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When Roberto looks at Wolfwood, he sees himself back in the town he once called home, where he'll always feel like a child even when he goes back to visit as a grown man.
He remembers the kid who was quick to run his tongue and ask questions, a trait that would sometimes earn him scoldings from adults and strange looks from other kids. Roberto had a thirst for knowledge, but for as long as he remained in his hometown, that thirst would never be quenched . Growing up, he felt trapped within the confines of the town, wondering whether this was it. Whether all No Man's Land had to offer to him was the general store in the center of town that they did their shopping at, the saloon that attracted too much attention, and the mines that his dad went to work at every day. He remembers hearing words like "Lost Technology" or "The Great Fall" in passing and he would ask the adults what those terms meant, but they would always hush him, telling him that he was too young to know and that one day he would learn. Despite those promises though, he never once heard those words spoken by his teachers.
He remembers the kid who was quick to accept the role of taking care of his younger sister when their mother fell ill and passed, all while his dad worked long hours. He remembers feeling of frustration that arose from constantly being told that he was too young when he came with those questions, despite knowing that he had grown up too soon because of this burden of responsibility that he carried. He remembers the kid who was selfishly spiteful for mourning the childhood he never got. While his classmates got to play carefreely, he was worrying about what groceries to buy, what to cook for dinner, and leaving food out for his father when he got home late.
He remembers the young man who was ridden with guilt about leaving his father and sister when he went off to the University. Though most of the costs were being covered through a bursary, he felt guilty that any money he was able to make while working throughout his studies would go towards his own education. He felt guilty that he wouldn't see his little sister, seven years his junior, continue to grow. That he wouldn't be there to protect her and that she too, would need to grow up too quickly without him around. The guilt festered at the back of his mind throughout the four years of his studies, refusing to give him much peace.
He remembers how the guilt continued once he started working, when he would barely get the chance to visit home – maybe just once a year if he was lucky. He convinced himself that he was doing it for them, with the money that he would send back from his paychecks. But then three years after he graduated, and seven after he first left home, he got the news that their house had caught fire in the middle of the night, and that there were no survivors.
The guilt turned into regret and he asked himself if any of it had been worth it, or if he would have just been happier leaving that thirst unquenched all those years ago if it meant that he could have gotten back the lost time with them.
When Roberto looks at Meryl, he sees himself back when he was a student in November.
He remembers the excitement that he once felt. The excitement of a young reporter-to-be who was at the start of his journey, looking towards the horizon with its vastness of possibilities, and the sand that was just waiting to be disturbed with his tracks.
He recognizes her wide eyes, brimming with curiosity. He recalls how he poured over his textbooks and lecture notes with those same eyes, trying to absorb as much information as he could about what supposedly made a good journalist. He remembers studying transcripts of interviews conducted by the journalists that he respected, and creating a scrapbook filled with clippings of his favorite articles.
He remembers how the pieces fell into place to allow him to be able to study at the University, as though Lady Luck was on his side for once. They lived in a town that was close enough to November, and folks who lived in the city would pass through from time to time. One night, his father had been on his way home from the mines when he saw a man and a broken down car. He gave the man a ride back into town, where they were able to find someone to tow the car back in and fix it back up. It turned out that the man was a professor at the University and he never forgot his father's kindness. The two kept in contact and Roberto knew that it was only because of this professor's friendship that Roberto's father was agreeable with Roberto's desire to continue his education instead of working in the mines like him.
He remembers the day he got his acceptance to the University, and the catharsis that washed over him because it felt like the rest of his life was finally about to begin. He was finally going to be able to experience what was beyond the sheltered perimeter of his town, like a bird being released from its cage. That was part of the reason as to why he chose to study journalism – because it would give him the chance to travel No Man's Land and truly see what it had to offer him – the good, the bad, the ugly. To meet all sorts of folks and not be reprimanded for asking too many questions because after all, that was his job.
When Roberto looks at Vash, he sees himself ten years after graduation, and five years after The Bust.
He sees a man that's lost. A man that doesn't know what to do with himself except to run because he thinks that he can outrun his past. A man that distracts himself with task after task after task, not giving himself the chance to think about much else. A man that's just walking aimlessly down the path that he's been put on, knowing that it's not necessarily the path he wants to be taking, but at the same time he doesn't want to stray from it and enter the unknown, with the potential to get hurt.
He remembers The Bust, as Roberto calls it, and how it changed everything.
After graduation, he landed a job at one of the larger papers that covered news across a few of the big cities like November and December. He started off as a junior crime reporter for November and the surrounding towns, which he had been real excited about. He got the chance to visit crime scenes, talk to military police, and interview witnesses. Eventually he was promoted, got the junior title dropped, and was transferred to December. He got to experience another city and he got a new partner, Mark. Mark was his senior by five years or so, and he had a reputation of sometimes sticking his nose too deep into the business of others. In Mark's words though, he was just an investigative journalist. Roberto was excited to learn from him – some of the higher ups might not have liked him, but most of the rookies admired him.
The Bust arose from a story that they had been working on under the table, meaning that they didn't have approval to pursue this, but they were doing it anyway. Mark had uncovered evidence of corruption within the military police in December. It started when he saw an officer tampering with evidence at the scene of the murder of a fairly wealthy socialite. That quickly snowballed into other indications of botched crime scenes and inconsistencies of accounts in police reports, if one knew where to look. As his partner, Roberto had been working with Mark on this story, but it all came to a head when they finally presented it to their bosses.
The pair of them thought they had a major bombshell – a scoop that any paper would be dying to have and something that would be the talk of the whole city. The source of the corruption was a high ranking military police member who was being bribed by an influential and power-hungry politician. But what they didn't realize was that this politician's bribery extended to their very own paper. The higher ups made it very clear that this story would never see the light of day, that they were grasping at straws, and that if they knew what was good for them, they would disregard every so-called conclusion that they had come to.
But Mark's sense of morality was too strong, and he wasn't going to just let it go. So he quit, in hopes that he would be able to take all that they had uncovered and leak it independently. He didn't try to convince Roberto to leave with him, but Roberto knew that he was disappointed when Roberto said he was going to stay and play by the rules. Roberto was a coward, he didn't want to throw away everything he had been working towards for the past five years. He didn't care about exposing the truth. It wasn't worth the risk, he said.
But the politician was spooked that someone was out there and knew his secrets and his intricate web of benefactors. Two weeks after Mark had quit, he was found dead, having seemingly fallen from the window of his apartment. The police said it was an accident, perhaps even suicide, and ruled it as not suspicious. But Roberto knew better than that, and he wondered if things would have ended differently if he hadn't been such a coward.
Roberto remembers the man he became after The Bust. He felt like he was in limbo, stuck on this path that he no longer wanted to be trudging along. First, they moved him off of crime reporting and into covering general events, writing about festivals happening in the city. Eventually, he requested to be transferred back to November because he couldn't stand to be reminded of Mark anymore. For the next 5 years he just put his head down and did his job like the coward he already knew he was, no questions asked and nothing more than what was needed. He picked up the expensive addiction of alcohol and cigarettes to keep him going. He no longer believed that there was anything left for him in the world of "journalism", but he continued on anyway because he just didn't know what else to do. He figured he should be fortunate to still have a job.
But that all changed when he got paired with the newbie, Meryl Stryfe, and they were sent on a wild goose chase to track down the so-called Humanoid Typhoon.