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Now the clapping grew louder as it was not unanimous, not wild but a real one. Nora stood in it, hands by her sides, eyes level with the crowd. She could play the part, as she had to.
The applause had long faded. The square was already half-empty by the time Nora turned and walked away, flanked again by Hancock and MacCready. She didn't look back. That part was over. The curtain had dropped on the first act of this theater they were about to stage.
What lay ahead now wasn't applause, wasn't whispers. It was strategy.
And war.
Their boots echoed softly on the paved walkway that ran through the center of Sanctuary. It used to be cracked asphalt and brittle soil—not anymore. The place had changed so much she could barely recognize it.
Steel-plate sidewalks bordered by communal gardens. A fresh water pipeline running underfoot. Glass-paneled solar lamps lining the streets, flickering weakly in the waning morning fog.
But somehow, through it all, her house still stood.
It had been rebuilt of course—repaired and reinforced, with polymer composite siding replacing the crumbling wood, a bulletproof front door, solar roof tiles, and a smart defense grid tucked just beneath the rosebushes she'd once planted out front. But the shape was the same. The porch creaked in the same spot. The smell was faintly of old dust, paint, and faint lavender—just like it had been when she brought Shaun home from the hospital.
Nora's hand lingered on the doorknob a second longer than she meant to. Her palm trembled—just slightly. She covered it with her other hand.
Then she opened the door.
The hinges hummed quietly, smooth and well-maintained. She stepped inside, and it was like walking into a memory that had been carefully edited by someone else.
Everything had been restored. Her couch. The pre-war kitchen counter. The checkered tiles, the pale blue walls. The photo frame on the mantel still had that picture—her, Nate, and baby Shaun at the park.
And then came the voice.
"Oh! Oh heavens, is it really…?"
A metallic whirring sound echoed down the hallway. Then the sound of something being dropped—a cup perhaps—and frantic movement toward the front of the house.
"Ma'am! M-M-Mum?! Is it really you?!"
Nora smiled.
"Codsworth," she said softly.
Her old Mister Handy came hovering in from the kitchen like a bullet shot from a nostalgic cannonball. His circular eye glowed a touch brighter, and one of his claw arms was trembling with what Nora could only describe as emotional overload.
"Oh, my stars! Miss Nora! It's… it's really you! After all this time! I—oh, forgive me, I've polished the floors this morning but not for guests! Oh, you look positively worn down, ma'am—no offense! No offense at all!"
Nora chuckled and held up a hand. "It's all right, Codsworth. I missed you too."
"Oh!" He did a little spin in the air, his thrusters sputtering slightly. "I'm going to make tea! And coffee! And canned Salisbury steak! I have your favorites stored away! Oh, and do you still like that fancy pepper sauce—oh, or was that Nate—?"
She touched the robot's side gently, her voice steady. "Codsworth. I'm not alone. We're going to sit and talk. Would you mind making us something hot? Real food, if we've got it."
He turned his eye stalk toward MacCready and Hancock, who both offered faint waves—Hancock with a sly salute, MacCready with a shrug.
Codsworth's voice pitched upward in mechanical delight. "Oh! Company! Of course, of course. Just give me five minutes and I shall provide a breakfast worthy of Commonwealth kings!"
He whirred off back into the kitchen, humming a broken tune of Stars and Stripes Forever.
Nora exhaled and finally sat down on the old couch. It groaned under her, but not in protest—more like a welcome.
Hancock took the armchair by the window. MacCready leaned on the wall near the mantle, chewing a dried bit of bloatfly jerky as if it were a cigar.
Silence settled in like an old friend.
Then Nora broke it.
"He bought it."
MacCready raised an eyebrow. "Shaun?"
She nodded. "Hook, line, and sinker. The idea that I'd turn against Sico? He didn't even question it. Told me to start reaching out to the discontented. Stir up whispers of rebellion. Make it real."
Hancock laughed once, a deep scratchy thing. "Guess being a manipulative bastard runs in the family."
