#honestly. its kind of jarring to see how off model i draw medic

[mail-me-a-snail]

:D versus D:

oh and ofc the full pieces :V

[purkinje-effect]

The Purkinje Effect, 21

Table of Contents

“Such extensive damage.”

Carrington muttered to himself indiscernibly as he looked Geek over with various ginger palpations and medical devices. As the doctor scrutinized him, Geek sat obediently on the edge of one of the stone coffins, which had been simply left rather than move it when the Railroad had relocated its base of operations to this crypt. The stethoscope was ice-cold when it went to his chest and back to listen, but Geek didn’t really mind. The doctor clicked his tongue several times in disdain for the costliness of the treatment Geek had accepted so readily from Tinker Tom. The sample of excretion the doctor took from Geek’s scarred skin singed the swab, and he murmured in displeasure before trying again carefully with the side of an aluminum-barrel fountain pen. Geek watched while he did something with it, but couldn’t make out what he was doing.

“I’m surprised you’re even standing. This looks superficially similar to ghoulification, but I can’t reasonably assess the condition of your internal organs to verify that. What I can safely say is that you have definitely mutated. That dark mess you made seems to be a metal excretion achieved through a thiolated salt solution. Simply put, the diluted sulfuric acid from Tom’s serum infused in your bloodstream and a chemical reaction took place which leached all kinds of metal from your body via your sweat glands. Lead, iron, aluminum, even traces of uranium. That sludge in the floor will become a rich metal slag once the sweat evaporates. Did you all mean it literally when you said you’d eaten a Synth? Absolute revulsion aside, if you meant a Gen I or Gen II, that didn’t even have living tissues in it. No part of the earlier models isn’t toxic to a human being.”

Geek had watched Carrington gesticulate in near-exasperation without comment, taking in all he had to say.

“Mutated huh? Mutated... further.” He let out a heavy sigh, and picked at his now vacant right eye socket. “You wanted the whole story? I haven’t pieced everything together yet, but I’ll tell you what I have of it. I’m from Vault 82. South-Central Mass. I haven’t figured out what exactly the experiment was, but I know we was guinea pigs, an’ I know it had to do with feedin’ us goo for every meal. I just can’t tell ya whether the food dispensers screwin’ up was all according t’plan. I’ve got real cynical about all this shit over the years... I know for a fact I’m not the only one of us that started supplementin’ his diet with whatever appealed to him. The doc in Worcester called it pica, eatin’ all the things I personally can rattle off’s been on the menu, past hundred years or so. The food paste stopped bein’ enough on its own, when it was supposed to be a master-food with all the vitamins and junk anybody needed. Maybe it wasn’t the machines. Maybe it spoiled. Who knows how long the experiment was supposed to go on.”

“Why do you say your nutritional dependency was a mutation?”

“I’ve eaten a thousand different things, ate ‘em solid. An’ they never came out... undigested. I’ve been digestin’ everything I’ve eaten. Makes sense how I sweated? ...the metal. But it makes me wonder if that’s what use my sweat will serve me now, or if I gotta keep gettin’ more a Tom’s shots to detox.” Geek looked up knowingly and pointed at Carrington to catch him before garnering commentary, recognizing a gap in his story. “But y’know what I ain’t been digestin’? Actual fuckin’ food.”

“You... might try some normal food now.” Deacon had come up to them after changing back into his casual white dress shirt and slacks. “Ease into it.”

“You’ve mentioned preservatives before bein’ a factor in all this,” Hancock started, having been sitting in the doctor’s chair with his arms crossed the whole time. “Mister Intel might have a point. Maybe prewar food ain’t totally off-limits to ya. Fancy Lads are about as much of a nonfood as it gets. An’ you were eating on that tub of shortening. Usually easing into eating food again after being critically ill means lots of soup, but for you it might mean just bridging back to what you’re supposed to be eating.”

“You’re not entirely wrong to speculate such,” Carrington nodded, brow wrinkled as he looked over to Hancock briefly. He’d forgotten he was there, he’d been so quiet. “People who are born into a settlement with higher caliber food sources, like Diamond City with its multiple quality restaurants, tend to do very poorly adapting to wasteland fare. But wastelanders who’ve been long accustomed to RadBug for protein, tato for their starch staple, and shelf-stable prewar food--they tend to be able to eat anything. I’ve read in medical journals, as well, that cultures with lean diets adjust abominably to high-fat cuisine, and vice versa. You might have been unable to stomach unpreserved foods because you were shocking your system. Which... brings me to the other half of my prognosis.”

“I... just might try it. There’s no tellin’ whether Tom’s shot might’ve complicated the range of what I can stomach.”

“And that’s exactly what I was getting at. I likely couldn’t pry the exact ingredients of the injection from Tom, but I know there’s bacteria cultures in it. Part of what makes the human digestive tract so successful is a symbiosis with key bacteria. Honestly, before you mentioned confidently that you were digesting the things you’ve swallowed, I thought perhaps the issue was that the toxins of what you were ingesting had killed yours off, but now I only feel more confident in theorizing that if you were mutated, so were the bacterial cultures that live in your stomach and intestines. You have adapted to eat the way you’ve been eating, that’s for certain. But whether the bacteria in Tom’s injection will end up competing with those inside you, only time and tests will tell. Antibiotics can be complicated to predict.”

