Variables
Schrodinger's Theory: a cat imagined as being enclosed in a box with a radioactive source and a poison that will be released when the source (unpredictably) emits radiation, the cat being considered (according to quantum mechanics) to be simultaneously both dead and alive until the box is opened and the cat observed.
Nora was no stranger to making mistakes.
When she was a child she had made the mistake of running down the street, yelling curses when she broke her neighbors window. When she was a teenager she made the mistake of yelling at her father, vile, cruel things until she was red in the face. She made the mistake of thinking that it was all her fault for him leaving her mother. She made the mistake of finding comfort in some boy in the military and falling into some shallow replication of love. She made the same mistake when she had grown older, only the love had been different, it had been deeper, a tad bit stronger. Still, even that had led to a mistake.
She made the mistake of thinking she could change her son's thinking. She had thought that maybe, just maybe, sitting down and talking to him would've appealed to his more human side. She was wrong.
She had made a mistake.
Her head cracks against the pristine, white wall of the Institute's retention area, she can feel something wet and warm on the back of her head and her vision swims as she lifts her head back up. She feels like she's going to be sick and her vision blurs as she struggles to get back on her feet. 'C'mon, it's just like sparring practice with Cait.' She tells herself. Only there's no Curie on the sidelines to patch her up. No Preston, Deacon, or MacCready to warn her about where to expect the next hit.
There are no humans here.
She stumbles to her feet, hand clutching at the sharp, deep pain in her side, breath leaving her cracked lips in short, wheezing gasps. She broke something, she's sure of it. She coughs, and she isn't too sure if it's blood or mucus that's clogging her throat. She can feel something warm trickle down the corner of her lip and she her mouth stings as she smiles, leaning against the wall. Her eyes zero in on the Synth across from her, glasses blocking his eyes, heavy black coat hanging off his frame. His face stays stoic, even if Nora's sure she looks half mad. "I just wanted to let you know." Nora croaks as the Synth lifts his fists for another blow. "You hit like my ex."
There's a gunshot in her ears. Although, maybe she's just imagining it.
She isn't sure how many days she's been here. Drifting in and out of consciousness when she wasn't being beaten for answers. It was funny, how quickly Shaun had disowned her once things had gone south at Bunker Hill. She had gone from being the next Director to a fugitive in only a matter of days. All it took was saying no one too many times. 'Just like a boy,' Nora had thought to herself as she watched a Courser bring in a chair. 'Never wanting to take no for an answer.' She smiles shakily at that, nerves past the point of shot, and allows herself to be shoved into the chair. This was....new.
Usually when they came in to beat the answers out of her they usually made sure she was standing. Or staggering. Whichever. She relaxes her muscles as she sits down, going over the procedure Danse and Cait had taught her. Something about tensing making everything hurt more? She shuts her eyes and shakes her head, trying to ignore the vertigo she feels when she opens them.
She can't even remember the last time she's eaten.
"Father will be coming to see you." The Courser says and Nora is sure she's hallucinating because she hasn't seen or heard from him since she was taken away to this hell. "He has questions, seeing as previous interrogations have proven unsatisfactory."
"Aw, you mean he won't be asking me what my favorite color is?" Nora asks, trying to keep her voice even through the pain in her side. Yeah, she had definitely broken something before. "Pity."
"He does not care for the knowledge of your favorite pigment fugitive." The Courser replies, voice and gestures controlled, mechanical. "There are much more pressing topics to be discussed." The Vault Dweller sighs, rubbing her face with her free hand, she winces when her fingers brush against her eye, feeling it swollen almost shut. Suddenly, she's happy she doesn't have a mirror around.
"Well, I sure hope I look presentable." The Courser looks her over blankly and turns on his heel, the cell door sliding shut behind him. Nora sighs, glancing up at the ceiling. She had been her for who knows how long and she had no plan of escape, a small, dark part of her seemed content with the idea of dying here. Surrounded by sterile white walls and glass. It was a far cry from the radiated shacks that were topside, in fact if the wasteland hadn’t broken her over and over again, if she had been taken straight here, she'd say that it was as close to heaven as she'd ever be. She studies the floor, scuffing the bottom of a worn and holey boot across the tile, she knew better though. Heaven wasn't perfect white walls and crystal-clear glass. Sometimes heaven was jet black hair and warm, tanned skin. Sometimes heaven was a raspy "hey." Sometimes it was a loud, unfiltered laugh. Sometimes it was a quiet, gentle whine. It was ink stained fingers weaving through hair and skin against skin, her name being panted against her neck in soft, hushed tones. It was waking up in the morning and spending a moment there, wrapped in soft, freckled arms. Breathing in the scent of cigarettes and paper and hub flowers. Heaven was not wanting to leave, not for a moment. Hell had begun when she'd known she had to. That she had plans that had needed to be seen to the end. Nora had experienced heaven. Even if it was only for that moment.
