A/N: Sorry for the amount of dialogue taken from the game, but I really wanted to write Nick into Vault 118's wacky murder mystery since he is, you know, a detective. Plus we sorely need some sillier content right about now.

In The Last Plank, rising for breakfast at 1:38pm isn't unusual. Debbie's still serving porridge, and directs all emerging patrons to the glasses of water clustered on the bar. It isn't because Kaelyn slept in, but because it takes hours to scrape up the willpower to rise. Nightmares live in her her sleep, stalking her not with black eyes and hot atomic breath, but with half-remembered whispers. A shadow of a smile. Bright lights and a baby's giggle. Upon waking, the possibility melts away like a castle of sand in a coastal gale, stinging her fingers as it crumbles.

Valentine welcomes Kaelyn to his table in the common room and she drops into the seat beside him without ceremony. As comfortable as his shoulder is, and as generous as he is to lend her use of it as a pillow, she's on the verge of going back to bed when a Miss Nanny floats into The Last Plank and makes a beeline towards them.

"Pardon me, but are you the detectives I've heard about?"

"That's us," Valentine says. "Sounds like we may have another case on our hands. What seems to be the problem?"

"I haven't been able to find any of the local police force, the louts!" It's always a coin toss whether pre-war robots recognize the Great War took place, and this one is a firm no. The Miss Nanny's voice drops as she continues, "While I don't want to start a panic, we may have a murder on ours hands and require an investigator."

By this point the few occupants of the common room are either staring in curiosity or glaring at the noise, but Valentine ignores the onlookers. "Where did the murder take place and who was the victim?"

"It was at the Cliff's Edge Hotel, north of town. We want to keep it out of the tabloids, but it's Ezra Parker, the financier of the hotel. You must help us—every moment we tarry puts our other residents at risk!"

"I need to consult with my partner a moment, then we'll meet you at the gates." When the robot has taken her leave, Valentine chuckles once. "Maybe we should set up a second agency out here? Sure seems like folks need a detective or two."

Holding back a sigh, Kaelyn presses her fingers against her temples and tries to think. Even the simplest of tasks have become more difficult with the cold-stone grief hanging around her neck. "Who are these residents she spoke of? Do you think the murder happened before the war and she's still following her programming? The people staying at the hotel can't possibly still be alive."

"Only one way to find out." When Valentine looks her over, his gaze is too knowing. "Up for the job today, partner?"

She wants to say no. Go back to bed. "Sure. You need backup out there. I'll grab my gear."

Moping has never helped and never will. Ten minutes later, she's geared up and ready to go. Before they step outside, Valentine touches her arm. "All drugged up?"

Kaelyn pops a couple of rad-x and breaks the seal on a water canister to wash down the foul-tasting capsules. The Miss Nanny, who answers to the name Pearl, leads them along the road that winds around the grand hotel. Kaelyn's the only one huffing, cold air clawing her throat, but the Fog dampens the sound. Pearl floats ahead, the flame of her jet propulsion more visible than her milk-white casing. No matter how Kaelyn tells herself not to stare into the Fog, not let herself be trapped by its mesmerizing tendrils, she has to shake herself more times than she'd care to admit. It's too easy to get caught in the gray and stop thinking.

Kaelyn murmurs, "Do you think there's something about the Fog, maybe its radioactivity, that affects people's minds? Or is it psychological—only you and a world of white..."

Valentine says, "Sure is lonely out here. A man could go mad with nothing to distinguish any which way."

She doesn't tell him that she likes the forgetting.

The Cliff's Edge Hotel is still a magnificent sight to behold. With its swirling circular architecture, it manages to reek of affluence while betraying its arrogance. No doubt it had been designed by an architect with an eye for sleek contemporary trends and no understanding of Maine's rustic charm. While the hotel was intended to be a monarch poised on a mountainous throne, it's now a wasted elder who hunkers in its place, pretending to be relevant.

They step up to the grand entrance that is littered with disturbingly familiar construction gear. Kaelyn's stomach drops.

A vault elevator sits in the center of the car park.

