"Ah, aren't you a poor sod." A gravely voice echoed softly inside a dark tunnel. Ivan crouched down onto the balls of his feet as he inspected the person curled up inside a ball. A keen and whine came from the horribly mutated person, and upon closer inspection to the ball of flesh, Ivan deduced it was likely once a service man working on the tunnels before the bombs had fallen. That, and the worn uniform the feral ghoul wore.
Ivan raised his left arm and bared his Pip-Boy, navigating the menus with the analogue. He selected a journal and pen inside the inventory section of the personal computer. Both items flashed before the man, and he caught them with a practiced ease before they clattered to the floor.
Leaning over the withered ghoul, Ivan started to draw. His penmanship was steady, and he rolled up his sleeve to use his glowing arm to cast a dim blue light on the paper to illuminate his work. A few hours passed as he devoted his time to his artistic passions in capturing the horrors of this mutant world, like taking a picture of a newborn child, capturing every essence of the act of birth and rebirth.
Standing up and stretching his back for a moment, Ivan then pulled out his laser pistol from his holster at his waist and blasted a round in the creatures skull. The energized sound echoed throughout the tunnel and without a pause he continued on his way through the dilapidated subway system.
Every so often his Geiger Counter would tick up on his Pip-Boy, causing an insufferable racket in the tunnels. To which he quickly fixed by zeroing the measurement on the device, casually ignoring the fact that radiation levels down in the subway system of New York city was in the couple hundreds in certain areas.
Not that it bothered the Glowing One.
An hour passed of him walking the dark tunnels of the Subway, taking several turns before arriving at an underground terminal. The entrance to this terminal was blocked not only by several military vehicles, but also by a massive amount of rubble cast down onto the entrance way when one of the buildings collapsed during the initial blast so many years ago.
Ivan had found this place while exploring the tunnels of New York several years ago, and had quickly marked it as a wonderful place to set up a base, as it was secluded isolated, but also had plenty of equipment that the now exceedingly feral U.S Soldiers and construction workers that were offloading supreme amounts of nuclear waste into the abandoned tunnel weren't using anymore.
This included a number of weapons, a decent amount of ballistic weave and combat armor, and a cashe of Fusion Cores to power the portable Reactor that they were powering the drill bore with.
Why the U.S Army was doing this was completely beyond him, as in his looting he'd only found vague orders of disposing of various materials, all of which were Low and Medium Grade Radioactive waste usually disposed of in landfills. It wasn't likely they were just throwing the control rods down here, but were more disposing of items and materials that had been exposed to the radiation.
Ivan wrote it off as them trying to save costs or something similar, and simply counted himself lucky that he had a very secure and remote place to kick up his feat every once in a while. After several decades of being hopelessly homeless, this was a nice break.
Inside the terminal he'd made various constructs to assist him in his needs for an outpost. Notably was the removal and disposal of all the feral ghouls, which was easy as they failed to react to a fellow Ghoul, and he stealth killed them all. Glowing Ones might be shunned even by fellow Ferals, but Ivan was a unique one as he had the sole unexplainable ability to actually control the radiation his body gave off in the form of a toggable aura. That and being blue instead of green.
Disposing of them was simpler, just throwing them in the radioactive waste barrels that the army was using and tossing them all into where they were digging.
After that, he'd ventured into the Wastes, obtaining materials and goods to start up a decent workshop for him to operate in.
From his chemistry set made from lab equipment from various universities and schools, to his blacksmithing, gun smithing, and metallurgy setup that he klept from far-out garages and industrial areas. This base was a work in progress years into the making, and he'd not have it any other way.
Ivan moved to the security office he'd made to be his home, and started to undress. Tossing his ballistic weave reinforced lab coat onto a nearby hanger, before stripping down his Riot Gear to a clean white wife-beater and a pair of suspenders that hugged his well muscled form tightly. Despite being a ghoul and a glowing one at that, Ivan's physic was extremely refined. His mutated and ghoulish skin only brought out his extreme muscle definition, the fibers practically bleeding through his thin and largely useless skin.
Hell, the ghoul would even say he'd look handsome, if it weren't for the fact that he was a Glowing One, had a pair of missing lips and a missing nose, that and his blue irradiated glow that was offset by his charcoal black skin meant he was a monster at the best of times better hidden by the concealment his Lab Coat and Riot Armor bought him.
'You win some, you lose some.'
Ivan fell back into a rolling chair as he looked over the various workbenches he had placed all over the terminal, before kicking off the smooth marble of the terminal and sped off towards his chem bench.
The ghoul inspected the various flasks and beakers, before cracking his neck and started getting to it.
From his inventory he unloaded a massive amount of materials. From Brahmin fertilizer, and more advanced synthetic proteins needed to produce quality versions of Jet, to the chemicals and metals needed to make Buffout, and the mutated hallucinogenic plants needed to grow organic Psycho.
From Hydra, Daddy-O, Mentats, Calmex, Rad-Away, Rad-X, Med-X, Fury, Daytripper, Sludgepacks, Fire Belly, Stim-Packs, and even Anti-Biotics, over the next thirty-three hours, Ivan started producing a truly insane amount of drugs. Like a machine, no, even beyond that, he moved through the tasks and procedures to manufacture these drugs, producing a truly insane amount of drugs with a quality that beggared belief.
Ivan stored the last shipment of drugs, fifty-eight Stim-Packs in a cooler, before wincing. "Ah, forgot to eat." Ivan groaned, stumbling over to his freezer and started to rifle through the storage of food inside. He found a few pieces of brahmin steak and a Deathclaw egg that he snatched and quickly started grilling up to make a mean meal to break his fast.
Ghouls didn't exactly need to eat all that much compared to their less-irradiated kin, which was great for survival, but despite being horribly mutated, ghouls were still human. It fucked with the mind not needing or even wanting to eat, as the stomach got confused why it wasn't being used and why it was even being used. Biology had a very strange minimalistic affect, in which when things weren't in use they started cutting back and atrophying.
Why have muscles when they aren't used, why produce a ton of stomach acid to digest food when they never eat?
