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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.
The next morning broke with thunder rumbling faintly in the west—stormclouds the color of old steel crawling in over the mountains. But here in Sanctuary, a different storm was already brewing.
It started small.
A shouting match near the town armory. A disagreement over who was controlling supply lines for the western forts. Sico and Nora had barely exchanged words in front of others since the incident in the market square, but now the friction had evolved into a full-blown spectacle. And it was intentional—every glare, every shout, every dramatic walkout perfectly timed, but none of the onlookers knew that.
To them, the two founders of the Freemasons Republic were locked in a political civil war.
And by the end of that first week, the Republic's heart beat like it was divided in two.
Every time Sico and Nora crossed paths at the HQ or central dome, someone was there to watch. Sometimes it was intentional—Sarah making sure a Growler squad passed through the hall during a particularly loud spat. Sometimes it was accidental, like when Mel caught a glimpse of Sico throwing his coat down on the table and storming out of a meeting where Nora had called him "a would-be tyrant hiding behind speeches and shields."
It was theater. But the weight of it felt real.
Because the world watching didn't know it wasn't.
It didn't take long for the rift to ripple outward.
Sico took to the war room, building alliances like he was preparing for a real civil conflict. He moved quietly but decisively.
Sarah was the first to stand by him. She knew the plan, of course—but even her act was convincing enough that half the command assumed she'd abandoned neutrality for loyalty. She issued drill orders without checking with Nora, authorized supply drops to remote Growler outposts, and subtly began rerouting Brotherhood communications through Sanctuary's secure lines, as if she no longer trusted the civilian side of the Republic.
Albert, joined Sico soon after, frustrated by what he called Nora's "idealism without infrastructure." Jenny and Robert—sibling who follow Sico since they go out from Vault 81—followed suit after Nora publicly vetoed a motion to convert power grids into Brotherhood-compatible standards.
Mel came next. The Freemasons Republic Chief Scientist didn't care much for politics, but he'd fought beside Sico too many times to doubt his resolve. Magnolia, the sultry-voiced singer turned to be the Freemasons treasury, threw her weight behind Sico as well—arguing that leadership needed strength more than sentiment.
By the end of the week, Sico's "camp," as people had begun to call it, was a force of hardened officers, pragmatists, and field-tested loyalists.
But Nora was no less skilled at building alliances.
She leaned on conviction, on memory, on the people who'd helped rebuild Sanctuary from rubble and ash. She made her speeches quiet but piercing, her conversations subtle but undeniable.
Hancock joined her first. The Mayor of Goodneighbor had never liked the Brotherhood, and he didn't pretend to hide his disdain for what he called "Sico's military strut." He even made public remarks about how the Republic was "beginning to smell like steel oil and tyranny."
Preston—who had always walked the line between loyalty and concern—chose his side without grand ceremony. One day, he stopped reporting to Sico's war room and instead appeared at a humanitarian council alongside Nora, speaking on behalf of displaced families. It was all part of the plan—but the look in Preston's eyes made people believe it was real.
Sturges, the engineer of hearts and homes, stuck with the people he knew—Nora among them. Curie, the bright-eyed synth scientist, argued that the Republic was leaning too much toward conflict and not enough toward innovation. Cait and MacCready, rough and street-scarred as they were, made no bones about preferring Nora's humanism to what Cait called "a warlord's grip."
And Piper—well, Piper had already become the voice of the schism.
Her broadcasts reached all the way to Bunker Hill and beyond, and she leaned into the drama like a true professional. Every night, "Radio of Freedom" opened with some variation of:
"The Freemason Dream is cracking. Reports continue to roll in of widening fractures between President Sico and Nora, former leaders of the Minutemen turned architects of the new Republic. What started as a disagreement over military coordination has become a philosophical war, one that threatens to splinter the heart of the Commonwealth once more."
She interviewed citizens, made dramatized transcripts of council meetings, even speculated—falsely, of course—that Maxson himself had begun taking sides.
The people were beginning to murmur.
The Congress was beginning to worry.
And deep beneath the surface, Shaun was beginning to listen.
The Freemasons Headquarters—once a symbol of unity—now held weekly strategy meetings that looked more like brawls waiting to happen.
It was always the same. Two camps entered, and two sides left more bitter than before.
Even though they all knew the truth.
