CHAPTER 17
The Theoretical Divide.
Where was her luck? Had it died? Had it left? Wasn't her kind supposed to be lucky in general? So why did that general aura not extend that blessing to her?
Was it because of how she had treated the others of her kind that had offered her sanctuary? Was it just a really bad case of karma striking back? Like, what was the reason that all she did every day was run away and feel miserable?
She had been driven to become angry all the time, enraged and wrathful, wrapped in a thick sociality-killing coating of vindictiveness. The wasteland had given her nothing but BAD luck... But peoples that lived in the wastes had tried to help her.
Her own kind did that- and she repaid them by taking their assistance and shoving them away, isolating herself and never reemerging- they died before she could repent for those deeds, make up for the brash incapability to be thankful.
The biggest regret was her own salvation- when she had an opportunity to be happy, she deliberately stepped around it when she had been moaning and groaning for years on end about how awful she had it.
After that debacle, that tragedy- she had taken to being as silent as she could- she took the following pains of the years without the same hope of relief from before, and, she actually had been hoping one of the following bad things would eventually be her last.
Humans had a scientific/medical term for this kind of state of mental health... She thought it was called 'Depression'- but the symptoms of that seemed pale when brought up against the things battering her mind every day.
That was why she had gotten so angry at Sanford- she was such a physically strong being, and not only was he denying her the finality to her life that she had strove for- but he FORCED her to do it, and NO ONE forced her to do anything. No one.
But when she had woken from the ground- her yellow eyes snapping open with a quick intake of breath- she discovered that these broiling negative emotions, things that made her want to rend and kill, were depleted and drained as she thought outside her half-asleep state.
Awake, and sniffing a crisp morning air- the reptile stirred on the ground, grunting- grinding her teeth as she painfully unfolded her sprawled arms from under her ribs, and used her planted palms to start sitting up.
She exhaled in discomfort from laying back on her haunches- her legs complained, but they felt better. And that was weird, because, all Sanford had done was wipe the blood off.
That's all he did...
-Right?
"...Needles..." She muttered- finding one of the discarded packs on the ground by her knee, she pinched it between two fingers, and brought it up to her chops to examine it. Her claw quaked, and the syringe snapped in two with a click of plastics.
"-NEEDLES." She grunted. "That-BASTARD."
The reasoning of why her legs and her torso didn't feel like absolute shredded crap was lost to her- she gasped as she stood on quaking heels, finding her stance a bit wavering, and hard to maintain.
She shook her head, fingers stroking her brow- which she also found was scabbed over and lacking bleeding.
That little shit had healed her with... Something. Something in those syringes.
She was caught between being angry at her right to die being snatched away- and being flattered by the little ape for expending limited supplies to keep her going.
In the end, she opted for the angry part, first.
-As in- 'Thanks for the help, monkey- but touch me again and I'll tear your nads' off.' -sort of deal.
She looked around with quick sweeps- saw what she thought was the human standing nearby, and was shocked to see that it was nothing more than the unfolded exoskeleton of the X-01 armor he had been wearing.
He hadn't come fully out of the armor the entire time they had been stuck together- her anger was stalled by curiosity, as she stepped over to and around the back of the opened exoskeletal protection.
The inside was unfolded and opened like a glove that the human could literally just slide into- it was breached and dented with two gashes that combined inbetween their centers, to make an sideway-'8'-shaped hole in the gut.
She sniffed towards the inside of the suit- and snorted, reclining her head.
It smelled like death in there- human perspiration. Sometimes she appreciated being cold-blooded, and covered in scales.
"Simians' et leurs' fluides corporels puantes'..." She grumbled.
Glancing over the suit's shoulder pauldron- she looked about the surrounding overhanging rocks and the hills that lipped up and down on three sides of this little indent they had stopped in- she was hopeful nothing had gotten the human as she slept.
-After all, SHE wanted to kill him- of course, that was the reason for her feigned concern, of course. Of course.
Her eyes went wide when she saw the subject of her roused agitation- the man stepping over the raise of land up ahead, dressed in his strange combination of leather and metal padding above which was the commonality of 'Clothes'- that she had never understood until recent years.
