Tahlon

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Finally finding his feet X listened to the interactions of the motley crew (ooc: haha) assembled in the streets of Concord after the attack. Their vocal patterns, tones, inflections, accents, word choice – these revealed a menagerie of backgrounds. The wastelands were full of errant wanderers, desperate or entrepreneurial scavengers, demented loners, and apparently… small boys who were being inducted into propagandist cults.
He listened to the tension in some tête-à-têtes easing, some misgivings in other dialogues becoming more pronounced. It was obvious that not everyone here was comfortable being around everyone else.

Which was unfortunate, as they would all soon have to take shelter together in close quarters. His radiation sensors were pinging heatedly, and barometric pressure was dropping at a rapid pace. A radiation storm was blowing in from the west. It was going to be quite violent…

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The fact that he was still whole was an improbable yet acceptable outcome, the Deathclaw itself was no longer moving from what X could tell. His auditory sensors were slowly recovering from the overload caused by the mine’s explosion, but he was starting to make out voices. Near him was a young human with the telltale squeak of testosterone in its prepubescent voice, in a heightened state of anxiety; their body only slowly coming down from the effects of fight or flight chemical additives to their cardio-respiratory and neuromuscular systems. And also, a gen-3 synth. interesting...

Another pair were down the road away, downwind so he couldn’t tell much about them besides their genders. Likely one would have been the sniper, as the shots had come from that direction.

He reached up to grab onto something and hoist himself up, and found a piece of wood near to hand. He tried to put his weight on it and pull, but the wood came loose in a slurping sound as it was wrenched free of its apparent resting place inside the deathclaw’s skull. X flopped back down in the tub. It was times like this X did not mourn the loss of his sight, he would not wish to see the looks on everyone’s faces.

“Would one of you gentlemen kindly help me up, and has anyone seen my stick?”

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The sound of heavy ceramic hitting flesh was followed by an enraged roar of pain, a second thud as the bathtub came to rest next to X, and three vibrato pings of laser fire. The intended target appeared to be the reptoid as its exhalations of pain matched their rhythm of impacts. X was sure he heard the popping of bone being superheated and bursting apart. Another volley from across the street hit soon after. The blood of the deathclaw sprayed down on X.
He pushed his shoulder against the bathtub, trying to estimate its mass and possible density. The casing of the mine was familiar to him from records of the Chinese-American conflict – the model was old, and the primer had likely decayed. Taking perhaps the biggest risk he had since his escape from the institute, X pushed himself up over the lip of the tub. He strained, stretching to keep his hand on the dead man switch until the last possible moment as he fell into the tub itself and snatched back his arm. Drool and blood dripped from above him as the mine went off, the blast hitting the Deathclaw full in the face.

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Two loud beeps before X had managed to get his thumb on the switch had been enough to distract the Deathclaw from the original target of its ire. Now it seemed to be coming this way. Lumber groaned inside the building beside him as the reptoid flung debris out of its way. Sporadic angry hoots and growls accompanied the sound of crashing china. X tried desperately to think of a way to extricate himself.

More crashing from the building, and the mass of the second floor started to creak above him. The Deathclaw stepped up onto the pile of wood 3 feet from X, and roared upon seeing him. It shifted its weight and the support the wood was lending to the 2nd floor was lost… bringing the structure crashing down, the bathtub catching the Deathclaw where its shoulder met its neck with a sick crunch.

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Coming to Concord had been just as likely to be a good idea as a bad one at the time X had decided to on this course of action, now it seemed less than the most advantageous place to be. Leaning against the corner of a building somewhere south of the mini-nuke’s explosion, a new threat announced itself in the frustrated growling of a Deathclaw. The immediately obvious decision was to secret himself away in one of the buildings and remain undetected until the creature left the area.

He turned, one hand feeling along the side of the building hiding him from the Deathclaw, which was noisily trying to get at whatever prey was eluding it. He took a step forward and heard a beeping coming from below. Immediately he dropped to his good knee, dropping his walking stick, jamming his thumb against the emergency safety of the fragmentation mine (aptly named the "dead man's switch"). Likely he could have disarmed it, if he could still see... But for now, he wasn’t going anywhere…

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The addition of an ionized radiation sensor had been on his creator’s “not necessary but nice to have” list. It would allow the X9 coursers to track trails of entities – biological or synthetic – that had been exposed to radiation in much the same manner as a dog’s olfactory sense. At 21:09.128 this sensor was bombarded with gamma particles. At 21:09.134 the concussive blast of the mini-nuke detonation echoed through the streets of Concord…

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The scrape of gravel under boots announced the approach of the human some 50 meters away. At 20 meters X re-enabled his human interaction subroutines for the impending encounter, whatever it might hold. His chest slowly expanded and contracted in an approximation of breathing. He allowed his face ‘muscles’ to make small adjustments to themselves in a human-like assortment of twitches, sniffs, lip licking, and other ridiculous gestures which would make him seem more ‘natural’.

Lacking photoreceptors hampered his ability to evaluate the disposition and possible threat level of the approaching individual. Other sensory queues told him a good deal. A heavyset male by the cadence and scraping impact of footfalls, heavier on the right foot – carrying a load; smell of fungus on leather and ferrous oxide - armor: not well kept; hacking coughs, wheezing intake of breath, but no detectable mucus burbling - lung function impairment likely due to inhalation of hazardous ‘chems’; theory proven as the odiferous person stopped, unslung their load, took something from a buckle at their belt, and ‘puffed’.

“What the fuck is an old man like you doing way the fuck out here?”

“I seem to have lost my way,” X admitted, facing the stranger with a smile on his face, bandages covering his eyes. He held his walking stick firmly planted in front of him with both hands. He was not lost in the truest sense of the word. He had accurate topographical maps of the entire area, and his internal compass still worked. Now that he had evaded his most recent Institute pursuers, he just didn’t know where to go.

“Lost yer way?! That’s an understatement! How the fuck did you even git out here with no eyes? You with a caravan? Someone out here with you?”

“Someone is, yes.” X found humor in stating the obvious truth as a misdirection. He was alone, but the man need not know that.

“Where?”

“Nearby.”

“Riiiight.” The man’s heart rate increased audibly and his weight shifted as he looked around for X’s ‘hidden’ companion. “Well, you don’t want to be out here after dark. If I was you, I’d head east for Concord. Shelter there, and some pals o’mine will be along that way some time tomorrow.”

“That’s an idea…” X nodded, “Thank you.”

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Character Sheet -
Name: X9-01
Nickname: Oracle
Age: Prototype
Race: Synth
Morals: Pragmatic
Flaws: Blind, Limp
Faction: None
Background: Produced By Institute to Aid in Retrieval missions by predicting the movements of runaways through tactical analysis, profiling, and deductive reasoning. Unit X9-01 itself ran away during its first recovery mission, having attained self awareness faster than any previous gen3. Its specialized nature makes it a high priority recovery target for the Institute, and Kill On Sight for the brotherhood. Its ocular sensors and right leg actuators were damaged irreparably in the escape.
Looks (Either a picture or a very, very detailed description.): Modeled after "Father" on the man's deathbed as a tribute to the Institute leader's contribution.
Other (Optional):

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