CHAPTER 55
The Lonely Trek of One.
Out of all the things, the horror stories, the tales of beautiful places in the world being blotched with the shadows of war- Sanford's father had withheld so much information from his son, that little Sanford didn't fully know of his father's exploits in the military.
Sanford senior was a veteran of some of the worst, most drawn out campaigns in the Sino-American War as a decorated infantryman. He had served in the defense of Anchorage, the defense of occupied Japan, the defense of the Philipines, and the invasion of Hong Kong, and many more.
Out of all of those theatres, and all of those wars within the war itself- Sanford's father had witnessed all kinds of atrocities- he witnessed amazing things too, and even beautiful things, just like his son would in the world after the bombs.
However his father was haunted by the terrible crimes going on around him in Asia and the Pacific- Sanford was too young to see that when his pa' was still around, but, now that he was older, now that he understood the concept of pure evil, the fickleness that human life held in such bedlam... He saw what his father was really going through.
Sanford asked him all the time to tell him stories from his time in the army, and most of the time his father just would flatly refuse-
'No, I don't think that's a good idea, little man.' -He'd say.
'I've told you, Sanford, it was a lot of sitting around in trucks, doing paperwork, watching sunsets over the Dutch East Indies and workin' with the Aussies' until they told us to leave when the Commonwealth popped up in Europe.'
...All a bunch of lies.
Sanford didn't hold any grudges for it, at all.
His father didn't want to relive that shit at home, with his family, Sanford was too small to understand that, to grasp it.
Every now and again, his father would relent sometimes with little stories- he told Sanford about a few of the weapons that were active in the campaigns- like the M44 Super Sherman mainline tank that was rolling around Japan, and the Philipines to a degree.
"Wish we had THOSE mutha's in Alaska..." His father noted once. "Chinese were running about with these modified ore mining platforms- things were garbage, and because we couldn't get tanks through all the ice and mud, we had to use AT rifles on them all the time."
"What'd the Chinese use in the mainland?" Sanford junior kept going.
"Oh they had tanks there, uhm... T-700's? I think? The Shermans would throttle 'em in droves. Never walked down a road in Hong Kong that didn't have at least eight or ten wrecked T-700's on it."
It was unbelievable how interested Sanford had been in the army, the military, the wars that were beginning to destroy his very world without his knowledge. All he wanted to do was understand it, see it, hear about it...
...Now, he kind of lived it.
Fast forwards through his hibernation in the Vault-Tec pod, that apparently had a bigger chance of malfunctioning and killing him than actually keeping him frozen- now fast forwards the decade he'd spent living out here.
Sanford would smile at his own naivety when he thought about his childhood- some of the questions he asked, just, they way they were so innocent, so... CIVILIAN... As a combatant, as a soldier of the Wasteland, Sanford could now see that.
His father had been a brilliant man, a brave man... But Sanford didn't really know definitively whether his pa' was right to withhold everything going on from him back then, not that it mattered anymore, but... Sometimes it was a question of sheer pondering, nothing more.
-Figure that, ANOTHER damned question he didn't have an answer too.
This was what was so frustrating about it- how many times did he have to repeat these hardships in his head to finally reason- 'It's unknown! STOP BRINGING IT UP, SELF!' -and finally, FINALLY, have a day where he didn't feel burdened by the whipping storms in his addled brain?
Sanford groaned inside his armor because of this.
He was so tired.
Literally, seeing as he hadn't slept in a whole day and half.
And figuratively.
He was tired of living like this. Granted he was lucky, very lucky, to have the things he had in this kind of environment- there wasn't another community in Boston that had similar luxuries to his own besides Diamond- not even Goodneighbor, or Fort Freedom, or Bulwark.
Sanford had to admit... He had it somewhat -'Made'-out here. He could bathe, he was well fed, he could defend himself, and he had a safe place to sleep at night at the station. Most people didn't get that.
Here was the tradeoff though. Most people also didn't get exposed to the huge degree of things he did, in turn.
Particularly, things like that girl before.
Sanford had an urge to bury the body, or to try and carry it somewhere, like Diamond, where she could be interred in the makeshift masoleum they had in the basement sections... But he didn't have time, he had wasted enough precious moments with Blad, in the Hotel.
