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And together, they stepped back out into the corridor—two soldiers pretending to be rivals, walking side by side through a war they could not afford to lose.
The next day, as the rain had finally stopped. Mist clung to the cobblestones like ghosts of yesterday, turning lanternlight into shimmering halos that glowed in the pre-dawn quiet. The air carried the lingering scent of fresh rain, wet earth, and something harder to place—anticipation.
Inside Piper's broadcast tent at the edge of the Assembly Hall, everything was ready. Microphone hooked to power, script laid out, one lone coffee cup stained with inked notes. Piper wore her usual serious expression, but her eyes held something darker now—a hardness born of late-night worry, of watching friends become headlines.
She cleared her throat. "This is Piper Wright, broadcasting live on Radio of Freedom…" The words came steady, practiced, but with unmistakable weight. She paused as she leaned toward the mic. "Yesterday in Sanctuary, the Congress of the Freemasons Republic convened—unprecedented, unplanned, and driven by fear. Fear that our leadership is fracturing. That our Republic is splitting between two camps: President Sico's and General Nora's."
Her tone didn't ask permission. It demanded attention.
Deep inside the Council Room, the atmosphere had shifted from businesslike to tense by the time Danny Sullivan brought up the issue. He didn't just open the meeting—he opened the wound.
He said: "Is there now more than one faction within our Republic? Are we no longer united under one banner?" That question hung in the room, heavier than the freshly hung banners behind him.
Sico sat motionless, cloak buttoned high, eyes locked on the table. Nora remained calm, her presence a silent force.
Piper's voice returned, low and steady: "Nora stood first. She admitted publicly that ideological disagreements with Sico had deepened—raising alarms that perhaps the Republic's direction was diverging from what was promised." She paused, then added, "Sico followed, acknowledging the divide, yet insisting that conflict does not equal collapse. How leaders disagree, he said, does matter."
The Congress shifted uncomfortably. Trade delegates looked at militia commanders; mayors glanced at Brotherhood envoys. National security briefly meant internal stability.
Piper's fingers tapped her printed note as she continued: "In the aftermath, Tess Mercer proposed—and Captain Rose seconded—a temporary Oversight Committee. Its purpose: to verify executive decisions, to ensure that actions taken by President Sico or General Nora do not undermine each other or erode public trust."
She let that sink in. "The motion passed unanimously—every delegate, from the atom-cat envoy to the Diamond City representatives, voted yes."
Her voice faltered for a moment—that mix of astonishment and relief in her tone was unmistakable. "It was accepted not as a sign of distrust, but as a pact—a bridge over widening fault lines."
The broadcast didn't glamorize. Piper laid it out clearly: "This isn't just about politics. It's about morale. It's about the Republic surviving its own internal doubts. It's about the people who heard whispers at their campfires—Cait had counted half-empty shelves in Concord; Preston had heard trades grinding to a halt in Bunker Hill." She named ground-level consequences so the story didn't stay abstract.
She turned to the committee's significance. "This oversight body will include representatives from all major settlements—Diamond City, Goodneighbor, Bunker Hill, Quincy, and others. They won't veto decisions, but they will watch. To prove to our people that we aren't factional. That, even when we don't all agree—President Sico and General Nora still believe in a united leadership."
Piper's broadcast offered more than facts—she gave color. "It was clear in the chamber: Sico and Nora spoke with restraint, with respect, for the first time in weeks. Each watched the other's words as closely as the rest of us did."
She described Sico's closing lines: "I will defend this flag—until the day I die. With Nora at my side, or across from me if it comes to that." That earned even the most cynical members a whisper of grudging respect.
Nora had responded with equal gravity: "I'm not forming new factions. I'm raising a warning flag because I care about this Republic. Our sacrifices weren't wasted."
Together, those moments reframed the rift—not as rebellion, but as a reckoning.
Back at the tent's edge, Piper looked out past the lantern glow into fog-draped streets. "I've already started receiving messages on air," she said into the mic. "'That gave me hope'… 'That gave me reasons to not leave the Commonwealth'… 'That proves we're still one.'"
