Chapter Text
Gravel crunched underfoot as they trudged on in silence, guns at the ready while the sunset cast disorienting shadows that kept Deacon on edge. Nora wore Nick’s coat over her party dress, too festive for their death march. Her summer flats snagged on loose roots and Nick wanted nothing more than to drop his firearm and hold her hand.
Maybe their silly fantasy of being high-society sleuths like another Nick and Nora made them complacent to everything they knew to be true. In these dark and turbulent times, life in the wasteland was too unpredictable to let one’s guard down, even for dinner.
They’d exchanged no further details, but from Nora’s reaction at the ballpark, none were necessary. Something dire was afoot, and not your typical Railroad business. Nora fell hard and fast for anyone she had common ground with, even when it bit her in the end. It’d be a losing battle to tear her from a friend in need.
From his half-century of hiking these roads, Nick had more than a hunch that they intended for Goodneighbor. The Old North Church was nearly inaccessible without taking a hard south two blocks ago. Then again, Glory might’ve hid somewhere along the way, barricaded behind another bookshelf and refusing to come out.
Once the seedy city came into view, Deacon gestured for them to continue ahead, before disappearing into an alley. It remained unclear whether he was simply their escort or intended to stagger their entrances. Regardless, Nora pushed her shoulder against the creaking gates with the same urgency as when Kellogg had haunted Nick’s brain.
“Not to question your driving,” Nick said. “But do you know where we’re going?”
Nora kept moving with a sense of purpose. “Memory Den, I assume.”
“Assume?” They rounded the corner of Hancock’s residence, spotting Kent Connolly across the street, waiting by the front entrance like the world’s meekest bouncer. The ghoul noticed them with a jolt and held the door open as if they were VIPs. “I see.”
They pressed through the cracked red double doors, through the ticket queue, on to the main room. Irma was absent from her usual perch at center stage, but a lone customer remained plugged into a machine. Nick eyed him warily, unsure if this man carried any significance. Nora only glanced at the stranger, befuddled, like he wasn’t supposed to be there.
A few angry voices echoed from the back halls. Nora moved towards them.
Kent cleared his raspy throat. “I, uh. They said it’s a private matter.” He itched under his hat. “N-Not sure if that means you’re excluded too, though.”
“Beats me,” Nick said, surprising Kent. “She’s the one in charge here.”
Nora scratched behind her ear. “I’m not sure what’s going on —” The men turned to her in alarm. “I mean, I'm mostly sure, but…” Her gaze drifted to the stranger. “I don’t think I’m allowed to say. Not here, at least.”
“Well,” Kent said. “That’s, uh… That’s quite a pickle, huh. I-I don’t figure I got authority to—”
“Don’t worry.” Nora flopped onto a chair and stared at her dusty shoes. “We’ll wait.”
“Sure.” Kent fidgeted like a nervous babysitter. “Irma shouldn’t be long. She’s… She gets a lil, um, overwhelmed by all the science.”
“That’s fancy talk for ‘will take a hatchet to a computer’,” Nick explained.
Nora let out a tired chuckle. At least she could still laugh.
A Miss Nanny floated from Kent’s room, stopping to study the output of the man in the lounger. Nick watched curiously, having never encountered another bot in the den. Over the years, Irma badgered her faithful Amari to get a proper apprentice, the workload growing more and more tiresome for them both. Of course, the doctor wasn’t one to budge, but maybe time had finally put its foot down like it had for him.
“How marvelous, Monsieur Connolly,” the Miss Nanny chirped. “I never imagined that human technology had come this far outside of the, um… you-know-what.”
“The things science can do once you find a way to monetize it,” Nick snarked. The other bot’s eyes swiveled, examining Nora instead.
“Ah. What a lovely dress, madame,” the assistant said, strangely mournful. “Apologies if I interrupted something.”
“Huh?” Nora blinked. “No, it’s…” Both detectives noticed how intact the white lacquer was, not yellowed or corroded, though marked with a few combat scrapes... “Curie?”
Nick twinged with embarrassment, so slow to recognize the fellow AI he rescued himself. “Wasn’t expecting to see you here, friend.”
“Monsieur Deacon requested my assistance.”
Nora ran a hand through her hair. “That bad?”
“Even with our combined efforts… so far, we are helpless.” Curie turned away. “I fear I may have worsened the matter.”
“How so?” Nick asked, but Curie remained despondent.
High-heels clacked from afar, catching their attention. Irma emerged from backstage with a deep sigh.
“Good, you’re here to put a stop to this,” she said to Nora, who scrambled upward as if caught sleeping on the job. Irma raised a brow and scanned her. “My. Don’t you look pretty in that little number…” Nora tightened the trench coat. “Gracious, it wasn’t a pass, darling.”
“I didn’t want to be insensitive to the situation,” Nora mumbled.
“It won’t matter. At this point, I doubt the poor girl can get much angrier. Come, come.”
Kent gestured for Nora and her two robotic companions to proceed to the lab. She glanced over her shoulder at the stranger in the lounge, before complying.
“Who is that other person?” Nora asked.
“He had a session already scheduled,” Irma said, fluffing her feathered collar as they walked. “One of many appointments I’ve had to juggle while pretending the sky’s not falling. We can’t cancel on a client just because of Amari’s extracurricular activities.”
“Can he hear us?”
