Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Outside a dismal rain was falling, but the Valentine Detective Agency’s roof was patched up good enough to keep them dry. Nick could still hear it, the irrhythmic patter on the tin can that had been his home and office for long enough that not even the excitable Myrna felt like routing him from it. A fortress had been assembled out of the old Fenway Park, squatting solidly in west Boston, but even if it its green walls sagged away until they were more invitation than protection, Nick would’ve stayed. Him and the Commonwealth, they’d picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, made the best of it like a drunkard with only Nuka-Cola.

“Might be an interesting case.”

Nick leaned to the side, watching his secretary through wisps of cigarette smoke. Interesting wasn’t the word he would’ve chosen for it - Maybe something more like foolhardy. “You said yourself that there’s not much there, Ellie,” he reminded her. “Could even be a prank.”

She flipped through the scant file again. “I know,” she admitted with a sigh. “There’s just something about it. Call it women’s intuition. They came to you, Nick. Whoever it is, they need you.”

“First off, they didn’t come to me.” He stubbed out his cigarette, looking at the glinting metal of his left hand, silver bones moving. There were the real cases, and the good ones, and then there was the occasional time-wasters. Pranks and jokes, clients who were curious about him and not impressed by his skills. A robot detective, a synth who never tried to hide it - Not that he could, with his skin broken off in chunks. No one else in the Commonwealth was quite like him, for all the good the uniqueness did for him. Hell, maybe there was no one else like him in the rest of the crazy, mixed-up world.

Over the years he’d seen it all - And Ellie had too, though somehow she’d never really gotten jaded by it. Less surprised, sure, more willing to see gilt instead of gold. He continued, “A letter via courier is not the same as someone knocking on our door. And second, it’s not like we’re hard-pressed for work. We don’t need the caps, don’t need to take just any job we hear about.”

In fact, the little office was getting full of the spoils of his cases. There was a machine gun on top of a file cabinet, a near pristine old-world letter jacket that Ellie had claimed for her own, a Chinese Officer’s sword that was a large but inefficient letter opener, a black hawk statue, more Vim sodas than anyone could ever drink, and a silver tea set supposedly made by Revere himself.

Ellie ignored that and flapped the file again. “I scoped it out. I didn’t go inside, but I sat there for a while. No one went in, no one came out. The Brotherhood cleared out some raiders down the street, but they didn’t touch this place. If it is a criminal, they’re not part of the local gangs.”

“And that’s not Gunner turf,” he mused, feeling the pull of the case in spite of himself. Just a tug, but an insistent one.

“Nope.” She walked to his desk and leaning against it, helped herself to his Gray Tortoises. “I asked around, too. Some settlers over in Hangman’s Alley said the Minutemen floated it as a potential homestead, but decided it was too unstable.”

“Hm.” Empty buildings were a dollar a dozen in Boston, but if it had gotten the attention of the Minutemen, even for a little while, then maybe this one had more to it than a pile of bricks and lost memories.

“There’s something about the wording of the letter,” Ellie continued. She cleared her throat to read it aloud again, “‘Your services, compensated. My reaction, appreciation.’ Such an odd phrasing. No one I know would write like that. A robot? But Mr. Handys’ communication protocols don’t construct sentences like that. And even if it was a synth, they’d go to the Railroad. This whole business…” she paused as she searched for a lighter. “It’s…”

“Interesting,” he supplied. “Yeah, you’re not wrong about that.”

He lit a match and she bent down to the flame, cigarette catching after a couple of puffs. She hadn’t lead him astray, not in all the years she’d worked for him. She’d honed her instincts pretty well, and if she thought it was worth it, she’d grab it and hold on. Even if he didn’t want the case, she’d hound him until he took it just to get some peace. Nick watched her fondly, then patted her hand. “Goose around?” he asked hopefully. The former vault dweller was a crack shot with wits to match.

She shook her head. “Piper said he’s at the airport, building up the base with the Brotherhood.”

“All right, so I’m flying solo.”

“Thanks, Nick,” she said. A grin spread across her face. “If you check it out and it turns out to be a dud, the next round at the Dugout is on me.”

“Another round at the Dugout might kill us both,” he grumbled, but smiled when she swept down and kissed him on his worn-out cheek.

