We'll Meet Again

The man in blue walked for hours on end.


He stopped to attend to his body's needs every few days, but was otherwise firm in his course north.

The first day out, he walked south. and was let into the area without questioning. The mayor handed him whatever he asked for without word, for he saw the Dweller's face. No amount of medicines, food, or water could serve as reparation for what had been done to him.

He was asked what brought him back to Junktown.

"Unfinished business", he said.

The Dweller exited the store, and headed towards the closest thing to a hospital, home to the only practicing physician he knew of in the Wasteland. Aside from Jerome in the Vault, of course.

He had only been inside the tiny, cramped house once before, on his way to the caravan hub. A bullet wound in his right forearm, the damage severe enough that even a stimpak couldn't heal. Mayor Darkwater directed him to the local doctor's hospital, which was really just a house.

Nobody was inside the waiting room or the operation room. Both were the size of an average Vault-Dweller's living quarters, which weren't too big to begin with. An open hole caught the Dweller's eye- with a ladder leading down into pitch black darkness.

The Dweller called down into the depths below, and waited for a reply. The only answer was his own call, bouncing back from the darkness. The Dweller's curiosity fueled his desire to learn more, leading him to indulge a little. He quietly descended the ladder, stepping on each rung with precision and carefulness. He ensured his foot was secure on each step due to his lack of faith in the aged metal which made the rungs a bit slippery. At least, he reached the bottom of the ladder.

He had torn apart the local raiding groups with only a sledgehammer. He had destroyed entire populations of venomous creatures with extreme prejudice. He spent weeks in the Wastelands, surviving off of only what his Vault's Overseer would ration out to him and whatever hapless animal wandered by.

Nothing would prepare him for this. His nostrils burnt, as he surveyed the room. Cadavers, blood, and organs littered the basement. Limbs and bone scattered across the floor, which was stained red, mingled with the dark maroon of crusted blood. A lone, swinging light bulb hung from the darkness above, casting a dim light over most of the room, excluding the ladder, which was immersed in darkness. Cutlery and other tools that weren't exactly medical resided on a surgeon's tray near an operating table, which had what used to be a corpse on it. It looked more like a scarecrow with it's arms and legs flayed, exposing the pink and red meat underneath, mingled with specks of bone.

Bits of what was recognized as a radscorpion's carcass, and a mole rat's head laid on a table near by, accompanied by long, slender spikes and chopped bits of meat. Bone cutters and scalpels laid by the meat, blood dripping freshly off of the steel edges.

Plink. Plink. Plink. Freshly spilled.

Impaled on some of the spikes we

The Dweller stepped forward to analyze the room a bit better. On the second shelf of the surgeon's tray rested a paper. Conventional stationary wasn't exactly common in the Wasteland. While most vault dwellers found the idea of tearing any of the resources given to them by Vault-Tek repulsive,  you had to be willing to sacrifice in order to get by. In this case,  Doc Morbid chose to use a university textbook on the human anatomy. For writing, it seemed that he substituted a finely cut piece of coal. On the side of the page facing up was a list.

Names and locations. Everybody on this doctor's payroll, it seemed. The Dweller was relieved to see that Killian's name wasn't on this list; one of the few Wastelanders he actually trusted. A "Robert Frazier" topped the list, with "Downtown Hub" and "Food cart" listed next to it. Arrows led from his name to several other names and businesses, none of which were in Junktown. A 'Gretch Daniels", "Flash Thompson", and "Cougar Cannes", who all resided in the Hub, connected to all the businesses on the map, including Robert.

The Dweller flipped the page over, and was greeted with a