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purkinje-effect · 7 years ago

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The Purkinje Effect, 27

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A few days later, for most of the afternoon Geek toiled over KL-E-O’s workbench, with a cigarette hanging from his mouth. With the belt sander, he sharpened his latest project. His wrench-shiv served as a reverse tang of sorts, atop which he practiced controlling his metallic sweat, building up its blade with whatever his palms would excrete. Occasionally, he would lick his fingers, or the knife directly, to slick down the material into curves. What flowed readily seemed mostly lead and tin, and the approximation of his sweeping, jagged work of art to solder was not lost to his amusement, as he smoothed and added, smoothed and added, time and again picking at it until he felt less dissatisfied than before. The piece ended up something between a machete and a karambit, but both the heft and functional shapes pleased him. A series of stylized keyholes trailed the center, and a pair of exaggerated false edges swept both the tip and base of the spine of the blade. He wondered whether he could control the concentrations of the alloys that his pores eliminated, by means besides mitigating his diet.

The sickle-like curvature of the false edges evoked the notion of Cronus. Lead was associated with Saturn, wasn’t it? Classical mythology had filled one of the books in his collection at the vault. It was decorum, to name a blade such as this, a testament that he could weaponize the trauma and from it forge constructive artifacts. Alchemy, he mused to himself. He’d have to futz with his knuckles, if Cronus could prove itself.

Kill or Be Killed had an open store front right on the plaza. As the pink ghoul honed the forming weapon, he noticed across the way in his peripheral, someone come through the one entry into Goodneighbor: a Mister Handy with a ton of wrong parts. He stopped working to watch, absently intrigued as the pale blue hovering mishmash of robotics paused in the plaza, only to zip down the alley.

“That--”

Geek wrapped up his mostly-finished project in a piece of canvas and tucked it in a thigh pocket, to sprint out after the robot. Somebody had been riding on the domed back of that robot. He hadn’t gotten a good look at the dreg, but he didn’t have to, to know they fit the description.

Did he really manage it? Geek thought to himself, scanning the once Scollay Square to tail the robot-riding idiot. Anybody smart enough would’a taken the chance to skip town without wearin’ Hancock’s crosshairs. Why the hell would he come back?

The Neighborhood Watch ghouls on duty at the front face of the Third Rail noticed Geek’s demeanor and gestured at the double doors with their rifles. He nodded with a slouch and jogged in. Ham, the ghoul bouncer in a black pinstripe suit, started to say something to him, but he patted Ham on the shoulder without stopping on his way down the stairs to the subway loading platform that had transformed into the settlement’s illustrious bar. Now that he knew what Jet smelled like, he recognized the previous elusive sweet-stink to the humid atmosphere down here.

A quick skim of the main hall yielded nothing. Losing interest, he approached Charlie for a drink.

“Ah, it’s you again. Gotta thank you again for taking care of that rat problem before. Sure you’re interested t’hear I’ve added the mineral variety to the spirits I pour out.”

“Very.” He doused a few caps on the counter while the Handy reached under the counter to produce the requested tin of turpentine.

“You might also like t’hear the mayor’s in the VIP Lounge at the moment. Something about a private meetin’.” Charlie began to polish at a glass with its pincer-tipped tentacle-limbs. “Seemed like you were followin’ somebody when you first came in, and the timing suggests to me he’s your man.”

Geek sprinkled a few more caps where the first dozen or so had been, as gratuity, and patted at the counter with endearment.

“Exactly what I needed, Charlie. Thanks.”

He took the tin with him to the back room, strung with cage lights, and eavesdropped on the meeting from the corridor that led into the lounge itself. The pale blue Handy idled at one end of the room, while the vault dweller sat on a couch at the far wall, fidgeting with a cane in his lap. Though he couldn’t see around the corner, he could hear that Hancock and Fahrenheit sat opposite the dweller. Yeah, he had a Pipboy, too--but was it his? This frail guy looked in his forties, huge round white-rim glasses, had an undershaven black ponytail that had half-fallen into his face, and wore a tailored single-breasted off-white suit. There seemed to be a high white leather gorget with dark seams beneath the cream dress shirt--no, it was medical gear. It all made sense now. The braces, the cane... and his Frankenstein of a Handy. It doubled as a wheelchair, didn’t it?

“--And you’re lucky I didn’t die,” Fahrenheit seethed. “Still stiff as fuck.”

“I-- I am,” the dreg stuttered out. “I panicked. When I came to town, I didn’t know who to trust, and when it came out Bobbi had played me an’ Mel. I couldn’t make sense of the situation in the moment. Makin’ it look like I’d greased you an’ your guards was the only way I thought I could get away with not killing anybody.” He bit at his lower lip and stared at his Handy as it floated there. “I don’t regret having to take care of Bobbi like that, but I sure am glad I didn’t have to get rid of Mel. He didn’t know who he was working a job on any more than I did.”

Listening to the guy nagged at Geek. It had been carefully groomed over time, but that was unmistakably a Russian accent.

“And what of the caps we negotiated, hm?”

The guy flinched at Hancock’s threat-loaded question.

“Can’t we-- work something else out?”

“Reading my mind. Finn in the dirt, and Bobbi written off, I’m lacking brawn and brains. You were crafty enough to swindle me, and resourceful enough to adjust the playing field in real time--quickly--to compensate for... mistakes. That sounds like the makings of an idea man. Definitely the kind of Nimrod I want even closer, if you catch my meaning.”

Geek spat out a mouthful of spirits. Knowing he’d given himself away, he walked in. Hancock patted at the free spot of the couch beside him opposite Fahr, both of whom were relieved to see it was just him. The mayor threw his arms around both of them once Geek sat.

“Just the ghoul I wanted to see.”

“You gotta be kidding me, Hancock,” he started, taking a fresh swig of turpentine as he gawked back and forth between the dreg and his boyfriend. “This guy blew up your strongroom and drained it dry, and he damn near killed Fahr. An’ ain’t it his fault Finn’s dead?”

Shaken beyond composure, the dreg produced a flask from his waistcoat pocket, and took after Geek. Though the jamjar lenses obscured the exact way he was looking at the pink ghoul, he was sure he could tell exactly what the dreg was thinking. Everyone always reacted badly to his complexion.

“Melancholy, this is Geek. Geek, Melancholy.”

Hancock stopped picking at his fingernails with his hunting knife and pulled out two cigarettes. The ghoul briefly borrowed Fahr’s cigar to stoke them off the cherry before handing it back, then offered Geek one while he took the other for himself. Geek stared, displeased, at this Melancholy dreg and, without breaking eye contact, swallowed his turpentine cap before taking the smoke from Hancock. ‘Choly straightened and tried to stifle an awkward chuckle, the corner of his mouth twitching.

“The pleasure’s all his, I’m sure,” Geek said.

“Oh. Ohh, it is.” ‘Choly sniffed, pushing his glasses up his nose. “I assure you, it is.” Geek’s face soured at this.

“...Ain’t about t’tell you how t’run y’town, but you trust this loon after what he did?”

“I trust the Mayor’s judgment on this, long as 'Choly keeps that damn bloatfly gun holstered in town.” Fahr snarled in disgust, and put out her well-chewed cigar on the arm of the couch before flicking the butt across the room into the cardboard box in the corner. “Never want to see anything like that again in my life. Still having nightmares. Gonna have nightmares for weeks.”

‘Choly couldn’t help but smile and murmur in sly reminiscent pride.

“I-- am not gonna ask.” Geek rubbed at his forehead a minute with his smoke hand, already wearing conversational exhaustion on his face. “Y’wanted t’see me, though?”

“Sure you heard most of our conversation up to now,” Hancock mumbled warmly, pulling him closer by the shoulder. “I’m filling recently... vacated positions. If he’s the brains, you’d certainly make great brawn, love.”

Geek slipped out of the mayor’s arm and sat next to ‘Choly, and squeezed his knee with sustained eye contact. He noted that he could feel the hinges of leg braces, as he’d suspected, beneath the slacks. Up close, he could see white splotches mottled the right side of the dreg’s face, and a scar slashed his lower lip.

“What vault you say you was from again?”

‘Choly pushed Geek’s hand off his knee with both hands, squirming in discomfort, then looked back up at him and clasped his cane firmly.

“I-- I’m from Concord. One-eleven. Why?”

The cigarette twitched in Geek’s lips.

“It’s just I don’t get it. Who fucked up and let a Commie in a vault?” ‘Choly wrung at his cane, put on the spot. “Who’d you kill for that Pipboy, mh?”

‘Choly stared at him from over the top of his glasses, cataracted eyes glazed and jaundiced.

“--I could ask you the same thing, you... you pink Plymouth. You’re from a functional vault, I’m guessing?”

Geek swallowed his lit cigarette, incredulous, and barely kept himself from decking the dreg.

“Gentlemen!” the Handy interjected, unnerved. “There’s no use in being contrary. Isn’t that right, Sir?”

“It’s all right, Angel.” Indignity softening, he looked Geek up and down as he adjusted his glasses again, more for emphasis than need. “He’s easy on the eyes, even if his belfry’s not all in order.”

“Now--” Hancock bolted up before he crossed his arms and cooled himself into a chuckle. “Geek’s one thing you aren’t gonna get away with stealing from me.”

Geek sputtered a laugh and leaned onto his knees, cradling his face into one hand. ‘Choly glanced between them, overtaken by a deep flush. Fahr rolled her eyes, and decided to kick her feet up across the couch since Hancock had begun to pace.

“If you’re interested in sticking around town, you might do well to go speak to Clair in the Rexford,” the mayor urged. “All I’m asking is you think about my proposition, ‘Choly.”

“Oh, he’ll proposition you,” Fahr grunted. “Damn sleaze.”

‘Choly ignored her and looked expectantly to Hancock.

“So you’re... you’re not running me out of town, then?”

“Long as you’re good for business, rather than disrupting it.” The mayor grinned. “Fred tells me you make some mean Mentats. Gonna have to prove it.”

“I, yes. Definitely. Definitely!” ‘Choly put up his flask and patted his chest where he’d put it, then leveraged his cane to stand. Approaching Hancock, he offered a gloved handshake and took the mayor’s in both of his. “Let me sleep on it, Mayor. I’ll... I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

“All right, now.” Hancock grinned and patted him on the shoulder with his free hand. “Shoo. Mingle. And try not to put both feet in your mouth?”

As 'Choly and his Handy exited shrewdly, the sound of his cane-gait shadowed their departure. Hancock walked over to Geek, who’d stood with the transparent intent to follow the newcomer again.

“Y’really trust a Red to finance Goodneighbor?” Geek asked him, the three of them leaving the lounge as well. “A Red who ripped you off?”

“It’s been two centuries since one’s nationality was a reliable measure of their credibility, Geek. My sources tell me that lil’ Ruski dismantled an entire raider operation just a few months back. The survivors aren’t even confident they’ve got an accurate account of what happened, it happened so fast. He might not look like anything, but he’s a whip.” Hancock glanced to him with a stern pleasantry. “Nobody’s stoppin’ ya from keeping an eye on him, if your gut feeling is strong. But try not to run him off before he gives me his answer, okay?”

