CHAPTER 19
One Way, Two Way.
Everything in this place was old- it wasn't ancient, per-say, and it wasn't even hundreds of years old... But, all the houses had to have been built eighty or ninety years before the bombs dropped.
They were rickety, hazardous little structures- probably awfully cute, nestled, quiet homes of all kinds of friendly neighbors- before the War this place was an average town on the outskirts of the metropolitan hubs on the Eastern Coast- a fringe settlement.
It was amazing how, towards the middle of the war shortly after the occupation of Canada- industries of all kinds started to shift from their primary locations in the East Coast to head over and set up shop on the West Coast- where the war with China was more important.
All kinds of factories that had traditionally existed in places like New York, Florida, New England, and New Jersey- started to abandon or sell their properties and plants to move and build government-funded new ones in places like California, Oregon and Washington.
A hundred years before the war, no one would've ever expected or considered seriously such a major industrial and commercial shift from one coast of the United States to the other. When Europe erupted in civil war, and the middle east followed en suit- there was no reason to keep all that maintenance in the corner of the country where the borders were now sealed.
When Canada was annexed, pipe lines thousands of miles long were built from fresh fossil fuel plants in the Midwest, and were linked to oil industries in Texas and Louisiana- which were then linked to oil plants in northern Canada.
The lifeline of the United States Army ran through Canada towards the end of the war- just like in World War 2, the Army was left unopposed and uninterrupted in a quest to rapidly develop new technologies, new combat techniques, and new ways of training soldiers- while the front was stabilized.
The military- before the bombs -had an overabundance in raw material, manufacturing capability- and just like the Second World War- the United States Army turned into the most highly mechanized, well equipped, and trained fighting force of the century.
There was no limit- but, even no limits can't hold back atomic destruction.
From what Sanford had heard in his travels- the military had actually survived for a short while after the war and the fallout settled- those disbanded units would later break up and become elements of the Enclave and several other army-oriented factions across the waste- most notably, and more heavily- the Brotherhood of Steel.
Sanford found himself curious as he nudged open another ruined, screen door with his prodding fingers- he reached out, shoved the entry aside, and aimed his pistol inside the faintly illuminated interior of the house.
He squinted, seeing a main foyer- doorways leading off to a collapsed former-room to the left, and two rooms to the right underneath a stairwell leading upstairs, where the roof was blown full of cracks and holes.
All the wallpaper was grayed and colorless- a dusty endtable with a shade-less lamp stood against the wall before the two doors after the beginning of the stairwell- and there was garbage strewn all over the rotted carpet floor.
Glancing up at the second floor- Sanford waited for some kind of noise, or movement- as, most creatures that inhabited ruins were never so quiet about their displeasure of intruders.
He heard nothing- and looked over his pauldron to the porch of the home he stood under- edging his head around the left corner of the house's front face to see the Deathclaw just coming back from an examination of the backyard.
"Nothing, monsieur'." She mumbled- large, scaly form leaning under the overhang of the porch roof. "The property behind, and the one next to this are cleared too."
"That's... Shocking, actually," Sanford said. "A place lacking things trying to kill us? That's absurd."
"I personally don't mind it at all..." She shrugged, leaning against the corner of the house with a shifting of plaster and wood. "Go do your thing so we can check the rest of this dumpyard, please."
"Alright-alright, I'm going..."
Sanford heard the floor creak loudly when he set a single boot into the foyer- he winced.
"Oh, I hope this place can take weight."
"Don't fall through the floor again, PLEASE." She chided from outside.
"I'm working on it."
"Mm."
Sanford's boots gave off a rattling shutter of wood, and creak of nails every step.
creeek
creeek
ceek
cekk
crk
-He stopped cringing and pausing halfway through- thought- screw it -and started trotting through the structure freely.
They had been going down the row of houses in the plaza one property at a time- and so far, there really hadn't been anything worth in salvage or monetary value. Sanford still entered each house prepared to pack anything, despite this- the rucksack he carried usually inside the suit over his back, was tied over the X-01's right thigh, unpinned and opened.
Sanford peered into the collapsed room on the left of the foyer- it was probably a television and sitting room at some point- there was a smashed Radiation King brand T.V. that had fallen from a wooden shelving unit, that similarly was broken in several pieces and split down the middle by a chunk of pipe that had descended from the ruined ceiling.