Inside, Sico would begin with calm words, outlining supply shortages, or Growler squad movement patterns, or Brotherhood liaison reports. But within five minutes, Nora would rise from her chair and throw a wrench into his strategy—challenging logistics, calling for civilian oversight, demanding the Congress be informed of what she called "unilateral escalations."
Preston would nod quietly. Piper would furiously write notes. Sarah would lean back, arms crossed, watching the room like a war game.
"Do you even care if this Republic survives?" Sico snapped one morning during a particularly brutal session. "Or are you so caught up in playing the saint that you'd rather see it fall apart than evolve?"
"Evolve into what?" Nora shot back. "A gun-run state where only those wearing power armor get to make decisions? Where you decide who lives and who gets sacrificed on the altar of 'tactical necessity'?"
Even Sturges had flinched at that one.
Magnolia, seated at Sico's right, had muttered under her breath, "Hell of a performance."
They had to fake frustration with each other even when they were alone. Their guards were always watching. Reports were always being filed.
At night, when the HQ lights dimmed and the people filed out into the foggy streets of Sanctuary, Sico and Nora would sometimes cross paths in secret—behind the old Vault-Tec ruins or in the basement level of the hospital where no one went.
They never touched. Never smiled. But they'd exchange quick, exhausted updates.
"He bought it?" Sico would ask.
"He's asking me to recruit from inside the Growlers," Nora would reply. "He wants someone on the inside to start undermining Sarah."
And then—just a nod. Then silence. Then they'd part again.
What began as a necessary deception was beginning to rot at the edges.
The lie was spreading like rust.
People in town stopped looking each other in the eye. Arguments broke out at the tap house. Farmers whispered about which leader truly had their back. Some families began hoarding supplies. Others asked if Freemasons Republic would even survive the next year intact.
Children stopped playing near the radio towers. They didn't want to hear "Radio of Freedom" anymore.
Magnolia sang fewer songs.
Curie spent longer in her lab.
Even Sarah—steady, lethal, disciplined Sarah—began asking Sico in hushed tones if they were going too far.
"We're burning morale to keep the Institute blind," she said one evening as the rain pelted the dome windows. "How much more can we risk before the real damage sets in?"
Sico said nothing for a long time. Then:
"Until Shaun is dead."
That was the line.
That was the goal.
And deep below the Commonwealth, that goal was working.
Shaun sat in the Institute's central chamber, surrounded by the Directorate—Alana, Justin, Clayton—and a sea of holograms blinking red and gold.
Reports were pouring in. Piper's broadcasts. Radio chatter. Congressional records intercepted from above.
"Sanctuary's collapsing," Justin said, voice cool but curious. "If we wait long enough, they'll tear themselves apart."
"No," Shaun replied, eyes hardening. "We don't wait. We prepare. When they finally break, we move in—not as invaders… but as saviors."
He looked to Nora, who stood quietly behind the rest of the Directorate, her face the perfect mask of a concerned mother who had lost faith in Sico.
"Continue to report," he told her. "Your insight is critical. You understand them more than anyone else. If the time comes… if the Republic falls, we may need a new symbol of order."
And Nora, her voice hushed and respectful, said:
"I'm ready."
Rain hammered down on the glass ceiling of the Freemasons' War Room Dome, a sound like a thousand tiny boots marching over Sanctuary's spine. Inside, the air was dense with quiet electricity. The weight of deception hung over every desk, every report, every flickering terminal screen, like a stormcloud that refused to break.
Sico stood by the secure radio terminal, fingers laced behind his back, eyes locked on the glowing green interface as encrypted frequencies scanned, pulsed, and locked onto their target.
The Brotherhood of Steel's symbol flashed on the screen—a stern, sharp emblem of sword and cog and wings. Then the voice came through.
It was clipped, cool, and unmistakably commanding.
"This is Elder Maxson. President Sico, are you receiving?"
Sico exhaled. He glanced once over his shoulder. Sarah stood a few paces back, silent, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
He pressed the transmission key.
"Loud and clear, Elder."
A beat of silence. Rain tapping like fingers against the dome.
"Then answer me plainly," Maxson said. "Does the Freemasons Republic still honor its alliance with the Brotherhood of Steel? Or has your… internal turmoil made that impossible?"
Sico's jaw tightened.
"We do," he said, voice steady. "And we will. Whatever fractures you've heard about are political. They don't alter our strategic objective. The Institute remains the primary threat. That hasn't changed."
Maxson didn't reply immediately.
