FSE

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The steps were growing closer. Closer. The ground started to shake. She grabbed the monitor, the old joints of the adjustable arm from which it dangled squeaking loudly in protest. She saw it on the screen, distant, but hulking. A gasp slipped free of her throat.

"I'll draw it off."

The words just came out, her voice a raspy whisper. It hit her a second and a half later what she'd just said and she saw the other two looking at her with the same face she must have had.

"I'll draw it off," she said, louder and more confident.

It was what she had to do. She couldn't let a raging deathclaw barrel through her lab, destroy her research and the treasure trove of medical supplies. But there was also the fantasy playing in her mind—in the back of her mind, but still in her mind. What were the chances they really had glowing—

"You're insane," the girl said, jarring Xavia out of her thoughts.

"You'd... do that... for us?" the guy asked.

She grabbed every stimpack she could, shoving them in her bag, and took the girl's shoulder in a firm grip, looking her in the eye.

"If I don't make it back, just distribute my stuff to those that need it. Stimpaks, chems, raw material, all of it."

The girl nodded. Xavia glanced at the monitor. The form of the deathclaw was bigger. The footsteps were rattling the building now.

"Make sure my research goes to someone who can use it," she said, her words coming faster.

"Y-yes, of course," the girl said, still nodding. The proximity alarm went off, the alarm bell ringing. The auto turrets whirred to life. Any second and they'd open fire.

She ran out the door, took one last look at her old home, and ran to the gate. But it was shut tight.

"Open the gate!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. The shaking was making the metal sheets of the wall clatter, the thundering so loud she wasn't sure they could hear her over the intercom. The panel was labeled, it wasn't like they had to know how to build a synth! The deathclaw had to be right on the other side of the gate.

There was a deafening bang and the gate exploded, sending her flying back as splintered wood and metal shrapnel flew with her. She crashed to the dirt, skidded, and felt the bruises forming already. She pushed through the haze of the impact quickly and scrambled up. She saw the huge lizard's scaly back, sharp spines and thick plates of hard keratin. Its powerful tail lashed back and forth as it lumbered toward the old diner.

"Hey!" she shouted, summoning all the courage she could. The beast didn't react, still storming toward her home.

"HEY!" she yelled louder, hefting her laser rifle and firing off a few shots. She saw the blast points smoking in its flesh. It stopped and looked over its shoulder, snarled, and then disregarded her. She growled and hoisted her grenade launcher. It had been awhile since she'd used it; she had to hope it still worked.

She squeezed the trigger and the thing kicked back into her shoulder. A second later, a blossom of orange fire burst across the creature's back, a deep boom echoing, the sound cut short by an ear-splitting roar.

As it turned, she saw the keratin plate she'd hit, a webbing of cracks spreading across it. And then she saw its yellow eyes, glowing in their sockets, lit by radiation and rage. Her heart seized in her chest. Oh shit. She'd gone and made it mad.

Xavia turned and sprinted through the ruined gate, fumbling with a jet inhaler and basically slamming herself in the face with it, breathing in hard. Everything slowed, and she ran, grabbing a handful of buffout pills and shoving them in her mouth, swallowing. She took one last look over her shoulder and saw the thing still on her. She ran for the hills. It followed.

The first landmark outside her little roadside diner was a tiny lake, a highly radioactive one, marked by a bent piece of rebar jutting up out of the dirt. That was as far as she got. She looked back just in time to see a huge claw closing around her, scaly flesh gripping her. It wasn't gentle, and she worried it would crush her to death just picking her up.

She had a thought. Summoning all her will power, she relaxed, letting out a sigh. The deathclaw expected her to squirm and struggle, but maybe if she didn't...

She saw it hesitate, actually pause in confusion. Its dark slit pupils widened with what seemed like curiosity. The grip of its claw around her loosened just slightly. And then it slammed her down into the lake.

