CHAPTER 53
No One Gets in except the Metal Men.
Sanford bore his teeth- tore back with his gauntlet, jabbed with his armored heel- he sent the sparking, twitching body of the android assailant tumbling onto the street before him.
Undeterred in his crusade to save his friends- there were clusters of synthetic bodies that were strewn in a path up to the point he lead to- sprawled behind the cars and corners they took cover behind, slashed with cutlass marks where they stood in the open.
Sanford Tobs hacked and shot his way through the entire unit- his un-quenched fear of what these monsters were doing to his companions- and his anger added in with it, driving him forwards to swat aside anything that got in his way.
The Institute obviously knew he was coming- and Sanford now had another reason to be so angry at himself as he continued to trek through the lanes of ruined cars down the main road- because this location that Hancock's signal was coming from, he knew it.
The ruins of the pre-War Commonwealth Institute of Technology- the university for the brightest of the bright.
Sanford didn't need confirmation to understand that Hancock had lead him to a location that hundreds of people throughout Boston and beyond, had sought and failed to reach. He was about to uncover the place where the 'Boogeymen' of Boston had been able to terrorize people from, undisturbed for years and years.
Sanford planned on killing every single thing he found inside the C.I.T ruins- be it man, synth, robot- or whatever other kind of deranged shit these evil people were utilizing. He was set on it- he didn't stop to observe, search, or look at any of the buildings or lots he passed down...
...What the hell was this street called again? He knew it, he and his father had driven down it a few times when he was a kid...
...-He saw a dented, green street sign on one of the sidewalk corners, and readable on the scorched metal of the rectangular tag at its top, was- Vassar Street -Ah, there we go, now he knew.
Sanford frowned at the inanimate object whilst he jogged by.
It looked like such a long road ahead.
A strip of burnt, cracked concrete- blank of the chalk marks riddling it before the bombs, strewn with ruined cars, buses and trucks... The wind whistled through the lot of it all quietly.
Sanford didn't trust merely his sight anymore- he hadn't since he'd gotten in this X-01 suit, the scanners now played a huge part in his arms tactics, and they influenced how and when he maneuvered. Fighting and advancing through the wastes was so different then how it had been before all of this.
The last month had seen Sanford's life evolve in a way he had never expected, and never anticipated- he had a great weapon of power, mass destruction, and it allowed it him to magnify his fighting potential- he had a Deathclaw, a DEATHCLAW, he would've thought it nonsense had he not seen it a month ago.
He had two, for lack of a better word- COUNTRIES, coming after him- because really, what else would you call the Enclave? The Institute? At a bare bones minimum.
They were societies of people that worked with each other, acted independently as global units- they alienated themselves from people outside their walls, and both had undoubtedly become xenophobic supremacists in their quests for domination.
Sanford couldn't understand the thinking behind it all...
...How did you just... Gather dust behind walls, or underground, or high in a tower and just... WATCH the world burn, and in addition, how did you do that and then ADD to it? What kind of person was that?
A person who should be dead. -Sanford would reason.
Armed, unarmed, whichever these people at the Institute were... Sanford was going to kill them, and he didn't care if it damned him to hell or not.
The conversation with Mills in Diamond came back to him.
Who even knew if there WAS a God anymore? If there was no God, there was no Heaven, right? And if there was no Heaven, there was no Hell, right?
"Do you believe in God?" -Liham had asked him a long time ago, several years ago when Sanford was just getting his feet wet with relations between him and Diamond.
"I don't know." Sanford had responded.
"Do ya' believe in God, Tobs?" -Doctor Higgins, the gruff, kind old man doctor, had asked him once in the past.
"I don't know." Sanford answered.
"You believe in God?"
"I don't know."
"'Believe in God, man?"
"I don't know."
"Do you, believe in God?"
"I. DON'T. KNOW. ANYMORE."
...God.
...Did he believe in God?
What a fucked question.
What a simplistically, ugly, FUCKED, question.
Did he believe in God?
Well how about this- WHAT, did God stand for? Strip away all the religious divisions, strip away what some said and others didn't- what were the bare bones things, that God stood for? According to history? To tales spoken to children and to children's children?