Nora looked at him—tired, but not unkindly. "He thinks I'm his mother, but I'm not. Not really. My Shaun died in that crib. This… man… he's a stranger wearing my son's face."
"Fair," MacCready said quietly. "But let's keep that performance tight. If he catches a whiff of what you're really doing…"
"I know," she said.
Codsworth floated back in, carrying a tray that rattled slightly from his nervous excitement.
"I managed to rustle up some proper eggs, two fresh tatos, and some grilled radstag cuts! Slightly overcooked, perhaps, but high in iron and protein, I assure you. Tea's steeping. Coffee's instant. Hope that's still to your liking, Miss Nora."
"It's perfect," she said warmly, and Codsworth nearly vibrated with joy.
They dug into the food in silence for a few minutes. It wasn't gourmet, but it was hot, and it tasted like the Commonwealth. Like survival. Like truth.
When they were halfway through, Nora set her fork down.
"All right. Here's how we do this."
She turned to Hancock first.
"I need Goodneighbor to start feeding the Institute bad intel. Not full lies—just slants. Make it seem like there's growing dissent about Sico. Like the Republic is losing its nerve. That the Brotherhood are getting impatient. Maybe even leaking that Maxson's having second thoughts."
Hancock nodded slowly. "I can do that. Daisy still runs the backchannels in the Market. We'll plant it through her."
"Keep it loud enough to notice," she added, "but not loud enough to seem like bait."
She turned to MacCready next.
"I need you to hit the road. Start dropping fake recruitment whispers. Say you're meeting people in the old tunnels. Start talking like you're gathering support for a new Republic—one that doesn't answer to Sico. Make sure someone hears it. Someone who might talk."
"Bait the hook," MacCready said. "Let the Institute reel it in."
"Exactly."
Hancock leaned back. "What about you?"
Nora looked down at her hands.
"I'll join the next Congress meeting," she said. "Ask for an observer's position. Say I want to see how things have changed. I'll say I need to know if the Republic deserves to survive or be remade. That I've lost faith in Sico's long-term vision."
MacCready whistled softly. "That's dangerous."
"Only if I start believing it," she said.
The room fell quiet again.
The smell of tea drifted from the kitchen. Codsworth had gone into power-saving mode in the corner, humming faintly to himself.
Outside, the fog had burned off. Sanctuary was bathed in golden morning light now. People were working again. Machines groaned in the garage bays. Children chased each other past the general store. The Republic was alive.
And she was about to lie to all of it.
For its own good.
"Shaun thinks I'll bring it down from the inside," Nora said at last. "But he doesn't understand. I'm not here to destroy the Republic. I'm here to protect it."
Hancock raised his cup in mock toast. "To the most dangerous spy the Commonwealth's ever seen."
MacCready clinked his own cup against it. "To the Commonwealth."
Then the scene change to Sico and the convoy, as the wasteland rolled past them, mile after mile of scorched ruin and budding renewal, the Humvee's tires chewing up the cracked remnants of old-world roads. The convoy was deep in the northern stretch of Route 3 now, heading back west toward Sanctuary.
They'd won the battle at Kendall Falls.
But it hadn't felt like victory.
Sico leaned his elbow against the door of the Humvee, fingers drumming lightly on the edge of the open window. The wind tugged at his coat, bringing with it the scent of scorched metal and wet pine. Somewhere behind them, the smoldering carcass of the Institute relay node they'd destroyed was still coughing sparks into the sky.
That thing—buried beneath layers of old-world concrete and Institute shielding—hadn't gone down easy. The joint Freemason–Brotherhood strike had needed every ounce of coordination, every shell of artillery, every second of timing.
And even then, people had died.
Not many. But enough to remind him that the real war was only just beginning.
He shifted in his seat and glanced into the rearview mirror, watching the slanted profile of Preston Garvey, who was seated on the bench near the back, leaning with one arm on his knee. His hat sat tilted low over his brow, his face shadowed, unreadable. But Sico knew that look. Preston was chewing on something—something deeper than tactics or logistics.
