Fallout : Discoveries
2 - Senses
Noun: any of the faculties, as sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch, by which humans and animals perceive stimuli originating from outside or inside the body.
Curie eased herself down onto the worn out chair, feeling rusted springs squeak beneath her as she crossed her legs and folded her hands. Throughout her centuries as a medical Miss Nanny, she had often been called upon to share her perspective with her fellow academics. It was to be expected, really – she possessed not only a wealth of information, but also the sentience to break a stalemate when needed.
She often had two core opinions in her work – the first was, if there wasn't enough information available to treat an infection, further study must be conducted. Secondly – if she ever had the chance to escape her cramped and enclosed workspace, she'd take it. Even if she had to lie to herself and pretend they were Vault-Tec security.
She reasoned that this was why she was feeling such an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu, as Piper popped a mouthful of bubblegum and sharpened her pencil, squirming back and forth in her chair to get settled.
"I'm flattered that you want to interview me, Mademoiselle Piper," she smiled, when inside she was starting to feel a nervous energy bubbling. She had begun feeling it more and more of late. When she was tinkering away at her little chemistry station, slowly working on her formulas. Or whenever she saw her Saviour looking in her direction, and wondering if they were admiring her body as often as she admired their distracting form.
Never mind the number of times she had sat bolt upright in bed, breathing in short, shallow breaths and wondering if she had heard someone close by. It probably didn't help that she had begun to sleep undressed, using the stillness of the night to furtively touch her delicate breasts and clitoris. A problem which would have evaporated if she had simply stopped.
Curie just didn't want to stop. Irony of ironies, she had mused one evening, riding the wave of her climax with a hand against her sweaty brow and her tingling folds. She had existed as a robot for centuries. And now, within a week of becoming a human, had become absolutely infatuated with orgasms.
"Well, I'm flattered you're up for it," Piper grinned, popping another bubble before scratching her pencil along a sheet of paper. "You know, your story is almost as unique as Blue's. Locked away in a Vault since the old times… Have you read that one yet?"
"Oh, yes. Once or twice." 'Seven times,' she thought. Curie often frowned upon casual fibbing, but could appreciate it was one of the many blessings of her sentience. "But I do hope you won't be… publishing this? Monsieur Valentine tells me that within Diamond City, they do not care for us Synths."
Piper continued chewing her gum, nodding away as she made a few more stokes of her pencil. "Don't you worry that pretty little head of yours," she mumbled from around her candy, missing the Synth duck her head bashfully. "This one's between you and me. Think of it as a record, 'kay? I've just been dying of curiosity to talk to you about it all, you know?"
"Oh, but of course! Curiosity is one of the reasons I had to do this, you know." Piper grinned that easy grin again, and Curie felt herself relax. It summoned to mind old memories of hovering in the air, while Doctor Collins would ask her opinion and be pleasantly surprised at how much self-awareness she expressed. Those first few steps of feeling more than a machine, like a newborn blinking at unfamiliar light.
She hugged one of her knees and smiled, waiting for the questions to begin. She appreciated the reporter more than she let on, now.
The sense of smell was something that she had begun to take a keen interest in. She had learned long ago that it was often the most powerful sense a person was capable of. How everyone tied certain smells to ideas and memories. All it took was one little whiff of fragrance to stimulate the mind, the same way the sounds of a keyboard clicking or chemicals bubbling reminded her of Vault 81.
As Curie travelled with her companions, she found herself taking such mental notes about them. Piper often had a mild scent of sugar from her snacking and fondness from Nuka Cola. Until she paused to light up a cigarette, and the smell of smoke would smother the other scents.
Nick Valentine had a similar smell – how the prototype Synth inhaled smoke without lungs was a mystery she was rather interested in solving, if she wasn't so sure it would offend the detective.
Cait smelled strongly of alcohol – the stronger spirits like whiskey that tickled her nose and left her wrinkling it. Codsworth had a constant scent of burning ozone and oil from his propulsion jet, and she privately dreaded to think the others remembered her that way from when she was a Miss Nanny.
Her Saviour smelled of mild sweat and gunpowder, and Curie wondered if her nose was 'malfunctioning' since she rather enjoyed the combination. But already her mind had begun to associate them with new experiences. Exploring empty buildings and securing areas for the Minutemen. The hectic firefights they often found themselves in. The aftermath, when she would often feel a hand slipping around her arm and a look of warm concern. A soothing voice asking if she were okay.
