CHAPTER 58
Through the smoke and dust, there was only one.
The Institute was a pretty big facility, now that Sanford had been exposed to as much as he had. Following the incident with the Enclave soldiers- Sanford had taken to scouring the halls and passages of the lower level- he kept in communication with Hancock as he cleared rooms.
He had to shoot a lot of stuff- he wrecked rooms that were filled with computers, power fluctuator tanks and pipe coils as he engaged in firefights with synthetic defenders. The scientists, the people in the white lab coats- they started to clear out whenever the shooting got close enough to them.
Sanford would tear through the synths, kick corpses away, watch them fall after being obliterated by his gun's might- he'd call out and try to grab some of the actual humans that got close enough.
"Come back here-! HEY! Get over here-!" Sanford kept getting jumped by more androids before he could apprehend any of them.
He traversed chrome-colored barracks blocks filled with rectangular cots and kitchen areas- he had to shoot synthetic soldiers in almost every room.
PMPMPM- CAKKK! cshsks... -A synth flew back with a blown-open chest cavity before slamming completely through a cot, and tumbling in a heap on the floor, frame, sheets and cadaver together.
Sanford was a machine as he kept switching side coils for his gun's battery- he shot, punched, kicked, slashed with his blade and tossed tens of synthetic warriors away like they were nothing before him- which, they kind of weren't.
"-Han'!" Sanford grunted, using his knee to slouch off the twitching form of a synth from his cutlass. "-Hancock, tell me where you are! I'll come get you-!"
A synth leapt over one of the stove counters from the kitchen block nearby- Sanford used his forearm to bat the monstrosity away, clean out of the air- he shot it when it landed on the ground, scrabbling to stand again.
"-HANCOCK!" Sanford cried.
"-Sending you coordinates, sir! AND MAKE IT SNAPPY, would'ya'?"
Sanford saw a blinking sigil appear on his retinal display- and he rolled his eyes after he saw that it was on a level higher than his.
"These fuckin' people just can't make this easy..." PMPMPMPM -He shot one-handed to his flank, eviscerated a synth that rounded a bulkhead frame and cast the flaming body back from whence it came.
Sanford took a second to survey around the barrack block- one of the few, but expansive living quarters he had come across in his scouring throughout the first floor of the facility. His scans were going bonkers, showing synthetic kill teams converging throughout the passes and chambers towards where he was.
The Institute's underground warren was big, but it wasn't THAT big, in fact- Sanford' suit was able to process all but the farthest fringe corners of the outer chambers of the sprawling subterranian network. Sanford could track where everyone, and everything, was going.
That also meant that the Enclave and the Institute knew where he was in turn, at all times- and that was daunting.
Sanford realized that he was still picking up a living signature in the very chamber he was standing in- and, after rounding a few smashed cots and piles of ruined androids and metallic furniture- he peered behind a chrome dresser, and curled in a ball back there was a man in a white labcoat, shaven head, with glasses, a big troll-ish' nose on his face.
Sanford narrowed his eyes when the man stopped quivering, looked up in realization- and immediately raised his shaking hands over his head from down on the floor.
"...I-I'm unarmed." He stated lowly.
"Get up." Sanford said harshly.
The Institute resident slowly clambered to his fancy-little shoes in a hunched stand- he stepped out from behind the dresser and kept his hands up, his tie and shirt ruffled from the attempt at hiding himself.
"How many of you are there?"
"...A-Are you going to kill my colleagues?"
"I don't know yet. How many?"
"...Forty six residential staff..."
"How many synths?"
"Five Gen-3's, I-I don't know the workforce numbers."
"What's a 'Gen-3'?" Sanford squinted, keeping his weapons by his hips, appearing intimidating enough, he figured.
The scientist blinked and swallowed- appalled at being intimidated by a 'Outsider' as he and his fellows usually coined anyone above ground in Boston.
"T-They're our most advanced model, w-we can replicate human-"
"They're the ones you use to murder people and replace them." Sanford shook his head. "You piece of shit."
"-T-THAT, is not my department," The man wheezed, trembled. "-I-I'm with the Biochemical Team!"
"GREAT, really great fuckin' way to get on my good side, pal'," Sanford sneered. "-Oh yeah, I don't make civilian-murdering infiltrators, I make biochemical weapons to kill EVERYONE..." -He mimicked.
"-That-that's the FEV and GARGANT departments! D-Don't shoot me-!"
"Keep talking and I WON'T," Sanford ground his teeth. "Where are all of your buddies gathering?"
"-P-Probably the main lecture and calculace hall-"
"Where are you people keeping my friends?"
"F-Friends? What kind of-?!"
"Seven foot tall fuckin' lizard, and a loudmouthed robot, KIND OF hard to miss," Sanford aimed his gun at the man's chest- the scientist looked like he was about to keel over, he was turning beat red, and he was sweating profusely to dampen his coat and shirt. "Where. Are. They?"
"-S-Specimen's in the calculace hall!" The man exclaimed quickly. "-The model is in the prison chamber for test subjects two passages down! P-Past Internment!"
"Now be a good asshole and sit down and shut up."