"Hey," Sico said over the roar of the engine. "You've been quiet since we left the ruins."
Preston blinked once, looked up, then slid forward a bit so he could be heard better.
"Yeah," he said finally. "Just… thinkin'."
Sico shifted the transmission down slightly as they rounded a bend. "Thinking about Kendall Falls?"
Preston gave a small shake of his head. "Not just that."
He glanced toward the horizon where the clouds were starting to darken into thick, bruised swells. There'd be rain before sunset.
Sico waited. He didn't push. Not yet.
Finally, Preston leaned back, arms folded.
"Sarah went back to Sanctuary, right? To work with Nora."
"Yeah," Sico said. "She left ahead of us this morning. Took the vertibird Maxson offered. She's probably with her by now."
Preston was quiet a moment longer before he exhaled through his nose.
"You trust her?" he asked.
Sico didn't answer right away. The question wasn't accusatory. Just… careful.
"Yes," he said. "I do. Sarah knows what's at stake. So does Nora."
Preston frowned slightly. "It's not them I'm worried about."
Sico turned slightly in his seat, watching his old friend now with sharper eyes.
Preston looked back at him.
"I'm worried about you."
That took Sico off guard.
He blinked. "Me?"
"You're playin' a deep game here," Preston said, voice even. "Splitting the Commonwealth in two. Making truces with Maxson. Letting Nora play double-agent inside the Institute. All this—" he gestured broadly to the land outside the Humvee, to the sky and road and memory of fire still behind them— "it only works if every single one of those moves goes the way you planned."
Sico didn't flinch, but something tightened in his jaw.
Preston leaned forward, elbows on knees now, eyes fixed on him.
"You've got a lot riding on trust, Sico. And if even one piece slips…"
"I know," Sico said quietly. "I know what the stakes are."
The Humvee bumped over a patch of uneven pavement. The suspension groaned beneath them.
Sico shifted gears again, slower this time, then let the engine idle low for a moment as they approached the fork that would take them through Concord on the way back to Sanctuary.
"I didn't come this far to lose it now," Sico said. "And I didn't trust Maxson because I liked him. I did it because we needed to stop bleeding out while the Institute waited for us to weaken."
Preston grunted. "You think Maxson won't turn on us the moment he doesn't need us anymore?"
"Oh, I know he will," Sico said. "But he doesn't know what we're building. He sees tanks and rifles and relay towers. But he doesn't see the people. The unity. The fact that The Freemasons Republic isn't just walls—it's a damn idea now. Bigger than him. Bigger than me."
Preston nodded slowly. "That's what scares me. When things get bigger than the man who started them… sometimes the people forget who they're followin'."
Sico gave him a long look, then turned back to the road.
"I'm not trying to be king, Preston."
"No," Preston said. "But sometimes kings don't mean to wear crowns. Sometimes they just wake up and realize they've been wearing one all along."
Silence fell again.
This time, it lingered.
They passed the wreckage of a pre-war billboard. It used to be for Nuka-Cola. Now it was just a rust-eaten frame with vines curling up its spine. A Brotherhood flag fluttered limply from a nearby pole, still freshly planted from this morning's operation.
It was strange how easy it had become to work alongside them. Danse had led the unit at Kendall Falls, and—despite his usual rigidity—had moved like a proper ally. He even laughed once. Sico hadn't expected that.
The line between friend and enemy was blurring fast.
Too fast.
When the outskirts of Concord came into view, a small radio squawked to life from the dashboard.
"Sanctuary Base to Convoy Alpha. Come in. Over."
Sico picked up the receiver. "Alpha here. Go ahead."
"Growler team reports visual on your approach. Perimeter gate is open. Nora and Sarah are waiting at the north platform."
Sico exchanged a quick glance with Preston, who gave a barely perceptible nod.
"Copy that. Tell 'em we're ten minutes out."
