Barrow had been enjoying the drive; he’d never traveled through the wasteland so fast. The terrain in the distance had seemed oddly beautiful, the difference in apparent speeds of the foreground and horizon creating a soothing dance of land. For a brief time, he felt like he was taking a road trip in the Old World, save for the whole ‘scorched earth’ aesthetic.

As they finally stopped, he noticed the hooded stranger coming to. He couldn’t help but feel responsible for trying to make the man’s last few hours comfortable; he was the one who shot him, after all. He got up from the passenger seat and made his way to the now-more-red couch, crouching beside it and giving the man a little shake.

“Hey. Hey, can you hear me?” he asked. He looked over towards the doctor. “Gonna try and get you feeling better, but I need you to tell me about this data disk, okay?”

Donnie listened to Barrow comfort and interrogate the Hooded Man simultaneously. It was quite a feat, being able to both be the man that put him in this condition and try to help him out of it at the same time. Barrow struck Donnie as an altogether mysterious man, with a very practiced craft for communication…

At least Donnie thought he was thinking that - it’s relatively difficult for Donnie to keep a single thought that long. He quickly decided that the words he was trying to use in his brainbox were altogether gibberish, and began poking the man’s head wound with his gloved digits.

“That looks nasty.” He plunged his finger into the deep cut, peeling the skin back as he removed his bloody gloved finger and held it up to his headlamp.

The Hooded Man howled in pain and leaned forward to grasp at his head as the RV hit a large bump - he shot up as Donnie lurched forward, the crown of his headlamp helmet smacking the Hooded Man square in the nose.

The blood and snot shot all over his robe and onto Donnie’s overalls.

“Ugh, gross.” He wiped at his chest, then onto the Hooded Man’s robe, streaking the blood across his chest.

“You should be more careful, mate.” Donnie surmised, with a disapproving look from Barrow.

The RV hit another bump and the Hooded Man howled again as Donnie braced himself from the lurhing vehicle by placing a hand on the Hooded Man’s stomach, likely in the same spot he’d been shot. Once again, finding blood on his glove, he wiped it on the robe of the Hooded Man and stifled a laugh.

“Gee, you’re leaking all over, pally.”

Gabby stood outside and smoked as the three men inside tried to patch up the already dying guy in the hood bleeding out on her red couch.

There were a few things going through her mind right now.

THing…number 1? They’d probably have to dump this dude’s body out in the desert. Yecch.

Thing 2, she had no idea if he was dying with all the information still locked up in his dumb stupid dying head.

Thing 3, because of the…abrupt exit they’d made, she didn’t really have a lot of…food, supplies, or fuel. While she didn’t run on gas (that stuff had bit the dust ages ago) she could pick up some fuel cells around somewhere. But they’d need to go into town with a dead body first.

With that, she opened up the door, and stepped back inside. “So, ah…is he gonna live, doc?”

“Ugh, I hope so” the Doc said, not so confident now that the Mentats had worn off.

“I’ll have a shot at getting that bullet out, now that we’ve stopped bouncing around” he said as he reached into his medikit and pulled out a medical device that looked suspiciously like pliers.

Rick slid his finger into the bullet hole and felt around…… Squishy, squishy, squishy, solid, he quickly pulled his finger out and swapped it for the pliers, trying to relocate the bullet. He found it again and yanked it out, silently congratulating himself that he had successfully extracted the bullet without doing any more damage.

He sewed the hole shut and turned to the others

“He’ll be okay for now, well enough to talk anyway, but without antiseptic that wound might get pretty nasty, and I’m haven’t got any”

Barrow just stared at Donny, a slightly menacing look of displeasure at the sheer incompetence on display. Killing the man wasn’t going to do them any favors, and it sure seemed like Donnie was incapable of helping in that moment.

“Let’s leave the Doc to his work,” he suggest, non-gently grabbing Donnie by the arm and dragging him outside the RV. He gave the miner a little shove away from the vehicles.

“Why don’t you go take a walk around the place, see if you can spot anything,” he said, knowing the likelihood of Donnie being able to see anything in the distance was negligible. As long as the man wasn’t by whatshisface. Giving a small sigh, he fished the map disk from his inside pocket, looking it over. He glanced over towards Gabby.

“Worst-case scenario, we’re gonna need to find a computer terminal. I don’t suppose you’ve run across a working one around here,” he queried.

“We may also need to find some medical supplies,” he added.

Donnie stared out into the wasteland around them. The RV was nestled in between some hills on a long forgotten road, the windswept trash from generations of desert rats sticking to the sides of the hills.

He climbed to the top of the nearest and looked out. The darkness was relentless, with no moonlight to give him a sense of direction.

“How’d she drive in this?” He wondered aloud, knowing full well no one could hear him.

He itched at his helmet as he often did, and considered their situation. With the Nightkin left behind in Junktown to stir up a ruckus, it was unlikely anyone had followed them this far out. They’d been driving quite a while.

With the Hooded Man dying, it was only a matter of time until they’d either have a direction to go, or have lost their lead altogether…

Donnie reminded himself, these thoughts were all too smart for a man like him. Better to keep that to yourself, lest anyone think you’re stupid.

He called back to the RV, “Not much out here… Just a lotta dark.”

She mulled over her words carefully before giving a small shrug. “Well…that’s the not great part–I’ve been out here a couple times. There’s not a whole lot of civilization outside of Junktown. A few watering holes, a few…”

She darted her eyes around. “Well, there’s some hidey holes out here too. But I don’t remember seeing a lot of technology. I do have one idea though.” she said, and grabbed a beaten up old paper map from inside of a closet.

“There’s an old slag yard a few miles from here. If we can get hoodie stable enough, I can get us over there and I’m sure I can cobble us together a computer.”

“Alright, sounds good,” said Barrow with a nod. He looked out towards Donnie.

“Just… stay there, and keep a lookout, alright?” he instructed, sighing softly as he stepped back into the RV. He moved towards the hooded man and the Doctor.

“Hey, you still with us?” he asked the dying dude. “What were you trying to say last time?”

He glanced up at the doctor.

“If we needed to get some anti-septic, any idea where we could?” he asked.

“I’m not familiar with this area either, but any town or caravan should have some for sale. Even a raider camp might have some, not that they would know what to do with it”

Rick glanced back to still unconscious man, “You know I did say we needed anti-septic to help this guy’s, eh, long term survival. He’ll come around whether we have some or not, it is just a matter of time, he could wake up right now or in a few days, not much we can do about that, sorry”

The rest of the crew looked rather impatient, “Alternatively….” he pondered his options, even the not-so-ethical ones, “If anyone has Jet they could give him a shot and that’ll get him talking for sure, but don’t bet on getting more than 5 minutes before his heart gives out.”