The pink ghoul finished off his turpentine, and watched as ‘Choly mounted the cloth stirrups of his Handy, and the two scaled the stairs and vanished rounding up to street level.

“You bet your ass I’m keepin’ my eye on him.”

#fallout 4 #fallout 4 fanfic #fo4 fanfic #fo4 oc #fallout 4 oc #the purkinje effect #purkinje effect #geek #hancock #sole survivor #melancholy #fahrenheit #cronus is in between a disciples cutlass and kremvh's tooth. it adds lead poison damage for its legendary #with all this talk of lead and saturnism we're gonna lampshade that geek's real name is galen

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caveartfair · 7 years ago

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9 Artists Who Made Contributions to Science—from Leonardo da Vinci to Samuel Morse

Science and art are often seen as disciplines with little in common. But research has shown that artistic and scientific creativity are closely correlated, in terms of psychological profiles, polymath tendencies, and mental strategies. And many people who have pursued both art and science reported one discipline informing their work in the other.

Recently, architects and designers have turned to science to propel innovation. Neri Oxman, for one, founded the field of Material Ecology, incorporating biological research and lab work into her practice to create adaptable, nature-based building materials.

At the same time, many contemporary visual artists are working with scientists to realize their works—Olafur Eliasson and Trevor Paglen among them. But while these artists engage with science mainly through collaboration, rarer are those who have both studied science and worked as practicing artists. The following are nine artist-scientists throughout history, who have invented society-altering technologies, created records of biodiversity, pioneered research on the human body—and merged their scientific pursuits with art.

Samuel Morse

Samuel Morse, Gallery of the Louvre, 1831-33. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Morse trained under Benjamin West at London’s Royal Academy of Arts and co-founded the National Academy of Design in Manhattan, yet his career as an artist is largely overshadowed by his contributions to communications. After his paintings failed to receive accolades in America, Morse—who had studied philosophy and math at Yale—turned to electromagnetics, eventually creating the telegraph and Morse code. Nevertheless, his ambitious Neoclassical-style works, like the six-by-nine-foot Gallery of the Louvre (1831–33), and even his portraits of famous sitters like Eli Whitney and John Adams (which he reluctantly created to support himself), are testaments to his well-honed skill.

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, 1498. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Leonardo brought intense curiosity to his self-study of diverse scientific fields—from human anatomy to astronomy and engineering—conducting experiments to postulate and test patterns. He developed flying machines based on his observations of birds, designed early automatic weapons, and dissected corpses to produce detailed notes on, and drawings of, human sinews, muscles, and bones. His focus on anatomy and perspective led to the creation of some of his most well-known works, including the Mona Lisa (1503–19) and The Last Supper (1495–98). Indeed, preeminent art historian E.H. Gombrich argued that Leonardo’s scientific studies, though seemingly disparate, all served his artmaking: He sought to understand (and thus better reproduce) the world around him, as well as elevate art by underpinning it with the then-more-respected discipline of science.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Purkinje Cell of the Human Cerebellum, 1899. Santiago Ramón y Cajal "Architecture of Life" at UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley

Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Drawing of Purkinje cells and granule cells from a pigeon cerebellum, 1899. Instituto Cajal, Madrid, Spain. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Known as the father of modern neuroscience, Spaniard Cajal was the first to suggest that individual cells structure the brain and, in the 1890s, created detailed drawings to illustrate his microscope-aided findings. His Nobel Prize-winning depictions are, even now, valuable sources of neurological information, and attest to Cajal’s artistic affinities (as he originally set out to be an artist before his father pushed him toward medicine). The beautiful ink-on-paper drawings are at times reminiscent of a magnified section of Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night (1889), a densely branched tree, or a beaded abacus. Some 80 of the thousands he produced are currently on view at New York University’s Grey Art Gallery through the end of March, then set to travel to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in May and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill next January.

John James Audubon

Purple Martin, 1827. John James Audubon Kiechel Fine Art

Blue Yellow Back Warbler, 1812. John James Audubon National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Born in present-day Haiti and raised in France, Audubon immigrated to Mill Grove, Pennsylvania, at age 18. In the States, his longtime love of birds became a focused study. He recorded their behavior, researched their migratory habits (even carrying out the earliest-known North American bird-banding experiment), and drew them true to size, along with bits of flora from their environments. Later, he traveled around the country to depict all of the nation’s known avian species, eventually publishing Birds of America (1827–38). The book of 435 life-sized watercolor illustrations cost the equivalent of $2 million to print; a copy of the tome sold for $11.5 million at Sotheby’s in 2010. As informative as they are artistic, the vibrant, textured images depict the birds from various perspectives, from a regal profile portrait of a Bird of Washington, to a view from below of open-mouthed American Robin chicks about to be fed a worm.

Alfred L. Copley a.k.a. Alcopley

Mirrors, 1961. Alcopley David Richard Gallery

As Alfred L. Copley, he was a Dresden-born doctor and medical researcher who earned German and Swiss medical degrees before immigrating to the U.S. in 1939; founded and edited three scientific journals; and published in-depth research on the flow properties of blood and other biological fluids. As Alcopley, he was an Abstract Expressionist painter who co-founded the artist group The Club in 1949, along with AbEx bigwigs like Ad Reinhardt, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Kline. His canvases—featuring strokes and squiggles of bold blacks, blues, reds, and yellows—are housed in major institutions, including New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum.

Maria Sibylla Merian

Still life with flowers tied at the stems, ca. 1705. Maria Sibylla Merian Royal Collection Trust

In the mid-1600s, a young Merian, who came from a family of artists, took up drawing and painting. However, her interest in studying insects was unexpected. She raised silkworms and other critters in her early teens, traversed her native German countryside collecting caterpillars, and later, investigated over 150 animal and plant species while on a two-year sojourn in Surinam—the first European expedition of its kind. Her published records of her specimens are the perfect marriage of art and scientific investigation: delicate, highly detailed, colored copperplate engravings, which she paired with written descriptions of the creatures’ life cycles and responses to stimuli. Her ongoing, focused biological investigations were nearly unprecedented for a trained artist. Meanwhile, her methods charted the course for modern ecology, as her images were the first to explore the interactions between plant and animal species.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Pulse Room, 2006 inRafael Lozano-Hemmer: Pseudomatismos, MUAC Museum, Mexico City, Mexico, 2015. Photo by Oliver Santana.

Mexico City-born Lozano-Hemmer graduated from Montreal’s Concordia University with an undergraduate degree in physical chemistry in the late 1980s. The following decade, he began channeling his scientific interests into art-making. Utilizing the internet, computer programming, and searchlights, Lozano-Hemmer created large-scale, public installations that rely heavily on viewer participation. As of late, his work has taken on a more biological bent, using viewers’ heartbeats and fingerprints as the on-off switches in his light-based and kinetic works. An exhibition opening in fall 2018 at Washington, D.C.’s Hirshhorn Museum is set to highlight the way Lozano-Hemmer uses this type of biometric data to critique and invert systems of state control and surveillance.

Anicka Yi

Installation view of 7,070,430K of Digital Spit , 2015. Anicka Yi "Anicka Yi: 7,070,430K of Digital Spit" at Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (2015)

Yi’s work hovers between art and biology experiment. The Seoul-born, New York-based artist—though she shirks the “artist” label—arrived at her practice with no art school training and an interest in the most primal of the five senses. Using smell itself as a medium, she creates pungent olfactory experiences from microbial cultures, antidepressants, and live snails. While she does not have a formal science background, she self-studies voraciously, held residency at MIT’s Center for Art, Science & Technology from 2014–15, and works closely with biologists, chemists, and perfumists to create her unusually evocative scents (which often take sculptural form), as well as installations that function as bacterial petri dishes. Inspired by the disorientation involved in molecular gastronomy dining experiences and science fiction films like 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Yi aims to challenge the cultural hierarchies of smells, and envisions empathy-rich backstories for her works.

Anna Atkins

Adiantum tenerum (Jamaica), ca. 1892. Anna Atkins Musée de l'Elysée

Ferns. Specimen of Cyanotype, 1840s. Anna Atkins National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Seeking a more accurate way than drawing to depict sea algae, British botanist Atkins began capturing the marine organisms as cyanotypes, the cameraless photography technique that had been invented by Sir John Herschel only a year prior. Atkins’s Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions (published in several volumes beginning in 1843) contains some 300 handmade brilliant-blue cyanotypes, accrued over a decade, through which she groundbreakingly documented and identified algae types by name. Intended to accompany William Harvey’s text-only A Manual of the British Algae (1841), Atkins’s publication was the first book that included photographic images—and she is often considered the first female photographer.

from Artsy News

#Artsy News

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purkinje-effect · 7 years ago

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The Purkinje Effect, 23

Table of Contents

“Name y’poison.” Geek slurred and poked at one of the Neighborhood Watch ghouls. “S, ss’on me.”

“I think you should go sit yourself down,” the cockney-programmed Mr. Handy interrupted, nonchalantly cleaning out a glass with a dish rag and its pincers as it balanced a bowler on its domed top. “…After buyin’ this fine gentle-ghoul a beah.”

“Ssh, sure thing, Charlie. Anything for you, you sh– shiny bastard.” The pink ghoul slapped fifteen dollars on the counter in front of the guardsman in a three-piece suit. “Y’want a Gwinnett? He’s got all the Gwinnett you can chug.”

The ghoul thanked him, unsure as to the correct response.

The Third Rail wasn’t especially large, having once been the loading platform to the Blue Line. Down the stairs and to the left, one found the stage act, and to the right, the VIP lounge which had once been the station general store. The bar itself was straight ahead through a smattering of mismatched kitchen tables with a variety of chairs. A thick arch of smoke, from tobacco and Jet alike, veiled the ceiling, and lent a unique vaporous aroma to the thriving hub.

Geek sat himself on a pool chair in the corner with a bottle of whiskey, next to Hancock. Hancock had resumed the mayoral frock and tricorn Geek had come to know him for. The two melted into the furniture and soaked up the jazz noir the Rail’s own red flower, the sequin-gowned Magnolia, filled the place with.

“You do know this is my bar, right,” Hancock murmured into Geek’s shoulder. “You just dumped all your hard earned cash into Goodneighbor’s coffers. Keeping this place running funds upkeep on the city. Such generosity, such beneficence. Today, you’re the Patron Saint of Goodneighbor.”

“Are you tryin’ t’tell me gettin’ drunk here has a purpose?”

“Hey now.” Hancock shoved him playfully. “Don’t it always?” He took a swig off his bourbon. “You… you holding up all right? Breakfast of champions, am I right?”

“My only complaint is that I find myself even harder t’get drunk. Guessin’ it has somethin’ t’do with scar tissue and all that ss, stuff.”