The man spun around, his arms flailing- he shoved himself in a fetal position behind the cabinet's mass again, and Sanford looked away with a sneer of disgust. Unarmed or not, he wanted to kill this guy, and every other person in here.
But senseless razing of the place wasn't going to solve anything, in his opinion- he still didn't know the full story of everything going on down here.
Sanford checked his signal scans again- he saw the eleven armored life signatures- Laslar Seduun's squad and the Texan Terror himself- were moving down what looked like a staircase to the first floor of the facility, towards him.
Sanford figured he would hold his own against Laslar's soldiers... But it was the Superintendent himself that worried him. Laslar was vicious, and with supporting fire from his guys, the odds were against Sanford in a head-on engagement.
He checked around the room briefly- glanced around at some of the synth corpses- he came up with something that looked good for use- a few handheld Pulse-type explosives, grenades, old pre-War variant replicas.
Sanford tugged them free of magnetic attachments to one of the synthetic's belts on its thin, wiry hips- he attached four in total on his own flank to the X-01's waist, and then hurried from the barrack block, through a doorframe-
PMPMPMP- He shot a synthetic in the hallway beyond, a cluster of shots, dead center the sternum- the warrior crumpled with sparks and soot trailing from the wounds.
Sanford heard footsteps coming from his flank- and when he wheeled around with his gun and sword ready- he saw an Institute scientist, one of the residents here- it was a middle aged man, brown hair, wrinkled face and a thin nose- he was sneering, and toting a synthetic rifle- he raised it from the hip.
Sanford faltered for a millisecond at shooting a PERSON, not one of the synths- but he knew that it wasn't worth the risk of sparing people down here- after all, these were the minds that had caused so much paranoia, so much evil, in Boston above his head.
He peppered the scientist once- a brief compress of the trigger- and the shots ate into his chest and neck, sending the man in a spin to the floor, the rifle he was holding flickering a few bursts that burned and sparked away on the chrome ceiling.
Sanford didn't even regard the body, and he started stomping down the way to meet Laslar's team- and, shock of shocks, they had already reached the first floor and were closing.
-0-0-0-0-0-
"-Superintendent! You have to stop him! He's damaged some systems in the barracks blocks- a-a-and I'm losing synthetics at an alarming rate! I can't stop him!"
"Shut your fucking mouth and let us do our jobs." Laslar growled- hopping off the last step of a spiral flight that looped through a chrome turn in a descent from the second to first level of the facility. "-After he's dead, we're taking the Deathclaw, and if you even STUTTER on that, I'll finish this scab's job post-mortem, and SHOOT every single one of you."
Laslar cut the link before the Director could respond again.
"I'm tracking him," Luft growled as the squad entered a larger passway- it was wide enough for at least an automobile to fit through, and it wasn't lined with bulkheads- it was a straight shot of chrome, ribbed walls with pylons layering the flanks of the passage on both sides. "He's coming right at us."
"About time." Laslar sighed- his shoulders turned left and right as the Enclave soldiers passed through a shuffling group of science team members- ten men and women scrambling past them to convene at the main computer hall where the Deathclaw was, where the Director was too.
Cowards. Laslar was tempted to shoot at them and blame it on collateral.
"Defense positions, Luft, Rizo, Chesser, Lihan, Gril- the rest of you, advance with me, behind me." Laslar pointed to cover behind the pylons on either end of the hallway- and then he surged forwards down the chrome floor, with five other soldiers at his tail, Plasma rifles raised.
Laslar- despite the lack of trepidation to the fighting to come -felt his heart beating exponentially faster at the excitement of finally killing this insignificant little subhuman that had been hiding his experiment from him for the last few weeks.
Gleefully, Laslar glancing at his own helmet's internal scans- he saw one signal, marked with an exo' tag, that was right around the corner of some unseen entryway ahead- it was behind some of the pylons lining the flanks of the passage.
Laslar pointed ahead and to his flank- two of his men broke off and started moving ahead- three stayed behind him. The Superintendent compressed his shoulder to the side of one of the rectangular pylons- he glanced over its base and saw a thin pill-shaped bulkhead in the walling there.
His two men started to cross the open space ahead of the frame, to get cover at the pylon on the other side of the door's mouth- Laslar didn't like the exposure they risked, and he checked his scans again.
clm clm-clclm- Thundering footfalls of a suit type he knew all too well, that halted abruptly inside the hallway beyond this door. Laslar creaped the barrels of his Tri-Archer around the pylon's frame.
PMPMPMPMPMPMPMPM -Suddenly, a concentrated, flickering cone of crimson energy lashed out from inside the frame and it cut and clipped into his two men that were covering the other side, right before they got out of the attacker's possible firing arc.
The laser beams scythed right through their armor- their bodies jerked, and twisted, they dropped their guns- and strips of blackened, tortured metal flecked and sparked roughly in contrails off their forms whilst the munitions rended them.
The two soldiers clambered and rumbled onto the deck- CLK-clkclk CLK-CLKmmBmm... -both face-down, dead as doornails.
Laslar went bug eyed.
"Heh." He hopped his shoulders.