“Not over the cacophony of his eighteenth birthday, but who’s to say what subliminal information gets absorbed.” She turned to them at the basement steps. “First, we need you to calm the girl down. I know it seems like an unfair order, but she wasn’t very open to conversation…”
“And Whisper can talk to anyone,” said another voice.
They whipped around to the adjacent changing room, and saw Deacon in a different disguise, fixing his pompadour in the mirror.
Nick goggled as if Deacon had performed a magic trick. “How the hell did you get in here?”
Deacon shrugged.
“Nice of you to join us, Reverend,” Irma snarled. Seemed they too had history.
The lower stairs creaked and now Amari joined the emergency meeting, her bun messy like she’d been running frustrated fingers through it.
“How is she, doc?” Deacon asked as if awaiting a diagnosis.
“She’s calmer. At least she’s thrown enough things now.” Amari smoothed out her frizz, trying to regain control of something. “Thankfully her anger didn’t result in smashing my equipment. I can’t tell if she blames me, or…”
“We can’t blame anyone but the Institute,” Deacon asserted. “It wasn’t you, or me, or Dez, it was them.”
“Does this have something to do with G5?” Nora asked Amari, who nodded with a bleary expression.
Deacon sighed, leaning in the doorway. “She didn’t even last as long as I expected.”
Nora buried her face in her hands. “She’s dead.”
“Only metaphorically,” Amari said. Nora’s gaze popped back up, fingers pressed against her lips like a prayer. “Glory and the Caretaker are having a moment with… what remains.”
“Metaphorically, you say?” Nick asked. “Is she in a coma or something?”
Deacon shook his head. “She opted for the big wipe. Didn’t even tell anyone. I think she always had her heart set on starting fresh, and knew Glory would never accept it.”
“My God,” Nick said, like confronting a teenager suspended from school. “I thought the assassinations were bad, but your people are erasing memories too?”
“And implanting new ones.” Deacon cocked his head joylessly. “Unless you know a licensed trauma therapist, this is the best coping mechanism we’ve got for these poor souls.”
Nick studied Irma, who looked bored with the matter. “And you’re A-OK with the Den bein’ used for this sort of thing?”
“Amari can use her technology for whatever she wishes, even if I don’t approve,” Irma said, a tired tone in her voice. “No one needs my permission to fight for what they believe in. My issue is I now have rebel soldiers storming in to stop it.”
The doc twisted a strand of hair with a mournful expression. “She chose to be a botanist, growing herbs to make medicine,” she said, like a eulogy. “To ease the suffering she could not ease in herself. A calm, peaceful life where she did good for the world.”
Nick’s ire faded. A life with all the trauma written out wasn’t the worst fate for a synth. But still… seemed like pie-in-the-sky principles with no solution for whatever had just transpired.
“So, what happened, doc?” Nick asked, gentler this time. “I think I’m out of the loop again.”
She adjusted her posture to something more professional, though her brow remained worried. “Um, to paraphrase... Synthetic brains — Gen 3’s, I mean — have malleable memory through an implanted mechanism,” Amari explained. “It’s how the Institute ‘replaces’ organics with a body-double, with no one being the wiser.” She hung her head. “But I am not the Institute. Either the load error was a mistake in my process, or their scientists consider synth bodies so disposable they simply toss the ‘defect’ and build another.”
“Barbaric,” Nora said in a seething whisper. Nick’s own sob story of waking up in a junk pile must have touched a nerve.
“As Vault 81’s lab assistant, I possess vast scientific knowledge lost to time,” Curie said. “But even I cannot comprehend how the Institute does all that they do.”
“So it’s not old world technology,” Deacon bemoaned, a theory debunked. That explained why he needed Curie. “With Valentine, I thought maybe…”
“What do you know about me?” Nick asked, hiding his nerves behind combativeness. And how? Being an ex-human trapped in a metal prison wasn’t something he exactly broadcasted.
“We live in a surveillance state, my dude,” Deacon said.
“What can we do?” Nora asked Amari. “She’s alive, she’s just…?”
“A blank slate,” Amari said. “Her mind is no different from, say… Mr. Valentine’s before his program installation.” At least he was just a heap of scrap with an off-switch.
Nora pursed her lips in thought. “You made a back-up of Nick,” she said and Deacon raised a brow. “You didn’t do the same for G5?”
“I wish it were that easy,” Amari replied. “Nick is a hard drive, code. I cannot fathom how they record or translate an entire brain into something transferable, even when it’s technically synthetic.”
“Nor do I,” Curie added as his eyes met her sensors.
Ironic how the kids running his clinical trial made this marvelous technological leap by accident, just to burn up and have their homework stolen too.
“I can only find and implant memories. A simple repurposing of what I’ve already mastered.” Amari rubbed her brow. “Between my mishap with Kellogg’s files and this, I… I’m beginning to think I’ve lost my touch all together.”
Irma put a protective arm around her. “You take it all too personally. I told you, this underground business has a price.” Her gaze swept the group before landing on Deacon. “And now that backup is finally here, I have my own clients to help. Paying customers.”
“C’mon, Irma,” Deacon groaned. “You act like Tom never fixed your operating system.”
“Put out your fires so the woman can have some proper rest for once,” Irma asserted, making Deacon yield.
“I apologize for dragging you into this, Irma,” Nick said.
“Never you mind, Nicky.” She stroked a crease along his shirt pocket and Nick remembered Nora had his coat. “You’re always welcome here.”