In the silence, Sarah turned her head slightly, watching Sico the way a soldier watches a cliff face—measuring its stability before trusting it.
"Reports are coming in," Maxson said finally. "Broadcasts. Intelligence. Piper Wright's network paints a picture of collapse. Of a nation split in two. Why should I believe your forces will hold the line when the shooting starts?"
Sico's eyes narrowed. "Because the line is a theater," he wanted to say. Because the civil war is a lie. A shadow on the wall meant to blind our enemy. But of course, he couldn't say that. Not over this line. Not even to Maxson.
So he took a different route—one that was true, just not all the way.
"I've already given the order to Sarah to intercept, destroy, or capture any Institute installations or synth incursions within our territory," he said. "We're still hunting them. We haven't stopped. And we've confirmed multiple skirmishes across the western region. Sarah's teams are tracking rogue synths as we speak."
Sarah nodded once, just enough for Sico to know she'd back the statement if pressed.
"And more than that," Sico added, stepping toward the terminal, his voice tightening like a vice, "I've provided the Brotherhood with reports that came directly from within the Institute. Base layouts. Transmission codes. Synth deployment maps. They were gathered by an insider I placed there long before this alliance was even proposed. You remember I mentioned that when we first met?"
There was a pause. A long one.
Then Maxson replied.
"I do."
Sico could almost see the man behind the words—standing tall in some steel fortress within the Boston Airport compound, arms folded, eyes as sharp as his haircut.
"I've reviewed the documents," Maxson continued. "Some of the locations you've marked match our early scans. One site near Lynn Woods… another below Medford Memorial Hospital. Your intel checks out. But it also means your mole is still active?"
Sico hesitated.
"Yes."
He didn't say more. Couldn't. Nora's position was already delicate beyond measure. The more people who knew, the greater the risk.
But Maxson didn't pry. He was a warrior, not a spymaster. He knew the value of a tight grip on secrets.
"Very well," Maxson said. "We will coordinate strikes based on the intelligence you provided. I'll have Paladin Danse contact Sarah with tactical details. The Brotherhood moves when I say we move—but when we do, we hit fast and clean."
"Understood," Sico said. "We'll match your tempo."
Another pause. And then:
"One more thing, General."
Sico lifted his chin.
"If your civil fracture becomes more than theater—if Sanctuary truly descends into chaos—I expect you to act. We don't wage wars beside broken allies. The Brotherhood will not babysit your Republic."
Sico nodded, though Maxson couldn't see it. His voice, when it came, was low and lethal.
"Then you'll never have to."
The transmission cut. The Brotherhood's logo flickered once, then disappeared from the screen.
Silence settled in the War Room. Even the rain seemed to have softened into a whisper.
Sarah exhaled behind him. "That went better than expected."
Sico turned toward her, pulling off his gloves. "He trusts us for now."
She tilted her head. "You mean he trusts you."
A ghost of a smirk flickered across Sico's face. "Let's not waste it."
The next two days blurred into long hours and sleepless nights. Sarah issued orders like a blade through water—precise, clean, and unforgiving. Growler squads were redeployed along the northern border, where synth activity had increased. Surveillance drones returned with images of strange footprints near abandoned subway stations. Sico spent most of his nights in the operations chamber, staring at maps, strings of coordinates, and pulses of movement—trying to read the war before it started.
But what wore him down wasn't the maps.
It was the act.
The lie.
Every argument with Nora in public. Every staged insult. Every cold glance that made their allies flinch.
One night, long after midnight, Sico stood outside Sanctuary's old hospital, where the light above the basement entrance flickered like a dying firefly.
She was waiting there. Just like always.
Nora stood in the shadows, arms wrapped around herself against the wind. Her eyes were tired. Not just from lack of sleep—but from the weight of holding so much truth in a world starving for it.
She didn't speak when he stepped into the alley. She just reached into her coat and handed him a small stack of files—data drives encoded with more Institute locations. Synth deployment patterns. Directorate travel schedules. And her own notes, scrawled in shorthand no one else would understand.
Sico looked them over. "They'll help."
"I told Shaun I'd start sowing doubt in the Growlers," Nora said quietly. "He wants me to find Sarah's weak point. He's planning to use me as the tip of the wedge."
Sico looked up. His eyes met hers.
"He thinks you're going to fracture this Republic from the inside."
Nora gave a soft, humorless laugh. "Well… in a way, I guess I am."
