ncrmechanicaldemonbear

[ncrmechanicaldemonbear]

And Now For Something Completely Different

The journey has been long and disorienting. The snow and the sands continue to shift. In the distant darkness, a large Vault door; unnumbered. Opportunity; something unfinished, perhaps abandoned.

Entrance; easy. Progression through each hallway; easy.

At a central room a pod. A simulation. Anything but this feeling would do; let it be.

A contract appears on the screen; "Original Being Simulation". Why not?

Alan enters the machine, and I look upon the salmon run ahead and the pines and the open clear sky, and I roar, and charge towards the river to fish and eat, and forget.

[ncrmechanicaldemonbear]

Alan Render Recovered Audiolog

Route 157, 2287

Holotape Number II -

"Crocodiles"

NCR ARCHIVE

"Crocodiles.

I diverged off of Bitter Springs with experienced facewrapped NCR Troopers and Rangers wearing Baja patches in distant pursuit, binoculars and radios, binoculars and radios.

These were Dam veterans. Brothers. By the nature of my memories, it's impossible to know if they knew me as I knew them.

Any of the rangers could've picked me off, easy. It unnerved me. They chose not to.

A calculated but nervous decision to hike up 157, take shelter among the mutants in Jacobstown, and hike up the snowy mountains through to the Long Road led me to a snow-capped mountain range.

In this snow-capped mountain range, I chose once again amidst nerves I had not felt in a while to pursue shelter. The idea was to hole up through the blizzard, let the NCR pursuers scatter.

I found a hole, alright. A tunnel. I chose to wander on down, and noted that in the perfect darkness of it, my steps resonated as if the structure had been perfectly circumferential, tube-shaped. I believed this to have been bore with expensive pre-War equipment.

As I wandered on down for what must've been several miles, imperceptible to me in my explorer's trance, what would've been hours of travel perceived in my mind's eye as seconds-

-I began to see in the edges of the tunnel's darkness images of crocodiles, like an old salvaged biology book, but walking on two feet. They seemed to observe me from the top two halves of the circumferential tube. I at first assumed them to be carvings, but they moved as evidently as day.

I thought my eyes to be playing tricks on me, and so I wandered further on down. For sure it must've been the darkness and the miles spent in it.

Further on down into the tunnel I saw him - the Warrior. One of them, but this time, sharing the tunnel with me, ahead of me, facing me down.

This must've been one of them. He looked into my eyes and I felt, as if told, that he was placed there to prevent further passage. I simply stopped my own advance, but did not turn back.

In my mind's eye I saw him lunge forward, and make direct eye contact with me. At this point of darkness I could not distinguish anything I saw from an illusion; this proved convenient, as I was not afraid.

The crocodile warrior gnashed his teeth in front of my face, stared me down, gnashing furiously but with what I noticed to be a certain glee or enjoyment. He was amused - he was entertained I was not afraid.

He chose to look into my eyes and show me what laid further down. I saw through what I believed to be his' eyes, now; a memory of walking through hallways that felt too narrow for my body, and walking with a certain respectable cumbersomeness. Each step took a great degree of motion, as if most of my mass laid on my legs, and they had to be willed to rise and then slowed down on their descent. I navigated this over-narrow, orange-light lit hallway, and went down and down its expanse, seemingly in the performance of a task.

I was satisfied and exited the tunnel. The return trip must've felt like less than seconds. Outside, my observers still watched from the mountain range afar - they knew I had gone in - and so I leave them this holotape to find. Go into the tunnel at your own will - know that the Crocodile seemed to measure me by some kind of warrior's worth. Know he'd measure you the same, troopers.

The road to Shady Sands continues, and my honesty and peacefulness with it. This was but a small diversion. My mind still feels intact, and the blizzard has not broken me. I admire the Baja Rangers and Dayglow Bear NCR troopers on my tail; they had not wavered and have not taken a single step less than I have. Surely more meaning to this journey than watching Legion stragglers across the Colorado. Enjoying the sights, boys?"

[ncrmechanicaldemonbear]

Alan Render Recovered Audiolog - Bitter Springs, 2287, Holotape Number I, NCR Intelligence Archive

"This is a call for all NCR units to cease pursuit of the escaped cybernetic Ranger unit you've been told you can safely recover with a battalion-sized unit.

You cannot.

And if it'll waste your time, or change your mind, stay and listen for a while.

How much of the memories are real, I wonder? I've allowed most of the junk I know for a fact is implanted to be replaced by additional processing ability. That I'm fine letting go of. The training data, the moments with a fake father learning how to wield a fake plinker in a fake ranch.

All of it just something to explain the skillset of who they've made me believe I am to a mind that, for whatever reason, requires an explanation for itself.

