Really old, really shittily written on a shittily sung computer I no longer shittily own. But, strangely, much like people like stinky cheese, I have a bunch of folks who keep reading this, and it even has the distinction of being on the top of the romance Fallout section listing (at least, at the time I wrote this...) -

So, I guess it's okay. Or something. Or really REFINED or some shit. I dunno, do they have a classification if you think fucking Deathclaw females is hot? Deathclawaphile. Book me and pay me.

CHAPTER 1

Close your eyes, and your life is over for a new one.

As a small boy, one day he had heard the loudest, muffled bang.

It was an explosion, sharp, and echoing, that reverberated down the streets of his urban development, bounced off the aluminum shed his father had built behind the house, and shook all the US Army models on his nightstand.

It was a sound, that was completely foreign to his sheltered life, and thus, it was a sound, that in his youth, had terrified him as the merits of propaganda would enact.

Propaganda, that spewed the relevance of war to the point, where the origin of said boom, a broken power transformer, filled a child with fear over the possibility of a detonated warhead.

That single sound had never left his memory, not because of the irony of its presentation, but because of what its presentation had come off to him as.

Years passed and childhood came and went, young adulthood sprang forth, and at the ripe age of twenty-five, he had heard the sound again.

Years upon years since that stupid blown out transformer, the man remembered the sharp throttle of disturbed air like he had heard it in his race-car bed yesterday. Except on that fine, fine Saturday afternoon, it was not a damaged powerline that made the residual explosion.

Standing atop the metal entrance of a great underground warren, the steel silo leading to the depths below was rattled, and the young man was nearly thrown off to the surrounding earth by a blinding wave of sheer energy.

The guards that had tried to reach him after he hopped the fence were literally flung away like cheap toys from an angry toddler's hand, the registered citizens around him collapsed over each other.

Reaching out for his parents, they huddled together over the receding lift, under the hundreds of panicking souls.

At this day, that explosion was permanently branded within young Sanford's mind.

At this day, the world ended, and Sanford and his family were thrown into mechanical pods, and ice overtook his awake self.

From the first days of his life, Sanford Tobs was afraid of being enveloped in ice, it was a phobia, it was why he never gave into peer-pressure for walking on frozen lakes. So as his parents in their respective chambers vanished from his sight, Sanford's vitals flared dangerously in hyperventilation before the quick freeze, literally saved him.

All that he saw before black was a small metal tab on the inside of the pod's receding door.

It read VAULT-TEC.

He had lived in a family of three bodies, himself, his mother and father, parents that any child of the world would ask for. They supported him, gave him a good overlook on responsibility, they taught him to be a human being.

Raised from such stock, it was no wonder that when Sanford woke from his slumber, he was ill prepared to simply BLEND IN with the new population of his home.

Once spread vibrantly with agriculture and centralized urban sprawls, the great city of Boston was reduced to a field of rubble, scorched earth and death. Sanford stumbled out of his water-leaking pod a hacking mess.

His parents' pods were empty, the other pods held something that, at first, had made him stare in horror- But later on, would be a grim commonality for his new life.

The dead.

Corpses.

Cadavers.

Skeletons encased in frost.

Sanford's first taste of inflicted death, an element that would consume half his very existence in the future- Was using a dislodged pipe to beat the guts out of giant cockroaches infesting the Vault's interior.

His arms flared, he felt resistance whenever the pipe dug into a radroach's head or thorax, or whenever he missed and hit a bulkhead.

One of them bit him in the calf, so THAT was his first ounce of pain in the new world.

Eventually, he escaped the dreaded underground cemetery intended to save the lives of those it had entombed, doubled over from the sunlight screaming in his face, and fell to his knees when he saw his decimated, rotting neighborhood.

Old man Harry's farm was a flat plain in the backdrop, the woods was a maze of black, finger-thin trunks, the houses on Gregory Street were buried in a massive pile of debris spanning a mile.

