Hey there everyone. I apologise greatly for the late chapter and the late replies. I'm truly, truly sorry. I promise I'll get back to your replies. And I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint. It drained me completely.
W00t69, awwww man. You're awesome too. :D ((Mega hug back))
AND BEAUTIFUL, EXPRESSIVE FANART. By the talented ChewedTurkey:
shavin' – chewedturkey(.)deviantart(.)com/art/fallout-3-shavin-205350568
GAZE – chewedturkey(.)deviantart(.)com/art/fallout-3-GAZE-205870285
Thank you for waiting. Thank you for reading. On to the chapter. (One more chapter to go) Hope you enjoy it.
Trouble
Chapter 36
He landed. Hard. His body skidded across the floor. The rifle slid away from him with a loud screech. In the middle of a breath, a huge fist obscured his vision. He twisted away, the fist skimming the side of his face before banging into the floor. Harkness turned. Forced an elbow into his attacker's face; It crumpled against him. He scrambled to his feet, pressing down uselessly against the wound on his stomach. Still bleeding. Still sparking at his insides. The edges were tinged with blue. Burn marks. 11.4% damage. He faced his attacker. It was Meathead clad in black. 4 out of 5 Meatheads. This Dark Meathead must've been waiting outside. He must've been ticked off and he mowed Harkness down to protect his master. Dark Meathead's eyes were focused on him. Shiny and unblinking. Too alert. His nose was distorted, scrunched into his face. His fists were by his sides. No guns. Because his bastard of a master didn't want bullets flying near precious equipment. Fucking Zimmer.
He saw the bastard rush out of the lab, looking back at him while the other unnamed Meathead followed closely. Serge and Eulogy were nowhere. Saint was running to Zeno while Butch – Fuck. HP-17 was stalking him and Butch was raising his bat.
Harkness took a step forward. Dark Meathead charged.
He barely managed to dodge; their arms grazed as they passed. Dark Meathead swung his arm out. Harkness smacked it away. Dark Meathead brought up his knee. Harkness blocked it. He plugged his fist into Dark Meathead's stomach. Unyielding. Like hitting metal. The strike made Dark Meathead stumble, just one step - before he grabbed Harkness. Lifted him clean off the floor too easily. And flung him into the air as though he weighed like nothing. He crashed into the table. It splintered under him. 22.1% damage. Empty glasses lay shattered beside him, its contents soaking into his clothes. Harkness flipped over. Glass and wood sank into the palms of his hands, sharp spikes cutting into flesh. He pushed himself on all fours. And Dark Meathead jammed a foot into his stomach. The jolt of pain emptied him of breath. It ripped through him. Sparked a burst of electricity that clawed at his veins. 27.3% damage. He folded over, shaking uselessly. Dark Meathead wrenched his head up. Harkness saw the flash of a machine smile - before the huge fist smashed into his face. His vision blanked out, the throbbing pain streaking through his skull. 54.7% damage. The next hit desynchronised him. He saw his blood spatter the floor. He couldn't feel his face.
Dark Meathead jerked his head back again. His gaze analysing as he stared down at Harkness. Startlingly familiar. Harkness faintly felt blood trickle down his jaw. Felt the remnants of the charge stirring in him. He saw the fist again, now bloodied, rearing back. He blindly groped the floor; his fingers curled around something. With strength, he jammed the glass upwards, driving it through all resistance. Dark Meathead jolted. Staggered backwards. Released Harkness. Harkness dropped to the ground, struggling to hold himself up. He was trembling. Both the charge and the uncommon pain; they ravaged him. He forced himself up. He slid a table leg off the floor. With all his weight, he swung, catching Dark Meathead's chin, the contact snapping his head back. Without pause, Harkness cracked the table leg over his head again. The leg snapped, its now jagged broken edge pointing at Dark Meathead. Harkness lunged. He rammed the wood forwards. Dark Meathead lurched. He looked down at the wood sticking out of his chest as though puzzled. Then he looked up at Harkness. His face - there was a shard of glass sticking out his right eye. Dark Meathead gripped the wood in his chest. He pried it out smoothly, disturbingly easy, leaving a gaping hole. He tossed the wood over his shoulder. Before they could hear it hit the ground, something angular collided into Harkness.
