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The room began to murmur again as each director started drafting orders, reaching for terminals, buzzing assistants through the comms. Shaun retreated to the side console, tapping into the system grid. Ayo marched toward the weapons logs. Alan began scribbling new robotic relay calibration notes.
The buzz of datapads and low murmurs filled the air again, like a hive of sterile, artificial bees. Directors filed out of their seats, retreating to consoles, dispatching orders, and scribbling directives. The meeting had ended in form, but not in spirit—the war drums hadn't yet sounded, but the drumsticks had been lifted. The Institute, beneath all its cold logic and brilliant engineering, was preparing to strike.
Nora stood still for a moment at her seat, pretending to be rechecking something on her terminal. In reality, she was watching Shaun.
He stood apart from the rest, his fingers flying across a console, pulling up grid overlays, deep-system comms, power distribution maps. He was in control. He was calm. But she'd seen the change. The glint in his eyes when he mentioned a retaliatory strike. The way his voice had dipped not with calculation, but with conviction. It scared her.
She took a breath—measured and even, as she'd learned to do so many times since being thawed—and crossed the room.
"Shaun," she said quietly, once she was close enough to not be overheard. "What do you want me to do?"
He paused. Not immediately—he finished typing a command into the terminal, saved something, then turned to her. His face was blank for a moment, as though parsing something more profound than what she'd asked.
Then came the silence.
A long one.
His gaze drifted from her eyes to somewhere in the middle distance. Past her. Or perhaps into some future only he could see.
"I want you," he said finally, voice low, "to return to Sanctuary."
Nora's eyes narrowed slightly. She tilted her head. "Why?"
Shaun stepped past her, making sure they were completely alone at the side of the chamber. He didn't look at her when he spoke again.
"Because the only way we win this… isn't through defense. Or clever traps. It's through fracture. Internal pressure. Division. Civil unrest."
She didn't understand at first.
"You mean… you want intelligence on the Freemasons?"
He turned to face her now.
"No. I want you to start something there. Find people—dissenters, former Minutemen, vault loyalists, anyone who isn't fully behind Sico's cult of personality. Fan their doubts. Their anger. Feed it."
Nora blinked. She felt her mouth open but no words came.
"I want you," Shaun said softly, "to sow rebellion. An insurrection. I want a civil war in the Freemasons Republic."
The world didn't spin. It sank. A quiet weight, like cement bags dropping on her chest, settled into her.
"Shaun…" she finally managed. "Do you hear what you're saying?"
He exhaled, looked away.
"I do. I've considered it for weeks. Maybe longer."
She stepped closer, lowered her voice, trying to stay composed. "Do you understand what that would do? People will die. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. They have families. Kids. Communities."
Shaun's eyes, so very much like his father's in some ways, and yet colder than any man she'd ever known, met hers again.
"It's for the good of our future," he said.
That sentence landed like a brick to the stomach.
"The deaths of people outside the Institute," he continued, "are preferable to the deaths of our own. We must survive. We're the best hope the world has."
Nora staggered back half a step, but quickly caught herself. Her training, her instincts, her pain-hardened discipline held her together—but only just.
"You want to use me," she said quietly. "To manipulate my own people into tearing themselves apart. To spill their blood for your safety."
"I want to protect you, Mom," Shaun said. "You're here. You're with us. But if the world above threatens everything we've built, everything we've preserved… then yes. I will do whatever is necessary."
The room was silent around them, the low mechanical hum of the Institute's omnipresent systems now louder than anything between them. Nora stared at him—her son, her baby, the one she'd held in a hospital blanket in a world that no longer existed. Her arms remembered the warmth, her fingers remembered the curl of his tiny hands. But the man before her now… was a stranger.
A stranger wearing her child's face.
Her voice, when it finally came, trembled—not with fear, but with fury held on a leash.
"And what about me, Shaun? What happens when I go up there and get people to rise up—people who trusted me, people who've already lost so much—and they start killing each other because of me? What happens when their kids bury their parents? What happens when their homes burn?"
