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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.
The rain hadn't stopped all night.
It wasn't a heavy downpour—the kind that swept through streets and flooded trenches—but something more persistent. A whispering drizzle, fine and cold, that turned the roads of Sanctuary into blackened veins of mud and puddle, dulled the lanternlight glow of the Capital District, and soaked banners that once proudly declared unity and strength.
It was the kind of rain that got under armor. Under skin. The kind that carried the weight of silence.
Nora woke before dawn. She hadn't slept much. Not really. Even when she closed her eyes, she could feel the tension in her body, the ache between her shoulder blades, the pressure behind her eyes. There had been too many dreams lately—shattered glass, hollowed-out vaults, a little boy reaching out through layers of time and betrayal. She didn't want to close her eyes anymore.
She was already dressed by the time Piper arrived at her door.
"Did you hear it yet?" Piper's hair was damp, her coat unbuttoned, eyes flashing with the kind of barely-contained urgency that could only mean one thing.
"No," Nora said, lifting a brow.
Piper stepped inside, her voice low and urgent. "Danny Sullivan. He just went live on Diamond City Radio."
Nora blinked. "He never uses that channel."
"Exactly."
Piper pulled a small receiver from her coat and switched it on. It hissed for a second, then snapped into clarity:
"…and I say this not as a critic, not as a doubter, but as a friend. A loyal supporter of this Republic and everything we built after the bombs. I was there when Sanctuary was nothing but broken houses and broken people. I was there when Sico first stood on that damn podium and swore we'd never fall into tyranny. And I watched Nora—yes, General Nora of the Minutemen—walk out of that Vault and start pulling the Commonwealth back together one settlement at a time."
Nora closed her eyes, her lips tightening.
"But now we got whispers. Now we got people talking in corners. Now we got sides. Camps. Factions. We got Growlers who don't talk to the Republic, and farmers who won't accept food if it's got the wrong label on the crate. That ain't unity. That ain't survival. That's how nations die before they're born."
Piper watched her.
Nora just listened.
"So I'm calling for Congress. Not next week. Not when it's convenient. Tomorrow. Right there on Sanctuary. I want every representative from every major city and settlement sitting at that damn table. And I want Sico and Nora both in the same room—talking. Openly. Like leaders. Like humans."
A beat of static.
"This ain't a witch hunt. This is a reckoning. We owe it to the people who bled to build this Republic. And if we don't do it now… we won't get another chance."
The broadcast ended.
The silence that followed felt louder than any speech could have.
"People are going to rally behind this," Piper said quietly.
"They already are," Nora murmured. "Danny wouldn't have made that call unless he knew he had the numbers."
Piper hesitated. "Are you ready?"
Nora didn't answer right away. She moved to the window instead, wiping the condensation with the back of her hand. Out there, the sun was beginning to rise—but it looked pale, reluctant, smeared behind gray clouds like it was unsure whether the day was worth showing up for.
Then she turned.
"We're not just putting on a show anymore," she said. "We're setting the stage for the final act."
Piper nodded. "Then we better get the lines right."
By midday, the radio waves were alive.
Every outpost between Quincy and Lexington was buzzing with fragments of Danny Sullivan's speech. Some called it brave. Others, reckless. But everyone agreed: it was happening. Congress was being summoned for an emergency meeting in Sanctuary.
The Freemasons HQ scrambled.
Staffers rushed through hallways with slates and hand-written notes. Chairs were pulled from storage rooms, dusted, placed precisely around the great oval table in the Assembly Chamber. Surveillance drones were quietly activated to sweep the surrounding hills for any sign of an ambush. Even though no one said it out loud, everyone feared the same thing: Shaun might see this gathering as too tempting to ignore.
Preston was among the first to arrive at Nora's office.
He didn't knock. Just came in, rain dripping from his coat, his expression grim.
"This meeting's a trap," he said.
Nora looked up from the reports on her desk. "You think Shaun's gonna strike?"
"No," Preston said. "I think the people might."
She met his eyes.
He walked further in, unbuckling his wet gloves. "They're scared, Nora. They've been watching you and Sico drift further apart every week. This thing's gonna feel like confirmation. To them, it won't matter that you're acting. They'll see it as the moment everything breaks."
"That's the point," she said quietly.
"I know," he muttered. "Doesn't mean I have to like it."
