13. See See Rider
Well, I'm gonna buy
Me a shotgun
Just as long as I am tall
La-la Lord
She'd been worried about the DC ruins being infested with super mutants, even when she had first started scavving all those weeks ago. She should have paid more attention.
Dogmeat was tearing into a centaur while its greenskin bore down on B with a two by four studded with exposed nails. It bellowed, furious, greenish blood oozing from a cut at its temple from a stray bullet. B backpedaled, heartbeat fast in her ears, bat in hand. She'd dropped her 10mm after being thrown into a pile of rubble. She ducked under a swing, twisting to strike at the mutant's arm. It connected, and it clearly hurt the mutant but the impact against the thick muscle shuddered down her spine. Its other arm moved and before she could get out of the way, the super mutant grabbed her. She couldn't keep a hold of the bat; it fell to the concrete with a clatter.
It lifted her up, peering at her. She could feel the individual finger points digging into her back and the thumbs pressed up into her belly. B had gone limp trying to hold the panic at bay but with how shallow her breathing was, that wasn't proving to be an easy job. Then it seemed to sniff her. "Vault human."
B's blood ran cold. She didn't know how the super mutant knew. Maybe she didn't smell like radiation, although sitting in the nuclear bomb pool should have helped that. The how didn't matter so much as fact that the super mutant caring that she came from a vault was not a good thing. She was always being targeted because she was from a Vault.
Weaponless, she could only dangle as the mutant turned. Then she remembered her pocket knife and a jolt of relief burned through her that the super mutant had not pinned her arms.
She pulled it out from its trusted place next to her heart and with a well-practiced flick of her wrist, opened it. She waited until the super mutant swung her closer before she lunged forward, trying to ignore the way her bruises screamed at her. She wouldn't have been able to do this fresh out of the vault but now she was strong enough that she was able to pitch herself forward and drive her pocket knife into its neck. The super mutant roared deafeningly and B barely had the presence of mind to keep her grip on the knife when it yanked her away. Her scream when its grip tightened cut off as she lost air.
It let go of her with one hand to try to stem the spurts of blood. B started to only hear her own blood rushing in her ears and she began thrashing, soundless screaming shredding her throat. That was when the super mutant dropped her and she barely had time to suck in air before she hit the ground, driving whatever air she'd gotten back out. Her body burned from the abuse and frantically she tried to breathe. She wasn't sure how much air she was actually getting; she just knew it wasn't enough. The super mutant teered, whimpering and then it fell forward.
Time seemed to slow down. Her survival instincts, raw and preoccupied as they were, had her rolling out of the way, sharp stones digging into her skin where it was exposed. On impact, the super mutant sent shockwaves through the ground.
Dogmeat barked, alerting her to the figure making its way to her. Her vision started to blur but she thought that she could see a rifle drawn. "Damn." Now she had to find her weapons. Or just one. Something. She coughed, and fire licked through her ribs.
"Hey, tourist! You doing okay?"
The voice was female, but she hadn't heard a rasp like that in days. "Ghoul?" Her own voice hadn't fared much better it would seem.
"Yeah, what's it to ya?" The potential threat was evident but not a raider or she'd be dead already. Probably. Nip seemed to be an exception. And if the voice belonged to a ghoul, likely, wasn't feral otherwise she'd be dead. And she wasn't dead. So not a raider and not a feral.
Something wet and cold pressed against B's face and she tried to jerk away, only to further aggravate her ribs with a wheezy gasp until she realized it was Dogmeat nosing her. B grappled with her body trying to push the pain away enough to find something for help. "Underworld," she finally managed.
"What was that?" The figure leaned down and the smell of ghoul smacked B in the face. That answered that question.
"Gob...help...Underworld…"
The ghoul grunted. "Okay kid. I'll get some help to drag you into Doc. Don't die while I'm gone."
Doc...Dad?
As the figure left, B whimpered a protest. Her eyes slid closed against the blurriness of her vision. She drifted in and out of consciousness. She barely registered being lifted until panic blasted like an alarm along her nerves. She thrashed, voice lifted in a steady keen that rasped and scraped in her throat, trying to escape the hands that held her.
There was a prick in her neck and she instinctively wiggled away. Voices broke through her daze, none of which she recognized but before she could do anything, her body went limp and everything faded.
When she awoke, it was with a jolt and she didn't recognize where she was. She knew the smell, chemicals and cleaning. But this wasn't the vault. She could feel her heartbeat begin to pick up as panic set in. There was something she was forgetting, something important. "Hey, smoothskin! Cool it." She froze other than to yank her head around, feeling the skin on her neck pull. One ghoul stood at a computer, another sat nearby reading something. She wasn't sure which had spoken and so she remained still and alert. Eventually, the sitting one put aside the book and peered at her. "What is your name?" Ghouls. Her expression twisted a little at a disappointment she didn't understand.
She blinked slowly. "B."
"Short for something?"
"Yes, but it's just B."
The ghoul made a raspy hum and moved closer to her. "What's the last thing you remember?"
B took a deep breath, feeling her ribs ache. "Super mutant. It-it grabbed me." A surge of panic had her struggling upright before the ghoul gently pushed her back into the bed. Her fear didn't abate. "Where's Dogmeat?" The raw husk to her voice had eased some but with the snarl she used to ask, she sounded remarkably ghoul-like.
"The dog? Willow said you mentioned Gob so we took him to Carol to watch over." The ghoul at the computer didn't pause in her typing as she spoke.
"But he's okay?"
The ghoul sitting next to her snorted. "We're ghouls, not savages."
