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They lingered in the storage bay for a few minutes longer, Sico asking pointed questions about certain pieces of gear, Nora explaining capabilities and limitations with the ease of someone who'd overseen their development. There was a quiet understanding forming between them — a recognition that they were, for once, thinking along the same lines.
Sico's attention drifted back to the matte-black rifle on the rack, but his mind wasn't on the weapon anymore. It was elsewhere — outside these walls, far above, where the Brotherhood's steel-caged towers loomed like watchmen against the sky. He set the rifle back down and turned toward Nora.
"How's the synth attack progressing on Brotherhood territory?" he asked, tone almost casual, but the question landed with the weight of a blade tip pressing into skin.
Nora's eyes flicked to him, and for a beat she said nothing. Not because she didn't have an answer — she always had an answer — but because she was measuring how much to give him here, in the middle of a weapons bay.
"This isn't the room for that conversation," she said finally, voice even. "We should head to the Command Center." She hesitated, then added, "It's the old Directorate office. Shaun's office, technically. We converted it after… well, after things changed."
Sico gave a short nod. "Lead the way."
They stepped out of the storage bay, the door sealing behind them with a hiss and the heavy clunk of internal locks engaging. The corridor beyond was quiet — that dense, padded quiet that came from layered insulation and air scrubbers tuned to a low hum. The only other sound was the occasional muted footfall of a patrolling courser.
The route she took curved deeper into the SRB's core before angling upward toward one of the central lifts. Each turn felt deliberate, like she was winding them through a path that avoided certain sections altogether. Whether that was about secrecy or habit, Sico couldn't tell — and he didn't ask.
They entered a lift with walls of brushed steel, the kind that reflected just enough light to make the space feel smaller. Nora keyed in a level code that wasn't labeled on the panel. The doors slid shut, and the lift began its ascent with a steady, whisper-quiet pull.
"You'll see more from the Command Center than you would from any report I could hand you," Nora said, watching the floor indicator creep upward. "We've been running multiple operations along the Brotherhood's outer perimeter — probes, decoys, testing their response times."
Sico's brow arched slightly. "Testing? Sounds like you're still in the feeling-out stage."
She shook her head faintly. "Not exactly. Think of it more like… mapping a minefield before you cross it. We're not in full assault mode — yet — but every time they scramble a vertibird or reposition a patrol, we log it. The synths we've deployed aren't trying to take ground. They're collecting patterns."
"Patterns lead to weak points," Sico said.
"Exactly," she replied.
The lift doors parted to reveal a wide hallway that looked markedly different from the SRB's sterile, insulated corridors. Here, the ceilings were higher, with inset lighting panels that cast a warm, diffuse glow over polished composite flooring. The walls were smooth white, broken occasionally by structural ribs and recessed panels that hummed faintly with power flow. This was Institute architecture at its most open — the kind meant for people who made decisions, not those who executed them.
They passed two more coursers stationed at a junction, each one giving Nora a subtle nod before letting them through. At the far end of the hall was a set of double doors — reinforced, but dressed in the same clean aesthetic as everything else.
Nora keyed in another code. The doors slid open into a room that, even before the retrofit, had been designed to impress.
The Command Center was a broad, half-circle chamber with a massive wall of projection displays dominating the curve. The central floor was set slightly lower than the surrounding walkway, creating a natural arena for the cluster of consoles and operator stations arranged there. The air felt subtly cooler, fresher — like it was cycled more often than in the lower levels, keeping the operators sharp.
Sico stepped inside, scanning the space with quick, measuring glances. He could still see traces of Shaun's old office in the clean lines and the commanding view of the main display wall. But now, instead of a scientist's personal workspace, it was the nerve center of the Institute's field operations.
Dozens of feeds flickered across the central display: Brotherhood patrol routes overlaid on tactical maps, live drone footage of vertibird movements, and ground-level visuals from synth operatives shadowing steel-armored knights through the snow-choked streets of Cambridge.
An SRB officer — a lean man in the same slate-gray uniform Sico had seen earlier — looked up as they entered. He acknowledged Nora with a short nod before returning to his console.
