It wasn't that he had killed Nate or that he had taken the infant she had given birth to. It was that he knew her name. The name she thought she had left behind her. Alice had tampered with Codsworth's memories to erase his knowledge of her former identity and as for all the people who had known her in the Old World, well they were all dead. But this man knew. He knew and the smirk on his face showed just how much he was enjoying her moment of consternation. "Or is it Alice? I must be confused."
Alice wrinkled her nose at the smell of alcohol and smoke coming from the other side of the table where he was sitting. "Well I guess I don't need to introduce myself since you already know my name is Alice but who are you?"
"My name isn't important, I'm just here to deliver a message from my employer. He wants to arrange a meeting with you."
A meeting arranged by a middleman who didn't want to give his name. It was unusual but not something she hadn't experienced before in her line of work. A few of her clients had required much more discretion than others due to the nature of their profession. Public figures with jobs that were dependent upon their reputation in society. Television personalities, judges, politicians. If word got out about their particular fetish then their careers would be ruined from the public backlash. "All right then. Tell me when and I'll make sure that my workers are taking the day off. It'll just be the two of us at my club."
Her anonymous guest chuckled to himself for whatever reason. "That'll do just fine. He'll be there in two days. I'm sure it'll be quite the experience." He pushed his chair back and headed out the door, that amused look remaining on his face the entire time.
She kept to her word about giving her workers the day off and the dungeon was empty of other people other than her. Alice played a little game with herself as she waited for her mystery client. The middleman had had a dangerous sort of vibe to him, not unlike the Gunner Commander but more deadly. What kind of man was she expecting to come walking through the front door? What kind of person kept someone like that in their employ? A person who was even more dangerous? Someone who was rich and powerful like an underworld crime boss maybe.
What she got was something she hadn't been expecting at all. An older looking man with light blue hair dressed like a pharmacist at the store she had bought birth control pills from. And he hadn't entered through the door in front of her. He somehow had gotten into the dungeon through other means and was approaching her from the interior of the building. "Hello." He started to say that name before catching himself just in time "Alice. It's a pleasure to meet you."
One of the few things she did miss from the Old World was how men behaved in public back then. The way they acted and the way they dressed. So much more suave back then compared to the men of today. Tommy and Hancock were the exceptions she had met so far but Alice hadn't decided whether she found the ghouls attractive or not. This man appeared certainly seemed charming enough at first glance but she could see he was a bundle of nerves beneath his outer demeanor. It must be his first time doing something like this and people getting anxious about it was pretty common but it did mean she would have to put him at ease or things could go badly. "Well you already know my name. Care to tell me yours darling?"
He hesitated for the barest trifle but it was there. Calling him darling must have put him off or some such. "You can call me Father. It's a name my colleagues gave me a long time ago."
Maybe a bit of a joke would help him relax a bit so she took a hold of his elbow while guiding him towards the room that she had prepared earlier "Father? That sounds so... formal. I could call you Daddy if that's what you're into. Is this what we're doing?" Well it wasn't a very funny joke but she needed to know what sort of kink she was dealing with here so it was really more of a fishing attempt really.
Father's brow furrowed and he looked at her in confusion "What? Father is actually what people call me. It's a term of respect and affection. As for what we're doing, I'd like to ask you some questions."
Okay, so that seemed to have flew over his head so it must not be what he was after. Maybe these questions would illuminate what he actually wanted to do with her. She squeezed his bicep and gave him an alluring smile "By all means, you can ask me whatever you want Father."
He still seemed a bit uneasy but being able to ask these questions seemed like it had a calming effect on him "How much do you know about Vault-Tec Alice?"
She shrugged dismissively "Not much really. Some group of eggheads that built a bunch of Vaults before the Great War. I didn't think they were anything but another end-of-the-world is neigh group but then the bombs fell and I ended up getting frozen." Normally Alice wouldn't have said anything about the Vault she had been frozen in but this was a unique situation. She had been hiding the fact that she had lived before the Great War but that man who had setup this meeting had known her given name was Nora. And if he knew that then he must have known where she had come from. And so would Father.
"I suppose that's true in a way but not the whole truth of it. Vault-Tec built dozens of Vaults all over what was then the United States but they all had some ulterior purpose to them. Various kinds of experiments were performed, without the inhabitants knowledge, on the people who sought shelter in them from the Great War. The Vault you were in was meant to study the effects of long-term cryogenic suspension for example."