Chapter Text

A vertibird circled once, twice, the noise of its propellers echoing down the empty street. Better than gunfire, Nick thought, but still stepped into a doorway. So far the Brotherhood had let him be, but he didn’t want to give them an opportunity they couldn’t refuse. A synth edging in on their territory? They’d dismantle him faster than he could say “Ad victorium.”

Even though Goose wasn’t around, Nick still felt a twinge of guilt at his grumbled insult at the Brotherhood. The former vault dweller and current Steeler had proven to be a good friend despite his lousy taste in them. He was probably the reason the streets were clean - And the Brotherhood busy.

But Nick still wasn’t going to press his luck. God knew he didn’t have much of it left. So he waited until the vertibird was gone behind the skyline before he left his hideout.

Just like Ellie had said, the building was silent as a tomb. No gangs, not even any ghouls. The busted up buildings were ubiquitous - not just on Boylston but throughout the city. He’d passed this one a hundred, maybe a thousand times, but he’d never bothered to climb inside it. He was never a scavenger, not even in his worst days.

Despite the letter’s instructions, which was folded in his trench coat's pocket (close to where his heart would’ve been if the Institute had bothered to give him one), he didn’t climb the rubble to the second floor. Instead he circled the place, making sure that anyone looking out the windows would be able to see him. If they took a shot, well, that’d clear things up a bit. There were still enough busted cars on the road that he’d be able to duck and hopefully get away.

And if they didn’t try to snipe him, they’d at least make him. Maybe get impatient, maybe step outside to get him, open a window to call out. If he could get them to make the first move…

An all right plan - not his greatest, but he was tired and running low on ideas and cigarettes.

He lit the penultimate one as he approached the building again. Searching through the original Nick’s memories didn’t pull up anything useful about the place pre-war. He was really flying blind. All he had was the letter, Ellie’s instincts, and a collapsing townhouse. Least the rain had worn itself out and the skies were clear. From the harbor came the scent of brine, blown inward by an autumn breeze. That was, it would have been autumn if they still had real seasons.

“Well, I’m here,” he said aloud, addressing the front facade - or at least its remains. “Nick Valentine, private eye, as summoned. You want to ah, give me a clue as to what’s going on? I’m a detective, not a psychic.”

A door on the second floor cracked open. Probably had once been a hallway, but with the wall blown off and in pieces, it was almost like a balcony. “Instructions were to come up here,” a tinny voice replied.

At least he got a response. Someone was there, someone had hired him - Whoever the hell the someone was. He walked up hesitantly, moving slow, scanning the area. No one else that he could see. No boobie traps. No gun pointed through that sliver of open door. “I came,” he said placatingly. “I usually get to see my client before I accept their case. How about you open the door, come out.”

But nothing came out of that suggestion. He took a couple of steps forward, still careful, and the person on the other side of the door opened it a bit more. Another step up the rubble, another inch open. Step, inch. Step, inch. Almost been funny, this dance, an awkward two-step shuffle, but Nick didn’t feel like laughing. When he was nearly at the threshold, the door finally swung all the way open.

Ellie was wrong about one thing: it was synth all right.

A gen-2 synth.

Chapter Text

Nick eased himself into a chair but the other synth stayed standing. The way it did, joints locked and arms straight at its side, made the thing look more like one of the uncanny mannequins that dotted the sidewalks in front of old businesses. Not human at all, not in the way it moved (or didn’t move) or the way it looked, with artificial skin stretched over a metal frame. Same as him, but he had the original Nick to thank for his ability to act human. This one only had its original programming. And by the look of it, the Institute hadn’t given it much of that.

Inside, he could see why the Minutemen had been interested in the joint. The remaining walls were stable, sturdy. Must have been a hell of a reactor down in the basement because the lamp on the ceiling was on, filling the room with a buttery light. A corner building, from the windows he could see both streets and the intersection - Good place for keeping an eye on things. A couple of paintings hung over fading wallpaper, he even saw a framed photograph on a still-standing desk. Someone else’s stuff, someone else’s life.

Satisfied that they were safe enough, he focused his attention on the synth. “So clarify a couple of things for me, will ya? This your letter? The kid who delivered said he didn’t see who gave him it or the caps.”

“Yes.”

“And the person who needs help is…” he paused to see if the synth would fill in the blanks. Or have a reaction of any kind. It didn’t. “Here? Someplace nearby? I’ll travel, but it’ll increase my expenses.”