“If this is a ghoul thing, it’s only partly that. Heh. Why do you think I do everything to excess? Every ghoul I’ve ever met has had something about em’s louder than any human. Demeanor, interest, appetite. Aspirations. Even good ol’ Kent over at the Memory Den, my man’s thing is potent and grandiose memories. The nerve just don’t work the same after the radiation damage. It takes a lot to… properly stimulate a ghoul.”

“Are you proposin’ the kinda experimentation I think you are?”

“I wouldn’t be against it, whenever you felt up to it, that’s for damn sure.”

“I’ll drink t’that.” He did.

“I’ll drink to you drinkin’ to that.” He did.

“And I’ll drink t’you drinkin’ t’my drink.” He did. “Keep this up an’ I just might actually get drunk tonight.”

“…All jokes aside, I’ve been meanin’ t’ask ya. Been eatin’ at me since we headed back this way.” Geek looked to Hancock expectantly. “Did you… know that shot would do this to ya?”

“–Fuck no. This is probably just about the last thing I could’a expected. But I figure anything could’a been better’n how I was goin’. …Ss, sorry if that sounds ss, ssh, selfish.”

“I’m sure you woke up to the lot of us yelling at each other. We thought you were dead. I… I was struggling with the idea you’d died so quick after meeting you. To be perfectly honest, traveling with you has been one of the smartest decisions I think I’ve ever made. I haven’t always been the smartest, or the bravest. I’ve made mistakes. Heck, I continue makin’ ‘em.”

“Hey now. I don’t fault ya f’what happened cause of the sS Psycho. You mean it, though? You actually like bein’ around me?”

“I continue to see myself in you more and more with every passing day, and to see you thrive with things I feel we have in common brightens and warms me as much as a good glass of bourbon. You’re like sunshine.” Hancock smiled privately after another sip. “What kept me together in the fuss was hoping, ah. This ain’t an easy thing to admit, even with the liquor. Even going into it, it sounds selfish. Since the night at the gravel pit, I couldn’t stop thinking about you turning ghoul somehow, so we could do this long-term. I can’t help but feel like I willed this on ya.”

“There’s a lotta power to a man’s dreams.” And nightmares. Further comment was drowned out by more whiskey.

“…I told you about my run-in with Vic, but I never really explained me going out into the ruins on my personal Renaissance. You know I’m not stranger to the chem life. I came across a hit of an experimental radioactive drug, last hit of its kind. I knew what it’d do to me. I did it anyway. I figure if I couldn’t see the bastard in the mirror anymore that I was before the drug… All the terrible things I let happen that I felt I had no agency to intervene in… Maybe it’d end it for me. Best hit of my life, I gotta tell you. But… every ending is a new beginning. If anything, you of all things have proven that to me. Reflecting back on my life, I’m ready to stop running from myself, thanks to you bein’ in it.”

Geek stared into the mouth of his now-empty whiskey.

“Guessin’ this might a made me more attractive to ya. …Heh…” The pink ghoul looked up at the beautiful singer at the mic on stage across the room. “Could’a ended up with any girl in the Commonwealth, an’ ya got stuck with me.”

“I could say the same to you.” Hancock reached over like he was trying to grab the whiskey bottle, but grabbed something else instead, eliciting a wheeze. “I don’t think the injection did all too much to that.”

“That’s… some Halloween costume, Blue.”

Geek and Hancock straightened up to find a familiar dark-haired woman in a newboy cap and red coat standing before them, her face not quite visibly frozen in alarm. Geek glanced dismissively to his Pipboy to check the date. He regained eye contact while he picked at his empty socket not unlike one might pick his nose, detachedly fishing a finger around in it.

“It’s not too real, is it?” He rubbed the oil he’d found, around between his fingers, eye shut in thought. “…Tch, funny. Hadn’t heard anybody mention Halloween in ages.”

“Eugh. I just… I had to find you again. I had to know if you were okay. And when I heard a rumor a pink wastelander had taken up in Goodneighbor, I had to investigate. Turned out to be true.”

“More like y’had t’know if I’d figured out more of the bullshit going on in my vault. Like how the paste turned out t’be just plastic? That’s a real hilarious one. A dogged reporter told me that one. Y’might a heard about that, though.” He lit a cigarette and let out the first breath through his gashed nostrils. “Y’lied t’me ‘bout that doctor bein’ a bad lead.”

“If you don’t mind, Miss Wright, we were in the middle of a private conversation.”

“Pardon me, Mayor. Unlike you helping him drown himself into alcoholic oblivion, I want to figure out what’s wrong with his vault, so I can help him fix it and get his folks better!”

Hancock straightened forward, intensity in his rigid features.

“You don’t know a goddamn thing about what’s going on between him n’ me.”

Incredulous, she gesticulated aggressively with her hands a moment, then pointed accusingly at the mayor with a sharpened brow and a snarl.

“I know he probably wouldn’t be your pink lookalike if it wasn’t for you!”

Glass erupted with a bang. Geek had thrown down the whiskey bottle between his feet.

“Are y’tryin’ t’start a bar fight? Because it sounds like y’steerin’ for a bar fight.”

Piper softened, nearly sorrowful at being shut down like this.

“Have you completely given up on saving your people, Blue? Just feel like detaching from reality instead of addressing the real life threatening issues you’ve got going there? I traveled all the way up here, on a hunch, just to check in on you, and I find you a wad of pink ghoul jerky chewed up by my SECOND least favorite mayor in the Commonwealth.” Her tone spluttered into bitterness. “When’s your flavor gonna run out, Blue? When’s he gonna spit you out… or swallow you?”

Geek just stared at her a good bit. Needing another hit off his cigarette was the only thing that unstuck him. He looked down at his glass mess and nudged it with his feet.

“What do you really want.”

“I want answers. And I thought you did, too.” She shook her head slowly at him.

“I found my answers. You should find the door. This is a celebration, not a pity party. Do I look miserable t’you?”

She slapped her legs and threw her hands up.

“Fine. If you’re going to just… give up. I’ll go. I’ll go myself.”

If Hancock hadn’t formed a reflexive iron grip on Geek’s thigh, the pink dreg would have shot right up into her face. The mayor nonchalantly finished off his bourbon, and calmly set down the bottle on the coffee table in front of them.

“YOU CAN’T GO THERE!” Geek slouched back into the couch, withdrawing into his own ferocity. “You can’t. Y’won’t find answers in 82. Just more problems.”

“You’re a mess. Coming here was the worst thing you could have done. All I can hope is that it helped, me telling ya where the Vault-Tec building was. If you even got that far…” The reporter helped herself to a Nuka Cola off the coffee table, and tipped her hat brim at the two ghouls. “Forget you.”

Once Piper had ascended the subway stairs and exited, Hancock let go.

“The fuck was that?” he asked Geek.

“She… We met in Diamond City. She wanted an interview. Fascinated by me. After, she was convinced she had t’take me to the HQ building herself, personally. Things didn’t get that far, clearly. My compulsions, and security, got to me first.” Geek pulled the cork off a bottle of vodka with his teeth and swallowed it, and started in on the liquor. “More I see of that girl, more I’m convinced she’s just a morbid-curious driver slowing past a seven-car pile-up on the interchange. Keeps takin’ the exit just t’loop back around for a second look, too.”

“She means well. She’s just too pointed when her heart’s in it. She’s been like that since she was a kid.”

“You know her? Like, actually know her?”

“I’m from Diamond City. Course I know her.” He leaned into Geek, and draped an arm across his shoulder. “She’s gotta point, y’know. A real misguided one without all the details, but. You think you can safely say that serum evened you out and you feel healthy again? I know you well enough by know to suspect you’ve been trying to fabricate a plan to take Tinker Tom out to the Deep South of the Commonwealth.”

“They’re probably better off dead.” He let it linger too long without elaboration. “Poisoning an’ starvation are a hell of a way to go, but being alive two hundred years, when you’re too scared to come up top so you just lock yourself in y’bedroom unless it’s mess hall hour? With the same twenty-three books to read over and over. The gym equipment is worn to annihilation. Y’try t’create t’pass the time… but then when you’re done with your grand opus two years later, whadda y'do with the next ten? And now… now I’m sure this serum made me a ghoul? Am I gonna live another two hundred years? What do I do with that?”

“You’re up top now, for one thing. And… and you’re with me, long as you want me to be. There’s a whole wide wasteland to sightsee. And a whole lotta wickedness that needs its head bashed in. If they don’t know they’ve got this choice, they don’t know they have a choice. You felt trapped there. Went crazy inside your head a bit, ‘cause you’re intelligent. But you came all the way out here to Scollay Square to find answers, and I feel like you’re onto finding a solution, too. We really should figure out a way to at least pitch Tom’s serum to them, and make it your folks’ choice.”

Geek chugged the rest of the vodka in one go, set the bottle down, and stood.

“I’m not the only one who went crazy inside his head in Vault 82.”

Then he walked off to clear his head.

#fallout 4 fanfic #hancock #piper wright #fo4 fanfic #fallout 4 o #fo4 oc #fallout 4 #geek #the purkinje effect #excessive alcohol tw

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purkinje-effect · 7 years ago

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The Purkinje Effect, 12

Table of Contents

After he’d retrieved his duffel from the sleeping bag downstairs, Geek milled about Goodneighbor to assess his options as to stocking up to hit the road. He’d hoped he could have stayed longer before having to head out again so soon, but he thus far had no complaints. They weren’t kicking him out--yet. He was simply earning his keep by running this errand for their Mayor.

The small town was fortified the entire way ‘round, with just the one entrance. He’d stepped out of the Statehouse to the other end opposite the one he’d entered, resulting in his coming across a number of different establishments he’d not yet seen due to being pigeonholed behind the landmark building. To his right, a theater that now boasted the title of “Memory Den,” and to his left, the Hotel Rexford, which still seemed to be operating as such at first glance. At either end of the short span of street were corrugated metal shanties with a good handful of squatters. His dark, angled undercut had entirely fallen to the left side of his head by this point, as it was wont to do. When the Neighborhood Watch noticed his thoughtful, confused glances, one of them--pale hair, wiry sideburns, another of the ghouls--chuckled and walked up to him.

“Y’new here, so I suspect you’re a little lost. Rooms available at the Rexford--Claire charges ten caps a week, though. Fred’s got all the chems you could ask for, if you’ve got the funds. And that over there’s the Memory Den, if you’re interested in relivin’ some... curves you miss, heh. I think Irma might get a kick outta ya. Round the corner’s Kill or Be Killed an’ Daisy’s Discounts, if y’need supplies. And if y’hadn’t been there yet, The Third Rail’s under the Statehouse. Best bar in the Commonwealth, if you ask me.”

“Under the Statehouse?” He’d listened quietly up until that point. “Under, Rail. It used to be a subway station, then.”

“Bingo.”

Galen thanked him, and rounded to the right around the long Statehouse, through a small square with park benches, and back down a narrow street. Briefly he wondered about the alley to his left, but he could see the door into Goodneighbor ahead of him and went straight rather than investigate what might have been down there. It might be considered trespassing, for all he knew.