Neither of them smiled.
They stood in silence for a moment, the storm still clawing across the sky above them.
Then Sico said, "Maxson's on board. Your intel was the tipping point."
She nodded.
"And Sarah?"
"Still loyal. But she's worried."
"She should be."
Nora tilted her head. "And you? Still think we can pull this off?"
Sico didn't answer right away. He looked past her, toward the faint golden glow of Sanctuary's main street.
Toward the Republic that didn't know it was fighting a phantom war. That didn't know it was being hollowed out for the sake of a future that hadn't been born yet.
"I don't know," he said finally. "But if we don't… then we've already lost."
The second wave began before dawn.
Not with fanfare. Not with horns. Just a quiet pulse through the radio lines—encrypted codes relayed between forward bases, embedded scouts, and Brotherhood outposts. No one shouted. No one asked for confirmation. The moment the signal hit, boots moved, weapons loaded, drones lifted from camouflaged nests beneath shattered roofs and derelict train cars. A phantom war, yes—but one with real bullets, real blood, and real ghosts.
Sarah was already suited up in her combat armor when the briefing ended. Her orders had been clear: slice deep into the Institute's territory using the intel Nora provided, coordinated with Brotherhood fireteams striking parallel targets. Five locations had been selected for the second wave—two above ground, three buried beneath concrete and rust. All were former Institute research nodes or safehouses, once considered abandoned, now revealed for what they truly were: staging grounds for infiltration.
The worst of them sat under the ruins of a collapsed tenement near Cambridge. The Growlers called it "The Pit."
And The Pit fought back.
At 0415 hours, two Growler squads—Kilo and Echo—descended into the structure's lower sublevels. They found auto-turrets online. Synths already in position, like they had been waiting. One of the Growlers, a kid named Denton, was vaporized before he cleared the final stairwell. Another lost a leg to a mine triggered by a synthetic corpse, its body booby-trapped and disguised beneath scavenged Brotherhood armor.
Sarah arrived at 0430, mid-breach, leading Bravo squad in a hard flanking push through the east stairwell. Her voice over comms was calm but clipped—surgical.
"No warning shots. These aren't hostages. Sweep, clear, and verify every room."
By 0500, the Institute outpost was gone.
But so were seven Growlers.
Their names would be posted later on the Wall of Honor back in Sanctuary, but Sarah knew them all already. Had trained half of them. Watched them laugh at mess tables, spar in the yard, write letters home to families that didn't exist anymore. She didn't cry. Not yet. She didn't have that luxury.
What stayed with her wasn't the casualties—it was the calm. The way the synths fought without panic. As if they knew what this was. As if they knew who'd be coming.
As if someone had told them.
Meanwhile, Sico was 40 miles north, standing beside a mobile war-table inside a camouflaged command tent overlooking the ruins near Lynn Woods. He barely heard the thunder of orbital bombardment through the concrete and moss above them. Brotherhood missiles lit the horizon in timed bursts, cratering old Institute installations like surgical blight. Sico stood perfectly still, watching red blips disappear from the holo-map, replaced by gray silence.
Behind him, Captain Albert scanned the latest drone footage. "Paladin Danse reports minimal resistance so far. Too minimal."
Sico didn't respond. His eyes traced the flashing data feed, the neural heatmaps, the quiet hum of calculated death.
"They knew," Albert said, more quietly. "They knew this was coming. These stations were cleared just hours before the strikes."
Sico looked up. "Except the one beneath Medford Memorial."
Albert's jaw tightened.
"Echo team lost three men in that fight," he said. "And when it was over? The synths retreated underground. Took civilians with them. As shields or… or converts."
Sico turned back to the map. "Shaun's tightening the net. He's not trying to defeat us in the field—he's trying to stretch us thin. Distract us with ghosts."
Albert didn't argue. Just murmured, "So what do we do?"
"We change the question."
Sico stabbed a command into the terminal. A new projection appeared—showing suspected Institute migration paths, calculated from synth escape patterns and Nora's latest intel. The dots moved like rats under floorboards. Unseen. Coordinated.
"They want us to fight shadows," Sico said. "Let's light the damn room."
But back in Sanctuary, the real war was different. More dangerous. More insidious.
It didn't have synths or super soldiers or orbital weapons.
It had whispers.
Soldiers barracks, once tight-knit, had started to divide.
