Chapter 6: Fault Lines

“Ideals are strengthened by the challenges they endure.”

— Courier Six / The Courier (player character), Fallout: New Vegas. Spoken during dialogue involving the Brotherhood of Steel and Veronica Santangelo. Developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Bethesda Softworks. Directed by Josh Sawyer. Originally released October 19, 2010. Part of the Fallout series. © 2010 Bethesda Softworks. All rights reserved.

With everyone fed, clothed, some form of purpose, and having a pathway to someday leaving the Vault, the rest of the place was coming up with rumors for entertainment to Kathryn’s mind.

As she thought of her friends’ theories on the Overseer lingered in her mind, Kathryn found the mutterings about her and Leo far more irritating. She went to the elevator, and then she stopped until she chanced upon a Mister Handy, which she hoped was AIDEN.

When it was not, the automaton was able to bring AIDEN to her.

“What can I do for you, Mrs. Walker?” AIDEN wondered.

“Could you take me to the robot repair level?” she asked.

“Whatever for?” AIDEN asked. “You are not a robot in need of repair.”

Oh great, she thought. Now the damn AI is going to think I am trying to step out on my husband.

She composed herself so as to better answer his question and not make herself look any more guilty than she felt.

“Well, I was looking for Leo. You called him Repairman Leo?”

AIDEN did not move for a moment. Despite how sophisticated he (Could a robot be a he?) made himself sound, she could see he was just a machine with the limitations of a processing unit and a bunch of circuits.

“You should have said so in the first place,” AIDEN said.

She could have sworn that she could hear his excitement. While some Mister Handys allowed for emotionality, she had felt that AIDEN was above all of the problems of disposition and temperament, yet if he was intelligent (artificial or otherwise), then he must have some kind of mindset that accepted the possibility of feelings.

“Repairman Leo is on the administration level, dealing with some cleanup,” AIDEN said. “I can send a message to his Pip-Boy to come to the repair level.”

“That would be lovely. Thank you, AIDEN,” said Kathryn. “Just one more thing ... Could you show me how to get to the administration level?”

She was grateful that he did not have the ability to laugh, or at the very least, he had the dignity not to laugh at her. AIDEN showed her the elevator and explained that the administration level might be near the top, but administration, waste, and disposal were near the bottom of the Vault.

Robot Repair was third from the bottom.

Kathryn stowed that away for later if she ever needed to come back.

This was a small reflective moment as the elevator took her down to the mending level for machines.

Why would she need to come back down to Leo’s repair level? They were not the closest of friends. She did not know him from before the bombs dropped. He had helped her, sure. Denying that would be dishonest, and regardless of the unique circumstances she found herself in, Kathryn had to admit that much of the truth because that was how she had been raised.

Truth mattered. That was why her vows to Keith mattered.

As the elevator wound its way down, she thought of how kind Leo was, how sweet, how accommodating to her he was. Did she like him because he gave her his time and energy, unlike her husband or was she fond of the man underneath.

There would be no way to know for certain because to do so would have put her in a position to be physically and emotionally vulnerable. That sort of defenselessness belonged to her husband, not to Leo. Regardless of what the other wives had said, Kathryn had no intention of breaking her vows for the sweet, handsome janitor she had met.

When the doors opened, she found that Leo was not there.

That only made sense. She looked through the messy room, looking over the carcasses of one robot over another. Some had parts like a tube or set of wires.

Everything about Leo’s workspace reflected an overworked and underappreciated employee, yet still, he never once complained in the short time she knew him. Surely, when he was alone, he cursed or complained about his lot in life. Somehow though, that thought seemed beneath him to her thinking.

Why did she think so well of him? She had not known him long.

When the thoughts were coming and going, Leo entered. He looked much cleaner in his attire at the moment.

She was starting to wonder why. Maybe reading detective novels were not so good for her. She was looking for clues to a mystery when there was not one.

“Oh ... Hey, Kathryn. AIDEN made it seem like it was a matter of life and death. Not that you’re not important, but...”