She didn't sugarcoat dissent either: "Others wrote in fear—'What if this committee is the first step toward tearing us apart?' 'What if tomorrow we're real traitors?'" Those voices were quieter, but Piper made sure they aired too—because shadows grow if only the sun is shown.
Deep in the Freemasons HQ, Sico and Nora faced the aftermath. They didn't argue. They just waited.
She said softly: "It's out now. How people see this… it's out there."
He replied: "Maybe that's good. Maybe it needed daylight."
Their tension hadn't vanished. The oversight committee meant public scrutiny. Authority was now shared power.
She exhaled. "We keep control until we decide the next move. But they'll be watching me too. Watching you."
He nodded. "We'll live with that. Better than lying in the dark."
Piper wrapped up the broadcast: "This is Piper Wright, staying on watch for these Republic leaders—because they asked us to. This isn't just a story of conflict. It's the next chapter of rebuilding something real. Something honest."
She signed off with a final note: "The oversight committee may not heal the rift—but it acknowledges it. And perhaps that's the first step to mending a Republic that refuses to fall apart."
Her voice softened: "Thank you for listening. Tomorrow, perhaps, we'll see how real—or how fragile—that unity really is."
The broadcast ended, and Piper sat back, drained. Outside, lantern glow faded as delegates and citizens alike returned to homes, to inns, to quiet corners—some hopeful, some fearful.
Preston found her later, hat pulled low. "You did good."
She shook her head. "Let's hope it works."
The air inside the strategy room at Freemasons HQ was thick—not with smoke or noise, but with something quieter and heavier. A sense of inevitability. Of finality. No more debates, no more radio scripts, no more acting like this division was just a wrinkle to be ironed out with clever speeches. The rift had been declared. The oversight committee formed. The people were watching now.
But that was all theater.
Here—beneath reinforced concrete and buzz-humming lights—there was no time for speeches.
Just war.
Sico stood near the central table, the dim blue glow of the tactical holomap casting faint shadows across his jaw. His arms were crossed, cloak still damp at the shoulders from the misty walk over. Nora stood opposite, arms folded, face unreadable. And next to them, her stance casual but her eyes sharper than broken glass, stood Sarah Lyons—Commander of the Freemasons Republic's elite expeditionary forces.
Sarah broke the silence first.
"They're ready."
Her voice had the same energy as the room—quiet, clipped, but edged with steel. No flair, no puffed-up declarations. Just certainty.
Sico didn't look at her. He kept his gaze on the holomap, its projected layers flickering as a 3D image of the Institute's suspected location pulsed into clarity. The terrain, the facility entrances, the energy signatures—the result of months of stolen data and spywork. Years, if you counted the seeds Nora had planted from her time on the inside.
He finally spoke, voice low. "I want every member in that strike force to be the best. No dead weight. No variables."
Sarah nodded. "Already done. Commandos only. Power Armor veterans. Albert's in. Robert too. MacCready and I will lead opposite flanks."
Sico looked up at her now. "And yourself?"
She smiled faintly. "You don't think I'd miss it, do you?"
He gave a short, approving nod. "Good."
Nora stepped in then, brushing her hair back with a hand still damp from rain. Her voice was calm, but her eyes had that calculating gleam they always held when systems and circuits were involved.
"You want me to get you in without triggering their defenses," she said, more a statement than a question.
Sico turned toward her. "Yes. We can't alert them. We can't have them seal their main reactor or blow the lab cores. And if they mobilize the synths, we'll lose men before we even get to the elevators."
Nora exhaled slowly and walked to the edge of the table, dragging her fingers across the map's surface. The interface adjusted to her touch, zooming in on key transit nodes—elevators, security junctions, data relays.
"I can do it," she said. "But I need time. Their system's still partially encrypted—I need to bypass their security relays without pinging internal sensors. That'll let me piggyback our teleport signature through their own Mass Relay signal."