Nora stood, walked around her desk, and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"I don't like it either, Preston. But we're past the point of easy answers."
He looked at her for a long time, then gave a slow nod. "Then let's make it count."
Meanwhile, on the far edge of Sanctuary, Sico stood beneath the eaves of the Brotherhood outpost, watching a column of muddy trucks make their way up the road. Civilians returning. Delegates arriving. Even a few faces he hadn't seen in months—old raiders turned allies, caravan leaders from Bunker Hill, even a Ghoul preacher from the far south who had once been a mayor himself.
Albert came up beside him, wiping his glasses.
"You think Nora's ready for this?" he asked.
"She doesn't need to be," Sico replied.
Albert raised an eyebrow.
"She just needs to play her part."
That night, the city didn't sleep.
You could feel it in the streets. The tension, thick as fog, curling around shoulders and lingering in alleyways. Lanterns burned longer. Patrols doubled. Curfews suspended—too many people awake, waiting, whispering.
In a small café near the water pump station, Magnolia sang a low, mournful song about the end of the old world. A haunting ballad that barely echoed above the soft rain pattering against the roof. Her voice was soft, but those who heard it remembered.
Sturges sat at the back, a mug of tar-thick coffee between his hands.
"This place's gonna blow," he muttered to Cait, who sat across from him chewing on a stimpack wrapper like it was gum.
Cait grinned, sharp and tired. "Let it. Been too quiet anyway."
The streets outside glistened under the dim lanternlight, the puddles painting the world in warped reflections—of towers, of armed patrols, of people who looked over their shoulders more often than forward these days.
Inside her quarters, Nora sat alone.
She had tried sleeping. Again. But her cot might as well have been iron. Her thoughts twisted too tightly together—Danny's speech, the mounting pressure, the weight of what tomorrow's meeting might truly ignite. She rubbed her temples with her thumbs, breathing slowly, deliberately, as if she could slow time with enough force of will.
Then the door creaked open.
No knock.
She didn't need to look. "That you, Preston?"
The familiar tread of boots across wooden floors answered before he did.
"Yeah," he muttered, stepping inside and shaking off his coat. His hat was tilted low against the lingering drizzle. "Didn't mean to wake you."
"I wasn't asleep," she said. "I don't think I sleep anymore."
Preston gave a tired chuckle. "You and half the Commonwealth."
He dropped into the chair opposite her, the one where he used to sit during those early Sanctuary planning nights—when the worst they had to worry about was rebuilding houses and clearing out radroaches.
Nora studied him for a moment, then said quietly, "You never answered my question earlier."
Preston blinked. "Which one?"
"The Brotherhood," she said. "What are they doing now? What's their position on all this?"
He exhaled and leaned back in the chair. His eyes were dark, clouded—not with secrets, but with exhaustion.
"They're busy," he said simply.
She frowned. "Busy?"
"Yeah. Sico and Sarah are feeding them intel."
That made her sit up straighter.
"What?"
"Your intel," he clarified. "The data you gave to Sarah—the map of Institute outposts, the synth migration routes, everything. They're forwarding pieces of it to Elder Maxson. Selectively. Tactically."
Nora's brows knit. "So the Brotherhood is—?"
"Purging," Preston said flatly. "They've hit four more sites since yesterday. One near Revere. Two around the old tunnels west of Sudbury. Another in what used to be Quincy Proper. Synth havens, low-level relay hubs, even a few places that were just under heavy suspicion."
Nora stood, pacing now. "That wasn't the plan."
"It's not straying from it," Preston replied calmly. "It's just… moving faster. Sico's playing the long game, Nora. So is Sarah. They're feeding the Brotherhood just enough to keep them busy—enough to make them feel like they're doing righteous work. Rooting out synths from their own territory, protecting humanity or whatever sermon Maxson's feeding them. It keeps their eyes inward."
"And the Institute?" she asked.
Preston gave a grim smile. "They're bleeding."
He pulled a rolled-up printout from his coat and set it on the table. Nora unrolled it, her eyes scanning the faded map of the Commonwealth, where red circles marked Brotherhood engagements over the past seventy-two hours. Next to each was a notation: synth casualties, known Institute tech destroyed, relay signatures disrupted.
"At least thirty-seven synths dead or captured," Preston said. "Fourteen presumed lost in collapsed structures. Two relay nodes offline. One synthetic farm network in ruins. The Brotherhood thinks they're winning."