God stood for peace, love, equality, friendship, justice, loyalty, strength in the heart. Right?
Isn't that what God stood for? Loving your fellow human being, releasing temptation? Doing away with evil?
That was it, right?
So where the fuck was he?
Where the fuck, was GOD? How did he, she, it, even PLAY into this, in any sort of way?
Huh?
Where was God when the ICBM's started flying?
Where was God when chaos and anarchy was rampant across post-apocalyptic America?
Where was God when murder, and rape, and theft, and mutilation, and death, and mutation, were rampant, EVERYWHERE?
Where was God when Sanford's parents were taken from him?
Where was God, when Sanford couldn't save people out here?
Where was God, when Sanford had to KILL people out here?
Where was God?
How about you all shut your mouths, stop asking obvious redundancies, and answer THAT question? How about you drop some of the concern whether God was there or not, and how about you try asking- where in the living fuck WAS he, she, it?
If God existed, why has the Earth been turned into the very Hell such 'Salvation'- as quoted, was supposed to save you from?
If God existed, why had everyone's loved ones been taken from them?
If God existed, how could so many parents have their children taken from them? How could so many children have their parents stolen? Their fathers? Their mothers? Brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, husbands and wives and girlfriends and boyfriends and grandparents and EVERY, SINGLE, THING, that ever mattered to them?
Where was God, when all of that happened?
Could anyone answer that?
Could anyone?
Could YOU?
...Sanford was brought to the same answer for yet another different question, the same answer he gave concerning his parents, concerning himself, concerning Hancock, the Wasteland, why he did what he did, and with Nyx...
I don't know.
And he didn't.
He didn't know anymore.
He didn't know anymore and he hadn't known since HE had stopped asking questions.
See, Sanford had tried so long to lose his questions, those stupid questions, like the- 'Are you happy?' -shitshow, and... Look, he had indeed lost them, but he had also lost his answers.
Life out here was the very embodiment of a nightmare, no matter what, and it was always in some shape or form.
It left you wanting, it left you angry, and mourning. You worked so hard to achieve little, little things, and every time something was taken from you, it took twice as long to get it back, and sometimes you could never get it back.
...THAT, was what Sanford was fighting to save some days.
He was fighting to save-
He looked around the street, the buildings.
-a graveyard.
Earth was a world that was dead.
He was here to kill things, what difference did it make who they were? Institute, Enclave, highwaymen, mercenary? They were all out for blood, and Sanford was the only thing keeping them from people who hadn't been broken by the hopelessness.
Sanford thought of something, walking down the ruined Vassar Street of Boston City.
...Even if all these things had happened, that didn't mean there was no God.
God didn't control this world. People did.
It was the power of humanity, something God could never hold the reigns too, something God would never WANT the reigns too.
This was all the choice of people.
It was Sanford's choice to do what he did every day, because he felt it was right.
Saving innocent people... Killing crazed killers... was right... right?
Sanford huffed and shut his eyes.
He HATED, when he started thinking. He wanted to stop thinking. So he did.
He opened his eyes.
-And he saw a humanoid shape standing in the street right ahead of where he was.
Sanford stopped short.
He blinked inside his helmet.
A few feet away from him, right next to a rusty minivan's rear- was a Protectron model robot.
Sanford was frozen- his heart pounding, wind whistling overhead.
The bulky, rounded form of the machine whined as the hip servos carried the torso in a back-forth glance of its connected head unit- the robot seemingly observed the street in a few complete sweeps, and angled itself towards Sanford.
The young man slowly raised his rifle, and aimed it at the robot's breast.
"-HOSTILITIES... ARE NOT... NEEDED." -Came the drawling, buzz-filled, monotone voice from the Protectron's microphone emitters- Sanford realized the rusty, dirty machine was painted... crimson, and yellow, and... purple, in some sections, like a mishmashed clown outfit, almost. "MY NAME... IS... RUX, ENVOY... OF COUNT... BLAD... OF WALLACHIA, ROMANIA. I BEAR... GOOD TIDINGS."
