At The Precipice Of Something New

Something Promising

Vault 114
November the 14th, 2287
23:23

In his line of work, everyone knew the dangers of taking on any case, especially missing person's cases in the Commonwealth, and most especially missing person's cases out of Diamond City.

What Nick Valentine had not known was he would himself become a missing person.

Vault 114. It was never going to be a particularly pleasant place, not with the people he knew would be there, but he hadn't expected it to be something of a living hell. He had not expected, either, to find the woman he had been sent to find had left of her own accord. Shit, Darla, how many times have you caused your parents to have to send people after you? First the 'Pillars Of The Community' nonsense, then Covenant, and, now, this? Finding you on your way home from Covenant was the only good thing about that. Those people seemed unsettled by me. But this? Taking up with a meat head like Skinny? You have got to be kidding me... He sighed, and sat down against one of the tables stuck in the room he had been locked up in. The room was larger than he had expected it to be, but had grown to be little more than a slightly nicer prison. At least, compared to the prison in Diamond City. Wonder if they've got the young woman who writes the paper still locked up in there. She's a good one, Piper, and she doesn't deserve to be constantly in and out of prison. He sighed, and took a look around the room. The Vault 114 Overseer's Office. Had Vault-Tec been successful, the Vault would be filled with either wealthy or formerly wealthy people. It wasn't entirely clear, not from what he had been able to find in the room.

Vault-Tec and the Vaults were, themselves, a rabbit hole he had begun down at more than one time over the past three decades alone. Being locked in the Overseer's Office of a Vault would have, at one point, been something of a dream. This, however, was far from any good or mildly intriguing dream.

"You going to let me out of here, at some point, Dino?" Nick finally said, caught somewhere between boredom and annoyance. "Or are you just going to leave me in here until Skinny gets tired of this damn charade?"

"Skinny knows what he's doing," Dino said, kicking against the magnetically locked door. "This excite you, Valentine? Some sounds of metal getting beat?"

"You talking about me?" Nick scoffed. "I'm not just metal, Dino," He said, losing all of the sarcasm in his voice. "I'm a synth. Synthetic man. All the parts, minus a few red blood cells. How many chems are you on? Or is Skinny still hoarding chems for himself?"

"If you mean you got an idea of where Marowski's chem lab is, then you'll probably be able to get out of here if you cough that up," Dino replied. "Unless you've been lying all this time and are just waiting for the Institute to come get you."

"The Institute have no interest in me, I think we'd know by now if they had wanted me," Nick told him. "If they wanted something to do with me, they would have come and found me sometime sooner after they wiped my damned brain somewhere around a century ago. Make of that what you will, Dino, but I'm far from an Institute priority, if that's what you're thinking."

"Keep running your mouth, Valentine," Dino said, rummaging through one of his bags. "It will be at least entertaining for me, whether you're lying or not. Why don't we get back around to the thing that might actually get you out of here: Marowski."

"Marowski is a pain in the ass who has his lackeys muscle people up around Goodneighbour," Nick said irritably. "I've had a few interactions with him over the years, and they weren't good. He's never been a fan of me, and certainly not enough to show or tell me about where he makes or keeps his chems."

"Great," Dino said, lighting up a cigarette. "What else are you lying about?"

"Why would I lie about something that stupid?" Nick said, rolling his eyes. "You really think I wouldn't hand over Marowski to Skinny to get out of a place like this? You're even dumber than I thought."