If you want to read 20 Chapters ahead, be sure to check out my Patreon!!!
Go to https://www.patreon.com/Tang12
___________________________
The assistants glanced at each other, the unspoken truth running between them like a current: this wasn't just another project. This wasn't about tinkering in the ruins for the joy of invention. This was war. Real war. And Sico had just handed them the match that would light it.
Sico didn't linger once the workshop began to hum again. He knew when to step back — when the fire had been lit and it was best to let it burn without his shadow darkening the room. Mel had that energy about him, a kind of cocky confidence balanced by the quiet precision of the people around him. Sico respected that. They would lose themselves in their sketches, their welds, their scraps of math scrawled on torn-up notebook paper. That's where they needed to be.
He pushed through the heavy door and let it shut behind him with a dull clang. The hall outside was quieter, but only by comparison. The Institute's new rhythm — the rhythm of Freemasons' order layered over old machinery and sterile walls — had started to seep into every corridor. Synth boots on tile. Guards murmuring at intersections. The smell of dust and oil lingering no matter how many vents Sturges insisted were scrubbed out. This place wasn't meant for people, but people had claimed it anyway.
And Sico — well, he carried that claim like armor on his shoulders.
His boots echoed as he walked, the sound deep, steady. He didn't rush. He never did. The people who moved too quickly in places like this always looked like they were running from something. Sico made sure to walk as if he was running toward something. That distinction mattered. It meant people lifted their heads when he passed. It meant the nervous chatter stopped for a second. It meant he owned the silence, not the other way around.
Magnolia's office wasn't far. It never was — the treasurer of the Freemasons made her seat close to the heart of things. Money wasn't just numbers scratched into ledgers in this new world. It was lifeblood. It was the grease that kept the machine of survival turning. Caps bought food, bought bullets, bought silence, bought loyalty. And Magnolia, for all her elegance and the lingering starlight of her voice, handled caps with a ruthlessness that Sico respected.
Her office had once been an administrative wing. The kind of place where men and women in spotless coats filed papers about research no one remembered anymore. Now, the paint peeled from the walls, and the glass panels were covered with sheets of repurposed cloth to keep prying eyes out. But the inside… the inside was hers.
He pushed the door open and was greeted first by the smell. Perfume, faint but deliberate — lavender, maybe, though Sico doubted the plant had seen the light of day in centuries. She had a way of making old-world luxuries feel alive again, even in this hollow place. It clung to the air, softer than the bite of gun oil and damp stone outside, almost enough to make a man forget where he stood.
Magnolia herself was seated at a desk that looked like it had been dragged from a pre-war bank lobby. Stacks of ledgers surrounded her, pages marked with neat, sweeping handwriting. A lantern burned low beside her, throwing warm light across her features. She looked up as Sico entered, and for a moment, the treasurer wasn't the first thing you saw — the singer was. The one who had made Goodneighbor stop and breathe just by opening her mouth. But then the steel in her eyes reminded him why she sat in this office and not on a stage.
"Well, well," Magnolia said, leaning back slightly in her chair. Her bracelets caught the lantern light as her hands folded in her lap. "Sico himself. You don't come walking into my little vault unless something's about to cost me caps."
Sico didn't sit right away. He took in the room — the worn rug underfoot, the empty bottles in the corner that spoke of late nights spent calculating, the way she kept her pistol within arm's reach of the ledger, like she expected numbers to come alive and attack her. Only then did he move to the chair opposite her desk and lower himself into it with the same slow, deliberate weight he carried everywhere.
"You're right," he said plainly. "It's about caps."
Magnolia arched an eyebrow, lips tilting into something between amusement and annoyance. "Of course it is. It always is."
He leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees, his coat falling open enough to show the outline of the rifle slung across his back. He didn't need to brandish it. The reminder was enough. "Mel and his team are working on something new. Big. Mobile. Anti-vertibird."
That got her attention. Her eyes sharpened, a small flicker of interest breaking through the veil of practiced calm. "Anti-vertibird," she repeated, like she was testing the taste of the words. "Now that… that sounds like a project with bite."
