Chapter Text
There was a time in Hermes’ very limited experience where he thought he’d be spending the whole of his potential lifespan in a sterile white lab, being watched and tinkered on by the Institute’s technicians, his bolts and screws adjusted and readjusted in micrometers as people in lab coats hummed and hawed at the state of him. Thought he’d be awoken to run on treadmills, and tossed in agility courses, and made to take information gathering tests over and over and over until his internal energy renewal system ran dry and he was left as nothing more than a heap of scrap metal and wires covered in synthetic skin on the perfectly clean, blindingly white floors. It’s all he was supposed to know, programmed to know, and even the act of imagining something else, actively picturing anything more would’ve had his glorified hard drive wiped faster than he could state his own designation code.
Of course, someone made that horrendously stupid mistake of letting him topside for a few tests runs with the rest of the world, which, you know, awful idea if you want a synth to stick around. It’s why he’s over 1000 miles away now, putzing about the dusty basement of a vine-eaten library, scrolling through 200 year old romance novels of buxom free-spirited women being whisked away by sailors and vikings and such on an even dustier, cracked computer screen. Not that he’s complaining at any rate, selecting something from the catalogue that sounds mildly titillating and a smidge unique, scratching at the back of his neck where the grit caked there from few weeks without a wash itches something awful as he waits for the tale of Lady Hornsburry and her steamy sordid affair with the pirate captain Long John Rogers to finish downloading to the clunky personal computer pneumatically strapped to his wrist.
He pokes at the pip-boy, frowning as the download bar on the green lit screen reads 45%. Unable to move much for the short wire connecting the device on his arm to the even bulkier computer in front of him, Hermes makes a low irritated sound, wincing when it reverberates in the quiet basement. Pausing and sighing when he hears nothing more, he settles, resting his arm on the rusted desk he’d carried the PC over to after he’d picked the lock on the airtight safe it was locked away in.
His fingers drum, fighting the urge to flick on the radio, only the scrabbling of rats and crickets to keep him company as he waits in the dark, little light filtering in from the open windows and what's left of the first floor as the sun descends over the horizon outside. Lifting his shirt, he wipes away sweat gathering on his forehead, leaking out from fake pores over fake skin and tiny fake hairs to give the perfect illusion of a real person crouched impatiently among the debris and refuse of a building time forgot. While his biological processes are a carefully crafted lie, one thing that’s very true is how bored Hermes is waiting here, humming to himself to pass the time and listening carefully for nosy scavengers.
He’s not exactly supposed to be here. The heavy, well-used backpack resting against his leg is packed to the brim with letters and missives and little packages for the people of Asphodel and no doubt the people of the town are getting antsy in his absence. Hermes has been gone for nearly a month now, an unusually long stretch of time for his usual courier route, having been given quite a lot of caps to take a memo from the settlement’s mayor, Hades, out to some town miles westward. He’s nearly back though, just taking a stop at the library he saw from a ways off, allowing himself that little break to refresh his reading list for the long nights alone.
But that’s why he's out here in some empty overgrown town instead of underground in a sterile lab. Here, its his decision what breaks are and are not allowed. Sure, he’s always on the road, testing the limits of his endurance and power supply. Sure, he’s in constant danger, having had to be put back together twice already since he ran away. Sure, he’s constantly looking over his shoulder for thieves or raiders or slavers or, god forbid, an Institute courser come to drag his expensive ass back across the nuclear wasteland he’d gone through the trouble of travelling just to get away from them.
Doesn’t matter though; he prefers this. Chose this. He chose to run away. He chose to get a face change. He chose to have every body-tracking, signal-sending, communicating bit and bob torn out of his shiny aluminum skeleton and stomped to bits before he absconded what was left of Boston for questionably greener, marginally- safer pastures.
Pastures where he gets to be whoever he wants and do whatever he wants. Where he gets to read and learn all he can on whatever whim finds him with no one needing to take account of what information he's gleaned or wipe the memory of what he’s not suppose to learn. Where hardly anyone knows about ‘synthetic men’ or ‘androids’ or ‘the Institute’ or anything remotely sterile or blindingly white.
Even if they did, even if someone that knew him from before came to the 100 mile block of the Mississippi River he’s been running around enough to call home and slapped him in the cheek, they wouldn’t recognize him. Wouldn’t know he was a synth unless they cut him open a bit. Which, fair be it, if he’s in a situation someone has a knife in him without his consent, then he’s absolutely fucked up somewhere and he might just deserve-
The creak of rotten, fragile floorboards rings out through the basement, Hermes freezing as dust falls from the hole-laden ceiling.
“Swore I saw someone come in round here.” The voice carries through the silent library, through the open door to the basement, through the holes in the floor.
“Well shut your goddamn trap then.” Second voice is quieter, gruffer, taking their own advice as the boards creak from their tentative steps into the library. Either scavengers or raiders. Neither a good option if they’re coming in here after Hermes.
He pulls the faded orange bandanna from round his neck over his nose, eyeing the download bar as it steadily ticks into the 80% region. Willing it to go faster, Hermes crouches down further, the pair above slowly making their way around the remains of dilapidated shelving and moldy books. He drums his fingers as the bars moves at a snail's pace.
88%.
Just needs this to finish. Got everything he was looking for here: a technical manual on energy conversion for Asphodel's resident ferryman, something that sounds like a historical account from an army medic just before the Great War, a cookbook, this…
91%.