She looked up at him. "They won't know we're inside… not until it's too late."
Sico nodded slowly, letting the words settle like weight onto iron.
"Do it," he said. "Whatever it takes."
There was a beat of silence before he added, "But one more thing."
Both Nora and Sarah looked at him now. His tone shifted—not softer, but deeper. More deliberate.
"If we can help it," he said, "we don't kill them."
Sarah's eyes narrowed. "The Institute?"
"The scientists," Sico clarified. "The synth handlers. The tech engineers. The command structure, if we can get them alive."
Sarah raised a brow. "That'll slow us down."
"I know," he said. "But this isn't just about destroying them. It's about using what they built. Their research. Their tech. We don't just end their threat—we take it."
Nora tilted her head. "You want synths under Freemason control."
"And teleportation," Sico added. "You know as well as I do—if we can crack that tech, we're no longer fighting with boots and vertibirds. We're gods."
Sarah let out a low breath, nodding slightly. "Capture teams then. I'll prep stun rounds and shackling units. We'll secure key labs, then sweep outward."
Sico looked between the two women. "No mistakes. No cowboy moves. We go in silent, hit hard, and hold."
Nora's lips twitched—not quite a smile, but close. "We'll need three days. I'll need Mel, Sturges, Tinker Tom, and the data decryption lab sealed for my team. Once I'm in, the door stays locked. We can't have any leaks."
"Done," Sico said.
He walked to the far wall and tapped a panel embedded beside the old Brotherhood command console. It slid open with a hydraulic hiss, revealing a vertical rack of deep black body armor—unmarked, reinforced with modded plating and ceramic kinetic dampeners. No Republic insignia. No identifying marks. Ghost team gear.
He pulled a vest from the rack and tossed it to Sarah, who caught it midair.
"This is the moment," he said. "The move we've been building toward for a year."
Sarah looked down at the armor in her hands and then back up. "We finish it."
Sico nodded.
"We finish it."
The room had emptied, but the mission's echo remained.
Sico stood for a long moment in the strategy chamber after Sarah and Nora had gone. The lights from the holomap flickered in silence now, casting the ghostly outline of the Institute's main base across the ceiling like a vision—a thing both feared and hungered for. That hum of coming violence still thrummed in his bones, but beneath it was something colder. A deeper current.
War wasn't coming.
It was already here.
He let out a breath, shoulders easing for just a second before he tapped the interface and dimmed the projection. The image blinked away, leaving only the dull overhead lights humming against concrete and steel. The shadows fell back into place. Time to move.
He stepped into the hallway, boots echoing on the brushed metal flooring as he cut through the corridors of Freemasons HQ. The security team on duty straightened when he passed, offering quick nods, but didn't speak. Not now. Not tonight. The war room glow hadn't left his face.
He passed the med bay—lights off now, Curie likely gone for the night—and rounded the stairwell down into the sub-deck offices, where mission logistics and militia coordination were run. The door he stopped at had no sign, just an old sticker half-ripped from when this place was a Brotherhood outpost years ago.
He knocked once and stepped in without waiting for a response.
Preston Garvey was leaning over a crate of relay maps and Brotherhood frequency charts, his Minutemen duster tossed over the back of a chair. Across the room, Hancock was half-slouched on a couch, chewing on something that might've been a brahmin jerky stick—or, knowing Hancock, could've been anything.
Sico closed the door behind him and spoke without ceremony.
"I need you both."
Preston straightened immediately. Hancock raised a brow and stretched his arms behind his head like a man summoned to a poker table.
"Well," Hancock said, grin crooked, "that's usually how trouble starts."
Sico didn't smile.
"In three days," he said, "we hit the Institute's main base. Full strike. Commando units, Power Armor, Nora's infiltration codes—it's happening. And when we do it, I need you both to light a fire big enough to make the Brotherhood forget their own damn mission reports."
Preston's expression tightened. "You want a diversion."