The convoy pushed forward, tires crackling over gravel now. Sanctuary's skyline emerged from the last rise—its towers of scaffolding and antennae, its solar arrays catching the fading light. A line of children waved from the schoolyard as the trucks rumbled past the fields.
And waiting at the edge, where the rebuilt checkpoint met the main gate, stood Nora and Sarah.
Sico pulled the Humvee to a halt and stepped out slowly.
Nora looked tired, but alert. Her shoulders were straight. Her face unreadable.
Sarah's arms were crossed, but her eyes were sharp. Watching. Measuring.
"You're back," Sarah said first.
"We are," Sico replied, glancing over his shoulder as the rest of the convoy rolled in behind him. "Node's gone. They won't be relaying anything through Kendall Falls anymore."
"Good," Nora said. "Because the game's on now."
Sico stepped forward.
"Walk with me," he said.
The four of them—Sico, Nora, Sarah, Preston—moved together through the main thoroughfare. Children scattered past them. Engineers returned to their posts. An automated turret above the town hall rotated slowly, tracking the convoy's final trucks as they entered.
They walked past the war memorial in the central square—the one with the Freemason eagle and the broken Minuteman rifle beneath it.
Sico waited until they were out of earshot from the guards before he spoke again.
"So. He believed it?"
Nora nodded. "He did. I told him the Republic's fraying. That Sico's consolidating too much power. That the Congress is losing faith. He smiled like a man watching a flower bloom."
Sarah muttered, "Bastard."
"He told me to recruit others. Disillusioned ones. Form a core of dissenters. I've got Hancock spreading false intel through Goodneighbor. MacCready's laying whispers of a 'new Republic.'"
Sico rubbed his chin. "It's perfect. If Shaun believes you're about to fracture us from within, he'll waste time building the wrong kind of resistance. He'll suspect factions we've already secured."
"Exactly," Nora said. "But we don't have much time. He's already asking for reports on troop movement. On Brotherhood coordination."
Sico looked to Sarah.
"How's the Growler squad?"
She gave a tight smile. "Better than ever. We've got the new batch training in the north range. Full fusion cell integration. When we move on the Institute for real, they'll be ready."
They reached the central planning dome near the radio tower. Sico stopped at the door.
"Alright," he said. "We call Congress in three days. Let the politicians fight over where the Freemasons end and the Brotherhood begins."
Preston raised a brow. "And the Institute?"
Sico's eyes hardened.
"We let them believe we're falling apart. Then we rip their heart out when they least expect it."
Sarah looked at him with something between pride and fear. "You know this could backfire."
"I know," Sico said.
He looked back at the square—the gardens, the children, the workshops.
"But I didn't survive the Vault, fight across half the Commonwealth, and build this Republic just to play it safe now."
He turned to Nora.
"When this is over, we burn the Institute to ash. And from that ash, we build something better."
Nora stared at him for a long moment.
Then she nodded.
"Then let's get to work."
Sico leaned his weight on the steel planning table, fingers splayed across a map already worn at the edges. Red wax pencil lines spidered outward from key zones—Sanctuary, Boston Airport, Kendall Falls—like arteries on a war-torn body. Everyone had fallen into a kind of stillness, the silence thick with thought. The air inside the dome buzzed faintly from the radio tower's uplink, but otherwise, only the occasional crackle of static or distant rumble of construction reached them.
Nora stood beside him, arms crossed, still holding herself like a blade ready to draw. Preston hovered near one of the corner monitors, his stance solid but thoughtful. Sarah sat on the edge of the bench near the terminal, helmet on the floor, sweat still drying on her neck from the training ground. They'd just walked back from the gates, but the plan was already evolving, reshaping itself in real-time.
Sico's eyes drifted from the map to Nora.
"If we want this to work," he said slowly, "we're gonna need to take this rift public."
Nora looked up sharply. "Public?"
He nodded. "A fight. Real loud. Heated. Something everyone can see—soldiers, citizens, the kids at the workshop. Something that cracks the mirror just enough."