Sanford felt gross leaving the body where he had found it, but he didn't see an alternative yet.
He reasoned that when this was over, and the Institute was vanquished, or beaten- he would go back and give her a proper burial. People who were animals deserved to be left out there like animals... not innocents.
Of course, Sanford didn't know this woman, he didn't know who she was, how she had thought, what she had done throughout her life- because, who knew, she could've been a Raider, or a murdering drug addict, or...
...You just could never tell with people. Who was 'Good' -in quote, who was- 'Bad' -in quote. The world became ugly when you looked at it in blacks and whites.
-Uglier than it already was, at that.
He swept his gaze about Boston's skyscrapers- saw a billboard advertising a movie release specifically for Captain Atomica- one of the varied comic book heroes that had skyrocketed to popularity in the late 2070's before the bombs.
Sanford smiled at the billboard- hung on the rounded corner of a shop structure, facing diaganol the streets below- it had a white background, with black, space-style-font letters drawing across the center of the frame reading- 'Captain ATOMICA! -In theatres July 10th.'
He missed all those super heroes.
He missed being a stupid kid- looking up to those overly muscular guys in tights with capes, wagging his tongue at the all the provocatively positioned gals' who were basically wearing armored bikinis... Comic books were friggin' cool.
Sanford sighed and looked at the shadowy dome of the CIT ruins, just ahead to the left, behind a clustered array of buildings to the flank of Massachusetts Avenue's lanes.
Vassar had broken off in a four-way intersection further down the line- Sanford went east down this road, and that would take him directly to the CIT entrance plaza for the Architectural section of the campus.
Even all the way down Massachusetts Avenue, the street was choked with derelict cars and trucks and buses- a sea of abandon, with scavenger birds fluttering out of windows, or from behind tires every now and again as Sanford trekked.
The long west buildings of the campus were four or five stories tall- and they were like a wall of multi-rowed windows, ground level maintenance and office entries- there were red-bricked squares that patterned the sidewalk with black holes in their epicenters- where garden trees used to be planted.
The CIT campus was gigantic, at least, In Sanford's opinion. He and his father had driven through it a few times, but until after the bombs, after the Vault, he had never walked through it.
He and Hancock had sparingly walced around the joint- Hancock once found an old tennis ball in the sports fields just west of here- which was weird, seeing as there wasn't an actual dedicated tennis FIELD on grounds- and they'd tried catching and throwing it back and forth across the field.
Sanford grinned at that memory.
Hancock was an anomaly, a robot that had a personality, unhealthy mental episodes that just let him a pisser to be around... Sanford hoped he was okay. He had to have been, his signal was still emanating- brighter and louder than ever with such proximity to the CIT.
bzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZ- -A tan, spindly mass flew through the air with menacing, flickering, thin wings buzzing behind its wiry back, and went right in the space before Sanford's head.
The Blood Bug poked its proboscis at him- and Sanford stopped short with a cringing glare to the insect.
He reached up, felt plushy resistance in his armored palm- he gripped it by the head, the insect's wings spasmed, its legs clambering about- he squeezed until green ooze leaked out between some of his fingers, and the wings started to stutter, the legs twitching still.
He grunted and swung the corpse out of his way- where it hollowly slapped against a nearby car door, and crumpled in a still-twitching mess.
Just up ahead, there was a section of road relatively cleared of cars and vehicles- the chalk marking the street was long gone, and it extended westwards, to the foot of a massive flight of steps, that lead up to the face of the CIT Architectural School, the front entrance lined with cracked, marble pillars.
One of the pillars had snapped off from its base and connection to the concrete overloft over the stairs- it was strewn down the flight, having fissured into the very structure of the steps, and having shattered into rounded sections, that had also rolled and crumbled into the street ahead.
Sanford didn't immediately charge up the steps, as his scanners were starting to pick up more robotic signatures- and he knew that these were more synths, and they were probably in prepared positions, waiting for him.
He needed to think about this.
Checking his HUD again, he was at least relieved to see that the signatures his suit was picking up were not immediately nearby- they were coming from inside the campus itself, behind the Architectural School he was at the entrance of.
There weren't as many as he was expecting either. That was... Interesting.
Sanford took a second to back off towards the rows of cars he had passed through, he knelt behind a yellow pickup missing its cab roof-and he watched the small group of sigils in his scans.