-...Was this fucking thing trying to talk like someone from the 15th century? Was that even correct terminology from such a time period?
Count 'Blad'? Of ROMANIA? What the hell was this?
Maybe God was real and he had a sense of humor.
"Who are you?" Sanford asked stupidly, keeping his gun leveled.
"...I...AM... AMBASSADOR... RUX, ENVOY OF-"
"-Forget I asked- what do you want?"
"...COUNT BLAD... OF THE HIGH... COURT... OF WALLACHIA... REQUESTS YOUR... COMPANY... AT A ROYAL... BANQUET."
"...Do you mean, Count VLAD?" Sanford tried, raising a brow. "Like, Vlad Dracula?"
"...INCORRECT. COUNT BLAD... RULER OF WALLACHIA."
"...Okay," Sanford smiled. "Listen to me, little robot, I don't have TIME for this. Tell ole' 'Blad' he can kiss my foot. Get out of my way."
"...I HAVE... BEEN ORDERED... TO ACTIVATE... A SPECIALIZED, RELOCATION DEVICE... FROM THE COURTS... OF THE CZAR."
"Yeah, well, take your activation device and shove it up your-"
-The Protectron's chest whined, revved, two plates folded aside, and, extending from the black- steam belching interior of its center torso chassis- a metal hook with two prongs revealed itself in the light of the day-
whhhhmmmmm- CHK -It jolted still. It held something in the two prongs.
Sanford's mouth flapped open.
"-Okay, nononono, DON'T, do that, listen, listen," Sanford lowered his gun. "-Be a good robot and keep your shit together for me, alright? ALRIGHT?"
-Clasped in the Protectron's claw, was a United States Army, Type T-6, Ordnance 88, 'Chalk' Warhead.
Why was Sanford so concerned about this cone-shaped horror that was mere the size of his head?
It was a round that the Chinese had HATED, during the Great War.
They hated it, because it was a molecular compressed round of chemically altered white phosphorous, that was deigned to be propelled by a miniature atomic 'Burst' when the round landed. It could melt steel. Sanford hadn't seen one in YEARS.
His suit wouldn't save him from THAT.
Whoever had programmed this Protectron, was out of their frikkin' gourd.
"...YOU HAVE... RECONSIDERED, THIS INVITATION?" The Protection hadn't moved this whole time.
"-Y-YEAH, yeah I have- take me to this... this BLAD, fella', alright? Just, just put that away!"
"...SPLENDID. FOLLOW ME... GOOD SIR."
whhhm-THNK clk -The claw whined back inside its hold, the two panels clicked shut- the super-phosphorous warhead was sealed away inside the robot once more.
The Protectron spiraled around, and started lumbering, one step at a time, down the way ahead.
Now, Sanford could've just sprinted, and shot the thing from afar. He HAD, a chance to just break the unit and move on.
But as he watched the rounded machine lumber back and forth in its clumsy walk pattern, he thought about something, and that was- who carried around THAT kind of ordnance?
Maybe if Sanford went along with this... Maybe whoever this jerkoff was, had even BIGGER explosives than that? Sanford could kill him, take them, and use them on the Institute. Plus, Hancock would be very happy to experiment with a new assortment of pyrotechnics.
Sanford rolled his jaw- he glanced ahead down the long, long road he had been following, and kept his eyes at its horizon, followed a few steps behind the Protection robot.
This, was going to be interesting.
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The robot eventually brought him through an alleyway path, with brick buildings on either side- and Sanford kept a good mind to stay several feet away from the Protectron whilst he followed it. He considered a few times, simply shooting it, and being done with it... But that warhead had him interested.
Who knew, maybe this 'Blad' fellow, was hanging out in an old pre-War armory. Worth a shot, in Sanford's eyes.
He tried asking the robot some questions-
"-Who is this 'Blad' guy, anyway?"
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-The only answer he got was the robot's rounded feet rising, and falling, rising, and falling, rising...
"Where are you leading me? Can you answer THAT?"
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-Was this thing just malfunctioning? What if, there WAS no Blad, and this Blad had been dead for years, and the robot was on some broken repeat function?
