CHAPTER 2
What I fixed here, isn't fixed there.
When Sanford had been a boy, he had a house and family and all the gifts to come with it. He had a father, a mother, both of whom loved him dearly, he had books to read, movies to watch, food to eat, drink to drink, and basically every other thing that could ensure him happiness, it was all readily available for him- life was good.
He lived in the northern wise suburbs directly outside the main developed fringes of the capitol city of Boston, the largest and most economically successful city in Massachusetts at the time. This was around... 2060? Maybe 2061 or 2062? When he was born? Sanford didn't remember, it wasn't important anymore, he didn't know.
Point was, he lived in this cozy little house far away from the burning globe around him, away from the food stamp riots that devolved the streets of Manhattan under the shoes of angry mobs, the massed draft of young men across the nation to fuel an intercontinental war for the United States Army, the occupation of Canada and the Mexican State.
His father had been a decorated combat veteran and war hero for the Army by the time he came home- he had served in the defense of Anchorage from invading Chinese soldiers, and his deeds there had been written down to the letter, in the books of infantry tactics, for all Sanford junior knew.
His father had battled Chinese soldiers everywhere in the cold forests, hills, plains, and the industrialized manufacturing center that Anchorage city had become- he dueled Chinese paratroopers in the mountains, knocked out gigantic guns that the Communists had fortified on the heights of Susitna, he had rampaged through the ranks of his enemies and had saved countless of his comrades... Sanford had liked to think that was where he had gotten some of his ability to fight from.
Of course that was before his father had become... something else, something Sanford didn't entirely understand. Two hundred years later, his father was still alive too, but, that was a rather unique situation that was a story in and of itself.
-Digressing, what was important in Sanford's young life, was that he didn't meet his own dad probably a year or two after he had been born, and his father was able to return from the overwhelming victory the Army had enjoyed in Alaska.
It wasn't long after that leave, that precious and short amount of time that Sanford senior had with his only son, and his wife- that he was again called for when the Army was planning an offensive in Asia and the Pacific.
The military had gathered in the American colonial holdings of the Philippines and Democratic Japan- two groups of people who still were bitter at the United States for disallowing autonomy in their own governments, and landing operations were planned for Hong Kong, Taiwan, and in Chinese occupied Korea.
His father went to Japan, but got tied up when the Chinese instead took the American's place as invaders and landed near Sasebo and several other northern coastal cities on Japanese soil, the Marines and the Army still landed on and took Taiwan, his father only served in Taiwan briefly after fighting the Communists off Japan.
Truthfully, Sanford did not know the entirety of his father's military career, he only knew the specifics of Anchorage, and Japan, but Sanford senior didn't speak a lot about what he saw in Taiwan and eventually Hong Kong when the Chinese started losing.
The loss of life had been utterly horrendous, thousands of American soldiers had died, tens of thousands- and the amount of Chinese men that he and his unit had killed was just... it was simply hellish, seas and seas of bodies, bodies piled so high that they obscured firing cones and made it easier for Chinese infantry to climb over their dead and reach their positions quicker.
Sanford's father wasn't a veteran to show the scars of the things he saw outwardly very much, he came home with some marks from grazing bullets and shrapnel, he had some stories, he was a little more gruff- according to his mother, then he had been when he had left, but other than that, well, you couldn't outwardly tell.
Sanford senior's son, you know, THE Sanford, the one today, here and now- was pretty oblivious to it all, to what his father had done with his life, what his job had been, what was happening around the world... and the reason for that was because his father was severing him from most of the media.
Linda, Sanford's mother, was not agreeing upon this notion, she claimed that their son had a right to understand the world he would grow up in- but Sanford senior, clouded in his judgment by the things he had seen and done in Alaska, and Japan, and China, wouldn't hear it.
Sometimes, Sanford junior would wake up in the middle of the night to hear his father sobbing, and his mother muttering things to him- he was always crying about a nightmare he'd have, and whenever Sanford asked him about it, he would play stupid.
"Nightmare? What nightmare, son? No nightmares for this man. How about a movie?"
-There was yet another tactic.