Ivan ground some sea-salt over his eggs and steak, before grabbing some Tarberry Jam from his inventory and spread it on a piece of toast he grilled up. A piece of toast covered in jam, a thin cut of steak onto of said jam, before a sunny side egg was broken on top of the meat and toast. A crude Eggs-Benidict was created and the ghoul moaned grotesquely with his gravel-like voice when he bit into the meal.
"Fuck yeah, that's the stuff." Ivan mumbled, leaning back into his lawn chair, pulling out a still cool Nuka-Cola Quantum, a cigar, and took a shot of Jet to really kick back.
A quake shook the roof the subway system, not bothering Ivan as they were quite common what with the skeletal remains of New York collapsing every so often.
As Ivan kicked back, he started brewing distantly on how he'd gotten here, as...fifty? Fifty or so years ago and he'd just been another kid, another kid in another reality living his life.
A puff of smoke left the clasp of a pair of glowing blue teeth biting into his cigar; the bone the same shade of the drink he had by his side.
'I miss Earth, my Earth at least.' Ivan thought, thinking back to his family and life before he'd woken up in this hellhole of a world, alone and mutated with a secondary set of memories as a scientist in this strange ass-world that never left the fifties. That, and a plethora of supernatural abilities that he still didn't have any answer for.
It was almost ironic in a sense, as despite being from another time-line, Ivan was in fact in the same place as the original owner of this body. Stranded and lost in another world, except, to the scientist, this world was his own, just changed and warped by nuclear fire and rampant mutation.
Ivan tilted back his Nuka-Cola, only to come up dry and sigh despondently. Placing it back on the subway floor, Ivan stood up and walked over to his Workshop. Now fed and watered, and his need for sleep being roughly an hour or so of closed eyes near a source of radiation, he moved back to his workshop and started looking through what needed doing.
He had his shipments of Drugs he'd start peddling to various settlements, either for food, tech, or scrap, as he usually refused to take Caps or Old World Cash. Most of the more recreational drugs went to Raider Clans that he knew would love to get their hands on the supply, and smart and wise enough not to provoke a dealer with his reputation.
However, there were always raiders who thought their numbers would make it an easy play to take down a solo dealer with a massive supply.
That...never ended well.
Raiders had an unfounded arrogance with guns, from shitty pipe pistols, to rusted combat rifles. It was almost pathetic when approached from a perspective that couldn't be reasonably killed with such weak weapons. Ivan could be buck-naked and 10mm rounds would deform on his skin, while higher calibers would get caught up in his quickly regenerating muscle. His regeneration factor being insane due to several factors of his biology, only hastened by drugs and medical know-how.
While Ivan would never claim the same amount of endurance to a powerful Super Mutant, like say an overlord, he'd seen Super Mutants done in with less wounds than he himself had survived. His Endurance was a solid 9 in his SPECIAL stats, and those same stats scaled with Race, meaning he was on the very edge of enduring for a Glowing One Ghoul, which was massively different from a Human with an Endurance of 9.
Although, to be fair to the raiders, he never revealed his nature as a Glowing One as if he did they'd undoubtedly be shitting themselves. Ferals were already talked of with tones of fear by even the most grizzled of survivalists in the Wastes, fearful of the feral hordes that could tear through even the strongest of armor and take unreasonably large amounts of damage to stay dead. Stronger versions of Ferals like the Charred, Rotting, and Reavers, and Stalkers were seen as Menaces to society.
Glowing Ones on the other hand were practical legends whispered about by exploratory survivors, and as unique a Glowing One with his mind intact? Well, it wouldn't surprise the Ghoul if his mere appearance would spark some-kind of Ghoulish Cult.
Glowing Ones were feared due to a number of reasons. The most logical of those fears were of radiation poisoning and the aura they give, leaking the same poison to all of those around them. Ivan could control and harness that aura, toggling it on and off while also being able to somehow control how radiation mutates his body, able to use the energy to somehow enhance and at rare times in his life generate completely new useful mutations.
How he controls what is for all intents and purposes a barrage of bullets and energy rocketing through his body and destroying his DNA to somehow destroy bad, junk, or even enhance existing DNA, he hadn't even the slightest of clues. And he was a Nuclear Physicist!
For the non-recreational drugs, like Stim-Packs, Anti-Biotics, Rad-Away, Rad-X, and the works, he peddled to various settlements and survivor camps stationed around the Wastes. Ivan in his long life surviving in the Wastes has kept a good grasp on emerging powers that rise in the settling nuclear snow that followed the climactic end to civilization.
In the Eastern Common Wealth and the remains of West Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York various factions rose, and in the fifty years of him living in this shithole he'd made sure to keep an eye on any rising powers that could become either a force of good for the wasteland, or a dangerous threat. Neither of those options were exclusive to being good or bad for him in the long run.
New York isn't much more than a massive steel forest, it's skeletal remains deadly to anyone who takes so much as one false step. The area is also plagued by unnaturally frequent radstorms, forcing most to take cover unless they want to be bombarded by radioactive winds and rain, or be struck by its lightning.
However, people still live within the massive city, despite it being a bombed out ruin. Fifty years was a long, long time. The concrete towers of old have been overgrown, mutated vines, mosses, and growths creeping up through the concrete and the sewers were filled to the brim with mutant rats. The ocean grew its own hellish creatures, and even Ivan for all his time in the Wasteland dreads setting out to sea and braving the horrors underneath the waves.
There were a few large factions inside this realm, of which one hates his public identity with a raging passion.
There were a group known as the Patriots. Initially a rag-tag group of US Army, National Guard, Navy, and other branches that slowly over the course of time gathered and regrouped within the Dockyards. They held a strict code of conduct, yet broke out of the old nineteen fifties military conduct and were more inline with a modern adjacent United States Military from Ivan's Origin Earth. The mash-pit of military branches eventually blended altogether into a surprisingly well-rounded and exceedingly skilled group that collectively branded themselves as the Patriots.
The Patriots were a saving grace to anyone willing to work for their cause, always needing more people and man-power to throw at projects drafted by surviving engineers and builders who were constantly inventing and repairing old and new world technology to fund their expansion.
The Patriots were the strongest of all factions, using both robotic and man-driven power to carve out a claim to the remains and remnants of a modern America.