Sanford slowly narrowed his eyes, and he found himself aiming from the hip with his newly improved rifle, at the Protectron's back.
Was he just discombobulated THAT much to think that this was a good idea? It was a gut feeling, sure, but...
"...COUNT BLAD... RESIDES IN THE... PIEUMONT... CASTLE... NORTH... OF HERE." -The robot's droning voice groaned from inside its broken, rusty frame, with the spattered paint across some of the plates.
"...Pieumont..." Sanford muttered. He'd heard that before. "...Isn't that a HOTEL?"
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"-Oh for God's sake... Dumbass thing."
SHSK!
-Sanford flinched when the alley broke for a small, enclosed lot to their right, with the rear of an apartment building overlooking it, with a small brick wall barring around it in a square- and one of the brick posts belched out an arm of pebbles right between him and the Protectron.
He instinctively ducked over to the side for the brick fencing- SHM! -another Ion round flew right over his helmet and punched into the wall of the building to the left of the alley.
"-SHIT!" He cursed- checking his scanners, and picking up multiple robotic contacts in the apartment building across the enclosed lot. He glanced over the top of the brick fence wall, and he saw a white, thin figure aiming a long rifle out one of the second story windows.
He ducked back right as another Ion round slapped into the wall on the other side.
Synthetic snipers. The last two days were really working out to a case of sucking.
Sanford looked out at the Protectron 'Escort' he had acquired- and he just shook his head as the mindless machine just kept on trotting down the way, ignoring the sounds of gunfire, ignoring the fact the person it was leading was pinned behind a friggin' low wall right next to it.
"HEY!" Sanford barked at the machine- it kept walking until it was behind another building ahead, next to the lot, safe from the Ion shots raining on the poor man. "-WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!"
"...PLEASE... KEEP UP... GOOD SIR." -He barely heard the robot's voice in the distance.
"Are you FREAKING kidding me?!"
"...LORD... BLAD... WILL BECOME IMPATIENT, GOOD SIR."
"-'Good Sir'- isn't even a fuckin' Romanian thing- GAH!" Sanford barked in anger- he switched out his guns, put his Laser rifle on his hip, slung the bolt action into his hands- he aimed over the top of the wall, and fired once.
CLAK
-One of the many synths in the four second story windows of the building, tossed back inside with sparks trailing from its head.
An Ion round bounced off of his pauldron.
wh-SHK! -He heard the metal vibrate in the air- his arm jerked back.
"-DAMN IT!" Sanford cursed, ducking back down into cover.
"...PLEASE, STAY ON THE PATH... LORD BLAD... WILL BECOME-"
"-OH, FUCK YOU!" Sanford screamed over- popping up again, firing once- CLAK -and killing another sharpshooter in one of the windows- another headshot.
"...THERE IS... NO NEED... FOR HOSTILITIES-"
"-SHUT UP! YOU'RE WORSE THAN HANCOCK! THERE-" CLAK -Sanford tugged the bolt back, lined up another shot, ignored an Ion round sailing past his other shoulder into the dirt behind him. "-THERE I SAID IT! I FREAKIN' SAID IT!"
"...PLEASE... STAY ON-"
CLAK -Sanford got the last synth when it tried to switch windows inside the building. His scanners went quiet. The Power Armored man huffed in sheer rage- stood from his crouch, and raised his arms in the air for the robot.
"...LORD BLAD'S CASTLE... IS JUST AHEAD... PLEASE... STAY ON... THE PATH..."
"-Yeah-yeah-yeah, you and your God damned path..." Sanford snapped, standing, trotting over to the Protectron in the space ahead, keeping his eyes on the apartment across the lot to the right. "-What the hell is wrong with you? Don't you have a GUN somewhere in your head? Most of you tin-cans do."
"...THE COURTS... OF THE HIGHEST... CONSIDER ARMED ENVOYS... MOST INTOLERABLE... ACROSS NOT ONLY EUROPE... BUT THE EXPANSES OF... AFRICA... AND THE... HOLY LAND."
Sanford stared long and hard at the Protectron model. It stood there, angled towards him, un-moving.
