CHAPTER 52
Hell Opens Up.
His mind was pretty clouded by the time he started moving again.
Exhaustion was the biggest thing- he'd only sat down to rest in Diamond after a whole evening of fighting, and then, when he found out his companions had been taken from him, he didn't sleep the whole rest of the night as he tracked the signal of Hancock's distress beacon.
The signal was across the canal dividing the sections of Boston's center island and northern expanses- and originally, Sanford thought he would be able to cross over the Harvard Bridge into old MIT, and he spent probably fifteen minutes away from Fenway under that assumption- however, he remembered that Harvard Bridge had collapsed, and so with disdain, he looped around and headed west.
Sanford had finished installing the new amplifier sheet in the barrel of his gun in less than twenty minutes- and he tested it on a nearby car- and, much to his expectations, the red beams of carbon hit dead center where his scope was lined, and they punctured through the door, the interior, out the OTHER door on the other side.
The Institute's rifles had hitting power- and combined with all the wiring work he had done to this gun, he now had a rifle that he felt would be sufficient to fight off Enclave soldiers- he just wasn't certain how the ballistics would prove against Power Armor.
He had no problem operating under that hope- after all the gun was so modified by this point, that it was tuned to his usage- he was confident with it, and so far, the nifty little thing had kept him thoroughly alive through some of the bloodiest scraps he'd had in years.
It felt like Boston City was becoming drained, on this particular day- because, Sanford had made comments earlier about how the Raiders, the gangers, the Gunners, the Mutants never ever stopped in the endless turf wars for Boston's streets- today, it felt like they DID.
Sanford didn't run into any problems throughout almost an hour of navigating the ruined, rubble-buried streets of the city. He followed a long, worming road that he had forgotton the name of- that trailed all the way down the Charles River's southern flank.
The road rose eventually for an overpass with several grass fields dividing varied lanes and intersecting routes in this mess of an intersection- there were blasted cars and trucks dotted all over the place- and the same kind of haunting silence that was broken by only occassional settling of steel.
Sanford was so determined to reach where his friend's signal was coming from- that he threw caution to the wind, and jogged in his armor through the rows of cars, across the streets, across the grass- making a bee-line for it.
Ragged cries, chokes and hisses brought about the Wasteland's first attempt to stop him in his tracks- as unfolding from the interiors of cars, clawing out from under their chassis, or rising from stinking puddles of muddy water in the dipping recesses in the grass- came groups of Feral Ghouls.
The rags all over their wrinkled, malformed bodies fluttered in the developing morning breeze- their zombie-like hunches outlined as black shadows against the amber-tinted environment, with an orange sky and a rising sun to the north.
Laser fire echoed throughout the intersections and rebounded through the overpass- Sanford wielded his rifle in one hand, his energized cutlass in the other.
He sprayed Ghouls left and right, stepped over the corpses, slashed any aside that got to close- he stepped on some that tried crawling towards him when he shot out their legs or their guts- crunches of bone, spattering of blood that further turned his suit a drab shade of scabby crimson towards the boots.
The horde ran out of numbers- and Sanford breathlessly finished stomping past the last of the cars, further down the road he had been following- leaving a trail of tens of bodies, some still twitching and gurgling- in his wake behind him.
He forgot about the slaughter and perservered.
The view of the canal to his right was beautiful- highlighted under the rising orange ball of life-giving energy in the sky- pink clouds forming grasping fingers over the rooftops of a hundred skyscrapers, and stouter apartments that were skeletons of man's golden age.
Sanford distracted himself sometimes with brief glances over the water as he trekked- all the trees and bushes on the grass bordering the leveled-out shore here were dead and translucent anyway, thus there was no blockage to his eyes.
By the time Sanford reached the fringes of the Boston University Bridge- the sky was now a dull, light blue- and the sun was hidden behind a few bulging masses of gray, sorry-looking clouds. There was a tugboat that was beached on the sandy grass to his right- a few feet from the edge of an old sideroad that was closer to the water- Sanford kept his eye on the rusty, hollow ship while he passed.
