"Are you mad!?"
"At this point, probably. So what's the harm, right?"
It took two days for Rose, Hancock, and Dogmeat to get back to Boston. Rose had radioed ahead to let Nick know they were coming, telling him to meet them at the Old State House in Goodneighbor since Hancock wasn't welcome in Diamond City. The detective had been dismayed to hear that Rose hadn't recovered her son, but was optimistic that the cybernetic implant she had recovered from Kellogg's head might prove useful. He suggested that they bring it to Amari in the Memory Lounge… and her reaction went about as well as could be expected.
Amari held a hand to her head and closed her eyes. "Rose, I know you have been through more than anyone should have to endure, but you are asking me to defile a body! And you do realize that the memory simulators require an intact, living brain to function?"
"Well, I mean, technically the body was already defiled," Rose said, a tad sheepishly. "Nick says it could work still, right?"
"This brain had inside knowledge of the Institute, Amari," Nick said. "You need this, and so do we. The cybernetics have been keeping the tissue alive, at least. It's not a whole brain, but it could be something."
"What is this?" Amari asked, her scientific curiosity getting the better of her as she took the implant from Rose. "This is the hippocampus! I don't even want to know how you got your hands on it. And is this a neural interface attached to it?"
"I think so. Will it work?"
"I'm not sure. I've never done anything like this before. But some of the circuits look familiar… this is Institute technology, correct?"
Nick nodded. "Apparently old Kellogg was half-synth himself, with all the tech they stuffed into him. No wonder he lasted for as long as he did."
"Hmmm." Amari studied the small piece thoughtfully. "It's a long shot, but all Institute technology is designed to work together, shares a similar architecture. We could potentially wire this into Nick's mainframe… it should be a simple question of plugging it in."
Rose's brown creased in concern. "Isn't that dangerous?" She glanced at Nick. "I can't ask you to do that if it's going to mess with your mind."
"There is a tremendous amount of risk," Amari admitted. "We'd be attaching foreign tech to his brain. I can't begin to predict what the effects might be."
"Don't worry about me, Amari," Nick said stubbornly. "Let's do it."
Rose opened her mouth to argue, but knew it wouldn't do any good. Instead she opted for a shaky smile. "Thanks, Nick. You don't know how much I appreciate this."
"You can thank me when we've got your son back." To Amari, he said, "Alright, let's do this."
Amari had him sit down on a chair next to the memory pod, and began to tinker with the back of his head.
"If I start cackling like an old, grizzled mercenary, pull me out, alright?"
Rose groaned. "That's not funny, Nick."
"I need you to stay focused, Mr. Valentine," Amari said. "Any slight change in your cognitive functions could be dire. Are you feeling any different?"
Nick frowned. "There's a lot of flashes, static. I can't make sense of any of it, doc."
"That's what I was afraid of." The doctor straightened. "The pneumonic impressions are encoded. It appears the Institute has one last failsafe."
"Is Nick gonna be okay?" Rose asked worriedly.
"Yes, Mr. Valentine should be fine. The connections appear to be stable; hopefully it will be as simple as unplugging the implant once we are done. But that doesn't get around our current problem." Amari paced for a moment, clearly thinking hard. "The memory encryption is too strong for a single mind to break on its own… but what if we used two?"
"Excuse me?"
"We can load both you and Mr. Valentine into Memory Loungers, and run your cognitive functions in parallel. He can act as a host while your consciousness drives through whatever memories we can find."
"I'm gonna be inside Nick's mind?" Rose looked doubtfully at her synth friend. "I'm not going to see Nick in any, uh… compromising positions, am I?"
"If a smart mouth was all it took to solve problems, we'd have found your son by now," the detective replied, giving her a wry look.
"The only memories you'll see are the ones in the implant," Amari assured them.
"What do you think, Nick?"
"You know I'm game," he said, giving her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "Shifting through Kellogg's memories is a small price to pay if it means getting your son back."
Overcome with gratitude, Rose grabbed her friend in a hug. "I'll never be able to thank you enough for this, Nick."
"Anything for a friend," he said kindly, briefly returning the hug before steering her towards the memory pod. "I'll see you on the other side."
Rose settled into the memory pod, and fought a spike of anxiety as she tried not to remember stepping into her cryo tank. Dogmeat whined beside her and pawed at the glass, unhappy about being kept out of the pod. She heard Amari's voice telling her to relax, and then the outside world blurred away to nothing.
"Thanks for holding down the fort while I've been gone, Fahre."
The heavily armored woman snorted. "Yeah. Took long enough to get your ass out of the picture."
Hancock chuckled, knowing she was joking. "Keep talking like that and I'll think you haven't missed me."
"Oh, I'm sorry, did I hurt your feelings, princess?" Fahrenheit lightly cuffed his shoulder. "I guess it's good to see you back. Gets a little dull here without the resident junkie mayor to liven things up." She studied him wryly. "Though from what I hear, life's been anything but dull for you lately."
"Been keepin' busy enough," he said noncommittally. "Actually, you gotta hear about this one thing…"
Hancock's reply was cut short as the doors to the Memory Lounge burst open. They watched as Rose fled like a bat out of hell into the alley on the side of the building, Dogmeat hot on her heels. A couple of seconds later both Nick Valentine and Doc Amari came out, looking concerned and slightly guilty at the same time.
"Better go find out what's ailing your little vault-dweller this time," Fahrenheit said disinterestedly. "That chick's been nothing but trouble."
"Yeah, but she's my trouble," Hancock replied, heading across the street to talk with the other two.
"What the hell happened?" he asked Nick. "I just saw Rose fly out of the Lounge like she OD'd on Ultra Jet. What gives?"