In reality, he could just leave without it. Doesn’t really need a saucy romance novel cluttering up his pip-boy’s limited memory.
95%.
But he does want it. Easy to read in his down time between deliveries to pocket settlements and isolated farms. Very quick and uncomplicated unlike the dense philosophy texts he’s given up trying to parse.
98%.
And it's good for understanding the people he's around, of course. Not that he’s relating to any of it personally. Can’t even, being a synth and all. Not in his programming. Even if he wanted it to be.
99%.
Not that he would want that. Absolutely not. Imagine that; a synth falling in love. Sounds even more fanciful than the smutty fiction he's been perusing.
100%.
The pipboy dings, and Hermes hurriedly slaps a hand over the speaker too late, the cheery bell-like sound ringing through the dusty basement, echoing off rusty cabinets and concrete walls. He holds his breath as he jiggles the connector from the PC, jumping when one of the raiders upstairs asks what the hell that was.
His time very much up.
Hermes grabs his backpack from the floor, strapping it on and carefully making his way to the stairs past the columns and plateaus of office workers’ past. The lichen infested stairs do not creak even a moment as he takes them, peering out past the door, making out the figures searching for him over three hundred yards away behind rows of rotted shelving. They kick at a pile of debris, grunting, and, assured in their distraction, Hermes slowly creeps toward the open entrance, barely making a sound among the soft dirt and moss animals and strong winds have tracked in here since its abandonment.
He tiptoes out, crouched, keeping his eye on his would-be assailants as he passes the foyer and what remains of the reception desk, smirking and smug as he backs out toward the front doorway. Just has to make it out of the building, the distance between him and the men enough to damn the sound he’ll make when he sprints away. Once he’s got his legs moving, there isn’t a single person or animal on this earth with the endurance to catch him, least of all two drugged out raiders wearing what looks like a car’s worth of metal strapped to their arms and le-
The sound Hermes makes when a hand clamps onto his shoulder as he steps over the threshold in one only audible to dogs, deathclaws, and, ironically, himself, the beginning strains of his assailant gruffly snarking barely registering over all the warnings flashing behind his eyes. Without an ounce of forethought, Hermes turns, throwing a punch with his momentum, poorly formed fist connecting with a bony jaw. He wasn’t made for his combat capabilities, an astonishing amount of pain zipping through his arm as Hermes reels back with a yelp, holding his wrist while the man that grabbed him shouts and holds his face, dazed.
There’s already the tell-tale ripple under his synthetic skin, servos and gizmos and whatever the hell is under there resetting from the impact, pulling metal bones and jumbled wiring back into place as he steps back. His fingers pop, stinging as they reset from the poor punch, the man before him reaching for his pistol at his hip as he snarls for his pals, but it's too late. Hermes has already bolted.
Bullets fly, picking up dirt and rubble as he runs across the long overgrown parking lot, backpack thumping awkwardly on his spine. He ducks and weaves behind bushes and fallen logs and piles of torn up asphalt, something zinging past his shirt but ignores it, not bothering to stop. Nor to look back as one then two more pistols join in, their shots falling short the further he gets.
Instead, he keeps running. Through the rusted Red Rocket gas station. Past hollowed out office buildings and dilapidated homes, two-headed radstags and rabbits scattering as his feet crunch through dry grass and pound on what’s left of streets and sidewalks. Continues until he’s well enough away to know that only someone mad or truly desperate would continue to follow him, and then puts another ten minutes between them before finally slowing down to a trot.
His power supply blinks behind his eyes at 27% and he stops at a small copse of brush. Panting despite not needing the oxygen and safely obscured by the foliage, Hermes checks his side, grimacing at the red stain in his clothes. It's just a little cut though, a little graze on the top of his hip, stinging as he prods at it, but nothing serious. He’s had his whole arm ripped off and sewn back on before. This is peanuts compared to that, shallow and already drying. It’ll be gone in a few hours, well before any ferrymen can get a fretful look at it, and Hermes pulls the bandanna from his nose back round his neck as he leaves the bushes, wiping his hot face off with the clean bit of his shirt again.
Stepping onto the cracked, bleached remains of a road and assured he is alone, Hermes indulges himself, flipping on the radio of his pip-boy. The fading guitar rolls into the familiar, unique, and always cheery voice of Asphodel’s night time host, Hypnos, as he happily updates his evening listeners to the news of the day; the birth of a child to one of the coal miners, the death of the butcher’s mother, the return of his brother and travelling doctor thanks to a heroic newcomer. His words cut in and out over the slap of Hermes’ shoes on broken concrete, the distance from here to the settlement a strain on the modest radio tower, but by morning, the music and the daytime DJ will be strong and clear.
Hermes breathes a sigh of relief as Hypnos introduces the next song, turning it up, quietly singing along to the upbeat number as he walks steadily along the road, vast stretches of stunted trees and vaguely green grass on either side of him. The clock on his pip-boy reads 20:08, temperature a balmy 87F, and above him, clouds drift along the rapidly darkening sky, moon hidden and sun disappearing swiftly behind the woods. If he keeps his pace, doesn’t make any more unnecessary stops for rest or raiders or pulpy romance novels, he’ll be back to the closest thing he can call home in just three days.
The song changes, something moodier and instrumental, but it does little to dampen the spring Hermes' step as he hops around a massive tree root that’s cracked through the concrete, humming and pleased with both the fact that he's still in one piece and the knowledge that a bed, a wash, and, most importantly, a certain ferryman are just within his grasp.