A pair of sofas were buried under the hill of wood and plaster that centered the room- Sanford felt his blood chill when he saw a human, skeletal foot sticking out from under one of the mounds capping the second sofa.
Sighing- he backed out of the room and checked the other two- a kitchen and bathroom connection, and a dining room- the kitchen still full of rusty appliances, a white table broken in half- yellow tiles making the walls and falling off in clusters to smashed fates on the floor.
He avoided the dining room for a moment and hung over the kitchen counter beside the sink- he smiled and nudged a blue plastic bread box with his finger, it crackled in movement on the dusty counter surface.
This place kind of made him think of his old house- he hadn't been there in years, probably because it just made him feel down.
He could barely fit back out the doorway of the kitchen with the suit- there was cracking wood, and he turned around in a startle to see his armored elbows had torn through the arch frame in two wedges.
Sighing again- he peered in the dining room- another table, longer, but unbroken and made of oak wood- a curio cabinet had its doors torn off and a variety of fine china had fallen from inside and formed a pile of white shards on the floor.
Sanford saw a cardboard box laid beside the table- he quirked a brow, and ducked through the frame of the room- putting his arms sideways to avoid another noisy tear-through.
There had been a chandelier hanging over the table- but, all that was left now were ragged ends of chords jutting from the metal cap to hold the chain in place- whatever happened to the fixture, he didn't know.
Two large, rectangular windows had their shutters down on either end of the curio piece- slivers of blue light were breaching the blinds in uneven strides.
Sanford stood over the dusty cardboard box- and drew his gauntlet over the top flaps with a brushing motion- kicking a translucent plumage of gray into the air from two hundred or more years of undisturbed layers.
It was odd... The wastes were so explored, and so mapped- but little places like this, that hadn't seen human interaction since the War, were pretty common.
Interesting.
Sanford read in faded black marker on the box's lid flaps-
NUKALIZER KIT
...What the hell was a Nukalizer?
He leaned and examined all the sides of the box- backed away, and gave it a cuff with his boot's toe- it jerked on the floor and kicked up even MORE dust.
...Well, he figured if it was gonna' explode, it would've done that when he kicked it.
He could be wrong, but- chances were something he lived with.
Braving it- Sanford grabbed the top flaps and pulled them apart and open- more dust belched from the box's insides, and a series of metal, scrap objects clattered inside.
Cocking his head- he bowed closer to see a variety of junk parts were stuffed inside the box- rounded pieces of steel, a circuitry panel of some kind- maybe a repurposed motherboard- there were all kinds of screws and washers gathering at the box's bottom.
What got his interest, was the fact that some of the parts looked like internal mechanisms for firearms- there was a magnum hammer in there, ripped right out of the gun it had come from. Barrels of what he presumed rifles, or maybe even a shotgun- were also piled neatly in the box's corner.
He grunted in curiosity.
"...What the hell was this person doing?"
"Don't tell me you died in there, monsieur'!" Came from outside. "Hurry up!"
"I'm working on it, you angry-panted crocodile!"
BMM- She punched a wall. "-What the fuck did you just call me?"
Sanford ignored it and stepped past the box and the table- boot nudging some of the glass on the floor.
He took hold of one of the blinds and lifted it with a clattering noise from the window- squinting when the sudden daylight bloomed in his face.
The backyard was a wreck- a giant overgrowth of dead plants, a dead and black tree that sprouted from the rear east corner of the yard- a rickety, rotting wood fence colored dull brown enwrapping and not allowing sights to be seen in the neighbors' yards.
There was an aluminum shed that had been torn down and lay in a pile of scrap towards the west-hand flank of the property- Sanford figured it was worth a moment to look, and he went to drop the blinds and head for the front door.
BM
"-Boo."
"-AAH! JESUS!"
Sanford jumped back when the Deathclaw suddenly materialized from the right of the window and plastered her snout on the glass to scare him.
Holding a gauntlet against the table behind him to avoid tumbling over it- he grit his teeth when the expressionless Deathclaw detached from the glass and gave him an unsettling, toothy grin on the other end.
He'd never seen a smile like THAT before- he knew she wasn't like the other Deathclaws he'd heard about, but... That was awfully unnerving, that smile.
"-C'mon, really?" He grumbled to her.
"Hurry up already, I'm getting impatient."