"Well, well. This place just got a lot more interesting." While Valentine's voice is casual, he rests one hand at the small of her back. No matter the layers of leather, ballistic weave and fabric separating them, his touch burns.

Bolstered by his presence, Kaelyn prowls as close to it as she dares. The platform has jammed on its bearings, cutting off access to the vault below. Her gaze travels between the elevator and the hotel. Already her nerves tighten, warning her away from the frigid cavern and its lying promises of shelter. "I have a bad feeling about this."

Pearl waits for them by the foyer. "I must warn you, some of the guests are a bit, hm, rowdy. I was forced to defend myself when one was a bit handy, shall we say. The registered patrons are in an exclusive area of the hotel and do not associate with this rabble."

Kaelyn shares a look with Valentine before they check their weapons. "Ferals?"

"Ferals."

Pearl leads them through the hotel, complaining about the absent cleaning staff, the detours they have to take, and the 'grabby residents'—her term for the feral ghouls lurking in the hallways. In another time, it might have been amusing to hear the patrons capable of affording the Cliff's Edge Hotel referred to as 'rabble'. Even after two hundred years of neglect and radioactive fog, the decrepit finery is a far cry from the cramped little motel Kaelyn recalls from the Singh family vacation.

After trekking through a number of detours that included the roof of the hotel, they discover working elevators. Pearl says, "This leads to the exclusive area of the hotel. You should feel quite privileged they will be allowing you in."

Keeping her face lawyer-smooth, Kaelyn asks, "Can we proceed to the crime scene?"

The elevator spits them out at a wide hallway. The temperature down here is cold. Subterranean cold. At the end of the corridor, a set of double doors open to a man-made cave with a platform painted blue and yellow.

She dabs at her running nose. Her feet are cold.

Connecting Kaelyn's pip-boy to the the control terminal doesn't unseal the entrance, but the speaker squawks to life. For a moment she thinks it's Codsworth, until it hits her he must be another Mr Handy. "Greetings! Welcome to Vault 118. Your home away from home, underground! Are you the detective we sent for? Oh, thank goodness. Let me just open the door for you."

The lights flash and the gear rolls away with a colossal creak. Dusty curtains of once-rich velvet flank the vault entrance while a chandelier throws gaunt light through the cavern. As Kaelyn steps onto the catwalk, she can only think, What a waste.

Indeed, Vault 118 is unlike any vault she has ever seen. If a little sanctuary under a hill was too good to be true, she now wonders what the price is for a place like this—for its oozing exorbitance is surely bait to lure in the elite of society as Vault-Tec's subjects. The Mr Handy, Maxwell, greets them and leads them to an atrium; unlike the functional meeting room of other vaults, this one has a number of velvet-draped tables arranged to have a clear view of a stage and silver screen. There is not one speck of dust to be seen.

Valentine shifts on his feet beside her. "Almost like the war never happened in here. Almost."

Just shy of the stage is a ring of protectrons guarding the crime scene. Kaelyn cranes her head to see the body and—

Oh no.

Another robobrain, this one still alive, wheels out of the room with a sigh, and the protectron that escorted it to the exit returns to its position. At Maxwell's command, the protectrons part to allow the detectives access to the crime scene. Ezra Parker, the victim, has a blue striped tie and no distinguishing features other than the broken head dome. Cause of death: trauma to the brain. The obvious weakness in these robots' design. The carpet underneath his chassis is a halo of preservative fluids and blood. Dark spots lead away from the site, blending in with the Persian pattern.

"Heads up." Valentine crouches beside the nonfunctional robobrain. "I guess someone wasn't a fan of robobrains. At least not this one."

If not for the watching robots, Kaelyn's returning quip would have been: And who is a fan of robobrains? Glass shards grind under her boots as she follows the trail to one of the tables pushed against the wall. Lifting the burgundy tablecloth reveals a blue baseball bat, one end mottled with fluid and blood. "Huh."

Valentine strolls to her side. "Would ya look at that. Maxwell, does this belong to anybody?"

"Oh my, that's Mr McKinney's! I can't see him capable of such a thing! You'll find him in the movie studio."

