#just chugs them in raw. because like my man literally owns nothing but his gun

[purkinje-effect]

The Purkinje Effect, 2

Table of Contents

Galen awoke before dawn to three RadRoaches trying to chew him up. Before even fully conscious he’d pulled his knuckledusters from his pockets, kicked off the foot-long vermin, and used his fists to crush them into the dirt. With his hands covered in gelatinous bug guts, he gained his faculties a bit better, and licked his hands and weapons clean before removing the dusters from his hands and returning them to his pockets. Then, he sat up, and called it providence that breakfast had come to him. He brushed back his undercut, which had fallen to the left side as it always did, and took his shucking knife from his back pocket and unsheathed it. He’d made it out of boredom from a combination wrench back in the vault, but out here the shiv was a necessity. He fileted the abdomens of the three assailants, and ate the bitter, tender flesh raw, straight from the knife’s edge. A full stomach was quite reassuring, and the persistent aftertaste as he resumed his eastward travels was a reassurance everything would turn out fine.

The Quinsigamond settlers had told him that the biggest settlement in the Commonwealth was Diamond City, and that he’d likely find help there they themselves couldn’t provide him. From their description, he surmised that its population had dug its heels into Fenway Park. From the Interchange onward, raiders were the worst of his worries the next two days, as he made his way to the great green gates, and he skirted encountering them altogether. The park gates were open the early afternoon he arrived, with one guard in catcher gear standing watch near the ticket counter.

“What are you coming in for?” the young man called out, stopping Galen in his tracks.

“Hungry.” The scent of fresh soup reduced him to abstracts, and distracted him from answering more accurately.

“Ya got caps? Power Noodles don’t barter.”

“Yeah, I got caps.”

“Go see Takahashi then. He’ll get you hooked up. You look… like you should go see Doc Sun after you got a gut full a noodles, though. I don’t know what you been into, but that don’t look healthy.”

Rather than be bothered to argue, Galen simply thanked the young man and went inside.The shanty town was a landscape of shipping palettes and corrugated steel. After everything he’d seen since stepping foot above ground, this felt like the epitome of metropolitan life post-apocalypse, complete with people even dwelling in the box seats. He easily gleaned the location of the medical facility–Mega Surgery Center–to the right of the literal town square, but the night before he’d crammed his face full of Fancy Lads and shortening and had nothing left to eat. Descending the concrete stairs into the diamond, he had his eyes on the noodle stand symbolically located on the pitcher’s mound. The fastest way to his heart always had been through his stomach.

“Hey swatter swatter!” “Get your fix here!” “Guns, ammo, artillery–you name it!”

His head swam with calorie deficit and sensory overload, accustomed to the quiet of the open road for nearly two weeks now. Not even the vault back home got this rowdy during their weekly field day. The cries of the merchants’ booths boxed his ears a bit, and he found himself sitting at a bar stool at the noodle stand and staring vacantly at a lunchbox in front of him.

“Nani shimaso-ka?”

“Wh–” Galen’s head snapped up, startled, and he found a yellow barrel-bodied robot with a chef’s hat addressing him. One could see the Protectron’s processor whirring about behind a large glass panel which design wise represented the void where one might otherwise have expected a face. “I’m not Japanese, I’m Pin–”

“Just say yes,” the settler next to him interjected between slurps on her own bowl of fresh ramen. “It’s the only word he gets.”

He grimaced, then looked at the robot squarely while he put twenty caps on the counter between him and Takahashi.

“…Yes?”

Almost faster than his eyes could follow, the robot prepared and presented a bowl all for Galen. Fresh carrots and tato, with something he guessed was reconstituted iguana bits for the protein. It smelled exceptional. He was grateful the robot didn’t stand there and stare expectantly as he ate, since it took him some time to steel his nerves to consume something with fresh produce in it. The noodles even seemed like razorgrain meal instead of the instant squares found as prewar rations. It went down easily enough in three or four good chugs. The blond woman next to him noticed the pink stranger didn’t even bother with utensils, but she didn’t know it was because he’d resorted to eating them the day before.

“That’s some appetite, Blue,” he heard a second woman mumble lyrically to his other side. She had on a red coat and a press cap, and had dark hair.

“Blue?” he scoffed, leaning to add his bowl to the stack at the end of the counter. “Y'need your eyes checked.”

“You might not be wearing your vault suit right now, but… not a lot of Commonwealth folk have got a Pipboy.” She sat beside him, nonchalant, and playfully tapped the screen of the chrome device at his left wrist. “Besides, haven’t seen you before. Y'look a little lost. And I think I’d remember a gum rubber pink Vault Dweller.”

“You’re a reporter, aren’t you.”