He hit the floor again. 56.5% damage. Not as hard as the previous time. But it left him winded. He looked up. HP-17 was staring down at him.
Bullshit.
Butch – Was HP-17 done with him? And Saint? Fuck.
Something metallic glinted in the light. The blade. Harkness moved himself back. Away. But HP-17 wasn't holding a blade. It was his hand; two fingers had been stripped off its skin revealing crude metallic pieces that looked like scalpels. It hadn't been a blade that cut him. It was HP-17's scalpel fingers. He saw the bloodstains on them. He hoped they only belonged to him. He waited for the finger blades to strike. Instead, HP-17 tilted his head at him. There was some resemblance of emotion in his gaze. Something that looked like fear. Then, HP-17 turned away from him. With sudden and human-like agility, HP-17 launched himself at Dark Meathead.
What the hell – Was HP-17 attempting to save him?
Dark Meathead was clearly confused as well. He didn't even dodge when HP-17 banged into him. HP-17 slashed the air. Sliced down Dark Meathead's arm. Dark Meathead jumped back, clutching his arm. Face open and frozen. Not in pain, but something close to it. Almost gracefully, HP-17 plunged his fingers into the gaping wound in Dark Meathead's chest. Buried them to the hilt. Immediately, tendrils of blue currents danced haphazardly around Dark Meathead's body. Making him shake. Making him jerk in spasms as the currents ripped through him. HP-17 remained unmoved.
Harkness stood up. He saw his rifle approximately 7 metres away. He was about to make a run for it when he saw Dark Meathead seize HP-17.
His strong hands curled around HP-17's throat. HP-17 gave a short cry. Dark Meathead twisted HP-17 away, dislodging the fingers from his flesh while the grip tightened around the throat. HP-17 scrabbled at it. Struggled against the hold. Jabbed the scalpels into Dark Meathead's arm and face. Kicked his metal legs at Dark Meathead. Dark Meathead, unfazed, hurled him at the cylindrical tank.
The tank shattered into a rain of glass which sang delicate tinkles upon hitting the floor. HP-17 landed on the ground with a loud thud. He writhed.
In front of Harkness, Dark Meathead was still in spasms. The blue currents were still looping around him as he started towards Harkness.
"Chiefy." Saint. He faced Saint's disembodied voice to see a pulse grenade flying in the space between Dark Meathead and him. While the grenade hurtled through the air, he heard a gunshot. He saw the bullet racing to it. Saw it pierce perfectly through the grenade casing. The pulse charge burst through the metal and the grenade exploded mid- air.
Harkness could see the whole sphere of pulsing blue, this time. A ball of light suspended above the floor. It engulfed the space. Engulfed Dark Meathead. Light spilled out his eyes. His mouth was open in a silent scream. Dark Meathead shook erratically in the sphere, the thin blue lines zipping wildly around his frame. Through the gaping hole in his chest, Harkness saw flares of blue, like small explosions moving through the wires. The pulse ball widened. Then, it dispersed, leaving stray crackles in the air. Dark Meathead continued standing. A second later, he collapsed to the ground, his head hitting the floor with a thunk. His legs folded awkwardly under him. The piece of glass was still stuck in his eye. There were blue tinges lining the edge of his wound. Burned. Bloodless. The blue lines still moved around his body. Survival status for Dark Meathead: undefined. Harkness walked to him. He only took 2 steps before hands grabbed him.
"Shit. You're bleedin' all over the fuckin' floor." Butch. It stung where he pressed on his injuries. But his hands were warm and... He felt his system let go instantly, embracing the immense relief that washed over him. Relieved that Butch was here and whole and mostly uninjured. His system focused on that touch instead of the whirlwind of pain tearing through him. He inhaled. Exhaled.
"I…" Harkness started, watching Butch's eyes travel over him. His throat felt dry. Torn. "I can't control the rate I bleed."
"…Yeah," Butch said after 2 long seconds. "Me too," he breathed in the space between them. Warm hands slid up his neck. A combination of comforting and arresting. A thumb dragged across his chin, tracing the skin under his lower lip, slick and rough at the same time. It wiped away the synthetic blood he knew was there. The touch made his chest ache. It quieted the error reports in his system. Pushed away some of the tension. The corners of Butch's lips slowly tipped up, pulling at the bruise that mottled his jaw. There were two cuts on the right sleeve of his jacket.
