Fallout - Chapter 137: Run! This Isn't... (Patreon)

The Commonwealth. The Minutemen's underground robot factory base.

At the end of the corridor connecting the control room to the teleporter room was a storage room, about forty square meters in size. It was normally used to store spare parts and cables.

Several rows of metal shelving stood in the center. Behind the rearmost row was a small patch of open floor.

Embedded in the ground was a circular metal disc roughly twenty centimeters across. Its surface was completely unremarkable, making it look like the abandoned base of some piece of equipment.

But anyone who bent down for a closer look would notice an extremely fine groove running around its edge. Pale blue crystal fibers were embedded at the bottom of the groove, nearly invisible in the dim light.

It was a teleportation beacon.

Suddenly, a ripple spread outward from the center of the disc and vanished in less than half a second.

Then a cold, pure blue light surged from the groove, racing along the crystal fibers before forming an oval curtain of light in midair.

A figure emerged from it.

He was of average height and somewhat thin, wearing a dark gray uniform made from the Institute's distinctive synthetic fabric. The material carried a faint cold sheen and was stiffer than silk.

His hair was cropped extremely short. His eyes were light gray, like two pieces of frosted glass, and held no warmth when he looked at someone.

His name was Justin, the acting director of the Institute's Synth Retention Bureau.

Forty Coursers filed out behind him.

Every one of them wore a black combat uniform with the Institute emblem on the chest and a standard-issue Institute laser pistol at the waist.

Their eyes all held the same expression, like precision machines carrying out a predetermined program.

Calm.

Exact.

Justin surveyed the storage room.

Aside from the shelves, spare parts, cables, and dust, there was only one person waiting beside the shelving.

The man wore a Minutemen uniform. His hair was streaked with gray, and the wrinkles on his face looked as though they had been carved there one stroke at a time by wind and sand.

His eyes, however, were bright.

Not sharp, but carefully deferential.

M7-62. Codename: Saifu.

A Minutemen veteran and head of logistics and communications.

Of course, every part of that identity was fabricated.

He was the Institute's deepest embedded asset within the Minutemen. He had infiltrated them even earlier than M7-91, had been there longer, and occupied a more critical position.

Justin's gaze rested on him for two seconds.

"M7-62?"

He frowned slightly.

"Why are you the only one here? Where's M7-91?"

Saifu kept his posture low, hands hanging naturally at his sides, shoulders slightly inclined forward. It was the standard posture of an Institute Synth addressing a superior.

His expression was respectful, with a hint of relief, like a soldier who had finally seen reinforcements arrive.

"M7-91 is over by the teleporter room. He said he wanted to secure the teleporter so we could deploy forces quickly afterward."

The corner of Justin's mouth lifted slightly.

It wasn't quite a smile, but it was close.

"You've done well."

A trace of pleasure showed in his voice, like a gambler who had waited a long time and had finally been dealt a winning hand.

Justin really was pleased.

Work had been going badly lately.

The Institute's newly deployed undercover Synths had suffered heavy losses.

The replacement operations in Diamond City had been especially disastrous. Nearly every newly inserted Synth had vanished after infiltration, as if they had been dropped into a bottomless dry well that didn't even return an echo.

And then there was M7-62, that old Synth McDonough, mayor of Diamond City.

Simply because Justin had denied his request to become a Courser, McDonough had started slacking off.

His intelligence reports were perfunctory. He dumped nearly all of his mayoral responsibilities onto his assistant, Geneva. Every day, he sat in his office drinking pre-War red wine, watching pedestrians through the window, occasionally reading a book, living like an old man who had retired early.

Justin sighed inwardly.

Third-generation Synths were always like this.

The subtle deviations created during the implantation of memories and personality would inevitably grow over time. Eventually, they would develop a sense of self beyond their intended parameters.

They would begin questioning orders.

Weighing advantages and disadvantages.

Becoming more and more like real "people."

Selfish.

McDonough was a textbook example of that deviation.

If he weren't still carrying out a replacement assignment, the Institute would have recalled him long ago.

His memory module would be dismantled, his personality matrix stripped away, and his organic material sent off to manufacture a newer, more obedient model.

Justin's fingers unconsciously curled at his sides before relaxing again.

But now, at last, there was good news.

