If you want to read 20 Chapters ahead, be sure to check out my Patreon!!!
Go to https://www.patreon.com/Tang12
___________________________
By the time Nora left his office, the air outside the Institute's inner sanctum felt heavier. Like gravity had shifted just slightly, dragging at her bones and the corners of her thoughts.
Then Nora went to her room, to gather her gear she put there.
Her footsteps echoed differently now in the halls of the Institute—less like a return, more like an intrusion. The sterile white walls that had once made her marvel now felt constrictive, like a hospital ward before surgery. Like she was already on the table. Already bleeding.
Her room was still as she'd left it—precise, plain, impersonal. A bed, untouched. A desk, cleaned. A small drawer near the back wall, hidden behind a decorative panel, locked with a biometric seal she'd programmed herself. No one knew it was there.
She pressed her palm to the scanner. It beeped once, quietly, and slid open.
Inside was her armor—matte black and burnished grey, reinforced ceramic plates over a webbed fusion polymer mesh. An upgraded version of her old Minutemen combat gear, but sleeker now. More modular. Institute-grade tech woven into the underlayers, things she'd never admit aloud to Sico or the others. A reflex enhancer. A short-burst stealth module on the right shoulder plate. Even a kinetic dampener in the boots, softening her landings for stealth drops.
Piece by piece, she slipped into it—starting with the undersuit, cinching it tight along the joints. Then came the armor plates: chest, back, thighs, shoulders. She hesitated only once, when clipping the vambrace over her left forearm. That arm still bore the faint scar where she'd been shot sixth months ago, during the battle for Quincy. The skin had healed. The memory hadn't.
Her laser rifle leaned against the back wall, lovingly maintained.
It wasn't standard issue. This one had a longer barrel, stabilized grip, reflex sight, and a recoil damper built into the buttstock. She'd named it "Gwen," after her sister. That wasn't something many people knew. Just her. Just the ones she'd lost.
She checked the charge pack—full. Chambered a fresh microfusion cell. Ran a quick diagnostic through the custom pip interface wired into the stock. Everything green.
The door behind her hissed shut.
Her face, in the mirror, wasn't her own anymore. The armor took away what softness had remained, made her a figure out of time—half soldier, half ghost. The mother of the Republic, now looking like the assassin of its dream.
She strapped Gwen to her back and exhaled through her teeth.
It wasn't just about readiness. It was about commitment.
Because from this moment on, there was no more pretending. No more masks to wear. Whatever fiction she'd sold to Congress, to her allies, to Shaun—hell, even to herself—was finished.
The lie had calcified into action.
She opened her pip-boy and keyed in the encrypted comm line.
"Sarah," she whispered.
Static, then a voice. Calm. Steady.
"Go ahead."
"I'm in. Relay code's done. Tonight's the night."
Silence.
Then: "Understood."
A long pause.
Then: "Nora… are you sure?"
She looked at herself again—face set in grim resolve, jaw tight, eyes unreadable.
"I was sure the moment I came back here."
Then she cut the line.
She didn't say goodbye. She didn't tell Sarah to take care of MacCready, or Robert, or the young Commandos who looked up to her like some kind of myth. She didn't even tell her to pray.
Because that would've made it feel like the end.
And Nora couldn't afford to feel anything anymore.
Getting out of her assigned wing without raising suspicion required muscle memory and perfect timing.
The Institute's lower levels—particularly the southeastern maintenance access—had less foot traffic after 20:00 hours. The scientists preferred to eat and work in tight rotation, and few dared deviate from the routine Shaun had set. He'd made it so the Institute's culture revolved around his own rhythms.
Useful, when you needed a window to disappear.
Nora moved with trained economy. No wasted steps. No pauses.
The few synths that passed her in the corridors gave their mechanical greetings.
"Director Nora."
"Greetings, Director."
"Logistics schedule updated, Director."
She gave the same nod each time. A subtle one. Not too much interest. Not too cold. The kind of gesture you could repeat under stress, even with a storm coming in behind your ribs.
When she reached the service access near Sector 3's cooling hub, she tapped the override code into the panel. The door slid open slower than she liked—Institute failsafes always erred on the side of security, not speed.