"And they are," Nora murmured. "But not for long."
Preston nodded. "Every bullet they fire, every vertibird sortie—they're stretching themselves thinner too. That's the brilliance of it. The Brotherhood and the Institute are grinding each other down while we sit here, consolidating strength, running quiet drills, staging propaganda fights like tomorrow's meeting. We're the only ones building while the others are bleeding."
Nora dropped into her chair again, heart pounding not with anxiety this time, but a quiet, ruthless sense of awe. It was working. The whole ugly theater of division, of conflict—it was doing what it needed to do.
But it was dangerous. Frighteningly so.
"If we lose control of the script—" she started.
"We won't," Preston said.
"You don't know that."
"No," he admitted. "But I trust you. And I trust Sico. And more than that… I trust the people who know the truth. Hancock. Curie. MacCready. Cait. Sturges. Sarah. Even Piper."
He paused, then added, "Especially Piper."
Nora nodded slowly. Her gaze drifted to the corner of the room, where her rifle leaned against the wall next to a pair of damp boots and a folded raincoat. How many nights had she stared at that same corner, hoping to feel like a soldier again? Not a politician. Not a myth. Just a survivor.
"I still don't like using the Brotherhood like this," she said after a long silence. "Even if Maxson's a fanatic, most of the men under him believe they're fighting for something real."
"They are," Preston replied. "They're just too blinded by it to realize someone else is moving the pieces."
He stood again and adjusted his hat. "Get some rest, General. Tomorrow's gonna be the biggest performance of your life."
Nora didn't answer right away. She looked back to the map.
Across the compound, in the subterranean command wing beneath the old schoolhouse, Sarah Lyons was sitting alone at the communication console.
The glow of the screen painted her face in pale hues, her jaw tight as she reviewed the latest exchange with Brotherhood command.
Encrypted, of course. But Sico's code made sure only they could see the subtext beneath the formality.
"Requesting additional recon support for potential synth infiltration cell near Old Salem. Permission to deploy power armor company?"
Sarah typed a short reply.
"Affirmative. Log all findings. Priority Alpha: identify escaped units from MIT-Delta facility. Eliminate if confirmed hostile. Report immediately."
A flicker of guilt passed through her eyes.
The MIT-Delta facility didn't exist.
But she needed them to believe it did.
The more they chased ghosts, the safer Sanctuary became.
Behind her, the door hissed open.
Sico stepped in, his boots echoing faintly against the metal flooring.
"Still at it?"
Sarah didn't turn around. "Making sure Maxson feels like the hero."
Sico joined her, standing behind the console with his arms crossed.
"He doesn't suspect?"
She shook her head. "Not yet. He thinks I'm the clean line between the Freemasons and the Brotherhood. A warrior surrounded by politicians. He wants to believe it."
Sico was quiet for a moment. Then he said softly, "That's what makes it dangerous."
Sarah looked up at him.
"You want me to stop?"
"No," he said. "Just… be careful. The more we lie to them, the harder it'll be to hold them when the time comes."
She offered a humorless smile. "We're way past easy truths."
He didn't argue.
Instead, they stood there in silence, watching a map flicker to life on the screen—Brotherhood deployments, synth engagements, Institute movements inferred from sensor spikes and anomalous radio chatter.
By morning, the skies had cleared—but the air held a biting chill. Not quite winter, but close enough to sting the lungs.
Sanctuary had transformed overnight. Banners of the Freemasons Republic were hung across the Assembly Hall's facade. Patrols moved with crisp, rehearsed precision. Delegates filed through secured corridors, their credentials checked three times before they even reached the inner perimeter.
Inside, the Assembly Chamber brimmed with tension.
Danny Sullivan sat at the head, fingers steepled, eyes scanning the room.
Mayor Kessler. Zeke. Tess Mercer. Captain Rose of the Coastal Rangers. Dozens of voices, all of them influential, all of them carrying the weight of their cities, their followers, their hopes.
And in walked Sico.
He wore his usual field coat, insignia polished, boots cleaned. Not too much. Not staged. Just enough.
He sat.
Then the doors opened again.
And Nora entered.
The murmur of voices dropped to silence the moment Danny Sullivan stood.