"...Just shut up, and take me, to BLAD." He snarled through grit teeth.
"...THIS WAY, GOOD SIR." The Protectron garbled- spun around, started lumbering down the alley.
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-Sanford clenched a fist in the air towards the robot's head, shook it violently as such that his suit creaked, and gave off an infuriated- 'GRR!' -and followed with heavy stomps to his stride.
He let his bolt action hang one-handed by his hip, his eyes were locked to the back of the lumbering robot for so long, that he didn't even see the alley break away for a quick crossing of a single street, and subsequently, a halt for a pair of opened, wrought iron gates.
"...WE HAVE... ARRIVED... GOOD SIR." The robot croaked.
Sanford looked past the glowing dome of the Protectron's main head unit- and across a brief parking lot, a broken, stone circular fountain, was a rectangular building of yellows and whites- with a shattered, green roof.
It had five stories, was a contrast against the detail lacking blue sky behind it- and a faded, metal sign above the fifth story middle windows, read in green letters- PIEUMONT HOTEL, BED AND BREAKFAST.
-Sanford snorted, and saw a white staircase at the foot of the building that connected up to a set of double revolving doors with trims of silver.
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-The Protectron started to waddle out into the empty parking lot of the haunting Pieumont Hotel- and Sanford glanced around at the building a few more times before slowly following, dutifully.
"...AT THE GATES OF CASTLE... BRAN... WE NOW STAND." -The pair stood before the inactive, cracked water fountain that took up the majority of the pavement in a brief plaza before the hotel stairs- the machine turned to him, and sat there idly.
Sanford rolled his jaw again, glanced between the Protectron, the museum, and back again.
"...So... This is where Blad lives?"
"HE... AWAITS YOU... EAGERLY..."
"Inside the hotel?"
"...PLEASE ENTER... THROUGH CASTLE BRAN'S... FRONT GATES... OVER HINDER..."
"You still have that warhead in you?"
"COUNT BLAD... HAS REQUESTED... THAT ALL 'PERSUASION PROTOCOLS' BE DEACTIVATED, IN THE PRESENCE... OF BRAN CASTLE..."
"Huh." Sanford raised his right gauntlet and shot the Protectron in the head with the last round chambered in his bolt action, from the hip.
CLAK
-KSKSK! CLMClclcmlcmclcm... -Sparks flew from the torn-ajar dome of the robot's cranium, the body slumped, arms went limp, and the Protectron rattled and clambered across the pavement with lights sparking illumination in its torn-open wound.
Sanford slowly felt a smile creep on his face as he lowered his gun.
It was so... Peaceful. Quiet. Serene.
He knelt down over the robot's body, put down his gun, and worked both gauntlets over the custom-made plating across its barreled chest. He stuck his fingers in the ridge of the divider between the two hatches, and he tugged.
CRK-! -Metal complained loudly, something snapped, and fell into the depths of the robot's interior. He broke the two hatches aside, and slacked them apart- the opening for the warhead was big enough for his fist, armor and all, to get through.
He bit his tongue, stuck his arm up to the elbow into the dark, sparking recesses of the destroyed Protectron's chest- he clenched the roundness of the warhead, and carefully worked it out of the limp two-prong claw's jaw.
Sanford stood up, and cradled the destructive piece of hardware in his hands, forgetting about his rifle on the ground briefly- examining the little piece of pre-War annihilation in his fingers.
"...Wow... An Ordnance 88..." -Sanford sounded like he was vocally describing a model in one of the dirty magazines he had kept under his bed without his parents' knowledge when he was ten. "...These are usually on rockets... I wonder how I can- oh... oh for- Oh FUCK you!"
Sanford turned the round over, and, very clearly, right on the underside, was a hole.
A blatant, drill-made hole, that went right smack into the center of the round.
He shook it, and as suspected, nothing fell out, of this hole, or rattled, or shifted, or even addled weight, inside this round.
It was a shell.
Nothing inside.
A dud. A joke. A gesture.
Sanford ground his teeth- glared at the ruined Protectron at his feet, and nailed the robot's chest with the shell casing with an effective hurl.