"It is," Sico confirmed. "But bite takes teeth. Steel. Hydraulics. Power cells. Not all of it's lying around in piles. They'll need to buy. And when they do, I want you to know it's on me. No delays, no questions."
Magnolia tilted her head slightly, studying him the way a cat studies a mouse that's just learned to fight back. "On you, hm? You planning on signing every chit yourself, or am I supposed to open the vault and let your tinkers run wild?"
"You'll keep the ledger," Sico said. His voice didn't rise, but the steadiness carried the weight of command. "But if they come to you asking for parts, for shipments, for whatever it takes — you give it to them. I'll answer for it."
For a long moment, she didn't reply. Her fingers drummed lightly against the wood of her desk, the only sound in the room besides the low hum of the lantern. Then, finally, she let out a slow breath, shaking her head with something that might've been a smile if it wasn't so sharp.
"You know what I like about you, Sico?" Magnolia said. "You never bother with sweet talk. Most men walk in here, they think if they flatter me enough, I'll loosen the purse strings. They forget I've heard every line in the book sung in smoke-filled rooms. You? You just sit down and tell me I'm about to bleed money. And somehow, I still end up listening."
Sico didn't answer. He just watched her, unblinking.
Magnolia leaned forward now, mirroring his posture, her bracelets whispering against the desk. "Alright," she said. "If Mel comes knocking, I'll open the coffers. But I want reports. Regular ones. I want to know this isn't another pipe dream where a bunch of grease monkeys burn through my caps chasing blueprints that never leave the page."
"You'll get your reports," Sico said evenly. "And when the first vertibird goes down, you'll get more than numbers. You'll get proof."
The silence stretched between them, thick but not uncomfortable. Magnolia's gaze lingered on him, testing for cracks, for hesitation. She found none. Finally, she leaned back again, a small laugh slipping from her lips — not warm, not mocking, but something in between.
"God help me," she murmured, half to herself. "You might just pull it off."
Sico stood then, the chair creaking lightly as he rose. He adjusted his coat, the movement practiced, automatic. "I don't need God's help," he said simply. "Just yours."
He turned toward the door, his boots heavy on the rug. Behind him, Magnolia's voice followed, softer now, but carrying a note that clung like smoke.
"Don't make me regret this, Sico. Caps are easy to spend. Harder to earn back."
Then Sico turned and looked at Magnolia, his face still carrying that granite stillness that unnerved even the most silver-tongued traders.
"Of course," he said. His voice didn't rise, but the words seemed to fill the room. "This will bring a change into our favor. As we don't have air superiority until we take Brotherhood vertibirds, we need something to fight back—or at the very least, something that forces them to fight us on the ground where we've got the teeth to bite back."
Magnolia didn't answer right away. She sat with her chin tilted slightly downward, the lantern's glow sketching long shadows across her cheekbones. Her eyes narrowed just enough to betray the thoughts ticking behind them. When she finally spoke, her voice had lost its earlier playful edge.
"You're not wrong," she murmured. "The Brotherhood knows what they've got. Vertibirds make them feel untouchable. The sound of those engines alone—it rattles people. Settlers, raiders, even my girls back in Goodneighbor. You hear those blades chopping the air, and you start thinking there's no use standing your ground. Fear does half their work for them."
Sico nodded once. "Exactly why we need to flip it. Let people see those machines burning in the sky. Let them hear a different kind of sound—one that tells them the Brotherhood bleeds just like everyone else."
The conviction in his tone wasn't fiery. It wasn't the roar of a preacher. It was steadier, colder, the kind of certainty that was harder to argue with because it carried no boast. Only inevitability.
Magnolia exhaled slowly, her bracelets shifting with the rise and fall of her hand as she rubbed at her temple. "You make it sound simple. Build a weapon, drop a bird, and the world suddenly remembers the Brotherhood isn't a god."
"It won't be simple," Sico admitted, lowering himself back into the chair he'd just risen from. His weight pressed into the wood, and for a second it groaned, like it resented carrying him. "It'll take weeks, maybe months, before Mel's got something reliable. And then there's training crews to use it, moving parts across hostile ground, keeping it hidden until the right time. None of that's simple. But it's necessary. And necessary things don't wait on comfort."