Shaun's expression softened for a flicker—barely perceptible. A ghost of guilt. But it vanished just as quickly.
"They'll be martyrs. Necessary ones."
Nora's hand clenched into a fist at her side. She wanted to scream. To grab him. Shake him. Ask him if he even remembered the name of his father. Of Dogmeat. Of Sanctuary Hills. Of home.
But instead she said only one thing.
"You sound like the Enclave."
That hit him.
His face tightened, as if slapped. "That's unfair."
"Is it?" she said, voice still low. Still deadly. "Because the last time I heard someone talk about 'sacrifices for a better world,' it was while they were gassing entire vaults."
"That's not what this is."
"No?" She stepped closer, her voice just barely above a whisper now. "You're asking your own mother to incite a civil war among people who rebuilt a nation from ashes. You think that makes you different?"
Shaun looked down, then turned away. "This conversation is over."
"No," she said. "It's not."
He paused.
"Don't you see what they did to you?" she asked, her voice cracking now. "They stole you. They raised you in this… this machine. This lab. This prison. You never saw sunlight until you were grown. You never knew your father. You never knew me. They didn't just take you—they rewrote you."
She took a breath, and it hurt.
"I went through hell, Shaun. Hell. Just to find you. To get to this moment. And now all I see is the Institute wearing your skin like a lab coat."
For a long time, neither of them spoke.
And then, quietly, her son said: "Leave tomorrow. Report in three days. If I don't hear from you, I'll assume you've refused."
And with that, he turned and walked away, back toward the holoterminal.
Nora stood there, rooted in place.
She had never hated the Institute more.
Not just for what they'd done to the Commonwealth. Not even for the murders, the synth kidnappings, or the cold detachment.
She hated them for stealing him. Her son. Her reason for enduring cryo. For surviving. For pushing forward.
And they'd twisted him into this.
It wasn't anger that surged in her now.
It was grief.
She sat in the artificial quiet of her assigned Institute room, the low hiss of the air purifiers the only sound. The white lights above cast no shadows. There was no wind, no birdsong, no smell of woodsmoke. It was lifeless perfection. The kind that looked pristine but bled nothing but control.
She sat on the edge of the bed, hands clasped tightly between her knees, head bowed.
The message from Sarah replayed in her head again and again:
"Stay calm. Stay ready. Don't blow cover."
She couldn't afford to. Not now. Not after this.
Shaun was going to try and fracture the Republic from within. Spark a civil war that would kill people she knew. People she loved. Preston. Sturges. Marcy. Even Sico—whatever flaws he had—didn't deserve this.
She had a choice.
Obey her son, and betray everyone.
Or betray her son, and save them all.
The answer had already formed in her heart, long before her mind caught up.
The Institute had already taken everything.
She wouldn't let them take the future too.
The soft hiss of the Institute's purified air system whispered like ghosts in the sterile stillness of Nora's quarters. That same cold hum, so ever-present in this place, now felt suffocating. It wasn't just the absence of sound, of nature, of warmth—it was the absence of soul. The Institute was a mausoleum of brilliance. Genius without empathy. Purpose without conscience.
Nora sat unmoving on the edge of the bed, staring down at her hands, her knuckles white from how tightly she'd clasped them. She'd sat like that for nearly an hour after Shaun left. Time didn't feel real here. Without a sky to track the sun, without a breeze to remind you the world was still breathing, minutes bled into hours in a colorless vacuum.
But she knew what she had to do.
No more hesitating. No more hoping.
Slowly, she reached under the bed and retrieved a small metal box from beneath the floor panel she'd loosened two weeks ago, just in case. A box of "just in case" was how she'd survived this long. Inside it, tucked between folded linen and an old Stimpak she didn't dare use down here, was the tiny, hardened, two-inch communicator—no bigger than a cigarette lighter. It wasn't standard Institute tech. It was scavenged and retooled by Sturges and Mel back at Sanctuary, modified to piggyback on electrical frequency echoes, which the Institute's systems generally filtered as static.