That being, because in the only logic the chaos of the wastes could make- she had looked into that which hated her and she had started hate, in the form of research- as, who DIDN'T research the people they hated? Right?
She learned much of her communication through studying humans before she joined up with the pack wiped out by the Enclave- and when she had picked up the small amount of reading ability that she had, she had come across an anatomy book one day.
Through her resulting horror- she then saw WHY humans wore clothes all the time, and vowed to never retouch the subject. Thus, there was no curiosity to begin with in seeing Sanford the way he was outside the exoskeleton- only a whole bunch of anger.
"YOU!" She barked- swinging around the inactive suit of X-01 armor- she bounded across the clearing, right over where she had slept, clear over a boulder- and she was in his face before he could even process her shouting at him.
Though- he didn't look very surprised with the giant reptile in his face- in fact, the thing that slowed down her movements was that he just stood there looking... Tired.
Her claw had just unfurled, and was radiating its presence on his neck for how close she came to grabbing him by the throat- and he warded the whole thing away with a simple raise of his hand.
"...I'm really, REALLY, not in the mood." He said, eyes droopy, bagged- expressionless overall.
She could hear vehicle brakes as her aggression ground to a halt, and she just stood there- towering over him- mouth slightly agape.
"-W-WHAT?" She stuttered. "-Y-You... You can't NOT be in the mood, monsieur'! I have to KILL you!"
"Kill me later, please."
"B-But... But-!"
"-No 'Buts', I'm taking a nap."
"...But..."
"-I know it's morning, I've been up all night."
"...Why?"
"Bloatflies." Sanford gestured over his shoulder- and when she followed his gaze, she squinted to see a small body of gathered water- just over the rise of a few more rocks, a clear little pond.
There were black huddles of crumpled, smashed and beaten matter that was slashed between dark and repulsively glistening green- a whole bunch of the dead insects all along the northern shore of the distant pond.
She retracted her claw, and raised both of them to him with a look of shock.
"Why didn't you call me to HELP you, monsieur'?!" She barked again.
"I did." Was all he flatly stated, without so much as a flinch.
"-W-Well," She huffed. "-Well why in hell's name were you over THERE anyway?!"
"I stink like a corpse." He responded. "I STUNK, like ten corpses."
"And you got ambushed by flies?"
"You got a better story?"
"...Y-Yes I do- I'm going to KILL YOU. How's that for a story, merde' visage'?!"
"Sounds thrilling."
Sanford pushed away her brandished claw from his path- he ducked past her shoulder, and walked back towards where his armor suit was still gathering dust- and throughout the entire exchange, he did not once react to her temperamental rage.
A few hours ago, he was in disbelief that she could speak, he was afraid she would tear him up and the like- and now he was dismissing her fury like a parent would put a screaming toddler back in the crib after they climbed out.
What the heck did she miss? Was there a time gap here? Could Sanford time-travel?
She spiraled around- watching his back, him trotting away- before she blinked and scrambled past him in a rush of motion, standing there diligently before him for a second instance.
"Don't you walk away from me!" She snapped.
"Sod off."
The Deathclaw quivered with rage- and, without really putting forth the effort to do so- her palm lashed out- and it was her palm specifically, seeing as she spread her claws away to avoid actually dealing meaningful harm.
She just wanted to slap him, something light to vent on him- he was pissing her off.
Her hand met air in a whooshing parting of cold breeze- she went wide eyed, and looked about her feet in wild confusion.
He'd ducked under it- and he was further behind her again.
"Don't do that, please." Came quietly to her.
"I said- don't you freaking walk away from ME!"
"Leave me alone."
He noted how enraged she sounded, and how she interestingly refused to lay a finger on him as she trailed right behind him- ranting, getting louder.
He felt like Han' had died, and his robotic essence had somehow switched bodies into hers while she slept- like a bodysnatcher sort of thing.
The remakes of that movie sucked- and so did Sanford's confidence, as it turned out he couldn't live a day of his life anymore without SOMEBODY screaming in his ear- yesterday a robot, today, an eight-foot tall reptilian lady.
Either God hated him, or life down here blew that many chunks.