"Not just a diversion," Sico said. "I want confusion. Chaos. Disinformation. I want Maxson chasing his own tail while we take what we came for."
Preston glanced at Hancock, then back at Sico. "You want us to hit them?"
"No," Sico said. "Not them directly. Not yet."
He moved closer to the table and tapped his fingers against a Commonwealth map spread between stacked crates. There were dots scrawled in red, blue, and yellow—marking known synth caches, Institute remnants, Brotherhood movements.
"Here," Sico said, pointing to the western edge of Boston near the old train yards. "Institute relay site. Still active, still pulling power. The Brotherhood's been watching it but hasn't touched it."
He slid his finger south, then east. "There's another—near Hyde Park. We think it's a decoy bunker, filled with Gen-1s and Gen-2s guarding old lab tech."
Hancock was listening now, no longer lounging. His eyes had gone hard.
"You want us to hit those?"
"Yes," Sico said. "I want you guys to lead a team to launch simultaneous attacks on every known synth cell in the Commonwealth. Make it loud. Make it messy. Let the Brotherhood think the Institute is flailing, scattering resources to keep us out."
Preston crossed his arms. "We've got intel the Brotherhood is stretched thin too. Sarah's been using your leaks to keep them busy in the western hills."
"Exactly," Sico said. "This'll tip the scales. While they're dealing with scattered skirmishes across the Commonwealth, we'll be inside the real heart of the Institute—taking the core."
"And then?" Hancock asked, his voice cooler now. "What happens when they find out we've taken the Institute?"
Sico looked at him.
"Then we unleash hell."
Preston tilted his head. "You mean synths."
Sico nodded. "Once the Institute's under our control, we use their own synth army against the Brotherhood. Push them east. Harass their supply lines. Disrupt their relay tech. Nothing full-scale—just enough to make them believe the war's come home again."
Hancock rubbed his chin, half-smiling. "And we blame it on rogue synths still out there."
"Exactly," Sico said. "We control the narrative. We make it look like we've barely survived the battle ourselves—exhausted, fractured, clinging to the ruins of victory. All while we're consolidating the most powerful tech base in the region."
Preston was quiet a moment. Then:
"That's a dangerous game."
"I know," Sico said.
"You're asking us to fight a shadow war against both the Brotherhood and whatever remnants of the Institute fight back."
"I am," Sico said. "But you're not alone. Sarah's with us. Nora's cracking their defenses. And I'm not giving this order from a safehouse a hundred miles away. I'll be boots-on-ground in the Institute's command hall."
Preston looked him in the eye.
"Alright," he said. "We'll do it."
Sico nodded once.
"I want Hancock leading the northern squads—Cambridge, Lexington, Arlington. You know the ruins. Know the old ghoul routes. I want you to rally the irregulars, the ex-Raiders, the people no one trusts but everyone fears. You're the chaos agent."
Hancock grinned. "About time you recognized my talents."
Sico turned to Preston.
"You'll take the southern edge—Quincy, Hyde Park, Dorchester. Make it look like a full-blown military uprising. Keep them scrambling. But don't hold ground. Move. Hit and vanish. Smoke and mirrors."
Preston gave a grim smile. "I've done it before. I'll do it again."
Sico stepped back, letting the map settle between them.
"When this is over," he said, "when we hold the Institute… we won't just have a future. We'll own it."
There was a pause, thick and heavy with unspoken things—doubts, maybe. Fears. But also understanding.
Then Hancock stood.
"I'll start rallying the north. We've got some old friends in the ruins who'll be happy to shoot at anything."
Preston started rolling up the map. "And I'll get word to the Castle. Ronnie will want to know. She'll be ready."
Sico nodded, satisfied.
"Go. Keep it quiet for now. In two days, we mobilize. Three days from now, we change the world."
As they left the room, Sico lingered behind once more. He walked to the window slit carved into the concrete, looking out at the distant lights of Sanctuary flickering against the dark hills.
________________________________________________
• 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:-