly. Just knock on my door here or find my wife Claire if you need anything. Also, feel free to stay with us for as long as you need to. However, I am going to have you moved to tent four. Until your hair grows back you will draw attention to yourself and I don't want those soldiers to find out your here. Claire should be there now with one of her other patients."

Now that he thought about it himself it would make sense to do that in case he was their intended target. "I understand. But just who do they fight for anyway?"

"The one without his legs fights for the Brotherhood of Steel, the other two fight for Caesar's Empire. They're two of the eight nations that have consumed North America in the past thirty-five years."

"What exactly happened to America? I mean, how did this," he stepped outside and spread out his arms as if to embrace the whole planet, "become our world? All of these strange animals and man-eating trees," he nodded in the direction of the young Widowmaker, "just don't seem natural."

"As you know America and China went to war. Unfortunately, neither side won that war because both foolish governments chose to wipe each other out in a nuclear fire. Nobody knows which side fired first, only that the world has been suffering ever since. Most of these abominations that have appeared since then were created by the radiation triggering something inside of certain plants and animals. Others, like Molerats and Deathclaws, were created intentionally to be used as weapons, but were freed and became wild when the bombs dropped."

With that important question finally answered he walked away to think. In the end ate dinner, something called Baked Bloatfly, which he gladly consumed four "large" helpings of despite its taste being somewhat "unusual." He then wondered how long he had been unconscious for him to be so ravenous. He then found tent four where an Asian Woman about the same age as Frank was tending to a female Ghoul.

"Are you Claire?" He asked as soon as she was done drawing a blood sample from her apparently unconscious patient.

"I see you're finally awake. I was starting to wonder if we had gotten that antidote right or not. It was a rather rushed concoction after all."

"Exactly how long was I asleep?"

"Derecho brought you to us about five days ago. It took me and Dana, who I assume you already met by now, almost twelve hours to analyze that creatures venom to properly synthesize one."

"That long? How did you keep me alive long enough to make it?"

"We administered normal Radscorpion Anti-Venom to you. Thankfully it slowed down the poison in your body long enough to cure you. I must admit though we were just guessing that would even work. The creature that attacked you is unlike anything we have ever seen before."

"I think I remember Derecho saying something about it looking similar to a Radscorpion before I began to pass out."

"It's similar, definitely a new mutation of some kind, but it's biology and genetic makeup are now drastically different. Not only that, but my autopsy discovered it to be far younger than a normal Radscorpion of that size should be, and I am positive it was still growing."

"Exactly how large can the normal ones get?"

"About the same size as one of those rusted junk piles you see scattered all over the old roads."

"Now that was a terrifying thought," he thought to himself as he shifted his attention to his new roommate and noticed that she was strapped to her bed. "So what's wrong with her?"

"You mean Olivia here? To be honest I don't really know yet. Her husband brought her to us this morning saying that she had been complaining about being cold, periodic skin irritation all over her body, and she herself said that she had begun hearing a slight whisper that she couldn't quite make out. About an hour later these red veins became visible on her right arm, and to make things even more confusing she is no longer even slightly radioactive. At all."

That last part confused him a little. "Isn't that a good thing? Even for a ghoul?"

Claire took a moment to think before replying. "I don't really know. You see radiation is a key factor in what makes ghouls what they are. Everyone of them, feral or not, produces at least small amounts of radiation. Hell, most humans are at least slightly radioactive. Just look at the world around us, how can we possibly escape it?"

"So why the restraints? Are you sure it's safe for me to be in here with her?"

"I am pretty sure. There has never been a case of a disease capable of infecting both humans and ghouls. Besides, all of the other tents are currently occupied with wounded Brotherhood and Imperial soldiers. And if my husband sent you here it means he wants you separated from them."

Claire then took a moment to compose herself before going on. "As for the restraints, it's a precautionary measure in case she turns feral in the night."

"Why is she sleeping now?"