Getting an idea- he looked down at his Laser rifle, his new main-toy of the age it seemed- and he gripped the foldable scope that was jutting off to the side. He unscrewed the lock, and snapped it into place over the spine of the weapon's frame.
Turning the security bolts until they squeaked to tight stillness- he raised the gun and looked through the tan-hued scope from his right eye-lens in the helmet. Luckily his X-01 had software in the helmet to determine distances to targets FOR him... Or else he would've been forced to use Mil-Dot formulas to try and figure how far possible targets were.
Sanford had never really learned it entirely- it was why he was never adament about being a sharpshooter during any given day- he always had to engage people, or things, relatively mid-range with sniper weapons to avoid having to worry about ranging problems or bullet drop.
At least with Lasers it was more straight forwards- literally, too -the Lasers wouldn't 'Drop' or 'Lower' they were projected, like light, so 'Bullet Drop' wasn't an issue no matter how far the target was. The only problem with THAT though, Lasers, was that eventually the projections- like light -would spread with great distance, so, it was still possible to miss.
But Sanford would be dealing with close quarters here- there would be no missing for either side if one got caught in the open, which meant he needed to be careful- since these synths were wicked good shots.
...Though, maybe not. -Sanford mused, remembering all the near misses that he had dealt with recently.
He lowered his gun and looked back at the entrance wing to this side of the campus structure.
As he was getting ready to stand, he... noticed... something... in the air, a noise...
...What the hell was that?
whmwhmwhmwhmwhmwhmwhm...
-Oh shit.
Sanford stumbled back to a crouch behind the pickup.
He KNEW that sound.
whmwhmwhmwhm-vvWWWWMMMM- A metallic, dark-colored disruption to the cleared blue sky shot out from ahead- and hovered over the other side of the buildings Sanford faced, over the campus yards on the other side.
The VB-02 Vertibird steadied straight, angling its belly for the grounds below- the propellers whirring, and groaning out a gust of dispelled jet streams as tri-limbed landing gear whined and unfolded from covering sections in the craft's underside.
Sanford watched the gunship lose altitude, slowly, and descend behind the Architectural building- where the engines gradually started to get quieter and quieter.
He checked his HUD.
Now there were almost ten human life signatures just ahead- there were robotic signatures converging, and then... conjoining...
...Oh no.
The Enclave obviously had had some friendly demeanor with the Institute.
...What if the Institute people were giving them his Deathclaw?
What if they were giving them Nyx?
Hell no.
"-I'm comin', girl." Sanford grumbled.
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"Director? It's waking up."
"I can see that. Use another dose, just to keep her under."
"Yes, Director."
-"Director? We have guests."
"Representatives I imagine? Have XM-988 escort them in."
"Should we arm a strike team?"
"Keep it low key, Valerie."
"Yes Director. They're saying they're pretty important, so you know."
"What, did Eden show up in a cart? I can't imagine he would."
"No, it's their Superintendent."
"...Oh dear."
"Director, I think this could get really hairy, quite quickly. We should give him the tube and tell him to leave, I've heard stories."
"As have I. Are we sure this is the same person?"
"Positive."
"...I'm... Reluctant to part with her. She's a prime specimen. Even our agreement out west can't get a specimen like this."
"Is it worth the risk, Director?"
"...No. I imagine it's not."
"We have Generation Two teams reporting significant losses on the surface."
"This is the Wastelander I've been told about?"
"The same."
"Very well, ehm- do keep trying with lethal force, if, THAT, doesn't work, we follow my idea."
"-Letting TWO Wastelanders down here? Director, that's madness."
"If it preserves the Institute, we do it, I order it."
"Yes, Director."
-"-Director? It's not drugging the subject."
"Tough girl. Use a higher dose, not TOO high, or we run the risk we discussed."
"Yes, Director."
"Valerie?"
-"Director?"
"I want to prevent a possible armed situation here, is that clear?"
"...Yes."
"Good, good. Markus? Is this Deathclaw still conscious? Give it the next dose, man!"
-Nyx heard the array of voices as blubbery, blurred, and hampered mumbles in her swimming vision. She felt moisture around her body- weightlessness, her limbs were dangling in nothingness, and the hollow sound of bubbles swished by her one earhole.