This guy knew what he was doing. AND he had a nice toy.
clk-
clkclkclk... -A rounded shape sailed through the doorframe, tossed like a baseball- and bounced off the rim of the wall right outside it, skittered across the floor, and settled right on the other side of the pylon Laslar was peering around.
He glanced at the Pulse grenade once and jumped back for cover from the splash.
This guy, REALLY knew, what he was doing.
PMMMMMzzzzzzZZZZ! -A bubbling of walloping static electricity flashed and illuminated the whole section of the passage white for a moment.
Laslar compressed his back to the pylon and turned his head away, feeling a virbration throughout his body from the force of the blast- his armor compensated to save his ears from the noise.
"I'll cover! Get on the other side!" Laslar barked at his men. He rounded the corner of the pylon and aimed with his Tri-Archer.
-A towering titan of metal, Sanford Tobs, was standing right outside the doorway- and he was aiming right at the Superintendent.
PMPMPMPMPM- Laslar ducked back- the corner of the pylon screeched, and plates of wrecked steel flecked and tore from it as the laser shots pierced through and clattered around. One of the beams caught the first of his three men in the head.
The man didn't even get a chance to make any noise- the shot hit him right in the side of his helmet, tore through, and the body rumbled the whole flooring as it fell and collided with the chrome tiles.
"-FALL BACK!" Laslar barked. "-LUFT! PIN THIS FUCK!"
Laslar and his two men started bolting away from the pylons of the doorframe- they retreated closer to the section where Luft and his five-man team peered from prepared positions on the sides of the passage.
Shoving into a huddle with his men behind another pylon- Laslar cursed loudly, watched across the way as Luft leaned slightly out of concealment with his scoped rifle raised.
Sanford peaked around the ruined pylon down by the doorframe- now flanked by three Enclave corpses- Luft saw the darkness of the man's helmet and fired once-
CLK-vmm
-the crimson beam missed by a hair's length, the Wastelander shot back behind the pylon, out of sight.
"Damn it." Luft snapped, unmoving.
"Keep him pinned," Laslar muttered into the communications link. "I'll advance."
"Roge'."
CLK-vmm
-Luft missed again, by a hair's length, AGAIN.
Laslar could hear his sniper growling all the way across the pass' width- he slipped around the base of his pillar cover, and got behind the one ahead of it- his eyes locked to the position of the Wastelander just a few feet away.
PMPMPMPPM
A cluster of fluorescent crimson shot down the hall- Laslar followed the fire and saw Luft, and another of their guys get hit.
"-AGH! FUCK!" Luft screamed- steam flecking from an impact by his hip- the soldier behind him, peering over his shoulder, fell on his flank in the center of the hallway, a burnt gash belching soot from the center of his cuirass, at the clavicle.
BMM-clmclm- The armor rattled and thundered on the ground, Luft scrambled onto his hip, and scootched across the flooring behind the pylon, a gauntlet over his waist plate.
PMPM- Another two shots flew out instantly, clipped into the fallen soldier in the center of the hallway as to end his convulsing- the body twitched and lay still.
"God-FUCKING damn it!" Laslar aimed and peppered Sanford's pylon- green bolts eating away at the steel all over the place. "-Luft?! Injury?"
"-Glancing shot, armor took it." -Came in a gasp over the com link.
"-Pin him! I'm moving!"
-Six men aimed around corners and sprayed the Wastelander's pylon with plasma.
Laslar lowered his Tri-Archer in one gauntlet, grabbed up his Ripper, and sprinted around the corner of his pillar.
clk clk clk clk clk- His boots hammered the decking of the passage- Laslar was baring his teeth- he saw his enemy emerge- shoulder, arms and head- up ahead, and he screamed at the top of his lungs as Laser shots bounced off his refractor field.
CshsksmMmshsk- All the bolts flickered away in flecks of green and crimson- Laslar reached the corner of the pillar, and he swung around it- bearing his Ripper.
"-STAND-STILL-!" He hollered- CHSK! CHSSSSSSMMMMM! -The blade sailed right over a ducking helmet, ate into the pylon with a sea of discarded sparks.
Tearing the Ripper away, Laslar's shoulders heaved with his ragged breathing- the two Power Armored men stood before each other.
Sanford Tobs had his rifle in one hand, his energized cutlass in the other- lowered by his hips, as he stared down the Superintendent of the Enclave, Laslar Seduun, the Texan Terror.
Laslar hunched, and so did Sanford. Neither moved.
...They both shifted, their rifles quivered as they questioned who would initiate the fight first.
"-Laslar, I take it?" Sanford spoke out.
"Sanford Tobs," The Superintendent spat. "-You've been fucking up my op' for weeks."
"I've noticed."
"-Lemme' ask you something, Wastelander,"
"Yep."
"-Do you even know, what the Enclave is?"
"I do."
"You're the bravest man I've ever met in my life."
"Or the stupidest, your pick."
"Where'd you find it?"
"What?"
"The 'Claw."
"She fell out of the sky, of course."
"FUCK, you." Laslar grit his teeth. "You fucking welp."
"Cute."
"The 'Claw's mine."
