CHAPTER 57
Here I come, to save the day!
From the fading recognition of the fires and smoke, after the last few shreds of gunfire- the place remained still and finally empty, and Sanford Tobs was able to traverse the courtyard of the Commonwealth Institute of Technology, with a calmed demeanor, and without risk.
After the Vertibird's untimely demise, and a few more sharpshooting fights with some straggler synths in the buildings- Sanford trotted through the campus property victorious, having left a thoroughly extensive mess in his wake.
By this point he could feel a heaviness in his eyes, all around and in the sockets- he stunk for how much he had been sweating, his limbs and head ached, and the near endless day of fighting had exhausted him to the point where he had to worry about falling asleep mid-step.
He breathed in tired sighs a few times, his arms slumped, and he kept flicking from examining the scanner recognitions in his HUD, to watching where he trod over the rolling, dirt-filled lot of the campus center.
He had wiped out pretty much everything that had put itself before him to stop him in his drive for the Institute- so now on top of being thoroughly wiped, smelly, in pain- Sanford was angry enough that all of that didn't matter.
All of the horror stories he had heard of, all the people he had killed in the past when it was discovered they were murdering synthetic duplicates- the fact that these bastards took his friends and then shot at him for it- Sanford was livid.
He stomped up the great flight of cracked, dirtied steps of the Great Dome building- locking his eyes to the roof's edge and the rounded girth of the gigantic half-sphere topping the structure.
CRK! seeeeeeeek...
-He shoulder checked a big, moldy, cracked and dusty wood door out of his way, and the foyer beyond echoed with the entry's squeaks and whines. Sanford stood on the border between blackness ahead, and illuminating daylight to his back- appearing a shadow person in the frame of the arch.
He trotted inside, revealing to himself a great entry wing- similar to the one in the Architectural School- filled with arms of dragging rubble, fallen walls, pieces of furniture and trash coating the floors.
Sanford glanced about with his night vision filters- creased his lips, and checked his scanners.
Nothing but Hancock's signal.
And low and behold, it was coming from right underneath him.
Sanford raised a brow to his helmet's readings and glanced down at the toes of his boots. THAT, was where the Institute really was, the campus was a fabrication, it always had been, and he and the Enclave were probably the only people in Boston to know.
Sanford looked around some more- he wandered off to some of the hallways that branched off from the foyer- and all of them were evenly dilapidated, filled with holes in their walls, in their ceilings, some streaming pillars of sunlight through from above.
Dust swirled in storms in all sources of illumination- garbage and debris matted all the floors, and some of the rooms were inaccessible with frames clogged with piles of concrete and wood. Sanford eventually started to become impatient as he scoured the bottom floor of the Great Dome.
He tossed open a set of reddish double-doors, and as he stomped through the frame, he was suddenly tamed for a brief moment in his panicking fury- and before him sprawled a grand ampitheater, four stories tall, with rows of rotted, red seats forming cone-like rows extending down towards a lower level of the chamber.
A big wooden stage was down there- with rods of steel from the winch-activated curtain rods that had fallen from the cieling and shattered all over the wood, and into the front rows. Sanford stood after the doorframe and glanced around the theater- not because he felt there was something important, he just... Thought it was neat.
He hadn't seen a play, or a movie on the big screen in... Probably... Around fifteen, sixteen years? Not counting the two-hundred that divided two of his life's intervals.
It must have been a beautiful place before the bombs.
Sanford looked at some of the rows of seats, and, clearly, lain underneath one of the metal-based chairs facing away from him, was the rounded, cracked, enshadowed mass of a human skull on the floor.
Sanford gave off a little- 'Huh' -and then turned around to continue scouring the building.
CHK-ceeeeekkk... -He opened a door to what looked like a pipe room, or some kind of storage closet that he hadn't checked in, because, usually, unless he was on a scavenging trip stuff like closets didn't provide much.
