CHAPTER 10.
They Glued It.
There had been some pretty rough folk they had encountered over the years.
There were people who had been drunk or drugged out of their minds, people who were so mentally unstable that if you spoke to them funny they'd try to hurt you, people who didn't speak at all, and people who never shut up.
The wasteland forced even opposites to be around each other, it was needed for continued survival.
Ethnicity, prior nationality, gender no longer gave a sizable opinion in the view of yourself- all that mattered was what you did, how you did it, and how good you were at it.
People who were weak got nowhere, or they died, or sometimes also they sprung up from the ashes of their old lives to become the brightest of the bright.
People who were strong excelled here-and-now, they prospered, or they self-imploded and caused nothing but their overall destruction.
It wasn't just guns, or armor, or resources that made anybody stronger than the other. It was thinking power, passion, and determination. Sure, the fancy toys helped with that greatly, but giving a large weapon to someone who was dead from the neck-up would not solve a single battle, understand.
So all of those judgments of character that Sanford and Hancock had learned to deduce properly to other people, to other humans, ghouls, or even robots- had not a finger to be held, when they tried to understand this... Creature.
This Deathclaw. A monster.
Honestly, neither of them knew what to do, what to say, or how to go about the whole thing in general.
At one point- because, there was a series of scenes that lead up to this -the Deathclaw had uncurled itself from Sanford's armor, reached over, and practically yanked Hancock from the mound of soil with a single tug.
Shaking the bucket of bolts in the air- it snarled and declared the two of them were going to 'Help it.' -Whatever that meant.
Sanford didn't know what to say, and Hancock only made the confusion more dominant when he swept at the creature with his buzz-saw- screaming obscenities about former president Bill Gate's wristwatch.
Now, a half-mile away from their fight- Sanford struggled to keep his steps in line with that of the large reptilian creature's- her arm extended before him as she trudged across the dirt, fingers imbedded in the hip/stomach divisional space of his pierced suit.
Her arm was overextended in a obviously uncomfortable twist around her right ribs, and every now and again she tried another tug that almost forced the human onto his face.
Hancock recommended through the communications bead on his helmet- that they kill the creature and saw its arm off to release him.
Sanford thought initially, that the idea sounded decent.
But then he remembered how quick the thing had been, and how he hadn't even had an opportunity to shoot it.
Thinking better- seeing as a single round couldn't put it down -he declined, and instead started asking the DEATHCLAW- the supposed animal -what it wanted.
"-H-Hey, M-Mr. Deathclaw?" Sanford asked, speech broken as it tugged him along.
As he spoke, hollow brushing sounds of metal etched by his legs- he glanced over his suit's collar to see the Deathclaw's long tail swiping accidently over his ankle plates.
The thing's hunched, huge-looking back was to him- he watched Hancock float up beside him for a moment, and tried again.
"Yo, Deathclaw!"
It snorted once.
Then nothing.
Rolling his eyes, Sanford looked over at the Mr. Gutsy.
"Thing's ignoring me now..."
"HEY! Puff The Magic Ass-bag!" Hancock shouted, earning a 'No-no!' mouthing from a frantic Sanford. "-We're trying to talk to ya'!"
"Be quiet." The creature grumbled over its shoulder- if they hadn't been listening, its speech would have been easily mistakable as yet another growl or hiss.
Sanford looked down at the clawed hand still lodged around his gut, and craned to fail in viewing his back.
"How bad is it?" He asked Hancock.
"-Ran RIGHT through, sir!" The robot proclaimed behind him. "At least all our finds are intact!"
"That's amazing."
"Indeed! Though, maybe if Veloci-reek over here didn't try to maul us, we wouldn't be HAVING this discussion right now! Yeah! YOU!" The robot flew over and jabbed the thing's arm with the unmoving blade of his saw. "-I'm talkin' to you, croc-crap!"
"Shove off."
PGH
Sanford caught a laugh in his throat when the Deathclaw swatted out with its free claw- and sent the robot sprawling onto the dusty ground with a series of clanks.
"-AK! MAN-DOWN! ...Again..." Hancock righted himself with a blasting central thruster- glared as Sanford averted his amused gaze, and zoomed back over to the Deathclaw's flank.
"SAY HELLO TO CLARICE, BITCH!"
"WHOA-WHOA-WHOA! HOLD ON, HAN'!"
Sanford jerked the Deathclaw still from its aimless-seeming walk- flailed his left arm, and smacked the muzzle of Hancock's missile launcher down before he could raise it any further.
