//------------------------------// // Chapter 14 - Mike the 'Magician' // Story: Honest Hearts // by YuCheng Huang //------------------------------// Mike holstered his carbine and came to Tom's side after he fell, checking if Tom was still alive, fortunately he only fell unconscious. He took out a med-x and a stimpak then injected it into Tom, hoping to deal with his wounds. "That's better. What now?" Mike put his hands on his own waist, as he looked forward, noticing a path going up, maybe to the platform next to them. Thinking whether he should leave him here to scout ahead, faster but might leave Tom to danger, or carried him along that he could take care of him, but enemy encounter would be much difficult. He sighed then carried Tom on his back, walking up the path. Slowly going up the path, then entering the platform, Mike found nothing but some Spore Plants that he killed with his carbine. Couldn't let his guard down, there might be other Spore Carriers lurking in the shadow. On the other side of the platform, he found some containers, and a caged door. "What have we here?" Mike walked towards the caged door, and before he reached the door, he quickly noticed something green. "Jeez, a plasma mine." Mike backed off and put Tom down softly, then carefully disarming the mine. "Who would've plant this?" Opened the caged door, there was a shelter, with almost anything basic survival needed, cooking station, work bench and sleeping bag, and interestingly, a working terminal. "Jackpot!" Mike ran back to get Tom, and carried him to the sleeping bag. Checking Tom needed more treatments, when not , he began snooping around. He found scraps, a duffle bag with some supplies, and a locked wooden door. "Locked door, curious." Mike attempted to unlock the door, but to no avil. He then took out a his own Pip-boy 2500, a different version of Pip-boy then wasn't arm-mounted, but hand-held. He looked around and checked nobody was watching, he pulled out an antenna from the top of the device, pointed at the door. On his Pip-boy screen, pressed the 'Scan' key, and the wooden door was scanned and showed on his UI, then he entered "unlock" with the UI keypad and pressed "Enter". With a click sound, the door magically unlocked, "Heh, I call myself Magician for reasons." as he opened the door. When the door opened, a man's body fell in front of Mike, and scared the crap out of him. "What the hell!?" Mike eye-scanned the body, the body was still fresh, but one of his leg was seriously injured and badly treated. He looked for any signs of life, his pulse was weak, but still alive. This man was not a White Legs tribal, this man might be the one they were been looking for. Mike sighed, "What am I, a doctor? I'm a mechanic for crying out loud." as he carried the man to a makeshift bed next to Tom. Mike was not a medical expert, but there was no other choice. Mike took the tribal's hat off, unwrapped the bandage on the tribal's leg, and started examine it. He discovered the source of injury, bite marks, probably by wild dogs. "That's not good..." he murmured. But before that, Mike still tried to treat the tribal with some stims, it treated the wounds, but the infection was still not cured. He closed his eyes, started pondering what to do. Then he heard something, a man's painful groan. The tribal awakened, but he was still too weak to see clearly. "You're finally awake." Mike greeted the tribal. "Who are you? Where am I?" the tribal asked weakly. "You can call me Mike, and you are in the shelter behind the door where I found you." Mike answered, and asked. "And you are?" "Follows-Chalk, from the Dead Horse Tribe." Chalk answered. "You saved me?" "I did, but if it were not for Tom, I wouldn't be here." Mike responded. "Tom, you know Tom? Where is he?" Chalk got excited when he heard Tom's name, but it sored when he moved a muscle. "Yeah, he asked me for help, and he's laying right next to you..." "Really!?" Chalk squeezed all of his strength to turn around just to see a severly injured Tom laying right next to him, his heart stopped. "My lord... What... what happened?" Chalk asked, knowing he was accounted for what happened to Tom. "We're looking for you, and we fought a bunch of Spore Plants and Carriers in the other section of the cave." Mike explained. "The Giant Plants and Green Men!" Chalk thought in his mind, "But Tom is strong... What happened?" he asked. "We found someone torn apart and eaten by those things and we thought it was you. Then he become crazy and he fought them in close combat." "It was all my fault..." Chalk starting crying. "Should not have go alone..." "Hey, what happened, happened, at least Tom's still alive." Mike tried to comfort Chalk. "Can you *sniff* cure him...?" Chalk asked while crying. "I'll do what