Zander Drake

Given a decent childhood aboard the Crawler by a family that could afford to provide a legitimate Vault experience, Zander was sheltered from the outside world for most of his life. Others would always say that he was a bit odd, but his parents clung to denial and argued vehemently in his defense when his actions drew the suspicions of their community. They breathed a sigh of relief when he entered public school and showed a deep interest in medical science and mechanical engineering, thinking he had grown out of an awkward phase and would become a functioning adult.

Eventually applying and successfully joining the Medical Corps, Zander became quickly obsessed with the cybernetic replacements available to the wealthier citizens. Getting to know them intimately, he even made a few design improvements that allow for finer movements of the extremities without sacrificing structural stability. This earned him some financial compensation from the First Citizens Council and the respect he needed to begin operating with less impunity.

At first his private experiments yielded many positive results, leading to less and less oversight as his schematics were beginning to replace standardized designs that had been used for decades. It was somewhere along this rise to fame that he became dissatisfied with his own limitations however. His inventions didn't just restore functionality to the subject, they offered them an upgrade. This thought began harmlessly enough, but he soon found himself awake each night confronting his own mortality in this vulnerable organic form.

The problem was that his superiors would never condone the use of cybernetics for personal gain, as they were already a difficult resource to provide the members of society they needed to keep working. Simple theft was impossible without detection, and without an accomplice, performing the surgeries he wanted would be just as likely as stealing the parts. Zander had access to cadavers and was already performing research notes for the Medical Corps on dissection when he came up with a plan.

Taking inspiration from the Robobrain model of automaton, Zander wondered why he couldn't use the same technique in reverse. After half a year of tinkering and testing he came up with a model that could at least animate the top half of the torso, though the legs never regained functionality. This was acceptable as he found a solution through sawing them in half and fusing their bodies to a pair of tracks. Although he was aware the torso and arms would eventually rot due to exposure, they would certainly last long enough to perform their purpose.

Confident in his helpers, Zander next designed a virus to lock down his laboratory long enough for him to complete his transformation. He planned to bring proof to the Council on the benefits of providing cybernetics to more than just wounded workers. He wanted to start modest at first, just replacing a hand to aid him in surgical procedures so he could show the difference between the two side by side. His fatal mistake however was having too much faith in the engineers and technicians in charge of getting the door unjammed.

Zander first replaced his left hand. The pain wasn't nearly as bad as he had expected, and he was already missing part of one finger and lacked complete feeling in three others. Content to practice with his new instrument, he almost didn't notice the time the first few days. After another few days passed, he began to grow restless and thought about what else he could improve on his body. It started innocently enough, but after a week had come and gone, Zander began to believe he would die without realizing his goal of merging with the machines.

As the small cache of food he had prepared ran out, he knew he would need to do some work on his method of energy consumption before all else. Zander scooped out his organs to replace them with bionic counterparts capable using radiation in place of organic food. It would still require a few living parts, including a culture of mold that turned the atomic energy into a waste product similar to sugar. This first leap into the unknown gave the young doctor perhaps a bit too much confidence moving forward as he found himself sustainably satiated without ever needing to consume a meal.

Realizing he had hit the point of no return, Zander let loose his madness and continued altering his form until there was more of him left on the floor of the operating room than what was on the man standing above it. A surreal moment, he felt freed of a prison he never fully understood until he had removed some of its shackles. He no longer needed to perform any tiresome bodily functions, fight with hunger or exhaustion, Zander's new form was the future as far as he was concerned.

When they finally did get the doors to his lab open three months later, they expected to find the ghoulish scene of a man's last hours but were horrified at what they discovered instead. Without any chance to defend himself, they called for the Protectorate and tried to apprehend Zander themselves. Easily evading and subduing them, he made his escape to Undercity by scaling down the side of the Crawler, but quickly departed into the wastes after siphoning some power for the journey. Zander knew they would never stop hunting him. Not because he was an abomination of science, but because he was wearing several lifetime salaries worth of resources on the few bits left of him that were still organic.

When he met Killian Addison he joined her movement as soon as he heard her story about being a synthetic human. Although still unsure on the truth of that detail, he cannot deny the abundance of knowledge she possesses about advanced technologies useful to his research. He serves as one of the organizations doctors, and although some have greater experience, none can match his skill. Even still, members have been known to avoid using his services as many injuries are judged too serious to repair so that the mad doctor can continue to experiment with bionic replacements.

See Also: The Anthropoids

• Faction- The Robco Liberation Army


• Nickname- The Organic Mechanic


• Age- 25 years old


• Birthplace- Corvega City, Kansas (United States)