Cubed Issue #1, January 2016 | Page 37

While travelling the world of Fallout 4, we managed to pinch a personal holotape archive from renowned detective Nick Valentine. VALENTINE'S DAY SAMUEL MCCOSH I ’m grateful the Diamond City Mayor let me stay after saving his daughter but it’s annoying the heck outta me every time he calls me “Rick” or asks if I “...Dream of Electric Sheep”. Suppose it’s better than the usual wayward glances and mutterings of “Synth” or even “Robot” from a group so scared of what the Institute spits out. It’s a lucky accident that stops them blasting me away like the boogeyman in the dead of night. Still, does make an entertaining story about how I stumbled across the kidnappers. Don’t think I can go “beep... beep...beep” without laughing - even as I write this log I’m starting to chuckle. Maybe it’s the novelty of Synths back then or they had less brain cells then the lowlifes that I convinced I was a ghoul in bad shape, how many ghouls you reckon have wires hanging out of their wrist, need to get that fixed now I think of it. Commonwealth Provisional Government massacre, what a way to stop any effort of government getting back together. Just happened so damn close to when I moved in that folks here think I’m here to finish the job. Keep getting hassled by the city guards when the handyman business send me to fix their water pipes. Not that I can blame them - some of them grew up with the people the Mayor sent off to what became a bloodbath. The guy that let me in was gonna blow me away with that nasty looking shotgun of his until Miss Roberts chimed in and saved this bucket of bolts from kicking said bucket. In the 30 years now I’ve been doing this investigative business I’ve never been dumb enough to go near a Super Mutant den. 30 years, what was I thinking? They got their irradiated mitts on a bunch of what looked like Mark 28 nuclear bombs - hard to tell exactly when booking it as far away from one of them Suiciders as possible. Lucky to be alive; if it wasn’t for this Mysterious Stranger I’d be in as small pieces as what’s left of my pursuers. Never seen anyone move so fast. One bullet and - boom gone as a Super Mutant exploded into little bits. I’m gonna be finding giblets in my hat for the next couple days, I’m sure of it. All of that because some pre-war genius decided to stockpile them in the South Boston Military Checkpoint. Coulda sworn that’s where they t o l d p o o r souls not in one of them vaults to go once the bombs fell. Whatever the case, I spent the best part of a day reattaching my right hand and rewiring it. It’s hard to hold a gun or a pen when your hand is stuck in a balled fist. The bright side of this mess, if there is one to be found, is that the trench coat covers the physical damage, a couple less super mutants roam the Commonwealth which is always a plus, and the mechanic set I found there for the client has already been put to good use. The digs now have a fancy neon sign pointing to my door - moving up in the world, Nick! A name I’ve technically never heard, but the cop Nick, his memories, anger, guilt and loss are all coming back. Eddie Winter, some big time gangster from back before the bombs fell - or rather one of his holotapes was also there. It took a couple days for me to bring up the courage to listen to it and a couple more to complete it, but now I’m sure he’s still out there. Somehow he survived the war. Somehow I’ll find where the scum hid himself and give him justice once and for all. May 15th 2229 - or the Broken Mask incident, as it’s referred to by residents of Diamond City - changed these people forever. The safe stadium walls came crashing down. Literally if you ask Eustace Hawthorne. Sweet old lady, lost her glasses a while back - easiest case I’ve had in awhile, damned things fell down the back of her sofa. Felt a little guilty taking the caps she forced on me for the help. Back on point, 50 years ago today it was confirmed I was an obsolete model. Old Nick here was replaced by those Institute scientists with ones that look human - really human - and with this third generation of Synth machinery inside me, my prototype parts look like the pre-war crap scattered around the city. There’s a new guy in town. Something about him just seems off. Maybe it’s the instincts from the cop Nick that got uploaded or maybe it’s just the way the guy acts more strange around his kid than me. Whatever it is, I’ll be sure to keep an eye on him and that kid. He looks about 10 years old at most and seems to be in two minds on whether to leave the city or run back home as soon as he steps out of his door. Wouldn’t be the first kid to run from this battered old Synth mug. 35