"I just wanted to look at the shed over there, and then we're done."
"About time."
Sanford back tracked through the house- onto the porch through the front door, and stepped through the fern-brambles consuming the side of the house along the fence to reach the backyard.
Stepping into the brighter light from the sun, that apparently was just starting to break through the gray cloud cover- Sanford saw the Deathclaw already working on lifting a panel of aluminum from the shed's pancaked ruin.
She grunted and the large, ragged, silvery panel flipped over onto the ground with a thud.
Rolling her wrists, she peered inside the flattened remains and looked at him as he approached.
"What could you possibly want... With THIS, monsieur'?"
"I just wanna' look inside, quit whining."
"Call me a- 'Crocodile'- again, and-"
"-You'll floss your teeth with my spine, you'll rip out my still-beating heart, you'll disembowel me- yadda-yadda-yadda- I GOT it, tootse." He waved a gauntlet at her- shifting the aluminum pile as he stepped on it, and lifted another flap to examine a crushed metal shelving unit underneath. "You must be on the rag or something for all this guff you give me..."
Even though he muttered that last part- she still heard him, but she gave him the reaction he least expected- again.
"...Rag...?" She asked.
"...You don't know what that means?"
She shook her head, frowning.
"...Then, uh... Forget I said anything."
There were more scrap parts that were similar to the ones in the box he had found- he brushed them aside to see what looked like a notepad imbedded under one of the smashed shelf's rungs.
He shoved the rung upwards and nudged the pad free with his other fingers- stood back up with the little black book in his gauntlets- and tried to read the little scribble the owner had written in the white nametag on the front, to no avail.
"I wonder what THIS is." He said. "Looks like a school book, or something."
"...Mm, maybe it's a copy of the Boston Bugle's obituary section." She mused. "Hopefully."
"You know what the Bugle is- but not what being on the rag is?"
"And you tell me I'M the one who whines."
"Meh." Sanford flipped the book over- and was surprised to see most of the pages ripped out- but, also, that the one page he found had a fully-drawn wire-frame sketch of a gun, a weapon- and specifically, it was one he never saw before. "What do you suppose that is?"
Holding the open book for her- she leaned down and sniffed at the page, eyeing the drawing.
"How am I supposed to know?" She squinted at him.
"I was just asking... Damn, you ARE grumpy."
"...Sorry."
Sanford didn't know how to respond that. She hadn't just cut it all off before.
Blinking- he saw the gun in the drawing looked like a set of organ pipes- it had SIX barrels, not just one or two- and there were three cylindrical ports on the back, and there was a crank wheel on the bottom ahead of a wood handle and trigger.
...And was that a circuit breaker attached to a RobCo model Mr. Handy suspension drive on the weapon's top?
What the hell was this thing?
He flipped the page- and saw a drawn bottle of some kind of drink- he read a small block of text that had become so faded, most of the words were not discernible.
It was a bottle of Nuka-Cola Quantum.
"-Ew." Was all he muttered.
"What is that?" The Deathclaw hung over his shoulder.
"Nuka-Cola Quantum. Stuff was toxic."
"...Soda?"
"Yeah."
"Why soda, and a gun, monsieur'?"
"I dunno'."
"...You humans are into some disturbed things."
"Can't say you're wrong." Sanford tried to read more of the blocks of text and found that he was gradually becoming less and less able to even formulate which letters were what as the words got lower and lower.
It was probably some old water damage that had ruined most of the things in this book- but whatever the case, Sanford turned the page again to try and keep up his attempt at finding some information.
If there was a big gun around here, somewhere- that was better than his pistol, he wanted it- because he had nothing else until they got it back from the Super Mutants.
"Here's a name... Here's TWO names..." Sanford stated- pointing. "Gerald Thoms, and... Fredrick Ral... I've never heard of them."
"Neither have I, monsieur'."
"I wonder if this was, like," He nodded up at the ruined home. "-Their house, or something."
"Do you think that weapon is on the premises?"
"Hey, look, for all we know it just might be-" Sanford gestured for the crushed scrap items they stood over. "Apparently these parts are spares for this gun, and I found a box full of them in the house."
"You said there were two names, monsieur'?"
"Two, yeah."
"Maybe the gun is at the other human's house."
"...You think... They were neighbors?"