"-I told you to let me die! And you saved me anyway! I'll kill you!"
"Can you DO that already? My friend's dead, and now all I have left is YOU- and something obviously crawled up your ass and died, which would explain your attitude."
"WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME, MONSIEUR'?!"
"Did I speak something other than French, or English?"
"You little bastard-!"
He was roughly cuffed from behind, right between the shoulder blades- he stumbled forwards from the impact, sighing the whole way.
The Deathclaw was so close to him as he kept moving, that he could feel her throat vibrating which each shout she made as she hung over him angrily- but Mr. Tobs was just too tired, too spent, and too worried about his stupid robot to care.
"Where do YOU think you're going?!"
"To sleep."
"OOH-HO, not today, monsieur'!"
"You're giving me a headache."
"You ARE a headache!"
"Great, that's fuckin' great," He turned around with an indent between his two brows, and he had a finger jabbing up at her.
"You told me that you were staying with me and Han' to free yourself without killing one of us- well guess what, tootse', there isn't ANYTHING, stopping you from walking away right this second. You spent all that time I tried making friends, complaining, and arguing, and being confrontational- and NOW, you're pissed that I saved your life too?
Lemme' ask you something, if I had kicked dirt at you, called you an animal and said that you weren't worth the very life energy you had been blessed with- would you have taken that better? Hmm? Would you NOT have sliced me in two?
...I should've known better... Even with Deathclaws, with LIZARDS! Women gravitate to assholes, this is great, really astounding- first, FUCKING, class! You know that?"
...Wow, he sure had his underwear tag on the wrong side today.
Sanford just belted it out- he let his temper talk for him- that, and he was so worried about Han', about his home that he now was not able to defend that held everything he owned- that the Deathclaw's weird depression-mannerism was not on his list of being understood.
Sanford over the last few hours had lost his patience- he'd gone against his own philosophy of positivity and optimism- he now stared the larger reptile down with narrowed eyes, finger still raised at her.
She was breathing so hard, that her shoulders were rising and falling with each breath- she was so angry, that her eyes hurt from how wide they were getting.
She was so, flippin' mad- that she felt the very past itself rear its terrible mug for the second or third time in the recent day and a half- Sanford had no idea just how many bad things he had reminded her about herself, and about how she had lived.
Seeing the scrawny little shit with his finger in her face made her blood boil.
The Deathclaw heaved one last, huge inhale- and SCREAMED at him.
"Vous insignifiant petit MORCEAU DE MERDE'! JE VOUS AURAIS EVISCERE', PISSE SUR VOTRE CADAVRE ET ARRACHE LES ENTRAILLES DE LA SOIE DENTAIRE AVEC EUX!"
His hair frilled over his scalp with the blast of air she made saying the unbelievable tsunami of French profanity, curses, insults- and it didn't stop with that, she kept going, face in his.
"Vos parents ont probablement fini leur vie quand ils ont decouvert que vous etiez concieved! Oubliez cette histoire de la bombe atomique vous vomi'!"
Sanford felt his eye twitch when she paused for breath- gulping in more air, she tore away from him with a flail of her right arm, swinging her hand at him and stalking the way he faced.
"FINE, monsieur'! You're on your own! We're EVEN now!"
"Save for a save, huh?"
"FUCK YOU!"
"Ah-hah, really sweet."
"FUCK. YOU!"
Sanford found himself smiling when the Deathclaw stopped mid walk away from him- she cast her glance about to the east and west, started to move west and then spun around for east.
He stood there in the same place- folding his arms, grinning- she had climbed atop a rock, turned and saw him staring- called back to him.
"WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT, MONSIEUR'?!"
"...You have no idea where we are, do you?" He spoke, hand clenching over his mouth.
"GO FALL IN A DITCH!"
"I give you ten hours."
"YOU'RE JUST LOST! YOU KNOW THAT?! LOST!"
"No way, baby-girl, YOU'RE apparently very lost."
"FUCK YOU!"
"Sorry, not into dino's."
"TWO FACED, CONNARD'!"
"Sure. Ten hours, remember."
She hopped over a raise, and was gone.