If words didn't consol or change the subject, his father would go on a money spending spree for his son, and, hell, with all the dollars that had been pumped into his accounts by the Army for being a prime instrument in their victories in Asia, he had the funds to go to town.
With the mind of a child, all the concerns for his parents' wellbeing would become flushed, translucent amid a fabricated barrier of happiness and normality, there was nothing normal about what his father was going through, or by extension, his mother.
When the world had finally doomed itself, and Sanford was old enough to start to piece together what was happening, home life had started going downhill when he would outright tell his father to go scratch, and would read his head off about world events, sometimes right in front of him.
Sanford remembered one time back then, even though it had been two hundred years, it had only been a decade for him, since he had slept for the two hundred before and had been active for the next twelve- he remembered how angry his father had gotten one time.
"-The fact that the military did to Canada what it did, is disgusting."
"My son, you're right, but it was out of my hands from the start, I had and still don't have that kind of authority, it's not so simple as-"
"-Mmmmmm..."
"...Why are you like that?"
"Because."
"...Why are you angry?"
"Because."
"...How could you be angry at ME? I didn't want to go around the world, and be away from you or your mother, I didn't want to fight people, and I didn't want to see ANYONE get hurt!"
"Mmmmmm."
"-Excuse me," His father was beat red. "-But that was my job, and I did my job to support YOU, you and your mother, because it's my responsibility to care for the two of you!"
"I can't believe you were a part of that."
"-I didn't go into Canada! And if I had I wouldn't have been in the papers like some of those other people were!"
"How do YOU know?"
"-THAT'S IT-!" His father roared. "-This conversation is over! Go upstairs, don't come down!"
"No!"
"-What did you just say to me?"
"I said NO."
-That was only a few days before the bombs dropped.
A few days later, nuclear fire bathed the planet, and Sanford and his parents hid themselves in Vault 111, built by the monopoly corporation named Vault Tec, where they would remain frozen in experimental cryo pods for the next two hundred years.
Sanford's parents had emerged almost twenty years before Sanford did, and they left him under the thinking that his vitals had failed- Sanford senior and Linda went on to become divided Directors in the post-apocalyptic think tank called the Institute, where Sanford senior referred to himself as 'Ordy' and took control of the Secession, whilst Linda oversaw the Division, two groups within the group.
Twelve years after Sanford Tobs emerged from Vault 111, found his old house, found the old Red Rocket Gas Station his father used to fuel the sedan at, found Hancock, his best friend- he had become a notable scavenger and fighter across Boston, he befriended powerful settlements, traders and merchants, he had a thing going for himself.
Sanford had taught himself everything over long and hard years, he taught himself how to shoot guns, how to make and modify them for more comfortable tunes and adjustments for his fit, he learned how to disassemble computers and other hardware, how to tinker with industrial equipment, how to smelt, blacksmithing, he taught himself how to fight with melee weapons...
Remember, this was over twelve years, Sanford had gotten good at these things, it wasn't like he had become a 'Master' in the blink of an eye, it had taken more work than he had ever put towards anything in his life.
At the height of his time here, with Hancock by his side, Sanford was made to run into his third and final party member.
Her name was Nyx, and Nyx wasn't human.
See in addition to the occupations of its neighbors, the colonization of overseas territories, the severing of ties with Europe and the greatest draft in American history, the United States had been experimenting with all kinds of horrible things, and had even allowed corporations to get away with such immoral practice to advance their technology and manufacturing output.
One of the things, among an assortment, that the military and governmental agencies, such as the CIA, had been trying to produce, was a quick and resourceful means to non-human soldiers. Now this wasn't to say that the varied combat robot models weren't good at what they did, it was just that for the scale of war that the Army was engaged in, they didn't have enough Gutsys, or Assaultrons, or Sentry Bots to completely replace infantry formations, robots were supplemental at this point.
So the military started trying to grow something, through the use of organic manipulations, chemical compounds, radiation, and base organisms from the natural animal kingdom- they tried to make a cloned attack hound, something that could be programmed like a machine, but was faster, smarter, and able to comprehend orders better.