"You've apparently been saying that for years, Las', you've yet to catch her."
The Ripper revved and snarled in Laslar's clasp- he compressed his fists around the handles of both his weapons so much that they started to shake.
All of this had culminated for some smart ass little man, that hadn't even obviously been the source of the true problem the whole time.
Sanford had prevented him from accomplishing one, simple, meazely task, that would've allowed him to establish even greater authority for himself within the Enclave- had prevented him from leaving Boston as quick as he had arrived- AND, he had shot down one of his craft and killed a bunch of his God damned men.
Laslar's sickened mind began to convulse, and writhe, and fixate on the sheer balling hatred, and anger, and infuriation gathering in his system- it procured images of failure, of his inability to perform what he did best, his inability to sate his vindictiveness through revenge and punishment.
Laslar Seduun's eyes were big and bulging out of his skull- there was a bead of saliva by his lower lip, his teeth were straining against each other, and his arms were quivering.
He was going to KILL him. Kill him. Kill him painfully, SLOWLY... Kill, kill, KILL.
"...Just, stand there, and- DIE!" Laslar barked- his arm arced downwards, the Ripper screamed through the air for Sanford's head.
-0-0-0-0-0-
People flowed in as pairs, trios, quads- the entire staff from the FEV lab came in all at once as a mob of fifteen- Director Ordy did his best to keep his people calm, all fifty of them that were left- apparently one of the FEV staff, Joshua, had been the only fatality so far.
For almost twenty years, Director Ordy had been trying to reform a thinking tank that had long been shattered and dashed to the floors of science and untimely failure- for half of that time he had been working under the delusion of a unified Institute.
This was why today was so... Heartbreaking, if nothing else.
Contrary to how quickly the situation down here had devolved, and now there were people dying in his facility once more- Ordy had dedicated twenty years to repairing this place, something that he saw hope in, that he saw an ability to rebuild the past.
The Institute had formed on the basis of bettering the survivors of the nuclear holocaust through the use of outstandingly superior and efficient technological ability- synthetic teams for construction, medical work, and planning- were simply the surface of the well-oiled machine the Institute had thought of.
Putting these plans into motion, into reality off of the tablets they were drawn out on- was where the Institute had failed utterly.
Ordy himself couldn't even come to terms with it when he had first been brought before the dilemma, and he was told- 'Fix it.'
The Institute had started with a team of scientists that had sealed themselves underneath the facility during the landing of the ICBMs that devastated the East Coast of the United States- and even though the initial staffs hadn't lived to see the Institute's glory days, their children and trusted heirs did.
For awhile there was some procreation in the little society the men and women of the old campus had made for themselves- some of the brightest and smartest in the Wasteland could pass tests and trials to become members themselves, to be part of something designed to help humanity regain its balance.
For years after Massachusetts had been bathed in radiation and fire- the Institute worked openly from beneath the CIT ruins in old MIT- they procured supplies for people, tried introducing ways of constructing basic shelters, ways to gather water, the Institute was beginning to network with people, with other communities, it looked... Bright.
-Then the compulsive need for control started to set in, this was where Ordy entered.
See Ordy hadn't actually been a member of the Institute until almost fifty or sixty years after its founding- there had been three Directors before him, and the last two had died of violent circumstances, WITHIN, the Institute, not from without, despite the deserving of such.
The Institute's growing numbers of Courser commanders for the synthetic legions, the amount of scientists working on varying projects that branched and diverged greatly from each other eventually started to form rivalries, differences in opinions for how the New CIT should've been doing things.
Individual science teams became hungry for several things, and these wants and desires started to influence how the synths under their commands conducted themselves in the surface world. Some teams wanted power, to build something for their names not for humankind.
Some teams thought man should be aided and recontructed differently than the others did- some were simply insane, and others were just cruel.
It didn't matter by the end of the fifty or sixty years the Institute had operated in.
Synthetics started murdering surface dwellers when they refused to part with essential pieces of equipment or technology, that the Institute was in competition to collect before the Brotherhood, or the Old Outcasts could.
Synthetics also began to replace people. That was an underhanded tactic developed by several sects within the Institute simultaneously.
What better way to keep your reputation with the commoners AND get what you wanted without a full-scale war, then to kill one or two women and children and use their places for your undetectable spies and saboteurs?
People in the Commonwealth started getting sick of the Institute's behavior as their facility got bigger, and they divided further. The different wings of the organization made the wastelands suffer as they took on their own operations, fights, wars, excavations and searches to outdo each other.
At the same time as Insitute synths started fighting amongst themselves at the behest of different science teams- people in Boston rallied against foreign incursion from not just the Institute, but the Brotherhood of Steel, the Outcasts, and the Enclave among others.
This was why the militia was formed- the Commonwealth Minutemen, inspired by tales of outlandish battles where rows and formations of men marched to their deaths in the open before each other, supported by cannons and mortars on either end.
The Institute fractured at the seams. Casualties were horrendous as science teams butchered each other with their synthetic servants- the great CIT facility beneath the campus had to be cleaned up and rebuilt nearly six times as civil wars continuously tore the Institute asunder.
