CHAPTER 8.
Holy Heck, the World's Converging.
Against the dust-patted breeze of the expanses beyond civilization's skeleton- anything metal, or solid with a complex build, tended to become tanned in all the creases and joints of the overall mechanical structuring.
Since Earth had become so dry, and most plant life had died off due to the radiation poisoning that blanketed the atmosphere, dust was a very real commonality that actually proved a hazard.
After prolonged exposure, mechanical equipment could experience complications after servos became clogged, or joints rusted from gathered moisture, or worse- circuitry and electronics shorted out.
None of those options were anything but trouble.
Sanford got though, that those results only happened if the stuff wasn't cared for and maintained.
But the paranoia of losing his new weapon- something he most likely would never have a second shot at attaining -drove his mind to wander on such things that never concerned him before.
He always cleaned his gear once every few days- as his trips into the harsher sections of the area were never longer than a week when he was really traveling- and there usually wasn't enough time for corrosion or environmental auras to play havoc.
But already, the X-01 suit's imposing height and figure had creased all its joints and indents a thin, sand-color, all the ridges had become highlighted too.
Healthily, the joints whirred with each movement of his leg, and with each turn of his head to their flanks.
Heading north- a few dotted houses lined the road on both sides as testaments to the once sprawling urban zones that dominated around Boston like leveled rings of industrialization.
It seemed Ghouls were becoming a pretty common nuisance- a bunch of them had jumped them twice as they traveled. Hancock had been annoyed at his lacking kill-count, and Sanford took glee in mocking him over it.
The Power Armor- and the modifications he had made -were astounding to his handicap-riddled tactics he'd been forced to use throughout his life in the Commonwealth.
He now had a tactical overlay that showed his vitals, his own blood's state of health, life signatures for identified targets or heat-spots, and it allowed the armor's automated aim assist to wire in with what he was physically seeing.
Sanford was now able to decide WHERE he wanted to shoot things, instead of worrying about staying and cover and shooting when the opportunity presented.
Claw marks drew raggedly down his breast plate and his left gauntlet- all of which would soon fade away from the lack of physical damage -as one of the Ghouls from before had thrown itself at him.
Sanford had felt a swell of confidence from 'Surviving' that tumble- even though the Ghoul never had a real chance.
He had nearly torn the Ghoul's head off with his bare hands.
"-Han', how far are we?" Sanford asked with another grin- his pride getting the better of him.
"Precisely a half-mile." Hancock declared to his right, hovering higher to jab an eye-stalk at the X-01's helmet. "You look spiffy in that tin-suit, aye?"
"'Spiffy'?" Sanford chuckled.
"Yes! Spiffy! Now you can threaten people's lives over if they scuff your suit! It's PERFECT!"
"Let's try not to threaten any innocent people, please..."
"Bah, you're boring! Sir."
"-Hey, here's a random question,"
"I LOVE when things are random!"
"What do you think it's like outside of this place? The Commonwealth, I mean."
"OUTSIDE of the Commonwealth?" Hancock asked. "-Probably no better. Probably worse, sir."
"Why do you say that?"
"The only other place I know of that is inhabited, is the home of UNCLE-Sam!"
"D.C?"
"Yes sir! And that pixie-stain's a dump."
"-And a warzone, but don't you think it's weird that that doesn't stop settlers from going there?"
"Why doesn't anything stop settlers from coming here?" Hancock shot back. "If I've learned one thing about you monkeys... It's that desperation will make you do ANYTHING..."
"But think about it... Han', we're not exposed to half of the conflict here,"
"THAT won't last long..."
Sanford blinked at that.
"Yeah," He admitted. "-As I was saying- the Capital might have a lot of fighting in the city, but here there's people killing each other EVERYWHERE..."
"It wasn't always like that, sir. Besides! More targets for Clarice, anyway! Hoo-rah!"
"More targets or not... Boston's city is just as bad as Washington's city. We've been there, you've seen it."
"Can't seem to take a leek for five minutes before some douchebags with guns jump out and starting killin' each other around you!"
"Exactly."