The hallway beyond was colder. Unfinished. A rarely used tunnel that wound toward the outer ring of the Institute, behind the hydroponics dome and research sphere. Most personnel didn't even know it connected to the relay node chamber. But Nora did.
She'd mapped it months ago.
The relay room itself was empty when she arrived.
Which was good.
She didn't want to kill anyone before it started.
She crossed to the central panel, placed her pip-boy against the override plate, and waited. The relay's iris glowed softly, then hummed as the calibration sequence began. A small screen flickered, then displayed the target coordinates she'd programmed: "EXT. RELAY RETURN – TIER 1 SECURITY MASKING – CODE DESIGNATE: CNR-7RZ-HUMAN/SYNTH DECOY."
Translation: return home disguised as a synth returning from patrol.
The system accepted it. No alarms.
She was still one of them. Still trusted.
For now.
Then she keyed her wrist again—this time to Sarah's encrypted frequency.
"Ready," she whispered. "Begin infiltration."
Sarah's voice returned immediately, but this time it wasn't alone. Behind her, Nora could hear the faint shuffle of boots, a distant clack of a fusion core being set, the scrape of a combat knife sliding into a sheath.
"Understood. First group inbound in 60 seconds."
The plan was simple. Brutal.
Albert and Robert would lead Squad One—fifteen of the most experienced Commandos, all wearing newly modified Brotherhood armor painted in Freemason black and grey. Sarah would take Squad Two, infiltrating from the old maintenance shaft Nora had unlocked weeks earlier. MacCready and another sniper team would secure the high ground near the fusion tower, using stealth-boy camo and silenced rifles.
And Sico—he would wait at the top of the chain, with the third wave that is the Power Armor squad.
He'd wanted to come in first, but Nora had vetoed it.
"No," she'd said. "You're the symbol. If you die before the Institute falls, the whole war crumbles. You go last."
That argument hadn't sat well with him. But he'd accepted it.
And now she had to make sure it hadn't all been for nothing.
The first teleportation pulse landed in the far corner of the relay room, nearly silent—just a shimmer of light and a soft "whump." Albert stepped out first, visor down, laser rifle drawn.
He glanced at her. Nodded once.
"You're late," she muttered.
He grinned. "Had to brush my teeth. Don't want to go into battle with morning breath."
Behind him, fifteen more Commandos phased in, their armor catching the light in dull reflections. Each moved with ruthless efficiency—fan out, secure angles, verify targets. They were well-trained. Scary good.
Sarah came in next, helmet off.
Then came MacCready.
His arrival was quieter than the others—not because of the teleportation, which shimmered and pulsed like all the others, but because MacCready knew how to melt into a room like shadow. He stepped through the fading glow with his sniper squad fanned out behind him, ten men and ten women in tightly fit urban camo with matte-black faceplates and suppressors already clipped to their long-barreled rifles.
MacCready's gaze swept the room immediately. Reflexes like a hawk. He caught Nora's eye and gave the briefest nod. She returned it. No words passed between them—they'd worked together long enough to understand each other without speech.
Then came the last pulse.
Louder this time. Heavier.
The platform surged, a second shimmer rumbled through the relay chamber floor, and in a thunderclap of displacement energy, the Power Armor team materialized—twenty warriors in full T-60 suits, each customized with the black-and-grey palette of the Freemasons Republic. The hydraulic hiss of servos filled the room, one after the other, like war drums winding up to a march. They looked like walking tanks. Ancient gods dressed for siege.
And leading them—Sico.
His T-60 was even more modified than the rest. Subtle enhancements shaped the plating, a heavier frame with reinforced limbs, integrated targeting sensors across the helmet. His armor bore no insignia, no title markings—just the faint white stencil of a Freemason square and compass near the chest plate, a symbol that had come to mean hope and change across much of the Commonwealth.
He held his assault rifle across his chest—sleek, sturdy, custom-forged from salvaged pre-War military tech and built to chew through both armor and infrastructure. A drum mag was slotted in, fresh. Grenade launcher underbarrel locked and loaded. His movement was fluid, even in that hulking frame.
When he spoke, his voice came low and steady through the armor's external speakers.