Minutemen formations started decimating synthetic teams whenever they even stepped foot on the surface, the Mideastern Brotherhood took advantage of the weakness, and to Ordy's knowledge, some of the Brotherhood units that attacked synth teams here were the same that would later splinter and go to D.C.
When the militia consolidated control over Boston, the Institute had retracted- like some kraken beneath the shadowy waves, wounded, bleeding and convulsing in silent suffering -fleeing beneath the earth to fester with each other.
The facility was literally divided by room as clusters of people who had actively tried to kill each other were forced into the same foxhole for their very survival- technology relapsed within the Institute, the FEV and GARGANT teams were dead, and their experiments escaped into Boston to form the Super Mutant groups currently roving about.
Ordy was but an outisider at this time, and he had only recently emerged into the world with his wife, Linda- they trekked across the wastes of the Commonwealth for years, and they came across the CIT campus, and they found a place that they felt they could fix.
See, no other person in the world had mattered more to Ordy than his Linda during this time- he had loved her like no other in his long, long life.
Together they hailed the ears of the Institute scientists that were hunkered beneath the campus- they pleaded with them to let them help them, that they had experience in teamwork, in technology, Ordy especially.
Immediately, Ordy and Linda went to work reestablishing the Institute as a power broker in the East- their minds both addled and fueled by the want of restarting the old cause to better humanity.
Ordy reformed the science teams, he got them to start working together- Linda oversaw the construction and rehabilitation of the synthetic factory installations, and together, after ten years exactly, the Institute reemerged into the quieter Commonwealth to start silently, and peacefully, acquiring pieces of the past.
Synthetic teams came back with successful hauls of pre-War weapons, electronics and tracking systems, homing systems, temperature modulation technologies and processing systems. This lasted maybe five years, four and half, give or take.
THEN, the science teams were on the fritz again.
Ordy was appalled to see old rivalries rearising as the abundance of material wealth and tech began to corrupt the same people's minds again, and again, and again.
Linda and he debated for months on what to do- and throughout this time the teams started competing, they started lying to each other, hiding things, and the position of Director was vacant, and needing.
Ordy eventually became fed up with the internal strife- he let his anger drive him, and he redirected synthetic manpower to maintaining loyalty within his own facility.
Several science teams that Ordy determined as- 'Self Destructive' -were liquidated by synthetic kill teams, and this, obviously, frightened his peers very much, so much so, that many of them started changing their work ethics.
Ordy purged maybe twenty people? Thirty people? Coupled with firefights that broke out between synths of varying loyalty, the death toll of this second miniature civil war were about sixty, sixty five.
Linda was furious.
The love of his life chastised him as a weakling to his own temper, to his own want of having things done his way- she told him that it was the same reason they had abandoned things so precious to them, that they had combed the wastes only to home in on the worst humanitarian disaster in Boston.
For years and years and years, Ordy and Linda had disagreed with each other, sure, but they loved each other too much to keep those fueds going for long, or with too much depth- they bickered, but they never actively became hateful towards each other.
The Institute saw Ordy change as the very man he had been- he became something else and he did not approve of it. Linda took a swathe of synths from his control, and against his loyalty to the Institute, he did not stop her on the grounds of knowing what that would entail for her.
Linda spent years digging these tunnels out into the Charles River, extending the Institute facility away from under the campus, to under the waters of the canal. When Linda finally announced her breaking away from the teams, like Ordy knew she would, he watched without comment as a number of his staff packed up and left with her.
This was the day the three tunnels leading to the Division, were sealed forever- two of them via bomb, one by electronic lock- and Ordy appointed himself Director of the Secession, while Linda became Director of the Division.
For four or five years things had been like this, and Ordy, with the position to reach the surface still- became stressed and hard pressed for more technology and resources. So, with no other option in his mind, he restarted the synthetic assassinations of citizens throughout the communities in the Commonwealth.
Ordy plunged into a pit of corruption as his old self was gradually dissolved in a river of hunger for regaining yet another, beautiful thing he had lost to war. He restarted the FEV program, and when that wasn't moving fast enough, he started the GARGANT program with research taken from the southeast by trade agreements with the fifes and states of the Texan Brotherhood.
Now, today, here he was.
Here he was in the facility that he had desperately been saving again and again, from itself, from the other scientists, from the militia, from his own God damned wife... Now it was under attack again.
All of this progress, all these failures... They culminated for a single man destroying everything.
Ordy believed with every fiber of his being, that if this Wastelander didn't do it, Laslar Seduun, would.
Two vicious killing machines fighting each other in his tiny facility.
This wasn't good.
"Settle down! Settle down, please!" Ordy called out to the crowd of lab-coated men and women as they bustled about, chattered manically, held their arms up in anger and fear, yelled at each other, yelled at the synths- the computing hall was chaos with fifty souls and around ten synthetics moving about.
Ordy had to face the facts as the crowd completely ignored him at the front of the facility, before the three tubes, two empty, one occupied by this Deathclaw he had acquired from Diamond.
He was running out of synths, in addition to all this mess.
