Fallout: Fury Blood

Chapter 87: The Whole Gang's Here

Big fucks...

Clay-Crawler awoke to waves of nausea beating up his body like the unstable tread of a slave wagon. The beating was more intense inside his skull, calling for his hands to rise and cradle his temples. The clink of metal and tug of resistance, and he realized his wrists were handcuffed to the side of his medical cot.

"Slave?" he enquired the air, trying to come to terms with his environment. Ah, memory struck back. He was in the Brotherhood's medical bunker. Whisper had taken him here.

"The official justification is 'medical confinement for our own good.'"

The raider yanked his head over at D-Con, suddenly remembering his clan brother's existence. The man clinked his own handcuffs for reference and smirked ironically.

"Not slave?"

"No, buddy. Relax. You just had some sort of epileptic fit, flailed yourself all around the place like a dead fish, and I possibly tried to make a break for it in the commotion. I think they thought you were in on my escape attempt and were just faking it, which is why you're now cuffed. My failed escape attempt, mind you. Split my cast open kicking at a Scribe that got in the way. Boy did that piss them off," he spluttered in bleak humor. "Hurt my knee, though. Real bad. Won't be doing that one again..." He then looked off and sucked in his upper lip with sheepish regret.

Clay-Crawler pieced the images together in his head, nibbled the inside of his cheek for a long moment while processing it all, then sat up stock-straight. "Whisper! Whisper ran away!"

"Yeah, I tried that too. I also tried demanding for someone to fetch one of the crew so I could warn them, but I guess no sane Brotherhood soldier wants to pass through the hallowed depths of Buttcrack Canyon to relay a message. So I wouldn't shut up. So they knocked me out with Med-X."

D-Con's calm resignation had the opposite effect on Clay-Crawler, riling up his anxiety to a spilling point. "How long?" he panted, bashing his wrists against the cot's guard rail in an effort to break free. "How long she gone?"

The spy made an odd sound of irritation. "That's the thing. They kept me sedated long enough that I got no sense of time. Nada. Nothin'. I got a strong hunch it's been a couple days though, because I'm starting to smell a little funky over here. The nurse doesn't wanna bite, though. I'm starting to think she doesn't like me. Rude."

The hysterical raider was barely listening to the drivel, twisting his wrists until the metal chaffed at his bony flesh. He bent his teeth to the cuff on his right wrist and tried biting at it, but the early onset of decay in his teeth only brought him pain. Like a sour toddler he grizzled and resorted to making as much noise as possible, unearthing a ululating battlecry and continuing to bang his cuffs in a sonorous racket.

D-Con was cringing behind his sunglasses, but made no protest and sat patiently waiting for the crackdown. Within minutes, Brotherhood Scribes and an escort of guards came barrelling in through the forward section of the marquee preluding the prefab bunker, their faces dull with quiet exasperation. Obviously this was a reoccurring theme for them.

D-Con lifted his hands in innocence, the ghost of a grin on his face. Senior Scribe Ketway shot straight at Clay-Crawler. The raider recognized him as the very same man who first treated him in the Commonwealth after Deadskull and Whisper had rescued him from slavery. He was preparing to administer a Med-X without hesitation.