Tina and Chris Buren were overjoyed when they realized they were bringing new life into the world together. But, that joy gave way to justified anxiety, as over-population and resource scarcity provoked escalating global conflicts. The resource-exhausted world was becoming an unstable place for humanity. The Burens knew war was looming around the corner, and war, war never changes. Using his personal wealth as a Vault-Tec cryogenics technician, Chris relocated his pregnant wife to the remote Mojave desert. The worried parents chose the inhospitable locale, fearing larger population centers would be targeted in an outbreak of thermonuclear war. Knowing personally that Vault-Tec could not be trusted, Chris and Tina combined their scientific and engineering backgrounds into clandestinely constructing a long-term underground bunker of their own designs. They intended for their isolated desert sanctuary to be capable of enduring for centuries, until the worst of nuclear fallout had abated. But as their impressive wealth dwindled, and the scope of creating a sustained cryo-facility capable of lasting through a nuclear holocaust became clearer, the hopeful, desperate parents decided to make drastic sacrifices.
As Tina came closer to term, the parents had selflessly decided it was unrealistic to maintain three cryo-pods with their available equipment and miniature nuclear fusion reactor. The brilliant couple created a tiny, efficient, baby-sized pod for their developing infant. The foresighted couple endeavored to leave behind everything their progeny would need to survive, and hopefully thrive, in the unimaginable future that awaited. To help raise the hapless infant, Chris and Tina realized they would need robotic assistants that could stay dormant until needed. Not trusting RobCo due to their shadowy dealings with Vault-Tec and General Atomics, the couple bought two inferior Acme-brand robots. The first was an educational android with a television head, named Maestro. The teacher-bot, Hecho en Mexico, was recently recalled for fears of spreading 'foreign' influence as patriotic war-fervor grew. The second was a treaded, multi-limbed maid-bot, named Maid-Tilda. It was Acme's disastrous competitor model to the popular Mr. Handy robot chassis. Ambitiously sporting 6 spidery robotic limbs and an irresponsibly sharp assemblage of high-grade kitchen utensils, the Maid-Tillda's lacked the advanced RobCo geo-spatial processors, and were involved in numerous high-profile loss-of-life lawsuits. Knowing not whether they were compounding or alleviating the unreliable nature of these second-hand bots, the couple carefully reprogrammed and fine-tuned them to serve as surrogate parents for their future child.
Evander Buren was born October 20, 2077, just three days before the world was consumed in nuclear hellfire, causing a cascade of disasters that would irreparably change life on Earth. His parents, attuned to the escalating tensions in the Pacific as the U.S. fleet squared off with the Chinese to defend the world's last viable oil derrick, rushed the newborn to their hidden Mojave bunker. All of Chris and Tina's careful work would prove miraculously successful, as the frozen infant let the unimaginable terrors of the post-blast decades roll past, as young Evan rested in sleepless slumber, deep underground. Almost a century later, in 2140, sensors in the sleeping bunker activate, spurring to life the Maestro and Maid-Tilda bots. The two robots diligently prepare the aged, cramped shelter to house a human life, as infant Evan Buren is slowly resuscitated from cryogenic sleep.
Young Evan had no real concept that his life was strange in any way during the early years of his innocent, underground upbringing. But, as he studiously took in his lessons, broadcast from the television-monitor face of Maestro, Evan began to grasp just how big the world outside his shelter was. Maestro's lessons about pre-war culture were the only thing Evan had ever known of a land outside of the metal walls of his bunker. His mechanical mentors had been preparing young Evan for life on the inhospitable surface for his entire life, yet still they worried for the hapless, giftless youth. Maestro had repeatedly assessed the growing Evan's S.P.E.C.I.A.L scores, and the numbers were grimly conclusive. The clumsy, young lad was scoring in the lowest percentile for nearly every category, except for the "Luck" attribute, an unscientific, placebo value specifically designed to grant hope to the parents of the malformed and moronic. It was all Maestro could do, to diligently drill the basics of survival into Evan's unfocused mind. Perhaps out of a vague sense of self-preservation, Maestro trained Evan in the basics of mechanical repair and maintenance first. Given Evan's consistent, impressive propensity for self-injury, the tutor-bot made sure he was trained in emergency medicine and wound-dressing as well. Maid-Tilda did her best to act as a maternal force in the developing Evan's life. However, her robotic nature and unstable program made the notoriously unreliable Acme robot begin to behave... erratically as the years went past, though her obsessive devotion to the surviving Buren's welfare was never in question. Sustained by a dwindling supply of freeze-dried MREs and a failing fusion reactor, the bunker's days of cloistering the developing survivor were numbered.