He was back by the entrance wing he had come through earlier- and, looking inside the shadowy interior of the cell with the expanse of the foyer at his back- he saw four walls laden and laced with rows of rotted pipes that were mangled and cut, from where looters had fruitlessly taken all the copper.
The wood door slung open the whole way, and Sanford leaned his helmet inside the room to glance about- he went to leave, when he saw the antenna.
...There it was.
Sanford gasped and hurried through the frame into the cramped space.
There was an old portable radio on the tiled floor, modified extensively, with circuitry panels and what looked like old motherboards being adhered and linked to internal systems through wire-snaked ports cut into the radio's back.
Sprouting from the top was a silvery antenna, as tall as Sanford was even in the armor- and extending from wires jutting from the radio's one flank, were nodes that were taped in a great hanging web on the walls of the closet, and in places on the floor.
Sanford had found it.
Smiling at his luck- he realized, at that moment of bliss, with a flare of his nostrils, that something smelled... AWFUL.
He looked at the back of the closet to the right-
"-Oh God." Sanford blinked.
-Heaped there was a corpse.
It had to be several months old, it was hard to tell what was still clinging to the last ounces of decay and what was skeletal- repulsively, the humanoid figure looked like it had melted and melded into the corner of the wall it was piled against to the floor.
It looked bunched in a ball, like the person had died in a fetal position- and Sanford also realized that there was another body sprawled out not too far behind the radio device- and when he leaned over the antenna to look, he saw it was an inactive Protectron robot.
The machine was rusted and dusty, with a cluster of burnt holes in its chest from where synthetic soldiers had most likely shot it. Sanford looked over at the corpse.
That must have been Blad's little mechanic friend.
Gengis, right?
Poor slob.
Sanford shook his head, and bent down whilst turning on his X-01's air filters for the stench.
He didn't see any buttons or wires or any kind of switches to 'Turn On' this device, if it even DID turn on.
Sanford dug into the rucksack over his thigh and pulled out the notebook he had acquired from the Pieumont Hotel back in Gengis' workshop- he flipped to the page with the antenna diagram and read some of the scribbles around it.
"...Where can I find a controller for this thing?... Aw, shit." Sanford muttered.
What if the controller was back at the Pieumont?
Oh Christ.
"SHIT." He hissed- slapping a gauntlet over his head.
Turning his chin to the side- as far as the helm would let him, anyway -he pondered either making the trip back, or trying to figure out another way in. But both of those things took TIME, and he didn't HAVE time, because-
...Wait...
-What about the stinkin' corpse a foot away from him?
Sanford clenched his fingers over the rebreather nozzle of his helmet and looked about the rotting remains of Gengis with a disgusted expression about himself.
He saw what once was a handgun of some kind that was partially obscured in a limb of rotten material- probably Gengis' arm and hand- and the gun was all rusty and dirtied with offal that Sanford couldn't even determine a type.
He looked at the floor in front of the corpse.
Right there, you idiot!
"-Yes!" Sanford shoved the book back in the rucksack, and grabbed up a rectangular device lain on the tile, in a bit of shadow, he hadn't noticed it before.
The controller was red in color, had a little power-voltage meter under a snapped square of glass- there were wires wrapped all over the handle and just before the square like girth of the top- a bent antenna stuck out from the nose, refashioned from what looked like some old R.C. vehicle or toy.
The button board on the controller's front had been pried off, and in its place with sloppy wire work and spring-work- were three sigils of plastic, written on in pen.
TEST- Read the bottom.
REC- Read the middle.
HACK- Read the top.
Sanford wanted to bite his nails.
He didn't know how to work this thing. What if one of these buttons did something stupid, and he got himself-
-You know what, WHAT, did he have to lose? If the Institute killed his friends, he'd be lost anyway.
Sanford bit his lip and hovered an armored finger tip over the top sigil of the controller. He glanced up at the folded, rancid remains of the device's maker.
...Well, now or never.
He swallowed, and then clicked the top rune.
BZ-Bm -A chime sounded from behind him and made him jump out of his own skin.