“No.”

Another pause, and another lack of response. Nick sighed and reached for his last cigarette, but once he had it in his fingers, he reconsidered. Didn’t take a detective’s instincts to realize that he’d probably want it when he’d gotten deeper into the case. “No, to which part?”

“The person who needs help is here.”

“All right. So they going to come out? Never did like an ambush.”

“No.”

God he really wanted the cigarette. “No, what?”

“The person is here.”

“Where?”

“Here.”

“Ah.” Finally the truth of it hit him like a freight train, puffing and blundering and way off its tracks, and he sagged backwards, staring at the synth. “Who’s on first, right? Ain’t that a kick in the head.”

This time when he pulled out the cigarette he lit it and brought it to his lips. Hand was still steady in spite of the revelation. The synth had hired him, and hired him to help it. How the hell was that even possible? Again he thought about its programming, all the limitations that the Institute had deliberately shackled it with to keep it obedient in its functionality. Gen-2s didn’t have even half the personality of a Mr. Handy. Didn’t have any personality, as far as he’d always thought. The gen-3s were human, no matter what the Institute had tried to claim. A soul wrapped up in a messy meat package, like the rest of the people of the Commonwealth. And Nick was at least a brain encased in metal - Jury was still out on the soul part, but he could hope, mourn, reason, joke with the best of them. Gen-2s though, it was like having a toaster as a client. A walking turret. A tool.

Someone else - human - had to have gotten it to the building, sent out the letter. Or at least given it instructions to do it. Nick couldn’t imagine any other possibility. She might have been wrong about the client, but Ellie had hit the nail on the head about the case: interesting as hell.

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Through the smoke of his cigarette he watched the yellow eyes - so much like his own - as they stared unblinkingly at the wall. “Well, first thing’s first,” he said, not that he really had any steps to any plan squared out. He found himself asking, feeling ridiculous even as the words left his mouth, “You got a name?”

“Yes.”

“Care to tell me it?”

“Maria.”

“Maria?” he repeated in surprise and dropped the cigarette onto his lap. With a curse he brushed it off to the floor. So much for the comfort of a smoke. “Not, hell, I don’t know, A-B-1-2 or something?”

“No.”

Maria, a woman’s name. “Female pronouns?”

“Yes.”

“Who named you that?”

“Me.”

“I’m an old synth; cylinders aren’t firing like they used to. Help me out, will ya? How about you have a seat and we talk for a while. You answer my questions and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Yes.”

When Maria didn’t move, Nick stood and pulled the chair from the desk over. “Here you go, ma’am,” he said, holding it like the original Nick would do for a lady. “Can you sit?”

“Yes.”

“Well then.” He motioned to the chair again and finally the synth buckled her knees and sat down. Legs pressed together, back straight, shoulders flat. “There we are.” He dragged his armchair closer and sat across from her, then crossed his legs in contemplation. “Now, you want to hire me.”

“Yes.”

“Tell you what - Why don’t you start at the beginning.” Whatever her story was, he knew it was going to be a bruiser.

Maria didn’t take a deep breath, didn’t rest her chin on her fingers, didn’t toss her hair. Didn’t have any, for one. But he still got the sense that she was preparing herself. He waited and she finally leveled her eyes to his.

“I need help.”

Chapter Text

The Brotherhood hadn’t even left a hole in the ground. The Charles River had flooded in and whatever the Institute had been was lost, nothing for even the mirelurks to sift through. All those lives blown up with all that tech, mixed up in the mud so deep in the earth that it was as good as gone.

There’d been some synths on the surface when the Brotherhood had lead Liberty Prime to punch its way through their defenses. Now there was nowhere for the gen-2s to go. No one left to give orders. Nothing for the gen-2s to do but wait to be picked off. Some had manually shut down their CPUs. Some had attempted to return to the Institute, been destroyed by soldiers in the ruins of CIT. Some concluded that networking was necessary, that gen-3s were the inheritors of the Institute and thus them. But Maria hypothesized that gen-3s’ goals were incongruous to her own: gen-3 synths found security in anonymity and the gen-2s would blow anyone’s cover. They were a risk factor that the gen-3s couldn’t manage, even if they’d wanted to. The gen-2s were on their own.