Nora’s eyes glinted, her furrowed stare following Irma’s hand like the other had overstepped.
Jealousy?
“It’s like the world is spinning too fast these days,” Amari lamented, wiping eyes that watered with exhaustion.
“You’re too good to us, doc,” Deacon sighed.
If there ever was a time to ponder upon Nick’s self-serving desires, it sure as hell wasn’t now.
“Sorry we made it more difficult than it should’ve been,” Deacon continued. “These memory implants have always been hit or miss, and Glory knows it. She’s just…” His chin twitched in a rare tell. “She’s tired of the fight, and she won’t show it. Not like the others do, at least. Things have been a little bleak for our gang. I think we’re all desperate for something to go right, y’know?”
Nora nodded and again flattened her shimmering skirt, like it was immodest. “There was just something about that night… I knew G5 wouldn’t accept reality if it didn’t live up to her dreams.”
“Couldn’t put on blinders and make the best of it, huh?” Nick murmured. Couldn’t turn life into an escapist pantomime the way he and Nora had.
“Exactly,” Deacon said quietly. “Glory wasn’t there to see it, and hell if she’ll take my word for it. She also believed in her happy ending, and no one was going to convince her otherwise. Not even G5.”
“Everything went wrong that night.” Nora ran nervous fingers along the coat’s frayed lapels. “I feel like I failed her.”
“No,” Amari assured. “Not every synth can take it.” She eyed Deacon. “In fact, less and less do.”
Deacon rolled his shoulders, as if pretending the truth didn’t sting. “I’d rather a synth have the option for a mind-wipe than have them choose a gun to the temple,” he said. “Glory’s a different breed of survivor; she was insubordinate even in the Institute.”
“That’s kind of the thing, though,” Nora said, shaking her head. “I feel like I failed Glory too.”
“She’ll get over it, I promise.”
Nora stared at the agent with anguished skepticism. “She loved someone. Someone she hadn’t seen in years. If I couldn’t get her friend back, why should she rescue my son?”
“Hey. Glory isn’t that spiteful. She knows you did your best.” Deacon rubbed his neck. “Me, on the other hand, well… I’m an easy target for everyone’s frustrations,” he said. Nick almost felt the gaze behind the glasses. “But G5-19 made a choice for the first time in her life, and… that’s what freedom was to her.”
Nick sighed, conflicted himself if his own heart’s desire was worth the collateral damage. “Hey. Why don’t we stop talking about her and go… whatever it is you called us in for.”
Deacon nodded. “Just… watch what you say. And be ready to duck if objects start flying again.”
---
Decades ago, when Nick was more alone and scared, this basement was a strange sort of escape. One where he dropped back into happier days of a world that no longer existed. His relived moments were often unremarkable, merely the trauma-free things floating closest to the top. Small privileges of humanity that normal wastelanders could experience on any given Sunday. But for the synth banished to the fringes of society, the comfort of a dime paperback in a coffee shop was unobtainable.
These memories once baffled and intrigued the Memory Den’s operators as they watched him open a portal in time. His strongest were the most recent, the rawest, the darkest... thus, for his initial dip into recreational memory, he opted for his fancy first class dinner on a comped flight to Boston. Then came the grand hall at the World’s Fair, and the time wedding doves got loose on the Chicago L. Anything that felt like home would do.
Though Amari had a more professional rapport, Irma would stare at Nick like a hungry wolf, eager for the old world spectacles she’d witness in these private sessions. A relationship of mutual benefit, yes, but also one filled with rare sympathy the synth had found nowhere else in decades.
And then there was the Perkins kid, reading comic books with Kent Connolly while her father spent her inheritance on past conquests. Nick never forgot how her eyes grew wide, not with terror but delight, asking if the mechanical man in the dirty trenchcoat was a vigilante like the Shroud.
For a while, the Memory Den was a respite in the sea of misery. Until temptation got the best of the pious detective and he dug a little too deep, searching for the woman he missed most.
Now more loss and ruin waited for them behind the lab doors.
Before they could enter, Amari turned to the group, bracing as if a cannon might go off. “It’s better if I keep my distance, but time is of the essence,” she whispered. “For all our sakes.”
“The time for what?” Nick asked uneasily. “The 3s don’t self-destruct, do they?”
Amari’s gaze flitted towards Deacon like a secret dangled between them.
“I’ll explain the sitch later,” he said, a bit irate. “It’d take too long. The main thing is Glory’s angry enough to burn this whole place down, with us in it.”
“Hope that’s just a figure of speech,” Nick said.
Nora shook her head. “I know exactly how she feels.” She looked up at Nick. “Don’t you?”
Nick exhaled. “Suppose that’s why we’re here, eh?”
Glory wouldn’t be the first he talked off a proverbial ledge, but he sure hoped she wasn’t the worst.
Curie and Amari left for the stage wings, the doctor whispering apologies while Curie reassured her. No hard feelings? About what?
The basement door swung open, revealing a solemn scene. Glory sat in the desk chair, face buried while a man flipped through a bound Hebrew tome. Many more books laid beside him, clearly in a search for words that might bring existential comfort.
“Your guests,” Deacon announced, making her jump. “Please be nicer to them than you were me.”
Glory stood with a cautious air, examining them from the side of her eye. Again, Nora adjusted the coat around her dress, still testing the temperature of the situation. Nick wasn’t sure how to approach an agent like her, in the most volatile stage of grief. Back then, all Nick had wanted was for people to stay far away, unless they were leaving food on his doorstep, company repulsive if it wasn’t hers.
