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[Out of Milliways: "Paladin Rand, is Paladin Gunny *normally* a liar?"]

An armored Ellen stumps back into the Bar, Dogmeat at her heels, and sneezes. It's been a long day, and she's got some new- well, no, she doesn't have new scars to show for it, but her armor sure does; it's been on the wrong end of a good few bullets and blunt objects very, very recently. Fortunately, it doesn't look too much the worse for wear.

"Bar?" Ellen says. "Can I get water and meat for my dog, and some kind of whiskey or something for myself? I'll eat later, I promise. I just want a drink first."

The Bar pops up a napkin alongside Dogmeat's dishes. Ellen puts those on the floor before checking the napkin. "I suppose you're right," she says. "Just Nuka-Cola, then, I guess."

The bottle appears.

"Thank you," Ellen says, and looks around for a place to sit. Preferably a place where she won't damage the chairs too much.

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Voodoo's sitting in a booth, deep in a copy of The Old Man and The Sea (courtesy of Bar) when the door opens. He looks up and lets out a low whistle.

"Jesus, kid. You look like you've been through the wringer." He gestures to the seat opposite him.

"Paladin Gunny," Ellen says as she heads for the seat, "thinks it's a good idea to let people think they're going to be tested in completely controlled conditions and then send them on a live field test instead so he sees how they do when they haven't been cramming for the exam."

Her face can pretty well be summed up as looking like the icon. Only, y'know, less hair, more dirt and scars.

"Hi, Voodoo."

Voodoo shrugs. "Sounds like some officers I knew. They didn't last long. It's good practice in the short term, but you piss your guys off in the long term."

"So how'd you do?"

"Oh, we did it," Ellen says. "We cleared out a whole nest of mutants from the National Cathedral ruins, and even got two people out of there alive, which is better than I think anyone expected to do. Passed the rest of the test, too- I wanted to thank you for that."

Voodoo grins. "No problem, kid." He turns to a passing waitrat (it was a surprise when he met them a few weeks ago, but it's since lost its WUT factor ~~(painfully obvious handwave is painfully obvious, since the mun totally forgot about the waitrats)~~).

"Hear that, pal? We've got an occasion. Get a pair of Budweisers, will you?" The rat nods and scurries off.

Ellen smiles. "Thanks," she says. "That's a... that's beer, right? They've got so many kinds here I never really know which ones to ask for."

"Yeah, it's a beer. I'm partial to it. It's pretty cheap, too."

The waitrat scurries back to the table, plops two beers onto coasters, and plucks the caps off with a church key.

"Thanks, pal," Voodoo says to the waitrat. He takes his in one hand and raises it.

"For kicking ass and taking names."

"... that sounds about right," Ellen says after a moment's thought, and raises her own in reply. "I'll drink to that."

(The mutants didn't have names, not that she knows of, but since she appears to have been saddled with a new one herself, it's still a pretty accurate summation of the day."

Voodoo takes a swig, emptying about a quarter of his bottle right from the start.

"So. You said you rescued a couple hostages. Any idea what they were doing there in the first place?"

"Oh, the mutants were planning on hauling them off for reproductive purposes," Ellen says. "That, or they might've been planning to eat them, but they probably would've killed them already if that was all they were after."

It takes her a moment to realize that she's got to explain again.

"I... never told you about the mutant problem back home, did I."

Voodoo's heard his share of cannibalism anecdotes, but this is new.

He shakes his head. "Can't say you did. But they don't sound terribly bright if they're willing to tangle with you guys just to reproduce."

"They're not," Ellen says. "I've encountered dozens of them, maybe more, and I've only ever met two who were capable of having an actual conversation. The others are all just ... completely out of whatever minds they ever had. Hang on-"

She gets up and clanks up the stairs quickly, trotting back down with a handful of what look like Polaroids. She passes the first one to Voodoo; it shows a pair of massively muscled, green-skinned figures some distance away. They're easily eight or nine feet tall each.

"Those are what I mean by mutants," Ellen says. "They used to be human. Before the Great War, someone developed a bio-weapon called Forced Evolutionary Virus. Humans who survive being infected with it come out like that, only usually they're driven completely insane by the effects of the infection. They're tougher and stronger and faster than any human has a right to be, but most of them aren't much more than bundles of urges like 'kill' and 'eat'. And the virus makes them completely sterile, so the ones who've got a little bit of brain left know that they need to capture humans alive and haul them off to be infected so that there'll be more mutants."

Voodoo studies the pictures. They look strong and mean as hell, but, in his experience, neither counts for much if you don't have the smarts to use them properly.

"How's the virus transmitted? It's not airborne, is it?"

He's guessing not, since Ellen isn't nine feet tall and orange-green.

Ellen shakes her head. "It's transmitted in fluid. Not bodily fluids, either. By the time someone shows the physical effects the virus load is too low to get infected even if one of them bleeds directly onto broken skin."

"They get bigger and nastier as they get older, too. I don't have any pictures of the... the ones who were coordinating things at Vault 87, where the original virus was being tested. They outnumbered us." She pauses, looks away for a moment or two. Then she shakes herself off and looks back. "Once the Enclave is gone, I have a feeling Elder Lyons is going to arrange an invasion of that Vault so we can wipe these things out at the source. I plan on volunteering."

Voodoo nods. He'd probably do the same if he were in her shoes. "Do what you gotta do, kid. Just so long as you can come out in one piece." He pauses and thinks.

"If you ever need help, I'm always up for an op or two. I'm still Bound, but no one seems to need anyone with my skillset right now. I'm just tired of looking at this bah day after day."

"As soon as I find out where they're sending me, if I can bring someone else along other than Fawkes and Dogmeat, I'll let you know," Ellen promises. "I already have a reputation in the Brotherhood for producing allies at weird times anyway. one more won't be any big thing."

Voodoo nods. "Sounds good."

He's not too bothered about who Fawkes is - right now all that matters is doing something.

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