Some of the cons to the Patriots was their Anti-Mutant stance, largely critical of those that showed mutations and were stand-offish at the best of times with Ghouls, depending on the tolerance of officer one was interacting with.
That combined with a gruff meritocracy chained by obeying orders from superiors, it was a very militaristic faction as could be expected by one formed by the wastes. At least they cared for survivors, as in their eyes everyone save the muties were still American. The rest could go die for all the brass cares.
It was the same Patriots that were less than happy with Ivan, seeing him as both a dirty ghoul, and as a filthy drug dealer.
To be fair, he was both, but it didn't change the fact that a certain racist officer caught his voice in a Patriot Outpost, and started needling him with insults. Ivan wasn't exactly in the greatest of moods back then, and put a laser round in that same officer's kneecap, before booking it.
That led to a manhunt, which led to several Patriots dead in the pursuit, leading to a large bounty being put on 'The Chem Ranger' or The 'Red Cross'. Having The Chem Ranger title due to his Riot Gear and drug dealing career, and the Red Cross painted on his helm.
This then lead to the various Raider Clans dotted around New York, living it up in the highrises and skyscrapers of concrete hell. A safe place to live once cleared of Ghouls and checked thoroughly for structural weaknesses, of which Ivan was getting worried about as steel usually only had a life span of fifty years.
However, these were Raiders. They wouldn't check for structural weaknesses even after the third new-guy fell through a hole.
Raider Clans were divided, obviously, but were more interconnected and formed a crude form of communication between gang leaders. Trading supplies, chems, slaves, and information was a common theme between the clans, as was fighting for more territory and renown.
Lastly were the non-affilaited, often just called city-states or settlements.
From the ever expansive Subway Station Ratways, to the hidden away villages and shelters carved out of still standing apartment buildings and concrete monoliths much like the Raiders. New York became a city of expansive catwalks and bridges connecting various buildings together, with each of those same buildings weathering the harsh storms and rains that pelted the city non-stop. It was a blue moon when the sky stopped weeping, and it was a blessed day when it wasn't a rad-storm.
Then there were the more foreign factions, like the new of Steel forming up in West Virginia. Although, they were a distant factor, and less known than the northern and oft whispered about boogie-men of Boston, The Institute.
Ivan had in fact been up to Boston, and more specifically Bar Harbor where he learned from local chemists and doctors how to cook some nasty chems.
Giving his cigar one last puff, Ivan let out a cloud of smoke and moved over to his robotics workbench. A mass of robotic arms hovering over a singular pad, and nearby were all kinds of precise tools needed to modify and manufacture robotic components and machinery.
Inside the assembly mound of the main assembler was what he assumed those Institute nerds called a 'robot' or 'synth'.
Why they were so obsessed about creating humanoid robots, he wasn't exactly sure. Perhaps they were aiming for a far off 'bio-bot' that could invade and integrate itself into human populations seamlessly for espionage? At least, that was what he could gather from the title and mechanics of the bot, being crude imitations of the human form in a mechanical format. Before him was what they called a Mark II, which was far better than the piece of scrap called the Mark I that he used for actual scrap in repairing the Mark II.
Why did he carry a Mark II all the way down from Boston back to New York?
Because he was artistically interested.
To Ivan, science was art. An ironic view-point, but one that with his natural abilities was all them more evident.
Ivan at a mere glance could see a thousand and one ways to improve the android, a thousand and one ways to improve in a thousand and one different ways which in and of itself would lead to more and more constant improvements and optimizations. Sadly, Ivan's SCIENCE! was limited by materials.
Even after raiding a New York based ROBCO lab and corporate branch for scrap, information, and admin authorization in all ROBCO locations, he was a locked by the fact that ROBCO was based in a frustratingly distant and secure Las Vegas, of which Robert House was last located by the branch's systems and the fact that much of the West Coast's manufacturing capabilities were rendered into null and void via tactical and strategic nuclear blasts.
In his ventures to ROB CO and General Atomics locations, the most he obtained was crappy Protectron, Securitron, and model parts, along with a plethora of secret information that in the old world would be worth tens of millions in the espionage world.
New York was so bombed out that finding any real goods was going to be a real struggle.
'From the files and data, it seems that Robert was building a sort of life-support system to keep him on air. He should still be alive and kicking, fielding those abominable securitron bots to manage his shitty city.' Ivan thought distantly.
With the nukes clearing out many of the centers of quality resources for he needed to build any bots, he had to venture to far out and distant places.
Sadly, even with his mysterious inventory ability, he was limited in his carry capacity and couldn't just find any old place to stash massive amounts of rare goods.
He'd found many valuable forms of tech, from Sentry Bots and Assualtrons, however he'd only been able to salvage part data and critical and rare components rather than the entire robot frame itself due to him hauling back a much rarer Synth model he'd salvaged up north in Boston. That, and in the fifty years of roaming the wasteland, it'd only been recently he'd manged to set up a base of any worth or value.
Previously he'd been either too busy surviving, or getting chased out by deadly hordes of monsters and generally living to the next day without any place to kick up his feat and tinker.
'Now that changes.' Ivan Balor smiled a lipless smile as he stared at the drawn out designs for various bot parts.
He had a plethora of parts, components, tools, benches, basically all of the hard stuff was out of the way what with his pack-rat life style. However, now he needed a surprisingly difficult means of securing enough high-quality materials to either make a frame, or salvage an intact high-quality Assualtron or scrap a Sentry Bot.
Then came the fun part: Designing a robot!
Ivan glanced at the synth frame set up in the Robot Assembler.
'Scratch that, make that an android. It time I made a friend.'
...
Ryan took a drag of his death-stick, relishing the hit before letting it out in a musk of delicious smoke. He winced at a punch to his shoulder, and glared at the offender.
"Fucker, not everyone wants to smell your stink." Roland sneered jokingly, he himself fishing out a stick before extending it.
Ryan rolled his eyes and flicked open a gold-plated lighter he'd gotten off a Feral's corpse. His friend covered it from the harsh winds, their position on the guard tower somewhat protected from the harsh elements.
After several flicks, the stick lit. His friend took a breath and smiled. "Fuck that's good."
