Chapter Text
The morning mist caressed the synth's shoulders; rank as an unwashed lover; and held a rosy glow from the eyesore of the neon sign advertising the Valentine Detective Agency. The synth in question was that titular Valentine, one Nick Valentine. Synth, meaning synthetic human, a robot in the shape of a man. He wasn't one of those fancy new generation three models, the ones that perfectly mimicked their neighbors. No, his face was the bottom of a dried up mud pool, his skin leathery and ragged, but holding dulled hatchet-like cheekbones all the same. Metal lay below that had seen better days, but was kept up in shape with his careful hand. The clothes made the man, the clothes he wore made him walk right off the cover of an old world pulp magazine, the ones with titles like "Dime Detective''. A worn fedora, a faded trench coat the color of a deer hide, the loose black tie… yes, he was the very model of a private detective. And he lived up to that title, a man of sharp mind, equally sharp in wit and deduction.
Ducking into the enclosed alleyway, boxed in by dusty brick walls, he let himself into the agency through the front door. That door was kept unlocked, in case he had a client. He had a client.
His secretary had already kept the man soothed, her kind demeanor working like a charm as always. That would be a woman by the name of Ellie Perkins. She had a shiny, boyish face, a ruby cut accentuated by the soft striped scarf guarding her neck. Always reliable, that one, she was durably put together despite her gentleness and had a quick mind. Nick couldn't do without her.
Both client and secretary looked up at Nick's arrival, and Ellie called out with relief.
"Ah, Nick! This is Mr Brentwood, he's here for his friend."
The man was the nervous type, as his little brown eyes darted around the room and looked Nick up and down, then up and down again. He hadn't seen Mr Brentwood before, and the way he openly gawked, he must not have seen a Gen 2 synth before. Nothing Nick wasn't used to.
Mr Brentwood had a soft handsome face, though about ten years past its prime. Some grey was coming into his close trimmed hair, a sign of pride these days to be able to grow old. Inside the walls of Diamond City, one was allowed to grow old, more likely than the rest of the Commonwealth at least.
"Ah, Detective Valentine?"
"That'd be me. What can we do for you?"
He wrung his small hands, eyes continuing to dart around.
"As I was explaining to Ms Ellie, I came here on the behalf of a dear friend of mine, Georgia Donner. She lies outside the Commonwealth, a town called Irving, along a coastal bay. We exchange over the radio."
Nick seated himself across from him and opened up a pad of paper and began to scribble out notes. "Go on. Tell me everything."
Mr Brentwood's eyes turned shiny through a glimmer of tears. "This morning, she gave me dreadful news. Her son had passed- by murder."
Now, murder in some form or another may as well be one of the natural causes of death in this postwar world. People had an inherent good to them, but they also had an inherent viciousness ready to leap out. Still, there were so, so many ways to die out there that didn't involve another human's hands. From deathclaws to feral ghouls to plain and simple radiation poisoning, there was no shortage of manners to meet your maker.
Nick's expressions were hard for a newcomer to read, not granted much in the way of it as he lacked key facial muscles and the flexibility in his rubber face as the days wore on. Mr Brentwood may have read something incredulous, as before Nick could give his condolences, he stammered: "Not by any raiders, but by someone within the community."
Ellie murmured her sympathies to pass on as Nick asked "So you want me to get some justice? I'd be more than willing to, though I'm usually finding missing persons. Is there anything more you could tell me?"
His eyes glazed over, with a deep breath.
"Georgia is an honest woman, a humble woman. She's made mistakes in the past, hard decisions for survival… but what mother wouldn't give everything for her child? She only wants to mind her peace now, and have peace for her son. But her son, Danny, doesn't- didn't share the same idea of peace that Georgia did. Sure he wanted to keep to his roots, but he wanted to believe in something, some kind of… grander purpose. Well some preacher came to town and swept Danny up, and Georgia supposes it's somehow connected."
Nick nodded along. "I see.. this preacher has the town divided?"
