*record scratch* Yeah, that's me.

As she was falling through the air, staring at the rough-looking ground three stories below her, Lily was momentarily reminded of a trope in American films in the early to mid-2000s where the film would begin by showing something horrible happening to the main character; for example, she could be falling three stories, and then with a record scratch sound effect the film would pause, and the character's voice would be dubbed over along with some cheery music, saying something along the lines of, "Yeah, that's me! You're probably wondering how I got into the position where I am falling three stories through the air!"

*record scratch* *pause* "Yeah, that's me..."

---

THE DAY BEFORE

---

Lily led Alice out of the cave while checking her PipBoy for the marker she had placed for the location of the hospital that was her primary target, "So, we still 'ave most of zhe day. We'll find zhe hospital and make sure it isn't a super mutant or raider den and then look through it briefly. We'll set up camp nearby and go through it thoroughly most of tomorrow, then head back home. OK?"

With that, the two women set off. The area of the D.C. area they were trekking through was mostly suburbs, which had gone back to nature in the past two hundred years -- after an apocalypse that meant, more or less, it was a desert.

Lily wasn't in a hurry to get to the hospital, so she set the pace slowly and tried to teach Alice about surviving in a desert environment as much as possible. While she wasn't an expert, she did know a fair bit from camping trips in New Mexico and Arizona when she was a child, as well as her multiple deployments to Afghanistan, even if that accursed country had almost every biome imaginable in its boarders, somehow.

She showed the younger girl that despite the appearance of a lifeless wasteland that there were numerous living creatures scratching out an existence, even if they were mostly the small variety.

Something Lily had noticed was Alice was like a bull running through a China shop; every step she took crunched audibly on the ground in a way that made every living thing in twenty meters aware of her presence, and the girl gave little thought to where she placed her feet, it was just as well for the girl's safety that there was no time to deploy any kind of landmines when the bombs fell.

While pointing out a den of a small family of little mutated mice that seemed somewhat like prairie dogs that Alice had almost obliviously stepped on, Lily quietly whispered to the younger girl in a tone that Alice had come to associate when her teacher was quoting someone, "Zhe world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper." The girl privately thought the way her teacher said 'sharper' sounded more like 'she-pear', though.

Lily pointed out the girl's deficiencies in a kind way and began the process of correcting them, "In true desert survival, it is basically impossible to be stealthy, but in zhis semi-urban desert, it is almost more like a light forest. There are plenty of opportunities to hide, sneak and ambush, yes? Stealth should always be zhe primary objective. A fight avoided is a fight won, and no enemy can defeat us if they cannot perceive us. And always assume zhe enemy is doing the same."

Lily demonstrated the slow, almost rolling gait that she had developed for sneaking. After much effort and little success, something finally clicked for the young Apprentice, and she began walking without alerting everyone of her intentions and location. However, her efforts were still nowhere near perfect. Alice would perform pretty well for a while, and then fatigue would force her to revert to a more normal gait as the sneak-stalking gait seemed to use entirely different muscle groups that she had little history of using to control her footsteps, so precisely.

Still, Lily was pleased with the girl's progress in only a single day's efforts. Although they did not encounter raiders, they saw a group of four ghouls that appeared civilized. While Lily had already got numerous tissue and DNA samples and scans from feral ghouls, she had not yet gotten any from ones that still had their wits about them.

Lily used this group as an impromptu test for Alice, telling her to try to approach them undetected, and Lily would follow along. The girl did better than Lily thought she would, and Lily had to stop her from continuing trying to sneak right up to them, which Lily did not think would look too friendly. At about ten meters, she stopped Alice, and they shifted to a more normal walk, and in order to ensure the ghouls were aware of their approach, she called out, "'Ello, zhe group! We are friendly."

Although she stated her friendly intentions, she instructed Alice to keep her carbine in a lazy port-arms position, with the rifle resting across her arms but pointed up and well away from the ghouls. This would allow her to quickly bring the weapon to use if she needed it, though. Lily, herself, kept her laser rifle slung at her side. She was much more confident in her ability to move quickly and felt it was more friendly if at least one of them wasn't obviously ready to fight to the death.

This clearly startled the group of four ghouls, who jumped a little when they noticed them but relaxed somewhat when it was clear Lily and Alice weren't raiders. One of the four mumbled under his breath, "...sneaky bitches..." but Lily's better than average hearing easily discerned the syllables.