The Minutemen base.

This underground, fully automated robot factory.

It was within his grasp.

Once he took control of this facility, he could replace Zimmer.

He would no longer be the acting director.

He would be the director of the Synth Retention Bureau.

No.

Perhaps even more than that.

He had heard Father's health was deteriorating.

If something happened to him...

Justin pulled himself out of his thoughts and looked back at Saifu.

"By the way, where's the leader of our assault team?"

Saifu answered immediately, without the slightest hesitation.

"Mr. Nate is already in the control room. He has eliminated most of the resistance inside the base."

Justin raised an eyebrow.

"That quickly?"

Saifu nodded, with a trace of admiration in his voice.

"Mr. Nate has nearly every level of authorization except supreme control. The defense systems won't identify him as a hostile target. For him, getting into the control room was no harder than taking a walk."

Justin thought about it briefly.

It made sense.

For someone like Nate, cutting through a lightly defended base like this was never going to be difficult.

"True."

His tone relaxed.

"So what do we do now?"

Saifu stepped aside and gestured toward the storage-room door.

"We go to the control room first. Supreme control of the base is tied to the terminal there, and the security system operates independently. Without the password, we'll have to physically connect and hack it."

"I'll lead the way."

Saifu walked in front.

Justin followed in the middle.

The Coursers divided into two groups behind them, right hands resting on their pistol grips. Their fingers weren't on the triggers, but they were ready to draw and fire at any moment.

The corridors were quiet.

No.

They were dead silent.

Only the hum of the ventilation system remained, clear and steady like the slow beating of some enormous heart.

Then they saw the first corpse.

A young soldier, not even twenty by the look of him.

He wore a standard Minutemen uniform. The 10mm pistol at his waist was still securely holstered, its safety untouched.

He lay facedown around a corner with both hands spread beside him.

There were no signs of a struggle.

Saifu stepped over the body.

Justin glanced down as he passed.

There was only one wound on the back of the soldier's neck.

No spray of blood.

Just a small dark-red stain around the collar.

One strike.

Fatal.

Clean.

Efficient.

The farther they went, the more corpses they found.

Some lay in the middle of the corridor.

Some slumped against the walls.

A few were still sitting in chairs.

Their positions differed, but they all pointed to the same conclusion.

Death had come too quickly.

So quickly that none of them had even had time to draw a weapon.

Justin stopped beside one of the bodies and looked down at its face.

"Who killed these people?"

"Mr. Nate, sir," Saifu replied without turning around.

"That explains it."

Justin sounded relaxed, as though he'd just confirmed something trivial.

But he noticed something else.

Aside from the single fatal wound to the back of the neck, the soldiers had no other injuries.

No signs of a struggle.

Even the folds in their uniforms remained mostly undisturbed.

They didn't look as though they had fought at all.

They had been killed while completely off guard.

Or more precisely, they had died at the hands of someone they trusted.

The corner of Justin's mouth moved slightly again.

He said nothing, but his assessment of Nate rose another level.

The man wasn't only capable.

He was ruthless enough to do what needed to be done.

Anyone who could accomplish something like this under these circumstances was either a naturally cold-blooded killer or had completely lost any emotional attachment to the Minutemen.

Either possibility was good news for the Institute.

They continued onward.

Several Minutemen Protectrons had been reduced to scrap and lay scattered around a corner, metal plating and cables tangled together as though they'd been torn apart by brute force.

But the turrets were untouched.

A laser turret had been installed roughly every thirty meters along the corridor.

Now they sat silently against the walls, barrels lowered, indicator lights dark.

Justin glanced toward Saifu.

Saifu seemed to understand the question immediately.

"Mr. Nate shut down power to the turrets from the control room."

Justin nodded.

That was actually convenient.

Those turrets were a nightmare to repair.

Once destroyed, the wreckage had to be removed, walls opened up, and the wiring replaced.

Tedious work.

Now that they were still intact, the Institute would only have to update their access permissions after taking control.

That would save considerable effort.

The group reached the control room without encountering any resistance.

This was the heart of the base.

The central hub for every system.

More than a dozen screens of various sizes were built into one wall. Most were dark, while a handful remained active, displaying surveillance feeds and system information from different sections of the base.