"HP-17 cut you." Harkness fingered the frays in the material, wondering how the hell he had done that without telling his system first. His fingers were shaking. He forced them still. He noticed that he was swaying. He forced himself steady.
"Sure." Butch pulled Harkness' fingers away from the frays. "But leather's an in-sulator, y'know," he added. Right. Harkness knew that. HP-17's charge didn't reach Butch. Harkness' charge hadn't reached Butch even with their fingers twined like this.
A long, high-pitched whine cut through the air. When he turned, Saint was already kneeling down beside HP-17, a palm on HP-17's forehead. Saint's right hand was still curled around a pistol. And he had a grin on his face again. But it wasn't happy or deranged. This one looked sad. Upset. Saint was looking at HP-17 with deep sorrow and his grin faltered at the edges. HP-17 was lying in a pool of his own blood. Shards of glass embedded into his flesh. His right metal leg had twisted away from where it was soldered, and now, blood was flowing freely from the gash. HP-17 was twitching, like energy was rippling through every centimetre of his body. His metal legs. His scalpel fingers. His skin. His mouth. Even his eyes were twitching, wide open and mostly staying on Saint. Where they had been grey, now, there was a tiny splash of colour in those irises. The human suffering was clear; there was no trace of the machine here. What the hell happened? Was the machine gone? HP-17 was moaning. Whimpering. Sobbing. In between those pained gasps, he was begging Saint for death.
It was… Harkness was going to get to Zimmer and blow his brains out.
He turned away. His eyes fell on Zeno.
Still deactivated. Still lying down on the table. Glasses still on the bridge of his nose. But Zeno wasn't left untouched in the battle. He had been flayed open. Cut across the middle. Flesh pulled apart to reveal -nothing. There was no metal underneath his flesh. His torso was hollow. It was like all of Zeno's metals, innards and wires had been extracted from his body. Zeno was an empty cavity. Except that he wasn't. Stepping closer, Harkness could see a bag in the cavity. He could see 6 pulse grenades peeking out of it. 2 more were on the floor. Saint was a sneaky bastard.
He took the bag of grenades out of Zeno's cavity.
It was then that the expected gunshot cracked resoundingly in the lab. Harkness no longer heard HP-17's whimpers or the scrapes of his metal legs twitching against the floor.
"Eulogy's running," Saint announced. He straightened up, flicking his lighter open, then shut in a way that made it seem like the action was a battle cry. "Zimmer's upstairs."
Right.
This was where they all parted ways.
Harkness shoved the bag of 8 pulse grenades into Saint's hands. Butch and Saint needed the pulses more than he did. Harkness could manage even if his system was 39% in operation. He could. Probably. He didn't really want to think about it. Saint nodded at him, squeezed his shoulder and handed him his assault rifle. Butch wanted to protest; it was obvious from the way he frowned, parted his lips and took a deep breath. But whatever he saw in Harkness' face shut him up. Instead, he curled his fingers around Harkness' wrist. Gripped it tight. Pulled him close for a moment to peer at him. There was this urgency in his eyes. Like he was pleading for Harkness to do something. Harkness didn't know what Butch was asking. He didn't even know what he was asking Butch.
"We'll come back for you," Saint promised, giving him a hollow grin. Butch gave him another lingering look before he released Harkness. He followed Saint. Again.
Harkness turned to the stairs. Upstairs, Saint said. That wasn't unexpected. Zimmer tended to equate higher levels to higher authority. And instead of running, Zimmer was hiding. The sick bastard wouldn't run now. Especially not when Harkness, A3-21, was in the same building. The sick bastard should have figured out who he was by now. This meant that Zimmer was waiting.
Sixth level. The last level. The lights in this hallway were bright. 160 watt like those in the lab. There was no whirring of machines. No ticking. Just silence. Just Harkness in an empty hallway. It felt odd to be going in this alone after getting used to company. Whenever he glanced to his side, he expected to see Ghost-Butch. It was ridiculous. There were glimpses of him in his system, but they never appeared here.