“If I am property of the Institute, I therefore must prevent my loss. To prevent my loss, I must leave the Institute’s extent. If I leave the Institute’s extent, I therefore am not the Institute’s property.”

“Huh,” Nick grunted in response to Maria’s statement. Computers’ binary logic abhorred a paradox. He wasn’t too fond of them himself.

There’d never been arguments between synths, not even possible when the Institute existed as an entity, but here was a schism almost as intense as the Institute’s physical rupture. The surviving gen-2s started taking sides: stay or leave.

But there had been a byte of data stored within Maria’s memory banks: Nick Valentine. Unaffiliated. A synth like no other. And a detective (from Latin, she explained, detegere, to uncover, to reveal). While the other synths were trapped in their cycle of calculations, she simply removed herself from the equation.

Outside the afternoon was fading into evening. The sunset made the sky look like it was burning, but it’d slowly soften into pink, then the blues of twilight. The air’d get cooler, not that it mattered to the two of them. Day or night, the streets of Boston were an obstacle course of literal potholes, enemies, idiots, and debris. Nick turned his head slightly so he could glance out the window again. Cloudy once again - capricious New England weather had was now a gray mist that threatened to turn to rain. But all quiet out there for the time being. Didn’t mean it was peaceful, however.

But at least inside they’d reached some sort of understanding. He pushed his hat back, dragging his thumb over his forehead, and finally spoke. “So you’ve been running since then.”

“When appropriate.”

“Don’t just mean the action,” he explained. “‘Running’ as in ‘trying to stay out of danger.’ On the lam since the Institute's destruction - Gotta say, I’m impressed. That’d be hard enough even as a person. And all you have is your pistol, no ammo. For you to put all this together… Well, we can swap superlatives later.”

“Yes.”

“I’m honored you came to me.” And confused, but he kept that one to himself. “I don’t use that word lightly. So I know your past; now your future’s my business. Escaped gen-3s next step was facial reconstruction and then getting new memories stuffed in to help them survive out here. And protect them from coursers - Harder to track them if nobody, not even them, knew they were synths.”

Surgery worked on skin - gen-2s were plastic, rubber, vinyl. When he scratched at his forehead again (not skin), his hand brushed over the brim of his fedora and he froze. He usually left it on in consideration of his clients, who preferred to see conventional clothes instead of the synth body. But this dame was different. He swept it off politely, put it on his knee. They were practically twins now. It occurred to him that she was naked, in a way. Nude, at least. Before he offered her his coat, he focused his thoughts back onto the facts of the case. “I don’t know if there’s anyway to upgrade your software without a hardware swap, you get me?”

“What is the solution?”

She was polite, in her way. Patient, in any event. Didn’t mind the probing questions or his outloud musings. They probably expected that from the Institute’s scientists, their reactions developed to appease their creators.

He spread his fingers over his thighs - Under his hands the trousers were faded, worn, but comfortable. Again he felt a wave of gratitude to the original Nick and his knowledge. And his habits. He had the behavior necessary to exist in an old-generation synth body. Body, behavior, it was one or the other that Maria needed. But the Railroad didn’t deal with gen-2s and from what he’d heard from Deacon, it was a sore spot for the group. A literal one, with civil wars over who got to ride the railroad. Christ, in-fighting was everywhere. With a sigh he continued, “I’d say you need a new body, a gen-3 one. Then you can follow the Railroad’s standard operating procedure. That name’s got to be in your magnetic tapes, right?”

“I can confirm my knowledge of the Railroad. The Institute considers them an enemy faction.”

“Yeah, well, make sure you don’t follow any shoot-on-sight program that’s still floating around. In fact, you can probably delete that particular piece of Institute data. The Railroad’s a good bet.”

“You are unable to fulfil my primary petition.”

“I typically find people,” he answered, “not hide them.”

Maria frowned. Frowned, like a person. Not exactly like a person, he corrected himself; it was only an approximate mimicry. Something wasn’t right in the expression. Shit, did he look like that?

“What? Something wrong with that plan?”

“This is me. I am here.”

“You like your body?” he asked incredulously. “Your programming?”

“Yes.”

He swallowed back more bewilderment. “I don’t mean to be rude, ma’am, but why?”

