Tained buffout

After Lucy managed to break free from the dirty surgical table she ran through the abandoned store, frantically looking for a way out. The Mister Handy that tried to dissect her was on her tail. She tried pushing some shelves and rusty shopping carts his way, but he easily leapt over them with a burst from his atomically powered thrusters.

"Shit, Shit, Shit!" She cursed to herself. She reached the back of the store, with a single door on either far end of the wall. Over the years the signs above the doors had decayed and she could not make them out. She had no time to think and dashed off to the left. Mister Handy was right behind her. She pulled the door and it opened. "Unlocked!" She yelled in relief. Without looking twice she jumped through the door and shut it close behind her. Using a large metal bar she blocked the door from opening.

Not a second too soon. Mister Handy was trying to get through the door, slamming against it with his tools. With a posh accent, it asked Lucy to come out so he could dissect her. The lightbulb in the small room was broken, yet there was a dim light inside the small room. A greenish glow.

Lucy inspected the room, it was a storage locker without any other exits. The shelf behind her was crooked, all the items stored here were scattered about the floor, lying in a pool of green luminescent goo. It covered the entire floor and she was standing boots deep into it herself.

Lucy noticed the two barrels labelled 'nuclear waste' leaking liquid onto the floor. It was hard to hear with all the banging outside, but she finally registered her Pip boy's Geiger counter pinging as frantically as she felt.

She had nowhere to go and a homicidal robot waiting for her outside the door. A door that would not keep it out for much longer. Lucy looked around for a weapon or escape, but there was nothing. She did, however, notice the two jars of Buffout lying in the pool of green goo. Using a broom she pulled the canisters closer. When she picked them up, they felt curiously warm to the touch.

She contemplated taking them, but that would no doubt be a very bad idea. But at that same moment, a large metal buzz saw hacked through the metal door, only missing her by inches as it quickly started tearing open the metal door further. She was backed against the proverbial corner, with no options left, Lucy opened the jar of radiated Buffout and consumed the contents, ignoring the fact that the compound itself was warm and glowing too.

She burped and immediately felt nauseated, her sights turned foggy, she felt like vomiting, but before she could do so she lost consciousness...

... Slowly her eyes opened. Lucy felt weird, like waking up rested after a long sleep in front of the heat of a soothing Vault-Tec radiator. Taking a second to get her barings she looked in front of her to find the Mister Handy robot laying in shambles before her. It had been torn to shreds like it just had a run-in with a Deathclaw. How was this possible? How was she still alive?

Feeling confused, Lucy made her way to the shop exit and stumbled into the door that swung open, unaware she ripped the large metal chains clean from the locks. The bright outdoor lights blinded her for a minute, but slowly as her sights returned, so did her self-awareness. She raised her arms and inspected them in shock and awe. She still couldn't remember what had happened inside the store, but she decided to accept it and continue her quest.