She hit the water hard, all the air forced from her lungs. They immediately pulled in, sucking a lungful of contaminated water. Her own instinct was drowning her. She scrabbled, clawing for the surface, and finally broke, gasping, choking. The thing growled, frustrated that she wasn't dead, and grabbed for her again. But as it did, its reach extended too far and the ugly, twisted steel rebar caught its shoulder, opening a long gash that spurted dark red blood. The creature shrieked, and Xavia felt sure that if she survived this, she'd be deaf.

The deathclaw's blood gushed from the open wound and a good amount got on her. She groaned and turned away, but she could feel the warm fluid dripping down her face. It had her in its massive claw again, and this time she squirmed. The deathclaw's grip tightened and she screamed in agony as its clawed thumb sliced into her midsection. It threw her down and this time she hit the hard ground.

She waited. Waited to die, for it to crush her. She felt the rumble of a single step, then a long roar that hurt even as she clasped her hands over her ears.

Another rumble, another, and another, like an earthquake's aftershocks. Another shake, but not as hard. Another, even softer. It was growing farther away. It was... leaving?

The rumbles faded to nothing. She curled her hands into fists, pushing herself up, then collapsing back to the dirt as her arms gave out immediately. She grunted with pain as she reached into her bag, every movement of her muscles painful, the open hole in her middle still pooling blood. Most of the things in her bag seemed broken, and she cut her fingers on shards of broken glass and bits of smashed metal. She just needed one. Just one. Found it!

Her hand closed around the smooth cylindrical shape of a stimpak—she hoped, prayed it was a stimpak. She pulled it out. Damn it! Just a loose sensor. Her vision blurred. Her eyelids fluttered. But a new surge of adrenal anger flooded her. She would not die here. Surviving a deathclaw, only to bleed out? That was pathetic.

She spotted it, the glimmer of red. She grabbed it, jammed the needle into her shoulder, and groaned with agony.

And then, suddenly, she felt better. One little stimpak shouldn't have fixed her up completely, not after the damage she'd taken. But... she was fine.

Better than fine. She felt actually kind of great. Maybe it was just the adrenaline—but no, that should have faded by now. Shouldn't it? She should be crashing, exhausted, suffering from the radiation, covered in bruises, every bone shattered. But she was fine. At least she felt fine.

Maybe it was the thrill of surviving a damn deathclaw. Or maybe just the latent period of the radiation, the symptoms hadn't kicked in. Yeah, it was probably a combination of those. In that case, she had to get home, fast.

Home. Where she had all she'd need; stimpaks, blood packs, RadAway, and addictol—she definitely had another buffout addiction by now.

Yeah. Home was a good idea.

***

The sight of her smashed gate brought a sinking feeling of dread, knowing she'd have to fix it, but she relished the sight of her diner. She knew the security system would pick her up; the front gate camera was smashed to bits, but she had one outside the diner entrance too, and the place was lined with sensors.

Sure enough, she heard the girl's voice yell out, "Holy shit, she's alive!"

The door slid open and the girl ran out to greet her, offering a stimpak, and she was reminded of her first interaction with the survivors, handing one over to the girl to treat her wounded friend. In an odd way, it had all come full circle.

She took the stim with a nod, jabbing it into an arm. There was another rush. Her heartbeat accelerated, and she grunted at the burst of adrenaline. She flexed her fingers. Was something wrong with these stims? Had they... gone bad... or something? Or... or maybe something was wrong with her.

"Move," she said, pushing past the girl and into the diner, through the main area and into what had once been a kitchen, rebuilt into her state-of-the-art lab. She walked right up to the analyzer, a big, round machine with the same sleek, white aesthetic of all Institute inventions. She took a scalpel and pressed the point into the tip of her finger, holding it over a test tube and watching it drip--it was still red, not glowing green or anything, so that was a good sign. She corked the tube and slid it into the machine, bandaging her finger while she waited for the results.

She reached for the little computer she kept clipped to her hip, intending to check her vitals. Except the portable machine was smashed to bits, probably by her landing on it, or one of the times she'd been picked up by the deathclaw. She sighed and grabbed some addictol and RadAway.