All the old ships that were half-sunken, beached, or still caught in piers across the harbors and the canal were prone to Mirelurks, bandits, and all kinds of other bad shit that liked the dark or the hiding space it provided- he took it slower.
There was a railroad link that went underneath the Boston University Bridge- and it was still intact all these years later- it actually fared better than the road bridge right over it.
From his distance, the bridges drawled out as black disturbances against the seemingly pulsating blues and grays of the Charles River- they connected to an intersection further to the left- behind a few flattened, ruined buildings.
The road bridge had an overpass going right above the road Sanford walked on- but the railroad connection under it was level with where he walked- which meant he was crossing the canal over THAT.
He walked into the shadow of the overpass eventually- his eyes darting around- his sensors were picking up life signatures by the shore, and nearby towards the left deeper into Boston's center isle streets- the suit's HUD confirmed Mirelurks, large insect life- things Sanford didn't have time for.
He was just leaving the shadow of the pass, when water sifted and lapped nearby- and he immediately spun right- and blared his rifle at a bulbous, chittering mass that rose from the mud and dripped a trail across the pavement as it advanced on him.
PMPMPMPMPMPMPM- The improved carbon bolts cracked open the Mirelurk's armored shell like a knife through tinfoil.
The crustacean squeaked and hissed- it thudded wetly on the street with yellow bile forming a puddle under its mass- the claws twitched, and the legs curled up like a dying arachnid's would when they were still small, before the war.
Sanford had to shoot five or six more of that foe's friends as he cut through a bicycle path towards the railroad tracks, subsequently the bridge- the Wasteland's second attempt to stop him, also failing.
PMPMPMPMPMPM
-PLsk! -The mutated crab's head popped open, white bile spewed everywhere on its shell, the ground.
This Mirelurk had less the appearance of a balled, hunched up common variant- it looked more like a big, spider-like lobster- and the body thrashed, the tail curling and uncurling as life left it through its ruined, long head.
Sanford switched sides with the battery on his rifle as he watched the great beast die in the dirt.
He was still breathing pretty heavily from the last few little scuffles- really, this had just been several games of him backing up, spraying the chittering horrors with fire until they stopped moving- which, with these improved bolts, was relatively quickly each time.
The Mirelurk alpha stopped twitching, and Sanford heard wet air dispel from its stilled mouth-parts.
The giant lobster was bypassed instantly whilst he moved for the bridge.
Originally, when the structuring hadn't been ruined by the war- the rail bridge had an overpass of its own over the bicycle paths by the shore parks of the canal- but Sanford had long ago found that the overpass had collapsed, and there was a literal hill of rubble and dispelled soil that you could hike up to reach the actual rails.
That's what Sanford started doing- he trudged, raising one boot higher than the other- he moved uphill on the sliding ramp of dirt and blocky stones. There were bricks from the bridge's structure that were still sticking out of the soil in places- and a pair of trees jutted out horizontally at the ramp's base from where they'd been buried.
The railroad tracks had been torn up in the area of the collapse- so there were some rails and chunks of moldy wood that stuck out of the ground too- Sanford stomped through it all, reached the relatively level top of the hill, and looked west and east.
Down one way, the tracks went down to street level in a ruined ramp connecting them to a main line extending into the city- and to the direction he wanted, to the right- the bridge protruded out over the dark water of the river.
Sanford checked his gun- looked around- looked at his scans, which were still very active with life signatures- and he started going down the bridge.
His boots crunched through the pavement on the side of the moldy, rust-ridden tracks- his eyes were still darting about- and he listened to the sound of lapping waves from the canal as he speedily walked.
He started thinking again. He was beginning to dislike when he was thinking.
This was all his fault.
If he hadn't let his damned hormones drive him into something so stupid- Nyx wouldn't have taken off, and Hancock wouldn't have followed to try and stop her, which- Sanford was pretty confident was why the robot was with her in the first place.