She studied him, lips pressed together, the faintest crease forming at the corner of her mouth. "You always talk like you're already living in the world you want to build. Like it's already here, just waiting for the rest of us to notice."
Sico shrugged. "That's how it has to be. You don't win wars thinking about the mud on your boots. You win them thinking about the ground you'll stand on tomorrow."
The words settled between them, heavy as the silence that followed. The office, with all its perfumed veneer and candlelit comfort, suddenly felt smaller, more fragile. Magnolia leaned back in her chair again, folding her arms as though bracing herself.
"Alright," she said finally. "Say you're right. Say Mel builds you something that can clip a vertibird's wings. What happens after that? You think the Brotherhood's just going to slink away, tail between their legs? They'll double down. Triple. They've got steel, discipline, numbers. And you—" she gestured at him with one elegant hand, "—you've got stubbornness and a knack for making people follow you. But you're not an army, Sico. Not yet."
For the first time since walking in, Sico's mouth tugged into something like the shadow of a smile. Not soft. Not kind. But wry. "That's what you think money's for."
Her laugh came out sharper than she intended, almost bitter. "Money? Don't give me that. Caps buy mercenaries, sure. They buy guns and grain. But an army? That takes more than a vault full of bottlecaps."
Sico leaned forward again, closing the space between them with the weight of his presence. "Caps buy time. Time buys alliances. Alliances build an army. You of all people should understand—the Brotherhood's strength isn't just their weapons. It's the story they sell. That they're saviors. That they're order in a broken world. But stories crack when the right pressure hits. When their birds start dropping, people who feared them will start to question. When those people see we've got the will and the fire to fight back, some will join us. Settlers tired of being pushed around. Raiders who want to fight something bigger than farmers. Even mercs who just follow the scent of caps. That's how armies are made."
Magnolia was quiet again, her gaze sliding to the flicker of the lantern. The gold of the flame caught the brown of her eyes, softening them for just a heartbeat. Then she sighed, long and low. "You're asking me to believe in a very dangerous gamble, Sico. One that doesn't just spend caps—it spends lives."
"I'm not asking," he said. The softness left his tone, replaced by something colder, firmer. "I'm telling you where the road leads. You can walk it with me, or you can watch from the sidelines. But this path—it doesn't wait for anyone."
That silenced her more than anything else could have. Magnolia prided herself on being the one who set terms, who weighed scales, who made people dance to her rhythm. But with Sico, the game always tilted. He didn't play music. He built walls. You could either climb them, or you could stay trapped on the other side.
She drummed her fingers on the desk again, the sound sharp against the wood. "Goddamn you," she muttered under her breath, though there was no venom in it. She straightened her shoulders, giving him that singer's posture, that regal tilt of the chin that had made half of Goodneighbor believe she was untouchable. "Fine. I'll back your little science project. I'll bleed the vault dry if I have to. But if this turns out to be another castle built on sand, I'll make sure you know exactly how much I despise wasted money."
Sico inclined his head, as though accepting a contract rather than a threat. "It won't be sand. You'll see the stone soon enough."
Magnolia reached for the lantern and turned the wick down a fraction, dimming the glow. Shadows crept closer, wrapping the room in a softer darkness. She didn't look at him when she spoke again. "You know… there are nights I miss the stage. Singing. Feeling the whole room hold its breath on my word alone. It was power, too, in its own way. But this—" she gestured vaguely at the ledgers, the maps, the pistol on her desk, "—this feels heavier. Like every choice adds another stone to the pile crushing your chest."
Sico stood, his boots planting firmly on the rug. "That's leadership," he said. "It never gets lighter. You just get stronger carrying it."
For a moment, she thought she caught something flicker in his eyes. Not warmth. Not even weariness. But something close to memory. As though he wasn't just talking to her, but to himself. Maybe to ghosts she'd never meet.
He reached for the door, hand closing around the handle. "Get some rest, Magnolia. Tomorrow will ask more of us than today did."
She smirked faintly, though it didn't quite reach her eyes. "You always know how to kill the mood, don't you?"