Sanford rolled his right arm, grumbled. He felt something with that creature click, yesterday.
As he sat before his rucksack to dig out the power core for his suit- he bit his lower lip, and decided that it was not such a crazy, hopeless hunch- that she would be back faster than he had guessed.
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It hadn't gotten any lighter since he had started his 'Search'- or at least, the sweeping back and forth he CALLED a search- his internal tracking registered that it was still late at night.
Hancock had given up trying to call out for Sanford or even his new lizard-buddy on the grounds of him doing so, for what seemed like forever- and still receiving no response. Sanford was a jerk sometimes, but he wouldn't play some sort of sick joke if there was danger involved.
The Mr. Gutsy didn't have original programming for so many things- including emotions and worry- but since he had overrode much of his base hard coding, he was getting a great deal of the latter of those two examples.
Sanford and he hadn't ever been parted in a combat situation before- not for longer than a few minutes at most. This was different by a long shot- Hancock couldn't even pick up Sanford's suit recognition in his scanners.
For all he knew, Sanford could've been going an entirely different direction- IF, he was still alive.
That bothered the robot.
What exactly would he do if Sanford was dead? His only friend? His travel buddy? His cynical anti-Communist -'Bro'- as the young people said.
"...First thing I'll do is shoot that scaly turd," Hancock muttered, swinging the air with his inactive buzzsaw. "-Deathclaw? HMPF! More like METH-Claw, HA!"
The robot was cracking himself up as he hovered along the clearing terrain- trying to distance himself from the Super Mutant encampment as far as possible until he could regroup with his allies. He'd get them to come back around, and the three of them would demolish that place.
"I'll kill the ooga-booga bitches in their own dirt-huts!" Hancock laughed. "-Smack the green right off their misshapen craniums! Right, sir?"
He turned an ocu-lense behind himself- and the robot deflated visibly at the still air.
"...I forgot... Damn it!" Hancock snapped. "Judge me!"
Hancock wasn't doing so well- and not in a physical sense, because, the explosion had done its worst on him in the form of some scuffs, which he already had a coat of to match them, so, he was in good repair and mind about it all- but in another way, he was getting a tad whacky.
He had been talking to the air for at least twenty minutes- and that was the second time he had spun around expecting a response.
Partially, he was just doing that to himself because he felt separated, a bit alone- but it was also a reaction that he was caging up into to ward off the anxiousness.
He certainly hoped Sanford wasn't hurt, or dead- that would just suck.
The robot put a bit extra thrust into his central engine- he arced over a large rock, levitated closer to the ground with a plume of tan. His scanners were on were overdrive as he took in the surrounding foothills and rock formations- as, the last he wanted was to be jumped by more Super Mutants.
Eventually, the wandering and completely lost robot happened on a trailing vein of gray to go against the dusty earth and swathes of stone-gridded hills he had been looping between- there was a rusted, and folded guard rail he zipped around.
It lay there, like an arm hacked from some metal monster and draped across the ground- and after that was a cracked expanse of road that extended in a winding zig-zag in two directions.
Hancock stopped in the middle of the pavement- giving off a stressed huff- he started digging into his mapping files, and came to the conclusion that this road, heading south- would start to bring him back towards the center of the Commonwealth.
If Sanford was retreating, and hadn't been aware of the Mr. Gutsy's location... Maybe he was going home to grab more munitions, as, he obviously wasn't attacking the Super Mutants- there'd be a lot more explosions and death screams in the backdrop- seeing as there were none.
Hancock started to fly towards the south- his center ocu-lense lowering whilst he bobbed in the air in a idle glide- he traced the yellow divider chalk that was barely a shadow on the road's spine.
...This was all that Deathclaw's fault.
Hancock just KNEW, it was a bad, bad, BAD idea to not shoot it, her, whatever it/her was...
Sanford had thrown himself into another messed up conundrum, and now the two-perhaps three -of them had to dig their way out of it.
That was the pattern with them- they got into a mess, they clawed out, and they left the smoldering, body filled ruins richer and wiser each time. Hancock couldn't decide if that constant life of theirs was worth a complaint, or gratitude because they survived every instance of it.