On the other hand, she and him hadn't taken their relationship to anything deeper than talking- and while they had discussed the possibility of some kind of interest in a weird, cross-species intimacy sort of deal- they had set nothing in stone.
Sanford had not pledged anything to her- that included a conjugal loyalty -and while, yeah, it was pretty scummy to talk sex with one person and then go on ahead and start getting involved with someone else- Sanford had to remember that he was the one bearing the brunt of the wrongness here.
He was done thinking with his anger- it only made the situation worse.
He liked that Deathclaw, he enjoyed her company- seven foot tall reptile or not. She was the most interesting sentient being he had ever come into contact with in his life- throughout his whole time as a child before the war, and the decade wandering Boston's ruins.
He coudn't stop thinking about her- he was afraid, and not many things made him afraid, like, FEARFUL, as this, anymore.
Sanford was always afraid- even when he and Hancock were winning, and when they triumphed, and when they found an amazing thing- a sightsee, an item, a place- whenever they had laughed together, joked, called each other names- no matter how confident or professional he became, Sanford would always be afraid, and there was absolutely nothing abnormal about that.
But he had never been afraid like this for another person.
Not even Hancock- because that robot could survive ANYTHING, and they had been buddies for so long that Sanford knew when the shit was hitting the fan, and his robot was in trouble.
Right now, he believed BOTH of his companions were in trouble.
He was an anxious wreck inside the X-01 suit.
All Sanford could do was keep moving- he had to fight through the exhaustion of a sleepless, physical exertion filled night- he had to fight through the monsters of the Wasteland, and he had to fight through his emotional unraveling.
Sanford kept jogging-
clm
clm
clm
clm
clm
-His boots crunched through the gravel with each fall.
He looked out across the darkened waves of the canal to his right- the foggy outline of Boston on both sides, ruined, lonely, dilapidated and forgotten- plagued with nightmares.
Here he was trying to be the hero again- even though he would never admit it, and he would never put himself in that light because it scared him even more than the uncertainty, and it scared him just as much as the thought of dying.
Here he was, trying to be a hero, and as looked across this dead, barren world- and each time he killed, and killed, and killed, and KILLED, the living things that now called it home- he felt a piece of his understanding to the reasoning of his WANT of saving it, fall away.
Sanford didn't know if Earth was worth saving anymore- if it even had a place anymore, for good people, for justice, for heroes.
Sanford had always reasoned with himself that he was just trying to survive.
But a mere survivor didn't risk his skin for innocent people.
A mere survivor didn't dive into the dark and face things that were the stuff of pure, unadulterated horror to thwart pure evil that walked the Earth.
A mere survivor didn't try to save the people they cared about the most- because a mere survivor had no one but themselves.
Sanford wasn't just a survivor, he had never been just a survivor.
He looked across the canal- found it strikingly ironic to see the sun reemerging from the clouds overhead- and a upside-down pyramid of pink start to scythe down the water towards him from the horizon line.
This whole day showed what Hancock had said when they first found the Deathclaw- when Nyx had literally fallen from the sky.
Worse than a pair of handcuffs. Huh. Interesting analogy.
Now he was thinking about what a pair of handcuffs actually felt like if they were on you- he didn't know, he'd never had a pair slapped on him before.
Sanford grinned briefly.
Simple, stupid thoughts. He liked simple, stupid thoughts.
-0-0-0-0-0-
The Vertibird pilot had regained control exactly eighty seconds after the flak shot damaged the right engine.
The pilot managed to pull out of the spin- arch the nose to the right, and literally tug the craft through a neck-breaking U-turn, before stabilizing in a drawling hover several feet away from the closest rooftops. Laslar felt like his armor was vibrating- like a gong would have after-tremors from being whacked with an object.
He clawed on the rim of the troop bay- his gauntlets, his gun, clattering against the steel. Luft and the other three men were out of their restraints, and trotting over, bumping into each other in a frenzied, dizzied hurry- to reach him and pull him in.
