(Untitled)

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Out of Milliways: An Encounter at Farragut West

The door opens on a scene of mud and tumbled concrete, and shuts very, very quickly behind Ellen's armored form as she darts through. "Ew ew ew ew ew that was vile, that was just nasty," she mutters to herself, her shoulders hunched up around her ears. She's shuddering as she runs for the Bar. "I

Comments

[blueshifted]

"Need any help with that?" says the kindly man wandering over. He has a bit of experience with keeping armor clean.

[blueshifted]

"...China?" Barney's shocked. "Wow, didn't think they had it together enough to try that anywhere. I mean, of course they were a threat, but... wow.

"Sounds kinda like a complete flip from my world."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"They absorbed the Soviet Union as a satellite state in the 1960's," Ellen says. "People tell me that's kind of unusual too. I wouldn't know, I just know that Communist China was the United States' worst enemy for decades before the War. What happened in yours?"

[blueshifted]

"Well, that last bit is... sort of true. Then again, I think we had a lot of business with them too... I wasn't exactly into politics or anything. Anyway.

"We, uh, had an experiment gone horribly, horribly wrong. Aliens from another dimension invaded and took over our army in seven hours," he says, seriously.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Oh! You're from Alyx's world!" Ellen says. "... at least I hope you are. It'd be horrible if that happened to more than one world."

[blueshifted]

"Oh, yeah, I'm from Alyx's world. And hell yes it would. I can't even imagine."

A beat.

"Then again, I never expected to see goo like this in another world either. Euuugh."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"If I had a lab to work with I'd almost want to save some and analyze it," Ellen says. "Almost. I think when I go back I'm going to see if I can't set that thing's corpse on fire. Nobody needs to find it just lying around."

[blueshifted]

Barney nods. Good plan. "Plus, you'd be lucky if it wasn't poison. Did it spit at all?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"That's what that stuff is," Ellen says. "That's its spittle. From ten or fifteen yards away."

[blueshifted]

"...damn. Well, at least it wasn't acid spit. That stuff's a joy to deal with." Barney's done with the shoulder section he was working on, more or less, and he moves onto the chest, scrubbing as hard as he can.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

There was a claw logo painted on the armor once. Ellen's done her best to scrub it out and paint a Vault-Tec logo and the number 101 over the spot instead; Talon Company isn't something she wants people to associate her with. "I'll take your word for it," she says. "Radioactivity's bad enough."

[blueshifted]

Repurposed armor is nothing new to Barney, and he makes nothing of it, really.

"Yeah, I guess it would be. I've dealt with my share of spills and vats of the stuff, but I can't imagine... is everything radioactive? Or only some things?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Water sources, mostly," says Ellen. "And it's concentrated in the flesh of animals, so you can't help but pick up a few rads whenever you eat something. It's that or starve."

[blueshifted]

"Yeah," Barney says, making a face. "Well, at least you're good here, right? And do you have medicine or anything like that for the radiation?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Oh yes," says Ellen. "They came up with that long before the War, for people who had to work with car batteries and other sources of atomic energy."

[blueshifted]

"...car batteries. Were atomic."

Who in the hell thought that was a good idea?!?