The other houses were either squashed in their centers, like a god had pressed a finger into their spines- or they were blown into rubble from the left or right. Others that had fared better were hollow shells, and rusted cars gridded the land.

This was what was left after the fallout.

THIS, was why he had feared the sound of explosions for years on end.

This was his new life.

Months passed of struggled survival, he let opportunities go that no experienced wastelander in their right mind would shrug away, he was almost killed more times than he could count against things the skilled people out here scoffed at.

Sanford had it rough for a very long time, he made little allies, angered some people, and nearly died for that as well.

Seeing all the death and destruction around him made his anger flare, not only at his ass-end of the deal, but for the fact that innocent people had been murdered around him, justice doers had failed in his presence, and evil freaks had stepped around him musingly.

He was insignificant, a spec, and the destroyed world decayed with or without him.

So Sanford vowed to change.

He taught himself how to scavenge, procure water and food, how to hunt, he stole guns from battlefields between the worst of the worst- Snagging pipe rifles from dead Raiders even as the victorious Supermutants picked through the corpses.

For a good while, he shifted from a weakling and coward, to one who stuck to the shadows to get the job done.

Sanford's first kill, his REAL kill outside a roach, big bug or rodent, was a Raider that had found him slinking on the outskirts of his respective band's camp.

Sanford used a machete he'd looted, and, in all his time out in this new hell, he had never been COVERED in blood before. Yet his utilization of said blade earned him exactly as such, because the Raider's throat opened.

Despite the obvious of what, of WHOM he had killed, Sanford was shaken by the victory.

And then, like he had brushed off his ineffectiveness prior, he brushed off the shell-shock of his blade's work.

Two nights later, he went back to that camp and killed all of his first victim's buddies with an assortment of scavenged arms.

Considering his newfound bravery, Sanford decided that his greatest skills of survival would be those of combat, and combat with no others but HIMSELF out of that. It had been a while since his 'Rookie' persona had been extinguished.

Now that was not to say he was a veteran or a 'Master' in the wastes, because he was far from it, but, Sanford knew his way around, he knew how to fight, he knew how to kill, how to gather resources, barter, and when to pull the guns, and when to keep them stowed.

It was the same deal as every day in this God-forsaken dump.

Stay alive, kill anything that gets in your way with force.

IF, there was a peaceful solution- Usually there wasn't- But if there was, than follow through with that.

The big word in that being IF.

If, if, if...

There were a lot of 'If's' in the ruins of Boston.

If he could get ammo...

If he could get weapons...

If he could get food...

If he could navigate this...

Navigate that...

If, if, IF and more freaking IF.

Nothing was certain.

"-But I'll figure it out." He always told himself.

"I'll figure it out, as soon as I can find my way out of this damn block..."

That last line, though, was a bit more specific in its aim.

For, mind you, this interval of time that Sanford has SAID that in, was long after the initiation described hence forth.

It was long after he had been introduced to the fallout, and it was certainly LONG long after, he had started trekking the wastes. Again, he was no master, notorious badass, but even one with his experience and more ran into difficulties.

Blowing a frustrated sigh from his mouth, Sanford's arms raised and flopped back down to his hips in a sure sign of annoyance, his eyes locked on a gigantic mound of tumbled masonry debris that, with no exaggeration, spread like a tidal wave across half the zone he stood in.

Deep in the streets of what was once human civilization, dangers hid in every dark corner and crevice, and people vanished without sure cause just as much as confirmed being torn to ribbons.

Now here was the kicker, there were all these things in Boston that would have tried to eat him, kill him for the hell of it, rob him and murder him, and out of all those possibilities, Sanford was currently meeting resistance from rocks.

Climactic, huh? Story of his life, he supposed...

"My damn luck!" He cursed, reaching down to snag his fingers around a sharp blade of stone, he stood back up, and hurled it with a fling of his arm into the massive collapse of building material, where it clacked away in a hollow tumble somewhere in the array.