He didn't know.
Nobody knew- that was silly talk, the Wasteland was too big, too expansive with too many people for their events to be understood by any others. And if Hancock and Sanford still couldn't make up their minds about their lives then no one was.
...Putting aside his jocular behavior every day- now that Hancock was alone, now that he was cut off from Sanford- he had an opportunity to allow another personality to breach out and influence whatever it was he was doing.
In this case, it was just flying- but the more Hancock processed all the things that Sanford had poetically put out there over the years in this current attitude- the more he resonated with it.
"There's so many brilliant people that are ingeniously trying, and sometimes succeeding- in bringing humanity back together," Sanford once said- ironically, speaking of peace and prosperity as they walked among the corpses of a group of Raiders. "-And they never get the notoriety, or the credit they deserve, it's sad."
"I think, YOU'RE thinking about it too much, sir!" Hancock snapped- dragging out a pouch of caps from a dead Raider's belt latch. "This goon sure had the bucks, Hoo-rah!"
"You really don't see it that way?" Sanford asked, nudging a body with his boot after relieving her of a customized side arm.
"Trying me with philosophy is like putting maple syrup on franks! It's just damn UGLY! And it tastes like shit."
"I almost wish I knew how to code out the army-personality bullshit in your mainframe."
"TOUCH MY CIRCUITRY, AND I'LL BUZZSAW YOUR NADS!"
...Amazing.
No- not the buzzsaw threat-
-Amazing that years ago, Hancock laughed at the deeper image Sanford was taking out of the Commonwealth, and now he was moping on how blunt and close minded he had been on it- and now, Sanford could be dead, it could be too late to make up for that.
Hadn't the Deathclaw been all up in arms about something like this? Repenting for previous sins sort of bullshit? Hancock hated over dramatic bullshit.
He also hated being alone in the middle of nowhere- but, there was no avoiding that train, it seemed.
"I knew he should've let me install that atomic attachment to my engine!" Hancock grumbled. "I'd just FLY home! Whoosh! -Like Captain America! It'd be amazing! It'd be- o-or... W-Was it Super Man that flew? Ahhh-SHIT! My comics knowledge has faltered! What's next? Battery charge?"
The first thing to go was the mind, Hancock knew.
Sanford was gone for a mere few hours- and the world was closing in around it him.
Maybe he was a bit... TOO insane, for his own good.
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"Unbelievable- I hate him... I hope the Super Mutants eat him."
Tiny ranting about the man's untimely doom being deserved unto his current person, tidings of how much of a lowlife he was, and commentary and hurled insults towards his entire genetic lineage were being drabbled off one after the other under her breath.
The Deathclaw had been stalking through the rock-strewn foothills for maybe a half hour, forty minutes give-or-take- she was angry, fuming- her heart was thudding in her chest with just how much displeasure and animosity was eating away at her insides.
Yesterday- and today, too- had been utterly horrible, easily the worst days in her recent few years. She couldn't say they were the worst in her entire LIFE, because, obviously, you could discredit that comparison with a mere moment of reading her past.
She had been sleeping for half a day and an entire night- and she was still tired, her muscles were still flaring- and by God as her witness, she was STARVING.
Why there couldn't be some nice, plump Radstag that had a death wish to happen by her today was lost to her reasoning, but embraced by her anger- thus that was the deal.
She was fatigued, pissed, hungry, and some water would be friggin' nice too.
"-I'm complaining again." She muttered to herself.
The past was just repeating in so many different ways recently. Sanford had gotten out things locked away for years in her in only a day. That was unfathomable.
All the solitude must have inadvertently negated the subjects from her for all this time- seeing as there was no one to talk to that entire passing, maybe she just never thought of bringing those things up with herself, least of all the air.
Was she that caged up this whole time? That locked away? The Enclave had done this to her- when they ruined her even further, stole away that open-armed clan of intelligent offshoots of her kind... They literally put a padlock on her former self and never took it off.
She had shut herself down- she made no effort to seek out companionship because she reasoned it only brought the people around her suffering- so she aimed for solitude, and it hurt her emotionally, mentally- even where her body remained fine.
