Chapter 8: Getting Sorted

And then we went to sleep. How simple that sounds, and I only wish that it was that simple. It was very strange, as every night since I had arrived here, I had not had any difficulty in getting to sleep, and in fact often I was asleep almost before my head hit the pillow. BUT tonight! That was a completely different story, I just couldn't relax, as if I simply didn't feel safe or something, and as a result, I was trying to sleep with one eye open, also I kept checking my Pip-Boy every few minutes for any sign of danger, and every time it gave the 'all clear'.

In the end, I only managed to nod-off, by lying on my bed, with my .32 pistol nestling in my hand, and the 10mm pistol tucked securely under my pillow.

I awoke with jolt, a few hours later, and just barely avoided instinctively firing a bullet at my reflection in the mirror across the room. Although I was far from fully rested, I decided to give it up as a bad job, and get up and start the day.

When I entered the Lounge, I found that Sarah-Jane must have had similar problems sleeping, for she had moved the settee over to the far end of the room, and was sleeping nursing a large hammer in her arms.

I cleared my throat, so as to gently alert her of my presence, the sound was greeted with a panicked scream from Sarah-Jane, as she rolled off the settee, and shunted herself into the corner of the room, while at the same time frantically flailing the hammer about herself; it was amazing that she actually managed to reach the corner, without actually managing to hit anything. Once in the corner, she then started to wake up properly and realise where she was, and what she was doing. She stood up, blushing in embarrassment, and mumbled "Sorry, Bad Night".

With a slightly amused grin across my face, I asked "Is that normal?" to which she replied "No, normally I can sleep solidly anywhere; even when I was held by the Slavers, I had no problem sleeping"

"Maybe it is a lingering side-effect of the psycho-gas, which is increasing our paranoia, and thus preventing us from relaxing properly" I replied, and then concluded, "I think that until we can deal with the gas properly, we find some living quarters of your own, that way we can relax within our own individual rooms" She readily agreed to this suggestion.

The next obvious question then was where? It was not easy initially to decide, as the first nearest location was the quarters directly across the corridor, but they were too badly damaged to easily make habitable, plus the fact that I had been storing all psycho-gas cylinders, as well as using it as a morgue. Note to self: Find a better more permanent solution for both those issues.

The living quarters up the corridor towards the Atrium were in a reasonable condition, so that it would be fairly easy to make them habitable, but Sarah-Jane refused to even consider them, as that would mean she would be closer to any potential attackers.

However, when I described what I knew about the rooms below us, and I mentioned the Medi-Centre, she became very excited, at the opportunity to see a purpose-built set of rooms, rather than the rough shanty-town version that Megaton had, and insisted that we go and inspect it.

As we left my quarters, I offered her one of my spare .32 pistols for her self-protection, but was astounded when she refused on the grounds, that I "would be safer if she didn't".

Unfortunately, I wouldn't take 'No' for an answer, and insisted that she try, with the suggestion that she tried a couple of practice shots along the corridor.

Less than a minute later, I saw the wisdom of her refusal, as I lay on the ground, while she used a Stimpack, and some bandages to treat the bullet-hole in my leg. What I found hard to understand, as I lay there: Was how the hell she had managed to empty the pistol so fast? And how on earth had she managed to get two bullets embedded in the wall BEHIND us?

All Sarah would say as she gave the gun back, was "You're lucky. Stockholm limped for over a week, when Silver tried to teach me how to shoot, and Jericho said that if he ever saw me with a gun again, that he would immediately start shooting back in self-defence, and Sherriff Lucas had said something similar".

One thing for sure, Sarah-Jane was not going to a travelling companion for me, or at least not one which could 'watch my back' for me.

Once Stimpack had done its work, and my leg was in a good enough condition that I could use it, we moved off down a level to the Medi-Centre. The gas level had dropped slightly since my last visit, but its effects were still could be felt; so as a first immediate step, we adjusted the ventilation ducts, so that the gas drawn away; we then went into the incoming air vents, and disabled and removed all the psycho-gas cylinders there. I also nipped briefly down to the workshop level, and did the same to the ventilation down there.

The effects of the psycho-gas down on that lower level had been even worse, such that when I had returned slowly back up the stairs, I had keep a tight rein on my sanity, to avoid instinctively attacking Sarah-Jane on sight. Oddly enough, the fact that she was wearing the same kind of Vault-suit that I was, seemed to help the Madness accept her as an ally rather than a foe. Sarah-Jane wisely kept her distance for quite some time, to give me chance to recover.