He didn't need to bang a gavel or call for order with a shout. The way he rose—from that heavy, elevated chair framed by the new Republic's flag—was enough to turn every eye toward him. His grey hair was slicked neatly, his dark green coat buttoned to the top, but his face looked drawn. Sleepless. Tired, like a man who'd been carrying the weight of the Commonwealth on his shoulders and had just found a few more bricks added to the load.
He rested both hands on the table before him. Leaned forward just slightly.
"Before we begin today's agenda," he said, voice even but firm, "we must address the elephant stomping across every street and radio wave in the Freemasons Republic."
No one moved. Even the quiet shuffle of paper and armor stopped cold.
Danny's eyes drifted from face to face. They lingered a breath longer on Sico. Then again on Nora.
"The people are confused," he went on. "Worried. We're hearing about rifts—open rifts—between President Sico and the Ex-General of the Minutemen, Nora. We've seen it. Heard it. Hell, some of us felt it in the last two meetings, when you two barely agreed on the color of the sky."
A few of the younger delegates exchanged glances. Tess Mercer folded her arms. Captain Rose kept her face stone-still.
Danny leaned in just a bit further.
"Now I want to ask, plainly and on record," he said. "Is the leadership of the Freemasons Republic fractured? Are there now two factions? Because if there are—we need to know. The people need to know. The Freemasons Republic was never meant to be split between rival camps. It's supposed to be one faction. One Republic."
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.
Nora felt it behind her eyes, that growing pulse of pressure. Like the room was holding its breath, daring her or Sico to speak first. She could hear her heartbeat, even over the hum of lights and the faint distant buzz of radio static from the guard stations outside.
Sico didn't move. Not yet.
So she stood.
Not all at once. Slowly. Deliberately. Her fingers pressed against the edge of the table to anchor herself, like she was steadying for recoil.
"Congressman Sullivan," she said, voice calm but edged with something flinty, "you're right to ask. And no—this isn't how we wanted things to go."
Murmurs again. Danny raised a hand, and the room settled.
Nora's eyes swept across the chamber. She didn't rush.
"I've always believed in the Republic," she said. "I helped build it. With my hands, my blood. My family is buried under Sanctuary soil. And I've stood by Sico from the beginning. Through the war with the raider coalitions, through the first treaty with Diamond City, through every supply chain crisis and reconstruction summit."
She paused.
"But recently, we've had… disagreements. Not just small ones. Foundational ones. I don't believe the direction we're heading aligns with what we promised our people. We said we'd be different than the pre-War nations. That we wouldn't build a government on secrecy, on fear, on shadows. I'm worried that we are."
Sico still didn't flinch. His hands were folded neatly in front of him, eyes resting on her as if this were all a script he'd read a dozen times before.
"But that doesn't mean I'm here to overthrow anything," Nora added. "I'm not forming a new faction. I'm raising the warning flag because I care about this Republic. Because the people who fought with me, who fought with you,"—she looked at Captain Rose, at Zeke, at Kessler—"they deserve to know that their sacrifices weren't traded for politics."
She sat down again slowly, letting her final words linger in the air.
Danny turned to Sico. "President?"
The President of the Freemasons Republic didn't rush either.
He stood—confidently, but not arrogantly. Just enough poise to suggest command, but not enough to suggest defiance.
His voice came quiet, but carried. As always.
"Congressman, members of the Assembly," he began, "what Nora said is true. We disagree. Strongly. We've been arguing behind closed doors for weeks. Maybe longer."
He took a step forward, hands at his sides, relaxed.
"But disagreement is not betrayal. Conflict does not mean collapse. We are not pre-War America or the broken husks of the Old World powers. We want voices to challenge each other. Nora was never a puppet. She was a hero before we even met. And I won't pretend we see eye to eye now. But I won't strip her of the right to stand up and speak when she believes the Republic is veering off course."
Some heads nodded. Others stayed locked in guarded neutrality.
"What I will say," Sico added, tone tightening just slightly, "is that undermining public trust—intentionally or not—comes with consequences. When people see leaders at odds, they don't see strength. They see fractures. And fractures, in wartime, become fault lines. The Institute is watching. So are the raider remnants, and God knows what's left crawling out of the Glowing Sea."
He paused there, letting the weight of that land.
"So yes," Sico said. "There's tension between us. And it's causing morale issues. I won't deny that."
He turned to face the chamber head-on.