In the corridor, away from the atrium with its bright lights and Maxwell's expectant gaze, the enormity of the situation dawns on Kaelyn. She's in a vault full of robobrains, tasked with finding a murderer. Despite having run with Valentine before, she's never been on a case like this, so far beyond her amateur ability. She stops, running her hands through her hair. "I don't know where to begin, Nick."

Valentine's face softens. "We've got the murder weapon, which makes for a good start. Now we question the residents, suss out who wasn't a fan of old Ezra. We have the means—" he swings the bloody baseball bat "—so now we need motive and opportunity. Paying the movie star a visit is a good place to start."

The film studio is equipped with what must have been the latest in props and equipment. On the stage, two robobrains are arguing.

"Why did you do that to him? He deserved better than that!"

"You think I'm stupid? That I didn't notice the way he looked at you?"

Kaelyn raises an eyebrow, but Valentine shakes his head and jerks his chin to the active camera. He leans against the wall and they wait until the robobrains call it quits. That's when Valentine steps in. "'Scuse me? Keith, was it? I understand this is yours. Care to explain how it ended up as a murder weapon?"

Upon brandishing the baseball bat, Keith McKinney says: "Someone is clearly trying to frame me for the murder. It's probably Santiago. You saw him skulking around the crime scene, no doubt."

That's as much as they can glean from Keith, so rather than alienate him this early Valentine opts to gather statements, and a concierge directs them to the locations of the other residents. Kaelyn and Valentine walk the halls; the lavish wallpapers and decorations are beyond obscene. Underneath the veneer, however, lurks traces of Vault-Tec, enough to remind her at every turn of the honey trap she stands in. But for all the money sunk into these halls, no one thought to install a damn heater.

Valentine mutters, "All these vaults run together for you too?"

"No." She remembers them all. The only commonality between them were the innocent people who became test subjects.

The other residents, all drawn from the upper crust of society, are as snooty as they are eccentric. Every robobrain they question is suitably aghast at the murder and denies any involvement.

Santiago, the one they saw being escorted away from the crime scene, is an artist with a single-minded devotion to his craft. "Well, well, well. If it isn't the long arm of the law. Tell me, are you a devotee of the arts? Does that cruel muse call you to her entrapping bosom?"

"What?" Valentine's face scrunches. "Maybe it's predictable, but this long arm of the law wants to talk about the murder. We saw you loitering around the crime scene. Care to tell us about that?"

Santiago tsks. It's a mystery when he doesn't have any teeth, but he does. "There will be plenty of time for that talk later. We have more pressing questions to be answered."

Kaelyn steps past Valentine, briefly touching his elbow as she passes. "Don't mind my associate here. He has no appreciation for art."

Santiago lights up at once, his gears practically quivering. "Ah, I knew I saw a spark in you. All these years I have been trapped with these boors who have no understanding of the allure, the power art holds over us."

As he wheels to one of the paintings on the wall, Valentine throws Kaelyn an unimpressed look. She shrugs and follows the robobrain. The walls, the floor, even the reactor core are covered in paint splashes. Stacks of used and new canvases piled as high as Kaelyn's hip have been pushed against the walls to make walkways wide enough for a robobrain's tread.

Santiago says, "Tell me. What does this piece say to you?"

Suddenly grateful for every impromptu debate she ever endured in law school, Kaelyn examines the squiggles on the canvas with all the pomposity she can muster. She'd once had a friend who loved art, but this Santiago is a creature far removed from Susan's grounded humility. "The bold colors, the shapes… they suggest movement. Energy. Passion. It's the struggle of composition, to maintain order when our emotions fight us."

"Indeed. This is the final entry in a series of portraits I made of Gilda. Number one thousand three hundred and seventy eight."

Santiago leads her to a dozen other paintings, demanding her opinion on each one. Kaelyn improvises as best she can until he is satisfied. Then, and only then, does she ask: "Santiago, we saw you returning to the crime scene. Tell me what that's about."

It all pays off when he cries, "It's for inspiration! The others don't like to consider it, but we will all die one day."