The door creaked open. The hall outside waited, cool and hollow, the echoes of boots and murmurs carrying faintly through its veins. Sico paused in the threshold, turning his head just enough for his voice to carry back into the room.
"When that first vertibird falls, and people look up and see it burning… they'll remember you opened the vault to make it happen. Don't forget that."
And with that, he stepped out, letting the heavy door close behind him with a dull, resonant thud.
Magnolia sat in the dark for a long time after, the smell of lavender clinging stubbornly to the air. She stared at the ledgers, at the neat rows of ink, at the careful balance of inflow and outflow. Numbers. Always numbers. Yet tonight, they felt like something else entirely. Not just marks on a page, but soldiers in their own way—pieces of a larger gamble that might just change the shape of the world.
She leaned back, exhaling through her nose, and whispered to the empty office: "God help us all if you're wrong, Sico."
The door shut behind him with the same dull clang it always made, but Sico didn't look back this time. He rarely did. When he walked away from something, he meant it—his focus already shifting to the next step, the next piece on the board. Magnolia had given her word, and her word was as binding as steel. Now came the harder part: making sure the steel bent the right way.
The Institute's hallways wound like veins through a dead machine, and he walked them like a man who already knew their pulse. He wasn't in a hurry, but he wasn't slow either. His pace was measured, steady, the stride of someone who had learned that people pay attention not just to what you say, but how you move through the world. Every step echoed off the sterile walls, a reminder that no matter how much life they tried to pump into this place, it was still a tomb that men had dressed in borrowed flesh.
He passed guards at intersections, their eyes flicking up when he neared. None of them saluted—not here, not in this new order where ceremony wasted more than it earned—but their silence was enough. Respect wasn't always loud. Sometimes it was in the way a man didn't speak, in the way he didn't challenge your presence.
The scavenging department sat deeper in the Institute's bones, past where the smell of lavender faded into something harsher—burnt oil, wet metal, the tang of scrap that had been dragged across too many miles of wasteland before it found its way here. The sound changed too. Gone was the muffled rhythm of workshops, the low hum of machinery. Here it was louder, more chaotic. Voices barked orders, boots shuffled against concrete, tools clanged against half-disassembled husks of technology dragged in from the Commonwealth above.
This was Hancock's kingdom. Not the polished veneer of Goodneighbor, not the swaggering charm he wore in front of crowds, but the underbelly—the part of him that made sure wheels turned and gears kept grinding. Scavenging wasn't glamorous, but it was lifeblood. Without it, the Freemasons would have nothing to weld, nothing to build, nothing to barter.
Sico stepped through the wide entrance, ducking beneath a chain of stripped wiring hanging loose from the ceiling. Inside, the department looked less like an office and more like the skeleton of a pre-war factory had been gutted and filled with junk. Tables sagged beneath the weight of circuit boards, stripped plating, and tangled coils of copper wire. Crates were stacked high against the walls, some stenciled with faded Brotherhood markings, others patched together from whatever lumber scavvers could pry loose. A half-burned vertibird wing lay across the far side of the room, still scorched black from whatever fight had brought it down.
And in the middle of it all stood Hancock.
He wasn't the kind of man who blended into any backdrop. Even without the hat, without the long coat, without the ghoul's ruined face framed in flickering lantern light, Hancock carried himself like someone who had already written his own legend. He was talking to two scavvers when Sico spotted him—gesturing with lazy confidence, his voice smooth but with that gravel that came from too many years smoking things that weren't meant to be smoked. The men nodded quickly, scribbling something onto a clipboard before scurrying off.
When Hancock turned, his eyes found Sico immediately. And unlike most, Hancock didn't falter. He grinned instead, wide enough that the rot of his lips showed.
"Well, well. If it isn't the man of the hour." His voice carried, slipping between friendly and dangerous in the same breath. "To what do I owe this visit? Don't usually see you down here unless something's about to get real interesting."
Sico stepped forward, boots crunching lightly against a scattering of bolts on the floor. "It's about to," he said simply.
Hancock chuckled, low and raspy. "Ain't it always?"