He started at Kill or Be Killed first, wondering if it was the kind of place it sounded like. At its front counter was an Assaultron robot, and the pink outsider froze as tactfully as possible in the open doorway of the shop, hoping she didn’t perceive him as an enemy. He remembered that during the war, the government had issued a decent number of the vaguely anthropomorphic machines to the military, and that they’d been formidable, notably terrifying adversaries. Her mostly featureless, long face was divided in half both directions, by a seam which held a single glowing red ocular lens, and had two short radio antennae where ears might have been on a more human countenance. She still ported military paint, down to her designation as USA issue on her chest.

“Well, hello. Everything here is guaranteed to injure, maim, or kill at your discretion. Except me. I only kill when I want to.” Her coy, holographic voice imparted the impression in Galen’s imagination that had she moving features, that she’d have been making eyes at him.

“An... Assaultron runs this store?”

“That’s what my makers called me. An Assaultron: Designed to provide various security related tasks to the modern man. Runtime conclusion: Why work for the man when you can work for yourself? New designation: K-L-E-O. Kleo. Fully independent store owner. Robot enough for you, smooth talker? Now, what are you buying?”

“I, ah, what have you got?” Galen’s feet were cemented firmly on the dark marble floor, and he tried to force a plaster smile. “...Ms. ‘Tron.”

“As far as I’m concerned, I’m a woman. And I run a store that sells very. Large. Guns. So what’ll it be?”

“Let’s see what you have.” She had him beguiled beyond a faculty to do much better than humor her.

“Take a look around, sweetheart. You’re sure to see something you like. Me, for example.”

He browsed her small store, similar in layout to Daisy’s, owing to its shared building. Most of what KL-E-O had to offer lay behind the counter on gun racks and shelving, but there was also a workbench beside the stairs, laden with various equipment. Albeit impressive, the guns didn’t much catch his fancy, but the prospect of working on his current weapons certainly did. She had an ammo bin, as well as a junk bin. Perusing the various odd things in her junk gave him an idea. All he had left he thought she might like was the pipe rifle from the super mutant, though, but he offered it anyway.

“Would you gimme a box of bullets, a few screws, and the meat mallet there?”

KL-E-O processed a moment.

“What caliber do you require, tiger?”

“Whatever is cheapest. I’m not picky.”

“Sensors indicate an equivalent exchange will be thirteen 10mm bullets, two screws, and a meat mallet. Affirmative?”

He wasn’t sure whether it was a good trade, but what he was receiving in the trade would be more useful to him than if he’d have kept it.

“Before I agree, I realize I should ask if I could. What do you charge to use your workbench?”

“It’s a free town, baby. Do whatever you like. However. Probability is low that your results will satisfy your needs quite like my guns.”

“...Deal.”

The items changed hands, and he walked up to the workbench. The vice, metal saw, and drill press all helped him tool the head of the meat mallet. He took apart his left knuckleduster, removing the wingnuts. With the head of the mallet cut in half with a few connecting lines bored into the raw side, he then licked the raw side out of habit before butting the backside of the line of rings and bumper of the duster up to it. The bolts went in, and he tried it on to admire the sturdiness of the improved design. While he was at it, he made use of the belt sander to freshen the blade of his wrench-shiv as well.

“You run a good business, KL-E-O,” Galen thanked on his way out. “It was good to meet you.”

“Don’t be a stranger,” she replied.

He adjusted his duffel as he strolled into Daisy’s. The friendly, blonde ghoul was sitting on a stool, reading a deteriorating magazine, but she picked up her head when she heard his footsteps.

“Oh! you came back. I heard you next door. Was hopin’ you’d come back.”

“That KL-E-O... sure is a femme fatale type. Hoo.”

“Makes two of us,” she grinned. “Couldn’t get enough of this figure? ...No? Then I suppose you really are the sword swallowing type.”

“Goodneighbor has its deadly vixens right up front and center to greet a fella when he first steps foot in the place,” he played along, matching her playful sneer. “Between you and KL-E-O, I’m doomed.”

“I knew I’d like you. What brings you back in, if it wasn’t me?”

“The mayor asked me to go check up on something for him, so I need some supplies.” A pause. “I know you don’t run a charity. I’ve got about twenty dollars and three tin cans to my name, and I don’t suspect that’ll get me all that far.”

“How long are you suspecting this to take you?”

“Not sure. A week, if I’m lucky? I think I’ll do well enough with whatever I find in dumpsters along the way, but what I really need are... better utensils, for lack of a better description. Tin snips, maybe a hammer if you’ve got one. Still gettin’ used to my change in dietary habits. It ain’t recent, but to be fair I only recently went cold turkey off of the normal stuff.”

“A set of tools? I can certainly help with that.” She casually rose from her perch to fish around in her milk crates of miscellany. Without looking up, she suggested, “You’ve... also got that library book. That might sweeten the deal.”

“You can have it,” he agreed, a little too curtly to have meant anything other than he’d meant it. “I only picked it up because it was the first book I’d found above-ground that wasn’t crumblin’ t’dust. We had a copy back at the vault. I’ve read it... too many times.”

“It’s been long enough since I read it that it’ll be like I haven’t before.” She set down a handful of different tools. “A ball peen hammer, a pair of needle-nose pliers, and tin snips. I’ve got a pair of wire cutters, too, but they’re probably too rusty to make immediate use of for their intended function.” Reaching under the counter, she produced a book of her own and slid it toward him. “Twenty bucks and your book, for these four tools and my book? Mmh?”

“Kerouac’s On the Road.” The ex-vaultie raised an eyebrow.

“I thought you might enjoy the irony of it,” she admitted. “So do we have a deal?” When he hesitated, she raised an attentive finger and dog-eared their transaction. A brief rummage yielded a piece of leather armor--a right shoulder piece. “How about now? Keep that arm in one piece a little longer.”

“You’re a real comedian, Miss Dais’. Sure thing.” Again, he walked away feeling slightly more useful for the exchange.

“My pleasure.”

“Oh, uh. I noticed it last night but I know it was late. Is it all right if I use your sewing machine? My hood is coming unraveled. Duct tape only holds so long, I guess.”

“Help yourself. I let everybody here use it. Most people don’t leave it how it was before they used it,” she insinuated with a pleasant aggression and a smile.

“I’ll be sure to clean up afterward,” he assured.

The book went into his bag with his vault suit, the tin snips and pliers into his hip pockets, and the hammer into the tool loop at the side seam of his thigh. He set the armor on the sewing table while he worked on the hood. It didn’t come out perfect, but it didn’t have to. The article of clothing had become a source of comfort for him in the past week, and he didn’t want it coming apart any faster than it would just for sake of unfinished edges. Once it was repaired, he unzipped his jumpsuit to slip it back into the neckline; then, he slipped the slim pauldron armor up onto his bare shoulder and fastened it, and zipped back up.

“I didn’t expect it to be comfortable,” he commented, patting the armor through the thick utility fabric. He fished his gloves out of his duffel, and beat the daylight out of them on the side of the table to get the material flexible again.

“If you survive the errand Hancock has for you, I’ve got one of my own to send you on. In case you needed one more thing to remind yourself to survive out there.” Daisy winked at him when he glanced up.

“Guess I’ll have to wait to find out,” he mumbled when she didn’t elaborate.

“Don’t read that book all in one sitting, if you can help it,” she suggested, watching him use her broom and dustpan to pick up after his mud-and-blood fit and deposit it in front of the store. When he came back inside and returned it readily, she added, “Reads best if you break it up over a week or so. At least, in my experience.”

“I’ll let you know how I liked it when I get back in town,” Galen ribbed, grinning wide at her as he shouldered his duffel again and walked off to exit town again.

Maybe when he returned, he’d have cause to pay a visit to The Third Rail.

#fallout 4 fanfic #fo4 fanfic #fallout 4 oc #fo4 oc #fallout 4 #the purkinje effect #geek #k.l.e.o.#kleo #daisy #kl-e-o

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purkinje-effect · 7 years ago

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The Purkinje Effect, 3

Table of Contents

Once Galen had paid Dr. Sun for the Addictol, he walked down the front steps and dropped five dollars in their cigarette machine to get a pack. Second Street. He chuckled to himself as he lit one up. They’ve embraced every bit of Bostonian culture here, down to the diamond itself. The guards wear catcher gear. The streets are named after the bases. Pff, there’s even a guy over there makin’ a living selling baseball bats. But can I blame em? Heck no. Of any building I can think of in East Mass, Fenway Park was built like a damn fortress.

He flicked his ashes and took another drag, sizing up his surroundings to get his bearings. Town square was the inner diamond, three rows of merchant stalls. A second row outside that seemed a combination of residential and merchant blocks. Besides the “swatter” dealer, gun enthusiast, and surplus stalls, he could discern they’d reclaimed pieces of an old Fallon’s building. Behind the Mega Surgery Center was the butcher’s, and Public Occurrences was behind the barber’s to the other side of what he quickly determined was Home Plate. The pink dreg let out a deep, smoky exhale. Piper. He’d been too abrasive with her. Once he’d settled business with these two doctors Sun had referred him to, he felt obliged to make it up to her somehow. Galen swallowed his filter. Before anything else, a haircut.

Normally the going price the barber charged was fifteen caps, but he accepted Galen’s thirteen provided he could bum a smoke while he worked. A fresh trim and clean hair did wonders for Galen’s comfort and confidence levels. Two weeks on the road had left him scruffier than tolerable. John added a taper-fade to the slicked-back, longish undercut Galen desired to maintain. He smiled to himself as he walked off from John, running a gloved hand over his smooth nape and down past his clean shaven jaw. A fresh coat of pomade was far preferred to whatever had been failing to keep his hair slicked in place previously. He did his best to ignore the fact John’s mother, who’d loitered in the other end of the trailer while John worked, didn’t even wait for him to get out of hearing range to start speculating as to why he was bright pink.

Subconsciously he followed the ritual of walking the bases to find his way, and he passed by both the butcher’s and the Dugout Inn before he rounded the intersection of First and Second. He tapped his foot on First Base with a lighthearted spring in his foot before wandering Second Street to locate the one door on the path not labeled as strictly residential. Then he knocked on the blue door before letting himself in.

“I still think you should reconsider,” the dark blonde woman started cheerfully from one end of the two-story room, filled with various equipment and workbenches. Both wore white lab coats.

“Excuse me?” Galen started, to announce himself since it didn’t seem his knock had been heard.

“Ah, we have a guest,” the dark-haired woman with glasses segued from her place at the microfiche. “Dr. Duff, perhaps you can help him, so I can get back to my studies.”

“Ahh, yes, hello! You must be here for our free Science! lesson. You’re a little late, since the children from the schoolhouse have already left on their biology field trip, but I’m at no inconvenience to include you as well.” She smiled enthusiastically.

“Field trip?” Galen echoed, impressed. “This city’s got a fine educational system, if it’s got a science building all to itself.”

“We have some of the best scientific equipment in the city,” Duff grinned. “I promised the mayor himself that we would share that invaluable learning resource with anyone interested in self-enrichment. And what better way to enrich oneself than through Science!, hmm!”