"You find the scene of a murder inspiring?" Valentine asks, his upper lip curling. But he subsides under the look Kaelyn throws him.

Wandering to the 1378th portrait of Gilda, she digs through the nearby stacks of paintings. They are entirely dissimilar—some are life-like portraits of a robobrain, others depict a blonde woman, and there are yet more abstract pieces like the one on the wall. "You've made many paintings of Gilda. She obviously inspires you too."

Santiago sighs. "Our Gilda is a singular creature, detective. I admit I was smitten with her for a time."

Clasping her hands behind her back, Kaelyn examines the painting on the wall for a date. She isn't entirely sure if this line of questioning will prove fruitful, but Keith was rather quick to blame Santiago. "And when did you finish your final painting of Gilda?"

A pause. "Four days ago. Do you know what Julianna Riggs said of it, detective? That a toddler could make this! A toddler!" He makes a rude noise. "Julianna must still be in a foul mood after her dramatic fight with Ezra. You could hear her banshee shrieks all across the hotel!"

That catches Valentine's attention. "Do you remember what they argued about?"

"Blocking out Julianna's drivel is a vital skill if one is to survive in this place. If you want to know more, Gilda could probably tell you. She knows everything that happens around here. But I tell you, detective, Julianna's one you should be looking at. That philistine wouldn't know art from her own excrement."

Deciding that robobrain excrement is a mystery she can live with, Kaelyn says, "I'll take that under advisement. Thank you for your time, Santiago."

Back in the corridor, Valentine half-cocks his head, and there's something sly in the gesture. "Are there any machines you can't charm?"

Kaelyn leisurely looks him up and down, from the top of his hat to the smirk on his lips to his muddy boots. She arches an eyebrow and all but purrs, "The answer seems to be no. Am I wrong?"

Valentine's low chuckle sends a thrill up her spine. "No. No, you're not."

His eyes seem to glow brighter, warm and gold, and she feels inexplicably awkward. Clearing her throat, Kaelyn glances away.

Their next visit is to the actress Gilda, but it takes some wandering to find the zone marked Beach. The facade of a beach house opens to a well-lit cavern that slopes down into clear, cold water, and the far wall is painted in a lackluster mimicry of an ocean horizon. One robobrain idles at the foot of a recliner.

Gilda's single eye skips over Valentine after a perfunctory glance and settles on Kaelyn. "Well, well. I haven't seen anyone with a body like that in a long, long time."

Kaelyn clears her throat. "Thank you." I think. "My partner and I have some questions about the case."

Gilda shifts on the sand as if trying to stretch, and Kaelyn gets the distinct impression she would be pouting if she could. "Surely you'd prefer to hear stories of my extensive acting career instead of some dreadful murder?"

When in doubt, use flattery—something an old colleague told her. "As much I would like to, Ms Gilda, we have a murderer on the loose. I need to catch them before they harm anyone else here. Your safety is of the utmost priority." Dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, Kaelyn asks, "Apparently Julianna and Ezra had a big argument before he died?"

The prospect of gossip is enough to lure Gilda into talking. "Oh ho! Yes, it was fever pitch, detective. She had apparently gone to the Overseer's office to check on the state of things. But, and this is where it gets interesting, she found something that really set her off. If only I had been a little closer—I would love to know what it was. Wouldn't you, detective?"

"Oh yes. There's one more thing, if you don't mind: Keith's baseball bat was found at the murder. Do you know how it got there?"

Her voice is a mix of blandness and derision. "I couldn't say, detective. I can't see Keith killing Ezra." When they're ready to leave, Gilda gives another pointed look towards Kaelyn—or, more specifically, her human body. "I'll be around, detective. Languishing from your inattention."

When they're past the showers and almost to the corridor, Kaelyn blinks. "Nick. Did a robobrain just flirt with me?"

"Remember what we said earlier about you charming machines?"

"I take it back. There are machines I don't want to charm."