"Where are you going with this anyway, monkey-man?"
"I dunno'. Where ARE we going, Han'?"
"... Well, I supposed I go where YOU go. Don't let that give you IDEAS, punk!"
"Yeah, punk."
"Yes!"
As the expanse of worn, cracked concrete drew out- Sanford heard a tiny bleep sound from the internals of his helm.
Now, he got a little freaked out when three life signatures flipped up onto his screen, and they were all colored red, straight ahead.
Sanford had spent hours programming certain data into the cognitive recognition systems of the signature detections- he matched up physical appearances, radiation levels, and bodily compositions of every creature and animal he had heard of, and labeled them separate from humans.
-Whereas for man, say something like Raiders, he programmed the recognition software to detect sculpts of certain items like gas-masks or the flimsy leather and metal armor the freaks wore.
So these three blips were not human, and by the shown highlights surrounding the walking figures- they looked hunched, muscular, and big.
"HOLY SHIT!" Hancock cried next to him.
"-What are they? You picking them up too-?"
"IT'S THE INCREDIBLE HULK!"
"...What the hell did you just say?"
"I MUST RECIEVE AN AUTOGRAPH!"
"-That's-THOSE, aren't the-"
"MEAN AND GREEN! Where's a pen... I know I have a pen in here SOMEWHERE..."
Hancock's storage flap kicked open, and a claw dug into the contents loudly.
Sanford could see through the sig-scans the figures tensing, and one of them raised a fat arm in their direction.
Oh. That wasn't good.
Sanford swallowed, he took out his SMG from his hip and yanked the safety down.
He went to grab Hancock and start pulling him back towards the side of the path they tread- and then, they heard the bellowing reverberations of the last kind of item they'd ever expect out in the wastes.
It was... A war horn.
It arced in the highest drone, leveled out, and descended down to a whittle.
"-What in processed-dairy-product's was THAT?!" Hancock belted. "WHO MOCKS THE INCREDIBLE HULK?! I'LL EAT THEM!"
"It's not the Hulk you friggin' dumb-"
The source of the 'Horn' made itself apparent to their immediate right.
A green mass- that was all it appeared like at close quarters -slammed into Sanford's shoulders and head with a violent force that knocked the wind out of him, and emitted the loudest clang of titanium he ever had heard.
The world rushed and his head was tossed back in the helm- he grunted, and fell onto his back with a rupturing shake of the earth.
Dust clouded from his land- and staring him in the face were two rows of razor-sharp, spittle-matted teeth, each longer and thicker than his finger-extended hand.
Two little red eyes sat on either side of a pug-snout, extended and rippled with green, diseased-colored facial structuring of a canine.
The world's ugliest, fattest and muscle-bound dog sat atop his armor's chest with a grumbling racket groaning out from its throat- the thing snarled at him, and HOWLED.
It was the same drawling sound of the horn- the mutated beast puckered its snout and screamed into the air another instance, before opening its massive jaws in a dull, walloped bark.
Sanford cursed and flung the knees of his suit up.
CLUNG!
-The hound made a whinnying sound, was smacked off the human's armor with a horrendously hollow impact of titanium alloy across its backside and rear legs.
The animal tumbled onto the dusty earth over Sanford's head, spiraling and flailing on kicking, powerful limbs to run back in his direction.
The X-01 suit thundered and whined- Sanford flinging his heels back to meet the earth without any hindrance at all from the heavy protection, he raised his SMG, and fired right as the massive canine threw itself at his torso again.
Blood tendriled from multiple piercings on the creature's head- it whined faintly, and the great pack animal clanked and slouched off of Sanford's chest and stomach plating.
He sneered and flung his arm to discard the corpse from its sprawl on him.
Turning back to Hancock- he saw the robot tearing out his buzz-saw weapon from a duplicate monster's bloodied neck area.
The green, vein-laced body twitched still when the crimson encrusted saw whirred free of its throat with a squelch of flesh, Hancock spiraled to check on his companion over the mounded casualty he'd inflicted.