“Don’t tell me D wants you guys to tear me a new one,” Glory said, her voice like sandpaper.
Nora blinked rapidly. “Glory, I’d never yell at you.” She looked at Deacon suspiciously, but he wisely seemed to sit this out. “He said you were in trouble, and…” Nora stared at a sheet covering the lounger like a death shroud. “I knew she must be in trouble, too.”
“I’m not stupid just because I thought things would be OK, right?” Glory said, seeming more angry than anything. “Right?”
“Of course not,” Nora said.
Glory’s eyes fell on Nick for reassurance.
“There’s nothing stupid about hope,” Nick agreed. He couldn’t stop his brain from obsessing over all the ridiculous ones that still burned inside him. “I know it’s too late now, but you just… When you choose hope, you kinda need to make a deal with yourself. That you won’t let it break you if it doesn’t pan out.” He could see Deacon nodding in his periphery.
“But it wasn’t just wishful thinking,” Glory insisted. “I’m not a fool like they think I am. I survived and…” She turned to Nora “... and you survived. You said you lost everything, and I can’t pretend to know how that feels. No one out here can. But me and G, we had everything to gain.”
Nora took a centering breath behind her hands, and Nick feared the trauma bubbling up. “Glory, I get what you mean, but I only know how she felt to a small extent. In my old life, people were unkind and treated me unfairly, but I was never imprisoned or enslaved. Compared to the wasteland, being a homemaker was quiet… predictable… gentle. When I came out of the Vault, I just wanted to be home again. So much so that I still live in the ruins of my own,” she said, as if it were a moral failing. “But she escaped terror for even more terror, without a gilded cage to return to. I don’t think I could’ve fared much better.”
“You don’t think a literal apocalypse was more traumatic than achieving freedom?”
Deacon butted in. “You gotta remember how scared you were when you first popped out.”
Glory ignored him. “None of that sounds like her. She was brave. Like us.”
“It takes an immense amount of bravery to get out of there, I know,” Nora said. “But I’m not sure if she had more to spare.”
“That can’t be true,” Glory bristled, making Deacon cross his arms in displeasure. “I know I say you’re kin, but she was more. She was my person —”
“I know, Glory, I lost my person too — I understand —”
“No,” Glory growled. “She was my Valentine.” The sentiment scorched Nick’s wires like a Christmas tree catching flame. “I’m only standing here right now because of her. I joined the Railroad because we made a promise,” she said, as though she’d been cheated.
Everything about her body screamed anger, but the eyes… Nick was familiar with brown eyes that held such pain. Ones who also had something precious stolen for no good reason.
“Look at what they’ve done!” Glory pulled the sheet off the woman in the lounger, who any would presume was sleeping. “Erased her, total reset, like she never existed! If Caretaker didn’t tell me what they did, I would’ve never known. She would’ve just… vanished.”
“You weren’t supposed to know. That’s the point.” Deacon glowered at the older agent. “It’s not like him to go compromising patient confidentiality this way,”
Caretaker seemed unrepentant. “Sorry, D, but it’s rare we have a wiped synth with next of kin. Felt like the respectful thing to do.” He shut his book. “At least Glory wouldn’t spend her life searching for her. Anyone would for someone they love.”
Just like Nora. So relentlessly devoted, she’d fought entire armies.
Deacon remained agitated. “Yeah, well now we have a… a hostage situation on top of a total breakdown of Railroad hierarchy.”
Glory approached Deacon, like a cross-examination. “What’s the fucking difference between you and a Courser taking a synth back for recall?”
“The difference is breaking the cycle of suffering, Glory.” A tinge of fury simmered in his throat. “I’m honoring her choice.”
“What’s honorable about it? It’s sick.”
“If the memory wipe worked, she wouldn’t have been the G5 you remembered, anyway. I’m not sure she even was when I met her,” Deacon said and Glory winced. “But I do know her last thought was the comfort of moving on to a better place,” he added in a gentler tone.
Glory shook her head, rejecting explanations and platitudes alike. “I’m so glad you can rationalize all your guilt away, D, but you’re the one who hid it from me!”
“How was I supposed to know she didn’t tell you?” Deacon asked exasperatedly, and the room fell silent, save for the buzz of machinery.
“She didn’t tell you?” Nick asked.
Glory turned away. A definitive answer for any jury.
Nora sunk onto the couch next to the holy texts and tattered self-help books. “Deacon, you could’ve given me this info sooner,” she said, pinching her brow. “This isn’t ‘intel’, it’s personal.”
“Exactly,” he said. Nora stared back in confusion. “I wanted it to be hers to tell. At least that’s what I set out to do.” Again, Deacon sounded more defensive than usual. “After hauling ass all over the ruins, I figured she’d cooled off by now and we’d get somewhere, but she’s pointing fingers again instead of dealing with the present.”
Glory seethed. “Because someone has to pay.”
“Fine, I’ll pay, but that’s no reason to be selfish.”
“Fuck you, D,” Glory whispered in disbelief.
Deacon exhaled and Nick felt he was still missing vital intel himself. “If I’m the bad guy of everyone’s story, I’ll take the fucking hit, so long as we all get out alive," he said, half drill sergeant, half martyr. “We’ve dug too many graves, Glory, that’s why.”
“Well good news, you’re digging another one,” Glory said cryptically between teeth. “She never would’ve chosen this route without being pushed.”