Eventually, largely due to the high power demands of his robotic guardians, the miniature generator had become too unsafe to operate, as they were forced to rely on a back-up supply of fission cells to keep the life-support systems working. As Evan's 18th birthday rapidly approached, he was in the final stages of planning his entrance into the radiation-blasted world above. The mood was incredibly tense in the failing fallout shelter as Evan's entrance into manhood was conducted with what ceremony his creatively reprogrammed robotic guardians could muster. Maid-Tilda had artfully turned his monotonous food supply into his favorite fare, MRE-loaf. Wearing his favorite Vault-Kid pajama's, the scrawny Evan was watching diary entries from his parents on his robotic mentor's screen. Maestro was getting worried that Evan was slinking into depression, as the youth tore into another fruit cup, a pile of them from the MRE's at his feet. Over the years, most of the food in his MRE rations had endured, but the fruit cups had invariably fermented into pure alcohol over the decades, and Evan was tying one on as he stared at Maestro. Evan's mood turning sullen, commanding "Play it again, final diary entry #114, January 2077," Evan demanded, hiccuping from the fermented fruit mash swilling in his belly. Maestro responded "Mi amigo, are you sure? It isn't good to ruminate like this... we should either try to make this a happy day, or focus on-" but the Spanish-accented tutor-robot was cut off "Play it again, damn you!" Evan demanded, slamming his fist weakly on the bunker's sole table, spilling several emptied fruit cups to the floor. Maestro sighed in sadness and defeat, as he played his original masters final address to their son, who would never know them.
The image of Tina and Chris flickered onto Maestro's monitor face, smiling, though Evan could see the tears in their eyes. They stared at the screen for some time, before Tina broke the silence "Hey there Evan. I can't imagine how big you must be now! The thought that you'll be watching this one day, doing okay, is the warmest hope I keep in my heart right now." Chris Buren took some time to speak, squeezing his wife's waist for support, before saying "I want you to know that we'll always be proud of you, and even though life has forced us to separate, wherever you go, we'll be with you." Evan began crying as he watched over the footage, though he had seen it countless times before. He could barely watch as his parents said their peace, and tried to explain the desperation of the situation. Maestro had kept Evan from seeing the final log until his 13th birthday, given its traumatic nature. Evan watched as his parents kissed their hands, then held them to the camera lens, the newly anointed 18 year-old returning the gesture tenderly. He bawled into his fruit cup, as they turned, and solemnly marched up the only exit's ladder, out of the escape hatch. They had made a pragmatic sacrifice for their child, not wanting to tax any more of the bunker's supplies, so that it could go dormant to outlast the worst of the fallout. Evan clutched at a small box that contained an air-tight locket of his mother's crumbling hair, his sole physical memento that his parents had ever truly existed. He turned to his attentive robotic caretakers. Maid-Tilda's blank, metallic face betraying no emotion, though she wrung and clacked her many mechanical limbs together anxiously. Maestro's monitor returning to the resting pattern of a generic Mexican man's cartoon face, the image swaying slightly to prevent burn-in. Evan stared at them with piercing intensity "Today... we're leaving today. I've decided. It's time."