The Wastelander had wiped out his best teams in the campus above- and what few synthetics he had left were all heading for the firefight between Laslar and this offender. Ordy lowered his arms gradually in his failed attempt to gather attention and cohesion.
This was madness.
Twenty years for this.
Twenty years spent trying to help humanity, only to make it worse off.
Director Ordy tried to call out for his people again, but the scientists actively disregarded their fallen Director's word at this incursion.
Ordy slumped back against the central pod, shut his eyes tightly, defeated.
"Director,"
He looked up. Valerie, one of his officer staff members, his most senior one, was there. She had been with him since the beginning of the Secession and Division, with Linda.
"-I'm liquidating the intruders." She stated factually.
Ordy gazed to the older woman with a blank look- he glanced to her flanks, and saw four Generation-2 synthetic soldiers tighten their grips on their rifles, for she had redirected their programming amid all this nonsense.
The Director blinked at her slowly, and held up a hand to her.
Nothing was in his control today.
"Do what you must." He said after a second. "I just hope you know, that we'll all be dead."
"So you think." She said. Briskly, the five of them vanished into the crowd- and Ordy kept his eyes locked on Valerie's back the whole time.
Ever since her husband, Gengis, tried to get back inside the facility after his banishing at Ordy's word, she had never forgiven him, and Ordy couldn't blame her.
-Remembering, at that instance, the things that Laslar had communicated to him before his arrival about this Wastelander- he craned his head up and over his shoulder to the haunting, shallow, and levitating form of the Deathclaw floating in the tube behind him.
He tuned out all the noise around him, looked at the creature's lithe, angular head, and its thin and shut eyes- the tip of its snout obscured beneath the curved girth of a rebreather cap.
Ordy wondered what this Wastelander had done to earn the loyalty of something so fiercely independent and destructive.
Something plastic, heavy, and delicate, shattered somewhere nearby- a group of men were frantically trying to separate two others who had started throwing fists at each other. Ordy raised a brow to this, and looked back at the pod again.
The Deathclaw was here... His life, all the people of the Institute, were all around and behind him.
...Was there really a difference between the two by now?
-0-0-0-0-0-
The art of sword fighting wasn't exactly a 'Mastered' skill of Sanford Tobs' varying combat techniques. Sure he had held his own with blades in the past, he'd even locked weapons with combatants several times before the recent fights with the synth teams...
But a prolonged sword fight? A duel of sorts?
Never. Never like this.
CHSK! CSHSSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSKKKK- Sparks and blobs of pure crimson energy lapped and dripped from a flashing connection of screaming chain-blade and energized steel.
Laslar Seduun kept their weapons locked right over Sanford's helmet- both of their eyes glued to the connection that was dividing who would live and die. Sanford's one arm, the whole gauntlet, was quivering from keeping the force evened as was Laslar's- the two men hissed snarls at each other through two sets of grit teeth.
Sanford brought up his rifle from the other hand, aimed it at Laslar's stomach plating- the Superintendent barked loudly, and tore upwards with his Ripper.
CSHSHSH-sshhHHHHMM-! -The weapons snagged apart, and Sanford followed up with the momentum, striking in a slash for Laslar's head.
The Superintendent looked seamless in his brief dodge- all he did was angle his helm back in a quick jerk, and the energized cutlass sizzled the air right before the tip of his headgear's snout.
Sanford stepped back, angled his shoulder and head aside, and let Laslar's reaction swipe scream rotating teeth of mechanized metal that whizzed right past the X-01's rebreather nozzle.
CSSHK! CCHSSK! CHM-CM-CM-! CHSSSSKKKK! -The two men swept and parried in a blindingly fast dash of swinging arms- both of their ranged weapons were tensely draped in the opposite gauntlets- both unable to aim through the concentration needed to keep the other's blade from his throat.
Sanford held his sword horizontal, caught Laslar's underhanded cut with a flash of sparks and a scream of metal.
Bouncing back from the successful block, Laslar brought his Tri-Archer up- and Sanford rushed forwards, slashing left and right with his cutlass- the glowing red saber missing Laslar's arm as the Superintendent jerked his limb up and down in opposite cohesion.
CLKC CLK CLK! -A quad of shots flickered through the air, buzzing molecules in Sanford's hearing whilst he angled to the left- he followed up by lashing out with his armored heel.
CLKM! -"-GAH-!" -Laslar stumbled back with a feral bark when Sanford's heel bounced off the plating of his cuirass at the gut- it left a heel-shaped dent in the dark drab metal.
PMPMPMPM- Laslar twisted his body off to the flank, practically spinning off to the side- he planted a boot into the flooring and catapulted his tossed weight back towards the unsuspecting scavenger, who had missed every shot.
cccCCCSHSM-! -The Ripper dashed right in front of his face, Sanford reeled back, and Laslar kept on lumbering fowards.
Grunting, screaming, yelling, the two men tore at each other ferociously, and neither party could seem to lay a meaningful hit on the other.
Down the passage way, Sergeant Luft and what few remaining men he had left were caught between trying to aim for the Wastelander, and avoiding possibly shooting their own leader. Laslar was the one that was directly facing their side of the view- Sanford was behind him, and all Luft could see was Laslar's armored back as his armor jerked around and tossed with the fighting.