"All the maps I've seen, all the people I've talked to, put it RIGHT here! Right here! Right... Here..." The young man looked down at his boots, scavenged, of course, and indented his brow. "-I'm a disaster at this."

There was no shame in admitting the truth, in his eyes.

Sanford Tobs had long been under the illusion, perhaps, the VISION, more generously- That an old abandoned vehicle, an Armored Personnel Carrier- To be precise, had been buried in this destroyed block, and that no one who had found it, had been able to crack it.

Now Sanford didn't hold much confidence that HE would have been the one to break into it, because, according to some merchants he'd asked, there were a bunch of Raider punks a few weeks back that tried to blow the thing open with an RPG.

BUT, a possible find of resources, was exactly that- A possible find of resources, and any attempt to be made, should have been made. Weapons, ammo, food or water, it was valuable, and you'd be a complete douchebag to not at least TRY at it.

Sanford creased his lip corner and folded his hands behind his back.

"This month has been going to absolute hell..."

Surrounding him like cackling crowds of scoffers, apartment complexes were open and blasted, sunlight flickered through a hundred broken windows, and across gaps in completely caved in crevices scything down their sides like giant tears.

Rusted automobiles gridded the pavement and street that ended in this collapsed cap, and to make it seem more hopeless, there was a whole eighteen-wheeler truck that was buried all the way from the rear of its trailer, to the back of the cab.

It stuck out there, laughing at him with its busted bumper.

"Aw, heck on all you..." Sanford sighed.

Turning on a swift heel, Mr. Tobs had a grim expression whilst he stomped back down the streets he'd come, bypassing the ruined clutter of long lost metropolitan eases.

He was too hard on himself, he knew. And the only way he'd survive is if he followed his own adapting advice.

But that became harder as time rolled.

The good news was, it was mid-afternoon, and while he'd rather NOT be walking around the ruins of the city at all, it was better than during the turf-wars at night.

Sometimes he wondered how so many Raiders were rampaging around despite the unbelievable attrition they took.

Instances like the prior mentioned RPG-attempt made him question it overall, and, the uncomforting answer was simple- The Raiders were a civilization all their own, mobs and warbands of heartless people, RAISED by heartless people, that fought each other when prey ran low, and allied together when it was convenient.

"I'll figure it out..." He reminded himself in a mutter. "-I'll figure it out, and I'll get better, and I'll survive."

Like so many other lonely souls in the wastes, he had no one to talk to about these things.

At least, in an organic sense...

CLACK

SHKSK

"-There you are, sir! I have good news and bad news! And they all involve the usual triumph that is US!"

-When it came to robotics, Sanford DID at least have a buddy there.

Even if said buddy WAS a little whacky.

Scrambling from around a ruined pile of bricks vomited forth from a breached hardware store front, a levitating, cylindrically sphere-capped robot with three lens-like ocular tools whirred in the air roughly to shake off a thin coat of dust and lodged pebbles.

Sanford stopped in his walk down the street, raising a brow as his friend wrung his metal hide to and fro a last time, blinked all his eye-lenses at once, and hurried over with an excited bob in his flying.

"Triumph, huh?" Sanford rolled his eyes from the statement made. "-What 'Victory' this time, Hancock?"

Painted in faded drab, and still holding a five-armed shadow on his frontal plating that was once a blasted United States Army star, Hancock's rear storage unit popped open with a clink of metallic bolts, the robot's servo-claw- His second limb of three- reaching back to fiddle.

"I've the utmost happiness to inform you that I, Hancock, model 22210 of- FORMER!- U.S.A.A. 5th Infantry Division, have discovered the key to salvation!"

"You found the APC?!" Sanford became excited for a brief moment.