Up ahead, he heard heavy footsteps. Meathead. Of course. Meatheads, he corrected himself when another set of footsteps joined the first. A pair of double doors opened up and the last 2 Meatheads stepped out. 5 out of 5 Meatheads. They had been waiting for him. Of course. Just like he had heard their footsteps, they had heard his. He wasn't sneaky. No android was. They stalked him. Their twin bulky frames almost blocking the hallway as they walked. If they were anything like Dark Meathead, Harkness, logically, wouldn't be able to take them down.
Harkness lifted up his rifle. The Meatheads charged. He pulled the trigger. The bullets raced through the air. Penetrating both Meatheads. Across their torsos. Their legs. Their arms. Their heads. He could see the holes where the bullets entered. The Meatheads continued their path. The left Meathead swung at him. Harkness dodged the first hit only to get struck by the next one. Fast and hard across his face. It felt like his head popped off his body. He tripped backwards. One Meathead hauled him across the hallway. He was slammed against the wall. 66.8% damage. Before he could take a breath, he was pierced with electricity again.
His vision shimmered dangerously. This voltage was less intense. But the constant hum made his body ache. Sore. His joints. His face. His chest. His system. Every wire in his frame. He could feel the way the currents burned within him. Could taste it on his tongue when he panted. His system crackled in piercing bursts behind his lids, in the tips of his fingers, in his teeth. Connecting and disconnecting in his veins. Making his nerves jump. Making him lose control. He couldn't grip his fingers. Couldn't wriggle. Couldn't squirm when the Meatheads dragged him across the hall past open doors. They threw him to the floor. In front of fucking bastard Zimmer.
Zimmer stood there, watching. Looking pleased. Looking like he was glad and relieved. The fucking bastard. In halting movements, Harkness pushed himself up. He slipped. He tried again. And again. He lost his balance twice. Meathead on the left placed a foot on his back. Pinned him down. Meathead on the right stepped to Zimmer and placed something white in Zimmer's outstretched hand. Zimmer dangled the white cylindrical object gleefully in front of him. Harkness recognised it. It was the tool he used back in the Commonwealth. He had used it before on runners. Three runners. On field tests. On runners that were too valuable to be 'erased'. On runners that had to be subdued before being carried back to the Commonwealth. This was what it felt like to be subdued?
"I'm sorry, A3-21. But I had to subdue you."
"…B-bull..shhit…" Harkness spat through gritted teeth, vibrating uncontrollably. He tried to buck Meathead's foot off him. It wouldn't budge. The tormenting charge continued disrupting his system. In the short strains when he could connect, his system told him he was depleting. 35.7% in operation. 35.6% in operation. 35.5% in operation.
"You're an expensive piece of equipment and I don't want you excessively damaged. I dare say you are worth more than the factory you came out of," Zimmer continued in his grating voice as though Harkness hadn't spoken. "I suppose you took care of Eulogy Jones?" Harkness didn't reply. "No matter. My objectives have changed now that you're here. We're going back to the Commonwealth."
Harkness could only grunt in reply. 34.0% in operation. 33.9% in operation. 33.8% in operation. 33.7% in operation...
"Clever. Irreplaceable. The most advanced synthetic humanoid ever developed. Do you know what makes you special?" Zimmer smiled. "You're special because you're simple." Zimmer pointed at Harkness' head with the two pronged white object. "I reformatted you. I reduced your factory codes to just one program – a simple program requiring you to obey." Zimmer's smile widened, full of self-pride. "It worked astonishingly well. Unexpectedly well - seeing that you were not bounded by rules. The lack of boundaries tended to make equipments unstable. But you are special. Unlike other models, I didn't have to upgrade you or re-program you. I just commanded you. You obeyed. You could say that you programmed yourself to a certain extent." Zimmer huffed. "It was delightful until you malfunctioned. But I know how to repair you."
"No," Harkness gritted, trying to keep the twitching at bay. "I'm done…ssufffering…your nonnn -sense…" Harkness pushed himself up again. His legs felt wobbly. Meathead pressed down. 32.5% in operation. 32.4% in operation.
"Your memories have been altered." Zimmer stepped close and Harkness bristled. Zimmer winced. "You're a very important android, A3-21. You're just a bit confused –"
"…Ffuckk you…bbasstard..." 32.0% in operation.
"You must be reset."