Mr Brentwood gave the huff of a nonbeliever. "You could say that. He airs out his sermons by radio too, and he's out there yelling about a return to Eden from the bombs, about the lamb and the apple. I can't make sense of it myself."
Nick felt a twinge of unease at that, of a familiar line of optimistic religious thought to the nuclear hellfire that had doomed the world. How far and wide had the teachings of the Children of Atom gone? A cult to radiation itself.. made sense in a way for human trains of thought. In the face of nihilism, people retreated back to faith of many kinds. To worship what they feared, clinging to it, keeping it close for comfort. People had to make sense of things, compartmentalize it, put it into something they could understand. Even if it was plain wrong, they could ignore that in favor of banishing uncertainty.
"I'll see what I can do. Now if you don't mind giving me some coordinates… I've got a boat I can take."
"I see I've made the wise choice coming to you Mr Valentine!" Caps clattered on his messy desk. "You are most helpful."
After things began to be more sorted out and Mr Brentwood had left, Nick turned his head with a creak to Ellie.
"You know, the old Nick Valentine had something about that kinda thing. I'm getting a flash."
"And what'd that be, Nick?"
His eyes dimmed, as the yellow optics stared out into space.
"Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly, they are ravening wolves."
He sighed and his metal hand scratched at the loose skin near his ear. "Wish I remembered how the rest of it goes. But, shows that you can't always trust a holy man."
The welcoming party that greeted Nick at Irving was in the form of a couple mirelurks, gigantic hunched crustaceans with a taste for human meat. Meat he lacked, yet some still tried for it. But he wasn't worried or in belief that he should have brought more backup. He could handle himself, though he still grimaced at the thought of fighting off a queen specimen of the crab like creatures. He'd had enough experience with them up in Far Harbour, but that experience came in handy for knowing where to shoot to take them down easily. All along the bay, mirelurks seemed to dwell, with spawn trying to cling to the boat like barnacles. Luckily, the hull held strong against their claws. Nick didn't fancy the idea of having to swim all the way back to the Commonwealth. His metal insides weren't rust-proof.
The wooden dock that awaited him was a sorry sight, part of it reclaimed by the bay, and what was left sagged to meet it. Some half hearted repairs were evident, fresh boards, rusty metal sheets, and log posts, but only one quarter. The rest fended for itself against the elements. Pulling up, Nick tested his weight on the more solid looking part of the dock, and while not inspiring the most confidence, it would simply have to do. Quickly and carefully, he was able to get to solid land. Nobody greeted him, besides distant birdsong somewhere in the green that encroached and lay beyond.
Directly ahead of him was a barricade, made of everything and the kitchen sink. From the natural to the man-made, they'd made use of whatever junk was available to them and then some. It wasn't nearly as impressive or tall as the Mariner's wall, but it certainly seemed formidable enough. The Mariner wasn't alone in the idea of using mirelurk shells against them, he noticed while studying the barricade's features, trying to find an entrance.
Suddenly, muffled by metal and with a strange echo, a tired voice called out.
"Hello? Are you the one called Nick Valentine?"
"Are you the one called Georgia Donner?"
"Yes, how did you know?"
"Lucky guess. Any way for me to get through here?"
In response, the trunk of a prewar car popped open, revealing a tunnel. The entrance was easily big enough for Nick to get through, but the rest was a tighter squeeze, made of some type of sewage pipe. Thankfully, no refuse or smell remained. On hands and knees, Nick made his way through, and emerging on the other side he was greeted by a stooped and haggard woman.
Her face was flattened and worn, scarred and welted, even more beaten in than most roaming the Commonwealth. This was the face of a woman who had been hit by everything that the post apocalyptic wastes could offer. The main sign of life in the bent woman was the ruddy flush to her skin. Though, it wasn't as much a rosy glow as it was a red rash. The broken capillaries in her nose proved a roadmap to the alcoholic nature of Georgia Donner, and the rough scarrage and shreds that were her hands showed one reason why. She was a woman kicked down, and with the loss of the son, it was obvious that she wasn't getting up. The woman reeked of booze and her eyes unfocused, not even flinching at the sight of Nick.