She's broken out of her thoughts by the sound of the door sliding open and footsteps walking up to her. Nora looks up and studies her son. Face wrinkled and worn, it carried the best traits of both her and Nate. Shame he had to be such a cunt. Nora smirks as she watches him cross his arms. "Is there something funny?" Nora shakes her head and chokes as laughter bubbles up in her throat.
"No. Not at all."
"I would hope not." His voice is slow, deliberate, and Nora can detect just the smallest hint of venom in his tone. "After all the casualties at Bunker Hill, it'd be hard to find any reason to be...happy." Father looks down at her and Nora wipes the look off her face as quickly as she can. "Hopefully you're learning that the Institute is not one to be trifled with."
"I don't see why you call them casualties." Nora states plainly, "the synths I mean. I feel like you should be viewing them more as a loss of..." She stops as her mind struggles to come up with the right word. "Property."
"They are casualties because robotic or not it is a loss of assets that concern me. A loss of assets that you, no doubt, caused." His jaw twitches, a trait passed unknowingly down from his father. In another life Nora would've looked at it with a fondness. Now all it does is fill her with cold, and it's like being in cryo again. If she listens hard enough she can still hear the gunshot.
Then again, that gunshot has never truly been silenced, instead it echoes. Over and over again. A reminder of just what she's lost. A reminder that it could have been her.
It should have been her.
"Now, I will only ask you this once Mother." The old man pauses, blue-green eyes, her eyes, softening for just a moment before their sharp again. "Where is the Railroad."
"I don't know." She answers, face a mask of complete indifference. "If I had to guess I'd say wherever there were trains." She smiles when Shaun's face twists in aggravation, getting no small amount of satisfaction in making him mad.
"That's just a guess though."
"Very well." The look of annoyance melts off his face too quickly and suddenly Nora is squirming in her seat, "I suppose we'll just have to threaten your assets right back, won't we? Isn't that how they do it in the Wasteland? An eye for an eye?" He nods towards the glass door and the Courser walks back in, all stiff shoulders and quick steps, his eyes finds his mother's again and he smiles.
"There are rumors that you are rather close with a reporter Mother, a reporter who has been causing a stir with our asset in Diamond City." Nora's blood runs cold, "It would be a shame if something were to happen to her. Wouldn't it?"
"You wouldn't."
"Oh I wouldn't, the Institute however...would." Shaun's tone is smug as her face turns from cool indifference, to panic. Nora is out of her chair in an instant, hands gripping the front of his white coat before he's slammed into the wall, there's a buzzing behind her ear and she doesn't need to look behind her to know that the Courser who was beside him is now behind her, institute pistol pressed against the back of her skull. She doesn't let go of her son's coat. She doesn't bother to back away. She does however, slacken her grip.
"You wouldn't, not because you won't get your hands dirty, not because the Institute would," Her eyes study each and every crease of Shaun's face, the faint panic in his eyes and she grins. Even though her stomach clenches with the fact that this was her baby, her child, her world. Except he wasn't. Not anymore. "But because while the Institute molded you, I created you. It was me who let you breathe your first breath, I gave you life." Her grip tightens on the front of his shirt again, "And I can take it away just as quickly. If you hurt her, if you even try. I will completely, and utterly destroy you."
"And you think death frightens me?" Shaun chuckles humorlessly, "I'm dying Mother, you would be doing me a favor." His mother's grin turns into a sneer and for the first time in his life, he feels fear. His mother is not the calm, even-tempered woman he had seen fighting her way through the Commonwealth, no. With her busted lip, bruised, swollen eye, and gaunt face, she looked to be nothing more than a shell. But now, now that there was a fire in her eye, Shaun felt fear. He would be damned if he let her see it though.
"No, death wouldn't frighten you. But the lead up to it would. See, destroying just you would be simple. Expected, even." She leans in, enough for him to feel the heat of her breath on his skin. The Courser behind her tightens his finger on the trigger but Nora ignores him. "I will destroy everything you helped build, these synths, this compound. All of the people inside of it. It will be destroyed, they will be demolished, and I will kill them all. I will leave you with no legacy. All of your hard work will be gone. And I will leave you in the middle of it, to try to make pieces out of the ashes." And there's something about the way her jaw sets, about how her eyes blaze, that makes Shaun almost rethink his threat, almost.
"You wouldn't." Father echoes, he's shoved back against the wall again, but this time Nora's fingers aren't still clasped around his collar, instead, when he steadies himself, he hears a sharp pop and looks with wide eyes at the Courser he had brought with him, head nothing more than a puddle of gore, coloring the white tile crimson. When he lifts his gaze, he stares at the barrel of the pistol. His Mother stands on the other end, finger ready on the trigger, hair wild, lips pressed in a thin line, jaw clenched. She looks almost like a feral cat being lifted out of a box, all anger and wrath and hatred swirling behind her eyes.
"I would." She states coolly.
There's a gunshot in her ears.