Manufacturing of robots still took place- it had to of, seeing as there were still thousands of the freaking things still trotting around to this day -what with all the Chinese Americans detained, there were plenty of brains available for Robo-Brains, and the factories at RobCo and General Atomics could spit out Gutsys and Protectrons like candy...
But someone thought it would be a grand idea to make a creature that could both kill twenty times its own number, and demoralize the enemy with its sheer presence, all the while being wholly expendable.
This is where Deathclaws came from, horrors of the Wastes.
Nyx was one of them, not naturally born like most of her now independent species, but grown, like the first of her kind, and she had been grown by a group called the Enclave, or the Continuant of the United States, she had escaped, trekked thousands of miles, and had fled into Boston.
Since this was a story of intertwined fates, she of course ran into Sanford and Hancock, and after a period of uncertainty and rivalry, became integrated with them in the only example of cross-species friendship of such in the entire East Coast.
Though as time flew, Nyx wouldn't describe her relationship with Sanford as merely being a 'Friend' and neither would he, and that's where it got weird.
Sanford really didn't have an issue with it anymore, it had been a year, he'd gotten used to her in a way no human ever could, he appreciated her company and had grown to become driven by almost everything about her, a place he had been polar opposite of in the beginning.
She always had referred to him as 'Monsieur', and she still did, but now it was a lot of 'Mon ami' and 'Mon cher' in with it, he hadn't referred to her as 'Deathclaw' in a year, it was always 'Girl' -and sometimes he said it in front of people just to see the way their faces twisted funny.
Not that anyone knew what the extent was with them, but, people, even in a post apocalyptic setting, were still run amiss by things that weren't 'Normal' and really Sanford didn't give a rat's ass. Every day could have been his last, he lived in a world where everything was hostile all the time, and risk was the name of the game... Besides, he'd done plenty of good deeds for the ungrateful turds of Boston, he could suck face with whoever the fuck he wanted.
"-I think I'm gonna' take a walk over to the CIT campus tonight," Sanford stated out of the blue. "I won't be long, I just want to pick up and check on the usual, you know?"
"You shouldn't travel at night." She informed him simply. "What if you got jumped, Sanford?"
"I'd have the armor, and my gun, I'd shoot whatever it was in the face." He shrugged, and then laughed. "Out of all the people you're concerned about going in the BIG BAD SCARY darkness, why me, huh?"
"Because you're the only one I give two shits about." Nyx raised a brow, leaning her head forwards, water dripping down her neck in tiny, translucent rivers. "Wait until tomorrow, and I'll go with you."
"I just... DON'T think, it's a good idea for you to come in with me, okay?"
"He may have stuck me in a tube, and prodded me, and poked me, le rat laide... But I would never make an attempt on his life, seeing as he's your... father..."
"...Yep."
"...It still is shocking to me, monsieur'."
"...Me too."
"And you hadn't seen him in over twenty years?"
"-Well, TWELVE, but he was out for another twenty beforehand, so, he hasn't seen me in, like, thirty or so years, I haven't seen him in twelve."
"Mon Dieu."
"-'My God'- right?"
"Mmhm."
"-Beni' Notre Seigneur... uhm... et Sauveur'? Right? Maybe?"
"Oui', Sanford, very good!" She smiled, sitting forwards in the water and letting her arms drape back into the banks. "Vous' etes' en train d'ameliorer."
"...Wait, you lost me," He smiled. "-Improving?"
"It means you are in the process of improving."
"Oh, uhm... Good! Ha!"
"Mm."
Nyx was beaming at him from where she lay on the sandy bar at the edge of the little river line that ran through the development of Sanford's old house- the same she had tried when he had first showed his old place of establishment to her a year ago.
Sometimes when the rain wasn't picking up enough, and there wasn't any water for bathing, Sanford would simply come here with her, the water was clean, it was chilly sometimes, but it did what it was supposed to.
It was just an arm of reflective, clear liquid, meandering down a submerged vein of rocky flooring, it extended all the way north, and then vanished by a campus further south by the fringes of the city, it was a long river, thin and quiet here, Sanford didn't know where it originated up north, he'd never followed it that far in that direction.