"How the hell did you get away alive??" the guy asked, stumbling into the lab. "Did you kill it?"

She laughed.

"'Kill it,'" she repeated. "Yeah, right. No, it got stabbed by a piece of rebar, got frustrated, and ran off."

"Son of a scav," the guy laughed. "Rebar? Really?"

Xavia laughed again and the girl poked her head into the lab.

"You know what? It's the weirdest thing too. I've been trying to get rid of that stupid piece of steel for ages. It was such an eyesore. But it must've been part of an old foundation or something, 'cuz I couldn't ever get it out. And today it saves my life."

She snorted.

"Luck's funny that way," she said.

She reached for the RadAway and was about to inject it when the analyzer blipped, signaling the completion of its analysis. She glanced toward the screen, instinctively looking to the place where it would tell her how many rads she'd soaked up. She blinked and squinted, peering closer at the screen. That couldn't be right. It showed a total of 0 Rads. Nothing.

She dropped the RadAway and smacked the screen twice, making it flicker, but the readings were the same. She scanned the other results, but the only other thing displayed on the screen was:

[WARNING: MUTATION DETECTED!]

She chuckled.

"Which one this time?" she murmured.

"Which one what?" the guy asked, looking over her shoulder at the screen.

"Mutation," she said. "I've tried basically every flavor the wasteland offers by now. Bird bones, eagle eyes—the chameleon one's fun. That'll let you be basically invisible. As long as you're in immediate peril, standing perfectly still, and not wearing anything. So it's pretty useless. But fun. Sometimes I shake things up and give myself mutations on purpose."

"Yeah?" the guy said. "Think you could get me one that gives me a bigger—"

"Kyle!" the girl snapped.

"Probably," Xavia said with a snicker, still checking the results. She hit 'Reset Analysis' and pulled off the bandage on her finger, letting more of her blood out into another vial. It was still red. Good. But she'd run it again; these readings made no sense.

"Seriously, though! I got a cousin who got hit by a good dose o' Rads and now he can barely walk 'cuz he's literally got a horse—"

"That's enough, thank you," the girl sighed.

Xavia giggled and got to work on repairing her pocket computer.

"I've been working on a way to decrease genetic elasticity," she murmured, grabbing a spare circuit board. "'Starching' they call it. Theoretically, it'll make it so you can't get any more mutations no matter how many Rads you soak up."

"That'd be great," the girl said. "Mutations are usually harmful."

Xavia stopped and glanced toward the analyzer.

"Not all of them," the guy, Kyle, pointed out. "Some are pretty great."

"It'll also freeze the ones you've got already," Xavia noted. "So you won't lose 'em no matter how much RadAway you take."

She turned back to the computer chip, but it stubbornly refused to slide into the housing, and then it snapped. She growled in frustration and threw it across the room. An awkward tension permeated the space for a moment.

"I, uh... I'm Ciara, by the way," the girl said, holding out a hand. "Cia, if you like."

Xavia took the proffered hand and the girl winced.

"Sorry," Xavia said.

"Hey, maybe you got super strength," Kyle chuckled.

The analyzer beeped and Xavia walked over to it, offering only half a smile in response to the remark.

"As long as you don't go all super mutant on us," Cia added without a trace of humor.

The readings were the same.

[WARNING: MUTATION DETECTED!]

[No Contaminants Detected]

[No Pathogens Detected]

[Rads: 0]

She clicked the top result and the computer whirred, more text flashing across the screen:

[Mutation Designation: Unknown]

[Mutation Effects: Unknown]

[Recommend in-depth analysis.]

She frowned and bit her lip, then went back to the main page and selected 'Advanced Analysis.' This should give her a full readout, down to the molecular structure. But it would take time.

"Well," she sighed, "Lovely meeting you two, but I'm gonna take a shower."

"Can I join you?" Kyle asked.

"Come on, dumbass," Cia sighed, grabbing his arm. "Leave her alone."

"Hey," Xavia said. "If you wanna repay me, see if you can fix my gate."

"We'll see what we can do," Cia said.