"-Oh, don't worry, I wrecked it's face!" He confirmed. "You alright, sir?"
"Mutant Hounds," Sanford said. "They're Super Mutants!"
"-And now, we don't-!"
"-Have to run!"
"... I like this idea, sir."
"Hancock," Sanford laughed, checking over his shoulder at the dead hound, he aimed his SMG ahead. "-Let's kick ass!"
"FOR LIBERTY!"
-For the first time in Sanford's life, he actually felt a rush of energy from his deranged friend's metallic vocals.
For the first time ever, Sanford ran at the enemy like a crazed maniac- just like his robot friend.
You could even say, his robot friend, was starting to rub off on him. A few days ago, and the boy would have shot himself. Now, he'd have it no other way.
He was going to change things.
He had the weapons skills, he knew when to keep his head down, and he knew who and what to shoot at and when. Sanford had been a warrior underneath his scavenger's ingenuity- no master warlord, by far.
However, he didn't need to be an unbeatable demigod in combat- as combat was what ran the wasteland at the end of the day, and Sanford had always known what he was doing, NOW, the armor would enhance that.
He had big plans. BIG plans.
These Super Mutants were just pawns to be swat aside.
It was perfect.
"-Flank right!" Sanford called. "I'm heading right down the center!"
"That's MY job, you plebian!" Hancock protested.
"Flank right!"
"Oh... FINE! Fine!"
The suit's boots thudded into the earth with hollow thrums- Hancock's central lower thruster barked, and the robot catapulted himself over a raise in the land to their right.
Visibly before him, marked with red outlines in his suits visual recognition scans- the three Super Mutants grew in detail as Sanford footworked over the leveling terrain.
They were bulbous, muscular, green and chiseled- just like their hounds-they had complex faces with large chins, slit eyes, pug noses, and were bald atop green craniums. They had all sorts of patchwork protection on them- tire halves, strips of metal, and parts of automobiles.
These guys- to Sanford's scavenger self -would have been bad news.
Yet Sanford the scav', had taken a hike today.
-So here came Sanford the armored titan.
"Eat it!" He screamed- leveling his SMG, and draining half the drum at the Mutant in the center of the group.
The former-human jerked awkwardly from bullet impacts about his arms and torso, it made a dull scream, and its two fellows dove out of the way to avoid the volley.
One of them compressed on his gut, aimed over a raise in the dirt with a rifle.
The other sidestepped behind a tall boulder- one of the mesh of rocks unevenly gridding the landscape -and fired a few pot shots from a rapid-fire pipe-weapon.
Sanford saw blood cloud out from the multiple wounds on the Mutant he chewed up.
The bulky body stumbled back with thick, clambering legs, a groan drawling from its maw.
Sanford went to take cover himself- but what he observed next stupefied him.
The Mutant's hands tugged at its shoulders, its chest- it made a high pitched, raggedy roar, English words blubbered and blurred, referring to ripping the 'Metal-Man's' guts out.
The Mutant fell on a knee, grabbed up the gun it held, and raised it limply at him with one hand.
Sanford's jaw slackened- he compressed the trigger on his submachine gun for a quick spray- rounds punched in and around the creature's head, and it flattened face first to the ground in a quick snap of motion.
How had that thing... SURVIVED?
Sanford, with all his experience, had a LOT to learn about the warfare of the wastes.
"Shit!" He cursed, heart leaping, when a red flare highlighted the bottom of his visor- he heard a flickering of steel, and saw sparks slack off in three places on his chest.
The Mutant behind the rocks returned fire- that, if Sanford had not been in this suit, probably would've killed him.
The human back-peddled, draining the remnants of his drum at the rocks- a round punched off in a glancing flicker by his arm when the rifle-wielding Mutant joined the covering fire.
Grabbing another drum magnetically adhered to his back-plating- Sanford pulled his SMG's bolt back, and aimed over the raise in the terrain he had jumped behind.
Chancing a peak over the land- he saw the hunched over form of the Super Mutant with the pipe-weapon, for only an instance, before his rifle-bearing comrade pumped another round straight into the dirt before Sanford's helmet.