Nora raised her head again. “She didn’t need to be pushed when it was her idea,” she said, a bit distant. “Deacon and I tried to talk her out of it. All night long.”
Glory peeked over her shoulder, trepidation filling her gaze. “Whisper, don’t say that,” she pleaded, as if it could be undone.
Deacon shook his head. “I know I’m a liar, but Jesus, Glor, I don’t lie to save my ‘glowing reputation’,” he said bitterly. Nick would never accuse the needling spy of caring about what people thought.
Nora mournfully rubbed her neck. “Deacon tried to sway her as much as he could without choosing for her. I… tried a bit harder, but he let me do it. And you know how he gets about his philosophies.”
Glory looked resistant, like it hurt more for these things to be true. “But she didn’t say anything was wrong. She didn’t even take the therapy. I — I thought that meant she was doing great.” Glory swallowed. “Why wouldn’t she want me to help?”
“From what I knew of her, she didn’t seem like the type to give false hope. Sometimes it’s worse to believe you could’ve stopped it,” Nora said. “Maybe… she wanted to spare you both the pain of arguing. I know you would’ve done anything to make her stay.”
“She just needed time,” Glory said, again rationalizing her denial. “There was no good reason for D to throw in the towel so easy.”
“Don’t point that thing at me again,” Deacon said. “Whisper is telling you there was nothing to be done, and you know it.”
“Glory, it was… exhausting trying to get her to the safehouse,” Nora lamented. “And I know it was even harder for her. The wasteland was crueler than usual — I don’t think I even made it out sane.” Something dimmed within her eyes. “I gave her every bit of advice I knew, and it felt like bowling water out of a sinking boat.”
“That’s not G5,” she insisted. “We always said if we could survive the Institute, we could survive anything.”
“Glory,” Deacon groaned. They were losing the fish on the line. “We only have the slimmest idea about what’s happened since you left. We can’t force them to carry burdens they’re not equipped to handle. That’s inhumane.”
“She could’ve been stronger.” Glory pounded her chest. “Like I’ve been. Then she would’ve never been tempted to be some stranger walking around in her skin.”
“You’re one of the strongest synths we’ve ever had. I don’t say that lightly. You can’t expect everyone to be like you.”
“Oh, but you expect everyone to be a dead-hearted ‘there is no self’ freak like you.”
Caretaker stood. “Glory, for the last time, she came to me, not D.”
“We’re not talking about that anymore — this is between me and him.”
Deacon shrugged incredulously. “What’s heartless about inducing ego death in order to save more lives?” he asked. “The only difference between me and her is I wiped my own slate clean.”
Glory would have none of it. “You think people should just turn off their feelings because it’s more efficient. You’re suuuuch a good agent, you don’t even cry over your own interns.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t bleed out along with them, and every agent and synth who ever fell victim to hate,” Deacon declared. “Who the hell do you think I am?”
“The creep who just forgets them, because it’s ‘better that way’.” Glory waved her arms. “You carry your weird abstract guilt that makes you so fucking special, but you hardly remember their names.”
Nick wondered if he should step between them. “I think this anger is misplaced.”
“Am I not worth remembering?” she creaked, and Nick's heart broke along with hers.
Deacon’s shoulders dropped as he too de-bristled. “Glory.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Nora said.
Glory stormed to the other wall and upturned a stack of binders. She stood puffing for a moment, whether from rage or tears, Nick wasn’t sure.
“Why did she abandon me?”
Now Caretaker put his head in his hands, like all hope of comfort was lost. A bleak concept that Nick knew all too well. And the idea of ever being left behind in this wasteland, by the one person who made him feel truly whole.
Well.
“She didn’t abandon you,” Nora said. Glory looked over like she’d heard something obscene. “I mean, that wasn’t her intention. She kept her promise and escaped, and saw you again.”
Right. They were here to calm a fury, not anger her even more.
Nick cleared his throat. “And if she’s your… uh… ‘me’,” he started anxiously, still unclear what it meant. “All she needed to know was you could thrive all on your lonesome. You both survived your escape from the Institute, and…” He thought back to the only things that kept him warm at night. “A head full of happy memories is how she felt she could keep surviving. Even if they’re fake.”
Glory rubbed her eyes. “But now she never gets to live at all. How am I ever supposed to accept that?”
“It won’t be easy, but it’ll happen,” Nora said. “It helps to cry. I do it all the time—”
“I don’t cry,” Glory shouted. “I’m a heavy.”
“I’m a heavy too. Look at me.” Nora sniffed, trying to keep the tears in herself. “I’m sorry she’s gone. It feels like you’re dying, longer and more painfully, I know.”
Glory’s lip quivered, and she grasped Nora by the shoulders. “You understand. You’re the only one who understands.” Nora’s face said she wasn’t sure why she was always the ‘chosen one’, but nodded anyway. “You’re my kin.”
“For life. Just like you said.”
“You’d do anything for your sister, right?”
“Of course.”
Glory pulled away and took a deep breath. “OK.” She pointed a shaking finger at Deacon. “Now tell that asshole that they’re wrong.”
Nora looked between them. “... Pardon?”
Deacon scratched at his stubble. “So this is the part when I tell you why you’re really here.”
“God, D,” Nora’s hands balled into fists as he strolled to the door. “What have you done?”
“Curie, you can come in now,” he called out.