Luft grumbled, hissing through his teeth as his suit automatically slipped another syringe of stimulant through the cybernetic port at the base of his neck.
His hip was flaring in horrible pain- he'd been glanced by a beam shot out from the Wastelander's rifle, and the shot had ripped right through his exo's hip plating, burned through his jumpsuit, and left a black trench along his pale skin.
Luft couldn't fall to a kneel properly around the bend of his pylon- so he had started to rely on just having the squad fire if the opportunity arose. He was on his backside down on the decking of the passage, glancing around the pylon's base to watch the melee between his leader and the scavenger.
Luft winced when Laslar connected blades with Sanford, swung the joining to the right, and came around on the other side with the handle butt of his Tri-Archer.
CLUG! -It whacked Sanford upside the head.
Rearing back, Sanford's arms flailed for a moment- he felt like one of those cartoon characters in the old Saturday morning shows he watched as a baby when they had a pot over their heads, and then someone hit it with a blunt object.
He regained his footing, and the Texan Terror was all over him again.
CHSK-! CHCMCHCM! CHM! -He managed to dash away three strikes in a row, and Laslar started building up a yell in his throat, repeatedly slashing again, and again, and again.
"-Why-won'-t-YOU-DIE?!" Laslar shrieked between swings.
Sanford parried one last time- batted away the revving Ripper to the side, he raised his gun-
"-RAGH!" -Laslar's knee butted up, connected with his fist, knocked the rifle clean out of his grip. Sanford saw his beloved gun fly right over his head- and so he was left with nothing but his cutlass and fists.
He acted accordingly.
CLK! -Sanford shoulder-checked himself into the Superintendent, rushing forwards, gripping Laslar's gauntlet with the Tri-Archer in one fist, and bringing down the handle of his cutlass with the other.
Laslar went wide eyed beneath the insectoid lenses of his helmet- he saw the blade descend, and then his world was rocked with an earth-shaking impact that rattled his whole head right through the headgear, whilst Sanford used the end of his weapon as a blunt.
Sanford used his foot to separate the two of them- CLK! -Laslar grunted from the impact, stepped back- CLD-! -Then Sanford wound his fist from the flank, and drew his gauntlet in a neck-bending punch across the Superintendent's helmed head.
"-AGH-!" Laslar screamed, his entire head raggedly swinging off to the side, sparks dislodging from the hit.
"-You wanna' know WHY I won't die-?!" Sanford cried, raising his blade, and bringing it down from an upward angle. "-Because- FUCK YOU-!"
"-COMEHERE-!" Laslar twisted left, raised his gauntlet, and before Sanford knew what was happening, the Superintendent had wrapped his arm under his, Sanford's hand, and subsequently his blade, were pinned against the plating beneath Laslar's rear pauldron.
Sanford initially thought the move to be pointless with the armor protecting him- but when Laslar bunched his arm, snarling with effort, Sanford's confidence was dashed when he heard metal start to groan, and a small crunching sound from stressed bionics in his suit's forearm.
Laslar would snap off his whole limb at this rate.
Sanford brought his other fist into play- and he crashed his armored fingers into Laslar's helmet.
CSHK! CHSK! CHSK! -He wailed on his Enclave-loyal foe's head, jerking the helm again and again, leaving dents on the forehead, the cheek protrusions, he shattered one of the eye lenses. Inside, briefly, Sanford was awarded the hateful stare of a emotionless, colorless, gray eye inside the headgear, locked to him without a care to the harm done.
Sanford sneered, and he hauled their weight downwards, tossing everything he had to the left.
BMM-mm -Laslar's body had to weigh a ton inside all that armor, as such the Superintendent thundered and dented the decking as his massive, flailing form clattered to the ground at Sanford's feet.
Sanford had him.
The Wastelander scrambled over to the flank, grabbed up his fallen rifle from the decking- and Laslar hadn't even started to sit up before the barrel of a hungry, armor-piercing Laser emitter was in his face.
Laslar looked up at the gun, and then at its wielder, who, for that split second, was sneering even moreso beneath his helmet.
End of the line. Sanford thought.
Laslar hadn't even thought of some, dramatic last-minute statement himself- he was too clouded with rage, to even think clearly before death itself.
Sanford had just compressed his finger-
-And then he got shot from multiple directions at once.
CLK-whm-whm-CLKK! -Crimson beams of energy bit into his suit from the front, bouncing and sliding off in contrails of sparks- and plasma ate into the other side, splatting in misty green bursts into the rear of his cuirass.
Sanford's eyes bugged, his clenched his teeth, and the first thing he did was clear the passageway to the side- he threw himself behind a pylon, staring out to his flank, seeing the Superintendent still lying out there, his refractor fields flickering from glancing shots.
Sanford heard the Enclave soldiers hollering to each other, and even though he wasn't in the line of fire anymore, he still saw beads of plasma and crimson flickering across the passway, red from the north, green from the south.
He glanced around the bend of the pylon quickly, and then checked his suit's systems, and then the scanners in his HUD.