They met halfway across the room, the noise of scavvers working fading just enough as people noticed the two men standing together. Hancock leaned against a table piled with stripped servo-motors, his hat tipping back slightly as he studied Sico. "So, what's the play? You finally decided we're gonna rob the Brotherhood blind, or you got something nastier up your sleeve?"
Sico didn't waste time with buildup. "Mel's working on a project. Anti-vertibird."
The grin on Hancock's face froze for half a second before widening again, sharper now. His eyes lit with something between amusement and hunger. "Anti-vertibird, huh? Now that's the kind of phrase that tickles a man's spine. You serious, or is this one of Mel's pipe dreams where he swears he can turn scrap into a miracle?"
"He's serious," Sico said flatly. "And it's not a pipe dream. Not with the right parts. Not with your department backing him when he asks."
Hancock's laughter filled the room, drawing a glance or two from scavvers before they quickly turned back to their work. He pushed himself off the table, pacing a few steps like a man savoring the taste of the idea. "Oh, man. You drop a Brotherhood bird out of the sky, you don't just make a dent. You send a message. Loud and clear. Folks been hearing those engines so long, they think it's the sound of God coming down on 'em. You silence that noise? You show people the sky ain't theirs? That's a revolution right there."
Sico didn't smile, didn't shift. He just watched Hancock ride the thought, let him get there on his own.
Eventually, Hancock stopped pacing and turned back, his grin dimming to something more calculating. "But I'm guessing you ain't here just to share the good news. You're here 'cause you want me to put my crew on a leash. Make sure if Mel whistles, they come running."
"Priority list," Sico confirmed. "If Mel asks, it gets done. Whatever he needs scavenged, whatever parts need pulled from the field, you make it happen. No delays."
Hancock tapped one long, bony finger against his chin, pretending to think it over. "You do realize every damn fool with a half-baked invention already thinks their project oughta be top priority. Half my day is telling people no without making 'em cry about it. You're asking me to move one man's blueprint to the top of the stack, above weapons repairs, food hauls, water purification runs. That's a tall ask, brother."
Sico stepped closer, closing the gap until Hancock had to tilt his head back slightly to meet his eyes. "It's not one man's blueprint. It's the difference between fighting on the ground and fighting against gods. If we don't build this, every fight we take will be on their terms. You know how that ends."
For a moment, Hancock held his stare. The grin softened, faded, until only the weight of his ruined features remained. Then he exhaled through his teeth, the sound like a slow leak from a punctured tire. "Shit. You don't make it easy, you know that? Always dropping the heavy stuff on me like I'm supposed to say no."
Sico didn't answer. He never did when silence worked better.
Finally, Hancock let out a laugh, softer this time. "Alright. Fine. You got it. Mel whistles, my crew'll come running. If he says he needs a fusion core from under a super mutant's ass, I'll send boys to fetch it. But—" his grin came back, sly now, "—when this baby finally sings, I better be front row for the show. Ain't no way I'm missing the sight of a Brotherhood bird kissing dirt."
"You'll see it," Sico said. "And you'll remember you helped make it happen."
Hancock spread his arms wide, as though to say what else is new? "Damn right. That's the thing about me, brother—I like being part of the big stories. And this? This sounds real big."
Sico gave a short nod, then turned slightly, scanning the organized chaos of the scavenging floor. Crates marked with chalk symbols, scavvers hauling gear in and out, sparks flying from cutting torches as someone disassembled what looked like the remains of a Protectron. He took it all in, then turned back to Hancock.
"Keep your people sharp. The Brotherhood won't like losing the sky. When the first bird drops, they'll start looking harder at where the knife came from."
Hancock's grin thinned, but he didn't lose it. "Let 'em look. Been stared at my whole damn life. Only thing they'll find here is a bunch of stubborn bastards with too much junk and not enough manners."
Sico gave the faintest shadow of a smile, then adjusted his coat, the rifle at his back shifting with the movement. "Good."
Without another word, he turned, his boots carrying him toward the exit. The noise of the scavenging floor rose behind him again, swallowing the conversation as though it had never happened. But the air felt different now. Sharper. Like the room itself knew the stakes had just changed.
________________________________________________
• 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:-