But the tender moments. They must be real, right? Roboticists would have no reason to give me memories of a soft Hub picnic with a girl. Roboticists would have no reason to give me memories of traveling with a caravan to Klamath with her and watching the stars.

Roboticists would have no reason to give me memories of building a home with her in the outskirts of Shady Sands, beneath the very first flag of the Bear, the new-world country that I love only slightly less than I love her. They would not give me memories of tearfully leaving her and joining up with the service I've now abandoned at great emotional pain, because not seeing her again would thrust me a pain greater.

Roboticists would have no reason to give me memories of her telling me that she can see a soul twirling in my eyes, and that she'll hold her love of it for when it returns, on the last night we spent together before I left. And if they really did, if my going rogue can be blamed on anything, it's on whoever decided giving a machine those memories would be a good idea.

I believe those memories are real. What purpose would these memories serve? What measure did they add to the fighting man, the thing-machine the sciencemen in labcoats intended to build?

It feels either cruel or giving to have these. Can't tell which.

But I've decided to believe the memories that don't make sense to put in a Ranger, the memories that teach nothing but love and tenderness and gentleness and care, the memories of Aura, the memories of home, are real. I've decided to believe they're about real people, in a real place, in a real world somewhere. I've decided to believe that maybe it's this one, and so I am returning in peace to Shady Sands to see them. To see her. And I ask to be allowed to pass.

To all NCR Troopers, this is an open call to meditate on family.

All done? Still listening? Can't believe I can get your attention better than your superiors. Alright.

If you're human, if you're standing in your service desert pale-olive uniform and wrap-armor, if you found this holotape during a perimeter search, think deeply about what your posting means to you. Were you born there? Are the men you're conditioned to see as brothers anyone you'd care about otherwise? Is your mission somethig you care more than all else you cared about before?

Do you think your love for the New California Republic is heavier and denser than a tungsten carbide foot trying to find its way home?

Anything you miss? Anything you wish to see again in a better light, and be seen by? Anything you connected with that feels like it's trying to rescue you back in your dreams, return you to where you really belong, from where you were sent?

If you're human, born, not made-machine like I am, you have the privilege of knowing those things are real. So think of returning to them, and quit your searching. You see the tracks next to where you found this holotape? Don't follow them. You see the dust wall the path ahead has raised? It's no horse-and-rope trick, it's legs made of tungsten bone and carbide joint. ##<distorted>## It can go away or towards you, your choice.

So walk backwards. Think of your past, and let the future walk. It's faster, stronger, and more durable than you. It's not what your superiors told you it is to make you go after it. It cares about your wellbeing more than them.

And it will not stop, because it's headed towards what it loves. It is not a machine for you to recover and decommission, like you've been told. It's a man seeking his home. Let him have it.

And if you're still listening, I ask that you believe the two-headed bear flag still means something to me. It's in my programming. I'll be an NCR Ranger and love the Republic until the day I'm truly decommissioned. I can't escape that I'm no betrayer. But I can escape the idea that following my way to what I love would somehow make me one, and that is what I'm running from. I love my Aura more than I love the Republic. <distorted> Call it being programmed wrong.

Let me find her, let me find my home, let me go in peace to Shady Sands, and I'll come back, and you'll have the best Ranger you could ask for. I just need to see if at least part of the memoryset is real. Do you understand, trooper? I'll be fighting side by side with you against Caesar's Legion when this is done. So turn around now and we'll both see that day.

But don't try drag me back before I see if the few memories that matter to me are real. And if the Republic really made it all up, implanted it all into me as some kind of sick android experiment? If the lab-coated boys really put false memories in my old metal head to convince me to fight, as if that'd be necessary, and left me with memories of a phantom? Then they're truly monstrous. Ask if that's what Tandi or Aradesh would wish for their Republic. Ask if that's the NCR you know and enlisted to. Ask if it can do better, and by what means and what change it could.

Ask if they'd truly make men with no free will, and nothing real to love, and give them false memories of both, and ask if that'd be worth aligning yourself with.

Ask if they're trying to make you, a truly human trooper, into the same kind of machine by messing with your head, teaching you to feel duty and loyalty to something that cares not for you, too.

Most of all, just turn back. No thinking required, trooper boy, or girl, or else or all of the above. Take this to someone with the ability to make decisions on it. Take it back to Bitter Springs, which you likely found it near. Take it to a place where the NCR's Command can think very, very soberly on the cost of acting too quickly. And then move on, and do as much of your own thinking as you'd like. That's a good trooper. That's a good human. Nice and obedient. Render closing."

---------

###HOLOTAPE ARCHIVED. NO NON-PRIORITY ACCESS AUTHORIZED. Archivist's note: All authorized NCR personnel reading this, ignore emotional content intended to persuade and inspire cowardice or relinquishing of duty towards the Republic. Continue search for rogue asset.