They tried to talk him out of it, given his drunken state and the rushed nature, though it seemed Evan was unassailably adamant. Evan argued they were just wasting fusion cells sitting around in the bunker, plotting as they had for years. He convinced the androids that it was the time for action. Sensing the determination of their human ward, Maestro and Maid-tilda consented as they made their final preparations. "Here it's not much but It's the best I could do!" Maid-Tilda said, as she pushed over a gift, artfully wrapped up in old MRE packaging. Evan tore into it, as he opened the present and stared at a wide-brimmed cowboy hat, fashioned from the foil liners of his only, deeply maligned food-stuff. Maid-Tilda's harsh, crackling robotic voice continued, trying unsuccessfully to emulate matronly affection "I made it to keep the sun off your precious, pale skin, my darling sweetums. It should also prevent any psychic collective-consciousnesses from manipulating or reading your thoughts." Maid-Tilda finished, as Evan puzzled over the last part of that sentence. He wondered if he should defragment her logical processors again before the expedition, but there wasn't time. Evan's attention then turned to Maestro, who pulled out an imposing black pistol "This, mi companero is a 10mm Colt 6520 autoloader. Quality craftsmanship, I hope it won't prove useful above-ground, except maybe for hunting." Evan stared at the hand-cannon in rapt fascination, unaware that they had that kind of ordinance at their disposal "W-wow, you're really trusting me with that, Maestro?" the limp-wristed youth said, amazed. Maestro laughed incredulously, quickly responding "¡Dios mío! no, no of course not. Let's be honest, you can barely tie your shoes Evan. I tried making you glasses, but we just don't have the materials to fix your terrible sense of perception. I just thought you should finally see it. You with a gun, I can't even..." Maestro trailed off, speaking the rest of the sentence in Spanish, which a mandated patriot-patch prevented him from teaching Evan.
Maid-Tilda bent her spidery metal limbs down to help Evan out of the hatch, as he spilled out into the windy Mojave desert, sand blowing past him as he awkwardly clambered to his feet. He squinted his eyes terribly, adjusting to the bright outdoors, his heavy sunglasses only barely able to maintain his troglodytic sense of sight from a life-time underground. Maestro and Maid-Tilda used their meager sensors to scan for any signs of civilization in the roaring desert winds, but couldn't make out anything besides aged, burnt out ruins. Maestro used the position of the sun to determine their location, saying "The nearest town is Cottonwood Creek, we should head this way and-" but Evan was already resolutely marching in the opposite direction. He turned back, authoritatively saying "No, we should go this way. I have a feeling!" Maestro turned to Maid-Tilda, as he silently messaged her with an electronic message <¡Joder! It's going to be harder than I thought to keep him alive... What are we going to do?> Maid-Tilda just turned to Maestro and shrugged her three sets of arms, responding <Shower him with love and affection, and shower anything that would hurt him with cold steel!> as Evan's voice called out through the roaring desert-wasteland wind "Hey guys! I found one of those 'animals'! Check it out!"
Maid-Tilda raced over rapidly, squealing across the sand on her tracked treads, as Maestro awkwardly bounded along on his thin metal legs. They found Evan leaning dangerously close to some... thing that looked like it was close to death. At first, Maestro thought it was a just giant coyote, but as the robot approached the injured creature and scanned his extensive memory-banks for a match, he realized it was an unprecedented organism. Maid-Tilda cautioned Evan away from the disabled beast, saying "Come on my sweet, helpful baby. Get away from that nasty stray, it's too far gone to help. It can best serve us as cutlets now," Maid-Tilda finished, scanning the creature and detecting little radiation content. The matronly kitchen-robot was eager to put her extensive memory bank of kitchen skills to use on something other than MREs for once. Evan defensively sprawled over the exhausted, dying creature, which appeared to have its hind-leg trapped in an old coil of barbed wire connected to an ancient piece of collapsed fence. He yelled, "No! No steaks!" as the creature ominously rattled its scaled tail at his proximity, and feebly hissed at him.