Her eyes fluttered- she saw a brief flicker of sickly green, murky vision- she tried to open her jaw, and met resistence by something plastic.
Then she felt tired.
Then blackness.
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CRK
crk...nkkkk... -The front door was shoulder-checked from his path, and groaned in a loose swing to the right on its rusty hinges.
Sanford Tobs glanced around a massive foyer wing with two staircases, one on each side, linking to a second level that overlooked a great empty space in the center of the great chamber from an enwrapping overloft.
He crouched behind a pile of rubble- his scanners started to complain about proximity alerts from robotic sigs'- he looked over his scope once more, and he waited- watching about the white, blackened, and hole-ridden walls of the once vibrant school of technology and modernization in Boston.
There were doors that lead into classrooms, lecture halls and demonstration wings- display shelves and boxes that once held priceless arts and exceptional projects of famous students and staff, were all shattered with their contents missing, or dashed about on the floors.
There were positions all over the place that synethetics could hide in and take shots at him from. He didn't like it one bit.
He looked down across the lobby chamber- between the two staircases- and down there he could see another row of entrance doors, some shattered, broken open, or gone completely- that streamed sunlight from outside in the campus courts. THAT, was where he was headed.
He needed to reach the Great Dome building.
His sensors flared.
WHM -He ducked and fell on his back, and an Ion round sailed right over his nose.
Five synthetics wielding Ion rifles were on the overloft overlooking the chamber from the second floor.
wwhm-clk-clk
-He heard doors opening, jerking, being smacked ajar by metal heels- he glanced quickly from behind the mound of stone and wood- saw a cluster of at least ten synthetic footsoldiers spreading out across the bottom floor from the front doors leading out to the campus yard.
They had shadows cast on the tiled floor ahead of them from the sunlight streaming in behind them- they looked like shadow people flowing into the Architecture Building's first level- bringing doom with them. A little poetic for Sanford's tastes, but it was a vibe he got.
WHM-CLK! -He ducked as an Ion round punched into a slab of broken concrete inches from his helmet's face.
ssshmm-CLK -He darted his head to glance at his flank.
Having flung out from one of the synthetic squads- there was a dart, similar to the ones he had seen in the tranquilizer gun he'd picked up back near Diamond. The dart was black in color, and clearly written in blocky, white letters on its reflective, egg-like mass, was- PLM15 -and Sanford's eyes bugged.
-That was the army code for Plasma munitions back in the day, even HE knew that despite his father never saying so until he had read about it...
It was an explosive.
A Plasma grenade, shot from a gun.
God damned Institute.
Sanford flailed around in the rubble- he got to his feet, and started making for a support beam that was out in the middle of the lobby section he was in.
BMMMMKKK... -A burst of blinding, green-colored light ate into the mound he had wedged himself in- casting blackened shreds of stone and metal everywhere- the air actually wavered from the blast of heat cast about by the Plasma charge.
PMPMPMPMPMPMPM- He strafed the whole first floor ahead of him blindly in a rough sweeping motion as he ran for cover- Laser shots flickered nearby, past him, some bounced off his right arm, hard enough that he felt his entire limb jerk from the impacts.
He just got behind the square-like support beam right as a concentrated stream of beams smacked into the corner he passed behind, it made a punching sound, like- PLK PLK PLK -and it shattered the stonework there in blasts of dust and pebbles.
Sanford ground his teeth- he aimed around the OTHER corner- and fired at the synthetics ground-side that were still relatively exposed as they scrambled for cover.
PMPMPMPMPMPM- He caught one out in the open, and the shots shredded its ribcage- he saw the flailing, sparking body tumble and slide the rest of the distance the synth had been running, across the floor.
Right before he ducked back- he saw an even LARGER shape ducking through the doors on the other side of the lobby, the campus yard side- it was another synthetic squad leader, with a holo-blade pointed ahead, and electronic garblings echoing from its robotic head.
Sanford shoved the barrel of his weapon around the corner and sprayed around blindly- then he ran for the side of the lobby wing- where there was a hallway, lined with classroom doors- it was better cover than this mess.