Glory threw her arms in the air. “I don’t fucking want to speak to her again — She can’t have her!”
“Woah, woah,” Nick held up his palms as Curie drifted into the room. Glory blocked the way to G5’s still breathing body. “We’re not donating her to science or somethin’, are we?”
“Disgusting, isn’t it Mr. Valentine?” Glory asked, damp cheeks catching the light. “To make someone a lab rat? G didn’t give permission, and neither do I.”
“Mr. Valentine,” Deacon said, making him jump. “If you could be human again, you’d leap at that opportunity, right?” he asked, sounding like he was selling an insurance policy.
Nick’s eyes widened. “The hell does that mean?”
“If the Institute made a replica of your pre-war body — no — any body you wanted… wouldn’t you take it?”
“Well I…” He blinked and stammered, never considering it a genuine option before. But was it?
Nora placed a protective hand on his chest, and his proverbial heart nearly stopped.
“Don’t ask him your weird Hypotheticals like that,” Nora scolded. “He doesn’t owe you an answer just because he’s a synth.”
Nick found his voice. “A-And just for the poor kid’s peace of mind, that’s not a decision I’d take lightly.” Though with warm arms and soft hands, so many hang-ups about his mangled cage of a body would vanish… But brought back so much more. “I kinda like being indestructible. I just don’t know what any of that’s got to do with synthetic comas.”
“Are you saying…” Nora trailed off, but then gasped. “Curie. Are you asking to be transferred into her body?” The idea made Nick feel faint in this increasingly stuffy and crowded room.
“It is a simple request,” Curie said. “Not a demand, Mademoiselle Glory.”
“Thank you for having some sense,” Glory said back to her. “Maybe you can take the next poor synth that gets botched.”
A tense silence fell over the room. “So… it is… no?” Curie asked.
“No, Curie.”
“Ah. Oui.”
Clearly no one had heard such quiet disappointment in the bot before, and all appeared torn in their own way. Nick himself in several directions at once.
“A-And just to be clear here… It’s possible?” he asked, hating how Deacon’s glasses glinted in interest.
“Only in theory,” Amari said from the doorway, too nervous to join the battle. “There are many unknown factors involved, but everything points to success. If we act before her body stops getting signals from her brain.”
“I was the closest to her,” Glory asserted. “I get the final say in what happens to her, not this mad science fuckery.”
“Whisper, don’t you think the best way to deal with tragedy is to let it bring new life?” Deacon asked her.
“Fuck off with the poetics, D,” Glory hissed. “They don’t magically make your shitty philosophies the correct ones.”
“I-I really don’t know if logic can apply to this one,” Nora agreed apprehensively.
Deacon looked befuddled, while almost… hurt. “C’mon, don’t fail me now, pal.”
“You are so full of bullshit,” Glory said to Deacon. “You can’t believe in synth liberation and then treat their bodies like something other than human. We’re going to bury her, just like we do to every living thing —”
“But she didn’t want to die,” Nora said, a slow epiphany in her tone. “She just needed to be someone else to live. A healer, to be exact.”
Glory’s eyes darted up. “What? She actually told you that?”
“W-Well the last part was from Dr. Amari, but.. G5 told us she wanted a life where she wasn’t afraid. And Curie; she’s... not afraid of anything. And quite the botanist, too.”
“Madame, you are too kind,” Curie said quietly.
Glory pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to swallow the bitter pill. “You might be my sister, but this isn’t your call.”
“I’m not deciding for you. I know how personal it is. I…” Nora closed her eyes, drawing in her still bruised lips. “I haven’t even decided what to do with my husband.” Nick felt like he’d been eavesdropping. They never shied away from discussing their most agonizing thoughts with each other, but this was one of those questions too sensitive to even think of. “Part of me just wants to keep him in stasis forever, so I can at least pretend that he’s alive, having the sweetest dreams.”
Glory crossed her arms, taking it in. “So you’re telling me I’m better off not accepting reality?”
“Be nice,” Deacon warned.
“I am.”
Nora took a step towards her. “I’m making sure you don’t have regrets. We can bury her, or we can let Curie live that life for her. With her.”
Glory stared off into space like she’d seen all the horrors of the universe. “She wanted to live,” she repeated. “Just… without me.” Every layer peeled back of the truth just left her heart more raw.
“How do you know she didn’t believe you’d meet again?” Nora asked. “If she’s your Valentine, that means you were always meant to find each other.”
The sentiment threw Nick for a loop. How did Nora know what Amari had said about soulmates?
Glory swallowed. “It’s that I’d see her someplace, and she wouldn’t know me from any old scavver.”
Curie cautiously approached as well. “But I know you,” Curie said. “We may have just met, but you can tell me who she was, and I will remember those things for her.”
“But you’re like Detective Valentine.” Glory stared at Curie in confusion. “M-Maybe you don’t look alike, but… You don’t need to eat, or sleep… You’d really give that all up? You want to be some feeble organic, like me?”
“In a word?” Curie paused. “Desperately.”
Though thankful that Nora’s hand could never feel a nervous heartbeat in his hollow chest, quickening from her loving touch, he too harbored the same longing. To be supple, delicate, mortal. Another face in the crowd, only remarkable to the people who loved him.
Nick drew a pensive breath. “There’s… things in this world that are worth the trade-off.”
Glory appeared conflicted, staring at the floor in penitent embarrassment, like she’d made a public scene. But who could blame her? She’d lost the person she’d been fighting for.