"I have a hunch," She shrugged. "Maybe so, maybe not. We're here anyway, why not check?"
"Alright, well... We have to find out where the house of the other guy is."
"How should we do that?"
"Maybe whichever one lives here, has a phone number written down somewhere, or a records book."
"I suppose you'll be searching for either of those things?"
"It's a gun. I NEED a gun." He held up the pistol. "This isn't going to cut it if a Super Mutant shows up."
-0-0-0-0-0-
When he had been a small child, the world had never emerged to his waking eyes a land of innocence and curiosities as it did most children- the naivety, the slow ease of learning process- never happened for him.
He had been born in the former state of Texas- to a father he never knew, and to a mother that had disregarded his birth from a beautiful thing, to as something of a hex.
He was born in one of the many tribal confederations that had been developing and fighting each other across the countryside of the Midwest and the borders of the destroyed Mexican State- he didn't remember much of his time there.
It was a tribe calling themselves, the 'Chi' Lan'- and they were vicious when it came to defense of their lands from encroaching confederations to the north and east.
He had been raised mostly by his aunt and uncle- a military family, seeing as both were enlisted with the tribe's warrior clan, and both never left their home without at least three weapons, half of the overall number being concealed.
Texas had devolved to a hell-hole once the fallout settled after the near two-hundred year period of stillness across the country- the tribes couldn't get their act together and were still killing each other, and it didn't help that a marauding group of powerful soldiers had emerged from Mexico.
Invading from the south, this time- aggressors in the name of a warband calling themselves- 'The Vampiros'- conquered the tribes closest to the old Mexican State border- and swept up into Central Texas to start wiping out his people.
Growing up with war consuming his civilization, and the brutality of his warrior aunt and uncle- was a young Laslar Seduun.
Laslar learned how to use a gun at age ten- and he killed a Vampiros warrior at age eleven after him and a few other soldiers attacked and ransacked the village he was living in, killing his aunt and uncle.
However, his aunt and uncle kicking the bucket wasn't what got him angry- because, Laslar had been taught nothing but being as cruel as possible to assure unquestioned dominance throughout Texas and the tribes living in it.
What made him enraged was that he had been forced to RUN all this time- and running was something of a disgraceful action to him.
All the death was irrelevant to him- he felt nothing towards his coward father who had run off, or his hateful mother who had dumped him on the pathways of their village- and he most certainly thought nothing of his aunt and uncle who only trained him because they intended guard duty for him in their home when they were traveling.
Laslar spent two years of his life living in the barren wastes of Texas- he found parts for weapons, built weapons and used them until they broke or he no longer had ammunition for them. He became somewhat of a reaper in the area- the Vampiros had actually become interested in recruiting him for his ruthless reputation.
Laslar soon found he had a great deal of skills laid out on the table for himself- he could operate almost any kind of gun, he knew his way around a blade, he was good at scavenging, and he knew how to craft explosives- but most of all, he was tactically brilliant.
Booby traps of varying kind were a favorite of his- especially ones that wounded, and didn't instantly kill.
Laslar would harass hostile tribes or groups of Raiders- lead them into dark corners of wooded areas or hills- and would wait for them to step into a variety of traps that would kill and maim across their ranks- and then Laslar would jump out and starting picking people off.
Laslar once spent a month of guerilla warfare against a Vampiros unit that had chased him into the burnt woodlands up north- he crafted mines and tripwires on the move- took guns and ammo off of corpses, and attacked the Vampiros soldiers at night and in the morning.
He had killed hundreds of them by the end of the ordeal- and eventually, he was chased back to his old village, which had been razed and rebuilt under Vampiros settlement.
Laslar enacted his rage and vengeance on the settlers the Vampiros warband had started to repopulate sections of Texas with, in the same fury he did their armies- his former village was burned to the ground, and Laslar shot anybody that he saw running from the inferno.
Using an old Brotherhood heavy weapon- Laslar lit the village up like a giant bonfire- and the Vampiros warband started to fracture as he continued to reek havoc across Texas.
Laslar became a barbarian- and while, he technically had no qualms with some effort into what he did best- he always claimed whenever the subject was rarely brought up, that it was- 'Without Class'.
A detachment of the Brotherhood of Steel in the form of the Texan Chapter- soon started to take up residence to the far north, towards the border of the ruined state- they had been searching for some kind of remnant of a Super Mutant army that had existed long before Laslar had been born.