"It appears she had a negative reaction to one of Kellogg's memories," Amari explained.
"What? You mean you two actually let her inside that freakshow's head?"
"There was no other way to get the information, John," Nick said gravely. "Kellogg's memories were locked down; we needed two minds to break the encryption."
"So this was your idea?"
"It was mine, actually," Amari said. "I warned Rose about the risks beforehand."
Hancock groaned. "Yeah, but that don't mean nothing. Rose would throw herself in the path of a mini-nuke if she thought it'd get her son back. Any idea what she saw?"
"She relived the murder of her husband through Kellogg's eyes," Nick said, distress heavy in his voice. "She held it together long enough to find the information we needed, but as soon as Amari woke her up she bolted." He looked over to the alleyway. "If it's any consolation, I don't think she's having a post-traumatic episode… I think she probably just didn't want us to see her break down."
"Because that's so much better." Hancock rubbed the back of his neck, uncertain of what to do. Handling fear was one thing… grief, on the other hand, was something he'd never been good at.
"Look, why don't you guys go back inside. I'll go talk to her," he said at length.
Nick nodded approvingly. "If you need us, you know where we'll be."
It was dark enough in the back alley that Hancock wouldn't have been able to see Rose if she hadn't moved. She had wedged herself in the farthest corner, curled up as tightly as she could manage. Her arms were wrapped tightly around Dogmeat, who solemnly stood vigil beside her. With her shoulders shaking from barely suppressed sobs, she looked more like a lost little girl than a hero of the Commonwealth. It was heartbreaking to see.
Hancock walked over and sat down next to her, awkwardly rubbing her back because he couldn't think of anything else to do. Rose didn't acknowledge his presence beyond a startled twitch when she felt him sit beside her. She cried herself out, her renewed grief pouring through the wounds that had been opened again in the memory simulator.
After what felt like at least an hour, Rose's sobs had quieted to a low whimpering and the occasional hiccup.
"Nick told me what you saw in there," Hancock said into the silence, his raspy voice soft.
Rose took a deep breath and uncurled herself, rubbing furiously at her tearstained cheeks. Dogmeat tried to lick her face but she gently pushed him away. "I didn't know it was going to be like that."
"The memory simulators are pretty impressive," he said in agreement. "Never been in one myself, but I've been told that it's like jumping back to the past."
"You can feel things in there," she said, staring at her hands like they were no longer hers. "I thought I'd just be seeing things happen, like in a movie, but it was like I was Kellogg. I could hear his thoughts, like he was talking to me. I felt his emotions. I could feel his finger pull the trigger when he shot Nate."
"Jesus," Hancock said, eyes wide.
"He didn't feel anything at all when he killed my husband," she continued in a shaky tone. "Not anger, not sorrow… nothing. He shot Nate as easily as he breathed."
"Spending a lifetime as a scumbag will do that to you."
"That's just it, John; he wasn't always that way," Rose said. "I saw memories of his childhood, of his life before he was a mercenary. I know that he lived in California, that his father was an abusive drunk… I know that at one point he had a wife and a little girl who were killed by his enemies. I know that he gunned them down for revenge, just like I did." She looked up at him, red-rimmed eyes burdened with too much knowledge. "I know all of these things about Kellogg, and he didn't know a single damn thing about my life or Nate's before he destroyed it all."
"You're not sayin' you regret killing him, are you?"
She shook her head. "No. It's just… I never thought I'd be this person. And now it's like I know Kellogg, and that makes it worse. Understanding how he got to be what he was… it's just adding guilt on top of fucking everything else."
"Listen to me, Rose," Hancock said, taking her firmly by the shoulders. "Don't you dare go feeling guilty for putting that mercenary fucker down. He got what was coming to him."
"Maybe he did, but it doesn't make being the fucking left hand of God any easier." She closed her eyes, weariness etching long lines into her face. "I just don't want to feel anymore. You know?"
He nodded, understanding but not certain of what to say in response. His reaction to that desire wasn't something he'd necessarily prescribe to anyone else, least of all Rose. But after a few seconds she seemed to pull herself together; she passed her hand over her cheeks one more time and got to her feet, pulling him up behind her.
"I saw something about a scientist named Virgil in Kellogg's memories," she said, her tone becoming businesslike as she forcibly bottled her emotions. "Apparently he was able to escape the Institute; he could be our best bet at figuring out how to get inside. Kellogg was supposed to kill him but thanks to us, he never got the chance."
"Where's he hiding?" Hancock asked, trying not to show how grateful he was for the change in subject.
Rose hesitated, and said, "The Glowing Sea."
Hancock winced. "Yikes. If you ever wanted to go ghoul, that would be a way to do it."
"I think we can do it, so long as I bring a ton of Rad-X and Rad-Away with us," she said, though her voice hitched a bit like she wasn't entirely convinced. "If that scientist can survive out there, then so can I, right?"
"If you say so, doll. Just promise me you won't go dyin' on me out there."
She nodded solemnly. "I won't let that happen. I haven't made it this far to get taken out by a little radiation." She paused, and added somewhat haltingly, "Thank you, for checking on me. And for staying. I don't mean to keep dumping all of my baggage on you." She combed her fingers through her long hair. "I know I'm a mess and none of this is easy and that-"
"Don't mention it, love." He curled an arm around her waist and tilted her chin up towards him. "You know, if you want a distraction for a few hours, I've got a couple ideas that are guaranteed to work."
She blinked, surprised, and slowly a smile began to creep onto her lips. "Is that so?"
He nodded, and began to walk with her back towards the Old State House. "Yep. And I happen to have a pretty big house that we can have all to ourselves."
"Count me in."