Maestro raised his pistol defensively at the strange abomination, but realized it was too dehydrated to even raise it's snake-like head. Evan refused to listen to reason, as he raised his water canteen to the scaled muzzle of the hodgepodge snake-coyote, which flickered it's long, bifurcated tongue at the scent of moisture. He held the water bottle close, as the creature's prehensile tongue flickered in and out of the canteen, slowly but desperately lapping at the water. The Buren boy excitedly exclaimed "It's a dog right? This is a sign, it has to be. This is my birthday dog!" "¡Vengaaaa! That's not a puppy Evan, we taught you how dangerous the surface can be! It looks... diseased. Animals shouldn't have scales AND fur, I know that! Just step back, and I'll put it out of its misery." Maestro said, trying to sound assertive, as Evan ignored him. Evan began gently stroking the creature's strange, scaled neck, as he peered closely at the back of its head, squinting as he usually did. "Hey, there's a tattoo on one of the larger scales, it's in English! This is someone's pet! It reads 'Property of Dr. Borous. Rattlesnake-Coyote Chimera Codename: Night-Stalker. Gender: F, Stealth Capacity: Yes. Serial Code: 54b1Na. If found, return to Big M.T. for $$$ and free surgery." Evan read out haltingly, his poor perception skills making the process needlessly difficult. The 'night-stalker' feebly twitched its caught leg in the twisted, rusted wires of a pre-war fence. Evan diligently set about remedying the situation, fetching some pliers from his repair-kit and undoing the tightly wound binding off the reptilian canine's leg.
Evan held the leg outstretched, as he then produced his first-aid kit, Maestro groaning that he was wasting valuable resources on the doomed creature. The young lad used his first-aid training to clean, disinfect, and dress the nasty leg wound. The night-stalker yelped and hissed defensively as Evan treated it, but it was still too exhausted to resist. After finishing with the creature's leg, he went back to giving it purified canteen water to sip on. Evan tenderly stroked the coyote-snake's scaly head and neck as it eagerly drank, scratching at the mangy patch of tan fur haphazardly sprawling from between its bony shoulder-blades. "I'm going to call you 'Sabina' girl, you can be my pet. I always wanted a pet." Evan said, as his hands began shaking. He had trouble placing the intense emotion welling up inside him, because he was so overwhelmed by the strange new experiences of the surface. Evan realized that this bizarre, hopelessly injured beast was the first non-robotic, living creature he had ever been in contact with. The youth was overwhelmed by the symbolic and emotional significance of the moment. The injured night-stalker whimpered meekly as she rolled off her side, sitting on her scrawny, scruffy, tan-furred coyote paws. Evan held the canteen up carefully as 'Sabina' began drinking more earnestly. "You're naming it now? You're naming this blatantly dangerous snake monster?" Maestro yelled at Evan, as the night-stalker responded to the raised voice by rattling its tail ominously. "Stop it Maestro, you're scaring her! This is clearly my birthday pet, my p-parents must of sent her to me!" Evan said, his voice rising hysterically. As if in response, the night stalker trembled and strained to rise to her long, furry legs, as she carefully tried to pad away from the strangers after finishing off the canteen's contents. Sabina yelped as she collapsed back down, then let out a low whine of canine anguish as she curled her injured leg up closely.
Evan held a slimy wad of a MRE's nearly century old 'beef spaghetti' to the panting night-stalkers nose, as Sabina sniffed suspiciously at the proffered sustenance with her scaly slit nostrils. The creature delicately opened her jaws, revealing long, dagger-like retractable snake fangs concealed within the glistening pink maw, as she gingerly gulped the food down in single motion. Evan looked into the night-stalkers eyes, as Sabina stared back at him intently as he offered it more food. Evan swore he could see the sharp glint of intelligence in the night-stalker's disparate eyes. Evan realized Sabina had heterochromia eyes. Her left pupil was a round, blue coyote eye, the right a serpentine slit pupil. He felt like the strange animal was gazing into his soul as she intently stared at him as he continued feeding her the whole MRE pack. Maid-Tilda's haphazardly arranged mental circuits burned, pondering the strange situation. The diligent matron-bot had done its best to alleviate Evan's overwhelming loneliness and isolation inside their fallout shelter, but still Maid-Tilda could not always cure Evan's melancholic episodes. The maternal robot had never sensed so much dopamine flowing through Evan's deeply cherished veins, as she struggled to condone this sudden, ill-advised bonding. The re-routed logical circuits in the maid's mechanical mind struggled to resolve a hidden, vague sense of jealousy over the human's affection towards this mangy beast, but Maid-Tilda knew she would have to let her little bird fly out, and likely hurt himself, eventually. At any rate, the feral, wild animal would likely scamper off as soon as it had regained its exhausted strength, she reasoned.