He swore and ducked back.
This whole front-line combat wasn't as easy as he'd thought, huh?
Shaking his head, Sanford's leg servos whirred as he stood to his full height- and unloaded at the Mutant emerging from the rocks.
It ran from terrain blockage to terrain blockage- vaulting behind a another rock, and then a fallen log- a few rounds even ate into the Mutant's form, and it still kept moving.
The would-be sniper fired again, and a round bounced off Sanford's left shoulder plating with a flashing flicker.
"Damn it, Han', where are you..." Sanford muttered- stepping over the indent in the dirt, and advancing towards the enemy position.
"TIME FOR A FACE-FULL OF ASS-WHOOP, BASTARDS!"
Ah. There he was.
Green bolts shot into the area where the rifleman hid, and Sanford understood that he now had covering fire.
He sprinted with all the might his Power Armor could afford- rumbling across the rough land towards the closest Mutant he had seen, the one hiding behind the rocks.
He thundered atop a flat-planed boulder, aimed his gun over the edge, and stared right into the face of a bewildered, and confused Mutant warrior.
The thing had trails of crimson drawing from the glancing hits on its arms and body- and its face was permanently twisted in a grimaced sneer that shown an underbite from gnarly, yellowed fangs.
Sanford blew the thing's face off with a burst of bullets from his SMG.
CLCKCLCKCLCKCLCKLCKL
-It's head vanished in a plumage of red, flecking darker crimson, and ruby-stained fragments of tan-white.
Sanford reaffirmed the gun towards the riflemen- saw the freak stand up with its gun still training on him -and drained more of his drum before the other could react.
CLCKCLCKLCKLCKLCKLCKLCKLCLK
The bullets tore through its gut and hipline with coughs of dust tinged red- the Mutant fell on its knees, raised its gun anyway, and died when Hancock finished it off with a few green blobs flying into its chest.
The body tossed back with raised arms, green soot misting from its eviscerated breast cavity.
Sanford watched the cadaver tumble- and let out a held breath as he started to change his drum.
"Nice shot, Han'." He called over his shoulder.
"DEAD-EYE-! -Or... Dead-Chest... You know what I mean." Hancock cheered. "Fine work, sir!"
"-That was..." Sanford laughed breathlessly. "-That was actually the stupidest move I've ever pulled out here before. EVER."
"But we just face-skewered the Incredible Hulk! Our enemies are SCREWED, you Pansy!"
Hancock flew over to swat a claw in a cuff on the back of Sanford's suit with a dull clung of impact.
Sanford turned around to face him, and blinked behind the helmet.
"Next time... A LITTLE tactical thinking, should be good, yeah?"
"Ugh... If you INSIST."
"Yeah. Might avoid more fire... Now," The human waved an arm over the three corpses. "-Let's take their stuff."
"BOO-YAH!"
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She hadn't slept in a week.
In a whole week.
Not just periodic trouble keeping her closed, like- she had not laid or sat down to rest at all, in a WEEK.
When she idled in that ravine, she leaned back on her haunches for less than a minute- and she passed out so fast and powerfully, that even when she tilted, and fell face-first onto the ground, it didn't wake her up.
Curled on the earth with thrumming snores, that lovely dozing was drawn to a point where she had started to dream.
For awhile it was simplicities- she dreamed of running freely, she felt a falling sensation, and they all were exotic sensations that did not disturb her in the slightest.
Her mutated genotypes had constructed her body to run without sleep for days at a time. In addition to being physically durable, and environmentally invincible to all but the most crippling of natural or unnatural conditions- she could expend very little energy to do a lot.
But even her kind ran out of juice eventually.
It took a week this time.
She saw it as a bit of an accomplishment- last time it took a mere five days.
Shifting in her swimming emotional broil, she clawed at a few opportunities to envision certain things, and lost them in the sea of shadow.
Her mind was on a bit of overdrive- she had never been in control of her dreams before, and now was no different. Her chops pursed in concentration when a particularly stirring image of comfort came, and was soon long gone before her brain could get a hold of it.
