“You’re awake... how about that.” At the sound of the voice I jolted upwards only for my vision to go white. Blinded and disorientated I collapsed back onto the pillow to a chorus of bed-spring creaks. “Woah woah woah, easy there. You were out cold for quite some time.” The man’s voice was elderly, gentle and easy-going and it creaked like a tough wooden door opening slowly – a rich, reassuring sound that allayed my fears. I stared up at the ceiling, feeling the pain in my head settle down into a dull throbbing.
“Where am I?” I asked through a throat rasped with dryness.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves now. How about you tell me your name. Can you remember your name?” I licked my dry lips with an even drier tongue and managed to cough up the sounds.
“I’m Deckard.” The old man nodded approvingly
“ I’m Doc. Mitchell.” He said, a note of condescension riding on his voice, as if he were speaking to a child, an idiot, or, as it were, someone who could well be severely brain-damaged. “Now I hope you don’t mind but I had to go rooting about in your noggin’ to get some of the bullet out of your brain. I take pride in my needlework but you’d best take a look and see if I missed anything.” The doctor handed me a RobCo Reflectron – a device that was ostensibly just a mirror with a rusty switch on the side that allowed you to view your pre-loaded reflection from all angles. I thumbed the switch in silence looking at the image twist and turn on the dusty viewing screen. It showed a platter of relaxed features with a slim smile parked neatly under a series of jagged stitches above my left eye. As I moved my head around in the dim light of the room I could see the pattern of light shift on my mousey brown hair and my short, scraggly, unkept beard. Large, contemplative pupils stared back at me evenly. With a tanned hand I reached up to my eyes and tried to rub some more precise vision into them. The doctor was still watching me wordlessly.
“It’s...er...all good by the looks of it - thanks” I added in what occurred to me as something of an understatement given what the man had done for me. Last thing I remembered was staring down a bullet and now I was sitting on a bed with nothing more than a blistering headache and a fresh scar-wound on my head. I tried to get to my feet but slumped back down again. Still not speaking the doctor grabbed my shoulders and helped me stand. I felt the giddiness eclipse my vision for a second and then it dripped away from my eyes, shook my knees briefly and then finally seeped away leaving me able to see straight and stand on my own.
Mitchell was a small, kind-looking man with neat, grey hair skirting his otherwise bald head. Above his lip sat an impressive, bristling moustache. He worse braces, a dusty red neckerchief and hard-wearing clothes – a working man, not some dust-riding waster. “Listen...I really don’t want to sound ungrateful or anything but...how the hell did you manage to drag me back like that? Not that I’m complaining or anything but shouldn’t a head wound like that keep me in the ground for good?” Mitchell turned and busied himself with a chest of drawers on the opposite wall, shuffling amongst the clothes inside them.
“You were in a pretty bad way when you came in. Not a cards width away from death I’d say.” The doctor turned to me with a wry smile cuddled up close to his moustache. “Of course, I’d know. Seen a lot of death on the wasteland before, me. Chap named Victor dug you up as soon as those bandits had cleared out. It was a messy job, no doubt, but I think you were just lucky – bullet glanced off your skull and missed anything too important.” The doctor came back from the dresser with my clothes bundled up in his hands. “With luck like that you should head on over for some games on the strip!” I took the clothes from him, as well as a duffel bag that contained my possessions – a worn and grubby 9mm pistol, a slim flask of dirty wasteland water and a few bobby pins for the more illicit aspects of my work.
“Do you know anything about the men who shot me?” I asked while pulling on my clothes. The doctor had gone back over to the drawers.
“I’m afraid I don’t, though I’d say you’d be best off staying clear of people of that calibre.” Mitchell walked back over to me as I pulled my jacket over my shoulders. “Of course if you fancy tracking them down and setting them straight, you could always ask around town. Someone’s bound to know something.” I nodded slowly. I had no intention whatsoever of tangling with the Khans if I could help it.
***
I stepped out of the doctor’s place and got an eye-full of the late-afternoon sun. I blinked heavily to try and shake the feeling of nausea away and grabbed the gate in front of me for support. The doc had given me some stimpaks to help me get back on my feet and had flat-out refused anything in the way of reimbursement. Not that I had the caps to pay him. My modest collection of currency had been stolen from me by the Khans. The doctor had given me a quick check up and told me that I was in as good health as anyone could hope to be considering I made my living rooting around the wasteland. After a brief meal he also insisted I take his old Vault-Tec Pip-boy, the wrist-mounted personal machine that all the kids lucky enough to live down in the vaults were given at a certain age. I’d never really considered the things and didn’t particularly want to take it, but the twinkle in the man’s eye and the pleasant smile under his moustache made me feel embarrassed about refusing. I found myself accepting it gracefully like a disappointed child taking an underwhelming birthday present. I guessed I could always just pawn it off at the nearest general store anyway. It was bound to be worth something, I figured.
I stared out into the Mojave, feeling my eyes get accustomed to the harsh light. For miles around there was nothing but sun-scorched waste; nothing but tumbleweed dancing in the rattling wind; nothing but huddled up little communities constantly in terror of the wretched gangs of bandits. I shrugged. It was a shame, I reflected as I walked down the path from Mitchell’s house with unsure steps, but what could any one person do to change it?