“Does this mean bloodwork?” Geek flinched. He didn’t want to know whether his blood was still neon pink after all this.

“Yes, but to be perfectly fair with you, it’s going to be slow-going. I’ve only got the time at the moment to have this discussion because your dramatic arrival with my prototype has frozen progress in HQ.” Carrington tourniqueted Geek’s upper arm with a length of rubber, and easily found a vein. Steeled for the stick, the pink ghoul readily let the doctor draw four vials. As predicted, the blood nearly looked like hot pink milk. They both reacted poorly to the sight. “Once business resumes as normal, I will only have so much time to scrutinize your exact condition to give you a definitive diagnosis. I’m still not positive you’re not terminal, but this once-over gives me the reassurance to turn you loose to take stock for yourself of how your body reacts to its mutations.”

“...So you’re still tellin’ me I’m on forced leave.”

“You’re not even hired yet!” Carrington massaged his temples with one hand and grunted, then pulled composure into his shoulders, and snapped the rubber off Geek’s arm. The doctor then capped the blood samples to deposit them temporarily into a medical tray nearby. “But yes, I’m not even considering taking you on until you see whether you can function a week from now. I can tell your body’s still eliminating toxins. You’re going to continue sweating, and this sweat is caustic. There’s a good chance you’re going to accumulate further damage.”

“Can’t get much worse,” Geek rasped jokingly, messing with the hair he had left. “Sweat don’t really burn me much, but I seen what it did to that cotton ball. I’ll be careful.”

Carrington handed him his jumpsuit and armor, having gotten to the end of his patience with his impromptu patient. Exhaustion dripped from his dismissal.

“Have a care, will you?”

“Do my best.” Geek didn’t put his coveralls back on just yet, dumping them into Hancock’s objecting lap. He purposely kept hold of one of his shoulder pieces. “Before we leave, though, I gotta talk to Tom.”

Approaching the eccentric from across the room, Geek interrupted Tom scrutinizing something on the terminal on the desk at which he sat. The man mumbled to himself, eyes dull with information.

“Tinker Tom?” he started. Tom jerked up from his train of thought and came to.

“Hm? Oh, it’s you! You really mean it, that you feel better? That’s definitely the first time that’s ever happened with my serum.”

“Yeah,” Geek smiled. “I think so. Sorry to interrupt. I’m about to head out, but I had to do two things first. One, I had to thank you. Your treatment was unorthodox, but I think it was exactly what I needed. And two, Carrington mentioned you’re the quartermaster?”

“No need to thank me,” Tom beamed, slouching back in his desk chair. “And that’s correct. You hittin’ me up for goods? I don’t know what all I can rightly part with, since you’re not a bonafide agent yet, but I’m sure I have something juicy.”

“I ain’t lookin’ for handouts, especially not after how much y’helped me out with my health. I need somethin’ to keep myself occupied while I take this week to recoup. How much leather can y’spare? I’d like to upgrade my armor.”

“Man, me an’ my boys have got better than leather! You should come and see me when you pass the test. I will fix you up.” He sprung up and began digging through the metal shelving that lined the walls of his sprawling corner of the crypt. “What kinda customizing you thinking about in the mean time? Dense plate-layered? Deep-pocketed? Maybe somethin’ pneumatic? I got all kinds of toys. Great stuff to act as a stabilizer layer. A jar a wingnuts, makes great studded armor...”

“I already got all kinds a pockets.” He surreptitiously pulled out several hundred dollar bills where Tom could see the denominations himself, for emphasis. Tom blinked. “You gotta point, though. Mods seem more useful’n addin’ more layers. Got any mods that’d keep my arms an’ legs from... gettin’ broke so easy?”

“--I’ve got just the thing.” He produced a long wooden box after rooting around a bit, dropping it excitedly on the desk. “How does the guts from power armor legs sound? The components are compact enough to incorporate into greaves. This pair just hasn’t gotten used for it yet.”

“It sounds like you’re just about as crazy as I am.” Geek grinned stupidly, eyeing the box and tucking the bills in the bib pocket of Tom’s overalls. “Mmh. Can I part you with two or three tool aprons, too?”

“Oh man, that’s the kinda leather y’wanted? You really are a pocket fiend.”

The two went back and forth spitballing concepts for a while, but Hancock came up to interrupt, arms full of Geek’s things.

“How long am I supposed to sit over here with your purse while you chat up this mad scientist in your underwear?”

Geek took them from him apologetically.

“We can continue this in a week,” Tom insisted, understanding Hancock wanted to leave. He shooed off the two of them pleasantly. “I’ll be schemin’ up something special for ya. Have fun on vacay, my friend.”

“I like somebody that’d spoil you.” Hancock chuffed and patted Geek on the back as they let themselves out the back way. Down the stairs, and through the waterlogged, unpaved patch. “I gotta find a way to spoil ya worse, though.”

“And just what exactly do you call what you n’ me did at the quarry?”

Hancock barked and grinned at him.

“The beginnings of a fine friendship.”