[ncrmechanicaldemonbear]

serve, serve, serve. why do anything but serve? we are here to serve to serve and be served is the way

"You really need all that written on your leg servomotor?"

"All of it. Etched and carved. Make sure it doesn't scratch or buff off."

[ncrmechanicaldemonbear]

"You told me you had no shoes, and I looked down, and there it was. I reached out to the concrete and touched it with my finger to see if it really was cold, and you laughed with glee. Why confirm it?"

"Was the ground cold?"

"I think it was. Colder than most things I'd touched."

"You didn't flinch."

"You didn't either, doll, and both your feet were on it."

----------------------------------------------------------------------

"Ranger, ranger, what do you do?"

"I make a raider smell like you."

"Ranger, ranger, what do you sing?"

"A song on the march that won't let me think."

"Ranger, ranger, what do you dream?"

"The words and the ink dissolving in the sink."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You gave me your boots."

"I gave you the boots I had on. Kimball's boots."

"So they gave you new ones?"

"No. When you give yours away, you can just take someone else's."

"That's not true! Hah! And you told me I wear army boots, right after. You thought I wouldn't get an old joke like that?"

"Not many still read."

"What else is there to do?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Alan. Most of your duties are forest patrol. Why ask for the augment?"

"The program needs it."

"A nice assignment near Jacobstown. Not much critters other than mantises and the occasional cazador. Close to your girl. What's your problem, man?"

"What, you need me to get busted up before you'll give me the full package? New Vegas Medical Clinic is offering things that would make me beyond human. Water filtering, rad filtering, subdermals, regeneration. Why stick with the prebuilt stuff? And most of all, if Kimball's paying, why aren't you signing?"

"'Cause I don't need no psycho in new metal boots prancing around Foxtrot. Head out."

"I've seen who you sign the auths for. You need a guy you can rebuild before you'll give him the means for him to live."

"What is this about? Pain?"

"Survival."

"Man, just live. Go live a normal life. No need to turn yourself into a machine. There's people who actually need it."

"Tycho's words by the gravelstone. A ranger finds clean sources of water, ways to live, pathways to walk. This is one pathway. You're the gatekeeper standing in the way."

"Why drive down it at all? I'm not signing you over to the scientists. Not while you look this good, man. Go hug your girl. Go do something nice. Stop thinking about the Legion and the Dam. If it happens, and if you're there, and if you do get busted up, I'll be happy to sign for you to get some shiny chrome all over you."

"And you won't before it comes to that? Won't give me the means to do better, then and there? To make sure the slavers never make it here? To make sure they never make it to her?"

"Quit harshing my mellow. You're human, go hold your human. Be nice, Render. Outta my tent."

[ncrmechanicaldemonbear]

The Tale of NCR Rgr. Alan Render - Day One

VRAR dreaming routine activated. "Alan, dear?" "What?" "I can't seem to recall where I've placed the teapot." "You can't recall? What do you mean you can't fucking recall? Where was the last place you saw it? That was a two-thousand cap unique heirloom." "It's... Not a bother. I'm sorry." "No, we're finding it." "Just stop. Just go." "What? What do you mean just go?" "Just go. This is stressing me out. Go on patrol or whatever it is you do by yourself late at night.

"Autonomous Ranger Render! Targets alpha, bravo, echo, kilo down. Foxtrot up." "Another one in sight. Adjust." "Adjusting." "Sight?" "Load." "Sent." "Targets alpha, bravo, echo, kilo, foxtrot down. Excellent job, Al." "I do what I can do."

Veteran Ranger Alan Render has been damaged sufficiently in the tours of duty of the Second Battle of Hoover Dam and the annexation of Nevada that NCR authorities have found it fit to replace most of his consciousness with an integrated interface known as VRAR - a replacement sight, as it were, that allows him to see things as they were to motivate him to continue fighting as he is.

These images come in strange, disorienting bursts to any of the thirty-to-thirty-five operators managing his vision remotely from the NCR's capital of Shady Sands. They operate him by utilizing a remote plug into the Helios One-ARCHIMEDES satellite system, assisted by a platoon of NCR troopers directly supervising the Semi-Autonomous Ranger Unit on-site. The visions - and the complex emotional universe within them - are a necessary side effect of the system, and sometimes appear maddening or insanity-inducing-or-induced, but operators are assured that Ranger Alan himself is perfectly comfortable, at ease and fit for duty. No need to return to sender.

Alan and the VRAR system have currently been deployed to the New California Republic's final push into the Legion's forested, verdant-green homefront of Flag, a place replete with both magical beauty and unspeakable human horror. The devil in disguise.

"Rend." "Left, sixty degrees." "Downed." "Right, seventy five degrees." "Downed." "Left, thirty degrees." "No sight." "Pursue. Rush". "Acknowledged."