The two fell into silence as they stared out into the void of a late setting night. It was summer and the storms were going to get even wetter, although at least it wasn't snowing.
"Hey, hey." Roland patted his shoulder, "Get that Night Vision."
Ryan rose an eyebrow, before rising from his chair and walking to an ammo box where they kept the Night Vision.
"Boss said not to wear it out." He said as he tossed the Night Vision scope over to his watch-buddy.
Roland didn't respond, turning the techy device on and looking out into the rather mellow storm bathing the cracked asphalt in a thick layer of water.
"Well, I'll be damn. Right on time." Roland muttered. The man walked over to a radio and turned it on. "Hey, hey! We got The Gloamer!" Roland crowed.
Their was a brief mumbled confusion through the device, before a few voices whooped in excitement and started a ferment of action to prep for the visit through the mic.
"Gloamer?" Ryan asked, shouldering his M4 Service Rifle. "What is it, some kinda Ghoul or Mutie?" He asked, moving away from the edge in-case it was some sort of attack.
"Huh, oh right. Forgot you're a new-guy." Roland commented, rolling his shoulder. "Well, I guess you can say he is a ghoul." Roland snickered. "Not feral though. Gloam or Gloamer is The Guy for Chems in New York. Like, the entirety of New York. Any fucker slinging out Chems claims that they're up to if not better than the Gloamer's. Word of advice, if they're dealing it like that, then its literal rat-poison."
Ryan hummed, "So, what, this guy apart of some big-time Cartel?"
"Nah, nah. He's an independent. Although, somehow he rolls up every once in a moon to start slinging massive amounts of Chems, quality Chems at that."
Ryan frowned, "How's he do that? Figure someone like that would've gotten either smoked by a jealous rival, or press-ganged into some gang." The unspoken 'like our gang' was unsaid.
Roland chuckled, "Its been tried, kid. Gloamer's something of a local NYC legend. The Hounds tried, but from survivors of battles with the guy, he's like a blur of motion birthed onto the battle field. One moment you have your gun half-way out of the holster, and the next you're missing a limb to plasma or eating lasers as your last meal. Hell, the guy stands up to the Patriots all on his lonesome!"
Ryan winced, "A gunslinger with a plasma pistol? A mutant gunslinger at that, likely bolstered by chems too..."
Roland nodded, "There are a few types of Ghouls in the Wastes, kiddo. The losers and pushovers that gave up on life, the insane and psychos who're one step away from going feral, and then there are those like Gloam. Although, Gloam takes it up to eleven; Badasses that figured out they don't age and that rads don't knock'em, but instead'll pick them back up. Dude's likely seventy or eighty years-old of grizzled veteran and moves like that Assaultron from a week ago to back it all up. A monster in melted human skin willing to play ball with us normies."
Ryan nodded, taking in the wisdom as best he could.
"Got it, don't fuck with the immortal drug dealer who has more experience in his pinky than I have in my entire life." He said with a sarcastic tone.
Roland snorted, "Words to live by, kid. Anyways, Gloamer doesn't take caps or old-cash."
Ryan interrupted, "Then what does he take?"
"I was getting to that, brat." Ryan snorted, "Any tech-stuff, scrap, robot parts, chemicals, tools, materials, food, drink, bullets, and obviously energy packs and plasma cartridges. He'll appraise it, and give you a more than fair trade for the stuff. All barter with Gloam."
Ryan frowned, "Little tilted, dont'cha think?"
Roland gave a so-so motion, "Gloam offers massive amounts of drugs in exchange for scrap. Its why the boss runs so many expeditions to grab all that tech stuff. The boss'll buy most of the scrap with the gang's pool, then the left over gets bought by personal wealth. If we don't pay or give shit goods, he'll give us a smaller cut and then leave to the next gang to sell his remaining stock. We get hostile, and well...I already told you why provoking him would be a bad idea."
"Hmm." Ryan affirmed, before looking over the tower ledge as he started hearing footsteps.
Held up in a massive concrete skyscraper with windows and entrances boarded up, the Raider Gang known as The Odds were a strong group in the Raider sphere. The entrance of the raider's compound was by the underground parking garage, held shut by a metal gate controlled by an adjacent and makeshift guard tower who could signal another guard inside to open the gate.
Coming up on that same makeshift tower were two figures. One was a strange bot that neither men recognized from any featured magazine or advertisement, looking like a strange mash-up of man and dog with digitigrade legs carrying a truly massive amount of boxes on its relatively small back. Standing next to the bot was a man dressed in Ranger Armor, at his hips were two holsters holding a pair of ergonomic pistols.
One was a boxy and stubby looking Laser Pistol, and the other was a more rugged and sturdy looking Plasma Pistol than the models shown in magazines. On his back was a billowing scientist's coat, stark white due to the rain that was pelting it, foiling any dust building up in the reinforced and well-taken care of fibers. Underneath that was a sturdy looking assembly of armor and Kevlar, knee-pads, dark black boots shining in the spotlight affixed to the tower and a pair of glowing blue lenses glaring up at them from the mask of the Riot Helmet.
His shoulders were covered by a pair of combat armor pauldrons, while his right arm was covered in a similar bracer while the left covered by a Pip-Boy. A gorget protected his neck with the numbers 666 emblazoned in red lettering on the green paint. On the side of his green helm was a faded red cross, along with the words 'I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire' in white before being underlined by 'Just Want To Start A Flame In Your Heart' in a crimson and jagged red.
"Hey, hey!" Roland yelled down to the man. "You Gloam?" The man nodded. "Say something, guy's got a one of a kind voice!"
The man chuckled, and dear god was Roland right. "Didn't know my fame extended even that far." Ryan got shivers down his spine. Not only was it deep, like 'bones of the world' deep, while also holding the rasp and gravel that all ghouls had, but it had an...energy to it that sent shivers down his spine.
"Haha, I'm letting you in now, Gloamer." Once again the merchant nodded.
"Well kid, I'll hold down the fort. I ain't got anything he'll be into. Spot me a few puffs of anything you buy, 'aight?" Roland slapped Ryan on the shoulder with the younger man smiling and dropping down from the tower. The young man winced at the rain pelting through his leathers and gear, before walking deeper into the drive way to the underground parking lot. Only when he left the rain did he realized he was standing next to the Gloam.
