Begin Recording

Clues

Recording by Scribe Ellison

By the time we staggered back into Diamond City Piper and I had been awake for way too many hours and been in a very long fight. Even Dogmeat was lagging. Valentine went home for a probably-tearful reunion with Ellie and Piper and I tried to sneak into Publick Occurrences without waking Nat. We might've managed it except that Dogmeat decided Nat's bed had enough room for him too and crawled in with her.

I was awakened far too soon by Nat poking me, "Em, wake up! You have to get ready. You've been invited to a wedding!"

"Don't know anybody to invite me." I argued, and tried to keep sleeping. But I could hear Dogmeat clicking around, Nat clanking the printing press and—oh joy!—a shower running. Diamond City running water! That was enough to get me up. Piper emerged grime-free and I took my turn to wash up. Nat had washed my vault suit and gave me one of Piper's dresses to wear while it was drying and to this mysterious wedding. It felt strange to put on a dress again, I'd gotten used to pants and the weight of my gun harness.

Just outside a small crowd of citizens was gathered outside the chapel. All in their Sunday best, which means prewar clothing, patched suits and faded dresses. Nick was there too, still in his detective trenchcoat but Ellie had on a sequinned top and a long skirt, and she was arm in arm with Nick, slightly romantically and slightly like she wanted to make sure he didn't escape.

Ellie hugged us and tied a ribbon on Dogmeat so he'd be dressed up too. "You saved my boss and my job… thank you."

"Our pleasure, Miss Ellie!" Piper said.

The wedding began and the bride and groom came out of the chapel—Mr. Zwicky from the school and his robot assistant Miss Edna. A human marrying a handy. I had told her to believe in love, just an aside when we chatted in the schoolhouse but I hadn't thought love might mean… love. Cogsworth certainly has a personality but I'd never think of him as falling in love. he's made of metal! Back in my time there were whispers if two people with different skin colors married so I had to work to keep shock from showing on my face. Nobody else seemed upset, except for a few upper-deck types at the edge of the wedding party so I decided to think about that later and just enjoy the ceremony.

It was short, Pastor Clements said the 'love, honor and cherish' stuff and the bride and groom said 'I do' and everyone cheered and threw razorgrain kernels. The bride tossed her bouquet of hubflowers and Myrna caught it but I think she must have decided they were synth flowers because she gave it to Nat.

After the wedding Ellie said, "Noodles for everybody, I'm buying!" So we ended up sitting around in Valentine's Detective Agency while Nat took Dogmeat to introduce to her friends. There weren't a lot of dogs in Diamond City then. There are more now, and Nat has two of Goliath's pups to guard Publick Occurrences when Piper's away.

While watching the rest of us eat noodles Nick asked, "About your missing person. You want to start now?"

I nodded and looked down at my noodles.

Piper tipped her head towards the door, "You want I should vanish?"

"You can stay. Just, this isn't an article all right? Not yet anyway, maybe later but not yet."

"Off the record, Blue." Piper said, hand on her heart.

"What do you want to know, detective?"

"Everything." Valentine rumbled, "Everything you can tell me. No matter how… painful it may be."

I took a breath. "We're looking for my son Shaun, a baby, not even a year old. While we were frozen in the vault… something happened, I woke up for a minute and I saw them take Shaun from my husband. When Nate tried to stop them he—shot Nate—"

Piper put her hand on my shoulder and Ellie said, "It's ok, you don't need to say anything more."

Valentine was all business but I swear I could see sympathy in his yellow eyes. "The first thing I see—why your family in particular? And why an infant? Someone would be taking on all of his care, and a baby needs a lot of it. And we're talking about a group cold hearted enough to kill, but not eager. They waited until something went wrong to resort to violence. Whoever it was, they had an agenda."

"Do you have any idea who could do that? This isn't my world."

Piper looked at Valentine and made an apologetic face. "Well Valentine's gonna say I have a one track mind, but raiders and super mutants aren't big on plans with details and Gunners aren't the type to change diapers and that leaves..."

Valentine sighed, "Yes, that leaves the Institute."

"The Institute? Synths? What would they want with my baby?"

"No one knows, but no one knows why gen-ones wipe out whole towns or why people turn up replaced. No one knows what their plan is. Not even me and I'm a synth myself. A discarded prototype anyway."

I had been curious about that. And curious about what Nick was and everything about him. Nick is so solidly Nick, he's the opposite of everything I'd heard about synths. "You're a prototype?"