Originally, the Brotherhood detachment sought him out as a potential member to their ranks- but they discovered that people in the tribes did not speak of Laslar as a hero, but as a monster.
The Brotherhood tried to kill him, a handful of times when he rejected their offers at membership- he built himself on veteran experience to outsmart large squads of Brotherhood soldiers that tracked him.
Years and years ago- Laslar had wrenched back on the grip of a Ripper sidearm- casting blood and crimson mist all about his body with a destructive squelch of flesh and the choking hack of a dying man.
The blood tinted the exoskeleton that Laslar had been wearing- stolen from the dead of the Brotherhood- Laslar had been slowly assembling himself pieces of Power Armor to complete his preparation for a one man war on anything that got in his way.
On his knees- draped, and dying- the Texan Brotherhood soldier left the living world as Laslar gripped the clavicle of his silvery breastplate with a stolen gauntlet- he dropped the still screaming Ripper sword, and let the bloody weapon clatter onto the ground.
Laslar gripped the soldier's helmet, and turned it to and fro- smiling when more blood flowed from the ragged gash dug into the dead one's neck area.
"-You won't mind if I take this, will you?" He had asked, venomously.
The Brotherhood soldier just gurgled.
Laslar tore the helmet free of its couplings with a ragged hiss- lightly pressed two fingers into the tan-skinned man's forehead, and tipped him back to rumble onto the ground, deceased.
-Things like that were his life in Texas.
Things like that were his life throughout his whole trip out of Texas for the West Coast- and by that point, the Enclave was thoroughly interested in his service. Laslar had made his entire career based on that kind of suffering- and, really, the best part was, he didn't even process it to such a deep degree.
To him, it was just survival- and if a few feces-flinging civilians in Texas had to die for his escape- so be it, shit happens.
He didn't talk about Texas a lot- or when the Enclave saved him from the NCR soldiers trying to arrest him at the border for his suspicious outlook- at this point, Laslar had done his best to erase most of his past life from his memories.
He was Enclave- nothing else.
The one-man war in Texas wasn't applicable to him anymore- but that didn't stop other officers in the Enclave from asking.
Laslar didn't have patience for it- most of the times, he would just deny it- a quick, curt- 'I've no idea what you're talking about'- or a- 'Whoever told you that is obviously addicted to chems'- would ward off such quizzers.
Dealing with politics in the Enclave was like shitting in your hand and walking around the room with it clenched in your fingers- it was horrendous, drawn out, and mortifyingly nonsensical.
It was why he stuck closer to the soldiers- the governors, the president, and all the science and diplomatic staff were nothing more than suit wearing, pencil pushing pricks to him. Even now, the image of Eden's little computer monitor made his fingers flex in agitation.
His whole body was aching- not just his hands from how hard they kept clenching.
The vibrating that bounced around through the padded seats, into the metals of his Power Armor did not help to ease him- and infamously, the VB-01 models always had a terrible ride when you were sitting in a hold meant for cargo crates.
A good portion of Enclave VB-01 Vertibirds had been modified for troop transport- the interior compartments being redesigned, gutted, and slapped back together with thicker walls for extra circuit and communications connections- with the bay itself shrinking in size.
Laslar had boarded the transport with the rest of the soldiers precisely an hour ago- and now, they were en route to the ruins of the Adams Air Force Base- the place the M-100 Land Crawler had been parked for current operations.
For a good while the thing had been sitting in the middle of nowhere up near the ruins of the city Williamsport in Pennsylvania- but Eden had put in a request for the High Command to drive it down to D.C. on account of dealing with the Brotherhood detachment in the city.
Laslar had voted a positive confirmation in that order- and in reality, all it really did at the end of the day was jeopardize the Enclave's HQ on the East Coast by bringing it closer to the fighting.
If Eden would simply put the full Vertibird fleet into action- half the problems that were befalling the Enclave wouldn't be an issue. Where was the sense?
It died. Laslar reminded himself.
Leaning back in his seat- the row of other soldiers and the team of heavies were silent shadows that sat in their respective restraints, and kept eyes in their laps or at the floor.
They were all wondering what the point of the attack they had mounted was- and Laslar didn't blame them, but, once he devised a good enough tactic, their skepticism would be misplaced.