'holy shit.' Ryan thought quietly. Standing next to the man was entirely different to looking down at him from a tower. The ghoul was jacked, even through his lab-coat and armor, his muscles were very apparent even inside of said gear, and while certainly no Super Mutant, he also didn't have the ugly bloated look most Buff-Out junkies had.
The Ghoul was tall too, as Ryan himself was a tall if lanky one at six foot one, but Gloam stood at a wagered solid six foot six while being built like a soldier.
"Done staring, kid?" Gloam asked, extending a hand.
Ryan blinked and shook the man's hand tightly. It was a good and solid hand-shake.
"Sorry, you're...imposing."
An amused snort left the man, "Ha, kinda the point. So, got any goodies for this wandering merchant?"
Ryan scratched his cheek, "I dunno, I'm from Boston, see, and I managed to get a few pieces of tech from a store-shed. Don't really know the purpose of 'em."
"I'll take a look at it, tell you what its worth in caps and the like if you don't want to trade it for chems."
Ryan smiled, "Thanks. Thought you didn't deal in caps, though?"
The man nodded, "For chems? No. If you want my chems, you need to pay up with shit I'm actually interested in, not some pieces of tin or paper that fluxes in value every decade. A drawback of living so long, eventually you figure out nothing has value except the things you personally care for. Trick is to make the things you care for valuable for others so that they have to bend down to your wants and needs for them to get you yours. Bartering in the most basic of senses."
Ryan nodded, and his attention was taken away by the gate rattling open.
"Still, stop by. I'll be negotiating with Old One Eye, so take your time. I'm out in a few hours though, so don't take too long."
Ryan nodded, and they soon split up.
...
Ivan walked down into the raider's nest, getting eyed up by a dozen eyes. It was clockwork for him at this point, already he was taking in the sight of defensive emplacements and cover he could take. Every goon he gazed at his mind was flushed with information about their biology. From their posture and gait, their pallor and eye-dilation from several yards away being cataloged into a supernatural repository of medical information. Every wound, every set bone and broken nose and taken drug was known to him at a single glance.
Wonderful for any doctor and medic, of which he was likely one of the best in the wasteland as for some reason any medical technique being preformed by him is three times more effective, most notably injecting someone with a stim-pack. However, such an ability was also amazing for combat, as it highlighted weaknesses and enhanced his perception to supernatural levels, able to predict and analyze a targets next move before they even made it.
To say such an ability synergized with VATS was an understatement. The ability outright paused time, allowing him all the time in the world to plan and organize a combat strategy, along with the targeting system's already present abilities of preforming feats of marksmanship that was out of this world.
There were reasons he could walk into a raider camp and leave both unharmed and richer all for it.
"Well, look who it is!" Boomed a voice. "Gloam! I've got a prize for you today!"
Ivan rose an eyebrow at the voice and cracked a grin at the promise of a prize. Old One Eye, a fellow Ghoul with a mutated cancerous growth that blotted out vision in one eye stalked over.
In exchange for the dead eye, the man was an absolute unit in terms of size and muscle, while not quite up there with Super Mutants and their kind, he was certainly smarter than the muscle heads and far more charismatic. If he'd taken any more radiation in the fallout, he'd likely have become a Bloated Glowing One, one of if not the most terrifying Ferals out there.
He was also a massive Buff-Out abuser, so he and Ivan got along well.
"Still don't know where you got that nickname from, kid."
Roger, also known as Old One Eyed snorted. "Only you would dare call me a kid. And its your own fault for showing up to every raider camp right at sunset to do business."
"Its a good habit to be punctual." Ivan shrugged. "I'm interested in this prize of yours, though."
"Right into biz." Roger grinned, "Boy's bring the bot out!"
Several raiders ran away and a few moments later they were hauling a scrap heap carried on a stretcher likely looted out of an ambulance.
"Well, I'll be damned." Ivan grinned. "Where'd you find this beauty."
"I like that tone. We got in a scuffle with the damn thing, its missing that eye-laser thing, the torso is fucked, and the legs are scrap after we used a rocket launcher. But, knowing you, you'll love it."
Ivan inspected the bot and ghosted his fingers on the torso and left over chassis of the Assaultron. "This model is a Dominator Assualtron, how the hell did you guy's take it down? No offense, but even I'd be wary of one of these things."
Old One Eye rubbed the back of his bandana covered head, "We didn't. Most of that damage ain't us, and the damn thing was repeating some incomprehensible racket while trying to stab us with a shattered sword and lame leg. Look at the rends on the torso." The raider boss pointed at the torn gutted torso. The bot was missing its legs and hips, looking like if a man was bisected at the navel what with a mess of wires spilling out. Yet, on the chassis protecting it, there were a number of claw marks.
"Deathclaw pack got it. It killed them, but they crippled it." Ivan claimed with Old One Eye nodding. "Aye."
Ivan started really inspecting what he'll be buying. The torso was in a decent enough condition, and he glanced at the broken and warped arms and legs he could likely salvage for materials in repairing the machine. The head was blasted in half, leaving only the lower two plates of face protection and removing everything north of them. This meant the powerful face-laser was gone, but that only gave him...ideas.
"Throw in the legs and arms and I'll give you all my buff-out and a quarter of my psycho." Ivan stated.
"Ahaha! Deal!"
...
Ivan watched as his carry-bot, also known as INV-T0RY set down a massive net of scrap and gear covered in a soaked tarp. The bot was something made with less military-grade materials and was built able to carry thrice its body weight.
Strapped to Ivan's own back was a large duffel-bag filled with bits and bobs of electrical components, a gutted terminal, decent quality polymers, and a plethora of energy weapon cartridges. Raiders rarely came across weapons of the energy variety and even more rarely knew how to maintain the weapons, so selling their munitions was an easy choice.
Ivan stretched his back, enjoying the pops and cracks from his spine as he did so before slumping and walking over to the sack of gear his bot had set down. Opening it, he started putting everything in his inventory and quickly went over his weight limit.
