ways_infirmary | (no subject)

(no subject)

[[ Before ]]

Ben guides Ellen in, and to one of the beds. "Sit down, please? After you take off enough of your... armor, so I can see all the bites?"

The professional environment helps, and Ben can focus on the work to be done. Slip in caretaker mood, while gathering the needed supplies.

The molerat head is set aside for now, but he will be back for it.

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There's another blank look for a moment. Then Ellen says, very carefully, "Hospital?"

"A medical center? Where a doctor works, with supplies, and helpers, and assistants and such?" He gestures around at the infirmary. "Sorta like here... but bigger."

"Oh. We just had the medical bay in the Vault," says Ellen. "But I guess you'd need one of those for a prewar population center."

He nods. "Hmm, yeah... its about six million people in the greater Detroit area alone."

Blink.

Blink.

Looooong silence.

".... how many?"

"Six million in the Detroit Metro and neighboring counties, a bit over ten million in the whole state. I am guessing there is not much people left in your time?"

"There were a thousand people in Vault 101 when they closed the door," Ellen says. "I think we're down to several hundred now. I doubt there's more than that living in Megaton, and I have no idea about anywhere else whatsoever..."

"Ouch." That says everything, right? "I was guessing a third world war would be bad, but not that bad..."

"Oh, the world wars came before that," says Ellen. "There were ten years of resource wars- between the European Union and the nations of the Middle East, and between the United States and Red China. And some other places, too. The Great War was something else altogether, but that was what set the world on fire."

"Okay... people like making war way too much... guess I should start investing my savings on alternate energy sources?"

"After October 23rd, 2077, it won't matter either way," says Ellen. "Even with mass conversion to fusion-powered cars and fission batteries in most of the machinery in America."

"Ah, I mean so the war might not happen? Having different resources, instead of fighting for the old ones?" Bad joke, yes. "Right now, there are small wars happening already over things like oil, I was guessing things just get worse later."

"No, I mean that the fighting over oil happened even though most of the cars in the United States were nuclear-powered and nine-tenths of what we used oil for was plastics," says Ellen. "But that's where I come from. Not everybody here seems to have the same history as me. Who was the first man on the moon where you come from?"

"Ouch." Bleak prospects.

"Hmm, guy named Armstrong, in 1969."

"Ah," says Ellen. "When I was growing up, it was Captain Richard Wade."

"Different Earth, then. But does not mean we will not end the same way, since we are already fighting over resources now." Just in a much smaller scale. "But I hope not."

"Hm, what do you do out of the... Vault?" Ben moves around, cleaning up, disposing of used things...

"I'm trying to find my father," says Ellen. "He escaped from Vault 101 without telling anyone why or where he was going, and the Vault Overseer kind of flipped out about it. I can't go home until I make sure Dad's okay and find out why he left."

Ben resists the urge to say maybe he left because the overseer is a loon. Really, he flips out because one guy left, then sends the same guy's daughter out too... "Gotcha. Any clues?"

"He passed through Megaton on his way out," Ellen says. "That's the only human settlement I know of anywhere near the Vault, other than those people who holed up in the Springvale school- Springvale's in ruins otherwise. The people I talked to in Megaton said he left for somewhere in the ruins of DC called Galaxy News Radio. I was trying to get over there when those things-" She nods towards the severed head. "-attacked me. Four or five of them."

"But you got them." He nods. "Have some use for it, or I should get rid of it?"

"I'm taking it back to Megaton with me. I need someone there to identify it for me," says Ellen. "If there's something I should know about the things, they'd be the ones to tell me."

"Okay, I've got a scrub from its teeth and in a culture plaque, will ask the doc to check for diseases and such later, just in case." Ben will re-wrap the head carefully. "And if you need more patching up next time you are around... well, I'm around too."

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