Uncomfortably, and in anger- she rolled onto her back.
-And just like that, the beautiful dull of her senses lifted, cold met her nostrils and all of her head at once.
Her yellow eyes flicked open, and the view of a million stars penetrating the radiation-blasted nighttime atmosphere came to her comprehension.
For a while she held her breath in, hopelessly trying to believe the array of constellations was another bout of her mind forging visions in her sleep.
But after awhile, her full cognitive ability washed into her system- she felt cheated of the nice peace, clenched her jaw, shut her eyes-
-And quelled her rage with a trembling exhale.
It wasn't worth it.
Getting enraged at everything just made EVERYTHING harder.
She worked her muscles, grumbling and huffing to a sitting-up angle on the ground. She winced, feeling a stinging cramp by her backside, and flicked her tail out from its catch beneath one of her thighs.
The corpse of the bear she'd killed was still piled on the other side of the ravine- and the trails of stagnant blood that stained the ground in little trails to the edges of the ravine's height, shown that scavengers had picked at the bones while she slept.
Of course, she didn't care.
She felt a little cheated again, when she wished one of those scavengers had been predator and had taken a chance with her throat.
She really, didn't care anymore.
Growling, her legs' protesting ceased with some lithe stretches of her limbs.
She supposed staying in one place wouldn't be a good alternative then to keep running.
The air buzzed, and she swatted at her hearing slits in agitation. Her own body wasn't even letting her enjoy pleasantries of things such as this anymore. The longer she traversed the wastes, the more she came to see how effective the Enclave's strategy was.
Their technology always kept pace with her speed- and not a single one of their operatives were even breaking a sweat, and they knew that time would eventually maker her screw up.
She wasn't even a priority- she was a side project that shifting teams maintained on their downtime while the Enclave concentrated on pressing matters to their overall stature.
It made her feel small, and sick of it.
Irritated by the buzzing in her hearing- she stopped swatting, and angled her head up to the sky.
-She was brought to see that the droning was not because of her sleepy system.
Springing to her feet, she hunched down and bolted to the deepest crag the ravine had to offer, all of her limbs scrabbling madly over a few rock indents, to press her scaly back underneath the arching girth of the tall terrain.
Heaving in nervousness, she grew rigidly still when the droning evolved into a sound she had learned to dread.
WHMWHMWHMWHMWHMWHMWHMWHM
-Rotary blades.
The seething of a metallic fuselage piercing through the air in a whistle.
Aircraft.
Vertibirds.
Her breath caught in her throat when the craft's cry grew louder, and louder- and a slight breeze kicked up some dead foliage on the ground in the center of the ravine.
The swinging propellers screamed overhead the earth she hid under- like someone had shot a bullet that had flown clean past her hearing slit.
WHMWHMWHM-VVVVVVWHMWHMWHMWHM...
-And then it was gone.
Silence injected itself in a hearty dosage throughout the night again.
Chest bucking in heavy inhales- she peeled slowly away from the arched rock, angling her head in a corner-raise to the sky above as she revealed herself to the center of the ravine again.
The sky was devoid of any shape or sign that the cursed craft had even been there.
Who knew, she might just be having another friggin' dream.
Shrugging off her skepticism- she hurried to one of the ledges that lead up to the plateaus ringing the crag's exterior- climbing up rocks and jagged pieces of earth with the skill of an ape up a jungle tree.
She peaked over the raising land, examining the sky to the ravine's right. She looked over her shoulder to see the opposite side of the bowl's rim she stood atop.
Nothing.
No there was nothing on that sid-
-Wait.
...WHMWHMWHMWHMWHMWHM-
"Oh merde'." She hissed.
The growing bulge in the blue-black air was at first a small dot.
But now it was becoming the size of her fist up there, and she could hear it.
She needed to run.
She needed to run NOW.
-With a blur of movement- her arms and legs went into overdrive, carrying her in an unbelievable display of parkour movement away from the ravine, now completely forgotten in her working brain.
She leapt over fallen logs, wheeled between trees, and vaulted rocks.