"Everyone accounted for?"
Nora nodded once. "They're in."
Sico scanned the squads. His visor glinted for a second. Then settled on her.
"Let's end this."
But she raised a hand before they moved.
Not yet. Not until she'd said it out loud.
She stepped into the center of the relay room—small compared to the army now assembled inside—and let her voice carry just enough. Commanders didn't shout. They didn't plead. They just made things real.
"They don't know what's coming," she said.
The words rang like a knife drawn from a sheath. Calm. Clean.
Nora turned slightly, eyes scanning each group in turn—the Commandos, the sniper team, the Power Armor column.
"We hit all divisions simultaneously. No alarms, no lag. The moment we split, they'll scatter—if we're lucky. But make no mistake… they're not going to give up all at once. Not without some resistance. We take control fast, and we hold. The longer we give them to react, the more chance they'll activate lockdowns or start wiping sensitive systems. We don't let that happen."
Albert gave a small, confident nod from the Commando side. MacCready just locked a new mag into his rifle without a word.
She continued.
"Albert, your team hits Bioscience. They've got data we need—genetic profiles, seed stocks, and most importantly, the FEV lab deep in the sublevel. Secure all of it. No fire unless necessary. Got it?"
Albert raised a hand in a mock salute. "No FEV monsters this time. I swear."
"Good. Sarah," Nora turned toward the other squad leader. "You take Advanced Systems. Their teleport tech, the relay archives, prototype weapons—all of it. They'll likely fight harder there. Scientists are more paranoid. But again—no bloodshed unless you've got no choice."
Sarah gave a short nod. "We'll go quiet."
"MacCready," Nora turned to him. "Synth Retention. That's where they monitor the Gen-3s. There's a control center and prisoner logs that we need intact. Get in, shut it down, and make sure the synths aren't triggered remotely."
"They'll never see us coming," MacCready muttered. "I brought the good suppressors."
She turned last toward a younger officer—Captain Graves—leading the Robotics squad.
"Robotics is yours. Target the central control first, then the deactivation network. If they manage to get any Gen-2s or Sec-Models online, this whole mission becomes a meat grinder. You shut them down."
"Yes, ma'am," Graves said.
Then Nora turned toward Sico.
"And you and I…"
He stepped forward. "We go for Shaun."
She nodded. "We take the main hall. I know where he'll be—he never leaves the central command wing past 21:00. There are guards, probably synths, and maybe a few diehard loyalists. Doesn't matter. We cut through, secure the center, and take him alive."
She let her tone drop lower now.
"No one kills civilians. No one touches the scientists unless they fight back. They'll run. They'll surrender. Most of them don't believe in this place as much as they pretend. They're followers, not leaders. They just need to see the writing on the wall."
A long pause followed.
Some of the Power Armor soldiers shifted their weight, exhaling softly through their vents.
Sico tilted his helmet slightly toward her.
"And if Shaun resists?"
She met his gaze—or rather, the mirrored plate of his helmet.
"Then we remind him who raised him."
Silence hung there for a moment longer, thick as concrete.
Then Nora took one last breath and keyed her pip-boy. Four beeps—short, sharp, distinct.
"Execute."
The squads peeled off like clockwork.
Albert and the Commandos disappeared into the west tunnel, weapons raised and eyes scanning. Their footsteps faded almost immediately—years of training had carved their movement down to instinct.
Sarah's team took the secondary lift, quiet and fast. No armor clanking. Just disciplined resolve.
MacCready was gone the moment the order left her lips—he and his snipers melted into a vent corridor Nora had opened for them earlier in the week. They wouldn't be seen again unless things went bad.
And Graves, calm and methodical, led the robotics squad east—toward the sublevel bulkhead she'd rigged to bypass magnetic security.
It left Nora and Sico alone.
Well—not alone. They had eight walking tanks behind them, each armed to the teeth and already syncing their HUDs to Nora's pip-boy signal for real-time movement updates.
She turned to them. "Ready?"
Sico raised his rifle. "Always."
She stepped forward and led the way out of the relay room.