Once he did so he felt a constant pressure around him arise, limiting his movement to a sedated walk, although his arms and fine motor abilities were left completely unharmed from the strange phenomena.
Walking over to his robotics bench, Ivan unloaded the remains of the Assaultron onto a nearby bench, before starting to go through the long process of sorting out all of his gains.
The ghoul once finished left the work area and moved to change out of his soaked gear and came back to work on his project. Short and carefully groomed nails scratched harshly at his charcoal black skin, catching on the various crags and crevices on his face as he did so. He pulled a pen and a large amount of drafting paper and started designing.
He wanted a companion, one that was deadly and could obviously keep up with him, but one that also wasn't just another heavy duty Sentry Bot that he'd need to escort for its offensive power to be of any value.
Already he was looking towards a humanoid android design, and was using the institute's Mark 2.5 Synth Model for the brain of the machine. However, he wasn't exactly all that hung up on striving towards a perfectly human design, and instead looked towards Super Mutants and figured he could create what he referred to as a borg.
Idly he drew inspiration from a cyborg known as Adam Smasher from the game Cyberpunk and animation Cyberpunk Edgerunners. From there his artistic side started catching on fire.
He liked the feminine frame of the Assaultron, and figured he could lean into that, and in a few hours he was left with several pages of concept art and part designs. He scrapped several, some not fitting what he wanted, and others becoming too divergent from the base design that it started looking less like an actionable android and more a mess of optics and artistic liberties. Balancing art and science was one of Ivan's greatest joys, and it was this process that gave him meaning in this new, harsh and hellish world. As he took the materials of what he had and created something better and greater than the parts available to him.
"Well, let's get cracking." Ivan slapped down a welders masks and fired up his fabricator.
...
"Hmm, the optics are looking good. Diagnostics...all systems optimal." Ivan mumbled as he looked down into a fiber-glass skull laid out on a bench, inspecting a synthetic eyeball. The skull was connected to a heavily protected spine, advanced and complex armor plating covering the entire length. Connected to a port at the base of the neck was a neural relay wire which led to a massive array of terminals abuzz with diagnostics data.
"Hmm, you should be online. Huh, just realized I haven't given you a name. What to call you, I wonder. Can't exactly call you Project Number Forty Seven. How about something simple? Something mythological, perhaps? No, no, too gaudy, too grandiose. No offense, but I've been trying to avoid a God Complex for quiet some time. Far too cliche. What indeed; Technically I've been referring to your project as ML, or Machine Lifeform, but that doesn't work well either." The voice was a harsh and raspy one. Its...her auditory sensors and a collection of data told her it was a male voice and had likely been smoking his entire life.
"Something foreign won't work, even if your face plate is inspired from a collection of Japanese based media. Did they even make anime in this time-line?" Her optics flared as light from the world entered them, the diagnostic program fading as she regained her vision. She heard the creaking of a chair above her, along with the rustle of fabric and clothes along with the smooth breathing of a person.
Her eyes took in the canvas tent covering her, before her limited gaze captured the presence of several dozen tools and the fact that she was nothing more than skull and spine strapped down to a table. Movement entered he view and the emotion of surprise filtered through her mind. She knew she was a synth, but feeling emotion was both a foreign and familiar thing.
The man who was speaking rolled his chair over to her side, his head peering down over her as he inspected her skull for something. Well, the claim of him being a man was a stretch as her limited memories and world-knowledge told her this was more of a monster than a man.
Charcoal black skin that looked like it'd been melted against a harsh face, with twin glowing blue eyes staring down at her. Cracks in his skin and face leaked a blue-ish green turquoise that she idly associated with a greener version of cherenkov radiation. The sclera of his eyes were a pitch inky black instead of the normal white, and his lips were all gone, as was his nose. The man's teeth also glowed that same blue-green color.
He wore nothing more than a wife-beater shirt, areas of the thin article glowing blue, especially strong around where his heart would be located. His arms and shoulders were also covered in cracks and seems of glowing blue.
"Haha, hello dear. Hope you don't mind my ugly face being the first thing you see. Just know there's a lot worse sights to see in this world, and a lot better ones too!" A crackly chuckle left the man's throat as he adjusted a newspaper boy's hat on his head. It was a worn and patchy brown that had the horrifying man looking nicer somehow.
Emotions of fear sprung from surprise as her eyes snapped around the bay, looking for anything to save her from this monster.
"Calm dear, calm. I ain't gonna hurt ya." The man back away somewhat, yet made sure to keep himself in her view. Slowly the darting eyes headed in their jerky search for escape and regarded the strange looking man.
"There we go, now, introductions are in order I'd say! Ivan Balor, at your service! Sadly I haven't started up any voice modules, so this conversation is going to sadly be very one sided." The man rolled up closer, making constant eye-contact with the machine-life.
"We'll have to have proper introductions once I get you all set up. Aight? Sad to say, dear, but this world's a bit of a ruin as you can no doubt tell from my appearance. Used to be a man, now I'm a ghoul."
She'd have blinked if she could, but listened all the while. "Now, you used to be a Synth. Some boys up in Boston are trying to figure out how to create humans all synthetic like. You were a Mark 2.5, a rare prototype in their attempts to create a Mark 3 or full-human conversion. I managed to find your model and stole it for myself, and for the past...five months, I've been working on getting you operational."
She deadpanned internally. 'How shameless are you to outright admit you stole me?' She thought caustically, although didn't really blame the man much. She could read between the lines, and the fact that she was a 'prototype' meant she was likely quite expendable.
"I recently came into possession of an Assaultron model," Her mind was filled with images and the specs of various Assualtrons, "Which I've started to use as some base material to start to create, well, you! As you heard, I'm a bit stuck on what to name you exactly." The burned man stood from his chair and moved over to the terminals and started typing rapidly.
"Its a dangerous world out there, so I've been in a bind on how to build you up. See, my personal interest in building you comes from a few factors. First, is my nature. I'm a scientist, a really good one too, as you can no doubt attest to."
Yes, yes she could. Her eyesight was crystal clear and she could pick out extremely detailed images on the dust floating around the work station. 'That likely wasn't good for any electrical components.' She thought.