Mild sweat and gunpowder made the nervous, exciting, buzzing energy in her tummy rear up once more, leading her mind to wander about. Faces and moments and memories would bubble to the surface of her mind. Happy thoughts. Significant thoughts. People smiling with relief as they found out they were part of something bigger. Miss Edna, floating off towards her beloved teacher with a new found confidence.
A quick smile and a playful wink, after telling the struggling school teacher Miss Nanny that love was so very important.
Curie's threadbare flannel shirt had picked up the same smell of gunpowder and salt. Of blood iron and stimpack's and the earthy scent she had begun to associate with adventure. Of an evening she would pull it up over her pale breasts and inhale deeply, kicking her bare legs at the mattress and writhing as she teased herself to new heights of ecstasy. She would close her eyes and imagine the object of her affection was there with her, using their battle-worn hands to bring her closer and closer to her climax.
Curie bit down on her shirt to muffle her cry, curling her fingers inside her wet folds and hitting a delicate spot as she came apart. Her legs collapsed against the bed, toes wiggling and muscles twitching as her arousal stained the bed even more than it already was.
"Mon dieu," she breathed to herself, pressing her hand against her bosom and feeling her heart beating a staccato rhythm. "I really am becoming an addict." The thought was as worrying as it was laughable. She pulled her damp panties up her legs, wondering if she had what was known as a 'dry' sense of humour.
She wondered what she smelled like, too.
"Let's talk curiosity," Piper said, crossing her leg and leaning forward. "You said you 'needed' to make the switch to human for the sake of… what was it?"
"Inspiration," Curie answered immediately. "My duty is to science, Mademoiselle Piper. To medicine. But, I could not learn beyond what I saw as fact. I needed to see what else there was. To test the untested. Things that programming blocks would forever impede."
The journalist nodded, making scratches along the pad and silently mouthing words as she went.
"So, you needed –"
"Curiosity, yes."
"Right." Piper nodded, jotting another notation. "How's it been so far?"
"I don't know where to begin," Curie laughed, cheeks growing warm as she did. "Everything is so… distracting! Now that I can finally seek my answers outside of science, I'm finding myself with infinitely more questions."
"I can only imagine," Piper nodded. "You know, I asked Blue about how it went but they're not talking – just gave me the 'none of your business' run around, if you can believe it." She rolled her eyes as Curie gave a polite nod, internally breathing a sigh of relief at the newest information. She was still embarrassed at how dramatically she had reacted to her chest rising and falling as she felt her new body breathe.
"So – what was the first big discovery?" Curie blinked as her awareness came back, noticing that Piper was leaning forward expectantly.
"The first? Well…" She licked her lips, trying not to blurt out about her nocturnal hobby. 'That would be stimulating myself to orgasm, actually,' she thought before willing the truth away. "Actually, when I first stood up. My legs felt like a newborn deer! It took me some time to balance on them."
Piper's brow furrowed. "A deer? What's that?"
"Ah, like a… a radstag?" A look of understanding dawned on her face and she nodded, scribbling more notes. Curie let out a breath that she didn't know she was holding.
Of the many places she had visited since escaping her prison in Vault 81, the Cambridge Polymer Labs were certainly a favourite of hers. Centuries of disrepair and Ghoulified staff members left the entire building in a shambles, to be sure. But the air was recycled and the labs were fitted with microscopes and clipboards. The lobby was spacious. The monitors full of information.
Curie felt right at home.
And her Saviour looked quite distracting in an old lab coat, which the Miss Handy Molly had insisted be worn. Because after all – if one was to engage in science, one must look the part, no?
Her newfound perversion must have been worse than she thought, because even as they collected samples and read notes, her mind kept wandering to other kinds of science she'd prefer to be doing. Perhaps where the professor pulled the medical student aside, sitting them down on the edge of an empty desk and lowering their mouth towards-
"Found it!" Curie squeezed her eyes shut, willing her libido to behave itself. She watched as the hazmat suit wobbled towards her, wet with irradiated Ghoul blood and holding a tiny vial triumphantly.