Now her struggle was clear. Standing up again, her yellow eyes narrowed and her hands went to her laser pistol before she swung them back down to her side. It was discomforting to watch but Nick didn’t look away. He felt like he owed her that, his attention and his understanding. Maria was silent for about half a minute before she seemed to give up. “I cannot articulate the logic. My processor does not include the algorithms necessary for me to interpret it.”

“So suffice to say, it’s just the way you feel.”

“Yes.”

Couldn’t argue with that. It was another very human-like opinion: stubborn without sense. He nodded and replied, “That’s a fine enough reason.”

Course it made everything even more a pain in the ass. If she didn’t go for the gen-3 body, then there was a good chance the train would leave the station without her on it. Not that he wanted to admit to his client that along with his cigarettes he’d lost all his ideas.

“No. Safety overrides preference. Phase one is now complete: I have consulted with Nick Valentine. I request that you escort me to the Railroad so phase two may commence.”

He kept the relief out of his voice when he replied, “Probably for the best. Now how about we -”

A blast from outside interrupted that invitation. Nick dropped to his knees, gestured at Maria to do the dame. Cautiously he approached the window and looked outside. He’d expected the Brotherhood - He was wrong again. Not a good track record.

Synths again. Gen-2 synths. Laser pistols and rifles out and pointed up, they were swarming around the building. And starting to shoot.

“Looks like they found a third option!” he yelled over the noise. “Killing!”

“Yes. It appears that my actions have been interpreted as in opposition to the Institute.”

“So they think you’re defected and a defector. Swell.” Quickly he looked around the room. Getting deeper into the building would give them some time - Even the Institute’s guns couldn’t vaporize brick walls. But then they’d be trapped, even worse than they were now. Unless there was a way into one of the surrounding buildings. A chance they’d have to take. He glanced over his shoulder at Maria. “Did you tell them you were coming here?”

“Yes. I explained my actions to the other synths.”

“Well, at least that means they aren’t tracking you. Come on! Stay low, stay with me!” He flung open the door at the back of the room. “We’re going up to the roof!”

With decisive, swift movements she was at his side. “Yes,” she said and they plunged into the dust-filled stairway.

Chapter Text

The stairway was empty and they pounded up the stairs toward the roof. But a knocked-out wall gave them another option to vacate and after he peered into the dingy darkness, Nick motioned them through the threshold. An office, with desks and chairs with moldering skeletons in a macabre facsimile of work. Ceilings fans moved lazily above the long-dead pencil-pushers, turned by the drafts that wafted through the shattered windows. Daylight was dim but clear enough to see through missing bricks and tatters of plaster, and in the next room - a little kitchen, with coffee mugs set out still for the dead workers, poor bastards - there was a fire escape that dipped a way down to the street.

They clattered down it, flakes of lead and rust following them as they ran down the rungs. It was fast but it was noisy, and the slap of Nick’s soles against the ground summoned a synth. Who summoned more. He growled at himself for his carelessness. “Dammit.”

And that was all he had time to do before laser guns’ bright bolts cut through the air like lightning. And could fry a person just as fast, leave nothing but the clean scent of ozone. Nick checked his gun, bullets - enough for a fight, which was all that mattered. “Come on!” he yelled over his shoulder. “Stay in the shadows!”

“Yes.”

Gen 2 synths were legion: indistinguishable from each, with the same guns, same bodies, same voices. Efficient for sure, both in how they were made and what they were made to do. Their white skin flashed in the corner of his eyes as Nick led Maria through the rubble. Hunched down they made it to the back alley, then to the street where they ducked behind a once-blue truck. Nick inhaled a sharp breath and then peered out to take a shot. His revolver responded to the synths’ overtures - The .44 bullets shattered their plastic shells and he dropped two before he had to duck back around. Beside him Maria was silent, but the other synths’ thin voices bounced in unsettling echos up Boylston.

“Hello?” they called.

“Are you out there?”

“Requesting approval for lethal force.”

Who were they asking? Each other? The dead Institute? As his worn-out fingers chambered six more rounds, he glanced over at Maria but his question about who could give them orders was stopped before the first words made it out his mouth.

Because the damn Brotherhood was barging in again.