She turned the dial carefully to the frequency Sarah had instructed her to use only in the most dire of emergencies.
If this didn't count, nothing did.
Her thumb hovered for a beat over the transmit switch.
Then she pressed it.
"Redbird, this is Bluebird," she said quietly into the device, her voice low, steady, and barely above a whisper. "Do you copy?"
Static.
Then a soft click.
"Bluebird, this is Redbird," came Sarah's voice, faint but clear enough to bring tears to Nora's eyes. "We read you. Say again, Bluebird. You okay?"
Nora swallowed hard, not letting the emotion break her. Not yet.
"I'm not hurt," she said. "But listen carefully. We don't have much time, and this channel could still be compromised."
There was a pause, then Sarah replied, "Understood. Go ahead."
Nora exhaled, bracing herself. "Shaun… the Institute… they know about the Brotherhood alliance. They're preparing a full-scale retaliation. But that's not the worst of it."
She paused.
"He's asked me to go to Sanctuary. To the Republic. He wants me to sow unrest. Find dissenters. Former Vault residents, Minutemen with grudges. He wants me to create civil war inside our walls."
Silence.
Then, Sarah's voice again, lower now. "He what?"
"He wants internal collapse," Nora said, her voice like broken glass. "He wants the Freemasons Republic to destroy itself from within while he leads a counterattack. His logic is surgical—divide their enemy, distract them, then strike."
Another long pause. The only sound was Nora's own breathing, ragged, just slightly trembling.
Finally, Sarah's voice returned, calmer than before but laced with fire. "That's… monstrous."
Nora closed her eyes. "I know. That's why I'm not going to do it."
"But he'll expect a report in three days," Sarah added.
"Exactly." Nora opened her eyes again, her voice firming. "I want him to believe I'm doing it. I'll go to Sanctuary like he asked. I'll make contact with people he told me to target. But I won't be turning them against Sico—I'll be feeding him a narrative."
"You want to deceive Shaun."
"I want to distract him," Nora said. "Tie up his mind. Make him focus on my 'operation' instead of leading the Institute's war response. If I can convince him that a rebellion is blooming inside the Republic, it'll fracture his priorities. Buy us time."
Sarah was quiet again. Then: "And you want me to tell Sico."
"Yes. He needs to know. We can't risk friendly fire or paranoia. I'll need his approval. His cover. If I'm going to pull this off, I need to be seen by the Republic as Nora—the loyal general who came home to advise against the Institute—not some traitor working for them."
"You'd be walking a razor's edge," Sarah said.
"I've walked worse," Nora whispered.
There was a long silence again, and then Sarah sighed. "All right. I'll tell him. He won't like it, but he'll understand."
Nora nodded, even though no one could see. "Tell him I'll need actors. Believable ones. People who can play the part of dissenters. Nothing too flashy—just low, quiet murmurs of discontent. Rumors of doubt. We need just enough noise to make it plausible."
"I'll have Piper start seeding those stories through a secret channel," Sarah said. "Carefully. Maybe a whisper campaign about old Minutemen not trusting Sico's new militarized doctrine."
"Perfect," Nora replied. "I'll lean into that. Maybe even suggest I'm gaining a following."
"But if Shaun sends someone to verify…?" Sarah asked.
"Then we show them exactly what they expect to see," Nora said. "Just enough to keep them convinced. But no real weapons. No real plans. Just smoke."
Sarah's voice came through again, quieter this time. "You sure you're up for this?"
Nora closed her eyes, pressing the communicator to her forehead for a moment.
"I'm sure," she whispered. "Shaun is already gone. But the people up there? They still have a chance."
The static cracked softly for a second before Sarah's reply came.
"Okay, Bluebird. You have the green light. We'll coordinate everything from here. But be careful. If they catch on…"
"I know," Nora said, her voice flat.
"You won't just be dead. They'll make it look like you were always working for them. They'll use your face to burn the Republic from the inside out."
Nora's jaw tightened. "Then we won't let them."
