Chapter 275 - Crippled Two

*CRAAAACK!*

Afton hits the ground with huge force, his built-up horizontal momentum barely doing anything to assist him at all. He lands correctly, but the sheer force of gravity upon his body, and especially his legs, causes him to fall to his side with a suppressed groan of pain.​​

He could feel the injury in every detail, despite the Med X he'd taken earlier... Shaking his head and gritting his teeth, he rapidly looks around to see if any enemy had noticed him. judging by the fact neither of the two groups of Robo-Scorpions were currently encroaching upon his position, he'd say he was reasonably safe... With the obvious exception of his legs.

Looking down, he saw the extent of the damage... With [Living Anatomy] and his high Medicine skills he was easily able to identify the problem... Both of his legs were broken. "Fuck." he whispers to himself.

Quickly, he dips into his backpack and retrieves the Proton axes and begins securing them to either side of his leg. He then uses some torn fabrics to tie them tightly, making a splint out of the deadly weaponry.

He grunted in pain as he tightened them and then retrieves some stimpacks, stabbing each leg with one to speed up the healing process. It wouldn't instantly heal his broken bones, but it'd be a good start... He honestly didn't want to get caught out by the scientists of the Think Tank in this state... Who knew what other experiments they'd try to perform on him.

Afton looks to the side and spots the dead Robo-Scorpion from earlier, as well as the X-2 Antenna. He crawls towards the latter and sits next to it for a couple minutes while the stimpack starts working on his legs.

With both of his legs splinted, he'd barely be able to walk, let alone fight. So he'd need to get back to the Sink fairly quickly. After ten minutes or so he finally decides to move, using the X-2 Antenna and his Anti-Material rifle as makeshift crutches.

He begins his slow waddle towards the ThinkTank, the big dome in the distance was the safe point. But at the rate he was currently going, Afton didn't think he'd get there before dawn... He growls under his breath as he forces his injured limb too far to go faster, accidentally exacerbating the problem.

After a couple more minutes, he spots some figures in the distance... Their familiar headwear and glowing Proton axes made it extremely obvious who they were. Afton didn't think himself fit enough to deal with such a large group, so instead began to look around for sanctuary... Any place would do, as long as it provided cover...

His eyes focus when he spots a small satellite dish sitting atop a rock formation... It looked inconspicuous, but judging from the fact nothing was connected to the dish, something must be nearby to operate it... He waddles up to it and spots a symbol, one he'd seen written across the door of the X-2 Transmitter Antenna Array.

It looked like some kind of artistic modification of the American flag from his original world, in this one it was known as the Old World flag however, the flag of pre-war America. This one was blue though, instead of the red one on the door of the array... Before he's able to investigate further, he begins hearing the sound of lobotomites nearing. He looks around and spots a carefully hidden cave entrance next to the symbol and quickly ducks into it, hoping the lobotomites wouldn't be able to reach him...

Inside he's greeted by a dark room, only illuminated by chemical workstations and glowing mushrooms... There's a dead campfire in the middle, lots of ammunition boxes scattered around, and a bedroll sitting in the corner.

Someone had been living here at one point, stocking it with equipment, creating defensible positions, and even having time to grow plantlife... He was honestly surprised, he didn't think it was possible for anyone to make it into Big MT with their brain intact... Is it possible he's not the only intelligent lobotomization victim?

Shaking his head, he waddles over to the bedroll and sits down after propping both of his make-shift crutches to the side... His Anti-Material rifle sitting in arms reach in-case he needs to blast a large hole into any intruders.

He rested his legs in front of himself, the splints forcing them straight and preventing him from adjusting them to get comfortable. Sighing, he tries to lay back, propping his hand on the floor to lay down as gently as possible... Though, when he does, he feels something cold and hard on the floor...

"Hm?" he mutters, grabbing whatever it was and bringing it to his face. "A Holo-Tape?" he wonders aloud, glancing over to where he'd found it and spotting two more. He looks them over and spots thin strips of tape on each of them, labelling them in rough writing. "Patient Log Y-17.0"... The same facility where the skeleton-spacesuits had come from?

Idly, he wonders if listening to these tapes would answer more questions than it creates... He should just get to sleep, as his legs would heal quicker this way, he could always listen to them later... But... Something about them won't allow him to deviate his attention.

He sets the first one down in front of himself and clicks the button to begin the recording...

"*Bzzt!*

This is Christine Royce. Knight of the Brotherhood of Steel... the Circle. Not going to make it through this, hope someone finds this message, gets it to the Brotherhood in the West. Tracked a rogue Brotherhood Elder, Elijah, here, to the Big Empty.

Place is more than it seems, there's a crater hidden deep inside. Junkyard of pre-War labs scattered across the crater's surface, all still running... like this one. Elijah's dissecting these centers, one by one... tracked him to an old Chinese-American internment camp. Survivors, ghouls, have bomb collars. Robots moved in when I tried to intercept him... Elijah sent the camp ghouls against us both, like walking bombs. Got hit by the explosions, woke up here. Guess the medical robots were programmed to bring wounded victims from the camp to this center. Some kind of Auto-Doc prototype lab... manned by corpses trapped inside suits that keep them moving, no idea why. Not sure how long I'm going to last... cut open my head like a lot of the humans I've seen here, feel strange, can talk, but can't hack the term...

*Crash!*

...wait, an explosion outside. Someone's here... someone's..."