Growling- he turned back to the radio device, and saw a small red light had bloomed on the top. He leaned over and looked around the base of the antenna, and, right there, were two tiny outlet switches, and by the right switch, was a tiny warning bulb, glowing red.
Sanford flicked the one switch. clk -And then he took up the controller again, eyes still on the light, which now flicked to green.
He swallowed again.
"I regret nothing." He shook his head, and shut hit eyes.
He pressed the button.
Then he felt lightheaded.
-0-0-0-0-0-
"-Superintendent I TOLD you! My synthetics DID NOT, destroy your gunship!"
"Well then WHO did, Director?" Laslar barked- jamming the barrel of his rifle closer to Ordy's head.
"What reason would I have to DOOM my Secession?!" Ordy shouted, quivering. "-I have no reason to bring down the might of the Enclave army upon us! NO, reason!"
"Then who destroyed it?"
"It was probably the WASTELANDER!"
"...What makes you figure?" Laslar lowered his gun a little bit. "What makes you so sure it was this Wastelander we've had in sights? The same one?"
"...I-It had to have been," Ordy stuttered, turning back towards the cells. "-My synths CAN'T disobey orders, Seduun, and- mind you, we're monitoring each other's communications! Did you pick up a kill order before your gunship was destroyed? Are you sure you're not just being jammed?"
"...The Wastelander doesn't have the firepower to take out a Vertibird, Director-"
"-Oh CONTRARE'! -Oh wait- FUCK! I sounded like the escargo-suckin' lizard! NO! NO-NO! I'M DEMOCRACY INCARNATE! I can't go French! THEY HAVE MIMES! Spawns of Trotsky!"
"-YOU," Laslar snarled, stomping around the Director, and standing before the glass of the last cell. "-What is your buddy using that took down an airplane? Answer me."
"Like I'd tell YOUR candy-ass!" Hancock ranted from down on the floor, his ocu-lense bobbing. "-Tell it to the sprocket-pump, and then SUCK IT!"
"Unlock this cell so I can dismantle it." Laslar snarled. "NOW."
"-B-But Superintendent, we need-"
"-You've caused me enough problems today!" Laslar brandished his gun again. "Do as I'm FUCKING telling you to do!"
"-Awww HELL yes! Hey! Texan-guy who plays with his nipples- if you shoot him I'll give you twenty bucks!"
"SILENCE!" Laslar shouldered the glass- csshKK! -and left a spider-crack right in the cell barrier's center, it shook the whole chamber. "Open the cell NOW!"
"STOP YELLING, YOU LOUDMOUTHED, COMPUTER-TOTING, MUSTACHE-LICKIN' SACK'A'SHIT! Man! You people are DISGUSTING! I can't wait for Sanford to break my G.I. can' outta' here so we can unleash the SHIT on you assclowns!"
" -What did you say?" Ordy suddenly gasped, looking at the cell past Laslar. "-W-Who?"
Laslar quirked a brow, and glanced between the two of them.
"ENOUGH." He snapped. "OPEN. THE. CELL."
"...-J-Just wait, please, Laslar- model, what did you say before-?"
"-Director, this is XM-887," -A voice suddenly blared across the chamber, and echoed for several more chambers beyond. Ordy glanced up, and looked at Laslar, who was keen on lowering his gun for a moment.
"...Go ahead, Courser 887," Ordy stuttered to the intercom.
"We have an un-initiated transition spike at the lift shaft."
"...Oh no..." Ordy muttered.
"What happened?" Laslar growled.
"...H-He's inside." Ordy said meakly. "...H-He found a way... INSIDE."
"Who?" Laslar blinked.
"...It must be this man, the Wastelander."
"I'm picking up an exokeletal suit over the target, Director. He is armed and dangerous. Should my team liquidate him?"
"G-Give us time." Ordy choked. "-Yes, attack, use the teleporter beacons."
"Yes, Director."