"-NO! NO!" Laslar barked at the top of his lungs- his eyes now tremoring too. "-T-TELL THAT FUCKING PILOT TO LOWER TO THE STREET!"
Luft stood bolt upright from where he had knelt- he stumbled over the cockpit arch, shouted something into it- and in a few seconds, Laslar's foggy mind processed the feeling of movement again- the Veritibird started to lower.
Laslar grunted as his muscles, his whole body- began to complain from how hard he had tightened up during the moments of peril- he tried to angle his helmet over his angular pauldron to glance side-ways at the stree below.
His armored legs were dangling down there beneath him- and the concrete was getting larger.
Smoke was pluming out from glowing tears in the Vertibird's right engine- there were plates of metal that had been punctured with what looked like marks from some fell beast's huge claws, and entire sections of armor were torn off.
The propellor was making a whining screech, and Laslar could swear it was porpoising a bit in its blindingly fast rotation of the prop and the blades.
The craft shifted to an uneasy stop half a story above the ground level- Laslar shifted in his hang from the bay's floor- his arms were beginning to burn- and he glanced at his soldiers, at Luft, when they all peered down at him.
"-Don't just STAND there!" Laslar snapped. "Drop in a different location! Go!"
The Superintendent's gauntlets hissed as they slid from the titanium of the bay's floor- and Laslar fell the remainder of the distance to the street below.
PMMKK!
-He vanished in a belch of dust, kicked concrete chips.
The Superintedent rose from a single knee to the ruptured pavement- he rolled his shoulders, brandished his Tri-Archer Rifle, and stepped from the crumbling mess he had made in the center of the two lanes.
The Vertibird released a reverberation into the air as it rose, swung over a few rooftops to the right where the engines started to lose volume in Laslar's hearing. He looked around the street he had landed in- and the corner of the museum building was visible to him around the bend of an intersection- as was the bridge it was built on.
Laslar would have to cross the bridge over to the grounds where the Minutemen were held up- he at least was satisfied that a bunch of cars and a passenger bus were laid out all over the bridge- that would give him cover.
He didn't take too much caution with getting there- he threw himself into a sprint down the street- ran around the corner of the nearest building, and quickly started to cover ground out in the open. He reached the mouth of the bridge- and his life signature scanners started to flare as the militiamen became close enough for detection.
Eight flaring life sigs'- that meant there were wounded, and they weren't a threat- but there were twenty heart beats that were in perfect order. Laslar actually was a little disappointed at the lack of potential kills.
If this had been a few years ago in California and Nevada- Laslar would've had groups of ten, twenty, thirty guys with him against NCR units of eighty, ninety, sometimes a hundred- there hadn't been many instances in his career where he'd killed that many people before at once.
New England was too tame for his tastes.
The Superintendent was used to operating with a unit, or a squad- having soldiers to give orders to, and a team to work with... However, he was trained to work alone, and, before the Enclave in Texas and Utah- he ALWAYS worked alone.
This was a bit of a flash from the past- the only difference was who he was fighting, what he was equipped with, and the fact he was surrounded by cars and an urban megascape- not open fields, badlands and the occassional farm.
Cover worked the same though, no matter what it was- because if you understood the weapons of the enemy, and your own weapons- you knew what would protect you and what wouldn't.
He was confident the militiamen weren't carrying guns capable of shredding automobiles- though, they apparently had been able to nearly knock his 'bird out of the sky, so... Who knew, maybe the infantry had a wicked armament for themselves.
The cars were the best chance he had, the ONLY option- so he went with it.
Laslar heard shouting- he heard screaming too, not screaming for orders being given, or for any kind of movement confirmation- it was the pained kind of screaming- that must have been some of the wounded he had picked up.
"I thought I was finished with urban warfare when I left fucking D.C..." Laslar grumbled as he peered around the edge of the passenger bus's front- right above the headlight. "-Someone confirm that 'bird didn't crash, God damn it."
"Vertibird's engine is badly damaged," -Luft reported through the communications link. "We dropped off two streets over- Wesbury Avenue."