“I think... I like the way you think.” Galen chuckled. The spirit of the woman was catching. “A biology lesson, though? Tell me more.”

“We all talk about radiation like it’s a single thing, but it’s actually comprised of many different types of ionizing rays. X-rays, alpha rays, beta rays, gamma rays... Do you know which of them we’re most worried about? The one most associated with the big, old bombs 200 years ago?”

He choked up, a bit unnerved by casual conversation broaching the apocalypse in such a way, but managed to rack his own personal knowledge enough to form an answer.

“Gamma rays, right? I remember cause of the triangle symbol, lookin’ like a piece of the radiation symbol.”

“That’s right! You’ve got a fine mnemonic. Now, gamma rays are bad. Really bad. If your body absorbs too much of that kind of radiation, you’ll suffer from fatigue, anemia, even death. But, some life forms have been living with gamma radiation exposure for two centuries now, and they've adapted. Neat, huh?”

“Adapted? Like, evolved?” Additionally, he wondered to himself, Mutated? “This is all very fascinating.”

“Yes, exactly! That’s what Science! is all about. Nothing stays the same. Everything reacts. Science! teaches us the lessons we need to survive. Now more than ever.”

“I love science,” he nodded, adoring her bubbly attitude.

“Now how about that field trip?”

“Field... trip?”

“Time to go out and do some Science! of your own, you silly. I usually have a prize for Best Junior Scientist, and nobody’s come back yet so you’re still in the running for it, if you’re interested.”

“Well, you certainly have my attention.”

“You're going to go out and find a Bloatfly gland. You see, the oversized Bloatfly of today evolved from an earlier species of a smaller fly. Radioactive adaptation has resulted in a unique gland that enables it to balance and maintain speed despite its size.”

“Is there... any chance we’ve adapted like that?” He didn’t want to admit off the cuff that he’d been eating his fair share of Bloatfly past two weeks, especially knowing from this conversation that they had in fact been horseflies before the war. It moderately alarmed him the approximation this conversation had to his own reasons for having come.

“Oh, wouldn’t that be something! You sure seem inclined towards theoretical topics, much unlike my partner, Professor.” The emphasis on her name, directed toward her, elicited an irritated huff from Scara.

“It’s not so much that. It’s... why I came here.” Galen pushed his hood back and made a self-conscious face. “Nobody above-ground’s pink. Just me and everybody else in my vault.”

“Ah! I didn’t even notice. Hm, you don’t eat a lot of any one thing, do you?”

“We’ve been eating food paste from dispensers installed in the vault, ever since the beginning of being shut in. And we haven’t got a garden or any of that, before you ask. Dr. Sun seemed real upset by that, when I spoke to him. He’s the one who sent me here.” He dug out the sample of food paste again and offered it up. “He said you might be able to analyze this stuff, and tell me what’s in it. My people’re getting sick, and everybody’s convinced it’s the paste. But there weren’t problems stomaching it until recent years.”

Duff took it and removed the lid, frowning at the pink goo.

“Pardon the obtuse remark, but this doesn’t look like food. Are you sure what you were eating out of was a food dispenser?”

“Six valves, in the mess hall,” he nodded. “When the vault was first set up, we had a nutritionist and a doctor. They both insisted it was a vitamin-enriched gel with the full gamut of nutrients anybody could need. They passed away a long time ago, though, so nobody can talk to them directly about it. Is it not common, for a vault to be outfitted with this stuff? Sun was distraught as all get-out that we don’t farm.”

As he spoke, Duff moved to the chemistry station against the far wall, taking a portion of it with a scoopula to a clean beaker, and she did not look up from her work as she got started.

“It’s going to take some time for me to analyze this. But round back. You mentioned adapting when you brought up being pink. You think you’ve adapted... to eat... this?”

“It’s uncanny. The longer it goes on, the more I realize I get sick from real food than I do from the paste. Or anything else I eat.” He cleared his throat, noticing his attention wandering to her scientific equipment. “My people’ve developed pica recently, myself included. Dr. Sun says eating non-food indicates malnutrition, which... confirms to me my theory that the formula for the paste’s changed. Maybe it’s expired finally. Who knows.”

“If you get sick from what you call ‘real’ food, then do you not get sick from eating what you consider not ‘real’ food? Maybe you’re mixed up which thing is food and which one isn’t.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” he mumbled, brow furrowed thoughtfully.

“That’s the great thing about Science! though. Multiple perspectives can illuminate the simplest answer, when from just one you might not notice it.”

“Are you... are you proposing that I stop trying to eat real food? That’s gonna be real difficult, considerin’ what you’ve got there is the last of the paste rations I brought with me. I’m from Blackstone, and even if I could get back there in a timely fashion, I... kind of doubt I could get let back in. Not without something that’d make it worth it to ‘em.”

“Blackstone! My, you’re a long way from home. And all for Science! I admire that.”

“Yeah...”

He rubbed the back of his head, glancing off awkwardly. Duff began a second test sample of the paste, having gotten the first one going in a centrifugal spinner.

“What, besides the paste, have you been eating?”

“Most of my people’ve been eating chalk, or even river mud, but that’s just what I know of. We don’t really talk about it. It’s... a private matter. I’ve been eating a lot of metal stuff in the past few weeks. Even fusion cells. I felt so good the night I ate those batteries. ...Radiation made Bloatflies develop that gland, you said? You don’t think...?” Suddenly he remembered he’d eaten the last of his paste rations the same night, and he grimaced, but said nothing.

“My word, you’ve been eating nuclear materials! You must either have a Lead Belly, or you don’t show symptoms of illness on your sleeve.”

“Believe me, I’m real sick, but I don’t think it’s radiation sickness.”

“Without the results of the tests I’m running, I don’t have any answers for you. Come back in a few hours, and maybe we can get to the bottom of this together.” She laughed gaily. “Maybe... go on your little field trip?”

“I just might,” he replied, excusing himself to let her finish her work.

#dr. duff #professor scara #fallout 4 #fallout 4 fanfic #fo4 fanfic #the purkinje effect #geek

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purkinje-effect · 7 years ago

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The Purkinje Effect, 11

Table of Contents

Bars of sunlight scattered across the floor and Galen. From his sleeping bag, he glanced around at the variety of filing cabinets, file boxes, and desks, to ascertain he had not in fact been alone all night. There was also another sleeping bag and a mattress, the latter of which another drifter was still using. Both bedding arrangements were strewn with personal effects and other signs of occupation. He checked on his duffel to find it still where he’d left it at his feet. Sitting up, he retrieved his knuckledusters and lighter and returned them to the pockets in his jumpsuit, and also his smokes to his right rolled sleeve. The gloves remained where they were, too hardened with blood and gunk to be comfortable to wear. He’d have to beat the tar out of them later. Getting out of the sleeping bag, he put his duffel into it and zipped it back up, to make it look like the bedding was still being used. Then he put on his boots and walked out into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

“You lookin’ for Hancock, he’s in his room upstairs,” one of the Neighborhood Watch ghouls informed him, loosening his steel blue necktie.

Galen nodded in thanks, finding the hall for the building was more circular, with doors to either side of a spiral staircase, and two short halls with a pair of closets each which led one to the room from which Galen had slept, and another directly ahead which he assumed mirrored it. The stairs went down to what Galen figured was a basement, but instead the pink fellow ascended them in search for the man who had seemingly walked straight out of space and time himself.

Two more Neighborhood Watchmen stood upstairs, to either short hallway, one ghoul and one a Latin fellow. They tipped their hats a bit at him as he passed, and he raised a greeting hand in response. The mayor’s white double doors were open, and Hancock sat on the couch with a woman porting military armor and long fiery hair shaven to one side. She noticed their visitor first and rose, her posture and expression firm. When she rose, Hancock glanced up from his smoke.

“You’re here to speak with Mayor Hancock, I take it,” she asserted.

“Ahh, our new face.” Hancock smiled and exhaled smoke through his nose-less nostrils. With cigarette in hand, he pointed over to the armchairs across from the couch. Between the furniture was a coffee table strewn with a variety of reading material, containers, inhalers, and syringes. “Come, take a seat.”

Galen complied, dropping his hood when he did, and produced a cigarette of his own, eyes on Hancock’s personal bodyguard as she reclaimed her seat.

“So tell me, friend. What brings you to Goodneighbor?”

“I’d all but given up trying to find a place that didn’t draw their weapons on me. I... I’ve got compulsion habits,” he confessed through a breathy exhale. “Tried Diamond City, for one. That didn’t last long.”

“I could have told you that,” the bodyguard ribbed condescendingly, futzing with a cigar, nipping the tip with a switchblade before lighting it.

“Farh, give the guy a break. He’s not from around here.” The mayor nudged toward her. “This here’s Farhenheit. She’s my second-in-command.”

“The Neighborhood Watch is under my supervision,” she added, leaning hard into the back of the couch, finally comfortable again. Her eyes didn’t leave Galen.

“Elaborate on the compulsions, though,” Hancock asked, putting out his cigarette in the coffee table ashtray after one last drag. “I’m surprised they’d let you inside in the first place. Skin color’s... usually a determining factor.” He pinched his cheek for emphasis.

“They don’t like synths or ghouls? I mean, nobody’s told me what a synth IS. But they keep tellin’ me I am one.”

“Couple years back, the windbag that runs Diamond City instated a law banning all ghouls.” Hancock shut his eyes a moment longer than could be a blink. “And synths aren’t welcome here, either, long as they’re still playin’ by Institute rules. A synth’s a synthetic human, created by the Institute. The Institute kidnaps above-grounders and replaces ‘em with a doppelganger. Everyone is welcome in my town--human, ghoul, or synth. But kidnapping? That shit don’t fly on my watch.”

“Tell me about your town,” Galen started, hoping to change the subject at the impression he’d gotten on a bad one. Besides, the ghoul mayor had skimmed the surface of why no one he’d met so far trusted synths.

“Heh. We just recently celebrated our 45th anniversary, but I’ve held my office eight years now. Goodneighbor started out as a raider settlement--outright criminals were the first that Diamond City purged, and they came here. It started as a raider settlement. But, I fixed that. We live free here, not near-enslaved under armed fascists. This place is a bastion for the lost, wanton, and downtrodden.”

“Of the people, for the people.” Fahr melted into her cigar.

The small history lesson explained for him the design and initial purpose of the neon signs--he’d been right, to question whether they were a trap--but he didn’t mention it. He bit his filter nervously, and mumbled:

“You... forgive me for sayin’ so, but you don’t sound at all like I’d think John Hancock would.”

Fahr and Hancock looked at each other, neither sure they’d heard Galen right, then burst out laughing.

“Friend, you’ve been hitting the Jet too hard,” the mayor laughed. “He’s still in the dirt at the Old Granary, last I checked. It’s a long story, how I got to look and dress like this. Got my name takin’ over this place and settin’ it right.”

“What’s in a name?” Galen mumbled lyrically, taking a slightly Shakespearean posture.