"Next, is my form. I'm a Ghoul, and a Glowing One at that. A normal ghoul looks like a melted human, and aren't exactly well-liked by normal folk. Most ghouls are in fact feral, or have a foot inside that one-way door. Glowing Ones are legends of the wastes, as they emit deadly radiation to their surroundings while also being able to take damage that even a Super Mutant couldn't survive." The man rambled.
She hadn't a clue on what a Super Mutant was, but understood both from context and the imposing name that they were a big and likely enduring deal. The fact the man before her was emitting deadly radiation was concerning, although she trusted in him to think of shielding her internals of the radiation beforehand as some common sense told her that electronics and deadly radiation might not get along that well. 'Or is that only microwave radiation that does that?' It seems her internal banks of information and knowledge were somewhat limited.
"I know there's more like me out there, but out of the billions of people that died in the Great War, our population must be in the not point zero zero zero zero something. Those that are still sapient likely don't have the same mutations that allow their minds to be as intact as my own, as all Ghouls have differing mutations." The man sighed, although it sounded like something dying.
"Long story made short, I'm really, really lonely. I can control the radiation I give off, hell, I can weaponize it! However, that doesn't exactly go well with people surviving in the wasteland. Radiation has a chance of giving someone, anyone, mutations. Extra arms, eyes, skin color, anything really. Thus, radiation is just as worse if not even more despised and feared than disease. As a being known for giving off said radiation...well, to say that the number of people who've tried to kill me the moment I showed my face is less than one would be a lie. And I only lie to Raiders and similar scum." There was a sad melancholy to his voice, one that spoke of those that tried to kill him the moment he did so were people he likely thought were friends.
"Then there's the last reason." The man turned around from his chair and looked her straight in the eyes. "I'll be honest. This world sucks ass." She'd snort if she could. "There's slaving shit bags that I sell drugs to, all to buy some materials for your chassis." He sighed, before continuing.
"There's muscle-bound-dumb-and-built-like-bricks super-soldiers running around kidnapping people to either eat or turn into more muscle-bound-shit-houses. There's monsters, mutants, animals, and beasts; none of those exclude being human. This world is a shattered world, and I feel bad for bringing another life into it to suffer as I do, as we all do. Yet, I'm afraid I'll go mad without something, someone, to talk to, to lean on." The man, for he really was just a man pressed his face into his palms, before shaking himself. "I'm building two of you really. One of you is going to be my attempt at creating life. My spin on the Institute's little plan in replicating life, and I'll try my damnedest to try and show you the wonders of this world. For as bleak and haunting this shithole is, there's some fine pieces of beauty in it that'd make anyone fall in love with it." The man fished out a box and pulled a death-stick into his mouth. There was a blue-flash by his fingers and the blocky computer device started buzzing intensely as the tip of his cigaret lit on fire.
That's one habit she'll have to break him out of when she becomes operational.
"The other...that's you, well one of you as technically you'll be a gestalt, is the war-machine. Not that the Gemini body I'll be creating won't be just as deadly, but there's a difference between a war-machine and trying to shove dangerous technology inside a human." The ghoul gave a chuckle at some humor he found in his statement.
"Hmm, at this point I'd start calling you Lilith or Eve or some other biblical bullshit, but we'll leave naming to a later date." The ghoul stood up quickly. "I'm sending you a Y/N answer box, Y will cause you to go into sleep mode. N will mean you'll be awake. Your choice."
She debated, before choosing N. "Well, hope you like the sound of my voice." His torn cheeks expanded, showing his molars through the shredded flesh and the pseudo-glasgow smile highlighted by his natural glow.
...
"Can you please put out that cigarette, Sir? My Gemini isn't responding well to the scent." Hanging from a set of chains from a Power Armor repair crane, Ult, the war-frame gynoid commented. Her voice was light and soft, melodic even. It held a startling femininity from the massive frame and spoke without a tone of synthetic modularity.
Only a torso, she was built similar to a Super Mutant than her initial Assaultron Frame design; all of it custom.
It'd been nine-months since her initial activation, and Ivan had been hard at work, or as Ult called him, Mr. Balor or Sir. He branched out and started collecting high-quality materials, leaving New-York for weeks at a time, journeying to far out places in search of anything that might help him in his endeavors. But, his work had taken to a slower pace then he was used to, for he had also started project Gemini under the heeding of Ult. He'd initially wanted to get Ult up and running before doing scavenging runs to obtain enough supplies to then build Alt. Like an engineer, dividing up problems and snowballing resources to keep momentum.
However, Ult wanted the Gemini first, before herself due to a desire to have 'better senses'. An innate curiosity that sprung from Ivan incorporating a crude taste sensory software that replicated the taste of toast to the AI. Knowing that the Gemini would be getting better sensory hardware that didn't have direct military use, she wanted that body to be done first in a fit of impatience.
Ivan surrendered to his creation's wants, as he was quickly and easily guilt tripped into working towards the Gemini's completion, of which Ult soon after apologized for forcing the issue and allowed Ivan to continue working on herself. This, however, created a two-front war in the engineer's mind, as he now mentally had two projects 'in-progress' and not working on one would constantly grate on his mind.
'Women.' Was Ivan's only thought in regards to the situation, and resolved not to be so much of a push-over and realized he needed to grow a social spine that didn't involve intimidation, threats, and extreme amounts of violence.
'How my Charisma Score is 7 when I'm ugly as sin and such a social recluse, I'll never know.' Although, for most Ghouls a 7 would be human's...4? So maybe that was accurate. Besides, his body wasn't that bad, if one ignored the charcoal black skin that's been melted and the glowing blue cracks and crags in his skin.
Ivan sighed and pressed the head of his cigarette to a nearby ash tray that overtime was becoming less and less used due to Ult's nagging. He grumbled under his breath, although compiled all the same as he knew she was just trying to help him get through his junkie phase that he'd snowballed into over the past fifty years of managing stress and isolation in the post-apocalypse.
He glanced over to the skull and eyes connected to a custom combat frame with a strange expression as it was hard to read emotion on a face so ruined, before moving his gaze back over to the skeleton of an advanced Gynoid frame suspended inside the Robotic Assembler, which had been modified so many times to incorporate custom tools that it now looked like some demented robotic auto-doc.