"Maybe this fuckin' mess will prove lucrative after all... " Laslar glared at the ceiling of the chamber. "-Luft, meet me in the lift chamber, our Wastelander breached the facility."
"Affirmative, sir."
"Director," Laslar looked back down. "Have your synthetics provide me support fire. Might put me in a better mood."
"...I'll do that."
"We'll ambush him in the second story halls."
"-O-Outside the lift shaft? But, what if he-?"
"He'll be dead, before you have to worry about your 'Priceless' fat head, old man." Laslar glared. "Move."
...Both men were hard pressed on their nerves.
So hard pressed were they, that they completely forgot, about the robotic, anti-Communist menace caged up a few feet across the chamber, who had gone silent to listen to their whole conversation.
Having become agitated with himself at suppressing his need for harassment to the foe- Hancock started working within his systems to try and bring his communications back online, after the Institute scientists had fried them.
A few sparks jittering out from his chassis later, and the psychotic machine gave off a- 'Victory!' -from the floor, and started tapping into any com' links he could establish. He sifted past the Institute and Enclave signals... and found the one he sought.
-0-0-0-0-0-
Sanford had done a lot of crazy stuff, anyone by now, knew that of course. Only so many times throughout his life in Boston, had he been incapacitated, stunned, or stilled by an overwhelming aura or sensation- whatever it may have been.
These sensations varied- one had been a strange kind of 'Shell Shock' after a Mirelurk pack leader had deafened him with this sonic scream from its chitinous, fanged maw- Sanford had almost died in that encounter- being deaf, and made dizzy while a small mob of mutants bit and clawed at him.
One time, a grenade had gone off on the other side of a car he had been rummaging through- and the blast had stunned him to such a degree, that Hancock had to fight off a group of three other hostile scavengers for ten minutes before Sanford recovered and helped him.
ONE time, a flash bang had blinded AND deafened him, and Hancock had been pinned by a pack of hounds, and it was Sanford's job to save him with all of these crippling auras afflicting him.
Long story short, Sanford had only experienced a few instances where his very senses had been stolen, and each time he had emerged stronger, just like everything else out here- so, even though the effect today, was minimal, it still frightened him to a good degree when he remembered briefly what such peril sometimes entailed.
Sanford Tobs emerged from a washing sensation of imbalance and dizziness with a wet gasp as he coughed inside his helmet- and nearly stumbled forwards so much that he almost fell on his face.
Catching his breath, and his feet- the man slowly fell to one knee and closed his eyes tightly- bowing his chin to his chest, and trying to center himself.
He felt... HORRIBLE. Like he had been on an amusement park ride without safety regulations on the speed- it was like... Whiplash, and, that terrible feeling he used to get as a child whenever he would look down at his lap for a bit while his father was driving.
Oh lord, this was... BLUGH...
"...Holy... Holy Christ..." Sanford panted, dropping his rifle from where it had been hanging by his hip- it clattered on the floor. "...OhmyGod... W-Wow..."
He inhaled and exhaled heavily with quiet hisses emanating from the back of his throat as he hung his mouth open, and felt a vibrating sensation by his uvula as the nausea settled.
...He quivered, and struggled to get up on his feet.
...That had been terrible. What a horrible, horrible feeling, it was like-
"-HUH?!" He gasped, on his heels now- he whipped his head around at his surroundings.
What had happened?
Wasn't he in some frikkin' storage closet five seconds ago?
How did he-?
...The teleporter device... Must have... WORKED.
Holy crap, he had done it.
Sanford gazed at the glass bubble of the elevator's pod, at the mechanical exterior of the pod's chute, at the lights shining down from the top rounded rim.
This must have been the Institute's facility, or, at least, a PART of it.
Where had that teleportation jump sent him?
He bent down and picked up his gun, checked his armor's systems, and gazed around. This was a lift of some kind, and it only went down from where it was.
Sanford reasoned, that, maybe, the facility was at the bottom of the his shaft, and that, maybe this 'Gengis' guy had coded the hacked teleportation destination, to be exactly where the Institute teleported its own people.