“Rosy pink, this one,” Hancock chuckled. “You gotta Pipboy there. See that Holotape on the table there? Pop it in an’ give it a listen. It’s a short recording, but it’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Galen did as instructed, and inserted the square orange-and-beige cassette into the tray atop his Pipboy. He got to his filter as the playback began, and he swallowed it.

“Wake up, Commonwealth,” a woman’s voice proclaimed. “Synths are not your enemy. They are victims in this war, as well. True, they were created by the Institute. But they were created as slaves. Thinking, feeling, and dreaming beings utterly oppressed by their tyrannical masters. So join with us in fighting the real enemy: The Institute. Join the Railroad. When you're ready for that next step, don't worry, we'll find you.”

“Your thoughts? These tapes’ve been popping up in Goodneighbor past few months. I’ve been noticing some unusual behavior up in North End, too.”

“Sounds t’me like they’re trying to ramp up to do something about the Institute,” Galen deduced. He tried to slick his fallen hair back across his scalp, but it didn’t stay. “They’re definitely not raiders. They’re too organized.”

“Could I get you to do a little recon? I don’t know exactly where they’ve set up shop, and it’s a little too close to comfort, not knowin’ what they plan to do about everybody’s least favorite boogeyman. Sounds like they could be on our side, but they could also be damn fanatics. All bark, no bite, feel me?”

“I haven’t been North of Boston yet since I got out here. There’s no more super mutants past downtown, right?”

“Small pockets, last I checked,” Fahr replied for Hancock. “Nothing like the Financial District or the Commons. Shouldn’t run into more than one or two at a time. Nothing you can’t handle.” She puffed at her cigar with a sneer to punctuate her jab at him. Galen laughed it off.

“I gotta eat breakfast, an’ see if I can’t separate some supplies from Daisy, but I can definitely do that. Which, speakin’ of breakfast... that issue with compulsions I’ve got... The Watchmen warned me y’all have a strict law about theft. Y’all would be all right if I rooted in your dumpsters, yeah? I got unconventional nutritional needs, but I’ve so far been able to manage with trash bins.”

“What do you think you’re going to find in our dumpsters that you can’t find at Daisy’s or The Third Rail?” Hancock wondered, drawing a bead on the real reason Galen was there in his town. For a moment, Galen’s only answer was to empty the ashtray into his mouth. Once he’d swallowed, he thought a moment.

“...Flatware, nails, screws, broken plastic an’ glass... An alarm clock sounds real good right now. Anything past its prime, really...”

“You really are a geek like Daisy said, aren’t you?” the ghoul remarked, both offput and impressed. The two of them weren’t quite glaring, but Galen definitely had their attention.

“The way people keep describing me like one, you’d think that was my name.” The pink fellow chuckled quietly as he eyed the various paraphernalia on the table, unsure of exactly what most of it was. “Is that... all right then?”

“Hey, if it don’t have a lock on it, I’d say the fourth amendment still holds merit in the Commonwealth. No government to enforce it, but I don’t think much of anybody’s gonna argue with you long as you don’t come across somebody’s stash of a thousand caps.”

“Their fault for stirring up trouble,” Farh tacked on, “if they left that kind of wealth stowed away in plain sight, unlocked. Bad planning.”

“I don’t know what I’d do with that kind of money, either,” Galen said, standing up. “Probably couldn’t hold onto it long enough to count it. It’s been a real pleasure, Mayor, Fahrenheit.”

“You too, ...Geek.” The mayor grinned at him, heavy-lidded. “Mh, that does sound like a name, when you use it like one.”

“Do I sound like a ‘Geek’ to you? I look like a ‘Geek’...” Galen laughed at his bad joke. “It’s fine.”

“Look forward to hearing what you find,” the charismatic ghoul nodded.

“Don’t do anything too stupid,” Fahr threw after him on his way out.

“Heh, sounds like Farhenheit likes you already,” the human Watchman ribbed as Galen descended the stairs.

“Yeah, it does.”

#fallout 4 fanfic #fo4 fanfic #fallout 4 oc #fo4 oc #hancock #fahrenheit #fallout 4 #the purkinje effect #geek

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purkinje-effect · 7 years ago

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The Purkinje Effect, 10

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“Considering your grand entrance, I wouldn’t doubt that,” the colonial ghoul started, crossing his arms. “You might be seein’ pink Radroaches, but you’re not hallucinatin’ yours truly.”

“Ah, Mayor! I was wondering if you’d stop by.” Daisy smiled warmly at him, her deeply scarred cheeks creasing in admiration. He tipped his tricorner hat to her, and Galen stood at Daisy’s greeting their leader.

“Daisy. I didn’t interrupt anything, I hope.” The Mayor turned to Galen, smirking. “The name’s Hancock.”

The ex-vaultie choking up behind a smile, and rubbed his nape sheepishly with his left hand while offering the right for a handshake.

“You have a fine town, Mayor.”

“I’ve got my place here, but it ain’t a one-man act, keepin’ this place flying. You... gotta name?” The ghoul figurehead pulled Galen’s hand a bit closer to him with his head cocked askew. “I mean, for now it’ll do to call after ya by description, but what are we to do if another pink fella walks in here?”

Seeking some construct of forgiveness and understanding, Galen’s dark eyes met Hancock’s, which were replete pitch.

“I-- I’m sorry, I’ve got so bad at first meetings. It’s been too long. I’m... I’m just some freakshow geek.”

Hancock burst out laughing and grabbed him with one arm around his shoulder. The ghoulish figure stood about Galen’s height, and was stronger than his physique might have suggested. Shaking him a few times, he held Galen tight and used his free hand to gesticulate animatedly with Daisy.

“Daisy! Don’t we know a thing or two about freaks here in Goodneighbor?”

“Well, how many of us are there now, including our friend here? Thirty? Enough for a circus, I’d imagine,” she replied with sly enthusiasm. “He’ll try to bullshit you, Hancock, but he’s at least being honest about the geek part.”

“Seems he’s made his first friend with the most bookish ghoul in Boston, then.”

“Oh, I’m not sure that he’s that kind of a geek. Though he, like myself, does still owe a book he lent from the Library.” Daisy leaned on the stairs behind her, bearing her weight on one arm. “I take it you’d bite off a chicken’s head if I had one. Or are you more of a... sword swallower?” She chuckled darkly to herself.

Hancock let go of Galen, who then shot Daisy a real sorry look, somehow shocked to be so candidly humiliated during his first meeting with their leader. Perhaps layers of deprecation were how they got acquainted with one another. Galen shoved down his flinch, and snorted with a shrug.

“I know what I like.”

The response got a laugh out of Daisy. Too, Hancock chortled nasally.

"Y’got moxie,” the mayor said, his posture relaxing. “That’ll go far ‘round here. And hear me out: A lotta people go about reinventing themselves in these parts, myself included. I wasn’t always this roguishly handsome, for one. The golden rule of Goodneighbor is to live free. Y’feel me? And if that means you want to be free of whoever it is you were before you stepped in my town... then that’s your right.”

“I got a lot in my head, to put my house in order.” Galen sighed. “You don’t suppose I could stick around a bit, do some odd jobs, make myself useful? This is the first place that hasn’t tried to run me out, run me down, or run me through since I left Worcester.”

“You bet your pink behind. When you feel up to it, rub elbows and maybe offer to scratch a few backs. Pretty much everybody here’s itchin’ for something, and all that can mean. Maybe tomorrow, you’ll be a bit more together and you an’ me can walk and talk. And maybe you’ll know better who to tell me you are. In the mean time, gather your stuff come over to the Statehouse, and let Dais’ get t’bed. There’s a spare sleeping bag with your name on it tonight, and it’s getting late, even for me. Talk to the Neighborhood Watch. I’ll tell them to expect ya.”

Hancock patted Galen reassuringly on the cheek, then shot Daisy a finger-gun and took his leave.

“Daisy...?” Galen began vaguely, watching the living anachronism saunter away.

“You’re welcome,” she replied, ear-to-ear, and motioned toward where she’d hung up his jumpsuit to dry. “All your things are under the stairs, sweetie. Go get some rest. Maybe next time you come my way, we can talk books.”

“Sounds a delight. Maybe I’ll even come back and browse.”

Once she’d indicated the location of all his things, he went over to the front corner to immediately slip out of the vault suit and into the green mechanic’s suit. Although his gloves and work boots were dry as well, they were encrusted with muck and blood. He put the boots on anyway, but added the gloves and vault suit to his duffel, then slung the thing across his chest and over his back.

“I hope you have a good evening,” he thanked again. “One more thing, though? Is Mayor Hancock always... like that?” He wagged a pink finger vaguely at the direction the charismatic ghoul had exited.

“With every breath.”

Galen let out a simple chuckle as he left.

“There’s our pink geek,” one Watch ghoul called out from across the way, his grip on his submachine gun loosening as it fell to his thigh. “Evenin’ to ya. Say Harold, I’ll be back in a minute. You,” he pointed to Galen, then flicked his finger gently in beckoning, “Mayor says t’follow me. Y’get a ground floor place tonight.”

“You’re all extending such enormous hospitality to me,” Galen replied, running his hand over his hair as he glanced about the well-survived building upon entry. The greater part of it was darker than outside had been, making it difficult to make out much more than the sound of his heavy steps on the wooden floors. “It... means a bunch.”

“Just promise me y’not a total louse, aight? We got our fair share of destitute misfits in Goodneighbor, but we got ground rules: No stealin’, an’ treat people like they deserve t’be treated. We take care of our own, but ain’t a body in this town’s got time for that rubbish.” The guard extended a hand toward the corner where a straw pillow lay atop a sleeping bag, with a lantern, then with faked legerdemain he demonstrated that the door didn’t have a lock by jiggling the handle. Galen nodded and set his bag down by the bedding.

“I’ve got no intention to screw up the only good thing I’ve currently got goin’ for me.”

“That’s what I like t’hear. Now be quiet and bed down. I don’t wanna have to come check on you.”

Before Galen could answer, the Watch ghoul had shut the door behind him. So, he shucked off his shoes once more, with a one-two thud, and drew his hood up over his head to curl up in the sleeping bag. Having gone without a proper pillow for a month, he fell asleep the moment his eyes shut.

#fallout 4 fanfic #fo4 fanfic #fallout 4 oc #fo4 oc #fallout 4 #the purkinje effect #geek #hancock #daisy

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purkinje-effect · 7 years ago

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The Purkinje Effect, 9

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Galen fluttered his eyelids with a groan, and sat up. He was no longer wearing the jumpsuit, now in just his boxer-briefs. After a moment awake, his recollection prodded him of having broken his arm, but he looked around in the dim light. An upper-story room, with a few mannequins scattered around. He couldn’t remember where he was, let alone how he’d gotten there. The last thing he remembered was glowing neon signs. Had the super mutant encounters been a nightmare? He sat up on the stained, near-primordial mattress he lay upon and looked himself over, finding no injuries, though his right upper arm was a bit scarred up. No, it had happened--but how long had he been here, for his arm to have healed up so well? Beside the bed was a metal plate with a sweet roll and a can of pork and beans, as well as his lighter and pack of cigarettes. From how they were arranged, he knew he hadn’t placed them there. His Pip-Boy was still on his left arm.

