Craterside Supply

Ellen trudged into Megaton with the repellent stick over her shoulder. The skies overhead were growing gray and low, like the skies behind Milliways. She wasn't sure exactly what that portended, but the temperature was starting to drop, too, so she picked up her pace. Maybe Moira could tell her.

Moira, alas, wasn't immediately visible when she ducked into the supply shop. The man with the assault rifle, on the other hand, was in the same place as always. He gave Ellen a bored look and noted, "Moira'll be back in a few. Don't try anything."

"When have I ever tried anything?" Ellen retorted.

"Don't know. You could be up to all kinds of things when I’m not around to see it."

Ellen shook her head. "You're weird," she said. "Do you ever even get out of this place? I've never seen you walking around Megaton."

"I have a job to do. Walking around Megaton isn't going to get it done," he answered, unruffled.

Ellen would have answered him, but the door opened before she could speak. "Oh, hey, you're back!" Moira exclaimed. "How's the repellent working? I can't wait to hear it."

"Um." Ellen glanced at the stick. "Well, I tested it as extensively as I could. I wanted to bring you back as much accurate data as possible."

"Oh, excellent!" Moira said. "Substantial field testing, precise reports, and such dedication! What more could I ask for in a research assistant? So how did my chemical repellent work, then? Safe and clean like a charm, I'll bet."

Ellen sighed. "I'm sorry, Moira. It's not really what I'd call a repellent after all."

"Oh no!" Moira exclaimed. "What's wrong with it? Did it not work? Do I need to upgrade the formula?"

"Only if you want to make it more lethal," Ellen said. "It appears that mole rats have a fatal allergy to it. One tap with the stick and they swell up and die in less than a minute."

Moira covered her mouth with one hand. "Oh no! Those poor little ratties… not that they don't get into absolutely everything and destroy most of what they can get their teeth on, but that's no reason not to feel sorry for them."

Privately, Ellen disagreed, but she wasn't about to say anything.

"How many did you test it on, anyway?"

"Eleven or twelve. I lost count after the first ten."

Moira nodded sadly. "With that much testing, I guess it's beyond correction. Go ahead and keep it. Maybe you can find a nicer use for it, but I doubt it. Oh, and for your trouble, you can have the rest of the chems I was using to make the stick. Here-"

She opened a metal box on one of the shelves and set its contents down on the counter. There were two vials of something red and sloshy that looked as if it were meant to be inhaled, and two bulky bundles of fluid bottles bound together with syringes. "Um," said Ellen. "What are these, anyway?"

"Oh, this is called Jet." Moira indicated the inhalers. "It's a stimulant. I thought if it could be tweaked properly it'd set the ratties nervous systems on edge, like their whole body was trying to sneeze. I'd back away from an experience like that myself! And the other stuff is called Psycho. Don't worry about the name, it's just an old code word for the stuff. The military came up with it originally, from what Lucky Harith told me. I think he said they used it at the Battle of Anchorage. In humans it's a performance enhancer, but in other animals it burns and stings like the dickens."

That wasn't Ellen's idea of a ringing endorsement, but she nodded at Moira anyway. "Thank you," she said politely. "What's next?"

"Well," said Moira, "I'd really like to be able to tell people how to treat their own severe injuries. I never get to study anybody who's been seriously hurt- not without them crying to be fixed right away or trying to bleed out and all that. But obviously you can handle a lot of abuse-"

Ellen gulped.

"-so if I'm ever going to find a good example of human anatomy and injury resistance, it'd be you."

"Isn't there a doctor in town you could talk to about that?" Ellen says. "I mean, there's a clinic-"

"Oh, yes, Doc Church runs the clinic, but he doesn't like me," said Moira mournfully. "Doc Church doesn't really like anyone, come to think of it. If you're not halfway to dying when you walk through his door he tends to think you're a waste of time."

Ellen thought of her father, and of the stream of people in and out of the Vault clinic who came for little more than reassurance and conversation, and shook her head.

"I know," said Moira. "It's awful, isn't it? Anyway, the next time you get badly injured, come back here so I can examine you before I heal you up, all right? I've got plenty of stimpaks, so you don't need to worry about that. And you're going to get yourself hurt out there anyway, so it might as well be for science!" She smiled. "It'd really be helpful if you could bring me back a crippled or broken limb or two, but you don't have to go out looking for that. I mean, people break their arms or get concussed all the time right here in town if they're not careful. Can you imagine how hard that'd be to handle all alone in the Wastes?"

Ellen had been about to object, but the thought of being halfway to finding her father only to be stranded in the Wastes with a twisted or broken leg was far too real a possibility. She grimaced, and nodded. "Okay," she said. "I can do that."

"Super!" said Moira. "And as long as you're at it, you can help me with another part of this chapter. There's a lot we don't know about mirelurks and how intelligent and dangerous they are."

"Question," said Ellen. "Mirelurks?"

"Oh, that's right, they didn't exist before the War," said Moira. "They're giant human-sized crab creatures with nasty tempers and a really tough exoskeleton. They're a big threat in the areas near the Potomac, and in a lot of low-lying areas elsewhere in the Wasteland, so knowing more about them can help people learn to avoid or even outsmart them."

As Ellen tried to picture this, Moira dug into another metal box. "I picked up this observer device to study them in their natural habitat, but there isn't a mirelurk nest anywhere near here. We're too far from any kind of water source. I need you to hide it in one of the spawning pods in their lairs- I recommend the nest at the Anchorage War Memorial. I knew a trader who talked about the mirelurks down there, and how easy it was to get there even though it's inside the DC war zone. Just go inside and find one of their spawning pods, probably down near the water proper. Put the observer inside and get out quietly."

Ellen didn't like the sound of that, but she was going to have to get into and out of DC to find her father eventually. She nodded.

"Super! Oh, and be sure not to kill any mirelurks inside their nest," Moira added. "If you do it could ruin the validity of the study, since they'll probably start behaving differently and all."

Not that Ellen had any idea how you went about killing or not killing a human-sized crab, but hopefully she could run fast enough to keep that from being a problem. "Okay," she said. "I can do that. Can you mark the Memorial on my Pip-Boy for me?"

"Sure thing," said Moira. As Ellen held out her arm Moira added, "You can start once the storm passes. They don't come very often around here, but when they do it's a big ol' mess."

"Storm?"

"Sure. We're due for one heck of a storm, from the look of those clouds. It's not likely to last more than a minute or two once it breaks- you do know what a rainstorm is, don't you?"

"Of course," said Ellen, a little rattled. "Mr. Brotch told us all about that in science class."

"Okay," said Moira. "Well, here in the Wasteland it hardly ever rains. And when it does it only lasts a few minutes, and there's a heck of a lot of wind to go with it. Things get wrecked like you wouldn't believe- not a fun experience at all! I'd say go home, wait it out, and then set out for DC once the clouds are gone."

Ellen wrinkled her nose; she was thinking of the wet and cold at Milliways. "My house is on the leaky side," she noted. "Do you have anything I can use to keep the storm out?"

"I'm a little low on sheet metal just at the moment," Moira admitted. "But I can sell you a good Brahmin hide to keep warm or patch up the worst of the holes, if you like. And afterwards you can use it for just about anything you need to patch or repair."

"All right."