I can. But as for you..." Mike sit next to Chalk. "Your leg is bad news." Chalk knew his leg hurt, but didn't knew what was wrong with it. "What...What's wrong?" Chalk asked nervously. "For short, you got bitten, and because not well treated, it's infected." Mike responded. "Can it be cured?" Chalk started to feel sick. "I don't know, but from what I have seen and heard, it's a no." Mike patted Chalk on the head."Before the infection spread, immediate amputation is needed." "Amputation?" Chalk didn't understand. "It means cutting your infected leg off." Mike swung his hand up and down like he's cutting something. "No!!!" Chalk couldn't believe it, "Is it really that bad?" and started crying. "Yes, I'm afraid." Mike replied. "Let me ask you something... Do you want to live?" "I DO!!!" Chalk started crying again. "But losing one leg..." Mike shushed Chalk by putting his finger on his lips. "Don't worry, I have a plan." "Really, what's the plan?" Chalk's eyes lighted up a little. "You'll see. But I need your agreement on cutting your leg off..." "I'm still alive because of Tom, he did all this just to find me..." Chalk looked at Tom. "I need to repay him, for that I need to stay alive." "I have made my choice, do it, Mike." Chalk was determined. "Good, no time to waste." Mike patted Chalk's shoulder and stood up gathering medical tools and meds. Finishing collecting required tools, he came back to Chalk, took out 2 dose of med-x and injected them into Chalk. "This will ease the pain." Mike then took out some cloth and gave it to Chalk. "It will still be painful, bite this to endure the pain." Chalk then do so. The last thing Mike took out was medicinal alcohol, tons of bandages, and the cleanest amputator he could find. He cleaned the amputator with some alcohol then pouring the rest of the alcohol around the cutting edge. "Get ready, and you might want to look away..." Chalk closed his eyes, gritted the cloth, Mike then chopped down the infected part of the leg with the amputator. Chalk screamed with his lungs, but the sound was mostly supressed by the cloth. He felt something fell off, even with 2 dose of med-x. The process was quick, and Mike immediately started to deal with the hemorrhage, quickly wrapping bandages around the stomp, and injected stimpaks when possible. Thanks to the power of stimpaks and proper stanch, Chalk's massive bleeding was controlled. Chalk's willpower was strong enough that he didn't fell unconscious after surgery. Mike couldn't be more anxious, but the operation was a success, but the recovering process was another problem. He elevated Chalk's stomp, and fed him some purified water. "You are a brave warrior, rest now. I'll keep an eye on you and Tom." Mike comforted Chalk. Chalk nodded and fell asleep. Mike stood up and do a bit of stretch, "Now, to work on the plan..." and headed toward the work bench. ========================================================================================== Origin from the East, in the Capitol Wasteland, working as a mechanic, he also created a lot of interesting inventions in his free time. After the Brotherhood of Steel took over and the Enclave faded from the region, Mike left the Capitol Wasteland and traveled West. Four years later, arriving at the Mojave Wasteland and partnering with Zach, they settled in Novac. Compared with Zach's crappy hotel room, Mike's room was comfy and fulled of his creations, like a working showers, fridge, air conditioner in the middle of the post-apocalyptic desert. He also created goofy robots, weapons, his modified physic defying Pip-boy 2500 and even a time travelling machine that only he and Zach knew about. While in the Mojave, Mike and Zach went on wacky adventures and worked as bounty hunters, during an operation near Bonnie Springs with Zach and other two companions, Hope Lies and Vincent Vincent. They encountered some Vipers raiders, and during the conflict, Hope and Vincent died in a bombing 'accident'. But their brain was still intact, so Mike created robot bodies for them and they were reborn as cyborgs. ========================================================================================== Back in the cave in Zion, Mike was looking after his patients and preparing to create a prosthetic leg for Chalk, luckily he got all the ingredients he needed in one of his creation, High Capacity Inventory which could carry more than 1000 pounds of items and still feeling normal. From his experience, creating one leg would complete in no time. Before he started his work though, he started to worry, worried about his best friend. Zach was capable, and they sometimes worked on operations seperately. But this time, Zach stuck as Park Ranger Self, with his intelligence at an all-time low, Mike's not so sure at all.