"I'm on the bridge," Laslar saw some humanoid shadows moving about in the amber glow of a fire still brewing in the museum's front property- all the dead plants in one of the garden sections that had lit up like timber wood. "I count twenty militia contacts."
"-We have a location for an AA' gun- looks like a 90'. Right in front of the Boston Library, behind your position."
"Kill it."
"Should I detach Romo and Jack to help you with those fucks?"
"They're MINE. You have the gun, Luft."
"Affirmative."
Laslar rounded the side of the bus.
He got a few feet further before he could see the group of militia in detail- and right in the middle of their group, was the Corporal who had resisted him- this... ADDACE, primate.
Laslar for a brief second allowed his mind to become consumed in a rage-induced reverie.
He decided that no matter what happened, he wanted to tear this man's throat out. With his bare hands. He fixated on this idea.
Laslar knelt behind the hood of a sedan- he raised his Tri-Archer- and even though he had a clear as day, plain line of sight, that if he had followed through with firing- would've clipped right into Addace's breast- he instead moved his iron-sights over, and shot the man next to Addace.
CLK CLK! -A single shot, three bolts of green were tossed out.
He could see, even from the distance- Addace leap away from the still-standing corpse of his man as blood that was not his own speckled his face, his coat- and the headless body tumbled to its knees, and then across its chest on the ground- crimson catapulting from the carbon-burnt remains of the neck.
"...I see him!..." -Somebody shouted.
"...Behind the car! Bridge!... Fire...!"
It was like child's play for Laslar- all he did was duck down a bit lower- and he waited a mere second before metallic shrieks echoed in the hearing filters of his helmet.
Bullets bounced off the sedan all over the place- they kicked dust from the street- a few Laser Musket beams thrashed out, burnt welts into the hood, smacked a hubcap off one of the ancient wheels.
Laslar had fought entire armies that were better trained, and better coordinated then this- without their big guns, against Enclave superiority- these freedom fighters were a bad joke.
The Superintendent stood at a precise interval of time where the gunfire slackened for a mere second- he foot-worked to a car ahead of the sedan, raising his rifle, firing once, and then ducking behind the newer, less damaged car to the other's flank.
Addace was trying to reestablish a firing line when three more bolts of plasma dropped two more of his guys with direct hits to their chests- the green energy swirled in the air with dispelled gore, and the bodies tumbled back with fissures torn in their breasts.
"TAKE AIM!" Addace shouted- raising his Musket.
"-Take aim!"
"TAKE aim!" His men repeated- another bolt of plasma cut one's cry short- and he flew back between two of his friends- dead.
"FIRE!" Addace commanded.
PMPMPM
PM
PM
-Only five Muskets this time roared fury to the Enclave foe.
The Superintendent had already cleared the mouth of the bridge by the museum's fringes- he swung behind the girth of an overturned pickup- and the laser shots slapped into the underside right by where he had been, and they were ineffective, obviously.
Addace gripped the handle for his Musket's crank- he wound it a few times, sweating profusely.
"-FALL BACK! Establish a line more back!"
His men didn't have to be told twice.
There were a few guys with assault rifles, carbines- they rose from hiding positions behind the ruined museum steps to cover the fleeing line of militiamen and their Corporal- projectile rounds peppering the truck down the bridge's way.
Laslar stood out of cover- he ignored some glancing hits that were represented with little more than kicked sparks off the plating of his suit- he sprayed the stairs with plasma- he killed a few people, and the others kept their heads down.
Addace and his Musketeers ran for a car that was on the sidewalk nearby the still burning garden section half his unit had been slaughtered in- the Corporal fell to a kneel behind the car's passenger door, and the labored breathing of his fellows was soon all around him as his men did similar.
"-JACKIE! Cover us for one more minute!" Addace called over to the stairs.
-See, sergeant 'Jack' Jackie would've called over a confirmatory order for it- but, Jackie was already dead by the time Addace's voice reached the side of the concrete steps.