"That's most certainly what we're looking for," she smiled, accepting the sample as it was offered to her. This was better, she thought. This was familiar and fun – the pursuit of knowledge. The testing of alchemical formulas. It made her-
"You look so happy," she heard, looking up as the hazmat mask was lifted off. Ordinarily pale features looked flush and damp from sweat, and she remembered just how hot a safety suit supposedly was. But the warm smile and twinkling eyes left Curie feeling much hotter – of that she was sure.
"I don't know what you mean," she sniffed.
"Yes, you do," they chuckled, pushing the rest of the suit down. "It's nice. You were born to do this kind of thing."
Born – she wasn't born at all. Not really, unless someone were to count her recent conversion as a spiritual rebirth. Perhaps they did. Perhaps they just thought of her as another person. And people just used the word 'born' instead of 'made.'
She bit her lip and gestured towards the main laboratory.
"After you," she urged, thinking again on the phrase they used. Born. Just when she thought she couldn't hold them in high enough regard.
"What do you think is the most important thing for curiosity?" Piper made an underline on her page as Curie hesitated.
"Intelligence. A gifted mind will see opportunities where others may not, non?" She found intelligence attractive, as well, but decided against volunteering that information.
The samples were drained into the machine – alloy mixtures blending together as the tarnished power armour plate slid behind thick glass and lead plates.
"We have more samples if we need to do it again," she hummed, watching as the metals began to infuse.
"I don't think we'll need them," she heard instead. There was a noise of exertion – a light grunt – before the new chest plate was lifted off the conveyor belt. Iron now glittered with gold under the flicking lamps. "Experiment successful, hm?"
Curie's jaw dropped an inch, admiring the brilliant finish on the plating. The alloys blended almost harmoniously. After over two hundred years of waiting, they had come along and completed the experiment.
Her heart thought it might flutter right out of her chest.
"One last question – what do you think makes a good person?"
"Kindness," Curie answered immediately, smiling at Piper's own curiosity. "Selflessness. I think it's important medically, but it's vital to a person's character."
"Hope you don't mind me saying, but your clothes are getting a little worn out, Curie."
She was certain her cheeks could glow in the dark. It was true – her flannel top had sported a rip through the middle, exposing a sliver of skin along her navel. The breeze she felt lapping at her skin did nothing to calm her nerves.
Worse yet – the rip appeared after a particularly powerful orgasm from two nights previous. She bit her top and arched off the bed, pushing her fingers deeper inside her slickened core than usual.
Blasted gunpowder and sweat.
"I guess I haven't noticed?" She gave a blushing, almost apologetic smile, reminding herself that they couldn't read her thoughts.
"Well… here. I picked it up back at the test centre. Found it in one of the labs and thought it would suit you." A bundle of clothing was pushed into her hands and she slowed her steps, running a hand over the familiar Vault-Tec logo embroidered on the chest.
Her eyes went saucer-wide as she examined the clothes. Not a worn out lab coat, like the one that had been left behind. These were medical clothes. A crisp, white shirt that recognised doctors wore. Virtually the same that had been left behind in Vault 81, worn by hew fellow scientists until their passing, when she had folded them up and lay them atop their graves.
Curie had to keep herself from jumping and throwing her arms around their neck in gratitude. But she did weep and say thank you no less than a dozen times on the way back to Sanctuary Hills.
She kept her worn out flannel shirt, rolled up into a neat bundle to use as a pillow. She rested her head on it, inhaled the familiar scent of gunpowder and sweat and them, and relaxed. And, as she so often did now, she let her hands wander down to caress her breasts and tease herself.
Curie had entertained many thoughts since her 'rebirth.' Lurid and emotional and sometimes just fantastical. But that evening she was slow and gentle with herself. Pinches were strokes. Swirls were delicate brushes.
Intelligent and thoughtfulness was, she decided, definitely 'her type' of person. The kind who made everything better and brighter, who made her happy.
She opened her eyes long enough to spy her new clothes nearby once more, on the back of a chair, before relaxing into her pillow and getting lost in her thoughts. Intelligent and kind and slow and gentle. That was how she treated herself, slowly easing her fingers in and out of her wet folds until she shook with her orgasm, sighing and stretching and glowing with satisfaction.