The Rescue
He wasn’t asleep. Not that it was an option. But there wasn’t a day that went by that Nick Valentine didn’t miss having dreams. The tedium of being locked in a room inside Vault 114 had become tedious. The days started blurring together, so he finally closed his eyes and went into standby mode. As a synth, he had no way to induce a state of unconsciousness the way he had when he was human, so this was as close as he could get.
He still had his memories, and those could be as vivid as the worst nightmare or loveliest dream. The one that never drifted far was a bittersweet mixture. It was always Jennifer Lans. Always the smiling face of his beloved fiancée that quickly dissolved into a pain in his non-existent heart. A simmering rage that lingered over two centuries. The devastation of learning his arch-nemesis, Eddie Winter, had had her murdered.
He was shaken from his reverie when one of Skinny Malone’s goons stood outside, looking at him through a port hole shaped window, taunting him.
“How you doin’ in there Valentine? Feelin’ hungry? Want a snack?”
All the memories and experience of his former human life as a Chicago detective flowed through his artificial brain, his instincts and quick wit always at the tip of his circuits, ready to fire.
“Keep talking, meat head. It’ll give Skinny Malone more time to think about how he’s gonna bump you off,” Nick retorted with bemused stoicism.
Dino, the cretin outside the window, looked momentarily blank, then his face twisted in anger. “Don’t give me that crap, Valentine. You know nothin’. You got nothin’.”
Nick smirked, the shadows in the room and his worn fedora masking his expression. “Really? I saw him writing your name down in that black book of his.” He paused, grinning as the man’s face began draining of color. He continued the attack. “Lousy cheating card shark I think were his exact words. Then he struck the name across three times.” He had him.
“Three strikes? In the black book? But I never... Oh no... I gotta smooth this over! Fast!” Dino blurted out, about to turn heel and run, but was suddenly and loudly stopped as his head exploded from a high caliber bullet.
Nick didn’t even flinch, but his curiosity was certainly piqued. He figured if someone offed this moron, they may be on his side. It was a chance he had to take to get out of his current incarceration. “Hey you!” he yelled to be heard, “I don’t know who you are, but we got three minutes before they realize muscles-for-brains ain’t comin’ back. Get this door open!”
For a moment he thought that maybe whoever it was wasn’t going to help. He held his breath, or some facsimile of the action, and waited a beat before he saw a woman with blond hair peer in at him. He tipped his hat to her and she disappeared. A moment later the heavy door to the room hissed and opened. The woman gave him that all too familiar what the fuck are you! look, but then relaxed a little, apparently assessing him.
“Gotta love the irony of the reverse damsel in distress scenario,” he quipped. “Question is, why did our heroine risk life and limb for an old private eye?” he finished, deftly lighting a cigarette, a habit ingrained into his manufactured psyche from the human Nick’s brain scans that he inherited, along with the wreck of a body he now maneuvered through his new life in the post apocalypse.
For a scant second, what felt like his heart... stopped. There was something familiar in this woman’s face. The resemblance… it was uncanny, but also impossible. Had she been wearing a summer dress and her hair styled to perfection she would almost be the spitting image of Jenny. He shoved the thought aside, filing it away as a leftover tendril of his earlier ruminations. He realized he had been staring at her and made a small coughing sound, more to shake it off than anything else.
The woman visibly swallowed, but her blue eyes were sharp and unwavering. He could see she had a purpose and it wasn’t just rescuing him from a mob boss’s vault. “I’m tracking a murderer,” she began, her voice both steady and tremulous. “He murdered my husband and took his body. I don’t know who he is or where he’s gone, but I need to find out why my husband was targeted,” she finished, her knuckles white from gripping her admittedly flashy rifle. If memory served, that piece of machinery was a pre-war Chinese number. Impressive hardware.
Nick canted his head slightly. The woman was wearing military fatigues and a heavy winter jacket. It was still slightly wet, apparently from the snowy weather outside. The items looked almost new. Further, they were different from any he’d seen since waking up from the ashes. She had an air about her unlike most of the denizens of the ’Wealth he was used to dealing with. Now he had even more questions, but they would have to wait. He was a cop first and foremost and this lady was a case if he ever saw one.
“Well, you came to the right man, but not the right place,” he spoke softly. “I’ve been here for what feels like weeks now. I was tracking a kidnapped woman who turned out to be here of her own volition – as Skinny Malone’s new squeeze,” he said, watching her carefully before continuing. “Anyway, you got troubles and I’m glad to help, but we need to blow this joint first.”
The woman only nodded. He marveled at her, realizing she had fought and shot her way through a vault full of Skinny’s Triggermen without a scratch on her. Even more impressive. And that itching in the back of whatever constituted a brain had circuits firing in uncomfortable ways. That familiarity again. Focus, Nick. Focus! They needed to leave. And knowing Malone, he wasn’t going to just open the door for them and give them a good bye kiss. He pulled his revolver and took the lead.
An hour, and about a dozen dead Triggermen later, they were at the final door where he knew Malone had to be hiding out; it was the last room before the exit. He looked at her again. This woman was no stranger to gunfights. And the more he had watched her, the more he was convinced she had received some sort of formal training. She moved and reacted like a soldier - like the soldier sister Jenny always spoke about. But that was a war won and lost over 200 years ago. It just wasn’t possible, no matter how much of a coincidence it may be.