"Woah, hello there, little ladies. I'm George Wilkins, and here are my friends Missy Thomas, John Harper, and Other George," the leader of the ghouls introduced themselves.

Lily put a friendly smile on her face, "Greetings, monsieur. I am known as Lilliane Sainte-Claire, Doctor of Medicine, Scientist and Adventurer. This," she nodded her head sideways to Alice, "is Apprentice Doctor Alice, whom is under my tutelage. We greet you. It's a nice change of pace not to cross paths with cannibals or giant, deadly, venomous scorpions, or worse, no?"

The ghoul chuckled, and his tone was slightly disbelieving while at the same time still friendly, "It sure is, Dr St. Claire. Doctor of Medicine, huh? I don't think I've seen a University still handing out those degrees in some time. Missy here was a registered nurse before the bombs fell. The closest thing to a doctor we've seen, Missy is."

Lily smiled gently, "I'd rather not discuss the specifics of where I matriculated from, but I assure you the degree was well-earned." She turned slightly to regard Missy, "Nice to meet you, Dr Thomas... I figure an RN's knowledge base by itself is a lot more than your average wasteland," Lily performed the air quote gesture, "quote doctor unquote, to say nothing of two hundred plus years experience. And if I call those types doctors out of courtesy, I certainly wouldn't short-change you."

The ghoul named Missy blinked, then looked pleased, "You know? She's right! I'm Doctor Missy, from now on! Hah! Thanks, Dr St. Claire. You're sure not an asshole like most of the MDs I've worked with in the past."

Once it was clear each side was friendly, Alice stopped carrying her carbine so readily, and the other ghouls stopped being on alert, too. It turned out the group of ghouls was heading to Underworld, a small settlement comprised of five hundred or so ghouls and centred around the Museum of History that was located downtown.

Missy, in fact, used to work at the hospital that was Lily and Alice's target, and she took some time to discuss the specifics and verify its location. She even told them that if they found any locked doors to try the code "911-77-#" as they apparently used a master code of 911 followed by the two-digit year, which Lily didn't think was very secure.

Most of the discussion was between Lily and Missy, with them talking shop about medicine for a time.

Eventually, she parted with the following words, "I think your chances are pretty good of finding some useful things. There were a number of not entirely destroyed Auto-Docs, EKGs and similar equipment last time I poked around the Emergency Department where I worked maybe a decade ago. It should be relatively safe all around the hospital unless raiders or muties have moved in, but there were rumours the top floor was in the process of being changed from a Med-Surge floor to a floor devoted to the care of patients from the government... That was usually a sign some research was being conducted, but we weren't a teaching hospital or associated with a University, so I don't know what it could have been."

Before the ghouls left, Lily managed to buy cheek swabs from each of them for ten caps each. Missy was amused and wished her luck in her research before all four of the ghouls set off on their way toward the heart of D.C.

"Why the DNA samples, Dr St. Claire?" asked Alice after the ghouls left.

Lily clucked her tongue as they turned to continue on their way, too, "Don't you think it is a little weird how uniform the ghoulification process is? Radiation certainly does induce mutations, but it induces random mutation. There is just... no way... that ionizing radiation itself could be the sole cause of an otherwise normal flat turning into a ghoul. It's clearly a trigger of some other, presently unknown process. A dormant virus, similar but different than FEV, perhaps? The fact that ghouls have a significantly increased longevity is telling, too, that it isn't a natural process."

Alice hummed in thought, "I hadn't really thought of it, but it does seem improbable when you talk about it like that. Flat? You've used that term before. From the context, I'd say it means human?"

Lily blushed a little bit, "Sorry. It's slang, I guess; it might even be considered a little pejorative. Flat means a baseline unuplifted human without any genetic optimizations or alterations at all. Like you, at least until we can rectify that in a few weeks." She then added hastily, "I don't mean any offence."

Rather than offended, the girl seemed amused.

They arrived at the hospital with several hours of daylight left and carefully began searching the ground floors, looking mainly for dangers rather than treasure. They started in the Emergency Department Missy used to work at, creeping straight through the ambulance bay, which featured two brokedown Chryslus extra-large vans that presumably had an ambulance's paint on them at one point in time.