After all, he couldn't imagine the Institute having such experimental technology leading directly into its facility below.
Sanford looped around and again, and he looked about for some kind of a sigil, or a button, or a switch, SOMETHING...
But after walking around, and, failing in trying to peer over the ridge of the elevator's podium floor- he found nothing.
"...Damn it." He also couldn't see the Institute bastards activating their own lift to deliver their demise to themselves.
blp blp blp
blp
blp
blp
-Something was pinging in his helmet.
He blink-activated the rune that was flashing on the lower corner- and what he saw was an open communication channel.
It had Hancock's signal.
Oh crap.
"-H-Han'?! Han', you there?!" Sanford cried frantically, tuning into it. "-Hancock! Answer me, man! Is that you?!"
"...S-SAN- ...Lis...to me, you-!...Te-" The message was too choppy.
Sanford adjusted the suit's connection with a few rapid blinks.
"-Hancock I can't understand you, hold on!... Okay-! No-no just-! OKAY! There! Go ahead, man, are you alright?!"
"-SANFORD! Holy Presidential Citation's run amok am I happy to hear your annoying, monkey-ish' voice!"
"Oh me too, buddy," Sanford laughed in relief, keeling over a bit. "-I'm so happy to hear you! And fuck yourself too, by the way! Oh, Han' I'm so happy."
"-Listenyeahthat'sgreat-! BUDDY, pal'! Compatriot of Democracy,"
"Yeah?"
"That sick Nazi who likes pocketing feminine products from Texas has a whole squad of Enclave fuckers ready to ambush you in the hall on the second story of the lift platform! He's getting support from these mechanical wannabe's from the egg-head department!"
"You mean synths, Han'?"
"SEMANTICS! Don't test me, you ape! I've been locked in a fuckin' cell all day and I, AM NOT HAPPY! LEMME' OUT! IIIIIII'LLLLL RIP OUT YOUR SPLEENS! HA-HA! BRING IT ON, YOU JERRY-HEADED FUCK-"
-Sanford rolled his eyes and silenced the link for a second.
"Here I come, my friend." He grumbled.
CHSK-Cm
-The lift jolted, Sanford tensed as it started moving down, slowly.
He watched the shaft outside start to slowly phase up.
The lift whined a bit in its near silent descent.
And then he waited.
And waited.
And waited more as the lift kept going down.
...Good lord, all he needed was some elevator music to complete THIS shitshow.
...Did the good guys always get stuck in elevators in the comic books? Sanford forgot.
He huffed.
...Hey, did that scuff on his arm plating always look like the shape of a dog?
Huh.
..."...God damn it, what I'd give, for this FUCKING thing, to move fast-"
...
"-SHIT!"
-WHMM!
-A holo-blade ran through the air, right past his flank as he stumbled to the other side of the lift plat.
Sanford raised his rifle, and standing there was a synthetic, garbed in a complete suit of grayish armor plating over its lithe form- its head was revealed, and to Sanford's shock, it was coated in pale, SKIN. The synth looked human from the neck up.
Its right arm was folded away for a flat, rectangular holo-blade- it had a pistol in the other hand.
CHSKzzzzzzzz -In the blink of an eye, there were now five other lesser synths standing around it.
Sanford's whole face twitched- he opened his mouth, and SCREAMED at them.
"-RRAAAGGGHHH-!"
-Crackling of two blades, gunfire, tearing of metal, all erupted from the cell as the whole podium pod shook and jolted.
-0-0-0-0-0-
Peaking from inside the frame of the gateway leading into the interior of the facilities from the second-story lift platform he and his team had taken earlier- Laslar Seduun, Luft, and six of their ten man team waited just behind the frame.
Laslar's plan was to wait for the Wastelander to enter through the frame, and all seven of them would jump him while the last three men came out of hiding further down the hall for covering fire.