The main display showed a three-dimensional map of the entire facility.

Every floor, corridor, room, and major piece of equipment was clearly marked.

Then Justin saw the man responsible for making the operation possible.

Nate.

He stood directly in front of the main console with his back to everyone.

His hands were held in front of him, cradling something.

The spy raven.

Nate stood there holding it without moving, his silhouette as silent as a statue.

Justin walked to the side of the console and stopped.

He watched Nate's back for two seconds.

Nate spoke first.

His voice was flat, without the slightest emotion.

"Figure out how to get supreme control of the base yourselves."

He paused.

"Just let me be alone for a while."

Justin looked at him.

He didn't ask any questions.

He didn't offer any comfort.

He simply nodded, turned around, and gestured to the Coursers.

The Coursers immediately removed portable hacking terminals from their equipment packs.

They were compact, no larger than two hands placed side by side, but possessed remarkable processing power.

The Institute had designed them based on the Pip-Boy, allowing them to bypass most pre-War security systems and connect directly to the core data layer.

More than a dozen terminals were connected to the main console one after another.

Their screens lit up.

Streams of data poured down like waterfalls.

Critical nodes were marked red one by one as the Coursers began breaking through the security system layer by layer.

Justin stood nearby with his hands clasped behind his back, watching the progress bar advance slowly.

At the same time, he dispatched two Coursers to assist M7-91 in securing the teleporter.

The two accepted the order and left down the corridor.

Saifu remained where he was, head slightly lowered, like a perfectly loyal sentry.

...

The teleporter room was only about a two-minute walk from the control room.

The two Coursers pushed open the half-closed metal door.

A scene of devastation waited behind it.

More than a dozen corpses lay scattered across the forty-square-meter room.

Most wore the same Minutemen uniforms as the bodies in the corridors.

A few, however, wore darker, older clothing, dull gray garments that looked as though they had been pulled out of some forgotten storage locker.

At the center of the room, the molecular teleporter was still running.

Its ring-shaped frame was roughly three meters across, packed with crystal fibers and energy conduits.

It looked like an enormous, highly sophisticated piece of science fiction made real.

The main control panel was still active.

Rows of green indicators glowed steadily.

The screen displayed only one message:

"Calibration complete. Coordinates missing."

It was almost finished.

Or rather, it was already finished.

But M7-91 was nowhere to be seen.

One Courser approached the base of the teleporter.

Then he noticed something.

To the right of the machine, a corpse lay among the Minutemen dead.

At first glance, it was almost indistinguishable from the others.

But a closer look revealed different clothing.

Not a Minutemen uniform.

A gray Railroad agent's coat, collar turned up.

The head had been completely destroyed.

The skull was shattered.

The face was unrecognizable.

Blood and brain matter had pooled together around what remained of the head, congealing into a dark-red mass.

It should be him.

M7-91's undercover identity had been that of a Railroad agent.

The Courser crouched and carefully turned the corpse's head, exposing a small area at the back of the skull.

The implantation site for a Synth component.

He passed a handheld scanner over it.

Data immediately appeared.

"Target confirmed. Synth designation M7-91."

It was him.

The other Courser searched the room again.

No one else was standing.

Every Minutemen soldier was dead.

Gunshot wounds.

Blast injuries.

Cuts from blades.

The room had clearly seen a chaotic and brutal fight.

The Courser crouched beside M7-91 was just about to stand when something suddenly grabbed his calf.

A hand reached out from beneath a nearby pile of corpses and locked tightly around his leg.

It belonged to a Minutemen soldier.

No.

Half of one.

His left arm was gone below the elbow.

The torn flesh around the stump had darkened to a deep red. Most of the blood had already clotted, though a tiny amount still seeped out slowly, like the last trickle from a drying spring.

His right leg was twisted at an unnatural angle.

The kneecap pressed visibly against the skin, forming a sickening curve.

But his right hand remained locked around the Courser's calf like a steel vise.

His knuckles were white.

His fingernails nearly dug through the fabric of the combat uniform.

He was still alive.

How he had survived was impossible to say.

Perhaps it was pure luck.

Or pure misfortune.

The soldier lifted his head.

His face was white as paper.

His lips were cracked.

His eyes were sunken and unfocused, the look of someone who had endured suffering for far too long.