The involvement of the Overseer's office proves intriguing, as it's the first mention of Vault-Tec among the residents, not to mention it begs the obvious question of how a half-dozen robobrains ended up in Vault 118. As it turns out, the latter question is soon answered by Bert Riggs, Julianna's husband. The entrance to their quarters is framed by a decontamination arch. When the spray clears, it reveals a room filled with antiques with a narrow path to navigate around the furniture. They walk in on the tail end of an argument between two robobrains—one Julianna, the other Bert.

Bert turns and wheels to the door, where he almost runs Valentine over. "Oh my, detectives! Did you need something?"

While he proves useless on the subject of Julianna's argument with Ezra, it turns out he was one of the project leads on the robobrain design. When Kaelyn asks about robobrain aggression being a possible cause of the murder, his answer strays into a tangent that Kaelyn, expert of dissembling witnesses and pontificating lawyers, can hardly follow. However, one part catches her attention: "The modulator allows us to recreate our human voices, or even mimic any human voice. Maintaining our original voices helps reinforce the neural network and preserve our sense of self. Hence we don't have the, ah, quirks of the earlier models."

Kaelyn stops herself from glancing sideways at Valentine. Is that how his voice mimics the original Nick's? "That's all, thank you."

Julianna hunkers between the shelves of the labyrinthine store room. Regarding her fight with Ezra, she says, "Oh, it wasn't that big of a deal, really. He wanted more money to pay for the hotel repairs. As I was getting sick, I lashed out at the poor man when I should have listened."

Kaelyn and Valentine trade looks.

With the door to the Riggs' quarters firmly shut behind them, Valentine says, "Now that was a decidedly different take on the argument. Notice how she downplayed? Either it's hindsight, or she's trying to avert suspicion. I'd say it's high time we saw the Overseer's office for ourselves."

In a quiet hallway beside the atrium sits a staircase and, with a glance to check no resident or concierge is about, Kaelyn and Valentine slink up to the office. The change is almost immediate: the walls are bare of anything other than rust. In a twisted way, Kaelyn's thankful for the faded blue and yellow decor. This at least is familiar. Expected.

She already has her screwdriver and bobby pins ready for the door to the Overseer's office. Three bent bobby pins later, it hisses open to admit them. The Overseer's office shares the luxurious decor of the vault below, with enameled wood veneer on the walls and a spacious timber desk that a skeleton slumps over. Any papers have since disintegrated, but the terminal is still in working condition.

With a sideways glance at the skeleton in the vault suit, Kaelyn accesses the terminal logs. As always, she can't help but read the Overseer's directive: Vault 118 is designed to test the social interactions between the ultra rich and working class when under confined conditions. The latter subjects are to be taken through the exclusive areas of the vault upon entry, but thereafter confined to the cramped second wing.

Skimming the Overseer's personal logs reveals one of the residents overrode the vault control system so the local subjects couldn't be admitted, and the Overseer later took their own life rather than be trapped with freshly created robobrains.

Kaelyn's shoulders slump. "It was awful they locked the vault so no one else could get in, but... is it bad I'm grateful Vault-Tec couldn't experiment on those people?"

Valentine heaves a sigh. "Can't ever be grateful for someone's untimely death, but from what we know of Vault-Tec, the chances of a happy ending down here were between zero and none."

She busies herself with the terminal again and notices there's a holotape slotted in the tape deck.

"Construction of the second wing of the vault has stalled. Once the premiere section of the vault had been completed, funding dried up. My supervisors informed me they haven't received payments form Mr Parker, and Vault-Tec won't pay out of pocket to complete the construction. Ezra keeps telling me Mrs Riggs hasn't transferred the funds. But when I asked her, she said she just gave him extra for the gold paint."

Valentine nods. "Now that's what we call a motive. I doubt Julianna thinks she should have been nicer to the man stealing her money."

But instead of crossing the atrium to the Riggs' quarters, Kaelyn notices a room they haven't searched. The classroom. Bert has retrofitted the place into a crude laboratory accessible at robobrain height, and he startles when he looks up at the door. "Detectives! D—did you need something?"

On an impulse, Kaelyn blurts, "Have you noticed Julianna acting strangely recently?"

"Oh, well, I'm probably just being paranoid but she's been so much more pleasant lately." Kaelyn and Valentine trade raised eyebrows at that. "It's nice, but unnerving. I'm worried something has happened to her. She doesn't seem like the same person."