Jackie' , the stoic, burly guy that was in the center of the militiamen behind the concrete of the stairwell- had just shoved a new clip in his rifle- had opened his mouth to call out to Addace, when he heard a thud on the steps above his cranium.
He, and the five other soldiers around him looked up- some of them mid-reload.
This titanic man of steel stood and looked over the side of the stairwell at them- he brandished a plasma pistol in one clenching gauntlet- and a revving blade made of chain-links in the other.
Laslar opened his mouth- and he SCREAMED, like some kind of beast. His Ripper roared in his clasp- and the pistol jabbed forth, barked once- blew open sergeant Jackie's head like a melon.
His men panicked, covered in their leader's blood- they broke like common rabble- and the Superintendent landed amidst them- the Ripper cleaved back and forth, drawling muddy trails of red with each swipe- and effectively ending two lives one after the other.
Addace saw the slaughter taking place- he sneered- aimed over the sedan's trunk- and fired at the Enclave warrior.
SHSKSKSK... -A previously unseen, neon-green, pulsating barrier flickered over the Superintendent's form as his refraction field generators removed the annoyance of the carbon energy before he even had to worry about it glancing off his suit.
Laslar hadn't even blinked from the munitions- he was too busy tearing out his Ripper from the screaming, convulsing woman before him, at his feet.
The militiamen's hollers were cut short- he wrenched his weapon free of her chest, and shoved the corpse away from his boots' paths like a ragdoll. Laslar snarled- canine like -ran in an arm-flailing sprint towards the car nearby.
Addace was still trying to crank his Musket- all of his men didn't even shoot yet- they saw the Superintendent, lined up their Muskets clumsily, and fired all at once.
Six beams of laser energy bounced off the street, and whisked away in Laslar's refraction fields.
The Minutemen scattered like mice under the boot- the squad ran.
Laslar left cracks in the street as he compressed his weight into his boots- and, Power Armor and all- he leapt through the air, and landed right on the top of the cab of the car.
CSSK! -The whole vehicle rattled, and indented right down the middle.
A Minuteman flung himself away from the car as Laslar landed on his heels right in front of him- and the Superintendent screamed at the top of his lungs again- the Ripper swept in a low dash, and the fallen, scrambling man's face was slashed in two flaps of ragged gore.
- Laslar raised his pistol- fired repeatedly.
CLKCLKCLKC
-He killed the rest of Addace's men with shots in the back.
Laslar snickered.
He watched the last corpse fall with green and red trailing from the center back- and he saw Corporal Addace himself, having dropped his hat, dropped his Musket- with arms arcing on both sides, RUNNING, like a child, down the Charles River Dam Bridge, not even trying to delve for cover.
Laslar curled back his lip.
Disgusting.
CLK
-A single plasma bolt caught Addace in the calf.
He screamed, and he went down- rolling on the pavement - the Corporal crying out in defiance- hands quivering over the burnt hole in the back of his leg.
A shadow eventually loomed over him, blocking out the early day sun.
Mouth open in a silent scream- Addace looked up.
Laslar's gauntlet's quivered- he dropped both of his weapons, and they clattered on the pavement on either side of him- he bent down and snapped outwards with one hand, wrapped his steel fingers around Addace's neck.
"-COME HERE- YOU LITTLE FUCK-!" Laslar barked through grit teeth.
Addace gurgled whilst the Superintendent clenched his fingers- wrenched the Corporal up, and off the ground, off his feet- and dangled the man face-to-face with himself.
Laslar took his other gauntlet and jammed it into the space above his other- he squeezed his fingers, blood started to bubble up and around them- Addace made a squeaking sound.
Laslar kept squeezing until he heard a squelching noise- and then he tore his one hand away.
PLSK-pknk...
-Addace's arms went limp on either side, dangling loosely with the rest of his body.
Laslar dropped the corpse- it sprawled out at his feet.
Then he flicked away the stringing, crimson mass of ruined flesh he had wrought from the Corporal's throat, with bloody metal fingers, onto the street- it made a plopping sound.