Swarming down the other end of the passageway, was a group of at least thirty synthetics, and they were shooting at him, AND the Enclave.
The synths fanned out for cover behind the pylons- several of them dropping from plasma bolts in their heads and chests.
Panting from the exhertion of the fighting- Sanford watched as his enemy, Laslar Seduun, flailed and clawed across the floor onto his feet, where he sprinted back for cover among the rest of his soldiers. The fire only intensified as more and more synthetics poured in from the northern end of the way.
Sanford heard some panicked shouts, some of the plasma fire slackened.
He glanced quickly to where the Enclave soldiers had hunkered down. He smiled when he saw a cluster of synthetics wielding holo-blades had come from the other direction of the pass, and had meshed themselves in with a vicious melee against Laslar's squad.
Sanford saw the Superintendent himself hacking away at a synth with his Ripper, tearing open its chest and casting internal parts everywhere. The sniper, with the scoped Laser rifle that had given him trouble in the past, was gripping the arms of a kicking and jerking synth, holding it up in the air for one of the other soldiers to shoot it.
This, right here, was the perfect distraction.
Sanford had them.
clk clk -A synth stood next to him, looking at him, its holo-blade lowered by its hip mid-step- as if surprised to see him back there.
Sanford raised his gun and put a single bolt in its head, the body tossed back, and the first thing he did, was run.
Sanford left himself be vulnerable in the field of fire- he ran on the side of the raging fight, his cutlass slashing away any synths that jumped in front of him, his rifle barking and spraying clusters of synthetics that were at mid-distance.
An Enclave soldier was screaming and hollering- he tore off a synth that had jumped over his shoulders and was holding steadfast- he stomped on the twitching body, looked up, gasped at the sight of Sanford rumbling towards him- and then dropped when a grouping of laser shots punched into his head.
Sanford shouldered the body away, it rumbled somewhere behind him-
PMMKSSZZZzzzkk!
-A burst of illuminated, green energy, synthetics bodies flying all over the place on the outskirts of a gigantic, green bubble of fire.
Laslar was in the mess, screaming at the top of his lungs, having lost his rifle somewhere in the tustle- he slashed his Ripper with one hand, and started tearing, clicking, and throwing Plasma Grenades off his belt all over the place, like one would find an abundance of candy.
Explosions went off everywhere- they blew holes in the walls of the passageway, damaged and indented pylons, killed swathes of synths, killed Enclave soldiers- Laslar was still belting it out, both the scream, and the explosives, and Sanford just kept hacking and running through anyone in his way.
This whole thing had turned into a shitshow.
-0-0-0-0-0-
bmmmm...
bmm...
BMM...
-More explosions, faint sounds of gunfire, continued to echo and distantly reverberate about the internals of the Institute facility.
And while the science teams of the CIT were panicking, and fighting, and debating within their little computing hall, with their powerless Director- Hancock the Mr. Gutsy, second in command of Sanford Tobs, had just finished rerouting power to his flight systems on the floor of the cell.
"...I think I've got it... SUCCESS! Ha! Ha-HA! You troll-nosed fuckers thought you could keep the HAN' down, did you?! Ha-ha! Well I'll show you-!"
BMM... -The whole cell rattled.
"...-GIMME' A MINUTE YOU BASTARDS!" Hancock screamed as light flickered by the thruster at the bottom of his rounded chassis. "...San' of the 'ford better not kill 'em all before I get out there... Can't save me and not leave me any Commies' to kill! Blasphemy!"
FwwHMM-shhhhh -A small flame hissed to life, and maintained, from the funnel-like center of Hancock's engine thruster.
"-HA! We have liftoff, bitches!" Soot belched everywhere, Hancock's arms flailed about as his systems began to fully restore physical control to his main processing. "-TO INFINITY-!"
BmmmmSSHHH- Hancock shot off the floor with the power of a ballastic missile, the robot laughing maniacally at the end of a wobbling arm of soot and fire that vomited from the insides of his filthied interior.
"-AND TO FAR AWAY PLACES-! WAIT- NO-NO, THAT'S NOT RIGHT-!" BMMKK! "-OAHH! ...Oh... WOW, I think... I can hear Roosevelt laughing at me... ALL THE WAY, from the other side-! ... Wow... FUCK YOU, Teddy, fuck you and your... MONACLE... I never wanted one... ANYWAY..."
Hancock slid from the center of the finger-laden crack he had created in the glass pane dividing his cell from the rest of the block, his limbs sprawled out across it like a squished spider, he clattered onto the floor with the sound of a rucksack of tin cans.
The Mr. Gutsy lay down there, soot now clouding the interior of the cell, sparks kicking from his thruster.
"...I need to reconsider my processing priorities, damn it!" Hancock shot out with all of a sudden. FWWHM-! He was levitating in the center of the cell, examining the cracked, but not breached, glass with his ocu-lenses. "...Hmm... Tough, but not a problem that CLARICE can't fix! Ha-ha!"
Hancock zoomed over to the back of the cell, a rocket chambered in his launcher, and then he aimed upwards with the barrel.
"-EAT WARHEAD, COMMUNISTS!"
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