Met Halfway (Fallout 4 One-Shot)
On a breezy spring evening in the Commonwealth, a woman sat along the edge of the Charles River, her back facing Back Street Apparel. She took off her socks and shoes, placing them nearby, before gently dipping her feet in the water and studying the sensation of the water flowing around her extremities.
"It seems the water feels… cold. Interesting."
"You might want to be careful with how long you keep your feet in the water," came a man's voice in a wary yet protective tone. The woman turned her head to find the source of the voice, not expecting to see a worn-looking robot who possesses human features. "If the radiation doesn't get you, the mirelurks just might."
"Hello," The woman cheerily greeted the metal man, scanning him up and down. "I have not seen a Commonwealth creature of your kind, although you share similarities with other specimens I have encountered in my travels. I hope you are not hostile."
The man gave the woman a quizzical look and stayed a safe distance away from the cheery traveler, but he had a feeling she could be trusted.
"Around here, I'm one of a kind. The name's Nick Valentine, detective of Diamond City."
"Pleasure to meet you, Nick Valentine! I am Contagions Vulnerability Robotic Infirmary Engineer, Or CVRIE. Well, I was, but now I am much more than that."
One of the words stood out more than the rest, but Nick decided this woman had a story or two to tell. Who was he to refuse the truth? Nick sat down, briefly gazing at the nearby wreck of the USS Constitution before turning back to the woman.
"'Robotic'?" Nick asked. "Are you one of those synths who was guided by the Railroad to a normal life? Or whatever counts for normal in this Wasteland of mutants and monsters."
Curie had a look of contemplation, mixed with several emotions that shuffled across her face, before taking a breath and answering the question.
"It is a long story, but I can give you a condensed version. Up until roughly two months ago, I was living in Vault 81, trapped there with nothing to do. You see, I was programmed, created in a sealed-off part of Vault 81. My bosses, three scientists, instructed me with developing cures and treatments for various diseases. Alas, the scientists died after being trapped along with me for so long a time. Over two hundred years of the same walls, the majority of which I spent alone! Then, by miraculous fate, a Vault-Tec employee found a way in and gave me a command that permitted me to leave." Curie's face emanated gratitude towards someone from a memory.
Nick almost couldn't believe his ears.
"Are you telling me you were freed by someone from Vault-Tec after two centuries of neglect? Unless that Vault-Tec employee was the ghoul over in Goodneighbor, I highly doubt it." Nick's thoughts lingered on his words. "Still, I know of stranger circumstances. Continue, Curie."
"This was no ghoul, but a human! Regardless of the species, I was glad to be freed. I was a Miss Nanny robot at the time, created for medicine research and development. But as happy as I was to see sunlight and the sky for the first time, I knew there was something holding me back from being a true scientist like the three who died near me. They were human, and I was not. They had that spark of raw ingenuity, and I longed to have it, too."
Nick gave a quick chuckle.
"Let me tell you something, Curie. If you're a real scientist, you like gathering information, right?"
Curie, not knowing where Nick was going, gently paddled her feet in the toxic stream.
"Oui."
"And you gather the information by breaking things down and studying them."
"Of course."
"I'm a detective. I gather the individual pieces of information and put them together in a way that makes the most amount of sense. Which means…"
Curie's face wrinkled in thought before lighting up in realization.
"We are two sides of the same coin!"
Nick's smile grew with pride for the former Miss Nanny.
"I knew you'd get it. An intuitive leap can get you far, especially in this world. Mark my words."
"I have marked your words in my memory, Nick."
Nick's smile fell a bit.
"I didn't exactly mean that, ma'am," Nick admitted. "Anyway, I'd like to know more about how you went from being a Miss Nanny to flesh and blood. Even with the Institute's technology, a body switch into human anatomy can't be something that gets done everyday like waking up and shooing off the radroaches."
"You would like to hear the rest of my story, then?" Curie asked excitedly.
"Go nuts."
"I was guided to a mind doctor called Dr. Amari," Curie explained. "She is utterly brilliant! Dr. Amari found a viable synth for me to exist in, one with an unfortunate lack of independent cognition, and she used her amazing machinery to transplant my consciousness and personality the brain component, allowing for me to have access to the full range of the human mind! I am now much, much more than merely a robot stuck inside four walls! I am a true person!"
