1.
The strange thing was that Harkness had dreamed about her even before they'd met. Numbers, drowning, a girl. In his dream, the girl had died, but it wasn't his fault. It was the seasons that killed her. Spring, summer, Autumn, winter. (But it wasn't real, it was just a side effect - the implanted memories of someone distant, someone long gone. Someone else saw the girl die. Not him.)
The stranger thing was that the girl arrived at his city three days later, bloody and limping, pleading for him to tell her where Dr. Li could be found. Harkness thought she was a savage, at first, one of Madison's experiments gone wrong. The girl, she said her name was Nim. She said it was a nickname, short for something, but she forgot.
He laughed. How could you forget your name?
But the girl, Nim, later she told him that his memories weren't even his.
2.
"Didn't you ever wonder why you don't have a heartbeat?"
"Zimmer's dead," Harkness snapped, "so is this conversation."
"I killed him. You owe me at least an answer."
"Yeah, well, everyone's so trigger-happy these days."
"Self-determination is not a malfunction, that's what you said."
"You've got it backwards, Nim, I never said that. A3-21 did."
"You are still A3-21, Harkness."
"The day you first came to Rivet City, you said Nim was short for something, but you forgot," he brushed her off, "Stop being so self-righteous. We all need to forget, sometimes, so we have room to remember. Other things. More important things."
"Nikola. Like Tesla. Like death rays, thought cameras. It's what Nim's short for."
"Here's the thing, Nikola," Harkness said, "you preach about humanity and heartbeats and memories when you don't think twice about killing people and blowing up towns."
"I blew up one town, Harkness," she muttured, "It was…a dark time for me."
"Yeah, and here's the thing, Nim," he said, "Every day is a dark time for me. See, Nim, I'm more human than you'll ever be."
3.
(Still, it didn't erase the fact that he saw her die. Maybe in another lifetime, maybe in a lifetime to come. In his dream, she was dead and he wasn't, and he shouldn't have felt guilty, but he did.)
4.
One day, Nim just left. They said that she was out to save the world. A one-man Trinity. Harkness just had to laugh. Poor kid couldn't even save herself.
5.
The day the first shipment of clean water arrived, Harkness realized that the girl never came back. (He didn't put two-and-two together, of course. It was just an observation.) The radio said something about the vaultie, the Lone Wanderer, it said that she activated some purifier. Saved the Capital Wasteland. Clean water for everyone. Biblical prophecy come true. Revelation 21:6. Alpha and Omega.
Harkness suddenly remembered the 101 sewed on her jacket.
6.
The strange thing was that Harkness had dreamed about her before they'd even met.
The stranger thing was that androids couldn't dream.