Chapter Five: An Old Man Rambles
"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 an 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. Hmm, what to call you. 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 quite 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. 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 leaking a blueish 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 heded 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. All right? 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 you're 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 before hand 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 know 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 hinted that those who 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 sold 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 in 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 cigarette lit on fire.
That's one habit she'll have to break him out of when she becomes operational.
"The other project, 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. You're 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 sudo-glasglow smile highlighted by his natural glow.