"How many men did we lose, again?" Sergeant Luft croaked in the seat beside his- the Enclave-variant helmet he wore sneering in the dark.
"Three I think." Laslar shrugged. "Doesn't matter."
"Huh."
"We need to hit them from the east- go through the ruins we saw, rearm our guys with some more Tesla Arcs, and we need air support- gunships, preferably."
"Eden's locked all the aircraft down at the capital rig or in Area-51," Luft sighed. "Unless you petition for the rest of High Command to waver it."
"I'll figure it out."
"What's on the other side of that fortification row?"
"Another fight."
"Another fight, perfect."
"We'll need to press it- hit the Citadel in the weak spot with simultaneous air attack- I'll take the opposite flank and draw fire."
"...You know, you did this tactic in Illinois, and it almost got an entire squad wiped out."
"A needed risk. Besides- we won."
"Barely."
"I'll take some victory over none."
"-Look, where are we headed?"
"Headquarters. We're being deployed again first thing tomorrow."
"Eden know about this one?"
"...Yeah. Yeah he does."
-Laslar lied about that last part.
-0-0-0-0-0-
When he had stepped inside the house- the first thing he heard was a chittering screech, and the metallic disturbance of something small, and hard hitting the ankle of his suit's leg section.
Raising a brow- Sanford Tobs bent down to see a tan, oval-shaped insect the size of a small dog curled over his armor's ankle- mandibles clenching and unclenching in a chewing motion on the metal.
Pausing in awe at the pathetic sight- Sanford sighed at yet another scuff on his suit- reached down, and brought a fist over the Radroach's head with a hollow THM- and crunching sound. Yellow goop leaked from the mutated bug's broken head, and the body twitched and unfolded from the ankle to lay still on the floor of the house.
Wiping by the bite with his fingers- Sanford tsked'- worked his way through the doorframe of the home, and stepped on another Radroach crawling out from beneath a dusty, tattered loveseat.
"-Aw hell, I HATE these things..." THM BMMK -everytime he stepped on a new one, it rumbled dust from the walls.
The house was almost an exact duplicate of the one beforehand- more evidence to the massed housing projects planned by the monopolies that had basically eaten the United States' economy.
"-Did you find anything in the house-" THHML BM "-Gah! Damn it, now it's on my heel too... -Did you find anything in the next house?"
"No." The Deathclaw dismissively sighed from outside the doorframe- leaning in under the porch to watch him jerk his boots all over the place to kill big insect after big insect.
Soon, there was a collection of yellow splats and roach husks lying across the foyer of the home.
"This is most amusing." She stated, kneeling on the steps of the house stoop, putting her chin in palms and elbows on the porch- she did that thing again, that apparently wasn't a commonality- she SMILED at him.
"-Glad you find it so HYSTERICAL- Oh-! WOAH! Jeez'!" PLK "-Did you see the size of that one? Juicy fellow... Eew..."
"Now you know how I feel all the time, monsieur'."
"Not since you're hanging out with the cool-crew!" Sanford defended- looking around for any potential survivors to his insect massacring wrath.
"The 'Cool-Crew'-?"
"Yeah, me and Han' are hip! We don't treat ya' bad! At least, I don't."
"Mmmmm."
"...Oh, hey a bookshelf." Sanford stepped into a room towards the left of the foyer- a second later, after some quiet- a dead Radroach flung through the archway and into the room on the opposite side of foyer- the chittering ceasing with a thud and breaking glass. "DAMN BUGS!"
Sighing, the Deathclaw leant back and curled her tail over her thighs- finding the wood of the steps somewhat comfortable to sit on- she spiraled around with her back to the home's interior, and sat on the stoop with a tiny creak.
Trails of dust whimsically danced in little dust devils across the bare pavement of the road that divided the row of houses on either side- she watched the wasteland natural effects with another dispel of breath.
Bowing her head, she dwelled on her lap and heard Sanford inside, rummaging around through presumably, a book shelf.
"What kind of books are there, monsieur'?" She asked suddenly, not turning.
"...Ahm... History... About... The 'Evolution of Politics'?! Oh, God, the HORROR!"
"...I agree." She cringed. "-What else?"
"...Let's see... Uhm... 'Botany for the Extreme'?"
"That sounds like something a sociopath would read."