Much to Alice's surprise, Lily inspected the two vehicles for some time. If it had been before her trip on the caravan to Megaton, Lily would have been shocked to see the tires still somewhat inflated on one of them but now Lily understood that they were manufactured out of super-materials. Lily desperately wanted to find a Goodyear factory to see how they produced them, "What's so interesting about these broke-down vans, Dr St. Claire?"

Lily answered good-naturedly, "I... we... will need vehicles eventually. All zhese Chryslus vehicles are powered by small fission reactors; zhese two seemed to have scrammed properly and are in shut-down mode, which means zhe fissionables inside are still probably good. The vehicles themselves are toast, but zhe engines are still good. Good to know, yes? It's actually a wonder all zhese cars haven't had zheir motors pulled out to drive a generator or something."

Alice blinked, looking a little surprised, "You mean these engines could start up after all this time?"

Lily made a hand-waffle motion, "Maybe. You haven't gotten into the physics, or nuclear physics portion of your general sciences focus yet. Nor likely will for some time. Plus, we are a bit short on textbooks for that, but fission fuel's half-life is in the millions of years. So, it should still be good."

Lily made a note on her PipBoy, surprised at how often she actually used the device for such a purpose, before continuing their search in the deserted Emergency Room.

Alice's surprised shriek as she saw a shambling, feral ghoul alerted it, which turned and charged them. Lily put two blue blasts of light into it, simultaneous to Alice putting it down with a short burst. Alice complained, "That lady said it was safe!"

Lily waved her hand, hissing at Alice to keep her weapon in a ready position, "Keep your head on a swivel; when there is one, there is..." and with that, two more ghouls and a Bright One came out of one of the exam rooms, and Lily wasted no time in sending bolt after bolt of blue beams into the Bright One, while Alice shrieked again, backing up quickly and firing on the two others.

Lily finished putting down the Bright One as the two other ghouls ran past her, ignoring her to focus on Alice, which somewhat surprised her. She reached out with her leg and tripped the closer ghoul to her up, sending it sprawling to the floor, and she followed it up with a single well-aimed laser burning through the monster's skull at the brainstem area, causing it to spasm once and then go still as its autonomic functions altogether ceased.

Lily was momentarily surprised at her performance, 'Have I always been such a badass? Wait, that other one is trying to eat off Apprentice's face.'

Alice wasn't able to finish the other ghoul off before it closed with her and was struggling with it, using her carbine as more of a melee weapon to keep the ghoul's teeth and hands out of the way. Lily momentarily sighted the ghoul down with her rifle, but couldn't be certain she wouldn't hit the Apprentice with either a miss or a burn-through so she sighed and slung it across her back and walked with a purpose to the ghoul.

Pulling down her diamondoid super-stiletto from the sheath on her breast, she carefully but swiftly jammed it into the same spot she shot on the other ghoul, its brainstem, except the angle of the blade was coming upwards from the neck, dropping the ghoul instantly. The blade slid through the ghoul's skull like it was warm queso, she happily noted. Lily left the blade in the back of its head for a moment, unslinging her rifle. Then, she ordered the panting Apprentice, "Reload. And don't sweep me with your muzzle."

The girl nodded and carefully reloaded her weapon as Lily guarded her. They relaxed somewhat when it became clear that there were no more ghouls near the vicinity. Alice was still heated, "That bitch said this place was safe!"

Lily chuckled, "Maybe after living as a ghoul for two 'undred years, you just forget that to everyone else ferals are a danger. Or zhese ferals arrived later, if so, that might indicate a new source of dangerous radiation. Zhis hospital probably 'ad a nuclear medicine laboratory, perhaps some of the equipment became quite 'ot. In fact, you stand well away from that Bright One, I'm going to drag it out and away. It would be somewhat 'azardous for you to be closely around it," Lily then muttered, "I don't want to be around it longer than necessary, either."

Lily then shouldered he rifle and drug the glowing ghoul out of the building, and a bit away from the approach so it wouldn't be near them if they decided to leave the same way they came in. Alice asked her curiously, "Dr St. Claire, if you're immune to radiation then why do you care about being around the Bright One's body anyway?"

Lily scowled, "I'm immune to most of the traditional complications associated with ionizing radiation, namely mutation, cancer, death. But ionizing radiation is still very small particles, like little bullets, that rip through your body. Nobody is really immune to that unless you shield yourself from it. Our brains especially aren't. Ionizing radiation can depolarise neurons and axons if it hits your brain just right. That's memory loss, personality changes, and any number of other terrible possibilities if I just stuck my head around a significant rad source long enough."