Baring its teeth, the reptile stopped moving forwards, spun around, and unsheathed the nails on its free fingers to brandish at both of them.
"I'm not exactly fond of this setup MYSELF, monsieur'." She snapped to Sanford. "Tell your flying typewriter to back off."
The cold paranoia lasted for not nearly as long as she, nor her robotic enemy- could have predicted.
Sanford looked at her, then at Hancock, and burst out laughing beneath his helmet.
Keeling over, and taking the Deathclaw's arm a bit with him- she stood there with a raised brow, taking a step away with her closest foot. Even Hancock had all eye-lenses on him.
"-H-HA! Hoy crap! Han'! He's right, ya' know!"
The robot's thruster flared, and he started swinging his arms as he belted out.
"LISTEN HERE, IGUANA! I'LL TURN YOU INTO A NEW PAIR OF SNAKESKIN BOOTS! AND I'LL SELL YOU TO A HOBO FOR FIVE-FRICKEN'-BUCKS! YOU HEAR ME?!"
His physical attempt to fly up in the thing's face was thwarted when Sanford grabbed his buzz-saw arm- still hysterical over how he wasn't the only one to mock the Mr. Gusty in such a manner.
Hancock started screaming at him too, and poor Mr. Tobs was too giggly to even notice.
Watching the loud, vocal-chord jabbing exchange go to and fro- the Deathclaw shakily exhaled, and slowly enveloped her facial features under the wrapping fingers of her free claw.
Having her arm move with every motion the stupid human made- she sulked, and tried to wait patiently for it all to stop, for some peace.
The problem was, that peace never came.
"-YOUR MOTHER WAS A HAMPSTER!"
"-And you're still an airborne jerry-can!"
"EAT ME!"
"Need some anti-freeze for your cold, black soul? A-HA! HA!"
"Can both of you... Please... Just stop-?" She tried, and felt her voice fade as the bickering only got louder.
Through a slight hiss of hundreds of dead limbs- the grayed trees that dotted in thin clumps around the dusty strip of concrete they stood on, whistled in the constant light wind that always kicked up the endless swathes of dust turning everything tan.
Guard rails extended in torn, uneven extensions down the road's sides. As per normal environment- rusted vehicles were gridded everywhere. At least that was some distracting thought for her- it had been 200 years, and the world was still kind of frozen from where it left off.
Creepy.
Feeling a sting of pain as she chewed into the finger of her claw- she whirled around as the ridiculous, non-sense screaming match reached a crescendo.
"Can both of you, please- SHUT UP." She barked.
Sanford stood still, his comedic bawling at an end, and the robot was raising its missile launcher attachment again- before the human swatted it down with his gauntlet- AGAIN.
"Oops." Sanford shrugged with his pauldrons.
"This is the kind of crap I always end up in," The Deathclaw kept speaking- each word giving a leap of amazement- and nervousness -within his body. "-You humans do nothing but cause destruction."
"I'll... You know what, I won't challenge that..." Sanford reasoned. "-But not on an individual level all the time. Not ALL humans are evil..."
"Well I'm believing that less and less every day, monsieur'."
"Hey, I know that-"
Sanford was cut off when Hancock belted out once more.
"This thing's an oversized gecko that speaks FRENCH?! What the jublees, man?!"
"'Jublees'?" Sanford grinned.
"Whatever! What's with the Paris-fever, freak?!" He was yelling at the Deathclaw for a third instance.
"Calm down tin-man, he probably doesn't even know what 'Paris' is..."
The Deathclaw suddenly got a very angry sneer on its face again- it shook its stuck wrist back and forth- rattling the human around in his armor with a few 'Oof!'s of struggle.
"Hey!" Sanford snapped. "Knock that off!"
"I told you to stop calling me what I'm NOT."
"...Which is?"
"Male."
"Oh, well- Oh... OH. You're a... MRS.?"
"...I suppose I shouldn't even be sensitive about it." The Deathclaw huffed. "It's not like that's ever mattered before."
"What? No boyfriend before?"
"Merde mangeur!" She knocked him around inside the suit again with a few push-shoves of her arm.
"-OW-! Ow!-W-What I do?!"
"Keep digging, monsieur'. PLEASE." She frowned. "At least then I can just cut you open and LEAVE."
"Alright tough-gu-I mean- GIRL... Why not just kill both of us and be over with it? Huh?"
Sanford tested a whole lot of bad mojo with that question. But he was at a point where the answer might not have been good or bad either way in his life.
The Deathclaw had a conflicted scrunch in its features- it leaned closer to him and bore its sharp, pure-white fangs in his helm's lenses.