Ignoring the meal, he flicked out a smoke from the pack and laid back on the mattress once he got it smoldering, staring at the ceiling while he puffed at it vacantly. There was a good breeze in the room. Who’d brought him here, and where were they? He glanced around the room, lit by a lantern in the far corner. There was hardly anything up here, save a bookshelf with some miscellany stacked on it. Yet, the door was wide open. Whoever it was, didn’t have him prisoner. He’d hoped to at least locate a pair of pants, but found little in the way of any clothing. Getting up to pace while he finished the other half of his cigarette, he looked out the window.

The view framed by tattered yellow curtains, his brow slacked at remembering finally where he’d ended up. He was directly above the small plaza where he’d passed out. The neon signs had led him there. The ghoul guardians still milled about, a pair of them chatting privately close to the door to the plaza. Occasionally they got loud enough to at least be indiscernible. Off to his right as he leaned on the sill was a large red-brick building, several stories tall, with white-edged windows. It looked in itself quite important, if not striking. Swallowing the butt when he got to it, he realized his vault suit had been folded up beside him, and he slipped into it. Though barefoot, he was no longer in his underwear, and he felt enough reassured of the kind of place he’d found himself, to venture down the single-plank wooden stairs.

“Oh, you’re alive,” he heard a pleasant voice call out as he descended, responding to the creaking steps. “Take it you slept well.”

As his field of vision dipped under the ceiling, he stumbled at first glance in the low incandescent light, and nearly missed a few steps without a banister to catch himself. Another ghoul. There were so many of them here.

“Can’t handle a friendly face?” she mused dryly, walking away from her front counter to approach him. With her hair up in a messy bun, the ghoul with a heart-shaped face and pitch-black scleras wore a three-piece tan suit, and stood taller than Galen.

“Can’t say I knew, ah, that kind of a face could be friendly,” he replied as tactfully as he could figure, wiping the sorry off his face. “Glad it’s a friendly one. Been a strict deficit of those as of late.”

“Well, you’re not screaming. That’s a delightful first impression,” she grinned. “We’re more common than you think, though I don’t believe the same could be said of, well.” She gestured, intimating his tactlessness for sake of irony.

“There’s more of us, promise. Kinda obvious I ain’t from around here, huh? Uh. You the one who did first aid on me?”

“You sang a swan song on Goodneighbor’s steps. I was the closest one with Stimpacks.”

“Ugh, don’t mention swans,” he wheezed, his face scrunching in emotional exhaustion.

“So that’s what happened to you,” she deduced. “Yeah, it’s real obvious you’re not from these parts. Festive coloration aside, everyone in these parts knows to steer clear of Boston Common.”

“Honestly, that thing wasn’t what roughed me up the worst,” he confessed, crouching on the stairs with a sheepish glance toward her. “I’d gotten in a fight with a smaller one right before that. It’s what broke my arm in the first place. Running from the Swan only compounded the injury. ...Thanks, by the way.”

“Name’s Daisy,” she replied. “Did you notice the food I left you upstairs? Noticed you were out of food supplies. Hope y’don’t mind that I took the liberty of inspecting what you had on your person while you were out cold. Promise it’s all where you left it. Had to make sure we weren’t taking in some lousy raider. You understand.”

“...I did notice.” He shifted where he sat, a bit grateful the stairwell was relatively dark by comparison to the rest of the store. “Appreciate the gesture, but ah... how t’put it... S’not what I eat.” He pointed vaguely to the pepper mill on the counter next to her, not even sure how to quantify his nutritional needs anymore.

“Are you used to being able to afford to be picky about how your food’s seasoned?” She snatched it up and wagged it at him. “It’s empty, I’ll have you know.”

“No, I was... more sayin’ that the shaker itself is more appetizin’ than the bread and beans. My stomach and I have been havin’ trouble agreeing on what I should and shouldn’t be eating.”

“--I’m sorry, did you say what your name was?”

“Didn’t.”

A silence.

“Well, I’ve got a section of my stock endearingly labeled Is It Food or Not? if you’ve got your curiosity about you. You’ve got to eat if you’re going to patch up right.”

“I’d gladly take the shaker, if you’ll have it.” He didn’t budge from his place to browse for himself. “Where are my things, by the way? Don’t much like walking around here wearing this.”

“I’ve got a working washing machine, if you’ll believe it. Since the plumbing’s rotten in this area, you’ve got to put the water in it yourself, but I figure you’d prefer the comfort of your own clothes not plastered up in whatever that pink slop was. Just hope it doesn’t stain my machine for good, heh.” Daisy handed him the pepper mill, then walked up to the front corner of the store, under the stairs. “It’s almost dry.”

A chill jolted through Galen, to hear his blood was so badly staining that she hadn’t thought it was blood.

“This is a pretty sturdy settlement.” He verbally sidestepped, fidgeting with the mill to dismantle it. With the crank and screws in his mouth, he mumbled, “to have the electricity to run all those signs, and appliances to boot. How much bigger is this place?”

“Goodneighbor isn’t all too big, but we’ve got plenty of sizable generators. It’s a modest place, with enough amenities--and defenses--to make it home for more than a few misfits and outcasts.” She grinned strangely, watching him swallow the barrel of the mill. “You weren’t kidding. Don’t choke, kid.”

He forced a breath through his nostrils once he’d gotten it down. “--Not a kid.”

“Sorry to break it to you, but there’s a couple hundred years between me and the twenty-somethings like you running around here. You’re a kid to me.”

“I.” He couldn’t not stare. “Seems neither of us looks their age,” he chuckled, mildly distressed. “I get the impression you’re trying to tell me you were around before everything was blasted to kingdom come.”

“Had a front seat. It’s how I got my immaculate complexion. I look good for 220, though, don’t I?”

He sat there for a moment, awed, until the math worked itself out in his head.

“You would’ve only been, what, ten then? Don’t ghouls stop aging when they turn?” He bit his lip furtively. “I’m not about to go about guessing an upstanding young lady’s age, but you’ve got to be at least as old as me if you literally witnessed the bombs.”

“...Either you are the most well-preserved ghoul I’ve ever met, or you’re the second-best bullshitter in Goodneighbor. You’re a smart one, though. The kids in this town have never seen my sour side, and they know to keep it that way.”

“Heh, really, though, Miss Daisy. I’ve gotta make all this hospitality up to you when I’m fit for it. And because I can see it in your face’t your curiosity is chewing you alive--I was nineteen when my family evacuated to the vault I’m from. One of my worst recurring nightmares is an action replay of running down the gorge from our junkyard, trying to make it in time. Half the time the nightmare tells it that the vault was nothing more’n a cave with a safe door lockin’ us in from the outside.” He laughed quietly. “Not sure why I told you that. I haven’t met an above-grounder yet that didn’t go ballistic at the mere possibility that I’m way older than I look.”

“Didn’t want to ask about your Pipboy,” she started, half-beginning to actually believe him. “Most folks I’ve met with one weren’t given it.” She sensed the reason he didn’t have on the suit for what it meant to him, but didn’t voice that he’d confirmed her assumptions with his dream retelling.

“A little bird told me we got a newbie here in Goodneighbor,” a third voice interjected, low and breathy, “but I didn’t expect a vaultie.” When Galen looked up, yet another ghoul stood before them, donning a red colonial frock cinched at the waist with the Commonwealth flag and cavalier boots. Putting a finger to his tricorner cap in a welcoming nod, he teased, “Good morning.”

Galen simply sat there a moment, blank.

“...I must a hit my head real hard on the pavement.”

#fallout 4 fanfic #fo4 fanfic #fallout 4 oc #fo4 oc #fallout 4 #geek #the purkinje effect #daisy #goodneighbor #hancock

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purkinje-effect · 7 years ago

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The Purkinje Effect, 2

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Galen awoke before dawn to three RadRoaches trying to chew him up. Before even fully conscious he’d pulled his knuckledusters from his pockets, kicked off the foot-long vermin, and used his fists to crush them into the dirt. With his hands covered in gelatinous bug guts, he gained his faculties a bit better, and licked his hands and weapons clean before removing the dusters from his hands and returning them to his pockets. Then, he sat up, and called it providence that breakfast had come to him. He brushed back his undercut, which had fallen to the left side as it always did, and took his shucking knife from his back pocket and unsheathed it. He’d made it out of boredom from a combination wrench back in the vault, but out here the shiv was a necessity. He fileted the abdomens of the three assailants, and ate the bitter, tender flesh raw, straight from the knife’s edge. A full stomach was quite reassuring, and the persistent aftertaste as he resumed his eastward travels was a reassurance everything would turn out fine.

The Quinsigamond settlers had told him that the biggest settlement in the Commonwealth was Diamond City, and that he’d likely find help there they themselves couldn’t provide him. From their description, he surmised that its population had dug its heels into Fenway Park. From the Interchange onward, raiders were the worst of his worries the next two days, as he made his way to the great green gates, and he skirted encountering them altogether. The park gates were open the early afternoon he arrived, with one guard in catcher gear standing watch near the ticket counter.

“What are you coming in for?” the young man called out, stopping Galen in his tracks.

“Hungry.” The scent of fresh soup reduced him to abstracts, and distracted him from answering more accurately.

“Ya got caps? Power Noodles don’t barter.”

“Yeah, I got caps.”

“Go see Takahashi then. He’ll get you hooked up. You look… like you should go see Doc Sun after you got a gut full a noodles, though. I don’t know what you been into, but that don’t look healthy.”

Rather than be bothered to argue, Galen simply thanked the young man and went inside.The shanty town was a landscape of shipping palettes and corrugated steel. After everything he’d seen since stepping foot above ground, this felt like the epitome of metropolitan life post-apocalypse, complete with people even dwelling in the box seats. He easily gleaned the location of the medical facility–Mega Surgery Center–to the right of the literal town square, but the night before he’d crammed his face full of Fancy Lads and shortening and had nothing left to eat. Descending the concrete stairs into the diamond, he had his eyes on the noodle stand symbolically located on the pitcher’s mound. The fastest way to his heart always had been through his stomach.

“Hey swatter swatter!” “Get your fix here!” “Guns, ammo, artillery–you name it!”

His head swam with calorie deficit and sensory overload, accustomed to the quiet of the open road for nearly two weeks now. Not even the vault back home got this rowdy during their weekly field day. The cries of the merchants’ booths boxed his ears a bit, and he found himself sitting at a bar stool at the noodle stand and staring vacantly at a lunchbox in front of him.

“Nani shimaso-ka?”

“Wh–” Galen’s head snapped up, startled, and he found a yellow barrel-bodied robot with a chef’s hat addressing him. One could see the Protectron’s processor whirring about behind a large glass panel which design wise represented the void where one might otherwise have expected a face. “I’m not Japanese, I’m Pin–”

“Just say yes,” the settler next to him interjected between slurps on her own bowl of fresh ramen. “It’s the only word he gets.”