Lily considered it before nodding, "In fact, take one Rad-X now. Zhe Bright One might 'ave tended to induce a low level of radioactivity anywhere it was around long enough, to say nothing about whether we will find a potential 'ot source that lured them in." Alice nodded and fished some pills out of her bag and took one.

"I included a pretty thick layer of foam padding in our helmets, not just for comfort, but these plastic 'ydrocarbon-based foams have significant a proton level in the foam, which will tend to act as a neutron moderator. So the helmets should be radiation resistant. 'opefully," Lily added.

They then began carefully exploring the entire Emergency Room. They found three autodocs that weren't completely destroyed, but only one was in a condition that it might be salvaged. Lily left the one in the best condition alone and began disassembling the other two, "We will take the computers out of these two AutoDocs and all the servo motors and other electronics too. We'll leave the armatures and surgical tools, mostly. I can fashion those well enough."

Alice tilted her head to the side. Lily stared at her. She was copying her mannerisms; Lily was sure about it now! Alice said, "What about the good one?"

Lily smiled, "Either we come back for it, or most likely, I will hire a small mercenary team to come to haul it away entirely intact. I think the latter, probably. It shouldn't be too expensive to hire a team to do that."

They took away a few EKGs, defibrillator machines and one ventilator that Lily said she could probably repair as well as a fairly large amount of miscellaneous medical supplies that were not easy to fabricate, like IV tubings and ventilator circuits.

Lily glanced at the sun's position outside through a window and nodded, "This is a good stopping place for tonight. Let's leave and find a good place to set up camp."

Rather than try to camp inside the hospital, which Lily said wasn't safe, they left the general area and found a place about a fifteen-minute walk away to set up their tent. Alice took charge of making dinner, and they just relaxed until it got dark, where they slept in shifts.

---

Alice POV

---

Alice woke up in the morning, feeling a little embarrassed that she had slept so long, but her teacher kept informing her that she needed far less sleep than Alice did. For now, anyway.

Her teacher was already awake, making some breakfast. She greeted her and told her she was going to find a place to go to the restroom. She was always amused that such a term had survived to the point past when people rarely even had the luxury of a room to relieve themselves in.

Her teacher stopped her, and told her to take her rifle with her. Alice mentally smacked herself in the forehead, of course. She was so stupid, sometimes. She grabbed the carbine and slung it at her side, and set off.

It might have been self-consciousness in not wanting to poop near the camp, or it might have just the whimsy of a nice morning, but she hiked a fair bit away before she found a place to go.

Sighing after she was done, 'Toilet paper is such an amazing thing.' She started moving back towards camp when she saw a glint of something artificial, which stopped her in her tracks, causing her to crouch in stealth near an especially large tumbleweed, trying to identify what she saw and where she saw it.

Her teacher had spent multiple hours yesterday talking to her about the importance of moving quietly and moving smoothly, which Alice took to mean it was incredibly important. That was three times as long as how long Lily talked to her about how a liver worked, and you had to have a liver to live!

Granted, half of the time Lily talked about the liver's function was to denigrate it. Still, Alice found that wasn't entirely unusual about their discussions about the body and its function. Dr St. Claire sure wasn't too impressed with how people's bodies were put together, that was sure!

She tried to remember what else her Mistress told and showed her yesterday about sneaking. Being silent wasn't enough. Movement attracted the eye, and Alice had to move smoothly and slowly. And Dr St. Claire had spent over ten minutes discussing the neural circuitry involved that was hardwired into people's brains to detect faces. Alice didn't understand nearly any of it, but it gave her the idea to look sideways on, to present only half a face, at least.

Alice found the source of the glint; it was an axe carried by a man. She narrowed her eyes. He was in a group with two others, walking away from her. Thankfully, none of them precisely looked like raiders, but Alice wasn't about to introduce herself.

Alice suddenly was very nervous. She saw the way Lily went through those ghouls yesterday like she was reaping wheat instead of the lives of monsters while she, herself, could barely even fend one off. The idea of being separated from her teacher, who was very much also her protector, scared her.

She couldn't directly go back to the camp, either, as the path this group of three were taking was parallel to it, and she would definitely be seen.