“Ooohh, read me like a paper. But you, you seem like front page news. Guessing you noticed we gotta newsprint press on the town diamond.” All he did was nod, trying to ignore his gut’s disapproval of his choice of food while also being patient waiting for this young woman to get to the point. “Can I get an interview? The people of Diamond City could use an outside perspective.”

“Here’s your headline: Man from out of town says no.”

She snorted at him and got up. “Wise guy, huh? Fine, be like that. You know where to find me if you change your mind.”

As she went off to the news stand titled “Publick Occurrences,” he turned the other direction with his eyes on the Mega Surgery Center.

“Ignore Piper,” the first woman mumbled, chewing on some gumdrops. “She’s the nosiest person in this place.”

“Guess if it pays the bills,” he replied offhandedly, not paying attention to her as he got up and walked over to speak to the doctor working at the equipment-crowded porch of the small building.

“What’s a bill?” she thought to herself aloud.

“What is it?” The impatient Japanese man in a white coat did not look up from what appeared to be a bloodwork panel. “It had better not be about cosmetic surgery again.”

“Cosmic… surgery?”

Not recognizing the voice, the doctor glanced to Galen a moment with a brief raised brow before returning to his work.

“Cosmetic. As in ‘not due to life threatening circumstances.’ Are you seeking treatment? The best thing I can recommend for heat stroke is plenty of rest and clean, cold water.”

“It’s not– heat stroke, doctor. I’ve come a very long way. Blackstone. Please, just. Hear me out.”

The man stopped what he was doing and set down his work to turn and face him attentively.

“This must be quite serious, if no one in Worcester or Providence could help you.” He offered a handshake, which Galen took. “I’m Dr. Sun, by the way.”

“Galen,” he introduced graciously. His stomach was turning on him sharply in that moment, and he did his best to hide it. “I’m from a Vault-Tec vault, and our food dispensers have been… malfunctioning. We aren’t sure for how long, but it’s been runnier’n usual. Our mechanic isn’t good with circuitry or any of that, but he estimates that the machines glitched out on the recipe and it’s been leaving out an ingredient. The technician maintaining the machines passed away, so there’s no telling. Everyone is… pink like this. Most of us didn’t really notice the difference because the rations have always been like a runny custard, at least, not until it was obvious not everyone is stomaching it so well.”

“Blackstone? I didn’t know there was a vault in the gorge.”

“We keep to ourselves. It’s hard to navigate the valley, with the wildlife.” Galen leaned back against the wall behind him.

“…Is your hydroponics sector still operating normally? I know it’s a hard shift to get accustomed to after years of the machines doing it for you–having Takahashi make our food has certainly spoiled us here–but if the dispensers aren’t blending and doling out what they’re designed to, you’ll have to learn how to cook again to supplement it, or replace it altogether.” The accusatory nature of his impatient tone grated on Galen.

“Hydro-whats now? Are you talking about our water supply, or– you mean farming? We stay below, in the vault. We don’t keep land above-ground for cultivating. We have a few folks who make supply runs to Quinsigamond every two weeks, but… the matter a what we’ve been eating to get by. That’s why I came.”

“You don’t have indoor crops! What a thing to have glossed over in construction!”

“We always had the food paste. Since day one. The nutritionists insisted it was a precise blend of vitamins and fortifyin’ ingredients. That it was an omni-source of vegetable, animal, and mineral nutrients.” He put his hands in his pockets to avoid holding his gut. “The doctor in Worcester called it 'pica,’ the situation we got going in recent years. We been healthier eating chalk, or even mud from the gorge, than we have been with the food our runners bring back. We was almost outta chalk when I left, it’s in such demand. The less capable of being defined as food, it seems the less off it makes our stomachs.” His stress broiled his discomfort into outright nausea, and he started sweating. “I don’t know what’s wrong with us, Doc. If we’re in withdrawal from chems in our food we didn’t agree to, or if we’ve eaten the paste so long that our bodies can’t digest anything else. I know I’m not the only one of us who’s sick. Really, genuinely sick. And believe me, I’ve tried Stimpacks and Med-X, even Rad-X, trying to get my gut to work with me rather'n against me.”

Sun’s face grew long and he stood silent for some time, the sound of the ceiling fan the only thing competing with the bustle of the town square. As the doctor spoke next, it became increasingly difficult for Galen to remain standing.

“Of course you’re all sick. You’re severely malnourished. I’m not versed in psychiatric care as much as I’d like, but I know for a fact that pica disorder has been proven a psychosomatic link to malnourishment. As far as your theory that your issue with going cold turkey off your food dispenser rations is chem withdrawal… I do have a treatment for that, if you’d like to try it. To rule out foul play, I mean.”

Before he could give the doctor an answer, he folded himself over the rail of the porch and retched. Those eating at Power Noodle on the clinic side tried their best to ignore it.