"-By Kennedy, NO! Negative! Nuh-uh! Didn't find diddly-squat with that ole' mission..." The robot would have rolled its lenses if they worked like human eyes, retracted its claw, and flung out a mess of rusty gears and sprockets that skittered away to the pavement at the man's feet.

CLICK CLICK click clk clk...

"Now I KNOW I have the bugger in here, somewhere..."

"So then, Han'... Was that the bad or the good news?"

"To those mother-lovin' commies, I suppose it'd be the GOOD news, huh?!"

"Still hung on the communists?"

"Buggers may all be dead, but I still need confidence when I shoot some poor schmuck dead! And I feel at my BRIGHTEST for UNCLE-Sam, when I envision bloodied Reds around every corner! LIBERTY!"

"The Army ever have a- 'Keep it the hell down'- Doctrine? Huh?"

"Nope."

"Your simplest answer yet... What are you digging around back there for, buddy?"

"I, have found something that I believe, we placate your-" Hancock cut himself off with a light tug, brought his claw back around, and retracted slightly to a greasy container of long rotted take-out food.

Sanford's eyes bugged and he reclined at the stench.

"Meh, the first thing ta-go is the mind, but THEN, well, pride doesn't speak clearly from the mouth of men the specifics..."

"Couldn't say I know- Now, throw that away! Good God! How OLD is that?!"

"Approximate date places organic material for preparation at- 2177, September 3rd, 10:17 Eastern-Standard Time!"

"You have one-hundred year old Chinese-food in your storage?"

"Normally, I'd remember my training when questioned under penalty by an officer... We had elaborate excuses in 'Nam..."

"You weren't IN, 'Nam, Han'... But, what's the 'Excuse' this time then?"

"Honest and truly?"

"Sure."

"...Hmm..." Hancock wiggled the sickly squelching container in his grip, and flung it to the right where it vanished in a nasty splat behind the hardware store window-ledge. "-Oops."

"Original."

"Very. Now, sir, for my find..."

"Uh-huh. I'm sure it's grand..."

"Grander than a Sheridan cutting down a T-Series tank!"

"-On with it, man!"

"-Aaaannnndd- HA! Victory!"

With a final swipe, Hancock came back holding a gun in his claw.

Sanford cocked his head at the firearm-shaped object, with a gunmetal-colored handle and marksman stock, a battery mid-rear its elongated nose, and a barrel that had crystal amplifiers welded into it to further a beam of energy.

It was, though dusty and dented, a relatively unused Laser-based weapon, a rifle, and it even had a scope.

Yet how this bulky thing FIT inside the tiny box in Hancock's rear chassis was beyond him... And probably beyond Hancock- It was beside the point.

"We'll take the fight to Leningrad with this babe! Eh?"

"Nice find, Han'! I'll think twice about doubting you next time!"

"Damn straight! We commandos gotta' keep the trust of Democracy, why not keep the trust with our pals'?"

"-You're hopeless..." Sanford teased, reaching out to take hold of the rifle, he held it properly, reaching up to dust the lens of the scope with a spin of his thumb's print. "It needs some fixing, but this is great."

"Hancock strikes again!"

"Indeed. At least this trip wasn't a complete waste of time..."

"Permission to speak freely? Sir?"

"How many times do I have-You know, alright-Fine FINE! Permission granted... Happy?"

"Quite! Now with all due respect, I think you're being too hard on yourself. Sir."

"You always say that..."

"Affirmative."

"Well my robotic-social-worker friend, we're out, let's head back to the shop."

"The Barracks beckon! I can already taste the steak-n-eggs! HOO-RAH!"

"Steak and eggs, mmhmm..."

"Would ya' rather me be like one of those 'Handy'-wimps and advertise breakfast cereal?!"

"No... I'll admit that's a worse nightmare."

"Besides, those civilian models are grade-A, sister-slappin', father-kickin', bed-wettin' pussies!"

"I'll be sure to find one and tether him or her to you..."

"Bah! Worse than a pair of handcuffs! You dog!"

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