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The bathroom in the broken bow is bitingly cold. Cut off from whatever heating systems they might have in Rivet City, the porcelain of the sink is barely warmer than the frost-bitten ground outside. The winter weather is milder here in the Capital than in the Commonwealth, but it’s still chilly enough to be unpleasant. At least the water is warm, A3-21 thinks as he washes his hands. Pinkerton has had plenty of time alone in this end of the ship to make some adjustments for his own comfort, but the broken bow is still broken and the way that the water in the toilet bowl is covered in a thin layer of ice makes him glad that synths don’t actually have to eat food – or to consequently make use of the limited bathroom facilities.
The past few days have been long and painful. The facial surgery went well - or so Pinkerton says - but even with careful application of stimpaks and regularly changed bandages the healing process has been difficult. Coursers are given upgrades to improve their resistance to injury in the field as standard, but even so there was no guarantee nothing would go wrong and scarring was a very real threat. Hours and hours of laying still on a gurney after waking from the procedure with nothing to look at but the rusted ceiling and nothing to do but submit to Pinkerton’s prodding and worse, his ego – crowing about the immaculate job he had done on A3-21’s face and his unmatched skills in surgery to his captive audience.
Fortunately, A3-21 has become very good at being uncomfortable – he has had years to perfect this skill of his own. So he waits, endures, submits himself to it fully. He tells himself it will be the last time.
Hands clean, A3-21 leans on the edge of the cold sink as he looks at the swathes of bandages covering his head in the tarnished mirror and considers where to start. His stomach churns – although Pinkerton has told him everything is well healed by now, he does not want to make a mistake and to let all the pain be for nothing. Errors are not tolerated at the Institute and they cannot be tolerated here either – not when it could cost him his freedom.
That is why he feels like this, isn’t it?
Once a plan of action is formulated in his head, there is no logical reason to delay further – he has washed his hands to minimise the chance of contaminating the wounds, he has long since proved he has steady hands even under pressure – and he starts unravelling the cloth from around his head into the sink. The writhing in his abdomen only seems to get worse the more skin he unveils. Is this what nausea feels like? A3-21 has never vomited before, but somehow he feels like he might now. His hands don’t shake until the final layer of bandages is exposed, and he takes a steadying breath before gently lifting the last layer of fabric free with only a slight tremble in his fingers.
A stranger stares back at him from the mirror with his eyes. His stomach lurches stronger than ever, sourness clawing at the back of his throat. Finally, he pins down the source of his agitation.
A3-21 knows, at least in generalities, of how organic synths are made. Father’s DNA provided the pure source of human genetics that was then modified with Forced Evolutionary Virus and grown into tissues and organs that were assembled into humanoid form. The modification with FEV meant that no two synths looked the same, especially in the newer synths with all variety of colours and shapes and sizes expressed just as they were for natural-born humans.
But sometimes the origin of the source DNA shone through despite the alterations, and very occasionally synths emerged with almost a familial resemblance to Father – and A3-21 was one of these synths. Something in the jawline and the shape of his face, the colour of his hair – after his ‘birth’, some of the scientists had said that he and the young Father could have been brothers.
It was something of a source of pride in the SRB after he had proved himself and was promoted into their ranks. Some compared him to an extension of Father, shepherding wayward synths back into the fold. Others were less benevolent - declaring him a ghost of the Institute’s wrath, hunting down the ungrateful runaways. Either way, comparisons to greatness made for great expectations, and he met them – time and time again he brought back runaways with minimal damage, without discovery, without any injury greater than a scratch or two. A3-21 was praised and his systems upgraded with cutting-edge prototype software to make him even more efficient – he was held high as the best of the best, the pinnacle of synth technology and operation, a credit to Father himself in deed as well as appearance.
A3-21 stares at his new face, absorbs every minute detail of it. Pinkerton may be arrogant, but his word is true to his skill – there is no scarring in the freshly healed skin. This new face is aesthetically pleasing, even handsome by human standards. There is a sharper, squarer jawline than there had been before, a straighter nose, thinner lips that seem to hold more of a curve than before. The colour of his hair is the same brown as ever – that cannot be helped – but it is longer than he has even worn it before, swept to the side instead of the close-shorn style that was preferred on the coursers for practicality. Even the shape of his eyes was different, though the colour is the same – blue instead of Father’s steely grey, a part of him that had always been his alone.