"But let's not confuse internal debate for civil war. Let's not confuse passion for sedition. The Freemasons Republic is still under one flag. And until the day I die, I will defend that flag. With Nora at my side, if she'll still have me. Or across from me, if it comes to that."
The silence returned. Not with tension this time—but reflection.
Danny tapped a finger against the table, slowly.
"Let me be clear, both of you," he said. "What we're seeing now is scaring people. Sanctuary has divided whispers. Goodneighbor's half-afraid there'll be tanks in the streets. And Diamond City's citizens are stockpiling again—just in case."
He turned to the rest of the room.
"We all built this Republic because we believed in it. But what happens if its leaders start using the people's fears against each other? If every town starts choosing sides instead of working together?"
A murmur of agreement followed. Tess Mercer stood.
"I want to propose a temporary resolution," she said. "A committee. Independent observers. Representatives from all major settlements. Tasked with monitoring decisions made by both the President and General Nora's faction. Not to strip authority—but to verify it. To assure our people that this Republic isn't becoming a battlefield."
Captain Rose raised her hand. "I second that."
"Third," Zeke muttered, arms crossed, his expression unreadable.
Danny nodded. "Then the motion's tabled. We'll vote on it before this session ends."
He turned back to Sico and Nora.
"In the meantime," he added, "I'm asking both of you—no. Urging both of you. To meet. One-on-one. Away from cameras. Away from microphones. Talk. Find the roots of this split before it grows beyond you."
Sico didn't reply.
Nora looked toward him.
Their eyes locked. Just for a moment. Enough for a thousand unspoken thoughts to fire between them.
Then she nodded.
"I'll talk."
Sico gave a slight nod in return. "So will I."
Danny sat down slowly, breathing out through his nose like he'd been holding the tension in his lungs the whole time.
"Then we proceed," he said.
The meeting went on—but the mood had changed.
Every proposal, every budget report, every territory concern carried the shadow of that opening exchange. Sico and Nora offered input sparingly, each carefully measured, each with eyes flicking occasionally to the other.
By the time the vote passed—unanimously—for the oversight committee, the sun had dipped behind the hills and long shadows stretched across Sanctuary's western streets.
As the hall emptied, Nora lingered by the stairs. She waited until the last of the scribes and guards had filtered out.
Sico approached.
"You want to do this now?" he asked.
She didn't nod, didn't speak. Just turned and started walking.
He followed.
They didn't go far.
Just to the old war room—once Preston's command post during the Minutemen era, now converted to a quiet briefing chamber inside the repurposed Town Hall. The door closed behind them with a solid click.
No guards. No ears. Just wood, concrete, and the ghosts of a thousand old arguments.
"You know this is working," Nora said, folding her arms. "The charade. The tension. It's keeping Shaun off-balance. We're pulling the Brotherhood and the Institute apart without firing a shot."
"I know," Sico said. "But it's taking root too deep. Danny believed it. Half the Congress did."
"That's what makes it real," she said. "Shaun won't fall for something that looks staged. He grew up in a lab full of liars. He can smell fake from miles away."
Sico's eyes narrowed slightly. "We're lying to a lot more than Shaun now."
Nora didn't respond. Not at first.
When she did, her voice was lower.
"You think I like this?" she asked. "You think I wanted to stand in front of them and pretend I don't trust you? That I'm some rogue from a militia no one remembers?"
"I think you're better at it than I expected," Sico admitted. "You almost convinced me."
She laughed, but there was no warmth in it.
Then she looked out the window.
Outside, lanterns flickered. People walked in twos and threes. A child ran through a puddle, laughing, before a parent's arm pulled him back toward the sidewalk. Life, despite everything, continued.
"This won't hold forever," she said. "Eventually the Brotherhood will stop believing in ghost synth hubs. The Institute will stop bleeding. Shaun will start to see."
Sico nodded. "That's why we need to finish this soon."
She turned to face him again.
"And when we do… when we go in to end it all—"
"We end it," he said. "Together. For real. No more theater."
She didn't speak again.
Just stood there. Watching him. Trying to remember if the look in his eyes was the same one from the first days at Concord. When he carried a wounded man on his back through feral territory without blinking. When he sat beside her and whispered, "We can build something better."
Sico turned toward the door.
"We should get some rest."
She nodded.
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.
________________________________________________
• 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:-