Nick gave a pained smile.
"Nick, is something troubling you?"
There was silence for a few seconds before the detective spoke up.
"I'm more like you than I could've guessed, " Nick stated bluntly.
"How so?" Curie asked.
"It all started over two hundred years ago, same as you. Before the bombs fell, I was sent here from Chicago to track down and catch the criminal mastermind Eddie Winter. I was close… too close… and he killed my fiancée to get me to back off. I wasn't in my right mind after that, so I had my brain scanned so the eggheads could hopefully find a way to help me move past my loss."
"Could they not simply reprogram you or transfer your memories onto a holodisk?" Curie tentatively ventured.
"Believe me, I wish it could've been that simple. No, I was human then. This body," Nick held up an arm and rolled up the sleeve of his coat to prove his point, "was the Institute's work. A prototype for the sort of body you yourself have. The Institute found my scan and plugged it into this body as I was escaping that place. Now I'm more robot than human, just as you're now more human than robot. Anyway, I wandered the Wasteland, eventually finding myself a place to live and work out a decent life. Late last year, on one of my cases, I was held hostsge in Vault 114 by Skinny Malone, some gangster. Wouldn't you have it, some Minuteman shows up and saves my metallic hide, gets me back to Diamond City. Although this Good Samaritan needed a favor from me in return."
"Was there betrayal?" Curie gasped.
"No. It was simply 'I need your help to find my son.' So I tagged along with that Minuteman for a few personal errands. They mostly involved tracking and following clues, but I'll never forget the day Conrad Kellogg's life was over. That Institute scumbag was the key to it all, having a unique component implanted in his brain. I took it to Dr. Amari, but she couldn't analyze it by herself. She needed a method of throughput, and my prototype synth body happened to be just what the doctor ordered. Critical memories pertinent to the case were found, and the kid was, too, eventually."
As dusk approached, Nick and Curie sat at the edge of the river. They were quiet for a few minutes until Curie piped up.
"How did you feel going from your human body to your robot body?"
"Shocked," Nick stated simply.
"Was it the adjustment to a new time? A new body?"
"All of it, really." Nick took off his hat and dusted it. "I thought I had nothing to live for after my target killed the woman I loved, but reawakening in the future… I had even less. Over time, I managed to find Winter and make peace with my past. I know I'm not the Nick Valentine who was. I'm the Nick Valentine who is, forming my own path and being my own person." Nick put his hat back on his head.
Curie splashed some of the water with her feet.
"It is not often I find someone else who lacks the proper boundary between human and machine. There is no cure for this… this…"
"Existential dread?" Nick offered.
"That is it! Thank you!" Curie smiled in delight at the new term. "I will have to add 'existential dread' to the list of emotions I now feel!" Curie pulled her feet up out of the water, noting the pruning effect skin has when submerged in water for long periods of time. "Sorry. I am still quite new to being human. It has its challenges, but I think they are very much worth it."
"For your sake, I hope so. For my sake, eh. Listen, if you've only been human for a few months, you're sure doing a good job of plunging right into the human experience. I've had my time as one, which was fun, but now I've gotten used to being a robot."
Curie stood up and gestured to the ruins of Boston.
"Look at all of this wreckage, Nick! So much to explore and learn! Any one of us could make the future better for all of us with human ingenuity and robotic longevity in good measure. Like Dr. Amari!"
"Speaking of Dr. Amari, I'm making my way to Goodneighbor to visit the Memory Den, and I'd better get going. It's been nice to talk out in the open without a gun to my face"
"I suppose it is getting too dark to safely travel for long periods of time. Oh, well. Perhaps tomorrow. I may visit Diamond City for the night."
Curie extended a human hand, met my Nick's metallic one for a handshake, and they turned away from each other after the handshake.
"Wait, Nick." Curie's hopeful eyes shkwed there was one more thing to say. "Tell Dr. Amari how amazing she is for her work."
Nick's honest and wise face nodded in approval. "Will do, Curie. Hopefully I'll see you around."