The gynoid that Ult had named Alt had all her limbs and a full skeleton, unlike the immobile Warframe as he was calling Ult's body.
Ult's body hadn't been seeing much work due to him using a majority of rare components and materials creating Alt's frame and structure, from the gold-platinum alloy bones, to the synthetic muscles that were made of a shape-memory alloy he'd used a massive amount of resources to both invent and manufacture for the slowly shaping up musculature for both of their bodies. Then there was a nearby bench with what looked to be a skin suit, of which was actually a Heavy-Real skin, a synthetic skin that could outright shrug off low calibers while actually enhancing certain tactile sensations without being deliberating.
There was a lot of work to be done, of which his mental split into two projects wasn't helping as all resource were diverted into both projects at inconstant rates, making it feel like nothing was actually being done, when in actuality a lot was, but it was just happening at a rate slower than Ivan was used to that it felt like he was moving at a glacier's pace.
Thankfully, things were about to speed up again.
"Your legs and arms are about to be complete. After which we'll start doing stress-tests, before we leap into Heavy Weapons and technical training. I've got a few Assaultron memory cores that can teach us how they fight in close ranges against foes, hopefully training you in close-quarters combat and from there it's simple experience; the greatest teacher of all." Ivan stated while gazing at the needles threading muscle into place onto Alt's body.
"Unless you're having second thoughts?" Ivan asked, looking over at Ult with obvious concern. He alone understood what he was asking of her, and was worried she didn't understand that she'd quite literally be created to kill for him. And when one kills, they themselves should be wholly aware of the possibility of themselves being killed.
Despite the effort and time he'd put into creating Ult, and eventually Alt, there was always a limit. There wasn't much he could do about some scav finding a mini-nuke and Fat Man. Or a super-mutant getting lucky with a RPG, or some faction suddenly busting down the door in suits of power armor and Laser Gatlings.
Ivan was good, really, really good. He was fully confident of him somehow managing to dodge, bust, break, kill, slaughter, and otherwise think himself out of such a situation what with all his supernatural abilities like VATS and his medical precognition. Then there was the fact that when pushed into a corner, he gets angry, really angry. Beware the Angry Nerd, for he's ripped a super mutant in half before and killed one with a blast of wrathful radiation through the simple heat of the radiation he infused into the fucker's body.
He was paralyzed of something happening to the pair of gynoids sitting inside his lab, and he'd quickly diagnosed that as an unhealthy possessiveness. He'd made the offer far too early, and it was far too late to back out.
"I'm sure, sir." The firm voice of Ult made him wince.
"Mr. Balor, no, Ivan." Ult started, drawing his attention back to the black skull and golden eyes staring at him deeply. "Don't feel any guilt, you are not responsible for how this world works. Without you, we would not be here, we wouldn't know what toast tastes like, or all the ways this world works through your ramblings, or your kind smile, no matter how fearsome it is to the normal eye."
Ivan stared, closed his eyes and let out a sigh. "Thanks. Thank you, Ult. I...needed that." Ivan's voice was uncharacteristically soft, Ult having to strain her auditory sensors for the almost mumbled admission of thanks. There was still a hesitance to his posture, but there wasn't a weight and reluctance inside his eyes while working anymore, just a soft regret and knowledge that he'd effectively made someone to kill for him. It was an oily feeling, one that even in all his immoral actions, knew he'd never move past. That sin will stay with him.
...
"How are your servos holding?" Ivan asked as he sat at his desk, inspecting various terminals and screens full of data.
Standing seven feet and four inches, a massive woman with straight white hair lifted a massive steel bar weighing in at around one ton. "No stressor detected, Sir." A soft and angelic voice responded, the head of Ult turning to him with the visible flex of various synthetic muscles connecting head to the large body of her warframe.
Twin eyes of gold stared at him, two eyes with concentric circles; the advanced optics could perceive most all spectrums of light. Her chin and cheeks were covered by integrated plates of armor, her ears also being armored. Ivan had sacrificed a certain amount of durability and safety in favor of aesthetics, the faceplate of the woman with white hair was of a beautiful pale skinned woman. She was an eerie beauty, with her faceplate taking the place of her bottom lip, revealing twin rows of white teeth to the world in a permanent smile.
Her faceplate and the protections surrounding it were in fact a constant debate between Ult and Ivan. Ivan wanted Ult to be protected as much as possible, while Ult wanted to be beautiful. The exotic and clashing beauty of her combat body and face satisfied Ult, while the minimalistic armor made Ivan back off unsatisfied, but understanding that he couldn't have too much of a say in how she wanted to look.
Her body meanwhile was a mix between a well endowed female woman and a mobile turret. She had a small shoulder mount of mini-rockets, various grenades on her waist, a thick shield that shrugs off .50 by her side. Detailed abdominal muscles of synth muscle hid away plates of armor and her internals. She had twin heavy duty industrial legs that could flatten steel, paired with bulky arms, made to wield the shield and a heavily modified and refined plasma sprayer.
The alloys that Ivan had created were space-age, quite literally in this case, as he'd found a Zetan spacecraft in Boston -for some reason that place was a magnet for the weird and wild- and made out with data and samples of the craft. He'd managed to reverse engineer a few practices of the Zetan, before further inventing a few of his own to create a titanium alloy that was as flexible as aluminum, yet still as enduring and hard as the origin. Paired with his memory fibers that made up her musculature, the woman was turning out to be just as strong as a Super Mutant, just a thousand times smarter.
"How is Radiation and Electro-Magnetic hardening going?" Ult asked.
Ivan smiled and laughed as he continued his work on the various terminals. "Hoho, very well indeed. Your internals in the late stages will be impervious to any-kind of EMP flare or radiation." The ghoul stated, "How have your studies gone today?"
The bot tilted her head, "Good. I've parsed through the Assualtron tactical data, although it left much to be desired, it still gave a decent perspective that I'm building on. I have little confidence in acting optimally in a real combat scenario, but that will come with time, I presume."
"Indeed." Ivan said grimly, not breaking focus on his work.
Where I stopped.