As long as this guy hadn't figured out how to rewire the old pre-War military scanners he and his men had equipped in their rigs, they were golden. Besides, something like that was beyond someone in the wastes, only the Brotherhood had competition like that.
Finally, Laslar could kill this guy. This- 'Sanford' -Laslar was going to tear out his intestines.
He checked the frame of his Tri-Archer. He suddenly remembered the instance at the Quarry, where he had shot the very combatant he was to face.
That took guts, this man was tough. Enemy or not.
"Luft, you ready?" Laslar held his Ripper in the other gauntlet, glanced across the hall floor at the other side of the frame.
Luft nodded, and huddled down with the four other men behind him.
Laslar nodded over his shoulder to his group, and they waited. Outside, they heard the whirring mechanics of the lift gradually lowering the pod- Ordy had left the gate open here, and as long as Laslar and his boys stayed low, the Wastelander wouldn't see them.
Besides, his only other option was to wait in the pod, which, if he did that, Laslar would pepper it and kill him stationary- OR, he could jump to the lower plaza at the base of the facility, which, also, seemed unlikely. The guy was good, not crazy, right?
All according to plan.
"-Here he comes, he's twenty seconds from basing." -Ordy said through the communications link in Laslar's helmet.
"Let him come."
"I've lost contact with the Courser!"
"Dumbass." Laslar cut the link. What did that fool expect? Beaming your guys right on top of the obviously skilled warrior. The Institute's military truly was an advanced joke.
The lift whined a bit more. Laslar heard gunfire. He checked his scanners inside the helm, saw the robotic signatures in the pod flare and vanish, leaving only the one human sig'. He hovered his finger over the trigger on his Ripper.
CHK-cmm
-The lift stopped outside the frame.
-0-0-0-0-0-
"-RAAGH!"
SSHKK! Czczczczz...
-Static, flashing bands of electricity, Sanford tore his arm away from XM-887, and let the body slump onto the floor of the shaft, in a pile, with the other synthetic corpses.
Clenching his blade in one gauntlet, and the cranium of the Courser's severed head in the other- Sanford saw a thin pane of glass fold away at the front, of the now stationary lift.
He glanced around through the transparent pod, his mouth agape as he panted from the fight- he spun around once to look at the gigantic chamber of the Institute's true facility.
It was unlike anything he had ever seen, or... Maybe, at least from when the bombs had dropped and he had emerged from the Vault.
It wasn't ruined, it wasn't trashed, and dirtied, and filled with garbage or destroyed...
It was a massive, underground sprawl, of chrome, blues, and...
...My God... Those were... Trees...
Sanford tossed the head he was holding onto the floor, where the unblinking eyes of the Courser were lost as they rolled off to the side of the pod and settled with the rest of his noggin.
The young man bent down and picked up his gun, and he stood on the flank of the pod, looking through the double layers of glass at the bottom floor, and plaza, below.
Four clusters of green, healthy, leaf-filled trees and bushes and ferns and plants and... He hadn't seen such beauty in a decade.
Sanford forgot about everything for a second, and he looked at these plants down there. They were amazing.
Balancing his weapons in his grip. Sanford shook his head in awe.
...And then he saw his life signature scans erupt.
He blinked away the dream-like aura- and he glanced at the scans for his suit.
Ten life signatures, in the gateway ahead, down that walkway.
Sanford looked out of the pod's ajar frame, and down the curved metal of the floor that extended outwards for an open gate, that lead into an expansive passageway of lined bulkheads.
...They were there.
That was the ambush.
Sanford clenched his fists.
He glanced back at the trees, down at the dead synths, and then he sprinted out of the glass frame of the pod- his boots thudding once against the metal floor- he gazed up at the towering ceiling, all the windows, the tubes connecting habitation walls...
...For all the disbelief he held, he was still in a combat zone, he had to assume everything down here wanted him dead.
He glanced at the frame, and then he looked down at the circular plaza below- centered with a ground-based mounting for the glass tube of the elevator pod he had ridden down.
He swallowed at the height difference, at least a story.
