Pinned
Unmade Man
A Fallout 4 duology—written in the style of a 40s detective noir!
1. Dead Man Talking
There are three Nick Valentines; the brilliant detective, the fractured snapshot of a grieving man and the aging Synth in Diamond City. But when a prewar woman with an impossible case demands his help, Nick is forced to confront everything he’s borrowed and everything he owes.
In the Commonwealth, a debt is one hell of a thing to forgive.
“The Institute, for whatever reason, put Nick Valentine in here. Then I wake up in a garbage dump and head out into the world. I go from odd job to odd job and finally end up playing detective. You shut your coffee maker off for a hundred years. When you turn it on, it goes back to making coffee. You want to know how I’m sure there aren’t a hundred Valentines? We’d all set up agencies.”
(x)
2. Dead Woman Walking
Two years after throwing in with the prewar hothead with an axe to grind, Nick Valentine works another routine missing persons—an overbearing father, a resigned mother and a daughter who just can’t take it anymore. Dime a dozen; up until she declares herself a synth, hops on a boat and flees three hundred miles north to Far Harbor, where Fog lays thick and hopes run slim. But between the dogged harbormen, the radioactive death cult, the machine claiming to be his brother, and his own hard-headed partner, something has to give.
It took five hundred million years to make Acadia. The sign was a landmark, a dull green figure with gold etching. Gloria caught her breath and Longfellow fiddled with his gun. They’d leave soon, but Nick had time to kill. And Nick had to make way for the… He squinted. Three million visitors per year. The sound he made got Gloria’s attention. She read the sign, mouthing as she went. She made about the same sound. Five hundred million. Half a billion. Numbers shouldn’t go that high. A figure like that gets full of itself. The arrow on the sign pointed forward, reminding him to pay the fee. Just ahead was one of the most beautiful locations in all of North America. It was an incredible place not to see a lick of. Longfellow beckoned them after the radstag moved on. Nick took one last look at the faded landscapes on the sign and committed them to memory. Five hundred million years to make Acadia. Two hours to fuck it up forever.
(x)