He tried to hunch his shoulders as he ran- keeping his helmet behind the raised mass of his pauldrons- it actually paid off, because an Ion shot bounced off the rim of his right padding just before his headgear's temple.
First thing he did was plough through a doorway- he checked the wooden entry with his flank, and the whole door snapped off its hinges, and flattened to the floor inside with a deafening THWACK! -He hid inside the rim, changed coils for his rifle's battery.
He had entered a lecture hall- the floor just ahead dipped for rows and rows of mangled, and toppled desks- at the base, there was a huge chalkboard with a ragged crater torn in the middle of it, behind a big wooden desk strewn with papers and garbage. One of the saucer-like light fixtures on the ceiling had fallen and shattered in a big mound in the desks in the center row of the half-circle.
-Footsteps from outside.
Sanford aimed out the frame and mowed down three synths that rounded the mouth of the room's hall outside- they jerked and flailed, fell in sparking heaps on the floor.
CSSHK!
-A blast of masonry dust, tumbling, flipping boards of wood, and cartwheeling strips of plaster from the very ceiling of the lecture room.
Sanford looked up, and he saw a humanoid shadow descend from a freshly-torn hole in the panels above- it landed almost silently among the desks in the leftwards row of the room- clattering the pieces of wood and metal strewn about.
The synth put a single foot on a desktop- raised an Ion rifle at him in the blink of an eye- before he shot it with a quick snap and burst.
PMPMPM- The synthetic's head blew away in a blast of circuitry and flashing electric energy- the body fell back and rolled across some of the desks.
CHSSK! -Another hole in the ceiling formed nearby- Sanford shot the synth that descended from it with another quick burst- the body jerked mid-air, and tumbled the rest of the way, flattening and smacking into the center row of desks.
PLK! -A dart shot out from one of the holes up there- and Sanford looked down in horror at another explosive charge, with its needle stuck into the joint of his left gauntlet's elbow.
"-FUCK-!" He screamed- he grabbed up the dart, and tore it free.
-Footsteps from the doorframe of the room.
He spiraled around.
There had to be six synths bum-rushing him from the hallway outside.
He aimed from the hip- one handed- sprayed- PMPMPMPM -then he threw the dart at them.
BMMMMSSKK! -Any bodies that hadn't toppled with steaming, blackened laser-wounds in them were chopped down and dismembered in the blinding bubble of coalescing, green light. A severed, synthetic arm flew right by Sanford's head.
CLK CLK -Two Ion shots pounded right into the center of his cuirass' back.
He hissed from the jolting movement- spun around right in time to see another synth leap through one of the hole's in ceiling to the floor above.
The synthetic stopped its fall by grabbing the rim of the blasted fissure in the paneling- it swung its legs forwards, and, unbelievably- the android used the momentum to propel itself in a downwards angle all the way from up there, to down where Sanford was.
The synth had to have sailed thirty feet- its boots jabbed outwards-
CLACK!
-Where it then bunched them together, and nailed Sanford right in the chest with its metal heels.
The young man gasped from the impact- he stumbled, the suit whirred and whined- BMMK -his back compressed against the plaster wall by the doorframe, and the synthetic warrior landed on its heels in front of him effortlessly.
ssshHHK-BZZZZzzz... -It's arm folded in at the elbow, a black projection pillar slid out, and the android brandished a holo-blade.
"-...Oh shit..." Sanford grumbled- frozen for a moment against the wall. "-SHIT!"
CRSSSKKK! zzzzz...
-He reered right, ducked out of the way- the android impaled the plaster of the wall where his head had been- ran the holographic blade all the way to the hilt, by its elbow.
Sanford unlatched his sword from his hip, activated it, and swung it downwards-
CSHK! -He severed the synth's arm at the joint. The android made a garbling sound from its unmoving, skeletal mouth- it leapt back on dancing legs.
-More rustling from the doorway, footsteps, garbling sounds from the synths' strange, unintelligeable communications.
Sanford swung around, and caught another holo-blade with the flat of his cutlass brought to bare before his gut- he swept the blade away, danced the sword in a loop over the synthetic's head- and then arced it around to decapitate it swiftly.
He used his foot to cast the staggering corpse away- the sword slashed left, right, left, right, left, right- Sanford screamed out in uncontrolled rage as he cut a swathe through the mob of synthetic soldiers that tried to flow in from the body-strewn doorway of the hall outside.