Nora led him toward the main tactical table, a wide surface that projected a 3D relief map of the Commonwealth. Bright blue arcs marked Institute-controlled zones, deep red swaths denoted Brotherhood strongholds, and smaller shifting markers tracked active assets in real time.
"This is where we coordinate," Nora said. "Every active operation is managed from here — every deployment, every withdrawal, every contingency."
Sico's eyes locked on the Brotherhood zones. "Show me the attacks."
She gestured to one of the operators. The relief map zoomed in on a section of the Charles River's north bank, the blue of Institute assets bleeding into a ragged fringe of Brotherhood red. Tiny icons lit up — humanoid markers for deployed synths, arrowhead symbols for courser teams, and the occasional flash where contact was active.
"These," she said, indicating a cluster of markers, "are infiltration cells. They've been rotating in and out, building familiarity with the terrain. We've staged a few skirmishes here — nothing large enough to draw a full-scale Brotherhood reprisal, but enough to force them to redeploy units from other sectors."
Sico watched one marker blink, shift, and vanish from the map. "Casualty?"
"Extraction," Nora said. "They'd been spotted — or were about to be. We don't leave operatives in compromised positions unless there's no choice."
"And the probes?" he asked.
She tapped another section of the map — a wide, open stretch of highway leading toward one of the Brotherhood's fortified checkpoints. "Here. Two synth units staged a mock convoy, moving goods we knew would look suspicious from the air. They let a vertibird tail them, then split off under cover, forcing the bird to follow one group while the other doubled back and planted sensors along their patrol route."
Sico's lips curved slightly. "And they didn't see the sensors."
"They never even realized they'd been led away," Nora said.
He leaned over the table, eyes scanning the glowing lines of patrol patterns now appearing on the map — thin red traces, each stamped with timestamps showing exactly when and where Brotherhood units passed. "So now you know when their routes are light."
"And which ones they change under pressure," she added. "That's just as important."
Sico straightened, his mind already running ahead. "If we can predict when they'll be stretched thin, we can hit them where it hurts. Supply depots. Comm relays. Anything that takes time to replace."
"That's the idea," Nora said. "But timing is everything. If we hit too early, before we've mapped enough of their response tree, we risk them shoring up before we can make a decisive move."
He gave a slow nod, eyes still on the map. "Then we keep pressing until they can't tell which move is the real one."
A faint smile touched her lips — not amusement, exactly, but a spark of shared purpose. "Now you're speaking my language."
Sico stayed silent for a moment longer, watching the glowing red lines pulse faintly on the map like arteries under skin. His fingertips drummed once on the tactical table before he straightened, turning his gaze on Nora.
"I want you to keep the pressure on them," he said. The words weren't loud, but they had a certain weight — the kind that didn't need volume to hit hard. "Daily."
Nora's brow lifted slightly. "Daily attacks? That's going to keep the synth teams burning hot. Even with rotation, we'll run the risk of—"
"Letting them breathe," Sico cut in, his tone low but precise. "If the Brotherhood gets even a day to recalibrate, they'll use it. I want them chasing shadows every hour they're awake, and sleeping with their armor on."
Her gaze narrowed, studying him the way she studied enemy formations — looking for weaknesses. "You're talking about sustained harassment. That's resource-heavy."
"I know." His eyes shifted back to the map, landing on one of the red-marked checkpoints. "But it's worth it. Ambush their supply lines. Make them bleed fuel, ammo, food. And when we take something from them…" His lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "…we don't just keep it. We give it to the Freemasons."
That earned him a long pause. Not refusal, not yet — just that quiet mental calculation she was so good at.
"You want Brotherhood gear running around the Commonwealth under your banner," she said finally.
"I want the people to see their strength turning against them," he corrected. "If a settlement sees a Freemason patrol with a crate stamped in Brotherhood steel, it plants a seed. Makes them think maybe the sky knights aren't untouchable after all. And more importantly—" He tapped a section of the map where the supply routes narrowed between two ruined overpasses. "…it makes the Brotherhood paranoid. Every shipment, every route becomes a gamble for them."