"We don't know that either. Two hours ago she simply lost consciousness and fell into her husbands arms without any warning. She has been completely unresponsive ever since. My son Dillon went with her husband to investigate their home to see if they could find anything out of the ordinary. Anything at all."

"Well, enough chit chat. I need to get these samples analyzed." With that Claire began gathering her things and prepared to leave.

"This might seem strange for me to ask, but can you tell me what the date is? Including year." The question had popped into his head not long after talking with her husband and he finally wanted it answered.

"Why do you ask?"

"Your husband can explain when you talk to him."

"Okay... It's currently May 4th, 2322. Something tells me Frank is going to have a very interesting story to tell me when I ask him about this." Claire remarked as she walked away giggling.

He stayed up most of the following night working on a name for himself. He finally chose to write up a list of names and place them in a box to be randomly drawn. He was about to pick when Dana came into the tent with his bag.

"I took the liberty of adding a few historical and biological holotapes to the little collection you have in here to catch you up to speed on the modern world. I even added a few recently made movies from The Federation for entertainment purposes."

"Movies are still made after nukes drop?"

"For the past five years? Yes. Television too, at least in The Federation and the New California Republic anyway. I hear that Televisions and the stations that broadcast their signals are slowly being repaired in Caesar's Empire too. I wonder what it's like to watch those movies on such a small screen though?"

"I'll let you know later. But right now I plan on choosing a name and trying to get some sleep tonight." He pointed at the small box on the bed next to his.

Dana sat down next to the box and began rummaging her hand inside to stir the papers around. "A lottery? You sure you want to leave something as serious to just random chance? It could be rather permanent."

"I can't settle on one otherwise and I figure that since none of us ever choose our names when we're born anyway, why not?"

"Because you are in the position to truly decide who and what you want to become. That is something so few of us ever get to do. You have no past to hold you down, no parents or heroes to look up to and make proud. Just yourself and your own choices."

"You sound envious. Why?"

"I was never really given much choice in what to become when I was growing up. I was essentially destined to run this organization when my dad finally dies, but that looks less and less likely every day."

He couldn't help but notice a hint of sadness in her voice as she talked. In some way, it reminded him of the robots that fought so hard to protect him and the others that were in those pods. It had felt as though that their lives were literally their only reason for existing, a reason that was being taken from them without explanation. It was a feeling cemented by the medical bot's reaction to him being the only survivor. They may have been simply programmed to do what they did, but in some way, they felt like people, and somehow their despair felt very real to him. Just as real as Dana's was right now.

"What do you mean by that? You don't think you can do it?"

"No. I mean that there will soon no longer be a need for nomadic healers like ourselves. Every day more land seems to fall under the control of the eight nations who provide the people living on that land protection, education, and permanent medical care right where they live. With Georgia and Florida the only places left unclaimed it's clear that the family business will no longer be needed. None of us caravan folk will be needed once all of the train lines are repaired and they start making cars again."

"The world will always need doctors like you. You could always start up a clinic somewhere."

Dana laughed at that as she began to tear up. "I have spent my entire life on the road. We all have. Moving around is what we were born to do. We would all go insane if we were to stay in one place for more than a month."

"If what I saw in that facility is very common between the eight nations, I get the feeling that your talents are going to be needed more than ever before Dana. War tends to need doctors just as much as it needs soldiers to fight. You're not going away anytime soon."

"But we're going away all the same. There's no avoiding that grim fate."

He wishes he could tell her that wasn't true without it being a lie, but if what he has seen and heard about the modern world is all true, it's apparent that they are all living in a time of transition. And every time an age like that comes along new ways of life are created, while others simply die out.

"I may not know how to save your way of life, but I do know how to give you control of something meaningful right now." He nodded at the box next to her.

Dana smiled and asked, "Are you sure?"

"I don't think there is much difference if I pulled out my name myself or let you do it for me. Either way, I made it myself. That's all that matters isn't it?"

"Yes, I guess it is," she pulled out a piece of paper and read it, "Drake."