Preston gave a skeptical grunt. "You want to fake a feud in front of the whole damn town?"
"It's not about faking," Sico replied, meeting Nora's gaze. "It's theater. Truth layered under performance. We disagree about strategy, right? We let that disagreement surface. Just enough to look real."
Sarah raised a brow. "And what—hope the Institute's watching from their crystal ball?"
Sico stepped back, pacing slowly across the floor. "They're not watching with eyeballs, they're watching with sensors. With analysis. If we want them to believe we're fracturing, they need to feel it in every intercepted broadcast, in every second-hand rumor, every eye-witness account they sweep from the airwaves."
He paused, then turned to Nora. "And I want Piper to run with it. Spread it across her network. Hit Diamond City first, then Bunker Hill, then Goodneighbor."
Nora's face darkened slightly, but not with disagreement—more with the weight of realization.
"You want me to say I don't believe in your vision," she said.
Sico's voice softened. "Just enough for them to believe we've stopped seeing eye to eye."
Sarah sat up straighter now, eyes sharp. "How far do we take it?"
"As far as we need to," Sico said. "People will believe it if it hurts. So make it hurt."
Preston turned from the monitor. "I don't like it," he muttered.
"Neither do I," Nora said.
"But it's smart," Sarah added quietly.
Sico looked at each of them in turn. "We do this right, and we buy ourselves the window we need to strike the Institute clean in the heart. No hesitation, no fallback."
He turned to Nora again, more gently this time. "You okay doing this?"
She didn't answer right away. She stepped away from the table and walked to the long slatted windows at the far side of the dome. Outside, the rebuilt solar arrays shimmered slightly in the late afternoon light. A handful of kids were dragging a cart full of scrap past the vegetable plots. Codsworth hovered near the community center, spraying water over the flowerbeds.
"I've lied before," she said finally. "Plenty of times."
Sico nodded, but she wasn't done.
"But this one'll cut deeper. Because for some of the people watching, it won't feel like theater. They won't know the plan. They'll think I really did stop believing."
She turned back to him.
"But if that's the price… I'll pay it."
Sico exhaled, not in relief but in gratitude. "We'll do it tomorrow. Middle of the market square. Just after the morning dispatch rolls out."
Sarah stood. "You want me in the crowd?"
Sico nodded. "You and Preston both. Keep it real. Let people react the way they will. Don't guide them."
"And Piper?" Nora asked.
"She's will take part on something like this, especially waiting for something like this," Sico said. "Just needed the spark like she always said."
The sun rose behind thin clouds that morning, casting a pale, even light across Sanctuary. Cool air swept in from the north, carrying the faint scent of pine and the last wisps of rain that hadn't yet dried from the metal rooftops.
The market was already alive by the time Sico stepped out of the town hall. Merchants were hauling crates. Minutemen engineers were running wires along the south barricade. Two Growlers trotted near the radio tower, tailpipes hissing steam in the cool air.
And in the center of it all, where the flag of the Freemasons Republic flapped gently overhead, Nora was waiting.
She looked different this morning. She'd swapped her usual military coat for a long tan duster that made her look less like a general and more like a wanderer. Her stance was tight, centered. Her expression unreadable.
Preston was leaning near the water pump. Sarah had taken up a spot near the mechanic stalls, pretending to check calibrations on a targeting servo.
Piper was already there—no surprise. Her notepad was half-tucked into the inside pocket of her coat, but the glint in her eyes said she knew something was coming.
Sico walked into the square, his coat billowing slightly with each step. He moved like a man who wasn't planning to shout—but maybe needed to. And as he stopped in front of Nora, he made sure to let the silence stretch.
"You wanted to speak to me here?" she asked, loud enough for the crowd nearby to hear.
"I did," he replied, matching her tone.
Nora stepped forward. "Then speak."
Sico clenched his jaw slightly. "We need to decide what direction this Republic's going. Before it becomes something we never meant to build."
"Something you never meant to build," Nora corrected sharply.