"So you're some kind of mechanical man?"
The slight bewilderment at the end of it made Nick wonder just how long the Institute's arm was, if it had made its way here yet.
"A synth."
That brought no recognition or spark of any emotional reaction, so perhaps not. That was a relief as any.
"A what?"
"Never mind, I'm a mechanical man. A synthetic one."
Georgia had bigger things to worry about then Nick's humanity, so let it go, easy as that.
"You're here to nick whoever did… that to my boy?"
She wasn't even trying to be clever about that, an unintentional pun. Nick's lips quirked with amusement.
"Yes, I am Detective Nick Valentine. I assure you, I will find whoever did this."
He offered a hand to shake, but Georgia didn't take it, even though the hand offered wasn't the one of exposed metal. Nothing he wasn't used to.
"Now, I'm sorry, but I am going to need to ask you some questions. We can do that somewhere more private and comfortable-"
"No. Out here, away from everyone. That's better."
Nick couldn't quite understand that. Maybe it was better to be away from the town, away from all those people, but here they were out in the open. The woods were thick around them, almost allowing for a second barricade.
Here in the clearing, the bare trees were still extending their shadows towards them. It gave the feeling that despite the quiet and shock-still surroundings of the clearing, the thick brambles muffling any noises beyond, they still had company listening in.
"Tell me exactly what happened that day, the devil's in the details. I know it may be painful, but I need to hear it."
The woman's defeated look only increased, not making any kind of eye contact with Nick, just staring into the woods with a strange paranoid intensity as she talked.
"I used to work with collecting lumber, as long as my back lasted. Now I just do tool repairs, gotten good at that after spending years taking after my own. Danny was my apprentice, but he'd been learning to shoot with Collins. He went out to practice early that day, gone before I woke up. When someone ran to me that afternoon to tell me the boy was hurt awful bad, I thought it had to be something to do with that gun. But no… it was much worse."
Nick nodded, jotting down notes. "Go on. So he was found relatively quickly?"
"Yeah, doc says he died only some four hours prior. Give or take. They had his hands tied behind his back, kneeling down… he was hit in the head, placated.. before they slit my baby's throat ear to ear."
Georgia's hands quivered and her voice wobbled, stricken by a spasm of grief.
"Worst of all that damn vine from hell was already taking up root. Feeding on the blood spilled."
Her lips parted, baring teeth like an animal at the woods that harbored whatever vine she was talking about.
"But in better shape than that girl they found this morning. She'd been murdered too. Go ask the doc about that one."
"The killer struck again?" Nick said with surprise.
Georgia shrugged, eyes not leaving the woods. "That's your job to find out. Whole town's going crazy. Maybe we're all just going to fall on each other like mad dogs."
Nick nodded in sympathy. "Ain't that just the way… people do crazy things when they're scared. It'll make any good man a sinner."
That statement seemed to drive into Georgia, as she flinched at it.
Her gaze flickered towards Nick once more.
"He never did anything wrong. Not a soul against him. Who'd go and do a thing like that?"
"Some people will just spill innocent blood, though they'll tell themselves otherwise. Or worse, they don't." Nick had seen all manner of it in the Commonwealth, and even before the war. But after the war, it was a thin line to walk between just surviving and becoming a cold blooded killer. He could understand how it happened, how the harshness of the landscape warped a mind, he'd seen it enough. It might be a dog eat dog world but…
"I'll find who did that to your boy."
… he had his job to do.
A question nagged at his mind, as Georgia led him back to town. What did she mean by a vine from hell? Another monstrosity cooked up by the post war landscape?
As he glanced at the trees, he swore they seemed to flex themselves, a brief contortion. Under a sharper look, there was nothing to it. Maybe it was his optics glitching. Maybe it was the wind.
But he couldn't shake the feeling that the trees were leaning in, especially as they headed down a narrow path where the ground yielded beneath his feet, suggesting some other medium than earth and leaves. Looking down, it wasn't anything more than just that.
Nick wasn't human anymore, but damned if he didn't feel a shiver up his spine.