Vertibirds had spotted the fight and whirled in tight circles above the street. The spinning propellers swept dust and trash around and upwards, pulled by the whirlwinds. The synths responded immediately and some of the barrage at Nick and Maria abated as the synths aimed, shot at the vertibirds. Brotherhood couldn’t stand for that, and it only took them a second to retaliate. And unleash hell. Metal suits made the whole city shake when the knights and paladins jumped down to the ground. Their own laser rifles and pistols blasted out red bolts, a contrast to the Institute’s blue. Shock and awe, wasn’t that what Danse always boasted?

Nick tipped back his hat as his gaze quickly swept over the scene. Chaos - And for once on his side. “Now’s our chance to book it,” he told Maria. “Let them take care of each other. This isn’t our fight anymore.”

His knees crinkled as he crept along the side of the truck. But despite the complaints, everything responded like it should when he leapt up and started running. A glance over his shoulder confirmed that Maria was keeping up with him. He almost yelped at her when she suddenly darted to the side, but then he saw her grab a fallen synth’s gun. Quick and efficient, she cleared out some of her fellow - or ex-fellow - synths. He didn’t have time to warn her off taking shots at the Brotherhood, but he got a couple of prayers and swears in as they dove behind debris and out of the fight.

“For victory! For the Brotherhood!”

“By the order of the Institute, you must be destroyed.”

Christ, he thought, listening to the two factions yell over the gunfire. The Brotherhood and Institute - Which was more obnoxious? A case he might never solve.

With his hand clamped down on his hat, Nick sprinted down the street with Maria at his heels. They left Boylston and were going west - Almost home free. But their getaway came to a screeching halt when out of the rubble appeared more Brotherhood, up close and personal. Nick stopped short enough that his soles slid on the pavement and then put his arm out to stop Maria.

There were three of them, with guns raised. One in the massive power suit - paladin, if Nick remembered the insignia correctly - and two more who flanked the thing. Nick and Maria weren’t immediately riddled with bullet holes, which was a good sign. but with the thick armored fingers of the Steelers on the triggers of their massive rifles, being disintegrated was still a possibility.

“You let me do the talking,” he murmured and the other synth didn’t argue.

He held up his hands, pistol loosely dangling in one of them. He wasn’t about to genuflect, especially since bowing his head would make his neck too much of a target, but at least it made the Brotherhood pause. Up his sleeve he did have a trump card, though he was loath to play it: Goose, otherwise known as Sentinel Reyes. Tossing that name out would end the game, clean house.

“What the hell is this thing?” one of them wondered aloud. Not in a power suit but still heavily armored, he looked like a bruiser. His stared moved back and forth between Nick and Maria like he couldn’t trust his eyes. Had to be a new one on the job: the Commonwealth was a zoo of weird shit more notable than the two of them.

So the Brotherhood didn’t know what to do with them, Nick realized. Good - The situation was still malleable.

“We’re just taking a stroll,” Nick replied. Not the answer they were looking for, of course. Nick knew there was a fine line he’d have to walk with the Brotherhood: be aggravating enough that the Steelers would stop the conversation, but not so much that they’d do it with a gun. He still could invoke the name of Goose, but the former vault dweller was a crutch Nick didn’t want to lean on. Besides, he thought as he eyed the three musketeers, he could limp fast enough to outrace the Brotherhood.

The bruiser muttered to the other two Steelers, “Synths? I don’t trust this.”

Nick answered before anyone else could, “I’m not asking you to. Hell, not asking you to do much at all. We’re walking by and unless the Brotherhood are toll collectors now, we don’t owe you anything.”

“What are you doing here?” the same guy demanded.

“Sightseeing.” Slowly, making a show of how uninterested in a dick measuring contest he was, Nick lowered his hands and reached under his coat to put his pistol back into the chest holster. Searching for cigarettes, his fingers wiggled uselessly in his breast pocket, scraping fabric instead of finding his pack. Thought took over from habit as he remembered that he was out. Last one had ignominiously been a victim of open-mouthed surprise. Dammit, he thought as he swallowed against the need for a smoke. Another reason he needed to keep his big mouth shut.

With a growl, the Brotherhood gun asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Learning about our fair city, enjoying the weather, chatting with tourists.”

The Brotherhood triplets liked that even less than his other answers.