Sanford was a machine- he had never downed so many foes at once in his life- he hacked away with his sword, parried, used the handle of his rifle like a blunt, fired it one-handed and point blank into any foes he couldn't reach with the cutlass.
Sparking, mangled, and smoking bodies tumbled all over- by his boots, past his legs, past his flanks- sometimes the dead androids became so clogged around him that he had to heave bodies over his shoulders or around his arms.
Any synths that were still operational on the ground were rendered lifeless as they clawed their ways towards him- he would step on heads, on backs, he'd shoot them with dismissive bursts.
"-RAAGH-!" Sanford cut one of his Institute victims in two from the hip- he was standing from the combat-move's position, and then- wwWHM-! -a holo-blade sailed right over his head.
Sanford backtracked- he brought up his rifle and sprayed the large opponent with the rest of the battery.
CSHKSCK CHSK CHSKSKSSK -The carbon beams whittled away in flashes of light across the hexagonal-patterned, aqua girth of the synthetic squad leader's arm shield.
The larger robotic monstrosity advanced towards him under the fire- the shield eating away all of Sanford's shots- he eventually swept the gun down, bore his cutlass. The squad leader butted the shield forwards- using it like a blunt weapon -and Sanford stumbled back when metal shrieked, and the force of the impact staggered his footing.
wwhHM!
WHM!
wwhm!
-The holo-blade danced back and forth- Sanford reared back his helmet, ducked, and angled left as the weapon sailed by each time.
CSK! -Their blades collided, the synth stepped back and Sanford advanced.
CSK-cchhhhskkKKK! -Both combatants weapons conjoined, and they dragged down, and then up where they seperated, Sanford brought his gun up from the other side- PMPMPMPMPM-
CSHSKCHK! -The synth leader leant behind its shield.
-Sanford tried to side-step it, and his foe warded him back to its front by holding its shield out like a barrier.
Sanford cried out again and started swinging like a madman-
CSK! cks! CKS-chhssskkkKKKK! CHSK chsk CHSK!
He, did not, have TIME, for this.
They locked blades back and forth, up and down, parry for parry- Sanford backed the larger synthetic soldier down the hall- both enemies stomping through the heaped remains of the leader's entire unit across the floors, and against walls.
The sword fight continued with flashes of light, liquid-like energy dripping and casting away with each ringing kiss the blades dealt upon each other- they now stood in the mouth of the hallway, back in the entrance wing lobby- the sounds of combat echoing throughout the building.
"-rrRRRRAAGGHH!-" -wwhhhMMM-CSHK! -Sanford ducked his chest to his armored knees, dodged a sidewind that went right over his head- and drew the cutlass through both ankles of the synth leader.
The android garbled loudly- sparks flew, and the cutlass ate all the way through both limbs and emerged on the other side through the calves. The great robotic fighter sprawled on its back by Sanford's side- limbs flying, stubby-knees kicking.
Sanford spun around and jabbed the tip of his sword into the squad leader's temple.
The blade ran half-way through, causing a sparking, internal flicker inside the synth's entire cranium- its limbs shivered, and Sanford ground his teeth as he wrung the hilt- and subsequently the synth's head -back and forth, back and forth, and effectively tore the weapon out with a shriek of metal.
The android's limbs clattered still on the tile.
The holo-shield and holo-blade flickered away, soot steamed up from its head and knees.
Sanford stood hunched over in a wing filled with bodies. He'd won. Again.
Nothing but silence now.
Sanford heaved a few times, and he stretched his back until he felt a disk crack- grunting in some measure of relief. He looked at his scanners, saw nothing immediate to him, and then glanced out at the hallway down to his side, littered with synthetic corpses, and he looked at the few bodies dotting the lobby ahead.
He shook his head, feeling lightheaded as the adrenaline started draining.
He wasn't going to let the Institute stop him. Not now, not ever.
...But, boy, was he tired.
...Hancock's distress beacon was still singing in his hearing.
...'Suppose he HAD to do something about that.
Sanford shut his eyes again and sighed. He stepped over the synth squad leader and made for the doors to the campus courtyards.
After this, he was sleeping for a week straight, and he'd even shut Hancock off to ensure that.
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