Chapter 201 - Doctor?

Afton slowly comes to, groggily blinking his eyes as his blurring vision clears. He shifts his weight to his side and notices that he's currently resting in a clinical white bed with one of those shitty hospital pillows... Ah, that's right. He'd just levelled up and started bleeding everywhere, passing out soon after...

He glances around and notices that he's inside some kind of huge airport terminal... Not a place you'd expect to see a hospital. Though, he could guess this is Camp McCarren, hopefully they wouldn't hold him here long as he really wanted to get rid of Nephi before anything else... Plus, he was only bleeding because of the system, not any underlying health defects.​​

"Ah! You're awake?" a voice says from the side, causing Afton to turn towards it. There sits a man at a desk topped with a terminal. They have white hair with a greying stubble and wear a bleached white lab coat.

Afton scratches his head, "Yeah, what, you seem surprised? Not expecting me to wake up?"

"I-er-no... Just not so soon, to be honest I don't even know how you're even alive! You had severe haemorrhaging across your entire body! Muscles, organs, even your bones were seemed to be breaking down, and yet you lie here after two days of sleep perfectly fine?!" he says, getting increasingly louder as he spoke.

...

Afton just shrugs from the bed, "Yeah?... What do you want me to say? 'Yeah, I should of died so just kill me know to set the world right'?" He shakes his head, "Anyway, did you find what the problem was with my body? I don't usually just start spewing blood from everywhere..." he says, trying to mask the fact that he already knew the cause of the problem.

The man nods, "Oh, I'm Dr Kemp by the way, Head Doctor at Camp McCarrens medical division..." he says, causing Afton to look around for any of the other staff.

...

"Er, is everyone busy somewhere else?" he asks after seeing no one aside from a few NCR Troopers.

Dr Kemp shakes his head, "No... I'm the Head Doctor, and only Doctor here..." he says as his eyes dart elsewhere shamefully.

Afton decides not to pursue this topic, he didn't really need to know why the NCR had so few Doctors at their disposal. "So, what was wrong with me?"

"Ah, right!" He picks up a clipboard and walks to the side of his bed, "Well, from what I've observed, and a little help from Doctor Hildern, we've discovered that your cells were in a rapid state of mutation. We asked your companions whether you'd recently been subject to a large burst of radiation... Apparently you were in close contact with some radioactive waste at some point?"

Afton nods, "Yeah, at Camp Searchlight... Almost got torn to pieces by a giant, giant Rad Scorpion." he says, wondering where the Doctor was going with this. "Who's Hildern by the way, and didn't you say you were the only Doctor here?"

Dr Kemp scratches his face, "Ah, well, Dr Hildern is in charge of director of operations of the Office of Science and Industry... I think that's his official title? To be honest, most people just call it the Research division. Also, I meant I was the only Doctor in the medical division, I'm the only one responsible for keeping our troops alive should they get injured in the field."

"Alright... So, why did my body suddenly start 'mutating'?" he asks, interested in their theory.

"Well, Doctor Hildern and I came up with many theories on how this came about, but the primary one would be that we were observing a once in a lifetime phenomena that hadn't been recorded before. You are aware of the existence of Feral Ghouls, correct?"

Afton nods and the Doctor continues, "Well, we think that all Ghouls go through a similar process that you'd just experienced. Rapidly mutating due to high doses of radiation, some retaining their sanity, while others go mad... Though, we think that Ghouls are the failed products of such mutations." he says with a grin, as if he was revealing the secrets of the world... Gotta hand it to him, the man was passionate if anything else.

"Fail product?" Afton asks, having no idea what he could be referring to.

Dr Kemp nods, "Indeed. There exists a special kind of person out in the wasteland, they are incredibly rare but all possess the same mutation... An immunity to radiation. Now, I'm only telling you this due to how much you've assisted the NCR, but you must know that this is classified, so don't go spreading it." he warns.

"My lips are sealed." Afton says, zipping his mouth closed jokingly with a gesture.

"The NCR first learned of these kinds of people when some Children of Atom started attacking them to protect some 'sacred land', truth be told, the NCR were just trying to remove radioactive material that was seeping into the water supply. Anyway, we captured a few of them and discovered that they were immune to radiation, researchers figured that it was just a rare mutation lucky people would receive when around high levels of radiation..."

"And you think I now possess this mutation?"

Dr Kemp rubs his hands together sheepishly, "Well, I don't 'think' anything... I know you have an immunity to radiation, we tested your blood and the results were encouraging."

Afton creases his brows, "I don't remember giving you permission to do that." he states.

"Oh, don't be like that. We really thought you were going to die you know? It's fortunate you didn't lose the lottery and turn into a ghoul instead. The chances of the attempted mutation succeeding are around one in a million, if you'd allow us to study you for a while, who knows the discoveries we could make." the man beams at him.

Afton shakes his head, "I won't be your lab rat." he states, almost snarling at the thought of being trapped and studied like an animal. "Where are my friends? I doubt they'd be far from here."

Dr Kemp sighs and nods, "They said they'd be scouting one of the Fiend leaders while you rested."