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The Institute is a technological marvel, but Curie has seen what lurked beyond the locked doors. Super mutants held aloft in FEV dipping chambers, terminals callously identifying missing persons as deceased or let loose, minds gone and bodies malformed. There is no movement to encourage progress, no attempts to better humanity or the lives above ground. There is only death, and hubris.There is no science without progress, there is no medicine without healing. Dr. Collins had told her that, even as he had aged and his eyes darkened with a regret she had yet to discover or understand. He had removed his Vault Tech coat by then, and burnt it.
Curie had expected to be in her element upon the Railroad’s infiltration, wished to observe and document and take in all that had been promised in the synths she had found strewn about in the Commonwealth. Artificial intelligence, glossy robotics, a teleportation device.
But perhaps it is the new programming that codes her as a human being, but she can only stand, gun held loose by her hip, in the white chill of this underground lab (lifeless and non-thriving to the colourful mess above ground.) Curie watches Poppy draw close to the man in the bed, who seems so separate from her beloved in every way.
His skin reminds her of her robotic body when it was new. Scrubbed too clean, held too tight and perfect; positively antiseptic. (The scientists had disliked touching her; she blew heat and flame from beneath her motors but her frame was always cold to the nerve endings of human fingers.)
Ah yes, upon close analysis, she sees it now; the resemblance. The bushy arch of his brow, the peak of his lips, his sepia skin soft around eyes that would have been larger and honeyed if he was younger (and Curie privately thinks, kinder.)
Curie has seen the remains of Nate, holed up in an ice crystal tomb, dried blood dribbled and frozen down the side of his temple. She had witnessed his body whilst she still a Ms Nanny, all circuit boards and synthetics, humming away in the stuttering light of the vault, steering clear of Poppy’s tears.
(A clean shot, a quick and breathless death.)
Examination of his body had revealed to her a balding pre-war man, pleasantly faced, broad and physically strong, but a softness around the belly that implied he was more than happy to let that part of himself die. Poppy had spoken so warmly of him, so aching in their private moments, when Curie had inhabited steel and sensors.
His father ran a bicycle shop. Nate wanted to take up the trade, to help keep the air cleaner; nobody could afford cars. He would teach his boy to cord metal and fix together nuts and bolts, and see if something could ride slick and safe. And only if Shaun wanted, for Shaun’s happiness was paramount, would he happily pass the business on to his son.
After Curie had received her new body, Poppy had neglected to speak of Nate, as if flesh and blood was too impersonal as opposed to rust and robotics. Maybe it was easier to speak to her cyclops eyes then to a sympathetic smile. Humans are strange.
Shaun sits stiff and wintry in his bed, visibly in pain and unable to do anything about it. His thinness makes him sharp. He has Nate’s hands, but they are smooth and without callouses. His beard is clipped too neatly, not rugged and loose like Poppy’s lost love.
Shaun had manufactured the body she now inhabits, a soul slipped deftly in its skin and bones. It is a strange thought. The body is theirs but the mind and soul is hers, and Curie feels a bizarre heat prickle her insides, merging into a fist that threatens to break her chest. Deacon observes her silently.
Father’s gaze lingers on Curie, and his mouth tightens, draws into a flat line.
“That is one of ours,” He croaks out.
“She is her own,” Poppy corrects, gentle as always.
“Intel told me you were lovers.” He mocks her, in that smooth, pensive voice. It has Poppy’s quiet power, but none of her kindness. “To think, you would choose a machine over your own son.”
Curie had surveyed the medical terminal. She knows his illness. Cancer is cells turning against the body, a simple yet aggressive diagnosis, a mere trifle as opposed to the exotic diseases she had studied in her vault, personified in her little mole rat darlings. Many had growths on their backs that she shrank away in a day. They were intelligent enough to realise she alone could nullify their pain, so never did they scrape her casing or bite at her appendages, but they would allow her passage through the vault, observing from the murk with chemical bright eyes.
Her body is flesh, but her mind remains mechanical, at least at its core, and the previous detachment she had towards her human peers returns, slowly, and she finds, bemused, that she doesn’t care if this man lives or dies.
But Poppy does, oh so visibly. She lowers her head until her brow meets his knuckles. He sits, impassive, hand held out coldly. Like an entitled King to his subjects.