The line fell silent again. And then, finally, Sarah said, "Godspeed, Nora. We'll be ready."
Nora switched off the device and tucked it carefully back into the hidden panel, heart still pounding. But now, for the first time since that horrible conversation with Shaun, she felt purpose again. Not just grief. Not just betrayal.
A mission.
A way to fight back.
She stood, crossed the room to the small glass shelf where a carefully sterilized Institute-issue travel bag sat. She began to pack—modestly, like someone who expected a short diplomatic trip. But each item was chosen with care. A data slate with corrupted memory sectors—perfect for staging reports. A small capsule with encrypted Republic codes to verify her allegiance. A worn photo of baby Shaun and Nate, tucked in her inner pocket. For strength.
When the time came to depart, she would walk back into the world above not as an Institute agent, but as a ghost in their machine. A virus of loyalty masquerading as a traitor.
She would play her part.
And she would buy them time.
Because if Shaun wanted to burn down the Republic from within, he'd first have to believe his fire was spreading.
And Nora—Mother, Soldier, Ex General—would give him nothing but shadows and smoke.
It was nearly 0300 hours when she stood in the transit chamber, the elevator tube humming quietly beneath her feet. Only one technician was present, nodding absently as he input the override for an unscheduled surface departure. No alarms, no questions. Shaun had likely cleared it already.
The synth standing beside the technician, a Generation 2 with sterile features and bright, emotionless eyes, scanned Nora briefly and handed her a data pad.
"Director Father has provided coordinates," the synth said flatly. "You will be deposited approximately 200 meters southeast of Concord, along Route 27."
Nora nodded. "Understood."
The synth stepped back. The platform glowed faintly beneath her boots, and the vertical rail began to lower with a hydraulic whine. Her breath misted slightly in the cold as she descended back toward the surface, away from the subterranean heart of the enemy.
The Institute may have taken her son.
But they hadn't taken her will.
As the elevator doors closed above, severing her from that lifeless world of metal and silence, she felt the first taste of fresh air—faint, but real.
The Commonwealth wasn't dead yet.
And as long as she breathed, she would make sure it never would be.
The relay was silent again.
Not with the sterile silence of the Institute, but with the quiet of a world trying to heal—birdsong rising faintly in the distance, the wind rustling through overgrown brush, and the occasional crackle of a broken power line in the distance struggling to stay alive.
Nora stood there for a moment, eyes adjusting to the pre-dawn light.
Cool, damp air kissed her cheeks.
Real air.
Smelling of moss and damp wood and rust and morning dew—the scent of the world she remembered. The one she had nearly lost.
A low fog hung around the ruins that flanked the route to Concord, curling like ghosts through the broken teeth of forgotten homes and buckled pavement. Shadows moved in that fog—not enemies, not today. Birds. The tail of a radstag bounding away into the tree line. Somewhere farther off, a gunshot cracked like a bone breaking, distant and indifferent. The Commonwealth hadn't changed much, not really.
And neither had she.
Nora pulled the hood of her coat over her head, her hand grazing the stitched patch of her old General's insignia on the inner lining—carefully preserved but hidden from view. Her boots found the cracked path again, and slowly, she began walking north. Past the husks of what had been her home. Past the skeletal remains of Sanctuary's gateposts, now rebuilt into something stronger. Something hopeful.
It was nearly an hour before she saw it again—Sanctuary Hills.
But it wasn't the place she had left.
Gone was the makeshift gate made of scrap and desperation. In its place now stood thick metal barricades—salvaged from tanks, Vault doors, even downed Vertibird panels, reinforced and bolted together with military precision. A Republic flag flapped gently above the main checkpoint—its colors faded but defiant. The Freemason triangle and rising sun glinted in the early light.
She slowed her steps.
And there they were.
Hancock and MacCready stood at the entrance, flanking the gate like two statues made of smoke and gunpowder. It wasn't ceremony—it was signal.
She felt it instantly.
Sarah had told them.