Yet he was still trying desperately to focus on the Courser in front of him.

His lips moved.

No sound emerged.

His vocal cords had been destroyed.

But when the Courser crouched down, the soldier's eyes suddenly brightened.

Anxiety.

Fear.

A desperate plea.

His grip tightened.

His knuckles seemed ready to burst through the skin.

He was trying to say something.

Desperately trying to say something.

But no words came out.

The Courser looked down at the stubbornly surviving soldier and felt a complicated emotion rise within him.

As a soldier, falling beside your comrades in battle should have been sacred.

Your comrades had all died.

You should have gone with them.

You should have died honorably.

With dignity.

But instead, here you were.

Clinging to someone else's leg like a dying insect.

Begging for mercy?

The Courser's expression turned cold.

His voice carried open irritation.

"How can you be this weak?"

The soldier's lips began moving even faster.

The desperation in his eyes became almost frantic.

His hand trembled.

Not from pain.

But because...

The Courser stopped looking at him.

He raised his Institute laser pistol and pointed the barrel at the soldier's forehead.

At that instant, anger flared in the soldier's eyes.

The helpless fury of someone who had been completely misunderstood and had no way to explain himself.

Blue light flashed.

One by one, the soldier's fingers loosened like wilted petals.

His hand slid from the Courser's leg and dropped to the floor.

He went still.

The Courser stood and looked down at the frozen expression on the soldier's face.

In that final instant, it hadn't looked like fear.

It hadn't looked like pain.

It looked almost like...

Regret?

The Courser shook his head and turned away.

He would never know what the soldier had been desperately trying to say.

"Run."

...

The Coursers returned to the control room to report.

"The teleporter room has been secured. M7-91 confirmed dead. No survivors."

Justin closed his eyes.

A faint trace of regret entered his voice.

"I didn't expect him to die just before the operation succeeded."

"What a waste."

Saifu stood nearby.

At the words "no survivors," his expression didn't change.

But for the briefest instant, his eyes shifted toward the main console.

Nate was still standing there.

Back turned to everyone.

Motionless.

Saifu looked away again and turned toward Justin.

His voice was unmistakably earnest.

"Sir."

"I'd like to request that M7-91 receive a posthumous promotion to Courser."

The rest of the sentence stopped on the tip of his tongue.

That way, I'd feel a little better.

Justin looked at him.

Normally, a Synth had to undergo strict screening and testing before being promoted to Courser.

But M7-91 had sacrificed himself at the very edge of success.

That loyalty.

That price.

Justin barely hesitated.

"Approved."

Saifu lowered his head slightly.

"Thank you, sir."

Justin turned his attention back to the main console.

The hacking terminals had reached thirteen percent.

The Coursers were peeling away the security system's defenses one layer at a time.

In roughly three hours, supreme control of the entire base would belong to the Institute.

But before that...

Justin's gaze drifted back toward Nate.

He was still standing in the same position.

Back turned.

Both hands holding the spy raven.

Completely still.

But from Justin's angle, he could see something dripping down in front of Nate.

One drop.

Two.

Three.

Justin watched them fall.

He assumed they were tears.

From Nate's perspective, it certainly looked like a tragedy.

He had been forced to slaughter his former comrades with his own hands.

He had betrayed the organization he once served.

Now he stood in the middle of the destruction he'd caused, holding the only thing that was still "alive."

A flicker of emotion passed through Justin.

That was the cruelty of the world.

It didn't spare you simply because you had already suffered enough.

It only pushed you deeper, again and again.

Unfortunately, Justin wasn't the kind of superior who knew how to comfort people.

He gave Nate one more glance, then turned away and returned his attention to the slowly rising progress bar.

Faster.

Just a little faster...

But if Justin had taken one more step forward, close enough to clearly see Nate's hands, he would have realized something.

The spy raven Nate was holding was already dead.

Its neck had been snapped.

Its head hung at an unnatural angle.

The synthetic shell around its neck had been twisted a full hundred and eighty degrees, deforming the metal framework inside.

And the liquid dripping to the floor wasn't tears.

It was blood.

Blood leaking from the raven's broken neck, running down Nate's fingers one drop at a time.

Under the light...

it really did look like tears.