Laslar reared his head back.
"-rrrrrrRRRRRRAAAAGGGGHHHH!" -The Texan Terror reveled in a street filled with the cadavers of the his prey. He felt young again.
-0-0-0-0-0-
The militiamen wielding and operating the AA' cannon had wired it back up to the Protectrons that they relied on to tug it- the robots had just started to take their first steps- the wheels on the gun's carriage squeaked, and hissed against the pavement.
-Suddenly, a bolt of crimson, carbon energy clipped into the squad sergeant's forehead- and the poor boy's face imploded, and he tumbled back onto the street, dead.
The gun operators cried out to each other to hit the deck- and then an array of green blobs flung out, burnt holes and gashes of black all over the gun's controls and cranks, and killed all three of the Minutemen before they could hop to cover.
The bodies rolled all down the big gun's sides- the carriage jolted to a halt as more plasma fire wrecked the Protectrons towing it.
The robots sparked, belched soot- rattled to the ground and collapsed all at once.
A few moments later, Sergeant Luft and squad Seduun emerged from the interior of a nearby storefront. The Enclave soldiers passed the gun- examined it, one of the men found a body still moving and shot it in the gut for good measure.
Luft lead the team in weaves through the cars gridding the Charles Bridge. They all noted with relief, that the gunfire had stopped by the museum grounds.
-0-0-0-0-0-
Laslar didn't even bother wasting yet more time checking the perimeter of the grounds of the front of the museum- he stepped over the corpses of the fallen militia, he scaled the steps that still were in relatively walkable condition.
Unknown to him was that the smashed-in hole he stepped through in the front doors of the entrance wing of the building, was made a day ago by a specific subject of his- in the moment, it was just a place to enter without having to ram through.
The Superintendent's boots- and his heavy breathing, ragged- echoed throughout the entrance wing of the Museum of Science- he glanced at the triceratops skeleton, all the floors visible in the massive lobby chamber.
His scanners picked up life signatures- and he turned to the left, and stomped across the floor towards the source.
He ducked through a doorframe- and right there in front of him, was a militiaman, garbed in the standard overcoat- he had a white trifold on his head, marked with a poorly painted red cross.
There was hissing against the tile floor- Laslar saw the man dragging a groaning, burn-wounded fellow of his across the ground, to lean him up against the wall in this new exhibit room branching from the lobby.
The medic was a skinny man- darker skinned- he was panicking, Laslar could tell- his breathing hitched, and got louder at seeing another living being, ESPECIALLY, a member of the group he was currently doing away with.
The militiaman medic had three other guys in this room- one of them had a trail of blood briefly ahead of himself- and it was obvious he had done some grabbing-and-running with the wounded outside to get them all here.
Too bad it was for nothing.
The medic stood bolt upright- eyes wide- hands in the air- when he saw the titan standing in the center of the room behind him.
"-I-I'm not armed-!" The medic sputtered. "-They're wounded! I'm just trying to-"
CLK CLK
-Laslar put two bolts in his gut with the pistol.
The man was still standing as he curled his arms and his shoulders over his belly- gasping- wheezing. Laslar stepped over, and the medic fell on his side, dead.
The three wounded, propped against the wall on the ground- they didn't even look up at the Enclave warrior. They were all suffering burn wounds- their uniforms were scorched, ruined- one of them would never walk again.
CLK CLK CLK -Laslar shot each of them in the chest and moved on.
He came across the very same concrete staircase to the basement level- of course, unknown to him at first- he jogged down the steps, into the blackness- and he went through the open industrial doorway down below.
The transition from the museum's above levels to the underground industrial tunnels was quick- and Laslar was so concerned with finding the evidence that had been delayed from him- that he didn't care to consider why the tunnels existed in the first place.
He saw the first archway on the right- he stomped down the hallway, rounded the bend- aimed his pistol inside a cell, and when it cleared for targets- he found himself looking up at the swaying array of storage containers- military grade.