"...God DAMN. No wonder this place is a ghost town- these fucking freaks were probably worshipping demons on top of these whacked reading choices..."
"What else?"
"...Uhhhmmm... Oo! What about, 'Tales of Terror and the Supernatural'?"
"...Mm..."
"...Not interesting?"
"...Put it aside. What else?"
"...Alright, sure... And-uhm... Oh, how about- 'Greek Mythology, Volume 1'?"
"...Definitely."
"...Yeah?"
"Yes, I'll read that."
"You sound excited."
"...Is that... Bad?"
"No-no! It's just... No, it's fine, I was just- RIGHT, nevermind, lemme' see what else is in here..."
"Sure."
"How about 'The Study of Biplanes'?"
"...I could try that..."
"Alright, and... Let's see again-"
"-Sanford...?"
"...Yeah?"
"Come out here with what you've got, that's good."
BMMK MNK
"...Or, I suppose you could stay in there...?" She sneered.
"-Sorry, another roach."
"...Oh."
"Just gimme' a sec'."
"Mm."
She closed her eyes and sighed again- head bowed.
She wished she could just sit here- it was nice and quiet, there weren't many places like that in the world anymore.
The town was a little creepy with all the desertion, but... It surely was peaceful when you sat down and just listened to the wind.
She looked back up when Sanford's heavy boots clunked onto the porch behind, and eventually next to her- he held a small bundle of three books in his one gauntlet, and waved at her when she blinked at him.
The gray armored titan glanced out at the street, and bent down to put the books in the rucksack over his right suit ankle.
"What's up?" He asked, looking down at her.
"...Nothing, I just want to sit."
"I can deal with that." He smiled. "I'll check the next one- this one's dry, I'll be back in a minut-"
"Can't you sit here too?"
"...Ahm, yeah, sure, I can do that instead."
Seeing as she took up the whole steps- he hopped down from the porch's wood top onto the grass by the stoop's flank, giving off a muffled thud.
He sat backwards, and pressed the backside of his X-01 against the rim of the porch with a shifting of servos and click of wood. Awkwardly adjusting inside the suit- he reached up and decoupled his helmet with a hissing discharge.
Putting the headwear by his right side on the wood- he turned back and grinned at her.
"So... What's up?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Nothing." She smiled. "Why is it worded- 'What's Up'- precisely, monsieur'?"
"...I dunno," He shrugged with a clutter of metal. "It's been that way for as long as I can remember."
"...How different would this place have looked before the war?"
"That's a heavy question."
"Can you answer it? Or has it been too long?"
"No-no, I can answer it... Uhm..." He held a hand up at the street. "-The, uhm... The pavement would be a fresher shade of dark gray, because people repaved it monthly... There would be green hedges lining some of the yards... The grass would be green, trees would be green... A lot of green."
"You seem vividly able to depict this."
"...Two hundred years ago... For me, it's only ten or something, unbelievable, right?"
"What about the automobiles?"
"Not all rusty and dirty- they would be reflective, bright colors- like red, or blue, or yellow... Or green, again."
"What about dark ones?"
"Yeah, sure... There were cars that were black, and gray, and silver."
"What about the buildings?"
"Same thing, brighter, fresher colors- clean windows, intact doors... There would be birds in the air, and distant car horns, and people talking, or a jetliner taking off from Boston Airport..."
"...Do you miss it all?"
"Of course I miss it all. How could I not MISS it all? I used to be able to walk down the street without any fear of some Raider sharpshooter killing me so his friends could pick at my belongings... I used to be able to walk from my neighborhood to the outskirts of Boston with relative ease and peace... The world has changed."
"If you could hit a reset button, monsieur'..."
"Would I do it?"
"Would you?"
"...I don't know. You know what, I don't know. H-How about you? Any reset button you would press?"
"...This will sound unreal..."
"Nothing is unreal to me- I've seen it all. Whatever it is, I'll take it."
"...Three days ago, I'd have said yes to that button."
"Not now?"
"Not now."
"...That's... That's good. I like that."
She huffed in embarrassment.
He looked at her, and found a big smile developing for seeing how flustered she got.
"...Once you get past the physical barrier, between human and Deathclaw, you really are a cute thing."
"..."
"...-RIGHT, I'll shut my mouth. Good quiet morning though, yes?"
"...Very serene, Sanford, very serene." She smiled back.
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