The tunnel ahead bent upward into a service corridor—a low-ceiling maintenance route not meant for T-60s, but just wide enough to squeeze them in with caution. They moved slow at first, the weight of the armor hissing against the reinforced walls.
It didn't take long before they reached the first checkpoint.
Two synths stood guard at the access hall to the central core—Mark II patrol models with shock batons and plasma sidearms. Their sensors pinged the approaching group, but by the time their AI protocols reacted, Nora had already raised her hand.
"Non-lethal."
The Power Armor squad didn't hesitate.
A concussive EMP grenade was lobbed forward—bright blue flash, then a pop. The synths jerked, twitched, and collapsed mid-uplink. Silent. Harmless.
Nora stepped over them.
Behind the doors now was the main hall of the Institute. She remembered the first time she'd seen it—grand, imposing, a marvel of technological audacity. A white cathedral of knowledge, precision, and cold ambition. A place where Shaun had stood at the top of the steps like a high priest of science.
Now it was just another front.
She keyed the override.
The doors slid open with a hiss.
And the battle for the soul of the Commonwealth truly began.
The first resistance came from the side galleries—panicked security synths firing in erratic bursts. The Power Armor squad moved in formation, shields up, plating absorbing the shots with heavy clangs. Return fire wasn't lethal—targeted EMPs, shock bolts, suppressive fire to scatter the resistance.
Sico moved like thunder—each step shaking the floor, each shot controlled. He wasn't just fighting. He was declaring presence.
Nora moved beside him, Gwen sweeping left, downing another synth with a precision overload burst. The rifle hummed in her grip like an old friend. She didn't hesitate. Didn't flinch.
Then the alarm in the base finally sounded.
A rising wail—a high-pitched mechanical shriek that echoed through the pristine corridors like a scream through cathedral walls. Red warning strobes flickered to life, harsh and unnatural against the Institute's sterile white glow. It was the kind of sound that could hollow out a man's stomach. It meant one thing, and one thing only: the Institute knew.
And they were scared.
Within seconds, doors slammed shut across distant wings. Bulkheads locked. Intercoms lit up with panicked commands. Somewhere deep in the sublevels, security overrides were triggered and automated defenses powered up with a low, menacing hum.
Then came the synths.
A flood of them.
Mostly Gen-2s—tall, skeletal things with armor-plated exoskeletons and glowing yellow optics. Crude replicas of men, forged from steel, plastic, and programming. They weren't like the Gen-3s—the ones that could feel, think, question. These were attack dogs, plain and simple. Unquestioning, obedient, disposable.
They poured out from the west and east wings in waves. Thirty. Forty. Maybe more. Marching in two-by-two lines, rifles raised, protocols flaring. Their movements were jerky, imperfect, robotic in a way that betrayed their manufactured origins.
They opened fire.
Green plasma bolts scorched through the open air, sizzling past columns and overhangs. Some struck the walls, melting holes into the gleaming polymer structures. Others slammed into the T-60 armor—but that only slowed the Power Armor squad, never stopped them.
Sico surged forward like a one-man avalanche.
A synth's plasma bolt clipped his shoulder. He didn't even flinch. His gauntlet raised, and in a controlled burst, his assault rifle spat out armor-piercing rounds. The synth that hit him exploded in a burst of sparks and steel, crumpling backward in a heap of smoke.
Behind him, two more Power Armor troopers moved up—Ramos and Treadwell, both veterans of the Quincy Reclamation. They opened up with plasma scatterguns, sweeping arcs of green flame across the approaching line. The synths staggered, caught mid-stride, disoriented and stunned.
Nora broke right, ducking behind a security terminal. A trio of Gen-2s rushed her position—she dropped them with practiced calm. One shot each. Head. Chest. Optics. She didn't even need to breathe hard.
Nora with two others go into a firing line, laying suppressive fire down a corridor where a second wave was forming. The Gen-2s stumbled over each other, unable to coordinate in the chaos.
They weren't ready for this. None of them were.
The Institute had prepared for raids. For infiltration. For sabotage from the surface.
But not for a full-scale breach from inside their own sanctum. Not from soldiers who had trained for years in the ruins of the Commonwealth, who'd stared down Super Mutants, Deathclaws, Raiders, Brotherhood Paladins, and worse—and come out the other side hungrier than ever.