Well now Alice knew why she had been frozen though she wasn't really fussed about it now. This world had shown itself to be more accommodating to her fetish than the old one had been. No politicians condemning the Combat Zone in speeches for votes, no laws being passed to target them and best of all no police patrolling the streets looking for sex workers. But on the other hand, this didn't explain anything to her about what Father wanted from her, why he was here and what he wanted to do. Time for a nudge. "Soooo this means what exactly? I'm not following you right now."
Father rubbed at his chin for a moment "How to explain? It's a rather complicated situation but I'll try to simplify it. I won't get into the how or why but Vault one eleven was very important to the organization I represent. But what interests me is you personally or rather what you've been doing since you've woken from suspended animation."
Now they were getting somewhere. "What do you mean?"
Now he actually looked a tad bit guilty "I-We've been... monitoring you ever since you left the Vault. We were curious to see how you would respond, what you would do in what the Commonwealth has become."
"You've been spying on me?" Maybe he was a voyeur?
"Not exactly. Their hasn't been anyone following you around but we have informants throughout the Commonwealth and they've given us reports of your progress... and what you've been getting up to. I've read all of the reports several times but I've had a difficult time believing them so I decided to come speak to you myself." His eyes flicked from side to side as he looked around at the dungeon they were in. Was that a suppressed shiver? Father didn't give her a chance to respond as he started talking once more "The records on Vault one eleven stated you had a husband and son who were frozen with you. But according to our informants, you've never mentioned either of them at any point. May I ask why?"
Confession had never made sense to her. Telling someone your dirty secrets to relieve your conscience had been one of the more baffling aspects of the Catholic church. It had never made sense to her, why would people do things that would make them feel ashamed. If you knew something was going to bother you, why do it? Alice knew she had done things that other people would go to confession for but she had never been bothered by it. And yet, for some reason she couldn't fathom, she felt a twinge of unease at the man's question. But there was … something she couldn't quite fathom, something about this man and his question that made the story of how the brat came to be come gushing out of her mouth.
"Nate was a soldier in the Army. He had been fighting in Alaska during the war with China but his unit had been rotated off the front-line and Nate was from Boston so he always came back here whenever he was on leave. I had just started working at a dungeon that he was a regular at and it didn't take long for him to become one of my favorite subs." She smiled a bit at the thought but it quickly faded at what came next. "We had some great times together but one day we had an accident."
Father frowned slightly as he interrupted her "I'm sorry, what did you say? A sub? I must confess to you losing me with this particular term."
"Huh? Oh it means submissive. Basically he spent all our sessions being tied up one way or another. Now where was I?"
Father quietly muttered something to himself as Alice started to pick up where she had left off. Something about 'turning stones.'
She grimaced at the recollection of the worst part of her life "I don't know what happened. Maybe the condom was defective, maybe my pills had gone bad, Nate might have put the condom on wrong or something else altogether. Either way I missed my next period and the one after that. I don't remember everything very well, it's all a blur now but I ended up pregnant and we had a shotgun wedding for the sake of appearances. We had been making plans to relocate to another city and give the brat up for adoption once he was old enough but then the bombs fell and well... you know the rest I'm sure. Does that answer your question?"
Father was silent for a very long time as he stared at the ground. "Yes... yes it does. Thank you for answering my question." His head lifted and he looked at her and then at the building they were in as if seeing both for the first time. "Good luck with...this." He turned and walked into the nearest room shutting it behind him. Alice started to follow along but the door wouldn't open. She twisted the knob again but the door was locked. What was the point of locking her out? He was older so maybe he had gotten confused and gone through the wrong door thinking that this was the way out.
She had all the keys in her pocket so it was just a matter of finding the right one for this particular lock. It took her a minute of trying various keys but she found it eventually. Alice pushed the door open only to find nothing inside. She looked around in confusion for a moment before checking behind the door to see if he was there. Nothing. There was only one way in or out of this room but Father wasn't here. It was as if he vanished into thin air somehow. She frowned and scratched at her head in bafflement. Eventually Alice shrugged it off. He was gone and for whatever reason she had the feeling that she was never going to see him again.
It was his loss though, choosing not to play with her. Alice closed the door as she backed out of the room and looked around. Her coworkers had been given the day off, Piper was heading back to Diamond City and she had no idea where Cait had gone off too. It was just Alice here. Alice and an oppressive silence as she waited. Waited for the people who would be coming.
They had to.
