Fallout 3 - Beautiful Stranger

Chapter 6 Part 1

Craterside Supplies looked more like a workshop than a normal shop. Various pieces of equipment, that Patience couldn't identify if she tried, littered the floorspace in a haphazard fashion. Some against the walls. Some seeming to have come delivered and remained where the deliverer had left it. Workbenches with smaller pieces of equipment lay at odd angles and the shop counter, to the right of the door, seemed covered with so many different things, it was unclear if they were for sale or only trash.

Moira Brown, a young woman of average height with mousey brown hair tied in a messy ponytail, sat at one of the workbenches in a dirty jump suit, bent over what appeared to be a Bloat Fly. One of those large insects that Valrie had avoided with such care.

"Oh! This is interesting!" Moira cooed to herself, unaware of her visitors. "Now what is the point of that?"

"Moira." Valrie called to the shopkeeper. When the young woman didn't answer, Valrie found a desk bell under some the things littering the counter and hammered at it, dinging it several times. "Moira! God damn it! Moira!"

Moira's head raised up, looking upwards, to the sides, even under the workbench. Looking around at Valrie and Patience at the counter seemed to be the last place she thought the noise might have come from. Wearing some kind of contraption, made from several spectacle lenses on hinges that Moira could place one on front of the other, she spun on the chair and stared at them.

"A Bloat Fly has a gland that produces a wildly toxic hallucinogenic, but it doesn't secrete it. Not at all. Why would that be?" It looked like the question was genuine and she stared at them through the complicated series of lenses, her eyes appearing huge and bloodshot. "I'll pay good caps for anyone that will try the hallucinogen."

"We'll pass." Valrie stepped towards Moira, pulling Patience along. "This is Patience. She's a vault dweller. She's lost her memory and we think she might find answers in this Pip-Boy on her arm. Problem is, it don't seem to work too good."

Moira slid from her seat and almost ran towards Patience, lifting her arm, twisting and turning it as she examined every inch of the device. She clicked her tongue a few times, uttered several 'oohs' and 'hmms', switched it off and back on again and then dropped the arm, looking up at Patience through those strange lenses.

"You know you're covered in dry blood?" She turned her attention to Valrie. "Both of you."

"We know." Patience lifted her Pip-Boy up in front of Moira, flicking through the options, showing the young woman the 'Incorrect Location' message. "Valrie says you can fix this?"

"Sure! Well, I can try." Moira removed the spectacle lens device and dropped it on the counter. Her eyes still seemed quite big without the lenses. "I got a good look at another Pip-Boy a while back. The Lone Wanderer's. Do you know them? Anyway, after they helped me write my book ... You know about my book? Anyway, after that and before they mysteriously disappeared, they let me have a good long look at their Pip-Boy, which I thought was real friendly of them ..."

"Moira!" Valrie rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Can you help, or not?"

"Sure thing! You just take it off and I'll give it the old once over while you two shower and clean those clothes." She spun around, her face serious all of a sudden, looking to make sure that no-one could hear. She continued in a loud whisper. "Don't tell anyone I have a shower or a washing machine. Everyone will want to use them."

"I can't take it off. I think it's locked." Patience showed the locking mechanism to Moira who, without saying a word, pulled two hair pins from her head and began trying to unlock the Pip-Boy.

After a couple of seconds the lock clicked and flicked open. When she tried to remove it, however, Patience almost screamed in pain as something that felt like a thousand needles seemed to inject molten lava into her arm. A trickle of blood appeared from under the Pip-Boy and Moira stopped trying to remove it, clicking the lock back in place and holding up her arms as if to prove she hadn't done anything.

"Clearly not the way to go!" Moira retrieved her spectacle lens device and, putting it on and moving several lenses into place, looked closer at the Pip-Boy and where it attached to Patience. She clicked her tongue again, muttered several 'ohs' and 'oh dear's. "Well that's attached to you."

"I know that!" Patience, once again showing little of the word, growled at Moira, staring with undisguised ire. "Why did it feel like you were ripping my arm off?"

"No. I mean it's attached to you. Surgically." She made a claw with her fingers and gripped her own arm to demonstrate. "Like, wires and tubes and things implanted into your arm. That's not coming off unless your arm does and, if I might say, if it ever does, I'd love to get hold of your arm."

"So, you can't fix it? God fucking dammit!" Valrie jerked her hand into her jacket and pulled out her cigarettes.

"Stop your cursing! And I don't allow smoking in my lab. Workshop. Shop. In here. No smoking in here. There's sensitive equipment." Moira snatched the cigarette from Valrie's mouth and threw it over her shoulder.

"Well, excuse me Miss Fucking Fancy-Pants, Duchess of La-Di-Da." Despite the words, Valrie returned the cigarette pack to her pocket. "If it be pleasing her most merciful majesty, can this here contraption be repaired by your noble and enlightened fucking hands?"

"Maybe." Valrie threw up her arms in despair and turned away. "I'll try. You two best get cleaned up first and I'll set up the terminal. There are spare clothes in my room while yours are drying ... Don't tell anyone I have a drier!"

Without showing them where the room with the shower, washing machine and drier were, Moira spun away, searching several places, picking up wires, looking at the connectors and throwing them aside.

Patience dipped her head into a room at the side. Spying what looked like a shower, she hooked a finger towards Valrie. Moira had already appeared to have forgotten about them both as she moved through the workshop like a mini-hurricane.

A shower would be so nice right about now.