Their seals were in a pile all over the chamber- and there was a mound of... Corpses, in the center of the cell.
They looked human.
But... Something was off about them...
...They were white, porcelain white- circuits and electronic ruin hung from the wounds torn into their metal, synthetic bodies...
They were synths.
The Minutemen must have found and piled them.
But the wounds on them obviously shown they were not done in by Laser Musket OR bullet.
Those were claw marks.
Laslar grinned- still breathing heavily.
FINALLY.
"-Luft?" Laslar grinned into his comm' link.
"-Gun crew's dead, Superintendent, closing in on you."
"-I found something worthwile."
"What is it?"
"Dead synthetics. Killed by our 'Claw."
"You think we could trace DNA?"
"Aye."
This was too good to be true. They would track the Deathclaw by tracing DNA leftovers. A sinch.
Laslar Seduun was a happy man at this moment.
-And then, out of nowhere, as if his day couldn't get anymore exciting- there was a clacking sound of a discharged weapon, the flickering of his refractor fields, he stumbled forwards when it felt like a brick had bounced off the back of his cuirass.
Laslar went wide eyed- he snarled like an animal, and spun around with his pistol aimed at the doorframe.
Standing in the shadows of the hallway was a sleek, humanoid visage- garbed in white, glossy armor, with a head hidden beneath a detail-lacking helmet of synthetic metal- in its hands, it held a two-handed, scoped rifle- an Ion Shot.
Laslar's rage flared.
Both combatants lowered their weapons.
This was... Complicated.
The spindly little bastard had shot him. Laslar wanted to kill him. It took a sort of ungodly strength to refrain from trying.
"-Misidentification confirmed. Negative, not Brotherhood." The synthetic droned with a monotone, male voice beneath its helmet. "Enacting ceasefire."
"...INSTITUTE," Laslar sneered- wheeling around, and jabbing the barrel of his pistol. "-Who are you?! Answer me or I'll break the truce and shoot you fuckin' DEAD!"
"XM-988, Courser of the Commonwealth Institute of Technology, Secession Sect." The synthetic reported, dull- almost uncaring the fact it had pumped an ion round into the Superintendent's back seconds ago. "The Enclave violates many pacts with military operations this far north."
"-FUCK the pacts!" Laslar yelled. "We haven't interfered with a SINGLE, Institute op' the entire time we've been here! I'm not starting ANOTHER fuckin' war, because your Director can't keep his dick in his pants!"
"I've recieved orders not to attempt further hostilities." The Courser stated- not moving from the doorframe. "The Secession does not wish armed conflict with Enclave forces."
"...Bah..." Laslar snapped after a pause- he lowered his pistol slightly. "-Why are there synthetics down here? How'd the militia get them? Answer me."
"Intelligence Planter in this area has been terminated- synthetic subjects have been terminated- both by foreign causes."
"Foreign causes? What the fuck does that mean?"
"We believe we can mutually benefit each other- Enclave and Institute."
"...What the hell are you talking about?"
"We have reason to believe that you are searching for a unique specimen that is not native to the Commonwealth, but present in it."
"...What are you saying?"
"We have apprehended the perpetraitor to these units' destruction. I have been dispatched by Director 'Ordy' to recover the remains for recycling processes."
"...And?"
"The Secession would be willing to release this captive."
"In exchange for what, you two-faced prick?"
"Director Ordy has not confirmed. I assume military aid and or action against the Division."
"...You have my Deathclaw?"
"I can repeat organic specifications if needed for exact identification."
"...No. You have my Deathclaw."
"-Superintendent, I'm picking up another signature in there with you- robotic, are you engaged?"
"No, Luft," Laslar grumbled. "This just got even more complicated."
"What happened?"
"I'll explain it later." Laslar cut the link- he eyed the Courser. "-If you give me that Deathclaw, I'll solve your little civil war, quickly, too."
"Director Ordy is eager for an arrangement."
"I'm sure that bigheaded bastard is."
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