In all the time he’d spent in this wasteland since waking in that garbage heap, he’d never seen anyone like her. Hell, she rivaled the best trained Gunners, by his estimate. He shook himself out of his musings. There was no time for daydreaming now.
“This is it,” he nodded toward the heavy hydraulic door. “Be ready for anything,” he added as he jimmied the lock with his one metallic hand, looking back at her before pushing the button. The door swooshed up with a clank and a hiss. The woman immediately checked her clip then readied her weapon. She really was a force to be reckoned with. With a curt nod he led her through the door.
“Nicky!” the mobster shouted. “What’re you doin! You come into my house, waste my guys...” Skinny, resplendent in a tuxedo and stylish hat, was holding a submachine gun, a throwback to an age that Nick knew all too well. He was flanked by two of his men, both ghouls, and there was Darla. The woman he was supposed to be “saving” was standing in an angry pose with a baseball bat in her hands.
Nick evaluated the situation, read body language, processed tone of voice. He had to admit that Darla scared him more than Malone and his cronies. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for your two-timing dame, Skinny. Oughta tell her to write home more often,” he said smoothly, actually amused at how the woman might react to his statement.
“Awww, poor little Valentine,” Darla cooed sarcastically. “Ashamed you got beat up by a girl!” she spat next. “I’ll just run back home to daddy, shall I?”
The mystery woman by his side was still silent, he glanced over to read her and it was apparent she would follow his lead, but he could also tell that these fools wouldn’t stand a chance against her. He chuckled internally.
“This ain’t the old neighborhood, Valentine. You shoulda left it alone!” Skinny admonished. “In this vault, I’m king of the castle, and I ain’t lettin’ some private dick shut us down now that I finally got a good thing going!”
“I told you we should have just killed him!” Darla screamed. “But you had to get all sentimental, all that stupid crap about the old times!”
“Darla, I’m handling this!” Skinny countered.
Nick could see the pants falling from Skinny’s legs and shimmying up Darla’s. He’d laugh if they weren’t still in a sticky situation.
“Really? Then what’s this lady doing here?” Darla queried, giving the stink eye to Nick’s rescuer. “Valentine musta brought her here to rub us all out.”
And then, to Nick’s surprise, his new partner in crime spoke.
“Not the original plan, but hey… tempting.”
His eyebrows shot up. Okay… apparently she liked poking the hornet’s nest. Whatever circuitry mimicked adrenaline was now firing rapidly through his chassis, the metal fingers of his right hand gripping his revolver in readiness. Fortunately, Skinny intervened.
“Hey, I’m the one in charge here!" He said to Nick's rescuer. "You got something to say, you say it to me!”
Soldier girl took a step forward. Whether she was feeling confident, ready to end it with some spray ’n pray action, or just assessing their reactions, he tensed reflexively. But she stopped and spoke again.
“Look at you Skinny. Can’t you see she’s playing you for a sap? You’re better than that. You’re better than her!”
Nick inwardly cringed, thinking back to an earlier time in his new existence when he was shot multiple times. Had he not found the little settlement he did back then, he wouldn’t be standing here today. It was a place where the people treated him as an equal, where a man named Jim befriended him. The resident mechanic had come to his rescue to remove the bullets and repair the damage. It was the first time that he had felt human again.
There were times he regretted leaving them, some imperative driving him to keep moving. When he went back a few years later, he found the place destroyed by raiders. He never found out the fates of his friends and it weighed on him.
Skinny seemed to darken with anger, but then his face went slack. “You’re right. Things have been going downhill ever since she walked into my life.”
Darla, clearly shocked, shot back, “What are you saying, Skinny?”
“I’m saying we’re through toots, over, done.”
“Fine,” Darla shouted in a high pitched squeal, her grip on the baseball bat tightening to the point Nick thought it would splinter in her hands. “I don’t need you, you… fat ass!” She slammed the bat down hard on the floor and it bounced, then she turned and stormed off.
“They always gotta hit ya where it hurts,” Skinny said with a sigh before returning his gaze toward the duo before him. “Look, I’m gonna give you to the count of ten to get out of my sight. You’re not gone, we turn you into Swiss cheese!” he finished, beginning the countdown.
Nick and his new friend fled to the exit ladder and climbed up and out of the vault into a clear skied winter afternoon. It was downright freezing. Not that he could feel it, but extreme temperatures were just as much a threat to his old architecture as it was for humans. Nick took a deep breath, feeling the air go into his non-existent lungs from memory, then looked at the woman standing quietly before him.
“So, how did you even find me?” he queried.
“Your secretary Ellie told me,” she replied, her breath pluming like clouds.
“Huh, I should give her a raise.” His eyes narrowed in thought for a moment. “So, may I know the name of my rescuer?”
“Stephanie Lans.”
The world shifted out of focus. Nick could physically feel circuits misfiring throughout his body. A memory of a racing heart beating loudly against human ribs, the lightheadedness of hearing some piece of information that is so foreign or so disturbing that the room starts to spin. He had already had a flash of recognition and tossed it into the impossible pile. But this? The exact same name as Jenny’s sister? He was sure at that moment if he were human again, he might have fainted.