"Did you hear Nora wants to divert supplies from the Southern Front to build more housing in the Capital District? That's insane."
"She said it was to shelter civilians displaced by the Institute."
"Yeah, that's what she said."
"C'mon. She's still with Sico."
"Then why don't they even talk anymore?"
Officers in the eastern logistics wing began separating into two planning groups—one orbiting Sarah, one around Hancock and Sturges. Meetings grew colder. Formalities were emphasized. Joint drills now required a supervising officer from both factions. A formality, they said. A gesture of fairness.
But everyone knew.
Everyone felt it.
The Republic was splitting—and no one knew whether it was real.
Some nights, campfire circles in outposts near Concord went dead silent the moment Nora or Sico's name came up. Once, a lieutenant named Reyes snapped and punched his squadmate over a joke implying Sarah was secretly feeding intel to the Brotherhood alone.
"He called her a zealot," Reyes explained later. "Said she only takes orders from Maxson now. That she's not one of us anymore."
In his defense, the brass gave him two weeks off-duty.
But it didn't solve the real issue.
Trust was cracking.
Piper Wright saw it before anyone.
Her latest broadcasts had subtly shifted tone—still calling for unity, but now emphasizing "accountability," "transparency," "watchfulness." She never named names. Never accused.
But the weight was there. In her tone. In the tremble of her voice when she spoke about heroes becoming tyrants, about factions crumbling from within.
Behind closed doors, she met with Nora twice. In a sealed attic room above the old schoolhouse, she whispered her fears:
"People think this is all real. That you and Sico are about to go to war."
Nora didn't lie. She didn't reassure.
She just said: "Good."
That was the cost. The play had to be perfect. Shaun needed to believe it.
But with every day that passed, with every firefight and funeral, the rift grew more convincing. More dangerous.
One night, when Nora walked past the Growler mess hall, the room went silent. Forks stopped. Eyes tracked her across the floor like she was a ghost.
When she sat, no one joined her.
Later, Hancock came by her quarters with a bottle of pre-War bourbon and half a grin.
"Well," he said, "congrats. You've officially become the bad guy."
She took the bottle. Didn't drink.
Just stared out the window, where the lights of Sanctuary flickered behind rain-slick glass.
By week's end, rumors had escalated.
That Sarah had deployed a private task force of Growlers who answered only to her.
That Nora had blocked three Council votes behind closed doors.
That Sico was planning to dissolve Congress entirely and rule by wartime decree.
None of it was true. Not yet.
But that wasn't the point.
The lie had become a wildfire. And the forest was dry.
That night, in a sealed chamber beneath Sanctuary's archive tower, Sico met with Sarah, Mel, Magnolia, and Robert. The door was guarded by three of Sarah's most loyal Growlers—none of whom spoke.
Sico's voice, when he finally broke the silence, was barely a whisper.
"We're losing control of the story."
Sarah leaned against the war table, her jaw set. "Too many moving parts. Too many people improvising."
"We can't keep walking this line," Robert said, rubbing his temples. "Every time we stage another public argument, more people take it seriously. Even in Congress, they're starting to form sides."
Mel looked pale. Exhausted. "It's not theater anymore. It's a spark in a powder room."
Sico stared at the ceiling. At the glow of artificial stars painted on by schoolchildren last spring. Now those stars felt mockingly out of place.
"We can't stop," he said finally. "Shaun is watching. Listening. Nora's feeding him what he expects. If we blink, he'll know it was all a setup."
Magnolia, quiet until then, stepped forward.
"Then what's the next move?"
Sico's gaze hardened.
"We let the rift go public."
Everyone looked at him.
"I mean really public," he said. "Not just subtle arguments or shifts in policy. We stage a full debate in Congress. Televised. A formal split in ideology."
Mel's mouth fell open. "You want the people to choose sides?"
Sico nodded.
"And in doing so, let Shaun think he's winning. That the Republic is collapsing."
Sarah muttered, "It might actually collapse."
"Not if we time it right," Sico said. "Not if we use it as the final distraction. A smokescreen for the main strike. We launch our assault on the Institute at the moment of greatest disunity."
Magnolia exhaled slowly. "You're gambling everything."
"I know," Sico said.
"But so is Shaun."
And somewhere deep beneath their feet, behind walls of white and chrome, Shaun stared at a terminal screen, a faint smile curling the corner of his mouth.
________________________________________________
• 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:-