"I don't kill those who aren't trying to kill BACK." She grumbled. "My own morality is my weakness. Deal with it."
"-But you wouldn't be willing to kill a loudmouth?"
"You're really brave. Or stupid."
"I know. It's gotten us places."
"...I'm refraining."
"Alright, Ms.'I'll Refrain'- what's your plan for getting your hand out of my gut, huh?"
"There's a mill plant a few miles from here. I found lubricant there once. Put it on my fingers, and they'll probably slide right out."
"And if they don't?"
"I said it was a mill. I could cut them off."
Hancock flew over after she said that, and looked at the two of them with a hint of apprehension.
Sanford cocked his head awkwardly.
"You'd cut your fingers... Off?"
"Not my fingers, you bete'. My nails."
"Don't you need those?"
The Deathclaw repeated her pattern of wrist movement from before.
"-Oo!-OW! A-Alright! Geez, stop that! It's annoying."
"I'm not degrading myself to killing someone who is helping me."
"How do you reason that?"
"You're not resisting, are you?"
"No?"
"You're not trying to stop me in any way shape or form are you?"
"No."
"Both of you have weapons, yet you haven't drawn them-" She frowned at Hancock. "-and FIRED them, correct?"
"Well... Yeah..."
"Don't count on that for long, you birth-defect!" Hancock butted in.
Sanford's head slowly angled in the Mr. Gutsy's direction, his eyes narrowed with an expression screaming forth his inability to process the robot's mentally unreasonable personality.
The Deathclaw- having darted glares between the two of them a few more instances -swung around to start down the road again, earning a grunt from Sanford as he stumbled forwards with the reptile's arm tugging him along.
"-H-HEY! WHOA, HOLD ON!"
"Now there's ANOTHER problem, hmm, monsieur'?" The creature grumbled.
"-Could you- just like, WAIT a second-?" Sanford reached up with his gauntlet and clenched it over the Deathclaw's thumb area to stand himself up a bit.
If she was agitated beforehand on the simplistic nature of these... FREAKS, than now, her combat-bugged, insult addled, stress wracked mind could not hope to process any further interruptions.
She wanted to get away from the two morons as fast as possible.
"NO." She snapped. "Move."
Sanford was muttering curses the whole time he stumbled with heavy creaks of servo joints, clomps of thundering metal heels.
Hancock floated after them, and he was getting on about the entire situation overall.
"Now we're LISTENING to it?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!"
"Would you prefer to settle it in close range?" Sanford barked back. "-Cause' 'PRINCESS' here seems awfully good at slicing-n-dicing!"
"Possibly." The Deathclaw chimed without much attention given.
"Say- Hancock never got an answer before... Where'd all that French come from?" Sanford found his speech easier to maintain once he got a better pattern with his forced steps.
Gazing at her broad back- Sanford waited for a response, and eventually got none.
"What? Are you FROM France, huh?" He joked. "Because that place is a giant crater from what I've heard."
"Cul stupide'..."
"What was that? C'mon, I didn't HEAR you?"
"Do you think you're humorous?" She said over her shoulder, feet raising to pass over a fallen, shriveled tree limb sprawled across the path.
"Very much so." Sanford replied smugly, his boot snapping the limb in two with a quick stomp.
CRAK
He nudged through the debris and kept pace.
"Seeing as me and Han' are stuck with you, it might help if we broke some ice, no?"
The Deathclaw stopped walking- AGAIN -because apparently there was a lot of things that shocked her about him. She had an expression of utter confusion wrapped over her face, and she shook her head in a, perhaps, overly-dramatic mockery of what he just said.
"What are you talking about?" She asked. "Are you stupid? Wait- I asked that already..."
"Found an answer yet, tootse?" Hancock laughed.
"Ice? You mean, uncertainty in sociality?" The Deathclaw didn't even look at the robot, and kept going. "There IS no sociality. Just a mutual want to be away from the other."
"Well, YEAH, but..."
"BUT? Monsieur'?"
"BUT... I mean, I dunno', Han' can speak for me on this one. I don't get out much, Deathclaw. This is some new conversation for me, even if, you know..."
"-It's with a giant 'Lizard'?" She finished for him.
"Uhhh... Yep."
"Mm."
She turned back around, yanked her wrist, and the stumbling human was brought behind her again. It was like she had a leash on him.
"That was anticlimactic." Sanford commented.
"It was supposed to be."
"You know... Up until today, I hadn't ever touched a live Deathclaw."