“Can’t… even. Keep down damn ramen.” He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and glanced up to where Takahashi worked oblivious to any correlation. He wondered if the Protectron had feelings capable of being hurt, and if it might assume Galen had disliked its cooking. He let out a tepid chuckle and stood again, both hands steady on the rails. “I was doin’ fine eating cutlery and shortening on my trip here. Ate some fusion cell ammunition too. I slept so well the night I ate the batteries, Doc. I think I’m dying. I think we’re all dying.”

“Do you at least feel better, having evacuated your stomach contents in my front gutter?”

“…Ye, honestly.” Galen nudged his hood back and made a gesture toward the chair, to which Sun nodded and Galen sat, wiping his forehead and brow dry with his other sleeve. “What was that treatment? All I’ve got left is about thirteen caps and a good bit of prewar money, but I’ll compense you best I can for y'time, consultation, and resources.”

“It’s called Addictol.” Sun retrieved a small white inhaler from one of his stock drawers, and handed it over. “If it works, you were right about the tainted food source. If it doesn’t work, you were wrong that it’s been tampered with. Either way, the best thing I think your people can do is to stop eating the paste altogether and learn to cook and garden again.”

“So do I just.” Galen turned it this way and that with a gloved finger on the spray button on the back of it. “How much is one dose?”

“Take in the entire ampuole. Exhale completely first, then depress the button and inhale deeply until it’s empty. Hold the breath for at least five seconds, ten if you can.”

Galen followed the instructions, and pinched his nose after to make sure he didn’t absently exhale prematurely. The inhaler produced a concentrated saline vapor which felt like a salt-soak for his lungs. For a moment he couldn’t tell if the slow burn was from the salt or from holding his breath so long. The sting crept into his bloodstream, and lingered even after a deep and heavy exhalation. It took a bit for his breathing pattern to regulate itself, but by the time it evened out, the sting was over with.

“How do you feel?” Sun asked, having been watching.

“I could use a cigarette,” he admitted, trying to crack a joke. “How’m I supposed to feel, if it worked?”

“At least you’ve still your humor about you. Addictol has a slight sting to it as it enters your blood through the capillaries in your lungs. What were your symptoms prior to taking it? Rationalize.”

“Nausea. Fatigue. My head felt full of lead.” He conceded to the compulsion and swallowed the inhaler. “Nope, still craving plastic and metal. Not quite so tired now, or nauseated. Head’s still in a fog.”

“…How long have you been… ingesting like that? And what kinds of things?”

“I told you. Ammunition. Chalk. Flatware. Empty containers. As far as how long, though? What year is it? I think my Pipboy might be malfunctioning. The dispensers started fritzing somewhere around twenty… ninety-eight? I’ve personally been eatin’ chalk since about a month before the mechanic officially decreed the dispensers F.U.B.A.R.”

“It’s April 23, 2285. You’re not making any sense. Even if you meant 2*1*98, that would make you over eighty years old, were you old enough to remember the machines failing. You look like you’re no further than past your thirties.” Sun forcibly looked at the screen of Galen’s Pipboy, to discern that the date which it displayed was correct. “Promise me you’ll stop eating this paste. And that you’ll discourage your neighbors and family from doing so. You’re delusional from malnutrition, and if you keep eating objects instead of food, you’ll end up poisoning yourself. Fusion cells have lead and nuclear material in them. And many of the things you listed are sharp, or don’t break down in the human body. If you don’t die of poisoning, you’ll require extractive surgery to remove the things you swallowed from your alimentary canal.”

“I know it sounds weird, Doc. I’ve lost track of time myself. Most of us has. I’m gonna have a hard time convincin’ em to stop eating it though. Even if you’re right, they don’t exactly listen to me.” He didn’t want to concern the doctor any further with more detailed explanation of his and his people’s condition, let alone argue with him over the fact he remembered the day the bombs fell. So, he produced a medium sized candy tin from his bag, and removed the lid to display about a cup of pink paste. “I ate the last of my paste rations a few days ago, but when I left I took a sample of it and kept it separate to share with doctors. Can I leave some with you, and have you analyze it? Are you able to do that?”

“I’m not a nutritionist,” the doctor declined, shakily picking up a glass stirrer and poking at the surface of the foodstuff. “Are you sure that’s what the *food* dispenser is producing? That does not look fit for human consumption.”

“Since day one. It just got a little runnier after the machines messed up.” He put the lid back on the tin and made a second offering motion toward the doctor, who again declined. 

“I don’t know of any nutritionist in the Commonwealth, but I’m certain you’ll have better luck discussing this with Drs. Duff and Scara at the Science! Center on 2nd Street here. They’re very skilled chemists. Maybe they can tell you what is in it, to better determine what it lacks.” Sun gestured behind Galen, to one of the guards holding an injured arm. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got another patient. Come back and tell me what the ladies have to say. I’d be interested to learn more about this. Your case is most unusual.”