The coldblooded snake-coyote obediently sat at Evan's side as they gathered around a hastily erected camp-fire. The Mojave Wasteland's nights were surprisingly cold, and the fire provided relief as Evan slowly roasted a congealed lump of 'carrots and peas' from his BlamCo MRE. He carefully fed the steaming, grey, rubbery lumps to Sabina, who rattled her snake-tail lightly in excitement at each morsel, her strength seemingly returning with each bite. Maestro was sullenly fuming, after Maid-Tilda vetoed his call to chase the night-stalker away with Evan's vote. Maid-Tilda announced in a screeching mechanical warble "Initiating dormant, ambient, security mode. Emit 50 decibel warning-call to elicit emergency defenses. Good night sweetums, have nice dreams!" as the robot maid retracted into a compact position and partially powered down to conserve batteries. As the fire of Yucca leaves and cactus skeletons died down to meager embers, Evan squeezed into his sleeping bag besides the glowing coals. His mind was racing as he looked up at the night sky. Again, the teenager realized he was seeing the stars and moon truly for the first time in his entire life, Maestro's low-resolution monitor doing the heavens absolutely no justice. As strange noises sounded in the surrounding brush, eliciting an ominous red scanning laser from Maid-Tilda and a warning rattle from Sabina, Evan knew he would struggle to get much sleep. The young Buren felt so terribly excited, he didn't know what to do with himself, though he was glad to have some privacy.
The week-long sexual education coarse Evan Buren was subjected to when he was going through puberty still elicited a cringe of shame from him as he remembered Maestro's stilted, awkward descriptions of the morose anatomy slides from the lesson. The Education war-ministry had mandated edu-bots only teach approved, government regulated, sex-ed curriculum, and Evan was still emotionally scarred from the humiliating process. However, the extensive library of ethnic tribal dance documentaries available in Maestro's memory banks had helped the isolated teen develop his sexuality in a somewhat healthy fashion. Evan always waited for his parental-posing robotic caretakers to power down, before imagining the shirtless, bra-less wardrobe of the more equatorial tribeswomen. The sound of rhythmic skin drums filled the youth's imagination as he went to work downstairs. After several minutes, he opened his sleeping-bag to get a napkin from a licked-clean BlamCo MRE pack, as he was startled by an ominous shape slowly approaching in the darkness. He nearly called out for help, before he realized it was Sabina approaching him in the darkness. Evan still felt slightly like calling out for help as the newly-acquainted, entirely feral and wild animal calmly approached him, his legs caught up in the sleeping bag, dick in hand. He stared at her reflective blue and yellow eyes glinting in the dark, as the night stalker approached him sniffing. He froze, completely paralyzed as his young heart and mind tried to process this complex situation. The coyote-snake lowered her serpentine muzzle toward his engorged member, sniffing at it eagerly. If Evan wasn't so overwhelmed by the sudden turn of events, he likely would of shrieked out for help from Maid-Tilda, and possibly Maestro, considering his pistol, as the snake-headed canine opened her glistening, pink maw. Evan's green eyes went wide, as his 'pet' night-stalker began exposing her sharp fangs as her long, forked tongue flickered against the sensitive tip of his shaft, where a pearl of pre-cum was dripping down.
Evan couldn't comprehend what was happening, until he meekly squeaked in alarm as Sabina nuzzled at his groin.