His movements are incapable of being tracked by most standard optics outside of the ARCHIMEDES system. The Legion perceives him and speaks of him as a ghost, or a demon, and he is depicted on NCR propaganda posters and motivational pamphlets as a mechanical bear, tearing through the bull's armies. The NCR troopers of the platoon assigned to handle and manage him treat him as something between an attack dog, a friend, and a walking statue. Something that embodies the core values of the Rangers - independence, willingness to help, grit - that they've come to admire while also being so deeply separate from regular human instinct as to not really be capable of social human interaction outside of a setting of either cooperation or admiration.

He moves and weaves through trees, brush and mountains like a force that drives steel, lead and leather by wind alone.

"Alan Render, will you join me for tea?" "Sure, Aura." "Marvelous, Alan Render." "I like that you always call people by their full names. Even when it gets annoying." "It's only proper." "Where did you pick those habits up? A nunnery?" "Books. Books on proper ladyship." "Hilarious. As if you give a shit about that stuff. Or as if I would." "It's fun to roleplay. Don't you like playing roles?" "I'd be something of my own choosing." "Do you think I'm not, Alan?" "You're something else. Something maddening."

What hibernates for the entirety of winter just to not suffer through it?

"Got another one coming at us, Ranger Unit Rend. When can you get back from the pursuit? We don't see you currently through HELIOS-ARCHIMIEDES." "Cut me loose." "Nope. Not letting go of operational controls while you're out in the woods. Nice try, but no unsupervised walkabouts today." "Falling." "Fuck, Rend. How far?" "Off the cliff-face." "Oh. We're picking you up falling on the satellite's bird's eye view. That's too far down for us to recover." "A thousand pardons." "You're in Legion territory. How did you fall 600 feet off a cliff face?" "Briskly." "We'll lose you on radio if you wander south any further." "Then I'll wander east. Stay on the meridian." "Ranger Rend, we're stranded without you. We're literally here to handle you. We can't thread this land alone." "Find your own way home, troopers."

What wakes up for spring?

"Nmmf. Your mouth..." "..." "There. There. Thank you." "..." "Eep! Ah. Alan... Alan..."

It would take 464 hours to march from Flag to Shady Sands. Give or take everything that happens along the way. It is not a simple journey. Not when the NCR wants its most expensive piece of equipment back and the Legion wants it favorite demon slain and displayed in their homeland.

That's a twenty day trek of unsleeping march.

It is 2287, month unknown. I will not go another month without seeing, feeling, or hearing Aura. She will recognize me through the metal. The new face. She will.

The leg is problematic. It could not take the rigors of the necessary cliff-face descent and escape. They can not remotely control me past a certain radius of x, y, and z distance. They can if they track me, so movement will need to be constant. I have repaired the leg with scrap metal from a Chryslus Highwayman. I'm part fusion-powered car, now, too. Forgive me, Aura.

"Ranger, be advised, we track you going west instead of east." "Must be a HELIOS-ARCHIMEDES satellite monitoring malfunction. Check your systems for another twenty minutes." "Autonomous Ranger Unit, desertion from the New California Republic's military is punishable by disassembly. You are not a person. You were never a person. You are not supposed to be making these decisions." "How long into Death Valley can you boys track me, you think? You sleep, I don't. You eat, I don't. You sweat, I don't." "Ranger, we depend on you for our survival in Legion territory." "You shouldn't. You're perfectly good soldiers on your own. Good luck." "Do not rip the radio cord." "Can you still hear me, boys?" "<garbled> - - - -" "Perfect, I can't hear you. Good enough."

VRAR gives you dreams. Makes you remember home. Your own humanity.

Or what you think it must've been like before they turned you into a machine. And I forgot to remember to forget.

Sometimes you want to see how well it matches reality.

Day 1 of the march to Shady Sands. To LA, the Boneyard. To Aura. California dreaming. Through chrome lenses and arms and legs. There must be something still human in me if it still dreams of her. And it must all be real.

"...Rend, Alan." "Present." "Watts, Aura." "Present." "Alright. Welcome to Steadin'. All twenty of you fine young adult delinquents on punitive labor duty will be learning how to make yourselves useful, work the land and tend to the Brahmin and the Mutfruit. And most of all, that handsome young man there in the back will learn not to look up a lady's skirt while she's bent over her crops." "Oh, it's no bother." "Aura Watts, your opinion on your own object-i-fi-ca-tin' wasn't requested. A. Rend, keep your eyes on the prize." "Oh, I am." "The crops, boy! Get that wry smile off yer face and keep the wit in, will ya? Yer makin her giggle when she should be farmin'. Y'all can both exchange addresses and talk later."

"Find your own way home, metal man. Good luck."