These weren't outsiders. They were ghosts of a world the Institute thought it had buried.
And now they were here, walking through the hallowed corridors of the Commonwealth's last illusion of control—with fire in their eyes and the future in their hands.
The Power Armor line pushed forward.
They were methodical. Tactical. No wasteful motion. Each footfall sent tremors through the steel decking. Each shot was a decision—precise, surgical.
Sico led the charge like he was born for it.
He wasn't just a soldier—he was a message. A living answer to every question the Institute had dared ask from behind the glass of their labs. Every time they'd wondered if the surface was worth saving. Every time they'd turned their backs on the people above. Sico was the consequence.
He moved through their defenses like vengeance given shape.
A synth dropped down from a ceiling hatch—he caught it mid-fall with one hand, slammed it into the floor with a crunch, then shot it point-blank in the processor. No hesitation. No mercy.
"Nora, main junction up ahead," he called through comms, his voice gritty with static.
She advanced on his six, laser rifle sweeping. "Push to the left node. We'll cut through command security and loop around behind the research core. It'll pinch them in."
"Copy that. Move up!"
The squad re-formed around the main junction chamber—eight armored titans in a ring of fire. Synth corpses littered the floor, limbs sparking, optics fading out one by one.
But not everyone was fighting.
As they breached further into the heart of the Institute, something else began to happen—something Nora had both hoped for and dreaded.
The scientists began to appear.
They emerged from labs and side corridors in terrified clusters—white coats stained with ash and dust, faces frozen in shock. Most didn't speak. Some dropped whatever they were holding and bolted. Others simply raised their hands, wide-eyed and trembling.
A few shouted through the chaos.
"Wait! Don't shoot!"
"We're unarmed!"
"Please, we're not part of this!"
They weren't.
Most of them had never picked up a weapon in their lives. Their crimes were quieter—compliance, complicity, silence. But they weren't killers.
Nora held up her fist. "Hold fire! Civilians!"
The squad didn't hesitate. They lowered their weapons, spreading out into a protective formation as the frightened Institute personnel scattered.
"Go," she told them, voice firm. "Get to the safe zones. Or leave. We're not here to kill you."
Some nodded. Some ran. Some just stared at her—confused, horrified, like they were looking at a ghost.
She saw recognition in some of their faces.
The surface ghost. The vault dweller. The mother who had walked through fire to find her son and found only betrayal waiting for her.
Nora didn't meet their gaze. Not yet. She had work to do.
They pushed forward.
More resistance. Heavier this time.
The Institute must've activated emergency protocols. A squad of Gen-2s with reinforced plating and integrated heavy weapons rounded the next bend, already firing. Nora ducked behind a synth recycling station, returning fire with deadly precision. Her shots tore through the first line—one synth's fuel cell ignited, sending a chain reaction down the hallway.
Sico and Ramos took point, shielding the squad from the brunt of the blast. They moved as one, clearing the corridor with overlapping fields of fire.
They were inside the last ring of defense now.
The inner sanctum.
The command hall was dead ahead, and Nora's pulse began to rise. Not with fear. But with clarity. With purpose.
She keyed her comms.
"All teams, report."
Albert came through first. "Bioscience secured. FEV data retrieved. No casualties. Sublevel locked down."
"Good," Nora said.
Sarah's voice crackled next. "Advanced Systems clear. Prototype archives intact. One scientist tried to destroy the console—he's detained. No casualties on our side."
"MacCready?"
A pause. Then a whisper. "Synth Retention's under our control. Had to put down some aggressive units, especially the coursers."
"Graves?"
"Robotics is ours," he said. "All models deactivated. No resistance after the first wave. Standing by."
Nora exhaled. It was happening.
It was working.
She looked at Sico.
"One last door."
He nodded.
Together, they approached the command chamber. A curved structure of glass and steel suspended like a pearl in the heart of the Institute. The place where Shaun had built his empire of secrets.
Nora stepped forward and placed her hand on the security pad. Her Pip-Boy chirped, broadcasting an override signal she had stolen from Shaun's personal console weeks before.
________________________________________________
• 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:-