The act is complete and permanent – almost every trace of Father removed from his appearance, and almost every trace of himself. When he leaves this room, Pinkerton will finish the job from within – a slate wiped clean. Nothing of Father, nothing of the Institute left. A new face, a new name, a new life.
No more A3-21.
It feels like the first time that last fact has really sunk in, despite knowing what he was in for from almost the very start. The Railroad agents had made no secret of what the price of his freedom would be, and he had accepted it without attempting to bargain. There hadn’t been any reason to – even having travelled this far south, the procedure was the only real way to hide from the Institute. The Institute are relentless in seeking to reclaim any of their lost property, let alone their most successful and technologically advanced courser to date.
If he were to go without the memory wipe procedure, what would he even do? Even after changing his appearance to hide, could he act well enough – human enough – to remain undetected? A3-21 is proficient in self-analysis: he is unfamiliar with the ways of living in human communities, has little by way of social skills to ingratiate himself with other inhabitants. While he is proficient in stealth operation, his human-like appearance is only built to stand up to superficial inspection and he has no practice in outright deception. The evaluation is clear – the probability successfully of evading detection or capture is vastly lower should he not undergo the memory wipe process.
The nausea has returned with vigour, and reflexively he closes his eyes against it and swallows.
Knowing the facts does not make the idea of his own self-erasure more appealing.
It feels like a hollow victory, in a way – that he should get away from everything he was running from, only to have to lose himself in the process. That he should get to leave behind everyone that had kept him a slave and kept him from thinking that he should be anything more, that he should finally able to be out in the world on his own without having to be someone else’s hunting dog on a leash – and for what? Every tiny bit of progress he has made, every seed of emotion that he has allowed to grow in his head is about to be ripped out and replaced with something else, someone else, who will go on to live a new life in his newly modified body.
Still, it’s more than any of his runaways ever got. A few had already had their memories wiped by the time he reached them, and that was almost a relief. Taking those ones back was easy – they didn’t know to be afraid. For a time he could make himself believe that he was what the scientists said he was - a guiding hand to lead them back onto the right path. Those who were still themselves were twitchy and fearful as wild animals, always looking over their shoulder. Once cornered, they would cry and beg with contorted faces for their freedom, their chance to make a new life shaped by their own choices, before he uttered their recall phrases and their expressions slid into a relaxed and unemotional blankness, as indifferent the last remaining traces of tears on their cheeks as they would be to the rain.
For a long time he had taken satisfaction in his skill at his work. The praise by his masters had sated him and motivated him, and the comparisons to Father had pleased him. It has been a long time since that time too - since his efficiency at hunting down others of his own kind felt like anything other than a stone around his neck, a guilt that threatens to choke him. Mixed with the fear of being caught – his stomach churns again - it’s a sickening double dose of emotions that threaten to freeze him in place.
What the Railroad offers is a strange thing. The sheer amount of resources and effort that goes into getting synths out of the Institute is colossal, and it’s sold as freedom for the ones that make it – but it isn’t really that, not for them. It is the chance to be remade entirely, a reincarnation – to irreversibly leave behind their old life and become something new, something different.
For the person that comes out the other side of the transformation it would be the greatest thing they could ever receive, and if all went to plan they would never know it. For the synth going in, the offering is smaller and more fragile than it first appears – a tiny scrap of hope that in sacrificing their memories and everything that led them to this decision, a new version of themselves could have something better without the shadows in their past catching up to them. A scrap of hope isn’t much, but it’s gotten him this far.
Let A3-21 die, then. The last thing he can do is give the gift of freedom to his future self, whoever that new person may be, and burn the last bridge back to their old life even if it means he goes down with it. No more suffocating guilt. No more ghosts in their reflection, no more shadows looming over them.
He opens his eyes again and takes one last look in the mirror at the new person he is about to become with his old eyes.
No more A3-21.
When he leaves the freezing cold bathroom, he doesn’t look back.