"How exhilarating..." She said sarcastically.
"And Han' and I haven't had someone travelling with us in... Uhm... Yo, Han', how long?"
"I dunno', sir! Give or take a few years? One or two? There was that druggie... Uhm... Bill? Bob? Hankerton?"
"Who Mills?"
"Yeah! Mills!"
"We didn't know he was hopped up on shit until he came back with a mess of Raiders chasing him." Sanford said to the Deathclaw. "'Boy was stealing stuff from their narcotics stash."
"Sounds amazing..." She sighed.
"The fight sure was. Took hours. Whatever happened to Mill's anyway, Han'?"
"Oh? Him? Clarice immolated him with her sheer godliness!"
"You blew him up? I thought you shot him."
"I did!"
"...So... Hold on,"
"Clarice was the janitorial cleanup, of course! Keep up, sir!"
"That's my Han' alright."
"U.S.A!"
Failing to find reason in her head, the Deathclaw understood the full depth of this agonizing hell-train she had boarded.
This was grueling.
She should've let the Enclave kill her.
-0-0-0-0-0-
Throughout several sections of the former New England, the coastline definition of borders between mainland, shallows and sea- had shifted astronomically.
Most of the beaches towards the east were larger than they were before the nukes- some strange aura that had caused most tidal-levels to actually retract across the globe, from what intellectual travelers had described.
And interestingly, as the coasts gained sand, there were finger-lake like bogs that formed more inland due to rising water levels that wormed around the beaches.
In combination with the blasted plant variety, the mass extinctions, and mutated ecosystems- it was safe to assume that humans had screwed Earth ten or so times over, and then some.
Frighteningly, Sanford had learned that Boston was actually considered less scathed than other parts of the globe.
Europe and most of Asia were crater fields- everyone accepted that as common lore -oceans were diseased and barren, and devoid of most multi-celled life, except for wives' tales about mutated monstrosities that lurked deep beneath the waves (A whole bunch of crap if you asked him).
Most of the east coast directly below New England was a blasted heap of irradiated, churned soil and debris, and pretty much once you ringed around the lifeless badlands that bordered the holes in the ground that were once New York City and Philadelphia, you were at D.C.
-And everything underneath D.C as well, was ALSO a lifeless crag in the Earth.
The world, particularly the scarred remnants of North America- had been turned into a twisted parody of what he, and say, many of the Ghouls as old as he -understood as life before the bombs.
Pretty much all of New York state, and Pennsylvania were endless expanses of dead forests, hills, and dotted remnants of civilization- it was rumored the only things that lived there were roaming Yao Guia, mutated hounds, and giant bugs.
People had gathered in and around Pittsburg- but the place was exactly what it sounded like. A big, honkin', smelly-ass Pitt. It was slavers that ran that town, and unless Sanford was going there to blow their heads off, he'd steer clear if given the choice.
Ironically, Mr. Tobs didn't have much choice in where he walked today, it seemed.
Without much noise, the fabled creature of people's nightmares kept dragging him along- dismissive, and simply agitated to the presence of the dead-weight she toted against her will.
Mutually, they both got that NEITHER of them, wanted to be around the other.
Not to say that Sanford wasn't curious and intrigued as much as anxious and angry.
An intelligent Deathclaw? There were people in the wastes- real, REAL social outcasts -that spent their entire lives combing the world, and failing, to find colonies of reptilian beasts that shrugged away into the darkest recesses of the new world to be forgotten and left alone.
This one before him, had most likely hailed from such a place.
It irked him- the reptile knew his name, knew his robot's name, and knew both of them were scavengers... But Sanford and Hancock knew very little on her, in turn.
-Besides, he just couldn't wrap his head around all the French speech.
Who the hell had ever heard of a French Deathclaw?
"Hey, Ms. Deathclaw," He addressed the creature with sudden speech. "I have a question you still haven't answered."
"I told you we aren't 'Buddies', ape." She replied dimly. "Stop speaking to me. Please. Walk faster."
She tugged her wrist forwards for good measure- making the human stumble mid-stride.
"-AGH! -Damn it-!" Sanford hit his forehead on the internal rim of his own helmet. "-Quit rattling me around like that!"
"Then shut up and move."
"Listen HERE, newt-sucker-!" Hancock's attempt at defending his pal was cut off when Sanford shouted for him.
"-Alright, hold the phone scale-mail." Sanford grunted.
"-Oo! Good one, sir!" Hancock said.
"If we're both stuck in this mess, we both have to cooperate on even terms, no?"