“You’re Nick Valentine,” another one said like an accusation. This fellow had a backpack and armor full of pockets - Scribe, Nick guessed. Usually they were slightly more on the ball than the battle fodder. Usually. Slightly. The scribe jerked his head in Nick’s direction and hissed out, “You think you do a good job at playing human?”

About as good as you do playing soldiers, he thought. “You tell me. How’s my performance? Maybe you want a song and dance routine.”

The first one grimaced. “You mouthy little -”

“Stick to the mission, Initiate,” the power armor commanded. The huge helmet made it impossible to see even a hint of her face, but her voice was dispassionate when she explained, “Orders are to neutralize hostiles. You two keep moving and don’t give us a reason to waste ammo on you.”

Good enough for him, Nick thought, feeling relief sag through his frame.

“But Paladin Lucia, two synths -”

The paladin’s helmet turned toward the new guy. “Are you questioning orders, Initiate?”

A final, close to sullen but not disrespectful “No, Paladin” finally ended the interrogation.

Released, Nick and Maria moved quickly away, putting as much distance as they could between themselves and the dogs at their heels. Nick led, even though Maria had been more than capable of finding her way through the city. The Institute had used a molecular transporter to blast its synths from place to place; probably to her, the streets weren’t much more than points on her internal map. To him, though, it was home.

Pre-war Boston had a grace to it at night. Most places shut down along with the sunset - Puritan habits died hard and Nick remember how early the bars kicked out their patrons to do their sinning in privacy. It was no New York in that regard; Boston closed and locked itself up, it pulled the blinds down and complained about drafts. But it meant there was a quiet to the old buildings and older streets that no place else could replicate. In Nick’s memories were scenes of the Commons empty and quiet, of the the Atlantic lapping on the docks, of Jennifer’s face tilted up as she looked at the moon over the rooftops. Maybe it was never serene, but Boston had a certain composure to it.

The unpredictable weather had changed the thermometer’s mercury again and along with the increasing clouds came decreasing temperature. Not that it affected the two of them; rubber skin was immune to goosebumps. The chilly clamminess got others off the streets, though, raiders pulling in to huddle at this campfires, Brotherhood retreating from their frontline, and the Gunners procrastinating on their jobs until the sun came up and warmed the air back to something manageable. As Nick and Maria moved through the city, it seemed to him that even the super mutants had hunkered down.

And so post-war Boston did its best impression of it’s pre-war self: still, sober, solitary.

There were fewer of all the nasties, mopped up by Goose and whoever he traveled with. Nick had been at his side for a lot of the action, and the two of them had started a campaign that had cleaned out the dark corners of the city. Things were better. Not perfect, but better already and continually improving, and really, Nick thought as he and Maria passed an organized pile of steel bars and wooden beams, that was more than anyone expected in the post-apocalypse.

“Won’t take us too long to get to Goodneighbor, as long as we don’t have any more interruptions. You doing ok?” He glanced over his shoulder and the other synth lengthened her strides to walk at his side.

“Your help is appreciated.”

“That’s why you hired me,” he replied.

But Maria pressed on despite his nonchalance. “You were able to converse with an enemy faction.”

“Yeah, well, I got intel on the Brotherhood.”

“My communication protocols limit the information I can vocalize.”

“You’re talking about talking,” he said, saying it outloud in an attempt to understand it himself. “So you got a lock on your speech capabilities?”

“Yes. Do you have similar constraints on your neural network architecture?”

“I don’t follow.”

Maria’s arms swung again like they had when she’d tried to explain why she wanted to stay a gen-2. “You replied to the queries without answering them. Few to no data were verbally exchanged.”

It took Nick a second to translate her statement into English. “I’ve always been pretty good at talking my way in and out of trouble. As far as constraints go, well, I guess we all have certain things we can and can’t say. Hell if I know if its figurative or literal.”

“Yes,” she said again, and he thought maybe there was a note of thoughtfulness in the word. “I’ve added that conversation to my memory banks and will refer to it when necessary.”

“Sure, you do that.” Again he wondered how restrictive her programming was. Could her thoughts expand past the confines? Software overwhelm the hardware? Nick pulled up the collar on his trenchcoat. He was a detective, not a philosopher. He’d leave the existential shit to some egghead. Or a chemhead, he thought as he saw the glow of neon lights through the dusk. “There you go, ma’am,” he said as he nodded his head toward the the district. “We made it to Goodneighbor.”