"I-Yes. I know. Thank you." She took a deep breath, preparing to sit up but froze when her torso began to tingle unpleasantly. B froze. She still wore Butch's jacket and her tanktop wasn't stiff with dried blood so stimpacks without bleeding meant- "How bad were my injuries?"
"Broken ribs and heavy bruising, most likely internal bleeding as well. I didn't care to cut you open to find out."
Shit. Her head fell back. "How many stimpacks did you use?"
"Only two. You may experience some acute discomfort and pain."
She nodded wearily. She was getting so used to pain in her torso that it didn't even matter anymore. "Is there somewhere I can get a hot meal around here? It's been a while."
"Try Carol's Place. I'd advise you to take a couple days to heal but scavvers aren't really known for staying in one place long. So just be careful and try not to do much more damage to yourself."
B didn't expect the fact that he didn't recognize her as a former Vault dweller to hurt like it did. It hurt but...she was relieved too. Why? She thought back to what she could remember. Fear. Super mutant. Hitting the ground. Her mind itched like she was forgetting something, something important.
Still, she got herself into a sitting position, teeth bared and nostrils flared against the pain in her torso. "How long was I out? She grunted, settling into a position that reduced the strain on her tender ribs.
"Only about five hours. Considering your injuries, I would have expected you to remain unconscious for a few more hours."
She exhaled a laugh and then grimaced. Even Doc Church was constantly surprised by her refusal to stay unconscious. I stopped surprising Dad two years ago. "Thanks, Doc. What was your name?"
"You're remarkably polite for a smoothskin. I'm Doctor Barrows and she is Nurse Graves." He gestured to the ghoul at the computer.
"Your name is B, you said?" She turned around and peered at the human.
"Yeah?"
"What is it?" Barrows immediately went over to her, sparking unease in B.
"That sample you took off her? She's clean. I mean, really clean." What does that have to do with my name? "But look at that right there. Minimal radiation present but I've never seen that outside of a ghoul."
Barrows hummed, turned around to peer at B with narrowed eyes. "Have you ever been heavily irradiated?"
"Once. My friend, Moira, gave me some sort of concoctions after I sat in irradiated water for hours. Cleaned me right up but she said I got a mutation from the whole mess. I didn't ask much about it at the time. I'm sorry. You said you took a 'sample'?" Something about the thoughtful gleam in his dark eyes set her teeth on edge.
"Hmmm. I wonder if you'd allow me to irradiate you again and see what happens."
"No!" she squawked, eyes wide. Barrows cocked his head to the side. "I mean, I didn't really enjoy it the first time and I've done pretty much everything I could since then to stay as radiation free as I can."
"Pity. It would have been interesting to see what would happen near Meat and Ethyl."
B followed his eyes to see two ghouls, distorted by thick glass, but they were glowing.
She started, hissing as the pain in her ribs spiked. "What are those?"
"What kind of scavver are you to not know about Glowing Ones?" Barrows stared at her.
"Glowing Ones are feral ghouls who have been extra-irradiated. Hence the glowing and the name. Doctor Barrows and I suspect that many of them are pre-war and made when the bombs fell. There's no real way of knowing because they heal themselves and any other ghoul in their vicinity so they could easily be two hundred years old and show no signs of it. Except of course the rotting brains."
"So radiation heals ghouls?"
"We aren't sure why," Barrows admitted. "But yes. It does."
"A few days ago, another ghoul told me that chems don't affect you like they do us, what did he say, smoothskins. I assume that means people like me who haven't turned ghoul."
"It does." Barrows nodded.
Graves shrugged. "Usually it's not a problem. Unless you're like Snowflake."
"Snowflake?" B knew from reading pre-War books that a "snowflake" was a type of cold precipitation, though she hadn't encountered any precipitation since she'd come out of the Vault. Which was weird now that she thought about it. The movies in the vault kind of implied that it rained pretty regularly. She'd never experienced rain before.
"If you won't allow us to irradiate you, can we have some samples from you to test?"
"Other than what you already took from me?" He nodded and she paused. "I feel like I'll regret this." B sighed. "But sure. Just not right now."
"No, no. Of course not. The amount of trauma you've suffered would almost certainly skew any tests we run. After you've recovered, we'll draw some blood, take some hair, maybe some tissue-"
B's eyes bugged out. "Wait. Whoa there. Blood, whatever. Tissue samples?"
Barrows blinked. At the computer, Graves began snickering before it turned into full-fledged laughter. B looked at her, uncertain. "Your face, smoothskin!"
"I don't-" She swung her head back around to see Barrows smiling, revealing weird looking teeth.
"It was a joke," he told her. "We can probably get everything we need from your blood."
Probably was not very reassuring. She sighed.
"Is there somewhere I can get a drink?"
A flat look of disgust crossed Barrows' face. "Ninth Circle. Be careful of Azhrukul."
Even the name didn't sound pleasant. "Who?"
"He'll probably try to rope you into some scheme of his. Or worse. Get your drink and get out." B's eyebrows shot up at the hostility in the doc's voice. "You're a weird one. I don't want you dead before I can run tests."
"Thanks for the concern," B said, chuckling, warming up to his honesty like a...she didn't even know what sort of analogy to make. But it was refreshing. And even though she should have been completely on edge, she kept meeting people that weren't trying to kill her. Megaton, the Brotherhood of Steel, Nip, and now Barrows and Graves. It was kinda weird but who was she to argue?
AN: And I'm back after a rather long delay and I feel terrible about that. But I'm uploading this next chapter and while it is shorter than I would have liked it to be, it's up and the ending no longer makes me look at it and feel like Frankenstein after he's made his creation. Which is a plus.
Title and lyrics from See See Rider by LaVern Baker (1963).