The Deathclaw turned around- reached over with its free claw- and plastered it in a metallic crack over the collar of Sanford's breastplate.
With a grunt of effort, and a moan of metal, she lifted him clear off his feet- bringing both her forearms down, and leaned his helmet close to her face, his ankles dangling.
Sanford reached up to grip her free hand- holding up another to Hancock when he trained his missile-launcher.
"There is no such THING, as EVEN terms." The Deathclaw grumbled. "I've been running for months. Non-stop. I mistook you for an Enclave soldier. Now I'm stuck with you. And I plan on dumping you at the nearest road, just as quick as I have blundered our lives into each other. Understand, monsieur'?"
"You're a very blunt thing, aren't you?"
"I don't appreciate being social."
"Why's that?"
"You humans always find a way to turn 'Talking' into a shit-flinging competition, and I'll have none of it."
"So... What, I'm gonna' JUDGE you? I'm gonna' disagree with your story? If there is one?"
"It's not about judgment or opinions or how either party feels, monsieur'- it is the fabric of why my kind was never meant to interact with your kind outside of a hostile situation."
"...Look, it hasn't gotten hostile once we got past the scuffle before..."
"Here's what I'll relent. You're good under pressure, ape. Most of your species would be trying to run in a panic, or would be firing all manner of guns at me. Probably both."
"They weren't introduced to you in the manner we were..."
"Doesn't matter."
"I think it does."
"I don't CARE. It's my choice. This isn't a 'Get Together', you primate. This is an unfortunate web we've both been stuck in. Seeing as you have no better idea than to mope, dwell, and chat away whilst picking your anal cavity, I'M taking action to cut the web away. DEAL WITH IT."
"When was the last time you had a full-blown conversation with someone?"
"...Is your attention span that feeble?"
"No. But seeing as, ya' know, you don't want to talk... At least answer me THAT question."
"Never."
"Pfft. That's a lie..." Sanford scoffed with a sing-song tone. "-Any other's of your 'Kind'?"
"This conversation is over."
"Uhh... Meh. Maybe. Can you put me down now?"
The Deathclaw blinked in surprise at remembering WHY the human was so close in her face- rolled her shoulders from an ache, and lowered her arms to let his heels snap back to the ground with twin metal thwacks.
Staring down at him, she took away her free palm, and went to start moving once more.
"-Nope, wait, wait... Hold on." Sanford's gauntlets slid over the wrist jutting from his gut, and he planted his feet into the dirt with a brief sliding of pebbles.
"Never before have I been so ANGRY, with such simple, and annoying habits, monsieur'!" She barked at him, swatting at his grip with her fingers like she would a fly.
As if on cue, a black-colored, bulbous shape flittered over a nearby hill, and made a horrible-sounding squelch that echoed across the clearing.
Eyes locking to the movement- Sanford creased his lipline in knowing -reached up with one of his arms, and held it before the Deathclaw's waist where a wet, green-colored shape of repugnant origin slapped off the metal of his armor with a hollow thrum.
The reptile watched as he brushed off the largest smashed maggot she'd ever seen- with his other hand, and clenched her teeth when Hancock fired a single green shot from his Plasma gun.
The bloatfly erupted in a small geyser of offal and slime, splattering the ground underneath its hover.
"-Anyway, you were saying?" Sanford sighed.
Glancing at both of them, the Deathclaw blinked with a tight clench in her eyes.
"J'ai mal a' la tete'..."
"What?"
"I have a headache." She groaned.
"Sorry."
"Me too."
"So listen, Ms. Deathclaw, I don't know what's happened to you besides the obvious alienation from human civilization- or, what's left of it... -BUT, the only other person I've had conversations with in the last few years is that flying bucket-"
-"KILL YOURSELF!"-
"-And he's more crazy than I am. Now, what about you? Any flying buckets of your own?"
The Deathclaw shifted in her stand.
"You are utterly relentless."
"I'm good at reading... 'People'? I guess."
"I'm not a person."
"Why... Not?"
"Do I have pink, scrawny, thin skin? Am I a mere 5-feet tall?"
"No. But you have the power of reason, yes?"
"Mm."
"-I guess you could say I'm a supporter of the old 'Aliens are people too!'-argument. Ha."
"I don't know what that is."
"Ah, nevermind."
"I had a pack."
"A pack?"
"I HAD a pack."
"Oh... Well, I'm sorry."
"I'm done talking."
Sanford struggled after her- makeshift tow-cable wrist dragging him along.
Hancock lacked comment the whole time, and flew after them.
-0-0-0-0-0-