CLANG- clangclang... -It bounced off and rolled across the pavement.
"...Asshole..." Sanford grumbled, picking up his gun, shoving a stripper clip into the top.
"OI'!" -Came a crying voice from the front of the museum. "-WOT' DIDJU DO TA' RUX?!"
Sanford went boggle-eyed mid-reload, and watched, head still bowed for the frame of his gun- as this fat, older man, dressed in what looked like a... red... bathrobe... huh... -ran down the steps of the Pieumont, rounded the side of the fountain, and bent over the remains of the Protectron.
He even noticed this new addition to the day had two fingers on each hand pinching up the folds of his bathrobe, hiking them above his ankles so that the attire wouldn't drag on the ground.
Sanford's brow twitched, and he shut the bolt of his gun- loudly -to get the fool's attention.
"AHEM." He cleared his throat.
The guy had to be in sixties- HAD to be- he was wrinkled, portly, had dark eyes and tan skin mottled with black marks, warts, and acne all across his baggy skin- he had gray sideburns, a bald cranium- his thin little eyes got real big when he saw the metal titan with the gun in his hands.
"How are ya'?" Sanford gave him a shit-eating grin, even though he couldn't see it beneath the helmet.
"...N-Now listen, suh, I didn't mean NOTHIN', wit' the rownd! Y-Yu saw! D-Dud! H-Hawmless! Right?" The old man smiled sheepisly- with an accent that was really odd, a cross between Scottish, Southern American, and... something else... Sanford couldn't place it. He sounded like a freak.
"Your name's Blad?" Sanford nodded.
"Aye, aye that's meh." Blad stuttered, holding his flabby hands up, his bathrobe fluttering.
"I'm not gonna' up and shoot you," Sanford grumbled. "I want to know what the deal is now- I came over here thinking you had guns, or that this was a trap, and now all I have in front of me is some old fart who looks like he's never even cursed at someone before."
"-Q-Quite the summaeshion, suh!"
"Shut up. Why did you have your robot bring me here?"
"-A-Ahl I wanted was some bludy cumpaneh!"
"From a random stranger?"
"Aye!"
"With a gun?"
"Aye!"
"In a suit of Power Armor?"
"Aye, suh!"
"...Ugh, I can't even process this..." Sanford lulled his head back. "...Who even ARE you?"
"...C-Count Blad, suh," The old man smiled a bit, bowed his head, curled his arms over himself to prevent the robe from touching the ground. "-Voivode' of the State of Wallachia."
"...We're not in Romania, you freak." Sanford growled. "What's wrong with you?"
"-The whole wowld's gawn madd, I heer," Blad stood straight up. "Thinkin' we ain't in Romana!"
"We aren't. We're in Boston."
"Yes! Romana!"
"..."
"-S-Soh' yowyr not hea' to shoot meh?"
"...No...? Maybe...? I don't know, why did you bring me here?"
"L-Like I said, stranjeh, I wanted cumpaneh."
"Get away from me." Sanford rolled his eyes and spiraled around to start retracting his steps.
He really was stupid, he even had said it in Diamond.
Thinking this... this MESS, would lead him to something that could help him. What a croc.
"-B-But wait!" Blad raised his arms- gasped, and snatched up his robe again when he realized it fluttered- he hurried to catch up with Sanford as he departed. "-Werd is', you the man serchin' for da' metuul peepol'!"
"...What did you say?" Sanford stopped short and turned around.
"Yeah-yeah! The METUUL PEEPOL'!" Blad flexed his fingers in the air, smiling with a full set of white teeth- a contrast to the rest of his unkempt, unhygienic demeanor. "-Onleh' them and ther' enemeez come round dese' pawts!"
"...You know about the Institute?"
"Aye, suh!"
"What do you know?"
"Lawts, suh!"
"Show me."
"Oi'! Splendid! Guests!" Blad clapped his hands together like a little girl.
Sanford slowly reclined his head, and blinked in shock.
There were so many things wrong with this guy, it was a story in and of itself. What had he gotten himself into NOW?
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