Nora's eyes lingered on the choke point he'd indicated. "We could hit them here. Terrain favors an ambush — cover on both sides, elevated firing positions. They'd need at least two vertibirds in the air to secure a crossing, and that's if they spotted us first."
Sico nodded. "So we make them burn those resources every time they move anything worth taking. Sooner or later, they'll have to start rationing their movements."
Her arms folded loosely, but there was a flicker of reluctant approval in her gaze. "It's not bad. But daily strikes… that's going to put a strain on courser deployments too, if we're using them for surgical hits."
"I'm not saying throw them at every target," he said. "We use the synth units for most of it — they're expendable by design. Save the coursers for the high-value runs. Anything that has the potential to cripple a forward outpost or snag intel worth trading."
She exhaled through her nose, looking at the map again. "You're basically asking for a war of attrition with a faction that has the biggest logistical backbone in the Commonwealth."
"Yeah," Sico said flatly. "Except we're not going to fight it like a war. We're going to fight it like an infestation. Everywhere they look, something's chewing at their edges. A convoy goes missing here. A patrol disappears there. A relay tower shorts out because someone planted an EMP charge where no one should've been able to get."
Nora's gaze cut to him again. "And the Freemasons are the ones cashing in."
"They're the ones keeping the peace while the Brotherhood's busy swatting at ghosts," he said. "Public sees that, public backs them. That's how we win without holding the entire Commonwealth at gunpoint."
There was silence between them for a moment, filled only by the soft hum of the Command Center's systems and the faint murmur of operators relaying field updates.
"You're asking me to commit the Institute to a campaign that's… not exactly in our charter," Nora said at last.
Sico met her eyes, unflinching. "You already control the coursers. You've got synth infiltration cells in place. All I'm asking is for you to point them in a direction that benefits us both."
Her smirk returned — faint, but carrying that edge she wore like armor. "And if the Brotherhood retaliates directly against the Institute?"
"Then we've already won," Sico said. "Because that means they're reacting to you instead of pushing their agenda. And while they're busy staring at your door, we'll be moving in the dark."
Nora leaned a hip against the edge of the table, arms crossed now in a way that was less defensive and more… deliberative.
"Alright," she said slowly, "if we're actually doing this, we need boundaries. I'm not going to burn through my assets just to make a point."
Sico gave a short nod. "Agreed. I'm not trying to grind them down until they're scrap metal. I want them effective — always ready, always sharp."
"Then we start with the synth teams," Nora said, her eyes flicking to the glowing red dots that represented their current deployments. "Most Gen-1s and Gen-2s can run near-constant operations, but the Gen-3s… they're closer to human. Push them too hard without downtime, and you start seeing glitches. Aim instability. Decision lag."
Sico didn't need convincing — he'd seen it. In the Freemasons' own field tests, a worn-down unit wasn't just slower; it was unpredictable.
"Which means rotation," he said. "Three days on, two days off for the Gen-3s. The rest… keep them running, but stagger missions so no one's out more than twice in a 48-hour window."
Her brow furrowed slightly. "That's conservative."
"It's intentional," he countered. "I'd rather have a smaller force hitting hard than a bigger one limping because they've been worked to death. And if we're going to be running daily harassment, that strain's going to add up fast."
Nora drummed her fingers on the tabletop — a soft, steady rhythm that somehow still carried impatience. "Fine. But the coursers are the real sticking point. They're our scalpels in this operation. Overuse one, and it's not like I can just print another overnight."
Sico stepped closer, lowering his voice just enough that it became a private exchange in a room full of background chatter. "Then we treat them like assets in the field — not soldiers. No courser runs more than two missions in a week, period. One high-value strike, one secondary op if absolutely necessary. And if we take one offline for maintenance, it stays offline until it's greenlit by diagnostics."
That drew a thin smile from her. "You talk like someone who's lost expensive gear before."
"I have," Sico said simply. "Not because the enemy was better, but because command kept sending the same people into the meat grinder until they broke."
Her expression softened just enough to show she understood the sting behind the words. She knew — maybe better than anyone — what it felt like to lose something because of neglect, not combat.
"Maintenance windows," she said at last. "We build them into the rotation. For synths, routine diagnostics every fifth day, even if they haven't seen combat. For coursers, full recalibration after any mission with sustained engagement over twenty minutes."