All this time she had certainly prevented a whole boatload of bullets being flung in her direction- she'd warded away the attention of more humans willing to kill her than talk to her- and she had salvaged nothing from that age but a dirty body, no broken bones, and a soul misted in darkness.
She had been granted sentience- something her kind was never meant to have.
It was kind of like asking, what a GUN, a real gun- like an assault rifle or a carbine, a tool of war- do with itself and feel, if it were alive and capable of independent action?
Would it flee? Remark to itself in horror at its own existence? The fact it was made to kill people and do nothing else? Or would it embrace it and turn into an effective machine of death and strife?
You had to consider that with people, with other sentient beings.
It was how villains were born- what happened when those in question EMBRACED the darkness, and didn't push it away?
Of course, she had always come close to considering it- but she had never committed to the evil things she was capable of doing. She never killed other sentient creatures for food, or for anything besides self-defense at that...
She never stole, she never pillaged- she never destroyed or terrorized innocent people.
-But because there were Deathclaws across the Wasteland- not just in the Commonwealth, but all the way from D.C. to the west coast by California and the holdouts in Nevada- that DID do those things, people branded her an abomination that needed to be burned.
She had read about things like that from her brief travels through human literature- things like segregation, and sexism- nationalism that penalized people from one general place because of the actions of somebody who lived in the same country they did.
She'd found a tome in the small amount of human items that clan of her kind- the intelligent ones -kept locked away in some chamber beneath their cave home.
The book was about an ancient event, called the 'Revolutionary War'- a 'War for Independence'- as quoted.
The English Empire against the American Colonists- that was one of the first samples she took in, to try and understand why war was the way it was- why, despite how horrible it was and how there was literally no glory or benefit from it- why mankind still thrived in it?
Why did humans kill each other all the time, if all it did was exterminate innocent people? When all it did was bring suffering, and pain, and anguish, and hate and all these deplorable things that were beneath even apes.
Why did humans kill each other all the time if THAT was the result?
...She knew why.
She knew why, but... She didn't want to except it. Really, what historian would willingly admit they accepted it either?
It was exactly the same discussion as- 'What if a gun was alive, what would it do?'- and here's why, even though it was humans, PEOPLE, in question-
The world had free will, even in places ruled by totalitarian governments and heads- people disagreed en masse, and because people were independent they competed with resources, and things that were important to them because there was fair game for either side to take it.
Talking was too drawn out- and cultural differences, different dialects- made it sometimes impossible to do when people were already angry and fueled by their need to be vindictive and to have the goal that the other group wanted.
People disagreed over everything that made the fabric of society- land, ownership, homes, food, wealth, family, children, marriage- the list was infinite, and maybe half if not all of those things had sparked a war or armed conflict at least once, SOMEWHERE in the globe.
Whereas many would address that ludicrous question of a GUN in what it would do with life- the answer was plain as day.
Maybe the gun, the sentient being- would embrace its purpose, try to change, or simply lock up and wait.
So many humans were under the impression, that there were only two solutions- fight or flight, peace or chaos...
It was so much more complicated than that- not so black and white.
People reacted to everything in their own way- human or otherwise. When the stress was right, and the circumstances chaotic enough- shit happened, and people did terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE things that in a normal situation they would never even think of doing.
War was the cause of that. Honest men and women that worked hard to earn and provide for a loving family, beautiful children, beautiful spouses- they were warped and corrupted on the battlefield.
They panicked- and things like murder, rape, theft, defilement, hatred... And fear, raw, unadulterated FEAR, ran rampant.
The Wasteland was just a miniaturized ecosystem of factions and groups instead of countries. All those things, good and bad, happened out here.
-And she knew all of that, she was smart about all of it, and she knew the wonderful things that happened when people just sat down and talked...
And here she was running away from it.
This was the SECOND time, too.
The Deathclaw realized she had been walking around in a lazy circle in the same divide between two hills she was passing through- how long she had been doing it, she didn't know.
She looked at the sphere of footprints and disturbed soil she'd made, flicked her tail, and huffed raggedly.
She looked over her shoulder, and turned around.
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