People were beginning to pause now. The old man who ran the welding forge stopped mid-hammer. A pair of students froze halfway across the square.
Sico lowered his voice slightly, but not enough to dampen the words. "We can't afford hesitation. Not now. The Brotherhood alliance is temporary. We either solidify what we've started or risk collapse."
"And by 'solidify,' you mean consolidate more power?" Nora fired back. "Centralize more decisions behind closed doors? Tell the Congress to rubber-stamp your next order?"
The crowd had gone quiet. Only the faint whirr of a nearby security bot remained.
Sico stepped closer. "You know I don't want that."
"Do I?" Nora snapped. "Because it's starting to feel like this isn't a Republic anymore. It's a command chain. And you're the only voice at the top."
Preston's eyes widened slightly from where he stood. Sarah didn't blink.
Sico made his voice shake, just a little. "We've come too far for fractures now. You think we'll survive a divided leadership in the middle of a war?"
"I think if we're not careful," Nora said, her voice cold and hard as steel, "we'll become the very thing we swore to fight."
Gasps murmured through the crowd.
Sico took a long breath. "Then maybe… maybe we're not building the same thing after all."
And there it was.
The silence afterward was the kind that settles over battlefields after the last shot has been fired but before the bodies are counted. It echoed off the metal roofs, off the newly-raised statue near the town hall. Off people's hearts.
Nora turned without another word and walked away—boots crunching against the dirt and gravel of the square.
Sico didn't move. Didn't look at anyone.
And Piper… Piper's eyes were already gleaming as she pulled her notepad free and began to scribble, even thought she knew it fake. Still a news like this made her happy.
The others filtered in slowly. Preston was the last to arrive, his face unreadable, arms crossed tight against his chest.
Sico stood at the central table, arms resting on the metal rim. His shoulders were heavier now.
"Well?" he asked.
"She already dong it," Nora said simply, walking in from the side chamber. She'd changed back into her field coat, face washed clean of anger.
"Piper?" Sico asked.
"Already put out two headlines," Sarah said. "'Rift at the Top?' and 'Nora Stands Against Centralization.' She's running with it hard. Says sources close to the Council confirm growing tension."
"Which they don't," Preston muttered. "But that's exactly what we need 'em to believe."
Sico gave a grim nod.
"I've got three Congress reps already asking if we're calling an emergency summit," Sarah added.
"Let them panic a little," Sico said. "The more noise we make on the surface, the deeper we bury the blade."
Nora looked at him long. "You really think we can pull this off?"
Sico didn't smile. But there was steel in his eyes.
"If we can fake division well enough… then when we finally strike, they'll never see unity coming."
Outside, the sky was turning amber, light slanting low through the windows. The first real storm of the summer was building on the horizon, clouds stacking high like great gray cathedrals of thunder.
________________________________________________
• Name: Sico
• Stats :
S: 8,44
P: 7,44
E: 8,44
C: 8,44
I: 9,44
A: 7,45
L: 7
• Skills: advance Mechanic, Science, and Shooting skills, intermediate Medical, Hand to Hand Combat, Lockpicking, Hacking, Persuasion, and Drawing Skills
• Inventory: 53.280 caps, 10mm Pistol, 1500 10mm rounds, 22 mole rats meat, 17 mole rats teeth, 1 fragmentation grenade, 6 stimpak, 1 rad x, 6 fusion core, computer blueprint, modern TV blueprint, camera recorder blueprint, 1 set of combat armor, Automatic Assault Rifle, 1.500 5.56mm rounds, power armor T51 blueprint, Electric Motorcycle blueprint, T-45 power armor, Minigun, 1.000 5mm rounds, Cryolator, 200 cryo cell, Machine Gun Turret Mk1 blueprint, electric car blueprint, Kellogg gun, Righteous Authority, Ashmaker, Furious Power Fist, Full set combat armor blueprint, M240 7.62mm machine guns blueprint, Automatic Assault Rifle blueprint, and Humvee blueprint.
• Active Quest:-