But, standing in his birthday suit on the shallow flank of the main stream, running a sopping, soapy rag over his sweaty form- he was too busy being embroiled in trying to rid himself of a day's collection of perspiration to really think about that old question he used to ask.
Where does this damned river start? He'd think. It's been here for two hundred years, and even back then I still didn't know!
-Well, now it was two hundred and thirteen, and he still didn't know. Go figure.
In the resulting quiet, the only noises heard were his legs making an occasional splash as he stepped around, raised his arms to get the rag under them, he glanced over at Nyx who was watching him in her half-submerged sprawl on the sand nearby, her tail was flowing ghostly to her right, drifting in the current's direction under the water softly.
"What are you smiling at?" He joked.
"Oh, nothing, nothing at all, Sanford." The seven foot tall, biogenetically engineered being giggled, giggled, what a word to describe the sounds she made sometimes, it was unfathomable to anyone else.
But just because she was covered in scales, and was a little taller, and had a dragon head, and really sharp teeth and a tail... She was still, bare bones, a girl, and some girls just giggled a lot. Pretty ironic, this was the same chick who could lift a car up and use it to crush someone.
Funny how that image looked with only him.
"Nothing, huh?" Sanford turned around and faced her, standing on his tip toes on the rocky bottom. "I dunno', tell that to my friend down here."
"Mhmmhmm..." Nyx curled a set of fingers over her snout. "-I suppose it IS rather appealing to look at."
"JUST to look at? My goodness, I'm offended!" Sanford joked, gesturing to himself. "You wound me!"
"You would be, willing, to try, monsieur'?" The smile left her face, he didn't know how to describe that look about her now.
"-W-Would I be willing?" He parroted. "-Of course, why wouldn't I be?"
"-Non', Sanford, I wasn't implying- y-you simply had not, SAID so, at all... I wasn't certain."
"O-Oh, well, I'm saying now, is that okay?"
"Yes, yes it is."
"This got... REALLY awkward, at a really awkward time." Sanford shrugged, smiling, bunching the rag he held until its soapy contents drained into the water.
Nyx found a reason to break eye contact and watch the stream of suds plop into the clear surface below, producing a consistent, moist dribble.
"...You know, that, you mean the world to me, right?" He asked.
"Mm."
"By this point, it's just... HARD for me to see what I, uhm... You know, what I saw when I first met you, or rather- it's hard for me to see you the same way."
"I understand what you mean."
"I would definitely be willing to sit down with you, and see what we could... FIGURE OUT, I guess. I mean, our biology is, different..."
"Radically so."
"Yeah."
"I appreciate your patience with this very much, Sanford. I know that I had put the topic up in the air, uncomfortably, in the past. I don't mean to rescind that interest, but, pardonne' ma lenteur- it is different for me, now that it is a serious part of our lives."
"Hey," Sanford grinned. "I'm here for you, whatever you want to do, however you want to handle it."
She made that puffing noise with her nostrils. She did that whenever he flattered her, happened a lot nowadays.
"Anyway," He started to trot past her, sifting through the water. "Are you all done? We can head home?"
"Oui'."
"Lemme' just get all my stuff together, and then I'll grab the suit at the station."
"I cannot convince you to wait until tomorrow, mon cher'?"
"...I don't feel right going there any other way but alone, it bothers me."
"Sur'." Water sloshed, fell in tiny torrents from her as she stood, flicking her tail and sending glittering contrails of tossed moisture about.
"Listen, I appreciate it, but I'll be fine, really! I'm running out of things to try and eat me anyway!"
"That's not lessening my concern, so you know." She hummed musingly.
"Meh, I tried."
"Mm."
"You know, I'm getting better at the French, you're getting better at scavenging," Sanford observed as he ran a larger towel from the pile of his clothes nearby, over his stomach. "-You found some really good stuff back at the ship."
"It's all metal to me," She shrugged. "I seek certain colors and I find them."
"I lift things up and put them down?"
"What?"
"-Sorry, old joke." Sanford laughed. "REALLY old joke, I think... WAY before I was born, that was when my grandfather was around."
