Begin Recording

Valentine

Recording by Scribe Ellison

"Piper and I got to the Park Street Station at some unholy hour before dawn. The lights still worked inside the station and we could see someone moving around at the bottom of the escalators. Bad guys, presumably. Turned out to be a gang called the Triggermen, who liked submachine guns. We went down and flattened ourselves against the walls out of sight, listening to the two guards. They were talking about 'the boss' locking up a detective. Piper grinned and whispered, "Knew Valentine was too tough to die. But we're gonna have to take out these guys. Can you do it, Blue?"

I nodded and held my pistol ready. Dogmeat looked up at me waiting for us to move.

So the Triggermen started shooting at us and we took them out. Eventually. After a long firefight that Piper and I spent mostly crouched behind a Nuka-cola machine while bullets came at us like hailstones. Dogmeat really saved the day, I don't know who trained him but he knows to stay out of the way, get up behind the bad guys and go right for the ankles.

When that was over and our ears stopped ringing we went down the tunnel, which seemed much bigger without a train in it. It was cluttered with pieces of things and lots of construction equipment and I remembered Ellie saying this place was being built into a vault. I wondered if people were frozen down here too. Down where the construction had been happening someone had set up some work lights making the tunnel as bright as day. And there was the huge iron door, set upright instead of flat in the ground but just the same as it had been in my vault. One-fourteen. I plugged in my Pip-boy—this thing has authentication codes to open all the vaults, it seems. Smacked the button and the door rolled open. Piper said, "I knew I'd see things if I followed you."

We were not the first people in this vault. Don't know how the Triggermen opened it, but they had. So we had to shoot some more of them.

It was while we were getting our breath and patching ourselves up after that fight that Piper found a vault terminal and found out what this place was really about. The vault was some kind of experiment, something about taking upper deck types who are used to luxury and cramming them together in poor conditions to 'study their reactions to stress.'

That opened up a whole lot of questions I didn't have time to think about then.

We found the main room of the vault, the atrium, just like in those pamphlets the Vault-Tec people gave us. Across the room on a sort of balcony someone was taunting a prisoner trapped behind a round window, in what I think was the overseer's office. The prisoner answered back, something about Skinny Malone and a black book. A distinctive voice, low and raspy. Piper whispered, "That's Valentine. Shoot that guy and we'll go bust him out."

Whoever he was, this last Triggerman didn't seem to have heard all the fighting on the upper level so I thought we might be able to avoid killing him. Maybe threats would work. I reloaded and stepped out, holding my gun ready but not pointing it. "Hey."

"The hell are you?"

"We're here to-"

...get Valentine, I would have said, but the Triggerman's gun came up and Piper shot him. It would probably always have ended that way. Certainly nobody else in the vault had been willing to talk to us. Piper searched his pockets and handed me a slip of paper with a mysterious word on it. Password.

I climbed the stairs and looked through the round window. Nick Valentine called out, "Hey you! I don't know who you are, but we've got about three minutes before they realize muscles-for-brains there ain't coming back. Get the door open!"

The word was indeed the password and the door opened.

Inside I saw the flare of a match and Nick greeted me with, "Gotta love the reverse damsel in distress scenario..." The light fell on his face and I gasped.

Nick is a synth. He's the only synth I've met who looks like a synth. His eyes are flat yellow and metal is visible through holes in his skin. He was holding a cigarette in an obviously metal hand and I wondered how he could smoke, without lungs.

"What… are you?" I couldn't help asking.

"Told you, I'm a detective. Piper Wright, is that you? Who's your friend? Why'd you come looking for me, not that I'm not grateful."

"Hey, Valentine, you think Ellie wouldn't send somebody to bring you back? This is my new friend Em, she needs a detective."

"My baby. My son Shaun was kidnapped, I don't know who by."

"Missing kid huh? You came to the right man, if not the right place. I've been cooped up in here for weeks—turns out the runaway daughter I was hired to find is Skinny Malone's new flame and she's got a mean streak. Anyway, you've got troubles and I'm glad to help. Let's blow this joint, then we'll talk."

Piper said, "There's more coming? Yeah, let's go. C'mon, Dogmeat!" Dogmeat had caught up with us. He saw Nick and his ears went flat, then perked back up as the detective offered a hand to sniff.

Unfortunately there were more. The three of us plus dog went down towards an exit Nick knew about and we ran right into Skinny Malone himself. And the girl Nick had been looking for. She looked younger than me, and was wearing a sequin dress and holding a baseball bat.

Skinny Malone started yelling at us about being king of the vault and how we'd killed all his guys.

The girl looked at me. "Who're you? Valentine must've bribed you to rub us all out."

I gaped. Did I look like a mercenary? I had just 'rubbed out' a lot of people, but I hadn't wanted to. "I'm—I need Valentine to help find my family."

Valentine took that up, "And your family needs you, Darla. Do you really wanna waste your life with these thugs?"

The girl's mouth twisted. "I- I- you're right! What am I doing here? I'm going home, Skinny! This is goodbye for us." and she lit out of there while Skinny turned on Valentine and me.

"Come on Nicky, you cost me my men and now you and your friend cost me my girl! Tell me why I shouldn't gun both of you down right now!"

Valentine shot back, "Because we just did you a favor, you always did have terrible taste in women. Now maybe you'll see sense and let us… all… walk."

Skinny had two other guys with him but Piper had stepped out on Valentine's other side and Dogmeat was growling from cover quite close by. Skinny Malone blustered, "All right, you get to the count of ten! I still see your face after that..."

We ran.

And we made it out. Only hitch was that Nick's secret exit was up a ladder and we had to hoist Dogmeat up. Once we were all out and the maintenance hatch was closed again Nick sighed and looked up. "Ah, that Commonwealth sky. Never thought anything so naturally ominous could end up looking so inviting. Thanks for getting me out, you two. You said Ellie sent you? I should give her a raise. Now, about your case… your son, Shaun? I'd like to meet up in my office, in Diamond City, and you can give me all the details. Besides, I think we all need a chance to put our feet up after all that. You wanna go now or you got somewhere else to be?"

Piper and I looked at each other and I said, "Lead the way, Nick."