ways_infirmary | (no subject)

(no subject)

Dr. McCoy checked her in yesterday, so Ellen's in one of the beds towards the back, Dogmeat curled up at her feet. At least somebody in this scenario currently has hair.

The personal dosimeter she's wearing would appear to indicate that it's safe to approach.

[OOC: visiting post. Have at!]

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"Me," Ellen says. "Happened to be carrying the Gauss rifle at the time."

This is her dead bloody serious face.

"Whoa. Geez. In that case, I hope you shot them. Or blew them up. A lot."

"Oh, they're dead now," Ellen says. "All of them. Except the ones I think were slaves, I couldn't tell... killed the ones on the ship with me. Blew their other ship up. A lot."

"That's all right, then," Corazon says. "Maybe the rest of 'em will wise up and decide Earth is too dangerous to visit."

"Sure hope so," Ellen says. "I don't want to do that again. Ever."

Even if alien guns are amazing.

"So how's... how's the robot? Performing, you know, in- in fights, or whatever?"

"Pretty good. He's cooked some banditos and some of our exotic Mojave wildlife with that laser. I also figured out that he can feed stuff he sees - well, you know, detects, whatever - to my Pip-Boy. Which is neat."

"Nice," Ellen says approvingly. "I have power armor with sensors, but it doesn't- there's no interface. It just yells when there's stuff."

Corazon jerks a thumb at ED-E. "He plays music when something's about to try and eat my face."

The robot bobs innocently in midair.

"Probably safer," Ellen says. "The medic armor's loud. Blows my chance of sneaking up on things."

"Oh, this little cachorro really blares it out. I wonder if there's a way to get him to stop doing it."

"If I knew, I'd show you how," Ellen says, and then adds, "or try, since my hands don't want to stop shaking."

"Yeah, now would not be the best time. I can live with the music for a while longer."

"Sounds like someone had a sense of humor," Ellen says suddenly. "If they made it make movie music noises. The Enclave doesn't have a sense of humor."

"It seems like something my brother would do," Corazon says, "although I don't know if he could rewire a robot like that."

"You have a brother?" says Ellen. "If you told me about him, I forgot. Sorry," she adds with a sheepish face.

"I don't think I told you. I've got two brothers. Diego's the oldest and Jesus is the second-oldest. Diego helps Mom run the chicken farm. Jesus works in a machine shop in Juarez and tinkers with pre-War technology on the side."

"Huh," says Ellen. "You know, I don't think I've ever seen a chicken. There's a woman in Megaton who raises iguanas for the eggs and meat... no chickens."

She shakes her head and returns to the topic at hand. "Only child, myself. Dad was a doctor. I was gonna be Vault chaplain but you see what happened with that."

"You were gonna be a padre? Well...you know." Corazon shrugs. "There've been chickens in my village since the pre-War days. We were way out in the sticks and at a high altitude, so we didn't get bombs dropped right on us and didn't get blitzed by fallout." In other words, the village was spared the worst of the War's effects.

"Wasn't my idea. When you turn sixteen in Vault 101, they put you through a test to see what you're good at. Then they take you out of- out of the regular classroom and put you in your job training instead. Reverend Avellone put in a request for someone to train that year," Ellen says. "I had one more year to go, but I had to leave the Vault."

She nods at the description. "Sounds like it must've been a nice place," she says, a little wistfully.

"It's dirt-poor and in the middle of nowhere, pretty much. But since it's not radioactive and you're not likely to get shot by your neighbors, I guess it's better than a lot of places."

"If it's got anything growing, or any kind of decent water supply, it's better than what we've got," Ellen says. "Megaton's water plant... they've got kids gathering scrap metal, every week, just to keep it running. Some places, they don't even have that."

"Yeah, we have good water," Corazon says. "So does Goodsprings. But unlike Goodsprings, we're not on the way to somewhere people want to go, so like I said, dirt-poor. Then again, it means no banditos are interested in the place."

"Oh good," Ellen says. "Last thing you need is thieves and slavers."

Megaton has walls for a reason, and Arefu is way up on the raised highway for much the same reason. Canterbury... well, they're on a hill, and they have robots.

The only thing Big Town ever had that was worth stealing was people.

"There's a lot of nasty wildlife up there, so we all know how to shoot," Corazon says, "and we always have people watching the pass up to the village. So if anyone does try to attack us..." Corazon mimes a gun with one hand.

"Good for you." Ellen smiles crookedly. "Megaton's got city walls, at least. And snipers on 'em. It helps."