That gives Kaelyn pause, alerting some quiet instinct in the back of her mind. "What do you mean, doesn't seem like the same person?"

"My wife has always been a harsh woman, detective. I don't know who is in our room, but that is not my wife." He turns away and, voice strained, begs. "I don't want to talk about this anymore. Please just go."

It hits her, then. For a moment she feels lightheaded with discovery. Dragging Valentine to the darkened stairwell, she whirls to face him. "Julianna didn't murder Ezra. Ezra murdered Julianna."

Valentine doesn't bat an eyelash. "Quite the accusation. Walk me through it, detective."

"We've been thinking in reverse: if Julianna had motive against Ezra for stealing her money, he'd have motive to silence her. Julianna discovered Ezra was embezzling their money. She confronted him, and it was bad enough that other residents heard them arguing. So Ezra murdered her and took her place. Mr Riggs said the vocal modulator could recreate any human voice."

Valentine's face is smooth, offering no indication of whether she's right. "What about the murder weapon? Movie star boy?"

"A red herring. Keith has no motive for murdering Ezra. The only person he might wish harmed is Santiago, since he's obsessed with Gilda."

"And what about our crime scene-snooping artist?"

"A little creepy to be poking around the body, a little weird about his art, but I don't feel Pickman Gallery vibes from him."

Valentine nods then, pride warming his features. "Good. I wondered if you'd notice the vocal modulator switcheroo. We have one way of confirming all this. Let's pay Julianna a visit, shall we?"

It's only when Valentine makes to move that Kaelyn realizes how close they're standing. His coat brushes her thighs and under her hand she can feel the mechanics that whirr in his chest in lieu of a heartbeat. If she tilts her head up, she can count the scars on his worn face. Kaelyn steps back, flexing the hand she just removed from his chest. Her fingers tingle.

Julianna is still guarding her worldly belongings, her solitary eye sharp and shrewd. "Hello, detectives. Did you have a question about the heinous murder?"

With what they now know, her words feel like a taunt. Kaleyn keeps her face impassive. "You're the murderer, aren't you?"

Julianna giggles. "That's just silly, detective. Why would I want to kill Mr Parker?"

"Because Mr Parker wasn't murdered—Mrs Riggs was. Isn't that right, Ezra?"

Silence. Julianna seems to consider her options. Then her voice drops to something masculine: "Shame. I thought I could keep the ruse going a while longer. Ah well. This doesn't have to end in violence, detectives. Just let me walk away. You don't have to die defending outdated ideals."

"From what we've learned," Valentine snaps, "you've been running your scam long before the bombs dropped. So I'd say the old rules still apply!"

Kaelyn knocks him out of the way as Ezra shoots. Two cat cremation urns fall off the mantle, throwing up plumes of ash that make Kaelyn cough. Valentine regains his feet, pistol in hand, and Ezra wheels to track him. Red lasers sizzle the hem of Valentine's coat as he dodges. Grabbing a poker from the fireplace, Kaelyn smashes it down on Ezra's head dome. The tank cracks and preservative fluid spurts out. She brings it down again and again, shattering the dome completely. Glass shards slice into his brain, tiny spots of red blooming as fluid spills to the floor.

Ezra shudders and goes limp.

Kaelyn lowers the poker. Her tongue is icy with adrenaline. "Are you all right, Nick?"

He inspects the charred holes in his trench coat. "Few burns. Nothing major."

She tosses the poker to the ground with a clatter. "I guess that's it."

Valentine rests a hand on her shoulder. He gives her a smile, the lines around his mouth creasing in a well-worn path, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "Good work, detective. You've got Sherlock's deductive reasoning."

For the first time, Kaelyn notices how good he looks when he smiles, and a tiny thrill of heat skitters through her belly. His lips are as worn as the rest of him, with only their shape to distinguish them from his face, and Kaelyn wonders what they would feel like. Would they be soft or rough?

She clears her throat. "That means a lot, Nick. Now let's get out of here. I can't feel my toes."