In the meantime, while I regained my sanity, she was busily scampering around the Medi-Centre, crying out at all the wonderful equipment that was there. From her comments, it was clear that she recognised most of it, though for the most part she had only seen them either as badly repaired, or non-operational bits of kit, in Doc Church's Clinic, or had read about and see photos in them in books. Considering here was only meant to be a fairly basic Medi-Centre, it left me wondering how poorly equipped Doc Church's clinic was in Megaton was.

Once I was able to put get the Red Madness fully under control, I now started to check what we had here. With the improved energy status, a number of the doors on this level, were now no longer inaccessible, and as a result Sarah-Jane was able to hit the jackpot, as far as she was concerned, when she managed to open a previously inaccessible door in the Medi-Centre itself, which I had presumed was to a store-room, but instead it led to what had either been accommodation for the duty doctor, or a one-patient ward; Either way, Sarah-Jane cried "DIBS!" on having it as her new living quarters.

Also discovered in the room, was the mortal remains of Dr Paul Jones, who from the looks of it had suffered a violent death. However the sight of his faintly glowing Pip-Boy, gave me an idea; clearly the chances of finding any more unused Pip-Boys like mine were practically nil, and yet both in Vault 101 and Vault 108 (at least according to the game), the inhabitants still had access to a supply of Pip-Boys, so presumably there must be some way remove Pip-Boys from their previous owners and reuse them.

An examination of my Pip-Boy operator manual confirmed that supposition. So I proceeded to try and do so. The procedure involve required me to pop open a small cover on my Pip-Boy, which I had not previously noticed, which then gave me access to an extending lead that looked very similar to a USB cable, which I then plugged Dr Jones Pip-Boy 3000-A

This now enabled me to power up the other Pip-Boy, thus giving me access to all the surviving information stored on it, which was mostly medical texts, plus some brief details about Dr Jones, which basically confirmed that he had died only a few days after his last computer entry that I had read earlier. I backed-up all this information onto my Pip-Boy, which boosted my medical skill. I also made a mental note to upload a copy of the data on to the main-frame as soon as possible, just in case.

Critically the link also gave me access to the Pip-Boy Commands, which I now did, ordering it to return to 'factory default' settings. There was a brief flurry in the dust in and around the skeleton, as the various biometric probes retracted back into the Pip-Boy. The system auto-cleaned them as they withdrew, and after a brief self-test the Pip-Boy reported that it was in a fully operational condition – probably due to it only having one previous owner. I then issued one final command, which opened the Pip-Boy, so that I could remove it finally from Dr Jones.

As I carried out this final command, I wondered if maybe this explained why the Outcasts had been unable to get hold of a Pip-Boy to enable them to access the "Operation Anchorage" Simulator, in the game, because despite the fact they had captured/killed Gary 23, who had a Pip-Boy, they weren't able remove it without damaging it because they needed have another working Pip-Boy like I had to access it properly.

While I was busy with the Pip-Boys, Sarah-Jane was busy cleaning and tidying her new living quarters, and by time I was finished the en-suite bathroom was as clean and shiny as a new pin. She obviously wanted to match the standard; I had set with my own rooms

We sat down for a brief break, and I explained my idea, for her to also have a Pip-Boy so that she could become a proper Vault Resident. Admittedly she was a little cautious, but her willingness to have it increased, when I explained that her best and only chance of officially becoming the Vault Doctor, was if she had a Pip-Boy. The factor that finally won her over was when I mentioned the extensive medical texts that were stored on it.

As it seemed that now was the best time to proceed with it, we made our preparations, as thanks to my torturous experience, we were now forewarned. So Sarah-Jane lay down on her bed, after taking some Med-X, and some muscle-relaxant that she assured me would ease the process. Then I placed the Pip-Boy around her wrist, and it immediately began to deploy its biometric probes; our preparations paid off, for although she was in a lot of discomfort, it was tolerable, and while she didn't feel like moving about, she wasn't incapacitated either. This in turn seemed to help the Pip-Boy's calibration, which seemed to be progressing at much faster rate than it had for me.

I decided that while this was going on, that I would go and try and find some more food supplies; so I quickly explained that once she felt able to move about, she should have a read of the Pip-Boy's onboard manual, have a quick practice with its controls, and then proceed back to my room's computer terminal, and try and take the GOAT exam.

I went back up to the Atrium, and securely locking the corridor door behind me, so that Sarah-Jane wouldn't be disturbed. Now technically I should give my search food the highest priority, but I just couldn't resist the temptation, to go up into upper Atrium levels to see what was up there, especially of personal interest was the Overseers Office. So I headed in that direction, soothing my conscience with the optimistic thought that maybe there would be food supplies up there.