Poppy does not respond to his jibe; Curie is selfishly hurt.
“I love you, Shaun,” She says.
“Your actions say otherwise,” He returns, bitter.
“But my actions are bigger than me,” Poppy struggles to speak. Deacon just stands nearby, as if this is basic protocol. Curie feels a shimmer of irritation at his lack of tact. “There is more here than just you and me. The Institute has hurt so many, taken lives. I couldn’t…”
“Is this about Father?”
“No.” Puppy hangs her head. Her bangs are messy, and cloud her eyes from sight. Curie’s fingers twitch. She’d combed it this morning as Poppy had sat in the bath, knees hugged to her chest, the dying roar of the Prydwen still echoing in her ears. The dust from the ash cloud had stuck to her skin, greying her cheeks and hair.
Poppy hadn’t wanted to do it. Deacon had promised her that they had made certain the children had been evacuated before proceeding, said the tykes were on a field mission or some other excuse. He’d sworn it to her again, as Poppy had sat in the tin body of the bath, Curie scrubbing the dirt from her skin. Poppy did not seem aware of his words, nor had cared that he entered as she sat, bare, in the bathroom. Curie had ushered him out. She did not know how humans had to lie, until now. She did not believe him, but she would have lied to herself a million times over to prevent the terrible lull that had stretched milky over Poppy’s eyes.
“What is it about then?” Shaun’s demands scratch on her nerves. Deacon lights a cigarette. “Tell me.”
“I need the evacuation codes,” She still grips his hand, but the look on her face is different. Whisper, of the Railroad, Poppy Dickens of the Minutemen, no longer the grieving mother. The shadow of it still lurks in the corners of her mouth, however. “I do not want to hurt anyone who does not deserve it.”
Deacon murmurs that they all deserve it.
“Fine,” Now Shaun sounds like a dying man. The breath hisses through his teeth like the deflation of a balloon. Curie imagines his lungs, closing, rot and tumors balled up in the corners of pink organ. “Enter the Director’s code on the terminal. There, you may do as you wish.”
Poppy’s fingers slip from his, tracing his knuckles, the hard ridged veins, the liver spots. No mother should have to bury their child, Curie had said emphatically beforehand. Deacon’s short reply was what if said child was a colossal prick.
The sirens sound. The lock down is ended. Curie knows the world above is waiting, wild and dangerous and beautiful in its survival. Why wither down here, in this purgatory of white horror? How is this different from the chamber in the vault that was once her home?
“Goodbye, Shaun,” Poppy peers at him, imploring, one final time.
“I could shut it down, you know,” Shaun’s attention is once again on Curie. “I know the recall code. I could have her taken from you, as you have taken everything from me.”
Poppy smiles, sadly.
“Oh Shaun,” She says. “You did not care enough to remember each and every single recall code, to know each person you created individually.”
“Rightly,” Shaun’s pulse is dwindling. Curie can detect it, in the stutter of his lashes and the short twitches in his hand. “I should have been all that mattered.”
In Cuire's thoughts, all lies sound like Deacon. Shaun is too close to death; there is no use in aid. Her Hippocratic Oath will not be violated.
“You were,” Poppy is breaking, now, body curling over as Shaun breathes, finally, one last time. “You were, once.”
“C’mon, Whisper,” Deacon is deadpan. “We gotta go. Tom can’t hold that relay forever.”
Curie is terrified Poppy will refuse, will sit beside the shell of her son, and ask to die, to go with the Institute, to close the whole unfortunate chapter of Vault 111. Grief is a torrid disease, one that eats the brain and ceases the functions of the body. One that is not so easily cured.
“Poppy?” Curie’s accented voice, lined with the sweetest demand. How is she no better than Shaun, then Deacon? To request Poppy to live, to stay and breathe with her, when all the purpose Poppy ever had is cooling on the bed.“We must leave. It is dangerous to remain.”
“Yes,” Poppy heeds her call, pressing close to Curie’s hand, which finds her tear streaked cheek and holds it there. “Yes, I’m coming.”
The thing on the bed smells of hospital soap, an attempt to shield the cloying stink of sickness beneath. Curie recalls Clyde, the mole rat alpha, on his back, shrunken and ugly, paws stiff and sticking up.
There is little difference. She leads Poppy away.