This was part of the act. The play. The show they needed to put on for any Institute eyes that might be watching from the shadows or from orbiting drones high above. Nora was no longer General of the Minutemen, no longer the beating heart of their uprising—but she was something even more dangerous now.
She was history. And history walking back through the gates meant something.
MacCready was the first to move. He stepped forward, his long coat flapping behind him, and offered a quiet, half-smirk. "Well, I'll be damned. The ghost comes home."
Nora smiled faintly. "You still can't grow a beard, MacCready."
"Rude," he replied, grinning. "But fair."
Hancock tipped his hat as he approached. He was older now—not in years, but in presence. The mayor of Goodneighbor had become more than just a symbol of rebellion; he'd grown into a statesman, in his own degenerate way. The ash on his coat was fresh, his eyes bloodshot, but his gaze was sharp as ever.
"Well, well," he said, voice like sandpaper and jazz. "Back from the belly of the beast. I'd ask if they gave you a mint on your pillow, but I'm guessing the Institute doesn't do hospitality."
"Just surveillance," Nora said, stepping closer. "And manipulation."
They exchanged a look—brief but loaded.
"We heard," Hancock said. "Sarah debriefed us. You're here to play a part."
Nora nodded. "A dangerous one."
MacCready crossed his arms. "We figured. You've got Institute stink on you, but the look in your eye? That's the Nora we remember."
"She needs to be seen," Hancock added, turning toward the gate. "By everyone."
Nora glanced over her shoulder.
"You sure that's wise? People might not trust me anymore."
"They don't need to trust you," Hancock replied, already walking. "They just need to believe the story."
And so they walked together.
Through the gates of Sanctuary.
And into the jaws of history.
The guards on duty stopped dead when they saw her. One dropped his cup of boiled Brahmin milk. Another elbowed his friend, whispering urgently. Nora kept her expression neutral, but inside, her stomach twisted. Not from fear—but from the weight of memory.
The walk through Sanctuary wasn't fast. That was the point.
Word spread like fire in dry grass. Nora was back.
Children darted out from side alleys to peek at her. Farmers stood frozen in their fields. Mechanics poked their heads out from under war wagons and power armor racks. Even a few old Minutemen—veterans she remembered by name—straightened up and watched with guarded eyes.
Whispers filled the streets.
"She came back."
"I thought she was dead."
"No—she was with the Institute."
"Then why is she walking in with MacCready and Hancock?"
"She was the General once."
"She gave it all to Sico."
"She's back."
"She's back."
At the town square—rebuilt from salvaged aircraft hangars and old Commonwealth marble—people had already started gathering by the time the three of them arrived.
Sarah was there.
She stood at the top of the steps to the new central command center—a tall, elegant hybrid structure of pre-war concrete, Minutemen steel, and salvaged Vault-Tec composites. The war council's home. Behind her stood the flags of the Republic and the Brotherhood, side by side.
Sarah met Nora's gaze.
No smile.
No nod.
Just acknowledgment. A soldier to another soldier. A sister in arms.
And then, in front of everyone, she stepped down.
She walked straight to Nora and embraced her.
Not tightly. Not warmly.
Just long enough for every eye watching to see it.
Nora leaned in during the embrace, whispering quickly into Sarah's ear, "Relay still active. I gave him the first report. He believes I'm working. He'll be watching."
Sarah murmured, "We've started planting the whispers. Piper has the first false article in motion."
Then they broke the embrace.
Sarah turned to face the crowd. She raised her voice, amplified slightly by a nearby comm tower.
"Citizens of the Freemasons Republic," she called out, "our old General has returned. Not as a soldier, not as a spy, but as a friend."
Some clapped. Most stood silently, uncertain. A few murmured—too quiet to decipher.
Sarah continued, "She comes to us from the shadow of the Institute. She comes bearing knowledge. And warnings. And though some of you may doubt her…" She looked over at Nora. "I remind you of this: weren't for this woman, we wouldn't have a Republic to build."
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.
________________________________________________
• 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:-