“Curie’s a very good friend of mine,” Nora said gently. “She lives right next door, so… I’d always know what she was up to. You could come visit whenever you want.”
“Deacon told me how nice your parties are,” Glory murmured and Nora looked to him in surprise. “Maybe…” She swallowed the words for a moment. “Maybe me and Curie can talk. Maybe if I know more about her, it’ll be easier.”
Amari’s head bobbed upwards, like rousing from a nap. “You’re… open to the transfer?”
Glory stared at the body. “I don’t want to feel like I’m throwing her away by putting her in the ground. Like a broken object.”
Nick’s hand flexed, bombarded with those memories of waking in the trash, nameless and confused, wondering who no longer wanted him, and why. The situation was so different here, yet he could relate in unspeakable ways. Ways that no living thing but him could ever understand.
“If she had to go, I wanted to be there,” Glory said, staring at her friend. “I waited for her for so long. Now maybe I’m… hanging on because this sucks too bad to be real. Like you guys always say, my ‘idealism ruins everything for everyone’.”
Deacon's head thudded back against a cabinet. “Glory. I never meant it like that.”
Maybe Glory was a lot like Nora, with a little more bark to her bite. Running into a hail of bullets, knowing the good guys have to win. Biting and clawing for their fairytale.
“It doesn’t matter what you meant, D, it never changes how it made me feel,” Glory said, and Deacon turned away in an unexpected display of remorse. “But this time I am ruining it for everyone… For Curie. For G.” She clawed at nothing. “I just... She’s gonna go on without me, no matter what I choose. But I want to see her smile again. A happy one, not that one she puts on when everything is bad. That’s all I fucking want, OK?”
Curie inched closer, like breathless anticipation. “So… You have chosen? Yes?”
“Let’s talk,” Glory said, throat tight. “About her.”
Nora’s shoulders relaxed. “If she means to you what you said… I think the rest of us should step out.”
Deacon nodded. “I’m a snoop, but, this should be between you and her.”
“If that’s what you want,” Glory shrugged.
Amari and the other agents shuffled out of the room without further fanfare, but Nora went to hug her fellow heavy.
“I’m not the kind of girl who needs hugs, Wisp,” she said, more flustered than upset.
“I know. But I am.”
The leather of Glory’s coat creaked as she squeezed Nora back. Brow again furrowed, perplexed by her world changing so fast, struggling to adapt.
“Sorry about making you come out here.” Glory’s eyes met Nick’s. “And sorry about Deacon interrupting your date night,” she added with frustration.
“Oh, uh —” he floundered. Nora was dressed to impress.
Nora pulled away with a sheepish chuckle. “It’s OK, Glory, we were on our way home. I just didn’t have time to change.” She shook her head. “You were much more important tonight.”
“Now I owe you the long trip, I guess.” She glanced at Curie. “Maybe I’ll walk her home.”
Nora smiled at the bittersweet sentiment.
“Guess you’re seeing a future again,” Nick speculated, thinking about all the things that Nora had said on her journey through grief. “Might not look the way you wanted it to, but it doesn’t mean it can’t bring you peace.”
Glory swallowed. “I don’t think I’ll find peace in this life, but… I can still bring it to someone else.”
Nick again knew the feeling all too intimately. “That’s the most loving thing we can do.”
“You’re not gonna skip out on me and the Railroad once you get Shaun back, right?”
“I’ll still be here fighting for you,” Nora assured, a sober promise. “But when I get him back, there won’t be an Institute left for anyone to fight.”
Glory nodded. “Payback.” Her gaze interrogated Nick as well.
A place that stole loved ones and trapped men between life and death? That made stony women cry, and gentle women kill? Like any oppressive institution, negotiations and reforms wouldn’t cut it. It had to be dug up by the roots.
“Payback,” he agreed.
---
Nora gently closed the door and exhaled, wiping her eyes. “Well. I don’t know if that went good or terrible, but at least we stopped the bleeding, y’know?”
“Poor kid’s heart will always be a little broken.” He glanced at Nora. “Guess that’s why Deacon needed us.”
They turned the corner and found Deacon lingering in the stairwell, biting his nails. A surprising tell for the man who had seemed so unflappable.
“Sorry,” Deacon said. “I wasn’t eavesdropping. I was just waiting to see if you guys were OK.”
“‘Cause you threw us in a lion pit without warning?” Nick asked.
“What, did you expect Glory to be a lamb?”
“I’m sayin’ we thought we were being grief counselors, not mediators for… whatever the hell that was,” he gestured behind them. “Makes me wonder what other kind of crap you’re gonna trick the two of us into.” Nora remained stoic, eyes tired but demanding, like a mother addressing her problem child.
Deacon gritted his teeth like he’d broken a vase. “I know, I know — Glory was in trouble, though, I didn’t lie. I didn’t lie.” He pushed his glasses to his face. “You just didn’t ask whether this was a five-layer dip of trouble. But I figured it was kind of implied.”
“We were more than ready to skirmish for her, but that ain’t the point.”
Nora furrowed her brow. “I know she can be a little stubborn, but you could’ve said you played a role, D. Or that you even brought Curie into it.”
Nick tilted his chin. “I’ve got a hunch that he thought Curie would make it all too obvious.”
Deacon reached for a cigarette. “I couldn’t risk you telling me to fix my own mess. ‘Cause if someone like Glory walks away from the Railroad, what future do we have?”