Sico nodded approvingly. "And field commanders get the authority to pull a unit early if they spot signs of strain — physical or otherwise. No arguing with them, no second-guessing."
"That's dangerous," she warned. "Some of my courser handlers are cautious to the point of paranoia. You give them too much pull, and you might see a lot of missions scrapped."
"Better a scrapped mission than a dead unit," Sico shot back. "Besides — I'd rather deal with an overly cautious handler than have to explain to both our people why we lost a courser on a preventable burn-out."
She tilted her head in reluctant agreement. "Alright. But we need triggers — objective markers that say it's time to rotate or stop. Not just someone's gut feeling."
Sico leaned over the map and began drawing circles around certain areas — forward camps, safehouses, resupply hubs.
"These are your relief points," he said. "Any unit operating beyond two of these in a single stretch gets flagged for rest. No exceptions."
Nora's gaze followed his pen. "That keeps them within the relay network. Makes extraction faster if something goes wrong."
"And if we can't extract?" Sico asked, arching a brow.
"Then," she said dryly, "we hope your Freemasons are feeling generous about rescue ops."
That earned a faint chuckle from him. "Generous isn't the word. Prepared, maybe."
They stood there for a moment in a silence that wasn't quite comfortable but carried a mutual respect. Outside their little circle at the table, the Command Center continued its steady hum — operators murmuring into headsets, the low ping of incoming field reports, the quiet beeping of holoterminals.
"Alright," Nora said finally, pulling herself upright. "Rules of engagement. If we're going to be hitting them daily, I don't want rogue squads turning this into a bloodbath that blows back on us."
Sico's face hardened slightly. "First strike's always calculated. No random civilian areas, no attacks inside allied settlements. Hit convoys, patrols, outposts — but only those confirmed to be Brotherhood through recon. If there's even a shadow of doubt, we walk away."
She raised a brow. "You're talking about restraint from a faction whose motto is basically 'strike first, strike hard.'"
"Not restraint," he corrected. "Precision. We want the Commonwealth to see us as the ones keeping order, not starting chaos."
Nora tapped the edge of the map with a fingertip. "And if they bait us? Leave something obvious out in the open, hoping we'll go for it?"
"Then we send a probe first," Sico said without hesitation. "Scout team or remote drone. No eyes-on, no engagement."
"That'll slow operations."
"Better slow than dead," he replied.
Her lips pressed into a line, but she didn't argue. Instead, she reached across the table and tapped a specific cluster of red lights.
"These are my most reliable synth strike teams. I'll keep them in the main harassment rotation. But every third day, they stand down for recalibration and rest."
"And my people will cover the gaps," Sico said. "We'll make the transition seamless. To the Brotherhood, it'll still feel like the same force breathing down their neck."
They spent the next several minutes hammering out more granular details — how to rotate mission leads so no single commander got fatigued; how to keep equipment caches stocked without creating predictable patterns; how to alternate between hit-and-run strikes and prolonged harassment to keep the Brotherhood guessing.
Sico insisted on one final clause — a hard stop protocol.
"When a unit takes 20% casualties in a single op," he said, "the entire campaign pauses for 48 hours. We regroup, rearm, and reassess."
"That's a big pause," Nora said, tilting her head. "It gives the Brotherhood breathing room."
"It also keeps us from making stupid mistakes when we're rattled," Sico countered. "You've seen it — lose a squad, and everyone starts pushing harder to even the score. That's when you make bad calls."
Her eyes narrowed in thought before she finally gave a sharp nod. "Fine. Hard stop stays."
Sico glanced once more at the glowing map, then back at her. "You keep your people sharp, I'll keep mine moving. And when the Brotherhood finally realizes they're bleeding from a hundred cuts, it'll be too late for them to patch the wounds."
Nora's smirk was sharper now, the edge of anticipation glinting behind it. "Let's make them paranoid enough to start seeing ghosts in their own ranks."
When they finally straightened from the table, both of them had that same look — the one commanders wore when they'd drawn a battle plan not just to win, but to survive.
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• 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:-