"Best I can figure. Woke up in a pile of trash with all these detective memories in my head, but I know what I am. A synth who's a detective. But we're getting away from the case at hand. What did these kidnappers look like?"

I thought back, the memories were fuzzy and overwhelmed by how cold I'd felt. "The man was dressed like a wastelander, he had a leather harness like mine and some kind of metal brace on his arm. The woman was wearing some kind of hazard suit. White. Really bright white and clean."

"That's interesting. The man could be a merc, but not many of them could afford a fancy white hazard suit."

Piper put in, "I've seen radiation suits but they're all yellow. Never seen a white one."

"Good point, Piper. Could be something very specialized. Em, what else can you tell me about them?"

"The man spoke to me. Or just close enough for me to hear. I'll never forget his voice, low and rough. He said something about 'the spare.' I don't know if he meant me or… I don't know."

"Well that's spooky."

"He got close? Did you see his face?"

"Bald. Stubble, but that's half the guys out here. Scar across his left eye." I drew a finger over my own eye and cheek.

Valentine straightened up suddenly. "Wait. It couldn't be. Em, you didn't hear the name 'Kellogg' at all did you?"

"I don't think so. But I only heard him when he was up close."

"Still. It's way too big of a coincidence. Ellie, what do we have on the Kellogg case?"

Ellie handed over a file, "The description matches. Bald head, scar, reputation for dangerous mercenary work but no one knows who his employer is."

Valentine continued, "And he bought a house in town, right? And he had a kid with him didn't he?"

Probably everyone heard me gasp. "A kid? Is he here?"

Ellie looked at the file, "A boy about ten years old. I don't remember what he looked like, sorry, just one more kid in town."

"Are they still here?" I was half standing up, ready to go look.

But Valentine shook his head, "They both vanished a while back if I'm remembering right, but the house is still there. Let's you and I, and the nosy reporter if she wants to come, take a walk over to Kellogg's last known address. See if we can snoop out where he went."

So we did. It was late afternoon and I could feel the lack of sleep starting to drag at me underneath the excitement that was keeping me going. Suddenly everything I saw in Diamond City was something Shaun might have seen. Was he the child? Had I been frozen for ten more years since I saw him taken? It didn't feel like ten years, it didn't feel like any time at all. But if he was ten now I'd missed his first steps and first word, missed being there when he started school. So much.

But since waking up in this new world I'd had to revise my dreams, and I could do it again. It would still be all right. When we found him Shaun would be old enough to play with Dogmeat and Preston would probably want to start teaching him Minuteman survival tricks. If Shaun had lived in Diamond City he'd probably want to stay here, and he'd have to finish school. So we'd get a house here for a few years before moving to Sanctuary. I could see a life in Diamond City. Ellie had already hinted that Valentine could use a partner, and I could see that. Maybe there would even be some way to use my law school training. We'd be all right.

Ahead of me Valentine pointed the way we were going. "I didn't want Ellie to hear this, she worries about me as it is, but you should know. Everything I dug up on Kellogg before his disappearance is bad news. He's more than just a mercenary, he's a professional. Quick, clean, thorough. He has no enemies, because they're all dead. Except you."

"He's an assassin?" Shaun had grown up with an assassin?

But I hadn't said it loud enough for Valentine to hear me and he continued, "But nine to one odds says he's our man. It's more than just you identifying that scar, the MO is all him as well. Leading a small team to kidnap a baby and leaving one of the parents alive for later? Not many mercs in the Commonwealth could pull that off. Here we are."

I'd been busy listening and walking and hadn't really seen where we were going. We were up in the stands somewhere but not the upper stands. This place was cluttered and the paint was peeling. We were in front of a plain metal door. Valentine knelt and said, "Keep an eye out will you? Let me see if I can get this open." He tried his lockpicks and Piper and I watched for security guards.

"You any good with locks, Blue?"

"I could open the door of my dorm room with a bobby pin and a butter knife. Of course our dorms had the cheapest locks in the world. You?"

"Security keeps taking away my lockpicks, I never get a chance to practice."

Valentine said, "Well that's bad news ladies, because this is one heck of a lock. Almost like Kellogg's got something to hide. Why don't you give it a try?"

So I tried and Piper tried and the lock didn't budge. Finally I said, "We're not going to be able to open this. Anybody know where the key is?"

"Maybe." Piper interrupted herself with a big yawn. "But we can't try it until morning. Sorry Nick, I think us flesh and blood people need sleep."

So we decided to regroup tomorrow and I apologized for crashing on Piper's couch again and she said if I kept making life this interesting she'd find a mattress for me.