"You have never spoken of a grandparent with any specifics."
"I just don't know anything about them," He angled his lips. "I know I had on my ma's side, grandma was in Newfoundland, and grandpa met her there on business."
"Your father's parents were unknown, I remember?"
"Yep, he never talked about them." Sanford nodded. "I don't think it was a good relationship."
"You never had a similar type of estrangement from your own parents?"
"Not until now, nope."
"Did you ever think about children?"
"What do you mean?"
"Having children, I mean specifically."
"No. What about you?"
"Non', I could not live the way I do if I ever did, reellement'."
"Is that the only reason you wouldn't have any?"
"I don't want any." Nyx rubbed her upper arm, fingers wrapping and flexing. "That isn't something I would enjoy."
"Huh, most parents would agree with you in a sick sense," Sanford said. "I've heard it's a lot of work, but that it's all worth it."
"Mm."
Sanford ran the towel through his hair a few times, he took it away when Nyx trotted over and leant downwards, he felt heated moisture over his mouth, it always rough whenever she was the one to initiate it, but she settled after a second, and they parted.
He laughed at her drunken look, her yellow eyes narrowing in the shade of evening, she 'Tsked' -at his reaction and bumped her larger forehead into his hair.
"I try to show affection and you SCOFF me." She pouted.
"I still can't get over that you can do that, I think it's cool."
-0-0-0-0-0-
Everything was in working order at home, automated defenses, electric systems, power generation, and water filtration- Sanford left it and trekked into the darkness of Boston's barren landscape, he followed the cracked pavement of the road that lead past the station, to his old development, by that river they had left.
"-GREAT STENCH OF THE GOVERNMENT'S LIES! You're LEAVING ME?!" Hancock ranted. "-And by extension- YOU'RE LEAVING ME WITH HER?!"
"Keep your distance from me, usiner, and you'll have nothing to fear." Nyx rolled her eyes.
"FUCKER!"
"Here's the good news, I don't plan on being away long enough that the two of you try to kill each other." Sanford stated factually.
"I make no promises." She growled.
"Bring it on, you humanoid TAPEWORM! I'll rip off your face and eat it!"
"From the one without a mouth?"
"...Take it back..."
"Non'."
"TAKE IT BACK RIGHT NOW, YOU SWINDLER!"
"-I'll be back in two hours tops." Sanford grinned and turned around from where he stood in the garage- his armor creaking, the boots thudding on the dirt outside. "If you guys could NOT break something, I'd really be appreciative."
"I make no PROMISES." Nyx reminded in a sing-song tone. "-Don't you brandish that thing at me!"
"BACK BEAST! YAH! FEAR ME! For I am, HAN'Z, master monster matador and tamer! OBSERVE! Awed and shocked crowd-!"
"Put that down before you damage yourself, usiner."
"-AS I THWART THE CREATURE'S ATTEMPT TO EAT ME, BY SHOVING A CHAIR IN ITS FAT FACE!"
There was the distinct sound of breaking glass, snapping wood, and the angry, hissing, reptilian outcry of his Deathclaw- Sanford stopped halfway out the front gate entry for the protective wall, and cringed.
"THAT'S IT-!" He heard Nyx scream.
"-HOLY FUCK! SHE'S GONE BERSERK-!" BM-Bm-CRSSSHHH! -More breaking wood. "-SOMEONE FIND A LEASH AND MUZZLE!"
"I'd say- 'Play Nice' -but... probably a bad idea." Sanford muttered, sliding the gateway shut behind him, he tapped in the security code on the panel of the frame, glanced up at all the automatic turrets rotating around on the roof of the shack, made sure they recognized his vitals.
With the sounds of wanton chaos erupting from his home, Mr. Tobs trotted out into the dark landscape abound, he fell in line with the road, passed a rusty car corpse, and headed south, the night vision filters in his helmet allowing him to see everything with clarity.
He glanced up at the dull, cloudy, blackened sky above- and he saw some stars struggling to make themselves known between the thick wisps of floating gaseous molecules.
He was off for the Institute, or, what was left of it.
And he was going to see his father, or, the man who used to be, his father.
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