Breath left her in steady bouts, her genetically perfected muscular systems filtering blood and oxygen in a synchronized harmony that no creature of similar speed could match.
The air whizzed by her face, coldness brushed her shoulders and chestline.
As she sprinted, the rotary blades were only getting louder.
Now as she fled for her life, there wasn't just wind flying past her face and frontal body- there was a draft that channeled down her spine and the back of her neck.
WHMWHMWHMWHMWHMWHMWHMWHMWHMWHMWHM
The propellers were right over her.
Dead plant clumps and small flecks of pebbles were tossed from the ground around her feet.
CLZZ
The night became daytime, and a scything pillar of pure white flickered to life from the Vertibird's flank, enveloping her form in a perfect cylindrical beam of illumination.
Even from the ground, caught in the spotlight, hearing drowning in the scream of the propeller blades- she heard the horrible whirring from where she was.
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
-And then, before she heard the release- a recurring pillar of shredded earth repeatedly kept speed with the back of her legs.
PHM PHM PHM PHM PHM PHM PHM
The Enclave soldiers were shooting at her with a God damn autocannon.
This wasn't good.
Rounds tore hubcap-sized miniature welts in the ground that she barely vacated before each impact- she leapt in a side-wind behind the hulk of two dead trees- and flinched amid her run when they both fell over like toothpicks crushed under a boot's heel.
The autocannon chewed up everything that she got over and around- trees were split down their centers, rocks even cracked beneath the hits.
A rusty dead car was coming up fast to her run- so she pushed her arm muscles into a great rear- leaping clean over the automobile's roof.
Her tail burned when sparks kicked up right behind her.
-MNK MNK MNK-
-The autocannon put three clean, magma-edged holes through the car from top to bottom.
She needed an escape route.
But all there was here was open terrain.
She may not have wanted to live anymore- but the last thing she was going to die from was the ENCLAVE.
'Hell to them.
The shadow of a structure was coming to view.
It was a chance.
Some old warehouse-looking building- ringed by tons of cars and discarded appliance-like debris.
It would have to do.
Wheeling her sprint to the left- she swung around a pair of boulders, and threw herself at a window that was evident on the building's flank.
CRSH!
-She shattered the already fractured glass, and splintered wood from the outer coverings of the concrete skeleton of the building's structuring.
Tumbling through aluminum shelves, she didn't even process the discomfort, rolling and tumbling through the wide, open chamber, tossing bent debris left and right.
Three rounds from the Vertibird tore thrice gashes in the wall of the sill she'd collided through, ripping into a concrete floor with sprays of dust.
Panting in a sprawl with all the tossed shelving units and the things on them- she heard the rotary blades grow dim for a moment- before they grew loud again.
The Vertibird's roar stayed the same volume, wind fluttered all kinds of small trash from the smashed, large industrial window sill. Glancing around herself- she saw a single, large garage door, and she went to sprint for it.
But then, she heard the unmistakable sound of a metallic thud- right outside that general flank of the building.
THM
Then there were two more.
THM THM
-And finally three.
THM THM THM
The Vertibird's howl shifted away from the sill, to the opposite angle of the building's exterior.
THM THM THM THM THM THM
-Six more impacts on that side too.
Heavy footfalls resounded behind the door, outside the window, and from behind the wall she was closest to.
They were going to either force her out to the mercy of the autocannon, or these soldiers would shoot her.
Looked like the end of the line at last.
-And then she looked down, and saw the answer of a prayer she did not make.
Scrambling through the mess she'd created- she tossed a smashed work-bench's shell clear across the room, dug her nails underneath the mesh-covering's ridge, and heaved the plate open to reveal a square, shadowy drop.
Right as the darkness overtook her- a green bolt of energy slapped into the rim of the hole's top, close enough for heat to wash over her left horn.
Down into whatever subterranean facility this lead too she went- a pair of helmed heads peered down the trench after her, and held fingers to communications beads by their chins.
"Negative. Lost it." One said.
"God damn it."
"Fall back to Eagle-6. Rendezvous with Eagle-5 and 7."
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