“Someone like Glory would never walk,” Nora said. “Even I know that. But she would hate you for it, wouldn’t she?”
Deacon merely struck a match.
“Alright,” Nick grumbled, “well since you kidnapped us tonight, I figure you owe me some answers.”
The spy rolled his neck, letting out a groan that could’ve been pain or reluctance. “Yeah, sure. Just as long as it’s not a security issue.”
“How did you know Curie was wishin’ on stars to be a real girl? Cause it sounds like you already had this plan in motion before you grabbed us.”
“We met at that little barbecue up in Sanctuary.” He blew smoke out his nose. “She had some pretty wild ideas the folks downstairs found… intriguing. Even Glory agreed, but… none of us imagined it would play out this way.”
How odd that Curie hadn’t approached Nick with this matter. Did she not see him as an equal? Did she see him as already human?
“And why’d you need me for this?" he asked. "Only one of us knew that woman in the lounger.”
“‘Cause I didn’t want to force her into the wrong choice. I figured you’d be the one to stop me.”
Nick exhaled as it dawned on him. “‘Cause I’ve done it once in reverse.”
Deacon shrugged half-heartedly. “Theory confirmed.”
“Y’know, it’s good I’m a pacifist, ‘cause one swipe from me would fracture every bone in your face,” Nick said coolly.
“It’s OK. I need a new one, anyway.”
“Let’s stop fighting,” Nora said, waving exhausted hands. “At least for tonight. We did what we had to do for Glory, and Curie, and it worked out, and we live another day.”
“Except for the poor soul who got deleted,” Nick muttered.
“You don’t have to rub it in, Mr. Valentine,” Deacon replied with a surprising edge. “I’m not shirking responsibility. I just don’t see the point in making someone pay.” Nick again sensed the agent’s penetrating gaze. “It never makes anything feel better; it’s just more collateral, more guilt.”
Nick broke the imagined eye-contact, feeling unexpectedly exposed. What did Deacon know about him? What else could he infer?
Deacon took a breath. “G5 contacted me, ‘cause I was the only other person she knew at HQ. I said I wouldn’t take her to get wiped. That it was ‘against my religion’ or something, because I thought it might change her mind. I didn’t realize she’d track down Caretaker instead.”
Nora slumped back against the brick. “And did you explain any of that to her?”
“It doesn’t change what happened. G5 is gone. And Glory is right; I could’ve put my morals aside and tried harder. For her.” He crossed his arms. “Maybe if I was more like you guys, she wouldn’t blame me.”
“Can’t you just say you’re sorry for letting her down, as kin?” Nora asked.
“She knows I’m sorry, and begging for forgiveness is selfish. I just needed to make sure G5 didn’t die in vain. If it was solely me negotiating on Curie’s behalf, anger would’ve clouded her judgment. One emotional decision can haunt the rest of your life.”
They were all haunted enough already.
Nora breathed in deeply. “I know you think actions speak louder than words, but sometimes telling people you care about them heals what medicine can’t.”
“I can’t be playing favorites with my team.”
The detectives looked at each other, both coming to the same conclusion. The armor was back on tight, vacuum sealed to prevent any more leakage of inconvenient emotion.
“I won’t tell you have to live your life,” Nora said, “but don’t act like Glory is some kind of mystery just because you won’t return the favor and be vulnerable.”
“Trust me, pal, no one wants to see their leader like that.”
“You’d be surprised,” Nick said. Deacon continued puffing.
“Are we done with our interrogation?” he asked.
“Just one more,” Nora said. “Is there any news about Virgil?”
Deacon sighed. “Money’s tight and we’ve got new mouths to feed. We’re not made of pre-war radiation shielding.”
“Right… The Sea.”
Nick wanted to say something to ease her mind, but his crackpot plan was still in the tentative planning stages.
“Listen, I gotta get a message back to Dez before she thinks I went AWOL,” Deacon said. “There’s a room under Valentine at the Rexford. Stay or don’t, it’s up to you.”
Nora gave a dispirited nod and headed for the main stage. Nick continued to stare him down.
“Y’know I try my best to like you like she does, but you really make it difficult,” Nick said, before climbing the stairs himself.
“One day you’ll understand,” Deacon said.
Nick turned around, narrowing his gaze. “Understand what?”
“That we’re on the same side, you and I.”
“The only side I’m on is hers,” Nick said.
“I hope that stays true.”
Nick ruminated on the crypticism before rolling his eyes. These mind games were likely the only sense of control the chess master had left after fumbling a few moves. Putting emotions aside for logic only left you unprepared for the irrationality of human nature. No wonder Glory erupted on him like a volcano.
As he caught up to Nora, he put a hand on her shoulder. “You holdin’ up?” he asked gently.
“All in all, that went as well as it could’ve,” she muttered. “If tragedy can ever go well.”
“I meant more about you gettin’ yanked out of your vacation to keep a secret organization from imploding.”
“What I said to Glory wasn’t a lie. I’d ditch any dinner party for her, even if she wasn’t working to get my son back.” Nora let out a heavy sigh. “I’m just tired.”
“Guess it’d be uncalled for to correct the poor kid when she’s already embarrassed,” Nick said. Nora looked up at him in tired confusion. “‘Bout the ‘date’ or whatever.”
“What’s there to correct?” she stoically replied. Not a flirt, nor a complaint. And Nick’s already fractured mind scattered a bit more.