He grimaced, then looked at the robot squarely while he put twenty caps on the counter between him and Takahashi.

“…Yes?”

Almost faster than his eyes could follow, the robot prepared and presented a bowl all for Galen. Fresh carrots and tato, with something he guessed was reconstituted iguana bits for the protein. It smelled exceptional. He was grateful the robot didn’t stand there and stare expectantly as he ate, since it took him some time to steel his nerves to consume something with fresh produce in it. The noodles even seemed like razorgrain meal instead of the instant squares found as prewar rations. It went down easily enough in three or four good chugs. The blond woman next to him noticed the pink stranger didn’t even bother with utensils, but she didn’t know it was because he’d resorted to eating them the day before.

“That’s some appetite, Blue,” he heard a second woman mumble lyrically to his other side. She had on a red coat and a press cap, and had dark hair.

“Blue?” he scoffed, leaning to add his bowl to the stack at the end of the counter. “Y'need your eyes checked.”

“You might not be wearing your vault suit right now, but… not a lot of Commonwealth folk have got a Pipboy.” She sat beside him, nonchalant, and playfully tapped the screen of the chrome device at his left wrist. “Besides, haven’t seen you before. Y'look a little lost. And I think I’d remember a gum rubber pink Vault Dweller.”

“You’re a reporter, aren’t you.”

“Ooohh, read me like a paper. But you, you seem like front page news. Guessing you noticed we gotta newsprint press on the town diamond.” All he did was nod, trying to ignore his gut’s disapproval of his choice of food while also being patient waiting for this young woman to get to the point. “Can I get an interview? The people of Diamond City could use an outside perspective.”

“Here’s your headline: Man from out of town says no.”

She snorted at him and got up. “Wise guy, huh? Fine, be like that. You know where to find me if you change your mind.”

As she went off to the news stand titled “Publick Occurrences,” he turned the other direction with his eyes on the Mega Surgery Center.

“Ignore Piper,” the first woman mumbled, chewing on some gumdrops. “She’s the nosiest person in this place.”

“Guess if it pays the bills,” he replied offhandedly, not paying attention to her as he got up and walked over to speak to the doctor working at the equipment-crowded porch of the small building.

“What’s a bill?” she thought to herself aloud.

“What is it?” The impatient Japanese man in a white coat did not look up from what appeared to be a bloodwork panel. “It had better not be about cosmetic surgery again.”

“Cosmic… surgery?”

Not recognizing the voice, the doctor glanced to Galen a moment with a brief raised brow before returning to his work.

“Cosmetic. As in ‘not due to life threatening circumstances.’ Are you seeking treatment? The best thing I can recommend for heat stroke is plenty of rest and clean, cold water.”

“It’s not– heat stroke, doctor. I’ve come a very long way. Blackstone. Please, just. Hear me out.”

The man stopped what he was doing and set down his work to turn and face him attentively.

“This must be quite serious, if no one in Worcester or Providence could help you.” He offered a handshake, which Galen took. “I’m Dr. Sun, by the way.”

“Galen,” he introduced graciously. His stomach was turning on him sharply in that moment, and he did his best to hide it. “I’m from a Vault-Tec vault, and our food dispensers have been… malfunctioning. We aren’t sure for how long, but it’s been runnier’n usual. Our mechanic isn’t good with circuitry or any of that, but he estimates that the machines glitched out on the recipe and it’s been leaving out an ingredient. The technician maintaining the machines passed away, so there’s no telling. Everyone is… pink like this. Most of us didn’t really notice the difference because the rations have always been like a runny custard, at least, not until it was obvious not everyone is stomaching it so well.”

“Blackstone? I didn’t know there was a vault in the gorge.”

“We keep to ourselves. It’s hard to navigate the valley, with the wildlife.” Galen leaned back against the wall behind him.

“…Is your hydroponics sector still operating normally? I know it’s a hard shift to get accustomed to after years of the machines doing it for you–having Takahashi make our food has certainly spoiled us here–but if the dispensers aren’t blending and doling out what they’re designed to, you’ll have to learn how to cook again to supplement it, or replace it altogether.” The accusatory nature of his impatient tone grated on Galen.

“Hydro-whats now? Are you talking about our water supply, or– you mean farming? We stay below, in the vault. We don’t keep land above-ground for cultivating. We have a few folks who make supply runs to Quinsigamond every two weeks, but… the matter a what we’ve been eating to get by. That’s why I came.”

“You don’t have indoor crops! What a thing to have glossed over in construction!”

“We always had the food paste. Since day one. The nutritionists insisted it was a precise blend of vitamins and fortifyin’ ingredients. That it was an omni-source of vegetable, animal, and mineral nutrients.” He put his hands in his pockets to avoid holding his gut. “The doctor in Worcester called it 'pica,’ the situation we got going in recent years. We been healthier eating chalk, or even mud from the gorge, than we have been with the food our runners bring back. We was almost outta chalk when I left, it’s in such demand. The less capable of being defined as food, it seems the less off it makes our stomachs.” His stress broiled his discomfort into outright nausea, and he started sweating. “I don’t know what’s wrong with us, Doc. If we’re in withdrawal from chems in our food we didn’t agree to, or if we’ve eaten the paste so long that our bodies can’t digest anything else. I know I’m not the only one of us who’s sick. Really, genuinely sick. And believe me, I’ve tried Stimpacks and Med-X, even Rad-X, trying to get my gut to work with me rather'n against me.”

Sun’s face grew long and he stood silent for some time, the sound of the ceiling fan the only thing competing with the bustle of the town square. As the doctor spoke next, it became increasingly difficult for Galen to remain standing.

“Of course you’re all sick. You’re severely malnourished. I’m not versed in psychiatric care as much as I’d like, but I know for a fact that pica disorder has been proven a psychosomatic link to malnourishment. As far as your theory that your issue with going cold turkey off your food dispenser rations is chem withdrawal… I do have a treatment for that, if you’d like to try it. To rule out foul play, I mean.”

Before he could give the doctor an answer, he folded himself over the rail of the porch and retched. Those eating at Power Noodle on the clinic side tried their best to ignore it.

“Can’t… even. Keep down damn ramen.” He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and glanced up to where Takahashi worked oblivious to any correlation. He wondered if the Protectron had feelings capable of being hurt, and if it might assume Galen had disliked its cooking. He let out a tepid chuckle and stood again, both hands steady on the rails. “I was doin’ fine eating cutlery and shortening on my trip here. Ate some fusion cell ammunition too. I slept so well the night I ate the batteries, Doc. I think I’m dying. I think we’re all dying.”

“Do you at least feel better, having evacuated your stomach contents in my front gutter?”

“…Ye, honestly.” Galen nudged his hood back and made a gesture toward the chair, to which Sun nodded and Galen sat, wiping his forehead and brow dry with his other sleeve. “What was that treatment? All I’ve got left is about thirteen caps and a good bit of prewar money, but I’ll compense you best I can for y'time, consultation, and resources.”

“It’s called Addictol.” Sun retrieved a small white inhaler from one of his stock drawers, and handed it over. “If it works, you were right about the tainted food source. If it doesn’t work, you were wrong that it’s been tampered with. Either way, the best thing I think your people can do is to stop eating the paste altogether and learn to cook and garden again.”

“So do I just.” Galen turned it this way and that with a gloved finger on the spray button on the back of it. “How much is one dose?”

“Take in the entire ampuole. Exhale completely first, then depress the button and inhale deeply until it’s empty. Hold the breath for at least five seconds, ten if you can.”

Galen followed the instructions, and pinched his nose after to make sure he didn’t absently exhale prematurely. The inhaler produced a concentrated saline vapor which felt like a salt-soak for his lungs. For a moment he couldn’t tell if the slow burn was from the salt or from holding his breath so long. The sting crept into his bloodstream, and lingered even after a deep and heavy exhalation. It took a bit for his breathing pattern to regulate itself, but by the time it evened out, the sting was over with.

“How do you feel?” Sun asked, having been watching.

“I could use a cigarette,” he admitted, trying to crack a joke. “How’m I supposed to feel, if it worked?”

“At least you’ve still your humor about you. Addictol has a slight sting to it as it enters your blood through the capillaries in your lungs. What were your symptoms prior to taking it? Rationalize.”

“Nausea. Fatigue. My head felt full of lead.” He conceded to the compulsion and swallowed the inhaler. “Nope, still craving plastic and metal. Not quite so tired now, or nauseated. Head’s still in a fog.”

“…How long have you been… ingesting like that? And what kinds of things?”

“I told you. Ammunition. Chalk. Flatware. Empty containers. As far as how long, though? What year is it? I think my Pipboy might be malfunctioning. The dispensers started fritzing somewhere around twenty… ninety-eight? I’ve personally been eatin’ chalk since about a month before the mechanic officially decreed the dispensers F.U.B.A.R.”

“It’s April 23, 2285. You’re not making any sense. Even if you meant 2*1*98, that would make you over eighty years old, were you old enough to remember the machines failing. You look like you’re no further than past your thirties.” Sun forcibly looked at the screen of Galen’s Pipboy, to discern that the date which it displayed was correct. “Promise me you’ll stop eating this paste. And that you’ll discourage your neighbors and family from doing so. You’re delusional from malnutrition, and if you keep eating objects instead of food, you’ll end up poisoning yourself. Fusion cells have lead and nuclear material in them. And many of the things you listed are sharp, or don’t break down in the human body. If you don’t die of poisoning, you’ll require extractive surgery to remove the things you swallowed from your alimentary canal.”

“I know it sounds weird, Doc. I’ve lost track of time myself. Most of us has. I’m gonna have a hard time convincin’ em to stop eating it though. Even if you’re right, they don’t exactly listen to me.” He didn’t want to concern the doctor any further with more detailed explanation of his and his people’s condition, let alone argue with him over the fact he remembered the day the bombs fell. So, he produced a medium sized candy tin from his bag, and removed the lid to display about a cup of pink paste. “I ate the last of my paste rations a few days ago, but when I left I took a sample of it and kept it separate to share with doctors. Can I leave some with you, and have you analyze it? Are you able to do that?”

“I’m not a nutritionist,” the doctor declined, shakily picking up a glass stirrer and poking at the surface of the foodstuff. “Are you sure that’s what the *food* dispenser is producing? That does not look fit for human consumption.”

“Since day one. It just got a little runnier after the machines messed up.” He put the lid back on the tin and made a second offering motion toward the doctor, who again declined.

“I don’t know of any nutritionist in the Commonwealth, but I’m certain you’ll have better luck discussing this with Drs. Duff and Scara at the Science! Center on 2nd Street here. They’re very skilled chemists. Maybe they can tell you what is in it, to better determine what it lacks.” Sun gestured behind Galen, to one of the guards holding an injured arm. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got another patient. Come back and tell me what the ladies have to say. I’d be interested to learn more about this. Your case is most unusual.”

#dr. sun #piper wright #takahashi #fallout 4 #fallout 4 fanfic #fo4 fanfic #fo4 oc #mild emetophobia tw near the end #the purkinje effect #geek

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