Sighing, she settled into what she was calling her skulking gait and shadowed the group. As they went past the camp, she could duck around them and reunite with Dr St. Claire.

It was tiring to walk silent, especially since they were on a bit of an incline going back, and the dim light of dawn also made it difficult to avoid stepping on something that would crunch loudly, announcing her presence.

However, despite all that, she was doing well. Perhaps it was just that these three weren't very observant? Or perhaps she was a genius at this? Either way, they did not notice her. She noticed with some alarm that they detected the camp and walked directly to it. Were they enemies? Would they surprise or attack her teacher?

She gripped her rifle carefully and followed. If they looked like they were bad guys, well, she had the drop on them.

Alice blinked. Dr St. Claire wasn't where she used to be, making breakfast. Don't tell me she went back into the tent?! She would be totally surprised by the three!

One of the men walked up to investigate the tent, and she carefully sighted him in with her rifle. Then, frowning, she shifted her target to the centre man. He was the only one with a rifle and, therefore, the most significant threat.

As the man got near the tent Dr St. Claire's voice called out from the left, definitely not from the tent, "'Ello, hunters! At least, you certainly don't appear to be raiders, no?"

The three men startled a bit, the centre one almost bringing his rifle out of port arms and to the ready, which almost caused Alice to shoot him. But then, when Dr St. Claire seemed to be friendly, the three men relaxed somewhat. The centre man turned to face Dr St. Claire, but left his rifle with the barrel pointed in the air when he saw she, also, did not have a weapon at the ready.

Alice saw Dr St. Claire stare directly at her and wink. Grumbling that she had been discovered, she kept her rifle sighted on the man that was the biggest threat.

Alice didn't follow the entire conversation Dr St. Claire and the men had, but it turned out that her teacher was correct and these three men were hunters. Alice supposed there was enough odd animals that were edible around to warrant hunting groups, but it seemed a little bit weird to her.

She almost shouldered her weapon and started to reveal herself when it seemed like they were friendly but her teacher glanced at her very briefly and ever so slightly shook her head, which startled Alice. What did Dr St. Claire know that she didn't? Maybe she was just paranoid? Whatever the reason, Alice settled her rifle's reticle back on the butt of the hunting group's leader. Her rifle was set on full automatic, and Dr St. Claire always told her to aim a little low and let the recoil bring a small burst across her target's body.

Alice tried to pay more attention to the conversation now, and it seemed like her teacher was buying some meat off the group? Well, that would be nice. Maybe they could eat it for breakfast.

Alice watched them make the exchange, and surprisingly her teacher brought out the scanner she was ever so protective of. She had used it herself and it was an amazing piece of technology! She watched Dr St Claire scan the meat right in front of the hunters! That was very weird for her teacher, who was paranoid about other people discovering the device and its capabilities. The hunters seemed a bit confused, but she guessed the lead hunter thought it was a device to detect poison because he chuckled and said, "It's not poison, scout's honour!"

Alice saw Dr St. Claire smile in a friendly manner before putting the scanner and meat away, before nodding, "It's most certainly not," then, in a slightly louder voice, she called out, "Alice. Golgotha."

Alice squeaked. That was the secret code word that her teacher told her meant she should immediately and with lethal force attack whomever Dr St. Claire was speaking with. She was worried yesterday that her teacher would have to say it when they met that group of nice ghouls.

Alice didn't know why these men had to die, but she trusted her teacher with her life! She held her breath and squeezed the trigger. The entire burst struck the leader in the back, dropping him like a stone. The other two hunters gaped and turned in Alice's direction, pulling out weapons.

However, as soon as they turned from Dr St. Claire, her teacher's hand snapped to her holster faster than Alice could see, and the next thing she saw was four or five blue laser beams from the dark grey laser pistol her teacher carried strike the two men, who also fell to the ground dead.

How did Dr St. Claire change the colour of the laser weapons she used, anyway? Alice was curious. She had to admit she favoured blue over red if it was just a cosmetic difference.

Seeing no more threats, Alice slung her rifle and jogged out to meet Dr St. Claire, who was pulling the meat she just bought out of her bag and throwing it on the dead hunter's body, "Fucking cannibals," she said with emotion.

Alice blinked. Oh. They wouldn't be eating it for breakfast, then.