...He would survive the fall if he landed on his heels, but... That was some drop.
Sanford breathed in, and then out, and he shut his eyes briefly.
CLK! -The stomping of an armored boot.
-He swung his head to the side. Standing there in the gateway frame down the walk on his level, was the armored form of the very same Enclave soldier, Laslar Seduun, the Texan Terror, the man who had shot him, hunted Nyx, and had apparently wrought terror across the west and midwestern old United States.
Sanford contemplated shooting at him.
But he was exposed, and... the refractor fields...
Sanford did the first thing that came to mind. He stepped off the edge of the walkway and fell boot-first.
"-WASTELANDER!" Laslar screamed at the top of his lungs- thundering down the walkway- soon standing at the very precipice from which his quarry had leapt.
Down below, there was an echoing crunch of steel- a cloud of dust, and flickers of thrown shrapnal.
Down below, there was now a man crouched in the center of the plaza, knelt, in an indented tear in the steel floor.
Down below, Sanford Tobs quivered inside his X-01 suit, and darted his eyes about the ruined floor around him.
No pain, no discomfort, no alarms in his helm.
...He was... Alive.
"-WOO!" He shot up on his heels, tearing some stray flaps of metal away with his boots- and he held his gun and sword up witha triumphant cry. "-Ha! I DID that! YES!"
Sanford laughed, rolled his shoulders, kicked his ankles, and then turned around and looked back up at where he had jumped from.
Laslar's height was contrasted from all the lights as an overhanging, dark shadow up there- the Superintendent blinked away his shock and cowing, and then raised his Tri-Archer for the target below.
"...OH," Sanford's eyes lit up, his face went pale. "Fuck."
"-Stand still, Wastelander!" Laslar cried out.
CLK CLK CLK CLK!
-Plasma flung down the whole story-distance in seconds- whipping bolts of neon green eating into the metal around Sanford's stance.
The man flailed his arms and legs, and sprinted wildly across the plaza as plasma followed and glanced by the whole way- leaving a trail of blackened skidmarks and holes behind him.
"Kill him! KILL HIM!" Laslar screamed at his squad whilst they emerged from the gateway, and joined the firing at the sprinting little man below.
There was a door down here- a whole bunch.
Sanford aimed for one of these doors, and he saw that it was closed- so he raised his arm, brandished his suit's shoulder- and he prepared to ram through it.
-Then the motion sensors picked him up.
The silvery bulkhead slid away.
"-OOHHH SHIITTT!"
-Sanford hurled himself through the frame without the expected resistence.
CLK-CMN! -He fell on his face, arms splayed, sword and gun skittering away into the hallway beyond.
And as the neatly polished chrome floor would have it, Sanford slid.
CCCHHHHHHSSSSSSKKKKKK!-CLM! -And then he bumped into the edge of a wall.
Laid out on the floor, the Power Armored man blinked a few times to regain himself, his arms still splayed out, legs lain flat.
The suit creaked against the floor as he scootched over to glance down a few feet of hallway to the ajar bulkhead, and the plaza outside. Nothing. The bulkhead slipped shut, cutting off his view to the swaying trees outside.
Sanford scrambled over himself- he stood up, grabbed his gun, hurried over to a corner and grabbed his sword.
"...That was close." He turned around. "...Uhm..."
In one of the bulkheads on the side of this passageway, were two men wearing white lab coats, with blue dress shirts, and red ties. They blinked in shock at the X-01 garbed outsider- one of them dropped a tablet he was holding, and it clattered on the floor past his dress shoes.
Sanford glanced at the thing, and then at both of them.
"...How are ya'?" He smirked after a second.
"-AAAH! AH! AHHHH!"
"-AAAAHHHHH!" The two men screamed like women, and ran away, flailing their arms, down the hall ahead.
Sanford watched the two of them from down the way for a second, snorted, and rolled his shoulders.
"I guess Hancock was right, I AM an ugly ape. Huh."
-0-0-0-0-0-